"It sounds so odd," she explained, "to hear you say that pretending to be
dead could give any one an interest in life." And she gurgled again.
Trix's gurgling was peculiarly infectious.

"Odd!" laughed Doctor Hilary. "It's the oddest thing imaginable. No one
but Nick could have conceived the whole business, or found the smallest
interest in it. But he did find an interest, and that was enough for me.
He is lonely now, I grant. But before this--this invention, he was
stagnant as well as lonely. His mind, and seemingly his soul with it, had
become practically atrophied. His mind has now been roused to interest,
though the most extraordinarily eccentric interest."

"And his soul?" queried Trix simply.

Doctor Hilary shook his head.

"Ah, that I don't know," he said.

They parted company at the door of Doctor Hilary's house. Trix went on
slowly down the road. She paused opposite the presbytery, before turning
to the left in the direction of Woodleigh. She rang the bell, and asked
to see Father Dormer.

He came to her in the little parlour.

"Oh," said Trix, getting up as he entered, "I only came to ask you to say
a Mass for my intention. And, please, will you say one every week till I
ask you to stop?"

"By all means," he responded.

"Thank you," said Trix. Then she glanced at a clock on the mantelpiece.
"I had no idea it was so late," she said.

She walked home at a fair pace. The midge bite had ceased to worry her.
But then, at Doctor Hilary's suggestion, she had ceased to rub it. She
was thinking of only one thing now, of a solitary old figure in a large
and gloomy library.

She sighed heavily once or twice. Well, at all events she had asked for
Masses for him.

CHAPTER XXV

PRICKLES

If you happen to have anything on your mind, it is impossible--or
practically impossible--to avoid thinking about it. Which, doubtless, is
so obvious a fact, it is barely worth stating.

The Duchessa di Donatello had something on her mind; it possessed her
waking thoughts, it coloured her dreams. And what that something was, is
also, perhaps, entirely obvious. Again and again she told herself that
she would not dwell on the subject; but she might as well have tried to
dam a river with a piece of tissue paper, as prevent the thought from
filling her mind; and that probably because--with true feminine
inconsistency--she welcomed it quite as much as she tried to dispel it.

Occasionally she allowed it free entry, regarded it, summed it up as
unsatisfactory, and sternly dismissed it. In three minutes it was welling
up again, perhaps in the same old route, perhaps choosing a different
course.

"Why can't I put the man and everything concerning him out of my mind for
good and all?" she asked herself more than once. And, whatever the reply
to her query, the fact remained that she couldn't; the thought had become
something of an obsession.

Now, when a thought has become an obsession, there is practically only
one way to free oneself from it, and that is by speech. Speech has a way
of clearing the clogged channels of the mind, and allowing the thought to
flow outwards, and possibly to disappear altogether; whereas, without
this clearance, the thought of necessity returns to its source, gathering
in volume with each recoil.

But speech is frequently not at all easy, and that not only because there
is often a difficulty in finding the right confidant, but because, with
the channels thus clogged, it is a distinct effort to clear them. Also,
though subconsciously you may realize its desirability, it is often
merely subconsciously, and reason and common sense,--or, rather, what you
at the moment quite erroneously believe to be reason and common
sense--will urge a hundred motives upon you in favour of silence. Maybe
that most subtle person the devil is the suggester of these motives. If
he can't get much of a look in by direct means, he'll try indirect ones,
and depression is one of his favourite indirect methods. At all events so
the old spiritual writers tell us, and doubtless they knew what they were
talking about.

Now, Trix was perfectly well aware that Pia had something on her mind;
she was also perfectly well aware that it was something she would have an
enormous difficulty in talking about. And the question was, how to give
her even the tiniest lead.

Trix had stated that she had guessed the colour of the soap-bubble; but
she hadn't the faintest notion where it had come into existence, nor
where and how it had burst. Nor had Pia given her directly the smallest
hint of its having ever existed. All of which facts made it exceedingly
difficult for her even to hint at soap-bubbles--figuratively speaking of
course--as a subject of conversation.

And Pia was slightly irritable too. Of course it was entirely because she
was unhappy, but it didn't conduce to intimate conversation. Prickles
would suddenly appear among the most innocent looking of flowers, in a
way that was entirely disconcerting and utterly unpleasant. And the worst
of it was, that there was no avoiding them. They darted out and pricked
you before you were even aware of their presence. It was so utterly
unlike Pia too, and so--Trix winked back a tear as she thought of it--so
hurting.

At last she came to a decision. The prickles simply must be handled and
extracted if possible. Of course she might get quite unpleasantly stabbed
in the process, but at all events she'd be prepared for the risk, and
anything would be better than the little darts appearing at quite
unexpected moments and places.

"The next time I'm pricked," said Trix to herself firmly, "I'll seize
hold of the prickle, and then perhaps we'll see where we are."

And, as a result perhaps of this resolution, the prickles suddenly
disappeared. Trix was immeasurably relieved in one sense, but not
entirely easy. She fancied the prickles to be hidden rather than
extracted. However, they'd ceased to wound for the time being, and that
certainly was an enormous comfort. Miss Tibbutt, with greater optimism
than Trix, believed all to be entirely well once more, and rejoiced
accordingly.

"Doctor Hilary has been over here rather often lately," remarked Miss
Tibbutt one afternoon. Pia and she were sitting in the garden together.

"Old Mrs. Mosely is ill," returned Pia smiling oracularly.

"But only a very little ill," said Miss Tibbutt reflectively. "Her
daughter told me only yesterday--I'm afraid it wasn't very grateful of
her--that the Doctor had been 'moidering around like 'sif mother was on
her dying bed, and her wi' naught but a bit o' cold to her chest, what's
gone to her head now, and a glass or two o' hot cider, and ginger, and
allspice, and rosemary will be puttin' right sooner nor you can flick a
fly off a sugar basin.'"

Pia laughed.

"My dear Tibby, he doesn't come to see Mrs. Mosely."

Miss Tibbutt looked up in perplexed query.

"He comes on here to tea, doesn't he?" asked Pia, kindly, after the
manner of one giving a lead.

"Certainly," returned Miss Tibbutt, still perplexed. "He would naturally
do so, since he is in Woodleigh just at tea time."

Pia leant back in her seat, and looked at Miss Tibbutt.

"Tibby dear, you're amazingly slow at the uptake."

Miss Tibbutt blinked at Pia over her spectacles.

"Please explain," said she meekly.

Pia laughed.

"Haven't you discovered, Tibby dear, that it's Trix he comes to see?"

"Trix!" ejaculated Miss Tibbutt.

"Yes; and she is quite as unaware of the fact as you are, so don't, for
all the world, enlighten her. Leave that to him, if he means to."

Miss Tibbutt had let her work fall, and was gazing round-eyed at Pia.

"But, my dear Pia, he's years older than Trix."

"Oh, not so very many," said Pia reassuringly. "Fifteen or sixteen,
perhaps. Trix is twenty-four, you know."

"And Trix is leaving here the day after to-morrow," said Miss Tibbutt
regretfully.

"London isn't the antipodes," declared Pia. "She can come here again, or
business may take Doctor Hilary to London. There are trains."

"Well, well," said Miss Tibbutt.

Trix appeared at the open drawing-room window and came out on to the
terrace. She paused for a moment to pick a dead rose off a bush growing
near the house. Then she saw the two under the lime tree. She came
towards them.

"Doctor Hilary has just driven up through the plantation gate," she said.
"I suppose he's coming to tea. His man was evidently going to put up the
horse."

The Duchessa glanced at a gold bracelet watch on her wrist.

"It's four o'clock," she said.

"He takes tea quite for granted," smiled Trix.

"I suppose," responded the Duchessa, "that he considers five almost
consecutive invitations equivalent to one standing one."

"Well, anyhow I should," nodded Trix. "What are you looking so wise
about, Tibby angel?"

Miss Tibbutt started. "Was I looking wise? I didn't know."

Trix perched herself on the table.

"Dale will clear me off in a minute," she announced. "I suppose you'll
have tea out here as usual. Till then it's the nicest seat. Oh dear, I
wish I wasn't going home to-morrow. That's not a hint to you to ask me to
stay longer. I shouldn't hint, I'd speak straight out. But I must join
Aunt Lilla at her hydro place. She's getting lonely. She wants an
audience to which to relate her partner's idiocy at Bridge, and someone
to help carry her photographic apparatus. Also someone to whom she can
keep up a perpetual flow of conversation. That's not the least
uncharitable, as you'd know if you knew Aunt Lilla. I think she must have
been born talking. But I love her all the same."

Trix tilted back her head and looked up at the sky through the branches
of the trees.

"I wonder why space is blue," she said, "and why it's so much bluer some
days than others, even when there aren't any clouds."

A step on the terrace behind her put an end to her wondering. Doctor
Hilary came round the corner of the house.

"I've taken your invitation for granted, Duchessa, as I happened to be
out this way," said he as he shook hands.

"Is old Mrs. Mosely still so ill?" asked Trix, sympathy in her voice.

Miss Tibbutt kept her eyes almost guiltily on her knitting. Pia, glancing
at her, laughed inwardly.

"She's better to-day," responded Doctor Hilary cheerfully. And then he
sat down. Trix had descended from the table, and seated herself in a
basket chair.

Dale brought out the tea in a few minutes, and put it on the table Trix
had vacated. The conversation was trivial and desultory, even more
trivial and desultory than most tea-time conversation. Miss Tibbutt was
too occupied with Pia's recent revelation to have much thought for
speech, Doctor Hilary was never a man of many words, the Duchessa had
been marvellously lacking in conversation of late, and Trix's occasional
remarks were mainly outspoken reflections on the sunshine and the
flowers, which required no particular response. Nevertheless she was
conscious of a certain flatness in her companions, and wondered vaguely
what had caused it.

"I'm going to Llandrindod Wells to-morrow," said she presently.

Doctor Hilary looked up quickly.

"Then your visit here has come to an end?" he queried.

Trix nodded.

"Alas, yes," she sighed, regret, half genuine, half mocking, in her
voice. "But most certainly I shall come down again if the Duchessa will
let me come. I had forgotten, absolutely forgotten, what a perfectly
heavenly place this was. And that doesn't in the least mean that I am
coming solely for the place, and not to see her, though I am aware it did
not sound entirely tactful."

"And when do you suppose you will be coming again?" asked Doctor Hilary
with a fine assumption of carelessness, not in the least lost upon the
Duchessa.

"Before Christmas I hope," replied she in Trix's stead. "Or, indeed, at
any time or moment she chooses."

Doctor Hilary looked thoughtful, grave. A little frown wrinkled between
his eyebrows. He pulled silently at his pipe. The Duchessa was watching
him.

"Alas, poor man!" thought she whimsically. "He was about to seize
opportunity, and behold, fate snatches opportunity from him. Oh, cruel
fate!"

And then she beheld his brow clearing. He knocked the ashes from his
pipe, and began feeling in his pocket for his pouch to refill it.

"He's relieved," declared the Duchessa inwardly, and somewhat astounded.
"He's so amazingly diffident, and yet so utterly in love, he's
relieved."

Of course she was right, she knew perfectly well she was right. Well,
perhaps courage would grow with Trix's absence. For his own sake it was
to be devoutly trusted that it would.

Doctor Hilary took his tobacco pouch from his pocket, and with it a small
piece of paper. He looked at the paper.

"The name of a new rose," he said. "Michael Field, the new under-gardener
at the Hall, gave it to me. He tells me it is a very free flowerer, and
has a lovely scent. Do you care to have the name, Duchessa?" He held the
slip of paper towards her.

The Duchessa looked carelessly at it. Trix was looking at the Duchessa.

"No, thank you," she replied. "We have plenty of roses here, and Thornby
can no doubt give me the name of any new kinds I shall want."

Now it was not merely an entirely unnecessary refusal, but the tone of
the speech was nearly, if not quite, deliberately rude. It was a terribly
big prickle, and showed itself perfectly distinctly. There wasn't even
the smallest semblance of disguise about it.

Doctor Hilary put the paper and his tobacco pouch back into his pocket.

"I must be off," he said in an oddly quiet voice. "I've one or two other
calls to make."

Miss Tibbutt walked towards the house with him,--to fetch some more
knitting, so she announced. Trix suspected a little mental stroking.

"What's the matter, Pia?" asked Trix calmly, leaning back in her chair.

"The matter?" said Pia, the faintest suspicion of a flush in her cheeks.

"You were very--very _snubbing_ to Doctor Hilary," announced Trix, still
calmly. Inwardly she was not so calm. In fact, her heart was thumping
quite loudly.

"My dear Trix," replied the Duchessa coldly, "I have an excellent
gardener. I do not care for recommendations emanating from a complete
stranger."

"There was no smallest need to snub Doctor Hilary, though," said Trix
quietly. The queer surprise on his face had caused a little stab at her
heart.

The Duchessa made no reply.

"Pia, what _is_ the matter?" asked Trix again.

"I have told you, nothing," responded the Duchessa.

Trix shook her head. "Yes; there is. You're unhappy. You've been--you can
tell me to mind my own business, if you like--you've been horribly
prickly lately. You've tried to hurt my feelings, and Tibby's, and now
you've tried to hurt Doctor Hilary's. And he didn't deserve it in the
least, but he thought, for a moment, he did. And it isn't like you, Pia.
It isn't one bit. Do tell me what's the matter?"

"Nothing," said Pia again.

"Darling, that's a--a white lie at all events."

Pia coloured. "Anyhow it's not worth talking about," she said.

"Are you sure it isn't?" urged Trix. "Couldn't I help the weeniest bit?"

The Duchessa shook her head.

"Darling," said Trix again, and she slipped her arm through Pia's.

"I'm all one big bruise," said Pia suddenly.

