3lti|aca, Slew %ortt 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 6025.A779S6 
 
 Sir Harry; a love story. 
 
 3 1924 013 653 443 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< 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/cu31924013653443 
 
SIR HARRY 
 
 A LOVE STORY 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 PBTER BINNEY, UNDERGRADUATE 
 
 THE HOUSE OF MERRHEES 
 
 RICHARD BAtDOCK 
 
 ENTON MANOR 
 
 MANY JUNES 
 
 THE SQUIRE'S DAUGHTER 
 
 THE EI,DEST SON 
 
 SUNNY AUSTRALIA 
 
 THE HONOUR OF THE CLINTONS 
 
 THE TENORS AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 RODING RECTORY 
 
 RANK AND RICHES 
 
 WATERMEADS 
 
 UPSIDONIA 
 
 ABINGTON ABBEY 
 
 THE GRAFTONS 
 
 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
SIR HARRY 
 
 A LOVE STORY 
 
 ARCHIBALD MARSHALL 
 
 LONDON: 48 PALL MALL 
 
 W. COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD. 
 
 GLASGOW MELBOURNE AXTCKLAND 
 
K^y 
 
 1114- 
 
 Copyright 1920 
 
To 
 ANDRf CHEVRILLON 
 
AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 t have to thanh Messrs Bums &■ Oates, Ltd., PubUshers 
 of ' Selected Poems of Francis Thompson,' for permission to 
 quote ' The Making of Viola,' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CBAF. VAOa 
 
 I. ROYD CASTLE I 
 
 11. LADY BRENT 13 
 
 in. THE CHILD 24 
 
 IV. FAIRIES 36 
 
 V. MRS BRENT 44 
 
 VI. REVOLT 57 
 
 VII. THE LOG CABIN 70 
 
 VIII. AUGUST 83 
 
 IX. ON THE MOOR 93 
 
 X. VIOLA lOI 
 
 XI. THE WOODLAND POOL III 
 
 XII. AT THE THRESHOLD I24 
 
 XIII. THE TEMPLE I35 
 
 XIV. BASTUN 140 
 XV. WILBRAHAM 153 
 
 XVI. DILEMMA I66 
 
 XVII. THE END OF THE SUMMER I77 
 
 XVIII. AFTERWARDS I§7 
 
 XIX. WILBRAHAM IN LONDON I99 
 ■yii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. TASB 
 
 XX. WAITING 215 
 
 XXI. SIDNEY 231 
 
 XXII. THE RETURN 237 
 
 XXIII. CONFIDENCES 230 
 
 XXIV. HOLIDAY 258 
 XXV. MRS BRENT KNOWS 271 
 
 XXVI. LADY BRENT SPEAKS 282 
 
 XXVII. LADY BRENT AND VIOLA 294 
 
 XXVIII. IN THE BALANCE 302 
 
 XXIX. LOVE 308 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 ROYD CASTLE 
 
 The Reverend David Grant, Vicar-elect of Royd, was a 
 novelist as weU as a priest. So v/hen he paid his pre- 
 liminary visit to Royd Castle, and sat himself down to 
 write to his wife about it, he did so with the idea of 
 making his letter a piece of literature; or at least of 
 making her see. For that was literature — ^making 
 people see. He would take as much trouble over his 
 letter as he would over a chapter of a novel; and when 
 she had read it, she would have a clear picture in her 
 mind of the place she was coming to and the people she 
 would meet there. She had not been able to come her- 
 self because she was close to her confinement. Poor 
 girl ! It was rather hard luck that she should have to 
 miss all this excitement. They had been married 
 thirteen years and had always looked forward to settling 
 into the ideal country parsonage. But either he would 
 have to settle in himself, or else wait a couple of months 
 or so until the baby was bom and Ethel was well enough 
 to take a hand in the blissful arrangements. Longing to 
 get to work at it as he was, with money saved from his 
 royalties to be spent in making their home what they 
 wanted it to be, he yet thought that he would prefer 
 to wait until she was strong again. After thirteen years 
 of married Ufe, in circumstances not of the easiest, this 
 couple still Uked doing things together. 
 
 The time and the place invited to Uterary composition. 
 The time was shortly after ten o'clock of a warm spring 
 night, for the Castle retired early. The place was a room 
 which David Grant had sometimes imagined for himself 
 as the background for a scene in a novel, but never yet 
 
2 Sm HARRY 
 
 had the satisfaction of occupying. It was a great state 
 Tudor bedroom, with carved and panelled walls, a etone 
 fireplace with a fire of logs burning in it, Flemish 
 tapestry above, a polished oak floor \vith old carpets in 
 front of the hearth, by the heavy piUared canopied bed, 
 and in the deep embrasure of the window. There were 
 heavy oak chairs and tables and presses. The washing 
 arrangements, necessarily more modern, since in Tudor 
 days they washed very little, were in a closet apart. 
 The wiiting-table alone showed modernity, with every- 
 thing on it in the way of apparatus that could please a 
 person who loved writing for its own sake, and could 
 appreciate its accessories. It stood in the windowed 
 recess, which was as large as a fair-sized room, and 
 contained another table for books, with a cushioned 
 chair by its side, and still left space for moving about 
 from one window to another. Wax candles in heavy 
 silver candlesticks stood invitingly on the writing-table, 
 and elsewhere about the room. There were six of them 
 lit when David Grant came up, but it was so large that 
 the effect was still one of rich dimness, wanned into life 
 by the glowing fire on the hearth. 
 
 David Grant's soul was full of content as he came into 
 the room and shut the heavy door behind him. If he 
 couldn't write a letter in this atmosphere that would 
 eventually read well in his Biography, he wasn't worth 
 his salt. He was not without occasional qualms as to 
 whether he actually was worth his salt as a novelist, but 
 none of them troubled him to-night. He was wakeful 
 and alert; he had half a mind to sit down at that inviting 
 silver-laden table and write a chapter of A Love Apart. 
 But no 1 Ethel, poor girl, must come first. He felt tender 
 towards her; they were going to be so happy together 
 at Royd. And, after all, this was a chapter in the story 
 of their own lives, and more interesting to both of them 
 than a chapter in the lives of fictitious characters. 
 
ROYD CASTLE 3 
 
 He took off hjs coat and put on the flannel jacket in 
 which he was accus-tomed to write. Then he went to 
 the windows and drew back all the heavy ciurtams, and 
 opened one of the casements. His facile emotions, always 
 ready to be stirred by beauty, and to turn it immediately 
 into words, were stirred for a moment into something 
 that he could not have put into words as he stood there, 
 though they came to him the moment afterwards as he 
 recognised how it all fitted in with the impression 
 encouraged in his mind by the old rich room in the old 
 castle — ^the moonlight outside, silvering the fairy glades 
 of the park into mysterious beauty, the silence, and the 
 sweet scents of the slumbering earth. 
 
 The grass of the park grew right up to the stones of 
 the castle wall on this side. Just above him were some 
 great beeches, which seemed to be climbing the hUI that 
 rose behind. Below there were more trees, and between 
 them stretched a glade which led the eye to farther 
 undulations of moonlit grass, and the bare trunks and 
 branches of the trees that bordered them. He had been 
 rather disappointed, in coming first into his room, to 
 find that it did not look out on to the gardens; but under 
 the moon this romantic glimpse of silvered trees and 
 fairy glades seemed to lum more beautiful than any 
 tamed or ordered garden. 
 
 Ans^hing might happen out there, on such a night. 
 Oberon and Titania crossed the path of his lettered 
 mind; the least that could be expected to happen was 
 that a herd of deer led by a many-antlered stag should 
 wander across a moonlit glade, and give just that touch 
 of life that was wanted to enhance the lovely scene. 
 
 What actually did happen was that his eye was caught 
 by a moving figure in the shadow of the trees, and, 
 before he had had time to wonder, or even to be startled 
 by it, came out into the bright stretch of grass in front 
 of his window, and stood looking up at him. 
 
4 SIR HARRY 
 
 It was young Sir Harry, owner of Royd Castle and 
 all the magic beauty connected with it that was making 
 such an impression upon the clerico-novelist's susceptible 
 mind; but though in that fortunate position, not yet 
 of an age to be out under the trees of his park at this 
 time of night. At nine o'clock he had said good-night 
 to his grandmother's guest downstairs. Grant had 
 thought it full early for a boy of his age to be sent up 
 to bed, as Lady Brent had actually sent him, though 
 without insistence, and with no protest on his part. 
 He was no more than sixteen, but a well-grown boy, in 
 the evening garb of a man; and he had sat opposite to 
 his grandmother at the head of the table, and taken a 
 bright part in the conversation, so that, with his title 
 to give him still further dignity, he had seemed altogether 
 beyond the stage of being sent early to bed. 
 
 However, it appeared that bed had not been the aim 
 of his departure, after all. He stood looking up at the 
 window, not far above the ground, with a smile upon his 
 handsome young face, and asked his grandmother's 
 guest not to give him away. ' I come out sometimes like 
 this, when everybody is asleep,' he said. 'There's no 
 harm in it, but Granny would try to stop me if she knew 
 — ^lock me in, perhaps.' He laughed freely. ' So please 
 don't tell her,' he said, and melted away into the shadows 
 without waiting for a promise of secrecy. 
 
 Grant rather liked that in him. He had been much 
 attracted by young Sir Harry, who had shown himself 
 charmingly friendly to him in a frank and boyish way 
 that had yet seemed to contain something of the dignity 
 of a grand seigneur. There was something plfeasing in 
 the thought of this handsome boy, master of the old, 
 rich, beautiful house, even if he was as yet only nominal 
 master. It was not unpleasing either to think of him 
 roaming about his lovely demesne under the moonlight 
 which made it still more fair. Certainly there was 
 
ROYD CASTLE 5 
 
 nothing wrong in it. If he was up to some mischief, it 
 would only be of a kind that the women who held him 
 in check might call such. He was too young and too 
 frank for the sort of nocturnal mischief of which a man 
 might take notice. At his age a sense of adventure 
 . was satisfied by being abroad in the night while he was 
 thought to be asleep. David Grant smiled to himself 
 as he shut the window. He would like to make friends 
 with this charming boy. He was rather pleased to have 
 this little secret in common with him. 
 
 Now he walked about the great room, composing the 
 Unes of his letter, as he was accustomed to walk about 
 composing the hues of a chapter in one of his novels. 
 Its main 'idea' was to be the pleasure he and his wfe 
 and the children were to have in Royd Vicarage. But 
 that must be led up to. He must begin at the beginning, 
 'make her see' the place, and the people among whom 
 they would lead their lives. The people especially; 
 there was room here for the neat little touches of 
 description upon which he prided himself. The Vicarage 
 must come last, and he would end on a tender note, 
 which would please the dear girl, and make her feel that 
 she was part of it all, as indeed she was. 
 
 And now he was ready to begin, and sat down at the 
 table, all on fire with his subject. He wrote on and on 
 until late into the night. Sometimes he rose to put 
 another log on to the iire, to enjoy the crackle it made, 
 and to sense the grateful- atmosphere of the old room. 
 Once or twice he went to the window and looked out, 
 never failing to be charmed by the beauty of the scene. 
 At these times he thought of the boy, out there under the 
 moon, or in the dim shadows of the trees, and wondered 
 what he was doing, and if he would come and call up at 
 his window again as he returned from his wandering. 
 He rather hoped that he might, and left the casement 
 open the second time he went to the window. But by 
 
6 SIR HARRY 
 
 the time he had finished his letter no sound had broken 
 the stillness, except now and then the soft hooting of 
 owls, and with a last look at the moonUt glades he blew 
 out the candles and climbed into the great bed, veiy 
 well satisfied with himself and with Ufe in general. 
 
 ' Oh, the tiresome old dear, he's trying to be literary,' 
 said Mrs Grant, as she embarked eagerly upon the 
 voluminous pages. She turned them over until she came 
 to the description of the Vicarage towards the end : — 
 
 'Lady Brent said very kindly, "I expect you would 
 like to go over the hoiise by yourself, Mr Grant. HaiTy 
 shall go witli you and show you the cottage where the 
 key is kept. The church, I believe, is open. We shall 
 expect you back to tea at half-past four, and if you have 
 not finished you can go back again afterwards." 
 
 'This was just what I wanted — to moon about the 
 house which is to be our happy home, dearest, alone; and 
 to build castles in the air about it. So we started off, 
 the boy and I. We went down the avenue ' 
 
 ,'H'm, h'm,' Mrs Grant skipped a page. 
 
 ' It was the Vicarage of our dreams, a low stone house, 
 facing south, embowered in massy trees, its walls covered 
 with creepers, the sun glinting on its sraall-paned 
 windows.' 
 
 Mrs Grant skipped a little more. She wanted to know 
 the number of rooms, and H possible the size of the 
 principal ones, what the kitchen and the back premises 
 were like, whether the kitchen garden was large enough 
 to supply the house, and if it could aU be managed by 
 one man, who would also look after the pony, and perhaps 
 clean the boots and knives. 
 
 She gained a hint or two as she turned over the 
 pages quickly, and then read them more carefully. 
 'Well, he doesn't tell me much,' she said, 'but I expect 
 
ROYD CASTLE 7 
 
 it mil be all right, and I'm sure I shall love it. The 
 drawing-room opening into the garden and the best 
 bedroom with a view of the sea in the distance sound 
 jolly, and I am glad the old darling will have a nice 
 room to write his nonsense in. If he is pleased with his 
 surroundings he always does more work, and that means 
 more money. Oh, I do hope his sales will go up and we 
 shall have enough to live comfortably on there.' She 
 went on to the end of the letter, which gave her pleasure, 
 as had been intended. ' Dear old tiling, he does lean on 
 me,' she said. 'And well he mayl Well, I shall bustle 
 about and make things happy and comfortable for him 
 directly I'm strong enough. Oh, my Uttie love, why 
 didn't you put off your arrival for a few months longer? 
 But I shall adore you when you do come, and it will be 
 lovely to bring you up in that beautiful place. Now, 
 let's see what these Brent people are like, if he's clever 
 enough to give me any idea of them.' 
 
 She turned back to the beginning of the letter, and 
 read it through in the same way as she read his novels. 
 She knew by intuition when it was worth while to read 
 every word, and — ^well, when it wasn't. 
 
 'Young Sir Harry met me at the station. He is a 
 handsome boy, very bright and friendly. My heart 
 warmed to him, and especially when he showed a lively 
 interest in our Jane and Pobbles. I told him that Jane 
 was only eleven and Pobbles nine, but he said that he 
 wasn't so very much older himself, and laughed as he 
 said it, like a young wood-god, with all the youth of the 
 world in him. I remember once walking in an olive- 
 wood in Italy, and suddenly meeting . . . 
 
 'I was rather surprised at the carriage sent to meet 
 me. It was a stately affair, but with the varnish dull and 
 cracked, and the horses fat and slow. In spite of the 
 liveried coachman and footman on the box, the equipage 
 
8 SIR HARRY 
 
 was not what one might have expected from such a 
 house as Royd Castle. I was indined at first to think 
 that it meant poverty, which is not always unallied to 
 state; but there are all the signs of very ample means 
 in this house, and I incline now to the opinion that in 
 a woman's house, as Royd Castle is at present, stable 
 arrangements are not much bothered about. Lady 
 Brent goes about very little. In fact, there are no other 
 houses near for her to visit. Poldaven Castle, I am told, 
 one of the seats of the Marquis of Avalon, hes about 
 seven miles off, but the family is hardly ever there. 
 We ourselves, my dearest, shall be very much to our- 
 selves in this out-of-the-way comer of the world. We 
 shall have the people at the Castle, and our own more 
 humble parishioners, and — ourselves. But how happy 
 we shall be ! The beauty of our surroundings alone 
 would give us . . .' 
 
 Mrs Grant skimmed lightly over a description of the 
 seven-mile drive from the little town by the sea, through 
 rocky hilly country, bare of trees, but golden with gorse 
 under a soft April sky flecked with fleecy clouds, and 
 accepted without enthusiasm the statement that all 
 nature, including the young lambs and the rabbits, 
 seemed to be laughing with glee. She was anxious to get 
 to Royd, which was to be her home, perhaps for the rest 
 of her life. 
 
 Trees had made their appearance in the landscape by 
 the time it was reached, and she gained an impression of 
 a kinder, richer coimtry than that of the coast. As they 
 neared Royd there were picturesque stone-buUt farm- 
 houses, and then a steep village street Uned with 
 stone-roofed cottages, their gardens bright with coloured 
 primroses, daffodils, ribies, berberis, aubretia, and arabis, 
 and here and there a gay splash of cydonia japonica 
 against a whitewashed Wcill. Her husband was always 
 
ROYD CASTLE 9 
 
 particular about the names of plants. No mere "early 
 spring flowers' for him ! His descriptions were apt to 
 read rather like a nurseryman's catalogue, but as they 
 both of them knew their way about nurserymen's 
 catalogues, she gained her picture of spring garden 
 colom: and was pleased with it. It would be lovely to 
 have a real big garden to play with, instead of the narrow 
 oblong behind their semi-detached viUa. But she did 
 want to get to Lady Brent, and the rest of the household 
 at the Castle. 
 
 The old church was at one end of the village, with a 
 squat stone spire on a squat tower. Description of its 
 interior was reserved until later. The Vicarage was 
 beyond it, round the corner. The principal lodge gates 
 were opposite — ^handsome iron gates between heavy 
 stone piUars surmounted by the Brent armorial leopards, 
 collared and chained. A little Tudor lodge stood on 
 either side of the gate-pillars, and a high stone wall ran 
 off on either side. Young Sir Harry had told him that 
 it ran right round the park, which was three miles in 
 circumference. 
 
 The description of the drive broke off here for an 
 account of some other things that young Sir Harry had 
 told him. Expectation was to be maintained a little 
 longer. She wanted to get to the Castle, but did not 
 skip this part because it was rather interesting. 
 
 'The boy has never been to school. In fact, he has 
 never slept a night away from the Castle in all his 
 sixteen years. -He has a tutor — a Mr Wilbraham, who 
 seems to have grounded him well in his classics. More of 
 him anon. The boy reads poetry too, and of a good kind. 
 Altogether rather a remarkable boy, and very good to 
 iook upon, with his crisp fair hair, white teeth, and 
 friendly, open look — a worthy head of the old family 
 from which he is descended. His father was killed in the 
 
 S.H. B 
 
10 SIR HARRY 
 
 South African wax, before Harry was born. He was 
 bom at the Castle and he and his mother have lived here 
 ever since. So much I learnt as we drove together, and 
 formed some picture in my mind of the people I was 
 about to meet.' 
 
 Here followed the mental portraits of Lady Brent, 
 Mrs Brent, and Mr Wilbraham, but as they bore small 
 likeness to the originals, as afterwards appeared, they 
 may be omitted. 
 
 'We entered by the lodge gates, and drove through 
 the beautiful park, I should say for the best part of a 
 mile. With the trees not yet in leaf, and the great 
 stretches of fern showing as yet nothing hut the russet 
 of last year's fronds, it was yet very beautiful. Herds 
 of fallow deer were feeding quietly on the green lawns, 
 and a noble stag lifted his head to look at us as we drove 
 past, but made no attempt to escape, though he can have 
 been distant from us only a long mashie shot. Wood- 
 pigeons flew from tree-top to tree-top across the glades. 
 I heard the tap-tap of a woodpecker as we began to 
 mount a rise where the trees grew thicker, and the harsh 
 screech of a jay, of which I caught a glimpse of garish 
 colour. There was a sense of peace and seclusion about 
 this beautiful enclosed space, as if nothing ugly from the 
 world outside could penetrate behind those high stone 
 walls, and nature here rejoiced in freedom and beauty. 
 
 'The hill became steeper, and the horses walked up it 
 until we came to the open groimd at the top. There at 
 last, as we drew out from under the trees, I saw the 
 ancient mass of the castle with the flag fljdng proudly 
 above it, perhaps a quarter of a mile away. The ground 
 sloped down towards it. There was a wide open space of 
 grass with the road winding through, and here and there 
 a noble beech, with which this part of the park is chiefly 
 planted. The ground rose again behind the massive pile, 
 
ROYD CASTLE ii 
 
 and was once more thick with trees, so that it appeared 
 backed by a mass of deUcate purple, which will soon 
 take on that delicious delicate green of young beech 
 leaves, than which there is none more beautiful in allnature, 
 unless it be the emerald green of waves in a blue sea.' 
 
 ' I shall look out for that in the next novel,' ^said 
 Mrs Grant at this point. ' I know that green, but he has 
 always called it translucent before.' 
 
 'The Castle is low and spreading, nowhere more than 
 two stories in height, except for the row of dormers in 
 the roof, and in the middle of the mass, where there is 
 a great gateway leading into an inner court, exactly 
 like the gateway of a college. In fact, the building 
 resembles an ancient college in many particulars. The 
 garden is enclosed within a stone wall, which continues 
 the front of the building. It is on one side only, and is 
 very beautiful, though I have not yet explored it, and 
 can speak only of a lawn bounded by an arcading of 
 yew to which access is gained from the long drawing- 
 room where I was received. The stables are in an inner 
 courtyard behind the first. On the side opposite to the 
 garden, in which the room where I am now writing is 
 situated, one looks out straight into the park. 
 
 'Young Sir Harry took me straight into the room 
 where the ladies of the house were sitting at their needle- 
 work. It was a long, low room, beautifully furnished 
 with what I should judge to be French furniture chiefly, 
 but with deep chintz-covered easy-chairs and sofas which 
 took away from any formal effect it might otherwise 
 have had. Lady Brent and Mrs Brent were sitting by one 
 of the windows, of which there are a line opening on to 
 a sort of stone-built veranda facing the garden that 
 I have mentioned. They rose at once to meet me. Lady 
 Brent, whom I had pictured as rather a dominating old 
 lady, walking possibly with a stick, I was surprised to 
 
12 SIR HARRY 
 
 find not old at all in appearance. She must have married 
 young, and her son, Harry's father, must have married 
 young, as indeed I afterwards found to have been the 
 case. Wilbraham says that she is still a few years short 
 of sixty, and she does not look much over fifty. She is 
 not tall, but holds herself erect and moves in a stately 
 manner. She is not exactly handsome, but her features 
 are pleasant to the eye, and she has an agreeable smile. 
 She made me welcome in a few words, and I felt that I 
 was welcome, and immediately at home with her. 
 
 ' Of Mrs Brent, Sir Harry's mother, it is more difficult 
 to speak. In the light of what I afterwards heard about 
 her, whatever surprised me on my first introduction to 
 her is explained; but I am trying to give you my first 
 impressions. She is good-looking, but it struck me at 
 once in rather a common way. She would be, I suppose, 
 about five-and-thirty. She was quietly dressed and 
 quiet-spoken; but there was a something. She did not 
 look of Lady Brent's class, and it was something of a 
 surprise to me to see in her the mother of Sir Harry, 
 though in her colouring and facial conformation she 
 undoubtedly resembles him.' 
 
 At this point Mrs Grant was aroused by the sounds of 
 violent quarrelling in the little garden below the window 
 at which she was sitting, and looked out to see her son 
 and daughter locked in a close but hostile embrace. She 
 threw up the window and called to them, but they took 
 no notice, and she had to go down to separate them. 
 They were the most charming children, and inseparable 
 companions, but apt to express themselves occasionally 
 in these desperate struggles. When peace had been 
 restored, and they were left amicably planting mustard 
 and cress, she returned to her letter, longing to know more 
 about Mrs Brent, and especially the reason for her 
 appearance of commonness. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 LADY BRENT 
 
 The explanation came after the description of luncheon 
 in the great hall, which had greatly impressed the writer, 
 with its high timbered roof, its oriel window, and carved 
 gallery. Mr Wilbraham, the tutor, had been added to 
 the company, and was presented as a tallish middle- 
 aged figure, with a somewhat discontented expression of 
 face, but a gift of ready speech which made the meal 
 lively and interesting. He and the two ladies seemed to 
 be on the most excellent terms, and the way in which 
 Lady Brent deferred to the tutor, not treating him in 
 the least as a dependent, but as a valued member of the 
 family circle, had struck the Vicar-elect of Royd most 
 agreeably. 'This is a woman,' he wrote, 'with brains 
 above the ordinary, who takes pleasure in exercising 
 them. Though living a retired life, far from the centres 
 of human intercourse, she takes a lively interest in what 
 is going on in the world. Politics were discussed over 
 the luncheon-table, and I found her views coincided 
 remarkably with my own, and together we gave, I think, 
 a very good account of ourselves in argument with 
 Wilbraham, who professes to be something of a Radical, 
 though I noticed that he ate a very good lunch, and is 
 evidently not averse to sharing in the good things of the 
 class he affects to deride. It was all, however, very 
 good-humoured, and when the talk veered round to 
 books, I found that these good people knew really more 
 about the latest pubUcations than I did myself. Wil- 
 braham is a great reader. He acts as Ubrarian, as well 
 as tutor to Harry, and seems to have carte blanche to 
 
 13 
 
14 sm HARRY 
 
 order- anything down from London that be likes. I 
 imagine that -he recommends books to Lady- Brent, 
 and she reads a great deal too — ^not only fiction but 
 biograplHes, books of travel, and even stiff works on 
 such subjects as philosophy. 
 
 'Of course, I kept very quiet about my own humble 
 productions, as I have never professed to be a scholar, 
 and aim rather at touching the universal human mind, 
 with stories that shall entertain but never degrade, and 
 should not expect to be considered very highly, or 
 perhaps even have been heard of by people of this calibre, 
 though there are many of equal intelligence among my 
 readers. I must confess, however, that I was gratified 
 when Mrs Brent, who had not taken much part in the 
 conversation, said: "I have read all your books, Mr 
 Grant, and think they are lovely. So touching 1" 
 
 ' This is the sort of compliment that I value. It is to 
 the simple mind that I make my appeal, and Mrs Brent 
 is quite evidently of a lower class of intelligence than 
 those about her. I think I detected some deprecation 
 in the glance that she threw at her mother-in-law 
 immediately after she had expressed herself with this 
 simple, and evidently felt, enthusiasm. Perhaps her 
 opinions on literary subjects are not considered very 
 highly, but Lady Brent would be far too weU-bred and 
 courteous to snub her. She said at once, very kindly : 
 "The Bishop told us that you were a novelist, Mr Grant. 
 Mr Wilbraham was about to send for your books, but 
 we found that my daughtef-in-law had them already. 
 I have not had time more than to dip into one of them, 
 but I promise myself much pleasure from them when 
 I have a little more time." Wilbraham saved me froni 
 the necessity of finding an answer by breaking in at 
 once : "I don't intend to read a single one of them, 
 either now or hereafter. Let that be plainly understood. ' ' 
 Everybody laughed at this, and it was said in such 
 
LADY BRENT 15 
 
 a way. that. I felt no offence. This man is evidently 
 something of a character, and I should say had made 
 himself felt in this household of women. The boy likes 
 him too. I could see that by the way they addressed 
 one another. They are more Uke friends than master 
 and pupU. 
 
 'Well, I felt that I had sized up Lady Brent, Wilbra- 
 ham, and young Harry pretty well by the end of the 
 meal, and the conversation that went with it. I have a 
 knack of doing so withj>eople I meet, and find that upon 
 closer acquaintance I have seldom been wrong in my 
 first impressions. Mrs Brent puzzled me a little more. 
 Was she entirely happy? I thought not, though there 
 was nothing very definite to go upon. If not, it could 
 not be the fault of any of the three other members of the 
 household.. She evidently adores h^ boy, for her face 
 lights up whenever she looks at him, and he treats her 
 with an affection jmd consideration that are very pleasant 
 to see. Lady Brent treats her in much the same way, 
 and is evidently a woman of much kindness of heart, for 
 Mrs Brent, as I have already said, is not up to her level, 
 and living in constant companionship with her might 
 be expected to grate a little on the nerves of a lady of 
 her sort. Wilbraham would not be likely to hide any 
 contempt that he might feel for some one of less intelli- 
 gence than himself. He might not show it openly to the 
 mother of his pupil, but I should certainly have noticed 
 it, if it had been there. But he behaved beautifully to 
 her, and smiled when he spoke to her as if he really 
 liked her, and found pleasure in anything that she said. 
 And she seemed grateful, and smiled at him in return. 
 They are, in fact, a very happy little party, these 
 curiously assorted people who live so much to them- 
 selves. And yeti as I said above, the one member of 
 it did not strike me as being entirely happy, and I could 
 not help wondering why. 
 
i6 SIR HARRY 
 
 'Wilbraham enlightened me, as we smoked together 
 after lunch, walking up and down a broad garden path 
 under the April sunshine. "What do you think of Mrs 
 Brent?" he asked me, with a sidelong whimsical glance 
 that is very characteristic of the man. 
 
 'I was a little put out by the suddenness of the 
 question, but took advantage of it to be equally direct 
 and to ask my question. "Is there anything to make 
 her unhappy?" 
 
 'He laughed at that. "I see you have your eyes 
 open," he said. "I suppose it's thd novelist's trick. 
 Any questions to ask about the rest of us?" 
 
 ' " You haven't answered my first one yet," I replied, 
 and he laughed again, and said : "Did you ever hear 
 of Lottie Lansdowne?" 
 
 'The name seemed vaguely familiar to me, but he 
 said, without waiting for my replj' : "I don't suppose 
 you ever did, but if I were you I should tell Mrs Brent 
 on the first opportunity, that when you were young and 
 going the round of the theatres, that was the one name 
 in the bill you could never resist." 
 ' " I suppose you mean that Mrs Brent was once on the 
 stage and that was her name," I said. "But I don't 
 remember her all the same." 
 
 '"No, I don't suppose you would," he said again. 
 "As a matter of fact the poor httle thing never got 
 beyond the smallest parts, and I doubt if she ever would 
 have done. But Brent fell in love with her, and married 
 her,, and since then she has never had a chance of 
 trying. That's what's the matter with her, and I'm 
 afraid it can't be helped. She's pretty, isn't she?" 
 
 ' " Yes," I said, as he seemed to expect it of me, but 
 she hadn't struck me as being particularly pretty, 
 though she ipight have been as a young girl. " You mean 
 that she doesn't like the quiet life down here?" 
 
 ' "Yes, that's what I mean," he said. "I'm sorry for 
 
LADY BRENT 17 
 
 the poor little soul. She's like a child. Vain, I dare say, 
 but not an ounce of harm in her. I'm telling you this 
 because you'd be bound to find it out for yourself in 
 any case. She'll probably tell you about her early 
 triumphs herself, when you know her better. The thing 
 to do is to keep her pleased with herself as much as 
 possible. There's not much to amuse her here. We 
 never see anybody. It suits me all right, and her lady- 
 ship; and Harry is happy enough at present, with what 
 he finds to do outside, and what he has to do in. But 
 she's different. There's nothing much for her. She 
 
 reads a lot of trashy novels " Here he broke off 
 
 suddenly and roared with laughter, twisting his thin 
 body about, and behaving in a curious uncontrolled 
 manner till he'd had his laugh out. Then he said : 
 "I'm not going to hide from you that I have tried to 
 read one of yours, and my opinion is that it's slush, but 
 quite harmless slush, which perhaps makes it worse. 
 However, she likes them; so I dare say you'll find some- 
 thing in common with her, and it will be all to the good 
 your coming here. That's why I've told you about her. 
 You'll be able to help." 
 
 'I must confess to some sUght annoyance at having 
 my work beUttled in this way. However, I suppose to 
 a man of this sort all clean, healthy sentiment is "slush," 
 and the absence of imwholesome interest in my works 
 would not commend them to him, though I am thankful 
 to say that it is no drawback to the pleasure that the 
 people I aim at take in them. If Mrs Brent is one of 
 these, I shall hope indeed to be of use to her, and I think 
 it speaks well for her, when her early life is taken into 
 consideration, that she should find my simple tales of 
 quiet, natural Hfe "lovely," as she said that she did. 
 It has occurred to me that when I get to know her 
 better I may possibly gain from her some information 
 upon life behind the scenes that I could make use of in 
 
IS: SIR HARRY 
 
 my work. I should like to draw the picture of a pure, 
 unsullied girl, going through the life of the theatre, 
 unspotted by it, and raising all those about her, while 
 she herself rises to the top of her profession, and marries 
 a good man, perhaps in the higher ranks of society, thus 
 showing that virtue is virtue everywhere and has its 
 reward, and doing some good in circles that I have not 
 yet touched. However, all that is for the luture. Our 
 immediate duty-— yours and mine, dearest — is to make 
 friends mth this rather pathetic little lady, and to 
 reconcile her to her lot, which in this beautiful place, 
 with all the love and kindness she receives from those 
 about her, is hardly really to be pitied. 
 
 ' I told Wilbraham that I had been much struck with 
 Lady Brent's attitude towards her, and he became 
 serious at once and said : " Lady Brent is a fine character. 
 There's no getting over that. No, there's no getting over 
 that; she's a fine character." 
 
 ' I was a little surprised at the way he said it, but he's 
 a queer sort of fellow, though I think likeable. He went 
 on at once, as if he wanted to remove some doubt in my 
 mind as to Lady Brent; but, as a matter of fact, I had 
 none, and am as capable of judging her as he is, though 
 of course he has known her longer. "She sees," he said, 
 "that poor little Lottie^-I generally call her that to 
 mysdf — can't be quite happy shut up down here. But 
 she's right in keeping her here. You see, Brent was 
 rather a wild sort of fellow. He got into mischief once 
 or twice, and from what I've heard she and his father 
 weren't sorry when his regiment was ordered off to South 
 Africa. Well, he went, and was killed the first time he 
 went into action, within a inonth. By the time the 
 news came over his father himself was dying, and did 
 die, as a matter of fact, without knowing of it. A pretty 
 good shock for the poor lady, eh ? Well, she had another 
 when poor little Lottie wrote to her and said that she 
 
LADY BRENT ^9 
 
 had been married to Brent the week before he sailed, 
 and there was a baby coming. She went straight up to 
 London and brought her down here, and Harry was bom 
 here. Harry is rather an important pei-son, you know. 
 He's the last of his line, which is an old one. This place 
 belongs to him, and he'll have a great deal of money 
 from his grandmother. He's Sir Harry Brent of Royd 
 Castle. What he is on his mother's side must be made 
 as little of as possible. She's a Brent by marriage and 
 she has to learn to be a Brent by manners and customs, 
 if you understand me." 
 
 'Lsa:id that I thought I did, and that Lady Brent was 
 quite right in wishing to keep her in this atmosphere. 
 But I said that I quite saw that the more friends she 
 had the better. I should do my best to make friends 
 with her, and I was sure that my wife would, who was 
 extremely kind-hearted. 
 
 ' "Ah, that's right," he said, with a great air of 
 satisfaction, and just then Harry came out and we went 
 off together to the village and the Vicarage.' 
 
 Here followed the account of the Vicarage, and of the 
 church, but Mrs Grant knew there was more to come 
 later about Mrs Brent, and hurried on till she got to it. 
 
 Dinner in the great haU was described, with allusions 
 to the perfection of the service and the livery of the 
 servants. The conversation was much the same as over 
 the luncheon-table, and Mrs Brent took more part in it. 
 There was something different about her air. She was 
 beautifully dressed and her 'commonness' seemed to 
 have dropped from her. She was, indeed, rather stately, 
 in the manner of her mother-in-law, whom it struck 
 Grant that she was anxious to copy. After dinner they 
 sat in the long drawing-room, and Wilbraham played 
 the piano, which he did rather well. Soon after Harry 
 had gone to bed, Lady Brent went out of the room to get 
 
20 SIR HARRY 
 
 some silks for her embroidery. Mrs Brent had offered 
 to get these for her, but she wouldn't let her. Grant 
 was sitting near to Mrs Brent, and while Wilbraham 
 played softly at the other end of the room he talked to her. 
 
 ' I said with a smile : " I think your name used to be 
 veiy well known in other scenes than this when I was 
 a young man, Mrs Brent." 
 
 ' My dear, I was never more surprised than by the way 
 she took it. She flushed and drew up her head and looked 
 at me straight, and said : " Pray what do you mean by 
 that, Mr Grant?" 
 
 ' I felt like a fool. Of course, if Wilbraham hadn't said 
 what he had I should never have thought of addressing 
 her upon the subject. Being what she is now I should 
 have expected that she would not have wanted her 
 origin alluded to. But I have told you exactly what he 
 did say, and certainly I never meant anything but kind- 
 ness to her. Still, I saw that she might think I was 
 simply taking a liberty, and made what recovery I could. 
 "I know that you were a great ornament of the stage 
 before you were married," I said. "Please forgive me 
 if I ought not to have alluded to it, but you said that 
 you had read my books, and you will know that I take 
 all life for my province; ^nd when one practises one art 
 with all earnestness and sincerity, it is interesting to talk 
 to some one who has made a great success with another.' 
 
 'I think this was well said, wasn't it, dear? I'm 
 afraid it was going rather beyond the truth, as, f om 
 What Wilbraham had told me, I doubt if she was much 
 more than a chorus girl, and that only for a very short 
 time. But my conscience doesn't prick me for having 
 drawn the long bow a little. I had to disabuse her mind 
 of the idea that I was taking a liberty with her, and I 
 wanted to please her in the way that Wilbraham had 
 indicated. 
 
LADY BRENT 21 
 
 'She ceased, I think, to take offence, but she said, 
 rather primly, with her eyes on her needlework, which 
 she had taken up again : "I prefer to forget that I was 
 ever on the stage, Mr Grant. It was for a very short 
 time, and I simply went to and from my home to the 
 theatre, always attended by a maid — or nearly always, 
 and sometimes by my mother. When I married I left 
 the stage altogether, and have never been in a theatre 
 since. I don't know how you knew that I had ever 
 belonged to it." 
 
 'She gave me a quick little glance, and I divined 
 somehow that it would give her pleasure to believe that 
 she was remembered.- I won't tell you what I said, but 
 while I steered clear of an actual untruth, I did manage 
 to convey the impression that I had recognised her, and 
 I hope I may be forgiven for it. She said hurriedly : 
 " Well, we won't talk about it any more, for I have nearly 
 forgotten it all, and wish to forget it altogether. And 
 please don't tell Lady Brent that you know who I was. 
 We don't want Harry to know it at all — ever. She's 
 quite right there. Here she comes. You do like Harry, 
 don't you, Mr Grant ? He's such a dear boy, and all the 
 people about here love him." 
 
 ' "What, talking about Harry? " said Lady Brent, as 
 she joined us. "We all talk a great deal about Harry, 
 Mr Grant. I don't think there is a boy in the world on 
 whom greater hopes are set. We have made him happy 
 between us so far, but I am glad you are coming here 
 with your young people, to bring a little more life into 
 this quiet place. Young people want young life about 
 them. It is the only thing that has been lacking for 
 him. And it is all too short a time before he will have 
 to go out into the world." 
 
 ' This all gave me a great deal to think about. I hope 
 I have given you such an account of everything that 
 passed, and the important parts of what was said to make 
 
23 SIR HARRY 
 
 you see it as I do. Consider this land, good lady, gifted 
 more than most, rich, titled, intellectual, calculated to 
 shine in society, yet content to live a quiet life out of the 
 world for the sake of the bright boy upon whom so many 
 hopes depend. She has gone through much trouble, 
 with her only son and her husband reft from her within 
 a few weeks of one another. She cannot have welcomed 
 the wife whom her son had chosen, but she lives in 
 constant companionship with her, and treats her with 
 every consideration. My heart warms towards her. We 
 are indeed fortunate in having such a chatelaine as Lady 
 Brent in the place in which we are to spend our lives and 
 do our work. Of her kindness and thoughtfulness 
 towards myself I have not time to write, as it is getting 
 very late, and I must to bed. But" when you come here 
 you will find her everything that you can wish, and I 
 shall be surprised if you do not make a real friend of her, 
 a friend who will last, and on whom you can in all things 
 depend,' 
 
 When Mrs Grant had at last finished this voluminous 
 letter, she summoned Miss Minster to her, and read her 
 many passages from it. Miss Minster was the lady who 
 looked after the education of Jane and Pobbles, and had 
 somewhat of a hard task in doing so, though she fulfilled 
 it without showing outward signs of stress. She was of 
 about the same age as Mrs Grant — ^that is in the early 
 thirties, and they had been friends together at school. 
 They were friends now, and Mrs Grant trusted Miss 
 Minster's judgment in some things more even than she 
 trusted her husband's. 
 
 'Somehow, I don't see Lady Brent,' said Mrs Grant, 
 when she had read out all that had been written about 
 her. ' She seem.s to have made a great impression upon 
 David, but it looks to me as if it was the impression she 
 wanted to make.' 
 
LADY BRENT 23 
 
 ' If any other man but David had written all that,' 
 said Miss Minster, 'I should have said that there was 
 something behind it all. I should have said that Lady 
 Brent had some dark reason for keeping herself and the 
 rest of them shut up there, and that this Mr Wilbraham, 
 who doesn't seem to behave like a tutor at all, was in 
 the conspiracy. As it is, I think his pen has run away 
 with him, and they are all very ordinary people, and 
 there's nothing behind it at all.' 
 
 'Well, my idea is just the opposite,' said Mrs Grant. 
 'If David had sniffed a story he would have put it in. 
 He doesn't think there is anything behind it. I do. 
 Perhaps Mrs Brent wasn't married, and this young Sir 
 Harry isn't the rightful heir. That would be a good 
 reason for Lady Brent to lie low. Perhaps Mr Wil- 
 braham knows about it, which would be the reason for 
 his not behaving hke an ordinary tutor; though, as for 
 that, I don't think there's much in it, and he behaves 
 like an ordinary tutor, according to David's account, just 
 as much as you behave like an ordinary governess.' 
 
 'A good point as far as it goes,' said Miss Minster, 
 ■ and a joyous life it would be for you if I did behave like 
 an ordinary governess. But you're worse than David 
 in making up twopence-coloured stories. I don't think 
 we need worry ourselves about the Brents till we get 
 down there. Then we shall be able to judge for our- 
 selves. No man ever knows what a woman is really like 
 the first time he sees her. Whatever Lady Brent and 
 Mrs Brent are like, you may depend upon it that we 
 shan't find them in the least as David has described 
 them. Now read what he says about the Vicarage again, 
 and see if we can make anything of that, beyond that 
 it is embowered in massy trees.' 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE CHILD 
 
 When young Sir Harry had made that laughing appeal 
 to the figure framed in the square of orange light above 
 him, and turned away into the shadows, he had akeady 
 forgotten that there had been a witness to his escapade. 
 
 It was no escapade to him, but a serious quest, about 
 which played all the warm palpitations and eager 
 emotions of high romance. To-night, if ever, with the 
 earth moving towards the soft riot of spring, with the 
 air still and brooding as if summer were already here, 
 though sharp and clean, scoured by the wind and washed 
 to gentleness again by the showers of April, with the 
 moonlight so strong that in the shadows of the trees 
 there was no darkness, but diffused and quivering light, 
 hardly less bright than the light of day, and to the eyes 
 of the spirit infinitely more discerning — surely to-night 
 he might hope to see the fairies dancing in their rings, 
 and the little men stealing in and out among the tree- 
 branches. 
 
 He longed passionately to see the fairies. The beauty 
 of the earth meant so much to him. All through his 
 childhood his love for it had grown and grown till it had 
 become almost a pain to him. For though it meant so 
 much he did not know what it meant. It had always 
 seemed to be leading him up to something, some great 
 discovery, or some great joy — at least some great 
 emotion — ^which would give it just that meaning that 
 would tune his soul to it and entrench him safely behind 
 some knowledge, hidden from mortal eyes, where he 
 
 24 
 
THE CHILD 25 
 
 could survey life as it was, perfect and blissful, and 
 withal secret. The fairies, if he could only look upon 
 them once, would give him the secret. Surely they 
 would not withhold themselves from him on such a 
 night as this ! 
 
 He pictured himself lying on the warm beech-mast in 
 the shadows of some great tree that stood sentinel over 
 a stretch of moonlit lawn, watching the delicate gossamer 
 figures at their revels, their iridescent wings softly gleam- 
 ing, their petalled skirts flying, their tiny Umbs twinkling; 
 and perhaps he would hear the high tenuous chime of 
 their laughter as they gave themselves up to their 
 delicious merriment. He would lie very still, hardly 
 breathing. The mortal grossness which he felt to be in 
 him should not cast its shadow over their bright evan- 
 escent spirit. He would keep, oh, so still, and just watch, 
 and grow happier and happier, and at last — know. The 
 grossness would be purged from him. When the moon 
 drooped and the fairy dancers melted away, he would 
 have seen behind the veil. After that he would never 
 suffer again from the perplexing thought that there was 
 some great thing hidden from him, that just when 
 beauty gripped his soul, and seemed to have something 
 to tell him, and he stood ready to receive the message, 
 there was only silence and a sense of loss, which made 
 him sad. Nature would speak to him, as she had always 
 seemed to be speaking to him, but now he would under- 
 stand, and answer, and life would be more beautiful than 
 it had ever been before. 
 
 He had always hugged secrets to himself ever since 
 he could remember, secrets that it would have seemed 
 to him the deepest shame that any one should surprise. 
 Once on a summer's evening, when he had been lying in 
 his little cot by his mother's bed, whiling away the long 
 daylight hour by telling himself a most absorbing story, 
 s.H. c 
 
26 SIR HARRY 
 
 which at that time he was going through from night to 
 night, he had become so worked up by it that he carried 
 on the dialogue in a clear, audible voice. A warning 
 knock came upon the bedroom door, and that particular 
 story was cut short never to be resumed. It was the 
 time when his mother and grandmother were dining, 
 and his nurse and all the other servants were down 
 below. He had not thought that it was possible that 
 he could have been overheard. He had been acting 
 a garden story. The characters were the Garden, the 
 flowers, and himself. The Garden was a very kind and 
 gracious lady who led him, a little boy called Arnold, 
 with black straight hair — ^he preferred that sort to his 
 own fair curls — to one flower after another, and told 
 him whether they had been good or naughty. The flowers 
 were mostly children, but a few, such as geraniums and 
 fuchsias, were grown up. The geraniums never took any 
 notice of him, and he did not like them on that account, 
 but looked the other way when they were rebuked. 
 This fortunately happened but seldom, as they usually 
 behaved with propriety, though stiff and obstinate in 
 character. The roses he often pleaded for, because they 
 were so beautiful. Vanity was their besetting sin, and 
 the Garden often had to tell them — in language much 
 the same as that used by the Vicar in church — ^that they 
 were no more in her sight than the humblest and poorest 
 flowers. But he could not bear to see their beautiful 
 petals scattered, which happened as a punishment if 
 they had flaunted themselves beyond hope of forgiveness. 
 It was coming to be his idea, as the story progressed, , 
 that some day he would make a strong appeal to the 
 Garden to aboUsh this punishment altogether. Then 
 no flowers would ever die, but only go to sleep in the 
 winter, and he would be the great hero of the flowers, 
 with hair blacker and straighter than ever, and when- 
 ever he went among them they would bow and curtsey to 
 
THE CHILD 27 
 
 him, but nobody would see them doing it except 
 himself. 
 
 On this June evening it was a tall Madonna Uly for 
 whom he was pleading in such an impassioned maimer. 
 Lihes were very lovely girls, not quite children and not 
 quite grown-up. He had a sentimental affection for 
 them. He would see them incline towards one another 
 as he came near, and hear, or rather make them whisper 
 to one another : ' Here is that dear little boy. How good 
 he is ! And isn't his hair dark and smooth ! I should 
 like to kiss him.' (Had he said that aloud, just before 
 the knock came? He would never be able to look the 
 world in the face again if that speech had been heard.) 
 The Garden had accused the lily of leaving her sisters 
 and the place where she belonged, to go and talk to a 
 groom in the stables. She might have been kicked by 
 a horse. An example must be made. No little treats, 
 no sugar on her bread and butter, no favourite stories 
 told her for a week. The lily had cried, and said she had 
 meant no harm, and wouldn't do it again. He had adj ured 
 her not to cry, in very moving terms, which it made him 
 hot all over to imagine overheard, and the lily had said, 
 in no apparent connection with the question under dis- 
 cussion, but in a loud and clear voice : 'Arnold is brave 
 and strong; he can run faster than all other boys in the 
 world.' 
 
 It was j ust then that the knock came. He was unhappy 
 about it for days, and looked in the faces of all the 
 servants to see if there was any sign of the derision he 
 must have brought upon himself, but could find none, 
 and presently comforted himself with the idea that it was 
 Santa Claus who had knocked at the door; but he dropped 
 the drama of the flowers, and afterwards only whispered 
 the speaking parts of other dramas. 
 
 It was not from any lack of love for those about him 
 that he kept his soul's adventures to himself. Of 
 
28 SIR HARRY 
 
 sympathy with them he might instinctively have left a 
 lack, but he loved everybody with whom he had to do, and 
 everybody loved him. His mother was nearest to him, 
 though his grandmother was felt to be the head of all 
 things and of all people. His mother showed jealousy 
 towards her, but not in her presence. The child divined 
 this, and responded to her craving for his caresses when 
 he was alone with her, by little eiidearments which were 
 very sweet to her. ' You and me together, mummy,' he 
 would whisper, snuggling lip to her, and stroke her face 
 and kiss her, in a way thai he never did when his grand- 
 mother was there. He mtist have divined too that he was 
 the centre of existence for his grandmother, but she 
 never petted him or invited his caresses, though her face 
 showed pleasure when he leant aga(insf her knee and 
 prattled to her, which he did without any fear, and as 
 if it was natural that they two should have much to say 
 to one another. 
 
 During his earliest days his mother often wept stormily, 
 and there was great autagonisifl between her and -the 
 old nurse, who had also nursed his father. But when he 
 was five years old the nufse suddenly went away, and 
 his mother's weepings, ^vhich hatd saddenfed and some- 
 times frightened him, as she clutched him to her and 
 rocked to and fro over him, ceased, so that he presently 
 forgot them. She did much for him herself that the 
 nurse had done before, with the help of a girl from the 
 village, who became a close friend of his, though not in 
 a way to cause his inother jealorisy. 
 
 Eliza was slow and rather stUpid, but she could tell 
 half a dozen Stories. She told them in stUted fashion, 
 and never varied the manner, and hardly the words, of 
 her telling. If she did so, he would correct her. By-and- 
 by she became rather like a dull priest intoning a liturgy, 
 known so well that there was no call to attend to the 
 meaning. He could see after all that himself, and wanted 
 
THE CHILD 29 
 
 no variations or emotion of hers to get between him and 
 the pictures that her monotonous drone projected on the 
 curtain of his brain. He was the hero of all the stories 
 himself, and carried them far beyond the bounds of the 
 liturgy. As Jack the Giant-killer, he engaged with foes 
 unknown to fairy lore. As the Beast he drew such 
 interest from his mastery over other beasts that his 
 transformation into a Prince with straight black hair 
 was always being postponed, and was finally dropped 
 out of his own story altogether, together with Beauty, 
 who had become somewhat of a meddler with things 
 that she couldn't be expected to understand. He was 
 Cinderella in the story of that name, because of riding in 
 the coach made out of a pumpkin, and the mice turned 
 into horses, but never felt at home in the character until 
 he turned the story round and gave the leading part to 
 the Prince, with Cinderella's adventures adapted to male 
 habits and dignity. 
 
 With Eliza in attendance he sometimes played for 
 hours together in the garden, and he could get away 
 from her if he was careful never to be right out of her 
 sight or hearing. It was then that the drama of the 
 garden and the flowers began, but when it came to an 
 end he returned to the fairy stories. 
 
 His mother told him stories too at his earnest pleading. 
 But they were never the same twice running, and had 
 little point for him. He much preferred Eliza's rigid 
 version of the classical stories, and the others were all 
 about beautiful girls who married very handsome, noble, 
 rich men, but the men never did anything except love 
 the girls to distraction and give them beautiful presents. 
 There was no ground for his imagination to work on, 
 except in the matter of the presents, and of these he 
 demanded ever-growing catalogues, suggesting many 
 additions of his own, so that if his mother remembered 
 these and kept to them there was some interest to be 
 
30 SIR HARRY 
 
 got out of her stories, but not enough to vie with that 
 of Eliza's repertoire. 
 
 His grandmother had no stories, but when he was 
 a Uttle older she told him about his ancestors, who had 
 done a good deal of fighting at one time or another 
 throughout the centuries, which gave him plenty of 
 material. He knew that she got her information from 
 books in the hbrary, and he was encouraged to persevere 
 with his letters so that he would be able to read those 
 books for himself. He gained from her the impression 
 that his family was above other families, and that in 
 some way which he didn't quite understand, seeing that 
 he was subject to her, and to his mother, and even to 
 Eliza, its superiority was also his in a special measure. 
 He must never do anything that would lessen it. He 
 must not be too familiar with servants, and especially 
 with grooms in the stable. He would hang his head at 
 this, for it was the weak point in his behaviour. He was 
 apt to be beguiled by the society of grooms in the stable, 
 to the extent even of using expressions unallowable in 
 the society of his equals. But though he was to bear 
 himself high, he was to deal kindly with those at the 
 same time beneath him and around him; and he was to 
 look upon Royd all his hfe as the place to which he 
 belonged. He would go away from it sometimes when 
 he was older, but he must never be away for long, and 
 never get to hke being away. This was what young men 
 did sometimes, and it was not good for them. It was 
 not right. 
 
 Such exordiums as these, varied in manner but never 
 in principle, continued throughout his childhood, and 
 had a strong effect upon him. A child has a natural 
 preoccupation with the question of right and wrong, and 
 it fitted in with all that Harry had learnt for himself that 
 it was right for him to be at Royd and would be wrong 
 for him to be away. He could not imagine any other 
 
'J^HE. CHILD 3i 
 
 place that would suit him better, or indeed nearly so 
 well. His mother would sometimes talk to him, when 
 he grew older, of the lights and the movement and the 
 heartening crowds of London. She would do it half 
 furtively, and he vmderstood, without being told, that 
 he must keep the fact of her doing so at all from his 
 grandmother. But he had no wish to talk about it. 
 The picture did not please him. He gained the impression 
 of London as a dirty, noisy place, and Royd shone all 
 the more brightly in comparison with it. His mother 
 never mentioned the theatre. 
 
 She talked to him sometimes about his father. He 
 had been a soldier — a very brave soldier — like all the 
 rest of the Brents. Harry would be a soldier himself 
 some day, but she prayed that he would not have to go 
 out and fight. He would wear a beautiful red coat with 
 a sash and a sword, and a noble bearskin on his head. 
 There was a photograph of his father, not in this uniform, 
 but in service kit, talien just after his marriage. It 
 showed a good-looking young man, amiable but weak. 
 It was the only photograph of him that Mrs Brent had 
 in her room. Lady Brent had many photographs of 
 him, but this one was not among them. As a child he 
 had been very like Harry. Lady Brent seldom mentioned 
 him, and to her daughter-in-law never. Harry knew 
 after a time, as children come to know such things, that 
 she had loved him very dearly. She had all those 
 reminders of his childhood and youth about her. His 
 mother had only the one. She had known him for a few 
 weeks. All the rest of his life had belonged to his own 
 mother, and she was shut out of it. Her references to 
 him, indeed, were hardly more than perfunctory. The 
 poor bewildered Uttle lady had loved him, and looked 
 to him, perhaps, to translate her to a more glamorous 
 hfe. The life of dignity was hers, but without him, and 
 sometimes it lay very heavy upon her. But she had 
 
32 SIR HARRY 
 
 her child. Nothing mattered much as long as she wa-s 
 allowed to love him and to keep his love. 
 
 A French nursery governess came when Harry was 
 five years old, Eliza, who showed great jealousy of her, 
 not unmixed with contempt for her absurd speech and 
 foreign ways, being also retained. She was a gentle 
 little thing, and, when she had got over her homesickness, 
 bright and gay. She loved the child dearly, and he was 
 soon prattUng to her in her own language, piping httle 
 French songs, and repeating verses with his hands behind 
 his back and his head on one side, to the great pride of 
 his mother and grandmother. Mrs Brent made a 
 surreptitious friend of Mademoiselle, and even went so 
 far as to take lessons of her in French. Lady Brent 
 spoke French with an accent 'tout a fait distingue.' 
 Mademoiselle had observed that this was the mark of 
 'la vraie grande dame Anglaise,' and perhaps Mrs Brent 
 imagined that the accomplishment would bring her more 
 into line. But it was irksome to sit down to grammar 
 and exercises, and somehow she 'never could get her 
 tongue round the queer sounds.' It was easier to help 
 Mademoiselle on with her EngUsh, and soon they had 
 their heads together constantly, comparing notes about 
 the life of Blois and the life of London, which was so gay 
 and so different from this life of the chateau, so magnifi- 
 cent, but so dull and so always the same. But Harry 
 was not to know that either of them felt like that about 
 it, and the little French girl had enough of the spirit 
 of romance in her to judge his surroundings of castle and 
 park, and wide tract of country over which by-and-by 
 he was to rule, as fitting to him. It was, after all, the 
 bourgeois hfe that she and Mrs Brent pined for, the one 
 in France, the other in England. She recognised that, 
 but when she intimated as much to Mrs Brent, that lady 
 was up in arms at once, and the intimacy between them 
 nearly came to an end. Let it be understood that the 
 
THE CHILD 33 
 
 Iffe she had known in London was very different from 
 the Ufe Mademoiselle had known in a provincial French 
 city. Hers had been the life of the great lady, in London 
 as well as at Royd, and it was that part of the great 
 lady's life that she missed. Perhaps Mademoiselle, in 
 her ignorance of English customs, believed it, perhaps 
 she didn't; but slie adopted the required basis of 
 conversation, and the friendship continued. Mrs Brent 
 took little trouble to assert her gentility, when once it 
 was accepted, and spoke often of her family, who lived 
 in Kentish Town, where she had been so happy, 
 in a way that must have given Madernoiselle some 
 curious ideas of the ways of the British aristocracy, 
 supposing her to have believe^ in the claim set 
 up. 
 
 But all this passed over the child'g head. Mademoiselle 
 had stories to teU him of t^ie old nobility of Touraine, 
 which she was cleyeir enough to, connect in his piind with 
 the stories his grandiRother tolcl hi^n of his own knightly 
 forbears. It was from that hfe he had sprung. The 
 ancient glories of the french chateaux were allied to 
 those of his noble English pastle. The romance and 
 chivalry were the same. Lady Brent approved very 
 highly of MaderooiseUe, and when she went back to 
 France after two years, to fulfil the marriage contract 
 that her parents had made for her, gave her a present 
 which added substantially to her dot. 
 
 Then Mr Wilbraham came, and Harry began his 
 education in earnest. 
 
 Lady Brent had gone up to London to find a successor 
 for Mademoiselle. She was to be a highly educated 
 Englishwoman, who was to give place to a tutor in three 
 or four years time. Harry was not to go to school; he 
 was to spend the whole of his boyhood at Royd, but he 
 was to be taught all the things that boys of his class 
 learnt, except the things that Lady Brent didn't want 
 
34 SIR HARRY 
 
 him to learn — including that precocious knowledge of 
 the world which had entangled his father, and in effect 
 brought Mrs Brent into "the family. 
 
 Lady Brent brought Mr Wilbraham back with her, and 
 never explained why she had changed her plan. In some 
 things she made a confidante of her daughter-in-law; in 
 others she acted as if she had no more to say in her 
 child's upbringing than Eliza. And Mrs Brent never 
 thought of asking her for an explanation of anything if 
 she volunteered none. 
 
 Mr Wilbraham was then a dejected young man of four 
 or iive-and-twenty. He volunteered no explanation of 
 his substitution for the lady of high education either; 
 nor, indeed, of his past history. It was a long time 
 before Mrs Brent, who liked to find out things about 
 people, and especially an5^hing that indicated their 
 social status, knew that his father had been a clergyman, 
 and that he expected some day to be a clergyman him- 
 self. And that was all that she did know, until he had 
 been at Royd for years, and seemed likely to be there 
 for ever; for gradually he dropped talking about taking 
 Orders, but sometimes talked about becoming a great 
 author instead. She had an idea that there was some 
 secret between him and Lady Brent, but the idea died 
 away as time went on, and at last he told her, quite 
 casually, that he had gained his post at Royd through 
 a scholastic agency. Lady Brent had gone there for a 
 tutor, and she had engaged him. That was all. It did 
 not explain why she had changed her mind; but by that 
 time her change of mind had been almost forgotten. 
 Mr Wilbraham was an integral part of life at Royd 
 Castle. 
 
 Harry liked him from the first. He was a good teacher, 
 and there was never any trouble about lessons. Outside 
 lesson time he was not expected to be on duty, and when 
 the boy grew older their companionship was entirely 
 
THE CHILD 35 
 
 friendly and unofficial. Mr Wilbraham introduced Harry 
 to all the rich lore of Greek mythology. Here was matter 
 for romance indeed ! Royd became peopled with 
 njanphs and dryads and satyrs, and fabulous but un- 
 dreaded monsters. Harry knew that Diana hunted the 
 deer in the park when the moon shone; he often heard 
 Pan fluting in the woods, and centaurs galloping over 
 the turf. When he was taken over to Rington Cove, six 
 miles away, he saw the rock upon which the mermaids 
 sat and combed their hair, and on the yellow sands the 
 print of the nereid's dancing feet. It was all very real 
 to him, and Mr Wilbraham never even smiled at his 
 fancies. That was one of the reasons why he liked him. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 FAIRIES 
 
 Harry lay quite still under a great tree, his chin propped 
 on his hands, his eyes fixed upon a spot in the glade where 
 he knew there was a fairy ring, upon which he was sure 
 that if he gazed long enough with his eyes clear and his 
 brain free, he would see the gossamer fairies dancing. 
 His couch of beech-mast was dry under him, and not 
 a breath of air stirred the warmth that had settled there 
 during a sunny day, though cool fingers seemed to be 
 touching his cheeks now and then, as of the spirit of 
 the young spring. He was happy and at peace with 
 himself, and his happiness grew as the long minutes passed 
 over him. His world was whole and good all around 
 him. His life contained no regrets and no unfulfilled 
 desires, except this one of learning the secret of his 
 happiness, which touched him as the fingers of the still 
 April night were touching him, to more alertness, not to 
 any trouble or disturbance of mind. Besides, the secret 
 was coming to him at last. He must believe that, or it 
 would not come. And he did believe it. He no more 
 doubted that he would see the fairies under to-night's 
 moon than he doubted of his body, lying there motion- 
 less. Indeed, his spirit was more aHve than his body, 
 which was in a strange state of quiescence, so that it was 
 not difficult to keep perfectly still for as long as it should 
 be necessary, and no discomfort arose from his im- 
 mobility. 
 
 If Lady Brent was sometimes criticised, as she was, 
 for keeping the boy away from the intercourse that 
 
 36 
 
FAIRIES 37 
 
 prepared other boys of his age and rank for playing their 
 part in the world, and the criticism had reached her ears 
 she need have done no more than point to him as he was 
 at the threshold of his manhood, for justification. Shut 
 up in a great house, with .two women and a lazy tame- 
 cat of a man; never seeing anybody outside from one 
 year's end to another; no young people about him; 
 no chance even of playing a game with other boys — 
 those; were the accusations brought by Mrs Fearon, for 
 instance, wife of the Rector of Poldaven, seven miles 
 away, who had sons arid daughters round about Harry's 
 age, would have liked them to be in constant companion- 
 ship with him, and was virulent against Lady Brent, 
 because she would have no such companionship in any 
 degree whatsoever. The boy would grow up a regular 
 milksop. He couldn't always be kept shut up at Royd, 
 and when he did go out into the world the foolish woman 
 would see what a mistake she had made. His own father 
 had made a pretty mess of it, and his early death was 
 no doubt a blessing in disguise. Harry would have even 
 less experience to guide him. It would be a wonder if 
 he did not kick over the traces entirely, and bring actual 
 disgrace upon his name. 
 
 Thus Mrs Fearon, not too happy in the way her own 
 sons were turfiing out, though they had had all the 
 advantages that Harry lacked, and at her wits' end to 
 cope with the discontent of her elder daughters. 
 
 Poldaven Rectory was the only house of any size 
 within a seven-mile radius of Royd except Poldaven 
 Castle, which was hardly ever inhabited. One summer, 
 when Harry was about eight years old, Lady Avalon 
 brought her young family there, and settled them with 
 nurses and governess, while she herself made occasional 
 appearances to see how they were getting on. There 
 was going and coming during that summer between 
 Royd and Poldaven. Harry would be taken there to 
 
38 SIR HARRY 
 
 play with the little Pawles, and a carriage full of them 
 would appear every now and then to spend a long day 
 at Royd. Of all the large family there was only one 
 with whom he found himself in accord. The Uttle lords 
 were noisy and grasping, the little ladies dull and mincing. 
 But the second girl, Sidney, of exactly the same age as 
 himself, was different from the rest. The two children 
 would go off together, and when out of sight of nurses 
 and governess, Sidney became quite natural, and they 
 would talk and play games, entirely happy in one 
 another's company, until they were discovered by the 
 rest, when the disputes would begin again, and the eternal 
 cleavage between male and female. If Lady Avalon 
 happened to be there, they were encouraged to be 
 together, and she and Lady Brent would have their 
 heads close as they watched them. A sweet little 
 couple, hand in hand — ^the boy so straight and hand- 
 some, the girl so pretty and naturally gay. There was 
 matchmaking going on, and the nurses were in it too, 
 and left them alone together, and often prevented the 
 other children from seeking them out. 
 
 When the Pawle children went away after their 
 secluded summer, Harry and Sidney kissed gravely, 
 under command of the head-nurse, who called them 
 'little sweet'earts.' But the kiss meant nothing to 
 Harry, since he had been told to proffer it. He would 
 rather have kissed Lady Ursula, a large-eyed, pink and 
 flaxen damsel of twelve, for whom he had an admiration, 
 though she never had much to say to him, and there was 
 no interest in her companionship as there was in Sidney's. 
 He missed Sidney when they went away, but not for 
 long, and by this time he had almost forgotten her. For 
 Poldaven Castle had remained empty ever since that 
 summer, and if Lady Brent had formed any premature 
 matrimonial plans for her grandson, she seemed to have 
 forgotten them, for she scarcely ever mentioned the 
 
FAIRIES 39 
 
 names of her one-time neighbours, and never that of 
 Sidney Pawle, except once when the news of Lady 
 Ursula's marriage was in all the papers. Then she said 
 that Ursula was a beautiful girl, but Sidney had always 
 been her f avoiuite. Harry looked at the picture of bride 
 and bridesmaids. He remembered how he had admired 
 Ursula's beauty, and she was beautiful now, but he 
 hardly recognised her; grown up she seemed a genera- 
 tion older. Sidney was recognisable in the photograph; 
 she was not yet grown up. But she looked different too, 
 in her silken finery. Lady Avalon must have been 
 economising in her children's clothes during that simimer 
 at Poldaven, for the girls had never been dressed in any- 
 thing more elaborate than Unen and rough straw. Some- 
 how, this bridesmaid, Sidney, was different from his old 
 plajmiate. He could not imagine her playing the 
 princess to his rescuing knight as she had done once or 
 twice when they had got quite away by themselves; or 
 indeed his letting her into any of that kind of secret, 
 now. He put the paper away, and forgot her 
 afresh. 
 
