The Captives


CHAPTER V

THE CHOICE

She waited for some time alone in the hall listening for she knew not what. Her departure from the Chapel had been too abrupt to allow her in a moment to shake off the impression of it—above all, the impression of Mr. Crashaw standing there, his arms stretched out to her, his eyes burning her through and through with the urgent insistence of his discovery.

She was tired, her head ached horribly, she would have given everything at that moment for a friend who would care for her and protect her from her own wild fears. She did not know of what she was afraid, but she knew that she felt that she would rather do anything than spend the night in that house. And yet what could she do? How could she escape? She knew that she could not. Oh! if only Martin would come! Where was he? Why could he not carry her off that very night? Why did he not come?

She gazed desperately about her. Could she not leave the house there and then? But where should she go? What could she do without a friend in London? She stood there, clasping and unclasping her hands, looking up at the black stairs, listening for some sound from above, fancying a ghost in every darkening corner of the place.

Then her common sense reasserted itself. It was something, at any rate, that she was out of the Chapel, away from Mr. Crashaw's piercing eyes, Mr. Thurston's rasping voice, Mr. Warlock's reproachful melancholy. She felt this evening as though by struggling with all her strength she could shut the gates upon new experiences that were fighting to enter into her soul, but must, at all costs to her own happiness, be defeated. No such thing as ghosts, no such thing as a God, be He kind, tender, cruel or loving—nothing but what one can see, can touch, can confront with one's physical strength. She had been to a service at a Methodist chapel, her aunt had been ill, to-morrow there would be daylight and people hurrying down the street about their business, work and shops and food and sun ... No such thing as ghosts! Nothing but what you can see!

"And I'll get some work without wasting a minute," she thought, nodding her head. "In a shop if necessary—or I could be a governess—and then when he is free, Martin will be with me."

She climbed on a chair and turned down the hall-gas as she had seen Martha do. She went to the door and slipped the chain into its socket and turned the lock. She listened for a moment before she started upstairs, she saw Mr. Crashaw's eyes in the dark—she heard his voice.

"Punishment! Punishment!..."

She suddenly started to run up the black stairs, stumbled, ran faster through the passage under the picture of the armed men, arrived at last in her room, breathless.

During her undressing she stopped sometimes to listen. Her aunt's bedroom was on the floor below hers, and she certainly could hear nothing through the closed doors, and yet she fancied, as she stood there, that the sound of sobbing came up to her and, twice, a sharp cry.

"I suppose I'm terribly selfish," she thought, "I ought to want to go and help Aunt Anne, and I don't." No, she didn't. She wanted to run away from the house, miles and miles and miles. She climbed into bed and thought of her escape. If Miss Trenchard did not answer her letter, then she could go off to Uncle Mathew, greatly though she disliked the thought of that; then she could live on her three hundred pounds and look about until she found work or Martin came for her.

But so ignorant was she of the world that she did not in the least know how she could get her three hundred pounds. But Uncle Mathew would know. She thought of him standing in the doorway at the hotel, holding up a glass, then she thought of Martin, and so fell asleep.

She woke suddenly to find some one standing in her open doorway and holding up a candle. That some one was old Martha, looking strange enough in a nightdress, her scanty grey hairs untidily about her neck and a dirty red shawl over her shoulders. Maggie blinked at the light and sat up in bed.

"What is it?" she asked.

"It's your aunt, Miss—Miss Anne. She's very bad. She wants you to go to her."

Maggie got out of bed, put on her dressing-gown and slippers and followed the servant.

As she hurried along the dark passage she was still only half-awake; her soul had not returned into her body, but her body was awake and vibrating with the knowledge that the soul was soon coming to it, and coming to it with great news, with the consciousness of a marvellous experience. For at the instant when Martha awoke her she had been dreaming of Martin, dreaming of him physically, so that it was his body against hers, his hand hot and dry in hers cool and soft, his cheek rough and strong against hers smooth and pale. There had been no sentimentality or weakness in her dream. They had been confident and sure and defiant together, and it had been real life for her, so real that this dream life in which now she moved down the shadowy passage was about her as green water is about one when one swims under waves.