Trix stroked her hand.

"It is entirely foolish of me to care," said the Duchessa slowly. "But I
happen to have trusted someone rather implicitly. I never dreamed it
possible the person could stoop to act a lie. I would not have minded the
thing itself,--it would have been absurd for me to have done so. But it
hurt rather considerably that the person should have deceived me in the
matter, in fact have acted a deliberate lie about it. I am honestly doing
my best to forget the whole thing, but I am being constantly reminded of
it."

Trix sat up very straight. So that was it, she told herself. How idiotic
of her not to have guessed at once,--days ago, that is,--when she herself
had made her marvellous discovery. It was now quite plain to her mind
that Pia must have made it too. It was Doctor Hilary whom she believed to
be the fraud, the friend whom she had trusted, and who had acted a lie.
The whole oddness of Pia's behaviour became suddenly perfectly clear to
her. Tibby had told her that it had begun on her return to Woodleigh.
Well, that must have been when she first found out. How she'd found out,
Trix didn't know. But that was beside the mark. She evidently had found
out.

Trix's mind ran back over various little incidents. She remembered the
snub administered to Father Dormer the evening after her arrival. The new
under-gardener had been the subject of conversation then, of course
reminding Pia of the Hall. And she had snubbed Father Dormer, as she had
snubbed Doctor Hilary a few minutes ago. All Pia's snubs and sudden
prickles came back to her mind. They all had their origin in some
inadvertent remark regarding the Hall.

Yes; everything was as clear as daylight now. Pia had learnt of this
business in some roundabout way that did not allow of her speaking openly
to Doctor Hilary on the subject, so she saw merely the fraud, and had no
idea that it was, in all probability, an entirely justifiable one, and
that at all events no one had told any deliberate lie. Of course Pia was
disturbed and upset. Wouldn't she have been herself, in Pia's place? And
hadn't she felt quite unreasonably unhappy till Mr. Danver had assured
her that Doctor Hilary had not spoken a single word of actual untruth?

Oh, poor Pia!

Now, it was not in the least astonishing that Trix's mind should have
leapt to this entirely erroneous conclusion. For the last fortnight it
had been full of her discovery. The smallest thing that seemed to bear on
it, instantly appeared actually to do so. And everything in her present
train of thought fitted in with astonishing accuracy. Each little
incident in Pia's late behaviour fell into place with it.

She did not stop to consider that, if this were the sole cause of Pia's
trouble, she--Pia--was unquestionably taking a very exaggerated view of
it. It never occurred to Trix to do so. If she had considered the matter
at all, it would have been merely to realize that Pia's attitude towards
it was remarkably like what her own would have been. She would have
known, had she attempted analysis of the subject, that she herself was
frequently troubled about trifles, or what at any rate would have
appeared to others as trifles, where any friend of hers was concerned.
Her friends' actions and her own, in what are ordinarily termed little
things, mattered quite supremely to her, most particularly in any
question regarding honour. The smallest infringement of it would be
enough to cause her sleepless nights and anxious days. Therefore, without
attempting any analysis, she could perfectly well understand what she
believed Pia's point of view to be. And her present distress was, that,
in view of her promise, she could do nothing definite to help her.

She could not show her Doctor Hilary's standpoint in the matter, since it
was not permissible for her to give the smallest hint that she was
acquainted either with it, or with the whole business at all. She could
not even hint that she believed Doctor Hilary to be the person concerning
whom Pia was troubled. She could only take refuge in generalities, which,
with a definite case before her, she felt to be a peculiarly
unsatisfactory proceeding. Yet there was nothing else to be done. It was
more than probable that Pia was in the same kind of cleft stick as
herself, and that therefore direct discussion of the matter was out of
the question.

Still stroking Pia's hand, Trix spoke slowly.

"Pia, darling, what I am going to say will sound very poor comfort, I
know. But it's this. Isn't it just possible that you could give the--the
person concerned the benefit of a doubt? Even if it seems to you that he
has acted a lie, and therefore been something of a fraud, mayn't there be
some extraordinarily good reason, behind it all, that circumstances are
preventing him from explaining? Such queer things do happen, and
sometimes people have to appear to others as frauds, when they really
aren't a bit. If you were ever really friends with the person--and you
must have been, or you wouldn't care--I'd just say to myself that I would
trust him in spite of every appearance to the contrary. Perhaps some day
you'll be most awfully sorry if you don't. And isn't it a million times
better to be even mistaken in trust where a friend is concerned, than
give way to the smallest doubt which may afterwards be proved to be a
wrong doubt?"

Pia was silent. Then she said in an oddly even voice,

"Trix do you _know_ anything?"

Trix flushed to the roots of her hair. Pia turned to look at her.

"Trix!" she said amazed.

"Pia," implored Trix, "you mustn't ask me a single question, because I
can't answer you. But do, do, trust."

Pia drew a long breath.

"Trix, you're the uncanniest little mortal that ever lived, and I can't
imagine how you could have guessed, or what exactly it is you really do
know. But I believe I am going to take your advice."

CHAPTER XXVI

AN OFFER AND A REFUSAL

Antony was working in his front garden. It was a Saturday afternoon, and
a blazingly hot one. Every now and then he paused to lean on his spade,
and look out to where the blue sea lay shining and glistening in the
sunlight.

It was amazingly blue, almost as blue as the sea depicted on the posters
of famous seaside resorts, posters in which a bare-legged child with a
bucket and spade, and the widest of wide smiles is invariably seen in the
foreground. Certainly the designers of these posters are not students of
child nature. If they were, they would know that a really absorbed and
happy child is almost portentously solemn. It hasn't the time to waste on
smiles; the building of sand castles and fortresses is infinitely too
engrossing an occupation. A smile will greet the anticipation; it is lost
in the stupendous joy of the fact. But as smiles are evidently considered
_de rigueur_ by the designers of posters, and as the mere anticipation
will not allow of the portrayal of the Rickett's blue sea, destined to
hit the eye of the beholder, smiles and sea have--rightly or wrongly--to
be combined.

Antony gazed at the sea, if not quite as blue as a poster sea, yet--as
already stated--amazingly blue. Josephus lay on a bit of hot earth
watching him, his nose between his forepaws, and quite exhausted after a
mad and wholly objectless ten minutes' race round the garden.

Antony turned from his contemplation of the sea, and once more grasped
his spade. Presently he turned up a small flat round object, which at
first sight he took to be a penny. He picked it up, and rubbed the dirt
off it. It proved to be merely a small lead disk, utterly useless and
valueless; he didn't even know what it could have been used for. He threw
it on the earth again, and went on with his digging. But it, or his
action of tossing it on to the earth, had started a train of thought. It
is extraordinary what trifles will serve to start a lengthy and connected
train of thought. Sometimes it is quite interesting, arriving at a
certain point, to trace one's imaginings backwards, and see from whence
they started.

The disk reminded Antony of the coppers he had tossed to the child at
Teneriffe. From it he quite unconsciously found himself reviewing all the
subsequent happenings. They linked on one to the other without a break.
He hardly knew he was reviewing them, though they so absorbed his mind
that he was totally unconscious of his surroundings, and even of the fact
that he was digging. His employment had become quite mechanical.

He was so engrossed that he did not hear a step in the road behind him.
Josephus heard it, however, and gave vent to a faint whine, raising his
head from between his paws. The sound roused Antony, and he turned.

His face went suddenly white beneath its bronze. The Duchessa di
Donatello was standing at the gate, looking over into the garden.

"Might I come in and rest a moment?" she asked. "The sun is so hot."

Antony could hardly believe his ears. Surely he could not have heard
aright? But there she was, standing at the gate, most evidently waiting
his permission to enter.

He left his spade sticking in the earth, and went to unfasten the gate.
Without speaking, he led the way up the little flagged path, and into the
parlour.

The Duchessa crossed to the oak settle and sat down. Slowly she began to
pull off her long crinkly doe-skin gloves. Antony watched her. He saw the
gleam of a diamond ring on her hand. It was a ring he had often noticed.
A picture of the Duchessa sitting at a little round table among orange
trees in green tubs flashed suddenly and very vividly into his mind.

"It is very hot," said the Duchessa looking up at him.

"Yes," said Antony mechanically.

"Am I interrupting your work?" asked the Duchessa.

Antony started.

"Oh, no," he replied. And he sat down by the table, leaning slightly
forward with his arms upon it.

"Do you mind my coming here?" she asked.

"I don't think so," said Antony reflectively.

A gleam of a smile flashed across the Duchessa's face. The reply was so
Antonian.

There was quite a long silence. Suddenly Antony roused himself.

"You'll let me get you some tea, Madam," he said.

Awaiting no reply, he went into the little scullery, where the fire by
which he had cooked his midday meal was still alight. The kettle filled
with water and placed on the stove, he stood by it, in a measure wishful,
yet oddly reluctant to return to the parlour. Reluctance won the day. He
remained by the kettle, gazing at it.

Left alone, the Duchessa looked round the parlour. It was exceedingly
primitive, yet, to her mind, curiously interesting. Of course in reality
it was not unlike dozens of other cottage parlours, but it held a
personality of its own for her. It was the room where Antony Gray lived.

She pictured him at his lonely meals, sitting at the table where he had
sat a moment or so agone; sitting on the settle where she was now
sitting, certainly smoking, and possibly reading. She found herself
wondering what he thought about. Did he ever think of the _Fort
Salisbury_, she wondered? Or had he blotted it from his mind, as she had
endeavoured--ineffectually--to do? And then, with that thought, with the
possibility that he had done so, her presence in the room seemed quite
suddenly an intrusion. What on earth would he think of her for coming?
And what on earth did she mean to say to him now she had come?

The impulse which had led her down the lane, which had caused her to
pause at the gate and speak to him, all at once seemed to her perfectly
idiotic, and, worse still, intrusive and impertinent. What possible
excuse was she going to give for it, in the face of her behaviour to him
that afternoon on the moorland? Merely to have asked for shelter on
account of the heat, appeared to her now as the flimsiest of excuses, and
would appear to him as an excuse simply to pry upon him, to see his mode
of living. He had not returned to the parlour. Doubtless his absence was
a silent rebuke to her. She had thrust the necessity of hospitality upon
him, but he intended to show her plainly that it was entirely of
necessity he had offered it.

Her cheeks burned at the thought. She looked quickly round. Anyhow there
was still time for flight. She picked up her gloves from where she had
laid them on the settle, and got to her feet.

"The water won't be long in boiling, Madam," said Antony's voice.

He had come back quietly into the room. For a moment he glanced in half
surprise to see the Duchessa standing by the settle. Then he crossed to
the dresser, and began taking down a cup, a saucer, and a plate.

The Duchessa sat down again, drawing her hand nervously along her
gloves.

She looked at him getting down the things and setting them on the table.
She watched his neat, deft movements. Antony took no notice of her; she
might have been part of the settle itself for all the attention he paid
her. His preparations made, he returned momentarily to the scullery to
fill the teapot. Coming back with it he placed it on the table.

"Everything is ready, Madam," he said. Dale himself could not have been
more distantly respectful.

The Duchessa looked at the one cup, the one saucer, and the one plate.

"Aren't you going to have some tea, too?" she asked.

"Servants do not sit down with their superiors," said Antony.

The colour rose hotly in the Duchessa's face.

"Why do you say that?" she demanded.

Antony lifted his shoulders, the merest suspicion of a shrug.

"I merely state a fact," he replied.

"I wish you to," she said quickly.

"Is that a command?" asked Antony.

"If you like to take it so," she replied.

Antony turned to the dresser. He took down another cup and plate and put
them on the table. Then he stood by it, waiting for her to be seated.

"Sugar?" asked the Duchessa. She was making a brave endeavour to steady
the trembling of her voice.

"If you please, Madam," said Antony gravely.

The meal proceeded in dead silence.

"Mr. Gray," said the Duchessa suddenly.

"My name," said Antony respectfully, "is Michael Field."

The Duchessa gave a little shaky laugh.

"Well, Michael Field," she said. "I was not very kind that day I met you
on the moorland."

Antony kept his eyes fixed on his plate.

"There was no reason that you should be kind," he replied quietly.

"There was," flashed the Duchessa.

"I think not," replied Antony, calmly. "Ladies in your position are under
no obligation to be kind to servants, except to those of their own
household. Even then, it is more or less of a condescension on their
part."

"You were not always a servant," said the Duchessa.

There was the fraction of a pause.

"I did not happen to be actually in a situation when I was on the _Fort
Salisbury_, if that is what you mean, Madam," returned Antony.

"I mean more than that," retorted the Duchessa. "I mean that by your
up-bringing you are not a servant."

Antony laughed shortly.

"I happen to have had a better education than falls to the lot of most
men who have been in the positions I have been in, and who are in
positions like my present one. But most assuredly I am a servant."

"What positions have you been in?" demanded the Duchessa.

A very faint smile showed itself on Antony's face.

"I have been a sort of miner's boy," he replied slowly. "I have been a
farm hand, mainly used for cleaning out pigsties, and that kind of work.
I have been servant in a gambling saloon; odd man on a cattle boat. I
have worked on a farm again. And now I am an under-gardener. Very
assuredly I have been, and am, a servant."

The Duchessa's brows wrinkled. "Yet you speak like a gentleman, and--and
you wore dress clothes as if you were used to them."

Again a faint smile showed itself on Antony's face.

"I told you I happen to have had a decent education in my youth. Also, I
would suggest, that even butlers and waiters wear dress clothes as if
they were used to them."

Once more there was a silence. A rather long silence this time. It was
broken by the Duchessa's voice.

"Some months ago," she said, "I offered my friendship to Antony Gray; I
now offer that same friendship to Michael Field."

Antony gave a little laugh. There was an odd gleam in his eyes.

