rirtn 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 or ILLINOIS 
 
 Ce37n
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 T A S M A 
 
 Al'THOR OK ' UNCl.K i'll'KK OF IM'Er'S HILI.,' ' IN HKR KAKLIEST YOUTH, 
 ' A KMGII T OF THK WHITE FEATHER,' ETC. 
 
 A Friend lovclii at all times, and a brother is born for adversity ' 
 
 Proverbs 
 
 Ix\ THREE VOLUMES 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON 
 RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON 
 
 IDiiblishcrs iit Orbin;trj) io l)cr ^nitsi^ the (Qacett 
 1895 
 
 [A/i rights resen<eil]
 
 C^ rJ 
 
 V. 1 
 
 CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 3 
 
 I. MRS. FROST'S NEWS- - - - - 46 
 
 II. A HOME IN TASMANIA - - - - 67 
 
 III. HOW EILA WAS RECEIVED AT IVY COTTAGE - 93 
 
 IV. REGINAI^D MAKES AN AVOWAI, - - - 137 
 V. A PECUI.IAR FAMILY - - - - 1 76 
 
 VI. THE WARDENS - . . - . 202 
 
 VII. I.UCY MAKES A CONFESSION - - - 239 
 
 VIII. EII^A AS EMISSARY ----- 277 
 
 ■2» 
 
 J
 
 iart £ 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 
 s 
 
 
 
 :g^b^^^|^^0| 
 
 
 
 i£^ 
 
 
 ^t 
 
 
 
 5^^^^^^ 
 
 
 
 p^ 
 
 ij^ 
 
 Ql^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 P^^^^^^^ 
 
 ^3^^ 
 
 
 s^ 
 
 J^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 ll 
 
 ^Kj^^^ 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 
 ^^*>cK 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 viK^j*^ 41 
 
 ^^^^(^^ 
 
 ^^^^^^ ^ 
 
 
 ^i 
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 — -c^-C^sSTtT^j 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A GREAT paddock, full of scattered haycocks, 
 sloping down to a rough mountain road that 
 leads in its turn through straggling outskirts 
 to a town lying in a hollow. Beyond the 
 town, the shining, sparkling waters of a 
 broad blue harbour, hedged round by purple 
 mountains. The bright summer air of 
 Christmas week at the Antipodes resting 
 upon the scene ; and such a radiance of light 
 shed over it by the afternoon sun that no 
 human eye can gaze upon it unblinking for 
 long. This is the setting in which the town 
 of Hobart, the capital of the far Southern
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 island of Tasmania, lies between the moun- 
 tains and the sea. The sloping hay-paddock, 
 with the cottage above it, whence a full view 
 of the sparkling harbour below and of mighty- 
 Mount Wellington on high — solemn guardian 
 of the town — may be best obtained, is the 
 home of the Clare family, residents of Cowa, 
 a rambling property perched on the flanks of 
 one of the abrupt hills clustered round Mount 
 Wellington as children cluster round the 
 knees of their father. 
 
 When we see it first, the paddock is not 
 left to the undisturbed possession of its hay- 
 cocks. A tribe of young- people, varying 
 from the irresponsible age of the units to 
 that of full-fledged teens, are running wild 
 over it in the most literal sense of the term. 
 With shrieks and jumps they bound into the 
 haycocks and out of them, like so many men 
 of Thessaly in the legendary quickset hedge, 
 their hair and their clothes so stuck over with 
 straw, so generally tumbled and dishevelled 
 and tousled, that at a first glance you would 
 take them for a tribe of juvenile gipsies. A 
 second glance might not entirely correct the
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 first impression, for on a closer inspection an 
 undeniable strain of gipsy blood does actually 
 betray itself in the swarthy colouring of the 
 black-haired lad of some nine or ten who has 
 just landed head foremost in a hay-mound. 
 And a similar suspicion would suggest itself 
 in connection with the rich colouring of the 
 very young girl hard by, apparently about 
 fourteen or fifteen, who is pantingly engaged 
 in twisting up with both hands an escaped 
 coil of magnificent dark hair, that a moment 
 ago lay gleaming with snake-like undulations 
 on her back. The peculiar dusky darkness 
 of the eyes, a certain heavy-lidded, thick- 
 lashed environment of them, recall dim 
 visions of Lalla Rookhs or Brides of 
 Abydos to those who observe them closely ; 
 and there is a certain untamed suppleness 
 and elasticity, more Oriental than English, in 
 the young girl's movements as well. Her 
 face is very much flushed, but the nape of 
 the neck, which is exposed to view as she 
 twists the captured coil into a crown on the 
 summit of her small head, displays an Ivory 
 skin — not dead white, but faintly golden, with
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 amber reflections in the sunlight. The rusty- 
 headed Httle girl — a mere five-year-old morsel 
 this, of transient sensations and emotions — 
 that clings round her knees and clamours to 
 be taken on her back, is evidently her sister, 
 yet the different character of this small being's 
 face is already clearly defined. Her eyes, 
 that have not yet lost their native look of 
 baby wonderment, yellow-brown in hue, with 
 ambulant, rust-coloured specks floating in the 
 iris, have individual potentialities of their 
 own. If there is gipsy blood here, it is less 
 evident than in the case of the elder sister. 
 
 The swarthy-cheeked boy is not allowed 
 to stand on his head for long. A little girl, 
 apparently about his own age, with an odd 
 resemblance to him in build and feature — all 
 the odder that, where he is dark and sun- 
 burned, she is fair and sunburned — has run 
 against his legs and thrust him over with a 
 vigorous push ; for an instant he lies kicking 
 and indignant on his back in the straw, then, 
 springing to his feet, turns upon her with his 
 dark eyes aflame. 
 
 ' What did you do that for ?' he cries
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 7 
 
 angrily ; but seeing who it is, his voice 
 grows milder. 'You shouldn't, Mamy ; I'd 
 just counted up to ten, when you came and 
 spoiled it all.' 
 
 'It's a stupid game!' said Mamy, the fair 
 little girl ; * only one can play at it. Let's 
 race bundles, Dick ; Eila can pack us up.' 
 
 'All right, then,' assented the boy; 'only 
 we must begin at the top, you know, and 
 start fair, mind.' 
 
 ' I always start fair !' said Mamy indig- 
 nantly. 'I wait all through "Bell-horses," 
 till it comes to "One, two, three and away," 
 and I don't begin till it's " away P' ' 
 
 Mamy was toiling after her brother up the 
 hill as she uttered this protest. Arrived at 
 the summit, the two children tumbled into 
 a sitting posture under a giant elderberry 
 hedge, whence they proceeded to send down 
 loud and imperative ' cooees ' to their elder 
 sister below, with a summons to come and 
 make them up into hay-bundles that minute. 
 
 ' S'posing we got some strawberries first.' 
 said Dick, the boy. 
 
 * No,' replied Mamy; 'it's nicer' — I'm
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 afraid she said ' Ith nither,' for she kept her 
 lisp almost as long as she wore short frocks — 
 ' to eat them when we've done. I don't know 
 why it's always nicer to wait for things.' 
 
 * It isn't always nicer,' was Dick's prompt 
 answer. ' If you've got to wait too long, you 
 don't care about them in the end.' 
 
 ' Well, there's just a nice time to wait — I 
 mean, till you want them very badly,' said 
 Mamy argumentatively. Abstract arguments 
 were as the salt of life to every member of 
 the Clare family with one exception from 
 the cradle upwards. ' I wish Eila would 
 hurry up !' she continued ; ' I see Willie 
 coming up the road down there with a great 
 horrid boy, and we can't enjoy ourselves one 
 bit now.' 
 
 * He won't matter to you,' said Dick 
 stolidly. * We needn't take any notice of 
 him ;' and the ' cooees ' were reiterated with 
 renewed energy, and a carrying power worthy 
 of an Australian blackfellow himself. 
 
 * I'm coming, you little monkeys!' cried a 
 breathless voice from below ; ' you needn't 
 bring the neighbourhood together with your
 
 ISIOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 '' cooees." ' And Eila, with the rusty-haired 
 little one clinging crablike to her back, and 
 squeezing her neck in a childish and merciless 
 grasp, was seen tugging bravely up over the 
 yellow stubble, w^hich is not pleasant walking 
 at the best of times — less than ever when 
 one is handicapped by a burden from behind, 
 apparently bent upon pulling a body over 
 backwards. 
 
 When she had reached the summit of the 
 hill, Eila freed her neck from the encircling 
 grasp of the childish fingers, and gravely 
 mopped her forehead with her handkerchief. 
 
 ' I'm streaming,' she said shortly. ' Truca, 
 you're really getting too heavy to be carried 
 about, you know ; it's cruelty to animals, that's 
 what it is. Well, what do you children want ? 
 I can't do anything till I've had a rest' 
 
 Then, shaking off the little one, who slid 
 down cool and triumphant upon her feet, she 
 flung herself down upon the grassy soil and 
 fanned herself with her hat. 
 
 'Make us into bundles,' clamoured Dick 
 and Mamy together ; ' we're goin' to have a 
 bundle-race.'
 
 lo NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' Then you must get the hay. You don't 
 suppose I'm going after the hay for you, do 
 you ?' 
 
 The words were tart, but the voice was 
 honey itself. To be ' fetch and carry ' to the 
 little ones of the family had seemed such a 
 sweet and natural function to Eila Clare from 
 the first moment that the marvellous and 
 heavenly gift of a twin baby brother and 
 sister had been conferred upon her in her 
 childish days, that she never thought of re- 
 volting at their commands. Only of late 
 years their authority had been weakened by 
 the advent of the latest comer, Trucaninni, 
 otherwise Truca, who actually wielded the 
 sceptre of she-who-must-be-obeyed in the 
 family. 
 
 Dick grumbled, as also did Mamy, but 
 they went to collect the hay, nevertheless. 
 The operation was assisted, or rather impeded, 
 by Truca, who plodded after them and scat- 
 tered the bundles they had collected in her 
 attempts to appropriate an armful for herself. 
 She was rewarded by being told that she 
 was a ' big girl ' and a ' little duck,' and
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST ii 
 
 marched proudly with her wisps at the head 
 of the procession. 
 
 The hay being supplied, Dick and Mamy 
 stretched themselves upon it on the ground, 
 side by side, each upon a separate bundle. 
 By dint of rolling their bodies round in it, 
 and with the assistance of their elder sister, 
 who twisted the hay about them with a deft- 
 ness that spoke of long practice, they were 
 speedily reduced to the appearance of two 
 straw -covered champagne bottles. Which 
 end was head and which feet it would have 
 been difficult, however, to decide. The two 
 bundles lay long and compact at the top of 
 the steep hill, waiting for the signal which 
 was to start them rolling downwards to the 
 bottom. How these living bundles contrived 
 to breathe was a problem. It is to be sur- 
 mised that the space between the wisps 
 allowed for the ingress of a certain amount 
 of air. 
 
 There was a long moment of suspense, 
 during which Eila busied herself in pulling 
 and pushing the bundles into as exact a line 
 as the inequalities of the soil would allow.
 
 12 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 She had a threefold office to fulfil, to wit, 
 that of judge, of starter, and of umpire — a 
 grave responsibility, with competitors so 
 captiously critical as her younger brother and 
 sister. The bundles lay quite still while they 
 were being placed, and when this task was 
 accomplished, Eila knelt between them, and 
 began to repeat with a chanting intonation 
 the words : 
 
 ' Bell-horses, bell-horses, what time of day ; 
 One o'clock, two o'clock, three and ' 
 
 but before the word * away ' had crossed her 
 lips the bundles, which had been already 
 quivering with impatience, gave a simul- 
 taneous convulsive jerk and began to roll 
 away down the incline like the cheeses in 
 Grimm's tales. It was giddy work to watch 
 them revolving from the top of the hill. Over 
 they went, bumping and jolting on their 
 downward course, with an occasional rebound 
 where the soil took a sudden steepness, or 
 when some unexpected descent had given 
 them a fresh impetus. 
 
 To Eila's horror (she had been laughing 
 heartily at their first set-off), their twisting
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 13 
 
 and twirling progress showed no sign of 
 coming to a standstill, even after they had 
 reached the stretch of level ground that lay 
 at the bottom of the paddock. This com- 
 paratively level space terminated in an abrupt 
 precipice, unprotected by fence or hedge of 
 any kind. Below it, at a drop of some eight 
 or ten feet, was the rocky road leading into 
 the town. Now, it was not until the bundles 
 had rolled themselves to within two or three 
 feet of the aforesaid precipice that the con- 
 tents thereof seemed to think it worth while 
 to slacken their speed. 
 
 Seen from above, the aspect was anything 
 but reassuring. Eila, unmindful for once of 
 the protesting bawls of Truca, who threw 
 herself on her face on the ground and kicked 
 her fat legs in speechless fury at being left 
 behind, set off running at her topmost speed 
 down the hill. 
 
 Despite the beautiful legend of Atalanta 
 and the exquisite embodiments of it that 
 artists have painted, the human form does 
 not lend itself to the exercise of rapid running 
 with the same natural grace as is displayed
 
 14 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 by any fourfooted creature of the forest. 
 Nevertheless, in the reckless course of the 
 young girl down the abrupt decline, there 
 was a freedom of movement that possessed 
 an undeniable grace. Without comparing 
 her to a stag or a fawn, it might have been 
 said that her pace had the spring and elasticity 
 of one of her own native kangaroos, an animal 
 which, as we all know, will hop and bound 
 with such a human air that the Australian 
 natives will mimic its movements in their 
 turn, and succeed in reproducing them as 
 though to the manner born. Once Eila had 
 begun to run down the breakneck declivity, 
 there could be no thought of stopping until 
 she reached the bottom. She did so only 
 just in time to see the two bundles come to 
 a standstill at a nicely -calculated (though 
 blood-curdling-in-its-proximity) distance, as 
 the Germans would say, from the edge of 
 the aforementioned precipice. The bodies 
 within were observed slowly to kick and 
 writhe in the effort to free themselves of 
 their encircling wrappings of hay, like huge 
 chrysalides seeking to emerge from the grub
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 15 
 
 Stage of their attire. The first choked words 
 uttered by both together came from them in 
 hoarse gasps. The words were, ' Who won ?' 
 
 Eila had come up to them by this time, 
 and was panting too, though more from 
 emotion than fatigue. To anyone less ac- 
 customed than she to the order of Cowa 
 pastimes, the twins would have appeared 
 pitiable objects indeed. Their faces were 
 almost unrecognisable, swollen and bloated 
 with a heat past description. Wet strands 
 of hair clung round their foreheads and necks. 
 Their entire persons were stuck over with 
 tags and jags of dried grass, wisps of straw, 
 trails of dead weeds, brambles and clots of 
 earth. Their eyes were bloodshot, and as 
 they feebly plucked away the hay bandages, 
 sitting upright on the ground, they wriggled 
 under the pain inflicted by the straws on the 
 unprotected parts of their bodies. 
 
 Mamy was the first to recover her voice. 
 She spoke wheezily, and, between sneezing 
 and lisping, would not have made herself 
 understood to any but a long-practised member 
 of the family.
 
 i6 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' Wathii't it a good race ?' she gasped en- 
 thusiastically. ' It wath neck and neck ' — 
 sneeze, sneeze — ' I don't believe we ever 
 had such a good one in all our lives ! And 
 Vm sure I won, too. I didn't only stop till I 
 was right close up to the edge.' 
 
 ' No, you didn't win, then !' croaked Dick 
 hoarsely, sneezing in his turn. ' Why, you 
 came bump up against me from behind, so 
 that shows I was on in front. My word, but 
 these straws are a caution ! I believe I've 
 got one in my eye, for I can't open it one bit. 
 I say, Eila, you're umpire ' — blinking up at 
 her eagerly — ' didn't I win the race now, say ?' 
 
 ' I don't care who won ; you're little 
 wretches, both !' said Eila, with a half-sob 
 in her voice ; for she had been really frightened 
 this time. * I'll never do you up again either, 
 so there ! What did you go near the edge 
 for like that ? Don't you know that in one 
 minute more you'd have been over the preci- 
 pice, and both your necks broken !' 
 
 The children were silent for a moment. 
 Then they looked at each other and laughed, 
 and Dick said :
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' Don't fluff, Eila ; I always know just when 
 I've got to stop, and Mamy, too.' 
 
 * It's the last time I'll have a hand in it, 
 anyhow !' declared Eila. 
 
 Mamy meanwhile had been shaking and 
 pluming herself into some semblance of her 
 former round-limbed self. Now she said 
 reflectively : 
 
 ' I s'pose breaking necks doesn't hurt too 
 awfully much. If Dick's and mine was broken 
 too^ether it would be nicer for us than eoinof 
 
 o o o 
 
 up to heaven alone.' 
 
 ' Nonsense!' said her sister ; 'you needn't 
 think of going to heaven yet, either alone 
 or in company, Mamy.' For to guard the 
 younger ones against the intrusion of the 
 terrifying apprehension of death had been 
 Eila's constant care ever since she had 
 stood, a little creature of ten, by the side 
 of her father's dead body, and the first 
 awful dawning consciousness of the black 
 chasm that yawns before and behind us 
 had well-nigh crushed her under its weight. 
 ' You've got to go on doing lots of happy 
 things till you're an old woman, and then 
 
 VOL. I. 2
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 there'll be newer and better things to do up 
 above/ 
 
 * I don't care,' said Mamy, her voice trem- 
 bling, and this time it was not from the 
 straw-dust she had swallowed. ' I won't ever 
 care to go by myself. I don't think it's at 
 all a good arrangement. I'd like you, and 
 mother, and Dick, and me, and all of us, to 
 have a big fiery chariot like Elijah's to go 
 right up to heaven in together. I'd like it 
 to be just like Mrs. Warden's double-seated 
 buggy ; then there'd be plenty of room — only 
 not too hot, or we might all get burned.' 
 
 * I don't want to go to heaven, anyhow/ 
 observed Dick ; he was lying upon his back 
 looking up at the blue mist overhead. ' I don't 
 want to go anywhere. I wish I'd never been 
 made at all.' 
 
 * Oh, Dick dear ! why do you say that ?' 
 said his elder sister reproachfully. * I'm sure 
 you have a good time of it nearly always.' 
 
 * No, I don't — not when I'm thinkino- !' 
 retorted Dick. ' I think, and I think, and I 
 wonder how the world's going to be stopped. 
 I don't want it to go on always. I can't bear
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 19 
 
 to think of things going on always. It makes 
 me hate to be alive at all. I do wish people 
 hadn't got to be born.' 
 
 ' Dear !' said Eila soothingly, and she 
 stooped to pass her soft sunburnt hand 
 through the lad's damp hair. ' I used to have 
 just that kind of feeling ; it used nearly to 
 drive me mad ; and now I know the only 
 thing to do is to say this : '' We haven't got 
 brains to understand the puzzle now. Per- 
 haps we may have a different kind of brain 
 some day — somewhere — in some other world." 
 That's the best to hope for. And in the 
 meantime, there's so much else to think about 
 here ; one keeps finding out nice, new, in- 
 teresting things every day.' 
 
 Dick grunted, but whether in assent or 
 dissent his sister could not say. The meta- 
 physical turn the conversation had threatened 
 to take was brusquely diverted by the advent 
 of two lads of the approved schoolboy type. 
 The one, a year or two younger than Eila, 
 bore the unmistakable Clare stamp. There 
 is nothing more subtle than the quality of 
 family resemblance which is often seen to
 
 20 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 exist among people who have not a single 
 feature in common. Willie Clare was by- 
 common accord a plain boy. He was heavy- 
 featured and thick-lipped, and his eyes lacked 
 the lustrous charm that distinguished his 
 brother's. No one would have bestowed a 
 second look upon Willie, whereas Dick s per- 
 sonality compelled a closer scrutiny. Yet in 
 any part of Hobart where he might present 
 himself, those who had seen either his mother 
 or sisters or brother would say, ' You are one 
 of the Clares, I expect,' or, ' You live up on 
 the hill, don't you ?' as the case might be. 
 Willie was, in fact, a kind of joint reproduc- 
 tion of the rest in whatever they possessed of 
 least handsome. Perhaps he had appropriated 
 even a larger share of the very scant stock of 
 practical wisdom they could boast of collec- 
 tively, for he was the only one who eschewed 
 the metaphysical discussions in which they 
 indulged, from their mother downwards, upon 
 the faintest provocation. Child as he was, he 
 had been able to turn the garden, the hay- 
 paddock, and the live stock of Cowa to 
 account ; and while Dick and Mamy were
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 fleeing to the farthest end of the garden or 
 paddock, tearfully and hysterically declaiming 
 against the ' beastly cruelty ' of ' killing the 
 poor darling little baby pigs to eat them,' he 
 would stick a juvenile porker with the utmost 
 coolness and neat-handedness, having ab- 
 stained from undertaking the operation until 
 he had thoroughly mastered it in theory, as 
 well as by watching the butcher at work. 
 
 The lad who accompanied him was ob- 
 viously of a different stock. If Nature had 
 not such infinite resources at her command, 
 she would be sorely tasked to give variety to 
 the type of ordinary British or colonial born 
 school-boy between the unpromising ages of 
 ten and fifteen. Willie Clare's companion 
 was so complete an incarnation of the every- 
 day order of sturdy, pugnacious, stolid-look- 
 ing lad, that you might have supposed you 
 had encountered him a hundred times a day, 
 when you were actually doing so for the first 
 time. He was thick-set ; and, notwithstand- 
 ing the fact that his clothes were infinitely 
 newer and better than those of any member 
 of the Clare family, they were far from setting
 
 22 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 round him in the same shapely way as theirs. 
 His hair grew low on a square forehead, 
 whence it stood straight up in a kind of rough 
 brush. His gray eyes were not without a 
 lurking spirit of fun in them, though the jaw 
 was heavy and the impression conveyed by 
 the face in repose rather sulky than con- 
 ciliatory. You would have guessed at once 
 that Sydney Warden was not afflicted by 
 hypersensitiveness, or morbid selfconscious- 
 ness, or shocks of perplexed anguish on the 
 score of the mystery of being, as was the case 
 with Dick Clare. 
 
 His face wore an interested and amused 
 expression as he watched the progress of the 
 living hay-bundles down the hill while walk- 
 ing by Willie's side along the road below. 
 Though the way from the town was very 
 steep, and the afternoon of the kind familiarly 
 designated as blazing hot, both boys quickened 
 their speed as they neared the paddock, 
 spurred on by their sympathy for the sport 
 that was going on there. A few rough blocks 
 of stone at the corner served as stepping- 
 stones, by which they were enabled to climb
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 23 
 
 into it, and, once arrived, they hurried on 
 towards the scene of action. 
 
 The party grouped at the bottom of the 
 paddock took, however, but Httle notice of 
 them. Dick and Mamy had been cooling 
 themselves, and talking about heaven. More- 
 over, Mamy's attitude towards strange boys 
 was capricious. She was so completely Dick's 
 double in everything that she felt it as a bitter 
 grievance when he played by himself with 
 some school-companion of Willie's who had 
 come to spend the afternoon at Cowa without 
 inviting her to share in the game. Admitted 
 to take part in the sport (and there were few 
 boys' games in which Mamy could not hold 
 her own), she was not averse to the occa- 
 sional society of her brothers' friends. But 
 her preference was for big boys, not for short 
 ones, and whether because Sydney's legs 
 were not long enough to allow of his being 
 included in the former category, or that 
 Mamy, besides being a romp, was also a 
 premature coquette, and wanted to attract the 
 newcomer's attention, it is certain that as 
 Sydney approached she looked studiously in
 
 24 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 another direction, even turning her back upon 
 him, and feigning to have no more absorb- 
 ing interest in life than the picking out of the 
 grass-seeds that had stuck fast In her socks. 
 
 Eila's demeanour was quite different. She 
 could behave upon occasion Hke a big, grown- 
 up person, as the children called It — though 
 her romping powers were almost equal to 
 theirs — and upon seeing that the new arrival 
 looked awkward and shy, she put him at his 
 ease by the friendly way in which she shook 
 hands with him and made him welcome to 
 Cowa. 
 
 ' I know you are Sydney Warden,' she 
 said ; ' Willie told us you would perhaps 
 come back with him some afternoon. But It 
 must have been dreadfully hot walking up 
 from town. We'll go and get some straw- 
 berries, or do you like strawberries and cream 
 better ? We have them out here in the hay, 
 and It's such fun. Did you see the great 
 bundle-race from below ?' 
 
 Sydney said ' Yes ' In a tongue-tied kind 
 of way, and stared helplessly across at the 
 competitors sitting In the hay. They still
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 25 
 
 looked as though they had been dragged at 
 a cart's tail, like criminals in olden times, 
 though their expressions were serene. Dick 
 nodded condescendingly ; Mamy continued 
 to pick the grass seeds from her socks, until 
 her brother gave her a sideway nudge. 
 
 * Don't show off, Mamy !' he whispered ; 
 * it's silly. You know somebody's there.' 
 
 ' I'm not showing off,' said Mamy indig- 
 nantly. ' I've got my own business to 
 attend to.' 
 
 And attend to it she did, without any sign 
 of relenting. She took off her shoe, shook 
 out the straws, examined it closely, then put 
 it on again, and subjected her second shoe 
 to the same treatment, keeping her bright 
 covered head obstinately bent down the 
 whole time, resolutely ignoring the presence 
 of outsiders. Only once she cast a sideway 
 glance at the stranger boy. She lowered 
 her eyes again, however, immediately. There 
 was a gleam of mocking merriment in them. 
 
 ' I wish you two would have a race again !' 
 said Sydney to Dick, after the first antago- 
 nistic shyness had worn off ; ' it's the best
 
 26 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 lark in the world to see you spinning round 
 and round. Only you ought to begin right 
 up at the top, where that little girl's screech- 
 ing over there.' 
 
 ' It's poor dear little True !' said Eila, with 
 self-reproach ; and ' Eila's coming, darling !' 
 she shouted, as she sprang up the paddock 
 towards her tyrant. 
 
 Mamy had condescended to raise her head 
 by this time, and to display her defiant and 
 tumbled little visage, and Dick asked her 
 whether she was ' on ' for another race. 
 Divided between the fear of being left out 
 of the game, and a certain reluctance to give 
 her consent too cheaply, she sought to com- 
 promise matters by suggesting that ' the 
 boy ' and Willie should have a first turn. 
 By some unexplained caprice, she continued 
 to ignore Sydney's presence, only alluding to 
 him loftily as ' the boy,' while she addressed 
 herself ostentatiously to Dick. 
 
 ' We'll have a four-bundle race ! That'll 
 be better fun !' urged Willie ; for Sydney, 
 upon whose not otherwise lively imagination 
 the attractive novelty of the entertainment
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 27 
 
 had exercised an irresistible and all-powerful 
 fascination, willingly agreed, and the four 
 children plodded in company up the steep, 
 prickly, slippery stubble, only stopping occa- 
 sionally to roll over a haycock, or to chase 
 each other round it, before tumbling breath- 
 less into the midst. 
 
 The scene around them was such as might 
 have gladdened the heart of a painter, but 
 none of the children thought of directing 
 their observation to it. They had been born 
 under the shadow of Mount Wellington, and 
 consulted him now more as a kind of huge 
 weather-glass than from any aesthetic appre- 
 ciation of his venerable beauties. According 
 to the aspect he wore in the morning, they 
 built their hopes upon the day before them. 
 When he appeared arrayed, like a monarch, 
 in royal purple, with his giant crown well 
 outlined against the shining expanse of blue 
 that canopied him, they felt that the heavens 
 would smile upon them. When, on the other 
 hand, he sulked behind the cloud-wreaths, or 
 showed himself grudgingly under rags and 
 tags of wet mist, they got out their umbrellas
 
 28 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 and waterproofs. For what other motive 
 should the Tasmanlans to-day question him ? 
 He has no legends of mediaeval days to 
 recount, though, for all we know to the 
 contrary, he may have a thousand tales as 
 wonderful and dramatic as any of these 
 locked up in his gloomy fastnesses. He has 
 seen a primitive race swept from the face of 
 the earth, goaded convicts hiding like rats 
 in holes and caves, and runaway prisoners 
 hunted to their doom. He has seen fugitives, 
 lost in his mysterious hollows, wander round 
 and round in delirious circles, until they have 
 fallen to rise no more. He has witnessed 
 many an act of life's comedy played out 
 besides, unknown to all. He has seen flirta- 
 tions, and proposals, and betrothals — episodes 
 less easy than these to put into words, though 
 French romance writers do not hesitate to fill 
 long chapters about them. He knows more 
 secrets than many a human father confessor, 
 though he keeps his counsel, like a grim old 
 guardian of public interests that he is. An 
 occasional hint concerning the weather is all 
 that can be extorted from him to-day. He
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 29 
 
 has outlived his own boiling, seething youth, 
 as may be seen by the scars he bears on his 
 surface, and knows that men are but as the 
 grass that springs up in the night-time, and 
 is cut down in the mornino^. 
 
 To-day, like an ancient patriarch who sees 
 his children playing at his feet. Mount Wel- 
 lington wore a benignant smile. Uncon- 
 sciously to themselves, he was an element 
 of happiness in the lives of the inmates of 
 Cowa. Upon July days they had seen him 
 robed to his base in a surplice of sparkling 
 snow. There were summer sunsets in 
 January when he glowed like a huge ruby. 
 His normal hue ranged from cold gray to 
 warm purple. Upon the days when he was 
 hidden altogether the children were ill at 
 ease. It was as though a dark shadow had 
 suddenly descended on their lives. 
 
 Race number two required longer inaugural 
 ceremonies than the first. To begin with, 
 Eila, who had retracted her threat never to 
 do up the culprits again, upon the condition 
 that the bundles should start themselves after 
 she had been given time to get to the bottom
 
 30 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 of the hill with Truca, and to await them 
 there, had had four packages instead of two 
 to make up. She felt some compunction in 
 packing up Sydney Warden. It was evident 
 that his mother bestowed much thought and 
 money upon his clothes. Then there was 
 the whole descent to accomplish for a second 
 time, with Truca triumphantly reinstated on 
 her back, clinging vengefully this time like a 
 miniature Old Man of the Sea. Dick, it was 
 arranged, should give the signal from under 
 his swathings of hay ; but, just as Eila had 
 anticipated, he gave it long before she had 
 reached the bottom with her load, notwith- 
 standing the fact that she had galloped — as far 
 as a two-legged beast of burden may be said 
 to gallop — as fast as ever she was able. She 
 was fain now to skip out of the way of the 
 irregularly rolling bundles as they revolved 
 rapidly past her ; worse still, she was sub- 
 jected, as before, to a spasm of terror on 
 behalf of the foremost of the lot, which could 
 be none other than the twins. This time 
 the victory rested between Dick and the 
 new-comer, who were in an equally sorry
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 plight as they emerged from their wrappings. 
 Each, however, loudly proclaimed himself the 
 winner ; and when Eila reached the scene, 
 and Willie and Mamy were able to perceive 
 what was going on with their smarting eyes, 
 it had already come to a tussle between the 
 two disputants, in which each was trying to 
 convince the other that he was in point of 
 fact the winner by the illogical argument of 
 pulling him over to the ground. 
 
 The tussle was mere sport at first — the kind 
 of wrestling-match in which boys, like young 
 puppies, engage almost instinctively, and with- 
 out malice prepense, upon the shallowest pre- 
 texts ; but it grew more earnest as each of 
 the combatants discovered that he had met 
 his match. Dick was lithe and sinewy ; he 
 seemed to have indiarubber springs in his 
 body, which made it impossible to throw him 
 right over. Sydney, for his part, had weight 
 and muscle. In vain Dick twisted round 
 his adversary's body, like a supple panther 
 springing upon a bear. Sydney opposed a 
 dead- weight resistance to all the efforts of his 
 adversary. The combat had lasted nearly
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 two minutes — a long time when it is con- 
 sidered that the parties engaged in it were 
 well-nigh breathless at the outset ; and Willie 
 advised them to desist. ' Stop that !' he 
 called out, with the assertion that Sydney 
 had won the race in any case. Dick felt 
 that he could not hold out any longer. He 
 was on the point of sinking under Sydney's 
 weight, when Mamy, who had been watching 
 the struggle with dilated eyes and quivering 
 lips, suddenly and unexpectedly interposed. 
 Snatching up the first missile to hand in the 
 shape of a potato that had probably been 
 dropped from some sack in the haycart, she 
 flung it with all her might at Sydney's head. 
 He saw the gesture, and ducked in time to 
 elude it. But Dick had meanwhile taken 
 advantage of the unguarded movement, with 
 a sudden dexterous twist of the foot, to throw 
 his adversary off his balance and cause him 
 to topple over backwards on the ground. 
 Dick went over himself, it is true, clasped in 
 his enemy's arms ; but he had the satisfac- 
 tion, at least, of being the topmost. Upon 
 seeing this Mamy stalked away, rejoiced and
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 33 
 
 impenitent, hurling over her shoulder the 
 parting taunt : * I knew Dick wasn't going 
 to be beaten, 'caiise he won the race! 
 
 The boys picked themselves up none the 
 worse friends in the end, and no allusion was 
 made to the episode of the potato. Curi- 
 ously enough, however, the vision of Mamy 
 with her arm uplifted, in the act of hurling, 
 the straw sticking all over her head and 
 clothes, was destined to remain fixed for 
 evermore in Sydney's mind. He was en- 
 tirely unaware of the fact at the time. Have 
 we not all a store of mental photographs 
 which seem to have recorded themselves on 
 our brains with no connivance or volition of 
 our own ? Perhaps there are moods during 
 which the mind is like a sensitive plate, so 
 that impressions recorded on it are never to 
 be subsequently effaced. Many things hap- 
 pened at Cowa that day which Sydney also 
 remembered, for this was the first of number- 
 less visits he paid his friends on the hill. 
 For one thing, he remembered that Mamy 
 had disappeared for a very long time. Rude 
 little girl as she was, the play had not seemed 
 VOL. I. 3
 
 34 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 quite so interesting when her eager, watchful 
 eyes, blue as the agate in Sydney's pockets, 
 under her tousled hair, had been no longer 
 there to follow the games. 
 
 When she returned, Sydney would hardly 
 have recognised her. She wore a clean 
 holland blouse fastened round her waist with 
 a belt. Her face was w^ashed and seemed to 
 be very fair, and her hair, without a particle 
 of straw in it, hung in a stout, short plait 
 behind her back, tied at the end with a strip 
 of blue ribbon. She looked quite good, and 
 carried something that appeared like a white 
 soup -tureen carefully in both hands, with 
 soup-plates and spoons on the top of it. 
 Upon being uncovered, the soup-tureen was 
 found to contain piles of luscious straw- 
 berries swimming in the thickest and 
 yellowest of cream, all properly sugared and 
 mixed. In Sydney's own home there was a 
 professional cook, who made such curries 
 and such trifles as no one in Hobart could 
 approach. Yet it seemed to him now that 
 all he had eaten hitherto at his mother's 
 table was but as Dead Sea fruit, compared
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 35 
 
 with the nectar and ambrosia of that first 
 repast in the hay at Cowa. It was Eila 
 who dispensed it, sitting on the haycock 
 with Truca on her lap, and there was more 
 than anyone could eat at a time. The 
 children had to get up and jump about 
 before they could finish what was left. 
 
 Then Eila told them a story in the hay, 
 while they lay on their backs and stomachs 
 in a state of blissful contentment that passed 
 all description. Only yesterday Sydney would 
 have scorned such a babyish amusement as 
 that of listening to a girl's ' yarns,' but these 
 were tales such as he had never heard or 
 imagined before — boys' adventures on desert 
 islands, that made your hair tingle at the 
 roots to listen to ; wonderful narratives of 
 giants that you could not help believing 
 from the way in which they were told. It 
 was not in human nature to resist such 
 stories as these. 
 
 Then, as the sun began to creep down 
 behind the mountains, burning a hole 
 through his cloudy curtain of purple and 
 gold, and whiffs of cool air blew inwards
 
 36 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 from the darkening harbour, Mamy sprang 
 up from her hay-mound, and climbing the 
 raiHng into an adjoining paddock (there was 
 a gate a few yards lower, but who would 
 waste the time in opening a gate with rails 
 all ready to scramble over ?), and proceeded to 
 walk slowly up it, calling ' Coop — coo-oop '/ 
 in far-reaching, conciliatory tones. Almost 
 simultaneously a large and a small cow, 
 browsing at the top of the paddock, raised 
 their heads and looked at her. Dick mean- 
 while had run to fetch the milking-pail, and by 
 the time he returned, the cows were coming 
 slowly down the hill, with their heads sway- 
 ing from right to left from the shoulder, with 
 an indifferent, not-to-be-hurried air. Snow- 
 white, so named after the heroine of Grimm's 
 tales, on account of the fairness of her hide, 
 seemed to swim in an amber light, enveloped 
 in the rays of the setting sun. Her com- 
 panion, who answered to the more prosaic 
 name of Strawberry, reflected the golden 
 brown glow of autumn woods. Both animals 
 came to a halt when Mamy laid her hand 
 upon them. Snow-white, however, she pulled
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 37 
 
 towards her by the horns and kissed upon 
 the forehead before beginning to milk her. 
 There was no milking-stool. Mamy knelt 
 by the cows in turn, with her head leaning 
 against their flanks, and talked soothingly to 
 them in cow-language, as the milk rained 
 and foamed in the pail under the skilful 
 downward pressure of her supple thumb. 
 
 Sydney watched the operation with eyes 
 of naive wonderment. Country scenes and 
 sports were not unknown to him, but of the 
 mysteries of practical dairying he knew little 
 or nothing. His elder sister, Lucy, was 
 timid of animals, and would go specially in 
 another direction when out walking with her 
 governess, to avoid meeting the cows on 
 their country estate. Mamy, on the con- 
 trary, seemed to love them. She even con- 
 descended to give some explanations between 
 the intervals of milking. Snow-white, it 
 seemed, had the sweetest temper, but Straw- 
 berry gave the richest milk. As though to 
 prove her displeasure at the slur cast upon 
 her character, or to give immediate proof of 
 the justice of the accusation, Strawberry
 
 38 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 whisked her tail with a vicious movement as 
 soon as it was her turn to be milked. The 
 first whisk was dexterously contrived to give 
 Mamy a literal slap in the face, and before 
 she had had time to recover from It, a second 
 whisk had scattered the milk over her frock. 
 The hardest part to bear was the peal of 
 hilarious laughter that Strawberry's untoward 
 conduct excited from the rest. 
 
 ' How can you encourage her in such be- 
 haviour ?' cried Mamy, turning round upon 
 them with a strenuous appeal that was almost 
 pathetic in Its indignant earnestness. There 
 was a gleam of something like a tear in her 
 troubled blue eyes. 
 
 The others continued to laugh — all save 
 Sydney Warden. Sydney shunned girls as 
 a rule, and Mamy's first manner of recog- 
 nising him by aiming a ' spud ' at his head 
 could hardly be looked upon as an Induce- 
 ment to make an exception in her favour. 
 Nevertheless, it Is a fact that he darted for- 
 ward on the impulse of the moment, and laid 
 valiant hold of Strawberry's offending tail. 
 Nay, though the cow, mortally affronted,
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 39 
 
 made as though she would kick him, and did, 
 indeed, partially succeed in boxing his ear 
 with her liberated tail, he remained manfully 
 at his post. Nor did he let go his hold until 
 Mamy rose, flushed and triumphant, from 
 her knees, with the remark : 
 
 ' She's as sulky as ever she can be. She's 
 been trying to hold back her milk all the 
 time.' 
 
 She did not thank Sydney for his inter- 
 position, and it was Dick — not he — who 
 helped her to carry the pail up the hill. The 
 pair walked on silently together in front, 
 until Dick remarked reflectively : 
 
 ' I think Sydney Warden's not a bad sort, 
 Mamy, don't you ?' 
 
 Whereat Mamy, who was chewing a straw, 
 tossed her head indifferently, as much as to 
 say that the subject was really one which 
 had no interest for her. That Sydney 
 should have been completely subjugated by 
 her warlike attitude at the outset ; that her 
 treatment of him to-day was only typical of 
 the treatment she would bestow on him in 
 the long years to come ; that the destinies
 
 40 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 the Fates were already spinning for both out 
 of the nebulous mass whence human destinies 
 are evolved had been all foreshadowed in the 
 childish conflicts of the afternoon — what 
 could Mamy know or dream of this ? For 
 her the events of to-day were but as the sun- 
 set colours that stained the opposite sky, and 
 that paled and faded as she watched them. 
 Nor was Sydney more conscious than Mamy 
 that his day's impressions were of those that 
 he would never lose. 
 