It was only slowly, as the cold air of the house at night cleared her eyes and her throat and her breast, that she came to the world consciousness again and surrendered her lover back to the shades and felt a sudden frightened fear lest, after all, she should never really know that ecstasy of which she had just been dreaming.

Nevertheless it was still with a great consciousness of Martin that she entered her aunt's bedroom. Before she entered she turned round for a moment to Martha.

"What must I do?" she asked. "What will she want me to do?"

"It's only," said Martha, "if the pains come on very bad, to give her some drops. They're in a little green bottle by her bed. Five drops ... yes, miss, five drops in a little green bottle. Only if the pains is very bad. She's brave—wonderful. I'd 'ave sat up till morning willing, and so of course would Miss Elizabeth. But she seemed to want you, miss."

They were like two conspirators whispering there in the dark. The room within was so still. Maggie very softly pushed back the door and entered. She walked a few steps inside the room and hesitated. There was no sound in the room at all, utter stillness so that Maggie could hear her own breathing as though it were some one else at her side warning her. Then slowly things emerged, the long white bed first, afterwards a shaded lamp beside it, a little table with bottles, a chair—beyond the circle of lighted shadow there were shapes, near the window a high glass, a dark shade that was the dressing-table, and faint grey squares where the windows hung.

In the room was a strange scent half wine, half medicine, and beyond that the plain tang of apples partially eaten, a little smell of oil too from the lamp—very faintly the figure of the Christ above the bed was visible. Maggie moved forward to the bed, then stopped again. She did not know what to do; she could see a dark shadow on the pillow that must she knew be her aunt's hair, and yet she did not connect that with her aunt. The room was cold and, she felt, of infinite space. The smell of the wine and the medicine made her shy and awkward as though she were somewhere where she should not be.

There came a little sigh, and then a very quiet, tired voice.

"Maggie, is that you?"

"Yes, Aunt Anne."

She came very close to the bed, and suddenly, as though a curtain had been drawn back, she could see her aunt's large eyes and white sharp face.

"It was very good of you, dear, to come. I felt ashamed to wake you up at such an hour, but I wanted you. I felt that only you must be with me to-night. It was a call from God. I felt that it must be obeyed. Sit down, dear. There, on that chair. You're not cold, are you?"

Maggie sat down, gathering her dressing-gown close about her. She was not even now drawn right out of her dream, and the room seemed fantastic, to rise and fall a little, and to be filled with sound, just out of hearing. For a time she was so sleepy that she nodded on her chair, and the green lamp swelled and quivered and the very bed seemed to sway in the dark, but soon the cold air cleared her head, and she was wide awake, staring before her at the grey window-panes. Her aunt did not for a long time speak again. Maggie sat there her mind a maze of the Chapel, old Crashaw, Miss Avies, and Martin. Slowly the cold crept into her feet and her hands, but her head now was burning hot. Then suddenly her aunt began to talk in a dreamy rather lazy voice, not her natural daily tone which was always very sharp and clear. She talked on and on; sometimes her sentences were confused and unfinished, sometimes they seemed to Maggie to have no meaning; once or twice the voice dropped so low that Maggie did not catch the words, but always there was especial urgency behind the carelessness as though every word were being spoken for a listener's benefit—a listener who sat perhaps with pencil and notebook somewhere in the dark behind them.

"So sorry ... so sorry, Maggie dear ... so sorry," the words ran up and down. "I hadn't meant to take you away before the service was over. Elizabeth could have ... sometimes my pain is very bad and I have to lie down, you know. But it's nothing—nothing really—only I'm glad, rather, that you should share all our little troubles, because then you'll know us better, won't you? Dear Maggie, there's been something between us all this time, hasn't there? Ever since our first meeting—and it's partly been my fault. I wasn't good at first, I wanted to be kind, but I was stiff and shy. You wouldn't think that I'm shy? I am, terribly. I always have been since I was very little, and just to enter a room when other people are there makes me so embarrassed ... I remember once when mother was alive her scolding me because I wouldn't come in to a tea-party. But I couldn't; I stood outside the door in an agony, doing everything to make myself go in—but I couldn't ... But now I've come to love you, dear, although of course you have your faults. But they are faults of your age, carelessness, selfishness. They are nothing in the eyes of God, who understands all our weaknesses. And you must learn to know Him, dear. That is my only prayer now. If I am taken, if I go before the great day—if it be His will—then I pray always, now that I may leave you in my place, waiting for Him as I have waited, trusting Him as I have trusted ... you saw to-night what it means to us, what it must mean to any one who has listened. There were times, years ago, when I had not turned to God, when I did not care, when I thought of earthly love ... God drew me to Himself ... You too must come, Maggie—you must come. You mustn't stay outside—you are asked, you are invited—perhaps you will be compelled ..."