"Michael Field regrets that he must decline the honour."

The Duchessa's face went dead white.

Antony got to his feet.

"Please don't misunderstand me," he said. "I fully appreciate the honour
you have done me, but--" he shrugged his shoulders--"it is quite
impossible to accept it. It--you must see that for yourself--would be a
rather ridiculous situation. The Duchessa di Donatello and a friendship
with an under-gardener! I don't fancy either of us would care to be made
a mock of, even by the extremely small world in which we happen to live."
He stopped.

The Duchessa rose too. Her eyes were steely.

"Thank you for reminding me," she said. "In a moment of absurd
impulsiveness I had overlooked that fact. Also, thank you for--for your
hospitality."

She moved to the door without looking at him. Antony was before her, and
had it open. He followed her down the path and unfastened the wicket
gate. She passed through it without turning her head, and walked rather
deliberately down the lane.

Antony went back into the cottage. For a moment he stood looking at the
table, his throat contracted. Then slowly, and with oddly unseeing eyes,
he began clearing away the débris of the meal.

CHAPTER XXVII

LETTERS AND MRS. ARBUTHNOT

Trix was sitting in a summer-house in the garden of an hotel at
Llandrindod Wells. She was reading a letter, a not altogether
satisfactory letter to judge by the wrinkling of her brows, and the
gravity of her eyes.

The letter was from the Duchessa di Donatello, and ran as follows:

"My Dear Trix:

"I am glad you had a comfortable journey, and that Mrs. Arbuthnot had not
been pining for you too deeply. It is a pity her letters gave you the
impression that she was feeling your absence so acutely. Possibly it is
always wiser to subtract at least half of the impression conveyed in both
written and spoken words. Please understand that I am speaking in
generalities when I say that we are exceedingly apt to exaggerate our own
importance to others, and their importance to us.

"Talking of exaggeration, will you forget our conversation on your last
evening here? I exaggerated my own trouble and its cause. Rather
foolishly I let your remarks influence me, and sought an explanation, or
rather, attempted to ignore appearances, and return to the old footing.
The result being that not only did I find that there was no explanation
to be given, but that I got rather badly snubbed. As you, of course, will
know who administered the snub, you can understand that it was peculiarly
unpleasant. I had endeavoured to ignore the fact that he was my social
inferior, but he reminded me of it in a way it was impossible to
overlook, and showed me that he deeply resented what he evidently looked
upon as a somewhat impertinent condescension on my part.

"The theories, my dear Trix, which you set forth in the moonlight under
the lime trees, simply won't hold water. For your own sake I advise you
to abandon them forthwith. Blood will always tell; and sooner or later,
if we attempt intimacy with those not of our own station in life, we
shall get a glimpse of the hairy hoof. I know the theories sound all
right, and quite beautifully Christian--as set forth in the
moonlight,--but they don't work in this twentieth century, as I have
found to my cost. You had better make up your mind to that fact before
you, too, get a slap in the face. I assure you you don't feel like
turning the other cheek. However, that will do. But as it was mainly
through following out your theories and advice that I found my pride not
only in the mud, but rubbed rather heavily in it, I thought you might as
well have a word of warning. Please now consider the matter closed, and
never make the smallest reference to that rather idiotic conversation.

"Doctor Hilary was over here again yesterday. He enquired after you, and
asked to be very kindly remembered to you. I should like Doctor Hilary to
attend me in any illness. He gives one such a feeling of strength and
reliance. There's absolutely no humbug about him.

                                       "Much love, my dear Trix,
                                            "Yours affectionately,
                                                 "Pia Di Donatello."

Trix read the letter through very carefully, and then dropped it on her
lap.

"It wasn't Doctor Hilary!" she ejaculated. "So who on earth was it?"

She sat gazing through the opening of the summer-house towards the
garden. It was the oddest _puzzle_ she had ever encountered. Who on earth
could it have been? And why--since it wasn't Doctor Hilary--had Pia
jumped to the conclusion that she--Trix--knew who it was?

It wasn't Mr. Danver, that was very certain. "Social inferior" put that
fact out of the question. But then, what social inferior had been mixed
up in the business? Or--Trix's brain leapt from point to point--had Pia's
trouble nothing whatever to do with the mad business at the Hall? Had she
and Pia simply been playing a quite amazing game of cross-purposes that
evening? It would seem that must have been the case. Yet the recognition
of that fact didn't bring her in the smallest degree nearer the solution
of the riddle. Again, who on earth was it? What social inferior was
there, could there possibly be, at Woodleigh, to cause Pia a moment's
trouble? Every preconceived notion on Trix's part, including the colour
of the soap-bubble, vanished into thin air, and left her contemplating an
inexplicable mystery.

Whatever it was, it had affected Pia pretty deeply. It was absurd for her
to say the incident was closed. Externally it might be, in the matter of
not referring to it again. Interiorly it had left a wound, and one which
was very far from being easily healed, to judge by Pia's letter. It had
not been written by Pia at all, but by a very bitter woman, who had
merely a superficial likeness to Pia. That fact, and that fact alone,
caused Trix to imagine that she had been right when she told Tibby--if
not in so many words, at least virtually speaking--that love had come
into Pia's life. Love embittered alone could have inflicted the wound she
felt Pia to be enduring. And yet the wording of her letter would appear
to put that surmise out of the question. Truly it was an insolvable
riddle.

Once more she re-read the letter, but it didn't help her in the smallest
degree. There was only one small ounce of comfort in it. It wasn't Doctor
Hilary who had caused the wound. Pia had merely tried to pick a quarrel
with him, as she had frequently tried to pick one with herself and Tibby,
because she was unhappy. If only Trix knew what had caused the
unhappiness. And Pia thought she did know. If she wrote and told her now
that she hadn't the smallest conception of what she was talking about, it
would in all probability rouse conjectures in Pia's mind as to what Trix
_had_ thought. That, having in view her promise, had certainly better be
avoided.

Should she, then, ignore Pia's letter, or should she reply to it? She
weighed the pros and cons of this question for the next ten minutes, and
finally decided she would write, and at once.

Returning, therefore, to the hotel, she indited the following brief
missive:

"My dear Pia,--

"The incident is closed so far as I am concerned. But I don't mean to
give up seeking my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I dare say most
people would call it an imaginary quest. Well then, I like an imaginary
quest. It helps to make me forget much that is prosaic, and a good deal
that is sordid in this work-a-day world.

"Please remember me to Doctor Hilary when you see him. Best love, Pia
darling,

                                                               "Trix."

Three days later Pia wrote:

"My dear Trix,

"The rainbow vanishes, and the sordidness and the prosaicness become
rather horribly apparent, especially when one finds oneself obliged to
look at them after having steadily ignored their existence.

                                              "Yours affectionately,
                                                                "Pia."

To which Trix replied:

"My dear Pia,

"My rainbow shines after every shower, and is brightest against the
darkest clouds. When I look towards the darkest clouds I wait for the
rainbow.

                                                             "Yours,
                                                               "Trix."

And Pia wrote:

"My dear Trix,

"What happens when there is no longer any sun to form a rainbow?

                                              "Yours affectionately,
                                                                "Pia."

And Trix wrote:

"Wait till the clouds roll by, Jenny, wait till the clouds roll by."

And Pia wrote:

"My dear Trix,

"Some people wait a lifetime in vain,

                                              "Yours affectionately,
                                                                "Pia."

And Trix wrote:

"Darling Pia,

"You're twenty-eight. Trix."

After which there was a cessation of correspondence for a time, neither
having anything further to say on the subject, or at all events, nothing
further they felt disposed to set down in writing.

Trix spent her mornings, and the afternoons, till tea time, in her Aunt's
company. After that, Mrs. Arbuthnot being engrossed in Bridge till
bedtime, Trix was free to do exactly as she liked. What she liked was
walking till it was time to dress for dinner, and spending the evenings
in the garden.

Even before her father's death, Trix had stayed frequently with her aunt.
Her mother had died when Trix was three years old and Mrs. Arbuthnot, a
widow with no children of her own, would have been quite ready to adopt
Trix. But neither Mr. Devereux, nor, for that matter, Trix herself, were
in the least disposed to fall in with her plans. Trix was merely lent to
her for fairly lengthy periods, and it had been during one of these
periods that Mrs. Arbuthnot had taken her to a farm near Byestry, in
which place Mr. Devereux had spent most of his early years.

In those days Mrs. Arbuthnot's one hobby had been photography. People
used to say, of course unjustly, that she never beheld any view with the
naked eye, but merely in the reflector of a photographic apparatus. Yet
it is entirely obvious that she must first have regarded it in the
ordinary way to judge of its photographic merits. Anyhow it is true that
quite a good deal of her time was spent beneath the folds of a black
cloth (she never condescended to anything so amateurish as a mere kodak),
or in the seclusion of a dark room.

Veritable dark rooms being seldom procurable on her travels, she
invariably carried with her two or three curtains of thick red serge,
several rolls of brown paper, and a bottle of stickphast. The two last
mentioned were employed for covering chinks in doors, etc. It cannot be
said that it was entirely beneficial to the doors, but hotel proprietors
and landladies seldom made any complaint after the first remonstrance, as
Mrs. Arbuthnot was always ready to make handsome compensation for any
damage caused. It is to be feared that at times her generosity was
largely imposed upon.

In addition to the red curtains, the brown paper, and the stickphast, two
large boxes were included in her luggage, one containing all her
photographic necessaries, and they were not few, the other containing
several dozen albums of prints.

Of late years Bridge had taken quite as large a place in her affections
as photography. Not that she felt any rivalry between the two; her
pleasure in both pastimes was quite equally balanced. Her mornings and
early afternoons were given to photography. The late afternoons and
evenings Mrs. Arbuthnot devoted to Bridge.

One exceedingly wet afternoon, tea being recently concluded, Trix in her
bedroom was surveying the weather from the window.

She was debating within her mind whether to don mackintosh and souwester
and face the elements, or whether to retire to a far corner of the
drawing-room with a novel, as much as possible out of earshot of the
Bridge players. She was still in two minds as to which prospect most
appealed to her mood, when Mrs. Arbuthnot tapped on her door, and
immediately after sailed into the room. It is the only word applicable to
Mrs. Arbuthnot's entry into any room.

She was a large fair woman, very distinctly inclined to stoutness. In her
youth she had been both slender, and quick in her movements; but
recognizing, and rightly, that quickness means a certain loss of dignity
in the stout, she had trained herself to be exceedingly deliberate in her
actions. There was an element of consciousness in her deliberation,
therefore, which gave the impression of a rather large sailing vessel
under weigh.

"Trix, dearest," she began. And then she perceived that Trix had been
observing the weather.

"You were not going out, were you, dearest? I really think it would
hardly be wise. It is blowing quite furiously. I know it is rather dull
for you as you don't play Bridge. Such a pity, too, as you understand it
so well. But I have a suggestion to make. Will you paste some of my
newest prints into the latest album? There is a table in the window in my
room, and a fresh bottle of stickphast. Not in the window, I don't mean
that, but in my trunk. And Maunder can find it for you." Maunder was Mrs.
Arbuthnot's maid.

Trix turned from the window. Of course Mrs. Arbuthnot's request settled
the question of a walk. She had really been in two minds about it.

"Why, of course," she said. "Where are the prints?"

Mrs. Arbuthnot brightened visibly.

"They're inside a green envelope on the writing-table. You'll find a
small pair of very sharp scissors there too. The dark edges are so
unsightly if not trimmed. You're sure you don't mind, dearest? It really
will be quite a pleasant occupation. It is so dreadfully wet. And Maunder
will give you the stickphast. There is clean blotting-paper on the
writing-table too, and Maunder can find you anything else you want. Well,
that's all right. Maunder is in my room now. She will be going to her tea
in ten minutes, so perhaps you might go to her at once. And she is sure
to be downstairs for at least an hour and a half, if not longer. Servants
always have so much to talk about, and take so long saying it. Why, I
can't imagine. It always seems to me so much better not to waste words
unnecessarily. So you will have the room to yourself, till she comes to
put out my evening things. And I must go back to the drawing-room at
once, or they will be waiting Bridge for me. And Lady Fortescue hates
being kept waiting. It puts her in a bad temper, and when she's in a bad
temper she is extraordinarily erratic as to her declarations. Though, for
that matter, she is seldom anything else. I don't mean bad-tempered, but
seldom anything but erratic. So, dearest, I mustn't let you keep me any
longer. Don't forget to ask Maunder for the stickphast, and anything else
you want. And the prints and the scissors----"

"Yes, I know," nodded Trix cheerfully, "on the writing table. Hurry, Aunt
Lilla, or they'll all be swearing."

"Oh, my dearest, I trust not. Though perhaps interiorly. And even that is
a sin. I remember----"

Trix propelled her gently but firmly from the room. Doubtless Mrs.
Arbuthnot continued her remembrances "interiorly" as she went down the
passage and descended the stairs.

Ten minutes later, Trix, provided with the stickphast, the green
envelope, the scissors, and the clean blotting-paper, and having a very
large album spread open before her on a table, was busily engaged with
the prints. They were mainly views of Llandrindod Wells, though there
were quite a good many groups among them, as well as a fair number of
single figures. Trix herself appeared chiefly in these last,--Trix in a
hat, Trix without a hat, Trix smiling, serious, standing, or sitting.

For half an hour or so Trix worked industriously, indefatigably. She
trimmed off dark edges, she applied stickphast, she adjusted the prints
in careful positions, she smoothed them down neatly with the clean
blotting-paper. At the end of that time, she paused to let the paste dry
somewhat before turning the page.

With a view to whiling away the interval, she possessed herself of a
sister album, one of the many relations stacked against a wall, choosing
it haphazard from among the number.

