PR 
 
 (Qarnell Htnivecaitg iCibtarg 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE l(lCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 

 Date Due 
 
 
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 __ „ ^ Cornell University Library 
 
 PR 6025.A779M2 1 920 
 
 Many Junes. 
 
 3 1924 013 653 393 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013653393 
 
MANY JUNES 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE HOUSB OF MERKILKKS 
 
 EICHARD BALDOCE 
 
 EXTON MANOR 
 
 THE SQUIRES DAUGHTER 
 
 THE ELDEST SON 
 
 THE HONOUR OP THE CLINTONS 
 
 THE GREATEST OF THESE 
 
 THE OLD ORDER CHANQETH 
 
 WATERMEiDS 
 
 UPSIDONIA 
 
 ABINGTON ABBEY 
 
 THE GRAFTONS 
 
 THE CLINTONS, AND OTHERS 
 
 SIR HARRY 
 
 MANY JUNES 
 
MANY JUNES 
 
 BY 
 
 ARCHIBALD ^ARSHALL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1920 
 
 ^A 
 
PyAO\b\^n 
 
 COPTBIGBT, 1B20 
 
 bt oodd, mbad and company, Imo. 
 
 TOe Buinn & golim Campmp 
 
 BOOK MANUFACTURERS 
 RAHWAY I^EW JERSEY 
 
Co 
 MRS. ARNOLD GLOVER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAftE 
 
 I. The Admiral 1 
 
 II. FoYLE Manoe 14 
 
 III. The Gakden 32 
 
 IV. Geobge Blomfield .... 44 
 
 V. Anne's Maueiage 61 
 
 VI. Teouble 76 
 
 VII. Settlement 89 
 
 VIII. The Town 103 
 
 IX. Alone 116 
 
 X. WoEK 126 
 
 XL Ten Yeaes After 144 
 
 XII. Little Anne 156 
 
 XIII. The Churtons 166 
 
 XIV. Mabilia 182 
 
 XV. Plans 197 
 
 XVI. Wyse Hall 212 
 
 XVII. Margaret . . . . ' . . 222 
 
 XVIII. The Dream 238 
 
 XIX. The Awakening 247 
 
 XX. Marriage 259 
 
 XXI. Possessions 270 
 
 XXII. Memories 290 
 
 XXIII. By the Window 301 
 
 XXIV. The Time and the Place . . .310 
 
MANY JUNES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ADMIRAL 
 
 " Indeed, Sophia, you will do nothing of the sort," 
 said old Lady Wilkinson. " I am aware that you 
 are afraid of the Admiral, and I have always told you 
 that you were very foolish to be so. But to fear a 
 person is, one thing, and to run away from him is 
 another. You will just sit in your place and drink your 
 tea; and if I wish, for any reason, to speak alone with 
 him — which I do not anticipate — I will tell you, and 
 you can then leave the room. Have your tea in the 
 moming-room, indeed! I never heard of such a thing."' 
 
 She was a tiny fresh-faced old lady, with sparkling 
 eyes and the whitest of hair, and sat as upright in her 
 easy-chair as if she had never known the use of » 
 cushion. Her daughter, if she had a will of her own, 
 had reached the age of five and forty without having- 
 exercised it in opposition to the old lady's imperious 
 rule, and, although she looked unhappy and uncom.- 
 fortable, made no effort to enforce it now. 
 
 " I have reason to dislike a man who has treated me 
 ■with such brutality and discourtesy as Horace has 
 
 1 
 
2 MANY JUNES 
 
 done," she said. " It is simply that. It is not true to 
 say that I fear him, mother." 
 
 " It is true, Sophia," persisted the old lady, her 
 snowy curls shaking with the vehemence of her nod. 
 "And to talk of brutaKty and discourtesy is simply 
 ridiculous. You are always dwelling upon that foolish 
 old grievance. The fact is, you always lorded it over 
 poor Emily before she was married, and when you went 
 to stay with her as a bride you tried to continue the 
 practice. Horace caught you at it and turned you 
 out of the house. And well you deserved it. I do not 
 deny that he is a martinet. Every man has a right to 
 be, in his own house. Your dear father was the same, 
 and I never complained. But that is a different thing 
 from brutality, as you call it, and I am quite sure that 
 the Admiral was not brutal. Your nature is an over- 
 bearing one, Sophia, and for once you got punished 
 for it." 
 
 Poor Miss Wilkinson — meek, downcast, and distressed 
 under this exordium — displayed as little as possible of 
 the overbearing disposition laid to her charge. Nor 
 had she displayed it very strongly on the occasion which 
 had led to her being requested to leave her brother-in- 
 law's ■ house some twenty years before. But Admiral 
 Lelacheur certainly was something of a martinet, and 
 had taken advantage of a very mild attempt at inter- 
 ference in his domestic concerns on her part to rid him- 
 self of her presence, not being quite able to tell her 
 that he disliked her and didn't want her in his house; 
 and he had do«e so in such a; way that she had never 
 
THE ADMIRAL 3 
 
 again visited her sister up to the time of that sister's 
 death, a few years later. 
 
 The two ladies were sitting in a pleasant old- 
 fashioned upstairs drawing-room, whose bow windows 
 faced the sea, looking across the broad road and the 
 parade on the other side of it, now fairly crowded with 
 carriages and promenaders — for it was four o'clock on 
 a fine spring afternoon and there was plenty of interest, 
 and even some excitement, to be gained from behind 
 Lady Wilkinson's drawing-room windows. The house 
 was on the Marina at St. Leonards-on-Sea, which in 
 those days was much occupied by well-to-do people in 
 her position in life, who had each their carriage and 
 pair, and everything else necessary for an existence 
 of extreme comfort and such mild degree of state as 
 was agreeable to them. 
 
 " There goes Mrs. Bellamy," said the old lady, whose 
 chair was placed so that she could see everybody who 
 passed along the road below. " She has on a new spring 
 bonnet, and it is not the one she wore in church last 
 Sunday. At her age two bonnets in one season are 
 mere vanity, although I am aware that she could afford 
 twenty. Sophia, I do hope the Admiral is not coming 
 to say that he is going to talce Anne away from us. 
 You yourself are so quiet, and often so dismal, that it 
 is a relief to have the child laughing and singing every- 
 where. I like youth about me, and I sometimes think 
 that you were never young." 
 
 " Why should you think that Horace wants to take 
 Anne away from us, mother.? " asked Miss Wilkinson, 
 
4 MANY JUNES 
 
 putting aside the personal application in the old lady's 
 remarks with a slight shrug of her thin shoulders. 
 
 "Why do I think it? I wish you would use what 
 brains the Almighty has given you, Sophia. You are 
 aware, are you not, that the Admiral has retired, and is 
 about to settle down somewhere.? What more natural 
 than that he should wish to have his children with 
 hJm?" 
 
 " He might very well have had them before," replied 
 Miss Wilkinson. " When he had a house at Portsmouth 
 he never asked for Anne to go there. He has always 
 appeared to want to keep Anne and Hugh apart. I 
 am sure I don't know why." 
 
 "You don't know why? You know very well why. 
 He has ideas of his own about the bringing up of 
 children. He thinks that girls should be with women 
 and boys with men. That is why he has left Anne to 
 us so long. I do not quarrel with his ideas." 
 
 " I think they are most unreasonable, in the case 
 of a little boy like Hugh, who was only a baby when 
 Emily died. Of course he had to be with women, for 
 some years." 
 
 " You are very dictatorial, Sophia. It is a habit 
 that is growing on you. And you know very well that 
 I should have liked at that time to have both the chil- 
 dren. But Horace wanted his only son. It is only 
 natural." 
 
 " Why would he never let him come here for his 
 holidays when he was at school at Sanborough, and 
 Horace was in Australia?'* 
 
THE ADMIRAL 5 
 
 " Because he Ah ! there is the Admiral. Ring 
 
 the bell quickly, Sophia. We wUl have tea up at 
 once. Bestir yourself, child, bestir yourself. Tut I 
 you move like a snaU." 
 
 There was nothing snail-like in the motions of the 
 old lady herself, as she moved about the room like an 
 elderly but stiU active bird and made ready for the 
 visitor, who was of such importance that it would 
 never have done to receive him quietly in her seat by 
 the window. When he was announced she was sitting 
 in another easy-chair, by the fire, but immediately rose 
 from that to greet him, and not until the greeting was 
 made settled down again on her perch. 
 
 Admiral Lelacheur was short and red faced, with 
 square grizzled side whiskers, sharp blue eyes, and 
 closely cropped grey hair. He looked like a sailor, even 
 in his dark tweed clothes, and like a man used to com- 
 mand, though his figure was not impressive. He received 
 the old lady's somewhat efPusive greeting with curt un- 
 smiling ceremony, and favoured Miss Wilkinson with 
 a handshake that was finished almost before it was 
 begun. Then he sat down by the fire and said : " Hope 
 your lumbago's better, my lady." 
 
 " Lumbago ! " she exclaimed. " I haven't had a touch 
 of lumbago for the last four years. What can you be 
 thinking of. Admiral.? " 
 
 " It's four years since I saw you," he replied ; " you'd 
 had a touch of it then." 
 
 The old lady turned her birdhke head towards her 
 daughter. "What a memory!" she said admiringly. 
 
6 MANY JUNES 
 
 " Well, Horace, I think that was actually the last time 
 there was anything the matter with me. I hope when 
 you come to my age you will enjoy as good health as 
 I do." 
 
 "I hope I shall," said the Admiral. "Where's 
 Anne? " 
 
 " Anne will be in directly. I should have kept her at 
 home, but it is the last class of the term, and " 
 
 " Class ! Term ! You don't send her to school, eh? " 
 He spoke sharply, with a half-frown at her underneath 
 his bushy eyebrows. But his frown had no terrors for 
 Lady Wilkinson. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you I should never send her to school? " 
 she said. 
 
 " Yes, but " 
 
 " Then don't ask foolish questions, Horace. She 
 goes to a dancing class." 
 
 " Oh, dancing ! What does she want to learn dancing 
 for?" 
 
 " Because all young women must learn to dance and 
 to hold themselves properly — ^that is, if there is an 
 opportunity. Sophia, unfortunately, never had one. 
 We were stationed at — ; — " 
 
 "Well, never mind that, my lady," broke in the 
 Admir^. " Anne will have to do without dancing 
 classes and that sort of thing, now. I've bought a 
 house, and she's to come and live with me." 
 
 " I feared it," said the old lady with a sigh. " But 
 I think, Horace, you might have broken it to me a 
 little more gently. I have grown very fond of the 
 
THE ADMIRAL 7 
 
 child, and it will be a wrench for me to part with 
 her." 
 
 " I'm sorry," said the Admiral. " But I say straight 
 out what I've got to say. I don't believe in beating 
 about the bush." 
 
 " I don't believe Anne will want to leave us," said 
 Miss Wilkinson, stirred to gentle revolt. " We have 
 done our best to make her happy, and I think we have 
 succeeded." 
 
 The Admiral turned his fierce eyebrows on her, 
 " What Anne wants or doesn't want is neither here 
 nor there, Miss Wilkinson," he said, " She is coming 
 tc( live with me." 
 
 " You needn't speak like that," said the old lady 
 sharply. " You will do as you please, of course ; but, 
 considering that we have had the entire charge of the 
 child for fifteen years, and this is the only home she 
 has known, it would become you to announce your 
 intentions rather more gently." 
 
 Four furrows dug themselves in the Admiral's brow 
 and disappeared again. " I'm not ungrateful for what 
 you have done," he said gruffly. " And I'll see that 
 the child isn't ungrateful either. But " 
 
 " Pooh ! " interrupted the old lady again. " You 
 needn't trouble yourself about that, my man. Anne 
 behaves towards her grandmother as she should behave. 
 She'll need no schooling from you. And I don't want 
 gratitude from her. I want love, and I've got it. 
 Whether you will get the same or not depends upon 
 yourself. I hope you may." 
 
S MANY JUNES 
 
 " I shall get obedience," said the Admiral. 
 
 ■" If I didn't know that your bark was worse than 
 your bite, Horace," said the old lady, " you shouldn't 
 take the child at all, and I tell you so plainly. Now 
 let me hear all about it. Where are you going to live 
 and when will your house be ready .'' " 
 
 " I have bought a little property in Dorsetshire." 
 
 " Dorsetshire? Have you any family connection 
 with that county? " 
 
 The furrows appeared again. " Family connection? " 
 he echoed. " You know very well that I have no family 
 connections whatever." 
 
 " I know that you quarrelled with your only brother 
 thirty or forty years ago and have never spoken to 
 him since, if that is what you mean." 
 
 The furrows came and stayed. " No one dares to 
 mention that man's name to me," he said, after a 
 pregnant pause. " He is no brother of mine." 
 
 " Hoity toity ! " cried the old lady. " Who says 
 ' dare ' to me ? Very well, then. You have no family 
 connection with Dorsetshire. You have probably chosen 
 that county because Sir Simeon Lelacheur lives in 
 Suffolk, and Suffolk and Dorsetshire are a long way 
 ajjlart." 
 
 "I should certainly never think of visiting Suffolk 
 again as long as I live." 
 
 "Quite so. I can read you and your obstinate ways, 
 Horace, like a book. Very well, then, you have bought 
 a house in Dorsetshire. On the coast, I suppose, so 
 as not to cut yourself off from the sea? " 
 
THE ADMIRAL 9 
 
 " I've had pretty nearly fifty years of the sea," said 
 the Admiral. " I Wouldn't live on the coast if you were 
 to give me a place for nothing. I hate the sea. I 
 want a quiet house, inland, with trees and birds and 
 flowers, and plenty of air, and no smoke ; and I've got 
 it." 
 
 " Trees and birds and flowers ! I've heard sailors 
 talk hke that before, and I know what happens. Unless 
 you are more foolish than I take you for you won't 
 be many miles from the sea." 
 
 " Foyle is about five miles from Lydmouth Harbour," 
 said the Admiral, in a tone of indifference. 
 
 The old lady nodded her head in triumph. " You see, 
 Sophia," she said. " I know what I'm talking about. 
 I wish you had been born with half my brains. Well, 
 Horace, tell us more about your house. What is its 
 name? " 
 
 " Foyle Manor," replied the Admiral. " Oh, it's 
 a nice enough little place — ^not big — ^pretty garden, and 
 a few fields and a bit of shooting. I'm having it done 
 up now. I shall take Anne there in a month — say the 
 first of June. You can send her up to me in London, 
 can't you.'' " 
 
 " Yes, I can send her up ; though, as you have not 
 visited me for four years, it would not have hurt you to 
 come down here again. I'm an old woman now, 
 Horace." 
 
 " You an old woman ! " said the Admiral. " You're 
 a good deal younger than I am, my lady. You'll live 
 another twenty years." 
 
10 MANY JUNES 
 
 " I don't wish to live another twenty years," said the 
 old lady, not ill pleased with the compliment. " I don't 
 complain, you'll observe, of your taking Anne from 
 me after all these years, but I feel it none the less." 
 
 " I must say," put in Miss Wilkinson, " that I think 
 it rather hard." 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Sophia," said the old lady 
 promptly. " The man has a right to have his own 
 daughter with him if he can give her a home. And 
 her place is with her father as long as he treats her 
 well, as I hope he means to do. And what about Hugh, 
 Admiral.? " 
 
 " Hugh will come home too. I shall give his tutor 
 rooms in the lodge — don't want the fellow in the house." 
 
 " Well, I am glad that the two children are to be 
 together at last, and that the boy will have a home. 
 It has always seemed to me a most unsatisfactory pro- 
 ceeding, leaving the poor child practically homeless, 
 as you have done." 
 
 " Hugh has been very well looked after. I wouldn't 
 have him spoilt by petticoats — ^not that it much matters 
 now. He's missed his chance in life, and nothing will 
 put that straight." 
 
 " Missed his chance in life ! What a ridiculous way 
 to talk about a boy of fifteen or sixteen and just be- 
 cause he was refused for the navy." 
 
 The Admiral's red face grew purple, and to the four 
 furrows were added a fifth. " Refused for the navy ! " 
 he repeated angrily. "And whose fault was it that 
 he was refused for the navy.? I tell you he could have 
 
THE ADMIRAL 11 
 
 passed in top of tliem all if it hadn't been for that 
 lazy incompetent scoundrel of a schoolmaster." 
 
 " It was not the schoolmaster's fault that the boy 
 had measles at the time of the examination." 
 
 " It was his fault ; or, if it wasn't, that was the first 
 chance. He had another one, and then what must the 
 confounded idiot do but send him up without taking 
 the trouble to see that he was fit for it.'' " 
 
 " It was adenoids, was it not? " 
 
 *' Adenoids ! " repeated the Admiral, in a voice of 
 concentrated scorn, as if his quarrel was with the word 
 itself. " Just a little twopenny halfpenny operation 
 and the boy was as right as anybody. And there's a 
 fellow whose business it is in life to see that the boys 
 entrusted to him have every chance — a fellow who has 
 pocketed hundreds of pounds of my money for that 
 thing alone — and he won't take the trouble to see if 
 anything of that sort is the matter — leaves it to the 
 Medical Board, if you please, and when they turn the 
 boy back says he's sorry. Sorry be damned — ^begging 
 your pardon, my lady, and yours, Miss Wilkinson. I'd 
 have had the fellow put in prison for it if I could. A 
 schoolmaster! I'd like to drown the whole race of 
 schoolmasters. And I told him so too." 
 
 " It certainly was very annoying ; but the navy is 
 not the only career for a boy, after all. Hugh has 
 plenty of time to prepare for some other profession. 
 There's the army." 
 
 " The army ! " echoed the Admiral. " No boy of 
 mine wastes his time and money in the army." 
 
12 MANY JUNES 
 
 " Indeed, it is a very fine service. No one says 
 anything against the army in this house." 
 
 The Admiral grunted. Questioned further, he said 
 that he didn't know what he was going to do with 
 the boy yet. There was plenty of time. He would go 
 on at present with his tutor. He certainly woiddn't go 
 to school. For one thing he was too old, and he, the 
 Admiral, had had enough of schoolmasters to last him 
 his lifetime. Perhaps he should go to Cambridge — 
 certainly not Oxford — ^the Admiral couldn't bear Ox- 
 ford ; his brother and his nephews had been at Oxford, 
 though he did not give this as the reason for his dislike 
 of that university. After that he would see. Hugh 
 might possibly go into the Church for a year or two — 
 if the Church kept its Protestant character, which 
 seemed unlikely with all these posturing mountebanks 
 about. If he behaved himself he would have Foyle 
 after the Admiral's death, and enough money to live 
 on. There was plenty of time to see how things turned 
 out. Hugh was only sixteen. 
 
 " Just a year younger than Anne," said Lady Wilkin- 
 son. " Ah, there is a ring at the bell. I am sure. 
 Admiral, you will say that Anne has grown." 
 
 Anne Lelacheur came into the room immediately 
 afterwards. She was a tall slip of a girl, with dark 
 hair and eyes, more of a child than a woman, in spite 
 of her graceful, budding form. Her cheeks and her 
 eyes were bright, and she came forward to greet her 
 father without a trace of diffidence, if with no particular 
 enthusiasm. She had not seen him for four years. 
 
THE ADMIRAL 13 
 
 He allowed her to kiss him, and remarked that she had 
 grown, and then told her, without any further preamble, 
 that he was going to take her away from her grand- 
 mother's house to live with him in the country, and asked 
 her how she would like it. 
 
 The girl sat on the arm of the old lady's chair, and 
 put her arm round her. " I shall be very sorry to leave 
 dear granny," she said ; " but of course if you want 
 me, father, I will come." 
 
 " Very well, then," said the Admiral, rising. " I 
 shall take you down to Foyle with me on the first 
 of June." 
 
 He was out of the room and out of the house within 
 two minutes, in spite of expostulations and expressions 
 of surprise. 
 
 " I can only hope," said Miss Wilkinson, as Anne 
 was downstairs helping him on with his coat, " that 
 the child will be happy with such a man." 
 
 " Sophia," said the old lady, " you are a fool, and I 
 hope God will forgive me for saying so." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FOYLE MANOE 
 
 " I HOPE the Admiral will be satisfied with jour improve- 
 ment, Hugh," said Mr. Williams. " You haven't got on 
 so well as I should have liked in some things. Mathe- 
 matics are your weak point, and I expect he will make 
 a lot of Mathematics. Still, we'v6 ground at them 
 pretty steadily. I can't honestly say it's my fault if 
 you haven't progressed as well as you should have 
 done." 
 
 " No, it isn't your fault," said the boy. " Mathe- 
 matics aren't in my line." 
 
 " You're well ahead in Classics," pursued the tutor, 
 a little anxiously. " He can't complain there, if he 
 knows anything about it. But sailors don't pay much 
 attention to Classics. I shall say to him : ' My dear 
 Admiral, a fellow must follow his bent. Let him work 
 at his Classics and I'll guarantee that he shall go to 
 the 'Varsity as well equipped as most fellows. That'll 
 be the way to tackle him, eh.'' " 
 
 " I think you must have forgotten what my father 
 is like if you expect to tackle him in that way," said the 
 boy drily. 
 
 " Oh, he'll respect me if I stand up to him," said Mr. 
 Williams. " A tutor isn't a servant, you know, Hugh. 
 He's a gentleman, and of course he treats other gentle- 
 
 14 
 
FOYLE MANOR 15 
 
 men as his equals. Anyhow, I've taken great pains to 
 turn you into a gentleman. I don't think he*ll find much 
 to grumble at there." 
 
 " Yes, you have taken a lot of trouble about that," 
 said the boy quietly. 
 
 Hugh Lelacheur was a tall thin boy of sixteen, with 
 a solemn face and a pair of fine eyes, which formed 
 perhaps his only claim to good looks. One would 
 not have said that the process towards which his com- 
 panion had bent his energies had given him much 
 trouble, nor, perhaps, that it was one for which that 
 companion was eminently fitted. Mr. Williams was 
 a big young man. He wore a heavy moustache and the 
 beginnings of a pair of side whiskers. His hands were 
 moist and clumsy, and the stubby finger naUs not quite 
 clean. There was a look half bold, half diffident in his 
 eyes; his mouth was amiable, if weak, and his chin, 
 which he had shaved on the previous day, a trifle 
 heavy. 
 
 The two of them were sitting on a bench on 
 Southampton platform. They had arrived from St. 
 Malo a few hours before, and were awaiting the train 
 by which the Admiral and Anne were travelling from 
 London, and by which they would go on with them into 
 Dorsetshire. It was a lovely siunmer afternoon, the first 
 day of June. The tide was out and the green mudflats 
 behind them sent a smell of seaweed into the clear 
 air. 
 
 "I can't say I'm sorry to get away from St. Lunaire," 
 pursued the tutor. " One gets tired of a place like that 
 
16 MANY JUNES 
 
 in three years. If it had been Dinard it would have 
 been better fun. But, of course, you would have been 
 too young for that." 
 
 " Too young for what.'' " asked the boy. 
 
 " Oh, for all — for all that goes on at a place like 
 that. Of course it is all right for me — no harm in it, 
 in the least ; it does you good to see a little bit of life, 
 birt " 
 
 " What do you call seeing life? What used you 
 to do when you went over to Dinard — ^to shop.? " 
 
 " I say, Hugh," said Mr. Williams nervously, " you 
 won't say anything to the Admiral about my going 
 over to Dinard occasionally. I know I did tell the old 
 cure that I went there to shop, and so I did — in a way. 
 But, of course, I used to have a little bit of fun too. 
 Still, the Admiral might not understand it quite, if you 
 were to say anything, and " 
 
 " I don't suppose my father will want to talk to me 
 much. He never has — at least, not since I missed my 
 medical for the navy. He'll always have it in his mind 
 that I'm not in the service, as he meant me to be, and 
 he win tell me so." 
 
 " It wasn't your fault, old chap." 
 
 " I know it wasn't my fault. But that doesn't seem 
 to make much difference. I'm a disappointment, and 
 he doesn't hide it. I am not sure that I care for the 
 idea of being shut up in an out-of-the-way country place 
 like Foyle seems to be. I think I am sorry that we left 
 St. Lunaire." 
 
 "You won't be shut up alone with him," said the 
 
FOYLE MANOR 17 
 
 tutor. "You'll have me, you know, old chap. And 
 then, of course, there'll be — er — ^Anne." 
 
 It was rather impertinent of Mr. Williams to call 
 his pupil's sister by her Christian name, for he had 
 never seen her. But Mr. Williams was a sentimental 
 young man, always on the lookout for a feminine object 
 of languishment, and it gave him a mild thrill to speak 
 of — er — Anne. Hugh did not notice the presumption. 
 
 " Oh ! Anne," he said. " I don't care much for 
 girls. We'll let her go her way, Mr. Williams, and 
 we'll go ours." 
 
 " We must try arid make it jolly for her," said the 
 tutor. " You've never seen her, have you, Hugh? " 
 
 " Not since I can remember. It seems funny not to 
 know your own sister. Still, I expect girls are much 
 the same all the world over. Hullo, here's the train." 
 
 They hurried down the platform. The Admiral 
 stepped out of a second-class carriage as the train 
 came to a standstill, " Well, my boy," he said, shaking 
 hands with his son. " How are you, Mr. Williams ? 
 Where's your luggage? Here, you fellow, come and 
 look after this." He went down the platform with the 
 tutor, and left Hugh standing before the open door. 
 Anne was just inside. There was a look of pleasure, 
 almost of yearning, on her face, but shyness held her and 
 she blushed. 
 
 " Come in," she said, and then laughed. 
 
 Hugh was no less shy as he stepped into the carriage, 
 and he was terribly afraid that Anne would want to 
 kiss him. 
 
18 MANY JUNES 
 
 She did want to kiss him. She had a wonderfully 
 vivid recollection of herself as a tiny child holding in 
 her anna a pink morsel of humanity that had been 
 Hugh, and her soul had intermittently hungered for her 
 brother ever since. And, strangely enough, the hunger 
 was not driven away by the sight of this tall solemn- 
 faced boy with the great eyes, who seemed so desperately 
 afraid of her. But she did not kiss him. " It's jolly 
 being together again," she said lightly. '* We'll have 
 splendid times at Foyle, Hugh. I've made father tell 
 me all about it coming down." 
 
 Hugh sat down opposite to her, and stole a glance 
 at her face. Her dark eyes, very much like his own in 
 the way they were set between their long lashes, were 
 bright, and tender too, as she turned them on him. 
 There was a flush on her cheeks. Her lips were parted, 
 and showed a line of white regular teeth. It occurred 
 to Hugh that his sister was pretty. 
 
 " It will be such fun exploring," she said. " I'll take 
 you round. I know something about it and you know 
 nothing. Hugh, how tail you are! — ^nearly as tall as 
 I am." 
 
 Hugh had not yet said a word. She left off chatter- 
 ing, and he had to find his tongue. 
 
 " I wonder if Mr. Williams has got all the luggage.'' " 
 he said. 
 
 « What is Mr. Williams like? " she asked. " Father 
 says I have got to do lessons with him for a year." 
 
 " Lessons ! " repeated Hugh. " That was him with 
 
FOYLE MANOR 19 
 
 " I didn't look at him," she said. " I was looking 
 out for you. Oh, Hugh, I am so glad we are to be 
 together again. I haven't seen you since you were 
 a tiny little baby. Aren't' you glad too.'' " 
 
 " Yes," said Hugh, and then, clutching at his man- 
 hood's independence, " I expect we shall get on all right. 
 You'll have to work hard if you are to read with Mr. 
 Williams and me. He's pretty strict." 
 
 " Is he? " she said indifferently. " Oh, here's 
 father." 
 
 The Admiral got into the carriage and shut the door. 
 He had said to Mr. Williams : " I expect you would 
 like to smoke," and left him. Mr. Williams did not 
 want to smoke. He had caught a glimpse of Anne, 
 standing up in the carriage, looking for her brother, 
 her eyes shining. He sat looking out on to the forest 
 through which the train was passing without seeing 
 it. Anne's eyes ran riot through his susceptible brain. 
 He sighed deeply, fingered his chin reflectingly, and 
 wished it had been his morning for shaving. 
 
 They came in the afternoon to the little town of 
 Lydmouth, lying snuggled up against the low cliff round 
 its toy harbour, facing the glittering summer sea. 
 There was a serviceable waggonette with a pair of stout 
 cobs awaiting them, and a luggage cart in the charge 
 of a bronzed round-faced man, who touched his cap 
 to the Admiral and grinned widely at Anne and Hugh- 
 He was rather like a younger stumpier edition of their 
 father, with the same grizzled look and thfe same light 
 blue far-seeing eyes. Hugh shook hands with him. 
 
20 MANY JUNES 
 
 and said: " How do you do, Dunster? I didn't knoir 
 you were going to be here." 
 
 " No fear o' me deserting the master," he replied. 
 
 Hugh explained to Anne, in an aside, that this was 
 their father's old servant, who had sailed with him 
 for many years. " He's a jolly good sort," he said. 
 " I'm glad he'll be here." 
 
 The Admiral had been casting side-looks at the sea 
 and sniffing the salt breezes. " Dunster," he said sud- 
 denly, " we'll take the boat out." 
 
 " Old Jack'U go with you, sir," replied Dunster 
 promptly. " I'll take the young lady and gentleman 
 home and look after the things." 
 
 " Very well," said the Admiral. " Send the dogcart 
 for me at half-past six." And he walked off down to 
 the harbour. 
 
 Dunster had the luggage into the cart in no time. 
 When he had dismissed the two porters, whom he had 
 induced to get through their job with a celerity that 
 surprised no one more than themselves, he said to the 
 groom on the box of the waggonette : " Now then, John, 
 you take this here cart, and I'll drive the young master 
 and mistress," 
 
 John jumped down from his seat with alacrity, and 
 Dunster took his place and the reins. He was not an 
 expert whip, but the cobs behaved as if they were as 
 pleased to act under his direction as the porters and 
 the groom had been. There were a portmanteau and 
 some bags on the box-seat beside him, and Anne and 
 Hugh and the tutor got in behind. 
 
FOYLE MANOR 21 
 
 *'Hugh," said Mr. Williams, in a stage whisper, 
 " introduce me." 
 
 " Oh ! this is Mr. Williams, Dunster," said Hugh. 
 
 " Pleased to see you, sir," said Dunster, touching his 
 hat, but Mr. Williams said, with a blush and a weak 
 smile. " No, I mean your sister, Hugh." 
 
 Anne laughed and shook hands with him, and Dunster 
 relieved the subsequent tension by half turning round in 
 his seat and saying: "It's a six-mile drive, miss, and 
 wonderful pretty country. We shall soon get there with 
 these little fellows." 
 
 " What is Foyle like.? " asked Anne. 
 
 " Well there, you wait till you see it, miss," replied 
 Dunster. " If you don't say it's the snuggest prettiest 
 little property you ever saw, I'm a Yankee. Garden! 
 you never see such a garden, and there's a snug little 
 farm, with hvestock and hens and turkeys and ducks to 
 look after, and a bit of a lake among the trees, and an 
 old punt on it what I've made watertight and rigged up 
 all ready for you. And there's a little island on the 
 lake. We'll knock up a kind of log hut there when I 
 get a minute to spare, and you can have picnics. Then 
 there's these Httle fellows — the Admiral ain't bought 
 a side saddle yet, but he'll do it, never fear. There's 
 downs all round the house, and you and Master Hugh'll 
 have many a scamper." 
 
 A sudden snule appeared on Hugh's face. There was 
 no telling what pleasures hfe could afford with Dunster 
 at the helm. Any one who knew Dunster, anybody under 
 the age of manhood or womanhood, could safely tr^st 
 
22 MANY JUNES 
 
 him to aiford constant and ever-fresh thrills. He had! 
 had experience of that in his childhood. Dunster never 
 seemed to have anything to do but to devise amusement, 
 and yet Dunster did as much work as two other men. 
 He turned towards Anne, who had listened with spark- 
 ling eyes to the description of her new home. 
 
 " What is the house like? " she asked. 
 
 " The house ? Well, you wait till you see the house, 
 
 miss," replied Dunster. " If you don't say But 
 
 there, I done it aU myself while the Admiral was in 
 London, so I won't blow my own trumpet. I've took 
 special pains with your room and Master Hugh's, miss. 
 It looks over the stableyard — ^a bit of life for you. 
 Nobody won't bother you there, and you can do what 
 you like." 
 
 Mr. Williams thought it was time to assert himself. 
 " I suppose that is where we shall do our work.'' " he 
 said. 
 
 " Well, sir," replied Dunster, " the Admiral, he 
 thought you'd be more comfortable on your own hook, 
 if I may say so, in the lodge. It's a roomy lodge, 
 wonderful pretty, with a thatch roof and them lattice 
 windows. The gardener and his wife lives there, and 
 Mrs. Ivimey, she cooks like one o'clock, and I'll come 
 in occasional and look after your clothes. I've picked 
 you out two good rooms and had 'em done up a treat 
 — ^bookcases and everything. The Admiral thought 
 you'd do your studying there with Master Hugh, and 
 him and Miss Anne could have their room in the house 
 to theirselves, so to speak. Not but that they won't be 
 
FOYLE MANOR 23 
 
 asking you up to a tea-party now and then. I'll be 
 bound they will." 
 
 This arrangement, in which the hand of Dunster 
 himself was at least as apparent as that of the Admiral, 
 would have seemed an eminently satisfactory one to 
 Mr. WiUiams an hour or two before. He was to have 
 his own quarters, and be his own master outside of the 
 hours devotled to study. Now it came as something of 
 a disappointment to him to learn that he would not, as 
 a matter of course, share the more intimate life of his 
 pupil and his pupil's sister. StiU, his thatched and 
 lattice-windowed lodge was in the garden, and he sup- 
 posed he would not be expected to keep out of the 
 garden, even if he had to await an invitation before 
 entering the house. 
 
 They had driven over a billow of the rolling downs 
 and were passing along a road in the valley, where great 
 trees had collected, growing in the rich soil which they 
 could not find on the bare uplands. They went over an 
 old stone bridge and passed through a pretty straggling 
 village, with stone-built cottages and gay patches of 
 garden. A grey church tower dominated it from a 
 little way up the hillside, flanked by its square com- 
 fortable-looking parsonage. Anne exclaimed at its 
 beauty. 
 
 "Ah! you wait till you see Foyle, miss," said 
 Dunster. " This is Kennet Bridge. It ain't nothing 
 to Foyle. We're more than half way now." 
 
 The two brisk little cobs covered the miles of white 
 road at a fast trot, their satin-skinned flanks creasing 
 
24 MANY JUNES 
 
 and stretching, their hoofs ringing, now separately, 
 now in sharp unison. They trotted down a gentle slope 
 and into the \jllage of Foyle. The river watering the 
 pleasant valley widened here to a pebbly shallow and 
 ran under a three-arched bridge of ancient masonry. 
 The valley, too, was wider, and stretched away from 
 the high down, underneath which nestled the village, in 
 meadow and deep woodland. There was a mill by the 
 bridge, and beyond that a little group of pottages and 
 a forge ; on the other side of the road was an old farm- 
 house, with a lichened stone roof, standing behind a 
 wall in which was a gate of wrought iron, giving a 
 glimpse of a paved garden court. The farm buildings 
 ran along by the side of the road, and beyond them was 
 another row of old cottages. The footpaths were raised, 
 and alongside one of them ran a little tributary stream 
 in a stone gutter. The trees of Foyle climbed high 
 into the blue sky. A church spire peeped out fr6m 
 among them, above the village, but their foliage was too 
 thick to allow anything but the spire to be seen. 
 Dunster jerked his whip in the direction of the church. 
 " The Manor lies among them trees," he said, and they 
 turned round by the mill and drove along a shady road 
 by the river. 
 
 They passed the church and the rectory lying in its 
 shadow, and a hundred yards farther up the road ap- 
 peared the thatched, rose-and-honeysuckle-covered lodge 
 in which Mr. Willi?ims was to make his home. It 
 guarded a low white gateway, through which Dunster 
 turned his horses, not without some danger to the 
 
FOYLE MANOR 25 
 
 paint of the gatepost. Here Mr. Williams and his 
 effects were dropped, to be received by a buxom woman 
 in a print dress, who smiled copiously at each of the 
 party in turn. Then they drove on for a few yards 
 under the trees and round a comer to where a green 
 cedared lawn was spread in the dappled sunlight, rising 
 and dipping in gentle undulations, down on one side to 
 the little tree-bordered lake, and up to a low, white, 
 broad-eaved house, whose windows were shining in the 
 westering sun. Anne and Hugh got down and entered 
 the house by a low porch, and Dunster drove round to 
 the stableyard with a promise to return shortly. 
 
 They found themselves in a spacious hall, with a 
 beamed roof and an open fireplace. Dunster's work had 
 been done so well that there was no appearance of new- 
 ness. The furniture was old, and looked as if it had 
 been there since time immemorial. Some of it had, for 
 the Admiral had bought the house with its contents. 
 But Dunster had rearranged it all, and added his 
 master's own furniture and pictures and trophies, and 
 the house had become settled and habitable at once. 
 There was a not unpleasant smell of new paint, and 
 soap, and upholstery, all mixed together. Anne clasped 
 her hands and turned to her brother. 
 
 " Oh ! Hugh, it will be delightful living here," she 
 said. "Isn't it a dear old place.'' And what fun 
 Dunster is ! He'll do all sorts of things to help us to 
 enjoy ourselves." 
 
 Dunster joined them at this point. He could not 
 deny himself the pleasure of showing them everything. 
 
26 MANY JUNES 
 
 The iJining-room was panelled, with a broaS oak seat 
 imder the window, and another open fireplace. There 
 was a modernized drawing-room, with French windows 
 opening on to the lawn. It had that quiet faded air 
 with which such country drawing-rooms, little used, 
 make their appeal of restfulness, and Dunster had kept 
 that air intact. They went down two shallow oak steps 
 to the Admiral's room, one of the oldest in the house, 
 panelled in dark oak, with a long lattice window opening 
 on to a little retired rose garden surrounded by a yew 
 hedge. It looked as if its owner had used it for the 
 best part of his lifetime. 
 
 " I've asked them to get you a cup of tea in your 
 own room upstairs, miss," said Dunster, when they had 
 duly admired this example of his handiwork, and they 
 went up the broad oak staircase, down three steps, and 
 along another passage, and into a big light room full 
 of rather shabby furniture, but looking so comfortable 
 and homelike that no room could have pleased them 
 better. Tea was laid for them on the table in the 
 middle of the room. " I'll just go and see after the 
 luggage," said Dunster, " and then I'll show you round 
 outside, miss — that's to say unless you and Master 
 Hugh would rather go round by your two selves." 
 
 He held his head on one side inquiringly. Anne said : 
 " Oh no, we'll go' with you. But I must take off my 
 jacket and hat and wash before tea. Where are our 
 bedrooms.'"' 
 
 Dunster showed them. There was a vase of flowers 
 :on Anne's dressing-table and the window curtains and 
 
FOYLE MANOK. 27 
 
 bed furniture were fresh and dainty. The wallpaper 
 was new, and had a little pattern of rosebuds. 
 
 " What a sweet room ! " said Anne. " Who has 
 made it all so pretty? " 
 
 Dunster's broad face beamed. " I did, miss," he 
 said. " Bless you, I know what young ladies like. 
 Ah, here's Martha. This is the young person I've 
 got to look after you, miss. Now, my girl, you bustle 
 along and get some hot water. You ought to have 
 had it all ready for your young lady. But there, you'll 
 learn to think of these things in time. You're willing, 
 and where the heart's willing the feet and hands is 
 quick." 
 
 The apple-cheeked country girl went scurrying down 
 the passage, and Dunster shut the door and conducted 
 Hugh, who had been standing up against the doorpost, 
 to his room next door. " Another can of hot water, 
 please," he called down the passage. " I'll unpack your 
 things and get you to rights while you're having your 
 tea. Master Hugh," he said. " We'll soon get ship- 
 shape. Now, don't you think it's a nice place, sir.-* 
 Don't you think you can hve happy here? " 
 
 " I think it's the j oiliest place I've ever seen," said 
 Hugh. " I'd no idea it would be half so jolly." 
 
 " That's right, sir — that's right. And we'll all live 
 happy here for many a long day, I hope. I found it, 
 you know. Bless you, I know what the Admiral wants 
 after all these years better than he knows it him- 
 self." 
 
 " Does father like the place? '' 
 
28 MANY JUNES 
 
 " It's just what he wants, quite away from the sea, 
 but not too far away. I got hira a boat, and he can 
 always go over and have a sail if he wants to. He likes 
 his garden, and we'll keep him busy altering a bit here 
 and a bit there every year. And there'll be a bit of 
 stock, to fatten, and there's a bit of shooting — enough 
 to give him something to do in the winter. And there's 
 books, and I've ordered him the papers he likes, aijd we'll 
 get some of his old shipmates do^v^l for him occasionally. 
 And if he likes to go up to London every now and then 
 to his club, and to see a bit of life, why, we'll make it 
 easy for him. Oh yes, it's just the place he wants, with 
 me to look after him,, and put him in the way of enjoy- 
 ing of it." 
 
 Dunster was busy unpacking Hugh's trunks and 
 putting his clothes away all the while he was talking. 
 He was the good-humoured bustling genius of the place, 
 prepared to make everybody comfortable and happy, 
 and gain his own pleasure in doing so, " I'm glad 
 you've come here, Dunster," said Hugh. " I think we 
 shall have an awfully good time." 
 
 He and Anne lingered over their tea, with the new- 
 laid eggs, thick cream, and home-made bread of the 
 country. Everything about the room and about the 
 house was sweet and fresh, and the balmy air of the 
 June evening stole through the open casement and told 
 of outdoor delights yet to be explored. 
 
 Anne sat at the head of the table, and poured out the 
 tea. " Do you like sugar, Hugh? " she asked. " And 
 how many lumps ? " Then she laughed. " Fancy not 
 
FOYLE MANOR 29 
 
 knowii^ whether one's own brother likes sugar or not ! " 
 she said. 
 
 Hugh, with his mouth stuffed, laughed too. They 
 looked at each other and laughed together, out of 
 pure happiness. 
 
 " Do you know," said Anne, " that Dunster looks 
 after everything in the house.'' The maids are just 
 country girls. Martha is the oldest of them, and she 
 is only twenty.'' 
 
 " Isn't the cook more than twenty.? " asked Hugh. 
 " Father won't like that much." 
 
 " Dunster chose her because he said she had the 
 hand for it, and what she doesn't know he is teaching 
 her. He teaches them all their work, and he is so 
 cheerful and friendly that they will do anything for 
 him." 
 
 Dunster knocked at the door at that moment. 
 
 " Now, miss, if you're ready," he said. " Pve got 
 half-an-hour at your service." 
 
 They went out into the garden. It was full of sur- 
 prises. There was the soft lawn, shaded by the dark 
 horizontal limbs of the age-old cedars, ringed with 
 blossoming lilacs. The lake was overhung with great 
 beeches, and on a spur of jutting grass was. a little 
 group of silver birch. On the other bank was an oak 
 copse, carpeted with wild hyacinths, and the margin 
 was fringed with yellow flags. There was a yew-enclosed 
 rose garden, with flagged paths and a sundial. There 
 was another little shut-off garden, which had been left 
 to grow wild, where the formal beds were fxill of self- 
 
30 MANY JUNES 
 
 sown foxgloves, not yet in flower. The south side cJ the 
 house was trellised, and covered with magnolia, myrtle, 
 and banksia roses. The shrubbery walk, opening at 
 one place into a garden of primroses, led to the walled' 
 kitchen garden, in which flowers and fruit and vege- 
 tables were all growing together. Wallflowers and snap- 
 dragons bloomed on the top of the old red-brick wall, 
 and fruit-trees were ripening against it, Dunster was 
 very proud of the fruit garden, and told them how 
 everything ought to be done in it. He was also greatly 
 interested in the ducks and poultry of the little farm, 
 and beamed with anticipatory pleasure as Anne showed 
 by her questions and comments that she would like to 
 take part in the activities he had already set on foot 
 there. 
 
 Mr. Williams joined them, with his hands in his 
 pockets and an air of slight deprecation, and his 
 gratification was marked when they accompanied him 
 to the lodge and inspected his quarters. His manner 
 towards Anne was respectful, marred only by a tinc- 
 ture of tenderness, which Dunster's sharp eyes may have 
 detected, for he cut short the visit to the lodge, and was 
 contemplative as he convoyed his charges back to the 
 house. 
 
 Anne and Hugh dined with their father, and Dunster, 
 in black clothes with a white shirt-front, waited on 
 them. The windows were open to the mild evening 
 air, and a sense of peace and restfulness lay over the 
 old house, as the dusk crept on. Hugh was silent, 
 digesting his experiences, but Anne chattered gaily. 
 
FOYLE MANOR 31 
 
 and her father,, in quiet good humour, responded to 
 her mood. "Yes, the place suits me very well," he 
 said ; " and if you think it will suit you too, young 
 lady — ^weU, then, we're all pleased together." The 
 evening passed without his once reminding Hugh that 
 if things had turned out differently he would now be 
 well on the road to advancement in the only profession 
 worth entering. He smoked a cigar on a garden seat 
 in the rose garden after dinner, and did not dismiss 
 the girl and boy imtil half-past nine. 
 
 Anne and Hugh went upstairs together, and passed 
 by an open window in the upper corridor. The long 
 day had nearly worn itself out, but they could see the 
 lawn and the lake lying before them in the twilight. 
 
 " Hugh," said Anne, " we are going to be as happy 
 as the day is long. Let us get up early tomorrow, 
 so as not to miss any of it." 
 
 " Very well," said Hugh. 
 
 She looked at him. " Aren't you pleased with it all? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Yes, I am," he replied slowly. " Yes, I am ; very 
 pleased." 
 
 "Well, good-night," she said, and kissed him. It 
 was the sisterly kiss that Hugh had so dreaded upon 
 first meeting her, but he received it unflinchingly. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE GAKDEN 
 
 One dewy morning, after they had been at Poyle for 
 a week or so, Anne woke very early and looked out of 
 the window. White dew was on the lawns and no smoke 
 arose from the chimneys of the lodge, which peeped 
 from among the trees and bushes. Dawn had stolen up, 
 and the fuU light of the long summer day had taken the 
 sleeping world unawares. The air was sweet and virgi- 
 nal, and fuU of the song of birds fluting among the 
 lilacs. Here was a new delight, this fresh unspoilt 
 world which the sun was just beginning to warm. It 
 was impossible to go back to bed again and sleep away 
 those glorious hours of early morning. Anne dressed 
 and called Hugh. Together they stole through the 
 silent house and out into the clamorous life of the 
 garden. Mr. Williams was in favour at that moment 
 — ^his popularity rose and fell — so they threw pebbles 
 in at his open window, and, when a tangled apologetic 
 head appeared under the eaves, announced that the 
 day's activities were about to begin, and invited him to 
 share them. 
 
 After that happy morning Anne promulgated a 
 (decree : bedtime would be immediately after dinner when 
 the Admiral was at home, and earlier still if he were 
 away, and the day would begin not later than five 
 
 32 
 
THE GARDEN 33 
 
 o'clock in the morning, as long as the summer lasted. 
 So they tasted the fulness of the pleasures of the open 
 air, and of all that glorious summer wasted scarcely an 
 hour of daylight. 
 
 Their life was spent almost entirely in the open air. 
 Dunster, who seemed to get his own way in everything, 
 although to all appearance acting under the sternest 
 discipline, produced the promised side saddle for Anne, 
 and she and Hugh made long expeditions over the breezy 
 downs, and along the winding valley roads. They 
 busied themselves in the farmyard, and in, the plots 
 which Dunster had assigned them in a sunny corner of 
 the kitchen garden. With his help, and with financial 
 aid from the Admiral — who was willing that they should 
 enjoy themselves in their own way, so long as they re- 
 frained from disturbing the quietude of his existence — 
 they built a log hut on the island in the lake, and played 
 childish games there. Their games and their talk were 
 often childish, for they were so much alone together 
 that youth lingered, although their bodies grew. 
 Hugh's silence and reserve vanished, and his laugh was 
 heard about the old house, and in the secret places of 
 the garden, as often as Anne's. 
 
 The rector of Foyle was an old man, with gentle, 
 courteous manners. Anne was allowed to disturb him 
 whenever she felt disposed. He would show her books 
 in his study, hned with shelves and opening by a French 
 window into the garden; and read her things that he 
 had written — sometimes about Roman remains, some- 
 times about fly-fishing. They would go into the 
 
34 MANY JUNES 
 
 mouldy gloom of the church, and dress the altar ; for 
 Mrs. Bouverie, the rector's wife, was an invalid, and 
 sat in her sunny faded drawing-room, thinking of the 
 time when the decking of the church and the altar had 
 been her care. The Admiral went seldom to the Rectory 
 — there were doubts about old Mr. Bouverie's Protes- 
 tantism — ^but Anne and Hugh ran in and out of the 
 house as if it were a second home. 
 
 They were to be found, too, in farmhouse parlours 
 or, better still, in the great flagged kitchens, with their 
 air of cleanliness and comfort, drinking tea with the 
 farmers' wives, who made much of them; and in what- 
 ever thatched cottage a baby cooed and crowed there 
 was Anne, worshipping it. They had no lack of friends, 
 although of young people of their own class they saw 
 none. The rector and his wife were the only gentle- 
 people within a radius of four or five miles, and county 
 neighbours, even beyond that distance, were scarce. 
 Sometimes an old messmate of their father's would come 
 down to stay for a day or two. Some of these were 
 jocular and some were grumpy. The Admiral took 
 them out in his boat once or twice, but Hugh was not 
 a good sailor, and Anne fidgeted, and after a time he 
 always went sailing alone, or with Dunster. 
 
 Hugh was clever with his brush and pencil. Anne 
 thought the scenes which he dabbled on to paper with 
 water-colours were wonderful. His efforts served to 
 fix in his brain the beauty of the world around him, and 
 he enjoyed himself intensely, seated on the banks of a 
 stream, or with his back to a tree. 
 
THE GARDEN 35 
 
 By-and-by he told Anne that he wanted to be an 
 artist. Anne was delighted with the idea. Mr. Williams 
 was less encouraging. " It is not the life for a gentle- 
 man," he said. " I sha'n't have, anything to do with 
 suggesting it to the Admiral, Hugh." 
 
 Anne was not present, or he would not have spoken in 
 this way. Anne would have told him what he must do 
 and he would have done it. Dunster, next appealed to, 
 was for letting everybody do what pleased him or her 
 best, so long as there was nothing that had to be done 
 which interfered with individual preferences ; but in this 
 case he doubted his powers to assist an arrangement. 
 
 " You see. Master Hugh," he said, " I can do a 
 good deal with the Admiral, so long as he don't tumble 
 to it that I'm giving him advice about what don't 
 concern me, or giving him advice about anything, which 
 he won't put up with. But if I was to speak to him 
 about a thing like that I should be sent off with a flea 
 in my ear pretty quick, to attend to my pantry. The 
 Admiral can look wonderful old-fashioned at a man if 
 he wants to. You'd better speak to him yourself, or 
 get Miss Anne to." 
 
 It needed courage for Hugh to address his father on 
 a question of this sort, which would be sure to bring- 
 down on his head implied reproaches for his failure 
 to get into the navy. But he did not leave it to Anne ; 
 he made the suggestion, and it was received in the way 
 he had feared. The Admiral would not hear of such a 
 thing. Fiddling about with paper and paint like a 
 schoolgirl! What sort of an occupation in life was 
 
36 MANY JUNES 
 
 that for any one who called himself a man ? " Just look 
 what you would have been doing by this time in the 
 
 service, if " and so on. " Your business now is 
 
 to do your work and get ready for some profession in 
 which you can use your brains a bit. Fiddle with your 
 paints and paper by all means, in your spare time — 
 no objection to that — but don't come to me again with 
 such an idea for spending your life." Hugh retired, 
 dejected, but went on fiddling with his paints and paper 
 as before. 
 
 Dunster, gauging the state of Mr. Williams's mind 
 with regard to Anne at an early date, took steps to 
 have his position defined for him. He suggested to the 
 Admiral, with ingenuous innocence, that it would be 
 a nuisance for him to be always meeting Mr. Williams 
 about the house and garden — for Mr. Williams had 
 not taken Dunster's own hint to confine himself to his 
 own apartments unless by special invitation, but was 
 always insinuating himself into his pupils' company in 
 their free hours. 
 
 " That's quite true, Dunster," said the Admiral. 
 " Why the deuce can't the fellow keep to his own 
 quarters? Always meeting him about the place, with 
 his stupid hands in his pockets. But what can I do."* 
 I'm all for discipline, but I can't very well turn him 
 off the place when I've got him here." 
 
 " You leave that to me, sir," said Dunster. " I can 
 put it to him in a delicate way. He's a nice gentleman, 
 and him and me's very good friends, begging your 
 pardon, sir." 
 
THE GARDEN 37 
 
 " Well, if you can find a way — I'll have him up to 
 dine now and then. It would be a nuisance to have him 
 go, and have to get another one. I've no objection 
 to him, but I don't want to be always having him 
 grinning at me round every corner." 
 
 " If I might presoom to make a suggestion, sir," 
 said Dunster, " I should say, let Master Hugh go 
 down at his regular hours to the lodge, but knock off 
 the time he comes up here to Miss Anne." 
 
 ** What do you mean.? I'm not going to have Miss 
 Anne going down to his rooms. She's only a child, but 
 if he teaches her at all he's got to come up to 
 her." 
 
 " Yes, sir. Well, I suppose he's got to be about the 
 house an hour or two every day." ' 
 
 " H'm ! It's a nuisance. Met him going upstairs 
 yesterday as if the place belonged to him, and there's 
 his cap on the haU table. Where is he now.'' " 
 
 " He's upstairs, sir, talking. Lessons is over." 
 