The voice sank: Maggie's teeth chattered in her head from the cold, and her foot had gone to sleep. She felt obstinate and rebellious and frightened, she could not think clearly, and the words that came from her, suddenly, seemed to her not to be her own.

"Aunt Anne, I want to do everything that you and Aunt Elizabeth think I should, but I must be myself, mustn't I? I'm grown up now; I've got my three hundred pounds and I don't think I want to be religious. I'm very grateful to you and Aunt Elizabeth, but I'm not a help to you much, I'm afraid. I know I'm very careless, I do want to be better, and that's all the more reason, perhaps, why I should go out and earn my own living. I'd learn more quickly then. But I do love you and Aunt Elizabeth ..."

She broke off; she did not love them. She knew that she did not. The only human being in all the world whom she loved was Martin. Nevertheless there did come to her suddenly then a new tenderness for her aunt; the actual sight of her pain in the Chapel had deeply touched her and now her eagerness for escape was mingled with a longing to be affectionate and good.

But Aunt Anne did not seem to have heard.

"Are you sure you're not cold, dear?"

"No, aunt."

Their hands touched.

"But you are. Put that rug over you. That one at the end of the bed. I'm quiet now. I think perhaps I shall sleep a little."

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Perhaps turn the lamp down, dear. That's it. A little more. Now, if you'd just raise my pillow. There, behind my head. That's the way! Why, what a good nurse you are!"

Maggie, as tenderly as she could, turned the pillow, patted it, placed it beneath her aunt's head. She was close against her aunt's face, and the eyes seemed suddenly so fierce and urgent, so insistent and powerful, that seeing them was like the discovery of some blazing fire in an empty house. Most of all, they were terrified eyes. Maggie went back to her chair. After that, she sat there during the slow evolution of Eternity; Eternity unrolled itself before her, on and on and on, grey limitless mist and space, comfortless, lifeless, hopeless. She had been for many weeks leading a thoroughly unwholesome life in that old house with those old women. She did not herself know how unhealthy it had been, but she knew that she missed the wide fields and downs of Glebeshire, the winds that blew from the sea round Borhedden, the air that swirled and raced up and down the little stony strata of St. Dreot. Now she had been kept indoors, had had no fun of any kind, had looked forward to Mr. Magnus as her chief diversion. Then Martin had come, and suddenly she had seen how dangerously her life was hemming her in. She was losing courage. She would soon be afraid to speak for herself at all; she would soon ...

In a panic at these thoughts, and feeling as though some one was trying to push her down into a coffin whilst she was still alive, she began hurriedly to speak, although she did not know whether her aunt were asleep or no.

"I think I ought to tell you, Aunt Anne, that I wrote a letter some days ago and posted it myself. It was to a lady who knew Father once in Glebeshire, and she said that if ever I wanted help I was to write to her, and so—although perhaps I oughtn't to have done it without asking you first, still I was afraid you mightn't want me to—so I sent it. I wouldn't like to hurt your feelings, Aunt Anne, and it isn't that I'm not happy with you and Aunt Elizabeth, but I ought to be earning my own living, oughtn't I? And I've only got my three hundred pounds, haven't I? I'm not complaining, but I don't know about anything yet, do I? I can't even find my way when I'm out with Aunt Elizabeth. And I'm afraid I'll never be really good enough to be religious. Perhaps if Father'd wanted me to be I might be now, but he never cared ... I hope you won't be angry, Aunt Anne, but I didn't like to-night—I didn't really. When I was there I thought that soon I'd begin to cry like the others, but it was only because every one else was crying—not because I wanted to. I hope you won't be angry, but I'm afraid I'll never be religious as you and Aunt Elizabeth want me to be; so don't you think it will be better for me to start learning something else right away?"

