Ah! To how many faith has been
No evidence of things unseen,
But a dim shadow that recasts the creed of the Phantasiasts.
* * * *
For others a diviner creed
Is living in the life they lead.
The passing of their beautiful feet
Blesses the pavement of the street,
And all their looks and words repeat
Old Fuller's saying wise and sweet,
Not as a vulture, but a dove,
The Holy Ghost came from above.
Tales of a Wayside Inn. Longfellow
During the interview Erica had braced herself up to endure, but when it was over her strength all at once evaporated. She dragged herself upstairs somehow, and had just reached her room, when Mrs. Fane-Smith met her. She was preoccupied with her own anxieties, or Erica's exhaustion could not have escaped her notice.
“I am really quite unhappy about Rose!” she exclaimed. “We must send for Doctor L——. Her cough seems so much worse, I fear it will turn to bronchitis. Are you learned in such things?”
“I helped to nurse Tom through a bad attack once,” said Erica.
“Oh! Then come and see her,” said Mrs. Fane-Smith.
Erica went without a word. She would not have liked Mrs. Fane-Smith's fussing, but yet the sight of her care for Rose made her feel more achingly conscious of the blank in her own life that blank which nothing could ever fill. She wanted her own mother so terribly, and just now Mrs. Fane-Smith had touched the old wound roughly.
Rose seemed remarkably cheerful, and not nearly so much invalided as her mother thought.
“Mamma always thinks I am going to die if I'm at all out of sorts,” she remarked, when Mrs. Fane-Smith had left the room to write to the doctor. “I believe you want doctoring much more than I do. What is the matter? You are as white as a sheet!”
“I am tired and rather worried, and my back is troublesome,” said Erica.
“Then you'll just lie down on my sofa,” said Rose, peremptorily. “If you don't, I shall get out of bed and make you.”
Erica did not require much compulsion for every inch of her seemed to have a separate ache, and she was still all quivering and tingling with the indignant anger stirred up by her interview with Mr. Fane-Smith. She let Rose chatter away and tried hard to school herself into calmness. By and by her efforts were rewarded; she not only grew calm, but fell asleep, and slept like any baby till the gong sounded for luncheon.
Luncheon proved a very silent meal; it was, if possible, more trying that breakfast had been. Mrs. Fane-Smith had heard all about the interview from her husband, and they were both perplexed and disturbed. Erica felt uncertain of her footing with them, and could only wait for them to make the first move. But the grim silence tickled her fancy.
“Really,” she thought to herself, “we might be so many horses munching away at mangers, for all we have said to each other.”
But in spite of it she did not feel inclined to make conversation.
Later on she went for a drive with her aunt; the air revived her, and she began to feel more like herself again. They went out into the country, but on the way home Mrs. Fane-Smith stopped at one of the shops in High Street, leaving Erica in the carriage. She was leaning back restfully, watching a beautiful chestnut horse which was being held by a ragged boy at the door of the bank just opposite, when her attention was suddenly aroused by an ominous howling and barking. The chestnut horse began to kick, and the boy had as much as he could to hold him. Starting forward, Erica saw that a fox terrier had been set upon by another and larger dog, and that the two were having a desperate fight. The fox terrier was evidently fighting against fearful odds, for he was an old dog, and not nearly so strong as his antagonist; the howls and barks grew worse and worse; some of the passengers ran off in a fright, others watched from a safe distance, but not one interfered.
Now Erica was a great lover of animals, and a passionate lover of justice. Furious to see men and boys looking on without attempting to stop the mischief, she sprang out of the carriage, and, rushing up to the combatants, belabored the big dog with her parasol. It had a strong stick, but she hit so vehemently that it splintered all to bits, and still the dog would not leave its victim. Then, in her desperation, she hit on the right remedy; with great difficulty she managed to grasp him by the throat, and, using all her force, so nearly suffocated him that he was obliged to loosen his hold. At that moment, too, a strong man rushed forward and dealt him such a blow that he bounded off with a yell of pain, and ran howling down the street. Erica bent over the fox terrier then; the big dog had mangled it frightfully, it was covered with blood, and moaned piteously.
