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he would never go until she began to dread lest her strength and self control would give out and that she would distinguish herself either by fainting or by going off into a fit of raging at last however who was quite unconscious of the tumult in his friend s heart or indeed of there being any cause for a tumult in any one s heart came out of an inner room and sought mrs it is most late he said with a laugh of half apology you make your guests too welcome i for one can never tear myself away darted a glance at him thinking that he might be in earnest and that he might have a liking for her himself the thought died away however almost as soon as it crossed his mind and he bade margaret good night with an admirable carelessness and a fine show of indifference with carelessness and indifference he who could have flung himself down at her feet and have her on him he who could have shouted the story of his hopeless passionate adoration for her to the whole world and have in it he who would cheerfully at that moment have given half his remaining years of life if he could but have undone the past and have found himself free a to make her the princess the mother of his children the guiding star of his own existence but for her sake he could do none of these things he could only pretend as best he could that she was no more to him than any other woman that he was as indifferent and careless towards her as she was both to him positively i cannot find words in which to express the storm of passionate feelings which were raging in heart when he went out of margaret s house that night he almost shrieked when turned to him now is she not charming i regard her as the best and most attractive type of young rich and powerful without being i thought her very charming replied briefly and himself by an immense effort charming yes i should think she was said the other and far more charming at that s their place in scotland you know than she is in town by the bye didn t she say something about your having met before yes i met mrs at some dances up in the north when i was in england years ago replied but she was miss north then of course i had no notion that your mrs would turn out to be my miss north he broke off abruptly almost ready to shriek aloud with the pain with which his own careless words had struck him i turn up this street no don t offer to come with me i know my way perfectly well good night and ever so many thanks for taking me to such a charming house he turned away and went swiftly down the street in which his hotel was and walked slowly on wondering in a strange half uneasy way whether had not been disappointed either in the household or in the themselves no no it could not be that he said to himself dear old was always a bit of a it s that wife of his poor old fellow really it s no wonder poor old the thrill of uncertainty chapter the thrill of uncertainty i am weary of the bewildering of life mrs watched the last of her many guests go down the wide stairs that night with strangely mixed feelings she was longing to be alone that she might think over all that had happened and also that she might come to some decision as to what course would be best for her to adopt in the immediate future there was however not the very smallest chance of her free from the presence of others for some time yet for came back after seeing the last guest out of the house and insisted upon her going down to have some supper i would so much rather not she replied i am so tired let me go straight to bed my dearest said kindly yet you will sleep ever so much better if you have a glass of champagne and something to eat before you go margaret groaned in spirit and gave in she knew too well to attempt to dispute the point so they went down to the dining room and there she tried to force enough food down her throat to prevent her husband from making any remarks or asking any questions it went off very well said when he had seen margaret s plate nearly emptied oh it was lovely cried margaret looked up did you enjoy it dear she asked kindly oh yes i had a perfectly lovely time holding her head higher than ever by the bye how did you like count s friend i did not see much of him replied margaret feeling ready to die outright had you met him before asked in her most tones yes but it was a long time ago margaret answered speaking with a great effort did you or he remember the other went on oh we both remembered said margaret wearily a woman when did you meet him the girl persisted oh years and years ago margaret said wondering how long this sort of thing would go on then she turned to you remember his being at some of the balls don t you well i do and i don t replied he told me about it but i shouldn t have known him from adam t have a dim sort of remembrance that there was a big prince of sorts at some of those balls and that i was jealous of him oh what nonsense cried margaret feeling every moment that her self control was going from her nonsense	30
or no nonsense laughed i was most fearfully jealous i remember that distinctly fancy you jealous put in with a air i really must go to bed said margaret at last in positive desperation i am so tired that i can hardly bring myself to think of getting upstairs poor darling i exclaimed come along i ll help you he put his arm round her waist and tenderly supported her out of the room but sat still without regard to the fact that the servants were waiting to clear the rest of the table where did she at least why did she mind his being brought to night her thoughts ran and why was jealous of him then i wonder she stayed for some little time to think it all out but nothing that had happened that evening seemed in any way to with what she had heard of margaret s past excepting in that one confession of s about having l een jealous of prince in the old days found herself wondering whether there had been any real cause for that jealousy and whether it would be possible to stir up old into a little display of that particular attribute now she felt that it would be fine fun to see furiously jealous it would repay a good many old scores and if she could make that bear dance to that particular tune and it was with this charitable and virtuous idea in her head that went to bed and like all such persons fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow never opening her eyes till the day was far advanced and the sun hi j h in the heavens the thrill of uncertainty and margaret what of her well she with her heart torn a thousand ways at once had without further trouble reached the blessed haven of her own bed and a profound sleep was relieved from all need for speaking but she never slept before many minutes had gone by she heard the deep quiet regular breathing which told her that was fast asleep then she opened her eyes and watched the soft grey dawn slowly stealing through the of the window blinds and curtains and weary as she was no thought of or desire for sleep ever entered her mind at all so the meeting which she had been so utterly ever since she and had parted had come and she had been able to take it quite quietly and without anyone suspecting that he was anything more to her than an ordinary guest she went over it all again and again how little changed he was how utterly attractive he was to her still and yet how sad he looked oh why why had he come back to torture her just when she was beginning to forget or if not actually to forget at least to live without him to be somewhat more contented with her lot and the worst of all was that she had seen oh so plainly in his sad sad eyes that she was still in his heart truly she would rather far have had proof positive that he had forgotten all about her she was worn out and terribly weary but that night s reflection was good for her and gave her time to think what she ought to do from that time on first and foremost she decided that she would only act so that all suspicion as to the past should be to sleep for ever come what might suffer as she could and probably would she determined that nothing should happen that should in any way either give the least uneasiness or get herself talked of in connection with prince she was not sure whether she would be able to persuade him to leave england or rather though of course she knew perfectly well that she had the power to persuade him to do any mortal thing yet even in s best interests she felt that it would be in a measure false if she were to use that power now but she decided that she would calmly and put it to him as the one and only thing that he could do for her now and she would leave it to his sense of honour to do what his own a woman heart must plainly tell him would be the right the only thing to do she was still lying painfully wide awake when the morning cup of tea was brought to her she took it eagerly and drank its contents off at a draught and after a short time arose and made her toilet so that her maid suspected nothing she found already in the breakfast room and if and margaret s maid had suspected nothing and and had noticed nothing did not share their blindness her first thought was that margaret had not slept at all and that she had the unmistakable look of a woman in dire trouble what is the matter margaret she asked in her very kindest voice you do look so tired and ill this morning i am very tired margaret replied simply i don t think giving parties with me oh but it was a lovely party cried i enjoyed myself utterly i thought it all went off beautifully oh yes it went off well enough said margaret but it is a great strain thinking of and speaking to so many people in one evening i feel as if i would just like to go to at once and get out of the way of it all i believe that is what most people get to feel remarked looking up from his newspaper and that for so many people giving up having big and yet everything went so well last night i was quite proud of and very proud of you i am glad of that said margaret something in her lifeless tone	30
caused him to look up and her more closely my dearest do you really feel ill to day he asked anxiously no not ill dear she replied hastily i am very tired that is all i will go for a drive this morning and see if a little fresh air will not take this feeling of weight off my head where he asked oh i don t know in the park i suppose margaret answered growing more and more nervous with each moment that won t do you a bit of good declared the thrill of uncertainty with all a man s unlimited contempt for the of fashion you had better let me take you down to or on to heath somewhere so that you will be able to get a breath of real air and not a little used up make believe oh i should like that immensely cried margaret catching at the idea as a drowning man catches at a straw and will you go this morning of course you would rather go in the morning wouldn t you yes much rather i shall love it i shall come back radiant as you will see was disgusted had margaret been going out in the open carriage she would have gone too but as she was going out with there was no question of s being included in the party and was a young lady who loved luxury never walking a single step if she could possibly avoid it so that she felt as if by having a headache and requiring fresh air margaret had actually her out of her proper however she knew that it was of no use to express the very smallest hint of her annoyance to who had an unpleasant of reminding her that the carriage was kept entirely for margaret s convenience and that she must be thankful to be allowed to share it when it was used for his wife and not expect to have it at her own disposal yet still she did watch them go with a burning sense of ill usage and hated margaret for the power of command which was hers fancy her never even offering me the her angry thoughts ran and all those horses simply eating their heads off in the stables at least if she did not choose to ask if i would like the carriage she might have given me the chance of the i do hate her i never mind i ll pay her out when i m she will wish then that she had been a bit more civil meantime margaret was whirling away down beside thankful that she was able to sit in peace without the necessity of talking never talked much when he was driving in the busy streets and town was unusually thronged both with carriages and people that morning so she sat still drinking in the bright sunny air and resting from all the fatigue and exhaustion of the previous night p a she was very pale but looking charming as only a very well woman ever does look in her light summer gown her dainty airy hat and smart yet simple which looked as if some pretty school girl might have worn it but which in reality had cost a lot of money a good many of the by recognised the handsome turn out with its splendid horses and smart groom but margaret saw none of them as they sped along being occupied with her own thoughts once or twice she looked up at on his higher seat a wondering sort of look as if she were asking herself whether this man really was her husband or whether the meeting of the previous night had never really taken place at last as they got into the more quiet turned and looked down upon her well how s the head he asked greatly better she answered with a smile big parties don t suit you my dear he said decidedly i don t believe they do she it was lunch time when they got back to brook street and margaret was able to eat enough to prevent any awkward questions being asked and with a delightful f of having done his duty went oflf on his own business intent promising to be back in good time to go to a certain dinner party that night to which they were and you ll take care of yourself this afternoon were his last words don t go to a lot of hot tea parties there s a good child i did not mean to go out this afternoon said margaret i am very glad to hear it then good bye till who had no love of margaret s society felt seriously ill used and sat looking the of wretchedness imagining that she was to be condemned to walk or to stay at home afternoon as well as evening but margaret suddenly changed the current of her ill thoughts by saying oh by the bye did you not promise to go to that concert with mrs this afternoon did said her spirits rising at the prospect well i promised for you which is the same thing aid margaret she said that she would speak to you last night about it i hear it is to be very smart indeed so you had better make yourself look as charming as ever you the tearing of an old wound can i told mrs that you would drive round for her at about a quarter to three she has something wrong with one of her horses so she could not drive you was all smiles in a moment and jumped up with alacrity to go and dress it will be lovely she exclaimed i perfectly speaking of the most fashionable ballad singer of the day a young man with long hair and a pair of big black eyes which had worked	30
sad among the young ladies that season margaret smiled at the of the girl s temper and presently saw her off with a mingled feeling of amusement and relief and about half an hour afterwards the highly respectable and wood came and announced prince chapter the tearing op an old wound theirs is the present who can praise the fast life has its bliss for these when past its bloom i know how to describe how those two met again after so many years in circumstances so different to those in which they had parted as wood s voice through the pretty margaret rose from her chair and went a step or two to meet her guest she held out her hand and greeted him in quiet conventional tones and wood shut the door again without having the very faintest suspicion that his mistress s visitor was any but the most ordinary one but when the door was safely closed they stood he holding her hands and looking at her as if he could never sufficiently feast his eyes upon the pale dear face the great brown eyes and sweet tender mouth of her he loved best in all the world poor margaret she had meant to be so different she had meant to meet him with perfect coolness and indifference to remind him by every look and tone and gesture that she was the wife of another man to be quite civil and pleasant towards him and to make him feel that a woman the past was a forbidden topic between them to make him feel that the past was past and done with for ever poor margaret she had it all so many times during the hours which had passed since she had that he had come into her life again and the reality was so very different from the scene that she had so carefully planned out for herself for never made any pretence of being but an ordinary acquaintance he just took both her hands in his and stood looking down upon her with all his soul and all his heart in his eyes his face by the passion of the moment his lips trembling his hands shaking a more sober time worn than him from whom she had parted in pain and tears years ago in far away yes and if the truth be told as in the telling of such a story as this it always should be told an infinitely more attractive than ever he had been before poor margaret poor margaret i but in spite of her distress at the turn events had taken she was as full of real courage as she had ever been she had fully made up her mind that she would not utter one word that could in any way be false to her husband and although a perfect storm of old recollection and passion swept over her at thus finding herself face to face with the one great love of her life yet she made a effort to put him at a distance she withdrew her hands gently from the eager clasp of his and turned back to the upon which she had been sitting before his arrival sit down she said with a polite gesture towards a chair near at hand but sat down on the also the chair to which she had pointed you did not see me this morning he said still keeping his eyes fixed upon her no i did not see you she replied where were i was in i saw you driving with with he half hesitated over the words try as he would he could not bring himself to say your husband oh yes we did go for a drive this morning she said as carelessly as she could then looked up at him you see i was very tired after my party last night i was glad to get a little fresh the tearing of an old for a moment there was silence then spoke is there nothing that you want to ask me he said in a very tone to ask you answered she in a trembling voice oh what should i want to ask you of course you have given up the little flat in the long ago i have never given it up it is my home my he replied nothing is changed nothing is altered except that is married and two of the are dead he spoke in an exceedingly bitter tone but margaret did not seem to notice it oh she exclaimed is there still yes is still waiting for your coming back again and i he added in an oh don t don t margaret cried in a voice of anguish said in a tone you are married you have children you are mistress of a large house and your position is beyond compare with the sacrifice which you would have had to make for me but you are not happy you are wretched and be fate as it will your heart is mine still you cannot deny it i neither deny nor admit anything she said coldly if it is as you say then i have to bear a misfortune which i do not deserve but why should you not admit it but there i did not come to try to make you unhappy god knows that at any time i would have laid down my life to serve you you know that well enough without my telling you but oh my my one love my very life in mercy tell me that one thing you have not forgotten i have forgotten nothing she said looking straight at him her tone was very significant and made the hot blood mount up into his face his eyes drooped before hers and he bent his head as if to accept the and yet all to	30
i believe that is very rich answered count indifferently he spoke as indifferently and as much in a tone convey where is it ing that the answer was a matter of course as he would have done if she had asked whether the of all the was a wealthy person everybody in and everybody connected with knew perfectly well the exact position which prince held in that country and knew as well that his estates were vast as all persons of class knew that his married life was wretched looked at him curiously so this was the turned down leaf in her cousin s past this was the man for whose sake she had so long held at arm s length her well born and wealthy husband with the power of being able to put two and two together and make an accurate four of them was almost a gift like lightning there flashed through her mind the fact that margaret had spent two years in studying the german language that she had returned somewhat suddenly and had had a most dangerous illness immediately afterwards nay a more than dangerous a most suspicious illness for as said to herself while she sat watching margaret with half closed eyes no young girl gets brain fever for nothing she stood at one of the windows of the great watching the busy street after margaret s visitors had all gone away for a moment margaret stood beside her watching the moving throng also well i must go and dress she said but how much rather i would quietly sit here and watch this divine evening at the open window oh dear what a grind the season becomes you will come in the carriage for us at eleven and pray don t keep it waiting for sir s is not one of s favourite houses and he is sure to want to leave by that time perhaps you had better say a quarter to eleven very well i will be ready said i shall wear my dress margaret don t you think i had better wear a pretty dress dear said margaret who poor girl torn a thousand ways by the conflict of passions which had come in her life during the past few hours wanted to smooth the way for and only to have peace and what fan are you going to wear oh margaret said isn t it a pity i broke my white fan last night or rather count did he asked if he might send me another one but it hasn t a woman and i have only a black one or others which clash with my dress isn t it come up to my room said margaret i will find you a fan she turned from the window and followed by went to her own apartments naturally mrs of had many some of great beauty and value let me see i think this one would suit you dear i will make you a present of it the fan which she held out for s inspection was of real lace mounted on mother of pearl it will go very well with any light dainty dress and particularly your i would wear a few white flowers in the if i were you for a moment was almost that margaret should offer her so beautiful a gift but although she kissed her and thanked her very prettily and asked in an interested tone what she was going to wear that evening what kind of dress what kind of jewels and so on she yet did not for one moment the bull dog grip in which she was holding her cousin s heart while margaret was in process of dressing stood at the window and her with various bits of gossip which she had heard during the course of the afternoon and then just as the maid was arranging her she said in a indifferent tone what a very handsome man prince is the maid could have told had she chosen that her mistress started violently and if had not been looking so out of the window she would have noticed that mrs s pale face went still a shade paler and was indeed as white as the muslin in which she was enveloped oh i don t think that he is handsome she said in a very cold tone don t you cried oh i think him awfully handsome very very handsome so very distinguished looking too he looks like a prince which most princes do not yes he is very distinguished looking mrs admitted you have put that a little crooked do you see yes madame said i see i have i think you moved your head a little madame where is it you knew him years and years ago didn t you margaret went on with the most casual air of curiosity oh yes dear years and years and years ago when i first knew then of course you saw a great deal of him in in said margaret yes when you were in he lives in oh does he live in said margaret a faint tinge of pink stealing into her cheeks i always understood that his home was in yes he has a palace in and he has huge estates in and other parts of but he most of his time in did he tell you so asked margaret no he didn t but count did and of course you were years in so that i naturally concluded that you knew him there oh my dear said margaret rousing herself up from what was really a stupor of despair you don t understand at all i was not in society in in any sense i was very young and was staying with quiet people whose wildest gaiety was a into the country or a concert in the evening is a very large place	30
oh yes but did you never meet him in persisted i never met prince in said margaret marked the word with the vigilance of a however it did not suit her purpose just then to pursue the subject any further and she turned it aside with admirable oh i only thought perhaps you might have done she said carelessly i don t know why you should think so my dear said margaret well really to tell you the truth because you spoke to him in german because he spoke to me in german the previous evening he speaks german very perfectly and english said and english also margaret admitted she was by this time almost dressed and having seen her put the last of her gleaming jewels in place with a woman a gay word or two herself away to her own bedroom and when she reached that haven of peace so full of evil desires so full of and spite which from time to time she had breathed to the four pretty walls she rushed to the window where stood a pretty white writing table with its drawers all carefully locked i get at the bottom of it she exclaimed her hand i will i know there is something to find out and i find it out my lady may be as as careless as indifferent as she pleases she may me as much as she chooses but there is a down turned page and i have made up my mind that i read it she opened one of the half dozen drawers which the table contained and began to turn over its contents with feverish and eager fingers but what she sought was not there she opened another drawer not there no she turned over papers and letters and books what had she done with it f how tiresome to think she had kept that paper so long and that now when she wanted it it was not to her hand safe bind safe find is not always the most convenient motto in the world for had bound a certain sheet of paper so safely that find it she could not i know i put it somewhere in here surely nobody could have been at this drawer margaret would never do such a thing and who else would have the and yet i could have declared that i put it just there between the leaves of that book however the paper was not and presently a maid came to tell her that dinner was waiting she went down without making any change in her toilet for she preferred to dress the last thing before starting to join her cousin with whom she was going to a ball later in the evening she was very anxious to look her best for had promised to be there and indeed had already secured some of her best dances and for his sake if not for her own would have taken any trouble with her appearance but all the time that she sat alone in the beautiful dining room of a most dainty little dinner and waited on by the second footman the wood having taken his walks abroad her mind was fixed not upon the details of her dress or upon the enjoyment which lay before her but upon that period of her cousin s life which had been passed in the german where is it capital she felt more convinced every moment that and margaret were in love with ea ch other and from an innate sense of making rather than with any definite object she determined make and uneasy if she could possibly do so she owed her cousin man for and from her earliest youth right down to that very day humiliating that the carriages of the establishment were not kept for her that the arrangements of the household were not made with a view to her convenience plainly spoken hints only so to be called by courtesy indeed that her wishes must be to margaret s and each and all of these things in s breast she felt a certain curious kind of contempt for margaret in that she had her instead of crushing her under her foot as herself would have done had their circumstances been reversed but for the master of the house the head of the family himself she had only an hatred bom of and in if only she could make this bear dance to that particular tune what sport it would be how much of the past would be what a life would acquire that it might make either or margaret permanently wretched and bring about a state of which could never be set right did not enter s head for a moment she thought only of her own petty life her own insignificant feelings she forgot the benefits she had received she counted none of the gifts which had fallen in her way only the and of life and when she went upstairs again to dress for the ball no thought of mercy had occurred to her no thought of had entered her mind no it was full of a mischievous desire to make her felt to fling as it were the of pain over the outwardly smooth surface of her cousins lives i will have one more look before i dress her thoughts ran as she closed the door of her bedroom behind her she sat down at the pretty white writing table and opened the drawers yet once again no dear dear what had she done with it there no not a sign of it so she sought on when suddenly she caught her breath with a catch ah a woman chapter an old letter let us too let all evil sleep the paper which found after such a long search in one of the drawers of her writing table was but a very harmless	30
looking thing it was indeed only a letter dated about seven years previously and beginning dearest it went on to offer mrs many congratulations on her birthday and also to present the enclosed of which no description was given there were a few details of the life of the writer carelessly told and of no particular moment but the letter signed your affectionate niece margaret and upon the top of the letter was written b yet read it over several times with eager eyes while the fingers which held it trembled visibly i will write to this very night she said and forthwith down she sat and began to write a letter my dear old she said i want you to do me a very great favour and as you are in still it will be quite easy will you find out for me who lives at b and who has lived there for the last seven years at least i am not asking for idle curiosity but i really want to know if you can do this for me i shall be obliged to you we are here in the very thick of the london season i am writing this just before dressing to go to a ball at one of the best houses in london perhaps the next time i write to you i may have more special news to tell you about myself but to night i have no time to say more as i have to be dressed in less than an hour don t think me unkind dear old not to have answered your last letter sooner than this and for not answering it more fully now this time of year one s life is like a then followed a little description of her dress and the beautiful fan which her cousin had given her that day and she signed herself your always affectionate and obliged an old letter having closed and despatched this and with the pleasant feeling that by so doing she had set a match to the train which would succeed in giving a very uncomfortable time she proceeded to adorn herself for the ball and for count s i have said before that had strangely improved in looks since she had lived with margaret probably she had never looked better in her life than she did on that particular evening her gown was of the shade of and was very fresh and dainty she took margaret s advice about wearing white in the but instead of choosing flowers she took several white feathers and arranged them upon the left side securing them in place by several pretty pearl and pins which margaret had given her from time to time the feathers certainly went better with the soft lace of her fan than even flowers would have done and it was a pretty and looking who wearing an outer garment of white material edged with went down to the carriage at the hour which margaret had indicated when she reached sir robert s door it seemed as if she had but to wait a moment before the appeared i am so glad i said a quarter to eleven said margaret as she settled herself in her place for it was such a dull party and was bored to death i don t suppose the will be dull though said oh dear no but the dinner was ghastly wasn t it oh deadly he replied and of course it was like my luck having to go down with lady she is a very tiresome person and somehow a sort of idea has got round that i am exceedingly fond of her i wonder why perhaps an idea that you are good natured and don t mind who you take in said well i am not good natured said not at all and i never felt less good natured than i do to night now here we are the two houses were indeed but a couple of streets apart and the next moment they were passing up the covered steps but margaret and were alone just as they reached the door said to his wife i think i shall go down to the club for an hour you a woman won t mind will you t i will come on to you by and by no i won t the carriage i will come up in a cab or walk up and be sure you both enjoy yourselves very much as himself did not often dance now seldom indeed with anyone excepting his wife neither margaret nor raised any objection to his them to margaret indeed with always before her the fear of meeting it was something of a relief her part difficult to play at any time was easier when was not present and as for who disliked him exceedingly and who dreaded any sarcastic remarks he might have to pass about his presence was always a matter to be sorry for rather than not tell me if i look all right margaret she said in an to her cousin while they were still in the oh my dear said margaret i have never seen you look so nice as you do to night your feathers are just right much better than flowers would have been tliey look so soft and you look charming she touched her sleeve here and there so as to make it set to the best advantage and without a glance at her own radiant self turned and went towards the hall when say i naturally do not mean to convey that margaret was feeling in great spirits or in any sense radiant that evening but the years of her marriage and the of her life had added to the of her appearance her eyes always her strong point were than ever and her luxuriant hair was certainly not diminished in beauty by the splendour of	30
the diamonds which crowned it her dress was simple for a married woman and a woman of position but it was very rich and suited her figure to perfection upon her breast and arms many diamonds like a way of splendour and indeed the only touch of colour in her was the band of blue stones which she wore always even when she had no other jewel about her a superb staircase led to a sort of room or exaggerated landing lighted by crystal lamps and hung with a wonderful collection of plates of all kinds and descriptions here mrs received her guests and here standing together waiting for them they found count and his friend prince at the sight of them an old letter it must be confessed blushed up to her eyes and margaret s cheeks faded to a which matched the satin dress that she wore you are alone said looking towards the staircase yes said margaret we are alone for the present has gone to his club you see he doesn t dance very much now and i think he was a little dinner tired was it a dull dinner asked oh very tiresome it is such a hot night for staying long at table you will give me this dance asked of with pleasure said and mrs are you going to honour me tonight oh if you like but it is so hot do you know really i would much rather not dance oh madame put in reproachfully ah well of course if you put it like that i must but just one dance and not just yet by madame said as bowed his acceptance of the favour may i have the honour of taking you to supper oh certainly said margaret very coldly but not for a long time such a long dinner you know then he bowed too and count offered his arm to and took her away towards the ball room thus leaving margaret alone with he immediately into german and his most tender and familiar tone will you sit and watch the people he asked or shall we find some cooler place margaret hesitated it isn t very hot here she answered and it is rather amusing don t you think no said i don t but of course i will do what you wish i would rather find a less conspicuous spot than this now there is a little through that room a mere nook which is very and comfortable shall we go and look at it oh yes if you like said margaret not desiring to seem afraid to be left alone with him so they did go to look at the little and finding a woman it they seated themselves upon a low well by tall palms a screen and the many ornaments which ladies love to gather about them in their own sitting rooms there isn t this better than that crowd he asked triumphantly and possessing himself of one of the green which fell from her because he did not dare to possess himself of her hand which he would rather have held ah yes this is a nice little room said margaret in a tone of fine indifference a very nice little room a little dull in the and i rather wonder why mrs sits here so much but it is always the case with women give them a of seven drawing rooms and they will pitch their tent in some little awkward room and spend half their lives in it we are very strange creatures yes very strange creatures said looking at her with all his soul in his eyes and it is your strangeness which makes you so precious to us men who don t care whether we have a drawing room or not though we do value the little of the woman we love i don t think you can have any particularly sentimental ideas concerning this said margaret looking at him oh margaret said he why between ourselves do you keep up this farce of uttering mere and society they are all very well as the small change out yonder they are necessary but between v margaret they are neither necessary nor appropriate between t said margaret her colour fading yet further and her heart beating so fast that she was almost between tis prince nothing is necessary or appropriate you must know that as well as i do you must know perfectly well that we can never pretend that the past was not there or that the present and the past are absolutely one from another what would be appropriate to our past would not be appropriate to our present and what is appropriate to our present can have nothing to do with our past why don t you recognise this tell me how long you are going to stay in london for three months you see when i arranged to come an old letter i had no idea that you would be in at all who is as you know my dearest friend as we have been from boyhood pressed me very much to come and spend a season here and i took my rooms at the hotel for three months and of course everybody who knows me at the knows that i came for three months what am i to do if i go away i must go without a reasonable excuse i cannot pretend that anybody is ill or that my lawyers require me or anything of that kind as i could do if i were less well known i can only say that i desire to leave london and as you are the only english lady with whom i have had any intercourse which to more than the acquaintance of the moment it will give colour to any rumour which may arise as to the cause of my leaving margaret opened her fan	30
and he was not very long in i suppose not i was asking him about it yesterday i met hun in the park and we walked up and down together a little i like him on the whole i like him better than any man i have met for a long time and by jove he knows a good horse when he sees it yes said margaret indifferently don t you feel well margaret asked at this point you do look so white i am not very well to day thank you i think the season is getting a little too much for me i can t stand the continual going out and the want of fresh air i wish we were going to earlier than august oh cried in a tone of deep disappointment ah yes i know my dear you are enjoying your season but must be looking lovely would you like to go up there earlier inquired because we can if you like supposing that we just go up there for a fortnight or three weeks and then come back to town again yes it would be charming i should love it said margaret eagerly would you really his arms upon the table and regarded his wife with evident pleasure and satisfaction i am glad you like so much because i don t think there is any place in the world like it however we can talk over the details by and by it happened that margaret had promised to take a long drive with him that afternoon and as soon as lunch was over she went to dress for it she saw that the carriage was at the door and went down to the dining room where she found staring out of the window what are you going to do this afternoon dear she asked oh i don t know said in a hopeless tone well i suppose and i will not be back much before six o clock you have not out have you the irony of circumstance not to day margaret well dear it is very fine and bright have the carriage and take the children out and tell so that she may know before they are thinking of going in the park it will do you all good i wish that you would go round to and tell her that i must have my white dress to wear to morrow and ask her to show you that little evening mantle that she showed me the last time i was there if you like it and it suits you you may have it and put it into my bill the storm clouds cleared from s face immediately margaret you really are too good to me she said oh no not at all said margaret i like you to look nice and i like you to have a good time if you can for my dear there are bad times which come into every woman s life sooner or later make the most of your chance make your hay while the sun shines my child margaret said margaret looked up yes why are you looking so sad asked why do you speak so bitterly of the bad times which come into every woman s life you have not had many bad times margaret i margaret positively shook herself together i oh no there was never a woman so much blessed in this world as i i feel it every day every day but one never knows one can never tell what may be coming a thousand things might happen which would take away all one s happiness and you poor child had such a sorry time before that i want you to make the most of your bright days now you know we may not be very long together you think not said i don t know i for your sake of course i hope not if that is you really like what do you say oh you are ready the carriage is here said margaret turned from the window instantly i am quite ready dear she said somehow whenever she was driving with margaret always experienced the same feeling of relief always felt the same longing desire to get away from everybody that she knew and pitch her tent upon some island with just and the babies by the time they had a woman turned into the colour had come into her cheeks and the light into her eyes do you really mean it about going to for a while asked suddenly i should like it above all things said margaret i am longing to get away quietly for a week or two well supposing we go for a fortnight could you arrange your engagements oh yes quite easily we have no dinners after the so that if we decided to go we could refuse everything for the time we mean to stop away of course we can of course well have some people whilst we are there yes i suppose we must yes must be looking charming just now and by the bye i have got something to tell you to tell me have you had any idea that is seriously thinking of i didn t think so said margaret frankly but during the last week or two he has seemed so very devoted that really i begin to think there is something in it my dear child said if what tells me is true there is everything in it prince repeated margaret what did he say to you about it well i told you i saw him in the park yesterday and we walked up and down together and got on exceedingly well far better than i expected he tells me that is perfectly serious and that practically he is only waiting an opportunity to declare himself and did count say so	30
to him do you think well from what he said he must have as good as said so it would be a very good marriage for and she is i am sure she is awfully fond of him of course it would be a splendid marriage a thundering good marriage we should have to make i suppose but i wouldn t grudge that to get a good husband what on earth the man can see in is beyond me added emphatically margaret laughed well it is rather but she is very pretty you know pretty my dear child k the irony op circumstance oh she is she has been very much admired this season h m well it is a very good thing for that she has because if everybody looked at her with my eyes she would have but a rough time of it i assure you she has had a rough time of it said margaret thinking of the years that had spent with aunt you know dear it couldn t have been lively for a young girl to with such a pious as dear aunt was to say nothing of her terrible ideas and the incessant worry about her state of health no no no well if this comes about we won t grudge a smart wedding and or even a fair settlement by the bye don t you think it would be as well to ask to come up to with us i he would be very pleased said margaret if he can get leave oh he can get leave right enough for a short time who else shall we ask well i should say anybody that will not clash with in that respect because if we are to give her a chance we must give her a fair chance don t you think certainly by the bye i wish you would ask mrs i do think her such a nice woman and i believe she is very anxious to see i will ask her of course said margaret and i should rather like to ask the i thought was looking very out the last time i saw her and she quite spoke with longing of getting back to the castle ask them by all means said i should ask if i were you oh i don t think so said margaret no i certainly would not oh wouldn t you don t you like him oh yes dear but we have not known him very long and he has come to town for the season i don t suppose that he would care to go up to a quiet place just now and leave the best of everything here and i wouldn t ask him just as you like of course said it is nothing to me i think he is a nice chap oh yes dear but you have so many friends who would a woman expect to be asked to before a comparative stranger tou might ask sir philip and you might ask major and a dozen others i will ask those two anyway said i believe such a break in the middle of the season would be a great success i will ask them to day margaret breathed freely once more this sudden liking of her husband s for prince was one which had filled her with the most dire dismay usually when she proposed asking casual men to was the one to throw cold water upon the suggestion however she felt that she had very cleverly off that particular danger and she sat back in her comer of the comfortable carriage with a sense of relief that was almost painful she was also a very great sense of relief from the prospect of being freed from the care of a marriage with count who was rich good looking and well bom and occupying a position was really beyond the wildest dreams that could have been indulged in for a girl who was in spite of her birth a mere dependent upon the of others margaret forgot in her glow of sympathy for the happiness which was fast coming upon all the ill temper and which she had experienced at her hands since she had become a member of their household she was already planning out in her own mind the details of the wedding and of the which she and would give her it will be a very good match for she said speaking her thoughts aloud oh splendid said the only thing to me is what on earth he can see in her well as i said it is a very lucky thing nobody looks at her with my eyes otherwise miss would remain miss to the end of the chapter it is a very good thing that nobody is looked at with all eyes alike but really this is better than i have ever hoped for and he is so nice too oh yes a charming chap for a foreigner said he never seems to me like a foreigner returned margaret ah but he is he his hair all back for one thing it is to be hoped will make him part it on one on the verge side like a rational being now the other fellow he looks like an englishman you mean prince yes by jove what a fine chap he is and what a judge of a horse i can t think how it is that you don t like him better margaret did not answer she sat looking steadily out over the horses heads her face well hidden by the deep lace which her it was well for her that she had taken that particular with her for it formed a screen between her face and s en and frosty eyes over and over again in her brain s words rang out i can t think how it is	30
you don t like him better oh the mockery of it oh the cruel irony of fate and yet with what a sense of relief she that her husband imagined that she had no liking for the man who was all the world to her for the man whose voice her whose glance seemed to her very soul the touch of whose hand was positively electric but she could not there silent she must speak she must say something and she turned her lovely eyes back towards with a upon her lips i don t dislike on the contrary she said quietly oh i thought you did i quite gathered that you did oh then that is all right for i think under the circumstances as he is such a very great friend of s and seems inclined to marry into our family that it is just as well that we should like him oh just as well echoed margaret and then added why not chapter on the verge we cannot the sad records from our past meantime had gone out in the open carriage with the children and the two nurses i don t know that would not rather have gone by herself she loved going out in the handsome open carriage with the high stepping horses and handsome she was a girl who never grew a woman tired of the purple so to speak if she had been bom a queen she would never have longed to lay aside state and ceremony no she would always have enjoyed the feeling of the heavy robes and the burden of the crown of state she found madame disengaged and all that was attentive and delightful she promised that mrs s dress should reach her in time and she showed the little evening mantle with many it was a beautiful little garment and it fitted to tion therefore she returned home to brook street filled only with the feelings towards her cousin s wife after all she thought as she went up the great staircase margaret really is nice isn t half good enough for her is such a bear and then she opened the door of the smaller drawing room and said oh are you back already yes we have been back ten minutes or so margaret answered did you enjoy your drive did you see oh yes dear margaret and your dress will be ready in time and the little mantle suits me to perfection i never saw anything so pretty how good it is of you to give it to me oh my dear not at all i thought it would suit you ah here is tea with the tea came several letters four or five for margaret and two for that one of them bore the and a german stamp saw at a glance and she kept it in her hand while she mastered the contents of the other then finding that margaret was engrossed in a closely written letter of considerable length she poured out the tea and opened the letter from beloved it began i can t tell you what a surprise it was to me to receive your letter so after the other one i was very easily able to find out what you wanted to know about the flat in the because a great friend of mine has a flat below it the tenant of the flat b is prince a very rich russian nobleman who a great deal of time in and who seldom or never sees his wife in the beginning the flat was taken in the name of but my friend tells me that on the verge and prince were really one and the same person the lived there for two years whether she really was princess or not my friend hasn t the least idea but she tells me that she knew her by sight quite well although the or whichever they may happen to be made no acquaintances among the other tenants of the and appeared to have very few friends in the town at all events they had very few visitors they had two servants one of whom is still in charge after being there for two years with only occasional my friend missed the lady and she has never seen her since her servant heard casually from the maid who is still with prince that had gone away on a prolonged and that she would be coming back by and by she has however never come back and the flat is now taken openly in the name of prince my friend tells me that was young and very good looking not so handsome as very with lovely eyes and a very good figure she dressed beautifully and was very quiet in her manners until the flat was taken in the name of they had no idea that the tenants were anything but what they represented themselves to be my friend tells me that she has never seen the inside of prince apartments but her servant has been once or twice and tells her that everything is kept precisely as it was when the lady went away if you want me to out anything else you must let me know at once as i shall be leaving in about three weeks from now we are going to for the autumn and to italy for the winter so that i shall not see you my dear for a long time unless you should happen to be going to italy also with much love your affectionate this letter excited intensely she looked up at margaret who was quite unconscious of the awful chasm yawning beneath her feet who by turn her tea ate her bread and butter and read her letters all that the past was a secret no longer between herself and but was shared by the one	30
person in the world to whom she would rather it had not been known sat watching her curiously as she might have watched a upon a pin a woman making its last struggle for life and liberty so this was the secret this was why all the colour had faded out of margaret s face leaving her cheeks so deadly white when she first met dearest friend count how well that day she had thought then that there had been an affair between margaret and but the truth had been much worse she remembered it all so well how had watched her in a strange puzzled seeking fashion how he had positively declared that he had seen her somewhere before and margaret had as positively declared that they had never met how well she remembered it small wonder that margaret had been so scared and shaken still less wonder that she had been so overwhelmed on the night when count had brought to her ball so that was why they had spoken in german that was why margaret had looked as if the weight of the very world had descended upon her there had been far more between them than a mere love affair there was the remembrance of two years passed together in now to be candid detested her cousin she him she owed him many and bitter and she resolved to make this the means of paying out a vast collection of old scores how she would make this bear dance how she would repay for every word for every look for every chill that he had ever given her she knew so well what was in the habit of saying of her she had heard him tell margaret more than once that she was too good to the little little ah but now the little had the power to make this proud and haughty cousin of hers to the very mire she was quite sorry for margaret she admired prince so much more than she admired that she pitied margaret for having to take one where she would naturally have preferred to take the other poor margaret her thoughts ran how she must have suffered with that splendid memory always before her and only disagreeable jealous as a stem reality poor margaret fate has been very hard upon her told herself but the thought of the thought of burning that letter of putting margaret on her guard and of trying to blot out the whole incident from her memory as if it had never on the verge been that never entered s head she was very sorry for margaret because really margaret had been exceedingly kind to her but she meant to punish just the same but not just yet not just yet she made an excuse presently and left the room going up to her own pretty nest and after the door she sat down at the open window to think things over she must keep her secret yet awhile if everything went well count would speak out before many days had gone by was as sure that he cared for her as she was of her own existence it would never do to upset so as to interfere with s proposal no she would wait awhile and then then she would have the pleasure of making that bear dance sat so long thinking of the revenge she meant to take upon that she dressed for dinner in a regular scramble she was wearing a simple white dress of soft silk with a touch of gold here and there on the and skirt she did not indeed reach the drawing room until the first guests had arrived and almost immediately afterwards came count and together made his way to her side after greeting margaret i am to take you in to dinner he said in a triumphant sort of tone oh are you really said that is charming i have only just this moment scrambled into the room and i had not the least idea who was to be my fate i wish said that i was really to be your fate oh but you are said i don t mean just for to night for this occasion said i don t understand said it is very easy to understand said he suddenly dropping his light tone and into the utmost gravity of face and voice ah count said another voice at that moment i am so pleased to see you we have not met for ages he had to turn round how do you do i he said at once putting on the ordinary manner of the world t that you r a woman h id gone or i should have called upon you long ago oh we were going abroad we were going to india for a long tour but at the very last moment my husband s doctor and stopped the expedition he said harry simply could not stand india and that we must give up all idea of going there at all much to our disappointment so we only went south for a few weeks and i am at home aa usual and always on monday evenings thank you very much said he politely i shall be charmed to avail your he turned back to but the spell was broken a old gentleman was talking to her and until dinner was announced he had no chance of saying a single word that might not have been d by the whole room margaret was taken down by and in spite of her own happiness for the fleeting conversation which lady and the old gentleman interrupted had made feel very secure in her contrived to keep an eye veiy closely on her it was all so clear to her it was bo plain to her now that simply worshipped the ground upon which margaret trod she wondered and she about	30