Maggie poured all this out and then felt immense relief. At last she was honest again; at last she had said what she felt, and they knew it and could never say that she hadn't been fair with them. She felt that her speech had cleared the air in every kind of way. She waited for her aunt's reply. No sound came from the bed. Had her aunt heard? Perhaps she slept. Maggie waited. Then timidly, and softly she said:

"Aunt Anne ... Aunt Anne ..."

No reply. Then again in a whisper:

"Aunt Anne ... Aunt Anne ..."

Supposing Aunt Anne ... Maggie trembled, then, commanding herself to be calm, she bent towards the bed.

"Aunt Anne, are you asleep?"

Suddenly Aunt Anne's face was there, the eyes closed, the mouth, the cheeks pale yellow in the faint reflection from the lamp. There was no stir, no breath.

"Aunt Anne, Aunt Anne," Maggie whispered in terror now. Then she saw that her aunt was sleeping; very, very faintly the sheets rose and fell and the fingers of the hand on the coverlet trembled a little as though they were struggling to wake.

Then Aunt Anne had heard nothing after all. But it might be that she was pretending, just to see what Maggie would say.

"Aunt Anne," whispered Maggie once more and for the last time. Then she sat back on her seat again, her hands folded, staring straight in front of her. After that she did not know for how long she sat there in a state somewhere between dream and reality. The room, although it never lost its familiarity, grew uncouthly strange; shapes grey and dim seemed to move beneath the windows, humping their backs, spinning out into long limbs, hands and legs and gigantic fingers. The deadest hour of the night was come; the outside world seemed to press upon the house, the whole world cold, thick, damp, lifeless, like an animal slain and falling with its full weight, crushing everything beneath it. Perhaps she slept—she did not know. Martin seemed to be with her, and against them was Aunt Anne, her back against the door, her hands spread, refusing to let them pass. The room joined in the struggle, the floor slipped beneath their tread, the curtain swayed forward and caught them in its folds, the lamp flickered and flickered and flickered ...

She was awake suddenly, quite acutely aware of danger. She rubbed her eyes, turned, and in the dim shadow saw her aunt sitting up in bed, her body drawn up to its intensest height, her hands pressing down, flat upon the bed. Her eyes stared as though they would break down all boundaries, but her lips trembled like the lips of a little child.

"Aunt Anne, what is it?" Maggie whispered.

"It's the pain—" Her voice was far away as though some one were speaking from the passage outside the door. "It's the pain ... I can't ... much more ..."

Maggie remembered what Martha had told her about the drops. She found the little green bottle, saw the glass by the side of it.

Suddenly she heard Aunt Anne: "Oh no ... Oh no! God I can't ... God, I can't ... I can't."

Maggie bent over the bed; she put her hand behind her aunt's back and could feel the whole body quivering, the flesh damp beneath the night-dress. She steadied her, then put the glass to her lips.

The cry was now a little whisper. "No more ... I can ... no more." Then more softly still: "Thy will, oh Lord. As thou wilt—Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed ... Hallowed ... Hallowed..."

She sank down on to her pillows.

"Is it better?" Maggie asked.

Her aunt caught her hand.

"You mustn't leave me. I shan't live long, but you must stay with me until I go. Promise me! Promise me!"

"No, I can't promise," said Maggie.

"You must stay. You must stay."

"No I can't promise." Then suddenly kneeling down by the bed she put her hand on the other's arm: "Aunt Anne, I'll do anything for you—anything—to make you better—if I can help ... but not a promise, I can't promise."

"Ah, but you will stay," Aunt Anne's whisper trembled with its certainty.

That seemed the climax of the night to Maggie then. She felt that she was indeed held for eternity by the house, the Chapel, and something beyond the Chapel. The scent of the medicine, the closeness of the room, the darkness and the sickness, seemed to close all about her ... She was at the bottom of a deep well, and she would never get out, she would never get out ...

The door slowly, very softly opened, and old Martha looked in.

"She's been very bad," whispered Maggie.

"Ay, I heard something. That's why I came. You gave her the drops?"

"Yes."

