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L? 
 
 THE GREEX BAY TREE 
 VOL. in 
 
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PRINTED AT NIMEGUEN (HOLLAND) 
 
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 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. THE WANING HONEYMOON I 
 
 n. THE HOUSE OF RIMMON 1 6 
 
 III. THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON . , 36 
 
 IV. THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN 54 
 
 V. FLIGHT 80 
 
 vi. the reward of the righteous io3 
 
 vii. the sprouting of the bay tree 12/ 
 
 viii. west southwark i4i 
 
 ix. grub-street, w.c 157 
 
 x. the crown of bay-leaves 1 89 
 
 xi. the sorrows of sanctity 2 20 
 
 xn. the wood of st. john 24o 
 
 xiii. the last stage 266 
 
 l'envoi 284 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 Chapters IV, V, VI, VII, XI, XII, XIII and L'envoi in this 
 volume are written by INlR. W. H. Wilkins. 
 
 Chapters I, II, III, VIII, IX and X, are written by Mr. 
 HerbilRT Vivian. 
 
THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WANING HONEYMOON. 
 
 The reason why so few marriages are 
 happy is because young ladies spend their 
 time in making nets, not in making cages. 
 
 — Dean Swift. 
 
 Cannes is an inconvenient place for those who 
 want to play at Monte Carlo. It is a long clay's 
 excursion, involving a barbarously early breakfast 
 and a return in the small hours of the next morn- 
 ing, if you mean to play seriously. Most of the 
 fast people at Cannes resign themselves to this and 
 either make rare expeditions, whenever the gam- 
 bling fever comes over them, or devote a few 
 days to it once or twice during the winter. For 
 
 VOL. III. 1 
 
Z THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 the rest, baccarat at the Cercle Nautique and 
 poker-parties in the hotels and villas generally 
 suffice, and you hear disdainful remarks about the 
 'dreadful rabble' at the tables and about the dis- 
 comforts of the hotels at Monte Carlo. Most of 
 our fi'iends, however, flitted to and fro between 
 the two places, coming to Cannes for their society 
 and returning to Monte Carlo for their dissipation. 
 A great yearning had come over Tyrconnel for 
 dissipation. He had now been 'cribbed, cabined, 
 and confined ' within the strait- waistcoat of virtue 
 for quite a long time and was heartily sick of it. 
 Getting back among his old companions in revelry 
 awoke all the old longings in him. Gwendolen 
 had sufficiently disciplined him to keep the pas- 
 sionate side of his nature well under control, but 
 the irresistible craving for excitement, which had 
 always been one of his most ingrained charac- 
 teristics, was now rapidly getting the better of 
 him. Every day he became more morose and 
 
THE WANING HONEYMOON. 6 
 
 unbearable. Any allusion to Monte Carlo made 
 him irritable and yet he could not be five minutes 
 with one of his old boon companions without 
 leading the conversation round to it, and his eyes 
 would glisten as Wilmot narrated extraordinary 
 runs at trente-et-quarante or Williams enlarged 
 upon the fabulous gains made by a syndicate of 
 young men who had come out with a capital of 
 •£100 to play the Labouchere system. 
 
 Coryton tried to persuade Tyrconnel to come 
 over for the day, but he said Gwendolen would 
 not hear of it and hastily added, on detecting a 
 smile on his friend's Mephistophelian countenance, 
 that besides he had no wish to do so. Meanwhile 
 his rickety appearance was getting more and more 
 confirmed, and he would give vent to outbursts of 
 temper at the least provocation, outbursts which 
 often terminated in an ugly cough. 
 
 Last of all Gwendolen noticed it. 
 
 "You are not looking well, dear Wilfrid," she 
 
4 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 said one morning with a slight quiver of anxiety 
 in her voice. " I wonder whether this place suits 
 you." 
 
 They were standing on their balcony after break- 
 fast. She was feasting her eyes on the intense 
 joyousness of nature, the deep, deep blue of sea 
 and sky, the sparkle of the sunshine in the foun- 
 tain beneath their windows and the soothing 
 solemnity of the stately palms hard by. The 
 Riviera reminded her more and more each day of 
 Bible lands, as it has done many another who has 
 searched the Scriptures. Her husband's illness 
 had been dawning upon her for some time, but it 
 never formed itself as a reality to her mind before 
 now, and even now it did not do so as a serious 
 one. She was looking out towards the Esterels 
 and deducing from the aspect of the wooded hills 
 in the foreground the truth of the comparison of 
 the man in the gospel who began by seeing 'men 
 as trees walking,' when his sight was restored to 
 
THE WANING HONEYilOON. O 
 
 him. Those trees resembled men in the dim dis- 
 tance. Presently she relapsed into a former train 
 of thought and looked at the young man again 
 and reproached herself —without any thought of 
 bitterness — that she had thought so much of 
 the welfare of his soul, so little of that of his 
 body. 
 
 He too was straining his eyes out over the 
 horizon, but it was towards Golfe-Juan, where 
 the Corsican landed, and Antibes, whose obtruding 
 promontory angered him. for, like Gwen, it divided 
 him from the gay principality, whither his mental 
 vision now struggled to force the physical. At 
 last he said with a hoarse voice in an abrupt 
 manner that was meant to be determined, 
 
 " I think I shall run over to Monte Carlo for 
 the day. Let me see." he went on, pulling out his 
 watch, " if I put on my boots now, I shall just 
 have time to catch the 9.45 train. I suppose it's 
 no use asking you to come? Well, I daresay you 
 
b THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 won't be sorry to get rid of me for one day after 
 such a dose of me all these weeks ! " 
 
 The last sentence was said with an attempt 
 at playfulness, which proved a signal failure. 
 
 Gwendolen heard him out with an ominous 
 silence, biting her lip and looking at him with 
 large glistening eyes like those of a sorrowing 
 guardian-angel. A torrent of expostulation was 
 twice on the point of overflowing from her lips, 
 but she checked it with an effort and then, with 
 forced calmness, she said slowly, 
 
 " You could not go to-day, Wilfrid. We have 
 promised Madame Lepeigne to go for a picnic to 
 the islands." 
 
 " Bother ! " he conceded ungraciously. Then he 
 added with a very obstinate look in his face, 
 "well, I shall go to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow, " echoed his wife with a half mali- 
 cious feeling of triumph at the fresh unanswerable 
 obstacle, "to-morrow will he*Simdai/." 
 
THE WANING HONEYMOON. / 
 
 Tyrconnel made a gesture of annoyance and said, 
 " Well, Monday then," as he turned abruptly back 
 into the sitting-room, striking his head sharply 
 against the window as he did so. 
 
 Nothing more was said about Monte Carlo until 
 Sunday night, when Gwendolen broached the sub- 
 ject again after dinner. The moment was not well 
 chosen, for Tyrconnel had been worried into two 
 attendances at church, with the result that he was 
 now irritable and rebellious. The least thing 
 seemed to tire him now. Moreover, the sermon 
 that morning, by the diminutive Bishop of Bedlam, 
 had been devoted to denunciations of the 'House 
 of Rimmon,' and the eternal fallacies about suicides, 
 the grotesque assertion that the concerts and the 
 gardens at Monte Carlodare the 'price of blood,' 
 with all the other extravagances of a narrow and 
 ill-balanced mind, had outraged his sense of fairness. 
 
 They were in their private sitting-room. It 
 was a' chilly evening and a fire had been lighted, 
 
b THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 but it burned badly. The lamp had been carefully 
 trimmed and added an artificial gloom to that 
 which already existed in their minds. 
 
 Each had an expression of being profoundly 
 bored. Tyrconnel sat in a fold-up chair affecting 
 to read ' Natural Law in the Spiritual World,' which 
 Gwendolen, who had views about 'Sunday-books,' 
 had forced on him. He found it difficult to keep 
 his attention to it and indeed scarcely cared to 
 try, for the type was blurred by the dim light 
 and the subject had not the faintest interest for 
 him. 
 
 Meanwhile Gwendolen sat on the other side of 
 the fire-place turning over somewhat idly a large 
 parcel of tracts, recently sent her by Miss Tyr- 
 connel. The waning of the honeymoon had not 
 destroyed in her the minute interest in the smallest 
 movements of her husband, which devoted brides 
 sometimes touchingly display. She kept watching 
 him with an expression, which it would have 
 
THE WANING H0NEY3I00N. \) 
 
 puzzled a stranger to explain. It contained solicitude 
 for his health and a kind of guardian-angel ten- 
 derness, which suited her style of beauty ; but 
 there was also a marked shade of annoyance at his 
 lack of interest in her book and, as the yawns 
 succeeded each other like minute-guns, a frown 
 began to form itself on her broad calm brow. 
 
 "If you're tired, you'd better go to bed," she 
 said at last, with unusual impatience, in the tone 
 of a mother lecturing a troublesome child. 
 
 It was the fifth long-drawn yawn in five minutes 
 and he had slowly pulled out his hunter- watch, looked 
 at it and shut it up with an ostentatious click three 
 times during the same period. 
 
 " My dear, it's only half-past eight. I really 
 couldn't go to bed with the hens like that. Not 
 even to oblige you," he added with a touch of 
 mockery in his voice ; " I think I shall go down 
 to the billiard-room for a cigar." 
 
 " I have got something to say to you first," 
 
10 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 she returned, in tones which only served to increase 
 his irritation. 
 
 " Well I " he asked with an ostentatious lack 
 of interest. 
 
 " You are not going to Monte Carlo to-morrow. " 
 
 She had tried to impart a pleading, or at least 
 an interrogative accent to the sentence, but it 
 sounded to Tyrconnel more like a menace. There 
 was a sulky silence of about two minutes. 
 
 "Are you?" she added pleadingly, as he showed 
 no sign of making answer. 
 
 " You seem to have settled it for me," he replied 
 with some bitterness. 
 
 "That is good of you, Wilfrid," she said more 
 softly, taking this for acquiescence and laying a 
 hand affectionately on his. 
 
 He rose to his feet without responding to the 
 caress, and said emphatically, 
 
 " Pray don't mistake me. I have made up 
 my mind to go and I shall go. I need a change. 
 
THE WANING HONEYMOON. 11 
 
 My health is suffering from the monotony of this 
 place. You religious people are so selfish," he 
 went on with rising anger. " I don't believe you 
 care a snap whether I am ill or well, happy or 
 miserable, so long as your bread-and-butter theories 
 of life are observed. Pray, what do you know 
 of the world outside your school-room door and 
 your Cambridge lecture-halls? Who set you up 
 to be a ruler and a judge ? Where did you 
 learn " 
 
 The tirade ended in a fit of coughing. He 
 rocked himself to and fro for some minutes and 
 then sank back into his chair. But his words had 
 probed her to the quick and she stood before him 
 with hands clenched by her side and a strange 
 light in her eyes, scarcely noticing his cough. When 
 he had partly recovered, she returned to the 
 charge. 
 
 "The world! No, indeed," she answered with 
 a fine scorn. " I know little enough of it and I 
 
12 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 care not to know. But I have at least learned — 
 even in the small and humble sphere which you 
 so despise — I have learned to distinguish between 
 good and evil. And the love I bear you will, I 
 pray to God, inspire me to- protest, so long as I 
 have breath, when I see you setting your face 
 towards wrong-doing. " 
 
 " I must be allowed to judge what is right and 
 wrong for myself," he rejoined in a faint voice. 
 " I am willing to do all I can to humour your 
 whims and prejudices. I have denied myself 
 pleasures and exposed myself to actual discomforts 
 in order to do so, but there are limits to such 
 sacrifices and you must not tax my good-nature 
 too far." 
 
 She was about to reply when the discussion was 
 interrupted by the entrance of the porter with a 
 letter. Tyrconnel took it carelessly, examined the 
 address with a slight show of curiosity, opened the 
 envelope and began to read a little ill-scented, ill- 
 
THE WANING HONEYMOON. 13 
 
 written note, then hastily crumpled it up and thrust 
 it into his breast-pocket, his face gradually becoming 
 crimson as much with anger as with embarrass- 
 ment. Gwendolen watched him with more as- 
 tonishment than alarm, but a certain qualm of 
 uneasiness could not be altogether avoided and she 
 stood before him, as if waiting for and confidently 
 expecting an explanation. 
 
 As he offered none, she said, taking up the end 
 of his last speech, 
 
 " Would it be ' taxing your good-nature ' too far, 
 to ask you whom that letter is from ? " 
 
 "I can't tell you, Gwen," he faltered, suddenly 
 taking a more conciliatory tone. '^ I must ask you 
 to believe that it does not concern you in any way. " 
 
 "What concerns you concerns me, Wilfrid." 
 
 " It does not concern my present life. No good 
 purpose would be served by showing it to you. I 
 will show you what store I set by it, " and he stooped 
 down to the fire, held the letter between the logs 
 
14 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 until it caught the flame, and then gave it a vicious 
 dig with the end of the bellows. The flicker of 
 the fire gave his face, now very pale again, a 
 strange and ghastly colour. 
 
 Nothing was said for some time. Then he bent 
 over and kissed her forehead without a trace of 
 sentiment. 
 
 " Good-night, Gwen, " he said, " I have some letters 
 to write and am going downstairs for a smoke. I 
 daresay you will be asleep before I turn in." 
 
 "More letters!" she said, stroking her forehead 
 upwards in a weary way, "and do they not con- 
 cern our present life either ? You used to have 
 no secrets from me. I feel already as if we had 
 been married years and years and years. You 
 have begun to slight me and the joy is ebbing 
 from my life. I did not dream that you would 
 tire of me so soon." 
 
 "Don't be a goose, Gwen," he replied irritably, 
 as he sauntered out of the room with his hands 
 
THE WAXING HONEY^rOON. 15 
 
 deep in his pockets, slamming the door behind him. 
 
 Gwendolen remained for a long time leaning against 
 the mantelpiece, thinking. She looked fixedly at 
 the damp logs and her eyes filled with tears. 
 Presently she drew herself up erect, as if to do 
 battle with these sad thoughts. She crossed the 
 room, found her Bible, and sat down on a stool 
 to read the IJth chapter of Saint John, which had 
 upon her the effect of a cordial on a fainting man. 
 
 There was a serene smile of trustful happiness 
 on her countenance as she turned down the lamp 
 and made her way to her bedroom. 
 
 "'Peace I leave with you,'" she murmured, 
 *"my peace I give unto you ; not as the world 
 giveth, give I unto you. I will not leave you 
 comfortless: I will come to you."'' 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE HOUSE OF RBIMON. 
 
 'I want to see the wheels go wound.' 
 
 — Helen's Babies. 
 
 '^ It is a quarter to twelve; I must look sharp or 
 I shall be late for business, " exclaimed Harold Gave- 
 rigan, tossing his unfinished cigarette over the 
 parapet and making an unusual display of alacrity. 
 " Nonsense, old chap," said Coryton, leaning back 
 languidly on the big green reversible seat which he 
 occupied on the terrace. " You can't coop yourself 
 up in that filthy casino on a glorious day like this. 
 Why not get hold of Lady Giddy and drive over 
 
 16 
 
THE HOUSE OF RIMMON. 17 
 
 with Vixie and me to Xice for lunch at the 
 London,-^ House." 
 
 "Oh I do, Mr. Gaverigan," added Mrs. Coryton, 
 looking up with a bright smile from an elaborate 
 pattern she was executing on the gravel with her 
 parasol. "That would be jolly." 
 
 Gaverigan, ever susceptible to attentions from 
 the fair sex, thereupon assumed a very sorrowful 
 air, like the rich young man in the parable, for 
 the casino was all-engrossing to him. 
 
 "I should have enjoyed it of all things," he 
 said regretfully, " but for one thing, I always have 
 lunch at eleven in the French fashion and, for 
 another, I rather packed myself up yesterday, as 
 they phrase it here, and I have fifty-four louis to 
 recoup to-day. I am afraid I must run along now 
 or I shan't get a seat at all and it always spells 
 ruin to try to play standing." 
 
 "Very well," laughed Violet with a friendly 
 nod, " we won't spoil your sport. I hope you will 
 
 VOL. III. 2 
 
18 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 win a pot of money to-day and be able to give 
 yourself a holiday and drive with us to-morrow." 
 
 The terrace at Monte Carlo is a pleasant lounge 
 at noon in winter. There are not enough people 
 about to be exacting in the matter of dress; you 
 can give yourself over to the full enjoyment of 
 your surroundings. And such surroundings ! As- 
 suredly the world contains no other such favoured 
 corner, where art and nature have so conspired 
 to erect a paradise. 
 
 Coryton and his wife, experts in the science 
 of extracting all possible enjoyment out of their 
 surroundings, had been sitting there for about half 
 an hour, looking the picture of content, basking 
 in the sunshine and drawing in long breaths of 
 ozone as the faintest of sea-breezes played upon 
 their brows. And they looked no less prosperous 
 than they did contented. There was not a trace 
 of care of any sort upon their smooth, fresh young 
 faces ; they were dressed to convey an impression 
 
THE HOUSE OF RIMMON. 19 
 
 of wealth — as all wise people with their own way 
 to make in the world always must be — but what 
 is a still greater triumph of astuteness, their 
 clothes were made to aim rather at comfort than 
 display. 
 
 Violet's dress was of fawn-coloured cloth, exqui- 
 sitely fitting and distinguished by a thin trimming 
 of choice sable ; her head looked very knowing 
 under a prettily twisted toque of violet velvet 
 bordered with a couple of sable-tails. Coryton 
 looked spick and span in a double breasted jacket 
 of dark grey tweed ^^th navy blue trousers and 
 Oxford shoes. The usual Monte-Carlo hat of soft 
 black felt was perched jauntily on the side of his 
 head so as to display his curls. 
 
 They were very little changed since we saw 
 them last, and certainly not for the worse. Violet 
 had not lost her sprightliness, but had added to 
 it some of the charms of maturity. She had 
 always been good friends with her husband since 
 
20 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 they were boy and girl, but it was only during 
 the last few weeks that she had come to admit 
 to herself that it was all very ridiculous, but 
 really she was getting quite spoony about that 
 dear Foley. Love is always the most permanent 
 when it follows, instead of preceding marriage, 
 and Cory ton, who would have laughed aloud at 
 the suggestion of his possibly giving way to any 
 such weakness as love, was getting daily happier 
 in the society of his wife and prouder of her good 
 looks and cleverness. 
 
 They watched Gaverigan hurrying up the terrace- 
 steps towards the casino, and Violet, half closing 
 her eyes to enjoy the brightness of the colouring 
 around her, remarked playfully upon the young 
 man's unusual display of energy. 
 
 * Yes," returned Coryton, " he has fits of energy 
 like that. If he only kept them up, he might ac- 
 complish wonders. You remember when he went 
 down to Sheffield, utterly unknown there, and 
 
THE HOUSE OF RDIMON. 21 
 
 started a candidature on lines of his own?" 
 
 " No. What happened? " 
 
 " He had meetings every night for a week and, 
 after the first three, carried votes of confidence 
 in his candidature. Then he calmly went away 
 and never came near them from that day to this. " 
 
 " It's a pity he gambles so much and so recklessly. 
 He's certain to bring himself to grief one of these 
 days." 
 
 "Yes, he should only gamble in the way we 
 do, and never back anything except certainties. 
 I have no patience with people who persist in 
 backing uncertainties. " 
 
 ''Like that dear good Pigeon, for instance." 
 
 " Pouf ! He plays like a lunatic. Gaverigan 
 at any rate has some method in his madness. 
 By the way, I wouldn't mind betting my boots 
 we shall see Pidge over here before long, in spite 
 of all his new-laid virtue and the terrorism of that 
 Sainte Nitouche of a wife of his." 
 
22 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 "I don't want your boots," she laughed, "but 
 I'll bet you somethmg nicer, say, a kiss or, better 
 still, a new bonnet from the rue de la Paix, that 
 if he does come it'll be without her. In fact, I 
 shouldn't wonder if it meant a breach between 
 them." 
 
 " Well, " he said, lowering his voice, which 
 was an unnecessary precaution as there was no one 
 within shouting distance, " there most certainly 
 will be a breach between them, unless Miss Sarah 
 Popkins should happen to come in for a fortune 
 in the course of the next few weeks." 
 
 " That dreadful Sally Popkins? I really think 
 it's a mistake coming down to that kind of 
 instrument." 
 
 Coryton looked into her eyes with an amused 
 smile. 
 
 "I almost believe," he said incredulously, "that 
 you — are — jealous! " 
 
 Violet pouted. 
 
THE HOUSE OF RDIMON. 23 
 
 " And if I am, I don't see that that is — so very — 
 ridiculous. " 
 
 A cloud had gathered on her face as she finished 
 the sentence. The smile slowly died away on 
 his face and he looked vexed for a moment. 
 
 " Vixie, you mustn't be absurd. Have you such 
 a poor opinion of me after all these years? Vi, 
 I feel hurt. I really do. Could you so misjudge 
 me as to think I have not control over myself 
 in my dealings with such creatures, or that I would 
 demean myself to touch them with the end of a 
 barge-pole except to make them useful? Don't 
 you know that I am a being entirely destitute of 
 emotions or affections of any sort or kind — except 
 of course for you, my dear?" he added, with a 
 ceremonious bow. 
 
 " I am glad you made that reservation, how- 
 beit reluctantly, " she retorted, recovering her good 
 humour rapidly. " But tell me what the scheme 
 is. Sally is to blackmail Pidge by threatening 
 
24 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 to tell the saintly Gwendolen. That's all very 
 well for Sally, but where do you come in ? You're 
 not going to share the spoil with her, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Hardly. The thing isn't yet quite thought 
 out. Perhaps if she worries him judiciously, he 
 may come to me for advice. Or perhaps again she 
 may produce a breach between him and Gwendolen, 
 as I was saying just now. In any case he gets 
 back into my team again, and he was useful, 
 you must admit." 
 
 " "M, yes. Useful in a way. But is it worth 
 soiling your hands like that for such an object? 
 Suppose it all came out." 
 
 " I shall take precautions. So far as I am con- 
 cerned there will be nothing to come out. It 
 won't need such a frightful amount of astuteness 
 to accomplish that much. I have had dealings 
 with these Samaritans before, you know." 
 
 "Yes, I know you have," she said drily; "and 
 I wish you'd stop having dealings with them." 
 
THE HOUSE OF EDDIOX. 25 
 
 " I daresay you do. But, my good Vixie, 
 beggars can't choose. You know how hard up 
 we are." 
 
 " I do indeed, "' she said bitterly. 
 
 "Well! " was all he said, but it was very much 
 in the tone of the Q.E.D. after one of Euclid's 
 rigmaroles. 
 
 Violet suddenly gave a merry peal of laughter. 
 
 " Upon my word," she said, " I think we are the 
 most wonderful people in the world. Here we 
 are about on the verge of beggary and we are 
 as jolly as sandboys, without the least care or 
 fear of any sort or kind to alloy our happiness 
 for an instant. Some people would be ordering in 
 cartridges for their revolver or sending round to 
 the chemist for chloral." 
 
 Coryton joined in the laugh. 
 
 " Yes, that's all very fine, but this sort of situation 
 would very soon get beyond a joke. We must 
 think of something." 
 
26 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " After all, if the worst comes to the worst, 
 we can always borrow from our friends." 
 
 " The worst must not come to the worst. 
 Borrowing from friends means the destruction of 
 all their other spheres of usefulness. I have 
 always believed in the truth of old Shake-Bacon's 
 injunction, 'Neither a borrower nor a lender be.' 
 It is far better to take what you want by strategy. 
 The professor's next instalment in our Automatic 
 Drainage Scheme comes due in a week or two. 
 Meanwhile, all we want is a little ready money 
 to go on with." 
 
 " Poor old cock," said Violet, dismissing the pro- 
 fessor, with a shrug. " Shall we have another 
 supper-party after the rooms close, with a game 
 of poker to wind up ? " 
 
 " No, that's risky. People here play too well. 
 Besides, they want such a lot of pressing. As 
 they can play at roulette and trente-et-quarante for 
 eleven hours a day " 
 
THE HOUSE OF RBDION. 27 
 
 "And be sure of not being cheated." 
 
 "Precisely my meaning I — they aren't likely 
 to want to come and play poker afterwards, where 
 that certitude is not so profound." 
 
 "What a pity Pidge isn't here." 
 
 "Yes. It would almost be worth w^hile going 
 over to Cannes, if that confounded wet-blanket 
 woman weren't there. I must have managed 
 things very badly to let her marry him." 
 
 "There are several irons in the fire here that 
 I should not care to leave. There are Mr. Shep- 
 heard's investments and Mr. Plantagenet-Unkels's 
 idea of starting a paper, not to mention my 
 Boyard, who only wants me to say the word in 
 order to present me with the most magnificent 
 tiara of diamonds that can be purchased in all 
 Bucharest. " 
 
 " Come, come, Vixie. It'll soon be my turn to 
 be jealous." 
 
 " Your turn I Don't flatter yourself that I was 
 
28 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 jealous, conceited boy. However, I'll strike a bar- 
 gain with you: my Boyard for your Sally." 
 
 " My Sally ! You scamp. She's only a means to 
 
 an end. And by Jove ! here is the end Why, 
 
 Pigeon, old boy ! Who'd have thought of seeing you 
 in this wicked place? Is your wife with you?" 
 
 Sure enough it was Tyrconnel, walking along 
 the terrace with an uncertain step, as if the place 
 were strange to him. What a difference between 
 this haggard youth and the eager, sturdy Wilfrid 
 Tyrconnel who had trod this terrace twelve short 
 months before! His face was flushed with the 
 excitement of arrival, and his frail, boyish face 
 looked quite pretty as he stood before them. Both 
 were struck at once by the change in him. 
 
 " She is at Cannes. I am only over for the day," 
 he said shortly, in answer to Coryton's question. 
 Then, turning to Violet, he seemed to recover his 
 good spirits and began to rally her on her peren- 
 nial childhood. 
 
THE HOUSE OF KDDIOX. 29 
 
 "I wish I could return the compliment, Pidge/ 
 she said with affectionate anxiety, "but you are 
 looking decidedly dicky. You want a good bracing 
 up here. I shall tell Gwendolen so when I see 
 her." 
 
 Tyrconnel frowned. 
 
 " Everybody keeps telling me that I am at 
 death's door," he growled. 
 
 " That's all rot,' said Coryton, who knew exactly 
 how to manage his ex-charge. " All he wants is 
 a little lunch and, for the matter of that, so do 
 we. Look here, Vixie, take him up to the Grand 
 and order lunch. I'll join you in half an hour. 
 I've a few things to attend to. If you'd only 
 wired you were coming, old man, I'd have arranged 
 to be at your disposal all day." 
 
 While the two others slowly made their way up 
 to the Grand Hotel, Tyrconnel complaining griev- 
 ously of the heat all the w^hile, Coryton hastily 
 made his wav into the casino and scrutinized all 
 
30 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 the players at the various tables. Gaverigan was 
 at the first table, in the highest spirits, evidently- 
 winning heavily. He called out blithely to Coryton 
 to join him, as there was an unheard-of run on 
 the tiers du cylinclre, but Coryton passed on with 
 a smiling shake of the head. At the next table 
 he paused a moment to watch Williams and Wil- 
 mot, who were playing a system, as he had special 
 reasons for wishing to know the state of their 
 finances. He exchanged amenities with Signor 
 Miauli, of Stratford-atte-Bowe, the popular tenor, 
 whom he found staking 100 franc gold bits profusely 
 on the transversales from behind Miss Gussie Gut- 
 ter's chair. That young lady called out gaily to 
 Coryton to come and bring her luck, but he only 
 shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly and passed 
 on to the trente-et-quarante room. Here Lord 
 Pimlico and Miss Theodora Gargoyle were engaged 
 in a fierce wrangle about the fetlocks of a horse 
 called Saucisson, who had won the Grand Prix 
 
THE HOUSE OF KIMMON. Bl 
 
 de Monte Carlo at Nice, and both appealed to him 
 for corroboration. 
 
 They were more difficult to shake off than the 
 rest, but at last he managed to escape and, after 
 one more careful look all round, he made his way 
 into the reading-room, which in those days was 
 downstairs, in a last vain hope of meeting the 
 object of his search. There she was, curled up in 
 a huge arm-chair about three sizes too large for 
 her, voraciously reading the Vie Farisienne^ or 
 rather its pictures. 
 
 "Oh! it's you, is it?" she exclaimed, scarcely 
 looking up as he entered. " Come and explain this 
 bathing-costume to me." 
 
 "I am very angry with you, Sally," he replied. 
 "You have wasted my time when every moment 
 is of importance. You said you'd be inside from 
 twelve to one. Why weren't you there?" 
 
 " Because I'm broke, if you want to know. But 
 I shouldn't advise your trying to bully me. It's 
 
32 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 no use," she added, with a comic . attempt at 
 despair. 
 
 "All right," he returned, making a motion as 
 if to go away, " it doesn't matter. I had some 
 news for you, but no doubt it will keep." 
 
 "Oh I you dear," she said, slapping him on the 
 shoulder and beginning to twist her parasol in a 
 restless way. " Tell me all about it as fast as you 
 can." 
 
 "It's only that Tyrconnel's here," he said quietly. 
 
 Sally jumped to her feet in a fury and made 
 as though she was off at once. 
 
 "Where? where?" she cried excitedly. "I'll 
 have at him, the villain ! Shew me where he is 
 this very moment." 
 
 " Hush ! hush ! All in good time. I'll arrange 
 for you to interview him in the course of the day. 
 You must first make up your mind what you are 
 going to say to him." 
 
 I've decided that long ago. I shall go up to him 
 
 
THE HOUSE OF RDIMON. 33 
 
 and slap his face or scratch his eyes or something. 
 See what he had the insolence to send me." 
 
 And she held up a note in Tyrconnel's big sprawl- 
 ing hand. 
 
 "In answer to your letter of yesterday, I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 "May I see it?.... ^ Madam,'' — Come, that's 
 pretty stiff I — ^Although 1 do not admit that you 
 have any claim whatever upon me, I am willing to 
 send you £10, as you say you are in distress. I 
 advise you to use it to leave Monte Carlo at once, 
 as I warn you this is the last time I can consent 
 to assist you. Should you write again, your letters 
 will be returned unopened. Yours faithfully, Wilfrid 
 Tyrconnel.' Well, at any rate you've got some- 
 thing in black and white, that may come in useful 
 by and by." 
 
 '^ Yes, but a tenner I " screamed Sally with all 
 the scorn of a millionaire. " Did you ever hear 
 
 VOL. III. 3 
 
34 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 of anything so mean in your life ? I took it in this 
 morning and planked it down on 16 to 21 and it 
 was swept off the first go. So now I haven't got 
 sixpence to bless myself with.'' 
 
 " Well, you certainly won't get any more if you 
 go and scratch his face. If you promise me not 
 to be silly, I'll try and arrange for you to have 
 a talk with him for a quarter of an hour or so 
 before he goes back to Cannes, and if you don't get 
 what you want then, I've got a much better card 
 u p my sleeve for you. Now I must run off to lunch. " 
 
 " Wait a bit. You might explain it first. I 
 don't trust you an inch further than I can see 
 you. You made a fool of me once before. I'm 
 not going to risk it's happening again." 
 
 " Little unbeliever ! I've a great mind to let 
 you fend for yourself. A fat lot of gratitude I 
 get for all the trouble I take on your account. 
 However, since you are so anxious to know, I 
 couldn't think of disappointing a lady." 
 
THE HOUSE OF RIMMON. 35 
 
 Sally put out her tongue, screwing up her nose 
 so as to display her dazzling little rabbit's teeth. 
 But he pretended not to see and gave her a hasty 
 outline of the plan of campaign he proposed for 
 her. She listened with her head on one side in 
 a picturesque way, smiling incredulously all the 
 while. When he had finished, she said roguishly, 
 
 " Yes, and where do you come in ? " 
 
 "11" he exclaimed, raising his eyebrows, as if 
 that were a too preposterous suggestion. " It's 
 not my affair. I shall be more than rewarded if 
 Miss de Vere deigns to approve of her humble 
 slave's efforts on her behalf." 
 