 The entrancing evening came to an end 
 with tea on the veranda — a delightful and 
 scrambly tea, in which hot scones and eggs, 
 and jam and dough - cake, succeeded each 
 other uninterruptedly and abundantly on the 
 same plates. The talk, however, was of a 
 kind that Sydney could not always follow. 
 There was a family vocabulary of which he 
 did not as yet possess the key, and he was 
 also conscious of a vague, undefined quality 
 of singularity that distinguished the accents 
 and gestures of his new friends. At a little 
 distance he would have supposed them to be 
 talking another language— a language rather
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 41 
 
 soft and nasal, with an occasional plaintive- 
 ness in it that was almost a whine. I need 
 not say that these opinions remained entirely 
 unformulated by him. If he was conscious 
 of them at all, it was only in the guise of 
 swift, unanalyzed impressions, the analytic 
 tendency being foreign to Sydney's practical 
 nature. He thought Mrs. Clare as different 
 from other mothers as her children were 
 different from other children he had met. 
 If he could have expressed what he felt, he 
 would have said that she did not look to him 
 like a mother at all. Her face was small 
 and sallow, and the hair, lying smoothly on 
 either side of her narrow head, was of the 
 shiniest blackness he had ever seen. Her 
 equally black eyes, that struck him as being 
 much larger than ordinary eyes, moved 
 hither and thither as rapidly as a bird's. At 
 other moments they looked straight before 
 them at nothing. Under both aspects 
 Sydney felt there was something curious 
 about them. He was reminded of an ayah 
 who had come down from India with a sister 
 of his mother's and her baby to visit them at
 
 42 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Hobart. He noticed, among other things, 
 that there was no grace said, a ceremony 
 which was never dispensed with at his own 
 home teas. It was Eila who seemed most 
 bent upon keeping order, though her atten- 
 tion was much taken up by Truca, who sat 
 on a high chair beside her ; also by a large 
 retriever dog that rested his paws on the 
 back of her chair, and thrust his head against 
 her neck. Below the veranda darkness was 
 creeping up the hill. It held the town in the 
 hollow, and rested in a broad black shadow 
 upon the harbour. Lights were faintly 
 twinkling on the opposite shore ; still the 
 family lingered over their tea. Sydney sat 
 open-mouthed among them now that he had 
 finished eating. It reminded him of being 
 at a play. 
 
 Each one seemed to him funnier than the 
 other. Mamv sfave an inimitable renderinof 
 of the startled demeanour of an old lady who 
 had seen her fall off the haystack unexpectedly 
 the day before, and Truca was made to re- 
 count her famous dream, in which, as appeared 
 by her own showing, she ' flied ' and ' flied *
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 43 
 
 all the time, ' and didn't get no higher ' than 
 the cupboard In the schoolroom. 
 
 Dick produced two of the most beautiful 
 beetles In bronze-green armour ever seen, 
 and made believe they were two explorers, 
 wandering over the tablecloth, which was the 
 sea, In search of an enchanted Island, which 
 was the butter-dish. To stake Impossible 
 sums upon the port they would make for first 
 was a highly exciting game, though It was 
 diversified by an argument between Dick and 
 his mother upon the construction of beetle- 
 brains, which was too suggestive of his school- 
 book upon physical science to have much 
 Interest or meaning for Sydney. 
 
 By-and-by a golden moon dispelled the 
 darkness. The mounds In the hay-paddock 
 became as silver thrones, whereon the children 
 sat once more In state. Only the occasional 
 alarm of a snake would cause a wild and un- 
 called-for stampede from time to time on the 
 part of the entire party. Sydney remembered 
 how they had tried to unearth the noisy 
 crickets that snapped and whirred beneath 
 the soil, as though they had been driving a
 
 44 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 hundred subterranean lilllputlan mills ; and 
 how Dick had recounted a yarn (for surely 
 it could have been nothing du^ a yarn) about 
 some little people called earthmen, or gnomes, 
 that used to potter underground in olden 
 times. 
 
 The lad carried away more impressions 
 from his first afternoon at Cowa than he 
 could find place for all together in his brain. 
 The crowning impression of all, the one that 
 dominated every other, was the vision of 
 Mamy with her outstretched arm, in the act 
 of hurling the potato at him. Supposing it 
 had really struck him on the temple ! It was 
 with a smaller missile than a potato that David 
 had slain the giant Goliath. Sydney re- 
 membered this fact, for he was better versed 
 in ' Stories from the Bible ' than his friends 
 on the hill. Supposing it had struck him as 
 the pebble struck Goliath, and killed him 
 dead on the spot ! Would Mamy have been 
 sorry ? Or supposing it had only hurt him a 
 little, raised a bump, or given him a bad 
 bruise, would she still have been sorry — a 
 little sorry ? Then an unaccountable regret
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 45 
 
 that he had dodged the blow at the critical 
 moment, and thus cut off for ever the pos- 
 sibility of knowing whether Mamy would 
 have been sorry, was the main effect of the 
 incident upon Sydney's imagination. Now, 
 his imagination was not easily stimulated, and 
 if the one being who had been potent to work 
 this miracle upon him for the first time in his 
 experience should have been destined to hold 
 her supremacy over him thenceforth and for 
 ever, the fact need cause no surprise, physical 
 force led captive by imagination being the 
 theme which has underlain myths and fable- 
 lore from time immemorial, for all such as 
 have sought to penetrate their hidden mean- 
 ing.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MRS. FROST S NEWS. 
 
 The day had been warm, but the unfailing 
 sea-breeze, borne in from the great mysterious 
 Antarctic Ocean, blew fresh and cold in young 
 Mrs. Frost's face as she set herself to walk 
 across the rugged slopes of Mount Knock- 
 lofty towards the ivy-covered cottage on the 
 New Town Road wherein old Mrs. Frost 
 had her habitation. Knocklofty is not, as its 
 name might seem to imply, an Irish moun- 
 tain, but a furze and bracken covered hill in 
 the neighbourhood of Hobart, which Hobart, 
 as everybody knows, is the chief city of Tas- 
 mania, and quite lovely enough and lonely 
 enough to have inspired a colonial Goldsmith 
 with a poem in imitation of the ' Deserted 
 [46]
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 47 
 
 Village of the Plain,' with the slight difference 
 that it should be entitled ' The Village of the 
 Mountains' instead. Mrs. Frost knew Knock- 
 lofty under all its aspects, and so far custom 
 had not withered the infinite variety of its 
 charm in her eyes. She had raced over it 
 like a young colt in the days when she wore 
 socks and short frocks, and her defenceless 
 calves had shown a lattice-work of multi- 
 tudinous scratches inflicted by the briars and 
 the gorse. Some years later she had carried 
 her water-colours on her rambling, or, to 
 speak more correctly, on her scrambling ex- 
 peditions to its summit, and had made heroic 
 attempts to reproduce Mount Wellington in 
 a state of incandescence at sunset. Truth 
 to tell, she had anticipated in this line the 
 achievement of certain impressionist painters 
 of to-day, and had accomplished ' plein air,' 
 as Monsieur Jourdain spoke prose, without 
 being aware of it herself. But for want of 
 guidance, her artistic efforts remained at much 
 the same stage as those she made in many 
 another direction besides — that is to say, they 
 were suggestions rather than performances.
 
 48 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 On the particular summer evening in the 
 month of January when you encounter young 
 Mrs. Frost for the first time, impressionist 
 or even * plein air ' inspirations are far enough 
 from her thoughts. Not that the scene around 
 her is lacking in elements that might furnish 
 them. The distant harbour, reflecting the 
 late sunset, wears a blood-red glow, that calls 
 to mind one of the most effective of the many 
 effective plagues devised by Moses for the 
 subduing of the stiff-necked Egyptians. 
 House-tops and hill-tops have caught the 
 rosy reflection, and for the space of a few 
 minutes the landscape seems to swim in an 
 amber light. Young Mrs. Frost's face, 
 beautiful enough for all ordinary and super- 
 ordinary purposes in the garish light of day, 
 becomes celestially transfigured under its in- 
 fluence. Her silhouette takes the semblance 
 of a silver outline, and her cheeks and fore- 
 head shine with a wonderful semi-transparent 
 softness, that shows what a beautiful thing 
 human flesh can be for mere light-reflecting 
 purposes alone. 
 
 The foregoing phenomenon is familiar to
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 49 
 
 most painters. It presented itself upon the 
 present occasion with the force of a new 
 revelation to a certain Reginald or iJ/r. 
 Reginald Acton, who accidentally, or with 
 malice prepense, overtook young Mrs. Frost 
 just as she was hesitating whether to take a 
 long and tedious road that led to Ivy Cottage 
 by inhabited ways and protected paths, or a 
 short and devious cut (the two qualifications 
 became quite compatible, whatever Cowper 
 may have implied to the contrary), with the 
 same end in view. 
 
 ' How you startled me !' she exclaimed, 
 looking sharply round, as she heard Regi- 
 nald's tramping footstep behind her. ' I'm 
 too glad it's only you !' and she put out her 
 hand. 
 
 ' Yes, it's only me !' he replied with a smile, 
 as he took the ungloved hand and held it for 
 an instant in his own. ' Thanks for the com- 
 pliment ; but I'm " too glad " on my own 
 account to have caught you up at last, to 
 mind. Now, where are you going, and which 
 way shall we take ?' 
 
 ' I'm going to Ivy Cottage, sir !' The little 
 
 VOL. I. 4
 
 50 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 grimace that accompanied the reply was more 
 eloquent than words could have been. ' But 
 don't pity me ; I believe it's for the last time.' 
 
 * For the last time ? Why, have you thrown 
 your respected father and mother in-law over, 
 or have they thrown you over ?' 
 
 ' Not they, indeed ! but haven't you heard 
 the news ? Did they tell you nothing at 
 Cowa ?' 
 
 ' I've heard nothing. I stopped at the 
 garden-gate ten minutes ago to see whether 
 you were discoverable ; and your brother 
 Dick, who, by-the-by, had no socks on, only 
 a kind of patent sole strapped to his bare 
 feet, told me in his usual superior way that 
 you had gone to see your mother-indaw. He 
 could not tell me, though, which way you had 
 taken, but I was sure it would be across the 
 hill. So I walked on after you at the rate 
 of— of ' 
 
 ' Nineteen to the dozen !' Interposed Mrs. 
 Frost. 
 
 ' Ninety-nine to the dozen would be nearer 
 the mark. Anyhow, here I am. You must 
 have had ten minutes' start of me at least,
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 51 
 
 and you were going fast at that. You are 
 not aware, I suppose, that you were turning 
 your back upon one of the finest harbour- 
 views ever known ?' 
 
 'Was I ? Well, let's look at It now.' 
 
 ' Yes, /e^'s f he said, mimicking her with a 
 smile. 
 
 'And then I'll tell you the news!' cried 
 young Mrs. Frost, 'only I'm not at all sure 
 that it will please you.' 
 
 ' Not please me ! Then don't tell It to me 
 just for a moment. I want to have a few 
 moments of perfect enjoyment. The sun will 
 have gone down in another minute. Here ! 
 will you have my coat to sit upon T 
 
 ' No, indeed I won't !' she laughed dis- 
 dainfully. ' Why, I spend most of my time 
 sitting out upon the ground.' 
 
 She had suited her action to her words, 
 and was already plumped down after the 
 fashion of a born Australian, to whom the 
 ground or the floor represents an ever-avail- 
 able resting-place, while Reginald was con- 
 sidering how he should dispose himself upon 
 the stony soil by her side. 
 
 UBRARY 
 
 i^:^ VERSirr OF ILUNOIS
 
 52 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 * Here's a lovely place to see it from,' she 
 said. ' I'm glad you told me of it. It is 
 beautiful ! Couldn't one almost be a Parsee, 
 with a sky like that to worship ? I 've heard 
 people talk about a man not being able to 
 set the Thames on fire, but I'm sure it looks 
 as though the Derwent were all aflame, 
 doesn't it ? And what lovely little jags of 
 gold in the clouds !' 
 
 As she spoke, the rim of the sun, a disc 
 of burning gold, was still visible above the 
 horizon. A moment later he had slowly 
 dropped behind the mountains, sending up, 
 as he sank, shafts of brightness that seemed 
 to slash the sky with colour. Young Mrs. 
 Frost 'fetched a sigh,' as our great-grand- 
 parents would have said, and turned her 
 illumined face towards her companion. 
 
 Reginald's ' few moments of perfect enjoy- 
 ment' were plainly written upon his counte- 
 nance. His was a face that might have 
 belonged to an inhabitant of the fabled Palace 
 of Truth, notwithstanding the fact that he 
 had been through the usual training which 
 enjoins the civilized man to hide his emotions
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 53 
 
 from the world. It was of a blonde hue, 
 upon which, as upon an ivory tablet, all that 
 recorded itself might be read by those who 
 ran. His eyes were of the good honest blue 
 often to be seen in the eyes of Norwegian 
 sailors, and when he was troubled, they had 
 a suffused look that would have been very 
 touching to a mother or a woman friend. 
 The cut of his features was far from being 
 classic. There was a curious scoop in the 
 bridge of the nose that gave something of a 
 bovine suggestion to the profile. The front 
 view, however, displaying the pleasant trust- 
 ing eyes, the broad tip of a sun-burned nose, 
 and the well-disciplined profusion of close-cut 
 whisker, beard and moustache, that concealed 
 all the lower part of the face, never failed 
 to impress the spectator agreeably. It was 
 doubtful whether young Mrs. Frost had ever 
 thought of judging it critically. Reginald 
 was * nice ' (and this is the paramount con- 
 sideration from a feminine point of view), and 
 he always looked nice, under whatever cir- 
 cumstances he might be encountered. Besides 
 which, she had perhaps fewer opportunities for
 
 54 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 judging him impartially than other people, 
 seeing that, unconsciously to himself, his 
 whole being was quickened — in the Scriptural 
 sense of the word — in her presence. He 
 had been her friend and almost her confidant 
 for more than a year ; he had not been in 
 Tasmania more than eighteen months him- 
 self; and the difference of age between them, 
 some tw^elve or fifteen years, coupled with 
 the fact that he had seen so much of the 
 world in his naval officer days, inclined her 
 to pay more heed to his counsels than she 
 was apt to bestow upon those of most other 
 people who were rash enough to offer them. 
 The difficulty of young Mrs. Frost's position 
 (and the sequel will show how really difficult 
 it was) inclined her to resent the well-meant 
 advice that was proffered to her. 
 
 * What is the use of their talking so ?' she 
 would say to herself impatiently. * I get 
 more help out of a page of Herbert Spencer 
 than out of all the sermons they can preach in 
 a week.' 
 
 The ' they ' referred in this instance to 
 father-in-law, mother-in-law, friends and ac-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 55 
 
 quaintances generally, for as far as her own 
 brothers and sisters were concerned, live and 
 let live was too instinctive a principle among 
 them to allow of their assuming a critical 
 attitude towards her, unless their own plans 
 were directly encompassed by hers. 
 
 The gold was fading out of the clouds before 
 young Mrs. Frost broke the silence again. 
 Possibly she was loath to drive the radiant 
 reflection from her companion's eyes until his 
 few moments of enjoyment were well counted. 
 She waited until he turned his glance ex- 
 pectantly towards her. He was half sitting, 
 half reclining by her side, with his elbow 
 propped up on a corner of her faded blue 
 cotton frock spread around her as she sat. 
 
 ' Well ?' he said interrogatively, and the 
 smile that accompanied the interrogation spoke 
 of the entire sense of well-being and freedom 
 from all constraint he felt in her presence. 
 ' Well ?' 
 
 ' Well ?' she replied hesitatingly. 
 
 She had picked up some dried wattle twigs 
 from the ground, and was sorting them on 
 her lap as a pretext for not looking at him.
 
 56 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' You know I warned you it was news you 
 would not approve of. It is only this, that 
 we are thinking of going home.' 
 
 Reginald started up. He did not answer 
 immediately. His face contracted into an 
 expression of pained bewilderment. 
 
 ' Home, you say ? What do you mean ? 
 What home are you speaking of .^' 
 
 ' Why, Home with a capital " H," of course. 
 England — Europe, that is to say. What 
 other home is there ?' 
 
 Her companion did not answer. Even the 
 exclamation of surprise that she was waiting 
 for found no utterance. In very truth the 
 light that was fading so slowly from the sky 
 seemed to have passed in one lightning flash 
 from his life. He could not have spoken at 
 this moment, feeling stunned by the announce- 
 ment, as by a blow. He had sometimes 
 fancied, notwithstanding the impassable gulf 
 that separated him from this woman by his 
 side, that she had measured his love for her 
 in her secret heart ; that she had silently 
 divined its strength, its depth, its boundless- 
 ness ; nay, that she had even made a shrine
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 57 
 
 for It in the inmost recesses of her soul, where 
 none could see or penetrate. And now, like 
 a child that crushes a butterfly for very wan- 
 tonness, she had crushed this blessed trust of 
 his with a word. He was sure, though his 
 eyes were turned seaward, away from hers, 
 that a half-triumphant smile was hovering on 
 her lips. He could detect it without looking 
 at her, in the very sound of her voice. She 
 had been waiting pitilessly and cruelly to 
 produce her effect, while he, poor fool ! had 
 been thinking, in the words of Longfellow, 
 ' Oh, what a glory doth this world put on !' 
 for the sole reason that it was with her that 
 he was looking forth upon the sunset this 
 evening. 
 
 Her voice had always possessed an especial 
 charm for him. It was one of those voices 
 set in a flexible treble key that vibrate to fun 
 and pathos at an instant's notice. It had 
 been the most tuneful voice hitherto, to his 
 thinking, that he had ever heard ; but now, 
 for the first time, it rang falsely upon his ear. 
 Surely she could not have required the spoken 
 assurance that he cared for her. Was not his
 
 58 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 very silence the best proof of it he could give 
 her, seeing how she was situated ? What had 
 he ever asked beyond the privilege of serving 
 her with a dog-like devotion ? And this was 
 his reward. This was the way in which she 
 recompensed him. She had brought him out 
 this evening (he forgot in his bitterness that 
 he had followed her of his own accord) only 
 to tell him, as though it were the most indif- 
 ferent piece of gossip in the world, that 'they 
 were thinking of going home,' that she was 
 about to put half the globe between her and 
 himself, to take very likely an eternal farewell 
 of him ! How lightly she had spoken of it ! 
 What truth there was in what Tennyson had 
 said of woman ! The lesser man — that was 
 it ! Even her sentiments and passions, com- 
 pared with his, were but as moonlight unto 
 sunlight, or as water unto wine ! She was 
 incapable of fathoming the feeling he had for 
 her. There was no measure for it in her 
 nature. It was useless even to allow himself 
 to feel anger against her. 
 
 Yet anger is a palliative, or, rather, a 
 counter-irritant, when the heart is smarting.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 59 
 
 Reginald felt worse when he ceased to be 
 angry. There was a cold Intonation in his 
 voice when he next spoke which reminded 
 his companion of those far-away childish days 
 when people had been ' distant ' to her because 
 she had been 'a bad girl,' in the nursery 
 acceptation of the phrase. 
 
 ' How long have you been hatching this 
 fine plan, may I ask ?' were Reginald's words, 
 very stiffly pronounced ; ' and when do you 
 think of putting it into execution ?' 
 
 ' We've been hatching it in one sense all 
 our lives,' replied young Mrs. Frost. 
 
 Her lips were curving in spite of herself. 
 Reginald's offended demeanour prompted her 
 to the motiveless laughter we are sometimes 
 inclined to indulge in, sorely against the grain, 
 when some doleful tidings are suddenly im- 
 parted to us. 
 
 ' I'll tell you all about it from the beginning, 
 if you like, and then you must say just what 
 you think of It, you know.' 
 
 Her accents were cajoling. It was in- 
 cumbent upon her to condone that insane 
 inclination to laugh — the more so that laughter
 
 6o NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 would not have been by any means a true 
 reflection of her mood of the moment. 
 
 ' It will take rather a long time to explain, 
 I am afraid,' she went on, in the same con- 
 ciliatory tones ; ' and I dare say it will seem 
 rather a sudden move to you, but it doesn't 
 to us. We have discussed it so long among 
 ourselves ; and I would have told you about 
 it ages ago, only thereby hangs a tale. We 
 were pledged to secrecy. I had promised 
 mother not to say a word about it to a living 
 soul.' 
 
 ' Oh, if your mother is in it ' replied 
 
 the young man curtly. 
 
 There was something in the manner of his 
 rejoinder that did not please his companion. 
 She stiffened herself unconsciously as she sat 
 upon the ground. Reginald's back (he had 
 drawn up his knees and encircled them with 
 his arms as he gazed gloomily at the bay) 
 looked as though it breathed a challenge. 
 
 ' You are not respectful to mother,' she 
 said ; ' in fact, you very seldom are. I have 
 noticed it often before. Don't you think 
 mother is a very clever woman ?^
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 6i 
 
 Reginald paused for an instant ; then he 
 said : 
 
 ' What, clever !' with a certain inflection 
 that was not entirely satisfactory to his inter- 
 locutress, for she flushed as she repeated in 
 sharpened tones : 
 
 ' Yes, clever — very clever ! Not in a 
 managing, pushing, worldly way, perhaps, 
 but in an intellectual way. You know she is. 
 Did you ever hear anyone talk better than 
 mother on all kinds of subjects ? The cleverest 
 men from England — University men, and 
 writers, and people of that kind — enjoy talk- 
 ing to her. Do you remember Dr. Umbeck, 
 on board the German man-of-war ? I don't 
 believe he missed coming up a single day 
 all the time the Prinzessin w^as in port to eat 
 strawberries and cream at Cowa. He said 
 mother had '' an all-embracing soul." He 
 used to talk to her by the hour together.' 
 
 ' Yes, and look at you ! I remember the 
 old beast !' interposed Reginald grimly. * It 
 is not my place to discuss your mother's 
 qualities with you, I know, but I should like 
 to give my real candid opinion about her
 
 62 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 cleverness for once, if you'll promise not to be 
 offended.' 
 
 ' Offended ! I couldn't be more offended 
 than I am at the bare suggestion that you 
 could have anything to say that I shouldn't 
 like. You had better speak right out, just to 
 show that you would never have dared to 
 harbour a thought about her I shouldn't 
 approve. You are not going to deny that 
 mother is clever, I suppose ?' 
 
 ' No, no ; not altogether.' The slow re- 
 luctance with which he spoke added impres- 
 siveness to his words. ' Of course no one 
 would deny that your mother is what old- 
 fashioned writers would have called a woman 
 of parts. But they want co-ordinating and 
 arranging. You have a weakness for fanciful 
 similes, I know. Well, I will tell you what 
 your mother's abilities remind me of They 
 remind me of quicksilver spilled upon a table. 
 You know what it is like, don't you ? You 
 must have seen how it breaks up into bright 
 little balls, and runs all over the place, first in 
 one direction, then in another. There's never 
 any getting hold of it, although it's so pretty
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 63 
 
 and effective. And it's tremendously useful, 
 you know, when you amalgamate it with 
 something else, or when you shut it up in 
 glass. Only ' 
 
 ' Only !' interrupted young Mrs. Frost in- 
 dignantly. * I won't listen to another word. 
 Your quicksilver simile may be very smart ; 
 unfortunately, it doesn't apply. We will 
 leave mother's name out of the question in 
 our future discussions, if you please. What 
 I want to know now is. Are you going to Ivy 
 Cottage with me, or are you not ? For if we 
 don't go on at once, it will be long past tea- 
 time when I get there, and I shall be ex- 
 pected to stay to prayers ; then what will 
 become of you, waiting in the dark outside ?' 
 
 * I am quite ready,' said Reginald, rising to 
 his feet, and holding out a hand to assist her. 
 
 It made him smile half sadly to note the 
 impatient gesture with which she rejected 
 his proffered aid, and, springing to her feet, 
 continued her way a few paces in front of 
 him, half walking and half running at such 
 an accelerated rate of speed that he was 
 obliged to increase his own to a 'go-as-you-
 
 64 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 please ' pace to enable him to keep up with 
 her. 
 
 ' The Red Indian stride !' he called out 
 after her, laughing. ' I know what mood 
 you are in when you put that on. But you're 
 not going to quarrel with me to-night, are 
 you ? I will take back all I said if you will 
 be friends again ; and when will you tell me 
 about the journey home ? I can't believe 
 you are in earnest. Did you mean that you 
 are all going away together .^' 
 
 'Yes— all.' 
 
 She jerked out her reply over her shoulder 
 with an air of ruffled dignity. 
 
 ' What ! your mother, and the Philosopher, 
 and the Nihilist, and the Warbler, and Truca ?' 
 
 ' The whole boiling,' said young Mrs. Frost 
 recklessly. ' But see ! those are the lights of 
 Ivy Cottage. We are almost there. Where 
 shall I find you waiting for me when I come 
 out ?' 
 
 ' Here.' He pointed to a large boulder 
 with his walking-stick. * I can sit and medi- 
 tate upon this stone. You won't be very 
 long, will you ? Couldn't you by any pos-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 65 
 
 sibility give me a clue to your reasons, or 
 your mother's reasons, for wanting to leave 
 Tasmania before you go ?' 
 
 ' Not by any possibility. Didn't I tell you 
 it was a long story ?' 
 
 ' Well, one question only before you go. 
 Have you come into an inheritance ?' 
 
 ' No ; and I won't answer. But we have 
 prospects ' 
 
 ' Prospects ! what prospects ?' he shouted 
 after her. 
 
 But she was gone, and her back was turned 
 upon him before he could say any more. He 
 stood for a moment looking after the elastic 
 figure as it moved swiftly forward in the 
 gathering gloom, telling himself that, amidst 
 unnumbered crowds, he could swear to its 
 identity, no matter from what distance he 
 should see it. Even now, in the indistinct, 
 fast-waning light, the stately poise of the 
 head, like that of a Rebecca at the well ; the 
 roundness of the waist ; the supple curve in 
 the back, that conferred so pre-eminently 
 what the French call /a taille ca7nbrde on its 
 possessor ; the Diana - like hips, and the 
 
 VOL. I. 5
 
 66 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 buoyant tread, marked her out from all other 
 women he knew. He did not carry out his 
 promise of meditating upon a stone, after all. 
 He set himself to walk to and fro as he waited 
 for her, so absorbed in his thought of her 
 that he almost forgot to wonder at her pro- 
 longed absence. 
 
 And while he is waiting and thinking, it 
 may be as well to explain why his thoughts 
 did not harmonize with the merry heart which 
 goes all the day, while ' your sad tires in a 
 mile-a.' 
 
 Young Mrs. Frost's actual position, and 
 the fate which caused her to tumble into it, 
 have no small share in them ; and by setting 
 it forth I shall best reveal the thoughts that 
 weigh so heavily upon Reginald's mind as he 
 walks up and down in the gathering darkness 
 waiting for her.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A HOME IN TASMANIA. 
 
 ' That he is mad, 'tis true : 
 'Tis true, 'tis pity ; and pity 'tis, 'tis true.' 
 
 Shakespeare. 
 
 CowA Cottage, young Mrs. Frost's home, 
 might have been aptly described in Macau- 
 lay's words : 
 
 ' Like an eagle's nest 
 Hangs on the crest 
 Of purple Apennine.' 
 
 For ' Apennine ' it would have been neces- 
 sary, however, to substitute the less poetic 
 name of ' Knocklofty,' which, if not as high, 
 forms at least as wild and as purple a back- 
 ground as the one the poet had in his mind. 
 
 Cowa was not only our heroine's home ; it 
 was her birthplace as well. Some seventeen 
 [67]
 
 68 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 years before she became Mrs. Frost, she 
 made her entry into what Mr. TulHver called 
 with reason this 'puzzling world,' at a time 
 when the roses were in full bloom in Tasmania 
 — that is to say, shortly before Christmas. 
 She was named Eila, which is the Russian 
 synonym for 'mountain,' and promised to ex- 
 emplify Balzac's theory that there is an occult 
 connection between people and the names 
 they bear by shooting up into a vigorous 
 mountain flower in her own person. Her 
 family name was Clare, and the sequence of 
 Eila Clare had a euphonious ring that was 
 well adapted to the personality it represented. 
 There were not people wanting, however, 
 who said that Eila was as peculiar as her 
 name ; but as this was a charge that was 
 levelled against the Clare family en masse, it 
 may have been only made by those who, to 
 use a Spencerian word, could not contra- 
 distinguish her from her surroundings. 
 
 Eila's father, dead some years back, had 
 occupied a modest post in the Treasury. 
 His individuality had been in a great measure 
 extinguished by his wife's, of whom more will
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 69 
 
 be said anon. He died before Eila was in 
 long dresses, the father of four children, the 
 elder of whom retained more or less vaguely 
 the recollection of the paternal presence at 
 the breakfast-table, and at late tea, as some- 
 thing kindly, orderly, somewhat silent, ap- 
 pearing and disappearing at stated hours as 
 regularly as the sun rose and set. In after- 
 times they comprehended that this unobtru- 
 sive presence had, to a great extent, kept the 
 household together ; that it was owing to its 
 silent influence that the meals had been ready 
 at their appointed hour, and that the boys 
 had been sent regularly to school ; also that 
 the charge of being peculiar had been so 
 much less frequently levelled against their 
 mother and themselves. It required, how- 
 ever, a long experience to enable them to 
 realize this fact, just as it has taken mankind 
 a long time to discover the silent forces at 
 work around them, albeit they have been 
 ready at all times to bow themselves before 
 the thunderbolt and the rainbow. Mrs. Clare 
 maintained her husband's system, in so far as 
 was possible without doing too great a violence
 
 70 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 to her nature, for some years after his death. 
 He had Insured his life, In deference to a 
 curious prescience of the fate that finally 
 overtook him, and had left his widow Cowa 
 Cottage, and an Income of some three hundred 
 a year that required careful eking out to enable 
 her to feed, and clothe, and educate five chil- 
 dren upon It. Injustice to Ella's mother. It 
 must be said that the habit of running into 
 debt did not find a place among her other 
 idiosyncrasies. A certain profit, moreover, 
 was reaped from the garden, which was kept 
 in order by the eldest of the boys. As doctors' 
 and apothecaries' bills were unknown, Mrs. 
 Clare even found it possible to lay by part of 
 her income every year towards the carrying 
 out of a scheme cherished by all the family 
 together — of going to Europe at some future 
 time. 
 
 ThouQrh each little Clare came Into the 
 world with a separate and strongly marked 
 individuality, there were certain traits they 
 possessed in common which made them 
 understand and feel certain things through 
 and for each other as no one out of the
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 71 
 
 family could have done. For example, they 
 all evinced a metaphysical bias, more espe- 
 cially in their younger years ; and there was 
 not one of them, with the exception of Willie, 
 the practical elder son, who did not go 
 through a similar awakening to the crushing 
 apprehension of infinite time and space be- 
 tween the ages of seven and twelve. Eila, 
 despite her vigorous constitution and healthy 
 pagan joy in being, had one of the worst 
 attacks. It was long before she could con- 
 template the orthodox idea that souls must 
 go on living eternally without a sick terror, 
 that drove her to wish there were no such 
 thing as conscious existence in space. Simi- 
 larly, in their tender years the Clare children 
 one and all went through the same phase of 
 mystic piety. I fear that Eila's was the 
 shortest. At the time of her friendship with 
 Reginald Acton, she believed she had 
 reached finality of opinion as regarded 
 questions of faith. An agnosticism that 
 wavered between pessimism and optimism 
 according to the mood of the moment, or 
 that followed the impressions resulting from
 
 72 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 the latest topic in the home papers, would 
 have best defined her spiritual attitude. As 
 regarded worldly affairs, she had remained 
 exceedingly childish and credulous, notwith- 
 standing the lesson taught her by her early 
 and ill-considered marriage. She had, never- 
 theless, a naive belief in conventionality, and 
 made conscientious efforts to practise it in 
 her own behalf as a corrective to the total 
 absence of it in her family. She did not like 
 to feel that they were looked upon as pariahs. 
 It was she who obliged her mother to return 
 the rare calls that were made at Cowa 
 Cottage, and to tie her bonnet-strings accord- 
 ing to the prevailing fashion. Her brother 
 and sister, a pair of twin rebels, mocked at 
 her for what they called her ' society ways '; 
 but she was leniently judged in this as in 
 other respects, partly because of her heart- 
 and-soul devotion to her family, and partly, 
 perhaps, by reason of her personal attrac- 
 tions. A mere classic outline would not have 
 counted for much. But Eila had something 
 more than a classic outline. She had the kind 
 of warm, loving, radiant influence that made
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 73 
 
 her presence bring an actual sense of well- 
 being with it, like the light and perfume of 
 apple-blossoms. It was almost worth while 
 having a headache to feel her warm, mag- 
 netic touch wander over brows and temples, 
 and gradually charm it away. Truca, the 
 youngest of the band, a strange little soul, 
 the only delicate member of the family, never 
 forgot how on winter nights her sister had 
 knelt by her bed to hold the little marble-cold 
 feet in her soft warm hands, and bring back 
 the vivifying heat to them. That Eila should 
 have possessed so sympathetic a compre- 
 hension of pain and suffering was the more 
 extraordinary that she was a very Hygeia in 
 her own person, and might, indeed, have 
 served as a prototype of that radiant goddess 
 when she wandered about the descending 
 hay-field during Christmas week, with her 
 arms full of tall Christmas lilies and scarlet 
 geraniums, gathered from the riotous hedge 
 that bordered the two -acre cow -paddock. 
 At the age of seventeen she committed the 
 crowning error of her life — an error so great 
 that it is necessary to remember that, if
 
 74 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 seventeen Is coupled with sweetness, it is 
 certainly not allied with wisdom, to find any- 
 kind of excuse for it. She was not quite so 
 pretty or quite so refined-looking at this time 
 as she subsequently became, possibly because 
 the very exuberance of her youth and health, 
 like the luxuriant growths that prevent the 
 forest from being seen, obscured what 
 French writers call /a ligne in her other- 
 wise charming figure. To put the matter 
 more plainly, she was too stout. Some 
 years later, when time and grief had taken 
 her in hand, the slender throat, the dainty 
 wrists, the delicate framework — all, in fact, 
 that the same French writers include under 
 the name of les fines attaches — were more 
 clearly appreciable. It may have been partly 
 for this reason, and partly because a beauty, 
 like a prophet, of home production some- 
 times lacks honour in her own country, that 
 the Hobart world did not at first endorse her 
 claims to be considered beautiful. There 
 was, nevertheless, a certain uneasy forebod- 
 ing among enterprising mammas of marriage- 
 able daughters that strangers might ' see
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 75 
 
 something ' in Eila Clare. Strangers, it is 
 well known, are looked upon in Hobart 
 much in the light of those sons of God who 
 came down to visit the daughters of men. 
 Amongst those who flock to Tasmania in the 
 season, there is generally one in the shape of 
 an heir to an English estate, or a squatter 
 with hundreds of square miles to his share in 
 Australia, who may be said to represent the 
 winning number. To draw the prize, or at 
 least a good number, for her daughter was 
 the natural and legitimate ambition of many 
 a Tasmanian mother, who would gladly have 
 seen Eila non-existent, or married off-hand, to 
 remove her from the ranks of the competitors. 
 By what fatality she played into the hands 
 of these schemers of her own accord, it would 
 be hard to say. In a logical cause-and- 
 effect age, we no longer have the resource 
 of ascribing our foolish deeds to the stars ; 
 and though a new philosophy may show that, 
 under given circumstances, we are mathe- 
 matically constrained to act in a given way, 
 because our actions are only the sum of 
 countless actions performed by countless pro-
 
 1(> NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 genitors, who in their turn obeyed uncon- 
 sciously the law of their being, the theory 
 does not satisfactorily explain why we should 
 occasionally go, to all appearance deliberately 
 and wilfully, out of our way to bring about 
 our own undoing. This is precisely what 
 Eila did, notwithstanding the fact that she 
 prided herself upon having a logical mind ; 
 and it is the more difficult to give a colour of 
 probability to her conduct, that in after-times 
 she was at a loss to account for it to herself. 
 
 It had happened during her first season of 
 gaiety. The Clares would have occupied a 
 place in an undefined borderland if they had 
 been in what is called society at all. But as 
 they gave themselves no trouble in this re- 
 spect, and thought of nothing but amusing 
 themselves in their own way, they had no 
 defined place or status, no social position, in- 
 deed, of any kind. They went where they 
 were invited when they saw a prospect of 
 amusing themselves. Otherwise, the thou- 
 sand and one reasons for which people go to 
 each other's houses against their inclinations 
 had no weight with them. Eila, however,
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST y; 
 
 loved dancing, and for the dear delight of 
 waltzing at a subscription ball she would 
 walk with her brother (who at sixteen was 
 allowed to take part In such festivities in a 
 tailless jacket and white gloves) — she would 
 walk with him, I say, down a stony hill-road 
 of impossible steepness, and through a mile- 
 long. Ill-paved street at nine o'clock at night, 
 to return by the same purgatorial path at two 
 In the morning, so light of heart and foot 
 that she could have waltzed up the hill with 
 the most entire enjoyment, if any of her 
 evening's partners had presented themselves 
 for the occasion. 
 
 It was at a carpet-dance at the house of 
 some neighbours on the hill that she met 
 Charles Frost, a young man of some eight or 
 nine and twenty, with whom, however, she 
 did not dance, for the reason that his Inter- 
 pretation of his mission In life forbade him to 
 indulge in that exercise. He was the only 
 son of an elderly couple, living, as Ella knew 
 (for everyone in Hobart knows where every- 
 body else lives), in a long, low-roofed, dark 
 cottage, known as Ivy Cottage, about a mile
 
 78 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 from Cowa. Mr. Frost senior had enjoyed a 
 post in connection with the Supreme Court 
 in the old days of transportation (when the 
 island was still known as Van Diemen's 
 Land, and home readers who had no con- 
 nections in the colonies knew of it princi- 
 pally through the medium of ' Gulliver s 
 Travels '), in which capacity he had assisted 
 cheerfully at the flogging and hanging of un- 
 numbered convicts. He had married some- 
 what late in life the mature, but still hand- 
 some, daughter of a Presbyterian minister, 
 by whom he had had an only son. The 
 rigorous bringing up of the lad had had the 
 usual effect of driving him into wild courses, 
 in which, however, he was violently pulled 
 up at the age of one-and-twenty by the com- 
 bined efforts of a narrow escape from drown- 
 ing and the theatrical declamations of a 
 revival preacher. During his reckless 
 period he had taken to the Bush, where he 
 had distinguished himself principally as a 
 splendid rider and a hard drinker. He had 
 even reached the point of knocking down his 
 cheque in a week's debauch in the nearest
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 79 
 
 township with the first boon companion, 
 broken-down gentleman, boundary-rider, or 
 shearer that chance threw in his way. His 
 parents were unable to cope with him, but 
 they wrestled for him (as they termed it 
 themselves) with the Lord. They never 
 doubted that it was their pertinacity in this 
 respect that had saved him. When he re- 
 turned to them three years later he had 
 become a religious enthusiast. To a disciple 
 of Maudesley there would have been some- 
 thing not entirely reassuring in a certain air 
 of suppressed excitement that betrayed itself 
 when he spoke upon religious subjects. But 
 to Eila, who had not yet finished growing, 
 he appeared in the light of an inspired 
 teacher. She had been nourishing her 
 imagination upon Bret Harte's heroes, as a 
 former generation nourished its romantic 
 craving upon * Lara' and the ' Corsair,' and 
 could conceive no more delightful ideal than 
 the reckless, chivalrous Jack Hamlyn type, 
 with the athletic frame and the wonderful 
 blue eyes, trusting as a child's and brazen as 
 a profligate's. Many an otherwise pure
 
 8o NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 woman is irresistibly fascinated — especially 
 in early youth — by this particular type. 
 Curiously enough, Charles Frost, despite his 
 religious enthusiasm, was not unlike it out- 
 wardly. Ella would have indignantly re- 
 pudiated the notion that this circumstance 
 could have had anything to do with her 
 engouement (I wonder what English word 
 could adequately render the meaning of 
 engouement ?) for him. Yet I fear there was 
 more of the personal and magnetic in his 
 influence than she had any idea of herself. 
 After her first meeting with him she lay 
 awake the best part of the night, recalling 
 the sensation that had thrilled her as she felt 
 his eyes following her about the room, while 
 she floated round to the ' Blue Danube ' and 
 ' Belle Helene ' of an amateur pianist with an 
 indlflerent partner. How she glorified him 
 in her imagination ! She behaved. Indeed, 
 with a weakness worthy of the stronger sex 
 under the influence of a first overpowering 
 attack of the midsummer madness called 
 ' calf love.' But calf love is an extenuating 
 circumstance that women are not allowed to
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 8i 
 
 plead in their own behalf. We know that in 
 all that concerns the ever-vexed question of 
 the relations of the sexes, it is from the so- 
 called weaker sex that the mature judgment, 
 the cool head, the stoical self-mastery are 
 exacted — at the cost of the heaviest penalties 
 should they fail in any of these qualities. 
 To men the consequences of a first mistake 
 are comparatively of small account, for, with- 
 out going so far as to say that they may 
 indulge upon a certain number of trial trips 
 before embarking upon the unknown sea of 
 matrimony, it is certain that they may play 
 at being in love, or may fall in and out of 
 love, an unlimited number of times without 
 exciting much reprobation. 
 