 Harry played no outdoor games in his boyhood, 
 except the games he made up for himself. But he was 
 a horseman from his earliest years. Lady Brent 
 encouraged it, when he was once old enough to go to the 
 stables without fear of danger. He had first a tiny little 
 Shetland, then a forest-bred pony, and a horse when he 
 was big enough to ride one. He roamed all over the 
 country, happy to be by himself and indulge his day-' 
 dreams. His handsonae young face and slim supple 
 boy's figure were known far and wide. He had friends 
 among farmers and cottage people, but the few of his 
 own class who lived in that sparsely populated country 
 he was inclined to avoid. They thought it was by his 
 grandmother's direction, but though it suited her that 
 he should do so, it was in truth from a kind of shyness 
 
40 SIR HARRY 
 
 that he kept away from them. His isolation was begin- 
 ning to bear fruit. The boys of his own age whom he 
 occasionally came across seemed to have nothing in 
 common with hini, nor he with, them. The girls eyed 
 him curiously, if a,dmiringly, arid he had nothing to talk 
 to them about. He was. happier by himself, or with his 
 horse a,nd his dogs. But he was never really by himself. 
 He could alv^ays conjure up brave knights and gentle 
 ladies to ride with him through the woods or by the sea, 
 if he wanted company. There was a. whole world of 
 varied characters about him, from the highest to the 
 lowest, and his invagination did no^ stop at mortal 
 companionship; he wa,lked. with gods and heroes as 
 often as with men and women. 
 
 No one about him suspected this inner life of his, as 
 real to him as his oi^ter life, and stUl more important. 
 To his mother and grandiii,pther he was a bright active 
 boy, with the outdoor taste? of a boy, who slept soundly, 
 ate enormously, and behaved himself just as a well 
 brought up boy should. To his tutor he was a pleasant 
 companion during the hours they spent together, and 
 one who did credit to his teaching. Wilbraham had his 
 scholarly tastes arid perceptions. He would have hated 
 the drudgery of teaching an ordinary boy who made 
 heavy work of his lessons, but this boy took an interest 
 in them. It is true that there were surprising gaps in 
 the course of study that tl;ey followed. Greek and 
 Latin, and English and French literature took up very 
 nearly all their time and attention. Wilbraham looked 
 forward with some apprehension to the time when he 
 should have to tell Lady Brent that in order to prepare 
 Harry for any examination, extra cramming would be 
 necessary by somebody else in the subjects that he had 
 neglected. But at sixteen the boy was a fair classical 
 scholar, and his range of reading was wider than that 
 of many University honours men. 
 
FAIRIES 41 
 
 Harry was fortunate in having the Vicar to help and 
 encourage him in his Natural History studies, for this 
 was a subject in which Wilbraham took no interest. 
 Mr Thomson was an old bachelor, who had been Vicar 
 of Royd for over forty years. His house was a museum, 
 and Harry revelled in it. No doubt he would have 
 developed his tastes in that direction without any 
 guidance, but Mr Thomson put him on the right lines, 
 and was overjoyed, at the end of his life, to have so apt 
 a pupil. He took him out birds'-nesting, geologising, 
 botanising, and encouraged him to form his own collec- 
 tions, though the boy showed no great keenness in this 
 form of acquisition. He wanted to know about every- 
 thing around him, but to collect specimens did not 
 greatly interest him. However, he was proud enough 
 when the old man died and bequeathed to him all his 
 treasures. At this time he was arranging them in a 
 couple of rooms that had been given up to them in the 
 Castle. But the excitement was already beginning to 
 wear a little thin. When he was not working with 
 Wilbraham, he always wanted to be out of doors, even 
 in bad weather. And he missed his old friend; it made 
 him rather sad to be poring over the cases and shelves 
 and cabinets that had been so much a part of him. 
 
 Part of the old Vicar's preoccupation had been with 
 the antiquities of the country in which he had Uved. 
 He had collected legends and folk-lore, perhaps in rather 
 a dry-as-dust way; but it was all material for the boy's 
 glowing imagination to work upon. AU the books were 
 there, now in Harry's possession, and many manuscript 
 notes too. And scattered over the country were the 
 remnants of old beUefs and old rites, which took one 
 right back to the dim ages of the past. There was a 
 cromlech within the park walls of Royd itself, and from 
 it could be seen a shining stretch of sea under which 
 lay, according to ancient tradition, a deep-forested land 
 
 S.H. D 
 
42 SIR HARRY 
 
 that had once been alive with romance. All this was 
 very real to Harry too. The figures of Celtic heroes 
 mixed themselves up with those of the classical gods and 
 heroes. The fairies and pixies of his own romantic land 
 were still more real to him than the fauns and dryads of 
 ancient Greece; as he grew older his expectation of 
 meeting with a stray woodland nymph during his forest 
 rambles died away, but he was more firmly convinced 
 than ever that the native fairies were all about him, if 
 he could only see them. 
 
 He lay for a very long time under the beech, quite 
 motionless, but with his senses acutely alert. He heard 
 every tiny sound made by the creatures of the night, 
 and of nature which sleeps but lightly under the moon, 
 and took in all their meaning, but without thinking 
 about them. The shadow cast by the tree under which 
 he was lying had shifted an appreciable space over the 
 brightly illumined grass since he had stirred a muscle. 
 And all the time his expectation grew. 
 
 He was in a strangely exalted state, but penetrated 
 through and through with a deep sense of cahn, and of 
 being in absolute tune with the time and place. If no 
 revelation of the hidden meaning of nature came to him 
 to-night, before the set of the moon, he would arise and 
 go home, not disappointed and vaguely unhappy, as he 
 had done before, but with his belief in that hidden 
 meaning destroyed. Only he knew now that that could 
 not happen. When he had stolen out into the night, he 
 had hoped that he might see something that he had 
 never seen before. Now he knew that he would. He 
 had only to wait until the revelation should come. And 
 he was quite content to wait, in patience that grew if 
 anything as the shadows lengthened towards the east. 
 
 He made not the slightest movement, nor was conscious 
 
FAIRIES 43 
 
 of any quickening of emotion, when the sight he had 
 expected did break upon his eyes. It came suddenly, 
 but with no sense of suddenness. At one moment there 
 was the empty moon-white glade, at the next there were 
 the tiny fairies dancing in a ring, so sweet, so light, so 
 gay. And in the middle of them, rhythmically waving 
 her wand, was the queen — ^Titania perhaps, but he did 
 not think about that until afterwards. TTieir wings 
 were iridescent, from their gauzy garments was diffused 
 faint Ught, hardly brighter than the Ught of the moon, 
 hardly warmer, and yet different, with more glow in it, 
 more colour. 
 
 He heard the silvery chime of their laughter — just 
 once. Then where they had been there was nothing. 
 
 He arose at once. He had no expectation of seeing 
 them again. He did not go down to the place where 
 they had been, but made his way home by a path under 
 the trees. His mind was fuU of a deep content. The 
 fairies were; and he had seen them. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MRS BRENT 
 
 Mrs Grant was sitting in her drawing-room at Royd 
 Vicarage. It was a lovely hot June morning, and she 
 was at her needlework by the French windows, which 
 were pleasantly open to the garden. The rich sweet 
 peace of early summer brooded over shaven lawn and 
 bright flower-beds, and was consummated by the drone 
 of the bees, which were as busy as if they were aware of 
 their reputation and were anxious to live up to it. Under 
 the shade of a lime at the comer of the lawn slumbered 
 the Vicarage baby in her perambulator, so placidly that 
 the very spirit of peace seemed to have descended on her 
 infant head. It was eleven o'clock in the morning, and 
 there was nothing to disturb the calm contentment with 
 which Mrs Grant plied her needle, singing a little song to 
 herself, and occasionally casting an eye in the direction 
 of the perambulator and its precious contents. Jane 
 and Pobbles were at their lessons with Miss Minster, or 
 the scene would not have been so peaceful. The Vicar 
 was in his study, happily at work on a moving chapter 
 of his latest work; for it was Monday, when clerical 
 duties were in abeyance. 
 
 He had been at Royd for over a year, and found the 
 place deUghtfully suited to his taste. He felt his inven- 
 tive powers blossoming as never before. The first novel 
 he had written at Royd had not long since been pubUshed, 
 and its modest popularity was now being reflected in the 
 literary and advertisement columns of the newspapers. 
 It had already brought him an offer for the serial rights 
 of his next novel, from a magazine of good stan<fing, 
 
 44 
 
MRS BRENT 43 
 
 which did not pay high prices, but did demand a high 
 moral tone in the fiction it published, and made quite a 
 good thing out of it. It was all grist to the mill. Royd 
 Vicarage was a good-sized house and cost more to live 
 in comfortably than he or his wife had anticipated, and 
 his income as an incumbent, with all the deductions that 
 had to be made from it, was hardly higher than his 
 stipend as a curate had been. But he had a little money 
 of his own, and his wife had a little money, and with the 
 income that came from the novels there was enough; 
 and it was beginning to look as if there might be a good 
 deal more, perhaps a great deal more. Novehsts with 
 less in them than he felt himself to possess were making 
 their two or three thousand a year. Anything in the 
 way of large popularity might happen within the next 
 year. In the meantime life was exceedingly pleasant, 
 and even exciting, with all those possibihties to build upon 
 upon. He would leave his work sometimes and come 
 into the room where his wife was, rubbing his hands, to 
 tell her how exceedingly jolly it all was. She would look 
 up at him with a smile, pleased to see him so happy, and 
 happy herself, with her nice house, and no anxiety about 
 being able to run it properly. 
 
 She was rather expecting a visit from him this 
 morning, for he had told her that he was going to set 
 to work on a new chapter, and when he had settled what 
 it was going to be he would usually come and tell her 
 about it before he began to write. She thought it was 
 he when the door opened; but it was Mrs Brent, who 
 sometimes looked in and sat with her for a time in the 
 morning. 
 
 Mrs Brent was well dressed, in the summer attire of 
 a country-woman, but with her fluffy hair, and face that 
 had been pretty in her youth but was pretty no longer, 
 she looked somehow as if she had dressed for the part; 
 and the air of 'commonness,' not always apparent in 
 
46 SIR HARRY 
 
 her, was there this morning. The corners of her mouth 
 drooped, and there was an appearance of discontent, 
 and even sullenness, about her. 
 
 She brightened up a little as she greeted Mrs Grant, 
 and sat down opposite to her on a low chair by the 
 window. 'Oh, I do like coming here,' she said. 'It's so 
 peaceful. And it's such a quiet, pretty room.' 
 
 The room was rather barely furnished, but what there 
 was in it was good, and there were a great many flowers. 
 To buy old things for this and other rooms of the house 
 was to be one of the first results of the expected increase 
 of income, but it was doubtful whether the charm of this 
 room would be much enhanced. For it was quiet, as 
 Mrs Brent said, and quietness is a valuable quality in 
 a room. 
 
 Mrs Grant looked round her with satisfaction. 'It 
 is nice,' she said. 'We are very happy here. I don't 
 think I'd change Royd for any place in the world.' 
 
 'I would,' said Mrs Brent. 'I'm fed up with it.' 
 
 Mrs Grant threw a glance at her. She was looking 
 down, and the sullenness had returned to her face. 
 
 'Fed up to the teeth,' she said. 
 
 She looked up in her turn. Behind the discontent was 
 an appeal. Mrs Grant felt suddenly very sorry for her. 
 If she was a little common she was also rather pathetic 
 — a middle-aged child, out of place and out of tune. 
 
 ' I think it would do you good to have a change some- 
 times,' Mrs Grant said. 'However beautiful a place is, 
 one wants a change occasionally.' 
 
 'She doesn't,' said Mrs Brent vindictively. 'So she 
 thinks nobody else ought to either.' 
 
 It was coming at last, then. Mrs Grant had formed 
 her own opinion of Lady Brent long since, and it did 
 not entirely coincide with the opinion that her husband 
 had formed, though she had not told him so. Lady 
 Brent had been all that could have been expected towards 
 
MRS BRENT 47 
 
 themselves — kind and hospitable, and, withhi limits, 
 friendly. She had offered no real intimacy, and after 
 a 3'ear's intercourse it was plain that she had none to 
 offer; but it was also plain that the intercourse need 
 never be otherwise than smooth and even pleasant, if 
 the limitations were observed. Mrs Brent, on the other 
 hand, had shown that she wanted intimacy. Mrs Grant 
 could not give any deep measure of friendship to one in 
 whom there seemed to be no depths, but she could talk 
 to Mrs Brent about many things, about Harry and about 
 her own children in particular, and find a response that 
 made for friendship. She could talk, too, about- the 
 events of her own life, but was chary of doing so, because 
 it would seem to be asking for confidences in return, 
 and she was not sure that she wanted them. There was 
 always in the background the feeling that Mrs Brent and 
 her mother-in-law were antagonistic, in spite of the 
 apparent harmony between them ; and of late that 
 feeling had increased. Mrs Brent was such that, the 
 gates of her Ups once unlocked, she would express her 
 antagonism, and it would no longer be possible to treat 
 it as if it did not exist. That time seemed to have come 
 now. 
 
 ' I hate that woman,' said Mrs Brent, ' and I won't put 
 up with it any longer.' 
 
 There was the shghtest httle pause before Mrs Grant 
 replied. ' Why do you hate her ? I can understand your 
 wanting to get away sometimes; but she always seems 
 to me to treat you nicely ; and of course she is extremely 
 nice to us. I should be sorry to quarrel with her in any 
 way.' 
 
 ' No doubt you would,' said Mrs Brent dryly. ' You'd 
 get the rough side of her tongue pretty quick, and you 
 wouldn't forget it in a hurry.' 
 
 Mrs Grant was a little shocked. This new plain- 
 spoken Mrs Brent was more of a personage than the 
 
48 SIR HARRY 
 
 carefully behaved lady always anxious to be malting 
 a good impression that she had hitherto appeared; but 
 she seemed out of the Royd picture — and all the more so 
 if Harry and not Lady Brent were regarded as its central 
 figure. The suggestion of Lady Brent as a virago was 
 also rather startling. 
 
 ' Oh, I don't mean to say that she'd use bad language,' 
 said Mrs Brent, in reply to some demur. 'That's not 
 her little way. I won't tell you what her little way is, 
 but she's always the lady. Oh, the perfect lady. I'm 
 not, you see. That's what's the matter with me. I'm 
 Lottie Lansdowne, who danced on the stage, and never 
 allowed to forget it, though you can tell of yourself, 
 since you've been here, that I've tried hard enough to 
 play the game — for Harry's sake, I have — and been at 
 it for the last seventeen years; and now I'm getting a 
 bit sick of it.' 
 
 She was in tears, and Mrs Grant felt a strong emotion 
 of pity towards her. She leant forward. 'My dear,' she 
 said, 'I think it's splendid the way you sink yourself 
 for Harry's sake. You mustn't give up doing it, you 
 know. It has paid — hasn't it?- — to have him brought 
 up here, out of the world, in the way that you and Lady 
 Brent have done. He's the dearest boy. / consider that 
 you have had more to do with the success of it than she 
 has. He loves you more, for one thing; and if he sees 
 you living here as if you belonged to it all ' 
 
 'Oh, I know,' said Mrs Brent, drying her eyes. 'T 
 made up my mind about that years ago, and I'm not 
 going back on it. I suppose when he gets older and 
 begins to see things for himself, he'll see that I don't 
 really belong. I've got that before me, you know. She 
 knows it, too, and of course doesn't care. It'll suit her. 
 She'll come out all right, but I shan't. The only thing 
 is that he does love me, and he can't really love her. 
 I don't see how anybody could. I'm glad you said that. 
 
MRS BRENT 49 
 
 I \oye you for saying it. I can talk to you, and I'm sure 
 it's a relief to talk to somebody. There's Wilbraham, 
 but he's as much up against her now as I am; we only 
 make each other worse. You do think it's all right so 
 far, don't you? With Harry, I mean. He couldn't be 
 nicer than he is, if his mother had been bom a lady. Of 
 course, I wasn't, whatever I may pretend. / haven't 
 got in the way, have I ? She can't bring that up against 
 me.' 
 
 ' Oh, no ! Oh, no ! You mustn't think that. You're 
 part of it all to him. I said that and I meant 
 it.' 
 
 She settled herself back more easily in her chair. 
 'Well, I beUeve I am,' she said. 'I've tried to make 
 myself. I love him dearly, and I'd do anything for his 
 sake. It's been right to bring him up quietly here. 
 She's been right there. I'll say that for her, though I 
 hate her.' 
 
 'You don't really hate her,' said Mrs Grant; "and 
 I don't think you've any reason to. What she has done 
 has been for Harry's sake too.' 
 
 ' It has been for the sake of the Brent family. Her son 
 married beneath him — so she says — ^though I'd have 
 made him a good wife, and though I loved him I knew 
 he wasn't all he might have been. She's going to sec 
 that Harry doesn't run any risk of doing the same. 
 Well, I'm with her there. I don't want Harry to be mixed 
 up with what I come from. But there's nothing nasty 
 about it. It's only that we weren't up in the world. Do 
 you know I haven't so much as set eyes on my own 
 people since Harry was bom? Why shouldn't I? I'm 
 flesh and blood. My father died since I came here, and 
 mother's getting on. She was nearly fifty when I was 
 married.' 
 
 'Do you mean that Lady Brent ?' 
 
 'Oh, it was me too. I said that I'd give them up 
 
50 SIR HARRY 
 
 when I came here. The fact is that I wasn't best pleased 
 with them at that time. I'd promised Harry— my 
 husband, I mean; they're all called Harry — ^not to say 
 I was married till he came home. Poor boy, he never 
 did come home, but before that — ^well, they said things 
 — at least, mother did — ^that made me furious. I kept 
 my promise to him till I heard he'd been killed, poor boy. 
 Then I let them have it. Perhaps I hadn't learnt quite 
 so many manners then as I have since, though I was 
 always considered refined by the other girls in the 
 company. Anyhow, it ended in my saying I never 
 wanted to see them again, and we never even wrote tiU 
 poor father died. Still, I've forgiven them now, it's so 
 long ago, and I cried when father died, and wrote to 
 mother. I was very fond of father. He used to take 
 me on his knee when I was little and read stories out of 
 the Bible to me. He was a religious man, and didn't 
 like my going on the stage. Sometimes I wish I'd never 
 gone. Emily, my next oldest sister, went into millinery 
 and did weU. She married long ago and has a boy nearly 
 as old as Harry, though of course he'd be very different. 
 Mother said she had a nice house out Hendon way, 
 when she wrote, and three Uttle girls, as well as a boy. 
 I dare say I should have been much happier like that, 
 though I shouldn't have had Harry. But it couldn't do 
 Harry any harm now if I just went up and saw them 
 sometimes. I needn't even say I was going to see them 
 or anything about them. Why shouldn't I go to London 
 for a week, as other ladies do, to see their dressmaker or 
 something? I think it's more London I want than mother, 
 if you ask me. Oh, just to see the lights and the pave- 
 ments, and the people jostling one another ! I'm like 
 famished for it.' 
 
 She threw out her hands with a curious stagey 
 gesture that was yet a natural one, and her nostrils 
 seemed to dilate, as if she were actually sniffing the 
 
MRS BRENT 51 
 
 atmosphere she so much desired. ' I'm going,' she said. 
 'I don't care what she says.' 
 
 'I don't see why you shouldn't go,' said- Mrs Grant. 
 'But why should Lady Brent object? What can she 
 say?' 
 
 Mrs Brent leant forward. ' Couldn't you ask her for 
 me ? ' she said coaxingly. ' Tell her you think I ought to 
 have a change. I'm young, you know. At least I'm 
 not old yet. It can't be right for me to be buried down 
 here year after year. I shan't get into mischief. Just 
 a week ! ' 
 
 Mrs Grant felt intensely uncomfortable. Get into 
 mischief ! What did it all mean ? Lady Brent must have 
 some reason for keeping the frivolous pathetic little 
 thing shut up like this? And yet she had seemed to 
 disclose everything; she had dropped every trace of 
 pretence, and had made her appeal for sympathy on 
 the grounds of her very unsuitability to be where she 
 was. If she no longer cared, before this friend, to keep 
 up the fiction of having sprung from a superior station 
 in life, which from such as she was a great concession 
 to candour, how coidd she wish to keep anything 
 back? 
 
 'You know I'm your friend,' Mrs Grant said. 'I'd do 
 anything I could to help you, but you see how it is with 
 us here. We shall never be close friends with Lady 
 Brent. I don't think she wants it. But she's kind and 
 well-disposed towards us. I couldn't run the risk of 
 setting her against us, unless I were quite certain that — 
 I mean quite certain of my ground. It wouldn't be fair 
 to my husband. It would make all the difference to us 
 here, if we were not on good terms with her. Have you 
 told me everything? Why should she think you might 
 get into mischief?' 
 
 She put this aside lightly 'Oh, there's nothing in 
 that. It's only what she'd say. She'd say anything. 
 
52 SIR HARRY 
 
 But I see I ought not to ask you. No, it wouldn't be 
 fair to bring you into it. She'd have it up against you; 
 you're quite right. I tell you this, Mrs Grant; when 
 Harry comes of age — or before that, when he goes to 
 Sandhurst — I'm off. No more of this for me. I shall 
 snap my fingers at her. But of course you've got to stay 
 here. No, I'll tackle her myself, and see if I can't get 
 my own way for once.' 
 
 She sprang up. ' I'll go and do it now,' she, said. ' No 
 time like the present.' 
 
 She laughed and kissed Mrs Grant. ' Good-bye, dear,'- 
 she said. 'It does me good to talk to you; you're so 
 imderstanding. And it does me good to have you here 
 — ^you and your nice kind clever husband and your sweet 
 children. Ah, if I'd had a bit of real family life with my 
 poor boy ! — it might have been here or anywhere; I 
 shouldn't have cared where it was — ^it would all have 
 been very different. Now I'U go and tackle the old 
 dragon while I'm fresh for it. Good-bye, dear; I'll go 
 out through the garden.' 
 
 She went out by the window, and stopped to look at 
 the sleeping baby as she crossed the lawn, smiling and 
 making a little motion of the hand towards Mrs Grant 
 as she did so. Then she disappeared behind the 
 shrubbery. 
 
 Mrs Grant laid down her work and went to refresh 
 herself with a look at the baby. As she turned back, her 
 husband came out of his room, which was next to the 
 drawing-room and also opened on to the garden. 
 
 His face was serious. 'I didn't know you had Mrs 
 Brent with you,' he said. ' I've had Wilbraham. They're 
 all at loggerheads up at the Castle, Ethel. I don't quite 
 know what to do about it. I don't want to get up 
 against Lady Brent; but ' 
 
 She told him of Mrs Brent's prospective revolt. ' She 
 asked me to talk to her,' she said. ' But I said the same 
 
MRS BRENT 53 
 
 as you do. We don't want to get up against her. AVhat 
 is the trouble with Mr Wilbraham ? ' 
 
 ' Much the same as with Mrs Brent, apparently. He's 
 fed up with it too. He wants to get away.' 
 
 'What, for always?' 
 
 'Oh, no. He's too fond of Harry for that. Besides, 
 he's very comfortable here — ^has everything he wants. 
 I told him that, and he didn't deny it. But he seems to 
 have developed a furious hatred of Lady Brent. I really 
 can't tell you why. He couldn't tell me, when I pressed 
 him. He's morose and gloomy. He says he must get 
 away from her for a time, or he'll go off his 
 head.' 
 
 'But surely he can take a holiday sometimes if he 
 wants to ! ' 
 
 ' It almost looks as if she wouldn't let him go off by 
 himself. He asked me to go off with him, for a month. 
 He offered to pay all expenses and go where I liked. 
 In the old days I might have been tempted — if you'd 
 thought it would be a good thing to do. But I don't 
 want to go away from here just now — at this lovely time 
 of year, with the work and everything going so well. 
 Of course I could write, but— ^ — Anyhow, I don't know 
 who I should get to do my duty. If I thought it would 
 really put things right ! What do you think? Ought I 
 to do it?' 
 
 ' I don't know, dear. I don't understand what's going 
 on. It looks to me as if there must be something behind 
 it all that we don't know of.' 
 
 He laughed at her and pinched her chin. ' You take 
 the novelist's point of view,' he said. 'I don't, which 
 is perhaps rather odd. They're all on each other's 
 nerves. Why don't he and Mrs Brent go off together? ' 
 He laughed again. 'He didn't really press it,' he said. 
 'He wanted me to go this week. I couldn't do that, 
 anyhow, and when I said so he seemed to drop the idea. 
 
54 SIR HARRY 
 
 He had wanted me to suggest it to Lady Brent just as 
 Mrs Brent wanted you. They're a queer couple.' 
 
 ' I suppose it's only to be expected that it should be 
 hke that sometimes,' she said thoughtfully. 'I think 
 I could talk to Lady Brent, if she'd only give me the 
 chance.' 
 
 ' I don't tliink she will, and it wouldn't do to begin it.' 
 
 'Oh, no, I shouldn't do that. But there's Harry. 
 It all comes back to him, you see. If she's mistaken in 
 what she's doing, it's for his sake she's doing it. She 
 might give me an opening there.' 
 
 'I don't think so. It all passes over Harry's head. 
 It's rather remarkable how normal he is. One might 
 not have expected it under such circumstances. Well, 
 I must get back, dear. Wilbraham has taken a big slice 
 out of my morning. I'm sorry for him and wish I could 
 help him. But I don't see how I can, except by con- 
 tinuing my friendship. I was rather flattered that he 
 should have come and talked to me. He professes to 
 think very little of my knowledge of human nature, you 
 know. But most of that's a pose, and I like him. He 
 went off to tackle Lady Brent himseH. Mrs Brent too, 
 you say. She'll have a happy day of it, I should 
 think.' 
 
 At this moment the peaceful seclusion of the scene 
 was destroyed by the incursion of Jane and Pobbles, 
 who, released from their studies, came tumultuously 
 round the corner of the house, Jane leading. They woke 
 up the baby, or, as her time for waking up was past, 
 perhaps they only completed the process, and they 
 escaped rebvie for it. Their cry was for Harry. Where 
 was Harry? He had promised to come not a moment 
 later than twelve o'clock, and it was already two 
 minutes past. 
 
 Jane was a straight, somewhat leggy child, with the 
 promise of beauty when the time shoidd come for her to 
 
MRS BRENT 55 
 
 accept her dower of femininity. At present she was more 
 like a boy than a girl, except for her long thick plait of 
 fair hair, which she would have given almost anything 
 to be allowed to sacrifice in the interests of freedom. 
 She was aboundingly full of life and the most amazing 
 physical energy. She affected an extreme virility of 
 speech, and exercised a severe discipUne over Pobbles, 
 who occasionally raged against it as an offence to his 
 manhood, but as a rule accepted the yoke and prospered 
 under it. He was a handsome child, strong and vigorous 
 too, but without his sister's determined initiative. 
 They were a pair to be proud of, and their parents were 
 proud of them, but found them a handful. Miss Minster 
 could manage them by the exercise of a good-humoured 
 authority which never allowed itself to be rattled. But 
 it was only Harry whose lightest word they obeyed 
 without question. He was their hero and their most 
 adored playmate. Perhaps Jane showed more femininity 
 in submitting to his direction than was apparent in her 
 attitude towards him, in which there was none to be 
 seen. 
 
 Harry came into the garden as they were clamouring 
 their questions, with his retriever wagging its tail at his 
 heels. He was seventeen now, grown almost to his full 
 height, but his face was still that of a boy. There was 
 a radiant look of health and happiness in it. He was 
 extraordinarily good to look at, not only because of his 
 beauty, of form and feature and colouring, which was 
 undeniable, but because of this sort of inward light, 
 which suffused it with a sense of perfection that went 
 right through him. Mrs Grant caught her breath as she 
 looked at him. She saw him as some wonderful work of 
 God, without flaw, untroubled in his happiness. What- 
 ever disturbances there might be among the figures of 
 coarser clay by whom he was surrounded, there must 
 be some breath of finer spirit in each and all of them. 
 
36 SIR HARRY 
 
 since he stood on the threshold of manhood as he was, 
 here before her eyes. 
 
 The matter in hand was the building of a log cabin 
 in a bit of forest that reached down from the wooded 
 hill behind the Vicarage garden. Harry and the children 
 had been working at it for a month or more, and it was 
 to be a very perfect specimen of a log cabin. 
 
 'Why haven't you brought the saw?' said Jane, 
 turning upon Pobbles. 'Go and fetch it.' 
 
 'It's your turn,' said Pobbles. 'Can't always be 
 fetching things for you.' 
 
 'Be quick,' said Jane. 'We're wasting time. Come 
 on, Harry, we'll start. He can run after us.' 
 
 'Don't know where to find the saw,' said Pobbles 
 untruthfully. 
 
 'Jane will go and help you,' said Harry. 'Hurry up, 
 both of you.' 
 
 Jane put her long legs in rapid motion without a 
 word, Pobbles poimding along after her on his shorter 
 ones. Harry laughed. ' That's the way to talk to them,' 
 he said. 
 
 Jane returned bearing t*he saw, Pobbles following. 
 They set off immediately for the wood, and the voices of 
 all three of them were heard for a long time in animated 
 conversation through the hot drowsy air. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 REVOLT 
 
 Lady Brent sat in her business room, engaged in affairs. 
 or apparently so. Business room it was called, but it 
 was little like one except for the large writing-table in 
 the window at which she sat, and as a matter of fact 
 she transacted mpst of the actual business of house and 
 estate which fell to her share in a room downstairs, 
 called the steward's room, which was far more severely 
 furnished. This large upstairs room, with its deep 
 embrasured window looking on to the park, was her 
 fastness, and she did not often withdraw herself into its 
 seclusion. It was next to her bedroom, and might have 
 been better called her boudoir, but that the ancient and 
 severe splendour of its furnishing would have seemed to 
 rebuke such a name. It was richly carved and panelled, 
 the furniture was heavy and sombre, and lightened by 
 none of the modern touches which made the long 
 drawing-room downstairs, which was mostly used, bright 
 and even gay. This room was as characteristic of the 
 old romantic castle as any in it. It spoke of a time long 
 gone by, and of a Ufe more austere than modem life is 
 apt to be. There were few comforts in it, but a great 
 deal of rich massive dignity. When Lady Brent en- 
 sconced herself in it she was the chatelaine of the castle, 
 seated in state, and as formidable as it was in her power 
 to make herself. 
 
 Mrs Brent, coming in from the Vicarage, wrought up 
 
 to her purpose, looked for her in the long drawing-room, 
 
 and not finding her there had the intuition that she was 
 
 in her business room. She hesitated a little before going 
 
 S.H. 57 E 
 
58 SIR HARRY 
 
 upstairs to verify it, making a further draft upon her 
 determination. Of course ! She had known that it was 
 coming to a row. She was as sharp as a cartload of 
 monkeys, and had seen that the row was likely to occur 
 just at this very time. That was why she had taken to 
 her business room, when by aU usual habits she would 
 have been sitting downstairs or in the garden, during 
 the hour before luncheon. 
 
 So thought Mrs Brent, mounting the oak staircase, 
 and summoning all her resolution. She wouldn't be 
 awed by the stately lady in the stately room. After all, 
 it was only a piece of play-acting. She knew something 
 about play-acting herself. She would be cold and stately 
 too, announce her determination and then go away. 
 She'd show that she wasn't to be put upon. Perhaps it 
 would be easier like that. There would be no leading 
 up to the subject and no discussion after it, as there must 
 have been if she had joined her mother-in-law downstairs, 
 and felt compelled to sit on with her. 
 
 But she knew, as she opened the door, that it would 
 not be easier. 
 
 'Oh, I wondered where you were. I just wanted to 
 say something to you, if you're not too busy.' 
 
 The tone did not seem right, somehow, even to herself. 
 Lady Brent turned roxmd from the table at which she 
 was sitting, and took off the tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses 
 which she wore for reading and writing. She did not 
 look in the least degree formidable — a well-preserved, 
 well-dressed, middle-aged lady, not really obliged to 
 wear glasses, even for reading and writing, and not want- 
 ing them at all for anything else. 'Yes, certainly, 
 Charlotte,' she said, ' I have nearly finished what I came 
 here to do, and you are not interrupting me at all.' 
 
 Mrs Brent had an impulse to make up some trivial 
 message and go away, but conquered it. Her voice shook 
 a little as she said, still standing : ' I wish to go up to 
 
REVOLT 59 
 
 London, for a few days — say a week — as soon as 
 possible.' 
 
 Again she had not satisfied herself. She had used the 
 prim reserved tone of a maid giving notice — ' I wish to 
 leave at the end of my month.' It seemed to her that 
 she had only just prevented herself adding, 'my lady.' 
 
 Lady Brent received it much as she might have 
 received notice from a servant, whose temporary dis- 
 satisfaction with her place must not be taken too 
 seriously. 'Why do you want to do that?' she asked, 
 in a level, even a kindly voice. 
 
 It touched some chord in Mrs Brent. She had, perhaps, 
 prepared herself for a peremptory refusal, and if it had 
 come she would have been ready to combat it, and 
 obstinate to push her determination through. But 
 supposing her request should, after all, be granted. 
 That would put everything right and save a lot of trouble. 
 All the irritation she had been piling up against Lady 
 Brent would be dissolved. She did not want to quarrel 
 with her, if it could be avoided. She would have to go 
 on living with her, whether she had a short respite now 
 or not. And it had not always been so very disagreeable 
 to live with her. 
 
 'Oh, I must, I really must,' she said. 'I can't stand 
 it any longer. Just a week ! I'll go and see my mother, 
 and be as quiet as possible. Harry needn't know I'm 
 going to her, if you don't want him to, though I don't 
 see what difference it would make. 
 
 ' I think I do,' said Lady Brent quietly. ' But, perhaps 
 you'd better sit down, and talk it over. What is it you 
 can't stand any longer? If there's anj^hing wrong here 
 we ought to be able to put it right. Only I must first 
 know what it is.^ 
 
 Mrs Brent sat down. She saw that her appeal had 
 been a mistake. She could not now coldly state her 
 intention and support it against opposition, behaving as 
 
6o SIR HARRY 
 
 one stately lady towards another, as she had pictured 
 it to herself, coming up the staircase. And of course 
 Lady Brent did not mean to let her go, if she could help 
 it. 
 
 She sat down in a high-backed Carolean chair. 'I 
 don't want to go into all that,' she said stifly. ' I shall 
 be able to stand it all right when I come back, A little 
 holiday is what I really want, and what I mean to have. 
 It's not much to ask, after nearly eighteen years. Well, 
 I say ask— but I'm not asking. I'm just telling you 
 that I'm going away on Thursday, or perhaps Friday, 
 and I shall come back in a week — or ten days.' 
 
 It was not quite the address of one stately lady to 
 another, but it seemed to have served its turn. Lady 
 Brent turned back to her writing-table and took up her 
 rimmed spectacles. 
 
 'Very well,' she said. 
 
 Mrs Brent sat in her high-backed chair, looking at her. 
 She placed her spectacles upon her well-shaped nose, and 
 took up her pen. Then she said, as calmly as before : 
 ' If you tell me you are going there is no more to be said. 
 I'll finish what I'm doing now, before luncheon.' 
 
 'Then you're ready for me to go; you don't mind,' 
 said Mrs Brent. 
 
 ' It doesn't much matter whether I mind or not, does 
 it ? You tell me you are going. You refuse to discuss it 
 with me?' 
 
 'Well, I don't want to make trouble. It's no good 
 talking over things. There's nothing much wrong, 
 really. If I go away now for a bit I shall be all right 
 when I come back. I expect, really, I shall be rather 
 glad to get back.' 
 
 Lady Brent put down her pen and took off her 
 spectacles. 'Oh, but if you go away you won't come 
 back,' she said, turning towards her again. 'Surely you 
 understand that ! ' 
 
REVOLT 6i 
 
 Mrs Brent felt that she had been entrapped into, an 
 opening unfavourable to herself. Now was the time, if 
 she had it in her, to exercise the restraint and reserve 
 shown by Lady Brent. But it was not in her; she 
 became angry at once, and showed her anger. 
 
 'Of course I might have known that you were leading 
 me on,' she said bitterly. 'I dare say it seems very 
 clever to you, and it's what you're always doing. But 
 I'm not going to give in to it any more. I'm going away 
 — only just for a little hoUday — and I'm coming back. 
 You can't prevent me. This is my home. I've lived 
 here getting on for eighteen years — me and my child. 
 I dare say you'd like to keep him and get rid of me. But 
 you can't do it.' 
 
 ' If I wanted to do that I could do it,' returned Lady 
 Brent; and, as the statement brought no immediate 
 response, she repeated it, in the same level tone but with 
 slightly increased emphasis. 'If I wanted to do that 
 I could do it.' 
 
 'Perhaps you could do it, by law,' said Mrs Brent. 
 ' I don't know anything about the law, except what you've 
 told me. Perhaps you could and perhaps you couldn't. 
 But there's one thing you can't do, and that's take 
 away my child's love for me, though I dare say you'd 
 like to do that too. You don't suppose that if I went 
 away and came back here and you had me turned away 
 from the door, you wouldn't hear something about it 
 from him. You don't suppose that, do you? He's 
 pretty near a man now. You're his guardian till he 
 comes of age; I know that. You had yourself made so 
 by the law, and I didn't make any objection; you told 
 me it was best for him, and I beUeved you. But you'd 
 find it wasn't all a question of law if you tried any game 
 of that sort. I don't know what Harry would do, but 
 I do know that whatever he did it wouldn't suit your 
 book.' 
 
62 SIR HARRY 
 
 Lady Brent had listened to this speech without show- 
 ing the smallest sign of discomposure, but her light blue 
 eyes were hard and coH as she said : 'There is a good 
 deal of truth in what you say. Your going away would 
 completely upset everything that has been done during 
 the last eighteen years for Harry's benefit. Both you 
 and I have made sacrifices on his behalf. We agreed to 
 do so when you came here before he was born. I have 
 kept strictly to the bargain. I should not, for my own 
 pleasure, live the retired life that I do here, all the year 
 round, with you as my constant companion. For my 
 own sake I should be immensely reUeved to say good- 
 bye to you for a time, if it were possible.' 
 
 'Yes, that's the sort of nasty thing you say.' 
 
 ' Isn't it exactly what you say to me ? Why should 
 you suppose your society is any more gratification to 
 me than mine is to you?' 
 
 ' I wish to goodness you would say good-bye to me, 
 then, for a time. Why isn't it possible? It is possible. 
 I tell you I'm going, and I'm coming back.' 
 
 'Do you remember anything at all about the bargain 
 we struck when you first came here, or have you for- 
 gotten it entirely, after nearly eighteen years, js you say? 
 
 'Of course I remember it. You didn't mince your 
 words then any more than you do now. You made me 
 feel that I was dirt beneath your feet, but you'd put up 
 with me for the sake of preventing my boy — ^if it was to 
 be a boy — doing what his father had done, and marrying 
 somebody he loved, if you didn't think she was good 
 enough for him.' 
 
 'You can put it like that if it pleases you. You 
 consented to everything. You yourself wanted the child 
 brought up with nothing to remind him that on one 
 side his birth wasn't suited to his long ancestry on the 
 other. I warned you what the sacrifice would be. It 
 meant giving up your own people, for one thing, and 
 
REVOLT 63 
 
 you gladly consented to do that. It meant your doing 
 your utmost to fill the position that I freely offered you 
 here.' 
 
 'So I have done my utmost.' 
 
 'And now, when what we agreed to do together has 
 turned out better than either of us could have hoped 
 for, when we are very nearly at the end of it, and can 
 send Harry out into the world what we have made of 
 him here, you want to break the bargain. And why? 
 Not for any good it can possibly do him, but just because 
 you want to go back to what you were before you came 
 here — ^for your own petty selfish pleasure.' 
 
 'It isn't that,' she said vehemently. 'I say it isn't 
 natural that anybody should cut themselves off from 
 their own flesh and blood. I loved my father and he 
 died without me setting eyes on him. You let me write 
 to mother then. I didn't do it without asking you, 
 and ' 
 
 'Didn't we strike the bargain afresh then? Didn't 
 I say I was sorry that it should have been required of 
 you to cut yourself off from your family, but that it had 
 already then proved to be the right course? And didn't 
 you agree with me, though it was harder for you to bear 
 then than at any time?' 
 
 The tears came. 'Of course it was hard, then,' she 
 said. 'But you were kind to me. So you were when 
 I first came. If I was giving up something, I was going 
 to get something too. All that I'd been was to be 
 forgotten, though it isn't true that I'd been anj^hing 
 that I ought not to have been. Harry was to grow up 
 knowing me as belonging here. You were to be his legal 
 guardian, but he was to be my child.' 
 
 'Yes, and I might have struck a much harder bargain 
 . with you than that. You would have consented. I might 
 have taken the child and paid you off. That's often 
 done, you know, in cases like youi-s.' 
 
64 SIR HARRY 
 
 She was sobbing now. ' You're cruel,' she said. ' Yes, 
 you are cruel, even when you're pretending to be nice. 
 You like hurting me. Pay me off ! Anybody'd think, 
 to hear you talk, I'd been a loose woman.' 
 
 'I've never said that, or implied it.' 
 
 'No, you've never said it. You wouldn't dare. But 
 you've made me feel that's how you look at me. Why 
 didn't you pay me off, then, and get rid of me ? ' 
 
 'Exactly. Why didn't I?' 
 
 'Well? I'm asking you.' 
 
 ' I was willing to give you your chance. Whatever I 
 may have thought of you, I didn't want to deprive you 
 of your child, or him of his mother, so long as you were 
 ready to make yourself the kind of mother he ought to 
 have had. You said you'd do it. You were grateful to 
 me. You consented to every stipulation I laid down. 
 The chief of them all was that you should break absolutely 
 with your past until he came of age. Then you could 
 do what you liked; it would be between you and him. 
 Now you want to break that stipulation. I say that 
 if you break it on one side you break it on the other; 
 I also say that it would be a very wicked thing to break 
 it now at this time.' 
 
 ' It wouldn't be if you'd just let me go away for a bit 
 and come back.' 
 
 ' That I won't do. Why do you want to go away ? It 
 isn't just to see your mother. I know that well enough. 
 You want the hfe of London, the life you led there before 
 Harry was born — theatres, and suppers, and gaiety, 
 with the sort of people that you ought to be ashamed of 
 mixing yourself up with, when you think about Harry, 
 and what he is. You've done without it for nearly 
 eighteen years. For goodness' sake do without it for a 
 little time longer. Don't knock down what we've been 
 building up for all these years, just for a selfish whim. 
 Think of Harry, not of yourseU.' 
 
REVOLT 65 
 
 ' I do think of him. I love him better than anything 
 in the world. I'd go barefoot if it was to do something 
 for him.' 
 
 'You're not asked to go barefoot. All you're asked 
 to do is to go on Uving the quiet but very comfortable 
 life that you've lived here for years past, and make the 
 best of it. It's what I'm doing myself.' 
 
 She dried her eyes and rose from her chair. 'I see 
 I'm not going to get any kindness from you,' she said, 
 'But I'll think about it. Perhaps I shan't go. I've 
 stood it so long that perhaps I can stand it a bit longer. 
 If I was sure it was for Harry's good I'd never move out 
 of the place till I was carried out. I'll think about it and 
 let you know.' 
 
 'You needn't let me know anything,' said Lady Brent. 
 'If you go you go, and if you stay you stay.' 
 
 With that Mrs Brent left her. She did not immediately 
 return to whatever she had been doing, but sat looking 
 out through the open casement across the open spaces 
 of the park to the woods beyond. Her face was still 
 hard and still watchful. By-and-by she looked at her 
 watch and almost immediately a knock came at the 
 door. She answered as if she had been expecting it, and 
 Wilbraham came into the room. 
 
 There was a suUen discontented expression on his face, 
 which was unusual with him. He had kind, lazy eyes and 
 a whimsical twist in his mobile lips; but all that was 
 obliterated. 
 
 He took his seat without invitation in the chair 
 recently vacated by Mrs Brent. ' I want to go away for 
 two or three weeks' holiday,' he said, scowling slightly, 
 and handling his bunched fingers. ' Now you're going to 
 have that man over from Burport for Harry's mathe- 
 matics, he can do without me — say for a month. He's 
 well up in my subjects. The more he works at his 
 mathematics the better it will be for him.' 
 
66 SIR HARRY 
 
 'Why do you want to go away just now? ' she asked, 
 as she had asked of Mrs Brent. 
 
 'Why does anybody ever want to go away? ' he said. 
 ' I want a holiday, and if I'm to go on here I must have 
 one.' 
 
 ' If you want a holiday from work, there ought to be 
 no difficulty about that. You know what's best for 
 Harry. If you think that Mr Fletcher will be of more 
 use to him now, by all means arrange it like that and 
 leave yourself altogether free for a time.' 
 
 'Thanks very much. Of course, I shouldn't want to 
 do anything that would keep Harry back. You know 
 that.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes, I know that. He was to come first in every- 
 thing. That was agreed upon between us when you 
 first came here. I saw very soon that I cotild leave 
 questions of education entirely to you, and I have 
 always done so.' 
 
 ' Well, now I want to go away for a month or so. I'm 
 getting stale. I'm not doing him justice.' 
 
 'Perhaps not. I've been feeling that for some little 
 time. But I don't think it would help you to do him 
 justice if you went away so that you could drink, and 
 undo everything that ' 
 
 ' Lady Brent ! ' He was startled and outraged, and 
 glared at her terrifically. 
 
 She was not moved. ' That's what's the matter with 
 you,' she said, in the same even voice, 'though you may 
 not acknowledge it to yourself. I'm very sorry that 
 this has happened. I had thought that after all these 
 years the craving had left you. I don't think it can 
 be as strong as it was. I ran the risk when I asked you 
 to come here, and helped you over the difficult time. It 
 is years since you told me last that the desire was strong 
 in you, but it was easier to overcome it. What a pity 
 to give way now ! ' 
 
REVOLT 6^ 
 
 His deep frown had not altered while she was speaking. 
 'Give way!' he echoed. 'I've no intention of giving 
 way. You've no right to speak of that at all. It was all 
 over long ago.' 
 
 'I helped you to get over it, didn't I?' 
 
 'Yes, you did. I'm not denying it. You can be a 
 good friend to a man when it suits you; to a woman too, 
 I dare say. But you're difficult to live with. I want to 
 get away for a time. There's nothing to fear, of that old 
 weakness. Perhaps I ought not to resent your bringing 
 it up against me, but ' 
 
 'You wouldn't resent it if what I say wasn't true. 
 You may not know it yourself, but you're playing with 
 the idea of giving way. If you did give way you'd be 
 very soiTy for it afterwards, no doubt, but the mischief 
 would have been done. You'd no longer be a fit com- 
 panion for Harry. It's him I'm thinking about. You 
 can do what you like, but if you go away you don't come 
 back. It's what I've just said to Charlotte, who wants 
 the same as you do. I'm not going to have everything 
 spoilt when our task is coming near its end. If she's a 
 foolish woman, you're an intelligent man. You can see 
 it all as well as I can if you clear your mind of its vapours. 
 You know it wouldn't do. You must stay here until 
 you have finished with Harry. Then you can do what 
 you like — stay here or go away.' 
 
 'It won't matter what becomes of me then, I suppose.' 
 
 'I said that you could stay here if you liked. This 
 has been your home for ten years. It can go on being 
 your home as long as you value it; or at least as long 
 as I have anything to do with it.' 
 
 He sat looking down, still frowning; but his frown 
 had more of thought, and less of anger in it now. 
 
 He threw a glance at her sitting there self-possessed 
 and at ease, and a wry smile came to his lips. 'Why 
 can't you always behave like that?' he asked. 'I 
 
68 SIR HARRY 
 
 supppse the fact is you've worked off cill your temper on 
 that poor little creature who's been telling you just the 
 same as I have. I met her crying on the stairs just now, 
 and she wouldn't tell me what it was about. But I 
 could guess.' 
 
 She showed some surprise, but no resentment. 'My 
 temper ! ' she exclaimed. ' Well, I suppose I must pass 
 that over in the state to which you've reduced 
 yourself.' 
 
 His face became moody again. ' I won't ask you what 
 you mean by that,' he said. ' But you're quite wrong in 
 what you said just now. Would you consent to my 
 going away with Grant, if I could get him to come with 
 me ? He's rather a fool, but I'd rather have his company 
 than— than ' 
 
 'Than mine, I suppose. No, I wouldn't consent to 
 that. You came here on certain conditions, and you 
 must keep to them. It won't be for very much longer 
 now. I'm not altogether without sympathy with you. 
 I've felt the strain myself.' 
 
 He broke into a loud laugh, and went on laughing, 
 while she waited patiently for him to finish, as if no 
 vagary on his part coidd surprise or upset her. 
 
 'Oh, that's too rich,' he said, 'in that tone! Yes, 
 you've been feeling the strain, and you've made us feel 
 it. That's all the trouble. Well, now, look here. Lady 
 Brent, I accept what you say about its being too late to 
 alter things now — or too early — ^whichever you please. 
 We're all three of us in the bargain, I take it. It was 
 your idea to keep the boy shut up here, and it has paid. 
 I don't believe it would have paid nine times out of ten, 
 and we've yet to see how it will turn out when the test 
 comes. But Harry being what he is, it has been a 
 brilliant success — so far. You've been justified in keep- 
 ing me and his mother shut up here too.' 
 
 'And myself, you must remember. I've shut myself 
 
REVOLT 69 
 
 up too, so as to make it seem all the most natural thing 
 in the world to him.' 
 
 ' Quite so. And you've suffered for it, just as we have. 
 Suffered in your temper. If we stick to it, as we must, 
 you ought to make it as easy for us as possible. You 
 haven't lately.' 
 
 ' So Charlotte seemed to imply. But I should like to 
 know how.' 
 
 'Oh, you know how, well enough. You said I was a 
 man of intelligence just now. Well, you're a woman of 
 intelligence. Just think it over.' 
 
 He nodded his head knowingly. He looked rather 
 ridiculous, and Lady Brent laughed. 
 
 'I wish you'd go away,' she said. 'I want to finish 
 what I'm doing before luncheon. You may tell Char- 
 lotte, if you Uke, that I'm sorry if I spoke harshly to her 
 just now. She annoyed me and I did not pick my words. 
 When three people live together year in and year out 
 they are apt to get annoyed with one another occasion- 
 ally, for no particulair reason.' 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE LOG CABIN 
 
 The log cabin had reached the interesting stage at which 
 its framework was complete, and the immediate task 
 was to nail thin bark-covered boards upon it. After that 
 it was to be thatched. Then it was to be lined with 
 match-boarding. 
 
 Harry had built every bit of the framework himself, 
 with such help as Jane and Pobbles could give him in 
 lifting and holding the timbers in place, not without 
 some risk to limb if not to life. He had drawn out his 
 constructional plan, from careful study of a book. Then 
 he had had the timbers prepared at the saw-mills four 
 miles away, and he and the children had fetched them 
 in a farm cart. It had taken them weeks to get the 
 framework finished, but they had made a very good job 
 of it between them. As they hurried up through the 
 wood to the clearing upon the edge of which the cabin 
 stood, Jane and Pobbles were full of excitement at the 
 thought of work to come which they could really do 
 themselves. So far, it had been helping Harry, which 
 was pleasurable enough, but not to be compared with 
 the pleasure that was to come. 
 
 Harry let them chatter without much response, but 
 made the pace tov/ards the clearing so fast that they 
 had to run to keep up with him. He was excited too. 
 He was doing something real, from the beginning. He 
 had invented something and had aheady carried out the 
 most difficult part of it, meeting the difficulties as they 
 came, and surmounting them. AU the rest would be 
 easy enough until it came to the thatching. He proposed 
 
 70 
 
THE LOG CABIN n 
 
 to do that himself too. Watching a thatcher at work on 
 a bam had first put the idea of building a log cabin into 
 his head. He thought he knew how it was done, and he 
 could always ask the old thatcher questions; but he was 
 not going to let him lay a finger on the roof of the cabin, 
 nor even stand by and direct. Jane and Pobbles might 
 do whatever lay within their power; it would have been 
 he who had taught them and directed them in every- 
 thing. 
 
 They came to the clearing — a space of bright green 
 turf nibbled short by rabbits,' surrounded mostly by 
 oaks interspersed with glistening hollies and here and 
 there a graceful deliciously green beech. The cabin stood 
 back among the trees, its squared timbers showing white 
 and new against the background of green and russet. 
 Harry paused and put his head on one side to contem- 
 plate it, and a grin of pure pleasure lit. up his face. 
 'A very workmanlike job so far,' he said. 'Come on, 
 we'll get the whole of the front covered in this morning.' 
 
 They worked at a rate unknown to members of trade- 
 unions, measuring and sawing up the boards, and nailing 
 them fast to the posts. Harry did all the sawing, Jane 
 and Pobbles took it in turns to nail one end of a board 
 while he nailed the other. They quarrelled a little over 
 this until Harry stopped them. Jane was of the opinion 
 that Pobbles did not drive in a nail as well as she did. 
 Pobbles was of the contrary opinion. There were only 
 two hammers between the three of them, but Harry was 
 to provide a third for the afternoon. They were to have 
 a picnic tea at the cabin, after lessons, and hoped to 
 see the walls roughly finished before dusk fell. 
 
 The brooding summer noon did not daunt these eager 
 labourers. It was more like real work to sweat under 
 the hot sun. Harry took off his coat at the start and 
 turned up his shirt sleeves. Pobbles did the same in 
 imitation of him. Jane, having nothing that she could 
 
72 SIR HARRY 
 
 reasonably take off, contented herself with roUing up 
 her sleeves and warning Pobbles that he would catch 
 cold, which gave him an opening that he was not slow 
 to take advantage of. 'Men don't catch cold when 
 they're working,' he said, and took off his waistcoat. 
 Jane had to admit inferiority for once. 
 
 They worked till the last possible minute, and met 
 again at the first possible minute in the afternoon. The 
 game which they made of their work was more entrancing 
 now than it had been in the morning. The tasks of the 
 day were done, and the long summer evening stretched 
 infinitely before them. Moreover, the cabin, with its 
 front all boarded in, was now beginning to look like a 
 cabin and not the skeleton of one; and a picnic is always 
 a picnic to happy youth, however inadequate the viands. 
 They were not inadequate on this occasion. All three 
 labourers had brought baskets. A fire was to be lit and 
 tea made — ^billy tea, of which Harry had learnt the 
 recipe from a book. The meal was to be an adequate 
 substitute for what they would have eaten indoors. 
 Harry was to be excused dinner for it. The children 
 had their freedom until half -past eight. 
 
 Jane had changed her clothes, and wore, instead of the 
 cotton frock of the morning, an outgrown coat and skirt, 
 already laid aside 'to be given away.' The reason for 
 this apparent feminine vagary became manifest when, 
 arrived on the scene of action, she took off the coat, 
 which was uncomfortably tight, and rolled up the 
 sleeves of the shirt she wore beneath it. She was now 
 at least as much like a pioneer as Pobbles. 
 
 In their imaginative adaptable brains they were 
 pioneers in very truth. Harry was as serious about it 
 as the children, though he was too old for any childish 
 game of make-believe. ' Now we'll knock off for an hour,' 
 he said, when one of the end wdls had been boarded in, 
 and the desire for bodily sustenance became urgent. 
 
THE LOG CABIN 73 
 
 'We must get the roof on before the rams begin, but 
 we're well ahead, and it's better to keep at it steadily 
 than to work ourselves out.' 
 
 He Wcis in some imagined country of the new world, 
 where the first duty was to provide shelter before attack- 
 ing the primeval woods and bringing the soil into 
 cultivation. The soft English glade, upon which the 
 shadows of English oaks and beeches were beginning to 
 lengthen under the westering sun, was transformed in 
 his imagination to a clearing in some tropical forest, or 
 in the backwoods of Australia or Canada. The castle, 
 the vicarage, the village, were wiped out. They were 
 very far away from all such signs of ancient civilisation, 
 very far too from all possibility of replenishing their 
 stores, if these should be wastefuUy used. He asked 
 Jane to count the eggs carefully. ' If there's one over, 
 Tom had better have it,' he said. 
 
 Tom was Pobbles, so called only on such occasions 
 as this. Jane understood perfectly. She was the woman 
 of the party, and it lay with her to adjust and husband 
 the stores, also to support the head of it in his designs. 
 On such terms she was wiUing to shoulder her burden of 
 womanhood, and rather regretted having approximated 
 her attire to that of the men. 'You'd better put your 
 jacket on now you've left off working,' said Harry, 
 throwing a glance not altogether of approval at her 
 shirt, which she wore open at the neck, as he and the 
 virile Tom wore theirs. She obeyed meekly, and went 
 into the cabin to put on her tie as well, also the hat which 
 she had discarded. ' We ought to nail up a bit of looking- 
 glass inside,' she said, as she came out, and before she 
 joined in picking up sticks for the fire she went into the 
 wood where some late hyacinths were still to be found, 
 and fastened a bunch of them on her breast. 
 
 Thus far they might make beUeve, acting as if they 
 were a backwoods party, but not bringing the pretence 
 S.H. F 
 
74 SIR HARRY 
 
 to the point of utterance. They both laughed at Pobbles 
 when he said : ' We'd better stick together when we're 
 picking up sticks, or one of us may get scalped in the 
 wood,' and Jane said : 'We're helping Harry; he's not 
 pla5dng a silly game with us.' Pobbles thought it would 
 have been more amusing if they had boldly played the 
 game which seemed to be in their thoughts no less than 
 in his, but accepted the correction, and half understood 
 it. Harry, who was so wonderful at making things, 
 would belittle himself by pla3dng children's games about 
 them. 
 
 But there was no diminution in his dignity when he 
 showed that his mind was full of the reality of what they 
 were playing at. They sat on the chips and sawdust 
 outside the cabin, when they had devoured everything 
 in their baskets, and talked. Harry leant against the 
 new built wall of the cabin with his legs stretched out in 
 front of him, his dog at his feet, and Pobbles leant against 
 the wall beside him, in as near an imitation of his 
 attitude as he could contrive without making himself 
 too uncomfortable. Jane reclined gracefully on her 
 elbow, and occasionally pulled her too-short skirt over 
 her knees. The shadows of the trees had perceptibly 
 lengthened. There were two hours of daylight yet, but 
 the heat had declined, and the evening freshness was 
 mingled with the evening peace. The cuckoo was calling, 
 now here, now there, and its gray form could be seen 
 sometimes flitting from tree to tree across the glade. 
 The rabbits were out at the far end of it, and the 
 wood-pigeons were swinging home to the high woods 
 behind them. But of human occupation, besides their 
 own, the world seemed empty. They were secure in 
 their retreat. 
 
 'It must be a grandthing, you know,' Harry said, 'to 
 find a new place in the world which you can make what 
 you like of. Supposing this were really right away from 
 
THE LOG CABIN 75 
 
 eveiywhere, in a new country, we shotdd begin just like 
 this, with a cabin a bit bigger but much the same in plan. 
 Then we should make our garden round about.it. After 
 that we should prepare our fields. We should cut down 
 trees, for more building when we wanted it, and for 
 logs for burning in the winter. We should have our 
 animals; we should have everything that we wanted 
 round us, and what we hadn't got we should have to do 
 without until we could go and bring it from the nearest 
 town, which might be hundreds of miles awla,y. There'd 
 be a tremendous lot to do every day, but you'd Uke doing 
 it, and you'd see the whole thing grow and grow till you 
 had a splendid place which you had made out of nothing, 
 and hundreds of people working on it.' 
 
 'Shall you do that, when you're quite grown up, 
 Harry?' asked Pobbles. ' I think I shall. I know a good 
 deal about it already, and I can easily learn some more. 
 
 Jane forbore to rebuke his assumption of knowledge, 
 having one to make on her own account. 'I used to 
 think I should hate having to sew and learn to cook,' 
 she said. ' But I shouldn't mind it if I was Uving in a 
 log cabin. I can cook some things already. I suppose it 
 would be more fun to be a man, but a woman would 
 have to ride and all that, if she lived in a new country; 
 and she could ride astride.' 
 
 ' It's only when things begin to get a little settled that 
 women go at all,' said Harry, dashing these dreams. 
 'The real pioneers go alone, and carry ever3rthing they 
 want with them on horseback. It must be glorious to 
 ride for day after day in a country where no white man 
 has ever been before, and at last to come to some lovely 
 place where he can make a settlement.' 
 
 'There's no reason why a woman shouldn't do that 
 too,' said Jane. 'She could go alone herself, if the man 
 didn't want her. She could dress like a man.' 
 
 Pobbles exploded with mirth, at some cryptic joke of 
 
7$ SIR HARRY 
 
 his own. 'A pretty fool she'd look if the Redskins 
 caught her ! ' he said. 
 
 ' Shut up,' said Jane sharply, relinquishing her dreams 
 of a woman's empire, 'or I'U pimch your head.' 
 
 'Shut up both of you,' said Harry, 'and don't spoil 
 things by quarrelling. You'd never do for that sort of 
 life if you couldn't spend five minutes without flying 
 at one another. You'd have to spend weeks and months 
 together without seeing another living soul.' 
 
 'But you'd be there,' said Pobbles. 'You'd keep her 
 in order.' 
 
 'Shall you ever do it, Harry, do you think?' asked 
 Jane. ' I should Uke to come too, if you do. I could 
 wait behind till you'd found the right place, and then 
 Tom and I could come on together.' 
 
 'Perhaps I shall some day,' said Harry, for whom 
 time and youth seemed to stretch ahead inimitably. 
 ' But not until after I've been in the army for some years. 
 And I couldn't be away long from Royd. I might just 
 go pioneering, and leave somebody else to work up the 
 place I've found.' 
 
 'Oh, you could leave Jane and me,' said Pobbles. 
 'And you could come there and see us sometimes. You 
 would find we had worked it up better each time you 
 came.' 
 
 ' I shouldn't care about it unless Harry was there all 
 the time,' said Jane. ' Besides, I am going into the army 
 too. I read about a girl in Russia who fought all through 
 the wars, and nobody found her out. I shall be in 
 Harry's regiment, but he won't tell anybody. You can 
 too, Pobbles, when you're old enough.' 
 
 Harry looked at her, and laughed with great enjoy- 
 ment. He had just seen the woman coming out in her, 
 and been mildly entertained by it through his seriousness. 
 Now she was a sexless child again. 'You're one in a 
 thousand, Jane,' he said. ' Of course you shall join my 
 
THE LOG CABIN 77 
 
 regiment, and Pobbles too. We'll have some jolly times, 
 and when it comes to fighting we three will stick together. 
 
 Jane did not mind being laughed at by Harry, and 
 was pleased at the prospect held out to her. She took 
 off her jacket, when they set to work again at the cabin, 
 and threw away the bluebells, wondering why she had 
 picked them. 
 
 Dusk was falling as Harry made his way up through 
 the wood and across the park homewards. The air was 
 very still, and the sweet scents of the earth, dissolved 
 in dew, rose like incense. Usually his impressionable 
 untroubled mind would have leapt to the message of his 
 senses, and he would have exulted in the beauty that 
 lay all around him, sublimated by the spell of on-coming 
 night. But as his feet brushed the moisture from the 
 grass, and stirred the cool scents to greet his nostrils, he 
 looked down and not up as his way was. A vague dis- 
 content was upon his spirit, which was not quite un- 
 happiness though near akin to it. 
 
 The vision of a free life in a free untouched land had 
 come to him. For the first time in his happy boyhood 
 he felt himself bound by his lot. The great world, with 
 its endless varieties of adventure and invitation to be 
 doing and living lay beyond his horizons, and he had 
 never crossed them. 
 
 Melancholy touched him so seldom that it was a dis- 
 comfort to be resisted. He wondered what made him 
 sad at the thought of being tied to Royd, which had 
 hitherto been a paradise of enjoyment to him. He stood 
 still as he came out from among the trees and looked 
 across the park to the dark mass of the Castle, in which 
 lights were glimmering here and there, making it more 
 romantic and beautiful even than when seen in the day- 
 time. And as he looked, the momentary sadness fell 
 from him, and he smiled with pleasure at the scene, so 
 familiar yet always showing itself in some new emanation 
 
78 SIR HARRY 
 
 of beauty. He was coming to the age at which he could 
 no longer be satisfied with it as holding everything in 
 life. The shadow of unrest had just fallen upon him, 
 but it would not be yet that he would walk in it. 
 
 As he neared the castle a white figure, dimly seen in 
 the dusk, detached itself from the gloom that lay about 
 the massive walls and came towards him along the 
 trodden path by which he was hastening. He recognised 
 it as that of his mother, who not infrequently came out 
 to meet him like this when he had begged off dinner and 
 came back after it. It usually gave him pleasure to find 
 her waiting for him in this way. There was not, perhaps, 
 very much in common between them, but he knew how 
 much he was to her, and his chivalry went out towards 
 her, in love and a sense of protection. 
 