There is a distinct fascination in photographs which recall early
memories. Trix fell promptly under the spell of this fascination. The
minutes passed, finding her engrossed, absorbed. Turning a page she came
upon views of Byestry, herself--a white-robed, short-skirted small
person--appearing in the foreground of many.

Trix smiled at the representations. It really was rather an adorable
small person. It was so slim-legged, mop-haired, and elfin-smiled. It was
seen, for the most part, lavishing blandishments on a somewhat ungainly
puppy. One photograph, however, represented the small person in company
with a boy.

Trix looked at this photograph, and suddenly amazement fell full upon
her. She looked, she leant back in her chair and shut her eyes, and then
she looked again. Yes; there was no mistake, no shadow of a mistake. The
boy in the photograph was the man with the wheelbarrow, or the other way
about, which possibly might be the more correct method of expressing the
matter. But, whichever the method, the fact remained the same.

Trix stared harder at the photograph, cogitating, bewildered. Below it
was written in Mrs. Arbuthnot's rather sprawling handwriting, "T. D.,
aged five. A. G., aged fourteen. Byestry, 1892."

Who on earth was A. G.? Trix searched the recesses of her mind. And then
suddenly, welling up like a bubbling spring, came memory. Why, of course
A. G. was the boy she used to play with, the boy--she began to remember
things clearly now--who had tried to sail across the pond, and with whom
she had gone to search for pheasants' eggs. A dozen little details came
back to her mind, even the sound of the boy's voice, and his laugh, a
curiously infectious laugh.

Oh, she remembered him distinctly, vividly. But, what--and there lay the
puzzlement, the bewilderment--was the boy, now grown to manhood, doing
with a wheelbarrow in the grounds of Chorley Old Hall, and, moreover,
dressed as a gardener, working as a gardener, and speaking--well, at any
rate speaking after the manner of a gardener? Perhaps to have said,
speaking as though he were on a different social footing from Trix, would
have better expressed Trix's meaning. But she chose her own phraseology,
and doubtless it conveyed to her exactly what she did mean. Anyhow, it
was an amazing riddle, an insoluble riddle. Trix stared at the
photograph, finding no answer to it.

Finding no answer she left the book open at the page, and returned to the
sticking in of prints. But every now and then her eyes wandered to the
big volume at the other end of the table, wonderment and query possessing
her soul.

Maunder appeared just as Trix had finished her task. Helpful,
business-like, she approached the table, a gleam spelling order and
tidiness in her eye.

"Leave that album, please," said Trix, seeing the helpful Maunder about
to shut and bear away the book containing the boy's photograph.

Maunder hesitated, sighed conspicuously, and left the book, occupying
herself instead with putting away the stickphast, the scissors, the now
not as clean blotting-paper, and somewhat resignedly picking up small
shreds of paper which were scattered upon the table-cloth and carpet. In
the midst of these occupations the dressing-gong sounded. Maunder pricked
up her ears, actually almost, as well as figuratively.

Ten minutes elapsed. Then Mrs. Arbuthnot appeared.

"What, finished, dearest!" she exclaimed as she opened the door.
"Splendid! How quick you've been. And I am sure the time flew on--not
leaden feet, but just the opposite. It always does when one is pleasantly
occupied. Developing photographs or a rubber of Bridge, it's just the
same, the hands of the clock spin round. And I've won six shillings, and
it would have been more if it had not been for Lady Fortescue's last
declaration. Four hearts, my dearest, and the knave as her highest card.
They doubled us, and of course we went down. I had only two small ones. I
had shown her my own weakness by not supporting her declaration. Of
course at my first lead I led her a heart, and it was won by the queen on
my left. A heart was returned, and Lady Fortescue played the nine. It was
covered by the ten which won the trick. She didn't make a single trick in
her own suit. It is quite impossible to understand Lady Fortescue's
declarations. And did you put in all the prints? They will have nearly
filled the last pages. I must send for another album. Are these they?"
She crossed to the open volume.

"No," said Trix, "that's an old volume. I was looking at it. Who's the
boy in the photograph, Aunt Lilla?"

Mrs. Arbuthnot bent towards the page.

"'A. G., aged fourteen.' Let me see. Why, of course that was Antony Gray,
Richard Gray's son. But I never knew his father. He--I mean the boy--was
staying in rooms with his aunt, Mrs. Stanley. She was his father's
sister, and married George Stanley. Something to do with the stock
exchange, and quite a wealthy man, though a bad temper. And his wife was
not a happy woman, as you can guess. Temper means such endless friction
when it's bad, especially with regard to things like interfering with the
servants, and wanting to order the kitchen dinner. So absurd, as well as
annoying. There's a place for a man and a place for a woman, and the
man's place is not the kitchen, even if his entry is only figurative. By
which I mean that Mr. Stanley did not actually go to the kitchen, but
gave orders from his study, on a sort of telephone business he had had
fixed up and communicating with the kitchen. So trying for the cook's
nerves, especially when making omelettes, or anything that required
particular attention. She never knew when his voice wouldn't shout at her
from the wall. A small black thing like a hollow handle fixed close to
the kitchen range. Quite uncomfortably near her ear. Worse than if he
himself had appeared at the kitchen door, which would have been normal,
though trying. And Mr. Stanley never lowered his voice. He always spoke
as if one were deaf, especially to foreigners who spoke English every bit
as well as himself. Mrs. Stanley gave excellent wages, and even bonuses
out of her dress money to try and keep cooks. But they all said the voice
from the wall got on their nerves. And no wonder. And then unpleasantness
when the cooks left. As if it were poor Mrs. Stanley's fault, and not his
own. She once suggested they should give up their house and live in an
hotel. He couldn't have a telephone arrangement to the kitchen there. But
he was more unpleasant still. Almost violent. And he died at last of an
attack of apoplexy. Such a relief to Mrs. Stanley. Not the dying of
apoplexy, which was a grief. But the quiet, and the being able to keep a
cook when he had gone." Mrs. Arbuthnot paused a moment to take breath.

"Do you know what became of the boy?" asked Trix.

Mrs. Arbuthnot considered for an instant.

"I believe he went abroad. Yes; I remember now, hearing from Mrs. Stanley
just before she died herself, poor soul--ptomaine poisoning and a dirty
cook, some people seem pursued by cooks, figuratively speaking, of
course,--that her brother had lost all his money and died, and that
Antony had gone abroad. We are told not to judge, and I don't, but it did
seem to me that Mrs. Stanley ought to have made him some provision, if
not before her death, at least after it. By will, of course I mean by
'after'! which in a sense would have been before death. But you
understand. Instead of which she left all her money to a deaf and dumb
asylum. No doubt good in its way, but not like anything religious, which
would have been more justifiable, though she was a Protestant. And
teaching dumb people to speak is always a doubtful blessing. They have
such an odd way of talking. Scarcely understandable. But perhaps better
than nothing for themselves, though not for others. Though with a
penniless nephew and all that money I _do_ think--But, as I said, we are
told not to judge."

"And you don't know what became of him after that?" asked Trix.

Mrs. Arbuthnot looked almost reproachful.

"My dearest, how could I? Mrs. Stanley in the family grave with her
brother,--she mentioned that particularly in her will, and not with her
husband, I suppose she could not have had much affection for him,--I
could not possibly hear any more of the young man. There were no other
relations, and I did not even know what part of the world he was in. Nor
should I have thought it advisable to write to him if I had, unless it
had been a brief letter of consolation as from a much older woman, which
I was. But even with age I do not think a correspondence between men and
women desirable, unless they are related, especially with Mrs. Barclay's
novels so widely read. Not for my own sake, of course, as I do not think
I am easily given to absurd notions. But one never knows what ideas a
young man may not get into his head. And now, dear child, I must dress.
Maunder has been sighing for the last ten minutes, and I know what that
means. And you'll be late yourself, if you don't go."

Much later in the evening, Trix, in a far corner of the drawing-room with
a novel, found herself again pondering deeply on her discovery.

She was absolutely and entirely certain that the man with the wheelbarrow
was none other than Antony Gray, the boy with whom she had played in her
childhood. She remembered now that his face had been oddly familiar to
her at the time, though, being unable to put any name to him, she had
looked upon it merely as a chance likeness. But since he was Antony Gray,
what was he doing at Chorley Old Hall?

Her first impulse had been to write to the Duchessa, tell her of her
certainty, and ask her to find out any particulars she could regarding
the man. She had abandoned that idea, in view of the fact that she would
have to say where she had met him, which would very probably lead to
questions difficult to answer.

One thing she would do, however, and she gave a little inward laugh at
the thought, when she was next at Byestry, if she saw him again, she
would ask him if he remembered the pond and the pheasants' eggs. It would
be amusing to see his amazed face.

CHAPTER XXVIII

FOR THE DAY ALONE

Probably there are times in the life of every human being, when the only
possible method of living at all, would seem to be by living in the
day--nay, in the moment--alone, resolutely shutting one's eyes to the
mistakes behind one, refusing to look at the blankness ahead. And this is
more especially the case when the mistakes and the blankness have been
caused by our own actions. There is not even stolid philosophy to come to
our aid, a shrugging of the shoulders, a foisting of the blame on to
fate. It may be that the majority of the incidents have been forced upon
us, that we have not been free agents in the matter, but if we must of
honesty say,--Here or there was the mistake which led to them, and I made
that mistake of my own free will,--we cannot turn to philosophy regarding
fate for our comfort.

To Antony's mind he had made a big mistake. Fate had been responsible for
his receipt of that letter, it had had nothing to do with himself; he
might even consider that, having received it, fate was largely
responsible for his journey to England and his meeting with the Duchessa,
but he could not possibly accuse fate of his acceptance of those mad
conditions attached to the will. He had been an entirely free agent so
far as they were concerned; they had been put before him for him to
accept or reject them as he chose, and he had accepted them. It had been
a huge blunder on his part, and one for which he alone had been
responsible.

Of course he might quite justly declare that he could not possibly have
foreseen all the other moves fate had up her sleeve; but then no living
being could have foreseen them. Fate never does show her subsequent
moves. She puts decisions before us in such a way, that she leaves us to
imagine we can shape our succeeding actions to our own mind and according
to the decision made. She leaves us to imagine it is simply a question
whether we will reach our goal by a road bearing slightly to the right or
to the left, by a road which may take a long time to traverse and be a
fairly smooth road, or a road which will take a short time to traverse
and be a rough one. Or, even, as in Antony's case, she will leave us to
imagine there is one route and one route only by which we may reach our
goal. And then, whatever our choice, she may suddenly plant a huge
barrier across the path, labelled,--No thoroughfare to your goal in this
direction.

Sometimes it is possible to defy fate, retrace our steps, and start anew
towards the goal. Occasionally we will find that we have burnt our
bridges behind us; we are up against an obstacle, and there we are bound
to remain helpless. And here fate appears at her worst trickery.

And even supposing we are minded to call it not fate, but Providence, who
does these things, it will be of remarkably little comfort to us when we
are aware of our own blunders in the background.

A hundred times Antony reviewed the past; a hundred times he blamed
himself for the part he had chosen. It is true that, so far as he could
see, none other would have had the smallest chance of leading him to his
desired goal, yet any other could not have raised the enormous barrier he
now saw before him.

He had angered her: she despised him.

To his mind nothing, no subsequent happening, could alter that fact.
There was the thought he had to face, and behind him lay his own
irredeemable blunder.

Well, the only thing now left for him was to live his life as it was,
minus one spark of brightness. Certainly he didn't feel like singing, but
whining was no earthly good. And since he could not sing, and would not
whine, silence alone was left him. He would work as best he could till
the year was out. He had no intention of going back on his bargain,
despite the uselessness of it. At the end of the year, the Hall being his
own property, he would sell the place, and travel. Perhaps he would go
off shooting big game, or perhaps he would go round the world. It did not
much matter which, so long as it prevented him from whining.

And quite possibly, though he would never have any heart for singing, the
day might come when he would again be able to whistle.

CHAPTER XXIX

IN THE CHURCH PORCH

It was somewhere about the second week in December that Trix became the
recipient of another letter, a letter quite as amazing, perplexing, and
extraordinary as that which she had perused in the summer-house at
Llandrindod Wells. They had returned to London in October.

The letter was brought to her in the drawing-room one evening about nine
o'clock. Mrs. Arbuthnot had gone out to a Bridge party.

Trix was engrossed in a rather exciting novel at the moment, a blazing
fire and an exceedingly comfortable armchair adding to her blissful state
of well-being. Barely raising her eyes from the book, she merely put out
her hand and took the letter from the tray. It was not till she had come
to the end of the chapter that she even glanced at the handwriting. Then
she saw that the writing was Miss Tibbutt's.

Now, a letter from Miss Tibbutt was of such extremely rare occurrence
that Trix immediately leapt to the conclusion that Pia must be ill. It
was therefore with a distinct pang of uneasiness that she broke the seal.
This is what she read:

"My Dear Trix,--

"I have made rather an astounding discovery. At least I feel sure I've
made it, I mean that I am right in what I think. I have no one in whom I
can confide, as it certainly would not do to speak to Pia on the
subject,--I feel sure she would rather I didn't, so I am writing to you
as I feel I must tell someone. My dear, it sounds too extraordinary for
anything, and I can't understand it myself, but it is this. Pia knows the
under-gardener at the Hall, really knows him I mean, not merely who he
is, and that he is one of the gardeners, and that he came to these parts
last March, which, of course, we all know.

"I found this out quite by accident, and will explain the incident to
you. You must forgive me if I am lengthy; but I can only write in my own
way, dear Trix, and perhaps that will be a little long-winded.