days margaret had sometimes smoked to please him which was quite true do russian ladies smoke prince she asked carelessly miss a great many russian ladies smoke and i have known english ladies who smoked also not many broke in i should be very sorry to see wife with a between her lips ah it is all a question of habit said carelessly i don t think so at all said no i cannot see why think of a woman with smoke put in quite in a heat for him one can imagine nothing more degrading more horrible yet said we expect ladies to like us and us when we are of smoke it is a little hard on the ladies don t you think well perhaps so i am not much of a myself i seldom smoke more than a now and again and my wife never so i suppose she doesn t mind it eh i don t mind at all said margaret i do object to cigars indoors very much but i don t mind your smoking let us walk round the garden said in an to so was carried off down the wooden steps and the two paced round and round in the white moonlight talking a woman on all matters highly interesting to themselves and yet in no way reaching that one at which they had in the evening been so near to stepping hand in hand into did not propose to that evening there are times in one s life when it is impossible to say certain things to certain people we may be half an hour longing to give some friend a needful hint to suggest some kindness to put the happiness of one s whole life to the touch and yet find it perfectly impossible to say the which will give the idea form and birth so with they walked round and the garden under the white and the radiance of the sky and was by turns and tender but all s had been put to flight for that evening and at last as she complained of being tired they went back to the balcony and sat a little apart from the others by turns talking under their breath and joining in the general conversation by the bye said presently prince says he will be charmed to come to us at if you will ask him we are thinking he added turning to of going up to for a fortnight or so at the end of the month do you think you can get leave will you go with us we are going to ask a few people of course oh yes i think i could get leave said and i should love it above all things he added turning to his friend is one of the loveliest places i have ever seen in my a delightful house to stay in i am sure of it said with his most air the little conversation had given margaret time to pull herself together more especially when she found that was looking at her distinctly waiting for her to ui course we shall be very charmed if you come and see us at she said to but it was with conventional such as made moment that he had refused to con th even for a moment and undone hi always before her the dread of letting self know how much such a visit would mean i the net draws closer s to her had no choice but to enter into the conversation discussing the details and motives for their leaving town in the very height of the season i she said to the two men that people will think it very extraordinary that we should fly away for a fortnight just at this time of year but i am not very strong and i do feel the fatigue of the season so much and really i am longing for a little fresh air i think nobody but myself knows how much it was not very long before the two men took their leave and expressed his satisfaction to his wife that had been so very much pleased to be invited to join their party i only wish said he that you liked him better i do think that he is such a good chap i can t think why you don t like him i don t dislike him said margaret trying hard to l e patient and under this new difficulty at this point laughed i don t think you ought to dislike prince margaret she said in a tone of great amusement because he likes you well enough there is no reason for him to dislike me said margaret with great dignity but although i should not have thought of asking him myself we must take care that he finds his visit to a pleasant one and now my dear child it is high time that both you and i went to bed i feel absolutely tired out and you must take care of your looks just now so do you go to bed dear and get a good night s rest but did not immediately go to bed on the contrary she sat down and wrote another letter to i send you this photograph i want you to show it to your friends who live in the and ask them if that is the lady whom they knew as let me know without delay and oblige me i need hardly say that the photograph was one of margaret not of margaret as she was at that time but of margaret taken in before she was married which to tell the truth had possessed herself from one of the large downstairs g a woman and of margaret she like a woman of stone to ix to have her jewels removed her hair brushed and arranged for the night she	30
was possessed by the awful feeling that the net was fast closing round and margaret knew him well enough to x quite sure that it was useless further to attempt to fight it for was as obstinate as any man could possibly l e the man who had patiently waited year after year as he had done for her sake who had taken refusal after refusal and had kept steadily on the course which he had marked out for himself gaining it in spite of her was the man who would stick to his point with the of a bull dog it did not matter to that the point was a small one or one of indifferent moment when once he had made up his mind you might as easily turn a as induce him to change it chapter forget me doubting things go ill often more than to l e sure they do the household went up to a day before any of those who had accepted their invitation to spend a fortnight in the air i can hardly describe with what a sinking heart margaret passed once more over the threshold of her husband s home she loved it does not always follow that a woman herself deeply and affectionately to the cradle of her husband s race but there was not a stone of the grey rambling old pile for which margaret had not a very real love not a tree which she did not value not a yard of soft springing turf the growth of centuries which she did not cherish she loved it all and equally she loved the sturdy independent people who invariably called without any or recognition of the fact that he possessed a hitherto she had always felt herself so safe at she had always felt that from the time she stepped out of the train until the time she stepped into it again on her return to england that she had left the world of danger and temptation behind her but forget me this time it was w th different feelings that she found herself once more beneath the old roof tree for he was coming in a few hours more he would be living under the same roof with her eating at the same table living the same life he who had been the light and joy of her youth who god help her was the sorrow and regret of her years she was torn a thousand ways at once torn by the ceaseless regret and longing for a return of the past by the love which had fluttered away from the place where it had been so sorely wounded so sorely wounded that it had seemed like a stricken bird only able to flutter into some covert to die in peace poor wounded love alas it did not die it seldom does in human life no her love had lived and she out of weakness and pity had taken the wrong course had made the passage of life more difficult more painful greater agony than it would have been if she had gone steadily along on her path of solitude i think that her fears caused her less pain than her sorrow and yet she afraid over and over again she pictured to herself what would happen if the truth about the past came out if the period that was hidden if the leaf that was turned down as she had hoped for ever should be laid bare to the light of day what would do what would he say how would he look how would she feel they were questions that she could never answer with satisfaction to herself but surely she found herself arguing as in the fair june morning she walked slowly up and down the terrace which was overlooked by the windows of her and several of the other sitting rooms surely nobody who chanced to find out that pitiful story would have the heart to say a word about it to after all if it should be count who remembered where he had once seen her and there were times when margaret felt that he did remember that he had a perfect remembrance of that occasion if by chance should let a word slip surely surely was a man of honour and would keep her secret from the whole world even from if found it out well margaret could not shut her eyes to the fact that she had been very very kind to that owed her everything that she had or was in the world that owed to her what was her probable future that of the surely she who was in all human probability about to leave them for the home and name of a woman another would not even if she knew for certain that sad and unhappy past think it necessary to tell her husband to tell that is surely not and for others what others were there who could or would be likely ever to know one word about it there was always himself but of his honour she was certain of his unselfish love for her since that one great selfish act a one after all she was convinced oh doubts and fears and were natural but in her moments in her moments of deepest dread she would not insult love by permitting herself to think even for an instant that he could so play her false as she moved slowly up and down she determined that she would as far as was possible try to put all these doubts and fears away from her that she would keep well occupied and satisfied that she would not bridge over this trouble which after all might never come upon her she had not been alone very long before himself came out to join her now of was a very	30
different person to of brook street in the conventional dress of an englishman of position was a very good looking man of a cold and aristocratic but of with his foot upon his native heath was immediately transformed into a presence of great and beauty he was clad in jacket and of a very light grey tint and of a very thick material on his head was a cap of the same and his well standing legs were covered with thick a will you go round the place with me margaret he asked of course i will said she speaking in the serene and cheerful tone which she had but a moment ago made up her mind to adopt as her safest manner so together they went a couple enough through the gardens over the glass houses into margaret s favourite and across the drive and into the stables on the drive they met a little procession of babies and nurses going for the morning a very stately middle aged person clad in a stiffly white dress and black bonnet and mantle was evidently in charge the rest consisted of two smart white containing a beautiful child with a rattle and a beautiful baby forget me fa st asleep a neat dressed in the same livery as the middle aged person was attached to each there was of course a good excuse to stop and exchange greetings and gave one finger and the of his walking stick to the little who and chuckled with delight at seeing him the little person in a different way when finger and stick were withdrawn and it needed all the efforts of the maid to persuade her that her own rattle was a good substitute for either it all looks very jolly doesn t it said oh so jolly said margaret with a sigh half of regret do you know sometimes i wish that we lived at all the year round not really yes i do i feel so different here i don t at least i can hardly explain how and why but i think if i lived at all the year round i should be better my dear what nonsense why you are the best woman i ever knew in my life i have known some good people i have known some good women but i never knew any one who was half as good as you oh no don t say that i am really not any better than other people sometimes in london i feel very bad i you feel out of sorts in london that is natural enough but had my dear child you could not feel if you tried you are speaking without the book dear oh i don t think so said margaret i really don t think we stay half long enough at of course one must do a season you know must we yes i suppose we must but for my own part i should be perfectly happy if i were never going back to the house in brook street if i were going to stay here always well we needn t go back we can easily make arrangements to stay up here if you would rather yes i would much rather said she of course went on looking round at the fair scene which lay spread before them i don t think there is any place in the world to equal i simply love it but i don t know that i want to live here for ever however if it will give you any pleasure not to go back and finish the season why let us remain here by all means i should be perfectly happy a woman a certain sense of stole over margaret s heart i can scarcely explain how or why except that in that moment there came to her a sudden thought a wholly unworthy thought as she indignantly reminded herself that a year before he would have put his differently certainly a year before he would have told her that she could not possibly have given him a greater pleasure than by telling him how fond she was of his home of their home he might have added and probably would have done that had acquired a new beauty in his eyes because she cared so much for it he would have said to her my dear i am always the happiest where you are or some little tender remark of that kind to day he seemed different perhaps it was only her imagination but it seemed to her that he had never spoken to her quite in that tone before what are you going to do now he asked when they had been the round of the stables where there were of course but few occupants only indeed those horses which had been left at during their stay in london i was going over the house to see everything was right she replied oh then you won t want me till lunch not till lunch time no will you go for a drive with me this afternoon i should like it very much she replied and so they parted margaret went into the house alone going into the huge entrance hall where she found very busy with an enormous tray half filled with flowers and a quantity of oh you are busy she said with a laugh well i thought i had better get them all done because they never take quite so much doing again because i don t have all to do at one fell are you going round the margaret yes i came in to go over the house and see that everything is all right well because here is the list that you gave mrs as to where the different people are to sleep i have had it to arrange the flowers by do you want it will	30
you take it with you yes i think i had better said margaret have you done the forget me yes every one of them i am hard at work on the drawing rooms now and then i have only the table to be quite finished my dear i think you have done wonders did you find plenty of flowers well pretty well said of course i wanted a good many and they grumbled a little but they were really very good i took a look round the gardens and they cut me some of the best of the outside flowers i think you will find it all looks very nice i am sure it does said margaret feeling that after all if was a little odd in temper she had had a good deal to try her in the past and that with this future of radiant happiness and success before her she would probably soon be a very different to what she had ever been before you do the flowers dear she said in her kindest tones as she went towards the inner hall i am glad you think so said in a matter of fact tone margaret made the round of the house first into her own which was delightfully touched here and there with pink and maiden hair then into s study which had also its touch of brightness then into the library then into the room through the long dining room and into the three great drawing rooms everything was bright and home like and after london the sense of cleanliness and freshness struck margaret s tired senses with a feeling of and wholesome peace then she continued her tour and made her way to the she still had the list which had given her in her hand her own instructions indeed to mrs the housekeeper the first room into which she went was the white room and was destined for mrs who was margaret s favourite sister in law and who had accepted the invitation very indeed it was a very pretty room overlooking the terrace which was margaret s favourite walk and was remarkable for the way in which white had entered into its arrangement the walls of a delicate blush pink while the paint furniture and were all of white there was a pink and brown carpet soft and thick upon the floor and a great white skin rug lay in front of the fireplace here were pink and white flowers and after looking a woman gave a of approval and passed on her way the next she came to was a bed and marked in her list the indian room and intended for the the entire furniture of these rooms was of carved indian wood a red and gold oriental looking paper covered the walls and embroidered curtains the windows and the beds had not put many flowers in these rooms only a touch here and there of rich blossoms which margaret remembered to have seen in one of the further again was her own apartment and s dressing room both radiant with pink roses still further was the room of which aunt had approved and this was given to mrs and was with many coloured roses of the bachelor rooms sir philip was welcomed with of shades and margaret laughed outright as she perceived the delicate hint to a man who refused always to dance then came the room to major which was like mrs s with roses then there was the room for count exquisitely with great lilies and last of all she passed into that which would occupy and found it alight with forget me chapter take care past hours if not by guilt yet wound ua when margaret what flowers had chosen to prince s room such a pang shot through her heart that she almost sank down fainting upon the floor why had chosen forget me why with all the flowers that were at her disposal had she chosen these little simple blossoms so of remembrance so significant in their simplicity could it be but an accident surely surely had not penetrated into that past into the secret of her life oh it could not be how could have any means of discovering what she had been so careful to hide she remembered how only a few days before she had said to her that she take care ought not to dislike prince because he liked her so much what had made think that he liked her so much surely she who had been now for months associated intimately with count was not deceived or carried away by the impressive and somewhat exaggerated phrases which are the small change of life with a foreigner of s position with all her little air of knowing the world thoroughly was really very it was girl like to take everything to be what it seemed to believe everything that people said to look below the surface in no way could it be but a mere coincidence or were the forget put there of design either to wound margaret or to seem significant to himself her first impulse naturally enough was to fling out all the arranged flowers and substitute others of less significance then reason came to her and told her that such a course could not be hers she must neither touch them nor admit to that there was any reason why that particular guest should not have forget me as his portion but it was with a very sad heart and with but sinking courage that she presently went down to join and at lunch it was the custom at never to have flowers on the table at that meal they were always reserved for the evening for lunch that day the table was with a large oval silver stand in which were arranged several pink relieved by small pots of maiden hair and long the arrangement	30
would be made later on they were at a table which was only used when they were alone it was a round table set near to the open window on occasions when they had a large party they and dined at the long table which occupied the whole centre of the room and this smaller one was used as a side table by the servants the arrangement of plants margaret s face from and as she was not at any time a very great her escaped bis notice just as they finished lunch asked her carelessly if she had been through the rooms oh yes said margaret you thought they looked all right said carelessly very nice indeed said margaret more especially the one which was with the lilies a woman now as a matter of fact was not sure what lilies were of she had chosen those particular flowers because they happened to be in great beauty so she did not farther continue the subject and margaret went to dress for her drive without any further allusion to the work of the morning the first of guests did not reach until time for a late supper they had all travelled together from london mrs mr and mrs and my dear margaret said mrs as soon as she stepped over the threshold i never felt such a short way from london in my life before what a wonderful thing it is to have good company we have had the journey up and the dinner on the road and i have won nineteen shillings at all the same t am afraid prince that it was you who lost it but i was the said in his most manner then bowed very low indeed to margaret madame he said i am charmed to see you again welcome to said margaret holding out her hand yes a thousand to added approaching them at that moment i am glad to see you here my dear fellow you are heartily welcome and i hope that you didn t dine so well in the train that you are not able to eat some supper now you have got here oh my dear we are all ready to eat three we are all ready to eat you out of house and home we are ready for anything i feel as if i could almost eat you well i hope nobody else feels like that said looking round with a smile not you perhaps said with an emphasis upon the but others laughed ah that is very good that is very good said nothing he did not even smile but he looked at and margaret made haste to say that supper would be ready in a quarter of an hour and to beg them all to go and brush off a little of the dust of the journey you will not change or anything of that kind she said well if you will excuse us said mrs take care for one certainly will not my usual room margaret my dear yes your usual room but they are waiting to show you all which are your quarters and don t be longer than a quarter of an hour please they all made such good haste that by the time a quarter of an hour had gone by they were seated round a supper table in the place of honour on margaret s right hand as was quite on the other side of the table and out of hearing he presently spoke to her in german he said have i to thank you for the welcome which i found upstairs or shall i put it for the remembrance not at all said margaret very stiffly i don t arrange the flowers does that whether her choice was or accidental i cannot say but you will have to be very careful during the next fortnight for more than something of the past oh nonsense said he how could she possibly know anything about it i wish you had not come said margaret i did my best to prevent asking you but it was no use however for my sake i you to be very careful in every word that you utter in every look that you give me if the past came out my life would be over i will be discretion itself said earnestly now from that moment it must be confessed that had a very busy and somewhat anxious time in the place she had to perform regularly those small duties which had fallen to her share when she became a permanent member of the household then she had to occupy a good deal of time in making herself appear to the best advantage she had naturally to enjoy herself as much as she could which was a good deal and to keep an eager and anxious eye upon the movements of her cousin s wife and prince at first there seemed to be very little to find out and margaret were guarded in the extreme he paid her the attentions which he would have paid to any hostess but neither by word nor look did he let slip any hint of that dark story of the past it happened when they had been three days at a woman house that during breakfast remarked on the fact that the post was late they were indeed half the meal before wood brought in the post bag with the information that there had been a break down on the line which was the reason of the being behind time a serious accident wood asked t think not sir only a break down nobody killed or hurt i am glad of that said and the others at the table also gave a murmur of satisfaction mrs mrs mrs went on rapidly turning over the contents of the bag mrs mrs nineteen for you margaret oh not really nineteen	30
well a good many anyway two for you mrs three by the bye who do you know at oh a very old friend of mine is staying there a girl i was at school with returned in an tone as everybody was busy reading or looking over their letters the remark appeared to pass unnoticed margaret never raised her eyes and who was just opposite to was able to look at her without her perceiving it so admirably did she act that he quite believed that margaret was mistaken in thinking that she knew or suspected anything of that turned down page in their past meantime had opened the letter from she felt by the thickness that there was a photograph inside it but she cleverly managed to transfer it to the envelope without exposing the face of it then she read dan letter my dear old she said i went at once round to my friends the and showed them the photograph which you sent me and which i now return it is as you expected a portrait of otherwise princess pro mrs says it is an exceedingly good likeness of her who is she do tell us for we are both dying to know if you can let me know before i leave this on the i shall be immensely obliged folded the letter again and laid it down upon the envelope beside her plate and then opened the second letter take care which was an unimportant one nobody noticed her excepting who had laid a great bundle of letters sent on from his hotel in london beside him but was watchful so indeed was the russian and particularly the russian who has once been a pole is accustomed to be upon and takes it indeed as part of his life had been in the service in his youth and was a man who missed very little that passed before him he had his suspicions of that letter from bearing in mind that margaret had told him that knew or guessed something of the past and when she with the others rose from the table carelessly taking her letters in her hand he followed her into the hall and contrived to draw her into conversation very much flattered and not perceiving his intention remained talking to him willingly enough and presently whether by an awkwardness of her own or by a careless gesture of his she was not sure but she her hold of the letters which fell to the floor in falling the photograph slipped out of the envelope and lay face upward at their feet in a moment had stooped to restore the letters to her he made no comment as to the photograph but was weak enough to an explanation that is a photograph of margaret she said in a careless tone so i perceive said quietly my friend in was very anxious to know what my cousin s wife was like went on a little and under his direct gaze oh yes it is very natural since you live with mr and mrs may i look at it oh certainly said it is not a very new one said who had its fellow in his possession and indeed in his pocket at that moment yes but to my mind it is more like margaret than any of the latter ones she has had done said holding the photograph at arm s length and looking at it it has something of her expression which her later photographs never have you know prince she went on putting the picture back into the envelope i admire my cousin margaret immensely a woman mrs is very attractive said oh very echoed but so so very sometimes so radiant with such lovely eyes and sometimes so sad it makes one s heart ache to look at her but mrs can have no special reason for being sa l it can be but an expression said i don t know rejoined i would not say too much about that between ourselves prince strictly between ourselves of course because i should not like anybody to know i said as much i should not like to be married to my cousin at all no not at all he is of course a very important person and it was a very good marriage and all that but he is tr to live with at least have always found him so but perhaps madame does not find him so said i would not be too of that said of course he is very handsome and all that but so cursed with jealousy don t tell anybody i said so will you most certainly not why should i is he jealous jealous said it isn t the word he is possessed of a demon in that respect a demon dear me you don t say so ah it would never have occurred to me remarked who began to wonder whether he and margaret had wronged this girl or whether she was playing a deep game which was beyond his comprehension i quite thought that you were devoted to one another i have always understood so that is to say i mean i have always understood so since i have been in london has told me how very you are i think that is the word he used oh yes that is the word said but i don t think it is the right word for the i am a bom and unfortunately mostly a reared but i have never found very much among us i have received more kindness from strangers than from all the put together but you make your home with them said well yes i make my home with margaret returned and margaret is not a born take care is your then it is to please mrs that you	30
that i live here said well i am a and i don t know that i altogether please margaret because the traits will come out they are very unpleasant traits mostly i am not very fond of the i admit it frankly to you it is by margaret s invitation that i am here really and you would not remain here expect for her i think not said she might have added that but for margaret she would not be as a member of the household by any single one of the family but did not think it necessary to go quite into such details to a stranger like i am quite sure said very gallantly that it must be charming for mrs to have you with her and charming for you to be with mrs it seems almost a pity he continued that so pleasant an arrangement may probably be broken at no very distant time oh i don t know about that said by the bye are you married v she asked suddenly bowed very stiffly i have that misfortune miss he said in his most conventional tones misfortune how funny you are why did not your wife come to london with you princess prefers said he and i conceive it to be the whole duty of man to permit the lady who is his wife to take her own way in all questions concerning herself do all think the same asked i doubt it returned it depends a great deal upon the lady you see now we have a mutual friend miss who would fear not be content to permit his wife to arrange her hfe without him or to arrange his without his wife said a woman chapter s obedience the sorrow of yesterday is as nothing that of to day is but that of to morrow is gigantic because after his conversation with prince to the conclusion that there was no real harm in the girl he expressed himself so to margaret margaret smiled it was a sad smile tinged with the sorrows of the past and by the of the future i that i might think so too she said quietly but perhaps because i am so afraid i do fear and regard her as a most dangerous person the only thing that may save me at this point will be her engagement to count i feel quite convinced that nothing else will serve to put off the trail or to make her hold her tongue when she has followed it to the bitter end but my dear what motive could she have i don t think said margaret that is the kind of girl who requires a motive i may be wrong i may wrong her utterly i hope so but i shall be surprised at nothing that happens in the immediate future do you know really said i don t believe that she knows a thing i have had several talks to her since i came up here and upon my word i believe that she is quite innocent of any meaning in aught that she says or does of course it is a stupid little thing and a little thing what poor old can see in her is truly beyond my comprehension but i really don t think she is vicious i don t dearest upon mv word i don t will you said margaret let me impress one thing upon you you must not call me by these terms of i am not your dearest even though not a soul in the house chances to speak german excepting your friend it is dangerous you are me every time that you allow the phrase to slip out of your mouth oh i am so sorry said i am so sorry i cannot help it you see you have been so long everything in the world to me that it is natural that when i am alone with you i should speak to you as i think of you s obedience then we must not be alone altogether at all said margaret you must try to dislike me you must do anything you like you must do anything but compromise me i cannot afford to be it is not as if nobody suspected it is not as if were at all an ordinary man i know perfectly well although he has sworn by everything in heaven and earth that i am the one woman in the world for him that he loves me beyond everything yet i know that if the past came out he would never look at me again nonsense said i know that he never would never you see i know you don t he is not like you he is not as you would be under the same circumstances not a bit he is much more like what used to be with a sudden impulse caught her hand in his why do you say as i was he asked all in a passion of emotion are you so different now my love my dearest i must call you so for once do you mean me to infer that if that time were to come over again you would be different to what you were then i don t know said margaret but i have suffered so much during the last few weeks i have been so eaten up with suspense and dread that i can scarcely say what i would do if such a time came to me again i used to feel that i could never be happy or make another happy if i were not living a life of honour and yet there are times now when i feel that a life of honour mingled with suspense and dread will not bear comparison with the peace which would be the certainty of the life which would	30
have been mine if i had remained in instead of leaving you it is true that in all the future i should have had nothing to hope for but on the other hand i should have had nothing to dread except she added as if she had suddenly remembered a possible except the dread of losing you need never have troubled you said no so you say so you said then but you know one can never be quite sure until one has tried a certain course i feel at least i felt then that i should have been wretched that i should have dreaded every day every hour every moment that something would come to part us utterly and for ever and yet from this agony as i look back it seems a woman such a life of peace of little of small pleasures and ft w troubles but there it is no use you and i going back over that sad happy time no use no good talking wishing will not alter the past it is over and done with gone for ever why cannot you be content to go away and leave me to fight out my dutiful present with the best face that i can i think she went on that when you are actually gone when i feel that there is no longer the danger of discovery hanging over me that i shall feel the better for having seen you and spoken with you again i think that i shall feel stronger for knowing that wife or no wife husband or no husband you still love me with the same love which was such joy to us years ago i have never been quite sure of you i have never been quite sure that you really did care during those two years i thought it i hoped it and yet i was afraid to think it but now that i know i feel as if i can go steadily and bravely on to the very end whatever it is without once faltering or turning back you will do this for me won t you she asked abruptly released her hands and rose from his seat beside her he walked to the window where he stood looking out over her favourite terrace for fully five minutes before he spoke when he turned round again he sat down beside her yes i will do anything that you wish god knows that i have wronged you too deeply wronged you too sorely to let my wishes stand in the way of your desires what you desire shall be my law what you command shall be my obedience i will stay my allotted time here because to go away suddenly as i have said before would be too dangerous too of comment but when i leave your roof now i swear to you that willingly i will never cross your path again unless you send for me i have told you that once before have i not you have only to send for me at any time under any circumstances and i will come you can command me as you choose i am yours but for the time that we shall be together let me entreat you for you own sake not to make any attempt to avoid me i will watch my lips and keep ray eyes under control i don t think that a soul anything that is gone by you believe that the little girl knows or something i don t agree with you still nothing will confirm her suspicions if she has them like a mutual s obedience ance of each other it is not natural that you in your position as hostess and i in my position as your principal guest should avoid being left alone or with each other for your own sake i entreat you to behave to me as if i were indeed the acquaintance and ordinary guest that your husband and friends believe me to be and margaret darling you will grant me one favour oh yes if it is in my power you will see me once alone before i finally leave it will be good bye for a very long time i will do that if it is possible said margaret but do you mind going now i can t bear much more of this you are breaking me down and to break me down here in this great house in the midst of all these people is to give me no chance of remaining unknown to them in my real character oh paul she exclaimed clasping her hands together and looking at him if you knew what a i do feel how i myself how i have longed to fall down at my husband s feet and tell him all everything even if he me as i know that he would do on my head said be the whole blame if you were to tell everything you could not tell such a story by me you would take i know you so well you would take all the blame upon your own slender shoulders and you would me you would make him feel that you were a bad base and wicked woman the nearest to an angel that i have ever known in my life if ever the truth he must learn the whole truth from me it matters little or nothing to me what he or others think of me when i made up my mind to cut my life clean adrift from that of my my wife though i insult you to call princess by that name i had practically done with all fearing and caring for the opinion of others it is all very well to to the opinions of the world	30
to the of and to the petty way of society it is all very well i suppose a woman is bound to consider them but for me i have found no great difference in my life i am just as welcome in although there who knows me knows that i and the princess never meet i am just as welcome in any european society though i do not take my wife with me personally i think i am more h a woman welcome if it becomes known that i played a trick upon you that i deceived you that i stole your honour away by a promise which had no possibility of truth in it it won t do me so much harm so that if ever any of the truth comes to light you remember that for me to clear you of wrong doing will be to cost me nothing except for yours i am indifferent to human opinion entirely r have done many wrong things in my life but i have only done one thing that was towards you you have forgiven me and therefore it is not for others to blame me because of it for the rest of my life i have as clean a record as most men and i hold my future in the very hollow of my hand i care nothing what becomes of me from this time forward while i am separated from you do you understand me oh yes i understand all that you would convey quite well perhaps it was i who was wrong i always blame myself much more than you it is useless to go into that question now and as for the other that you are generous enough to wish to take the consequences upon yourself i fear that you would not be able to help me if should ever find me out it will be a matter of indifference to me whether he believes that i went to you with my eyes open or not he will have his cause of complaint in that i never told him the truth before i married him if i had tried to do so i think he would have refused to listen men are like that when they want you and you have what to a confession to make to them they generally refuse to hear it but they blame you afterwards just the same however i promise you this that if ever in the future i want you want you she continued almost with a wail of despair no i don t mean that but if ever i need you if ever i wish you to come to me i will send for you i promise you that upon my honour but now do go think it is getting near time for them all to come in go go away now give me time to pull myself together to meet these people and talk about all the odds and ends of life which they seem to find so serious and of such moment do go but did not immediately do her bidding he said drawing nearer still to her for the sake of those old times and that old perfect love and the a black yearning future before us won t you grant me one favour she divined his meaning before he had time to put it into words no she said no don t think of it don t dream of it you and i are apart from all these things as long as other lives stand between us if i can honestly say to myself that no man has ever kissed me excepting i feel safe i feel a little honest still some strength unless you are trying to break me down utterly and entirely i simply beg and pray of you to go without one word more did not speak he had said but a moment before that her command was his obedience and he obeyed her but before he himself away he bent down and kissed her two slender hands kissed the blue ring upon her finger and the blue upon her wrist then he almost thrust them back upon her and turning upon his heel went straight out of the room chapter a stronger than steel is the of the spirit than arrows the light of truth is greater than anger is love and as went almost blindly down the wide corridor which led from margaret s to the great he never saw that had just opened the door leading from one of the but saw enough to tell her that he had just passed through a time of terrible emotion she saw that his face was white as death and his eyes staring straight in front of him like a man walking in his sleep he did not go as far as the hall he turned into the library shutting the door after him with a crash with such a crash indeed that the lock and allowed the door to swing open again when it once more upon its hinges and slowly closed until it stood not more than an inch open a woman good gracious thought what on earth can have happened can have found everything out heavens what a row there will be i think i will go and see what he is doing she hastened along towards the doorway through which he had disappeared and then found to her surprise that it was standing a little open she peeped in very cautiously pushing the door gently gently and with the with which a cat its prey yes there he was sitting at the large table leaning his head upon his hands the very picture of abject despair i wonder what has happened thought i suppose he came out of margaret s i will go and see what sort of a state she	30
is in she found margaret sitting in precisely the same attitude as that in which had left her she looked up as entered the room and tried to smile why margaret said in her kindest voice what is the matter the matter said margaret nothing is the matter but my dear you are as pale as a ghost have you a headache margaret put up her hand and felt her head as if she had but just come to the knowledge that she possessed that necessary portion of her body a headache well now you mention it i think i have a headache i feel not very well why don t you come out said what is the ood of sitting in here such a glorious day as this where have you been what have you been doing i have been sitting here for the last half hour said margaret have you been out dear yes i went down into the village after lunch it was still the same frozen margaret who was altogether unknown to come out on the terrace for ten minutes before they bring the tea margaret she said i am sure that something has happened to upset you has there been anything unpleasant with any one no dear no i don t feel very well that is all well said all i can say is that i ran against prince just now out in the corridor looking as if a the end of the world had come upon him and he is sitting in the library crying or something very like it prince cried margaret margaret was no longer frozen the danger was too real for that yes prince oh i don t think perhaps he has a headache was he in here he has been in here since i came home well anyway he is sitting now at the big table in the library and i think he is crying oh no nonsense i am sure he isn t crying said margaret trying to laugh my dear margaret paid speaking as if she knew what she were saying why do you always pretend that you don t know anything of prince s liking for you margaret got up at once and walked to the fireplace where she stood with her back half turned towards the girl her hand resting upon the broad velvet covered shelf she said in a tone of great displeasure i must ask you never to say such a g as that to me again now remained half sitting upon the arm of a great lounging chair and she laughed outright at margaret s sudden assumption of dignity oh margaret she said what is the good of me you know prince you i know nothing of the kind margaret flashed out don t you then all i can say is margaret you must be blind then i am blind said margaret i must beg that you will never say such a thing to me again prince is a mere acquaintance who is asked here by s desire entirely not by mine i should not have dreamed of asking him into the house i told so it is not the first time that you have said this kind of thing to me that you have hinted that i with him no i never said that margaret said quietly i never accused you of with anybody i am sure you are not a but prince the very ground you tread upon and whether you still like him or not is best known to yourself a woman what do you mean said margaret her face growing more ghastly pale with every mean oh exactly what i say of course but you take me up so sharply you appear to be insulted most women would be very pleased to have such a man at their feet am not pleased then said margaret nor am pleased said a third voice what do you mean by these and that you make to my wife oh is it you said coolly surely you must know that margaret is one of the most attractive women in england well and if i do my dear cousin do you think that no man but yourself has found that out oh let me you i could tell you of a dozen men who worship margaret i won t have men margaret you can t help it said will help it you can t unless you shut her up in a or something of that kind other men have eyes as well as you margaret is very beautiful you thought so yourself once and you took no end of trouble to get her if what your sisters say is true and why expect then that nobody else will recognise the charms which charmed you so much really i don t see why you should make yourself so very disagreeable because i admit that margaret is a most fascinating woman in the hearts of both and margaret the same question was asking itself how much had he overheard in the heart of on the contrary a sort of revelation was taking place out of the mists of the years there came back to him an old sensation a sudden and vivid remembrance of how he had hated because margaret had showed him favour from the night that count had brought his friend apparently an utter stranger to the party in brook street s mind had been dim comfortably dull upon the subject he had a vague remembrance of his former acquaintance with but it had been too vague to be particular now at s words prince the very ground you tread upon and whether you still like him or not is best known to yourself he became suddenly en a lightened about many things and as was inevitable under such circumstances he saw a great deal more than there was	30
to see it seemed all quite clear to him now how the married man had been in love with margaret in the beginning how she had not that he was married and now he understood the meaning of that long and dangerous illness from which she had suffered in on her return from germany oddly enough he never connected germany with the idea that had passed those two years other than in acquiring the language and living the quiet life of a student never entered his mind but it was as clear to him as possible that her reluctance to marry him had been caused by her love for he turned and looked at margaret then a man enlightened no longer blind a man who in a few seconds seemed to have lived as many years it was on the tip of his tongue to say you told my wife just now that prince worshipped the very ground she walked upon but some strange subtle instinct made him choke back the words ere they could pass his lips some instinct which said to him watch find out for yourself don t depend wholly upon the word of a girl whom you despise wait and find out for yourself he turned to and said in his accents i must ask you not to make jokes of that kind to my wife again i object to it in the first place they are thoroughly bad form they are an insult to her they are an insult to me don t let me have to speak on this subject again he turned on his heel and went out of the room leaving margaret and staring at one another made a step forward margaret i swear to you i never meant a word to get to s ears really i must ask you to forgive my putting my foot into it like this who was to know he was just coming in said margaret will you answer me one question frankly what did you mean when you said that about prince oh margaret said smiling if i could not see what that man feels for you indeed i should be very very blind you know that he is in love with you oh said margaret my dear since you came to live with us i have not been unkind to you a woman oh no margaret moat kind said with her prettiest then my dear for the memory of that kindness in return for that kindness let me beg of jou if you care for at which made a httle unseen by margaret s agony eyes if you have any affection or regard for me let me you to nothing more on the subject to look no further than you see upon the surface to leave my past and my present it is the only service that you can render me my dear margaret said you surprise me very much i spoke more or less in jest of course i do not forget that you have been always very kind to me and i for having in any sense betrayed you to i cannot say more no dear you cannot say more if only he nothing else if only prince would bring his visit to a close and go if i could only see him for a minute if he would only go may think all kinds of things there is no knowing what he may not think he may take everything quite oh if only you did not say that this morning if only you did not say that he was he doesn t care about me it is all nonsense my dear margaret said oh yes look at me i i know i don t want him to care for me i am almost out of my mind j i assure you i am poor margaret said but why don t you see him why don t you tell him that he must go away if his a the very threshold of your life s happiness you who will be far away from and will take no more real interest in it you who are just stepping into a new life won t you pity me and forego for a moment stood margaret she said at last i owe you a great deal there is only one thing in the world that i would not do for you i could not give up count i know that he cares for me i know that i am a nasty little mean wicked thing in many ways not fit for him not good enough for him but short of parting with him i swear to you there is nothing in the world that i will not do for you willingly gladly with all my heart oh cried margaret there was no need to say more she could not say more something in her throat choked her something before her eyes blinded her and so perhaps for the first time in their lives these two women who had in the past tried each other so sorely met heart to heart as one meantime had gone off along the corridor making by a man s blind instinct for his own especial which i think i have said was next to the great library the door of the library was standing as had left it a few inches open and by some inexplicable action stopped and pushed it open his upon the rich carpet was and the first thing he saw was sitting just where had seen him after all but a few minutes before his head hidden on his arms and his broad shoulders heaving he stood a moment contemplating him with a cold and cynical smile then with a shrug of his shoulders and a contemptuous gesture of the hand he turned and went	30
to his own room a few minutes later came flitting lightly down the handsome corridor she too looked into the library had not moved prince she said prince he looked up startled and sprang to his feet i beg your pardon miss did you speak to me she saw to her relief that he was not actually crying he was looking very haggard and white but otherwise an ordinary observer might have passed him by without comment have you a headache said t a woman ye miss i have a dreadful headache i am subject to them he with a fine air of indifference i am so sorry by the bye margaret has sent you this little note and she said you were to send her an answer presently he took the note with a bow and thanked her smiled and went on her way apparently rejoicing margaret s note was written in german and was very brief everything she began is on the threshold of discovery only one thing can save me that is for you to affect absolute indifference towards me and to go without the delay of an hour more than is necessary see invent any excuse that you like but leave at once my whole life depends upon it i you for the sake of that past in which we were so much to each other to do my bidding now he pressed the little note passionately to his lips and thrust it into his breast then he went out into the great hall and rung a bell do you know where captain is he asked of the servant who came i am not sure your but i will find out the man replied will you tell my man that i am obliged to go to london this afternoon and that he is to pack my things immediately if you can find captain ask him to see me at once the man returned saying that his master was in his own study and would be pleased to see prince there by the time he joined prince was outwardly himself again i am quite to cut short my delightful visit to you he began but i have received a from which my leaving immediately i cannot sufficiently thank you for your kindness and hospitality towards me must you really go said i hope it is not bad news it is not good news said prince it is not a family affliction if that is what you mean but i am afraid that i must go perhaps some other time you will come to us said politely a you are too kind i feel that i do not deserve so much kindness said neither accepting nor refusing the proffered invitation well you will not need to go before lunch there is a train at something after three which gets you to london to morrow morning i am afraid it is the best that you can do yes it will do at least it is no use over the delay of the journey if i can cross to morrow evening it is as good as i can expect have you seen my wife asked not yet i have only just received the and i asked for one of you i will make my apologies and express my regrets to madame at lunch so blotted himself out of the party at he expressed many regrets in most language to margaret during that last meal which was quite melancholy for everybody was sorry at his leaving however contrived to propose to before it came to an end it was done as such things usually are done a look a sigh a suggestion and they rose from the table practically an couple then they all went out to the porch to see go excepting who had been called away to speak to the steward i think i wait till after dinner said to i believe you should always take a man on affairs of that kind when he has just finished dinner i have noticed several times that when has been quite cold and and difficult during the whole day he has out into quite a genial personage by the time dinner was over i shall certainly wait till after dinner i should if i were you said she was not in a desperate hurry to have her engagement formally by her family she knew they would consent whatever time of day asked for the favour of her hand however it was no use explaining that to him so she agreed with him that after dinner would be the proper time for him to approach about the great question a woman chapter th beginning of the end tears idle tears i know not what they mean tears from the depth of some divine despair rise in the heart and gather to the eyes in looking on the happy autumn fields and thinking of the days that are no more was a little surprised some quarter of an hour later when margaret had gone out driving with mrs to receive a message from captain saying that he wished to speak with her in the study she to him all of what was coming was sitting at the table and looked up as she entered oh that is yon is he said come in shut the door please i want to speak to you she did his bidding and advanced towards him is anything the matter she asked yes a great many things are the matter i have sent for you to tell you that i have been thinking over what you said to margaret this morning and i have come to the conclusion that you and she cannot continue under the same roof any longer turned upon him with a look of the utmost astonishment and for why well you must know perfectly well that you are here by margaret s	30