 " I won't have him living here. I'm sure I don't 
 know what he teaches Miss Anne." 
 
 " Mathematics, sir, and such like, the young lady 
 did tell me." 
 
 " What's the good of that to a woman .'' If she can 
 add up her bills that's all the mathematics she wants." 
 
 " I did think myself, sir, if you will allow me to 
 mention it, that if Miss Anne was to read by herself, 
 something stiff-like, every day, it would be easier to keep 
 Mr. Williams out of the house." 
 
 " H'm ! She's old enough to be able to do that. 
 
38 MANY JUNES 
 
 Well, I think we'll have it so, Dunster; and give him 
 a hint, if you can, to keep to himself a bit more." 
 
 " Yes, sir; I suppose you'll tell him yourself about 
 Miss Anne." 
 
 "Ask him to come to me now and I'll get it over." 
 
 Dunster delivered the summons. Mr. Williams was 
 seated at the table in the schoolroom, gumming stamps 
 into Anne's album. Anne liked stamps, but had an aver- 
 sion to gum. He looked up with some apprehension as 
 the message was delivered. " What does he want.'' " 
 he whispered to Dimster as he followed him downstairs. 
 
 " It's about Miss Anne, sir, I think," said Dunster, 
 and Mr. Williams went in to his patron quaking. 
 
 The Admiral told him of his decision shortly, and not 
 in such a manner as to allay his fears. He was out of 
 ihe room in less than two minutes, wondering whether 
 he was to take the curt announcement that had been 
 made to him as a warning. 
 
 Dunster happened to be walking down the drive as 
 he went out of the hall door, and allowed himself to be 
 caught up. " I was just wanting to have a word with 
 you, sir," he said. " You know I mean well towards 
 you, and you won't take amiss what I'm agoing to 
 say.? " 
 
 To what was this a prelude? Mr. Williams's depres- 
 sion increased. " No, of course not," he said. " What 
 is it? " • 
 
 "Well, sir, you know the Admiral isn't one to say 
 much unless he's driven to. it, and then he flies out. 
 Personally, I've always took warning before the flying 
 
THE GARDEN 39 
 
 out, when possible, and you won't take it amiss if I 
 reconunend you to do the same." 
 
 "What about?" queried Mr. Williams, in a weak 
 voice. 
 
 " Well, sir, I expect you know as well as I do. Now 
 if I was you I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd keep strictly 
 to them cosy little quarters of yours, as before advised, 
 and not be seen about this here garden, nor in the 
 house, unless specially invited. That's my advice to 
 you, and if kept, why we shall have you living happily 
 here for another three or four years, 'stead of — well, I 
 won't say what instead of. You don't take my words 
 amiss, sir, I hope? " 
 
 Mr. Williams did not take them amiss. He discussed 
 the situation with himself during a lonely walk. The 
 perspiration stood on his brow at the thought of what 
 the Admiral might have said, and what he probably 
 would say if he were called upon to speak again. Mr. 
 Williams decided that he had been a fool. It was all 
 his confounded impressionable heart. He would be 
 joUy careful for the future. But lor'! what a fool he 
 must have been for both the Admiral and Dunster to 
 have remarked his sheep's eyes ! Why, the Admiral had 
 scarcely ever seen him and Anne together. 
 
 So Dunster's manoeuvring had its desired effect. Mr. 
 Williams curbed his impressionable heart when in Anne's 
 presence, and found that hfe was more enjoyable than 
 before. After a time he regained the privilege of her 
 society, for when Dunster was satisfied that his warning 
 had been efficacious he put no further restraint on the 
 
40 MANY JUNES 
 
 intercourse that was only natural under the circum- 
 stances, and, as the Admiral was away from Foyle not 
 seldom, Mr. Williams enjoyed periods of immunity from 
 the restraint caused by his presence, and wa9 much with 
 his former and present pupils. ' 
 
 The Admiral had not enjoyed his purchase for long 
 before he began to grow tired of his isolation. His 
 books, his garden, his little farm, and his boat, as a 
 background of interest, were well enough, but he missed 
 the human companionship of which the previous years 
 had been so full. He secured visitors at Foyle not 
 without some difficulty, for it was far from the busy 
 centres of life, and there was not much amusement to 
 offer, especially in the summer. He had never been the 
 man to make close individual friendships, and he missed 
 the stir and interest of a life where there had been con- 
 tinual coming and going, and a constant interchange of 
 news and ideas, a life in which numerous acquaintances 
 had pleasantly distracted him, and demanded in return 
 only such small change of sociability as it had pleased 
 him to pay, without calling upon him to honour drafts 
 against his time or inclination. He found his old 
 friends, thrown upon his hands to entertain all day long 
 in a solitude of two — for he seldom managed to secure 
 more than one at a time — apt to bore instead of enliven- 
 ing him, and after he had been up to town once or twice, 
 and enjoyed the sort of society he preferred — at his 
 club and elsewhere — he furnished himself a set of cham- 
 bers, and thenceforward spent half his time there. It 
 did not occur to him that he was neglecting his children. 
 
THE GARDEN 41 
 
 and the arrangement suited them admirably ; for though 
 he did not intentionally interfere with their pursuits 
 when he was at home, there were rules to be kept and 
 prejudices to be avoided. As for them, they never left 
 Foyle. Anne was to have visited her grandmother in 
 August, but old Lady Wilkinson was taken iU about 
 that time, and only lived for a few months longer, and 
 the Admiral would not allow her to visit her aunt. His 
 permitting a girl of Anne's age to be entirely without the 
 companionship of some woman who could exercise 
 authority and guidance over her was not punished as 
 it might have been, for she grew up, in her beautiful 
 surroundings, as sweet and fair as a girl could be, and 
 even he, in his cross-grained way, liked to have her near 
 him. Nevertheless, he was dictatorial to her, and never 
 showed that her society gave him any pleasure. 
 
 With the companionship of his son he was frankly 
 bored, and showed it, and Hugh retired into his shell 
 of reserve when in his father's company, and was silent 
 and even glum. But that company was vouchsafed to 
 him so seldom that it made no appreciable mark on the 
 delights of that royal summer. He did his work with 
 Mr. Williams, and for the rest of the day there was 
 Anne ; and Anne was everything to him — ^Anne and the 
 beauty of the garden and the woods and fields, the 
 meadow streams and the chalky flower-bordered lanes, 
 the dewy downs, the hot summer noons, the mellow after- 
 noons, the dusk and the scented moonlit nights : all the 
 sweet influences about him that sank into and expanded 
 his soul were mixed up with his love for Anne. 
 
42 MANY JUNES 
 
 Anne was taken up with her country pursuits, and 
 wanted no place but Foyle, and no companionship but 
 what she had. During the smnmer she was never in- 
 doors when she could possibly be in the open air. Her 
 reading of " something stiff-like " by herself — which 
 duty had been imposed upon her by her father without 
 his mentioning that it had been Dunster's suggestion — 
 was pursued under a tree in the orchard, in a hammock 
 that Dunster had netted for her, in the revivified punt, 
 or in the log hut. She read religiously for an hour a 
 day — anything that looked stiff enough for the purpose 
 — and forgot what she had been reading the moment the 
 hour was up. 
 
 The long summer faded into autumn, and autumn 
 into winter. The Admiral was more at home, busy with 
 his few hundred acres of stubble and covert, but he 
 was still away for days together, and Anne and Hugh 
 spent long evenings in their upstairs sanctuary, never 
 at a loss for occupation. Hugh would draw and Anne 
 would sew; both of them made elaborate and useless 
 articles with fret-saws ; both of them collected foreign 
 stamps. They classified their collections — ^butterflies, 
 plants, fossils from the chalk pits. They played bezique 
 and chess and draughts, and other games, together; 
 or they would spend long evenings reading. Anne would 
 lie buried in the great shabby easy-chair by the fire, 
 Hugh would sit under the lamp over the table, and hours 
 of silence would pass, broken only by the noise, of the 
 fire, the turning of leaves, a cough, or a little spurt of 
 talk. Anne was very particular about bedtime and 
 
THE GARDEN 43 
 
 about early rising, and Hugh followed her in her self- 
 imposed rules as well as in her proposals for enjoy- 
 ment. Her sane well-balanced nature supplied of itself 
 the discipline of which her youth might have felt the 
 lack, and, although she and Hugh both felt a sense of 
 freedom when their father went away and left the house 
 to them, there was nothing in their manner of life that 
 he could possibly have objected to when they were 
 reUeved of his presence. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 GEOEGE BLOMFIELD 
 
 Theee was an old print hanging in the schoolroom at 
 Foyle of the front of a noble Elizabethan mansion, with 
 the inscription " Wyse Hall, Suffolk. The Seat of Sir 
 Richard Lelacheur, Bart." Dunster had hung the 
 pictures, as he had arranged the furniture in the dif- 
 ferent rooms, or possibly the Admiral might not have 
 wished to have this reminder of the home of his birth 
 hanging where it could constantly be seen by his son 
 and daughter. He had never spoken to them of his 
 elder brother, or of his own boyhood, or of the home 
 of his ancestors. Hugh had never even heard of the 
 family from which he had sprung — a family that had 
 wealth and was before the eye of the great world. 
 Anne told him what she knew one winter evening 
 when they were sitting before the fire roasting chest- 
 nuts. 
 
 "Aunt Sophia told me," she said. "I think she 
 had heard about it from mother. It was a great many 
 years ago, when father was a young man. He had gone 
 down to shoot at Wyse HaU, and he had been put into 
 one of the bachelor rooms instead of the room he had 
 always had as a boy. He was furious about it, and left 
 the house the next morning ; and he has never spoken to 
 Uncle Simeon since." 
 
 44 
 
GEORGE BLOMFIELD 45 
 
 " It seems rather odd to make such a fuss about a 
 rotten thing like that," said Hugh. 
 
 " Aunt Sophia said it was a splendid great house," 
 said Anne, " and there were crowds of bedrooms in it, 
 and he thought they ought to have kept his own room 
 just as it had been in his father's time, especially as his 
 father was only just dead and his brother had come 
 into a great deal of money, while he had not got so 
 much as he expected." 
 
 " All the same," said Hugh, " it was a stupid thing 
 to quarrel so seriously about. And I don't suppose 
 his brother had anything to do with it, either. In a 
 house like that the master would not say what bed- 
 rooms the people were to have." 
 
 " I believe Uncle Simeon was sorry about it," said 
 Anne ; " at any rate he tried afterwards to make it 
 up with father. But he wouldn't, and they have never 
 spoken to one another since." 
 
 " It's rough luck on us. It would have been jolly to 
 'go to a house like that, and we haven't got any other 
 relations except Granny and Aunt Sophia. If he once 
 gets a thing into his head he can't get it out. It was 
 just the same with me and the Navy. It wasn't my 
 fault, but I shall never hear the last of it." 
 
 " There is no doubt," said Anne reflectively, " that 
 father is obstinate. And he takes strong likes and 
 dislikes. He can't bear poor Aunt Sophia — and she 
 is a good old thing, really. But he's all right to us, 
 isn't he, Hugh?" 
 
 Hugh considered. " I suppose he is^ — ^in a way," 
 
46 MANY JUNES 
 
 he said. " It happens to suit us, the way in which 
 he leaves us alone. But pf course he doesn't look 
 after us in the least, or care what becomes of us. I 
 don't know what will happen when we get a bit 
 older." 
 
 " Well, you are going to Cambridge. That is 
 settled." 
 
 "Yes; but what will happen after that.!" If I go 
 into the Church, which he has dropped hints about — 
 and I'm sure I don't particularly want to — I can't live 
 here; and what wiU you do? What will you do when 
 I'm at Cambridge.'' It will be precious dull for you 
 here, and you don't know any one to go to." 
 
 [Anne gazed into the fire. " I don't think we need 
 bother about that yet," she said, after a pause, " You 
 won't be going to Cambridge for nearly three years, 
 and we shall be together here until then. I don't want 
 anything better. I love this place, and everybody in 
 it. I don't want to go away from it, ever. You know, 
 Hugh, it is all very well to talk about father, and 
 perhaps it is true that he doesn't look after us much, 
 but we don't want it, do we? We are much happier 
 than other people of our age. I'm sure of that, because 
 I remember at St. Leonards nobody of our age was so 
 free as we are. I love waking up in the morning and 
 thinking of another day to come. Whatever happens 
 to us in the future we shall always have this to look 
 back on. And you love it all quite as much as I do, 
 aon't you?" 
 
 " Well," said Hugh, reflecting in his turn, " of course 
 
GEORGE BLOMFIELD 47j 
 
 it isn't in my nature to enjoy things quite in the same 
 way as you do." 
 
 Anne laughed at him. " I never think about myself 
 like that," she said, " I just take everything as it 
 comes. But I enjoy myself here so much that I've got 
 to talk about it sometimes, you know, Hugh, so that 
 you can take hold of it all." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said the wise Hugh, " it isn't 
 enough only to be happy. You've got to know that 
 you are happy." 
 
 Probably few boys or girls of sixteen or thereabouts 
 are so consciously happy that they do not look forward 
 to a future of still more blissful happiness; but Foyle 
 and the country around it, and their active untram- 
 melled life, had cast such a speU. on these two that 
 they wished for nothing better, and the limit of their 
 ambition for the future was to live at Foyle together 
 for the rest of their lives, much as they were living 
 now. Such a life cotild not be expected to last without 
 changes, nor perhaps such an ambition, but it did last 
 without diminution of their enjoyment of it for two 
 happy untroubled years. 
 
 At the end of that time Anne was nineteen, a woman 
 grown, straight and tall, abounding in health and ac- 
 tivity. Hugh was taU too, and his features were be- 
 ginning to wear the stamp of manhood. He had 
 little share of Anne's beauty, except in his big dark 
 eyes, but his face was refined, and would not be with- 
 out distinction. Nothing but the steady growth of 
 brother and sister had changed at Foyle during those 
 
48 MANY JUNES 
 
 two years. Neither Anne nor Hugh had slept for a 
 night out of the house, and the only visitor they had 
 had, except the Admiral's friends, was their aunt, who 
 had come to stay for a fortnight in the spring after old 
 Lady Wilkinson's death. The Admiral had granted 
 that much, perhaps not wishing to quarrel with her 
 finally on account of her wealth, which was now con- 
 siderable, and might be expected in the course of nature 
 to come to his children, who were her only living rela- 
 tions. He was her trustee, and remained at Foyle for 
 two days of her visit, to talk business, and then betook 
 himself to London, and did not return until after her 
 departure. 
 
 Miss Wilkinson could not but be struck with the way 
 her niece was growing up, although she confided to old 
 Mrs. Bouverie her horror at the idea of a young girl 
 being left to herself in a household of men, with no 
 older woman to advise or direct her. 
 
 " My dear," said the old lady, " Anne has a very 
 sweet and true character. I have watched her, and if 
 I had seen that all was not well I should have spoken, 
 much as I should have disliked doing so. At present 
 there is no need to say anything. You will not say, 
 I think, that there is any need." 
 
 Miss Wilkinson could not say that there was, and 
 was comforted for Anne's sake. But she could not 
 but feel it hard that neither Anne nor Hugh should be 
 allowed to visit her in her big but rather lonely house 
 on the Marina, for the Admiral, for some crabbed rea- 
 son of his own, would never give his permission. He 
 
GEORGE BLOMFIELD 49 
 
 himself was more in London than ever after the first 
 winter at Foyle, but life went on placidly and equably 
 without him. Where all would have been monotonous 
 sameness to one out of sympathy with Nature, Anne 
 and Hugh found a thousand varieties. There was the 
 ever-changing procession of the seasons to delight and 
 excite them, from the time of the first snowdrop, 
 through the bursting clamorous life of spring up to 
 the glories of high svunmer, the fall of the year, the 
 call of the warm hearth, and the culmination of Christ- 
 mas time. Dunster watched over them like a father, and 
 was a mine of resource in all their pleasures. Some- 
 times the sea would summon him, and he would leave 
 them for a day or two apologetically, coming back 
 braced for his duties with wonderful tales of days and 
 nights on the deep waters. Mr. Williams had the dis- 
 traction of regular holidays, which he spent in the 
 Yorkshire manufacturing town of his birth. Otherwise 
 he led a vegetable existence. He was comfortable in his 
 cottage rooms, his duties provided him with some in- 
 terest, and his admiration for Anne, if no longer of a 
 dangerously inflammable order, added salt to his life. 
 At the end of two years, when events began to move 
 quickly, he was thinking of growing a beard, but other- 
 wise the march of time had left no mark on him. 
 
 One day, early in the third June, a letter came from 
 the Admiral, from London, announcing his arrival by 
 his usual train on the following Friday, and that of a 
 guest, for whom a room was to be made ready. The 
 announcement caused little excitement to Anne and 
 
50 MANY JUNES 
 
 Hugh. Some of their father's infrequent guests had 
 taken a certain amount of notice of them, others had 
 taken none, but not one of them had added to the 
 delights that life at Foyle presented when they were 
 left to themselves. It was not probable that this Mr. 
 Blomfield, whose name was new to them, would prove 
 more companionable than others of their father's 
 friends. 
 
 They were on the lawn with Mr. Williams as the 
 waggonette drove up to the house on Friday evening. 
 Seated beside their father was a big young man, with a 
 bronzed face, fair hair, and a pair of blue eyes which 
 took in the little group under the cedar with consider- 
 able interest — contrary to the custom of the Admiral's 
 friends, who usually took no notice of them until they 
 were forced on their attention, when they grunted, 
 amiably or gruffly, as their several natures impelled 
 them. This visit was evidently going to be one of an 
 unprecedented character, for the first thing the Admiral 
 did on alighting from the carriage was to beckon Anne 
 and Hugh, and introduce them to his guest, with an 
 intimation to them to look after his welfare and show 
 him the place. 
 
 The young man's eyes were on Anne the whole time. 
 Anne was undisturbed, but friendly. " We shall have 
 time to go round before dinner if you would like to,'* 
 she said. 
 
 Mr. George Blomfield desired nothing better. The 
 Admiral grunted acquiescence, and retired indoors, and 
 the inspection of garden and farmyard went forward. 
 
GEORGE BLOMFIELD 51 
 
 Mr. Williams, hanging in the background, was brought 
 forward and introduced and joined the personally con- 
 ducted tour. He took an unaccountable dislike to this 
 big well-favoured young man. What did he mean by 
 being so bluflf and self-satisfied, and what did he mean 
 by those sidelong glances at the face of his companion, 
 who was frankly initiating him into secrets which he, 
 Mr. Williams, had never been invited to penetrate? He 
 was rather a sulky tutor as he dragged at the heels 
 of the exploring party, with his hands in his pockets 
 and his big moustache drooping over his big loose 
 mouth, a contrast in every way to the tall alert figure 
 of the newcomer, with his keen sunburnt face. 
 
 The reason of that peculiar shade of tan, as well as 
 the presence of a man of under thirty as a guest of 
 Admiral Lelacheur, was soon revealed. George Blom- 
 field was the son of a New South Wales squatter, who 
 had treated the Admiral with the openhanded hospi- 
 tality of his kind during the period of his Australian 
 command. He was now home on a holiday, and had 
 looked up his father's frequent guest at his club, ac- 
 cording to instructions. The Admiral had invited him 
 to Foyle for the week-end, probably because he felt him- 
 self bound to oifer him some hospitality, and happened 
 to be leaving London himself. The young man had 
 accepted the invitation more because he did not know 
 how to refuse than because he wanted to go, for he had 
 only just arrived in England, and the pleasures of the 
 metropolis were still awaiting his participation. How 
 he shuddered when he thought of what he might have 
 
52 MANY JUNES 
 
 missed if he had summoned up courage to say that he 
 was not ready to bury himself in the depths of the 
 country, even for two days; but he did not tell Anne 
 this until a Httle later. 
 
 This great brawny handsome man had the heart 
 of a child. He proved so knowledgeable in the farm- 
 yard, which they visited first, that Anne's quick under- 
 standing, and Hugh's slower one, warmed towards him, 
 and talk waxed furious. Mr. Williams retired in a 
 huff, to shave and otherwise prepare himself for the 
 Admiral's dinner-table, to which he had been invited, 
 an hour later. He thought the fellow insufferably con- 
 ceited, swaggering with his rough colonial knowledge, 
 which was of no interest to gentlemen. His departure 
 was a relief. Drawn on by the exhibition of fellow- 
 feeling, Anne disclosed more of her and her brother's 
 intimate pursuits than had ever been confided to a 
 stranger, and he entered into it all with the keenest 
 enjoyment. 
 
 " It's glorious," he said, as they strolled back to the 
 house in the peace of the long summer evening. " I 
 was in England for years — at Harrow and at Cam- 
 bridge — ^but I didn't remember how lovely the English 
 country was in the summer. I was either longing for 
 the winter, when there was sport to be had, or else 
 wishing myself back in the Bush. I think this place 
 is just heavenly. Thank goodness I'm going to have 
 two whole days of it ! We'll have a rare time together." 
 
 Anne and Hugh both responded warmly. There was 
 no shyness left between them and this new delightful 
 
GEORGE BLOMFIELD 53 
 
 companion, the first, who had ever shared their dearest 
 pleasures with them. 
 
 At dinner the talk was of thf Australian Bush, and 
 Anne and Hugh listened with delight and ever-increas- 
 ing respect to their new friend's tales of his free and 
 open life. The Admiral was more agreeably conversa- 
 tional than was hisi wont, and Dunster's face, as he 
 moved round the table, was a study of appreciative 
 complaisance. Only Mr. Williams sat silent and glum, 
 eating his portion of food, drinking rather more than 
 his portion of wine, and in the intervals fingering his 
 chin, now adorned by a small tuft of cotton-wool. 
 
 After dinner the Admiral retired to his room, and 
 the rest of the small party went out into the scented 
 dusk of the garden. It was owing to Mr. Williams that 
 George Blomfield and Anne stroUed to ajid fro on the 
 lawn while he and Hugh talked together. He was not 
 going to be dragged in the train of this upstart. 
 
 " I don't know what you think about that fellow," 
 he said to Hugh, " but I think you'll find you've made 
 a mistake if you let him get too familiar. No Colonial 
 that I've ever met knows how to behave himself like a 
 gentleman, and this one is no exception. Of course 
 they are never i educated properly to begin with." 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by being educated 
 properly," said Hugh, in surprise. " Blomfield was at 
 Harrow and at Trinity, Cambridge." 
 
 " Oh, was he? " said Mr. Williams, somewhat taken 
 aback. He had the greatest respect for both those 
 institutions. "Well, I shouldn't have thought it." 
 
64. MANY JUNES 
 
 "What's wrong with him?" pursued Hugh. "I 
 think he's a splendid fellow. And Anne thinks so too." 
 
 This was gall to Mr. Wilhams. "I hope Miss 
 Anne won't have reason to change her mind," he said. 
 " I hate all that colonial swagger myself, but then, 
 perhaps, I'm more particular than other people." 
 
 " Perhaps you are," said Hugh, and the conversation 
 Qanguished. 
 
 The conversation between Anne and George Blom- 
 field, as they walked to and fro across the springy 
 turf, would have seemed the most natural in the world 
 to Hugh, but if old Mrs. Bouverie had happened to 
 overhear it her watchful ears might have detected a new 
 note, unfamiliar to her from the child she loved so well. 
 Anne was simply pouring out in a flood the tale of all 
 the delights she found in the life around her, but she 
 was telhng her tale as if she had always longed for a 
 listening ear into which she might pour it, and as if she 
 had found that ear for the first time. And no woman, 
 unless perhaps the one to whom it was addressed, could 
 have failed to catch the keen responsive note of delight 
 with which her confidences were answered. When night 
 had settled down over the lawns and trees, and the 
 three of them went indoors, George Blomfield blinked 
 at the not over-briUiant lamphght in the haU as if his 
 eyes were dazzled. 
 
 Hugh received a shock of surprise when he awoke 
 the next morning to find Dunster in his room, and 
 learnt that it was eight o'clock. He never woke early 
 of his own accord, but Anne had always hitherto aroused 
 
GEORGE BLOMFIELD 55 
 
 him at the hour at which they had decided to begin their 
 day. It was unlike her to have overslept herself, es- 
 pecially on such a glorious summer morning as wafted 
 its perfumed breath into his room. He received a 
 second shock when he looked out of the window and 
 saw Anne and Mr. George Blomfield, engaged in eager 
 conversation, sitting opposite to one another in the old 
 punt, which was drifting in the middle of the lake. He 
 felt a pang of jealousy. George Blomfield was cer- 
 tainly an agreeable companion, and his advent was a 
 boon both to himself and Anne. But she ought not to 
 have cut her brother off from his share in the compan- 
 ionship, which he enjoyed as much as she did, nor ought 
 she to have shown so patently, by omitting to call him, 
 that she wanted it all to herself. 
 
 His insight did not pierce further than the obvious 
 fact that Anne liked to talk to their new friend and 
 to listen to him talking. So did he. The possibility 
 of any one falling instantly in love with Anne did not 
 present itself to his mind, still less the possibility of 
 Anne falling in love with anybody. Nor, apparently, 
 (did that possibility present itself to Anne's father, for 
 he went his own way, and left his guest to be enter- 
 tained by his son and daughter. It is not to be sup- 
 posed that he knew what had come about so suddenly, 
 and was content to await developments, for he regarded 
 Anne as a child, and no more than Hugh thought her 
 capable of arousing passion in the soul of a man. He 
 left his guest to the society of his children, because he 
 Jiad a good many things to do, and did not want to 
 
66 MANY JUNES 
 
 be bothered with him except at mealtimes, when hs- was 
 pleased to hear him talk. 
 
 On Sunday evening the Admiral asked his guest why 
 he was in such a hurry to get back to London. Mr. 
 Blomfield replied instantly that he was in no sort of 
 a hurry, and it was quickly settled that he should stay 
 for a week. The next four days he spent almost en- 
 tirely in Anne's society. 
 
 Hugh's eyes were opened to what was going on by 
 Mr. Williams, who told him that the feDow was mak-' 
 ing love to Miss Anne, and he had better not let them 
 out of his sight. Hugh refused to believe it at first, 
 but when he found that his proffered company was 
 politely but persistently evaded — ^not only by Greorge 
 Blomfield but also by his sister — ^he began to think 
 that there was something in it, and, thrown back on 
 the society of his tutor, shared something of that gentle- 
 man's indignation. All doubt on the subject was swept 
 away from his mind when George sought him out of his 
 own accord one evening, at a time when Anne was not 
 available, and told him point blank that his sister was 
 the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, and that his 
 future life would be useless to him without her. 
 
 "Rather sudden, isn't it?" said Hugh. 
 
 George admitted that it was rather sudden from one 
 point of view — ^that of Anne's brother, who could not 
 be expected to see what a pearl among girls she was. 
 
 "I don't know about that," said Hugh. "I hke 
 her better than anybody in the world, but then I know 
 her, and you don't." 
 
GEORGE BLOMFIELD 57 
 
 George would not admit that. He did know her, and 
 it was because he did know her that he could not live 
 without her. 
 
 " Well, what are you going to do? " asked Hugh. 
 " You're going away on Friday, and you can't take 
 her with you." 
 
 " I don't know that I am going away on Friday," 
 replied George. " If I do, I shall come back again." 
 
 Hugh digested this information. " I hope you will," 
 he said. " If Anne has got to marry somebody — and 
 I suppose she must some day or other — I'd just as soon 
 she married you as anybody. Shall I say anything to 
 her? " 
 
 " For goodness sake, don't," said George, in deep 
 alarm. " I can say what I want myself when the 
 time comes." 
 
 The time came after dinner on Wednesday evening, 
 when Greorge and Anne walked together again in the 
 gloaming, choosing the dark shrubbery walks, and not 
 the moonlit lawn. Hugh was left disconsolate, and 
 went up to the schoolroom to read. The Admiral was 
 in his study. 
 
 Hugh sat at the table, as was his wont, his book 
 before him and his head resting on his hands. He had 
 meant to read, but he could only think. Was it possi- 
 ble that this strange new thing was coming to Anne, 
 that he and his affection for her were quite wiped out 
 by it, and as if they had never been!* — so little nec- 
 essary, he told himself, that for the past two days she 
 had exercised her ingenuity in avoiding him. It was 
 
68 MANY JUNES 
 
 rather hard on him, he thought. She might have known 
 that, if she had really arrived at that state of mind 
 in which she wanted George Blomfield as much as 
 he had asserted that he wanted her, no word of re- 
 proach would have come from her brother. She might 
 have told him what was in her mind and been sure 
 of his sympathy. It was incredible to him that she 
 should have come to that state of mind in so short 
 a time; but he could hardly doubt the fact. She 
 had not spoken — she had avoided his company so that 
 she might not be obliged to speak — ^but her face had 
 been transfigured; she had been a different creature, 
 happier, more beautiful, even, than the happy, 
 beautiful sister he knew so well. He wondered that 
 his father could have been blind to it, it was 
 so plain. He supposed that that was called love. It 
 was a strange, unaccountable thing, quite outside his 
 experience; if it came suddenly like that, he rather 
 hoped he should never be called upon to undergo it. 
 
 He sat there for an hour or more. The window 
 behind him was open. The soft night air stole into the 
 room, and moths came fluttering in with it and flitted 
 about the lamp over his head. Somewhere out there the 
 inexplicable drama was being played which was trans- 
 forming the sister of whose every thought he had im- 
 agined himself master into a strange new being whom 
 he did not know at all. But he would not get up and 
 look out of the window ; he would wait until Anne came 
 back. 
 
 The door opened and Anne stood before him, in her 
 
GEORGE BLOMFIELD 69 
 
 pretty girlish evening dress, with such a radiant look 
 on her face that he could only sit stupidly and look 
 !at her, 
 
 • " Oh, Hugh," she said, coining a step forward and 
 standing over him. " I must tell you first of all, even 
 before I go and think it over by myself." 
 
 " I don't want any telling," said Hugh. " It has 
 been pretty plain." 
 
 Her face grew a little puzzled as she looked at 
 him. " Do you mean to say that you know.'' " she 
 said. 
 
 " How could I help it ? He told me last night, and 
 for two whole days you haven't spoken a word to me — ■ 
 if you could get out of it." 
 
 The sight of him sitting there, solitary, who had 
 never had to^ sit alone since they had been together, 
 drove a spike of compxmction into her happiness. She 
 bent over him and put her arms round his neck, resting 
 her soft cheek on his hair. " Dear Hugh," she said 
 tenderly, "have I been very selfish.'' I didn't know I 
 had. I haven't thought at all. I have just been 
 happy. And you must be happy with me. You will, 
 won't you? " 
 
 "I suppose he's asked you to marry him.'"' was 
 Hugh's reply to this appeal. 
 
 , " Yes ; and he has only known me these few days. 
 I can't believe it is true — me out of all the other girls 
 in the world! Oh, Hugh, I don't know what to do, I 
 am so happy." 
 
 There was a quiver in her voice which pierced his 
 
60 MANY JUNES 
 
 heart, but he sat glumly, without responding to her 
 caress. 
 
 " Where is he? " he asked. 
 
 " He has gone to talk to father. He wouldn't wait 
 till to-morrow." She laughed hghtly. " Think what 
 a shock it will be to father. Y«u don't think he'll say 
 no, Hugh.? " 
 
 " i don't see why he should. He doesn't care a bit 
 what happens to us." 
 
 " Hugh," she said, " you are not vexed with me, are 
 you.'' You are glad that I have been made so happy.'' " 
 
 He pushed away the sense of blankness and dismay 
 that was settling on him, and took her hand. " Of 
 course I am, Anne," he said, and added boldly : " And 
 I hope you'll go on being happy." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ANNE S MAKEIAGE 
 
 To saj that the Admiral was surprised at the news con- 
 veyed to him hy his guest of two days would be to 
 understate the case. He was as astounded as if the at- 
 traction of a man for a maid was a matter entirely out- 
 iside his experience. " God bless my soul ! " he said. 
 "Anne! That child!" 
 
 George Blomfield pointed out to him that Anne was 
 no longer a child, but a beautiful woman, and inti- 
 mated that no man of marriageable age could be ex- 
 pected to be in her company without wishing to make 
 the request for her hand which he was now making. 
 
 The Admiral digested these statements, and, although 
 he foimd further matter for surprise in them, did not 
 gainsay them. He supposed he knew that Anne would 
 marry some day or other, but that that day had al- 
 ready come — that's what took the wind out of his sails. 
 Had Anne said yes."" 
 
 Her lover said that she had. 
 
 " The young monkey ! " said the Admiral. " She's 
 lost no time about it. Where can she have got such 
 ideas."* " 
 
 George Blomfield embarked on a rapturous laudation 
 of her state of innocence. Her nature, it seemed, was 
 so perfect that she had never thought of love until 
 
 61 
 
62 MANY JUNES 
 
 love had been offered to her, and then she had accepted 
 it as the greatest boon in life ; as it was. 
 
 The Admiral thought that explanation probably met 
 the case. " She's a good girl," he said, " and she's 
 had nothing to spoil her. I knew what I was about 
 when I brought her down here and let her grow up in 
 the country by herself, without some old cat to put 
 ideas into her head." 
 
 George Blomfield cordially agreed with him that no 
 life could have been better for a girl than the one that 
 Anne had led at Foyle. 
 
 " Well, that's all very well," said the Admiral, " but 
 this is a great surprise to me, and I must take a httle 
 time to think it over." 
 
 The lover pleaded for an instant decision. He must 
 be back in Australia for the shearing, and he wanted 
 to take Anne with him. He wanted to be married in 
 a month's time and to spend a week or two on the Con- 
 tinent before joining the outgoing liner at Brindisi. 
 He could satisfy the Admiral as to his means, and 
 why delay.!* 
 
 The very boldness of his plea served him. The Ad- 
 miral liked him personally, and had no objection on 
 principle to his daughter marrying the man she loved. 
 It was plain that he had no ambition for Anne to make 
 a better marriage than that now proposed to him, 
 for he made no demur to George's statement of his 
 position, nor even to the fact that Anne, if she mar- 
 ried him, would be taken away to the other side of 
 the world. He supposed, he said, that th^y could 
 
ANNE'S MARRIAGE 63 
 
 come home every now and tlien, and George said that 
 they would. 
 
 In some ways, despite his wide knowledge of the 
 world and his strong personal prejudices. Admiral Le- 
 lacheur was as unsophisticated as a child, and George 
 found that he had little opposition to overcome on a 
 point that he feared might have been difficult to meet. 
 That he, from the point of view of an English family of 
 distinction, an obscure Colonial, should be granted this 
 peerless girl, whom the highest in the land might be 
 proud to call his own, was almost too much to hope for; 
 but when he found that the Admiral's ever-lessening 
 objections to his proposal were not concerned with his 
 place in the world he redoubled his efforts tO' remove 
 those which in his eyes were none at all. And at last 
 he succeeded. • ' 
 
 " Well, it's all very sudden," said the Admiral, rub- 
 bing his grizzled head, " but I don't know that I've 
 much against it. I sha'n't say yes tonight, but I sha'n't 
 say no. Stop here for a bit longer, at any rate, 
 and we'll see how things turn out. I shall miss the 
 girl, of course, but I mustn't let that stand in her way.'' 
 
 This was but a preface to complete capitulation. 
 George Blomfield had won his bride by a sudden stroke, 
 and Foyle Manor was plunged into preparations for the 
 wedding and for the long voyage across the seas alpiost 
 before the Admiral had recovered from his stupefac- 
 tion at being asked for his daughter. He made his 
 escape to London, and Miss Wilkinson came down im- 
 mediately upon the turning of his back. She thought 
 
64 MANY JUNES 
 
 that a great mistake had been made, and said so to old 
 Mrs. Bouverie, who disagreed with her. But Anne's 
 radiant happiness and her lover's fine qualities recon- 
 ciled her to the match, and she ceased repining. 
 
 To Hugh the month which elapsed before the wedding 
 passed away like a dream. There were comings and 
 goings. Sometimes Anne was taken to London, and 
 he was left alone at Foyle with Mr. Williams, whose 
 prophecies of disaster were of the gloomiest, and with 
 Dunster, who foretold great happiness for his young 
 mistress, and said he had seen it coming from the first, 
 but was not at his brightest. Then the house would 
 suddenly be filled again, but he was so seldom alone 
 with his sister, and everything in their lives had so 
 completely changed, that, when he was, he was tongue- 
 tied, and responded poorly to her expressions of affec- 
 tion and of regret at their coming' separation. The 
 sense of blankness which had seized upon him when he 
 first realized what was coming to pass grew, but during 
 this month of June he had never faced it, nor allowed 
 himself to think what his life would be when he and 
 Anne should be parted. 
 
 And during that month Anne herself lived and moved 
 in a dream, but hers was a dream of happiness. What 
 George had told her father was true. Love had never 
 so much as brushed her with his wings, and the awak- 
 ening had been sudden and complete. She surrendered 
 her whole soul to her lover without one impulse of 
 shrinking, and never, thought that happy youth, could 
 there have been so perfect a prelude to marriage as 
 
ANNE'S MARRIAGE 65 
 
 theirs. Every nook of the garden which she loved was 
 beautified to her afresh by his presence, and to him 
 those green lawns and shady paths, with the scent of 
 flowers and the warm summer air pervading them, was 
 a paradise of delight, over which Anne reigned as 
 queen. 
 
 And so the days drew on quickly to the great day 
 that was to make Anne a bride. It was as quiet a 
 wedding as it very well could be. Anne had only one 
 bridesmaid, a girl whom she had known as a child at 
 Hastings. George's best man was an old schoolfellow, 
 and the only other guests were Anne's godfather, a dis- 
 tinguished admiral, stUl on active service, who made 
 himself very agreeable and soundly rated Admiral Le- 
 lacheur for keeping such a rose hidden for so long 
 in his garden; and Miss Wilkinson, to whom her 
 brother-in-law was almost polite during the period of 
 her visit. 
 
 On the evening before the wedding day, Dunster, 
 whose sudden melancholy at the prospect of losing Anne 
 had almost entirely been driven away by the unusual 
 amount of bustle that was taking place, largely under 
 his own directions, was uplifted almost to a state of 
 ecstasy by the number of people upon whom he waited 
 at dinner. Dunster prided himself upon his capacity 
 to superintend a dinner, but during the whole time of 
 his ■ service at Foyle there had never been more than six 
 people to wait on at the same time. Now there were 
 ten, for the Rector and Mr. Williams were of the party, 
 besides George and three in the house. There was 
 
66 MANY JUNES 
 
 plenty of merriment, for Anne's godfather was as 
 hearty an old sea-dog as ever cracked a joke, and most 
 of the younger members of the party were in high 
 spirits. Only Hugh went through the dinner with a 
 heavy heart, and stole sidelong glances at Anne, talking 
 and laughing as if she were not going to leave him 
 for long years. 
 
 Later in the evening he stood by the front door of 
 the house under the stars. Anne had gone down the 
 drive with her lover, who was going back to the Rectory 
 to sleep, and it seemed to him that she had been gone 
 an unconscionable time, for he had something to say 
 to her. To his great annoyance, Mr. Williams came 
 out of the house, in a cap and overcoat, smoking a large 
 cigar. 
 
 " Hullo, old chap," he cried expansively. " I 
 couldn't think what had become of you. Been all over 
 the house looking for you. Walk back to the lodge 
 with me. It's a lovely night." 
 
 " No, thanks," said Hugh. " I want to speak to 
 Anne." 
 
 Mr. Williams's tone dropped so suddenly that it 
 would have been excusable to suppose that his previous 
 elation was due to a slight over-indulgence in the pleas- 
 ures of the tables. " Where is she.? " he whispered, in 
 a voice of profound melancholy, and went on, without 
 waiting for an answer : " Hugh, I can't think that this 
 marriage wiU succeed." 
 
 " You've said that before," replied Hugh impatiently ; 
 " the marriage is all right." 
 
ANNE'S MARRIAGE 67, 
 
 "No, Hugh," persisted Mr. Williams, swaying 
 slightly on his feet and attempting to flick off the ash 
 of his cigar with his little finger, which would not reach 
 far enough ; " the marriage is not all right. If I had 
 had an opportunity I should have spoken to the Ad- 
 mirable — I mean the Admiral — about it. I have been 
 in this house now two years, winter and summer, spring 
 and — and winter, and the whole time I have been here 
 I have — I have — — I forget what I was going to say, 
 but you understand me, old fellow. We've always 
 been good friends, you and I, and — and you know 
 what your father is, always kind and polite, and I 
 should have said to him " 
 
 " I wish you would go away, Mr. Williams," said 
 the boy, driven to exasperation, though he did not 
 realize that his tutor's wavering address was due to 
 any other cause than the state of nervous excitement 
 that embraced the whole household. " It's my last 
 night with Anne, and I want to speak to her alone." 
 
 Mr. Williams regarded him with surprised dis- 
 pleasure. " You wish I would go away," he repeated, 
 with annoying deliberation, for now Hugh could see the 
 flicker of Anne's white dress under the trees across 
 the lawn. " Do you think that is a gentlemanly speech 
 to make, Hugh? Do you think it a kind speech.'' Do 
 
 you think if I were to say to the Admiral " But 
 
 Hugh had broken away from him and was running 
 across the lawn towards Anne. " Mr. Williams paused 
 for a moment in astonishment and then made his way, a 
 little unevenly, in the same direction, intending to say 
 
68 MANY JUNES 
 
 a word of farewell to Anne on his own account. But, 
 owing to the fact that he made for the point d{ the 
 drive at which Hugh had intercepted his sister, he found 
 when he reached it that they were already some dis- 
 tance away, and, pausing again to consider this phe- 
 nomenon, forgot what it was that he intended to say, 
 and went home to bed. 
 
 " Anne," said Hugh hurriedly, when he reached her, 
 " I wish you would do something for me." 
 
 Anne came down from the rosy cloud in which she 
 had been walking. " Of course I will, dear," she said, 
 taking his arm affectionately, " that is — ^well, what do 
 you want me to do.''" 
 
 " I want you to wake me up early tomorrow morning 
 and come out into the garden." 
 
 " Oh, Hugh, how can I? " 
 
 She spoke in surprise, as if what he had suggested 
 to her was something entirely new and unheard of. 
 And yet, during the past two summers, and during this 
 spring and summer until George had come, it had been 
 their daily habit. 
 
 " Don't you want to say good-bye to the old place? " 
 he asked. " You are going away from it and you may 
 not see it again for years." 
 
 " But there will be time. Why ido you want me to 
 get up at five o'clock tomorrow of all days ? " 
 
 Only her reference to their old time of rising, which 
 he had not mentioned, showed that she remembered the 
 hours they had spent together in the freshness of early 
 morning. " We have always done it," he said. " And 
 
lANNE'S MARRIAGE 69 
 
 we shall never do it again. I have got up at five every 
 morning for the last month — Dunster has called me — 
 and you have never come." 
 
 Something in his tone touched her. They were 
 standing on the gravel sweep in front of the house un- 
 der the stars. The flowers of a giant magnolia growing 
 up to the eaves scented the air. She turned towards 
 him quickly. " Oh, Hugh," she said, " have I been so 
 selfiisK as all that.? And you have missed me.'' I have 
 been so happy, and everything has changed f6r me so 
 completely, that I never thought of it. Very well, I 
 will come. I will call you at five o'clock, and we will 
 do all the things that we used to do. And now I must 
 be going in, and you must go to bed too." 
 
 She kissed him lightly, and ran into the house. She 
 was sweet and kind, but she had consented to do what 
 he wished to please him, not because she desired it for 
 herself. He followed her upstairs, his heart stiU 
 heavy. 
 
 He was awakened by Anne the next morning, and as 
 she came into his room the clock on the landing chimed 
 the hour. The uncurtained windows were wide open, 
 and through them came the breath of a glorious morn- 
 ing. Anne was a little pale, but as he roused himself 
 at her call she seemed so exactly like the sister who 
 had awakened him so many times in the early hours 
 of the summer day that for the moment he could not 
 believe that this was not as others x)f those happy; 
 mornings. 
 
 " Be quick and dress," she said. " We have got all 
 
70 MANY JUNES 
 
 the chickens to feed, and there are heaps of things 
 to see to," and she went out of the room with a 
 laugh. 
 
 His sadness returned upon him as he dressed. After 
 all, would it be worth it? He had so counted on the 
 coming hours, when he should once more have his sister 
 back, the sister whom he had already lost — for she had 
 never been the same to him since the man to whom she 
 was about to give herself had come into their lives. 
 He had thought that if he could have those few early 
 hours with her once more, enjoying them with the con- 
 sciousness of their happiness — as before he had enjoyed 
 them unconsciously — ^he would be able to recapture 
 them better afterwards, when she had gone away from 
 him. Yes; but not if Anne was going to play with 
 him, and, in children's language, pretend. His heart 
 was too heavy at the prospect of leaving her for that. 
 He finished dressing and stole down the broad oak stair- 
 case into the silent hall, as he and Anne had always 
 idone, fearing to awaken their father. But he went with 
 a strange sense of unreality. It was not in the least 
 like the opening of other summer days. 
 
 But after all his longings were fulfilled. " We 
 won't feed the chickens," said Anne, when they had shut 
 the hall door behind them and stood in the sparkling 
 sunlight of the lovely summer morning. " I am too 
 tired, for one thing, for I haven't slept much. And, 
 besides, although I am going to be so happy, I do feel 
 leaving this dear old place, and you, Hugh. You 
 will be sorry to lose me too, won't you, dear.'' " 
 
ANNE'S MARRIAGE 71 
 
 He looked at her in surprise. She had asked the 
 question as if she really thought that the answer could 
 be in douVt. Perhaps she had not thought much about 
 it at all. 
 
 He turned away without answering her. She had 
 changed indeed if she did not know, without telling, 
 how much he would miss her. ■\ 
 
 " But I know you will. Poor Hugh ! " she said. 
 " We will go to the log hut and have a long talk to- 
 gether. There are so many things I want to sa^' 
 to you." 
 
 They went across the lawn, wringing wet with dew» 
 Hugh unmoored the punt where it lay among yellow 
 irises under the silver birches, and pushed it across to 
 the little island on which they had built their hut two 
 summers before. Anne had often been there with 
 George during the past month, but never with Hugh. 
 The place held memories for her which made her eyes 
 shine as she crossed the threshold. But this hour was 
 to be given to her brother. 
 
 Hugh regained what he had lost as they sat and 
 talked, and more besides. It seemed to him afterwards 
 that never had he and Anne been so close together. 
 Always now he would have a share in whatever the 
 years should bring her,! for she showed him some of 
 the secret places in her soul, the places she herself 
 had never unlocked until Love had given her the key. 
 And she showed that she understood him too. She was 
 the same Anne who had taken him captive two years 
 tefore and led him ever since, and her new experiences. 
 
72 MANY JUNES 
 
 which he had thought had removed her for ever from 
 him, had only seemed to deepen her sympathy. 
 
 She soon made that plain. " I am so glad," she 
 said, " that you asked me to come out this morning, 
 Hugh. You see, it all came so suddenly, and I have 
 been so taken out of myself, that I have only had time 
 to think of one thing. But the other things are there 
 quite the same, and I know that if I had gone away 
 without this last talk with you, I should have been 
 dreadfully sorry afterwards. But you won't think 
 now, when I am gone, that I haven't got room for you 
 in my heart, as well as George, will you, Hugh.'' I 
 shall always be thinking of you, and of the happy life 
 we had here together when I was a girl. And you wiU 
 forgive me for having been so selfish in my happiness? 
 I never once thought of how much it would hurt you; 
 but I see it all now, and if I had been in your place 
 I should not have been so patient as you have 
 been." 
 
 They talked on and on, of what both of them would 
 do in their changed lives ; made a compact to write to 
 each other once a fortnight, whatever befell, and spoke 
 of future meetings. Hugh's soreness was consoled. 
 He had not lost his sister for ever; he had made sure 
 of his place in her heart. 
 
 They talked for two hours, sitting just ir^side the 
 hut, where they could look across the still waters of 
 the little lake and the sloping lawns to the gardien 
 front of the old house. The sun climbed higher into 
 the sky. The blinds of the house were drawn up and 
 
ANNE'S MARRIAGE 73 
 
 the smoke rose from the chimneys. The world was wak- 
 ing up to Anne's wedding day. 
 
 Their , long talk ended suddenly. Anne's face 
 changed and she sprang up from her chair as she saw 
 her lover coming down across the lawn towards the 
 lake. Hugh rose more slowly. He almost hated 
 George at that moment. 
 
 George did not appear to be specially pleased with 
 Hugh when they had crossed over and Anne told him 
 how long they had been together. 
 
 " Since five o'clock ! " he exclaimed, with a look that 
 was almost a frown. " How could you have let her tire 
 herself in that way today ? " 
 
 Hugh looked away without answering. Surely that 
 short time need not be grudged to him. And Anne 
 was used to getting up at fiv? o'clock. 
 
 " Don't scold us, George," said Anne. " We wanted 
 to have a last long talk together, and I should have got 
 up anyhow." 
 
 His face cleared as he looked at her. " Sweetheart," 
 he said, " I would have got up too if I had known." 
 Then he looked at Hugh and corrected himself : " But 
 you wouldn't have wanted me." 
 
 " You ought not to have come here at all, this 
 morning," said Anne gently. She seemed to have for- 
 gotten Hugh, who stood silently beside her, and had 
 eyes only for her lover. 
 
 George also spoke as if none but he and Anne were 
 there. " I couldn't keep away," he said. " I thought 
 you might be in the garden — and if not I wanted to go 
 
74. MANY JUNES 
 
 round just once more and look at the place. We have 
 had some of our best times in the old garden early in 
 the morning, Anne. Come round now. We can keep 
 out of sight of the house, and I'll steal away before 
 breakfast." He had hold of her hands now, and was 
 looking into her eyes. 
 
 Anne withdrew her' hands. " No," she said ; " I 
 am going to be with Hugh until it is time to go in." 
 
 " We'll all three go," said Hugh gruffly, and was 
 glad afterwards that he had made the eifort, for dur- 
 ing the half-hour that they were all three together his 
 jealousy of the man who was going to ta,ke Anne away 
 from him died down, and he knew that his sister would 
 be in safe keeping. George Blomfield had a big hon- 
 est heart,, big enough, in spite of the room that Anne 
 took up in' it, to enable him to grasp the fact' that his 
 coming gain would be largely Hugh's loss. He had 
 not thought much about Hugh during the past month, 
 and he was visited with some compunction now that he 
 realized how much the boy had been pushed aside from 
 the place that had been his. There was not much 
 time to make up for that now, but he did what he could 
 to make him feel that he was not to be elbowed out 
 of his place. Anne, of course, loved and admired him 
 all the more, if that was possible, for his kindness to 
 her brother, and Hugh, when at last he left them, felt 
 that Anne's choice was on the whole justified. 
 
 Hugh was much happier now, and prepared to go 
 through the dreaded day with fortitude. He had never 
 assisted at a wedding before, but he thought that no 
 
ANNE'S MARRIAGE 75 
 
 bride could have been more beautiful than Aiuie as she 
 went up the church on their father's arm, but he 
 changed his mind again when she came down on her 
 husband's. He kept his eyes on her throughout the 
 breakfast which followed, for the time was slipping by, 
 and it was only a matter of minutes now before she 
 would be gone. He tried to grasp the fact, and was 
 roused from his concentration of thought to find him- 
 self being asked to make a speech. His expression of 
 shrinking terror saved him, and Mr. Williams made 
 one instead, and a very bad one. , 
 
 And now the time had come for Anne to be gone. 
 She hung round his neck at parting, and cried. They 
 were the first tears he had ever seen her shed. It was 
 all over in a minute. He caught a glimpse of her face 
 as the carriage drove ofif, and turned away. There 
 was a merry cheering crowd in the porch, but he felt 
 that the house was empty. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 TROUBLE 
 
 Geosgi: Blomfield had been rather surprised, when 
 he and the Admiral had discussed the financial aspect 
 of his marriage, to be told that Anne would have the 
 income of some money left to her by her mother, but 
 not the few thousand pounds of capital it represented; 
 and also that she would have an allowance from her 
 father, but that nothing would be settled on her. He 
 knew that Anne's little fortune should have come to 
 her on her marriage — in fact, the Admirall had told 
 him so, but said that he could do better with it than 
 Greorge could. He had said nothing very definite be- 
 yond this, treating the whole matter in an offhanded 
 way, and letting it be understood that a good deal of 
 money would come to Anne by-and-by. 
 
 George had made no demur to the arrangements sug- 
 gested. He was a little nervous on his own account, 
 for, although he was his father's only child, and heir 
 to l^rge tracts of land and flocks innumerable, invested 
 money was not at his command, nor the prospect of 
 it, and in any case there would have been no possi- 
 bility of making proper) settlements in the time that 
 would elapse before the marriage. The Admiral, on 
 his side, had not asked for them, and George, who 
 
 76 
 
TROUBLE 77 
 
 wanted nothing but Anne herself, was relieved to find 
 that money matters were to prove no obstacle to his 
 happiness. 
 
 " If your whole income and prospects depend on your 
 sheep stations," said the Admiral, " it is better that 
 what Anne will have should come out of another basket. 
 We won't talk about settlements at all." 
 
 So Anne had left her home undowered, and George 
 was glad to have it so; 
 
 It is possible that this lack of formality, so unlike 
 what would have been the usual proceeding in the case 
 of a girl in Anne's position, would not have fallen out 
 so conveniently for her suitor had not Admiral Le- 
 lacheur at this time been seriously embarrassed. He 
 hardly yet knew it himself, but he had been guilty, 
 during the past eighteen months, of one financial folly 
 after another, and, if Anne had been marrying a man 
 who felt himself entitled to ask for what was due to 
 her, her father would have found it very diflScult to 
 meet his demands. Although, at the time of his pur- 
 chase of Foyle, he was a well-to-do and even a rich 
 man, he had become dissatisfied with his income, and 
 now spent most of his time in watching his investments, 
 and conducting financial operations for which his pre- 
 vious training in life had ill fitted him. He was an 
 elderly man, and had never lacked money to indulge 
 himself in any taste he possessed, but for some time past 
 he had been dissatisfied with his income and desired 
 wealth. 
 