 To-night he was conscious of the least little sense of 
 discomfort in meeting her. His time was so fully taken 
 up, with his work indoors and his innuinerable pursuits 
 out of doors, that neither his mother nor his grand- 
 mother saw very much of him except at meal-times, and 
 less than ever in the summer-time. It was part of the 
 wisdom of Lady Brent that he was left as free as he was. 
 But he was sensitive to the atmosphere around him, and 
 of late, when the inmates of the castle had been together, 
 it had been uncomfortable. Wilbraham, while they had 
 done their work together, had been much as usual, but at 
 table he had been morose and snappy. The two women 
 had obviously put constraint upon themselves to be 
 easy and natural before him, but the coldness and 
 irritation between them had peeped through. There 
 had been nothing to cause him to reflect upon something 
 wrong, and the cause of it; he had been full of his own 
 devices and forgotten aU about the discomfort at home 
 the moment he was away from it. But the discomfort 
 was there. Perhaps it had had to do with the vague 
 discontent that had just come upon him and passed 
 
THi: LOG CABIN n 
 
 away. But the sight of his mother coming to meet him 
 brought it back ever so Kttle. Whatever his dreams for 
 the future, whether at home or abroad, the whims and 
 vagaries of his elders if indulged in must shut them off. 
 Going away from Royd meant going away from them; 
 Royd itself must lose some of its glamour if life there 
 was to be troubled by their jars. 
 
 But he remembered now, as he called to his mother, 
 and hurried his steps to meet her, that the cloud had 
 seemed to have lifted itself somewhat at luncheon that 
 day. Wilbraham, at any rate, had recovered his 
 equanimity entirely, and had been good-humoured and 
 tdliative; and Lady Brent had been suave, where for 
 some days she had seemed covered with prickles. Only 
 his mother had been subdued, with traces of past tears 
 about her eyes. 
 
 He reproached himself that he had not taken much 
 notice of these signs of disturbance in her. He had been 
 too busy with his schemes for the afternoon, about which 
 lie had talked freely, as he was encouraged to talk about 
 everything that interested him. He had felt instinc- 
 tively that any sort of chatter from him would be 
 welcomed. But he had escaped as soon as possible after 
 luncheon and forgotten all about the tension until now. 
 
 "Well, little mother ! ' he said, as he came up to her. 
 ' Ought you to be out at this time of night without a wrap 
 or anything?' 
 
 He had a clear, rather high-pitched voice that was 
 music in her ears. She loved him anew for the kindness 
 in it, and for the question which showed that he was 
 careful of her. He put his arm round her shoulder and 
 kissed her, and his hand went down to her waist and 
 remained there as she turned to walk with him. All this 
 thrilled her with pleasure, and her voice shook a little 
 as she answered him, though she tried to keep it level. 
 
 'Oh, I'm all right, dear,' she said. 'It's very warm. 
 
8o SIR HARRY 
 
 Shall we go into the garden for a little? It's lovely 
 there now.' 
 
 'Yes; let's/ he said at once, though he had intended 
 to go in and forage for food; for he was hungry again. 
 
 They went into the garden through a tall iron gate in 
 the wall, and walked up and down the long bowling- 
 green, which was hidden from the house by a high yew 
 hedge. A fountain plashed in a pool at the far end of 
 it; there were no flowers to be seen just here, but the air 
 was full of their scent. The light had not yet faded out 
 of the sky, but stars were beginning to twinkle in it. 
 The grass was close cut, but wet with dew. He bent 
 down to see whether she was fitly shod, and found she 
 had put on goloshes. She laughed at him. ' Nobody can 
 see them,' she said, 'but you Uke taking care of your old 
 mother, don't you, darling?' 
 
 ' You're not old,' said Harry; ' and of course you must 
 be taken care of. Isn't it lovely out here? I don't think 
 there can be any place so lovely as Royd in the whole 
 world, though I haven't seen much of the world, so 
 far.' 
 
 'I think it's lovely too,' she said. 'But I' shouldn't 
 want to stay here always if you weren't here. You've 
 never wanted to go away, have you, Harry?' 
 
 He laughed at his remembrances. 'Just for a little 
 this afternoon, I thought I should like to go somewhere 
 else,' he said. ' The children and I have been building 
 our log cabin, and I rather wished it was a real one, quite 
 away from everything, in some far off country. But I 
 suppose I shouldn't hke to be away from Royd for very 
 long.' 
 
 ' It won't be very long before you do go away now,' 
 she said. 'Oh, I do hope it won't change you, Harry 
 dear. It's so different out in the world. Sometimes 
 I long for it, but I believe this is best, after all. If you 
 told me I could go to-morrow, I don't think I would now. 
 
THE LOG CABIN 8i 
 
 I wouldn't go as long as you were here, and I knew you 
 were happy being here.' 
 
 'I haven't looked forward very much to going to 
 Sandhurst,' he said thoughtfully. ' I shan't be nearly so 
 free there as I am here, and I'm not sure I shcdl get on 
 very well with the others. I've never had much to do 
 with other people of my own age.' 
 
 'No, you're different,' she said. 'But you're much 
 nicer. I don't think you'd have been so nice if you had 
 been brought up like other boys; or so happy, either. 
 But you'll have to be careful when you go away. There 
 are lots of temptations which other boys of your age 
 know about and you don't.' 
 
 He turned a smiUng face on her. 'Then hadn't you 
 better tell me about them?' he said. 'Do you mean 
 drinking and gambling? I was reading a book the other 
 day about all that. It didn't seem to me much of a 
 temptation. I suppose I shall have as much money as 
 I want without gambling for it, shan't I? And why 
 should I want to drink if I'm not thirsty? ' 
 
 She had not paid much attention to this. She was 
 wondering whether she dared talk to him of the Ufe, as 
 it appeared to her, from which he had been kept secluded. 
 It had been tacitly accepted, all through his boyhood, 
 that no mystery was to be made of it, and any questions 
 he might ask should be answered, but that his being 
 kept at Royd was to be taken as a natural thing. After 
 her late revolt she had swung roimd to a complete 
 acceptance of the understanding by which those who 
 were responsible for Harry should share in the seclusion 
 which had been Idd down as the best thing for him during 
 his boyhood. Only so could it be accepted without 
 question by him. Lady Brent had triumphed, and had 
 shown, this evening, that she bore no malice on account 
 of what had lately happened. Mrs Brent was at peace 
 with her, and once more a loyal supporter of her views. 
 
8i SIR HARRV 
 
 But there was a little jealousy and a little egotism left. 
 She was Harry's mother. If any enlightenment was to 
 be brought to him as to what lay before him, surely she 
 might be considered the right person to give it ! It was 
 only because she knew that Lady Brent would not think 
 so that she hesitated. 
 
 'Oh, drinking and gambling,' she said, catching him 
 up. 'No, I don't think those would be temptations to 
 you, brought up as you have been, though one never 
 knows, with young men. It's women / should be afraid 
 of. They'll try to get hold of you. You see you'll be 
 a great catch, Harry. And of course you're very hand- 
 some. You'll have to be careful about designing women.' 
 
 No, decidedly, Lady Brent would not have approved 
 of this kind of warning. 
 
 It seemed to be distasteful to Harry too. ' All right, 
 mother, I'll take care,' he said shortly. 
 
 'It would never do for you to marry beneath you,' 
 she went on, rather surprisingly, and would have gone 
 on to amplify her statement, but that Harry suddenly 
 cut her short. 
 
 ' I'm most frightfully hungry, mother,' he said, ' Let's 
 go in and see if we can get hold of anything. Then I 
 think it will be about time for me to go to bed.' 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AUGUST 
 
 Harry stood at a window of his room in the tower, 
 looldng out on to the trees, which tossed and struggled 
 against the gale. Heavy clouds were racing across the 
 sky, and at no long intervals gusts of rain rattled against 
 the westward window. 
 
 Harry had asked for this room as his own a year or 
 two before. It filled the whple space of the tower on 
 its top story, except for the corner in which was the spiral 
 stone stairway, and had windows on all four sides. In 
 front was the park, and from this height could be caught 
 a glimpse of the sea across the tops of the trees beyond 
 it, but this afternoon it was blotted out by the gray 
 mist, which seemed to take the colour from everything, 
 though the month was August and the deep rich tones 
 of the woods would ordinarily have stood out boldly. 
 Below the three other windows lay the long, irregular 
 roofs of the ancient house, with the courtyards enclosed, 
 and the outbuildings, the gardens, the orchard — a 
 fascinating bird's eye view containing all sorts of curious 
 surprises. Harry had never been tired of it as a child, 
 and found it interesting now, though it had ceased to 
 hold any new discovery. The room had not been used 
 until he had taken to it, though it had contained some 
 old pieces of furniture. He had added to them whatever 
 had taken his fancy from the many unoccupied rooms 
 of the house, and brought whatever he wanted for his 
 own pursuits here. He was never disturbed in this 
 room, and never entered it except when he wanted to be 
 alone. He did his work downstairs in the room that 
 
 83 
 
84 SIR HARRY 
 
 was still called the schoolroom; he read in the library, 
 where Wilbraham usually kept him company; he sat 
 and talked with his mother and grandmother in the 
 rooms they occupied. It was of the essence of this room 
 that he could be alone in it when he wanted to be alone, 
 which was not very often, for he was no recluse. If the 
 elders had made themselves iree of entrance to it, its 
 charm for him would have gone; but Lady Brent had 
 said that it was to be his only, without his having asked 
 more than that he should be allowed to have what he 
 wanted in it. 'It's right that he should be able to get 
 away from us sometimes, indoors as well as out,' she 
 had said to Mrs Brent. ' He's not to feel himself chained 
 to our society.' 
 
 Harry stood at the window, looking out not upon the 
 courts and gardens laid out beneath him, but across the 
 trees to where the sea was, if he could have seen it for 
 the mist. It was holiday time with him. He had come 
 up here after luncheon thinking to make out the treasure 
 island map that he had promised to Jane and Pobbles 
 before they had gone away to the seaside. This was part 
 of a game they had invented, sitting in their log cabin 
 one wet afternoon. Harry was by no means above games 
 that were no more than games, though he was too old 
 to turn reality into a game; and this was a fascinating 
 one that they had hit upon together — the designing of 
 the ideal island upon which the vicissitudes of Ufe might 
 one day cause them all to be wrecked. They had contri- 
 buted its features one by one — sandy beaches, and coral 
 pools to bathe in; bread-fruit and grapes and oranges; 
 a great hollow tree half-way up a mountain that they 
 could make into a house, as was done by that didactic 
 but resourceful Swiss of the name of Robinson; a hidden 
 hoard of treasure, which would include gold cups and 
 plates and dishes for domestic Use; a spring of miracu- 
 lously clear water, discovered just when they were dying 
 
AUGUST 85 
 
 of thirst, and slightly flavoured with pineapple (this was 
 Pobbles's idea) ; a hut in which a marooned sailor had left 
 behind him every sort of tool that could come in handy, 
 he himself having been taken off the island, on Jane's 
 suggestion, so as to avoid the nuisance of a skeleton; 
 these were a few of the amenities that were to be found 
 on this accommodating island, and they were increased 
 every time the subject came up for discussion. Harry 
 had promised to draw a map for them, including the 
 already arranged geographical features, and adding any 
 others that might occur to him in the meantime. He 
 had drawn the outline of the island on a handsome scale, 
 and inked it in carefully. Then he had got tired of it. 
 The eager pleasure of the children was wanted to give 
 salt to this game. He could not employ himself for a 
 whole afternoon over it. 
 
 He missed those little friends of his, especially Jane, 
 with her quick ways and eager loyalty, which made her 
 so companionable, though never tiresomely clinging, as 
 is the way with admiring children. He had not known 
 how much they had come to mean to him during this last 
 year in which they had been his constant companions, 
 until they had gone away and he had been left to the 
 society of his elders. Between him and Wilbraham, 
 especially, there was some community of taste. He owed 
 a good deal of his love of fine literature to Wilbraham, 
 and there was much that he could share with him that 
 was beyond the understanding of the children. They 
 were only children, and he had told them none of his 
 secret thoughts. Jane was very quick of understanding 
 and had developed considerably during the year he had 
 known her; perhaps he might have come to confide some 
 of them to her if they had ever been alone together. But 
 Pobbles was her inseparable shadow, and he had never 
 wanted it otherwise. With all their immaturity, they 
 appealed to the spirit of youth in him, and their 
 
86 SIR HARRY 
 
 companionship gave him something that he could not get 
 from his elders. That was why he missed them so much 
 on this wild wet afternoon, when he was debarred from 
 his usual pursuits out of doors, and there seemed to be 
 nothing worth doing indoors. And yet it was not them 
 so much that he missed — though he did not know it — 
 as the companionship and inspiration of answering 
 youth. Perhaps they had had something to do with 
 arousing the need of it in him, but they were too young 
 to satisfy it. He had been supremely happy in his child- 
 hood and youth, far more consistently happy than most 
 boys of his age, and happier than he consciously knew. 
 But the time for that life was coming to an end; unless 
 some change came to him he would gain less and less 
 contentment from it as he grew older. 
 
 He had not yet grasped the magnitude of the change 
 that was even then all around him, and would soon draw 
 him as an atom in the whole sensitiveworld, into its vortex. 
 
 For the Great War had begun. As Harry stood at the 
 window, the German hordes were overrunning Belgium 
 and France, England was hurrying feverishly into the 
 breach, throughout the length and breadth of the 
 country nothing else was talked of but the war; only 
 here and there in some remote place the menace of the 
 great conflagration was unheeded as yet; but very soon 
 there would be no place where its weight did not fall. 
 
 It was talked of at the Castle. Wilbraham already 
 had his maps up in the library, and his little flags to 
 stick into them. He and Lady Brent disputed about it 
 over the table. Wilbraham thought it would all be over, 
 and the Germans taught their sharp lesson, in a few 
 weeks. Lady Brent, remembering similar prophecies 
 about an immeasurably less formidable enemy fifteen 
 years before, thought it would be longer. It might take 
 a whole year to bring it to an end. Longer it could not 
 take, because all Europe would be bankrupt if it did. 
 
AUGUST 87 
 
 They argued quite impersonally. They would not be 
 touched by it themselves. 
 
 Harry had not caught fire over it yet. His life had 
 been quite divorced from anything that went on in the 
 world outside Royd, except in what he had learnt from 
 books. Neither home nor foreign politics meant any- 
 thing to him, and he never looked at a newspaper, except 
 in idle moments. His one regret was that the war would 
 be over before he should gain his commission, in two 
 or three years time. That seemed to be agreed upon. 
 At present there were no individual deeds to excite his 
 imagination. He took but a languid interest in it as 
 yet, though every day there seemed to be some increase 
 in its importance. This afternoon it weighed a little on 
 him, with all the rest, but a break in the clouds would 
 have set his mind free of it, and for the moment of every 
 other vaguely felt dissatisfaction. 
 
 There was no sign of any break in the heavy clouds, 
 but some weather sense which he had acquired in his 
 open-air life gave him the feeling that the storm was near- 
 ing its end. At any rate he must go out, whether it 
 cleared or not. He was getting mopy, shut up in the 
 house. He knew b}' experience that that rare feeling 
 never persisted when he was once out of doors. 
 
 A furious gust drove the rain against the window and 
 blotted out aU the landscape as he turned to leave the 
 room; but he felt better already for his decision. He 
 would go for a gaUop towards the sea. It would be invigor- 
 ating to have the rain and the wind in his face, and perhaps 
 the storm would be over by the time he reached the coast. 
 It would be grand to see the sun break over the waves, and 
 watch them dashing themselves against the rocks. 
 
 He put on his oldest breeches and gaiters, and a riding 
 raincoat, and went out to the stables. He told no one 
 that he was going out, wanting to escape dissuasion 
 from his mother and grandmother in the drawing-room. 
 
88 SIR HARRY 
 
 and WUbiaham in the library. They let him take his 
 way in these matters, but it was not to be expected from 
 middle-aged human nature that he would be allowed to 
 go out in this weather without some remonstrance. 
 
 He had two horses of his own, Clive, a bay, and Circe, 
 a black blood mare, and his own groom, Fred Armour, 
 the head-coachman's son, who was only a year older 
 than himself, and a friend of his lifetime. Ben, his 
 big black retriever, who followed him everywhere, had 
 already expressed his delighted agreement with the 
 sensible course he had shown himself about to take. He 
 knew he was admitted to the house on condition that he 
 did not raise his voice in it, and beyond a few subdued 
 yaps of appreciation he had followed Harry downstairs 
 vdth no more than ecstatic wrigglings and sweeps of his 
 feathered tail. But once outside his enthusiasm broke 
 loose and brought on the scene other members of his 
 race at a loose end for something to do. There was a 
 terrific canine commotion as Harry called for Fred, and 
 the first thing to be done was to bring disappointment 
 to all but Siren, a deerhound, and Rollo, a great Dane, by 
 shutting them up again. The three bigger dogs could 
 keep up with Circe, galloping freely; the others must 
 reserve themselves for expeditions when the blood was 
 less insistent on rapid motion. 
 
 Fred Armour, a cheerful, brown-faced, red-headed 
 young man, neat and active in his stable kit, seemed also 
 to have been affected by the dismal weather, for he did 
 what was required of him without his usual grin or 
 ready flow of words. It was not until he had saddled and 
 bridled Circe and bi ought her out, that he said: 'I'm 
 off to-morrow, Sir Harry. Father's said yes, and her 
 ladyship has given her consent, though she don't like it.' 
 
 Harry stared at him, holding the mare, who was 
 dancing with impatience. He understood nothing until 
 Fred told him that he was joining up with the county 
 
AUGUST 89 
 
 yeomanry — ^the first man on the Royd estate to go, or, 
 as it seemed afterwards, to think of going. The time 
 had not yet come when the call for recruits penetrated 
 the out-of-the-way corners of England. Harry was sur- 
 prised, as his grandmother had apparently been, that 
 Fred should have thought of going. But his impulse was 
 one of envy when he was told about it, not of dissuasion. 
 'I'm nearly as old as you,' he said, 'but it will take me 
 a couple of years to get my commission. It will all be 
 over by then.' 
 
 'Yes, I suppose so,' said Fred. 'But there's a lot to 
 be trained, in case they want them. I shall come back 
 when they've done with me. Her ladyship says I can, 
 though she's upset like at my wanting to go.' 
 
 Harry had something to think about as he rode out 
 into the park, and after a sharp canter over the drenched 
 grass, with the rain and the wind fretting tlie mare so 
 that it was all he could do to hold her, slowed to a trot 
 as he entered a ride through the woods. It was not so 
 much of the war. Fred would have a few months of 
 training, as a trooper, and then he would probably come 
 back; he was not, after all, greatly to be envied there, 
 and Harry had no particular wish to hurry on his own 
 longer training, since the time was so far distant when 
 he could expect to get his commission. But Fred had 
 told him of others who were hkely to follow his example 
 now that the ice had once been broken — another lad 
 from the stables, two from the gardens, some from the 
 vDlage. A cousin of his, from some distance off, who had 
 already served in the yeomanry, had joined a regular 
 cavalry regiment, and was already in France, fighting. 
 It was from him that the impulsion had first come. 
 
 It was a fine thing to respond like that, to your country 
 call, almost before it was sounded. It was what Harry's 
 own forefathers would have done, and had done in many 
 an instance that he had read about in old books in which 
 
 S.H. G 
 
90 SIR HARRY 
 
 he had pored to find out what he could about the 
 knightly stock from which he had sprung. They would 
 have collected their servants and tenants round them and 
 ridden off at their head to offer themselves — a small band, 
 perhaps, but a sturdy one, well horsed and equipped, 
 and well versed in the man's business of giving and 
 receiving blows. It could not be quite like that in this 
 war, when boys of his age, even if capable of raising their 
 followers, would have to go through the mill of learning 
 and training before they could be of any use. But the 
 readiness with which Fred's cousin had been accepted 
 and sent out to fight disturbed him somewhat, both on 
 his own account and on that of the men and youths who 
 owed him allegiance. There was nobody in the village 
 of Royd or on all the wide Castle lands, so far as he knew, 
 who had done any of the soldiering that is open to young 
 men in times of peace. Supposing he himself had been 
 of full age to fight, he would still have had to wait until 
 he had learnt his business, and he could have given a lead 
 to nobody. Why hadn't it been suggested to him that 
 he should join the county yeomanry, or why had he not 
 thought of it himself? The Sir Harry of the time of the 
 Napoleonic wars had been in command of it; almost 
 every man of his tenantry had belonged to it. Now it 
 drew its recruits from other parts of the county; no one 
 from Royd had served in it for a generation or more. It 
 had never occurred to him that it would be a ^ood 
 thing for him in his position to do so. 
 
 Royd was ruled by a woman. That was the explana- 
 tion of this lapse in its ancient duties and responsibihties, 
 now for the fast time apparent. And he was ruled by a 
 woman, though the yoke had hitherto been but lightly 
 felt. Fred Armour could go off, though not without having 
 some opposition to encounter; others could talk of doing 
 so. He must stay where he was until the appointed time. 
 
 Well, the time was not far distant now. In January 
 
AUGUST 91 
 
 he would go up for his examination, and after that the 
 new life would begin for him — the man's Ufe, in which, 
 though still under tutelage, he would be free at times to 
 go where he would. He had rather dreaded exchanging 
 his life at Royd for it, for that had been a life full of the 
 satisfaction of all the desires he had felt, and it had never 
 seemed to him either narrow or confined. But this sense 
 of a woman's domination was beginning to prick him. 
 He thought that at least he would put it to his grand- 
 mother that Royd ought to have been represented in 
 the yeomanry. It might have been a small matter, in 
 times of peace, but it was one that would not have 
 escaped a male head of Royd, And he must see to it 
 himself that any man who wanted to join up with the 
 troops in training should have no difficulty put in his 
 way. As for himself, there seemed to be nothing to be 
 done but to wait until his time came. Fred might, 
 perhaps, see some fighting, if Lady Brent were right and 
 Wilbraham were wrong about the war lasting on into 
 the next year; that was the advantage of belonging to the 
 ranks. For officers, the training must be much longer, and 
 his would not be finished if the war lasted for two years, 
 which it seemed to be agreed was an impossibility. 
 
 He shook his thoughts from him as he came out of the 
 wood, and galloped again on the crisp turf of the hill- 
 top, between the gorse and the heather and the out- 
 cropping rocks. 
 
 He was on high ground here. The rain had ceased, 
 though the wind was buffeting him so furiously that he 
 had to keep his head down as he rode, and even the mare 
 was soon submissive to being pulled down to a trot and 
 then to a walk. The Ught was stronger now and the 
 clouds driven along by the wind seemed to be higher; 
 there was no sign of a break in them, but there was the 
 feeling that at any time they might be rent asunder 
 and let through a shaft of sunlight. The mist had all 
 
92 SIR HARRY 
 
 gone, and the sea lay, a gray turbulent expanse, appar- 
 ently near at hand, though at its nearest point it was 
 still some two miles distant. 
 
 The sight of the sea always had a calming effect upon 
 Harry, whether it lay blue and calm, or was lashed to 
 angry motion. It was his outlook into the world beyond 
 the bounds of his home. When he had least felt himself 
 circumscribed, something had yet urged him now and 
 then to ride to the shore, and to let his spirit go out across 
 the boundless waters. And now, as he saw the great 
 spaces of sea and sky in front of him his thoughts 
 lightened. As his physical world had this wide outlet 
 into the greater world beyond it, so his life, bound hither- 
 to within limits that he was outgrowing, would soon open 
 into something wider and freer. And just as he would 
 return to the sheltered haunts of his home, loving it all 
 the more for his gUmpse of the unsheltered sea, so with 
 the hfe which had been so happy there. It was coming 
 to an end for him, but was all the more to be treasured, 
 on that account, as long as it lasted. 
 
 He came to a break in the rocky cliff which led down 
 to a Uttle sandy bay, on the edge of which was what had 
 once been a fishennan's cottage. The cliff had broken 
 away in front of it and it had been abandoned as 
 dangerous some years before. Only its walls were stand- 
 ing, but there was a place among the ruins in which he 
 could tie up his horse if he wanted to walk by the sea. 
 He did so now, and went down to the sands, followed by 
 the dogs. The sun came out as he did so, and great 
 masses of clouds were torn asunder and piled up to be 
 rolled away before the wind, instead of forming a thick 
 curtain between him and the sky. 
 
 He shouted for joy at the Ufting of the gray oppression, 
 and became a boy again as by a sudden impulse he 
 stripped to bathe, and ran over the sands to meet the 
 shock of the great waves that were rolling up them. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ON THE MOOR 
 
 As he rode towards home an hour or two later, Harry 
 felt as if aU the stains upon life had been washed away, 
 just as the wind and the rain had scoured the heavens 
 of their dark load of cloud. The sun, now declining 
 towards the west, shone in a sky of clean blue; the wind 
 was dropping every minute, but was still fresh as he 
 cantered across the moor. He rode with his head up, 
 singing blithely, and drinking in through aU his senses 
 the sparkHng glory of a world set free from the tyranny 
 of storm and gloom. 
 
 He had thought out nothing to a definite conclusion, 
 and yet the perplexities which had surrounded him as 
 he started out on his ride seemed to have disappeared. 
 The war, which had affected him so little, now lay in the 
 background of his mind as a real and a very big thing, 
 and it seemed to him fixed and certain that somehow 
 and at some time it would profoundly affect his life; but 
 at present he had nothing to do but to await what should 
 be coming to him. His place at Royd must also undergo 
 a change, and that too would come, in its time, as it 
 would come. Whatever should happen, he was ready 
 for it, and his mind was free and happy, but also strangely 
 expectant. He was in the current of some power outside 
 himself, but in complete harmony with it, and at the 
 same time in free possession of himself, just as he had 
 lately exulted ijj his youth giid strength as his body had 
 been borne on the motion of the mighty waters. Ever 
 since that night of still and unearthly beauty, when the 
 
 93 
 
94 SIR HARRY 
 
 vision had come to him of a living power in nature for 
 a sign of which he had yearned, he had thought of him- 
 self as controlled by strong, yet gentle and beneficent 
 forces, which, if he yielded himself to them, would lead 
 him along paths that he would best fulfil himself in 
 treading. The feeling was stronger at some times than 
 others. It had never been so obscured as it had been 
 a few hours earlier, but now, in the sun and the wind, it 
 was very strong. He felt himself calmed and uplifted 
 in spirit, as if by a tangible communion with the guiding 
 influences. They seemed to be telling him, or to have 
 told him, that his shadowed mood need never have been, 
 that they had something in store for him, some experience 
 some happening, which would give him renewed faith in 
 their guidance. There was a sense almost of being in- 
 dulged, by an assurance out of the common run. 
 
 But his mood was as far as possible from being analyti- 
 cal, as he rode on singing, and calUng to his dogs, which 
 sprang round him rejoicing as he did in the exhilaration 
 of quick motion, and the strength and poise of muscle 
 and sinew. His mind had cleared, and he was free to 
 give himself up to the joy of living, all the more keenly 
 for the whisper that had come to him of something new 
 and exciting in preparation for him. 
 
 The boy, the horse, and the dogs — they had had the 
 fine fresh world to themselves throughout the afternoon, 
 except for the strong birds of the sea, and the little birds 
 of the gorsy common. No buildings lay upon the path 
 that Harry had taken to the shore, nor very near it, for 
 he had ridden through the wood by a narrow ride httle 
 used, and across the open ground had kept out of the 
 way of trodden paths. There were sheep on this wide 
 stretch of upland, and a shepherd might occasionally 
 have been seen there. Otherwise it was little frequented; 
 a human figure on it would arouse curiosity. 
 
 A human figure came into view, as Harry had traversed 
 
ON THE MOOR 95 
 
 the greater part of the open space, and the woods of 
 Royd were a mile or so in front of him. It was the 
 figure of a woman, and was immediately between him 
 and the point towards which he was riding. He knew 
 all the people who lived in the scattered cottages and 
 farms between Royd and the sea; there were not many 
 of them, and none just here. He wpndered who it could 
 be going in that direction, and what she was doing so far 
 away from human habitation. 
 
 As he rode on, he saw that it was a girl, and a stranger, 
 which was somewhat surprising, as the nearest place to 
 which strangers came was miles away. He had left off 
 singing, but one of the dogs barked, and the girl turned 
 round, evidently startled, and perhaps a Uttle alarmed. 
 He was near enough now to see her face. She was very 
 young, hardly more than a child, for her hair was not 
 knotted up under her hat, but tied behind with a big 
 bow. She was tall and sUm. The wind took her skirts 
 as she stood there, and revealed the supple grace of her 
 young figure, firmly but lightly poised against it. She 
 was dressed in a coat and skirt of brown tweed, with a 
 hat of soft straw firmly pinned on to her graceful head. 
 So much Harry took in before he came near enough to 
 see her face. 
 
 Her features were fine and true, and she had a delicate 
 skin, its colour freshened by the wind. Her eyes were 
 dark, with a starry radiance in them, her lips were 
 slightly parted as she looked at him approaching. She 
 was beautiful, with the beauty half of a child, half of a 
 woman. 
 
 Harry reined in his horse as he came up to her, and 
 for an appreciable instant they looked into one another's 
 eyes without speaking. Then the girl said : ' I have lost 
 my way. I don't know where I'm going to,' and laughed 
 and blushed at the same time. 
 
 Harry laughed too, and slipped down off his horse. 
 
96 SIR HARRY 
 
 'Where dp you want to go? ' he asked. 'I'll show you 
 the way if you tell me.' 
 
 She was staymg with her father, she said, at a cottage 
 on the edge of the woods; she had come out when the 
 rain had ceased to walk towards the sea, but it was farther 
 than she had thought, and when she had turned back to 
 see the unbroken line of the woods before her there was 
 nothing to teU her which point to make for. 
 
 The woman with whom she was lodging was the widow 
 of a man who had worked in the Royd woods; he had 
 died the year before and she had been given a pension 
 and allowed to remain on in her cottage. It was in a 
 group of three or four, about a mile from the Castle, 
 and a mile and a half from the village, which formed the 
 nearest approach to an outlying hamlet that was to be 
 found on the Royd lands. It was rather surprising that 
 anybody should take lodgings there, though with the 
 deep woods behind it and the moor in front, and the sea 
 within view, many people might" have chosen it to 
 make holiday in, if it had come within their know- 
 ledge. 
 
 'Oh, Mrs Ivimey!' said Harry, pointing. 'That's a 
 mile and more away over there. I'm afraid you can't 
 have much sense of direction.' 
 
 They both laughed at that. It seemed the most 
 natural thing for them to talk and laugh together. The 
 secluded life that Harry had lived had brought some 
 shyness into the way he addressed himself to strangers, 
 though his natural manner was fresh and open. But 
 this girl, walking freely over the windy moor, seemed to 
 be in some way aUied to those living influences of nature 
 with which his contact was so real. And the spirit of 
 youth iriformed all her looks and her ways and met the 
 answering youth in him. There was no room for shyness 
 in speaking to her, and as he neitier felt nor showed it, 
 her response was frank too. ' I'm a Londoner/ she said. 
 
ON THE MOOR 97 
 
 'You couldn't expect me to find my way about here 
 where the paths wind about anyhow, and everything is 
 the same.' 
 
 He was walking beside her now in the direction he had 
 pointed out. He had made no offer to accompany her 
 and she made no comment upon his doing so. It seemed 
 that they must have a great deal to say to one another, 
 and that the best way was to walk together until some 
 of it at least should have been said. 
 
 ' Everything the same ! ' exclaimed Harry. ' Why, 
 every inch of it is different ! I have never been to 
 London, but the streets of a town must be much more 
 ahke than this is.' 
 
 They laughed again at that, and the girl threw a 
 glance at him, walking by her side, while Circe, held by 
 his strong brown hand, curveted on the close turf, and 
 the dogs ranged here and there, a little subdued from 
 their bounding energy, but still keenly interested in all 
 that lay about them. The raindrops sparkled stiU upon 
 gorse and grass and bramble, larks sang in the clear 
 spaces of the sky, and the dying wind brought a salty 
 thymy fragrance with it. The blood in the veins thrilled 
 to the sweet glad freshness of it all, and youth called to 
 youth as they trod the springy turf together. 
 
 There was such a lot to be explained. Everything that 
 was said opened up endless more things to be said. He 
 told her that he had lived all his life at Royd, she told 
 him that she had seldom been away from London. But 
 whereas he showed himself quite content with the 
 unusual limitations of his life, she spoke of hers with 
 regret. 'I-ve always wanted the country,' she said, 
 ' I've never been so happy as I have been here, for the 
 last two days. Even the storm this morning I didn't 
 mind. It was something big and grand, and I knew 
 the sun would shine and it would all be lovely 
 again.' 
 
98 SIR HARRY 
 
 They tallied on and on. They had made friends, as 
 children make friends, liking each other, and pouring 
 themselves out in endless little confidences. 
 
 ' My name is Harry Brent. I live at Royd Castle with 
 my mother and grandmother.' 
 
 'Oh, yes, of course, you're Sir Harry Brent. Mrs 
 Ivimey has talked about you.' 
 
 ' My name is Viola Bastian. My father called me that 
 out of a beautiful poem. He is an artist, but nobody 
 buys his pictures, so he paints scenery at a theatre. "We 
 are very poor.' 
 
 It didn't seem odd to Harry that this beautiful girl, 
 whose speech was refined and whose clothes were such 
 as a sister or cousin of his own might have worn, should 
 be the daughter of a scene-painter, who was also very 
 poor. Nor did he blench in the least at a further state- 
 ment, which explained, at least, the clothes. ' I have to 
 work and help father. He didn't want me to go on the 
 stage, and I should have hated it too. I am with a 
 dressmaker in Dover Street — Nadine. She makes things 
 chiefly for quite young girls. I have to show them off. 
 It is hard work in the season, but I get a good long 
 hoUday, and if father can get away too, and we have 
 enough money, we go into the country for part of it. 
 That is why we are here now.' 
 
 It was all very interesting, as anything she might 
 have told him about herself would have been interesting. 
 He knew nothing of states of life other than those which 
 were immediately around him; he accepted everything 
 she told him as quite natural to her, though he thought 
 it a pity that she should have to work so hard, and could 
 not live in the country, as he did, since she loved it. 
 She was what he saw and heard her to be, and what she 
 
ON THE MOOR gg 
 
 did and where she lived was quite unimportant, except 
 as she might feel them to be important. 
 
 But how did she come to be what she was, under such 
 conditions of parentage and environment ? If it did not 
 occur to Harry in his all-embracing ignorance to ask 
 himself that question, it might very well have been 
 asked by others with more experience of life than his. 
 She was as frank in her address as he was, showed no 
 sense of the social difference between them in any 
 mauvaise honte, or exploratory questions. It must have 
 made itself plain to a listener that she was indeed a rare 
 flower of unsullied girlhood, as innocent in essence as 
 Harry himself, who had been kept from contact with 
 the world outside his castle of romance, since she had 
 Uved at its crowded centre and remained unspotted 
 by it. 
 
 They had not half finished their confidences by the 
 time they came within sight of the cottage at which she 
 was staying — or rather of the smoke from its chimney, 
 which rose from behind a corner of the wood jutting out 
 into the moor. Perhaps it was some acquired sophistica- 
 tion that caused her to stop there and to prepare to say 
 good-bye, out of sight of the cottage itself, and whoever 
 might see them from it. But whatever it was, Harry 
 felt the same disinclination to being looked upon by eyes 
 that might have been questioning or curious. She was 
 for him alone — one of his cherished innocent secrets — 
 all the more to be kept to himself because it was like 
 no other secret that he had ever had before. A secret 
 must be shared by some one, or it is no secret, but only 
 a deception. Harry's secret had been between him and 
 Nature, or between him and an imaginary Harry who 
 owed all initiative to the real Harry. But this was his 
 and hers, and hers as much as Jiis. She could keep it a 
 warm nestling secret, or destroy it by a word. Which 
 would she do? 
 
100 SIR HARRY 
 
 'Good-bye,' she said, holding out her slender girl's 
 hand, and looking him straight in the eyes, as she had 
 looked at him when first they had met . He took her hand 
 and the touch of it thrilled him. It was soft and firm 
 and cool, like no hand that he had- ever had in his, 
 though he had taken the hands of other girls not notice- 
 ably different in shape or size from this one. 
 
 There was the hint of a question in her look. Was it 
 to be good-bye? 
 
 Harry had no such thought. ' There is a lot I want to 
 talk to you about,' he said. 'To-morrow afternoon — 
 no, I don't want to wait till the afternoon — ^to-morrow 
 morning I will come; quite early.' 
 
 Her eyes softened, and she smiled. 'Very well,' she 
 said, and waited for him to tell her where and when he 
 would come. 
 
 They were to meet on the outskirts of the wood. He 
 would show her a ferny pool in the very heart of it, 
 which he thought nobody but himself knew of. 'It 
 will be very hot to-morrow,' he said, throwing a weather- 
 wise eye at the heavens. 'We shall be cool and qufet 
 there.' 
 
 Suddenly he felt shy of her, mounted his horse, and 
 cantered away, his dogs following him. Then he felt 
 uneasy at the thought that she might have found him 
 rudely abrupt, and when he had gone a few hundred 
 yards he turned to look back. She was still standing 
 where he had left her, and waved her hand to him. 
 
 He had the impulse to turn and ride back to her, but 
 cantered on, with a flame of joy shooting up in his heart. 
 When he looked back again she had gone. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 VIOLA 
 
 That evening at dinner all the talk was about the war. 
 General Leman's heroic stand at Liege had ended in 
 surrender. King Albert's Government had retired to 
 Antwerp, the way was open for the enemy to Brussels, 
 and it was not yet certain whether Brussels would deliver 
 itself up or defend itself. 
 
 But the great news, now allowed to be known, was 
 that the British Expeditionary Force was all on French 
 soil. 
 
 There was plenty to talk about. Lady Brent was 
 pessimistic, and already saw the Germans overrunning 
 Belgium. Wilbraham thought that when the English 
 and French once moved in concert the Germans would 
 be rolled up and rolled back hke a carpet, and the end 
 of the whole mad business would come very soon after- 
 wards. Mrs Brent was inchned to agree with him. She 
 alone of the three had her eye anxiously upon Harry as 
 she spoke, with the fear working in her that, after all, 
 he might be drawn into the vortex. ' It can't go on for 
 two years,' she said. ' It couldn't go on for three years, 
 could it?' 
 
 They laughed at her. ' You may make* yourself quite 
 easy on that score,' said Lady Brent. 
 
 To Harry it all seemed extremely unimportant. The 
 conviction that, whether it lasted one year, or two years, 
 or three, or ended before Christmas, he would certainly 
 be involved in it somehow, had been registered in his 
 mind, and could be laid aside until it should fulfil itself. 
 
to2 SIR HARRY 
 
 He did not want to think about it, still less to talk about 
 it. His personal connection with what was going on now, 
 brought to his mind that afternoon by his talk with Fred 
 Armour, had faded from his mind; and the tale of the 
 war as it was being unfolded from day to day, and as 
 it was being discussed by those about him, had little 
 more interest for him than the tale of a war centuries 
 old which he might have studied with Wilbraham. 
 
 Yet he joined in the talk from time to time, and if he 
 said nothing that had much effect upon the discussion, 
 he said whatever he did say in such a way as to arouse 
 no suspicion in the minds of his elders that his thoughts 
 were almost completely divorced from his speech. 
 
 The old dim hall in which they sat had its windows 
 open to the night, which was now quite still, with a sky 
 of spangled velvet, broken into by the dark spires of the 
 cypresses in the garden. Harry could see them through 
 the window opposite to which he sat, and in the intervals 
 of talk he could hear the plash of the fountains. The 
 thought came to him that he would like to walk with 
 Viola in the starlit garden. He would like to show her 
 this beautiful house of his; it would be a tribute to her, 
 and his own love of it would be enhanced by her praise. 
 He looked round at the hall, and saw its carved and 
 dusky splendour with new eyes. 
 
 They were dining at a table set in the oriel window 
 facing on to the garden. The table was Ut by candles in 
 branched silver candlesticks. On a heavy buffet by the 
 door from the kitchens and buttery, imder the gallery, 
 and on serving tables, were other candles. There were 
 perhaps a dozen in all, and they gave what light was 
 necessary, but left the high-pitched raftered roof just 
 a-gUmmer, and parts of the hall in shadow. The ' 
 portraits that hung above the dark wainscoting were 
 dimly seen, the gilded carving of the gallery and the 
 screen beneath it glowed softly where the candles shone 
 
VIOLA T03 
 
 upon it, and faded into rich dimness beyond the circle of 
 light. 
 
 Viola ! She would love this old hall, and all the other 
 stately rooms of the ancient house. He had never 
 thought of it, except very vaguely, as belonging to him, 
 but he thought of himself now as belonging to it. He 
 would like her to admire anjrthing that had to do with 
 him, and he would like her to share his admiration. 
 
 But such thoughts as these were a very small part of 
 what was rioting through his mind. His chief feeling 
 about his immediate surroundings was one of strange- 
 ness that he should be sitting there quietly dining, and 
 talking upon unimportant matters which had nothing 
 to do with Viola. It was to connect her with them that 
 he took notice of them at all, and he looked out more 
 often into the still starUt garden, because it was under 
 the sky that he had met her and tallced to her, and her 
 aUiance with the things of nature, that he loved, was 
 already fixed and established. All beautiful aspects of 
 the world, and of the fair places in his own world, con- 
 nected themselves naturally with her. She fiUed every 
 comer of his mind, and to whatever source of familiar 
 delight he turned, she seemed to be there before him. 
 
 After dinner on summer nights, Harry often wedked 
 in the garden with his mother. Lady Brent never went 
 out, but sat with her book in the drawing-room. Wil- 
 braham spent half an hour in the Ubrary, smoking and 
 reading, and then came into the drawing-room, to play 
 the piano or to talk until they went to bed at ten o'clock. 
 When they heard the first notes of the piano, Harry and 
 his mother would go indoors. If they lingered. Lady 
 Brent would send Wilbraham out for them, on the plea 
 of the night air being dangerous, or, if the night was so 
 warm, that that seemed too absurd, of its being time for 
 Harry to go to bed. She did not like these garden 
 confabulations between mother and son, but never 
 
104 SAK HAKKX 
 
 showed it except by confining them thus to the half- 
 hour after dinner. 
 
 To-night Harry half hoped that his mother would not 
 come out with him. He wanted to be alone, but 
 reproached himself for the desire as she asked him to 
 fetch her shawl and smiled at him with the pleasure 
 manifest in her face. He knew how much it meant to 
 her to have him for this quiet half-hour to herself. It 
 was the only one in the long day that she could call her 
 own. He was left free to his own duties and devices, 
 except for the times when all of them were together. 
 With his youthful sense of fairness, he knew that both 
 his mother and grandmother left him free in this way 
 for his sake and not for theirs. He must not grudge them 
 the short time that he was expected to be with them. 
 And he had taken a pleasure himself in these little 
 garden wanderings with his mother, that arose not only 
 from the satisfaction of giving her pleasure. He loved 
 her — more than he loved anybody — and had a man's 
 sense of protection towards her. He did not know yet 
 that he loved Viola. The idea of love had not yet 
 occurred to him in connection with her. As he ran up- 
 stairs to get his mother's shawl, the thought crossed his 
 mind that he had never yet wanted to get away from his 
 mother for the time he was accustomed to devote him- 
 self to her, and puzzled him a little. 
 
 He was more than usually kind to her as they walked 
 up and down the long bowling-green together, between 
 the close-clipped yew hedges. He made an effort to 
 dispossess his mind of what was filling it, and to be to 
 her what he would have been but for the thrilling adven- 
 ture that had befallen him. The only sign of all that 
 was hidden from her — and she had no clue to its meaning 
 — ^was when he said that the garden made him feel shut 
 in, and asked her to walk in the park with him. 
 
 She felt his tenderness, and palpitated with happiness 
 
VIOLA 105 
 
 over it. If she had but known that the time had come 
 when she was less to him than she had ever been, and 
 that his kindness and gentleness were but vicarious 
 tributes meant, though all unconsciously, to take the 
 place of the love that must soon be withdrawn from 
 spending itself only on her, and given to another. But 
 these wounds to a mother's love were spared her for 
 to-night. She thought he was nearer than ever to her, 
 and all thoughts of losing him were far from her. 
 
 She ventured to talk of her fear of the war taking 
 him from her, and he soothed her, laughing at her fears. 
 He did not tell her of his conviction that it would do so, 
 nor feel any desire to tell her. What he did feel a half- 
 shrinking desire to do was to teU her about Viola. But 
 an instinct, which he did not understand, prevented him, 
 and the moment they had parted he was glad that he had 
 resisted the impulse. The secret was not his alone. It 
 gave him joy to think that it was a secret, and that it 
 was not his alone. 
 
 WUbraham caUed out for them. They went in, and 
 Harry said good-night at once and went upstairs. He 
 was no longer sent to bed before the rest, but no objec- 
 tion was ever made if he went. 
 
 When he was alone in his room he breathed rehef. 
 His mother, perhaps, would come in on her way to bed, 
 but otherwise he would be alone for the hours of the 
 night, and yet so much not alone. He thought that 
 to-night his mother would certainly come, and he 
 undressed quickly so that when he should hear her he 
 could get into bed and pretend to be asleep. This small 
 piece of deception did not trouble him, since it would not 
 trouble her. He had given her what he owed her. Now 
 he wanted to think uninterruptedly of Viola. 
 
 He leant out of the window with his chin on his hands 
 and gazed at the dark masses of the trees in front of 
 him, and at the starry roof of the sky above them, which 
 S.H. H 
 
io6 SIR tiARRV 
 
 was above her too. His window was on the same side 
 of the house as that of the room in which Grant had 
 slept the year before, but the trees were nearer to it. 
 He gazed more at the sky than at the trees. Yes, in 
 that direction, ahnost directly in front of him, lay the 
 cottage in which she was — now at this very minute. It 
 was a moving thought. Perhaps she was asleep, perhaps 
 she was looking at the same stars as he was. Perhaps 
 she was thinking of him, as he was thinking of her. 
 That was a very stirring thought, and led him to shift 
 his position. He wanted to be in motion as he thought 
 of her. Later on, when the house was all asleep, he 
 would dress and go out. For the present he could only 
 walk about his room when the waves of emotion that 
 came to him stirred him from his place at the window. 
 But he could not think like that. He did not know 
 what to think about. His impatience grew for the time 
 to come when he should be alone and undisturbed. Then 
 he would be able to think, out there under the stars. 
 The trees oppressed him, as they had never done before. 
 He got into bed. He would lie and think there until his 
 mother had come and gone. But the moment he got 
 into bed he fell asleep, and did not awake when she 
 came in softly, shielding the light of her candle from his 
 eyes. 
 
 How beautiful he looked as he lay there, his head 
 slightly turned on the pillow, and one arm and hand 
 along his side, on the counterpane — and how innocent 1 
 How she loved him for that beauty and innocence ! 
 She felt it as uplifting her from the lower plane of Jinrest 
 and petulance upon which she was apt to move. She 
 blessed him for the calming purifying thoughts which 
 he brought to her, and took comfort to herself in the 
 thoughts that there must be something good in herself 
 since it was partly owing to her influence that he was so 
 free from e^aI, Yes, he was hers; her own dear child 
 
ViOtA to'7 
 
 whom she loved, and who loved her. She had set her- 
 self aside, and allowed another to direct his life and hers. 
 Soon he would be free from that tutelage, but not from 
 the bonds that her love had woven around him. She 
 would reap her reward. Oh, it was a blessed thing to 
 bear children, and after long years to have them as a 
 prop and stay, as well as a solace. Not for many years 
 would he leave her, in spirit, though in body they would 
 sometimes be parted. She must be more to him now 
 than she had ever been, and when the time came to 
 give him up to another she wotild not complain, since 
 she would have had him so perfectly for a time. 
 
 It was nearly two o'clock when Harry awoke, suddenly 
 and in complete possession of himself. He might have 
 thought that he had not slept at all, but that the moon 
 shining in at his window told him the hour, as plainly 
 as if it had been called in his ear. 
 
 He sprang out of bed, and began to put on his clothes, 
 but paused for a moment, asking himself why he was 
 in such a hurry to do so. 
 
 As happens so often in sleep, the perplexities with 
 which he had lain down seemed to have resolved them- 
 selves without conscious process. He had wanted to 
 ask himself what had happened to him, but it seemed 
 now as if some romantic mist had cleared away from 
 his brain, and nothing in particular had happened to 
 him — ^nothing, at least, that needed any careful process 
 ox self-examination. He had met a very charming and 
 friendly girl, and he was going to meet her again in the 
 day that was already moving towards dawn. That 
 would be very agreeable, but what was there in it to 
 have put him into the state in which he had lived 
 through the evening? 
 
 But as the thought of meeting her again — ^with half 
 the hours of darkness already gone — ^presented itself to 
 him, he felt again the glow of pleasure and anticipation. 
 
io8 SIR HARRY 
 
 Yes, he wanted to think about her, and he could think 
 best about her out in the open. 
 
 He dressed quickly, and dropped from his window on 
 to the grass, which was not more than ten feet or so 
 beiow him. And now he seemed to be more master of 
 himself, as he passed across a strip of moonht green and 
 into the dimness of the wood. He was reminded of the 
 night in which the vision of the fairies dancing had come 
 to him. Now it was full summer and then spring had 
 only been on its way; his long-trained sense marked 
 the difference in a thousand little signs. But that had 
 been a night of silver moonshine, as this was. The 
 contact with nature was clear on such quiet illumined 
 nights as this. 
 
 Viola ! 
 
 She grew slowly upon him as he trod the soft grass 
 or the dry crackling beech-mast. Her face, somewhat 
 to his surprise, he could not call up before him, though 
 he tried to see it with his inward eye. But he dwelt upon 
 the slight supple figure that had moved beside him so 
 freely and so gracefully. It gave him pleasure to recall 
 her slender hand, which had lain in his, and he remem- 
 bered her feet and ankles in their neat brown shoes and 
 stockings, and the fall of her skirt over them, and the 
 little hat of soft white straw with its twisted ribbon. 
 
 Again he was a Httle puzzled at the effect these 
 memories had upon him. He had an eye for beauty of 
 animate form. He loved the grace of certain animals; 
 he and Wilbraham together had taken delight in pictures 
 of Greek statuary and vase painting, with special 
 reference to that beauty; he had admired the quick 
 clean limbs of the two children with whom he had been 
 so much, and of other chUdren of the village, older or 
 younger. But it had been purely an sesthetic pleasure, 
 and had brought with it none of the emotion with which 
 the thought of Viola moved him. 
 
VIOLA t09 
 
 He was a little frightened of this emotion, and inclined 
 to resist it; but something out of the soft night whispered 
 to him that its current was one with all the emotions 
 upon which he had fed, and grown in feeding. It was 
 pa,rt of the secret which he had only half divined at the 
 end of that vigil which seemed to have marked a stage 
 in his life. 
 
 His joy in the thought of her increased. He recalled 
 the tones of her voice, and the ring of her happy 
 laughter; and dwelt upon things that she had said. 
 They were nothing; they might have been said by any- 
 body; none of them at which he smiled to himself were 
 so worth remembering as the things that little Jane 
 often said, and he remembered afterwards, smiUng at them 
 too, but not with that tenderness of f eeUng towards them. 
 
 He came to the park wall, where there was a door to 
 which he kept the key. He seldom went outside the 
 park on his night roamings. The woods continued here 
 for some distance before the open ground was reached, 
 though by the ride he had taken in the afternoon they 
 ended with the wall, in which there was another locked 
 gate. If he wanted to go on to the moor at night, and 
 stand beneath the open sky, with nothing about him 
 but space, it was by that path that he reached it. But 
 he seemed to have had a purpose, unknown to him, in 
 making for this door, and when he reached it he had no 
 thought but for passing beyond the bounds of the park. 
 It was by that path that the cottage in which Viola was 
 could be reached most directly. He knew when he came 
 to the door, but not before, that he meant to go to it. 
 
 He had left the key behind, but scaled the wall, not 
 without some difficulty, and went on through the wood. 
 By-and-by he came to a garden fence, and there beyond 
 it, across the fruit bushes and the untidy tangle of late 
 summer, was the cottage, low and thatched and white- 
 washed, in which she was sleeping. 
 
I to SIR HARRY 
 
 He stood still and drew his breath. 
 
 Viola ! 
 
 There was a little dormer window in the thatch, open. 
 It might be that of the room in which she was sleeping. 
 A cottager would not sleep in a room with the window 
 open. He tried to remember what the cottage was like 
 inside, and what rooms would be most likely to be given 
 up to visitors. It seemed to him of the utmost importance 
 to have it settled which was Viola's room. 
 
 He moved round to the front of the cottage, treading 
 softly on the turf lest a sound should reveal his presence. 
 Perhaps she was awake. It was not part of their secret 
 that he should come out at night to gaze at her window. 
 He must not reveal himself. 
 
 The wood extended a little way on to the moor by the 
 side of the cottage. It was the point that had hidden 
 it from them in the afternoon. But it faced the open 
 ground across a narrow fenced-in strip of garden. The 
 whole of its front could be seen obliquely from the wood. 
 
 He stood in the shadow of a giant holly — ^and saw her. 
 
 She was sitting at a window, her chin resting on her 
 hand, looking out across the moor to where the sea lay 
 gleaming in the radiance of the moon. She was in white; 
 her dusky hair lay about her shoulders and framed her 
 young face, in which the dark eyes were set. 
 
 It was only a glimpse that he had of her, for he stole 
 silently away, abashed at having surprised a revelation 
 not meant for his eyes. 
 
 But it was like the glimpse that he had had of the 
 fairies dancing. It thrilled and calmed him at the same 
 time. He knew now that the fairies had not revealed all 
 the secret to him. Viola was the secret, towards which 
 all his life, and all that he had learnt of nature, had been 
 leading him. Viola lay at the warm sweet heart of it all. 
 Everj^hing was changed by that vision he had had of 
 her, and soon he would see her and tell her so. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE WOODLAND POOL 
 
 They met in the woodland path which Harry had taken 
 in the night. He was there before the time appointed, 
 and threw himself down on the grass to await her 
 coming. He could see some distance along the path, 
 from where he had stationed himself. It was narrow 
 just here, and the thick overhanging branches of the 
 trees made a green shady tunnel flecked with quivering 
 points of light. 
 
 He waited in a state of patient expectation, not 
 greatly moved or stirred, but happy and contented. 
 The time did not seem very long, though he waited for 
 half an hour. 
 
 At last she came. She was dressed all in white. It 
 seemed that it must have been so as she appeared, in the 
 glooming green, wliich had been like an empty frame 
 waiting for just that picture of maiden whiteness. 
 
 He sprang up to meet her, and she waved her hand 
 when she saw him and hurried her steps a little. That 
 frank greeting took them back to the point at which 
 they had parted the day before. An ocean of feeling and 
 experience had washed over Harry in the intervening 
 hours, but it was hfted from^him as they met and smiled 
 their greetings. His was as frank and untroubled as hers. 
 
 They chattered gaily together like happy children as 
 they turned aside froin the path and went up through 
 the wood. Harry felt an immeasurable content at being 
 with her, laughed at nothing, and sometimes broke into 
 snatches of song, which interrupted the conversation and 
 made her laugh in turn. He had a fresh clear voice, 
 
tt2 SIR HARRY 
 
 which Wilbraham had done something to train. It was 
 a happy little song about June that was running in his 
 head. She knew it too, and after a time she took it up 
 with him. 'That's the way of June.' Once when they 
 had come to a place a httle more open, they stood and 
 sang it together in unison, and then laughed and went 
 on again. 
 
 Her father had gone out painting on the common, she 
 told him. He had asked her to go with him, but she had 
 said it was too hot in the sun. She would wander in the 
 woods. 'I didn't say I should wander in the woods 
 alone,' she said. 
 
 'They never want to know where I'm going,' said 
 Harry. ' I go out after breakfast and come back to lunch, 
 and sometimes I tell them where I've been and some- 
 times I don't.' 
 
 It seemed natural that their elders should go their 
 way, and they should go theirs, in which elders had no 
 concern. It was their secret, to which no one had a 
 right but themselves. But it gave Harry great pleasure 
 to hear from her in that way that it was to be their 
 secret. 'That's the way of June,' he carolled again, in 
 no very obvious connection. 
 
 They came to the still waters of the hidden pool. It 
 would not have been surprising if no eye but Harry's 
 had seen it since the trees had grown up round it. They 
 had to make their way to it through thick bushes, which 
 even in winter time could have concealed it. He had 
 been careful in his visits not to go in and out of the 
 thicket by the same way, and so leave a break. It was 
 as if he had kept it secret for himself and her. 
 
 When they had pushed their way through, they were 
 
 in a little grassy fern-fringed space open to the sky, 
 
 though it was flanked by big trees. There were one or 
 
 ' two more of these tiny lawns sloping to the edge of the 
 
 water, but that on to which they came was the largest. 
 
THE WOODLAND POOL 113 
 
 An age-old oak stood sentinel in the middle of it, and 
 it was flanked on one side by a yew that must have been 
 older still, so vast was its dark circumference, and so 
 thick its red ravelled trunk. 
 
 Viola exclaimed with delight. The pool stretched in 
 front of them, its surface unruffled, mirroring the blue 
 sky and the green depths of the trees, and the tall ferns 
 that grew round it. There was no vegetation on it any- 
 where. Harry told her that it must be very deep, with 
 a spring somewhere, or it would have been covered with 
 weed. ' It's much nicer Uke this,' she said, laughing at 
 him. When he asked her why she laughed, she said : 
 ' You're so proud of it. ' It did not seem much of a reason, 
 but he liked her to laugh at him like that, looking at him 
 and showing her pleasure in everything that he said that 
 revealed a little of him. 
 
 For one moment as they stood by the edge of the 
 water, he had a slight sense of anti-climax. He had 
 brought her, not without difficulty, to the pool, as if in 
 some way it was to be the end of things, and in some 
 way also the beginning. But without some lead on her 
 part there was nothing much to stay there for. It must 
 be either the accepted scene, or nothing but a point of 
 interest from which they would presently move on, with 
 nothing more that he had yet thought of in front of 
 them. 
 
 The feeling disappeared as she turned towards the 
 mossed roots of the oak, which made a seat for her. He 
 threw himself among the fern at her feet with a sensation 
 of desire accomphshed. She had accepted it. The little 
 lawn by the still water, hidden from all human eyes but 
 theirs, was now consecrated by the simple fact of her 
 taking her seat under the oak. She was queen of the 
 pool and the deep summer woods. 
 
 So fai- in their intercourse little points had arisen in 
 which it had been for one or the other of them to take a 
 
114 SIR HARRV 
 
 step farther, if it were to continue. She had stood 
 waiting, as Harry rode up to her, he had stopped, and 
 she had spoken; he had walked with her; he had asked 
 her to meet him again; he had brought her to the pool; 
 and she had seated herself there, to await what should 
 come. The initiative had been more his than hers, and 
 now it was his again. The fact of her taking her seat 
 there, under the tree, was an invitation, though she 
 may not have meant it as such. They might talk there 
 through the long morning hours, but their talk could not 
 be only of externals. It must be on a more intimate note, 
 or they might just as well roam the woods together 
 lightly. This green nook by the water, hidden and secret, 
 was a shrine, in which they would worship together, as 
 yet they knew not what; but it would be something 
 sacred and beautiful that was calling to both of them. 
 
 There was silence between them for a moment — ^the 
 silencft of recollection which comes before an act of 
 devotion. Then Harry looked up at her, and said, with 
 his voice trembling a little : ' I've never told any one 
 of this place before. I think I kept it for you.' 
 
 She smiled down at him, with the light soft in her 
 eyes. ' I'm glad you did that,' she said. ' I shall never 
 forget it. It is so quiet and green and beautiful,' she 
 added, a little hurriedly, as if the meaning of her words 
 might be mistaken. 
 
 'I might have shown it to the children,' he said 
 reflectively. 'I don't quite know why I didn't. But 
 I'm glad I didn't, too.' 
 
 She asked him who the children were, and he told her 
 about Jane and Pobbles, and the things that they had 
 done together. She asked him a good many questions, 
 and was a little particular in fixing the exact date of 
 Jane's birth, and of her arrival at Royd. 
 
 Harry answered all her questions, and told her of the 
 map that he had begun to draw for them the afternoon 
 
THE WOODLAND POOL ttS 
 
 before. 'It seems such ages ago,' he said. 'I was 
 missing them both, but I don't think I've given them 
 a thought since, until just now.' 
 
 She allowed herself to soften towards Jane; for at one 
 point she had suggested that she seemed rather precocious 
 for so young a child. ' Poor little things ! ' she said. ' I'm 
 sure they must miss you too. You have been so good to 
 them; And they are the only young friends you have 
 had, aren't they?' 
 
 Talking of the children had a little lowered the note 
 of intimacy. Her last words restored it. ' Until I knew 
 you,' he answered. 
 
 'And that's such a very short time.' 
 
 'No; it's a very long time. It's all the time that 
 matters.' 
 
 She smiled at him, and he went on. 'Think of it, 
 that only yesterday — ^yesterday much later than this — 
 I was feeUng dull and unhappy. Then I rode out to the 
 sea, and felt much better, but I didn't know anything 
 about you. Fancy — only yesterday I had never seen 
 you.' 
 
 She listened with her eyes fixed upon him and her 
 lips a little apart. ' What did you think when you first 
 saw me?' she asked softly. 
 
 He hesitated, and then laughed. 'I don't think I 
 thought anything in pai-ticular,' lie said. 'That's what 
 is so extraordinary. What did you think when you saw 
 me?' 
 
 It was the children's pretty game. ' I hke you. When 
 did you begin to like me?' But she was not ready to 
 tell him that yet. Or perhaps she might have told him, 
 if he had acknowledged to some emotion at the first 
 sight of her. ' I was very glad to see somebody who could 
 tell me where I was,' she said. ' I had heard of you, you 
 know, from Mrs Ivimey; but somehow I didn't think 
 of you as you till you told me your name.' 
 
ti6 SIR HARRY 
 
 What had she heard of him? She wouldn't tell him 
 that either, or at least not all that she had heard about 
 him; but he was so unaware of the estimation in which 
 he was held by the people about him that he did not 
 divine that she was keeping something back. 
 
 What Mrs Ivimey had said of 'the folks at the Castle,' 
 generally, gave them something to talk about. She 
 wanted to hear all about his life and those arnong whom 
 he spent it; and he talked about himself as he had never 
 talked to anybody before. His desire was to bring her 
 into it all. He told her a great deal about his happy 
 childhood, and some of the secrets that he had cherished. 
 He told her about the stories he had made up for him- 
 self, and with a little hesitation the one about the 
 garden and the flowers, and the end of it. ' I was terribly 
 ashamed,' he said, 'oh, for years afterwards. I'm not 
 sure I haven't been ashamed of it right up till now. Now 
 I've made a clean breast of it — to you — I don't mind so 
 much. I must have been a horribly vain little boy. It 
 used to distress me that my hair wasn't very black emd 
 very smooth. I used to pray that it might be made so.' 
 
 Her eyes rested upon his fair close-cropped head. He 
 was looking down and did not see the look in them. ' I'm 
 glad your prayer wasn't answered,' she said. 'But I 
 think you must have been a very dear little boy. I wish 
 I had known you then. What were the violas Uke in 
 your story about the flowers ? Or didn't they come in ? ' 
 
 'Yes, they did,' he said, looking up at her. 'They 
 were different from the pansies — ^gentler and rather shy. 
 They were never naughty.' 
 
 'How old were they? Grown up?' 
 
 'No; children — ^with dark eyes and a lot of dark 
 hair, all about their faces.' 
 
 'Were they hke any httle girls you had seen?' 
 
 'I don't think so. I think they must have been 
 rather like you were then.' 
 
THE WOODLAND POOL 117 
 
 'My eyes were dark, and my hair was loose on my 
 shoulders. Perhaps something put it into your head 
 that you would know a Viola some day.' 
 
 'Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes 
 Wood-brown pools of Paradise.' 
 
 He said it gently, looking into her eyes. She was 
 startled for a moment. 'You know it, then?' she 
 said. 
 
 ' Yes, I thought of it when you told me you had been 
 named from a beautiful poem. But I couldn't say it 
 then. I didn't know you well enough.' 
 
 'Have you said it since? Do you know it aU?' 
 
 'I read it when I got home yesterday. I know it all 
 now.' 
 
 'Say it to me.' 
 
 He said it right through, slowly, and softly, dwelling 
 on the name Viola — ^Viola — ^with many gradations of 
 his flexible voice, and she thought she had never heard 
 anything more beautiful than the way he uttered it. 
 Sometimes her eyes rested on the waters of the pool, 
 but more often on him, but his were on her all the 
 time. 
 
 THE MAKING OF VIOLA 
 
 I 
 The Father of Heaven : 
 
 'Spin, daughter Mary, spin. 
 Twirl your wheel with silver din; 
 Spin, daughter Mary, spin. 
 Spin a tress for Viola.' 
 Angels : 
 
 'Spin, Queen Mary, a 
 
 Brown tress for Viola ! ' 
 
m SIR harrV 
 
 II 
 
 The Father of Heaven : 
 
 'Weave, hands angelical, 
 Weave a woof of flesh to pall — 
 Weave, hands angelical — 
 Flesh to paU our Viola.' 
 Angels : 
 
 'Weave, singing brothers, a 
 Velvet flesh for Viola.' 
 
 Ill 
 The Father of Heaven : 
 
 'Scoop, young Jesus, for her eyes. 
 Wood-brown pools of Paradise — 
 Young Jesus, for the eyes. 
 For the eyes of Viola.' 
 
 Angels . 
 
 'Tint, Prince Jesus, a 
 DuskM eye for Viola I ' 
 
 rv 
 The Father of Heaven : 
 
 'Cast a star therein to drown. 
 Like a torch in cavern brown, 
 Sink a burning star to drown 
 Whelmed in eyes of Viola.' 
 Angels : 
 
 'Lave, Prince Jesus, a 
 Star in eyes of Viola 1' 
 
 V 
 
 The Father of Heaven : 
 
 'Breathe, Lord Paraclete, 
 To a bubbled crystal meet — 
 
THE WOODLAND POOL 119 
 
 Breathe, Lord Paraclete — 
 Crystal soul for Viola.' 
 Angels : 
 
 'Breathe, Regal Spirit, a 
 Flashing soul for Viola 1 ' 
 
 VI 
 
 The Father of Heaven : 
 
 'Child-angels, from your wmgs 
 Fall the roseal hoverings. 
 Child-angels, from your wings 
 On the cheeks of Viola.' 
 Angels : 
 
 'Linger, rosy reflex, a 
 Quenchless stain, on Viola ! ' 
 
 VII 
 
 All things being accomplished, saith the Father of Heaven : 
 'Bear her down, and bearing, sing, 
 Bear her down on spyless wing, 
 Bear her down, and bearing, sing. 
 With a sound of Viola.' 
 