"Yesterday afternoon, which was Saturday, Pia and I motored into Byestry,
as she wanted to see Father Dormer about something. I went into the
church, while she went to the presbytery. I noticed a man in the church
as I went in, a man in workman's clothes, but of course I did not pay any
particular attention to him. I knelt down by one of the chairs near the
door, and just beyond St. Peter's statue. I suppose I must have been
kneeling there about ten minutes when the man got up. He didn't
genuflect, and I glanced involuntarily at him. He didn't notice me,
because I was partly hidden by St. Peter's statue. Then I saw it was the
under-gardener,--Michael Field, I believe his name is.

"My dear, the man looked dreadfully ill, and so sad. It was the face of a
man who had lost something or someone very dear to him. He went towards
the porch, and just before he reached it, I heard the door open. Whoever
was coming in must have met him just inside the church. There was a sound
of steps as if the person had turned back into the porch with him. Then I
heard Pia's voice, speaking impulsively and almost involuntarily. At
least I felt sure it was involuntarily. It sounded exactly as if she
couldn't help speaking.

"'Oh,' she said, 'you've been ill.'

"'Nothing of any consequence, Madam,' I heard the man's voice answer.

"'But it must have been of consequence,' I heard Pia say. 'Have you seen
a doctor?'

"'There was no need,' returned the man.

"Then I heard Pia's voice, impulsive and a little bit impatient. She
evidently had not seen me in the church, and thought no one was there.

"'But there is need. Why don't you go and see Doctor Hilary?'

"'I am not ill enough to need doctors, Madam,' returned the man.

"'But you are,' returned Pia, in the way that she insists when she is
very anxious about anything.

"I heard the man give a little laugh."

"'It is exceedingly good of you to trouble concerning me,' he said, 'and
I really don't know why you should.'

"'Oh,' said Pia quickly, 'you need not be afraid that I, personally, wish
to interfere with you again. You made it quite plain to me months ago
that you had no smallest wish for me to do so. But, speaking simply as
one human being to another, as complete and entire strangers, even, I do
ask you to see a doctor.'

"Then there was a moment's silence."

"'I think not,' I heard the man say presently. 'I am really not
sufficiently interested in myself. Though--' and then, Trix dear, he half
stopped, and his voice altered in the queerest way,--'the fact that you
have shown interest enough to ask me to do so, has, curiously enough,
made me feel quite a good deal more important in my own eyes.'

"'You refused my friendship,' I heard Pia say, and her voice shook a
little.

"'I did,' said the man in rather a stern voice.

"Again, Trix dear, there was a little silence. Then Pia said:

"'I don't intend again to offer a thing that has once been rejected. I
shall _never_ do that. But because we once were friends, or at all
events, fancied ourselves friends, I do ask you to see Doctor Hilary.
That is all.'

"She must have turned from him at once, because she came into the church,
and went up the aisle to her own chair. She knelt down, and put her hands
over her eyes; and, Trix dearest, she was crying. I am crying now when I
think about it, so forgive the blots on the paper. A minute later I heard
the door open and shut again, so I knew the man had gone. I got up as
softly as I could, and slipped out of the church. It would never have
done for Pia to see me, and I was so thankful to St. Peter for hiding
me.

"Well, my dear Trix, wasn't it amazing? And one of the most amazing
things was that the man's voice and way of speaking was quite educated,
not the least as one would suppose a gardener would speak.

"I went to the post-office and bought some stamps, though I really had
plenty at home, and loitered about for nearly a quarter of an hour. Then
I thought I had better go and find Pia. I met her coming out of the
church. She was very pale; but she smiled, and wanted to know where I'd
been, and I told her to the post-office. And then we drove home together.
Pia laughed and chatted all the way, while my heart was in a big lump in
my throat, and I could hardly keep from crying, like the foolish old
woman that I am. I ought to have been talking, and helping Pia to
pretend.

"She has been quite gay all to-day, and oddly gentle too. But you know
the kind of gayness. And to-night my heart feels like breaking for her,
for there is some sad mystery I can't fathom. So, Trix dearest, I have
written to you, because I cannot keep it all to myself. And I am crying
again now, though I know I oughtn't to. So I am going to leave off, and
say the rosary instead.

                                      "Good night, my dear Trix.
                                    "Your affectionate old friend,
                                                    "Esther Tibbutt.

P.S. I wish you could come down here again. Can't you?"

Trix leant back in her chair, and drew a long breath. The novel was
utterly and entirely forgotten. So _that_ was what Pia's letter had
meant. It was this man she had been thinking of all the time. A dozen
little unanswered questions were answered now, a dozen queer little
riddles solved.

Trix slid down off her chair on to the bear-skin rug in front of the
fire. She leant her arms sideways on the chair, resting her chin upon
them. Most assuredly she must place the whole matter clearly before her
mind, in so far as possible. She gazed steadily at the glowing coals,
ruminative, reflective.

And firstly it was presented to her mind as the paramount fact, that it
was the mention of this man--this Michael Field, so-called--that had been
the direct cause of Pia's odd irritability, and not the indirect cause,
as she most erroneously had imagined. Somehow, in some way, he had caused
her such pain that the mere mention of his name had been like laying a
hand roughly on a wound. Secondly, though Trix most promptly dismissed
the memory, there was Pia's hurting little speech, the speech which had
followed on her--Trix's--theories promulgated beneath the lime trees. In
the light of Miss Tibbutt's letter that speech was easy enough of
explanation. Had not Pia had practical proof of the unworkableness of
those theories? Proof which must have hurt her quite considerably. How
utterly and entirely childish her words must have seemed to Pia,--Pia who
_knew_, while she truly was merely surmising, setting forth ideas which
assuredly she had never attempted to put into practice. Thirdly--Trix
ticked off the facts on her fingers--there was the amazing little game of
cross-questions. That too was entirely explained. How precisely it was
explained she did not attempt to put into actual formulated words.
Nevertheless she perceived quite clearly that it was explained. And
lastly there was Pia's letter to her, the letter which had vainly tried
to hide the bitterness which had prompted it. Clear as daylight now was
the explanation of that letter. Buoyed up by Trix's advice, by Trix's
eloquence, she had once more attempted to put the high-sounding theories
into practice. And it had proved a failure, an utter and complete
failure.

All these things fell at once into place, fitting together like the
pieces of a puzzle, an unfinished puzzle, nevertheless. The largest
pieces were still scattered haphazard on the board, and there seemed
extremely little prospect of fitting them into the rest. How had Pia ever
met the man? What was he doing at Chorley Old Hall? And why was he
pretending to be Michael Field, when she--Trix--now knew him to be Antony
Gray? The last two proved the greatest difficulty, nor could Trix, for
all her gazing into the fire, find the place they ought to occupy. She
remembered, too, her own idea regarding the colour of that bubble. Was it
possible that she had been right in her idea? Verily, if she had been, in
the face of this new discovery, it opened up a yet more astounding
problem. Pia actually and verily in love with the man, a man she believed
to be under-gardener at the Hall,--Pia, the distant, the proud, the
reserved Pia! It was amazing, unthinkable!

Trix heaved a sigh; it was all quite beyond her. One thing alone was
obvious; she must go down to Woodleigh again as soon as possible.
Certainly she had no very clear notion as to what precise good she could
do by going, nevertheless she was entirely convinced that go she must.
And then, having reached this point in her reflections, she returned once
more to the beginning, and began all over again.

And suddenly another idea struck her, one which had been entirely omitted
from her former train of thought. Was it possible that Mr. Danver knew of
the identity of this Michael Field? Was it possible, was it conceivable
that he held the key to those greatest riddles? Truly it would seem
possible. His one big action had been so extraordinary, so mad even, that
it would be quite justifiable to believe, or at least conjecture, that
minor extraordinary actions might be mixed up with it.

And then, from that, Trix turned to a somewhat more detailed
consideration of Pia's position. One point presented itself quite
definitely and clearly to her. It was certainly evident from that
memorable letter of Pia's, that she _did_ regard this man as a social
inferior, from which fact it was entirely plain that she had no smallest
notion of his real identity. Trix clasped her hands beneath her chin,
shut her eyes, and plunged yet deeper into her reflections. They were
becoming even more intricate.

Now, would it be a comfort to Pia to know that this man was by birth her
social equal, or would it, in view of the fact that he had in some way
shown her what she had called "a glimpse of the hairy hoof," appear to
her an added insult. Trix pondered the question deeply, turning it in her
mind, and sighing prodigiously more than once in the process.

And then, all at once, she opened her eyes. Where, after all, was the use
of troubling her head on that score. Comfort or not, who was to tell Pia?
Most assuredly Trix couldn't. She had considered that question already,
weeks ago in fact, and answered it in the negative. Of course it was
quite possible that she was being somewhat over-sensitive and
ultra-scrupulous on the subject. But there it was. It was the way she
regarded matters.

Trix sighed deeply. It was all terribly perplexing, and Tibby's letter
was quite horribly pathetic. Anyhow she would go down to Woodleigh as
soon as she possibly could.

She had been so entirely engrossed with her reflections, that she had
quite forgotten the passing of time. It was with a start of surprise,
therefore, that she heard the door open. At the selfsame moment the clock
on the mantelpiece chimed the hour of midnight. Trix got to her feet.

"My dearest," exclaimed Mrs. Arbuthnot, "not gone to bed yet! And all the
beauty sleep before midnight, they tell us. Not that you need it except
in the way of preservation, dearest. For I always did tell you,
regardless of making you conceited which I do not think I do do, that I
have admired you from the time you were in your cradle. Well, food is the
next best thing to sleep, so come and have a sandwich and some sherry. I
am famished, positively famished. And I ate an excellent dinner, I know;
but Bridge is always hungry work. Bring the tray to the fire, dearest. I
see James has put it all ready. And ham, which I adore. It may be
indigestible, though I never believe it with things I like. Not merely
because I like to think so, but because it is true. Nature knows best, as
she knew when I was a child, and gave me a distaste for fat which always
upset me, and a great appreciation for oranges which doctors are crying
up tremendously nowadays."

Mrs. Arbuthnot sank down in an armchair, and threw back her cloak. Trix
brought the tray to a small table near her.

"And how have you been amusing yourself, dearest? Not dull, I hope? But
the fire and a book are always the best of companions I think, to say
nothing of one's own thoughts, though some people do consider
day-dreaming waste of time. So narrow-minded. They read novels which are
only other people's day-dreams, and their own less expensive, as saving
library subscriptions and the buying of books, besides a certain
superiority in feeling they are your own. On the whole more satisfactory,
too. Even though you know the end before you come to it, it can always be
arranged as you like, and sad or happy to suit your mood. Though for my
part it should always be happy. If you're happy you want it happy, and if
you're not, you still want it to make you. If it weren't for the
difficulty of dividing into chapters, I'd write my own day-dreams, and no
doubt have a big sale. But publishers have an absurd prejudice in favour
of chapters, and even headings, which means an average of thirty titles.
Quite brain-racking. A dear friend of mine who wrote, told me she always
thought the title the most difficult part of a book."

She helped herself to a glass of sherry and two sandwiches as she
concluded her speech.

"And did you really have a pleasant evening?" said Trix, politely
interrogative.

Mrs. Arbuthnot surveyed her sandwich reflectively.

"Well, dearest, on the whole, yes. But unfortunately Mrs. Townsend was
there. An excellent Bridge player, and I am always pleased to see her
myself, but some people are so odd in their manner towards her. Quite
embarrassing really, in fact awkward at times. Absurd, too, with so good
a player. And though her father was a grocer it was in the wholesale
line, which is different from the retail. Besides, she married well, and
doesn't drop her aitches."

Trix's chin went up. "I hate class distinctions being made so horribly
obvious," said she with fine scorn.

Mrs. Arbuthnot looked thoughtful.

"Well, dearest, in Mrs. Townsend's case, perhaps. But not always. I
remember a girl I knew married a farmer. Most foolish."

"But why, if he was nice?" demanded Trix, exceedingly firmly.

"Oh, but dearest," ejaculated Mrs. Arbuthnot, "it was so unsuitable. He
wasn't even a gentleman farmer. He had been a labourer."

"He might have been a nice labourer," contended Trix.

Mrs. Arbuthnot sighed. "In himself, possibly. But it wouldn't do. The
irritation afterwards. We are told to avoid occasions of sin, and it
would not be avoiding occasions of ill-temper if you married a man like
that. Beer and muddy boots, to say nothing of inferior tobacco. The
glamour passed, though for my part I cannot see how there ever would be
any glamour, probably infatuation, the boots--you know the kind, dearest,
great nails and smelling of leather--the beer and the tobacco would be so
terribly obvious. No, dearest, it doesn't do."

Trix was silent. After all wasn't she again arguing on a point regarding
which she had had no real experience? Pia had tried the experiment, and
declared it didn't work; and that, in the case of a man who _was_ of
gentle birth, though posing as a labourer. In her own mind she felt it
ought to work,--of course under certain circumstances. It was not the
birth, but the mind that mattered. And, if there were the right kind of
mind, there most certainly would not be the boots, the beer, and the
tobacco. Trix was perfectly sure there wouldn't be. But it evidently was
no atom of good trying to explain to other people what she meant, because
they entirely failed to understand, and she was not certain that she
could explain very well to herself even what she did mean.

It was not in the least that she had ever had the smallest desire to run
counter to these conventions in any really important way, but she did
hate hard and fast rules. Why should people lay down laws, as rigid as
the laws of the Medes and Persians on matters that did not involve actual
questions of right and wrong! There were enough of those to observe,
without inventing others which were not in the least necessary.

It was all horribly muddling, and rather depressing, she decided. She
finished her sandwich and glass of sherry, swallowing a little lump in
her throat at the same time. Then she spoke.

"Aunt Lilla," she said impulsively, "I want to go down to Woodleigh."

Mrs. Arbuthnot looked up.