“Waif! My poor waif!” exclaimed a voice which she seemed to know. “Has that brute killed you?”
She looked up and saw Donovan Farrant; he recognized her, but they were both too much absorbed in the poor dog's condition to think of any ordinary greeting.
“Where will you take him?” asked Erica.
Donovan stooped down to examine poor Waif's injuries.
“I fear there is little to be done,” he said. “But we might take him across to the chemist's opposite. Will you hold my whip for me?”
She took it, and with infinite skill and tenderness Donovan lifted the fox terrier, while Erica hurried on in front to tell the chemist. They took Waif into a little back room, and did all they could for him; but the chemist shrugged his shoulders.
“Better kill the poor brute at once, Mr. Farrant,” he said, blandly.
Donovan looked up with a strange gleam in his eyes.
“Not for the world!” he exclaimed, with a touch of indignation in his tone.
And after that he only spoke to Erica, who, seeing that the chemist had annoyed him undertook all the fetching and carrying, never once shrinking though the sight was a horrible one. At length the footman brought word that Mrs. Fane-Smith was waiting, and she was obliged to go, reluctantly enough.
“You'll let me know how he gets on?” she said.
“Yes, indeed,” he replied, not thanking her directly for her help, but somehow sending her away with the consciousness that they had passed the bounds of mere acquaintanceship, and were friends for life.
She found that her aunt had been waylaid by Mr. Cuthbert.
“If I were the owner of the dog, I should have up our honorable member for assault. I believe Miss Raeburn broke her umbrella over the poor thing.”
Erica was just in time to hear this.
“Were you watching it?” she exclaimed. “And you did nothing to help the fox terrier?”
“I do not feel bound to champion every fighting cur who is getting the worst of it,” said Mr. Cuthbert. “What has become of Mr. Farrant's favorite? I suppose he is fussing over it instead of studying the affairs of the nation.”
“I am afraid the dog is dying,” said Erica.
A curious change passed over Mr. Cuthbert's face; he looked a little shocked, and turned away somewhat hastily.
“Come,” thought Erica to herself, “I am glad to have discovered a grain of good in you.”
The next day was Sunday; it passed by very quietly. But on the Monday, when Erica opened the “Daily Review,” there was her “Society” article staring her in the face. It was clever and eminently readable, but it was bitterly sarcastic; she could not endure it. It seemed to her that she had written what was positively bad, calculated to mislead and to awaken bitterness, not in the least likely to mend matters. The fact was she had written it in a moment of passion and against her conscience, and she regretted it now with far more compunction than she felt for anything she had written in former times in the “Idol-Breaker.” Then, though indirectly and sometimes directly attacking Christianity, she had written conscientiously, now for the first time she felt that she had dishonored her pen. She went down into the very deepest depths.
The midday post brought her a letter from her stiff old editor, who understood her better, and thought more of her than she dreamed. It informed her that another member of the staff had returned from his holiday, and if she pleased she could be exempted from writing for a fortnight. As usual Mr. Bircham “begged to remain hers faithfully.”
She hardly knew whether to regard this as a relief or as a punishment. With a sigh she opened a second letter; it was from Charles Osmond, in reply to a despairing note which she had sent off just before her Saturday interview with Mr. Fane-Smith.
It was one of his short, characteristic letters.
“Dear Erica, 'It all comes in the day's work,' as the man said when the lion ate him! You should have a letter, but I'm up to the eyes in parish maters. All I can say is pray for that charity which covers the multitude of sins, and then I think you'll find the Greyshot folk become more bearable. So you have met Donovan at last. I am right glad! Your father and I had a long walk together yesterday; he seems very well. Yours ever, C. O.”
This made her smile, and she opened a third letter which ran as follows:
“My dear Miss Raeburn, I should have called on you last Saturday, but was not well enough to come in to Greyshot. My husband told me all about your help and your kindness to our Waif. I know you will be glad to hear that he is going on well; he is much more to us all than an ordinary favorite, some day you shall hear his story. I am writing now to ask, sans ceremonie, if you will come and spend a few days with us. It will be a great pleasure to us if you will say yes. My husband will be in Greyshot on Monday afternoon, and will call for your answer; please come if you can. Yours very sincerely, Gladys Farrant.”