 Angels : 
 
 'Music as her name is, a 
 Sweet sound of Viola ! ' 
 
 Angels . 
 
 VIII 
 
 Wheeling angels, past espial, 
 Danced her down with sound of viol; 
 Wheeling angels, past espial. 
 Descanting on 'Viola.' 
 
 'Sing, in our footing, a 
 Lovely lUt of "Viola."' 
 
120 SIR HARRY 
 
 IX 
 
 Baby smiled, mother wailed, 
 Eastward while the sweetling sailed; 
 Mother smiled, baby wailed, 
 When to earth came Viola. 
 
 And her elders shall say : 
 
 'So soon have we taught you a 
 Way to weep, poor Viola I ' 
 
 X 
 
 Smile, sweet baby, smile. 
 For you wiU have weeping-while; 
 Native in your Heaven is smile — 
 But your weeping, Viola? 
 
 Whence your smiles, we know, but ah 1 
 Whence your weeping, Viola? 
 Our first gift to you is a 
 Gift of tears, my Viola ! 
 
 When the musical flow of his voice had ended they 
 had advanced many paces farther on the path they were 
 treading together, but its end was not yet known to 
 either of them. Viola's cheeks were rose-flushed and her 
 eyes were shining. There was silence for a time as they 
 looked at one another, and love flew to and fro between 
 them unhampered in his flight but hidden from them. 
 
 Viola breathed a deep sigh, as she drew her eyes away 
 from his, half unwillingly. 'It's lovely,' she said. 'I 
 didn't know how lovely it was till you said it. I'm glad 
 I've got the most beautiful name in the world.' 
 
 'And the most beautiful eyes in the world,' he said. 
 ' I never knew that there was anything half so beautiful 
 as you, .though I Have always loved the beautiful things 
 in the world. I used to wonder what they meant, and 
 
THE WOODLAND POOL 121 
 
 a year ago I thought I had found out. But now I know 
 that I only knew half of it.' 
 
 'Tell me,' she said. 'What did you find out a year 
 ago?' 
 
 He told her of his moonUght vigil, which he had never 
 thought to tell any one, and the vision that had come 
 to him at the end of it. 
 
 Again she Ustened to him, fascinated, with her eyes 
 on his and her lips apart. But as he drew to the end of 
 his story her face grew a Uttle troubled. 
 
 'I should never have seen that,' she said when he 
 had finished. 
 
 'We might have seen it together if you had been 
 there,' he said. ' There is no secret I could see that you 
 couldn't see.' 
 
 'No,' she said, rather sadly. 'You have always lived 
 in this beautiful place, and you have seen nothing that 
 isn't beautiful — all your life. Of course, you could see 
 that, because there was nothing to get in the way. But 
 it isn't at all beautiful where I Uve. I have seen so 
 many ugly things all round me.' 
 
 'It must always be beautiful where you live — Viola.' 
 
 He spoke her name caressingly. It Wcis the first time 
 he had uttered it, except impersonally, and it made a 
 new sweet contact between them. 
 
 She smiled at him. 'Perhaps if you love beautiful 
 things, and think about them,-* she said, 'it doesn't so 
 much matter if you can't always have them about you. 
 Do you think I could really see the fairies, if I were with 
 you?' 
 
 He thought for a moment, with a slight frown on his 
 face, which made the words that should come out of his 
 thought of great importance to her. It was not in him 
 to say something just to please her. The hghtest thing 
 that he might say to her would come from the depths of 
 the unspoilt spirit that was in him. 
 
 S.H. I 
 
122 SIR HARRY 
 
 His face cleared, and he looked up at her again. 'I 
 think that when you are very young you may see some- 
 thing like that,' he said, 'or by chance when you are 
 older. It means something very important, or else it 
 doesn't mean much. It meant something very important 
 to me to see them, but now it's not so important. If 
 I had never seen it I should have seen you, and it would 
 have been just the same.' 
 
 'Why would it have been just the same?' 
 
 She was fascinated anew. Did ever a girl have such 
 incense as this burned before her? And it was incense 
 lit from a flame in the heart, not from a spark on the 
 tongue. Her nostrils were eager for the fume of it. 
 
 Again the little considering frown. 'It would,' he 
 said, 'I know it would. It all meant you, somehow, 
 though I have never seen you until now. There was 
 something wanting in it all the time; and it was you. 
 I should never look at anything now, and think how 
 beautiful it was, without thinking of you.' 
 
 Lover's words, spoken by an unconscious lover. They 
 pleased and pained her at the same time. 
 
 'I'm afraid you make too much of me,' she said, with 
 a sigh. 'If I had lived here always, as I am living 
 now ! ' 
 
 She did not complete her sentence. The memory of 
 things she had seen and known and of which he had 
 known nothing, rose up between them. But she put 
 them aside, and smiled at him again. 'After all,' she 
 said, ' I am here now, and I have never been so happy 
 anywhere else. Perhaps I have been keeping myself 
 for it, without knowing that it was this I was meant for. 
 I think I was meant for it, because all the rest seems like 
 nothing at all. When I go back, it will be less than 
 ever to me.' 
 
 Her talk of going back stabbed him. Life would be 
 an incredible thing when they were parted. They stirred 
 
THE WOODLAND POOL 123 
 
 each the other's fears and shrinkmgs as they talked of 
 it, but behind all the pain was the thought that they 
 would be with one another for a long time yet. They 
 were so young that time in front of them was not 
 measured by the same rule as time that had passed. 
 More than two whole weeks and most of a third Viola 
 had still to spend in Paradise. They would meet every 
 day. Surely, nothing could prevent their meeting every 
 day ! Twice a day they would meet, in this secret place, 
 and be undisturbed for long summer hours in their 
 happiness. No need to spoil it by thinking of the end. 
 They parted for a time. The last Harry saw of her 
 was the white figure framed in its arch of green. Before 
 she passed out of it she turned and stood there for a 
 moment, motionless. She was too far for him to see her 
 face clearly, but the message passed to and fro between 
 them again. It was all there, though they had not yet 
 spoken it in words, and eyes were too far off to be read. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 AT THE THRESHOLD 
 
 Harry went home to luncheon and hurried to the wood 
 agam immediately afterwards. He had much farther 
 to go to the trysting-place than she. She might even be 
 waiting for him when he got there. 
 
 She was not there, and after half an hour she had not 
 come. 
 
 Oh, cruel 1 And yet he knew, as his longing grew 
 and his hopes fell, that she would have come if she could. 
 Her father had claimed her; something out of her power 
 to prevent or foresee had kept her away. She would not 
 stay away from him for ever. 
 
 Yet he was increasingly unhappy as the time passed 
 and the green frame remained empty of its sweet picture. 
 The heat of a summer afternoon lay brooding on the 
 silent wood, and was like lead upon his heart. He paced 
 up and down the path, to the corner from which the 
 garden of the cottage could be seen. He thought of 
 going to it, and talking to Mrs Ivimey, who would know 
 what had become of Viola, and would certainly talk to 
 him about her. But no, he could not do that. It would 
 be sweet to hear her name on other lips, but he would 
 have to pretend that he was hearing of her for the first 
 time, and he shrank from that, and from all that it 
 would imply. He never went farther than the corner, 
 and by-and-by his hope of seeing her that afternoon died 
 away completely. 
 
 He had come out prepared to stay away imtil dinner- 
 time, but now he thought he would go home to tea, and 
 come back immediately afterwards. His absence would 
 
 124 
 
AT THE THRESHOLD 125 
 
 not then be questioned until he came back at night. 
 They did not like him to stay away from dinner too 
 often, but he had not done so for some time, and if he 
 said that he was going out into the woods they would 
 not seek to prevent him. 
 
 He was aU at sea with himself as at last he dragged 
 himself away from the empty place, which might still 
 be brightened by her coming, with many backward 
 looks and much lingering. He knew that something 
 that could easily be explained had kept her, and yet he 
 was desperately unhappy because she had failed him. 
 Did she want him as much as he wanted her? Would 
 anything in the world have kept him away if he had 
 promised to come to her? Supposing she should not 
 come at all that day ! He shrank from the thought of 
 the long night that would divide him from her, if he had 
 not seen her before it fell. But his spirit was tired with 
 suspense. The world seemed full of trouble and dis- 
 appointment as he made his way homewards. 
 
 The one thing he never thought of was that, somehow, 
 their meeting of themorning might have been discovered, 
 and she had been forbidden to meet him again. They 
 had met, and promised to meet again, in all the innocence 
 of their youth. If their elders had known of it, it would 
 have spoilt their happy secret, but that was all. It had 
 not occurred to Harry that it would spoil an57thing else. 
 
 They had tea on the terrace outside the drawing-room. 
 It was always the same at home. Day after day, aU the 
 year round, it was always the same. In winter the tea- 
 tables were placed near one of the two fires that warmed 
 the long room, at other times near one of the windows, or 
 in the summer on the terrace outside. The four of them 
 would sit round and talk. Lady Brent dispensing the 
 tea, over which she was very particular. Occasionally 
 some one from the Vicarage would be there, but scarcely 
 ever anybody else. The friendships that had formerly 
 
126 SIR HARRY 
 
 been between the Castle and other big houses within 
 reach had fallen off, and it was the rarest thing for 
 visitors to appear there. 
 
 It might have been expected that, meeting like that, 
 day after day, at formal meals as well as at this informal 
 one, and with no intrusion from the outer world to 
 break the monotony of their lives, they would have had 
 nothing to say to one another. But there was always 
 a great deal to say. Wilbraham read voluminously. 
 Lady Brent read, and even Mrs Brent read. They talked 
 of what they had read in the papers and what they had 
 read in books; but Mrs Brent did not take part in the 
 conversation over what they had read in books. 
 
 And there was the Ufe immediately around them to 
 talk about. If Royd Castle was cut off from the ordinary 
 social intercourse that gathers about a large country 
 house, it was by no means divided from the interests 
 that depend upon ownership. There were a few hundred 
 people living around it in direct relationship, and the 
 personal contact with them was the closer because it 
 represented nearly all the human interest that there was 
 in the life that was led there. It supplied the gossip 
 which in some form or other is congenial to the most 
 exalted minds, and without which little Mrs Brent at 
 least would have found the conversation unbearably 
 arid. 
 
 Lady Brent visited among the tenantry assiduously. 
 She was inclined to exercise authority, but could not 
 fairly be said to be dictatorial. They were on their best 
 behaviour before her, but there were few among them 
 who had not some kindness to remember from her. Mrs 
 Brent also visited them and avoided doing so in the 
 company of her mother-in-law if she possibly could. Her 
 intercourse with them was on a more intimate plane. 
 Her position as a great lady had to be impUcitly accepted, 
 but if this was done she would sit and talk with more 
 
AT THE THRESHOLD 127 
 
 than mere affability. Harry was her chief subject of 
 conversation, and all the people of Royd loved Harry 
 and expected great things of him. It might have 
 surprised Lady Brent if she had known how clearly it 
 was in the minds of those whom she treated as her 
 dependents that she was only exercising temporary 
 authority, and how much they looked forward to the 
 time when her rule would be over. This was not because 
 they found it irksome, for she ruled justly and con- 
 siderately. But she had ruled for a long time and change 
 is pleasant to most of us. Besides, the Castle provided 
 very Uttle variety of interest to those who Uved within 
 its shadow. It had not always been so, and it was 
 expected that it would not be so when, Harry came into 
 his own. 
 
 Mrs Brent could sometimes be induced to talk about 
 the time that was coming, if she was flattered into a 
 state of intimacy and skilfully drawn out. She was 
 always careful not to create an impression that she and 
 Lady Brent were at all antagonistic, but it was under- 
 stood by everybody that this was so, the extent of the 
 antagonism was gauged to a nicety, and the causes for 
 it were frequently discussed and generally agreed upon. 
 
 The fact that Mrs Brent derived from the stage was 
 not actually known, but it would have surprised nobody 
 to hear it; nor did her claims to belonging of right to 
 the class into which she had married carry the smallest 
 weight, however much they might be indulged. It was 
 generally agreed that Lady Brent had done the right 
 thing in absorbing her into the atmosphere of the Castle, 
 and in keeping her closely under its influence. Poor 
 little lady ! She'd have liked to get away from it some- 
 times, and small blame to her ! But 'twouldn't ha' 
 done. She was all right where she was, and a nice Uttle 
 thing too, if you took her the right way; but there! 
 she wasn't what you'd expect for Sir Harry's mother. 
 
128 SIR HARRY 
 
 and her ladyship's was the only way to keep him from 
 knowing it. 
 
 So these remote but clear-sighted and kindly people 
 judged of the situation at the Castle, and on the whole 
 approved of it. As for Harry himsdf they one and all 
 adored him. They were the only friends he had had 
 outside his home from his chUdhood, and they were real 
 friends. There was not one of them, man, woman, or 
 child, who had not some special feeUng for him different 
 from that of the rest. He knew them all, and was 
 interested in them all, with a purely human sympathy. 
 When the time came for him to take the reins, he would 
 be dealing not with an impersonal aggregate, but with 
 those whose interests were also his; and he would be 
 regarded with a loyalty and affection which is enjoyed 
 by few landowners. 
 
 Wilbraham kept himself more to himself, as was said 
 of him, but had his friends too at Royd. It was he who 
 brought Harry's heart to his mouth this afternoon by 
 the announcement, made in a casual voice : ' There is an 
 artist come to stay at Mrs Ivimey's. He rejoices in the 
 name of Michael Angelo Bastian, which ought to mean 
 that he is a very fine artist; but I've never heard of 
 him. Have you?' 
 
 ' No,' said Lady Brent, who had been addressed. ' But 
 I did not know that Mrs Ivimey let rooms. I think she 
 should have asked me first. Nobody at Royd has done 
 it hitherto.' 
 
 'I wonder how she could get any one to take rooms 
 in such an out of the way place as hers,' said Mrs Brent. 
 
 'I can tell you that,' said Wilbraham. 'I had it all 
 from Prout.' Prout combined the occupations of shoe- 
 maker and postman at Royd. ' Mrs Ivimey has a sister 
 who lives in London and lets lodgings. Michael Angelo 
 Bastian lodges with her. The rest is plain to the meanest 
 intelligence.' 
 
AT THE THRESHOLD 129 
 
 Harry was faced with the immediate alternative of 
 acknowledging that he was aware of the fact stated or 
 of affecting ignorance of it. If he kept silence now it 
 would be deUberate and purposeful silence, and he might 
 later on be called upon to explain it. He had not faced 
 this; he had not faded anything in connection with 
 Viola that had to do with the future. 
 
 Perhaps he would have spoken, if his mind had not 
 been so full of his late disappointment, and of his 
 reviving hopes of still meeting Viola that evening. He 
 could not bring himself immediately to the point of 
 making a decision, and when Lady Brent had next 
 spoken, and WUbraham had answered her, the time had 
 gone by for him to speak. His not having done so 
 directly Bastian's name had been mentioned would need 
 explanation now. With a mental shrug of the shoulders 
 he kept silence, and felt a warm delicious glow as he 
 took the further step towards a fenced and guarded 
 intimacy with Viola which no one outside must penetrate. 
 The pleasure of hugging his secret afresh swamped the 
 half guilty feeling which had preceded it in his mind. 
 He did not even ask himself why it should have come 
 to him, but his attitude towards his elders underwent 
 a slight change from that moment. His youth was to be 
 defended from them : it had its rights, which could 
 brook no interference. 
 
 As he hurried off again to the trysting-place, he was 
 glad once more that he had refrained from betraying- 
 his secret, as he had been glad that he had resisted the 
 impulse to confide in his mother the night before. He 
 knew now that they would have disapproved. Some 
 breath from the outside world, which divides people up 
 into categories in a way he had never had to take into 
 accoimt, had come to him from the discussion he had 
 just hstened to. His grandmother had shown persistent 
 concern at Mrs Ivimey's having let her rooms without 
 
130 SIR HARRY 
 
 consultation with her. Such a thing had never happened 
 before in Royd. You didn't know what sort of people 
 you might get, if it became a practice. An artist — there 
 
 was no great harm perhaps in an artist; but The 
 
 postman had evidently not known, or if he had he had 
 not told Wilbraham, that this particular artist had 
 invaded the sanctities of Royd accompanied by a 
 daughter, but Harry had felt instinctively that her 
 presence would have increased the objections expressed 
 by Lady Brent to Mrs Ivimey's taking in anybody at all. 
 It had come to him somehow that Viola's delicious charm 
 would have done nothing to recommend her, had she 
 been known, and that his mother would by no means 
 have taken the confidence that it had been in his mind 
 to make to her the night before in the spirit in which 
 it would have been offered. 
 
 The reasons for all this were not clear to him. He had 
 of course no idea that he was to be preserved at all costs 
 from falling into unauthorised love; he had no more than 
 a purely academic knowledge of what falUng in love 
 meant, and no idea as yet that he was already very deep 
 in it himself. There were many things in which his 
 inclinations had clashed with the rules formulated by 
 his elders — as, for instance, in the matter of visits to the 
 stables, during his early childhood. This was one of 
 them, but he was not to be bound now by the views of 
 his elders, and it was not necessary to examine their 
 origin. There was a vague discomfort in the idea that 
 he was setting himself against them, but no admission 
 in his mind that he was in any way wrong in doing so. 
 And even the slight discomfort was more than balanced 
 by the feeling that his secret must certainly now be 
 guarded, whidi had the effect of somehow bringing him 
 and Viola more closely together. 
 
 It had been decided that Wilbraham was to seek out 
 the artist, and if he found him to be the sort of person 
 
AT THE THRESHOLD 131 
 
 who could be asked to Royd, he was to ask him there. 
 Harry smiled to himself, as he thought of the possibilities 
 ahead. He must tell Viola, and he and she must decide 
 what was to be done about it. It gave him a thrill to 
 think of their deciding anji;hing together. He quickened 
 his steps. There were such oceans to talk to her about. 
 He had no doubts now about her coming to meet him; 
 he had almost persuaded himself that she would be there 
 waiting for him. 
 
 But the green frame was stDl empty of its picture, as 
 he had left it an hour before. The evening light was 
 slanting on it now, giving warning that the time they 
 would have to spend together was diminishing. But 
 there were nearly two hours of dayhght still. Surely 
 she would come before the dusk fell. 
 
 He stretched himself under a tree, from where he 
 could watch the place where she would appear. His 
 mood was not yet impatient. She would surely come, 
 and in the meantime he could think about her. 
 
 He did not think of her as a lover thinks of the mistress 
 enthroned in his heart, to worship her there. He had 
 not consciously enthroned her as yet. He thought of her 
 as a wonderful revelation of something he must surely 
 have been looking for all his life, since it was impossible 
 now to think of Ufe without her. She had come into his 
 life, in some way to translate its meaning for him — ^for 
 both of them. She was a revelation from the good 
 influences all around him, as the vision of the fairies had 
 been. He had got as far as that, and had told her so. 
 It had been very sweet to tell her that; it would be 
 sweet to tell her everything that came into his head. 
 There was nothing that he would not want to tell her, 
 at once and first of aU. In his innocence of the world 
 and the way of the world, he had reached that point in 
 love's pilgrimage where the loved one shines out as the 
 
132 SIR HARRY 
 
 sweet vessel into which all confidences may be poured, 
 and the desire is strong for a common aim and a common 
 vision. But he had not reached the point, which usually 
 precedes it, of an ardent desire for some sort of surrender. 
 Perhaps it is not true to say that he had not yet enthroned 
 Viola in his heart, for she sat there the centre of every- 
 thing. But she sat there apart, as if she had mounted 
 the steps of the throne without his hand to raise her. 
 She must descend again and stand with him on the level 
 ground of mutual desire before her seat should be secure 
 and acknowledged. 
 
 But as he waited for her, and the desire for her sheer 
 presence became stronger and stronger, he was being 
 led towards that desire for surrender. The sweetest 
 thing now would be, not to pour himself out in confidences 
 to her, which would still be very sweet, but to obtain 
 from her that look or that word which would move him 
 to the depths. 
 
 He went over in his mind the looks and words he had 
 received from her, and thirsted for more. The very first 
 time their eyes had met, before a word had been spoken 
 between them, she had looked at him, with something 
 behind the look with which his memory blissfully played. 
 Once or twice that morning, by the pool, and again 
 when she had turned towards him and stood gazing, 
 far off, there had been something that thrilled him with 
 happiness to remember. And there had been tones in 
 her voice, little things she had said — ^he dwelt upon them 
 all, and longed to draw more of them from her. He 
 would say this to her; greatly daring, he would say that. 
 And she would reply; or if she spoke no answer he would 
 watch her face, and gain courage from it for speeches- 
 still more daring. 
 
 But an hour passed, and she had not come to him. 
 The sun was sinking now. Outside the wood, under 
 
AT THE THRESHOLD 133 
 
 the open sky, its rays would be drawing the shadow of the 
 rocks and the gorse across the close turf; there would 
 be a soft golden radiance in all the air, and on the bright 
 distant pavement of the sea. But here under the trees 
 it was already dusk, and a gloom descended on his heart, 
 as he thought of the sunset, from the sight of which he 
 was shut off. 
 
 It was like a parable to him. He had never before 
 missed the glory of a sunset, if he was out of doors. The 
 woods had never kept him from that enlarging sight. 
 They were for other times; not less loved then, but now 
 seeming to hold him enchained in a menacing gloom. 
 And so, just out of his reach was the solace for which 
 he craved, but in place of it darkness was settling down 
 over his heart, and trouble clutching at it. 
 
 But he would not go out of the wood. She might 
 come still. The thought brought him no relief; his long 
 watch had emptied his mind of the springs of hope. 
 But still he waited for her. If she did come, she must 
 find him there. 
 
 The darkness had settled down now. There was a 
 fading Ught in the sky, that could be seen here and there 
 through the thick canopy of leaves, but beneath them 
 only eyes that had grown used to the darkness could have 
 descried anything. 
 
 The boy lay stretched at length on the grass, his face 
 to the ground, utterly weary and utterly miserable. He 
 had no strength to tear himself from this unhappy spot 
 and go home; he only wanted to lie there in his pain, 
 which still had a httle of sweetness in it as long as he 
 lingered in the place where he had last seen her. 
 
 He never moved. His body was as still as on that 
 night in which he had kept his eager vigil, and at last 
 been rewarded. But it was the stillness of exhaustion. 
 No hope was left to him now. 
 
134 SIR HARRY 
 
 But his ears, trained since his childhood to catch the 
 lightest whispers of nature, and to interpret them, alert 
 in spite of himself, heard something that was not of the 
 life sinking to rest around him. He raised himself 
 suddenly, almost violently, and peered into the darkness, 
 all his senses once more on edge. 
 
 And out of the darkness she came, no more than a 
 moth-glimmer flitting towards him. A wUd joy filled 
 him, down to the very depths of his being. He sprang 
 up and ran towards her. 
 
 She gave a little cry that was half a sob, and flew to 
 his embrace. His arms were around her, and his lips 
 on hers. In all the long hours through which he had 
 yearned for her, and played with the thought of her 
 sweetness, no such blissful end to his waiting had entered 
 his mind as this. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE TEMPLE 
 
 Her face was wet with her tears, but he could just see 
 her smile glimmering through the darkness. His eyes 
 were as hungry as his lips. That sweet flower-like face, 
 with the tender eyes and the mouth a-quiver — would he 
 ever be able to gaze his fill of it? 
 
 She made no effort to draw herself from him, but 
 nestled to him, and poured out a broken sobbing explana- 
 tion of her absence to which he hardly listened. What 
 did it matter how she had been prevented from coming 
 to him, since she had longed for him as he had longed 
 for her, and was with him now? 
 
 He kissed away her tears; she had not returned his 
 kisses since her first unconsidered impelled surrender, 
 but was still sweetly receptive of them. 'Oh, I ought 
 not to,' she said, smiling at him. 'But I do love you, 
 and I have wanted you so.' 
 
 Yes, this was love, of which he had never consciously 
 thought. She had spoken the word first, but he knew 
 before she had spoken it that all his joy and all his pain 
 had sprung from that source, and exulted in his new 
 knowledge. 
 
 'I love you too — Viola,' he said, lingering caressingly 
 on her name. ' Oh, how I love you ! ' 
 
 He drew a long breath, and they gazed silently into 
 one another's eyes, to find in them what no speech could 
 utter. The melting sweetness of her gaze fiUed him with 
 trembling rapture. The secret of life and all its beauty, 
 which he thought he had divined, now seemed to have 
 depths beneath depths of meaning, beyond mental 
 
 135 
 
136 SIR HARRY 
 
 capacity to grasp, in their almost intolerable rapture. 
 With a sigh they released each other, and speech flowed 
 to their reUef, broken and melodious, bearing them again 
 to the surface of their bUss. 
 
 They withdrew a little from the path where they had 
 met, and told over the tale of their love. By-and-by 
 they moved along it again, in a common impulse to 
 escape from the thick darkness of the wood, and gain 
 the freedom of the starry night. 
 
 They passed the cottage where Viola dwelt and never 
 gave it a thought. At a later time they confessed to one 
 another that they had no recollection of passing it at all. 
 They were so wrapped up in one another that nothing 
 and nobody else in the wide world mattered to them at 
 that moment. But when they had emerged from the 
 wood they turned aside, instinctively perhaps, to escape 
 pr3dng eyes, and passed slowly along the path which 
 they had taken the afternoon before. 
 
 After the darkness of the wood, the sky, moonless, 
 but lit by the innumerable lanterns of the stars, had the 
 effect of brightness. Their young faces could be plainly 
 seen in this soft radiance, and they stood to worship one 
 another afresh. 
 
 'You're so beautiful, Viola ! How beautiful you are ! 
 I must have been blind not to see it before.' 
 
 'I saw that you were from the very first.' 
 
 Here were two statements of surpassing interest. 
 They had to be enlarged upon and explained, with new 
 and immeasurable content gained from the disclosures 
 that were made. Nothing had ever happened like it 
 before. They were pioneers in the uncharted country of 
 love, and the springs at which they refreshed .themselves, 
 and the flowers brushed by their feet as they wandered 
 through it, had been waiting for them unseen and 
 unguessed at since the world began. The wonder of it 
 increased. 
 
THE TEMPLE 137 
 
 They sat down on a low rock, jutting through the fern, 
 and gave themselves up to the miracle of their discoveries. 
 Harry held her hands in his, and his eyes were never off 
 her face, except when he looked out into space as if 
 trying to fathom something that passed his comprehen- 
 sion. Sometimes they drew together by an irresistible 
 mutual impulse, but every kiss he gave her was a 
 consecration. She was too beautiful and too sacred a 
 thing not to be treated with high reverence. Instinctively 
 he held himself back, though without cessation he thirsted 
 for her sweetness, and her lips assuaged his thirst only 
 so long as his were upon them. 
 
 For more than an hour they sat there, and the time 
 seemed as 'nothing. Then she sprang up suddenly and 
 said she must go in. She had only meant just to run 
 out and tell him why she had not been able to come in 
 the afternoon. As she said it, a voice was heard caUing : 
 ' Viola ! Viola ! ' out of the darkness. She raised herself 
 hurriedly to kiss him, of her own accord, and tearing 
 her hands from his ran off without a word. 
 
 Harry stood for a long time where she had left him, 
 while the unhurrying stars marched on to their celestial 
 music and looked down upon him, a creature of the 
 moment, who had yet found his way into the courts of 
 eternity. He looked up at them, and in the rapture of 
 the revelation that had come to him worshipped anew 
 in the temple whose gates he had besieged all his life. 
 It was for this that he had been born; it was for this 
 that the heavens were lit, and the earth put forth its 
 beauty. At last he had been admitted into the inner- 
 most sanctuary of the temple, and the secret of life 
 was his. 
 
 He moved slowly towards the cottage which enshrined 
 his love, quite unable to leave its hallowed pre- 
 cincts. 
 
 S.H. K 
 
138 SIR HARRY 
 
 There were lights in the lower windows, and presently 
 in that upper one which he knew to be Viola's. Perhaps 
 she knew that he would linger out there under the stars, 
 for she came to the window and stood there for a long 
 time, and before she left it she kissed the tips of her 
 fingers and threw her message out into the darkness. 
 
 Presently her light went out. Harry laid himself down 
 on the warm turf. He would sleep there that night, as 
 he had sometimes slept out in the open on warm summer 
 nights before, but not with that sense of bliss enfolding 
 him. He would keep guard over her, and perhaps, when 
 the stars had paced onwards in their western march, and 
 the moon had arisen, she would come to the window 
 again, as she had come the night before. He had told 
 her that he had seen her there. He thought she would 
 come. And surely her presence would make itself felt 
 through his dreams, and he would awake to see her ! 
 It was not possible that he should sleep while she was 
 awake near him. 
 
 He pillowed his head on the fern and slept, and for a 
 long time- there was silence, on the moor and in the 
 cottage, while the stars watched over them and waited 
 for their waking. 
 
 It happened just as Hafry had thought when he laid 
 himself down to sleep. He awoke to find the moor 
 flooded by the bright radiance of the moon, which shone 
 also upon the front of the cottage and the window of 
 Viola's room. And she was there, with her dusky hair 
 about her face and on her shoulders, and with some 
 dark wrap round her, so that her face alone, and her 
 hands, were softly illumined. 
 
 He arose and went towards her. She saw him coming, 
 for she gave a little start, and then sat motionless again 
 until he stood just beyond the garden^ fence, where he 
 could see her face, though his was in shadow. 
 
THE TEMPLE 139 
 
 He stood there; neither of them spoke and neither of 
 them moved, but drank their fill of one another's presence. 
 They made no motion of farewell when at last Harry 
 moved away and his form was lost in the shadows of 
 the wood. 
 
 He could go home now and sleep, with his great 
 happiness to bear him company. On the morrow he 
 would see her again, and new happiness would be his 
 lot. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BASTIAN 
 
 WiLBRAHAM picked his way along the woodland path, 
 humming a tune. His only preoccupation for the moment 
 was to preserve his shoes from getting wet, for much 
 rain had fallen, and there were spongy patches to be 
 avoided. 
 
 Wilbraham disliked exercise of almost every sort. 
 His bad times, in the winter, were when he felt impelled 
 to go for a walk, which was for at least an hour every 
 afternoon unless the weather absolutely forbade. In 
 the summer he did not mind it so much, except when 
 the heat tried him; but he would always have preferred 
 to spend his leisure with a book in the library, or in the 
 garden. 
 
 He had long ceased to accompany Harry in any out- 
 of-door expedition. They saw quite enough of one 
 another indoors, and their respective preferences in the 
 matter of pace were so in opposition that it . was a 
 pleasure to neither of them to take the air together. 
 Mrs Brent sometimes accompanied him in his constitu- 
 tionals, but he seldom invited her to do so. They also 
 saw enough of one another indoors, or at least he saw 
 enough of her. He liked her, but she did not interest 
 him in conversation, while she did expect him to interest 
 her. He was quite capable of doing so, but the effort 
 spoilt the mild refreshment that came from leaving his 
 brain to wander where it would, while his body was being 
 gently exercised. He found abundant interest in the 
 thoughts of his well-stored mind, and sometimes stayed 
 
 140 
 
BASTIAN 141 
 
 out for longer than he hg,d intended because he had 
 fallen into such an absorbing train of speculation. 
 
 Yet this man, who Uved his monotonous life with books 
 as his chief recreation and his intercourse with his 
 fellows narrowed to the few with whom he lived, was very 
 fond of company. His walk this afternoon, longer than 
 he usually imposed upon himself in the heat of summer, 
 was cheered by having an object other than that of 
 keeping his liver from troubUng him. He was going to 
 make a new acquaintance. This artist with the rather 
 absurd name, who was lodging with Mrs Ivimey, might 
 possibly be a man of intelligence, with views upon the 
 art he practised; or he might be a mere commercial 
 dauber. If he proved to be a man of intelligence, it 
 would be agreeable to exchange views with him, for 
 after books Wilbrahara liked pictures, better even than 
 he liked music. Or rather, his taste for music had become 
 a little atrophied, since he was cut off from enjoyment of 
 it, while art could always be read about, and there were 
 always pictures or reproductions of pictures to be seen. 
 
 He reached the cottage on the outskirts of the wood, 
 and looked about him with pleasure before he entered 
 it. The great open space upon which it faced was a 
 refreshment after the wooded environment of the Castle, 
 and the few buildings that enlivened this point relieved 
 it of the impression of loneliness which was unpleasing 
 to a man of Wilbraham's fibre. It was half a mile 
 farther by the path he had taken than by the one he 
 usually took if his humour led him towards the common, 
 but he thought as he stood there with his hat off, so that 
 the breeze could cool his brow, that he would come there 
 more often, even if Mr Bastian should not turn out to 
 be the sort of person that he might want to come for. 
 
 A well-satisfied gentleman he looked, as he stood there 
 leaning on his stick, his brow rather bald, his presence 
 on the verge of portliness,, though he was not otherwise 
 
142 SIR HARRY 
 
 of the habit of body that runs to flesh. The look of 
 discontent that Grant had remarked about him on a 
 first acquaintance was absent now. In his suit of dark 
 gray flannel, with his black-ribboned straw hat, he had 
 something of a clerical air, and as he turned towards the 
 cottage hia unusually sharp ears heard the sound of 
 hurried movement through the open window of a down- 
 stairs room, and a voice uttering the words : 'The parson 
 come to call ! Good Lord, I'm lost; I can't get out.' 
 
 He stood chuckUng to himself as he waited for an 
 answer to his knock. The door stood open. The artist 
 could not have escaped him if his fears had been 
 justified. This pleased his humour, especially as he 
 anticipated the pleasure of bringing relief to him. 
 
 Mrs Ivimey did not i^espond to his summons, and as 
 he was preparing to knock again, a door on the left of 
 the little passage opened and the artist came out to him. 
 
 ' I'm afraid Mrs Ivimey is out at the back somewhere/ 
 he said. 'Shall I go and call her for you?' 
 
 'Thanks, it's you I've come to see, if you're Mr 
 Bastian,' said Wilbraham. 'I'm tutor to young Sir 
 Harry Brent at the Castle. We heard you were here, 
 and as we don't get many visitors at Royd I came to 
 look you up.' 
 
 Bastian's face changed, 'That's very kind of you,' 
 he said. 'Do come in.' 
 
 He led the way into the little sitting-room, and 
 Wilbraham followed him with the feeling that his visit 
 had justified itself. 
 
 Bastian was a tall thin man with a shock of untidy 
 gray hair, but a curiously young face. His eyes were 
 very light blue. He had a half-whimsical, half -appealing 
 look, as if he was in a constant state of amusement at 
 himself and was begging not to be taken too seriously. 
 The upper part of his face was firmly and delicately 
 modelled, but his mouth was indeterminate and his chin 
 
BASTIAN 143 
 
 weak. He was atrociously dressed, in an old discoloured 
 suit of light gray flannel, and a pair of stained canvas 
 shoes, and he wore no collar; but he did not apologise 
 for his appearance. Wilbraham judged him to be about 
 forty-five, but discovered later that he was three or 
 four years younger. 
 
 Mrs Ivimey's parlour was furnished with the customary 
 mixture of old good things and bad new ones. A few 
 canvases stood with their faces against the wall, and a 
 half-finished picture of a flaming sunset over the moor 
 and the sea was propped on the mantelpiece. Wilbraham 
 threw a glance at it as he entered, but could not make 
 up his mind whether it was going to be a good picture 
 or an exceptionally bad one. There were some books 
 on the round table in the middle of the room, as well 
 as some of the untidy paraphernalia of an artist. On a 
 smaller table in the window was a bottle of whisky, a 
 glass, and a jug of water, and by the side of the table was 
 a shabby but comfortable looking easy-chair, upon which 
 was a book face downwards. The room was full of the 
 odour of strong tobacco. 
 
 ' I'm afraid it's rather like a bar-parlour,' said Bastian. 
 'I have a horrible habit of smoking shag, which some 
 people object to strongly. Will you have some whisky? ' 
 
 He looked sideways at Wilbraham as he spoke, with 
 an engaging smile. There was something attractive and 
 appealing about him; he was rather like a naughty child 
 caught in the act — indoors on a summer afternoon with 
 his shag tobacco and his whisky and his advanced 
 deshabille. Wilbraham was one of those who hated the 
 reek of shag, but he forgave him for it readily and took 
 out his own cigarette case. He did not reply to the 
 offer of whisky. 
 
 ' I'll go and get you a glass,' said Bastian. ' I'm afraid 
 there's no soda-water, but it's good whisky and better 
 with water." 
 
144 SIR HARRY 
 
 He went out of the room, and Wilbraham stood with 
 his eyes fixed upon the whisky bottle, and a queer look 
 in them, half of eagerness, half of repulsion. 
 
 Bastian was away longer than it would have taken 
 him to get a glass, and when he returned he had on a 
 collar and a flowing brightly coloured tie. He now looked 
 Uke an artist, and not so much like a broken-down 
 gentleman-loafer. 
 
 ' Say when ! ' he said, pouring out the whisky, and 
 Wilbraham said when, but not immediately. 
 
 ' I get tired of painting,' said Bastian. ' It's very hot 
 out there on the moor, and I didn't bring a sketching 
 umbrella with me. I thought I'd have a lazy time with 
 a book. David Copperfield. One of the best books, I 
 consider.' He held his head aside as he looked to 
 Wilbraham. 
 
 WUbraham had taken his first sip of whisky. It was 
 only a sip, but his face seemed to expand under it. His 
 heart also expanded towards a Dickens enthusiast, and 
 for a time they talked about Dickens, and found them- 
 selves always in encouraging agreement. 
 
 'It's a pleasure to have somebody to talk to,' said 
 Bastian. ' I love being in the country and I hate being 
 in London. I came down here to be as far away from 
 London as possible, but there's no doubt one does want 
 human intercourse. I'm devoted to my little girl, who's 
 here with me; but one wants men to talk to.' 
 
 ' Oh, yo'u've got a daughter with you,' said Wilbraham. 
 He had been considering all the time, underneath the 
 conversation, whether or not Bastian could be intro- 
 duced to Royd. He was a gentleman; that was obvious. 
 But it was equally obvious that he had shed some of the 
 customs usually followed by gentlemen. Would his 
 innate , breeding carry him through with women — with 
 Lady Brent? With a man, or at least with one who 
 prided himself on being able to see beneath the surface. 
 
BASTIAN 145 
 
 the shocking old clothes and the shag tobacco would 
 make no difference. Then there was the whisky. 
 Wilbraham had rather more than a suspicion that 
 Bastian's case was not so very different from his own : 
 that whisky meant a good deal to Bastian. There were 
 signs of it on his smooth child-Uke face — a lack of 
 clearness in a skin that was meant to be unusually clear, 
 a slackness of muscle, a look, in the eye and in the droop 
 of the mouth; and the second — or possibly the third — 
 allowance that Bastian had poured into his glass had 
 exceeded by a good half-inch the not meagre allowance 
 that Wilbraham had accepted in his own. Perhaps it 
 might lead to complications to invite him to Royd. If 
 Wilbraham should decide not to, the daughter might 
 be made an excuse. 
 
 'She's a dear child,' said Bastian. 'Her mother's 
 dead. She was one in a thousand.' He sighed. 'Viola 
 and I are everything to one another. We're scarcely 
 ever parted, except when we're at work. She has to 
 earn money, poor child, and neither of us manages 
 to earn very much. Still, we're happy together, and 
 happiest of all when we leave the streets behind us 
 and get out into the country.' 
 
 He was revealing himself as one of those people who 
 like to pour themselves out about their own affairs, not 
 so much out of egotism as from an impulse to show 
 confidence towards their hearers, to establish relations 
 which shall rest upon no misunderstanding, in which 
 nothing shall be kept back. 
 
 Wilbraham was without that impulse, but he was also 
 without any large share of egotism. He was interested 
 in other people, and usually preferred that they should 
 talk about themselves, since few people are interesting 
 upon any other subject. He had some curiosity about 
 Bastian's history, which seemed to have had contradic- 
 tions in it, when his refinement of speech and manner 
 
146 SIR HARRY 
 
 was compared with his confessed and apparent indigence, 
 which was rather below that to which men of birth and 
 breeding sink, even if they are without the earning 
 capacity. 
 
 'How old is your daughter?' he asked, a little con- 
 fused between the mention of her as a child and that 
 of her work. 
 
 'Sixteen or seventeen,' said Bastian. 'I can't quite 
 remember which, and I don't particularly want to. 
 I don't suppose I shall keep her with me for many years. 
 She's a very beautiful girl. So was her mother. And 
 gentle and sweet and good too — ^both of them. Ah, 
 whatever I've missed in life — ^whatever mistakes I've 
 made — I've had that. There's nothing in this world 
 like a good and beautiful woman — "A lovely apparition, 
 sent to be a moment's ornament." — How does it go on? 
 I can't keep these things in my head.' 
 
 Wilbraham threw a look at Bastian's glass, of which 
 the contents were now reduced by half. His speech 
 showed n^ sign of deterioration — ^he was evidently one 
 of those people who could 'carry their liquor' — but 
 Wilbraham recognised his state as one in which the 
 ordinary dictates of reticence would be considerably 
 relaxed. 
 
 His own glass was nearly as full as before. He could 
 quite- easily have gone away and left it there. He felt 
 that the small amount he had already drunk had done 
 him a vast amount of good, enlightened his brain and 
 stimulated his body. He had an impulse of pity toward^ 
 Bastian, who was under the influence of the desire from 
 which he had emancipated himself, and of self-congratu- 
 lation at his own freedom. Thank God that he could 
 drink what was good for him, and stop there. He was 
 inclined to like Bastian exceedingly. It might be 
 possible, if he got to know him better, to help him out 
 of the morass into which he had fallen. It seemed 
 
BASTIAN 147 
 
 probable that the state of poverty to which he had come 
 was owing to habits of intemperance. A man who had 
 had the same incUnations and might have been brought 
 under by them, but had overcome them instead, would 
 be the right man to help another, if he could gain his 
 confidence. And Bastian seemed to be in the mood to 
 give confidence. 
 
 'I'm afraid I don't know your name as an artist,' 
 said Wilbraham with a glance at the picture on the 
 mantelpiece. 'But it's years since I went to an exhibition; 
 I'm interested in art, though, and have read a good deal 
 about the modern movements.' 
 
 'Art!' echoed Bastian. 'There's nothing like it, is 
 there? The older I get the more I love it. Poetry, 
 music, painting — everything. To tell you the truth, 
 art has been my downfall.' 
 
 Wilbraham felt some surprise. He had thought that 
 if Bastian had been through any experience that might 
 'be described as a downfall, it had been from other 
 causes. 'Well, if you've followed it when you might 
 have been doing something else that would have brought 
 you more money,' he said, 'I don't know that you're so 
 much to be pitied. If I had the gift for painting, which 
 I haven't at all, I'd rather do what you're doing now 
 than get rich.' 
 
 Bastian laughed. 'I'm afraid I haven't much gift 
 either,' he said. ' I'm a rotten artist, and I'm a rotten 
 musician, and I'm a rotten poet. I've tried to make my 
 living out of all three; but perhaps you might say that 
 I haven't tried very hard. I love 'em all too much. It's 
 rotten to have to make your living out of what you love. 
 You want to enjoy it, not to practise it, unless you've 
 got a turn that way. You don't have to be a singer 
 yourself to enjoy other people's singing; it doesn't 
 follow that you can paint good pictures because you 
 know a bad one when you see it. There ought to be 
 
148 SIR HARRY 
 
 ■ - ^ 
 
 scholarships at the universities for people with a genius 
 for contemplation, and life fellowships to follow them up.' 
 
 'The holders of life fellowships have sometimes been 
 known to practise contemplation to an excessive extent,' 
 said WUbraham. 
 
 Bastian laughed heartily. 'That's rather good,' he 
 said. 'But what a pleasant life, eh? Those jolly places 
 — and plenty of good company, and good wine I Why 
 should that happy lot be reserved for people who 
 happened to interest themselves in one or two subjects, 
 out of all that there are to interest one, in their extreme 
 youth? I suppose you were at Oxford or Cambridge 
 in those happy days of long ago?' 
 
 'Cambridge,' said Wilbraham. 'I was at Christ's.' 
 
 ' We must have been there about the same time. I was 
 at Magdalene — a nice snug little coUege, and becoming 
 quite an inteUigent one, from what I've heard. But 
 I haven't been there since I came down. They wouldn't 
 be very proud of me now, I'm afraid. One or two touts 
 or stablemen might recognise me perhaps. They had 
 plenty of money out of me when I had it. I don't belong 
 to that life any more.' 
 
 He had a sudden mournful droop, and drank what 
 was left in his glass. Wilbraham had lost the impression 
 that he was much affected by what he had drunk, but 
 it returned now. That drop into self -pitying depression 
 immediately after smiling excitement told its tale. His 
 own sobriety was indicated by his glass, still two-thirds 
 full. He had half a mind to remark upon Bastian's 
 helping himself to another stiff peg, which he did with 
 a perfectly steady hand. But he did not know him well 
 enough yet; the time for that sort of sympathy had 
 not yet come. 
 
 But he was more than ever interested in him. His 
 fall must have been from a higher social plane than he 
 had suspected. Undergraduates whose money had been 
 
BASTIAN 149 
 
 spent in connection with horseflesh usually had more 
 than the average to begin with, and Magdalene had been 
 a super-sporting college in his and Bastian's day. 
 
 ' I was the son of a poor parson,' he said. 'I got my 
 scholarship, and if I had worked I should probably have 
 got my fellowship too. I did work at what interested 
 me, but the devil of it was that it didn't interest the dons. 
 Those prizes are reserved for the people who have the 
 sense to stick at one thing till they've got them. Then 
 they can do what they like. They're not necessarily 
 the people who are best at their subjects. I've got a real 
 love for the classics, and I probably know a good deal 
 more about them than a lot of the people who got Firsts 
 when I only got a Second. It's the concentration of those 
 few years that counts.' 
 
 Bastian laughed again. ' Firsts and Seconds ! ' he 
 said. 'I didn't take a degree at all. The smash had 
 come before then, and I was tied up for life.' 
 
 Wilbraham was rather taken aback. It looked as if 
 confidences were coming, and he had the gentleman's 
 dislike to receiving them unless they are given with full 
 intention. 'Don't tell me anything you'll be sorry for 
 afterwards,' he said, with another look at Bastian's 
 glass. 
 
 'Oh, my dear fellow, I'm not drunk,' said Bastian. 
 ' I drink a lot, and no doubt it has had a good deal to do 
 with keeping me where I am; but I don't get drunk. 
 I don't often meet anybody Uke you, who belongs to the 
 world I used to inhabit. It's a reUef sometimes- to 
 unburden oneself. Besides, there's Viola. Viola doesn't 
 often get the chance of talking to a gentleman. I think 
 you'll open your eyes when you see Viola. I haven't 
 been able to raise myself out of the muck, but it hasn't 
 touched her. She's the flower that has grown out 
 of it.' 
 
 Wilbraham still felt some discomfort. If it were true 
 
150 SIR HARRY 
 
 that Bastian never got drunk, he was none the less under 
 the influence of drink now, or he wouldn't have talked 
 about himself with quite that absence of control. He 
 naust have been referring to his wife when he had said 
 that he had been tied up for Hfe, and men don't talk to 
 one another in that way about their wives on a first 
 acquaintance when they are in full possession of them- 
 selves. 
 
 ' I shouldn't let anything you told me go any further,' 
 Wilbraham said. 
 
 Bastian did not seem to have heard this. He was 
 looking down with a frown of concentrated purpose. To 
 unburden himself was evidently imperative on him for 
 the moment, and he was collecting his faculties to that 
 end. 
 
 'I don't want to give you a false impression,' he said. 
 ' My wife was a woman in a thousand. Never did I have 
 one moment's regret that I had married her. I think, 
 if she'd lived, she might have made a man of me still. 
 Perhaps it was a fluke — I don't want to make myself 
 out better than I was, and I was a rotten young fool in 
 those days — perhaps it was a fluke that she was what 
 she was, because it was only her beauty that I fell in 
 love with, and I hadn't the sense then to see what there 
 vtas behind it. But what I do say is that my people 
 ought to have seen. I'll never forgive them for that, 
 and I'll never let Viola have anything to do with them. 
 She doesn't even know their name, and ' 
 
 'I don't quite understand,' said Wilbraham, as he 
 seemed to be off on another gallop. 'Why did your 
 people object to your marrying?' 
 
 'Oh, well, of course it was a fool's trick. I wasn't 
 even of age, and she was a girl off the stage, but one of 
 the sweetest, kindest girls that ever stepped. 1 only 
 had her for a few years, but I tell you I'm in love with 
 her memory still. She's bqen dead seventeen years and 
 
BASTIAN 131 
 
 I miss her as much as ever. Life's nothing to me, though 
 I'm not old yet; I buried it all in her grave.' 
 
 It was curious, thought Wilbraham, that there should 
 be a story here not dissimilar from the one that he had 
 lived with for about the same length of time. But the 
 girl, whose father had made the same mistake as Harry's, 
 had not been shielded from its consequences as he had. 
 She was hardly likely to have escaped the contamination 
 of the rougher harder world to which her father had 
 descended. Wilbraham attributed Bastian's praise of 
 his wife largely to the diffuse sentiment of the moment. 
 He had not otherwise created the impression of a man 
 living upon a hfe-long regret. His daughter, if she was 
 the close companion of his poverty and the witness of 
 his habits, could hardly be the rare and deUcate flower 
 that he painted her, though she was probably beautiful. 
 At any rate it would be just as well to preserve Harry 
 from contact with her. It would be an ironic stroke of 
 fate if in this remote corner in which he had been brought 
 up the glamour of the stage should obtrude itself once 
 more. 
 
 ' Is your daughter on the stage ? ' he asked outright, 
 at this stage of his reflections. 
 
 Bastian roused himself, and seemed to shake off 
 completely his mood of hopeless regret. ' God forbid ! ' 
 he said. ' I wouldn't have risked that, though if I had, 
 I believe she'd have come through it. You must see 
 Viola. I don't know where she is now. She's like a 
 sweet young creature of the woods — roams about in 
 them all day. That'll tell you what she is — a London 
 girl, who can throw London off her altogether when she 
 gets away from it. She's less bound to it even than 
 I am. Come up to-morrow, will you ? I'll tell her to be 
 in to tea. She sometimes takes it out with her. Can 
 you come about half -past four?' 
 
 Wilbraham had been thinking rapidly. If this girl 
 
152 SIR HARRY 
 
 was in the habit of roaming the woods all day she might 
 come across Harry, who was also in the habit of roaming 
 the woods. All the ideas with which Wilbraham had 
 lived for years past gathered themselves into the 
 instinct to watch and guard. He must see this girl of 
 Bastian's, and he must be prepared for what should 
 come, so that he could deal with it without surprise and 
 without hurry. Fortunately, he had not announced his 
 intention of calling upon the artist that afternoon. He 
 would say nothing about his visit at the Castle, but 
 would announce one for the next day. 
 
 'Yes, I should Uke to come,' he said, as he rose from 
 his seat. 'I must be getting back now.' 
 
 About a third of the whisky remained in his glass. 
 He stood looking at it, as Bastian expressed his pleasure 
 in having seen him, and then drained it off before he 
 left the room. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 WILBRAHAM 
 
 Harry and Viola were in the log catin. They had 
 varied their meeting-places. Best of them all, they 
 loved the secret pool, but that was only for very hot 
 still weather. Rain was falling intermittently this 
 afternoon, but every now and then the sun shone. The 
 weather made little difference to their happiness, and 
 the cabin, Harry's handiwork, provided them with a 
 shelter when they needed it, wliich brought them also 
 a grateful sense of seclusion aad joint possession. 
 The Rectory was empty; Sunday duty was performed 
 by a visiting clergyman; nobody was in the least likely 
 to disturb them in their retreat. Viola had got rid of 
 her slight suspicion of Jane, which she had already 
 confessed to Harry, with happy laughter. 'She may 
 not know it,' she had said, 'but of course she's in love 
 with you, poor child ! She couldn't help being, if she 
 was only nine instead of thirteen. I was a little jealous 
 of her being so much with you. But I love her for 
 loving you, and of course I'm not jealous of anybody 
 now.' 
 
 The log cabin was roughly furnished. Not much 
 mofe would have been required if it had really been the 
 home of a pioneer. Harry and Viola had played with 
 the idea of living together in such a cabin, with a new 
 beautiful world to be tamed all around them, and this 
 as the nest of their love and companionship. So he 
 had played with the children, but Viola's presence had 
 given their cabin a wonderful romantic charm which 
 it had never had, and which it would never lose. Her 
 
 S.H. 153 L 
 
134 SIR HARRY 
 
 presence would illumine every place in which she might 
 rest. Harry's old castle was still in shadow because 
 she had not yet visited it. 
 
 It was the morning of the day upon which Wilbraham 
 was to take tea with Bastian, and Viola was to be there 
 to be exhibited to him. Harry had been concerned at 
 hearing that he had already been to the cottage. 
 
 'He has said nothing about it at home,' he said. 
 "This morning at breakfast he did say that he had 
 thought of going to see your father this afternoon, but 
 that it looked like raining all day. What does it 
 mean ? ' 
 
 'Nothing very dreadful,' said Viola. 'He and father 
 seem to have got on very well together yesterday, but 
 perhaps he wasn't quite sure enough of him to ask him 
 to the castle. Perhaps he wants to see what I'm like 
 first. 
 
 Harry threw her a quick, loving look. They were 
 sitting together on a bench underneath the eaves of 
 the hut. They might not have been taken for lovers 
 by any one who had seen them; their caresses were rarer 
 than might have been expected, fathoms deep in love 
 with one another as they were; but looks and smiles 
 flashed between them like summer lightning, and scarcely 
 the lightest word w'as spoken without emotion. 
 
 ' When he sees you,' Harry began; but she interrupted 
 him. 
 
 'Father doesn't want to go if he does ask us,' she 
 said. 'And I couldn't go, Harry dear. I love you so 
 much that I couldn't keep it back. I'm afraid I shan't 
 be able to keep it back this afternoon from Mr Wilbraham 
 if he says anything about you.' 
 
 'I've asked myself sometimes,' Harry said thought- 
 fully, 'whether it's right to keep it back. You're so 
 much above everj'body else in the world, Viola, that ' 
 
 Again she interrupted him. 'Harry, darting,' she 
 
WILBRAHAM 155 
 
 said, 'I've thought about it too. There are lots of 
 things that I know about in the world that you don't. 
 I only want to forget them while I'm here with you; 
 and I can't if other people know how much I love you, 
 and that you love me. They wouldn't let us forget 
 them.' 
 
 'What sort of things, Viola dear? I'm not a child, 
 though perhaps they have tried to keep me one for 
 to6 long, at home. I'm going to take care of you, for all 
 our lives. I ought to know as much as you do.' 
 
 'I hope you never will, darling,' she said, a Uttle 
 sadly. 'I know that things I have learnt haven't 
 spoilt me, or else I shouldn't feel so happy as I do in 
 your loving me. But other people might not beUeve 
 that. We're very young, both of us. We love as deeply 
 as people who are older love, and we know we shall go 
 on loving each other aU our lives. But others wouldn't 
 believe that. They would try to part us. They wotdd 
 part us, as long as I stayed here; and there's such a 
 little time left. Oh, let us be happy together while it 
 lasts, and keep our lovely secret.' 
 
 'Why should they try to part us, Viola? Who is 
 there? My grandmother and my mother. If they 
 only saw you ! ' 
 
 She smiled at him. 'It wouldn't be enough,' she 
 said, 'whatever I was. And they wouldn't look at me 
 with your eyes. Perhaps nobody else would. What was 
 it made you love me so much, Harry? ' 
 
 He had told her a hundred times, and now told her 
 again; and she told him that she had loved him the 
 very first moment she had set eyes on him, riding up on 
 his gallant horse with his dogs around him. ' You were 
 like a splendid young knight,' she said. 'No girl could 
 have helped loving you. But I love you a thousand 
 times more now than I did then, and I suppose I shaU 
 go on loving you more and more all my life.' 
 
156 SIR HARRY 
 
 It was like the old stories of his childhood, which had 
 to be told over and over again, and were better every 
 time they were told. But now it was not as it had been 
 then, when no variation must be admitted in the telling. 
 There was always something new — some little discovery 
 that deepened the sense of perfection and wonderment, 
 some answering thought that showed them to have been 
 close to one another, even in the hours in which they 
 were parted and were pasturing on their sweet memories 
 of one another. 
 
 It was with a kind of solemnity of sweetness that 
 Harry dwelt upon Viola's trust in him and his man- 
 hood. By a thousand Uttle signs it had been made 
 plain that she knew more of the world than he, but she 
 put all that knowledge aside and looked up to him 
 and submitted to him as if infinite wisdom and experience 
 were his. And in truth he had grown greatly in mental 
 stature since her love had come into his life to change 
 it so completely. They must have remarked upon it 
 at home if he had not taken such advantage of the 
 freedom that was granted him, and been so little at home 
 at this time. His mother actually had told him that 
 he was altered, after he had expressed himself with 
 more than usual self-confidence when they had talked 
 about the war over the dinner-table. She was always 
 on the look-out for signs of something that might take 
 him from her, and she feared the war and what might 
 come of it with an unreasoning fear, considering the 
 information at her command. Harry was thinking a 
 great deal about the war now, which does not mean that 
 there were any times at which he was not thinking 
 about Viola. With the coming of love his sense of the 
 deeper values of life had become strengthened. If he 
 had felt himself borne along on a strong current that 
 would carry him to whatever of action or duty or mere 
 state of being that was laid down for him, then whatever 
 
WILBRAHAM 157 
 
 happened to him was part of the whole, and nothing in 
 his hfe would be dissociated from anything else. It 
 was this sense of unity that lifted his fresh bo3r's 
 adoration of a girl as young and as pure as himself into 
 something bigger and more rooted than that, beautiful 
 as it is. His love gave the divine note of joy to all his 
 purpose, sweetened and solemnised it at the same time. 
 It was not like a great happiness in which he could 
 forget himself, and which he must also forget for a time 
 if something more serious had to be faced. 
 
 This morning, for the first time, influenced, perhaps, 
 by the breath from outside which had come through 
 Wilbraham's advent upon the scene, which, however, 
 they put aside from them, they talked about the time 
 when Viola should have gone away. 
 
 Their extreme youth moved them to sadness, which 
 was not whoUy painful because the time was not near 
 yet, and present bliss was only heightened by the 
 thought of parting. TheyAvere so far unlike most young 
 lovers that no mention was made of writing, or even 
 of meeting again. It was as if the contact between 
 them was so close and so sure that however far apart 
 they might be in space, and for whatever time, they 
 would still be together. 
 
 Harry was serious about the future. 'I don't know 
 exactly what is going to happen,' he said. ' I'm supposed 
 to be going to Sandhurst in January, but that's a long 
 time ahead. I seem to see the war swallowing up 
 everything. There's something to be done here about 
 it, and perhaps it will be for me to do it. But there's 
 nothing to show yet. I think there won't be till you 
 go away, my darling. I think there's nothing that will 
 come in the way of my being with you, and thinking 
 about nothing but you.' 
 
 'Do you think you will have to go and fight, Harry? 
 Oh, surely you're too young for that, darling ! ' 
 
158 SIR HARRY 
 
 'I'm not too young to love you.' 
 
 She thought over this. It was one of the things he 
 sometimes said that meant more than it seemed to. 
 She loved those speeches of his, springing from some- 
 thing in him to which she could give all her faith and 
 all her devotion. They helped her to plumb the depths 
 in him, and she had never found anything there that 
 did not make her glad and proud of loving him. 
 
 This time her pride brought the tears close to her 
 eyes. There was more than the sweetness of young love 
 in this — to be loved as something in full alliance with 
 all the biggest things that a man might be called upon 
 to do in the world, and to which he must bring, all that 
 he was and all that he had, even his life itself if it 
 should be required of him. 
 
 'I shouldn't want you not to, Harry,' she said. 
 
 He did not tell her of his conviction that the war 
 would claim him. She was his to be protected, and some 
 things she must be spared. When the time came, she 
 would somehow be concerned in it, because she would 
 be concerned in everything that he did, and whatever 
 he should want of her then she would give him. He 
 had as much confidence in her as she in him. 
 
 'The war is like a great shadow over everything,' he 
 said. 'We're in the sunshine just now, you and I — 
 the most glorious sunshine. I don't think that we need 
 fear the shadow for ourselves. But for others — for 
 some it's very deep.' 
 
 The shadow seemed to creep closer and touch her 
 heart as he spoke. They were silent for a time, her 
 hand resting in his. The contact strengthened them 
 both, and the shadow passed away from her. For the 
 rest of their time together that morning they made 
 love and built their airy rainbow castles, almost as 
 unsubstantial as those of children. In fact, they played 
 with the idea of having Jane and Pobbles to live with 
 
WlLBRAHAM 159 
 
 them. It hardly seemed fair to be using the cabin in 
 which they had a proprietary share, and leave them 
 out of it. They would pass suddenly from grave to gay 
 in this way, and there were many times when the 
 children could have taken a full part in their conversa- 
 tion mtliout being at all in the way. 
 
 At about six o'clock that evening Wilbraham was 
 walking along the woodland path that led from the 
 cottage to the Castle. He walked slowly, with his 
 eyes on the ground all the time, and his face was very 
 thoughtful. He started violently as he looked up to 
 see Harry standing in the path in front of him. 
 
 For a moment they stood there looking at one 
 another. 
 
 'Well?' said Harry. 
 
 Wilbraham's eyes dropped, and he walked on, Harry 
 with him. 'You've been meeting her,' he said. 
 
 'Yes.' 
 
 Another pause. Then from Wilbraham. 'You've 
 been making love.' 
 
 'Making love? I don't like the expression. We love 
 each other — yes.' 
 
 Wilbraham said nothing, and they walked on together. 
 Presently they came to a fallen tree by the side of the 
 path. Let's sit down here and have it out,' said 
 Wilbraham. 
 
 Harry spoke first. 'I'm glad you know,' he said. 
 ' I'd like all the world to know; you can tell why, now 
 you've seen her. But I suppose it wouldn't do for 
 mother and Granny to know — not just yet.' 
 
 Wilbraham seemed to pull his determination together. 
 'My dear boy,' he said, 'you mustn't take it for granted 
 that they're not to know. It has come as a complete 
 surprise to me; I don't know what to do about it yet.' 
 
 Harry laughed. The situation seemed to contain no 
 
i6o SIR HARRY 
 
 awkwardness for him, whatever doubts it might have 
 brought to Wilbraham. Before you settle that,' he 
 said, 'tell me what you think of her.' 
 
 'She's a very beautiful child,' said Wilbraham 
 thoughtfully. He laid no stress on the word ' child,' to 
 belittle Harry's confession of love. It was as she had 
 struck him. 
 
 He had gone into the little parlour to find Bastian 
 there, dressed more in accordance with what he had 
 seemed to be than on the day before. A faint smell of 
 his strong tobacco hung about the room, but it had been 
 tidied, and freshened up with flowers, and tea was laid 
 on the table, with signs of ceremony and care. Then 
 Viola came in, and he had the impression of Bastian 
 triumphantly watching him as he introduced her. 
 
 He did indeed open his eyes at first sight of her, as 
 her father had foretold. He would not have been so 
 surprised at the vision of her, fresh and delicate, very 
 simply dressed, in her white frock, with all the air about 
 her of breeding and refinement, if it had not been for 
 the memory of Bastian the day before, with his deteri- 
 orated tastes, and his talk of downfall. A flower, he 
 had said of her, growing out of the mire; but who had 
 tended her growing? 
 
 Mrs Ivimey came in with the tea, and was voluble 
 with Wilbraham about her ladyship and Sir Harry. 
 Wilbraham's eyes were on Viola the whole time, and- 
 he saw the colour rise on her soft cheeks as Harry's 
 name was mentioned, but made nothing of it at the time. 
 
 Nothing more was said about the Castle when Mrs 
 Ivimey had left the room. Wilbraham had not given 
 the invitation that might have been expected of him. 
 He recognised with a sense of gratitude that no hints 
 towards it need be feared. Bastian showed up much 
 more as a gentleman than on the afternoon before; his 
 
WILBRAHAM i6i 
 
 clothes were old enough but no longer disreputable, apd 
 he was obviously entirely free from the influence of 
 drink. The difference in his speech and bearing seemed 
 to exaggerate his state of the afternoon before into one 
 of actual drunkenness. 
 
 They talked chiefly about books, and more particularly 
 about poetry. Viola talked very httle, but her father 
 sometimes referred to her, as if to show with pride 
 what she was. Her enthusiasms showed here and 
 there. Wilbraham's wonder grew at her. 
 
 Harry came to his mind again. He brought his name 
 in deliberately. 'Harry, my pupil, used to shout that 
 out when he first read it. He loves poetry, and it takes 
 him like that.' 
 
 Viola made no reply, but the flush dyed the rose- 
 petal of her cheeks again. ' It's the youth in him,' her 
 father said. 'Poetry brings you real joy when you're 
 young, doesn't it, Viola?' 
 
 She had to look up at last, and Wilbraham saw her 
 eyes. She made a brave effort to speak evenly, but her 
 voice trembled a httle as she said, ' Yes, all the beautiful 
 things in the world make you glad.' 
 
 Then Wilbraham knew, and a wave of sympathy and 
 tenderness flowed over him, but was brought up short 
 against the wall that all the aims of the past years 
 had built up around Harry, and dashed back on him 
 to overwhelm him. He emerged gasping, but with the 
 instinct strong in him to*keep his knowledge from being 
 seen. In the rest of the time he stayed at the cottage 
 nothing was said to cause Viola to betray herself 
 further, but he was observing her all the time, and his 
 bewilderment grew. 
 
 She seemed to have divined that the danger was over, 
 and .came out of her shell and smiled and prattled 
 delightfully. Her happiness was too strong in her to 
 be kept under, and she would not have been human. 
 
i62 sm HARRV 
 
 or feminine, if she had not wished to make a pleasant 
 impression upon Wilbraham, who was so near to Harry. 
 It was the impression of delicious sparkling youth that 
 came to him most strongly. It was as if the confession 
 was drawn out of him reluctantly when in his answer 
 to Harry's question he said slowly : ' She's a very 
 beautiful child.' 
 
