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40 chapters
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
Stephen lay on his stomach, one sharp elbow comfortable in a velvet bed of moss, his chin cupped in his palm, his beautifully shaped head thrown back, his alert face lifted to the sky, his eager eyes following hungrily the flight of a bird. Hugh, crunched up against the big oak tree, was making a chain of blossoms, and making it awkwardly enough, with many a restless boy-sigh, many a destruction of delicate spring wild flower. Helen was playing by herself. Nothing could have been more characteri
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Richard Bransby had few friends because he tolerated few. Unloving towards most, rather than unlovable, his life and his personality cut deep, but in narrow channels. To him pictures were—canvas and paint, and a considerable item of expense; for he was too shrewd a business man to buy anything cheap or inferior. Knowing his own limitations as few men have the self-searching gift to do, he took no risks with his strenuously earned sovereigns, lavishly as he spent them. He spent magnificently, but
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
Richard Bransby had amassed a fortune and perfected a fad, but he had amassed no friends. In the thirty-five years in which he had gathered and nursed his fortune (for he began at fifteen) he had made but the one friend—Latham. And even this sole friendship was largely professional and in small degree quick or vibrant. Helen might have had twenty playmates, but she greatly cared for none but her dear “make believes,” and tolerated no others but her cavalierly treated cousins. Mrs. Leavitt gave t
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
As Helen and Hugh came singing up the path, Bransby was driving Grant from the door. It was no friendliness that had led him to speed his visitor so far, but a desire to see if Helen were not coming. The sun was setting, and the father thought it high time she came indoors. Grant was in disgrace. He had come unbidden, forbidden, in fact—and so unwelcome. Advised by Latham (still a youthful, but daily growing famous physician) and enforced by his own judgment, Bransby was taking a short holiday.
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
It was not a boisterous meal. There was not a naturally noisy person there. Bransby was too cold, Stephen too sensitive, Hugh too heavy, to be given to the creation of noise. Mrs. Leavitt thought it bad form, and she was just lowly enough of birth to be tormentedly anxious about good form. And she was inclined to be fat. Helen was ebullient at times, but never noisily so; her voice and her motions, her mirth and her reprovings, were all silvery. It was a homely hour, and they were all in homely
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
Stephen was not happy. He was loving but not lovable—on the surface at least. He was sensitive to a fault, brooding, secretive. He had loved his mother dearly, and Hugh had been her favorite. But that had soured and twisted him less than had the marriage-misery of her last years. He had seen and understood most of it; and it had aged and lined his young face almost from his perambulator days. His two earliest memories were of her face blistered with tears, and a tea-table on which there had been
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
The years sped. In the autumn of 1916 Helen was twenty. The governess had left three years ago. Helen had found her a curate, and had given her her silver abundant. Already that curate had had preferment. Richard Bransby had contrived that, but Helen had instigated. Stephen and Hugh had gone, in due course, from the tutor to Harrow, from Harrow to Oxford. Stephen would have preferred education more technical, and Hugh would have preferred none. Hugh was not lazy, but he had little thirst for lea
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
One evening, early in the autumn of 1916, Morton Grant passed nervously by the lodge of Deep Dale, and along the carriage drive that twisted and curled to the house. He had cause enough to be nervous. For the second time in thirty years he was disobeying his chief grossly; and the cause of his present turpitude could scarcely have been more unpleasant or less reassuring. Under one arm he carried a large book carefully wrapped in brown paper. He carried it as if he feared and disliked it, and yet
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Bransby watched Grant under beetling brows, his thin lips set, stiff and angry. He valued his money. He had earned it hard, and to be robbed of a farthing had always enraged him. But more than any money—much more, he valued the prestige of his business and the triumphant working of his own business methods. Its success was the justification of his arbitrariness and his egoism. He was angry now, in hot earnest—very angry. “Robbed?” he said at last quietly. It was an ominous quietude. When he was
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
The two stricken men parted then, one going down the road with slouched shoulders and aimless gait, feeling more than such a type of such years and so circumstanced often has to feel, but devising nothing, suffering but not fighting. There was no fight in him—none left—his interview with Bransby had used it all up—to the last atom. Richard Bransby sat alone with his trouble, cut, angry, at bay—already devising, weighing, fighting, twisting and turning the bit of jade in his nervous fingers. He r
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