 Reference has already been made to an old and un- 
 
!78 MANY JUNES 
 
 healed quarrel between Admiral Lelacheur and his 
 elder brother. The quarrel had, indeed, been all on one 
 side, and there had been efforts on the other to put an 
 end to it. But the Admiral's narrow obstinate nature 
 allowed him neither to forgive nor forget, and he still 
 burned with anger, after forty years of estrangement, 
 when he thought of his arrival at his old home, to 
 find that the brother over whom he had always dom- 
 ineered, not content with taking the place which was 
 his due, had put an unforgivable slight upon himself. 
 Of course neither Sir Simeon nor his young wife, who 
 was anxious to propitiate her brother-in-law, had been 
 responsible for the unfortunate mistake. There was 
 the younger brother's room untouched, with all his boy- 
 hood's treasures in it, and he only had to walk in and 
 take possession whenever he wished. But it was 
 among the nurseries and bedrooms in a part of the 
 house occupied entirely by the family, and a new house- 
 keeper, not knowing him, had assigned him a room 
 among the other guests. 
 
 Explanations and apologies had failed to appease 
 his wrath, and he had left the house at the earliest 
 possible moment, with the intention of never returning 
 to it. The statement made by Miss Wilkinson, that 
 his annoyance was heightened by the meagreness of his 
 younger son's portion, was probably a gloss of her own. 
 His father had been a rich man, and had left him 
 more money than, as a younger son, he had a right 
 to expect. Jealousy had undoubtedly prepared the 
 way for his absurd resentment over what took place. 
 
TROUBLE 79 
 
 and added fuel to it afterw'ards, but the presumed slight 
 was alone responsible for hisi anger and for his life- 
 long estrangement from his brother. 
 
 A man of so crabbed and unforgiving a nature as 
 this must be the sport of circumstance in a greater 
 measure than other men, and an occasion of as little 
 moment as that of forty years before, at a time soon 
 after the opening of our story, changed the whole 
 current of what remained of life to Admiral Lela- 
 cheur. 
 
 One day in November he was walking through Gros- 
 yenor Square. At the door of one of the largest of 
 those large houses stood a carriage, beautifully ap- 
 pointed, with two fine horses tossing their impatient 
 heads. On their harness was the Lelacheur crest, and 
 on the panels of the carriage the Lelacheur coat-of- 
 arms. As the Admiral passed the door an old man and 
 an old lady came out, attended by an obsequious foot- 
 man with a powdered head, were helped into the car- 
 riage, and drove away. As they passed the Admiral 
 the old man looked at him without a sign of recognition, 
 and a mud splash, thrown up by one of the high-step- 
 ping horses, struck him on the cheek. His face be- 
 came purple with fury. He stood on the pavement and 
 shook his fist at the innocent occupants of the de- 
 parting carriage, much to the surprise of the passers- 
 by. " Curse you ! " he muttered. " Riding in state 
 and spattering a better man than you ever were or will 
 be ! " And from that hour his one ambition was to 
 grow richer than his brother, and to draw to himself 
 
80 MANY JUNES 
 
 every honour that was connected with the name of 
 Lelacheur. , 
 
 And so, in pursuit of this will-o'-the-wisp, the fine old 
 seaman — for he had fine qualities in spite of his in- 
 sensate obstinacy and churlishness — immersed himself 
 in the movements of stocks and shares, in contangos 
 and backwardations, and read scarcely anything but 
 the financial papers. There was hardly a wildcat 
 scheme afloat in the city but Admiral Lelacheur's 
 name was connected with it. No promises of gain were 
 so wUd but he was gulled by them, and no reverses so 
 great but he was rea^y to throw more money after 
 what he had lost. By the time that Anne was married 
 he was in difficulties, but his hopes were still high, 
 and he looked forward confidently to making up for 
 all his losses, and achieving his ends, by further spec- 
 ulations. 
 
 After Anne's departure Hugh settled down to a life 
 at Foyle duller and more empty even than his forebod- 
 ings had pictured it. All the brightness of his life 
 had gone with her, and he could take no pleasure in 
 any of his former pursuits. A month of incessant rain 
 set in on the day after the wedding, and the burning 
 August which followed it afforded no relief to his heavy 
 depression. Late summer in the country gives pleasure 
 only to happy people. The time of expectancy is over, 
 the year gathering itself for its fall. The still, golden 
 weather of autumn, with its dewy dawns and fresh 
 liquid eves, holds an illusive likeness to the springtime, 
 and slow decay, cloaked in so much beauty, weighs less 
 
J TROUBLE 81 
 
 on the spirits than monotonous fruition. Hugh grew to 
 hate those August days of hot sunshine, following one 
 after the other with no break of cloud or coolness. 
 With Anne they would have been delightful, but Anne 
 was on the sea, steaming farther and farther away 
 from him, and each day that passed was as dull and 
 lopely as the one before. Mr. Williams had gone 
 9,way for a month's holiday, and even the small solace 
 of that companionship was denied him. His father was 
 now almost always away. Since Anne had gone he 
 had reduced the number of servants at Foyle and taken 
 Dunster to look after him in London. Hugh had 
 scarcely any one to talk to from morning till night, and 
 if it had not been for his work his loneliness would have 
 rendered him so unhappy as to have endangered his 
 health. 
 
 He was not supposed to be working through that 
 month of August: it was his holiday. But his father 
 had not thought of taking any steps to make it a real 
 holiday for him, and after a week of mooning aimlessly 
 about, becoming more and more dejected as the days 
 went by, he took to his books again, and, even after 
 the first few hours of reading, felt better. Now he had 
 discovered a way of escape from the worst of his lone- 
 liness. He had a definite ainl in his reading, for it had 
 been settled that he was to go to Cambridge in October 
 instead of a year later, and he had to face the entrance 
 examination for Trinity College at the beginning of 
 the month. He mapped out his day into regular hours 
 of work and exercise, and kept to his arrangements until 
 
82 MANY JUNES 
 
 his tutor's return. So the days went by somehow, and 
 in September the Admiral came down for a week to 
 shoot his partridges, and made more of a companion 
 of his son than before, even giving him a gun and a 
 game licence, and allowing him to tramp the stubbles 
 with himself and Dunster and the keeper. Hugh liked 
 to think afterwards that his father saw how much he 
 missed Anne and tried in some measure to make up to 
 him for her loss. It was little enough that he did, but 
 in later years, in thinking of his father, Hugh's mind 
 went back to that week in September when he was 
 kind to him. 
 
 The time of preparation came to an end, and when 
 he went up for his examination at the beginning of 
 October Mr. Williams told him that he was certain 
 to do well, and, if he worked as steadily at Cambridge 
 as he had done at Foyle, might look forward to taking 
 a good degree. Hugh said good-bye to his tutor, 
 cheered by his encouragement, but without any disturb- 
 ing sensation of loss. Except that the flavour of the 
 happy by-gone days hung about Mr. Williams in some 
 small degree, he was not a regretted concomitant of 
 his pupil's life. 
 
 Mr. Williams had altered since his return from his 
 holidays, which he had spent partly in his native town 
 of Huddersfield and partly amid the delights of Scar- 
 borough. He still paid the closest attention to his 
 work with Hugh — ^his diligence and conscientiousness 
 were his best points — ^but outside the reading hours he 
 insisted more than before on his own dignity, showed 
 
TROUBLE 83 
 
 ithat he thought highly of himself, and demanded an 
 irksome degree of deference from his pupil. Even in 
 the Admiral's presence he showed signs of pushing him- 
 self and his opinions forward, but that ceased after a 
 pair of bushy white eyebrows had been bent on him in 
 surprise, and it was only when alone with Hugh that 
 he allowed the sense of his importance to appear. It 
 seemed that tutoring or schoolmast'ering of any de- 
 scription was a poor sort of life for a man who was 
 a gentleman, and Mr. Williams would have none of it 
 in the future. He hinted at coming wealth and dig- 
 nity, but Hugh was not enough interested in him to 
 ask how he was going to acquire those gifts. The 
 secret came out a few months later, when he wrote from 
 Huddersfield to announce his coming marriage with a 
 lady whom he had known since his childhood. That he 
 had not known her since her own was owing to the 
 fact that her childhood had ceased some years before 
 his had begun. She was the widow of a large iron- 
 monger, and had been captivated by Mr. WilHams's 
 luxuriant hair and his ornamental manners. We take 
 leave of him in a large provincial house exuding crea- 
 ture comforts, a figure in the society attendant upon 
 his wife. 
 
 Hugh stayed one or two days at Cambridge, and 
 enjoyed the foretaste of his coming life more than he 
 had thought possible. Term had not yet commenced, 
 and he was assigned rooms in the Great Court of 
 Trinity, within hearing of the bells on the chapel turret 
 and the plash of the fountain. He dined in hall, and 
 
Si MANY JUNES 
 
 made friends with a few of the budding undergradaates 
 who were undergoing the entrance examination with 
 him. His spirits, depressed by the solitary life he had 
 led during the past three months, revived, and for the 
 first time since Anne's wedding he took pleasure in 
 the thought of his hfe apart from hers. In his spare 
 time he wandered about the courts of the college and 
 the streets and avenues of the town, alone or in com- 
 pany, or sat and talked in his own rooms or those of 
 his fellows, and came to look forward with some eager- 
 ness to the time when he would wear the blue gown 
 of Trinity and share the life of the many men of his own 
 age who would presently throng the now half-deserted 
 streets and courts. Before he left Cambridge for his 
 father's rooms in London, where he was to stay until 
 he came up to Cambridge an admitted member of the 
 great society of Trinity, he saw his name on the screens 
 as having passed his entrance examination, and heard 
 from his tutor that he had passed with credit. As he 
 travelled to London he was happy, even eager, in an- 
 ticipation of his new life, and he thought of what a 
 lot he would have to tell Anne when he wrote to her by 
 the mail on the following day. 
 
 He drove through the foggy London streets to his 
 father's rooms just off St. James's, and, having ar- 
 rived there, found all his bright anticipations for the 
 time obscured, for Dunster met him with a grave 
 face and told him that his father had had a 
 stroke and was lying unconscious in his room up- 
 stairs. 
 
TROUBLE 85 
 
 The shock he received on hearing this news was great. 
 He was young, and had no experience of the shadow of 
 death. And he l^ad seen his father two days before, 
 a hale man as he had always known him, hardly to be 
 considered old in his healthy well-preserved vigour. 
 But when he heard that such a seizure as he had sus- 
 tained was not necessarily fatal, and that the doctors 
 expected him to recover, his mind resumed its Bormal 
 tone. He had seen but little of his father, even dur- 
 ing the two years he had lived at home, and had re- 
 ceived few tokens of affection from him, and his own life 
 was before him, now about to take on brighter tones 
 than he had thought would colour it. 
 
 But as the evening wore on and he sat in the sittings 
 room, divided only from the room where his father lay 
 by folding doors, sometimes alone, sometimes talking in 
 whispers to Dunster, who came in and out at intervals, 
 a shadow stole over him, and deepened, Dunster im- 
 pressed upon him that the Admiral would probably re- 
 cover, but his usually cheerful face was gloomy, and his 
 own confident speech failed to lighten it. He showed 
 more foreboding than was natural, if his words were 
 to be believed. 
 
 At first Hugh's crteping fear only pointed to a fatal 
 ending to his father's illness, but when he taxed Dunster 
 with trying to deceive him with smooth words he was 
 met with reiterated assurances of an almost certain re- 
 covery. " Indeed, I'm telHng you the truth, sir," he 
 said earnestly, " I've seen this happen before, and I 
 don't fear for the Admiral's life, not this time at any 
 
86 MANY JUNES 
 
 rate. And there's no reason why it should come back, 
 not if he takes care of himself and lives a quiet life 
 without worries. Don't you fret about that, Master 
 Hugh. There's two doctors been to see him, and they 
 both say he'U get over this." 
 
 Then what meant this ever-deepening shadow, and 
 Dunster's anxious manner, opposed to his confident 
 speech.'' Hugh asked him again as he was going to 
 bed, when Dunster had come into his room. They 
 could speak freely here and not in whispers. " What 
 is there behind this ? " he said. " You are keeping 
 something back from me. If he is going to get better, 
 why do you look as you do ? "| 
 
 Dunster prevaricated volubly. He had been with 
 the Admiral, man and boy, for over thirty years. He 
 had been a good master to him, and he was knocked 
 over by what had happened. 
 
 Hugh watched him narrowly. " That is not all," he 
 said, when he had finished. " I'm a man now, and I 
 can stand anything that you may have to tell me. I 
 want to know. What are you keeping back?- What 
 brought on this stroke.'' Yes, that is it. I suppose 
 something must happen to bring on a stroke. What 
 brought on father's .f"' 
 
 Dunster looked at him and gave way before the 
 command in his tone and manner. " I'm very much 
 afraid, Master Hugh," he said, " that the Admiral has 
 had a serious money loss. His solicitor, Mr. Burham, 
 was with him when it happened. They'd been together 
 an hour or more, and when he called out — Mr. Bur- 
 
TROUBLE 87 
 
 ham, I mean — and I came in to him, he said: 'He wovdd 
 know everything, and I had to tell him the worst.' He 
 was very upset, poor gentleman, but it wasn't his fault." 
 
 " Then you think my father has lost aU his money .'' " 
 said Hugh slowly, 
 
 " Oh ! Master Hugh, I didn't say that. I hope not, 
 indeed I do. But it's been going on a long time, I've 
 seen it coming and " 
 
 " What has been going on a long time .'' " 
 
 " Speculating, and trying to make a lot of money 
 when there was plenty before. At first I thought it 
 was all right. I could not believe the Admiral could 
 go wrong or make mistakes. I gave him every bit of 
 my savings to handle for me — not that I'll say a word 
 about that, poor gentleman, if it turns out he's lost — 
 .it's him I'm thinking of. I've seen how it was for some 
 time. A better officer never breathed — he was won- 
 derful in manoeuvres and suchlike, all the service knew 
 it, and why he retired when he did I don't know. And 
 I've been in action with him too, and seen the stuff he's 
 made of. But amongst them sharks on the Stock Ex- 
 change he was no better than a baby, and it's my fear 
 that they've fleeced him bare, and him an old man with 
 his life behind him ! " 
 
 The honest fellow was moved almost to tears. He 
 had faithfully served his master for many years, and 
 perhaps he had grown to love him, a man who had 
 small power of arousing affection. 
 
 " But don't you think too much about what I've been 
 sayii^, Mr. Hug^," he said, as he turned to leave the 
 
88 MANY JUNES 
 
 room. "I may be wrong, and I hope to God I am, 
 and I didn't mean to tell you anything till I knew for 
 certain. Mr. Burham is coming again in the morning 
 and he'll tell you all you want to know." 
 
 iWith this consolation ended Hugh's day of hope. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 SETTLEMENT 
 
 HiTGH awoke next morning to hear the clock on the 
 gateway of St. James's Palace chime the hour, thought 
 for a moment it was the clock m the Great Court of 
 Trinity, and was for that moment content. Then the 
 memory of what had happened since he left Cambridge, 
 and of where he was, loomed up, and the shadow crept 
 over him once more. 
 
 It was eight o'clock, and Dunster came into his 
 room. His father was still unconscious, he said, but he 
 was no worse. Almost certainly, if he had no further 
 shock, he would recover. 
 
 Hugh got up and dressed. He breakfasted in his 
 father's sitting-room, with the muffled sounds of the 
 sickroom in his ears. It had not been suggested to him 
 that he should see his father, and he had not asked 
 to do so. Dunster brought him a morning paper and 
 pointed out to him a paragraph about Admiral 
 Lelacheur's illness. 
 
 " How did it get in? " asked Hugh. 
 
 Dunster cast a half-glance towards the folding doors. 
 " I sent it," he whispered. " I didn't dare write to 
 your uncle, Sir Simeon, but I thought he might 
 see." 
 
 H^h was about to ask him why he should want 
 89 
 
90 MANY JUNES 
 
 Sir Simeon to know, but the arrival of the doctor cut 
 short his question. 
 
 The doctor, coming into the sitting-room after visit- 
 ing his patient and shaking hands with Hugh, was cheer- 
 ful and encouraging. " Don't stay moping indoors," 
 he said, noticing Hugh's solemn face. " Go about and 
 amuse yourself. There's nothing to be alarmed about. 
 Quite an ordinary seizure, and he'll be about again in 
 a week or two, as hearty as ever." 
 
 Anxiety on behalf of his father's hfe left him. Every 
 one said that alarm was needless. But the shadow did 
 not lift from his mind. 
 
 The lawyer came at ten o'clock. He was an elderly 
 keen-faced man, and came into the room with something 
 of the same cheerful morning air as the doctor. But 
 it soon became plain that his cheerfulness was only the 
 sign of the hour, and betokened nothing that he had to 
 tell. It vanished when he sat down at the table with 
 Hugh. 
 
 " I am afraid I have no good news to tell you," he 
 said, paying the compliment of straightforwardness to 
 Hugh's serious and collected manner. " It is a smash, 
 a very bad smash indeed, and it is as much as we shall 
 do to get out of it on the right side." 
 
 Hugh had never had anything to do with money. He 
 had never had more than a sovereign of his own to spend 
 at one time in all his life. If the lawyer had gone into 
 figures with him he would not have understood him. 
 
 " You are not of age, are you .J" " said Mr. Burham. 
 
 " I shall be nineteen next April," said Hugh. 
 
SE,TTLEMENT 91 
 
 "Well, then, certain details which you will have to 
 know may keep until your father recovers, which I am 
 glad to hear he is likely to do. Still, in an illness like 
 his there is no certainty, and Dunster, whom I know 
 for an old and faithful servant, has asked me not to 
 keep you ignorant of what has happened." 
 
 " I hope you will tell me everything," said Hugh. 
 " I would rather know the worst." 
 
 " Then I will tell you the worst at once. Your 
 father's — er — investments have turned out wrong, very 
 wrong indeed, and from being a man of some wealth he 
 will now be a poor man. I have feared that he woxild 
 lose his money for some time past, and have warned him, 
 but he would not take my warning, and it was not until 
 the certainty came home to him that he realized the 
 way he had been going. As you know, the shock was 
 too much for him, and I was, unfortunately, the means 
 of bringing it on." 
 
 " You couldn't help that," said Hugh awkwardly. 
 
 " No, I could not help it, I have known Admiral 
 Lelacheur for many years, and liked him, but he was 
 not a man to advise against his will." 
 
 " He has lost all his money.? " said Hugh. 
 
 " It is not possible to say yet exactly how he stands. 
 But you must be prepared for a great change in your 
 life. That is what I wanted to warn you of. You must 
 not expect that you will be able to go on living at 
 Foy3e." 
 
 Hugh had not thought much of Foyle. With Anne's 
 marriage its chief delight had departed. But the news 
 
92 MANY JUNES 
 
 that Foyle would no longer be his home caused him a 
 pang. 
 
 " I suppose not," he said. " Shall I be able to go 
 to Cambridge? " 
 
 " I heard that you had gone up to matriculate. You 
 have not got a scholarship?" 
 
 « No." 
 
 Mr, Burham hesitated. " I cannot say anjrthing 
 about that," he said. " I am afraid that you will not 
 be able to go to Cambridge until your father is better 
 and it is possible to settle his affairs with him. Then 
 let us hope that you may, if you wish to. Now tell me 
 this. Have you ever seen your uncle. Sir Simeon 
 Lelacheur? " 
 
 " Oh no. He and father were not frieods. He 
 never mentioned his name to us — ^to me or my 
 sister." 
 
 " I knew that they quarrelled many years ago. It 
 was then that Admiral Lelacheur put his affairs kito 
 the hands of my firm. But I thought that, perhaps, 
 
 now Could you write to your uncle and give him 
 
 an idea of what has happened? " 
 
 " Oh no. Father would be very angry if he knew 
 of it." 
 
 " I'm afraid he would. I'm afraid he would. Wdl, I 
 couldn't take the responsibility of doing it myself." 
 He sat thinking for some time. " Have you any other 
 relations ? " he asked. " Any one to whom you could go 
 until your father is better and we can see how things 
 stand? " 
 
SETTLEMENT 93 
 
 *' I shouldn't like to leave my father, and I have no 
 other relations except my aunt, Miss Wilkinson." 
 
 The lawyer's face clouded. " Perhaps you had hetter 
 stay here then," he said, rather shortly. Then his 
 face became kind again as he prepared to take his 
 leave. " I am very sorry for your sake that this has 
 happened," he said. " It will make a difference to your 
 life. I am afraid I do not see much hope of Cambridge 
 for you. It is better that you should not buoy yourself 
 up with false hopes. My own way is to take the worst 
 and build upon that. Then it is seldom so bad as you 
 anticipate. Good-bye, and do not lose hope altogether." 
 
 With this somewhat contradictory advice, Mr. Bur- 
 ham shook hands and departed, leaving on Hugh's mind 
 the impression which, under the circumstances, was least 
 likely to increase his disappointment in the future. He 
 sat by the fire for some time and then went out and 
 walked for an hour about the streets, not knowing 
 where to go, or what to do with himself, either now 
 or in the future. 
 
 When he returned to the house Dunster met him 
 with a more cheerful face. His father had regained 
 consciousness, but he could not speak ; and on one side 
 he was paralysed. Hugh, with some shrinking, asked 
 if he might go in to him, but Dunster said, with a look 
 of concern: " Don't you go to him just yet, Mr. Hugh. 
 Please God he'll get quite well, but hisi poor face is 
 all drawn, and-you wouldn't take him for the man he is." 
 
 Hugh suddenly remembered that it was mail day, 
 and he had not yet written to Anne. On the day before, 
 
94 MANY JUNES 
 
 he had looked forward to telling her all his good news. 
 It was very diiferent news he had to tell her now. He 
 said nothing about what had happened before his 
 father's illness, except that he had been to Cambridge, 
 and passed his entrance examination. " But I am 
 afraid," he added, " that I shall not be able to go up 
 to Cambridge now." And this was all the mention he 
 made of his father's losses, for he would not give her 
 all the bad news at once. His letter was bald and short, 
 very different from the letters he had written to her 
 every fortnight since she had left home ; but there was 
 very little to say, since he was keeping so much back, 
 and although he tried to write as intimately as she 
 would expect him to write, he could not, and sealed up 
 his letter feeling very dissatisfied with it, and himself. 
 As he did so Dunster came into the room with an 
 air of some excitement, and announced importantly, but 
 in a low voice : " Sir Simeon Lelacheur." He was fol- 
 lowed into the room by a thin old man, who stooped, and 
 supported himself with a stick. He had very white 
 hair and the kindest expression of face. He shook 
 hands with Hugh, and murmured some expression of 
 sympathy, of which Hugh did not catch the words. 
 Then he sat down on the chair that Dunster set for 
 him, and loosened his coat, and the white silk scarf 
 round his neck, looking at Hugh out of a pair of con- 
 cerned, blue eyes, while Dunster left the room and 
 closed the door quietly behind him. 
 , Hugh hardly knew what to say or do. He had a 
 feeling of intense discomfort at the thought of his 
 
SETTLEMENT 95 
 
 father lying just beyond the thin wooden partition, and 
 an instinctive fear lest he should hear the voice of his 
 arch-enemy and burst the bonds of affliction to denounce 
 him. He had never seen his uncle before. There was 
 a great likeness to his father, although his timid air 
 of kindness and courtesy was the antithesis to the 
 Admiral's manner. Hugh had once looked up his family 
 in a book of reference and learnt that Sir Simeon was 
 only a year older than the Admiral. He looked ten 
 years older as he sat opposite to him, bowed and 
 nervous, with thin fleshless hands fumbling at the collar 
 of his overcoat, but always with that deeply concerned 
 kind gaze. It was some little time before he spoke, 
 and, when he did, he spoke almost in a whisper, and 
 Hugh had difficulty in catching his words. He, also, 
 glanced towards the folding doors, as if he feared that 
 the brother whom he had not seen for forty years would 
 come in and find him there. 
 
 " This is very sad," he said. " Your father's servant 
 tells me that there is trouble behind it, and that there 
 is nO' one to help straighten things out." 
 
 Hugh did not know what to answer. " Mr. Burham 
 was here this morning," he said awkwardly — " father's 
 solicitor." 
 
 *' Did he tell you anything? " 
 
 " He told me that father had lost all his money." 
 
 To Hugh's surprise a look of gratification came 
 into the old man's face. " Then that may bring us 
 together again," he said. " He has only to come to 
 me. No, I win come to him, and we shall be friends 
 
96 MANY JUNES 
 
 again at last. We were great friends as boys, and I 
 have not ceased to miss him all these years. Has he 
 ever talked to you about — about the old days ? " 
 
 « No," said Hugh. 
 
 The old man looked disappointed. " I have talked of 
 him to my son," he said, " a grown man now — older 
 than you. How old are you, and what is your name? " 
 
 Hugh told him. He was strangely moved. This 
 weak old man, so like and so unlike his father, seemed to 
 draw from him something of the feelings he would have 
 had towards his own father, if any consideration or 
 affection had called them forth. He found himself 
 telling him everything, his father's disappointment at 
 his failure to enter the navy, his life at Foyle with 
 Anne, Anne's marriage, his loneliness, and his own dis- 
 appointment at the downfall of his hopes of Cambridge, 
 which had been so nearly within his grasp; and his 
 uncle listened with little nods and murmurs of sympathy, 
 and a question every now and then to keep the stream 
 of his disclosures flowing. And he asked questions 
 about Hugh's father, as one might ask a stranger from 
 a distant country about some one whose memory was 
 dear, but from whom one had been parted for very 
 long, trying to create a picture in the mind of a face, 
 a trick of manner, or a word. 
 
 He put his thin old hand upon Hugh's as it lay on 
 the table. " My dear boy," he said, " you shall go 
 to Cambridge. And do not distress yourself about your 
 father. He wiU forget all the unhappy years of separa- 
 tion when he comes to himself, and any difficulties he may 
 
SETTLEMENT 97 
 
 have to face will be taken from his shoulders. He will 
 not refuse help from his only brother. I do not know 
 the details of his losses, but he cannot have been to 
 blame for them himself. He was always a strong man ; 
 and see what he has done for his country ! We are 
 all proud of him, and the time is coming when we can 
 tell him so." 
 
 Much more he said in the same strain before he went 
 away^ leaving Hugh comforted, and astonished at the 
 noble sweetness of his character. The quarrel which 
 he had deplored for forty years he had not mentioned 
 except as the unhappy cause of the long estrangement. 
 He had taken no blame for it, neither had he sought to 
 justify himself. He had spoken no word about forgive- 
 ness, he had simply wanted it aU ended and forgotten. 
 And this was the man whom Hugh's father had re- 
 garded with such stubborn rancour that he had never 
 mentioned his name to his children. There was time 
 for a postscript to his letter to Anne, and when it was 
 written it was twice as long as the original letter, and 
 told her everything. 
 
 He ate his dinner and talked cheerfully to Dunster 
 afterwards. Both of them felt that the shadow was 
 lifted, and Sir Simeon's name was extolled between 
 them. Hugh went to bed almost happy. 
 
 He saw his father the next morning. The Admiral 
 lay helpless, his face all dragged to one side, but with 
 the old authoritative indomitable look in his eyes. He 
 spake with difficulty, but he was determined to speak, 
 and the words came slowly and with painful pauses and 
 
98 MANY JUNES 
 
 searcnings, but there was no doubt of their meaning. 
 Everything was gone but the honour of his name, and 
 he trusted his son to help him to preserve that. Cam- 
 bridge was out of the question now. He must work, 
 and he must set about it at once. 
 
 The Admiral's mind was clear. He remembered 
 everything that had led up to his seizure. _ Beneath the 
 disfigurement of his face lay a deeper disfigurement. 
 There was nothing but trouble and sorrow before him 
 for the rest of his days, and he had brought trouble 
 and sorrow upon others beside himself. He knew it all, 
 and the knowledge had seared his soul. 
 
 Hugh listened to him in an agony of doubt and 
 bewilderment. He longed to tell him that his troubles 
 would not be allowed to oppress him, that the kindest 
 of friends was waiting to lift his burdens from him, 
 longing for reconciliation. But he did not dare to do 
 so, and, as he stood by the bedside and listened to the 
 painful speech, more painful almost than he could bear 
 in its insistent hopelessness, the thought came to him 
 that he never would dare, that this new hope that had 
 buoyed him and lightened his spirits was destined, like 
 his other hopes, to fade, and leave him to face a life 
 stripped of all comfort. 
 
 It was Dunster who told the Admiral a few days later 
 of his brother's visits. He had tact and courage, and 
 he knew his master as no one else knew him. But 
 even he had never gauged the depth of crabbed obstinacy 
 that conquered every softer impulse in the Admiral's 
 soul. When he heard that Sir Simeon had been two 
 
SETTLEMENT 99 
 
 or three times to inquire for him, which was all that 
 Dunster told him at first, he broke into a passion that 
 caused the faithful servant serious alarm. How dare 
 he admit him to the house? If he ever did such a thing 
 again he would be dismissed without warning. The 
 insolence of it! Coming to gloat over him when he was 
 lying helpless, and unable to give him the treatment he 
 dieserved! Sorry for his illness? A soft-headed fool 
 without any brains might believe that. Dunster might 
 believe what he liked, but if he disobeyed orders again 
 he knew what would happen to him. It was long before 
 he was quieted, and Dunster had a night of anxiety, 
 fearing another attack at any time. 
 
 He told Hugh of his ill-success, and Hugh went to 
 his uncle's hotel at once. Sir Simeon had come up to 
 London alone from the country when he had read of his 
 brother's illness, and the house in Grosvenor Square 
 which had so aroused the Admiral's ire was shut up. 
 When Hugh had told him what he had to tell, and left 
 him, with the memory of the tenderest kindness and 
 sympathy to carry into the dark days to come. Sir 
 Simeon went back to Suffolk, sad at heart, biit hoping 
 still that he might be able to do something for his 
 brother's son. With his brother himself he now gave 
 up all hopes of reconciliation. 
 
 It was not until later, when the Admiral had re- 
 covered his mental powers and was beginning to recover 
 physically, that he spoke to Hugh about his brother. 
 He was considerate to Hugh in those days, pathetically 
 apologetic sometimes, and spoke to him now without the 
 
100 MANY JUNES 
 
 anger he had addressed to Dunster. " You didn't know 
 everything," he said. " But you might have guessed 
 that Sir Simeon Lelacheur, who is no brother of mine, 
 has behaved in such a way to me that it was wrong 
 of you to have speech with him at all. You have never 
 heard me mention his name, and that ought to have been 
 enough for you. I have forty years of insult to re- 
 member against that man, and I forbid you from hence- 
 forth to have any dealings with him whatever." 
 
 Poor Hugh listened, gloomily submissive. He had no 
 weapons with which to fight what he knew to be ground- 
 less prejudice, and if he had, he could not at that time 
 have used them against his father. Among all that 
 he was losing, the friendship of that gentle kindly old 
 man seemed to him the greatest deprivation. 
 
 He lived on in his father's rooms. He had nothing 
 to do and nowhere to go. All possibility of the Uni- 
 Tersity was over. Mr. Burham no longer held out any 
 hope, and his name had been taken off the books of 
 Trinity. He did not know what was to become of him, 
 and at this time he did not very much care. Whatever 
 it was it would not bring him happiness. Of that he 
 was assured. 
 
 His father paid little attention to him. All his 
 time was spent over his papers, and in consultation with 
 his lawyer; or he would lie still, with his eyes open, 
 chewing the cud of his bitter thoughts. Hugh was told 
 nothing of the way in which affairs were arranging 
 themselves, but he gathered, chiefly from Dunster, that 
 -there was no hope of a settlement that would leave more 
 
SETTLEMENT 101 
 
 than a bare competence for those dependent on his 
 father. He learned, to his great distress, that Miss 
 Wilkinson's money had been trusted to her brother-in- 
 law to invest in the harebrained schemes from which he 
 had hoped so much, and that it) had gone with the 
 rest. It was an added source of disquiet in a most 
 unhappy time. 
 
 Finally the accounts were brought to order and the 
 best and the worst were known. Bank:^Tiptcy was 
 averted, but when everything should have been sold that 
 could be sold there would be left a few thousand pounds 
 out of the many that had supported two families in 
 affluence and would finally have come to Hugh and 
 Anne. The portion that should have come to them in 
 a year or two's time from their mother had gone with 
 the rest, and it was the knowledge of this failure of 
 trust, and the ruin he had brought upon his sister-in- 
 law, that kept the Admiral sitting for hour after 
 hour staring into the fire, with his hands on the 
 rug over his knees, and a sombre baffled look in his 
 eyes. 
 
 He was not without friends to offer him help and 
 advice, but he would accept neither the one nor the 
 other. Only one of them, more insistent than the rest, 
 who came more than once, and saw Hugh moping about 
 the rooms, useless to himself or any one, pressed for a 
 decision as to the boy's future, and finally came with an 
 offer for him of a clerkship in the Shipping and Mer- 
 cantile Insurance Association, of which he was a 
 director. Hugh was hardly consulted about the 
 
102 MANY JUNES 
 
 arrangeiiient. The Admiral accepted it for him, and, 
 almost before he had realized the importance of the 
 step, he found himself on his way to the City, embarked 
 •upon an occupation which was about the last he would 
 have chosen if any decision had rested with him. 
 
CHAPTER yill 
 
 THE TOWN 
 
 The Shipping and Mercantile Insurance Association 
 occupied a large stone building, solid but unreasonably 
 ornate, in Leadenhall Street, and Hugh had to be in 
 his place in the great central office every morning at 
 half-past nine. When it was fine he walked there, past 
 the great club houses in Pall MaU, by Trafalgar Square 
 and Charing Cross, and on to the Embankment, and so 
 away from the streets of ease and leisure to join the 
 stream setting citywards. 
 
 Along by the river the stream was comparatively 
 thin. It was too early yet for the cabs and carriages of 
 the men who gave employment to such as he, and most 
 of those who kept his hours used the more congested 
 routes. The broad grey river, under the slaty winter 
 sky, was a consolation to him. Sometimes a breath of 
 the sea seemed to be borne up on its tide, and the gulls 
 circled over the bridges and the water and the roadway. 
 Men who worked with their hands and not with their 
 brains laboured on the barges, and others on the wharfs 
 across the river. The wind blew upon them iciy. They 
 knew the pain of manual toil, but they had its reward. 
 Though serving they were free. 
 
 At Blackfriars the crowd became more concentrated. 
 Hugh was one of the thousands whom the streets and 
 
 103 
 
104 MANY JUNES 
 
 buildings engulfed daily, each atom coming from far 
 or near, where there was space and individuality, to 
 swell the organized and collected power which would 
 move forward one day the great engine of commerce. 
 The stream flowed more quickly here, between the high 
 stone walls. Those few upon whom it rested to invent 
 and control seemed to be putting away from them the 
 influences of their private lives, and to be wrapping 
 themselves in the atmosphere of contest. Their faces 
 were thoughtful, their steps quickened. It was these 
 who set the pace, and carried with them the many who 
 had nothing to do with guiding the engine, whose labour 
 expressed itself in hours, who must be diligent and 
 careful, but need not be anxious, who could carry their 
 home thoughts as far as their office stools and could 
 take them up again when the appointed hours of their 
 labour were done, without one look backwards or for- 
 wards at the end to which their day's work tended. 
 
 Of these was Hugh, who, with hundreds and even 
 thousands like himself, provided the power which moved 
 the immense machine of finance, so many hours a day, 
 so many days a year of accurate routine work, never 
 varied, never ceasing. 
 
 He sat at a long mahogany desk in the large outer 
 office, with a score or more of other clerks, each with 
 his high stool, his pens and ink and blotting-pad. A 
 double brass rail running the length of the desk held the 
 heavy ledgers when they were placed for a moment 
 aside. Entering, casting, comparing", indexing, the 
 work went forward diligently. It kept the brain active. 
 
THE TOWN 105 
 
 almost amused, so that the hours slipped by and none 
 of them were irksome in reality, though they might 
 seem so in anticipation, if the mind were projected over 
 a long space of time. Then the weight of day after 
 day to be spent with the same monotonous regularity 
 would fall heavily upon it. 
 
 His fellow-clerks belonged for the most part to that 
 large commercial class which is on a social stratum below 
 the professional — a class in which there is an immense 
 capacity for steady unambitious work, but little enter- 
 prise. It is from a lower class, or else a higher, that 
 those adventurous spirits come who fight upwards for 
 commercial supremacy, who scorn tlie " steady rise " 
 and risk its highest altitudes for something higher. 
 Most of them were the sons of employees of the better 
 sort, whose ambition did not rise higher than to be em- 
 ployees of the better sort themselves; a few were the 
 sons of clergymen or doctors ; but among them all there 
 was not one of whom it could be said that he was using 
 his time or opportunities with a view to anything beyond 
 the upper post? of the service in which he had embarked. 
 They took life as they found it; so many hours in 
 the day were occupied by their work, and by their work 
 they earned their play. They were interested in their 
 few weeks' holiday, in their cricket and football and 
 lawn-tennis clubs, in their days up the river, in their 
 theatre-going and dances, in their clothes, in their love- 
 making, some of them in books, a few in religion, some in 
 horse-racing, some in politics. These were the things 
 J;hey talked of when they went out together to Innch, 
 
106 MANY JUNES 
 
 or walked towards the stations from which they gained 
 their homes, but seldom of the work in which they had 
 just been occupied. 
 
 Those of Hugh's own standing, with whom he chiefly 
 consorted, were good-natured or polite to him, but did 
 not readily receive him into their fellowship. His up- 
 bringing had made him shy and reserved, younger than 
 his years in the arts by which a young man gains ac- 
 ceptance among his fellows. He knew nothing of the 
 things in which they, were interested, and it would have 
 been impossible for him to talk to them of the affairs 
 of his own life, of the delights with which he and his 
 sister had filled their days at Foyle, or of the ambitions 
 cut short by his father's downfall. He was quiet and 
 modest, rather too willing, if anything, to submit to the 
 claims of the loud-voiced, and as far as possible from 
 giving himself airs on account of a parentage more dis- 
 tinguished than that of his companions; but his name 
 and his reserve and his air of melancholy marked him as 
 different from the rest, and his loneliness among them 
 did not decrease as the novelty of his position wore off. 
 
 When his day's work was over he would go back to 
 his father's rooms in St. James's. The life he led there 
 was as quiet as it could be. He would sit and read until 
 dinner-time, and again after dinner until it was time to 
 go to bed. The Admiral never read, but he was always 
 there, sitting on the other side of the hearth looking 
 steadfastly into the fire. He would sit thus for whole 
 evenings and never speak a word. Dunster waited on 
 them at dinner and he would sometimes speak to 
 
THE TOWN 107 
 
 Dunster, but to Hugh very seldom. Hugh got used to 
 his silence. He would always rather have read a book 
 than talked, except to Anne and sometimes to Dunster. 
 But when the Admiral went to bed, punctually at ten 
 o'clock, he went up to bed too. It was lonely -sitting in 
 front of the fire by himself. 
 
 The Admiral never went outside the house. Hugh 
 would go out with Dunster on Saturday afternoon or 
 on Sunday, and they would be merry together. Their 
 relations were almost those of a child and an old family 
 nurse. They walked in Hyde Park and Kensington. 
 Gardens, they went to the Zoo, to the Tower, to the 
 National Gallery, to Madame Tussaud's, and sometimes 
 to a matinee at a theatre. On Sunday they went to a 
 church at St. Paul's or the Abbey. Dunster was ready 
 to be amused at anything and everything, and Hugh 
 relied on him largely for his philosophy of life. They 
 spoke very seldom of the catastrophe that had come 
 about, or of what would foUow it, and when they did 
 Dunster expressed himself with a careless optimism 
 which could hardly have represented his true feeling. 
 
 One Saturday afternoon they were sitting under the 
 pines on Hampstead Heath looking over the wide ex- 
 panse of country that lay open before them, fields and 
 trees on the level plain, with a glimpse of water, wooded 
 hills in the distance, and no sign as yet of those creep- 
 ing tentacles of brick which London, would some day 
 stretch out to claim it. Hugh had been reading to 
 Dunster part of a letter from Anne which she had writ- 
 ten before she had heard of her father's seizure. She 
 
108 MANY JUNES 
 
 had written of her happiness, and of her life in the 
 country in which she had made her home. 
 
 Dunster listened and shiTted in his seat. His nostrils 
 (dilated and his eyes sought the horizon, where the sun 
 was sinking in red clouds behind the spire of Harrow 
 Church. " Ah, now," he burst out, " there's a life for 
 a man ! Life in the sun and the wind — room to breathe. 
 It seems like Paradise after the soots of London. That 
 there sun, he's on his way there now, bless his round 
 face, and he'll shine tonight over a free and open 
 country. Acrost the wide sea he'll go, with the ships 
 a-foUowin' of 'im. I wish I was on one of 'em." 
 
 " You wouldn't go out there and leave us, Dunster.'' " 
 said Hugh anxiously. 
 
 Dunster's lip shut down. " No, I wouldn't," he said, 
 " not so long as the Admiral's alive. By him I'll stay 
 till the end comes. But, Master Hugh, it's no good 
 making up fairy tales. The Admiral, he won't live many 
 years more — perhaps not many months more — and when 
 he's gone, why then, you and me — that's a different 
 thing. You're young and I'm hard. I'm thinking 
 that'll be the place for us. You work hard with your 
 body and you sleep deep. The winter and the summer 
 comes and you're the same as them. There's a God 
 above you. You take what comes and thank Him for it 
 all. He'U see you through. You're doing the work He 
 planned out for a man, sowing and reaping and feed- 
 ing the flocks and herds. That's life, and that's how 
 you and me'll take it." 
 
 Hugh looked out over the dark country. His eyes 
 
THE TOWN 109 
 
 w^ere troubled, "What should / do over there?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Dunster looked at him affectionately. " You'll do the 
 same as Mr. George," he said. " Ain't it better worth 
 doing than what you're doing now? And you'd be with 
 Miss Anne." 
 
 " If I were like Greorge," said Hugh slowly, " and if 
 Anne wanted me." 
 
 " Want you ! " echoed Dunster. " There wouldn't be 
 much doubt o' that. Him too, if he's what I take him to 
 be; and you don't make mistakes about men like him." 
 
 " You don't think father is going to die soon, do 
 you? " 
 
 " Please God he won't. But he hasn't got much to 
 live for, and you'd best look forward a bit. But there, 
 I won't say no more. Here we bides for the present. 
 But there's the great sea awaiting for us, and acrost it 
 that land of plenty. They'U stay there till we want 
 them. And now we'd best be getting home." 
 
 Dunster never spoke otherwise than' hopefully to 
 Hugh of the Admiral's complete recovery. He never 
 spoke to him at all about money matters. Things went 
 on as usual. Hugh lived in his father's rooms exactly in 
 the same way as he would have lived if the Admiral had 
 still been a well-to-do man and he had come up from 
 Foyle to be with him in London. The rooms were com- 
 fortable and in the most expensive part of the town. 
 His meals were simple, but well served. Dunster waited 
 on him, brought him his tea in the morning, and laid out 
 his clothes. Nothing was said to him about the salary 
 
110 MANY JUNES 
 
 he was earning. He paid his own small personal ex- 
 penses out of it, and kept what was over in a cash-box 
 in a drawer of his dressing-table. He had no adventur- 
 ous desire to spend money for the sake of spending it. 
 He took everything about him for granted, looked but 
 timidly into the future, and that very seldom. 
 
 In the meantime there were colloquies between Dunster 
 and Mr. Burham, who came often to see the Admiral. 
 Mr. Burham was a level-headed business man, whom the 
 human side of affairs interested. He would always 
 rather draw up a marriage settlement than a lease, and 
 preferred a case in the Old Bailey to one in the Law 
 Courts. The Admiral would only talk to him of figures, 
 and kept him otherwise at arm's length ; so he sometimes 
 (discussed his client's affairs with his client's servant, 
 always in a rather stately, condescending way, and 
 was relieved to have that outlet for a very ready sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 " You must understand, my good man," he said one 
 afternoon with his foot on the doorstep, " that the 
 present arrangements are only temporary. The — er — 
 catastrophe is so complete that when your master is 
 restored to health — as I hope he may be — a change will 
 have to be made." 
 
 " You mean on account of expense, sir.'' " said 
 Dunster. 
 
 " Yes ; these rooms' are well enough for a man of 
 means — even for a man of moderate means. But a 
 hundred and fifty a year, or whatever they are — there 
 will hardly be that saved out of the wreck for every- 
 
THE TOWN 111 
 
 thing. And, as far as you are concerned, I think 
 you had better be looking out for another place." 
 
 "You needn't think about me, sir," said Dunster. 
 " I shall be with the Admiral as long as he lives. But 
 if I may make so bold — I've had a talk with the doctor, 
 and I know my master too — he won't live very long. 
 If you could so arrange it as he stays on here in com- 
 fort — I mean, whatever money there is left, don't keep 
 it for the future, let him live as he's been accustomed 
 to live for the few weeks as remains to him." 
 
 " H'm," said the lawyer, looking at him out of a 
 shrewd grey eye. " You've made up your mind that 
 he " 
 
 Dunster broke in on him. " He won't last much 
 over Christmas, sir, you may take it from me. I 
 must go back to him now, or he'll be suspecting I'm 
 talking of him. But you turn what I say over in your 
 mind, sir." 
 
 Mr. Burham turned it over in his mind to such a 
 purpose that he told Dunster, a few days later, to come 
 to his ofBce where they could talk at leisure. Dunster 
 went, and was shown into a private room, where the 
 lawyer sat at a big writing-table covered with orderly 
 piles of papers, "by a dusty window. There were en- 
 gravings of eminent lawyers on the dark walls, and one 
 or two deed-boxes japanned black, upon one of which 
 was painted " Admiral H. Lelacheur, C.B." 
 
 " You're a faithful servant," said the lawyer. " I 
 can see that. What about the boy.'' " 
 
 Dunster told him of his plans for taking Hugh to 
 
112 MANY JUNES 
 
 Australia when the Admiral's death should set him 
 free. 
 
 "I don't like that," said Mr. Burham decisively; 
 " he has his foot on the ladder here. If he is steady 
 — and he seems to be steady — ^he is in the way of 
 being provided for for life without any anxiety." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; but, begging your pardon, is it the sort 
 of life for his father's son — a clerk in an office, and 
 not much prospect of being anything else? " 
 
 "What else is he fit for? He must work for his 
 living. A profession is out of the question for him now. 
 A big Insurance Company like that, there's nothing to 
 be ashamed of." 
 
 " He's barely nineteen, sir, and he'll be left all alone. 
 He hasn't been brought up to look after himself. He's 
 good, and he's got learning, but for anything else he's 
 not much better than a baby. He's got his father now, 
 and he clings to him — though he don't know it — and he's 
 got me — for what a rough fellow like me is worth. But 
 when he's left alone to face the world — ah! that'll be 
 different." 
 
 " Have you made up your mind to go to Australia 
 on your own account — ^when the final break-up comes? " 
 
 Dunster turned his hat round between his knees. 
 His honest square face was perplexed. " If you put 
 it to me like that, sir," he said, " I've got no plans 
 that Master Hugh* doesn't form a part of. There's 
 his sister over there — she and him was everything to 
 each other up to a few weeks ago, and he'U miss her 
 more than ever now, if he's left here all alone. And 
 
THE TOWN 113 
 
 there's her husband. He's got a fine home in a great 
 free and open country. It'd be his wish as well as hers 
 that her brother should share it with them. Don't keep 
 them apart, sir. Loneliness isn't what we were made for, 
 and he'll feel it more than most." 
 
 " My good man," said Mr. Burham, " the matter 
 isn't in my hands. There will be a little money over — 
 a very little, I'm afraid — ^when everything is settled up, 
 and — and, if a decision is called for shortly, whatever 
 comes to the boy will be his to use as he pleases. He 
 can go to Australia with it if he likes. Certainly, it 
 won't be me who will stop him." 
 
 " Thank you for that, sir," said Dunster, brighten- 
 ing. " Whatever you'd say would be much thought on, 
 and quite right too, you being a gentleman of experi- 
 ence, and kind-hearted, too, as I know well. I've turned 
 it over in my mind many a time, lying awake at night 
 and thinking of the sea, and the land over there that's 
 as free as the sea. That's the country for my young 
 gentleman to make a new start in and forget all that's 
 happened here lately." 
 
 " Wait a minute," said Mr. Burham, holding up his 
 finger. "Is it.'' Is it the country for him?" He 
 paused a moment and Dunster looked at him, his face 
 grown longer. " It's the country for you, I don't 
 doubt," he went on. " You're a man of your hands. 
 You're not young, but you can turn to and make your 
 own way out there as well as another, perhaps better. 
 I know what you're feeling at this moment. I felt it 
 myself as a young man, only not so strongly. You want 
 
114 . MANY JUNES 
 
 to get away from the crowds and the streets. You want 
 room to turn round in. You want the sky — ^now that's 
 it, isn't it? " 
 
 " Well, sir," said Dunster, " I won't say but what 
 you're right. I hold. it's the right life for a man." 
 
 If' For 
 
 some men. 
 
 ») 
 
 " I'll stay by the Admiral as long as he's spared." 
 , " But you are already living in the days when he 
 shall be gone." 
 
 " And when he's taken, then I say we shall have done 
 our duty, me and Mr. Hugh, and there'll be a good life 
 coming for both of us." 
 
 " You are right to look forward to it for yourself. 
 But for Mr. Hugh I'm not so sure." 
 
 " He don't like the streets no more than I do, sir. 
 He's all for the open air." 
 
 " What you have to think of, Dunster, is this. Any 
 man who goes out to that country — ^I'm not thinking 
 of the cities, nor are you — ^must be a man of his hands, 
 as you are. If he's not that he'll either sink or become 
 dependent." 
 
 " He won't sink, not as long as I'm there, nor his 
 sister nor her husband neither," 
 
 " Then he'll become dependent. Is that a life for 
 his father's son?" 
 
 " He'll work. He's not one to shirk work." 
 
 " Not the right work. But I doubt whether the work 
 he would have to do over there would be the right 
 work. So do you, or you wouldn't talk of him as you 
 do. Man, he's got to stand by himself. If you don't 
 
THE TOWN 115 
 
 help him to (lo that you are doing him no service. Put 
 it to him fairly. Tell him that he has work over here 
 that he can do, and that will keep him for the rest of 
 his life. Tell him that if he gives that up he must be 
 equally certain that he can do sometEng else as useful. 
 Then, if he decides to throw up what he has and go to 
 the other side of the world with you, the responsibility 
 will be his. Don't make it yours. Don't coddle him. 
 Let him be a man." 
 
 Dunster was silent and perplexed. 
 
 " Think it over," said Mr. Burham. 
 
 " There's something in what you say, sir," said 
 Dunster. " If it isn't right that he should go " 
 
 " I don't say that it isn't right. What I say is, let 
 him decide for himself." 
 
 " It's never crossed my mind to leave him alone, after 
 — after he's lost them as is closest to him." 
 
 " It will be right for you to go in any case. Every 
 man must live his own life unless he has a clear call 
 to sacrifice it. Ylou have no such call. Serve your 
 master as long as he lives ; that's your duty, and you are 
 doing it well. But when he's gone it wiU not be your 
 duty to spoil your own life for a young man who ought 
 to stand on his own feet." 
 
 " Well, well," said Dunster. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ALONE 
 
 AoMiEAi, Lelacheue died a few days before Christmas. 
 He had a second seizure, which he survived only a few 
 hours, without regaining consciousness. 
 
 The evening before his death he talked to Hugh, sit- 
 ting over the fire. Broken in health and fortune, he 
 may have had some premonition of the end, but his 
 prejudices and hatreds were still strong in him. He 
 talked quietly enough, but he talked of little but his 
 feud with his brother, whom in some obstinate crooked 
 way he looked upon as the cause of his ruin. " I want 
 you," he said, " to give me your solemn promise that, 
 after I am gone — and I don't care when I go now — ^you 
 will have nothing to do with that man, or anybody con- 
 nected with him." 
 
 Hugh sat silent, with a sinking heart. How much 
 he may still have counted upon the help and sympathy 
 of that kind old man who had expressed . himself so 
 anxious to help him, when at some time in the future 
 he might be free to go to him., perhaps he hardly knew 
 himself. Now he was asked to cut himself off from that 
 unacknowledged hope, suddenly made real by his father's 
 words. He made one weak effort to temporize. 
 
 " I hope you will get quite well again, father," he said. 
 
 " I sha'n't get well again," said the Admiral. " I 
 116 
 
ALONE lir 
 
 am too old. If I were younger I would get well again 
 and I would still show that man that I was a better man 
 than he. Now I'm broken; he has his triumph and I 
 can't take it away from him. But you must promise 
 me not to go to him when I'm dead. You wouldn't do 
 such a dastardly, cringing thing. Say you wouldn't." 
 
 He had begun to work himself up into an excitement 
 that caused Hugh an agony of fear, and snapped out 
 the last command in a way that Hugh had no power to 
 resist. " No, I wouldn't ; I wouldn't, father," he cried. 
 
 " And when I'm dead — ^whether I die soon or late," 
 went on the inexorable voice — " you won't have any 
 dealings with him or his. Promise me that you will up- 
 hold my honour when I am gone. Promise. Give me 
 your word of honour." 
 