 'Why didn't you teach me what a beautiful thing 
 love is?' asked Harry. 'We've read a lot about it 
 together, but I never had an idea of it until now. I 
 don't think anybody in the world has ever been so 
 happy as I am.' 
 
 Wilbraham was torn in two again. His appreciations 
 were not all bookish, and he loved Harry. He saw that 
 m a nature such as his, love would come as a very 
 beautiful thing, and his searchmg observation of Viola 
 had revealed nothing in her that could make it less 
 so. And yet ! 
 
 'How long have you known her?' he asked. 
 
 ' What does it matter? ' said Harry. ' I've known her 
 all my hfe. If I look back to any time in it, she was 
 there, though I'd never seen her. We've been meeting 
 every day, if that's what you mean?' 
 
 It was what Wilbraham had meant, and he felt dis- 
 comfort at having asked the question. It was the dis- 
 comfort that must come from probing into this situation, 
 with the fear before him of saying something that would 
 smirch the bright purity of Harry's mind. Anything 
 that brought his actions to the test must do that, if 
 he came to understand what tests were applicable 
 to his meetings with Viola. 
 
 'Why didn't you tell us?' seemed to be the easiest 
 thing to say, and he said it with a half hope that the 
 answer would give him some handle, though without 
 mental acknowledgment of the hope. 
 
WILBRAHAM 163 
 
 ' Well, I felt somehow that you'd try to stop me,' said 
 the boy. 'At least mother and Granny would. I did 
 nearly tell mother, the first time I'd seen Viola, but 
 something warned me not to. I've been glad since 
 that I didn't, It has just been she and I — ^Viola and I. 
 Oh, how I love her ! I'm glad you've seen her. But 
 you must keep it to yourself. We haven't much longer 
 together. I can't have our tune spoilt.' 
 
 He spoke almost with authority. With every moment 
 Wilbraham felt some new Uttle emotion of change and 
 development too quick for him to master. HaiTy had 
 been the most docile of pupils. Never once since his 
 first dealings with him as a young child had he had to 
 exercise authority against desires or inclinations of his. 
 True, he had held the reins lightly, and never given 
 him a rebuke or a direction that had mood instead of 
 reason behind it; but it had sometimes crossed his 
 mind that the boy was too docile, and that his sense of 
 responsibihty and self-mastery might be sapped if he 
 was brought up to give unquestioning obedience to 
 the directions of his elders. He had mentioned this 
 fear to Lady Brent, and her answer to it had been of 
 the kind that he had received once or twice before in 
 his consultations with her, from which his confidence 
 in her ultimate wisdom had been so firmly fixed. The 
 same doubt, it seemed, had crossed her own mind. 
 It was to be met by allowing Harry the fullest possible 
 trust and freedom. If at any time he overstepped the 
 freedom it was not to be treated as a fault. He was 
 to be told why it was not advisable for him to do this 
 or that, and the decision left to him. Once or twice 
 this had happened, and once he had stuck out for his 
 own will. It was when his nocturnal rambles had been 
 discovered by chance, shortly after that night upon 
 which. Grant had seen him out in the park. Lady 
 Brent, with calm and admirable self-restraint, had said : 
 
i64 SIR HARRY 
 
 'Very well, Harry. After all, I don't know that there's 
 any harm in it. If I had known of it a year ago I 
 might have stopped it; but now you're old enough to 
 do as you like in that sort of way.' 
 
 No one observing the boy, Wilbraham had thought, 
 could say that he was molly-coddled into submission. 
 Few boys of his age had such freedom granted to them, 
 or carried a more gallant air before the world; and the 
 Grants, of whom he had taken counsel, as representing 
 the views of the world more closely than he in his 
 retirement could do, had supported him. 
 
 And yet there had been the feeling that Harry was 
 extraordinarily easy to manage — too amiably sub- 
 missive, almost, to the guidance of his elders, and 
 Wilbraham himself particularly. 
 
 But now ! Wilbraham mentally shook himself. 
 
 Was he receiving instructions from Harry — and almost 
 inclined himself to accept them submissively.' 
 
 The little spurt to his pride took him a trifle farther 
 than he had wished to go. ' I don't think it's a matter 
 for me to decide on, apart from your grandmother,' he 
 said. 
 
 Harry turned a surprised face on him. 'No, it's for 
 me to decide on,' he said. 'By-and-by I shall tell 
 Granny — of course. But I don't in the least know when 
 it will be. There's nothing to show yet.' 
 
 The phrase struck Wilbraham oddly. Harry had 
 used it once or twice to him before. ' One has to decide 
 upon things with one's brain,' he said, 'and out of one's 
 experience — important things that may affect one's 
 life. They can't be left to impulse.' 
 
 'The two go together, I suppose,' said Harry, almost 
 with indifference. 
 
 It was one of those little speeches upon which Viola 
 would hang as containing the quiritessence of wisdom. 
 She might not have understood this speech, but 
 
WILBRAHAM 165 
 
 Wilbraham did, and it affected him profoundly. Here 
 was that rarest of characters — one who had never 
 played with his impulses, to give them scope beyond 
 the guidance of his reason. He could trust his impulses 
 because their springs were controlled. 
 
 'Shall we go on? ' said Harry, rising. 
 
 Wilbraham rose too, slowly, after a pause of reflection, 
 and they walked on. Viola's name was not mentioned 
 again between them. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DILEMMA 
 
 WiLBRAHAM walked up and down in a retired part of 
 the garden where no one was likely to disturb him. 
 Sometimes, because he had walked rather farther that 
 afternoon already than was his custom, he sat down on 
 a garden seat at the end of the alley where he was; 
 but only his body was at rest. His mind was eagerly 
 searching for the right course. If only it were as 
 straight and as easy to tread as this soft turfed walk 
 between the uncompromising green walls, with the 
 evening sun flooding the narrow space and warming 
 even the sombre tones of the yew to some leniency ! 
 
 He did not know where Harry was. He had left him 
 when they had reached the house. For all he could 
 tell, he might have gone straight back to Viola; there 
 was an hour yet before dinner. But he would hardly 
 have come right back to the castle with him, to talk 
 chiefly about the war, if he had meant to do that, and 
 he had let drop something which showed that he had 
 no intention of staying out during the dinner hour. 
 Perhaps he would go to her afterwards, as he must 
 have done on occasions before. It did not much 
 matter. He had claimed the right to go to her when he 
 pleased, and Wilbraham had not controverted it. His 
 authority seemed to have come to a very sudden end, 
 he thought, with a wry smile. 
 
 There remained Lady Brent's authority. Should he 
 invoke it ? That was what he had to decide for himself 
 before he left this garden alley, the retired scene of his 
 cogitations. 
 
 I66 
 
DILEMMA 167 
 
 Harry had extracted no promise from him. That 
 pleased him, as it had pleased Grant when he had acted 
 in the same way over his secret midnight roaming. 
 They had been justified in their treatment of him to 
 that extent. He would be ashamed of nothing that he 
 had done, not even to the extent of asking that it 
 should be kept secret where he had shown that secrecy 
 was what he waJited — and expected. 
 
 That made it all the more difficult for Wilbraham. 
 He would seem to be breaking a promise if he told 
 Lady Brent, though he had given no promise. He 
 would at least be setting himself against Harry in a 
 matter which Harry had claimed the right to decide 
 for himself. He wanted to be very sure that the boy 
 was wrong in his decision before he did that. 
 
 He loved and admired Harry at that moment more 
 that he had ever done. He had a clearer vision than 
 ever before of the boy's clean, finely-tempered nature. 
 He felt himself rebuked by it, and what thoughts he 
 spared for himself, as apart from his duty towards 
 Harry and towards Lady Brent, worked rather sadly 
 upon the conviction of his own weakness. 
 
 He had kept silent about his previous visit to Bastian 
 only partly because of his wish to judge further for 
 himself before he gave or withheld the suggested 
 invitation to the Castle. He remembered now the 
 pleasure with which he had set out that afternoon to 
 go to the cottage, and knew that its chief source was 
 the anticipation of drinking with Bastian — drinking just 
 the amount and no more that would give him the slight 
 exhilaration that he had gained the day before. Bastian 
 had offered him nothing to drink except tea. Viola's 
 presence in the little parlour had made the scene of 
 the previous afternoon look ugly in the memory of it. 
 He was very glad now that it had been so. It would 
 have been too painful to have the burden of that secret 
 
i68 SIR HARRY 
 
 upon him while deciding what he should do with Harry's 
 secret. Lady Brent would certainly have looked upon 
 it as a fall, whatever view he might encourage himself 
 to take of it. 
 
 But surely, weak as he was, he had had something 
 to do with making Harry, who was of so much finer 
 clay, what he had grown into. He had pointed him 
 to noble things, fed his mind upon fine utterance of 
 fine thoughts, opened the door for him to all the rich 
 stores of wisdom laid up from the past. Yes, he had 
 done that, though he had had smaU profit of it for 
 himself. He was consoled by the thought that Harry 
 could not be what he was if any breath of his own 
 unworthiness had touched him. 
 
 He threw off the discomfort. He would act now for 
 HcLrry's good, as he had always acted. There had been 
 nothing wrong in him there. 
 
 He threw off, also, not without some impatience, the 
 influence of Harry's assuredness. If it was to be accepted 
 that the boy could do no wrong according to his lights 
 —which really seemed to be what it was coming to — it 
 was not the less necessary to judge the situation by 
 lights which did not shine upon him, the glimmer 
 of which, indeed, had been deliberately curtained from 
 him. 
 
 The love of a boy and a girl ! Oh, it was a touching 
 thing, when they were a boy and a girl like Harry and 
 Viola. Wilbraham rejected then and there any sugge.s- 
 tion that might have come from his dinted experience 
 that Viola was not Harr>''s mate in innocence and 
 purity. He bad seen her for himself. All that he knew 
 of her father, all that he did not know of her origin 
 and upbringing, could go by the board. His heart 
 spoke for her, his sentiment went out to her. He was a 
 poor weak self-indulgent creature, he told himself, 
 but he did recognise goodness and purity when he saw 
 
DILEMMA 169 
 
 it. Besides, what else could have attracted Harry? 
 He was doubly armed there. 
 
 But Lady Brent wouldn't see it like that. The 
 outside resemblances between what had happened to 
 Harry's father and what was now happening to Harry 
 would be too strong for her. She would think that all 
 for which she had worked and sacrificed herself through 
 long years would be destroyed if Harry was caught in 
 the snares of love at this early age. She would put her 
 spoke in. She would use all the wisdom of which she 
 was capable — and she had shown great wisdom in the 
 past — in putting a stop to it; but at least she would 
 try to do so. 
 
 And then what would happen? Wilbraham saw a 
 sharp contest between her and Harry, and, with the 
 deeper vision that had come to him of the boy's 
 character, he felt it to be extremely doubtful whether 
 Lady Brent would win. There would be a state of open 
 conflict, and Harry would be more firmly fixed in his 
 courses than before. 
 
 A boy and girl attachment ! They faded out. It 
 was absurd to suppose that at seventeen Harry could 
 have any idea of marriage, however much he and Viola 
 might have played with the overwhelming bhss of some 
 day being always together. He was not as his father 
 had been; he would marry, when the time came for 
 him to do so, with a full sense of his responsibility. 
 And Viola was not like Harry's mother. No, the danger 
 of a hasty secret marriage could be ruled out; it was 
 an affront to both of them to think of it. 
 
 Harry would go his way, and Viola would go hers. 
 Their ways lay naturally very far apart. They might 
 write to each other for a time, and they might see one 
 another occasionally; but what would it matter? At 
 the end of four years, when Harry would be twenty-one, 
 it was most probable that this almost childish love 
 
 S.H. M 
 
fjo SIR HARRY 
 
 passage would be forgotten, or exist only as a fragrant 
 memory. 
 
 Wilbraham divined in himself at this point a faint 
 regret at the thought of this beautiful boy and girl 
 ceasing to love one another. Viola had made a deep 
 impression upon him. 
 
 At any rate there was no harm in it. Probably there 
 was even good in it. Harry would soon be leaving 
 home, to plunge straight into a world for which 
 Wilbraham had sometimes thought that his training 
 had been a dangerous preparation. With this innocent 
 early love of his to accompany him, he would be armed 
 against many of the temptations to which sheltered 
 youth does succumb, when the shelter has at last been 
 withdrawn. 
 
 Wilbraham felt a sense of relief at having come to 
 these conclusions. He was sure they were right. Harry 
 had conquered. He should be left free to sun himself 
 in the glamour of his boy's courtship. How pretty it 
 was to think of them billing and cooing like two young 
 turtle-doves in their leafy fastnesses ! Wilbraham's 
 lettered thoughts flew to Theocritus, and he murmured 
 soft Greek words to himself, but decided that there 
 would be a delicacy about the wooing of these children 
 that could not be matched in Sicilian idylls. He rose 
 from his seat and made his way towards the house. 
 He had decided. He would leave them alone. 
 
 But as he dressed for dinner in a leisurely way, 
 lingering often at his window to enjoy the scents and 
 sounds of the garden dusk, the thought of Lady Brent 
 once more occurred to him, and his face grew thoughtful 
 again. 
 
 Hadn't he rather left her out of account? If the 
 decision had been so easy to come to, and seemed so 
 right now it was made, wouldn't she be quite as capable 
 of making it as he had been? 
 
DILEMMA i7± 
 
 Well, perhaps ! And whether she arrived at the same 
 conclusion or not, one thing was quite certain — ^that 
 she would be vastly annoyed with Wilbraham if she 
 knew that he had taken it upon himself to decide 
 without consultation with her. 
 
 But his doubts were soon dissipated. He had 
 decided for Harry, and was with him now. It might be 
 rather painful at some future time to face her offended 
 surprise, but, after all, he was a man and she was a 
 woman. And Harry had proved himself a man already. 
 They would only be in the same boat. Wilbraham 
 smiled to himself, put on his coat and went down to 
 dinner. 
 
 He had had some idea of giving Harry a word to 
 indicate that his secret was safe, but there was no 
 opportunity before they went in to dinner, and after- 
 wards he was glad that he had not done so. For Harry 
 did not even give him a look of inquiry. He chatted 
 and laughed and seemed to be in a mood of quite 
 unburdened high spirits. So had Viola been, but Viola 
 had not known that Wilbraham had discovered their 
 secret, and Harry did. Wilbraham was pleased to think 
 that Harry's evident absence of anxiety was the result 
 of his trust in him. He had surprised his secret and 
 he would respect it. What could he do otherwise? 
 Wilbraham was confirmed in his decision to leave Lady 
 Brent out of knowledge of it, but could not forbear an 
 exercise of imagination, as he glanced at her and 
 wondered what she would do if the truth were suddenly 
 blurted out to her. 
 
 A remarkable woman, certainly ! She provided 
 another little surprise that evening when, for the first 
 time, she seemed to contemplate the continuance of 
 the war for, such a time as would involve Harry in it. 
 It might be that it would take a year or even more to. 
 bring it to a conclusion. Lord Kitchener was said to 
 
172 SIR HARRY 
 
 have prophesied three years, which was impossible to 
 believe, but the South African War had lasted for two, 
 when everybody thought it would be over in a few 
 weeks. It might be that officers would be wanted more 
 quickly than they could be turned out in normal times, 
 and that Harry's Sandhurst training would be speeded 
 up. They must bear that in mind. 
 
 The prospect did not seem to cause her any dismay, 
 or, if it did, she concealed it. But poor Mrs Brent 
 raised a wail of protest. Surely they couldn't take boys 
 of eighteen, as Harry would only be in a year's time. 
 It would be wicked — ^unheard of. 
 
 'Not unheard of,' said Lady Brent. "And not wicked 
 either. For our own sakes we should wish Harry 
 kept out of it; but if he were of an age when others 
 went, we should wish him to go. However, let us hope 
 that there will be no necessity.' 
 
 'I don't think I hope that,' said Harry. 'I don't 
 want the war to last, because I think war is a horrible 
 thing. All the same, I wish I were fighting in this one. ' 
 
 Wilbraham controverted the opinion that war was a 
 horrible thing. Nations were apt to get lazy and selfish 
 over long periods of peace, and wanted rousing out of 
 themselves, just as sluggish human bodies did. War 
 was a tonic and a cleanser. 
 
 'Perhaps it is, for those who can fight, with a great 
 idea behind them,' said Harry. ' For all the rest, I think 
 it's beastly. At any rate, an Englishman could fight 
 in' this war and know he was doing the right thing. 
 I wish I were a year older now.' 
 
 Mrs Brent breathed a deep sigh and looked at him 
 hungrily. It was of no use her saying anything. If 
 Harry's fighting or not fighting should come to be 
 decided on, she would have no voice in the decision. 
 She looked anxiously at Lady Brent, who only said : 
 'Fortunately the matter isn't in our hands.' 
 
DILEMMA 173 
 
 'People of my age are enlisting,' said Harry shortly. 
 
 Lady Brent took this up at once. Perhaps she had 
 already thought of it. 'It is a fine thing for a young 
 man to do,' she said. ' But for those who have shown 
 their willingness to fight through generations, there 
 is an even higher duty, which is to lead. And you 
 cannot lead without the proper training.' 
 
 Harry did not reply, and the subject was dropped. 
 But to Wilbraham, with his senses more acute from 
 what he had learnt of him, came a glimpse into still 
 other chambers of his mind. His silence was not that 
 of one who had received an answer which settled a 
 doubtful point. In this, as in other matters, he would 
 take his own way, but the way was not yet clear to him, 
 and he would not talk about it beforehand. 
 
 It had come of late to be Harry's habit to stay with 
 Wilbraham after the women had left the table, while 
 he drank his coffee and smoked a cigarette. He had 
 done it at first on occasions, but now seldom went away 
 with his mother and grandmother. It was a habit that 
 marked his growing manhood, but he could stUl have 
 left him without remark if he had wished to do so. 
 If he should leave him to-night, Wilbraham thought, it 
 would be a sign that he did not wish to talk to him 
 again on the subject of which both their minds were 
 fuU. 
 
 But he came back again after opening the door for 
 his mother and grandmother. 
 
 How young and fair and slender he was, thought 
 Wilbraham, as he moved lightly across the great hall 
 and took his seat, as of right, in his chair of dignity. 
 Nothing but a beautiful boy, after all, too young as 
 yet by years to take upon himself any large responsi- 
 bilities; and yet, the much older man waited instinc- 
 tively on him, for an indication of the new relationship 
 that was to exist between them. 
 
174 SIR HARRY 
 
 The servants came in with the coffee, and until they 
 had left the room again nothing was said. Harry looked 
 thoughtful, and graver than usual. 
 
 When they were once more alone, he said : ' I want 
 you to do something for me, and I don't want Granny 
 to know — nor, of course, mother. It's for you to say 
 whether you'll do it or not, but I want you to promise 
 in any case not to let them know that I've asked you.' 
 Wilbraham was slightly huffed. ' I don't know why 
 you should want to extract a promise of secrecy before- 
 hand,' he said. 'You didn't this evening, but I've 
 thought it over and decided to keep to myself what I 
 found out.' 
 
 Harry looked puzzled for a moment, and then smiled. 
 'I hoped you would,' he said, 'for now I shall be able 
 to talk to you about her.' 
 
 'Thanks,' said Wilbraham dryly. 'I'm glad I'm 
 going to get some reward.' 
 
 Harry laughed. 'A young man in love is supposed 
 to be rather a bore, isn't he?' he said. 'I seem to 
 remember having read so, but people in love haven't 
 interested me much so far. Well, but of course that 
 was for you to decide — ^whether you'd keep it to your- 
 self or not. You might not have thought it right to 
 do so; I couldn't tell. But this is something quite 
 different — ^not about Viola, you know. I want you 
 to find out something for me, and I don't want Granny 
 to know yet that I'm thinking about it. You may 
 think she ought to know.' 
 
 'I suppose it's -something about the war,' said 
 Wilbraham, with the memory before him of Harry's 
 silence after that speech of Lady Brent's at dinner. 
 
 ' I shan't tell you what it is unless it's only between 
 you and me,' siaid Harry. 'I've a right to my own 
 thoughts.' 
 ' Very well, then, I promise.' 
 
DILEMMA 175 
 
 ' I want you to find out for me exactly what chances 
 there are of my being able to get a commission without 
 going through the regular Sandhurst training. I don't 
 think I want to wait for that if there are other ways.' 
 
 Wilbraham considered this. 'You're only seventeen,' 
 he said. 
 
 'Nearly eighteen,' said Harry, 'and a fine grown boy 
 for my age.' 
 
 'Why shouldn't you want your grandmother to 
 know? You heard what she said just now. If things 
 are going to be altered, so that training is cut short, 
 she's quite ready for you to take advantage of that.' 
 
 ' Ah, yes. She couldn't help it, you see. But I think 
 she'd do what she could to stop me doing anything 
 that could be helped. I want to know if there is any 
 other way before I say anything to her at all. I know 
 so little about it. But supposing I could get my com- 
 mission quicker by enhsting, for instance.' 
 
 'Oh, my dear boy, you wouldn't want to do that. 
 You heard what she said. She was quite right there. 
 I believe the men of your family have been soldiers 
 for as long as the men of any family.' 
 
 'That's just why I want to be one, now there's some 
 sense in soldiering, and as quickly as possible.' 
 
 'Yes, but as an officer. We're not so hard-pressed 
 yet that we want to cut grindstones with razors. It 
 would be waste of material for you to enlist.' 
 
 'Not if it led more quickly to being an officer. That's 
 what I should do it for. I know it has been done. 
 People did it in the South African War.' 
 
 'Well, yes. But that was in order to go and fight 
 —at once. You're not ready for that yet. You won't 
 be eighteen till December. They wouldn't take you 
 anyhow, unless you concealed your age, which, of 
 course, you wouldn't do — couldn't do either, because 
 you're known. Besides, your grandmother, who is 
 
176 SIR HARRY 
 
 your legal guardian, could stop you. Why hiury 
 things? You'll be at Sandhurst in a few months' tinae. 
 Then if there's any way to hurry things up, you can 
 find it out for yourself. I don't want to act against 
 your grandmother in this, Harry. I don't think it's 
 fair to her.' 
 
 'Well, perhaps it wouldn't be quite fair to you to 
 ask you to do it,' said Harry, with his engaging smile; 
 ' at least, not if nothing could come out of it. I suppose 
 you're quite sure that they wouldn't take me tiU I 
 was eighteen.' 
 
 'Oh, yes. The proclamations say so. You can see 
 it for yourself.' 
 
 'Oh, well, then,' said the boy, rising from his seat, 
 ' I suppose there's nothing to be done just yet. I only 
 wanted to be quite sure that I wasn't leaving anything 
 undone that I could do. I don't think Granny takes 
 quite the same view, you know. Anyhow, there's 
 nothing to bother her or mother for some months to 
 come. I think mother will be waiting for me.' 
 
 He passed Wilbraham, still sitting at the table, and 
 put his hand on his shoulder. ' I shall see her to-morrow, ' 
 he said in a low voice. He laughed a boyish laugh of 
 sheer happiness, and ran out of the hall. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE END OF THE SUMMER 
 
 It was a golden day in September, which is perhaps the 
 most beautiful of all EngHsh months, though touched 
 with a gentle melancholy that may be either soothing 
 or saddening, according to circumstances. Regarded 
 as the time for taking up a new speU of work or duty 
 after the relaxation of summer hoUday, it is a delightful 
 month, especially when the surroundings in which the 
 work is to be done are such as existed at Royd. The 
 Grant family had returned from the seaside, and the 
 Vicar-novelist was positively revelling in his enjoyment 
 of home, and declaring that the best day of a holiday 
 was its last. He had acquired a splendid idea for a 
 novel, which should excel all previous novels of his 
 by many degrees, and put into the shade a large number 
 of novels by other writers who had hitherto enjoyed a 
 success in advance of his own. He had sat down to 
 write the first chapter on the morning after their arrival 
 at the Vicarage, and felt to the full the restful charm 
 of his clean comfortable room, with all his books and 
 conveniences around him, and the garden outside in 
 the full coloured glow of its autumn profusion. 
 
 Jane and Pobbles had resumed their studies under 
 the guidance of Miss Minster, and if they were without 
 the experience of satisfaction on that account which 
 their father enjoyed, there was yet satisfaction to be 
 gained from returning to the society of Harry, to whom 
 they had an enormous amount of information to 
 impart. 
 
 Harry had also begun work again. The next three 
 177 
 
178 SIR HARRY 
 
 months were to be strenuous ones for him, with many 
 hours to be spent with Wilbraham, and many more witli 
 an Army coach, who had been called in to supplement 
 Wilbraham's deficiencies. This was Mr Hamerton, 
 an obscure man of middle-age, who hated coaching 
 embryo subalterns, hated the society of women, and 
 enjoyed life only when in the embrace of the purest 
 of pure mathematics. He was probably the most 
 serenely happy of all the inhabitants of Royd Castle at 
 this time. His hours with Harry were strictly defined, 
 and his pupil, though not an enthusiast in mathematics 
 as he would have liked him to be, showed intelligence 
 and application. The house was not always full of 
 fresh people with whom he had to begin all over again, 
 and he was not expected to spend valuable hours in 
 desultory and desolating conversation with the ladies 
 of the house itself, whom he met only at meal times. 
 He had most of his time to himself, in the large quiet 
 house, which he seldom quitted, and Harry had given 
 up to him his room in the tower, from the top of which 
 he could observe the stars, through a telescope of more 
 respectable dimensions than it was customary to find 
 in a country house. Mr Hamerton, retiring to the 
 absolute seclusion of his room, and the hours of undis- 
 turbed study or astronomical contemplation so happily 
 accorded him, would rub his hands with furtive glee 
 over his good fortune in having obtained such employ- 
 ment as this; and the relief to all other members of 
 the household in having him out of the way was 
 unspeakable. 
 
 Harry was with the children in the log cabin. They 
 had been home a fortnight, but this was the first time 
 that they had succeeded in drawing Harry there, 
 though they had raced up to it themselves at the first 
 possible moment after their return. 
 
 It was Saturday afternoon. They had had a picnic 
 
THE END OF THE SUMMER 179 
 
 tea, with the 'billy' boiled on a fire made of sticks 
 outside, and everything in orthodox backwoods fashion. 
 Jane and Pobbles had looked forward to it enormously, 
 but somehow it had not been quite the success that they 
 had anticipated, though Harry had made himself very 
 busy with the preparations, and on the outside every- 
 thing had seemed to be as it had been before they went 
 away. Now he and Jane were sitting on the bench 
 outside the cabin, while Pobbles had reluctantly retired 
 to fulfil a half hour's engagement with Miss Minster, 
 consequent upon some scholastic failure on his part 
 earlier in the week. 
 
 The two of them had been talking, as they had been 
 wont to talk, playing with the idea of such a life as 
 this as a real life and not a make-believe. But the 
 virtue had gone out of such play for Harry. Even now, 
 as he did his best to respond to Jane and not to let 
 her see that his heart was no longer in any game, he 
 was thinking of the last time he had sat where he was 
 sitting now, with Viola, and talked in something of 
 the same way, but with how different a meaning behind 
 the talk ! 
 
 The talk had died down. In Jane's sensitive little 
 soul was the knowledge that Harry's heart was not 
 in it. She looked up at him and saw his eyes fixed on 
 something beyond the green and russet of the trees 
 in front of them, and caught the look of yearning in 
 his face. 
 
 'Aren't you happy, Harry? ' she asked. 'I'll go away 
 and not bother you, if you'd like me to.' 
 
 He turned quickly to her, full of compunction that 
 he should have failed her after aU. He had been so 
 determined that the children should see no difference 
 in him. Why, indeed, should there be any towards 
 them? He had looked forward to their return after 
 Viola had gone away. His affection for them, because 
 
i8o SIR HARRY 
 
 of their childhood, was in some ways nearer to his love 
 for Viola than other affections of his life; they would 
 console him for the loss of her. And they had done so; 
 but his longing for her was so great, and no consolation 
 was of much avail to ease it. 
 
 ' Of course I don't want you to go away, dear,' he 
 said. 'I'd rather have you with me than anybody. 
 No, I'm not unhappy — perhaps a little sad sometimes. 
 Lots of things have happened since you went away, 
 you know. I shall be going away myself before long, 
 and as long as the war lasts nothing will be quite like 
 what it was before.' 
 
 ' Is it only the war that makes you sad ? ' she asked. 
 ' If there's anything else, I wish you'd tell me, now we're 
 alone together. Of course, with Pobbles I suppose I'm 
 rather like a boy; and with you too when we're all 
 three together. But I'm not always like that — inside, 
 I mean. I'm really more grown up than you'd think.' 
 
 Harry put his arm round her thin shoulders and gave 
 her a fraternal hug. ' You're a dear,' he said. ' I don't 
 really think of you as like a boy. There's something 
 comforting about your being a girl, though I don't 
 think about you as being grown up either, or anything 
 like it.' 
 
 'Well, then, tell me, Harry,' she said coaxingly. 
 'We're real friends, aren't we? I'd tell you if there was 
 anything that was making me unhappy. I suppose I 
 should tell mother first, but after her I'd tell you — 
 because we're friends.' 
 
 The inclination came to him to pour out his burdened 
 heart to her, but he put it aside. She was a dear loyal 
 little soul, and it would assuage his longing to talk to 
 her about Viola; but he could not burden her with a 
 secret, to relieve his own burden. 'I'm not really 
 unhappy,' he said, 'only rather sad. There is something 
 — ^perhaps I'd tell you if you were older, because we're 
 
THE END OF THE SUMMER i8i 
 
 friends. Anyhow, being friends with you makes me 
 less sad. I didn't mean you to know anything.' 
 
 'Of course I should know,' she said. 'But I won't 
 ask you any more if you don't want to tell me.' 
 
 He smiled at her affectionately. 'You'll be the first 
 person I shall tell when I tell anybody,' he said. He 
 thought for a moment, with a frown of concentration. 
 'I don't think there's any harm in our having a little 
 secret together — one of our play secrets. If I ever have 
 anything rather important to tell you — ^something that 
 I shouldn't want other people not to know, but I should 
 like to tell you first — I shaU come here very early in 
 the morning and put a little note just linder the window- 
 sill — in the crack, do you see?' 
 
 'Oh, yes,' said Jane, her face alight. 'That'll be 
 lovely. I don't mind your not teUing me now, Harry, 
 if you'll do it like that, so that I shall know before 
 anybody else. Thanks ever so much.' 
 
 The return of Pobbles at this moment, with his soul 
 as emancipated as his body, changed the current of 
 their conversation. For the rest of their time together, 
 Harry was all that he had been as a companion, and 
 Jane exercised a more rigid control over Pobbles than 
 the women of a family usually bring to bear upon the 
 men. But every now and then she looked at Harry 
 with a glance that beUed the extreme masculinity of her 
 deportment. How much did she guess, with her budding 
 woman's mind, and her wholly woman's S3mipathies? 
 Nothing of the truth, it may be supposed; but her 
 instincts told her that there was a change in him that 
 would not pass away through the solution of any 
 difficulty that might be troubling him, and that he 
 would never be quite the same as he had been 
 before. 
 
 Others had noted it besides Jane. The Grants and 
 Miss Minster talked it over that evening as they sat in 
 
i82 SIR HARRY 
 
 their pretty drawing-room after dinner, to the adorn- 
 ment of which had been added an old walnut wood 
 bureau, and a pair of Sheffield plate candlesticks, 
 brought home as spoil from the seaside town where 
 they had been staying. Grant's eyes rested on them 
 with satisfaction many times during their conversation. 
 The war might be entering upon a stage which promised 
 a far longer and harder struggle than anyone had 
 hitherto anticipated, and both royalties as well as other 
 payments might be affected by it; but Grant's royalties 
 had come in lately to an encouraging extent, and there 
 was still good old furniture to be picked up at bargain 
 prices if you kept your eyes open; and plenty of room 
 in the Vicarage for more. 
 
 Not to appear to be criticising our clerico-novelist 
 too severely for a detachment that was shared by 
 thousands who were afterwards personally drawn into 
 the turmoil, it may be said that nobody at this time, 
 unless it was those at the very heart of it, gauged the 
 immensity of the disaster that was settling down upon 
 Europe, and would presently involve the whole civilised 
 world. In future years, with the knowledge of the more 
 than four years of war that were then still to come in 
 retrospect, it will be difficult for the student to under- 
 stand just how life was altered and how it remained 
 unaffected, and the slow stages that England passed 
 through until there was nobody anywhere whose life 
 remained what it had "been before the war. 
 
 In those early days there was immense interest in the 
 incidents of warfare, more, indeed, than was taken at 
 a later date, when the lock of vast armies on a line 
 that remained very nearly the same until the end had 
 reduced the expectation of surprise; the papers were 
 eagerly read every morning for the hoped for news of 
 decisive success, but unless there was a personal interest 
 in it, as there was not at this time at Royd, the 
 
THE END OF THE SUMMER 183 
 
 war did not obscure other interests, or even affect 
 them. 
 
 The advent of Mr Hamerton had brought the 
 approaching change in Harry's Ufe more into evidence. 
 'I think he's talang it all very seriously,' Mrs Grant 
 said. ' Thank goodness he is too young to go and fight, 
 but of course it will bring it nearer to him, going to 
 Sandhurst; and anyhow it will be a great change in 
 his life.' 
 
 ' I think he is woriying a bit that he's not old enough 
 to go and fight,' said Grant. 'Most boys of his age — 
 nearly old enough, but not quite — would feel like that 
 about it.' 
 
 'He has changed a good deal since we went away,' 
 said Mrs Grant. 'He seems to me older altogether. I 
 think the children feel it too. He's just as sweet to 
 them as ever, but Pobbles said this evening that he 
 wasn't nearly so much fun to play with.' 
 
 'Pobbles brings everything to that test,' said Miss 
 Minster. 'If he does not mend his ways, I anticipate 
 an evil future for him.' 
 
 ' You've always been l^ard on Pobbles,' said Mrs Grant. 
 'There's very little that's really wrong with Pobbles.' 
 
 'Thanks chiefly to me,' said Miss Minster. 'I'm 
 incUned to think that there's friction again at the 
 Castle. Poor Mrs Brent was as lugubrious as possible 
 when she came yesterday, and Mr Wilbraham has the 
 same disagreeable air as he used to go about with earlier 
 in the summer.' 
 
 'That's true about Wilbraham,' said Grant. 'He has 
 been seeing a great deal of a London artist who was 
 lodging at Mrs Ivimey's on the Common. Perhaps it 
 has made him discontented with his lot here once more.' 
 
 'Has he said anything to you about it?' asked Mrs 
 Grant. 
 
 'No. Curiously enough he didn't seem to want to 
 
i84 SIR HARRY 
 
 talk much about the artist. He just said that he was 
 an interesting fellow to talk to, but they'd decided not to 
 ask him to the Ccistle. He had his daughter with him, 
 and I suppose they'd have had to ask her too, though 
 Wilbraham didn't give that as a reason, and only just 
 mentioned her. But he seems to have gone up to talk 
 to the father most afternoons.' 
 
 'You know the village gossip about the artist, don't 
 you?' said Mrs Grant. 
 
 'I don't encourage village gossip,' said the Vicar. 
 
 ' How very superior you are ! ' said Miss Minster. 
 •I love it.' 
 
 'Perhaps you would rather I didn't tell you what 
 they say, dear,' suggested Mrs Grant. 
 
 ' I think it's my duty to hear it,' said the Vicar, with 
 a grin. 
 
 'Well, they say he was a hard drinker, and the 
 mmiber of empty bottles he left behind him was past 
 belief.' 
 
 'Perhaps Mr Wilbraham went there to drink with 
 him,' said Miss Minster, 'and that accounts for his 
 moroseness.' 
 
 'You oughtn't to say a thing like that,' said Grant. 
 'Wilbraham is a teetotaller. None of them drink any- 
 thing at the Castle.' 
 
 ' Perhaps that's why he liked going to see the artist,' 
 said Miss Minster impenitently. 
 
 'And he doesn't even drink a glass of claret when he 
 lunches or dines here. No, you ought not to say that, 
 even in fun. I think what's the matter with him is that 
 his teaching of Harry is coming to an end. Of course, 
 he has been here for many years, and I suppose he'll 
 have to look about for something else to do. I don't 
 suppose he really likes_ handing Harry over to Hamerton 
 for a lot of his work. In fact, he said as much. He's 
 devoted to the boy.' 
 
THE END OF THE SUMMER 185 
 
 'Everybody is,' said Mrs Grant; 'and at the Castle 
 everj^hing centres round him. Poor Lady Brent seems 
 more stiff and stand-offish than ever. I suppose she 
 feels it too, that everything she has lived for, for years 
 past, is coming to an end, and now it will be tested 
 whether she has been right in bringing a boy up as 
 she has Harry, shut away from the world.' 
 
 'I shouldn't call Lady Breait stiff and stand-offish,' 
 said Grant. 
 
 'I only meant in eveiything that has to do with 
 Harry. One would like to talk to her about him, 
 but ' 
 
 'Surely she's always ready for that!' interrupted 
 Miss Minstt. 
 
 'Only on the surface. She wouldn't think of telhng 
 one anjrthing that she must be feeling about the future. 
 Oh, I do hope everything wiU turn out right. It is 
 dangerous to keep a boy shut up as Harry has been, 
 but I think it will pay with him. He's good right 
 through, and he's a splendid boy too — phj'sically, I 
 mean.' 
 
 'A good man on a horse,' said Grant, in a voice 
 indicative of quotation marks. 'Yes, he's not been 
 molly-coddled. I'm afraid he'U have some rude shocks 
 when he gets among other young fellows of his age, 
 but he'll be just as good as they are in the things that 
 young men admire, and he has a fine character to carry 
 him through. I hope she'll be justified in the course she 
 has taken. I think she will.' 
 
 September wore itself out, to the sadness of October, 
 but in days now and then the boon of summer seemed 
 to linger. Early one sunny morning, when the grass 
 was drenched with dew, and sparkling gossamer curtains 
 hung upon all the bushes, little Jane ran through the 
 garden and up to the wood where the log cabin was. 
 S.H. N 
 
186 SIR HARRY 
 
 The day before, Harry had come to tea with the 
 children in the schoolroom. They had had an uproarious 
 game together afterwards, and Pobbles had said that 
 it was more fun to play with him now than it had been 
 before the hoUdays. Jane too had felt that there was 
 a difference in him, and had been not the least uproarious 
 of the three. There was a weight removed; perhaps 
 Harry would tell her what his secret was now. 
 
 Harry had kissed both her and Pobbles, who was 
 just not too old to take the attention as anything but 
 a compliment, on saying good-bye. He had said nothing 
 to Jane, but had given her a quick look which she inter- 
 preted at once. 
 
 That was why she had got up as early as possible 
 that dewy sparkling morning, and was running to the 
 cabin as fast as her long thin legs would take her. 
 
 Between the board which formed the sill of the 
 window and the vertical half logs beneath it, was a 
 space, which she had often examined before, but with 
 no result. Now she drew from it a piece of folded 
 paper. It was Harry's promised message to her — first 
 of anybody : — 
 
 'Dear little Jane, — I'm off to be a soldier. Good- 
 bye, dear, and love from 
 
 'Harry.' 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 AFTERWARDS 
 
 Lady Brent and Wilbraham sat by the fire in the hour 
 before dinner. The summer had quite gone now. The 
 rain, driven by a gale of wind, was lashing the window 
 panes. There was an impression of luxury and shelter 
 in the handsome closely-curtained room with the wood 
 fire on the hearth and the soft light of lamps and 
 candles. But there was Uttle sense of comfort in the 
 hearts of its occupants. Lady Brent knitted as she 
 talked, and to outside view there was no sign of the 
 sadness and emptiness which lay upon her and over 
 the whole house. Wilbraham was in frowning sombre 
 mood. They talked in low voices. It was a week since 
 Harry had left them, but they had not yet begun to get 
 used to his absence. Their life went on, but it seemed 
 nqw to be devoid of all meaning. It was almost as if 
 death had come to the house and its shadow still lay 
 on it. 
 
 'I hope you won't go,' Lady Brent was saying. 
 'After all, your tutorship of Harry was only part of 
 your Ufe here. You have been one of our httle family 
 for over ten years. I should feel Harry's going more if 
 you went too; and so, of course, would Charlotte. 
 
 Wilbraham stirred uneasily. 'It is very kind of you 
 to put it hke that,' he said. But her words had not 
 removed the frown from his face, and he did not say 
 that he would stay. 
 
 There was silence for a time. Then Wilbraham said 
 suddenly: 'Do you remember that evening at dinner 
 when Harry asked about hurrying up his training, and 
 
 187 
 
1 88 SIR HARRY 
 
 you told him that enlistment would be the course for 
 him to follow, whatever it might be for others?' 
 
 'Oh, yes, perfectly; why do you ask?' 
 
 'Because afterwards, when we were alone together, 
 he came back to it.' 
 
 ' Ah ! ' she said. ' Why didn't you tell me ? ' 
 
 He gave a short laugh. 'I thought you'd ask that,' 
 he said. 'I wish I had, sometimes, though I doubt if 
 it would have made any difference.' 
 
 "What did he say?' 
 
 ' He began by saying that ^le was going to ask me to 
 do something for him. I could do it or not, as I thought 
 right, but I wasn't to tell you about it in either case.' 
 
 She was silent, and her needles clicked steadily. 
 But there had been the slightest pause in the regular 
 sound of thejn. 
 
 'It was only to save you and his mother anxiety,' 
 Wijbraham hurried to say. ' I had to give the promise, 
 or he wouldn't have told me what was in his min^. It 
 was to find out for him whether it was possible to get 
 his commission sooner by enlisting. Well, I said at 
 once that I couldn't <io that behind your back, and I 
 told him tb^t it was impossible in any case for him to 
 enlist before he was eighteen. He seemed to be satis- 
 fied. In fact, he said that he had only wanted to be 
 quite sure that he W9.s leaving notbing undone that he 
 could do. I thought it was off his mind. He never said 
 anything more to me about it.' 
 
 'W&U^ I think you acted rightly,' she said, after a 
 pause. ' I had thought it all out. It had seemed to me 
 possit4i8 that he might come to think it was his duty 
 to enlist, as the war went on. I had asked myself 
 whether it would be right to keep him back, if that 
 happened, and had come to the conclusion that there 
 was ijothiiig to be gained by his enlisting-^from his 
 point of view, I mean. It seemed to me, as I said then, 
 
AFTERWARDS 189 
 
 on the first opportunity for saying anything, that — well, 
 you heard what I said. I thought he had accepted 
 it.' 
 
 'So did I. I'm glad I've told you, but I'm not sure 
 that you could have done anything. I believe he was 
 satisfied to leave it alone then. It came to him after- 
 wards — not that he could hurry up his training as an 
 officer, but that it was his duty to go off and get into 
 the lines as quickly as possible. He knew you wouldn't 
 sanction that, and I'd already told him that you'd 
 have the power to stop his enlisting. So he thought 
 it all out for- himself, and kept his own counsel.' 
 
 'That is what happened,' she said calmly. 'I have 
 thought that out too. I tliink he was right, you know 
 — dear Harry.' 
 
 He looked up in surprise at this. 
 
 'I couldn't have sanctioned it,' she said. 'And yet 
 I should have sympathised with him — much more 
 than he had any idea of, I'm proud of him. But oh, 
 how I wish he could have trusted me a little more.' 
 
 She laid down her work on her lap and gazed into the 
 fire. Wilbraham was stirred by her utterance, so unUke 
 her with her calm self-control and entire command over 
 all her emotions, to which even now, after years of 
 knowing her and the springs of her conduct, he had 
 small clue. 
 
 She took up her work again, and spoke with as much 
 calmness as before. 'I've sometimes asked myself,' 
 she said, 'whether I wasn't getting so much interested 
 in carrying out a great experiment as to forget what it 
 all tended to. But I don't thinli I can fairly lay that to 
 my charge. I have loved the boy too much to treat him 
 just as the object of an experiment. If at any time I 
 had thought that I — that we were not doing rightly 
 by him in keeping him here, away from everything that 
 might have prepared him for the future, in the way 
 
tgo SIR HARRY 
 
 that other boys are prepared for it — I should have given 
 up the idea, and let the world in on us — and on him. At 
 the beginning I don't think I had any thought of carry- 
 ing the seclusion as far as I have done. That was only 
 to have been for his childhood. But it has been so 
 fascinating, to see him grow up here and only become 
 stronger and finer as he got older. I don't think he 
 has missed anything that would have been for liis good. 
 An3rthing that he has missed has been made up to 
 him in other ways. His intense love of nature — ^none 
 of us have been able to share that with him to increase 
 his love for it, but I have watched it with a glad heart. 
 It has seemed as if my plan had been helped by it, 
 in a way I couldn't have expected — or at least not to 
 that extent. And the way the people all love him 
 
 here ! He had got right down into their hearts 
 
 in a way he couldn't have done unless he had lived with 
 them day a:fter day, all the year round, and for year 
 after year, so that they have been his friends outside 
 his home, and not people away from here, or coming 
 here from time to time, with whom they could have no 
 concern. Everything has encouraged me to go on. 
 Even the extra freedom that he has taken to himself 
 of late has pleased me. He hasn't felt himself fettered. 
 He has had the life he wanted, and surely it must have 
 been the best life one could have given him, if it has 
 made him so happy.' 
 
 ' Yes,' said Wilbraham. ' He has made himself happy, 
 and he can be trusted.' 
 
 The unhappy look on his face had not lightened 
 during her long speech, and he spoke now as if to reassure 
 himself that what she had said was true. Ever since 
 Harry had gone off before dawn on that morning a 
 week ago, leaving messages of love and farewell for his 
 mother and grandmother, he had been asking himself 
 the meaning of it, and whether it was right for him any 
 
AFTERWARDS igt 
 
 longer to k(.ep back from Lady Brent what he knew 
 about Harry and she didn't. 
 
 How much had Viola had to do with it ? Nothing, he 
 was sure, in persuasion of Harry. But Wilbraham knew 
 that his love for her had changed the whole current 
 of his life. Perhaps he wouldn't have gone off like that 
 if he had never seen her. 
 
 If Wilbraham could have made up his mind to tell 
 Lady Brent everything, he would have been able to 
 gain from her some consolation in return. He needed 
 it at this time. She was the only person who knew of 
 his temptation, and she had been good to him about 
 it in the past. 
 
 The poor man was going through a bad time on his 
 own account. Perhaps he was just emerging from it, 
 but its effects were still heavy on him. After seeing 
 Viola and her father together, in an atmosphere so 
 different from that in which he had first seen Bastian 
 alone, he had had a vivid sense of shame, which had 
 increased after he had seen Harry. The idealism of 
 their fresh youth had made his own lapse look very 
 ugly to him, and still more the knowledge which he had 
 not admitted to himself until later that he was still 
 playing with the idea of drinking with Bastian, though 
 rejecting the possibility of being caught once more in 
 the toils. 
 
 But the toils had caught him, though that first glass 
 of whisky that he had drunk with Bastian had also been 
 the last. Village gossip, if it connected his name with 
 that of Bastian as a big drinker, had done him an 
 injustice. He had gone to see Bastian two or three 
 times, and had told him straight out the first time the 
 truth about himself. Bastian had treated the confidence 
 with ready sympathy, and Wilbraham had never seen 
 the whisky bottle while he was with him. He had 
 said that he didn't really care about it himself, which 
 
192 SIR HARRY 
 
 Wilbfaham took as a speech of politeness. If there 
 was foundation for village gossip, he must have given 
 cause for it at other times of the day. 
 
 Bastian might be able to drink or refrain from 
 drinking at pleasure, but for poor Wilbraham the mis- 
 chief had been done with that one glass. He had had 
 periods of longing of late years, always at rarer intervals, 
 but none of them had been so strong as this. He was 
 tortured; sometimes he was on the point of asking 
 Bastian for God's sake to give him something. He 
 was drawn there in a way he could not explain ; his 
 irritated brain rejected reasoning, and he would not 
 keep away. It was certainly the fact that he had drunk 
 spirits at the cottage that attracted him, and yet he 
 was fighting the desire all the time. But once again 
 he talked to Viola there; and he had thoughts of Harry 
 always before him. When, for the last time, he saw 
 Bastian, and said good-bye to him, he knew that the 
 danger of a fall was over. 
 
 But the craving had continued. Bastian had been 
 gone nearly a month, and he still felt it, though now it 
 was at last getting weaker. There was no danger of 
 falUng at Royd. There was no public house there, for 
 one thing, no wine or spirits were drunk at the Castle, 
 and he had attained enough mastery of himself to have 
 no temptation to go further where he could get drink. 
 
 His own troubles had prevented his mind from being 
 filled with thoughts of Harry, and he was now blaming 
 himself for a possible carelessness towards signs which 
 might have shown him what the boy must have been 
 making up his mind to during the last month. He had 
 seen him sad, after Viola's departure, and he had never 
 mentioned her name to Wilbraham, as he had done 
 once or twice before. So far as Wilbraham knew, no 
 letters passed between them. The post-bag came to the 
 Castle once a day and was unlocked by Lady Brent. 
 
AFTERWARDS 193 
 
 It \\-ould have been unlike Harry to arrange for letters 
 to be sent to him through a secret source; Wilbraham 
 was pretty sure that he had not done so. 
 
 In his effort to distract his mind from the urgency 
 that was riding it, Wilbraham had gone about among 
 the tenantry more than usual. He had kept his ears 
 open for signs that Harry's meetings with Viola had 
 become known, and could find none. He had gone to 
 see Mrs Ivimey once since Bastian's departure, and 
 she had been loud in her praises of 'the young lady.' 
 She had even said that if things hadn't been as they 
 were, by which he imagined her to be alluding chiefly 
 to Bastian's drinking habits, she and Sir Harry would 
 have made 'a pretty pair.' Wilbraham was sure, from 
 her way of saying it, that she had no idea, or suspicion, 
 of their having met. The woods were of great extent, 
 and, apart from a few rarely frequented paths and 
 rides, almost as httle known as when they had been 
 primeval forest. A few woodmen were employed in 
 them, but at this time they were at work felling at the 
 other end of the manor. It seemed almost certain that 
 no one had ever seen the two together. 
 
 Harry's sadness would pass. He was still a boy, in 
 years hardly more than a child, and Viola was no older. 
 If they were thrown together over years, their young 
 love might ripen into the love of a hfetime; as it was, 
 it would probably die down to a fragrant memory — a 
 love-idyll of summer woods, happy and innocent, but 
 no more than the budding of love in the tender hearts 
 of two pretty children. Wilbraham even thought that 
 Harry might have put it aside from him, at least for a 
 time. His poise of mind was so in advance of his years 
 that it would not be surprising if that were so. He had 
 thrown himself ardently into the three months' work 
 asked of him, and if he was no longer merry and Ught- 
 hearted, as he had been, he seemed to be in full possession 
 
194 SIR HARRY 
 
 of himself and concentrated in purpose. By-and-by, 
 when Wilbraham had passed through his own troubles, 
 he might talk to him about Viola, and find out how it 
 lay with them. At present there seemed to be nothing 
 to do but to follow Harry's example, and concentrate 
 the mind upon the important business in hand, which 
 was Harry's preparation for his coming examination. 
 
 So Wilbraham had thought, and so he had acted, 
 with a troubled longing for the time when he should 
 once more be free of his o^vn burden. But now he 
 doubted. One thing was fairly clear. By going away 
 Harry would be in touch again with Viola as he could 
 not be at Royd. Wilbraham did not suppose that to 
 be the sole or even the chief reason for his going away, 
 but it had probably counted in his decision. 
 
 Harry had ridden off on his horse, before dawn, pro- 
 bably some hours before dawn, for nothing had been seen 
 of him in the country in which he was known. He had 
 worn his oldest riding-suit, and as far as could be said 
 had taken scarcely anything with him. His short note 
 to his grandmother, and longer letter to his mother, 
 had said that he was going to enlist, and it was supposed 
 that he intended to offer himself and his horse to a 
 cavalry regiment. He begged that no attempt should 
 be made to follow or to stop him doing what he had 
 fully made up his mind to. He would write in a few 
 days, when affairs had been settled for him, but after 
 that he would not write at all until he had won his 
 commission in the field. He made no apology for 
 taking the decision into his own hands, and offered no 
 explanation of it. But it was plain that he meant to 
 run no risk of being prevented from following out the 
 course he had laid down for himself. 
 
 Mrs Brent had been full of lamentations. Lady 
 Brent had taken it very calmly, though the shock it 
 was to her had been apparent in the seriousness and 
 
AFTERWARDS tgs 
 
 sadness of her manner. A few inquiries were made as 
 to whether Harry had been seen riding away, and then 
 they had waited for his promised letter. 
 
 It came on the fourth day, with a London postmark. 
 He had been accepted for enhstment. He was in 
 barracks, well and happy. His letter — ^to his mother — 
 was of the shortest, but contained expressions of affec- 
 tion which did something to soothe her trouble. 
 
 On the outside his action was that of a spirited boy 
 who had made up his mind to go off and fight, and was 
 not to be hampered by the fears and objections of his 
 elders. But to Wilbraham there was more in it than 
 that. He thought that Harry might have made up 
 his mind to the course he had taken if he had not met 
 Viola, but that he would not have carried it out in 
 quite the same way. Then, his mother and grand- 
 mother would have been the only people whom he had 
 to consider. Now they hardly counted. He had acted, 
 if not with want of kindness, still with something of the 
 insensibility of youth towards the claims of its elders. 
 They would not hear from him again for months, perhaps 
 for years — though a lapse of years seemed imUkely at 
 that time. But Viola would hear from him. It was 
 hard on the older people, who loved him. Wilbraham 
 knew that it was bearing hardly upon Lady Brent. 
 
 'I might find out something about him if I went to 
 London,' Wilbraham said, after neither of them had 
 spoken for a time. 
 
 She looked up at him quickly and laid down her work. 
 ' I should be so glad to know where he is,' she said. ' I 
 should like him to know — if it were only possible to 
 get it to him — ^that I should make no effort now to go 
 against him. I could, you know. It would not be 
 difficult to find him; at least, it would not be impossible. 
 But I shall take no steps to over-ride his wiU. If he 
 knew that, surely he would not want to keep himself 
 
?96 SIR HARRY 
 
 cut oU from us ! He could write; and before he was 
 sent abroad he could come here for a few days. Oh, 
 if only you could find out where he is, , and let him 
 know that.' 
 
 ' I'll go up and try, if you like,' said Wilbraham. 
 
 It had surprised him a little that she had not asked 
 how or where he would try. He would go straight to 
 Bastian, whose address he knew, and see Viola. In 
 making the offer he had half intended, if she pressed 
 him, to unburden himself to her about Viola. He did 
 not know whether he was relieved or disappcaated that 
 she asked him no questions. She seemed to be too 
 excited to think about it, though she did say, later on, 
 that he coiild go to Mr Gulliver, the Brent solicitor; 
 but that if he did so, Mr GuUiver was to be told not to 
 interfere with Hsirry's actions. 
 
 'The sooner the better,' said Wilbraham. 'I'd better 
 go up to-morrow.' 
 
 She made no demur, and was silent for a time. Then 
 she looked at him kindly, and said : ' There's no danger 
 for you now, is there? ' 
 
 He was overcome with a wave of self-pity, brought 
 out by the sympathy of her tone. ' I've been through 
 a bad time,' he said. 'I think it's coming to an end. 
 I don't think there's any danger now.' 
 
 'I've seen it, of course,' she said, 'and have been very 
 sorry for you.' 
 
 He had not thought that she had noticed. Some 
 explanation seemed due to her. 'I did drink some 
 spirits,' he said, with a gulp. ' Just once. I thought I 
 was safe, but it brought on the craving. I've had my 
 lesson. I know that I'm diff^ent from other men now. 
 It's not in my power to be temperate. It has to be 
 nothing at all from now onwards.' 
 
 'I think it's the only way,' she said. "Ajid for years 
 together here you haven't naissed it, have you?' 
 
AFTERWARDS xg? 
 
 'No,' he said. 'It wa.s very wrong to do it at all. 
 I'm ashaoied pf myself — after you've done what you 
 have for pie.' 
 
 One thing she had done was to go without wine at 
 table, except on the rare occasions on which there had 
 been guests at the Castle. That liad been for his sake, 
 and he knew it well enough, though she had never 
 mentioned it. She deserved his confidence. 
 
 'It was when I went to see Bastian — ^the artist,' he 
 said. 'After the first time I told him how it was with 
 me, and he never drank anything himself while I was 
 with him.' 
 
 'In the village they say he was a heavy drinker.' 
 
 It surprised him to hear that she had heard about 
 Bastian. When he had told her that there was no 
 necessity to ask him to the Castle, she had seemed to 
 lose all interest in him, and had never mentioned his 
 name since. 
 
 'I should think he drinks a lot,' he said. 'He did 
 when I was with him. But he seems to be one of those 
 men who don't get caught by it. To say he is a heavy 
 drinker would be rather unfair. He has his young 
 daughter to look after, and I think he'd be careful 
 what he did for her sake. He's a gentleman, though 
 he seems to have come down in the world, and a man of 
 refinement.' 
 
 He was feehng his way towards a confession. She 
 had been so kind to him, and so wonderful in her 
 understanding of what had impelled Harry to the 
 course he had taken, though it had hit her hard, that 
 his inclination was to tell her, and trust her to take 
 the view of it that he had taken himself. But there 
 was a fence to take before he could make a clean breast 
 of it. He had given no promise to Harry, but Harry 
 had trusted him to keep his secret. It might be right 
 to tell Lady Brent of what had happened, but Harry 
 
tg8 SIR HARRY 
 
 would not think so. It wanted just the slight pressure, 
 unconscious on her part of what it would bring forth, 
 to overcome his reluctance to give away Harry's secret. 
 So he gave her an opening to ask him about Bastian, 
 "and about Viola. But she did not take it. She seemed 
 to be thinking of something else. 'It would be sad,' 
 she said, half indifferently, 'if his drinking were to 
 affect a young daughter. I think I should like you to 
 go to London to-morrow. It would be a great comfort 
 to poor Charlotte to know where Harry is; and to me 
 too; and to be able to get messages to him.' 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 WILBRAHAM IN LONDON 
 
 In the region that lies to the north of Regent's Park 
 there are quiet little streets, lying aside from the ugly 
 crowded main thoroughfares, which date back from the 
 time, not so very long since, when there were pleasant 
 suburbs here, and the open country lay within a walk 
 of the centre of London. Wilbraham found himself 
 unexpectedly in one of them in his search for the address 
 that Bastian had given him, and as he waited for 
 admission at the door upon which he had knocked, 
 looked about him with a sense of relief. He had expected 
 something almost approaching squalor, and at least 
 noise and unrest. But it was not painful to think of the 
 girl whom Harry loved living in one of these quiet little 
 houses. 
 
 They were all alike, built at a time when some of the 
 quality of eighteenth century architecture, which hung 
 about the simplest building, had disappeared, but had 
 not yet given way to the deadness and ugliness that • 
 followed it. Nothing could have been simpler than this 
 regular street of small houses, each with one window 
 and a door on the ground floor, two windows on the 
 first, two windows on the second, and a basement with 
 a narrow area; but their very monotony was restful, 
 and they indicated a respectabiUty that was almost 
 aggressive. The paint was nowhere shabby, the brass 
 door handles shone, and here and there the dirty brick 
 of one of the houses had been cleaned and the mortar 
 pointed. They were not beneath the occupation of 
 
 199 
 
200 SIR HARRY 
 
 people who took a pride in tlie appearance of tlieir 
 dwellings, and might even have money enough to have 
 the faces of them washed and their interiors modernised 
 before they made their homes in them. 
 
 As Wilbraham stood at the top of. the few steps 
 that led to the entrance,- a door to the area beneath 
 him opened and a woman looked up at him, and then 
 immediately disappeared. Mrs Ivimey's sister evidently, 
 by the likeness. Somehow the fact of this relationship 
 had been forgotten. Here was a link with Royd. If 
 
 Harry had been to the house, or should come there -~ ! 
 
 Hd had no time to formulate his thoughts before she 
 opened the door to him. 
 
 He introduced himself to her at once, before asking 
 for Bastian. She was a clean neat woman, and gave 
 him smiling respectful welcome when he told her who 
 he was. 'It's many years since I was down in those 
 parts, sir,' she said. 'But I hear sometimes from my 
 sister, and Mr Bastian, the gentleman who lodges with 
 me, has been there lately, and told me a good deal 
 about it.' 
 
 'It's him I've come to see,' said Wilbraham. 'Is he 
 in?' 
 
 'Miss Viola is in, sir,' she said. 'I dare say you saw 
 her when she was at Royd.' 
 
 'Yes,' said Wilbraham. 'I should like to see her 
 now,' if you'll tell her who I am.' 
 
 Here was a lucky chance. It was Viola he wanted 
 to see, and apart from her father, if possible. Mrs 
 Clark led him at once upstairs, talking volubly as she 
 did so. But she did not mention Harry. WUbraham 
 thought she would have done so if he had been to the 
 house. 
 
 She showed him into a room on the first floor, after 
 knocking at the door and receiving no answer. 'I 
 expect Miss Viola is upstairs,' she said, opening the 
 
WILBRAHAM IN LONDON 201 
 
 door. 'I don't think she's gone out again. If you'll 
 kindly step in, sir, I'll go and tell her you're here.' 
 
 Wilbraham entered the room with some curibsity. 
 It was larger than he had anticipated, extending to the 
 whole width of the house and lit by the two windows. 
 Its main furniture was good and solid, of about the 
 date of the house, when furniture had lost its simplicity 
 of line and ornament, but still showed some pride of 
 craftsmanship. Except for an upright piano with a 
 front of faded fluted red silk, which might or might 
 not have belonged to the tenants, it was all probably 
 the property of the landlady, and the nondescript 
 waU-paper and dark green curtains were also probably 
 her taste and not theirs. But the books in shelves on 
 either side of the fireplace, the pictures on the walls and 
 the cluster of photographs and little objects for use or 
 ornament on the mantelpiece and elsewhere about the 
 room struck a different note. No attempt had been 
 made to make it other than it was by nature, but it 
 had the air of a permanent home, occupied by people 
 of some refinement. 
 
 Viola's work-basket was on a sniall table by the 
 waU, and there were other signs of feminine occupancy 
 in the room. It looked cosy enough, with a bright -fire 
 burning, the curtains drawn and the gas lit; for it 
 was getting dark outside. Bastian evidently made use 
 of the large shabby easy-chair by the fire, for there was 
 a tobacco jar and an array of pipes on the table by 
 its side, and a book or two. With his daughter sitting 
 opposite to him, on a winter evening, it was possible 
 to imagine him taking pleasure in his home life. It 
 would be quieter and less marked by poverty than 
 Wilbraham had pictured it. A faint odour of the tobacco 
 that Bastian used hung about, but there were flowers 
 in a vase on Viola's table, and fruit in a plated basket 
 on the sideboard. The sideboard, apt to be so much in 
 S.H. O 
 
202 SIR HARRY 
 
 evidence in furnished lodgings, had none of the para- 
 phernalia of meals on it in the way of cruets or bottles. 
 In fact, there were no bottles to be seen anywhere. 
 Wilbraham noticed that at once, for his own trouble 
 had made him acutely sensitive; he had no fears now 
 of succumbing to a temptation to drink, but the signs 
 of drinking by Bastian would have affected him 
 unhappily. He was inclined to beheve that he had to 
 some extent misread Bastian, on his first acquaintance 
 with him. It could not be his habitual custom to drink 
 as much as he had done on that afternoon, or Viola 
 would be more affected by it than she was. She had 
 none of the air of a girl whose Ufe had been saddened 
 by a father's gross intemperance; and if Bastian had 
 been kept down in the world by this failing of his, as 
 he had said he had, his poverty was shown by this 
 room to be more relative than actual. 
 
 Wilbraham dismissed the unpleasant question of 
 intemperance, in relief at the signs of comfort and 
 refinement that he saw about him. The table in the 
 middle of the room was laid for tea, as if that was the 
 chief evening meal here. Wilbraham hoped that 
 Bastian would not come in for it imtil he had talked 
 to Viola. 
 
 He made his way to the mantelpiece, upon which 
 were a good many photographs. The photographs in a 
 room teU you more than anything about its occupants. 
 
 Something was told in this instance by the fact that 
 they were all a good many years old. It meant, for 
 one thing, that Viola and her father must have Uved 
 here for some time, and for another, that they could 
 have made few friends of late years. 
 
 WUbraham's eye was caught by one of Bastian as 
 a very young man in a group with three others, taken 
 by a Cambridge photographer. His first thought, as 
 he looked at it, was to wonder whether he himself had 
 
WILBRAHAM IN LONDON 203 
 
 changed so much in twenty years. Bastian appeared 
 as a young man fashionably dressed, and, judging by 
 his smile, pleased with the world in general and with 
 his own lot in it in particular. He had been more than 
 usually good-looking in those days. There was another 
 one of him on a horse, taken at about the same time, 
 but not at Cambridge. Wilbraham wished afterwards 
 that he had noticed the name and habitation of the 
 photographer. Bastian had never told him from what 
 part of the country he came, or anything about his 
 early home and upbringing. But it was evident that 
 he came from what it is customary to caU 'good people.' 
 It was hardly fair to keep Viola in ignorance of her 
 parentage, which might possibly prove to be of some 
 importance to her. 
 
 There was a photograph of Viola herself at the age of 
 about ten — a pretty child, but without the exceptional 
 beauty into which she had grown. In a large frame 
 was one of her mother, and there were others of her at 
 different stages. Wilbraham examined them with 
 some attention. She was certainly beautiful, with the 
 same sort of beauty as Viola's, though Wilbraham 
 thought that if he had not known the facts about her 
 he would yet have detected an absence of race, which 
 seemed to him to be apparent in Viola, and perhaps also 
 in her father. He tried to find in her support for 
 Bastian's praise of her character and temperament, 
 but all he could have said was that there was nothing 
 to show that she had not deserved it. She smiled 
 sweetly in these photographs, some of which were in 
 theatrical costume; she was young and beautiful and 
 happy, and her early death added pathos to these 
 presentments of her. 
 