 Women's experiences are necessarily re- 
 stricted and timid. Yet they are just as 
 likely, if we would only admit it, to be taken 
 in by their own first gropings towards love 
 and passion as men. How many there are 
 who, looking back towards their own youthful 
 experiences, would be obliged to own that 
 more than once they could have found it in 
 their hearts to say in Tennyson's words to 
 
 VOL. I. 6
 
 82 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 the hero of the hour, ' No more, dear love, 
 for at a touch I yield,' and who are fain to 
 bless their lucky stars, or whatever does duty 
 for these, that circumstances prevented them 
 from saying it, since events have proved that 
 their hero of the hour was emphatically the 
 wrong man in the most extended sense of 
 the phrase. 
 
 Eila did not give herself time to discover 
 that Charles Frost was her wrong man. 
 There was a curious fascination in perceiving 
 how the severity with which he regarded her 
 melted into wistful love as she came close to 
 him. She thought that the tumult of feeling 
 he raised in her was spiritual, and made no 
 allowance for the influence of six feet of 
 splendidly developed manhood upon the Juliet 
 side of a many-sided nature. And yet, as I 
 have already shown, there was much that was 
 magnetic in his mastery over her. She would 
 turn from white to crimson, and from crimson 
 to white, when she met him. She gave up 
 the dear delight of dancing for his sake, and 
 sat out the seductive waltzes at the Hobart 
 parties with him, making her confession of
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST S3 
 
 faith or non-faith behind her fan in the ilirta- 
 tion corners arranged by the hostess. She 
 thought his narrow creed beautiful, because 
 he acted up to it himself; and though her 
 reason rebelled against it, she almost cried 
 with gratitude when he proposed to her. He 
 was convinced, he told her, that he would 
 bring her into the fold. Nevertheless, the 
 course of their love did not run smooth. 
 There was strenuous opposition on the part 
 of the young man's parents, who shunned the 
 Clares as a godless family, and looked upon 
 Eila as a brand that might well be left to the 
 burning. There were also protests on the 
 part of Eila's own mother, brothers, and 
 sisters, who had always taken it for granted 
 that, when Eila contributed a husband to the 
 family, he must have something in common 
 with them as well as herself. 
 
 But, in spite of all this opposition, or, per- 
 haps, by reason of it, the marriage took place 
 in due — Eila's relatives would have said in 
 undue — time. The bride was still in a state 
 of semi-exaltation, half mystic, half sensuous, 
 as she stood before the altar of the Presby-
 
 84 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 terian church, and endorsed with voice and 
 heart all the impossible vows and promises 
 that the minister put into her mouth. 
 
 The rest of her disastrous history is soon 
 told. She went to live with her husband in 
 Victoria, where he cultivated his garden, not 
 by planting cabbages like Candide, but in 
 the shape of a 600 acre selection. He also 
 performed the office of reader in the nearest 
 Presbyterian church. It was a modest home 
 to which he conducted his radiant bride ; but 
 Eila was prepared to be as happy as the day 
 in it (though why a day should bear so blissful 
 an interpretation, I cannot say). But Fate 
 showed her from the first the frowning visage 
 of a Medusa. During their honeymoon, the 
 child-bride made the appalling discovery that 
 her husband was subject to epileptic fits, the 
 consequence, though she did not know it, of 
 former excesses. Before the first year was 
 over, he had developed certain symptoms of 
 incipient insanity. The shocks of discovery 
 followed each other so quickly and unmerci- 
 fully, that had it not been for the recollection 
 of mother, brothers, and sisters, and of the
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 85 
 
 place she held in their hearts, Eila must have 
 killed herself in her despair. She had a con- 
 stitution that refused to be destroyed by mere 
 mental anguish, though she believed that she 
 suffered enough at this time to make it pos- 
 sible for her to die of grief. The worst of all 
 was the complete revulsion of feeling she 
 underwent as regarded her husband. All 
 that she had looked upon before as high and 
 holy inspiration appeared to her now in the 
 light of the outcome of a diseased mind. 
 There could be no longer any thought of 
 asking for an explanation of fanatical views 
 or gloomy prophecies. It was enough if day 
 followed day without bringing some irremedi- 
 able catastrophe in its wake. She was tender 
 of her husband, but unfeignedly terrified of 
 him. She followed him through the weary 
 stages of irritability and loss of memory that 
 obliged him to suspend his work, until the 
 awful, never-to-be-forgotten morning when 
 she went out upon the veranda to consult 
 him upon their approaching departure for 
 Tasmania, where she looked for help and 
 protection, and saw him advance towards
 
 86 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 her with a Bible In one hand and a knife in 
 the other, and that in his face that made 
 her heart stand still. Madness and murder 
 were written in it ; and as she fled into the 
 garden, and thence hatless down the bush- 
 track that separated her from the cottages 
 lying on the outskirts of the township, send- 
 ing forth shriek upon shriek as she ran, she 
 could fancy she felt, as in some hideous 
 nightmare, his hot breath upon her neck. 
 But help in the shape of some sturdy wood- 
 splitters was near at hand. The madman 
 was secured, and finally taken in a bush- 
 buggy, lent by some neighbours for the occa- 
 sion, to the hospital in the nearest township, 
 ' cursing, swearing, and gnawing his fingers,' 
 as King John is said to have done in Dickens' 
 dramatic description of the latter end of that 
 unholy monarch. His wife was never at his 
 mercy again. Charles Frost's father came to 
 Victoria for him by the next steamer, and the 
 now dangerous lunatic was placed among the 
 paying patients in the New Norfolk Asylum 
 near Hobart. A little allow^ance of twenty 
 pounds a year was doled out to Eila by her
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 87 
 
 father-in-law, after she had returned like a 
 wounded bird to the home-nest. 
 
 It was more than four years now since this 
 tragedy had occurred. Eila was no longer 
 an obstacle to the matrimonial chances of the 
 Hobart belles. When the English men-of- 
 war sailed into the harbour, and the Melbourne 
 steamers brought their eagerly expected con- 
 tingent of strangers, rival mothers no longer 
 trembled lest her beauty should carry off the 
 prize. She might grow more beautiful every 
 day for all they cared, and for all the serious 
 harm she could do them now. At the first 
 word of admiration that her appearance ex- 
 cited, a hundred informants were ready to 
 whisper, ' She has a husband in the asylum, 
 and they are suc/i^ a peculiar family.' 
 
 For the first year after her return, Eila 
 was as one stunned by a too great shock. 
 She had gone through experiences sufficient, 
 in the course of a few short months, to fill a 
 five-act drama. She had been madly in love 
 with a creation of her own that she had 
 fastened upon a flesh-and-blood lover. Before 
 her honeymoon was half over, a black gulf of
 
 88 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 horror had yawned before her. She had been 
 all but frightened to death while she was still 
 a child-wife, and was so shaken and unstrung 
 when she re-entered her childhood's home 
 that the mere banging of a door sufficed to 
 make her weep hysterically. But she had an 
 elastic nature, and youth and health besides 
 When, as in John Barleycorn, 'the kindly 
 spring came round again,' her own spring 
 season seemed to return. She put aside the 
 recollection of her ghastly year of courtship 
 and matrimony as an ugly dream, a memory 
 to be locked away like the skeleton in her 
 cupboard, and never brought to light. Though 
 she must not think of love and marriage, she 
 need not, she told herself, forego all the 
 pleasures that belonged to her age, though 
 of these I am forced to own there were not a 
 few that might have been qualified as childish 
 in the extreme — to wit, those of romping in 
 the hay, or of swinging upon the roundabout 
 with the younger members of the family. 
 
 Her short experience of wedded life had 
 inclined her to look upon matrimony with 
 horror. But it was as natural to her to sun
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 89 
 
 herself now and again in the admiration she 
 excited as for a flower to turn to the Hght. 
 Her own brothers and sisters were the first 
 to bestow it upon her, and it was upon them 
 that she lavished now all the abundance of 
 her young affections. 
 
 Two years after her return she began to 
 appear once more in the Hobart world. It 
 was at a picnic that has remained famous in 
 Hobart annals that she met Reginald Acton 
 for the first time, soon after her social resur 
 rection. There are Engflish naval officers 
 scattered about the world who must remem- 
 ber the prodigious snowstorm that overtook 
 a party of picnickers upon the desolate stony 
 summit of Mount Wellington several years 
 ago, and the adventurous descent amid the 
 blinding snowflakes that followed. More than 
 one excursionist would have remained behind, 
 never perhaps to have been heard of again, 
 but for the timely help of a few brave climbers. 
 It fell to Reginald's share to take charge of 
 young Mrs. Frost, and as he guided, half 
 leading, half carrying her across that stony 
 ocean of desolation known as the Ploughed
 
 90 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Field, it first came into his thoughts that here^ 
 by Heaven's grace, was the one maid for him. 
 But Eila was a wife, and not a maid, and 
 Reginald possessed a simple code of honour 
 that forbade him to make love to a married 
 woman. Perhaps his abstention in this respect 
 was a salve to his conscience in others, for he 
 did not hide from himself the fact that he 
 loved her. He became her friend, her con- 
 fidant, and her counsellor, almost her father 
 confessor as well. He believed that he knew 
 all her thoughts, fancies, failings, and faults, 
 and he loved them one and all because they 
 were hers. He had left the navy to remain 
 with a widowed and half-paralyzed mother, 
 living in a quiet suburb of quiet Hobart, and 
 had accepted a modestly-remunerated post as 
 secretary to an insurance company. Why he 
 did not marry was a question which exercised 
 many minds, especially feminine ones, in the 
 little community. Something in his staid 
 and gentle bearing inspired confidence, even 
 before two years of an apparently immaculate 
 way of life had established his title to respect. 
 Curiously enough, his friendship for young
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Mrs. Frost, though it had become a recog- 
 nised fact in Hobart, had not as yet exposed 
 either of the friends to the most poisoned 
 shafts of Mrs. Grundy. The world, despite 
 its ill-nature, is often sharper in its judgments 
 than we give it credit for. It is true that by 
 a certain portion of the community Eila was 
 talked about, and we know that it is never to 
 her advantage that a woman, be she young 
 or old, is talked about ; but the majority held 
 that Reginald was biding his time until she 
 should be free ; and there were many who 
 believed him capable of biding it for twenty 
 years as faithfully as for twenty months. 
 
 Meanwhile, what view did Reginald him- 
 self take of his position ? Not a very hope- 
 ful one to-night, it is to be feared, judging by 
 the air of gloomy abstraction that clouds his 
 pleasant Saxon face as he walks to and fro 
 along the grass-grown border of the quiet 
 little street, round the corner of which Eila 
 has disappeared. A charming twilight view 
 (for Hobart is far enough South to enjoy a 
 short rehearsal of home twilights) lies spread 
 before him in the indigo waters of the har-
 
 92 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 hour and the slate-coloured outline of the hills 
 beyond, cut out against the whitening sky 
 with almost photographic distinctness. But 
 he has no eyes for it now. What is a beauti- 
 ful landscape, after all, but a subjective enjoy- 
 ment ? What will the harbour and the hills 
 have to say to him when Eila is no longer 
 there ? What relief can he look for in them 
 from the heart-heaviness that has begun to 
 weigh upon him already ? How is he to 
 reconcile love and duty ? and, above all, how 
 is he to live without Eila ?
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 HOW EILA WAS RECEIVED AT IVY COTTAGE. 
 
 Ivy Cottage represented a curious ramassis 
 of such articles of furniture as may still be 
 found in the back-parlours of hereditary shop- 
 keepers in small provincial towns in England. 
 At the time when Mr. and Mrs. Frost first 
 set up housekeeping in Hobart, the communi- 
 cation between the mother-country and Tas- 
 mania was carried on principally by means of 
 convict and emigrant ships, which succeeded 
 each other at long and irregular intervals. 
 Just as the visitor to Eastern towns is some- 
 times confronted in the outskirts of some 
 Oriental bazaar with an incongruous heap of 
 ill-assorted sets of tumblers, lop-sided dishes, 
 and tawdry ornaments of divers descriptions, 
 [93]
 
 94 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 representing the overflow of depots of Brum- 
 magem ware In England and Germany, so 
 one might encounter in the early days in 
 Tasmania the most heterogeneous assortment 
 of rubbish in the shops and stores that the 
 devices of the exporter could bring together. 
 There was a general impression, which was 
 not destroyed by the splendid specimens of 
 man and woman hood to be found among the 
 early settlers, that the use of the colonies 
 was to serve as the receptacle for all the 
 failures of the old world — not only the moral 
 failures, In the shape of law-breakers and 
 superfluous sons, but the manufactured failures, 
 in the shape of wry mirrors, rickety tables, 
 and other articles that no one would have 
 anything to say to at home. 
 
 Ivy Cottage, furnished under the double 
 disadvantage of belonging to a master and 
 mistress who had nothing to exercise their 
 taste upon, and no taste to exercise — the one 
 being, perhaps, a consequence of the other 
 — might have served as an illustration for 
 an Australian esthete of the depths of 
 Philistinism to which the unregenerate, un-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 95 
 
 aided faculty of judgment in man and woman 
 may arrive. Everything it contained was an 
 outrage to the canons of the modern concep- 
 tions of art. There was a black horsehair 
 sofa, in the so-called best parlour, that pricked 
 all the unprotected parts of the body that re- 
 clined upon it, and there were hectic-cheeked 
 apples and peaches in wax under a glass shade 
 upon a table upholstered in green and white 
 beads. There were likewise hideous litho- 
 graphs of Scriptural scenes that swore, as the 
 French expressively call it, with the bilious 
 background of the inartistic wall-paper, sug- 
 gestive of beetles sprawling upon a yellow- 
 counterpane. To make matters worse, it had 
 been old Mrs. Frost's ambition to act up to 
 the laudatory words of the twenty-seventh 
 verse of the last chapter of Proverbs, which 
 corresponded to the date of her birthday, and 
 which declared that ' she looketh well to the 
 ways of her household, and eateth not the 
 bread of idleness.' 
 
 Having made a sampler of the aforesaid 
 text in parti-coloured words, and hung it 
 up between the painted photographs of her
 
 96 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 husband and herself, she set about proving 
 its applicability by manufacturing a set of 
 chair-coverings in alternate lozenges of green 
 and violet worsted. The result was so start- 
 lingly incongruous, that even to her own un- 
 tutored taste it was necessary to tone down 
 the effect by the aid of crochet antimacassars. 
 It needed, under these adverse circumstances, 
 all the severely benignant influence of her 
 husband's presence to lend any sort of home- 
 like dignity to their abode. But just as hats 
 and coats acquire, in the course of time, some- 
 thing of the individuality of their wearers, so 
 the inanimate objects that surround us seem 
 ultimately to reflect something of our own 
 personalities to those who see us constantly 
 amongst them. The stiff crude green-and- 
 purple arm-chair in which Eila was accus- 
 tomed to see her father-in-law seated had 
 almost the solemnity of a Solomon's judgment- 
 seat in her eyes. She would never have 
 thought of mocking at the sampler that her 
 mother-in-law had worked, even in her secret 
 mind. Reginald was the only person who 
 suspected the under-current of resentment
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 97 
 
 that the severe and simple rule of life of the 
 inmates of Ivy Cottage excited in her. She 
 would not even allow her own family to make 
 merry at their expense. Their standard might 
 be narrow, but at least they acted up to it 
 themselves. She was perfectly aware that 
 they judged her severely by it, but she was 
 too loyal to avenge herself by joining with 
 her brothers and sisters in calling them prigs 
 and frumps. She knew that their interpreta- 
 tion of life's mission was quite different from 
 that held by herself and her belongings. For 
 all she knew, it might be a better one than 
 theirs. It was harder to act up to under 
 every-day circumstances ; but when a crush- 
 ing calamity, such as the affliction which had 
 befallen their only son, came upon the elderly 
 couple, they were enabled to bear it with a 
 certain lofty resignation that she could not 
 but recognise and admire. Her position with 
 regard to her husband's parents was peculiar. 
 There were moments when she could almost 
 have found it in her heart to wish that she 
 had the strength to act up to their standard ; 
 but her habitual feeline about them was one 
 
 VOL. I. 7
 
 98 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 of secret annoyance that they should be so 
 indifferent to the qualities in her that seemed 
 to exercise such sway over other people. The 
 things that counted for so much in the eyes 
 of her family seemed to pass unperceived in 
 theirs. She had a vague half-acknowledged 
 sense that more allowances should be made 
 for a person in her position, who was young 
 and pretty, than for another. Neither of her 
 husband's parents seemed to hold this view. 
 They would have had her lead the life of a 
 recluse, she complained ; she was not even 
 sure that they did not blame her in secret 
 for running over the hills with her younger 
 brothers and sisters in her muslin-crowned 
 garden-hat, and house-frock of blue cotton. 
 Evidently they thought her frivolous and 
 heartless. * But how can I change my nature?' 
 she would say to herself in self-defence. Her 
 thoughts refused to dwell in the neighbour- 
 hood of the dreary asylum where her husband 
 spent his time in mouthing out meaningless 
 blasphemies. Why should she force them to 
 revert to it ? Had she been a widow, would 
 it not have been considered pardonable, after
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 99 
 
 a lapse of nearly two years, to smile and laugh 
 when the occasion offered? And surely her 
 husband w^as as dead to her as though he had 
 been lying under the churchyard sod ! His 
 soul — his very self had gone away. Nay, had 
 he been dead, she could have clung to his 
 memory. Being what he was, she could only 
 pray Heaven to keep him out of her mind. 
 
 The twilight had already deepened into 
 a semi-darkness, beyond which the horizon 
 looked ghastly white ; and the silhouettes 
 of distant objects were pencilled against 
 the sky with strange distinctness as she ap- 
 proached Ivy Cottage. The lamp was alight. 
 Ella could see the reflection through the 
 horsehair blinds that fitted into the window- 
 frame as she walked up the little garden 
 entrance over the f^ags in white sandstone 
 that separated the geranium bed, on one side, 
 from the rose plot, with the thyme border 
 round it, on the other. The scent of the 
 cut-out, crinkled geranium leaves, with the 
 sparse lilac - hued blossoms sprinkled over 
 them, always brought the Ivy Cottage atmo- 
 sphere before her as something oppressive,
 
 ISIOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 having a faint suggestion of mustlness In its 
 perfume. She could see that old Mr. and 
 Mrs. Frost were at tea — not afternoon tea (a 
 frivolity they had never sanctioned), but their 
 third solid repast of the day, with an accom- 
 paniment of highly-varnlshed fried smoked 
 trumpeter, boiled eggs, muffins and crumpets, 
 and grace before and after. She hesitated 
 before breaking in upon this simple repast. 
 The front-door was of wood, covered with 
 paint blisters — of the kind that the Idle hands 
 of errand boys that would have been anathe- 
 matized by Dr. Watts found It fascinating to 
 finger and press down. She stood there a 
 long time before she could make up her mind 
 to knock. She could see through the trans- 
 parent blinds her father-in-law lighting his 
 pipe, and her mother-in-law draining the 
 remains of the hot- water jug Into the tea- 
 pot, of v/hlch the contents would probably 
 serve, in their doubly diluted form, for the 
 mald-of-all-work, an orphan from the New 
 Town Asylum, whom Mrs. Frost had under- 
 taken to find and clothe in return for her 
 general services. If murder was treated by
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST loi 
 
 the witty De Ouincey as one of the fine arts, 
 parsimony as a fine art might almost have 
 served as the theme of an essay on Mrs. 
 Frost's housekeeping. It was her aim In 
 Hfe to Illustrate the truth of the saying that 
 ' enough Is as good as a feast ' In the smallest 
 details of her domestic arrangements ; and as 
 there was no one — least of all the New Town 
 school orphan — capable of giving her the 
 r<^pliqiLe In the words of the more generous 
 French proverb, which declares that ' Ce qui 
 est juste assez n'est pas assez,' she went 
 through life In the firm persuasion that her 
 economies erred, if anything, on the side of 
 liberality. 
 
 Ella hesitated for a long time in the gloom 
 before making up her mind to enter. She 
 had come with the design of giving her 
 parents-in-law a hint of the family Intentions ; 
 but her courage failed her as she pictured 
 the manner In which her tidings would be 
 received. A journey to Europe was a project 
 that, from old Mr. and Mrs. Frost's point 
 of view, should be considered for long years 
 before it was put Into execution. It w^is a
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 matter to be talked over, pondered over, and 
 plentifully prayed over by turns. Eila's heart 
 beat high with disagreeable anticipation, when 
 she knocked at last at the door, and entered 
 the little parlour, after bestowing a passing 
 smile of friendly recognition upon the orphan. 
 Old Mr. and Mrs. Frost looked up from the 
 tea-table with staid welcome as she entered ; 
 the welcome, however, was tempered by a 
 large reserve of disapproval. She wore the 
 very muslin-crowned hat she suspected of 
 figuring as a piece de conviction in old Mrs. 
 Frost's eyes, but I fear she had forgotten all 
 about the circumstance now. It was pushed 
 far back behind her head, like a white 
 aureole, exposing a natural front of closely- 
 packed, waving, silky dark hair, divided by 
 a gleaming thread of narrow white parting. 
 Her throat was bared in all its white and 
 slender perfection ; two white and red roses 
 dangled upon her breast, fastened by her 
 brooch to her open sailor collar. There 
 were more roses in her belt — a boy's belt — 
 encircling a round and supple waist, guiltless 
 of stays. The firm contour of arms and bust
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 103 
 
 was apparent through her washed-out blue 
 cotton frock — her house attire, to all appear- 
 ance — In which she had walked across the 
 hills this warm summer evening. Old Mrs. 
 Frost was as great a contrast to young 
 Mrs. Frost as crabbed age to youth In Its 
 springtide. Her appearance was that of a 
 stout, elderly lady of a not over-Indulgent 
 habit of mind. She wore a black lace cap, 
 with the ribbons thrown back, and displayed 
 thereby a large double chin. Her customary 
 expression w^as one of surprised displeasure — 
 though this might have been owing more to 
 the peculiar shape of her eyebrows, which, 
 instead of descendine with ag-e, seemed to 
 have climbed up behind her spectacles, than 
 to her normal mental attitude. She had no 
 doubt been handsome once on a time, though 
 in a hard way. Her hair was iron-gray, and 
 abundant still beneath her cap. Her skin, 
 puckered though It was by the hand of Time, 
 had yet a fresh-coloured, healthy hue. She 
 did not look as though she had grown more 
 tolerant with advancing years, rather the 
 contrary ; and It was probable that she had
 
 I04 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 never erred on the side of over-indulgence, 
 even at the age v^e choose to characterize as 
 tender. 
 
 Mr. Frost's elderHness in no way resembled 
 his wife's. His hair and beard were white 
 and bristly, his face was red, and his eyes 
 were a bright blue. He might have served 
 as a perfect impersonation upon the stage of 
 a benevolent elderly gentleman, if it had not 
 been for an unexpected trick of dilating and 
 drawing up his nostrils whenever he empha- 
 sized his opinions, a thing which he found 
 occasion to do at least a dozen times in the 
 day. Young people found him intimidating 
 to talk to on this account. They were never 
 sure whether he was not sneering at them, 
 but he was probably unaware of the gesture 
 himself. 
 
 Eila's parents-in-law would both have lent 
 themselves easily to caricatural purposes, 
 from the fact that by drawing two angular 
 eyebrows surmounting a pair of spectacles to 
 represent the one, and two dilating nostrils 
 surmounting a pair of harsh moustaches to 
 represent the other, a complete suggestion
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 105 
 
 of their personalities would have been im- 
 mediately conveyed. Mr. Frost was very 
 careful in his choice of language. All his 
 phrases were uttered with a careful delibera- 
 tion that made them sound as if they had 
 been written out and studied previously, but 
 his omission of the aspirate in the words 
 that he emphasized most strongly somewhat 
 took from the dignity of his utterance. He 
 prided himself, nevertheless, upon being a 
 purist in the matter of pronunciation, and 
 would take Ella and her brothers and sisters 
 to task every time he detected, or fancied that 
 he detected, a colonial ' heow ' or ' keow ' from 
 their lips, in lieu of a mouth-filling ' how ' and 
 *cow.' He held the Bible and Milton to be 
 the only worthy deposits of the knowledge 
 suited to human needs, and drew largely upon 
 both sources, not only in the extempore 
 prayers that he pronounced morning and 
 evening before a congregation composed of 
 his wife and the orphan, but in his everyday 
 speech as well. 
 
 ' Good-evening, papa, and good-evening, 
 Mrs. Frost,' was Ella's hurried greeting in
 
 io6 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 accompaniment of the movement by which 
 she presented her blooming cheek, cooled by 
 the evenino- breeze, to her father-in-law's 
 bristly moustache, and to her mother-in-law's 
 withered cheek in turn, before seating herself 
 upon the aforesaid shiny horsehair sofa in 
 the corner. ' I'm not going to disturb you 
 for long.' 
 
 ' You've never come over alone ?' cried old 
 Mrs. Frost reprovingly. To open a conver- 
 sation with the young by some form of re- 
 proach was a time-honoured habit with Eila's 
 mother-in-law. ' I wonder what you and 
 your mother can be thinking of!' 
 
 * It was quite light when I started,' replied 
 Eila, colouring. She could not feel it was 
 like telling a lie not to tell the za/io/e truth at 
 this moment. ' It's all right indeed.' 
 
 'Well, now, I'm not so sure it is all right,' 
 interposed her father-in-law testily, his nostrils 
 receding visibly. He had been taking a pre- 
 liminary pull at his pipe, still seated in his 
 place before the table, and was looking at his 
 daughter-in-law, not quite as Wordsworth 
 looked at the little maid, whose * beauty made
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 107 
 
 him glad,' for he was by no means sure that 
 the outward graces of his son s wife, situated 
 as he and she were, could be considered alto- 
 gether as a matter for rejoicing. ' I ain't so 
 sure by any means,' he repeated; 'young 
 women didn't use to be so Independent in 
 my day. D'ye think It's seemly, mother ?' 
 turning to his wife, ' for a young gentlewoman 
 to go roaming- the country alone at this hour 
 o' the night. I've 'ad occasion to remark 
 upon It to Ella more than once already, but 
 she don't seem to listen to 77ie,' 
 
 He gave a vigorous puff at his pipe, In- 
 haling the smoke with unduly open nostrils. 
 Ella's colour deepened visibly. What would 
 she have given for the courage to say, ' You 
 are mistaken, I am not alone ; Mr. Acton is 
 taking care of me ' ! But moral courage 
 was not Ella's strong point. Before physical 
 danger she was brave, but she shrank within 
 herself when there was a risk of being repri- 
 manded. Besides, If she were to avow that 
 she had a companion now, after concealing 
 the fact with malice prepense at the outset, 
 the avowal might lend a colour to the un-
 
 io8 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 worthy suspicions that she half suspected her 
 father-in-law of harbouring. She coloured, 
 therefore, and held her peace. 
 
 But if Eila was silent, old Mrs. Frost made 
 full use of the opportunity. If she was not 
 lavish in other respects, she was, at least, 
 unstinting in the matter of bestowing w^hat 
 she called a piece of her mind upon her 
 friends. It was such a large piece, and she 
 gave it so often, that the wonder was that 
 there was any left for herself. Upon the 
 present occasion Eila was made the luckless 
 recipient of this largesse. 
 
 ' If you want a piece of my mind,' said old 
 Mrs. Frost very angrily to her husband, ' I 
 don't countenance any of Eila's going-ons ' 
 
 ' Goings-on, Martha,' interrupted her hus- 
 band dictatorially, taking the pipe out of his 
 mouth. 
 
 ' Goings-on, or w^hatever you like to call 
 it, it's all the same,' said old Mrs. Frost, more 
 angrily still ; ' stravaghing over the hill morn- 
 ing, noon, and night, that's about all she's fit 
 for. I've never seen her with a needle in her 
 hand all the time I can remember.'
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 109 
 
 She moved the teacups with an angry, 
 rattling noise, as though to silence any dis- 
 claimer on the part of the culprit. But Eila 
 made no disclaimer. She said nothing, in- 
 deed, to exculpate herself; she sat quite still, 
 with her hat on her lap, her head a little bent 
 forward, the least suggestion of scorn in the 
 bitter half-smile that hovered around her 
 pretty lips. She was glad now that she had 
 come with something to say which would 
 divert these paltry accusations, heaped upon 
 her by her Puritan relatives, into another 
 channel. She had intended when she came, 
 a few minutes ago, to lead gently up to her 
 startling news. Now she meant to hurl it 
 at old Mr. and Mrs. Frost without a word of 
 warning^. 
 
 ' Well, I won't have much more chance of 
 stravaghing over the hill for the present,' she 
 said, with just a faint inflexion of an American 
 drawl that might possibly have been adopted 
 for the occasion ; 'for I'm going right away 
 home, and mother, too, and the whole lot of 
 us, before the month's out !' 
 
 To a very acute hearing there would have
 
 no NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 been a hint of mingled triumph and terror 
 discernible beneath the covert insolence of 
 her tones. The old people, however, heard 
 nothing but the announcement itself, and it 
 had an effect which can only be adequately 
 rendered by the expressive French *word 
 /oudroyanL 
 
 Old Mrs. Frost was transfixed in the act 
 of placing the vertebrae of the smoked trum- 
 peter with its pendent scraps upon a kitchen- 
 plate for the orphan's supper. Old Mr. Frost 
 stared solemnly over the pipe suspended in 
 his hand. Both looked as though they sus- 
 pected their daughter-in-law of having taken 
 leave of her senses. 
 
 ' I don't rightly apprehend your meaning,' 
 said old Mr. Frost at last, still eyeing her 
 severely. ' I must trouble you to repeat that 
 last sentence again.' 
 
 Eila looked up and returned his gaze un- 
 daunted. 
 
 ' I said we were going home !' she repeated 
 defiantly. ' We've taken our passages in the 
 Queen of the South' 
 
 Though it was hateful to her to give offence
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 in any direction, once she was roused she was 
 capable of maintaining her ground. Never- 
 theless, the angry astonishment depicted in 
 the double pair of eyes directed towards her 
 was more than she could encounter. She 
 looked once more at the carpet, turning the 
 muslin- crowned hat awkwardly round in her 
 lap the while. 
 
 ' Well, I never heard the like !' her mother- 
 in-law exclaimed with a gasp. ' I think you 
 and your mother must be clean out of your 
 mind. Going home, going to leave Cowa ! 
 How do you expect to pay for it, I'd like to 
 know !' 
 
 ' Yes, that's the question !' broke in her 
 husband. ' Where's the money to come from ?' 
 
 Their attitude was that of accuser and 
 judge in one. But the culprit was not to be 
 Intimidated. Perhaps she found it easier to 
 speak now that the gauntlet was definitely 
 thrown down. 
 
 ' We're not going to ask anyone to assist 
 us,' she said quietly ; this time there was 
 nothing but colonial dellberateness In her 
 tones. ' The journey will be the only ex-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 pense, and we've saved up enough for that. 
 When we get home we shall manage well 
 enough. We won't be any worse off there 
 than here. Rather better, for everyone 
 says living Is less expensive In Europe — In 
 England, any way. Then Willie can look 
 out for something to do, and so can I, and 
 Dick can study art, and Mamy have singing 
 lessons.' 
 
 ' Well, It seems you've got It all cut and 
 dried,' Interrupted old Mrs. Frost sourly ; 
 ' but If you want a piece of my mind. It's my 
 opinion you're a pack of fools. I only hope 
 your mother's not going to have the managing 
 of It all, for your sakes.' 
 
 Ella's cheeks flushed. Never had she been 
 made to colour so often within so short a space 
 of time. 
 
 'We are entirely satisfied with mother's 
 arrangements, thank you,' she said quickly. 
 
 Her breast was heaving. It was the second 
 time this evening that her mother's judgment 
 had been called In question. Why, she asked 
 herself, should she be so frequently called 
 upon to do battle in behalf of her daughterly
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 113 
 
 sentiment ? Why should it be enough that 
 her mother harboured the idea of going home 
 to bring apparent discredit upon the scheme 
 in the eyes of everybody she spoke to ? How 
 unjust and narrow-minded the world was, and 
 how these experiences intensified her longing 
 to escape to that larger, freer life towards 
 which her aspirations had so long tended, far 
 out of reach of the carping criticism to which 
 the family was ever subjected in this con- 
 tracted little spot on the very outskirts of the 
 civilized world. 
 
 Old Mrs. Frost was not silenced, for she 
 grumbled something that sounded like 'You're 
 as great a fool as your mother,' but her further 
 comments were stopped by her husband, who 
 had been ruminating the speech of which he 
 now delivered himself 
 
 'As regards your journey 'ome,' he said (it 
 was only when he was solemnly emphatic that 
 he discarded the aspirate so resolutely), ' as 
 regards your journey 'ome, there is one point 
 you have not duly considered. Granting you 
 have the means, which I take the liberty of 
 doubting, 'ow are you going to get the neces- 
 
 VOL. I. 8
 
 114 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 sary permission from your 'usband to absent 
 yourself ?' 
 
 Eila looked up quickly. What she saw was 
 the old man's face bent forward towards her 
 in denunciation; his eyes bluer, his face redder, 
 his nostrils more distended than ever. She 
 was so taken aback by the spectacle that she 
 continued for a few seconds to turn the hat 
 round without replying to his question. 
 
 ' You think it's a very easy thing, no doubt,' 
 he continued, with grave reproach, ' to turn 
 your back on all your dooties, though it's no 
 light matter, let me tell you, to leave 'ome 
 and country, and become wanderers on the 
 face of the earth. But you've got special 
 responsibilities of your own you seem to need 
 reminding of. I ain't going to say what I 
 think of your mother's conduct, nor yet to 
 offer her my counsel. She'd be nigh certain 
 to disregard it if I did ; she was ever stiff- 
 necked and rebellious to advice, and for the 
 matter of that, none of you are much better. 
 Still, it is my bounden duty to offer you a 
 word of warning. I'm in a kind of a way the 
 delegate of your husband's authority, and I
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 115 
 
 forbid you in his name to run away from him. 
 What call have you to seek to put twelve 
 thousand miles of sea between you and him ? 
 The Lord in His mercy has thought fit to 
 afflict him ; He has laid His and upon him 
 more 'eavily than others. Is that a reason 
 why you should want to desert him ? It's the 
 reason why you should stop quietly at home, 
 if you were anything of a wife. Stop at 'ome, 
 and cover yourself with sackcloth and ashes, 
 .and maybe the Lord will see fit to restore 
 him to you. There's no saying when the 
 burden may be lifted from him : he might 
 come back to his right mind from one day to 
 another. And what do you suppose his feel- 
 inofs would be when he's told that the wife 
 the Lord gave him to be a helpmeet to him 
 has gone away in the vain pursuit of pleasure 
 to t'other end of the world ? '' Who the Lord 
 hath joined together, let no man put asunder." 
 Do you bear in mind where those words come 
 from, Eila ?' 
 
 ' They come from the Bible,' replied Eila, 
 in an off-hand tone. 
 
 For a moment she seemed to reflect upon
 
 ii6 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 something she had it in her mind to say, for 
 there was a little frown on her forehead ; her 
 eyes were fixed upon the faded rosebuds 
 stamped upon the cabbage-green background 
 of the worn drugget at her feet. Then she 
 raised her head resolutely, and encountering 
 her father-in-law's severe glance in full, said, 
 in firm tones : 
 
 ' It is better to speak out at once, Mr. 
 Frost. You have one rule of life, and I have 
 another. We could never look at things in 
 the same way. I am afraid it would be as 
 impossible for me to see them with your eyes 
 as it would be for you to see them with mine, 
 especially as regards my duties and responsi- 
 bilities. I have duties, I know, and respon- 
 sibilities too; but they seem to me all to lie in 
 my own home — my mother's home, I mean. 
 If I had any other home it might be different, 
 but I haven't. I never can have another. 
 If — if my husband' (she pronounced the words 
 with visible effort) 'should get better, it would 
 be my duty to be near him. But nothing — 
 no power in the world — could ever induce me 
 to live with him again ; and as things are
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 117 
 
 now, it is not even necessary that I should be 
 near him. He does not want me ; he does 
 not even know me. If any change should 
 come later, and I were needed, why, I could 
 be telegraphed for ' 
 
 ' Telegraphed for !' broke in old Mrs. Frost, 
 with an air of supreme disdain. ' Hark at 
 her, father! That's Eila all over! We've 
 to telegraph for madam at the other end o' 
 the world, and every word costing a pound if 
 it costs a penny, and we're to pay for it out of 
 our own pockets, I suppose.' 
 
 ' No, no,' interrupted her daughter-in-law, 
 with an impatient sigh ; ' of course I would 
 pay for it myself.' 
 
 ' Oh, you'd pay for it yourself, would you !' 
 cried her mother-in-law, angrier than ever. 
 * Since when have you had money to throw 
 away on telegrams, pray ? A body might 
 suppose you had a gold-mine of your own, to 
 hear you talk ! And you'd pay for your pas- 
 sage out the same way, I suppose ?' 
 
 'There are always ways of coming out,' 
 said Eila carelessly. ' One goes as com- 
 panion or nurse if nothing better offers.
 
 ii8 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Anyhow, we're tired of this place, and we 
 mean to leave it. We have prospects in 
 Europe — I can't tell you exactly what they 
 are' — old Mrs. Frost sniffed wrathfully — 
 * but we really have them ; and even if they 
 were to come to nothing, we should find work 
 of some kind to fall back upon. I should not 
 mind working for my bread in Europe. I 
 could not do it here ; people would not take 
 it seriously.' 
 
 ' A fine lot of work you'll do, I'm thinking,' 
 observed old Mr. Frost, with a backward 
 movement of the nostrils that mightily re- 
 sembled a sneer. ' You won't have much 
 thought of anything but vain amusement 
 once you get away, Em pretty sure of that. 
 It's pleasure you're going after, not work. 
 Don't tell me !' 
 
 * I hope we shall find work and pleasure 
 too,' retorted Eila quietly. ' I hope we may 
 learn a good deal and enjoy a good deal on 
 our travels. That's what we're going for, at 
 any rate. You know I never could see that 
 liking to do a thing was a reason for not doing 
 it, as you are always telling me ; it always
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 119 
 
 seemed the best reason of all for doing it, as 
 long as nobody else was to be harmed by it.' 
 ' That is the talk of an unregenerate soul,' 
 declared her father-in-law, shaking the ashes 
 out of his pipe with gloomy deliberateness. 
 ' If you took any heed of what the Scriptures 
 teach us, you'd talk in a different way. What 
 are the things we most of us hanker after In 
 this world ? Isn't it the gratification of our 
 carnal desires ? And because we like it, is 
 that the reason we're going to give way to 
 •em ? That's the devil's plea, not the Lord's. 
 What was the purpose of the Almighty, do 
 you suppose, in sending you into the world ? 
 Wasn't it just so as you might 'ave an oppor- 
 tunity of preparing for a better state ? And 
 how are you to do that If it Isn't by mortifying 
 the flesh, which the devil makes use of to 
 lead you into sin ? Mark my words. When- 
 ever you set your mind upon an earthly object 
 you may make sure it's a sinful one. It's 
 bound to be sinful. What you've got to do 
 is to pray for strength to keep your mind from 
 dwelling on it ; you must lift your thoughts 
 from earthly things, and fix them on things
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 unseen. Just think a minute how you're 
 placed now. Your first duty is to your hus- 
 band, whom you've sworn before the altar to 
 honour and obey — ay, and to cleave to for 
 better or worse till death us do part. There's 
 your dooty — the most solemn dooty of all — 
 clear mapped out before you : '' For better or 
 for worse " — if you can't have the better, 
 you've sworn to put up with the worse. But 
 what have you got it in your head to do ? 
 The first temptation that comes in your way 
 finds you ready to throw your dooty to the 
 winds, and go gadding over the world in 
 search of your own amusement.' 
 