"She'll sleep a bit now. I'll take your place, Miss Maggie. It's time you went back to your bed."

Maggie crept away.

She came down to breakfast to find the house bathed in sunlight and the parrot singing hoarsely "And her golden hair was hanging down her back." Aunt Elizabeth was there, cheerful and almost merry in her bird-like fashion. The world was normal, ghosts out of fashion, and this morning was the day on which the silver was cleaned. This last was Maggie's business, and very badly she did it, never being "thorough," and having a fatal habit of thinking of other things. Porridge, eggs and bacon, marmalade—

"And—her golden hair was hanging—" croaked Edward.

"Your aunt won't come down this morning, Maggie. She's much better. The sun's shining. A little walk will be a good thing. I'll buy the calico that Anne talked about. Your aunt's better."

Maggie felt ashamed of herself. What desperate silly feelings had she allowed last night? How much she had made of that service, and how weak she was to give way so easily!

"I'll clean the silver," she thought. "I'll do it better than ever"—but unfortunately she had a hole in her stocking, and Aunt Elizabeth, like a sparrow who has found a worm, told her about it.

"Mr. Crashaw's coming to tea this afternoon," she concluded.

"That's why Anne's staying in bed—to be well enough." The stocking and Mr. Crashaw dimmed a little of the morning's radiance, but behind them was the thought, "Martin must come to-day. It was like a message his look last night." She even sang to herself as she scrubbed at the silver.

They spent a domestic morning. Aunt Elizabeth did not go for her walk, but instead stayed in the dining-room and, seated at the end of the long dining-table, her head just appearing above the worn and soiled green table-cloth, tried to discipline the week's household accounts. She worked sucking one finger after another and poking her pencil into her ears.

"One pound, three shillings—ham, ham, ham—?"

At one moment she invited the cook to assist her, and that lady, crimson from the kitchen fire, bared arms akimbo, stated that she was not only the most economical woman in London, but was also, thanks to her upbringing, one of the most sober and virtuous, and if Miss Cardinal had anything to say against—

Oh no! Aunt Elizabeth had nothing to say against, only this one pound, three shillings—

Well, the cook couldn't help that; she wasn't one to let a penny out of her fingers where it shouldn't go.

So the morning hummed along; luncheon-time came, the silver was all cleaned, the stockings changed, and there was roast chicken. Thomas, with his wicked eyes, came slowly, majestically upon the scene—but even he was not sinister to-day, being interested in his own greed rather than other persons' sins.

All this time Maggie refused to think. Martin would come, then she would see.

Martin ... Martin ... Martin ... She went up into her bedroom and whispered the name over and over to herself whilst she tried to mend her stocking. She flung the stocking down and gazed out of the window on to a world that was all golden cloud and racing watery blue. The roofs swam like floating carpets in the sun, detached from the brick and mortar beneath them, carried by the racing clouds. It was only at that sudden gaze that she realised that she was a prisoner. All her alarm came back to her.

"Why can't I go out? I'll put on my hat and just walk out. No one can stop me. No one ..."

But she knew that she could not. Something more must happen first. She turned from the window with a little shudder, finished very clumsily her stocking, and as the cuckoo clock struck halfpast three went down to the drawing-room.

There to her surprise, she found Caroline Smith. The events of the last few days had, a little, dimmed Caroline from her memory. She had not seen Caroline for a fortnight. She did not know that she especially wanted to see Caroline now. However, it was very certain that Caroline wanted to see her. The young woman was dressed in rose-coloured silk that stood out from her slim body almost like a crinoline, and she had a straw funnel-shaped hat with roses perched on the side of her lovely head. She kissed Maggie many times, and then sitting down with her little sharp black shoes poked out in front of her, she ran on:

"It's been too bad, Maggie, dear; it's simply ages since we had a moment, isn't it, but it hasn't been my fault. Father's been ill—bronchitis—and I've had to help Mother. Father's been so happy, he's just been able to lie in bed for days and think about God. None of those tiresome people at the Bank to interrupt him, and chicken and jelly as much as he liked. He was so unhappy yesterday when he had to go back to work, poor dear ... But, Maggie, I hear you were at the service last night. How did you like it?"