 " Yes, I promise ; I give you my word of honour," 
 cried the boy, and killed his own hope and future 
 comfort. 
 
 The Admiral became quieter, and talked naturally of 
 trivial things until they said good-night to one another. 
 That good-night was the last word he spoke to his son, 
 for Hugh was summoned from his oiBce the next morning 
 at the news of his seizure, and on the same evening he 
 died. 
 
 Dunster sent an announcement to The Times. It 
 followed immediately after that of Sir Simeon 
 Lelacheur's death. The two old men, once friends and 
 playmates, parted for a lifetime, had come together 
 again. 
 
 The funeral was in a London cemetery. Hugh would 
 
118 MANY JUNES 
 
 have liked his father to be buried at Foyle, but Mr, 
 Burham discouraged the idea, and he did not press it. 
 There were paragraphs in the papers, and the old 
 sailor was followed to the grave by many who had known 
 him in the days of his success. His failure was of 
 too recent a date to have divided him from those of his 
 own world, and it was wiped out in the memory of those 
 who had known him by his long and distinguished 
 service. 
 
 But there was little consolation for Hugh in the 
 sight of the many strange faces. ' One or two of those 
 who had visited his father at Foyle spoke to him kindly 
 before they parted, but the only one of the Admiral's 
 friends — ^Anne's godfather — ^who might have done more 
 than that for him was at the other side of the world, 
 and the bustling and not altogether uncheerful crowd 
 only made his loneliness more complete. Dunster, in 
 the background, his red face convulsed with grief, was 
 the only real friend he had amongst them all, and he 
 would have given a great deal to be able to drive back 
 with Dunster Instead of having to share a carriage with 
 his aunt. 
 
 Miss Wilkinson had travelled up from Brighton to 
 attend her brother-in-law's funeral. She bore him no 
 ill-will, so she told her nephew, but her mind was full of 
 her own griefs, and her continual comparison of her 
 former wealth and her present indigence were more 
 painful to Hugh than if she had reproached his father's 
 memory bitterly. She had had to sell her comfortable 
 house and her furniture ; it was nearly all that was left 
 
ALONE 119 
 
 to her. Mr. Burham had invested the proceeds of the 
 sale for her, and she had enough to live on at a board- 
 ing-house, or in lodgings, but not enough to provide 
 her with any of the luxuries or with the consideration 
 which had added savour to her life. She had taken 
 refuge in a mild form of religion, and spoke with resig- 
 nation of her lot, when she remembered to do so. 
 
 " ' The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away,' " 
 she said. " I daresay it is all for the best ; but, oh ! 
 Hugh, when I saw all the beautiful things that I had 
 grown; up amongst sold to strangers, many of them 
 for a mere song, I could have sat down and cried. And 
 I felt that I could not go on living at St. Leonards, 
 where we were so respected, though I am sure none of our 
 old friends would have made any diif erence in their treat- 
 ment of me. ■ There are many people where I am now 
 whom I would not have known in the old days. But I 
 must bear it ; it is my cross ; and, as I say, it is prob- 
 ably all for the best, though it is difficult to see it in 
 that light; and it was my own fault, I suppose, for 
 wanting to be richer than I was, when I had everything 
 that I could wish for. I can't blame your poor father 
 there; he put it all fairly before me." 
 
 " I suppose he thought that everything would turn 
 ' out all right," said Hugh lamely. 
 
 " Oh yes. He used all his own money in the same 
 way, unfortunately. And there would have been no 
 advantage to him if my investments had turned out 
 well. He just advised me for what he thought my 
 good, and I must not complain if I was misled." 
 
120 MANY JUNES 
 
 Hugh felt that this was handsome on his aunt's part, 
 and he was grateful. But there was no warmth of feel- 
 ing towards her in his heart. He knew her very little, 
 and the reverses she had suffered could only make him 
 uncomfortable in her presence. If she would have talked 
 to him about Anne he would have liked her better, 
 but when he spoke to her of his sister she answered him 
 in a sentence and then went back to her own troubles. 
 He was relieved when he saw her off at the station on 
 her way back to Brighton. There was no suggestion 
 from her that they should meet again. 
 
 Hugh went back to the empty rooms from which 
 his father had been taken and sat down in his easy- 
 chair by the fire. On the other side of the hearth was 
 the chair in which his father had sat only a few eve- 
 nings before, and for many evenings before that. Be- 
 yond the folding doors was the bedroom in which he 
 had slept the sleep of a strong, vigorous man ; in which 
 he had lain ill and sad ; in which he had died. Both 
 rooms were his, and seemed to be only his ; now that he 
 had left them they lacked something vital ; their aspect 
 was completely changed. Hugh could no more have 
 thought of them as his own than of a room in a hotel 
 which he might be occupying for a night or two. They 
 spoke to him with a voice that was almost audible, with 
 a sense of desolation and intolerable loneliness. He 
 looked round upon them blankly, trying to understand 
 the meaning of the new sensations that were crowding 
 fast upon him. His eyes fell upon a photograph on the 
 mantelpiece — a group of the Admiral and Anne and 
 
ALONE 121 
 
 himself under the cedar at Foyle, taken in the early 
 summer by George Blomfield — and suddenly the tears 
 came in a burst, without any warning, and he sobbed 
 convulsively. 
 
 Dunster came in later, and found him sitting in his 
 chair with only the firelight in the room. The paroxysm 
 of weeping was over. He would shed no more tears. 
 He spoke in an even voice; asked Dunster to light 
 the gas and leave him alone for another hour. Dunster 
 looked towards him and obeyed, without a word. 
 
 He took a letter out of his pocket, a letter that he 
 had received only that morning from Anne. It had 
 been written immediately after she had heard the full 
 news of the loss of thei:c father's fortune, and their 
 own. It was full of grief and affection, both for her 
 father and himself. She made light of the loss of 
 her own money, and Hugh had another letter in his 
 pocket from George, who told him that they could do 
 very well without it. But Anne explained that, 
 although they had everything they could want, and 
 were living in the big house that George's father had 
 built on one of his up-country stations, their actual in- 
 come was very small. Her distress at not being able 
 to help her brother to the University career to which 
 he had so looked forward, and which they had talked 
 over so often, was very apparent, but she begged Hugh 
 to promise to come out to her if their father's illness 
 should end fatally, and make his home with her and 
 her husband. And George had seconded the invitation. 
 Hugh was to bring Dunster too ; life in the Bush was the 
 
122 MANY JUNES 
 
 best life in the world, and he could find plenty of work 
 for them both. 
 
 One phrase in George's letter ran : " You will spend 
 whole days in the saddle," and another : " As long as 
 Anne and I are alive this will be your home. You may 
 say the same to old Dunster ; but Dunster will always 
 be sure of a living anywhere." 
 
 Hugh was still looking into the fire when Dunster 
 came in again an hour later. He sat upright, and said : 
 " Come and sit down, and let us talk about what is 
 going to happen." 
 
 Dunster took a chair and cleared his throat. 
 " You've got a letter from Miss Anne, there," he said ; 
 " what does she say.'' " 
 
 " She wants me to go to Australia ; and you too." 
 Dunster's face cleared. He slapped a big hand on 
 a round knee. " That's what I thought," he said. 
 " And Mr. George, he says the same, I'll be bound-? " 
 " Yes, he does." 
 
 " It seems like Providence them letters coming on the 
 very day we buried the dear master — and buried the 
 old trouble too, I hope and trust, Mr. Hugh." 
 
 " Anne says they are coming home next summer. Of 
 course she hoped to see father again." 
 
 " And he's gone. No need to come home now, until 
 they come for a holiday. Home'U be over there now, for 
 you and her and all of us." 
 
 " I am not going to Australia, Dunster." 
 He spoke quietly, looking into the fire. Dunster's 
 face lengthened. " Eh.? " he said inquiringly. 
 
ALONE 123 
 
 *' You must go, Dunster. They want you, and you 
 will be able to get a good living for yourself," 
 
 "Me go and leave you behind, Mr. Hugh? No; 
 that I won't. And as for wanting, don't Miss Anne 
 want you as much as she wants anybody 'cept her hus- 
 band? I'll be bound she does, and I'll be bound she says 
 so in that there letter, so as you can't mistake it." 
 
 " I want her too. Nobody knows how much I want 
 her." 
 
 " Very well, then. Where's the sense of talking about 
 stopping here ? You don't mean it, Mr. Hugh. I don't 
 know what you've got into your head." 
 
 " Dunster, I'm not a chUd any longer. A few weeks 
 ago — perhaps a few hours ago — I would have done what 
 I was told, and it would have seemed like getting back 
 to summer again to go out there and live with Anne — 
 and with you there too, and everything happy as it was 
 at Foyle." 
 
 " Well, that's just what it wiU be." 
 
 " But now I know you can't go back in that way. 
 It is aU changed. If I were different, if I were like 
 George, and could make my own way in the sort of 
 life you must lead out there, I might go. But " 
 
 " You could make your way. There's everything and 
 everybody to help you." 
 
 " But I know I couldn't. Nobody would think of 
 sending me out there alone. They would know that I 
 wasn't fitted for that sort of life." 
 
 " But you won't be going alone, Mr. Hugh. Oh, 
 (don't take such thoughts into your head. There's me 
 
124 MANY JUNES 
 
 will be with you as long as I live, and there's Miss 
 Anne and her husband, they'll never let you want." 
 
 " That's just it. I'm to be looked after ; and I know 
 I should be, and everybody would be as kind as possible. 
 But I can't live like that any more. It would get worse 
 as I grew older. Would you like to see me in ten years' 
 time living on my sister and her husband, and being 
 taken care of? Dunster, I'm not worth much, but I'm 
 worth more than that." 
 
 Dunster stared at him ruefully. " You're talking 
 just like Mr. Burham talked," he said. 
 
 " Mr. Burham .'' Has he talked to you about it? 
 What did he say? He has said nothing to me." 
 
 " I'm an honest man, and when I say I'll do a thing 
 I'U do it, though it goes against me. He said you'd 
 got a good job here, and I wasn't to talk you over into 
 changing without saying so." 
 
 " Without saying what? " 
 
 " That you'd got a good job here. It isn't me that's 
 saying it's good, mind that. No job is good, to my 
 mind, that keeps you slaving away between four walls 
 when there's the good earth to give you your living, 
 and the sun and the air. It ain't the money, it's the 
 life." 
 
 " Well, I've made up my mind. Mr. Burham says the 
 same — ^but I wish he had said it to me. I can make 
 my living here. I won't be dependent on others, now 
 father is dead, however much I love them." 
 
 " And they loves you too, remember that." 
 
 " I shall see Anne in less than a year. It; will be 
 
ALONE 125 
 
 a long time to wait, but I shall have that to look forward 
 to. I know she will come. She will respect me aU the 
 more if I am making my own way. I know she will." 
 
 Dunster urged and pleaded, but all to no purpose. 
 " I never seed it in your character before, Mr. Hugh," 
 he said at last, " but when you take anything into your 
 head you're to be moved no more than the Admiral 
 was." 
 
 Hugh smiled at him ruefully. " I know I am right in 
 what I have decided, Dunster; but, oh! how I wish I 
 could go with you ! " 
 
 "Go with me.''" said Dunster roughly. "If you 
 don't go I don't go, and there's an end of that. I can 
 be stubborn too." 
 
 Nevertheless Dunster went in a fortnight's time. 
 Hugh saw him off at Tilbury, and afterwards went 
 back to the rooms he had taken in Earl's Court, to 
 begin his new life alone. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 WOEK 
 
 Hugh's income was about a hundred and twenty pounds 
 a year. The greater part of this came from his salary, 
 the rest from the very small sum of money that Mr. 
 Burham handed over to him after his father's estate 
 was wound up. Under the lawyer's advice he used this 
 sum to supplement his earnings until, by an annual in- 
 crease, they should reach a hundred and twenty pounds 
 a year, by which time it would be exhausted. He had 
 no other source of income to look forward to. 
 
 There was some interest in apportioning his expendi- 
 ture, which he did very thoroughly: so much for board 
 and lodging, so much for clothes, so much for daily 
 expenses, so much for an aimual holiday, and a margin 
 for emergencies. Dunster helped him to do this before 
 he sailed for Australia. It was Dunster who scoured 
 London to find suitable lodgings for him, which he did 
 at last in the tiny house of a respectable widow, who 
 was persuaded to supplement an inadequate income by 
 letting two diminutive rooms to so unimpeachable a 
 tenant as Hugh. She was a thin-lipped, silent woman, 
 combining a pitiful independence and some show of 
 gentility with an almost incredible penury. She was 
 careful to explain that she had been brought up a lady, 
 and that nothing would induce her to let lodgings in 
 
 126 
 
WORK 127 
 
 the ordinary way. Dunster succeeded, somehow in 
 persuading her that a gentleman of Hugh's quality 
 might inhabit two of her rooms as a matter of con- 
 venience without being looked upon as a lodger. He 
 would pay her rent and the wages of a servant. Her 
 position in the world would thereby be improved, and 
 she would lose nothing but the use of- the rooms, which 
 she did not need. The bait of a servant caught her, 
 and for the years during which Hugh lived with her 
 she did her duty by him loyally, but kept up the fiction 
 that he and she were a lady and gentleman of ample 
 means, each living in a small way for private reasons 
 which did not concern the other. Therefore there must 
 be no sort of intercourse between them, and any money 
 that was involved in the arrangement had to pass with 
 a great deal of circumstance. 
 
 Hugh was much better off than he knew. His two 
 little rooms were kept with scrupulous cleanliness, his 
 meals were well served, and even his clothes were looked 
 after. For the money that he succeeded, not without 
 difficulty, in conveying to Mrs. Millett he would prob- 
 ably have attained elsewhere a mean lodging, squalid 
 and dirty, and a good deal more of his landlady's con- 
 versation than would have been necessary to his com- 
 fort. But Mrs. Millett persistently shunned him: 
 sometimes many weeks would pass without his setting 
 eyes on her; and he was as much alone as if there had 
 been no one else in the house. It would have cheered 
 his loneliness a, little if she had chosen to talk to him 
 occasionally; but he was made to understand, at an 
 
128 MANY JUNES 
 
 early date, that they were to play at being strangers, 
 and after a time he came to ignore her existence 
 entirely, 
 
 Mrs. Millett's father had been a dispensing chemist, 
 her husband his assistant. She had started her mar- 
 ried life in the little house in which Hugh now lived 
 with her. It had been well furnished for her by her 
 father, mostly with things he had inherited. Hugh's 
 sitting-room contained a Sheraton bureau and a book- 
 case, a round pedestal table with brass claw feet, two 
 or three good chairs, and an unwieldy straight-backed 
 sofa, and there was room for little else. On an ugly 
 drab wall paper with brown poppies were a few old en- 
 gravings in polished maple frames : " The Landing of 
 William of Orange," "The Death of Lord Robert 
 Manners," a full-length portrait of the Duke of Well- 
 ington, and a " Scene near Sorrento." Above the 
 mantelpiece was a long mirror in a tarnished gilt frame, 
 and on it a heavy marble clock, two ebony and ivory 
 elephants, and two Japanese bronze candlesticks. 
 Upon these household goods Hugh's eyes came to rest 
 daily for some years. Foyle had been sold exactly as 
 it stood, with all its contents. He had brought 
 nothing with him but his clothes and a few books from 
 his father's rooms in St. James's. He added to his 
 stock of books housed in the bookcase above the bureau 
 as time went on, and bought himself an easy-chair. 
 Otherwise the effects which Mrs. Millett had assigned to 
 his use remained unchanged. In the winter his window 
 was curtained in crimson rep, in the summer in white 
 
WORK 12» 
 
 lace. There was a red cloth on the round table in the 
 middle of the room. With a little taste and a little 
 money spent on it the room could have been made 
 charming. As it was, it was quiet and comfortable, 
 and always clean and neat. 
 
 Mrs. Millett's own sitting-room, into which Hugh 
 was never invited during the years he lived under her 
 roof, but into which he sometimes peeped out of cu- 
 riosity, contained the more intimate possessions of her 
 short married life. Hugh often wondered what her 
 past history had been. It was plain that it had con- 
 tained a tragedy, but he did not discover what that 
 tragedy was until some years later. Her father's 
 brain had given way suddenly and he had been taken 
 to an asylum, but not before he had disposed of his 
 interest in a substantial business for a very inadequate 
 sum. There was a lawsuit, which Mrs. MiUett had 
 won, but her husband died immediately afterwards, and 
 when her costs were paid, and a sum set aside for her 
 father's keep, there was next to nothing left for her.. 
 When Hugh had lived with her for some years her 
 father died, and she wrote him a note asking him to 
 find other rooms. He left the house without being 
 given an opportunity of bidding her farewell, and 
 thenceforward she lived alone, in comparatively easy 
 circumstances. 
 
 In his little room,- cosy enough in the winter firelight, 
 Hugh spent his time after his day's work was done. 
 He read a great deal, sitting mostly at the table with 
 his head on his hand, as he had done in the old school- 
 
130 MANY JUNES 
 
 room at Foyle; only here there was no Anne to keep 
 him silent company, or to talk in the intervals of 
 absorption. He practised his drawing by the light of 
 the gas, his thoughts free to roam where they would 
 while his hand was busy. At ten o'clock, or soon 
 after, he put everything away carefully and went to 
 bed. From the time he left his office in the evening 
 until he returned the next morning he spoke to no one, 
 except a few words to the maid who waited on him. 
 He never went to a theatre or to an entertainment 
 of any sort that cost money, except once in the sum- 
 mer of his first year, alone, to one of the open-air ex- 
 hibitions then being held at South Kensington, and he 
 did not go again because the crowd of people, most of 
 them in groups, or at least in couples, made his loneli- 
 ness painfully apparent. He did go to the picture gal- 
 leries and the museums — many of his Saturday after- 
 noons were spent in this way. On Sunday he went once 
 to church, as he had been accustomed to do, and took 
 a long walk, very often to Hampstead Heath, where 
 he had been with Dunster. He was always glad when 
 Monday morning came and he got back to the mod- 
 erate companionship of his office. 
 
 He had two things to look forward to in the early 
 days. The lesser was his three weeks' holiday, which 
 he was to have in June. He had made up his mind 
 that he would spend it at Foyle. He engaged rooms 
 at the farmhouse on the outskirts of the village where 
 visitors were sometimes accommodated in the summer. 
 His and Anne's friend, the old rector, had died at the 
 
WORK 131 
 
 end of the year, just before the Admiral, and Mrs. 
 Bouverie had gone to live at Bournemouth, so both the 
 Manor and the Rectory would be changed ; but he -had 
 friends amongst the farmers and the cottagers, and he 
 thought there would be a kind of bitter sweetness in 
 seeing again the place where the happy years of his 
 life had been spent, and consolation in the quiet country 
 and the free air. He counted the days until his time 
 of freedom should come. HisI longing to get away 
 from London became a pain as the days lengthened, and 
 he remained shut off from the calendar of Nature. 
 Foyle would put him in touch with life again, and for 
 three weeks he would forget the monotonous round of 
 labour and the lonely crowded London streets. 
 
 And Anne and her husband were to come home in 
 October. Anne now wrote to him and he to her every 
 week, and her letters were his chief pleasure. He 
 gradually form;ed in his mind a picture of her home 
 and the life she led in it, in some ways so like the life 
 she might have led in an English country house, in 
 other ways so different that he was continually read- 
 justing his mental picture, as one detail after another 
 was added from her letters. He had thought of her 
 first of aU as living in the midst of a tropical luxuriance, 
 full of colour and movement. Gradually the picture 
 changed as he learnt of the seasons of stubborn drought, 
 of the great expanses of burnt-up land surrounding the 
 station buildings, of the shadeless trees, the deep 
 silence. But there remained always the sense of space 
 and freedom, and life on a large and patriarchal scale. 
 
132 MANY JUNES 
 
 His imagination played round the group of buildings 
 as a centre of which stood the house which was Anne's 
 home — a house of deep verandahs and great airy rooms, 
 somewhat sparsely furnished, surrounded by a carefully 
 irrigated garden, in which there was something of that 
 riot of growth and colour which he had first pictured 
 as springing naturally from the fertile soil. He read 
 of the numerous groups of buildings around the big 
 house — separate quarters for the bachelors, who were 
 learning their business on the station; separate quar- 
 ters for guests, of whom there seemed to be a constant 
 coming and going; the homes of those employed on the 
 xun, married and single; and the stables, sheds, and 
 stockyards — the whole settlement as big as a smaU 
 village, planted on the banks of a sluggish muddy 
 river in the midst of a flat plain that stretched out 
 of sight in monotonous regularity. He pictured to 
 himself the men riding off after an early breakfast to 
 the yards or the distant grazing grounds, and the 
 women going about their household duties, making the 
 beds, busying themselves in the kitchens and store- 
 rooms, the merry cavalcades of the afternoons, the pic- 
 nics, the calls on distant neighbours, the lamplit din- 
 ner-table, round which these men and women of English 
 birth kept up the observances of their easy upbringing, 
 while the still, aromatic air of the southern night stole 
 in at open doors and windows. He read of the bound- 
 less hospitality which gave shelter and food and a wel- 
 come to the stranger, without grudge or inquiry. He 
 caught a note of the talk that passed in that far-off 
 
WORK 133 
 
 company, talk of sheep and cattle and the primal life 
 of a vast pastoral country. He treasured up every 
 little hint, every little sketch which could help him to 
 a vision of his sister's life as she led it day by day, 
 testing every detail laboriously and again and again^ 
 until he thought there was nothing he did not know 
 about her and her surroundings. 
 
 Of his own life he was reticent. There was nothing 
 to tell. His letters were full of questions about hers, 
 or of anticipations of her homecoming. His first dis- 
 appointment came when her visit was postponed from 
 the summer to the autumn, his second — ^mixed with a 
 strange new excitement — ^when she told of the expected 
 birth of a child, and a further postponement of her 
 homecoming until the following summer. A year to 
 wait ! If he had known there would be so long to wait 
 he might have gone out to Australia and been with her 
 now. 
 
 He went down to Foyle in the middle of June. As 
 he drove from the station along the well-remembered 
 road, in the cart that the farmer had sent to meet 
 him, he experienced a kind of bewildered excitement, 
 which merged into«pain as he drove into the village and 
 stopped at the farmhouse gates instead of driving on 
 to the Manor. The place was so familiar and yet so 
 strange. The farmer's wife gave him a kindly wel- 
 come, and added to her words of greeting : " Ah, if 
 you'd only brought Miss Anne with you ! " 
 
 He walked up to the gate of the Manor after tea 
 and met some of the villagers he knew. All of them 
 
134 MANY JUNES 
 
 asked questions about Anne, some of them about Dun- 
 ster. None of them mentioned the Admiral, nor did 
 any of them seem to be glad to see him for his own 
 sake. He passed the Rectory and the church, from 
 which a youngish clergyman, dressed in the extreme 
 of Anglican costume, came out and looked at him as 
 he would have looked at any other stranger. He 
 came to the lodge, thatched and latticed and rose cov- 
 ered, where Mr. Williams had read with him and sub- 
 dued his own longings, and looked in through the gate. 
 He had a glimpse of the lawn and the cedar and the 
 lake. Some children were playing on its banks with 
 the old punt that Dunster had repaired for him and 
 Anne. He knew that if he were to open the gate and 
 walk up the drive to the house he would find most 
 things unchanged there, for he had been told that the 
 newcomers had brought no furniture with them, but 
 had settled down in the house just as it was. He 
 could scarcely believe that he was so near everything 
 that would have spoken to him of the past years, for 
 lie felt an utter stranger as he stood there without the 
 gate of his paradise. His diffidence forbade him to call^ 
 on the people who now occupied his home and ask that 
 he might see it again. He stood there for a long time 
 and then went back to the farmhouse. The next 
 morning he went away. He could bear no longer the 
 painful pleasure to which he had looked forward 
 through many months. •^i 
 
 When Hugh had been at work in his office about a 
 year he made a friend. Charles Kynaston was the son 
 
WORK 135 
 
 of a clergyman working in a poor part of Liverpool, 
 the eldest of a large family of boys, whose spirits a 
 childhood of some hardship had not succeeded in dim- 
 ming. He was a merry youngster, with tangled fair 
 hair and blue eyes and a gentle manner, not exceed- 
 ingly apt at the work he had now been put to do at 
 the desk next to Hugh's, but thinking himself lucky to 
 have the opportunity of doing it, and showing more grit 
 and determination to learn than might have been ex- 
 pected from his otherwise careless happy demeanour. 
 He made friends with Hugh at once, taking his reserve 
 by storm> and conquering it at once with the exhibition 
 of a good-will that was not to be denied. " Let's go 
 out to lunch somewhere together," he said, on the second 
 day of his clerkship. " I can only spend fourpence.'^ 
 
 That sum was expended on a roll and butter and a 
 cup of coffee, and Kynaston explained, as he ate it, 
 that he could have done very well with a steak or a 
 chop, as a morning's work made him ravenous, but that 
 his weekly budget did not permit of such extrava- 
 gance. 
 
 " I'm living on my screw, you know," he said cheer- 
 fully, as they settled themselves at a small marble- 
 topped table, comfortably alone in the crowded shop. 
 " It's a tight fit, but I'll manage it somehow. Now my 
 cousin George, who is just my age, is at Oxford — New 
 College — and has an allowance of five hundred a year. 
 That's as much as my governor has to bring up eight 
 of us on; and that's a pretty tight fit too, I can tell 
 you. I say, where do your people live.'' " 
 
136 MANY JUNES 
 
 " I've only got a sister," said Hugh. " She's in 
 Australia." 
 
 Kynaston cast a glance at him. " Oh, then you're 
 all alone here, like me," he said. " Where do you hang 
 out.? " 
 
 Hugh told him. " That sounds rather swell," he 
 said. " I've got diggings in Camden Town. Pretty 
 beastly they are too, but I couldn't afford better ones. 
 I don't mind. They do for working in, and I work like 
 the deuce." 
 
 "What do you work at.?" asked Hugh. 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you. I've got a typewriter. My 
 uncle gave it to me. He's a good old bird. He's 
 got a great big place in Shropshire — I used to go and 
 stay there sometimes in the holidays — and it costs him 
 a lot to keep it up, so he can't do as much for me as 
 he'd like. But he got me this job, and he thought I'd 
 be able to make a bit more by typewriting. I'm 
 swotting at it hke anything. I made nearly three 
 pounds last month. You see, I'm going to be married 
 as soon as I can afford it." 
 
 " Going to be married ! " exclaimed Hugh. 
 
 " Yes. Of course I'm a bit young — I suppose you 
 mean that — and so is she, but we shall stick to each 
 other, and as soon as I get a hundred a year we shall 
 start. We don't mind being poor ; we know we've jolly 
 well got to be. Look here, I expect we're going to be 
 pals all right, I don't mind showing you her photo- 
 graph." 
 
 He did so, with a glance round at his oblivious fel- 
 
WORK 137 
 
 low-lunchers, and Hugh gazed with interest on the face 
 of a pretty and very young girl, who, if the photograph 
 had not flattered her, seemed to have something of the 
 same cheerfulness and courage that animated her lover. 
 
 " Ethel Reresby is her name," said Kynaston, as he 
 put the photograph carefully back in his pocket. 
 " She's a brick, and I expect you'll say so when you 
 see her. We fixed it up directly I got this job. The 
 governor didn't mind a bit, no more did the mater. 
 They were married young themselves, and they say 
 they've never had reason to regret it. And of course 
 it was worse for them being poor than for me, because 
 both of them were brought up in rather big country 
 houses, and we've always been hard up ever since we 
 can remember. I say, were you hard up when you 
 were a boy ? " 
 
 " No," said Hugh, with some hesitation. 
 
 " You needn't tell me anything unless you want to," 
 said Kynaston generously, but with obvious disappoint- 
 ment at the brevity of the response. " I know some 
 people don't like talking about themselves. I do, if I 
 can get any one to listen to me." And he laughed 
 gaily. 
 
 " I don't mind telling you," said Hugh. " My father 
 was a sailor, and when he retired we went to live in a 
 jolly old place in Dorsetshire. I think he had plenty 
 of money then, but directly after my sister was mar- 
 ried he lost it all, and he died last Christmas." 
 
 Kynaston received this somewhat bald narrative 
 with interest. " Yours is rather a rummy name," he 
 
138 MANY JUNES 
 
 said. " Are you any relation to Sir Simeon Le- 
 lacheur? " 
 
 " He's dead," said Hugh. " He was my uncle." 
 "Dead, is he.'' I'm sorry. By George! His place 
 is better than my uncle's. We all went to Aldeburgh 
 one summer, and we went over and had a picnic in his 
 park. I never saw such a place, all red brick and 
 gables, and the most lovely gardens. Have you been 
 there often.? " 
 
 " No, never. He and my father were not friends." 
 Kynaston's sympathetic face fell. " That must have 
 been a bore," he said. " My uncle and my governor 
 are pals. My governor will have the living at Marrobel 
 when the old man who is there now dies — if he wants it, 
 that is. But he's full of work, and he likes Liverpool. 
 Still, it would be jolly for the young ones to live in 
 the country. I say, I suppose we ought to be getting 
 back. I like the work at the office, you know. It's 
 rather interesting." 
 
 A few days later Hugh asked Kynaston to spend the 
 evening with him. It was the first time he had enter- 
 tained any one in his life. Kynaston was unenviously 
 appreciative of his quarters. " By George ! " he said. 
 "This is slap-up. Jolly quiet and jolly clean! You 
 should see my digs! But I don't mind; they're good 
 enough for me for the present. I suppose you're 
 pretty rich, Lelacheur? " 
 
 Hugh told him what his income was. Reserve was 
 impossible in face of Kynaston's expansive confidences. 
 " I daresay it doesn't seem much to you," Kynaston 
 
WORK 139 
 
 said, " brought up like jou were ; but if I had it I 
 would get married tomorrow, and think myself lucky. 
 So would Ethel. You don't mind my calling her Ethel 
 to you, old chap, do you? You see, I've got no one to 
 talk to about it now, and if I don't talk to somebody I 
 feel I shall burst." 
 
 Hugh said that he did not mind, and they sat down 
 on the sofa to continue the conversation. Neither of 
 them smoked ; Kynaston because it was an extravagance 
 he could not afford in face of his plans for the future, 
 Hugh because it had never occurred to him to do so. 
 
 " I think you would find it rather a tight fit, as you 
 say, to get married on a hundred and twenty a year," 
 said Hugh. 
 
 " Tight fit ! " echbed Kynaston. " I'm going to get 
 married on a hundred a year. A hundred and twenty 
 would be luxury. Look here, I'll tell you all about it. 
 I didn't know how the governor would take it when I 
 first broke it to him. You see, I'm only nineteen and 
 she's not quite eighteen. Well, he was a bit surprised 
 at first, and said he must think it over. He never de- 
 cides in a hurry, the governor, but, on the other hand, 
 he always listens to what you've got to say. After 
 he'd thought it over for a day or so he said he'd no 
 objection to the engagement. ' You may both change 
 your minds,' he said, ' and if you do, say so frankly. 
 You won't be able to marry for some years yet^ but it 
 won't do you any harm to be engaged in the mean- 
 time, and what you've got to do, my son, is to keep 
 straight and remember you haven't only got yourself 
 
140 MANY JUNES 
 
 to think about. You must spend as little as you can, 
 and be careful of every penny. Then, if you're both 
 of the same mind when you are making enough to 
 marry on, you'll be able to face poverty together and 
 know what you're doing. I don't think you'll ever 
 make much money, but there is no reason why you 
 shouldn't both be happy on very little.' Now wasn't 
 that a good way of putting it, Lelacheur.'' I ask you 
 as a friend." 
 
 Hugh thought it was a very good way of putting it, 
 and Kynaston was encouraged to expatiate further on 
 the interest it gave you in life to have something to 
 look forward to. " That's what everybody wants," 
 he said — " something to look forward to. Now don't 
 you agree with me, Lelacheur? " 
 
 Hugh said he supposed he did. His own life would 
 be very dull if he could not look forward to seeing his 
 sister next year. "■ 
 
 Kynaston looked doubtful at this. " That will be a 
 great pleasure for you, of course," he said. " But you 
 want something more than that, you know. I mean to 
 say, that won't last for long. You're not content with 
 this life for its own sake, are you.' You wouldn't care 
 to go to the office every day and come home here by 
 yourself and just go on getting a little better off every 
 year." 
 
 " I don't see much use in troubling about it," said 
 Hugh. " I've got to do it." 
 
 Kynaston looked thoughtful. " Now look here, Le- 
 lacheur," he said. " I like you ; I took to you at once 
 
WORK 141 
 
 the fnoment I saw you. The other chaps in the oflBce 
 are all right, but they are different somehow. It 
 seems good enough for them to go on playing at figures 
 all their lives, and as for me, well, I'm not much good 
 at that, but I'm no good at all at anything else, so 
 I've got to grin and bear it. But it doesn't seem the 
 right thing for you. I remember my governor saying 
 once in a sermon that everybody ought to be discon- 
 tented. I didn't quite understand what he meant at the 
 time, but somehow it seems to fit you. You ought not 
 to be contented." 
 
 Hugh smiled rather bitterly. " If I began to en- 
 courage myself to be discontented," he said, " I should 
 be a great deal more unhappy than I am." 
 
 Kynaston turned this saying over in his mind. "Are 
 you unhappy .'' " he asked. 
 
 The desire for self-revelation surged up in Hugh's 
 mind and nearly brimmed over, but his native reserve 
 and the shadow of a whole year of almost speechless 
 aloofness drove it back. " Oh, not particularly," he 
 said. " I don't mind the work, and when I come back 
 here I read, and paint a bit. I like painting — or trying 
 to. I wish I could have been an artist." 
 
 " Ah, there you are ! " said Kynaston triumphantly. 
 *' I thought there was something you could do. Let's 
 have a look at your things. Do you mind.'' " 
 
 Hugh showed him various sketch-books. Kynaston 
 was enthusiastic. " By George ! I never saw any- 
 thing better," he said. " Is that where you used to 
 live.? What a jolly place ! Any one could see that was 
 
142 MANY JUNES 
 
 meant for water. My dear fellow, if you want to be 
 an artist, why evei* don't you? I'm not much of a 
 judge, but anybody could see these are first rate." 
 
 Hugh smiled. " I don't think you can be much of 
 a judge," he said. " Those you are looking at are 
 very bad. Perhaps I have improved a bit lately, and 
 anyhow I get a bit of pleasure out of it. But I know 
 quite well I could not make a living as an artist." 
 
 " Well, I don't see why not. You could if you'd 
 been taught." 
 
 " Perhaps I might have been able just to scrape up 
 a living. I don't know. I do know that if I could 
 have had just a bit of teaching when my father lost 
 his money I would have been pleased to risk it. I'll 
 teU you what I would have done, Kynaston. I would 
 have wandered about all over the country, painting, 
 and I would have lived on as little as ever anybody 
 could live on. And I should have been as happy as a 
 king. I love the country. It means more to me than 
 I can tell you. Oh, why couldn't I have done some- 
 thing of that sort instead of living like this ! " 
 
 He threw up his head with a tragic gesture. Kyna- 
 ston stared at him. " Do you feel as much as that 
 about it ?, " he asked. " You wouldn't have been half 
 so comfortable as you are now." 
 
 " What do I care about being comfortable.'' " said 
 Hugh. " Sometimes I feel choked, living like this and 
 going into the city every morning. Just think what a 
 life like that would have been. Nothing to tie you any- 
 where! You would go to the most beautiful places in 
 
WORK 143 
 
 the world. You would be working hard all day, per- 
 haps, but you would enjoy your work more than any- 
 thing else. If only I'd said something to my father! 
 I was thinking of it all the time. Everybody talked as 
 if being poor was the most terrible thing. I would 
 much rather have been poor and lived that life than 
 have been rich." 
 
 " Well, why didn't you.-* " asked Kynaston again. 
 
 Hugh's excitement died down again suddenly. " Oh, 
 I don't know," he said. " He wouldn't have listened to 
 me. And I daresay I shouldn't have made any money 
 at aU. It is too late now, anyhow. Let's put the 
 things away." 
 
 They dined together later and spent a quiet eve- 
 ning, discussing the future as it concerned Kynaston 
 and the past as it concerned Hugh. Hugh went to bed 
 with a heart lighter than it had been for a long time. 
 It was pleasant to have found a friend to talk to. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 TEN TEAES APTEE 
 
 Ten years went over Hugh's head, and Anne did not 
 come home. A boy was born to her about Christmas 
 time. Hugh had a letter from George, enclosing a few 
 pencilled lines from Anne, who told him that the child 
 would be called by his name. It was delicate from the 
 first, and Hugh, whose sympathy with his sister's hopes 
 and fears was kept at its keenest by their never-re- 
 mitted correspondence, was deeply grieved when he re- 
 ceived a cable in the early spring announcing the baby's 
 death. There had been no word in Anne's letters for 
 some time about coming to England. A year after 
 came a girl, a little Anne, whose career Hugh followed 
 with absorbing interest, through his sister's letters, 
 from babyhood onwards. She was a quiet child, Anne 
 wrote, a thorough Lelacheur, but more like him than 
 herself. Childish ailments, coming at the most incon- 
 venient time, prevented the journey home more than 
 once. Then came a bad drought, and after that a 
 bank crisis, which kept George Blomfield in Australia, 
 and following these vicissitudes, George's father, the 
 old squatter, died, full of years and honour, and the 
 visit was delayed once more. 
 
 In the meantime Hugh's life was coloured more by 
 events that took place on the other side of the world 
 
 144 
 
TEN YEARS AFTER 145 
 
 than by any changes in his own surroundings. The 
 three weeks of his yearly holiday stood out beyond 
 anything else in the monotonous months. He did not 
 go again to Foyle, nor indeed to the west country. 
 One year he went to Scotland, twice to the Lakes, to 
 Wales, to Brittany, and later to Switzerland, and the 
 Black Forest. He sought out always some quiet and 
 beautiful place, and stayed there until it was time to 
 go back to his work, never travelling about. The hills 
 and the water and the forests soothed and consoled 
 him, but during the first few days he spent among them 
 the monotony of the dull confined life he had escaped 
 smote him more than at other times. He began to 
 look forward, after many years, to retiring and settling 
 down in peace amongst woods and fields. 
 
 His friendship with Kynaston continued and in- 
 creased. He never visited his friend at his poor 
 apology for a home, but Kynaston dined with him once 
 a week and they were much together at other times. 
 Hugh was a good deal better off than his friend. He 
 had more aptitude for the work they were both en- 
 gaged upon, and rose to a position of some responsi- 
 bility sooner than he had had any reason to anticipate. 
 Miss Wilkinson, meekly resigned to her lot, died about 
 the time that he had to leave Mrs. MQlett's house, and 
 left him the small remains of her former fortune. He 
 moved to larger rooms, which he furnished himself, and 
 for a bachelor of inexpensive tastes and habits was well 
 off. Kynaston struggled mightily to rise above the 
 level of poverty, never quite succeeding. He watched 
 
146 MANY JUNES 
 
 Hugh's rise without jealousy, and indeed he was the 
 happier of the two, and his ingenious economies gave 
 him more pleasure than his friend gained from his mod- 
 erate prosperity. He worked hard out of office hours 
 at his typewriting. The men and women engaged in 
 that pursuit were fewer then than they have since be- 
 come, and he had as much work as he could accomplish. 
 
 " I've had to refuse a good order," he told Hugh one 
 evening when they were together. " I can't cram in an- 
 other half-hour's work. I worked tiU one o'clock last 
 night and went to sleep over the machine." 
 
 An idea occurred to Hugh which he thought over 
 carefully for a day or two. It was at the time when 
 he had received the money left him by his aunt, part of 
 which he had expended in furnishing his rooms. A 
 week later he proposed to Kynaston that he should lend 
 him money to start a typewriting office, in which he 
 could employ salaried assistants, he himself super- 
 intending them and busying himself in acquiring a 
 further connection. , 
 
 Kynaston was at first startled and then excited at 
 the suggestion. " I believe it would pay," he said. " I 
 could get a lot more people if I tried." 
 
 " You would have to give up your work at the oflice," 
 Hugh reminded him. 
 
 Kynaston became thoughtful. " That's a certainty, 
 and this is a risk," he said. 
 
 Hugh made no reply. 
 
 " There's another thing," said Kynaston, " I'd take 
 a loan from you, old chap, with as much pleasure as 
 
TEN YEARS AFTER 14.7 
 
 jou would oifer it to me ; but I don't care much about 
 having any sort of a debt. It complicates matters." 
 He rubbed his fair towzled hair perplexedly. It was 
 plain that he was attracted by the idea. " I believe 
 it would pay," he said again. 
 
 " I'm pretty sure it would," replied Hugh. " Your 
 heart would be in it, for one thing, and you, would 
 be working for yourself and not for somebody else." 
 
 " Not quite for myself, either," put in Kynaston. 
 
 " Well, no. But you will never go very far in the 
 office. You know your work as well as you can, but 
 you don't care for it." 
 
 " And I should care • for this. You're quite right, 
 and I'm ever so much obliged to you. Why, she and 
 I could do it together, Lelacheur, if it turned out well, 
 and we could get married on it. I should have girls 
 to do the work and she could look after them. It 
 would be glorious. But I don't know. I'm not sure." 
 
 " As far as my money goes," said Hugh, " you can 
 pay me five per cent, interest on it. I should be glad 
 to have it out at that as long as it was worth your 
 while to keep it in the business. There would be no 
 obligation. It would suit me as well as you." 
 
 " It's most awfuUy good of you," said Kynaston 
 again ; " I'U think it over very carefully." 
 
 Finally a modified arrangement was come to. Kyna- 
 ston was not to resign his clerkship for six months, 
 nor to take an office, but he was to employ as many 
 assistants, working at their own homes, as he could find 
 employment for. By the end of that time, if he had 
 
148 MANY JUNES 
 
 enough regular work to justify the plunge, he was to 
 take it. It gave Hugh an added interest in life to 
 watch the progress of the experiment, and to encourage 
 Kynaston in his anxious labours. These succeeded as 
 well as either of them could have expected, and at the 
 end of the appointed period of probation Kynaston cut 
 himself adrift from the Insurance Company and opened 
 his own modest ofBce. Six months later he was 
 married. 
 
 Hugh, at this time twenty-six years of age, but grave 
 and reserved beyond his years, played the part of bene- 
 factor to the young couple, both of whom regarded him 
 with affection, and almost with reverence. His wedding 
 present was a cheque, handsome enough for one of his 
 means, that only a sort of stately tact with which nature 
 and solitude had endowed him enabled him to induce 
 them to accept. With part of it they furnished the two 
 rooms in which they were to begin their married life 
 and with part they paid for a week's honeymoon. Hugh 
 went to Liverpool and acted as his friend's best man. 
 He was treated by Kynaston's father and mother with 
 great consideration, and by Kynaston's many brothers, 
 who were all of a very lively disposition, as a guest of 
 honour, but not one with whom they could associate on 
 equal terms. When he had seen the bride and bride- 
 groom oif to their honeymoon in the Lake District he 
 went back to London, wishing that he had been able 
 to take a more active part in the diversions of the 
 family, and wondering whether his youth were already 
 over at twenty-six. 
 
TEN YEARS AFTER 149 
 
 Kynaston's venture prospered moderately. He and 
 his young wife threw themselves into it with enthusiasm 
 and were as happy as possible. Before their first child, 
 to whom Hugh stood godfather, was born they moved 
 into a tiny house, at which Hugh was a constant visitor, 
 and at which he always received the warmest welcome. 
 It was the only house, with the exception of Kynaston's 
 father's, at which he had ever visited since his boy- 
 hood, and they were his only friends. 
 
 At last, ten years after Anne had left England, 
 Hugh found himself one afternoon in the month of 
 June waiting on the platform of the London terminus 
 where the train would presently arrive which would 
 bring his sister to him from her long voyage across 
 the sea. He was nearly half-an-hour too early. He 
 paced up and down underneath the spread of the iron 
 girders and ties, and saw the blue sky like a wall at 
 the far end of the arched roof, with the rows of steel 
 rails curving away under it between the houses. He 
 was now twenty-eight, a thin, dark young man, 
 dressed with the inconspicuous neatness of a city clerk, 
 but with a/ certain grave distinction of bearing which 
 his well-worn clothes could not detract from. The 
 people who presently began to fill the platform, waiting 
 like himself to greet their friends from the other side 
 of the world, all looked at him as he walked up and 
 down, and some of them wondered audibly who he 
 might be. 
 
 The hands of the big clock crept on; groups of 
 
160 MANY JUNES 
 
 porters strolled in a leisurely way on to the platform 
 and stood talking at its edge; one of the signals on 
 the bridge across the rails fell; an engine appeared 
 round the curve and rolled slowly in towards them 
 with its heavy freight ; the train came to a standstill, 
 and instantly there was a scene of bustle and greeting. 
 Hugh's heart beat violently; he could not see Anne or 
 her husband in the crowd, and he had an unaccountable 
 impulse to turn and go away before they should show 
 themselves. Then he saw Anne coming towards him 
 with outstretched hands — the old, dear Anne, with her 
 dark eyes smiling at him and her mouth trembling 
 a little. The ten long years of separation were bridged 
 by their embrace, and they were as close together as if 
 they had never been parted. George Blomfield, bronzed 
 and bearded, and a good deal bigger than when he had 
 last seen him, gave him a mighty grasp of the hand. 
 By his side was a little girl, who looked up at Hugh 
 gravely out of her mother's eyes, and took her hand 
 out of her father's and put it into his. 
 
 Hugh drove with them to their hotel, where he was 
 to stay as long as they should be in London. 
 
 " We sha'n't be here long," said George, as they 
 drove through the streets. " We want the green fields. 
 Anne has fixed up a little surprise for you. Come, out 
 with it, Anne." 
 
 " I will tell him when we get to the hotel," said Anne. 
 
 George bore the child away when they were once in 
 the rooms that had been engaged for them, and left 
 the brother and sister alone together. 
 
TEN YEARS AP'TER 151 
 
 " Oh, Hugh ! " said Anne, taking both his hands in 
 hers, " it breaks my heart to see you looking so old 
 and grave." 
 
 " Not grave now that I have you with me," answered 
 Hugh. 
 
 " It has been so much worse for you than for me," 
 said Anne. " I have had George and my little girl, 
 and you have had nobody." 
 
 " I have had you. You have never been far from 
 my thoughts, and your happiness has been mine, as well 
 as your sorrows." 
 
 Anne's eyes filled with tears. "My poor little baby 
 boy," she said. " I thought I never should get over 
 that. But little Anne came to make amends, and I 
 have got the best husband in the world. Yes, I have 
 been happy, and now that I have come back to you 
 for a time I want nothing else in the world. We will 
 live the old days over again, Hugh." 
 
 " Not at Foyle, I am afraid," said Hugh. 
 
 Anne smiled at him. " Yes, at Foyle," she said. 
 " That was my secret. George has taken Foyle for 
 the summer, and you are to come down there with us on 
 Saturday. He arranged it by mail through an agent, 
 and we determined to tell you nothing about it tiU it 
 was all settled." 
 
 Hugh, alone in his bedroom dressing for dinner, found 
 himself whistling. He broke off in consternation at 
 himself. He had not done such a thing for ten years. 
 
 They all went to a theatre that evening. Little 
 Anne, sitting between Hugh and her father, looked 
 
152 MANY JUNES 
 
 around her in open-eyed astonishment, and during the 
 first act kept her eyes fixed upon the unaccountable be- 
 ings on the stage before her. During the interval 
 Hugh answered her many questions, which seemed to 
 show that the dramatist had not made his purpose as 
 clear as he might have done. Little Anne, however, ap- 
 peared satisfied with her uncle's explanations, and, at 
 the beginning of the second act, leaned her head against 
 his arm and went quietly to sleep. 
 
 " She has taken wonderfully to you," whispered 
 Anne, in the darkness. 
 
 Hugh made no reply, but he saw little of the play 
 during that act, his heart was so full of a new sen- 
 sation. 
 
 When Anne had put the child to bed Hugh went in 
 to say good-night to her. She put her arms round his 
 neck and kissed him. " Are you going to stay with 
 us. Uncle Hugh.?" she asked. Being satisfied on this 
 point, she said : " I'm very glad," and went imme- 
 diately to sleep. 
 
 Two days later they travelled down to Foyle to- 
 gether. Little Anne sat by Hugh in the train, and 
 looked out of the window. She asked him many ques- 
 tions: about the rain that was falling heavily, and 
 whether he thought it would stop when they reached 
 the end of their journey; about the long miles of houses 
 and suburbs ; about the greenness of the trees and fields, 
 which she called paddocks, remarking gravely on their 
 smaUness ; about the country roads and hedgerows ; 
 about the tents at Aldershot ; about the towns and vil- 
 
TEN YEARS AFTER 153 
 
 lages through which they passed, and especially about 
 the tunnels. She spoke quietly and slowly, but as if 
 she expected her inquiries to receive serious attention. 
 Her father teased her lovingly, and every now and then 
 summoned her to a lionlike embrace. She rebuked him 
 for his foolish speeches, kissed him when he hugged 
 her, and then returned to her seat by Hugh and again 
 took up the thread of her observations. Anne chatted 
 gaily. She seemed very little older than when she had 
 first travelled down to Foyle with her father, but she 
 would fall suddenly silent, and her eyes told tales as 
 she looked at her brother and her little daughter. 
 
 The train drew up at Southampton. The rain had 
 ceased and patches of blue showed through the clouds. 
 There were the mudflats and the children playing on 
 them, the yachts at anchor and the salt smell of the 
 sea, " This is where Uncle Hugh and I met when we 
 first went down to live at Foyle together," she told the 
 child. " Do you remember, Hugh.? " 
 
 Hugh looked at her without speaking. It was very 
 plain that he remembered. 
 
 George captured the child, and Anne and Hugh 
 talked together as they went on through the deep 
 glades and across the heaths of the New Forest, with a 
 stop at Bournemouth, and on again through the resin- 
 ous odour of pines, past the shining expanse of Poole 
 Harbour, and into the beautiful Dorsetshire country, 
 which has been made to live as no other county in Eng- 
 land has been made to live, by the hand of a master. 
 " Do you reHQ,ember this ? " they said to one anotherj 
 
154 MANY JUNES 
 
 and : " How that brings it all back ! " Once again they 
 were boy and girl together^ with no sorrows saddening 
 their memory, and no shadow from the future lying 
 across their path. 
 
 They came in the late afternoon to Lydmouth, 
 perched in a hollow of the cliffs facing the sea and the 
 broad sands, and drove through the well-remembered 
 country to Foyle. The same waggonette in which they 
 had first made the journey carried them quickly along 
 through rain-washed air, and' the familiar scents and 
 sounds greeted them as they passed one unchanged 
 landmark after another. ^ Anne's laughing pleasure 
 came very near to tears as they drove over the bridge, 
 and saw the river and the trees and the thatched cot- 
 tages of Foyle before them. The child gazed about 
 her wonderingly. She sat with one of her hands in 
 Hugh's, the other in her mother's, and seemed to be 
 in accord with everything they felt. They came to 
 the Manor, unaltered within and without. The sense 
 of home-coming was almost bewildering as they stood 
 in the cool hall and saw the half-forgotten but all fa- 
 miliar things around them. 
 
 " You two go and look round the house," said 
 George. " Little Anne and I will go down to the lake 
 and see if we can find the old punt." 
 
 Anne and Hugh went through the old rooms to- 
 gether. When they came to the schoolroom they stood 
 silent and looked about them. It was rather shabbier 
 than of old, but scarcely anything had been altered in 
 it. The furniture was the same and the carpet and 
 
TEN YEARS AFTER 155 
 
 the wallpaper. They called each other's attention to 
 little things. There was the smoke stain on the old- 
 fashioned marble mantelpiece; the first half of Anne's 
 name scratched on the window-pane; the same old 
 cavernous easy-chair, always shabby but now almost 
 disreputable, for the possession of which they had 
 sometimes struggled years before. It was almost im- 
 possible to believe that ten years had passed since they 
 had last seen it all. The appeal of inanimate things 
 was never stronger. They stood together at the win- 
 dow, looked into each other's eyes, and laughed for 
 pleasure. 
 
 Hugh's happiness was not without alloy. " If it 
 couid only last ! " he said. 
 
 " We won't look forward," said Anne. " We will 
 enjoy every hour of it while it does last. I would have 
 made the long journey for only an hour of this." Ahd 
 she laughed again, looking out of the window to where 
 her husband and her little child were standing on the 
 lawn by the water. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 LITTLE ANNE 
 
 ** I THINK, jou know, Uncle Hugh, that you and I are 
 like the old people, and mother and father are the 
 children." 
 
 Hugh and little Anne were sitting in the old chair 
 in the schoolroom, with the window open and the cur- 
 tains moving gently in a light June breeze. They often 
 sat together like this and talked quite gravely about 
 many things. He could never tell her enough about 
 her mother's girlhood, and she pressed for the smallest 
 details. What was she wearing when they did this or 
 that? Was it before she put her hair up, or after? 
 Did she run when they went down to the lake together, 
 or only walk? She had the same stories over and over 
 again, and if he altered them, in however small a par- 
 ticular, she corrected him. She would tell him about 
 her life in Australia, showing the same meticulous ac- 
 curacy as to details as she demanded from him. " It 
 is all so different, and you have never been there," she 
 said once. " But you seem to know all about it. Uncle 
 Hugh." 
 
 " You see, I was quite alone," said Hugh, " and of 
 course I thought a great deal about the people I loved, 
 and liked to hear what they were doing." 
 
 " We talked a great deal about you too, mother and 
 156 
 
LITTLE ANNE 15T 
 
 I," said little Anne, " and often wished you were 
 there." 
 