 * Eila was always fond of gallivanting,' re- 
 marked old Mrs. Frost parenthetically, while 
 her husband paused to take breath. 
 
 She had been paring the small square of 
 butter she had transferred from her own 
 plate to the orphan's, until it had assumed 
 the consistency of a mere flake. 
 
 'Yes, gadding after amusement,' reiterated 
 the old man solemnly. ' But take my word for 
 it, if you go 'ome, it won't bring you happi- 
 ness. You'll live to repent it in more ways
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 121 
 
 than one. You're going to run counter to 
 all the laws human and Divine, and you 
 haven't counted the cost. Maybe you won't 
 find it out till it's too late. If there was no 
 other objection, there's the false position 
 you're going to put yourself in. I don't mix 
 much with the world, but I've seen enough 
 in my time to know what I'm saying now. 
 I'm advising you for your own good. If 
 you've no thought of your husband, you 
 might have some for yourself. I tell you 
 there's nought more derogatory to the 
 dignity of a young married woman than to 
 go roaming over the world by herself. You 
 won't have such an easy time of it as you 
 think. You'll be taken in right and left, and 
 the people as you'd like to be friends with 
 won't have anything to say to you. I know 
 the world. Folks won't believe as there 
 ain't somethin' in the background to hide 
 when they see a parcel of women wandering 
 about by themselves.' 
 
 Eila's cheeks glowed with indignation. 
 
 ' We won't be a parcel of women by our- 
 selves. We have the boys ; and even if we
 
 122 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 hadn't, do you think I should mind what 
 people said ? If they were so narrow-minded 
 as to think that a lady and her children — a 
 widow lady, too — were doing anything so 
 extraordinary In travelling about just to 
 please themselves, they would not be the 
 kind of people whose opinion we should be 
 likely to trouble about.' 
 
 ' They'll make you trouble, whether you 
 will or not. I don't say there's anything 
 extraordinary In ladies travelling a bit by 
 themselves. If they've a mind to see the 
 world — though I think they're better at 'ome 
 myself — as long as they've got a settled 
 'abltatlon to go back to, and a banker to 
 draw upon to pay their bills ; but that's not 
 the case with you. You know quite well 
 your mother is going to break up her 'ouse 
 without the means to set up a fresh one. 
 And when folks can't afford to have a 
 settled 'ome, and yet keep shifting about, do 
 you know what the law calls them? It calls 
 them vagrants — that's what It calls 'em.' 
 
 He was so angry, that his nostrils were 
 almost like those of a Japanese mask. He
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 123 
 
 had not thought of weighing his words before 
 he delivered himself of this denunciation. 
 Eila was angry too ; her soft dark eyes were 
 shining. Twice she essayed to speak, and 
 when she broke the silence at last, you might 
 have detected in her voice a half-hysterical 
 quaver, that spoke of deeply- wounded sus- 
 ceptibilities. 
 
 ' You have no right to call us vagrants, 
 Mr. Frost,' she said, 'even if it is your 
 opinion that we cannot afford to travel. 
 What we have to spend is our own affair, 
 and as long as we don't ask for assistance, it 
 Is nobody's business to criticise the way In 
 which we may choose to live.' 
 
 ' You think I don't know what you've got 
 of your own, and just how far It'll take you,' 
 replied her father-in-law, nothing abashed. 
 ' You'll be begging in the streets before 
 you've done ; but, as I said before, your 
 mother is a headstrong woman. As long as 
 I've known her, she's had a down on the 
 colonies. She's always been what one may 
 call Inimical to them ' — the word pleased 
 him, and he repeated it with emphasis —
 
 124 ^OT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' yes, inimical to them. Haven't I heard 
 her with my own ears deriding our native 
 productions? ''Trees, Mr. Frost!'" He 
 made an attempt to mimic her mother's voice, 
 of which Eila feigned, though not quite 
 successfully, to appear loftily unconscious. 
 ' " Trees ! you 'ave no trees in Tasmania, or 
 fish! Fish! I've never tasted real fish since 
 I left England !" And she has succeeded in 
 inoculating — yes, in inoctdati7ig you with her 
 prejudices. You've always been unsettled, 
 and complaining of this or that. You've 
 none of you known when you were well off. 
 And now she's got her own way at last, and 
 she's going to drag you all off on a wild- 
 goose chase to Europe under the pretence of 
 showing you the world. If you're wise, 
 you'll make a stand against it.' 
 
 ' What ! advise mother not to leave Tas- 
 mania, when we're all so anxious to go !' said 
 Eila. 
 
 A sense of the utter hopelessness of bring- 
 ing her husband's parents to understand or 
 sympathize with any of her own individual 
 wants and aspirations was the feeling upper-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 125 
 
 most in her mind. ' I am young,' she thought 
 to herself. ' I have the misfortune to be cut 
 off from all the dreams that girls of my age 
 so often harbour. I must not think as they 
 do of being a wife and a mother. If I meet 
 a man who seems to care for me, as Reginald 
 does, I must force myself to remember that 
 there is a poor lunatic shut away in the 
 asylum, whose property I am, and to whom 
 the law gives rights over me, although the 
 only use he would make of them, if he were 
 free, would be to strangle me. It is all as 
 hard as it can be. But there is still a home 
 life into which I can throw myself. To 
 travel about, to see Europe with my mother 
 and brothers and sisters, even if we had to 
 pinch and scrape a little, would be a great 
 happiness. And these people would deprive 
 me of it if they could, and take it as a matter 
 of course that I should grow old and withered 
 in this dreary place, with all my senses and 
 faculties slowly starving to death the whole 
 time. And yet Mr. Frost is a good man, 
 and his wife is a good woman in her way, 
 and they would help anyone who was in real
 
 126 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 trouble, I suppose. And me they would 
 coldly condemn to a life of wretchedness and 
 stagnation. They would not even be able 
 to understand me if I told them how I feel 
 about it. Why is it, I wonder, that to inter- 
 fere with the liberty of other people seems 
 quite justifiable to persons one considers 
 good? For, after all, what wretchedness it 
 may cause ! I believe it may spoil one's life 
 far more than deeds the world considers 
 wrong.' 
 
 * What would you have me do, Mr. Frost ?' 
 she said at the close of this reverie. 
 
 Her voice had lost its offended accents, but 
 there was something dull and hopeless in its 
 tone. Her father-in-law crossed over from 
 the tea-table to the green - and - purple- 
 lozenged arm-chair, whence his utterances 
 always seemed to take an additional ex- 
 cathedrd importance. 
 
 * You ask me what I would have you do, 
 Eila ?' he said. ' Well, I would have you 
 take the stand of a Christian woman. You're 
 not a giddy girl any longer, or you oughtn't 
 to be, any way. If you've got no heart and
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 127 
 
 no conscience, why, then, you may go to 
 Europe ; but the blessing of the Lord won't 
 rest upon your undertaking. You may turn 
 your back upon all your responsibilities and 
 all your dooties, but you won't rid yourself 
 of 'em in that way. They'll pursue you 
 wherever you are ; they'll rise up and con- 
 front you in the night-time ; they'll turn into 
 nettles and sting you.' 
 
 He paused in quest of a fresh metaphor 
 whereby to drive his threats home. 
 
 * But how can they pursue me if I don't 
 feel them, don't see them, don't recognise 
 them ?' expostulated Eila. ' You tell me they 
 -are here ; I say they are with my family.' 
 
 ' You can sit there, and tell me your first 
 -duty is to your family, when you've got a 
 husband belonging to you !' 
 
 ' But I haven't got one !' cried Eila. Her 
 lips trembled as she spoke. ' Do you mean 
 to say I could be with him now ? You know 
 yourself it's impossible !' 
 
 ' And who says it's going to be impossible 
 next year, or next month, or next week ? 
 The doctor '11 tell you he might be better any
 
 128 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 day. Besides, as long as he's within reach, 
 you can't put him out of your mind altogether ; 
 but once you turn your back upon him, it'll 
 be different. When you're three or four 
 months' distance from him, you'll be like to 
 forget you've got a husband at all. Supposing 
 the Lord should work a miracle in his favour, 
 and restore him all on a sudden to his riorht 
 mind, the first thing he'll do will be to ask for 
 his wife. Why, he's got his intervals even 
 now when he's rational. Don't tell me ! he's 
 more knowing than folks make out. He 
 knows when you haven't been nigh him for 
 ten days just as well as I do. Ten to one, 
 if you go away altogether, he'll begin to fret 
 after you. Don't turn a deaf ear to the voice 
 of his old father pleading for him, Eila. If 
 you listen to what your heart and your con- 
 science bid you do, you won't desert him now. 
 Stop along here with us, if your mother's set 
 upon going. What she does is no business 
 o' mine ; I've nought to do with her comings 
 and goings. She's got her own notions ; it's 
 a pity they ain't the sort that sensible people 
 can approve. But that's neither here nor
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 129 
 
 there. Let her go her own way, and you 
 stay behind with us ; we'll make a place for 
 you. If your mother turns her back on her 
 home, your rightful place is under this roof; 
 it's nowhere else. I've got my responsibility, 
 too. When the Lord sees fit to restore my 
 son, I've got to be able to give you back to 
 him without any misgiving. I must be able 
 to say, " There, my son ; there's your wife 
 just as you left her. Take her to your heart 
 again, my lad ; she's deserving of it — she's 
 your true and faithful wife." ' 
 
 He stopped, overcome with his own emo- 
 tion, and looked at his daughter-in-law with 
 quivering nostrils. Eila's head was bent; her 
 fingers were nervously crumpling the muslin 
 border of the hat on her knees. Her cheeks 
 were flushed, and there was a threatening 
 humidity in her downcast eyes. 
 
 ' Don't turn a deaf ear, my child,' he con- 
 tinued, following up the advantage he had 
 gained, and too much moved himself to per- 
 orate according to his wont. * Listen to an 
 old man who hasn't many more years of life 
 left him. It's the voice of the Lord speaking 
 
 VOL. I. 9
 
 130 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 through me to you, Eila. You may believe 
 it, my child. Your mother has other children 
 to keep her company, and they haven't any 
 other claims as you have. You stop here 
 quietly with us ; you'll be a daughter to us, 
 and the blessing of the Almighty will rest 
 upon you. Who knows but what He may 
 restore your husband to you in the end to 
 reward your sacrifice ! And you're closer to 
 him than to anybody else ; you're bone of 
 his bone and flesh of his flesh. What did 
 Ruth do when she had to choose between 
 her husband's people and her own ? If you 
 like, I'll read you the chapter about it next 
 time you come over. You stay here with 
 us ; you won't have frivolity and dissipation. 
 Leave that for them as forgets there's an 
 hereafter. But you'll have the peace of the 
 Lord, which passeth all understanding. You'll 
 be the light of our home, and we've been 
 lonely enough since our poor lad was afflicted. 
 Give me your hand upon it, my dear, and go 
 and kiss your mother-in-law, who's waiting 
 over there to take you to her 'art.' 
 
 He stopped short, and for a whole half-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 131 
 
 minute Eila sat motionless, looking at the 
 ground. A curious struggle was taking place 
 in her mind. A fleeting but clearly defined 
 vision of the consequences of yielding to her 
 father-in-law's importunities, and rushing upon 
 a life of self-imposed sacrifice hard enough 
 and bitter enough in all conscience to exercise 
 the sway over her imagination that a life of 
 voluntary martyrdom holds out to us in our 
 moments of spiritual exaltation, was shaping 
 itself before her. 
 
 As she sat, her imagination filled in all 
 the details immediately. She saw herself 
 arrayed in a black serge frock, with a loosely 
 knotted girdle and a crape collar, moving 
 about this hopeless, hateful little house, a 
 kind of domestic guardian angel — weeding 
 the geranium plots, cleaning the kerosene 
 lamp, making pilgrimages to the New Norfolk 
 Asylum, reading the Sunday Times to old 
 Mrs. Frost in the evening, and fading away 
 into an early and picturesque tomb, or, better 
 still, a funeral urn, if her narrow-minded rela- 
 tives would only respect her last wish, and have 
 her cremated in preference to being burled.
 
 132 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 But before the half-minute was quite at an 
 end, the mocking and sceptical part of her 
 nature was scoffing at the mystic and enthu- 
 siastic part of it. Notwithstanding all, she 
 felt a certain secret sense of triumph at the 
 evidence of her father-in-law's desire to keep 
 her under his roof. Though even this was 
 not enough to satisfy her entirely : she would 
 fain have brought him to own that she was 
 right in her desire to go away. Eila not 
 only loved to do as she liked, which is a 
 weakness that most of us might own to ; she 
 also loved to be approved in the doing of it. 
 She felt it would be a drawback to her satis- 
 faction if old Mr. and Mrs. Frost could not 
 be induced to own that it was justifiable and 
 right, to say nothing of its being pleasant, 
 that she should accompany her family to 
 Europe. But how was this desirable end to 
 be accomplished ? Their points of view, as 
 she had truly said, were wide as the poles 
 asunder ; or, rather, they were like two dif- 
 ferent points of the compass. Theirs had 
 the icy north in view. It was that of an 
 explorer who seeks to attain the ocean of
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 133 
 
 eternal peace, lit by the lofty Polar star, 
 across ice-bound waters and desolate tracts 
 of snow. Hers pointed to the warm west — 
 to regions where * it is always afternoon/ and 
 the traveller may lie and rest in languorous 
 forgetfulness of what lies beyond. How could 
 a meeting-point be found between these two ? 
 Nevertheless, it was Eila's desire to reconcile 
 the irreconcilable. ' To know all would be 
 to forgive all,' says the French proverb. If 
 her father-in-law could but know, as she knew 
 them herself, the longings that beset her youth 
 — the craving to escape from the sad, mono- 
 tonous associations of her present clouded 
 existence — he might possibly find excuses for 
 her in his heart. But what could his seventy 
 years of life, with all their boasted experience, 
 know of such sensations as hers ? H is lozenge - 
 tapestried arm-chair, his Bible and Milton, 
 his pipe, old Mrs. Frost's comments upon the 
 wicked wastefulness of the orphan, answered 
 to all his requirements. * I can put myself 
 into h's place,' reflected Eila bitterly ; ' why 
 cannot he put himself into mine ? Can it be 
 that, when one is young, imagination supplies
 
 134 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 the place of experience, and that it is really 
 easier for me to understand his needs and 
 feelings than for him to enter into mine ?' 
 But aloud she said : 
 
 ' Don't ask me to make up my mind, please, 
 until I have thought it all over. Perhaps I 
 might not stay away longer than a year. In 
 any case, I could not bear to disappoint 
 them all at home now.' 
 
 ' And what may not happen in a year ?^ 
 she thought to herself. She was still of an 
 age at which the deferring of a question for 
 a whole year is almost tantamount to burying 
 it altogether. ' Events may happen that may 
 change the whole position of things ! And it 
 will be so easy to write from home, and find a 
 good reason for not returning, if the worst 
 should come to the worst. So much easier 
 than to find a satisfactory argument now ! 
 Besides, I can't argue with my father-in-law ; 
 we start from two different standpoints. There 
 is no means of bringing things home to his 
 comprehension. I should have to make a 
 complete confession of faith, or want of it, 
 and array Herbert Spencer and my duties to
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 135 
 
 myself against the Scriptures and my duties 
 to Mr. Frost's God. There is nothing for it 
 but to temporize — and a year is soon gone 
 by,' she remarked suavely out loud. 
 
 ' Who's going to pay your passage- money, 
 that's what I want to know ?' asked her 
 mother-in-law sharply. Surprise and dis- 
 pleasure kept her eyebrows suspended high 
 over her spectacles. Two conflicting ideas 
 had been struggling for supremacy in old 
 Mrs. Frost's mind. The first was the con- 
 viction that the housing of this radiant-looking 
 girl, whom she called, to her sorrow, her 
 daughter - in - law, would require an entire 
 readjustment of all her exactly measured 
 domestic economies ; the other was the cal- 
 culation that if the money that would otherwise 
 be wasted upon travelling (for travelling, for 
 travelling's sake, represented riotous waste- 
 fulness in old Mrs. Frost's eyes) should be 
 poured into the Ivy Cottage exchequer, it 
 would not only cover the required readjust- 
 ments, but would leave a margin for the 
 instituting of a ' stocking ' for future emer- 
 gencies as well. ' Who's going to pay your
 
 136 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 passage -money ?' she repeated once more. 
 ' One would think, to hear you talk, you took 
 no more account of fifty pounds than if they 
 were so many pebbles !' 
 
 ' I dare say I could save up,' said Eila 
 doubtfully. ' I mean to earn my living, you 
 know ; but we'll talk it over next time if you 
 like : I shall be over again soon.' 
 
 She had risen from the sofa as she spoke, 
 and, heedless of all remonstrances, was putting 
 the muslin-crowned hat over her forehead. 
 For the second time she advanced her rose 
 cheek towards each withered face in turn, 
 and, without waiting for an answering good- 
 night, swept out of the room that she had 
 brightened unconsciously with her presence, 
 leaving it to the undisturbed occupation of 
 its prickly sofa, its worsted settee, its pris- 
 matic mantel-ornaments, and its staid and 
 severe proprietors.
 
 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 REGINALD MAKES AN AVOWAL. 
 
 The darkness falling, as Longfellow has it, 
 ' from the wings of night ' had settled upon 
 the prospect while Reginald was waiting for 
 Eila. He could only distinguish now the 
 widespread expanse of harbour by the black 
 space that rested upon it, bordered on the 
 town side by the scanty lights that lined the 
 wharves. At his feet the town-lamps twinkled 
 in long irregular columns towards the dark 
 heights around, and away upon the opposite 
 shore he could faintly discern the feeble 
 glimmer of the sparse illuminations of Kan- 
 garoo Point. Under cover of the obscurity 
 he had ventured to creep closer to Ivy Cottage, 
 and was hanging about the gate, like a thief 
 [ 137 ]
 
 138 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 in the night, when the musHn-covered hat 
 emerged from the house. The transient 
 glimpse he had of it before the front-door 
 closed with a bang told him plainly that its 
 owner was trying to beat a dignified retreat. 
 The poise of the head was more erect than 
 ever, and the swift, decided footsteps he heard 
 immediately after upon the stone-flags con- 
 firmed him in his suspicion that young Mrs. 
 Frost had been subjected to a more than 
 usually distasteful piece of old Mrs. Frost's 
 mind. 
 
 ' Come quickly !' she said, feeling Reginald's 
 presence more than seeing it, as the gate was 
 opened for her passage through it, ' or they 
 will be sending someone after us. I did not 
 tell them there w^as anybody waiting for me 
 outside. Though, of course, they made a 
 fuss about my coming alone.' She had laid 
 her hand within his arm as she spoke, and 
 was w^alking briskly by his side over the 
 uneven stones of the street in embryo that 
 meandered away towards the hills. The tacit 
 trust in him that the action implied filled him 
 with a mute rapture. This was just what he
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 139 
 
 loved — that she should take possession of 
 him without so much as a * by your leave.' 
 He wondered whether her arm in the neigh- 
 bourhood of his heart could feel how it had 
 caused that treacherous member to beat, as 
 he walked silently on, almost afraid to speak 
 lest he should break the spell. ' Yes,' she 
 went on, as he kept pace with her footsteps, 
 rendered unconsciously swifter by her agita- 
 tion, 'my father-in-law opened the proceed- 
 ings by lecturing me upon the proprieties ; 
 but he forgot all about them, and everything 
 else, when I told him my news. Of course 
 it made him angry, and Mrs. Frost, too. But, 
 then, they see harm in everything. They 
 make me feel like Topsy, '' mighty wicked 
 anyhow." If you could have heard how they 
 tried to work upon my feelings to make me 
 stay here with them instead of going home!' 
 
 ' I knew they would never approve of that,' 
 said Reginald. He did not allow himself to 
 entertain the smallest hope that the influence 
 of the Ivy Cottage inmates would shake her 
 in her resolution. * But is the matter really 
 settled beyond all doubt ?'
 
 I40 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' Quite irretrievably settled ; but I won't 
 say irretrievable, because it sounds as though 
 we were talking of a misfortune, whereas we 
 are really aux anges at the prospect of going 
 away. Even the wiseacre Willie, as you call 
 him, is almost excited for once.' 
 
 * If only the anticipation doesn't turn out 
 the best part of it,' said Reginald. ' It's a 
 curious fact, but I do believe your mother has 
 filled all your minds with a kind of glorified 
 image of England that will make the reality 
 a disappointment when you come to see it. 
 Have you read Plato ? No ? You know 
 what his theory was, anyhow. I am sure 
 that you imagine England is like Plato's 
 perfect world — a place that contains the 
 exemplar or archetype of all that you see 
 as through a glass darkly in Tasmania. I've 
 heard your mother say as much. I've heard 
 her declare that the fruit had no taste here, 
 and the flowers no scent.' 
 
 * Nor have they ; the wild-fiowers, at least. 
 But what do you think ? You are repeating 
 almost word for word what Mr. Frost has 
 been saying, only he did not mention Plato.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 141 
 
 But I am not afraid of being disappointed in 
 England. The only trouble is that we shall 
 have so little money — between three and 
 four hundred pounds a year at the most. It 
 won't enable us to live in the lap of luxury, 
 will it ?' 
 
 * It isn't enough,' said Reginald gravely. 
 * There are six of you, and you can have no 
 idea of what it costs to travel, especially for 
 people who have to buy all their experience, 
 which is often the most expensive part of 
 travelling.' 
 
 Eila was silent for an instant. Though it 
 was too dark to see her face, Reginald felt 
 sure that there was a half-mocking smile of 
 disclaimer hovering on her lips. He had 
 seen it there before upon occasions like the 
 present one, when she set herself against 
 some argument or representation that ran 
 counter to her inclinations. 
 
 ' What you say might apply to other people, 
 but it doesn't frighten me for us. I don't 
 think we're the same as most people. We 
 all like nothing better than eggs and bread- 
 and-butter. I believe we could live upon
 
 142 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 them. And you know we are all very healthy 
 if we a7^e a little morbid. Mother the same 
 as the rest. And we think of going to Paris, 
 to a place they call the Quartier Latin. We've 
 been reading all about the places the students 
 live In, and we mean to manage just as they 
 do. Won't it be fun ? The houses are ever 
 so high, and there are beautiful little flats to 
 be had for next to nothing quite at the top. 
 That would suit us exactly.' 
 
 ' I hope they won't turn out to be flats in 
 the air,' he said grimly. ' I've never been to 
 Paris, but everyone I've ever met has led me 
 to suppose that it was one of the most expen- 
 sive places In the world.' 
 
 ' Not in the Quartier Latin part,' she Inter- 
 rupted him, with the air of one most entirely 
 familiar with the place ; ' and If the worst 
 came to the worst, do you think we should 
 be afraid to ''turn to," as mother calls It, and 
 do something for ourselves ? I mean to go 
 on with my painting, and Willie must find 
 employment. Then, Dick is going to be a 
 sculptor, and Mamy and Truca must have 
 lessons. Mamy has quite a Jenny Lind
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 143 
 
 voice, mother says. I wish we had some 
 friends at home, though. I wish you could 
 come and see us in our flat.' 
 
 * What ! I ? I wish I could. Perhaps you 
 would find me work, too. But I haven't a 
 Jenny Lind voice, I'm afraid.' 
 
 She lauorhed. 
 
 'You're not a bit convinced. I can hear 
 it in the tone of your voice.' 
 
 ' No ; I am very unhappy about you, if 
 you want to know the truth. It seems to 
 me you are walking deliberately into a trap 
 without waiting to see whether you will be 
 able to find a way out of it.' 
 
 ' But we won't want to get out of it if 
 
 we're happy in it. Besides — besides ' 
 
 She paused. ' I wonder if I were to confide 
 a great — a z>ery great — a tremendously impor- 
 tant secret to you — what you would say ? They 
 would never forgive me at home for telling 
 you. It's the kind of family secret that we 
 all talk about at home in mysterious whispers, 
 like conspirators. We have a code of signals 
 to explain when we want to talk of it. I told 
 you about our going home, and that thereby
 
 144 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 hung a tale. Well, it hangs to the secret, 
 and as you are the only person out of the 
 family I can trust, I am going to tell you 
 about it. But you must pledge yourself to 
 the most absolute secrecy first. What is 
 the promise that is the most binding you can 
 think of?' 
 
 ' My word,' said Reginald simply. 
 
 ' Is that all ?' in tones of disappointment. 
 ' I thought there was some oath the Free- 
 masons had about being rolled eternally in 
 the flux and reflux of the ocean's tides.' 
 
 'What do you know about the Free- 
 masons ?' he laughed ; ' but I will give you 
 my hand upon it — there !' 
 
 She laid her soft, ungloved hand (gloves 
 were Eila's aversion, excepting upon state 
 occasions) within his own, and it required all 
 his self-control not to clasp it in both his own, 
 and tell her she was dearer to him than any- 
 thing else In the world, and that the thought 
 of her going away was breaking his heart. 
 
 * There! now that ceremony is over.' 
 
 She had returned her hand to Its place 
 upon his left arm, and was allowing him to
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 145 
 
 guide her fearlessly over the lonely track 
 that led across the hillside to her home. A 
 crescent moon was poised above them, with 
 a faintly-defined watery globe cradled be- 
 tween its horns. There was the promise of 
 another warm day in the faint haze that 
 obscured the stars, immeasurably distant in 
 the far-reaching dome of the Tasmanian 
 night sky. The ' one particular star ' that 
 Reginald worshipped was close by his side ; 
 but in another sense was she not as remote 
 from him as those intangible globes over- 
 head, that, swinging through space, fraught 
 with unsolvable mystery, seem to mock the 
 dwellers upon earth by winking down upon 
 them through the black void, like glittering 
 eyes, that refuse to reveal the secret they hide ? 
 The young man felt a heavy load at his heart 
 as he reflected how soon this bright particular 
 star of his must vanish from his horizon. 
 And how entirely her life would be separated 
 from his own ! The very face of the heavens 
 would wear another aspect for her. He 
 would never be able to picture her walking 
 beneath the stars upon such an entrancing 
 
 VOL. I. 10
 
 146 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 night as this. Her seasons of waking and 
 sleeping, of heat and cold, of rising and 
 going to rest, would all be different from his 
 own. There would be no longer any possi- 
 bility of community of sensation with her, 
 such as even at a distance friends in the 
 same hemisphere may experience. 
 
 And who would watch over her with loyal, 
 unselfish love in that new strange world into 
 which she was about to adventure herself? 
 Hobart was dull and contracted, without 
 doubt, but there was a restraining influence 
 in the very contraction of its social atmo- 
 sphere. No one here could escape the eye 
 of Mrs. Grundy ; and though Reginald had 
 no great esteem for Mrs. Grundy himself, he 
 liked to think that the woman he loved was 
 held in check by her presence. The occa- 
 sional revelations he had had of the Bohemian 
 instincts of Eila and her belongings made 
 him tremble for their future in Paris ; besides 
 which, they were all, to use a discourteous 
 but most expressive adjective, gullible to a 
 degree. Whittington, setting out for London 
 to pick up gold in the streets of the great
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 147 
 
 city, was not more innocent than they. In 
 their enthusiasm for all things European, 
 they were ready to be the dupes of the first 
 adventurer they might encounter. Their 
 poverty might be, indeed, a certain safe- 
 guard, but, then, Eila was too pretty not to 
 attract notice. He wondered whether she 
 had the least foreshadowing of the dangers 
 that beset her path. What would he have 
 given to be able to watch over her like a 
 knight errant on her travels ? Here in 
 Tasmania he had been content to let the 
 days drift by without seeking a solution to 
 his position in regard to her. As long as he 
 could see her almost daily — as long as he 
 could believe her to be heart free, he could 
 find strength to wait until Time, the great 
 unraveller of destinies, should work out an 
 issue for him. He did not even ask himself 
 whether Eila was aware of his absorbing 
 love for her. In the peculiar position in 
 which he found himself, he felt that he must 
 dread any kind of catastrophe that would 
 startle her out of the confidential, almost 
 sisterly, relations she had gradually estab-
 
 148 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 lished with him. She must know, at least, 
 he told himself, that he was in her power to 
 do as she pleased with. There were days 
 when the very frankness of her liking for him 
 brought a chill of terror, lest under no circum- 
 stances whatever she could have loved him. 
 But the sweetness of the unconstrained inter- 
 course brought its compensating charm, and 
 upon the very evening when Reginald re- 
 ceived the crushing announcement that Eila 
 was to leave him he had been schooling him- 
 self to set a guard on his lips and a bridle 
 on his tongue, lest by some unconsidered 
 word he should betray the passionate nature 
 of his sentiment for her. And now he 
 learned that all his resolutions would be in 
 vain. Even the brotherly attitude that he 
 tried so valiantly to maintain towards her 
 would avail him nothing. She was going 
 away from him, and his secret would remain 
 locked away in his heart. He would never 
 love or seek to love another woman. 
 
 ' And there will be an end,' he thought to 
 himself, ' of all the hopes that I had staked 
 my chances of happiness upon in this world.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 149 
 
 I expect I shall turn Into one of those prosy 
 old bores who live in rooms, and go down to 
 read the papers at the club every afternoon. 
 If it were not for my mother, I would go to 
 sea again. It would need less courage to 
 jump overboard than to face the life of utter 
 stagnation that I see stretched before me in 
 this dreary place. And all for what ? Why 
 must I see the woman I love dragged away 
 to a shiftless and comfortless existence at the 
 other end of the world ? For whom and for 
 what are two lives to be sacrificed ? Because 
 a wretched maniac, shut up in the asylum, is 
 called her husband. It is a monstrous in- 
 justice, based upon a false principle ; it is a 
 case in which a man should make use of his 
 common-sense — one in which we ought to 
 be, as St. Paul says, a law to ourselves. . . . 
 But what If I were in the maniac's place ? 
 How would I feel towards the person who 
 should take advantage of my misfortune — 
 surely the worst that can befall a man — to 
 steal my wife away from me ? A man in the 
 possession of his senses can look out for him- 
 self. Besides, madness may have Its term
 
 I50 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 like any other malady. How would I feel, 
 in the same plight, to discover, when I came 
 to my right mind, that my wife had gone 
 over to a rival ? But if I don't speak to 
 Eila, others will be less scrupulous. Who 
 knows, though she should never be able to 
 return my love, whether the knowledge of it 
 might not help and sustain her ? To know 
 there is someone absolutely and entirely her 
 own : someone who asks for nothing more than 
 to be allowed to put all he has at her disposal 
 — his work, his purse, his very life — and who 
 asks for no other reward than the one of 
 making her path a little smoother for her ; 
 someone who separates her from all accidents 
 of surroundings, circumstances, and condi- 
 tions of life — nay, even from the very faults 
 or follies she might fall into ; someone who 
 loves her very essence, her very being, inde- 
 pendently of all change, physical or moral, 
 that might overtake it. Surely the certainty 
 of the existence of such a friend as this ought 
 
 to be a support and a consolation ' 
 
 But Reginald's train of thought, which he 
 did not formulate, however, in the foregoing
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 151 
 
 words, was suddenly broken in upon by his 
 companion's remark : 
 
 * Men are not curious like women. I've 
 been waiting for you to say " Do tell !" the 
 whole of this time.' 
 
 * Well, I'll say it now — do tell ! And see, 
 we're not far from your home. Is not that 
 a light moving across the veranda, down 
 there ?' 
 
 Though Cowa was on a hill, they were 
 standing upon a yet higher slope of the same 
 mountainous region, and looking down from 
 it they could see the dimly defined outline of 
 the long quadrilateral garden running side- 
 ways down the declivity. A faint glimmer 
 in front of the squat mass that represented 
 the house was the light to which Reginald 
 had made allusion. 
 
 ' I shall never have time to tell it you all 
 before we reach the house,' she said. 
 
 ' Not time ! Then let us sit here on the 
 ground and tell strange stories of the deaths 
 of kings ' 
 
 ' Not of kings,' she laughed. ' But there 
 are plenty of deaths in it, I warn you.'
 
 152 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 She had seated herself as she spoke upon 
 the prone trunk of a sawn gum-tree that lay 
 in readiness to be carted down to town the 
 following day. 
 
 Reginald sat next to her on the same 
 trunk, after beating about the scrub in its 
 vicinity to make sure that no ambulant snake 
 had taken refuge there. Eila pulled off her 
 hat, twisting it round in her lap mechanically 
 as she narrated her story. The balmy night 
 breeze lifted the soft rings of hair from her 
 forehead and temples, and played, cool and 
 gorse-scented, round her neck. Her voice 
 had unconsciously assumed the true narrator's 
 tone, and Reginald only interrupted her from 
 time to time when it seemed to him that the 
 details of her story were becoming more 
 picturesque than precise. 
 
 ' In the first place,' she began, 'you know 
 the Chevalier s portrait, the one that hangs 
 over the drawing-room mantelpiece ?' 
 
 * The Chevalier's portrait ! Rather f he 
 replied. 
 
 The superlative form of affirmation was not 
 employed without sufficient justification. Who
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 153 
 
 that had ever visited Cowa Cottage could 
 remain ignorant of the Chevalier's portrait ? 
 It was an oil-painting of the end of the last 
 century, and its bright, classic, somewhat 
 hard perfection of design and colour seemed 
 to point to it as belonging to the school of the 
 great painter of revolutionary times — David. 
 The dress was of a period anterior to the 
 exaggerations of Merveilleux and Incroy- 
 ables. It was of the accepted decorous type 
 of a somewhat earlier period, much like that 
 of an Usher of the Black Rod in a colonial 
 Parliament in our own day, for it consisted of 
 black satin knee-breeches, and a black satin 
 coat, with glittering buttons, opening upon a 
 waistcoat of the same material, and a shirt 
 with white lace ruffles down the front. A 
 cocked hat, shoes with paste buckles, and a 
 dangling sword, completed the costume, which 
 was well set off by the aristocratic head of the 
 wearer, a man of some forty years of age, 
 with smooth fair hair drawn back into a queue 
 behind the nape of the neck. This painting 
 represented Mrs. Clare's maternal grandfather, 
 and was as great an object of veneration in
 
 154 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 the Cowa household as though the latter had 
 consisted of a Chinese family, and the Cheva- 
 lier's effigy had been that of a pigtailed an- 
 cestor, before which they were accustomed to 
 burn candles and let off crackers in token of 
 their everlasting respect for it. The senti- 
 ment grew intenser with time, for the longer 
 Eila's mother remained in exile, as she was 
 accustomed to call her life in the colonies, 
 the higher her estimation of the Chevalier's 
 portrait seemed to grow. No profane hand 
 was ever allowed to touch this sacred icon, 
 and the Australian- Scotch servant who ' did ' 
 for the Clare family in more senses than one, 
 would present herself upon cleaning days to 
 Eila with the request that ' Mistress Frost 
 wud na forg^et the chiffonier.' It would have 
 been as much as her place was worth to 
 approach a sacrilegious duster to the picture 
 on her own responsibility. 
 
 ' Well, but do you know who the Chevalier 
 was ?' continued Ella, with a dignity that 
 betrayed a latent sense of resentment at 
 Reginald's emphatic assertion of his obvious 
 knowledge of her ancestor.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 155 
 
 ' Who he was ?' He paused for an instant's 
 reflection. ' Either your grandfather or your 
 great-grandfather. But he couldn't have been 
 your grandfather, now I come to think of it.' 
 
 ' My great-grandfather, the ChevaHer de 
 Merle. It means "blackbird," but that doesn't 
 matter. It Is his history you have to follow 
 first. He belonged to a French family that 
 lost their estates in the Revolution, and when 
 he was a young man he went to India, and 
 there he married a Begum ; at least, we 
 believe he married her.' 
 
 'So you have an Indian ancestress!' ex- 
 claimed Reginald. ' Dear me ! what a number 
 of things that accounts for to a believer in the 
 theory of heredity !' 
 
 'Does it? What kind of things?' He 
 could imagine she was slightly frowning be- 
 hind the curtain of darkness. ' You have 
 sent me quite off the track now, for, naturally, 
 it is more interesting to discuss one's self than 
 anything else. I feel I can't go on until you 
 have told me what my having a Begum an- 
 cestress accounts for.' 
 
 ' Do you really want to know ? I shall
 
 156 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 have to be personal, only perhaps as it is so 
 dark you won't mind. And then you needn't 
 take all I say for Gospel, either. Perhaps 
 you haven't studied the theory of heredity ?' 
 
 ' Not much. I suppose we are all more 
 like our fathers and mothers than anybody 
 else ?' 
 
 * Or ought to be, according to the popular 
 theory. But physiologists take account of 
 much remoter relationships. They say that, 
 reckoning a child's parents, together with the 
 parents of those parents, backwards for ten 
 generations, they find that two thousand 
 separate individualities have each had their 
 influence in moulding its nature. However, 
 these two thousand individualities are not 
 blended in equal proportions in the child. If 
 that were so, we could reckon up the qualities 
 of every one who is born with the same 
 mathematical exactitude that we employ in 
 calculating the ingredients of a new dish. But 
 that is not the case. There is always an un- 
 known quantity, or there is one particular 
 ancestor who gives the lion's share in making 
 up the new descendant. Then we have a
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 157 
 
 case of atavism. Yours is almost a case of 
 atavism, but not quite.' 
 
 ' Do you mean to tell me I am like a 
 Begum ?' 
 
 She was laughing, but there was a sugges- 
 tion of dryness in her tones. 
 
 ' Yes, I do ; but a Begum grafted on to a 
 European, which is something very different. 
 First, there are your eyes. I have lived in 
 the East, you know, and I have the certainty 
 that nowhere away from the East can one 
 find eyes like yours. One must connect them 
 with the dark-skinned races. There are all 
 kinds of eyes : les yeux verts, qui menent aux 
 enfers ; and les yeux bleus, qui vont aux cieux 
 (excuse my pronunciation) ; but a Begum's 
 eyes are quite different. There is something 
 opaque, and dusky, and liquid, and indescri- 
 bably soft about them ; they are more lustrous 
 than other eyes, and yet they have no hard- 
 ness. Perhaps it is because they have such 
 long, silky, sweeping lashes. In fact, they 
 are Oriental eyes, and that is saying every- 
 thing.' 
 
 ' It is saying too much, if you mean all that
 
 158 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 for my eyes. But I hope I don't " feature " 
 the Begum, as Mrs. Garth says.' 
 
 * You do In your hair. I can't say of it : 
 
 ' " It's not her hair, for sure in that 
 
 There's nothing more than common ;" 
 
 for there is something much more than 
 common in it.' 
 
 ' Oh, we all have good wigs in the 
 family.' 
 
 ' Yes ; but yours looks sometimes as though 
 it were too heavy for your head. And I am 
 sure you may thank the Begum for the way 
 in which it clusters and waves all about your 
 forehead in those silky, shining masses. And 
 you may thank her, too, for being made as 
 you are — so wonderfully straight and supple, 
 I mean ; no, more than supple : lithe is the 
 word. I know now where the Red Indian 
 stride comes from ! It must come from 
 whole generations of ancestresses who carried 
 chatties poised on their heads. Don't be 
 offended. They couldn't all be Begums, you 
 know ; and I am going back, far back, into 
 the mists of time.'
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 159 
 
 * I am not offended. Far from It. I think 
 it is very amusing. Only we are not per- 
 fectly certain my great-grandfather did marry 
 the Begum, and that Is where the dreadful 
 part of the story comes In, for, you see, he had 
 a daughter In India, who was my grandmother 
 — mother's own mother. She was taken 
 home by her father, the Chevalier de Merle, 
 when he returned to Europe. She was quite 
 a child then still. And the family would not 
 acknowledge the Begum, who was dead, or 
 the Indian connection at all ; and it could not 
 be proved that the marriage was anything 
 but a Mohammedan marriage, if it was even 
 that !' 
 
 * If it was even that !' echoed Reginald 
 doubtfully. 
 
 In his heart he was inclined to look upon 
 the title of Begum In connection with Ella's 
 ancestress as a polite figure of speech. The 
 old Chevalier had probably allowed his fancy 
 to be taken captive by a seductive Nautch- 
 girl of no acknowledged caste or rank, and 
 had had his paternal instincts stirred to life 
 by the child born of the liaison, to the point,
 
 i6o NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 as it appeared, of bringing her away with him 
 to Europe. 
 