it was written in german a oath escaped his lips ah this is confirmation enough his thoughts ran very good i a woman shall not forget you he said darkly to the woman as he left the room with the letter still crushed in his hand made the best of his way downstairs again he had scarcely got half way across the hall before who if the truth e told was on the for came out of the morning room my dear chap said without hesitation i want you to do me a great favour of course what is it it is to read me a letter a german letter oh certainly don t you speak german t no barely a few words not enough to make out a letter in a hand that i do not know come into my room he led the way into his little study and shut the door behind him he you are my guest and i believe you are my friend i am sure of it said smiling will you promise me on your honour as a guest and a gentleman that you will read me this letter literally word for word i will said simply there it is for a moment the other would have cheerfully given a year out of his life to have called that promise back but it was too late was before all things a man of honour he had given his word and he would keep it he glanced at the beginning of the letter then turned and looked at he said i have promised to do what you ask but as your friend i entreat you to let me put this letter into the fire and try to think no more about it read it said let me beg of you the other began bead it said you have promised so heart sick unwilling and yet bound read the letter it into english as he went along i have received your command to go my best beloved it began and as i have always told you your command is my obedience i have already invented an excuse to the usual excuse a an urgent summons and when we meet at lunch it will be for the last time the beginning of the end i shall present to you all my conventional excuses then unless i have had an opportunity of conveying this to you before that time and i think ah indeed i know you will understand how under them all is my broken hearted despair oh margaret love of my heart my wife in the sight of heaven my wife whom i wronged whom i deceived to whom i did the one act of my life how can i write this letter of farewell this this obedience to your command i have been in heaven these last few days as near to heaven as a man in hell can be you whom i loved so when we were together in dear when we were all in all to each other with not a cloud to mar the lustre of our love how shall i part from you oh my best beloved will there never come a time when you will come home as you came of old is this to be for the last time is our parting to be for ever i can scarcely write to you i had promised myself still three days more of paradise and perhaps a glimpse or two when we returned to london ere i went into the outer darkness which may last until the end of my life but why am i writing to you like this for your sake i regret that i came to for your sake i almost regret those old happy days when we were together but one thing i can write and do this is partly to bid you my farewell and partly to tell you that if everything should come out and the worst that can happen should happen to you you will remember that is yours now and for all time that he is at your feet at your command whenever you choose to command him you have only to telegraph to me one word come and i will go to the other end of the earth to serve you to love you to stand between you and the world for your sake trust and pray that this discovery which you dread may pass over that nothing may be known by the world of our relations to each other that the story of our wretched and unhappy love may be hidden from all eyes but our own dear margaret if i could have clasped you in my arms once again this parting would not be so bitter as it is for your sake i will not try to see you alone again i will only ask you to remember it was with a shaking voice that finished a woman speaking and it was a pitiful gaze that he turned upon his friend and host who had grown white and grey to the tell me he said in a curiously hard and strained voice did you know anything of this story when you brought to my house on my sacred word of honour said i knew nothing did it occur to you that they had met before oh yes they both told me that they had met before but i think he was as surprised as i when he discovered who she was where had you seen my wife before you came to not with said quickly no but you remember that the first time you came the first time you saw my wife you told her that you had seen her before you told her several times you puzzled over it and she would not have it at any price	30
to t he said in his tender tones but it will make no difference to the world to your world here she turned her grief filled eyes upon him in spite of her a woman k a fair and utterly attractive woman though of everything that make life joyous to her there was still a gleam of the mother light in her lovely eyes don t suggest it to me again dear she said gently for it would make all the difference to me chapter li my joy and my treasure love among mortals la but an endless he loves and and stands waiting suffers and yet and smiles with tears on his eyelids it was all over the great society divorce case which had been the chief topic of conversation for months past the greatest interest of the autumn season was over at last and found himself a free man again for as a matter of course although the case had been most stoutly defended the verdict had gone against the woman to a man the jury felt that the husband had been wronged and therefore that the wife ought to suffer for it in almost every heart of the twelve good men and true there a sort of feeling that it was just possible that mrs might have been the victim of circumstance since her marriage yet nevertheless she had deliberately deceived her husband by leaving him in ignorance of the unhappy secret in her past so that it was but her just due that everything should have come out and to every man wedded or single such a conviction went home like an arrow to a bull s eye for might not the woman of his own choice be keeping back something from him in precisely the same way she had deceived him let her bear the it is the same spirit which sometimes moves in cases of a different nature murder has been done somebody ought to swing for it and somebody does swing from a feeling that the wrong man had better hang than the right man get off free so it went against her perhaps never in the records of the courts had a protest so so stirring been heard as that which was made by mrs s counsel with my joy and my treasure regard to prince he said my duty is plain and i may say that it is extremely gratifying this gentleman makes and wishes to make no disguise of the truth he a married man a man most unhappy in his marriage met this lady and he loved her his conception of her character was such that he assumed from the beginning that it would be perfectly useless to propose any arrangement between them other than that of marriage prince therefore had recourse to a trick in plain words a lie and miss north was induced to go through a ceremony which she believed to be a private marriage as soon as she learned the truth she left him there was no hesitation no remembrance of the love she bore him she only thought of her outraged honour and she left him you have heard the letter which she left behind when she turned her back for ever on her life in i ask you he went on whether that was the letter of a guilty woman of such a wicked woman as you are now asked to believe mrs to be i will ask you to bear in mind certain phrases my despair my grief my outraged pride you and i have done with each other for all time henceforth i am as dead to you as you must be to me i ask you is this the language of a woman further this lady s instant thought even in the first hour of her outraged womanhood was to restore to the all the presents of value which he had bestowed upon her and after where he would find her and her she adds for the rest i leave you my few possessions to do with what you will from beginning to end this letter breathes horror and shame at the fearful deception which had been practised upon her it expresses in the terms absolute refusal of the situation to which she was all a party further i would have you to know that it was prince s own wish that he should be closely and severely examined as to his relations with mrs both before and after the marriage he has told you gentlemen that he regards her as the best and purest woman he has ever known in his life prince is now a free man and if you by your verdict make mrs what she is not and never has been it will be his privilege to lay himself and his name at her feet prince i say has every to hope that this case will go against the a woman lady he has always loved her he her still but he feels tliat the great wrong towards her of which he was ia the can only be in any sense for by bis to the whole world of what he knows that is her complete innocence the great counsel then went on to show that was not a of real evidence to prove that mrs was in the smallest degree for what had happened since prince had been brought an utter stranger to her house in london was a married woman she with grace and dignity a position of great wealth and importance she waa a good and affectionate wife a moat devoted mother to her little children i ask you to pause and consider well what you are doing before you decide on a verdict which if it be against this lady will part a tender mother from her children but httle more	30
than captain has acknowledged that he never a suspicion oe his wife until that suspicion was put into his mind by one for whom he has no liking by one who is to mrs for all the joy and satisfaction of her hfe that lady is unable to say that she ever saw anything in mrs s conduct that was unworthy of her position as captain s wife but why go murder has been done somebody ought to swing for it that sentiment had taken fast hold of the jury the good men and true and though eminent counsel spoke with impassioned though margaret had given evidence with a strange dignity and frankness though prince had in unmistakable terms to the one black and shameful act of liis whole life though each and all of s relations had spoken generously and emphatically as to the admiration and love which margaret inspired in them nay though himself had been forced to admit that i s letter had fallen upon him like a thunder clap it was all as so much and hb my joy and my treasure less evidence a in a recent case and so went out of the court a free man and margaret a disgraced broken woman cut off for ever from those two tender lives which had made a difficult way happy which had proved themselves a compensation for all the sorrows and disappointments of her broken past is there no chance of my ever seeing them again she asked of the senior counsel no chance whatever my friend sir charles tells me that captain is on that point was the reply she knew she knew him too well to hope even for a moment that he might as time went on and allow her to see them now and again her mother s heart seemed turned to water within her as she that she had seen her babies for the last time that she would be less than nothing to them i will go home she said to her counsel yes there is nothing left to wait for now the sooner i am away the better but you have some one with he asked no one not a soul my own people but there why discuss it my own people have never been near me since everything came out all the better i shall be to no one there is some consolation in that who is that she turned as she spoke for the door of the little room in which they stood was opened by an imperious hand it was it is you she said faintly it is i now and for ever absolutely at your command he replied steadily holding out his hand to her sir henry he said turning to the great counsel you think that i did everything that i left nothing nothing replied the great lawyer promptly prince you have behaved to day as a man of honour should do you would have convinced anyone but a jury of mrs s honour they say it is only a man who can frankly own himself in the wrong i will shake hands with you if you please and held out his hand smiling for the first time that day and you he said gently to margaret what do you wish me to do saying the last word in a whisper go go away leave me she said in a choking voice you can do nothing for me since you cannot undo what you have already done a i obey i go he said he bowed and left her without another word as he passed along the corridor he met a richly dressed woman hurrying along towards the room he had just quitted oh is it you she exclaimed is margaret there yes are you going to her he asked eagerly of course i am i don t believe a word of it it s all a of lies i could kill and those fools of and as for that i would put her to death by slow torture and at her every minute of the time i suppose your friend means to marry her all the same what an idiot he must be mrs began you know what is in my heart at this moment you know how i love worship margaret yet believe me if i could undo what has been done this day t would cheerfully give my life if that would pay the price you are going to her god bless you for it she is all alone some day i may be able to repay you in some sense when that day comes i i he took her hand and raised it to his lips then they parted and mrs went on towards the little room where margaret was she knocked at the door but receiving no reply pushed it gently open margaret was sitting at the table listening to some with which sir henry was of necessity her margaret dear she said softly margaret started and turned quickly toward her she said but half believing rushed forward oh my dear my poor darling she cried catching margaret in her arms my poor darling you don t believe it margaret whispered not a word of it and if i did god help you my poor darling i would be your friend just the same six months had gone by the decree was confirmed and margaret were both as free as air to go whither they pleased and do what they would what would do with his life none could tell those who knew him best did not venture to the subject apparently he felt nothing and meant to make no change in his ordinary habits had been married to for more than four months and had given her a very splendid my	30
joy and my treasure wedding a very lavish and a very substantial settlement he had given her away too and had appeared during the whole time of ceremony and reception to be in the most spirits and the best of health as for margaret she stayed on in her london rooms more from want of energy to arrange for any change than from any other reason the life that she led was dreary in the extreme her only visitor was mrs for had faithfully done her bidding and had never once attempted to inflict his presence upon her i will come at a moment s notice he wrote to her dearest best truest of women i am always waiting but i will never force myself on you i can never forget that i have wronged you enough without that so a few more weeks passed it was radiant summer weather again and all the world seemed fresh and smiling margaret said mrs coming in like a beam of sunshine come out for a drive with me no no cried margaret shrinking back you are thinking of a g for people mrs exclaimed you won t come but dear margaret what are you going to do with your life you cannot go on in these rooms for ever my dear i i came to tell you something yes i see by your eyes that you guess it yes he is going to be married she s not bad as girls go her name is she is veiy young and and particularly devoted and it makes me ill to think of that doll at you think you think began margaret with lips yes i think she ll be kind to them she says she will and she seems to like all children and margaret i ve something else to tell you i have been taking something upon myself to day i have brought you a visitor dear margaret prince is here here margaret cried and you you would dear margaret i would advise you to make the best of a bad business said mrs gently the old life is shut quite away you have always loved this man best he you yes i would have you take him and be happy again as i feel you will be for a brief space margaret did not speak she said breaking the silence at length i shall never as x a woman long as i live come or woe forget all that you have done for me in my hours of need god bless and reward you and he will he surely will i may partly forget as time goes on but i shall never can never be the same again that i once was i swear to you that i am as except for having taken my fate into my hands in agreeing to a secret marriage as one of my own little girls whom i shall never see again fate and the two men who have loved me have been too strong for me i tried oh so hard to keep good to be good and now i am thrust deep down into those which i so dreaded which i thought so impossible that i could ever slip into i thought that i was stronger but i am very the world and the stress of life have been too much for me i must needs take some hand to guide me i m so tired so weary so longing to be loved and sheltered again she drooped as she spoke and mrs caught her to her kind heart with a clasp of infinite love my dear my dear she murmured you have fought so bravely and endured so nobly and i your only friend give you now to the only one who has any right to try to blot out this terrible time yes come in she said in a different tone as the door was pushed gently open in answer to a signal there take her make much of her she needs it sorely in a moment she had slipped out of the room and had closed the door behind her margaret found herself in s arms his voice murmuring love and in her ears his kisses upon her lips his eyes filled with the old adoration the old passionate love looking into hers my margaret my love he breathed you won t send me away we will go back to the little flat where still waits and everything is just as you left it the pearl lies awaiting us at anchor in the old we will live the past all over again for a while and then we will go to together i shall never be quite the same she whispered painfully but ten thousand times more dear to me he cried more noble more lovely more charming than even in the dear past on which i have lived during the dreary years that have come between it has all been too cruel and hard here but when you find yourself once again in our you will forget much you will learn to live again my joy and my treasure we shall be older more worn less joyous perhaps but we shall be together my she said nothing she had no words she only stayed very still and quiet against his broad shoulder and rested there the struggle was ended at last she was so tired of beating the waters of life alone and without help in that first hour a great load fell off from her weary shoulders the spell of the old fascination was upon her his voice thrilled her as of his touch was as electric as it had ever been the present began to be touched with the gold of the past and the	30
she is well at home in life and she has the traditions and prejudices of the service at her er ends literary world a charming volume in this clever writer s best style very few story ve us more real children than john strange winter and no one gives us soldiers more real and life like mrs s stories will always appeal to a certain section of the public red coats is a collection of short tales in her usual easy going style she has proved before now that she knows army life on the very tips of her fingers john strange winter has what few writers possess the power of making commonplace people interesting and stupid people the june grown vo cloth s d boards s each my or experiences of a lady help my is bright and often amusing the story is full of shrewd observation and lively character sketches post july a capital tale of society life the is extremely good and like all the s books the story is written r july my is another pleasantly written story we are glad to see the lesson enforced that the best hearts and even the best manners do not belong exclusively to blue blood and that even a man who drops his h s may be a truer gentleman than the who looks down upon him the tale is entertaining john strange winter can never be dull july only human only human is a powerful story true to its title in that it with human passion human weakness and human suffering it strikes an ever sensitive of human sympathy and is in every respect worthy of the genial and author of daily telegraph april this novel is well named it is very human and it is for that reason one of if not the best that john winter has written since harvest lady s may f v white co street strand w c works by john strange winter crown vo cloth s d each aunt a very amusing and told tale daily april if anybody wants a novel which will not bore him by elaborate analysis and tiresome descriptions but will simply provide him with a few hours of light and bright entertainment let him put aunt at the head of his library list and like the baby in the advertisement refuse to be happy until he gets it spectator f john strange winter has surpassed herself in aunt which is as fresh bright genial and one may almost say jovial a story as anyone would wish to read june the soul of the bishop the last person from whom we should have expected a religious novel is the writer who signs herself john strange winter but the story proves to be by far the best and most thoughtful piece of work that its writer has yet attempted suffice it to say that both the bishop and are powerfully drawn and that john winter has given a skilful and thoughtful setting to the problem she has put before herself and her readers standard a powerful story quite off the beaten track and worthy of the fame of the writer lady s we have read few things of the kind that are better than the story of bishop s courtship s it is in our opinion the best and strongest work she has ever done herald a seventh child the experiences of a this remarkably successful novel is suggested by the old superstition that the seventh child of a seventh child is gifted with the second sight it may assuredly be said of the idea on which mrs s new novel is based that if not true it is imagined and developed whose gift causes so many painful is made to tell her own story which she does with a simplicity not with malice august one of the best stories john strange winter has written ia a seventh child telegraph august a seventh child is of absorbing interest and is certainly one of her best efforts times august f v white co street strand w o works b y john winter in one vol crown vo cloth gilt s a born soldier i re mental life is as truly and happily hit off in a born soldier as in any work of the brilliant series that has given john strange winter her high and unique reputation we remember for instance nothing better than the drawing of amongst the many practical jokes that her soldier boys have played from time to time our chief quarrel with the book is tliat it gives us comparatively little of the life in what however is done in this way is done well and there is certainly no other writer who could give such an appearance of vitality to the of outlines and by a few bold swift and touches produce a picture of life in a crack cavalry regiment upon one character indeed the author has expended a more careful and will bear comparison with the best of the soldier servants whom john strange winter has depicted for us with a finely humorous appreciation of their and yet with an accuracy that never from the subject line the story is full of interest from the first to the last it is written in a bright lively natural and often vein county y an unusually bright wholesome and interesting story truth john strange winter has never written a tale of more sustained interest it is full of go presents some very excellent character sketches and is altogether a delightful and characteristic piece of literary work and ds october the s w small crown vo paper covers is cloth is d like all mrs s books it is just the thing to read when one is tired she is never heavy if	30
to what yon are yoa remind me more of her every day so it came about that my father and i never went home tt ther and the long dreamy delicious wanderings which dear mother and i used to discuss with such pleasure of anticipation never came to we did not waste our leave oh by no means i we took it out as it were in patches instead of enjoying it all in one lump first we went off to for six months then when father had put in a few months more work we went in the opposite back to the and made our and so we got change of scene and of air without reminding father too ally of the holiday to which he had so long looked forward i had spent most of my indian life at and had been at there for some years with our journey to my school days came to an end and h the tim we returned from i was to all outward appearance quite a woman grown although i was but just by then my father had assumed the command of his regiment and on my return home to take up my position as mistress of his house i found myself a person of considerable importance i think on the whole that my father felt my mother s death less after i came home for good of course he must naturally have been terribly lonely during the time that i was still at school for all that we spent of the whole year together was the time when he was able to get leave or i was able to go down to the plains he did not say much about it he was never a man to but remained a gallant upright soldier to the very end of his life but others told me how bitterly he had felt his loss there were ladies in the garrison who were most anxious to mother me on all possible occasions and tbey one and all united in telling me that my father was quite a different man now that i had come home altogether for myself i was perfectly happy at this time of course i should have been more happy if i could have had my mother as i had naturally expected to have but i was young and young pe ie do forget at least they do go on feeling as older ones do i have often thought since that it is middle aged people who suffer intensely from old folk bear the loss of those they love with comparative the strange story of my life they seem often to feel that it is no use giving way to their grief that after all it is but for a time or as some poet puts it a passing ont of this room into the next and young things although their grief may be very at the outset soon learn to find other interests and to make the beat of what is but middle aged people men in the very prime of life as my father was it is they who feel grief and sorrow with intensity still he did feel it less after i went home and it is almost impossible for me to express how great was my satisfaction when i beyond all doubt that such was the case of course it would have been but a dreary and monotonous existence for me if my father had been a man to and shut himself up with his grief fortunately he was one of the and most pleasantly domestic men that one could meet with in a year s march he was always interested in my little projects always ready for me to take the smallest bit of pleasure that happened to be on foot he would cheerfully go night after night to dances or some other and stay till all hours watching me enjoy myself when i he would often much rather have stayed quietly at home you are staying late to night colonel i heard say to him one night ah replied my father my little girl is enjoying herself i uke to see young things happy while they have the chance of being so miss is enjoying herself rejoined the other voice with a laugh that is very certain all the better all the better i heard my father say she won t enjoy herself too much for me and then i stole away and neither knew that i had heard a single word chapter ii my life changes i was sitting at one day with my when he looked across the table at me with a glance which was one half of md half of anxiety he said speaking rather abruptly i think you ought to get off to the hills as as possible off to the hills i exclaimed but why well you know you have had a long spell of this place and it is getting fearfully hot tou are looking very pale and far too much so for your age i think you won t be able to wait for me i shall have to make arrangements to send you off to the hills by yourself oh but i can t go without you father i replied i think it would be better oh no dear i really could not leave yon down here tou are ever so much happier when i am with you you know that yes i know that he said smiling but at the same time if you get run down a shade too far that won t make me happier oh but i am not ill i exclaimed no are not ill but you may get ill at any moment you know child you are not as i am and every day now the weather will get worse the of	30
husband to be found in the length and breadth of india of the world for that matter she had the dresses the most gave the most cheery little and dinners and she went here there aud everywhere knew everybody and was a universal favourite being her companion i too went everywhere and knew everybody i was not perhaps such a universal favourite because i lacked her wonderful flow of and her tremendous amount of enterprise but all the same i managed to have a very good time and in every letter that i wrote to my father i sang my little s praises and begged him to hurry along as quickly as he could that he might come up and are our fun he always wrote in the same strain enjoy yourself all you can delighted you are having such a lovely don t yourself i trust to good and discretion not to the too much but he always put me off about his leaving at last i asked him plainly how it was that neither he nor captain were able to come up at anything like the time which they had expected answer to this question the of ht he replied that things were not going very well at the station that we were neither of us to worry but that it would be impossible for any officers to leave just at present there are of trouble in various he wrote the health of the troops is not very good and we may be wanted at any moment you need not make yourself at all uneasy only you must get along without me for a little time longer how mrs s jack contrived to satisfy her i never quite knew she used to seize his letters ef enough to have satisfied the husband in the world glance them down utter an exclamation of disgust and dismay saying there now jack s leave put off again it is i believe it is nothing but that horrid old lady who has always been disagreeable and detestable to me and who hates me like poison i she s being horrid to jack now just because of my a bit with the old but i ll with him when i go back again yon just see if i don t pay that old lady out perhaps she is with your jack i suggested yes perhaps she is and perhaps my jack is with one of his own mrs flashed out lady was rather like a horse and i could not help laughing at the implied however she put the letter away in the drawer where she always kept those from her husband and after a minute or two said well it s no use our wasting our time here all day let us get ready to go to the to have seen her an hour later the of the l ht life gay by at least a dozen of the beat men in the place nobody would have believed that she had ever been troubled even by a for i was of intensely disappointed that my father had not been able to come as i had expected and s he had arranged but i not help seeing the wisdom of her suggestion that we should make the best of a bad business and be as happy as we could without our men folk i remember that it was at that party at mrs that i first met a man who possessed any real interest for me men i knew by the dozen offers i had had in plenty partners why i could have had fifty of them at eveiy dance i went to it was no unusual thing for me to find the s a d c at my shoulder with an intimation that his wished for the next dance i was very young and i took it all aa it came enjoyed myself thoroughly from morning till night and wished with all my girl s heart st the end of every entertainment that it could begin and happen all over again until i met captain i had thought of all men as being one as good as another and had been absolutely impartial in my behaviour towards them but from the first moment of meeting him things were with me i do not know why it was he was not especially good looking in fact a good many people thought that he was ugly the regular type of a cavalry officer long of limb lean without being walked with a swinging had brown curly hair cut so dose to his head that yon could see no more than a wave in it and a very face about which there was nothing at all in particular excepting a pair of very blue eyes and a carefully trained moustache he waa the j the t st of my life kind of man that one sees about a military station every day of e life a man with nothing especially or individual about him he was well dressed like every other of his station his manners were good as the of men of his class always are perhaps his most noticeable characteristic was a singularly smooth and pleasant voice and an easy friendly sort of manner about which there was not the very smallest trace of affectation he was introduced to me by mrs herself and as there was dancing going on he asked me to honour him with a just then beginning he danced to perfection and before we had taken two round the big which had been erected on tiie lawn for the m be told me tha t he had not met with any lady since he came to india whose step suited him so well as mine did this led naturally to my asking him how long he had been out he told me that he	30
had not been in india quite a year then when the dance was over he drew me away down a walk of the charming garden and found me a very comfortable seat where we were able to talk in complete retirement he had i learned come out to india with the rd and chiefly with an idea that he would find his reward in the way of sport on the whole he had been disappointed both in india itself and in the sport which it afforded i shall exchange as soon as i reasonably can he said but you uke i exclaimed oh yes i like very much it is a fine place very go ahead you know miss oh i don t know that it is i replied is it more go ahead than any other places that you have been in q l mr changes much more compare it for with i can t i with a because i have never in london in my life yon have never been in london yon have never been home but you were not brought up in india yes i was really he turned and looked at me with the surprise you astonish me he said but why i don t see that there is anything to be astonished at i was brought up in or almost entirely so you don t mean it and do you live in all the year round oh no i am only staying here with mrs i told him i am most of the year down at with my father oh your father is at yes he is in command of the th at yes oh that is the place where they have got the so badly he the words out and tb i looked at me i don t think they have at i replied oh hut they have the men are dying like sheep there is it possible you didn t know i i ought not to have told you oh miss i am bo sorry perhaps i the name of the place tou know these indian stations are not very familiar to me aa yet don t think about it until you have made sure i knew from his manner however that he was right and that suddenly explained to me the reason the of ht life why my a leave had been pat off so indeed he had in his letter to me that the health of the troops was not very good probably if had spoken the whole he would have said that the health of the troops was exceedingly bad captain made the most heroic efforts to prevent my thoughts from dwelling more than was necessary on the information which he had let slip he told me a great deal himself about his home and his own people he described london to me very far more so than either my father or mother had ever he told me all the wide streets with the ceaseless stream of human life ever moving to and fro he described some of the great palaces and and told me a great deal about the wide swift river flowing silently yet full of life through the great city he tried to make me picture some of the churches and historic buildings and then he told me of the and the endless strings of perfectly appointed carriages moving up and down the bow of course here he said where one meets the same people over and over again where everybody has exactly the same interests and everything goes by where one old is jealous of another old because he happens to have been three days longer out in the sunshine and all the old s wives are ready to fly at one another s throats for no earthly reason whatever it does seem rather petty and small compared to a really big population of so many and such varied interests as london for myself i like london he said with a half sigh i came out to india and found it all rather a delusion and a sm e big sport yes ht changes bat it a heap of money and is so difficult to get at and such a little thing spoils the whole show gorgeous climate well it may be gorgeous to have the and to have a sunshine that your fingers if you happen to trust them your for five minutes it may he gorgeous to have crawling about you day and night and it may he to have twenty servants where three would do the work better but i think it is rather a kind of existence compared with what one gets at home no india is all very well for those who do not get a good time in england but for those who have got enough to live upon and a decent position to fill believe me england is the place of places and london the centre of now there are some fellows he went on in the service at home who and growl from morning till night because they find themselves at i never could see myself what there ia to at in for in the first place one gets a chance of of intelligent work learning something about one s profession no ought to at thai then one has a chance of making a mark every soldier who is a soldier ought to then one gets a blessed season ticket and one goes ofi to london whenever one a chance and how far is london from i asked oh thirty miles you can slip up to town when your day s work is over get your dinner and do a theatre and be back ain in time for a decent night s rest after all what can any man better than that i looked round at the quiet view which b l z	30
i c the strange of mt life spread itself on all sides of us we were seated on a flat ledge at the extreme end of s garden the itself stood on a of rock so that the trees and brush which covered the hill rose beyond it making a charming background behind it the garden which waa very long stretched away in a direction along the side of the the seat which we had found waa at the extreme end of the garden quite a long way from the and we could look down hundreds of feet below us and is london pretty i is it as pretty as this captain outright it is not anything like this he replied and yet when yon see it and know it i have little doubt that you will prefer it infinitely to q l chapter iii a love not to tell mrs anything that i had heard their having the badly at but during the course of that evening i happened to find myself talking to a mrs who was onr nearest neighbour and i asked her if she had heard the report and if she thought there was any truth in it oh my dear she said if your father has not told you anything about it i should not worry myself if i were you you know these unfortunate natives are so dirty and ao in their they are always getting and things after one has been in india for a while one gets to take no notice of of that kind probably if you were in at this moment you would not know that there was a single ease of in the entire station now i have a sister out in china her husband is a sort of out there what did she marry a i exclaimed no no replied mrs with a laugh but he has got a very good appointment and he gives himself the airs of at least a dozen we always call him the at home well the other day i wrote to her and said that i was so fearfully sorry to see by the english papers that they had the plague so out in and i l so the strange of ht didn t sleep for i t get my sister and her dreadful position out of my head my dear she wrote back by return mail aod said don t upset yourself about the plague in i made inquiries after i received your letter and i found they had had the rather badly down in the native quarter but until then we did not know anything about it so my dear mrs went on i don t think you need upset yourself about any they may be having down at what does mrs say about it oh i didn t tell her that i had heard anything i replied well if i were you said mrs promptly i would not do so because you see she has not been very long out and she might worry herself to fiddle strings in my own mind i did not think mrs was at all a woman who would worry herself to fiddle strings from any cause but it was no use saying so to anyone else so i allowed mrs s remark to pass in silence i did mention the to father when i wrote to mm again i mentioned it in a casual kind of way told him that i had heard that the was rather bad at and asked whether it was true his reply was extremely i hope you have not been thinking too much of this rumour he wrote there is in the native lines but then that ia no new thing it would be much more if there were none don t allow yourself to get nervous about it tell mrs that her husband is looking very fit and wet and that we shall probably come up to together when we do manage to get away a love i did tell mrs she gave a sigh and a cloud came over her blue eyes poor dear old jack i she said it is hard that i should be enjoying myself up here and he be down in that hateful old i don t know why if we have got to india and to serve half our time in such a hateful country that they could not quarter us in decent it seems so stupid to pick out all the most horrid and cities in india to plant the troops in and make military stations of i the next moment she asked me whether it was not time to dress and all signs of a cloud had absolutely vanished from her laughing face for myself i may as well confess that i never gave the another thought my life seemed from that time forward to be filled up with the personality of one individual that was captain of the rd it was natural enough as he said at first that we should meet tou cannot get out of anybody s way in a place like and as i did not try to get out of his and he did everything he could to get into mine it was equally natural that we were together morning noon and night i think on the whole that the mornings were our best time mrs and i always rode through the cool and pleasant air she was an excellent and generally used to lead the way with two or three devoted in attendance upon her i began with a variety of attendance but after captain came upon the scene they gradually away until he was the only one to be found at my saddle bow so we used to behind just keeping my gay little on in sight sometimes barely that and it was during one of these rides when he the	30
of ut life had been up in nearly three i that he suggested to me that we cast in our lot together and make our morning companionship into a compact for the rest of our lives you know he said to me leaning over to lay his hand upon my horse s neck i have never been really hard hit in my life before that waa one of the reasons why i did not mind coming out to india for a year or two my people were distinctly against my doing bo because my father has not been dead very long and my mother l ted the idea of my being out of england she wanted me to marry and settle down but as i told her a poor man cannot very well marry on nothing no don t look like that i am not asking you quite to share nothing i have a few hundreds a year besides my pay and i shall have more at my mother s death but i am not what you would call well off i thought i waa perfectly safe in coming to india that i should never meet any lady out here to fall in love with but you see i was utterly wrong and somehow as yon have been all your life out here i do not feel that it is the same to ask you to stay out a little longer for my sake there i have put it very i know it but can t you see what i mean i am not much of a catch dear but i am desperately in love with you and i would stay out here for the rest of my life quite cheerfully and if i thought that you would be willing and content to stay with me i did not directly answer this for i had nothing to say i liked him oh yes the sight of ms blue eyes and face was enough at any moment to put my whole heart in a flutter the touch of his hand made my heart thrill and again i liked everything about him his heart whole laugh ihe i a story flash of his white teeth the turn ot his well head the set of his everything about him pleased and satisfied me after all i had not been to much luxury or to great wealth and what was i to look for so much in a husband i was no beauty or at i had never thought so haven t you anything to say to me he asked wistfully after a moment s pause i don t know what to say i said half he laughed outright then don t say it he rejoined promptly i will say it for you i know what you mean tou are as fond of me aa i am of you isn t that about it and then i admitted that that was exactly it and somehow we farther and farther behind the others and when we got back to the we had quite made np our minds aa to the future for the first time captain came into the house with us mrs he said half as we reached the door you might give me some breakfast this morning why surely she replied does that mean that you have been for breakfast on other mornings and that we have n to ask you if so that was exceedingly of i certainly have never asked him i i exclaimed my dear said mrs you will find out hy and by that men things are always the better and more complacent for being fed i don t think that i wanted captain to be more complacent i rejoined oh oh i see well come in captain if she won t make you welcome i will he followed her into the pretty drawing room and it was a pretty room looking back after all these the strange of life years i still carry in my mind s eye the picture of snowy wealth of flowers and the profusion of green plants with which my had it the fact is mrs i heard him say in a very confidential tone and then i out of hearing because i that he was going to tell her how things were between i was oat of my grey habit and into my fresh white muslin gown before she came to my room why you sly little witch she exclaimed as she entered who was to know that you meant business all this time he has told me all about it my dear i congratulate yon with all my heart he says he is not well off but i don t know that that makes much his family is good and he himself is charming and i should think your father will be very much pleased indeed i should be if i were in his place i think that father will only be pleased because i am pleased i said with a half sigh as i remembered him for truly i had not given him a thought up to that moment well dear well it is what men with pretty daughters in india must expect and look for at all events if they neither expect nor look for it it is what they will get that other men shall come along and appreciate them but i am not pretty i exclaimed oh is that your genuine opinion hiss modesty yes indeed it is i cried well i t a with you and i don t suppose your father would agree with you and i feel quite sure that captain would not agree with yon a story it ib to that so pretty a little should have such a modest opinion of herself i like yoa better for not yourself at all attractive and then she drew	30
me to her kissed me several times with a which i did not think she had in her and me away with a laugh declared that she must fly to change her habit do you go along and play pretty hostess to tliat nice young man was her last i finished my toilet and then went back to the little drawing room where i found my impatient lover awaiting me what an time you have been was his greeting oh no i have been very quick indeed a very short time i replied you will often have to wait for me much longer than this then he said promptly you cannot care for me half as much as i do for you perhaps i don t then he caught hold of me but you do you do you know you do you know you are awfully in love with me if you are not you ought to be because i am so in love with you i would certainly give you time to change your clothes i persisted besides mrs came in to give me her version of the situation and she said he asked eagerly oh she seems to think you are all right of course she thinks i am all right anybody but a match making parent would think i was all right he declared stoutly but only one thought troubles me is your father anything of a match making parent he put the question to me so solemnly and in such thk t rt op ht ufe evident good faith that i could not help laughing aloud my father i said married himself for love pure and simple i do not think that he will ask whether you are rich his first question will be whether i care for you q l chapter iv i thine said captain during first joyous little breakfast that i shall go down to mu pore and see your father myself oh i wouldn t do that said i think if write it will be quite as much aa colonel will expect or wish for well perhaps that is so he said doubtfully but to my mind one interview ia worth a hundred letters it is a long way to said mrs as we know by bitter experience eh yes it is a long way to i returned and my father is not the kind of person who upon out of the way attentions why don t you write fully and offer to go down suggested mrs it look pretty and attentive and as if you were anxious to do the right thing i am he said stoutly of course you are i know that you are but it is no joke going down at this time of the year to and coming bade again it is such a waste of time and money and you have to think of ways and means now yon know l the story of hy life that is he admitted with a rather glance at ma i you offer to go down that will be all that ia necessary colonel will then that you are really desperately in earnest and ten chances to one he is just on the eve of coming np for his own leave so your journey and your money and your time and your patience and your strength will all have been exhausted for nothing oh believe me you had better write tell him everything there is to tell about you and say that if he wishes it you will be delighted to go down to and show yourself eventually this was the course he took and when his letter had gone we set ourselves to await with such patience as we could my father s reply and decision what do you think your father will say he asked me at least twenty times during the course of the next few hours oh i think he will say that i am much too young to dream of marrying or even of being engaged do you really think so yes really then i think he will say that in addition to not thinking much of my age as me for matrimony he does not think very much of you ae a son in law and that as a matter of fact he has some hideous old up his sleeve to whom he to sell me as as i go back to said my sweetheart sternly you are laughing at me it is very wrong to laugh at your husband it is very wrong of you to give your future wife i retorted he caught me dearer to mm i like to give yon a name all of my own he said dropping his tone and speaking very tenderly i like to feel that there is something yon even your which nobody but i can share which belongs to me to myself alone i like your sweet soft sounding name of it is the prettiest name in the world but everybody calls you everybody who knows you mrs mrs with the red hair and the teeth she calls you i am sure your father calls you no my father never calls me he calls me that is an insult ah but yoa see he doesn t think of me as yon da no do but i it is a i dearest yon will never let anybody but me call you will you oh well you know the way lovers talk young lovers as we were i a child of eighteen he not yet six and twenty he insisted upon having my promise insisted with an eagerness which such a promise was not worth and i i gave it and so from that time f i was never any more to him excepting on our wedding day and he always called me by the quaint little	30
name that he had out of his love and tenderness just i did not tell him so but i wrote to my father at once and told everything that there was to tell about my sweetheart i it was very and probably mrs s letter which went at the same time as mine was much more as to captain s standing and personality be that as it may as soon as could possibly so the t bt of ht life be captain received a reply from in which my father said i am coming up to in a few days and shall be very glad to talk over the entire with you from what i hear of yoa i do not see that there can be the slightest to your marrying more especially as my little girl seems to have set her heart upon you it is no use my pretending the letter went on that i am to lose my only child in this way to be quite frank with you i am glad in one way but exceedingly sorry in another i shall be glad to feel that my little girl is happily settled in life with a man whom she can love and respect i have not much to give her but whatever i have will be hers perhaps i ought not to say it and yet i feel that i can say that in winning her you have won a treasure she is what her mother was before her a good true loyal and little girl if this marriage comes about i only hope and pray that yon will treat her as she deserves to be treated i could not help crying a little over my dear father s letter it was so simple so so full of love for me and so unselfish if i was unselfish as he said i had indeed learned to be so from knowing him for surely a less selfish man than my father never lived upon this earth as for captain or as i had taken to calling him thai letter served to put him into the highest and wildest spirits he may say no in the end i said when he was speaking quite as a certainty of our future life together and then where will you be my dearest child ha replied no man on earth could be such a brute aa to say no after writing me a letter like thia it seems to me young woman he went on severely that you are beginning very badly with me your main idea is to make your bear dance to keep me on the and to take rises out of me don t you think yon ought to be very much ashamed of yourself no i replied i think it is far better for you to find out all my faults and all my before we are married bo that if yon wish to change your mind you can do so before it is too late change my mind he repeated why what next t i shall never change my mind never aa long as the world is oh don t that i said half sighing don t say that i have never been very sure myself that the world is round but it ia but we do not know it we only half believe the wise men who tell us it ia i believe that it is like a flat cheese and i don t believe it is really round well i will my assertion he with a laugh and i will say that i will never my mind about yon as long as the world is a world there will that satisfy so we talked oh how foolish it all was and we meant it all every word of it well it was less than a week after this that my father suddenly turned up in he came without warning walking in upon us one morning at breakfast aa coolly and as if he had come from the next of course we were not alone and when he had kissed me and shaken hands half a dozen times with mrs he turned round to captain and held out his hand i suppose i need not ask who yon are he said in his pleasant cheery friendly voice i am very the of ht life pleased to see all the same i think you are a pretty to be trusted out by yourselves think of this little miss here being a married woman why it is preposterous i my mother was a married woman before she was as old as i am i returned and you never thought she was too young to be married no i never did he admitted i never did you are quite right perfectly right you generally are you will find he remarked turning with a laugh to my sweetheart you will find that the easiest way to live in married life is to straightway lay down one that the wife is always right and was that what yon did captain asked well as a matter of fact she always was right my father replied with the first trace of a cloud which had passed over his face i ter in the day the two men had a long talk together and by aad by when my sweetheart bad gone back to his hotel to dress for dinner my father found his way into my bedroom you are going to dress he said well i won t keep yon child i like that young man of yours i wanted to tell you so oh dear how kind and sweet and good of you to like him is it such an impossible task he asked oh do but i did not quite expect you to look at him with my eyes no no but i want to do	30
if you are like this by a mere matter of it isn t a mere matter of business i exclaimed they might have left him he has only one child and she doesn t get married every day it ia a special occasion they might have left him for once it wouldn t have been hard if he could have stayed to see as married bat to be married without him i would rather have waited but it was father s wish that you should not wait i am quite willing to do what you like he said suddenly dropping his tone and speaking very gravely ton know that surely oh yea yea i will go on i will do just aa father told me but yoa mast admit it is hard why should he have been recalled and recalled so soon when he has so much leave owing to him he is wanted down at and after all you know dearest a soldier s duty whether he is of greater or lesser importance is his and should come first of with him of course your father being in makes all the difference in the world and it have a very bad effect the troops if commanding seemed willing to what others of less importance have to face but what is there to well you know that the health of the troops down at is not good has never had a day s leave i believe that your father was given his wholly and solely on your account but did he tell you so he all but told me so do yon mean that the is worse at it is very bad and your father s presence to make the scare less general it is one of the which a man has to pay for being a popular believe me child even in the face of your wishes of your wedding he would not have it otherwise no real soldier would i don t believe i with what was almost a moan that i shall ever see my father again by chapter v w clouds said that was the prettiest wedding that had place in for years and although i waa bo disappointed and so upset to think that my dear father was not able to be present at the i was conscious during the whole time that in every other respect the affair waa exceedingly well and extremely gay and pleasant there were several of captain s brother officers staying in at the time and one of these a mr st acted as his best man of course in an ordinary way i should have had my cousin he told me when the question of his best man was first old bill and i have always been the greatest possible and if it had been within the bounds of to get him i should as soon have thought of jumping over that railing pointing to the rail protecting the edge of the as of asking any other fellow to perform that good office for me but poor old bill happened an accident before we left england and had to stay at home on sick leave so that he has never been out with the regiment at all and he is the edward who is in the rd i remarked for i had when glancing at an army list one day that my sweetheart was not the only man of his name in the rd s clouds v tea he is the other one bat he has always been called bill ever since i can remember anything no i don t mean that his own people call him bill but he waa always called bill at and he was always called bill at and were yoa at and together no we were not he replied we were of an age to being together i was at and i was at but not at the same time as my cousin in fact he is five years than i am and he is lord s son yes he is lord yoa know is my ah bill s a dear old chap never was a better fellow going accident that was of his just an hit with a ball bat by jove it laid him on his back for six months and i hear that he is just to get again i fancy unless he is quite fit that he will stay with the instead of coming out here next year naturally his father is very anxious about him because you see ha is the only son and you are the only son i i exclaimed yes but of course my life is not as precious as his perhaps not to his father i said half to other people more so ah you think so dearest you think so bat really joking apart he is the heir and it is a precious life i should not be surprised if my uncle stopped his out ther i know when i was last down at he was not at all anxious that he should stay in the service and he has sisters yes he has several sisters married the of mt some of them that is two of them one is not married and is she nice oh yea a delightful girl pretty ye e i suppose bo he replied in the way in which a man does speak of bis sisters and his cousins one of them the of tile family married a man in the and the other married a big chap i never could understand why she did hat i suppose she had her reasons i suppose she was in lore with him i exclaimed well she might have been of coarse i never saw him except on the day of the wedding i didn t think much of him and certainly did not look as if she	30