 Sally gave a shrill, derisive laugh, but beamed 
 with pleasure all over her face, for no compliment 
 ever came amiss to her. 
 
 "You are a downright humbug," she said 
 amiably, as he was making his way to the door, 
 "but. somehow I can't help liking you." 
 
 Coryton made a deep mock bow and hurried out. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 
 
 Everyone is as God made him and oftentimes 
 a great deal worse. 
 
 — Sir Edward Coke. 
 
 When Coryton reached the Grand Hotel he found 
 lunch just being served. 
 
 ** We knew you wouldn't like us to wait, and 
 have these good things spoiled," said Violet as he 
 came in. "I think you'll be pleased with what 
 we've ordered." 
 
 They were all three very proud of their know- 
 ledge of good food and certainly the arts of the 
 
 36 
 
THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 37 
 
 cordon bleu at the Grand were not thrown away 
 upon them. A very savoury consomme^ clear as 
 liquid amber, put them all in excellent humour 
 from the beginning. It was followed by coquilles 
 de tiirhof, dressed with not too much cheese but 
 just cheese flavouring enough. Then came quails 
 en casserole and a salad such as Charles, the 
 head-waiter, always mixed specially for Coryton. 
 He ' showed a piece of bread to some garlic, ' as 
 he phrased it, then stirred the bread up vigorously 
 with the lettuce and took it out before serving. 
 Violet always declared this gave you all the naughty 
 feelings of eating garlic, without making it impossible 
 to kiss anybody afterwards for at least twenty-four 
 hours. A mousse aux framholses was also appreci- 
 ated, for they were all sweet-tooths, and they 
 wound up with Turkish coffee. During the meal 
 they drank a pint of Johannisberg with the fish 
 and a bottle of Mouton Rothschild 1874 with the 
 quails. Then eau-de-vie de Danzic as a chasse- 
 
38 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 cafe before strolling down to the gambling-rooms. 
 
 They played together in the rooms for some time 
 and then Violet left them for the concert, as she 
 was especially anxious not to miss Saint-Saens's 
 *Danse Macabre.' It always sounds so weird and 
 impressive in the big, dim, fantastic concert-room, 
 which seems more in harmony with that piece than 
 almost any other. 
 
 " You can almost see the goblins skipping along 
 the edge of the stage as the violins go 'Ping I Ping! 
 Ping!'" she said. "And the double-shuffle of the 
 dwarf devils, who form the chorus, is amazingly 
 creepy. You really ought to come and hear it, 
 Wilfrid, instead of staying here to lose money." 
 
 "The Pigeon's got the roulette-devil to tackle," 
 said Coryton, making signs to his wife not to press 
 her suggestion. " That's about as much as he can 
 manage without running after your blue devils too." 
 
 So Coryton and Tyrconnel remained playing side 
 by side at the trente-et-quarante table. The for- 
 
THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 39 
 
 mer had long ago come to the conclusion that 
 nobody but a millionaire can win against the bank 
 at Monte Carlo, and he never played save with an 
 ulterior object. Xow he sat with a little pile 
 of gold in front of him, making a great display 
 of interest, pricking each announcement of the 
 winning colour diligently on one of the ruled 
 cards provided by the administration; but all the 
 while he never staked more than the minimum 
 of a louis at a time, and that not every coup. 
 At the end of an hour and a half he was three 
 louis to the good and announced that he had had 
 enough of it, and that it was not worth all those 
 emotions to win such a small sum. 
 
 His companion had been plunging heavily, having 
 begun with five hundred francs at a time and in- 
 creased his stakes as he won. After an hour's 
 play he was staking maximums every time and 
 had a goodly pile of notes in front of him. Hap- 
 pening to look up just then, he noticed a very 
 
40 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 malevolent little face scowling at him from behind 
 the croupier opposite. 
 
 " Heavens I " he growled to himself. " Am I 
 never to be free from this haunting curse of my 
 old indiscretion ? Am I doomed to have my path 
 crossed by this vile woman every time I go out 
 of doors ? " 
 
 He grew very impatient and began to play reck- 
 lessly. He argued with himself that he had known 
 Sally was at Monte Carlo and that, if he could 
 not stand seeing her, he ought not to have come. 
 But it was all in vain. A blight seemed to have 
 come over him and smothered all the joyousness 
 of the good humour that had buoyed him up; it 
 had taken all the sweetness even out of the 
 incomparable pleasure of a run of luck. It was 
 now fast" turning into an avalanche of disaster, 
 this run of luck. Sally's malevolent gaze was upon 
 him and seemed to cast a spell, so that he could 
 do nothing right. Nobody but a gambler can have 
 
THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 41 
 
 any idea how rapidly a big pile of big bank notes 
 will vanish, if only you have lost your head and 
 are playing recklessly. 
 
 By the time that Coryton had turned round and 
 announced his intention of stopping, content with 
 his meagre gains, the pile had melted away and 
 Tyrconnel was left with one solitary thousand franc 
 note, which he tossed gloomily upon red. 
 
 " Un apres!"^ the croupier announced. 
 
 Tyrconnel gave a gesture of impatience, as he 
 saw his last note swept on to the line to denote 
 that it was 'in prison' and the impatience was 
 heightened to indignation, as he saw a mocking 
 smile light up Sally's provokingly childish face. 
 The cards were dealt out again. 
 
 ^ Xeuf,"" said the croupier, announcing a heavy 
 point for black. 
 
 Tyrconnel gave a faint smile of hope at the immi- 
 nent prospect of getting back his last note. It 
 would be the turning point and he would have 
 
42 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 another run of good luck, if only to spite Sally. 
 While he was building these castles in the air, 
 the cards had been dealt and there was a whisper 
 of vexation half way round the table. They 
 were four court cards for red! 
 
 ^ Quarante^^ said the croupier mechanically; 
 " rouge perd, couleur gagne. " And a long rake 
 came down and whisked off Tyrconnel's last note. 
 
 " Well," he said, with an affectation of indifference, 
 " I suppose I must go round to Smith's for some 
 more money. I am absolutely stony now." Where- 
 upon he got up and went slowly out of the room 
 with Coryton, studiously avoiding Sally's gaze as 
 he did so. 
 
 Tyrconnel was well known at the bank and 
 had no difficulty in cashing all the cheques he 
 required. As they walked back to the rooms, 
 Coryton put his arm affectionately through Tyr- 
 connel's and said in his most caressing, confidential 
 manner, 
 
THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 43 
 
 " Old man, I want to speak to you on a rather 
 delicate matter, but I want you to promise me 
 you won't be offended." 
 
 Tyrconnel promised, as one does on such occasions, 
 without enthusiasm. 
 
 " It's about Sally Popkins. She tells me you 
 sent her a tenner." 
 
 Tyrconnel started at the mention of the name 
 and then flushed up resentfully as Coryton entered 
 into details. 
 
 " Well? " he said, shaking himself free and looking 
 Coryton full in the eyes. 
 
 " I think you are rather hard on her," he replied. 
 " After all, you cannot divest yourself of some 
 responsibility for her present position." 
 
 " Oh I come now, " he exclaimed hotly, " that 
 is rather a large order. She was not precisely a 
 type of innocence when I first made her ac- 
 quaintance. That Cottenham dinner was the 
 beginning and end of it all, as far as I am 
 
44 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 concerned. What possible claim could she have 
 upon me now?" 
 
 " If you don't think she has, it is not for me 
 to interfere. I certainly never expected that you 
 would be mean." 
 
 " Mean ! I never was called mean before. Now 
 tell me candidly, do you think I am in any way 
 responsible? Come now, as a man of the world." 
 
 " Everyone of her admirers might disclaim respon- 
 sibility in the same way. However, I will say 
 no more. It is no concern of mine and I certainly 
 don't want to quarrel with you about Sally Popkins. " 
 
 They had reached the casino entrance, but Tyr- 
 connel led the way round the building towards 
 the terrace without a word. 
 
 After a silence of some minutes, he said abruptly, 
 
 " Corry, if you think I owe the girl any repara- 
 tion, I will send her money, but nothing shall 
 induce me to speak to her again." 
 
 "That's my good Pigeon," said Coryton patro- 
 
THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 45 
 
 nizingly. " I knew you would. You know me 
 well enough to be sure that I would not advise 
 you to do anything quixotic or unnecessary. But 
 the fact is, the girl isn't the reprobate you have 
 been inclined to take her for and I know that, if 
 she were given a chance, she would ask nothing 
 better than to keep straight in future. The diffi- 
 culty always is that, when women start on that 
 — line of country, they never get a chance of 
 pulling up ; they never have savings, no one would 
 think of giving them honest employment, and they 
 have no choice but to go on as they have begun. 
 Now if I could raise a hundred or so for her, I 
 could get her started as a florist in Belgravia, 
 where she would have an opportunity of making 
 a good thing of it and, as she would have the 
 comforts she has got accustomed to, there would 
 be less danger of her relapsing to her old ways. 
 I think that is wiser than encouraging her to go 
 back on to the stage, don't you ? " 
 
46 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Tyrconnel looked Coryton full in the face long 
 and thoughtfully. 
 
 " You are a kind-hearted chap, Corry, " he said 
 as they leaned against the parapet of the terrace, 
 watching a pigeon flutter out of its trap and then 
 roll over and over in the dust, as a gun flashed out. 
 
 The most picturesque part of the scene was 
 the retriever that ran out at once and marched 
 back triumphantly, with tail erect, carrying the 
 dead bird in its mouth, while a man in a wonder- 
 ful sort of Kobin Hood costume trotted out at the 
 double to refill the trap. There were a series of 
 paths worn away in the turf from his starting- 
 point to each of the pigeon-traps, showing how 
 equally the law of averages operated in the 
 frequency with which they were opened. 
 
 " I have always said you weren't half so cynical 
 as you try to make yourself out, " Tyrconnel pursued. 
 " Of course I will help about the poor girl and I 
 am sure I ought to be much obliged to you for 
 
THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 47 
 
 letting me know the real facts of the case. She 
 wrote and asked me to help her to leave Monte 
 Carlo and I sent her a tenner for that purpose, 
 fully imagining all the same that she intended to 
 blew it away at the tables. How much do you say 
 you want for her? Here are five thousand fi^ancs." 
 
 And he held out some notes. But Coryton 
 made no sign of taking them. 
 
 "Won't you give them to her yourself?" he 
 asked. " I am sure she would value them a great 
 deal more, and it would be an excellent opportunity 
 for offering her a little good advice." 
 
 " No, no, my dear fellow, I couldn't. Do me 
 this favour. I shall be most awfully obliged. 
 Here, take them .... And now let's talk of some- 
 thing else." 
 
 " I am sure you will never repent this good 
 action, " said Coryton pocketing the notes. " I 
 daresay I shall get an opportunity of giving them 
 to her in the rooms to-night." 
 
48 THE GKEEN BAY TREE. 
 
 The scene in the rooms after dinner was fast 
 and furious. It seemed as if the players could 
 not lose their money fast enough, — so hotly did 
 they jostle and wrangle round the tables. Coryton 
 was heartily sick of it all long before the an- 
 nouncement of the last three spins. But he had 
 made up his mind to stay and see Tyrconnel off 
 at the station by the train des decaves, which, so 
 far as Tyrconnel was concerned, was appropriately 
 named that day. He had needed to make a number 
 of visits to Smith's bank in the course of the 
 afternoon and was about .£1000 out on the day, 
 besides what he had given Coryton for Sally. 
 After the train was gone, Coryton made his way 
 to the Cafe de Paris, where he found Sally seated 
 at a little table drinking curaQoa and waiting for 
 him by appointment. 
 
 She looked very fresh and desirable in her long 
 sealskin and dainty mauve skirt, with her face 
 exquisitely made up and her feet resting on a 
 
THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 49 
 
 neighbouring chair so as to display a very smart 
 pair of shoes and two most neatly turned little 
 ankles. So a cut-throat looking Roumanian boyard 
 seemed to think, much to Sally's annoyance, 
 which she was vainly trying to put into words 
 when Cory ton came up. The boyard bowed to 
 Cory ton and moved off in search of more promising 
 conquests. 
 
 "What a long time you have been," exclaimed 
 Sally petulantly. " I hope you bring me money 
 in proportion." 
 
 "Alas I Sally," replied Coryton with mock 
 contrition, " I did all I could. At first he wouldn't 
 hear of doing anything. But I told him you were 
 threatening to go to his wife " 
 
 "And that fetched him, eh?" 
 
 "Not a bit of it. He only laughed and said 
 you would never dare to and that, if you did, she 
 would never believe you. Then I tried a different 
 tack and said you Avere very anxious to reform 
 
 VOL. III. 4 
 
50 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 and only wanted a little money to enable you to 
 do so. I piled it on as thick as I could and really 
 thought at one time I had got him. But after all he 
 only gave me this for you." Cory ton held out 
 a note. 
 
 "What! only a 'sing-song'.* He is a mean 
 brute. What's the use of a wretched <£20, when 
 I am dead broke, and in this hole of all places? " 
 
 Sally's voice trembled with emotion and for a 
 moment it seemed as if she would give way to 
 an outburst of passionate tears. 
 
 " But I'll be even with him yet. Til go to 
 his psalm-singing wife and tell her a tale that'll 
 startle her, if it's only to spite him for being so 
 infernally mean. Look here, Coryton, you are 
 not a bad sort and I'm grateful to you for what 
 you have done, though I'm pretty sure you wouldn't 
 have done it, if it hadn't been to serve your own 
 purposes. " 
 
 * Monte-Carlo slang for 500 francs. 
 
THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 51 
 
 " Odd that I should be lor ever misjudged in this 
 way and thought incapable of any but the lowest 
 motives," ejaculated Coryton with mock heroics. 
 
 "No, I don't say that," said Sall}^, taking his 
 lamentations seriously. " You've always acted 
 straight with me and I like you better than the 
 rest of them. But now I want you to give me 
 a tip what to do — how to get away from here." 
 
 " We must talk it over and that means some- 
 thing to drink," replied Coryton, rapping the table 
 with his stick. 
 
 It was nearly a quarter to one when Coryton 
 parted from his fair companion at the door of 
 her hotel. He smiled to himself all the way up 
 to the Grand and all the w^ay up to his rooms. 
 There he found Violet in anything but a smiling 
 mood. 
 
 " You have been talking to that woman again," 
 she said irritably. 
 
52 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " Yes, darling, " he replied in his ever-suave tones, 
 " but to some purpose and for the last time. How 
 did you get on at roulette? " 
 
 "I won twenty louis playing a very careful 
 game and then I won thirty more from Shepheard 
 at ecarte after the rooms closed. So you see I 
 have not been idle — which is just as well for 
 you," she added laughing, "or I shouldn't be 
 so amiable and forgiving to you." 
 
 " You'll be more forgiving still, when you hear 
 what I've done," he said. "I've made J180 on 
 the day, but not by gambling." 
 
 " Oh ! do tell me how, " she said, clapping her 
 hands childishly. 
 
 When he had related the events, she grew grave 
 and made no remark for some time. Then she 
 said in a sweet, low voice, 
 
 "It's playing it rather low, isn't it? But I 
 am proud of you, for you are so clever and so 
 thoughtful to me. Only I do wish we could afford 
 
THE PLUCKING OF THE PIGEON. 53 
 
 to be honest. That is the luxury I covet most 
 of all." 
 
 He kissed her tenderly and said, " No doubt we 
 shall be able to afford it some day. But we 
 mustn't be too extravagant all at once. If we 
 are only patient, no doubt even honesty will one 
 day be within our reach." 
 
CHAPTER lY. 
 
 THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 
 
 Behold, how great a matter a little fire kindleth ! 
 
 — St. James, iii, 5. 
 
 It was about four o'clock in the afternoon : the 
 day was scarce yet dying. It had been a perfect 
 Riviera day, a day of blue sky, soft warm breezes, 
 and sunny lambent air. One of those days — all 
 too scarce even on the Riviera — which make one 
 forget the fog and damp of Northern climes and 
 turn with gladness to the sunshine and flowers of 
 this favoured portion of God's earth. 
 
 Gwendolen was sitting reading in their handsome 
 
THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 55 
 
 salon on the first floor of the Hotel Beau-site at 
 Cannes. The windows, partly open to the sunny 
 air, revealed glimpses of green palm trees, and of 
 the broad blue of the tideless Mediterranean. 
 The room was full of flowers — flowers everywhere — 
 roses, bright-hued anemones, delicate feathery 
 branches of mimosa, tulips, violets — all scattered 
 about in prodigal confusion. On a table by her side 
 stood a photograph of her husband smiling at her 
 from out its velvet frame, and before it, grouped 
 like flowers before a shrine, was a low vase filled 
 with white lilies. The piano was open, and on 
 it was his favourite song — the one he loved to 
 hear her sing best. She had been singing it a 
 while ago and was still crooning over the fragment 
 of some wordless melody as she read. 
 
 She had been alone all the afternoon. Wilfrid 
 was gone over to Nice to pay a duty visit to 
 some people there — friends of Lord Baltinglass. 
 Gwendolen had half thought of going with him, 
 
56 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 but as they had been out together all the morning, 
 she felt a little tired and, at the last moment, he 
 persuaded her to stay at home. She looked very 
 fair and pure in a loose flowing gown of some 
 soft creamy texture. A half-opened rosebud nestled 
 among the laces of her throat. His lips had 
 touched it before he placed it there ; its faint 
 fragrance recalled him to her now, and brought up 
 the happy smile which was playing around her lips. 
 Gwendolen was very happy just now, with that 
 calm serene happiness, which one often sees in 
 women of her type. Since her husband had broken 
 away from her that Sunday evening and had 
 followed up his revolt by the trip to Monte Carlo, 
 there had been no more differences between them. 
 A change had come over the spirit of her dream. 
 The masterful tones in which he had resented her 
 interference, made her love him in secret the 
 more. His scornful words, 'Who made you a 
 ruler and a judge ? ' rang in her ears all the next 
 
THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 57 
 
 day. She had been too hasty, too precipitate, she 
 said to herself. She had taken too much upon 
 herself, pressed him too hard, she had not made 
 sufficient allowance for his emotional nature ; 
 the old Adam would not die in a day, Satan was 
 making a strong light. But she would Avin — yes, 
 she would win. The light of a holy enthusiasm 
 lit up her face. But how? Wilfrid's was a nature 
 to be led, not driven, henceforth she would lead 
 him by the golden chain of love, not drive him 
 with hard words or cram him with Scriptural texts. 
 She must change her tactics. 
 
 So when he came back from Monte Carlo that 
 night, rather down in the mouth and fully ex- 
 pecting a lecture, she greeted him to his surprise 
 with kisses and loving words. Not a word of 
 reproach did she utter ; she - even hoped that he 
 had 'spent a pleasant day,' and she heaped coals 
 of fire upon his head by turning up at breakfast 
 the next morning, fresh and smiling, full of soli- 
 
58 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 citude for his health and of plans for their mutual 
 happiness. 
 
 Tyrconnel was full of delight and surprise at 
 this sudden change. He met her advances graci- 
 ously, and down in his heart he laid a flattering 
 unction to his soul. "That comes of showing a 
 woman who is master," he said to himself. All 
 his irritability and ill-humour vanished and his 
 love for his wife revived again under the sunshine 
 of her smiles. He felt a little ashamed of himself 
 too ; he had not been quite frank with her. That 
 scene with Sally still rankled in his memory — 
 however, that was all settled now, thank goodness- 
 — Coryton would see to that; and she would trouble 
 him no more. In this new mood his wife became 
 to him infinitely dearer, infinitely more lovable. 
 When he thought of going to Monte Carlo again,, 
 she offered no objection; but things became so 
 pleasant at home that he gradually ceased to 
 wish to go there at all. Perfect harmony was. 
 
THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 59 
 
 restored between them, into their waning honeymoon 
 there came a sort of St. Martin's summer, an 
 after-glow of love. The young wife sometimes 
 blamed herself for being so happy. Surely it was 
 sinful to fix her affections thus on any earthly 
 object. But young love is strong and young love 
 is thoughtless. After all, she was but a woman and 
 she loved — and human nature is much the same,-- 
 whether it be the saint's or the sinner's. 
 
 Thus had drifted on the golden sunny days, 
 the present all. the joy of loving enough. 
 
 Gwendolen glanced at the time-piece. It was 
 only a little past four I He would not be back 
 for some time yet. She felt inclined to scold 
 laggard Time because he went not with swifter feet. 
 
 " A visitor for Madame, " said the waiter entering 
 the room with the noiseless step of the well-trained 
 Swiss. "Does Madame receive?" 
 
 Gwendolen took the card from the salver and 
 looked at it with languid curiosity. It was a 
 
60 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 small oblong card, shaped like a man's, but on it 
 was inscribed Miss de Yere, Alpha Cottage, Beta 
 Road, St. John's Wood. Neither the name nor the 
 address conveyed any meaning to the innocent 
 Gwendolen. She regarded the card with a puzzled air. 
 
 "There must be some mistake," she said, "I 
 do not know the lady." 
 
 "There is no mistake, Madame," replied the 
 waiter impassively. " The lady asked especially 
 for the Honourable Mrs. Tyrconnel, and if you 
 were engaged she would wait she said." 
 
 Gwendolen's first impulse was to refuse ; then 
 she looked at the time-piece again. It would be 
 a long time before Wilfrid came home. She was 
 more than wearied of her own society. Perhaps 
 too, it was a little spice of feminine curiosity which 
 prompted her to say: 
 
 " I will see her, ask her to come up." 
 
 The waiter bowed and withdrew, presently reap- 
 pearing to announce "Miss de Vere." 
 
THE SEKPENT IX THE EDEN. Gl 
 
 Sally entered with a timid hesitating step. She 
 was got up for the part with some skill. She 
 had donned an old black dress and quite a shabby 
 hat; her face was absolutely innocent of rouge, 
 though there might have been a suspicion of hlanc 
 de perles. Her fringe was out of curl; her eyes 
 were cast down sadly on the floor. 
 
 "The Honourable Mrs. Tyrconnel? " she said 
 interrogatively when the waiter had closed the door. 
 
 " Yes, I am Mrs. Tyrconnel, " answered Gwendolen 
 kindly. " Pray be seated and tell me what I can 
 do for you." 
 
 She looked very nervous, this poor little thing; 
 perhaps she was a teacher of English, a governess, 
 or something of the kind, who wanted befriending 
 in a foreign land. And yet — she did not look 
 quite like a governess; Gwendolen had had no 
 experience of young women of Sally's type, either 
 with their war-paint on, or without. She was as 
 innocent as a child. 
 
62 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Sally eyed her doubtfully. She had not come 
 prepared for this gracious greeting. She had under- 
 stood from Mr. Coryton that young Mrs. Tyrconnel 
 was a very religious person, and religion in 
 Sally's mind was associated with straight-backed 
 spinsters and aggressive matrons, withering looks, 
 frigid words and a sort of ' do-not-contaminate- 
 me ' manner. If she had been received in this 
 way, she had a retort ready to hand; she would 
 have been easy enough. As it was, she felt a 
 little nonplussed. She looked about her in a 
 helpless sort of way, not knowing how to begin. 
 
 " Pray tell me what I can do for you," said Gwen- 
 dolen encouragingly. 
 
 Sally's eyes wandered around the room until 
 they fell upon the photograph of Tyrconnel. That 
 nerved her. A gleam of resentment shone in 
 her eyes. 'There is no hatred like a woman 
 scorned.' The more concealed it is, the more 
 dangerous is the venom, and in this instance the 
 
THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 63 
 
 venom was prompted almost as much by resentment 
 as by greed. 
 
 " I am very — very unhappy, " she said and 
 burst into tears. 
 
 She could not have begun better. Gwendolen's 
 sympathies were aroused in an instant. She got 
 up from her chair and, coming across to where 
 the other was sitting with bowed head, touched 
 her on the shoulder. 
 
 " I am so sorry, " she said gently, " tell me 
 what your trouble is." 
 
 ''I don't know how to tell you," whimpered 
 Sally, rubbing her eyes the harder. "Oh dear! 
 — oh dear! — to think it should have come to this." 
 
 Gwendolen looked perplexed at this somewhat 
 irrelevant outburst. However, she waited patiently ; 
 she did not like to force a confidence. She saw 
 that her visitor was in trouble, and like most amateur 
 philanthropists, she had no power to distinguish 
 between the genuine and the false. Here was an 
 
04 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 opportunity for her to translate into practice some 
 of her beautiful theories. Meanwhile the astute 
 little actress went on sniffing behind her pocket- 
 handkerchief. 
 
 " Come, tell me what your trouble is about/ 
 said Gwendolen presently. Then she added in a 
 tone of apology for her words, "You see, I 
 cannot help you until I know." 
 
 " What is it about ? " echoed Sally— Ah I I forgot 
 — you know nothing. " Then with a tragic gesture 
 towards the photograph, "It's about him!'' 
 
 Gwendolen looked in the direction indicated 
 in silent astonishment. Had this young person 
 taken leave of her senses ? Perhaps she referred 
 to some unknown 'him.' But no, one of Sally's 
 hands covered her eyes, the other pointed an 
 accusing forefinger straight at Wilfrid's photograph. 
 
 " My husband, " said Gwendolen vaguely. " Surely 
 there must be some mistake." Then a sudden 
 fear rushed over her, her heart leapt to her 
 
THE SEEPENT IN THE EDEN. 65 
 
 mouth. "Tell me," she cried, ''is it bad news? 
 Has anything happened to him? — Oh! tell me 
 quickly — quickly. I can bear anything but the 
 suspense. " 
 
 " Him," said Sally scornfully. " Oh I nothing has 
 happened to him that IJ^now of — he's right enough, 
 you may be sure. It is what has happened to 
 me. Oh dear I — Oh dear!" she went on. rocking 
 herself to and fro. " To think I should live to see 
 this day. You. his wife, and L— nothing — nothing." 
 
 Her .simulated sobs broke forth afresh. 
 
 Gwendolen drew herself proudly up and moved a 
 little distance off. 
 
 * What do you mean?" she said coldly, with a 
 gesture that a Roman matron might have envied. 
 
 * There I" said Sally brokenly. "I might have 
 known it I — I might have known how you would 
 have taken it. You are like all the rest. It is 
 always the poor girl who suffers. She is always 
 blamed, trampled on, despised, while the man goes 
 
 \oL. HI. 5 
 
66 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 scot-free." "I do not understand you," said Gwen- 
 dolen, growing pale to the lips. " My ideas of 
 right and wrong are the same in the case of both 
 men and women. But I do not know what you 
 mean — to what you refer. My husband is nothing — 
 can be nothing — to you, nor you to him — nothing," 
 she added with strained insistence. 
 
 "Nothing — nothing now," repeated Sally sadly, 
 the corners of her baby-mouth drooping again. 
 " Ah I that is the pity of it. And yet once he 
 vowed by all the vows. Ah I me — I had better die." 
 
 So might Marguerite have spoken of her betrayal. 
 
 Gwendolen looked at her with astonishment and 
 indignation. A passionate denial rose to her lips. 
 She moved towards the bell. But as she did so, 
 some faint chord in her memory vibrated again. 
 Where had she seen that face before?— Ah! she 
 remembered. 
 
 " Tell me, " she said quickly, " were you not at 
 Henley?" 
 
THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 67 
 
 " Yes," replied Sally in the same mournful cadence, 
 noting the change of purpose nevertheless. (" Meant 
 to turn me out, did she?" she thought to herself.) 
 "Yes — I am not likely to forget it. I passed 
 you on the river. He looked at me as if I was 
 dirt. You and he were sitting together in a boat 
 beneath the alder-trees." 
 
 Gwendolen bowed her head to hide the vague 
 dread in her eyes. Little links pieced themselves 
 together in her chain of memory. The look she 
 had noticed on the girl's face that day, Wilfrid's 
 confusion, his evasive answer to her query — all 
 rushed before her again. She put her hand to 
 her throat, something hurt her there .... What 
 mystery was this? What did it mean? Into the 
 sunshine of her young love there stole the shadow 
 of distrust. 
 
 From behind her pocket-handkerchief Sally noted 
 everything. She was quick to follow up the advan- 
 tage she had gained. 
 
68 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " I was only a poor ignorant girl," she continued 
 in the same melancholy monotone, " and he a gen- 
 tleman born. I did wrong of course, but then I 
 was so young — and I loved him — not wisely, but 
 too well." (She remembered this phrase in some 
 play she had acted in.) "I gave up everything 
 for him — then I was cast off, ruined, thrown aside 
 like an old shoe — and in those days at Cambridge 
 I thought — fool that I was — that he loved me." 
 
 Gwendolen staggered back and put her hand 
 on the table for support. As she did so, the photo- 
 graph fell with a crash to the floor. It lay there 
 unheeded. Her breath was coming in short quick 
 beats, her eyes were wide with horror. 
 
 " At Cambridge ! " she gasped. 
 
 " Yes, " said Sally, warming to her part, " Oh ! 
 how I wish I had never heard of the place, I was 
 innocent till I went there. I went at first with 
 TJie FrlvoUtij Company. I was earning c£10 a week, " 
 (As a matter of fact she had never earned more 
 
THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 69 
 
 than ^4 even in the ante-Pimlico days,) " and I 
 should be now, if only I hadn't been led astray. I 
 was at Cambridge off and on, after that^after I 
 met him — whenever he wanted me to go. Last 
 time I was there was February year. 'Twas 
 about me he got sent down." And then, noticing 
 the flash of indignation, w^hich spread itself over 
 her listener's face, she changed her tack. " Oh 
 dear, — Oh dear," she wailed, "if my poor mother 
 could but see me now I " 
 
 She burst into tears once more. 
 
 Gwendolen tried to speak, but could not — tried 
 to think, but could not. The thought that her 
 husband — the man she loved, should have been linked 
 with this low^ intrigue stunned her. She felt degraded, 
 ashamed. Her purity, her outraged love were both 
 in arms. She recoiled in disgust — the thing was 
 monstrous, incredible. She turned on Sally with 
 sudden scorn. 
 
 "How dare you — how dare you!" she cried. 
 
70 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 '^ My liusbcmd! I do not believe you — I tvill 
 not " 
 
 It was then that Sally rose to her greatest 
 height. Had she been a less accomplished actress, 
 a less consummate hypocrite, she would have met 
 Gwendolen's scorn with words as angry as her 
 own. But she saw that her disbelief was only 
 half-hearted, that she was struggling against her 
 growing convictions. She met her angry gaze 
 with sorrowful eyes, with an air of injured inno- 
 cence. 
 
 " In that case there is nothing more to be said, " 
 she answered in a broken despairing kind of way, 
 rising from her chair as she spoke. " I might 
 have known it all along: it is the poor girl who 
 always suffers. That is what he said — 'Who 
 will believe you?' He was right. I had better 
 
 go " 
 
 She made as though to go to the door, moving 
 with feeble uncertain steps. All the same she 
 
THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 71 
 
 fully meant to turn back if Gwendolen didn't 
 stop her. 
 
 But Gwendolen did. Her anger died away as 
 she looked at the bowed figure and listened to 
 those unresentful hopeless words. After all, the 
 poor girl was probably more sinned against than 
 sinning. In her divine charity, she was willing 
 to make every allowance for this penitent Mag- 
 dalene — this weak erring sister, the victim of 
 man's selfish passion. The very way in which 
 she had met her anger brought conviction with 
 it. The cold, sick fear tightened itself around her 
 heart. She laid an arresting hand on the other's arm. 
 
 "Forgive me," she said mastering herself with 
 an effort. " I was too hasty — perhaps. I will 
 hear all you have to say — do you hear me ? All. 
 Let me know the worst." 
 