 There were other photographs of girls and young 
 women carelessly propped up on the mantelpiece, some 
 of them hidden. They were probably mostly theatrical 
 
204 SIR HAKRY 
 
 friends of Mrs Bastian's, and it seemed likely that she 
 had Uved in these rooms, or they woxild not have been 
 left there. Wilbraham's eyes roamed over them without 
 interest, but just as he was about to turn away were 
 caught by the signature of one of them. 'With love 
 from Lottie,' in a sprawhng hand. It was of Mrs 
 Brent, taken in that youth of which she was still proud, 
 but which she had long since left behind her. 
 
 Wilbraham looked at it fascinated. For some reason 
 or other Mrs Brent had never shown him a photograph 
 of herself taken during her stage career. For the moment 
 he was more interested in seeing her as she had been, 
 than in the fact of finding her photograph here — Harry's 
 mother, in Viola's roorti. 
 
 The photograph made her almost as pretty as Mrs 
 Bastian. She was a gay light-hearted girl too. Harry's 
 father might be excused for having fallen in love with 
 her. And there was a look of Harry in her young face, 
 which Wilbraham had never noticed in the flesh. He 
 wondered whether Viola had noticed the likeness, 
 which seemed to him qviite plain. But probably she 
 did not look at these old photographs to notice any- 
 thing about them at all once in six months, though 
 she saw them every day. 
 
 Viola came in as he was standing looking at them. 
 He thought she looked more beautiful than ever, as 
 she greeted him with a smile and a blush. Her entrance 
 into the room seemed to bring Ught with it, and soft- 
 ness and charm. Its commonplace features sank into 
 the background; the flowers became of more importance 
 than anything, and the books and the music. 
 
 Wilbraham had seen Viola in a pretty simple frock 
 suitable for the country, but although her clothes now 
 had the same air of simpUcity to his unsophisticated 
 eyes, they were even to him something exceptional. 
 One would not have expected a girl who lived in that 
 
WILBRAHAM IN LONDON 205 
 
 room to enter it dressed as she was. The calling in 
 which she earned her living stood her in good stead. 
 Wilbraham had not been told what it was, and had the 
 idea of her doing something or other with a typewriter. 
 He thought that the figure she presented was owing 
 to her taste, and did not know that it would also have 
 meant a good deal of money, if there had been nothing 
 more than her taste to account for it. What he did feel 
 was that she might have entered any rich room in 
 London as she was and been taken for granted as 
 belonging to it. She was worthy of Harry even in that 
 respect, which would probably weigh more with the 
 world even than it weighed with him. 
 
 'Father will be in in about half an hour,' she said. 
 'You will stay and have some tea with us, won't you? 
 I'm sure he wll be glad to see you.' 
 
 He had been looking at her searchingly. She gave 
 him the impression of being older than when he had 
 seen her at Royd, a woman full grown and no longer half 
 a child, though the dehcacy and freshness of youth still 
 marked her. She had, in fact, ceased to arrange her 
 hair as still growing girls wear it, and there was some 
 to him indefinable difference in her clothes. 
 
 He said he would stay until her father came in, and 
 she motioned him to her father's chair, and sat down 
 in her own on the other side of the fire, facing him. 
 
 She seemed to wait for him to speak first. He could 
 tell nothing by her manner, which was smiling and self- 
 possessed, though her self-possession was not more than 
 is becoming to a young girl, secure in her youth and 
 charm. 
 
 'I suppose you know that Harry has left home to 
 enlist in the army.' he said. 
 
 Her colour deepened a httle upon the mention of her 
 lover's name, but she did not shrink from his gaze, and 
 the faint smile was still on her lips as she said : ' I 
 
2o6 SIR HARRY 
 
 thought that he might, although he didn't say that he 
 would.' So, of course, she knew, and had been prepared 
 for the question. 
 
 'Probably he had not quite made up his mind by the 
 time you left Royd,' he said. 
 
 She did not reply to this, and he thought he could 
 see that she had decided not to admit anything, probably 
 under Harry's directions. Again there came to him 
 the sense of dislike at interfering with what Harry had 
 decided. He could not fence with her to make her say 
 what Harry didn't want her to say, or force her to say 
 that she could not answer his questions. She was frank 
 and innocent. It would seem an impertinence to put 
 her into the position of defending a reticence. 
 
 'We have been very anxious about him at home,' he 
 said. 'We are anxious still — not to get him to come 
 back, but that he should not cut himself off from us. 
 I've come up to London on purpose to get a message 
 to him if I can. I didn't tell Lady Brent I should come 
 here, or say anything about you. She thinks I have 
 only come to see Mr Gulliver, the family soUcitor, and 
 ask him to find out, if he can, where Harry is." His 
 mother can hardly bear the thought of not hearing 
 from him for months, and not knowing where he is. 
 Lady Brent was not altogether unprepared for his 
 enlisting. She couldn't have been a party to it, as he's 
 not even of an age to enlist yet, and I suppose he's had 
 to represent himself as older than he is in order to get 
 taken. But she told me herself that she was proud 
 of him for doing it, and she certainly wouldn't do any- 
 thing to interfere v/ith him, now he's taken the matter 
 into his own hands. If he knew that ' 
 
 He did not finish his sentence, which was on the 
 note of appeal to her. Nor did he look at her. 
 
 There was a pause. Then she. said, 'I haven't seen 
 Harry, you know, Mr Wilbraham.' 
 
WILBRAHAM IN LONDON 207 
 
 He looked at her then, and saw that there were tears 
 in her eyes. So his appeal had not been without its 
 effect. 
 
 'I think his mother ought to know,' she said, 'and 
 that he ought to write to her.' 
 
 In a flash of understanding, he saw that he had got 
 all that he had come for, and that he would get no 
 more. Or at least that he must not exercise pressure 
 to get more, or put her in the position of refusing to 
 give it. She would tell Harry what he had told her, 
 and she would tell him that she thought he ought to 
 write to his mother. Of Lady Brent she had said nothing. 
 It was probable that Lady Brent appeared, in her eyes 
 in a different light from that in which Wilbraham saw 
 her. 
 
 As for everything else — it was their secret, to be 
 treated by him with respect. He would probe into it 
 no further; and indeed it was better that he should 
 not know more than he knew already of how it was 
 between them. There was quite enough on his mind 
 that he had kept from Lady Brent. 
 
 'Yes, I think he should write,' he said. 'I shall see 
 Mr Gulliver to-morrow.' 
 
 The two statements had no apparent bearing upon 
 one another, but Viola seemed to accept them with 
 relief, and was beginning to talk to him pleasantly, but 
 with no reference to Harry, when Bastian came in. 
 
 He was nearly half an hour earlier than his usual 
 time, it appeared, and Wilbraham was inclined to be 
 disappointed at having his talk with Viola cut short. 
 Whenever he was with her he felt himself- almost 
 violently in sympathy with Harry in his love for her. 
 He was observing her all the time, and there was 
 nothing that she said or did that did not deepen his 
 first impression of her. He wanted to feel like that 
 about her, for Harry's sake; championship of her as 
 
2o8 SIR HARRY 
 
 one who was in all essentials fit to mate with him might 
 stand Hany in good stead later on. 
 
 But she would show herself, perhaps, with less need 
 for carefulness in what she said, with her father there 
 as without him. Bastian gave him a cordial welcome. 
 He was again, in appearance, a gentleman, merely 
 indifferent to the shabbiness of his attire, but the 
 younger healthier look he had had during the latter 
 part of his stay at Royd no longer marked him. 
 Wilbraham thought he had been drinking, but he was 
 not drunk, or anything near it, and it seemed probable 
 that he kept his habits in check in the home that he 
 must have valued. He drank tea, rather copiously, 
 at the meal which soon followed his entrance, and there 
 was no preparation apparent for anything stronger to 
 be drunk later on. 
 
 It was not long before Wilbraham became as anxious 
 to be alone with Bastian as he had before wished to 
 be alone with Viola. Bastian knew; and Viola was 
 distressed at the signs he showed of wishing to talk 
 about what he knew. 
 
 It became plain to Wilbraham now that the poor 
 child was not unaffected by her father's intemperance. 
 If the worst of it was kept from her, and he had the 
 self-command not to soil the home in which she lived 
 with it, still there were times when she_ saw him not 
 quite himself. 
 
 This was one of them. Wilbraham saw the suspicion, 
 and then the certainty, dawn upon her, with a droop 
 and a shadow on her brightness, and a stiffening of 
 manner that was not quite displeasure but yet some- 
 thing near it. She had enough influence over him 
 apparently to be able to prevent his saying what she 
 did not want said, but his hints and smiles made 
 Wilbraham as uncomfortable as they evidently made 
 her. Immediately the meal was over she said good-bye 
 
WILBRAHAM IN LONDON 209 
 
 to Wilbraham and went -out of the room. Perhaps this 
 was her usual way of dealing with these lapses. Her 
 father expostulated, but she took no notice, except by 
 saying as she went out : ' I'll tell Mrs Clark not to 
 clear away just yet.' 
 
 'She's a dear child, Viola — ^but she's difficult some- 
 times,' said Bastian. ' I hope she hasn't taken a dislike 
 to you.' 
 
 'I don't think so,' said Wilbraham shortly. 'What 
 she obviously does dislike is having her secrets talked 
 about before a cou^parative stranger. I should have 
 thought you might have seen that.' 
 
 Bastian threw a look at him as he went to the side 
 table to take up a pipe. Wilbraham's tone seemed to 
 surprise him, but it did not subdue the agreeable 
 humour in which he found himself 'We don't look on 
 you as a stranger,' he said, 'and if there's a secret, 
 you're in it. I think you want mellowing, my dear 
 Wilbraham. I don't keep anything to drink here, but if 
 you'd like something I can send out for it.' 
 
 'You seem to forget what I told you about myself,' 
 said Wilbraham. 'I can't drink without losing control 
 of myself. You seem to be in much the same case. I 
 think it's a damned shame to show it before that 
 child.' 
 
 This brought Bastian up short. He frowned in 
 offence, but apparently he was one of those people 
 whom a rebuke moves more to sorrow than to anger, 
 for he said : 'That's a hard thing to say to a man, 
 Wilbraham. I do drink more than's good for me 
 sometimes, I know; but if there's one thing I've always 
 been careful about all my life, it is not to let it affect 
 Viola.' 
 
 'Well, it does affect her,' said Wilbraham. 'You'd 
 have seen how it affected her just now, if you hadn't 
 been drinking. It's not for me to preach, God knows. 
 
210 SIR HARRY 
 
 But if you're able to control it at all, you've got some- 
 thing to be very thankful for, and you ought to control 
 it absolutely as far as she's concerned.' 
 
 'I've had very little to drink to-day, as a matter of 
 fact,' said Bastian rather sulkily, 'and I don't 'want to 
 be lectured about it, Wilbraham. Sit down and have a 
 talk. You won't find ray powers of expression affected 
 by the little I have had.' 
 
 He ended on a smile. He was an attractive creature, 
 Wilbraham thought, in spite of his culpable weakness. 
 Most men would have quarrelled T^ith him for what he 
 had said, if they had been in Bastian's state. But the 
 extent to which he was affected by drink was a puzzle. 
 As he talked, Wilbraham could mark no signs of it, 
 though they had seemed so evident up to this time. 
 There was an absence of cautiousness in what he said, 
 but that was native to him. It may have been slightly 
 enhanced now, but Wilbraham would not have put 
 it down to the loosening of tongue brought about by 
 liquor if they had started with this conversation. His 
 own irritation' subsided. He had said his say. He sat 
 down in Viola's chair, opposite to Bastian, and lit 
 his cigarette, taking rather a long time to do so, in 
 order to leave the opening with Bastian, who was not 
 slow to take it. 
 
 'It wouldn't do for my little failing to become 
 known, would it?' he said, with a smile. 'If I can't 
 do without alcohol altogether — and I don't see why 
 I should — I shall have to keep in the background.' 
 
 Wilbraham was conscious of a return of irritation. 
 He disliked this half -jocular allusion to a subject of 
 such serious importance. 'Oh, don't talk of it like 
 that,' he said impatiently. 'I suppose you know that 
 Harry Brent and Viola have met and have fallen in 
 love \vith one another. Nobody else knows it but me, 
 and perhaps it's important that nobody else should. 
 
WILBRAHAM IN LONDON 211 
 
 At any rate you can talk quite straight about it to 
 me.' 
 
 Bastian received this with a change of manner. 'All 
 right/ he said, 'I will talk straight. Viola's a girl in 
 a thousand — in a million. I'd trust her anywhere. 
 But for a young man to be meeting her again and again, 
 
 and keeping it secret ! Well, you see my point, 
 
 I suppose.' 
 
 It was quite a new point to Wilbraham, as far as he 
 did see it. But his brain, edged by his long struggle 
 with hiihself, and now again working with its normal 
 quickness, seized upon its essential insincerity at once. 
 There was a barely perceptible pause before he said : 
 'If you mean that Harry has done anything that you 
 can take exception to, .why have you been smiling and 
 hinting about it up till now ? ' 
 
 Perhaps Bastian did not quite take this in. 'Oh, I 
 don't mean to say that there has been anything wrong,' 
 he said. 'As I say, I trust Viola — absolutely. If she's 
 satisfied with herself, as she is, that's enough for me.' 
 
 'Very well,' said Wilbraham, keeping command. 
 'Then that apphes to Harry too. You don't know him. 
 I do. I found it out by chance, and he made no attempt 
 to persuade me to keep it secret. He left it to me, and 
 I decided to do so. If he wanted it kept secret, so 
 did she; and they both wanted it for the same reasons, 
 whatever they were. If she was right, he was right, 
 and ' 
 
 ' Yes, that's all very well,' said Bastian, but Wilb'aham 
 over-rode his interruption. 'I suppose you didn't 
 know of it till after you'd come to London. How did 
 you know of it ? ' 
 
 Bastian allowed himself to be diverted. 'I found it 
 out on the last night,' he said. 'I went out to look for 
 her, and she came in crjdng, poor child. Something 
 suddenly struck me. She had been out such a lot 
 
212 SIR HARRY 
 
 alone, and she hadn't done that before when we'd been 
 away together — at least not so much. And she'd 
 been different somehow. I hadn't thought about it 
 before, but it came to me suddenly all together. And 
 she wouldn't have been crying like that just because 
 we were going home. There was something — some- 
 body. I dare say I should have got at it by thinking it 
 over; but she told me. I love her, and she loves me, 
 and knows that she can tell me anything. That's 
 how it was, Wilbraham. You're not a father, but you 
 can imagine, perhaps, what a father feels about these 
 things, when his daughter is the chief thing in the 
 world to him.' 
 
 ' I suppose I can,' said Wilbraham. ' But all the same 
 you're not treating her in-the way you boast of, if you're 
 not prepared to look upon Harry in the same light. 
 You'll agree that on the outside of things they're not 
 equal — those two.' 
 
 'I don't agree to that,' said Bastian dogmatically. 
 
 ' I said on the outside of things,' Wilbraham persisted. 
 ' You've been where he belongs, and you know what sort 
 of position he's in. You may have belonged to the 
 same sort of thing once. I don't know. You've never 
 told me who your people were. But you say yourself 
 that you've come down in the world, and it's pretty 
 obvious that you're not in anything like the position 
 the Brents are now. So you can see how it would have 
 been likely to strike me when I first found it out. But 
 Harry is what he is. I trusted him, just as you trusted 
 Viola. And afterwards I saw Viola. If I can think of 
 her as I do, you ought to be able to think of Harry 
 in the same way, though you haven't seen him.' 
 
 'Very well, then,' said Bastian. 'Let's take it that, 
 leaving out things that don't matter, they're to be 
 looked at in the same way. Of course I know, really, 
 that he's something quite out of the common. I've 
 
WILBRAHAM IN LONDON 213 
 
 heard the people there talk about him. If I hadn't 
 thought there was no harm in it — for Viola — I shouldn't 
 have treated it as I have. But you see, WUbraham, 
 as a father I've got to look a little farther ahead then 
 you do. I suppose to you it's just a pretty boy and 
 girl falling in love with one another in all their innocence, 
 and if nothing comes of it no harm wiU be done. Well, 
 it wouldn't to him. But it's rather different with her, 
 isn't it?' 
 
 WUbraham was silent. That was exactly as he had 
 looked at it, on Harry's behalf. And it was true it would 
 be different for Viola. 
 
 'If he's what you say he is,' said Bastian, pursuing 
 his advantage, 'he won't want to throw her off when 
 he gets older. But his people will want him to, and 
 when they know, they'll try to bring it about. Harry 
 and Viola ! Yes. But it's me and Lady Brent, you 
 see, as well — as she seems to be the one that counts 
 most. I don't know, anj^hing about the boy's mother; 
 they don't talk about her much down there. It's his 
 grandmother who seems to count for everything. Who 
 was his mother, by the bye?' 
 
 Wilbraham had forgotten until that moment the 
 photograph on the mantelpiece. He awoke to its 
 realisation with a mental start. If Bastian had not 
 shown himself ignorant of Mrs Brent's origin, he might 
 have succumbed to the instinct for the dramatic and 
 surprised him by pointing her out in reply to his 
 question. But when the question came he had just 
 received the impression of loj^edty on the part of Mrs 
 Ivimey, or anybody else to whom Bastian may have 
 talked about 'the family.' They had not given Mrs 
 Brent away. He wouldn't either, at least at this stage. 
 
 'Nobody in particular,' he said, with a half truth. 
 ' They were only married for a few weeks. Lady Brent 
 is Harry's guardian, and of course she's had most to do 
 
214 SIR HARRY 
 
 with bringing him up more or less in seclusion at Royd. 
 I suppose you know that he's gone off to enlist.' 
 
 'Yes, and I suppose you've come here to find out 
 from Viola where he is, and haul him back again.' 
 
 Wilbraham told him why he had come up. 'I shall 
 go and see Gulliver to-morrow,' he said, ' and get him 
 to make inquiries. Then I hope in a few days Harry 
 will write. She'll be satisfied with that, and whether 
 Gulliver finds him or not, she won't make any attempt 
 to get him back.' 
 
 'Well, you're a funny crew altogether,' said Bastian, 
 after they had talked a little longer. 'As far as I'm 
 concerned, Wilbraham, I'm going to keep my eyes 
 open. You needn't look to me to back up your ideas, 
 if it doesn't suit me to do so. Better have all the cards 
 on the table. They're both much too young yet to 
 think about anything further, and I suppose he'll be 
 too young for another few years. You can hug your 
 secret for the present.' 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 WAITING 
 
 Autumn gave place to winter and winter to spring. 
 Another summer came, and people began to resign 
 themselves to the hitherto almost incredible idea of the 
 war lasting over another winter. That winter passed 
 away and the interminable struggle went on. 
 
 But even after two years the texture of Ufe had not 
 very greatly altered in England. Conscription had not 
 yet come in; there was no food control; motor-cars 
 could be used for purposes of pleasure or convenience; 
 the chief opportunities for the work of women in con- 
 nection with the war were in nursing, and for girls in 
 Government clerkships. It was not for another full 
 year that country life in England seemed quite a different 
 thing from what it had been before the war. The 
 change had come by degrees and its last stages were 
 passed through much more quickly than the first. In 
 the summer of 1916 it was still possible to live in a 
 country house without being much affected by the 
 war. 
 
 Lady Brent lived on at Royd Castle, to all outward 
 appearances in much the same way as she had lived 
 there since her widowhood. There came to be fewer 
 servants, and her work in connection with the estate 
 increased, for her baiUff had joined up, and she had not 
 tried to replace him. She did much of his work herself, 
 with the help of the estate staff, and perhaps welcomed 
 the increased responsibility, for her life during those 
 two first years was sad enough, with £ill that she had 
 
 215 
 
2i6 SIR HARRY 
 
 lived for taken from her just at the tune, when the 
 hopes of years were to have been put to the test. 
 
 Harry had written to his mother within a few days 
 of Wilbraham's return from London, and again from 
 time to time to her and to his grandmother and to 
 Wilbraham; also to the children. But his letters con- 
 tained very little news about himself. They were posted 
 in London and gave no address to which answers could 
 be sent. After some months there was a long silence, 
 and then he wrote from Egypt, whefe his regiment 
 had been sent . After that he wrote mostly to his mother. 
 He told het more about his life, but never anything that 
 would identify him. 
 
 The letters sent from Egypt were subject to censor- 
 ship, but they arrived at Royd in envelopes bearing a 
 London postmark and with no label or stamp on them. 
 Yet they were addressed in Harry's writing. He must 
 have left a supply of them behind him. 
 
 The clufe to all this was no doubt a strong and con- 
 sidered determination to carry out his plan without 
 risk of interference. The message carried to him by 
 Viola had brought letters from him, but that was as 
 far as he would go; and perhaps he would have written 
 in any case. After the first one had been received 
 ■ Lady Brent wrote to Mr Gulliver and told him not to 
 pursue his inquiries. Harry must have his own way. 
 As he had written, after it had seemed that he had 
 made up his mind not even to do that, so perhaps he 
 would some day relent and let them write to him. But 
 neatly two years weiit by and he had not done so. 
 
 In the long sad conversations they had about him 
 at Royd during the early months, they arrived at some 
 sort of conclusions, helped by an occasional expression 
 in his letters. He had gone out of his own world, and 
 as long as his time of probation lasted he would keep 
 out of it. He was not likely to think himself degraded 
 
WAITING 217 
 
 by serving in the ranks, but they came to understand 
 that he was keeping his actual condition hidden. There 
 was nothing in his letters, which would be read by his 
 superior officers, to indicate it, and before he left 
 England they were more about Royd than about him- 
 self. There was never very much about himself. Every 
 time he wrote he said he was well and happy; but it 
 peeped through that the change in his life was not 
 without its effect upon him. How could it be other- 
 wise, brought up as he had been? He was learning in 
 a hard school; but he was learning, and flashes of his 
 old boyish brightness broke through the reticence 
 which he seemed to have imposed upon himself. They 
 came to look upon it as a time of probation for him, 
 and to believe that so he looked upon it himself. 
 Sometimes they thought they saw signs of expectation. 
 He was working for and looking forward to something. 
 Viola, said Wilbraham to himself. His commission to 
 be won in the field, said Lady Brent. He wanted no 
 help towards it, as might have been given by finding 
 him out, which should not have been difficult after he 
 had left England, and pulling strings. When he had 
 gained his commission, by his own unaided effort, and 
 by no reliance upon, his place in the world outside the 
 army, then he would come back to them. It was hard 
 on Lady Brent to wait, and to lift no finger, and harder 
 still on his mother. But he must be trusted. They had 
 directed him through his childhood, and youth. Now 
 he would brook no direction. The only consolation 
 they had was that his upbringing had not taken from 
 him a man's initiative and determination. The experi- 
 ment seemed to have been justified; but with a greater 
 knowledge of the world beforehand he might not have 
 thought it necessary so to cut his life in two. They 
 were paying a heavy price. 
 
 Wilbraham, who had more of a clae to Harry's actions 
 
 S.H. ■ p 
 
2i8 SIR HARRY 
 
 than the others, was not without irritation against what 
 at times he set down as mere hard undutifulness. He 
 had great sympathy with Lady Brent, who had so 
 wonderfully sunk her own feelings in acquiescing in the 
 boy's unreasonable determination. She could almost 
 certainly have traced him had she wished to do so. 
 And WUbraham, at least, knew that he must have been 
 told at the very beginning that he would not be inter- 
 fered with. Why could he not then have softened the 
 hardship to those who loved him? Granted, that the 
 new love that had come into his life was so much more 
 to him than the old ! But it was not hke him to throw 
 over the old altogether, and indeed his letters showed 
 that he had not done so. 
 
 After a time his irritation died away. It could not 
 be so distressing to Harry to be cut off from Royd 
 as it was to them to be cut off from him, but his letters 
 showed that he felt it, and especially the few letters 
 that he wrote to little Jane, in which he seemed to be 
 reaching out after the untroubled innocent happiness 
 of his youth, and the beauty and freedom that had lain 
 all about it. It was the old Harry that appeared in those 
 letters, and here and there in others; the new Harry 
 became more and more evident^ otherwise — a man 
 doing a man's hard work in hard and uncongenial 
 surroundings, much older than his years, where in some 
 ways he had been so much younger. 
 
 He was hard on himself as well as hard upon them. 
 They had given him happiness in his sheltered youth, 
 but the plunge he had taken into a hfe different from 
 any that could have been anticipated for him can have 
 been none the easier on that account. The ugliness 
 and crudity that other boys might in some measure 
 have been prepared for would bear very hardly upon 
 him, and he would have to fight through it alone. 
 Wilbraham came to see that he might shrink from 
 
WAITING 219 
 
 mixing it up with his home life. Perhaps he was afraid 
 that he might weaken in it if he was subject to any 
 pressure. It would surely have been open to him to 
 have had at least a few days at home before he went 
 abroad; but he had not taken the opportunity. 
 
 Had he blamed them for bringing him up in that 
 seclusion? There was nothing in his letters to show it. 
 But it must have been very soon revealed to him how 
 exceptional his life had been, and how much he had 
 missed of what other boys had had. He would not 
 always be capable of gauging the value of what he 
 had missed, when face to face with some situation with 
 which his inexperience had unfitted him to cope hghtty. 
 It might take him a long time to acknowledge that 
 what he had gained had been more than what he had 
 missed, and partly arose from it. He would know, too, 
 before long that the immovable seclusion in which his 
 grandmother and mother and Wilbraham himself 
 lived was anything but' the normal state of affairs 
 that it had been implicitly represented to him. He 
 would ask himself why they had never left Royd from 
 one year's end to another, and why so few people had 
 ever come there; and he would see that it had all been 
 with reference to him. He would hardly be able to 
 understand it. If he acknowledged the freedom he had 
 enjoyed, the limits of it would still strike him, with his 
 new knowledge of the world's ways. If he had not, since 
 his childhood, been dominated by women, he had 
 certainly been managed, without knowing it. Whether, 
 in the strangeness and disagreeableness and difficulty 
 of much of his new life, he was inclined to resent this 
 unduly, or whether he saw behind it enough to admit 
 that there had been wisdom as well as apparent eccen- 
 tricity, and certainly love, in the steps his youth had 
 been made to tread, it would not be surprising if he 
 made up his mind at an early date that the managing 
 
220 SIR HARRY 
 
 should come to an end. It was for him to direct his 
 own life now. He would run no further risk of influence 
 brought to bear upon it, the clue to which was not in 
 his hands. 
 
 In the first spring Wilbraham left Royd to take up 
 work in a Government office in London, for which 
 Lady Brent had asked for him. A few months later 
 Mrs Brent broke loose from the now insupportable 
 stagnation of Royd, and went to London with the avowed 
 object of nursing. She had had no training and was 
 quite ignorant of the steps to be taken, but Lady Brent 
 arranged an income for her, and made no attempt to 
 direct her movements in any way. She was left alone 
 in the Castle, and stayed there aJone for another year. 
 To all outward appearance she was exactly what she 
 had always been, always occupied, always unemotional, 
 though sometimes more unapproachable than at others. 
 The months dragged oti. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 SIDNEY 
 
 One morning in May, Lady Brent unlocked the letter 
 bag, which she never did without anticipations of 
 some news of Harry. It was at least a month since 
 there had been a letter from him, but there at last it 
 was, searched for among all the rest and making them 
 of no value at all. 
 
 It was directed to Mrs Brent, and the envelope bore 
 the stamps and marks of the field from which it had 
 been written. All Harry's previous letters had been 
 redirected from London. 
 
 She sat looking at it and turning it over. Once or 
 twice she seemed to be on the point of opening it, and 
 she must have been under the strongest temptation to 
 do so. What could it mean but that he had reached 
 his goal, and the long time of half estrangement was 
 over? Perhaps it was to say that he was coming home. 
 
 She laid it down, and took up her other letters with 
 a sigh, but before she opened any of them she went to 
 her writing table and enclosed it in a note to Mrs Brent. 
 Then she rang the bell and gave orders that some one 
 was to ride over to Burport with it, and arrange for its 
 immediate transmission to London by train. By that 
 means she might get the telegram she had asked for 
 from her daughter-in-law that evening. Then she went 
 calmly about her duties. 
 
 These included one that was quite unusual at Royd 
 Castle. It was to see that preparations were made for 
 visitors. Her old friend Lady Avalon had written to 
 ask if she might come for a few days. After twelve or 
 
222 SIR HARRY 
 
 thirteen years Poldaven Csistle was to be occupied 
 again for the summer. Lady Avalon wanted to see 
 what was necessary to be done there, but it had been 
 empty so long that she didn't want to trust herself 
 in it tor a night if Lady Brent could do with her at 
 Royd, and let her go over from there. 
 
 Later on that morning she went again to her writing- 
 table and wrote to Lady Avalon, who was expected in a 
 couple of days' time. Would she care to bring her 
 daughter Sidney with her? It was no doubt very dull 
 at Royd, but there was just a chance of Harry coming 
 home from Egypt. She sat considering for a moment 
 when she had written this, but closed her letter without 
 adding any more. Harry was extremely unlikely to be 
 at Royd in a few days' time, but if Sidney had already 
 been there when he did come home it would be easier 
 to ask her there again. 
 
 After this she went down to the village, taking Ben, 
 Harry's retriever, with her. 
 
 She called at the Vicarage. The Grants were to be 
 asked to dine when Lady Avalon came. The maid who 
 opened the door looked at her rather curiously, but she 
 did not notice it. Mrs Grant was in the drawing-room 
 and sprang up to meet her. 'Oh, I'm so glad!' slie 
 said, and came forward, her hand held out and her face 
 all alight with pleasure. 
 
 Lady Brent was taken aback by the warmth of the 
 greeting. She liked Mrs Grant, and supposed that Mrs 
 Grant liked her, but she was not accustomed to this 
 kind of welcome. 
 
 'Thank you,' she said, a shade dryly. 'I came to 
 ask if you and your husband would dine with me on 
 Thursday. Lady Avalon will be staying with me, and 
 possibly her daughter. Lady Sidney Pawle.' 
 
 'Oh, thank you, yes, we shall be very pleased,' said 
 Mrs Grant. 'Will Harry be home by then? He mighi, 
 
SIDNEY 323 
 
 mightn't he? Oh, I am so glad he's coming at 
 last.' 
 
 Lady Brent understood now, but it took her a little 
 time to recover herself. 'He has written to Jane, I 
 suppose,' she said, speaking in as natural a tone as 
 possible. 'There was a letter from him this morning, 
 but it was to his mother, and I was not expecting to get 
 the news in it until this evening.' 
 
 'Oh, I'll go and get the letter at once,' said Mrs Grant, 
 and ran out of the room, leaving Lady Brent alone. 
 She sat quite still, and the colour that had left her face 
 returned to it again. When Mrs Grant came back, 
 accompanied by Jane with the precious letter in her 
 hand, she had quite recovered herself. 
 
 Jane was rather a favourite of Lady Brent's. She 
 was not in the least afraid of her, as her elders were apt 
 to be, and talked to her about Harry in a way that 
 nobody else did. She was often invited to the Castle 
 by herself, and was always ready to go, though it 
 might have been thought that her inclinations towards 
 bodily activity would have made it a doubtful pleasure 
 to have to sit and talk to an elderly woman. Probably 
 she was the only person in the world of whom Lady 
 Brent would not feel jealous because she had received 
 this news first. 
 
 'I thought I'd like to bring you the letter myself,' 
 said Jane, and stood by her side as she read it. 
 
 Jane was fourteen now. Probably no two years in 
 her life would bring as great a change as the last two 
 had brought to her. She had grown tall for her age, 
 but was stiU slim and very upright. There was a good 
 deal of the child in her still, and even a little of the boy, 
 for her figure was not so rounded as with most girls 
 of her age, and her taste for boyish activities was still 
 stroijg. But there was more of the budding woman. 
 She was gentler in speech and manner than of old. 
 
224 SIR HARRY 
 
 and her face, if not yet her figure, was wholly feminine. 
 Her early promise of beauty was in course of being 
 fulfilled. She was very pretty, with her fair hair and 
 wide gray eyes, and it was no longer an effort to make 
 her tidy in her dress. Her skirts were well below her 
 knees, and in her more active moments she took some 
 pains to keep them there. 
 
 ' My dear Jane, — I shall be home almost as soon as 
 you get this. I suppose you know I've been serving as a 
 trooper all this time, but now I've got a commission. 
 I shall be in London for a day or two to get my kit, 
 and then I shall come down to Royd with a month's 
 leave in front of me. Hurrah ! You and I and Pobbles 
 will have lots of fun together. I hope you've kept the 
 cabin in good repair. Love from 
 
 'Harry.' 
 
 Lady Brent took a long time to read it, while Jane 
 stood and looked at her. When she looked up at last, 
 Jane said : ' I wish I'd known that his other letter 
 hadn't been written to you. I would have brought 
 this up at once.' 
 
 'Thank you, dear,' said Lady Brent. 'Of course, he 
 doesn't know that his mother is not at Royd. He would 
 have thought that we should all get the news at the 
 same time. Perhaps he wiU have told her more exact 
 dates, if he knows them. At any rate it cannot be 
 long now before we see him again.' 
 
 She was completely herself now, and no one who had 
 not known her would have guessed that the news she 
 had received meant very much to her. She rose almost 
 immediately and took her leave. She kissed Jane as 
 she said good-bye, which was an unusual attention, 
 and perhaps meant that she bore her no grudge for 
 having received the news first. 
 
SIDNEY 225 
 
 'I think it's rather horrid of Mrs Brent to be away,' 
 said Jane, when she had gone. 'Of course, he would 
 expect to find her waiting here for him.' 
 
 Mrs Grant was sometimes puzzled in her dealings 
 withj;his growing daughter of hers. She was becoming 
 more of a companion to her, and now Pobbles had gone 
 to school could be treated less as a child. But it was 
 not always easy to decide how far she should be let 
 into the confidences of her elders. She seemed to 
 have acquired a prejudice against Mrs Brent, which 
 had hitherto been treated as something not to be 
 encouraged. 
 
 'It has made it diihcult not to be able to tell Harry 
 anything of what has happened here,' Mrs Grant said. 
 'She went away to try to get some nursing, and ' 
 
 ' A fat lot of nursing she's done ! ' interrupted Jane. 
 'I don't beUeve she's tried at all. She's just enjoying 
 herself in London. I don't suppose Lady Brent cares 
 for her much, but it's rather hard lines to leave her 
 all by herself.' 
 
 Mrs Grant was much of the same opinion, since Mrs 
 Brent had taken no steps', as far as was known, to 
 embark upon the nursing career which she had announced 
 as her intention; but she was not quite ready to agree 
 with Jane's criticism of her. 'It isn't only she that 
 has left Lady Brent,' she said. 
 
 ' Mr Wilbraham is doing some work,' said Jane, ' and 
 Harry had to go. If he hadn't gone when he did, he 
 would have gone by this time.' 
 
 'I don't want to criticise him,' said her mother. 'It 
 will be all over now, but I think it ha^ been hard lines, 
 as you say, on Lady Brent that she hasn't been able to 
 write to him.' 
 
 'She understands that,' said Jane. 'We've talked 
 about it.' 
 
 Mrs Grant knew that Lady Brent had, surprisingly. 
 
226 SIR HARRY 
 
 made something of a confidante of Jane. She was 
 pleased that it was so, but did not like to ask questions 
 about her confidences. 
 
 Jane, however, seemed ready to give them. 'We 
 think,' she said, 'that until he was made an Qfiicer 
 he wouldn't want anybody to know that he was Sir 
 Harry Brent, or different from any other soldier. It 
 Would make it difficult if he had letters from home. 
 She's proud of him for it. So am I.' 
 
 Mrs Grant was touched by the 'we.' Evidently 
 Jane was of some comfort to the lonely self-contained 
 lady, if they discussed matters in that way. She kissed 
 her. 'I expect it's something like that, darling,' she 
 said. 'Anyhow, it's all over now, and he'll be just like 
 any other young man of his class. You must go back 
 to lessons now.' 
 
 ' I don't think he's like other young men,' said Jane, 
 as she reluctantly prepared to leave. ' I think it's much 
 finer to go through all the hardships. It's like pioneering. 
 I expect what we used to talk about in the log cabin 
 had something to do with it.' 
 
 ' Did you tell Lady Brent about that, darling ? ' 
 
 'Oh, yes. And she quite agreed with me. Lady 
 Brent understands things. I think Mrs Brent is a 
 rotter. Good-bye, mother dear.' 
 
 Mrs Brent's telegram came that evening, and she 
 herself the next day. According to his letter, Harry 
 might be in England almost as soon as it reached her. 
 He would come down to Royd as soon as possible, but 
 he must be in London for a few days to get his kit. He 
 would wire from there. But he did not tell her where 
 she could communicate with him. 
 
 She was all on edge, and Lady Brent must have exer- 
 cised the strongest control over herself to act with her 
 accustomed calmness and suavity. Suavity had not 
 
SIDNEY 227 
 
 always been the note of her intercourse with her daughter- 
 in-law, but it was clear that this was not the time when 
 friction between them could be allowed to appear. 
 If she did not exercise restraint it was quite certain 
 that Mrs Brent wouldn't. She seemed to be anxious 
 to show that she had thrown off an3^hing like submission. 
 She was noticeably less well-mannered than she had 
 been, though she bore herself as if she had acquired 
 more importance. She brought with her a great many 
 expensive clothes, and talked about them a good deal. 
 She dressed elaborately, and in a style to which no 
 objection could be made if elaborate clothes were 
 accepted as suitable for wear in the country; but they 
 did not improve her. Lady Brent ventured upon a 
 hint that Harry might like better to see her as she had 
 been before, but she flared up in offence, and let it be 
 known that she had learnt a lot since she had been in 
 London. Harry also would have learnt something; the 
 old days at Royd were over. 
 
 Underneath aU her new independence, and almost 
 aggressive spirit, her longing for Harry Avas plain. 
 She seemed to have resigned herself to his absence, and 
 to have gained some satisfaction out of her life in 
 London, of which she had remarkably little to tell. 
 But now that he was coming home again, her maternal 
 instinct arose to swamp everything else. At the end 
 of the twenty-four hours Lady Brent spent alone with 
 her, she was far nearer to being what she had been 
 before she had left Royd. She had to have some 
 S5mipathetic ear into which to pour her doubts and 
 complaints and disappointments. If only Harry had 
 told her where he was to be in London, she could have 
 met him there. Oh, it was hard to think that he might 
 be there now and she could not go to him. When did 
 Lady Brent think they might expect him? She asked 
 her this again and again, and made innumerable 
 
228 SIR HARRY 
 
 confused calculations, based upon this or that idea that 
 came into her head. She was very trying, but she had 
 to be put up with. She was Harry's mother, whatever 
 she might have made of herself. 
 
 On the day after her arrival Lady Avalon came, with 
 her daughter, but still there was no word from Harry. 
 
 They came in time for tea, and the two older ladies 
 retired to talk together afterwards. Mrs Brent was 
 left to entertain the girl. In the few minutes' conversa- 
 tion Sidney had with her mother before dinner, she 
 told her that unless she gained some relief from that 
 companionship, she really couldn't stay at Royd. 
 'She's a perfectly appalling woman, mother,' she said. 
 'How on earth she can have had a son like Harry, if 
 he's anything like he used to be as a child, I can't 
 understand.' 
 
 'I don't think she's so bad as all that, dear,' said 
 Lady Avalon. 'From what Lady Brent tells me, she's 
 been running with the people she comes from, and of 
 course they can't be much. That's admitted, though 
 I don't know anjH;hing about them. She seemed a quiet 
 enough little thing when I was here last. She'll settle 
 down again.' 
 
 ' I hope she will. But it's a poor look-out for me if 
 I've got to make a bosom friend of her, while you and 
 Lady Brent are putting your heads together. Really, 
 darling, I don't think I can stand it.' 
 
 'Harry may be home any day, and until he does 
 come we can spend most of our time at Poldaven, 
 though, of course, we mustn't just make a convenience 
 of being here. The Vicarage people are dining to-night, 
 so you won't have her on your hands entirely. The 
 Vicar is David Grant, the novelist. I haven't read 
 any of his novels, but I believe a lot of people do. I 
 expect he's a clever man, and will cheer us up a bit.' 
 
 'I should think we shall have quite an hilarious 
 
SIDNEY 229 
 
 evening— you and Lady Brent talking together, and 
 me and Mrs Brent and the Vicarage people.' 
 
 'I thought you rather liked Vicarage people. Don't 
 make yourself superior to your company, there's a good 
 girl. It's the worst sort of form — especially in the 
 country.' 
 
 Whatever the allusion to Vicarage people may have 
 meant, it sent Sidney out of the room with a blush on 
 her cheeks, and Lady Avelon rang for her maid with 
 a look on her face as of one who had been rather clever. 
 
 Sidney had grown into a pretty girl, though she was 
 considered the ugly duckling of the handsome family 
 to which she belonged. She was tall, and had not yet 
 quite grown out of the youthful awkwardness of her 
 stature. But there was more character in her well- 
 shaped features than her sisters could boast of, though 
 their widely-known beauty had descended upon them 
 in early childhood and suffered no relapse through the 
 years of their growth. They inherited their good looks 
 from both sides of the family, but Sidney was the only 
 one of the girls who derived more from her father. 
 Perhaps on that account she was his favourite, and he 
 was accustomed to prophesy that she would beat them 
 all in looks when she really grew up. She had kind 
 eyes and a smiling mouth, to which her decisively 
 jutting chin gave character. Her skin was very fair 
 and clear, and her abundant brown hair had just a 
 touch of auburn in it. There were some to whom the 
 hint of gaucherie in her carriage gave her an added charm. 
 It spoke of health and youth and vigour, and went 
 well with her free unafraid speech and her frequent 
 smile. 
 
 Grant, always on the look out for new types of female 
 beauty, but a little inclined to make aU his heroines 
 alike, .studied her closely that evening at dinner, and 
 was enchanted with her. If he had known that she 
 
230 SIR HARRY 
 
 had been looked upon as an ugly duclding in her family 
 it would almost have given him a novel ready made. 
 Mrs Grant liked her too, and as they walked home 
 across the park, cheered by the unaccustomed pleasures 
 of society, they made a match between her and Harry 
 there and then, as the Pawle and Brent nurses had done 
 in their early childhood. 
 
 'I shouldn't be surprised,' said Grant, 'if Lady Brent 
 had asked her here with that idea in her mind. It's 
 the first time in the three years we've been here that 
 any young person has stayed at the Castle. I dare 
 say Lady Avalon is in it too. They're old friends, and 
 they seem to have their heads together a good deal.' 
 
 'Lady Brent didn't know Harry was coming home 
 when she told us they were coming,' said Mrs Grant. 
 ' It's a coincidence, but perhaps a fortunate one. They 
 played together as children — Harry and Lady Sidney. 
 It would be rather a pretty match — except that Harry 
 is so young — not twenty yet.' 
 
 'You think he ought to wait a few years and marry 
 somebody much younger, eh? Somebody about the 
 age of Jane.' 
 
 Mrs Grant sighed. 'I shouldn't be a mother if I 
 hadn't thought of that,' she said. 'And Jane will be 
 quite as pretty as Lady Sidney when she grows up. 
 But Harry is so sweet and natural with the children 
 that it would be a pity to spoil it by thinking of some- 
 thing that would make it all quite different. He wouldn't 
 be what he is if he were to think of Jane as anything 
 but a child, for some years yet.' 
 
 'I think you're right,' said her husband. 'Of course 
 "I've built a few castles in the air. I shouldn't be a 
 father if I hadn't. But I expect he'll marry young; 
 he seems to me that sort of boy, somehow. I don't think 
 he could do better than marry Lady Sidney. She's 
 very interested in the idea of him. She talked to me a 
 
SIDNEY 231 
 
 lot about the time they used to play together as 
 children.' 
 
 'She said she'd come down to-morrow morning. I 
 think she wants to get away from Mrs Brent, though I 
 shouldn't wonder if Mrs Brent came with her. I think 
 she wants to show me as many of her new clothes as 
 possible. She hasn't improved up in London. I don't 
 like her nearly as much as I did.' 
 
 'I never cared for her much,' said Grant. 'She's a 
 common little thing, however she may dress herself 
 up to disguise it. I've sometimes wondered what Harry 
 will think about her when he does come home.' 
 
 Lady Sidney came down to the Vicarage the next 
 morning, and Mrs Brent came with her, as Mrs Grant had 
 anticipated. But apparently they each wanted to get 
 rid of th^ other, for directly Mrs Brent had greeted Mrs 
 Grant she said : ' I want to have a long talk alone with 
 you. I wonder if you'd spare Jane from her lessons 
 to show Lady Sidney the log cabin that Harry built 
 with the children. I've been telling her about it and 
 she said she'd like to see it.' 
 
 Sidney laughed. 'I don't want to be in the way,' 
 she said, 'and I'd hke to have a walk with Jane, if she 
 can be spared.' 
 
 Jane was fetched. She received Mrs Brent's effusive 
 greeting with unsmiling coolness and looked Sidney 
 over very critically when she was introduced to her. 
 The inspection was apparently satisfactory, for she 
 went off with some alacrity to change her shoes; but 
 that may have been because she was relieved at getting 
 off the rest of the morning's lessons. 
 
 The two girls set out across the garden, where the 
 Vicarage baby, now getting on for three, was asleep 
 under a tree, as before. They stopped to look at it, 
 and Sidney behaved in such a way as to give Jane a 
 
232 SIR HARRY 
 
 good opinion of her. 'She's a darling,' she said, as 
 they went on. 'I do hope she'll be awake when we 
 come back. I love to hear them talk at that age, don't 
 you?' 
 
 Jane said she did, and recounted specimens of the 
 Vicarage baby's wit, over which they both laughed 
 freely. They were very good friends by the time they 
 reached the log cabin. 
 
 Jane unlocked the door and waited for admiration, 
 which was given. 'I've kept it very tidy and clean 
 ever since Harry went away,' she said, looking solemnly 
 at Sidney. 'I hope he won't have got too old to hke 
 it. He wrote to me, you know, to say he was coming 
 back, and he mentioned the log cabin. I expect he'll 
 be pleased to see it again.' 
 
 There was half an appeal in her voice. Sidney looked 
 at her quickly. ' I'm quite sure he will,' she said. ' He's 
 not so very old, after all — just as old as I am, in fact, 
 and I'm not a bit too old to appreciate it.' 
 
 'Ah, but the war may have made a great difference 
 in him.' 
 
 'It doesn't make as much as you'd think.' She 
 hesitatSd for a moment, and said : ' I know a rfian who 
 has been through it all from the beginning. He enlisted 
 as Harry did, and had a rough time of it at first. He's 
 been wounded too — ^rather badly. But he's much the 
 same as he was before.' 
 
 Jane looked at her. 'You knew Harry when he was 
 little, didn't you? ' she asked. 'We only knew him first 
 three years ago. He seemed old then to me and my 
 brother, but he was only sixteen.' 
 
 * Let's sit down somewhere and I'll tell you all about 
 it,' said Sidney. 'I don't think I want to walk any 
 more, unless you do.' 
 
 They sat down on the bench under the eaves, and 
 Sidney told her about that summer when she and Harry 
 
SIDNEY 233 
 
 had played together as chUdren. Jane kept her large 
 eyes fixed upon her all the time, and they seemed to 
 be searching her and adding her up. By-and-by her 
 solemnity relaxed and she smiled when Sidney did, and 
 asked her questions here and there. When the story 
 came to an end it was plain that she had made up her 
 mind about her, and that her opinion was favourable. 
 
 This was made more evident still when she said 
 calmly : ' I expect Harry will fall in love with you, if 
 you're here when he comes home.' 
 
 Sidney looked at her in surprise, and then laughed. 
 ' What an extraordinary girl you are ! ' she said. ' You 
 think of everything.' 
 
 Jane laughed too. She was feeling more and more 
 at home with Sidney, who did not treat her as a child. 
 'Would you like him to? ' she asked: 
 
 Sidney was unexpectedly silent and serious, and 
 when she did speak, she did not answer Jane's question. 
 'Would you like to be friends?' she asked. 'Real 
 friends, I mean, so that we could tell each other things.' 
 
 'Of course I should,' said Jane. 'But I expect you've 
 got lots of friends older than me, that you know much 
 better. I've got hardly anybody, because there aren t 
 many people about here, and we don't go away very 
 often.' 
 
 'I always know at once if I'm going to Uke a person,' 
 said Sidney, ' and I knew I should like you when I first 
 saw you. We might see a good deal of one another 
 when we come down to Poldaven; and I shall want a 
 friend. I think it's going to be rather difficult.' 
 
 Jane was enchanted at the offer of friendship. She 
 admired Sidney tremendously, and to be on equal terms 
 with her gave her a most gratifying sense of having left 
 her childhood behind her. 'Why do you think it is 
 going to be difficult ? ' she asked, concealing her gratifi- 
 cation. 
 
 S.H. Q 
 
234 SIR HARRY 
 
 ' Oh, because, because ! Well, because of what you 
 said just now. If you haven't seen it already you will 
 very soon. It's what I've been brought down here for. 
 They don't say so, of course, but it's plain enough to 
 see. Of course I shall like Harry awfully, if he's any- 
 thing like he used to be. But you see I'm in love with 
 somebody else. That's the trouble.' 
 
 This was a confession worth having as an intro- 
 duction to the proffered friendship. Jane didn't know 
 whether to be glad or sorry to hear it. She had accepted 
 Sidney as a suitable person for Harry to fall in love with, 
 but perhaps it would be of some advantage if she didn't 
 fall in love with him. There remained, however, the 
 question of his faUing in love with her. 
 
 'Perhaps Harry ought to know that,' she said, after 
 a pause. 
 
 Sidney looked at her and laughed again. ' You know 
 Harry better than I do now,' she said. 'Do you think 
 he's likely to fall in love with me?' 
 
 Jane considered this carefully. 'I don't know; I 
 think I should if I was him,' she said, with more loyalty 
 than grammar. 
 
 'It's very sweet of you to say that,' said Sidney, 
 becoming serious again. 'Perhaps I will tell him; or 
 perhaps you shall. Then we shall all be happy and 
 comfortable together. I should ]ike to have Harry as 
 a friend, and I don't in the least see why one shouldn't 
 have a man as a friend when you're in love with another 
 man. Do you?' 
 
 Jane had not considered the subject, but was pleased 
 to have her opinion asked. It drew her to Sidney more 
 than anything — this treatment of her as if her opinion 
 on a grown-up subject was worth having. 'Not if it's 
 quite understood,' she said decisively. 'I'm really 
 rather glad that you are in love With somebody else, 
 because Harry is ahready my friend and if you are going 
 
SIDNEY 235 
 
 to be, then I shall be very well off— much better than 
 I should be if you and Harry wanted to be together 
 and to leave me out of it. I don't mind telling Harry, 
 if you like. It might be rather awkward for you to 
 do it, as it would look as if you were giving 
 him a warning. Who shall I say you're in love 
 with?' 
 
 Sidney laughed merrily and gave her a sudden embrace. 
 ' I can't help it,' she said, ' you're such a darling. Well, 
 he's a Captain in the Grenadier Guards, and his name 
 is Noel Chancellor.' 
 
 'That's the regiment that Harry was to have gone 
 into,' said Jane. 'His father and grandfather belonged 
 to it.' 
 
 'Did they?' said Sidney. 'Some of Noel's people 
 were in it too. It sounds all right, but as a matter of 
 fact Noel was a schoolmaster when the war broke out. 
 He's the son of our vicar at home. When the war is 
 over he is going to be a schoolmaster again. So you 
 see how it is.' 
 
 In her general ignorance of the world outside th& 
 immediate parish of Royd, Jane didn't quite see how 
 it was. She asked kindly after Noel Chancellor and 
 was given a pleasing impression of a handsome athletic 
 young man, who had played cricket for Marlborough 
 and Oxford and Notts, and had been happily engaged 
 at a health resort on the East Coast of Kent, when the 
 war broke out, in teaching thirty or so delightful boys 
 under the age of fourteen to play cricket as it ought to 
 be played, and to wrestle with the elements of Greek 
 and Latin in their spare time. 
 
 'Considering that all the people who think themselves 
 somebody send their children to be educated in schools 
 like Noel was in,' said Sidney, 'I should have thought 
 a person like me would have been just the touch that 
 was wanted to make it still more of a success. But of 
 
236 SIR HARRY 
 
 course mother doesn't see it in that light. It's all very 
 trying.' 
 
 Jane's affectionate heart went out to this tale of 
 crossed love, the first that had ever come within her 
 ken outside the pages of her father's novels, which she 
 read dutifully but without much interest. She thought 
 it quite natural that Lady Avalon should want Sidney 
 to marry Harry, as both of them had titles, but did 
 not say this for fear of being laughed at. She wanted 
 to be a real help and comfort to her new friend. 
 
 'I am sure it will come all right in the end,' she said. 
 ' Perhaps" when we tell Harry he will be able to do 
 something.' 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 Harry came home a few days after Lady Avalon and 
 Sidney had come to Royd, and two days before they 
 had been going away. But they were persuaded, 
 without much difficulty, to stay a Uttle longer. At least, 
 Lady Avalon accepted Lady Brent's invitation to 
 prolong their visit, and informed Sidney that she had 
 done so. 'You see how it is,' said Sidney to Jane, with 
 whom she was now fast friends, much to the maturing 
 of Jane's behaviour, but not to the spoiling of her, as 
 her parents gratefully remarked. 
 
 'She's a thoroughly nice unaffected girl,' said Grant, 
 ' and she'll be a nice friend for Jane, especially if what 
 we think is going to happen does happen.' 
 
 ' I'm not sure she's not putting ideas into Jane's head,' 
 said Miss Minster. ' I know they have secrets together, 
 and I've a sort of notion that they're on the eternal 
 subject of love.' 
 
 'Well,' said Grant, 'girls will talk about love, I 
 suppose, and if they talk nicely I don't know that there's 
 much harm done.' 
 
 'Jane ought to have learnt how to talk nicely about 
 love by this time,' said Miss Minster, with obvious 
 reference. 'I think Lady Sidney is all right really, or 
 I should perhaps advise you both difierently. Whether 
 she's going to set her cap at Harry or not, I don't know, 
 and I don't suppose Jane would tell me if I asked her. 
 But I'm pretty sure that they have discussed it.' 
 
 Mrs Grant listened to this without remark, but was 
 a little disturbed at the idea of Jane having secrets 
 
 237 
 
238 SIR HARRY 
 
 which she would not impart to Miss Minster. Would 
 she impart them to her? It would mark a stage if Jane 
 were not ready to tell her everything. 
 
 She was considering the advisability of approaching 
 Jane on the matter, when Jane approached her. ' I've 
 got a secret with Sidney, mother,' she said, in her 
 abrupt but open way. ' It's something she's told me 
 about herself. She says she'd rather I didn't tell you 
 just yet, if you don't mind, but she doesn't mind my 
 telling you that there is a secret. You don't mind, 
 do you?' 
 
 'What a lot of "minds"!' said Mrs Grant. 'No, 
 darling, I don't mind at all, unless it's something that 
 you think you ought to tell me.' 
 
 'Oh, no, it's nothing of that sort/ said Jane. 'It's 
 something about herself which she doesn't want people 
 to know yet. I'm going to tell it to Harry when he 
 comes home, so that we can all three enjoy ourselves 
 together.' 
 
 Mrs Grant, with the idea in her head that Sidney had 
 confided to Jane that she retained a tender memory of 
 Harry which might become more tender still, was a 
 little surprised at this way of putting it; but it did 
 not take her long to understand the truth when Jane 
 had left her. She smiled and kept her own counsel, 
 and liked Sidney all the better; for she must have 
 known that if Jane told her that there was a secret 
 she would guess what the secret was, little as Jane 
 might suspect it. 
 
 Harry sent a wire in the morning to say that he was 
 coming by a train that would arrive in the late after- 
 noon. Only Mrs Brent drove to the station to meet him, 
 but they were all waiting for him in front of the Castle, 
 the Grants inclusive, and there was scarcely a villager 
 who was not somewhere on the road, or in the more 
 public parts of the park to see him drive by. 
 
THE RETURN 239 
 
 His smiling excitement at this greeting from old 
 friends — the only friends he had had up till two years 
 before — made him seem at first exactly what he had 
 been. But there was none of the little group at the 
 Castle, except Lady Avalon and Sidney, who had riot 
 the impression, after the first greeting, of his having 
 become much older. His fair boy's beauty had developed 
 into the sunburnt hardness of a man. He was extra- 
 ordinarily handsome in his smart khaki kit, but he 
 looked years older than his age, which was not much 
 over nineteen; and his speech and manner had altered. 
 It would be another eighteen months before he would 
 be legally his own master and the master of his ancient 
 Castle, and all that went with it; but he seemed to have 
 come into the house as its master, and to give it a 
 meaning that it had never had while it had been ruled 
 by a womcin. 
 
 It was not too late for tea, which provided an oppor- 
 tunity for everybody of getting used to the new Harry, 
 as they sat on the terrace, and made play with their 
 cups and conversation. There were adjustments to be 
 made, and the necessity for them to be covered up. 
 Harry talked freely to everybody. His manner was 
 perfect with his grandmother, to whom he showed 
 deference, while she, of course, behaved with her usual 
 calm, and let nothing appear of all that she was thinking. 
 Mrs Brent kept her eyes on him all the time, and had 
 an air almost of bewilderment. She did not try to 
 assert herself, but accepted gratefully the notice he 
 gave her from time to time. Lady Avalon was the 
 only person present who asked him questions about his 
 experiences, but it soon became evident that he had 
 nothing to tell that was personal to himself. He answered 
 the questions, but with a slight change in the frank 
 manner of his speech when they touched upon his own 
 experiences apart from the operations in which he had 
 
240 SIR HARRY 
 
 taken part. His mother told Mrs Grant afterwards that 
 he had said to her during the drive that he wanted to 
 forget everything that had happened since he had left 
 home^at least, he didn't want to talk about it. They 
 had yet to learn how far his experiences had changed 
 him, and to gather whether or no they were such as 
 to have left a painful mark upon his life; but he would 
 give them no help in coming to their conclusions. His 
 life in the ranks was to remain as it had been, a sealed 
 book to them. 
 
 With Sidney, Harry was friendly but no more. They 
 talked a little of their childhood, and laughed over 
 some of their memories, but it was not, apparently, to 
 be the basis of any special degree of intimacy between 
 them. Sidney retired a little into her shell after a 
 time, and watched. 
 
 Harry was more like his old self with Jane than with 
 anybody. Beyond a single remark about her growth, 
 he had not shown himself aware of any change in her. 
 He seemed to want to take up their relationship at 
 exactly the place where it had stopped. He asked her 
 many questions about Pobbles, and said he would write 
 to him. His manner towards her was that of a grown 
 man to a child whom he loves. Even Lady Avalon 
 did not mistake it for anything else, for she told Lady 
 Brent afterwards that it was rather extraordinary that 
 he should not see that Jane was already growing into a 
 very pretty girl, with the implication that the fact 
 .might dawn upon him as time went on. 
 
 Jane herself showed a high but modest pride in the 
 value he put upon her. 'Now you see what he's like,' 
 she told Sidney. ' When we three can be together and 
 enjoy ourselves — ^well, we shall enjoy ourselves. I 
 consider that Harry is about the nicest friend that 
 anybody can have. He doesn't forget when he's 
 away.' 
 
THE RETURN 241 
 
 ' He hasn't forgotten j/om,' said Sidney. ' I'm beginning 
 to wonder whether / shan't be a little in the way.' 
 
 Jane showed surprise at this, and Sidney laughed 
 and said : ' Darling old thing you are ! You don't 
 know what you're worth; but you will in a year or 
 two. Anyhow, I'm not jealous of you, and I hke Harry 
 for remembering his old friends and not wanting to 
 drop them for new ones. Of course, I knew him before 
 you did, but not as he is now. He's older than I should 
 have thought, and I think he looks rather sad. You've 
 got to cheer him up, and if I'm wanted to help I shall 
 be quite ready.' 
 
 'Of course you'll be wanted to help,' said Jane. 
 ' You'll be seeing more of him, for one thing, as you will 
 be staying in the house. I suppose you won't mind 
 my being his chief friend though, if you like somebody 
 else better.' 
 
 'I should be a horrid sort of creature if I did,' said 
 Sidney. 'You won't suffer from me when you're not 
 here.' 
 
 Harry and Sidney strolled together in the garden 
 after dinner, with the full concurrence of their elders, 
 except, possibly, of Mrs Brent, who had not yet recovered 
 from her air of slight bewilderment, and was quieter 
 than she had been for the last few days. 
 
 They talked about Jane, and for the first time Harry 
 seemed to regard Sidney with interest. Hitherto he 
 had been merely friendly with her on the surface, as 
 with one who was there but didn't matter much. ' Oh, 
 yes, we're real friends,' she said, with her free and 
 pleasant smile. ' I suppose you can only see that she's 
 a child, but I've never treated her like one. I began 
 like that because girls of that age love being talked to 
 as if they were grown up, but I very soon found out 
 what a lot there was in her. If she's a child in some 
 wa3rs still, as of course she is, it makes her all the 
 
242 SIR HARRY 
 
 more fascinating. She's one in a thousand. She'll 
 make all the difference to me down here, if I can get 
 hold of her sometimes.' 
 
 'She's a real person,' Harry said. 'If you and she 
 have made friends it will be jolly for all three of us. 
 We can all be friends together.' 
 
 'That's what Jane wants,' said Sidney. 'She's 
 devoted to you, and I believe she's also devoted to me, 
 though not so much so. We can go and get hold of her 
 to-morrow morning, can't we? She has a holiday on 
 Saturday.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes. I'm very glad you want to. I was half 
 afraid you might think she was too young for you.' 
 
 ' I suppose you mean that you were half afraid you'd 
 have to dance attendance on me, when you'd rather 
 have been with Jane; but yoii see you need fear nothing 
 of that sort.' 
 
 They looked at one another. There was just light 
 enough to catch an expression of face. Then they 
 both laughed, and became friends from that moment. 
 
 'We'd settled that Jane was to tell you,' said Sidney, 
 ' but I think I might as well do it myself. I'm engaged 
 to somebody, but the engagement is not smiled upon. 
 In fact, it isn't recognised at all, and can't be spoken 
 of. But Jane and I thought that if you knew of it, 
 it would make things more comfortable all round for 
 us three.' 
 
 Harry asked her questions and showed a friendly 
 s)Tnpathy towards her love affair. But the idea of it 
 seemed to make him rather sad too, and Sidney did 
 not make the mistake of thinking that his sadness was 
 due to any disappointment created by what she had 
 told him. Indeed, her information had cleared the air, 
 which held more of friendliness and companionship 
 in it than before, as if he were reheved at having it 
 quite understood that he would not be expected to make 
 
THE RETURN 243 
 
 love to her, but short of that would give her all the 
 friendship that she wanted, and be glad to take in 
 return all that- she had to give him. 
 
 She had a good deal to give him. That baby's 
 friendship which seemed to have meant nothing to 
 him had kept him alive in her heart. He was not quite 
 like other men to her. Something of his childhood 
 lingered about him, though he had advanced so far on 
 the hard road of manhood, and but for her memories 
 of him would have seemed to her much older than his 
 years. She felt the desire to encourage in him those 
 gleams of boyish laughter and irresponsibiUty which 
 had once or twice shone out through the half-weary 
 indifference of his attitude. She thought that he must 
 have been through a harsh disillusioning experience, and 
 was too tired in spirit to accept all at once the freedom 
 of his release. Her own lover, who was some years older 
 than Harry, had told her that it needed a good deal 
 of resolution and self-hardening to go through the 
 ranks, and that sometimes only the remembrance of 
 her had kept him up to it. She thought she knew more 
 than other girls were likely to know what it must have 
 meant to Harry, who did not seem even to want to 
 speak of it. The maternal instinct, which is in all women, 
 drew her to sympathy with him. She and Jane between 
 them would get rid of that sadness and tiredness that 
 lay over him. If Jane was too young, and she too occu- 
 pied with somebody else to give him the consolation 
 that would quickly heal such wounds as he was suffering 
 from, he would still, surely, respond to their affection, 
 and forget his troubles. She must not talk too much 
 about her own happiness. That seemed to depress 
 him, kind as he was about it. Of course, it was love 
 he wanted, though he might not know it. It was a pity 
 that Jane was not a few years older, or that she herself 
 was the only unmarried one of all her sisters. She did 
 
244 SIR HARRY 
 
 not suppose that there was anybody else in these parts, 
 from what she remembered of them, who would be good 
 enough for Harry. But perhaps it was just as well. 
 She and he and Jane would enjoy themselves together, 
 and show the world, if the world happened to take notice 
 and be interested, that a man and- two girls could be 
 the best of friends with no question of love affecting 
 their intercourse. ■ 
 
 Perhaps that evening they might have got further 
 . into intimacy, but Harry had still something to do 
 before he could feel himself free to take his enjoyment 
 in the youthful companionship that had been so for- 
 tunately provided for him. 
 
 ' I'm very glad you're to be here for a bit,' he said. 
 'There aren't many young people about and it would 
 have been a bit dull for me, though I should have tried 
 my best to keep it from my mother and grandmother. 
 I think I must go in and have a talk with Granny now, 
 if you don't mind. I haven't seen her alone since I 
 came back.' 
 
 But apparently Mrs Brent had decided that there 
 was to be no talk between those two alone, as long as 
 she could prevent it. Lady Avalon and Sidney said 
 good-night soon after ten o'clock, and when they had 
 gone Mrs Brent said : ' Come out for a little with me, 
 Harry dear. It's quite warm, and I don't even want a 
 wrap. If you're tired, as I expect you are, you can go 
 straight to bed when we've just had a little stroll. 
 
 Lady Brent sat like a sphinx. Harry said: 'All right, 
 mother. But I'm not tired. We'U go out for ten 
 minutes and then I'll have a little talk with Granny.' 
 
 Directly they were in the garden, Mrs Brent said, in 
 a querulous tone : 'Why should you want to have a 
 talk with her? She took you away from me a lot when 
 you were a child, but now it's different. She ought not 
 to have any more authority over you than I have.' 
 
THE RETURN 245 
 
 Harry laughed at her. "Authority !' he echoed. 'I 
 don't feel like anybody having much authority over me 
 now, little mother.' He spoke tenderly, but there was 
 a hint of impatience in his tone, which she detected. 
 
 ' I'm sure I don't want to direct you in any way,' she 
 said. 'I only want to feel that you're mine now that 
 you've grown up, and not hers. Nobody in the world 
 loves you as much as I do. I suppose you'll marry 
 some day, and I shan't grumble at that when the time 
 comes. But until then I want to feel that you and I 
 are all in all to one another.' 
 