“Here you are! I thought you were coming back to the billiard room, Daddy.” As Helen Bransby came gayly in, her father threw Latham an appealing look, and shifted a little from the light. Latham stepped between them. “So he was, Miss Bransby. Forgive me, I kept him.” “Our side won, Daddy,” said the glad young voice. “Did we, dear? Then old Hugh owes me a bob.” As the words left his lips, a sudden spasm of memory caught him. Helen saw nothing, but Latham took a quick half-step towards him. “Are y
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
The same group was gathered in the same room just twenty-three hours later. But Mrs. Leavitt, detained last night on one of her many domestic cares (she never had learned to wear her domestic cares lightly, and probably would have enjoyed them less if she had) was here also to-night: an upright, satin-clad figure very busy with an elaborate piece of needlework. She made no contributions to the chat—the new stitch was difficult—but constantly her eye glanced from her needle, here, there and every
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
Richard Bransby looked after her sourly. “Humph,” he said. “What a foolish woman.” “Yes, silly,” Stephen agreed. “So foolish she dares to believe—in things,” Horace Latham said slowly. They all looked at him in amazement. “Latham!” Bransby exclaimed. The physician turned and met his gaze. “Yes?” “You don’t mean to tell me that you believe in all this hopeless drivel of ‘mediums’ and ‘control’ and spirit communications.” “I don’t know,” Latham said musingly. “Well, upon my word!” “Of course,” Lat
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
Mrs. Leavitt had not noticed the physician go. She had not been listening for some time, the turn of her pattern had been at its most difficult point. But she had managed it, and now sat counting contentedly. Helen was gazing into the fire, her face all tender and tense. Bransby had watched the door close, a queer purse on his lips. Presently he said grimly—half in jest, half in earnest— “Well, he’s a queer kind of a doctor. I shall have to consult some one else.” Mrs. Leavitt rose with a startl
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
“What a fashion plate!” Angela Hilary exclaimed as she came across her ornate little morning room to greet her guest. Latham smiled amiably. No one dressed more carefully than he, and he had no mock shyness about having it noted. “You don’t look especially dowdy yourself,” he returned, as he took in his hand one of her proffered hands and eleven of her rings. The visit was an unqualified success, and more than once Horace Latham thought ruefully what an ass he had been to fight shy of so delight
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
Morton Grant had delivered his sorry news on Monday. Dr. Latham had lunched with Mrs. Hilary on Wednesday. Thursday was bleak and cold, and a slow chilly rain fell all day. Helen and her father were alone in the library when the brothers joined them. She felt that her father meant to “have it out” then, and she was glad. For him and for her the tension was already too cruel. And it was Hugh’s due to know, and to know without longer delay. Once or twice she had felt that she herself must tell him
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
Richard Bransby was breaking. He could not bear much more, and he knew it. He had felt very faint at lunch. Latham would have driven him to his bed, but Latham had been again lunching at Mrs. Hilary’s. Now he was alone in the library. The room seemed to his tired, tortured mind haunted by Hugh and by trouble. He looked up at the clock. The boy had been gone just twenty-four hours. Where had he gone? What was he doing? Violet’s boy! The sick man felt alone and deserted. Helen had scarcely spoken
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Three days later they laid him down by his wife. Until then Helen scarcely left him. And not once did her pitiful young calm break or waver. Stephen came from London. Latham’s telephone message had reached Pont Street before Pryde had. No word came of Hugh, no word or sign from him. They laid him in his coffin almost as they found him. Helen insisted that it be so. Much that when dead we usually owe to strange hands, to professional kindliness, the girl, who had not seen death before, did for th
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
The spring waxed into radiant molten summer, mocking with its lush of flower-life, its trill of bird-voice, its downpouring of sunshine, the agony of the nations, and the pitiful grief in one English girl’s inconsolable heart. Other girls lost their lovers. Never a home in England but held some bereavement now, never a heart in Christendom but nursed some ache. But most of the sorrow and suffering was ennobled and blazoned. Other girls walked proud with their memories— his D.S.O. pinned in their
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
Begun half in fun, the pretty widow’s advance towards the physician had grown a little out of her own entire control, and she found herself in some danger of being hoist by her own petard. Easy enough she found it to handle the man—she had handled men from her cradle—but she found her own wild heart not quite so manageable. Helen half expected Angela to make the proposal which Latham, the girl felt sure, never would. She was sure that Angela was in deadly earnest now, and she was confident that
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
The jade Joss had the room to himself. There was little enough light and no fire. Gray shadows hung thick in the place, palpable and dreary. The blinds were down and the curtains all drawn. It was late afternoon in January—a cold, forbidding day; and the room itself, once the heart of the house, was even colder, more ghoul-like. Only one or two thin shafts of sickly light crept in, penetrating the gloom—but not lifting it, intensifying it rather. Joss looked cold, neglected and alien. The rose-c