 ' But he brought something besides his 
 daughter. He brought a beautiful precious 
 stone — a ruby — that had once belonged to 
 the Begum, and that ought to prove that she 
 was a genuine Begum, oughtn't it ?' continued 
 young Mrs. Frost, replying to Reginald's un- 
 spoken surmises, almost as though she had 
 had to contend against the same form of 
 misgiving herself. ' It must have been a 
 beautiful stone, for mother has an imitation 
 — but only an imitation — of it in glass. My 
 great-grandfather especially desired that this 
 ruby should descend to the Indian branch of 
 the family, to the daughters. It was my 
 grandmother's, then it was to be my mother's, 
 and then ' 
 
 ' Then it was to be yours.' He finished the 
 sentence for her. 
 
 * Yes, but that does not matter. One would 
 not think about that. But I am going to 
 show you how it happened that our branch 
 of the family never had the ruby at all. My 
 little grandmother was put to school, a con-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST i6i 
 
 vent-school in England, and my great-grand- 
 father married again ; we all say, at least, 
 that it was a second marriage. He married 
 an Englishwoman, too. They lived in Eng- 
 land after that. They had left France for 
 good, and they had children. Well, my poor 
 little grandmother was kept very much in the 
 background in her convent-school, though I 
 believe the Chevalier would have liked to 
 have her very often at the house. One day 
 he died quite suddenly, and then they sent 
 for Maya — that was my grandmother's name 
 — and they made her feel she was a kind of 
 outcast now. Her father's second wife was 
 like the stepmothers in Grimm's Tales. It 
 was she who had the care of the ruby, and 
 who ought to have given it to my grand- 
 mother. But what do you think she did ? 
 She told the child to choose between this 
 heirloom and the portrait of her father, the 
 very painting of the Chevalier that hangs over 
 our mantel-shelf at Cowa. Of course, poor 
 little Maya chose the portrait, and cried over 
 it as though her heart would break. They 
 sent her back with that to the convent-school, 
 
 VOL. I. II
 
 i62 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 and her stepmother paid for her education, on 
 condition she should give lessons and try to 
 keep herself later. And she did. But the 
 very first place she went to, the son of the 
 people fell in love with her. She was married 
 to him. He was a Unitarian preacher called 
 James Willett, and my grandmother and he 
 lived In London after they were married, and 
 lived there all their lives.' 
 
 ' And your mother was their only child ?' 
 ' The only one that lived. She married 
 our father In England, but they emigrated 
 soon after to Tasmania. Her parents w^ere 
 both dead then. But, meanwhile, the De 
 Merles, the collateral branch — that Is the 
 right word, isn't it ? — my grandmother's half- 
 brothers and sisters, you know, had been 
 marrying and having children, too. When 
 my mother was a child, she used to hear /le?' 
 mother speak of them, though she never saw 
 them. The ruby went to one of them called 
 Pierre, and after he died we believe it went 
 to his son Hubert, who must be over forty 
 by this time. Where he Is now we don't 
 know. It seems that he was a wanderer for
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 163 
 
 a long time, and that finally he settled In 
 Paris. We have never been able to find out 
 exactly, but we have a plan of looking him 
 up and making this proposal to him. Mother 
 thinks he would be only too glad to accept 
 It, if he has a conscience, and If he is rich, as 
 we suppose. We mean to propose that he 
 should give up the heirloom, which was in- 
 tended for the girls of the family. In exchange 
 for the original portrait of the Chevalier, which 
 we are going to take home for the purpose. 
 The picture Is valuable, too, of course ; but 
 perhaps not quite so valuable to us as the 
 ruby would be, considering how many of us 
 there are with nothing but mother's little 
 Income to depend upon. We have all our 
 plans laid. First, we are going to discover 
 this Hubert de Merle, then to show him the 
 picture, and tell him the whole story. We 
 have family letters — yellow old things, folded 
 over, with the address outside, and no envelope 
 — so funny, you can't think ! no stamps, 
 either — and these will prove that our story is 
 a true one. I should think M. de Merle 
 would want to make restitution when he
 
 i64 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 hears all. He would feel that his grand- 
 mother had taken an unfair advantage of 
 ours — a little girl, too. Don't you think he 
 would ?' 
 
 * He might,' said Reginald dubiously ; ' but, 
 you see, you are not even sure that he has 
 any existence at all excepting in your mother's 
 imagination. I don't like to damp your ardour 
 by matter-of-fact objections, but you do seem 
 to be building upon a very shadowy founda- 
 tion. Let me see. This M. de Merle, if 
 he is alive, Is a cousin of your mother's, or 
 a half-cousin at any rate, so he must be a 
 kind of second half-cousin of yours ?' 
 
 * If he acknowledges the cousinship at all. 
 But you know our grandmother was really 
 cast off by all her home connections. So the 
 only credentials we have are the Chevalier's 
 portrait and the Imitation ruby.' 
 
 * But, tell me, why has the Idea been taken 
 up just now ?' objected Reginald. ' Did you 
 never discuss it in your father's lifetime ?' 
 
 ' Y — yes !' the answer came slowly and 
 with evident reluctance. * We did, but not 
 often. Poor papa ! he was so wonderfully
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 165 
 
 good and kind, but he was rather matter-of- 
 fact. Mother used to tell him he was what 
 she called terre-a-terrey but she never says it 
 of him now. However, I am afraid he looked 
 upon the ruby rather as moonshine. It was 
 his opinion that we had no legal grounds to 
 go upon, and he said we had better not let 
 our imaginations run upon impractical dreams. 
 But mother always kept the story in her 
 mind ; she thinks M. de Merle would be 
 only too glad to repair the wrong he did (or, 
 rather, the wrong his grandmother did) to 
 our branch of the family.' 
 
 'Why doesn't she write to him about it, 
 then ?' 
 
 ' Well, she did once ; but how can one be 
 sure the letter reached ? Besides, what is 
 writing compared with seeing and talking to 
 people themselves ?' 
 
 ' I see you are quite of your mother's way 
 of thinking,' said poor Reginald, less reassured 
 than ever by this new evidence of what he 
 was inclined to look upon as almost crazy 
 optimism on young Mrs. Frost's part ; ' and 
 I can't say how grateful I am to you for
 
 i66 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 telling me the whole story. Especially as I 
 must own to being matter-of-fact, too. I 
 can't help it. A primrose by the river's brim 
 was always a yellow primrose to me, and 
 nothing else. But now that you have trusted 
 me so far, will you trust me a little bit farther ? 
 I have my secret, too. I have carried it about 
 with me longer than you could imagine, and 
 I dare say I would have found the strength to 
 carry it to the end if it were not for this 
 sudden news about your going away. That 
 seems to alter everything. Perhaps I am not 
 justified in telling it to you even now. I 
 cannot say that, but I feel I must let you 
 know it. Who knows? It might give you 
 the confidence in me I want you so much to 
 feel when you are away, for I could not bear 
 to think it would be out of sight out of mind 
 with you, as far as I am concerned.' 
 
 ' It could never be that,' said Eila, half 
 sadly and half playfully ; ' I shall have to keep 
 my father confessor informed of all I do.' 
 
 ' Will you do so really ?' he cried eagerly ; 
 * will you tell me everything that happens to 
 you in your letters ? They will be the only
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 167 
 
 bit of happiness left to me after you are gone. 
 Must I tell you my secret In so many words, 
 or have you not guessed It long ago ?' 
 
 ' No !' she said In low tones, but whether 
 In answer to his first or second question he 
 could not have told. 
 
 ' I may tell it you then, though I think 
 you can hardly have helped finding It out for 
 yourself long ago. Women always know 
 when a man feels towards them In that way. 
 You 77i2cs^ know that I love you, and that I 
 have loved you for a long time, from the day 
 we met on Mount Wellington, you remember, 
 and we came down In the snowstorm together.' 
 
 He paused, as though waiting for some 
 sign of acknowledgment on her part. A soft 
 cloud, blown across the moon, and stained 
 with delicate mother-of-pearl tints, had cast 
 a deeper shade around them as he spoke. 
 In the semi-darkness he perceived that she 
 was lifting the muslin-crowned hat to her 
 head. It was as though his confession had 
 warned her that it would be wise to bring 
 their moonlight Interview to an abrupt termi- 
 nation.
 
 i68 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' Do say something, dear/ he whispered 
 humbly. 
 
 ' What is the use ?' she said half plaintively, 
 slipping down from the trunk as he spoke, 
 and standing by his side while she leaned 
 against its projecting branches. ' It is a pity 
 you have said what you did. I am so sorry 
 you said it.' 
 
 ' Sorry ! Why ?' he questioned eagerly. 
 ' Why should you be sorry, my dear ? I 
 love you so entirely and utterly — so through 
 and through — you can't tell. I don't think 
 you understand even now. I love you for 
 yourself, Eila ; don't you see what a difference 
 that makes ? I don't love you selfishly — as 
 men are supposed to love — for my own 
 gratification. I know you are out of my 
 reach — as much out of- it as the moon up 
 there in the sky ; but that does not alter the 
 fact. I love you, and I shall go on loving 
 you to the end of the chapter — for time and 
 eternity, if there is an eternity. And what 
 influence do I want my love to have upon 
 your life ? Tell me that. Do I ask you to 
 do anything wrong, or what the world con-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 169 
 
 siders wrong ? What return do I ask for a 
 love that will last as long as life itself — that 
 will keep me not only from marrying, but 
 even from looking at another woman as long 
 as you are in the world ? I think you are 
 shaking your head ; I believe you are laugh- 
 ing — I could see your teeth shining just now 
 in the moonlight. Well, laugh away; I know 
 myself, and time will convince you, if nothing 
 else does, that I am telling you the simple 
 truth. What return, I say, do I ask for such 
 a love as this ? Why, only that you should 
 have confidence in me always — always. Do 
 you hear '^ Tell me all that concerns you, 
 dear. If you are in trouble, I will do my 
 utmost to help you. If you need money, I 
 will send you my last penny. Supposing 
 you should have an Illness, or some accident 
 that spoiled your beauty, you would always 
 be the same to me. I want you to remember 
 that. I go farther still ; for I believe if you 
 were to commit a crime, and all the world 
 were to throw stones at you, I should not be 
 able to love you any the less. What can I 
 say more ?' He stopped ; then hurriedly :
 
 I70 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' Yes, there Is one thing more ; and you will 
 forgive me for saying it, because I love you. 
 I cannot tell how you will manage to steer 
 your course in life. You have no chart to 
 go by, you know ; and I see rocks ahead that 
 you can't know anything about. Well, just 
 remember this : Whatever should happen to 
 you, don't be afraid to tell me, even if you 
 should let someone else tell you what I have 
 told you this evening — someone, we'll say, 
 who takes a different way of telling it from 
 me. If you should — which God forbid ! — 
 make shipwreck of your life, don't keep it 
 from me. Don't even let shame itself stand 
 in the way of your coming to me.' 
 
 He stopped short again. Eila felt her 
 cheeks burn in the cool night air. Some- 
 thing prompted her to extend her hand ; he 
 seized it, and held it like a vice in his nervous 
 clasp. The pressure, as he wrung it uncon- 
 sciously in the earnestness of his speech, 
 almost made her cry out with the pain. 
 
 ' Could you have cared for me a little, my 
 darling ?' he whispered. 'But I have no 
 right to ask you such a question. You must
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 171 
 
 forgive me ; I hardly know what I am saying. 
 What I want to impress upon you is that 
 nothing can ever change my feeHng towards 
 you. It seems a rash vow to make, doesn't 
 it? But I make it fearlessly. I put myself 
 in mind of the hero of a silly old melodramatic 
 play I saw somewhere once. It was played 
 by a German, I remember ; he used to come 
 rushing on to the stage at every critical 
 moment with the word, " Hee-re I am — 
 stanch and true !" Well, remember here I 
 am, and don't be afraid to come to me for 
 help. I know you so well, dear — better than 
 you can imagine ; and I have a fatherly and 
 brotherly feeling about you just as much as 
 a loverly one. Will you think of this some- 
 times, if you feel tempted to do anything 
 rash ? Will you say to yourself, " There's a 
 poor old fellow out there who only lives for 
 me, and it will break his heart if I do such 
 and such a thing. I will write to him about 
 it first ; perhaps he will find a way to get me 
 what I want." W^ill you promise me this, Eila ?' 
 All this time her right hand had lain close 
 in his grasp. She left it there, and, placing
 
 172 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 of her own accord her other hand in his dis- 
 engaged right, stood fronting him, both hands 
 held firmly now within his own. Standing 
 close to him thus, her figure bore the same 
 proportion to his as that of the maid to her 
 Huguenot lover in Millais's beautiful picture. 
 Her eyes were bent ; but she could feel that 
 he was breathing quickly as he waited for 
 her to speak. 
 
 ' What would you have me say ? What 
 ought I to say ?' she began at last, hesitating. 
 
 ' Say exactly what you feel, my dear. Don't 
 think of ozi£-/i^ ; only speak as you feel. / 
 love you' 
 
 * Then I will,' she said, with sudden reso- 
 lution ; * I will speak right out for once. No 
 ''shams,'" with a dreary little laugh, 'as 
 Carlyle calls them ; only the truth from my 
 heart. I like you to care about me as you 
 do ; it will be a help to me — more than you 
 can imagine. And I care for you, too — you 
 may believe that I do ; but not as you care 
 for me. It is not my fault. I think the 
 power of loving in that way — the faculty of 
 it altogether — has been somehow destroyed 
 in me. I simply can't recall the love I had
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 173 
 
 for my husband. If he were to come back 
 to me cured to-morrow, I should shudder and 
 run away. I have been through experiences 
 you can never imagine. Sometimes I think 
 they have made a monster of me ; for I like 
 to be loved, and I like people to be fond of 
 me. Perhaps the position in which I am 
 placed makes things so different — the knowing 
 that I am not free to give myself to anyone 
 I might care about. But what you have told 
 me this evening will make a difference indeed. 
 I shall place you apart now from everybody 
 else in the world. I know you are afraid I 
 am not quite to be trusted. Why do you 
 have that feeling about me? Tell me.' 
 
 ' Did I say you were not to be trusted ?' 
 he said. ' I did not mean you to think that. 
 But you have a curious nature, Eila. It is 
 full of depths for me who have studied it ; 
 and yet there is a lightness about it that 
 would prevent my being astonished at almost 
 anything that might happen to you. If it 
 were not for that quality, you would not be 
 forced to deplore your marriage to-day.' 
 
 ' But I was so much younger,' she mur- 
 mured ; and then suddenly, with the gesture
 
 174 ^OT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 of a child who seeks to disarm the reproachful 
 attitude of an over-fond parent, she raised her 
 lips to his. 
 
 * Oh, my darling !' he said in low, passionate 
 tones — ' my darling !' For an instant's space 
 he held her close pressed to his heart ; then 
 detaching himself with an effort, ' Eila, my 
 love !' he cried, ' it is well you are going 
 away.' His voice trembled ; he walked away 
 from her in violent agitation, returning once 
 more to her side with rapid footsteps. * We 
 will go back at once,' he said. 'There, your 
 hat has fallen off!' He picked it up in feverish 
 haste, and set it on her head. ' What is that 
 saying about "Qui vent faire I'ange".^ But 
 never mind the rest. Take my arm, little 
 girl, and hurry along.' 
 
 He led her on swiftly in silence for the 
 space of a few moments, until they were 
 close to the gate of Cowa Cottage, visible in 
 the moonlight as a white break to the indis- 
 tinct outline of thick hedge that ran round 
 the orarden. 
 
 ' Good-night, and good-bye,' he said, and 
 so vanished into the night.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 175 
 
 Eila's cheeks were still burning as she 
 walked slowly up the garden-path beneath 
 the over-arching branches of apple and cherry 
 trees to the veranda, whence the sound of 
 the family voices, raised In argumentative 
 parley, reached her through the darkness. 
 
 * How can I tell what I might feel If I 
 were free !' she repeated to herself. ' Does 
 Reginald look upon what has happened this 
 evening as a pledge of something more than 
 friendship, I wonder ? I hope not. How 
 could I help wanting to show that I was 
 moved by the offer of such devotion as his !' 
 
 As she slowly mounted the veranda steps, 
 illumined by the light of a lamp standing 
 upon an outer window-sill, a little girl flew 
 towards her with outstretched arms. 
 
 ' Your face is so warm — so warm !' said 
 the child, drawing it down towards her own, 
 with both arms clasped around her sister's 
 neck. ' Dick told us Mr. Acton would be 
 with you ; but you are all alone. What will 
 mother say ? I suppose you ran all the way 
 back from Ivy Cottage when you found it 
 was so dark ?'
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A PECULIAR FAMILY. 
 
 For a family whose ways were peculiar, 
 there could not have been found a more 
 eminently suitable abode (and I say It with- 
 out any punning intention) than the mountain 
 fastness of Cowa, which was just such a 
 natural stronghold as would have been con- 
 verted, in the days of marauding barons and 
 robber chiefs, into an impregnable citadel. 
 Its inmates, however, were never driven, 
 even in the earliest and most lawless times, 
 to entrench themselves against such aristo- 
 cratic aggressors as these. The only historic 
 robbers that Tasmania annals can show are 
 the now well-nigh extinct race of bush- 
 rangers, who a few centuries earlier might 
 [ 176]
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 177 
 
 possibly have laid the foundations of an 
 antipodean aristocracy, but whose ultimate 
 fate in our more prosaic age was most fre- 
 quently to be caught and hanged. Had 
 defensive measures, however, been necessary, 
 Cowa would have afforded every facility for 
 making them. The long veranda in front of 
 the house might have served as a bastion, 
 whence it would have been easy to fling 
 stones at the enemy bold enough to climb 
 the wearisome slope to the attack. Even in 
 peaceful Hobart, and in the peaceful occupa- 
 tion of the Clare family, it served as a 
 vantage-ground for purposes of social, if not 
 of warlike, entrenchment. From the veranda 
 a visitor might be descried, as Elijah de- 
 scried Elisha, from a long way off, and hasty 
 measures taken for planting behind a hay- 
 stack, if he were not of the order whose 
 coming was to be hailed. Similarly, steps 
 might be taken to receive him becomingly, if 
 the inmates decided upon being at home. 
 The ordinary family habiliments were of a 
 kind In which they objected — the girls at 
 least — to being caught. Ella would roam 
 VOL. I. J 2
 
 178 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 about all day in her faded cotton gown, of 
 which the erstwhile hue was almost as diffi- 
 cult to discern as that of the draperies of 
 those archaic polychrome Greek statutes that 
 have recently been unearthed upon the 
 Acropolis, to the great joy of archaeologists. 
 She was rarely seen, it is true, without a 
 magnificent rose, or bunch of roses, stuck in 
 her waistband, danorline from her collar, or 
 hairpinned behind her ear ; but even South 
 Sea belles will array themselves in flowers, 
 and in all other respects their attire is, as we 
 know, of the most elementary and casual 
 description. Mamy affected blouses in 
 season and out of season ; they dated from 
 the epoch when her dress had followed the 
 same lines as her brother Dick's, and she 
 would not abandon them now, neither would 
 she forswear the boy's cricketing-belt that 
 held them round her supple waist. It was 
 in a garment of this description, frayed and 
 strawberry-stained, that she had received and 
 refused her first offer of marriage. 
 
 Truca, rendered defenceless by reason of 
 her youth and inexperience, was fain to
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 179 
 
 accept the heritage of the worn-out, washed- 
 out frocks of mother and sisters. Cut short 
 — much shorter than she liked — the coloured 
 prints that had aired their pristine freshness 
 on the persons of Mrs. Clare and her elder 
 daughters might be seen whisking about 
 the place round Truca's stockinged calves 
 throughout all the seasons of the ensuing 
 year. Truca's only thought in connection 
 with her personal appearance, the one evi- 
 dence of self-consciousness that she had in- 
 herited from Eve after the Fall, was shown 
 in her sensitiveness upon the score of the 
 plumpness of her nether extremities. She 
 cared no more for the make of her dresses 
 or the browning of her neck than a lily of the 
 field or a gipsy ; but a system of bantering 
 applied to the calves would have appealed to 
 her keenest sympathies. Her sisters and 
 brothers made their girth and solidity the 
 subject of much banter. They were known 
 in the family as the champagne bottles, and 
 the little girl never went out without being 
 weighed down by the thought that the 
 passers-by w^ere laughing at them. Know-
 
 i8o NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ing that this was her tender point, the family 
 showed the consideration usual in families by 
 levelling pleasantries at them upon all occa- 
 sions, until the desire to be grown up and to 
 * go into ' long dresses took ardent possession 
 of Truca's little soul. She had her meta- 
 physical moods like the rest, and was still in 
 the lisping stage when she asked piteously 
 why God ' thent little babies into the world 
 when they couldn't tell if they wanted to 
 come.' She possessed a collection of small 
 wooden dolls, with which she would play on 
 rainy days after a fashion of her own. With 
 their aid she would readjust the recent 
 chapters of history she had learned, turning 
 Lady Jane Grey into the Queen of England, 
 in lieu of beheading her ; while bloody Queen 
 Mary was bound to a slate-pencil stuck up- 
 right on a collection of bits of red tinfoil 
 stripped from the necks of old wine-bottles, 
 and supposed to represent the stake and 
 faggots, to which poetical justice, dealt out 
 by Truca, would have condemned her. Her 
 favourite diversion, however, was to make 
 everybody repent and be good — even to the
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST i8i 
 
 devil, represented by a black doll enveloped 
 in scarlet flannel, like a fireman, with a black 
 worsted tail. But this pastime was only in- 
 dulged in on days of sleet and rain, for 
 Truca, like the rest of the family, lived in the 
 open air, and slept in it too, when the nights 
 were unduly warm. Her favourite friend 
 and companion after her elder sister, who 
 taught her her lessons, was her little Jersey 
 cow, between whom and herself there existed 
 the perfect understanding that only mutual 
 confidence can engender. What with the 
 blouses, the faded cottons, and Dick's 
 sandalled feet, the family at Cowa regarded 
 an unexpected visitor very much as simple 
 Galilee must have regarded the Assyrian 
 who came down like a wolf on the fold, with 
 his cohorts gleaming in purple and gold. 
 Hence the veranda was invaluable as a post 
 of observation. There was always time 
 before the arrival of the enemy to make a 
 hurried clearance of litter, to throw a becom- 
 ing piece of crewel-work (that was the merest 
 stage adjunct) upon the veranda-table, in lieu 
 of the stocking in process of darning, or to
 
 i82 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 substitute a school-prize of Longfellow's 
 Poems for the heterodox book in course of 
 reading. There was time for this and more, 
 for it was a long pull and a strong pull up 
 the hill ; and even the least enthusiastic 
 admirer of Nature found frequent occasion to 
 pause and gaze upon the view in the course 
 of the ascent. 
 
 Another advantage in the position of the 
 homestead was the facility it afforded for 
 retrieving slips of memory. The family 
 dwelt, as we have seen, very much in the 
 clouds — metaphorically as well as actually — 
 and it was no unusual thing for the person 
 who was going into town for the express 
 purpose of posting the letters to leave them 
 lying upon the first chair to hand. When 
 this was the case, a far-reaching ' coo-ee ' 
 from the veranda would stop the emissary 
 half-way to town, and Truca would skip 
 down the hill in his wake, waving the letters 
 on high, with the speed of a fugitive rabbit. 
 Signals of recognition might also be held 
 out to a person returning from town almost 
 before a ' coo-ee ' could reach his ears, and
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 183 
 
 questions as to whether the bag of penny- 
 tarts, to serve in lieu of pudding, had been 
 purchased might be telegraphically con- 
 veyed ; while signals of distress might be 
 held out, should the answer prove to be 
 in the negative. With such advantages as 
 these to boast of, it is small wonder that 
 Cowa was esteemed by its inmates, in spite 
 of its inaccessibility, and perhaps by reason 
 of it, as the most convenient place of resi- 
 dence in the world. There was only Eila 
 who was occasionally heard to lament that 
 their callers were so limited in number. It 
 was in the summer-time alone that they made 
 their appearance, when the men-of-war lay at 
 anchor in the harbour, and the season of 
 strawberries and strangers was in full swing. 
 Then passing friends among the officers, or 
 some chance acquaintance from a neighbour- 
 ing colony, would make their way up the 
 hill uninvited, and, with Eila for a guide 
 (she knew every stone and landmark upon 
 the surrounding heights), and the younger 
 tribe for counter-guides (since every one had 
 a different road, leading in a different direc-
 
 1 84 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 tlon, to Uphold), the party would make expe- 
 ditions to the mountain fastnesses in the 
 neighbourhood of Cowa, carrying, the one a 
 kettle to be boiled for tea-making purposes, 
 the other an unlimited supply of matches for 
 kindling the fire, to be built up of scattered 
 brushwood. Such acquaintances as joined 
 in these expeditions were welcome to all, for 
 they came because they liked to come ; and 
 more than one carried away a pang of regret 
 for the ' might-have-been ' after picnicking 
 with Eila and her brothers and sisters upon 
 the purple heights of Knocklofty. 
 
 But, well as the Clares loved their home, 
 they loved the land beyond the seas that they 
 had never seen even better. From their 
 earliest infancy they had been imbued with 
 the belief that Europe was the earthly type 
 of that ' better land ' which the ' eye of man 
 hath not seen, nor his imagination conceived.' 
 Though the finality of their mother's judg- 
 ment respecting all things in heaven and 
 earth had become a little fallible to them since 
 they had arrived at years of discretion, they 
 gave eager credence to her pictures of life in
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 185 
 
 the Old World. To shake the dust of Hobart 
 off their feet, and see the strange, enchanted 
 regions she had described to them, wherein, 
 according to Reginald's ironical simile, was to 
 be found, as in Plato's republic, the exemplar, 
 or archetype, of everything they saw — as 
 through a glass darkly — in Tasmania, was the 
 one hope and desire of their lives. None but 
 Eila, who had learned experience with her 
 one year of housekeeping in Victoria, gave 
 thought to their want of means. Whether 
 they imagined that, like Whittington, they 
 would pick up nuggets on the London pave- 
 ments, or that they had a vague impression 
 that they would inhale sustenance with the 
 very air of European cities, it would be diffi- 
 cult to say. Mrs. Clare's enthusiasm had 
 spread to her children almost as soon as they 
 could speak. From the cradle upwards they 
 had been taught to look upon the land of their 
 birth — for which they had, nevertheless, the 
 instinctive affection that childish associations 
 engender — as a place of exile and durance 
 vile. It would have been ao^ainst nature — 
 against child-nature, at least — not to cherish
 
 1 86 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 a fondness for the wild hills, the great sloping 
 paddocks, the haystacks, the apple-trees, the 
 cows, the pigs, the dogs, the fowls, and the 
 flowers, that had been familiar facts in their 
 lives as far back as they could remember. 
 But they set no conscious value upon these, 
 supposing that they formed part of the normal 
 conditions of life, in the same way as the air 
 and the sunshine form part of It. When 
 visitors from England admired the magnifi- 
 cent view to be seen from the Cowa veranda, 
 and expatiated upon the transparent air, and 
 the clear-cut outline of the mountain range 
 that bordered the sapphire waters of the har- 
 bour, the family would listen to such com- 
 ments with wondering incredulity. Had not 
 their mother told them there were no trees, 
 no grass, no sylvan beauties here that could 
 gladden a cultivated eye ? What could people 
 who had seen the ancestral parks of England 
 find to admire in the wild gorges of Knock- 
 lofty ? Their secret conviction was that people 
 admired the view to please them, just as they 
 declared that the Cowa strawberries of Willie s 
 planting were the finest they had tasted.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 187 
 
 They believed that to have been born and 
 brought up in the colonies was to have 
 endured an exceptionally hard fate. But 
 now, at last, the prospect of escaping from 
 their southern Siberia seemed likely to be 
 realized, and, as Ella had told Reginald, all 
 their thoughts, all their dreams, all their talk, 
 converged to the one topic of their journey. 
 
 The day after Ella's visit to Ivy Cottage 
 the family gathered In the veranda, where 
 Willie was waiting with hammer and nails In 
 front of a large packing-case. Looking at 
 them In a group, you would have seen at a 
 glance why the epithet of ' peculiar ' was 
 applied to them, for there was an Indefinable 
 suggestion of something foreign, exotic, and 
 Creole in the appearance of each and all. 
 
 Mrs. Clare looked, at a first glance, almost 
 as young as her daughters. Like Lady Jane 
 in the ' Ingoldsby Legends,' she was tall and 
 slim, and possessed the kind of shoulders for 
 which shawls must surely have been Invented 
 before Fashion had decreed that shoulders 
 should be made to look high and square. Her 
 hair was black and shiny, and lay smoothly
 
 i88 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 against the sides of a classically-shaped head. 
 It was only upon closer inspection that the 
 sallow fixity of her complexion accused, as the 
 French say, her maturer years. Her neck 
 had lines that are not seen in the necks of 
 younger women, showing that Time was 
 already tightening his fingers around it. 
 Father Time, as he is undeservedly called, is 
 not unlike certain earthly fathers, who are 
 only caressing to their offspring in early youth, 
 and who press heavily upon them as they 
 advance to years of discretion. The longer 
 we live, indeed, the harder he lays his hand 
 upon us, until his rude touch effaces well-nigh 
 all the graces he fashioned for us so lavishly 
 at the outset. Mrs. Clare s face was agree- 
 able to look upon, in spite of its sallowness. 
 The eyes were bright and dark ; yet there 
 was something unreachable about them, and 
 they could gaze at nothing with the obstinate 
 intensity of expression of a visionary. The 
 profile view of the features betrayed a certain 
 flatness, suggestive of Japanese or Mongolian 
 origin. The young Clares adored their 
 mother, but from an early age there had been
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 189 
 
 a tacit understanding among them that her 
 moods were not to be depended upon, and 
 that mother's way was Hke nobody else's way. 
 Her opinions, as Dick had declared, repre- 
 sented an unknown quantity. It would almost 
 have seemed as though each branch of her 
 widely-diverging ancestors exercised a kind 
 of supremacy over her in turn. There were 
 days when she had the quick intelligence and 
 the constitutional scepticism of her grand- 
 father, the Chevalier ; other days when the 
 superstitious instincts transmitted by the 
 Begum appeared to take the upper hand. 
 Upon yet other occasions the fund of con- 
 scientious zeal she had inherited from the 
 Unitarian minister, her father, would assert 
 itself aggressively, and she would set every 
 member of the household hard at work upon 
 some entirely unprofitable task. In one re- 
 spect she was like more ordinary mothers all 
 the world over, in that she was entirely con- 
 vinced of the swan-like nature of each and 
 all of her goslings. Dick, however, was her 
 favourite, for Dick and she saw the world 
 through almost similar glasses. When these
 
 I90 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 two walked out together, people would look 
 after them in the streets, and the uncompre- 
 hending and uneducated would laugh. Dick's 
 black hair hung in pot-hooks round his neck. 
 No persuasions could induce him to have it 
 cut ; and his mother had a fancy for putting 
 on a ribbon or an appendage that falsified all 
 the rest of her attire. They rarely walked 
 out together without going through a pre- 
 liminary scene with Ella, in which, by dint of 
 coaxing, scolding, and, If the truth must be 
 told, of shedding one or two tears of genuine 
 vexation, she persuaded them to allow her to 
 make them look respectable. Dick and his 
 mother assimilated the newest doctrines and 
 theories of the day, and applied them in 
 ways, and carried them to lengths, that would 
 have greatly astonished their originators. 
 
 Willie and Mamy were known as the fair 
 ones of the family, the phrase being applied 
 strictly to the hue of their skins, for Willie 
 possessed but a modified share of his sister's 
 good looks. He was shorter, sturdier, and 
 more Saxon-looking than the rest. It was 
 his constant endeavour to sit upon Dick, who
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 191 
 
 though taller, and possessing more promise 
 of moustache In the dark down upon his 
 upper lip, was two years younger than him- 
 self. But Dick was self-assured with the 
 supreme self-assurance of a ' home-keeping ' 
 youth, and would not allow himself to be sat 
 upon. He treated his elder brother with a 
 kind of lofty condescension, against which 
 neither words nor fists could prevail, and laid 
 down the law to his mother and sisters in 
 turn. His twin sister, Mamy, was his dis- 
 ciple and his ally. Between this pair there 
 existed the curious community of sensation 
 that is only to be found in twins. In their 
 childish days to punish one was to punish 
 both, and as they grew up, Mamy seemed to 
 be half boy, and Dick to be half girl, when 
 they were together. The family nose was 
 the weak point, and was much the same in 
 all. It was not a finely-turned feature, and 
 was marred by a tendency to wide-spread 
 nostrils. Dick's lips were also somewhat 
 thick, but this defect was redeemed by the 
 gleam of such teeth as only the dark-skinned 
 races can show when he smiled.
 
 192 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Truca was an autumn bud. She had been 
 the surprise baby of the band, and so far 
 seemed destined to figure as the ugly duck- 
 ling in respect of her outward appearance. 
 The defective nose was exaggerated in her 
 case into a snub, and her mouth was larger 
 than was strictly becoming. There was 
 a warm rustiness of hue observable in 
 her hair, her eyes, and her complexion, 
 which seemed to Invest her with a kind 
 of bronze aureole when she sat, like Queen 
 Anne, in the sun. She had a highly-strung, 
 impressionable nature, and would pause in 
 her play at a very early age to run and be 
 kissed by mother or sisters, with a wistful 
 expression In her eyes of Vandyck brown, 
 that seemed to ask for reassurance against 
 the thoughts reflected in them. The Phantom 
 of Fear lurks behind every mystery, and what 
 is the very consciousness of life itself but the 
 most crushing of mysteries to the dawning 
 intelligence of a child ? Nevertheless, there 
 were times when Truca enjoyed running 
 hither and thither in the unconscious joy of 
 being, as behoves children of her age ; for,
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 193 
 
 like Wordsworth's little maid, she ' felt her 
 life in every limb,' and disported herself in 
 the sunshine in obedience to the law of her 
 nature as instinctively as a Shetland pony or 
 a young kitten. 
 
 That there was a solemn function to be 
 fulfilled in the veranda this afternoon was 
 evident from the fact that the entire family 
 was assembled there. The crude light of 
 the afternoon sun illumined the group, irradi- 
 ating the faces of the younger members and 
 hardening that of their mother, for the sun is 
 masculine and knows how to flatter youth, 
 while he is sometimes unnecessarily severe 
 upon those who have left it behind. The 
 same light shone down upon the large 
 packing-case, and upon an oil-painting that 
 lay at the bottom of it ; but here its effects 
 were disastrous, for it converted the varnished 
 surface into indiscriminate splotches of shini- 
 ness. The portrait of the Chevalier had been 
 solemnly taken down from its place of honour 
 on the wall, and was about to be nailed down 
 by Willie in presence of the Chevalier's de- 
 scendants. 
 
 VOL. I. 13
 
 194 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 'Mind the face!' said Mrs. Clare fearfully. 
 * Bring me some rags, Eila. We might lay 
 them over it before the cover goes on.' 
 
 ' He'll come out like a mummy !' observed 
 Dick, as the girls brought their contribution 
 of calico-strips and laid them carefully over 
 the painting. * No ! I know : he's like a 
 fakir, and we're going to bury him for three 
 months, and then bring him to life again to 
 work a miracle for us.' 
 
 ' It will be a miracle indeed, if he gets us 
 the ruby,' said Eila. She was kneeling by 
 the case and gently wiping the picture before 
 hiding it from view. ' Eyes, look your last ! 
 What a curious thing !' she added : ' even 
 when he is lying on his back his eyes seem 
 to follow us about just as they did when he 
 hung on the wall ; but how strange and crusty 
 the cheeks look when you are quite close to 
 them ! I wonder whether the painting can 
 have any intrinsic value of its own.' 
 
 ' I wonder !' echoed Willie. ' Say, mother, 
 has the old man any market value, do you 
 think ?' 
 
 ' Market value !' echoed Mrs. Clare indig-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 195 
 
 nantly ; ' what a way to speak of your great- 
 grandfather, Willie ! You are as bad as the 
 young spendthrift in the play who wanted to 
 sell his ancestors.' 
 
 'Well, we're going to sell the Chevalier 
 for what he'll fetch, aren't we ?' 
 
 * Nothing of the kind,' rejoined his mother ; 
 ' we're not going to part with him out of the 
 family. I have always looked upon that 
 picture as a kind of pledge, a proof that we 
 are the rightful heirs of the ruby your great- 
 grandfather left to your grandmother — my 
 very own mother. The portrait will pass into 
 the hands of another branch of the family, 
 but only for a time, I hope. Dick will buy 
 it back for us before long.' 
 
 Dick's only comment upon this remark was 
 a self-confident smile. It was a generally 
 accepted thing in the family that Dick's talent 
 would enable him to become rich speedily. 
 A few months under some master in London 
 or Paris, just to get his hand in, and then he 
 would do busts at the rate at which the greatest 
 sculptors did them, and make a rapid fortune. 
 
 * I expect the picture has a value of its
 
 196 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 own, all the same,' he said, in an assured 
 voice. 
 
 'You may be sure it has,' asserted Mrs. 
 Clare. ' Of course, there is nobody here who 
 could appreciate it ; but, I believe, any sum 
 would be given for it at home. What was 
 that you were telling me the other day, Willie, 
 about seventy thousand pounds being paid 
 for some old picture — nothing but a portrait, 
 too ? or was it seventeen ? It was seven 
 something, I know.' 
 
 'It was seventy,' said Willie — 'seventy 
 thousand pounds ; but it was the work of an 
 old master.' 
 
 ' Well, the Chevalier is getting to be an old 
 master, isn't he, mother ?' said Mamy, moved 
 by a desire to conciliate her favourite brother. 
 * Isn't it more than a hundred years old?' 
 
 ' What ! older than the oldest building in 
 Tasmania ?' said Eila. ' How wonderful that 
 would seem !' 
 
 ' But not so old as the Tower we're going to 
 see in England,' chanted Truca — 'the Tower 
 and the block. Oh, I do feel so impatient ; I 
 want to be there now !'
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 197 
 
 * But what would we do if Mr. de Merle 
 would have nothing to say to us when we 
 get home ?' put in Eila meditatively. 
 
 * No risk of that when we've made our- 
 selves known to him,' said Mrs. Clare confi- 
 dently ; ' my only fear is that he will want to 
 adopt all of you children at once, and I would 
 rather we kept our independence. Now, 
 Willie, you may close up the case ; the 
 picture is protected enough, I think.' 
 
 There was a moment of silence as the boys 
 adjusted the cover and Willie hammered in 
 the first nail. It was really as Dick had 
 said, as though they were nailing up the 
 Chevalier in his coffin. He had been a living 
 presence among them for as long as they could 
 remember. From the time that they had been 
 aware of knowing right from wrong, his face 
 had always seemed to wear a stern or a smiling 
 expression, following the verdict uttered by 
 their separate consciences. He was a link, 
 too, with that strange, impalpable past whose 
 existence it was so hard to realize in Tasmania. 
 Of their ancestors on their father's side they 
 had no knowledge, and very little curiosity.
 
 198 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Mrs. Clare's individuality had so effectually 
 impressed itself upon her children, that they 
 constituted what might be called a one-sided 
 progeny. She had kept for herself the part 
 of the queen bee in the domestic hive, and 
 though Mr. Clare had been no drone, and 
 had worked with patient self-effacement to 
 secure his family from want, he had been 
 constrained to play what is commonly called 
 'second fiddle' to his spouse. His quiet, 
 kindly, matter-of-fact presence had been 
 missed and mourned for, but not passionately 
 yearned after. The children had never felt 
 about their father as they felt about their 
 mother, that life would not be possible with- 
 out him. They had never cared to hear 
 about the humdrum records of his early life 
 at the Custom House in Tasmania. They 
 were secretly a little ashamed of their con- 
 nection with his brother, their uncle, who 
 was nothing but a homely country store- 
 keeper living near Oatlands. Willie had 
 been wont to spend his holidays w^th this 
 relative in his school-days, and would have 
 liked to hold forth upon the incidents of his
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 199 
 
 Stay on his return, to boast of the opossums 
 he had shot, and the fences he had jumped, 
 and the bush-buggy he had driven round 
 with half-chests of tea and boxes of soap 
 and candles to be left at the houses of the 
 customers. But his mother's face had checked 
 the flow of his narrative. It made him think, 
 he could not tell why, of the Chevalier's queue 
 and sword. 
 