 He answered only her reference to his grandmother. 
 'You're my mother,' he said. 'In one way you've 
 always been more to me than Granny. But I owe her 
 a good deal, and I mustn't forget it. I haven't done 
 much for her since I went away. Now that I've got 
 what I wanted, and have come back again, I want to 
 make up for that — to both of you.' 
 
 ' It was very cruel of you to cut yourself off from us 
 as you did, Harry,' she said. 'You needn't have done 
 it. Even she wouldn't have prevented you doing what 
 you wanted to do, when once you'd done it.' 
 
 'We needn't talk about that,' he said decisively. 
 ' It's all over now. It's what I want to tell her. You 
 must let me have a little talk with her when we go in, 
 please, mother.' 
 
 'You mean you want me to go to bed while you sit 
 and tsdk to her alone. Why should you want that? 
 Why shouldn't I be there too?' 
 
 ' Well, because you're not friendly to her, and I want 
 to be — poor old Granny ! I suppose you've never got 
 on well together. I used to feel it, though I didn't 
 think about it much. I think you both tried to keep 
 it from me. I'd much rather you tried to get rid of 
 that feeling, mother dear. It meikes me unhappy, and 
 you can't hide it from me any longer. After all, Royd 
 
346 SIR HARRY 
 
 is her home. I'm rather sorry you kft it. I liked to 
 think of it with you and her here, just as it used 
 to be.' 
 
 'Oh, I couldn't stay here when you had gone. It 
 was too much to ask of anybody. I suppose she'll 
 always be here — at least till you come of age and are 
 master instead of her. Couldn't we go away together 
 — I don't mean now, but after you've been here a little, 
 to London or somewhere — just you and I together? 
 I've had so little of you, Harry, all to myself. All the 
 dull years here, while she has been everything and I 
 have been nothing, I've looked forward to it — ^to having 
 you to myself for a little, when you were grown 
 up.' 
 
 She peered into his face, and saw a frown on it; but 
 when he spoke it had cleared, and he spoke very kindly. 
 'I may have to go to London before my leave is up,' 
 he said. ' But I should want to go alone. And I don't 
 want to be away from Royd more than I can help. 
 You've always belonged to Royd, mother, ever since 
 I can remember. When I'm with you I'd rather be here 
 than anywhere. Please don't spoil it for me by making 
 things difficult with Granny. I think I'll go in to her 
 now. I mustn't keep her up late.' 
 
 She expostulated plaintively, as they went towards 
 the house together. She felt that he was sUpping from 
 her, and that nothing would be as she had pictured it, 
 but she had not the self-control to spare him her com- 
 plaints and appeals. He was always kind, but he was 
 firm too, with a man's firmness towards a weak and 
 foolish woman. He had grown immeasurably in mental 
 stature, and his determination impressed itself upon her 
 increasingly. That mention of authority over him 
 with which she had begun now seemed foolish even to 
 her. As they went into the house she said : ' Of course, 
 I don't want to treat you like a boy any more. I only 
 
THE RETURN 247 
 
 want to be sure that you don't love anybody better 
 than me. You do love me best, don't you, 
 Harry?' 
 
 He bent down and kissed her. ' You know I love you 
 mother,' he said. 'Now I'll go and talk to Granny. 
 Come and see me when I go to bed — say in half an 
 hour — as you used to.' 
 
 That comforted her a little, and she went upstairs, 
 while he went into the drawing-room where Lady Brent 
 was still sitting where they had left her. 
 
 'Well, Granny dear,' he said. 'I thought we'd have 
 a httle talk. I've got things to tell you.' 
 
 She laid down her work, and looked at him fondly, 
 sitting in a low chair opposite to her, so yoimg in 
 appearance, as he sat there with his long legs stretched 
 out, but, as she felt, so old in experience, and so different 
 from the boy he had been. 
 
 'Please don't think, dear Harry,' she said, 'that you 
 owe me any explanation of anything. I've had a long 
 time to think it all out, you know. I think I understand 
 most things. Don't you want it treated as if it was 
 all over now, and begin again, much as it was before? 
 If so, I want that too. We've got you at home now, 
 and we want to be all happy together.' 
 
 His face cleared as she spoke. 'It's very good of 
 you to put it like that,' he said. 'Yes, of course I want 
 it to be as much as possible what it used to be, as long 
 as I can be here with you. There's a good deal I want 
 to forget.' 
 
 'I'm afraid you've been through a very hard time, 
 Harry.' 
 
 'Not harder than others. Granny. It's not a bad 
 thing to Ic en what you have to learn iii a hard school. 
 Perhaps you learn it all the quicker.' 
 
 There was a pause before she said : ' It has troubled 
 me a good deal — the thought of your going straight 
 
248 SIR HARRY 
 
 from the life you lived here into the ranks. It wasn't 
 that that we'd tried to prepare you for.' 
 
 'Oh, the ranks!' he said. 'You needn't let that 
 worry you, Granny. I'm glad I went into the ranks. 
 I'd rather do it that way than any.' 
 
 She showed some surprise at this. 'I've thought it 
 over and over,' she said. 'But I've never thought of 
 it in that way. It was the roughness and coarseness 
 I hated for you. Isn't that what you want to forget ? ' 
 
 He was silent for a time, looking down. Then he 
 burst out : ' It's learning what the beastliness of life 
 is that I want to forget. That's what I'd never 
 known. I never minded hard work — doing what others 
 do. And I doubt whether I should have been let down 
 so easily with people like myself — on the outside, I 
 mean. No, I was nearer to the men who had lived 
 simpler lives. I understood them better thato I should 
 have done the others. And they were good to me too. 
 I don't thinlc I should have wanted to get a commission 
 if I hadn't felt I ought to. I should have been content 
 to go on till the end of it. But now it's all got to begin 
 again. Oh, don't let's talk of it. I've got a month 
 here, where it's quiet and clean and beautiful. Let's 
 forget what's past and what's coming. I never meant 
 to tallc of it. I only wanted to tell you what I was 
 going to do, and to thank you for letting me go my 
 own way.' 
 
 Poor Lady Brent went to bed that night with some- 
 thing new to think about. She could not sleep, and 
 wrote a long letter to Wilbraham in London. 'We 
 might have thought of that,' she wrote in the course 
 of it. 'It wouldn't have been the little hardships that 
 would trouble him. He had prepared himself for all 
 that, with the life out of doors that he had led here. 
 And he would understand the men he was with, because 
 he was friends with everybody about here. I'm sure 
 
THE RETURN 249 
 
 they must have loved him too, and all the more because 
 he wasn't like them. The others would have expected 
 him to be Uke them. I am full of trouble about h'm. 
 It looks to me now as if we had prepared him for 
 nothing, so as to save him pain. Life has come as a 
 shock to him, and he has not got over it yet. But one 
 thing I'm sure of — ^he must work it out for himself. 
 I shall meddle with him no more. I am not sure that 
 I have not made a great mistake.' 
 
 S.H. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 CONFIDENCES 
 
 Whatever it was that Lady Brent and Lady Avalon 
 had plotted between them, it needed no adjustment of 
 Lady Brent's statement to Wilbraham — that hence- 
 forth she should meddle no more in Harry's Ufe — to 
 help or hinder it. They had only to stand aside and 
 perhaps to congratulate one another upon the way their 
 desires were being fulfilled. Only Mrs Brent went about 
 with a downcast face and air, and but for the kindness . 
 Harry showed, he might as well have been back in 
 London. She also wrote to Wilbraham, and told him 
 that Harry and Sidney seemed to be falling more and 
 more in love with one another every day. 
 
 'Of course it's hard on me,' she wrote. 'But it's 
 what mothers are made for, I suppose. You do every- 
 thing for your children and sink yourself entirely, 
 and then some girl steps in and takes it all from you. 
 •However, I'm not going to show her that I feel it. She's 
 got the better of me once more. The girl doesn't take 
 the slightest trouble about me-— doesn't think I'm 
 worth it, I suppose — and for myself I don't care about 
 her. But she is the right sort of girl for Harry to marry, 
 or at any rate, to fall in love with. Whatever I am, 
 I'm fair, and I can see that. I should hate anybody 
 who would take him away from me, so it might just 
 as well be her as anybody. They're happy together, 
 and Harry is more like his old self. I'm sure they've 
 not said anything to one another yet. They take 
 Jane Grant with them whenever they can get hold of 
 
 2jO 
 
CONFIDENCES 251 
 
 her, and they wouldn't want to do that if it had gone 
 very far with them. The moment they want to go ofi 
 by themselves I shall know what to expect, and I'll 
 let you know, but I hope you'll be down here before 
 them. We are very glad you are coming. Harry often 
 talks about you. How I wish it was all like it used to 
 be I But it never will be again.' 
 
 Harry and Sidney rode together, and Harry found a 
 horse for Jane, and taught her to ride. Lady Avalon 
 had a car at Royd, and sometimes they motored over 
 to Poldaven, where everything was now ready for the 
 reception of a family of distinction. But Lady Avalon 
 had gone back to London, and Sidney stayed on at 
 Royd. There was no talk of her going away. 
 
 Jane could not be always with them. She had been 
 let off afternoon lessons, by special request, but had 
 to occupy herself with them in the mornings. 
 
 One hot morning Harry and Sidney motored over 
 to Poldaven Castle. It was an old stone house, not 
 very big, which stood on a boldly jutting cliff with the 
 sea on three sides of it. There was generally some wind 
 hereabouts, and there was a strong fresh wind this 
 morning, though among the woods of Royd it was 
 close and still. 
 
 They went down to a Uttle sheltered garden below 
 the house. It had been partly hollowed out of the rock, 
 and was partly rock-strewn grass and gorse and fern 
 tamed into some semblance of ordered ground, but not 
 too much to take from the charm of its wUdness. Steps 
 cut in the rock led down to it from above, and steps 
 had been made from it to the sea, which lay fifty or 
 sixty feet below. They sat on a stone bench over- 
 looking the heaving emerald mass of the sea, and the 
 waves breaking in a high tide against the chfEs and the 
 huge scattered rocks that littered the shore. 
 
 They were very good friends now, these two. It 
 
252 SIR HARRY 
 
 was Jane who had brought them together, for she 
 greatly admired both of them, and would not be content 
 until they admired one another. So they laughed at 
 her and affected a wondering awe at each other's per- 
 fections when they were in her presence; and when 
 they were alone together they sometimes kept up the 
 game, to prevent themselves falling into sadness over 
 their private troubles. 
 
 They were both a little sad now, as they sat on the 
 sun-warmed rock and looked out on the surge of the 
 waves. Nature was so bright and fresh and happy, 
 and seemed to be inviting a mood to respond to her 
 own. She could put on this air of perpetual laughing 
 youthfulness, though age-old and subject to moods very 
 different. It seemed ungracious not to laugh and be 
 happy with her. 
 
 ' It's lovely here,' Sidney said. ' If only things would 
 go right ! You're the most perfect person in the world, 
 Harry. I ought to be quite happy being here with you, 
 bujt I want somebody else. I'm wanting him rather 
 badly just at present.' 
 
 ' Well, you're everything you ought to be, but I want 
 somebody else, too,' he said. 
 
 He rose impulsively and leant against the wall of 
 the little terrace with one arm resting on it, and looked 
 down at her. ' I've thought I'd tell you for some time,' 
 he said. ' I want to tell somebody. I can't tell Jane ; 
 she's too young. But you're in the same boat as I am; 
 you'll understand. And we're friends, too, aren't we? 
 — always have been.' 
 
 She had appeared startled at his announcement, but 
 her face was soft as he finished. ' Oh, yes, we're friends,' 
 she said. 'I'm so glad you've told me, Harry. Do 
 you know, I've wondered sometimes whether there was 
 somebody. You so often look — well, you look like I 
 feel. You're, enjoying yourself, but there's somebody 
 
CONFIDENCES 233 
 
 you're thinking of all the time who isn't there. Do 
 tell me about it.' 
 
 He told her about his meeting with Viola on the 
 moor, and how they had seen one another constantly 
 afterwards and loved one another. Sidney's eyes were 
 kind as she listened, but there was a little frown of 
 puzzlement on her face. It was to be supposed that 
 she wanted to 'place' this lovely girl who had come to 
 Harry as a revelation when he had been only a boy, 
 and whom he adored still. He had told her nothing 
 about her so far, except that her father was an artist 
 and they had been holiday-making at Royd. There 
 were many questions she wanted to ask. 
 
 'Have you got a photograph of her, Harry?' was 
 the first that she asked. She wanted to satisfy herself 
 that he was not idealising somebody not worthy of 
 him. 
 
 Half-unwillingly he took his case out of his pocket, 
 and Viola's photograph out of it. ' It isn't as beautiful 
 as she is,' he said, 'but it's like her in some ways.' 
 
 Sidney took the card and looked at it for a long time. 
 It WcLS of Viola as Harry had first known her, young and 
 sweet and untroubled. 
 
 •' She's very lovely,' she said slowly. Then she looked 
 up at him with a smile. 'I'm so glad, Harry. I shouldn't 
 like to think of you in love with somebody who wasn't 
 like that. But I think she'd have to be, for you to fall 
 in love with her. Have you seen her since? ' 
 
 Yes, he had seen her two or three times before he 
 had been sent abroad, and he had been with her since 
 he had come back, before he had come to Royd. She 
 was in London, working in a Government office. He 
 was going to London for a few days before his leave 
 was up, and would see her again after that before he 
 went to France. 
 
 He spoke as if he was troubled about it, and she 
 
J$54 SIR HARRY 
 
 knew why. But there was a lot to learn about it yet. 
 And there was something about the beginning of this 
 love affair that she could not quite reconcile with her 
 knowledge of Harry. 
 
 'Of course, you're both frightfully young,' she said, 
 'Noel and I are of an age to get married if they'd let 
 us, but I suppose you could hardly expect them to 
 think that you were. But mightn't they accept your 
 engagement, and let her be here with you? ' 
 
 He came and sat on the seat beside her again. 'Of 
 course, we shall be married some day,' he said. 'But 
 we never thought about that, or about what you call 
 an engagement — I mean, we didn't think of it in the 
 way that older people would. We were just happy 
 loving each other.' 
 
 'Oh, I know,' she said. 'It's a lovely time that — 
 perhaps the best of all. But afterwards you come 
 down to the earth a little. I suppose it has been Hke 
 that with you, hasn't it? There are one's people to 
 be considered, and what they are likely to think about. 
 I suppose nobody knows — at Royd.' 
 
 Wilbraham does — ^my tutor, you know. Nobody else 
 does.' 
 
 She showed surprise at this. 'Did he find out you 
 were seeing her?' she asked. 
 
 He stirred uneasily. He did not answer her question 
 directly. 'I don't suppose you'd realise quite how it 
 was with me here, before I went away,' he said. ' They'd 
 kept me shut up. I was happy enough, but I knew 
 absolutely nothing about the world. From what I've 
 learnt since, I know it must look as if we had met 
 surreptitiously. Perhaps we did, and yet it wasn't 
 like that either. It was the most natural thing in the 
 world for us to be together as we were. At first I even 
 thought of telling my mother about it. I don't know 
 now when it first dawned upon me that they wouldn't 
 
CONFIDENCES i55 
 
 have approved — or why. I shouldn't have cared 
 much if they had known. But it was such a beautiful 
 secret between Viola and me; I didn't want it to be 
 spoilt by other — older people — coming in.' 
 
 'Mr Wilbraham knew,' she said. 
 
 ' He'd seen her. He knew what she was like. He's a 
 dear old thing — ^full of understanding and sympathy. 
 I don't know why he didn't tell Grarmy. I didn't ask 
 him not to. I wouldn't have done that; that would 
 have looked as if I had done something I was ashamed 
 of. I've had an idea since that he had some sort of 
 feeling that we were two men together, and it wasn't 
 for us to be directed in our affairs by a woman. Some- 
 thing like that. Granny has always been very much 
 at the head of things here.' 
 
 'Yes, I see,' she said. 'But now you're older, Harry; 
 and it has lasted? That sort of love, when you're v^y 
 young doesn't always last, you know. Wouldn't Lady 
 Brent accept it now? It would be so lovely if she 
 could come here, and you could be happy with her as 
 long as you're in England. You wouldn't have to go 
 away to London to see her then.' 
 
 There was silence for a time, except for the noise of 
 the waves on the rocks, and the plaintive cry of the 
 gulls wheeling above them. Harry sat looking on the 
 rocky floor; Sidney out to sea. 
 
 'I've had to decide such a lot of things for myself 
 lately,' he said. ' I'd decided not to do that.' 
 
 She thought his tone sounded as if he were wavering 
 about his decision. She did not look at him, but said : 
 ' With Noel and me it's a very ordinary sort of difficulty. 
 He's not what they'd call a good match. "But I suppose 
 they won't hold out if we show that we mean to have 
 our own way. If they do, well, I shall wait till I'm 
 twenty-one and marry him~just hke that. But, of 
 course, it would make a lot of difference if they smiled 
 
256 SIR HARRY 
 
 on us now, instead of keeping us apart. The real 
 reason why we've come down here is because if he 
 conies home on leave I should see him, and they don't 
 want me to; and partly, I suppose, because they think 
 you and I might get to like each other, now we're both 
 grown up. - Why can't they let us be happy in our own 
 way — ^the older people ? They've done what they wanted, 
 or if they haven't they're probably rather sorry for it 
 now. I should be very glad if Noel were in the same 
 sort of position as my sisters' husbands. But I shouldn't 
 love him any better for it. It's love that counts.' 
 
 'Yes, of course,' said Harry. 'Well, both you and I 
 are going to get what we want by-and-by. I suppose 
 we shall have to wait about the same time for it. But 
 you never know what's going to happen to you in these 
 days. If I were to get killed, I should have missed 
 something I ought to have had. You'd say it wouldn't 
 make much difference to me, but I don't look at it 
 like that; and anyhow it would make a difference to 
 Viola, all her life.' 
 
 Her eyes had filled with tears. 'It just doesn't do 
 to think about that,' she said, 'or to talk about it.' 
 
 He looked at her quickly, and put his hand on hers 
 as it lay on the stone between them. 'I'm sorry,' he 
 said. 'I didn't mean to be a brute. We take it like 
 that, you know; it doesn't make any difference to us. 
 Nobody worries about it. But of course it's different 
 for you.' 
 
 She dried her eyes. 'It won't happen to Noel or 
 you,' she said. 'We shall all four of us be happy by- 
 and-by. But why shouldn't you be happy now, Harry? 
 Is it necessary that you shoidd keep it a secret still? ' 
 
 The troubled look returned to his face. ' I'm different 
 from other men,' he said. 'Everything was spared me 
 when I was young. I've had to learn everything since 
 I grew up, and it isn't a pleasant world to learn in now. 
 
CONFIDENCES ^il 
 
 But whatever I have to do I must do now on my own 
 responsibihty. I should have to ask for Viola to come 
 here. I couldn't do that. When she comes here, she'll 
 come of her own right — the right that I shall give her.' 
 
 'But if you were to tell them about her, Harry '. 
 
 ' Yes, that's what I've thought of doing. But I can't 
 do that either. They might accept her, but if they 
 didn't — it's like it is with you. They want something 
 else.' 
 
 She sighed. 'I'm glad you've told me, at any rate,' 
 she said. 'It puts everything right now. You know 
 about me and I know about you. I suppose Jane 
 doesn't know?' 
 
 'No. And we mustn't tell her. I wish I could, but 
 it wouldn't be fair on her. She'll be the first person 
 I shall tell on that happy day when I can tell every- 
 body.' 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 HOLIDAY 
 
 WiLBRAHAM Came down to Royd for a week-end visit. 
 It was all he could spare from his arduous duties. He 
 was thinner than he had been, but seemed to have 
 flourished under the severe course of work to which he 
 had submitted himself. He seemed harder and more 
 self-reliant. Lady Brent saw at the first glance that 
 his old temptation had not troubled him, or if it had 
 troubled him that he had got the better of it. 
 
 Harry drove a dog-cart to the station to meet him. 
 The greeting was warm between them. Wilbraham 
 looked him up and down. ' I can't say they've smartened 
 you up,' he said, 'because you didn't want it. But 
 they've turned you into a soldier. I hope you haven't 
 forgotten all your classics.' 
 
 Harry laughed, but made no reply. When they had 
 driven out of the little town and were on the long, 
 lonely country road, he said : ' I wanted to see you first. 
 Of course, you'll be talking me over with Granny. There 
 are some things I don't want said. 
 
 'If you mean about Viola,' said Wilbraham, after a 
 pause, 'I've kept my own counsel — and yours — for 
 nearly two years. I've never been quite sure that I 
 was right to do it. I believe it might have been better 
 for you if Lady Brent had known. But, at any rate, 
 I have kept sUence, and it isn't my affair now. It's 
 yours; I quite recognise that.' 
 
 'Have you seen her?' 
 
 ' Viola ? Since you came home, you mean. You know 
 that I saw her occasionally before. Yes, I've seen her. 
 
 258 
 
HOLIDAY 2^9 
 
 Of course, she wants you. You're going up next week, 
 aren't you? Have you arranged that here?' 
 
 'Not yet. I told mother that I should be going to 
 London, but I haven't said when yet.' 
 
 ' They won't like it, I suppose. You won't give them 
 any reason for going. They'll think you just want to 
 get away from here to amuse yourself as other young 
 men do who are home on leave.* 
 
 ' I'm afraid they must think what they like. I hate 
 all this secrecy — and deception. I won't deceive them 
 more than I can help. They must let me go my own 
 way, and not ask questions. But it's deception all the 
 same. Why did you let me in for it? ' 
 
 'Let you in for it? / let you in for it? What on 
 earth do you mean, Harry?' 
 
 'Not you chiefly. But you were in it. You kept me 
 knowing nothing. Supposing it hadn't been Viola I 
 fell in love with ! Oh, I've learnt a lot since you and I 
 met last. I know what men are, and I'm not different 
 from others at bottom, though there's miles between 
 me and them in some ways. It's Viola I owe everj^thing 
 to — not Granny or mother or you. I don't know how 
 I should have lived through it if it hadn't been for 
 her. I should have lost everjrthing that I was.' He 
 spoke more slowly. 'Viola is everything in the world 
 to me,' he said, 'everything in this world or the next. 
 I want you to understand that. I loved her before, but 
 I love her a thousand times more, now that I know. All 
 this — Royd, and Granny, and mother — everything that 
 it all meant to me, is nothing to me now, apart from 
 her. \\'hatever there is that's real in it — I can't explain 
 it, but it's as if she'd have to give it back to me before 
 I can make it anj^hing again. If you can see that, 
 then you may be able to help a little. Viola is to come 
 first in everything, but until it's all straightened out I 
 want Granny — and mother — to be as little troubled 
 
26o SIR HARRY 
 
 about me as possible. Make it look natural to them, my 
 going to London; don't let them think that I'm tired 
 of them, or of Royd. I'm not, only it's all very little 
 to me beside Viola.' 
 
 'I think you're unjust to us,' said Wilbraham. 'Say 
 we hadn't prepared you for what you've been through 
 — ^when nobody could have foreseen ' 
 
 'Oh, it would have been just the same if I'd gone 
 straight to Sandhurst — ^perhaps worse — if I hadn't 
 known Viola.' 
 
 'Well, that's where you're unjust. It was only Viola 
 — or somebody hke her — that you could have fallen in 
 love with, as you did. We'd done that for you.' 
 
 Harry thought this over. Wilbraham breathed more 
 freely the longer his silence lasted. He recognised with 
 gratitude that old sense of fairness and reasonableness 
 which had never been absent in his dealings with Harry. 
 ' It's what you have to think of when you feel inclined 
 to blame your grandmother,' he said. 
 
 'I don't think I'm inclined to blame her,' Harry 
 answered to this. ' I'm very sorry for her. That's why 
 I want to let her down as easily as I can. Afterwards, 
 everything will be right for her, and she'll see — she's 
 quite wise enough — ^that it was right that I should take 
 my life into my own hands. That's what I'm going to 
 do. I had to do it once before.' 
 
 'She accepted that, you know.' 
 
 ' Yes, in h. wonderful way, I think. And she'll accept 
 Viola. But Hot now. I should have to ask her for 
 Viola, and I'm not going to do that. Besides, she's 
 got other ideas in her head for me.' 
 
 ' Lady Sidney, I suppose you mean. From what your 
 mother has written you seem to want her to think that 
 her wishes are being carried out.' 
 
 'Sidney and I understand one another. She knows 
 about Viola. I'm very glad she's here. I couldn't have 
 
HOLIDAY 261 
 
 stayed here without her and little Jane. I suppose the 
 beastly world would say that I'm just amusing myself 
 with a pretty girl, as I can't be with the girl I love. 
 They might even think there's some danger in it. But 
 the world doesn't know love as I know it.' He turned 
 to Wilbraham with a smile. 'What you did, my friend, 
 you and Granny between you, was to unfit me for the 
 society of men. After being with nobody but men for 
 aU this time, I'm glad enough to have two girls as my 
 friends before I go back to it. As for Granny — she's 
 arranged all that for me, as she's used to arrange 
 everything, and if she's disappointed with the outcome 
 of it, I'm afraid it can't be helped. It's just that 
 arranging that I have to make my stand against, with 
 as little bother about it as possible.' 
 
 'I've said already, and I'll say it again, that you're 
 hard on Lady Brent. I fuUy beUeve that if you were 
 to tell her about Viola — ^now — she'd accept it. Then 
 all the secrecy you say you hate would be over.' 
 
 'I think it's quite possible that she might. I don't 
 think my mother would. In any case there'd be 
 questions and difficulties. Viola would be discussed and 
 reckoned up in a way I can't bear to think of. When 
 the time comes I shall bring Viola here and say : " This 
 is the girl I love, and she loves me, though I'm not 
 worth anything beside her." Then there'll be no 
 questions and no difficulties, and Viola will take her 
 place here, and we shall be happy for the rest of our 
 Uves.' 
 
 'You mean that she'll take Lady Brent's place here, 
 I suppose. It's no good bUnking matters.' 
 
 Harry laughed at him. ' You always were a persistent 
 old thing,' he said, 'but I'm very glad to see you 
 again. Tell me about Viola, and what she said to 
 you.' 
 
 Wilbraham found himself, somewhat to his suiprise, 
 
252 SIR HARHY 
 
 in spite of the preparation he had had, in an atmosphere 
 of serenity, and almost of gaiety. There had been nothing 
 like it in all the years he had lived at Royd Castle. He 
 told himself that unless he had known how it was 
 with Harry he would certainly have thought that the 
 pleasure he obviously took in Sidney's society was 
 leading to something else. The Grants were there when 
 he arrived. It was a little intimate friendly happy party, 
 of which no single member seemed to have a care upon 
 his or her shoulders. Only Mrs Brent seemed rather 
 out of the stream. Wilbraham saw that he would be 
 invited on the first opportunity to listen to the tale of 
 Mrs Brent's dissatisfaction. 
 
 It was Grant, however, to whom he first talked alone, 
 walking in the garden. Grant could see nothing on the 
 horizon but a prospective marriage between Sir Harry 
 Brent and Lady Sidney Pawle, which appeared to him 
 eminently as one that should give satisfaction to all 
 parties concerned. 
 
 'Of course, they won't want to be married yet awhile,' 
 he said. ' But we're expecting an engagement any day. 
 I must say that it has all turned out in a most extra- 
 ordinarily satisfactory way. Supposing the boy had 
 done what his father did ! He'd seen nobody here; 
 he might very well have got taken in by somebody 
 who wouldn't have been the right sort of person for 
 him to marry when he cut himself loose. And there 
 was just the chance of this one girl being here when he 
 came home. One is inclined to think of Lady Brent 
 managing everything, but she didn't actually manage 
 that. It just came about.' 
 
 Wilbraham listened to all this, his own thoughts 
 running all the time. Sidney and Jane and Harry were 
 in another part of the garden, out of sight but not out 
 of hearing. A burst of laughter punctuated the close 
 of the Vicar's speech. 'Wouldn't they want to get 
 
HOLIDAY 263 
 
 away by themselves if it's as you think?' Wilbraham 
 asked. 
 
 'Ah, my boy, you don't recognise the march of the 
 great passion,' said Grant. ' I've loved watching those 
 three together, because it is all going as I should have 
 expected.' 
 
 'Copy in it,' suggested Wilbraham. 
 
 ' Well, that's your way of putting it. But, of course, 
 one takes in everything that passes before one's eyes, 
 and if it doesn't come out exactly Uke it, it's ' 
 
 'Near enough to look like it. Well, I suppose you've 
 made a study of it, and all the old women who read your 
 immortal works wiU shiver down their spines and say, " It 
 was just like that with me." But I'd rather take Jane's 
 opinion about it than yours.' 
 
 'Would you? Well, Jane's having the time of her 
 life. They're awfully nice to her. Of course, they're 
 just in the state when it's gratifying to have somebody 
 like Jane with them, who thinks there never was any- 
 body Uke either of them. They flatter each other 
 through her.' 
 
 'Oh, that's how it's going to be worked out, is it? 
 The old women v/ill love that. It's a new touch, and 
 they'll wish they'd thought of it for theniselves in 
 time. Did Jane tell you it was Uke that, or was it 
 your own mighty brain?' 
 
 'You're jealous of my success, Wilbraham. But I 
 don't mind your jibes. I don't write for the high- 
 brows like you, and I do touch the hearts of thousands. 
 Jane talks to her mother. I shouldn't expect her to 
 talk to me about it.' 
 
 'Well, what does Mrs Grant say? She's got some 
 sense.' 
 
 'She keeps rather quiet about it. I think she's just 
 thankful that Harry has somebody to keep him bright 
 and cheerful while he's at home. You made a mistake, 
 
a64 SIR HARRY 
 
 you know, before, in not letting him have young people 
 to play with.' 
 
 'He had your two.' 
 
 'As it happened, yes. But they were only children. 
 Jane is older now, but not old enough, fortunately, to 
 have the danger of complications. Apart altogether 
 from the question of a love affair with Lady Sidney, 
 I believe it's the best thing that could happen for him 
 to have those two with him while he's here. It's an 
 awful welter of blood and horror out there, you know, 
 Wilbraham. None of the young fellows who come home 
 talk much about it, but it doesn't need much imagination 
 to see what a healing process it is for anybody like 
 Harry to spend a few weeks with people Uke those two 
 girls as his chief companions, in a quiet lovely place 
 like this. 
 
 'Now you're talking sense yourself for a change. 
 Here's Mrs Brent coming. Don't leave me alone with 
 her. It's an awful welter of red tape and incompetence 
 where I've just come from, but I don't want her as a 
 healing process till I feel a little stronger.' 
 
 But the Grants had to be going very shortly, and Mrs 
 Brent was not to be denied. 
 
 Her first address to Wilbraham, however, was not 
 on the subject of her grievances. 'Oh, I forgot to tell 
 you when I wrote,' she said. 'You know that artist 
 — Bastian — ^who came down here two summers ago?' 
 
 'Yes,' said Wilbraham, with his heart in his mouth. 
 
 'Well, I've found out that he married a great friend 
 of mine — oh, years ago, but I hadn't forgotten her. 
 She died, poor girl, but of course the daughter who was 
 with Mr Bastian here was hers. I wish I'd known. I'd 
 have gone to see them.' 
 
 'You wouldn't have wanted to bring that time up, 
 would you?' said Wilbraham, scarcely knowing what 
 to say. 
 
HOLIDAY 265 
 
 She was all bristles at once. 'I think I was very 
 badly treated about all that,' she said. 'I'd nothing 
 whatever to be ashamed of in what I came from, and 
 all the time it was made to look as if I had. I half 
 believed it myself, but now I know better. Every one 
 of my family is doing well. They're not in the position 
 I'm in, of course, but there's no need to be ashamed of 
 any of them. In fact, I've made up my mind to intro- 
 duce Harry to his relations on my side of the family. 
 I'm going to ask him to take me up to London before 
 he goes back. Then he'll see for himself.' 
 
 ' Do you think you're wise ? ' said Wilbraham, relieved 
 at having got away from the subject of the Bastians. 
 
 'What do you mean?' she asked. 'What's the 
 objection?' 
 
 'Well, you say they're not equal to you. They may 
 be very good sort of people; I dare say they are; but 
 what's the sense of dragging them in at this time of the 
 day — after twentv years — ^to mark the difference ? ' 
 
 'What difference?' 
 
 'Well, the difference between them and Lady Brent.' 
 
 'Lady Brent! How can you talk hke.that? It's 
 just that I'm so mad with Lady Brent that I ' 
 
 'I know it is. All you can think of is to score off 
 her. You're not thinking of Harry; you're not even 
 thinking of yourself. What are you going to get out 
 of going back on everything you've stood for for the 
 last twenty years? Harry thinks of you as belonging 
 to Royd, in the same sort of way as Lady Brent does. 
 Why should he have ever thought of you as anything 
 different? Now you're proposing to show him the 
 difference. You say yourself they are difierent. You're 
 going to show him the difference between Lady Brent 
 and them. Which is Ukely to come out of it best? I 
 don't know; I'm asking you.' 
 
 'Oh, you're just trying to aggravate me,' she said. 
 S.H. S 
 
266 SIR HARRY 
 
 'You always were like that. I don't know why I talk 
 to you at all.' 
 
 'Well, if you've finished I think I'll go in. I want a 
 peaceful time as long as I'm here. You're the only 
 person who doesn't seem to be comfortable and happy. 
 I'd rather be with those of them who are.' 
 
 'I'm not at all happy. I'm just miserable. Harry 
 doesn't love me any more, and I don't know what to 
 do about it.' 
 
 They had come to the bowling alley where Wilbraham 
 had thought out his difficulties two summers before. 
 She sank down on to the seat and cried. 
 
 Wilbraham felt very sorry for her, but determined 
 to prevent her from making mischief if he could. ' Look 
 here,' he said, 'I don't think it really much matters 
 whether you introduce Harry to your people or not. 
 He's grown up now, and all that idea of keeping things 
 from him is over. Do what you like about it. Lady 
 Brent won't try to stop you; I'm pretty certain of that. 
 She has given up trying to direct his life. Why can't 
 you?' 
 
 Her sobs*increased. ' I'm his mother,' she said. ' I've 
 had so little of him. I can't give him up now.' 
 
 'You had him during the whole of his childliood, 
 more than most mothers have their sons. Lady Brent 
 may have been a bit jealous of you; I dare say she was; 
 she's got her weaknesses Uke all the rest of us. But 
 she didn't try to get him away from you. I was here 
 most of the time, and I could see that plainly enough. 
 You know it too. You'll be much happier about things 
 if you try to be fair to her, as she's tried to be- fair to 
 you.' 
 
 'Oh, of course, it's her you're thinking of all the time. 
 I don't- come in at all.' 
 
 'Yes, you do come in. I'm trying to help you to get 
 things straight. The fact is your nose has been put 
 
HOLIDAY 267 
 
 out of joint by this girl who's here. It isn't Lady Brent 
 at all, though you heap it all back on her. You can't 
 expect a boy of Harry's age to go about tied to his 
 mother's apron strings, when there's somebody young 
 for him to play with. You like the girl all right, don't 
 you?' 
 
 She had dried her eyes and sat leaning forward in an 
 attitude of picturesque misery. 'It doesn't seem to 
 matter whether I like her or not,' she said. 'Harry 
 won't talk to me about her. If he told me he was in 
 love with her I should do my best to sympathise with 
 him. I want to be everything to my son.' 
 
 'Of course you do; and of course you can't be. If 
 he hasn't told you he's in love with her it's because he 
 isn't. For goodness' sake let him be happy while he's 
 here, and in his own way. He'll be going back soon 
 enough, and you won't want him to think of his holiday 
 spoilt by your complaints. You're selfish, you know. 
 It's yourself you're thinking of all the time, not him. 
 You used not to be like that.' 
 
 'Oh, well,' she said, rising, 'I suppose I must put 
 up with it. It's the common lot of mothers. I shan't 
 talk about it any more, to you or anybody.' 
 
 'That's right,' said Wilbraham, as they strolled 
 towards the house. 'And don't make complaints to 
 Harry either. It's not the way to get what you want 
 from him. Of course, you know that really, as well as 
 I do. Only it's difficult, isn't it ? ' 
 
 'Oh, I don't know,' she said. With the end of her 
 emotion she seemed to have entered a mood almost of 
 indifference. ' If I've stood what I have all these years, 
 and kept myself under as I have, I suppose I can go 
 on doing it. It's coming down here that has upset me. 
 I've been happy enough in London. Of course I've 
 wanted to hear about Harry, but he's promised me now 
 that he'll write to me regularly. I shall be better off. 
 
268 SIR HARRY 
 
 in a way, than I've ever been. I'm somebody there, you 
 see. Here, I'm nobody. I shan't stay here a moment 
 longer than Harry does. I hate the place now. Why 
 have you never been to see me in London?' 
 
 'I don't know that you've ever asked me. Where 
 do you hve?' 
 
 She told him. She was sharing a flat with an old 
 friend, a woman who had been on the stage with her, 
 had had an unhappy married Ufe, but had got on in her 
 profession.' 
 
 'Margaret Greedy?' said Wilbraham. 'I've seen her 
 act. She's very good.' 
 
 'Yes, you wouldn't have thought she began in the 
 chorus, would you? She never had much voice, which 
 was perhaps just as well for her, or she'd have been in 
 musical coinedy still. She doesn't like it remembered, 
 and of course, I don't want it known either; but we 
 often talk over old times. It was from her, by the bye, 
 that I heard about Mrs Bastian. She married a gentle- 
 man, hke I did; but he'd come down in the world. 
 Bastian isn't his real name, you know.' 
 
 'What is his real name?' 
 
 'I don't know. I meant to find out about him, and 
 go and see what the girl is Uke. You never told me 
 much about her, but if she's like her mother she ought 
 to be very pretty.' 
 
 'She is' Very pretty, but ' 
 
 'Oh, you mean I ought not to let them know who I 
 was, as they've been here. Perhaps I shan't. I don't 
 want to give her any handles against me.' 
 
 'By her I suppose you mean Lady Brent. Every- 
 thing comes back to her. You'll think better of all 
 that some day. I wish you'd think better of it now. 
 Royd would be a less prickly house to live in.' 
 
 'Oh, I shall behave m3^elf, never you fear,' she said, 
 as she left him. 
 
HOLIDAY 269 
 
 He thought it probable that she would. He had 
 nmde an impression on her, though she was not of 
 the sort that would acknowledge it. She was evidently 
 making her own Ufe, and even if she had dropped all 
 pretence of war work, for which she had gone to London, 
 it was not a life that would let the name of Brent down, 
 as he had rather feared. Margaret Greedy was an 
 actress of some distinction, and would be very careful 
 not to jeopardise the social position she had won for 
 herself. And Mrs Brent, for all her independent talk, 
 was guided by a sense of her own importance in the 
 world. Probably the joint estabUshment was as rigidly 
 respectable as any in London. 
 
 As for possible complications with the Bastians, 
 Wilbraham could do nothing. If the revelation came 
 in that way, it must come, and for himself he didn't 
 care when it came. He was tired of all the secrecy, and 
 thought too that Harry was wrong in keeping his secret; 
 or, at any rate, right or wrong in being unwilhng to 
 disclose it himself, that it would be better for him if it 
 were known. 
 
 He was incUned to dread the talk that he saw coming 
 with Lady Brent. He badly wanted a recreative rest 
 himself, and hated the idea of exercising his brain in 
 steering clear of admissions to her, hated also the idea 
 of deceiving her by doing so, when all the time he was 
 in sympathy with her in her doubts and disappoint- 
 ments. What was done was done. Harry was what 
 he was, and if she had made any mistake in his upbringing, 
 which he did not admit, it would do no good now to 
 dwell on it with regret. Harry was working it all out 
 for himself, and as far as Wilbraham could see was not 
 making such a bad job of it. He would tell her that, 
 when she began to discuss him, and cut the conversa- 
 tion as short as he conveniently could. Then he would 
 be free to enjoy himself, in the company of the people 
 
270 SIR HARRY 
 
 he liked best in the world, and in the place which seemed 
 to him, coming back to it, a haven of peace and beauty. 
 
 But apparently that was all that Lady Brent wanted 
 of him. She told him that Harry seemed much more 
 his old self now that he had been home a week or more, 
 and that she was glad that there was young companion- 
 ship for him; and beyond that she did not discuss him 
 at all. 
 
 So Wilbraham enjoyed his two days at Royd, and 
 went back to his work greatly refreshed, and with most 
 of his doubts about Harry set at rest. He might be 
 longing for Viola all the time, as he had said he was, 
 but he managed to hide it pretty effectively, and seemed 
 to be enjoying his holiday as much as anybody. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 MRS BRENT KNOWS 
 
 RoYD Castle was empty, except for the servants, for 
 the first time for twenty years. Everybody had gone 
 away, including Lady Brent, who, however, was not 
 very far off, for she was only visiting Lady Avalon 
 for a few days at Poldaven. 
 
 To the Grants, left to themselves, after the unusual 
 amount of society they had lately enjoyed, there was a 
 sense of emptiness, though their own summer life was 
 in full swing, and the Vicar had a bright new idea for 
 a novel, which was keeping his thoughts happily 
 employed. There were to be a young man and'two girls, 
 and nobody was to know which of the girls the young 
 man was really in love with until the last chapter. 
 
 'Of course, I got the idea from those three,' he told 
 his wife, 'although it couldn't be exactly like them. 
 Harry and Sidney might be, but the second girl would 
 have to be older than Jane, but still rather young. 
 She would be a sort of confidante of the other two, who 
 would be inclined to fall in love with one another. Then 
 she would gradually find that she was in love with the 
 young man herself. I should make it rather pathetic, 
 but not overdo it, of course. She would keep her 
 feelings to herself, out of loyalty to her friend. I 
 haven't quite worked it out yet, but the reality would 
 come in a flash. The young man would find that it was 
 she he was in love with. I shouldn't be able to leave 
 the other girl in the air. There might be somebody else 
 for her. It will come all right, now my brain has begun 
 to work on it, I should have to make her very charming, 
 
 271 
 
273 SIR HARRY 
 
 so that it would seem as if the man must be in love with 
 her.' 
 
 'You mustn't make it too like Harry and Sidney,' 
 said Mrs Grant. 
 
 'Oh, I should be careful about that, though their 
 way with each other has been very attractive to watch. 
 They're so frank, and so completely friendly — a very 
 deUghtful pair of young people, I call them. It would 
 be much more effective to have young lovers behaving 
 like that to one another than the usual sort of love 
 affair that one meets with in fiction. The odd thing 
 about it, though, is that they, have parted now and 
 nothing has come of it aU.' 
 
 Mrs Grant laughed. ' Perhaps it's because they weren't 
 lovers after aU,' she said, 'and were so frank and 
 friendly with each other because they weren't. You 
 must be careful about that, DavidT' 
 
 But he would not admit that Harry and Sidney weren't 
 in love with one another. It was clear for everybody to 
 see. Of course Harry was rather an exceptional young 
 man. That was plain from the way he had come back 
 to Royd as if he were master there already. There was 
 tremendous strength of character in him, and even 
 Lady Brent recognised it, and did not seek to direct 
 him in any way. It was very likely that he had made 
 up his mind that it would not be right to engage him- 
 self to Sidney until the war was over. But it was also 
 likely that they had an understanding between them- 
 selves. It could hardly be otherwise. 
 
 'He has certainly altered,' said Mrs Grant. 'He goes 
 his own way as one would hardly have expected of him 
 in some respects. I don't know why he should have 
 wanted to be with Mr Wilbraham for a week before he 
 went to France. Poor Mrs Brent was rather sad about 
 it, especially when he wrote to say that he was not 
 coming down again.' 
 
MRS BRENT KNOWS 273 
 
 'And now she's gone posting up to London to get 
 hold of him. I've no patience with Mrs Brent. She 
 has greatly deteriorated. Well, I must be getting on 
 with my work. I shall very soon be ready to make a 
 start on the first chapter.' 
 
 Jane had been very subdued in demeanour since 
 Sidney and Harry had both departed, and frequently 
 sought her mother's company. She came to her this 
 morning,. when her lessons were done, and sat with her 
 in the garden as she worked. 
 
 'Did father say that there was going to be a great 
 attack on the Germans soon?' she asked, after a little 
 desultory conversation. 
 
 'It has been expected for some time. I suppose it 
 can't be long before it comes now.' 
 
 'I suppose that's why Harry's leave has 'been cut 
 short. Will there be a great many of our people killed, 
 mother?' 
 
 'I'm afraid so, dear.' 
 
 'Harry might be,' said Jane. 'He's very brave.' 
 
 'You mustn't let yourself dwell on that, darling. 
 He has been spared so far.' 
 
 'Did you know he had been wounded?' 
 
 Mrs Grant looked at her in surprise. 'Not seriously,' 
 she- said. 
 
 ' Sidney and I both think he was, though he wouldn't 
 tell us, and said we weren't to talk about it. Have you 
 noticed he always keeps his sleeve buttoned when he's 
 plajdng tennis?' 
 
 Mrs Grant hadn't noticed particularly, but said that 
 she remembered now that he did. 
 
 'Well, he's got an awful great scar in his arm. We 
 saw it once by accident. A Turk did it with a bayonet. 
 When we found out, he did tell us a little, and about the 
 time he was in hospital. He told us about an orderly 
 who had been frightfully good to him, and said he 
 
274 SIR HARRY 
 
 saved his life when he was very ill, by nursing him all 
 the time. He liked to talk about him; his name was 
 Tom Weller. Sidney thought he couldn't have been 
 so ill just from a wound in the arm, and then he said 
 he'd had a httle shell wound in the body, but he wouldn't 
 tell us any more. We think it must have been a serious 
 one. We found out afterwards that he didn't go to 
 hospital for his bayonet wound at all.' 
 
 Mrs Grant was conscious of a feeling of surprise and 
 some discomfort. She knew that Harry was not likely 
 to fail in any of a young man's coiurageous work, and 
 yet she had thought of him as having got off lightly, 
 except in the hardships of a trooper's life. And that 
 he had never mentioned even the actions in which he 
 had been wounded seemed so to accentuate the division 
 that he had made between himself and those who loved 
 him. He might have died and they would have known 
 nothing. Apparently, he had been very near to death. 
 She wondered wJiether Jane had any theory to account 
 for his unusual reticence about himself. 
 
 ' I'm very glad Lady Brent will hear about him now,' 
 she said. 'It's dreadful to think what might have 
 happened when they couldn't have got to him.' 
 
 ' Well, they couldn't, anyhow, when he was in Egypt. 
 He says it was much better that they shouldn't have 
 been anxious about him, and as it turned out there was 
 no need to have been anxious. I must say I'm rather 
 glad we didn't know, though it's horrid to think of our 
 enjoying ourselves at home when Harry was nearly 
 dying. Sidney and I both told him that we wanted to 
 know everything about him now, and he promised to.' 
 
 'To write to you?' 
 
 ' Yes; or to let us have a message. You see we're 
 real friends, mother dear. We've had a lovely time 
 together and enjoyed ourselves frightfully; but it 
 hasn't been quite aU enjoying ourselves. Sidney and I 
 
MRS BRENT KNOWS 275 
 
 both know that Harry dreads things. I don't mean 
 being wounded, or anything Hke that. But everything 
 is so different for him. What we both got to know was 
 that he wanted it to be like it used to be here as much 
 as ever it could be. That's why he won't talk about 
 the war. We could make him forget it; so we were 
 sometimes more lively than we really felt. I'm sure 
 I don't feel at all lively now.' 
 
 Her mother stole a glance at her, as she sat with a 
 calm face looking out in front of her. 
 
 'Well, darling,' she said, 'you'll have Harry home on 
 leave again. I'm sure both you and Sidney have done 
 a lot for him since he's been home this time. There 
 was a sort of strain on him at first which wasn't there 
 afterwards.' 
 
 'Did you notice that? I'm very glad. Of course, 
 Sidney did more than I did. She was with him more, 
 and she's older. But they were both very sweet to 
 me. I think I did help. I love them both. I love 
 Sidney. I wish ' 
 
 She broke off abruptly. 'I think I can guess what 
 Sidney's secret is,' said her mother, after a pause. 'I 
 think she meant me to, you know, when she told you 
 you could tell me that there was a secret.' 
 
 Jane looked at her eagerly. 'I don't suppose she 
 really meant me not to tell you,' she said. 
 
 'If I've found it out for myself, she wouldn't mind 
 your talking about it. I shouldn't mention it to any- 
 body else. I thought, when you told me, that perhaps 
 she was in love with somebody, and that was why you 
 and she and Harry could all be friends together so 
 happily.' 
 
 Jane breathed a sigh of relief. ' Yes, that's it exactly,' 
 she said. ' How clever you are, mother ! I'm glad you 
 knew. His name is Noel Chancellor. I've seen his 
 photograph. He is very good-looking, but, of course. 
 
^76 SIR HARRY 
 
 not so good-looking as Harry. I can't help thinking 
 that if she'd never seen him she would be in love with 
 Harry.' 
 
 ' Perhaps. But it doesn't always come like that. And 
 he's not in love with her, you see, though there's nobody 
 else, for him.' 
 
 'No, he isn't.' Jane spoke very decisively. 'She's 
 such a dear that I did think once that he might have 
 been a httle, although he knew about Noel, without 
 being able to help it. But he's not the least little bit. 
 I don't know how I know that, but I do.' 
 
 'I suppose you know that they think he is, at the 
 Castle.' 
 
 'Oh, yes. And Lady Avalon will be annoyed when 
 she finds out. But we can't help that.' 
 
 Mrs Grant smiled. She loved that 'we' that came 
 into Jane's speech. 'What about Lady Brent?' she 
 said. 'You were such friends with Lady Brent before 
 Harry came home.' 
 
 ' I am still. Of course, she wouldn't say anything to 
 me about that. I'm not quite sure that she does expect 
 it. At any rate, I know she was glad for me to be with 
 them. She knew aU right that we were helping Harry. 
 Lady Brent sees a lot, though she doesn't talk 
 much.' 
 
 Mrs Grant found food for thought in this, and shared 
 it later with Miss Minster. Neither of them had ever 
 been able to make up their minds finally about Lady 
 Brent. 
 
 ' Supposing she doesn't really expect anything to come 
 of it ! ' she said. ' I'm inclined to trust Jane when she 
 thinks that she doesn't.' 
 
 ' I've liked her much better since she took Jane into 
 her confidence,' said Miss Minster. 'I'm sorry for her 
 now. I think she lays her plans deeply and then has 
 to sit and do nothing while she sees them fail. But it 
 
MRS BRENT KNOWS 277 
 
 needs a lot of self-restraint to sit and do nothing. Yes, 
 I'm sorry for her.' 
 
 'You think Jane is right, then?' 
 
 ' I don't know. Lady Brent would look farther than 
 most people. She wouldn't need to look much farther 
 than I do in this. What I think is that Harry isn't 
 ready for it yet, and won't be till the war is over. When 
 that oppression is removed from him I think he's quite 
 likely to fall in love with Lady Sidney. That's what I 
 think, and I shouldn't wonder if Lady Brent thought 
 the same. Then it wouldn't make her quite so super- 
 human as she appears. She'd just be waiting.' 
 
 This view could not be combated without disclosures. 
 As far as it affected Lady Brent it seemed to be the 
 best explanation of her attitude. 'Anyhow, she's a 
 wonderful woman,' said Mrs Grant, 'and I also like 
 her better than I did, although I never disliked her.' 
 
 'The person I don't like so well,' said Miss Minster, 
 'is Mrs Brent. I hope we've seen the last of her here 
 for the present.' 
 
 But they had not, for almost immediately she had 
 spoken a telegram was brought in from Mrs Brent, 
 announcing her arrival that afternoon, and asking Mrs 
 Grant to take her in, as there was nobody at the Castle. 
 She also asked Mrs Grant to meet her at Burport, 
 which seemed to indicate that she had something of 
 importance to disclose to her. 
 
 She looked scared and unhappy as she greeted her 
 friend on the platform. 'I hope you didn't mind my 
 asking you to put me up,' she said. 'I believe she's 
 coming back to-morrow, and I wanted to have a long 
 talk with you first.' 
 
 By 'she' Mrs Grant understood her to refer to Lady 
 Brent, whom she seldom referred to in any other way. 
 ' I'm very glad to have you,' she said. ' I hope nothing 
 is wrorig. Have you seen Harry?' 
 
278 SIR HARRY 
 
 ' I'll tell you when we get into the carriage.' 
 
 When they were settled and driving away, she said : 
 'Have I seen Harry? I think you'll be surprised when 
 I tell you how and where I've seen him. I've never 
 had such a shock in my life. I don't know what to do 
 about it. I had to come straight down to see her. She 
 must deal with it. I can't; it's beyond me. I only 
 hope it won't be beyond her. I must tell it you all 
 from the beginning.' 
 
 She entered into a long explanation of how she had 
 written to Harry at Wilbraham's fiat, where he was 
 staying. He had come to see her, and had been kind, 
 but had seemed annoyed with her for coming up to 
 London when he had not expected it. He had told her 
 that he was very much engaged, and could not see 
 much of her before he went abroad. He had not vouch- 
 safed any account of how he was engaged, but had come 
 to see her once again, in the morning, but had refused 
 to stay to lunch or to make any engagement for the 
 evening. She spoke with some resentment, and not as 
 she had ever spoken about Harry before. It was as if 
 she felt more annoyed at being neglected than sorry at 
 not having him with her. 
 
 Mrs Grant was silent, and she entered on another 
 long explanation about the Bastians, and her early 
 friendship with Bastian's wife. Then Mrs Grant began 
 to be extremely interested. 
 
 'What possessed me to find out all about them just 
 at this time, and go to see the girl, I can't think,' she 
 said. 'I think it was Providence leading me. I'd 
 forgotten all about Mrs Clark, the woman they lodge 
 with, being Mrs Ivimey's sister, and fortunately — or 
 unfortunately — she didn't open the door to me. The 
 maid said she was in, but had a young gentleman with 
 her. She looked rather knowing as she said it, and I 
 thought it would be amusing to see what the young 
 
MRS BRENT KNOWS 279 
 
 gentleman was lilce. You can imagine what I felt 
 when she showed me into the room and I found Harry 
 there.' 
 
 She looked as if she expected an exclamation of 
 surprise at this climax; but Mrs Grant had already been 
 prepared for it by her rigmarole. 'That explains a 
 great deal,' she said. 'I suppose they had met 
 here.' 
 
 ' Yes, two years ago, when Harry was a boy — ^hardly 
 more than a child. Could you believe it of him, and 
 keeping it secret all that time, and ever since? ' 
 
 'What happened?' asked Mrs Grant, adjusting her 
 thoughts to many things. 
 
 'They were sitting side by side on the sofa. I never 
 had such a shock in my life. I could only stand there 
 and stare. She jumped up, of course. I hadn't given 
 my name, and she didn't even Icnow who I was. Harry 
 looked very black, and stood up too. It was as if a 
 sword was piercing my heart to see my son look at me 
 hke that.' 
 
 She paused for a moment. It occurred to Mrs Grant 
 that sire had rehearsed her tale beforehand, and that 
 phrase had come to her as an effective one. It did not 
 seem to represent what she was actually feeling, though 
 it may have represented what she thought she ought 
 to feel. 
 
 ' I could only gasp out, " Harry ! You here ! " He 
 said, " Yes, mother." Then he took hold of the girl's 
 hand, and said, " This is Viola. We have loved each 
 other for a long time." That was absolutely all he said, 
 and she said- nothing, but just looked at me, as if she 
 was frightened, as I dare say she was.' 
 
 'Oh, I hope you ' 
 
 She did not continue. Mrs Brent would tell her what 
 she had done. 
 
 She did not tell her at once, and Mrs Grant's heart 
 
28o SIR HARRY 
 
 sank as she expatiated further on what she had felt. 
 'The very thing,' she said, 'that we'd all sacrificed 
 ourselves to prevent, during the whole of Harry's boy- 
 hood. I was absolutely stunned. There they stood 
 hand in hand in front of me, and waited for me to say 
 something. And what could I say. Harry — my boy 1 
 And a girl like that 1 Oh, I shall never get over it. 
 And I can't think what she'll say, though there's one 
 thing — she can't blame me for it.' 
 
 Mrs Grant had been thinking rapidly. She had 
 heard about Viola from Mrs Ivimey. Her impression 
 of her had been of a very young and beautiful girl, of 
 whom nice things were said naturally. It needed some 
 Uttle effort of imagination to connect her with Harry, 
 and certainly it was rather surprising that Harry, of 
 all people, should have cherished that kind of secret. 
 But the picture of the pair of them standing there, 
 hand in hand, waiting for the speech which she dreaded 
 to be told had not come, rose before her. ' Oh, he couldn't 
 have gone on loving her for two whole years unless 
 she was sweet and good,' she said. 
 
 Mrs Brent bridled in offence. 'That didn't come in 
 when / was married,' she said. 'She's no better than 
 I was. Her mother wasn't brought up as I had been, 
 though there was nothing against her. It simply can't 
 be allowed. / can't do anything. Harry won't listen 
 to me. This girl has taken him away from me. Of 
 course, it's all explained now — why he was so different 
 to me when he came home — oh, and why he didn't 
 write, and everything. He wrote to her. He is different. 
 She's made him so. He isn't like my son any more. 
 I'm only thankful that it didn't happen, or at least I 
 didn't know about it, while I was living down 
 here.' 
 
 It seemed probable that she was congratulating 
 herself that the whole of her interests in life were no 
 
MRS BRENT KNOWS 281 
 
 longer bound up in Harry. This was no very comfort- 
 ing' thought to Mrs Grant. ' I wish you'd tell me how 
 it ended,' she said. 
 
 'It ended in Harry being very unkind to me,' she 
 said, with the first signs of real emotion. ' He said that 
 if I had taken the girl as my daughter — as if I could 
 have done that I-^all the difficulties would have been 
 ended. As it was, he would not see me again before he 
 went to France. Yoimg people are very cruel. I'm 
 his mother, who have been everything to him, and now 
 I'm nothing. I came away and left him there. It's 
 all over for me. I've lost my son, and this girl who isn't 
 fit for him has got him. But I don't think she'll be 
 allowed to keep him. I shall see her to-morrow. She 
 won't be pleased at the end of all her plotting and 
 scheming. But I shall be surprised if she doesn't 
 think of something that will put an end to it.' 
 
 s.n. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 LADY BRENT SPEAKS 
 
 'Yes,' said Lady Brent, 'I will certainly do something.' 
 
 Mrs Brent had told her story. Lady Brent had come 
 home from Poldaven earlier than she had expected. 
 She had gone up to the Castle and foimd her, somewhat 
 to her surprise, in her business room. Surrounded by 
 that ancient magnificence she had seemed even more 
 aloof and forbidding than on the last time Mrs Brent 
 had interviewed her there. But this time she had felt 
 herself supported by a sense of conciliation in herself. 
 The fact that after all her struggles and resentments 
 against her mother-in-law — she was now, in the crisis 
 of affairs, putting herself in her hands, appealing to 
 her for help and a decision where she could do nothing 
 herself, would surely soften her. From this interview 
 she at least had nothing to fear for herself. 
 
 But the stiff face and the sUence with which she 
 listened to the story brought a sense of discomfort. 
 Mrs Brent ended on a note more appealing than she had 
 intended to use. 'He won't listen to me,' she said, 'but 
 I'm sure he would to you. Can^ you do something?' 
 
 Lady Brent moved in her chair for the first time. 
 'Yes,' she said, with a frown, and in a voice that did 
 nothing to remove the discomfort. ' I will certainly do 
 something. I will go up to London this, evening.' 
 
 'By the night train,' said Mrs Brent. 'Shall I come 
 with you?' 
 
 'I think you had better stop here. You have done 
 enough mischief already.' 
 
 282 
 
LADY BRENT SPEAKS 283 
 
 'Mischief! I? What do you mean?' She was sur- 
 prised and greatly offended, but also a little frightened. 
 
 Lady Brent leant towards her accusingly. ' He won't 
 do anything for you, you say. Why should he, when 
 you treat him as you do? A vain, selfish fool, thinking 
 of yourself all the time and your own mean little 
 pleasures and dignities ! Serve you right if you've 
 lost his love for the rest of your Ufe.' 
 
 All Mrs Brent's resentments flared up. Lady Brent 
 had been conciliatory towards her of late, with an 
 evident desire to avoid conflict, and she had taken 
 advantage of it and lost some of her awe of her; she 
 had thought of herself almost as having the upper 
 hand, and had come to this interview prepared to treat 
 with her amicably, and be generous in making some 
 admissions. But she wanted a row, did she? Very well, 
 then, she should have it. All her Cockney fighting 
 spirit was aroused. She had years of oppression to 
 resent and to revenge. She was not under her thumb 
 now, to be browbeaten and kept in her place. She 
 leapt to the opportunity of striking and wounding. 
 
 'That's what you'd like,' she said, 'for me to lose 
 his love. You've tried to take him away from me all 
 his life up till now, and you haven't been able to do it. 
 Now you'll make use of this, somehow, to get your 
 way. But you won't do it. If he won't listen to me, 
 he won't listen to you. I'm a fool, you say. Yes, I 
 was a fool to come to you and think you could do 
 anj^hing. You've worked and worked to have your 
 own way, and now it's ended like this. You'll suffer 
 for it. You'll suffer for it more than I shall.' 
 
 Lady Brent listened to this, leaning back in her chair 
 again. When she spoke her voice was even, but her 
 face was white cind her hands lying in her lap trembled 
 ever so little. If Mrs Brent's fury had not blinded her 
 she might have noticed these signs and taken warning 
 
284 SIR HARRY 
 
 from them, for they had never been shown before, even 
 in the sharpest encounters between them. 
 
 'Whatever suffering there is to be,' said the low 
 decisive voice, 'I shall no doubt feel more than you. 
 You're a very poor creature, and as long as you have 
 something in life to amuse you, you won't sufier much 
 through others. I've tried to make the best of you, 
 for Harry's sake. You've had your chance with him 
 •n— a better chance than you could ever have had but 
 for me. Sometimes I've thought it had succeeded to 
 have you here, when I've wished with all my heart that 
 you could be away. But the test has come now, and 
 you've failed. Yes, you've failed, much more than you 
 know. You're upset in your foolish way now, but you 
 think I have only to step in and do something, and it 
 will be put right for you again. It will never be put 
 right.' 
 
 Mrs Brent had tried to break in once or twice in the 
 course of this speech, but the level voice had gone on 
 till the end, and the eyes fixed upon her had never 
 wavered. She realised that nothing would be spared 
 her, that whatever dislike and hostility she might 
 choose to express in her anger would be met by a 
 feeling at least as strong, which would find expression 
 now, after being kept under for years, with a force in 
 comparison with winch her own powers of attack were 
 as nothing. Already she was affected by it. She 
 glimpsed ha.tred of her behind the steady utterance. 
 She had talked freely of her own hatred, but it was a 
 terrifying thing to feel it returned. 
 
 ' I don't know what you're thinking about,' she said, 
 half sulkily. 'I'd nothing to do with his meeting this 
 girl. I did know her mother, as it happened, but hadn't 
 any idea that it was her mother. It isn't through me, 
 any more than through you, that he's got himself 
 mixed up with people like that.' 
 
LADY BRENT SPEAKS 285 
 
 ' That's all that you can see in it, is it ? People like 
 that ! You think this ^irl is like you were, when my 
 poor Harry came across you. I loved my son, far more 
 than you have it in you to love yours, but I know he 
 was weak and foolish; and he was fitly mated. This 
 Harry isn't weak and foolish. Do you think he'd be 
 hkely to do what his father did ? Is that all you know 
 of him after all these years?' 
 
 She tried to control herself. 'You may say what 
 you like about me,' she said, in a voice that trembled 
 a little. 'I know you hate me and always have, for 
 marrying your son, and still more for being Harry's 
 mother. But say what you like, Harry is doing exactly 
 what his father did. Why should you take it for 
 granted that this girl is any different to what I was? 
 It's just your spite against me. You haven't seen her.' 
 
 'No, but you have.' 
 
 That hit her like a blow in the face. Always battering 
 at the gates of her mind, to which she had never given 
 it entrance, was the thought that Viola was surprisingly 
 different from herself, surprisingly unlike what she 
 would have expected her mother's daughter to be, 
 though in feature she resembled her. 
 
 Still it was true that Lady Brent had not seen her, 
 and could not know. 'Her mother was an actress, no 
 better than I was,' she said, 'not so good in many 
 ways. Her father is a scene-painter in a theatre, and 
 drinks too. My father was a good man, though he 
 may not have been what you'd call a gentleman. 
 That's what 'all your wonderful bringing up of Harry 
 has led to. If he'd been brought up more naturally, 
 and not everything and everybody sacrificed to keep 
 him shut up down here, it's very unlikely that this 
 would have happened.' 
 
 'You think that, do you, in your loving wisdom? 
 You had the boy always before you, and saw what he 
 
286 SIR HARRY 
 
 was growing into. So did I, and I trusted him. You 
 couldn't.' 
 
 ' I don't mind your sneers. At any rate, on the first 
 opportunity he does what any other boy might do. 
 He meets a girl and falls in love with her, and keeps 
 it from us all the time he's meeting her, and afterwards.' 
 
 'Keeps it from you, I suppose you mean.' 
 
 'Keeps it from all of us, I said. Did you know any 
 more than I did that he had met this girl down here ? ' 
 
 'Of course I knew.' 
 
 She could only sit and stare, with her mouth a little 
 open. Whatever she may have thought of, it had never 
 been this. 
 
 . Lady Brent did not treat her disclosure as a triumph 
 to be dwelt upon. 'How, could I help knowing?' she 
 went on. ' I loved Harry. Nothing could have happened 
 in his life to alter it that I shouldn't have noticed. When 
 I saw that something had happened I waited until it 
 came to me what it was.' 
 
 'You knew, and you let it go on!' The revelation, 
 had taken all the sting out of her. She was more 
 interested than offended. 
 
 'Didn't I tell you that I trusted Harry? I knew what 
 he was, if you didn't. I should have known if he had 
 taken a wrong turning in life, and then I should have 
 tried to influence him. When I did know what had 
 happened I knew well enough that he hadn't taken a 
 wrong turning, by the way he bore himself. You couldn't 
 see that. You can't even see it now.' 
 