"Woodleigh, dearest. You were there only a little time ago, weren't
you?"

"It was in August," said Trix. "And, anyhow, I want to go again. You
don't mind, do you?"

Mrs. Arbuthnot took another sandwich.

"That's the fifth," she said. "Disgraceful, but all the fault of Bridge.
Why, of course not, if you want to go. But what made you think of it
to-night?"

Trix leant back in her chair. "I had a letter from Miss Tibbutt," she
said.

Mrs. Arbuthnot laid down her sandwich. She regarded Trix with anxious and
almost reproachful eyes.

"Oh, my dearest, nothing wrong I hope? So inconsiderate of me to talk of
Bridge. I saw a letter in your hand, but no black edge. Unless there is a
black edge, one does not readily imagine bad news. Not like telegrams.
They send my heart to my mouth, and generally nothing but a Bridge
postponement. So trivial. But it is the colour of the envelope, and the
possibility. Ill news flies apace, and telegrams the quickest mode of
communicating it. Except the telephone. And that is expensive at any
distance." Mrs. Arbuthnot paused, and took up her sandwich once more.

"Oh, no," responded Trix, answering the first sentence of the speech.
Experience, long experience had taught her to seize upon the first
half-dozen words of her aunt's discourses, and cling to them, allowing
the remainder to float harmlessly into thin air. Later there might be the
necessity to clutch at a few more, but generally the first half-dozen
sufficed. "Oh, no; no bad news. But Miss Tibbutt is not quite satisfied
about Pia."

That was true, at all events.

Mrs. Arbuthnot made a little clicking sound with her tongue, expressive
of sympathy.

"Oh, my dearest, I know that term 'not quite satisfied.' So vague. It may
mean nothing, or it may mean a good deal. And we always think it means a
good deal, when it is probably only influenza. Depressing, but not at all
serious if taken in time. And ammoniated quinine the best thing possible.
Not bitter, either, if taken in capsule form. But I quite feel with you,
and go-by all means if you wish. And take eucalyptus, with you to avoid
catching it yourself. So infectious, they say, but not to be shirked if
one is needed. I would never stand in the light of duty. The corporal
works of mercy, inconvenient at times, and I have never been to see a
prisoner in my life, but perhaps easier than the spiritual, except the
three last. You always run the risk of interference with the first of the
spiritual, so wiser to leave them entirely to priests. When do you want
to go, dearest?"

Trix came to herself with a little start. She had lost the thread of Mrs.
Arbuthnot's discourse.

"The day after to-morrow, I think," she said, reflectively. "I can wire
to-morrow and get a reply."

Mrs. Arbuthnot got up.

"Then that's settled. Don't look anxious, dearest, because there is
probably no cause for it. Though I know how easy it is to give advice,
and how difficult to take it, even when it is oneself. Though perhaps
that is really harder, being often half-hearted. And now we will go to
bed, and things will look brighter in the morning, especially if it is
fine. And the glass going up as I came through the hall. Quite time it
did. I always had sympathy with the boy in the poem--Jane and Anne
Taylor, wasn't it?--who smashed the glass in the holidays because it
wouldn't go up. It always seems as if it were its fault. Though I know
it's foolish to think so. And there is the clock striking one, and I
shall eat more sandwiches if I stay, so let us put out the light, and go
to bed."

CHAPTER XXX

A QUESTION OF IMPORTANCE

It had been chance pure and simple which happened to take Doctor Hilary
to Woodleigh on the day the Duchessa received Trix's telegram, but it
cannot be equally said that it was chance which took him to Exeter on the
following day, and which made him travel down again to Kingsleigh by the
four o'clock train. Also it was certainly not chance which induced him to
be on the platform at least a quarter of an hour before the train was due
at the station, ready to keep a careful lookout on all the passengers in
it.

Trix had had an uneasy journey from London. She had re-read Miss
Tibbutt's letter at least a dozen times. At first she had allowed herself
to be almost unreasonably depressed by it; afterwards she had been almost
more unreasonably depressed because she had allowed herself to be
depressed in the first instance. Quite possibly it was all a storm in a
tea-cup, and this man had nothing whatever to do with Pia's unhappiness.
Of course the chance meeting and the overheard conversation had fitted in
so neatly as to make Miss Tibbutt think it had, and she had easily
communicated the same idea to Trix. But quite probably it had nothing
more to do with it than her own surmise regarding Doctor Hilary had had.
And that had proved entirely erroneous, though at the time it had
appeared the most sane of conclusions. Also Miss Tibbutt might quite
conceivably be wrong as to Pia's being now unhappy at all, whatever she
had seemed to be in the summer.

Trix's visit began to appear to her somewhat in the light of a wild-goose
chase. Anyhow she had not given Pia the smallest hint as to why she was
coming. Naturally she could not possibly have done that. She had still to
invent some tangible excuse for her sudden desire to visit Woodleigh
again. Sick of London greyness would be quite good enough, though
certainly not entirely true. But possibly a slight deviation from truth
would be excusable under the circumstances. And she _was_ sick of London
greyness. The fog yesterday had got on her nerves altogether, though
quite probably it would not have done so if it had not been for Miss
Tibbutt's letter, which had made her feel so horribly restless. But then
there was no need to say why the fog had got on her nerves.

Yes; the fog would be excuse enough. And it was not an atom of good
worrying herself as to whether Miss Tibbutt had been right or wrong
regarding the idea communicated in her letter. If she were right it made
Trix unhappy to think about it, and if she were wrong it made Trix cross
to think she _had_ thought about it. So the wisest course was not to
think about it at all. But the difficulty was not to think about it.

Trix knew perfectly well that absurd little things had this power of
depressing her, and she wished they had not. She knew, also, that other
quite little things had the power of cheering her in equal proportion,
and she wished that one of these other things would happen now. But that
was not particularly likely.

The depression had been at its lowest ebb as they ran into Bath. It was,
however, slightly on the mend by the time Trix reached Exeter, though she
was still feeling that her journey had probably, if not certainly, been a
piece of pure foolishness on her part.

The carriage she was in was up in the front of the train. She was the
sole occupant thereof. She now put up something akin to a prayer that she
might remain in undisturbed possession. Apparently, however, the prayer
was not to be granted. A tall figure, masculine in character, suddenly
blocked the light from the window. Trix heaved a small sigh of patient
resignation.

"Good afternoon, Miss Devereux," said a voice.

Trix looked up. Her resignation took to itself wings and fled.

"Doctor Hilary!" she exclaimed.

Doctor Hilary heaved his big form into the carriage, and turned to take a
tea-basket from a porter just behind him. First tipping the said porter,
he put the basket carefully on the seat.

"I've been on the lookout for you," he remarked calmly.

"Oh," said Trix, a trifle surprised.

Doctor Hilary sat down, keeping, however, one eye towards the platform.

"Yes," he continued, still calmly. "The Duchessa happened to tell me
yesterday that you were coming, and as I happened to be in Exeter to-day
I thought we might as well do this bit of the journey together."

"I see," said Trix.

Doctor Hilary looked up. "You don't mind, do you?" he asked quickly.

"Mind!" echoed Trix, "I am quite delighted. I've been so bored, and
rather tired, and--yes, I think quite depressed."

Doctor Hilary looked concerned.

"You poor little thing," he said. "And I suppose you have had one
sandwich, and no tea. Men turn to food when they're depressed, and women
think they can't eat. Honestly, there's nothing like a good meal for
helping one to look on the brighter side of things."

Trix smiled first at him, and then at the tea-basket.

"Anyhow I'm to be fed now, it seems."

The train began to move slowly out of the station. Doctor Hilary gave
vent to an ill-supressed sigh of relief. The train was non-stop to Brent.
He began pulling at the straps of the tea-basket.

Tea and Doctor Hilary's company had a really marvellous effect on Trix's
spirits. The little pleasant occurrence _had_ happened, and quite
unexpectedly.

"I'm glad you're coming down to Woodleigh," said Doctor Hilary presently.
"The Duchessa has seemed out of sorts lately, and I fancy your coming
will cheer her."

"Oh," said Trix, "you think so, too." And then she stopped.

"Who else thinks so?" queried Doctor Hilary.

"Well, Miss Tibbutt didn't seem quite satisfied about her," owned Trix.
"It was a letter from her made me come. And then I thought perhaps she'd
been mistaken, and I'd been silly to think there was any need of me, and
that--well, that I'd been a little officious. It's a depressing
sensation," sighed Trix.

Doctor Hilary laughed.

"So that was the cause of the depression," quoth he.

Trix nodded. "It was rather silly, wasn't it?" she asked.

"I am not sure," he said.

"It was such an idiotic little thing to worry about," said Trix

Doctor Hilary looked thoughtful.

"Perhaps. But isn't it just the little things we _do_ worry over? They
are so small, you know, it's difficult to handle them. It is far easier
not to worry over a thing you can get a real grasp of."

Trix smiled gratefully.

"I am so glad you understand," she said. "I am always doing things on
impulse. I fancy I am indispensable, I suppose, and then all at once I
think what a little donkey I am to have interfered. It is so easy to
think oneself important to other people's welfare when one isn't a bit."

"Aren't you?" said Doctor Hilary quietly.

"Of course not," replied Trix. There was a hint of indignation in her
voice. "And please don't say I am, or else it will make me feel that you
think I said what I did say just in order that you might contradict me.
Like fishing for a compliment, you know. And I didn't mean that in the
least, I didn't truly."

Doctor Hilary smiled, a queer little smile.

"I know you didn't mean that. But all the same I am going to contradict
you."

Trix looked up. "Oh well," she began, laughing and half resignedly. And
then something in Doctor Hilary's face made her stop suddenly, her heart
beating at a mad pace.

"You have become very important in my life," he said quietly. "I did not
realize how important, till you went away."

Trix was silent.

"I am not very good at making pretty speeches," said Doctor Hilary
steadily, "but I hope you understand exactly what I mean. You have become
so important to my welfare that I should find it exceedingly difficult to
go on living without you. I suppose I should do it somehow if I must, but
probably I should make a very poor job of it." He stopped.

Trix gave a sudden little intake of her breath. For a moment there was a
dead silence. Then:--

"Will you always feed me when I am depressed?" she asked. And there was a
little quiver half of laughter, half of tears, in her voice.

CHAPTER XXXI

MIDNIGHT REFLECTIONS

"Yes, Tibby angel, you were quite right."

It was the sixth time Trix had made the same remark in the last half
hour, and she had made it each time with the same attentive deliberation
as if the words were being only once spoken, though she knew she would
probably have to say them at least six times more.

She was sitting in front of her bedroom fire clad in a blue
dressing-gown. Miss Tibbutt was sitting in an armchair opposite to her.
She had come into the room presumably for two minutes only, to see that
Trix had all she wanted, but after she had fluttered for full ten minutes
from dressing-table to bed, and back to dressing-table again, talking all
the time, Trix had firmly pushed her into an armchair.

Miss Tibbutt took off her spectacles, and polished them slowly.

"And what is to be done, Trix dear?"

Trix looked thoughtful.

"I really don't know just at the moment. You see, though we are pretty
certain, we are not quite certain. I know I thought last August that Pia
was in love with someone, and now you say you are certain it is this man,
and of course, as you say--" Trix hesitated a moment, feeling slightly
hypocritical,--"it does seem odd when he is only a gardener, and one
wonders how she could have met him, and all that. But, you know, you are
not _quite_ certain that you are right; or, even supposing that you are,
that Pia will want any interference on our part. We must just wait a day
or two and think matters over."

Miss Tibbutt sighed.

"But you _do_ think I was right to let you know?" she asked.

And a seventh time Trix replied with careful deliberation,

"Yes, Tibby angel, you were quite right."

"You see," said Miss Tibbutt, "I thought--" And she related exactly what
she had thought, all over again.

Trix listened exceedingly patiently. She did not even know she was being
patient. She only knew the enormous relief it was to Miss Tibbutt to
repeat herself. With each repetition the thought which had choked her
mind, so to speak, for the last five days, was further cleared from her
brain. It was quite possible that Miss Tibbutt might sleep a very great
deal better that night than she had done lately.

At last she stopped speaking, and looked towards the clock.

"My dear, I had no idea it was so late. You must be tired after your
journey, and here have I been thinking only of myself again, and of my
own anxiety, and not of you at all. I am not going to keep you up a
moment longer. And if I am late for breakfast, please tell Pia I have
gone to Mass. The walk won't hurt me, and telling our dear Lord all about
it will be the best way to help Pia. So good night, dear. And you are
really not looking very tired in spite of your journey, and my having
kept you up so late."

Trix went with her to the door, and then returned to her chair by the
fire. She was not in the least sleepy, and bed would do quite well enough
later. Just now she wanted to think. There were two distinct trends of
thought in which she wished to indulge; the one certainly contained cause
for a little anxiety, the other was quite extraordinarily delicious. She
must take the anxious trend first.

She had been considering matters exceedingly earnestly all the while Miss
Tibbutt had been talking to her, and she had come to one very definite
conclusion. She felt perfectly certain now, that it _would_ ease the
situation considerably if Pia knew who this Michael Field really was. It
had come to her in an illuminating flash, that the same reason which had
caused him to hide his identity, was responsible for his odd behaviour
towards Pia. Now, of course, if Pia could see some even possible reason
and excuse for the oddness of his behaviour, it must be a great comfort
to her. But the question was, could she--Trix--tell her? Would not the
telling probably involve her in the untruth her soul loathed? Or, if she
was firm not to tell lies, would it not somehow involve a breaking of her
promise to Nicholas? Again she saw, or thought she saw, all the questions
which must ensue if she said where she had met the man; and if she did
not say where she had met him, it would probably mean saying something
which, virtually speaking at least, would not be true. If only she had
not met him in the grounds of Chorley Old Hall.

