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RS. Tetteridge was a pretty piquante lady. Her grey eyes no longer looked out upon the world with childish wonder. On the contrary they suggested that she now knew all about it, had found on closer inspection that there really was nothing to wonder about. A commonplace world with well-defined high-roads that one did well to follow, keeping one's eyes in front of one, suppressing all inclination towards alluring leading to waste lands and barren spaces.

Tetteridge's Preparatory and Commercial School had outgrown its beginnings. Mrs. Tetteridge had no objection to the "ambitious poor," provided they were willing and able to pay increased school fees and to dress their sons in conformity with the standards of respectability. But they no longer formed the chief support of the Rev. Doctor Tetteridge's Academy. The professional and commercial classes of Millsborough and its neighbourhood had discovered Mr. Tetteridge and were in the process of annexing him. Naturally they would prefer that he should get rid of the ragtail and the


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 bobtail that had flocked round him on his first coming. The Rev. Dr. Tetteridge, interviewing parents, found himself in face of the problem that had troubled the elder Miss Warmington when, years ago, in the very same room, she had sat over against Mrs. Strong'nth'arm, while stealing side glances at a self-possessed young imp perched on a horsehair chair with one leg tucked underneath him.

The Rev. Dr. Tetteridge was sorry—had known himself the difficulty of meeting tailors' bills. But corduroys, patched coats and paper collars! There were parents to be considered. A certain tone of appearance and behaviour must be maintained. The difficulty was not always confined to clothes. The children of agitators—of fathers who spoke openly and often against the existing order of society! In Millsborough there were many such. Unfortunate that the opinions of the fathers should be visited on the children. But so it was. Middle-class youth must be protected from possible contamination. The Rev. Dr. Tetteridge, remembering youthful speeches of his own at local debating societies, would flush and stammer. Mr. Tetteridge himself was not altogether averse to freedom of speech. But again the parents! The ambitious poor would give coarse expression to

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 contemptuous anger and depart, dragging their puzzled offspring with them. Some of the things they said would hurt the Rev. Dr. Tetteridge by reason of their truth, especially things said by those among the poor who had known him when he was Mr. Emanuel Tetteridge, to whom success had not yet come.

Mr. Emanuel Tetteridge had thought to help the poor. In what way better than by educating their sons? For which purpose, it would seem, he had been granted special gifts. It was the thing that compensated him for giving up his dreams. Maybe the poor, not knowing the etiquette of these matters, might have overlooked his playing of the fiddle; perhaps, lacking sense of propriety, might have tolerated even odes to "Irene."

An eccentric schoolmaster, an oddity of a schoolmaster, content with what the world called poverty so that he might live his own life, dream out his dreams, might have done this. If only he hadn't got on. If only success—a strong-minded lady—was not gripping him so firmly by the arm, talking incessantly, without giving him a moment to think of the wonderful place to which she was leading him: a big house of many rooms, strongly built and solidly furnished, surrounded by a high brick wall pierced by a great iron gate; with men and women


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 in uniform to see to his feeding and his clothing and his sleeping. At the proper times he would go to church. There would be a certain number of hours apportioned to him for exercise and even for recreation of an approved nature. And there would be times when his friends could come to see him. It had sounded to Emanuel Tetteridge as the description of a prison; but Mrs. Tetteridge had assured him it was a palace.

What further impressed him with the idea that it was to prison he was going was the information broken to him by Mrs. Tetteridge that before he could enter there he would have to take off his tweed suit and put on a black coat that buttoned close up to the neck, with a collar that fastened behind. Such, until his term of service was ended, would be his distinctive garb. He had put up opposition. But Mrs. Tetteridge had cried, and when she cried the hardness went out of her eyes and she looked very pretty and pathetic; and Tetteridge had felt himself a brute and a traitor to love. So the day had come when he had taken off his old tweed suit forever and had put on the long black coat that buttoned round the neck. And Mrs. Tetteridge had come to his assistance with the collar and had laughed and clapped her pretty hands and kissed him.


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 But when she had left him and the door was closed he had gone down on his knees and had asked God to forgive him for his hypocrisy. He had knelt long and the tears had come; and when he rose it seemed to him that God, looking in, had smiled at him a little sadly and had laid a hand on him, calling him "poor lad." So that it remained with him that God understood what a difficult thing is life, and would, perhaps, give him another chance.

The time had come, so Mrs. Tetteridge had decided, for a move onward. The final destination, that country mansion standing in its own grounds, that she had determined upon, was still not yet in sight. Something half-way was her present idea, a large, odd-shaped house to the south of St. Aldys Church. It had once been a convent, but had been adapted to domestic purposes by an eccentric old East India trader who had married three wives. All his numerous progeny lived with him, and he had needed a roomy place. It was too big and too ugly for most people and had been empty for years. It belonged to a client of Mowbray's and it occurred to Mrs. Tetteridge that he might consider even an inadequate rent better than nothing at all. At her request Anthony met her there one afternoon with the key. The rusty iron gate squeaked when


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 Anthony pushed it open. They crossed a paved yard and mounted a flight of stone steps. The lock of the great oak door growled and grated when Anthony tried to turn the key. But it yielded at last, and a cold chill air crept up from the cellars and wrapped them round. Mrs. Tetteridge had difficulty in hiding her enthusiasm. The long tunnel-like rooms on the ground floor might have been built for class rooms. On the first floor was the great drawing-room. It would serve for receptions and speech-making. There were bedrooms for a dozen boarders if they had luck. The high-walled garden behind was bare save for decrepit trees and overgrown bushes that could easily be removed. A few cartloads of gravel would transform it into an ideal playground. They returned to the ground floor. At the end of the stone corridor Mrs. Tetteridge found a door she had not previously noticed. It led to a high vaulted room with a huge black marble mantelpiece representing two elephants supporting a small-sized temple. Opposite was a high-arched window overlooking the churchyard.

Mrs. Tetteridge surveyed it approvingly.

"This will be Emy's study," she said in a tone of decision. She was speaking to herself. She had forgotten Anthony.


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 Anthony was leaning against one of the elephants.

"Poor devil!" he said.

Mrs. Tetteridge looked up. There was a curious little smile about her pretty mouth.

"You don't like me," she said to Anthony.

"I should," answered Anthony, "quite well, if I didn't like Emy."

She came to the other end of the mantelpiece, resting her hand upon it.

"I've got you here alone," she said with a laugh, "and I'm going to have it out with you. I'm sorry you don't like me because I like you very much. But that isn't the important thing. I don't want you taking Emy's side against me. You've got great influence over him, and I'm afraid of you."

Anthony was about to answer. She made a gesture.

"Let me finish," she said, "then we shall both know what we're up against. You think I'm spoiling his life, robbing him of his dreams. What were they, put into plain language? To compose a little music; to write a little poetry. He'd never have earned enough to live on. Perhaps before he died he might have composed something out of which a music publisher might have pocketed thousands. He might have written poems that


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 would have brought him fame when it was too late. He'd never have made any real solid success. At that kind of work I couldn't help him; and, left to himself, he isn't the sort that ever does get on. At this work of schoolmastering I can help him. He has the talent and I have the business capacity. I've no use for dreamers. My father was a dreamer. He discovered things in chemistry that, if he had followed them up, would have made his fortune. They bored him. He was out for discovering a means of changing the atmosphere. I don't remember the details. You released a gas, or you eliminated a gas, or you introduced a gas. It was all about gases. That's the only thing I do remember. People instead of breathing in depression and weariness breathed in light-heartedness and strength. It sounds like a fairy story, but if you'd listened to him you'd have been persuaded it was coming, that it was only a question of time, and that when the secret was discovered the whole human race would be feeling like a prisoner who had escaped from a dungeon. That was his dream. And to him it was possible. It was for the sake of that dream that he took the position of science master at St. Aldys at a hundred and sixty a year. It gave him leisure for research. And we children paid the price for it. Both my brothers were


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 clever boys. Given the opportunity, they could have won their way in the world. One of them is a commercial traveller, and the other, as you know, a clerk in your office at eighty pounds a year. If he behaves himself and works hard he may, when he's fifty, be your managing clerk at three hundred."

She came closer to him and looked straight into his eyes.

"He's there," she said, "inside you—the dreamer. You know it and so do I," she laughed. "I've looked at him too often. You've had sense enough to chain him up and throw away the key. Take care he doesn't escape. If he does he'll take possession of you, and all your strength and cleverness will be at his service. He'll ride you without pity. He'll ride you to death."

She put her hands upon his shoulders and gave him a little shake.

"I'm talking to you for your good," she said. "I like you. Don't ever let him get the mastery over you. If he does, God help you."

She looked at her watch.

"I must be off," she said.

Anthony laughed.

"So like a woman," he said; "thinks that when


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 she has said all that she's got to say that there's nothing more to be said."

"You shall have your say another time," she promised him.

Anthony kept on the house in Bruton Square. It was larger than they wanted now the Tetteridges were gone, but he liked the old-fashioned square with its ancient rookery among the tall elms. He let the big classroom for an office to a young architect who had lately come to Millsborough. His aunt was delighted with the change. She had hated Mrs. Tetteridge, who had disapproved of her sitting on sunny afternoons on a Windsor chair outside the front door. It had always been her habit. And why what was harmless in Moor End Lane should be sinful in Bruton Square she could not understand. She was growing feeble. It was want of work according to her own idea, which was probably correct. As a consequence she was looking forward to heaven with less eagerness.