Erica showed this letter to her aunt, and of course there was nothing to prevent her going; indeed, Mrs. Fane-Smith was really rather relieved, for she thought a few days' absence might make things more comfortable for Erica, and, besides, Rose's illness made the days dull for her.
It was about four o'clock when Donovan Farrant arrived. Erica felt as though she were meeting an old friend when she went into the drawing room, and found him standing on the hearth rug.
“You have had my wife's note?” he asked, taking her hand.
“Yes,” she replied.
“And you will come?”
“If you will have me.”
“That's right; we had set our hearts on it. You are looking very tired. I hope Saturday did not upset you?”
“No,” said Erica. “But there have been a good many worries, and I have not yet learned the art of taking life quietly.”
“You are overdone, you want a rest,” said Donovan, whose keen and practiced observation had at once noticed her delicate physique and peculiar temperament. “You are a poet, you see, and as a wise man once remarked: 'The poetic temperament is one of singular irritability of nerve.'”
Erica laughed.
“I am no poet!”
“Not a writer of verses, but a poet in the sense of a maker, an artist. As a reader of the 'Daily Review,' you must allow me to judge. Brian once showed me one of your articles, and I always recognize them now by the style.”
“I don't deserve the name of artist one bit,” said Erica, coloring. “I would give all I have to destroy my article of today. You have not seen that, or you would not have given me such a name.
“Yes, I have seen it; I read it this morning at breakfast, and made up my mind that you wrote it on Friday evening, after Lady Caroline's dinner. I can understand that you hate the thing now. One gets a sharp lesson every now and then, and it lasts one a life time.”
Erica signed.. He resumed.
“Well! Are you coming to Oakdene with me?”
“Did you mean now at once today?”
“If you will.”
“Oh, I should so like to!” she cried. “But will Mrs. Farrant be expecting me?”
“She will be hoping for you, and that is better.”
Erica was noted for the speed with which she could pack a portmanteau, and it could not have been more than ten minutes before she was ready. Mrs. Fane-Smith wished her goodbye with a sort of affectionate relief; then Donovan helped her into the pony carriage, and drove briskly off through the Greyshot streets.
“That is the place where I first heard your father,” he said, indicating with his whip the town Hall. “It must be sixteen years ago; I was quite a young fellow.”
“Sixteen years! Did you hear him so long ago as that?” said Erica, thoughtfully. “Why, that must have been about the time of the great Stockborough trial.”
“It was; I remember reference being made to it, and how it stirred me up to think of Mr. Raeburn's gallant defense of freedom, and all that it was costing him. How well I remember, too, riding home that night along this very road, with the thoughts of the good of the race, the love of humanity, touched into life for the first time. When a selfish cynic first catches a glimpse of an honest man toiling for what he believes the good of humanity, it is a wonderful moment for him! Mr. Raeburn was about the only man living that I believed in. You can understand that I owe him an immense debt of gratitude.”
“That is what you referred to in the House last year!” said Erica. “How curiously lives are linked together! Words spoken by my father years ago set thoughts working in you you make a speech and refer to them. I read a report of your speech in a time of chaotic wretchedness, and it comes like an answer to a prayer!”
“Another bond between us,” said Donovan.
After that they were silent; they had left the high road and were driving along winding country lanes, catching glimpses every now and then of golden corn fields still unreaped, or of fields just beginning to be dotted with sheaves, where the men were at work. It was a late harvest that year, but a good one. Presently they passed the tiny little village church which nestled under the brow of the hill, and then came a steep ascent, which made Donovan spring out of the pony chaise. Erica's words had awakened a long train of thought, had carried him back to the far past, and had brought him fresh proof of that wonderful unity of Nature which, though often little dreamed of, binds man to man. He gave the ponies a rest half way up the hill, and, stretching up into the high hedge, gathered a beautiful spray of red-berried briony for Erica.