was particularly devoted bob she would not have married him if she had not been in love with him i persisted she might not na but as a matter of fact i don t think that she was women don t always marry for love yon know even in england and my delightful are rather hard young women i don t think the tender passion would enter very much into their calculations now with bill things are different he is such a dear chap such a good fellow such a bat he is very different to the girls everybody likes him i don t think anybody ia very enthusiastic so it came about that in the absence of his cousin mr st filled the place of best man at our wedding i had four very pretty and what with the the gay dresses c the ladies the wonderful of the different servants and the profusion of flowers our wedding was certainly i br w clouds aa gay a as it had ever been my lot to attend we had a quantity of presents some of great and none that were not worth having everybody combined to wish as well to help to make the thing go and when at last we went off on our days which we spent at a httle a few miles away it seemed as if onr way life was likely to be one blaze of as we left the a was pat into my hands it was from my father and read god bless yon my darling i am thinking of you and wishing yon all joy with you in spirit always father i gave it to as we got into the carriage without a word as it was i almost wished that i had not received it for it seemed to the which had hung so heavily over what should have been and what in reality was otherwise the happiest day of my life but in the presence of an int happiness even when they are very dark and lowering soon pass i could not long be unhappy i was contented in my new existence with every moment i seemed to care more and more for the to whom i had given my life s he was so kind so thoughtful so considerate so forgetful of himself he always seemed as if he thought only of me and after all what was i to inspire a love bo as over and over again he proved his for me to be mrs had called me pretty and not she alone other people well my told me quite otherwise i was tall rather than short b slender creature with a certain grace and dignity in the carriage of head and throat which proclaimed itself even to my own eyes i the strange of ht life bad a good skin and plenty of dark hair which had never known the torture of the curling i had rather nice grey eyes and a nose that was straight and small a nose thai had nothing it and was certainly not beautiful any more than the rest of my face was and yet my dear worshipped me if i bad combined the beauties of eveiy that the world has known in my one he not have loved me with greater devotion or have more adoration upon me he even consented to take me down to that i might spend the remaining part of his leave with my father i do it against my better judgment he said to me because i think it is foolish to run into danger when you can keep yourself out of it and under any other circumstances i should say absolutely no but when i what it must have been to your father to give you up to me i feel that it is not in me to say anything but yes to so natural a i will only ask you dearest while we are there to be guided by me in taking every precaution for your safety i love you for your pluck in being willing to go but i will have you remember that pluck carried to excess becomes and you darling are too sensible and too good to be there is nothing to show any particular pluck i exclaimed this is in the native lines not near our i don t want to run in and out of the native hospital doing sick nurse and that sort of thing i want to go down and see my father that is all yes i understand dearest i quite understand but it la only that i am so anxious so uneasy at any danger which may chance to threaten you which makes me take such extreme precaution for your j clouds safety i t know that your father will not blame me very severely for taking yon at all i we to have let him know before we decided on going father would certainly say that i am not to go i said promptly is the most person in uie world and be would put a to out going for a certainty and i have set my heart upon seeing him and spending a little time with him before we go to join the regiment but we never did go down to mu after our which had extended into ten days instead of four we went back to and spent a few days there intending to go from thence straight down to i well remember that the day before our return to i had my fortune told by an old woman who came up to our for the purpose i had no in fortune telling indeed i had had no experience of it this particular old was a hideous specimen of native humanity and she told me a great deal of which my memory does not retain only one part of	30
her sayings stayed in my mind there is a curious want of in life she told me there is no you keep nothing for long not at least in the early part of your life but your lord s heart will be yours for ever come come woe come joy triumph sorrow separation and parting he will still be yours to the very end of time i repeated what she said to whose knowledge of was naturally exceedingly limited the old girl a good tip he said with careless good nature after all she has the only thing that is really worth having the s t rt of ht life the old took the silver which he in his hand towards her and looked him up and down tell tiie that he makes too she said to me that is his greatest fault he makes too sore of getting what he wants he will have a fall one day that will blast his dearest hopes yon stand both of you in a of sunshine a glory of light hat the sorrow clouds are hovering very near and one day they will come down like a curtain and shut you away the me from the other what does she say t my husband asked i repeated the old s words to him oh come along dearest it is all he remarked we have each other and we have our lives before oa don t let ns waste a minute of the time over such as this and then he caught me by the arm and drew me away leaving the old woman darkly where she stood without doubt she had told me a good deal that was mere clap trap she had made shots as to my past some good some some totally wrong hut however good or bad she might be at her trade that one prophecy lingered in my mind and before a week had gone by part of it had come true for on the very eve of oar departure from to join my father at mrs received a from her husband bidding her break the news to me that onr journey was useless to this day i have never how between them my husband and my friend contrived to break the horrible tidings to me i was hours before my dazed brain could take in the fact that i had seen my father for the last time he of all others so j cl ud ci recalled from his just leave of absence had fallen a victim to the fated which was the native troops it ia what that old woman said i cried to my husband you are standing in a blaze of sunshine a glory of light but the sorrow clouds are hovering very near oh it has come true already why did we ever let old woman come to me with her hideous t it will all come true what else was it that she said one day they will come down like a curtain and shut you away the one from the other it was in vain that he tried to console me in vain that he swore all manner of vengeance upon the old if he should ever come within reach of her again i was young i was well nigh broken hearted and not even the coming of a letter in the dear handwriting which i should never receive again tended to comfort me my dear dear father his last thought had been for me i am feeling horribly ill to night be wrote to me and i doubt not that this has got a good tight grip of me this time i have it before but something tells me that it is all up with me at last this is only a line to bid you happiness and god speed for ever and to express my gratitude that almighty has permitted me to see you happily and married i am leaving you with an easy mind feeling assured that is a right good fellow and will take care of you as well as even i could wish too ill to write more than to send my love and my last good wishes to my last hope that ho will take care of there was a moment s silence and so help me god i will said my husband in a very solemn voice l z d g chapter vi a note in a looking back from my present to the time of my father s death i can only think that the of my life at that period were designed by providence in especial mercy to my youth and of the world i have often since shuddered to think what have happened to me if my father had died leaving me an girl in india as it was i was taken right away from eveiy association of my early life i was d all the most details of my great loss and in my new life there was nothing which served in any way to remind me of the old one the rd were then at a very good station in the and we were enough to secure a little by an officer on the staff who had gone home for a couple of years leave so we had no trouble in settling down in our new home we had indeed a home ready made for us for these people left us everything just as they used it themselves plate linen and even their domestic it waa very different for me to go thus to straight into a charming home with well trained servants and everything c and to welcome me than if i had had to do aa most young wives in india must scrape u a note in a along anyhow we had got some sort of a home put er	30
it was how it softened the blow of my father s death i felt as if i had got into a haven of rest and peace from which i never be again as long as i lived and still the old native woman s prophecy stayed in my mind persistently i do not mean to imply that it always stayed in my mind but it came back from time to time with more or less painful there is no in your life yon keep nothing long at least not in the early part of your life at such times i had to remind myself of that other prophecy of hers your lord s heart will be yours always it was to that my father s were all sent home not the furniture of our at but all his and my personal my own things had been packed np by my father s orders immediately that my marriage was a finally settled matter and had been actually sent off by him the week previous to hia death but captain had gathered together everything that he believed i should most value the pictures a few choice books as choice as anybody ever has in india that is to say a few skins and and various personal odds and ends that my father had regularly used all other things were sold as is the custom at such times and the money for these together with the little money that my father had had to leave was handed over to me in accordance with his last wiu strangely enough made and signed on the very day of my wedding he had not had very much to leave something over a thousand you had better put it with your money i said to my husband when i received the l z i c the of hy life for the from the lawyer who had managed my father s not at all he said but i don t want any separate money i would rather you would take care of it i don t understand money the best thing that we can do said my husband is to put it in a bank by itself and to keep it for for instance at the end of a couple of years we shall have to turn out of this place and furnish for ourselves and as my little all is well and safely invested in england it would he a pity to sell out for furnishing purposes besides it is always as well to have a shot in the for absolute emergency use one cannot t ll in this climate what a single day may bring forth by far the best thing to do would be to put it into a bank in your own name we agreed to do that and so our life went on and i never gave my little bo as another thought we were really very gay at this time the rd was a go ahead regiment and one and all seemed determined to enjoy every scrap of gaiety that could be squeezed out of a life in not even my mourning kept me in for more than a few weeks i was a bride and as a bride i must be and i was very young and in spite of my great grief i did not find it practicable to myself from the life that was going on around ma at first when i began to go about i felt that i was wicked and then i reminded myself that after all it was hard to visit my sorrow upon my husband and i felt that if my father could look down and see me from where he was he would understand l z i a note in a i was not going i had in any sense foi him or ceased to regret him but wholly and solely ont of a desire to do my to the utmost to the who had been so good and considerate and tender with me and with every day that went over my head i to love my better and he on his side grew more and more devoted to me how different it would all have been if i had been left any relations whom i had known as relations with only my modest little and a wretched little to live npon a and a stray who would live in other people s houses with only two courses open to her either to marry for a home or to develop into that wretched of womanhood an indian spin i used sometimes to look at my husband with a kind of wonder i have often caught myself asking was i really edward was i really gallant young soldier s wife or was it all a dream and should i wake up some day to find myself in bed at or up in the which i had shared with mrs at in a certain sense there was a grain of in my life as if it was something to which i was not and never could get quite accustomed but i was very happy i had only one cause for dissatisfaction there was only one leaf in our bed of roses only one note in the harmony of our fa ie affection it was that while most of s people wrote to him sending good wishes and presents his mother who had been everything in the world to him stood aloof of course onr marriage had been very hurriedly pushed on and perhaps to her with her english notions for as be explained to me english people as a rule d the of my have longer than ours was there may have seemed something almost in the haste with which onr marriage had been arranged once or twice i asked whether he had heard from his mother and	30
he replied no bnt after car wedding and my father s death he one day received a letter which he pat into his pocket without showing me it did not occur to me at the time to ask to see it it would have seemed to me then like an inquisitive piece of impertinence even though i was his wife but a mail or two later when the kindest and of letters arrived from lord and from s cousin ne a for one hundred pounds with a wish that should buy me anything that i liked with it the other full of the kindest and most good wishes and sending me a beautiful it then struck me that there had come not one single word from his mother whom one would have expected to be the very first to wish a son joy and happiness in his new how is it that your mother has not written i asked him he looked a little uneasy well my dearest look here it s no use our beginning by having secrets from each other he said you have me and why should i keep one firom you why what do you mean well est the fact is i have heard from my mother i heard two ago you had a letter from your mother well of course i wrote to her as soon as i knew that we were going to be and told her all about you and explained how it was that the a note in a was off so soon she did not take it as well as she might have done how didn t take it well would have liked me to marry somebody in but then you did not want to marry anyone in england i i exclaimed no i wanted to marry yon i never wanted to marry anybody but in all my life but of coarse one s mother thinks that well at mine does that she has a right to be consulted and considered and she doesn t seem to be at all pleased about our marriage yon had better show me her letter i said quietly it is not a pleasant letter that does not matter i would rather see it i shall know then what she has in her mind and whether i can do anything to make her like me better it seems rather though to dislike a person whom yon have never seen let me see the letter he did not however show it to me at once i had indeed to all my powers of to make him hand it over but at last he opened his and gave it to me slowly and with visible he had been quite right in saying that it was not a pleasant letter it was the most and at the same time the most ignorant letter that i had ever seen i do not mean ignorant in the way of find like bat so ignorant of the life which i had lived tip to tiie time of my marriage it was evidently written by a woman who had an idea that nobody who had been bom in india could possibly j the strange of ht life be a lady and gave me very the that who had been living long in india even be good it spoke of her well known desire that he should have married earlier in life though after all he was but six and twenty bo that he could not be said to have lost very much time or delayed bis e very late bnt it expressed the utmost that he should have been caught yes she put it in that way caught that was the very word she used by an indian i felt as i read the words as if all the blood in my body were rising to my face and anger in my that i think if i had not been already married i could have found it in my heart to break my engagement the idea of your being married in this hole fashion in such desperate and hurry the letter went on shows me that these people in their eagerness to secure you are afraid to delay lest you should find out the truth them i have never been it continued so disgusted in my life when i had read the last cruel words i laid the letter down upon the table in chill and deadly silence looked at me doubtfully he said i was not willing to show you that letter find i know that it has yon far more than it ought to have done you must try to think of it as the letter of a prejudiced woman who is totally ignorant of the real meaning of her words my mother has never lived out of england in her life she has heard all sorts of tales about people out here and she judges us and you whom she has never seen by that foolish and standard answer me one question i said what did you say to her in reply a ed note in a my dear child he said i never replied to it at au i felt that it was to i had no intention of allowing her or any other human being in the world to come in between us i had already written to her announcing onr marriage as an accomplished fact when i received it my mother to write to me in a proper manner i shall not communicate with her again it is no use arguing with a woman on the other side of the world when i am able to take you home she sees you for herself then she will see how utterly mistaken she has been how how altogether wrong till that time you axe my wife and you before everybody in	30
the world to me even my own mother i shall never meet your mother i said passionately my own was so sweet so gentle so true so good that i judged all mothers by her i was ready to open my whole heart to this mother of yours because i that she would be something like mine now my only hope is that i may never under any meet her certainly i will never willingly do so i don t know how she dare a whole of women because she doesn t happen to be one of them she must have a bad an evil mind yea i moat e i will speak she must have a thoroughly evil mind to think evil so readily of those whom she has never seen your father must have been nice i out you must have got all your good and from him well in a certain sense perhaps i did he admitted my mother is a woman of very good and was a great beauty in her day in a certain sense she is a hard woman and given to jumping at i the t bt of ut life i can only say to you that i utterly regret that she have our in the way that she has done it is not reasonable and it is not kindly but after all dearest i am not my mother and so long as we are everything to each other does anything outside even on s mother count for very much the very fact that she has so openly herself your enemy will only make me cling to yon the more and love yon the better and after all my we are married nothing can undo that and you are quite i persisted that in time to come yon won t feel that your mother has been right that i am a mere who caught you nay nay it waa i who caught you not you me god knows he went on earnestly i was eager enough to satisfy any woman but to think that your mother should should have such an idea should credit me with such an idea i continued well what does it matter you know and i know and everybody who was near us at the time knew that i was desperately in love with yon what does it matter what somebody thousands and thousands of miles away chooses to think in such a case you see my other relations do not take this tone nothing could be more kind or more generous than my s letter for and old bill how nice of the dear old chap to go himself and choose a wedding present for you how nice of my uncle to send a big that you might have something which would really please you you see they are reasonable people and take a reasonable and worldly view of the whole affair it is no use a note ik a yourself what my mother chooses to think she will come round in time she need never come round for me well then if it is a case of choosing between you may always rest assured that yon will he one of my choice and besides that he went on with infinite i would have you put all this worry and annoyance right out of your mind for the sake of the one whom some day i hope you will with more easily than my mother seems able to with me by chapter vii ths of one person undoubtedly my mother in law waa a woman of very strong character and of dominant will for although she did not write to my husband nor did he communicate with her she yet to exercise a very great influence over our i saw all the letters which wrote to his own people on the subject of our marriage in answering loi s congratulations and in him for his extremely handsome present to us or rather to me for he had expressed a wish that should buy me a present with the hundred pounds which he had sent my husband had taken the opportunity not exactly of singing my praises but of putting a word in season which tend to hia uncle in my favour i must confess that i blushed a little as i read his words he spoke of my extreme youth of my simplicity of mind manners and and wound up by a description of my father s utter sacrifice of self on the altar of duty it was a letter of which any woman in the world must have been and i felt after it had gone that lord at least would be proof against any as to my being an perhaps it was foolish of me but that horrid word simply stuck in my throat i could not forget it it seemed to meet me at every turn but surely i thought when i had q l the influence of one person read s letter to the end his will understand no woman who is really an could inspire a man to write such a letter concerning her after many weeks had gone by however he heard again from lord not a letter concerning me but one on general topics as he was in the habit of occasionally writing to him at the end it said am very sorry to find that your mother is so bitterly opposed to your marriage and that she is making such a trouble of it i hope that you will not allow yourself to quarrel with her even for your wife a good woman would not of course wish you to be out at elbows with your own mother perhaps it is a pity that you were married in such a harry but as i told your mother the deed is done and we can	30
only hope that it may turn out for the best i repeated to her all that you had told me of your wife but i am greatly afraid that with her it is a case of can any good thing come out of i would advise yon to write her as much as possible as if no cloud had arisen between you after all you are everything that she has in the world hers is not a happy nature and if you can spare her a pang i sincerely hope that you will see your way to do it for my own part my dear boy i like young people who marry to be happy and to be in love with each other it seems to me a greater than any other that one can name or think of i shall therefore try to picture your wife only through your eyes until i have the of seeing her when i sincerely hope that i shall feel that you have not half done her justice i said when i had read the letter to the end your uncle is very kind and he is very just the strange t rt of life bat although he does not mean to be he already against ma what can i have done to mother that she who loves yon should hate me for doing the same thing i feel as if i should never see any of your people i feel as if i never face any one of them it is dreadful for a lady to that she is regarded by a whole family as an and a mere well dearest in a family sense you are an to everybody but me that is natural enough he oh yes but i do not mean in a family sense i have never before been made to feel that i was an you know i went on if i had known all this i would never have married you oh don t say that i he cried ah but it is true do you mean to tell me that yon would have let my people influence you so much as to ruin my life and break my heart he exclaimed catching hold of me and drawing me near to him tee i am afraid that i should then all i have to say is thank god that we were married before my people had a chance of getting at you i felt a great wave of remorse sweep over me a great tide of which seemed to tell me that he loved me better than i him and yet was that so oh no surely not if ever a was bound up heart and soul in her husband surely i was that woman i felt myself blush under his direct gaze no i do not quite mean that i said hurriedly but honestly i do not think that you half how eaten alive i am with pride i i should have been angry the of one enough and foolish for if i had known all this before we were married but at the same time i could not give you np now and i cannot help being glad that we were married before i did know anything about it my dear he yon make too much of my people s opinion after all it is only the opinion of one person a person whose judgment is and moreover based upon actual ignorance of facts you my uncle says himself that he shall keep an open mind about you he shall only picture you through my eyes through my description i hope i cried that i shall never see any of your people my dear child he said very gently if my dear bill comes out he will he tiie greatest friend that yon have in the world he is the dearest chap alive you will like him aa much as i do and he will like yon well next best to me perhaps i wish he said with a gay laugh that i was aa sure of ever being commander in chief as i am that you and old bill will be the very best of i said no more i let him think so bat in my heart i felt convinced that lord s son and i would never be anything but the merest acquaintances family connections people at arm s length from each other first and last and yet when a few months later he came out to join the regiment for he had persistently declined the idea of remaining with tjie and brought him into my pretty cool shaded drawing room saying is my cousin b the bill you have me speak of bo often i felt all my prejudices oil my long pent up anger and distress c l the t bt of mt life melting away for ho was the of my edward my it became plain to me that had inherited none of his mother s beauty he had come into the world stamped with the personality of the old family of which he had been bom bill e as he was always called in the regiment waa five years than bat he did not look it in all my life i have never seen brothers more alike than these two were in outward he had the same charming voice the same quick alert glance the same intense of the eyes and the same delightful unaffected he gave one glance at me and held oat both his yon and i he said have got to be tremendous because you know they say that women folk do not like their husbands to have any bnt themselves now i have always been s ever since i can remember anything and i cannot give him np even to a wife that is to say not altogether so mrs yon	30
must just make up your mind to have me for a as well and then you know we shall hit it off quite splendidly he was so fresh so so hearty that he fairly conquered me he was impertinent too before an hour had gone by he had taken to calling me mrs where did you get such a wonderful name he exclaimed i never heard of it before it like a poem or a touch of who first thought of it i did said promptly you why my dear old chap we shall have you blooming out as poet before long i never heard such a charming name in my life even for a charming lady with a little bow towards me q l the influence of one person i could not help liking him everything fell out as he predicted and we become the greatest of friends indeed it waa from him that i first gathered any really information about that unpleasant lady who stood in the background of my life like a ready to spring out upon me at any moment my mother in law why does she hate me ao i to him one day a week or two after his arrival aunt oh well is not exactly the kind of woman who to make things more pleasant under any he admitted hesitatingly you see when she married my uncle she was a great beauty not so young as she had been and she seemed to have herself that my governor never meant to marry anybody and you bee he did my uncle was one of those happy devil may care sort of men very much like what is and he was always quite devoted to the governor and i don t know but i think she was a bit disappointed but he had a right to marry i exclaimed well that is what the poor old governor himself thought so he went and got married but i believe mrs richard was not at all pleased about it really i would not worry about her opinion if i were you but she has set your father and all your people against me no not so bad as that not quite bad as that she has not set against you for one but she has influenced your father against me no not my father but your sisters oh well my sisters are well they are not much the of ht life to anybody they are very nice and all that but i don t think you care them very much they are so taken up with fashion and society and all sort of thing that they have not got time left for thinking about other people s affairs not one of them has written to since they first wrote no well the truth is mrs they wouldn t i don t think they write to each other much i don t think they go in for what yon may call family affection and i keep np that sort of thing i don t think the girls ever do as for my dear old governor you must not think that he is your enemy no but he is prejudiced against me no scarcely that he is his time until he sees yoa i had a talk with him only the night before i left home on the very subject and he said then what was perfectly able that there was a great deal in what had to say and a good deal in what aunt had to say and that he should judge for himself when he saw yes i exclaimed judge for himself with a mind already prejudiced in the other direction he t help it i cried as he was about to s mother called me on she said that i had caught him a look come over mr s face what are you laughing at i asked i was thinking he said with the of youth that perhaps aunt judged you out of her own i would not upset myself if i were you mrs it is not good enough and after all dear old is the best fellow in the the influence of one person world you are satisfied with him and he is satisfied with yon what more do you want well i want just a little recognition from his people i replied then i be perfectly happy i am afraid he said that aa long as you are in india yon will not have that however much you may desire it when once you go home and they see you for what you are you will have as much recognition both from s people and from s friends as the most lady in the world her right if i were you mrs i would make up my mind to be contented with that certainty until the time come after all what can it matter to you what a lot of people whom you have never seen and who have never seen yon choose to think about yon f look at me for instance i came out here feeling shall i confess it to you that it was a ghastly bore that my greatest had gone and got married feeling that life would never be quite the same again and in a kind of way as if i owed you one for having married him but as soon as i saw you why you must have seen for that i went down before yon like a row of in a well played game of i put ont my hand to him in an impulse of gratitude mr i said i did not think somehow that i should like you but i cannot help myself you are quite fit to be s cousin and yon cannot expect me to say more than that i felt before i saw you	30
that yon would be stiff and stuck up and and horrid yes i did i admit it freely and yet i liked you nearly aa much as before yon had been in the room five minutes l the of hy life that is all right he said heartily i told you that we should be the greatest of friends but don t yon think mrs since you are s wife and we are cousins that you might leave off calling me mr it must sound to as if our relations were not over and above cordial and we want to create just a impression to that don t we t so mrs what if i were to leave off your grand married title and yon were to call me and from that moment he and i were and bill one to another q l chapter viii a and a choice bill and i made s compact of friendship which by the we never broke i ceased entirely to the family with my husband i had no wish to bore him on the subject and i could not my eyes to the fact that whatever they chose to do and whatever line of conduct they chose to make their own he was not in any way for it could not while living at so great a distance from them m ke them see matters his es besides it distressed him and any expression of my annoyance at the line which they bad taken generally had the effect of giving him a so i very soon after bill came to india ceased to mention the family in any way not very long after the arrival of lord s last letter wrote to his mother he wrote exactly as if he had received no letter from her and in coarse of time she answered him and a more or less correspondence was the result he always wrote to her as if she was m the best of terms with him she always wrote to him as if he were still indeed she never after that first letter which was written immediately on the receipt of the news of onr engagement me in any way good bad or indifferent it was not the strange story of mt life an ea situation for me to bear bat i could not help feeling that it was in reality more hard for than for me he made a rule of me his mother s letters to read and also of bringing me hia to her that i might read them before they were at first i not wishing to seem to be upon one whom i trusted so utterly and loved so intensely but quickly disposed of my objections i should not dream of receiving or writing letters of which you knew nothing he said quietly and i must ask you to read these aa well as others if there is anything at any time that you object to dearest you have only to teu me it ia not likely that i should object to anything i exclaimed indignantly my dear child he replied two beads are better than one and i might chance quite to say something which would be painful or to you tou know that i have no desire in the world bat to make you happy and if by accident i chance to say the wrong thing it will be better for both of as that you tell me of it before it is too late to it than i could not help seeing the of his remark so i made no farther objection to reading the correspondence which passed between himself and his mother it was not bo veiy long before our little child was born though it proved to be not the much hoped for boy upon which had set his heart i don t know why men do seem to set their hearts upon having boys when they start a family because girls generally seem to bo more to their fathers than boys to be nearer closer more one with them i don t think that was very much disappointed a and a choice but he bad always spoken of the child that was to be as the little son the boy he and we had quite decided between ourselves that it was to be called richard after his father and mine however when the baby came instead of the big beautiful boy with the blue eyes and the crisp hair the new arrival turned out to be a frail golden haired grey eyed girl taking entirely after me not that i had hair but tradition had always declared that i had been blessed in that way as a baby we had bo little expected a girl that we had actually no name ready for it and i was so ill that some weeks went by before the little stranger had any sort of a name to call her own in due course of time we her margaret was my mother s name and was merely a fancy of my own s stood as her and mrs and another old friend of mine were her two she was a dear thing as good and healthy as she was pretty to look upon i was fortunate in getting a most devoted so that to mo baby was personally no trouble whatever this was indeed just as well for after her birth i was never quite the same not as long as i was in india i seemed to be just fading away not from any actual complaint yet never feeling quite well i had no strength no energy no desire to do anything they used to dress me and take me out for a morning drive and then i would go in and look at breakfast and spend the rest of the day in a state more	30
i c a and a choice i that he was trying not to frighten me but his face under all its and his lips were trembling i wish to ood he said in an exceedingly bitter voice that i had the decent shadow of an for getting myself sick that i might take you home if you won t go without me i must the service but you must remember if i do that i am throwing away my whole career and my people will be more set against you than ever not that it would matter in the least only one has to think of the future when one is not well off i do wish he said looking at me wistfully that you would consent to be guided by those who do know what they are talking of you must know darling that it is utterly hateful to me to think of being parted from you even for a single day but for your good your welfare your safety i could not put my own inclinations first after all you would have the child you would have your own you would go with people you know think what it would be lo come back strong and well aa you used to be think what it would be to die over there alone i said no no i would rather stay here i would rather stay here and face the certainty of death because i should he you to the end i have never been alone in my life i have never known what it was to depend upon myself you cannot imagine the desolation that the very thought of such a journey has for me oh don t ask me to do it don t ask me to do it i can t help asking you to do it he said anxiously it i had no love for you and the doctors advised that i should still ask you just the same as i am doing now to do that which is the best for your health and safety besides that l z i c thk of ht dearest there ia not the that it would be the best thing in the world for the child for the child tee of course no child is as well in india as it be in england tha chances are a hundred to against a child s life in a like this i never knew that i said quickly ho bat at the same time the doctors say it the doctors think it little girl is right now bat then she is a not yet six months old but when she begins to get her teeth when the summer beat comes on why in england she would have twenty times nay a hundred times the of that she would have in india do you really think so the whole experience of people who have had babies out here tells me that that is so the whole experience of the doctors declares the same thing why should these men lie to us it is not to their interests to save a child s life unless it happens to be their own from them you get an opinion but baby is so well i exclaimed yes she is well and i pray to god she may always keep well but she would be better if she were oat of this climate for a time however we need not decide everything to day now we will wait awhile we will wait a few days and see whether you up a little through staying here only don t tell me that you care for me so little that you rather die here than save yourself by going home he said no more about it then but during the next two or three days i thought of nothing else than of what the doctors had said should i really die if i remained in india would the effect of the climate be such that my beautiful flourishing baby girl would a and a choice and pine away i could see hy the way that he me that was desperately i to do what they to yield to older and wiser heads than my own and my back which hitherto had made my life and on the other hand if i consented to go what would become of me must i a girl but nineteen years old go all of miles to the other side of the world among a people whose ways were not my ways to a country i had never seen i who had not the energy to let my servants dress me and my to me into my carriage was i to go thousands of miles by land and sea with no one to lean on no one to for me care for me protect me and on the other hand only the alternative of seeing the world gradually blotted out and all that i loved left standing on the shore from which i was fast receding what a choice to stay with my love and die or to go out alone into tiie unknown on what was at best only a chance of living i by chapter ix the of our it cannot be that i gained at all in strength during the next two weeks if anything at the end of that time i was weaker and by some strange our little girl began to her healthy looks and to get irritable and her had the patience of an but all the in the world not alter the act that she was beginning to have trouble with her teeth and that she was what is called getting them hard dr whom we called in to attend to her took mo to task in the terms mrs he said it is no use my coming here and pretending	30
hi then and all that i really wanted from were some and various odds and ends that had belonged to my father and mother these together with the rest of my wardrobe the of my life ordered to be sent to meet us at and in three days after this we began our journey down country together of course baby s went with as and also my own and s bearer went as fur as at that point he it would be better to send my own back to her district and to age for me some english maid who might wish to be going back to europe the journey down me most i tried to complain as little as i could bat i fear i succeeded very badly looking back that journey lives in my brains more like a hideous nightmare than a reality through which i actually passed i have a dim recollection of heat frightful thirst misery and inconvenience of all kinds of a little child who grew more lifeless with each hour and of a patient husband with all his anxious soul in his eyes still we did arrive at in due time and there i somewhat revived in the comparative and comfort of the hotel where we stayed during the two days which elapsed between our arrival and the departure of the f and boat by which we were to go to there was plenty for to do during that two days for he had many arrangements to make for our journey which he had been compelled to leave to the last moment for instance he had to engage me an english maid which was not a matter of such extreme ease after all however he did at last find one who seemed suitable and at the same time capable as a matter of fact she was not a lady s maid but was a professional nurse who had been out to attend upon a young english lady of rank at the birth of her first child the of was very at having secured her my dear he said i feel quite easy in my mind about you now this is the we might have come this journey a dozen times and not happened to meet with a trained who would be able to look after you right until you get to england and indeed for as long after as you choose to keep her she will make all the difference to you and it will be far better for you than having a native who would probably be sea sick and certainly helpless and frightened half the time i was not by any means so yoa bee i bad never been waited upon by a white person in my life and there seemed to me to be something almost improper in expecting a dignified who was wearing a very smart garb to wait upon me in an sort of way in fact she took me altogether under her protecting wing and really me to such an extent that i was afraid to call my soul my own you know she said i am not a lady s maid neither am i an indian so that i hope you won t expect me to know precisely your and what you wish doing in three or four days i shall have shaken down into my place and i hope you won t feel the loss of your own people at all i am accustomed to fitting myself into any nook into which i chance to stray and i hope that when there is any little thing you want that you will tell me of it so many ladies in delicate health go on suffering because they are unwilling to speak anxious not to give trouble and all that sort of thing but pray mrs do try to remember that i am only anxious to land yon in england looking very different to what you are looking just now e of i her that i really try to give her much ae i possibly could and i most say nurse was extremely kind to me she took me thoroughly in hand as if i was a helpless baby really but little better washed me and dressed me as good and as if i had been a little child how is that baby going to be fed on the journey she inquired oh captain will bay to take with us oh t and she will bo able to have her fresh milk twice a day at least yes there is no other way of managing it that i know of i replied how many will be take i should say because you see i am taking a good deal of milk the doctors ordered it for me and of course we cannot have baby in any way no no that my mind of a good deal of anxiety i don t in artificial for i am quite sure that they are a mistake she went on speaking in keen professional tones half the infant deaths that are solely due to that cause i un convinced of it and then too most of them are made so tiiat fresh milk is a positive necessity in using them in addition to the stuff that you buy in the ah you see i am quite ignorant of all that i said a little i did not even know that yoa could buy stuff in to feed babies on more is the pity that one can rejoined nurse murder in is what i generally call it the beginning of at last the evening before the sailing of the came in with the cheerful that everything was absolutely ready for our journey i t think dearest he said that things could possibly have fallen out and arranged themselves better as far as i can see there will not be	30
a for the entire i have got superb splendid creatures and luckily enough the very best saloon cabin in the whole ship you will travel as comfortably as a princess we shall have a perfectly gorgeous voyage and i expect by the time of our arrival that you will be so together that you will make me spend the whole of my leave tearing round london seeing sights and gay life tell me dearest don t feel better already for having made the effort and for knowing that you are really going home at last i was very weak very much in love and very young and i told him tiiat i did feel better whereas in truth i was by an awful of coming ill by a feeling that i was going to a strange from whence i should never return i felt somehow or other as if i had got to an epoch in my life one of those halting places on our mortal journey which we did not mark with a white stone rather with a black cross it is do to say that i never closed my eyes that night the last that i passed upon indian soil on the contrary slept like a top woke in the and most brilliant i feel be like a going home for the holidays nay i do not believe that ever even io my school days i felt so happy and so on the first day of my holidays as i feel this morning if i were not ashamed to do it i would go out and stand in the that and my hat thb of ht life into the air from sheer gaiety of heart ab for yon you little you take everything so coolly that yoa ant quite i don t believe you ate a bit glad that yon are going home at last even with me oh yes i am i answered rather oh yes indeed i am no i believe that when yoa find yourself just on the point of starting again for india yoa will feel exactly as i do to day i don t know if you are there i certainly shall feel i answered i am not so much happier because i am going home because home is nothing to me where you are is my home yon ought not to because i feel like that he cried when did i ever at you why my tee what is it what is this he had taken a from his bearer who came in at tiiat moment he tore it open and read it and i saw his hands begin to shake and his face as i had never seen it before i cried oh i i he cried i don t know how to tell you i q l chapter x a ship on an unknown sea i up from the long coach upon which i was lying under the and went across the room towards him what is it i asked he turned and looked at me oh my darling my how am i to tell you how could i foresee that they would be such brutes aa this what am i to do f you have not told me what it is my dear i am recalled to the regiment yes something is wrong the colonel to me all leave stopped immediately trouble on the frontier we may have received oar orders and marched out before you can oa do not delay a single moment he said if this had only come a few hours i have been beyond recall what am i to do i cannot take you back to cruel op journey with every day growing and when every arrangement is made for your journey it may seem to yon as if i had played yoa false you i swear to you that this is as great a blow to me as it can possibly be to yon don t send me back heart broken feeling that you have cat off your last chance of salvation don t take away the child s s the of my life one hope of living will stick to yon until i can join you i will make her promise me you are ill or well and yon will have you will have the child tou will pity me not to me this last of comfort what could i do i said ye it was for my good he had made every arrangement we were on the very eve of starting the eve nay we were on the very point of starting i had no time to think bo i said yes i had no time to grieve it seems to me looking back from now that my dazed brain refused to take in the full meaning of what that had conveyed i had not sufficient left to set my wishes in opposition to my husband s to those round about me i believe that i consented i feel sure that i did but it was a consent that was only wrung from me in the of my intense despair i let them do with me as they would i remember clinging desperately to him as if since we bad only a brief e an of time left together fewer hours than i could count upon the fingers of one hand i would not so much as an instant of the time no don t me to eat anything was the only definite request that i made to anybody i uttered no parting no farewell kisses upon him i was leaving i was too wretched to make any sign of my intense misery so those two or three hours dragged their short length away and my most distinct remembrance is of going through the great cool hall of the hotel to the carriage	30
which was to take us down to the i remember distinctly hearing a tender woman s a ship on an unknown sea voice say in pitying accents how veiy ill that poor young lady looks i suppose she is going home i turned and looked at her she was fresh and strong and bright evidently just oat from england she could never have known what a her words sounded to my sad ears going home i what a mockery going home i was i going like a ship on an unknown sea with the length breadth depth and currents of which i was all i was leaving behind me my upon life my commander my lieutenant my my one stand by i remember very little about my actual parting with e i have a distinct recollection that he kept fast hold of me a i long as we were left together that he allowed nobody to touch me but carried me himself on board the ship and that he carried me again down to my cabin i remember hearing him talking earnestly to nurse i mean that i was conscious that an earnest conversation was passing them but of what he said to her or what she to him in solemn truth i grasped nothing i believed that i was dying never before had such overpowering deadly taken possession of me i was of a sharp imperative rap upon the cabin door and of an exceeding bitter cry my my i and then i remember absolutely nothing all was utterly and entirely blank until i came to myself to find and bending over ma the one pouring something liquid and cold over my clenched hands and the other holding a scented handkerchief to my nostrils where am what has happened i exclaimed j the or ht then came to my aid and i my horrible oh let me go back i cannot go i never consented to go not i would rather stay in india and it is not too late put me shore let me go back i don t mind dying i don t really nurse where ia captain she looked at me with infinite pity my dear in a very kind and tender voice what you ask is impossible we have already started on our journey no no don t say that don t say it i most say it said it is true dear lady try to accept it as your fate and believe that it is all for the best your poor husband was bo anxious almost beside himself with anxiety his only consolation in leaving you was that it was for your good and to save the child see if i lift you up you can come to the window and have a last look at him i he is still standing watching us go she lifted me in her strong arms aa if i been no more than a little child and carried me to the i saw that the shore was fast receding but could distinguish no one rom the crowd of watching figures left behind small as the effort was it was too much for me and after straining my eager eyes for a minute or bo i fell back again into nurse s arms she was very good to me very wise very judicious she spent a deal of her vitality in trying to me up into something like life again and i am afraid that i was but a poor and ungrateful of all her skill and care i used to feel and to say that i should bless her if she would only let me lie still die quietly at which she shake her head and reply ah i but the husband would he on an sea me i don t quite think so if yoa are tired of him mrs he is not tired of you and i promised him that i would stay by yoa and stick to yon and do my best far yon and that is a promise which i mean to keep come come yon have got the of parting over try to the days now until yon meet again we shall never meet again i said one day when was me in this strain i entirely convinced of that how can i get well when i know not what has happened to him how i have the heart to think of myself when he is gone into danger on the frontier bat it may be entirely a false alarm for anything that yoa know that danger may be over and may follow yon by the very next ship keep a brave heart my dear and hope for the best hope on hope ever that is a fine motto for na all look at the improvement in that dear baby of years does it not make year mother s heart positively dance to see her taking her food and noticing people and showing off all her pretty ways instead of being the lifeless little creature that she was a week ago i don t think i said that my heart will ever again there is no dance left in it i have left all my joy all my hope behind me in india if i knew what had happened to my husband i think i should feel different bat the uncertainty the suspense oh it is too horrible i don t think yon know what i am suffering no my dear i don t for i have never been she said kindly but still in any case yon like to please him wouldn t you and you cannot please him better than by taking care of l z i c the ry of ht yourself by doing everything you can to restore yourself to your proper of health yon ought to think that if you are	30
suffering he ia suffering just as badly if not worse and if he has health and strength on his side he has all the pain of knowing that you poor little frail thing have neither the heart nor the strength to battle with your if you had seen his poor face when he had to go leaving you looking like death not knowing indeed whether you would ever come out of that faint or not oh you would have been so sorry for him you would set yourself like a to a task to get strong and well so as to be able to send him a cable the first time that we touch land come now tell me don t you think such a husband is worth making an effort for think what it would be to him if i could send him a word saying both decidedly improved why it would make a new man of him it would put a new heart new life into him he would jump for joy and be ready and willing to bear anything that might happen to come somehow her brave words did serve to put new life into me and for s sake i tried oh i had never tried so hard in my life to do anything to throw off the which threatened to me i made great efforts to get up on deck and there i lie for hours under the trying to take an interest in things that were going on around me i forced myself to eat and drink also though often it went sorely against the grain with me and with every fresh effort that i made did that dear and good woman do her utmost to comfort and to help me me and me as if i were doing something for her benefit rather than for my own sometimes treating me as you would a l z i c a ship on an sea spoiled child and sometimes making believe i was a rational woman with some hope in her heart instead of being merely a mass of broken nerves heart sick with despair under her strong care it was how i did improve both in health and in spirits i was lonely wretched home sick heart sick but at the same time i already begun to look forward to the blessed time when would join me or i should i had begun like a school girl to count the hours to the holidays i began to take an eager interest in the welfare of the child and certainly little grew and with every day that went over our heads how that good woman did me with odds and ends of food calculated to build up my strength again how is it i said to her one day that you are able to get all these things cooked at all sorts of odd times a woman of my profession she replied briskly understands the of the feather i never let my go without proper things to eat when they are to be had for the asking but are they to be had for the asking well practically they are i make a friend of the steward well first of all i make a friend of the captain then i make a friend of the steward and i tell him that i have a lady in my care who is delicate not ill you know oh no it doesn t do to tell him that passengers at sea are ill he would hate that but somebody who wants feeding up and little attentions and i get him to introduce me to one of the and then i explain to the cook what he knows perfectly well that sick cooking is a great trouble that every nurse ought to be able to sick cook beautifully do the or ut life it takes time and is too t a it always pay to call a cook a with a large of meals on his and then i am soon of a little and a couple of little and i have a little store of and and like which i without the valuable time of the who has so much responsibility on his hands and then i throw oat a hint that will be a sovereign for somebody at the end of the journey oh people are very ea to manage she said hut they have to be managed in the right way and then the poor patient has to be managed in the right way i suggested well the nurse who wants to her patient with food as you would a cow with medicine is neither more than less than a fool and ought to have her o some nurses you know she went on seem as if they cannot go into a house or into any kind of an establishment without trying how much they can do to upset all the domestic i un not one of that sort i like to see people when i go and glad if i trouble to show my face again afterwards one hears tales about nurses being badly treated i i never get badly treated i am sure cried you would never deserve it that is why i never get it now that obliging young below here he has given me two nice little one for things and one for things never once since we started though i have been down at least four times every day have i given him his back burned or not set to what do yon mean by being set to l a ship on an unknown sea well filling them up with water as soon as you have done with them it makes all the difference when a pan is done with whether yon pop a little water into it or not or whether you leave it to get	30