"I used to think it would be just lovely," she confessed to Anthony one day, "sitting about and doing nothing for ever and ever. It sounds ungrateful, but upon my word I'm not so sure that I'll enjoy it."

"Uncle did believe in God," said Anthony. "I


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 had a talk with him before he died. 'There must be somebody bossing it all,' he said. His hope was that God might think him of some use and find him a job."

"He was a good man, your uncle," answered his aunt. "I used to worry myself about him. But perhaps, after all, the Lord ain't as unreasonable as He's made out to be."

Mr. Mowbray was leaving the business more and more to Anthony. As a compensation for denial in other directions he was allowing himself too much old port and the gout was getting hold of him. Betty took him abroad as much as possible. Travelling interested him, and, away from his old cronies, he was easier to manage. He had always adored his children, and Betty, in spite of his failings, could not help being fond of him. Anthony knew that so long as her father lived she would never marry. Neither was he in any hurry. The relationship between them was that of a restful comradeship; and marriage could have made but little difference. Meanwhile the firm of Mowbray and Cousins was prospering. The private business was almost entirely in the hands of old Johnson, the head clerk. It was to his numerous schemes for the building up of Millsborough that Anthony devoted himself. The port of Millsborough was al-


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 ready an accomplished fact and its success assured. A syndicate for the construction of an electric tramway running from the docks to the farthest end of the densely populated valley had already got to work. A yet more important project was now in Anthony's mind. Hitherto Millsborough had been served by a branch line from a junction fifteen miles away. Anthony wanted a new track that should cross the river to the west of the new lock and, skirting the coast, rejoin the main line beyond the moor. It would bring Millsborough on to the main line and shorten the distance between London and the north by over an hour. It was the name of Mowbray that figured upon all documents, but Millsborough knew that the brain behind was Mowbray's junior partner, young Strong'nth'arm. Millsborough, believing in luck, put its money on him.

The Coomber family had returned to The Abbey somewhat unexpectedly. No tenant for the house had come forward. Also Sir Harry had come into unexpected legacy. It was not much, but with economy it would enable them to keep up the old place. It had been the home of the Coomber family for many generations, and Sir Harry, not expecting to live long, was wishful to die there.

Mr. Mowbray was away, and old Johnson, the


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 head clerk, had gone up to The Abbey to welcome them home and talk a little business.

"I doubt if they'll be able to pull through," he said to Anthony on his return to the office. "The grounds are all going to rack and ruin, to say nothing about the outbuildings and the farm. Even to keep it up as it is will take two thousand a year; and it doesn't seem to me that, after paying the interest on the mortgage, he'll have as much as that left altogether."

"What does he say himself?" asked Anthony. "Does he grasp it?"

Oh, after me the deluge!' seems to be his idea," answered old Johnson. "Reckons he isn't going to live for more than two years, and may just as well live there. Talks of shutting up most of the rooms and eking out existence on the produce of the kitchen garden," he laughed.

"And Lady Coomber?" asked Anthony.

"Oh, well, he's fortunate there," answered Johnson. "Give her a blackbird to sing to her and a few flowers to look after and you haven't got to worry about her. Don't see how they're going to manage about the boy."

"He's in the army, isn't he?" said Anthony.

"In the Guards," answered Johnson. "They must be mad. Of course they've any amount of


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 rich connections. But I don't see their coming forward to that extent."

"He'll have to exchange," suggested Anthony. "Get out to India."

"Or else they'll starve themselves to try and keep it up," answered Johnson. "Funny thing, you can never get any sense into these old families. It's the inter-breeding, I suppose. Of course, there's the girl. She may perhaps put them on their legs again."

"By marrying some rich old bug?" said Anthony.

"Or rich young one," answered Johnson. "I don't think I've ever seen anything more lovely. I expect that's why they've come back, if the truth were told. If her aunt took her up and ran her for a season in London there oughtn't to be much difficulty."

"Except perhaps the girl," suggested Anthony.

"Oh! they look at things differently in that class," answered old Johnson. "They've got to."

The house and shop in Platts Lane where Anthony had been born had been taken over by the old jobbing tinker and his half-witted son. The old man had never been of much use, but the boy had developed into a clever mechanic. Bicycles were numerous now in Millsborough, and he had


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 gained the reputation of being the best man in the town for repairing them and generally putting them to rights. A question of repairs to the workshop had arisen. The property belonged to a client of Mowbray's, and Mr. Johnson was giving instructions to a clerk to call at the place on his way back from lunch and see what was wanted when Anthony entered the room.

"I'm going that way," he said. "I'll call myself."

Anthony stopped his cab a few streets off. He had carefully avoided this neighbourhood of sordid streets since the day he and his mother had finally left it behind them. The spirit of hopelessness seemed brooding there. The narrow grimy house where he was born was unchanged. The broken window in the room where his father had died had never yet been mended. The square of brown paper that he himself had cut out and pasted over the hole had worn well.

Anthony knocked at the door. It was opened by a slatternly woman, the wife of a neighbour. Old Joe Witlock was in bed with a cold. It was his son's fault, he explained. Matthew would insist on the workshop door being always left open. He would give no reason, but as it was he who prac-


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 tically earned the living his father thought it best to humour him. The old man was pleased to see Anthony, and they talked for a while about old days. Anthony explained his visit. It was the roof of the workshop that wanted repairing. Anthony went out again and round by the front way. The door was wide open, so that passing along the street one could see into the workshop. Matthew was repairing a bicycle. He had grown into a well-built good-looking young man. It was only about the eyes that one noticed anything peculiar. He recognized Anthony at once and they shook hands. Anthony was looking up at the roof when he heard a movement and turned round. A girl was sitting on a stool behind the open door. It was the very stool that Anthony himself had been used to sit upon as a child watching his father at his work. It was Miss Coomber. She held out her hand with a laugh.

"Father sent me out of the room last time I saw you," she said, "without introducing us. I am Eleanor Coomber. You are Mr. Anthony Strong'nth'arm, aren't you?"

"Yes," answered Anthony. "I heard you had returned to The Abbey."

"I was coming to see you—or rather Mr. John-


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 son," she said, "with a letter from father; but I ran into a cart at the bottom of the hill. I'm really only a beginner," she added by way of excuse.

"Then you ought not to ride down steep hills," said Anthony, "especially not in a town."

"I'll get off at The Three Carpenters next time," she said, "if you promise not to tell."

Anthony took the letter and promised to deliver it. "You've come back for good, haven't you?" he asked.

"Tell me," she said. "You do know all about it, don't you? Do you think we shall be able to? I do love it."

Anthony was silent for a moment. She was evidently hanging on his answer.

"It's possible," he said, "with strict economy."

She laughed as though relieved.

"Oh, that!" she said. "We're used enough to that."

Matthew was blowing the furnace. The light from the glowing embers flickered round them.

"You were born here, weren't you?" she asked.

"In the house adjoining, to be exact," he answered with a laugh. "But this was my nursery. I used to sit on that very stool with my leg tucked underneath me watching my father work. I loved it when he blew the bellows and made the shadows


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 dance. At least I expect it's the same stool," he added. "There was the figure of a gnome that a strange old fellow I once knew carved upon it."

She sprang to the ground and examined it.

"Yes," she said. "It is the same. He must have been quite clever."

She reseated herself upon it. Her feet just touched the ground.

"I was born in Brazil," she said. "Father had a ranch near Rio. But we left there before I was three. The first thing I can really remember is The Abbey. We must have come on a visit, I suppose, to Sir William. It was the long garden between the cloister walls that was my first nursery. I used to play there with the flowers and make them talk to me."

"I saw you there," he said, "one afternoon."

She looked up at him. "When was that?" she asked.

"Oh, one evening in September," he said. "About two years ago." He had spoken without premeditation and now felt himself flushing. He hoped she might think it only the glow from the furnace fire.

"But we were in Florence," she said.

"I know," he answered, flushing still deeper.


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 "I asked old Wilkins when you had come back, and he thought I was mad."

"It is curious," she answered gravely. "I dreamed one day that I was walking there and met your namesake, Anthony the Monk. He was standing by the wicket gate on the very spot where he was slain. He called to me, but I was frightened and hid myself among the flowers."

Anthony was interested.

"Who was the Monk Anthony?" he asked.

"Don't you know the story?" she said. "He was the son of one Giles Strong'nth'arm and Martha his wife, according to the records of the monastery. It seems to have been a common name in the neighbourhood, but I expect you were all one family. The abbot had died suddenly of a broken heart. It was the time of the confiscation of the monasteries by Henry VIII, and the monks had chosen Anthony to act for them although he was the youngest of them all. He spent all night upon his knees, and when our ancestor arrived in the morning with his men-at-arms he met them at the great door of the chapel—it was where the rose garden is now—and refused to let them pass. The soldiers murmured and hesitated, for he had made of his outstretched arms a Cross, and a light, it was said, shone round about him. They would


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 have turned and fled. But it was to our ancestor, Percival de Combler—as it was then spelt—that The Abbey and its lands had been granted, and he was not the man to let it slip from his hands. He spurred his horse forward and struck down the Monk Anthony with one blow of his sword. And they rode their horses over his body and into the chapel."

"No," said Anthony. "I never heard the story. It always troubled my father, any talk about what his people had once been."

"You're so like him," she said. "It struck me the first time I saw you. You were sitting by the window writing. One of Sir Percival's young squires, who had been a student in Holland, made a picture of him from memory as he stood with his arms outstretched in the form of a Cross. Remind me next time you come to The Abbey and I'll show it you. It hangs in the library."