"Like it?" said Maggie. "I don't know that it's a thing one likes, exactly."

"Doesn't one? I don't know. I'm not one of the Inside Saints, you know, and I wouldn't be if they wanted me to he. But you're one now, they say, and I never would have thought it. You don't look a bit like one, and I shouldn't have dreamt that you'd ever stand that sort of thing. You look so matter-of-fact."

Maggie was on the point of bursting out that she was not an Inside Saint, and would never be one, when caution restrained her. She had learnt already that her gay young companion was not as trustworthy as best friends ought to be.

"It was the first time, last night," she said.

"Yes, I know, and Miss Cardinal was ill and had to come away in the middle, didn't she? It must have been a simply awful meeting, because Mother came back as limp as anything. She'd been crying buckets, and has a dreadful headache to-day. I suppose Mr. Crashaw gave it them. I've never heard him, but I've seen him. Horrid old monkey—I hope Miss Cardinal's better to-day."

"Yes, thank you," said Maggie. "She's better."

"Well, that's a good thing. I'm so glad. And you, you darling, what did you think of it all? I'm sure you didn't cry buckets. I can see you sitting there as quiet as anything, like a little Quaker. I'd like to have gone just to have seen you. I hear Martin Warlock was there too. Was he?"

"He was," said Maggie.

"Fancy that! I wonder what he went for. His father made him, I expect. You know they say he's getting on awfully badly at home and that there are quarrels all the time. I don't know, of course, but his sister can't stand him. She's always showing her feelings—not very good taste, I think, but Mr. Thurston eggs her on. They'll be making a match of it one day, those two ... I say, Maggie—" Caroline drew her chair close. "I'll give you a secret. You won't tell any one, will you?"

"Certainly not—if you tell me not to," said Maggie.

"Well, Martin Warlock and I—ever since he came back. Oh! I don't say it's anything really. But he's attracted by me and would like to go farther. He'll be asking me to marry him one of these days, and then I'll have fun. He would have done the other day if I'd let him. I like him rather, don't you? He's getting a bit fat, of course, but he's got nice eyes, and then he's a real man. I like real men. But there, you'll be thinking me coarse, I know you will. I'm not coarse really, only impulsive. You don't like me, honestly, if it were known. Oh no! you don't! I can tell. I always know. But I don't care—I love you. You're a darling—and what I say is if you love some one, just love them. Never mind what they think. Don't you agree with me? But you wouldn't. You wouldn't think of loving anybody. But I'm not really bad—only careless, Mother says—"

What Mother said could not be known, because the door opened and Martha announced Mr. Crashaw. The old man, leaning on a walking stick, came forward and greeted Maggie and Caroline with good-temper and amiability. He was indeed in day-time a very mild old man, and it was difficult for Maggie to believe that this was the same who last night had frightened her out of her wits and led her to the edge of such strange suspicions. He was more than ever like a monkey, with his bony brown forehead, protuberant eyes and large mottled nose, and he sat there all huddled up by his rheumatism, a living example of present physical torments rather than future spiritual ones. It was apparent at once that he liked pretty young women, and he paid Caroline a number of flattering attentions, disregarding Maggie with a frankness that witnessed to a life that had taught one lesson at least, never on any occasion to waste time. Maggie did not mind—it amused her to see her terror of the night before transformed into a mere serenading crippled old gentleman, and to see, too, the excited pleasure with which Caroline accepted even such decayed attentions as these. But what was it that had persuaded her last night? Why did she now spend her time half in one world and half in another? Which world was the real one?

Aunt Anne very soon joined them, and this quiet, composed figure only added to Maggie's scorn of her last night's terrors. Was this the same who had struggled with such agony, who had made Maggie feel that she was caught in a trap and imprisoned for ever?

The sun beat hotly upon the carpet. Caroline's rose-coloured silk shone and glowed, the tea was poured out, and there was chatter about the warm winter that it was and how time passed, and how fashions changed, and how you never saw a four-wheeler now, and what they were turning Kingsway into, and what they were turning the Law Courts out of, and even once, by Mr. Crashaw, a word about the Lyceum Theatre, where some one was playing the Merchant of Venice, which was a fine play and could do no one any harm.