and hard she turned round and a who happened to be passing what is the fuss john she asked in her brisk pleasant capable voice he told her that we were just nurse turned round and looked at ma now i wonder she said in her brisk way i wonder whether we shall have a word from your good husband at all events whether or no we shall have the satisfaction of sending a cable to him by chapter xi mr of i did receive a message hy cable from my husband that day indeed as soon as we at ad i it seemed very short bat really it was as long as i could reasonably expect it said no frontier news all anxiety nurse sent off oar message to from this place she merely steadily improving it is no wasting money she said sensibly because we have no more information than that to give him and of course he will have a letter from you much earlier than you can have one from him i felt more after i had received s message because if things remained quiet on the frontier and the threatened were there was more than a chance that he would be able to follow us and spend at least some time with as in england i now that the of parting was over regretted that i had been as it were forced into leaving india it was plain to the meanest observation that the doctors had been right in saying that such a journey would be the making of me with every day i recovered strength and became less of an invalid i do not mean to say tiiat j l oo mc mt impressions of home i was well or that i was io anything like a condition of health bat i was not so terribly shattered and nerve broken aa i had been daring the few weeks i was able to take an interest in the child and to talk a little to my and to read write quite long letters to i to write lying in my deck chair upon a propped half on my knee and half the arm of my chair though i was only strong to do bat a few lines at a time so our long journey wore itself away when we reached nurse insisted npon my going on shore and taking a drive she also me into several and tried to arouse my interest in that way oh i was very much better i had been and after we got out of the and into tjie breezes picked up my in a most manner why nurse exclaimed to me one day when i was walking on deck captain would hardly know you i to think that this brisk lady is the death like little creature he carried on is almost incredible i i don t feel like a brisk lady i said no no but you feel very different to what did and you look a pounds better while that dear baby is already a perfect that was quite true and by the time that we reached onr i could not shut my eyes to the immense improvement which had taken place in my own appearance i was more like dear father s than i had been at time since my how well i remember my first sight of english the of mt shores of home the home for which i had longed so eagerly all my life what a strange fate it was that i should have come to it alone i had planned bo often in my childhood the home coming with my dear mother i had to come home with my father and both were lying asleep in their indian graves and would never see their native land again then i had been so resolute in saying that i would never return my husband and by what a accident i had been forced from my resolution and sent across all those weary miles of land and sea to seek health and strength upon the shores of my native land alone except for a little child who understood as yet nothing of the difference between one country and another we reached just at the end of october and after staying there for a single night went the following day to london on the whole i was disappointed yes intensely disappointed i had expected such a grand city almost that it would really be paved with gold i had thought to see great palaces and the broad and to see crowds of happy people up and down as i had been accustomed to see the people up and down the different in india and the was gloom or the of sunlight and shadow splendid cheek by with sordid tumble down dwellings beautiful horses and side hy side with and donkey carts b and each other and mingling with both strange painted women with manners us brazen aa their singularly hair it is horrible i to what a dread ht of home city what what what bustle oh i don t like this london ah yon will get used to that she said quietly when yon have settled down comfortably in hotel have had dinner yon will feel more at home and to morrow morning when yoa see sir os he will tell yon whether you ought to remain here or where yon should go for the best i don t like your london i said vehemently whatever sir says of my health i would not stay in the smoke the gloom the they are all detestable ah well it is the end of october it is the worst part of the year she said with the indifference of one who is evidently quite used to the general atmosphere see she said looking oat that is the national where all the pictures are it	30
is one of tjie finest squares in europe yes it is big but very dreary and all the people look like flies walking about i answered i looked out of the cab window i think your london is horrid i said don t judge too hastily said nurse with a laugh nobody sees the best of london on the day of their arrival from london is best the better you know it i felt but little better satisfied all the same when we reached tiie hotel to which she had me to go it was not a very imposing building but she said that they knew her and that i be extremely comfortable there also that it was very quiet and convenient for the west end i suppose it was all these things but i was not used to english ways i felt cold and wretched and made me feel still o the of ht life colder for she and shuddered and her teeth and when at last we got to the hotel instead of finding everything ready for na as we should have done in india we had to wait ever ao long before we could be with a private sitting room and even then they seemed to think that it was a most wonderful thing that i should require a fire you will not require fires in your madam said the smart who came to attend to us indeed yes i said indignantly in each bedroom and plenty of wood you do not understand how cold this climate is to anybody just arrived from india you shall have a good supply of coals madam said the with an amused look at poor s brown face and expressive eyes curled herself up to the fire as near as she could very well squeeze and lay there like a dog baby s little blue hands and her to take her milk talking to her in soft and wishing that she were in her native sunshine again oh how i did feel the cold the damp the thickness of the atmosphere and shall i ever forget my first experience of a london fog which put in an appear ance the very next day i nurse said it was a slight fog that it was not really very bad and that such an atmosphere as this was quite common in london during the autumn and winter months i it horrible i and choked and sat huddled over the fire feeling almost as wretched as poor looked my eyes and my nose was quite sore is it like this all over england i cried at last impatiently ht of home ko do thia is peculiar to london nurse answered you will soon get need to it i shall never get used to it i exclaimed indignantly oh yes you will besides it won t last i it will be quite gone by the afternoon at all events it is ten chances to one that to morrow will he a day but it was not gone by the afternoon and the next day was not in any sense indeed it was not until the third day after my arrival that i was able to go in a cab to keep an appointment with the great physician sir to anyone who has been accustomed to medical men in india or to doctors an interview with a great m is at once a and a revelation in one sense i was charmed with sir he was so bland so so kind bo bat he told me nothing or i should say he told me nothing definite he examined the child thoroughly and then bade take her to the fire in the next room and keep her warm i do not think he said as the door behind her that you need have any anxiety now about the child the voyage from india has evidently done great things for her as your nurse here says she is getting of an age when she must have care in feeding and i will write yon out a suitable for a child of her age and of her tendency to trouble with her teeth which i would have you follow as as is reasonable what i mean is this is remaining yon for the present yes then i need hardly explain to yon you o l the of ht life understand nurse follow the as closely as is under existing very good sir said quietly he then made a thorough examination of my and heart tapped me and sounded in every direction until i began to feel as if i must have every disease of the chest known to the medical profession nothing wrong i heard him murmur to delicacy heart not very strong lungs should have care how long are you staying in london my dear lady i told him that i waa staying only until i could gain a definite opinion from him as to where i had better go for the winter i don t like london i said decidedly i would not keep yon in london no not in london i would like you to stay s fortnight and i would like to put you on a course of medicine and of equally then i think it would be best to strike a mean between this climate and the one to which you have been used do you mean that i am to go to egypt t i said scarcely so far as that with a no scarcely so far i do not often egypt for my i have never known veiy much good result from a winter in egypt i much prefer several s on the you mean the south of france yea the south of france or italy i do not believe in a very climate now there is san but san is for people in consumption and i don	30
anxious about me and here was i about in buying new dresses it did seem hard him but i sent him a cable on onr arrival and whether extravagant or not i him another before i had been in london a week to say that i was better i wrote to him of coarse but i did not bee the good of his remaining for several weeks in an agony of when by spending a few shillings i could set his mind absolutely at rest without any delay whatever when i went to sir ny for the third time he told me i should be quite able to go to at the end of another week and that i might safely make my arrangements in accordance with that opinion i certainly liked london better than i had done at first but i was delighted at his verdict partly because i was so glad that he really thought me improved in health and partly because i well pleased at the prospect of getting out of the london atmosphere which tried me terribly i will write to the hotel at once this very day and arrange about our rooms i said to nurse as we drove through square you know i like london much better than i did but i shall be delighted to find myself in sunshine again i cannot think how english people look so well and yet have no sunshine but they do have sunshine s d nurse smiling they do have sunshine only not just at this time of the year in spring and iu summer london is lovely and people then because they have too much sunlight ah well i hke sunshine all the year round i shall be delighted to find myself at i cried she was silent for a minute or two then she looked at me half mrs she said you have relations in england l the life yes i have relations cousins and such like bat i have never seen them and i have never had any with whatever they the same as nothing to me but your husband he has relations he told me at the last moment just as we left that if i was in urgent need of consultation that is to say meaning if you should be dying or anything of that kind that i was to write or telegraph to hia mother or to his lord are yon going abroad without seeing either of them i felt myself all over have no desire to see either my mother in law or lord nurse i said quietly if i had been at any time in a dying condition it would of course have been for yon to out my husband s which were however meant only to be followed in of dire emergency of my own free will i never meet mrs my mother in law she has not been nice to me she has not been nice to her son in the matter of his marriage she is not a nice woman i have no desire to see her and i don t think that she has the smallest desire to see me besides that she does not live in london or near london she lives in i believe it is a very long journey tee it is a long journey but lord possibly he may be in london she suggested i have no wish to see lord i want to see nobody i am quite a stranger and alone pray do not say anything more about it nothing would induce me to go near any of these people i see she murmured excuse me for speaking of it pray i had no wish to into your private a it was only that i wanted to remind you that if we are going to fl ee in a week s time you have but little chance before you of paying or receiving oh that is all right nurse tou are most kind to me i cried i put my hand upon here because she had been so good so about me bo more than careful of my interests that i would not have hurt her feelings or have appeared to her for the whole world captain will not expect me to go near his people i went on you see th have not been quite as nice to me at least his mother has not been quite as nice to me as she might have been as for his sake she might have been i added and it will be time enough for me to meet them when he returns home by myself shall never go near any of them said no more on the subject neither did i the week went by sir expressed himself completely satisfied with my progress and on the day that we had originally appointed we turned our backs upon london and set our faces towards the blue waters of the i found all and indeed more than had claimed for it it was as she had said a of a place set like a nest on the side of a hill quaint little streets quaint picturesque houses hidden in groves of orange and trees bathed in sunshine and the most cheerful little place that i had ever been in the blue waters of the were an everlasting charm to me and used to herself and baby with every expression of satisfaction on her lips and in her du k eyes i the little hotel to which sir had recommended extremely and comfortable something more than comfortable he thb t bt or life had called it a little hotel but it was not in reality a very place bnt waa indeed a long low rambling building standing in a beautiful well kept garden and having and attached to it it was in one of these which communicated with	30
of was greatly disturbed by of an kind of low fever which seemed to be the entire district at that time of day had not set its seal upon the world but i have often thought since that surely did not in truth come from but from that particular neighbourhood of which was the centre i think we ought to move on mrs said to me one day when i was sitting out under the orange trees watching the child lying still and in s arms tes bat where shall we go i asked i will make inquiries i feel suspicious about this place i see so many children playing the t bt of my life tiie village who look as this baby looks not so definitely ill as and in two or three i have stopped and the mothers what the child always to receive the same answer an indefinite allusion to the fever as if was quite a common complaint among them i fancy there is something wrong with the and the general health of the i should like to move on the question is where i said anxiously i will make inquiries nurse in her definite and decided tones the result of her was to assure us that the only healthy spot for miles around was she appealed to the doctor and the doctor told her that many had been off to from the other towns and that had brought with them a certain amount of an indefinite kind of which was troubling the entire do yon think i said to him when he had given us this piece of information that i be wiser if i took baby to england or quite away from the because i am now well enough to live anywhere for a time at all events and she is the most important patient of the for a moment or so he did not reply i saw nurse look at him anxiously and with an indescribable manner which told me somehow that bis reply was a conclusion mrs he said in a low i don t want to you i don t believe in breaking down people s hopes particularly a mother who has as you have at present the sole care of a child an only child and other troubles besides but stricken indeed i cannot recommend yoa to take that child a long journey in her present state of health it is a very bad time of the year for travelling the child is exceedingly delicate and her system has been a good deal by this continued fever i don t think you would succeed in getting her to england alive and believe me to leave this place you would have to travel through districts which are far more seriously than i cannot advise yon to take her away just at present i mean this he said hastily before i had time to speak and if it were my own wife whom i were about our own child i would give to her the same advice that i am now giving to you you are safer here the child has a better chance here than she would or could have by being moved just at this then i said looking at nurse that settles the question here we will remain i she was a little disappointed there is no place higher up no place within easy reach she said looking at the doctor has the bill of health for at least fifty miles around he made reply mrs i wiu not hide from you the great danger that yoa i am your you know you must feel that i would not deceive you or lie to you for any consideration in the world but believe me you are safer here than you would be in leaving and the child has a better chance what could i do in the face of such advice as this it would have seemed like in the face of providence if i had done as nurse plainly and wished me to do that is pack up my and leave immediately i do not think although i was so much i the of t life better in health that i ha l ever felt so as i did that day i felt as if i had no will power of my own i felt as if i was caught like a bird in a trap like a fly in a spider s web i could only lean on these two strong natures and they were opposed to each other i wish said nurse when the doctor had taken his leave of me i wish that he had i like to get you away from this place i feel nervous and uneasy both about you and the child but the doctor gave chapter and verse i said to her he gave us good reasons i could not take upon myself to carry a sick child on such a long journey at this time of the year when the doctor had warned mo that it would probably be her death and he did nurse he was quite positive about it think what it would be in now with the east winds blowing and and shuddering and the poor child with of the lungs or something of that kind why she would not have a chance even if she got there no i would not take her to england but there are other places besides england to which we might have gone we might have gone over the border into italy and found some healthy spot where we should have been tree of this this which nobody seems to understand yes that is true enough i said if we had gone in the first instance hut as dr said we have to get through a large district that is much more full of	30
than you know nurse does stand high yes yes it stands high but i wish we stood somewhere else she said anxiously l stricken for a few days after this my baby rallied wonderfully and became quite bright a mother s heart catches eagerly at any sign of improvement in a child and i felt oh so gay so glad to think i had done the right in following the doctor s wishes so thankful so joyous i almost forgot that my husband gone off on an expedition of the danger and that we were by no means out of the wood yet you see nurse i said triumphantly the doctor was right she ia pulling up beautifully why look at her she looks quite herself again yes yes i was only anxious for your sake and hers and thankful am i to see the smallest sign of improvement in her mrs said nurse promptly there was nothing mean petty or about s character she frankly owned herself wrong and admitted the fact with cheerfulness and i no letter from by that mail in the papers i saw some small and meagre that a ce in expedition had been sent to r it gave no details spoke of it as one of those petty wars which are of no account and only laid stress upon the necessity of teaching the hill tribes of the district a sharp lesson which they would not forget in a ay but those sharp lessons often cost very dear to those who teach them i am afraid soldier s daughter and wife as i was that at that moment i would cheerfully and gladly have left the hill tribes of the district to do what they would so long as my nearest and dearest were out of reach i had often heard it said that women have no true that they have but a small the story of mt life love of that can never tlie detail of personal feeling from a general idea of and glory and assuredly i had none of these feelings and never could feel in sympathy with those wives of time who had urged their men folk on to doing great deeds against desperate odds i felt no pride that my husband had gone to the front on an exceedingly expedition and that he might come back covered with glory and and ey n with a title oh dear no i i would have all earthly honours and all the of history to have had him safe and sound even in fever little it was not many days after this that my new bom hopes about baby and the safety of all died out i said to her one day yon are getting and uneasy about something what is it don t keep me in the dark if yon have any news hy mind had gone instinctively out to the husband from whom i had not heard by the last mail tell me i went on have yon had news from don t keep anything back from me it would be mistaken kindness to do sa oh no mrs she replied i have had no news from india i should not keep it a moment if i had even if it was the very worst that could happen i am uneasy and nervous it is no use pretending otherwise since you have observed it they tell me that the fever whatever it is is very much worse and that itself is getting more with eveiy hour that poor young i is very ill they don t think that she will leave this place alive and one of her english nurses died yesterday stricken what i i exclaimed tea it been hushed up they don t want the people to know but she died of the fever it is like a e i have never seen anything like it in all my experience it seems to steal upon people to their strength and then they are gone like a snap of the fingers i cannot make it oat i have never seen anything like it the only thing to do with baby is to keep her in the hotel and the gardens don t let set foot the gates we know that the hotel is better than the in the village at least it is likely to be better in the usual coarse of things and we mast watch the child and you day and night after all she added it is a great thing that she is keeping as well as she seems to be what are the people in the hotel saying i asked oh the landlord is pitiable about it quite abject i met him this morning and i spoke to him of the dreadful state of all round and poor i the tears came into his eyes and he said it was a upon but he could not tell what had done these southern people are so superstitious she ended with a half smile but alas alas with all our care with all our oar hopes our we did not succeed in keeping the dread enemy at bay another week went by a week in which my little seemed to pale and and like a plant that is denied ht and water then there was a few hours increase of fever and we so widely different and i but all alike in our love and our anxiety stood gazing down upon a little form the of my life from which spark of life had fled for ever it was all over i had no child now i had done my best i had struggled through the bad time more for s sake and for the child s than for my own and this was the end of it i was a mother broken sick and practically alone npon	30
princess i don t indeed and while i can make such a difference to princess i would rather stay where i am than go out into the world among strangers again tou forget i went on i am not like who has a home to go to my home is thousands and of miles away if i went back to it i should be alone just the i could not go to join my husband no woman could get to the district where he is and if she could get there she would not be permitted to do so aa affairs are at present so that i am better here than i should be anywhere else don t trouble yourself about me i am happier here and therefore i think that i am safer ic from ah i she said with a sigh i that i could take you both away back to our home in it is bleak there in the winter that waa why we left it bat we have no fever i thought as the words fell from her that if they did not have fever they had other quite as deadly but it was of no use saying it so i held my peace if it would be any service to you to go there now to take your and make it your home she said eagerly indeed my dear mrs the castle is absolutely at your disposal only you would be alone for my son has been away for many months now upon a long hunting expedition truly i hardly know where he knows nothing so far of the trouble we are in i mean of the grave danger that his sister of course he knew that we were to spend the winter in that was arranged at the same time as his long journey was planned out i thanked her very gratefully for her kind thought but said that i preferred to stay in rather than face the loneliness of a place where i should know nobody and could not even speak the language of the people about me so i remained on in spending the greater part of my day in helping to put the time on the time that was so weary and so distressing for the dying young princess i heard twice from whilst i was thus occupied both letters written in ignorance of our little child s death both very full of the every day events around him speaking of the of making war against these like hardy tribes who had the advantage over the british and even the native troops as they were at home in the district the story of ht life both letters spoke of the extreme that they were and of the poor arrangements which the authorities had made for their safety and their well being if it were not for oar doctors wrote in his second letter i really do not know how the poor devils of would come ofl their devotion is beyond all praise and their something what do you think of the gay lady who was always around a regular squire of making beef tea and mutton with his own hands for his and yet i see him do it day after day i never thought had it in him he is a regular brick and no mistake about it the letter went on to teu how rejoiced he was to think that we his two precious were actually in europe safe and well and recovered from all immediate danger when i remember he ended how resolute you were in refusing to go away and how wonderfully it all came about that you should go in spite of yourself for you know dearest i could never have forced you to do anything against your will i can only think that a merciful providence to help os both at that juncture you don t know how often i have thought of your resolute determination not to leave me you will never understand how intensely i loved you for being unwilling to do so and i don t think you will ever how utterly grateful i am to think that you were made to go in spite of i feel that the providence which has watched over you and brought you and the dear child to renewed health and safety will watch over the fate of your always loving and devoted husband at the same time i do nothing i take care of myself i run no news only do that every time that i i say in my own heart it is for me would miss me i most h over myself for her somehow th t letter comforted me more than any letter that i had received from since our parting it seemed to bring him nearer to me true he did not know as yet that we were but i was comforted to know that he was always thinking about us as i was always thinking him put the same question to me every day have you news of your and when i told her that i had received that last letter of his that i had just heard from him that he was well in good health and taking care of himself her sweet face waa by a smile which told me as nothing else would have done that i bad indeed won my way into her heart poor thing she was so ill that day oh so ill so full of fever and yet so thoroughly exhausted my heart ached for her more than ever aa the advanced the severity of the slowly and surely increased who were able to leave had flown from the district but those who were unable to face a long journey or unable to leave from other reasons themselves like rats	30
in a trap not the worst of the fever stricken towns in the district but it was more than bad enough every day familiar faces disappeared of mercy went to and fro throughout the town and we who were in fair health were conscious without knowing the actual that an unusual disturbance waa abroad strange and the t et of mt life came to us of those who had slipped away to other and places who had been refused lest they should carry the fever in their train others who had fled elsewhere for safety had found themselves literally out of the pan into the fire had found themselves from a town with a comparatively clean hill of health in one which was a mass of and disease best to stay where you are was the of the doctor when i asked him aa to the truth of these i give you the same advice to day that i gave you when yon asked me the poor little child she had a ghost of a chance here not a great one but still a chance taken away she would have had none i say the same to you now take the that i g ve you and the precautions that i recommend to you and you may be tolerably safe make an effort to escape and you will almost certainly be caught as you fly but i had not the smallest intention of flying i felt that his advice was sound and good and as long as princess wished for me just ao long would i remain within reach of her i would like i said to him just one thing and that is mrs i would have liked to have got my poor back to india bat i suppose that is out of the question i could not arrange for such a journey here and at this time i suppose i shall have to keep her until i am well enough to go back myself tou will not go back to india at present not if my husband has any chance of coming over but failing that i shall certainly go back before the hot weather in that would be in l z i news may or april possibly i not over here if i were well enough to make the back again i suppose there is do help for me but to keep where she ia after all this climate is not like the english one for her and she has little or nothing to do in attending to me still i would have sent her back if it had been easy to arrange for myself i shall remain here as long as princess has any need of me she likes me to go and see her and she is wearing away so fast she cannot keep me very long not more than a few days the doctor replied gravely i do not say it to them although her poor mother knows what my every look means hut a few days will see the princess over her earthly troubles q l chapter xvi on tee dr s prophecy the proved to be absolutely correct only a few days after his with me on the subject she passed quietly and away in the presence of her mother the two nurses and myself the princess was wonderfully calm she showed no inclination to give way or indeed to give vent to her feelings at all i have been prepared for this for a long time she said as we eat together at the window of her which overlooked such a fair and smiling scene that it seemed difficult to that there could be in bo bright a world anything ao sad as parting and death i have done everything that a mother could do she could not have the storm she had suffered enough i am satisfied that she is at rest the holy mother who did not see fit to listen to my that my child might be spared when she is laid away to rest i shall leave immediately but where wiu you go princess i asked i shall go home it will be quite simple my son s is at nice and i have already ordered it to be brought here without delay so we shall avoid going through the badly districts and will go from here to the had you on the wished to leave i have offered it to you but it only arrived from england a week ago and at that time you had definitely declined all idea of leaving as long as wanted yoa now i want yon to resign into my hands the sooner you are out of this place the better do you go with to and remain with me until your husband you or until you have definite news of him that will be better for you than going to strangers and it will be the greatest mercy and kindness that yon could possibly show me you don t know she said you cannot think how i dread going home among my own people to whom my one was the joy of life and the light of their eyes she was worshipped at if i take you there and tell them how you at the risk of your veiy life helped to soothe her last hours gratified her smallest wishes did for her as no sister could have done better you don t know how they will worship you how they will try to repay you for your goodness to me and mine come you will not refuse me this last great kindness oh no i said but i think it is that the kindness is all on your side when you consider how i am how unhappy and how desolate until i meet my husband again why to be with you with a bond	30
between us will not be like going into a strange house it will not be like going among strangers it will be like going home some day perhaps my husband will be able to thank yon i can never do so properly nay she cried it is i who have to thank you not you me pray never again let me hear you say one word of thanks don t understand my child quite all that you have done for me we had a painful but vary quiet time to get through the story of mt before we could leave in days the last aad offices for the dead were very quickly carried out there was do time for as soon as they could be decently out of sight and out of harm s way the poor worn out remains of those who had died of the deadly which was fast the entire neighbourhood were carried up to the on the so on the second evening the princes s death she was carried out of the hotel which had been her last home on earth and laid close beside my little child under the rose trees and the blossoms in the sunny there was not the same profusion of flowers lying upon her as had been sent for my baby girl those who were left at were much too nervous too full of fear to trouble about those who had been taken i remembered that when they had carried my little child out of the villa in which she had died the landlord himself had been waiting at the door and that i had seen him salute the little coffin and that he had stood until it was out of sight when i held the princess s hand as we paced behind the daughter s there was no landlord to be seen where was the landlord nurse i said to nurse afterwards she looked at me with a very mournful expression poor fellow she said he died this morning oh you don t say sa and his poor wife she knows nothing about it his wife has been unconscious for some hours i don t think she will get over it who is nursing them well mrs she said we nurses are accustomed to carrying onr lives in oar hands aa l z i c on the soon as we had rested after the princess s death we agreed with the princess herself that we should take charge of the sick in the hotel we are doing so at her expense i don t think that is quite fitted to take up any more cases but she is very courageous and determined not to give in for myself i never felt better in my life and i shall remain here until there are no more sick to nurse or until i go with the others but you are going with as to no i am not i am coming after you to when my work here is finished no don t say anything she went on laying her hands on my wrists and looking at me with her wonderful direct steadfast gaze don t say anything i never turned my back on ray duty in my but it is not your duty your duty is to me no you are not ill and you have who can do anything that you want you will be safe enough once you are on board the i will come to you as soon as i have got through my work here it was no use arguing with her my arguments had never prevailed with nurse and i knew that they never would she had made up her mind to remain in fever stricken aa it was she had promised to come out to as soon as she was free to do so that is to say as soon as her conscience had declared her free to do so and with that promise i was fain to be content so she left me and took up her brave way by herself i never saw nurse again shall never forget her as she stood at the gate of the hotel garden watching us go she looked so brave and strong and fresh so self and so placid the most like to the of any human being that i the of my life had ever seen i shall write to you i have time was her last farewell i shall turn up again in your life like the bad shilling naught you know was never in danger and yoa will send on any letters that come for me nurse i oh yes most assuredly it shall be my first care do you think i would let you be disappointed of a letter from him by so much as a single no no i with yon and i you and love yon too much for that tou shall have your letters all right tou have written to tell the husband of your plans oh yes of coarse i have done that i cried half i have done everything i could think of during this morning i have left as little to trouble you as i possibly could by the bye nurse you never told me how it with madame poor soul said her face falling poor soul they have not been parted very long i don t know who will carry on the hotel or what will become of the children but i shall do my best for them you mean that she is gone yes she has gone and mrs she drew me on one side if you have the chance of shipping that of yours back to her own country again you had do it she looks to me very pinched and strange if i were you i would get the princess to stop at and i would just put that lady	30
on l the first f and boat whether you find her a or not i would send her back again without the delay of a single steamer you don t think that is i don t think looks well mrs if i on the were you i would send her home again you will quite readily find a european maid to you and she poor will not be really well until she is back in india again i think that ia everything i have to say to you no don t kiss me it is kind of you and i love you for it i have loved you very dearly since i have been looking after you very dearly but i will kiss yon when i meet yon in i will you twenty times then if you will let me to day i don t think you would be any the better for it so i will ask you to say good bye to me without it he came to the side of the carriage talking and cheerfully all the time and with a last promise that when her work was done she would come straight to she bade as her last farewell as i said i never saw nurse again i never saw the brave grey eyes the firm smiling mouth or felt again the of the cool capable bands of that noble woman whom we left behind in fever stricken nurse never her work there on the contrary the work finished her but here i am running on a little too fast to go on with my story as it all happened the princess and i within a hour and a half of leaving the hotel found ourselves on board the n which waa lying a mile or so from shore in harbour i first set foot upon her clean white decks i felt as if a new life had opened out before me a strange sense of safety came rushing over me and yet my eyes turned instinctively back to the on the where the princess and i had left behind na the dearest and sweetest tokens of our earthly pilgrimage the of m life well it was no use looking back no use there were those on earth to think of to live for to consider i away to see poor wretch leaning over the side of the vessel her black eyes fixed little s grave her slight frame shaken by sobs her face with grief i was to go across and speak to her when a touch from the hand of the princess stopped me better leave her alone she murmured happier are those who can weep yon and i have no team how much better we should be if we had by and by when she was more calm i sounded her as to the of our asking the princess to call at that she might be transferred to the first p and o boat and conveyed back to her own country to my intense surprise she implored me not to send her away declared that she did not feel the european climate in the least that she was practically and that she had no desire to go back to the very few relations that she possessed it will be time for me to go back to india when you go she entreated me with the tears streaming down her face don t send me away by and by there may be another and then you will bo glad of poor who loved with au her heart don t send me away she cried it is bad enough as it is what could i do it made do difference to the princess whether i took with me an an english maid or a french one there was no difficulty onr for the princess s was made out for her entire and she did not trouble to explain to those who had d the important looking that i was not the princess or that was not the english nurse whom she had t j on the into her the of people was the same and in those of almost universal scare that waa more than sufficient so we went on towards the not on our way hoping that we might have a clean bill of health that is to say that we might have passed the of days without any outbreak of sickness which were necessary ere we could touch at any port without having to undergo a long we had arranged before leaving that we call for letters at but without attempting to land which was just as well for we should not have bees permitted to do so but we did contrive to get our letters and a of english papers sent out to ua among the letters was one for me from complaining bitterly that he had not heard from me for several i know of darling he wrote that all the arrangements out here are just still when i miss hearing from i am always desperately anxious and uneasy if anything goes wrong i would rather that you sent me a cable i should have a better chance perhaps of getting it than of receiving a mere letter so he did not yet know of the child s death something had gone wrong and i at sea in a that was not permitted to touch at any port excepting to receive letters thrown to us in a bag at the end of a rope had no chance of the news that i had to tell and what would have been the good i made up my mind that i would send him a message from where we were to stop and where we should be comparatively free if our bill of health was dean yes i would do that but when we got to i had no	30
as soon as he knew for certain that he had orders for the on the other hand the princess continued holding my hand fast within her own here am i a desolate woman clinging to you with a bleeding heart fuu of affection that you should be taken away from me i entreat and you to give the rest of your life to me you have a son i said to her oh my dear yes i have a a dear dear good kind and only son but when you come to be my age when you come to be of the companion of eight and twenty years it is not your son who fills up the whole of the gaping wound men do not fee things as women do excepting for their wives i know that when louis hears the news of our great loss he will be cruelly bitterly wounded but he is a man he is yo he has the world and his life before him his deepest interest in life is yet to come it will not cannot be to him what it is and must always be to me he travels he he has interests in a dozen from which i am entirely cut off his grief will be tor a time mine for eternity it is only human i do not blame him better son and brother q l a widow never lived but he ib a man it is women who grieve always i am perhaps thinking most of myself when i ask to cast in your lot with mine and to take my s place to let me in some measure t e the place of that dear gallant brave soldier for whom your heart is broken to day if mine were a gay bright house full of young people full of life and stir i might have hesitated to ask you to share it as it is i feel that the bond between us two is out of our and our great what do you say what could i say i had no money i had come almost to the end of my small store by the time that we left i had drawn out of the bank the last of what called our emergency money just over three hundred pounds at the time of my little s death thinking that i might have need of it to go back suddenly to india and that i should feel more safe if i had it in my own keeping than if i had in that plague stricken village to wait for funds even of that i had used some madame i said to her do you how poor and how i am i have no money oh well under three hundred pounds which is so little that it hardly i have no friends no relations that i know of i am quite alone co you what it is you are asking me to do i am asking yoa she said in her voice to come to me as you are to be my dear adopted daughter to try and forget with me the cruel and bitter time through which you have passed and are now i know that it will be long that blessed state arrives for yon but where do you think you will find anyone who will understand so well do all those cruel pangs which are tearing your heart the of mt ufe at this moment come say yea me something bo live for give me something to let my broken mother s heart itself around and let me find my most blessed occupation in trying to bring the happiness of forgetfulness to one who did for me what perhaps nobody in all the world could have done in my desolation my loneliness my overwhelming grief i consented and gave myself and my life into the hands of one who seemed to be more like a saint than anything in n form than any woman i had ever known during my whole life what happened afterwards is speaking more or less of a dream to me i have said that i had no tears when i had once consented to become the princess s adopted daughter seemed to surrender all my will power into her hands indeed i had no longer any will of my own i wished to have none she did with me as she would and as her instinct and her wish was to get back to we our journey without any further interruption or without breaking it in any way i asked no questions i felt no impatience at the length of the time we had to spend in railway carriages i no preference as to food and was i think only saved from mental destruction by my extreme youth and by the fact that i was able to sleep as soon as my head touched the pillow in due course of time we arrived at the castle of i had known of course from the style in which they lived at and from the size and beauty of the that the must be a rich and powerful family but until we drove in to the great of the castle i had not in any way the splendour o a widow of the princess s home and what s place it was t a castle why it was a palace and a castle in one arrived at nightfall and it seemed to me from the rows and rows of twinkling lights which flashed on all sides that we had come to a town la this the village i said to the princess no my dear child this ia the castle she replied this great place i exclaimed bat surely these rows of lights are not all own yes certainly these are the castle lights of course she spoke in quite	30
an ordinary tone somewhat tinged with and evidently the spectacle was an one with her i thought you dear child she said that was a rather large place i do not think that i anything i replied i have never any such place in my life who are all these people those are some of the servants she answered some of the servants they came out with and in and greeted the home coming of the not with load of welcome but with rippling murmurs of sympathy the princess was very pale and was visibly moved she spoke to one or two of the white headed stately personages and passed at once holding my hand the great entrance there i found myself in an enormous hall lighted a great echoing chamber with a stone roof whose white walls were hung with great and of the chase there were more servants and there more of welcome and subdued sympathy the princess walked to the great hearth and there j the of she stopped before an elderly m a who by his ance and dress vas apparently the head of the household to him she spoke in i did not know very much of the language hot i had enough knowledge of it to be able to follow her she said i wrote to you telling yon of mrs the english lady who was so very kind to our dear princess whom you and i and all of us loved so dearly mrs has had s great loss since my saint was taken away her husband a gallant english soldier has fallen in an engagement with some hill tribes far away on the frontier of india she is alone in the world and i have persuaded her to come to me and be my dear adopted daughter will you make known to my people that mrs will remain here that she will live with me and as far as possible will take the place of princess i shall expect the same attention and courtesy to her as was always freely and willingly given to my daughter i can never repay her for her past kindness but i shall regard any attention and any kindness that my people show in the future to mrs as an act of kindness and attention given personally to me to my surprise the major for such i im ned was his position dropped upon one knee and raised the hand of the princess to his lips then he stood up moved a step towards me knelt to me also and paid me the same act of homage i had never felt so strange in my whole life my english instinct was to say oh i get up i please don t do that again but when i saw that one by one all the principal servants came forward and repeated the graceful act i perceived that it was bat the usual custom of the a widow house and that if i meant to live and with these people i must try to introduce no must take my cue entirely from the manners and customs of the stately and dignified of the little ceremony of home coming over the princess took me herself to the of apartments which had ordered to be prepared for my reception i have put you in a of rooms quite near to mine she said to me not her rooms those i could not give up even to you but they are quite near both to hers and to mine see this is your your own private room into which nobody will come without your express invitation e yourself dear princess i broke out ah my dear i shall hope to come here very often but at the same time you must remember that i have my in my child s favourite apartment this shall be your and the more you ask me to come to it the more assured i shall be that i have been able to bring some measure of happiness and comfort into your young life this she said opening a door is your dressing room and this your bed chamber and that room beyond it is a chamber for your aa she spoke she led the way into the little room she will be very warm her see she has only to turn that stove on or to make the room as warm or as cool as she likes do you think she went on as if she were anxious to aa little about my surroundings as possible that your will prefer to remain with you for the present i think so i answered she is like her mistress a lonely soul she has no near relations and of her distant she knows little and the strange of mt life cares to know less i think that all the of her life was npon my little if she wanted to go hack to india i would send her back at once hut until she expresses a desire or until yon plainly ask me to send her away i would like to keep her she is the last link my past she understands my ways she understands me i have nobody in all the world except poor who can talk to me of the happy days that will never come back again i have nobody else in all the world excepting princess from whom i can hope to receive any joy and comfort in the time to come tou are very wide apart you two the poor ignorant superstitious native woman and the high bom powerful rich noble lady and yet said the princess patting her arms round me and holding me very close to her and yet in spite of the difference between us we have one great bond in common we are three desolate women q l chapter xviii in a gilded cage	30
after this there b to be nothing for me to do but to sit down and try to get to my new life as had fallen oat it was of more merciful for me that i waa taken away from all connection with my past and set down in a totally new existence everything was so strange and so new the of every day life and food the the atmosphere the religion were all alike somehow i never felt as if it were really i who that stately of apartments overlooking some of the most wonderful scenery in one of the most picturesque districts in europe i never felt if i were myself looking hack i do not think that i grieved very much i have an idea that i waa too much too by my losses and by the extraordinary lifting of myself out of the life that had been mine to really feel the grief which most loving wives feel for the loss of true and devoted husbands i used to walk and move and eat and sleep as if i were in some strange dream from which by and by i should wake and say oh i have had the most curious dream i ever had in my life i i have been in a strange world a new life and you were not there i then again at times the fancy would come over the of mt ufe me that there had never been that past that it was but a dream time up out of my own imagination a curious sensation that i had always lived at that i had always been the s daughter used to possess me and yet i had never seen her son and i was called i do not think that i was mad at that time but i do think and believe that my brain was bo dazed and so bewildered so with what i had gone through by the losses i had sustained that it had lost the power of working in an ordinary manner and yet from time to time there came upon me a full of all my sad and yet my happy past there was a of english papers locked away in the drawer of a wonderful to which i sometimes tamed that i might satisfy myself beyond all shadow of doubt that there had been a husband that there had been a little child that there had been a past that the past was over and the husband and the child were gone and then i seemed to that there was no doubt about it there in plain english in the cart and cruel language of tm official and despatch was to be read the news of my s death it came under the heading of the expedition and said captain died of his wounds at daybreak yesterday in the last paper of all i had found some days after i had reached an announcement which the princess and i had overlooked on first receiving the of newspapers we regret to say the paragraph ran that lord whose son the h edward was in the r expedition was seized a stroke of by in a cage on receiving the news and expired last evening aged sixty three years so my lost link with my s people was broken lord had been the only one of all s who had in any way maintained a dear and open about me with the exception of course of the dear boy s and great i had had it in my mind that i would write to lord and tell him of my grief and of my sorrow at his great loss to speak of my affection for his son and ask for of his death bo far as he might know them that paragraph of coarse put an end to that intention there was no other member of s family to whom i cared to write indeed my strongest desire in my bitter of sorrow was to myself and completely both from them and from every other of the from them with the exception of the late lord all s people had practically ignored me as a wife as a widow i would henceforth them apart rom this motive i had an almost morbid wish to keep my grief to myself to share it with no one and nothing but the most urgent reasons would have induced me to write about my loss to anyone least of all to s mother or sisters as soon as we had settled down at the princess had ordered for my benefit a fall supply of english newspapers and for myself i would almost rather not have had them for they were but so much more pain and grief to me and personally they gave me no pleasure for there was no news in them which had any interest for me with papers it would have been different still it seemed so to want anything different to the t bt of ht life wliat she provided that i said nothing and to them over when she happened to be in the room which we most frequently that she might see that i was apparently interested and pleased by the attention which she had shown me in having ordered them i suppose that a couple of months had gone since our return to when on looking over the times one day i caught sight of the name of it was but one of the ordinary from the e this particular paragraph ran rd sub lieutenant st to be lieutenant vice the honourable edward deceased the news did not specially interest me it was but an additional pain to come across any mention of the familiar name and only served to remind me again of the cruel loss i had suffered i wondered in a vague kind of manner	30