Matthew had finished. Anthony would not let her mount in the town. He insisted that she should wait until they got to The Three Carpenters, and walked beside her wheeling the bicycle. Her desire was to become an expert rider. A horse of her own was, of course, out of the question, and she had never cared for walking. They talked about The Abbey and the lonely moorland round about


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 it. One of the misfortunes of being poor was that you could do so little to help people. The moor folk had been used to look to The Abbey as a sort of permanent Lady Bountiful. The late Sir William had always been open-handed. She did what she could. There was an old bed-ridden labourer who lived in a lonely cottage with his granddaughter. The girl had suddenly left him and there was no one to look after him. He could just crawl about and feed himself, but that was all. Anthony's conscience smote him. Betty was away. The old man was one of her pensioners and he had promised to keep an eye on them till she came back. They arranged to meet there. He would see about getting some help.


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 Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, on the impetuous stream of life.

And we must all set our pocket watches by the clock of fate. There is a headlong, forthright tide, that bears away man with his fancies like a straw, and runs fast in time and space. It is full of curves like this, your winding river of the Oise; and lingers and returns in pleasant pastorals; and yet, rightly thought upon, never returns at all. For though it should revisit the same acre of meadow in the same hour, it will have made an ample sweep between whiles; many little streams will have fallen in; many exhalations risen towards the sun; and even although it were the same acre, it will no more be the same river of Oise. And thus, O graces of Origny, although the


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T came so suddenly that neither of them at first knew what had happened. A few meetings among the lonely by-ways of the moor that they had honestly persuaded themselves were by mere chance. A little walking side by side where the young leaves brushed their faces and the young ferns hid their feet. A little laughing, when the April showers would catch them lost in talk, and hand in hand they would race for the shelter of some over-hanging bank and crouch close pressed against each other among the twisted roots of the stunted firs. A little lingering on the homeward way, watching the horned moon climb up above the woods, while the song of some late lark filled all the world around them. Until one evening, having said good-bye though standing with their hands still clasped, she had raised her face to his and he had drawn her to him and their lips had met.

Neither had foreseen it nor intended it. It had been so spontaneous, so natural, that it seemed but the signing of a pact, the inevitable fulfilling of the law. Nothing had changed except that, now, they knew.


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 He turned his footsteps away from the town. A deep endless peace seemed to be around him. So this was what Edward had meant when he had written, so short a while before the end, that love was the great secret leading to God, that without it life was meaningless and void.

It was for this that he had waited, like some blind chrysalis not knowing of the day when it should be born into the sunlight.

He laughed, remembering what his dream had been: wealth, power, fame: the senseless dream of the miser starving beside his hoarded gold. These things he would strive for now with greater strength than ever—would win them, not for themselves, but for Love's sake, as service, as sacrifice.

He had no fear. Others had failed. It was not love, but passion that burns itself out. There was no alloy in his desire for her. She was beautiful he knew. But he was drawn by it as one is moved by the beauty of a summer's night, the tenderness of spring, the mystery of flowers. There was no part of her that whispered to him. The thought of her hands, her feet, the little dimple in her chin; it brought no stirring of his blood. It was she herself, with all about her that was imperceptible, unexplainable, that he yearned for; not to possess, but to worship, to abide with.


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 For a period he went about his work as in a dream, his brain guiding him as a man's brain guides him crossing the road while his mind is far away. The thought of her was all around him. It was for that brief evening hour when they would meet and look into one another's eyes that he lived.

As the days wore by there came to him the suggestion of difficulties, of obstacles. One by one he examined them and dismissed them. Would her people consent? If not, they must take the law into their own hands. About Eleanor herself he had no misgivings. He knew, without asking her, that she would brave all things. God had joined them together. No power of man should put them asunder.

Betty—a dim shadowy Betty like some thin wraith—moved beside him as he walked. He was not bound to her. Even if there had been a pledge between them he would have had to break it. If need be, if God willed it, and Eleanor were to die—for it seemed impossible that any lesser thing could part them—he could live his life alone; or rather with the memory of her that would give him strength and courage. But to marry any other woman was unthinkable. It would be a degradation to both.

Besides, Betty had never loved him. There had


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 been no talk of love between them. It would have been a mere marriage of convenience, the very thing that Edward had foreseen and had warned him against. To live without love was to flout God. Love was God. He understood now. It was through love that God spoke to us, called to us. It was through the Beloved One that God manifested Himself to us. One built a tabernacle and abided with her. It was good to be there.

Would it interfere with his career? Old Mr. Mowbray had been reckoning on his marrying Betty. He might, to use a common expression, cut up rough. He would have to risk that. As things were now it would be difficult for the firm of Mowbray and Cousins to go on without him. But anger does not act reasonably. Mr. Mowbray, indignant, resentful, could do much to hamper him, delay him. But that would be the worst. He felt his own power. He had made others believe in him. They would have to wait a few years longer while he was recovering his lost ground. As to the ultimate result he had no doubt. The determination to win was stronger in him than ever before. Love would sharpen his wits, make clearer his vision. With Love one could compel Fate.

Betty and her father were abroad. They had gone to Italy for the winter, meaning to return


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 about the end of March. But Mr. Mowbray had taken an illness which had altered their plans. Mrs. Strong'nth'arm had taken to indulge herself each day in a short evening walk. Anthony did not usually return home till between seven and eight; and as she explained to Mrs. Newt, she found this twilight time a little sad for sitting about and doing nothing. She always took the same direction. It led her through the open space surrounding the church of St. Aldys, where stood the great square house of Mowbray and Cousins. Glancing at it as she passed, she would notice that the door was closed, that no light shone from any of its windows. A little farther on she would pass The Priory, and glancing through the iron gates, would notice that, so far as the front of the house was concerned, it showed no sign of life. Then she would turn and walk back to Bruton Square, and putting off her outdoor things, watch by the window till Anthony came in; and they would sit down to supper and she would talk to him about the business of the day, his schemes and projects. She never tired of hearing about them.

One evening she had glanced as usual in passing at the office of Mowbray and Cousins. The house was dark and silent. But from the windows of The Priory lights were shining. Mrs. Strong'nth'arm


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 looked about her with somewhat the air of a conspirator. The twilight was deepening into darkness and no one was about. She pushed open the iron gate and closed it softly behind her. She knocked at the door so gently that it was not till the third time that she was heard. The maidservant who answered it seemed flustered and bustled. Mr. and Miss Mowbray had only returned an hour ago. She did not think that either of them would see anybody. Mrs. Strong'nth'arm took from her pocket a soiled and crumpled envelope. She smoothed it out and begged the maid to take it at once to Miss Mowbray. The maid, reluctant and grumbling, took it and disappeared. She returned a minute later, and Mrs. Strong'nth'arm followed her upstairs to the small room over the hall that was Betty's sanctum. Betty was still in her travelling dress. She was tired, but made Mrs. Strong'nth'arm comfortable in an armchair beside the fire and closed the door.

"There's nothing wrong, is there?" she asked. "Anthony isn't ill?"

"He's quite all right," Mrs. Strong'nth'arm assured her. "How's your father?"

"Oh, not very well," answered Betty. "I've just sent him to bed," she laughed. "You're sure there's nothing wrong?" she asked again.


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 Mrs. Strong'nth'arm was sitting bolt upright on the edge of the chair, holding her hands out to the fire.

"Well, I shouldn't be here, an hour after your arrival, just for the sake of a gossip," she answered without looking up.

"That's just what I was thinking," said Betty.

"Perhaps I'd better get on to it," answered Mrs. Strong'nth'arm. "Then it will be the sooner over. I want to be back before he comes in, if I can."

Betty took a chair beside her, facing the fire.

"Don't be afraid," she said. "I've got an inkling of it."

The other looked at her in surprise.

"How could you?" she asked. "He's never said a word, even to me."

Betty smiled.

"Then how is it you know?" she answered. "Of course I knew they were back. He wrote and told me."

"Yes," said the other. "It's wonderful how love sharpens a woman's instincts." Suddenly she leant forward and gripped the girl's hand. "Don't let him," she said. "Stop him before it's too late." She felt the girl's hand tremble in hers. "I'm not thinking of you," she said. "Do it for his sake—save him."


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 "How can I?" the girl answered. "What would you have me do? Go down on my knees to him. Cry to him for pity?"

"Not pity," answered the other, "for common honesty. Put it to his honour. He thinks no end of that. That's his religion—the only religion he's got. He's yours, not hers. Hasn't he been dangling about after you for years? Doesn't he owe everything to you? His first start that gave him his chance! How can he get over that? Hasn't he compromised you? Doesn't everybody know of it and take it as a settled thing? What are you going to do if you let him throw you over now? If you let this brainless doll, just because of her white skin"

"Don't, don't," cried the girl. She had risen. "What's the good? Besides, what right have I?"

"What right?" answered the other. "You love him; that's what gives you the right. You were made for him, to be his helpmeet, as the Bible says. Do you think I don't know him? What could she do for him except waste his money on her luxuries and extravagancies? What does her class know about money but how to fling it about and then laugh at the man when it's all spent? What do they know of the aching and sweating that goes to the making of it? What will be his share of the


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 bargain but to keep the whole pauper family of them in idle ease while he wears out his heart slaving for them, and they look down upon him and despise him. What right"

Her voice had risen to a scream. The girl held up a warning hand. She checked herself and went on in a low, swift tone.