 Then Sally told, falsifying facts, putting her 
 own gloss upon everything, representing herself 
 as the tempted, Tyrconnel as the tempter; she the 
 
72 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 betrayed, he the betrayer ; he had ruined her, 
 abandoned her, wrecked her life. Yet she was 
 careful always to speak of him more in sorrow 
 than in anger. Of course she magnified the Cam- 
 bridge incident out of all its true proportions, and 
 upon this slender foundation of fact she reared a 
 whole edifice of falsehood. It was just this 
 substratum of truth which made the lie so difficult 
 to detect. 
 
 Gwendolen listened in silence, keeping mastery 
 over herself by a tremendous effort. All the warm 
 sweetness of her young love turned to gall as 
 she listened. Her innocence made her a dupe to 
 this plausible tale; her purity made her hard and 
 cold towards her husband. She had high ideals, this 
 young bride. She did not see things as the 
 world sees them. What to some might have 
 appeared an indiscretion of hot-headed youth, was 
 to her a deadly sin, the very thought of which 
 filled her with loathing, not only towards the sin 
 
THE SERPENT IX THE EDEN. 73 
 
 but towards the sinner. And then the treachery 
 of it all. He had pretended to tell her everything, — 
 all the weaknesses, all the follies of his life and 
 she had forgiven everything as freely as she hoped 
 to be forgiven. This, then, was the true reason 
 of his having been sent down from Cambridge ; 
 until now, the punishment had always seemed to 
 her disproportionate to the offence. What I — he 
 must have left her that very night, when she 
 promised to become his wife, and have gone a 
 few days after, perhaps the very same night to this 
 woman, gone with her love-words still ringing in 
 his ears and with her kisses still warm upon his 
 lips. The thought was torture — she bowed her 
 head in shame — shame for herself, shame for him. 
 Sally finished her narrative at last and sat 
 silent, watching furtively her victim's face to see 
 how the poison worked. She could glean little 
 from that down-turned face ; it was cold as marble, 
 impassive as the Sphinx. Xo one would have 
 
74 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 known the tumult which was going on within. 
 Yet even as she looked, a faint change broke over 
 it. It might not be true. Gwendolen caught at 
 the hope, as a drowning man catches at a straw. 
 
 " What proof have you of all this?" she asked, 
 lifting her head suddenly. 
 
 "Proof!" echoed Sally with quivering lips, 
 " proof enough. You can easily find out. Everyone 
 knows — ask Pim — ahem I I mean ask Lord Pimlico 
 — ask Mr. Coryton — though they would not like 
 to tell tales against their friend^'' she added with 
 emphasis. " Find out why he was sent down from 
 Cambridge. But here," producing the letter which 
 Tyrconnel had weakly written • to her in answer 
 to her urgent appeal — "this, I had from him only 
 the other day — would he be likely to write to me, 
 think you — unless there was a reason for it? 
 Here, read it," — handing her the letter. 
 
 This was another stroke of Sally's genius. She 
 knew the chances were ten to one against Gwen- 
 
THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 75 
 
 dolen's reading the letter. She had gauged her 
 character to a certain extent. 
 
 Gwendolen took the letter with a hand which 
 trembled in spite of herself. Yes — the writing on 
 the envelope was in Wilfrid's big sprawling hand. 
 She had seen enough. She gave it back with a 
 proud gesture. 
 
 "It is not meant for me to read," she said. " I 
 — I will ask him myself — and now leave me, pray 
 leave me. I wish to be alone." 
 
 Yes, she wished to be alone, to think, poor 
 soul, to try and grasp the full horror of this 
 revelation. She did not speak unkindly— there 
 was pity in her face as she turned it towards 
 her companion. Yet she could not help an involuntary 
 recoil. Moments of intense joy or sorrow illumine 
 the character as nothing else can. This moment 
 of anguish revealed Gwendolen, just — but cold and 
 hard. 
 
 Sally looked somewhat blank at this uncere- 
 
76 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 monious congL It hardly suited her purpose that 
 the interview should terminate like this. Instead 
 of moving, she began to weep again. 
 
 "Go!" — she echoed despairingly. "Where am 
 I to go to without money, without friends? The 
 bottom of the sea is the only place for me. He 
 won't help me — he who brought all this trouble 
 upon me, and I — I — am penniless, " she whimpered 
 through her tears. 
 
 " Penniless ! " echoed Gwendolen with astonish- 
 ment. There was a lower depth still. The man 
 she called husband was not only profligate but 
 mean. But that struck her as so utterly foreign 
 to his character that a faint suspicion stole over 
 her again. 
 
 " How did you manage to come out to the 
 Riviera then?" she asked. 
 
 Sally hung her head. 
 
 "Don't ask me?" she said in a low voice. 
 " Such things are not for your ears — I have sunk 
 
THE SERPENT IN THE EDEN. 77 
 
 lower and lower since I left Cambridge — since I 
 lost my innocence. There are plenty of temp- 
 tations for a poor girl like me. But I am tired 
 of it all — I want to lead a good life — that is all 
 I want, a little money to start me. Without it I 
 cannot — I must live." 
 
 Gwendolen shuddered. A great rush of pity 
 swept over her, as she looked at the little figure 
 in the shabby black dress. Who was she that 
 she should judge her — her husband's victim, ignor- 
 ant, illiterate, her very beauty a snare? She 
 had never had a fair chance. How selfish men 
 were, how gross, how brutal ! This poor creature 
 had not only been betrayed but abandoned, thrown 
 aside like a broken toy — and her betrayer — God 
 help her! was her husband. 
 
 " Penniless ! " said Gwendolen again. Then she 
 arose and went over to her desk. There was a 
 roll of bank-notes in it, which Wilfrid had given 
 her only the other day for sundry bills and ex- 
 
78 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 penses ; there was money also which her father had 
 pressed upon her. She took it all, — all save two 
 bank-notes which she kept back in an after- 
 thought. She thrust the notes and gold in Sally's 
 hands. 
 
 "Here," she said hurriedly. "Take this — take 
 this — and may God in His mercy guard you and 
 help you to lead a better life. And now— do not 
 think me unkind— go, I implore you — go— I must 
 be alone." 
 
 She almost pushed the astonished Sally out of 
 the room and closed the door upon her. 
 
 "Well, I never! " said Sally to herself as she 
 tripped down the stairs, " if ever I see such a 
 woman in all my life. That's a good job over 
 and done with any way. Why, there must be 
 nigh upon <£200 here if there's a penny! He'll 
 get a bad quarter of an hour when he comes 
 home .... How well she took it too, — so quiet- 
 like. I hope I didn't hurt her feelings more than 
 
THE SERPENT IX THE EDEN. 79 
 
 I was obliged to. But there, I don't suppose she 
 cares much about him." 
 
 From which it may be gathered that women of 
 Gwendolen's type did not altogether come within 
 the range of Sally's mental vision. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 FLIGHT. 
 
 The prejudices of men emanate from the 
 mind, and may be overcome ; the pre- - 
 
 judices of women emanate from the 
 heart, and are impregnable. 
 
 — D'Argens. 
 
 Gwendolen was alone at last ! She looked around 
 her in a bewildered way. She could hardly rea- 
 lize it yet. The flowers and the light seemed to 
 mock her. She passed into the inner room and, 
 throwing herself face downward on the bed, lay 
 there, trying to think, trying to nerve herself for 
 the task which lay before her. 
 
 80 
 
FLIGHT. 81 
 
 Xow and again a faint flicker of hope awoke 
 within her; it might not be true— and yet — and 
 yet — the different parts of the stor}', dovetailed in 
 with one another so well. Surely no woman would 
 thus lie away her honour ? Ah no I It must be 
 true. Wounded love and wounded pride strove 
 together in Gwendolen's heart. And to these was 
 added the horror of the sin. Her standard of 
 morality was a high one. She knew no distinction 
 in the moral code between the man and the woman. 
 In her eyes the fall from purity in the one was 
 as great as the fall in the other. Her feelings 
 were in fact just what her husband's would have 
 been, had a similar tale been told to him of his 
 wife— only he would have disbelieved: she believed. 
 
 She lay there battling with the anguish in her 
 soul. Only an hour ago, and her life was full 
 of light and love and happiness. Xow it was 
 stripped and bare ! She was alone. The brief day 
 faded and died, the gloaming came; but still she 
 
 VOL. III. 6 
 
82 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 lay there, praying for guidance, thinking — think- 
 ing — thinking. Her thoughts all brought her round 
 to the same point. If the story were true — then 
 she and her husband must part. 
 
 At last there smote on her ears the sound of an 
 opening door. 
 
 "Gwendolen," came her husband's eager voice 
 through the shadows, " Gwendolen ! " 
 
 But a few hours ago, how she would have wel- 
 comed him, how she would have thrown her arms 
 around his neck in eager rapture, scolding him 
 playfully for having tarried so long away from 
 her! Now she confronted him in the waning light, 
 stern and cold as an accusing angel. The struggle 
 she had been through had left its mark upon her. 
 Her face was white and drawn, deep lines had cut 
 themselves across her brow, and around the cor- 
 ners of her mouth. In her eyes there was a look 
 Tyrconnel had^never seen before. 
 
 " Gwendolen, dear one," he cried in alarm, coming 
 
FLIGHT. 83 
 
 towards her. " What is the matter ? Are you ill ? " 
 
 He would have taken her in his arms, but she 
 waved him off. 
 
 "Tell me," she said in a low intense voice, ignor- 
 ing his question, " Tell me, is this vile thing 
 true? " 
 
 " What thing? " he asked in astonishment. " What 
 on earth do you mean ? Why do you look at me 
 like this? " 
 
 "This will explain," she answered briefly and 
 she held out to him Sally's card, which until now 
 had been clutched in her hand. " Does this con- 
 vey any meaning to you ? " 
 
 Tyrconnel took it wonderingly. As he read the 
 name a great revulsion of feeling swept over him. 
 He drew back involuntarily ; his breathing became 
 more laboured, the hectic spot burned on his cheek 
 again. His hands grew moist. The serpent had 
 penetrated his Eden. This then was the meaning 
 of Sally's scarce-veiled threat in the begging-letter 
 
84 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 she had written to him. She had been here with 
 some false lying tale, poisoning his wife's mind 
 against him. Curse her! Curse her! 
 
 He trembled with impotent rage. The hacking 
 cough came on again. In his agitation he could 
 not stop it. 
 
 Gwendolen noticed his hesitation, his flushed 
 face, his trembling hands. Her heart sank within 
 her. To her mind these were so many signs of 
 guilt. 
 
 " Does this woman's name convey any meaning 
 to you? " she asked again. Her voice was cold 
 and stern. Then suddenly a little break came in 
 it. "Oh! Wilfrid, why do you not speak? Say 
 it does not — say it does not " 
 
 " It conveys to me, " he said in a voice thick 
 with anger, " the name of a bad designing woman, 
 who has dared — dared to force herself into your pre- 
 sence — How dare she do this thing?" 
 
 Gwendolen recoiled a step. He knew her. Until 
 
FLIGHT. 85 
 
 now she had hoped faintly — ever so faintly — that 
 he would deny all knowledge of her and her 
 works. 
 
 " Need makes one greatly daring, " she said bit- 
 terly. '^ You know this woman then. She has 
 told me all — all — do you understand? Answer 
 me, is it true or false ? " 
 
 "' I have told you I know the woman, " he said 
 a little impatiently, " and that she is a bad woman — 
 not fit for you to speak to — even to talk about. 
 What has she told you ? If you will explain more 
 fully, perhaps I may understand you. At present 
 I confess your meaning is beyond me. What is 
 it you wish to know?" 
 
 " Is it true? " she asked again, "that you sinned 
 against her — Is it true or false ? " 
 
 A red flush burned itself on Tyrconnel's face. 
 The memory of that one false step, of that past 
 slip — in which he was more sinned against than 
 sinning, rose up before him. 
 
86 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " Gwendolen, " he faltered, " you do not under- 
 stand. I " 
 
 She interrupted him with a passionate gesture. 
 In his hesitation she read the confirmation of her 
 worst fears. 
 
 "I understand," she said, "but too well. I ask 
 you a plain question, I want a plain answer — Yes 
 or no?" 
 
 He looked at her hopelessly. He knew what 
 she was like in these moods — to reason with 
 her was impossible. How could he make her under- 
 stand? Her very purity, her innocence, fought 
 against him. The repented sin rose up and 
 confronted him in all its hideousness. Surely he 
 had suffered enough for it already. 
 
 "Answer me yes or no," she pleaded. "Oh! 
 Wilfrid, if you love me — if you have ever loved 
 me, deny this thing. I cannot bear it." 
 
 She covered her face with her hands. 
 
 Her grief touched him far more than her anger 
 
FLIGHT. 87 
 
 had done. His heart ached to wound her so. 
 
 "Gwendolen," he said despairingly — "How can 
 I explain to you — innocent as you are about 
 such things. I was guilty of folly — of weakness, 
 I was tempted and I fell — I was not myself — I " 
 
 She staggered back against a chair, her hands 
 fell from her face, she looked at him. with eyes 
 wide with repulsion. This was his excuse then; 
 
 like Adam in the garden ' Tlie woman 
 
 tempted m<?.' Faugh ! 
 
 "Then it is true," she whispered. "You have 
 betrayed her and deceived me?" 
 
 This assumption of his guilt, this sweeping 
 condemnation of his error, was a little too much 
 for Tyrconnel. He was quite prepared to admit 
 that he had done wrong, but not that it was so 
 bad as this. They were to a certain extent at 
 cross purposes. She was thinking of the tissue 
 of falsehood told her by Sally, he of that slip 
 at Cambridge. But the element of fact common 
 
88 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 to both, made it the more difficult to distinguish 
 between the true and the false. 
 
 " You are hard, " he said, " hard and unjust. 
 I do not wish to defend myself. There were 
 extenuating circumstances — but I did wrong, I 
 admit that. I ought to have told you perhaps 
 — but how could I? It was to spare you that 
 I did not. The thing is bad, but why magnify it 
 out of all its true proportions? Surely you will 
 not allow a little thing like this to " 
 
 A wave of disgust swept over Gwendolen's 
 face. 
 
 ''A little thing," she echoed, "to you perhaps, 
 but not to me — not to her. A wife deceived, a girl 
 betrayed — a little thing! Is it a little thing 
 to her — your victim? Nay, hear me out" — he 
 was about to speak. " Are we women slaves, 
 think you? to be used as you will, and then cast 
 aside like broken toys? Why were you not frank 
 with me ? Had I known this, I would rather have 
 
FLIGHT. 89 
 
 died than have become your wife. You have 
 deceived me and ruined her. You have wrecked 
 both our lives." 
 
 Tyrconnel stood aghast at this torrent of reproach. 
 He could not understand it. Allowing for the gloss 
 Sally was sure to have put upon the story, 
 allowing for the way in which purity, such as 
 Gwendolen's, might have been expected to recoil 
 from evil — surely there was nothing in it, even 
 then, to merit this sweeping condemnation. 
 
 "You do not understand," he said again, — 
 ''there must be some mistake." 
 
 " There is no mistake, " she said sadly. A stubborn 
 line cut itself around her mouth. 
 
 " But let me explain how it was that " 
 
 She raised her head. 
 
 " God forbid ! Do not pollute your lips nor my 
 ears. I want neither explanation nor palliation. 
 Besides, what difference would it make? You 
 have admitted your guilt — Xo? . . . . Xo?.... 
 
90 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Then I will frame my question another way — Was 
 it on account of this woman that you were sent 
 down from Cambridge?" 
 
 He hesitated for a moment, he resented the 
 tone in which the question was put, more than the 
 question itself. Argument and explanation seemed 
 alike impossible to combat Gwendolen's prejudices. 
 He was truthful. She had better know the truth, 
 and then be left to make the best of it. 
 
 "I cannot deny it — Yes," he said coldly. 
 
 She bowed her head with a low moan— her last 
 atom of hope was gone; it was true then, this 
 horrid thing which was poisoning her life. 
 
 He looked at her dumbly and cursed Sally 
 again in his heart. He felt very miserable and 
 a little angry too. It was natural perhaps that 
 Gwendolen should feel it — but not that she should 
 be so unreasonable as this. As the archdeaconess 
 used to say, ' Young men will be young men, and 
 boys will be boys.' 
 
FLIGHT. 91 
 
 " You take things too seriously, " he said, uttering 
 his thoughts aloud. 
 
 She looked at him with a world of reproach 
 in her great eyes. 
 
 "Too seriously I What would you think if I 
 — I, your wife, had sinned so — and concealed from 
 you my sin." 
 
 " Hush — hush ! " he said more gently. The mere 
 thought of such a thing in connection with Gwen- 
 dolen seemed a profanation. " You do not under- 
 stand, you are a woman, I am a man — that makes 
 the difference." 
 
 "Are there then two codes of morality?"' she 
 asked with fine scorn, " one for woman, and one 
 for man ? Were two sets of commandments given 
 on Sinai? Did Christ preach two Gospels? Not 
 so. In the sight of God the sin is the same, be 
 it man or woman." 
 
 "You are young and inexperienced," he said, 
 "or you would not look at things in this light. 
 
92 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 In the eyes of the world — and you and I have to 
 live in the world — the two cases are widely 
 different." 
 
 " The world ! " she replied, " What is the world 
 to me? Did I not always tell you that the world 
 was nothing to me —nothing. " 
 
 " In the eyes of common-sense then, " he said 
 impatiently, a little wearied of the lengthened 
 dialogue and with an uneasy consciousness that 
 he was getting the worst of it. " I do not wish 
 to argue with you, it is useless to argue with an 
 angry woman. As to my 'sin,' as you phrase it, 
 I have told you that I am sorry — more sorry than 
 I can say. Let that be the end of the matter. 
 Whatever happened, it was before I was your 
 husband. I have not failed in my duty since. Do 
 not you fail in your duty to me now." 
 
 " My duty — Ah ! what is my duty ? " she queried 
 more to herself than to him. 
 
 " Obedience, " he returned almost roughly. " Are 
 
FLIGHT. 93 
 
 we not told somewhere that 'Obedience is Heaven's 
 first law' — you know more about Heaven than I 
 do," — this was unkind — "I only know that it 
 is certainly a wife's first duty to her husband. I 
 have told you to let this subject drop, pray do 
 so. In your calmer moments I am willing to 
 explain to you fully, in your present mood it is 
 useless to attempt to do so." 
 
 Gwendolen resented the tone ; it seemed to add 
 insult to injury. To dictate, to counsel, to argue, 
 these had been her prerogatives. Now it seemed 
 they were to be his. Their previous tiffs had 
 been bad enough, but this was a more serious 
 matter. She maintained a stubborn silence. 
 
 Her husband turned on his heel. 
 
 " This interview had better end, " he said again. 
 
 * Yes, " she said sadly, " I agree with you. And 
 from to-night there must be an end of everything 
 between you and me. In my own heart I know 
 that I am nothing — can be nothing to you any more. ' 
 
94 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he exclaimed incredu- 
 lously, arresting his steps. 
 
 She lifted her eyes to his. There was a distant 
 look in them. Her words came like one who is 
 repeating a lesson learned by rote. 
 
 " I mean that from to-night we are husband 
 and wife in name only. You and I must part. 
 To live with you would be to condone your sin. 
 I see it all now. I doubt if we could have ever 
 been really happy together; this has made it 
 impossible. We must part." 
 
 "Part!" he cried, " yoa and I? Really, Gwen- 
 dolen — this is carrying it too far — you forget 
 your duty to me — your husband." 
 
 "I have a higher duty still," she said solemnly — 
 " my duty towards my God. " 
 
 " This is too much," he cried angrily, goaded 
 out of all patience by her reproaches. " You are 
 as free with the name of the Deity as the 
 German Emperor. I will waste words with you 
 
FLIGHT. 95 
 
 no longer. You are unforgiving, ungenerous, 
 unjust. I will leave you to come to your senses. 
 It is I who have been in error. I admit it. I 
 thought you loved me and you do not, you have 
 never really loved me, that is it. Had you done 
 so, you would never have spoken to me as you 
 have done to-night." 
 
 So saying, he turned and left her .... 
 
 Not love him ! What then meant those streaming 
 eyes — for tears had come to her relief at last — 
 that gesture of abandonment, with which she threw 
 herself on her knees before the bed — that exceedingly 
 bitter cry which rose to her lips — " Oh God, help 
 me to do right — help me to do right I " 
 
 But w^hen she arose from her knees at last, a 
 light shone in her eyes, clear and strong. It was 
 the light, which shines on the face of one who has 
 been through a fierce conflict and has come out the 
 victor; of one who has resolved on a definite purpose, 
 who knows no change, neither shadow of turning. 
 
96 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Meanwhile Tyrconnel had gone off in high dudgeon. 
 He felt hurt, wounded, angry, all the more so 
 because in his heart there was a lurking conscious- 
 ness that he was in the wrong. He was prepared 
 to admit it ; he had admitted it — but that was no 
 reason why his wife should exaggerate the offence 
 in this way, refuse to hear his explanation, spurn 
 his excuses, speak to him as though he were a 
 criminal of the deepest dye. 
 
 Once more the sense of their inherent incompa- 
 tibility of temperament was borne in upon him. 
 How could he agree with a woman who looked 
 at everything in such an uncompromising light, 
 who seemed incapable of understanding the weak- 
 nesses and errors of human nature, who was always 
 in the right, never in the wrong, who was as 
 pure and flawless as snow, and as cold. Such a 
 one might be perfect to worship from a distance, 
 but to live with — that was another thing. To-day 
 she had shown herself hard, unforgiving — nay, 
 
FLIGHT. 97 
 
 more, unjust. He would leave her to herself for 
 a time, and meet her averted looks and cold words 
 with words and looks as distant as her own. He 
 had been too yielding to her — not firm enough, 
 that was it. She must learn who was master. 
 
 Not for a moment did he think she would put 
 her threat of leaving him into execution. He 
 deemed it mere idle words uttered by an unreasonable 
 woman, in a moment of anger. He had not for- 
 gotten their dispute about Monte Carlo. To-morrow, 
 when a night had brought reflection and she realized 
 that he meant to be firm, she would probably 
 yield him that obedience which she had hitherto 
 refused ; if not, he must make the lesson harder. 
 He had quite argued himself into believing that 
 lie was the aggrieved one by this time. 
 
 Full of doughty resolve, he dined alone — or 
 rather he made a feint of eating his dinner. 
 Hitherto he and Gwendolen had dined together in 
 tlieir private rooms —to-night he went down to the 
 
 VOL. III. 7 
 
98 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 public dining-room and sat down at one of the little 
 round tables. But it was dull work ; he could 
 not eat, he felt sick at heart. He passed most of 
 the dishes untasted and, though he drank a good 
 deal of wine, it did not seem to have much effect 
 in rousing his drooping spirits. So after coffee and 
 a cigarette, he lighted a cigar and went out for 
 a stroll. 
 
 He walked some little distance, and then sat 
 down on a bench. He felt strangely fatigued and 
 overwrought, it was astonishing how little tired 
 him now. He sat there a long time. It was an 
 unwise thing to do, for the night was chilly and 
 he had no overcoat — his cough was very trouble- 
 some. But no one cared, he thought to himself 
 bitterly. 
 
 Was this the perfect happiness he had dreamed 
 of — hungered after — thirsted for ? Gwendolen was 
 his wife ; he had attained his soul's desire only to 
 find, as so many have found before, that, like 
 
FLIGHT. 99 
 
 Dead-Sea apples, the fruit of his longing had turned 
 to ashes on his lips. This was — marriage. 
 
 The wind was cold, he shivered and buttoned 
 his coat around him. Yet the wind bore on its 
 breath the scent of orange-flowers and violets from 
 the villa gardens hard by, and somehow or other 
 the fragrance reminded him of Gwendolen — of 
 Gwendolen as he had known her in the first hours 
 of their married life — as he had known her again 
 yesterday — known her but that morning — soft, 
 gentle, yielding, basking in the sunshine of his 
 smiles, full of love and caressing words. A sud- 
 den revulsion swept over him. the love within him 
 stirred again. Poor Gwendolen I He had been 
 too hard on her perhaps, he had not made suffi- 
 cient allowance for her in the first shock of this 
 revelation. He could not realize how a pure and 
 innocent nature such as hers would recoil from 
 the contact with evil. Poor Gwendolen I What 
 was she doing now, he wondered? Was she as 
 
100 THE GKEEN BAY TREE. 
 
 miserable and as lonely as he? He took out his 
 watch and looked at it by the light of a match. 
 Nearly ten o'clock ! This was about the time she 
 was wont to sing to him .... When the singing 
 was over, she would come and sit on a low stool 
 at his feet, and lean her head against his knees — 
 and they would talk together in the dim light, of 
 all their hopes and plans in the new life which 
 lay before them .... A great rush of shame 
 and compunction swept over him, as his thoughts 
 dwelt thus. His was all the blame, all the wrong. 
 All thought of resentment and of domination passed 
 away. He would go to her — go as a suppliant 
 and tell her he was sorry for what had passed, 
 and she — she would forgive him, and they would 
 be happy once more. 
 
 Full of this new-born desire, he arose and 
 walked quickly back to the hotel. He sprang up 
 the stairs, three at a time. There was no one in 
 the sitting-room. But the lamps were lighted, the 
 
FLIGHT. 101 
 
 coffee-tray was arranged on a little table by Gwen- 
 dolen's chair, and by its side was a folded Galigymni. 
 On a chair were two or three unopened parcels, 
 the fruits of their morning's shopping .... There 
 were too many flowers in the room, their odour 
 seemed to stifle him .... He crossed over 
 quickly to the door of Gwendolen's room and 
 knocked. Xo answer came. 
 
 He knocked again. 
 
 "Gwendolen," he said, "Gwendolen I It is I — 
 your husband." 
 
 There was no reply, neither was there any sound 
 nor movement. An indefinable dread stole over 
 Tyrconnel. What was the matter? Was she still 
 angry with him? — Was she ill? — Was — ah God I 
 not that I 
 
 He burst open the door and entered. His sus- 
 picion deepened to a certainty. Xo one was 
 there. The room was in a state of confusion, 
 drawers were pulled open, clothes scattered here 
 
102 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 and there — on the dressing-table lay, in a heap, 
 the rings and jewels and trinkets he had given her. 
 
 As his eyes fell upon tliem, the truth flashed 
 over him: he staggered backward with a groan. 
 
 Gwendolen had gone. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 
 Be not righteous overmuch. 
 
 — E CCLESIASTES. 
 
 The 8.30 p.m. train from Liverpool Street steamed 
 into the Cambridge station one wet gusty night. 
 Among the passengers which it deposited was a 
 sad, weary-looking woman. 
 
 It was Gwendolen. One would hardly have 
 known her, as she stood on the cheerless platform 
 looking after the red lights of the departing train, 
 so changed was she. How altered that once 
 happy face with its wild-rose bloom I How different 
 
 103 
 
104 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 that bowed, saddened woman from the smiling, 
 blushing bride who had left this spot only a month 
 or so ago! 
 
 Now her eyelids were swollen with weeping, 
 her cheeks were colourless, her eyes lacked lustre. 
 She was faint from lack of food, her limbs ached 
 Avith fatigue, her head was dizzy from the rush 
 and rattle of her ceaseless journey. As she stood 
 there, a great rush of self-pity swept over her. 
 This, then, was the end of her honeymoon, this her 
 return home ! 
 
 " Any luggage, ma'am ? " asked a porter, touching 
 his cap to the solitary figure standing beneath 
 the flickering gas-light. 
 
 Grwendolen started from her reverie and pointed 
 to her one small trunk — all that she had brought 
 with her from the far-off southern land. Alas ! how 
 very far off it seemed to her now. She shivered 
 slightly and gathered her mantle closer around 
 her. Everything looked bare, cheerless, desolate, 
 
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 105 
 
 like her own wrecked life. All the warmth and 
 sunshine she had left behind her in that land of 
 love and flowers. Here there was nothing but 
 mist and driving rain. 
 
 The porter shouldered her box and she followed 
 him to the cab— an old musty four-wheeler, the 
 only one available this rough night. 
 
 Not until the door was shut and she was being 
 rattled along the road towards Xewnham, did she 
 realize what it was that she had done. For the 
 first time in her headlong flight a faint shadow 
 of doubt — not as to the course she had adopted, 
 but as to the reception she would meet with — 
 crossed her mind. Hitherto the bitter sense of 
 injur}^ the need of having her wits about her, 
 the very excitement of the journey had kept her 
 up. It was a new experience to her, that journey 
 across Europe — to her who had never been allowed 
 to travel alone even from Cambridge to London 
 before. How she accomplished the journey she 
 
106 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 hardly knew. Looking back it seemed like some 
 evil dream. 
 
 The moment her husband had left her she had 
 begun to act upon her suddenly-formed resolu- 
 tion. She hastily packed the few things she 
 needed most in one of the smallest of her trunks. 
 Then she rang the bell, ordered a fly and drove 
 to the station. The hotel-keeper was somewhat 
 surprised, but he had lived too long in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Monte Carlo to be very much astonished 
 at the eccentricities of woman-kind. Madame was 
 departing? N'importe, Monsieur remained, and he 
 would pay the bill. So he bowed Gwendolen down 
 the steps with an impassive countenance, and sent 
 the hall-porter with her to the station to take her 
 ticket, explain her route, and see her off. 
 
 Gwendolen travelled night and day. How the 
 time passed she could not tell, she scarcely had 
 any consciousness of her surroundings. 
 
 Now the journey was accomplished. But the 
 
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 1(»7 
 
 worst was to come : the servants' scarce-concealed 
 surprise, her aunt's shrill anger, and later on 
 the world's sneers. All would have to be faced. 
 Gwendolen's heart sank within her. In the first 
 moment of her passionate indignation, when she 
 threw the gauntlet down at her husband's feet, 
 she had told him — and told him truly^that she 
 cared nothing for the world. Brave words indeed ! 
 But it is one thing to despise the conventions, 
 another to set them at defiance. And so Gwen- 
 dolen was to find it. 
 
 But her purpose never swerved, her courage 
 never really faltered. It is impossible for a 
 worldling to understand the light in which this 
 young girl, with her narrow views, her child-like 
 faith, her Christ-like ideas, her passionless purity, 
 viewed her husband's wTong-doing. There was 
 the deceit practised on her, the wrong done — as 
 she believed — to a confiding girl, and most of all 
 there was his fall from purity. In this first horrible 
 
108 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 surprise, this sudden darkening of the dream of 
 her young life, this clouding over of every hope, 
 she felt she could not live with him. And yet 
 she loved him I But she thrust away that love 
 as sin — as an unholy thing. If she were to 
 remain under the same roof with him, see his 
 face, hear his voice, she knew that her weakness 
 would conquer her, that she would condone his 
 fall and in condoning it forget what she believed 
 to be the higher instincts of her nature and become 
 a partaker of his sin. No, her only safety lay in 
 flight, if she remained w^ith him, her good resolutions 
 would falter, her individuality would become merged 
 in his. 
 
 In the wild desire to be away from him — in 
 the shock of her shattered ideal, whither should 
 she flee but to the home which had sheltered her, 
 to the father who loved her? As she thought of 
 him, the fear of her aunt's anger, the dread of 
 the world's scorn faded away. A sense of great 
 
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 109 
 
 comfort stole over her. Her father I Xever until 
 now had the full sense of his protection, his love, 
 his unwearying patience been borne in upon her. 
 He had been ignored and set aside. But now 
 in her anguish she turned naturally to him, the 
 author of her being, the one who most loved her. 
 He would shelter her. and would shield her from 
 the world's cheap sneers, his love would make 
 the stony way less rough, the upward path less 
 thorny to her bleeding feet. Oh I How she 
 longed to weep out her sorrows on his breast. 
 
 Every moment brought her nearer to him. The 
 cab jolted down Mill Lane and over the bridge, 
 the rain beating against the panes. They were 
 under the great elms now, on the Backs. She 
 pressed her face against the glass, but she could 
 see little. Now they had turned in at the gate. 
 She was at home. 
 