who had succeeded my husband in the and who had come in for the title probably some distant cousin whom i had never seen or heard of and should never meet in this world well well i had thought once that i was a too i was a now in nothing but my legal name and those whom i had known and those with whom i had had communication were all dead and gone i never told the princess of that last discovery she fancied dear sweet woman that she was that i was getting over my great sorrow she fancied that i was in a measure forgetting my sorrows or if not forgetting them that i was at least contented in my new life how was she to know that i was wont night after night night after night to sit in my beautiful spacious rooms going back over the past in a cage wandering round and round like a bird in a cage crying like s i can t get out i can t get out and yet knowing in my own mind that i had nowhere to go nobody to whom i could fly that if i broke away from the bond of her kindness i had no refuge no plans no hope was ever any poor girl so utterly desolate before i think not somehow in spite of all the love and care which the princess upon me the stately magnificence and serenity of the life at seemed to me i had been used to plenty of like all other indians of position but the troops of and at oppressed me there was so much pomp so much ceremony about everything that we did if we went for a drive our way led us among who seemed to exist only for the purpose of giving age to their lady it was wonderful to me that the princess was aa her daughter had been so remarkably simple in her personal tastes and manners for she seemed and indeed was a veritable not by her own will bat according to the manners and customs of the people over whom she ruled owing to the princess s very deep and my own we were naturally extremely quiet in our life indeed we lived so far as society was concerned in almost total to me it was a life of heaven knows i had do desire for but there were times when i would have liked to have seen people who did not when i would have rejoiced in stiff knees and straight backs it was the princess s natural atmosphere this atmosphere of homage to me it was and yet what could i do she clung to me desperate the strange story of life affection and she said to me one day you are tired of place don t like oh yea i replied not speaking oat of sheer pity for the hunger in her sweet eyes but it is a life that i am not quite used to princess it is a life to which i have not yet grown accustomed i think if i might have a saddle horse and ride every day that i should feel more like myself i have ridden all my life i wonder would it be possible for me to get a riding habit anywhere near here my dear child we will send to for a tailor at once oh but that would be such a trouble pray don t think of it i said choking down the but wish with s self sense of my own base ingratitude but the hint had been good enough for her within a week a tailor arrived from and i was measured and fitted for several riding habits each as would be suitable for almost any temperature tou should have spoken before said the princess when i half reproached her with me too much the horses are there doing nothing what is one more or less or a riding habit or two if will make you happier it is a very simple matter i have spoken to them in the stables and i find that there are two english horses broken to carry a lady they are at your disposal from moment so i found a new distraction in my life and for a few weeks i was vastly thereby but even horse exercise did not fill the awful want and gap in my life no i rode here and there through the lovely scenery over the great estate into the neighbouring is a cage towns followed by a groom and sometimes i even to go by but i was not the better for it i was for my old life for those i had los yearning for my freedom the freedom that would have been no me to me yoa will be more happy when comes home said the princess one day to me i had not i that i was looking a little dismal or shall i say a uttle more dismal than i know that i was feeling more dejected and more lonely and forsaken than i had ever felt in all my life before yon will be better when comes he will not be long now the princess went oa i heard from him his morning while yoa were oat he sails from cape town to day i had no especial interest in this of whom she spoke bo oft and of whom she had such great hopes yon see i had known anything of foreign races all the men that i had known in india had been englishmen of the same class soldiers and high officials and the men whom i had seen in and did not commend themselves to me by comparison with those to whom i had been i had an idea that prince be like all the others that i had seen with his hair standing ap	30
on end like a brush with a fierce moustache trained to a hideous standing oat three or four inches on either side of his face square toes and high heels aad a wide black silk tied in a bunch at his throat they were so different to the class of men whom i had known before they seemed to do everything well they were very polite polite to a degree bat i missed the frank look the pleasant free th j the strange of life air of which the voice and manners of your real english in i did not look forward with any anticipation of to the home coming of prince indeed i scarcely felt pleased when the princess told me that the ways of the house would of necessity he changed with his arrival it is six months now she said since onr great and although we shall not go in for entertaining not as we are in the habit of doing when my son is at home he will have many here for the hunting and shooting it will certainly make life more varied for you less dull less monotonous oh yes it will he very when louis comes of course i had no idea of what she was accustomed to think as ordinary entertaining but it seemed to me that the preparations for the prince s were of the most troublesome and lavish description the whole place assumed an atmosphere of and expectation and that in itself was to a certain extent to one who was as thoroughly bored and depressed by her as i was not a little to my surprise i found that the princess s wish and her orders were chiefly that there should be as little of sadness as possible in her son s home coming they were always such friends louis and my angel she said to me when i gave some hint of my surprise it is bad enough for him to come home and find her absent to find her gone he has had his grief it is useless to try to re open a wound which must be a wound always to both of ns wish everything to be as bright as possible that he may feel joy in his return rather a sadness which can do no good to anyone z i c in a that is why i am making yoa noticed when we came home in the first flush of oar grief that the people altered no shouts of welcome you do not yet my dear the difference between a welcome and a reception when i heard all our people murmur as they first saw me i felt as if my heart would i do not want louis to feel that i want him to feel that he is coming home only that is coming to a home not to an open grave q l chapter xix louis what struck me the most of anything in connection with the home coming of prince was the extraordinary self control which the princess put upon herself ab the day and of his arrival drew near her excitement became intense painfully ea she was not like the busy who has to sore of her own knowledge that every preparation is complete for the welcome home of a dear child she had but to issue her orders that such and such things should be done and she might have been aa positive that they would be carried oat as if she had merely ordered a pound of tea at a shop yet she was not satisfied to leave everything to her people all that day she wandered in and out and apparent at least twenty times did she go into her son s rooms to make quite sore that nothing was wanting that he was likely to require ton have seen louis s rooms she said to me at last no i have not seen them i answered come then with me perhaps there may be something that you will be able to suggest she said eagerly louis i knew quite well that i make no tiiat she knew her son s tastes better than anybody in all that great establishment that i a total stranger could not be of the service to her in this especial way but i went willingly for it was plain to see how painfully and excited she had become the prince s rooms were just like any other of apartments in the castle large airy chambers furnished with the same attention as all the they were with flowers and all the were set open to the lovely august air i was most of anything struck by the fact that the view from the windows was perhaps the least beautiful of any that i had as yet seen from the these are not the rooms in the house princess i said to her no you are quite right they are not but chose them when he was twelve years old he used to have your rooms he took a fancy to this i could never tell why and he would never change them they have remained almost is your like princess v i asked standing in the middle of the sitting room and looking about me with some curiosity oh no not the least like he is like his resembled my people yon will think it strange that i have no portrait of my son but he has never been taken in his life that is one of his little he has promised to be taken that is to say he has promised to have his portrait painted as soon as he is home again just to add to the portrait gallery for no other reason he never been we could never induce of ufe him to be taken since quite a little he had the greatest to	30
any of the kind i think she went on if there were not bo a line of behind him that he would not consent to have hia portrait painted even for his family picture gallery his ia a singularly character nobody would ever think he was the head of such an important house as the family of i do not know that the a words gave me any real reason to think so but in a moment my mind the picture of a man of extraordinary i went out of his apartments with an idea firmly fixed in my mind that the prince was probably one of the men ia the world and therefore i was prepared to find him when the actual hour of his arrival drew near in one sense his home coming was less picturesque than ours bad been we had arrived late in the evening to be received with and blazing lights on every hand he came in the soft mellow light of a august afternoon we had come in carriages while he came driving an english coach and four they are come let us go out to meet them the princess cried holding out her hand to me i would have drawn back so as to leave the mother and son to meet alone but there was evidently no such idea in her mind and i had of course no choice but to go with her as she wished we reached the great as the coach swept in under the huge leading to the a moment later the four coal black horses had drawn np with a great clatter and dash and the prince had swung himself down to the ground l louis my boy the princess exclaimed my dear i liked him he first moment i saw him there was nothing stiff or stately about him he was quite different to his mother he caught her in his exactly as an englishman would have done and kissed her at least a dozen times held her away the better to see her then caught her to him and kissed her again then he seemed to remember that there was a face near which he had not seen before and this i is mrs he said to me and speaking in good yes this is mrs my dear said the princess taking my hand again the prince his head mrs he said taking my hand and then raising it to his lips i am indeed to meet yon i have heard something of the great debt which my mother owes to you it shall be my endeavour to return your kindness so tar as it is possible for me to do so nay i said choking down a great lump which rose in my throat the princess owes me nothing the debt is all upon my a dr you do not understand prince all that your mother has done for me he lifted my hand to his lips again we will agree to differ mrs be said with a very fine air of courtesy he tamed with a singularly polite gesture and drew os both together as it were into the house and then there followed one of those stately scenes as had greeted us m our arrival to him it was evidently as to bis mother the habit of their life that their servants should treat them in this semi royal fashion but the strange of ht life to me accustomed even as i was to the of indian existence it beamed to watch all the bowing and which was evidently nothing ont of the common with them i had the while this was going on of seeing what my hostess s son was like he was not at all like what my fancy painted i had him by the pattern of the men that i had seen since my at but in truth he was very different to any of these in height he was tall and in figure he was as english looking as any of the men to whom i had been accustomed his hair was cut quite close to hia head but it grew in a peak and was of a rich ruddy brown his eyes matched it in colour and were brilliant his nose was straight and inclined to his mouth a genuine with the moustache small and carefully trained away from the lips it was a face head and figure of fi at power i mean of great physical power in years i he might be two and thirty indeed i found afterwards that that was exactly his age he was dressed quite in the english country gentleman s fashion and beyond the head had nothing whatever of the foreigner in hia appearance he wore one or two heavy rings and a little pearl pin in his tie a single pearl such as you frequently see wear instinctively i contrasted bim with the man who had my beau ideal of manly perfection i did not wonder that the princess was proud of him and devoted to him he attracted me and he me he bad tiie manners of a prince and a something which told me that he might under some circumstances be a he struck me as having s pride and extreme simplicity ia an large degree it to me that he was a capable of depth of feeling with a something of cruelty where his wishes were directly he was the first man of quality that i had seen since i had parted from my dear love in far away india and by comparison with his he suffered in every degree i was almost sorry that he had come home and yet my dear princess looked at least a dozen years younger from the mere fact that he had come that evening we passed alone just we three we dined tt precisely in	30
the same style to which she and i bad been accustomed since our coming to there might have been one or two more servants waiting but that was all the difference was made then we from the great dining hall to the princess s favourite room and passed the evening quietly together sing mis the prince inquired i shook my head half but the princess made answer for me oh yes louis she sings delightfully she sang to during those last days it was the greatest joy and to her do sing to us i could not veiy well refuse i told him that i had never had the opportunity of learning to sing very well that i had been all my life in india and that i was by no means proud of myself in respect of that accomplishment z do many things much better than i sing i said to him the of mt life he laughed good he supposing that you let me hear this poor of yours and leave me to judge for myself i am sure that anything you do you most do well i have heard already what a wonderful horse woman you are and who told you that asked the princess ah i heard it it waa the first news that greeted me that the english lady rode every day and well my did not say like a hut something as nearly equivalent to that as you would expect from a person who does not know the meaning of the word i suppose told you said the princess yes it was si he has a great admiration for you mrs i am sure i ought to feel very much flattered i remarked i have thought sometimes that had a very poor opinion of my powers you are quite mistaken there of that i can assure you but we will not let a opinion for or against your powers of interfere with your singing i saw that there was no getting out of it so i went to the piano and sang several songs and although i know i did not sing them really well they had the effect of drawing him the room and of keeping him chained beside me until i declared that i could not possibly sing more there was i not right does she not sing d the princess exclaimed more than delightfully said he with a bow to me when we parted later od for the night he took my hand and raised it to his lips mrs said i offer yon my homage i bade him good night almost and went hurriedly to my own apartments i can hardly say or express what i felt i did not think that he admired me particularly he had done nothing said nothing looked nothing but what was in strict accordance with the usual politeness of his race and yet i had a feeling for the first time that my had been assailed my loneliness on i bad for the first time a feeling that i was no longer a thing apart from other men by grief from all approach to those and which are the of of the heart i did not seek my bed for but sat up thinking of my dear lost love weeping and longing and yearning for what no time could ever restore and in the morning i made my toilet with such a white face and with eyes set in great purple circles so that the moment the princess saw me she uttered an exclamation of surprise and dismay my dear i she exclaimed you are ill i am not very well to day dear princess i replied but why what has happened yesterday you were looking so charming so unlike this yea i i did not sleep i do not always sleep i said to her don t say anything about it i shall be better by and by what else could i say could tell this fond mother so rejoiced in the return home of her child that the very sight of another man had brought back my own loss to me with ten fold force no i the strange t bt of mt could only toy with my breakfast pretend to eat and drink pretend to talk and take a deep interest in the eveiy day life around me and feel that i had gone back a step not bo much that i had been foolish but that i was in reality grown accustomed to my great loss than i had had any idea of ton ought to go tor ride the princess tou know that a ride always takes away your when they come i do not care to ride to day i replied the prince broke in eagerly mrs he said i was on the point of asking you if you would honour me by letting me ride with you this morning i think you told me mother he said turning to the princess that yon wished me to drive with you this afternoon we have a little e to make he added turning again to me ton will go with ia of course no i said that they meant to go together to hear a mass for the repose of the princess s soul i would rather not i think said she that if anybody has the right to make such a pilgrimage in our it is you i would rather that right i replied i am not feeling very well i do not think that i could bear it i should be happier knowing that you and your son were alone at such a time please do not ask me to go with you i saw that the prince was about to speak to speak with some eagerness i turned from the princess to him you know prince i said it is not	30
quite an unselfish wish of mine i like yon and the princess have had my troubles since she and i first met i have not yet l i louis in any got over them or ceased to feel them it would be most painful for me to go to the chapel with this afternoon i b on to excuse me and to let me stay here by myself if i were of your religion i went on i would go as one of my dearest duties to jn y with you for the soul of her whom you he looked at his mother it must be as mrs says as she feels most inclined he said in a gentle ie yes but do you take her out this morning with you louis it would be good for her i have seen her look like this before and it always me terribly my dear i know that you will enjoy a ride you have ridden so often quite alone i have felt oh so sad to see yon start out by yourself or with only a groom it will be a pleasure to louis to accompany you a pleasure to me to know that you are gone with a companion so say that you will of course i had to go in that i had practically no choice and prince and i less than an hour afterwards rode away out of the together q l chapter xx a casual question the of prince life at became quite different to the and stately existence which the princess and i had passed er since our return from in me way it was very different to what the had led me to expect i had gathered from her that her son was entirely devoted to every description of sport i found him a regular stay she had told me that they would not be entertaining largely on account of their still deep and therein her was justified by the events which followed but she had also led me to understand that her son would have many men visitors for the and shooting i found them conspicuous by their absence i think during the whole of that that only three of the prince s intimate friends came to stay at tiie castle nor did they come for very long visits the prince both hunted and shot with tolerable regularity but when his mother from time to time sounded him as to his intention of including his friends in his he always put her off with a carelessness which while it completely deceived her revealed to me much of what was passing in his mind q l a casual question ib de to yoa this autumn louis the princess asked of him one day i don t think so i have not asked him but he always at some time daring the autumn well i have not seen him i have not heard o him or from him since i came home the prince replied but don t you intend to him no i don t think so you intend to have anybody here for the shooting she asked in a tone of much astonishment i don t think so at least not more than one or two he said colonel is coming for a few days colonel he is english i listened intently i too had the of the familiar english name and my heart came into my mouth and my blood began to dance from sheer excitement at the prospect of once more seeing one of my own yes he is one of the military at the british the prince replied i met him at the s last year a very fine shot a very handsome man quite the best type of englishman that i have ever met with it would have seemed curious no doubt to this mother and son but a of resentment shot through me why they spoke of englishmen as if to find a good specimen of the race were on unusual and rare occurrence i i forgot for a moment that it was more than probable that they regarded our men very much as i regarded on tbe whole by the of hy life and who else is coming louis the princess went on dear soul knowing nothing of the tumult raging in my breast a man i met out in he replied a man called de and who is he the princess asked he was out there on very much the same errand as myself we up rather up said the princess does that mean what does that mean louis i could not help laughing and the laugh perhaps saved me from any further feeling of resentment mrs can teu you said the prince smiling it means i said to the princess that they became comrades quickly and perhaps on little grounds that they became intimate in quite a short time oh i see i never heard the term before it is very curious up can we be said to have up we could i replied hut i don t think anybody would be likely to use that term for no it ia most exclusively a man s term or for very young girls to what we oh i see yea then we up but we do not call it up eh precisely so princess i replied and we said the prince in an as his mother rose from the table we have never in any sense up no prince i replied somehow i don t think that we have ever quite done that little incidents like these were always happening a casual question i don t know how it waa that the prince and i failed somehow to hit it off with each other we went a great deal tc ther because the would have it sa she would have me ride with	30
her son and many and many a time did i bitterly r that i had ever mentioned riding as a favourite exercise of mine but we never became intimate for one thing i had always in my mind sense of belonging to somebody else the sense of my the feeling that although my husband was dead gone quite beyond recall yet that i belonged to him i had always the sense that although i was living under prince s roof in a measure sharing his life eating bis bread or his mother s for after all what difference was there between the two yet that he was not satisfied with things as they were that left to himself he would have placed our intercourse a totally different footing to the plane upon which his mother and i had first placed it i don t quite know how the knowledge first to me that this man loved me yet before the season of christmas had come i did know it and i knew it with a certainty which left my mind in no possible manner of doubt i knew that i could have married him at any time and indeed that he was only kept from proposing to me by my attitude towards him it was an exceedingly difficult situation for me because i had no possible reason having once permitted myself to take the position of the princess s adopted daughter for being on other than intimate terms with her son i was not prepared to go ont into the world to my good for i had nowhere to go nobody to whom to turn and i the strange of life would not have wounded the s feelings for any consideration bo that i only trust to a certain reserve and of manner both wholly to me for off a crisis whidi seemed to be inevitable and yet i was most not in any sense to wound the feelings of my good friend and protector by seeming to slight her son when we three were together so there grew somehow to be two one who talked and laughed and sang and played and tried to put off all the pain and the sadness of life the that might be called the home bird and there was another one who rode and walked and lived an out door life with a chill air of and reserve which was wholly at with the manner and appearance of that other one the princess never knew the and except in his mother s presence the prince never knew the domestic of the same name once indeed he spoke to me about it why he asked are you so different indoors and out of doors i do not know that i am i replied which was absolutely oh but you are he declared when you are out with me nobody would know yon for tie same bright and companion whom i find in my mother s why should you be so different to her and to me because i said i feel very differently towards yon but why do you feel differently have i ever since i returned home done anything to offend you mrs oh no prince not the least in the world j a casual question i said with a i make an e for your mother s sake to aside all my own and my own sorrows i do not make the same effort for i wish that you would he said wistfully i felt that only hy the greatest and care oa my part should i avoid a declaration there and then prince i said i feel that i am going to say something which you may think i live in the past i cannot alter myself in that way what yoa ask is quite impossible were you then so fond of him he said scarcely above a whisper yes i replied i was something more than fond of him i adored my husband i cannot be gay except to make an effort for one who has been through terrible trouble and who has always been most good to me for some little time he rode on in absolute silence then he suddenly leaned over and pat his hand upon my horse s mrs he said you are my mother s dear and guest more than that her adopted forgive me if i have said anything that has pained you you know i would not do so for the world i wish for your own sake that you felt your loss less bitterly i wish for mine that yon did not feel it at all as things are i must be content we won t speak of this again i had never liked prince so well as at that moment his words struck me as so full of of real courtesy that i looked up at him and instinctively held out my hand towards him prince i said we cannot help our hearts we women which is why we men love you so was his the op my life we got oa much more happily after that i think he expected and perhaps i gave more at all events oar when we were alone together was less constrained more to use that phrase which had bounded so odd npon the princess s lips more in fact even the princess noticed it you are good friends with my son she said to me one day with a curious wistful expression npon her delicate face oh yes princess ton like him oh yes certainly very much indeed he yon i hope bo was my cautious i not like to think that your bon disliked me that was not what i meant she said and then she turned the subject and began to speak of other things it was christmas time before the promised visit of colonel	30
brought him to several times the princess had asked news of his coming mr de bad actually come and gone and one other gentleman an nobleman whom i liked as little as i should say he liked ma prince told his mother that colonel had gone home to england for his long leave and that he would come to the first week that he was free to do so the visit eventually resolved it into a two days affair colonel giving the very reasonable that he could not possibly get away for a longer time i was rather that they invited no other guests to meet him and i expressed as much to prince a casual question well we have had other people here he answered but asked me to let him come o as we are in ordinary he knows of course that we are not actually entertaining or visiting much and he is like all other good shots he has do great love of a big shoot and small blame to him i say for i think a big shoot is the most terrible bore ia the whole world evidently then this colonel wished to have the entire glory of the shooting to himself and i don t know that i thought any less of him for that he arrived daring the afternoon just as the twilight was deepening into night what was he like oh well the kind of man to whom i had been most used in my early days a man in the very prime of life four or five and thirty a soldier all over a gentleman to the tips of his fingers polite good to look upon not over and above blessed with intellect perhaps and yet endowed with no small store of worldly wisdom i bad seen so many of the same pattern the first sight of his good tempered steady face and grave eyes served to send me back back from this stately castle this kind of existence to the days when i was and could and dance and sing with the best of them ah dear his presence was pleasure and pain to me but mostly pain of the two sensations i saw bat little of during the first of the two evenings that he passed with us their was brown bear and their talk was of httle else i excused myself from singing for them and for once prince was not keen on my with his request for music we all went to bed very the of ht life and when the princess and i appeared in the morning the two men had been gone for hours nor did we see them again until we met at dinner they had been fairly in their and colonel was highly elated over the fact that to his had fallen the only bear which they had come across i feel yon know he said that you gave me fellow by right he really belonged to you ah that does not matter said the prince i wanted you to have the chance of him when yoa come back again to finish your visit i will exercise my full rights as you had only the one day s sport i wanted you to have everything that there was to have and you will come back again t said the i greatly like to do so princess colonel replied ton see i could not hope to get more than the two days leave just at this time and after i have been home for a long spell to england but later on if i have the chance and your charming invitation is renewed i shall come with the greatest of pleasure to try my lack again i un sore that we all be said the princess kindly and perhaps we shall have a larger party to meet you that has been the charm of the whole thing said colonel there are so many big shoots where one is one of a crowd and not the most important one at that be added with a laugh there is like being the one for absolute enjoyment i am delighted that yon think so she said for a casual question s i fancied that yon would find ua extremely doll but of course louis knew your taste i did not get off quite so easily that evening as i had done the evening before colonel was to leave on the return journey at midday and therefore was not especially to go to bed in good time as he had been the previous evening mrs said the prince you will sing something for os to night ob no don t ask me to sing i cannot sing i replied speaking quite under my breath dear do sing something said the princess mrs sings delightfully only she ta so foolishly retiring about it she will have it that she is not worth listening to and really she sings oh mrs said colonel do let us you i protested hat i did not sing as a general rule that i had never had the opportunity of learning to sing well and that i much preferred not exhibiting my want of in public but this is not public he said and i really do not think the princess would ask you if it did not g her i am devoted to music oh no i don t understand it the in the world but i love to hear it do gratify us i had to do it of course yon cannot make a fuss aod refuse when people will persist in asking you to do some particular thing so i went to tjie piano and did my bent i do not think said colonel when i had declared myself quite unable to sing any more for that evening that you ought to tell people that yon cannot sing because you	30
sing very j the of mt and delightfully and yon ve your hearers much pleasure if i had ever been taught singing i mean if i had ever been taught properly i said carelessly i should feel more assured perhaps but i have lived all my life in india and really have not had the chance of studying or anything else as i would have wished that is my only reason for being so extremely modest about myself well i should not tell anybody that you have lived in india and now that yon are in the way of really good teaching why don t yon take it ap and work at it for a year or so that would give you confidence as nothing else would da talent is much too good to be wasted believe me it ah that is very kind of you colonel i said i have not felt much like studying anything since i came to europe but your suggestion is good i will think it over princess loves music and it would please me if i could give her more pleasure i think that you would please everybody he said and then he asked me a which served to make my very heart stand still i suppose he said from your name that you belong to the family q l chapter xxi on colonel asked me whether i belonged to the family he and i were sitting quite apart from the and her son the prince indeed had just left the room and the princess was at the farther end of the apartment with some fine and delicate each as her soul loved i felt that my face had to the very lips but i contrived to answer him as steadily and as as if his words had not awakened within me a rash of thrilling memories my was lord s nephew i said simply oh really i i thought of coarse it most be the same family i never heard of any other did know lord i asked no i never met him i knew bill of the rd an awfully nice chap he was he was killed as of course yon know out in one of those indian let me see the r district was it not yes i replied and my husband fell at the same time he was in the same regiment don t say so i dear dear how very sad i i the of life had no idea that bill had a cousin not in the rd that is to say of course i only knew him casually i mean i only knew him in london not as a soldier he was a nice young fellow he had not been out very long had he oh no quite a short time do yon know the present lord no he said i don t know him at all i have been so very little in england since i have been attached to our here i fancy that it was quite a distant relative who came into the title but when one does not know a family intimately it is surprising how ignorant one is of its various branches and i too i said tou may think it veiy strange that i know so little of my husband s family but i was married out in india and i never saw any of them excepting his cousin who would have been lord if he had lived i had to come home alone for my health and that of my child whom i lost at just before the death of the princess my husband was coming home with me but he was recalled for the r expedition at the very moment of starting from i never saw him again so you can understand that him and losing my child as i did i never cared to seek out any of the family after all they knew nothing of me i was a perfect stranger to them and i do not want to see any of them it would be too painful too dreadful pray if yon meet this lord at any time don t tell him that you came across me don t tell any of poor bill s sisters that you have seen me they take no interest in me and the knowledge of their very existence is a pain to me if my husband q l time goes on had lived or if even bill had lived it would have been different he my good friend my s they are both gone and all the happiness of my life went with yon me oh yes mrs i yon perfectly don t talk about them to the they do not at least they have of their own the princess has been an angel to me if i were to live for a thousand years i could never repay all the kindness and care and love that she has me there is nothing or rather hardly in my power that i would not do for tiie princess but i have never talked much to her of my husband it would seem to her if i did that i was for all that she has tried to do to keep me from for my old life so please do not speak of the family or of my past to them either now or if you chance to be here again i will do exactly as you wish he said i quite understand you you are intending to remain here mrs oh yes i suppose sa the princess chooses to look upon me as her adopted daughter you may become her daughter in reality he said half hesitatingly i think not i think not please don t suggest such a thing don t keep an idea in your mind my loss is so recent my grief so new	30
that even the sight of an englishman such an i an as those to whom i have been all my life accustomed the very knowledge that an english soldier has been under the same roof with me for a few l z i c the strange story of mt life has brought all the back with a pain that is absolute of course it is natural that you think certain events might happen bat if you knew how the bare idea of it hurts me you would never think of it again there please don t say any more the prince is coming back as the prince crossed the room towards us colonel changed the with an ease and dexterity which served to put my mind quite at rest and then we three went and joined the at the other end of the room between that time and the moment of colonel s departure at noon the day not one word of a private or personal nature passed between us two and yet when he bade me farewell there was something in the clasp of his hand which said to me as as if he had spoken it in plain words don t trouble about what we were speaking of last night i quite understand you and will carry out your wishes to the letter i was alone in the when prince returned from seeing his guest off at the nearest station he came in his hands together and complaining bitterly of the cold i am afraid that will have a terribly cold journey he said drawing a chair to the open fire and spreading his fingers to the warmth of the fierce blaze from the great logs of wood piled upon the hearth yes it does seem very cold i replied i saw that the dogs refused to go with you oh they are sensible fellows i would have refused turning out for any other reason tell me mrs he said leaning back in his chair while two of the great hounds who had followed him q l ma does on s into the room laid a wistful head npon either knee how do you like my friend oh i liked him i said i thought you would like him he is a typical englishman of the class yes he looks very english i admitted you know he said in a shame faced kind of way i was half afraid of his coming here but why i exclaimed well yon will perhaps think me very silly but i thought it was just a chance that he might make yoa feel dissatisfied with your with my i said looking the room how that be well he is your he is english he might have given yoa a yearning to go home to go back to england to he among english people again yon know we sometimes forget that we are foreigners to yon at least we are apt not always to remember it i don t want you to remember it i said no on earth have been more kind and good than mother has been to me or indeed than you have always been yon ought not to say these things prince yoa make me feel that i am wanting in appreciation you me and that i would not do god knows for the whole world i he rejoined earnestly it is as i say perhaps foolish of me to feel as i did about s coming here but when one wants a thing very one is apt to think the whole world wants it likewise i wish that yoa would not say these things to q l the t bt of mt ufe i know do i never meant to say it i never meant to speak again but tlie very sight of your a for yon in every way waa too for me oh prince i don t talk nonsense do yon think we fancy eveiy man we meet is in love with ua fancy that every man with whom we chance to under the same roof for a couple of days is a probable or possible husband t oh indeed you wrong us if i were a romantic girl i might have each ideas in my bead ton are a young he persisted tes i am in years only twenty old but so old in feeling some people yon know live an existence not a life some people go from beginning to end of their time and they never love they never love at all they never know great or great joys they might almost as well never have been bom but all are not like that and i although i am still have lived both in joy and sorrow till i feel like an old old woman do yon think he asked after moment s silence that yon will always feel the same i think sa i don t believe when men and women have passed through great storm and stress that they can ever again become as placid as they were when yon once feel old i doubt if you ever grow to feel really again but don t yon think he said wistfully that it would be very dreadful to husband if he know that life was given up to a desolation of regret i have never thought of that i returned simply on if he really and truly loved yoa he went on don t a think that he would rather you were happy even if yon were not quite so happy as you had once been than that you live out the rest of your life practically alone i could not imagine my husband wishing me i repeated with a certain feeling of outraged dignity to marry again he was so prince that if it would me happier i know he would be the if he	30
necessary to the of my story to give detail of the life which we lived at that time we as the were accustomed to do with every luxury that money wealth and position could give each day s doings partook of e nature of a excepting when we were actually at sea when we i ths e t bt of mt life entirely dependent upon the of the s company for and the moment we came within reach of land oar whole days were with and sight seeing each evening s dinner was a and when in port many came to join ns at that meal after dinner we and dancing and in all these i was tiie honoured place of daughter of the princess i often to that a perfect stranger coming in among as would hardly have known except by my speech that i was not really own it was wonderful to me how she seemed to have got over the loss of the princess i hinted as to her one day when we were talking together npon a kindred it happened that i had been suffering for from a violent headache one of those semi from which i had occasionally suffered during the whole of my the rest of the party had gone off to visit some a few miles inland from the port in which we were lying bat the princess remained with me and when in the cool of the evening i was relieved of the pain and was able to rise from my couch i went ap on deck and joined her where she was sitting under the gaily striped which protected us from heat and mist alike there sat in deck chairs and she to me with fresh and fragrant tea dainty cakes and fruit yon really are better the princess asked me oh yes dear princess my headache has quite passed away now i am only so annoyed that you of the have stayed at home because of my being oat oe yon not to do it it does make ma feel so uncomfortable my dear i could not have gone off for a whole day leaving yon alone and ill after all what is a day s to me i am not like the people who cannot bear to a sin e it has been more to me to stay here with you that is so good of i said gratefully only it makes me feel so selfish and so troublesome to yon yon would have stayed with me would you not she asked laying her hand upon mine and looking at me with her sweetest smile yes but the case is different i am to do things for you that are not necessary for yon to do for me it would be most unkind if i were to leave you feeling even a little dull but that yon should sacrifice yourself for me is preposterous or it seems so to my mind at all events my dear sometimes you talk great nonsense i she said again and surely she had the sweetest smile in the whole world at all events i stayed and i cannot undo the day s work now so it is useless to talk about it any more yon are enjoying this trip dear child she asked me with a change of oh yes i have enjoyed it more than that i have done since i came to not more than you have in life she speaking in a very indifferent tone and looking away over the horizon as she no not more than anything i ever did in my j the of ut life dear i replied that be g too but certainly more than anything that i have done since i came to europe she said speaking in a very low voice and keeping her eyes averted from my own tell me one thing i not pain yon dear for he world bat tell me are yon getting a little mom to your existence yon were a little more used to it i said but not reconciled she persisted for a moment i did not could not answer princess i said at last do not think me ungrateful or fault finding or but i do not believe that i shall ever be really to my life as it is tell me she said eagerly is there nothing that we can do louis and i oh na you have done so much you have won all the love that i have to give all that is left of my starved heart you could not do more for me there are some things which no human being in this wide world do for me don t think that there ia anything more that you could do dear princess my more than mother never in this world was a stranger taken in and cared for and loved and protected as you have cared for and loved and protected me i am not ungrateful i have tried so hard not to seem to indeed i tried not to do so i have tried to believe that it is all for the best and it is only when you ask me outright whether i am really reconciled that i allow myself to think of the past at all we cannot shut the right out of our lives out of our hearts and our memories you have not forgotten the dear daughter yon left alone in under the orange trees and the rose the of the net it sometimes to me as if yea have got over her bat i know by myself that yon have done so and then there comes some chance word which tells me that your memory is just as keen and regret just as bitter as on that sad day when we left together she her breath with a short gasping sigh oh	30
yes yes yoa are right she said yon are quite right there are times when i smile and laugh and try to enter into the young life that is going on me partly for s and partly for yours and sometimes not a little because i feel that it would make my girl so if she knew that i was and for her but i have not i have not ceased to regret oh no i how could that be and yet dear princess i said you ask me if i am ah my dear you don t quite understand you are so young and i am so old oh no princess i broke in so old in some ways dear i feel sometimes as if i were ninety instead of being only five s women are comparatively young at that age barely middle aged i feel old old but with you dear you are a girl still and the young forget they foi life would be if the young and uie very old felt things quite equally and no relief came to them it is we people in middle life who feel the most keenly the young have a chance of fresh happiness the old i mean the physically old who are almost done with this world very often feel that it is no use dwelling upon their troubles that the of death are only for a day or as your english poet puts it a going out of this room into e t bt of the next but we who have not onr who have to look forward to twenty or thirty years of dead blank want heart we are the ones who suffer and suffer the moat deeply i feel sure that some day she yon find the flowers of your love bloom again on the grave of your past sorrows i hope i hope so you may be right princess i said not looking at her but twisting my rings round and round my fingers yon may be right but i do not feel like it now i have got over the horrible yearning to get away from everything and everybody about me i have got over die feeling that i must wake up one day and find that this has all been a dream and that i have never been away from india or from him but i am a aid that my heart want is just the same as it was and nothing on this side of the grave will ever fill up the blank that he left and yet said the princess significantly there may be other hearts as loving as faithful as true other hearts that as yours does have you no pity for any such i don t know i don t feel that there are such hearts for me but i think she said in a veiy gentle voice that i could tell yon of one don t tell me i to ke in don t tell me princess i not know it my dear don t you think it is best you should know it that you should face the that you should to build up the fabric of your life and if you have lost the h happiness of all tiiat yon should try to give that happiness to another who has not yet found it l the of the net for a few i did not not speak dear i said at last may i speak plainly to you assuredly then don t speak of this again to me don t when yon been so good take away my one of refuge from me and make my life which is almost contented and happy for both of us i won t pretend that i do not know what yon moan that would be foolish but i do bo dread having my life yet once again you could not understand i think how much i have been the victim of strange circumstances in my past i seem to have been taken up right out of my life and thrust down without any will power of my own into a totally new existence among new scenes and among strange people this has happened to me twice already when i was first married i knew nobody that my husband knew not a and yet no sooner did i go into this new life than the old one was swept absolutely and utterly away i have told you have i not how my dear father died immediately after my marriage so when i to europe i stood out oh so stoutly against leaving india without my husband but it was of no avail i came as you know alone not one that i had known in my past life was there about me excepting poor ignorant who is more upon me than i upon her to whom i am of much more use than she is to me much more use and support yet my whole life was once f ain and i was taken up and cast down in a strange among those who knew me not as if i were some child of fate some ball of chance with whom the gods were playing as they would don t yoa understand how i dread that this should happen the e of ut life again and that i should be taken up and flung heaven whither but my dear child said the princess yon have it in your power to make so that you need never fear that such a change could happen to yon ain i thought once before i replied i thought when i married my dear husband that i was safe for the rest of my life and yet in a few months all was t away from me husband child home position everything	30
decided that we should spend the of the winter months on the that we should explore the south of italy and if we felt so inclined go further and take a run along the african coast i inquired of the princess what g were best and likely to be invited and whether there be any of the some friends who had accompanied ns on our eastern she told me that tiie prince had already invited several of his men friends and that he was rather she a certain italian in the party otherwise louis is quite indifferent as to what ladies axe asked if the de our invitation i shall ask two ladies whom i know she and with whom she is good friends and won t you ask that charming madame de i inquired ko i think not dear louis did dislike the daughter so much but she is so extremely pretty i protested tea i thought her very pretty and accomplished and charming and all that but louis disliked her immensely he begged me not to ask her this he declared that she quite spoilt his trip so that of makes it quite out of the question that she should be included again i am because madame de is a very agreeable woman and always seems to be in the right place under whatever circumstances you find her it is a pity that her daughter has not more of her natural manner and however there it is and of course i cannot go against louis in this respect eventually the did join our party which was further by the two intimate friends of hers of whom the princess had spoken both charming married women who took full advantage of the situation the was even more successful than the one to the the e t r of life had been so successful waa it indeed that although we were bound to go back to for the new year the princess and her son having faithfully promised to be with their people at time we all assembled uie cold days and made the owe home some weeks longer then we went to and once more to and in the october we found ourselves settled at for a spell of at least three months by this time i had grown quite accustomed to the life which i lived with the i will not bay that i had in any sense forgotten my past or ceased my regrets for the husband of my youth or the dear love of my whole heart oh no does one ever forget one s first love one s only great love i think not bat i was very young and one cannot go on feeling the same of grief for ever time if it does not actually heal our heart does most assuredly keenest and i with no feeling of in my bosom with no desire to re people the blank chambers of my heart yet had come to a an interest in the events of life i did enjoy beautiful scenery i did in fine music i took an interest in my appearance and a pleasure in my wardrobe i had in a great measure lost the dreadful feeling of age which had so oppressed me on my first going to when i sang to please those who wished to hear me it waa without the great which i had made in the beginning when was going on i danced like any other woman of my age from sheer love c tiie and the pleasure of my feet to the of the music which reached my ears l z i c rest ain daring those three months at a stream of guests came and went from time to time i had never been one of a large party before yoa see my experience of english life was very small almost indeed to nothing i had heard a great deal from my husband and from english ladies whom i had known in india of the joys and pleasures of country life i had never known it for i think it would have been hard to find any english house party where more trouble was taken to promote l e welfare of the various guests than was taken by princess and her son for the and amusement of those who came to stay at the castle was such a palace of a place so vast so filled with luxury and for the entertainment of a great crowd of people their acquaintance was so large and their place in the world so bi that they were able to command the very best in the way of company as well as of service all that was best and brightest in the world of european fashion and wit seemed to find ite way to during those few months i had constant hopes that the attractions of some fair lady would prove too much for the peace of mind of prince alas he remained faithful to me and certainly prince was not without many of marrying he might as a matter of fact have married anyone he was one of the most eligible matches in europe his age wealth position and birth all to make him sa he was a favourite with women they liked him because of his lack of his simple direct to say nothing of the proud z i the of mt life which he have been to bestow upon hia wife but they spread their for him in vain he had beautiful manners and he was very polite but unfortunately he was too polite for anything approaching to that sweet intimacy which frequently serious love he did not actually propose to me again and only once or twice was he betrayed into letting me perceive clearly that he still was not without hope that one day things might be different between ne at last we	30
in the world possibly could be i do not mean to say that i was of any importance for i was not and i never myself with any different idea but the were a family of almost position upon whose nod the woe of tiie population o several very large districts depended prince spoke to me one day about his mother s state of health he said to me suddenly when we were oat riding and were miles and miles away from the castle what do you think of my mother what do i think of the princess why how do yon mean i mean of her health oh i think her health is extremely delicate i think she will have to take great care for a long time to come yes but do you think that care will do all that is necessary how do you mean on the what is candid of my mother s of health i think it is very bad does that mean that yoa think she ib going to die he pat the question exactly as if he had been to do ao for a long i don t know i replied it was i did not know and i did not like to think i don t know either he looking bard over bis horse s head i don t know either but one cannot help thinking and i have been thinking pretty oft lately that there is a look in her eyes which i do not like i too i a far away kind of look she was always more of a saint than a being that she has been ever since i can remember bat she never looked so heavenly as she has looked daring these last few months have yoa too noticed it yes i have noticed it prince i replied almost my be said i don t want to disturb yoa bat has it ever you tiiat in the event of my mother being taken away relations and mine most of necessity be altered i don t see why i replied you would not be able to remain at ob no i i mean you would have to make a new home for yourself yes i know that not hy my wish yoa know you o s the stout of know what my wishes are and have always been we could not fly in the face of the world of the whole world jou that oh but need we think of before any necessity arises that we should discuss it it is always best he said quietly to be prepared for any emergency that may arise i have found it so and my experience has been by watching the lives of others as well as of my own yon would be sorry to leave oh yes and to leave us yes undoubtedly i should be very sorry then why he said can you not make up your mind to here for always to in the one position which will be the position of my wife you know he went ou that i think in this world would give my mother so much pleasure as to know that yon and i had to an with each other a thought flashed into my mind that we had come to an understanding with each other or rather that i had come to an understanding with as n but it was one of those in life in which quite plain speaking was almost an impossibility i could not ut my eyes to the fact that he was paying me the highest compliment which lies in the power of any man to offer to any i could not shut my eyes to the fact that probably not another woman of my age in europe would have hesitated to accept the proud position which he was able to l offer and was then offering to me it was not only a position it was a loyal and faithful love which had borne the test of nearly three years lack of encouragement i have been very patient with you he went on because i felt that your life had been so that a hasty or impatient word of mine might not only undo all my wishes but give yon what i would not give yon for the whole world an of pain but nearly three years have gone by since i first hoped to be able to win back the sunshine to your heart and the real smiles to your lips i cannot shut my eyes nor can you shut yours to the fact that my mother whose presence renders your position here possible and is in an delicate state of health she may be taken away at any moment i cannot wait until that arises to as it were force myself upon you and take advantage of your natural reluctance to go into a world that is to yon and to form fresh ties for with your heart sore from the loss of your best friend i am not taking advantage of my position as host your willing host grateful for the privilege of being able to stand between yon and the world i say i am not taking advantage of that position it is from a feeling that yon shall not be taken by surprise later when yon are less fit to discuss such a on that i have allowed myself to speak dow but i do ask yon to that i have been for nearly three years absolutely at your feet i won t attempt to compare my love with tiiat of the man whose name yon bear i neither mine nor his but thk of life i if he knew the in which ore placed and if he really loved yon as much as i do and your to h gives me no reason to	30