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
As the fussy, bustling footsteps died away Stephen sank into an easy-chair—Richard’s own, as it chanced—and laid his head on a table. He was worn out with tension and uncertainty. The tall clock in the corner had run down. The gas fire made no sound. No room could have been stiller. The day was mending toward its close, and the late level sun flooded in from the windows, as if to make up for lost time and eight months of exclusion. The light of the fire lit up the room’s other side, and between
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
About noon the next day Helen motored from London and took them all by surprise. Mrs. Leavitt was delighted. It was lonely at Deep Dale—very lonely sometimes. For the first time in his life Stephen was sorry to see his cousin. Her visit, he felt, foreboded no good to his momentary enterprise, and her presence could but be something of an entanglement. He was manager—dictator almost—at Cockspur Street, at the Poultry and at Weybridge, and could carry it off with some show of authority, and with s
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CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXIV
Of course any feeling of security built upon so slight foundation, and concerning a matter of such paramount and vital moment, could but be transient. With the next daylight, dread and anxiety reasserted themselves. And Pryde was again the victim of restlessness and uncertainty. Helen’s presence, her nearness to the library all the time, and her actual occupation of it whenever she chose, disconcerted him. He hoped that she would go back to Curzon Street almost at once. Anxious as he was to go o
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CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXV
In a little room high up in the house, her very own sitting-room, heaped with roses and heliotrope and carnations, its windows looking out to the Surrey hills and a gurgling brook—blue as steel in the winter cold, its snow-white banks edged with irregular shrubberies icicle-hung, Helen and Latham sat in close conference. A glorious fire flamed on the broad hearth in the corner. Helen had inherited her father’s love of fires. When the war came, crippling their servant staff both at Curzon Street
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CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI
She seemed quite herself at luncheon, and Latham was the life and the jest of the table. Women are bred so; and such is the craft of his trade. Even Stephen watching jealously—he had known of the tête-à-tête of the morning—learned nothing. And Caroline Leavitt rejoiced and was grateful to see the girl so much more nearly herself. But still Stephen watched—and waited. At twilight he found Helen alone in the library. He joined her almost timidly, fearing she might drive him away. He sensed well en
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CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVII
But no father came to her call, no companion from the void to her tryst. She waited, feeling, or thinking that she felt, the air touch her hair, brush her face, cool but kindly, and once cross her lips. She waited, but only the light air, or her fancy of it, came. She knelt down by the old chair in which she had seen him last until she had seen him in his majesty, on the floor, in the hall. She laid her head on the seat that had been his, and wept there softly, disappointed, overwrought. Some on
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CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXVIII
Angela Hilary was half crying, half laughing, when she danced into the drawing-room. The tea still stood on the low table, steam still hissed from the kettle. But only Latham was there, alone, on the hearthrug. She swept him a low curtsey, caught him by the shoulders and swung him into the center of the room, whistling a ravishing melody in three-four time. He put his arm about her gravely, and they waltzed on and on until Barker cried, “Oh lor!” in the doorway. “It’s all right,” Angela told her
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CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXIX
For a long time neither spoke, or moved. Then Hugh held out his arms, and Helen came into them. And still neither spoke. The old clock ticked the moments, and the beat of their hearts throbbed tremblingly. At last they spoke, each at the same instant. “Helen”—“Hugh.” She lifted her hand from his shoulder, and fondled his face. Of course, she spoke first, when either could speak beyond that first syllable. “Oh, my dear, my dear!” she said. “I thought you were never coming back to me.” He caught h
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CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXX
Too amazed to speak, too stunned to think, Hugh Pryde stood rigid—dumfounded. Helen was breathing rapidly, her breast rising and falling in great heaves, waves of alternate shadow and sunset veiling and lighting her face, her eyes far off and set, her hands reaching out to—— “Helen, my dear——” he said, brought to himself by her strangeness. “Oh!” she cried fiercely, great longing fluting her voice—she was more intensely nervous than her companion had ever seen any one before, and he had seen hun
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CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXI
Often life seems one long series of interruptions; and, more often than not, interruptions are petty and annoying. That it is our inconsequential acquaintances who interrupt us most frequently is easily enough understood—far more easily understood than accepted. But it is much more difficult to understand how often some crisis is transmuted or decided by some very minor personality, and a personality in no way concerned in the crucial thing it decides or alters. Stephen was determined that Hugh
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CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXII
Neither followed him, and Stephen did not even call after him “not to linger in the hall, running the risk of being seen,” but turned at once to Helen, who sat brooding and puzzled. “Helen,” Pryde said earnestly, “you must help me persuade him to go at once.” “I can’t do that, Stephen,” the girl replied slowly. “But it’s madness for him to stay here.” “I’m not so sure of that,” Helen said, shaking her head. “I have the same feeling that he has—exactly the same feeling.” “Helen, be sensible!” he
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CHAPTER XXXIII
CHAPTER XXXIII
The wretched man sat helpless in the grip of his terror. Cold puffs of air buffeted his trembling face. A hand of ice lay on his forehead. Afraid of what he almost saw dimly, and clearly sensed now, he hid his face in his hands and waited, unable to move, except as his own abject fear shook him, unable to call for help. And he would have welcomed any human help now—any human companionship. But such wills as Stephen Pryde’s are neither conquered nor broken by one defeat. Presently he took down hi
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CHAPTER XXXIV
CHAPTER XXXIV
She looked in the fire. She counted the clock’s ticking. She gazed at the Joss. What should she do? She asked them all that. What ought Hugh to do? They gave her no answer, no help. She rang the bell, and sank dejectedly into her father’s chair. “Do you know where Dr. Latham is?” she asked Barker when the girl came. “No, Miss.” “Find him. Tell him I want him—here, at once.” It seemed an unconscionable time to her that she waited. But it was not long, as the clock told it. Barker had been quick f
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CHAPTER XXXV
CHAPTER XXXV
“Hugh will be down directly,” Helen told Latham as she came in, a moment after Mrs. Hilary had gone. “Good. I will take him away in my car, and find some place where he can stay safely until we can get at the truth of this.” “Ah, that is good of you,” Helen thanked him. “Remember,” Latham reminded her gravely, “sooner or later Hugh must give himself up.” “He knows that,” Helen said bravely. “I drive my own car now,” the doctor said briskly, “so we can start at once. Be sure he’s ready.” “Oh, yes
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CHAPTER XXXVI
CHAPTER XXXVI
As Stephen’s step died in the distance, all Hugh’s uncertainty came back, and he turned to Helen disconcertedly. “I hope this is the right thing I am doing.” “I am sure it is,” the girl said. “Dr. Latham thinks so too.” “Are you? Still something keeps telling me I shouldn’t go—I dare say it’s my imagination.” “Why, yes,” she reassured him, “what difference could it make, Hugh, whether you search this afternoon or this evening?” “None, of course,” he admitted; “the strain has lasted so long it’s
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CHAPTER XXXVII
CHAPTER XXXVII
“Military police, I suppose, or a non-com. and two privates,” Hugh said as he and Latham went toward the morning room. “Two outside the door,” Latham said, “a non-commissioned officer in the morning room—a decent chap—very.” Hugh nodded. “Oh, yes—and he’ll behave very decently to me—they usually do in such cases—and a good deal is left to their discretion. Undoubtedly it’s a non-com. and a trusted one. Good-by, Latham, and, I say, thanks awfully.” “I’m coming in with you.” “No, go back to Helen,
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CHAPTER XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
When Latham returned to the library he found Helen sitting by the writing-table, one hand lying idly and resting on the jade paper weight. He spoke to her, and she looked up and smiled at him rather vacantly, but she said nothing. He gave her a sharp look, and then picked up a magazine and sat down, pretending to read. She sat very still. She seemed resting—and though he watched her, he decided not to disturb her, to make no effort to arouse her. And so they sat without a word until Hugh came ba
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CHAPTER XXXIX
CHAPTER XXXIX
Stephen turned restlessly on his pillows, and Angela Latham bent down and cozied them deftly. “You’re a wonderful nurse,” he told her gratefully. “Not bad, am I?” “I’ve made you a great deal of trouble.” “You have,” Mrs. Latham returned cordially. “But you know what Mrs. Hemans says, or perhaps it’s Mark Twain, I always get them mixed, ‘the labor we delight in physics pain’—I’ve quite enjoyed the trouble—and Georgie Washington, but you begin to do me credit. You’re going to be a good boy now and
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CHAPTER XL
CHAPTER XL
Hugh was embarrassed and awkward when he came in; Stephen was neither. He lay comfortably on his plumped-up pillows and regarded his brother with a slight, cynical smile. “Hello, Steve,” the younger said. Stephen said nothing. “Jolly fine to see you getting on—Ripping—what—” “Take it easy,” Stephen said amusedly. “I don’t worry: you needn’t.” Mrs. Latham pushed a chair to the bed, and Hugh sat down awkwardly, and put down on the small table near Stephen’s pillow a parcel. Stephen eyed it quizzic
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