"What right has she to come forcing her way at the last moment into other people's lives, spoiling them just for a passing whim? Love! That sort of love! We know how long that lasts and what comes afterwards. Only in this case it will be she that will first tire of him. His very faithfulness will bore her. He hasn't the monkey tricks that attract these women. Upstart! Charity boy! That's what she'll fling at him when some fawning popinjay has caught her fancy. I tell you I know her and her sort. I've lived among them. They don't act before their servants."

She came closer. "Get him away from her. It's only a boy's infatuation for something new and strange. Tell him how it will spoil his career. You've only got to speak to your father for all his plans to come tumbling to the ground. He'll listen to that. He hasn't lost all his senses—not yet. Besides, she wouldn't want him then. She isn't out to marry a struggling young solicitor without


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 capital. You can take that from me." She laughed.

Betty looked at her. "You would have me injure him?" she said.

"Yes; to save him from her," answered the other, "she has changed him already. There are times when I don't seem to know him. She will ruin him if she has her way. Save him. You can."

The woman's vehemence had exhausted her. She dropped back into her chair.

"Listen," said the girl. "I do love your son. I love him so well that if he and this girl really loved one another and I was sure of it, I would do all I could to help him to marry her. It all depends upon that: if they really love one another."

The woman made to speak, but the girl silenced her with a gesture.

"Let me try and explain myself to you," she said, "because after tonight we must never talk about this thing again. I should have been very happy married to Anthony. I knew he did not love me. There is a saying that in most love affairs one loves and the other consents to be loved. That was all I asked of him. I did not think he was capable of love—not in the big sense of the word. I thought him too self-centred, too wrapped up in his ambition. I thought that I could make him


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 happy and that he would never know, that he would come to look upon me as a helper and a comrade. That perhaps with children he would come to feel affection for me, to have a need of me. I could have been content with that."

She had been standing with her elbow resting on the mantelpiece, gazing into the fire. Now she straightened herself and looked the other in the eyes.

"But I am glad I was wrong," she went on. "I'd be glad to think that he could love—madly, foolishly, if you will—forgetting himself and his ambition, forgetting all things, feeling that nothing else mattered. Of course, if it could have been for me"—she gave a little smile—"that would have been heaven. But I would rather—honestly rather that he loved this girl than that he never loved any one—was incapable of love. It sounds odd, but I love him the better for it. He is greater than I thought him."

The other was staring at her. The girl moved over to her and laid a hand upon her shoulder.

"I know what you are thinking," she said. "It doesn't last. A few years at most and the glory has departed. I'm not so sure of that."

She had moved away. Mechanically she was arranging books and papers on her desk. "I was


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 going over an old bureau in my mother's room a while ago," she said. "And in a little secret drawer I found a packet of letters written to her by my father. I suppose I ought not to have read them, but I don't regret it. I thought they were the letters he had written her in their courting days. They were quite beautiful letters. No one but a lover could have written them. But there were passages in them that puzzled me. There was a postscript to one, telling her of a new underclothing made from pine wood that the doctors were recommending for rheumatism, and asking her if she would like to try it. And in another there was talk about children. And then it occurred to me to look at the date marks on the outside of the envelopes. They were letters he had written her at intervals during the last few years of her life; and I remembered then how happy they had been together just before the end. Our lives are like gardens, I always think. Perhaps we can't help the weeds coming, but that doesn't make the flowers less beautiful."

She turned her face again to the woman.

"And even if so," she said, "even if sooner or later the glory does fade, at least we have seen it—have seen God's face.


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 "I remember a blind boy," she continued, "that dad took an interest in. He had been born blind. Nobody thought he could be cured except a famous oculist in Lausanne that dad wrote to about him. He thought there was just a chance. My mother and I were going to Switzerland for a holiday and we took him with us. He was a dear, merry little chap in spite of it. The specialist examined him and then shook his head. 'I can cure him,' he said, 'but it will come again very soon.' He thought it would be kinder to leave him to his blindness. But my mother urged him and he yielded.

"It was wonderful to look into his eyes when he could see. We had warned him that it might be only for a time, and he understood. One night I heard a sound in his room and went in. He had crept out of bed and was sitting on the dressing-table in front of the window with his hands clasped round his knees. 'I want to remember it,' he whispered.

"You may be right," she said. "It may bring him sorrow, this love. But, even so, I would not save him from it if I could."

She knelt and took the older woman's hands in hers.

"We must not stand in his way, you and I," she


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 said. "If it were only his happiness and prosperity we had to think of we might be justified. But it might be his soul we were hurting."

The woman had grown calm. "And you," she asked, "what will you do?"

Betty smiled. "Oh, nothing very heroic!" she answered. "I shall have dad to look after for years to come. We shall travel. I'm fond of travelling. And afterwards—oh! there are heaps of things I want to do that will interest me and keep me busy."

The woman glanced at the clock. The time had slipped by; it was nearly eight. "He'll guess where I've been," she said.

"What will you tell him?" the girl asked.

"Seems to me," answered the woman, "I may as well tell him the truth: that I've had a bit of a clack with you. That you will do all you can to help him. That's right, isn't it?"

The girl nodded.

The woman took the girl's face in her two hands.

"Not sure you're not getting the best of it," she said. "I often used to lie awake beside my man, and wish I could always think of him as he was when I first met him: brave and handsome, with his loving ways and his kind heart. I saw him again when he lay dead, and all my love came


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 back to me. A girl thinks, when she marries, that she's won a lover. More often she finds that she's lost him. It seems to me sometimes that it's only dreams that last.

"Don't bother to come down," she said. "I'll let myself out."

She closed the door softly behind her. The girl was still kneeling.


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RS. STRONG'NTH'ARM had not spoken figuratively when she had told Betty that there were times when she did not know her own son. As a child, there had always been, to her, something mysterious about him; a gravity, a wisdom beyond his years. There had been, with him, no period of fun and frolic that she might have shared in; no mischievousness for her to scold while loving him the more for it; no helplessness to make appeal to her. From the day when he could crawl his self-reliance had caused her secret tears. He never came to her for comfort or protection. Beyond providing for his bodily wants she was no use to him.

She had thought his father's death would draw him to her, making him more dependent on her. But instead there had grown up around him a strange aloofness that hid him still further from her eyes. For her labour and sacrifice, she knew that he was grateful; that he would never rest satisfied till he had rewarded her. He respected her, was always kind and thoughtful—even loved her in a way; she felt that. In the serving world, where


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 she had passed her girlhood, it was not uncommon for good and faithful servants to be regarded in the same way: with honour and affection.

At first the difference between him and all other boys she had ever known or heard of had been her daily cross. She recalled how eagerly he had welcomed his father's offer to teach him to read—how it was he who had kept his father up to the mark. At six years old he had taught himself to write. He had never cared for play. He was going to be a scholar, a dreamer—some sort of crank or another. She had no use for cranks. They earned but poverty and the world's contempt. Why couldn't he be like other lads, differing from them only by being cleverer and stronger? It was that had been her prayer.

In time she came to understand, and then her hope revived and grew. God intended him for great things. That was why he had been fashioned in another mould. He was going to be rich, powerful. Her dream would come true. He would be among the masters—would sit in the high places.

That he had never fallen in love—had never even had a "fancy"—was further proof of his high destiny. Heaven itself, eager for his success, had chosen the wise Betty to be his helpmeet. She, loving him, would cherish him—help him to climb.


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 But on his side there would be no foolish fondness to weaken or distract him. Youth with its crazy lure of love had passed him by. It was the one danger she had feared; and he had escaped it. Nothing stood between him and his goal. The mother saw all things shaping themselves to the greatness and glory of her son. What mattered her secret tears, her starved love.

And now, in the twinkling of an eye, as it were, all was changed. She saw him shorn of his strength, stripped of his self-reliance, uncertain of his purpose. She would try to draw him into talk about his schemes and projects. It had been their one topic of common interest. He had always valued her shrewd practicability. Now he would answer her indifferently: would lapse into long silences. The steadfast far-off look had gone out of his eyes. They had become the eyes of a boy, tender and shy: the eyes of a dreamer. The firm strong lines about the mouth had been smoothed away as if by some magic touch. She would watch, unknown to him, the smile that came and went about his parted lips. One evening, for no reason, he put his arm about her, smoothed back her thin grey hair, and kissed her. It was the first time he had ever shown her any sign of love, spontaneous and unasked for. Had it come at an


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 earlier date she would have cried for joy. But knowing what she did it angered her, though she spoke no word. It was but an overflowing of his love for this stranger—a few drops spilled from the cup he had poured out for another. Part of her desire that he should marry Betty had been her knowledge that he had no love for the girl. Betty would have taken nothing from her. But a mad jealousy had come to her at the thought that this stranger should have been the first to awaken love in him. What had she done for him, this passerby, but throw him a glance from her shameless eyes? What could she ever do for him but take from him: ever crying give, give, give.

She told him of her talk with Betty, so far as it had been agreed upon between them. She had a feeling of comradeship with Betty.

"It might have been a bit awkward for you," she said, "if she had cared for you. I wanted to see how the land lay."

"How did you find it all out?" he asked. "I'm glad you have. I've been wanting to tell you. But I was so afraid you wouldn't understand."

"Why shouldn't I understand?" she asked dryly.

"Because I don't myself," he answered. "It is as if another Anthony had been growing up inside me, unknown to me, until he had become


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 stronger than myself and had taken possession of me. He was there when I was quite little. I used to catch a glimpse of him now and then. An odd little dreamy sort of a chap that used to wonder and ask questions. Don't you remember? I thought he was dead: that I had killed him so that he wouldn't worry me any more. Instead of which he was just biding his time. And now he is I, and I don't seem to know what's become of myself."