 Gwendolen got out and put her hand on the 
 bell. She faltered a moment, uncertain, and looked 
 
110 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 up at the darkened house. How still everything 
 was, how desolate. The house was all in darkness, 
 save where a light burned dimly in an upper 
 
 room .... it was her father's room A 
 
 strange eerie feeling crept over her. She pulled 
 the bell sharply. No one answered. What a long 
 time- they were in coming, to be sure ! She pulled 
 again — Ah! here was someone coming at last 
 
 Why did the man look at her with that scared 
 face? What was the vague, undefinable something 
 which hung over all. A chill struck Gwendolen's 
 heart. 
 
 "What is the matter?" she asked hurriedly. 
 "Where is your master? I wish to see him at 
 once." 
 
 "Oh! Lor', Ma'am," said the servant, scared 
 out of his senses at this unexpected apparition, 
 and blurting out the truth with brutal suddenness. 
 " Don't you know ? Haven't you heard ? Master's 
 dead ! " 
 
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. Ill 
 
 " Dead I " gasped Gwendolen with whitened lips, 
 falling back against the wall. 
 
 "Yes, Ma'am," answered the servant garrulously, 
 with that air of ghoulish relish, with which ser- 
 vants always like to impart bad news — " he died 
 this afternoon, about four o'clock, all of a sudden 
 like. He had a telegram to say as *ow he had 
 lost all his money'' — (The man had taken advan- 
 tage of the general confusion to read it) " and it 
 took his heart, which has been affected a long time, 
 the doctor says. Mrs. Miles " — he forgot the 'de 
 Courcy' in his haste — "is mortal bad too, — high 
 sterics, — something awful. She've bin going from 
 one fit to another, it's as much as me and Jane 
 could do to "old her down. There now, Ma'am, 
 don't take on so," he added soothingly, moved to 
 compassion by the sight of the anguish on that 
 pale drawn face. 
 
 " Where is he ? Take me to him, " gasped Gwen- 
 dolen, rallying herself with an effort. 
 
112 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 The servant led the way silently. There was 
 something in the intensity of her sorrow, which 
 checked even his garrulity. In the chamber Death's 
 grim satellites had done their dread work; all 
 was quiet and peaceful now. 
 
 With one glance at the sheeted outline Gwen- 
 dolen threw herself down upon the bed, with an 
 exceeding bitter cry. 
 
 This was her welcome home. 
 
 "I never heard such nonsense — never!" cried 
 Mrs. de Courcy Miles, regarding her niece with indig- 
 nant eyes. 
 
 They were sitting in the study together about 
 a week after the Professor's death. It was a 
 cheerless February afternoon. Mrs. de Courcy 
 Miles had ensconced herself in the professorial 
 chair — it was the most comfortable one in the 
 room — and had drawn it up close to the blazing 
 
THE REWAED OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 113 
 
 fire. So that in a sense she might be said to 
 speak ex cathedra. 
 
 Gwendolen gave a little weary sigh as her aunt's 
 ejaculation fell upon her ears. She had heard it 
 at least fifty times before in the course of the 
 last few days. (Mrs. Miles was a past-mistress in 
 the art of 'nagging.') Then she went on with her 
 task again. It was a sad task that she was en- 
 gaged upon. She was looking through her dead 
 father's private letters and papers — those sort of 
 things which men are wont to hide away from 
 every human eye, which they hardly ever look at 
 themselves, but still keep by them — stray links in 
 the chain of memory — sacred relics of the past. 
 She came across many things — love-letters of her 
 mother's, the ink dim and faded now, a lock of 
 sunny brown hair, a faded photograph of a child — 
 herself. This last proof of her dead father's love 
 was too much for Gwendolen. She bowed her 
 head, her eyes filled with tears. 
 
 VOL. TII. 8 
 
114 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Mrs. Miles watched her narrowly over the top 
 of her Court Journal^ which did duty as a fire- 
 screen. Taking her niece's emotion to be a sign of 
 weakness she renewed the attack. 
 
 " And people are beginning to talk already, " 
 she continued. " Only yesterday the Master of 
 St. Bridget's asked me where your husband was, 
 and I had to trump up some excuse. I said that 
 his lungs were too delicate for him to leave the 
 Riviera — and Belinda and Araminta both suspect 
 there's something wrong. I am sure they do by 
 the way they asked me about you yesterday, — I 
 know that twinkle in Belinda's eye — and once let 
 them get hold of the story it will be all over the 
 place. A pretty tale indeed for them to gossip 
 about! A wife of a month — and separated fi^om 
 her husband! Not that I care what they say, 
 for I shall soon be away from the whole lot — 
 thank goodness —but you, you ought to have proper 
 respect for yourself, Gwendolen, and for your family. 
 
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 115 
 
 Think how angry Lord Baltinglass must be, and 
 just now too when his help woukl be so valuable 
 to us. Xot one of the Baltinglass family at the 
 funeral. No wonder people smell a rat .... 
 Do you hear what I say, Gwendolen ? " queried 
 Mrs. Miles sharply, with startling suddenness. " Why 
 don't you answer me and not sit there like a wooden 
 image? " 
 
 " I hear,'' replied Gwendolen in a Ioav voice, with- 
 out raising her head. (It would have been strange 
 if she didn't, for Mrs. Miles was apt to become 
 crescendo when excited). " I have nothing to add 
 to what I have told you before. What you say about 
 people talking makes no difference to me, — none." 
 
 "Then it ought to do so," retorted Mrs. Miles, 
 incensed at this new proof of Gwendolen's obstinacy. 
 
 Suddenly she changed her manner; it might not 
 be wise to press her niece too hard. So she adopted 
 a high moral tone which sat upon her oddly, 
 like a youthful make-up on a withered face. 
 
116 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " You are doing a very wrong and wicked thing, 
 Gwendolen/ she said. "A wife's first duty is to 
 her husband. After all my careful training, you 
 ought to remember that, I am sure." 
 
 " And has a husband no duty towards his wife? '' 
 asked Gwendolen with a faint ring of scorn in her 
 voice. 
 
 "Certainly he has," rejoined Mrs. Miles briskly. 
 " He should pay her bills and give her a liberal, 
 allowance and he should — there are many things he 
 should do. And I am sure your husband, if only 
 managed properly, would be the most generous of 
 men. I wish 1 had him for a week,"' said Mrs. 
 Miles sagely. 
 
 " He has wronged an innocent girl and deceived 
 me," said Gwendolen in a dull flat voice, as though 
 repeating a formula learned by rote. She had 
 indeed whispered it to her truant heart many 
 times these last few days. 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense ! " exclaimed Mrs. Miles, 
 
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 117 
 
 " I haven't common patience to listen to you. 
 Innocent girl, forsooth! Some designing cat or 
 other, I have no doubt. I daresay the creature 
 feathered her nest well. I know the bold-faced 
 hussies, I have seen themx skipping about with 
 Paris-made gowns, and diamonds big enough to 
 make an honest woman turn green with envy. 
 Where do the)^ get them from I should like to 
 know, if it isn't from our husbands and our lovers? 
 They never give tid such diamonds .... As to 
 his deceiving you, why, if women were to demand 
 a certificate of strict morality from the men they 
 marry, they would never get husbands at all." 
 
 " Men expect it from their wives, or from the 
 women who are to be their wives," replied Gwen- 
 dolen harping on her old theme. 
 
 " It is not the same thing — quite different. I never 
 heard such sentiments. They are absolutely inde- 
 cent. Wherever you could have picked up such 
 ideas from I don't know, not from nie — that I am 
 
118 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 sure of. I always told poor dear James he ought 
 to have kept a tighter hand over you, — allowing 
 you to read whatever you liked and running to 
 Church all day and every day. This is what it 
 has all come to,'' declared Mrs. Miles, fanning 
 herself vigorously with the Court Journal. 
 
 "I need no Church to tell me what is right," 
 said Gwendolen, looking at her aunt with a steady 
 gaze. She looked very pale in her deep mourning 
 dress. " I have followed the dictates of my own 
 conscience and the sure guide of the Gospel." 
 
 " I do not wish to say anything against religion," 
 Mrs. Miles rambled on, apparently addressing a 
 distant chair. " I am a religious woman myself 
 I hope. — all respectable women are religious— and 
 as for the Gospel, I daresay it was quite suited 
 to Jews and Gentiles and'' — vaguely — "all those 
 semi-barbarous heathen creatures, who lived such 
 a long time ago. But it is hardly suitable for 
 Society in the present day — in a literal sense, I mean. " 
 
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 119 
 
 "Evidently," said Gwendolen with a sigh. 
 
 Then she went on sorting her letters. There 
 was a little pause, but it was only the lull before 
 tie storm. 
 
 " I can't think what your husband is about to 
 lei you go on like this," continued Mrs. Miles 
 presently in an aggrieved tone. " Hasn't he written 
 to you? " 
 
 "No," said Gwendolen, and she set her trem- 
 bling lips. " I have heard nothing from him. I 
 expect to hear nothing from him. Were he to 
 write to me, I should return his letters unopened. 
 I told him when we parted that everything must 
 be over betw^een us and he has taken me at my 
 word. " 
 
 . Brave words these; but no one knew save 
 herself the awful desolation in her heart, the 
 eager longing for news of him, which she strove 
 in vain to quell. 
 
 Mrs. Miles gave a contemptuous sniff. 
 
120 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " What a poor weak-minded creature he must 
 be, " she exclaimed, " to take a woman at her woid. 
 And I thought he was so fond of you ! If I were 
 your husband, I'd make you come back sharp 
 enough, I warrant you." 
 
 " Would you force me to live under the same 
 roof with a man who has led an immoral life.^ " 
 
 ^ Was there ever such an argumentative obstinate 
 creature ! " cried her aunt apostrophizing the ceiling. 
 " I can't think w^iere you get your obstinacy from 
 I am sure. Not from our side of the family. Poor 
 dear James was always amenable enough, I will 
 say that of him. What you expect of a husband 
 I don't know. You ought to go to India for a 
 time, that would enlarge your ideas. Or you can 
 look nearer home. Look at the Duchess of Puffeballe, 
 for instance. How well she bears it, and everyone 
 knows that the Duke has a perfect harem stowed 
 away somewhere. That dear Creeper Crawley told 
 me so. But the Duchess doesn't know, or rather 
 
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 121 
 
 she pretends she doesn't know. And quite right 
 too — a woman ought to stick to her husband, even 
 if he were a regular Henry the Eighth." 
 
 To this diatribe Gwendolen made no reply. 
 She had said too much already. To answer was 
 to add fuel to the flame. 
 
 Mrs. Miles regarded her with compressed lips. 
 The situation was becoming alarming, the girl 
 must be brought to reason somehow. 
 
 " Perhaps you would be good enough to inform 
 me, " she said with crushing civility, " in the 
 event of this separate establishment, what allowance 
 your husband proposes to give you to maintain 
 it with ? As he apparently consents to the ridiculous 
 arrangement, I hope it is a good one. It was 
 a great mistake that there were no settlements. 
 I told poor dear James so at the time, but he 
 was always so unbusiness-like— as events have 
 proved— and Lord Baltinglass seemed disposed to 
 be so generous that I didn't like to press it." 
 
122 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Gwendolen started as if stung, a deep flush 
 overspread her face. 
 
 "He makes me no allowance," she cried. "I 
 would not touch his money — not one penny — it 
 would burn me. I would rather starve." 
 
 "And starve you will, and serve you right 
 too," said Mrs. Miles brutally. Mrs. Wilfrid Tyr- 
 connel p^^is a handsome allowance, even if separ- 
 ated from her husband, might have been worth 
 conciliating; Mrs. Wilfrid Tyrconnel penniless and 
 at hopeless issue with the Baltinglass family certainly 
 was not. "How do you propose to live?" she 
 went on shrilly. " You know your father has died 
 without a sixpence — bankrupt almost — I shall be 
 surprised if there is enough to pay the creditors. 
 We are only in the house on sufferance, I wonder 
 the bailiff's are not in it at the present moment. 
 It was shameful of James, that it was, to go and 
 speculate all his money away like this, and not 
 leave anything for me, not even the plate — I who 
 
THE REWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 123 
 
 have kept his house all these years, and made 
 such sacrifices for him too. And I pleaded with 
 him — I did everything in my power to dissuade 
 him from trusting that Cory ton creature, who is 
 now living on the fat of the land with our 
 money. But he Avould not listen, the obstinate 
 mule! And now I am left like this. Oh! it is 
 shameful, shameful T 
 
 Mrs. de Courcy Miles abandoned the Court 
 Journal for her pocket-handkerchief and sought 
 refuge in tears. 
 
 Gwendolen bent her head still lower. Alas I It 
 was all true. Her poor father! He had been 
 duped, deceived, ruined. She was penniless, and 
 the man who had done all this was her husband's 
 own familiar friend. Then a sense of the injustice 
 done to the dead by her aunt's coarse words 
 struck her. 
 
 "How can you speak so, Aunt?" she said in- 
 dignantly. " You know that it was you who 
 
124 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 advised poor father to entrust his money to Mr. 
 Cory ton. I heard you urge him to do so myself." 
 
 "You heard nothing of the kind," cried Mrs. 
 Miles, now thoroughly roused. " It is a monstrous 
 fabrication. But there, it is only what I might 
 expect. Like father, like daughter — nothing but 
 ingratitude. How do you propose to live, I should 
 like to know ? You are much mistaken if you 
 think you are going to palm yourself off' upon me. 
 I have quite enough to do to keep myself — it's 
 little enough I have, only the pension of a Colonel's 
 widow. What a mercy your father couldn't get 
 hold of that, or he would have squandered my 
 little all too. No — carry out your absurd ideas 
 and I wash my hands of you once and for all. 
 Not one sixpence will you get from me. Again 
 I ask, how do you propose to live?" 
 
 "I shall work," said Gwendolen, apparently 
 unmoved by her aunt's wrath, "as many others 
 have done before me; my wants are few." 
 
THE KEWARD OF THE RIGHTEOUS. 125 
 
 She spoke with the quiet confidence of one who 
 has never known what it is to want — never 
 known what it is to work for a living— to seek 
 work and not to find it. 
 
 "Work!" echoed Mrs. Miles with a scoffing 
 laugh, jumping up suddenly from her chair. " What 
 will you work at, I should like to know? What 
 are you fitted for? An underpaid governess, a 
 lady-help, or perhaps you'll take in plain sewing 
 — like enough you won't even get that. People 
 are not so fond of employing women who are 
 separated from their husbands, I can tell you. It 
 doesn't matter who's in the wrong, it is always 
 the woman who gets blamed, and so you'll soon 
 find out. The future Lady Baltinglass and plain 
 sewing — it is the most ridiculous thing I have 
 ever heard of. If it gets into the Radical papers, 
 it'll be enough to upset the House of Lords, that 
 it will." 
 
 She paused a moment, breathless, glaring at 
 
126 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 her niece. Gwendolen again took refuge in silence. 
 "I wash my hands of you," cried Mrs. Miles, 
 retreating towards the door. I shall denounce you 
 to Lord Baltinglass. I shall leave this horrid 
 Cambridge to-morrow and go back to Kensington 
 — dear Kensington, how I wish I had never left 
 it!" Then, with startling inconsistency and a 
 threatening of hysterics — ^ You ungrateful creature, 
 if it hadn't been for you, instead of being hounded 
 out of the house like this I might be living in 
 luxury at Blarney. Never shall I forgive you, 
 never! I wish, oh! how I wish your husband may 
 
 drag you back to him by the hair of your head ! " 
 And with this Parthian dart Mrs. Miles whisked 
 
 out of the room, and slammed the door after her. 
 A few days later Gwendolen left Cambridge. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE SPROUTING OF THE BAY TREE. 
 
 Ce sont surtout les commencements qui sont charmauts. 
 
 — La. Rochefoucauld. 
 
 ''You see we are so very poor," said Violet. 
 
 "You don't look it," rejoined Theodora bluntly, 
 as she helped herself to another glass of claret. 
 
 They were sitting at lunch together in the well- 
 appointed dining-room of the Corytons' nutshell 
 establishment in Curzon Street. It was a pretty 
 little room, pretty like everything else in this 
 pretty little house. It had a dado of olive green 
 running around the walls, a Smyrna carpet, tapestry 
 
 127 
 
128 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 curtains, handsomely carved furniture of unpolished 
 oak, half a dozen good pictures on the walls, three 
 or four vases of Oriental ware on the mantelshelf, 
 and the table with its white damask, silver, and 
 bright-hued flowers setting off an excellent lunch. 
 Everything betokened comfort, refinement, even 
 luxury. But poverty? — No. Theodora was right. 
 If appearances were to be trusted, Mr. and Mrs. 
 Coryton were flourishing like the Green Bay Tree. 
 
 Violet manufactured a little sigh. It was her 
 policy just now to pose as poor with her rich 
 friends. People expected so much less of one. 
 Besides everyone was 'poor' now\ It was much 
 better form. 
 
 " Poverty is a relative thing, " she answered 
 sweetly. " Of course Poley and I have enough 
 to rub along with in a Darby and Joan sort of 
 manner. But if Lord Southwark were not defray- 
 ing Poley's election expenses, [ really do not know 
 how we should have managed them. Of course 
 
THE SPROUTING OF THE BAY TREE. 129 
 
 we would do anything for the Cause, make any 
 sacrifice, but West Southwark is such an expensive 
 constituency to contest. We are so very grateful 
 to Lord Southwark." 
 
 She said this with honeyed sweetness, hoping 
 it would find its way round to the right quaiter 
 through the medium of Theodora. 
 
 "You needn't be then," said that young lady 
 with characteristic frankness, " Lord Southwark's 
 not the man to do anything without an object. 
 He's only poppin' your husband in to keep the 
 seat warm for Pimlico. He'll have to turn out 
 when Pirn's ready for it,— don't cher know?" 
 
 " Oh ! of cou-rse, " echoed Violet, with an inscru- 
 table little smile. " We quite understand that. 
 Still, I repeat, it is very, very good of Lord South- 
 wark, to have put Foley forward." 
 
 " Well, I s'pose he could have run someone 
 else," said Theodora with engaging candour. 
 " There's Creeper Crawley for instance, he's a 
 
 VOL. III. 9 
 
130 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 useful person, or that man we met at Blarney, 
 you remember? Wrigglesworth, was his name, 
 wasn't it ? the man with a bald head and a moustache 
 like a dilapidated tooth-brush. He's a protege of 
 Sir Alway and Lady Sumtime Typsey, isn't he? 
 You know whom I mean. By the way, talking 
 about Blarney, do you ever hear anything of 
 Wilfrid Tyrconnel or his wife by any chance?" 
 
 "Never," answered Violet with a little pout and 
 a shrug of her shoulders. 
 
 "That's curious," said Theodora reflectively. 
 "You used to be such pals, don't cher know. Poor 
 Wilfrid! I'm sorry for him. Somebody told me, — 
 Lauder Forbes I think, — that he was drivin' a 
 hansom or somethin'. If so, I'm sorry for his fares, 
 for Pigeon was never much of a whip. I wonder 
 what's become of his wife too. She's livin' apart from 
 him, I'm told — governessin' or somethin'. I wonder 
 how long they'll keep it up. It's a great mistake to 
 go on quarrellin' with your bread and butter." 
 
THE SPROUTING OF THE BAY TREE. 131 
 
 So saying, Theodora helped herself to a slice 
 of rein-deer tongue, "just to top up with/ as she 
 phrased it. She had a good healthy appetite and 
 was not ashamed of it: there was nothing of the 
 Lydia Languish about Theodora. 
 
 ■'I wonder what the row was about between 
 them," she went on presently, pushing her plate 
 aside with an air of satisfaction. 
 
 "I really do not know," replied Violet wearily. 
 *" I only know that poor Lord Baltinglass has been 
 very angry about it. He has been abroad ever 
 since March. It was a most unsuitable marriage. 
 Foley did everything he could to prevent it. She 
 was an utterly impracticable person and Wilfrid 
 TjTConnel was always very wild. Now that Foley's 
 restraining influence is gone, I am afraid he has 
 gone from bad to worse. Why, if you believe 
 me, he has even quarrelled with Foley, his best 
 friend, who sacrificed so much for him. I don't 
 wonder at Lord Baltinglass being angry " 
 
132 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " Humph ! " ejaculated Theodora. 
 
 "But do not let us talk about them," continued 
 Violet, not quite understanding this oracular utter- 
 ance, "let us talk of something else." 
 
 "With all my heart,' said Theodora. (One can- 
 not waste too much time over unfortunate friends 
 in Vanity Fair). " You haven't got such a thing 
 about you as a cigarette, have you ? Thanks. Got 
 
 a light? Thanks awfully Well, what shall 
 
 we talk about, the West Southwark Election? I 
 s'pose that's what you wanted me to come to lunch 
 for, wasn't it?" 
 
 "Well, of course I should like to know what 
 you think my husband's chances are," said Violet, 
 a little taken aback at this plainness of speech. 
 " You see, " she went on winningiy, " you know 
 so much about politics." 
 
 " I know a good deal about West Southwark. 
 I should be a fool if I didn't, considering I've been 
 workin' up a Habitation of the Primrose League 
 
THE SPROUTING OF THE BAY TREE. 133 
 
 there, ever since that affair of Loose-Fyshe's first 
 came out. Oh, we shall run our man in, not a 
 doubt of it. Fyshe refuses to retire for any other 
 Liberal Candidate, and the Nonconformist 'con- 
 science,' as they call it, is dead against him. Your 
 political Nonconformist can swallow a good deal, 
 but this cream-tart business is a little too hot." 
 
 "Yes," said Violet drily, "Mr. Fyshe has com- 
 mitted the unpardonable sin, he has been found out. " 
 
 "I don't agree with you at all," answered Theo- 
 dora with uncompromising frankness. " At least, 
 it don't strike me in that way," she went on flick- 
 ing the ash from her cigarette, Tm not over 
 squeamish I hope, and I don't see what a man's 
 private life has to do with his public career, though 
 I wouldn't say so on a platform. Look at Napoleon 
 and Nelson and all the rest of 'em. But there 
 are some things which are not good form, and 
 putting pepper into a cream-tart is one of, 'em to 
 my thinkin'." And she tossed off a glass of Allasch. 
 
134 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Violet wincing. She hated 
 long tirades and Theodora's in particular. " By all 
 means: I quite agree with you. And you really 
 think Foley's chances are good? If only you and 
 your splendid Primrose League will work for him, 
 I am sure he must win." 
 
 " We shall pull him through, " said Theodora, who, 
 like most young women of her kind was not prone 
 to underrate her own importance, " with the Prim- 
 rose League and the Southwark influence, he's 
 bound to head the poll. '^ We've got a meetin' 
 of the Habitation to-morrow and I'm goin' to 
 canvass from house to house every day next 
 week. There's a great art in canvassin'. It's 
 more important than speakin', if people would 
 only realize it. You'd better come round with 
 me. It'll do good if you show yourself and help 
 the Cause, and then I can put you through your 
 paces. " 
 
 "That's awfully good of you," said Violet 
 
THE SPROUTING OF THE BAY TREE. 135 
 
 enthusiastically. "I'll do anything, anijtlunfj of 
 course." 
 
 "Well, I must be off," said Theodora, jumping 
 up in her usual abrupt manner. " Tve promised 
 to meet Pirn at TattersalPs a little after three 
 and have a look at a Park hack he's got his 
 eye on for me. Where's my dawg? Oh, here he 
 is," as a villainous looking bull pup emerged from 
 beneath the table, where he had been sniffing 
 round Violet's ankles much to her discomfort. 
 But she had borne it like a Spartan. " He's a 
 beauty, isn't he ? A nose you could hang a bucket 
 on. Come along. Bill " 
 
 When Theodora had taken her leave, Violet 
 went up to her room, — a cosy nest with white 
 wood furniture and draperies the shade of a 
 blush rose, to put on her things for a drive. She 
 gave a little sigh of satisfaction as she looked 
 around. Certainly the Professor's money had been 
 laid out to a good advantage. Then she drew 
 
136 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 on lior gloves, — Violet's male friends kept her 
 well supplied in gloves, — and tripped downstairs 
 to the neat, well-appointed Victoria, which was 
 waiting for her. 
 
 She had a good many things to do that afternoon, 
 a lot of cards to leave and one or two At-Homes, 
 for the season, precipitated by the coming General 
 Election, was dying with a rush, and people were 
 trying to cram everything into a w^eek or, two, 
 that which should have been spread over a month. 
 It was quite late before she got home, after a 
 turn in the Park just to give her an appetite 
 for dinner. 
 
 She found her husband busily writing upstairs 
 in the little room, which he called his study. 
 
 He threw down his pen as she came in with 
 a sigh of relief. 
 
 "That will do, I think," he said, gathering up 
 the sheets of foolscap on which he had been 
 writing his Election Address. " Read it over, 
 
THE SPROUTING OF THE BAY TREE. 137 
 
 Vixie, and tell me what you think of it. It's 
 not more packed with platitudes than the ordinary 
 run of such documents, I suppose. There is the 
 usual reference to dynamite and American gold 
 and the infamy of smashing our grand old Con- 
 stitution. I think that touch about Free Food 
 will catch the Labour Vote and that phrase 
 about the sanctity of domestic life the Xoncon- 
 formists. What do you think ? ^ 
 
 Violet looked over the sheets with a critical air. 
 
 " You have forgotten the ' Maintenance of true 
 Religion," " she said presently. 
 
 " Dear me, so I have. How stupid of me to 
 forget it. Make a note of it, Vixie. Anything 
 else ? " 
 
 " There is no direct allusion to the Fyshe scandal." 
 she said, tentatively. " Is the sentence about 
 the sanctity of domestic life sufficient?" 
 
 " I think so. We will leave the women to do 
 all the rest . . . Well then, 1*11 stick in that little 
 
138 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 omission about religion and send it off to the 
 printer. Lord Southwark will want to see the 
 proofs, of course. To-morrow the campaign begins 
 in earnest." 
 
 " And in three weeks' time, " she exclaimed, 
 throwing her arms around his neck, "I shall be 
 the wife of a real live M.P. Oh! Foley. When 
 it comes to be a question of reward for ' services 
 to the party,' remember nothing less than a 
 baronetcy will suffice. You must not take a 
 knighthood like that wretched Cincinnatus Spread- 
 eagle." 
 
 He returned her embrace in earnest, a smile lighting 
 up the dark beauty of his face. They were really 
 very fond of one another, these two. 
 
 " His was a prize for silence. I mean to make 
 my voice heard I can tell you. Nothing less 
 than an Under-Secretaryship will content me to 
 begin with — I mean after my first Parliament." 
 
 " "VYhen Lord Southwark means you to make 
 
THE SPROUTING OF THE BAY TREE. 139 
 
 way for Pimlico," reminded Violet with a little 
 pout. 
 
 "Lord Southwark has forgotten that possession 
 is nine points of the law. Once in, I am not going 
 out again unless I am bought out with a safe seat 
 elsewhere and something down on the nail. We 
 know all about that, don't we, little one? But 
 tell me what have you been doing all day? " 
 
 " I had that odious Theodora and her horrid dog 
 to lunch. She and her ridiculous Primrose League 
 will make themselves useful canvassing of course. 
 Then I made some calls, and went on to Lady Lily 
 Splashers. She edits a society paper you know, 
 and is going to put me in next week as one of 
 the 'Beauties of To-day.' It all helps." 
 
 " I thought that was a question of buying five 
 hundred copies at least," said Coryton, looking a 
 little glum. 
 
 " Not to me, dear boy. I tell her all about the 
 smart parties I go to, — from which she is tabooed 
 
140 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 now, poor thing — and this and some puff-paragraphs 
 are the return. 'Cutlet for cutlet', you know." 
 
 " You are a genius, Vixie," said her husband 
 admiringly. " What else ? " 
 
 " I have written your biography for Creeper 
 Crawley's paper. You are to be the next in the 
 series of 'People I have Known.' This is an age 
 of advertisement, you know ; there is nothing like 
 logrolling. Cultivate the press agencies and sub- 
 scribe to Romeike, that's my motto. By the way, 
 he's coming here to dinner to-night — Creeper 
 Crawley, I mean, not Romeike, — and so is Cin- 
 cinnatus Spreadeagle. They are both to help you 
 in the election in different ways. Dear me, it's 
 half-past seven already ! I must be off to dress. " 
 
CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 WEST SOUTHWAEK. 
 
 The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, 
 economists and calculators has succeeded. 
 
 — Burke. 
 
 The fateful day of the West Southwark Election 
 opened bright and encouraging. There is nothing 
 so encouraging as a bright day, most of all in 
 politics, and Coryton, Violet, and their chosen 
 henchmen, as they drove down in two-horse vic- 
 torias at cockcrow, were all in the highest spirits. 
 Partly because they felt they were going to win 
 and partly because it was such a relief to have 
 
 141 
 
142 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 done with this tiresome electioneering at last. 
 
 The campaign had been wound up the night before 
 with a crowded meeting, where Sir Cincinnatus 
 Spreadeagle had discoursed, in his very best Yankee 
 twang, on the irresistible vigour of British patriot- 
 ism, and Mr. Toadey-Snaile M.P., amid the respectful 
 silence due to so solemn a subject, had dealt 
 with the sanctity of the home. 
 
 It had all been unanimous, enthusiastic, righte- 
 ously indignant. And Coryton knew enough of 
 politics to be aware that, though unanimous and even 
 enthusiastic meetings never mean anything, yet 
 when the free and independent turn up the whites 
 of their eyes, they always mean business. More- 
 over, since that meeting Coryton had obtained his 
 tiHimp-card and there seemed no doubt that he 
 had only to play it in order to win the game. 
 
 For the last ten days his agent had been tell- 
 ing him that the issue depended entirely upon the 
 votes of some two hundred members of an Indepen- 
 
WEST SOUTHWARK. 143 
 
 dent Labour Club, who wanted the Government to 
 take dp the question of Free Food in the Board 
 Schools. This grimy little club had become the 
 pivot of the election and had acquired a totally dis- 
 proportionate importance. The caucuses of both 
 parties had tried to bully it, but it had snapped 
 its fingers. The hack wirepullers had been sent 
 down to parley and had received only a snubbing 
 for their pains. Mr. 'Tutu' Falstaff had had the 
 door slammed in his face and the Hon. Fitz- 
 Marmaduke Brabazon had had his hat bashed in. 
 Then Mr. Toadey-Snaile M.P. and Mr. Snorthorse, 
 chief among wirepullers, had said, " Surely they 
 will reverence us;" but even the visits of those 
 magnates to the little club in Petticoat Lane, West 
 Southwark, had been of no avail. 
 
 If the Government would pledge itself to bring 
 in a ' Beer and Buns ' bill, as it was popularly 
 called, that Session, the Wat Tyler Club would 
 vote solid for Mr. Coryton ; if the Government 
 
144 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 refused and the Old Parliamentary Leg would give 
 a pledge, unqualified by His usual sesquipedalian 
 parentheses, the Wat Tyler Club would vote solid 
 for Mr. Loose-Fyshe. A pledge from Snorthorse 
 or Toadey-Snaile would not suffice. No excuses 
 were held to be satisfactory. It was a case of, 
 no bill, no votes. What cared the Wat Tyler 
 Club for the fact that the Conservative party was 
 opposed to the bill on principle ? What cared it 
 for the fact that Mr. Loose-Fyshe was pledged 
 up to the eyes against it? No bill, no votes ! 
 
 Mr. Artful Cadger, President of the Wat Tyler 
 Club, was inexorable. It was in vain that Coryton 
 assured him of sympathy and objected that the 
 Conservatives of West Southwark would not stand 
 a pledge on the subject ; in vain that he promised 
 to support such a bill if someone else would intro- 
 duce it. No bill, no votes! 
 