it that he would be the to advise yon to counsel yon to listen to me i cannot understand any man with a real love for his wife who would not if he were taken away from her prefer that she be sheltered and from a hard world by a man wh e love was as great as his own will yon promise me to think over this during the next few days i did bo promise i had no choice and i told him that i like to go home let ns turn back i said in a measure you have taken me by oh prince i went on and i turned and h d out my hand to him i don t know what you must think of me i must seem to yon so ungrateful and so hard but it is not that which makes me hesitate but truly it is because i have never forgotten my first last dear love whom i left broken hearted far away in india i feel as if i never could put anybody else into his place don t think me or perhaps if i had seen yon first i should have you best but he was my husband my love i gave him all my heart and i do hesitate both for his sake and to give you what is left of my life because i could never oh not if i lived to be old old give you the same love that i had and still have for him nay he said quietly i don t ask that i don t expect it there was a time i mean a time when i would have said that i would be all or nothing to the woman i loved hut that is gone by this love of mine for you possesses me so complete on the threshold that i would and gladly take yoa on any terms short of their terms of di i don t mean that i would win yon hy a trick no has ever descended to a trick of any kind not in the whole history of oar i do not mean that i would take yon for my wife if you showed me or distrust or hatred or fear but you have none of these feelings for me oh no i cried hurriedly you like me if yoa had not met that other one you might have loved me as yoa loved him he is dead i would not say a word against him for the whole world i would not say one word even in the faintest of bim and besides that i have never had sympathy for any human being as for that dead husband of yours because he loved yon and i love yoa but when it becomes a question of being eager and and glad and willing to have yoa for my wife with no more on your side than a feeling of liking that is different i would rather have your liking than the love of all the other women in the world so yoa see it is no light love which i offer you will think it over won t you yea i said i will think it over i can promise yoa nothing i most think i don t believe i went on hurriedly that i can say yea yoa don t know what an it to make to my mind to even contemplate a change if i say yea it will be as much for mother s sake as for it will be for both rather than for mine i know that it is hateful of me to say this but it is true as my dear adopted mother s son i like yon and respect yon and admire yoa z i c the of ht life prince but i do not love a it ia no letting you yourself up with the idea that i might come and lay my in yours and tell you that i love you i don t love you the least little int in the world i like you nothing more it is not that you are not nobody who has seen what a son you are could feel that but yon do not touch me perhaps i ought rather to say that all my power of loving to have died to have been dead within me before i ever saw you it is only a dead heart that i have here touching my breast not the kind of heart that ought to be given in return for such a love as yours i do not try to excuse myself i do not try to it over it is something i cannot help something for which i am not responsible perhaps if my husband had died in my presence i might have felt differently by this time but he has never seemed dead to me it has always been to me as if he was just out there in india and i must get along without him as best i can until we shall meet again my reason tells me and has always told me that in this world there can be no meeting no coming together again bat i have that feeling that if i go out of this world as he left me that i shall find him somewhere or other i have lived for that and in that hope all these three weary years supposing that i were to marry you to say yea to become your wife and you ever reproached me that i did not love you as loved him oh i should kill myself but i never should so reproach yon he said gently and yet in a tone of deep conviction it is the last thing in the world	30
that i should dream of doing i could not reproach you with what you had warned me previously would assuredly happen i ask yon on the threshold for no love i do even ask you for on immediate answer i only wished for your own to lay before yon clearly and distinctly and certain which may arise very long i want you to think it over for my sake whom you like for the sake of my mother whom yon love and most of all for the sake of own welfare though i know that you think of yourself last and least of anybody in all the world i bent my head and presently myself to say that i would think over all t he had said to me carefully and in truth i had never liked him so weu as at that moment there was something bo manly and so brave about him so unselfish and so considerate that my very heart smote me that i could not love him aa he deserved to be loved by the woman of his choice we rode back to the castle almost in silence not referring to the serious subject of our conversation at all and when we reached the great entrance we were met with the information that the princess had had a very serious of and that the servants had sent in haste for her doctor they told ns that she was still in the the doctor not having it advisable to move her even to her own chamber and who is with her asked the prince the servant told him that the doctor was still in attendance upon the princess and that he had given orders that on our return we were to go in as quietly and in as ordinary a manner as possible i will go in without changing my habit i said because the princess is so accustomed to that that she would notice it if i stayed to change my things i therefore went straight to the where i found the princess lying back upon a large couch the of ut life was in attendance upon her and sitting beside her waa the doctor who had general charge of her health why dear i said in as cheerful a tone as i could put on have yon had another attack of f yes am not very well she said in a feeble far away voice the doctor briefly explained to me that the attack was not serious a merely temporary ui which was already greatly relieved ah i i suppose the servants were frightened x said taking my cue from him and very carelessly far more carelessly i was feeling yea i think that that really was the state of the case precisely said the doctor her is much better greatly relieved fortunately i happened to be within reach and was able to come immediately mrs i would like to give you various little instructions presently in case the attack should return certainly i shall be at your service when yon wish to speak to me i don t think that the princess herself was at all alarmed by her sudden illness don t let them fuss over me she whispered when i had brought her a cup of tea and the prince had come in and heard the full account of her it is the fuss i cannot bear doctor is coming back presently now that you and louis have come he need not trouble to remain longer he can come back presently then i will run upstairs and take off my habit will remain with yoa until i return i shall not be more than a few minutes and then i will read as the threshold that that yoa were so to finish this morning i was oat of my habit and into a tea gown ae quickly as possible and on my despatched out of the room the prince had followed me into the but when he had seen me in a low chair beside bis mother s couch with one of the new magazines in my hand he asked her if she could spare him for half an hour that he might send an important letter away by the next post she gave him the required permission and as soon as the door had closed behind him turned eagerly and to me have you any news for me f news princess yea news has anything happened between yoa and louis there is a look on his face that i have not seen there before don t keep me in suspense oh if anything in the world will save my life it will be to know that you have promised to make my son happy q l chapter xxv ht i to the princess that her son had spoken to me during the course of onr ride and that i had promised to give him a definite answer daring the next few days she held my hand in her hot rail and looked at me wistfully my dear she said i don t like to say anything to urge you one way or the other and yet i must tell you that if you consent to become louis s wife it will make me more happy than i think anything else in the whole world could possibly do if i know that your future is assured and hie i lie down and die oh with such content and if anything will keep me alive a little longer it will be the pleasure of seeing my son s happiness and i truly your contentment i think it over princess i said i most think before i can promise anything definitely don t try to force me into it don t hurry me you see i went on i am not in love with him and i was wit my husband and still am	30
with his memory and yet louis is very said the princess wistfully she was still holding my hand and i pressed m tenderly dear i said i know how very very your son is it is that which makes it so hard for me if i had known him first it might have been otherwise as it is i think that my heart was dead before i ever saw him a dead heart may bud and bloom again murmured the princess i don t think so i replied i don t feel like it i feel hopeless and fuu of despair not knowing what to do for the best not knowing which is the right course for me to take i want to do what is best i want to take the course that is the wisest and the best for all of ua but you must leave me to think it out for myself i can neither seek nor take advice it is a subject that i must decide for myself and of myself don t speak to me about it again princess leave me alone the next few days and perhaps the light may come in upon my brain so that i may be led to do what is really the best and the wisest i will not speak of it again she said with quiet decision i am sure dear that you wiu do what is the and wisest or what yon believe to be so and if you decide against louis i promise you that i never wiu reproach you or feel any my dear dear daughter the princess remained in the during the evening taking there the light meal which the doctor had ordered for her and prince and i dined alone together in the smaller of the two dining i think that any stranger watching us would have believed us to be brother and sister most assuredly no would have believed thai the t rt of ht life a grave affecting the of onr after lives bad arisen between us that very day and was decision we went back to the immediately the meal was over and very soon the princess was carried to her own chamber by the servants when i at once turned to the prince and held out my hand to him you will forgive me if i retire now i said i most see mother settled for the night and then i wish to be alone he bent and kissed my hand bade me his usual parting of sleep well and i left him i was not long in the apartments of the princess for she was naturally very much exhausted after her attack and was already in bed when doctor came to pay his second visit when he had gone i bade her good night and went at once to my own apartments once there i told to go to bed to go away and not trouble about me any more that i would be my own maid for the night and when she had departed and i found myself alone at last i drew a chair up to the tall white stove by which my sitting room was warmed and sat down to think over the events of the day well i bad come face to face with the end at last i most either consent to marry prince to make him and his mother happy to make that return for all the kindness and care which they had upon me or i must face the certainty tiiat at no very distant date i must turn out of the home where i had spent three safely sheltered if not altogether happy years and seek a new life in a world that was utterly strange to me long long did i sit there over my ht of him whom i had lost with sad eyes at the many that i had of him over the and gifts that he had given me from time to time during oar short and happy married life trying to pierce the future with my tired eyes and to see light where there was no light oh it was so hard so hard if i had followed my natural instinct i could have decided the in a single moment for my ul turned sick within me at the thought of putting another man into my s place but there were other considerations in the matter than my personal feeling there was the thought of a man s whole life then trembling in he balance of fate a man who for three had done everything that lay in his power to show me honour respect consideration and true affection there was the long record of his mother s love for me the fact that in the darkest hour of my life s she had stood between me and the evils and hardships of the world the equally fact that she was lying just across the corridor in an almost dying condition that it was the desire of her life of this part of her life at all events that i should become her son s wife by that one act i should amply repay all that i had received it was no light price to pay for kindness but it was a price the value of which to my was then on the other hand there was the awful alas drawing painfully near that i should have to out into the world alone i think that anyone who has lived a safely sheltered life full of family joys and ties would scarcely be able to the unutterable loneliness of my and the extreme dread with which i thk of mt even the possibility of life for the fourth time and yet in spite of all this there was the thought of the dear sweetheart of my bo cruelly taken from me	30
ere our love had lost its first youth i could not make up my mind to set him and his dear memory on one side what shall i do i cried con you not give me some sign from where you are have you so forgotten me have you been so happy during these years that yon have been up in heaven that you have no thought or care for what i have been suffering or are you not able to come to me for a single moment to tell me what i ought to do to help me to guide myself it is so hard for me to have to decide everything for myself who once rested upon you but there was do sign my s photographs smiled at me with the same careless bright look that had been his when in life there was no guidance in the poor bits of paper there was no longer any comfort in regarding them at last i went to bed and slept and in my sleep my lost husband came to came just as i had known him in this world with a smile on his lips with the old pleasant light in his eyes and he greeted me with the same yet tender hand clasp that had been one of his most delightful characteristics i don t think that i have a very clear idea of what he said to me but i awoke in the dead of night to find my room only by the little silver lamp which burned near my bed and i awoke with the impression that my husband had been with me and that his advice to me was to go on and make those about me z i c ut memories happy i la awake for a little time feeling perfectly tranquil and at in my mind and then i fell asleep again and knew no more until arrived with my early tea i learned from her that the princess was decidedly better that had passed a re ly good night and that the doctor had been with her and had just taken his departure having expressed himself extremely satisfied and pleased with her progress the regular breakfast hour at the castle was ten o clock and i arose leisurely and dressed so as to be ready by that time strangely enough all the doubt and dread of the few previous hours seemed to have left me i dressed myself with care and went down to the little breakfast room just as the bell had sounded for the meal it was the only absolutely meal of the entire day it was the custom for the servants to serve the first course and then to leave the room so in less than five minutes the prince and i were alone together i hope yon slept well said the prince as the door closed behind the last of the attendants oh yes i slept fairly well thank you i replied i am so delighted to hear that the princess is better that she has had a good night tou have not seen her no i went across to her rooms but she was and i told that i would go to her when i had i just saw her for a moment he said she looks decidedly better i don t think her attack was as serious as the servants seem to have done i suppose they got frightened then we talked of other things looked at our the t rt of ht life letters and at one or two of the newspapers and when he had finished breakfast and left the table and i was leaning back in my chair wondering how i should break the ice and say what was ia my mind an opportunity presented itself to me for the prince suddenly looked over the top of his paper at me and ai if you think my mother is really better when you see her i shall take the opportunity of going over to for a long business talk with i have promised him for some time that i would give him a few to discuss certain alterations necessary on that part of the property i may as well do it to day as any other day his manner revealed to me as clearly as if he had put it into plain words that he was anxious to himself out of my way as much as was possible during the time that i waa trying to arrive at a decision concerning our future my heart smote me how considerate how unselfish how delicate minded he was i i got up from my chair and went nearer to the great stove holding out my that they might catch something of the warmth which from it for a moment i hesitated to speak then my eyes fell upon the chill and wintry landscape which waa to be seen through the double windows waa at least ten miles away and his going over there meant driving that distance and home again prince i said half hesitatingly i have something to say to you i understand what you mean about going to but i do not think that you need go your mother may want you and there is no occasion for you to get out of my way l z d memories he touched my hand with hia how very keen you are he said with a half laugh oh it does not need any very keen perception to bee your meaning in that i said smiling hut the truth is i spent a long time last night thinking over what you had said to me and if you are prepared still to to take me upon the very unequal terms which i told you were the only ones that i could he exclaimed i cannot say anything more i said hastily and	30
went on hurriedly for i felt that i must make a last protest as to my own i am afraid that i can feel no differently that i shall never be able to feel differently but if yoa like to take me knowing that my heart is practically dead that i have no real love to give you he caught my two hands in his without giving me time to say another word he cried is it really true can i believe what i hear if i will take you why i would take you upon any terms gladly reverently and may my life from now forward be used in no better cause than to make yoa happy to reward you for your goodness and your generosity to me in spite of his tremulous earnestness i could not forbear from laughing outright well prince i said and perhaps my perception of the quaint side of the situation saved me from making anything approaching to a scene i do not know where my goodness or my generosity are to be found i think it is you who are generous you who are good with me it is take all and give nothing but you have given me yourself l the of ht life yes i give yon the of myself ia all still it is the beat that you yes it is the best that i have and perhaps who knows he exclaimed some day you may find that your heart is not so dead after all may find a love as fresh and sweet as the old love bloom up again but yon will never reproach me if there ia no such blooming i protested i will never reproach you at au i will never reproach you with anything he said passionately and yet my dear dear love i do feel that a young life like yours cannot be all past there must be some future there be some left in your heart i have great faith in the flowers that may bloom of their own free will by and by oh if we could have looked forward we two forward to the time when the of love would up once more in my heart with the strength they had ever forth with in the days gone by oh if we could have looked forward as we were able to look back but that is what poor mortals cannot may not do and so we onr to each other and he kissed me for the first time in onr lives q l chapter xxvi ut second day after having once imparted my and my consent to prince i seemed to have no time even to breathe naturally the princess was immediately informed of what had taken place between us and from that moment her health began to mend yon will not keep waiting were her first words he had not asked me to hurry on oar marriage yet i felt that this was an additional reason why i should put no obstacle in the way of everything being clearly settled oh no i said i will do anything that you and he like now that i have really made up my mind then i must make haste and get well she said feverish i shall have something to get well for now has louis mentioned any time no he has gone into no details whatever ah i i expect that his happiness was enough for him for the moment i must make haste and get up my strength again there is so much for me to do dear i said why is there so much the of ht life for yon to do why need you make an extraordinary fuss about this new arrangement my dear she you forget that there has not been a marriage since my own and that you are going to marry the head of the house there are endless things to da there will be your apartments to entirely your to order the to be re set the entire house to be to say nothing of the to our friends and the preparations for the actual ceremony there will be great all over the estates a cannot be married as if he were a mere or other person and if louis is not to be kept waiting very long we shall have all our work cut out to have things in train by the time that the day is upon us i half hesitated for a moment dear princess i said at last don t you think that for once things might be done a little differently arranged somewhat oat of the ordinary course is it really necessary to have so much fuss made over the wedding could there not be some stress laid upon the fact that i am a widow no my dear child that is the one thing which you must not ask she said with firmness i know that if you ask louis he will consent to anything to please you but the disappointment to hundreds and hundreds of people would be enormous it would make a bad impression upon everybody connected with you would start wrong it would be extremely bad for you to have anything unusual about your marriage you see you must not forget at least i cannot let you forget that you are an woman and it l mt second would probably be set down at the door of your if a and the head of the house was to be married without the ceremony which is his due and his right me it would be moat short sighted policy under the circumstances would i advocate that you should be married with even more ceremony than if louis were marrying a country woman of his own i felt that there was reason in what she said and bo my	30
hopes of a quiet wedding died out and faded away oh i knew that she was right and when she mentioned my wishes and her advice to louis himself he at once declared that she was perfectly wise in all that she had said so from an existence of almost indeed of my life became most of anything like unto a and truly i frequently found myself longing for the time when i should be safely on board the which we were to use for oar the improvement in the princess s health was little short of the fact of our engage ment seemed to have put new life into her dear child she said to me one day you have done me more good than all the in doctor s i told you if anything would save my life it would be that you should make louis happy oh my dear it must be an joy and satisfaction to you to think that you have it in your power to make any mother and son so and contented as you have made us it is quite incredible to me that i have any z i the strange story of hy life such power dear princess i told her on the whole she did not talk very either about her feeling or mine for her time was all taken up in preparations for the great event i had never seen the jewels gathered together before i had seen many jewels belonging to the princess but she told me that excepting on a few state occasions she had not once worn the family jewels since the death of her i think it is dreadful to take jewels from you i i exclaimed as a couple of servants brought the great chest into the my dear they are not my jewels belong to the family i have more jewels of my own than i shall ever care to wear they will be all yours some day and many of them will be yours from this time i don t think that any woman has too much satisfaction in family diamonds and family gems they are not like her own that she may put into the fire if she so pleases you will only wear these for use and on occasions of state they will be no personal satisfaction to i always felt the same about my engagement ring yon know that ring which you are wearing now has been used by the of the family for more years than i like to tell you without consulting the of the house i fancy that you are the twenty third i wore it as in duty bound myself bat it gave me no pleasure no satisfaction and i never put it on after i was married i put it away on the morning of my marriage and it was never worn again until gave it to you at the time of your i h second made my give me several other rings one of which i always regard in my own mind as my real engagement ring and i expect that will wish to give you others that will be more pleasure both to him to give and to you to receive thou that hideous old black diamond which has sealed the fate of bo many and bo many of a truth it was rather a relief to me to find that the princess did regard the famous black diamond as a hideous old thing i had seen it slipped on to my finger with a shudder and in my ignorance had feared that i should be compelled to wear it during the rest of my life i said nothing to her but i determined that i would follow her example and that on my wedding morning i would leave it off never to wear it again of rings and other jewels the prince gave me never a day went by during the whole of our and it lasted for two months that he did not lavish some fresh gift or offering upon me he gave me black of almost value worth many thousands of pounds jewels of all kinds and i do believe that i had more clothes bought for me than i should ever be able to wear out if i lived to be a hundred i protested from time to time that it was extravagant that it was tiiat it was making my life a burden to me but it was all of no use the princess told me and louis himself backed her np in the assertion that it would be to my position to have all these and also that there were in paris and elsewhere who would expect as a sort of right to be remembered the of ht life in the out of a z felt that they could have left out nobody that none of their could have the least for feeling themselves on the score of having been but the of possession was in no wise pleasant to me rather on the other hand was i oppressed as by an intolerable weight as the time for the wedding drew near the castle of began to fill with guests remembering how ill the princess had been but a few short weeks previously it was ful to me that she could have pulled up strength again to he able to bear the great strain which was put upon her at this time i had fancied that the were rather a small family that the mother and stood almost alone in the world and were not troubled by many relations there were not many who bore the name of but of their relations there seemed to be no end they came thick and fast i was positively bewildered in to grasp the different degrees of they were all all noble all rich apparently all equally powerful they	30
came whatever there might have been in their hearts with words on their lips and valuable in their hands i was loaded with compliments and many marks of honour but it seemed to me that in the midst of all this and flattery there was only one real simple soul the princess herself and her only one really well satisfied person which was my bridegroom i had no time for thought no opportunity for no there was not the faintest chance of mt second my being able to go back on my word i had passed the and whether my mind me or not there was no possible to me i was bound to go on to carry my resolve through to the very end in the face oe that gay and brilliant assemblage it would have needed a woman with a stronger nerve than mine to have done aught but carry out the compact iu its perhaps it was as well for me that there was as much preparation made for the marriage as the family thought needful because i seemed somehow to turn to louis as to a haven of refuge from the endless flattery and turmoil which t e wedding had he always spoke of the various arrangements as of an intolerable nuisance out of which unfortunately we could not hope to escape excepting by going bravely through them when we are once on board the he said to me a few days before that of the wedding when i was groaning under some fresh tax upon my strength we will pass a few weeks in doing nothing we shall see nobody unless we choose we shall receive no letters except by our own fault we shall have gone away perfectly secure in knowing that the mother is absolutely happy and that nothing more can be expected of us why if it will please you you can wear one frock the whole time that we are away my dear louis i said i have had so many fitted on me that i feel i shall positively hate every one of them when i come to wear them i am so dazzled with jewels that at the moment i feel the greatest luxury would be never to possess a j the story of mt ufe jewel again yon know one may have too much of a good thing oh my dear he exclaimed there will day when you will your jewels like any other woman it is because all these people worry you bo and everything been rushed on in a hurry that yea feel ao impatient in a few months time you won t know yourself and you will tell me you want to go to paris because you have nothing to wear and you must have your wardrobe attended to yes i may nothing is i shall never believe in the again i replied with a smile so the days went over each one seeming to go more quickly than another because each one was more filled with occupations and duties than that which had gone before it aud at last my second marriage day dawned oh how different it was to the other one and yet in some things how like there had not been present at my first marriage one single relation on either s side or my own on the day of my marriage to prince there was not present one single person excepting my indian who had known me longer than my bridegroom and his mother we were married in the great chapel of the castle married by a cardinal of the church of borne to which the belonged and into which i myself had been received during the period of my engagement to louis not so much from conviction as from a desire to start fair in ray new life and a feeling that nothing would so far tend to make me one with the new life which i was entering than to have the same outward expression of religion neither louis nor his mother had asked or even j ht that i take this step bnt i saw very plainly when i first hinted at it that have given them greater pleasure and satisfaction or have tended to make my future path more smooth being a widow of i did not wear the orange and dress of a bride bnt my gown was a marvel of beauty and a triumph of the s art a delicate grey in tint almost hidden in clouds of lace one of my adopted mother s wedding gifts to me i only wore such jewels sa louis bad given to me for my own and i carried a of yellow roses which kept me in mind of a little grave in the churchyard on the in far away a marriage ceremony once begun is soon an accomplished fact almost before i that i was walking up the aisle of the chapel i was conscious that the had come to an end that i was no longer that i was prince s wife for one wild moment when that came to me i was tempted to down the yellow roses from my hands to tear off the glittering jewels and like with which i was to cry that a great an awful mistake had been made that i had not meant to go so far as this that i had not really thought what i was doing that i belonged body and soul to another man but in the midst of a fashionable crowd one does not follow out even one s most natural inclinations and when after my new husband had kissed me and murmured in my ear that he was the happiest man in the world and thai ood helping him i should never repent the step i had taken and when my dear adopted mother bad come	30
j the of ht life in her turn and me blessing me while her kind arms were clasped about me i came to my full with a and a shudder of remembrance i that there was no going back again in this world that i had come to one of those in my life s journey from which there could only be a passing onward then we went back into the castle to stand the centre of a brilliant throng of guests to receive more flattery more and many good wishes for our health and prosperity there was a great banquet at which louis and i sat side by side when the laughter and mirth ran high to be suddenly broken by an knock upon the high table ladies and gentlemen cried a voice the voice of the chief in the establishment yon are asked to charge your glasses and to drink to the future health happiness and prosperity of their the prince and princess q l chapter and back from my present it has always seemed to me that the few weeks which louis and i spent on board the after our marriage one of the most happy and tranquil times of my whole life during the that we were aboard of her we entirely shook off all the irksome pomp and ceremony with which we had been surrounded during the previous two months and we lived again the same simple and easy existence which bad been ours from time to time previous to our engagement it was and is still surprising to me that i was able to settle into my new life with so little personal effort to myself i must lay stress upon the fact that i was not in love with my husband and yet he satisfied me he was so for my comfort so so strong he seemed such a haven of refuge from all the storm and stress of the world and i grew so to depend upon him that long before our was over i was fain to acknowledge to myself that if i missed something of my earlier experience i was yet a contented and fortunate woman he was very wise with me he never worried me with questions about the state of my feelings the of ufe it seemed to be for him in golden days of spring sunshine that i was his it seemed to be joy for him to lavish his love upon me without of love on my side before our marriage it had been one of my principal fears that he might give me no peace nor rest until i should be able to assure him that i really preferred him to my first husband had he chanced to have taken that coarse all hope of happiness would have been at an end for me but he was wisdom discretion and kindness he never referred to the past in any way he took me as i was and my gratitude for his consideration was beyond all expression of words unfortunately in our position oar could not last for ever and we were obliged at the time we had originally fixed to go hack to there to be present at many given in honour of oar marriage to pay and receive many visits in short to justify the marriage as it were the princess struck me aa a marvel of power we found her looking better and seeming stronger than she had looked or seemed at any time since i had first known her there had been some question of her leaving and taking up her residence in one of the other castles belonging to the family but i had set my face resolutely against this plan from the very first there is no reason dear princess i said to her that because i have married louis you should be taken out of your natural place your real home the one part of the world you are really fond of and i warn you distinctly that if you leave on my account i will never set foot in it and contentment again i hope that that ia plain enough both for you and for louis there can only be one of a said the princess oh i exclaimed hastily the mistress of a little villa with half a dozen servants is of importance and her position a serious matter the mistress of a is quite another thing we can quite well have our separate under the same roof it would be no pleasure to me to use your apartments other than as i have always used them as your daughter and ae neither of us has ever ordered a dinner at since i first knew it i don t see that we need ever fall out upon that subject at all events i simply and refuse to have anything whatever to do with if you leave it but my dear she began no i have never set myself up against you before dear princess but in this instance i must and will have my own way it is no use talking to me and c ling me my dear if you make me feel that i have driven you out of your home the place you love i won t have it louis i am quite sure does not wish it decidedly not said louis thus directly appealed to why when you consider the peculiarities of the people the the little ins and that have to be considered it ia perfectly to think of setting down an ignorant who has lived all her life in india to everything but what would yon do if i were taken away altogether the of ht life well you see i should have no choice then i should have to do the beat i could and how much i might try louis s patience under those it is impossible	30
to tell beforehand but while you are alive and in such wonderful health i cannot see that anything would be gained by your leaving your own home and going to live in some place all by yon would be a continual anxiety to us we should spend all our time trotting to and fro to make quite sure that you were not dull and lonely and we should have no comfort in your society and i won t have it so my dear sweet princess i must ask you at once now from the very beginning not to mention this matter again because i shall never give you any other opinion and i don t want to hear anything more on the subject whatever so she gave in to our wishes and remained at on precisely the same footing that she had always occupied my position was necessarily altered in this way in place of i had several maids who attended wholly and solely to my personal needs i did not get rid of of course she remained a picturesque figure doing nothing or next door to it with admirable grace and tact she still occupied a room somewhat near to my own but not the actual apartment which bad been hers first on our arrival at i had an establishment of my own i mean my own who waited upon nobody else my own horses carriages and so on and these people were all naturally under my immediate orders with the conduct of the house neither the princess nor i much troubled ourselves as the vast establishment was under the l z i c contentment charge of a house steward who was responsible to i for all plans and arrangements we dined together always and a copy of the was laid upon my desk eveiy morning a similar compliment being paid to the princess i have no recollection of ever troubling to make any alteration therein whether my adopted mother did or did not was a matter of indifference to me i visited her at regular times always going to her apartments for a few minutes after the ten o clock breakfast if she had not appeared at that meal for the rest of the day our interests were in common and never i was so drag upon her and she no tie upon me as the summer wore on and the time drew near for the princess to once more take her cure at the question arose as to whether louis and i should accompany her or not for my own part i was absolutely i liked as well as any place i had ever been in in my life and i was perfectly willing to go there with her if such a plan would suit louis but for once in his life he did not inclined to lend himself to the plans and the wishes of other i think is the most detestable place in the world he said when the subject was first mentioned to bim could yoa not take some of your people and put in your core as he asked of his mother moat assuredly she replied i know so many people who go to and it would be quite easy for me to go without yoa two where do yon propose to take i have not proposed to take anywhere there is a big shooting party at the de the strange story of mt life bat that will come a little later oo it would be best if we went to it what are you wanting to do i i asked i would like to go to he replied and after we leave the de i think nothing would please so much as another little tour in the am i not about right dearest yes i should like a immensely i replied between ourselves louis i would rather if it is practicable go for a before the de big shoot as well as afterwards i should so like to go right along the french coast not the coast not the bat and and as far ae i hate these big hotels where there are always people trying to scrape acquaintance with as they are so trying you would not like he said to go over and see a little of the english coast yon know it is really preposterous that you should know so little of your native country i don t know that i specially mind i mean that i should specially object to do so but england is only s name to me i replied quickly i know nobody in england and i don t feel in any way drawn to wards it i will go with you there if yoa would like it we can leave open he said indifferently bat certainly if you would prefer a short in the to a tour in your wish is a very easily gratified one i would much prefer it myself bat i thought you might be bored and i did not like to suggest it shall we take anyone us i oh na let as go just by ourselves we have o and seen so much of other people there is no no rest in a large party even on a i would much prefer for us to go together so we arranged our summer in due coarse of time he princess went off with her own people to and louis and i on hearing of her safe arrival there at once joined the which was lying at louis had been rather anxious that i should go and join her somewhere on the coast but i loved the sea and in spite of the heat much preferred the longer sea journey so the pleasant weeks went by until it was time for us to our steps in order that we might pay oar promised visit to the de i	30
the cure is a short one and i should be perfectly happy and comfortable by myself i shall be neither happy nor comfortable if i know that i have altered all your plans and arrangements she spoke with so much decision that we did not argue the point louis went with her to see thai she was and then returned to me at s hotel i do not know that i had ever been so much the story op mt life charmed with place in my life as by we many acquaintances there and made many more we lived the same simple almost commonplace existence that was lived by everybody else rising early in the morning going to bed early at night dining most times under the trees and always up and down for a while listening to the strains of the band on the terrace of the it was a life in which one could not be dull and yet in which there was no strain which is i suppose the reason why is such a favourite place with those who live the gay life of the great world louis who had only one regarding his health had taken it into his head at this time that he was likely to develop symptoms of and he himself with the waters and went through the entire treatment of tjie every day with the regularity of he used to disappear from the ground or whatever part we might chance to be in and go off for a bath o the wonderful pine needles certainly the treatment was good for him and every day that we remained at he became more and more contented with himself and his surroundings our only trouble at that time was that the health of the princess began to again it was not that did not suit her that certainly was not the case although louis daily reproached himself that he had persuaded her to abandon her usual stay at twice or three times during each week he ran over during the latter part of the day in order to satisfy himself that she was not losing ground once or a twice i went with him bat the princess bo me for putting an unnecessary strain upon myself hat at last i gave up these and remained behind by myself at first i had felt a little lonely for this was the first time since my marriage to louis that i had been left anywhere by myself but as the occasions went by and i became more accustomed to my i b an to regard louis s frequent ae being altogether a matter of course already bis cure had come to an end and we had agreed that on leaving the neighbourhood we would go to the which the doctors said would be good and even necessary both for the princess and for louis then one morning there arrived on exceedingly letter from the princess s head maid she wrote to saying that madame had had an alarming of the previous evening that is to say immediately before her letter was written that they had called in the doctor who was attending her and he advised that she should communicate with her son immediately madame la wrote recovered very from the attack much more quickly than from any previous attack ui which have seen her but she still looks very drawn and veiy pallid and i should feel more comfortable if your will come and see her at the earliest possible moment madame la forbade me to communicate the news to your and i humbly beg of you to me from blame should she be angry on finding that i have written to you i had orders to do so from the doctor but had he not so instructed me i should have ventured to take the the story of t life matter my own hands as i feel it is not right that your should be left ignorant of the condition of your high bom mother there is nothing for it but my going over at once said louis on receiving this latter oh yes tou must go but if i were yon i should go as if yon knew nothing i will go with yon i think i fancy you had better not he said looking at me doubtfully my mother will in a moment that has written us a letter if you go without any explanation she was so annoyed the last time that you went because she thought it was unnecessary and as we are really on the eve of her she would naturally look for an explanation as to why you troubled to come over to day l think you had better let me go alone if x find her not so well i will remain the night but of course i will you if i do that ton would not mind my remaining away a night would you oh no i will manage to exist i said with a laugh i think yon are right you know louis there is no need to make her nervous for nothing she is not at all nervous about herself but it may her if she thinks that is sa of course i would much prefer to go with you but i think perhaps under the circumstances that it would be wisest if i remained here so we settled it and immediately after louis took leave of me and started or by this time i had got quite accustomed to hia leaving me for short and i set about myself quite happily and a i to take an english friend a lady for a drive among the picturesque pine woods she was in quest of some curious little mere toys which she had promised to take back to england with her for the benefit of some small i don t know said she	30
as we started exactly where they are to be bought but my sister s children had a few of them taken to them last year by a friend who was staying here and they were most eager that i should get them some more as their doll s house was not with them we can easily find out i told her the people in the villages we are passing through will be able to tell us i am sure we shall find so difficulty in meeting with them we made several inquiries as we drove along but either the people were very stupid or they did not understand exactly what we wanted at last however when we were both in despair we inquired at a little inn in a small stone built village the most unlikely spot io the world to find anything of such a nature the good woman of the inn told ua that if we would condescend to enter she would send for a neighbour who had many of these little and pots for sale if the ladies would like refreshment i can offer it said the good woman we asked her what she could give u she told us we could have milk coffee or beer and also excellent sweet cakes let as have some coffee and cakes while she tiie woman with the little pots said lady in english to me i was perfectly willing and we alighted from the the of my carriage telling oar coachman and his servant to refresh while we were waiting the house wife was as good as her word she brought us very soon a delightfully homely consisting of coffee cream sweet cakes and honey and while we were of it the friend for whom she had sent arrived with a large basket of tiny and of glazed of every conceivable shape and colour my b friend was enchanted with them did yon ever see such f she cried why my little will be wild when they see them i those they had brought to them last year were nothing like this mere black and brown things quite ordinary and ugly these are delicious delightful ix ok at those brilliant and those vivid i how quaint the shapes how charming the colouring what dear little and i upon my word i think i shall take a store back for my own pleasure and i could not help laughing at her indeed she laughed at herself as she turned over the quaint little with the delight of an child while the stolid herself laughed from sheer sympathy and we picked from her great basket all that were at all quaint in shape or brilliant in colouring paying her in the end an low price though i fancy from her look of satisfaction as bade ns good day that she had suited her prices to the appearance of our carriage as we drove home together lady professed herself very much my for the afternoon s doings i feel quite convinced my dear princess she said to me that but for you i have gone home to england without finding out these a treasures you see i only speak french in m young days waa not considered an essential part of a s education and one is at such a in dealing with people a off the if one cannot tackle them in their native tongue if i had daughters of my own i should insist upon their learning as many languages as possible i always think she went on that it ia such a waste to set girls on the piano whether they have talent for it or not now for my part i never had the smallest gift of any kind in the direction of music and yet from the time i was six old until i was eighteen twelve years of woe twelve of the best studying years of one s life i was made every day to do a certain of music the oh it was pitiful an every day school girl of twelve years plays better than i did when i gave it up for good and all and i often think that if i had had a sensible mother i do not wish to say a word against her poor dear soul she did her best for me i have no doubt but if i had had an enlightened mother who would have studied me a little and found out in what direction my talents lay she would not have allowed me to waste a single day on music and she would have made me put all my energies into the tion of languages i speak french really well she went on r iy well and i am quite sore that if i had had the opportunity i should have spoken german just as and just as correctly why don t you learn german now i suggested oh my dear it is too late in the day much too late in the day an old woman of my age does not thank you to go to school again no no l i the st b of ut life ought to learn their while they are girls when you get to womanhood and to middle age as i have done you have other to which take up all your time ah here we are at home again oh there is the prince i looked aside expecting to see louis but instead perceived that lady was speaking of the most distinguished visitor who ever sheds the tight of his countenance upon the pleasant little bad now will remember that you are dining with me on the terrace to night at a quarter past seven oh yea i shall not forget i replied particularly as louis is not here he will not be back in time for dinner you know lady in any case	30
i saw bow showing just the edge of his teeth as i had so often seen um do before and then his eyes fell npon me if onr meeting had been a shock to me it was ten times more bo to him he looked at me half his blue eyes up as if he could not believe the evidence of what they told him made a step forward put out his hand looked back at lady who did yon say that lady was i heard him to her the princess an princess but an i heard her words although they were in a mere whisper he put his hand up to the side of his face and pressed the ends of his against his temples as if trying to force his brain to take in some new idea then he came round the table and held out his hand to me princess and i have met before lady he said then he dropped my hand and went back to the place that lady had beside herself as his seat for dinner i can only say that i never bat through a meal in my life i never went through two such hours of mortal pain and anguish no not even when i saw my little child lying dead and still in front of me not even when i received that cruel of newspapers which told me that i a young girl was a widow not at any period of my existence from first to last the strange op mt life did i ever sit through a time of intense anguish as those two hours spent upon the terrace of the at i did not dare to look at him well yes i did once or twice steal just a glance i managed to avoid meeting his eyes i was conscious that he watched me from time to time closely i think of it i there on the opposite side of the table to my listening to the tones of his voice occasionally catching a glimpse of his face i calling the princess heavens i was this some terrible dream or was i on the eve of being taken up by the roots again and ca st out into a world where nobody would have me fortunately the english lady lady was gifted with a tongue she talked and talked oh how i blessed that woman for her i was conscious that she was chattering away to sir robert keeping him amply amused telling him all sorts of wicked little stories about people well known to both of them and in whom i took no interest the man on my other hand had evidently some kind of an affair on with miss l he did not want to waste a word over me and once when he turned with an effort with an unmistakable effort to speak to me i whispered to him not to trouble to talk to me that i was not feeling very well and that i not think him if he talked to the lady on his other hand so i was almost alone except for an occasional remark from my host and as course after course went by and served me with morsel after morsel with which z only i tried to reduce the chaos in my brain to something like system and order but the more i tried to think things oat the more a from the dead hopelessly did i become was ever any woman so placed as i i was wife to two prince and lord louis was away louis was with his mother was on the other side of the table and i what was who was i i was e to both of them what would be the end of it what would they do to which should belong oh dear heaven was ever a woman placed in such a position before i could see no way out of it i wondered if was married again perhaps there was a wife perhaps there was a child he had not forgotten me oh no i had seen in the first flash of bis eyes that be was as unchanged id his heart as god help me i was my mind went back over those days of doubt which had preceded my engagement to louis those days when i had wronged myself when i had told him that i had never regarded as being really lost to me that although i had believed him to be dead knew as i thought that he was dead yet that he had never seemed dead to me that i had always about me the feeling that some day i find him somewhere and so my had proved to be true i had found him again i had found him not in another world not as he left me but here on this earth and i had been for more than a year the wife of another man at last the dinner came to an end i do not mean to imply that it was an extremely long dinner for it was not so but we seemed to sit an interminable time over the coffee and with which it finished still standing behind my choir inquired in a whisper i had any commands for him yes remain where you are i replied i am going home immediately the t bt of ut life aa soon as the made a move i rose from my and went round to lady will yon forgive me if i leave you now i asked i don t feel very well and x would like to go home at once moat assuredly though i am so sorry dear said cordially do you think the drive was too much for you this afternoon oh no not at all i enjoyed it extremely i replied	30