He laughed.

"I do love Betty," he went on, "and always shall. But it isn't with the love that makes a man and woman one: that opens the gates of life."

"It's come to you hot and strong, lad," she said; "as I always expected it would, if it ever did come. But it isn't the fiercest flame that burns the longest."

He flung himself on his knees in front of her, and putting his arms around her hid his face in her lap. She winced and her little meagre figure stiffened. But he did not notice. If she could but have forgotten: if only for that moment!

"Oh, mother," he whispered, "it's so beautiful; it does last. It must be always there. It is only that our mean thoughts rise up like mists and hide it from our eyes."

He looked up. There were tears in his eyes. He drew her face down to his and kissed it.


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 "I never knew how much I loved you till now," he said. "Your dear tired hands that have worked and suffered for me. But for you I should never have met and talked with her. It is you have given her to me. And, oh, mother, she is wonderful. There must be some mystery about it. Of course, to others, she is only beautiful and sweet; but to me there is something more than that. I feel frightened sometimes as though I were looking upon something not of this world.

"What did Betty say," he asked suddenly; "was she surprised?"

"She said she was glad," his mother answered him, "that you had it in you. She said she liked you all the better for it."

He laughed. "Dear Betty," he said, "I knew she'd understand."

His self-confidence, for the first time in his life, deserted him, when he thought of his necessary interview with Sir Harry Coomber. He himself was anxious to get it over in order to put an end to his suspense. It was Eleanor who held him back.

"You don't know dad," she said. "He's quite capable of carrying me off to China or Peru if he thought there was no other way of stopping it. Remember, I'm only seventeen. Besides," she added, "he may not live very long and I don't want


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 to hurt him. Leave it until I've had a talk with Jim. I'll write him to come down. I haven't seen him in his uniform yet. He'll be wanting to show himself." She laughed.

Jim was her brother, her senior by some five or six years. There was a strong bond of affection between them, and she hoped to enlist him on her side. She did not tell Anthony, but she saw in front of her quite a big fight. It was not only the matter of money, though she knew that with her lay the chief hope of retrieving the family fortunes. It was the family pride that would be her great obstacle. An exceptionally ancient and umbrageous plant, the Coomber genealogical tree. An illustration of it hung in the library. Adam and Eve were pictured tending its roots. Adam, loosening the earth around it, while Eve watered it out of a goat skin. The artist had chosen the fig-leaf period. It was with Charlemagne that it began to take shape. From William the Conqueror sprang the branch that bore the Coomber family. At first they did not know how to spell their own name. It was not till the reign of James I that its present form had got itself finally accepted.

Under this tree Eleanor and her brother sat one evening after dinner beside a fire of blazing logs. Sir Harry and Lady Coomber had gone to bed: they


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 generally did about ten o'clock. Jim had brought his uniform down with him and had put it on: though shy of doing so before the servants. Fortunately there were not many of them. Neither had spoken for some few minutes. Jim had been feeling instinctively all the evening that Eleanor had had a purpose in sending for him. He was smoking a briar wood pipe.

"I like you in your uniform, Jim," she said suddenly; "you do look handsome in it."

He laughed. "Guess I'll have to change into something less showy," he answered.

"Must you?" she asked.

"Don't see who is going to allow me fifteen hundred a year," he answered; "and it can't be done on less. There's Aunt Mary, of course, she may and she mayn't. Can't think of any one else."

"It was rather a mistake, wasn't it?" she suggested.

"It's always been the family tradition," he answered. "Of course, it was absurd in our case. But then it's just like the dear old guv'nor: buy the thing first and think about paying for it afterwards."

She was tapping the fender with her foot. "It's putting it coarsely," she said with a laugh, "but I'm afraid he was banking on me."


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 "You mean a rich marriage?"

She nodded.

He was leaning back in his chair, puffing rings of smoke into the air.

"Any chance of it?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not now," she said. "I'm in love."

It brought him up straight.

"In love?" he repeated. "Why, you're only a kid."

"That's what I thought," she answered, "up to a month ago."

"Who is it?" he asked.

"A young local solicitor," she answered, "the son of a blacksmith. They say his mother used to go out charring. But that may be only servants' gossip."

"Good God," he exclaimed. "Are you mad?"

She laughed. "I thought I would tell you the worst about him first," she said, "and so get it over. Against all that, is the fact that he's something quite out of the common. He's the type from which the world's conquerors are drawn. Napoleon was only the son of a provincial attorney. He's the most talked about man in Millsborough already; and everything he puts his hand to succeeds. He's pretty sure to end as a millionaire with a seat in the


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 House of Lords. Not that I'm marrying him for that. I'm only telling you that to make it easier for you to help me. I'd love him just the same if he were a cripple on a pound a week. I'd go out charring, if need be, like his mother did. It's no good reasoning with me, Jim," she added after a pause. "When did a man or woman of our blood ever put reason above love? It's part of our inheritance. Your time will come one day; and then you will understand, if you don't now."

She had risen. She came behind him and put her arms about his neck.

"We've always stood by each other, Jim," she said. "Be a chum."

"What's he like?" he growled.

She laughed. "Oh, you needn't worry about that," she said. "There he is. Look at him."

She took his face between her two hands and turned it towards the picture of the monk Anthony standing with crossed arms, a strange light round about him.

"It's like some beautiful old legend," she continued. "Sir Percival couldn't have killed him. You know his body was never found. It was said that as he lay there, bleeding from his wounds, Saint Aldys had suddenly appeared and had lifted him up in his arms as if he had been a child and


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 had borne him away. He has been asleep all these years in the bosom of Saint Aldys; and now he is come back. It must be he. The likeness is so wonderful and it is his very name, Anthony Strong'nth'arm. They were here before we came—the Strong'nth'arms—yeomen and squires. He is come to lift them up again. And I am going to right the old wrong by helping him and loving him."

"Have you told all that to the guv'nor?" he asked with a grin.

"I'm not sure that I won't," she answered. "It's all in Dugdale. Except about his coming to life again."

"It's his turning up again as a solicitor that will be your difficulty," Jim suggested. "If he'd come back as a curate"

"It wouldn't have been true," she interrupted. "It was the church that ruled the land in those days. Now it is the men of business. He's going to make the valley into one great town and do away with slums and poverty. It was he who made the docks and brought the sea, and linked up the railway. He comes back to rule and guide—to make the land fruitful, in the new way; and the people prosperous."


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 "And himself a millionaire, with a seat in the House of Lords," quoted her brother.

"So did the old churchmen," she answered. "As Anthony, the monk, he would have become a cardinal with his palaces and revenues. A great man is entitled to his just wages."

Jim had risen, he was pacing the room.

"There'll be the devil to pay," he said. "The poor old guv'nor will go off his head. Aunt Mary will go off her head. They'll all go off their heads. I shall have to exchange and go out to India."

The colour had gone out of her cheeks.

"Why should they punish you for me?" she asked.

"Because it's the law of the world," he explained. "They've got to kick somebody. When he's a millionaire with his seat in the House of Lords they'll forgive us."

"You're making me feel pretty mean and selfish," she said.

"Love is selfish," he answered. "Don't see how you can help that." He halted suddenly in front of her. "You do love him?" he demanded. "You are not afraid to be selfish? You are going to let me down. You are going to hurt the guv'nor, very seriously. He hasn't had much luck in life. This


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 is going to be the last blow. You are willing to inflict it."

The tears were in her eyes.

"I must," she answered.

He took her by the shoulders.

"If you had hesitated," he said, "I should have known it wasn't the real thing. You are under orders, kid, and can't help yourself.

"You needn't worry about me," he said. "I'd have hated taking their confounded charity in any case. We must let the dad down as gently as possible. Leave it to me to break it to him. He must be used to disappointments, poor old buffer. Thank the Lord we haven't got to worry about the mater. Tell her all that about Monk Anthony. She will love all that. Never mind the millionaire business and the House of Lords."

Lady Coomber was a curiously shy, gentlelady, somewhat of an enigma to those who did not know her history; they included her two children. Her name had been Edith Trent. She came of old Virginia stock. Harry Coomber, then a clerk in the British Embassy, had met her in Washington where she was living with friends, both her parents being dead. They had fallen in love with one another, and the marriage was within a day or two of taking place when the girl suddenly disappeared.


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 Young Harry, making use of all the influence he could obtain, succeeded in tracing her. She was living in the negro quarter of New Orleans, earning her living as a school teacher. She had discovered on evidence that had seemed to her to admit of no doubt that her grandmother had been a slave. It was difficult to believe. She was a beautiful, olive-skinned girl with wavy, dark brown hair and finely chiselled features. Young Harry Coomber, madly in love with her, had tried to persuade her that even if true it need not separate them. Outside America it would not matter. He would take her abroad or return with her to England. His entreaties were unavailing. She regarded herself as unclean. She had been bred to all the Southern American's hatred and horror of the negro race. Among her people the slightest taint of the "tar brush" was sufficient to condemn man or woman to life-long ostracism. She would have inflicted the same fate upon another, and a sense of justice compelled her not to shirk the punishment in her own case.

Five years later a circumstance came to light that proved the story false, and the long-delayed marriage took place quietly at the Sheriff's office of a small town in Pennsylvania.