 Uncle William, for his part, rarely came to 
 see them. He had come to town for his 
 brother's funeral, and would have taken 
 Willie back with him, and made him succeed 
 to the business, had he been allowed. But 
 Mrs. Clare's reception of the proposal had 
 too plainly shown him that it was a mistake 
 to have proffered it. Uncle William went 
 away sooner than he had intended, and 
 thenceforth the family heard but little of 
 him. He was a childless widower, and was 
 not supposed to be more than just * comfort- 
 able.' Mrs. Clare spoke of his calling with 
 disdain. The children had inferred early, 
 from their mother's manner, that it was a 
 very second-rate profession ; and though they
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 had nothing against their Uncle William, who 
 was, If possible, quieter and more taciturn 
 than their father, and who seemed kindly 
 disposed towards them, they saw him depart 
 to his country store without regret. 
 
 ' Well, that's done,' said Willie, in tones of 
 triumph, as he hammered the last nail In with 
 a vigorous hand ; ' I wonder when and where 
 we shall open the case again ?' 
 
 ' It's almost a pity we didn't have a photo- 
 graph taken of the Chevalier,' said Ella ; ' for 
 if anything happens to him on the way, all 
 our journey would be for nothing.' 
 
 ' Do you call it nothing to see Europe ?' 
 said Mamy reproachfully. 
 
 ' We can't see much without money,' said 
 her sister, in despondent tones. ' None of 
 you seem to consider that we shall have 
 barely enough to live upon at home.' 
 
 ' If England Is anything like what I re- 
 member It,' said Mrs. Clare hopefully, 'a 
 penny there would go as far as a shilling 
 out here. Dear me ! when I remember the 
 quantities of things one could get for a 
 shilling ! There seemed to be no end to
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 201 
 
 them. And railway travelling, too. How 
 cheap It was !' 
 
 ' I wonder anyone lives here at all,' said 
 Mamy ; * and such rich people, too.' 
 
 * They would rather reign In hell than serve 
 In heaven, I suppose,' said Dick. * I say, I 
 think I see a carriage coming up the hill. If 
 it's any of your fine visitors, Ella, I'll clear 
 out ;' and he whistled to a large retriever that 
 lay tapping its tall In Idle content on the 
 veranda boards, and walked away.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE WARDENS. 
 
 The carriage to which Dick had called his 
 sister's attention, and which might be descried 
 toiling up the hill, was recognised as that of 
 the Wardens. It had the effect of scattering 
 the family in all directions. 
 
 Mamy ran away, and took refuge in the 
 cottage of an old pensioner of the family 
 called Mrs. Hunter. She had two motives 
 for hiding — one that there were holes in the 
 elbow of her blouse ; the other that Sydney 
 Warden, who had taken it into his head to 
 ask her to marry him, might repeat his offer, 
 and worldly-minded Eila would be vexed with 
 her if she said ' No ' a second time. 
 
 Eila meanwhile ran hither and thither, 
 
 [ 202 ]
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 203 
 
 putting things into place, and carrying on 
 her own toilette operations in an ambulant 
 fashion at the same time. She had already 
 seen that Mrs. Warden was accompanied by 
 her son and daughter. The former had 
 developed into the thickset, sturdy-looking 
 youth foreshadowed in the boy. There was 
 a suggestion of latent resistance in his whole 
 personality — even to his hair, which was 
 hopelessly straight and harsh. It stuck out 
 like a brush, and refused to lie smooth. The 
 Clares had long ago decided that Sydney 
 was exactly like his hair, though they were 
 fond of him in their own way. As for Eila, 
 the thought that this heir of thousands of 
 acres was perverse little Mamy's wooer set a 
 halo round his stubbly locks they had never 
 worn before. She ran down the veranda 
 steps to welcome the trio as they arrived, 
 and usher them to seats on the veranda. In 
 Lucy, who was two or three years older than 
 herself, she had a friend who belonged to the 
 girlish period of her life. While she herself 
 had been tossed about in the worst of life's 
 storms, Lucy had remained moored in the
 
 204 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 quiet home haven. She was a refined edition 
 of her brother in her outward appearance and 
 demeanour, taller and better formed than he. 
 Her mouse-coloured hair, guiltless of a fringe, 
 was turned smoothly back from her delicate 
 temples, surmounted by a gray straw hat 
 wreathed with crimson roses. The rustle of 
 her skirt, over which some soft gray material, 
 warmed by a skilful intermingling of Oriental 
 stripes, hung in such folds as only a Paris 
 dressmaker might be supposed capable of 
 arranging, sounded Imposingly as she walked 
 along. Though not five-and-twenty, she had 
 none of the irresistible attractiveness of youth. 
 One could almost imagine that she had looked 
 as a child, and that she might yet look as an 
 old woman, much as she did now ; that she 
 must keep through life the same unyouthful- 
 ness of complexion, the same neatly-turned 
 nose and mouth, the same clear gray eyes 
 and pencilled brows (these brows were Lucy's 
 one beauty), the same unchanging serenity of 
 expression. Loyal and honest that expression 
 denoted her to be. There are faces which, 
 for all their sweetness and softness, do not
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 205 
 
 inspire us with absolute confidence. We have 
 the feeling that perhaps if their owners were 
 subjected to the test proposed by the whim- 
 sical old gentleman to the lady who refused a 
 delicacy handed to her in public, ' But if you 
 were alone with it, madam ?' we should not 
 be entirely reassured as to the result. No 
 such misgiving occurred to those who studied 
 Lucy Warden's face. Her straightforward 
 eyes, that were not without a hint of hard- 
 ness in their direct glance, might have merited 
 the epithet 'true as steel.' Eila admired Lucy; 
 but she was conscious, though she could not 
 always have told why, of not being entirely 
 at ease in her presence. There was some- 
 thing in the expression of Lucy's eyes that 
 rendered her vaguely uncomfortable at times. 
 She had a secret notion that if her conduct 
 should fall short of Lucy's standard, the latter 
 would not make sufficient allowances for her. 
 Reginald would do so, and he was quite as 
 honourable in his way as Lucy. But that is 
 the difference between being judged by a 
 man and a woman, thought Eila — the one 
 takes account of the person and the circum-
 
 2o6 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Stances as well as the action ; the other just 
 approves or condemns the action by itself. 
 * I am glad that women don't sit on the 
 bench, after all,' she added mentally, ' though, 
 of course, I uphold their being doctors and 
 lawyers upon principle.' 
 
 The ostensible reason of Mrs. Warden's 
 visit was to find out from her dear young 
 friends whether there was any truth in the 
 report that they were going home. The real 
 reason was that, at a dinner at Government 
 House the preceding evening, she had heard 
 a Sydney judge and his wife speak with en- 
 thusiasm of the picturesque aspect of the 
 Cowa veranda, and refer to young Mrs. Frost 
 as a really charming person. This reminded 
 her that she had owed a call to the mother of 
 the charming person ever since the preceding 
 autumn. She had no compunction about 
 taking Sydney with her. From the time 
 that he had been a small and sulky-looking 
 school-boy, he had been given the liberty of 
 the Cowa demesne, where he felt himself, 
 indeed, far more at home than in the fashion- 
 able atmosphere in which he had been nur-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 207 
 
 tured. His mother took it for granted that 
 he was the friend of the Clare boys rather 
 than the girls. Even when he had reached 
 his twentieth year, no suspicion of the real 
 cause of his affection for Cowa crossed her 
 mind. 
 
 After all, the otherwise most dangerous 
 attraction to be found there was married and 
 harmless, and the rest of the inmates were all 
 children together. Even had Mrs. Warden 
 suspected her son of expending his calf-love 
 upon young Mrs. Frost, the thought would 
 not have been displeasing to her. She was 
 what is called a moral woman, and a strict 
 church-goer ; but she had a naive belief that 
 the only end for which other people existed 
 was to be useful to her and hers. It might 
 be as well that Sydney should have a safety- 
 valve of some kind pending the time when it 
 would be incumbent upon his mother to find 
 some nice, rich, well-connected, pious, and 
 otherwise eligible young woman for his wife. 
 In the meantime, it was only natural that he 
 should like to keep up his intimacy with 
 friends of his own age with whom he had
 
 2o8 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 been on rouorh-and-tumble terms almost as 
 long as he could remember. 
 
 ' It is really true, then, that you are going 
 home ?' asked Mrs. Warden, after she had 
 disposed herself ceremoniously on the chair 
 in the veranda that Truca had dragged from 
 one of the bedrooms when the carriage was 
 seen approaching. ' So nice, to be sure ! I 
 quite long to be going, too. I suppose we 
 shall have to make up our minds to it one 
 of these days. It is quite the thing to take 
 one's girls home to be presented now. But 
 Lucy doesn't seem to care about it — do you, 
 Lucy ?' 
 
 * I ? not at all !' said the young lady ad- 
 dressed, in a quiet, decided tone that matched 
 with her expression. 
 
 She had been fixing Eila with her stead- 
 fast eyes, not with any air of vulgar curiosity, 
 but with a kind of scrutinizing, interested 
 gaze that seemed to have some definite object 
 in view. Eila was glad when this intent 
 glance was diverted from her. 
 
 ' Mamy and I are not likely to have the 
 chance of refusing to go to Court,' she said,
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 209 
 
 laughing — she was not, however, entirely at 
 her ease, for Lucy's look and Mrs. Warden's 
 four guinea bonnet combined had a some- 
 what paralyzing effect — ' for that is the last 
 thing that is likely to befall us/ 
 
 * Oh, but you will be in time for the 
 London season !' said Mrs. Warden, with 
 half-implied reproach in her tones. ' I was 
 reading the list of presentations in the Lady 
 of last year, and there was a special mention 
 of the Australian continofent of belles.' 
 
 Ella smiled again, a little sadly this time. 
 
 * We shan't be able to afford much gaiety, I 
 think,' she said. 'We are going in a sailing 
 vessel, too ; so it may be any time before we 
 arrive. And, really, the great reason of our 
 going is to get proper lessons for Mamy and 
 Dick. Mother thinks Mamy's voice is worth 
 cultivating, and Dick wants to carry on his 
 art studies in Europe in earnest.' 
 
 ' His art studies !' echoed Mrs. Warden, 
 with feigned interest ; * you don't say so ! 
 We have friends who went to Paris last year 
 to take lessons in painting, too. Fancy going 
 to Paris for nothing but that ! The Miss 
 
 VOL. I. 14
 
 2IO NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Flyte-Smythes. Lucy had a letter from the 
 eldest the other day. It seems they copy 
 from living models undressed — undraped, I 
 think they call it. It sounds quite shocking, 
 you know. Still, it seems to be the thing at 
 home, and Mr. and Mrs. Flyte-Smythe are 
 most particular people — very highly con- 
 nected, too, in London, I am told ; so I 
 suppose there is nothing to say.' 
 
 ' Have they exhibited, do you know ?' said 
 Eila, feeling something was expected of her. 
 
 The ethics of art was a subject that she 
 did not see her way to discussing with Mrs. 
 Warden and her son and daughter, though 
 it was just the kind that the family debating 
 society would have loved to handle. 
 
 ' I believe they have, and they work as 
 hard as though they had to make their living 
 by it ; that is the most extraordinary part 
 of it.' 
 
 Mrs. Warden sighed, as though in regret 
 at the aberration of her friends, and Sydney 
 broke in with a husky-voiced inquiry respect- 
 ing the whereabouts of the others. 
 
 * I'm not sure that my mother and Dick
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 211 
 
 are at home,' said Ella — she had reasons for 
 believing that they had shut themselves up 
 in one of the back-rooms ; ' but Mamy should 
 be somewhere about ; she ran over to old 
 Mrs. Hunter s a few minutes ago.' 
 
 Sydney involuntarily turned his head In the 
 direction of the cottage, and Lucy said In her 
 staid voice : 
 
 ' Old Mrs. Hunter is your sister's protegee, 
 isn't she ? Doesn't she go and read to her 
 sometimes ?' 
 
 ' Not often,' said Ella. A transient gleam 
 of mirth, promptly repressed, flashed from her 
 soft dark eyes. * I am afraid she thinks it 
 Is better fun to hear her talk. We did try 
 the plan of reading her a story once, but she 
 was so disgusted when she heard It was all a 
 make-up we never tried it again. She said 
 If that was all people got their letters for 
 they'd better leave it alone. There were lies 
 enough In the world without looking for 'em 
 in a book.' 
 
 Lucy laughed. 
 
 * She is quite a character, isn't she ? What 
 will she do when you are all gone away, I
 
 212 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 wonder ? By-the-by, what vessel are you 
 going in ?' 
 
 ' The Queen of the South ; and Eila nodded 
 with an air of proprietorship towards the 
 barque lying a little way down the w^harf in 
 the far distance, with bare masts reflected 
 in the glassy harbour. 
 
 ' The Queen of the South /' echoed Lucy in 
 dismayed tones ; ' that will be making a long- 
 journey of it. I suppose it will take twice as 
 long as going by the mail ?' 
 
 'Three times, I dare say,' said Eila com- 
 placently ; ' but what does that matter when 
 one has plenty of time to lose ? You see, the 
 passage does not cost half so much as by the 
 mail, and then we shall be well found all the 
 time, as the first mate was careful to remind 
 us when we were looking over the vessel the 
 other day.' 
 
 Lucy said nothing ; she was a little puzzled 
 by Eila's manner, and rather inclined to 
 wonder at the ambition that could prompt 
 her friends to desire to see the world when 
 it could only be accomplished under such 
 uncomfortable conditions as these. Sydney
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 213 
 
 was fidgeting about, obviously anxious to be 
 on the move. His secret gratitude to Eila 
 was unbounded when she said suddenly : 
 
 * I wish you would call Mamy from old 
 Mrs. Hunter's, if you don't mind the trouble, 
 Sydney. She would be sorry to miss seeing 
 Lucy and wishing her good-bye.' 
 
 Sydney started up with alacrity, knocking 
 down a flower-stand in his haste. Before he 
 had picked it up Lucy was on her feet as 
 well. 
 
 ' I want to go too,' she said. ' I have 
 been neglecting old Mrs. Hunter dreadfully 
 lately. Come along, Eila, and leave mamma 
 to admire the view by herself 
 
 Eila protested, but Mrs. Warden added 
 her persuasions to her daughter's. There 
 was nothing in the world she would prefer, 
 she declared, to a quiet rest in this most 
 charming spot, while the young people went 
 upon their errand of charity. She even pre- 
 tended to drive Eila playfully away with her 
 thickly-broidered gold and mauve parasol. 
 After this there was nothing for it but to 
 yield, and the trio set off, Eila walking hat-
 
 214 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 less between the brother and sister on their 
 way to the old woman's cottage. 
 
 Mrs. Hunter's abode was situated in a 
 spot that a monarch, or, rather, an artist, 
 might have coveted for his inhabiting. 
 Across the rugged descending slopes and 
 the intervening clusters of buildings the 
 winding waters of the Derwent lay broad 
 and sparkling like a sapphire shield under 
 the afternoon sun. Seen from this height, 
 the river looked like a broad-bosomed lake, 
 set round with royal mountains. To the 
 right lay the gentle slopes of Mount Nelson, 
 whose long descending sides were broken in 
 places by some high -perched homestead, 
 some patch of green civilization in the midst 
 of the darker vegetation around. To the 
 left Mount Direction reared its craggy steeps 
 skyward, and billowy hills, clothed with 
 sombre scrub, rolled away to the horizon ; 
 while almost behind the cottage, though 
 plainly visible from it, the frowning mass of 
 mighty Mount Wellington loomed dark and 
 distinct against the shining sky. With a 
 sanatorium of Nature's own makinor to live
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 215 
 
 in, and the liberal dole that she received 
 from public and private sources to subsist 
 upon, old Mrs. Hunter's latter end was 
 better than her first. Eila hurried on, osten- 
 sibly to prepare her for the visit, though in 
 reality to see that Mamy did not attempt to 
 make her escape by the back-door. The 
 dwelling consisted of a single room, which 
 was scrupulously clean. Mrs. Hunter, it 
 was well known, was what another euphonious 
 colonial term calls an 'old hand,' and she 
 maintained the orderly habits she had ac- 
 quired at the expense of the State. The 
 narrow bed in the corner was covered by 
 a clean patchwork quilt. There was even 
 an attempt at decoration in the arrange- 
 ment of some large shells that flanked the 
 tin basin and bit of cracked looking-glass 
 on the shelf. There were woodcuts from 
 old periodicals pinned against the wall. As 
 Eila approached the cottage, she heard the 
 cracked voice of the old woman recounting 
 in tremulous tones the exploits and short- 
 comings of her fowls. 
 
 ' An' Mrs. Morris, if you'll believe me,
 
 2i6 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 dear, 'as been an' het 'er own heggs ; an' if 
 your ma '11 buy 'er hoff me, she shall ave 'er 
 cheap ; an' Oh, mercy, Lard, me back !' 
 
 The sudden ejaculation and the contortion 
 that accompanied it were caused by the un- 
 expected appearance of Eila's black merino 
 skirt at the open door. 
 
 ' It's only me,' said the owner of the skirt, 
 laughing and holding out her firm smooth 
 hand, which the old woman seized in her 
 skinny brown claw, and mumbled at effu- 
 sively, 'so don't throw away your effect, 
 Mrs. Hunter ; keep it for Miss Warden, who 
 will be here in another minute.' 
 
 ' The Wardens are not cominsr here !' ex- 
 claimed Mamy in dismay. * Give me the 
 back-door key, Mrs. Hunter, quick !' 
 
 * No, don't, Mrs. Hunter; she's not to 
 have it !' cried her sister, seizing her by the 
 waist, while Mamy struggled to escape. 
 
 Finding her efforts in vain, she broke from 
 her captor with a sudden quick movement, 
 and with the words, * Then they shall see me 
 as I am, and I don't care,' flung forward to 
 the encounter of the enemy.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 217 
 
 ' As I am ' did not signify that Mamy was 
 in the habit of resorting to artifices when 
 called upon to appear before visitors. It 
 meant simply that she had on a pair of 
 kangaroo leather boots past redemption, that 
 her blouse was fruit-stained, and her hair 
 what girls call anyhow. In this attire she 
 ran defiantly down the hill towards Lucy 
 Warden and her brother, who were following 
 upon Eila's footsteps. To walk down a de- 
 clivity of any kind would never have entered 
 the head of any member of the Clare family, 
 who were accustomed to run ' full tilt ' down 
 the rubbly descending path, steep and un- 
 even as the bed of a mountain torrent, that 
 led to the road below, with feet that seemed 
 to fly, as though they had been winged like 
 Mercury's. 
 
 A certain eagerness was apparent in 
 Sydney's manner as this tumbled apparition 
 came rushing forward, but Mamy included 
 him in a general ' How d'ye do .^' addressed 
 to his sister and himself, and avoided looking 
 at him as she turned back to walk towards 
 Mrs. Hunter's cottage between the two.
 
 2i8 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' We needn't hurry/ she said. ' Mrs. 
 Hunter wants you to surprise her in her best 
 cap, Miss Warden.' 
 
 ' How is the poor old lady to-day T asked 
 Lucy ; then, with an air of gentle patronage, 
 
 * You were sitting with her, dear, were you 
 not ? It is very good of you.' 
 
 It was observable that she called Mamy 
 
 * dear,' whereas the latter addressed her 
 friend by the ceremonious title of ' Miss 
 Warden.' Seven or eight years of difference 
 in age, and such a difference in worldly 
 advantages as may be measured by the influ- 
 ence of an income of a few hundreds and an 
 income of several thousands on their daily 
 lives, seemed to have created an impalpable 
 barrier between them. Lucy, it is true, 
 would have destroyed it, had she been 
 allowed. She never saw Mamy — though 
 she saw her but rarely — without saying, ' I 
 wish you would call me plain Lucy '; but the 
 younger girl had never felt prompted to 
 follow her bidding. The Wardens lived 
 much in Melbourne, as well as at their 
 country estate — a real manorial demesne, no
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 219 
 
 mere Bush home — In Tasmania ; and when 
 they occupied their house in Hobart, they 
 did so after the fashion of rich people with 
 liveried servants to do their bidding, and 
 horses and carriages that drove them pom- 
 pously through the quiet Hobart streets. 
 Sydney Warden had been an intermittent 
 visitor at Cowa for years past. The Clares, 
 with the exception of Ella, dissociated him 
 in their minds from his own people, and had 
 come to look upon him almost as one of 
 themselves from the first afternoon several 
 years ago, when Willie had brought him to 
 Cowa on a Saturday half-holiday. Mamy 
 had been a turbulent little girl in those days, 
 and Sydney's early and unromantic recol- 
 lection of her was in the act of hurling a raw 
 potato at him in defence of her brother 
 Dick, who was getting the worst of it in a 
 struggle with him. How he continued to 
 come every holiday until after a lapse of 
 nearly eighteen months, which he had spent 
 in Victoria, he returned to find his little 
 potato -thrower grown into a bewitching 
 young girl, need not be told here. He was
 
 220 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 certain now that he must have been in love 
 with Mamy from the beginning, and that he 
 had been only waiting until she could under- 
 stand him to tell her so. His feeling had 
 been so strong that he never dreamed it 
 could be unshared ; and the blow that had 
 been inflicted when Mamy declared she could 
 not and would not marry him had been such 
 that even now he was inclined to doubt the 
 reality of her words. He had eagerly 
 accepted his sister's proposal to call at Cowa 
 the day after his repulse, about which he had 
 said nothing to his family, as, indeed, he had 
 said nothing regarding the nature of his 
 sentiment for Mamy. Perhaps he had a 
 secret misgiving as to the manner in which 
 his announcement would be received. Per- 
 haps he felt it would be wise to make sure of 
 Mamy's consent in the first instance. More- 
 over, it is such an accepted thing among 
 colonial youths, be they rich as Croesus or 
 poor as Diogenes, that they have only their 
 own inclination to consult in the choice of a 
 wife, that to invite a preliminary discussion 
 on the subject in the family circle would have
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 221 
 
 seemed to Sydney a superfluous, not to say 
 an indelicate, proceeding. 
 
 He could not refrain, however, from cast- 
 ing an appealing glance at the object of his 
 passion, as he entered the cottage by her side 
 in Lucy's wake. But Mamy resolutely ignored 
 it. Her attention was taken up by watching 
 the comedy of Mrs. Hunter's reception of her 
 grand visitors. The old woman's expression 
 as she received the tract and the half-pound 
 of tea that Lucy silently deposited on the table 
 by her side was a thing to be treasured up. 
 The feigned deprecation and the covert 
 mockery betrayed in the twinkle of the 
 monkey-like eyes formed a combination as 
 comic as it was diabolic. 
 
 Lucy, for her part, would never have 
 dreamed of interpreting an expression in this 
 light. When she was in Hobart she did not 
 fail to take her due share of parish work, and 
 to fulfil the same zealously and conscientiously. 
 To analyze the particular point of view whence 
 her recipients regarded her bounty did not 
 come within her province. Old Mrs. Hunter 
 had no more individuality for Lucy than any
 
 222 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Other old woman In the parish to whom it 
 was fitting to present tracts and tea. She 
 was naively and sincerely convinced that she 
 was the best judge of what was suited to the 
 spiritual as well as to the corporeal needs of 
 those she benefited. She applied it accord- 
 ingly, a little austerely, perhaps, as she was 
 wont to perform all her other duties in that 
 state of life into which, as she would have 
 said herself. It had pleased God to call her. 
 
 When the tea and the tract had been 
 bobblngly acknowledged, Lucy proceeded to 
 make inquiries after old Mrs. Hunter's health. 
 Though the words were kind and the glance 
 that accompanied them well -meaning and 
 benevolent, there was an unconscious stiffen- 
 ing in Miss Warden's entire person as she 
 entered into conversation with the old repro- 
 bate that seemed to give quite a different 
 signification to her utterance from that of any 
 member of the Clare family. The difference 
 was subtle ; it was of a kind to be felt rather 
 than described. Yet it seemed to Invest the 
 visit with a formality it had not worn before, 
 and made Eila feel vaguely uncomfortable on
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 223 
 
 old Mrs. Hunter's behalf. She tried to create 
 a diversion by drawing out the latter upon 
 the ever-fertile subject of the delinquencies 
 of her fowls, and even Lucy was obliged to 
 laugh when she heard of the damage wrought 
 by Master 'Enery's beak upon Miss Hemily's 
 tail. The party stood awkwardly silent for 
 a moment, until Eila said in cordial society 
 accents : 
 
 ' Now we will leave Mrs. Hunter to disci- 
 pline her fowls, and go back to tea at Cowa. 
 I'm afraid your mamma has had no one but 
 Truca to entertain her all this time.' 
 
 ' I'm sure Truca's quite equal to the task,' 
 said Lucy, with conventional politeness ; ' but 
 if you must go now, I think I will stop behind 
 a little if you don't mind. You see, it is a 
 long time since I last read to Mrs. Hunter, 
 and she can't complain that what / read to 
 her isn't true, at any rate.' 
 
 Perhaps there was the faintest hint of an 
 implied rebuke in Lucy's tones as she said 
 these words, glancing down meanwhile at a 
 little volume she had drawn from her pocket 
 while speaking. Eila perceived that it was
 
 224 ^OT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 a daintily-bound Testament, with a gilt cross 
 stamped on the black cover. She knew that 
 Lucy had strong High Church sympathies, 
 and looked doubtfully across at old Mrs. 
 Hunter, who was standing with an air of 
 exaggerated and devoutly expectant humility 
 that boded no good result from the reading 
 to which Lucy was about to subject her. 
 
 ' I wish you would come, all the same, 
 Lucy,' urged Eila weakly; 'you might go 
 back to Mrs. Hunter afterwards, you know.' 
 
 * Afterwards !' echoed Lucy. ' Why, it s 
 late already ; there wouldn't be time, indeed.' 
 The small sacrifice of the tea, which she felt 
 to be a sacrifice nevertheless, was an addi- 
 tional inducement to remain. The others 
 prepared to go, and Lucy followed them, to 
 say demurely at the door, ' You will tell 
 mamma I will join her at the bottom of the 
 hill, please,' when another shadow darkened 
 the entrance, and her voice suddenly faltered 
 and stopped. 
 
 I think she had divined whose figure this 
 shadow represented even before she lifted 
 her eyes towards it. The figure was tall,
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 225 
 
 square, and manly ; the eyes were blue, and 
 also had a manly, trust-inspiring expression, 
 though just now there was a hint of some- 
 thing anxious and expectant in them, too. 
 That Lucy Warden had divined that this un- 
 expected presence was that of Reginald Acton 
 would not have been doubted by anyone who 
 had known the secret of Lucy's heart. Did 
 she not, indeed, carry the influence of this very 
 presence in her waking thoughts and her 
 nightly dreams, when she would fain have 
 been fixing them upon things above ? and of 
 what other earthly presence could the same 
 have been said ? It is true that she had 
 never exchanged long conversations with 
 Reginald at any time ; and yet she believed, 
 and perhaps she was not very far out in her 
 belief, that she knew him as he really was. 
 It is a fact that when people are entirely 
 themselves — that is to say, when they are 
 simple and natural in all the relations of life, 
 a thing which is falsely supposed to be only 
 possible when there is nothing to hide — we 
 may be supposed to know them, as far as 
 one human being can know another from 
 VOL. I. 15
 
 226 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 the first moment of their meeting. Lucy 
 thought that Reginald liked talking to her. 
 His eyes were so kind and his manner so 
 cordial and interested ; and Heaven, or Lucy 
 herself, only knew how much she liked talk- 
 ing to him ! Maidenly reticence seemed to 
 Lucy at this time one of the saddest attributes 
 that it is incumbent upon self-respecting young 
 women to possess. For all she knew to the 
 contrary, Reginald was heart -free. There 
 was no reason against his making her his 
 wife if he had known what a lifelong, heart- 
 felt, body-and-soul devotion she was prepared 
 to bestow upon him. But how was he to 
 divine her sentiment, and, failing his divina- 
 tion of it, who was to inform him of it ? 
 Reginald was poor. Lucy was looked upon 
 as an heiress. She was well aware that there 
 were men who would marry her for her money 
 to-morrow, but Reginald was not of this kind. 
 Her fortune, that constituted such a powerful 
 attraction in the eyes of others, was, as she 
 believed, an obstacle in his. It would pre- 
 clude, perhaps, the very first idea of paying 
 his addresses to her from his mind. And
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 227 
 
 there was no one whom she could take into 
 her confidence. Her mother least of all, for 
 Lucy well knew that it was Mrs. Warden's 
 ambition that she should marry ' an English 
 title.' The rest mattered little. Only the 
 title was a sine qua non. There had been 
 times when Lucy had entertained wild ideas 
 of sending Reginald an anonymous letter — 
 ideas that were discarded as soon as they 
 arose with a blush of burning shame, for her 
 sense told her that the real author of such an 
 epistle would be instantly divined. It seemed 
 so hard that the thing which was called ' filthy 
 lucre ' should create a barrier between herself 
 and him. When she saw him unexpectedly, 
 as to-day, not having met him for what seemed 
 like a very long time, a nervous tremor passed 
 over her usually impassive face. She was too 
 taken up with her own emotions to notice that 
 Eila was almost as agitated as herself. To 
 tell the truth, the scene of the preceding 
 evening was still very vivid in young Mrs. 
 Frost's memory. If Lucy had known ! Nay, 
 if anyone had known ! If those present could 
 have imagined that not twenty-four hours ago
 
 228 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 Reginald's arms had held her encircled in 
 their passionate embrace ! What would they 
 have said ? What would they have thought ? 
 How would they have looked at her then ? 
 
 It was Reginald, however, who set all the 
 company at ease now. Eila could not but 
 admire his serenely usual manner. One swift 
 glance of intense feeling, of brother-like, 
 lover-like solicitude and reassurance, directed 
 for one instant at her troubled countenance, 
 and then he was addressing the party col- 
 lectively in the pleasant, deliberate male voice 
 that matched so well with his face. 
 
 ' What is the palaver about, Mrs. Hunter?' 
 he asked, turning to the old woman with his 
 hand extended, after he had shaken hands 
 with the rest. ' Were you telling Miss Warden 
 that Mrs. Morris had the pip i^' 
 
 ' The Lard forbid, sir !' ejaculated Mrs. 
 Hunter piously, ' though she ain't long for 
 this world, anyhow ! I was tellin' the com- 
 pany 'ere assembled as 'ow she'd been an' het 
 'er own hegg, and into the pot she goes if I 
 don't find a charitable lady as '11 buy 'er hoff 
 me 'fore the end o' the week.'
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 229 
 
 She looked with a meaning blink of the 
 monkey orbs towards Lucy, but Lucy's lips 
 were severely closed, and Eila said laughingly: 
 
 ' Mrs. Hunter won't keep any fowls whose 
 morals are at all questionable — will you, Mrs. 
 Hunter ?' 
 
 ' Ah, them fowls knows when they're break- 
 in' the laws, same as if they was Christians,' 
 declared the old woman, bustling about to 
 find seats for the party. 
 
 Old Mrs. Hunter possessed the savoir vivre 
 that belongs to a wicked past. Some people 
 might have appeared at a disadvantage under 
 the contingency of providing seats for five 
 visitors where, strictly speaking, there was 
 only accommodation for two. Not so this 
 ancient inmate of Hobart Gaol. She waved 
 Reginald to a seat on the edge of her patch- 
 work-covered bed in the corner, and Sydney 
 to another on a reversed wash-tub, while she 
 offered the two wooden chairs to the young 
 ladies as though she had been a Du Maurier 
 duchess receiving her latest lions at an after- 
 noon crush. Mamy was already sitting upon 
 the table, and was therefore provided for.
 
 230 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 There was a little friendly talk, during which 
 Lucy's Testament was somehow slipped back 
 into her pocket, seeing which Eila said per- 
 suasively : 
 
 * Do let me induce you to come back with 
 us, Lucy, for we really must go now. Truca 
 will be in despair if we let the tea get cold. 
 She has had all the responsibility of getting 
 it ready for us.' 
 
 * I don't deserve any tea,' said Miss Warden 
 hesitatingly ; in her heart she felt that the 
 temptation to return now Reginald was of 
 the party was too powerful to be resisted. * I 
 said I wouldn't have any a minute ago.' 
 
 ' Never mind ; you can retract. I won't 
 behave like Mrs. Fry,' said Eila, laughing. 
 
 ' What did Mrs. Fry do ?' asked Reginald, 
 looking at her with eyes whence he essayed 
 to withhold the love-light that illumined them. 
 
 ' What she did ?' Eila spoke hurriedly ; it 
 was evident that she was nervous. * Oh, it 
 is just a silly little story I read in a goody- 
 goody book once. Mrs. Fry asked a little 
 girl to have a piece of cake, and the little girl 
 refused. I suppose she was shy, poor little
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 231 
 
 thing. But next time she was asked she had 
 grown braver, so she said, " Yes, please." 
 *' Nay, then, thee shalt not have it now," Mrs. 
 Fry said, " for thou hast told a lie in the first 
 instance." Wasn't she a horrid old thing ?' 
 
 * I should have told her she was telling a lie 
 too,' said Reginald quietly, ' if she had offered 
 me the cake without meaning me to have it.' 
 
 Lucy listened to this conversation with a 
 grave expression of countenance. If it had 
 been anyone but Reginald, she was not sure 
 that she would have approved of the comment 
 made on the story of Mrs. Fry. And now 
 the party trooped to the wide-open door with 
 repeated good-byes to Mrs. Hunter. 
 
 Innumerable were the wrinkles in the old 
 woman's mummified face as she responded to 
 their farewell greeting, with an occasional 
 well- contrived contortion of her whole body 
 as a reminder of the existence of her rheuma- 
 tics. More monkey-like than ever the closing 
 of her dried-up and shrivelled brown fingers 
 upon the separate shillings that Reginald and 
 Sydney dropped into her parchment palm at 
 parting.
 
 232 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' Ah, me dears !' she cried, in forlorn, worn- 
 out trembling tones, loud enough, however, 
 for them to hear her as they went troop- 
 ing away, ' I wish ye all long life and appi- 
 ness, an' rich 'usbands an' wives ; and ye 
 won't 'ave far to look for 'em neither, I'm 
 thinkin' ; you mark an old woman's words.' 
 
 It was a short downward walk or run to 
 Cowa, but short as it was, Sydney contrived 
 to make Mamy loiter behind with him for a 
 short space. The absence of all beard and 
 moustache might have further accentuated his 
 unmistakably boyish aspect, had it not been 
 for a certain air of dogged resolve which gave 
 premature maturity to his face. A person 
 seeing the torso only would have concluded 
 that it belonged to a tall man. The short- 
 ness, however, of Sydney's legs laid him open 
 to the uncomplimentary charge of stumpiness. 
 
 He had the same honest eyes as Lucy's, 
 but just now they wore a somewhat bewildered 
 air. Mamy walked, not too willingly, by his 
 side. With her bare head, over which the 
 tumbled shiny hair lay guiltless of parting, 
 like a boy's, and her collarless, fruit-stained
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 233 
 
 blouse, she was in anything but courting trim. 
 The incongruity of her attire disconcerted 
 her. It is a well-known fact that our moods 
 are largely influenced by the clothes we wear. 
 Mamy felt that it would have been easier to 
 repulse Sydney with dignity had she been 
 dressed in a silk gown, with a train like 
 Lucy's. 
 
 * Did you tell your sister about what I asked 
 you yesterday ?' inquired Sydney at last, in 
 dejected tones. 
 
 * Yes,' said Mamy shortly. 
 
 * And what did she say ?' 
 
 * Said I was a fool,' was the prompt 
 reply. 
 
 * Did she ? Oh, Mamy, does that mean 
 you might come round after all ?' he cried, for 
 the admission seemed to imply that Mamy 
 had possibly reconsidered her decision. ' You 
 know I wouldn't mind waiting any time.' 
 
 ' What's the use of waiting ?' put in Mamy 
 disconsolately. * I know quite well I shall 
 never change.' 
 
 * But how can you tell ?' he urged. ' You 
 don't hate me so much, do you, Mamy ?'
 
 234 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 * Hate you ? Don't be so silly ! You know 
 quite well I like you tremendously.' 
 
 ' Then, if that's so, why couldn't you like 
 me just a little more ?' Sydney's ordinary 
 unmodulated, matter-of-fact voice was trem- 
 bling now with eagerness. ' I'm not asking 
 you to be in love with me if you can't feel 
 like it. Only let me be your husband, and 
 I'll take my chance of the rest.' 
 
 * Let you be my husband ?' repeated Mamy 
 slowly, with a curious look in her childish 
 eyes. ' Do you know, Sydney, I really think 
 I'm older than you in some ways, after all. 
 Can't you understand that it is just because I 
 like you, and don't love you, that it would be 
 impossible — altogether impossible — to marry 
 you ! Why, I could not do you such a wrong.' 
 
 * How could it be a wrong,' urged Sydney 
 moodily, 'when I'm willing to take the chance? 
 I told you yesterday I was ready to run the 
 risk, and I'll stick to what I said. Look here, 
 Mamy, don't bother your head about liking 
 me a lot or liking me a little. Just give me 
 what you can, and let me make the best of it.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 235 
 
 I can't settle to anything as long as you keep 
 trying to choke me off as you do. People 
 might think I was young to know my own 
 mind, but I'm over twenty-one — going on 
 for twenty-two — and I've made up my mind 
 longer than you think ; I've always had 
 you in my thoughts one way and another. 
 You were a little kid, Mamy, the first time I 
 saw you. You remember that day you shied 
 the potato at my head, only I dodged it. 
 Well, I've always felt the same about you 
 ever since that day. I've always admired 
 you, I can't say how much. You've got no 
 nonsense about you like other girls. Besides 
 — I don't know what's the reason — I only 
 know I can't care for other girls. I can't 
 care for anybody but you.' 
 
 * Well, what can I do ?' cried Mamy 
 desperately ; ' it isn't my fault !' 
 
 * I don't say it is,' replied Sydney humbly; 
 ' but you might have a little pity for a fellow, 
 anyhow. I can never feel any other way ; 
 I'm sure of that. Look here ; I came up 
 to-day on purpose to ask you something, 
 Mamy, if I got the chance. I'm not going
 
 236 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 to worry you, I promise you. I don't want 
 you to bind yourself. Besides, I know you 
 wouldn't, so it would be no use asking you ; 
 but if I choose to be bound myself, you can't 
 stop me — can you ? Now, I'm going to bind 
 myself to you for five years, whatever happens. 
 I'm going to swear it to you, so help me, 
 God ! and may I be burned up in hell if I 
 don't keep my word !' 
 
 ' Stop, you wicked boy !' cried Mamy, 
 round-eyed with horror, and putting a finger 
 into each ear. ' I won't listen to another 
 word.' 
 
 ' Burned up in hell !' repeated Sydney with 
 gusto, pulling her hands with gentle force 
 from her head ; they had been upon brotherly 
 and sisterly terms almost as long as she could 
 remember. ' I bind myself for five years, 
 and I shall wait to see if you won't give me 
 a hearing at the end of them. I shall con- 
 sider myself engaged just the same as if you 
 had said " Yes," you know.' 
 
 * And what if I were to go and get married ?* 
 said Mamy defiantly. 
 
 ' Well, it would be off" then. But you
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 237 
 
 won't ?' he pleaded. ' You might say you 
 would be bound for a year, at least.' 
 
 ' What ! for a year only ? With pleasure/ 
 replied Mamy, in mock society accents. 
 
 ' Well, give me your hand upon it here 
 behind the haystack,' he cried eagerly, as 
 they passed through the paddock towards the 
 side-entrance to the homestead. ' No, give 
 me a kiss upon it, Mamy ; you never kiss 
 me now, darling.' 
 
 ' What's the use ?' 
 
 She extended her cheek to him ; but, 
 breaking away the second after, she ran at 
 all her speed away from him to the house. 
 She was full of elation at the satisfactory 
 hiatus in her courtship. The compromise 
 proposed by Sydney was all to her advantage. 
 Eila would not scold or lecture her any more 
 now ; for Sydney was still to be had for the 
 asking, and she herself was free as the air 
 of heaven. Then five years, as everybody 
 knows, are an immense lapse of time. What 
 might not happen in five years ? There was 
 space for all the family to die, or for Sydney 
 to change a hundred times over. Her face
 
 238 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 wore a triumphant expression as she joined 
 the rest of the party on the veranda. Eila 
 tried to keep the anxious query from her 
 eyes that was present in her mind as the pair 
 approached. But Sydney did not wear the 
 aspect of a crest-fallen lover, though there 
 was a look of wicked triumph in Mamy's 
 face that boded no good from her sister's 
 point of view.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LUCY MAKES A CONFESSION. 
 