It was the same old problem which had presented itself to her mind twice
already, and the same possible over-scrupulosity was perplexing her now.
However, she must stop thinking about it for to-night. She had come to an
end of these thoughts so far as she could muster them into shape, and it
was not the least particle of use going over them again. Her brain would
run round like a squirrel in a cage, if she did. And Tibby was not with
her to open the cage door, as she had opened it for Tibby. Besides, there
was the other trend now.

She settled herself back among the cushions, and gazed at the dancing
flames. It was all so wonderful, so gorgeously unexpected, and yet it was
one of those things which just had to be. She was so sure of that, it
made the happening doubly sweet. It was exactly as if she had been
walking all her life through a quiet wood, a wood where the sunshine
flickered through the trees overhead just sufficiently to make her feel
quite certain of the existence of the sunshine, and then suddenly she had
come out into its full warmth and beauty to behold a perfect landscape.
And she knew that no single other path could have led her to this place,
also that there could be no other prospect as beautiful for her.

"When did you first know?" she had asked him. The question millions of
women have asked in their time, and that will be asked by millions more.

"I think," he had answered smiling, "it was the very first moment you
came into the room, looking like a woodland elf in your green frock.
Anyhow I am quite certain it was when you were--shall we say a trifle
snubbed in the moonlight."

"Ah, poor Pia," said Trix.

And then they had told each other countless little trivial things, things
of no earthly importance to any one but their two selves, things rendered
sweet, not so much by the words, as by the tone in which they were
spoken. It had been the old, old story, the story which began in all its
first beauty in the Garden of Eden, before the devil had entered therein
with his wiles, a story which even now ofttimes holds much of that
age-old wonderful beauty. And the stuffy, fusty railway carriage had not
in the least diminished the joy of the telling.

Trix smiled to herself, a soft little radiant smile.

To-morrow she must tell Pia. She gave a little sigh. It would seem almost
cruel to let her know of their happiness.

For Trix's own happiness to be without flaw, it was invariably necessary
that others should be in practically the same state of bliss.

CHAPTER XXXII

SUNLIGHT AND HAPPINESS

Sleep, they say, brings counsel. Most certainly it brought counsel to
Trix, and really such simple counsel she marvelled that she had not
thought of it before.

After all, the question as to whether she should or should not disclose
Antony Gray's identity to Pia, and thereby run the risk either of untruth
or of breaking a promise, was purely a question of conscience. Now, in a
question of conscience, if you cannot decide for yourself, it is always
safe to consult a priest. She would therefore walk over to Byestry after
breakfast--after she had told Pia her own particular and wonderful
news--and consult Father Dormer. It would be quite easy to explain
matters to him without mentioning names.

Trix began formulating her query in her mind as she dressed. By the time
this process was completed, however, she had come to the conclusion that
she was not altogether sure whether it would be so easy. She found
herself getting wound up into rather extraordinary knots. Well, anyhow
she would explain somehow, and no doubt words would come when she was
actually confronted with him. Besides, it was never the smallest use
arranging conversations beforehand, like a French conversation book,
because people never gave the right answers to your questions, and never
put the questions to which you had the answers ready.

Trix crossed slowly to the window. There had been a frost in the night,
and the lower part of the window-pane was covered with magic fern fronds,
while lawn and shrubs were clothed with a light white veil.

Suddenly the sun came up behind the distant hills, a glowing ball of
fire, sending forth his ruddy beams till they struck clean through the
window, turning the fern fronds to ruby jewels, and making of the frost
veil without a web of diamonds.

"That," breathed Trix softly, "is what happened to us yesterday."

And she knelt down quite suddenly by the window.

The breakfast hour at the Manor House was, ordinarily speaking, most
punctually at nine o'clock, but owing, doubtless, to some slight hitch in
the lower regions, the gong that morning did not sound till a quarter
past the hour. This delay gave Miss Tibbutt time to put in an appearance
not more than two minutes late, and saved any necessary explanation
regarding her early walk to Byestry. As it was really on Pia's account
that she had gone to Mass, she wished to avoid mentioning that she had
been. Of course Pia could not possibly have guessed the real motive, but
Miss Tibbutt had a feeling, which reason told her to be quite foolish,
that in some odd way she might guess. And she did not want her to guess.

"What is the plan of campaign to-day?" asked the Duchessa, as they
assembled in the morning room after breakfast.

Trix examined an ornament on the mantelpiece with rather studied care.

"I was thinking of walking over to Byestry, this morning," she remarked.

"All right," agreed the Duchessa, "and after lunch we will have the car.
It is cold, but too good a day to be wasted."

Trix had a moment's anxiety.

"We shan't be late for tea?" she queried.

"I don't think so," responded Pia. "The days are too short now. But
why?"

Trix put down the ornament she was examining.

"Doctor Hilary is coming to tea," she announced carelessly, though she
knew perfectly well that the colour was rising in her cheeks.

Pia looked at her.

"Trix!" she said.

"Yes, darling," nodded Trix, "just that."

"Oh, my Trix!" cried Pia delighted, putting her arms round her.

Miss Tibbutt looked a trifle bewildered.

"What is it?" she demanded

Pia laughed.

"These two," she said, "Trix and Doctor Hilary. I told you, you remember,
and said there _were_ trains, though I never dreamed they would be
utilized quite so literally. Of course it _was_ yesterday?"

"Yes," nodded Trix again. And then with a huge sigh, "Oh, Pia, I am so
happy."

Pia turned her round towards Miss Tibbutt.

"Tibby, look at her face, and then she tells us she is happy, as though
it were necessary to advertise the fact to our slow intelligences."

Trix laughed, though the tears were in her eyes. Laughter and tears are
amazingly close together at times.

"And is it quite necessary to walk to Byestry this morning?" teased Pia.
"He will probably be on his rounds, you know."

Again Trix laughed, this time without the tears.

"I am not proposing to sit in his pocket," she remarked. "He did not
happen to suggest that I should, and it certainly never occurred to me to
suggest it."

CHAPTER XXXIII

TRIX SEEKS ADVICE

Trix walked along the road from Woodleigh to Byestry in infinitely too
happy a state of mind to think consistently of any one thing. She did not
even think precisely definitely of the man who had caused this happiness.
She knew only that the happiness was there.

The hoar frost still lay thickly on the hedges and the grass by the
roadside. The frost finger had outlined the twigs, the blades of grass,
the veins of dried leaves with the delicate precision nature alone can
achieve. At one spot a tiny rivulet, arrested by the ice-king in its
course from a field and down a bank, hung in long glistening icicles from
jutting stones and frozen earth. Now and again her own footfall struck
sharp and metallic on the hard road. The sky was cloudless, a clear, cold
blue. A robin trilled its sweet, sad song to her from a frosted bough.

It was all amazingly like a frosted Christmas card, thought Trix, those
Christmas cards her soul had adored in her childish days, and yet which,
oddly enough, always brought with them a sentimental touch of sadness.
Many things had brought this odd happy sadness to Trix as a child,--the
sound of church bells across water, fire-light gleaming in the darkness
from the uncurtained windows of some house, the moon shining on snow, a
solitary tree backgrounded by a grey sky, or a flight of rooks at
sunset.

It was a quarter to eleven or thereabouts when she reached Byestry, and
she made her way at once to the little white-washed, thatched presbytery,
separated from the road by a small front garden.

Trix walked up the path, and rang the bell. Father Dormer was at home, so
his housekeeper announced, and she was shown into a small square room
with a round table in the centre, and a vase of bronze chrysanthemums on
the table.

Trix sat down and began to try and arrange her ideas. She was by now
perfectly well aware that they were not only rather difficult to arrange,
but would be infinitely more difficult to express. She sighed once or
twice rather heavily, gazing thoughtfully at the bronze chrysanthemums
the while, as if seeking inspiration from their feathery brown faces. And
then the door opened and Father Dormer came in in his cassock, which he
always wore in the morning.

"It is an unexpected pleasure to see you, Miss Devereux," he said.
"Please sit down again."

Trix sat down, and so did Father Dormer.

"I only arrived yesterday," said Trix, "and I came over to see you this
morning because I wanted to ask you something rather particular." Trix
was feeling just a little nervous, she was also feeling that if she did
not open the subject immediately, it was quite possible that she might
leave the presbytery without having done so, despite all her preconceived
intentions.

"Yes," smiled Father Dormer. He was perfectly well aware that she was
feeling a trifle nervous.

"Well," said Trix, "it isn't going to be quite easy to explain, because I
can't mention names. But as it is a thing I can't make up my mind
about,--about the right or wrong of doing it, I mean,--I thought I'd ask
your advice."

"That is always at your service," he assured her as she stopped.

Trix heaved a little sigh. She leant forward in her chair, and rested her
hands on the table.

"Well then, Father, it's like this. I know something about someone which
another person doesn't know, and I think it is rather important that they
should know it. The first person doesn't know I know it, and mightn't
quite like it if they knew I knew it. Also I am pretty sure that they
don't want any one else to know it. But under the circumstances I think
I'm justified in telling the second person, because it isn't a thing like
a scandal, or anything like that. But the difficulty is, that in telling
the second person about the first person, I may either have to tell lies,
or disclose a secret about a third person, and that is a secret I have
promised not to tell. Do you think I ought to take the risk?"

Father Dormer listened attentively.

"Do you mind saying it again," he asked politely as she ended. There was
just the faintest possible twinkle in his eyes.

Trix laughed outright.

"Oh, Father, don't try to be polite," she urged. "I know it is the
muddliest kind of explanation that ever existed. Can't you suggest some
way of making it clearer?"

"Supposing," he said, "you call the first person A, the second B, and the
third one C. And let me know first exactly your position towards A."

"All right," agreed Trix cheerfully. "And even supposing you guess the
tiniest bit what I am talking about, you won't let yourself guess, will
you?"

Father Dormer assured her that he would not. He certainly felt she need
have no smallest anxiety on that score, having in view her own method of
explanation, but he tactfully refrained from saying so.

"Well," began Trix again, and rather slowly, "A has a secret. He doesn't
know I know it, and I found it out quite by accident. He hasn't said it
is a secret, but I know it is, because nobody else knows about it. Well,
B knows A, but doesn't know A's secret, and because she doesn't know A's
secret she is unhappy about A's conduct, whereas if she knew the secret I
am pretty sure she wouldn't be so unhappy. And A need never know B does
know, even if I tell her. And I feel sure from A's point of view it would
not matter telling B, while it _would_ be a good thing for B to know.
But, in order to tell her, I may have to let her know how I learnt A's
secret, and in doing that I should possibly have to tell lies, or let her
know C's secret, which I promised not to tell. Because it was in meeting
A that I found it out. Of course I may not have to do either, but there
is the risk. Do you think I can take it? And is the matter quite clear
now?"

Father Dormer smiled.

"I think I have grasped it," he said. "Well, in the first place, it isn't
a matter of life and death, is it?"

"Oh no," said Trix.

"Then if I were you, I wouldn't take any risk about telling lies."

"No," said Trix relieved, "I thought I had better not. But then there is
C's secret."

"Let us take A's secret first," suggested Father Dormer. "You feel quite
sure it is important to let B know it, and that you are justified in
disclosing it?"

Trix reflected.

"I feel quite sure it is important B should know," she said. "And I feel
pretty sure I am justified in disclosing it. At first I thought perhaps I
ought not to do so. But I know B won't tell any one else, so it can't
matter her knowing as well as me. No; I am sure it can't," ended Trix
decidedly.

"Then," said Father Dormer, "your best plan will be to ask C to release
you from your promise."

Trix started.

"Oh, but--" she began. She shook her head. "I don't believe he would ever
release me," she said.

"You could ask him, anyhow," said Father Dormer.

"Yes, I could," replied Trix doubtfully.

"Try that first," he suggested. "It is the simplest plan."

"Yes," said Trix still doubtfully.

Of course it sounded the simplest plan to Father Dormer, but then he had
not the remotest idea of what the secret was, nor whom it concerned.

"You see," said Trix thoughtfully, "he knows A's secret too; at least, I
feel sure he does."

"Perhaps," smiled Father Dormer, "it is not quite such a secret as you
imagine."

"Oh, yes, it is," nodded Trix. "It is the most complicated affair that
ever was, and the most extraordinary. Nobody would believe it if they
didn't know." She sighed.

Father Dormer watched her. He saw that she evidently did consider it a
complicated situation, though, in spite of her rather complicated
explanation it had appeared quite simple to him. At all events, the
solution had. It had not even--as soon as he had grasped the question she
had come to ask--appeared to involve much difficulty of answering. It was
quite obvious she ought not to run the risk of telling lies (he could
guess that her honesty would make it exceedingly difficult for her to
evade any awkward questions without telling them), mainly because it was
never right to tell lies, but also because the smallest white
one--so-called--would appear extremely black to Trix.

"Is that settled now?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," said Trix. She looked at her watch. "I've two hours; I had
better do it at once." Then she stopped suddenly. "Oh, Father!" she
exclaimed.

"Well?" he queried.

"You didn't guess, did you?"

"How could I?" he asked smiling.

"Oh, because saying that told you that C lived here."

He laughed. "My dear child, when you arrive at Woodleigh one day, and ask
me a rather complicated question the next, it is perfectly obvious it is
one which has to be settled in this neighbourhood, and at once. I could
hardly imagine you have travelled down here on purpose to consult me; or
that, if it were a question to be settled in town, you would not wait
till your return to consult some other priest on the subject."

Trix smiled.

"I never thought of that," she owned. "But, of course, it is quite
obvious. Only I am so afraid of breaking my promise."

She had risen to her feet by now. He held out his hand.