But the memory of those five years of her life,


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 passed in what to her had been a living grave, had changed her whole character. An outcast among outcasts, she had drunk to the dregs their cup of terror and humiliation. In that city of shame, out of which for five years she had never once emerged, she had met men and women like herself: refined, cultured, educated. She had shared their long-drawn martyrdom. For her, the veil had been lifted from their tortured souls.

As a girl, she had been proud, haughty, exacting. It had been part of her charm. She came back to life a timid, gentle, sorrowful woman with a pity that would remain with her to the end for all creatures that suffered.

Left to herself, she would have joined some band of workers, as missionary, nurse or teacher—as servant in any capacity. It would not have mattered to her what so that she could have felt she was doing something towards lessening the world's pain. She had yielded to her lover's insistence from a sense of duty, persuaded that she owed herself to him for his faithfulness and patience. The marriage had brought disappointment to them both. She had hoped some opportunity would be afforded her of satisfying her craving to be of help if only to some few in some small corner of the earth. But her husband's straitened means had always


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 kept her confined to the bare struggle for existence. Another, in her place, might have been able to give at least sympathy and kindliness. But she was a woman broken in spirit. All her strength went out in her endeavours to be a good wife and mother. And even here she failed. She was of no assistance to her husband, as she knew. For business she had neither heart nor head. In society she was silent and colourless. On her husband's accession to the baronetcy and what was left of the estate, she had made a last effort to play her part. But the solitary years on the ranch had tended to increase her shyness, and secretly she was glad of the need for economy that compelled them to live abroad more or less in seclusion. The one joy she had was in her love of birds. To gather them about her, feed them, protect them by cunning means against their host of enemies, had become the business of her life. Even in the days of poverty she had been able to do that. She had come to love The Abbey even in the short time they had occupied it. She had made of its neglected gardens a bird sanctuary. Rare species, hunted and persecuted elsewhere, had found there a shelter. At early morning and late evening her little grey-clad figure could be seen stealing softly among the deep yew hedges and the tangled shrubberies that she would not have dis-


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 turbed. One could always tell her whereabouts by the fluttering of wings above her in the air—the babel of sweet voices that heralded her coming.

Her children had never been told her story. She had exacted that as a promise. Though her reason had been satisfied that the rumour told against her had been false, the haunting fear that it yet might be true remained with her. She would not have it passed on to them lest it should shadow their lives as it had darkened hers. Rather than that she was content that they should grow up wondering at the difference between her and other mothers, at her lack of interest in their youthful successes and ambitions; at her strange aloofness from the things that excited their fears and hopes.

As Jim had said, Eleanor's marrying a blacksmith's son would not trouble her. The story of Monk Anthony she would love. The wrong done to him would probably bring tears into the still childish eyes. The prophecy of his millions and his seat in the House of Lords would not interest her.


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HEY were married abroad as it happened. Jim had exchanged; but his regiment, before going on to India, had been appointed to the garrison at Malta. There the family had joined him for the winter.

Fate had spared Sir Harry his last disappointment in life. Jim had not told him about Eleanor. There was no hurry. It could be done at any time. And he had died, after a few days illness, early in the spring. He had been busy, unknown to the others, fixing up with his sister Mary for Eleanor to come out in London during the season, and had built great hopes upon the result. Thus, so far as that matter was concerned, the poor old gentleman had died happy. Eleanor and her mother stopped on at a little place up in the hills. Anthony came out at the end of the summer; and they had been married in the English church. It was arranged that Lady Coomber should remain at Malta till Jim left for India; it might be the next year or the year after. Then she would come back to England and live with them at The Abbey. Anthony had not hoped to be able to take Eleanor back to The


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 Abbey, but the summer had brought him unusual good fortune. As a matter of fact, everything seemed to be prospering with him just now. He was getting nervous about it, wondering how long it would last. He was glad that he had been able to pay Jim a good price for the place; beyond that, when everything was cleared up and Lady Coomber's annuity provided for, there would not be much left.

Mrs. Strong'nth'arm would not come to live at The Abbey, though Eleanor was anxious that she should and tried to persuade her. Whether she thought Eleanor did not really want her or whether the reasons she gave him were genuine Anthony could not be sure.

"I should be wandering, without knowing it, into the kitchen," she explained; "or be jumping up suddenly to answer a bell. Or maybe," she added with a smile, "I'd be slipping out of the back door of an evening to the little gate behind the stables, and thinking I saw your father under the shadow of the elms, where he used to be always waiting for me. I'll be happier in the old square. There are no ghosts there—leastways, not for my eyes to see."

Besides, there was his aunt to be considered. He had thought that she might find a home with one


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 or another of her chapel friends. But Mrs. Newt had fallen away from grace, as it was termed, and was no longer in touch with her former circle. She had given back her fine tombstone to old Batson the stonemason who, not knowing what else to do with it, had used it to replace a broken doorstep leading to his office. She had come to picture her safe arrival at the gates of Endless Bliss with less complacency. She no longer felt sure of her welcome.

"Don't see what I've done to deserve it," she said. "All that I've ever tried to do has been to make myself comfortable in this world and to take good care, as I thought, to be on the right road for the next. I used to think it all depended upon faith: that all you had to do was to believe. But your poor uncle used to say it sounded a bit too cheap to be true. And if he was right and the Lord demands works, guess I'll cut a poor figure."

The idea had come to her to replace the optimism of her discarded tombstone by a simple statement of facts with underneath: "Lord be merciful to me, a sinner." But the head sexton, on being consulted as a friend, had objected to the quotation as one calculated to let down the tone of the cemetery, and had urged something less committal.

So the two old ladies remained at Bruton Square, keeping for themselves the basement and the three


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 small rooms at the top. Anthony added an extra kitchen and let the rest of the house to a Mr. Arnold Landripp, an architect. He had for some years been occupying the two large schoolrooms as an office. He was a widower. His daughter, who had been at school in the south of England and afterwards at University College, had now joined him. She was aged about twenty, and was said to be a "high-brow." The term was just coming into use. She was a tall, pale girl with coal black eyes. She wore her hair brushed back from her forehead and, in secret, smoked cigarettes, it was rumoured.

Betty and her father lived practically abroad. They had taken a flat in Florence and had let The Priory furnished to a cousin of Mr. Mowbray who owned the big steel works at Shawley, half-way up the valley.

Anthony had been generous over the sharing of profits; and Mr. Mowbray had expressed himself as more than satisfied.

"I was running the business on to the rocks," he confessed. "There wouldn't have been much left for Betty. As it is, I shall die with an easy mind, thanks to you."

He held out his hand. He and Anthony had been having a general talk in the great room with its three domed windows that had been Mr. Mow-


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 bray's private office and was now Anthony's. He and Betty would be leaving early the next morning on their return to Italy. He hesitated a moment, still holding Anthony's hand, and then spoke again.

"I thought at one time," he said, "that it might have been a closer relationship than that of mere partners. But she's a strange girl. I don't expect she ever will marry. I fancy I frightened her off it." He laughed. "She knew that I loved her mother with as great a love as any woman could hope for. But it didn't save me from making her life one of sorrow.

"Do you know what's wrong with the Apostles Creed?" he said. "They've left out the devil. Don't you make the mistake, my lad, of not believing in him. He doesn't want us to believe in him. He wants us to believe that he is dead, that he never lived, that he's just an old wives' tale. We talk about the still small voice of God. Yes, if we listen very hard and if it's all quiet about us, we can hear it. What about the insistent tireless voice of the other one who whispers to us day and night, sits beside us at table, creeps with us into bed? David made a mistake; he should have said, 'The fear of the devil is the beginning of wisdom.' It began in the Garden of Eden. If the Lord only hadn't forgot the serpent! It has been the trouble


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 of all the reformers. They might have accomplished something: if they hadn't forgotten the devil. It's the trouble of every youngster, thinking he sees his life before him; they all forget the devil."

Anthony laughed.

"What line of tactics do you suggest for overcoming him?" he asked.

"Haven't myself had sufficient success to justify my giving advice," answered Mr. Mowbray. "All I can warn you is that he takes many shapes. Sometimes he dresses himself up as a dear old lady and calls himself Mother Nature. Sometimes he wears a shiny hat and claims to be nothing more than a plain man of business. Sometimes he comes clothed in glory and calls himself Love."

The old gentleman reached for his hat.

"Didn't expect to find me among the prophets, did you?" he added with a smile.

He was growing feeble, and Anthony walked back with him to The Priory. They passed St. Aldys churchyard on their way.

"I'll just look in," said Mr. Mowbray, "and say good-bye. I always like to before I go away."

Mr. Mowbray had bought many years ago the last three vacant graves in the churchyard. His


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 wife lay in the centre one and Edward to the right of her.

They stood there for a while in silence.

"I suppose it's only my fancy," said Mr. Mowbray, "but you seem to me to grow more like Ted every year. I don't mean in appearance, though even there I often see a look in your eyes that reminds me of him. But in other ways. Sometimes I could almost think it was he speaking."

"I have changed," said Anthony. "I feel it myself. His death made a great void in my life. I felt that I had been left with a wound that would never heal. And then one day the thought came to me—it can hardly be called a thought. I heard his very voice speaking to me, with just that little note of irritation in it that always came to him when he was arguing and got excited. 'I am not dead,' he said. 'How foolishly you are talking. How can I be dead while you are thinking of me—while you still love me and are wanting me. Who wants the dead? It is because you know I live, and that I love you, and always shall, that you want me. I am not dead. I am with you.

"Yes," said Mowbray after a little pause, "he loved you very dearly. I was puzzled at first because I thought you so opposite to one another. But now I know that it was my mistake."