 The conversation had turned upon the all- 
 absorbing theme of the approaching journey. 
 Reginald, leaning against the veranda balus- 
 trade, was talking to Mrs. Warden, allowing 
 his glance to wander, nevertheless, towards 
 the two girls (Eila appeared more like a girl 
 than Lucy), who sat in close proximity under 
 the decorative tendrils of passion-vine and 
 convolvulus. Lucy's demure face wore an 
 expression of sedate bliss in presence of the 
 man to whom her heart had gone out unasked. 
 Eila was secretly enjoying the curious sense 
 of conscious power and elation that Reginald's 
 avowal had conferred upon her. Mrs. Warden 
 had been so far struck by it as to observe 
 [ 239 ]
 
 240 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 how well she was looking. It was an ordinary 
 formality with strangers to remark of young 
 Mrs. Frost every time they saw her that she 
 was looking well. Perhaps their real impres- 
 sions would have been more truly rendered 
 by the use of the word ' handsome ' ; but 
 handsomeness, as we all know, is largely 
 dependent upon health, and in Eila the two 
 seemed to be inseparably bound up together. 
 At the time of her great grief, when she had 
 returned heart -stricken to her childhood's 
 home, her rich bloom of colouring had aban- 
 doned her for a while, and no one would 
 have divined how handsome she could look 
 upon occasion. It is not the mere colour of 
 the skin that is dependent upon health for its 
 charm ; the sparkle of the eye, the lustre of 
 the hair, the polished whiteness of the teeth 
 (as every quack advertisement tells us), rest 
 upon it as well. And besides the possession 
 of redundant health, Eila was going at this 
 time through an experience that seemed to 
 stimulate all the secret fibres of her being. 
 Reginald's vow of undying, unselfish love 
 and devotion lay warm and ever-present at
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 241 
 
 her heart. There need be no alloy of self- 
 reproach or consideration of wrong done to 
 another in her secret. She was robbing no 
 other woman of a love that should have been 
 hers, and in the gratitude and affection she 
 felt for Reginald there was no consciousness 
 of treason. There are women who can detect 
 when one of their sex is under the influence 
 of a sentiment of this kind, by a certain in- 
 describable radiance in her manner, as of one 
 who has found an unexpected treasure. Lucy 
 wondered at Eila's transfigured aspect for the 
 second time to-day. She was of those who 
 held the theory that all the Clare family were 
 peculiar, and certainly it was strange that 
 anyone placed in the circumstances in which 
 young Mrs. Frost found herself should con- 
 tinue to wear so dibo7inaire and joyous an air. 
 
 Lucy, meanwhile, was nursing a daring 
 project in her mind on Reginald's behalf — a 
 project that she would have shrunk from with 
 dismay had anyone else proposed it to her, 
 but that she had begun to regard as actually 
 feasible by dint of harbouring it in her secret 
 imagination. Fancies that we cherish in this 
 
 VOL. I. 16
 
 242 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 way are apt to gain, In the long-run, an in- 
 sidious Influence over our better judgments. 
 Familiarity breeds contempt In behalf of Ideas 
 as well as of situations, and many of the 
 crimes known judicially as crimes of pre- 
 meditation are the outcome, we may be sure, 
 of Ideas that the perpetrators have shrunk 
 from, in the first instance, as from a kind of 
 ghastly joke. To Lucy it would have ap- 
 peared at one time a matter of the most 
 monstrous Improbability that she should ever 
 deliberately take the first step towards estab- 
 lishing closer and warmer relations with a 
 man who had not even avowed his preference 
 for her. But the thin end of the wedge had 
 been suffered to insert itself when the idea 
 had first entered her mind. 
 
 ' Oh, if only what we were told as children 
 could be true, and there were really and truly 
 a little bird that flew about telling secrets, 
 and that could whisper Into Mr. Acton's ear 
 that I would joyfully accept him for a husband! 
 It Is so dreadful to think that our two lives 
 miorht be ruined for want of a word In season. 
 Perhaps he only keeps out of my way now for
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 243 
 
 the reason that I am supposed to be an heiress, 
 and that he Is so poor and so proud himself.' 
 Between allowing our imaginations to run 
 upon the impalpable little bird of our childish 
 days, and contriving to materialize such a 
 bird when its services are needed, there is 
 but a short step. Lucy set herself to con- 
 sider whether there was no one among her 
 friends who might be trusted to play the part 
 of the little bird confidentially and discreetly ; 
 and when she had reached this point, not 
 without a pitiful sense of helplessness and 
 shame — for the natural Instinct that would 
 prompt women to select their own mates Is 
 one they are taught to shrink from with 
 horror under our actual social system — it w^as 
 but natural that Ella's name should suggest 
 Itself as that of the bird or the friend In need. 
 Was not the friendship that existed between 
 Mr. Acton and young Mrs. Frost the common 
 talk of Hobart ? Was It not a friendship open 
 as the day, and strong in Its own blameless- 
 ness ? Who could be better fitted to give 
 Reginald disinterested and sisterly advice, 
 such as the little bird would have given had
 
 244 ^'OT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 its services been available, than Eila? No 
 
 stronger proof of the utter guilelessness of 
 
 Lucy's nature could be afforded than her 
 
 entire faith in Eila's willingness to play the 
 
 part she designed for her. That friendship 
 
 for such a woman as young Mrs. Frost might 
 
 render it difficult for a man to bestow his love 
 
 in another quarter, or, in other words, that 
 
 a man who was Eila's accredited friend might 
 
 not be available as another woman's lover, was 
 
 a contingency that it never entered Lucy's 
 
 mind to contemplate. For her there was no 
 
 tampering with the sixth, seventh, or eighth 
 
 commandments, an infringement of any of 
 
 which three seemed to her to bear equal 
 
 proportions of dreadfulness. She would not 
 
 even have suspected Reginald of breaking 
 
 the second clause of the last commandment 
 
 of all, and never doubted that Eila's heart, 
 
 like that of any self-respecting wife under a 
 
 similar affliction, was dutifully imprisoned in 
 
 the asylum where her lunatic husband hurled 
 
 Scriptural blasphemies at all who came within 
 
 his reach. Before the Clares should take 
 
 their departure, Lucy intended to bring her
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 245 
 
 courage to the point of delicately sounding 
 Eila on the subject of Reginald's persistent 
 state of bachelorhood, and perhaps of making 
 her understand, at the same time, the main 
 points of the communication that the afore- 
 said little bird would have whispered into the 
 ear of Reginald himself. 
 
 The latter, meanwhile, was far from divining 
 the plans that were being laid for his regene- 
 ration. He had been thinking with profound 
 sadness of the coming separation, while Eila 
 pointed out with triumph to Lucy the posi- 
 tion of the Qtceen of the South, lying against 
 the wharf in the glassy harbour, with her 
 bare masts tapering skywards, stately and 
 slender in the luminous atmosphere. Regi- 
 nald did not follow Eila's explanations in the 
 matter. His back was turned towards the 
 vessel. He hated the Queen, and everything 
 connected with her. I doubt, indeed, whether 
 the spectacle of the Flying Dutchman enter- 
 ing the bay with phantom sails set, and a 
 skeleton helmsman directing her course, could 
 have struck a greater chill to his heart. 
 
 * Sydney went over your ship the other
 
 246 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 day,' remarked Lucy blandly; 'he said she 
 smelt of apples and wool. But you are lucky 
 to be going to England, all the same, and I 
 suppose you are very glad. But don't you 
 dread the '' good-byes " ? I should, I know, 
 in your place.' 
 
 Lucy was complacently sipping her tea as 
 she made the foregoing remark, and the 
 transient, mocking smile, plainly observable 
 to Reginald, that accompanied Eila's reply 
 was all unnoticed by her. 
 
 'There are not many "good-byes" we 
 need shed tears over,' she said grimly. ' I 
 don't suppose the Hobart people will break 
 their hearts about our going away.' 
 
 * You naughty thing !' cried Lucy with 
 playful reproach ; ' and you have so many 
 friends, too.' She cast a meaning glance at 
 Reginald, whose blue eyes were looking un- 
 usually solemn. ' I never go anywhere with- 
 out hearing it said, " The Clares are such a 
 clever family. What a loss to the community 
 they will be !" ' 
 
 Eila smiled, but her eyes remained osten- 
 sibly unconvinced.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 247 
 
 * What a talent Lucy has for putting things 
 pleasantly !' she observed. * It is so much 
 nicer to be called clever than peculiar, though 
 that is what she really hears us called, if she 
 would admit it.' 
 
 ' No, indeed !' Lucy protested eagerly ; ' at 
 least, only when it is coupled with cleverness, 
 for surely it is a way of being peculiar to be 
 clever. Stupid people are never called pecu- 
 liar, are they ?' 
 
 How far the quality of peculiarity might 
 be said to couple distinction upon its pos- 
 sessors was a question which, however, was 
 apparently destined to remain unsolved upon 
 the present occasion ; for Truca created an 
 unexpected diversion by an appeal to Regi- 
 nald to accompany her to the cow-paddock, 
 enforced by passing two small hands within 
 his arm, and pulling him forward in the direc- 
 tion she wanted. 
 
 ' I believe my cow knows we're going to 
 leave her,' she said mournfully ; * she looks 
 at me with such a sad expression sometimes, 
 like that. I've told her you're going to be 
 her master when we're gone ; but you've got
 
 248 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 to be properly introduced to her, you know, 
 so do come, please.' 
 
 Reginald having been led away, Mrs. 
 Warden rose to take her departure, but Lucy 
 interposed : 
 
 * If you can't stay any longer, mamma, will 
 you send the carriage back for me ? I want 
 to have Eila all to myself for a little ; per- 
 haps it's the last time of our being together. 
 Sydney ' — turning to her brother — ' you can 
 go back with mamma if you choose.' 
 
 * I don't choose, thank you,' said Sydney 
 shortly. 
 
 He accompanied his mother, however, 
 down the hill ; but though the carriage was 
 seen driving away a moment later in the sole 
 occupation of the four-guinea bonnet and the 
 mauve and gold parasol, he did not return. 
 Mamy had also disappeared, whence Eila 
 augured that things were going as was fitting. 
 
 Meanwhile, she and Lucy were left to the 
 enjoyment of each other's undisturbed society 
 on the veranda. 
 
 'There is such a lot I want to say to you,' 
 began Lucy, settling herself back in the low
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 249 
 
 wicker-chaIr in which she was seated. Eila 
 looked properly sympathetic ; but instead of 
 proceeding further, Lucy paused, cast down 
 her eyes, and appeared absorbed in the occu- 
 pation of stirring round the remnants of her 
 tea in the bottom of her cup. When she 
 broke the silence at last, the startling con- 
 fidence she imparted was as follows : ' What 
 nice tea you do have at Cowa ! I always say 
 no tea tastes like yours anywhere !' 
 
 * Do you mean that really, Lucy ?' There 
 was genuine gratification in Ella's tone — the 
 complimentary comments on the family clever- 
 ness had not been nearly as grateful to her as 
 the praise of their tea — showing that it was 
 possible, after all, to have things ' nice ' in 
 what she considered their hopeless household. 
 ' One is afraid to offer you people tea or any- 
 thing else ; It Is all such grand luxe in your 
 own home.' 
 
 ' Our own home ! Why, we live, as our 
 cook says, "as plain as plain." It Is very 
 simple fare, I assure you. You should hear 
 Sydney talk about the dinners you give him 
 at Cowa, and the apple-dumplings running
 
 2SO NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 over with cream. He always says, "Why 
 don't we have things like they do at Mrs. 
 Clare's ?" ' 
 
 ' Does he ? What an absurd boy !' laughed 
 Eila. She did not think it necessary to avow 
 her belief that Love was the sauce that 
 seasoned the Cowa dinner of herbs to Sydney's 
 palate. ' I can't compliment him upon his 
 discrimination, I grieve to say ; but, of course, 
 it's nice to think such an illusion is possible 
 in any case.' 
 
 * How do you know it's an illusion ?' asked 
 ^ucy gravely. ' I am sure I would change 
 our way of life for yours.' 
 
 ' I am sure you wouldn't if you'd tried it !' 
 declared Eila shortly. 
 
 Lucy seemed to ponder again over some- 
 thing she would have said, but decided upon 
 second thoughts to leave unsaid. She was 
 thoughtfully balancing her spoon upon the 
 edge of her cup, and, after a pause, Eila's 
 speech reverted to the subject that was always 
 uppermost in her mind. 
 
 ' Do you know, Lucy, when I look at the 
 Queen of the South down there ' — she glanced
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 251 
 
 at the far-away vessel towering in stripped 
 majesty above the smaller craft around — 
 * and think of ail the time we shall have to 
 spend on board her, I wonder sometimes 
 what we shall find to do with ourselves all 
 day. I can't realize somehow that we are 
 going to be nailed to that one little spot in 
 all the wide ocean for weeks and months, 
 with no earthly chance of getting away.' 
 
 * No waterly chance, you mean,' said Lucy, 
 who occasionally hazarded a mild joke of 
 which this must be regarded as a fair speci- 
 men. ' Yes, it must seem strange. But I 
 hope you don't mean what you said a little 
 while ago, Eila, about people not missing 
 you in Hobart. There are ourselves, to begin 
 with. The place won't seem the same to us 
 when you are gone — you know that. Why, 
 Sydney almost lives here !' 
 
 ' Oh, your brother will be a little sorry, I 
 dare say,' assented Eila, and there was more 
 in her speech than met her friend's ear. 
 
 * Look at the family ties you have, too,' 
 urged Lucy gendy — ' that kind old Mr. and 
 Mrs. Frost, to begin with.' She uttered the
 
 252 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 names timidly, with a halting accent. Young 
 Mrs. Frost's brow darkened visibly. A half- 
 imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, that 
 might have signified denial, or doubt, or In- 
 difference, or something that partook of all 
 three, testified alone that she had heard the 
 observation. * And there Is Mr. Acton,' con- 
 tinued Lucy warily ; ' you are not going to 
 pretend ke won't be sorry, are you ?' 
 
 * No, I'm not going to pretend it,' said 
 Ella, with a laugh that had something forced 
 In its ring ; * why should I ?' 
 
 ' Only that you're so fond of pretending 
 you have no friends in Hobart. I could 
 think of heaps of people besides. I sup- 
 pose' — Lucy's unyouthful complexion became 
 curiously suffused — ' you have known Mr. 
 Acton for a long time, have you not ?' 
 
 ' Pretty long, almost ever since he's been 
 here — nearly two years,' Ella made reply, 
 raising her soft dark eyes gravely towards 
 the face of her interlocutress. ' Why ?' 
 
 Lucy answered neither the question nor 
 the look. She had become engrossed once 
 more in her cup and her spoon.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 253 
 
 * Give me some more tea, dear. You'll 
 believe I think it nice now, I suppose ?' Then, 
 as Eila busied herself with the spirit-lamp and 
 kettle, ' By the way, I wonder,' she added, in 
 an off-hand tone, * whether there is any truth 
 in a report I once heard — I haven't heard it 
 lately, though — about Mr. Acton being en- 
 gaged to some girl he knew in England.' 
 
 Lucy had not uttered these words before 
 she would fain have recalled them. She 
 felt lowered in her own estimation by the 
 artifices to which she had recourse to obtain 
 the knowledge she coveted. Only as it is 
 consistent with human egoism to suppose that 
 people are interested in what concerns our- 
 selves rather than in what concerns them, it 
 did not occur to Eila that her friend could 
 have any private and particular end of her 
 own to serve in selecting Reginald's love 
 affairs for the theme of her confidential talk. 
 On the contrary, Eila's fear was that Lucy 
 might be about to exercise the privilege of a 
 friend, and read her a private lecture upon 
 her conduct in relation to Mr. Acton. It was 
 a suspicion that a little time ago would have
 
 254 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 made her smile. Fortified by the consciousness 
 of Reginald's loyal friendship, it would have 
 been easy to laugh to scorn the suspicion of 
 carrying on a vulgar flirtation with him. But 
 to-day her position seemed to have changed. 
 From the moment that she had been clasped 
 in Reginald's arms, from the moment that she 
 had realized how frail a barrier held her aloof 
 from him, her attitude towards the world as 
 regarded him had changed. Yesterday she 
 felt that she could return the inquisitorial 
 stare of all the Mrs. Grundys in Hobart with 
 the serene gaze of self-assured innocence. 
 There had not been a single exchange of con- 
 fidences between Reginald and herself that 
 might not have been listened to by Mrs. 
 Grundy and all her tribe, had they been so 
 minded. To-day it seemed to her that she 
 would quail under Mrs. Grundy's stare. She 
 shrank from being cross-examined by Lucy. 
 She, a married woman, in a position that was 
 rendered almost sacred by the tragedy that 
 overshadowed her life, to be warned by a 
 girl-companion against undue flirting — to be 
 told most likely that she was, in the expres-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 255 
 
 sive French formula, 'on people's tongues.' 
 Her pride revolted against the notion. Yes- 
 terday she would have been amused and 
 brave ; to-day a feeling that resembled anger 
 as well as apprehension took possession of her 
 soul. 
 
 And while these uncomfortable misgivings 
 were engrossing her mind, Lucy, on her side, 
 was far from feeling at ease. Why did young 
 Mrs. Frost take so long to answer the ques- 
 tion put to her ? Had she seen through the 
 motives that prompted it ? and did she despise 
 the speaker as she deserved ? It was quite a 
 relief to Lucy when Ella said, In an Indifferent 
 voice : 
 
 * Mr. Acton engaged? I never heard that 
 before. Who told you so, Lucy ?' 
 
 * Who told me ?' repeated Lucy guiltily ; ' I 
 don't quite remember. It was only a surmise, 
 only a rumour. Perhaps I am mixing him up 
 with somebody else. People think, you know, 
 there must be some attraction in England or 
 somewhere, because of his not marrying. It 
 zs rather curious, when one comes to think of 
 it, you know.'
 
 256 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' Curious ? Why ?' A little flush over- 
 spread Eila's cheek. She was quite sure now 
 that there was a veiled significance in Lucy's 
 words. * People are so absurdly fond of 
 judging for others. I suppose he has his own 
 reasons. He is not rich, for one thing ; in 
 fact, he is what mothers with daughters would 
 not consider a catch by any means : he is too 
 poor. He has a mother to keep besides, and 
 she is half paralyzed.' 
 
 ' All the same, there must be plenty of girls 
 who would be glad to marry him, and he 
 might choose one with money, you know,' 
 said Lucy naively. 
 
 ' Reginald — Mr. Acton, I mean — is not 
 that kind of man,' said Eila warmly. ' He is 
 the last person in the world to marry for 
 money.' 
 
 Lucy's only reply was a profound sigh. 
 There was a long interval of silence, at the 
 end of which she said bitterly : 
 
 ' Oh dear ! how heavily one is handicapped 
 when one has money, to be sure ! How I do 
 hate being rich !' 
 
 The form In which this reflection was
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 257 
 
 couched did not in the least detract from its 
 solemnity in Eila's estimation. Neither of 
 these young women spoke slang with malice 
 prepense. When they employed it, it was as 
 unconsciously as Monsieur Jourdain employed 
 prose. 
 
 ' One is much more handicapped when one 
 is poor,' she retorted. ' You should try what 
 poverty is like before you talk, Lucy. It is 
 an experiment rich people may indulge in if 
 they choose, though we can't try the counter- 
 experiment of being rich in our turn. I only 
 wish we could.' 
 
 * Ah, you don't know the drawbacks !' said 
 Lucy, nodding her head sagely. ' You don't 
 know what a nightmare the fear of being 
 married for one's money becomes in a girl's 
 life. And, really, there is good reason for it. 
 What you were saying just now about Mr. 
 Acton is an instance. Somehow, I don't 
 believe the men most worth caring about — 
 the proud, honourable, independent natures, I 
 mean — ever propose to a girl with money ; 
 they would rather go out of her way. You 
 said as much about Mr. Acton yourself You 
 
 VOL. I. 17
 
 258 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 said he was the kind of man who would dis- 
 dain to marry a rich person. I suppose you 
 think he would be more likely to avoid any- 
 one who was looked upon as an heiress, don't 
 you ?' 
 
 ' He might, perhaps,' admitted Eila ; she 
 was secretly immensely relieved at the turn 
 the conversation was taking ; * but he is not 
 everybody. Others might be different. And 
 then there are men with proud, honourable, 
 independent natures, as you call it, Lucy, who 
 have the good luck to be rich as well, and 
 w^ho can afford to marry anyone they please 
 — men whose fortune lifts them above any 
 kind of suspicion, for whom no girl need be too 
 rich or too poor. What do you say to that ?' 
 
 ' Say it bears out what I said,' persisted 
 Lucy, with a melancholy shake of the head. 
 ' It shows that a girl need not have money to 
 get the best kind of husband in the end. I 
 had rather the rich man you speak of afforded 
 himself the luxury of having me with my 
 poverty than with my money. It would make 
 me doubly sure.' 
 
 ' Then there is another great advantage
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 259 
 
 money confers,' continued Eila doctorally ; 
 * it gives one such a power of selection. You 
 can choose out of so many. You might 
 almost make sure of finding the right one at 
 last. Just think what a range of observation 
 you have, Lucy, compared with other people!' 
 * I don't really know that that is an advan- 
 tage,' said Lucy doubtfully. ' I find people 
 less interesting every year — men, I mean. 
 Perhaps I see through them too clearly. But 
 there is one question I want to ask you. Sup- 
 posing — only supposing, you know — that just 
 such a man as we have been talking about, 
 one of the proud, honourable, independent 
 sort — not at all rich — should happen to please 
 a girl with money very much indeed — sup- 
 posing she felt she could care for him with all 
 her heart and soul, and that he had somehow 
 given her a little reason to think that he might 
 come to care for her in the same way in time, 
 if only the wretched money were not there to 
 put an obstacle in his way, don't you think 
 she would hate having money then, and want 
 to be rid of it, and wish that she could have 
 known him without it from the first ?'
 
 26o NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 A light dawned upon Eila's mind. What 
 if it were as a suppliant rather than as a 
 monitress that Lucy had beguiled her into 
 speaking of Reginald ? The supposition was 
 responsible for raising certain curiously con- 
 flictive emotions in her breast. The sensa- 
 tion evoked by Lucy's confession — for that 
 the supposititious case the latter had described 
 was none other than her own Eilafelt secretly 
 assured — was a feminine, if an unworthy one, 
 and it had a thoroughly feminine origin. 
 Hitherto young Mrs. Frost had cherished 
 Reginald as a friend. She had valued his 
 friendship as a precious element In her exist- 
 ence, but from the moment that she suspected 
 Lucy of bestowing her affections upon him 
 unasked, his value as something more than a 
 friend seemed to increase to a notable extent. 
 She told herself that this feeling was mean 
 and unworthy. Had she cared for Reginald 
 as unselfishly as she believed him to care for 
 her, the probability conveyed by Lucy's words 
 should have made her rejoice for him In her 
 heart. What happier fate could be desired 
 for so good a man than that of being loved
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 261 
 
 and worshipped by a wife like Lucy, endowed, 
 as Eila felt instinctively, with a nature that 
 could love but once and for ever — a wife who 
 would be a crown to her husband In more 
 senses than one ; who, in bestowing upon him 
 her worldly goods, would make him rich in 
 earthly possessions ; who would heap his 
 invalid mother with largesses, and would joy- 
 fully share with him the task of brightening 
 her declining days ! Yet, with the contradic- 
 tion that forms part of a woman's nature, Eila 
 could not bring herself honestly to wish that 
 this happy consummation might be realized. 
 She could not even wish Reginald to desire 
 that a similar piece of good fortune should 
 happen in her own case. Mingled with these 
 feelings there was yet another, in the sense 
 that Reginald's worship of her might be worth 
 even more appreciation than she had hitherto 
 bestowed upon it. Were there not others 
 who could repay it so much more richly in 
 tangible benefits than herself, ready to set the 
 highest of all possible values upon It ? 
 
 Eila Mid not formulate the foregoing 
 thoughts in her mind. They floated vaguely
 
 262 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 through her brain before she replied to 
 Lucy's anxious question. How completely 
 she would have scattered the illusions of her 
 simple friend to the wind, how she would 
 have crushed her virginal hopes to the 
 earth, had she put into words the thought 
 that rose unbidden In her mind ! ' Poor 
 Lucy !' was the thought ; ' as if you or any- 
 one else in the world could win Reginald 
 from 7ne f Ella, it need not be said, did not 
 utter her thought. She used her speech in 
 the sense in which Talleyrand discovered the 
 use of speech, for the purpose, that is to say, 
 of concealing it. 
 
 ' As to wanting to be rid of one's money for 
 the sake of marrying a poor man,' she said 
 at last, ' I don't see any reason in that, Lucy. 
 I should congratulate myself, if I were in the 
 place of the girl you speak of, that I was 
 rich enough for both.' 
 
 Lucy's face brightened, but fell again 
 immediately. 
 
 ' You don't see the difficulty,' she said in 
 depressed accents. ' How could one accept 
 a man unless he proposed to one first .^ No
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 263 
 
 girl could. How could one even show a 
 man one liked him, unless he gave one the 
 opportunity? It would be a quite too im- 
 possible thing.' 
 
 ' Opportunities are never wanting,' said 
 Eila oracularly. ' If a girl wants to show a 
 man that she prefers him to everyone else, 
 there are plenty of ways of doing so.' 
 
 ' Tell me only one way,' said Lucy eagerly. 
 
 * Well, when she meets him at balls, for 
 instance, she might give him all the dances 
 he asks for, and say *' no " to all her other 
 partners.' 
 
 * But supposing he doesn't dance ?' inter- 
 posed Lucy helplessly. 
 
 ' All the better ; she can give up the 
 dances altogether then, and sit them out with 
 him.' 
 
 ' Yes ; but supposing he had begun to 
 avoid one for the reason I told you of — the 
 horrid question d argent, I mean ' — Lucy had 
 a French maid, and was not averse to inter- 
 larding her sentences with an occasional 
 French expression — *just, too, as one was 
 beginning to feel he might like one.' In her
 
 264 ^OT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 effort to maintain the conversation upon an 
 impersonal footing, * ones ' abounded in Miss 
 Warden's phrases. 'What could one do 
 then ?' 
 
 * One could speak to a friend, as you are 
 doing,' said Eila, laughing ; while Lucy- 
 blushed a pained crimson all over her face 
 and neck. 
 
 ' Don't be unkind, Eila !' she said im- 
 ploringly. * I am so miserable sometimes, if 
 you only knew ; and there is not a soul I can 
 talk to about it.' 
 
 * It is he, then ?' said Eila interrogatively, 
 with a backward inclination of her head to- 
 wards the cow-paddock. 
 
 Her lips were dry, and her voice sounded 
 hard in her own ears. 
 
 ' How did you know ?' Lucy was holding 
 her head down like a culprit. ' Oh, Eila ! 
 do you think it is very dreadful to let one's self 
 care about anybody in that way before he 
 has even uttered a single word of love ? If 
 it is, I can't help it. It began more than 
 two years ago — when we were spending 
 the summer here before, you remember.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 265 
 
 We saw a good deal of Mr. Acton then. I 
 think he went out more than he does now, 
 and he used to seem to like talking to me 
 then — he did indeed.' 
 
 There was a trembling intensity in Lucy's 
 tones that surprised her friend not a little. 
 If Eila had been asked her previous opinion 
 of Miss Warden, it would probably have 
 represented her as an embodiment of the 
 placid type of a virgin of the school of 
 Perugino. But the actual Lucy was more 
 like a flesh and blood Juliet than a painted 
 virgin. How to deal with the delicate 
 problem submitted to her judgment was the 
 difficulty that Eila had now to solve. If she 
 encouraged Lucy's flame, she would only 
 increase the bitterness of the disappointment 
 that awaited her. If, on the other hand, she 
 appeared desirous of repressing it, might not 
 Lucy suspect her of a dog-in-the-mangerish 
 desire to keep Reginald's undivided allegi- 
 ance for herself? She paused for reflection 
 before she remarked diplomatically : 
 
 ' People would say you were throwing 
 yourself away, you know, Lucy.'
 
 266 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' What should I care what people said ?' 
 cried Lucy passionately. * I know one thing : 
 I shall never care for anyone else.' Now 
 that the avowal had been made, she seemed 
 to find a kind of relief In enlarging upon it. 
 ' I always thought Mr. Acton nice from the 
 beginning ; but it was only after we came 
 away from Hobart last time that I began to 
 think about him so much. When we were 
 up on the station in Victoria, and when we 
 went to Melbourne for the Cup week, I 
 thought of nothing but when we should leave 
 for Tasmania. I was overjoyed the first hot 
 wind day we had, when people prophesied 
 that we were going to have such a hot 
 summer. I knew we should come away all 
 the sooner, and so we did ; but It seems we 
 are to go to Melbourne again before long, 
 and it has been a disappointment from be- 
 ginning to end. If you had not said what 
 you did about Mr. Acton's horror of being 
 taken for a fortune-hunter, I believe I would 
 never have had the courage to speak to 
 you ; but that seems to explain so much, 
 doesn't it ?'
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 267 
 
 * Y-yes,' assented Eila doubtfully, 'I sup- 
 pose it does.' 
 
 * Do you think, now' — Lucy spoke in 
 shamefaced haste, as though she dared not 
 trust herself to weigh the full import of her 
 words — ' it would be possible for you, who 
 know him so well, to find out whether there 
 was anything at all in the attention he paid 
 me last time I was here ? I know I could 
 trust you not to commit me in the very 
 smallest degree — couldn't I ? You may 
 think it absurd, but I don't believe I could 
 /we ' — there was a pathetic break in Lucy's 
 voice as she uttered this word — ' if, without 
 his caring for me himself, Mr. Acton should 
 ever find out that I was — that I was £-07ze 
 upon him as I am.' For the second time 
 Lucy's feelings found vent in an expression 
 that is not usually associated with deep and 
 tragic sentiment ; but its inadequateness 
 passed, as before, entirely unperceived by 
 her hearer. ' Couldn't you sound him just a 
 little on the subject, and if what he says 
 should make you fancy that he might have 
 cared for me without my money, why, then
 
 268 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 you could advise him, as a friend — you are his 
 friend, I know — not to take the money ques- 
 tion into account at all. I would rather give 
 up my share of what I am to have altogether, 
 if it came to that ; besides which, I am not 
 rich now at all, you might tell him ; my dress 
 allowance is only two hundred a year — not a 
 penny more.' 
 
 ' You don't call that rich !' exclaimed Eila, 
 purposely breaking in at this point ; for the 
 delicate mission entrusted to her became 
 doubly embarrassing in the face of her secret 
 knowledge. ' Why, I shouldn't know how 
 to spend it if I tried.' 
 
 ' It doesn't go far when one has to go out 
 so much,' said Lucy plaintively. * But to go 
 back to what we were saying. The others 
 will be here directly, and I may never have 
 another chance of talking to you alone. Will 
 you do me the favour I want, Eila ? There 
 Is no one In the world who could do it for me 
 but you ; and don't think meanly of me, 
 please. I will trust you entirely ; and when 
 you have found out something, you might 
 write and tell me. I shall be eternally grate-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 269 
 
 ful to you, and I won't rest until I hear from 
 you — you may be sure of that.' 
 
 For a moment the idea of laying the whole 
 situation bare before Lucy suggested itself to 
 young Mrs. Frost's mind. Supposing she 
 were to say simply, * Reginald loves me, 
 Lucy, profoundly and hopelessly ; he knows 
 that nothing can come of it, but his love so 
 possesses his soul that he has no room left 
 for the image of another woman '? The 
 very words in which she would make her 
 avowal had already taken shape in her brain, 
 when a glance at Lucy's face stopped her. 
 It required someone with larger experience of 
 the world, someone possessed of a full share 
 of what has been well called the dramatic 
 instinct, which is, after all, only the outcome 
 of an intensely sympathetic nature, to under- 
 stand the nature of the tie between Reginald 
 and herself. Lucy would probably be pained 
 and shocked to learn the existence of such a 
 tie ; but the first effect of the revelation 
 would be to lower Eila in her eyes, the next 
 to make her bitterly repent of having con- 
 fided in her at all. How humiliating, besides,
 
 2 70 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 for Lucy to feel that she had betrayed her 
 innocent impression that Reginald cared for 
 her in his heart to the person who, of all 
 others, had the best reasons for knowing the 
 contrary ! To spare her friend as well as 
 herself, Eila refrained from following her 
 first impulse to reveal the real facts, and, 
 deeming it prudent to temporize, hastened to 
 assure Lucy that she would hold her confi- 
 dence sacred. 
 
 ' And not even hint it to your sisters or 
 your mother,' urged Lucy anxiously. * I 
 know what a family you are for telling each 
 other things. Sydney says it is like a debating 
 society to hear you all talk on the veranda 
 sometimes.' 
 
 ' Oh ! only about vegetarianism, or capital 
 punishment, or something of that kind that 
 matters to nobody,' said Eila. ' Well, Lucy 
 dear, I am tremendously touched by what 
 you have told me. I wish I had it in me to 
 feel as you do still. It was all killed long 
 ago, I believe. I mean if I were a girl again,' 
 she added hurriedly, in answer to the shocked 
 astonishment painted on Lucy's face. ' I shall
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 271 
 
 know what I am to find out for you, and I 
 will write to you when there is anything to 
 say ; that is a settled matter.' 
 
 ' And you will be able to do it all without 
 giving Mr. Acton the faintest suspicion of the 
 truth ?' 
 
 ' Of course I shall. Nothing could be 
 easier. We often talk people over. But let 
 me say just one thing : Don't be too bitterly 
 disappointed if he should turn out to be a 
 hardened bachelor after all. There are 
 people like that, you know, and it is a mere 
 waste of sentiment to care for them ; and 
 then remember about there being as good 
 fish in the sea as ever came out of it.' 
 
 * What of that ? They may stop in the sea 
 to the end, for all I care !' said Lucy reck- 
 lessly. 
 
 At this moment voices were heard approach- 
 ing the veranda in a descending scale. Lucy 
 and her confidant, who were both afraid for 
 private reasons of their own of going more 
 deeply into the subject of their confidences, 
 started off to encounter the party returning 
 from the cow -paddock. They came upon
 
 272 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 them in the flower-garden — a mere longi- 
 tudinal strip taken from the hill that sloped 
 upwards from the house. 
 
 Flower-garden it was called by courtesy, 
 for in the tangle of blooms and weeds that 
 encumbered the soil, there was nothing to 
 recall the trim parterres we have learned to 
 associate with the name. Such as it was, 
 thanks to the Tasmanian air and soil, wherein 
 flowers seem to grow, as Mrs. Stowe's Topsy 
 did, for no assignable cause, there was always 
 to be found in it the wherewithal to provide 
 a bouquet of fuchsias and geraniums, bordered 
 by sprigs of fragrant lemon-thyme, for a friend 
 returning to town. It was Dick who under- 
 took to hoe the beds on Sunday morning — 
 less, it is to be feared, in deference to the 
 flowers, than by way of upholding his right 
 to garden on the Sabbath. As no one, how- 
 ever, showed any inclination to call his right 
 into question, his interest in weeding suffered 
 a gradual abatement, and latterly the garden 
 had been left pretty much to take care of 
 itself. Reginald and Truca were discovered 
 seated upon a bench gravely discoursing upon
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 273 
 
 the cow. The bench was under an antiquated 
 gum-tree that would long ago have fallen a 
 victim to the axe, had not Truca pleaded for 
 its life, in behalf of the amber-coloured blobs 
 of gum yielded by its decrepit branches. To 
 a person seated here the view was even finer 
 than from the veranda. In its rear rose 
 magnificent Mount Wellington, bare to its 
 summit, with patches of dusky purple marking 
 its deeper hollows, its topmost crown softly 
 outlined against the background of shining 
 blue. The hardy shrubs and gaily-painted 
 weeds and flowers wove a garland of colour 
 and perfume round the assembled party, and 
 across the city, lying at their feet, the sea 
 glittered and sparkled beneath the afternoon 
 sun. 
 
 We may be sure that the animals are 
 spared one most tormenting factor in human 
 existence — in their freedom from the thinor 
 
 o 
 
 we call sentiment. Provided they can browse 
 harmoniously in a congenial pasturage, all 
 their wants are satisfied. To us who look 
 before and after, life wears a much more com- 
 plicated aspect. What might be the precise 
 VOL. I. 18
 
 274 ^OT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 degree of sympathy that Reginald felt for her 
 was the problem that occupied Lucy's mind 
 upon the present occasion, to the exclusion 
 of all enjoyment of the beautiful scene and 
 the agreeable society around her. And Regi- 
 nald, In his turn, was more exercised by a 
 similar problem in behalf of young Mrs. Frost 
 than by appreciation of the sun-steeped land- 
 scape outspread before his eyes. The Cowa 
 estate was situated upon a declivity, and might 
 be easily clambered over (walking was not a 
 term that could be fittingly applied in such a 
 connection) within a quarter of an hour, and 
 a bright descending panorama of houses and 
 trees was visible from every point. But for 
 the reasons I have mentioned, its brightness 
 failed to Impress the actual beholders of it. 
 
 Eila contrived, however, that Lucy should 
 be left alone with Reginald for a few moments 
 before the party broke up, but the experiment 
 did not tend to raise Miss Warden's spirits. 
 Mr. Acton did not afford her a loophole for 
 making even the most Innocent advances. 
 Certainly her money was a more effectual 
 barrier than she could have supposed. Worse
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 275 
 
 Still, when she timidly offered him a seat in 
 the carriage to town with her brother and 
 herself, he declared that he preferred walking. 
 
 It was hardly to be wondered at if but few 
 words were exchanged between the brother 
 and sister on their homeward way. 
 
 ' They are awfully kind people, the Clares, 
 if they are a little peculiar !' Lucy had re- 
 marked. ' It is a pity Mamy is not a little 
 more soignde. I thought her quite pretty to- 
 day.^ 
 
 And Sydney had grunted some inarticulate 
 words in reply. If he had said what was in 
 his mind, it would have been to the effect 
 that his friends at Cowa could do without 
 Miss Lucy's patronage. Had the real nature 
 of his sister's meditations been divulged to 
 him, it would have caused him almost as 
 great a surprise as a similar discovery with 
 regard to his own secret thoughts would have 
 occasioned Lucy. 
 
 For it was his private opinion, when he 
 thought about the matter at all, that his sister 
 was of the stuff of which old maids are created ; 
 while Lucy, for her part, looked upon her
 
 276 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 brother as a good-natured hobbledehoy, who 
 would not be ripe for love for a long time to 
 come. Nothing would have astonished them 
 more than to learn that they were undergoing 
 almost a precisely similar experience as re- 
 garded their first initiation into the mysteries 
 of love. So true it is that those who live 
 side by side may have no insight into the 
 hidden workings of each other's natures.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EILA AS EMISSARY. 
 
 The interval that elapsed between the con- 
 versation with Lucy in the veranda and the 
 final departure for England passed like a 
 troubled dream. Eila could never look back 
 to the last days of her sojourn at Cowa with- 
 out an impression of vague bewilderment and 
 unrest. A second-hand furniture-dealer had 
 agreed to take their household goods off her 
 mother's hands; but they made so poor a show 
 when they were dragged in their battered 
 nakedness into the searching light of day, 
 that the family felt almost ashamed of owning 
 them. Mrs. Clare's estimate of the sum they 
 would fetch proved to be exactly eleven times 
 and a half what the dealer offered. Willie 
 [ 277 ]
 
 278 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 advised that they should be left behind to be 
 sold by auction, but the money was needed 
 for the board-ship outfit. As many things 
 as could be parted with were therefore carted 
 to town a few days before the departure, 
 and the family slept upon the mattresses and 
 bedding, prepared for their bunks, spread upon 
 the bare boards. There was more than one 
 heartrending leave-taking to be gone through 
 — notably with the Jersey cow, the successor 
 of Snow-white and Strawberry, and with the 
 brown retriever doe, the former beino- trans- 
 ferred to Reginald, and the latter to Sydney. 
 I think Reginald would have been better 
 pleased to keep the dog, whose curly head 
 he had so often seen Ella fondle in times 
 gone by ; but the cow was a sacred charge 
 laid upon him by Truca, and was also a link 
 with Ella In her own way. 
 