 Mrs Brent's surprise was still strong enough to 
 swamp her resentment at wounding speeches. 'Why 
 didn't you do anythllig afterwards, when he went away? ' 
 she asked. 'You did do something. You got Sidney 
 Pawle down here. You hoped that she and Harry would 
 fall in love with one another. I know that. You thought 
 they had. I know that too. I think you're making 
 
LADY BRENT SPEAKS 287 
 
 yourself out cleverer than you are, though I don't 
 deny you were clever, if you found out what nobody 
 else did.' 
 
 'It matters very little to me,' said Lady Brent, 
 'what you deny or what you accept. You've made 
 yourself nothing and you are nothing. I believe that 
 this girl Harry loves is worthy of him, or he wouldn't 
 have gone on loving her. But they were both very 
 young. It might have died out of itself. I didn't know 
 whether it had or not. I might have found out, but, I 
 wouldn't take any steps to do that. And even if the 
 girl is worthy of him, there are objections otherwise. 
 You have named them yourself. There are no such 
 objections to Sidney Pawle. I should have been glad 
 if Harry's first attachment had worn itself out and he 
 could have married her. Yes, I did hope that they 
 might have fallen in love with one another. You are 
 right there. You are quite wrong in saying that I 
 thought they had. You may have thought so, who 
 knew so little of Harry. I knew very soon that there 
 was something in the way.' 
 
 Mrs Brent was beaten. Even resentment no longer 
 moved her. She wanted to ward off further blows, and 
 to propitiate. 'When you go up to London, shall you 
 tell Harry that we are ready to recognise his engage- 
 ment to this Viola Bastian?' she asked. 
 
 Lady Brent seemed to take breath. She had given 
 her explanation as to one with whom she might have been 
 talking on equal terms. But there was still punishment 
 to be dealt out, the smouldering fire of years of dislike 
 and contempt, which had been banked up so as only 
 now and then to show a flicker, but now could be allowed 
 to burst into scorching flame. 
 
 ' Why should I tell you what I mean to do ? ' she said, 
 with fierce scorn. 'Stay where you are till I've put 
 right what you hadn't the sense or the heart to do; and 
 
288 SIR HARRY 
 
 don't meddle. Then you can go where you hke and 
 do what you Hke; only not here. For years I've had 
 to live with you, and bear with your ignorance and vanity 
 and folly, and keep you from going back on what you'd 
 set your hand to of your own free will. I've defended 
 you from your silly selfish self, so that your own son 
 shouldn't see what a thing of naught you were. You've 
 had your chance up to the last moment. Directly it 
 depends upon yourself, you can only strike the son you 
 say you love in his tenderest place, and then come 
 snivelling to me to mend the damage you've done. 
 You want me to put myself on your side, and treat him 
 as you did. Be very sure that I shall treat him in 
 no way as you have done. I've stood aside all these 
 years, so as not to take what was owing to you, as 
 I might well have done if I'd lifted a little finger. Now 
 I'll take whatever I've earned. Mend your own broken 
 pieces if you can. I'll do nothing to help you. Live 
 your own useless, selfish Ufe. You shall have money 
 for it. But live it away from here. You told me once, 
 in one of your foohsh discontented fits, that this house 
 was like a prison to you. You're free of your prison. 
 Go; and do what you like with your liberty.' 
 
 She rose sucfdenly, and went out. Mrs Brent sat for 
 a time where she was, with a white frightened face. 
 Then she went out of the room too, and out of the 
 house, weeping silently. She would not stay there 
 another minute. She would not run the risk of meeting 
 that terrible woman again, who had treated her so 
 wickedly. She would never see her again, and as for 
 taking money from her — she would work her fingers 
 to the bone before she would touch a penny. She went 
 down to the Vicarage, where she poured out her out- 
 raged feeUngs to Mrs Grant, and gained some consolation 
 from her. A strong cup of tea also did much to comfort 
 her, and after that she went to bed with a headache. 
 
LADY BRENT SPEAKS 289 
 
 Exhausted bj' the emotions of the day she slept through- 
 out the night, which Lady Brent spent sitting upright 
 in a railway carriage, her endless thoughts running to 
 the steady beat of the train. 
 
 Wilbraham met her in London very early in the 
 morning and took her to her hotel. 'Harry went off 
 yesterday,' he told her. 'I sent your telegram on to 
 him, but there has been no answer yet. There may be 
 one to my rooms this morning. But it doesn't very 
 much matter, does it, as long as he knows that you are 
 going to see Viola?' 
 
 ' If he should be killed ! ' she said. It was the thought 
 that the iron wheels had dinned into her brain all 
 through the night. She could not help giving it utter- 
 ance; but she said immediately, 'Oh, we mustn't 
 think of that. You have arranged that I am to see 
 the girl this afternoon?' 
 
 'Yes, I wiU take you there. You'll rest during the 
 day, won't you? You must be very tired.' 
 
 He stole a look at her. She was looking as if the 
 long journey had tried her severely. He had never 
 thought of her as getting old, but now he did. 
 
 'Yes, I will rest,' she said. 'There is nothing else 
 to do. Do you know I haven't been in London for 
 twenty years?' 
 
 She was looking out of the window of the taxi-cab, 
 at the London streets beginning to fill up with the 
 day's traffic. She wanted a respite. The innumerable 
 questions he had to ask of her must wait. 
 
 He breakfasted with her in her private sitting-room, 
 where they could talk afterwards, if she was so minded, 
 before he went off to his work. She came to it refreshed, 
 and was ready for him when they were alone together. 
 
 'Tell me about the girl,' she said. 'I know she must 
 be good and sweet, and I know that she has helped 
 Harry through his difficult time.' 
 
290 SIR HARRY 
 
 'I can't tell you more than that,' he said, "except 
 that she's beautiful, and exactly what you'd want her 
 to be, except, perhaps, in the matter of her birth. I 
 don't say anything against her upbringing, as it has 
 left her what she is. But you seem to knoAV everything 
 about her already. I've known you for a good many 
 years, but you're always full of surprises. The greatest 
 you've ever given me was when you wired that you'd 
 always known. You must have thought of me as a 
 pretty large size in fools during some of the conver- 
 sations we used to have. How did you find out, and 
 when?' 
 
 She smiled at him. ' I think you might have guessed 
 that I knew,' she said, ' when I let you come to London 
 to find out about Harry, and to get a message to him. 
 I didn't particularly want you to know then, because, 
 to tell you that truth, I did rather hope that it wouldn't 
 continue. I saw that it had done him no harm, but it 
 still might have been nothing more than a pretty boy 
 and girl love-making. Then I shouldn't have wanted 
 him to know that I had surprised his secret.' 
 
 'No,' he said. 'You showed infinite wisdom, as you 
 always do. But tell me how you knew.' 
 
 ' Something had happened to Harry. I think I must 
 have guessed it the very first time he met her, or at 
 least when he found out he loved her, and I think that 
 must have been the first time he met her, or why 
 shouldn't he have told us? I was always on the look- 
 out for changes in him, and you see I knew the signs 
 of this change. Harry is much more like my dear 
 husband was, when he was young, than he is like his 
 father. It was only that kind of love that could have 
 made him so happy and so silent and so absorbed. 
 Oh, I knew very soon, and of course I put two and two 
 together, and knew who it was. Afterwards, little 
 pieces of evidence came to me, but I didn't try to seek 
 
LADY BUENT SPEAKS 291 
 
 them, and I didn't need them. Nobody guessed they 
 had met. Nobody knew at Royd, except me — and 
 you.' 
 
 He laughed ruefully, and told her how and when he 
 had found out. 'Perhaps you guessed even before I 
 did,' he said. 'Were you annoyed with me for keeping 
 it to myself ? ' 
 
 ' I knew that you would have told me, if I had given 
 j'ou any encouragement. I didn't want you to tell 
 me. I knew, too, that you had seen her and must have 
 thought of her as I think now. If you hadn't, I think 
 you would have told me anyhow." 
 
 He breathed a sigh of relief. 'That's off my mind 
 then,' he said. 'I didn't like keeping anything from 
 you. And I've told Harry more than once that he had 
 nothing to fear from you.' 
 
 ' He couldn't believe that, I suppose. He might have 
 thought that I would behave as Charlotte — that light 
 fool — ^has behaved.' 
 
 'You had Harry's letter before you saw her?' 
 
 'Yes, but the post is very late at Poldaven. I went 
 home at once and saw her. On my way to Royd I 
 thought how I could bring some of the truth home to 
 her. I think I made an impression.' 
 
 Her voice was as quiet as before, but something in 
 its tone caused him to look up. ' You didn't spare her, 
 I suppose,' he said. 
 
 'No, I didn't spare her. I think I was cruel. I know 
 I meant to be. But she's not worth troubling oneself 
 about. Anger is a debasing passion, and I'm not sure 
 that mine was altogether righteous anger. I wanted 
 to make an end of her. I hope for the future I shall 
 need to see very little of her.' 
 
 He looked grave. 'Can't you forgive her, if things 
 go right now?' he asked. 
 
 ' Oh, forgive her ! If I know anything of her — and 
 
20 SIR HARRY 
 
 I ought to by this tune — she'll never forgive me. She'll 
 hate me to her dying day, and I care no more than if 
 she loved me. What is the love of a poor thing like 
 that worth. She loved Harry, and what does that 
 amount to?' 
 
 'She did love him, though. She did give her life up 
 to him, in the only way she could have done. It wasn't 
 in her to make herself happy Uving as she did — ^as we 
 all did — ^at Royd. But she stuck to it for nearly twenty 
 years.' 
 
 'Oh, yes. I kept her to that. I was fair to her; I 
 gave her her chance. It would have been an immense 
 relief if she had gone away. If I hadn't been fair to 
 her I could have got rid of her easily enough. She 
 would have gone, and she would never have known 
 that she hadn't gone of her own accord.' 
 
 He laughed at that. ' I think there were times when 
 you nearly allowed yourself to drive her away,' he said. 
 'Of, course I don't defend what she did. She had a 
 great chance with Harry, and she lost it. But it is 
 hard, I suppose, for mothers to lose their sons after 
 they have been so much to them. There is some excuse 
 for hjer.' 
 
 'I don't think there's any,' she replied at once. 
 'And as for its being hard on mothers, it's only that 
 kind of mother — foolish and sentimental and selfish — 
 who puts herself into rivalry with the other kind of love, 
 when the time comes for it. The love of a child is very 
 sweet, but it can't last like that much beyond child- 
 hood. She's had it all. She's had it to the full. Nobody 
 tried to deprive her of it, though, of course, she accuses 
 me of trying to do so. I might have done. I shouldn't 
 have wearied Harry with my love as she has wearied 
 him. I should have been less exigent, less selfish, 
 controlled myself more. She doesn't know, even now, 
 and I shan't take the trouble to tell her, that she 
 
LADY BRENT Sl»EAKS ^93 
 
 doesn't love him neai-ly as much as she thinks she does. 
 If it weren't for her jealousy she would be quite content 
 to live her own life chiefly apart from him, now he is 
 grown up, and no longer a child to be petted, and to 
 return petting. She has lived her foolish shallow Ufe 
 apart for the last two years, and she has let it be known 
 that she thinks herself raised in hving it. Oh, you 
 needn't worry yourself about Charlotte. She hasn't 
 got the depth to feel anything for long.' 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 LADY BRENT AND VIOLA 
 
 Lady Brent wondered, when Mrs Clark opened the 
 door to her at Bastian's lodgings, how much was known 
 at Royd of what had already happened in this house. 
 If Mrs Clark had not discovered who Harry was, which 
 seemed unlikely, and had not seen Mrs Brent, she knew 
 well enough whom she was admitting now. It was not 
 made plain that she expected the visit, but she expressed 
 no surprise at it, and evidently expected to "be recog- 
 nised. Lady Brent said a few words to her about her 
 sister at Royd, as she was being conducted up the 
 stairs. Everything would come into the light now, and 
 it was much better so. 
 
 Viola was alone in the sitting-room. It had been 
 made very tidy, and was filled with flowers. The great 
 red roses might have been Harry's gift to her. The 
 little row of vellimi-bound books above the table in 
 her corner certainly were, for Wilbraham had procured 
 them to his order. 
 
 Viola stood by the middle table as they entered. 
 She looked very young and very beautiful — all the 
 more beautiful because of the colour that was flooding 
 her delicate skin, and the half-alarmed look in her dark 
 eyes. 
 
 Lady Brent waited until the door was shut behind 
 her, searching her with her eyes?, and then went forward 
 and kissed her. Viola did not seem to have expected 
 this. She was confused, and there was moisture in her 
 eyes as she greeted Wilbraham, though she smiled at 
 him. 
 
 294 
 
LADY BRENT AND VIOLA 295 
 
 Wilbraham spoke first. 'You've had Lady Brent's 
 telegram,' he said. 'And now she's come herself. 
 Everything is aU right, Viola.' 
 
 Her tears fell. ' If Harry loves you, my dear, that's 
 enough for me,' said Lady Brent, taking her hand. 
 
 'And you can hardly be blamed for loving him,' said 
 Wilbraham. 'We all love him. I don't know why, 
 but we do.! 
 
 She laughed, as she was meant to do, and dried her 
 tears. 'I've had a telegram from him,' she said. 'He 
 sent you his dear love.' 
 
 Lady Brent showed her pleasure. 'I wish he'd told 
 me sooner,' she said. 'You might have been with 
 him at Royd-' 
 
 'We've aU been making a mistake, Viola,' said 
 Wilbraham. 'I suppose I'm most to blame, because 
 I've had this lady under observation for a good many 
 years, and might have known that nothing so important 
 as you could have escaped her.' 
 
 He wanted to keep the interview on a light key, at 
 least until talk should flow between them. They had 
 both been through a good deal during the last few days, 
 but the trouble was ended now, and the sooner it coidd 
 be forgotten the better. 
 
 Lady Brent and Viola were sitting side by side on the 
 sofa. Lady Brent was not quite ready for the lighter 
 note. ' You know that Harry's bringing up was different 
 from that of other boys,' she said. 'It was owing to 
 me that it was so, and though I tried to avoid the 
 appearance of dominating him, I could hardly escape 
 being looked upon as a person who might take a decisive 
 line either with him or against him. But I can say 
 very truly that my guiding rule was love for him. I 
 love Harry very much, and I have trusted him too. I 
 wouldn't have stood out against him in anything that 
 he had a right to decide for himself.' 
 
±g6 SIR HARRY 
 
 'I'm afraid it was I at first who wanted to keep our 
 secret to ourselves,' Viola said. 'Or at least perhaps 
 not quite at first, for then we didn't think about it; 
 but when we first foiind out that we loved one another. 
 I think he would have told you then, but I knew more 
 about the world than he did, and I didn't think that 
 you would want us to go on loving one another. After- 
 wards I did what he wanted.' 
 
 'We all do what Harry wants,' said Wilbraham. 'He 
 has that sort of way with him. I've done it myself, 
 when I ought to have stood out.' 
 
 ' Harry is very happy now,' said Viola. ' He sent me 
 a long telegram. Would you like to see it ?' 
 
 ' No,' said Lady Brent, marking the motion she made 
 with her hand, which showed the warm nest in which 
 Harry's telegram was reposing. 'Keep it for yourself. 
 I want to ask you if you'd like to come down to Royd 
 now, or wait till Harry can bring you. You will have 
 a warm welcome, whichever you like to do. He might 
 like to know you are there.' 
 
 'I expect the claims of the Government service will 
 have to come first, unreasonable as it may appear,' 
 said Wilbraham, marking her slight hesitation. 'I 
 know they have to with me.' 
 
 'I couldn't get away just now,' she said. 'And in 
 August I was going away for a fortnight with father — 
 if Harry is all right.' 
 
 That was what lay Hke a shadow over the brightness 
 brought by the recognition of her. The war was to be 
 finished by that hoarded effort for which those who 
 knew were breathlessly waiting. But the hoard was 
 chiefly of men, and much of it must be scattered if 
 success was to be gained by it. 
 
 Lady Brent made no pretence of taking it anything 
 but seriously. 'I have friends at the War Ofiice,' she 
 said. 'We should get news at Royd as soon as in London, 
 
LADY BRENT AND VIOLA 297 
 
 perhaps sooner.' She made no allusion to the other 
 reason that Viola had given. How did Harry- regard 
 Bastian? She had talked that over with Wilbraham. 
 They did not know even if he had met him. He was 
 not to be asked to Royd until Harry gave the word. 
 
 Viola stiU seemed to be hesitating, and Lady Brent 
 took her hesitation to mean that she would rather not 
 come to Royd without Harry, and accepted it at once. 
 She talked to her about Harry, and presently Viola 
 was talking about him too, filling her hungry ears with 
 news of the times at which she had missed him. 
 
 Viola knew that he had been wounded, though he had 
 kept it from her at the time. 'He was very ill after 
 the second wound,' she said. 'A man who was with 
 him wrote to me when he couldn't, and I got a telegram 
 to say he was better before I got the letter, so I wasn't 
 so unhappy as I might have been. I don't think he 
 would have got through that if he hadn't been so 
 splendidly strong and young, and hadn't beer so 
 devotedly nursed. AU the men he was with loved 
 him, and this one never left him.' 
 
 Lady Brent would not let it be seen how much this 
 news of his past danger moved her. Here was a thing 
 for which none of her searching thoughts had prepared 
 her. 'He has told us scarcely anything of what has 
 been happening to him,' she said. 'It seemed to lie 
 upon him heavily.' 
 
 'It doesn't now,' said Viola. 'Being at Royd has 
 brought him back. He has told me all about Jane and 
 Sidney. Do you think I might write to Jane now, and 
 tell her about us ? ' 
 
 Lady Brent was struck by her entire absence of 
 jealousy. She might have felt sad that the healing 
 process had not been all her own work. It showed how 
 unselfishly she loved him, and how sure she was of him. 
 
 'Jane is a loyal. little soul,' she said. 'She will be 
 
 S.H. U 
 
298 SIR HARRY 
 
 very pleased to hear from you, I know.' She smiled 
 at Viola. 'The one thing I never quite gauged at its 
 proper value was the companionship of young people. 
 I think now that he ought to have had more of it. But 
 he seemed so happy, with all his own pursuits.' 
 
 'Oh, he was happy, I know,' she said eagerly. 'It is 
 wonderful to hear him talk of his life at Royd. Perhaps 
 I'm not altogether sorry I was nearly the first, because 
 I got it all. Harry isn't like anybody else that ever 
 lived. He's wonderful. He couldn't have been quite 
 the same if he hadn't been brought up always in that 
 beautiful place, and left a great deal to himself and the 
 woods and the hills and the sea.' 
 
 ' I am glad you think of it like that,' said Lady Brent. 
 'But I have been troubled by something he said to me 
 when he first came home. His upbringing has made 
 him what he is, but there are many things it didn't 
 prepare him for. I think he was dreading going out 
 again, as an officer. He doesn't know other young men 
 of his class. He is so different from them, and they 
 want everybody to be alike. With the men of simpler 
 lives that he has lived with, and fought with, he would 
 have made his way more easily.' 
 
 'Yes,' said Viola. 'I was very sad at first to think 
 of him thrown into that rough hard life, but I needn't 
 have been. And I think now he is happier about the 
 other.' 
 
 She looked at Wilbraham, who said : ' We've had 
 it out, we three together. It's not as serious as you 
 have been thinking. You must remember that he 
 hasn't been with young men of his own sort at all; and 
 in the ranks, of course, he'd look at them from another 
 angle altogether, and perhaps he wouldn't like every- 
 thing he saw about them — ^his of&cers, I mean. That's 
 all it is, really — a diffidence about how he's going to 
 fit in with them. But of course he'll make his way 
 
LADY BRENT AND VIOLA 299 
 
 with the other subalterns and people, jCst as he did 
 with the men. There's so much character in him, as 
 well as everything that young men do value in each 
 other. I think we persuaded him that he'd be a good 
 deal better off than he has been, didn't we, Viola? ' 
 
 'Oh, he didn't want very much persuasion. He said 
 he had been worrying himself about things that didn't 
 really matter. But he was so much happier about 
 everything when he came back from Royd. I don't 
 think even I could have done that — ^not alone. It 
 would just have been we two, keeping out of the world 
 together; And poor Harry is in the world now.' 
 
 'Yes,' said Wilbraham, 'and well fitted to cope v/ith 
 it. Of course it came as a shock to him at first. It 
 would have done that anyhow, and he would have had 
 to square his accounts with it by himself, before he 
 could have felt himself at his ease. We couldn't have 
 helped him. If you're still troubling yourself about 
 having made mistakes, dear lady, I don't think you 
 need. You made very few. You forged the good steel 
 in him, but it had to be tempered. 
 
 This view of it comforted her. ' We shall all be very 
 happy now,' she said. 
 
 When they had talked a little longer, Bastian came in. 
 
 Lady Brent rose from the sofa, and they stood looking 
 at one another for an instant before Bastian shook 
 hands with her, with a laugh. 'I wasn't prepared for 
 this,' he said. 'Have you known who I was? ' 
 
 'No,' she said. 'Your people thought you were on 
 the other side of the world.' 
 
 'I meant them to,' he said. 'I'd no use for my 
 people after the way they behaved to me. I took rather 
 an absurd name, which was the last they would recog- 
 nise me under if they ever came across if, which seemed 
 unlikely.' 
 
 Viola and Wilbraham were m bewilderment. 'Lady 
 
300 SIR HARRY 
 
 Brent and I used to know one another in the old days,' 
 Bastian said to Viola. 'It shows how I've cut myself 
 off from that world that I didn't even know she was 
 Lady Brent.' He turned to Lady Brent. ' It did once 
 occur to me, after we'd been to Royd, to go to a Public 
 Library and find out who you were, from a book. But 
 I forgot all about it. I'm a thorough Bohemian, you 
 see, and more comfortable so.' 
 
 His light tone did not please her. 'If I had known 
 who you were,' she said, 'when you came to Royd, we 
 should have met, and I should have known Viola before.' 
 
 His face changed as h'e looked quickly from her to 
 Viola. 'I'm glad you've made friends now,' he said. 
 'AH the same, I doubt if you would have taken to her 
 two years ago. I've got too far away from what I was 
 when you knew me.' 
 
 'Well, it wouldn't have been you so much that we 
 should have thought about,' said Wilbraham. 
 
 Bastian laughed. ' You needn't worry about me now,' 
 he said to Lady Brent, 'I'll own that I have had ideas 
 of fighting you when the time came. I should rather 
 have enjoyed it. I think quite as highly of Viola as 
 you do of your grandson, and I was going to tell you 
 SQ. But — well, I'm glad to know there's no necessity. 
 I thiiik you've behaved well; but I remember that you 
 always had the reputation of behaving well. You'll 
 get some reward for it in this instemce, for you know 
 without my having to take the trouble to prove it to 
 you that Viola's birth is as good as her manners; and as 
 for me, I shall not intrude upon you with my debased • 
 habits when I've once handed Viola over.' 
 
 'I used to like you as a little boy,' said Lady Brent 
 cEilmly. ' You were mischievous and perverse, and after- 
 wards gave a great deal of trouble to your parents, who 
 had not deserved it; but I don't suppose your habits 
 are so debased as you pretend they are. I shall be 
 
LADY BRENT AND VIOLA 301 
 
 very glad if j^ou will bring Viola down to Royd when 
 you take your holiday, if she cares to come. I think 
 Harry would like to know that she is there.' 
 
 Then Viola accepted the invitation, and Bastian did 
 not refuse it, though he said that it was many years 
 since he had stayed in a country house, and he didn't 
 think he should remember the rules. 
 
 Lady Brent told Wilbraham about him afterwards, 
 what his family was and where they came from, which 
 was near her own girlhood's home. 'I must say that 
 I am relieved,' she said. ' On her father's side her birth, 
 to all intents and purposes, is as good as Harry's, and 
 on her mother's it is no worse. It counts for something. 
 I married before Michael — that is his real name, and 
 I suppose suggested the Angelo to his freakish imagina- 
 tion — ^before he grew up, but I was always hearing 
 stories of his wildness and extravagance afterwards. 
 There was never much real harm in him, and there were 
 some very good qualities to balance what harm there 
 wag. His parents were over-strict with him, but they 
 were fond of him, and I think if he hadn't taken offence 
 at their attitude towards his marriage, in which, of 
 course, they were amply justified, they would have 
 come round in time.' 
 
 'It may have been better for him that they didn't,' 
 said Wilbraham. 'He's had to make his own living, 
 which has probably been salutary for him, and his 
 responsibility to Viola has kept him fairly straight. I 
 wish he didn't drink quite so much whisky or smoke 
 such vile tobacco, but drink hasn't taken hold of him 
 so much as I thought it had at one time. If he had 
 been anything like what you'd call a drunkard, it 
 would have affected Viola more. What do you think 
 of Viola?' 
 
 'I'm glad she came to Royd, and that Harry met 
 her,' she said. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 IN THE BALANCE 
 
 So far Harry had been brought in his life's story. 
 
 The gods had showered their gifts upon him. Tliey 
 had given him strength and beauty; a mind quick to 
 receive their messages and eager to interpret them; a 
 heart that went out to others and drew others to it; 
 largesse of temporal favours, which they scatter here 
 and there but are apt to withhold from those whom they 
 endow with their choicest gifts. His manhood had 
 been tried in a hard school, had been established and 
 wrought to finer issues by it. He had known great 
 happiness, and also suffering both of mind and body, 
 without which happiness itself is but a monochrome. 
 He had entered the high courts of love, and worshipped 
 in them devoutly. 
 
 For what had they prepared him, on whom they had 
 smiled, not so uniformly as to soften his fine fibre, but 
 as if they would have cherished so rare an example of 
 their handiwork, and led it towards still higher desert 
 of their bounties? Would they not watch over him 
 and preserve him from the ultimate dangers which 
 youth was plunging to meet at this point in the world's 
 long history? Or is the world's history itself a mere 
 point in time, as it unrolls itself before their unwearying 
 eyes, so that it matters not what destruction may be 
 wrought in it, since there is infinity in which to forge 
 new combinations of flesh and brain and fortune? 
 
 To the women on the edge of the vortex in which 
 manhood was fiercely involved, but striving by prayers 
 and tears to weigh down the balance of life and death 
 
 302 
 
IN THE BALANCE 303 
 
 in favour of the men they loved, the gods may well have 
 appeared contemptuously indifferent. The very interests 
 towards which they had seemed to be working, the 
 values they had impressed upon those to whom they 
 had given enlightenment to understand them — what 
 were they in the balance ? It was impossible for mothers 
 to look upon a life of no more than twenty years as 
 rounded and complete, however they may have laboured 
 to perfect it; or for young wives to balance the bliss of 
 early married love against a lifetime of companionship 
 and the sweet joint care of children, and cry quits on 
 the bargain. To them the happiness of youth is an 
 earnest of still greater happiness to come; a youth cut 
 short is a youth wasted, however it may have fulfilled 
 itself. 
 
 To Lady Brent, watching the news from the battle- 
 fields of the Somme, day. after day, week after weary 
 week, it seemed as if all young life hung by the balance 
 of a hair. She felt the weight of it far more than during 
 the previous years, in which Harry had been far removed, 
 and the details of the fighting had not been brought 
 before her with this daily deadly insistence. To her, 
 more than to most whose hopes were dependent upon 
 the chances of battle, did youth appear as a period of 
 preparation rather than of fruition. Her one steady 
 object during the last twenty years had been to work 
 with the high gods so as to fulfil their purpose; and 
 she seemed to herself to have been blest in her strivings 
 in such a way as to give her the right to believe that her 
 object had also been theirs. 
 
 She had had her grave doubts, but now the weight 
 of them had been removed from her. Surely that had 
 been because she had not tarried to accept the foiling 
 of her own plans where they had not served the great 
 purpose ! The love that had come to Harry was, on 
 the face of it, just the kind of love from which she 
 
304 SIR HARRY 
 
 had most desired to preserve him. Now she saw it as 
 the crown of, his happy youth, but still more as the gift 
 that was to bless his manhood to come. The plunging 
 of him into crude and unfamiliar life, which had still 
 lain on his spirit at his first home-coming, and had 
 brought her such trouble of mind on his behalf — ^he had 
 come through that fire. It was, as Wilbraham had 
 said, the tempering of the steel in him. He would not 
 have been of the fine metal that he was if he had not 
 felt its rigour; and, having gone through it, he would 
 not be what it had made of him .if his spirit were not 
 now freed from it. Every letter that he wrote showed 
 him free and untroubled in the life he was living and 
 the work he was doing. He wrote happily and gaily, and 
 as if there was not a care on his mind. They all seemed 
 to take it like that — the boys who were out there, 
 snapping their fingers in the face of Death, who was 
 gibbering at them from every corner and trying to 
 frighten them into respect for his menace. Harry had 
 never feared death, and now he no longer feared life 
 in any of its unfamiliar aspects, but embraced it with 
 all the ardour of his youth, and with it the happiness 
 it had in store for him when the great confusion should 
 be smoothed out. 
 
 Surely he must be spared, for whom hfe held so 
 much ! It could not be squared with any theory of 
 directing and guiding providence, that one who had 
 been dowered with the gifts of life so much above 
 others, and was so much in accord with the higher 
 purposes of life as they had been slowly and some- 
 times painfully revealed to her, should be denied his 
 full inheritance of life. 
 
 But so much high promise had been cut down and 
 gathered in to the dreadful harvest ! Day after day 
 those long lists came out. Names, names, columns and 
 pages long, and each one of them to some, perhaps to 
 
IN THE BALANCE 305 
 
 many, so much more than a name! She could only 
 wait and tremble for the tilt of the scales. He had been 
 in the thick of it and was untouched so far, though so 
 many of those who had been fighting around him had 
 fallen. A charmed life? By all the theories to which 
 she wrested her mind she ought to have believed so, 
 as the weeks went by and his letters came. But the 
 dread only increased. 
 
 She showed little of it. Jane was her frequent com- 
 panion, and, though they never spoke of the dread, 
 each divined much of what the other was thinking. 
 
 Half child, half woman, Jane hovered strangely 
 between fear and fatahsm. She loved Harry, but if 
 there had been any budding of a woman's love in her 
 it had been nipped by the revelation of his love for 
 Viola, and flowed again only in the channels of her 
 childish devotion. There was something of the woman 
 in the way she regarded him in connection with Viola. 
 One man for one woman to love and cherish. He was 
 hers when he had fallen captive to her; others only had 
 that share in him which she might grant to them. Jane 
 had accepted Sidney as a possible mate "for Harry, and 
 now she accepted Viola, whom she also loved, since she 
 had come to Royd. There was no jealousy in her. 
 Harry loved her as he had always loved her; and Viola 
 loved her. She felt almost as if she had brought them 
 together. 
 
 But in Jane's childish view the recognition of this 
 kind of love was the closing of youth's manuscript. 
 She was uplifted by the idea of having a pair of intimate 
 married friends; but it would be different. She did 
 not ask herself in what way. It might be even more 
 agreeable than having two separate friends, but it 
 would be different. So her view of Harry was a back- 
 ward one. She talked chiefly of him as he had been, 
 and Lady Brent, somewhat to her comfort, learnt to 
 
3o6 SIR HARRY 
 
 look upon Harry's youth also as a chapter in some 
 sense closed, aind as a very perfect chapter. Whatever 
 might happen, he had had that. And she had been 
 instrumental in fashioning his youth — a jewel to hang 
 upon the neck of memory, whole and flawless. 
 
 She would not disturb Jane with her fears, but the 
 child divined them and was often struck by foreboding, 
 which she resisted with all her might. In this also she 
 gave comfort. Her optimism, fitting to her youth and 
 inexperience, was insistent, and would not be denied. 
 Nothing could happen to Harry worse than what had 
 happened already. Nothing — she seemed to frame 
 her creed — could happen to one who was so loved. 
 
 The gods held the scales — life whole or life disabled 
 on the one side, death on the other. They dipped now 
 this way, now that. What was it that they threw into 
 them? Was there any weight in the strong urgings 
 of those who thought they had learnt from them that 
 they would incline their ears to such utterances? Was 
 there anything that might incline them to spare one 
 to whom they had shown their favours until now? 
 Was he not nearer to them in the tested quality of his 
 manhood than the generality of beings whom they 
 sent to represent their godhead on earth? Had they 
 not fashioned him, to shine in years to come, as an 
 example of the kind of human stuff they could produce 
 from their workshops? Had they no further use for 
 him in a world so largely populated with their failures? 
 Or were the tokens they threw into the scales nothing 
 at all but just the chances of time and space, so that 
 this man's righteousness and that man's worthlessness 
 were of no account against the tick of a watch or the 
 ruled immutable path of a shard of iron? 
 
 Did they even hesitate? Was it destined from the 
 beginning of time that just at that moment in a sodden 
 
IN THE BALANCE 307 
 
 desolate winter's dawn, by just that naked riven tree, 
 the life they had given and so richly endowed should be 
 battered out of the young eager body in which they 
 had set it, with nothing in it left that could any more 
 upon earth give or receive love? 
 
 So it happened. The day of blood dawned, and 
 waxed and waned and ended. Many were killed in it, 
 many lived to remember it as no more terrible than 
 other days. But Harry died in it. The last boon they 
 gave him was that he died very quickly. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 LOVE 
 
 On a February morning, Viola wallced through the 
 woods of Royd, along the path by which Harry had 
 hastened to meet her in those bright summer days that 
 were now so far off. Jane was with her. They talked 
 as they walked, and sometimes even smiled. No one 
 would have guessed at the sorrow that lay like a numbing 
 weight upon one of them, and had so saddened the 
 other that she seemed in these days to have left most 
 of her childhood behind her. 
 
 They talked of this and that, but at any moment 
 they might fall into talk of Harry. They were never 
 together for long without mention of him. Jane was 
 the only person to whom Viola spoke of him fredy. 
 Lady Brent, who hid the ruin of her hfe and of her hopes 
 as best she could, seemed to chng to her presence at 
 Royd, but they could not talk together yet about 
 Harry, though his name was not avoided between them. 
 Mrs Brent had been to Royd and had gone away again. 
 Her visit had been painful enough; her sorrow was 
 great and her laments had been ceaseless. But jealousy 
 had prevented her trying to get a response from Viola. 
 With Wilbraham, whom she had seen once since the 
 fatal news had come, she had spoken of him, but then 
 it had been as if she hardly understood what had 
 happened. Her father had been very kind to her, 
 but with no direct effort to console her for what was 
 beyond consolation. She had come to Royd after a 
 few days, and had been there ever since. 
 
 They were talking of Sidney Pawle as they walked 
 308 
 
LOVE 309 
 
 together through the wood, to which the leafless trees 
 admitted gleams of winter sunshine, so different from 
 the splashes of vivid light that had quivered through 
 the leaves on to the deep rich greenness of summer. 
 Sidney had gone away from Poldaven, but Jane had 
 heard from her a few days before, with the news of her 
 engagement, now permitted, though grudgingly. She 
 had told Jane that she meant to be married whenever 
 Noel could get his leave, but had not yet broken the 
 intention to her parents. 
 
 'I am sure she is right,' Viola said. 'Even if he gets 
 killed afterwards, she will have had him all her very 
 own.' 
 
 Jane hesitated a moment before she said, rather 
 brusquely : 'She thinks of him as her very own now.' 
 
 'Oh, yes,' said Viola, almost indifferently. 
 
 Jane stuck to her point. 'You had Harry all your 
 very own,' she said. 'There wasn't anybody else. He 
 liked me and Sidney, but there wasn't really anybody 
 else but you.' It was by that unafraid directness, 
 which was part of her nature, that she had made her 
 way with Viola, where nobody else had gained any 
 access to her tortured bewildered mind. She could 
 say anything to her, because there was only truth and 
 love behind her words. 
 
 'I know,' said Viola. 'I'm very glad Sidney is going 
 to be happy — as long as it lasts — but I don't believe 
 they can possibly love each other as much as Harry 
 and I did. That's what makes it so cruel that he was 
 killed. There was never anybody like him. Why were 
 we allowed to know each other and to love each other, 
 if it was just to be like that?' 
 
 'That's what I mean,' said Jane. 'You did love 
 each other, and even if you're awfully miserable now, 
 you'd rather be that than never have known Harry.' 
 
 ' It doesn't seem to matter much whether I'm miserable 
 
310 SIR HARRY 
 
 or not,' Viola said. 'Everybody who has said anything 
 to me about it has seemed to think that's the chief 
 thing — ^that I shall get over it in time. What does it 
 matter whether I get over it or not? It's Harry's being 
 kiUed that matters.' 
 
 'I know,' said Jane. 'Older people don't seem to 
 understand, though they only mean to be kind. It's 
 all so different to what I'd ever thought it would be, 
 if an5^hing like that happened with somebody you 
 loved very much. There's part of you goes on doing 
 the same things almost as if you'd forgotten, and even 
 perhaps enjoying yourself sometimes; and there's part 
 of you that never forgets. Of course, it isn't the same 
 for me as it is for you,' she added on a note of humility, 
 'but I know enough to understand.' 
 
 'Oh, my dear, I know how much you loved Harry. 
 It's what makes me love you. I think I love you better 
 than anybody, just because of that. It all comes back 
 to Harry, you see. Poor Lady Brent loved him, and 
 I'm desperately sorry for her. Sometimes it seems as 
 if I'm more sorry for her than I am for myself. It 
 isn't like being sorry for oneself; I don't seem to count. 
 But I'm sorry for her. She's old, but she isn't hard, as 
 many old people are. And there are so many other 
 things than just Harry that she has lost.' 
 
 •What sort of things?' 
 
 'Oh, everj^hing that he was, or was going to be — 
 everything she had thought about and looked forward 
 to all the time he was growing up. I suppose they were 
 all part of Hatry to her; but they weren't to me. I 
 think I was even a little jealous of them. Once when 
 we were at the log cabin, and talked about going away 
 to a new country — you know, just as you used to talk, 
 half in fun — I thought ! Oh, how I wish we could 
 and he would work for me and I would work for him. 
 I wished he wasn't Sir Harry Brent at all, with all that 
 
LOVE 3ti 
 
 belonged to him, but just Harry, who only belonged 
 to me.' 
 
 'Of course, that would have been best of all. But 
 he was Harry just the same, and that's what matters 
 most to Lady Brent.' 
 
 ' Oh, yes, I know. But aU the rest does matter to her, 
 poor dear, and I don't wonder at it — for her. Every- 
 thing that meant so much to her has come to an end. 
 He was the last Brent, and even Royd itself is nothing 
 to her now. I should think that was a great pity 
 myself, if it were anybody else. I think she would 
 have liked to talk about it to me, after the first. But 
 I just couldn't. I couldn't now — only to you. You're 
 the only person who really knows how little it matters 
 — ^to me.' 
 
 Jane was silent. She had heard that talk, and tried 
 to adjust her mind to it. Her father, deeply shocked 
 at Harry's death, and of some comfort to her in, his 
 exposition of the Christian faith in immortality, had 
 yet let his mind run upon some aspects of the loss that 
 had seemed to her, in the first outbreak of her grief, 
 almost to belittle it. He had talked about the loss to 
 Viola, not only of Harry, but of what she would have 
 had as Harry's wife — even as his widow. He had 
 taken it for granted that some day she would get over 
 her grief at Harry's death. It was not to be expected 
 that she would think of the material benefits that 
 would have come to her now, but afterwards she 
 would. 
 
 Was this so? Jane had talked to her mother, who 
 had told her, striving hard to be honest with her, that 
 few people were altogether free from worldly desires 
 when they grew older, and that the most bitter grief 
 was assuaged by time. Jane had Ustened, but held to 
 her opinion that Viola would never get over Harry's 
 loss, and that nothing she had lost besides would ever 
 
312 . SIR HARRY 
 
 matter to her. But she had been a Httle shaken. Now 
 she felt that she was justified in her fath in Viola. Not 
 even the loss of all that saddened others who also 
 loved Harry, but not as she did, mattered to her; the 
 loss of those things to herself she did not think about, 
 nor ever would. 
 
 They had come a long way through the ride. 'I'm 
 going to take you to a place I haven't been to since 
 • Harry died,' Viola said, as she turned to a faintly 
 defined track through the wood. 'I've wanted to go, 
 but I couldn't by myself.' 
 
 She spoke without more emotion than had marked 
 her speech hitherto, and as they threaded their way 
 through the trees, which grew closely here, she told 
 Jane how Harry had led her to the woodland pool on 
 the morning after they had first met, and how they 
 had spent long summer hours in that green retreat, 
 happy in their love. 
 
 Jane felt that she was going to a holy place. Harry 
 had never mentioned this secret pool to her, though he 
 had shown her many secrets of the woods. 
 
 The hardly discernible path by which they had 
 turned aside was soon lost in the tangle of undergrowth. 
 Viola told her that they had never gone to the pool by 
 the same way, so as not to leave a track; but she went 
 on unhesitatingly. ' I think I could find my way to it 
 blindfold,' she said. 
 
 Presently they came to the pool. Viola caught her 
 breath and gave a httle shiver as she stood on its brink. 
 The sun had gone behind the clouds, and the waters 
 were cold and steely, but there was no wind, and they 
 reflected as in a mirror the bare trees, which had once 
 been arrassed with their leafy tapestry to close in this 
 hidden temple. 'It's not the same,' she said. 'It isn't 
 secret any more. I wish I hadn't come.' 
 
 She turned, and there was the great tree, with the 
 
LOVE 313 
 
 fallen trunk under its spreading canopy upon which 
 she had sat as a queen crowned by Harry's adoring 
 love. She seemed to recoil, and gave a cry which echoed 
 forlornly through the naked woods. Then she threw 
 herself down on the ground beside the rough trunk, 
 embracing it with her arms, and crying, ' Oh, Harry ! 
 My darling ! Oh, my darling ! ' 
 
 The suddenness of it had brought Jane's heart to 
 her mouth. Viola was sobbing as if her heart would 
 break. It was the first time Jane had seen her abandon 
 herself to her despairing grief. Her own love and sorrow 
 weUed up in her. She knelt beside Viola, embracing 
 her as she lay there, and mingUng her tears with hers, 
 but not speaking. 
 
 For a long time both of them wept together. Viola's 
 sobs decreased in violence, but she cried piteously and 
 fonlomly. 'Oh, Harry, I do want you so,' she sobbed. 
 ' Why have you gone away from me ? ' 
 
 Jane rose to her knees. Viola, stUl lying against 
 the trunk, with her head buried on her arm, caught her 
 hand and held it. The pressure thrilled Jane through 
 and through. She could console, in this unconsolable 
 grief. She 'felt as if it were a trust from Harry to do 
 so. Viola was not quite alone in the world, if she could 
 still cling tOgher in her bitter trouble. She bent down 
 again and kissed her, and Viola's arms went round 
 her neck. 'Don't cry any more,' she said, thr®ugh her 
 own falhng tears. 'Harry hasn't left you. He's alive 
 and happy. Perhaps he's looking at us now. He loves 
 you as much as you love him.' 
 
 Viola's sobs ceased for the moment. 'He did,' she 
 said. 'Oh, if I knew he loved me still, I could bear 
 never seeing him any more. But he's dead. They 
 killed Harry, Jane. Can you believe it? My darling, 
 Harry ! He kissed me here, when he was aUve, and 
 we talked and talked, such a Uttle time ago. I can 
 
 S,H. X 
 
314 SIR HARRY 
 
 hear him now this very minute, and feel him by me. 
 Btrt he is dead. I must keep on saying it or I can't 
 believe it. Harry is dead.' 
 
 Her sobs broke out afresh. Jane rose to her feet. 
 'No,' she said, with a solemn look on her child's face. 
 ' Harry isn't dead. He won't like to see you giving way 
 like that. Just for a time you can't help it, I know; 
 but you've cried enough. Get up now, Viola, and let's 
 talk about Harry.' 
 
 Viola arose obediently, and dried her eyes. 'I've 
 always tried to be brave,' she said, 'because I knew 
 Harry would like it. He wouldn't have gone away from 
 me if he could have helped it. I'm sorry I said what I 
 did just now, but it was too much for me seeing this 
 place. I shan't come here again. Let's go away.' 
 
 Jane hesitated. ' Wouldn't you rather stay, and talk 
 about him here? ' she said. ' It brought him more back 
 to you to come here. It was too much for you at 
 
 first; but now you've got over that ! ' 
 
 Viola stood and looked about her. Her cheeks were 
 wet with her tears, and at intervals a tremor passed 
 through her body; but she was not weeping now, and 
 the quieter look was returning to her face. 
 
 'It is the same place, after all,' she said, as if slowly 
 recognising it. 'But it's bare — ^like my heart. I 
 used to think it welcomed us when we came here, it 
 was so quiet and beautiful. It's beautiful now, though. 
 Harry would have loved it lilce this. Yes, we'll stay 
 here a little, Jane dear. Look, this is just where I used 
 to sit, and Harry would always he on the grass. In 
 other places he used to sit by me, but here he said I 
 was a queen, and he must be at my feet. Come and 
 sit by me on my poor throne, Jane, and we'll talk about 
 him.' 
 
 They sat side by side. Jane nestled to her with 
 her arm around her waist, and for a time they said 
 
LOVE 315 
 
 nothing. The sunlight fell upon them, filtering through 
 the interlaced branches, as they sat still in a contact 
 which was a solace to both of them. Grief does not 
 set abiding marks upon the young. But for the traces 
 of her tears Viola was as fresh and fair as when she 
 had sat there for Harry to worship her. It was only 
 in her tender reUant heart that the wound was quiver- 
 ing and throbbing. She was widowed of her love, though 
 she had never been wed. There was no one who could 
 comfort her, except the still younger girl who shared 
 her love and her grief, and was nestling to her. 
 
 The silence of the woods lay all about them, but it was 
 not the iron silence of deep winter. There was a sense 
 of reviving life in the February sunshine, and the hazy 
 purple of the already swelling leaf-buds. 
 
 Viola bent over Jane and kissed her. 'You do com- 
 fort me, dear,' she said. 'I thought nothing could 
 ever comfort me again, but you do. You loved my 
 darling Harry.' 
 
 Jane buried her face on Viola's breast and cried 
 softly, and Viola's tears came again, but not with the 
 abandonment she had lately shown. They were healing 
 tears of love and sjnnpathy. 
 
 Jane dried her eyes, still leaning against Viola, and 
 said : 'I'm very glad you brought me here. Now I 
 know. Now I know for certain.' 
 
 'What do you know, dear?' Viola asked her gently. 
 She felt the stirrings of love in her towards this child, 
 so loyal and so steel-true. Her quiet tears, leaning 
 on her breast, had brought out the child in her. She 
 had been dreadfully hurt, too, and needed for herself 
 the consolation that she had only thought of giving, 
 with a strength and wisdom beyond her years. Viola 
 kissed her again as she asked her question. 
 
 ' I know that Harry is alive,' said Jane, sitting upright 
 and looking out across the waters of the pool, upon 
 
3i6 SIR HARRY 
 
 which there was not a tremor. It was as if it had 
 hushed itself to listen. 'This place seems to be full 
 of him. I know why. It's because of the love that it 
 holds. Love can't die; it's there for always. Harry 
 loves you just as much as he did when you came here 
 together. I believe he loves me too, just as he used to 
 when I was little. Once he sent me a message, before 
 anybody, because we were friends. Now I believe he's 
 sending me a message again. He loves you. Yes, he 
 does. It isn't that he did love you, and then he died 
 and you've only got that to remember. He loves you 
 now, and he'll never leave off loving you, tiU you see 
 him again, and are happy together as you used to be.' 
 
 Viola's eyes had been fixed 6n her, as if fascinated. 
 Her utterance was almost prophetic in its rapt inten- 
 sity. When she had spoken she nestled to Viola again, 
 and said in a softer tone : ' It makes me cilmost happy 
 now, believing that. Don't you feel that it's true? ' 
 
 ' Do you really believe we shall meet again some day? ' 
 Viola asked. 'If you'd asked me — ^beforer— I should 
 have said I believed that. But it hasn't given me any 
 comfort, up till now. I suppose I didn't really beUeve 
 it, as I used to beUeve I shotdd meet him again the 
 next day here. If I could only know it ! ' 
 
 'But don't you feel that Harry's alive?' said Jane. 
 ' I do. If you can't feel it yet it's only because you've 
 been so sad and so puzzled that you haven't known. 
 But if I can feel it, you will be able to, more still, because 
 Harry loved you so much. I think he wants you to 
 feel it now.' 
 
 It was Viola's turn to look out across the water. 
 'It would be like Harry,' she said slowly. 'Oh, Jane, 
 if it's only true ! ' 
 
 She put her hand to her breast, and a smile broke 
 out upon her face — such a smile as had not lightened 
 it these many days. 
 
LOVE 317 
 
 'Of course it's true,' said Jane, in her decisive way. 
 'It's part of our religion. We say every Sunday in 
 church : " I beheve in the resurrection of the dead, 
 and the life of the world to come." ' 
 
 'Ah, but that's not the same. I want to think of 
 Harry as aUve now. It seemed to come to me just 
 now that he really is — like the sun breaking through 
 the clouds. If that's true, Jane dear — if that's true, 
 that my darUng Harry is aUve now somewhere, just 
 like he used to be, and loving me all the time, and I 
 only have to wait for a little before I see him again ' 
 
 'You won't even have to wait,' said Jane, 'if you 
 know he's loving you, and you can go on loving him 
 because he's alive, and not only remember what he 
 was when he was here.' 
 
 'No. It wUl only be like what it was when he went 
 away before. My heart was going out to him always, 
 and when he came back all the parting was forgotten, 
 and it was sweeter than if we hadn't parted. Oh, 
 Jane, fancy seeing Harry' just as he used to be, 
 beautiful and laughing and happy ! Do you think 
 it's possible that it can be really like that — ^that he's 
 somewhere now — not lying out there in France, but 
 just as he was when we loved each other so much? 
 Tell me you really believe it, and you are not saying 
 it only to comfort me.' 
 
 Jane clung to her again. 'I'm sure of it,' she said. 
 'It's Harry's message. You don't mind it coming 
 through me, do you? It's a message to you; he wants 
 me to give it you. It's not in words, as if he were 
 speaking. It's aU through me. Harry wants your 
 love just as much now as ever he did,' and he loves you 
 just as much too.' 
 
 Viola sat silent, with a tender look in her eyes, and 
 a smile upon her Hps. Presently she said : ' Harry 
 once saw something, not belonging to the world which 
 
3i8 SIR HARRY 
 
 everybody can see, and when he told me I knew at 
 once why he had seen it, because there had never been 
 anything in the way with him. There never has been. 
 You could look deep, deep, deep into him, and never 
 find anjdihing there that wasn't beautiful and true. 
 I wonder if there's another place where people like 
 that really belong — no, not a place, but something they 
 belong to aU the time they're in the world, and that 
 goes on just the same for them when they have left 
 the world. I think there must be, Jane, and that's 
 how it is with Harry. That would make him hete, 
 with us, wouldn't it?' 
 
 'Yes,' said Jane softly. 'That's what I feel about it. 
 It's all love. I can't explain exactly, but when he 
 w£LS here with his body there was something else more 
 important stiQ, and just as real. It's love that is real 
 — like a person. Can you understand?' 
 
 ' Yes, I think I can, and it's what I m.eant too, that 
 is so comforting. What I loved most in him when he 
 was here is just what he is still, and I can go on loving 
 it, because it didn't die when he was killed. I wonder 
 if he thought that too. I couldn't bear to think of him 
 being kiUed, so he never taUced about it.' 
 
 'Wasn't that because he thought it didn't really 
 matter?' 
 
 ' Oh, how it matters to me ! But perhaps God took 
 him so that he should never be spoilt, not the least 
 little bit. Oh, but I would have tried so hard to be 
 worthy of him, if only he'd been left to me, just for a 
 little time longer. He said I helped him. I believe 
 I did, when he was unhappy — because the world wasn't 
 what it had been to him here, and I knew more about 
 the world than he did, poor darling ! ' 
 
 'It's very hard indeed, and you can't quite under- 
 stand it aU. But when you say to yourself, it's all 
 love, it seems somehow to put it more right. And the 
 
LOVE 319 
 
 text says, God is love, so that would come in too, 
 though I don't quite know how, till I think about it 
 more. But what I'm quite certain of is that Harry 
 couldn't have been wasted. I think that's what poor 
 Lady Brent can't see. All of him that we loved is 
 alive somewhere. I'm more and more sure of that 
 every moment. I believe it's what Harry is trying to 
 say to us. Let's just say we believe it, Viola dear. 
 Perhaps it will even make him more happy if we do. 
 I believe it. I believe Harry is alive and that he 
 knows about us, and some day you will see him again, 
 and you will be happier together than you have ever 
 been. Say it, Viola.' 
 
 'The last letter Harry wrote to me,' said Viola 
 musingly, 'he said he should love me always, always, 
 always. Do you think he meant what we've been 
 saying, Jane, though he wouldn't write about being 
 kiUed?' 
 
 ' I expect he did. I'm sure he must have believed it, 
 and I'm sure he wants you to believe it now. Say it, 
 Viola. Say you believe it.' 
 
 Viola rose and stood before her. A smile was on her 
 lips and there was a Hght in her eyes. 'I do believe 
 it,' she said, "and it wiU make everything different 
 to me all through my life. Harry will be with me 
 always.' 
 
 She turned and stood looking up to the clear space 
 of sky above the pool. 'Oh, Harry, my darling,' she 
 said very softly, and tenderly, ' can you hear me — your 
 own Viola,, who loves you so? I do love you, darling, 
 now and for ever.' 
 
t 
 
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Collins Spring List 1920 
 
 HARVEST 
 
 By Mrs Humphry Ward 
 
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 would certainly be difficult to find a book fuller of the 
 subtlety of the Jacobean Jesuit, of plot and counterplot, court 
 scandal, and subterranean politics. Her atmosphere is to a 
 degree perfect, that the reader, absorbed in the period, is 
 tempted to forget the modern noveUst behind, with her penetra- 
 ting interest in the hidden character of the players, and to read 
 for the story alone. 
 
 MARY'GIRL 
 
 By Hope Merrick 7s. net 
 
 A DRAMATIC and powerful story of a man with a passion- 
 ate belief in the righteousness of his objective, a bdief that 
 comes near to wrecking not only all his own happiness, but 
 the life of a wife to whom he is devoted. The cataclysm in 
 which he sees his man-made ideal shattered brings a tense, 
 poignant situation at the end of a story that leads the reader 
 artistically forward through many of the rough places of human 
 existence. 
 
 THE BANNER 
 
 By Hugh F. Spender 
 
 Author of The Seekers 7s. net 
 ' A FIT place for heroes to live in' — this phrase rings through 
 a\ Mr Spender's new book, in which Helen Hart and her 
 ' *■ League of Youth abolish the old order. How many of us 
 have had a vision of that new England in which youth is to play 
 the dominant part? Mr Spender crystalUses that vision with 
 freshness, humour, and sincerity. The story rings true, and the 
 reahty is wonderfully maintained. He has not neglected 
 human nature, and with a skill that is remarkable in a novel in 
 which 'politics' — or what replaces them — ^are the main theme, 
 he avoids the temptation to preach. It is a book that brims 
 over with youth, cheerful, lively and full of zest. 
 
CoUins Spring List 1920 
 
 AN IMPERFECT MOTHER 
 
 By J. D. Beresford 
 
 Author of God's' Counterpoint, etc. 7s. M. net 
 
 MR BERESFORD'S last novel, The Jervaise Comedy, was 
 in a lighter vein than his earlier work, but in this book 
 he returns to his more serious manner. The main object 
 is the portraiture of a mother and her son, but with charac- 
 teristic skill Mr Beresford, in painting his portraits, makes his 
 figures sit well into their frame. They fit their, background, and 
 there is a solidity in every person in the book quite distinctively 
 unusual. It has not sufficed him to sketch shadowy 'characters' 
 — they are rather 'the people in the play,' nor is it too much 
 to say that the author has never achieved a finer book. 
 
 POTTERISM 
 
 By Rose Macaulay 
 
 Author of What Not, Non-Combatauts, etc. 7s. 6i. net 
 
 MISS MACAULAY'S witty, satirical vein was by no means 
 exhausted by her clever study, in What Not, of a Govern- 
 ment Department. In her new book she, little by little, 
 extends her humorous comments on Society until she includes 
 the whole of English Ufe of to-day. She has, however, in doing 
 this portrayed a vivid and intensely human group of characters. 
 Jane Potter may well stand as the final portrait of present-day 
 young womanhood. You should also make the acquaintance of 
 John Potter, Clare Potter, and Potters pere et mere. 
 
 PANDORA'S YOUNG MEN 
 
 By Frederick Watson 
 
 Author of The Humphries Touch Is. M. net 
 
 NO one who read about the inimitable Humphries will 
 hesitate a moment to see what Mr Watson offers next. He 
 has in his humour some of the subtlety of an Anstey, but 
 it IS gayer, more hiunan. This book is a modem com«iy of 
 manners on a wider stage than before, but written in the same 
 vein in its attitude towards the official, social, and provincial 
 society of to-day. 
 
Collins^ Spring List 1920 
 
 THE FOOLISH LOVERS 
 
 By St. John Ervine 
 
 Author of Changing Winds, Mrs Martin's Man, etci 7s. 6d. net 
 
 FOR some years the literary world has been watching Mr 
 Ervine. His progressive steps up the ladder have been 
 steady and sure, for he has in him all the qualities that lead 
 to success in Uterature. The interest, therefore, of his new book 
 will lie partly in the estimating of a further creative step towards 
 that position which we feel sure is Mr Ervine's destiny. The 
 author's fine, narrative style will be seen at its best in this new 
 novel, which traces the career of a yoimg Belfast man. 
 
 ADAM OF DUBLIN : A Romance of To-day 
 By Conal O'Riordan ('Norreys Connell') 
 
 Author of The Young Days of Admiral Quilliam, etc. 7s. 6d. net 
 
 THE author of this novel has, from time to time, as his some- 
 what infrequent books have appeared, earned praise that 
 was never faint from the leading critics of the day. Wells, 
 Shaw, Conrad, Zangwill, Edward Thomas, Henry Davray, have 
 testified in turn to his humour, his graceful wit, his sincerity of 
 observation. He is one of the rare authors who have published 
 too few books. Unfortunately the stage, the Abbey Theatre, 
 Dublin,, has occupied too much of his time. He has been called 
 by more than one critic, a genius. It is certain that no other 
 writer could have created Adam of Dublin, with its firmly humane 
 and even exalted handling of scenes which a lesser man might 
 maie simply painful. But it is the delicious humour, the 
 palpitating vigour of this picture of Dublin to-day, of all ranks 
 of society as seen through the eyes of a child raised from the 
 gutter, that makes the primary appeal of the novel. 
 
 CHALLENGE 
 
 By V. Sackville'West (Hon. Mrs Harold Nicolson) 
 
 Authpr of Heritage Is. &d. net 
 A LL the glamom: and brilliant sunshine of the Mediterranean 
 a\ illuminates this author's second novel, in which she describes 
 ■* *-in her own finished manner a revolution in the Greek 
 Islands. The period of the story is the twentieth century, and the 
 dominating figures are the young Englishman and his passionate, 
 beautiful cousin Eve. 
 
Collins' Spring List 1920 
 
 SIR HARRY 
 
 By Archibald Marshall 
 
 Author of The Graftons, etc. 7s. 6d. net 
 
 THE young man who gives the name to this book is perhaps 
 one of the most sympathetic characters ever presented by 
 Mr Marshall. His upbringing, so full of reserves, so unUke 
 that of the typical schoolboy, yet produces a human being 
 instinct with the best of EngUsh quaUties, with a thoughtful, 
 simple side to it that has never been more successfully developed 
 by any of our modem novelists. Mr Marshall, as usual, displays 
 a wonderful mastery of his subject. 
 
 THE CLINTONS AND OTHERS 
 
 By Archibald Marshall 
 
 Author of The Graftons, etc. 7s. net 
 
 CONTAINS two stories about the Clinton family, who have 
 appeared in several of Mr Marshall's novels. The first tells 
 of the way in which Merchant Jack rescued the estate ^of 
 Kencote from the hands of his spendthrift brother, 'Beau' 
 Clinton; the other is a long story which recounts the effects of 
 the war upon the Chntons who took part in it, and especially 
 upon the Squire. 
 
 Four other stories make up the book. The two longer ones 
 are ' In That State of Life,' which deals with the courtship of 
 Lord Kimmeridge, an eminent scientist, and ' Audacious Ann,' 
 in which a high-spirited and amusing child fights a whole 
 school single-handed to shield an absent schoolfellow, who had 
 committed an offence of which she herself was accused. 
 
 THE SWORD OF LOVE 
 
 By Moray Dalton 
 
 Author of Olive in Italy Is. net . 
 
 THIS is a romance of Italy in the golden days of the revival 
 of art and learning. It tells how Marco Landi, going in 
 search of his little half-sister Fiore, came to the Court of 
 Lorenzo The Magnificent and was involved in the tragic 
 adventure of the Pazzi Conspiracy. 
 
Collins Sy)rir% List 1920 
 
 THE DARK RIVER 
 
 By Sarah Gertrude Millin 6s. net 
 
 IN The Dark River the authoress presents a deep and intimate 
 study of life as it is lived in the diamond fields ^and cities of 
 Soutii Africa. Still more, it is a deep and penetrating study of 
 those passions that rule the lives of men everywhere. Behind all, 
 for local colour and setting, is the bare South African landscape. 
 
 THE BOOK OF YOUTH 
 
 By Margaret Skelton 7s. 6i. net 
 
 THIS novel by a new author reaches a very high level. It is 
 a romantic story that begins in the country in somewhat 
 idyllic vein, but later plunges into the broth of modem 
 London life, coloured clearly by actual experience. The reader 
 wiU find in it evidences of the new spirit of young minds struggUng 
 towards self-expression; but it is difficult to describe by such 
 pedantic phrases a vivid and extremely readable novel that should 
 make a wide appeal, not only to the younger generation. 
 
 THE DUCHESS OF SIONA 
 
 By Ernest Goodwin 
 
 Author of The Caravan Man. 7s. net 
 
 MR GOODWIN made an undoubted success with his first 
 novel. This novel, no less than the last, will find many 
 readers, for it is, although the subject-matter is mighty 
 different, instinct with the same quaUties of fine sense, humour 
 and pathos. On this occasion the author leaves modern Ufe for 
 the atmosphere of romance, the dusky alluring middle ages. 
 
 THE CASK 
 
 By Freeman Wills Crofts 7s. net 
 
 A SPLENDID mystery story, the ingenious handUng of which 
 leads to some of the most thrilling situations ima^able. 
 Detective stories have a way of concealir^ essential facts 
 from the reader, and ending in consequent flatness. No reader, 
 we dare to predict, will find this fault in The Cask mystery. The 
 story takes us to three great cities, London, Paris, and Glasgow, 
 and is a thorough going, full of shudders, detective problem. 
 
Collins' Spring List 1920 
 
 20th CENTURY FRENCH WRITERS 
 
 By Madame Duclaux 
 
 Illustrated from Photographs. Extra Crown 8vo. 7s. 6d. net 
 
 THIS is not a book of biographical detail but a clever 
 analysis of the briUiant band of 20th century French poets 
 and novelists, who not only sang for the glory of France, 
 but readily shed their blood for the love of it. Madame Duclaux 
 is gifted with a facile pen, sparkling, witty, incisive, and the 
 charm of a great literary reputation pervades the book. Some 
 of those who are here described are : — Maurice Barres, Romain 
 Rolland, Edmond Rostand, Paul Claudel, Charles P6guy, 
 Comtesse de Noailles. 
 
 SONGS from a YOUNG MAN'S LAND 
 By Sir Clive Phillipps-Wolley 
 
 Large Crown 800. Cloth, 5s. net 
 
 SIR CLIVE PHILLIPPS-WOLLEY was a very remarkable 
 Canadian. He was a pioneer of the Far West, a wonderful 
 naturalist and had an intimate acquaintance with the Indian 
 trappers and hunters. He did a great deal to further the 
 commercial and industrial development of the Far West, but, 
 above all, he was a pioneer of practical Imperialism. AU of 
 these qualities are reflected in his poems, while as a stylist he 
 may be said to be a disciple or even a forerunner of Kipling. 
 
 THEODOR FONTANE: A Critical Study 
 By Kenneth Hayens, M.A. 
 
 Extra Crown^ 8vo. 7s. 6d. net 
 
 THIS is a short critical and biographical study of Theodor 
 Fontane the German poet, joumaUst and novelist. Fontane 
 was bom in Brandenburg in 1819 and died in 1895. During 
 his long life he passed through many phases. He was appren- 
 ticed chemist, made a precarious living by ballad writing and 
 articles, came to London in the 'fifties as special correspondent 
 and was war correspondent during the wars that led up to the 
 foundation of the German Empire. In 1878 he published his 
 great novel Vor Dem Sturm. 
 
Collins' Spring List 1920 
 
 Two New and Cheaper Editions 
 
 A WRITER'S RECOLLECTIONS 
 
 By Mrs Humphry Ward 
 
 Large Crown 8vo. With Two Photogravure PlaleSi 6s. net 
 
 THIS book, which had so wonderful a reception on its first 
 appearance, is now put out in its third edition. In its 
 delightful pages wUl be found many of the most interesting 
 figures of the day — Gladstone, Morley, Balfour, Jowett, Pusey, 
 Henry James, Pater, and a whole host of others. 
 
 'The panorama of a generation, the expression of an ideal, 
 the quintessence of Victorianism in its best and fullest flower.' 
 — Daily Chronicle. 
 
 ' A perfect treasure house of good things, a gallery of speaking 
 portraits. Few if any Uving writers can sketch a portrait so 
 quickly, so incisively, so lovingly.' — Evening Standard. 
 
 PETROGRAD : The City of Trouble 
 By Meriel Buchanan 
 
 Daughter of the Former British Ambassador 
 
 With a Preface by Hugh Walpole. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. net 
 
 THIRD IMPRESSION 
 
 "The dominant impression left upon me is that the author is 
 a sportswoman of the first order. You see her pressing to the 
 windows to observe the shooting in the streets, going out to shop, 
 to dine, to dance during the stormy months of the various j)hases 
 of the Russian Revolutions ... it hasn't a dull or insincere 
 page.' — Punch. 
 
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