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 They did not talk during the short remainder of their walk. At the gate of The Priory the old gentleman stopped and turned.

"Kiss me, Anthony," he said, "there's nobody about."

Anthony did so. It seemed quite natural somehow. He watched Mr. Mowbray pass up the flagged causeway to the door and then went back to his work.

Betty had been quite frank with him, or so he had thought.

"It's fortunate we didn't marry," she said. "What a muddle it would have ended in—or else a tragedy. Do you remember that talk we had one evening?"

"Yes," he answered. "You said that if you ever married it would be a man who would 'like' you—think of you as a friend, a comrade."

"I know," she laughed. "To be candid, I had you in my mind at the moment. I thought that you would always be so sane—the sort of husband one could rely upon never to kick over the traces. Curious how little we know one another."

"Would you really have been satisfied?" he asked, "when it came to the point. Would not you have demanded love as your right?"

"I don't think so," she answered, musing. "I


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 suppose the explanation is that a woman's love is maternal rather than sexual. It is the home she is thinking of more than the lover. Of course, I don't mean in every case. There are women for whom their exists one particular He, or no other. But I fancy they are rare."

"I wonder sometimes," he said, "what would have happened to me if I'd never met her. I suppose I should have gone on being quite happy and contented."

"There are finer things than happiness," she answered.

A child was born to them late in the year. Anthony had never seen a baby before, not at close quarters. In his secret heart, he was disappointed that it was not more beautiful. But as the days went by it seemed to him that this defect was passing away. He judged it to be a very serious baby. It had large round serious eyes. Even its smile was thoughtful. They called it John Anthony.

The elder Mrs. Strong'nth'arm resented the carriage being sent down for her. She said she wasn't so old that she could not walk a few miles to see her own grandson. Both she and Eleanor agreed that he was going to be like Anthony. His odd ways, it was, that so strongly reminded the elder Mrs. Strong'nth'arm of his father at the same age.


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 They came together over John Anthony, the elder and the younger Mrs. Strong'nth'arm.

"It's her artfulness," had argued the elder Mrs. Strong'nth'arm to herself at first; "pretending to want my advice and hanging upon my words; while all the time, I reckon, she's laughing at me."

But the next day or the day after she would come again to answer delightedly the hundred questions put to her—to advise, discuss, to gossip and to laugh—to remember on her way home that she had kissed the girl, promising to come again soon.

Returning late one afternoon she met Anthony on the moor.

"I've left her going to sleep," she said. "Don't disturb her. She doesn't rest herself sufficiently. I've been talking to her about it.

"I'm getting to like her," she confessed shamefacedly. "She isn't as bad as I thought her."

He laughed, putting an arm about her.

"You'll end by loving her," he said. "You won't be able to help it."

"It'll depend upon you, lad," she answered. "So long as your good is her good I shall be content."

She kissed him good night for it was growing dusk. Neither he nor Eleanor had ever been able to persuade her to stay the night. With the nurs-


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 ery, which had been the former Lady Coomber's dressing-room, she was familiar, having been one of the housemaids. But the big rooms on the ground floor overawed her. She never would enter by the great door, but always by a small side entrance leading to the house-keeper's room. Eleanor had given instructions that it should always be left open.

He walked on slowly after he had left his mother. There, where the sun was sinking behind the distant elms, she lay sleeping. At the bend of the road was the old white thorn that had witnessed their first kiss. Reaching it he looked round stealthily and, seeing no one, flung himself upon the ground and, stretching out his arms, pressed his lips to the sweet-smelling earth.

He laughed as he rose to his feet. These lovers' rhapsodies he had once thought idle nonsense! They were true. Going through fire and water—dying for her, worshipping the ground she trod on. This dear moorland with its lonely farmsteads and its scattered cots; its old folks with their furrowed faces, its little children with shy wondering eyes; its sandy hollows where the coneys frisked at twilight; its hidden dells of fern and bracken where the primroses first blossomed; its high banks beneath the birches where the red fox had his dwell-


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 ing; its deep woods, bird-haunted: always he would love it, for her sake.

He turned and looked back and down the winding road. The noisome town half-hidden by its pall of smoke lay stretched beneath him, a few faint lights twinkling from out the gloom. There too her feet had trod. Its long sad streets with their weary white-faced people; its foul, neglected places where the children played with dirt. This city of maimed souls and stunted bodies! It must be cleansed, purified—made worthy for her feet to pass. It should be his life's work, his gift to his beloved.


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ADY COOMBER joined them in the spring. Jim's regiment had been detained at Malta longer than had been anticipated. Her presence passed hardly noticed in the house. Anthony had seen to it that her little pensioners, the birds, had been well cared for, they began to gather round her the first moment that they saw her, as if they had been waiting for her, hoping for her return. She herself could not explain her secret. She had only to stretch out her hand for them to come to her. She took more interest in the child than Eleanor had expected. She stole him away one morning, and was laughing when she brought him back. She had shown him to her birds and they had welcomed him with much chirruping and fluttering; and after that, whenever he saw her with her basket on her arm, he would stretch out his arms to her for her to take him with her.

Another child was born to them in the winter. They called him after Eleanor's brother Jim; and later came a girl. They called her Norah. And then Eleanor fell ill. Anthony was terror-stricken. He had never been able to accept the popular idea


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 of God as a sort of kindly magician to whom appeal might be made for miraculous benefits in exchange for praise and adulation—who would turn aside sickness, stay death's hand in response for importunity. His common sense had revolted against it. But suddenly his reasoning faculties seemed to have deserted him. Had he been living in the Middle Ages he would have offered God a pilgrimage or a church. As it was, he undertook to start without further delay his various schemes to benefit the poor of Millsborough. He would set to work at once upon those model-dwellings. It was always easy for him now to find financial backing for his plans. He remembered Betty's argument: "I wouldn't have anything started that couldn't be made to pay its own way in the long run. If it can't do that it isn't real. It isn't going to last." She was right. As a sound business proposition, the thing would live and grow. It was justice not charity that the world stood most in need of. He worked it out. For the rent these slum landlords were exacting for insanitary hovels the workers could be housed in decent flats. Eleanor's illness had been pronounced dangerous. No time was to be lost. The ground was bought and cleared. Landripp, the architect, threw himself into his labours with enthusiasm.


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 Landripp belonged to the new school of materialists. His religion was the happiness of humanity. Man to him was a mere chance product of the earth's crust, evolved in common with all other living things by chemical process. With the cooling of the earth—or may be its over-heating, it really did not matter which—the race would disappear—be buried, together with the history of its transient passing, beneath the eternal silences. Its grave might still roll on—to shape itself anew, to form out of its changed gases another race that in some future æon might be interested in examining the excavated evidences of a former zoological period.

Meanwhile the thing to do was to make man as happy as possible for so long as he lasted. This could best be accomplished by developing his sense of brotherhood out of which would be born justice and good will. Man was a gregarious animal. For his happiness he depended as much upon his fellows as upon his own exertions. The misery and suffering of any always, sooner or later, resulted in evil to the whole body. In society, as it had come to be constituted, the happiness of all was as much a practical necessity as was the health of all. For its own sake, a civilized community could no more disregard equity than it dare tolerate an


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 imperfect drainage system. If the city was to be healthy and happy it must be seen to that each individual citizen was healthy and happy. The pursuit of happiness for ourselves depended upon our making others happy. It was for this purpose that the moral law had developed itself within us. So soon as the moral law within us came to be acknowledged as the only safe guide to all our actions, so soon would Man's road to happiness lie clear before him.

That something not material, that something impossible to be defined in material terms had somehow entered into the scheme, Mr. Landripp was forced to admit. In discussion, he dismissed it—this unknown quantity—as "superfluous energy." But to himself the answer was not satisfactory. By this reasoning the superfluous became the indispensible, which was absurd. There was his own favourite phrase: The preservation of the species; the moral law within, compelling all creatures to sacrifice themselves for the good of their progeny. To Mr. Arnold S. Landripp, aware of his indebtedness for his own existence to the uninterrupted working of this law; aware that his own paternal affections had for their object the decoying of Mr. Arnold S. Landripp into guarding and cherishing and providing for the future of Miss Emily


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 Landripp; who in her turn would rejoice in labour for her children, and so ad infinitum, the phrase might have significance. His reason, perceiving the necessity of the law, justified its obligations.

But those others? Unpleasant-looking insects—myriads of them—who wear themselves out for no other purpose than to leave behind them an egg, the hatching of which they will not live to see. Why toil in darkness? Why not spend their few brief hours of existence basking in their beloved sunshine? What to them the future of the Hymenoptera? The mother bird with outstretched wings above the burning nest, content to die herself if only she may hope to save her young. Natural affection, necessary for the preservation of the species. Whence comes it? Whence the origin of this blind love—this blind embracing of pain that an unknown cause may triumph.

Or take the case of Mr. Arnold S. Landripp's own particular family. That hairy ancestor, fear-haunted, hunger-driven, fighting against monstrous odds to win a scanty living for himself. Why burden himself still further with a squalling brood that Mr. Arnold S. Landripp may eventually evolve? Why not knock them all on the head and eat the pig himself? Who whispered to him of the men of thought and knowledge who should one day


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 come, among whom Mr. Arnold S. Landripp, flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, should mingle and have his being?

Why does the present Mr. Landripp impair his digestion by working long into the night that Millsborough slums may be the sooner swept away and room be made in Millsborough town for the building of decent dwellings for Mr. Landripp's poorer brethren? The benefiting of future generations! The preservation and improvement of the species? To what end? What sensible man can wax enthusiastic concerning the progress of a race whose final goal is a forgotten grave beneath the debris of a derelict planet.