 The child would sit on his knee, nestling up to him. 
 She was not demonstrative, neither was he. He never 
 devoured her little face with kisses, as her father did a 
 hundred times a day; but they were always satisfied with 
 one another's company and were together for hours like 
 old and tried friends. She had inherited her mother's 
 sweetness of ^disposition, but was without her gaiety and 
 restlessness of mind. Sometimes her father tried to 
 romp with her, thinking it was unnatural that she 
 should be so grave and quiet. She entered into his 
 mood as far as she could, and without impatience, but 
 when he left off playing with her she went back to her 
 book or her long, intimate confidences. Hugh's sub- 
 dued but never-faihng sympathy with her quaint 
 thoughts, and his quiet way of bearing her company, 
 drew them more and more together. 
 
 Anne, during those early days at Foyle, seemed to 
 throw oif her years of motherhood. She was a happy 
 girl again, and ran laughing and singing through the 
 rooms of the old house and the beautiful gardens, as if 
 no time had passed since she had left them. But it 
 was with her husband she laughed and played, and not 
 with her brother. To George Blomfield, Foyle was as 
 much a place of happy memories as to her or Hugh. 
 Very often he and Anne were together long hours of 
 the day, while Hugh and little Anne talked quietly 
 apart. 
 
 Kynaston and his wife came down for a few days. 
 
1S8 MANY JUNES 
 
 Kynaston, after a glance round at the situation in 
 which he found himself, and a few minutes in the com- 
 pany of his host and hostess, threw off the weight of 
 his struggles against poverty which, owing to the con- 
 current growth of his business and his family, remained 
 about the same as it had always been, and became a 
 merry-hearted boy again. It was necessary to his en- 
 joyment that his wife should share it in equal propor- 
 tion, and she did so, in, a rather more subdued fashion. 
 With arms entwined they stood before Hugh on the 
 lawn, waiting to be summoned to dinner, and told him 
 they had never been in so delightful a place, nor met 
 so entirely agreeable people as his sister and brothei;- 
 in-law. / 
 
 Hugh went up with Anne after dinner to look at 
 the child sleeping, as his custom was. Standing by her 
 little bed, with the night-light flickering dimly on walls 
 and ceiling, Anne put her hand on his shoulder and 
 said in a whisper : " Hugh, I thought you were to tell 
 me everything about yourself in your letters ? " 
 
 " I have done so," said Hugh. 
 
 " Not about your goodness to those nice people. 
 You don't know how gratefully they talk about you. 
 They say they owe everything to you." 
 
 Hugh turned away awkwardly. " I invested some 
 money, which is bringing in a very good return," he 
 said. "That was all." 
 
 " Dear Hugh, I love you for it all," she said, " and 
 for all your goodness and sweetness to little Anne. I 
 always used to lead you in the old days, didn't I? But 
 
LITTLE ANNE 159 
 
 I look up to you now as ever so much wiser and better 
 than I am." 
 
 Hugh smiled at her. " Better than you, my dear.? " 
 he said. " You must not upset all my ideas, Anne." 
 
 She put her arm through his and they went out of 
 the room together, closing the door softly behind them. 
 
 " I wish you could be happy as George and I are," 
 she said, " and those two dear cheerful people. I 
 wish you could have children of your own; you would 
 love them dearly." 
 
 " I shouldn't love them more than I love little Anne," 
 he said. 
 
 The long June days passed away. The hay was cut 
 and carried, the roses bloomed. The Kynastons went, 
 and a few other guests came and went too. They 
 amused themselves about the house and garden, and 
 rode and drove over the country, sailed at Lydmouth, 
 and were merry and light-hearted, or merely content, 
 as their several natures impelled them to be. There 
 was hardly ever a cloud in the sky, and the long days 
 were filled with out-of-door occupations. " Except 
 the year we were married," said George, " this is the 
 best holiday I have ever had in my life," and he enjoyed 
 every hour of it. " If I'm rich enough in twenty years' 
 time," he said again, " I'll buy Foyle, and Anne and I 
 will come and end our days here. There is no place 
 like it." 
 
 George and Anne talked together one night, when 
 they had been at Foyle for rather more than a fort- 
 night, and Hugh's time with them was coming to an end. 
 
160 MANY JUNES 
 
 " I wish he could have stayed with us for the whole 
 summer," Anne said. 
 
 " He wiU come down every week-end," said George. 
 " Poor chap, it must be devilish dull for him alone in 
 those stuffy rooms." 
 
 " He is nearly always alone. I wish he had come 
 out to us when father died. He would have been hap- 
 pier, I believe." 
 
 " He's an obstinate beggar. Old Dunster couldn't 
 move him." 
 
 " Mr. Kynaston says he is wonderfully good at the 
 work he has to do: he has got on faster than anybody 
 else in the ofBce." 
 
 " I don't blame him for sticking to it, but, by Jove, 
 what a life! I would rather hump my swag in the 
 Bush than get rich over his job." 
 
 " But Hugh isn't like you, George. He knew we 
 should be very glad to have him with us, but he knew, 
 too, the life in the Bush wouldn't have suited him. 
 I respect him for making up his mind as he 
 did." 
 
 " People seem to think that work on a big station 
 means nothing but riding about on a horse and sleep- 
 ing under a gum-tree. I wish 'it did. There's a good 
 deal more office work than I care for, and he could 
 just as well have done some of that. I should like to 
 have him there. Can't you get him to come back with 
 us.?" 
 
 "I wonder if he would, George. Oh, I should be 
 so glad ! " 
 
LITTLE ANNE 161 
 
 " So should I. We'd cheer him up. I hate to see a 
 fellow of his age looking like an old man." 
 
 " Poor, dear Hugh ! He has a fine character, George. 
 Look how the Kynastons spoke of him. And he wasn't 
 meant to live the dull lonely life he lives now. See 
 how sweet he is with little Anne ! He is different alto- 
 gether from what he was when we first came home." 
 
 " I don't know about that. He doesn't eat much, 
 and he says he doesn't sleep well." 
 
 " I know he is not very well just now. I mean that 
 he is different in mind. He has lost that sad anxious 
 look." 
 
 " He must be doing very well, now. Of course I 
 couldn't give him anything like what he is making here. 
 And he'll go further still, from what Kynaston told me. 
 Perhaps it's a pity to persuade him to give it up." 
 
 " I will see what he says, at any rate. I should love 
 to have him with us ; and I don't know what little Anne 
 will do if we go away and leave her dear uncle 
 behind." 
 
 Anne talked to Hugh the next afternoon. They sat 
 in the old log hut on the island, looking over the water 
 and the lawn towards the house. She had no need to 
 press him. Directly she mentioned her wish he said: 
 "Do you and George still want me, Anne.'' " 
 
 " Oh, Hugh ! " she answered, " we want you more 
 than ever. It will be dreadful to go back and leave you 
 behind." 
 
 " Well," he said, " I have been thinking over it. I 
 am very tired of my life here, and, after being with 
 
162 MANY JUNES 
 
 you again, I don't think I could stand going back to 
 my old ways. It might be ten years before you came 
 over again, and little Anne would be grown up." 
 
 " Come back with us, Hugh. I don't know what 
 little Anne would do without you now. You ought to 
 ' have been with us all these years." 
 
 " I don't think that. But things are different now. 
 I have made my own way. I have saved some money 
 and should not be dependent. And, from what George 
 has told me of his occupations, there might be some 
 work I could do." 
 
 " Oh yes ; he said so last night. Hugh, you will 
 come, won't you? " 
 
 " I am a cautious fellow, you know, Anne. I must 
 think things over very carefully." 
 
 " But, dear Hugh, what is there to think over? We 
 shall be so happy all together: George and you and 
 I and little Anne. I am sure you can't be happy in 
 London, all alone." 
 
 " I am rather afraid of happiness. I have had it 
 before me once or twice in my life, and it has come 
 suddenly to an end." 
 
 " Oh ! I know, Hugh. And you are so young still. 
 But you would be happy with us, wouldn't you? And 
 we should so love to have you — until you married and 
 had a home of your own." 
 
 " I shouldn't want to marry, Anne. That is what 
 wiU make it possible for me to come to you, if I do 
 decide to come. I shall be able to make my own living, 
 and that is all I want. I will talk to George and see 
 
LITTLE ANNE im 
 
 what he suggests in the way of work. I want to come 
 back with you, but I can't quite make up my mind. 
 Something seems to be pulling me back." 
 ' " You are not very well, Hugh. You must not go 
 back to London till I get you quite right. There is 
 nobody to look after you there. You don't see things 
 in their right colours when you are out of health. 
 There is nothing to hold you back. Talk to George 
 and settle everything tonight. I believe when you have 
 made up your mind you will wonder why you ever 
 hesitated. And you will give up your work in London 
 at once, won't you-f" Then you can be here with us 
 till we sail, and I will look after you." 
 
 He looked at her affectionately. " Tfhe same dear 
 adventurous kind-hearted girl as ever ! " he said. " I 
 don't think I shall want much looking after. Your 
 extravagant housekeeping has upset me a trifle. That 
 is aU." 
 
 He talked to George that evening after dinner. It 
 was a lovely night, warm and stiU. The dining-room 
 window was open and the moths flitted round the 
 candles on the dinner-table. George expressed himself 
 with the heartiest good-wiU. " I will find you plenty of 
 work," he said. " You can put out of your mind once 
 for all any idea of living on us. A man with your 
 training will be of the greatest possible use. By Jove ! 
 won't old Dunster be pleased ! And Anne and the kiddy 
 too. Let's go and tell her." 
 
 They went out on the terrace, where Anne was sit- 
 ting, and talked over their plans until late at night, 
 
164 MANY JUNES 
 
 picturing the life they would lead together in the far- 
 oif land under the Southern Cross, wandering far in 
 spirit from English Toyle, lying white and still behind 
 them in the light of the moon. 
 
 They went together up to the room where the child 
 was sleeping in her little white bed. " She will be so 
 happy when we tell her," whispered Anne, shading the 
 light from her darling's face. Hugh bent down and 
 kissed her softly on the cheek. She stirred in her sleep 
 -and whispered " Good-night." 
 
 Hugh went to bed light at heart, but feeling strangely 
 tired and ill, in spite of his happy thoughts. The next 
 day he was lying in his room stricken down with 
 typhoid fever, Foyle Manor, for all its memories and 
 its smiling face, had played them false, and he lay 
 between life and death for many weeks. 
 >...........] 
 
 Struggling back feebly to health and reason after 
 long dark days, Hugh became aware of the constant 
 presence of his sister. Hovering on the borderland be- 
 tween the unrealities projected by a mind striving to 
 regain its balance, and the soothing influence of conva- 
 lescence, he had constantly mistaken her for the little 
 child, her namesake. She was so quiet, so unlike the 
 Anne of old days, and when at last he regained full 
 consciousness, and saw her thin pale face, with the dark 
 eyes full of pain and trouble, a sense ©f agonizing loss 
 pierced him, even through the apathy of his weakness. 
 She kissed him gently and hid her face. " Little Anne," 
 he whispered, surprised to find himself so weak that he 
 
LITTLE ANNE 165 
 
 could hardly articulate. Then she turned away from 
 him and went out of the room. 
 
 They coxild not keep the news from him for long» 
 The grass was already growing over the grave of 
 little Anne, his friend, in the green churchyard of Foyle^ 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE CHUETONS 
 
 On a cold dark day in November, Hugh stood on the 
 quayside and watched his sister and her husband slowly 
 moving away from him in the big ship which was to take 
 them back to Australia. He kept his eyes fixjed on his 
 sister, a sad figure in black, crying unrestrainedly, as 
 the great steamer was warped slowly out into mid- 
 stream. Then when he could see her no longer he 
 turned and went back to his dreary rooms, too sick at 
 heart to care what became of him, or whether he lived or 
 died, while Anne and her husband, fortunate at least in 
 one another's love, were steaming south, to make the 
 best of a childless home. 
 
 Hugh went back to his work in the Insurance office, 
 living desolately through days and months, each as dull 
 and dreary as the last. When his recovery had been as- 
 sured, his brother-in-law had reopened the subject- of 
 his future plans, and pressed him still to go out to 
 Australia with them. 
 
 " I can't do it, George," he had said, and would not 
 let himself be persuaded. Anne, in the numbness of her 
 own grief, had not been able to rouse herself to combat 
 his resolution, and they sailed away without him. 
 Poor, loving, light-hearted Anne, so cruelly bereft; he 
 never saw her again. 
 
 166 
 
THE CHURTONS 167 
 
 Such utter iiesolation as Hugh felt for months after 
 this second downfall of all his hopes could not last for 
 ever. Time and the common round of daily duties 
 slowly healed the wound, and his life went on much 
 as before — the monotonous days bringing him neither 
 good nor evil. He thought constantly of the dead 
 child. He carried a picture of her about with him, and 
 looked at it when he was alone. A photograph of her 
 and her mother, which had been on his mantelpiece for 
 two or three years, he put away in a drawer of his 
 writing-table, which he locked. Twice a year he went 
 down to Foyle and visited her grave — once at Christ- 
 mas time, when it was cold and bare, and again at 
 Easter, when flowers were growing about it. His grief 
 for her loss presently merged into a yearning for the 
 love of home and children. The subdued sense of lone- 
 liness with which he had lived during the first ten years 
 of his manhood was sharpened into a definite longing. 
 When the pain of his bereavement had died down he 
 was still unhappy. Outwardly his life was little 
 changed. He did his tale of work and prospered in 
 it. He read more than ever. After little Anne's 
 death he did not touch his painting for a year. Then 
 when he went to Switzerland in August he took it up 
 once more, and gained some pleasure from it. 
 
 The only people in England whom he could call his 
 friends were the Kynastons. He went often to their 
 house in Camden Town. It was a poor house, shabby 
 and crowded. Both Kynaston and his wife worked 
 hard, but poverty was always treading on their heels. 
 
168 MANY JUNES 
 
 They faced the world with gallant hearts. Their chil- 
 dren brought them plenty of anxiety but stiU more 
 happiness. Hugh often envied his friend as he went 
 back at night through the noisy streets to his own quiet 
 and comfortable rooms. He thought sometimes that if 
 he himself were to marry and beget children to cling 
 roimd him, to comfort his heart, his life might yet be 
 saved from the dreariness which he saw stretching in 
 front of him through a long succession of years. But 
 his income, though more than sufficient for his own 
 needs, was not large, and he knew that he lacked the 
 pluck and spring of mind with which his friend faced 
 the constant pressure of poverty. Besides, his acquain- 
 tances were so few, and among them all he knew of no 
 girl or woman whom he could picture to himself as 
 sharing his life. 
 
 Five years went by in dull monotony, broken only 
 by the additional sorrow brought by the news of his 
 sister's death in the far-off country where she had 
 made her home. Hugh thought of her as rejoining her 
 children, and would gladly have given up the remain- 
 ing years of his own cheerless life to be at peace, as 
 Anne was. Somehow, ever since he had stood on the 
 wet quay and seen her moving away from him, he had 
 felt that the break in the cords which had bound them 
 together was final. The bitterness of parting had been 
 met then, and his grief at Anne's death was more for 
 the sake of George, her husband, than for his own. 
 
 One late September, three or four years after Anne's 
 death, Hugh was staying in an hotel on the coast of 
 
THE CHURTONS 169 
 
 Yorkshire. He had put off his main holiday until 
 Christmas time, when he was going to Rome, and had 
 come here for a week's rest. The hotel had been a 
 country house of moderate size, which had been en- 
 larged by the addition of a larger barracklike 
 structure. It stood on the summit of a cliff six 
 or seven hundred feet above the level of the sea, 
 and from its windows could be seen a noble stretcli 
 of country — dark moorland, intersected by hillside 
 farms and cottages and little patches of cultivated 
 ground, while the great sweep of a bay rimmed it, 
 ending in another steep cliff, in a cleft of which, four 
 miles across the sea, nestled an old red-roofed fishing 
 village, crowned by a stone-built church. The air was 
 strong and keen. The house, assailed by 'fierce winds, 
 sometimes wrapped in clouds when elsewhere the sky 
 was blue, sometimes standing in sunshine above the sea 
 of vapour, had once been remote and unknown in a 
 wild country. Then a single line of railway, skirting 
 the coastline, had made it accessible from the great 
 watering-place twelve miles away. The little hamlet 
 had been seized upon for development. The big hotel 
 had sprung up gourd-like ; streets had been marked out 
 round the railway station, and a few houses built, 
 looking strangely out of place among the loose stone 
 walls, the rough roads and the bare fields; and there 
 the change had been stayed. Glorious as it was on 
 stiU days of summer and autumn, with the air pure and 
 fresh from blowing over miles of heather and miles 
 of sea, this bleak upland, on which no tree could grow 
 
170 MANY JUNES 
 
 straight, except in the sheltered hollows, seemed to re- 
 sent capture by man's enterprise. The new houses 
 looked ashamed of their newness, the older part of 
 the hotel, grey and lichened, beaten upon by years of 
 wind and rain, as if the building which had been joined 
 on to it were a monstrosity to which it could never ac- 
 custom itself. During two months in the summer it vas 
 full to overflowing. For the rest of the year it stood 
 empty, new and old alike patiently opposing them- 
 selves to the wild spirit of the place. 
 
 On a ledge of the cliff, below the level of the house, 
 and approached by steps cut in the rock, had been 
 made many years before a terraced garden of consid- 
 erable extent. Thousands of pounds had been lavished 
 on this costly freak, and but little had been done in 
 the way of cultivation. But the years had made it 
 beautiful. They had aged the crenellated battlements, 
 and the tide of vegetation had flung itself against the 
 rocks, the piled-up stone walls, and the rough-hewn 
 stairs and passage ways, and framed the grass and the 
 paths and the flower beds in a natural setting. You 
 could stand in shelter on a pavement of great time- 
 worn blocks of stone and look down across tumbled 
 rocks interspersed with spaces of green rabbit-eaten 
 turf and tangles of gorse, to where the sea lay far below. 
 Gulls floated to and fro, uttering their mournful cry, 
 sometimes on a level with the cliff top, sometimes be- 
 neath you. The height was so great that sheep feed- 
 ing^ on the lower coombes were dwarfed to white 
 maggots, and breakers among the great rocks on the 
 
THE CHURTONS 171 
 
 shore looked like ripples on a pebbled beach. The cliffs 
 rose high to the right, and sea-birds sunned themselves 
 on inaccessible ledges. To the left was the great 
 sweep of the bay and the roUing moors climbing to still 
 -higher ridges. 
 
 To this beautiful place Hugh came on a golden eve- 
 ning in late September. He had the great hotel nearly 
 to himself. It had been crowded a fortnight before, 
 but a week of storm and fierce gale had emptied it, 
 and it would close its doors for the winter very 
 shortly. He took long walks over the moors, along 
 the cliffside and by the sea, or sat in the terraced gar- 
 den watching the sea and the gulls, reading and paint- 
 ing. He was refreshed and invigorated, and his life 
 seemed to him less gloomy than it was wont. 
 
 There were two people among the few in the hotel, 
 a lady and her daughter, who had arrived the day after 
 himself. Mrs. Churton was a woman of middle-age, tall 
 and upright, rather colourless, both in mind and fea- 
 ture, whose tendency was to consider herself superior to 
 any company into which she might be thrown. Her 
 daughter, Mabilia, was a younger replica of her, not 
 in her first youth. Her eyes were slightly hard, her 
 features correct. She was always carefully dressed 
 and her hair neatly braided. Hugh felt no desire to 
 make the acquaintance of either of them, and for 
 the first evening of their arrival they kept to 
 themselves and surveyed the people around them 
 coldly. 
 
 On the second evening Hugh sat next to Mrs. Chur- 
 
172 MANY JUNES 
 
 ton at dinner. She did not address herself to him, but 
 the intimate conversation which she carried on with her 
 daughter seemed designed to reach his ears and those 
 of the other visitors. Mrs. Churton could not imagine 
 what had induced her to go to Scarborough for the 
 fortnight during which they were at a loose end. It 
 was an utterly odious place. It was fortunate that they 
 had been told of this hotel. The air was good, and 
 though the accommodation was not what she could have 
 wished it would do very well for a week. After that, it 
 appealed, they were going to pay visits in the country, 
 until it should be time to settle in London again for 
 the winter. She mentioned the names of the people to 
 whose houses they were going; one of their hosts re- 
 joiced in a title, and Mrs. Churton seemed to rejoice in 
 it too, though she did not intend to convey that im- 
 pression, for she said that it was very tiresome that 
 they should have to go there at all. As Hugh went 
 up to bed that night she was asking the manageress 
 about the guests in the hotel, and he heard his own 
 name mentioned. 
 
 The next morning he set out for a long walk across 
 the moors, and did not return until the afternoon. 
 Then he took a book and went down on the terrace 
 to read for an hour. He settled himself in an embra- 
 sure of the low turreted wall, and looked out across 
 the sea. His book lay unopened on the stone seat be- 
 side him, and he let his thoughts wander far away. 
 The white gulls floated beneath him, calling sadly ; the 
 level rays of the sun threw long shadows ; the sea mur- 
 
THE CHURTONS 173 
 
 mured softly far below. His long walk had tired him, 
 but he felt well, and not unhappy, as the past years 
 came up before him and assailed him with gentle 
 thoughts of those whom he had loved and lost. Youth 
 had passed him by, and he had missed the best in life, 
 but the fair scenes of nature still had power to charm 
 him. He would never quite lack consolation so long 
 as he had eyes to see the beauty of the world and ears 
 to listen to its quieter cadences. 
 
 He was aroused from his reverie by the clang of an 
 iron gate, by voices, and footsteps on the gravel. Mrs. 
 and Miss Churton came down through the garden and 
 up on to the stone platform where he was sitting. It 
 ran some twenty or thirty yards along by the low wall, 
 and they began to walk up and down it. He was 
 mildly annoyed at the disturbance of his privacy, but 
 did not expect that they would do more than pass him 
 by without recognition. He was somewhat surprised 
 when Mrs. Churton bowed to him as they passed, and 
 when they had gone the length of the terrace and back 
 again she stopped and entered into polite conversation 
 with him. He stood up beside her. " My daughter," 
 she said, and Hugh acknowledged the unnecessary in- 
 troduction. 
 
 When she had made a few remarks upon the weather 
 and the beauty of the scene around them, Mrs. Churton 
 disclosed the purpose with which she had addressed him. 
 This was to invite him to a defensive alliance against 
 the other people staying in the hotel. " It is so dis- 
 agreeable," she said, " to be obliged to mix up with 
 
174 MANY JUNES 
 
 these provincial business people. They spoil every- 
 thing." 
 
 Hugh looked at her wonderingly. " They seem 
 quite inoffensive," he said. 
 
 " Yes ; but their accent ! " returned Mrs. Churton. 
 "It sets one's teeth on edge. I said to my daughter 
 last night that it was odd that in a big hotel like this 
 there should be only one gentleman with whom we could 
 associate." 
 
 The remark was addressed so pointedly to him that 
 he bowed, still wondering. A faint flush appeared on 
 Mabilia Churton's thin cheeks. " Everybody here 
 seems quite respectable, mother," she said, " and they 
 do not interfere with us." 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Churton, " they are hopeless 
 vulgarians. I saw your name in the visitors' book, 
 Mr. Lelacheur. Where was it that we met Sir Richard 
 and Lady Lelacheur, Mabilia.'' " 
 
 " At Homburg," replied Miss Churton rather 
 shortly. "At least, they were staying there at the 
 same time as we were." 
 
 " Ah ! that was it. I was thinking that we met them 
 at some country house. It is not a common name, I 
 suppose.? " 
 
 " Sir Richard Lelacheur is my cousin," said Hugh, 
 as she paused for a reply. " But I have never met 
 him." 
 
 Mrs. Churton seemed a little disconcerted. There 
 was a short pause, and then she went over again the 
 information as to her future movements which Hugh 
 
THE CHURTONS 175 
 
 had heard the night before at dinner. " How long do 
 you intend to stay here? " she asked. 
 
 Hugh told her that at the end of the week he was 
 going back to his work in London. 
 
 Again she seemed a trifle put out, and there was an- 
 other pause in the conversation, which Hugh did noth- 
 ing to fill. " Well, we shall be able to talk to one 
 another after dinner," she said graciously. " I think 
 I will go in, Mabilia, it is getting cold. But do not let 
 me drag you in if you would rather be out of doors." 
 
 But Mabilia preferred to go in with her mother, and 
 with stately bows they left Hugh again to himself. 
 
 He talked to Miss Churton at dinner that evening, 
 and afterwards in the drawing-room. She was less 
 commanding in conversation than her mother, and made 
 no attempt to penetrate his reserve about himself. She 
 had read a good deal, and talked of what she had read, 
 not with any particular insight, but with enough in- 
 telligence to interest Hugh, who seldom had an oppor- 
 tunity of discussing books. It appeared also that she 
 painted a little, and when Hugh confessed that he did 
 so too Mrs. Churton struck in and suggested that they 
 should make a sketching excursion together. " I do 
 nothing of that sort myself," she said loftily, " but I 
 can sit and read a book while you are both at work." 
 
 Hugh was rather surprised the next morning to find 
 himself setting out for the lower coombes alone with 
 Mabilia Churton. Mrs. Churton had a slight cold and 
 would not appear until lunchtime. So Mabilia in- 
 formed him, in a manner which seemed to imply some 
 
176 MANY JUNES 
 
 relief. She did not suggest a postponement of the ex- 
 pedition, and they went down the steep hillside together. 
 " It was perfectly ridiculous of mother to have thought 
 of coming," she said : " she would not have sat still 
 for ten minutes, and we should not have done anything." 
 
 " I hope her cold is not serious," said Hugh. 
 
 " Oh no, I don't think so," she replied indifferently. 
 
 They settled themselves under the shelter of a rock 
 and prepared their apparatus. " May I look at your 
 book? " asked Miss ^Churton. Hugh handed her his 
 sketch-book diffidently, and she turned over the pages. 
 " Oh ! but these* are excellent," she said. " I shall be 
 quite ashamed to show you mine." Whether or no she 
 expected to be asked to do so, Hugh did not make 
 the request. " These are all foreign," she said, when 
 she had looked through them. " You have travelled a 
 good deal, Mr. Lelacheur." 
 
 " I usually go abroad every year," Hugh replied. 
 
 " I am very fond of the English country. We were 
 staying at a beautiful place in Sussex last year. I 
 should like to show you. But I could not get anything 
 right. It was beyond me." 
 
 She took up her own sketch-book and showed him 
 the picture of a large house in a large garden. Hugh 
 looked at it gravely. He could find nothing to praise 
 in the hard outlines of a building with innumerable 
 windows and chimneys, or the garish colours of beds 
 of geraniums and calceolarias. " It is not a very good 
 subject," he said. 
 
 " No," she agreed ; " but I wanted to have a picture 
 
THE CHURTONS 17T 
 
 of the house. It is a fine place. It belongs to some 
 great friends of ours." 
 
 Hugh did not ask the name of the owners, but turned 
 a leaf. " Don't look at any more," she said, and took 
 the book from him. " They are not good enough ; but 
 it amuses me to try." 
 
 They both set to work, and painted for a couple of 
 hours, with only short snatches of conversation, and 
 those chiefly on technical details. The high cliff was 
 in front of them, partly in sunshine, partly in purple 
 shadow, and the sea to the left. Hugh washed in his 
 colours with a practised hand. Miss Churton stippled 
 them weakly. She showed no illusions as to her own 
 lack of skill, but admired his work generously. Pres- 
 ently she laid aside her book altogether and watched 
 him finish his drawing. " I think you ought to succeed 
 in anything you take up," she said. " You have 
 strength and decision." 
 
 Hugh held his brush poised for a moment. " They 
 are very good qualities in drawing," he said ; " I hope 
 you may be right." 
 
 She cast a glance at his face, half furtive, half curi- 
 ous, and then rose from the ground. " I think we 
 ought to be getting back," she said. 
 
 They made their way along the cropped grass be- 
 tween the rocks and the gorse, and climbed the steep 
 hillside. They talked about the places they had seen 
 abroad and in England. Miss Churton's chief interest 
 was in those places in which she had stayed as a guest, 
 and when Hugh mentioned some country renowned for 
 
178 MANY JUNES 
 
 its beauty she would say : " Do you know the So-and- 
 Sos? I believe they live thereabouts." 
 
 " I know very few people," he said at last. " I have 
 always lived much alone." 
 
 "Were you brought up in London?" she asked. 
 
 " I have lived in London for a long time," he replied. 
 
 She told him something of the course of her own 
 life. Her father had been in the army, and had died 
 before she was born. She and her mother had always 
 lived in the same house in the Cromwell Road, but 
 they had been about a good deal. She had been to 
 school at Eastbourne. Her father's family came from 
 Kent, but their place had been sold. Her mother's 
 people lived in Staffordshire, but they saw very little 
 of them. They had a great many friends in London, 
 but no relations. Hugh accepted these disclosures 
 courteously, but without putting questions which would 
 elucidate them further, and without making any dis- 
 closures in return. 
 
 They reached the hotel about luncheon-time. Mrs. 
 Churton had apparently thrown off her indisposition, 
 and met them in the hall. Hugh inquired after her 
 health and, having been reassured on the point, went 
 up to his room. " I hope you have had a pleasant 
 morning," said the elder lady, eyeing her daughter 
 rather sharply. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Miss Churton indifferently. " Mr. 
 Lelacheur is quite an artist." 
 
 "Who is he?" asked her mother. "Have you 
 found out anything about him? " 
 
THE CHURTONS 179 
 
 " He is a gentleman," replied Mabilia. " I don't 
 want to know any more than that." 
 
 " Don't be aggravating, Mabilia," said her mother. 
 " Where does he come from? What does he do? " 
 
 " I reaUy don't know, mother. He is not exactly ef- 
 fusive in giving information about himself." 
 
 " I hope he is all right. I wonder if he is really, 
 a cousin of Sir Richard Lelacheur's. So many people 
 lay claim to relationships which they do not really 
 possess." 
 
 " I am quite sure Mr. Lelacheur wouldn't." 
 
 " He said he was a cousin. A cousin may mean 
 anything. However, it will be quite easy to find that 
 out." 
 
 Mabilia turned away. " I like him," she said ; " he 
 is reserved, but he is interesting, not like other men." 
 
 That afternoon Hugh walked to the fishing village 
 on the other side of the bay. Mrs. Churton had asked 
 him his plans after luncheon, and, when he had told 
 her of his intentions, had said : " That is a long walk, 
 
 rather farther than I " But her daughter had 
 
 broken in : " You and I will go to the foot of the moor, 
 mother, after we have rested a little." 
 
 He walked along the cliff top, had tea at a little inn 
 overlooking the sea, and came back by the sands, 
 climbing up the steep cliff path homewards in the 
 dusk. He thought a good deal about the Churtons as 
 he walked. It had very seldom happened to him that 
 any woman had shown a desire for his society, but 
 he could not be unaware that he would be a good deal 
 
180 MANY JUNES 
 
 in their company as long as they stayed under the same 
 roof. He was not quite sure whether he was annoyed 
 or gratified. He did not like Mrs. Churton. Unso- 
 phisticated as he was, he could hardly help labelling her 
 as impertinent and inquisitive. His knowledge of the 
 world, curiously defective on certain points, did not 
 teach him that his name and connection would be likely 
 to prove attractive to such a woman as she, but he 
 did realize that the questions she had already asked 
 both directly and indirectly, about himself, would con- 
 tinue to be asked, and she would not be satisfied unless 
 he told her much more of his history than he had any 
 intention of telling her. Anne's name and that of her 
 child were sacred to him. In- his loneliness he had 
 never spoken of them, not even to the Kynastons, and he 
 would never do so, if he could help it, to Mrs. Churton. 
 His penetration did not show him any of these un- 
 pleasant qualities in Mabilia Churton. The few direct 
 questions she had put to him in the morning had not 
 been persisted in, and he had not recognized any other 
 motive than one of companionship in the confidences 
 which she had given him. He thought she was pleased 
 to find some community of taste in a chance acquain- 
 tance, and he was inclined to reciprocate that pleasure. 
 His life was not lived so consistently alone because he 
 preferred solitude. He was incapable of taking the 
 first step in an acquaintanceship, but, if it was oifered 
 to him, he had no impulse of rejection. It was pleasant 
 to talk over the things that interested him to a well- 
 educated woman. He thought of Mabilia Churton as 
 
THE CHURTONS 181 
 
 well educated, and she was refined in speech and manner. 
 He rather hoped that it would be suggested that they 
 should go sketching together again. It did not occur 
 to him to suggest it himself. 
 
 It was dark when he reached the hotel. He read for 
 an hour and then went down to dinner. His place was 
 next to Miss Churton, and he talked to her and her 
 mother afterwards until they retired for the night. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MABILIA 
 
 HncH was walking with Mabilia Churton across the 
 heather. Mrs. Churton had accompanied them to 
 where the road on the crest of a high hill was crossed 
 by another, and continuing, lost itself immediately in 
 a moorland track. There was a great stone windmill 
 here and a little inn. To the south a wide prospect 
 of hill and valley opened out, edged by the rugged 
 coastline; to the north and the west rolled a great ex- 
 panse of moor, brown and suUen under a lowering sky. 
 The wind tore across it from the north-east, bringing 
 spurts of rain, and every now and again a gleam of 
 sunshine which brightened the dark undulations. She 
 watched the two figures dipping into the hollows and 
 rising again to the ridges until they were moving 
 specks in the vast solitude of the moor, and then turned 
 and went down the hill to the comfort of her fire. 
 
 Hugh and Mabilia had been together a good deal 
 during the past week. As long as the mellow Septem- 
 ber sunshine had continued they had made sketching ex- 
 cursions, and since the break in the wteather they had 
 taken long walks over the windy heathj along the sands 
 and on the rough hilly roads. Their conversation, 
 during these expeditions, was intermittent. Hugh had 
 told his companion nothing, as yet, of his past life, and 
 
 182 
 
MABILIA 183 
 
 she had ceased trying to draw confidences from him. 
 She seemed to have fallen into his own reticent mood, 
 was content to draw or to walk for a long time together 
 .without speaking, and seldom now talked of the details 
 of her own life. But every now and then she would cast 
 at him a look which showed that her thoughts were busy 
 with him during the silence, and that it was not for 
 lack of desire to know that she refrained from seeking 
 to pierce the shell of his reserve. Mrs. Churton's ret- 
 icence had been far less admirable, but he had received 
 her fishing conversation with a grave courtesy, mixed 
 now with some wonderment that she should persist in 
 it, which made it plain that her curiosity was divined, 
 and that it was not his intention to satisfy it. 
 
 They had walked nearly a mile across the moor be- 
 fore either of them spoke. Then Hugh broke the si- 
 lence with a premonitory cough. " Miss Churton," he 
 said, " we have been together a good deal during the 
 last few days. You have been very kind in taking me 
 as I am but, if you care to hear it, I should like to 
 tell you something of my early life." 
 
 A blush had mounted Mabilia's thin cheeks at his 
 first words. " Don't teU me anything you don't wish 
 to," she said hurriedly ; " I am quite content that we 
 should be friends as we are now." 
 
 " I live so little in the world," he said, " and see so 
 few people, that it did not occur to me, at first, that 
 perhaps I owed it to Mrs. Churton to " 
 
 " Oh ! I know what you mean," she broke in ; 
 "mother is hke that. She wants to know all about 
 
184 MANY JUNES 
 
 everybody — ^what they do and who their relatioiiB are. 
 I have seen that it has surprised you. But / haven't 
 worried you with questions, have I? I haven't tried 
 to find out your secrets." 
 
 " I have no secrets," he replied, with a smile. " I 
 suppose a lonely man is apt to keep things to himself 
 that other people might talk abbut. I have had losses 
 which it is diiBcult for me to speak of. But I will 
 teU you about them." 
 
 She did not seek to dissuade him further, and he told 
 her the tale of his life, baldly. " My father and his 
 brother, Sir Simeon Lelacheur, whose son you and Mrs. 
 Churton have met, were not friends," he said. " My 
 father was a sailor, and when he retired from the serv- 
 ice we lived in the country — in Dorsetshire — ^he and my 
 sister and I. She married and went to live in Australia. 
 I was about eighteen then. A few months later my 
 father lost his money and soon after that he died. 
 I had to go and work in the City, and I have worked 
 there ever since. My sister and her husband and — and 
 her child, came over some years ago, and we went down 
 together to our old home. It was arranged that I 
 should go back to Australia with them. They were 
 my only relations, and I had very few friends. Then 
 I fell ill, and — and the little child fell ill too — it was 
 typhoid fever. I got better, but she died. They went 
 back without me, and after a few years my sister died 
 too. That is all my story. Miss Churton. It is sim- 
 ply this — that I have lived alone, and lost all of those 
 whom I loved." 
 
MABILIA . 185 
 
 Miss Churton's eyes were bent, her face was serious. 
 " I am very sorry," she said, in a low voice. 
 
 They reached home as the dusk was falling, and 
 Mabilia went up to Mrs. Churton's room. " Mother," 
 she said, " he has told me about himself." 
 
 Mrs. Churton was reclining in an easy-chair before 
 a bright fire. She laid aside her book and looked up. 
 " Well, and I think about time too," she said. " And 
 what is the profound secret that he lias been hugging 
 so closely.'' " 
 
 " There is no secret. He has had a sad life. His 
 father was in the navy, and " 
 
 " That I could have told you. I have just had a 
 letter from Mrs. Moxon-Jones. I asked her to look up 
 the family in a Peerage. Admiral Lelacheur was a 
 brother of Sir Simeon, the father of the present man. 
 This is his only" son, but Sir Richard has four boys, 
 so there is practically no chance of his succeeding. 
 However, the baronetcy is an old one. There was a 
 daughter who married, and died a few years ago in 
 Australia. That is my news. Now what is yours ? " 
 
 " That is mine too, except that Mr. Lelacheur's sister 
 had a child, who died as well. From the way he spoke, 
 I think he was devoted to both of them and has never 
 got over their loss." 
 
 " Well ; but you must have found out something else. 
 Why does he not know his cousins? He is the next 
 heir, if anything happened to them." 
 
 " His father and Sir Simeon quarrelled about some- 
 thing. He did not tell me what it was." 
 
186 MANY JUNES 
 
 " Well, but — I suppose his father must have been 
 well off — a retired Admiral. He is the only son." 
 
 " His father lost his money, and Mr. Lelacheur had 
 to go into the City. He has lived alone always. He 
 scarcely sees any one. Oh, mother, I am so sorry for 
 him." 
 
 " So am I," said Mrs. Churton, after a pause, re- 
 flectively. " Of course, that might account for his 
 secrecy, though, upon my word, I can't see what he 
 had to hide. It was impossible to get the least little 
 thing out of him." 
 
 " I wish you would leave off trying, mother," said 
 Mabilia, with some asperity. " I have never met a 
 man I liked so much, and if he did not feel that I was 
 his friend he would never have told me so much as he 
 has. I should think it was easy enough to see that 
 he cares nothing about knowing a lot of people, and 
 the sort of thing that we think so much about. You 
 can't impress him in that way, however much you 
 try." 
 
 " I am quite at a loss to know what you mean, 
 Mabilia," said Mrs. Churton stiffly. " Who has been 
 trying to impress him, pray.? " 
 
 Mabilia made an impatient movement. " I think we 
 understand each other pretty well, mother," she said. 
 " We are nobodies in particular, but we like to appear 
 somebodies. I can assure you that Mr. Lelacheur 
 doesn't care in the least who we are. If I am to keep 
 him as a friend — and I mean to if I can — you had better 
 drop all that. He knows nothing of the sort of life 
 
MABILIA 187 
 
 or the sort of people that we are interested in, and he 
 doesn't want to in the least. Let me make a friend for 
 once for the sake of what he is. You will only spoil 
 our friendship if you go on talking about relations he 
 has never known, and you don't know either." 
 
 " Really, Mabilia," returned Mrs. Churton, scandal- 
 ized, " you seem to want to make me out an arrant 
 snob." 
 
 Mabilia went out of the room without replying. 
 Her mother remained by herself some time longer. 
 When she met Hugh that evening her conversation un- 
 derwent a change. She talked of the books she had 
 been reading, not altogether without intelligence, and 
 about places, but very little about people, and Hugh 
 found himself more at ease in her presence than befor^. 
 Mabilia talked very little, but Hugh's sense of inti- 
 macy with her was sensibly increased. 
 
 The next day all three of them left, and Hugh trav- 
 elled with Mrs. and Miss Churton as far as York, and, 
 before taking leave, promised to call on them when they 
 returned to town in November. He sank back in his 
 seat with a slight sigh of relief when the train moved 
 off again. It was pleasant to be alone again. 
 
 The fine air and the exercise he had taken had done 
 him good. In the weeks that followed he looked back 
 with some gratification to his short autunm holiday, 
 and recalled the romantic scenery in which it had Ijeen 
 passed. It was natural that Mabilia Churton should 
 be connected in some measure with his agreeable recol- 
 lections, for she had been his companion and had shared 
 
188 MANY JUNES 
 
 his appreciation of that beautiful country. He did not 
 hear from her or her mother until they returned to 
 London towards the end of November. Then he re- 
 ceived a note asking him to dinner, and accepted with 
 some mild degree of pleasurable anticipation. 
 
 Mrs. Churton's drawing-room was what would have 
 been described in a house agent's catalogue as hand- 
 somely furnished. The curtains were of expensive ma- 
 terial, the carpet was thick and soft, there was a great 
 deal of gilding about the walls and the furniture, there 
 was a grand piano and a large glass cabinet full of 
 modern china and pottery. Hugh, punctual to the 
 hour named, waited here for some little time. He looked 
 round him with some curiosity, but found nothing to 
 please his eye. The water-colours on the walls were of 
 little value; there were no bookshelves, but on a small 
 table a few novels from the library, and some ladies' 
 papers. A light wallpaper, indeterminate in hue, gave 
 the room a cold appearance in spite of its lavish orna- 
 mentation. * He felt slightly depressed. 
 
 Presently Mabilia came in. She was dressed in 
 black, which showed up her fair but rather thin neck 
 and shoulders and her upright figure to some advan- 
 tage. There was a slight flush on her usually pale cheeks 
 as she shook hands with him, and her cold eyes were 
 rather bright. Mrs. Churton came in when they had 
 spoken a few words of greeting. She was rather more 
 elaborately dressed than her daughter, and her man- 
 ner was also rather more elaborate, but there was some 
 genuine warmth in her greeting, and Hugh had the 
 
MABILIA 189 
 
 gratification of feeling that both ladies were pleased to 
 see him again. 
 
 The dining-room was massively furnished, and had 
 an air of comfort which the drawing-room lacked. The 
 dinner was passable, 'but longer than Hugh Was accus- 
 tomed to. They were waited upon by two maids. They 
 talked of the week in Yorkshire which they had spent 
 together, and of the houses at which Mrs. Churton and 
 Miss Churton had since visited. Mrs. Churton had re- 
 covered some of her usUal rather bombastical manner, 
 but she no longer invited Hugh to cap her list of ac- 
 quaintances, and Mabilia spoke chiefly of the places they 
 had seen and not of the people. As Hugh walked home, 
 soon after ten o'clock, he compared in his mind the 
 manner of mother and daughter. He thought Mrs. 
 Churton's habit of dragging in the names of her titled 
 acquaintances upon all occasions detestable. He had 
 never before met a woman who did that, but her vain- 
 glory was so obvious that he could hardly mistake her 
 intention. He thought he could see that Mabilia found 
 this habit odious too, and was ashamed of it. The idea 
 caused him some discomfort, but it inclined him to re- 
 spect her the more. 
 
 During the next month he was a frequent visitor 
 at the house in the CromweU Road, and began to feel 
 at bome there. His liking for Mrs. Churton hardly 
 increased, but he was able to make allowances for her 
 disagreeable qualities, and found that they were, to a 
 certain extent, balanced by good ones. It surprised 
 him to find that she and Mabilia spent an evening a 
 
190 MANY JUNES 
 
 week at a girls' club in a poor part of Netting Hill, 
 and that nothing was allowed to interfere with this en- 
 gagement. He accompanied them there one evening. 
 Mrs. Churton was a different woman immediately she 
 entered the close brightly lit club-room. The girls 
 thronged round her. She spoke to them authoritatively 
 but kindly. The tricks of speech which she kept for 
 her more well-to-do friends had disappeared. She was 
 straightforward and sympathetic. She had a dozen 
 girls round her to one who sought the ear of her 
 daughter. Hugh was little at his ease, and Mabilia, 
 shaking off the girls around her, spoke to him aside. 
 " I hate all this sort of thing," she confessed. " I only 
 do it out of duty." Hugh felt suddenly depressed. 
 Mrs. Churton was busy organizing a game which should 
 take in the whole assembly, and called to Mabilia and 
 Hugh to help her. 
 
 At home Mabilia's manner pleased him much better 
 than her mother's. He met a good many people at 
 their house, some of whom he liked. But the majority 
 — of the women, at least — showed the same tastes and 
 inclinations as their hostess, and he had some difficulty 
 in warding off their personal interest in himself and 
 his position. Mabilia guarded him against the more 
 persistent of them. She allowed him to know that she 
 thought them impertinent. " I think it is odious," she 
 said to him once, " that people should make such a 
 fuss about things that don't matter in the least. None 
 of these women care for what you are; it is only who 
 you are that interests them." Hugh thought that this 
 
MABILIA 191 
 
 was very well said. Mabilia Churton, at any rate, saw 
 through the shams of her mother's world, and disliked 
 them. 
 
 Just before Christmas Hugh went to Rome. Once 
 again he was relieved to be by himself. On looking 
 back he realized that his friendship with the Churtons 
 had occupied him to the exclusion of many of the former 
 pursuits of his leisure. He had dined with them half-a- 
 dozen times, had been with them several times to con- 
 certs and plays, and had called on them, either on 
 Saturday or Sunday, every week since they had returned 
 to 'London. In thinking it over he was not quite sure 
 whether this constant intercourse had bettered his lonely 
 life or disturbed it to its detriment. He was quite 
 sure that a month's respite from it was grateful to 
 him. 
 
 Towards the end of his stay in Rome he had a mild 
 attack of influenza, from which he recovered suiEciently 
 to enable him to make the journey home at the proper 
 time. But, arrived once more In his rooms, he had a 
 relapse, and had to keep to them for a week. A note 
 to Mrs. Churton, in answer to an invitation awaiting 
 his arrival, brought that lady herself to see him. She 
 was the lady of the club again, sympathetic, capable, 
 and impretentious. She came twice while he was still 
 in bed, brought him fruit and light literature, and left 
 him feeling the better for her visits. When he left his 
 bed she brought Mabilia, who looked round upon his 
 possessions with curiosity, but showed by her manner 
 that she was ill at ease in a sickroom and wished her- 
 
192 MANY JUNES 
 
 self away. By the time he had completely recovered 
 Hugh liked the mother better than the daughter. 
 
 During the next three months he was as much with 
 them as before. One Saturday afternoon late in March 
 he and Mabilia were at Kew, in the rock garden. " It 
 is my ambition some day to have a cottage in the 
 coimtry with a large garden," Hugh told her. " I come 
 here at all seasons of the year, and when I get my 
 garden I shall know what to do with it." 
 
 "That is just what I should like too," she said. 
 " But mother hates the country, except just to go and 
 stay in a big house. I suppose I am doomed to live in 
 London all my life." She spoke discontentedly, as she 
 often did. " I woiild give anything to get out of it 
 aU," she said. 
 
 " You have a great many friends in London," said 
 Hugh. 
 
 "What do I care about all those people? " she re- 
 plied impatiently. " I shouldn't mind if I never saw 
 any of them again." 
 
 Hugh did not answer, and for the rest of the after- 
 noon Mabilia was more silent than her wont, and when 
 they came to the door of the house in the Cromwell 
 Road bade him good-bye without inviting him in. 
 
 It was after this that Hugh began to perceive a 
 change in the attitude of both ladies towards him. He 
 was not asked to the house so frequently, and when he 
 called upon them their behaviour was less cordial, and 
 even became slightly constrained. It was not until he 
 perceived that this was so that he began to ask himself 
 
MABILIA . 193 
 
 what he had expected of his friendship with the Chur- 
 tons. The answer was that he had expected nothing 
 except its continuance, without change and without de- 
 velopment. It would make little difference to his sub- 
 dued appreciation of life whether it continued or ceased, 
 but he had received kindness and hospitality from them 
 to such an extent that it caused him some distress to 
 feel that he was withholding any return that they might 
 expect from him. It was not until he asked himself 
 further what that return might be, that the truth 
 flashed across his mind. A friendship between a man 
 and an unmarried woman, according to the code of such 
 people as the Churtons, could not proceed without de- 
 velopment. It mijst lead to marriage, or at any rate 
 a proposal of marriage. 
 
 It was the first time that the idea had entered his 
 mind, but he had seen enough of the Churtons and their 
 friends to guide him to the reflection that it had prob- 
 ably been in theirs almost from the beginning. 
 
 There was abundant food for thought here, and he 
 thought long and closely, discovering many things both 
 about himself and about them. Of any feeling towards 
 Mabilia beyond a mild liking, founded partly upon pro- 
 pinquity, partly upon some community of taste, he had 
 none, but reflection pointed to a probably warmer re- 
 gard on her part. His ignorance of the world as she 
 and her mother viewed it, although less abysmial than 
 before he had known them, hid from him more than 
 a hint of other reasons for their desiring the declara- 
 tion which he was now pretty sure that they did desire. 
 
194. MANY JUNES 
 
 He was not likely to divine the wish that a woman of 
 Mabilia's age and upbringing might have for any mar- 
 riage which would not be an obvious step downwards. 
 He thought of himself, especially in view of the declara- 
 tion she had made in the garden at Kew, as being able 
 to oifer her a life which she would prefer to that which 
 she now lived — a simpler life, perhaps out of London, 
 and certainly away from the people by whom she was 
 now surrounded, and whom she had often told him that 
 she despised. For arousing that hope in her, however 
 unconsciously, he felt himself her debtor. 
 
 But what of himself .'' He was certainly not pre- 
 pared to offer his future in payment of that debt unless 
 it would add somewhat to his meagre stock of con- 
 tentment. Life had brought him little happiness, but 
 his solitude was something not to be exchanged lightly 
 for a companionship which might prove ifksome. If he 
 did offer himself to Mabilia he would not do so under 
 false pretences. There could be no declaration of love 
 where no love existed. But it was possible that two of 
 them together, both past their first youth, and asking 
 no great gifts of life, might help each other to some 
 increase of satisfaction in the years that remained to 
 them. 
 
 His liking for Mabilia hung between unwillingness 
 to withdraw altogether from her society, and uncer- 
 tainty as to the wisdom of a closer tie; no man could 
 ever have contemplated marriage from weaker com- 
 pulsion. But there was one consideration that turned 
 the scale. The thought of little children of his own 
 
MABILIA 195 
 
 to twine themselves round his heartstrings aroused de- 
 sire. This was the boon that marriage should bring to 
 him. It was a compelling one. His heart warmed 
 as he thought of it. He made his decision, and was 
 relieved that the inward controversy was ended. 
 
 He wrote to Mabilia saying that he should call on 
 the following afternoon, and asking that he might see 
 her alone. 
 
 The next day was Saturday. He left his work at 
 about two o'clock, went to his rooms and changed his 
 clothes, and walked round to the house in the Crom- 
 well Road. He stood on the steps for a moment after 
 he had rung for admittance and looked up and down 
 the respectable but rather gloomy street. The door was 
 opened, and closed behind him. 
 
 Mabilia was sitting on the sofa, with a book in her 
 hand. She sprang up nervously as he entered. " We 
 haven't seen you for nearly a week," she said, as she 
 shook hands with him. 
 
 " Miss Churton," said Hugh, " I have come to ask 
 you if you will be my wife." 
 
 He stood before her, tall, slight, rather sad-eyed^ 
 and looked straight at her. She turned away in some 
 confusion. " Let us sit down," she said. 
 
 It seemed to be for him to speak again, and he 
 found it more difficult than he had imagined. " We 
 have been friends for some time," he said. " I have 
 very little, I am afraid, to offer you. But I will try 
 and make you happy." 
 
 She met him much in the same mood as his own. She 
 
196 MANY JUNES 
 
 smiled at him and said : " I thought you might be com- 
 ing to say that, and I made up my mind to answer 
 ' Yes.' » 
 
 He was accepted. And again the word was with him. 
 
 He took the hand which lay beside him on the sofa, 
 and bent over it chivalrously. " I am a fortunate 
 man," he said. 
 
 She looked at him again, a little sadly. " I hoped 
 you might ask me, from the first," she said. "You 
 haven't asked me because you saw that, have you? " 
 
 " I have asked you," he said, " because I have nearly 
 always lived alone, and because, since I have known 
 you, I want to be alone no longer." 
 
 Her voice was a little tremulous as she answered: 
 " I have been very sorry for you. I will try and make 
 up for the sadness of your life as far as I can." 
 
 " I am sure you will do that," he said. " I am not 
 rich, but I can give you something of what you want, I 
 think. There will be no need for us to live in London." 
 
 " Do you think we shall be able to live in the coun- 
 try ? " she asked doubtfully. 
 
 " Not very far Out, perhaps," he said. " But we 
 can have a quiet little house, and a garden. You can 
 have the friends you choose. There ■ will be no need 
 for you to live the life you are tired of here. And 
 every year we can go away for three or four weeks, 
 to any beautiful place we may fix on." 
 