i am a little tired that is all who shall go back with you to the hotel i have my servant here i replied please do not break up party the princess will permit me to walk to the end of the terrace with her said lord is a quiet tone of intense restraint i bent my head that would be very kind of yon i and i wondered that those standing near did notice how choked and strained my voice was tea do pray do in our hostess you are quite sure my dear that there is nothing i can get for you t oh thank you no nothing i shall perhaps see yon to morrow i shook hands with her and with her husband and with a mere gesture to the rest of the party turned away lord keeping his place beside me my servant walked at a little distance behind but not so near as to be able to hear what we were saying so we two who parted just five years before in the cabin of a f and boat turned and walked together down the terrace steps amid one of the brightest scenes in europe as we reached the lower level broke the silence c l a face dead he said what is the of this the meaning i turned and looked at him oh the i don t know i don t know i cannot tell to night come and see me early in the morning for me at bitter s i shall be alone prince will not be in till the afternoon and who is prince he asked i don t know i am so dazed i i feel bewildered let me go home and get accustomed to this new state of i thought you were dead i said in a voice that sounded like a wail of despair i that i had every proof of your death and you i had no proof of your death but i could find no trace of you alive he said gravely and yet without either reproach or bitterness in his tones i traced you to i found the child s grave and there i lost you i thought you must have died soon after her we had reached the end of the terrace by that time and i stopped and stood looking up at him in the brilliant lamp light back to them now i said in a shaking voice to morrow we will tell each other everything don t tell yet if the world has to be told what a cruel failure i have made of my life and yours and and his let me get oat of before the blow falls only tell me one thing have you too made the same false step that i have done he was holding both my hands in bis firm warm clasp you mean have i married no how could i marry any other than yourself you were my first my only love i have had no temptation to put any other woman in your l z i the or ufe i felt his sink into my he rt like lead and yet i was so innocent of in any permitted another to him in my that i was able to look him straight in the eyes when i tell yon everything i made reply yon will not feel that i was to marry again i think yon will me and forgive me for what most seem to yon now like to memory bnt do yon go back let me go come to me early to morrow i have so to tell yon shall i not go back to the hotel with yon no my servant will take care of me does tiie fellow speak english not a word he stood a moment longer holding my two hands hard and looking down at me with a and eager gaze as if be would the of my very and read there what my trembling lips not speak one question how long is it since yon you changed your name a year h m i and is there is there a child i shook my head no there has been no prospect of another child i heard him thank to himself and then he pressed my hands again bade me lifted his hat and left m i scarcely know what happened next i went back to my and when my women bad attended me for the night i sat down at the open window overlooking the park with its dark broken by rows of twinkling lights over which the tender strains of a melancholy air came softly on the evening breeze and i tried to what had hap a the dead it was think as i would i not see light in any direction of a could not be hidden in a few days time every newspaper and in every in the world be ringing with the of the english lady who was at one time the wife of an english peer and of an nobleman i knew that nobody not even the two men who loved me rightly blame me and yet what position i be in what i do i was wife to both it seemed to me that i could be wife to neither i had married in all good faith on a clear and with him he full well knowing that my heart was as i thought in a grave a soldier s grave that soldier had come back full of love i oh that was plain to be seen and my heart had ere it sank at the sight of him i could not remain with prince equally certain was it that i could not go back and take op my old life with my first love was ever a woman placed	30
to say that he knew a mrs living in oh it yon know what i feel hke at this moment to think that i by my own act had deliberately blocked the way to our coming t ther again yon have not reproached me hut oh if you could know how bitterly bitterly i reproach myself reproaches will do no good to either of us he returned they would make the two more and several people very what is the good of them there is me thing that yon foi t my or that have not yet that although yon have married another man you are my wife as and aa honestly to day as yon were five years ago when w parted at what you have done in ignorance and and in good faith has not undone what you and i did at seven years ago you are my wife still i am your husband if you had forgotten me if you had learned to love the other chap better then the would be horrible but as i understand it you have not changed towards me at all any more than i have changed towards yon bat what of him i asked in a scarcely audible voice of he must be told yes he must be told i have always been honest with him i am not going to begin being and now and yet to leave him and simply go back to my life with you why it is impossible i not do such a thing if you love me he began no no if i did not love you it would be far easier it is because i do love yon because i have always loved you loved you oh with my whole heart and soul with every fibre of my being that i cannot torn my back upon the man who came in the hour of my life who gave me the shelter of his honourable name and put his great heart between me and a world that i was horribly afraid of l the of ht life but you not from some mistaken sense of go back to him remain with him he exclaimed oh how can you ask me such a question how can i in the face of things aa they are now be anything to either of yon why i am wife to both i am wife to neither i can can be wife to neither that i love you as i do aa you must see for yourself i do makes no difference i have to consider my honour and my good faith before my love and even before yours he broke away from me and began to pace np and down the room who is to tell he asked suddenly pausing and standing in front of me i will tell him it will come best from me you had better remain in until i send for you i think he will probably wish to see yon at all events you will not refuse to see him if he does we must consider him before ourselves poor devil yes there i beg your pardon i ought not to have spoken of him like that and yet the words slipped out because after all it is the worst for him before we were married i said i made a kind of bargain with him that under no circumstances should he ever reproach me with my dead love for you no i mean with my love for yon whom i thought to be dead for my love had never died never and he told me then that he had never felt such for any human being in his life as for you yes really he did say that and he has lived np to it j two n a man who knew that my heart was buried in a grave would have me about the past would have gone on and protesting and asking until he received the assurance that he was the most loved of the he has never done that he has been true to his word rom first to last from beginning to end i love you the best but my respect and my affection for him are almost too sacred to speak of even to yon he stayed a long time with me talking over all the possibilities that the future might hold making suggestions finding out holes by which i might go back to him with something like honour but one by one i disposed of them all one might have thought that i was eager not to set the time back and sun myself once more in a glory of happiness but it was not for that reason that i so held oat against each and every suggestion that his brain devise i can do nothing arrange nothing and consent to nothing until i have told him all were my last words it may seem strange but it was by the greatest effort that i once or twice spoke to my husband by hia christian name my instinct was to treat him as a stranger to call him lord i had a sense about me of reserve and strangeness he on the contrary slipped back after the first few minutes into precisely the old terms of speech and he when we parted you have not kissed me instinctively i drew back no don t ask me the t rt of ht life to do until is settled i shall get through my more bravely if i have been fair and towards the man who believes that i am hia wife he understood me and bending down my ton will send for me he as soon aa there is anything to tell yoa and will remember that i have been mourning you you you during five long years i will not	30
forget it i replied so he went away came bringing me flowers which man or other had brought for me and then told me that luncheon was served in the adjoining room i down and looked at it bat i ate nothing for a single would have choked me was politely distressed i am not very well i cannot eat i told him take it away don t trouble me with it so i went back and wandered up and down the waiting and yet impatiently for the time when louis would return what should i bay to him how i find words in which to tell him what would be the end of it all was i glad waa i sorry i did not know i looked forward all was black black as night dark lowering impenetrable clouds seemed to have come thick and fast upon me and only one was inevitable that again i was to be the sport of fate the ball of chance and tossed from to the other without any will power of my own i was to be taken up by the roots l i two questions and hurled out into the world yet once again what would be the end of it all who waa i lady or the princess those were the two questions which troubled me who am i what shall i do q l chapter left alone it waa nearly o clock when returned from he came into the with a laughing reproach upon his lips are you really here and alone he asked how was it then that you did not come down to the station to meet me yon are beginning to neglect me i turned to meet him some told him that something bad happened he made a step towards me my dearest what has happened something has gone wrong with you are ill yes i replied something has happened something has gone wrong something is amiss i don t know how to tell you what it is but how what is it what can have happened i only left you yesterday tell me quickly don t spin it out don t break it to me i don t know how to tell you i cried trembling in every limb i cannot break it to you i c only tell the truth and almost but what is it he asked anxiously left i vent to dine with the last night on the terrace of the impatiently and among the waa lord what the head of the family don t yon understand na i o i understand what had yon never seen him before was there anything extraordinary about him yea i said i had seen him before don t yon see what i mean i i had believed him to be dead yea it is quite he looked at me do yon mean that lord is your first husband i had no words in which to reply i only looked at him but my eyes told him the pitiful then you i what am i who are you what does it all mean my good am i dreaming what does it all mean it means that i have been deceived not but by an extraordinary chain of accidents and of evidence that seemed too to doubt it means that i in my turn deceived yon that i have been the victim of the most cruel and you of the most fate that ever any man but you are the wife of both of ns he cried i am not your wife louis i answered i am his lawful wife his legal wife t l the of ut life yoa are not mine you are not he can you away from me it is not a question oe taking me away it is rather a certainty that i can be nothing to either of yon and he has never married na and he loves yoa still oh of course he does i need not ask such a question who that had known you once and possessed yoa could cease to love yon could cease to regard you as the pole star of his existence what did he say what did he do why don t you tell me everything i sat down upon the nearest and drew him to sit beside me in truth my limbs were shaking so that i could no longer stand so there we bat together and i told him as ar as i could do everything that had happened the previous evening and during my conversation with lord that morning yon will remember louis i said when i had told him the whole tale from beginning to end you will remember that day at when i reluctantly consented to become your wife that i old you that i had never been able to shake off t e feeling that i should find my husband again somewhere some day i thought that he was dead i thought that it would be yonder that i should find him i had no hope no suspicion that he might be still alive and looking tor me and yet i had never that he was dead i had left him strong and well in the very pride and of his manhood he had never seemed dead to q l gk left me as he have done had x seen him die with my own eyes yon remember my saying that oh yes i remember everything for years he has believed me dead as i him soon as he was free of the service he went to to seek tidings of me to be met on all hands hy tales of death disease disaster and woe the landlord of the hotel where we stayed he was gone his wife the nurse the doctor	30
might be perfectly happy i will abide by what the i said in a low tone what she tells me to do i will i know that she will advise me rightly you will meet her when she comes tee you will tell her everything ton won t leave it to me it was bad enough that i had to break it to you will tell her for me you won t let her blame me she will understand my situation my mother will understand yon he replied she will be here at nine o clock but yon will remember that she is frail and but there i need not tell you how to treat her i did not see either of them that evening i mean either prince or lord at the time i went and sat down at the left dinner and forced myself to take some soap and wine for i waa fast becoming faint and and at nine o clock my dear arrived q l chapter waiting and the end the first time the news had come to me i waa able to give way and lean somebody else neither in the case of prince or lord had i dared to show a sign of the white feather i felt that any sign of weakness on my side would double the pain and anguish that each was but when my dear adopted mother came came with all her woman s heart in her dear eyes came with arms outstretched and me close to her tender heart i knew that i found a haven which had never failed me and which would never fail me in this world hy poor child i my dear dear she cried in accents of the most tender pity i shall never cease to reproach myself for this new trial which has come you louis has told me everything my poor child one cannot feel sorry and yet the pity of it all is so great oh my dear to think of the years of your young life wasted to think that we who loved yon we who had no wish but for your best and truest interests should have persuaded you into and a step which has brought mm and disaster upon all of na yes i know louis has told me there is the poor not daring to rejoice in having found again and my poor hay who has lost u it is only i who can remain feeling towards you as in the beginning and yon do princess too do mother i cried oh my dear of coarse i da it is for both of thorn bat it is far far yon bat yoa are right yoa could not go back not as things are at present my dear yoa have always the right instinct and instinct was right when yoa held out so long against marrying we to have trusted that instinct of yours it was but since we would have oar way he and i we must stand aside now and think only of yoa louis is a man it is a great trial the and most terrible that could have come up i him bnt he is a man and men must be and bear for the other he must wait for you a little longer until own feeling shows yoa what you to do what is the best and the most right for yon to da and for me darling child i am at service we have stood by each other too long you and i to desert each other now we will go away you and i we will leave these two strong men to fight ont by themselves and you and i will protect and help each other but dear mother i said will yon answer me one question who am i my dear she said there is no aa to who yoa are ton are lord s yoa are marriage to my c l the story of hy life sod was an accident it ia and void it is do marriage will have to see his lawyers he will have to have everything upon a proper legal footing for the sake of and your and of his family but you are lady when we go away from this you most bear that name it is your own and e whole world will have to know it tjie whole world must know it ought to know it it is imperative that the world knows it she added with great decision and there is nothing to be ashamed of it is a for which the whole world will pity each one of us but there is no blame that can be attached to yoa if there is any blame it is attached to me to louis for we two persuaded you nay we did more than that we you to take a step against your instinct against your better judgment i might say almost against your natural inclination and what will become of louis hy dear we will go you and i to some quiet place where we can await events as they i will take some in a neighbourhood where we are not known and we will stay there until has t put right with the lawyers that is necessary that is your plain duty so far as louis is concerned after that we can shape our plans according to our wishes and according to what seems wisest to us both at the time louis will make his own you and i know him well enough to feel that he can be trusted to make them wisely and to follow them bravely i knew that her words were wise oa i knew that her heart right and it was nt that i who was right in the	30
course i l the marked oat for myself should have this brave patient and tender woman to walk me and hold my hand along a way which waa bitter a way which was apparently i felt more brave more more i felt aa if i had strength and to live on to the end whatever that end might b we left the next day and i travelling by easy stages aa far aa in which place it seemed to the princess that we most readily find retreat for a time and yet be within reach of the lawyers in x saw both and lord before we departed to e one i said good bye practically for ever to the other i could only say that for the present i felt that it was best that everything should stand in bat the princess tells me that yoa will take your own name again he said yes i will do that i replied it is my name and of coarse i have no right to the one under which yon met me the other evening and you are not going away leaving me without hope you will come back to me some day i don t know i replied i nothing definitely i must have time to let things arrange themselves a little not even for yon can i do anything which will pain either of those two so we parted and the princess and i set off on another stage of life s journey together at we settled for an indefinite time the princess having secured a villa just on the of the town we passed on the whole a very and dreary existence for saw no visitors and the of mt life oar only interests lay in the news which came to as through the newspapers and the post wrote to me eveiy day giving me the fullest details of his life hia hopes his thoughts his and fears never wrote to me at all but he very often did to bis mother and several times lawyers came to and fro with papers that it was i should sign then louis wrote and told his mother that he had made up his mind as he could not bear the desolation of to go to north america on a big shooting expedition nothing is so likely he wrote to take me out of myself aa complete change of scene and of i know that my dear love is safe with you and if yon can spare me i shall make my preparations for leaving immediately it is needless to that the princess not only consented but she willingly in this decision and bo time went on until nearly a year had gone by since the last and greatest my life had happened after this our life together was even more than it had been before from time to time though at very irregular intervals had news of and at last he wrote to her making a definite suggestion on my behalf which was to me the bt possible confirmation of the noble and love which he bore me i wish that you would say to he wrote that every day live i feel how hard it is that he should be kept away from her after au there is no reason that the man who has the best claim to her the first right and a love for her equal to my own should be kept at arm s waiting the end length out o a feeling of delicacy towards me will you show this letter to i think that she will understand me when i say that i do not make this suggestion from lack of love bat rather the contrary i have been waiting for this the princess when i had come to the end of her son s letter i knew that louis would see things sooner or later in their true and right relation it is not just to lord that you should be kept apart any longer tou love each other you have always loved each other my son is perfectly right in all that he says if yon will allow me i will send for lord and give you to him myself in louis s name oh no i cried why should i put you to such pain nay dear child she said you forget that i am louis s mother it will be one of the moments of my whole life so we came together again and i by tiie wish and at the hands of my adopted mother princess he came to to fetch me and from there we made a long tour passing through many lands making few acquaintances living wholly and solely for each other i wrote to my dear princess and learned from her that louis was back at and that he was bearing his life more bravely even she had anticipated then when there seemed to be some prospect of an heir to the old west country name we turned onr steps towards england and in due course of time a little son was to us whom we named by thb story of ht life after that brave and who had loved me bo dearly and yet so i will not say that my life was without shadow i was oh yes and yet there were days in the sacred in which i felt that my had no part there were times when he all the wealth of his love upon me when i felt that although his love might equal it never that other which stood alone the of my life so the years rolled on and with every one my adopted mother found her way to and with as for a little while eveiy time that came i hoped that she might bring the news that louis had found happiness elsewhere but he never did	30
bo he passed to and fro in different parts of the world sometimes going to the wildest and most spots in search of big game spending a season at but he made no effort to his life in a domestic sense he never seemed to think of filling the place which i had held with another one by one little human flowers out in the old west home golden haired blue eyed creatures all every one of them bright little souls who called princess and must have made her heart ache though she hid the fact like a martyr only once did she ever betray to me anything of what must often have passed through her mind ah she said if we had only one of these at so the strange of my life drew to a dose and became lost in the obscurity of a perfect and it happened one golden august day when we were l the end alone at for the children in t e nursery that i received a letter from my i am greatly afraid dearest child wrote that i shall not be able to pay my visit to yon this year x am since his from his last to africa he seemed himself and i not like to leave him as he ia at present he is not ill bat he is by a kind of low fever which is and strangely persistent when i say he is not ill i mean that he ia not np he goes very as the doctors have recommended him to several places in order to get rid of this south african we are starting for the h h early next week he laughs at my says that i ought to have seen him when out lion hunting and speechless from i am very glad that i did nothing of the kind i have no wish to see in any worse health than he is at present the doctors tell me that i am not to be uneasy yet there are times when he reminds me so much of my dear that my heart fails me altogether i think that my husband saw from my face that there was no good news in the princess s letter he took it from me and read it with only two words of comment as he laid it down again poor chap i he that was the beginning of the end the princess and her son moved during that winter persistently from place to she wrote to me always telling me the same thing that louis would not own to being ill that he always laughed at her fears and then during the cold spring d s which l z i c the t bt of ut life followed i received at last a which simply said my dear louis left me at pray for me so the was over and my to an end d o i list of works by john winter legends baby lai in on march army society pluck garrison gossip s secret that mi n n husband a siege baby of a children beautiful jim my poor dick harvest a little fool buttons bob forget court he went for a soldier the other man s wife nt o mt li l the painter mere luck only human my a soldier s children three girls that mrs smith i aunt the soul op the bishop a man s man a seventh child a born soldier the stranger woman a woman the major s favourite private a young man i married a wife i loved her once the truth the same thing with a difference the strange story of my life novel i works by john winter in one vol cloth si m a woman read a ill tor a u woman it not moat j but in a of this it i a tm tragedy out y b e hi word ht bo about tho with a past bat no one ba said witb exquisite aod tha of true bj john it been tha art to into a tt tha s a woman ia an lore and will a of i well realm john winter may well be of a book which a g ood plot with human so bam among strange winter of of late a fear that waa on ihe aa book after book waa written b her pen bat mr novel all at or a woman ia tlie bait work et given ui not even witb which won bar t may a born soldier john winter never written a better of iti kind than a bom soldier aa a of military hfe it ia and the plot and are moat managed army and navy e li aod happily hit off in a bom soldier aa in an work of the brilliant that given john winter ber high and there la do other writer who give an of vitality to of and by a few bold end p a of life in a cavalry ad bright and john winter never a tale of more it ii full of go very and ia altogether a delightful and a literary work and w f t it co street strand w o by john winter in one gilt os the truth by j a tha in the no but the m new tbey the the of the book out of their habit of telling tha bam truth tbey had been up in habit in their home in an of the group father sir dying taken to in their rich tha way in which young their aunt	30
e which was for a week after i was married when it was all so new and strange and that i really can hardly tell you what london is like i have a recollection of buying a great many things and of looking in a great many shop windows and going to which was a very new experience to me and of how your father laughed at me when i wanted to see and churches and other sights but he was very good he took me to see as much as he could before we sailed but it is so long ago dear and it was such an time that it is more like a dream to me than anything else some day we will take you home we shall all go home together and then we will a long the strange story of my life stay in london and you and i will do it and learn it thoroughly but alas for the of human hopes and desires we never did go home together for long before my father had even begun to think of a couple of years leave my pretty mother had gone to another home from which there is no return on a journey for which we may make no arrangements for companionship by the way when i was nearly fifteen she fell a victim to and died my mother s death made a changed man of my father theirs had been a most passionate love match a love which began on the day that he staying at the squire s in the little north country village of which her father was had fallen in love with her when his eyes first fell upon her under the spreading chestnut trees which shaded one side of the garden i have never seen that old garden but my mother described it to me often and often my father was twelve years older than she was and at that time of day she was only eighteen her whole life had been bounded by her father s parish the most prominent person who had ever come into her existence had been her father s squire lord rivers she had never in her life ventured from under her mother s wing but had grown up sweet and simple and shy as a wood violet surely the last girl in the world that one might imagine would be called upon to leave home and kindred and to make her own the utterly and entirely different life which is lived in the shining east and yet how wonderful love is one glance of a soldier s brave blue eyes was sufficiently to draw the simple young girl completely away all the ties and associations of her whole life he proposed to her within a few days of their meeting and six weeks later they were married in the little country church wherein she had been married by the father whom she was leaving never going back to the beginning to see again and so the two turned their backs on what to her had been her world and set their faces toward the unknown i can safely say that my mother never repented the step which she took that day from first to last my father was her lover and her king she worshipped him and he for his part her lovers they were always an ideal husband and wife they existed for each other and i their only child was ever and always a something outside their perfect life not that i had ever to complain of lack of love oh no no i can never look back to the day when my mother seemed to be by my presence or my father to be impatient of my childish i had the most devoted who ever existed and perhaps it is true that indian mothers do not have very much trouble with their children but still i never in my life felt shut out although i was always conscious of only coming next to my father or mother in the estimation of either my father was never the same after my mother s death when the time came for him to take his two years leave he resolutely declined any idea of going home i was most bitterly disappointed i was very young but just sixteen years old and the ambition of my life had been to pay a long delicious holiday to the old country to go home my father however absolutely set his face against any such idea no he said resolutely if your mother had been still with us it would have given me the greatest possible pleasure to take you and her home again but to go without her leaving her out here all alone to go to visit such of her people as are still living to go to all those places which we last saw together is more than i can endure it is quite out of the question you must not ask me to do it one of these days you will go home without me and you will understand then exactly what i am feeling now i felt the hot tears into my eyes as his meaning the strange story of my life broke upon me dear father i said slipping my arm round his neck and holding him very tightly don t think that i want you to do anything that will hurt you or make you think too painfully of what might have been i shall be quite content wherever you are i wish i had said nothing about it oh my dear he replied you are young very young and young things happily do not quite understand the sorrows which come to older hearts yours will come child soon enough don t think that i want you to be any different to what you are	30
you remind me more of her every day so it came about that mv father and i never went home together and the long dreamy delicious wanderings which dear mother and i used to discuss with such pleasure of anticipation never came to we did not waste our oh by no means we took it out as it were in patches instead of enjoying it all in one lump first we went off to for six months then when father had put in a few months more work we went in the opposite direction and made our and so we got change of scene and of air without reminding father too painfully of the holiday to which he had so long looked forward i had spent most of my indian life at and had been at school there for some years with our to my school days came to an end and by the time we returned from i was to all outward appearance quite a woman grown although i was but just seventeen by then my father had assumed the command of his regiment and on my return home to take up my position as mistress of his house i found myself a person of considerable importance i think on the whole that my father felt my mother s death less after i came home for good of course he must naturally have been terribly lonely during the time that i was still at school for all that we spent of the whole going back to the beginning year together was the time when he was able to get leave or i was able to go down to the plains he did not say much about it he was never a man to but remained a gallant upright soldier to the very end of his life but others told me how bitterly he had felt his loss there were ladies in the garrison who were most anxious to mother me on all possible occasions and they one and all united in telling me that my father was quite a different man now that i had come home altogether for myself i was perfectly happy at this time of course i should have been more happy if i could have had my mother as i had naturally expected to have but i was young and young people do forget at least they do not go on feeling as older ones do i have often thought since that it is middle aged people who suffer intensely from old folk bear the loss of those they love with comparative they seem often to feel that it is no use giving way to their grief that after all it is but for a time or as some poet puts it a passing out of this room into the next and young things although their grief may be very at the outset soon learn to find other interests and to make the best of what is but middle aged people men in the very prime of life as my father was it is they who feel grief and sorrow with intensity still he did feel it less after i went home and it is almost impossible for me to express how great was my satisfaction when i realized beyond all doubt that such was the case of course it would have been but a dreary and monotonous existence for me if my father had been a man to and shut himself up with his grief fortunately he was one of the and most pleasantly domestic men that one could meet with in a year s march he was always interested in my little projects always ready for me to take the smallest bit of pleasure that happened to be on foot he would cheerfully go night after night to dances or some other and stay till all hours lo the strange story of my life watching me enjoy myself when i he would often much rather have stayed quietly at home you are staying late to night colonel i heard say to him one night ah replied my father my little girl is enjoying herself i like to see young things happy while they have the chance of being so miss is enjoying herself rejoined the other voice with a laugh that is very certain all the better all the better i heard my father say she won t enjoy herself too much for me and then i stole and neither knew that i had heard a single word a my life changes chapter ii my life changes i was sitting at one day with my father when he looked across the table at me with a glance which was one half of apprehension and half of anxiety he said speaking rather abruptly i think you ought to get off to the hills as soon as possible off to the hills i exclaimed but why well you know you have had a long spell of this place and it is getting fearfully hot you are looking very pale and far too much so for your age i think you won t be able to wait for me i shall have to make arrangements to send you off to the hills by yourself oh but i can t go without you father i replied i think it would be better oh no dear i really could not leave you down here you are ever so much happier when i am with you you know that yes i know that he said smiling but at the same time if you get run down a shade too far that won t make me happier oh but i am not ill i i exclaimed no you are not ill but you may get ill at moment you know child you are not as i am and every day now the weather will get	30
worse not better the heat will get more oppressive and the atmosphere more but mother always stayed down with you not the first year or two he replied oh didn t she no she wanted to do so for she was just as unselfish as you are but it became very plain patent to the strange story of my the meanest observation indeed that she could not stand heat as well as i could that she very sensibly gave in after trying it for part of one hot season i really think you had better go up as soon as possible and i will follow you later on but i cannot go by myself father i exclaimed no no of course not mrs is going up oh i couldn t go with mrs and all those crying babies no father i really could not i would rather stay here even if i died that is talking nonsense said my father but he laughed under his moustache and i knew that mrs was under no circumstances to be my companion if i should be compelled to leave him at finally i turned my back upon and set off for in the company of mrs a gay little woman whose husband was in the she had only been out three or four years and had no idea of burying herself for love s sake in a down country station during the hot season i am not sure that my father was not a little doubtful as to her as for me she was young and distinctly of a gay turn one of those haired blue eyed little women who take life as it comes and as easily as human nature and circumstances will allow she was undoubtedly extremely fond of her husband and would infinitely have preferred that he should be going to likewise but as he was not able to go to any more than my father was she made the best of the fact that she had to go alone my father and captain both came to see us off on our journey and as the train out of the station leaving the two standing together on the platform her gaiety and brave airs all melted into a perfect passion of tears mv life changes it is awfully silly of me she said fiercely at her eyes with a little of a handkerchief which she had rolled up into a tight ball in her because of course jack is coming up as soon as he can possibly get away choking i always feel like this when i leave him first it is awfully silly you will think me a perfect fool child some day you will be married yourself and then you will know what it is poor old jack i almost wish i hadn t come but of course he insisted on it and after all it would be an awful bore for him if he were to have me ill on his hands and the doctor said i should get ill if i stayed down in horrid place i don t know why they wanted to quarter us in such a hole how lucky we got the carriage to ourselves she added presently in a different tone because i do hate crying before people and making a fool of myself there you needn t look at me with such pitiful eyes i am all right now and then she open her bag out a little dressing glass which she stuck up on the and began to at her face with some one cannot afford to cry in this country she explained to me that is what jack said when we first came out don t cry about things little woman nobody can afford to cry in india it takes too much of your vitality out of you i must say that i have always found the poor dear old fellow perfectly right she had spoken truly when she declared that she was not going to cry any more not another tear her radiant blue eyes so long as i was with her it was a hideous journey and i felt sometimes as if i should hardly live to reach my destination alive true we had our as we went we had a carriage reserved for us that is to say reserved for our exclusive use and as there were several officers whom we knew by the same train mrs made a great show of her good nature in inviting them to pay us the strange story of my life little visits she did not make them free of our carriage oh dear no but at the first stopping place when a couple of them came to see how we were getting on an j to inquire if we were comfortable she graciously informed them that they might come in as far as the next station if they liked after that she said we shall be resting and you will be glad to get back into your own still even relieved in this way the journey was a most tedious one and glad we were when the last tiresome part of it was over when we had left the hot and train and found ourselves carried along like so much baggage looking back from my present i often feel that it was just as well that my father had not realized how very young a mrs was we stayed at an hotel only for a few days and then moved into a charming little which the had from some friends who lived at altogether she was young she was really much younger than i although she was three and twenty and i was not yet eighteen she was gay she had plenty of money and she denied herself nothing every indulgence which she granted herself she set down to the score	30
of jack s wish that she should not surely jack must have been the most complacent husband to be found in the length and breadth of india of the world for that matter she had the dresses the most gorgeous gave the most cheery little and dinners and she went here there and everywhere knew everybody and was a universal favorite being her house companion i too went everywhere and knew everybody i was not perhaps such a universal favorite because i lacked her wonderful flow of spirits and her tremendous amount of enterprise but all the same i managed to have a very good time and in every letter that i wrote to my father i sang my little hostess s praises and begged him to hurry my life changes along as quickly as he could that he might come up and share our fun he always wrote back in the same strain enjoy yourself all you can delighted you are having such a lovely time don t yourself i trust to your good sense and discretion not to the too much but he always put me off about his leaving at last i asked him plainly how it was that neither he nor captain were able to come up at anything like the time which they had expected in answer to this question he replied that things were not going very well at the station that we were neither of us to worry but that it would be impossible for any officers to leave just at present there are of trouble in various quarters he wrote the health of the troop is not very good and we may be wanted at any moment you need not make yourself at all uneasy only you must get along without me for a little time longer how mrs s jack contrived to satisfy her i never quite knew she used to seize his letters eagerly enough to have satisfied the husband in the world glance them down utter an exclamation of disgust and dismay saying there now jack s leave put off again it is i believe it is nothing but that horrid old lady who has always been disagreeable and detestable to me and who hates me like poison i she s being horrid to jack now just because of my a bit with the old general but i ll with him when i go back again you just see if i don t pay that old lady out perhaps she is with your jack i suggested yes perhaps she is and perhaps my jack is with one of his own mrs flashed out lady was rather like a horse and i could not help laughing at the implied however she put the letter away in the drawer the strange story of my life she always kept those from her husband and after a minute or two said well it s no use our wasting our time here all day let us get ready to go to the to have seen her an hour later the of the gay surrounded by at least a dozen of the best men in the place nobody would have believed that she had ever been troubled even by a passing cloud for myself i was of course intensely disappointed that my father had not been able to come as i had expected and as he had arranged but i could not help seeing the wisdom of her suggestion that we should make the best of a bad business and be as happy as we could without our men folk i remember that it was at that party at mrs s that i first met a man who possessed any real interest for me men i knew by the dozen offers i had had in plenty partners why i could have had fifty of them at every dance i went to it was no unusual thing for me to find the s a d c at my shoulder with an intimation that his wished for the next dance i was very young and i took it all as it came enjoyed myself thoroughly from morning till night and wished with all my girl s heart at the end of every entertainment that it could begin and happen all over again until i met captain i had thought of all men as being one as good as another and had been absolutely impartial in my behavior towards them but from the first moment of meeting him things were different with me i do not know why it was he was not especially good looking in fact a good many people thought that he was rather ugly he was the regular type of a cavalry officer long of limb lean without being walked with a swinging gait had brown curly hair cut so close to his head that you could see no more than a wave in it and a very face about which there was nothing at all in particular excepting a pair of very blue eyes and life changes a carefully trained moustache he was the kind of man that one sees about a military station every day of one s life a man with nothing especially or particularly individual about him he was well dressed like every other man of his station his manners were good as the manners of men of his class always are perhaps his most noticeable characteristic was a singularly smooth and pleasant voice and an easy friendly sort of manner about which there was not the very smallest trace of affectation he was introduced to me by mrs herself and as there was dancing going on he asked me to honor him with a just then beginning he danced to perfection and before we had taken two turns round the big which had been erected on the lawn for the occasion he told me that	30
one goes off to london whenever one gets a chance and how far is london from i asked oh thirty miles you can slip up to town when your day s work is over get your dinner and do a and be back again in time for a decent night s rest after all what can any man want better than that i looked round at the quiet view which spread itself on all sides of us we were seated on a flat ledge at the extreme end of mrs s garden the itself stood on a of rock so that the trees and brush which covered the hill rose beyond it making a charming background behind it the garden which was very long stretched away in a sloping direction along the side of the the seat which we had found was at the extreme end of the garden quite a long way from the and we could look down hundreds of feet below us and is london pretty i asked is it as pretty as this captain la outright it is not anything like this he replied and yet when you see it and know it i have little doubt that you will prefer it infinitely to a love story chapter iii a love story i did not like to tell mrs anything that i had heard about their having the badly at but during the course of that evening i happened to find myself talking to a mrs who was our nearest neighbor and i asked her if she had heard the report and if she thought there was any truth m it oh my dear she said if your father has not told you anything about it i should not worry myself if i were you you know these unfortunate natives are so dirty and so in their habits they are always getting and things after one has been in india for a while one gets to take no notice of of that kind probably if you were in at this moment you would not know that there was a single case of in the entire station now i have a sister out in china her husband is a sort of out there what did she marry a i exclaimed no no replied mrs with a laugh but he has got a very good appointment and he gives himself the airs of at least a dozen we always call him the at home well the other day i wrote to her and said that i was so fearfully sorry to see by the english papers that they had the plague so out in and i didn t sleep for nights i couldn t get my sister and her dreadful position out of my head my dear she wrote back by return mail and said don t upset yourself about the plague in i made inquiries after i received you letter and i found they had had the plague rather badly down in the native quarter but until then we did not know anything about it so the strange story of my life my dear mrs went on i don t think you need upset yourself about any they may be having down at what does mrs say about it oh i didn t tell her that i had heard anything i replied well if i were you said mrs promptly i would not do so because you see she has not been very long out and she might worry herself to in my own mind i did not think mrs was at all a woman who would worry herself to fiddle strings from any cause but it was no use saying so to anyone else so i allowed mrs s remark to pass in silence i did mention the to father when i wrote to him again mentioned it in a casual kind of way told him that i had heard that the was rather bad at and asked whether it was true his reply was extremely i hope you have not been thinking too much of this he wrote there is in the native lines but then that is no new thing it would be much more unusual if there were none pray don t allow yourself to get nervous about it tell mrs that her husband is looking very fit and well and that we shall probably come up to together when we do manage to get away i did tell mrs she gave a sigh and a cloud came over her blue eyes poor dear old jack she said it is hard that i should be enjoying myself up here and he be down in that hateful old i don t know why if we have got to india and to serve half our time in such a hateful country that they could not quarter us in decent stations it seems so stupid to pick out all the most horrid and cities in india to plant the troops in and make military stations of the next moment she asked me whether it was not a love story time to dress and all signs of a cloud had absolutely vanished from her laughing face for myself i may as well confess that i never gave the another thought my life seemed from that time forward to be filled up with the personality of one individual that individual was captain of the rd it was natural enough as he said at first that we should meet everywhere you cannot get out of anybody s way in a place like and as i did not try to get out of his and he did everything he could to get into mine it was equally natural that we were together morning noon and night i think on the whole that the mornings were our best time mrs and i always rode through the cool and pleasant air	30
she was an excellent and generally used to lead the way with two or three devoted in attendance upon her i began with a variety of attendance but after captain came upon the scene they gradually away until he was the only one to be found at my saddle bow so we used to behind just keeping my gay little in sight sometimes barely that and it was during one of these rides when he had been up in nearly three weeks that he suggested to me that we should cast in our lot together and make our morning companionship into a compact for the rest of our lives you know he said to me leaning over to lay his hand upon my horse s neck i have never been really hard hit in my life before that was one of the reasons why i did not mind coming out to india for a year or two my people were distinctly against my doing so because my father has not been dead very long and my mother hated the idea of my being out of england she wanted me to marry and settle down but as i told her a poor man cannot very well marry on nothing no don t look like that i am not asking you quite to share nothing i have a few hundreds a year besides my pay and i shall the strange story of my life have more at my mother s death but i am not what you would call well off i thought i was perfectly safe in coming to india that i should never meet any lady out here to fall in love with but you see i was utterly wrong and somehow as you have been all your life out here i do not feel that it is the same hardship to ask you to stay out a little longer for my sake there i have put it very i know it but can t you see what i mean i am not much of a catch dear but i am desperately in love with you and i would stay out here for the rest of my life quite cheerfully and if i thought that you would be willing and content to stay with me i did not directly answer this for i had nothing to say i liked him oh yes the sight of his blue eyes and face was enough at any moment to put my whole heart in a flutter the touch of his hand made my heart thrill and thrill again i liked everything about him his heart whole laugh the flash of his white teeth th e turn of his well head the set of his shoulders everything about him pleased and satisfied me after all i had not been accustomed to much luxury or to great wealth and what was i to look for so much in a husband i was no beauty or at least i had never thought so haven t you anything to say to me he asked wistfully after a moment s pause i don t know what to say i said half he laughed outright then don t say it he rejoined promptly i will say it for you i know what you mean you are just as fond of me as i am of you isn t that about it and then i admitted that that was exactly it and somehow we farther and farther behind the others and when we got back to the we had quite made up our minds as to the future for the first time captain came into the house with us mrs he said half hesitatingly as a love story we reached the door you might give me some breakfast this morning why surely she replied does that mean that you have been for breakfast on other mornings and that we have neglected to ask you if so that was exceedingly of i certainly have never asked him i exclaimed my dear said mrs you will find out by and by that men things are always the better and more complacent for being fed i don t think that i wanted captain to be more complacent i rejoined oh oh i see well come in captain if she won t make you welcome i will he followed her into the pretty drawing room and it was a pretty room looking back after all these years i still carry in my mind s eye the charming picture of its snowy its wealth of flowers and the profusion of green plants with which my hostess had it the fact is mrs i heard him say in a very confidential tone and then i out of hearing because i realized that he was going to tell her how things were between us i was already out of my gray habit and into my fresh white muslin gown before she came to my room why you sly little witch she exclaimed as she entered who was to know that you meant serious business all this time he has told me all about it my dear i congratulate you with all my heart he says he is not well off but i don t know that that makes much difference his family is good and he himself is charming and i should think your father will be very much pleased indeed i should be if i were in his place i think that father will only be pleased because i am pleased i said with a half sigh as i remembered him for truly i had not given him a thought up to that moment the strange story of my life well dear well it is what men with pretty daughters in india must expect and look for at all events if they neither expect nor look for it it is	30
what they will get that other men shall come along and appreciate them but i am not pretty i exclaimed oh is that your genuine opinion miss modesty yes indeed it is i cried well i don t agree with you and i don t suppose your father would agree with you and i feel quite sure that captain would not agree with you either it is delightful to think that so pretty a little person should have such a modest opinion of herself i like you better for not thinking yourself at all attractive and then she drew me to her kissed me several times with a which i did not think she had in her and pushing me away with a laugh declared that she must fly to change her habit do you go along and play pretty hostess to that nice young man was her last laughing i finished my toilet and then went back to the little drawing room where i found my impatient lover awaiting me what an time you have been was his greeting oh no i have been yery quick indeed a very short time i replied you will often have to wait for me much longer than this then he said promptly you cannot care for me half as much as i do for you perhaps i don t then he caught hold of me but you do you do you know you do you know you are awfully in love with me if you are not you ought to be because i am so in love with you i would certainly give you time to change your clothes i persisted besides mrs came in to give me her version of the situation and she said he asked eagerly a love story oh she seems to think you are all right of course she thinks i am all right anybody but a match making parent would think i was all right he declared stoutly but only one thought troubles me is your father anything of a match making parent he put the question to me so solemnly and in such evident good faith that i could not help laughing aloud my father i said married himself for love pure and simple i do not think that he will ask whether you are rich his first question will be whether i care for you the strange story of my life chapter iv i think said captain during that first joyous little breakfast that i shall go down to and see your father myself oh i wouldn t do that said mrs i think if you write it will be quite as much as colonel will expect or wish for well perhaps that is so he said doubtfully but to my mind one interview is worth a hundred letters it is a long way to said mrs as we know by bitter experience eh yes it is a long way to i returned and my father is not the kind of person who upon of the way attentions why don t you write fully and offer to go down suggested mrs it would look pretty and attentive and as if you were anxious to do the right thing i am he said stoutly of course you are i know that you are but it is no joke going down at this time of the year to and coming back again it is such a waste of time and money and you have to think of ways and means now you know yes that is so he admitted with a rather glance at me if you offer to go down that will be all that is necessary colonel will then see that you arc really desperately in earnest and ten chances to one he is just on the eve of coming up for his own leave so your journey and your money and your time and your patience and your strength will all have been exhausted for nothing oh believe me you had better write tell him everything there is to tell about you and say that if he wishes it you will be delighted to go down to and show yourself eventually this was the course he took and when his letter had gone we set ourselves to await with such patience as we could my father s reply and decision what do you think your father will say he asked me at least twenty times during the course of the next few hours oh i think he will say that i am much too young to of marrying or even of being engaged do you really think so yes really then i think he will say that in addition to not thinking much of my age as me for matrimony he does not think very much of you as a son in law and that as a matter of fact he has some hideous old up his sleeve to whom he to sell me as soon as i go back to said my sweetheart sternly you are laughing at me it is very wrong to laugh at your husband it is very wrong of you to give your future wife i retorted he caught me nearer to him i like to give you a name all of my own he said suddenly dropping his tone and speaking very tenderly i like to feel that there is something about you even your name which nobody but i can share which belongs to me to myself alone i like your sweet soft sounding name of it is the prettiest name in the world but everybody calls you everybody who knows you mrs mrs with the r d hair and the teeth she calls you i am sure your father calls you too the strange story of my life no my father never calls me he calls me that	30

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