To Mr. Landripp came also the reflection that a happiness that is not and cannot by its nature be confined to the individual, but is a part of the happiness of all; that can be marred by a withered flower and deepened by contemplation of the stars must, of necessity, have kinship with the Universal. That a happiness, the seeds of which must have been coeval with creation, that is not bounded by death must, of necessity, be linked with the Eternal.

Working together of an evening upon the plans for the new dwellings, Anthony and he would often break off to pursue the argument. Landripp


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 would admit that his own religion failed to answer all his questions. But Anthony's religion contented him still less. Why should a just God, to whom all things were possible, have made man a creature of "low intelligence and evil instincts," leaving him to welter through the ages amid cruelty, blood and lust, instead of fashioning him from the beginning a fit and proper heir for the kingdom of eternity? That he might work out his own salvation! That a few scattered fortunates, less predisposed to evil than their fellows or possessed of greater powers of resistance, might struggle out of the mire—enter into their inheritance: the great bulk cursed from their birth, be left to sink into destruction. The Christ legend he found himself unable to accept. If true, then God was fallible, His omniscience a myth—a God who made mistakes and sought to rectify them. Even so, He had not succeeded. The number of true Christians—the number of those who sought to live according to Christ's teaching were fewer today than under the reign of the Cæsars. During the Middle Ages the dying embers of Christianity had burnt up anew. Saint Francis had insisted upon the necessity of poverty, of love—had preached the brotherhood of all things living. Men and women in increasing numbers had for a brief period


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 accepted Christ not as their scapegoat but as their leader. There had been men like Millsborough's own Saint Aldys—a successful business man, as business was understood in his day—who on his conversion had offered to the service of God not ten per cent. of his booty but his whole life. Any successful business man of today who attempted to follow his example would be certified by the family doctor as fit candidate for the lunatic asylum. Two thousand years after Christ's death one man, so far as knowledge went, the Russian writer Tolstoy, had made serious attempt to live the life commanded by Christ. And all Christendom stood staring at him in stupefied amazement. If Christ had been God's scheme for the reformation of a race that He Himself had created prone to evil then it had tragically failed. Christianity, a feeble flame from the beginning, had died out, leaving the world darker, its last hope extinguished.

They had been working long into the short June night. Landripp had drawn back the curtains and thrown open the window. There came from the east a faint pale dawn.

"There is a God I could believe in, worship and work for," he said. "Not the builder of the heaven and of the earth, who made the stars also. Such there may be. The watch presupposes the


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 watchmaker. I grant all that. But such is outside my conception—a force, a law, whatever it may be, existing before the beginning of Time, having its abiding place beyond Space. The thing is too unhuman ever to be understood by man. The God I could love and serve is something lesser and yet perhaps greater than such."

He turned from the window and leaning against the mantelpiece continued:

"There is a story by Jean Paul Richter, I think. I read the book when I was a student in Germany. There was rather a fine idea in it: at least so it seemed to me. The man in the story dies and beyond the grave he meets Christ. And the Christ is still sad and troubled. The man asks why, and Christ confesses to him. He has been looking for God and cannot find Him. And the man comforts Him. Together they will seek God, and will yet find Him. I think it was a dream, I am not sure. It is the dream of the world, I suppose. Personally I have given up the search, thinking it hopeless. But I am not sure. Christ's God I could believe in, could accept. He is the God—the genius, if you prefer the word, of the human race. He is seeking—still seeking to make man in His own image. He has given man thought, consciousness, a soul. It has been slow work and He is still only


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 at the beginning of His labours. He is the spirit of love. It is by love, working for its kind, working for its species, that man has evolved. It is only by love of his kind, of his species, that man can hope to raise himself still further. He is no God of lightnings and of thunders. The moral law within us, the voice of pity, of justice is His only means of helping us. The Manichæans believed that Mankind was devil created. The evidence is certainly in their favour. The God that I am seeking is not the Omnipotent Master of the universe who could in the twinkling of an eye reshape man to His will. But a spirit, fighting against powerful foes, whom I can help or hinder—the spirit of love, knocking softly without ceasing at the door of a deaf world. The wonder of Christ is that He was the first man to perceive the nature of God. The gods that the world had worshipped up till then—that the world still worships—are the gods man has made in his own image: gods glorying in their strength and power, clamouring for worship, insisting on their 'rights'; gods armed with punishments and rewards. Christ was the first man who conceived of God as the spirit of love, of service, a fellow labourer with man for the saving of the world."


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 Anthony was still seated at the long table, facing the light.

"May it not be that you have found Him?" he said. "May He not be the God we are all seeking?"

Landripp gave a short laugh.

"He wouldn't be popular," he answered. "Not from Him would Job have obtained those fourteen thousand sheep and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand she asses as a reward for his patience. 'The God from whom all blessings flow,' that is the God man will praise and worship. The God I am seeking asks, not gives."

The plans were finished; the builders got to work. On the very day of the laying of the foundation-stone the doctors pronounced Eleanor out of danger. Anthony forgot his talks with Landripp. God had heard his prayer and had accepted his offering. He would continue to love and serve Him, and surely goodness and mercy would follow him all the days of his life. One of the minor steel foundries happened to be on the market. He obtained control and re-established it on a new profit-sharing principle that he had carefully worked out. His system would win through by


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 reason of its practicability; the long warfare between capital and labour end in peace. His business genius should not be only for himself. God also should be benefited. He got together a small company for the opening of co-operative shops, where the poor should be able to purchase at fair prices. There should be no end of his activities for God.

Eleanor came back to him more beautiful, it seemed to him, than she had ever been. They walked together, hand in hand, on the moor. She wanted to show him how strong she was. And coming to the old white thorn at the parting of the ways, she had raised her face to his; and he had drawn her to him and their lips had met, as if it had been for the first time.

She would be unable to bear more children, but that did not trouble them. Little Jim and Norah grew and waxed strong and healthy. Norah promised to be the living image of her mother. She had her mother's faults and failings that Anthony so loved: her mother's wilfulness with just that look of regal displeasure when any one offended or opposed her. But also with suggestion of her mother's graciousness and kindness.

Jim, likewise, took after the Coomber family. He had his uncle's laughing eyes and all his ob-


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 stinacy, so Eleanor declared. He was full of mischief, but had coaxing ways and was the idol of the servants' hall.

John was more of the dreamer. Lady Coomber had taught him to read. She had grown strangely fond of the child. In summertime they would take their books into the garden. They had green hiding-places known only to themselves. And in winter they had their "cave" behind the great carved screen in the library.

As time went by, Eleanor inclined more towards the two younger children. They were full of life and frolic, and were always wanting to do things. But Anthony's heart yearned more towards John, his first-born.


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GOD needing man's help, unable without it to accomplish His purpose. A God calling to man as Christ beckoned to His disciples to follow him, forsaking all, to suffer and to labour with Him. The thought had taken hold of him from the beginning: that summer's night when he and Landripp had talked together, until the dawn had drawn a long thin line of light between the window curtains.

And then had come Eleanor's sudden recovery, when he had almost given up hope, on the very day of the laying of the foundation-stone of the new model dwellings; and it had seemed to him that God had chosen this means of revealing Himself. The God he had been taught. The God of his fathers. Who answered prayers, accepted the burnt offering, rewarded the faithful and believing. What need to seek further? The world was right. Its wise men and its prophets had discovered the true God. A God who made covenants and bargains with man. Why not? Why should not God take advantage of Anthony's love for Eleanor to make a fair businesslike contract with him?


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 "Help me with these schemes of yours for the happiness of my people and I will give you back your wife." But the reflection would come: Why should an omnipotent God trouble Himself to bargain with His creatures, take ways for accomplishing what could be done at once by a movement of His will? A God who could have made all things perfect from the beginning, beyond the need of either growth or change. Who had chosen instead to write the history of the human race in blood and tears. Surely such a God would need man's forgiveness, not his worship. The unknown God was yet to seek.

Landripp had been killed during the building of the model dwellings. It had been his own fault. For a stout, elderly gentleman to run up and down swaying ladders, to scramble round chimney stacks, and balance himself on bending planks a hundred feet above the ground was absurd. There were younger men who could have done all that, who warned Mr. Landripp of the risks that he was running. He had insisted on supervising everything himself. The work from its commencement had been to him a labour of love. He was fearful lest a brick should be ill-laid.

Anthony had a curious feeling of annoyance as he looked upon the bruised and broken heap of


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 rubbish that had once been his friend. Landripp had been dead when they picked him up. They had put him on a stretcher and carried him round to his office. Anthony had heard the news almost immediately, and had reached Bruton Square as the men were coming out. The body lay on the big table in the room where he and Anthony had had their last long talk. The face had not suffered and the eyes were open. There may have been a lingering consciousness still behind them for it seemed to Anthony that for an instant they smiled at him. And then suddenly the light went out of them.

It was tremendously vexing. He had been looking forward to renewal of their talks. There was so much he wanted to have said to him: questions he had meant to put to him; thoughts of his own, that he had intended to discuss with him. Where was he? Where had he got to? It was ridiculous to argue that Landripp himself—the mind and thought of him—had been annihilated by coming into contact with a steel girder. Not even a cabbage dies. All that can happen to it is for it to be resolved into its primary elements to be reborn again. This poor bruised body lying where the busy brain had been at work only an hour before, even that would live as long as the solar sys-