“Do you remember that grand thought which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Henry V.”
“'There is some soul of goodness in things evil.'
'Tis wonderful to look back in life and trace it out.”
He spoke rather abruptly, but Erica's thoughts had been following much the same bent, and she understood him.
“Trust is easy on such a day as this and in such a place,” she said, looking down to the beautiful valley and up to the green, encircling hills.
Donovan smiled, and touched up the ponies.
It seemed to Erica that they had turned their backs on bigotry, and annoyance, and care of every description, and were driving right into a land of rest. Presently they turned in at some iron gates, and drove down a long approach, bordered with fir trees. At the end of this stood the manor, a solid, comfortable, well-built country house, its rather plain exterior veiled with ivy and creepers. Donovan led her into the hall, where stately old high-backed chairs and a suit or two of old armor were intermixed with modern appliances, fishing tackle, a lawn-tennis box, and a sprinkling of toys, which indicated that there were children in the house.
This fact was speedily indicated in another way, for there came a rush and a scamper overhead, and a boy of five or six years old ran down the broad oak staircase.
“Oh, father! May I ride round to the stables on Speedwell?” he cried, in a desperate hurry to attract his father's attention away from the servant and the portmanteau; then, catching sight of Erica, he checked himself, and held out his hand with a sort of shy courtesy. He was exactly what Donovan must have been as a child, as far as looks went.
“To the stables, Ralph?” replied his father, looking round. “Yes, if you like. Put on your hat though. Where's your mother?”
“In the garden with Mr. Cunningham; he came a few minutes ago; and he's got such a horse, father! A real beauty just like cocoa.”
“A roan,” said Donovan, laughing; then, as Ralph disappeared through the open door, he turned to the servant.
“Is it Mr. Cunningham of Blachingbury?”
“No, sir; Mr. Leslie Cunningham.”
Erica listened, not without interest, for she knew that Leslie Cunningham was the recently elected member for East Mountshire, the eldest son of Sir Michael Cunningham.
“We must come and find them,” said Donovan; and together they went out into the garden.
Here, on one of the broad, grassy terraces, under the shade of a copper-beech, was afternoon tea on a wicker table. Gladys was talking to Mr. Cunningham, but catching sight of her husband and Erica at the other end of the terrace, she hurried forward to greet them.
“This is delightful!” she exclaimed. “I hoped that Donovan might unceremoniously carry you off today, but hardly dared to expect it. You are just in time for tea.”
“Your arrival has caused quite a sensation in the nursery,” said Donovan to Leslie Cunningham. “My small boy is in raptures over your horse 'just like cocoa!'”
Leslie gave rather an absent laugh. He was watching Erica, who was still at a little distance talking to Gladys.
“May I be introduced to your guest?” he said.
“Certainly,” said Donovan. “She is the daughter of Mr. Raeburn.”
Leslie started.
“Indeed! I have heard about her from old Bircham, the editor. He can't say enough of her.”
Apparently Leslie Cunningham could not look enough at her.
Donovan, thinking of Brian, was perhaps a little vexed at the meeting. However, putting himself into his guest's position, he felt that the admiration was but natural, and as to Brian if he chose to lose his heart to such a lovely girl, he must expect to have many rivals.
Erica's first thought, as she glanced at Leslie Cunningham, was one of disappointment. He was not the least like his father. However, by degrees she began to like him—for his own sake. He could not have been more than five-and-twenty, and looked even younger; for he was fair-complexioned and clean-shaven. His thick, flaxen hair, and rather pallid face were decidedly wanting in color, but were relieved by very dark gray eyes. His features were well cut and regular, and the face was altogether a clever as well as an attractive one.
Erica felt as if she had got into a very delicious new word. The novelty of a meal AL FRESCO, the lovely view, the beautifully laid out grounds were charming externals; and then there were the deeper enjoyments the lovability of her host and hostess; the delightful atmosphere of broad-hearted sympathy in which they seemed to live and move, and, above all, the restfulness, the freedom of not living in momentary expectation of being rubbed the wrong way by a vexing conversation on religious, or political, or personal topics. It was like a beautiful dream quite unlike any part of real, waking existence that she had ever before known. The conversation was bright and lively. They talked because they had something to say, and wished to say it, and the artificial element so prevalent in society talk was entirely absent.
Presently Ralph came out of the house, leading a fairy-like little girl of four years old.
“Here come the children,” said Gladys. “The hour before dinner is their special time. You have not seen Dolly, have you?”
“Dolly!” The name awoke some recollection of the past in Erica, and, as she kissed the little girl, she looked at her closely. Yes, it was the same fascinating little baby face, with its soft, pink cheeks and little pointed chin, its innocent, blue-gray eyes, its tiny, sweet-tempered mouth. The sunny brown hair was longer and Dolly was an inch or two taller, but she was undoubtedly the same.
“Now I know why I always felt that I knew your face!” exclaimed Erica, turning to Donovan. “Was not Dolly lost at Codrington last year?”
“On the beach,” replied Donovan. “Yes! Why, could it have been you who brought her back? Of course it was! Now it all comes back to me. I had exactly the same feeling about knowing your face the other evening at Lady Caroline's, but put it down to your likeness to Mr. Raeburn. There is another bond between us.”
They both laughed. Donovan took Dolly upon his knee.
“Do you remember, Dolly, when you were lost on the beach once?”
“Yes,” said Dolly, promptly, “I clied.”
“Who found you?”
“Farver,” said Dolly.
“Who brought you to father?”
Dolly searched her memory.
“An old gentleman gave Dolly sweets!”
“My father,” said Erica, smiling.
“And who helped you up the beach?” asked Gladys.
“A plitty lady did,” said Dolly.
“Was it this lady, do you think?” said Donovan, indicating Erica.
Dolly trotted round with her dear little laughing face to make the scrutiny.
“I fink vis one is plittier,” she announced. Whereupon every one began to laugh.
“The most charming compliment I ever heard!” said Leslie Cunningham. “Dolly ought to be patted on the back.”
Erica smiled and colored; but as she looked again at Donovan and little Dolly, her thoughts wandered away to that June day in the museum when they had been the parable which shadowed forth to her such a wonderful reality. Truly, there were links innumerable between her and Donovan.
Leslie Cunningham seemed as if he intended to stay forever; however, every one was quite content to sit out on the lawn talking and watching the children at their play. It was one of those still, soft September evenings when one is glad of any excuse to keep out of doors.
At last the dressing bell rang, and Leslie took out his watch with an air of surprise.
“The afternoon has flown!” he exclaimed. “I had no idea it was so late. I wanted to ask you, by the bye, whether I could see the coffee tavern at Greyshot. We are going to start one down at our place, and I want to see one or two well-managed ones first. Whereabouts is it? I think I'll ride on now, and have a look at it.”
“Dine with us first,” said Donovan, “and I'll ride over with you between eight and nine, that is the best time for seeing it in full swing.”
So Leslie Cunningham stayed to dinner, and talked a great deal about temperance work, but did not succeed in blinding his host, who knew well enough that Erica had been the real cause of his desire to go over to Greyshot.
Temperance, however, proved a fortunate subject, for it was, of course, one in which she was deeply interested, all the more so now that it formed one of the strongest bonds remaining between herself and her father's followers. A large number of the Raeburnites were either teetotalers or very strong temperance advocates, and Erica, who was constantly out and about in the poorer parts of London, had realized forcibly the terrible national evil, and was an enthusiastic temperance worker.
Donovan, perhaps out of malice prepense, administered a good many dry details about the management of coffee taverns, personal supervision, Etzenberger's machines, the necessity of a good site and attractive building, etc., etc. Erica only wished that Tom could have been there, he would have been so thoroughly in his element. By and by the conversation drifted away to other matters. And as Leslie Cunningham was a good and very amusing talker, and Gladys the perfection of a hostess, the dinner proved very lively, an extraordinary contrast to the dreary, vapid table talk to which Erica had lately been accustomed. After the ladies had left the room, Donovan, rather to his amusement, found the talk veering round to Luke Raeburn. Presently, Leslie Cunningham hazarded a direct question about Erica in a would-be indifferent tone. In reply, Donovan told him briefly and without comment what he knew of her history, keeping on the surface of things and speaking always with a sort of careful restraint. He was never very fond of discussing people, and perhaps in this case the realization of the thousand objections to any serious outcome of Leslie's sudden admiration strengthened his reserve. However, fate was apparently kinder though perhaps really more cruel than the host, for Donovan was summoned into the library to interview an aggrieved constituent, and Leslie finding his way to the drawing room, was only too delighted to meet Gladys going upstairs to see her children.
The lamps were lighted in the drawing room, but the curtains were not drawn, and beside the open window he saw a slim, white-robed figure. Erica was looking out into the gathering darkness. He crossed the room, and stood beside her, his heart beating quickly, all the more because she did not move or take any notice of his presence. It was unconventional, but perhaps because he was so weary of the ordinary young ladies who invariably smiled and fluttered the moment he approached them, and were so perfectly ready to make much of him, this unconventionality attracted him. He watched her for a minute in silence. She was very happy, and was looking her loveliest. Presently she turned.
“I think it is the stillness which is so wonderful!” she exclaimed.
It was spoken with the frankness of a child, with the spontaneous confidence of the pure child-nature, which instinctively recognizes all the lovable and trustable. The clear, golden eyes looked right into his for a moment. A strange reverence awoke within him. He had seen more beautiful eyes before, but none so entirely wanting in that unreality of expression arising from a wish to produce an effect, none so beautifully sincere.
“The country stillness, you mean?” he replied.
“Yes; it is rest in itself. I have never stayed in the country before.”
“Is it possible!” he exclaimed.
He had often languidly discussed the comparative advantages of Murren and Zermatt with girls who took a yearly tour abroad as naturally as their dinner, but to talk to one who had spent her whole life in towns, who could enjoy a country evening so absolutely and unaffectedly, was a strange and delightful novelty.
“You are one of those who can really enjoy,” he said. “You are not blasee you are one of the happy mortals who keep the faculty of enjoyment as strongly all through life as in childhood.”
“Yes, I think I can enjoy,” said Erica. “But I suppose we pay for our extra faculty of enjoyment.
“You mean by being more sensitive to pain?”
“Yes, though that sounds rather like Dickens's Mrs. Gummidge, when she thought she felt smoky chimneys more than other people.”
He laughed.
“How I wish you could turn over your work to me, and go to Switzerland tomorrow in my place! Only I should wish to be there, too, for the sake of seeing you enjoy it.”
“Do you go tomorrow?”
“Yes, with my father.”
“Ah! How delightful! I confess I do envy you a little. I do long to see snow mountains. Always living in London makes me—”
He interrupted her with a sort of exclamation of horror.
“Oh! Don't abuse London!” she said, laughing. “If one must live all the year round in one place, I would rather be there than anywhere. When I hear people abusing it, I always think they don't know how to use their eyes. What can be more lovely, for instance, than the view from Greenwich Park by the observatory? Don't you know that beautiful clump of Scotch firs in the foreground, and then the glimpse of the river through the trees? And then there is that lovely part by Queen Elizabeth's oak. The view in Hyde Park, too, over the Serpentine, how exquisite that is on a summer afternoon, with the Westminster towers standing up in a golden haze. Or Kensington Gardens in the autumn, when the leaves are turning, and there is blue mist in the background against the dark tree trunks. I think I love every inch of London!”
Leslie Cunningham would have listened to the praises of the Black Country, if only for the sake of hearing her voice.
“Well, as far as England goes, you are in the right place for scenery now; I know a few lovelier parts than this.”
“What are those lights on the lower terrace?” asked Erica, suddenly.
“Glow worms. Have you never seen them? Come and look at them nearer.”
“Oh, I should like to!” she said, with the charming enthusiasm and eagerness which delighted him so much.
To guide her down the steps in the dusky garden, to feel her hand on his arm, to hear her fresh, naive remarks, and then to recall what Donovan Farrant had just told him about her strange, sad story, all seemed to draw him on irresistibly. He had had three or four tolerably serious flirtations, but now he knew that he had never before really loved.
Erica was delighted with the glow worms, and delighted with the dewy fragrance of the garden, and delighted with the soft, balmy stillness of the night. She was one of those who revel in Nature, and all that she said was evidently the overflow of a rapturous happiness, curiously contrasting with the ordinary set remarks of admiration, or falsely sentimental outbursts too much in vogue. But Leslie Cunningham found that the child-likeness was not only in manner, but that Erica had no idea of flirting; she was bright, and merry, and talkative, but she had no thought, no desire of attracting his attention. She had actually and literally come out into the garden to see the glow worms, not to monopolize the much-run-after young M.P, and as soon as she had seen them she said she felt cold, and suggested going back again.
He was disappointed, but the words were so perfectly sincere, so free from suspicion of mere conventionality, that there was nothing for it but to return. Half amused, half piqued, but wholly in love, he speedily forgot himself in real anxiety.
“I hope you haven't taken cold,” he said, with great solicitude.
“Oh, no,” said Erica; “but I want to be careful for the night-school work will be beginning soon, and I must go home fresh for that.”
Something in her words broke the spell of perfect happiness which had hitherto held him. Was it the mention of her every-day life, with its surroundings unknown to him? Or was it some faint perception that in the world of duty to which she referred their paths could not rightly converge? A cold chill crept over him.
“You were quite right,” he said with an involuntary shiver. “It is decidedly cold out here; the mist rises from the river, I expect, or else your reference to the working-day world has recalled me from fairy-land. You should not speak of work in such a place as this it is incongruous.”
She smiled.
“Ernst ist das leben,” she replied quietly. “One can't forget that even at such a time as this, and in such a place.”
“How is it that some never forget that for a moment, while others never remember it at all?” he said musingly.
“Some of us have no excuse for ever forgetting,” she answered “hardly a chance either.”
And though the words were vague, they shadowed out to him much of her life a life never free from sorrow, burdened with constant care and anxiety, and ever confronted by some of the most perplexing world problems. A longing to shield, and protect, and comfort her rose in his heart, yet all the time he instinctively knew that hers was the stronger nature.
It seemed that the seriousness of life was to be borne in upon them specially that evening, for, returning to the drawing room, they found Donovan released from his interview, and relating with some indignation the pitiable story he had just heard. It only reached Leslie Cunningham in fragments, however over crowding, children sleeping six in a bed, two of them with scarlet fever, no fever hospital, no accommodation for them, an inspector, medical officer, the board how drearily dry all the details seemed to him. He could do nothing but watch Erica's eager face with its ever-varying play of expression. He hardly knew whether to be angry with Donovan Farrant for alluding to matters which brought a look of sadness to her eyes, or to thank him for the story which made her face light up with indignation and look, if possible, more beautiful than before.
“Don't offer to put up a fever shanty on the lawn,” said Gladys when her husband paused.
“I wish we had an empty cottage where we could put them” said Donovan; “but I am afraid all I can do is to bring pressure to bear upon the authorities. We'll ride over together, Cunningham, and Jack Trevethan, our manager, shall show you the tavern while I rout out this medical officer.”
They had had tea; there was no longer any excuse for delaying. Leslie, with an outward smile and an inward sigh, turned to take leave of Erica. She was bending over a basket in which was curled up the invalid fox terrier. For a moment she left off stroking the white and tan head, and held out her hand.
“Goodbye,” she said frankly.
That was all. And yet it made Leslie's heart bound. Was he indeed to go to Switzerland tomorrow? He MUST manage to get out of it somehow.
And all the way to Greyshot he listened to schemes for the work to be done next session from the ardent sanitary reformer, though just then the devastation of all England would scarcely have roused him so long as he was assured of the safety of Luke Raeburn's daughter.
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