 So Coryton had an interview with the Prime 
 Minister the day before, and now he had in his 
 
WEST SOUTH W ARK. 145 
 
 breast-pocket a letter in that statesman's precise 
 hand, which could not fail to brush away Mr. 
 Cadger's last remaining scruples. 
 
 "We will bring in a bill," the Prime Minister 
 had said, with an oracular smile, after listening 
 in an amused paternal sort of way to Cor>i;on's 
 pleading, " we will bring in a bill, by all means, 
 if the Wat Tyler Club insists. Just now that 
 body is master of the situation.'' 
 
 "It is the key to the election," said Cory ton, 
 with a passable affectation of earnestness. 
 
 " And the election is the pivot of the empire," 
 returned the Prime Minister sarcastically. "So, 
 of course, we will bring in a bill. But whether 
 we shall pass it, "* and he looked longingly towards 
 his chemical laboratory, impatient to end the inter- 
 view, " God bless my soul, that's quite another 
 thing!" 
 
 Coryton laughed. " They'll expect you to resign 
 if you don't pass it." 
 
 VOL. III. 10 
 
146 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 "They will, will they?" he returned gruffly, as 
 he sat down to write the required letter. 
 
 The agent had wished Cory ton to read the letter 
 at last night's meeting, but Coryton had pru- 
 dently preferred not to risk Conservative absten- 
 tions by such a course and had determined to 
 communicate w^ith the Wat Tyler Club only at 
 the last moment. Every effort would be made 
 to poll his own party early and, when there were 
 as few as possible of them to risk alienating, he 
 would go and make his terms with the mammon 
 of the Wat Tyler Club. 
 
 He knew, since their last deputation to Mr. 
 Fyshe, that they would certainly not vote for that 
 statesman and that it was merely a question of 
 producing the Prime Minister's letter and securing 
 their votes at any time. With their votes the 
 victory was assured and Coryton, as he drove 
 down to Southwark in the early morning, felt that 
 his first great ambition was virtually attained and 
 
WEST SOUTHWARK. 147 
 
 that he was on the threshold of a great career. 
 
 Never had Violet been in such spirits, — cer- 
 tainly never at that time in the morning. 
 
 " Do you know, " she said to Mr. Toadey- 
 Snaile, " I had been dreadbirj this business of 
 getting up in the middle of the night. I always 
 agreed ^vith Admiral Mauresk, who tells you, ' One 
 always feels frlghtfiiUt/ ill in the morning and then 
 one gets gradually better and better all day, until 
 by dinner time one is charming.' I used to think 
 it was simply tempting Providence even to show 
 oneself before luncheon. But somehow to-day at 
 6.30 a.m.. I feel as sprightly and active and keen 
 about things as a cheap tripper on a Bank Holiday. " 
 
 " She's as beautiful as a butterfly, 
 And as proud as a Queen," 
 
 trolled forth Mr. Toadey-Snaile with a slobbery leer. 
 
 " Is pretty little Sally Popkins, 
 Of Clerkenwell Green," 
 
 Coryton hummed, completing the couplet. 
 
148 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Violet frowned slightly and changed the con- 
 versation. 
 
 " I wonder how early Theodora Gargoyle will 
 turn up. She is going to drive a dog-cart ablaze 
 w^ith Foley's posters all day to bring up voters. 
 She wanted it to be a tandem, but Pirn persuaded 
 her that rotten eggs would fidget the horses and, 
 though she would not mind such things for herself, 
 she w^as not going to risk them for her precious 
 Ogees'." 
 
 The election passed off as most elections do. 
 There was the usual display of activity at the 
 various committee rooms, the usual demonstrations 
 of party- spirit on the part of all the small boys 
 in the constituency, and the usual amount of 
 bribery, treating and intimidation under the rose. 
 There was more than the usual amount of social 
 splash, which is always imported into metropolitan 
 elections beyond Jordan. With the Radical can- 
 
WEST SOUTHWARK. 
 
 141 
 
 didate it was a life or death struggle, and no 
 effort had been spared to make an imposing show 
 of every single one of his friends who still stuck 
 to him. Admiral Mauresk had sent his carriage 
 all the way from Dorking, and his son, 'Tiger,' 
 was driving a van round all day bringing up 
 voters. A number of French statesmen, as yet 
 untainted by the breath of Panama, went the 
 round of the committee rooms to impress the 
 electorate. And late in the afternoon, when things 
 were beginning to look black, the wife of the 
 ex-Premier came down and drove rapidly three 
 times round the constituency in a poke bonnet: — 
 "as if the seat was to be captured like Jericho," 
 said Sir Cincinnatus in comment, as he gulped 
 down another brandy and soda. 
 
 On the other side the struggle was no less keen. 
 The party felt that a victory in West Southwark 
 meant a new lease of life and it took care to 
 send all its soldiery into the field, from the light 
 
^ J THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 skirniisliers of the Primrose league in their smartest 
 spring dresses to the heavy ordnance of the 
 Beerage and the kept regulars of the working 
 men's clubs. Never had such a display of posters 
 and election literature been known, never had so 
 much ingenuity been expended in devising telling 
 cries. Before the early milkman had started on 
 his rounds, the whole pavement of the constituency 
 had been stencilled in large black letters with a 
 command to ' Vote for Coryton and the Eleventh 
 Commandment. ' Before the postman had concluded 
 the first delivery of letters, every street had an 
 arrangement of banners, hung from one Radical 
 window to another, proclaiming to the world that 
 
 'SOUTHWARK TRUSTS AND HONOURS FySHE.' Bcfore 
 
 the workers had gone out for their dinner-hour, 
 every wall and hoarding had the pictorial represent- 
 ation of a gigantic loaf with the legend ' Vote 
 FOR Fyshe and Cheap Bread, ' in subtle allusion to 
 Coryton's supposed leanings towards Fair Trade. 
 
WEST SOUTH W ARK. 151 
 
 Before the workers had returned to their work, 
 Coryton's printers, at the suggestion of the astute 
 Creeper Crawley, had pasted the additional words 
 ' AND Cheap Wages ' at the foot of the placards. 
 
 Towards tea-time the agents on both sides were 
 cocksure of success, but Mr. Creeper Crawley, 
 who knew more about elections than everybody 
 else, shook his head gravely and said oracularly 
 that he thought they now had a slight majority, 
 but that he fervently wished that ' night or Blucher ' 
 would arrive. Blucher in this case was Mr. Artful 
 Cadger, President of the Wat Tyler Club, whom 
 Coryton had been vainly searching for during more 
 than an hour. 
 
 The two hundred of Mr. Cadger's brigade had 
 been spending the day at the Blue Badger tavern, 
 watching each other like lynxes, determined that 
 they would be bought or sold as one man. But 
 Mr. Cadger was oft on a secret mission to the Goat 
 and Compasses and, in his absence, nothing that 
 
152 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Coryton could say or show had the faintest effect 
 upon his followers. So Lord Pimlico and his van, 
 Theodora Gargoyle and her gaudy dog-cart, Lady 
 Elizabeth in a brougham, Mr. Blunder Cable with 
 his drag and Violet on the box-seat beside hira, 
 waited outside to take them up to the poll as 
 soon as they would come. 
 
 Meanwhile, Coryton dashed along in Lord Rupert 
 Cameron's private hansom from one low public 
 house to another, in search of the key to the 
 situation, the ' Pivot of the Empire ', as he told 
 Mr. Cadger the Prime Minister had called him, 
 when at last he found him in a half-drunken con- 
 dition in the bar parlour of the Marquis of Granby. 
 However, everything was accomplished all right; 
 the Prime Minister's letter more than sufficed to 
 turn the ' Pivot of the Empire' ; and Coryton brought 
 him back in triumph to the Blue Badger as fast 
 as his hansom could scamper. Theodora gave a 
 joyous view-halloo as they came in sight and the 
 
WEST SOUTH W ARK. 153 
 
 other impatient amateur Jarveys joined in giving 
 them a tumultuous ovation. The faithful two 
 hundred needed but few words of persuasion from 
 their chief, and soon they were driving down to 
 perform their duties as citizens as fast as their 
 aristocratic conveyances could carry them. 
 
 As soon as the poll was closed, everybody 
 drove back to dinner at Lord Southwark's. Some 
 were for going down to hear the poll declared at 
 midnight from South wark town-hall, but the major- 
 ity preferred to aw^ait the pleasure of the telegraph 
 wires. Everybody was unanimous in congra- 
 tulating Coryton upon the splendid manner in which 
 he had fought the election and especially upon 
 the diplomatic talent he had shown in the suing 
 and winning of Mr. Artful Cadger. Violet also 
 came in for many pretty speeches, especially from 
 the men, upon her cunning as a canvasser. Nor were 
 compliments wanting to Theodora Merivale for her 
 tireless efforts and success with her horses in a crowd. 
 
154 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 When much-needed refreshment had put every- 
 body in a more hopeful frame of mind, Lord 
 Southwark asked Mr. Creeper Crawley across the 
 table what he thought the majority would be. 
 
 " A close thing, my Lord, a very close thing, " 
 returned that oracle. " Thanks to the Blue Badger 
 contingent, we have certainly won, but I shall be 
 surprised if Mr. Coryton's majority exceeds 150." 
 
 Theodora whistled and offered to bet him six 
 ponies to four that it would exceed 500, but 
 Creeper Crawley only blinked benevolently and 
 said he did not wish to take advantage of a lady's 
 ignorance of electioneering matters. 
 
 "If Crawley is right," said Mr. Toadey-Snaile 
 in his unctuous way, " our good friend Cadger will 
 really have justified his claim to the title of 'Pivot 
 of the Empire.' Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! " 
 
 Creeper Crawley had not to wait long for the 
 accuracy of his prediction to be justified, for 
 within a couple of hours the electric wires were 
 
WEST SOUTHWARK. 155 
 
 throbbing through the country and beneath the 
 seas with the news that a young and unknown 
 man had defeated by the narrow majority of 179 
 votes a statesman, whom Europe had long been 
 watching with anxiety. 
 
 When at last Cory ton and his wife were alone, 
 in the small hours of the next morning, their 
 hearts were too full for many words. But as 
 Violet turned up the lamp in their little sitting- 
 room in Curzon-street and looked at her husband, 
 she thought she had never beheld so victorious a 
 visage. He seemed to hold himself more erect 
 than was his wont, his eyes had a sparkle more 
 brilliant than kohl, and his nostrils were dilated 
 like those of a racehorse, which has just carried 
 off the prize. She stood gazing at him fondly as 
 he stood by the chimney, lost in thought. Then 
 suddenly an irresistible impulse came over her. 
 She placed her hands upon his shoulders and 
 
156 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 looked up enthusiastically into his eyes exclaiming, 
 " Foley ! Foley ! This is too good to be true. 
 I am sure it must be some heavenly dream and 
 presently there will be a knock at the door and 
 I shall wake up to find that you are not an M.F. 
 after all." 
 
 Coryton looked back tenderly into her eyes and 
 said, 
 
 " Vixie, darling, this is the beginning of a great 
 career. You and I together, my clever little girl, 
 we are irresistible. There is nothing so high that 
 it is out of our reach." 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 GRUB STREET, W.C. 
 
 ' My life is one demd horrid grind.' 
 
 — C. Dickens : Xicholas Xicklebi/. 
 
 " Wot'll you 'ave for dinner to-day, sir?" 
 "I don't know. Anything. Whatever's least nasty." 
 "Let's see. Yer 'ad steak last night. Would 
 yer fancy chawps to-day? Or p'r'aps" (this as 
 an inspiration) " p'r'aps I might do yer some tasty 
 little weal cutlets. Only weal comes expensive 
 just now." 
 
 " Pray don't trouble to put such a tax on your 
 imagination. I shall dine out to-day." 
 
 157 
 
158 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 There was a discontented silence for nearly a 
 minute. 
 
 " Then there's lunch and dinner to-morrer, which, 
 bein' Sunday, 'as got to be thought on. I suppose 
 yer'll be in to-morrer, won't yer, sir? for lunch 
 and dinner.'' 
 
 " No. I won't be in to-morrow, for either lunch 
 or dinner. T am sick of having nothing fit to 
 eat. I can't stand it any longer. Leave me now. 
 I am busy. I have a great deal of work to do 
 and you keep on interrupting me. Leave the room, 
 I say." 
 
 Tyrconnel's eyes filled with tears as his landlady 
 bounced out of the room in a dudgeon, slamming 
 the door after her. The room, as he looked round 
 it wearily, was indeed enough to give anyone the 
 blues, and he felt broken in health as well as sick 
 at heart. The carpet was of the cheap 'Kidder- 
 minster' kind, which by the way is no longer 
 made at all in the town of that ilk. It had a 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 159 
 
 great vulgar pattern of impossible flowers, such 
 as nature, in her vulgarest moments, never dreamed 
 of perpetrating, and it seemed to have been chosen 
 with a view of presenting the utmost possible 
 discord with the bird of paradise wall-paper, which 
 once had been of the brightest aniline dyes, but 
 now looked a strange medley of griminess and 
 flaring bad taste, like an exhibit at the Xevv^ 
 English Art Club. 
 
 Some two feet above the level of the eye were 
 a series of loyal and patriotic oleographs, — the 
 death of Nelson, the wedding of Queen Victoria, 
 and a portrait of a German princelet wearing the 
 riband of the garter. Among them were three 
 ordinary — very ordinary — dinner plates afiixed to 
 the wall by an arrangement of wire. On a side 
 table was a ghastly erection of shells and mouldy 
 birds and artificial grasses, protected from con- 
 tamination by a bell-glass. 
 
 At a table in the centre of the room sat Tyrconnel, 
 
160 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 with a blank sheet of paper and a new stock 'of 
 pens and blotting paper before him. For a long 
 time he sat with his elbows on the table and his 
 hand pressed against his temples, vainly trying 
 to think and only succeeding in starting fresh 
 speculations about the infinite variety of stains 
 and marks upon the scarlet cloth with the orni- 
 thological pattern. 
 
 He had suffered a great change since Monte Carlo. 
 His face, which used to be rather cherubic in the 
 old days, had acquired a pinched, angular look ; his 
 cheek bones stood out prominently and there was 
 a hectic flush upon them that boded no good. When 
 he walked abroad, which he now only did for a 
 specific object, men would often turn round in the 
 street and whisper to each other. He now sat 
 upon a hard, straight-backed chair, but his shoulders 
 were rounded and he crouched over the table 
 helplessly, and his mind kept wandering away to 
 all sorts of sad, heart-breaking subjects. From 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 161 
 
 time to time he would make a stern effort to 
 collect his thoughts. He would sit bolt upright, 
 gasp for breath and make a feeble motion to move 
 his shoulders back. He would take up a pen, dip 
 it in the ink and poise it in the air just above 
 his blank sheet of paper. But it was no use. 
 The words obstinately would 7iot flow and he had 
 not the physical strength to remain sitting to 
 attention. 
 
 As he sat there in the grey November gloom, 
 he went over, in a sad retrospect, all that had 
 happened to him since his wife's flight from Cannes 
 six months ago. 
 
 The recollection of his last scene with her and 
 of the staggering shock caused him by her 
 abrupt departure from Cannes, without so much 
 as a line or a message, was burnt into his soul. 
 Every train of thought seemed to lead back to 
 that catastrophe, and all the events that followed 
 it had no more reality to him than a bad dream. 
 
 VOL. III. 11 
 
162 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Most of that never-to-be-forgotten night had 
 been spent pacing up and down the sitting-room, 
 in an agony of self-reproach and despair too 
 piteous for words. He had tried to reason with 
 himself, to find, if possible, some ray of hope 
 for a happy future, but when the cold grey dawn 
 came through the Venetian blinds and woke him 
 from a restless stupor that had overtaken him 
 on the sofa, it brought no relief to his perplexities. 
 He knew Gwendolen's unbending obstinacy too 
 w^ell to believe that anything short of a miracle 
 could alter it. And without Gwendolen life must 
 be a blank to him. He had felt the restraints 
 imposed by her stern code irksome at times, but 
 now that she was absent, every trifle reminded 
 him of her and added fresh torture to the wound. 
 What would become of him? To whom should 
 he turn? God help him, he did not know. The 
 day wore on until the short Cannes twilight was 
 upon him, and he scarcely stirred. He sank into 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 163 
 
 a sort of lethargy and remained in one position 
 hour after hour, staring blankly into space. 
 
 All of a sudden the mood changed and a great 
 craving for action came over him. He paced the 
 sitting-room and poured himself out a stiff tumbler 
 of brandy and soda. A telegram from Coryton 
 was on the table, saying he and his wife would 
 come over to lunch on the morrow, but he turned 
 from it in disgust. How could any such mere 
 mundane detail interest him now? How could 
 he endure the superficial condolences, the veiled 
 sneers, the idle gossip of those butterfly friends? 
 To-morrow ! He would be hundreds of miles away 
 by then. Cannes was alive with memories. He 
 would hasten away — anywhere. If he could not 
 hope to rejoin his wife, he could at least escape 
 from this torture. 
 
 No sooner said than done. When he was in 
 this mood, he always acted on impulses. Brad- 
 shaw was hastily dragged out. Just time, by 
 
164 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Jove! A bag and a portmanteau were packed. 
 The landlord was paid his bill and told to have 
 the rest of the luggage done up and sent home by 
 petite Vitesse, 
 
 Within an hour Tyrconnel was installed in a 
 1 it-sal on, with his nose towards the North. He 
 felt feverish, his head ached with great throbs and 
 there was a numb pain in his chest which he had 
 never known before. But he felt also a keen 
 sense of relief, as if he had just passed through 
 an agony and was weak and prostrate after it. 
 
 At last he was off. The familiar stations flashed 
 past, the familiar names were bawled out sonor- 
 ously, but it was all one to him. He did not get 
 out once, he refused all proffers of food, all the 
 way to Calais. The conductor was sent again and 
 again for brandy, but it had no more effect on 
 him than upon a man in whom poison has begun 
 to work. 
 
 After Lyons there was snow everywhere, a 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 165 
 
 soulless waste of white as far as the ,eye could 
 reach in all directions, and a great chill came 
 over him. extending from the heart to the frail, 
 shivering body. He wrapped himself more closely 
 in his furs, he drew forth fresh rugs from the 
 straps, but nothing could drive away the chill 
 from his broken heart. 
 
 Something brought Coryton into his thoughts 
 and he half regretted that he had not waited to 
 see him. Coryton was a good felJovv and had seen 
 him round many a difficult corner before now. 
 But no I That sleek, smiling face would have been 
 maddening in the midst of a great grief. Violet 
 Coryton ? She was a sympathetic little thing and 
 her presence could not have failed to be soothing. 
 But how could she understand? Strong feelings, 
 the sorrow of a lifetime would be about as intelligible 
 to her as Coptic. He was best alone. Alone! Yes, 
 indeed. He had not a single real friend, — no 
 one to whom he could open his stricken heart now. 
 
166 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 The train rattled on through the snow and dark- 
 ness and seemed to snort mockingly as it forged 
 ahead towards the unknown. The channel crossing 
 was a fearful one, all the more fearful in the 
 miserable cockle-shell of a boat, which the com- 
 pany seems always to select in connexion with the 
 more expensive services of trains. Tyrconnel, who 
 at the best of times was a bad sailor, learned 
 all the bitterness of the valley of the shadow of 
 death. As Miss Connecticut once expressed it, 
 'to begin with he was afraid he was going to die, 
 and then he became much more afraid that he 
 was not going to die after all.' 
 
 At the end of the journey he just had energy 
 enough to tell his cabman to drive to some lodg- 
 ings in Curzon-street, kept by old servants, where 
 he had often spent an odd week in the old days, 
 when his father's house was shut up or it was 
 convenient for some other reason. They welcomed 
 him effusively but regretted more than they could 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 
 
 167 
 
 say that they had not a crevice in the whole house 
 to spare, and the best they could suggest was a 
 house they knew of in Half-Moon-street hard by. 
 
 There he obtained two dreary little rooms on the 
 second floor at the exorbitant rent of four guineas 
 a week, and took to his bed at once. During three 
 days he was delirious, and the doctor for a time 
 feared for his reason. It never occurred to any- 
 one to send for his relations and he remained 
 there, at death's door, badly nursed, without a 
 friendly face beside him, left to die like a dog in 
 a ditch. 
 
 Thinking it over now in his Bloomsbury lodgings, 
 he wondered how he had managed to survive that 
 period of physical and mental torture. He clenched 
 his fist and rapped the greasy table with it, curs- 
 ing a malevolent Providence that had brought him 
 through. And yet he was glad that he had not died 
 then, for, while there was life, there was ever a lurk- 
 ing hope that he might see Gwendolen once more. 
 
168 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 It was that hope, amounting almost to a fixed 
 idea, which had buoyed him up through it all, 
 and a deep intense longing came over him and 
 shook his slender frame. He would see her! He 
 must see her! But how? But when? He buried 
 his face in his hands and swayed to and fro with 
 impotent desire. 
 
 It was some months now since his delirious 
 fever, but the delirious yearning was no whit less 
 strong upon him. And yet he had had plenty of 
 worries to distract his thoughts. As soon as he 
 was well enough, he had written to his father 
 and his aunt, telling them the whole story, and 
 more than the whole sad story, in a torrent of 
 self-reproach. 
 
 Never very good at lucid expression, he could 
 now, in his weak half-hysterical condition, only 
 put together a rambling inconsequential narrative, 
 which exaggerated every wrong on his part and 
 left out every extenuating circumstance. The 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 169 
 
 natural inference, as far as any inference was 
 possible from his ravings was that, before his 
 honeymoon was a month old, he had left his wife 
 at Cannes and gone off to Monte Carlo with some 
 syren, whom he now denounced with ridiculous 
 violence; that, when Gwendolen complained, he 
 had told her brutally that the same code of morals 
 was not to be expected from a man as from a 
 woman; that he had abused her, ill-treated her, 
 made her life a burden to her, and that she was 
 obliged to leave him ; that she had gone out into 
 the snow; that he did not know where she was 
 and that it was useless to inquire; that he was 
 very, very unhappy and needed sympathy; that 
 he had no friends left in the world save his father 
 and his aunt and that he implored them, in God's 
 name, not to forsake him in his distress. 
 
 Lord Baltinglass, who had not a particle of sen- 
 timent in his composition, made short work of this 
 tirade. 
 
170 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 "By your own showing," he wrote, "you are 
 a fool as well as a scoundrel. Your wife was not 
 the one that I should have chosen for you, as 1 
 naturally thought that the future Lord Baltinglass 
 of Blarney might have looked somewhat higher, 
 but as you said your happiness was at stake, I 
 gave way and you married a girl, who, if not 
 rich or nobly born, was at any rate sweet and 
 good and beautiful and, what is more, entirely 
 devoted to your weak and wicked self. Now, as 
 far as I can gather from your badly expressed 
 letter — which is more worthy of a hysterical school- 
 girl than of a Harrow and Cambridge education — 
 you have already insulted her virtue and innocence 
 with a vulgar intrigue. You have treated her so 
 badly that she has been forced to run away and 
 claim the protection of her relatives almost before 
 your honeymoon was over. And now you don't 
 seem to care a snap what may have happened to 
 her, or show any desire to make amends. You 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 171 
 
 simply come whining to us for sympathy with 
 your weakness and wickedness. I blush to think 
 that a son of mine should have acted in such a 
 dishonourable and unmanly way. You will get no 
 sympathy from me until you come to a right 
 sense of your position and are reconciled to the 
 wife you have injured. You seem to think of 
 nobody at all but your contemptible self, neither 
 of me nor of her. Have you so little to thank 
 me for that you do not consider the injury to me 
 such a scandal must cause if it got into the papers ? 
 My sympathy ? No, nor my money shall you have 
 until you make full amends for your wrong-doing. 
 From this day forth your allowance ceases. Not 
 a sixpence of mine shall go towards your shameless 
 career of profligacy. Perhaps that will help to 
 bring you to your senses, as neither warnings nor 
 stern experience seem to have any effect upon 
 you. We shall see. Meanwhile I decline to see 
 you or have any communication whatever with 
 
172 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 you, until I am assured that you have turned over 
 a new leaf. Your sorrowful Father, Baltinglass." 
 Miss Tyrconnel wrote in quite as uncompromis- 
 ing a tone, thoagh with less lucidity. After the 
 shock given him by his father's letter, Wilfrid's 
 heart sank within him at the prospect of wading 
 through the twelve blurred pages, crossed and 
 recrossed, in which his aunt delivered herself of 
 her reproaches. She began with a biographical 
 sketch of her nephew, dwelt upon the many merits 
 of her system of javenile education and his ingra- 
 titude in belying them, and launched off into more 
 or less inappropriate quotations from the Bible 
 about un dutiful children and the way of trans- 
 gressors. Then, like an old seven-volume novelist, 
 she took Gwendolen in the same way ; traced her 
 parentage and education, pointing out the connexion 
 between her amenability as a child and her present 
 state of grace ; held forth upon the soundness of 
 her doctrines and their usefulness as consolation 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 173 
 
 in time of calamity. From this she drifted into 
 a tirade against the wickedness of unbelief, and 
 the yet greater enormity of misbelief, until Tyr- 
 connel really began to think he must be a heathen 
 and a savage as well as a criminal and a hyste- 
 rical girl. 
 
 "You are treading the broad way," she said 
 in conclusion, " that leadeth unto destruction. There 
 can be no hope for you, either in this world or 
 that which is to come, until you recognize your 
 sin and turn unto the Lord. You have recognized 
 your sin I hope and think, but have j^ou turned 
 unto the Lord ? Have you laid your burden upon 
 Him ? It has been my prayer night and morning 
 that you might see the error of your ways and 
 turn your heart unto the wisdom of the just. 
 Until you do this, until I have full proof of your 
 conversion, I cannot intercede for you with your 
 father, now justly incensed at your conduct ; for 
 until you are converted I can have no assurance 
 
174 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 that you will not be a backslider at the first onset 
 of Satan." 
 
 These letters had precisely the contrary effect 
 upon Wilfrid Tyrconnel to that which his well- 
 intentioned relatives had designed. Instead of 
 bringing him to his knees by their severity, they 
 stung him by their injustice and awoke the obsti- 
 nacy, which was so deeply ingrained in his charac- 
 ter. They acted as a fillip to his self-confidence, 
 which had lately been almost crushed out of him 
 by adversity. He had no friend in the world ! 
 His own father turned against him ! His allowance 
 was withdrawn. 
 
 Very well. He would show them all that he 
 could get on admirably without friends. He 
 would make his cantankerous father understand 
 once for all, that he was not dependent upon the 
 charity that he chose to dole out. He was not 
 a fool, nor a cripple; he had a good headpiece 
 and a sturdy pair of hands. Why should he not 
 
GRUB STEEET, W.C. 175 
 
 earn his own living and snap his fingers at them 
 all? People are always more inclined to do you 
 a service if they know that you have no vital 
 need of it. When he had achieved prosperity on 
 his own account, they would all be on their knees 
 to him and it would be for him to dictate his own 
 terms. His father would come to him and 'humbly 
 bring pieces of silver' and Gwendolen too, like 
 the rest of them, w^ould bow her head to the 
 risen sun. 
 
 She took too much upon her, silly girl, but 
 when he had trampled upon his enemies and 
 his false fi^iends and was in the flowing tide 
 of prosperity again, she w^ould recognize that he 
 had been right after all. Would she ? — He stopped 
 himself in the torrent of indignation and wounded 
 vanity. No, no. Gwendolen was not like that. 
 His fair-weather friends would no doubt be veered 
 round to him again by a triumph of this sort, by 
 the proof that he was self-sufficing. Coryton, with 
 
176 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 whom he was now en dellcatesse, would fawn upon 
 him all the more and make fresh proffers of 
 doing dirty work; Williams and Wilmot and the 
 rest of them would treat him with a respect, 
 which they had never feigned; and his fathers 
 commercial instincts would be flattered by a proof 
 of worldly wisdom after his own heart. 
 
 But Gwendolen was not like that. It would be 
 as ridiculous as it was unjust to speak of her 
 in the same breath with worldliness or material 
 considerations. She was one of those rare few, 
 of whom it could really be said otherwise than 
 as a figure of speech, that she would rather 
 starve than swerve one hair's breath from what' 
 she thought to be her duty. If he made a million 
 in a week, saved the country from invasion, or 
 were appointed Prime Minister to-morrow, he 
 knew full well that it would not prepossess her 
 one iota in his favour. Alas! he feared that she 
 was indeed lost to him, if not even success could 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 177 
 
 pave his way back to her heart. Still, he contended, 
 eager to see wisdom in the course of action he 
 had decided to pursue, success would give him a 
 foothold from which to approach Gwendolen. That 
 canting old aunt, for instance, would be among the 
 first to make her peace with him and she would 
 be an invaluable ally for arguing with Gwendolen 
 in her own line of country. And Mrs. de Courcy 
 Miles would nag for him till she was blue in the 
 face, if he could make any show of worldly 
 prosperity. So true is it that 'to him that hath 
 shall be given, and from him that hath not shall 
 be taken even that which he hath.' 
 
 Having made up his mind, the difficulty was 
 how to put the resolve into execution. He had 
 always had the profoundest contempt for poor 
 devils, who profess themselves anxious for honest 
 work but declare they can't find any, who are 
 for ever proclaiming their readiness to do " anything', 
 but who all the while mean by the phrase that 
 
 VOL. III. 12 
 
178 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 they are capable of doing nothing. But when he 
 came to consider the matter from a personal 
 point of view, it was not so easy to see where 
 the bread and butter was to come from, to say 
 nothing of short cuts to wealth. He could not 
 dig. He knew nothing of business, — nor even 
 of finance. His pride debarred him from dependent 
 or semi-menial employment, such as a secretaryship 
 or tutorship. The unexpectedness and urgency of 
 the situation made any of the so-called learned 
 professions out of the question. So like most 
 persons in a similar plight, he drifted into journalism, 
 with, the mistaken idea that it was the high road 
 to affluence and influence, and that it was compati- 
 ble with independence, self-respect, and even 
 common honesty. 
 
 He had abilities above the average and had 
 acquired a varied, if desultory education. He 
 might be said to know a little about everything, 
 though not everything about one thing, as somebody 
 
GRUB STKEET, W.C. 179 
 
 or other advised young men to do. But lie had 
 never read books from the point of view of one 
 who may have to write them and, though he 
 could criticize, he could not create. Still less 
 had he acquired the technique of ^^iting articles, 
 the art of dressing up commonplaces to fill the 
 role of oracular verities, the word-juggling that 
 passes current for epigram, nor the affectations 
 that stand sponsors for originality of style. 
 Moreover, he was handicapped with principles 
 and a soul of his own, and felt a great repugnance 
 towards hiring out his pen as an advocate hires 
 out his tongue. 
 
 He had begun by writing solemn, heavy articles 
 on solemn, heavy subjects, fortified by research 
 in the British Museum and an array of classical 
 quotation. The style was as pedantic as Dr. John- 
 son, as unintelligible as Carlyle, and as inconse- 
 quential as Ruskin. Conceive a thousand volumes 
 of the Quarterly Review rolled into one and you 
 
180 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 I 
 
 have a faint idea of the heaviness of the treatise 
 he began by sending off to a weekly journal, 
 which prided itself upon its sparkling modernity. 
 
 It was a very laborious business grinding out 
 his articles, and he scarcely accomplished more 
 than one, some three thousand words in length, 
 each week. They were not without cleverness; 
 they were infinitely polished; they had certain 
 touches of character, which, properly dished up, 
 would have been applauded as original. But he 
 did not know the grooves, to which editors are 
 accustomed; he had no discrimination about the 
 style and subjects suitable to each paper; and he 
 would never stoop to adapt his writing to the 
 audience he had in view. Here it was, the best 
 he could do. If they didn't like it, let them do 
 without it and he would offer it elsewhere. They 
 must take it or leave it, hoity-toity, confound 
 it all: 
 
 The result was, that they did leave it. He plodded 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 181 
 
 on and sent oft neat bundles of manuscript by 
 registered post to various editors with polite notes 
 and stamps ' for return if unsuitable.' Sometimes 
 the editor kept the stamps and destroyed the 
 manuscript; at other times, strangely conscien- 
 tious, he returned it with a printed formula, 
 expressive of compliments and thanks. Then T}t- 
 connel would write another polite little note, enclose 
 more stamps and post his parcel off by registered 
 post to some other editor. No article was ever 
 accepted, but each eventually found its way to 
 some editorial wastepaper basket and was lost, 
 for he never kept a copy of his work. 
 