"I would not worry about that, if I were you. You have not broken it in
the smallest degree. But now go and get leave to break it, if you can,
and set your mind at rest."

CHAPTER XXXIV

AN AMAZING SUGGESTION

The avenue and garden were quite deserted as Trix approached Chorley Old
Hall. The lawn was one great sheet of unbroken whiteness, flanked by
frosted yew hedges, and very desolate.

She passed quickly along the terrace towards the front door, feeling
almost as if spying eyes were watching her from behind the curtained
windows. She took hold of the hanging iron bell-handle and pulled it, its
coldness striking through her glove with an icy chill. She heard its
clang in some far-off region, yet oddly loud in the dead silence.
Involuntarily she shivered, partly with the cold, and partly with a
sudden sense of nervousness.

A second or two passed. Trix stared hard at the brass knocker on the
door, trying to still the nervousness which possessed her. There came a
sound of steps in the hall, and the door was opened.

"Can I see Mr. Danver?" asked Trix.

Jessop stared, visibly startled.

"It is all right," said Trix quickly. "Don't you remember I had tea here
last August?"

Jessop's face relaxed, but he looked a trifle dubious.

"I don't think--" he began.

Trix raised her chin.

"Go and ask him," she said with slight authority. "I will wait in the
hall."

Jessop departed, to return after a minute.

"Will you come this way, please, Madam."

Nicholas Danver looked at her as she entered, an odd expression on his
face.

He might never have moved from his chair since the day she had last seen
him, thought Trix. The only difference in the surroundings was a
crackling wood fire now burning on the big hearth.

"Well, Miss Devereux," he said, holding out his hand.

"You don't mind my having come?" queried Trix. "No one saw me."

A slight look of relief passed over Nicholas's face.

"I think I am glad you've come," he said. "Sit down, please."

Trix sat down. Her hands were tightly clasped within her muff. She was
still beating back that quite unaccountable nervousness.

"You had a particular reason for coming to see me?" suggested Nicholas.

Trix nodded.

"Yes; I am in rather a difficulty. You are the only person who can help
me."

Nicholas laughed shortly.

"It is an odd experience to be told that I can be of service to any one,"
he said. "What is it?"

Trix drew a long breath.

"Mr. Danver, I want you to release me from my promise."

Nicholas's eyes narrowed suddenly. A little gleam, like the spark from
iron striking flint, flashed from them.

"What do you mean?" he asked coldly.

Trix's heart chilled at the tone.

"I must try and explain," she said. "In the first place, of course you
know who your under-gardener really is?"

Nicholas stared at her.

"May I ask what that has got to do with you?"

"Well, I know too, you see," said Trix, feeling her heart beginning to
beat still more quickly.

"How do you know? What questions have you been asking?"

Trix flushed.

"I haven't asked any questions," she said quickly. "I saw him the day I
came here before. I knew his face then, but I couldn't remember who he
was. Afterwards I remembered I used to play with him when I was a
child."

"Well?" queried Nicholas briefly.

"Well," echoed Trix desperately, "I want to be able to tell someone he is
Antony Gray, and not Michael Field. It is really very important that they
should know, important for their happiness. But if I tell, they may want
to know where I saw him, and ask questions which might lead to my either
having to tell lies or betray your secret. If it becomes necessary, may I
betray your secret? Will you release me from my promise?"

Nicholas's hand clenched tightly on the arm of his chair.

"Most certainly not," he replied shortly.

The tone was utterly final. Trix felt the old childish fear of him
surging over her. It was quite different from the nervousness she had
just been experiencing, and, oddly enough, it gave her a kind of
desperate courage. She had no intention of accepting his refusal without
a struggle.

"I wouldn't tell unless it became absolutely necessary," she urged.

"It never can be absolutely necessary," he retorted. "It would be no more
dishonourable to tell a lie than break a promise."

Trix went scarlet.

"I never had the smallest intention of doing either," she replied. "If I
had, I need not have troubled to come up here and ask you to release me
from my promise."

Nicholas drummed his fingers on a small table near him.

"Well, you've had my answer," he said.

His voice was perfectly adamantine. Trix felt as if she were up against a
piece of rock. She knew it was useless to pursue the subject further, yet
for Pia's sake she tried again.

"Mr. Danver, why do you want everyone to think you're dead?" There was
something almost childish in the way she put the question.

Nicholas laughed.

"Partly, my dear young lady, for my own amusement, but largely for a
scheme I have on hand."

Trix leant forward.

"Is the scheme really important?" she queried, her eyes on his face.

"I don't know," he replied, watching her. "But my amusement is."

"Amusement," said Trix slowly.

"Yes, my amusement," he repeated mockingly. "I've had none for fifteen
years. For fifteen years I have lived here like a log, alone, solitary.
Now I've got a little amusement in pretending to be dead."

Trix shook her head. It sounded quite mad. Then she remembered Doctor
Hilary's words to her when she had met him at the gates of Chorley Old
Hall last August. He knew it was mad, but it was saving Nicholas from
being atrophied, so he had said. To Trix's mind at least a dozen more
satisfactory ways might have been found to accomplish that end. But every
man to his own taste. Also it was quite possible that a brain which had
been atrophied, or practically atrophied for fifteen years, was not
particularly capable of conceiving anything more enlivening.

"But you needn't have been a log for fifteen years," she said suddenly.

"Needn't I?" he retorted. "Look at me." He made a gesture towards his
helpless legs.

"I wasn't thinking of your body," said Trix calmly. "I was thinking of
your mind."

Nicholas's face hardened.

"And so was I," he replied, "when I preferred to sit here like a log,
rather than face the prying sympathy of my fellow-humans."

"Oh!" said Trix softly, a light of illumination breaking in upon her.
"But, Mr. Danver, sympathy isn't always prying."

"Bah!" he retorted. "Prying or not, I didn't want it. Staring eyes,
condoling words, and mockery in their hearts! 'He got what he deserved
for his madness,' they'd have said."

Trix leant forward, putting her hands on the table.

"Mr. Danver," she said thoughtfully, "if you were a younger man, or I
were an older woman, I'd say you were--well, quite remarkably foolish."

Nicholas chuckled. He liked this.

"You might forget our respective ages for a few moments," he suggested,
"that is, if you have anything enlivening to say."

"I don't know about it being enlivening," remarked Trix calmly, "but I
have got quite a good deal to say."

"Say it then," chuckled Nicholas.

Trix drew a deep breath.

"Mr. Danver, did you ever care for any one?"

Nicholas's eyes blazed suddenly.

"What the devil--" he began. "I beg your pardon. I gave you leave to
speak."

Trix waved her hand.

"I was talking about men," she said, "men pals. Were there any you ever
cared about?"

Nicholas laughed shortly.

"Your father, my dear young lady, and Richard Gray, father of the man who
has led to this interesting discussion."

"They were really your friends?" queried Trix.

"The best fellows that ever stepped," said Nicholas with unwonted
enthusiasm.

Trix nodded. Her eyes were shining. She was thinking of her aunt's
disclosure regarding this Richard Gray.

"And I suppose," she said coolly, "you rejoiced when Richard Gray lost
his money? You laughed at him for a fool?"

Nicholas stared at her.

"What on earth do you mean?" he asked. "I never knew he had lost money. I
would have given my right hand to help him if I had known."

"He did lose money," said Trix. "But that's beside the point. You'd have
helped him if you could? You wouldn't have jeered at him?"

"What do you take me for?" asked Nicholas half angrily.

Trix looked very straight at him.

"Only what you take others for, Mr. Danver."

There was a dead silence.

"Listen," said Trix suddenly. "You would have been generous to him,
because you cared for him. Do you really think you are the only generous
friend?"

Nicholas looked at her. There was a gleam of laughter in his eyes.

"It strikes me you are a very shrewd young woman," he said.

"It's only logical common sense," declared Trix stoutly.

Once more there fell a silence, a silence in which Nicholas was watching
the girl opposite to him.

"Mr. Danver, will you tell me exactly what amusement you found in all
this? What originated the idea in your mind?" Her voice was pleading.

For a moment Nicholas was silent.

"Yes," he said suddenly, "I will tell you."

It was not a long story, and to Trix it was oddly pathetic. It was the
mixture partly of regret, partly the desire of justice to be administered
to his property after his death, and partly the queer mad love of pranks
which had been the keynote of his nature, and which had stirred again
within the half-dead body. He told it all very simply, baldly almost, and
yet he could not quite hide a certain queer wistfulness underlying it,
the wistfulness of pride which has built barriers too strong for it, and
yet from which it longs to escape.

"I thought Antony Gray could have a taste of living as one of the
people," he ended. "Perhaps it would make him a better master than I had
been. And then the scheme took shape."

"I see," said Trix slowly and thoughtfully.

"Well?" queried Nicholas.

Trix looked up at him. Her lips were smiling, but there were tears in her
eyes.

"I understand," she said. "Perhaps I understand ever so much better than
you think. But--but has it been worth it?"

Nicholas looked towards the fire.

"After the first planning, I don't honestly know that it has," he said.
"A thing falls flat with no one to share it with you. And Hilary never
really approved."

Again there was a silence, and again the odd pathos, the childishness of
the whole thing stirred Trix's heart. She said she understood, and she
did understand more profoundly than Nicholas could possibly have
conceived. In the few seconds of silence which followed, she reviewed
those solitary years in an amazingly quick mental process. She saw first
the pride which had built the barrier, and then the slow stagnation
behind it. She realized the two sentences which had penetrated the
barrier (he had been perfectly candid in his story) without being able to
destroy it, and then the faint stirrings of life within the almost
stagnant mind. And the result had been this perfectly mad scheme,--the
thought of a foolish boy conceived and carried out by the obstinate mind
of a man; a scheme childish, foolish, mad, and of value only in so far as
it had roused to faint life the mind of the lonely man who had conceived
it.

And now he had tired of it. It had become to him as valueless as a flimsy
toy; and yet he clung to it rather than leave himself with empty hands.
Without it, he had absolutely nothing to interest him,--a past on which
it hurt him to dwell by reason of its contrast with the present; a
present as lonely almost as that of a prisoner in solitary confinement;
and a future which to him was a mere blank, a grey nothingness.

Trix shivered involuntarily.

"And the fact remains, that I am dead," said Nicholas with a grim smile.

Trix turned suddenly towards him.

"Unless you have a sort of resurrection," she said.

Nicholas stared.

"Listen," said Trix.

CHAPTER XXXV

TRIX TRIUMPHANT

It was more than an hour before Trix departed, exultant, rejoicing.

Nicholas sat staring at the chair she had just vacated. He had been
bewitched, utterly bewitched, and he knew it. Her vitality, her
insistence had carried him with her despite himself,--that and an odd
under-current of something he could not entirely explain. He might have
called it faith, only it was not faith as he had been accustomed to think
of it, when he thought at all. It was so infinitely more alive and
personal. And yet she had only once touched on what he would have termed
religion.

"You've wandered entirely from the object of your visit," he had remarked
at one point in the conversation, "and I can't for the life of me see why
you are taking this extraordinary interest in what you consider my
welfare. What on earth can it matter to any one else, how I choose to
live my life?"

"Ah, but it does matter," she had answered earnestly, "it matters quite
supremely. I know we often pretend to ourselves that it doesn't in the
least matter how we live our lives so long as we don't commit actual sin;
but we can't isolate ourselves from others without loss to them and to
ourselves."

"How about monks and nuns, who shut themselves up, and never see their
fellow-creatures at all?" he had retorted, greatly pleased with himself
for the retort.

Trix had opened eyes of wonder.

"The contemplative orders! Why, Mr. Danver, they're the cog-wheels of the
whole machinery. They only keep their bodies apart that their minds may
be more free. Nobody has the good of mankind so much at heart as a
contemplative. They are keeping the machinery going by prayer the whole
time."

The utter conviction in her words was unmistakable. For an odd flashing
moment he had had something like a mental vision of an irresistible force
pouring forth from those closed houses, a force like the force of a great
river, carrying all things with it, and with healing virtue in its
waters. The thought was utterly foreign to him. But it had been there.

"I am not much of a believer in prayer," he had said dryly. He had
expected her to ask if he had ever tried it. She had not done so.

"Most of us do it so badly," she had said with a little sigh, "but they
don't." And then she had flashed a glance of amusement at him. "Did you
ever hear of the story of the old lady who said she was going to pray one
night with entire faith that the hill beyond her garden might be removed?
In the morning she found it still there. 'I knew it would be!' said the
old lady triumphantly."

Nicholas joined in her laugh, but somewhat grimly.

"We're all like that," he said.

Trix shook her head.

"Not all, mercifully; but a good many." And then she had returned to her
former charge.

Well, she had ended by bewitching him, and the queer thing was he was
quite glad of the bewitchment. Now and again he pulled himself up with a
jerk and a muttered word or two of irritation; but it was all a pretence,
and he knew it. There was an odd excitement pulsing at his heart; despite
his age and crippled state, he was feeling boyishly, absurdly young. For
the first time for fifteen years he was looking forward to the morrow
with pleasure.

He began to consider his programme. It was entirely simple. First there
was Antony Gray to be interviewed. She had insisted on that. It was due
to him to be given an entire, full, and detailed account of the whole
business, so she had decreed. Nicholas shrugged his shoulders at the
thought. There was just a question in his mind as to how the young man
might regard the matter. Secondly, there was to be a tea-party in the
library, at which Trix, the Duchessa, Miss Tibbutt, Antony, and Doctor
Hilary were to be present. After that--well, events might take their own
course. The villagers get to hear? Let them. Any amount of gossip? Of
course, what did he expect? Anyhow he'd be a benefactor to mankind in
giving poor, dull little Byestry something more interesting to talk about
than the latest baby's first tooth, or the last injustice of Mr. Curtis.