 " I think," she said hurriedly, " we had better make 
 no plans until you have talked to mother. But I will 
 do anything you wish, of course." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 PLANS 
 
 Mbs. Chueton sat at her writing-table in the room 
 she called the library, and Hugh sat on the other side 
 of the table in an easy-chair by the fire. The library 
 was about fourteen feet square, and was behind the 
 dining-room. It commanded a view of an ivy-covered 
 wall which bounded a gravelled square, euphemistically 
 termed " the garden." A plane-tree grew in one corner, 
 and it was bordered by a couple of feet of soil, over 
 which trailed the bare stalks of a Virginia creeper. 
 The room had a dark wallpaper, dark curtains, and an 
 old Turkey carpet. Mrs. Churton's writing-table oc- 
 cupied the middle of the floor. It was a large business- 
 like-looking structure, and was kept in extreme order. 
 A massive mahogany bookcase with glass doors con- 
 tained a collection of books which were seldom disturbed. 
 Over the mantelpiece was a proof engraving of the 
 picture representing lions prowling about the moonlit 
 Coliseum. Other engravings on the walls were Rosa 
 Bonheur's "Horse Fair," "The Landing of the Pil- 
 grim Fathers," " Two's Company Three's None," and 
 a large portrait of Queen Victoria. On the mantel- 
 piece were a clock set in a Greek temple of black marble 
 and two equestrian bronze figures. The chairs were 
 massive and rather shabby. 
 
 197 
 
198 MANY JUNES 
 
 " I am very glad to hear this news," said Mrs. Chur- 
 ton decisively. " I have long seen that you were at- 
 tracted by Mabilia, and it will do no harm now to say 
 that she has long been attracted by you." 
 
 Hugh murmured acknowledgments. 
 
 " It will be necessary to go into business matters," 
 she proceeded, leaning back in her chair and playing 
 with an ivory paper-knife. " But that need not detain 
 us long." 
 
 ( " My income is rather over five hundred a year," 
 said Hugh, as it seemed to be expected of him that he 
 should make a statement. " It will increase a little, 
 but will probably never be much more than six hun- 
 dred a year." 
 
 " It is very small," said Mrs. Churton uncompromis- 
 ingly, " but fortunately I am well off. Mabilia will 
 have nothing of her own until my death, but I shall be 
 able to allow her something in the meantime." 
 
 " If you care to allow her enough to dress upon," 
 said Hugh, " I will accept that on her behalf with 
 gratitude. Otherwise we will live upon my income." 
 
 " Have you made any plans as to living? " 
 
 " Mabilia would like to live in the country. We shall 
 not be able to do that for some years. But we could 
 find a house in some pleasant suburb — Hampstead, or 
 possibly a little farther out still." 
 
 Mrs. Churton held up her hands. " My dear Hugh," 
 she said, " I cannot consent to that. It would be ban- 
 ishment. Mabilia would dislike it extremely, and it 
 would not be fair to her." 
 
PLANS 199 
 
 Hugh's grave face became set. "I think you will 
 find you are mistaken," he said quietly. 
 
 " I am quite sure I am not mistaken," replied Mrs. 
 Churton. " Mabilia would consent to anything you 
 required of her. That is only natural. But she would 
 not be happy away from all her friends. She has been 
 brought up as you see " — Mrs. Churton waved her hand 
 to indicate the dun-coloured room — " and I could not 
 consent to give you my only daughter if she were to be 
 taken away from all the luxury and refinement to which 
 she has been accustomed, and the — the friends of posi- 
 tion among whom she moves, to be set down in a poky 
 house in the suburbs to live on a few hundreds a year." 
 
 Hugh looked somewhat surprised at this outburst, 
 and more than a little displeased. " May I ask what 
 you suggest? " he said, with his brows bent. 
 
 " What I suggest is that you should both live here 
 with me. For my own sake I do not want to lose my 
 daughter, and I cannot see that it is necessary. I 
 have more than enough for my own needs, and am quite 
 wiUing — more than willing — to share it with you." 
 
 Hugh thought for a moment. " It is a generous 
 proposal," he said, " but I am afraid I cannot accept 
 it, Mrs. Churton. It would never occur to me to marry 
 unless I could support my wife myself. If Mabilia is 
 willing to share my life she will share it all. Five hun- 
 dred a year is not poverty. She will miss very little 
 that she has been accustomed to." 
 
 " Now, my dear Hugh," expostulated Mrs. Churton, 
 " do listen to reason. I am not asking you to live here 
 
200 MANY JUNES 
 
 as my pensioner. If you please you may share in the 
 expenses of the house, although I do not wish it, and it 
 is not necessary. You will have this room to yourself. 
 I have thought it all over. I shall move all my things 
 upstairs, and you may decorate and furnish it as you 
 please. I should have liked to furnish it for you myself, 
 as my wedding present, but I know you have your own 
 things, and will prefer to have them. It will be en- , 
 tirely your own." 
 
 " You are very generous, Mrs. Churton, but I am not 
 thinking entirely of myself." 
 
 " Wait a nainute. Mabilia already has her own 
 boudoir. You will both have your own quarters as 
 much to yourselves as if I were not in the house. In 
 the daytime when you are away at your work Mabilia 
 will not be left alone. You ought to think of her, 
 Hugh, and what she will gain by continuing to live 
 here." 
 
 " I don't want to seem ungrateful for so much kind- 
 ness, but, to speak plainly, I would rather live in my 
 own house, even if it must be a small one. And I think 
 Mabilia would certainly wish it too." 
 
 "Will you ask her then.'' But there is no need to 
 settle anything in a hurry. We can talk it all over. 
 Whatever is decided, my dear Hugh, I feel sure that 
 you and Mabilia will be very happy together, and I am 
 unfeignedly glad that this engagement has taken place." 
 She rose from her table with a face that seemed to 
 show her pleasure to be genuine. Hugh was slightly 
 embarrassed by her warmth. " You are very kind," he 
 
PLANS 201 
 
 said awkwardly, and they went upstairs to the drawing- 
 room, where Mabilia was sitting. 
 
 Hugh stayed to dinner that evening and afterwards 
 talked to Mabilia alone. He told her of her mother's 
 suggestion. " I could not say much to her," he said, 
 with a smile, " but I knew that your wish was to get 
 away from the kind of life which Mrs. Churton believes 
 to be the only one you care to live. I knew that you 
 would be happier, as I should, in a house of your own, 
 even if it is not a very big one." 
 
 Mabilia looked down, plaiting a fold of her skirt. 
 " I think if mother wishes it very much," she said, " we 
 ought to consider her. She woidd be very lonely in this 
 big house all by herself." 
 
 " I am thinking of you — of ourselves," replied Hugh, 
 " not of your mother." 
 
 " But we must think of her a little, mustn't we? She 
 has always had me with her. She would miss me ter- 
 ribly." 
 
 " Have you talked over this plan with Mrs. Chur- 
 ton? " Hugh asked her. 
 
 "How can I have talked over anything yet? She 
 did just mention it, before dinner." 
 
 " Would you prefer to live here as she suggests ? " 
 
 " Oh! Hugh, don't speak like that. You know I will 
 do whatever you wish." 
 
 " But I want to speak of what you wish. Will you 
 tell me definitely whether you would rather go on living 
 here — the life you told me, often, you disliked — or that 
 we should be together in our own house? " 
 
202 MANY JUNES 
 
 " You know which I should prefer, for my own sake ; 
 but if it is a matter of duty " 
 
 Then at last he understood. " I must think over it," 
 he said quietly. " Now I think I will say good-night." 
 
 A sharp wind blew against him as he left the house. 
 The long street looked dreary and confined, the rather 
 pretentious porticoes on either side of it seemed to 
 guard the entrance to dull houses with no hint of home 
 about them, houses with heavy ugly furniture and no 
 brightness or warmth. He looked up at the sky, in 
 which a cold moon was riding half obscured by scudding 
 clouds. His eye was caught by a row of windows high 
 up in one of the houses, protected by white-painted 
 iron bars. Behind them were nurseries, and little chil- 
 dren sleeping in rooms faintly illumined. There were 
 happy homes behind the dull fronts of the houses in 
 the Cromwell Road. 
 
 He turned off into a narrow street and let himself 
 into the house in which he lived. He turned up the gas 
 in his sitting-room, sat down at his writing-table, un- 
 locked a drawer and took from it the photograph 
 of his sister and her child, and looked at it long and 
 sadly. 
 
 Hugh told Mrs. Churton the next day that as she 
 and Mabilia seemed to be in agreement on the point 
 he would consent to occupy her house after his mar- 
 riage. He spoke rather stiffly and not as if he were 
 accepting a favour, and he insisted upon contributing 
 the greater part of his income towards the expenses 
 of the household. 
 
PLANS 203 
 
 " But, iMy dear Hugh," expostulated Mrs. Churton, 
 " your living here will not cost me anything like four 
 hundred a year. The house is my own, and it does not 
 take much more than that to run it entirely." 
 
 " That is the only condition on which I can consent 
 to live here," Hugh replied, and with a glance aside at 
 him Mrs. Churton gave way. 
 
 It was settled that the wedding was to take place 
 in the middle of July, when Hugh would have a month's 
 holiday, which they were to spend honeymooning in 
 Switzerland. It soon became apparent that the cere- 
 mony was to be made as elaborate as possible. From 
 the first week it was talked about whenever Hugh was 
 present, details were discussed fervently, both by Mrs. 
 Churton and Mabilia, and .there was a constant can- 
 vassing of people who were or were not to be invited. 
 One evening Hugh was sitting in the room which was to 
 become his own, in the company of Mrs. Churton. 
 Mabila had left them alone together. Mrs. Churton, at 
 her table with a sheet of paper and a pencil, said: 
 " I should like to read you the provisional list of peo- 
 ple we have decided on." 
 
 " Surely," replied Hugh, with some impatience, 
 " there is no necessity to go into that now ! We are 
 still three months off the day." 
 
 "We cannot begin too early," said Mrs. Churton. 
 " I am methodical, and like to have something to work 
 on. Then we can add to it as names occur to us, and 
 no one will be forgotten. My first names are Sir 
 Thomas and Lady Ponder, Sir James and Lady " 
 
204 MANY JUNES 
 
 " I do not care to hear them, Mrs. Churton," Hugh 
 interrupted. " I can safely leave all that to you." 
 
 " Very well," said Mrs. Churton. " I have the list 
 of our friends, which can be added to. But I may as 
 well begin to put down those whom you wish to be 
 invited." 
 
 " You might ask Mr. and Mrs. Kynaston, if you 
 please," said Hugh. " I have no other friends in Eng- 
 land." 
 
 Mrs. Churton leaned back in her chair and tapped 
 the table with her pencil. " You would like an invita- 
 tion sent to — to your cousins, I suppose .'' " she said. 
 
 Hugh looked at her in surprise. " What cousins ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 " Sir Richard and Lady Lelacheur," replied Mrs. 
 Churton. " I know that there has been some family 
 disagreement, but on an occasion like this " 
 
 Hugh's face became dark. " I have not the slight- 
 est acquaintance with Sir Richard and Lady Lelacheur," 
 he interrupted. " Certainly I do not want them asked, 
 Mrs. Churton." 
 
 " Please do not be so impatient, Hugh," proceeded 
 Mrs. Churton in an even voice. " As I understand, it 
 was your father and not yourself who quarrelled with 
 the head of your family, and " 
 
 Hugh interrupted her again. " You will oblige me 
 by not referring again to my relations," he said, in a 
 cold, decisive voice, and Mrs. Churton, after a glance at 
 his face, desisted. 
 
 She often now cast these inquiring half-bewildered 
 
PLANS 205 
 
 looks at him. Since his engagement he seemed to have 
 altered completely. His courtesy to her remained the 
 sam,e, but the determined utterance of his will when 
 they were at issue — as now frequently happened — was 
 something she had by no means looked for. She was 
 beginning to feel doubtful whether she had been wise 
 in pressing him to begin his married hfe in her house. 
 Certainly she would not gain a useful subservient male, 
 to fall in with her manner of living and add to her op- 
 portunities. That had become so plain that it hardly 
 seemed possible that she could at one time have cast 
 Hugh for that role in anticipation. If he came into her 
 house he would do so as its master. 
 
 And his attitude to Mabilia had changed, not at 
 all in the way of becoming more loverlike. In her more 
 expansive moments of self-communion Mrs. Churton 
 sometimes said that Mabilia was broken-hearted. Ma- 
 bilia had been dedicated to marriage in her mother's 
 miad for the past twelve years or so, but falling in love 
 with her destined husband had never occurred to Mrs. 
 Churton as a necessary factor in the process. Mabilia 
 knew very well what she wanted in life, and Mrs. Chur- 
 ton regarded her as wanting exactly the same things as 
 herself, although she admitted, when she thought it 
 over, that MabUia's methods of gaining her ends were 
 more subtle than her own, and possibly more effective. 
 In this proposal of marriage which had at last come 
 to her, redeemed from being a mere taking of the best 
 that offered by the prospective bridegroom's connec- 
 tions, the surprising thing had happened. Mabilia, who 
 
206 MANY JUNES 
 
 had looked out from hard cold eyes at her vanishing 
 youth so long that no desire seemed to remain to her in 
 matrimony but that of a husband either rich enough or 
 well born enough to bring her some added considera- 
 tion, had softened before this dark melancholy man 
 who had been willing to make a friend of her, and she 
 had expressed herself willing even to share poverty with 
 him if he so desired it. The evening before Mrs. Chur- 
 ton's last recorded conversation with Hugh, Mabilia 
 had said to her: 
 
 " Mother, I wish you had not persuaded me to ask 
 him to live here. He has never been the same to me 
 since." 
 
 " My dear," said Mrs. Churton, " you could not pos- 
 sibly have buried yourself in a poky little house in the 
 suburbs. You would have been miserable." 
 
 " I am not sure," replied Mabilia ; " I don't think I 
 should have been miserable. If only he had pressed me 
 a little more! I shoidd not have stood out; I hardly 
 wanted to. I suppose the fact is he didn't care for me 
 enough. Directly he saw what I wanted he gave way 
 at once. But he is displeased to find out that I did 
 want it. Now, he is just making the best of his promise. 
 But there is to be no love between us. He is not so nice 
 to me as he was before we were engaged." 
 
 " He was always cold and reserved." 
 
 " Not always, to me. And I believe, if we had been 
 arranging now for our own home, it would have brought 
 us more together. I am very wretched." 
 
 "For goodness sake, child, don't begin to grizzle," 
 
PLANS 207 
 
 said Mrs. Churton. They were sitting before the fire 
 in Mabilia's room. " It is not in the least like you, 
 and you have everything in your own hands. If you 
 think that he will behave more as you wish him to in a 
 semi-detached villa, by all means take one. It is a 
 curious taste, but you know best what you can do with- 
 out. I won't stand in your way for an instant." 
 
 Mabilia dried her eyes and sat upright in her chair. 
 " No," she said. " It is too late now. If he is pleased 
 to be disappointed in me, I can't help it. I shall have 
 everything that I could ever have expected from mar- 
 riage — at my age: it would have been much too great a 
 risk to give it all up for something I never have ex- 
 pected — and probably shouldn't have got." 
 
 It was true that Hugh's attitude towards Mabilia had 
 changed. He was invariably, gravely polite to her, but 
 even the slight intimacy that had existed between them 
 before their engagement had disappeared. He was like 
 one fulfilling a bargain at the least possible expense. 
 He dined with her and her mother every Wednesday 
 night, and spent either Saturday afternoon and evening, 
 or Sunday, with them, never both. He never came to 
 the house unexpectedly, and never wrote to Mabilia ex- 
 cept in answer to a note upon some matter of detail. 
 He had suggested this extreme limit of intercourse him- 
 self, immediately after the question of their place of 
 abode had been decided, and had opposed to Mrs. Chur- 
 ton's expostulations and Mabilia's air of offence a quiet 
 firmness which contained neither retraction nor expla- 
 nation. 
 
208 MANY JUNES 
 
 One evening at the dinner-table, as Easter drew 
 near, Mrs. Churton proposed that he should accom- 
 pany them for a few days to the Isle of Wight. " We 
 generally have a week or ten days' jaunt then," she said. 
 " It is Impossible to remain in town when everybody 
 else is away." 
 
 " I am sorry that I shall not be able to come with 
 you," said Hugh. " I have other plans." 
 
 Mrs. Churton's rather highly coloured face took on a 
 slight shade of purple. " Other plans ! " she echoed. 
 " Surely, Hugh, you do not intend to stay away with- 
 out Mabilia — and me? " 
 
 " I am going down into Dorsetshire by myself," 
 Hugh replied shortly. 
 
 Mrs. Churton hesitated a moment, and Hugh pre- 
 vented her from pursuing the matter further by speak- 
 ing again in an even voice upon some subject they had 
 previously been discussing. 
 
 When the ladies went up into the drawing-room 
 Mrs. Churton said : " Really, Mabilia, you must speak 
 to Hugh about this. He behaves himself as if he were 
 an entirely free man. ' Going down to Dorsetshire by 
 myself,' forsooth ! I never heard of such a thing ! " 
 
 " He. is going to Foyle, where his little niece died. 
 I suppose she is buried there, though he has never told 
 me so, and he will not talk about her or his sister. He 
 went down there before he went to Rome at Christmas." 
 She spoke in a passionless voice, looking into the fire. 
 
 " Is he always going to hide up his past life from 
 you as if you were the completest stranger.? " inquired 
 
PLANS 209 
 
 Mrs. Churton warmly. " That I should certainly not 
 permit, Mabilia." 
 
 " I am afraid it is not a question of my permitting," 
 said Mabilia, in the same low tone. " He did talk to 
 ide just a very little about his sister before we were 
 engaged, but he has never done so since. You can see 
 for yourself, mother, that it is of no use my saying any- 
 thing. He will do as he pleases." 
 
 But she did go down to the hall with him that eve- 
 ning as he was leaving the house, and helped him on with 
 his overcoat. " Hugh," she said, " are you going down 
 to Foyle at Easter.?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered shortly. 
 
 " I should like to go with you." 
 
 Hugh turned away and took his hat from the hall 
 stand. " Thank you, Mabilia," he said, " I will go 
 alone. Good-night." 
 
 It was some weeks after this that Mabilia, egged on 
 by her mother, summoned up courage to address Hugh 
 herself upon the subject of his relations. " Hugh," 
 she said, " I hope you will not be annoyed at my men- 
 tioning it. Is it quite out of the question that you 
 should let your cousins know of our engagement? " 
 
 " My cousins probably already know of our engage- 
 ment," replied Hugh stiffly, " as Mrs. Churton took the 
 precaution of advertising it in the newspapers." 
 
 There was too much at stake for Mabilia to draw 
 herself up stiffly in return. " I am sorry you objected 
 to that," she said mildly. " Of course, you ought to 
 have been consulted, but an announcement in The Morvr 
 
210 MANY JUNES 
 
 ing Post is so much the usual thing that we never 
 thought you would have minded." 
 
 What Hugh had expressed himself about with some 
 severity was his published identification as " son of the 
 late Admiral Lelacheur, C.B., and nephew of the late 
 Sir Simeon Lelacheur, Bart." 
 
 " We need say no more about that," he replied, " and 
 I should like you to understand, if you really do not 
 understand already, that Sir Richard Lelacheur is as 
 much a stranger to me as if we did not bear the same 
 name, and I do not understand why you and Mrs. Chur- 
 ton should be so persistent in bringing his nan^ up. 
 At least," he added, with a shade of contempt in his 
 voice, " I suppose I do understand perfectly well." 
 
 Mabilia flushed scarlet. " I shall never mention his 
 name again," she said. " But you don't seem to reaUze 
 that, with all our friends who are coming to the wed- 
 ding, for you to stand absolutely alone will seem curi- 
 ous. It will certainly seem as if you were ashamed of 
 marrying me." 
 
 " I do stand absolutely alone, Mabilia," he replied, 
 more kindly. " You are n9t marrying the nephew of a 
 baronet; you are marrying a clerk in an Insurance 
 office. If I had not thought you understood that, and 
 were prepared to share my obscurity, I should not have 
 asked you to marry me at all. If you are dissatisfied 
 with me, you can take back your consent. I shall not 
 blame you." 
 
 If the wedding day had been farther oif; if the 
 numerous acquaintances of the Churtons had been told 
 
PLANS 211 
 
 less of the satisfactory match Mabilia was about to 
 make; if they had not already begun to respond with 
 silver, glass, and plated tokens ; or if Hugh had claimed 
 his freedom with more energy, he might have won it 
 then; for Mabilia was beginning to look forward with 
 some apprehension to her married hfe, and was tired of 
 the always present, but never openly declared, feeling 
 of having been found out. But she said confusedly: 
 " Of course, I took you for yourself alone," and the 
 preparations for the wedding went on. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WYSE HALL 
 
 Peobably there were in England few men of middle 
 age whoml the gods had blessed more abundantly than 
 Sir Richard Lelacheur. He had his beautiful historic 
 house in Suffolk, and a rich estate around it; he had 
 a larg^ house in Grosvenor Square ; he had a fine steam- 
 yacht, in which he loved to take his pleasure; and he 
 had more than enough money to enable him to extract 
 the full amount of gratification from these temporal 
 possessions. He had besides a wife from whom he was 
 seldom willingly parted, and a family of which he was 
 very proud. His eldest son was nearing twenty; then 
 came three girls some years younger, and then three 
 more boys of between five and eight. 
 
 At the time of Hugh's engagement, England was 
 carrying on one of those little frbntier wars which 
 come and go, leaving little mark behind them in a na- 
 tion's memory. Only in scattered homes, gentle and 
 simple, the loss of a life may serve to fix painfully a 
 date, or the hitherto unknown locality of a petty skir- 
 mish. Sir Richard Lelacheur's eldest son, who had only 
 just obtained his commission, was killed in action with 
 a handful of his men in the last engagement before 
 the capitulation of the enemy. Almost before the news 
 reached England a still greater tragedy had changed 
 
 212 
 
WYSE HALL 213 
 
 the whole of Hugh's future. His cousin, with the rest 
 of his family, was coming home from Madeira in his 
 yacht. She was run down on a foggy night by a great 
 liner in mid-ocean, and ^11 on board but a few of the 
 crew were drowned. 
 
 Hugh learnt the news as he left his office to go out 
 to luncheon. An evening paper had printed it, and the 
 street was full of crying newsboys,' fluttering monstrous 
 headlines. He bought a paper, and was struck with 
 horror at what he read. The vision rose up before him 
 of a kind gentle old man, with whom he had talked 
 many years before. He had spoken of his son and of 
 the one grandchild that had then been born — the young 
 man who now lay in his grave in the far-oif hills. Sud- 
 denly, Hugh's cousins, whom he had never s^en, became 
 real to him, and the terrible catastrophe a personal 
 sorrow. 
 
 It .seemed impossible to believe in so complete a dis- 
 aster without corroboration. It occurred to him to go 
 and see Mr. Burham, whose offices were not far away. 
 He took a cab, and met the lawyer at the door of his 
 office. Mr. Burham was little altered, inerely a shade 
 greyer and a shade thinner. His face changed as he 
 recognized Hugh, " Ah ! come in," he said ; " this is a 
 shocking business," and he led the way into his private 
 room. 
 
 " Have you had private news ? " asked Hugh, in some 
 excitement. " Surely some of them must have been 
 saved ! " 
 
 Mr. Burham looked at him closely. His voice was 
 
214 MANY JUNES 
 
 harder as he replied: "Not one. I have just had a 
 telephone message from Mr. Caird, Sir Richard's so- 
 licitor. He supposed I was acting for you. I told him 
 I did not wish to take the business from him, in any 
 case. I am just about to retire. I will refer you to 
 Mr. Caird himself." 
 
 Hugh had sat down on the nearest chair, and heard 
 Mr. Burham's level voice without taking in the mean- 
 ing of his speech. 
 
 " It is terrible," he said, passing his hand over his 
 forehead. 
 
 " You have lost no time in coming to me," said Mr. 
 Burham drily. 
 
 " No," replied Hugh. " I had just seen the news. 
 Well, I will not keep you longer, Mr. Burham," and he 
 rose and held out his hand. 
 
 " Wait a miinute," said the lawyer. " You will 
 want the address of Mr. Caird." 
 
 " Mr. Caird? " repeated Hugh. " Oh yes, Sir Rich- 
 ard's lawyer. No; I don't think I want to see him. 
 You have confirmed the news — unhappily." 
 
 "But you must see him some time, and you may as 
 well see him at once," said Mr. Burham. " There will 
 be an immense lot of business to be done." 
 
 " Business ? " Hugh looked at him ; and then his 
 face went white, changed to red and went white again. 
 He sat down, still staring at the lawyer. " I never 
 thought of that," he said. 
 
 " Well, then, I did you an injustice," replied Mr. 
 Burham, more in his natural tone. " I thought you 
 
WYSE HALL 215 
 
 had come running here in a hurry to make sure of your 
 new possessions. But I see you didn't, and I apologize. 
 Yes; it's a shocking affair, as all may see. But there 
 are some compensations as far as you are concerned, 
 and I believe you never knew your cousins. You are 
 the only remaining member of your family, and you 
 step straight into the dead man's shoes — title, estates, 
 money, and everything — for Mr. Caird tells me he left 
 no will. He was always about to mlake one, but put it 
 off from time to time. It is often the way. You had 
 better see Mr. Caird himself about it. Here is his ad- 
 dress. He is a friend of mine, and I would advise you 
 to leave your affairs in his hands." 
 
 Hugh got out of the room somehow. He could 
 realize nothing of what had happened to him. Regret 
 for the terrible tragedy was still the feeling uppermost 
 in his mind, and he laid no fingers as yet upon the 
 change in his own future. He forgot the sheet of paper 
 in his pocket upon which Mr. Burham had written the 
 address of Sir Richard's lawyer. He went to his usual 
 place for lunch, and afterwards went back to his work. 
 He did what he had to do mechanically, his thoughts 
 far away, and when, after he had sat at his desk for 
 an hour, a question came up which required some con- 
 centration to decide upon, he handed his papers to a 
 subordinate clerk and left the office. 
 
 Mr. Caird received him with grave respect. He was 
 an iron-grey man with the air of a family physician. 
 " I have been waiting for you since two o'clock. Sir 
 Hugh," he said. 
 
216 MANY JUNES 
 
 The unexpected use of the title cut its way through 
 the confusion which muffled, Hugh's brain, and let in 
 some realization of the immense change which had come 
 upon him. From that moment the terrible fact of a 
 whole family's destruction, which had brought about 
 the change, began to recede in importance, and the stu- 
 pendous good fortune that it was in his power to enjoy 
 expanded before him. He spent the rest of the after- 
 noon, till a late hour, with the lawyer, went home to 
 dine with him, and got back to his rooms late at night. 
 
 The whole of the next day he spent in Mr. Caird's 
 office, engaged in business as arduous as any he had 
 known during the fifteen years of his business life. As 
 he bent his attention to the papers and figures which the 
 lawyer put before him quick gleams of pleasure began 
 to shoot across his brain. The old Elizabethan house, 
 in its setting of ordered garden and wide landscape of 
 sun-steeped meadow, stream, and woodland, began to 
 impress itself on his imagination. At the end of the 
 day's work he had to recall to himself with an effort 
 the price at which it had become his. 
 
 Surely, no one had ever yet experienced so be- 
 wildering a change of fortune. Without any interven- 
 ing time of expectation he could step straight into his 
 new position and find himself in command of all that 
 complex machinery that supports the duties and pleas- 
 ures of a rich landowner. The house in London had 
 been let for the season, but Wyse Hall, the beautiful 
 and historic home of his fathers, ready for its former 
 ntaster's return, needed no further preparation for its 
 
WYSE HALL 217 
 
 new one than a message to say when he was comingi 
 to it. 
 
 On the second evening again he dined with Mr. Caird. 
 The agent of the Suffolk property had been summoned 
 to town to meet him. He had held his position only 
 since the beginning of the year, and had seen next to 
 nothing of his employer, who had been first in London 
 and then on his yacht. He was, therefore, less inclined 
 than he might have been to dwell on the tragic cause of 
 his presence at Mr. Caird's dinner-table, and quite ready 
 to pour out information and description for the benefit 
 of the new owner. He was a youngish, energetic, rather 
 horsey-looking man, with a ready tongue. Hugh was 
 not inclined to take readily to him, but treated him 
 with his usual reserved, rather distant courtesy. 
 
 The three men sat after dinner drinking their wine 
 in the lawyer's dining-room, pleasantly facing on to 
 Kensington Gardens. The window was open to the 
 soft breezes of the summer evening, which, even in Lon- 
 don at its most crowded time, carry the thoughts away 
 to country meadows, knee deep in grass and flowers, 
 whispers of leaves under a quiet sky, and all the sweet 
 sounds and scents of June. 
 
 " I shall go down to Wyse Hall tomorrow," said 
 Hugh abruptly. " We have settled everything that 
 needs to be settled, I think ; and the rest can wait." 
 
 He walked home presently across the park. His 
 old life was behind him, and his thoughts were full of 
 pleasant anticipation. When he reached his rooms he 
 found a note awaiting him from MabiUa Churion. If 
 
218 MANY JUNES 
 
 he had thought of her at all during these last two days 
 it had been with the surface of his brain only. This 
 was one of the evenings on which he dined regularly at 
 her mother's house. He had entirely forgotten the fact. 
 The note was tentatively reproachful, alluded to the 
 change in his fortunes, and was addressed to him as Sir 
 Hugh Lelacheur, Bart. A momentary compunction seized 
 him at having failed to send a message excusing his ab- 
 sence that evening. He sat down and wrote a hurried 
 reply to Mabilia's letter. He had been so busy that he 
 had not a moment to himself. He had been obliged to 
 dine with his lawyer that evening, and was sorry that in 
 his hurry he had omitted to send word to that effect. He 
 was going down to Suffolk the next morning, and would 
 write to her from there. He went out and posted the 
 note himself, and before he had dropped it into a 
 pillar-box Mabilia and her mother had gone out of 
 his head. 
 
 Hugh left London the next morning, and arrived in 
 the afternoon at the little wayside station which was 
 the nearest to Wyse Hall, but even then six miles off. 
 The head coachman had thought it fitting that on this 
 his first entrance to his new kingdom he should be 
 conveyed to the home of his ancestors in the stately 
 barouche which was waiting for him. The station- 
 master opened the door of his compartment, and a foot- 
 man took over his modest Gladstone bag from the 
 porter, an obvious curiosity tempering the respectful 
 demeanour of all three of them. The coachman touched 
 his hat from his seat of state. He and the footman had 
 
WYSE HALL 219 
 
 bands of crape on their arms, but were otherwise re- 
 splendent in liveries more elaborate than ordinary. 
 
 The little branch-line train steamed off fussily, and 
 Hugh found himself rolling through drowsy country 
 lanes, with the westering sun shining over fields where 
 the haymakers were at work. The wide deep-grassed 
 meadows, the green woods, the flower-decked hedgerows, 
 the old villages with their thatched and garden- 
 bordered cottages, and the square towers of their great 
 churches, the leisurely country people who turned to 
 stare at him on the road — all appealed to him with an 
 immeasurable sense of restfulness, after the hurry of the 
 last two days and the monotonous dulness of his Lon- 
 don life. As the miles went by, and he thought that he 
 must be getting near his journey's end, his content 
 began to be touched with excitement, which held him 
 entirely when the carriage rolled through a pair of iron 
 gates, flanked by two lodges of weather-beaten brick 
 and stone, and entered a level park of beech and oak 
 and fern, through the trees of which, not far off, he 
 could see the stately length of the old Elizabethan hall, 
 with its carved and mullioned windows, high-pitched 
 roofs and twisted chimney-stacks. 
 
 Tea was brought to him in a pleasant morning- 
 room, opening on to the beautiful gardens at the back 
 of the house. The room had been in constant use by the 
 family of his cousin. Their books and music, the photo- 
 graphs of their friends, and all the many little things 
 that give a living-room something of the character of its 
 inhabitants, were scattered about it. It was diflBcult 
 
220 MANY JUNES 
 
 to believe that those who had lived their easy life in it 
 would occupy it no more, that their intimate possessions 
 had lost their m,eaning, which seemed, indeed, rudely 
 wrenched away from them, since they now belonged, 
 the largest and the smallest, to him, a stranger. 
 
 He refused the offer of the staid housekeeper to 
 show him over the rooms, feeling a sense of shame that 
 he, a Lelacheur, should know as little of the contents 
 of his historic house as any summer tourist. And he 
 wanted to be alone, to enjoy it with himself. He, Sir 
 Hugh Lelacheur of Wyse Hall, wanted to take himself, 
 as Hugh Lelacheur, the London clerk, by the hand, to 
 show him all the treasures of his house and to watch 
 his wondering appreciation of them. 
 
 So for an hour he wandered over the great house, 
 with no one but his old self to bear him company. 
 The servants were in their own quarters, busily en- 
 gaged, no doubt, in discussing him. He went through 
 the beautiful rooms, so full of gracious memories of the 
 past, and lingered in the long library, flooded with 
 afternoon sunlight, which threw patterns of armorial 
 glass on the faded floor, through windows looking on to 
 lawns and cedars. It was very old and very quiet, with 
 wonderfully carved ranges of bookshelves, full of calf 
 and vellum bound quartos, and folios, with massive 
 carved oak tables and high carved chairs, seated with 
 cane or cushioned velvet, and at either end great open 
 fireplaces surmounted by marble chimneypieces. 
 
 He penetrated into other I'ooms that had been more 
 intinosately occupied by those whose place he was now 
 
WYSE HALL 221 
 
 filling. In the midst of satisfaction sorrow came to 
 him again. Little children had run about the oaken 
 floors and called down the wide staircases. He saw their 
 rooms — a sunny nursery with birds singing in the win- 
 dows, and another large room with little white beds in 
 it, and everything very clean and fresh. The sight 
 brought back his own old grief, and he went out of the 
 rooms hurriedly, and shut the doors on their reproach- 
 ful emptiness. 
 
 He went out into the gardens and wandered about 
 over the soft lawns and among the bright June flowers 
 until it was time to go in to dinner. He went out 
 again afterwards, and stayed until the short summer 
 night began to close in on trees and grass and flowers, 
 but his happiness was crossed with melancholy, for he 
 had no one with whom to share it. So, at least, he told 
 himself, forgetting that he was to be married in a 
 mionth's time. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 MAEGAE.ET 
 
 Hugh opened his eyes at dawn the next morning. A 
 flood of happiness came over him and he realized where 
 he was, and that a summer day in the midst of these 
 lovely surroundings was before him, to spend as he 
 liked, and many summer days after this should have 
 run its course. His windows were wide open to the 
 east. He rose and looked out on to trees and lawns, 
 now shrouded in mysterious twilight, and was reminded 
 of the days of his boyhood, when he and Anne had so 
 often risen with the birds, and steeped themselves in 
 the freshness of awakening Nature. Years of sedentary 
 life had robbed him of the desire to leave his bed sev- 
 eral hours before the rest of the world should be pre- 
 paring to rise, and he relinquished his half-formed 
 resolution to dress and go mto the garden, and lay, 
 sometimes asleep and sometimes awake, while the sun 
 climbed higher into the sky. 
 
 As he finished his breakfast Gillett, the agent, ar- 
 rived, with proposals for a busy morning. He wanted 
 to introduce him to the bailiff and the head keeper and 
 various other functionaries ; to show him what was be- 
 ing done as to this and that, and generally to initiate 
 him into the mysteries of the management of a large 
 estate. Hugh, with great reluctance, resigned his mom- 
 
 222 
 
MARGARET 223 
 
 ing, and was presently being driven from one place to 
 another in a high dogcart behind a fast-trotting horse, 
 listening to all sorts of information which did not in- 
 terest him. When the long morning was over, and Gil- 
 lett was beginning to make suggestions for a similar 
 afternoon, to be spent in inspecting outlying farms and 
 coverts, Hugh made a grasp at his independence. 
 
 " There will be plenty of time for all this by-and- 
 by," he said. " For the next week, at least, I want to 
 hear nothing about estate management. I want to find 
 my way about the place by myself and get to know it." 
 
 "But how can you get to know it," said Gillett, 
 " unless you have some one to teU you everything? You 
 want to take the reins, don't you? " 
 
 " No, not yet," answered Hugh. " I know nothing 
 of all the things we have been talking about this morn- 
 ing, and I don't know that I care very much. At pres- 
 ent the house and the gardens and the country are 
 enough for me. The estate can wait." 
 
 Gillett went away with a shrug of his broad shoulders. 
 The country to him meant agriculture and sport; and 
 a landowner who declined to take up his responsibilities, 
 but preferred to idle away his time in his house and 
 garden, was much like a man put in charge of a large 
 business undertaking who should devote himself to ad- 
 miring the convenience of his offices and the perfection 
 of his stationery. 
 
 Left to himself, Hugh breathed again. His morn- 
 ing's occupation had been utterly distasteful to him. 
 He had felt like a boy compelled to sit down on the 
 
224 MANY JUNES 
 
 first (day of his emancipation from school and work at 
 a holiday task. He had been relieved when the agent 
 refused his invitation to lunch, and his spirits rose as 
 he contemplated his afternoon's freedom. 
 
 During his morning's drive he had noticed, some way 
 across the meadows, about a mile from his house, a pic- 
 turesque mill, the lichened roofs of which could be seen 
 across the fields from the road, through the trees which 
 surrounded it. Gillett, jerking an elbow in its direc- 
 tion, had said : " That's your Naboth's vineyard," and 
 had told him the story of an old recluse, who owned 
 the mill and a few acres of orchard and meadow, in 
 the middle of Hugh's property, and refused to sell, or 
 even to consider proposals for a sale. 
 
 " No one ever sees him," Gillett had said, throwing 
 out his information in a series of jerky sentences. 
 " Paston, his name is. He makes a fair living out of 
 the null and his orchards, but he leaves the dealing to 
 his man. They say he reads a lot, and knows a lot. I 
 don't know how that may be. He's a Roman Catholic, 
 or said to be. But the only friend he has is old Freel- 
 ing, the parson at Swathling, over there." He pointed 
 towards a church tower standing on a slight eminence 
 some four or five miles away. " He's a queer old 
 bachelor, Freeling. He's bookish too, and rich. Pas- 
 ton has a granddaughter. I hear she's just come home 
 from France. They say old Freeling has paid for her 
 education at a convent there. They say he'll marry 
 her, but that's probably scandal. He's old enoagh to 
 be her father. When Paston dies there may be a chance 
 
MARGARET 225 
 
 of buying. You ought to have the place, of course ; but 
 it's no use trying as long as he's alive." 
 
 Collecting his painting materials, Hugh bethought 
 him of the old timbered mill with its taU poplars and 
 sliding water-race, and made his way along the banks 
 of the stream which ran through his fields and filled the 
 ntoat that surrounded his house. It wound its way, in 
 a very leisurely fashion, through the hayfields, with 
 many twists and turns, and it was only after following 
 its course for over half-an-hour that he came at last 
 to the old miU. The sight of it, on this still after- 
 noon of high summer, was enough to gladden the eyes 
 of an artist. It stood reflected in clear water, flanked 
 by great trees, and surrounded by an apple orchard- 
 The wheel was silent, but underneath the bridge by 
 which the miU was approached the water ran with 
 a musical ripple, spreading fanwise into the stillness of 
 the wide pool. White pigeons wheeled in the air and 
 cooed on the ridges of the roof. The bees droned 
 among the clover. From some distant hayfield came the 
 sound of a scythe being sharpened. The water mur- 
 mured lazily. The place seemed to lie at the very 
 heart of summer. 
 
 With a sigh of contentment he sat down under the 
 shade of a great chestnut-tree and began his drawing. 
 Soon he had sketched in his picture and begun to use 
 his colours. He grew absorbed in his work, and thought 
 he was painting better than he had ever done 
 before. 
 
 He worked for half-an-hour, and during that time 
 
226 MANY JUNES 
 
 no sign of human life about the old mill had disturbed 
 his solitude. But presently he saw a girl come out on 
 to the staging which ran alongside the mill-pool. She 
 unfastened a punt that lay by a flight of shallow 
 wooden steps, and stepping into it began to push her- 
 self down the stream towards him. At first he felt 
 rather annoyed by this intrusion on his solitude. But, 
 as the girl came nearer to him across the sunlit water, 
 his mild feeling of irritation gave way to one of inter- 
 est. Her graceful movements pleased his eye, for she 
 was tall and lissom, and used the natural swing of her 
 body, apparently without effort, in propelling herself. 
 Her dress was blue, and she wore a wide-brimmed hat 
 of coarse straw, trimmed with cornflowers. Her hands, 
 which she raised above her head at each plunge of the 
 pole into the water, were white and slender. 
 
 So much could be seen at first. As she came nearer, 
 Hugh discovered that her hair Was brown and abundant, 
 next that her dress was of cool linen and fitted her slen- 
 der figure to perfection, then, somehow, that her eyes as 
 well as her gown were blue, and finally that she was 
 beautiful, but very young. Her figure was that of a 
 woman, but she had the fair frank gaze of a child, and 
 a child's innocence and curiosity looked out of her eyes 
 as she caught sight of him sitting under the tree, and 
 gazed full at him, with the merest hint of confusion 
 at having been observed when she had thought herself 
 alone. A sudden impulse miade him rise and take a 
 step towards the water, so that when the next stroke of 
 the pole brought her opposite to him it looked as if he 
 
MARGARET 227 
 
 were waiting on the bank for her. And she, as if she 
 were expecting him to speak, stopped and stood look- 
 ing up at him out of wide blue eyes, her lips a little 
 apart. There was a moment's pause. If it had lasted a 
 fraction of a second longer they would have parted in 
 confusion with no word spoken. But Hugh broke the 
 silence just in time. " I hope there is no objection to 
 my sketching from here.'' " he said rather lamely. 
 
 " Oh no, not the least," she answered. Her voice 
 was musical and full-throated, and there was the least 
 little suspicion of a foreign intonation. But her words 
 came as frankly as the gaze of her child's eyes, and she 
 looked away from him with obvious curiosity to the 
 little easel that he had set up under the shade of the 
 chestnut. 
 
 "Would you like to look at it.?" he asked. "It 
 isn't much — at least, not yet." 
 
 " Oh yes, if you pleas6," she said, and guided her 
 punt underneath the bank where he was standing. He 
 gave her his hand to help her out on to the grass, and 
 presently he was using his brush again while she was 
 sitting at his feet talking to him as if she had known 
 him all her life. 
 
 She told him of the years she had spent in the 
 French convent school, in an old Norman town of nar- 
 row streets, stone houses, and high-piled red roofs. 
 There had been a few other English girls there, but 
 French had been her tongue for nine or ten years, and, 
 as she told him the story of her childhood, she used 
 French phrases, sometimes hesitated for a word, and 
 
■228 MANY JUNES 
 
 sometimes used a wrong one, with a little apologetic 
 laugh and a movement of her hands. 
 
 She had been happy with the nuns. One of them 
 had made a favourite of her and had gained her adora- 
 tion. " When we went into the great stone kitchen, all 
 badigeonSe, you know, and so clean, to learn to cook, 
 I used to make cakes for her. She loved them. She 
 gave me some little pictures and a medal. They are my 
 greatest treasures. Then there came a girl from her 
 own home in Brittany, and I found out that she loved 
 her better than me. I was miserable for a long time, 
 and furiously jealous. But, after a time, I did not care 
 any longer, and when Jeanette — that was the other 
 girl's name — went away and she wanted me again, I did 
 not want her any more." She laughed at herself. 
 " They are like that, the nuns," she said. " But they 
 were dear people and very devout. They made you 
 want to be good." 
 
 She had never come home during her schooldays. 
 Sometimes she had visited the homes of her schoolfel- 
 lows during the holidays, sometimes she had stayed at 
 the convent, and, except that she liked a change some- 
 times, that had been almost better, for the nuns had 
 made her very happy in the holidays. 
 
 But during her long exile she had often thought of 
 the old millhouse, and the drone of the waterwheel, 
 and the dappled shadows on the orchard grasses. At 
 ifirst she had been terribly honlesick, and as she had be- 
 come more at home in the convent she had still, at inter- 
 vals, longed to come back to the beautiful English coun- 
 
MARGARET 229 
 
 try. She had returned only a month ago, and had 
 found it no less beautiful and peaceful than her childish 
 memories had painted it. 
 
 She spoke of her grandfather: of the white head 
 bent over a book in an old oaken room, while the clock 
 ticked solemnly in the corner, and the night breezes 
 stirred the curtains and the flowers in the casement 
 windows. She told him of the other kind old man who, 
 in some way she did not quite understand, had a claim 
 cm her reverence and affection, a debt which she found 
 it very easy to pay. She described the long happy 
 days of her present life, from the time of her rising 
 in the early morning to her rest in the sweet silence of 
 the summer night. She had no duties to perform in her 
 grandfather's house, but was content to live in simple 
 enjoyment of her surroundings in the unbroken June 
 weather. 
 
 She talked like a happy child to an older friend, 
 but interwoven with her childish confidences ran the 
 thread of maturer thoughts. Her innocent soul was 
 full of the love of Nature and the love of mankind. 
 She was a revelation to Hugh. He had never imagined 
 that he could find his own secret delights so enchant- 
 ingly reflected in the mind of another. 
 
 But in answer to all tha:t she revealed of herself, he 
 told her nothing, not even his name. 
 
 He had long since finished his drawing, and was 
 spoiling it by additional touches, so that he might 
 listen to her as long as she pleased to talk to him. The 
 sun touched the tops of one of the poplar spires. She 
 
230 MANY JUNES 
 
 sprang to her feet and shook out her skirt with a ges- 
 ture purely feminine. " I have talked and talked," she 
 said, with a little laugh. " The nuns always told me 
 that my tongue ran away with me. And you have not 
 talked at all, but have done nothing but Usten to me." 
 
 " I can't talk while I am painting," replied Hugh, 
 in a matter-of-fact voice, which concealed a ferment of 
 feeling. " But it helps mie to listen. I have finished 
 much more quickly than I should have done if you had 
 not come here to keep me company." 
 
 She looked at his picture of the scene she loved so 
 well. " I think it is beautiful," she said. " How I 
 should have liked to have it to remind me, all the long 
 years I was in France!" 
 
 "Would you like to have it now?" he asked. 
 
 Her face lit up with pleasure. " Oh! may I? " she 
 cried. " It is beautiful. My grandfather will admire 
 it as much as I do." 
 
 " Don't show it to him," said Hugh, his face hidden 
 from her as he cut the paper off the board. " I will 
 paint you a much better one." 
 
 " I don't think you could," she said, with another 
 little clear full-throated laugh. " But you shall try. 
 And may I come and watch you? " 
 
 " Yes, you miay," he said quietly. 
 
 " I love watching people paint," she said. " It has 
 been very interesting. And you are sure I have not 
 worried you with my chatter? Somehow, I felt in- 
 clined to talk to you, and you have listened very pa- 
 tiently." Again the quick thrushlike triU of laughter, 
 
MARGARET 231 
 
 which quickened his pulse every time he listened to it. 
 " You shall tell me about yourself the next time, and 
 it will be my turn to listen. You have rather a sad 
 face." 
 
 There was a change in her voice. She stood with 
 her hat in her hand before her, the sun shining on the 
 warm undulations of her hair, and looked into his face. 
 
 " I have no reason to be sad now," he said, return- 
 ' ing her gaze. " I shall be here tomorrow morning, at 
 ten o'clock. Will you be here too ? " 
 
 There was a quiver of her long eyelashes, as if 
 something of that which lay behind his steadfast gaze 
 had stirred her unawakened soul and troubled it a little. 
 " Yes, I will come," she said, looking away from him. 
 
 " Then good-bye," he said, and turned away, not 
 trusting himself to take her hand. 
 
 Hugh walked hom;e along the riverside with the step 
 of a young man. The lines of his grave face were 
 softened, his eyes were humid, his mouth tender. All 
 his mind was irradiated. The river ran for him and 
 sang a tune ; the light airs that fanned him whispered 
 happy secrets, the trees and the grass and the meadow 
 flowers were painted in colours of incredible brightness. 
 When he came to his own park, and saw across ferny 
 glades and hollows the long western front of his old 
 house, its mellow stone and brick work warmed by the 
 sun, its windows shining, it became suddenly more than 
 a rich palace of old treasure. It welcomed him as a 
 home, where for centuries men had hved and loved and 
 died. Its beauty and the joy of possession merged 
 
232 MANY JUNES 
 
 themselves into the current of his happiness, and 
 heightened it. 
 
 As he wandered about the rooms and galleries of the 
 house, and over the lawns of the garden, among flow- 
 ers and trees and fountains, in a blissful solitude ; as he 
 dressed and dined, waited upon by silent servants, but 
 anxious to get rid of them, he was living again in the 
 hours of the afternoon, longing for the slow light to 
 fade and bring him to the night, and so to another day 
 of happiness. His past life had slipped away from him, 
 and into the future he looked no farther forward than 
 the morrow. He moved in a sort of trance. Little 
 things were real to him, but not big ones. He could 
 see the insects dancing in the evening sunlight, the 
 colours of the grass and flowers; he could hear the 
 plash of the fountains in their lilied pools, the light 
 rustle of the tree tops ; but his eyes were blind to the 
 ties that bound him, and his ears deaf to the call of 
 new duties. 
 
 The next morning he rose early, and the hours went 
 slowly until he could go again to the riverside by the 
 nrill. Again he settled himself by the pool under the 
 great chestnut. But his eyes now continually sought 
 the staging which ran along the side of the house over 
 the water. His heart leapt as he saw the slim blue- 
 clad figure appear. She waved her hand to him, un- 
 fastened the punt and stepped into it. He looked at 
 her with intense eager gaze as she poled herself over 
 the water towards him, but his eyeS were no more than 
 friendly as they rested on her for a moment while he 
 
MARGARET 233 
 
 helped her to land, and when he had tied up the punt, 
 and stood upright again before her, his control over 
 himself was complete. At all costs he must avoid 
 frightening her by a hint of his quick-grown passion. 
 
 " I am going to paint you a bigger and more care- 
 ful picture," he said, and she expressed her delight, 
 standing at his shoulder. 
 
 " I ought to have brought some work," she said, as 
 she sank down on the grass at his side. " I am very 
 idle; but I promised myself a holiday as long as this 
 lovely weather lasted, and this is the way I like to 
 spend it. 
 
 " Do you know," she went on, before he could reply, 
 " you have never told me your name, or where you 
 oome from, or where you are staying; and I have told 
 you everything about myself." 
 
 " You have not told me your name." 
 
 She laughed lightly. "Didn't I?" she said, "I 
 thought I had told you everything there was to tell. 
 My name is Margaret — Margaret Paston. What is 
 yours ? " 
 
 There was the least little pause. Hugh looked up 
 from his board, looked down again, and drew a line. 
 " My name is Hugh Lelacheur," he said. 
 
 She stared up at him for a moment, and her face 
 changed "Are you Sir Hugh Lelacheur of Wyse 
 Hall.? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," he said, his eyes on his drawing. 
 
 She was silent for a space. He did not dare to look 
 at her. But when the silence became oppressive he 
 
234 MANY JUNES 
 
 stole a glance aside. She was sitting half turned 
 towards him, resting on one hand, while the other lay 
 along the folds of her skirt and held her straw flower- 
 ' trimmed hat. Her head was bent. The sunlight filter- 
 ing through leaves played on the gold of her hair. He 
 could see her lowered lashes and a flushed cheek. She 
 looked up at him steadily. " If I had known that," she 
 said, " I should not have talked to you as I did yes- 
 terday." 
 
 " Why not ? " he asked lamely. 
 
 She looked down again. " I thought you were just 
 an artist," she said. " One talks to artists. I used to 
 stay in Brittany with a girl from the convent. Her 
 father was an artist — and all their friends. That was 
 why I was so pleased to see you yesterday. I thought 
 you were like that." 
 
 " And wasn't I like that? " 
 
 She looked up at him again. " Yes, you were," 
 she said. " That is why we got on together. But you 
 were keeping something back from me all the time. 
 That wasn't quite fair, was it .-' " 
 
 " What you say I was keeping back did not seem 
 to me of much importance yesterday," he said ; " you 
 must remember I have only been Sir Hugh Lelacheur of 
 Wyse Hall for a very short time. When I have had 
 the chance, I have tried to be an artist all my 
 life." 
 
 " And when I first saw you, you were painting, and 
 had forgotten — all the rest ? " 
 
 " I forgot it all the afternoon." 
 
MARGARET 235 
 
 She looked down again and seemed to be turning this 
 over in her mind, while he went on drawing. 
 
 Presently, she gave a little cry and he looked down 
 at her, startled. 
 
 " It was dreadful," she said, " the ship going down in 
 the middle of the night, and the poor little children — 
 oh ! " She covered her face with her hands. 
 
 " You think that I ought not to be happy.'' " he said 
 quickly. " I see it all sometimes, as you do. But I 
 never knew my cousins. I never saw any of them." 
 
 She looked at him with some curiosity. He laid down 
 his pencil. " Shall I tell you about myself? " he asked. 
 " I have lost so much in life, and I have been so much 
 alone, that you won't think it strange that I am en- 
 joying the good fortune that has come to me if I tell 
 yoir everything." 
 
 " I told you everything about myself yesterday," she 
 said. 
 
 " You told me because we had become friends at 
 once, didn't you.-" One can tell things to a friend that 
 one keeps for the most part to one's self." 
 
 " Yes ; tell me," she said. 
 
 He told her, shortly, of his childhood, of his school- 
 days culminating in his rejection for the navy, of his 
 sojourn in France under the care of Mr. Williams. The 
 story became fuller when he came to Foyle and Anne, 
 and she began to ask him questions and to show her 
 sympathy. The tears came into her eyes when he de- 
 scribed his lonely life in London, with his father dead 
 and Anne on the other side of the world, and she uttered 
 
236 MANY JUNES 
 
 a cry of pain when he told her of little Anne's death. 
 