 After his father had stopped his allowance, 
 Tyrconnel had realized the necessity of minute 
 economy and, though of all things the idea was 
 most distasteful to him, he determined to grapple 
 with it. At his marriage his father had made 
 no settlement upon him but, while fixing a very 
 liberal allowance, had given him to understand 
 
182 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 that he might draw upon him to any extent within 
 reason. 
 
 The result had been that Tyrconnel never kept 
 any accounts nor troubled about keeping any 
 particular balance at his banker's. When Gwen- 
 dolen had interfered with his enjoyment of Paris 
 during the honeymoon, it was not from any need 
 of economy, but because she considered it sinful 
 to waste money on mere physical pleasures. His 
 losses at Monte Carlo and Sally's requirements 
 had, however, made a large hole in what remained 
 of his last quarter's allowance and, after paying 
 his bill in Half-Moon-street he found he was only 
 worth some fifty pounds in the world. 
 
 This did not, however, greatly take him aback. 
 He had a notion, like most people who have 
 never tried it, that economy is perfectly easy 
 if you only make up your mind to cut your gar- 
 ment according to your cloth. Fifty pounds he 
 was sure would last a long time with proper 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 183 
 
 precautions, certainly much longer than it would 
 be necessary to wait until he could he earning 
 his living. His first idea of proper precautions 
 was to remove to what is known as 'a cheaper 
 neighbourhood. * On the theory that what ought to 
 be, is, most people are firmly convinced that dirty, 
 badly furnished accommodation in a squalid, 
 remote or unfashionable part of Londou is neces- 
 sarily very much cheaper than to Jive in cleanliness 
 and comfort in Saint James's or Mayfair. 
 
 There can be no greater delusion. Each neigh- 
 bourhood has its cheap and its extortionate, its 
 miserable and its comfortable, its pretentious and 
 its commonplace accommodation, whether it be 
 houses, flats, or apartments. 
 
 The lodging-house fiend is the same every- 
 where: caelum non animum mutat^ when he changes 
 from Park-street, Grosvenor-square to Park-road, 
 Regent's Park, from Bayswater to Belgravia. The 
 only difference is that you are very much more 
 
184 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 uncomfortable in the more barbarous parts and 
 that anything you may save in the way of rent 
 is more than counterbalanced by the addition to 
 your cab-fares. 
 
 This Tyrconnel soon found out and he saw his 
 fifty pounds melting away much faster than he 
 liked. As we have seen, with the best will in 
 the world, he often broke down under the sordid 
 discomfort of bad food and filthy surroundings. 
 That meant going out to a restaurant — first 
 his old haunts in tiegent-street and Piccadilly, 
 then nasty Italian eating-houses in Oxford-street 
 and the Strand, where he scarcely fared better 
 than at home. And that meant spending more 
 money. 
 
 Still he did not lose heart but persevered with 
 his writing, flattering himself that, as soon as one 
 article was accepted, he would catch the knack 
 of the business and get into the swim straight 
 away. 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 185 
 
 One afternoon he met Creeper Crawley in the 
 Strand, who being ignorant of his quarrel with his 
 father, greeted him with great effusion. 
 
 Inspired by this cordiality, Tyrconnel began to 
 discuss journalism with him volubly. 
 
 " My dear Tyrconnel, " said Creeper Crawley 
 with some surprise and a trifle less enthusiasm, 
 * you're on the wrong tack altogether. It's not a 
 question of doing good work; it's a question of 
 nobbling editors. You should never, yiever — do 
 you hear, never — write an article unless it is ac- 
 cepted in advance and even then only if you know 
 for certain that the editor isn't a bigger liar than 
 most of them. I am sorry I can be of no use to 
 you. You should go and call on the Editor of 
 The Morning Pump. Tell him you're the son of 
 Lord Baltinglass and are going to stand for Par- 
 liament, and that you will be glad to do him a 
 series of leading articles on the financial stability 
 of the agricultural labourer.'' 
 
186 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " But I don't know anything about the agricul- 
 tural labourer." 
 
 " All the better. You'll be able to approach the 
 subject impartially. Failing him, I should go and 
 see Cincinnatus Spreadeagle. He runs a rag 
 subsidized by the party and would no doubt be 
 delighted to share the pickings with you." 
 
 Next day Tyrconnel walked wearily down to 
 the Strand and, after much inquiry from its dis- 
 courteous frequenters, found his way at last to 
 the offices of Britain^ where Sir Cincinnatus 
 Spreadeagle presently received him in a small 
 and grimy editorial room. He looked curiously at 
 his visitor and mentally noted the falling off in 
 smartness and assurance, now only too evident in 
 Wilfrid Tyrconnel. With the instinct of his kind^ 
 the editor altered his tone correspondingly. The 
 unctuous welcome, which he had prepared when 
 he received Tyrconnel's card, died away unuttered 
 on his lips. He did not rise from his seat, but 
 
GRUB STREET, W.C. 187 
 
 airily motioned the young man to a hard chair by 
 the wall, saying unsympathetically, 
 
 *" Well, Tyrconnel, what can I do for you? I'm 
 a busy man, as you see." 
 
 Tyrconnel had no fight left in him to resent 
 this insolence, but asked meekly, 
 
 "I — I wanted to know whether you'd take a 
 few articles from me." 
 
 " Sorry I haven't much space to offer you. Most of 
 our articles are done in the office. But if you care to 
 send in anything, I'll give it my best consideration." 
 
 This was not very encouraging, but Tyrconnel 
 was sufficiently desperate to persevere, and he 
 went on to suggest various subjects for articles. 
 Sir Cincinnatus pooh-poohed most of them, saying 
 laconically that they had been done before. Then 
 he rose and terminated the interview unceremo- 
 niously, saying, 
 
 " You must excuse me now. Send anything you 
 like." 
 
188 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " What do you pay for articles ? " stammered 
 Tyrconnel uncomfortably as he fumbled for his hat. 
 
 Sir Cincinnatus's face grew even more unsympa- 
 thetic than usual. 
 
 " I'm afraid we subsist mostly on voluntary 
 contributions, " he said with a brutal laugh ; " but 
 surely you haven't come down to penny-a-lining ? 
 I'll tell you what, though," he added after a pause. 
 "If you want to make a few half-crowns, you 
 can do me some bright pars on topical subjects. 
 There's that fellow Coryton, for instance, — rising- 
 man, I'm told. You used to know him, didn't you? 
 
 Knock me up a few spicy pars about him 
 
 What, won't you?" he exclaimed in surprise, 
 seeing that Tyrconnel had taken his hat and was 
 making his way down the perpendicular staircase 
 without a word. " Well, well, penny-a-liners 
 mustn't be choosers. That'll teach me not to try 
 philanthropy again in a hurry, if it's all the thanks 
 I get for trying to do a poor beggar a good turn. " 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 
 
 To be famous when you are young is the 
 
 gift of the gods. 
 
 — B. Disraeli: Tancred. 
 Behold, my son, with how little wisdom 
 
 the world is governed. 
 
 — OXENSTIEKN. 
 
 "'Tis the critical debate of the session," said the 
 Prime Minister musingly. 
 
 He was sitting astride a hard cane-bottomed 
 chair in the Whips' room; Lord South wark sat on 
 the table and dangled his legs uncomfortably; 
 Creeper Crawley and the Whips were ranged uneasily 
 
 189 
 
190 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 against the wall. Meanwhile Lord Rupert Cameron 
 lay stretched at full length on the one sofa, 
 which the room contained, lazily puffing the blue 
 smoke of his cigarette towards the ceiling. 
 
 "The only critical part about it," said Lord 
 Rupert grumpily, " is how those ten labour beggars 
 are going to vote. If they support the bill, we are 
 in a majority; if they vote against it, we are spoofed. " 
 
 " What do they want? " asked Lord South wark, 
 with an affectation of ignorance. 
 
 " Payment of members out of the secret service 
 fund," came a gruff voice from the sofa. 
 
 "Have you made out what they want, Crawley?" 
 the Prime Minister asked, ignoring the voice from 
 the sofa. 
 
 "It's the 'Beer and Buns' clause, my Lord. 
 They supported us on the second reading of the 
 bill, because we went in for free breakfasts in 
 Board schools as well as the free education, which 
 was all the old man would promise them. Now 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 191 
 
 Snorthorse is going to give them the support of 
 the opposition for a clause to provide free Beer 
 and Buns for Board school children at eleven 
 o'clock every morning." 
 
 " Oh ! for an hour in the House of Commons ! " 
 sighed the Prime Minister to himself. 
 
 At this moment the penetrating ping of the 
 electric bell sounded through the lobbies, into the 
 library and the smoking-room and on into the 
 room of the Conservative Whips, where it roused 
 Lord Rupert Cameron with a start from the snooze 
 he had been feigning during Creeper Crawley's 
 explanation. 
 
 " Speaker's in the chair, " he growled as the 
 Whips trooped off to attend to their quarries; 
 ''now the job'll be to get him out again." 
 
 It was not to be one of those show debates, 
 when country cousins come up 'to hear the old 
 man speak' and members with slender majorities 
 devote long profitless hours to balloting for seats 
 
192 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 in the strangers' gallery for their constituents. 
 Yet there was something of that electric feeling 
 in the air, which betokens a government crisis, 
 and opinions were pretty evenly divided in the 
 lobby as to whether the government would sur- 
 vive the motion to go into committee on the Free 
 Food and Education Bill. The subject had aroused 
 a certain amount of interest in the country, rather 
 because it concerned the life of the government 
 and the prospects of a dissolution than for any 
 concern about the provisions of the bill. Mr. Beer 
 Hardup had given notice of an instruction to the 
 Committee on the subject of free beer and buns ; 
 Mr. Grit, the one respectable labour member, had 
 undertaken to second him and it was rumoured that 
 he would receive the support of the whole official 
 opposition, excepting the late Prime Minister and 
 a few of his colleagues of cabinet rank, who 
 would shirk responsibility by leaving the House 
 without voting. 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 19: ) 
 
 At the period I speak of the country was 
 governed by an Opportunist party, which had 
 usurped the name without acquiring the reputation 
 of the ancient Tory party. With that Government 
 the gilded goal was permanency in office ; the 
 only notion of statecraft to purloin and exaggerate 
 the measures of the Opposition ; and the only 
 passport to their good graces was a nodding ac- 
 quaintance with the Spirit of the Age. It is now 
 so long since the country has known a real Tory 
 party or beheld high principles in any party that 
 it may well be excused for agnosticism about all 
 political virtue. After the betrayal of the country 
 party by Peel in 1856 and their yet more shameful 
 betrayal by their own leader in 1868, how could 
 any sane man ever repose confidence in a party 
 leader again? 
 
 This at least was what the Tory Cave of 
 Adullam was now muttering in the lobbies and 
 the clubs. Their strength and their determination 
 
 VOL. III. 13 
 
194 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 no man knew, not even the omniscient Whips with 
 their hundred eyes. But the fact of their discontent 
 was no longer a secret. The Whips were begin- 
 ning to get frightened. And, when the Whips 
 get frightened, the Ministry has to cast about for 
 concessions. The difficulty about concessions just 
 now was that two groups wanted them in con- 
 flicting directions and that unless both were satisfied, 
 the bill could not pass. 
 
 The Cave's view of Toryism was what Harold 
 Gaverigan, now a high-and-dry Tory candidate for 
 a north-country constituency, was urging upon 
 Coryton, from a privileged seat under the gallery. 
 Coryton was shrugging his shoulders in his inimit- 
 able way and had begun his stock formula of 
 inquiry, "Principles! What are they?" prelimin- 
 arily to answering himself with a choice epigram, 
 when the door-keeper crept up along the narrow 
 gangway below the bar of the House and handed 
 him a card bearing the name of Mr. Artful Cadger. 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 195 
 
 "Principles," said Coryton, rising to depart. 
 " are the bastards of Conscience and derive their 
 complexion from the keeper— for the time being — of 
 that lady of catholic tastes. Here is the card of 
 the keeper of my conscience, so I must be off. 
 See you again. Ta-ta I " 
 
 " A conscience is a very useful servant but 
 a hard mistress," said Gaverigan with a smile 
 which remained on his lips as he watched the 
 other start off down the gangway, bow to the 
 Speaker with more than the carelessness of an 
 old member and disappear among the little knot 
 of persons standing just inside the door of the 
 chamber. 
 
 It was question time, and the House had not 
 filled yet, but the lobbies were full and animated, 
 with the sort of buzz of expectation and speculation, 
 which hovers about a racecourse before a big 
 event. 
 
 " I've seen two or three members of the 
 
196 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Cave, " Sir Cincinnatus Spreadeagle was saying ora- 
 cularly to an admiring audience, consisting of the 
 staunch Blunder Cable and the faithful Plantagenet- 
 Unkels, who had come up ail the way from Balham 
 to hear the debate. " I've seen two or three 
 members of the Cave just now in the lavatory 
 and I am convinced they mean mischief." 
 
 " Pish ! " said Toadey-Snaile, whose business it 
 was always to overhear everything. " They've 
 swallowed the free breakfasts. It's all rot to say 
 they'll strain at the Beer and Buns clause." 
 
 " You don't mean to say the Government's 
 going to accept that clause ? " gasped Blunder Cable, 
 feeling uncomfortable about angry meetings of 
 rate-payers among the free and independent of 
 Hounslow and half wishing he had not pledged 
 himself so uncompromisingly against the principle 
 of free food. 
 
 "Not a doubt of it," returned Toadey-Snaile, 
 who had reasons of his own for wishing to know 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 197 
 
 how the other would take such a determination 
 on the part of the Government. 
 
 " Well, they mean mischief, " Sir Cincinnatus 
 Spreadeagle interrupted him with tiresome iteration, 
 " they vow they have principles, protest that 
 there are other considerations beside party, are 
 not prepared to swallow anything " 
 
 " In the same generous way that Sir Cincin- 
 natus is," said Toadey-Snaile with a mock bow, 
 completing the sentence for him and passing on 
 into the House. 
 
 Coryton stopped for a few moments to talk 
 to Mr. Hollo way Pother, who was on his way to 
 talk to Gaverigan under the gallery. " Well, Mr. 
 Pother," said Coryton in the hearty manner he 
 always adopted towards people reputed to be 
 genial, " what do you think of the Stale Buns 
 clause ? " 
 
 " Eh ! dearie me I " said the venerable Free 
 Trader, stroking one of his chins and screwing up 
 
198 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 his eyes merrily, "is that what you call it? 
 Well, to tell you the truth, I am in rather a fix 
 about it. I've spent two hours in the library 
 over Cobden's works, trying to make out what 
 would have been his view on the subject. But 
 such a thing was never contemplated in his day 
 and I can't find anything to guide me. If it 
 weren't for the Temperance people, I should be 
 inclined to support it. But good beer's so hard 
 to get nowadays. One doesn't know what to say." 
 Coryton passed on to the outer lobby, where 
 a policeman called out his name in stentorian 
 tones for the edification of a line of strangers, 
 who looked very weary with the long waiting that 
 is always exacted of those who come to visit 
 their legislators in the chamber, probably to impress 
 them with the busy and important character of 
 the place. Among the strangers Coryton recognized 
 Mr. Rupert Clifford, who had come to ask an Irish 
 member to present a petition against the Act of 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 199 
 
 Settlement. He had only time to nod to the 
 modern Jacobite before Mr. Cadger advanced to 
 claim his attention. 
 
 That gentleman seemed somewhat awed by his 
 surroundings, in spite of the assurance conveyed 
 by a tight-fitting frock-coat and a brown bowler 
 hat, not to mention a selection of paste-diamond 
 rings which he wore outside his bright yellow 
 gloves. The process of waiting and the insolence 
 of the police, which would have irritated Mr. 
 Cadger anywhere else, served to impress and 
 subdue him in these lofty halls, whose atmosphere 
 of sham antiquity has often served to overawe 
 many a more hardened patriot than even Mr. 
 Cadger. Coryton took him aside into the lobby 
 which leads to the strangers' refreshment bar and 
 they sat down together on a leather seat facing 
 a picture of Monk declaring for a free parliament. 
 
 Mr. Cadger wanted a great many things. 
 
 In the first place he wanted a pledge that 
 
200 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Coryton would vote for the Beer and Buns 
 clause, and he began to bluster a good deal 
 when his representative coolly informed him that 
 he should be guided by events. Mr. Cadger 
 talked of pledges ; Mr. Coryton replied that courtship 
 was a period of greater freedom and less re- 
 sponsibility than matrimony. Mr. Cadger hinted 
 at a vote of censure in the Wat Tyler Club ; 
 Mr. Coryton indulged in generalities on a member's 
 duty to his constituents as a whole. Mr. Cadger 
 swore that the President of the Wat Tyler Club 
 was not to be trifled with ; Mr. Coryton threw 
 out mysterious hints at other means of meeting 
 his constituent's desires. 
 
 In the second place Mr. Cadger wanted money. 
 He was Treasurer as well as President of the 
 Wat Tyler Club and the club's finances were now 
 at low water mark. The club wanted a billiard- 
 table and some additions to its cellars. Would 
 Mr. Coryton contribute fifty pounds towards them ? 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 201 
 
 Well then, five and twenty ? Surely that was 
 not too much to ask after all the club had done 
 to secure his election ! Coryton flung the man 
 the stock phrase about the stringency of the 
 Corrupt Practices Act, as one might fling a bone 
 to a dog, but Mr. Cadger's sense of justice was 
 outraged. 
 
 " You ain't spoke to me like that, " he protested, 
 ** when you druv me from the Markiss o' Granby 
 to the Blue Badger on the day of the 'lection. 
 I said that letter you showed me were all worry 
 foine an' that in course we was patriots an' all 
 that koind o' thing, but that we was pore men 
 an' 'ad ter think on ourselves fust. An' you sez, 
 sez you, that were quite roight. An' I sez, 'Now 
 come, deal fair with me and oi'll deal fair with 
 you; wot'll yer stand us if we gits yer in ?' An' 
 you sez, 'B'leev' me, Mr. Cadger, yer'll not foind 
 me backurd in doin' the 'andsome thing, if yer 
 gits me in.' Well now, we 'ev got yer in, an' 
 
202 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 if yer calls yerself a gentleman yer won't go 
 back on yer word now. Wot me an' moy mates 
 wants ter know is, are yer or are yer not goin' 
 to do the 'andsome boy us naow ? Yes or no ? " 
 
 Mr. Cadger was raising his voice unpleasantly 
 loud and Coryton could see the ill-favoured eyes 
 of Mr. Beer Hardup watching him curiously from 
 the lobby. So he smiled his most bewitching 
 smile and said in his most dulcet tones, 
 
 " My dear Mr. Cadger, you must not let your 
 imagination run away with you like that. Of 
 course I mean to treat you handsomel /. How 
 could anyone treat so fine a fellow otherwise ? 
 I have to be running off to the debate in a 
 moment, but I cannot deny myself the pleasure 
 of offering you some slight refreshment after your 
 walk." 
 
 "Refreshment be damned!" said Mr. Cadger 
 curtly; "a foiver's the werry least as'll satisfoy 
 me. Come now " (whining), '' yer won't be so 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 203 
 
 'ard on a pore man as to refuse 'im a foiver 
 arter all 'e's done for yer." 
 
 " I am sorry you won't take any refreshment," 
 replied Coryton, without turning a hair. " I must 
 be leaving you now, as the debate has begun. 
 Let me know if I can serve you at any time." 
 
 " Serve me I Til serve yer in a way yer won't 
 like," growled Mr. Cadger between his teeth. 
 
 But Coryton was already lounging back through 
 the lobby, as unruffled as possible. He exchanged 
 another word with Mr. Rupert Clifford, who was 
 still waiting for his Ii^ish member, and then made 
 his way up to the ladies' gallery, where Violet, 
 with Lady Elizabeth Gargoyle, Theodora and Lady 
 Giddy, had secured the best seats in the front 
 row by the cage. Questions were just over, and 
 the Vice-President of the Committee of the Council 
 had got through the opening sentences of his speech. 
 
 He w^as aware, he said, that great diversity of 
 opinion existed as to the details of this Bill, not 
 
204 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 only among honourable gentlemen opposite, where 
 diversity of opinion was chronic, but also among 
 his honourable friends, where it was almost unknown. 
 However, he hoped that by a little timely conces- 
 sion he would be able so to modify the bill that 
 it might commend itself to all sections of the 
 House. This, it appeared, he proposed to do by 
 a compromise, which, like most compromises, only 
 served to alienate everybody. 
 
 The Tory Cave had consented, after much pres- 
 sure from the Whips, to vote for a bill embodying 
 free breakfasts, but they had protested — and, what 
 is more, meant it, — that nothing on earth should 
 induce them to concede another iota. The Inde- 
 pendent Labour Party, on the other hand, had 
 protested, with equal emphasis and in less measured 
 language, that nothing less would satisfy them 
 than free beer and buns at eleven also. They 
 vowed they marvelled at their own moderation in 
 not demanding more. 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 205 
 
 When therefore the Minister coolly proposed a 
 compromise which would increase the breakfasts but 
 not provide a second meal, he only succeeded in 
 exasperating the Tory Cave, which had already 
 gone beyond the limits laid down by their con- 
 science, while he provided the Labour Party with 
 the excuse they desired for refusing the gifts that 
 came from the Greeks. There were murmurs from 
 below the Ministerial gangway, which kept increas- 
 ing in intensity and volume as the Minister devel- 
 oped his proposals; the murmurs found echo among 
 the Labour Party opposite, where peal followed 
 peal of derisive laughter, until the Minister could 
 scarcely make his voice heard above the hubbub. 
 
 It was not a defeat, it was a rout, and the 
 word went round the House that the doom of the 
 Government was sealed. The Irish members raised 
 a paean of exultation and, as the Minister's speech 
 came to an abrupt termination, they leaped upon 
 the seats and waved their handkerchiefs and were 
 
206 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 only sorry that they had not shillelaghs with them 
 in order to mark their joy by cracking a few crowns. 
 
 Cory ton surveyed the scene with a vain attempt 
 at calmness. His face lighted up with an intuition 
 of coming triumph. He caught his wife's eye and 
 smiled. Both felt that his hour had come. 
 
 " Shall you speak to-night, Mr. Coryton ? " asked 
 Lady Elizabeth Gargoyle carelessly, as he prepared 
 to leave them. 
 
 "He is going down to save the Government," 
 said Violet with a seriousness that made the others 
 smile. 
 
 "You don't say so! Quite heroic," sneered 
 Lady Giddy, who had never quite forgiven Coryton 
 for getting married. "Almost another Quintus 
 Curtius isn't he?" 
 
 Meanwhile it seemed as if the Independent 
 Labour Party had only to advance and occupy the 
 enemy's positions. Beer Hardup moved his instruc- 
 tion to the Committee in a short and vigorous 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 207 
 
 speech and, with an ambitious attempt at pathos, 
 dwelt upon the hardship of compelling children to 
 attend school all day and denying them beer and 
 buns at eleven. He concluded by saying, amid 
 ringing cheers from his colleagues, that their 
 watchword was 'No surrender!' and their duty to 
 make no compromise. The motion was seconded 
 by Mr. Grit in the briefest possible terms, which, 
 as Colonel Ballywalter whispered to Mr. Toadey- 
 Snaile, was just as well, for the man spoke no 
 intelligible language, not even his own. 
 
 By this time the rout seemed to have become 
 general. The Ministerialists, sullen and dismayed, 
 looked as if they would have liked to fling away 
 their Orders of the Day, or whatever does duty, 
 in a parliamentary battle, for chassepots, and take 
 to flight at once. Sir Cincinnatus Spreadeagle 
 stepped into the breach and was received with 
 tumultuous cries of ' Divide I * not only from the 
 opposition but, with even greater violence, from 
 
208 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 the Tory Cave. His speech (ah^eady type-written 
 and liberally distributed in the reporters' gallery, 
 punctuated with 'Cheers') only served to make 
 matters worse. He rallied the Tory cave on their 
 lack of patriotism in a blundering sledge-hammer 
 sort of way, which made them all the more restive 
 and provoked several stage-whispers about the 
 patriotism of alien adventurers. He attacked the 
 Labour Party for the ill-turn they were doing to 
 labour in depriving the children of the poor of 
 their only chance of obtaining free breakfasts ; and 
 the Labour Party were only the more confirmed 
 in their impatience with the Government. 
 
 He sat down amid derision, which was followed 
 by a painful silence — a silence of indecision and 
 a silence of triumphant expectation. Someone called 
 out " Cameron, " as a drowning man might call for 
 a straw, but Lord Ptupert only gnawed his moustache 
 as if to say, " You must stew in your own juice. 
 This pie is none of my making." A rumble of 
 
THE CEOWX OF BAY LEAVES. 209 
 
 'Divide I Divide!' swept along the Opposition 
 benches, gathering vohime as it went. Dr. Bob. 
 Quid made a diversion by calling out " Order there 
 among the rats ! " because a Liberal Unionist member 
 had sneezed. It was as complete a collapse as 
 ever a Government had known. 
 
 The Speaker had half risen to put the question, 
 after a last lingering look around the crowded 
 House, to see if any other honourable member 
 wished to catch his eye ; the attendant inside the 
 House, with a brass chain round his neck, like 
 that of the winewaiter at a restaurant, had already 
 poised himself to start and bustle the strangers 
 out of their seats under the gallery; and the atten- 
 dant outside, with a brass chain round his neck, 
 like that of a city alderman, had already shaped 
 his throat for the chaunt of ' Clear the lobby I " 
 
 Suddenly the spell was broken. A young man, 
 whose features were not familiar to most of those 
 present, had risen from the third bench below the 
 
 VOL. III. 14 
 
210 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Ministerial gangway and was beginning to speak, 
 as if it were the most simple and natural thing in 
 the world. 
 
 It was a difficult moment to choose, for the 
 House was in an excited, electric state, tossed about 
 between derision and despair. Coryton, however, 
 made the utmost of his advantages. He had not 
 spoken more than two or three times in the House 
 since his sensational election and those who had 
 heard him, had been favourably impressed by his 
 telling way of saying things and the opportuneness 
 of their delivery. Moreover, those who had not heard 
 him, cherished a certain curiosity about the person- 
 ality of the young man who had relegated Mr. 
 Loose-Fyshe to obscurity, and they where disposed 
 to accord him a favourable hearing. His heart 
 was beating very loud on what he felt was the great 
 chance of his life, which, taken at the flood, must 
 lead on to fortune. But to all outward appearance 
 he was as calm and self-possessed as the oldest 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 211 
 
 of old parliamentary hands— calm and self-pos- 
 sessed and yet sufficiently modest and respectful 
 in demeanour not to hurt the susceptibilities of the 
 most jealous. His connection with Lord Southwark 
 also stood him in good stead, for Lord Southwark 
 was considered a coming man and known to have 
 dabbled in labour questions, and a good deal of 
 curiosity existed about that nobleman's view of 
 the Government bill. 
 
 As Coryton proceeded, the good-natured interest, 
 which had welcomed him, deepened into a breathless 
 attention, such as is very rarely accorded by 
 the House of Commons even to its most famous 
 orators. Before he had finished, it seemed likely 
 that the Government had been saved and it was 
 certain that the young man's reputation had been 
 called into being. He had begun by addressing 
 himself to win over the Independent Labour Party. 
 At the West Southwark election, he informed them, 
 this very question had been prominently raised. 
 
212 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 and he had been able to satisfy the desires of 
 a body of men, who went even further in this 
 question, than the honourable member for Hounds- 
 ditch (Mr. Beer Hardup). He had promised them, 
 on the authority of the Prime Minister, a bill this 
 session, which would give children in Board schools 
 not only free education, not only free breakfasts, 
 not only beer and buns at eleven o'clock (Cheers 
 from the Independent Labour Party), but also free 
 dinners in the middle of the day (Renewed cheering). 
 He now felt it his duty, in view of his election 
 pledges and in view of the mandate of his con- 
 stituents, to call upon the Government to redeem 
 the Prime Minister's written promise, made to 
 him last June. Let the portion of this bill dealing 
 with the food question be struck out (Cheers from 
 the Tory Cave) and another bill be introduced 
 later on to confer upon the poor man's children 
 the free meals, which the Prime Minister had 
 promised them. (Cheers from the Independent 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 213 
 
 Labour Party.) After a few pointed generalities 
 upon both the food and the education questions, 
 w^hich he skilfully introduced in order to give the 
 Tory Cave and the Labour Party time to take in 
 the full force of his proposals, he wound up with 
 a brilliant peroration and sat down amid a tem- 
 pestuous ovation, such as the House of Commons 
 rarely accords. 
 
 The more his proposals had been rubbed in, 
 the more they were liked on all hands. The 
 Independent Labour Party saw a great triumph 
 for itself and much glorification before its con- 
 stituents and paymasters, in having extorted fi^om 
 the Government concessions even greater than those 
 they had demanded. The Prime Minister's pledge 
 was in black and white. It was public, formal, 
 and, as far as they saw, could not now by any 
 possible means be shirked. It was a triumph for 
 their policy and it had the advantage of keeping 
 in office a government infinitely more squeezable 
 
214 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 than the Liberal party was ever likely to be. 
 The Tory cave welcomed the emasculation of the 
 objectionable clauses from the bill and felt confident 
 it could procure the rejection of such a bill as 
 Cory ton had foreshadowed. The official Opposition 
 also believed in the certainty of its rejection and, 
 jumping to the conclusion that the fate of the 
 Government would be bound up in it, rejoiced 
 also. The Government itself was at first bewildered, 
 as this was the first it had heard of the Prime 
 Minister's pledge. Then gradually the conviction 
 presented itself that this was the critical moment 
 in their career and that, if they could weather 
 it, their future was probably assured, while, if the 
 worst came to the worst, delay would leave them 
 to enjoy the sweets of office a little longer. Coryton 
 had cut the Gordian knot and the tangle was 
 unloosed. 
 
 Lord Rupert Cameron was the first to rise after 
 the cheers at the end of Coryton's speech had at 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 215 
 
 length subsided. He was always the quickest to 
 take in a situation and seize an advantage. He 
 began by complimenting Coryton on 'his brilliant 
 diplomacy, worthy of a Metternich or a Beacons- 
 field,' and still more on the masterly way in 
 which he had expounded it. He dwelt upon the 
 boldness of Corjrton's action and hinted with much 
 veiled sarcasm at the risks he had run of being 
 disowned in case of failure. "" But my honourable 
 friend has not failed," he added amid universal 
 applause, " and therefore he will not be disowned." 
 He advised the Government, if for once they would 
 take his advice, to adopt the course which his 
 honourable friend had suggested. And he advised 
 the leaders of the Independent Labour Party, who 
 had always done justice to his (Lord Rupert's) 
 sympathy with Labour Movement, to accept the 
 Prime Minister's pledge, while yet it was on offer, 
 and, in view of the generous concessions that had 
 been made, to set up no obstacle to the separ- 
 
216 THE GKEEN BAY TREE. 
 
 ation of the two bills in the method suggested. 
 