 The veranda looked more than ever like 
 an old curiosity-shop during the last days. 
 There were so many objects, utterly worth- 
 less In themselves, with which the family had, 
 nevertheless, sentimental associations, that the 
 difficulty was to know what to leave behind
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 279 
 
 — Truca's ancient collection of dolls ; piles 
 of manuscripts and drawings of Dick's ; old 
 school-books, music, and copy-books ; presents 
 that had been broken and never mended, and 
 that the recipients were loath to leave behind ; 
 odds and ends of stuffs and household bric-a- 
 brac that Mrs. Clare cherished under the im- 
 pression that they possessed an intrinsic value 
 of their own, apart from the use they had 
 rendered her. All these had to be thrust 
 away and wedged Into the spare spaces In 
 the packing-cases and trunks that encumbered 
 the place. Mrs. Clare's spirits rose to the 
 occasion. She and Dick revelled In the dis- 
 order, and for five consecutive days dinner 
 represented a kind of movable feast, spread 
 out In the guise of tinned sheep-tongues and 
 penny buns, upon the top of a packing-case 
 or a corner of the kitchen-table, the only one 
 that remained. Ella found that, despite all 
 there was to do, the time passed unsatisfac- 
 torily enough. With no more clocks to con- 
 sult, the hours would sometimes seem to fly, 
 whereas at others they would drag wearily 
 through a whole afternoon. It was comfort-
 
 28o NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 less to walk through the dismantled rooms, 
 strewn with a litter of paper and straw, of 
 crumbs and dust. But this was the normal 
 atmosphere in which the family now dwelt ; 
 and had it been for no other motive than that 
 of feeling tidy once more, Eila longed for 
 their going away to be finally accomplished. 
 
 The evening before they sailed Reginald 
 came to Cowa in the dusk for the last time. 
 Eila was .already in her board-ship attire, 
 everything else having been packed away on 
 the Queen of the South. It was of some 
 shrunken gray material, that left her wrists 
 and ankles exposed, though the neck was 
 encircled by one of the blue -white paper 
 collars of which she had laid In a store In 
 view of the impossibility of having linen 
 washed on board. No less becominof dress 
 could well have been conceived ; but to 
 Reginald's thinking its sole effect was to 
 make the wearer look pathetically young and 
 Irresponsible. The excitement of the ap- 
 proaching change lent a strange lustre to her 
 eyes. All her emotions had been called into 
 play, and they seemed to have infused a new
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 281 
 
 intensity and rare glow into her expres- 
 sion. 
 
 She had come out to Reginald as he 
 opened the garden-gate in the twilight, and 
 now accompanied him to the bench under 
 the decrepit gum-studded eucalyptus, where 
 it was their wont to sit of an evening. 
 
 'We had better stay outside,' she said, as 
 she seated herself by his side. ' Dick is 
 making no end of dust In the front-room, 
 though there Is little result from It ; for he 
 came upon a loose page of our old anthology 
 — " It must be so, Plato ; thou reasonest 
 well " — and, of course, he began to spout It 
 to mother ; and when I came away they 
 were arguing about the concluding part, and 
 looking everywhere for the next leaf to see 
 how It went on. I left them then, for I have 
 been packing ever since tea-time.' 
 
 * You have not been tiring yourself too 
 much, I hope,' said Reginald, looking at her 
 anxiously. ' You don't look quite like your- 
 self this evening-.' 
 
 ' Don't I ? It's this absurd old frock that 
 I grew out of years ago.'
 
 282 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 ' No ; It's your face. You look etherealized 
 somehow — a little pale too. What have you 
 been doing all day ?' 
 
 * What have I been doing ?' repeated Eila 
 gravely. ' Two not very happy things, you will 
 say. First, I have been to see my husband, 
 and secondly, I have bought some poison.' 
 
 Reginald looked at her quickly. There 
 was a deliberateness in her manner of speak- 
 ing which prevented him from supposing 
 that she was making an ill-timed joke. 
 
 ' What do you mean ?' he asked almost 
 gruffly. * What do you want with poison ?' 
 
 ' I don't want it for myself-— at least, not 
 now — so you need not look so angry. In- 
 deed, I hope we may never have to use It all 
 our lives. But knowing the risks we shall 
 run at sea, and the horrible deaths of linger- 
 ing agony we might have to endure if the 
 vessel caught fire or foundered in a gale, 
 mother and I agreed that the best thing we 
 could do would be to buy some kind of swift, 
 sure, painless poison.' She enumerated each 
 of these qualities In an impressive voice, 
 having obviously rehearsed the sequence
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 283 
 
 many times. * Enough for the whole family. 
 If all hope were over, and we had no alter- 
 native left but to die like rats in a hole, it 
 would be the greatest consolation to know- 
 that we could at least die together, and com- 
 fortably, without too much suffering. Don't 
 you think so too ?' 
 
 She put the final question doubtfully, 
 though in giving her explanation she had 
 seemed to be quite carried away by her own 
 earnestness. 
 
 Reginald did not answer immediately. He 
 was sitting a little bent forward, with his 
 elbows resting on his knees and his hands 
 covering his eyes. 
 
 ' I don't wonder people say you are a 
 peculiar family,' he said at last, uncovering 
 his face, and looking moodily in front of him, 
 ' with the wild ideas you are all so ready to 
 take up. You talk of dying like rats in a 
 hole. I should think an all-round poisoning 
 would be the nearest approach to that you 
 could make. The whole idea is foolish and 
 dangerous. It doesn't hold water. You 
 never can say, no matter in what extremity
 
 284 A'Or COUNTING THE COST 
 
 you may find yourself, whether you will not 
 be rescued at the eleventh hour. Why, 
 I read of a man the other day who was 
 sucked down — sucked right under, mind — 
 with a sinking ship. It's impossible to say 
 how far he went below, but he rose again with 
 some wreckagre, floated clear of the vortex, 
 and got saved somehow. Where would /le 
 have been if he had been coward enough to 
 drink your poison, I should like to know ?' 
 
 * Better ofT than if he had gone through 
 what he did, perhaps,' said Eila promptly. 
 ' Life would cost too dear if one had to buy 
 it back upon those terms. If I had got so 
 far into the valley of the shadow of death, 
 I should not thank anyone for pulling me 
 out again. That man you speak of must feel 
 as though he had died once already, and now 
 it will all have to be gone through again.' 
 
 ' Well, then, there's another thing,' con- 
 tinued Reginald, unheeding her objections. 
 ' As you know nothing about the exact 
 degree of danger to which you may be ex- 
 posed, there is a risk of your going to the 
 poison when there is not the least excuse for
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 285 
 
 it. There are Cape Horn gales any lands- 
 man might be a bit frightened in, though 
 they're nothing when you're used to them. 
 I shan't have a quiet moment now I know 
 what you've got in your minds. I shall 
 picture you, every time there's a bit of a toss, 
 doling out a dose of strychnine ' — he shud- 
 dered — 'like Lucretia Borgia or Mrs. Man- 
 ning. For God's sake, Eila,' he implored, 
 ' listen to reason ! Don't go away with any 
 thought of taking your own lives. Think 
 about getting to your journey's end as fast 
 and as comfortably as you can ; that's quite 
 enough. It would be just as reasonable to 
 keep a stock of poison here at Cowa on the 
 chance of there being an earthquake or a 
 landslip, as to take it along with you on 
 board ship. My only consolation is that no 
 chemist would give you what you wanted. 
 I believe your sure and painless poison would 
 turn out to be a little rose-water when you 
 came to test it.' 
 
 ' That it wouldn't,' cried Eila emphatically. 
 ' The chemist's assistant who sold it to me 
 used to be our gardener's boy years ago,
 
 286 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 when I was quite a little girl, and though he 
 was much bigger than me, it was I who 
 taught him to read. I used to teach him in 
 the wood-shed in the evening. You know, 
 he could never have got on as he has if he 
 hadn't first learnt to read. He thinks all his 
 success in life is owing to it, and he is ever 
 so grateful. He needn't be, of course, for 
 it used to be fun to teach him ; but I know 
 he would not deceive me. I went one day 
 to the shop when his master was out, and I 
 told him the whole story : why we wanted 
 the poison, and how it must be of a kind that 
 could not hurt. I told him everything, in 
 fact, and he understood thoroughly. First 
 he begged and implored me, just as you are 
 doing, not to use it. He opposed my idea 
 on every ground, especially the religious one ; 
 for he belongs to the Baptists here, and goes 
 to chapel on week-days as well as on Sun- 
 days. It was all no use ; I made him yield 
 in the end. He said he was committing a 
 sin knowingly, and that I was the only 
 person in the world who could make him 
 commit it ; but he gave his consent all the
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 287 
 
 same in the end, and to-day I went for the 
 bottle. It Is in blue glass, octagonal, in a 
 screwed -down metal case, beautifully con- 
 trived ; but nothing would make him tell me 
 what it cost. I could not induce him to take 
 a penny for it. He said it would be like re- 
 ceiving blood-money. That reminds me. I 
 wish you would buy things at his shop, or 
 give him a present, if it could be managed. 
 .1 am sure my commission must have put him 
 to trouble and expense.' 
 
 *I will do so,' said Reginald, 'without 
 fail ;' and he entered the name and address 
 that Ella gave him in his note-book. 
 
 ' There, that is enough about the poison,' 
 she cried, when he had finished. ' I promise 
 we shall not go to the bottle — how funny that 
 sounds, doesn't It ? — unless we have good 
 reason for It — unless a worse death should 
 actually be staring us in the face. Try and 
 forget I told you about it. You said you 
 must know everything, so It Is a little your 
 own fault. Now I have another favour to 
 ask of you.' 
 
 * A favour !' — he Interrupted her with a
 
 288 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 deprecating gesture ; ' don't speak of favours 
 between you and me, Eila.' 
 
 ' Well, a thing, then. It is not a pleasant 
 charge. It is miserable to talk about, and it 
 will be even worse to do. I want you, please, 
 at least once every month to pay a visit to 
 my husband at the asylum.' He bowed his 
 head. The mute assent conveyed a more 
 solemn assurance than the most vehement 
 declarations in words, and after a pause 
 Eila continued in an agitated voice : ' It was 
 sadder than you can imagine to-day. I went 
 with old Mr. Frost by the coach yesterday, 
 and came back in the steamer this morning. 
 You know how lovely the river passage is 
 to New Norfolk between those magnificent 
 rocks. Well, I cannot see it now without 
 shuddering. It is full of such cruel associa- 
 tions for me. To-day it was sadder than 
 ever. My husband was walking about in the 
 small reserved enclosure in the big garden 
 under the high walls, preaching a sermon 
 with all kinds of gesticulations in a muttering, 
 delirious voice that made his words sound like 
 cursing. They were curses, too, I believe.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 289 
 
 All the maledictions, the "woes unto you," 
 the ''anathema maranathas " one can find 
 throughout the Bible. One of the keepers 
 was with us, and I stood between him and 
 old Mr. Frost just within the door, and tried 
 to make my husband hear. I said, ''Charlie, 
 you do remember me, don't you ?" as clearly 
 as I was able, for my voice seemed to choke 
 me somehow when I spoke. He looked 
 round then for a moment. As long as I 
 live I believe the recollection of that look 
 will haunt me. There was a kind of horrible, 
 ghastly, threatening mirth in it that made 
 one's blood run cold to see. How well I 
 understand the idea people had in olden times 
 that madness was only being in the posses- 
 sion of a devil ! You could feel that there 
 was nothing to appeal to in the face — nothing 
 to save you from whatever death-torture the 
 diabolical fancy of the mad brain might devise. 
 The keeper made us move away quietly. We 
 were only just inside, as I told you. He 
 kept his eye on him the whole time. Then, 
 when we were through the door, I heard a 
 kind of wild scrabble, followed by a perfect 
 VOL. I. 19
 
 290 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 torrent of texts from the Old Testament about 
 women, and the things for which they were 
 to be stoned. Oh, it was horrible ! horrible !' 
 
 Reginald felt her shiver in the warm even- 
 ing air. Instinctively he held out his hand 
 for hers, and enclosed it in his large warm 
 grasp that seemed to promise all kinds of 
 reassurance and protection. Furthermore, he 
 placed his disengaged arm about her waist, 
 and drew her nearer to his side. 
 
 'My darling,' he said tenderly, 'you are 
 going away, and you know you are every- 
 thing in life to me. When I think of your 
 position, I find myself wondering whether, 
 after all, I am best befriending you by putting 
 myself on the side of the laws that govern 
 society. It is monstrous that you should be 
 debarred from finding some compensation 
 for the grievous experiences you have 'been 
 through. Some of the best and most beau- 
 tiful years of your life have been spoiled — 
 irretrievably, for you can never get them 
 back. But you have many left. You are 
 the sort of woman, Eila, to make a home 
 a kind of paradise for your husband and
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 291 
 
 children. People pretend there are limits to 
 earthly happiness. I suppose the happiness 
 of being loved by you, and living with you, 
 is beyond what can be looked for in this 
 world. But I sometimes think if I had been 
 richer and cleverer than I am I would have 
 tried to persuade you to come away with me 
 in spite of everything. Situated as you are, 
 I believe you would be justified in making 
 a fresh tie, even though society might not 
 sanction it. As for me, dear, I think, if it 
 were any way possible, my love would be 
 the stronger for the thought that you had no 
 legal claim on me. It would seem to make 
 you so completely my own. I am a matter- 
 of-fact fellow, as you know ; but there are 
 times when I picture to myself what life 
 would be if I could sail away with you to 
 one of those South Sea Islands we used to 
 cruise around when I was on the Clytie, and 
 I get a notion of such dazzling, bewildering 
 happiness, it almost hurts me to think of 
 Even as things are, you know that if you 
 made the least sign I would throw everything 
 over and follow you round the world.'
 
 292 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 He looked at her with wistful passion. 
 Her eyes were luminous in the gathering 
 twilight ; they wore an intent, listening ex- 
 pression. 
 
 ' And your mother !' she said ; ' and mine, 
 and Mamy and Truca ! How wretched we 
 should make them all ! You would not be a 
 bit happy, nor I either.' 
 
 ' What right would they have to be 
 wretched!*' he cried vehemently. 'What 
 business have they to sacrifice you to a false 
 and conventional standard ? Let them put 
 themselves in your place before they judge. 
 Besides, I think I know your family better 
 than you do yourself They have never 
 troubled themselves much about the world's 
 opinion — that is certain. They go their own 
 way more than any people I ever saw. I 
 believe that even now, if I were to talk to 
 your mother seriously, and to tell her I wanted 
 to devote my whole life to you, always sup- 
 posing you cared for me one half-quarter as 
 much as I do for you, which you don't — I 
 believe if I were to argue with her and get 
 her to look at the matter in its true natural
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 293 
 
 aspect — not through society glasses, but as It 
 really exists — it would not be so hard to get 
 her round to my way of thinking. That 
 doctor from the Prinzessin used to air theories 
 that would have made another person's hair 
 stand on end, and I have heard her agree 
 with them all.' 
 
 * Ah, but you mustn't trust her,' said Eila, 
 with a meaning laugh ; ' you'll find yourself 
 dreadfully deceived if you do. You don't 
 know mother. There's nothing you couldn't 
 convince her of at the time if you get the 
 best of an argument. That's where she is 
 so different from other people, and so delight- 
 ful to argue with. But It doesn't last. It 
 never lasts. The next day she has thought 
 of something else, or her feelings have spoken, 
 which are much stronger than reason, and 
 she has gone back to her old way of thinking 
 more strongly than ever. So If I ran aAvay 
 with you as you propose, you might expect 
 mother to go with us to the station, and wish 
 us joy and a pleasant journey and all that 
 kind of thing, under the influence, of course, 
 of all you had been saying ; and when we got
 
 294 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 to Launceston, we should receive a frenzied 
 telegram from her, imploring me to return 
 instantly to save the family from perdition 
 and I don't know what besides.' 
 
 Reginald smiled, but it was a gloomy smile. 
 
 ' I can answer for my own poor mother 
 better,' he said ; ' she is the tenderest-hearted 
 creature in the world, and would kiss the feet 
 of my wife if she really loved me. But she 
 has hard and fast rules about the duty of 
 wives and husbands that nothing can move 
 by a hair's breadth. You see from her own 
 point of view she is logical enough. She 
 believes life here is only a probationary stage, 
 and that you must accept the worst trials as 
 a special token of favour on the part of the 
 Almighty, since, by coming out of them 
 triumphantly, you score so much to the good 
 hereafter. She would believe, if we came 
 together now, that we should have to expiate 
 it eternally in another state ; not like Paolo 
 and Francesca, who, at least, were ** blown 
 together on the accursed air " — I found that 
 line in " The New Republic " you lent me — 
 but in frizzling separately in the lower regions.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 295 
 
 Out of consideration for her feelings, I should 
 never let her know the truth.' 
 
 ' I wonder she can be happy, though, with 
 such a belief,' said Eila meditatively. 
 
 ' I used to wonder, too ; I don't now. You 
 see, she has the primary, the fundamental 
 belief that Infinite Wisdom is controlling it 
 all. Can't you see what a difference that 
 makes ? The very appearance of cruelty 
 becomes merely a test of faith. People made 
 like her believe they believe in hell, and act 
 as though It were an existing fact ; but they 
 don't let that or anything else destroy their 
 fixed belief that all Is wisely ordained. After 
 all, those who think at all for themselves need 
 not go to the doctrine of hell in search of a 
 motive for doubting that there Is a good 
 Providence. They may find it quite ready 
 to hand In the world about them.' 
 
 * Yes ; but suffering has its term here at 
 least,' put in Ella; 'it is ih^ going on o{ the 
 other that is so diabolical — though, for the 
 matter of that, the going on of anything with- 
 out knowing how you are to stop it does not 
 bear thinking of, and don't let us talk of it.
 
 296 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 It frightens me.' She drew a long breath. 
 Then in an altered voice : ' You wi// write to 
 me, then, every fortnight ?' 
 
 'Every fortnight — yes — and as much 
 oftener as I can.' 
 
 ' And you will tell me every scrap of news 
 that concerns yourself — for the confidences 
 are not to be all on my side — especially if you 
 meet anyone who makes you think a little less 
 of me.' 
 
 ' Especially if I meet anyone who makes 
 me think a little less of you. But how can 
 I meet her if she has no existence ?' 
 
 'You can't tell that — one never knows. 
 What a pity it is our last evening ! I shall 
 be tormented to-morrow with the recollection 
 of a hundred things I wanted to say — and you 
 will never know them now.' 
 
 ' Put them down,' he said eagerly. ' Every 
 scrap of your handwriting will make me so 
 much the richer. Never mind if it is about 
 the veriest trifles ; that is just what I shall 
 most want to hear. The important matters 
 can take care of themselves. Never stop to 
 think what you put in your letters. I want
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 297 
 
 the words to come warm from your moods, 
 just as I am used to hearing you say them.' 
 
 'Then you must write like that, too,' said 
 Eila, nodding her head. ' You must tell me 
 how many quarts of milk the Jersey cow 
 gives, and how often you meet Diocletian.' 
 (Diocletian, it may be explained, was the 
 retriever dog, so named in virtue of the 
 resemblance between his much - curled coat 
 and the sculptured presentment of the Roman 
 Emperor's hair). ' Sydney is taking him, you 
 know. By-the-by,' as a sudden thought struck 
 her * you do go and see the Wardens some- 
 times, don't you ?' 
 
 ' Only when they invite me to a tennis 
 afternoon, or a dance, or something of that 
 sort, that I shall never go to when you are 
 gone,' said Reginald indifferently. 
 
 ' You ought to go,' she insisted ; ' you can 
 condole with Sydney when we are gone. I 
 am going to tell you a secret about him — he 
 cares for Mamy.' 
 
 * What ! Mamy has an admirer !' exclaimed 
 Reginald, smiling. ' I have always looked 
 upon her as quite a little girl ; but I am
 
 298 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 delighted to hear it, all the same. I believe 
 young Warden is a first-rate fellow, though 
 he wants licking into shape a little ; and rich, 
 too — there is no doubt of that.' 
 
 ' That makes no difference to Mamy,' said 
 Ella dolefully. ' She is terribly trying ; just 
 because it would be the best and m.ost reason- 
 able match in the world, she sets her face 
 against it. She refused Sydney point-blank 
 the other day ; only he has managed to per- 
 suade her to promise that she will listen to 
 no one else for a year.' 
 
 ' I suppose it is a pity,' said Reginald re- 
 flectively — 'from a worldly point of view, at 
 any rate ; and she can't take to him, you say ? 
 I believe myself he is the best of the lot.' 
 
 * Oh, but Lucy is nice, too !' exclaimed 
 Ella deprecatingly. Her promise to her 
 friend rose accusingly In her memory. ' You 
 do think she is nice, don't you ?' she added 
 pleadingly. 
 
 ' What do you call nice ?' said Reginald, 
 laughing ; ' to me she is entirely uninterest- 
 ing. She does not even seem like a flesh- 
 and- blood woman ; only like a laced -up
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 299 
 
 cardboard or guttapercha kind of Imitation 
 of one to hang fashionable dresses upon. I 
 am sure she hasn't an idea or a thought that 
 hasn't been put into her by her pastors and 
 masters. She goes to balls as she goes to 
 church — by rule of thumb. She does every- 
 thing automatically, even to visiting old Mrs. 
 Hunter over the way.' 
 
 Eila made a protesting gesture. 
 
 * Poor Lucy !' she interrupted him ; * how 
 little you know her ! It is incredible that 
 one person should judge another so falsely.' 
 
 ' You say it is false ?' said Reginald. ' But 
 I don't think you are a good judge. Miss 
 Warden wakes up, I dare say, in your society. 
 Some people have the faculty of radiating, 
 you know — they warm and brighten every- 
 thing that comes within their influence ; and 
 you are one of those people. But to outside 
 mortals like myself, she is very commonplace 
 and uninteresting. If I wanted you to under- 
 stand the difference between you and her, 
 from a man's point of view, T should have to 
 go back to the age of gold when the earth 
 was young, and to picture a landscape with
 
 300 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 airily-clad figures in the foreground. You 
 would be just in your place in such a setting; 
 you would seem to belong to it, as though 
 you had grown out of it. But Miss Warden !' 
 — his voice assumed an unconscious inflexion 
 of pitying disdain — 'what a poor, inappro- 
 priate, shivering figure she would cut ! She 
 would be nowhere without the latest fashion- 
 able clothes. What is that saying about God 
 making the country, and man making the 
 town ? I should say Nature made you, and 
 the milliner made Miss Warden.' 
 
 He stopped, and Eila, though she laughed 
 in a vexed way, did not immediately reply. 
 The moon had risen and deepened since they 
 had seated themselves on the bench, and the 
 descending garden looked weird and bleached 
 under her pale rays. The soothing sounds of 
 coming night blended themselves into a soft, 
 discordant chorus, chanted in a subdued key. 
 There were feeble chirps and squeaks from 
 the birds in the apple-trees, and a whining 
 accompaniment that sounded now near, now 
 far, from the mosquitoes circling in the air. 
 The crickets and grasshoppers whirred and
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 301 
 
 snapped above and beneath the bushes, and 
 a distant sound of whistling or singing from 
 the veranda below stole upwards through the 
 darkness. Eila revolved the words she had 
 heard for some time before she answered : 
 
 * I believe you are rather an exception in 
 your way of judging — I hope you are, at 
 least. Men like women to be beautifully 
 dressed, as a rule ; I don't mean expensively 
 only, but suitably, in soft colours that har- 
 monize well, and in things that fit and are 
 fashionably cut. Your chief grievance against 
 Lucy seems to be that she wears pretty things, 
 and that they are made in the latest fashions ; 
 yet you say yourself — what was it you said ? 
 — that she would be such a " poor, inappro- 
 priate figure " without them, and yet you 
 blame her for wearing them. You are very 
 inconsequent and unjust.' 
 
 ' I blame her ! Not in the least,' he declared. 
 ' I say she is dependent on her dress and on 
 her teaching, that is all, for being what she 
 is ; and I am indifferent to people who have 
 no objective individuality of their own, either 
 physical or mental — they don't interest me.'
 
 302 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 * That is such an unreasonable charge !' 
 complained Eila. As an introduction to the 
 sounding of Reginald's heart on Lucy's behalf, 
 the conversation seemed by no means pro- 
 mising. 'It all comes of not knowing her. 
 You say you like to do things for me. Well, 
 will you cultivate Lucy's acquaintance a little, 
 for my sake, when I am gone ? Talk to her 
 by herself — no matter about what — ^just as 
 you talk to me. Not quite like that, then,' 
 as she felt rather than saw the indignant dis- 
 claimer provoked by her words, ' but as you 
 used to talk to me when I first met you ; and 
 then write and tell me whether your opinion 
 has not changed a little.' 
 
 * And if it should — what then ? What is 
 to be gained by it ?' he asked, with a certain 
 surprise in his tones. ' That I like to do 
 things for you, as you call it, goes without 
 saying ; but here you want to inflict a useless 
 penance upon another person, as well as upon 
 me, for I don't think Miss Warden would be 
 particularly grateful to you for inciting me to 
 bore her when you are gone.' 
 
 * On the contrary,' said Ella gravely, ' I
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 303 
 
 think she would be very grateful to me, and 
 very, very glad.' 
 
 She said the words so solemnly that Regi- 
 nald checked his rising inclination to laugh. 
 To a man who had been anything of a 
 Lothario, her affirmation could have borne 
 but one interpretation ; but besides the fact 
 that there was only room for one image at 
 the present time in Reginald's heart, he had 
 never looked upon himself in the light of a 
 conquering hero, as far as women were con- 
 cerned. If it had not been too dark to allow 
 her to see his expression, the look of almost 
 alarmed perplexity that her words had brought 
 into his face mioht have amused his com- 
 panion in her turn. 
 
 ' What do you mean ?' he said. ' I am a 
 bad hand at taking a hint. You don't want 
 me to run away with the absurd idea that 
 Miss Warden honours me with her preference, 
 do you ?' 
 
 ' What would there be so surprising in it 
 if she did ?' retorted Eila, with soft- voiced, 
 unconscious flattery. ' It is always the round 
 man in the square hole in this world in every-
 
 304 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 thing. I haven't the least right to betray 
 Lucy to you ; only you are not like ordinary 
 men. If you thought she cared about you 
 hopelessly, you would not be vain about it ; 
 you would only feel pitiful, and perhaps more 
 kindly disposed towards her than before. 
 Besides, you should not have spoken as you 
 did just now ; it seemed to tgg me on to tell 
 what I knew, just to show you how mistaken 
 you were. You say Lucy is made of card- 
 board and guttapercha,' with a scornful little 
 laugh ; ' whereas in reality she has much 
 more of a steadfast woman's heart than I 
 have. I know it ; I feel it. I don't say it is 
 a merit ; she is made so. Where she places 
 her affections, she makes a sacred, durable 
 shrine for them. Nothing could alter her. 
 She dresses as you see because her mother 
 likes it ; besides, I suppose it is a habit. I 
 would do it, too, if I could afford it ; I should 
 love to do it. She is not the less a woman 
 for that, with a strong nature and a very 
 feeling heart. I thought men looked upon 
 constancy to one ideal in a woman as the 
 most beautiful quality she could have. I
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 305 
 
 don't know why ; but I believe they do. 
 Remember, I know Lucy ; I have had talks 
 with her in which we have gone far below 
 the surface — deep down beneath the little 
 conventional crust at which you have stopped 
 short, which you have never pierced, and on 
 the strength of which you think you are en- 
 titled to pronounce an opinion. Well, you 
 will have to own yourself wrong. I have 
 said enough now to make that plain to you, 
 I hope ; and for the rest, many men would 
 think that, even without her money, Lucy 
 Warden's love was not a thing to be despised.' 
 
 She stopped a little out of breath. Her 
 emotion had spurred her on to talk rapidly, 
 without a pause or break. Several times 
 Reginald would have interrupted her, but she 
 paid no heed to him. Perhaps the very 
 certainty that she was pleading a hopeless 
 cause lent additional energy to her manner. 
 She did not deliberately set herself to simu- 
 late generous sentiments in Lucy's behalf, but 
 she could not help feeling that it was easier 
 to feel generous, easier to constitute herself 
 Lucy's champion with the foregone convic- 
 
 voL. I. 20
 
 3o6 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 tion that Lucy's cause was lost, than If there 
 had been any risk of her gaining It. 
 
 ' Is the prisoner at the bar to have a chance 
 of being heard ?' Reginald asked humbly ; and 
 as she made no reply, he went on hesitatingly : 
 * If you are not mistaken ' (she shook her head 
 energetically), — * well, then, granting you are 
 not mistaken, I need not say that what you 
 have told me is a very great surprise to 
 me. Of course, I take back a part of what 
 I said. Gutta-percha women have not got 
 hearts. They don't even take fancies that I 
 know of. But granting, as I said, that all 
 you have been telling me is a fact, what would 
 you advise me to do ? What is to be the 
 upshot of it all ? Do you counsel me to 
 cultivate Miss Warden's acquaintance with- 
 out delay ?' 
 
 He put the question carelessly, but his 
 heart was beating with painful suspense as 
 he awaited her reply. Ella was almost 
 deceived by his tone ; they had entered un- 
 willingly upon a game of cross-questions and 
 crooked answers. What if his allegiance to 
 her had been really affected by the unex-
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 307 
 
 pected revelation she had made him ? Could 
 it be possible there was a remote chance that 
 she might gain her friend's cause after all ? 
 Then what signified the moonlit vows 
 on Mount Knocklofty — the protestations of 
 eternal, unswerving love and constancy she 
 had heard ? A little bewildered, vaguely 
 apprehensive, moved withal by the desire 
 to be loyal at all costs to her friend, Eila 
 answered in a constrained voice : 
 
 ' Of course I counsel you. Lucy is as 
 good as she is rich.' 
 
 There was a dead silence which seemed to 
 last an interminable time to the couple on the 
 bench. Then Reginald said in a dry voice : 
 
 'You advise me to see her, then, with a 
 view to marriage ? Is that how I am to 
 understand it ?' 
 
 A simple ' Yes ' rose to Eila's cold lips, 
 but she changed it for ' That is the advice 
 I ought to give you as a friend ' 
 
 ' Never mind the ought !* he exclaimed 
 breathlessly. * You would advocate it from 
 your own point of view ?' 
 
 'Well, it would be what all your friends
 
 3o8 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 would consider a tremendously lucky stroke,' 
 she said guardedly. 'A wife who would 
 idolize you, and bring you a big fortune 
 besides.' 
 
 ' Oh, Eila, Eila !' cried Reginald, and for a 
 few moments he said no more. 
 
 Nevertheless, if he had utteied the most 
 eloquent and beautifully -worded appeal in 
 the world, his protest could not have sunk 
 more deeply into his hearer's heart. So 
 deeply did it sink, indeed, and so clearly was 
 it read by her, that she clasped his arm 
 spontaneously with her two hands, and 
 rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, while 
 she said only these three words, ' Do forgive 
 me !' which had the effect, however, of the 
 sweetest balm poured into a wound. 
 
 They sat silent for awhile, and he stroked 
 her head in token of forgiveness. 
 
 ' Why do you like to try me ?' he said. 
 * Is it to show your power ? That is an old 
 story, surely. Why, you almost made me 
 believe for a moment that you expected me 
 to take your words seriously. Do you know 
 what it means when a man loves a woman as
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 309 
 
 I love you? It means that no other woman 
 exists for him in the world. That if a fairy- 
 tale princess, with diamonds dropping from 
 her mouth with every word, were to offer 
 herself to him, he would turn away from her. 
 I don't believe you understand that kind of 
 feeling. You said just now you had not the 
 quality of steadfastness, but you inspire it in 
 others, if you don't feel it yourself Of what 
 use would it be for me to cultivate Miss 
 Warden's acquaintance ? The sooner she 
 forgets my existence the better.' 
 
 * What a number of different ways of 
 loving there are, to be sure !' exclaimed Eila 
 irrelevantly — ' as many as there are people 
 who feel it, I believe. I am sure there must 
 be many men who would say in your place : 
 ''Well, since I can't have the woman I would 
 have fancied, I will give up thinking of her, 
 and just keep her as my friend ; and mean- 
 while I will make the best of life with a 
 wealthy, loving, virtuous young woman as 
 my wife." Don't you think there are many 
 men who would argue in that way ?' 
 
 * Not if they felt as I do. Besides, I can't
 
 3IO NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 and won't give up all hope as long as you 
 and I are above-ground. I would love you 
 with wrinkles and white hair as I love you 
 now. And long, long before that time we 
 may have found a solution.' 
 
 * That is another way in which you are 
 different from me,' she said regretfully. 
 ' You can wait and be brave. It always 
 seems to me, when a thing is worth having, 
 it is worth having now, or not at all. I 
 cannot tell whether I may care for it even 
 by-and-by. I suppose natures are different. 
 We can't make ourselves feel other than we 
 do, can we ?' 
 
 ' I don't know. I suppose the feelings 
 may be moulded too — to a certain extent, at 
 least — by the will. But, then, which acts 
 upon which? That is always the puzzle. 
 As you said just now of Miss Warden, it is 
 no merit of mine that I am constant to you. 
 I simply can't help myself. I don't believe, 
 all the same, that there is anyone else who 
 would have had the power to develop the 
 faculty of constancy in me to the same ex- 
 tent. Promises of fidelity mean nothing.
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 311 
 
 You can't promise to feel. You can only 
 promise to act, and the action Is worth 
 nothing without the feeling. I won't ask 
 you to keep your affection for me as I keep 
 my love for you. If once you come to think 
 of It as a duty, It will have pretty well ceased 
 to be. But I will ask you to make me a 
 promise, Ella, and to keep it, and that Is, 
 first to tell me the truth about everything. 
 Don't hide things out of consideration for 
 me. There Is no suffering you can inflict 
 from which I might not recover ; but to 
 deceive me, that would be indeed dealing me 
 my death-blow. I deserve your confidence 
 — I do Indeed, my dear. Supposing I had 
 used such Influence as you have let me gain 
 over you to persuade you to run counter to 
 social conventions ; or If not to run counter 
 to them openly, to let us be all in all to each 
 other in secret ? Supposing I had worked 
 upon your fine, pitying, sympathetic nature 
 to induce you to surrender yourself wholly 
 and entirely into my hands, don't you think ' 
 — he spoke rapidly and nervously — 'don't 
 you think matters might have ended so ?'
 
 312 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 'Yes,' Eila answered. 
 
 Her head was bent, and the moonbeams 
 seemed to trace her silhouette in silver by 
 her lover s side. Her simple answer moved 
 him inexpressibly ; the chivalrous as well as 
 the passionate element in his nature was 
 stirred to its depths. He bowed low over her 
 hand and pressed his lips to it deferentially. 
 
 'You are my queen and my darling,' he 
 said humbly. ' Whatever may come in the 
 future, I hope I shall always have the 
 strength to be glad that these years of our 
 friendship have passed as they have. I 
 know that from the ordinary point of view 
 I have acted like a fool — the greater fool, 
 perhaps, that the kind of scruples which 
 weigh with other people have no weight 
 with me. My conscience would not have 
 reproached me if you had been indeed what 
 the old romancers called "my lady love" all 
 this time. I would not have worshipped or 
 venerated you the less ; but I would have 
 introduced a disturbing element, a terror, 
 and an unrest into your life. I should 
 have proved that I loved you for myself — in
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 313 
 
 short, more than for yourself. You under- 
 stand ?' 
 
 'Yes,' Eila said again; and he continued 
 once more : 
 
 ' Then I may believe you will give me 
 your trust and your confidence, by right of 
 my love for you ?' 
 
 ' I will indeed,' she said earnestly. * I will 
 tell you everything, I promise you.' 
 
 Reginald was fain to be content with this 
 assurance. But after he had torn himself 
 away from her, and was walking down the 
 rough road through the moon-steeped radi- 
 ance of the summer night, misgivings and 
 forebodings that made the future lie black 
 before him crowded upon his mind. He 
 loved her so dearly — so dearly! It was 
 because he loved her after so exalted a 
 fashion that he had refrained from avowing 
 his passion to her until she was on the point 
 of leaving him. But he could not say even 
 now whether he had acted wisely ; he could 
 not be sure that he had taken the best means 
 after all of ensuring her fidelity to him in the 
 future. Supposing he had persuaded her to
 
 314 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 regard her first miserable marriage as a thing 
 to be disregarded, and had bound her to him, 
 as wives are bound to their husbands, by a 
 tie the stronger for its secrecy ? Might she 
 not have looked upon him then as her very 
 lord and master, and have remained heart 
 and fancy-proof even when she was separated 
 from him ? Might she not, indeed, have re- 
 fused to separate from him altogether, and 
 have braved the world ? No, he could not 
 have let her do that in this little place, where 
 the stones aimed at her glass house from 
 every hand would have wounded and well- 
 nigh crushed her. But might she not at 
 least have remained under the roof of her 
 father-in-law, and have given Reginald such 
 hours as she could spare ? If his renuncia- 
 tion had but procured him the loss of this 
 imaginary Paradise, cast her loose, too, upon 
 the world, instead of attaching her to an 
 anchor of safety, how bitterly, how eternally 
 he would rue it! If it had but exposed her, 
 with her impressionable, exotic nature, her 
 irresistible attractions, and her defenceless 
 position, to become the mark of someone less
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 315 
 
 scrupulous, less tender of her than himself, 
 how more than ever, how unavailingly, would 
 he repent himself! The very thought made 
 him shiver in the warm night air. On the 
 other hand, if, by teaching her to deceive, he 
 had exposed her to a different kind of danger, 
 what then ? Had he not read in some 
 French novel, wherein he had come upon 
 some other wonderful truths, that a woman 
 might have no lovers or several, but rarely 
 one alone ? Supposing he had only suc- 
 ceeded in inclining her to lend a readier ear 
 to the next person who should impress her 
 fancy after she had gone far out of his own 
 reach ? That was a thought not to be har- 
 boured, not to be borne for an instant. 
 Reginald walked far past the little cottage he 
 shared at Sandy Bay with his mother, under 
 the influence of the dreary thoughts that 
 pursued him. The scene around him might 
 have whispered peace to a less troubled 
 heart than his, for town and harbour lay 
 wrapped in a silver dream. Not a leaf 
 rustled, not a ripple stirred upon the water. 
 It was as though Nature herself had feared
 
 3i6 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 to break the spell. And while he was hurry- 
 ing along the road, blind to the calm beauty 
 of the night, Eila at the cottage was seated 
 in her own little room writing a letter, with 
 deep intervals for reflection. She had only 
 her mattress on the littered floor for a seat, 
 only a lead pencil, with a page tOx-n from an 
 old copy-book, for her writing materials. 
 But Lucy must not be kept waiting. Poor 
 Lucy ! Even now, perhaps, the strain of 
 hope deferred was keeping her awake while 
 all about her slept. Eila tried to temper her 
 news as best she could. It could not be very 
 wrong, she thought, to employ a subterfuge 
 in the telling of it. 
 
 * Dear Lucy ' (said the letter), 
 
 * I would have written before, but, 
 indeed, I have had no chance of speaking 
 until this evening. I am sure Mr. Acton 
 likes you very much ; but, Lucy dear, it 
 seems there is a reason, after all, for his 
 putting marriage with anyone on this side of 
 the world away from him — for the present. 
 You hinted at something, you remember,
 
 NOT COUNTING THE COST 317 
 
 when we were talking about this matter in 
 the veranda, and I dare say you were right. 
 You must look upon that as the reason if he 
 does not go out much or accept many invita- 
 tions. I should try and put it out of my head 
 for a time if I were you, especially as many 
 others are ready to kneel at your feet. I 
 wish I had more satisfactory news, but I can 
 only give my impression for what it is worth. 
 I don't think the money would be an in- 
 superable obstacle if the heart were still free, 
 but I have strong doubts of that after the 
 conversation I have just had. 
 
 ' Your affectionate friend, 
 
 * ElLA. 
 
 ' P.S. — You will forgive the scrappy paper 
 and the pencil. Everything is packed up, 
 even the ink and pens.' 
 
 This letter did not reach its recipient until 
 after the writer's departure. The only line 
 that detached itself from the rest like a golden 
 rift in a black cloud was the line, ' I am sure 
 Mr. Acton likes you very much.' But to 
 Lucy's great sorrow there was no longer any
 
 3i8 NOT COUNTING THE COST 
 
 opportunity of cross-examining her friend as 
 to the means by which she arrived at this 
 knowledge. The Queen of the South was 
 already lost to view, and the degree of liking 
 professed by Reginald must remain at the un- 
 satisfactory stage of a tormenting hypothesis, 
 to be interpreted in its best or its worse sense, 
 according as Lucy was borne up by heaven- 
 high hope or cast down by cruel and sad 
 despondency. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. 
 
 6". ^ H.