 He had spoken simply and without seeking effect, 
 but he had won her. Her sudden realization of him as 
 the rich man at whose gates her grandfather lived in 
 humble independence was overcome by her knowledge of 
 him as a friend, whose sadness she could soothe by her 
 pity. He had revealed himself to her as he had revealed 
 himself to no one since his boyhood and Anne's mar- 
 riage. He had told her more of himself in half-an-hour 
 than he had told Mabilia in eight months. 
 
 But he told her nothing of Mabilia or of his engage- 
 ment. 
 
 They were together for the whole morning, and they 
 parted reluctantly. When they met again in the after- 
 noon, little more than an hour afterwards, their in- 
 timacy was already so close that they hurried towards 
 each other, and the talk began again where it had ended, 
 without any interval of restraint. The shadow of the 
 poplars drew out across the water and touched them 
 where they sat before they parted. 
 
 They stood facing one another, and looked into 
 each other's eyes. Hers were frank and kind; but he 
 could not keep the yearning out of his. 
 
 " Will you come again tomorrow morning? " he 
 asked, his voice slightly tremulous. 
 
 The question, answered with frank pleasure the day 
 before, took on such new and immense significance from 
 the tone and the look that she was instantly confused 
 and frightened, turned her head away, and would have 
 flown. 
 
MARGARET 237 
 
 He seized her hands. " Margaret," he cried, " you 
 sha'n't go until you promise me. I have been waiting 
 all my life for you. I'm not going to lose you now. 
 I can't pretend any more. I love you better than any- 
 thing in the world." 
 
 He poured out burning words and drew her to him. 
 She trembled, and made a movement as if to escape, but 
 he held her fast. 
 
 She lifted up her face to his. " Oh! I don't know," 
 she cried, " I don't know. Let me go now." 
 
 " No ; not till you tell me yoji love me. I love you 
 so much that you must — a little — dearest child ! " 
 
 She gazed at him as if fascinated, and her face began 
 to change, to lose its frightened look, to become softer. 
 
 He saw the change the moment its shadow crept 
 over her eyes. He uttered a little cry of joy, and 
 kissed her. She lay still in his arms, and he held her 
 closely to him. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE DEEAM 
 
 The next morning they met as lovers, trembling and 
 flushed with divine happiness. Directly he came to the 
 bank of the pool he saw the flutter of her blue dress 
 round the comer of the millhouse, and she came straight 
 to him across the water. As she came gliding towards 
 him his heart went through alternations of hope and 
 fear. Was she coming to him to renew the rapture of 
 the evening before, or had she bethought herself, and 
 would he have to struggle against reserve and maidenly 
 shrinking for /possession of her? One look from her 
 eyes when she came near enough for him to read her 
 face put to flight the shadow of fear. They held timid- 
 ity, but it only coloured the innocence of her joy. Her 
 soul was awakened and looked out of clear windows, 
 unashamed. He helped her to land, and she came to 
 his arms like a dove to its nest. 
 
 " I thought the hours would never pass," he said ; and 
 she : " I have never been so happy." 
 
 They met, morning and afternoon, for many days. 
 The sky was blue, and soft breezes rustled the young 
 leaves of the poplars, and sent ripples over the spring- 
 ing com. They were together in the orchard, in the 
 flowery meadows, on the banks of the stream, in the 
 June woodlands, musical with bird notes, carpeted with 
 
 238 
 
THE DREAM 239 
 
 wild hyacinths and white starlike anemones. To Hugh, 
 the peace of the quiet country was like water in the 
 desert of a disappointed life; and his passion for the 
 girl who came out of the heart of it to bear him com- 
 pany through long happy days and to leave her image 
 in his brain through blissful nights, burnt like flame. 
 The years slipped from him and he was young again, 
 as young in spirit as she was in years, young and happy 
 as he had been in the old days at Foyle, now far distant. 
 
 So far as he knew there were no witnesses to their 
 meetings. But he was so taken out of himself by the 
 fierce delight that had come into his life that he would 
 not have cared if all the world had been aware of 
 them. 
 
 His servants threw curious looks at him as he came 
 into the house for meals, and left it again immediately 
 afterwards. More than once his agent tried to inter- 
 view him, but was impatiently dismissed. He had the 
 presence of mind to make his painting an excuse for his 
 desire for an unhampered solitude, but it would have 
 been plain to see, if he had eyes to see it, that his de- 
 pendants regarded him as rather more than eccentric. 
 His correspondence accumulated and was untouched. 
 Nothing was done that he had come down to do. Noth- 
 ing was done at all. 
 
 Then, one afternoon, it seemed to him that out of 
 the shadows of life he saw his servant coming towards 
 him to hand him a telegram. He waved him away, but 
 the old mjan met him with resolution, insisting that there 
 was an answer, and that the messenger was waiting. 
 
240 MANY JUNES 
 
 The telegram was a long one, from Mrs. CSmrton, al- 
 luding to letters unanswered, asking if he were ill, and 
 ending with the announcement that she should come 
 to Wyse Hall the next day if she did not hear from 
 him. 
 
 As he stood staring at the sheets of flimsy pink paper 
 part of the dream mist cleared away from his brain. 
 He saw that he must act, and his first impulse was to 
 write a letter, heralded by a telegram, which should rid 
 him of the Churtons for ever. He sent the telegram. 
 He was well, and they would receive a letter from him 
 the next morning. Then he took up his painting ma- 
 terials and left the house. 
 
 As he went across the deserted meadows towards the 
 mill, by a route which his lover's impatience had long 
 since substituted for the longer one by the river bank, 
 his brain cleared further. He would still get rid of 
 his entanglement; there was no question about that. 
 But he must do it diplomatically, for the sake of the 
 girl whom he loved. No gossip must smirch her when he 
 had made her his own. A new thrill quickened his foot- 
 steps. Their love had burnt to a blaze with no looking 
 forward, no foreboding to damp its flame. They had 
 lived entirely in the present, and riever looked into the 
 future, except at parting, and then only to the next 
 morning, that should bring them together again. Now, 
 forced to look forward, he saw only the new and strange 
 happiness of spending his life with her. He would tell 
 her all that her love had swept away from his mind. 
 She would find one more reason for her sweet pity in 
 
THE DREAM 241 
 
 the life that was behind him, and she would crown his 
 happiness by promising to become his bride. 
 
 She was waiting for him in the cool recesses of the 
 wood. She had never hitherto been before him at the 
 trysting place. Her greeting told him that it was only 
 another instance of her love for him, which was as deep 
 as his, and as impatient. He held her in a long em- 
 brace, looking into the depths of her trusting eyes. 
 
 " Will you come and be with me always ? " he asked 
 her. 
 
 She smiled up at him. " Now is always, when I am 
 with you," she said. " But you have something to tell 
 me. I can see it in your eyes." 
 
 " I could not keep anything from you if I would," 
 he replied. " You would mark every shadow ; but 
 there will be no shadows m life when we are always 
 together." 
 
 " Tell me," she said, " what is troubling you." 
 
 " Promise first to be my wife, and I wiU tell you 
 everything." 
 
 A shadow passed over her own face, and her eyes 
 felL " There is some trouble," she said, and looked 
 up at him again pleadingly ; " we have been too happy. 
 Today the house seemed cold, and I came out into the 
 sunlight to meet you. Tell me, dearest, while you hold 
 me in your arms." 
 
 He told her baldly. He had been engaged to another 
 woman, and before they could be happy together for 
 ever he must rid himself of the tie. 
 
 She shrank from him as if he had struck her. Her 
 
242 MANY JUNES 
 
 face went white, and she covered it with her hands. 
 "Oh! why didn't you tell me before?" she moaned. 
 
 He took possession of her hands, almost roughly. 
 " What does it matter.? " he said. " I have never giVen 
 her a thought since I met you. She was never any- 
 thing to me. Now she is less than nothing." 
 
 " TeU me about it," she said. " IJow can you say 
 she is nothing to you when you are going to marry 
 her. J' Oh! how could you do such a thing.'' " 
 
 Her knees were trembling. She sank down on to the 
 grass, and he threw himself down beside her. " How 
 could you ask her to marry you if you did not love 
 her.?" 
 
 " Listen," he said. " You know what my Ufe has 
 been. You know that after all I have lost I could 
 never expect love would come into it. If I had not met 
 you I should never have known what love was. You 
 understand that, don't you? " 
 
 " Yes," she said ; " I was waiting for you." 
 
 " We were friends, she and I — ^hardly perhaps even 
 that. But I had got into the way of going to the house 
 where she and her mother lived. After a time I came 
 to understand that I was expected to ask her to marry 
 me. I didn't care much what became of me. I won't 
 say anything against her, but she was not quite what I 
 thought her. I shouldn't have asked her if I had known 
 her better. I was sorry I had done so. But I was 
 prepared to go through with it." 
 
 "Ah! how could you? " she said again. " And you 
 loved her no better than that ! " 
 
THE DREAM 243 
 
 " I never loved her at all. There was never a spark 
 of love for her. How could there be when it is you I 
 love? " 
 
 " I can understand what you mean by that," she 
 said. " I thought we were so close together that I 
 could understand aU your thoughts. But to ask some 
 one to marry you for no better reason than that she 
 expected it of you! Why did she expect it of you? " 
 
 He looked at her tenderly. " My darling," he said, 
 " you don't know the world, thank God ! She is not a 
 girl; she is not much younger than I am. There are 
 women, not bad women — she is not that — who would 
 rather have a loveless marriage than none at all." 
 
 " Yes ; but you ! Are men like that too ? " 
 
 " No. But there are other things a man may desire 
 in marriage. You know how lonely my life has been. 
 You can understand what I thought marriage might 
 give me." 
 
 " Yes," she said softly, and lifted her hand to his 
 dark head. " I can understand that." 
 
 " Then you absolve me. I couldn't have done it if 
 I had known what I know of love now. It would have 
 seemed like sacrilege. But I was blind then. It was 
 the only thing in my life that I haven't told you of. 
 There is nothing more between us, now." 
 
 His relief at the touch of her hand had been un- 
 bounded. Horrible depths of misunderstanding and 
 separation had seemed to reveal themselves. But her 
 caress had closed them. He would have drawn her to 
 him again. But she resisted, looking at him piteously. 
 
244 MANY JUNES 
 
 " Oh, why did you do it? " she said, once again. " There 
 is that between us. It will put an end to our love." 
 
 " Put an end to our love? " he cried, horrified. 
 "How <$an it do that? We are one, already. Nothing 
 can part us." 
 
 She was all tenderness again. " I shall love you al- 
 ways," she said, gazing into his eyes. " And you will 
 love me. I know that. But we cannot come together 
 any more." 
 
 Behind her weakness there was strength. He caught 
 a glimpse of it through the tears in her eyes, and tigain 
 the chasm of separation yawned before him. 
 
 " Listen," he said again, imprisoning her hands in 
 his. " I did wrong to engage myself to this woman. 
 But it would be a thousand times more wrong to go back 
 to her now, and leave you. I have claimed you, and 
 you have given yourself to me. I belong to you, every- 
 thing that I am, and you belong to me. You shall be 
 my wife. I will take you. It is my right." 
 
 She looked at him long and earnestly. " I do belong 
 to you," she said. " I love you with every part of me. 
 Nothing can take that away from me. But you must 
 go back to her. No ; listen to me now, my dearest. We 
 have been living in a dream. Somehow I think I knew 
 all along that it could not last. But we never thought 
 of the future, did we? And even if I had not known 
 of this, how could I have married you? We belong to 
 diiferent worlds." 
 
 He shook his head impatiently. " That is not like 
 you," he said. " Supposing it had been I who had 
 
THE DREAM 245 
 
 said it ! Even if I had been all my life what I am now, 
 in the eyes of the world, you would still be high above 
 me; except that our love would have brought us to- 
 gether. And to compare you with that other! Your 
 mind is as beautiful as your body. You have no 
 thoughts that are not noble. You are a fitting mate 
 for the highest." 
 
 " You must think of me like that," she said tenderly, 
 " but you must say good-bye to me. Don't make me 
 weak. It will be hard enough to bear. But you must 
 keep your promise. You would not be the man I love 
 if you broke it." 
 
 For an hour he fought with her, trying to break 
 her resolution. Many times she seemed on the point of 
 giving way, and many times she wept in his arms and 
 he thought he held her for ever. But her purpose re- 
 mained through all her vacillations. He must keep 
 faith. She would not be his even if he broke it. 
 
 At last there came a pause in his pleading. He 
 sat dumbly, rage against Fate and against her shaking 
 him. He knew he had nothing more to say, and flimg 
 a taunt at her. " Your love is worth nothing," he 
 said. 
 
 There was no answer but her sobbing. 
 
 He flung himself at her feet. " No ; it is the greatest 
 treasure I have ever had," he said. " Oh, don't send me 
 away. Only you can save me." 
 
 It was the cry of weakness and terror that pierces 
 the soul. She threw her arms round him and kissed 
 him, and strength rose within her, though her heart was 
 
246 MANY JUNES 
 
 riven. " My dearest," she said, " the dream is over. 
 Now we must face the world and be brave. Neither 
 of us will ever forget. You will be good to her, won't 
 you.'' Perhaps she loves you too; but not as much as I 
 do. I shall pray for your happiness. Perhaps some 
 day I shall see your children. I know they will com- 
 fort you. Oh, my darling ! good-bye ! " 
 
 He clung to her passionately, as if by holding her 
 body he could hold her soul. She lay still in his arms 
 till his grasp relaxed. Then she rose to her feet. 
 " Good-bye," she said ' again, smiling, and turned and 
 went away from him through the trees, leaving him 
 beaten, and, once more, empty of hope. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE AWAKENING 
 
 Hugh went back to his house after a while. His dream 
 was over, but he was hardly yet awake. He could not 
 grasp what had happened to him. It was impossible to 
 think that he would see her no more, impossible that he 
 should have taken his dismissal, unable to impose his 
 will upon hers. 
 
 He went up into the old library, and sat there for 
 hours, while the square of sunshine thrown by the long 
 row of windows crept along the floor and threw latticed 
 patterns and a stain of colour on the polished oak. 
 
 He had not accepted defeat. He laughed at the idea. 
 He would win her yet. He would force her to see that 
 a love such as theirs swept away all petty conventions. 
 Was it not allowable for a man to withdraw from an 
 engagement such as his, when so much was at stake? 
 It was done every day. It had only been, as he had 
 said, because he had not cared much what became of 
 him, that he had not claimed his release weeks before, 
 when he had found out the meanness of Mabilia's am- 
 bitions, when he had been disappointed of the very little 
 he had hoped from her. Oh, God! Why had he not 
 done so.'* 
 
 " You would not be the man I love if you did not 
 keep your promise." The words, and the tone in which 
 
 247 
 
2*8 MANY JUNES 
 
 they had been uttered, came to him. He must set him- 
 self to see with her eyes, that he might find the point at 
 which to assail her ; for he knew, at least, that a repeti- 
 tion of the prayers and arguments of the afternoon 
 would not avail him. 
 
 He melted at the thought of her love for him. It 
 was of the essence of a great passion: it would con- 
 done weakness, but not dishonour. Dishonour would 
 destroy it. The loved one must be worshipped as noble ; 
 ignoble he could be worshipped no longer, and, if loved 
 at all, only on a lower and reconstituted plane; in that 
 case love would no longer be the perfect flower, but a 
 weed that could never grow in the soil of such a nature 
 as hers. 
 
 Yes; but if there was no dishonour.? That was 
 what he must prove, if he could still hope to win 
 her. 
 
 Painfully, and with inward shrinking, he put himself 
 into her place. He loved her with a love as high as hers. 
 H^ loved her because she was noble and sweet and good. 
 If he could imagine her to have done something, or to 
 be contemplating something, dishonourable, could he 
 love her so well.? It was impossible to imagine such a 
 thing. It would not be she, but some one else; and it 
 was she whom he loved. 
 
 Then that was the answer. 
 
 Ah! but that was agreed. If it were something 
 dishonourable on his part that stood between them, 
 she would be right. He must take a lower place in 
 her eyes. No, worse than that. The man she had 
 
THE AWAKENING 249 
 
 loved would be dead, and he, a stranger, would be stand- 
 ing before her in his image. 
 
 Again he must put himself in her place. If she had 
 confessed to him what he had confessed to her? Sup- 
 pose she had bound herself to a loveless marriage ; had 
 taken his love and gloried in it, and said nothing about 
 that tie, until it was forced upon her; then had made 
 light of it and said that their love must be her excuse 
 for breaking it! 
 
 The sweat broke out upon his forehead as he forced 
 himself to put the case. Could he really seem to her 
 like that.? 
 
 He looked at it in every way, striving to be honest 
 and impartial. There was a difference. A young girl 
 could not in the natural circumstances of her life 
 have acted in just that way, and been what this girl 
 was. 
 
 But there might be parallel circumstances. A prom- 
 ise might have been drawn from her, perhaps by her 
 parents, to marry a man she had liked but did not love, 
 not at once, but at some future time, so that it did 
 not weigh on her mind, she not knowing in her inno- 
 cence that love might come and make her promise as 
 heavy as lead. Well, surely in that case no nice sense 
 of honour could bind her. If only he had thought of 
 putting that to her ! 
 
 Ah ! but it was not an exact parallel. He had taken 
 the initiative. There had been no compulsion on him. 
 He had lightly plighted his troth and proposed as 
 lightly to escape from it. " How could you do such a 
 
250 MANY JUNES 
 
 thing? " It was the treachery against all that she held 
 sacred in love that had hurt her, the deliberate invita- 
 tion to a union without any love at all to sanctify it. 
 If he could act like that, then the very love he had given 
 her was suspect. He was not what she had thought 
 him. 
 
 And the conviction now slowly grew upon him that 
 the mischief was already done, that the knell of his 
 hopes had been struck long before he had begun to 
 cherish them ; that it was his asking in marriage the 
 hand of a woman he did not love, and not his acceptance 
 by that woman, that had changed him in her eyes. It 
 was not the man to whom she had given her love who had 
 done that, it was another whom she did not know. And 
 if he were free tomorrow, if Mabilia died, or gave him 
 his freedom, still she would not marry him. She would 
 part from him "ow for ever, with the glory of the 
 dream still upon her ; but if he forced himself on her 
 he would see the glory fade away. By gaining he would 
 lose her. 
 
 He threw off this idea impatiently. She loved him, 
 and there must be some way of winning her. But it 
 came up before him again and again, each time with 
 more force than before. He knew her so well, knew 
 her thoughts and her ideals, and the spiritual essence 
 that illumined her passion. At last he was sure that he 
 had read her mind aright, more clearly, perhaps, than 
 she had read it herself, that the door was in truth 
 closed upon him, and that it was no more in her power 
 than in his to open it. 
 
THE AWAKENING 251 
 
 Then he gave way to despair. Why had Fate dealt 
 so cruelly with him? Why was this glimpse of perfect 
 happiness shown to him, just to be snatched from his 
 grasp, and his life made more wretched than before? 
 
 Anger followed despair. He would gain his release 
 from Mabilia. Then he would go and take her, by vio- 
 lence if need be. He would force happiness on her in 
 spite of herself. 
 
 Too late! The seeds of decay were already disin- 
 tegrating her love. He could have given her a life's 
 happiness a year ago. Now, whatever he did, he could 
 only bring her misery. 
 
 Then his town nature began to rise up against him. 
 He had spent many years in self-restraint and patient 
 acceptance of the second best. The habits of a life- 
 time were crying within him to be resumed. He had 
 surrendered himself wholly to the delight of the hour 
 and the pendulum was swinging back. He had told 
 Anne once that he was afraid of happiness, and the 
 happiness that at that time seemed to be in his grasp 
 had quickly changed into gloom. However he might 
 struggle now, he would fare no better. He was not 
 to be blessed, in life or in love. 
 
 There followed a more exalted mood. She had asked 
 this sacrifice of him, had asked it as if he owed it to 
 her and to his higher self. Was there nothing but 
 inexplicable obliquity in her view of the case? Right or 
 wrong, she had sacrificed herself to it. What if he did 
 her bidding, went through with his hard task, and re- 
 signed aU claim to her? He would be once again the 
 
252 MANY JUNES 
 
 lover of whom she had demanded of right all noble 
 action. He would lose her body, but he would be en- 
 shrined in the secret places of her soul. 
 
 He sat for a long time in the silent sunny room. 
 The tumult of his thoughts died away. He suffered 
 deeply, but the peace of resignation began to steal over 
 him. By-and-by he rose and went to a writing-table. 
 To her he wrote, lingering over the words that she 
 would hold in her hand : " I will do as you wish, but my 
 love is yours always." And to Mrs. Churton, that he 
 would return to London the next morning. 
 
 He rang the bell and ordered a cart to be brought 
 round for him which he would drive himself. He should 
 not be back to dinner. Some supper might be laid for 
 hint to await his return. 
 
 He drove to the post town seven miles away, dropped 
 his letters in the box, and drove back again in the 
 dusk. There was a heavy dew and the air was full of 
 sharp sweetness. Night moths flitted about him, his 
 horse's hoofs beat rhythmically, and it seemed to him 
 endlessly, in the lonely twilit lanes. They seemed to be 
 beating in his brain and confusing his thoughts. The 
 solid edifice which his intellect had built up carefully, 
 stage by stage, and on which that mood of lofty res- 
 ignation had put the coping stone, seemed to him no 
 more than a house on paper, an empirical design, lack- 
 ing the test of reality. 
 
 But he clung obstinately to it. He had seen^early, 
 and acted on his vision, rightly. Only his feelings 
 were waking again, and battling against his will. It 
 
THE AWAKENING 253 
 
 would always be so. The struggle had not ended with 
 surrender. It would go on for ever, and there would 
 never come a time when heart as well as brain would 
 tell him that he had done right. He must set his teetB 
 and cling to the truth as he had once seen it, even 
 when it seemed to him most false. 
 
 The steady beat of iron on stone changed its tune. 
 It was no longer confusing ; it rang out with irresistible 
 purpose ; hour by hour, day by day, year by year going 
 forward, even against the will to turn aside. 
 
 He caught at this new mood, and stayed his mind 
 with it, and as he did so came to the road leading to 
 the miU. Across the hedges and the moonlit meadows 
 the roofs and chimneys and the tall poplars showed dark 
 against the sky. A yellow light shone from an upper 
 window, and instantly he turned his horse's head towards 
 it. The horse, as if consciously accepting his symbolical 
 role, would have disobeyed the rein and kept straight 
 on, but his master's determination, unreasoning, but 
 all powerful, drove him aside after the briefest of 
 struggles. 
 
 The lane opened out into a wide space. It was 
 bounded on one side by the dark irregular length of the 
 house, crowned by that beacon window. There was a 
 smaller curtained window beneath it, showing a per- 
 pendicxxlar blade of light. At right angles to the house 
 was a row of buildings, and from a hollow shadow at 
 the end of them emerged a tall bent man, in clothes that 
 seemed to be specially irradiated by the moon. It was 
 the miller's man, of whom Margaret had spoken to him 
 
254 MANY JUNES 
 
 once, in the lost days of their happiness, a man of 
 abysmal taciturnity, who fed deep thoughts in a floury 
 solitude, but never uttered them. He came forward 
 and took Hugh's horse without a word, as if he had 
 been awaiting him, and led it away. 
 
 Hugh T^ent through a little garden to a door by the 
 side of the curtained window. There was no bell, and 
 no knocker, and he opened it straightway, and fell back 
 for a moment in surprise. He was in a large low 
 black-raftered room. A cavernous hearth faced him. 
 To his left was a small curtained window, but at the 
 end of the room was another long latticed window, open 
 to the night, and beneath it an oak table at which, with 
 a great book in front of him, and a shaded lamp, sat an 
 old man with white hair and a long white beard, gravely 
 regarding him. 
 
 For an appreciable space of time he stood with his 
 hand on the door and looked at the old man, who made 
 no sign either of surprise or welcome. Then he shut 
 the door, and instantly the silence broke into bewilder- 
 ing noise and movement. For when he turned around 
 again Margaret was in the room and in his arms, cry- 
 ing to him and her grandfather, the old man had turned 
 in his seat, and Hugh was speaking wildly to him and 
 comforting her at the same time. 
 
 The confusion died down as suddenly as it had 
 arisen. Confronted by that figure of wise and placid 
 age, whom this sudden cataclysm of feeling had moved 
 to no more than a slight change of position, who spoke 
 no word, but looked at them with inscrutable eyes, 
 
THE AWAKENING 255 
 
 waiting on them,, the stress of emotion faded and left 
 them facing him cahnly. 
 
 " I want her for my wife," said Hugh, in a voice 
 that did not sound like his own. " I come to ask you 
 for her." 
 
 A thin waxlike hand lay on the book in front of the 
 old man, and moved deliberately up and down. Other- 
 wise he was motionless, except for his clear eyes, set 
 under a white pent-house, which he now turned slowly 
 upon the girl. 
 
 " Yes," she cried to him, " I want him, grandfather. 
 Oh, I thought I could give him up; but it is too hard 
 for me." 
 
 Again the steady slow-moving gaze rested on Hugh. 
 He obeyed it as if it had been spoken word. " I am- 
 Hugh Lelacheur," he said. " We met by chance — 
 more than a week ago. I love her, and you see that she 
 loves me." 
 
 The steadfast gaze still rested on him, but the girl 
 broke in. She was clinging to his arm. They stood in 
 the middle of the room, under a heavy beam. " We 
 love each other so dearly, grandfather. And he is so 
 good, but his life has been unhappy." 
 
 The searching eyes had not moved from Hugh's face. 
 He was impelled to clear statements. " We met by 
 chance," he said again. " I was painting. We came 
 to love each other almost before we knew of it. I want 
 your permission to marry your granddaughter." 
 
 He would not speak of the obstacle that had come 
 between them until he was obliged. It was no obstacle 
 
256 MANY JUNES 
 
 to him. But the old man was still unsatisfied. He 
 spoke at last in a low clear voice. 
 
 " What else is there to tell? " he asked. 
 
 Again the girl interposed. " He told me this after- 
 noon," she said, twisting her fingers together, " of — 
 another, whom he was to have married. I said it came 
 between us, and we said good-bye. But I can't live 
 without him, dear grandfather. When I heard the 
 wheels just now, and saw him come in I came straight 
 to him. He is mine. You won't tell him to leave 
 me? " 
 
 The clear eyes rested on Hugh now, as it seemed to 
 him with a look of displeasure. 
 
 " It is true," he said, " that I was to have married 
 another woman. I have never loved her, but my life 
 was very lonely. Now I know what love is I see that it 
 was wrong to engage myself to her. I'm sorry. It was 
 my fault. Margaret has forgiven me for it now." He 
 drew her to him. " It won't come between us." 
 
 " It frightened me," pleaded the girl. " It seemed to 
 put us far apart when he told me this afternoon. But 
 if we love each other so much as we do, we shall for- 
 get it." 
 
 The old man looked at her now. " You can never 
 forget it, my chjld," he said. " You have no right to 
 forget it. What does your faith teach you? Loye is a 
 sacred thing, and marriage is a sacrament. This man 
 has put it out of his power to offer you marriage: he 
 has givrai hie word to another. The Church teaches 
 you that." 
 
THE AWAKENING 267 
 
 Hugh's anger rose, and an inherited Protestant in- 
 tolerance. Were the rules of a Church he disliked to 
 be brought up against him now? " You can't argue 
 that seriously," he said sharply. " She shall practise 
 her own religion without interference from me." 
 
 The old man looked at him with steady eyes. " We 
 speak a different language," he said quietly. " I am 
 not in reconciliation with the Church, but there are 
 real things in life which she has rightly interpreted — 
 things which Protestantism leaves alone. This is one of 
 them." He turned to the girl. " My child," he said, 
 " your instinct was right. The blame of loving does 
 not rest with you " — ^he threw a sudden minatory glance 
 at Hugh — " but as soon as you were told of this previ- 
 ous contract, it was for you to crush the love in your 
 breast." His voice rose, and his hands shot forward 
 and clutched the air in a vigorous gesture. For a mo- 
 ment he was all fire. Then he sank again into motionless 
 placidity. 
 
 The girl drew her hands away from Hugh, hid her 
 face in them, and moaned. 
 
 " It isn't right," Hugh cried. " You are taking 
 away her happiness — and mine — for a mere rale. We 
 should help each other to all goodness. If ever there 
 was a love sent from God, this is. It is spiritual and 
 pure. You can't allow a mistake of mine to wreck 
 two lives. I will mend it as far as I can. You don't 
 
 know the circumstances. I can make it up to " 
 
 " You rest on your wealth," interrupted the old man. 
 " That is a mean thought. You do not know how the 
 
258 MANY JUNES 
 
 minds of those of our faith work. Margaret, it rests 
 with you." 
 
 Hugh turned to her, and began to plead his love 
 passionately. She still hid her face with her hands, and 
 made little sounds of pain as she listened to him. Her 
 grandfather sat in the light of the lamp, like some silent 
 inexorable judge, relying on the law and the strength of 
 the law, having stated it, scorning to plead its cause. 
 But the struggle went on between the three of them, 
 momentous, in the quiet dimly lit room, while outside 
 brooded the silent summer night over miles ,of sleeping 
 country. 
 
 The girl raised her head slowly. Her eyes were full 
 of pain. She looked at Hugh with infinite tenderness 
 and longing, hiding nothing of her love for him; but 
 against that look his pleading died down into bald in- 
 effective sentences, and ended in silence. 
 
 She came to him and put her hands on his shoulders 
 and lifted her face to his. " Good-bye, my dearest," 
 she said. He kissed her gently, and looked for a long 
 time into her eyes. The old man sat silent at the table, 
 his thin hand rising and falling on the page of his book. 
 The clock's tick became audible; the breath of the 
 night stole through the casement. Hugh kissed her 
 again, and then turned and left the house. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 Hugh travelled up to London early the next morning. 
 He was his old self once again, cold and self-contained, 
 with a clear outlook on life, from which every vestige of 
 glamour had departed. He thrust the pain deep into 
 his heart and thought closely of all that it behoved 
 him to do to bury his week's madness. When he 
 thought of Mabilia and her mother he had to choke 
 down a kind of cold anger, which possessed him unrea- 
 sonably. He would go to them at once, but he would 
 neither excuse nor explain. It would need constant 
 restraint to hide his resentment against them. In keep- 
 ing his word, and concealing what it had cost him to 
 keep it, the limits of complacency would be reached, 
 and they must find their satisfaction in discussing with 
 each other the change in him, for he would suffer no 
 discussion with himself. With regard to them his 
 course was plain. 
 
 It was not so easy to decide other things. What 
 would come in the future from the echoes of his van- 
 ished dream? It was impossible, in the cold light of 
 remembrance, to believe that the secret was still his. 
 He recalled the sidelong looks of his servants, the 
 undisguised bewilderment of his agent, the rebuffing of 
 country neighbours. Evein now they must be discussing 
 
 259 
 
260 MANY JUNES 
 
 his behaviour and preparing the ground for the seed 
 of disclosure that must presently spread all over the 
 countryside. The fields and woods about the mill were 
 unfrequented. He had never seen a soul in them when 
 once he had left the borders of his own park. But it 
 was too much to expect that he, in whom so much in- 
 terest centred, had been unmarked in his comings and 
 goings. There would be gossip of servants, gossip of 
 villagers, tracking his movements, and sooner or later 
 the truth would come out and he would be held up to 
 the scorn of men. 
 
 Well, he would not run away. He would face it out. 
 What would it matter — for his own sake? If only he 
 could have shielded her from obloquy there might have 
 been a dark satisfaction, even, in braving it himself. 
 But her share in the punishment that would come was 
 beyond his power to lessen. That side of the question 
 would not bear thinking of. He set his teeth and made 
 his determination. He would live at Wyse Hall and 
 take up the responsibilities to which he had been called. 
 He would wrap himself close in his cloak of reserve, 
 first against Mabilia and her mother, then against his 
 neighbours, so that when the truth should become known 
 the remnants of his pride might be preserved to him in 
 the face of open reproach or cold avoidance. He would 
 have no joy in life ever again. He would make the 
 best of what still remained. 
 
 As he drove to his rooms in the distant west of 
 London, his mind, numbed by conflict and a sleepless 
 night, dwelt idly on trivial matters, but he had no 
 
MARRIAGE 261 
 
 sooner reached them than his wretchedness arose and 
 stabbed him. The familiar surroundings spoke in- 
 sistently to him of the fluttering pleasure that the 
 thought of his emancipation had brought when he had 
 last stood within them. And they told of the years of 
 quiet emotionless existence that had gone before. Com- 
 pared to the darkness in which he was henceforward to 
 walk, the twilight of those past days seemed radiant 
 with content and tranquility. 
 
 He ate something standing, and went straight to 
 Mrs. Churton's house. He was shown into the drawing- 
 room, where she and Mabilia were together. The maid 
 who conducted him upstairs cast a wondering glance 
 at his lined gloomy face. Mrs. Churton's first excla- 
 mation was one of surprise at his altered appearance. 
 " Why, you must have been ill ! " she cried. " Why on 
 earth didn't you tell us.? And what in the world have 
 you been doing all this time.?" 
 
 " I am not ill," he said, shaking hands with her and 
 afterwards with Mabilia. 
 
 " Then, please explain yourself," said Mrs. Churton 
 in a voice to which policy lent an air of badinage. 
 " Not a line to me or Mabilia ! Seriously, you know, 
 Hugh, it has put us in a very awkward posi- 
 tion." 
 
 " I think you owe me some explanation," added 
 Mabilia, with hauteur. 
 
 " I have none to give," he said, frowning impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 Mabilia and her mother stared at one another. An 
 
262 MANY JUNES 
 
 air of alarm mixed itself with the air of outraged of- 
 fence which they had prepared for him. 
 
 " I am afraid you must have been ill, Hugh," said 
 Mrs. Churton, in a more subdued tone. " But I will not 
 worry you about it, if you won't admit it. Only, of 
 course, Mabilia has been anxious. You have not treated 
 her very well, I think." 
 
 " I am used to the treatment," said Mabilia bitterly. 
 " I suppose now that Hugh has come into a title and a 
 fortune he is sorry that he became engaged to me." 
 
 A spasm of anger took him. " That is what I 
 should expect you to think," he said roughly. 
 
 Mrs. Churton rose from her chair. " I will leave 
 you together," she said. " Your actions have nothing 
 to do with me, Hugh, except as to Mabilia's happiness, 
 but I am not used to being treated in this way." And 
 she sailed out of the room. Hugh opened the door for 
 her. It was a relief to be able to do something. When, 
 in the train, he had thought over what he would not 
 say to them, it had not occurred to him to decide what 
 he would say. He found the task almost insupportably 
 difBcult. 
 
 " What is the matter with you, Hugh.?" asked Ma- 
 bilia, when they were alone. " Why do you treat me 
 like this.?" 
 
 " There is nothing the matter with me," he said. 
 " Please don't keep harping on that." He made a great 
 effort to behave as if his words were true. Rudeness 
 and irritation would not put him into the position he 
 wished to occupy before Mabilia and her mother. 
 
MARRIAGE 263 
 
 " Wyse Hall is a fine place," he said, " It is full of 
 beautiful things. We will go there when we come home 
 from Switzerland." 
 
 Mabilia's resentment merged itself in a mild excite- 
 ment. " I have read about it," she said. " It is a 
 show place. I should like you to take me there soon, 
 Hugh." 
 
 " I shall be busy in London until we are married," 
 he said shortly. 
 
 " But you can spare a day or two. There will be 
 things to see to if we are to live there." 
 
 " There is nothing to see to. My cousin lived there 
 up to the time he left England. All the servants have 
 stayed on. We could go and live there tomorrow with- 
 out making fresh arrangements." 
 
 " Then we can easily go down for a few days. 
 Mother would like to see the place, I know." 
 
 " We will go there when we come back from Switzer- 
 land," he said again. " I shall not leave London until 
 we are married." 
 
 Resentment rose in her again. " Why do you take 
 this extraordinary tone with me? " she asked. " What 
 have I done? What has come over you.f Are my 
 wishes to count for nothing.-' There is nearly a month 
 before the wedding, and everything is ready. I want to 
 go and see the place where I am to live. Why can't 
 you take me ? " 
 
 He could bear no more. Every word she spoke 
 jarred on him. He could not trust himself to look at 
 her. He rose from his seat and said coldly : " I do not 
 
264. MANY JUNES 
 
 choose to take you until we are married. Let us have 
 no more words about it." 
 
 She sprang up from her seat too. " You are be- 
 having like a brute," she cried. " What on earth has 
 come over you? Are you doing this because you want 
 to get rid of me, now you have everything else you 
 want ? " 
 
 An impulse came over him to tell her brutally how 
 much he wanted to get rid of her. He crushed it down. 
 " You must excuse me," he said quietly, with a return 
 to his normal self. " I did not sleep last night. I will 
 go home now. Good-bye, Mabilia." 
 
 " Hugh," she said, in alarm, " you are not going 
 to break with me.'' " 
 
 He smiled bitterly. " You need not be afraid of 
 that," he said. " You shall have more than you bar- 
 gained for in marrying me. But you will do as I wish. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 He turned and left the room without further fare- 
 well. Mabilia stood where he had left her, in utter 
 perplexity. 
 
 The few weeks before the wedding went by. Hugh 
 immersed himself in business with his lawyer and with 
 his agent, whom he summoned up to town. Mr. Gillett 
 no longer found him averse to going into details of estate 
 management. He wanted to know everything, and 
 showed plainly that he meant to take the reins in ear- 
 nest. " What has come over him.? " the agent and the 
 lawyer asked of one another, and hinted that his head 
 
MARRIAGE 265 
 
 had been turned by his sudden change of fortune. But 
 it was a curious turning of the head. He showed no 
 pleasure in his possessions, lived on in his rooms at 
 Earl's Court, was never sociable, but kept them at 
 arm's length and talked of nothing but business. 
 
 Mrs. Churton's friends, some of whom he had been 
 unable altogether to escape, although he had asked 
 that, on the regular occasions of his coming to the 
 house, he should not have to meet other people, tapped 
 their foreheads significantly. Dear Mabilia might think 
 herself lucky to have caught a rich baronet — at her 
 age — ^but, for their part, they would be sorry to have 
 to marry such a man, as glum as a bear, and so stuck 
 up that nobody was good enough for him. He did not 
 seem to think himself very lucky. What a face for a 
 prospective bridegroom ! They only hoped, for dear 
 Mabilia's sake, that there would be no catastrophe be- 
 fore the wedding. When once she was Lady Lelacheur 
 they supposed she would be satisfied. She might even be 
 relieved to be rid of him, if, as seemed very likely, he 
 should have to be — well, put away. 
 
 Mrs. Churton and Mabilia seriously thought that 
 Hugh's brain was affected. In some roundabout way 
 they had got into communication with Wyse Hall, and 
 heard that while he had been there he had insisted upon 
 being alone all day, and spent his time wandering about, 
 pretending to paint. The sudden shock, they put it 
 down to. And people in that state of mind often showed 
 delusions — such as an unaccountable dishke to their 
 nearest and dearest. It was painful, of course, but in 
 
266 MANY JUNES 
 
 all other respects he was as sane as they were. And 
 there were compensations. Under the circumstances 
 they did not press him to come to the house more often 
 than he showed a desire to — which was' three times a 
 week, as before. They were happier without him, buy- 
 ing a trousseau on an enlarged scale, and drawing pic- 
 tures for the benefit of their friends, and them- 
 selves. 
 
 They were meek in Hugh's presence. His brain must 
 not be excited by contradiction. They must put up 
 with all his fads — until after the wedding; and some of 
 them were not easy to put up with. It was difficult to 
 find a satisfactory reason for Mabilia's never having 
 seen the stately house over which she was to reign. But 
 they managed it somehow, and warded off persistent 
 curiosity by warm invitations to visit at Wyse Hall and 
 view Mabilia's glory. " We will fill the house with 
 pleasant people, my dear," said Mrs.»Churton, taking 
 it, perhaps not unnaturally, for granted that, as she 
 had been willing to share her own goods with her daugh- 
 ter and son-in-law, she would now be assigned a like 
 share in theirs. Mabilia doubted whether the house 
 would ever be filled with pleasant people of the sort that 
 her mother had in mind, or even whether Mrs. Churton 
 herself would be made entirely welcome there. But she 
 kept these doubts to herself, and held before her the 
 tangible assets of her coming marriage. 
 
 They were married on the day that had been ap- 
 pointed many weeks before. Mabilia, in orange blossoms 
 and a gown of ivory satin, gained plaudits. The bride- 
 
MARRIAGE 267 
 
 groom was dignified and reserved, as became him, but it 
 could not be said that he was cordial to the guests who 
 thronged the church and the reception at Mrs. Chur- 
 ton's house — nor was it said, but very much the reverse, 
 although he behaved with less eccentricity than had 
 been expected of him, indeed, with no eccentricity at all. 
 His best man was a former colleague at the insurance 
 office. The Kynastons were the only other personal 
 friends of his present. To them alone he showed cor- 
 diality, but they shook their heads as they journeyed 
 back to their office in the Strand, by the Underground 
 Railway. " Lelacheur was the last man I should have 
 said would be altered by prosperity," said Kynaston; 
 but his wife thought he was not making a happy mar- 
 riage. 
 
 Sir Hugh and Lady Lelacheur, announced the papers, 
 the latter in a dress of biscuit-coloured cloth, left for 
 Dover on their way to the Continent. They were away 
 for a month, and kept to the most frequented places. 
 This suited Mabilia admirably. She liked to sail into a 
 crowded hotel dining-room, and to see the heads of the 
 diners approach one another while their eyes followed 
 her. She liked to talk affably to middle-class com- 
 patriots on terraces, in gardens, and in steamboats, and 
 sniff the incense of their middle-class awe of her title. 
 And the last thing she desired was to be alone with her 
 husband. He was now always gravely polite to her, and 
 her fear of mental disturbance had disappeared. But 
 he kept up the barrier between them. She bore his 
 name but shared none of his thoughts. They were 
 
268 MANY JUNES 
 
 greater strangers to one another than they had been 
 a year before on the moors and the cliff top and by the 
 sea. He would leave her for a whole day at a time and 
 take lonely walks in solitude. She was relieved that he 
 should do so. Her fear when they had set out on their 
 journey was lest he should take her to lonely places, 
 such as she knew he loved, and that she would have no 
 companionship but his. The month during which they 
 were abroad was supportable, but she wished it ended. 
 She wanted to get back to England and to Wyse 
 Hall. 
 
 They reached home on a day of mellow September 
 sunshine. As they drove from the station, in all the 
 state that years before had aroused Admiral Lela- 
 cheur's wrath, Mabilia felt at last that she was rewarded 
 for all she had gone through from her husband, who sat 
 silent and gloomy by her side. His feelings towards her 
 were perhaps softer than they had ever been. She was 
 coming into her kingdom, as he had come into his three 
 months ago. What could ^he, with her narrow nature, 
 know of the rapture that had filled his life only a few 
 short weeks before.'' It was enough for her that she 
 was going to live in a great house and would be looked 
 up to as a lady of rank. He would give her every- 
 thing he could to bring her contentment. Fortunately 
 she did not want what he could not give her — ^his con- 
 fidence and the thoughts of his heart. 
 
 They drove in through the entrance gates and across 
 the park. He had given instructions that, owing to the 
 tragedy th^t had preceded his succession, there was to 
 
MARRIAGE 269 
 
 be no formal welcome from his tenants and dependants. 
 They came to the old house, lying still and beautiful 
 beneath the evening sky. Mabilia aflfected a stately 
 indifference. She was playing her part. But her eyes 
 showed hei; appreciation. The new chapter was opened. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 POSSESSIONS 
 
 Wtse Chuech stood on the slope of a gentle rise in 
 a corner of the park, perhaps half-a-mile from the 
 house. It was backed by a grove of beech, and faced a 
 road leading to a lodge gate, upon the other side of 
 which lay the village. It was very old and very quiet, 
 far enough from the boundary of the park to keep it in 
 seclusion on week days, near enough to draw its village 
 congregation on Sundays. It had been restored by 
 Sir Richard Lelacheur, and the interior had lost that 
 appearance of great age which might haveJbeen expected 
 from the heavy stones and Norman arches of the out- 
 side, and had before been suggested by its worm-eaten 
 high pews, Jacobean altar table and ugly faded up- 
 holstery, even though ^these at one time had been glar- 
 ing innovations, compared with which the later restora- 
 tion had been quite innocuous. The old squire's pew in 
 the chancel had been replaced by an organ and a vestry, 
 and the two front rows of oak benches in the nave had 
 been substituted for it. There was a reredos and an 
 altar with elaborate hangings. A low carved pulpit 
 had replaced the old three-decker. The carved and 
 painted fifteenth-century rood-screen had not been 
 touched, but there was already a proposal on foot to 
 restore it in memory of Sir Richard and his family. 
 
 270 
 
POSSESSIONS 271 
 
 The old brasses to knightly Lelacheurs of the long- 
 distant past still lay on the pavements of chancel and 
 nave. A big window of plain glass, scattered with 
 armorial bearings, still aiforded glimpses of the sky 
 at the east end, and was a great eyesore to the Rector. 
 And no improvements had availed to banish from the 
 church, the floor of which was two steps lower than the 
 ground outside, the penetrating smell which belongs to 
 ancient stone-buUt places. 
 
 It had been the custom of the villagers, coming by 
 twos and threes along the park road and converging 
 footpaths, to linger in the churchyard and about the 
 lych-gate until the family from the Hall had arrived and 
 entered the porch, when they would troop in behind 
 them, nailed boots ringing unabashed on stone floors, 
 and take their places for the service, which would im- 
 mediately afterwards begin. 
 
 It was upon this assembly that Hugh and Mabilia 
 came, on the Sunday morning after their home-coming. 
 Mabilia stepped out of her carriage, and walked up the 
 churchyard path and into the church between a double 
 row of her husband's tenants, who stared at her with 
 undisguised curiosity, of which, although her eyes 
 looked in front of her, she was agreeably aware. It 
 was, perhaps, the culmination of her triumph. She was 
 a great lady, an acknowledged queen in this little cor- 
 ner of the world, surrounded by none who would not 
 acknowledge her greatness. She could not conceal a 
 smile of gratification as she walked up the church and 
 knelt in her seat, but there was nothing in front of her 
 
272 MANY JUNES 
 
 but the chancel and the altar, and it was marked by 
 none of her fellow-worshippers. 
 
 Hugh followed her, his face set and inscrutable. He 
 had been nerving himself to this moment, his first public 
 appearance among his neighbours. His eyes were 
 watchful, though none could have said that they met 
 them. He thought he saw whisperings and strange 
 looks, and hugged more closely his cloak of pride. He 
 watched for a glance from the clergyman, who took his 
 place at the reading desk inside the screen. He got it, 
 and did not know whether it meant outraged bewilder- 
 ment or merely natural curiosity. He tried to analyze 
 the stares of the school children and the few villagers 
 who formed the choir, but he could make nothing of 
 them. He waited for the sermon, suspected a hidden 
 application in the text and condemnation in a score 
 of platitudinous sentences which followed. He even 
 looked askance at the hymns and read them, through as 
 the tunes were being played over. 
 
 Mabilia, standing, kneeling, and sitting beside him, 
 was occupied with far different thoughts, into which 
 her husband's figure rarely intruded, although it stood 
 in the background, slightly readjusted in' her mind. 
 She went through the service in a glow of satisfaction 
 and what stood to her for happiness. 
 
 It was aU far more splendid and rooted than she 
 had imagined. The house alone — she had visualized it 
 as " a show place," and read what she could find to 
 read of its glories. She had enjoyed, in a way, the 
 prospect of living in a house which people were allowed 
 
POSSESSIONS 273 
 
 tp come and gape at, but she had told her friends 
 that the drawbacks would counterbalance the advan- 
 tage. " What is the good of having a queen's bed- 
 room that you cannot sleep in?" she had asked, " and 
 a ball-room and saloons and picture galleries and all the 
 rest of it, that you don't want to use, besides collec- 
 tions of priceless pictures and plate and china and fur- 
 niture which are only an anxiety? I don't want to live 
 in a museum. I would much rather have a house like 
 the Dickson-Ponders', where all the rooms are used and 
 everything is comfortable and just as it should be." 
 Her friends had sympathized with her before her face 
 and laughed at her behind her back. 
 
 The splendid house, of which she had hardly as yet 
 gained more than an im.pression, rose up before her, 
 with its old and priceless treasures heightening the 
 beauty of spacious rooms, all adapted to the easy 
 modern life of its owners. Her husband's predeces- 
 sors had used every room in it for their large family 
 and many friends. Here was a state of which she had 
 had no previous experience, but it was subordinated to 
 the pleasure and comfort of those who had held it. 
 The picture with which Mabilia warmed her heart dur- 
 ing the progress of the service was a jumble of mag- 
 nificent rooms of state, and smaller ones as fine in their 
 beautiful plenishing ; crowds of servants, watchful, sof t-^ 
 footed, with no obtrusive personalities to disturb the 
 perfection of their service ; fires everywhere ; everything 
 made ready; an effect of careless wealth and splendid 
 ostentation which, somehow, was not ostentation at 
 
274 MANY JUNES 
 
 all. This was like no "show place " that she had ever 
 dreamt of, with ancient magnificence sharply cut off 
 from daily life, although in its spoils of beauty it could 
 hold its own with any. Nor was it in the least like 
 the Dickson-Ponders' lavishly furnished modern castle, 
 hitherto the pattern of opulent comfort, but now vul- 
 gar and ostentatiously extravagant. She had caught 
 the same note and felt herself born to it. 
 
 And there was another source of gratified pride. 
 She had hugged her new title as a pleasant plaything, 
 but her husband's family had meant little or nothing 
 to her. It was well that he was a baronet, but she 
 would much rather have married a peer of no ancestry 
 whatever. But now, with a mind quick to form suth 
 impressions, she stood with him at the end of a line of 
 such old distinction, both in wealth and place, that the 
 baronetcy became a mere incident in the tale of achieve- 
 ment. At her feet was the brass of a Lelacheur who 
 had been Knight of the Garter long before the families 
 of most existing peers had been heard of; there was a 
 crusader's tomb inr a niche of the south wall, a battered 
 helmet and long two-handled sword opposite to it. 
 Every monument and pane of coloured glass in the 
 church told some tale from the history of the same an- 
 cient family, and the house was full of memorials of its 
 long-dead members: armour and banners and robes, 
 portraits and parchments, with countless personal pos- 
 sessions, still freely used, cementing the sober present 
 with the long and glorious past. Her husband's ap- 
 parent indifference to all these things was the right 
 
POSSESSIONS 275 
 
 attitude. You did not talk about your ancestry when 
 you were so highly placed as this. You hugged it in 
 secret. So, at least, thought Mabilia, and considered 
 ways of making the secret known and at the same time 
 preserving a voiceless pride. It would go hard with 
 her if she did not find abundant satisfaction in a Ufe 
 with such trappings. Lady Lelacheur of Wyse Hall 
 was a greater personage than ever she had imagined, 
 and Mabilia Lelacheur was well fitted for such emi- 
 nence. 
 
 After the service was over, when the vicar had left 
 the chancel, the rest of the congregation remained in 
 their places. It was Mabilia who divined that she and 
 Hugh were expected to lead the way out of church, and 
 they walked down the aisle between the benches with 
 every eye fixed upon them. 
 
 " We will wait for the vicar, and you had better ask 
 him to lunch," Hugh said to his wife. She got into the 
 carriage and he waited by the gate while the villagers 
 passed him on their homeward way. He shook hands 
 with Gillett and introduced him to Mabilia, and spoke 
 to one or two to whom Gillett had made him known 
 on the first day of his arrival. They were mostly awk- 
 ward in their acknowledgments of his words, but he 
 could not discover in their speech any signs of what he 
 feared, and Gillett talked easily, although in rather 
 more subdued a manner than at first. 
 
 The vicar came down the path rather hurriedly. He 
 was a man of forty-five, a bachelor, half priestly, half 
 bucolic, with a thin shaven face, an old soft felt hat and 
 
276 MANY JUNES 
 
 thick nailed boots. He had called on Hugh twice two 
 months before and had not seen him. He was evidently 
 nervous, as he looked up at his patron from beneath a 
 pair of bushy eyebrows. Hugh shook hands with him 
 and said: "I was sorry not to see you when I came 
 down before." His nervousness subsided, and he became 
 voluble, over-friendly, accepted Mabilia's invitation 
 with alacrity, and got into the carriage with them. He 
 could have heard nothing. 
 
 The country neighbours called. They thought Ma- 
 bilia very well, but inclined to be patronizing, at which 
 some of them laughed and others took offence. Those 
 of them who saw Hugh, compared him unfavourably 
 with Sir Richard. " They say he is eccentric," they 
 said. " Neither of them is a great acquisition." Hugh 
 read their faces keenly. 
 
 He asked some of them to shoot his partridges with 
 him. If he had been capable of enjoying anything he 
 would have enjoyed the clear days of September and 
 October, standing under the thinning hedgerows, tramp- 
 ing across roots and stubble. He had not fired a 
 cartridge since his boyhood's days, but was proficient 
 enough not to disgrace himself. He learned the secrets 
 of driving the birds to and fro, posted the guns him- 
 self and brooked no dictation from his own keeper. 
 Sir Richard's favourite retriever attached herself 
 to him and would fetch and carry for no one 
 else. 
 
 One morning when it was suggested that the fields 
 round Paston's mill should be driven he acquiesced, but 
 
POSSESSIONS 277 
 
 before the guns came to them he pleaded a headache and 
 went home. 
 