 Mr. Grit followed, saying that he had great pleas- 
 ure in accepting, both for himself and his colleagues, 
 the terms offered by the Prime Minister, provided 
 they were confirmed by the Minister in charge 
 of the bill. This the Minister, who had meanwhile 
 communicated with his chief, had no difficulty in 
 doing and -despite a protest from Mr. Timothy 
 Mealy that there was no occasion for eliminating 
 the food clauses from the bill because the Govern- 
 ment proposed to extend them,— the motion for 
 adjournment was carried unanimously and next 
 week the Free Education bill, lightened of its 
 perplexing food clauses, was sent up to the House 
 of Lords. 
 
 The Government was saved, and from that day 
 forward its stability kept on increasing. So much 
 so that, when the promised Food bill saw the 
 light and was defeated on second reading by the 
 connivance of the Government whips, the acuteness 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 217 
 
 of the question had passed away and the House 
 only smiled at the impotent fury, with which the 
 Independent Labour Party proclaimed itself to 
 have been foiled. 
 
 The Government was saved and its saviour 
 was the hero of the hour. The society papers 
 were soon throwing out mysterious hints about 
 the offer and rejection of an under-secretaryship 
 and even about the prospects of Cabinet rank 
 being immediately conferred. There was no truth 
 in the rumours, of course, and they all might 
 have been traced to one source, but they served 
 their purpose none the less efficiently for that. 
 
 As good luck would have it, society was then 
 on the look-out for a lion. There was no special 
 African traveller in London w^ith new yarns about 
 ' the Anthropophagi and men whose heads do grow 
 beneath their shoulders;' there was no Yankee 
 circus-man with a picturesque hat and a certain 
 knack of shooting straight at glass balls, acquired 
 
218 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 by much practice at the heads of San Francisco 
 bar-loafers; nor was there even an Oriental monarch, 
 a revolutionary general, or a slack-baked poet, 
 with whom long, curlless hair and unclean habits 
 might pass for genius and plagiarized impertinences 
 for natural wit. 
 
 So Walpole Coryton stepped by common con- 
 sent into the vacant situation and seemed to bid 
 fair, with his irresistible Vixie, to ' live happily 
 ever afterward. ' Everybody delighted to do them 
 honour, from the Prime Minister, who had said, 
 *He will make a useful under-secretary,' down to 
 Creeper Crawley and Toadey-Snaile, who abased 
 themselves before them. All the saloons of Society 
 vied for the honour of entertaining them and 
 Majesty herself, deigning to share the public 
 interest, sent a 'command' to dine and sleep 
 at Windsor Castle. Everything and everybody 
 smiled upon the happy pair and no one assuredly 
 was better fitted than they to derive the fullest 
 
THE CROWN OF BAY LEAVES. 219 
 
 enjoyment out of all that fortune had to offer. 
 " What have we done, " Violet was never tired 
 of asking herself and her husband, as she rejoiced 
 again and again over the exeeding joy of living, 
 " What have we done to deserve all this happiness ? " 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 THE SORROWS OF SANCTITY. 
 
 The treasure that He lent us in life's garden. 
 Falk, we shall find no answer then but this. 
 Lord, we have lost it on our road to death. 
 
 — Ibsen. 
 
 What was happening to Gwendolen all this time ? 
 Had she found the upward path too steep, the 
 narrow way too rough for her bleeding feet ? Had 
 she, like so many others in the first flush of 
 enthusiasm, essayed a task which was too hard 
 for her ? Had she fainted, or turned aside by 
 the way? 
 
 Not so. She was made of sterner stuff than 
 
 220 
 
THE SORROWS OF SANCTITY. 221 
 
 that. If her creed, if her conception of duty, was 
 a narrow one, she had with it all the thoroughness 
 born of that narrowness. She had mapped out 
 for herself what she considered to be the right 
 course and, having put her hand to the plough, 
 she was not one lightly to turn back. Her aunt's 
 shrill protests, the world's wondering sneers. Lord 
 Baltinglass's anger (for when he found that she 
 refused the aegis of his protection and the solace 
 of his cheque book, his wrath knew no bounds). 
 Miss Tyrconnel's tearful prayers — all left her 
 absolutely untouched, nor swerved her one hair's- 
 breadth from her purpose. 
 
 The only thing that could have moved her 
 — a renewed appeal from her husband — remained 
 unuttered. If, when she left him, he had followed 
 her, sought her out, pleaded again for her pardon 
 and her love, she might have forgiven him, might 
 have thrown herself upon his breast and sobbed 
 out all her sorrow there. The aura of his presence, 
 
222 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 the glamour of his love, might have reasserted 
 itself and conquered her. It might have done so 
 — and it might not. Such possibilities must be 
 banished to the limbo of ' might-have-beens', 
 for she was never tested. In the first shock 
 of her flight, Tyrconnel's wounded pride battled 
 with his wounded love and kept him silent until 
 it was too late. He was ill at first, as we know ; 
 then, when he had rallied enough to coUect his 
 scattered thoughts, when he sat down and poured 
 out all his soul to her in a rush of penitence 
 and weakness, the letter never reached her — she 
 had left Cambridge for good. Her husband did 
 not write again. This chilling silence was a 
 thousand times worse than the most passionate 
 rebuff. It stung his pride to the quick and made 
 him more determined than ever to show that 
 he could live without her, without them all, and 
 that he could make his way in the world alone. 
 Had he succeeded he would have written to her 
 
THE SORROWS OF SANCTITY. 223 
 
 again, but he failed. How could it be otherwise, 
 when the ground around him was strewn with the 
 bones of those who struggled before and had 
 been vanquished in the unequal fight? His failure 
 drove him back upon himself and made him think 
 more hardly of his wife. He knew nothing of her 
 father's sudden death nor of his ruin. When he 
 thought of her, it was to picture her at Cambridge, 
 the centre of a happy home — or perhaps with 
 his father at Blarney, petted, pitied, caressed, 
 taking a side against him, while he was struggling, 
 outcast, alone. The thought made- his heart hot 
 with indignant pain. 
 
 In the meantime no one knew whither Gwendolen 
 had gone, not Lord Baltinglass, nor Miss Tyrcon- 
 nel, nor even Mrs. de Courcy Miles. When she 
 quitted the home of her childhood one bleak 
 February day, the home which was already under 
 the auctioneer's hammer, Gwendolen resolutely 
 turned her back on all the world. Henceforth she 
 
224 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 would be dead to them, those false friends, those 
 evils counsellors, who were trying to turn her from 
 the path of right I A great longing came over 
 her to be away from them all. After this turmoil 
 and strife she wished to go aside into the wilder- 
 ness and rest awhile. She chose the greatest 
 wilderness of all — the wilderness of London. Here 
 she took some little rooms in a dingy back street 
 somewhere in Westbourne Grove, a street which was 
 a sort of bastard off-shoot of that paradise of 
 suburban shoppers, Westbourne Grove. 
 
 Gwendolen had been guided thither by the fact 
 that an old servant of her mother's had married 
 and settled years ago and let out 'apartments.' 
 The woman was dead now, but her daughter carried 
 on the anything but flourishing trade. So Gwen- 
 dolen drifted there, but despite all her fortitude, 
 all her stern sense of right, her heart sank within 
 her as the cab rattled her up to the door of that 
 dingy house in that dreary little street. 
 
THE SORKOWS OF SANCTITY. 225 
 
 It was the first step on her pilgrimage of duty, 
 or rather her sacrifice to a mistaken sense of 
 duty — the first, but not the last for many a weary 
 day. 
 
 In the long months which followed she suf- 
 fered — ah! how she suffered I — as only these silent, 
 still women can suffer and make no sign. The 
 burden of the Great City's loneliness was upon 
 her, a sense of desolation too great for words 
 weighed her down. She did not indeed undergo 
 that torture of vain questioning and doubt as to 
 the right course, which a weaker nature — one less 
 heavenly and more earthly— might have suffered, 
 but ever and anon her heart would go out in spite 
 of herself to her husband, and an aching yearning 
 would come over her to see him again. But she 
 stifled it down, this holy yearning — treated it as 
 men and women of her type are wont to treat 
 the promptings of nature — repressed it and thrust 
 it aside as if the very thought were sin. But 
 
 VOL. III. 15 
 
226 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 stifle it down as she would, struggle as she would, 
 the still small voice within her would make itself 
 heard, the deep whisper beating ever in her 
 heart— " My husband !—My h ushand !— Wilfrid !— 
 Wilfrid!'' 
 
 She little knew that on the other side of this 
 great Babylon, the one her soul yearned for was 
 fighting against all the hard circumstances of his 
 life, battling against an insidious disease, toiling, 
 struggling, in the vain endeavour to do something 
 which should win back her duty and her love, 
 which should make him 'more worthy' of her. 
 She pictured her husband as still abroad, at Monte 
 Carlo perhaps, or at Baden-Baden, Paris, Vienna, 
 or some other wicked city. He loved such places 
 better — far better— she tried to think, than he 
 had ever loved her. 
 
 So these two wrong-headed young people went 
 on their way alone, each sacrificing the heaven 
 of happiness which lay within their reach— she to 
 
THE SORROWS OF SANCTITY. 227 
 
 her mistaken sense of duty — he to his wounded 
 pride. 
 
 Meanwhile Gwendolen had to wonder how she 
 was to live. Her father had died a ruined man. 
 Everything he possessed had been seized upon 
 by his creditors — and even those few things to 
 which she might have laid a personal claim she did 
 not demand. Her stern sense of conscientiousness 
 made her yield up everything until the last debtor 
 was satisfied. But she was not absolutely desti- 
 tute. She had a little money in hand, very little — 
 but then a woman is said to want so little — and 
 a few trinkets, which could, if necessary, be con- 
 verted into cash by a process of which she had 
 hitherto been ignorant. Still, the fund she had in 
 hand, though it would last for a time — for her 
 wants were few and she seemed to take a pleasure 
 in denying herself everything but the barest neces- 
 saries, — would not last for ever. To prevent its 
 dwindling too rapidly, she must work. But how? 
 
228 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 She had thought it so easy at first. She knew 
 nothing of the terrible industrial struggle which 
 presses even more heavily on worn en- workers 
 than on men, which indeed in the low-skilled 
 industries thrives on the very weakness of women. 
 She had not recognized the fact that for women 
 there is practically only one profession, and that 
 an overcrowded one — to wit, matrimony. She 
 knew nothing of these things. So she put her 
 modest little advertisement in the Guardian and 
 some other papers, to say that a lady wished to 
 give lessons in music and painting and other arts. 
 And then she waited. She might have been left 
 waiting, for no answer came. At length she gave 
 up advertising; it did no good and it only spent 
 her money. It was as Mrs. de Courcy Miles had 
 said, people didn't want governesses, especially 
 governesses they knew nothing about, and Gwen- 
 dolen was determined of all things to keep her 
 past life a secret. 
 
THE SORROWS OF SANCTITY. 229 
 
 So she essayed fresh fields and pastures new 
 and fell back upon her needle. She was clever 
 at fancy work of all kinds, flower-painting on satin, 
 crewels, Church- embroidery and so forth. All 
 these things she had been accustomed to play at 
 in the pretty-pretty way, which ladies call 'work.' 
 
 She took some specimens of her needlework 
 to the great Emporium hard by, and endeavoured 
 to find employment. The result was not encour- 
 aging. They had no work to give, but the Manager, 
 a kind-hearted man, touched by the look of patient 
 sorrow on the girl's sweet face, told her of a shop 
 in Bond Street which dealt largely in lamp-shades 
 — marvels of silk and lace — photograph-frames, 
 hand-screens, and like trifles. Here Gwendolen 
 was more successful. They could give her much 
 work at an inverse ratio of pay. But it was 
 work she could do at home, and, small though the 
 price of her labour was, she was thankful to get 
 it. It helped to eke out her scanty fund, and 
 
230 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 it gave her something to occupy her thoughts. 
 She needed it. She worked feverishly, inces- 
 santly, trying through prayer and much sewing to 
 still that deep whisper, ever beating in her heart, 
 to blot out that image which strive as she might 
 would rise unbidden before her eyes. By day she 
 was fairly successful, but by night — ah I who can 
 keep guard over the truant visions of the night? 
 Sometimes in her dreams her love would live once 
 more — her husband would come to her again, his 
 voice whisper in her ear, his warm kisses press 
 themselves upon her lips, his curly head pillow 
 itself upon her bosom — and then she would wake 
 with a start to find it was but a dream. A device 
 of the Evil One, she deemed it, instead of the 
 voice of Nature struggling against the unnatural 
 restraints she had imposed, and true to her stern 
 creed, she would arise and kneel down shivering 
 in the cheerless room — praying that she might 
 have grace to fight against temptation, trying to 
 
THE SORROWS OF SANCTITY. 2ol 
 
 comfort herself with the promise which comforted 
 of old the doubting Peter, 
 
 ^ Every one that Jiath forsaken houses, or brethren, 
 or sisters, or father, or mother, or children, or 
 lands, for My ?iame^s sake shall receive a hundred- 
 fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.'' 
 
 But Gwendolen was not Peter, she was only 
 a loving woman; and, though she murmured in 
 the fervency of her prayer, " Thy strength shall 
 be sufficient for me " — yet in her heart she knew 
 that it was not sufficient. How could it be ? 
 She was but flesh and blood after all. She yearned 
 after the visible, not the invisible, the tangible, 
 not the intangible, the real, not the unreal. Yet 
 still she would kneel there fighting with herself, 
 while the hours wore themselves on through the 
 night, until the first grey gleam of dawn lit up 
 the sordid room. There was something sublime 
 in this abandonment of self. It was the same 
 spirit which animated the Virgin Martyrs of the 
 
232 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Early Church and made them yield their slender 
 bodies to the rack and to the flames. 
 
 But the Virgin Martyrs probably found happi- 
 ness — the happiness which the Moslem feels when 
 he rushes to meet his death upon the bayonets 
 of the infidel — and Gwendolen did not. It is all 
 very well to say that to do right is the only 
 happiness. Gwendolen was doing right, or what 
 she firmly believed to be right, which is the same 
 thing, since right is a relative term all the world 
 over. Yet she was not happy. The awful sense of 
 loneliness entered like iron into her soul. 
 
 So dragged the months along. March passed 
 by, April and Easter came. The trees in the 
 parks put on their summer vesture of green and 
 the butterflies of fashion came out with the sunshine. 
 The Season waxed and waned. In July Gwendolen 
 read by chance of Coryton's election in the papers. 
 Do what she would, she could not altogether keep 
 down the feeling of bitterness, which rose in her 
 
THE SORROWS OF SANCTITY. 233 
 
 breast when she read it. This man — her husband's 
 false friend, as she now knew him to be, the man 
 who had ruined her father and brought her to the 
 verge of penury, — was flourishing like the Green 
 Bay Tree. Like the Psalmist of old, she found 
 this thing too hard for her until she went into 
 the Sanctuary of her Faith. That brought peace 
 and refreshment into her soul for a time, but only 
 for a time. 
 
 About this time Gwendolen became very ill. 
 The mental worry, the inferior food, the close 
 air all told upon her health. For a time she gave 
 way utterly, broken down both in body and mind. 
 All through the days which followed, scorching 
 August days when the Park was a desert and the 
 streets dusty and glaring, she lay in her room 
 listless, dispirited, drooping like a faded flower, 
 praying for death. So she remained all through 
 the autumn which followed, until the November 
 fogs came and stern necessity made her arise 
 
234 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 from her couch and take up her work again. 
 Poverty is a hard task master, it takes no account 
 of wrecked lives nor broken hearts; and so Gwen- 
 dolen found it. Christmas passed, the New Year 
 dawned, but it brought no promise of joy or hope 
 to Gwendolen Tyrconnel. The anniversary of her 
 wedding-day came and went. She spent it with 
 prayer and bitter tears. 
 
 One evening in late February she started forth 
 to take her work back to the shop from which 
 she was employed. It was the very evening — so 
 mysterious are the workings of destiny, or so odd 
 are the freaks of chance — the very evening that 
 Coryton was making his brilliant hit in the House 
 of Commons. Gwendolen had been working inces- 
 santly all day to get her task finished in time. 
 Her limbs felt stiff and cramped, her head ached, 
 her eyes were dizzy, she had not given herself 
 time for food — but she had done her work, and now 
 she must take it back. It was not often she went 
 
THE SORKOWS OF SANCTITY. 235 
 
 out after dusk, but she had no one to send, and 
 the Bond-Street establishment closed at seven 
 o'clock. She must get it there before closing time 
 at all hazards. 
 
 The darkness of the cold damp day had closed 
 in. The lamps were looming large through the 
 gloom as Gwendolen walked along the muddy 
 pavements, drawing her waterproof more tightly 
 around her as she went. She felt weak and 
 tired; she had not gone far before she felt she 
 could walk no longer, so in the Bayswater Road 
 she hailed a passing 'bus. It was an extravagance, 
 (every penny spent was an extravagance to Gwen- 
 dolen now,) but it was one she could not help. 
 At the top of Bond Street she alighted and 
 the 'bus went on its way down Oxford Street and 
 Holborn. 
 
 The shop for which she was bound was situated 
 in Old Bond Street, hard by the Burlington Arcade. 
 There is not in all London a prettier sight than 
 
236 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Bond street just the hour after dusk, when the 
 shops are lighted before closing for the day. 
 The Art Galleries, the jewellers, the modistes, 
 the flower shops, all reveal their treasures in the 
 glow of the lamp-light, and the narrow thoroughfare 
 brings either side well within the range of vision. 
 But Gwendolen hurried along, her thick veil 
 down, her parcel under her arm, looking neither 
 to the right nor to the left. She never came to 
 this neighbourhood without a sense of fear lest 
 some chance meeting might reveal her to those 
 whom she of all things wished to avoid, and 
 when possible, she sent a messenger. But to-night 
 it had not been possible. 
 
 About half way down the street a man lounged 
 out of a cigar shop. A stout man with big 
 fishy eyes and a Jewish cast of countenance, over- 
 dressed after the manner of his type, with a loud 
 necktie, louder gloves, a blue overcoat, and a 
 button-hole of blue carnations — evidently one of 
 
THE SORROWS OF SANCTITY. 237 
 
 those low brutes who prowl around, seeking whom 
 they may devour. As Gwendolen passed he ac- 
 costed her. A woman, alone and unprotected, was 
 fine game to him. A cold terror struck her heart. 
 All the months she had been in London this was 
 the first time that anyone had dared to molest her 
 thus ; she gave him a withering glance and hur- 
 ried on. Nothing daunted, he stalked after his 
 prey, following her, quickening his pace to accord 
 with hers, every now and then making some 
 remark whose inanity scarcely veiled the covert 
 insult. How dared he? — How dared he? The 
 sense of her unprotected condition had never been 
 brought home so vividly to Gwendolen before. 
 Oh! if her husband were only here. She hailed 
 the shop for which she was bound as a haven of 
 refuge. 
 
 She was kept there waiting some time, for those 
 who come to sell are treated very differently to 
 those who come to buy, — but at last she disposed 
 
238 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 of her parcel and received the reward of her 
 labour — a few shillings. 
 
 When she came out, to her dismay she found 
 her persecutor still waiting. In her anxiety to 
 avoid him she turned into the Burlington Arcade. 
 In her innocence she did not know — how was she 
 to know? — the reputation this region has won for 
 itself when the lamps are lit — or that the smartly 
 dressed fair who flaunt up and down beneath the 
 covered dome can hardly be said, like Caesar's 
 wife, to be above suspicion. The man evidently 
 took the bend her steps had turned as a tacit encour- 
 agement, for he followed her and accosted her 
 again, this time in unmistakable terms. She gave 
 him one look of horror and indignation, and then 
 sped as fast as her feet would take her out of the 
 Arcade. As she was rushing across Burlington 
 Gardens (just where the road turns into Bond 
 Street) a smart little brougham dashed along at 
 full speed. In her blind terror Gwendolen ran 
 
THE SORROWS OF SANCTITY. 239 
 
 right under the horse's nose. There was a warning 
 shout from a policeman, and a scream from some 
 woman standing by ; the coachman tried to pull 
 up, but it was too late. Before he could do so 
 or Gwendolen could swerve aside, the shaft had 
 struck her on the shoulder and she fell senseless 
 to the ground. 
 
 In a moment confusion reigned supreme, the 
 crowd closed around and the carriage came to a 
 standstill. The brougham window was let down 
 with a rush, and a little figure with golden 
 hair — a vision of satin and sables — sprang out 
 and elbowed her way through the crowd to where 
 the senseless woman lay. A policeman was before 
 her and lifted the drooping head, waving back 
 those who huddled around. The lady of the sables 
 and the satin gave one glance towards the senseless 
 form, the white beautiful face, the shabby black 
 dress. Then she shrieked in shrill amazement, 
 
 " Goodness gracious ! If it isn't Mrs. Tyrconnel ! " 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 
 
 Extremes in everything is a characteristic 
 of woman. 
 
 — De Goncoubt. 
 
 When Gwendolen recovered consciousness, it was 
 to find herself lying on a downy bed, lapped in 
 an all-pervading sense of warmth and drowsiness. 
 She looked about her in a semi-bewildered way. 
 It was a pretty room, prettily furnished. The bed 
 hangings were of rose pink, edged with lace; the 
 toilet-ware and window curtains were of the same 
 delicate hue, which tinted also the woodwork of 
 the furniture. A night-light was dimly burning, 
 
 240 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 241 
 
 and a fire of red coals glowed in the grate. It 
 was a picture of warmth and comfort. By the 
 side of the fire was drawn up a large arm-chair 
 and a table with a medicine bottle and glass upon 
 it, also a servant's cap. But whoever had occupied 
 the chair, it was tenantless for the nonce, and 
 Gwendolen was alone. 
 
 At first she thought she must be dreaming. 
 How came she here in this luxurious nest, so 
 different from her sordid little room in Bayswater? 
 Where was she ? What did it all mean ? She raised 
 herself on one elbow, and again her eyes wandered 
 round the room, taking in each item in mute amaze. 
 Suddenly they lighted on her mud-stained waterproof, 
 
 which was thrown carelessly across a chair 
 
 Ah ! she remembered that dreadful man .... 
 
 the rush across the street the blow on her 
 
 shoulder. It still ached with pain the fall. 
 
 But how came she here? 
 
 A sudden terror struck her, banishing all her 
 
 VOL. ill. 16 
 
242 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 drowsiness in an instant. She remembered the 
 evil look in the man's eyes. Had she been seized, 
 kidnapped, carried off, while still unconscious, to 
 some den of vice? Innocent, guileless though she 
 was, Gwendolen had vague ideas about vice, — 
 indefinite notions gleaned from chance paragraphs 
 in the newspapers — veiled hints of wickedness too 
 great for words. 
 
 Fearfully she gazed around in the flickering light, 
 her heart seemed almost to stop its beating. What 
 she expected to see, she knew not, nor did she 
 know that those who are most vicious make the 
 least parade of their vice. Anyway, her scrutiny 
 was reassuring to her; there was nothing to sug- 
 gest evil here. A few chaste water-colours in 
 Oxford frames adorned the walls, over the fire- 
 place there was a picture of a distinctly religious 
 type ; the chintz-covered furniture looked innocent 
 enough to have graced the 'spare bed-room' of 
 a respectable family. 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 243 
 
 Still the terror was upon her. She got up 
 and began hurriedly to huddle on her dress. Her 
 head was dizzy, her knees so weak that she could 
 scarcely stand, the pain in her shoulder made 
 her slow of movement. But she managed to dress 
 somehow, fear lent her strength. 
 
 With uncertain, feeble steps, guiding herself by 
 the furniture, as invalids are wont to do, she tot- 
 tered to the door, and opening it noiselessly, peered 
 out. 
 
 Gaslights were flaring on the stairs and in the 
 narrow hall beneath. The clock on the landing 
 pointed to half-past one. Gwendolen gasped. She 
 must have been here nearly seven hours. She crept 
 cautiously down the stairs. As she did so, the 
 sound of boisterous merriment burst upon her 
 ears. It issued from the half-open door of a room 
 on the ground floor. Gwendolen shuddered and 
 drew back. To her distorted sense, it sounded 
 Jike the unholy mirth of a Pandemonium. Oh I to 
 
244 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 what terrible place had she come? How should 
 she escape from it? Beyond that room lay the 
 hall-door, and the safety of the outer air. She 
 must reach it at all hazards. She had gathered 
 up her strength for a sudden rush, when upon 
 her ears there fell the sound of her own name. 
 
 " I'd just been round to Schwabe's to try on a 
 
 frock You might have knocked me down 
 
 with a feather," cried a high-pitched, staccato 
 voice, " I never was so taken aback in all my 
 
 life When I caught sight of her face, I'm 
 
 blessed if 'twasn't Mrs. Wilfrid Tyrconnel." 
 
 Gwendolen paused in amazement. Where had 
 she heard that voice before? — Ah! she remembered, 
 she was not likely to forget, for with it was 
 associated the bitterest hour of her life. And yet — 
 could it be? 
 
 Urged by an irresistible impulse, she moved 
 towards the half-opened door. At first, she could 
 see nothing. It was a long double room, with heavy 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 245 
 
 curtains of blue plush dividing it mid-way. These 
 curtains were drawn now and the back part of 
 the room, which Gwendolen entered with noiseless 
 step, lay in darkness, save that a glimmer of light 
 made its way through where the curtains met. It 
 was the smallest opening, but through it Gwendolen 
 was able to see without being seen. 
 
 A sight met her eyes which was new to her, 
 but which crystallized at once all her vague notions 
 of an evil life. And yet on the surface there was 
 nothing so very evil about this particular gathering. 
 It was only the burlesque actress. Miss de Vere, 
 nee Popkins, entertaining Miss Gussie Gutter of 
 music-hall fame. Miss Pussie Prancewell, and a few 
 friends of the other sex to supper after the play. 
 True, the guests v/ere expressing themselves in 
 that free and easy fashion current in Bohemia; 
 and, if noise were a criterion, they seemed to be 
 enjoying themselves, though very likely they were 
 not, for Bohemia is often at the bottom as dull 
 
246 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 and flat as average Exeter Hall respectability. 
 But Gwendolen judged from appearances. 
 
 It was a little, gaudily-furnished room, crammed 
 with furniture, poiifs, cushions, and photographs, 
 a room full of discords of colour and glare of 
 gilding. The air was thick with tobacco smoke 
 and heavy with scent. On a round table pushed 
 away now against the wall, were the remains of 
 a substantial supper — oysters and Chablis, lobsters 
 and champagne, devilled bones and brandies and 
 sodas, — plenty of variety and plenty of everything. 
 The light from the red lamp-shades threw a mere- 
 tricious glow over the group gathered around the 
 fire. Sally was there, the centre of the group, 
 lying back in a low chair heaped around with 
 downy cushions — but not Sally as Gwendolen had 
 seen her last — as she had pictured her ever since^ 
 a poor little Marguerite in a shabby black frock — 
 but Sally radiant with rouge and pearl powder, 
 with diamonds — real or sham— gleaming on her 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 247 
 
 white bosom and in the golden mist of her fluffy 
 hair - Sally in shimmer of satin and lace — Sally 
 a very Circe incarnate, with a cigarette stuck 
 between her lips and a big tumbler of something 
 by her side, her roguish little face lit up as she 
 held forth for the benefit of the others around 
 her. And those others I Miss Gussie Gutter in a 
 flaunting garb of red and yellow, with her hands 
 clasped behind her head, sitting on the arm of a 
 chair, and that hereditary legislator, Lord Welcher, 
 reclining on the bear-skin rug at her feet,— Miss 
 Prancewell also en grande tenue on a sofa and, by 
 her side — what did he here? — that eminent legis- 
 lator and Exeter Hall luminary, Mr. Toadey- 
 Snaile, M.P. There was yet one more — his back 
 was towards her, but Gwendolen had no difficulty 
 in recognizing the thick-set bull neck and stubbly 
 black hair of Lord Pimlico. With difficulty she 
 suppressed a scream. To what terrible place had 
 she been brought V The trail of the serpent seemed 
 
248 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 over all ; yet she could not fly ; terror and 
 amazement kept her rooted to the spot. She 
 put her hand to her heart, and gasped for breath. 
 Meanwhile the high-pitched voice went on: 
 
 " So I told the bobby that she was a friend of 
 mine. What are you grinning at, Pim ? What 
 else could I say? And he lifted her into the 
 brougham and off we were like a shot out of that 
 horrid crowd which was enough to suffocate any- 
 body. The doctor says the fall's nothing. She 
 fainted more from fright than anything else, and 
 when she showed signs of coming to and was 
 light-headed, he gave her something to make her 
 doze off again. She'll be as right as a trivet in 
 the morning." 
 
 " You don't mean to say she's here now ? " 
 cried Mr. Toadey-Snaile in astonishment and alarm. 
 
 " You don't think I should turn her out in the 
 streets, do you ? " retorted Sally indignantly. " I am 
 not quite such a brute as that, and she was good 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 249 
 
 to me once on a time Yes, she's upstairs in 
 
 bed, — at least I s'pose so; I haven't seen her 
 since I came back, but Jane's looking after her— if 
 the lazy hussy hasn't gone to sleep, that is." 
 
 " Miss de Vere turned good Samaritan ! " snig- 
 gered Toadey-Snaile. "How touching!" 
 
 ''Better than a Pharisee, any day," rejoined 
 Sally tartly. Her sentiment evoked a sturdy " hear, 
 hear," from the fair Gussie. 
 
 Lord Welcher gave a tipsy snort. He had been 
 half asleep during this colloquy. 
 
 "Don't you think we'd better be toddlin', 
 Gussie?" he queried drov/sily. 
 
 "Dry up," retorted that damsel, giving him a 
 tap on the head with her satin slipper. "Go on, 
 Sally, don't take any notice of him. What are 
 you going to do with her, when she comes to ? " 
 
 " I'm blessed if I know ! " said Sally with a 
 puzzled air. " It's a rum go altogether. Whatever 
 could make the likes of her be running about the 
 
250 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Burlington at that time of night, and all alone 
 too? And the doctor says he doesn't think she 
 has had half enough to eat — and she'd got a pair 
 of boots on that I wouldn't touch with the tongs^ 
 — all down at heel, and an old frock — well, it's 
 almost as bad as what I used to wear when I was 
 iu a garret, starving on a bloater and four and 
 sixpence a week, before " 
 
 " You knew me, " interrupted Pimlico. He was 
 always inclined to be spiteful in his cups. 
 
 "Oh, long before that," rejoined Miss Popkins 
 coolly, " though you don't part with any more 
 than you can help — I know that. " 
 
 Whereat there was a general laugh. Even Lord 
 Welcher joined in under his bibulous breath. 
 
 "I'm sure I can't make it out," resumed Sally 
 reflectively — "pass the cigarettes will you, Toadey, 
 if you don't mean to keep them all to yourself. 
 What beats me is how she got like this— a real 
 swell too ! What can her husband be thinking 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 251 
 
 about? But there, I always said he wasn't fit to 
 black her boots." 
 
 " Her husband ! " echoed Pimlico. " He's on his 
 last legs too, I hear. Poor Pigeon! Don't you 
 know they had an awful row at Cannes about 
 something or other, and she went off and left him 
 then and there. You ought to know all about it, 
 Sally " 
 
 Sally winced, and turned almost pale beneath 
 her rouge. 
 
 " You don't mean to say," she exclaimed in un- 
 feigned astonishment, " that she ran away from 
 him because of that ! " 
 
 " I do mean to say it," repeated Pimlico doggedly, 
 " and what's more, when he got back to England, 
 old Baltinglass turned him out of doors without 
 a sou in his pocket. I believe he took to quill- 
 drivin' or somethin', but somebody told me the 
 other day he was dead." 
 
 He took another swig at his whiskey and soda. 
 
252 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 " No, he isn't, " chimed in Pussie Prancewell, speak- 
 ing now for the first time, " but he's precious 
 near it, I can tell you. You remember Olive 
 Jennings of the Gaiety chorus, don't you, Sally? 
 She has been terribly down on her luck latel}^ 
 I went to see her the other day, in Duchess 
 Street, Soho. That is where she is living now, 
 and bless me, who should have a room of the top 
 floor but Tyrconnel? I met him accidentally on 
 the stairs, as I was going up one day. I should 
 never have known him, he looked out at elbows, 
 half starved, and scarcely able to drag himself 
 along, but something in his face struck me, and 
 I asked Olive who it was. She said she be- 
 lieved his name was Tyrconnel, and he was 
 dying of gallopin' consumption — Gracious Goodness! 
 — Whaterer's that!!" 
 
 There was a low moan — a sudden cry — the 
 next moment the blue velvet curtains were rent 
 asunder, and a pale agonized woman tottered 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 253 
 
 forward, and almost fell at the speaker's feet. 
 
 " Dying — you say — dying? Wilfrid — my husband, 
 dying, — and I never knew it ! Oh ! where is 
 he? — where is he? — take me to him " 
 
 Banquo's ghost at the banquet — the writing on 
 the wall at Belshazzar's feast could not have 
 brought greater confusion than this sudden apparition 
 — sudden as it was unexpected — wrought on this 
 select assembly. The men sprang to their feet — 
 all except Lord Welcher, who still sat on the 
 hearthrug blinking his little red eyes in tipsy 
 wonder. Sally gave a screech, Gussie Gutter, as 
 she afterwards phrased it, felt 'all of the creeps' 
 ■ — Miss Prancewell, to whom this appeal was 
 addressed, stared as though she were confronted 
 with a spectre. 
 
 " Where is he ? Oh, take me to him, " wailed 
 Gwendolen again, wringing her hands — oblivious 
 of everything save her husband's dire need. The 
 wifely instinct was aroused in her at last. She 
 
254 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 pictured him starving, dying, helpless, deserted. 
 A. great rush of pity and love swept over her, 
 breaking all barriers down. 
 
 " Sixty-four, Duchess Street, Soho," gasped 
 out Miss Prancewell, too astonished to equivocate, 
 ''There don't take on so — don't," she added, 
 touched in spite of herself, at the look of un- 
 speakable sorrow on the pale face. 
 
 But her words fell on deaf ears. Worn-out 
 by conflicting emotions, weak from long fasting 
 and overwork, exhausted by all she had gone 
 through, — even as she spoke Gwendolen reeled 
 and fell. For the second time, she fainted .... 
 
 " I think we'd better be toddlin', Gussie," the 
 noble peer said again when the confusion had 
 somewhat subsided. He had remained in a semi- 
 torpid condition throughout. 
 
 Miss Gutter promptly took the hint and, tucking 
 his arm through her own, marched his uncertain 
 steps to the door. Pussie Prancewell followed 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 255 
 
 suit. Toadey-Snaile had long since disappeared, 
 skulking off at the first alarm. A wholesome 
 dread of the wife of his bosom and a terror 
 of being arraigned before his constituents by a 
 reptile press, if this escapade should leak out. 
 lent wings to his flight. Sally was kneeling by 
 the side of the insensible girl, chafing the cold 
 hands. Pimlico hovered around, uncertain whether 
 to go or to stay. 
 
 "Here's a silly go," he exclaimed presently, 
 addressing Sally's back. "T\"hat are you going 
 to do with her, T should like to know?" 
 
 " You'd better let her people know,"' said 
 Sally without looking up. " Lord Baltinglass ought 
 to be told where she is — and then he can come 
 and fetch her away." 
 
 " Oh, that be hanged,"' cried Pimlico. He was 
 in a very bad temper at this premature breaking-up 
 of the party, just when he had settled down to 
 make a night of it too. " You don't catch me 
 
256 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 mixing myself up with it. Why, he or the 
 Guv'nor 'd be wanting to know how I came here, 
 and then what should I say?" 
 
 Sally shrugged her shoulders indifferently. 
 
 "Tell a lie," she said. "'Twouldn't be the 
 first you have told by a good many." 
 
 Pimlico glowered, but did not venture the 
 retort which rose to his lips. Sally in her 
 'tantrums' was a difficult person to deal with. 
 
 " Better have her put to bed — and we'll talk 
 it over," he hazarded presently. 
 
 " I am not going to leave her any more to-night, " 
 said Sally. And she meant it. 
 
 " Well, in that case," he said sulkily, " I'd better 
 make tracks, I suppose." 
 
 To this Sally deigned no response. But w^hen 
 he had put on his hat and coat and came to 
 claim a caress, she pushed him roughly from her 
 with a sudden spasm of shame. 
 
 "Oh I go away, do," she cried. "Can't you 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 257 
 
 see how I feel just now ? I might have been 
 almost a good woman, if it hadn't been for you." 
 Pimlico made no further remonstrance. He 
 was too much astonished at this new phase of 
 feeling. He banged out of the door in a huff, and 
 hailing a hansom — there were always hansoms 
 hanging round Alpha Cottage in the small hours 
 of the morning — jumped in, and drove off westward. 
 
 "God may forgive you, I never can." 
 The words sounded stern and hard, but they 
 were not sterner nor harder than Gwendolen's 
 heart. She stood there in the cold grey light 
 of the early morning, buttoning her cloak with 
 trembling hands. Every nerve quivered with 
 repulsion as she looked at the woman before her. 
 For Sally, moved by a strange, unaccountable 
 impulse peculiar to excitable souls, smitten by 
 VOL. m. 17 
 
258 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 compunction at the sight of the anguish, which she 
 had wrought, maudlin too, perchance, from the 
 frequent nips of Cognac which she had taken to 
 sustain her through the trying night, had told 
 her all. All the story of that plot at Cottenham, 
 of the net spread before the bird, of the one fall 
 and subsequent recoil, of Coryton's suggestions at 
 Les Douleurs and Monte Carlo; — of everything in 
 fact, exonerating Tyrconnel and shelving all the 
 blame, or as much of it as she could, upon 
 Coryton's shoulders. Still, palliate it as she 
 would, she was a consenting party, privy to the 
 plot, the willing tool whereby it was carried out. 
 The damning fact remained. 
 
 " I'm sure I never thought you'd take it like 
 you did," snivelled Sally, moved to tears at this 
 stern rejection of her prayer for pardon, " I thought 
 you'd give him a wiggin' of course, and then 
 kiss and make friends again, — like — like anybody 
 else. Why even if all I had told you was true 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHX. 259 
 
 — and it wasn't — it was no more than plenty of 
 other men have done — and are doing every day. 
 Oh ! I could tell you some pretty tales about 
 people you little think it of — and of old men too. 
 Old men, " she wound up viciously, " are the worst 
 of the lot." 
 
 Gwendolen put up her hand with a stern gesture 
 of silence. But the torrent of Sally's exculpatory 
 drivel was not to be stemmed thus; it simply 
 swerved in other directions. 
 
 "And I was hard up too," she continued, — " very 
 hard up, I was. I didn't know where to turn for a 
 penny or I never should have done it — never. 
 I lost everything on the tables, and he only gave 
 me a tenner — at least that was all that thief of a 
 Coryton gave me from him, though I'm quite 
 sure now that he bagged the rest himself. Oh, 
 it's bad to be poor, — that it is." 
 
 She began to whimper again like a beaten 
 puppy. 
 
260 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 Gwendolen's eyes travelled slowly round the 
 room — the rose-hued hangings, the lace-fringed 
 curtains, the pretty furniture — all seemed to her 
 part of the price of sin. Lastly her eyes came 
 back to Sally herself — a poor dishevelled Sally in 
 this morning light. Her eyes were red as a 
 ferret's, — tears had mingled with the rouge and 
 powder on her face, producing an effect akin to 
 that of a washed-out doll. Last evening' s dissipation 
 followed by a sleepless night had told on her. 
 She looked the wreck of her painted beauty. 
 And yet — Gwendolen felt no pity. She had been 
 fooled, tricked, lied to, she had been betrayed, 
 she had blighted two lives, by her incapacity to 
 take a wide view of life. And this woman, who 
 had lured her husband into sin and who had 
 lied to her, was now suing her pardon. Faugh ! 
 It was only one more piece of dissimulation. Just 
 now she was a poor bedraggled Magdalen, indeed. 
 By and by she would be smiling again, in silks 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 261 
 
 and velvets and diamonds. A wave of repulsion 
 swept over her I 
 
 "This is not poverty," she said, sweeping her 
 hand around, "Shame on you — shame! " 
 
 "No, it isn't," said Sally, becoming in a moment 
 less lachrymose and more defiant. The utter scorn of 
 Gwendolen's words penetrated even her thick skin. 
 A worm will turn at last. " This is the gilding of the 
 pill," she went on bitterly, " this is what makes 
 , sin, ' as you call it — so attractive. Four and sixpence 
 a week, a garret and a herrin', working from dawn 
 to night. — that was what virtue had to offer me, 
 so I could stand it no longer: I chose vice. And," — 
 looking around, — "can you wonder?" 
 
 Gwendolen shuddered, — shuddered at the gulf of 
 degradation which seemed to yawn at her very 
 feet. Sally misinterpreted the gesture and applied 
 it as personal to herself. 
 
 ''Yes," she cried with a bitter resentful laugh. 
 " Fm what I am, and I am not ashamed to own 
 
262 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 it. But bad as I am, I don't know that I'd change 
 places with you. You seem precious sure of being 
 in the right. Well, you may be. I only know 
 this: If a man loved me — worse luck, no one ever 
 has — or if I loved a man, husband or no husband, 
 I'd stick to him through thick and thin, right or 
 wrong, good or bad, rich or poor, it'd make no 
 difference to me. If he was bad as the Devil, I'd 
 stick to him just the same. But you, with your 
 cantin' and psalm-singin', just because of one little 
 slip, you go and chuck your husband over like an 
 old shoe — and leave him to die or go to the Devil 
 for all you care. If that's being good, let me be 
 bad, I say! " 
 
 " Oh, spare me, spare me," pleaded Gwendolen 
 piteously, looking around to seek some means of 
 escape. Everyone of these reproaches, coarsely 
 put though they were, sped home. " Fm going 
 to him — going at once — only spare me." 
 
 The look of anger died out of Sally's face in 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 263 
 
 an instant. She felt herself in the presence of 
 some great grief, some conflict of the soul she 
 could not fathom. 
 
 " There, there, " she said soothingly, " don't mind 
 what I say. You shouldn't have provoked me. I 
 only want to make up for what I've done. Xo 
 doubt you thought you were doing right— though 
 how you could think so, beats me into a cocked 
 hat. But then I am not a religious woman," she 
 
 added without any conscious irony " What 
 
 are you looking about for? You needn't be in 
 such a hurry to get away. Fm not plague-stricken. " 
 
 "I must go to him," cried Gwendolen, hardly 
 hearing what the other was saying. "* Oh 1 God 
 help me out of this wicked house I I cannot breathe, 
 cannot think here." 
 
 " But you can't go like this, " remonstrated Sally 
 — " here's your umbrella, if that's what you are look- 
 ing for. It's not seven o'clock— the servants 
 aren't up yet. If you'll wait a little time, and 
 
264 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 have some breakfast, I'll send you in my carriage. 
 You'll never find your way there like that." 
 
 " I cannot wait, I cannot wait, " reiterated Gwen- 
 dolen looking wildly around her. " Sixty-four, 
 Duchess Street, Soho. Did you hear what that 
 woman said? He may be dying now — even now — 
 and no one beside him. Oh ! Wilfrid, why have I 
 kept away from you so long? Oh! God forgive 
 me I" 
 
 "You won't forgive me," said Sally meaningly. 
 
 Gwendolen turned towards her, the light of a 
 great renunciation dawning over her face. 
 
 "I do forgive you," she said solemnly, "I was 
 wrong. What am I?— I, who never knew your 
 hard life, nor your temptations, that I should judge 
 you? I need forgiveness more than you. I see 
 it all now — now— that it is too late." 
 
 She moved towards the door. 
 
 " Let me come with you if you must go," pleaded 
 Sally brokenly, gulping down her tears. " Let me 
 
THE WOOD OF ST. JOHN. 265 
 
 come with you — you aren't fit to go by yourself, 
 really you aren't." 
 
 But Gwendolen moved her gently aside. 
 
 "I must go alone/ she said, "alone." 
 
 Thus she left her. 
 
 And yet — let the cynic sneer an he will — a few 
 minutes after she had gone out in the grey dullness 
 of the cheerless dawn the fi'ont door opened again 
 to let out a little figure cloaked and veiled, who 
 followed her — followed her all the way — afar off". 
 
CHAPTER Xm. 
 
 THE LAST STAGE. 
 
 'Out — out, brief candle.' 
 
 — Macbeth. 
 
 The fog-demon brooded over everything and seemed 
 to stifle the morning with its vampire wings. 
 It penetrated everywhere, creeping with stealthy, 
 resistless step alike into West End mansions and 
 East End hovels. Among other places it crept 
 up the evil-smelling stairs of Number Sixty-four, 
 Duchess Street, Soho, and penetrated into a 
 sordid attic on the topmost floor. 
 
 On a narrow bed in one corner of the room 
 
 266 
 
THE LAST STAGE. 267 
 
 lay the wreck of what was once Wilfrid Tyrconnel, 
 fighting his last fight with the fell disease which 
 had long since marked him for its own. The grey 
 mist, which straggled in through the dirty yellow 
 blind, was too thick to admit of his face being 
 clearly seen, but his laboured breathing could be 
 heard smiting the silence, broken at intervals 
 by a terrible, racking cough. Every now and then 
 he would turn in the bed and draw the scanty 
 covering higher around him. not that he was 
 cold — how could he be with that dry fever running 
 hot in his veins? — but in very restlessness, the 
 restlessness born of a sleepless night. By and 
 by, his hand groped on the floor beside the 
 bed for the cup of cold water which he hoped 
 was there to slake his thirst. He lifted it, — 
 it was empty I There was plenty more water in 
 the chipped jug which stood on yonder box — an 
 improvised washstand. But he had not the energy 
 to get out of bed to go across to it. He gave a 
 
268 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 little weary sigh — even that effort brought on his 
 cough. Would the morning never come? It had 
 come already, but he knew it not, the dull greyness 
 seemed as night to him, He had no means of 
 telling the time. His watch? That had gone 
 long ago. 
 
 At last a heavy step was heard ascending the 
 creaking stairs. The door opened in response to 
 a shove from without and a stout, red- faced woman 
 elbowed her way in, a woman in a greasy cotton 
 frock and sleeves rolled up her chapped and 
 brawny arms. She was another specimen of that 
 horrible genus, the cheap lodging-house shark, a 
 shade lower than Tyrconnel's hostess at Blooms- 
 bury because a shade less prosperous. 
 
 " 'Ere's yer brekfus'," she panted, in a coarse, 
 fat voice, somewhat wheezy from the long ascent; 
 and she banged down upon the bed a battered 
 tray on which reposed a metal tea-pot, a cup, and 
 a hunch or two of thick bread and butter. " And 
 
THE LAST STAGE. 269 
 
 'ere", plunging her hand into a capacious pocket, 
 " 'ere's ver letters. P'raps I'd better light the 
 candle, the fog's that thick ye can hardly see yer 
 'and afore yer face, and then ye can read wot's in 
 'em, — somethin' good, I 'opes, this time." 
 
 She proceeded to light a tallow dip wath a brimstone 
 match. The match sent forth an evil smell; the 
 candle spluttered and flared in the murky gloom, 
 throwing weird, misshapen shadows upon the 
 wall. It was like a glimpse of Tophet, or one 
 of William Blake's studies of Hell. 
 
 Tyrconnel dragged himself up in the bed and, 
 seizing the letters, eagerly began to break the 
 seals. The woman crossed her brawny arms 
 and leaned back against the wall, watching him 
 the while with a sort of contemptuous pity in 
 which a gleam of avarice was mingled. 
 
 He took the packets in his trembling hands. 
 The first two he knew alas I too well, —rejected 
 MSS. They had been backwards and forwards 
 
270 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 many a weary time. They came back again to 
 him now, one with a printed form of conventional 
 regret, the other with contemptuous silence. The 
 third was a bill marked 'account rendered,' with 
 an intimation that legal proceedings would be 
 taken. They must hurry, he thought grimly; he 
 would be out of the reach of legal proceedings 
 before long. The last was from the editor of a 
 leading monthly Review on whom he had staked 
 all his hopes. His paper had been accepted, it 
 would contain the cheque. Alas I no— 'pressure 
 upon our space compels us to hold the article over 
 until our next issue.' Oh! this was cruel!.... 
 The letter fell from his nerveless hands, all the 
 light died out of his face. 
 
 " Well?" said the woman interrogatively. Then 
 seeing that no answer came, she went on in a 
 shriller key — " 'Ev yer got anythink for me, or 
 'ev yer not? That's wot I want to know. Come 
 — hout with it." 
 
THE LAST STAGE. 271 
 
 "I — I — " faltered Tyrconnel, then his eyes fell 
 upon another letter lying on the blanket, one he 
 had overlooked in his haste. He seized it as a 
 starving dog seizes a bone. He knew the hand- 
 writing, it was that of a friend, a dear friend in 
 the old days, to whom, knowing that his paper 
 was accepted, he had written in his dire need and 
 after a fierce struggle with his pride, asking for 
 a trifling loan of ^£10 until the editor should send 
 him a cheque. It was such a small favour — and 
 
 such a dear friend I Of course it was granted 
 
 but ..... what was this ? A platitude as 
 
 to ' regret' a lie about ' so many claims' 
 
 a false hope that ' things may soon be brighter' 
 
 that was all. He fell back with a groan. 
 
 " Come, hout with it, " repeated the woman 
 again, more insolently this time, for she noted how 
 the blank greyness had crept over his face. 
 
 " I— I— am very sorry," he faltered, "more 
 sorry than I can say." They promised, you know. 
 
272 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 to put my article in, and I had hoped they would 
 have sent me a cheque, but it has been held over 
 until next month — and " 
 
 " 'Eld over till next month ! " screeched the 
 landlady in her coarse, strident voice — "and so 
 I'm to be 'eld over till next month too, I s'pose? 
 Xot if I knows it. That's a tale I've 'eard once 
 too often, — I can tell yer." 
 
 " But — but, you see what they say," gasped 
 Tyrconnel, holding out the letter. " They will 
 put it in next month — really they will, and then 
 I shall be able to pay you." 
 
 "I don't care when they put it in," she said, 
 flicking the letter contemptuously aside. " Wot I 
 wants to know is when I'm goin' to put some o' 
 your tin into my pocket. 'Ere's three an' a narf 
 weeks owin' for rent, let alone yer keep, an' all 
 sorts o' hextras which I've got yer, too. I won't 
 go on no longer. If I don't 'ave somethink on 
 account by to-night — out yer goes, so there I " 
 
THE LAST STAGE. 273 
 
 She stuck her arms akimbo and faced him with 
 angry eyes. 
 
 She was not a bad-hearted woman — at least 
 not worse than her kind, only the struggle for 
 existence was pretty hard on her too. Years of 
 keeping a cheap lodging-house and of haggling 
 with prostitutes and penniless clerks had blunted 
 her finer feelings — such as they had been. 
 
 "I — I — " panted Tyrconnel, looking round like 
 a rat caught in a trap — "I will go out and see 
 
 what I can *' Here the cough came and 
 
 choked his utterance. He lay gasping, panting for 
 breath, clutching the air with his wasted hands. 
 
 The woman eyed him with stony indifference; 
 his sufferings only seemed to add to her exasperation. 
 
 " Go hout ! " she echoed, with a brutal laugh. 
 " Yes, yer'U go hout sure enough, 1*11 see to that 
 — go to the 'orsepital if they'll 'ave yer, or into 
 the work'us, where yer ought to 'ave gone long 
 'afore. You ain't fit for nothin' else. I ain't agoin' 
 
 VOL. III. 18 
 
274 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 to 'ave no corpses knockin' about 'ere and so I 
 tells yer. I've 'ad enough trouble with ycr al- 
 ready Well, ril leave yer to think it over. 
 
 I can't waste the morning talkin' to the likes o' 
 you. When I conies back, hout yer go." 
 
 So saying, she snatched up the untasted break- 
 fast and bounced out of the room. 
 
 Left to himself, Tyrconnel buried his face in 
 the dirty pillow, trying to shut out light, sound, 
 everything. There comes a point past suffering, 
 a dead apathy beyond the power of words to 
 phrase. He had reached it now. All through the 
 weary months which had passed since we saw him 
 last, he had been fighting his hand-to-hand fight 
 with adversity and disease, but the struggle was 
 too hard. He had been beaten at last, not in the 
 spirit but in the body. It was this physical weak- 
 ness which had dragged him down. In spirit, 
 Tyrconnel would struggle on to the last, but the 
 body had refused to do its bidding. 
 
THE LAST STAGE. 275 
 
 With that obstinacy, which, — paradoxical though 
 it may seem, — one finds sometimes in the most 
 emotional natures, he resisted still. Perhaps his 
 pride helped him too. a pride inherited from his 
 mother. And yet.— the thought struck him once 
 more, — he had only to make a sign, to own his 
 failure, to make known his need to Lord Baltinglass, 
 and this sordid gaiTet, this brutal landlady, these 
 hideous surroundings would vanish like magic, and 
 he would find himself surrounded by everything that 
 wealth, and luxury, and medical skill could give. 
 But he thrust the thought from him with pas- 
 sionate scorn. He had suffered so much, — could 
 he not suffer a little more ? A few days, maybe a 
 few hours— and then nothing this earth could give, 
 nothing this cruel world could do, would matter 
 to him any more. Earthly prosperity seems so 
 small a thing in the presence of the King of 
 Terrors. No, all things might fail him, but he 
 would at least keep his selfrespect. He would die 
 
276 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 without making one sign more to the relatives 
 who had spurned him, the wife who had abandoned 
 him. Better torture, better hunger, better death — 
 better anything than that, to crawl back as a 
 suppliant with that most pitiful word 'failure' 
 branded on his brow. 
 
 Brave thoughts indeed! Then there rose up to 
 mock them the vision of that coarsed- voiced woman 
 worrying for her rent, clamouring like Shylock 
 for her pound of flesh. Unless he could find 
 something to stop her voracious maw, the vulture 
 would not even let him die in peace. But how? 
 The thought struck him like an inspiration. If 
 he went to the editor of the Review which had 
 accepted his paper and told him his need, surely 
 he would give him a cheque. Editors were but 
 human after all, and then — it would not be beg- 
 ging, ^the work was done and approved, the 
 payment was due. Full of this new idea he threw 
 off the blanket, and got out of bed. Alas! he 
 
THE LAST STAGE. 277 
 
 had reckoned without that laggard body. A few 
 steps convinced him of the futility, the impossibility 
 of the task. His feet tottered, his knees gave 
 way .... that awful cough seized him again, shak- 
 ing his very frame. He tried to stand up against 
 it; he fell back exhausted on the bed. 
 
 It was true then — what this women had said — he 
 must die, die in a hospital or a workhouse — die 
 with the task he had set himself to do unfinished, 
 with his life-work just begun. Sheridan had died 
 thus in poverty, with the bailiffs tugging at his 
 sheets, but then Sheridan had done his work, had 
 accomplished something, which would last through 
 a-ll time, handing his name down to posterity an 
 imperishable monument among men. But he, he 
 had done nothing — his name, as poor Keats had 
 said in his unprophetic soul — his name was 'writ 
 in water.' If the remnant of life were so hard, 
 wherefore should he live it? His eyes travelled 
 around the room, but there was nothing — nothing 
 
278 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 whereby he might end his misery .... unless it 
 
 were that blunt razor lying on yonder box 
 
 There was a struggle .... then he thrust the 
 thought from him in very weariness of soul. Why 
 take the trouble to ante-date a process, which 
 Nature would herself perform so soon? 
 
 With a groan he turned his face to the wall. 
 The room grew darker and darker .... the fog crept 
 closer and closer .... Exhausted by this conflict of 
 emotion, he sank into a semi-stupor 
 
 There was a sound of hurried feet upon the 
 stairs. Not the landlady— he knew her heavy, 
 deliberate step, the resounding smack with which 
 her feet hailed each successive landing, but too 
 well. Someone opened the door .... 
 
 Who was this ? The sordid garret seemed sud- 
 denly flooded with light .... Who was this on 
 her knees beside his bed, raining kisses on his 
 wasted hand, murmuring broken words of contrition 
 and pity and love. 
 
THE LAST STAGE. 279 
 
 " Wilfrid — my husband — forgive me— speak to 
 me. It is I, Gwendolen, who loves you so. Oh! 
 forgive me — forgive me." 
 
 " Gwendolen ! . . . . Thank God!'' he whispered. 
 A great light broke over all his face. He held 
 open his arms. With a low cry of happiness 
 she fell upon his breast. 
 
 That was all. There were no reproaches, no ex- 
 planations, no theological disquisitions any more. In 
 that mute embrace all was forgotten and forgiven. 
 After long grief and pain it seemed so sweet to 
 lie here, lip to lip, heart to heart, oblivious of 
 everything except their mutual love. The hours 
 wore on, the fog crept closer and closer — it had 
 no terrors now — yet still they rested here, babbling 
 their passion with broken words — words too sacred 
 to phrase — coherent only to themselves. Life 
 had something left for them after all ! 
 
 " And you have come back, really and truly — 
 :.;-ver to leave me more?" he said at last. 
 
280 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 "Never — never," she whispered through her 
 raining tears. " Oh! Wilfrid, the scales have fallen 
 from my eyes at last. I know all. / know myself. 
 What was I, that I should abandon you? Who 
 was I, that I should judge you? I, who thought 
 myself the follower of One, who said, ^ Judge not! ^ 
 I, who, when I deemed myself nearest, was far- 
 thest from Him — cold, hard, unforgiving, wrapped 
 in my armour of spiritual pride, false to His 
 
 teaching, false to you pity me, and forgive 
 
 me. I cannot forgive myself." 
 
 For all answer he stroked her bowed head, not 
 trusting himself to speak. The gesture in itself 
 was full and perfect absolution. 
 
 " You will not leave me, dear one, never 
 again," he repeated with strained insistence, 
 ^^ never again while life lasts .... It will not be 
 long." 
 
 His words struck a chill to her heart. She 
 drew him nearer to her, nearer. 
 
THE LAST STAGE.'- 281 
 
 All through the next two clays she never left 
 his side, ministering to his needs, anticipating his 
 every wish, bartering even her wedding ring to get 
 him food, fighting hand to hand against the fell 
 disease which was stalking him down, sending up 
 ever from her heart voiceless prayers to the Great 
 White Thi'one that this cup might pass away. 
 With his consent she wrote to Lord Baltinglass, 
 bidding him come quickly — in the dread presence 
 of the King of Terrors all lesser evils seemed 
 to vanish, all past bitterness to melt away. 
 
 But alas I Lord Baltinglass was in Algiers 
 with Miss Tyrconnel, still hugging his wounded 
 self-love and his resentment against his son. 
 When the letter reached him it was too late .... 
 
 It was towards the evening of the third day. 
 They had been talking of the old happy time at 
 Cambridge and their brief love-dream until Wilfrid's 
 cough came on again and she would let him talk 
 no more. He was resting now, the cold grey day 
 
282 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 was slowly dying. Gwendolen had drawn a chair 
 near the window, the better to sec in the fading light. 
 She was reading aloud in that soft, low voice of 
 hers, the wondrous twenty-sixth chapter of Isaiah : — 
 
 'I have redeemed thee, I have called thee hy 
 thy name; thou art mine. 
 
 ' Mhen thou passest through the waters, I ivlll 
 be ivlth thee; and through the rivers they shall not 
 overfloto thee; ivhen thou tvalkest ' 
 
 There was a movement from the still figure 
 on the bed. Suddenly he sprang up with a loud 
 cry: 
 
 " Gwendolen — Gwendolen ! " 
 
 She ran to him and threw her arms around 
 him, as though she fain would keep him with her 
 through the very strength of her love. 
 
 "Wilfrid, — dear one," she wailed. "What is 
 it? speak to me. Look at me, —only one word. 
 Oh! Wilfrid— Wilfrid." 
 
 But no answer came. The lips quivered mutely 
 
THE LAST STAGE. 283 
 
 but could not speak ; a wan smile of peaceful trusting 
 broke over the poor thin face; with a tired sigh 
 his head fell upon her breast. 
 
 The troubled soul of Wilfrid Tyrconnel had passed 
 through the dark waters — and had at last found peace. 
 
L^ENVOI. 
 
 A CHEERLESS day followed a gusty night. There 
 had been a downpour all the morning of driving 
 rain and sleet, but in the afternoon the clouds 
 lifted somewhat and the rain ceased, though no 
 gleam of sunshine pierced the all-pervading grey- 
 ness. A cutting east wind swept down the Bays- 
 water Road, driving Gwendolen before it, making 
 her draw her shabby cloak more closely around 
 her as she went along. Her slight figure was 
 bowed with grief, her face was white as the pale 
 snowdrops she carried in her hand — a few she had 
 purchased with her spare coppers at a dingy shop 
 
 284 
 
l'envoi. 285 
 
 in the Westbourne Grove, — her votive offering to 
 the dead. 
 
 What was she doing in the public streets, this 
 widow of a day? Surely at such a time the 
 mourner would tarry, sorrow-stricken in her chamber, 
 striving to hide her grief from every eye. Alas ! 
 dire poverty does not give much time for the luxury 
 of woe ; it has scant ceremony for mourners' tears. 
 The last sad offices had to be performed and, when 
 one cannot pay other people to do them, one must 
 needs see to them oneself. So Gwendolen had 
 torn herself away from the death chamber, and 
 trudged all the way from Soho to her Bayswater 
 lodging. She had a few trinkets there, — all her 
 most cherished possessions. She was going to pawn 
 them now, so that she might satisfy the lodging- 
 house woman's claims and give her loved one a 
 decent burial. He should not rest in that dreary 
 city of the dead, a London cemetery, surrounded 
 by streets and squares and alleys of gravestones. 
 
286 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 No, she would take him down to Cambridge, to 
 the little country churchyard of Grantchester, the 
 church where they had been married, — the place 
 where her dear father lay. There in some quiet 
 corner she would lay him to rest, to sleep until 
 the Resurrection day. He would have wished it 
 thus, rather than in the great, dreary vault at 
 Blarney, with all the pomp of paid woe. And 
 she would lay him to his rest alone. There should 
 be no false friends, — friends who had shunned 
 him in his misfortunes,— to come and shed their 
 crocodile tears around his grave. They would come 
 fast enough now, for they would know that he 
 wanted nothing of them any more. The dead do 
 not borrow, the dead do not need. 
 
 So thought Gwendolen as she hurried along, 
 grudging every moment which kept her from the 
 bedside of her dead. " God grant it may not be 
 long before I rejoin him," she prayed. The blank- 
 ness of desolation lay upon her. 
 
l'envoi. 287 
 
 She had reached Hyde Park Terrace, and was 
 crossing the road just liy the Marble Arch, wlien 
 a warning shout from a policeman made her pause 
 mid-way. A carriage dashed past, a neatly ap- 
 pointed Victoria with a smart coachman on the box. 
 It came so near that it splashed her with mud 
 almost from head to foot. Gwendolen looked up 
 indignantly. 
 
 There were two people inside, clad in warm 
 furs, wrapped round with a luxurious bear-skin 
 rug. They were so engrossed with one another 
 that they did not see her. The man was talking 
 with animation, the woman was looking up into 
 his face with a happy smile playing around her 
 lips. They were Walpole Cor}i;on and his wife. 
 
 It was only an instant, and then the carriage 
 swept through the gates into the park, leaving 
 Gwendolen standing there alone. 
 
 A great flood of bitterness poured over her 
 soul. Some chord in her memory \^brated. Back 
 
288 THE GREEN BAY TREE. 
 
 on her ears there rang in mocking irony the words 
 of the Psalmist: 
 
 '/ have been young and )iow am old: yet have 
 1 7iot seen the righteous forsaken^ nor his seed 
 begging bread."* 
 
 Then she wiped the mud from her face and 
 went on again. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 ^