"But I daresay," said Mr. Crashaw, "that this young lady here goes to nothing but plays every night of her life."

"Why, Mr. Crashaw," said Caroline, tossing her head. "If that's the kind of life you fancy I lead you're completely mistaken. Theatres indeed! Never do I put so much as the tip of my nose inside one. Father thinks they're wrong and so does Mother say she does, although I know she likes them, really; but any way that doesn't matter because I never have a moment to myself—sitting at home sewing, that's the way I spend my days, Mr. Crashaw."

It was the very last way she really spent them, as Maggie perfectly well knew. It is not to be supposed that Mr. Crashaw either was deceived. However, he gave a wicked wink with the eye that was least rheumatic and said something about "a beautiful young lady like Miss Smith wasted on sewing and darning," and Caroline smiled and said something about "one day perhaps"—and Aunt Anne looked remotely benevolent. What did she think of all this, Maggie wondered? What did she think of her great preacher, her prophet, wasting the few hours of life that remained to him over such a business? They had some secret understanding, perhaps, as though they said to one another, "We know, you and I, what are our real intentions beneath all this. We only do what we must."

Understanding or no, Mr. Crashaw sprang up with unexpected activity when Caroline departed and announced his intention of conducting her to her door. He made his adieus and then hobbled along after the rose-coloured silk as though this was his last chance of warming his hands at the flame of life.

When they were gone, Aunt Anne said:

"I am going back to bed, Maggie, dear. Martha will send me up some supper later. Elizabeth has gone to Lambeth to see a friend, so make yourself busy until seven, dear. If I want anything I'll ring."

When she was left alone in the darkening room she stood there thinking. Why should she not go out and find Martin? She did not care what any one thought. She would go to his house and ask for him. She had waited and waited ... She wanted him so, she wanted him so desperately!

Then Martha opened the door and announced him, yes, really announced him, saying: "It's young Mr. Warlock, Miss, and he says if your aunts isn't in you'll do."

"Ask him to come up, Martha," said Maggie, and then held herself there, rooted, where she stood so that she should not run to him and fling her arms round his neck. She felt at once with that quick perception that was hers, in spite of her ignorance of life, that this was no moment for love-making, and that he wanted something quite other from her.

He closed the door behind him, looked round the room, didn't come to her, but stayed where he was.

"I've been trying to see you all day," he said. "How long have we got alone do you think?" She never took her eyes from his face. "Until seven probably. Aunt Elizabeth's in Lambeth and Aunt Anne's in bed."

"That's luck." He drew a breath of relief, then moved over to the fireplace. "Maggie, I've come to say we mustn't see one another any more."

Some one, some vast figure shadowy behind her, moved suddenly forward and caught her in his arms and his embrace was deadly cold. She stood where she was, her hands at her side, looking steadfastly at him.

"Why?" she said. "Because—because—the fact is, I've been wrong altogether. Maggie, I'm not the sort of man for you to have anything to do with. You don't know much about life yet, do you? I'm about the first man you've ever met, aren't I? If you'd met another man before me, you'd have cared for him as much."

She said nothing and he seemed to be confused by her steady gaze, because he looked down and continued to speak as though to himself:

"I knew at once that there was danger in our meeting. With other girls they can look after themselves. One hasn't any responsibility to them. It's their own affair, but you believe every word a fellow says. And if we'd been friends it wouldn't have mattered, but from the very first we weren't that—we were something more."

"You were so different from any other girl. I've wanted to be good to you from the beginning, but now I see that if we go on I shall only be bad. It all comes in the end to my being bad—really bad—and I want you to know it."

"I don't know," said Maggie, "that I've thought very much whether you're good or bad. And it doesn't matter. I can look after myself."

"No, you can't," he said vehemently, making a step towards her and then suddenly stopping. "That's just it—you can't. I've been thinking all the time since the other evening when we were together, and I've seen that you believe every word I say and you trust me. I don't mean to tell lies—I don't know that I'm worse than most other men—but I'm not good enough for you to trust in all the same. I've been knocking about for years, and I suppose I've had most of my idealism knocked out of me. Anyway I don't believe in most people, and you still do. I'm not going to be the one to change you."

"Perhaps I know more about life than you think," said Maggie.