 He spent most of his mornings with Gillett in his 
 business-room or in the estate office. The agent told the 
 vicar that he learnt everything with extraordinary 
 quickness, and had an eye for every detail. But he did 
 not like him. After dinner he would sit in the long 
 library. When Mabilia was with him he read; when 
 she had gone to bed he sat and looked in front of him. 
 
 One lovely morning, early in October, Mabilia pro- 
 posed that they should go out sketching. " There is a 
 most picturesque old mill," she said. " I have seen it 
 from the road. It would make a charming picture." 
 
 "You are not to go near it," he said roughly, and 
 when she exclaimed, in aggrieved astonishment, added: 
 " It does not belong to me. You must go nowhere but 
 on my own land." 
 
 " Oh, very well," she said. " But there could not be 
 much harm. Where shall we go.'' " 
 
 " I'm not coming," he said. " I have work to do." 
 
 Mabilia sometimes went sketching while the fine 
 weather lasted, but Hugh never, from the time of their 
 marriage. 
 
 As the weeks went on his apprehension died away. 
 There had been no sign, no word, no looks of meaning 
 from his own servants or from the people he met in 
 church or village or country lane. It seemed incredible 
 that no one should have seen him near the waters of the 
 mill, since he had frequented them day after day with 
 no efforts towards concealment. But it must have been 
 
278 MANY JUNES 
 
 so. He knew that his servants had attributed his long 
 absences and his disregard of business and correspond- 
 ence to eccentricity. Probably they had welcomed a 
 more usual mode of life as the result of his marriage, 
 for there was now no echo of past mistrust in their 
 demeanour. 
 
 One day, after he had told lymself at last that the 
 secret of those days was his own, he said something to 
 Gillett about the mill and the land around it. " Old 
 Paston is as tough as an oak," said Gillett. " He's 
 over seventy, but he may live to a hundred, and last 
 out you and me. He lives all alone now. His grand- 
 daughter has gone away again." Hugh said no more. 
 He had heard her name mentioned. Before that she 
 might have been living on the other side of the world 
 instead of at his doors, for all he had heard of her since 
 they had parted. She had never been seen about the 
 village, and was regarded by the villagers as part of 
 the enigma, which they had long since tired of trying 
 to solve, in the life of her grandfather. 
 
 But at the beginning of the new year her name sud- 
 denly forced itself upon every pair of ears within a 
 radius of twenty miles. 
 
 The vicar came one afternoon to drink tea with 
 Mabilia. It was one of his chief pleasures in life. To 
 him she was the type of aristocratic graciousness, a 
 figure more imposing than Lady Victoria Lelacheur, 
 Sir Richard's wife, who had had, it is true, more easy 
 manners, and had displayed no condescension to him, 
 but had shown a most feminine distaste for village gos- 
 
POSSESSIONS 279 
 
 sip. Mabilia patronized him, and he accepted her 
 patronage as a mark of her breeding, but she also 
 turned a willing ear to the tittle-tattle with which he 
 regaled her. This combination of qualities, pointed by 
 the rich surroundings of Wyse Hall, pleased his palate, 
 and he questered like a hound for food to supply 
 them. 
 
 He came hurrying up the drive from his vicarage in 
 the village street, and inquired for Lady Lelacheur with 
 such eagerness that the butler who opened the door to 
 him was impelled to remark to his underling that there 
 was something in the wind, and old Hobnails had been 
 the first to sniff it out, as usual. 
 
 Hugh was in his wife's morning-room, which occa- 
 sioned the messenger of tidings some embarrassment, 
 for he was not at ease with his patron, and found little to 
 admire in the pride of the husband, however much it 
 might please him in the wife. 
 
 " Such a piece of news ! " he said, accepting a cup 
 of tea from Mabilia's hand, with a side glance at Hugh, 
 standing upright in front of the fire. " Have you ever 
 set eyes on the old man at Paston's mill. Sir Hugh? " 
 
 Hugh had begun to relax his vigilance. The an- 
 nouncement of news, which would have steeled him for 
 anything that might follow, a month ago, had conveyed 
 no warning to him, and his face went white. But the 
 vicar, having asked his questioUj had looked down upon 
 his tea-cup again and Mabilia's eyes were not raised. 
 He put strong constraint upon himself, took a sip of 
 his tea before replying, and then said " No," in a voice 
 
280 MANY JUNES 
 
 which sounded strange to him, but brought no notice 
 from the others. 
 
 " No ; well, I'm not surprised," said the vicar. " He 
 is ' a hermit, and gossip says a miser as well. He 
 has lived in that house for, let me see — ^how manj 
 years .'' " 
 
 " Pray tell us your news, Mr. Hobnell," said Mabilia 
 leaning back in her chair and fingering her bracelet; 
 " one hears little enough, nowadays." 
 
 The vicar made haste to get rid of his budget. 
 " Paston has a granddaughter," he began, and again 
 Hugh's eyelids quivered. " Nobody has ever seen her, 
 hardly. In fact, she has been abroad until quite lately. 
 Well now, what do we hear.? All of a sudden, and no- 
 body knowing anything about it, she's gone away and 
 got married." 
 
 Hugh put his cup down on the table, and turned 
 round to poke the fire. His action merely seemed to 
 indicate the same indifference as his wife's, " Well, I 
 don't see anything very extraordinary in that," she 
 said. 
 
 " Ah ! but wait a minute. If she were marrying a 
 stranger — well and good! But who do you think the 
 happy bridegroom is ? " 
 
 " How on earth can I tell.? " said Mabilia disdain- 
 fully. 
 
 " A man old enough to be her father, her grand- 
 father, almost. A man in a much better position than 
 hers. A clergyman — in fact, Mr. Freeling, the Rector 
 of Swathling!" 
 
POSSESSIONS 281 
 
 He brought out his statements with progressive 
 emphasis, and looked triumphantly for their re- 
 sult. 
 
 " How tiresome ! " said Mabilia languidly. " I sup- 
 pose she will hardly expect me to call on her. J" " 
 
 " Oh, they are not going " began the vicar, but 
 
 Hugh interrupted sharply : " Mr. Freeling never called 
 upon you. There is nothing tiresome in it. You will 
 let them alone." 
 
 Mabilia raised her eyebrows, and flushed with annoy- 
 ance. " I shall certainly leave them alone," she said. 
 " In fact, I cannot see that your news is of the slightest 
 interest, Mr. Hobnell." 
 
 The vicar showed himself pathetically confused by 
 this reception. " I thought you'd like to hear of it," he 
 said. " Nobody else knows, yet. I had it from the 
 Bishop's chaplain, whom I saw this morning. It's not 
 usual, an elderly clergyman marrying the daughter' of 
 a miller." 
 
 " Well, of course, it is rather odd," admitted Mabilia 
 handsomely. There was no need to ask questions. The 
 vicar would tell her everything. But she would prefer 
 to let him reveal himself undisturbed by her husband's 
 presence. She looked up at Hugh. His set and frown- 
 ing face betrayed no more to her than an habitual 
 moroseness, to which she was becoming habituated, but 
 which none the less aroused resentment. " I don't sup- 
 pose you care to listen to village gossip, Hugh," she 
 said. " Mr. Hobnell is kind enough to regale me with 
 it. It relieves the dulness a trifle." 
 
282 MANY JUNES 
 
 " When did this marriage take place? " asked Hugh, 
 taking no notice of his wife. 
 
 " Some days ago," replied the vicar, livening up a 
 little at this mark of interest. " Freeling is a queer 
 character. None of us see much of him. Swathling 
 is a big church in a tiny parish, and he never sets foot 
 outside it, eiccept — and that has always been remarked 
 — to come and see old Fasten, at the mill. Paston is 
 said to be a Roman Catholic. He's probably much 
 nearer an atheist, as no one has ever heard of his going 
 to Mass ; and I don't believe Freeling is much better, I 
 should be very sorry to ask him to preach in my church, 
 or to officiate in his. It's nothing but a great empty 
 barn, and he's never done anything to beautify it. 
 They say he educated this girl at a convent in France, 
 and the gossip has always been, though I never listened 
 to it, that he meant to marry her, sooner or later. Now, 
 of course, one sees that there was something in it. I 
 don't know what sort of a girl she is, because I've never 
 seen her." 
 
 " Then you can leave her name out of the discus- 
 sion," said Hugh sharply. " I will leave you to talk 
 it over with my wife." 
 
 He walked down the long room towards the door, 
 but as he reached it something was said which caused 
 him to turn round, with his fingers on the handle. 
 
 " And I hope the new rector will be an improvement 
 on the old." , 
 
 "What did you say.?" he asked. 
 
 " I was telling Lady Lelacheur, Sir Hugh," said the 
 
POSSESSIONS 283 
 
 vicar, raising his voice, " that the Bishop's chaplain 
 told me that Mr. Freeling has exchanged his living for 
 one in Devonshire, so we shall riot have the pleasure of 
 seeing anything of the miller's daughter turned parson's 
 wife." 
 
 Hugh went out of the room and into his own study, 
 and locked the door after him. 
 
 Early in the spring Mabilia went to London to stay 
 with her mother for a fortnight. Hugh had never left 
 Wyse Hall since they had come to it in September. 
 He had let his house in Grosvenor Square again, having 
 curtly refused Mabilia's request that they might occupy 
 it themselves during the London season. " I shall never 
 live in London," he said. " If you want to go there 
 you can stay with Mrs. Churton, or at an hotel." And 
 Mabilia had clutched at a respite from a life that had 
 already become insupportably dull to her. 
 
 Mrs. Churton had also found Wyse Hall intolerably 
 dull when she had visited her daughter in November, 
 and again for a week at Christmas. Mabilia's grandeur 
 afforded her small gratification, since none of her own 
 friends were permitted to see it, and she gained more 
 satisfaction from describing than from observing it. 
 Mabilia's grandeur had, in fact, aroused in Mrs. Chur- 
 ton some annoyance. She had no objection, she told 
 herself, to her daughter's giving herself airs, generally, 
 but it was a little too much to expect that she should 
 be expected to put up with them herself. Mabilia was a 
 great lady, no doubt, and airs, to Mrs. Churton, were 
 
284 MANY JUNES 
 
 a natural expression of greatness ; but Mabflia's was not 
 the only fine house that was open to her, and if she was 
 to be made to feel that she was there on sufferance, 
 well, she would go elsewhere, or else stop at home. It 
 was not Hugh's treatment of her that she resented. He 
 refused to have Mabilia's former friends in the house, 
 but his welcome of her had been almost cordial. She 
 had found a great improvement in him, especially on 
 the occasion of her second visit. He no longer seemed 
 to be in arms against her, and if he was still morose at 
 times, and behaved rather like a bear to his wife, Mrs. 
 Churton could not find it in her heart to blame him, 
 considering Mabilia's absurd ways and discontented 
 petulance. 
 
 Mrs. Churton had written that she should be glad to 
 have Mabilia with her as long as it pleased her to stay, 
 but she had made up her mind, as she wrote, that there 
 should be no airs in her house. She had been a good 
 mother to Mabilia, and given her everything that it was 
 in her power to give. She would treat Lady Lela- 
 cheur in the same way as she had treated Mabilia 
 Churton, no better and no worse. If she cared to 
 make herself happy for a time in her mother's house, 
 and among her old friends, it should be on those condi- 
 tions. The airs must be kept for the friends, upon 
 whom Mrs. Churton had exercised a few herself. 
 
 Mabilia brought a maid and a great stock of clothes, 
 which she proposed further to increase, for she had a 
 handsome allowance from her husband and money in 
 addition from her mother. She compared the size of 
 
POSSESSIONS 286 
 
 the bedroom that was assigned to her with her own at 
 Wjse Hall, and remarked on the general pokiness of 
 the house. Mrs. Churton, whose heart was hot within 
 her, waited, and, during the course of the afternoon 
 and evening, gathered further material for displeasure. 
 
 The outburst came when Mabilia annoimced her in- 
 tention of breakfasting in her bedroom. 
 
 " No," snapped out Mrs. Churton, the word coming 
 like a pistol crack. Mabilia stared at her. 
 
 " Ypu are not an invalid," said Mrs. Churton, 
 " breakfast is at half-past nine in the dining-room, and 
 you will come down to it as you have always done, if 
 you want any breakfast at all." 
 
 " I always breakfast in my own apartments at home," 
 began Mabilia ; but her mother broke in on her. 
 
 " Your only apartments here," she said, with an in- 
 flection of contempt on the word used, " besides your 
 own bedroom, are the rooms which you will share with 
 me. I have had enough of it, Mabilia. If you con- 
 descend to come and stay in this house you will please 
 to behave yourself. If your own mother and your own 
 mother's house are not good enough for you, by all 
 means go and stay somewhere else. You may be my 
 lady to the rest of the world ; to me you are my daugh- 
 ter, Mabilia." 
 
 The somewhat acrid discussion that followed ended 
 in Mabilia's breaking into tears and saying that she 
 had no wish to quarrel with her mother, who was the 
 only friend she had in the world. " I am absolutely 
 miserable," she said. " I have got everything I thought 
 
286 MANY JUNES 
 
 I wanted, and I don't care for any of it, Hugh never 
 speaks a kind word to me, and he keeps me in that great 
 house just like a prisoner. I am beginning to hate it." 
 
 " It is the sort of prison that most people would be 
 very glad to have," said Mrs. Churton uncompromis- 
 ingly, " and it seems to me that you have no difficulty 
 in getting away from it when you wish to. As for Hugh 
 never speaking a kind word to you, I have not heard 
 you speak many kind words to him. He seems to me 
 to be greatly improved from what he was immediately 
 before his marriage. There is no sign any longer of 
 what we feared then, and if he is cold towards you, I 
 expect it is because you do not give him what he 
 wants." 
 
 " There is one thing I know he wants," said Mabilia, 
 in a low voice, drying her tears on a lace handkerchief. 
 
 "He wants an heir, of course," said Mrs. Churton 
 frankly. 
 
 " It is not an heir so much. I believe he would rather 
 have a daughter than a son. I believe he never forgets 
 that child of his sister's," 
 
 " I thought he had put that old trouble away from 
 him. He did not go down to Foyle at Christmas. Is he 
 going at Easter ? " 
 
 " How can I tell.? I should no more venture to speak 
 of those things to him than one of the under-footmen 
 would." 
 
 " We have agreed to drop the under-footmen for the 
 present. Of course, Mabilia, I acknowledge that your 
 complaints are justified to a certain extent. Hugh cer- 
 
POSSESSIONS 287 
 
 tainly does not treat you with confidence, or even with 
 affection." 
 
 " He treats me with absolute aversion. I believe he 
 hates the very ground I walk on. His very politeness 
 shows it, for he has changed again in the last month, 
 mother. He will have his own way in everything, but 
 he is not so irritable. He simply seems to take no pleas- 
 ure in anything. And you know I was prepared to 
 love him. I don't now. It would be impossible. But I 
 believe if I did he would dislike it more than anything 
 else." 
 
 " Well, it is certainly a strange state of things. No- 
 body put any pressure on him to marry you, and I don't 
 believe it was for the sake of money, for you remember 
 the attitude he took up about that. Mabilia, do you 
 think there is another woman.'' " 
 
 " My dear mother, what an absurd idea ! He knew 
 nobody before we went to Wyse, and he never goes out- 
 side the place." 
 
 " Well, it does not seem likely. But he might behave 
 just in the way he does, if it were so. It has sometimes 
 occurred to me. Well, Mabilia, you have got a very 
 fine house and a great position. You must content 
 yourself with that. When you get tired of Wyse Hall 
 — and I own that I should find it dull myself, living 
 there all the year round — you can come here — that is, 
 if you can content yourself with what I can offer you. 
 Now I think we had better go to bed. You can tell 
 Wallace to call you at half-past eight." 
 
 Hugh did not go down to Foyle at Easter. He 
 
288 MANY JUNES 
 
 did not leave Wyse Hall for a night until he went 
 abroad for a month at the beginning of June, leaving 
 Mabilia to pay another visit to her mother, and display 
 herself in the drawing-rooms of Earl's Court. There- 
 after he always went abroad regularly at the beginning 
 of June, alone, and sometimes again, later in the year, 
 when Mabilia would occasionally accompany him. But 
 as the years went on, Mabilia developed into something 
 of an invalid, and kept more and more to her own 
 rooms, where she received the visits of the vicar and a 
 few of her country neighbours, embroidered altar 
 cloths and vestments, and read novels and devotional 
 poetry. 
 
 Hugh, in his big house, was as lonely as he had been 
 in his two rooms at Earl's Coupt. His life was as busy 
 as he could make it. He was unremitting in the busi- 
 ness of his estate, and attended regularly to his duties 
 as a magistrate. He made few friends among his 
 fellow-landowners, but he was treated as a man of 
 weight and judgment, and five years after his suc- 
 cession he was made Chairman of Quarter Sessions. A 
 year or two later he was asked to stand for Parliament, 
 as member for the division, but refused. In the autumn 
 and winter he shot over his own land and sometimes 
 over that of his neighbours. In the summer he paid 
 some attention to his garden. Once or twice a month 
 he and Mabilia, when she was not too unwell to accom- 
 pany him, which was seldom, dined out at some big 
 neighbouring house, and every now and again they gave 
 a dinner in return, when they used the raftered ban- 
 
POSSESSIONS 289 
 
 queting hall, with its stone pavement, great open fire- 
 place and carved and gilded minstrels' gallery, and the 
 Lelacheur plate was displayed on table and buffet. In 
 the evening he sat in the long library, set in hand a 
 catalogue of its contents, and began to compile a his- 
 tory of his family, for which there was abundant ma- 
 terial. He had the reputation among his tenants of a 
 strict landlord, but there were stories of unexpected 
 kindness, and village mothers defended him because he 
 was known to notice their children. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MEMOaiES 
 
 Ten years went by, and the month of June came round 
 again. The meadows were once more deep in grass and 
 flowers, and the profusion of midsummer was rioting 
 over the rich level country around Wyse Hall. Mabilia 
 was ill, and thought herself dangerously so. A doctor 
 was in daily attendance, and two nurses waited on her 
 querulous whims. She had so reproached her husband 
 with his intention of leaving her in her dangerous state 
 that he had given up his yearly Continental journey 
 and stayed home. Always hitherto he had spent the 
 month of June out of England. He sat with her for 
 half-an-hour in the morning and half-an-hour in the 
 afternoon, during which she often complained of the 
 misery and dulness of her life, and did not refrain from 
 accusing him of spoiling it. He was patient with her 
 and silent under her upbraidings ; and gentle, if he was 
 able to do anything to relieve her restlessness. The doc- 
 tor had told him that she was not seriously ill. 
 
 One afternoon Hugh left his wife's room and went 
 out into the park. There was a light breeze which 
 moved fleecy clouds across the soft blue of the sky. The 
 bracken was pushing up bold croziers, the beeches wore 
 their dress of tenderest green, the rabbits ran across 
 the grass and the sandy ridges. His feet led him to that 
 
 290 
 
MEMORIES 291 
 
 part of the park which was bounded by the river, and 
 when he came out into the fields he still continued to fol- 
 low its windings by a path which he had not trodden for 
 the ten years during which he had lived with Mabilia 
 at Wyse Hall. 
 
 Thv lines on his face were deeper, and his hair was 
 greyer. But he still walked with something of his old 
 step; his body was thin, and improved in condition by 
 years of a fairly active and open-air life. He was not 
 noticeably different from the man who had trodden that 
 ipath so lightly ten years before. 
 
 He was hardly, as yet, aware of where his steps were 
 leading him. He had controlled his thoughts so that 
 they seldom now tempted him to look back upon past 
 years. He had set a bound, and for the sake of the poor 
 contentment that remained to him forbidden them to 
 wander. 
 
 He was thinking of Mabilia, and of whether there was 
 any chance of increasing her happiness in the dull life 
 she had chosen for herself. She had long since had 
 freedom to go where she would, and he had even opened 
 his house in London for her, and allowed her to enter- 
 tain her acquaintances there. But she had tired of that, 
 as well as of the Continental sojourns that she had next 
 asked for, and for the last two years she had lived in 
 her own rooms in Wyse Hall, and not for months left 
 them, even to go into the garden. Had her marriage 
 brought her anything at all that she really wanted.-* 
 Would it not have been far better for her own sake if 
 he had refused to carry it through.'' 
 
292 MANY JUNES 
 
 For his own, there was only one answer. He had 
 never known a moment's happiness or community of 
 interest with her. They were bound together for life, 
 but in sympathy as the poles asunder. The hope with 
 which he had first buoyed himself up had died, of chil- 
 dren to play about the rooms of his house, or comfort 
 him with their dependence upon his love. 
 
 Some subtle influence of memory had impelled him, on 
 this radiant day of June, to retrace steps both of mind 
 and body. He raised his eyes and saw the never-to-be- 
 forgotten summer fields around him, and the slow- 
 moving flower-margined river; and his past life flowed 
 back upon him with the strength and freshness of a day- 
 old experience. He gave his thoughts the rein, and 
 allowed them to take him where they would. 
 
 What had his life been since the door had shut on his 
 brief dream of happiness? He had never willingly sur- 
 veyed it as a whole. He had gone on from day to day, 
 trying to forget, trying as far as he could to enjoy 
 the good things of the world which fate had awarded 
 him with so lavish a hand. The power of gratifying 
 secondary desires might have brought him enough to be 
 grateful for, if he had come to them from where he stood 
 before the days of his dream. But there was the bar- 
 rier. It was as if a veil through which he had hitherto 
 looked upon the beauties of the world, without knowing 
 that his vision was darkened by it, had suddenly been 
 drawn aside and revealed them in unimagined radiance. 
 The veil had fallen again, as suddenly as it had lifted, 
 and its folds were thicker than before. 
 
MEMORIES 293 
 
 He came out on the bank of the mill-stream, and 
 under the boughs of the great chestnut, older by ten 
 years than when its leaves had last shaded him. It was 
 aU just the same. The pigeons cooed on the red roofs ; 
 the millwheel droned its lazy song ; the poplars and the 
 aspens quivered in the summer breeze ; across the pool 
 the orchard grasses stood thick under gnarled mossy 
 trees ; and there by the wooden staging under the bridge 
 was moored a punt, leaky and shabby with age. 
 
 It all came back. to him in a flash, the joy and the 
 hidden but never buried sorrow. He threw himself on 
 the grass and buried his face in his hands to shut out the 
 sights and sounds that were all too familiar. Not one 
 tone of her voice or turn of her head but came back 
 to him. He lay for a long time stabbing his mind with 
 thoughts intolerably sweet. His body shook as the 
 waves of memory flowed over him. 
 
 His passion spent itself. He sat on the grass, on the 
 very spot where she had sat by him on the day when he 
 first saw and loved her. His sorrow ached dumbly at the 
 back of his mind, and his tired thoughts roamed idly 
 over detached and mostly unimportant episodes of his 
 Ufe. 
 
 It was summer time at Foyle. Anne had come into 
 his room at dawn, and roused him. Together they had 
 crept out of the house, and were standing on the edge 
 of the little lake. It had rained in the night and the 
 smell of the soil was sweet. 
 
 Again, it was winter, and they were reading together 
 out of one book, both packed in great shabby esisy- 
 
294 MANY JUNES 
 
 chair by the schoolroom fire. The coal clinked in the 
 grate. Anne had come to the end of a page and was 
 ready to turn over. He held it with his finger until he 
 had finished. Every now and again Anne put up her 
 hand to brush the hair from her face, and the scent of 
 it came to him. 
 
 They were on the sea with their father, who was steer- 
 ing, with Dunster at the sheets. The wind had sprung 
 up suddenly, and the salt spray was wet on his cheeks 
 and in a minute sparkling drops on Anne's blue jersey. 
 They were both a little frightened, but the Admiral held 
 on with a rugged steadfast face. There was nothing 
 to fear while they were in his care. 
 
 He was trying to paint a cornfield on the slopes 
 above the Manor, the shocks standing in serried rows 
 with purple shadows, the grey down and the sky beyond. 
 It was time to go home, but still he lingered, for he 
 dreaded the lonely house. Anne had left him, the Ad- 
 miral and Dunster were in London. The country was 
 desolate under the hot August sun. 
 
 It was a chilly damp October evening. . He was going 
 "through the gateway into the Great Court at Trinity. 
 Lights from the Hall and the Master's Lodge shone 
 •warmly. The organ was booming in the Chapel. Two 
 men in blue gowns came towards him laughing. 
 
 He was sitting in front of the fire in his father's 
 rooms in London, reading " The Moonstone." The Ad- 
 miral, with a rug across his knees, sat near him with 
 his hands on the arm of his chair, a white stubble on 
 his chin. 
 
MEMORIES 295 
 
 He was standing on the rung of a high stool, lifting a 
 heavy ledger from the brass rails on a level with his 
 head, carefully, so that it should not fall with a thud on 
 his desk. 
 
 , He was lunching with Kynaston at a confectioner's 
 shop, both of them eating crisp rolls and drinking cof- 
 fee from thick cups at a little marble-topped table. 
 
 He was in his snug room at Mrs. Millett's house, 
 reading a letter from Anne, sitting at the table covered 
 with a red cloth under a glaring gas jet. She had writ- 
 ten of the brilliant sunshine, the hot plains, the verandah 
 on which she was sitting in the shade, looking into a 
 garden bright with flowers. Dunster was on the sea, 
 getting closer to her every hour. 
 
 He was at Foyle again. It was little Anne, the child, 
 now sitting on his knee in the big schoolroom chair by 
 the open window. Her hair had been brushed and her 
 hands washed for a meal, and she wore a clean starched 
 pinafore that fell in stiff folds. A gong sounded and 
 they went downstairs together, her hand in his. 
 
 He was leaning over her bed, Anne at his side hold- 
 ing a shaded candle, and speaking in whispers. Her 
 dark hair was spread over the pillow, one hand was 
 under her cheek, the other lay on the coverlet. Her 
 lashes quivered, and Anne said, " Hush ! " Her dark 
 eyes slowly opened, were wide for a moment, and then 
 they closed again ; there was a smile on her lips. Anne 
 touched the bedclothes, and they crept softly out of 
 the room. 
 
 He stirred where he sat, and a sound of pain broke 
 
296 MANY JUNES 
 
 from his lips, as this memory came to him, more vivid 
 than the rest. Not for years had he allowed himself to 
 dwell upon what he had lost. He had thought that by 
 keeping his mind closed against it he might in time be 
 able to think of the happiness of his early years, and 
 of those whom he had loved, with a tender regret, and 
 gain solace from his thoughts, as he had done before 
 his marriage. But ten years had gone by, and the sense 
 of loss was as poignant as ever. 
 
 And yet there was a difference. He knew instinc- 
 tively that the time had come for him to face the trouble 
 that was wrecking his life, to make up his spiritual 
 account, and to leave the spot to which he had been 
 drawn again, as it seemed by something outside him- 
 self, with some clear idea as to where he stood, towards 
 himself and towards others. 
 
 He raised his eyes and looked across the water to 
 the deep-grassed orchard that bounded the pool, and 
 for the first time since he had lost her threw open the 
 gates of his mind for Margaret's entrance there, con- 
 juring up her figure as he had seen it under the gnarled 
 boughs of the apple trees, when after crossing the water 
 she had come back to be nearer to him again before he 
 left her. And, as he did so, he found that her image 
 was supportable, that it had even faded a little. The 
 pang which he had invited was less sharp than the pain 
 of his recent thoughts, and as he renewed it, by grasp- 
 ing out at all the sweet memories of her that he had so 
 long avoided, its recurrent bitterness became always 
 less; and presently the tender regret which he had 
 
MEMORIES 297 
 
 hoped for took the place of the pain, and the familiar 
 scene soothed and comforted him, suffused once more 
 with the light and form and colour of its summer 
 beauty. 
 
 It was almost happiness to be able to think of her 
 like this. She had gone out of his life as completely as 
 those others whom he had loved had gone out of it. 
 They were dead, and she was alive, but he had no ex- 
 pectation of seeing her again, nor had he ever wished it. 
 A short time after her marriage her grandfather had 
 left the mill, and shortly after that Gillett had told 
 him that it was open to him to buy it, on condition that 
 the man who had worked it should be continued as its 
 tenant. This man lived there still, alone; and the mill 
 was as much cut off from the social life of the village 
 as it had ever been. The Pastons were forgotten in 
 Wyse. 
 
 Hugh found himself thinking of her, without any bit- 
 terness or shrinking, as she would be now. Had she 
 been happier than he in the marriage to which she had 
 given herself, perhaps as a weakness of her woman's 
 nature, craving protection and dependence, perhaps out 
 of gratitude, perhaps to put a barrier between herself 
 and her frustrated happiness? Had she had children? 
 Was her husband, who had been old when she married 
 him, still alive? He might at least find that out, from 
 some work of clerical reference. But otherwise he had 
 no desire to make inquiries about her. She would be a 
 woman now, in her sweet maturity, more to be loved 
 than ever if she had come to it by his side and he 
 
298 MANY JUNES 
 
 could, have watched the slow change in her, finding 
 always something new to love and to rest himself upon. 
 But their ways had lain apart, and he had forbidden 
 himself to think of what might have been. The image 
 in his mind now was wholly that of the girl she had been, 
 and however her sweetness had developed she was that 
 no longer. 
 
 The past was over and done with. He could dwell on 
 it now in memory as something ineffably sweet, and 
 cherish it in his mind without pain. The happiness 
 that might have sprung from it was not his even to 
 imagine. He had schooled himself so far as no longer 
 to desire it. 
 
 He sat for a long time solacing himself with the free- 
 dom of spirit that had come to him because at last he 
 had faced his trouble. But he had not yet faced the 
 whole of it. If the loss of Margaret, whom he had loved, 
 was no longer to be a burden upon his life, there was 
 still his life to be faced to the end with Mabilia, whom 
 he had never loved. Was th^re no way of lightening 
 that burden for himself — and for her ? 
 
 Yes, for her. Some memory of Margaret — some 
 word or phrase she had used about trusting all her 
 happiness to him — unexpectedly brought him to this 
 testing-point. Whatever enlightenment had come to 
 him concerning Mabilia's desires in marriage, he had 
 given her precious little chance of building upon any 
 others. If it was true that love had had very little 
 to do with her acceptance of him, it was yet 
 no very great crime on her part to have ex- 
 
MEMOJRIES 299 
 
 pected the sort of advantage from marriage that went 
 most with the ideas of life in which she had been brought 
 up. He had visited that discovery upon her harshly, 
 even before he had known Margaret, in withdrawing 
 himself in spirit from her; but they might have come 
 together in the way he had pictured to himself, if he 
 had made allowances. Afterwards he had held her 
 coldly, and still more harshly, at arm's length, and 
 visited upon her the wrecking of his own happiness, 
 which was yet no fault of hers. He had given her what 
 he had told himself she wanted from him, and with- 
 held everything else. But now, what he had given her 
 — so much more than she could have expected — was of 
 no more use to her in bringing happiness than it was to 
 him. How woijld it have been if he had given her some- 
 thing else? 
 
 Love? That had never been his to give her, and he 
 had not asked, or even desired it from her. Then what 
 had he offered her, and what had he expected in return ? 
 
 The hope of children of his own had not been quite 
 all that had impelled him towards marriage. They 
 would have been her children as well as his, if the gift 
 had been vouchsafed. Companionship and growing sym- 
 pathy were to have sweetened his solitary life ; he had 
 thought that he might get them from her, and he had 
 had some reason for his belief. In their walks together 
 over the high moors and by the sea, in the first dawn- 
 ings of their friendship, surely there had been some- 
 thing to build on, some foundation that had not been 
 wholly destroyed by his discovery that she was not quite 
 
300 MANY JUNES 
 
 what he had thought her! Was he himself, towards 
 her, what she had thought him in those early days? 
 Would she have marriec^ him, even, if she had known all 
 the truth about him? 
 
 The sun declined, and all the sweetness of the summer 
 evening hung about the retired and lovely place, which 
 he had shunned as if it were a dark spot in all the beauty 
 that surrounded his home. Now it was consecrated 
 afresh to him. The spirit of love which had infused 
 its bright and gentle charm had descended upon him 
 again. The love had been, and remained as a guiding 
 influence. All those upon whom he had expended love 
 throughout his life had been taken from him; it was 
 right to keep them in tender remembrance, but not right 
 to shut up in his own breast his power of loving, and 
 let it feed only upon memories. He saw that now, at 
 the end of his long self-communing. The strong and 
 tender love that he had felt for his sister, for her child, 
 and for Margaret, should have opened his heart to all 
 mankind, and not closed it against every emotion that 
 would have taken him out of himself. There are many 
 kinds and degrees of love, but all spring from the same 
 divine source. His love for Margaret had been pure 
 and uplifting, but he had turned it into a secret shame. 
 Even his love for the dead child he had hugged 
 jealously to himself. Surely he might have let Mabilia 
 into that ! 
 
 He knew what he had to do now, as he walked slowly 
 home by the riverside, through the blossoming fields, 
 and wondered whether after all it was too late to do it. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 BY THE WINDOW 
 
 The room in which Mabilia spent all her days, hug- 
 ging her ailments and her disappointments, had an out- 
 look on to the most beautiful of the gardens by which 
 the house was surrounded. She was perhaps least dis- 
 contented when the summer days allowed her to lie on 
 her sofa by the open window and steep herself in the 
 peace and beauty of it. 
 
 She lay there on this evening, later than her wont, 
 and watched the light fade over the lawns and trees. 
 Hugh had sent her a message to say that he was coming 
 to her after dinner, if she felt well enough to talk to 
 him. She did not want to talk to him, but thought 
 that it would be less tiresome to do so if she could look 
 out upon the scene that she loved, and watch the stars 
 come out in the sky. 
 
 It was almost dark in the great room when Hugh 
 came to her. He could see only the squares of light 
 in the high windows as he shut the door, and her face 
 and the hand that lay on her coverlet glimmering in 
 the dusk. The xihair in which he sat when he was with 
 her was set by the head of the sofa, facing the window. 
 She could not see his face without altering her position. 
 
 There was silence for a time, while she lay quite still 
 and waited for him to speak. 
 
 301 
 
302 MANYi JUNES 
 
 " I have something to tell you," he said, in a low con- 
 strained voice ; " something you ought to have known 
 long ago." 
 
 She did not stir, but there was a sense of awakened 
 attention, almbst of shock, as again she waited. 
 
 He spoke in a voice almost monotonous. " When I 
 came down here first," he said, " ten years ago, I met 
 Margaret Paston, who lived at the mill with her grand- 
 father. I fell in love with her. I would have married 
 her, but when she found out that I was engaged to 
 marry you, she wouldn't. I never saw her again, and, 
 as you know, she married herself and went away soon 
 after we came to live here. It was all ended — ended for 
 ever — when I went back to London; and soon after- 
 wards we were married." 
 
 There was a slight pause, but not long enough for 
 Mabilia to have said anything, if she had wished to do 
 so. He went on again, but in a voice a little more hur- 
 ried, and with more life in it. 
 
 " It was ended, that is, for any communication of 
 any sort between her and me. I know nothing about 
 her life since she went away from here. I have not 
 heard her name mentioned for years. Until this after- 
 noon I have never been to the mill, where we first met, 
 and loved each other." 
 
 He came to a sudden stop, though this had seemed 
 only the introduction to something he had meant to 
 say. 
 
 " She loved you? " Mabilia asked in a colourless voice, 
 
 « Yes." 
 
BY THE WINDOW 303 
 
 There was a long pause. Both of them were abso- 
 lutely still — so still that the fluttering of a moth against 
 the half-shut window pane sounded like the fluttering 
 of a bird. 
 
 " That explains many things," said Mabilia, in the 
 same detached voice as before. " I wish you had mar- 
 ried her and not me." 
 
 Again a long silence ; and then Mabilia said : " You 
 had no right to marry me if you loved somebody else. 
 . . . Or at least you ought to have told me." 
 
 " Yes," he said at once. " I ought to have told you. 
 It has taken me ten years to see that. I saw it very 
 plainly this afternoon. . . . And now I have told 
 you." 
 
 She stirred on her couch, and again there was a long 
 silence, until he saw her hand move, and knew that she 
 was crying. 
 
 Still he sat without speech. His confession seemed to 
 have emptied his mind of all emotion. He was faintly 
 surprised that she should take it in this way, for he had 
 expected that she would be bitter and scandalized; but 
 her tears did not move him to sympathy with her. 
 
 She dried her eyes. " I don't know why you've told 
 me this now," she said. " I suppose it was to put your- 
 self right with your conscience. I don't want to sneer 
 at that ; I think it is a good thing to do. You've been 
 horribly cruel to me, though I suppose everybody who 
 knows us would say that you were a model husband, and 
 all the unhappiness of our married life has been my 
 fault." 
 
304 MANY JUNES 
 
 He had admitted to himself that he had been cruel 
 to her, but the accusation struck at him none the 
 less. 
 
 " I have sometimes reproached myself with the un- 
 happiness," she went on. " I have wondered what I 
 ought to do, for I have a conscience too, and I try 
 to follow it. Now I know that I could have done noth- 
 ing. You shut yourself up against me before we were 
 married, and, whatever I might have tried to be to you, 
 you would have repulsed me. You have been thinking/ 
 of this other woman all the time — -all these years. 
 You're thinking of her still. You say you know noth- 
 ing about her now; but I do, as it happens. Her hus- 
 band died some years ago. If I were to die, there would 
 be nothing to prevent your marrying her. It's the best 
 thing I can do. I've nothing to live for." 
 
 She broke into sobs, but controlled herself quickly. 
 
 " I'm not going to make myself ill," she said. " But I 
 wish you'd go away, now you've told me. There doesn't 
 seem to be anything more to say." 
 
 " Yes, I think there is," he said quietly. " Much of 
 what you say is true, and I have already said it to my- 
 self. It is because of that that I have come to you. 
 What happened ten years ago was something outside of 
 myself, that came to me without any exercise of will or 
 intention of mine. I'm not sure that it was even 
 wrong; but if it was I couldn't help myself. Where 
 I have been wrong is in not facing it. From the time 
 I turned away from her, to take what I thought was 
 the right course, I have shut my mind as far as I could 
 
BY THE WINDOW 305 
 
 to memories of her. Now at last I have opened it, and 
 I find that the love itself is only a memory. I couldn't 
 have told you anything if I were still cherishing it. I 
 have told you because it has been between us aU these 
 years, and now it is cleared away." 
 
 " You have found that you don't love her any more.'' " 
 She asked the question in a tone almost of curiosity. 
 
 " It isn't quite like that," he said, after a pause ; and 
 hesitated again before he went on : "I hope you will 
 accept it when I say that my purpose in coming to you 
 is not, as you said just now, to put myself right with 
 my conscience ; it is to put myself right, as far as that is 
 possible, with you. If I have been cruel to you, as you 
 say I have, I ask your forgiveness. I know, at least, 
 that the unhappiness to which the lives of both of us 
 have been brought has been my fault. I see that now; 
 and if one sees the wrong in oneself and turns away from 
 it . . .it ought not to be beyond mending." 
 
 " I can't imagine your falling in love," she said, as 
 if she had not heard this. " It's an .extraordinary 
 story altogether. And you say that she refused to 
 marry you, when she knew about me. Did she know 
 who you yrere? But of course she did. Oh, I'm not go- 
 ing to make a grievance of it, Hugh. I suppose it 
 happens like that, to men. Of course I knew you didn't 
 love me when you asked me to marry you. I don't 
 know whether I loved you or not. I hardly remember. 
 I suppose I didn't ; but I know if you'd treated me well 
 I might have done so. You never gave me a chance. At 
 any rate you didn't want it. I remember telling mother 
 
306 MANY JUNES 
 
 once that I believed you would hate it more than any- 
 thing if I did." 
 
 Again she burst into sobs, and this time he did feel 
 sympathy with her, though it was the faintest of emo- 
 tions. " I'm sorry," he said ; " sorry for everything, 
 Mabilia. I've had a disappointed life, and I've drawn 
 you into it. I've sacrificed you to my regrets and frus- 
 trated hopes. It was very wrong. Is it too late to put 
 some of it right, and make the best of the years that are 
 left to us.'' We're hardly past our youth yet. We 
 have a great deal that most people would think the chief 
 thing to bring happiness. I've lived almost entirely for 
 myself for years past — perhaps all my life; though at 
 first I didn't love myself more than I loved others." 
 
 " Oh, I've lived for myself too," she said. " There's 
 been nobody else to live for. You needn't take all the 
 blame to yourself. There's one thing, though, that you 
 might take into consideration about me. If I had 
 wanted nothing but wealth and position and the sort of 
 life that comes from them to make me happy, I shouldn't 
 be living as I am now, almost always alone." 
 
 He considered this in his mind. It was a new light 
 to him on her character. It was true that she might 
 have had everything that he had thought of her as 
 wanting in life, and that she had tried most of it, and 
 got tired of it all. 
 
 " What is it then that you do want.? " he asked, with 
 gentleness. 
 
 " Oh, how do I know.? " she said, with a gesture of 
 her hands. " It's so long since I thought of you as 
 
BY THE WINDOW 307 
 
 being willing to give me anything beyond what you 
 felt yourself obliged to give me. But whether I loved 
 you or not, before yOu could have given me very much, 
 it was your companionship that attracted me. There 
 wasn't much else to be gained then from marrying 
 you." 
 
 There was a long pause. The soft night air, sweet 
 with all the scents of the blossoming earth, stole in on 
 them, the breathing stillness wrapped them round. It 
 was a time and a place that would have made for the 
 tenderest happiness if their hearts had been in accord 
 with one another. But heaviness was upon them, with 
 all the weight of their dead hopes and desires. Was 
 there anywhere a gleam of spiritual light.? 
 
 Hugh raised his eyes to the stars, which now shone 
 brightly in the dusky canopy of night. " Isn't it pos- 
 sible to begin again.'' " he said — " to begin again where 
 I made the mistake of not trusting you? We had some- 
 thing in common before then." 
 
 " What do you mean — that you made a mistake 
 about me .'' " she asked, with a note of surprise in her 
 voice. 
 
 " Wasn't it when I found that you didn't want to 
 cut yourself off from the sort of life that you had lived 
 with your mother.'' Wouldn't you, after all, hav€f been 
 ready to live p quieter life with me, if I had pressed 
 you, and been patient with you .'' " 
 
 " Oh, Hugh ! " she said. " If you have thought about 
 me like that!" 
 
 She broke down and cried again, and this time his 
 
308 MANY JUNES 
 
 sympathy with her tears was real. He put out his 
 hand, and she took it and pressed it. " I was sorry 
 for that almost immediately," she said. " I told mother 
 so. I beUeve it would have been quite different if I 
 hadn't disappointed you then. If you've remembered 
 that, and seen the truth, you must know that there is 
 something in me that you might have cared for." 
 
 He was moved by this — to compunction for his hard 
 impatience with her, and pity for her weakness. Her 
 hand still lay in his, and she let it lie there, as if 
 she drew something from his hold of it. " If you hadn't 
 shut me out ! " she said. " I know how much you loved 
 your sister, and the little child that died. That has 
 always parted us, but it might have brought us to- 
 gether. I suppose you have always wanted love. 
 What you've told me tonight — I don't think it would 
 have happened if you hadn't already withdrawn your- 
 self from me. I won't make a grievance of it, Hugh. 
 It sha'n't come between us, if you really want us to 
 come together again at last. No, I'm sure that your 
 telling me about it means that you do. It was years 
 ago. I'm not even jealous of her. I never had that 
 to give you, and we need not pretend that we're going 
 to fall in love with one another now, after missing the 
 way so badly at first, and for so long. But we ought 
 to be friends. We've never even been that, you know, 
 since the very first. Yes, I do want it, Hugh. Only you 
 mustn't keep me out any more. You must let me into 
 something that you feel. I don't think it's beyond me 
 to feel something of it with you." 
 
BY THE WINDOW 309 
 
 He rose and went to the window, where he stood look- 
 ing out on to the beauty of the starlit garden. 
 
 " On a night like this," he said slowly, " Anne and 
 I once sat in the garden at Foyle, and wondered what 
 life was going to bring us. We felt the beauty of the 
 world as we had never felt it before. We thought we 
 could never be happier. Afterwards she had great hap- 
 piness, and great sorrow, and then she died. And the 
 child I loved so much — she felt the beauty of the world 
 too, but she was taken away from it. What does it all 
 mean? In the light of love it seems to mean so much, 
 without it so little." 
 
 He turned towards her. " It means more to me to- 
 night than it has for years," he said. " Some of the 
 mists have cleared away from it." 
 
 " I feel it too," she said quietly. " It has been a 
 consolation to me to lie here, while I have been ill, and 
 to drink it in. It's something that we have in common, 
 Hugh. It hasn't been so much to me as it has to you. 
 I have never known great happiness, or great sorrow, 
 only great discontent. If you're going to be kind to me, 
 and think of me a little . . . if I get better ..." 
 
 She broke off and wept again. Her nurse came in, 
 with protests at her keeping up so late, and, when she 
 saw her tears, showed some indignation against Hugh, 
 who took it quietly enough. He knew that Mabilia 
 would not suffer harm from her tears. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 THE TIME AND THE PLACE 
 
 Mabilia and her mother were sitting together, busy 
 with their needlework, in the garden of Wyse Hall. 
 The air was hot and still, but not without freshness. A 
 smooth expanse of lawn stretched in front of them, 
 bounded by the western front of the beautiful ancient 
 house, which for centuries had enshrined the home life 
 of its owners, and pointed their appreciation of its 
 quieter pleasures. The bees were droning among the 
 flowers, and provided the only sound that broke the 
 brooding peace of the summer morning. 
 
 Mrs. Churton's hair was white, but she was still active 
 and erect, and decisive in speech and manner. And 
 Mabilia looked actually younger than when she and 
 Hugh had talked together on that summer night five 
 years before. There were no signs of the invalid about 
 her now, and on the grass a little way from where they 
 were sitting was a child's wooden cart, and near it a 
 child's painted horse. Motherhood had come to her, 
 and brought happiness with it. She no longer had 
 time, or inclination, to hug ailments, and they had de- 
 parted from her. 
 
 Mrs. Churton, who had been accustomed throughout 
 life to annoimce herself as unable to understand, or 
 even to approve of, the prevailing fashion of making 
 
 310 
 
THE TIME AND THE PLACE 311 
 
 a fuss about very young children, had fallen a victim 
 to the fascinations of her grandson, but had never yet 
 been brought to acknowledge that there was any dis- 
 crepancy between her present and her former atti- 
 tude. She was defending herself vigorously this 
 morning against the charge pressed with raillery by 
 Mabilia of being just like any other doting grand- 
 mother. 
 
 " It is not in the least like that," she was saying 
 vigorously. " Little Richard is a remarkable child. 
 I should say the same if he belonged to anybody else 
 but you. If he were like the ordinary run of children 
 I should put up with him because he was yours, and do 
 what I conceived to be my duty towards him, and there 
 it would end. What is the time, Mabilia.'' I have not 
 got my watch on." 
 
 Mabilia laughed. " It is not time to wake him yet," 
 she said. " I wish you had spoilt me a little when I was 
 a chUd, mother, as you spoil Richard. It wouldn't have 
 done me any harm." 
 
 " To say that I spoil Richard is simply untrue," said 
 Mrs. Churton. " I love the child ; that is only natural 
 in my position towards him. And no child is the worse 
 by being surrounded by love, if it is wisely exercised. 
 It was in your casej but there was a great deal of 
 nonsense in you from the first, which I did my best to 
 eradicate. The result was that you grew up a com- 
 panion to me, instead of a nuisance, as many girls of 
 the modern day are to their mothers. Some of the non- 
 sense returned after you were married, but as you seem 
 
312 MANY JUNES 
 
 to have got rid of it now, I will say no more about 
 that, except that my bringing up was justified." 
 
 Mabilia laughed again. " It's all rather different, 
 isn't it ? " she said. " Life is worth living now." 
 
 " Life is always worth living," said Mrs. Churton. 
 " It has always, certainly, been worth living for you, 
 with all you have had at your command, and the pity 
 of it is that you wasted so many years of it in thinking 
 yourself hardly used, when you were so much more 
 fortunate than most. It is true that Hugh has changed 
 completely since the child was born, and is now much 
 easier to live with than he was. But he was never really 
 so difBcult as you made out, and even if he had been, 
 you had all the rest, and as far as I know he never put 
 any obstacles in the way of your enjoying it." 
 
 " No, he didn't," said Mabilia, speaking more seri- 
 ously. " I had everything that I should have thought I 
 could possibly want, and after a time I found that I 
 didn't care for any of it. It was a curious discovery for 
 a woman brought up as I had been." 
 
 " That is meant for a reflection upon me, I suppose. 
 You're so much higher in the world than your mother 
 that you can forget how much she had to do with pre- 
 paring you for the place that has fortunately come to 
 you. However, we needn't spar about that. The whole 
 change in you has been brought about by your having 
 a child. It is so with many women. Men too! Look 
 how it has changed Hugh ! He has even got rid of some 
 of his solemnity. He has got rid of all his disagree- 
 ableness. How intensely disagreeable he was at the time 
 
THE TIME AND THE PLACE 313 
 
 of your marriage ! With all this just come to him, and 
 married to the woman he had chosen out of aU others, 
 one would have said that he was a bitterly disappointed 
 man, for whom life held nothing at all. I have often 
 thought it over since, and that is just how it has ap- 
 peared to me." 
 
 "That's just what he was, poor Hugh! I didn't 
 know much about him then, or for long afterwards. I 
 had thought a great deal about what I wanted for 
 myself, and very little about what I could give him." 
 
 " Well, I suppose you would have given him a child, 
 which was the chief thing he wanted, if you could. But 
 he couldn't know that you would not have one for so 
 many years when he married you. I've never understood 
 his attitude at that time. You're so much more in his 
 confidence than you used to be, Mabilia. Haven't you 
 ever asked him what the trouble was then.'' Was it just 
 that he had bound himself to marry you when he was 
 poor, and afterwards thought he might have done so 
 much better for himself, with all he had to offer? " 
 
 Mabilia smiled. " You don't put a very high value 
 upon what you had made of me, after all," she said. 
 " I don't believe you've ever thought, mother, that love 
 is the chief thing in marriage, and that nothing else 
 counts much beside it." 
 
 " Oh, love ! " said Mrs. Churton. '' I don't picture 
 you as exactly pining for love when Hugh proposed to 
 you. You thought it was just good enough then, and 
 by a miracle of luck it became much more than good 
 enough later. I like to face such questions as this di- 
 
314 MANY JUNES 
 
 rectly. If Hugh had ever thonght of himself as in love 
 with you, he had most certainly got rid of the idea by 
 the time you were married, as he showed plainly enough. 
 Yours was not a love match, Mabilia, on either side ; but 
 though one was very doubtful about it for a long time, 
 it has turned out well in the end, as so many marriages 
 do that don't begin with roses and raptures. You've 
 become good friends, and Hugh has turned into an ex- 
 tremely kind and thoughtful husband ; but all the same 
 it's a little late in the day to begin talking about love." 
 
 " Perhaps it is," said Mabilia, with a sigh. " And 
 yet, I don't know. I'm not at all sure that I don't love 
 Hugh, though I'm quite sure that I didn't when I mar- 
 ried him, or for many years afterwards. He is very 
 kind to me; he is a man that everybody must respect, 
 and perhaps admire. I admire and respect him, at any 
 rate ; and he is the father of my child whom we both do 
 love. What I do know is that I could have loved him at 
 the beginning." 
 
 " Well, I don't know what there was to prevent you. 
 From what you say, I should think that you may have 
 come to love him in some sort of fashion; and probably 
 he could make you love him as much as most wives love 
 their husbands at your age, if he wanted it. The trouble 
 is that very few men do, when they get past the early 
 stages, and Hugh never even went through them. What 
 you can say is that he has accepted his lot, and it is 
 quite likely that he has come to feel some sort of affec- 
 tion for you. If he behaves well towards you, it is just 
 as true that you behave well towards him. I have ob- 
 
THE TIME AND THE PLACE 315 
 
 served it with pleasure, for you didn't always. You 
 have both something substantial to go upon, but if you 
 were to press me from now till doomsday I shouldn't 
 call it love." 
 
 " I don't want to press you. And yet it is love, after 
 all. Perhaps not for each other. We made a false 
 start, and we can't go back to the beginning. But we 
 both love our child. He's the chief thing in the lives of 
 each of us. Otherwise it would just be accepting the 
 second best, and making the most of it as long as we 
 lived, and not caring much when the time came to 
 leave it." 
 
 " I shouldn't call it the second best myself ; but it's 
 true that both of you did your utmost to make it so. I 
 don't take any exception, though, to your finding it all 
 made worth while by the child. It would have been dis- 
 mal enough to have grown old here, with nobody to 
 come after you that you cared anything about." 
 
 " There's a great deal in that, mother — more than 
 you mean by it, I think. It seems to me as if neither 
 Hugh nor I matter very much now, for ourselves. 
 We've had the greater part of our lives, and we've made 
 little of them — ^poor Hugh especially. And it hasn't 
 been his fault, as perhaps it has been mine. It's as if 
 he had been the sport of fate all along. He has had 
 great things given him, but always they seem to have 
 come at the wrong time, and he has lost 'them one after 
 the other ; or if he has kept them they have been of no 
 value to him. But now they are of value, because of his 
 little son. But they're nothing beside Richard himself. 
 
316 MANY JUNES 
 
 It is he that has brought Hugh to anchor at last. Oh, 
 if only he's spared to us! If Hugh were to lose him, 
 
 as he has lost everybody else he has loved ! " 
 
 " That's a foolish v^ay pf talking, Mabilia," said 
 Mrs. Churton authoritatively. " Where is your reli- 
 gion? God has given you a great gift. Be thankful 
 to Him for it and make the most of it. We all have 
 our lives to live, and must expect sorrow as well as joy 
 in them. There's no such thing as a man being the 
 spqrt of fate." 
 
 THE END