"No, how can you? You've never had a chance of seeing any of it. You'd get sick of me in no time. I'm moody and selfish and bad-tempered. I used to drink a bit too. And I can't be faithful to women. I might think I was going to be faithful to you and swear I would be—and then suddenly some one would come along. I thought for a bit I'd just go on with you and see what came of it. You're so unusual, you make me want to be straight with you; but I've seen it wouldn't be fair. I must just slip out of your path and you'll forget me, and then you'll meet a much better man than I and be happy. I'm queer—I have funny moods that last for days and days sometimes. I seem to do every one harm I come in touch with. There's my father now. I love him more than any one in the world, and yet I make him unhappy all the time. I'm a bad fellow to be with—"

He stopped suddenly, looked at her and laughed. "It isn't any good, Maggie ... You haven't any idea what a sweep I am. You'd hate me if you really knew."

She looked steadily back at him. "We haven't much time," she said, speaking with steady, calm conviction as though she had, for years, been expecting just such a conversation as this, and had thought out what she would say. "Aunt Elizabeth can come back earlier than she said. Perhaps I shall say something I oughtn't to. I don't care. The whole thing is that I love you. I suppose it's true that I don't know anything about men, but I'd be poor enough if my love for you just depended on your loving me back, and on your being good to me and all the rest of it. I've never had any one I could love until you came, but now that you have come it can't be anything that you can do that can alter it. If you were to go away I'd still love you, because it's the love in me that matters, not what I get for it. Perhaps you'll make me unhappy, but anyway one will be unhappy some of the time."

She went up to him and kissed him. "I know Caroline Smith or some one would be very shocked if they thought I'd said such things to you, but I can't help what they say."

He had a movement to catch her and hold her, but he kept himself off, moved away from her, turning his back to her.

"You don't understand ... you don't understand," he repeated. "You know nothing about men, Maggie, and you know nothing about me. I tell you I wouldn't be faithful to you, and I'd be drunk sometimes, and I'd have moods for days, when I'd just sulk and not speak to a soul. I think those moods some damned sort of religion when I'm in them, but what they really are is bad temper. You've got to know it, Maggie. I'd be rotten to you, however much I wanted not to be."

"That's my own affair," she answered. "I can look after myself. And for all the rest, I'm independent and I'll always be independent. I'll love you whether you're good to me or bad."

"Well, then," he suddenly wheeled round to her, "you'd better have it ... I'm married already."

She took that with a little startled cry. Her eyes searched his face in a puzzled fashion as though she were pursuing the truth. Then she said like a child who sees some toy broken before its eyes:

"Oh, Martin!"

"Yes. Nobody knows—not a soul. It was a mad thing—four years ago in Marseille I met a girl, a little dressmaker there. I went off my head and married her, and then a month later she ran off with a merchant chap, a Greek. I didn't care; we got on as badly as anything ... but there you are. No one knows. That's the whole thing, Maggie. I thought at first I wouldn't tell you. I was beginning to care for you too much, as a matter of fact, and then when your uncle asked me to dinner, I told myself I was a fool to go. Then when I saw how you trusted me, I thought I'd be a cad and let it continue, but somehow ... you've got an influence over me ... You've made me ashamed of things I wouldn't have hesitated about a year ago. And the funny thing is it isn't your looks. I can say things to you I couldn't to other women, and I'll tell you right away that there are lots of women attract me more. And yet I've never felt about any woman as I do about you, that I wanted to be good to her and care for her and love her. It's always whether they loved me that I've thought about ... Well, now I've told you, you see that I'd better go, hadn't I? You see ... you see."

She looked up at him.

"I've got to think. It makes a difference, of course. Can we meet after a week and talk again?"

"Much better if I don't see you any more. I'll go away altogether—abroad again."

"No—after a week—"

"Much better not."

"Yes. Come here after a week. And if we can't be alone I'll give you a letter somehow ... Please, Martin—you must."

"Maggie, just think—"

"No—after a week."

"Very well, then," he turned on her fiercely. "I've been honest. I've told you. I've done all I can. If I love you now it isn't my fault."

He left the room, not looking at her again. And she stood there, staring in front of her.




All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg