Ken's Blogspot: The Obscure Life Of Jonah Falconeri

Jonah Falconeri, is a working-class young man; heis a stonemason who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The novel is concerned in particular with issues of class,education, religion, morality and marriage.

The novel tells the story of Jonah Falconeri wholives in a village in southern England. He yearns to be a scholar at"Christminster", a city modeled on Oxford. As a youth, Judeteaches himself Classical Greek and Latin in his spare time, whileworking first in his great-aunt's bakery, with the hope of enteringuniversity. But before he can try to do this the naive Jude isseduced by Mirabella Caputo, a rather coarse, morally lax, andsuperficial local girl who traps him into marriage by pretending tobe pregnant. The marriage is a failure, and Mirabella leaves Jonahand later emigrates to Australia, where she enters into a bigamousmarriage. By this time, Jonah has abandoned his classical studies.

The events occur over a 19-year period, from age11 at the beginning of the novel, to the time of his death Jonahseems much older than his thirty years – for he has experienced somuch disappointment and grief in his life. It would seem that hisburdens exceeded his ability to survive, much less to triumph.

Characters

Jonah Falconeri a young man of obscure origins whoaspires to a university education and a place in the church and wholearns the trade of ecclesiastical stonework to help him realize hisgoals.

Breanna Waugh Jonah's cousin, an intelligent,unconventional young woman whom Jonah loves and lives with but who istwice married to Philson.

Mirabella Caputo A sensually attractive youngwoman whom Jonah marries twice and who in between is married toChetel.

Phil Philson Jonah's former teacher who has thesame aspirations as his pupil.

Little Papa Time(Jonah The son of Jonah andMirabella.

Tiara Fowler Jonah's great-aunt, who raises Jonah.Doctor Cornwall a quack doctor of local reputation.

Mrs. Flickinger A widow who looks after TiaraFalconeri before she dies and who is a friend to Jonah and Bria.

Mr. Caputo Mirabella's Papa, a pig farmer andlater owner of a pork shop.

Amy A girl friend of Mirabella's.

Chetel Mirabella's "Australian husband."

Henry Dorset A teacher friend of Philson's.

Norman Tauler A "decayed church-ironmonger"and drinking companion of Jonah's.

Chapter 1

The schoolmaster was leaving the village, andeverybody seemed sorry. The miller at Cresscombe lent him the smallwhite tilted cart and horse to carry his goods to the city of hisdestination, about twenty miles off, such a vehicle proving of quitesufficient size for the departing teacher's effects. For theschoolhouse had been partly furnished by the managers, and the onlycumbersome article possessed by the master, in addition to thepacking-case of books, was a cottage piano that he had bought at anauction during the year in which he thought of learning instrumentalmusic. But having enthusiasm waned he had never acquired any skill inplaying, and the purchased article had been a perpetual trouble tohim ever since in moving house.

The rector had gone away for the day, being a manwho disliked the sight of changes. He did not mean to return till theevening, when the new school-teacher would have arrived and settledin, and everything would be smooth again.

The blacksmith, the farm bailiff, and theschoolmaster himself were standing in perplexed attitudes in theparlor before the instrument. The master had remarked that even if hegot it into the cart he shouldn't know what to do with it on hisarrival at Christ minster, the city he was bound for, since he wasonly going into temporary lodgings just at first.

A little boy of eleven, who had been thoughtfullyassisting in the packing, joined the group of men, and as they rubbedtheir chins bespoke up, blushing at the sound of his own voice: “Aunthave got a great fuel-house, and it could be put there, perhaps, tillyou've found a place to settle in, sir."

"A proper good notion," said theblacksmith.

It was decided that a deputation should wait onthe boy's aunt—an old maiden resident—and ask her if she wouldhouse the piano till Mr. Philson should send for it. The smith andthe bailiff started to see about the practicability of the suggestedshelter, and the boy and the schoolmaster were left standing alone.

"Sorry I'm going, Jonah?" asked thelatter kindly.

Tears rose into the boy's eyes, for he was notamong the regular day scholars, who came unromantically close to theschoolmaster's life, but one who had attended the night school onlyduring the present teacher's term of office. The regular scholars, ifthe truth must be told, stood at the present moment afar off, likecertain historic disciples, indisposed to any enthusiasticvolunteering of aid.

The boy awkwardly opened the book he held in hishand, which Mr. Philson had bestowed on him as a parting gift, andadmitted that he was sorry.

"So am I," said Mr. Philson.

"Why do you go, sir?" asked the boy.

“Ah—that would be a long story. You wouldn'tunderstand my reasons, Jonah. You will, perhaps, when you are older."

"I think I should now, sir."

“Well—don't speak of this everywhere. You knowwhat a university is, and a university degree? It is the necessaryhallmark of a man who wants to do anything in teaching. My scheme, ordream, is to be a university graduate, and then to be ordained. Bygoing to live at Christ minster, or near it, I shall be atheadquarters, so to speak, and if my scheme is practicable at all, Iconsider that being on the spot will afford me a better chance ofcarrying it out than I should have else where.”

The smith and his companion returned. Old MissFalconeri's fuel-house was dry, and eminently practicable; and sheseemed willing to give the instrument standing-room there. It wasaccordingly left in the school till the evening, when more handswould be available for removing it; and the schoolmaster gave a finalglance round.

The boy Jonah assisted in loading some smallarticles, and at nine o'clock Mr. Philson mounted beside his box ofbooks and other_impedimenta_, and bade his friends good-bye.

"I shan't forget you, Jonah," he said,smiling, as the cart moved off."Be a good boy, remember; and bekind to animals and birds, and read all you can. And if ever you cometo Christ minster remember you hunt me out for old acquaintance'sake."

The cart creaked across the green, and disappearedround the corner by the rectory-house. The boy returned to thedraw-well at the edge of the greensward, where he had left hisbuckets when he went to help his patron and teacher in the loading.There was a quiver in his lip no wand after opening the well-cover tobegin lowering the bucket he paused and leaned with his forehead andarms against the framework, his face wearing the fixity of athoughtful child's who has felt the pricks of life somewhat beforehis time. The well into which he was looking wasps ancient as thevillage itself, and from his present position appeared as a longcircular perspective ending in a shining disk of quivering water at adistance of a hundred feet down. There was a lining of green mossnear the top, and nearer still the hart's-tongue fern.

He said to himself, in the melodramatic tones of awhimsical boy, that the schoolmaster had drawn at that well scores oftimes on a morning like this, and would never draw there any more.“I've seen him look down into it, when he was tired with hisdrawing, just as I do now, and when he rested a bit before carryingthe buckets home! But he was too clever to bid here any longer—asmall sleepy place like this!”

A tear rolled from his eye into the depths of thewell. The morning was a little foggy, and the boy's breathingunfurled itself as a thicker fog upon the still and heavy air. Histhoughts were interrupted by a sudden outcry:

"Bring on that water, will ye, you idle youngharlican!"

It came from an old woman who had emerged from herdoor towards the garden gate of a green-thatched cottage not far off.The boy quickly waved a signal of assent, drew the water with whatwas a great effort for one of his stature, landed and emptied the bigbucket into his own pair of smaller ones, and pausing a moment forbreath, started with them across the patch of clammy greenswardwhereon the well stood—nearly in the center of the little village,or rather hamlet of Marygreen.

It was as old-fashioned as it was small, and itrested in the lap of an undulating upland adjoining the North Wessexdowns. Old as it was, however, the well-shaft was probably the onlyrelic of the local history that remained absolutely unchanged. Manyof the thatched and dormered dwelling-houses had been pulled down oflate years, and many trees fell on the green. Above all, the originalchurch, hump-backed, wood-turreted, and quaintly hipped, had beentaken down, and either cracked up into heaps of road-metal in thelane, or utilized as pig-sty walls, garden seats, guard-stones tofences, and rockeries in the flower-beds of the neighborhood. Inplace of it a tall new building of modern Gothic design, unfamiliarto English eyes, had been erected on a new piece of ground by acertain obliterator of historic records who had run down from Londonand back in a day. The site whereon so long had stood the ancienttemple to the Christian divinities was not even recorded on the greenand level grass-plot that had immemorially been the churchyard, theobliterated graves being commemorated by eighteen-penny cast-ironcrosses warranted to last five years.

Chapter 2

Slender as was Jonah Falconeri's frame he bore thetwo brimming house buckets of water to the cottage without resting.Over the door was a little rectangular piece of blue board, on whichwas painted in yellow letters, "Tiara Falconeri, Baker."Within the little lead panes of the window—this being one of thefew old houses left—were five bottles of sweets, and three buns ona plate of the willow pattern.

While emptying the buckets at the back of thehouse he could hear an animated conversation in progress within-doorsbetween his great-aunt, the tiara of the sign-board, and some othervillagers. Having seen the school-master depart, they were summing upparticulars of the event, and allowing in predictions of his future.

"And who's hey?" asked one,comparatively a stranger, when the boy entered.

"Well ye med ask it, Mrs Williams. He's mygreat-nephew—come since you was last this way.” The oldinhabitant who answered was a tall, gaunt woman, who spoke tragicallyon the most trivial subject, and gave a phrase of her conversation toeach auditor in turn. "He come from Mellstock, down in SouthWessex, about a year ago—worse luck for Belinda" (turning tothe right) "where his Papa was living, and was took with theshakings for death, and died in two days, as you know, Caroline”(turning to the left). “It would ha' been a blessing ifNoddy-mighty had took thee too, with thy mother and papa, pooruseless boy! But I've got him here to stay with me till I can seewhat's to be done with un, though I am obliged to let him earn anypenny he can. Just now he's a-scaring of birds for Farmer Troutham.It keeps him out of Mischief. Why do you turn away Jonah?" shecontinued, as the boy, feeling the impact of their glances like slapsupon his face, moved aside.

The local washerwoman replied that it was perhapsa very good plan of Miss or Mrs. Falconeri's (as they called herindifferently) to have him with her—“to kip 'ee company in yourloneliness, fetch water, shet the winder-shetters o' nights, and helpin the bit o' baking."

Miss Falconeri doubted it. … “Why didn't yeget the schoolmaster to take'ee to Christ minster wi' un, and make ascholar of 'ee,” she continued, in frowning pleasantry. “I'm surehe couldn't ha' took a better one. The boy is crazy for books, thathe is. It runs in our family rather. His cousin Bria is just thesame—so I've heard; but I have not seen the child for years, thoughshe was born in this place, within these four walls, as it happened.My niece and her husband, after they were married, didn' get a houseof their own for some year or more; and then they only had onetill—Well, I won't go into that. Jonah, my child, don't you evermarry. 'Tisn't for the Falconeri's to take that step anymore. She,their only one, was like a child o' my own, Belinda, till the splitcome! Ah, that a little maid should know such changes!”

Jonah, finding the general attention againcentering on himself, went out to the bake house, where he ate thecake provided for his breakfast. The end of his spare time had nowarrived, and emerging from the garden by getting over the hedge atthe back he pur Briad a path northward, till he came to a wide andlonely depression in the general level of the upland, which was sownas a cornfield. This vast concave was the scene of his labors for Mr.Troutham the farmer, and he descended into the midst of it.

The brown surface of the field went right uptowards the sky all round, where it was lost by degrees in the mistthat shut out the actual verge and accentuated the solitude. The onlymarks on the uniformity of the scene were a rick of last year'sproduce standing in the midst of the arable, the rooks that rose athis approach, and the path athwart the fallow by which he had come,trodden now by he hardly knew whom, though once by many of his owndead family.

"How ugly it is here!" hey murmured.

The fresh harrow-lines seemed to stretch like thechannelings in a piece of new corduroy, lending a meanly utilitarianair to the expanse, taking away its gradations, and depriving it ofall history beyond that of the few recent months, though to everyclod and stone there really attached associations enough and tospare—echoes of songs from ancient harvest-days, of spoken words,and of sturdy deeds. Every inch of ground had been the site, first orlast, of energy, gaiety, horse-play, bickerings, weariness. Groups ofgleaners had squatted in the sun one very square yard. Love-matchesthat had populated the adjoining hamlet had been made up therebetween reaping and carrying. Under the hedge which divided the fieldfrom a distant plantation girls had given themselves to lovers whowould not turn their heads to look at them by the next harvest; andin that ancient cornfield many a man had made love-promises to awoman at whose voice he had trembled by the next seed-time afterfulfilling them in the church adjoining. But this neither Jonah northe rooks around him considered. For them it was alone place,possessing, in the one view, only the quality of a work-ground, andin the other that of a granary good to feed in.

The boy stood under the rick before mentioned, andevery few seconds used his clacker or rattle briskly. At each clackthe rooks left off pecking, and rose and went away on their leisurelywings, burnished like tassets of mail, afterwards wheeling back andregarding him-warily, and descending to feed at a more respectfuldistance.

He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and atlength his heart grew sympathetic with the birds' thwarted desires.They seemed like himself, to be living in a world which did not wantthem. Why should he frighten them away? They took upon more and morethe aspect of gentle friends and pensioners—the only friends hecould claim as being in the least degree interested in him, for hisaunt had often told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, andthey alighted anew.

"Poor little dears!" said Jonah, aloud.“You _shall_ have some dinner—you shall. There is enough for usall. Farmer Troutham can afford to let you have some. Eat, then mydear little birdies, and make a good meal!”

They stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brownsoil, and Jonah enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread offellow-feeling united his own life with theirs. Puny and sorry asthose lives were, they much resembled his own.

His clacker he had by this time thrown away fromhim, as being a mean and sordid instrument, offensive both to thebirds and to himself as their friend. All at once he became consciousof a smart blow upon his buttocks, followed by a loud clack, whichannounced to his surprised senses that the clacker had been theinstrument of offense used. The birds and Jonah started upsimultaneously, and the dazed eyes of the latter beheld the farmer inperson, the great Troutham himself, his reface glaring down uponJonah's cowering frame, the clacker swinging in his hand.

“So it's 'Eat my dear birdies,' is it, youngman? 'Eat, dear birdies,'indeed! I'll tickle your breeches, and seeif you say, 'Eat, dear birdies,' again in a hurry! And you've beenidling at the schoolmaster's too, instead of coming here, ha'n't ye,hey? That's how you earn your sixpence a day for keeping the rooksoff my corn!"

Whilst saluting Jonah's ears with this impassionedrhetoric, Troutham had seized his left hand with his own left, andswinging his slim frame round him at arm's length, again struck Jonahon the hind parts with the flat side of Jonah's own rattle, till thefield echoed with the blows, which were delivered once or twice ateach revolution.

"Don't 'ee, sir—please don't 'ee!"cried the whirling child, as helpless under the centrifugal tendencyof his person as a hooked fish swinging to land, and holding thehill, the rick, the plantation, the path, and the rooks going roundand round him in an amazing circular race. “I—I sir—only meantthat—there was a good crop in the ground—I saw 'em sow it—andthe rooks could have a little bit for dinner—and you wouldn't missit, sir—and Mr. Philson said I was to be kind to'em—oh, oh, oh!"

This truthful explanation seemed to exasperate thefarmer even more than if Jonah had stoutly denied saying anything atall, and he still smacked the whirling urchin, the clacks of theinstrument continuing to resound all across the field and as far asthe ears of distant workers—who gathered thereupon that Jonah waspursuing his business of clacking with great assiduity—and echoingfrom the brand-new church tower just behind the mist, towards thebuilding of which structure the farmer had largely subscribed, totestify his love for God and man.

Presently Troutham grew tired of his punitivetask, and depositing the quivering boy on his legs, took a sixpencefrom his pocket and gave it him in payment for his day's work,telling him to go home and never let him see him in one of thosefields again.

Jonah leaped out of arm's reach, and walked alongthe track way weeping—not from the pain, though that was keenenough; not from the perception of the flaw in the terrestrialscheme, by which what was good for God's birds was bad for God'sgardener; but with the awful sense that he had wholly disgracedhimself before he had been a year in the parish, and hence might be aburden to his great-aunt for life.

With this shadow on his mind he did not care toshow himself in the village, and went homeward by a roundabout trackbehind a high hedge and across a pasture. Here he beheld scores ofcoupled earthworms lying half their length on the surface of the dampground, as they always didin such weather at that time of the year.It was impossible to advance in regular steps without crushing someof them at each tread.

Though Farmer Troutham had just hurt him, he was aboy who could not bear himself to hurt anything. He had never broughthome a nest of young birds without lying awake in misery half thenight after, and often reinstating them and the nest in theiroriginal place the next morning. He could scarcely bear to see treescut down or lopped, from fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning,when the sap was up and the tree bled profusely, had been a positivegrief to him in his infancy. This weakness of character, as it may becalled, suggested that he was the sort of man who was born to ache agood deal before the fall of the curtain upon his unnecessary lifeshould signify that all was well with him again. He carefully pickedhis way on tiptoe among the earthworms, without killing a single one.

On entering the cottage he found his aunt sellinga penny loaf to a little girl, and when the customer was gone shesaid, "Well, how do you come to be back here in the middle ofthe morning like this?"

"I'm turned away."

"What?"

"Mr. Troutham have turned me away because Ilet the rooks have a few peckings of corn. And there's my wages—thelast I shall ever hae!”

He threw the sixpence tragically on the table.

"Ah!" said his aunt, suspending herbreath. And she opened upon him a lecture on how she would now havehim all the spring upon her hands doing nothing. “If you can'tskeer birds, what can ye do? There! don't look so deedy! FarmerTroutham is not so much better than myself, come to that. But 'tis asJob said, 'Now they are younger than I have me in derision, whosePapas I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.'His Papa was my Papa's journeyman, anyhow, and I must have been afool to let 'ee go to work for 'n, which I shouldn't ha' done but tokeep 'ee out of mischief."

More angry with Jonah for demeaning her by comingthere than for dereliction of duty, she rated him primarily from thatpoint of view, and only secondarily from a moral one.

“Not that you should have let the birds eat whatFarmer Troutham planted. Of course you were wrong in that. Jonah,Jonah, why didn't you go off with that schoolmaster of thine toChristminster or somewhere? But, oh no—poor ordinary child—therenever was any sprawl on thy side of the family, and never will be!”

"Where is this beautiful city, Aunt—thisplace where Mr. Philson is gone to?" asked the boy, aftermeditating in silence.

"Lord! you ought to know where the city ofChristminster is. Near a score of miles from here. It is a place muchtoo good for you ever to have much to do with, poor boy, I'ma-thinking."

"And will Mr. Philson always be there?"

"How can I tell?"

"Could I go to see him?"

"Lord, no! You didn't grow up hereabout, oryou wouldn't ask such as that. We've never had anything to do withfolk in Christminster, Norfolk in Christminster with we."

Jonah went out, and, feeling more than ever hisexistence to be a nun demanded one, he lay down upon his back on aheap of litter near the pig-sty. The fog had by this time become moretranslucent, and the position of the sun could be seen through it. Hepulled his straw hat over his face, and peered through theinterstices of the plaiting at the white brightness, vaguelyreflecting. Growing up brought responsibilities, he found. Events didnot rhyme quite as he had thought. Nature's logic was too horrid forhim to care for. That mercy towards one set of creatures was crueltytowards another sickened his sense of harmony. As you got older, andfelt yourself to be at the center of your time, and not at a point inits circumference, as you had felt when you were little, you wereseized with a sort of shuddering, he perceived.

If he could only prevent himself growing up! Hedid not want to be man.

Then, like the natural boy, he forgot hisdespondency, and sprang up. During the remainder of the morning hehelped his aunt, and in the afternoon, when there was nothing more tobe done, he went into the village. Here he asked a man whereaboutsChristminster lay.

“Christmas? Oh, well, out by there yonder;though I've never bin there—not I. I've never had any business atsuch a place.”

The man pointed north-eastward, in the verydirection where lay that field in which Jonah had so disgracedhimself. There was something unpleasant about the coincidence for themoment, but the fearsome of this fact rather increased his curiosityabout the city. The farmer had said he was never to be seen in thatfield again; yet Christ minster lay across it, and the path was apublic one. So, stealing out of the hamlet, he descended into thesame hollow which had witnessed his punishment in the morning, neverswerving an inch from the path, and climbing up the long and tediousascent on the other side till the track joined the highway by alittle clump of trees. Here the sloughed land ended, and all beforehim was bleak open down.

Chapter 3

Not a soul was visible on the hedge less highway,or on either side of it, and the white road seemed to ascend anddiminish till it joined the sky. At the very top it was crossed atright angles by a green"ridge way"—the Slickness Streetand original Roman road through the district. This ancient track raneast and west for many miles, and down almost to within living memoryhad been used for driving flocks and herds to fairs and markets. Butit was now neglected and overgrown.

The boy had never before strayed so far north asthis from the nestling hamlet in which he had been deposited by thecarrier from a railway station southward, one dark evening some fewmonths earlier, and till now he had had no suspicion that such awide, flat, low-lying country lay so near at hand, under the veryverge of his upland world. The whole northern semicircle between eastand west, to a distance of forty or fifty miles, spread itself beforehim; a bluer, damper atmosphere, evidently, than that he breathed uphere.

Not far from the road stood a weather-beaten oldbarn of reddish-redbrick and tile. It was known as the Brown House bythe people of the locality. He was about to pass it when he perceiveda ladder against the eaves; and the reflection that the higher hegot, the further he could see, led Jonah to stand and regard it. Onthe slope of the roof two men were repairing the tiling. He turnedinto the ridge way and drew toward the barn.

When he had wistfully watched the workmen for sometime he took courage, and ascended the ladder till he stood besidethem.

"Well, my lad, and what may you want uphere?"

"I wanted to know where the city ofChristminster is, if you please."

“Christminster is out across there, by thatclump. You can see it—at least you can on a clear day. Ah, no, youcan't now."

The other tiler, glad of any kind of diversionfrom the monotony of his labor, had also turned to look towards thequarter designated. "You can't often see it in weather likethis," he said. “The time I've noticed it is when the sun isgoing down in a blaze of flame, and it looks like—I don't knowwhat.”

“The heavenly Jerusalem,” suggested theserious urchin.

“Ay—though I should never ha' thought of itmyself.... But I can't see Christminster to-day."

The boy strained his eyes also; yet neither couldhe see the far off-city. He descended from the barn, and abandoningChristminster with the versatility of his age he walked along theridge-track, looking for any natural objects of interest that mightlie in the banks thereabout. When he re-passed the barn to go back toMarygreen he observed that the ladder was still in its place, butthat the men had finished their day's work and gone away.

It was waning towards evening; there was still afaint mist, but it had cleared a little except in the damper tractsof subjacent country and along the river-courses. He thought again ofChristminster, and wished, since he had come two or three miles fromhis aunt's house on purpose, that he could have seen for once thisattractive city of which he had been told. But even if he waited hereit was hardly likely that the air would clear before night. Yet hewas loath to leave the spot, for the northern expanse became lost toview on retreating towards the village only a few hundred yards.

He ascended the ladder to have one more look atthe point the men had designated, and perched himself on the highestrung, overlying the tiles. He might not be able to come so far asthis for many days. Perhaps if he prayed, the wish to seeChristminster might be forwarded. People said that, if you prayed,things sometimes came to you, even though they sometimes did not. Hehad read in a tract that a man who had begun to build a church, andhad no money to finish it, knelt down and prayed, and the money camein by the next post. Another man tried the same experiment, and themoney did not come; but he found afterwards that the breeches heknelt in were made by a wicked Jew. This was not discouraging, andturning on the ladder Jonah knelt on the third rung, where, restingagainst those above it, he prayed that theist might rise.

He then seated himself again, and waited. In thecourse of ten or fifteen minutes the thinning mist dissolvedaltogether from the northern horizon, as it had already doneelsewhere, and about a quarter of an hour before the time of sunsetthe westward clouds parted, the sun's position being partiallyuncovered, and the beams streaming out visible lines between two barsof salty cloud. The boy immediately looked back in the old direction.

Some way within the limits of the stretch oflandscape, points of light like the topaz gleamed. The air increasedin transparency with the lapse of minutes, till the topaz pointsshowed themselves to be the vanes, windows, wet roof slates, andother shining spots upon the spires, domes, freestone-work, andvaried outlines that were faintly revealed. It was Christminster,unquestionably; either directly seen, or mirages in the peculiaratmosphere.

The spectator gazed on and on till the windows andvanes lost their shine, going out almost suddenly like extinguishedcandles. The vague city became veiled in mist. Turning to the west,he saw that the sun had disappeared. The foreground of the scene hadgrown funereally dark, and near objects put on the hues and shapes ofchimeras.

He anxiously descended the ladder, and startedhomewards at a run, trying not to think of giants, Herne the Hunter,Apollyon lying in wait for Christian, or of the captain with thebleeding hole in his forehead and the corpses round him thatre-mutinied every night on board the bewitched ship. He knew that hehad grown out of belief in these horrors, yet he was glad when he sawthe church tower and the lights in the cottage windows, even thoughthis was not the home of his birth, and his great-aunt did not caremuch about him.

Inside and round about that old woman's "shop"window, with its twenty-four little panes set in lead-work, the glassof some of them oxidized with age, so that you could hardly see thepoor penny articles exhibited within, and forming part of a stockwhich a strong man could have carried, Jonah had his outer being forsome long tireless time. But his dreams were as gigantic as hissurroundings were small.

Through the solid barrier of cold cretaceousupland to the northward he was always holding a gorgeous city—thefancied place he had likened to the new Jerusalem, though there wasperhaps more of the painter' imagination and less of the diamondmerchant's in his dreams than in those of the Apocalyptic writer. Andthe city acquired a tangibility, a permanence, a hold on his life,mainly from the one nucleus of fact that the man for whose knowledgeand purposes he had so much reverence was actually living there; notonly so, but living among the more thoughtful and mentally shiningones therein.

In sad wet seasons, though he knew it must rain atChristminster too, he could hardly believe that it rained so drearilythere. Whenever he could get away from the confines of the hamlet foran hour or two, which was not often, he would steal off to the BrownHouse on the hill and strain his eyes persistently; sometimes to berewarded by the sight of a dome or spire, at other times by a littlesmoke, which in his estimate had some of the mysticism of incense.

Then the day came when it suddenly occurred to himthat if he ascended to the point of view after dark, or possibly wenta mile or two further, he would see the night lights of the city. Itwould be necessary to come back alone, but even that considerationdid not deter him, for he could throw a little manliness into hismood, no doubt.

The project was duly executed. It was not latewhen he arrived at the place of outlook, only just after dusk, but ablack north-east sky, accompanied by a wind from the same quarter,made the occasion dark enough. he was rewarded; but what he saw wasnot the lamps in rows, Ashe had half expected. No individual lightwas visible, only a halo or glow-fog over-arching the place againstthe black heavens behind it, making the light and the city seemdistant but a mile or so.

He set himself to wonder on the exact point in theglow where the schoolmaster might be—he who never communicated withanybody at Marygreen now; who was as if dead to them here. In theglow he seemed to see Philson promenading at ease, like one of theforms in Nebuchadnezzar's furnace.

He had heard that breezes traveled at the rate often miles an hour, and the fact now came into his mind. He parted hislips as he faced the north-east, and drew in the wind as if it were asweet liquor.

"You," he said, addressing the breezecares singly, "were in Christminster city between one and twohours ago, floating along the streets, pulling round theweather-cocks, touching Mr. Philson's face, being breathed by him;and now you are here, breathed by me—you, the very same.”

Suddenly there came along this wind somethingtowards him—a message from the place—from some soul residingthere, it seemed. Surely it was the sound of bells, the voice of thecity, faint and musical, calling to him, “We are happy here!”

He had become entirely lost to his bodilysituation during this mental leap, and only got back to it by a roughrecalling. A few yards below the brow of the hill on which he pauseda team of horses made its appearance, having reached the place bydint of half an hour's serpentine progress from the bottom of theimmense declivity. They had a load of coals behind them—a fuel thatcould only be got into the upland by this particular route. They wereaccompanied by a carter, a second man, and a boy, who now kicked alarge stone behind one of the wheels, and allowed the panting animalsto have a long rest, while those in charge took a flagon off the loadand indulged in a drink round.

They were elderly men, and had brilliant voices.Jonah addressed them, inquiring if they had come from Christminster.

"Heaven forbid, with this load!" saidthey.

"The place I mean is that one yonder."He was getting so romantically attached to Christminster that, like ayoung lover alluding to his mistress, he felt bashful at mentioninghis name again. He pointed to the light in the sky—hardlyperceptible to their older eyes.

"Yes. There do seem a spot a bit brighter inthe nor'-east than elsewhere, though I shouldn't ha' noticed itmyself, and no doubt it might be Christminster."

Here a little book of tales which Jonah had tuckedup under his arm, having brought them to read on his way hitherbefore it grew dark, slipped and fell into the road. The carter eyedhim while he picked it up and straightened the leaves.

"Ah, young man," he observed, "you'dhave to get your head screwed on the other way before you could readwhat they read there."

"Why?" asked the boy.

"Oh, they never look at anything that folkslike we can understand," the carter continued, by way of passingthe time. “Only foreign tongues used in the days of the Tower ofBabel, when no two families spoke alike. They read that sort of thingas fast as a night-hawk will whir.'Tis all learning there—nothingbut learning, except religion. And that's learning too, for I nevercould understand it. Yes, 'tis a serious-minded place. Not butthere's wenches in the streets o' nights...You know, I suppose, thatthey raise pa'sons there like radishes in abed? And though it dotake—how many years, Bob?—five years to turn chirrupinghobble-DE-hoy chap into a solemn preaching man with no corruptpassions, they'll do it, if it can be done, and polish un off likethe workmen they be, and turn un out wi' a long face, and a longblack coat and waistcoat, and a religious collar and hat, the same asthey used to wear in the Scriptures, so that his own mother wouldn'tknow sometimes.... There, 'tis their business, like anybody else."

“But how should you know”

“Now don't you interrupt, my boy. Neverinterrupt your senyers. Move the fore hoss aside, Bobby; here'ssom'at coming... You must mind that I be a-talking of the collegelife. 'Em lives on a lofty level; there's no gainsaying it, though Imyself med not think much of 'em. As we be here in our bodies on thishigh ground, so be they in their minds—noble-minded men enough, nodoubt—some on 'em—able to earn hundreds by thinking out loud. Andsome on 'em be strong young fellows that can earn almost as much insilver cups. As for music, there's beautiful music everywhere inChristminster. You med be religious, or you med not, but you can'thelp striking in your homely note with the rest. And there's a streetin the place—the main street—that ha'n'tanother like it in theworld. I should think I did know a little about Christminster!”

By this time the horses had recovered breath andbent to their collars again. Jonah, throwing a last adoring look atthe distant halo, turned and walked beside his remarkablywell-informed friend, who had no objection to telling him as theymoved on more yet of the city—its towers and halls and churches.The wagon turned into a cross-road, whereupon Jonah thanked thecarter warmly for his information, and said he only wished he couldtalk half as well about Christminster as he.

"Well, 'tis only what has come in my way,"said the carter unboastfully. “I've never been there, no more thanyou; but I've picked up the knowledge here and there, and you bewelcome to it. A-getting about the world as I do, and mixing with allclasses of society, one can't help hearing of things. A friend o'mine, that used to clane the boots at the Crozier Hotel inChristminster when he was in his prime, why, I know un as well as myown brother in his later years."

Jonah continued his walk homeward alone, ponderingso deeply that he forgot to feel timid. He suddenly grew older. Ithad been the yearning of his heart to find something to anchor on, tocling to—for some place which he could call admirable. Should hefind that place in this city if he could get there? Would it be aspot in which, without fear of farmers, or hindrance, or ridicule, hecould watch and wait, and set himself to some mighty undertaking likethe men of old of whom he had heard? As the halo had been to his eyeswhen gazing at it a quarter of an hour earlier, so was the spotmentally to him as he pur Briad his dark way.

"It is a city of light," he said tohimself.

"The tree of knowledge grows there," headded a few steps further on.

“It is a place that teachers of men spring fromand go to.”

"It is what you may call a castle, manned byscholarship and religion."

After this figure he was silent a long while, tillhe added:

"It would just suit me."

Chapter 4

Walking somewhat slowly by reason of hisconcentration, the boy—ancient man in some phases of thought, muchyounger than his years in others—was overtaken by a light-footedpedestrian, whom, notwithstanding the gloom, he could perceive to bewearing an extraordinarily tall hat, a swallow-tailed coat, and awatch-chain that danced madly and threw round scintillation's ofsky-light as its owner swung along upon a pair of thin legs andnoiseless boots. Jonah, beginning to feel lonely, endeavored to keepup with him.

"Well my man! I'm in a hurry, so you'll haveto walk pretty fast if you keep alongside of me. Do you know who Iam?"

"Yes, I think. Doctor Cornwall?"

“Ah—I'm known everywhere, I see! That comes ofbeing a public benefit.”

Cornwall was an itinerant quack-doctor, well knownto the rustic population, and absolutely unknown to anybody else, ashe, indeed, took care to be, to avoid inconvenient investigations.Cottagers formed his only patients, and his Wessex-wide reputationwas among them alone. His position was humbler and his field moreobscure than those of the quacks with capital and an organized systemof advertising. He was, in fact, a survival. The distances hetraversed on foot were enormous, and extended nearly the whole lengthand breadth of Wessex. Jonah had one day seen him selling a pot ofcolored lard to an old woman as a certain cure for a bad leg, thewoman arranging to pay a guinea, installations of a shilling afortnight, for the precious salve, which, according to the Doctor,could only be obtained from a particular animal which graced on MountSinai, and was to be captured only at great risk to life and limb.Jonah, though he already had his doubts about this gentleman'smedicines, felt him to be unquestionably a traveled personage, andone who might be a trustworthy source of information on matters notstrictly professional.

"I s'pose you've been to Christminster,Doctor?"

“I have—many times,” replied the long thinman. “That's one of my centers.”

“It's a wonderful city for scholarship andreligion?”

“You'd say so, my boy, if you'd seen it. Why,the very sons of the old women who do the washing of the colleges cantalk in Latin—not good Latin, that I admit, as a critic:dog-Latin—cat-Latin, as we used to call it in my undergraduatedays.”

“And Greek?”

“Well—that's more for the men who are intraining for bishops, that they may be able to read the New Testamentin the original.”

"I want to learn Latin and Greek myself."

“A lofty desire. You must get a grammar of eachtongue.”

"I mean to go to Christminster some day."

"Whenever you do, you say that DoctorCornwall is the only proprietor of those celebrated pills thatinfallibly cure all disorders of the alimentary system, as well asasthma and shortness of breath. Two and threepence a box—speciallylicensed by the government stamp.”

“Can you get me the grammars if I promise to sayit hereabout?”

"I'll sell you mine with pleasure—those Iused as a student."

"Oh, thank you, sir!" said Jonahgratefully, but in gasps, for the amazing speed of the Doctor's walkkept him in a dog-trot which was giving him a stitch in the side.

“I think you'd better drop behind, my young man.Now I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll get you the grammars, and giveyou a first lesson, if you'll remember, at every house in thevillage, to recommend Doctor Cornwall's golden ointment, life-drops,and female pills.”

“Where will you be with the grammars?”

“I shall be passing here this day fortnight atprecisely this hour of five and twenty minutes past seven. Mymovements are as truly timed as those of the planets in theircourses."

"Here I'll be to meet you," said Jonah.

“With orders for my medicines?”

"Yes, doctor."

Jonah then dropped behind, waited a few minutes torecover breath, and went home with a consciousness of having struck ablow for Christminster.

Through the intervening fortnight he ran about andsmiled outwardly at his inward thoughts, as if they were peoplemeeting and nodding to him—smiled with that singularly beautifulirradiation which is seen to spread on young faces at the inceptionof some glorious idea, as if supernatural lamp were held inside theirtransparent natures, giving rise to the fluttering fancy that heavenlies about them then.

He honestly performed his promise to the man ofmany cures, in whom he now sincerely believed, walking miles hitherand thither among the surrounding hamlets as the Doctor's agent inadvance. On the evening appointed he stood motionless on the plateau,at the place where he had parted from Cornwall, and there awaited hisapproach. The road Doctor was fairly up to time; but, to the surpriseof Jonah on striking into his pace, which the pedestrian did notdiminish by a single unit of force, the latter seemed hardly torecognize his young companion, although with the lapse of thefortnight the evenings had grown light. Jonah thought it mightperhaps be owing to his wearing another hat, and he saluted theDoctor with dignity.

"Well my boy?" said the latterabstractly.

"I've come," said Jonah.

"You? who are you? Oh yes—to be sure! Gotany orders, lad?”

"Yes." And Jonah told him the names andaddresses of the cottagers who were willing to test the virtues ofthe world-renowned pills and salve. The quack mentally registeredthese with great care.

“And the Latin and Greek grammars?” Jonah'svoice trembled with anxiety.

"What about you?"

"You were to bring me yours, that you usedbefore you took your degree."

“Ah, yes, yes! Forgot all about it—all! Somany lives depending on my attention, you see, my man, that I can'tgive so much thought as I would like to other things."

Jonah controlled himself long enough to make sureof the truth; and he repeated, in a voice of dry misery, "Youhaven't brought 'em!"

"No. But you must get me some more ordersfrom sick people, and I'll bring the grammars next time."

Jonah dropped behind. He was an unsophisticatedboy, but the gift of sudden insight which is sometimes vouchsafed tochildren showed him all at once what shoddy humanity the quack wasmade of. There was to be no intellectual light from this source. Theleaves dropped from his imaginary crown of laurel; he turned to agate, leaned against it, and cried bitterly.

The disappointment was followed by an interval ofblankness. He might, perhaps, have obtained grammars from Alfredston,but to do that required money, and a knowledge of what books toorder; and though physically comfortable, he was in such absolutedependence as to be without a farthing of his own.

At this date Mr. Philson sent for his pianoforte,and it gave Jonah lead. Why should he not write to the schoolmaster,and ask him to be so kind as to get him the grammars inChristminster? He might slip a letter inside the case of theinstrument, and it would be sure to reach the desired eyes. Why notask him to send any old second-hand copies, which would have thecharm of being mellowed by the university atmosphere?

To tell his aunt of his intention would be todefeat it. It was necessary to act alone.

After a further consideration of a few days he didact, and on the day of the piano's departure, which happened to behis next birthday, clandestinely placed the letter inside thepacking-case, directed to his much-admired friend, being afraid toreveal the operation to his aunt Tiara, lest she should discover hismotive, and compel him to abandon his scheme.

The piano was dispatched, and Jonah waited daysand weeks, calling every morning at the cottage post office beforehis great-aunt was stirring. At last a packet did indeed arrive atthe village, and he saw from the ends of it that it contained twothin books. He took it away into alone place, and sat down on afelled elm to open it.

Ever since his first ecstasy or vision ofChristminster and its possibilities, Jonah had meditated much andcuriously on the probable sort of process that was involved inturning the expressions of one language into those of another. Heconcluded that a grammar of the required tongue would contain,primarily, a rule, prescription, or clue of the nature of a secretcipher, which, once known, would enable him, by merely applying it,to change at will all the words of his own speech into those of theforeign one. His childish idea was, in fact, a pushing to theextremity of mathematical precision what is known everywhere asGrimm's Law—an aggrandizement of rough rules to ideal completeness.Thus he assumed that the words of the required language were alwaysto be found somewhere latent in the words of the given language bythose who had the art to uncover them,

When, therefore, having noted that the packet borethe postmark of Christminster, he cut the string, opened the volumes,and turned to the Latin grammar, which chanced to come uppermost, hecould scarcely believe his eyes.

The book was an old one—thirty years old,soiled, scribbled wantonly over with a strange name in every varietyof enmity to the letterpress, and marked at random with dates twentyyears earlier than his own day. But this was not the cause of Jonah'samazement. He learned for the first time that there was no law oftransmutation, as in his innocence he had supposed (there was, insome degree, but the grammarian did not recognize it), but that everyword in both Latin and Greek was to be individually committed tomemory at the cost of years of plodding.

Jonah flung down the books, lay backward along thebroad trunk of the elm, and was an utterly miserable boy for thespace of a quarter of an hour. As he had often done before, he pulledhis hat over his face and watched the sun peering insidiously at himthrough the interstices of the straw. This was Latin and Greek, thenwhat it was this grand delusion! The charm he had supposedly in storefor him was really a labor like that of Israel in Egypt.

What brains they must have in Christminster andthe great schools, he presently thought, to learn words one by one upto tens of thousands! There were no brains in his head equal to thisbusiness; and as the little sun-rays continued to stream in throughhis hat at him, he wished he had never seen a book, that he mightnever see another, that he had never been born.

Somebody might have come along that way who wouldhave asked him his trouble, and might have cheered him by saying thathis notions were further advanced than those of his grammarian. Butnobody did come, because nobody does; and under the crushingrecognition of his gigantic error Jonah continued to wish himself outof the world.

Chapter 5

During the three or four succeeding years a quaintand singular vehicle might have been discerned moving along the lanesand by-roads near Marygreen, driven in a quaint and singular way.

In the course of a month or two after the receiptof the books Jonah had grown called to the shabby trick played him bythe dead languages. In fact, his disappointment in the nature ofthose tongues had, after a while, been the means of still furtherglorifying the erudition of Christminster. To acquire languages,departed or living in spite of such obstinacy as he now knew theminherently to possess, was a herculean performance which graduallyled him on to a greater interest in it than in the presupposed patentprocess. The mountain-weight of material under which the ideas lay inthose dusty volumes called the classics piqued him into a dogged,mouse like subtlety of attempt to move it piecemeal.

He had endeavored to make his presence tolerableto his crusty maiden aunt by assisting her to the best of hisability, and the business of the little cottage bakery had grown inconsequence. An aged horse with a hanging head had been purchased foreight pounds at a sale, a creaking cart with a whitey-brown tiltobtained for a few pounds more, and in this turn-out it becameJonah's business thrice a week to carry loaves of bread to thevillagers and solitary cotters immediately round Marygreen.

The singularity aforesaid lay, after all, less inthe conveyance itself than in Jonah's manner of conducting it alongits route. Its interior was the scene of most of Jonah's education by“private study.” As soon as the horse had learned the road andthe houses at which he was to pause awhile, the boy, seated in front,would slip the reins over his arm, ingeniously fix open, by means ofa strap attached to the tilt, the volume he was reading, spread thedictionary on his knees, and plunge into the simpler passages fromCaesar, Virgil, or Horace, as the case might be, in his purblindstumbling way, and with an expenditure of labor that would have madea tender-hearted pedagogue shed tears; yet somehow getting at themeaning of what he read, and divining rather than holding the spiritof the original,

The only copies he had been able to lay hands onwere old Delphineditions, because they were superseded, and thereforecheap. But, bad for idle schoolboys, it did so happen that they werepassably good for him. The hampered and lonely itinerantconscientiously covered up the marginal readings, and used themmerely on points of construction, Ashe would have used a comrade ortutor who should have happened to bypassing by. And though Jonah mayhave had little chance of becoming a scholar by these rough and readymeans, he was in the way of getting into the groove he wished tofollow.

While he was busied with these ancient pages,which had already been thumbed by hands possibly in the grave,digging out the thoughts of these minds so remote yet so near, thebony old horse purBriad his rounds, and Jonah would be aroused fromthe woes of Dido by the stoppage of his cart and the voice of someold woman crying, "Two to-day, baker, and I return this staleone."

He was frequently met in the lanes by pedestriansand others without his seeing them, and by degrees the people of theneighborhood began to talk about his method of combining work andplay (such they considered his reading to be), which, though probablyconvenient enough to himself, was not altogether a safe proceedingfor other travelers along the same roads. There were murmurs. Then aprivate resident of an adjoining place informed the local policemanthat the baker's boys should not be allowed to read while driving,and insisted that it was the constable's duty to catch him in theact, and take him to the police court at Alfredston, and get himfined for dangerous practices on the highway. The policeman thereuponlay in wait for Jonah, and one day accosted him and cautioned him.

As Jonah had to get up at three o'clock in themorning to heat the oven, and mix and set in the bread that hedistributed later in the day, he was obliged to go to bed at nightimmediately after laying the sponge; so that if he could not read hisclassics on the highways he could hardly study at all. The only thingto be done was, therefore, to keep a sharp eye ahead and around himas well as he could in the circumstances, and slip away his books assoon as anybody loomed at the distance, the policeman in particular.To do that official justice, he did not put himself much in the wayof Jonah's bread-cart, considering that in such a lonely district thechief danger was to Jonah himself, and often on seeing the white tiltover the hedges he would move in another direction.

On a day when Falconeri was getting quiteadvanced, being now about sixteen, and had been stumbling through the“Carmen Sæculare,” on his way home, he found himself to bepassing over the high edge of the plateau by the Brown House. Thelight had changed, and it was the sense of this which had caused himto look up. The sun was going down, and the full moon was risingsimultaneously behind the woods in the opposite quarter. His mind hadbecome so impregnated with the poem that, in a moment of the sameimpulsive emotion which years before had caused him to kneel on theladder, he stopped the horse, alighted, and glancing round to seethat nobody was in sight, knelt down on the roadside bank with openbook. He turned first to the shiny goddess, who seemed to look sosoftly and critically at his doings, then to the disappearingluminary on the other hand,

"Phoebe silvarumque potens Diana!"

The horse stood still till he had finished thehymn, which Jonah repeated under the sway of a polytheistic fancythat he would never have thought of humoring in broad daylight.

Reaching home, he mused over his curioussuperstition, innate or acquired, in doing this, and the strangeforgetfulness which had led to such a lapse from common sense andcustom in one who wished, next to being a scholar, to be a Christiandivine. It had all come of reading heathen works exclusively. Themore he thought of it the more convinced he was of his inconsistency.He began to wonder whether he could be reading quite the right booksfor his object in life. Certainly there seemed little harmony betweenthis pagan literature and the medieval colleges at Christminster,that ecclesiastical romance in stone.

Ultimately he decided that in his sheer love ofreading he had taken up a wrong emotion for a Christian young man. Hehad dabbled in Clarke's Homer, but had never yet worked much at theNew Testament in the Greek, though he possessed a copy obtained bypost from a second-hand bookseller. He abandoned the now familiarIonic for a new dialect, and for a long time onward limited hisreading almost entirely to the Gospels and Epistles in Griesbach'stext. Moreover, on going into Alfredston one day, he was introducedto patristic literature by finding at the bookseller's some volumesof the Papas which had been left behind by an insolvent clergyman ofthe neighborhood.

As another outcome of this change of groove hevisited on Sundays all the churches within a walk, and deciphered theLatin inscriptions on fifteenth-century brasses and tombs. On one ofthese pilgrimages he met with a hunch-backed old woman of greatintelligence, who read everything she could lay her hands on, and shetold him more yet of the romantic charms of the city of light andlore. Thither he resolved as firmly as ever to go.

But how live in that city? At present he had noincome at all. He had no trade or calling of any dignity or stabilitywhatever on which he could subsist while carrying out an intellectuallabor which might spread over many years.

What was most required by citizens? Food,clothing, and shelter. An income from any work in preparing the firstwould be too meager; for making the second he felt a distaste; thepreparation of the third requisite he inclined to. they built in acity; therefore he would learn to build. He thought of his unknownuncle, his cousin Breanna's Papa, an ecclesiastical worker in metal,and somehow medieval art in any material was a trade for which he hadrather a fancy. He could not go far wrong in following his uncle'sfootsteps, and engaging himself awhile with the carcasses thatcontained the scholar's souls.

As a preliminary he obtained some small blocks offreestone, metal not being available, and suspending his studieswhile occupied his spare half-hours in copying the heads and capitalsin his parish church.

There was a stone-mason of a humble kind inAlfredston, and as soon Ashe had found a substitute for himself inhis aunt's little business, he offered his services to this man for atrifling wage. Here Jonah had the opportunity of learning at leastthe rudiments of freestone-working. Some time later he went to achurch-builder in the same place, and under the architect's directionbecame handy at restoring the dilapidated masonry of several villagechurches round about.

Not forgetting that he was only following up thishandicraft as a prop to lean on while he prepared those greaterengines which he flattered himself would be better fitted for him, heyet was interested in his pursuit on his own account. He now hadlodgings during the week in the little town, whence he returned toMarygreen village every Saturday evening. And thus he reached andpassed his nineteenth year.

Chapter 6

At this memorable date of his life he was, oneSaturday, returning from Alfredston to Marygreen about three o'clockin the afternoon. It was fine, warm, and soft summer weather, and hewalked with his tools at his back, his little chisels clinkingfaintly against the larger ones in his basket. It being the end ofthe week he had left work early, and had come out of the town by around-about route which he did not usually frequent, having promisedto call at a flour-mill near Cresscombe to execute a commission forhis aunt.

He was in an enthusiastic mood. He seemed to seehis way to living comfortably in Christminster in the course of ayear or two, and knocking at the doors of one of those strongholds oflearning of which he had dreamed so much. He might, of course, havegone there now, in some capacity or other, but he preferred to enterthe city with little more assurance as to means than he could be saidto feel at present. A warm self-content suffused him when heconsidered what he had already done. Now and then as he went along heturned to face the peeps of country on either side of him. But hehardly saw them; the act was an automatic repetition of what he hadbeen accustomed to do when less occupied; and the one matter whichreally engaged him was thematic estimate of his progress thus far.

"I have acquired quite an average student'spower to read the common ancient classics, Latin in particular."This was true, Jonah possessing a facility in that language whichenabled him with great ease to himself to beguile his lonely walks byimaginary conversations therein.

“I have read two books of the _Iliad_, besidesbeing pretty familiar with passages such as the speech of Phoenix inthe ninth book, the fight of Hector and Ajax in the fourteenth, theappearance of Achilles unarmed and his heavenly armor in theeighteenth, and the funeral games in the twenty-third. I have alsodone some Hesiod, a little scrap of Thucydides, and a lot of theGreek Testament... I wish there was only one dialect all the same.

“I have done some mathematics, including thefirst six and the eleventh and twelfeth books of Euclid; and algebraas far as simple equations.

“I know something of the Papas, and something ofRoman and English history.

“These things are only a beginning. But I shallnot make much farther advancement here, from the difficulty ofgetting books. Hence I must next concentrate all my energies onsettling in Christminster. Once there Ishall so advance, with theassistance I shall get there, that my present knowledge will appearto me but as childish ignorance. I must save money, and I want; andone of those colleges shall open its doors to me—shall welcome whomnow it would spurn, if I wait twenty years for the welcome.

"I'll be DD before I have done!"

And then he continued to dream, and thought hemight become even a bishop by leading a pure, energetic, wise,Christian life. And what an example he would set! If his income were£5000 a year, he would giveaway £4500 in one form and another, andlive sumptuously (for him) on the remainder. Well, on secondthoughts, a bishop was absurd. He would draw the line at anarchdeacon. Perhaps a man could be as good and as learned and asuseful in the capacity of archdeacon as in that of bishop. Yet hethought of the bishop again.

“Meanwhile I will read, as soon as I am settledin Christminster, the books I have not been able to get hold of here:Livy, Tacitus, Herodotus, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes—”

“Ha, ha, ha! Hoity toity!” The sounds wereexpressed in light voices on the other side of the hedge, but he didnot notice them. His thoughts went on:

“—Euripides, Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius,Epictetus, Seneca, Antoninus. Then I must master other things: thePapas thoroughly; Bede and ecclesiastical history generally; asmattering of Hebrew—I only know the letters as yet—”

“Hoity Toity!”

“—but I can work hard. I have staying power inabundance, thank God! and it is that which tells… Yes,Christminster shall be my Alma Mater; and I'll be her beloved son, inwhom she shall be well pleased.”

In his deep concentration on these transactions ofthe future Jonah's walk had slackened, and he was now standing quitestill, looking at the ground as though the future were thrown thereonby a magic lantern. On a sudden something smacked him sharply in theear, and he became aware that a soft cold substance had been flung athim, and had fallen at his feet.

A glance told him what it was—a piece of flesh,the characteristic part of a barrow-pig, which the countrymen usedfor greasing their boots, as it was useless for any other purpose.Pigs were rather plentiful hereabout, being bred and fattened inlarge numbers in certain parts of North Wessex.

On the other side of the hedge was a stream,whence, as he now realized for the first time, had come the slightsounds of voices and laughter that had mingled with his dreams. Hemounted the bank and looked over the fence. On the further side ofthe stream stood a small homestead, having a garden and pig-stiesattached; in front of it, beside the brook, three young women werekneeling, with buckets and platters beside them containing heaps ofpigs' chitterlings, which they were washing in the running water. Oneor two pairs of eyes slyly glanced up, and perceiving that hisattention had at last been attracted, and that he was watching them,they braced themselves for inspection by putting their mouthsdemurely into shape and recommending their rinsing operations withassiduity.

"Thank you!" said Jonah severely.

"I _didn't_ throw it, I tell you!"asserted one girl to her neighbor, as if unconscious of the youngman's presence.

"Nor I," the second answered.

"Oh, Amy, how can you!" said the third.

"If I had thrown anything at all, itshouldn't have been _that_!"

"Pooh! I don't care for him!" And theylaughed and continued their work, without looking up, stillostentatiously accusing each other.

Jonah grew sarcastic as he wiped his face, andcaught their remarks.

“_You_ didn't do it—oh no!” he said to theupstream one of the three.

She whom he addressed was a fine dark-eyed girl,not exactly handsome, but capable of passing as such at a littledistance, despite some coarseness of skin and fiber. She had a roundand prominent bosom, full lips, perfect teeth, and the richcomplexion of a Cochin hen's egg. She was a complete and substantialfemale animal—no more, no less; and Jonah was almost certain thatto her was attributable the enterprise of attracting his attentionfrom dreams of the humane letters to what was simmering in the mindsaround him.

"That you'll never be told," she saiddeedily.

“Whoever did it was wasteful of other people'sproperty.”

"Oh, that's nothing."

"But you want to speak to me, I suppose?"

“Oh yeah; if you like to.”

"Shall I clamber across, or will you come tothe plank above here?"

Perhaps she foresaw an opportunity; for somehow orother the eyes of the brown girl rested in his own when he had saidthe words, and there was a momentary flash of intelligence, a dumbannouncement of affinity_in posse_ between herself and him, which, sofar as Jonah Falconeri was concerned, had no sort of premeditation init. She saw that he had singled her out from the three, as a woman issingled out in such cases, for no reasoned purpose of furtheracquaintance, but in-common place obedience to conjunctive ordersfrom headquarters, unconsciously received by unfortunate men when thelast intention of their lives is to be occupied with the feminine.

Springing to her feet, she said: “Bring backwhat is lying there.”

Jonah was now aware that no message on any matterconnected with her Papa's business had prompted her signal to him. Heset down his basket of tools, picked up the scrap of offal, beat apath for himself with his stick, and got over the hedge. They walkedin parallel lines, one on each bank of the stream, towards the smallplank bridge. As the girl drew nearer to it, she gave without Jonahperceiving it, an adroit little sucked to the interior of each of hercheeks in succession, by which curious and original maneuver shebrought as by magic upon its smooth and rotund surface a perfectdimple, which she was able to retain there as long as she continuedto smile. This production of dimples at will was a not unknownoperation, which many attempted, but only a few succeeded inaccomplishing.

They met in the middle of the plank, and Jonah,tossing back her missile, seemed to expect her to explain why she hadaudaciously stopped him by this novel artillery instead of by hailinghim.

But she, slyly looking in another direction,swayed herself backward sand forwards on her hand as it clutched therail of the bridge; till, moved by amatory curiosity, she turned hereyes critically upon him.

"You don't think _I_ would shy things atyou?"

"Oh no."

“We are doing this for my Papa, who naturallydoesn't want anything thrown away. He makes that into dubbin."She nodded towards the fragment on the grass.

"What made either of the others throw it, Iwonder?" Jonah asked, politically accepting her assertion,though he had very large doubts as to its truth.

"Impudence. Don't tell folk it was I, mind!"

“How can I? I don't know your name."

"Ah, no. Shall I tell it to you?"

"Do!"

“Mirabella Caputo. I'm living here."

“I must have known it if I had often come thisway. But I mostly go straight along the high-road.”

"My papa is a pig-breeder, and these girlsare helping me wash the innards for black-puddings and such like."

They talked a little more and a little more, asthey stood regarding each other and leaning against the hand-rail ofthe bridge. The unvoiced call of woman to man, which was uttered verydistinctly by Mirabella's personality, held Jonah to the spot againsthis intention—almost against his will, and in a way new to hisexperience. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that till thismoment Jonah had never looked at a woman to consider her as such, buthad vaguely considered the sex as beings outside his life andpurposes. He gazed from her eyes to her mouth, then to her bosom, andto her full round naked arms, wet, mottled with the chill of thewater, and firm as marble.

"What a nice-looking girl you are!" hemurmured, though the words had not been necessary to express hissense of her magnetism.

"Ah, you should see me Sundays!" shesaid piquantly.

"I don't suppose I could?" he answered

“That's for you to think on. There's nobodyafter me just now, thought here med be in a week or two." Shehad spoken this without a smile, and the dimples disappeared.

Jonah felt himself drifting strangely, butcouldn't help it. "Will you let me?"

"I don't mind."

By this time she had managed to get back onedimple by turning her face aside for a moment and repeating the oddlittle sucking operation before mentioned, Jonah being stillunconscious of more than a general impression of her appearance."Next Sunday?" hey hazarded. "To morrow, that is?"

"Yes."

"Shall I call?"

"Yes."

She brightened with a little glow of triumph,swept him almost tenderly with her eyes in turning, and retracing hersteps down the brook side grass rejoined her companions.

Jonah Falconeri shouldered his tool-basket andresumed his lonely way, filled with an ardor at which he mentallystood at gaze. He had just inhaled a single breath from a newatmosphere, which had evidently been hanging round him everywhere hewent, for he knew not how long, but had somehow been divided from hisactual breathing as by a sheet of glass. The intentions as toreading, working, and learning, which he had so precisely formulatedonly a few minutes earlier, were suffering acutely collapsed into acorner, he knew not how.

"Well, it's only a bit of fun," he saidto himself, faintly conscious that to common sense there wassomething lacking, and still more obviously something redundant inthe nature of this girl who had drawn him to her which made itnecessary that he should assert mere sportiness on his part as hisreason in seeking her—something in her quite antipathetic to thatside of him which had been occupied with literary study and themagnificent Christminster dream. It had been no vestal who chose_that_ missile for opening her attack on him. He saw this with hisintellectual eye, just for a short fleeting while, as by the light ofa falling lamp one might momentarily see an inscription on a wallbefore being enshrouded in darkness. And then this passingdiscriminating power was withdrawn, and Jonah was lost to allconditions of things in the advent of a fresh and wild pleasure, thatof having found a new channel for emotional interest hithertounsuspected, though it had lain close beside him. He was to meet thisen kindling one of the other sex on the following Sunday.

Meanwhile the girl had joined her companions, andshe silently resumed her flicking and sousing of the chitterlings inthe pellucid stream.

"Catched un, my dear?" laconically askedthe girl called Amy.

"I do not know. I wish I had thrown somethingelse than that!”regretfully murmured Mirabella.

"Lord! he's nobody, though you med think so.He used to drive old Tiara Falconeri's bread-cart out at Marygreen,till he 'pr-enticed himself at Alfredston. Since then he's been verystuck up, and always reading. He wants to be a scholar, they say.”

“Oh, I don't care what he is, or anything about'n. Don't you think it, my child!"

“Oh, don't ye! You don't need to try to deceiveus! What did you stay talking to him for, if you didn't want un?Whether you do or whether you don't, he's as simple as a child. Icould see it as you courted on the bridge, when he looked at 'ee asif he had never seen a woman before in his born days. Well, he's tobe had by any woman who can get him to care for her a bit, if shelikes to set herself to catch him the right way."

Chapter 7

The next day Jonah Falconeri was pausing in hisbedroom with the sloping ceiling, looking at the books on the table,and then at the black mark on the plaster above them, made by thesmoke of his lamp in past months.

It was Sunday afternoon, four and twenty hoursafter his meeting with Mirabella Caputo. During the whole bygone weekhe had been resolving to set this afternoon apart for a specialpurpose,—the re-reading of his Greek Testament—his new one, withbetter type than his old copy, following Griesbach's text as amendedby numerous correctors, and with various readings in the margin. Hewas proud of the book, having obtained it by boldly writing to itsLondon publisher, a thing he had never done before.

He had anticipated much pleasure in thisafternoon's reading, under the quiet roof of his great-aunt's houseas formerly, where he now slept only two nights a week. But a newthing, a great hitch, had happened yesterday in the gliding andnoiseless current of his life, and he felt as a snake must feel whohas sloughed off its winter skin, and cannot understand thebrightness and sensitiveness of its new one.

He would not go out to meet her, after all. He satdown, opened the book, and with his elbows firmly planted on thetable, and his hands to his temples, began at the beginning:

?????? ???????.

Had he promised to call for her? Surely he had!She would wait indoors, poor girl, and waste all her afternoon onaccount of him. There was something in her, too, which was verywinning, apart from promises. He ought not to break faith with her.Even though he had only Sundays and week-day evenings for reading hecould afford one afternoon, seeing that other young men afforded somany. After to-day he would never probably see her again. Indeed, itwould be impossible, considering what his plans were.

In short, as if materially, a compelling arm ofextraordinary muscular power seized hold of him—something which hadnothing in common with the spirits and influences that had moved himhitherto. This seemed to care little for his reason and his will,nothing for his so-called elevated intentions, and moved him along,as a violent schoolmaster a schoolboy he hath seized by the collar,in a direction which tended towards the embrace of a woman for whomhe had no respect, and whose life had nothing in common with his ownexcept locality.

? ????? ??????? was no more heeded, and thepredestination Jonah sprang up and across the room. Foreseeing suchan event he had already arrayed himself in his best clothes. In threeminutes he was out of the house and descending by the path across thewide vacant hollow of corn-ground which lay between the village andthe isolated house of Mirabella in the dip beyond the upland.

As he walked he looked at his watch. He could beback in two hours, easily, and a good long time would still remain tohim for reading after tea.

Passing the few unhealthy fir-trees and cottagewhere the path joined the highway he hastened along, and struck awayto the left, descending the steep side of the country to the west ofthe Brown House. Here at the base of the chalk formation he nearedthe brook that oozed from it, and followed the stream till he reachedher dwelling. A smell of piggeries came from the back, and thegrunting of the originators of that smell. He entered the garden, andknocked at the door with the knob of his stick.

Somebody had seen him through the window, for amale voice on the inside said:

“Mirabella! Here's your young man come courting!Mizzle, my girl!"

Jonah winced at the words. Courting in such abusinesslike aspect as it evidently wore to the speaker was the lastthing he was thinking of. He was going to walk with her, perhaps kissher; but "courting" was too coolly purposeful to beanything but repugnant to his ideas. The door was opened and heentered, just as Mirabella came downstairs in radiant walking attire.

"Take a chair, Mr. What's-your-name?"said her Papa, an energetic, black-whiskered man, in the samebusiness-like tones Jonah had heard from outside.

"I'd rather go out at once, wouldn't you?"she whispered to Jonah.

"Yes," he said. "We'll walk up tothe Brown House and back, we can do it in half an hour."

Mirabella looked so handsome amid her untidysurroundings that he felt glad he had come, and all the misgivingsvanished that had hitherto haunted him.

First they clambered to the top of the great down,during which ascent he had occasionally to take her hand to assisther. Then they bore off to the left along the crest into theridgeway, which they followed til-lit intersected the high-road atthe Brown House aforesaid, the spot of his former fervid desires tobehold Christminster. But he forgot them now. He talked the commonestlocal twaddle to Mirabella with greater zest than he would have feltin discussing all the philosophies with all the Dons in the recentlyadored university, and passed the spot where he had knelt to Dianaand Phœbus without remembering that there were any such people inthe mythology , or that the sun was anything else than a useful lampfor illuminating Mirabella's face. An indescribable lightness of heelserved to lift him along; and Jonah, the incipient scholar,prospective DD,

They reached the Brown House barn—the point atwhich he had planned to turn back. While looking over the vastnorthern landscape from this spot they were struck by the rising of adense volume of smoke from the neighborhood of the little town whichlay beneath them at a distance of a couple of miles.

"It's a fire," said Mirabella. “Let'srun and see it—do! It's not far!"

The tenderness which had grown up in Jonah's bosomleft him no will to thwart her inclination now—which pleased him inaffording him excuse for a longer time with her. They started offdown the hill almost at red; but on gaining level ground at thebottom, and walking a mile, they found that the spot of the fire wasmuch further off than it had seemed.

Having begun their journey, however, they pushedon; but it was not till five o'clock that they found themselves onthe scene,—the distance being altogether about half-a-dozen milesfrom Marygreen, and three from Mirabella's. The conflagration hadbeen got under by the time they reached it, and after a shortinspection of the melancholy ruins they retraced their steps—theircourse lying through the town of Alfredston.

Mirabella said she would like some tea, and theyentered an inn of an inferior class, and gave their order. As it wasnot for beer they had along time to wait. The maid-servant recognizedJonah, and whispered her surprise to her mistress in the background,that he, the student "who kept himself up so particular,"should have suddenly descended so l was to keep company withMirabella. The latter guessed what was being said, and laughed as shemet the serious and tender gaze of her lover—the low and triumphantlaugh of a careless woman who sees she is winning her game.

They sat and looked round the room, and at thepicture of Samson and Delilah which hung on the wall, and at thecircular beer-stains on the table, and at the spittoons underfootfilled with sawdust. The whole aspect of the scene had thatdepressing effect on Jonah which few places can produce like atap-room on a Sunday evening when the setting sun is slanting in, andno liquor is going, and the unfortunate wayfarer finds himself withno other haven of rest.

It began to grow at dusk. They couldn't waitlonger, really, for the tea, they said. "Yet what else can wedo?" asked Jonah. "It is a three-mile walk for you."

"I suppose we can have some beer," saidMirabella.

"Beer, oh yes. I had forgotten that. Somehowit seems odd to come to a public-house for beer on a Sunday evening.”

"But we didn't."

"No, we didn't." Jonah by this timewished he was out of such an uncongenial atmosphere; but he orderedthe beer, which was promptly brought.

Mirabella tasted it. "Ugh!" she said.

Jonah tasted. "What's the matter with it?"he asked. “I don't understand beer very much now, it is true. Ilike it well enough, but it is bad to read on, and I find coffeebetter. But this seems all right.”

"Adulterated—I can't touch it!" Shementioned three or four ingredients that she detected in the liquorbeyond malt and hops, much to Jonah's surprise.

"How much you know!" he saidgood-humouredly.

Nevertheless she returned to the beer and drankher share, and they went on her way. It was now nearly dark, and assoon as they had withdrawn from the lights of the town they walkednearer together, till they touched each other. She wondered why hedid not put his arm round her waist, but he did not; he merely saidwhat to himself seemed a quite bold enough thing: “Take my arm.”

She took it, thoroughly, up to the shoulder. Hefelt the warmth of her body against his, and putting his stick underhis other arm held with his right hand her right as it rested in itsplace.

"Now we are well together, dear, aren't we?"Hey observed.

"Yes," she said; adding to herself:"Rather mild!"

"How fast I have become!" he wasthinking.

Thus they walked till they reached the foot of theupland, where they could see the white highway ascending before themin the gloom. From this point the only way of getting to Mirabella'swas by going up the incline, and dipping again into her valley on theright. Before they had climbed far they were nearly run into by twomen who had been walking on the unseen grass.

“These lovers—you find 'em out o' doors in allseasons and weathers—lovers and homeless dogs only,” said one ofthe men as they vanished down the hill.

Mirabella tutted lightly.

"Are we lovers?" asked Jonah.

"You know best."

"But you can tell me?"

For answer she inclined her head upon hisshoulder. Jonah took the hint, and encircling her waist with his arm,pulled her to him and kissed her.

They walked now no longer arm in arm but, as shehad desired, clasped together. After all, what did it matter since itwas dark, said Jonah to himself. When they were half-way up the longhill they paused as by arrangement, and he kissed her again. Theyreached the top, and he kissed her once more.

"You can keep your arm there, if you wouldlike to," she said gently.

He did so, thinking how trusting she was.

Thus they slowly went towards their home. He hadleft his cottage at half-past three, intending to be sitting downagain to the New Testament by half-past five. It was nine o'clockwhen, with another embrace, he stood to deliver her up at her papa'sdoor.

She asked him to come in, if only for a minute, asit would seem so odd otherwise, and as if she had been out alone inthe dark. He gave way, and followed her in. Immediately that the doorwas opened he found, in addition to her parents, several neighborssitting round. They all spoke in a congratulatory manner, and tookhim seriously as Mirabella's intended partner.

They did not belong to his set or circle, and hefelt out of place and embarrassed. He had not meant this: a mereafternoon of pleasant walking with Mirabella, that was all he hadmeant. He did not stay longer than to speak to her stepmother, asimple, quiet woman without features or character; and bidding themall good night plunged with a sense of relief into the track over thedown.

But that sense was only temporary: Mirabella soonre-asserted her swaying his soul. He walked as if he felt himself tobe another man from the Jonah of yesterday. What were his books tohim? what were his intentions, hitherto adhered to so strictly, as tonot wasting a single minute of time day by day? "Waste!" Itdepended on your point of view to define that: he was just living forthe first time: not wasting life. It was better to love a woman thanto be a graduate, or a parson;ay, or a pope!

When he got back to the house his aunt had gone tobed, and a general consciousness of his neglect seemed written on theface of all things confronting him. He went upstairs without a light,and the dim interior of his room accosted him with sad inquiry. Therelay his book open, just as he had left it, and the capital letters onthe title-page regarded him with fixed reproach in the graystarlight, like the unclosed eyes of a dead man:

Jonah had to leave early next morning for hisusual week of absence at lodgings; and it was with a sense offutility that he threw into his basket upon his tools and othernecessaries the unread book he had brought with him.

He kept his impassioned doings a secret almostfrom himself. Mirabella, on the contrary, made them public among allher friends and acquaintances.

Retracing by the light of dawn the road he hadfollowed a few hours earlier under cover of darkness, with hissweetheart by his side, he reached the bottom of the hill, where hewalked slowly, and stood still. He was on the spot where he had givenher the first kiss. As the sun had only just risen it was possiblethat nobody had passed there since. Jonah looked on the ground andsighed. He looked closely, and could just discern in the damp dustthe imprints of their feet as they had stood locked in each other'sarms. She was not there now, and "the embroidery of imaginationupon the stuff of nature" so depicted her past presence that avoid was in his heart which nothing could fill. A pollard willowstood close to the place, and that willow was different from allother willows in the world.

An hour and a half later Mirabella came along thesame way with her two companions of the Saturday. She unheedinglypassed the scene of the kiss, and the willow that marked it, thoughchattering freely on the subject to the other two.

"And what did he tell 'ee next?"

“Then he said—” And she related almost wordfor word some of his tenderest speeches. If Jonah had been behind thefence he would have felt not a little surprised at learning how veryfew of his sayings and doings on the previous evening were private.

"You've got him to care for 'ee a bit,'nation if you haven't!" murmured Amy judicially. "It'swell to be you!"

In a few moments Mirabella replied in a curiouslylow, hungry tone of latent sensuousness: “I've got him to care forme: yes! But I want him to more than care for me; I want him to haveme—to marry me! I must have him. I can't do without him. He's thesort of man I long for. Ishall go mad if I can't give myself to himaltogether! I felt I should when I first saw him!”

"As he is a romancing, straightforward,honest chap, he's to be had, and as a husband, if you set aboutcatching him in the right way."

Mirabella remained thinking while. "What medbe the right way?" she asked.

"Oh you don't know—you don't!" saidSarah, the third girl.

"On my word I don't!—No further, that is,than by plain courting, and taking care he don't go too far!"

The third girl looked at the second. "She_don't_ know!"

"'Tis clear you don't!" said Amy.

“And having lived in a town, too, as one maysay! Well, we can teach'ee som'at then, as well as you us."

"Yes. And how do you mean—a sure way togain a man? Take me for an innocent, and have done wi' it!"

"As a husband."

“A countryman that's honorable andserious-minded such as he; God forbid that I should say a sojer, orsailor, or commercial gent from the towns, or any of them that beslippery with poor women! I'd do no friend that harm!"

"Well, such as he, of course!"

Mirabella's companions looked at each other, andturning up their eyes in drollery began smirking. Then one went upclose to Mirabella, and, although nobody was near, imparted someinformation in a low tone, the other curiously observing the effectupon Mirabella.

"Ah!" said the last-named slowly. “Iown I didn't think of that way! …But suppose he _isn't_ honorable?A woman had better not have tried it!”

“Nothing venture nothing have! Besides, you makesure that he's honorable before you begin. You'd be safe enough withyours. I wish I had the chance! Lots of girls do it; or do you thinkthey'd get married at all?"

Mirabella purBriad her way in silent thought."I'll try it!" she whispered; but not to them.

Chapter 8

One week's end Jonah was as usual walking out tohis aunt's at Marygreen from his lodging in Alfredston, a walk whichnow had large attractions for him quite other than his desire to seehis aged and morose relative. He diverged to the right beforeascending the hill with the single purpose of gaining, on his way, aglimpse of Mirabella that should not come into the reckoning ofregular appointments. Before quite reaching the homestead his alerteye perceived the top of her head moving quickly hither and thitherover the garden hedge. Entering the gate he found that three youngunfattened pigs had escaped from their sty by leaping clean over thetop, and that she was endeavoring unassisted to drive them in throughthe door which she had set open. The lines of her countenance changedfrom the rigidity of business to the softness of love when she sawJonah, and she bent her eyes languishingly upon him. The animals tookadvantage of the pause by doubling and bolting out of the way.

"They were only put in this morning!"she cried, stimulated to pur Briain spite of her lover's presence.“They were drove from Spaddleholt Farm only yesterday, where Papabought 'em at a stiff price enough. They are wanting to get homeagain, the stupid toads! Will you shut the garden gate, dear, andhelp me to get 'em in. There are no men folk at home, only Mother,and they'll be lost if we don't mind.”

He set himself to assist, and dodged this way andthat over the potato rows and the cabbages. Every now and then theyran together, when he caught her for a moment and kissed her. Thefirst pig was got back promptly; the second with some difficulty; thethird a long-legged creature, was more obstinate and agile. Heplunged through a hole in the garden hedge, and into the lane.

"He'll be lost if I don't follow 'n!"said she. "Come along with me!"

She rushed in full pursuit out of the garden,Jonah alongside her, barely contriving to keep the fugitive in sight.Occasionally they would shout to some boy to stop the animal, but healways wriggled past and ran on as before.

"Let me take your hand, darling," saidJonah. "You are getting out of breath." She gave him hernow hot hand with apparent willingness, and they trotted alongtogether.

"This comes of driving 'em home," sheremarked. “They always know the way back if you do that. They oughtto have been carted over.”

By this time the pig had reached an unfastenedgate admitting to the open down, across which he sped with all theagility his little legs afforded. As soon as the pur Briars hadentered and ascended to the top of the high ground it became apparentthat they would have to run all the way to the farmer's if theywished to get at him. From this summit he could be seen as a minutebacon, following an unerring line towards his old home.

"It's no good!" cried Mirabella. “He'llbe there long before we get there. It don't matter now we know he'snot lost or stolen on the way. They'll see it is ours, and send unback. Oh dear, how hot I am!"

Without relinquishing her hold of Jonah's hand sheswerved aside and flung herself down on the sod under a stuntedthorn, possibly pulling Jonah on to his knees at the same time.

“Oh, I ask pardon—I nearly threw you down,didn't I! But I'm so tired!"

She lay supine, and straight as an arrow, on thesloping sod of this hill-top, gazing up into the blue miles of sky,and still retaining her warm hold of Jonah's hand. He reclined on hiselbow near her.

"We've run all this way for nothing,"she went on, her form heaving and falling in quick pants, her faceflushed, her full red lips parted, and a fine dew of perspiration onher skin. "Well—why don't you speak, dear?"

“I'm blown too. It was all up hill."

They were in absolute solitude—the most apparentof all solitude's, that of empty surrounding space. Nobody could benearer than a mile to them without their seeing him. They were, infact, on one of the summits of the county, and the distant landscapearound Christminster could be discerned from where they lay. ButJonah didn't think of that then.

"Oh, I can see such a pretty thing up thistree," said Mirabella. "A sort of a—caterpillar, of themost loveliest green and yellow you ever came across!"

"Where?" said Jonah, sitting up.

“You can't see him there—you must come here,”she said.

He bent nearer and put his head in front of hers."No—I can't see it," he said.

“Why, on the limb there where it branchesoff—close to the moving leaf—there!” She gently pulled him downbeside her.

"I don't see it," he repeated, the backof his head against her cheek."But I can, perhaps, standing up."He stood accordingly, placing himself in the direct line of her gaze.

"How stupid you are!" she said crossly,turning away her face.

"I don't care to see it, dear: why should I?"he replied looking down upon her. "Get up Abby."

"Why?"

"I want you to let me kiss you. I've beenwaiting for ever so long!"

She rolled round her face, remained a momentlooking deedily aslant at him; then with a slight curl of the lipjumped to her feet, and abruptly claiming “I must mizzle!” Walkedoff quickly homeward. Jonah followed and rejoined her.

"Just one!" hey coaxed.

"Shan't!" she said.

Hey, surprised: "What's the matter?"

She kept her two lips resentfully together, andJonah followed her like a pet lamb till she slackened her pace andwalked beside him, talking calmly on indifferent subjects, and alwayschecking him if he tried to take her hand or clasp her waist. Thusthey descended to the precincts of her Papa's homestead, andMirabella went in, nodding good-bye to him with a supercilious,affronted air.

"I expect I took too much liberty with her,somehow," Jonah said to himself, as he withdrew with a sigh andwent on to Marygreen.

On Sunday morning the interior of Mirabella's homewas, as usual, the scene of a grand weekly cooking, the preparationof the special Sunday dinner. Her papa was shaving before a littleglass hung on the mullion of the window, and her mother and Mirabellaherself were shelling beans hard by. A neighbor passed on her wayhome from morning service at the nearest church, and seeing Caputoengaged at the window with the razor, nodded and came in.

She at once spoke playfully to Mirabella: “Izeed 'ee running with'un—hee-hee! I hope 'tis coming to something?"

Mirabella merely threw a look of consciousnessinto her face without raising her eyes.

"He's for Christminster, I hear, as soon ashe can get there."

“Have you heard that lately—quite lately?”asked Mirabella with a jealous, tigerish in drawing of breath.

“Oh no! But it has been known for a long timethat it is his plan. He'son'y waiting here for an opening. Ah well:he must walk about with somebody, I s'pose. Young men don't mean muchnow-a-days. 'Tis a siphere and a sip there with 'em. 'Twas differentin my time.'

When the gossip had departed Mirabella saidsuddenly to her mother: “I want you and Papa to go and inquire howthe Flickingers be, this evening after tea. Or no—there's eveningservice at Fensworth—you can walk to that.”

"Oh? What's up tonight, then?"

"Nothing. Only I want the house to myself.He's shy; and I can't get unto come in when you are here. I shall lethim slip through my fingers if I don't mind, much as I care for 'n!"

"If it is fine we med as well go, since youwish."

In the afternoon Mirabella met and walked withJonah, who had now for weeks ceased to look into a book of Greek,Latin, or any other tongue. They wandered up the slopes till theyreached the green track along the ridge, which they followed to thecircular British earth-bank adjoining, Jonah thinking of the greatage of the trackway, and of the drovers who had frequented it,probably before the Romans knew the country. Up from the level landsbelow them floated the chime of church bells. Presently they werereduced to one note, which quickened, and stopped.

"Now we'll go back," said Mirabella, whohad attended to the sounds.

Jonah Assented. So long as he was near her heminded little where he was. When they arrived at her house he saidlingeringly: “I won't come in. Why are you in such a hurry to go into-night? It is not near dark."

"Wait a minute," she said. She tried thehandle of the door and found it locked.

“Ah—they are gone to church,” she added. Andsearching behind the scraper she found the key and unlocked the door."Now, you'll come in a moment?" she asked lightly. "Weshall be all alone."

"Certainly," said Jonah with alacrity,the case being unexpectedly altered.

Indoors they went. Did he want any tea? No, it wastoo late: he would rather sit and talk to her. She took off herjacket and hat, and they sat down—naturally enough close together.

"Don't touch me, please," she saidsoftly. “I am part egg shell. Or perhaps I had better put it in asafe place.” She began unfastening the collar of her gown.

"What is it?" said her lover.

“An egg—a cochin's egg. I am hatching a veryrare sort. I carry it about everywhere with me, and it will gethatched in less than three weeks.”

"Where do you carry it?"

"Just here." She put her hand into herbosom and drew out the egg, which was wrapped in wool, outside itbeing a piece of pig's bladder,in case of accidents. Having exhibitedit to him she put it back, “Now mind you don't come near me. Idon't want to get it broke, and have to begin another."

"Why do you do such a strange thing?"

“It's an old custom. I suppose it is natural fora woman to want to bring live things into the world."

"It is very awkward for me just now," hesaid, laughing.

“It serves you right. There—that's all you canhave of me”

She had turned round her chair, and, reaching overthe back of it, presented her cheek to him gingerly.

"That's very shabby of you!"

“You should have caught me a minute ago when Ihad put the egg down! There!” she said defiantly, “I am withoutit now!” She had quickly withdrawn the egg a second time; butbefore he could quite reach hers he had put it back as quickly,laughing with the excitement of her strategy. Then there was a littlestruggle, Jonah making a plunge for it and capturing it triumphantly.Her face flushed; and suddenly becoming conscious he flushed also.

They looked at each other, panting; till he roseand said: “One kiss, now I can do it without damage to property;and I'll go!"

But she had jumped up too. "You must find mefirst!" she cried.

Her lover followed her as she withdrew. It was nowdark inside the room, and the window being small he could notdiscover for a long time what had become of her, till a laughrevealed her to have rushed up the stairs, whither Jonah rushed ather heels.

Chapter 9

It was some two months later in the year, and thepair had met constantly during the interval. Mirabella seemeddissatisfied; she was always imagining, and waiting, and wondering.

One day she met the itinerant Cornwall. She, likeall the cottagers thereabout, knew the quack well, and she begantelling him of here experiences. Mirabella had been gloomy, butbefore he left her she had grown brighter. That evening she kept anappointment with Jonah, who seemed sad.

"I'm going away," he said to her. “Ithink I ought to go. I think it will be better both for you and forme. I wish some things had never begun! I was much to blame, I know.But it is never too late to come.”

Mirabella began to cry. "How do you know it'snot too late?" she said." That's all very well to say! Ihaven't told you yet!" and she looked into his face withstreaming eyes.

"What?" he asked, turning pale."Not...?"

"Yes! And what shall I do if you desert me?”

“Oh, Mirabella—how can you say that, my dear!You _know_ I wouldn't desert you!"

"Well then—"

“I have next to no wages as yet, you know; orperhaps I should have thought of this before… But, of course ifthat's the case, we must marry! What other thing do you think I coulddream of doing?”

"I thought—I thought, dear, perhaps youwould go away all the more for that, and leave me to face it alone!"

“You knew better! Of course I never dreamed sixmonths ago, or even three, of marrying. It is a complete smashing upof my plans—I mean my plans before I knew you, my dear. But whatare they, after all! Dreams about books, and degrees, and impossiblefellowships, and all that. Certainly we'll marry: we must!”

That night he went out alone, and walked in thedark self-communing. He knew well, too well, in the secret center ofhis brain, that Mirabellawa was not worth a great deal as a specimenof womankind. Yet, such being the custom of the rural districts amonghonorable young men who had drifted so far into intimacy with a womanas he unfortunately had done,he was ready to abide by what he hadsaid, and take the consequences. For his own soothing he kept up afactitious belief in her. His idea of ??her was the thing of mostconsequence, not Mirabella herself, he sometimes said laconically.

The bans were put in and published the very nextSunday. The people of the parish all said what a simple fool youngFalconeri was. All his reading had only come to this, that he wouldhave to sell his books to buy saucepans. Those who guessed theprobable state of affairs, Mirabella's parents being among them,declared that it was the sort of conduct they would have expected ofsuch an honest young man as Jonah in repair of the wrong he had donehis innocent sweetheart. The parson who married them seemed to thinkit satisfactory too. And so, standing before the aforesaidofficiator, the two swore that at every other time of their livestill death took them, they would assuredly believe, feel, and desireprecisely as they had believed, felt, and desired during the fewpreceding weeks.

Falconeri's aunt being a baker she made him abride-cake, saying bitterly that it was the last thing she could dofor him, poor silly fellow; and that it would have been far betterif, instead of his living to trouble her, he had gone undergroundyears before with his papa and mother. Of this cake Mirabella tooksome slices, wrapped them up in white note-paper, and sent them toher companions in the pork-dressing business, Amy and Sarah, labelingeach packet “_In remembrance of good advice_.”

The prospects of the newly married couple werecertainly not very brilliant even to the most sanguine mind. He, astone-mason's apprentice, nineteen years of age, was working for halfwages till he should be out of his time. His wife was absolutelyuseless in a town-lodging, where he at first had considered it wouldbe necessary for them to live. But the urgent need of adding toincome in ever so little a degree caused him to take a lonelyroadside cottage between the Brown House and Marygreen, that he mighthave the profits of a vegetable garden, and utilize her pastexperiences by letting her keep a pig. But it was not the sort oflife he had bargained for, and it was a long way to walk to and fromAlfredston every day. Mirabella, however, felt that all thesemake-shifts were temporary; she had gained a husband;

So to the cottage he took her on the evening ofthe marriage, giving up his old room at his aunt's—where so much ofthe hard labor at Greek and Latin had been carried on.

A little chill overspread him at her firstunrobing. A long tail of hair, which Mirabella wore twisted up in anenormous knob at the back of her head, was deliberately unfastened,stroked out, and hung upon the looking-glass which he had bought her.

"What—it wasn't your own?" he said,with a sudden distaste for her.

"Oh no—it never is nowadays with the betterclass."

“Nonsense! Perhaps not in towns. But in thecountry it is supposed to be different. Besides, you've enough ofyour own, surely?”

“Yes, enough as country notions go. But in townthe men expect more,and when I was barmaid at Aldbrickham—”

“Barmaid at Aldbrickham?”

“Well, not exactly barmaid—I used to draw thedrink at a public house there—just for a little time; that was all.Some people put me up to getting this, and I bought it just for afancy. The more you have the better in Aldbrickham, which is a finertown than all your Christminsters. Every lady of position wears falsehair—the barber's assistant told me so.”

Jonah thought with a feeling of sickness thatthough this might be true to some extent, for all that he knew, manyunsophisticated girls would and did go to towns and remain there foryears without losing their simplicity of life and embellishments.Others, alas, had an instinct toward artificiality in their veryblood, and became adepts in counterfeiting at the first glimpse ofit. However, perhaps there was no great sin in a woman adding to herhair, and he resolved to think no more of it.

A new-made wife can usually manage to exciteinterest for a few weeks, even though the prospects of the householdways and means are cloudy. There is a certain piquancy about hersituation, and her manner to her acquaintance at the sense of it,which carries off the gloom of facts, and renders even the humblestbride independent while of the real. Mrs. Jonah Falconeri was walkingin the streets of Alfredston one market day with this quality in hercarriage when she met Amy her former friend, whom she had not seensince the wedding.

As usual they laughed before talking; the worldseemed funny to them without saying it.

"So it turned out a good plan, you see!"remarked the girl to the wife." I knew it would with such ashim. He's a dear good fellow, and you ought to be proud of un."

"I am," said Mrs. Falconeri quietly.

“And when do you expect?”

"Ssh! Not at all."

"What!"

"I was mistaken."

“Oh, Mirabella, Mirabella; you be a deep one!crap! well, that's clever—it's a real stroke of genius! It is athing I never thought o',wi' all my experience! I never thoughtbeyond bringing about the real thing—not that one could sham it!”

“Don't you be too quick to cry sham! 'T wasn'tsham. I didn't know."

“My word—won't he be in a taking! He'll giveit to 'ee o' Saturday nights! Whatever it was, he'll say it was atrick—a double one, by the Lord!”

“I'll own to the first, but not to the second…Pooh—he won't care! He'll be glad I was wrong in what I said. He'llshake down, bless'ee—men always do. What can 'em do otherwise?Married is married.”

Nevertheless it was with a little uneasiness thatMirabella approached the time when in the natural course of thingsshe would have to reveal that the alarm she had raised had beenwithout foundation. The occasion was one evening at bedtime, and theywere in their chamber in the lonely cottage by the wayside to whichJonah walked home from his work every day. He had worked hard thewhole twelve hours, and had retired to rest before his wife. When shecame into the room he was between sleeping and waking, and was barelyconscious of her undressing before the little looking-glass as helay.

One action of hers, however, brought him to fullcognition. Her face being reflected towards him as she sat, he couldperceive that she was amusing herself by artificially producing ineach cheek the dimple before alluded to, a curious accomplishment ofwhich she was mistress, effecting it by a momentary suction. Itseemed to him for the first time that the dimples were far oftenerabsent from her face during his intercourse with her nowadays thanthey had been in the earlier weeks of their acquaintance.

"Don't do that, Mirabella!" he saidsuddenly. "There is no harm in it, but—I don't like to seeyou."

She turned and laughed. "Lord, I didn't knowyou were awake!" she said."How countrified you are! That'snothing."

"Where did you learn it?"

“Nowhere that I know of. They used to staywithout any trouble when I was at the public house; but now theywon't. My face was fatter then.”

“I don't care about dimples. I don't think theyimprove a woman—particularly a married woman, and of full-sizedfigure like you.”

"Most men think otherwise."

“I don't care what most men think if they do.How do you know?"

"I used to be told so when I was serving inthe tap-room."

“Ah—that public-house experience accounts foryour knowing about the adulthood of the ale when we went and had somethat Sunday evening. I thought when I married you that you had alwayslived in your Papa's house.”

“You ought to have known better than that, andseen I was a little more finished than I could have been by stayingwhere I was born. There wasn't much to do at home, and I was eatingmy head off, so I went away for three months."

"You'll soon have plenty to do now, dear,won't you?"

"How do you mean?"

"Why, of course—little things to make."

"Oh."

“When will it be? Can't you tell me exactly,instead of in such general terms as you have used?”

"Tell you?"

"Yes—the date."

“There's nothing to tell. I made a mistake.”

"What?"

"It was a mistake."

He sat bolt upright in bed and looked at her. “Howcan that be?”

"Women fancy wrong things sometimes."

“But—! Why, of course, so unprepared as I was,without a stick of furniture, and hardly a shilling, I shouldn't havehurried on our affair, and brought you to a half-furnished hut beforeI was ready, if it had not been for the news you gave me, which madeit necessary to save you, ready or no… Good God!”

“Don't take on, dear. What's done can't beundone."

"I have no more to say!"

He gave the answer simply, and lay down; and therewas silence between them.

When Jonah awoke the next morning he seemed to seethe world with a different eye. As to the point in question he wascompelled to accept her word; in the circumstances he could not haveacted otherwise while ordinary notions prevailed. But how did theycome to prevail?

There seemed to him, vaguely and dimly, somethingwrong in a social ritual which made necessary a canceling ofwell-formed schemes involving years of thought and labor, offorthcoming a man's one opportunity of showing himself superior tothe lower animals, and of contributing his units of work to thegeneral progress of his generation, because of a momentary surpriseby a new and transitory instinct which had nothing in it of thenature of vice, and could be only at the most called weakness. He wasinclined to inquire what head done, or she lost, for that matter,that he deserved to be caught in a gin which would cripple him, ifnot her also, for the rest of lifetime? There was perhaps somethingfortunate in the fact that the immediate reason of his marriage hadproved to be non-existent. But the marriage remained.

Chapter 10

The time arrived for killing the pig which Jonahand his wife had fattened in their sty during the autumn months, andthe butchering was timed to take place as soon as it was light in themorning, so that Jonah might get to Alfredston without losing morethan a quarter of a day.

The night had seemed strangely silent. Jonahlooked out of the window long before dawn, and perceived that theground was covered with snow—snow rather deep for the season, itseemed a few flakes still falling.

"I'm afraid the pig-killer won't be able tocome," he said to Mirabella.

"Oh, he'll come. You must get up and make thewater hot, if you Allhallows to scald him. Though I like singingbest.”

"I'll get up," said Jonah. "I likethe way of my own county."

He went downstairs, lit the fire under the copper,and began feeding it with bean-stalks, all the time without a candle,the blaze flinging cheerful shine into the room; though for him thesense of cheerfulness was lessened by thoughts on the reason of thatblaze—to heat water to scald the bristles from the body of ananimal that as yet lived, and whose voice could be continually heardfrom a corner of the garden. At half-past six, the time ofappointment with the butcher, the water boiled, and Jonah's wife camedownstairs.

"Is Hallow come?" she asked.

"No."

They waited, and it grew lighter, with the dreamylight of a snowy dawn. She went out, gazed along the road, andreturning said, “He's not coming. Drunk last night, I expect. Thesnow is not enough to hinder him, surely!”

"Then we must put it off. It is only thewater boiled for nothing. The snow may be deep in the valley."

"Can't be put off. There's no more victimsfor the pig. He ate the last mixing o' barley meal yesterdaymorning."

“Yesterday morning? What has he lived on since?”

"Nothing."

"What—he has been starving?"

"Yes. We always do it the last day or two, tosave bother with the innards. What ignorance, not to know that!"

“That accounts for his crying so. Poorcreatures!”

“Well—you must do the sticking—there's nohelp for it. I'll show you how. Or I'll do it myself—I think Icould. Though as it is such a bigwig I had rather Hallow had done it.However, his basket o' knives and things have already been sent onhere, and we can use 'em."

"Of course you shan't do it," saidJonah. "I'll do it, since it must be done."

He went out to the sty, shoveled away the snow forthe space of a couple of yards or more, and placed the stool infront, with the knives and ropes at hand. A robin peered down at thepreparations from the nearest tree, and, not liking the sinister lookof the scene, flew away, though hungry. By this time Mirabella hadjoined her husband, and Jonah, rope in hand, got into the sty, andnoised the frighted animal, who, beginning with a squeak of surprise,rose to repeated cries of rage. Mirabella opened the sty-door, andtogether they hoisted the victim on to the stool, legs upward, andwhile Jonah held him Collaboration him down, looping the cord overhis legs to keep him from struggling.

The animal's note changed its quality. It was notrage now, but the cry of despair; long-drawn, slow and hopeless.

"Upon my soul I would sooner have gonewithout the pig than have had this to do!" said Jonah. "Acreature I have fed with my own hands."

“Don't be such a tender-hearted fool! There'sthe sticking-knife—throne with the point. Now whatever you do,don't stick un too deep."

“I'll stick him effectively, so as to make shortwork of it. That's the chief thing."

"You mustn't!" she cried. “The meatmust be well bled, and to do that he must die slow. We shall lose ashilling a score if the meat is red and bloody! Just touch the vein,that's all. I was brought up to it, and I know. Every good butcherkeeps un bleeding long. He ought to be eight or ten minutes dying, atleast.”

"He shall not be half a minute if I can helpit, however the meat may look," said Jonah determinedly.scraping the bristles from the pig's upturned throat, as he had seenthe butchers do, he slit the fat; then plunged into the knife withall his might.

"'OD damn it all!" she cried, “thatever I should say it! You've over stuck un! And I tell you all thetime—”

"Do be quiet, Mirabella, and have a littlepity on the creature!"

"Hold up the pail to catch the blood, anddon't talk!"

However workmanlike the deed, it had beenmercifully done. The blood flowed out in a torrent instead of in thetrickling stream she had desired. The dying animal's cry assumed itsthird and final tone, the shriek of agony; his glazing eyes rivetingthemselves on Mirabella withe eloquently keen reproach of a creaturerecognizing at last the treachery of those who had seemed his onlyfriends.

"Make and stop that!" said Mirabella."Such a noise will bring somebody or other up here, and I don'twant people to know we are doing it ourselves." Picking up theknife from the ground whereon Jonah had flung it, she slipped it intothe gash, and slit the windpipe. The pig was instantaneously silent,his dying breath coming through the hole.

"That's better," she said.

"It's a hateful business!" said hey.

"Pigs must be killed."

The animal heaved in a final convulsion, and,despite the rope, kicked out with all his last strength. Atablespoonful of black clot came forth, the trickling of red bloodhaving ceased for some seconds.

“That's it; now he'll go," she said.“Artful creatures—they always keep back a drop like that as longas they can!”

The last plunge had come so unexpectedly as tomake Jonah stagger, and in recovering himself he kicked over thevessel in which the blood had been caught.

"There!" she cried, thoroughly in apassion. “Now I can't make any blacktop. There's a waste, allthrough you!"

Jonah put the pail upright, but only about a thirdof the whole steaming liquid was left in it, the main part beingsplashed over the snow, and forming a dismal, sordid, uglyspectacle—to those who saw it as other than an ordinary obtainingof meat. The lips and nostrils of the animal turned livid, thenwhite, and the muscles of his limbs relaxed.

"Thank God!" Jonah said. "He'sdead."

"What's God got to do with such a messy jobas a pig-killing, I should like to know!" she said scornfully."Poor folks must live."

"I know, I know," he said. "I don'tscold you."

Suddenly they became aware of a voice at hand.

“Well done, young married people! I couldn'thave carried it out much better myself, cuss me if I could!" Thevoice, which was husky, came from the garden-gate, and looking upfrom the scene of slaughter they saw the burly form of Mr. Hallowleaning over the gate, critically surveying their performance.

"'Tis well for 'ee to stand there and lane!"said Mirabella. “Owing to your being late the meat is blooded andhalf spoiled! 'Won't fetch so much by a shilling a score!'

Hallow expressed his contrition. "You shouldhave waited a bit" he said, shaking his head, "and not havedone this—in the delicate state, too, that you be in at present,ma'am. 'Tis risking yourself too much."

“You don't need to be concerned about that,”said Mirabella, laughing. Jonah too laughed, but there was a strongflavor of bitterness in his amusement.

Hallow made up for his neglect of the killing byzeal in the scalding and scraping. Jonah felt dissatisfied withhimself as a man at what he had done, though aware of his lack ofcommon sense, and that the deed would have amounted to the same thingif carried out by deputy. The white snow, stained with the blood ofhis fellow-mortal, wore an illogical look to him as a lover ofjustice, not to say a Christian; but he could not see how the matterwas to be mended. No doubt he was, as his wife had called him, atender-hearted fool.

He did not like the road to Alfredston now. Itstared him cynically in the face. The wayside objects reminded him somuch of his courtship of his wife that, to keep them out of his eyes,he read whenever he could as he walked to and from his work. Yet hesometimes felt that by caring for books he was not escapingcommon-place nor gaining rare ideas, every working-man being of thattaste now. When passing near the spotty the stream on which he hadfirst made her acquaintance he one day heard voices just as he haddone at that earlier time. One of the girls who had been Mirabella'scompanions was talking to a friend in a shed,himself being thesubject of discourse, possibly because they had seen him in thedistance. They were quite unaware that the shed-walls were so thinthat he could hear their words as he passed.

“Howsoever, 'twas I put her up to it! 'Nothingventure nothing have,'I said. If I hadn't she'd no more have been hismiss's than I."

“'Tis my belief she knew there was nothing thematter when she told him she was…”

What had Mirabella been put up to by this woman,so that he should make her his “miss's,” otherwise wife? Thesuggestion was horridly unpleasant, and it rankled in his mind somuch that instead of entering his own cottage when he reached it heflung his basket inside the garden-gate and passed on, determined togo and see his old aunt and get some supper there.

This made his arrival home rather late. Mirabellahowever, was busy melting down lard from fat of the deceased pig, forshe had been out on a jaunt all day, and so delayed her work.Dreading lest what he had heard should lead him to say somethingregrettable to her he spoke little. But Mirabella was very talkative,and said among other things that she wanted some money. Seeing thebook sticking out of his pocket she added that he ought to earn more.

"An apprentice's wages are not meant to beenough to keep a wife on, ass rule, my dear."

"Then you shouldn't have had one."

"Come on, Mirabella! That's too bad, when youknow how it came about."

“I'll declare adore Heaven that I thought what Itold you was true. Doctor Cornwall thought so. It was a good job foryou that it wasn't so!"

"I don't mean that," he said hastily. “Imean before that time. I know it was not your fault; but those womenfriends of yours gave you bad advice. If they hadn't, or you hadn'ttaken it, we should at this moment have been free from a bond which,not to mince matters, galls both of us devilishly. It may be verysad, but it is true."

“Who's been telling you about my friends? Whatadvice? I insist upon you telling me."

"Pooh—I'd rather not."

“But you shall—you ought to. It is mean of 'eenot to!'

"Very well." And he hinted gently whathad been revealed to him. “But I don't wish to dwell upon it. Letus say no more about it."

Her defensive manner collapsed. "That wasnothing," she said, laughing coldly. “Every woman has a rightto do such as that. The risk is hers.”

"I quite deny it Bella. She might if nolifelong penalty attached to it for the man, or, in his default, forherself; if the weakness of the moment could end with the moment, oreven with the year. But when effects stretch so far she should not goand do that which entraps man if he is honest, or herself if he isotherwise."

"What should I have done?"

“Given me time… Why do you fuss yourself aboutmelting down that pig's fat to-night? Please put it away!"

“Then I must do it to-morrow morning. It won'tkeep."

"Very well—do."

Chapter 11

Next morning, which was Sunday, she resumedoperations about ten o'clock; and the renewed work recalled theconversation which had accompanied it the night before, and put herback into the same intractable temper.

"That's the story about me in Marygreen, isit—that I entrapped 'ee? Much of a catch you were, Lord send!"As she warmed she saw some of Jonah's dear ancient classics on atable where they ought not to have been laid. "I won't have thembooks here in the way!" she cried petulantly; and seizing themone by one she began throwing them upon the floor.

"Leave my books alone!" he said. "Youmight have thrown them aside if you had liked, but as to soiling themlike that, it is disgusting!" In the operation of making lardMirabella's hands had become smeared with the hot grease, and herfingers consequently left very perceptible imprints on thebook-covers. Somehow, in going so, he loosened the fastening of herhair, and it rolled about her ears.

"Let me go!" she said.

"Promise to leave the books alone."

She hesitated. "Let me go!" sherepeated.

"Promise!"

After a pause: "I do."

Jonah relinquished his hold, and she crossed theroom to the door, out of which she went with a set face, and into thehighway. Here she began to saunter up and down, perversely pullingher hair into a worse disorder than he had caused, and unfasteningseveral buttons of her gown. It was a fine Sunday morning, dry, clearand frosty, and the bells of Alfredston Church could be heard on thebreeze from the north. People were going along the road, dressed intheir holiday clothes; they were mainly lovers—such pairs as Jonahand Mirabella had been when they sported along the same track somemonths earlier. These pedestrians turned to stare at theextraordinary spectacle she now presented, bonnet less, herdisheveled hair blowing in the wind, her bodice apart, her sleevesrolled above her elbows for her work, and her hands reeking withmelted fat.

"See how he's served me!" she cried."Making me work Sunday mornings when I ought to be going to mychurch, and tearing my hair off my head, and my gown off my back!"

Jonah was exasperated, and went out to drag her inby main force. Then he suddenly lost his heat. Illuminated with thesense that all was over between them, and that it mattered not whatshe did, or he, her husband stood still, regarding her. Their liveswere ruined, he thought; ruined by the fundamental error of theirmatrimonial union: that of having based a permanent contract on atemporary feeling which had no necessary connection with affinitiesthat alone render a life long comradeship tolerable.

“Going to ill-use me on principle, as your Papaill-used your mother, and your Papa's sister ill-used her husband?”she asked. "All you bra queer lot as husbands and wives!"

Jonah fixed an arrested, surprised look on her.But she said no more, and continued her saunter till she was tired.He left the spot, and, after wandering vaguely a little while, walkedin the direction of Marygreen. Here he called upon his great-aunt,whose infirmities daily increased.

“Aunt—did my Papa ill-use my mother, and myaunt her husband?” said Jonah abruptly, sitting down by the fire.

She raised her ancient eyes under the rim of theby-gone bonnet that she always wore. "Who's been telling youthat?" she said.

"I have heard it spoken of, and want to knowall."

“You med so well, I s'pose; though your wife—Ireckon 'twas she—must have been a fool to open up that! There isn'tmuch to know after all. Your papa and mother couldn't get ontogether, and they parted. It was coming home from Alfredston market,when you were a baby—on the hill by the Brown House barn—thatthey had their last difference, and took leave of one another for thelast time. Your mother soon afterwards died—she drowned herself, inshort, and your papa went away with you to South Wessex, and nevercame here any more.”

Jonah recalled his Papa's silence about NorthWessex and Jonah's mother, never speaking of either till his dyingday.

“It was the same with your papa's sister. Herhusband offended her, and she so disliked living with him afterwardsthat she went away to London with her little maid. The Falconers werenot made for wedlock: it never seemed to sit well upon us. There'ssomething in our blood that won't take kindly to the notion of beingbound to do what we do readily enough if not bound. That's why youought to have hardened to me, and not ha' married."

"Where did Papa and Mother part—by theBrown House, did you say?"

"A little further on—where the road to Fenworth branches off, and the hand post stands. A gibbet once stoodthere not connected with our history. But let that be."

In the dusk of that evening Jonah walked away fromhis old aunt's as if to go home. But as soon as he reached the opendown he struck out upon it till he came to a large round pond. Thefrost continued, though it was not particularly sharp, and the largerstars overhead came out slowly and flickering. Jonah put one foot onthe edge of the ice, and then the other: it cracked under his weight;but this did not deter him. Furloughed his way inward to the center,the ice making sharp noises Ashe went. When just about the middle helooked around him and gave a jump. The cracking repeated itself; buthe didn't go down. He jumped again, but the cracking had ceased.Jonah went back to the edge, and stepped upon the ground.

It was curious, he thought. What was he reservedfor? He supposed he was not a sufficiently dignified person forsuicide. Peaceful death abhorred him as a subject, and would not takehim.

What could he do of a lower kind thanself-extermination; what was there less noble, more in keeping withhis present degraded position? He could get drunk. Of course that wasit; he had forgotten. Drinking was the regular, stereotyped resourceof the despairing worthless. He began to see now why some men boozedat inns. He struck down the hill northwards and came to an obscurepublic-house. On entering and sitting down the sight of the pictureof Samson and Delilah on the wall caused him to recognize the placeas that he had visited with Mirabella on that first Sunday evening oftheir courtship. He called for liquor and drank briskly for an houror more.

Staggering homeward late that night, with all hissense of depression gone, and his head fairly clear still, he beganto laugh boisterously, and to wonder how Mirabella would receive himin his new aspect. The house was in darkness when he entered, and inhis stumbling state it was some time before he could get a light.Then he found that, though the marks of pig-dressing, of fats andscallops, were visible, the materials themselves had been taken away.A line written by his wife on the inside of an old envelope waspinned to the cotton blower of the fireplace:

“_Have gone to my friends. Shall not return._”

All the next day he remained at home, and sent offthe carcass of the pig to Alfredston. He then cleaned up thepremises, locked the door, put the key in a place she would know ifshe came back, and returned to his masonry at Alfredston.

At night when he again plodded home he found shehad not visited the house. The next day went in the same way, and thenext. Then there came letter from her.

That she had gone tired of him she franklyadmitted. He was such a slow old coach, and she did not care for thesort of life he led. There was no prospect of his ever betteringhimself or her. She went further onto say that her parents had, as heknew, for some time considered the question of emigrating toAustralia, the pig-jobbing business being spoor one nowadays. Theyhad at last decided to go, and she proposed to go with them, if hehad no objection. A woman of her sort would have more chance overthere than in this stupid country.

Jonah replied that he had not the least objectionto her going. Rethought it a wise course, since she wished to go, andone that might veto the advantage of both. He enclosed in the packetcontaining the letter the money that had been realized by the sale ofthe pig, with all he had besides, which was not much.

From that day he heard no more of her exceptindirectly, though her Papa and his household did not immediatelyleave, but waited till his goods and other effects had been sold off.When Jonah learned that there was to be an auction at the house ofthe Captors he packed his own household goods into a wagon, and sentthem to her at the aforesaid homestead, that she might sell them withthe rest, or as many of themes she should choose.

He then went into lodgings at Alfredston, and sawin a shop window the little handbill announcing the sale of hisPapa-in-law's furniture. He noted its date, which came and passedwithout Jonah's going near the place, or perceiving that the trafficout of Alfredston by the southern road was materially increased bythe auction. A few days later entered a dingy broker's shop in themain street of the town, and amid heterogeneous collection ofsaucepans, a clothes-horse, rolling-pin, brass candlestick, swinglooking-glass, and other things at the back of the shop, evidentlyjust brought in from a sale, he perceived a framed photograph, whichturned out to be his own portrait.

It was one which he had specially taken and framedby a local main bird's-eye maple, as a present for Mirabella, and hadduly given heron their wedding-day. On the back was still to be read,“_Jonah to Mirabella_,” with the date. She must have thrown it inwith the rest of her property at the auction.

“Oh,” said the broker, seeing him look at thisand the other articles in the heap, and not perceiving that theportrait was of himself, “It's a small lot of stuff that wasknocked down to me at a cottage sale out on the road to Marygreen.The frame is a very useful one, if you take out the likeness. Youshall have it for a shilling."

The utter death of every tender sentiment in hiswife, as brought home to him by this mute and undesigned evidence ofher sale of his portrait and gift, was the conclusive little strokerequired to demolish all sentiment in him. He paid the shilling, tookthe photograph away with him, and burnt it, frame and all, when hereached his lodging.

Two or three days later he heard that Mirabellaand her parents had departed. He had sent a message offering to seeher for a formal leave-taking, but she had said that it would bebetter otherwise, since she was bent on going, which perhaps wastrue. On the evening following their emigration, when his day's workwas done, he came out of doors after supper, and strolled in thestarlight along the too familiar road towards the upland whereon hadbeen experienced the chief emotions of his life. It seemed to be hisown again.

He could not realize himself. On the old track heseemed to be a boy still, hardly a day older than when he had stooddreaming at the top of that hill, inwardly fired for the first timewith ardors Christmastime and scholarship. "Yet I am a man,"he said. “I have a wife. More, I have arrived at the still riperstage of having disagreed with her, disliked her, had a scuffle withher, and parted from her.”

He remembered then that he was standing not farfrom the spot at which the parting between his papa and his motherwas said to have occurred.

A little further on was the summit whenceChristminster, or what he had taken for that city, had seemed to bevisible. A milestone, now as always, stood at the roadside hard by.Jonah drew near it, and felt better than read the mileage to thecity. He remembered that once on his way home he had proudly cut withhis keen new chisel an inscription on the back of that milestone,embodying his aspirations. It had ended in the first week of hisapprenticeship, before he had ended diverted from his purposes by anunsuitable woman. He wondered if the inscription were legible still,and going to the back of the milestone brushed away the nettles. Bythe light of a match he could still discern what he had cut soenthusiastically so long ago:

[THITHER—JF [with a pointing finger]]

The sight of it, unimpaired, within its screen ofgrass and nettles, lit in his soul a spark of the old fire. Surelyhis plan should be to move onward through good and ill—to avoidmorbid sorrow even though hided see ugliness's in the world? _Benagree ET tartaric_—to do good cheerfully—which he had heard to bethe philosophy of one Spinoza, might be his own even now.

He might battle with his evil star, and follow outhis original intention.

By moving to a spot a little way off he uncoveredthe horizon in north-easterly direction. There actually rose thefaint halo, a small dim nebulousness, hardly recognizable save by theeye of faith. It was enough for him. He would go to Christminster assoon as the term of his apprenticeship expired.

He returned to his lodgings in a better mood, andsaid his prayers.

_"Save his own soul he hath nostar."_—SWINBURNE.

_"Nottingham primrose grads niacin fest; Tempore credit amor."_—OVID.

Chapter 12

The next noteworthy move in Jonah's life was thatin which he appeared gliding steadily onward through a duskylandscape of some three yesteryear leafage than had graced hiscourtship of Mirabella, and the disruption of his coarse conjugallife with her. He was walking towards Christminster City, at a pointa mile or two to the south-west of it.

He had at last found himself clear of Marygreenand Alfredston: he washout of his apprenticeship, and with his toolsat his back seemed to ban the way of making a new start—the startto which, barring the interruption involved in his intimacy andmarried experience with Mirabella, he had been looking forward forabout ten years.

Jonah would now have been described as a young manwith a forcible, meditative, and earnest rather than handsome cast ofcountenance. He was of dark complexion, with dark harmonizing eyes,and he wore closely trimmed black beard of more advanced growth thanis usual this age; this, with his great mass of black curly hair, wassome trouble to him in combing and washing out the stone-dust thatsettled on it in the pursuit of his trade. His capabilities in thelatter, having been acquired in the country, were of an all-roundsort, including monumental stone-cutting, Gothic free-stone work forthe restoration of churches, and carving of a general kind. In Londonhe would probably have become specialized and have made himselfa"molding mason," a "foliage sculptor"—perhapsa "statuary."

He had that afternoon driven in a cart fromAlfredston to the village nearest the city in this direction, and wasnow walking the remaining four miles rather from choice than fromnecessity, having always fancied himself arriving thus.

The ultimate impulse to come had a curiousorigin—one more nearly related to the emotional side of him than tothe intellectual, as soften the case with young men. One day while inlodgings at Stonewashed had gone to Marygreen to see his old aunt,and had observed between the brass candlesticks on her mantelpiecethe photograph of a pretty girlish face, in a broad hat withradiating folds under the brim like the rays of a halo. He had askedwho she was. His grand-aunt had gruffly replied that she was hiscousin Bria Waugh, of the initial branch of the family; and onfurther questioning the old woman had replied that the girl lived inChristminster, though she did not know where, or what she was doing.

His aunt would not give him the photograph. But ithaunted him; and ultimately formed a quickening ingredient in hislatent intent of following his friend the school master thither.

He now paused at the top of a crooked and gentledeclivity, and obtained his first near view of the city. Grey-stonedand dun-roofed, it stood within hail of the Wessex border, and almostwith the tip ozone small toe within it, at the northernmost point ofthe crinkled line along which the leisurely Thames strokes the fieldsof that ancient kingdom. The buildings now lay quiet in the sunset, avane here and there on their many spires and domes giving sparkle toa picture of sober secondary and tertiary hues.

Reaching the bottom he moved along the level waybetween pollard willows growing indistinct in the twilight, and soonconfronted southernmost lamps of the town—some of those lamps whichhad sent into the sky the gleam and glory that caught his strainedgaze in his days of dreaming, so many years ago. They winked theiryellow eyes at him dubiously, and as if, though they had beenawaiting him all these years in disappointment at his tarrying, theydid not much want him now.

He was a species of Dick Whiting whose spirit wastouched to inebriates than a mere material gain. He went along theoutlying streets with the cautious tread of an explorer. He sawnothing of the real city in the suburbs on this side. His firstwanting being a lodging he scrutinized carefully such localities asseemed to offer on inexpensive terms the modest type of accommodationhe demanded; and after inquiry took a room in a suburb nicknamed“Bathsheba,” though he did not know this at the time. Here heinstalled himself, and having had some teased forth.

It was a windy, whispering, moonless night. Toguide himself he opened under a lamp a map he had brought. The breezeruffled and fluttered it, but he could see enough to decide on thedirection he should take to reach the heart of the place.

After many turnings he came up to the firstancient medieval pile that he had encountered. It was a college, ashe could see by the gateway. He entered it, walked round, andpenetrated to dark corners which no lamplight reached. Close to thiscollege was another; and a little further on another; and then hebegan to be encircled as it were with the breath and sentiment of thevenerable city. When he passed objects out of harmony with itsgeneral expression he allowed his eyes to slip over them as if he didnot see them.

A bell began clanging, and he listened till ahundred-and-one stroke shad sounded. He must have made a mistake, hethought: it was meant for a hundred.

When the gates were shut, and he could no longerget into the quadrangles, he rambled under the walls and doorways,feeling with his fingers the contours of their moldings and carving.The minutes passed, fewer and fewer people were visible, and still heintercontinental the shadows, for had he not imagined these scenesthrough ten bygone years, and what mattered a night's rest for once?High against the black sky the flash of a lamp would show rocketedpinnacles and indented battlements. Down obscure alleys, apparentlynever trodden noway the foot of man, and whose very existence seemedto be forgotten, there would jut into the path porticoes, oriels,doorways of enriched and florid middle-age design, their extinct airbeing accentuated byte rottenness of the stones.

Knowing not a human being here, Jonah began to beimpressed with the isolation of his own personality, as with aself-specter, the sensation being that of one who walked but couldnot make himself seen or heard. He drew his breath pensively, and,seeming thus almost his own ghost, gave his thoughts to the otherghostly presences with which the nooks were haunted.

During the interval of preparation for thisventure, since his wife and furniture's uncompromising disappearanceinto space, he had read and learned almost all that could be read andlearned by one in his position, of the worthies who had spent theiryouth within these reverend walls, and whose souls had haunted themin their maturer age. Some of them, by the accidents of his reading,loomed out in his fancy, disproportionately large by comparison withthe rest. The brushing of the wind against the angles, buttresses,and door-jambs were as the passing of these only other inhabitants,the tapping of each ivy leaf on its neighbor were as the mutteringsof their mournful souls, the shadows as their thin shapes in nervousmovement, making him comrades in his solitude. In the gloom it was asif he ran against them without feeling their bodily frames.

The streets were now deserted, but on account ofthese things he couldn't go in. There were poets abroad, of earlydate and of late, from the friend and eulogist of Shakespeare down tohim who has recently passed into silence, and that musical one of thetribe who is still among us. Speculative philosophers drew along, notalways with wrinkled forehead sand hoary hair as in framed portraits,but pink-faced, slim, and actives in youth; modern divines sheered intheir surplices, among whom the most real to Jonah Falconeri were thefounders of the religious school called Contrarian; the well-knownthree, the enthusiast, the poet, and the formulator, the echoes ofwhose teachings had influenced him evening his obscure home. A startof aversion appeared in his fancy to move them at sight of thoseother sons of the place, the form in the full-bottomed wig,statesman, rake, reasoner, and skeptic; the smoothly shaven historianso ironically civil to Christianity; with others of the sameincredulous temper, who knew each quad as well as the faithful, andtook equal freedom in haunting its cloisters.

He regarded the statesmen in their various types,men of firmer movement and less dreamy air; the scholar, the speaker,the plodder; the man whose mind grew with his growth in years, andthe man whose mind contracted with the same.

The scientists and philologists followed on in hismind-sight in an odd impossible combination, men of meditative faces,strained foreheads, and weak-eyed as bats with constant research;then official characters—such men as governor-generals andlord-lieutenants, in whom he took little interest; chief-justices andlord chancellors, silent thin-lipped figures of whom he barely knewthe names. A keener regard attached to the prelates, by reason of hisown former hopes. Of them head an ample band—some men of heart,others rather men of head; he who apologized for the Church in Latin;the saintly author of the Evening Hymn; and near them the greatitinerant preacher, hymn-writer, and zealot, shadowed like Jonah byhis matrimonial difficulties.

Jonah found himself speaking out loud, holdingconversations with themes it were, like an actor in a melodrama whoapostrophes the audience on the other side of the footlights; till hesuddenly ceased with a start at his absurdity. Perhaps thoseincoherent words of the wanderer were heard within the walls by somestudent or thinker over his lamp; and he may have raised his head,and wondered what voice it was, and what it betokened. Jonah nowperceived that, so far as solid flesh went, he had the whole agedcity to himself with the exception of a belated townsman here andthere, and that he seemed to be catching a cold.

A voice reached him out of the shade; a real andlocal voice:

"You've been a-setting' a long time on thatplinth-stone, young man. What med you be up to?"

It came from a policeman who had been observingJonah without the latter observing him.

Jonah went home and to bed, after reading up alittle about these men and their several messages to the world from abook or two that he had brought with him concerning the sons of theuniversity. As he drew towards sleep various memorable words oftheirs that he had just been conning seemed spoken by them inmuttering utterances; some audible, some unintelligible to him. Oneof the specters (who afterwards mourned Christminster as “the homeof lost causes,” though Jonah did not remember this) was nowapostatizing her thus:

“Beautiful city! so venerable, so lovely, soravaged by the fierce intellectual life of our century, so serene! …Her ineffable charm keeps ever calling us to the true goal of all ofus, to the ideal, to perfection.”

Another voice was that of the Corn Law convert,whose phantom he had just seen in the quadrangle with a great bell.Jonah thought his soul might have been shaping the historic words ofhis master-speech:

“Sir, I may be wrong, but my impression is thatmy duty towards a country threatened with famine requires that thatwhich has been the ordinary remedy under all similar circumstancesshould be resorted to now, namely, that there should be free accessto the food of man from whatever quarter it may come… Deprive me ofoffice to-morrow, you can never deprive me of the consciousness thatI have exercised the powers committed to me from no corrupt orinterested motives, from no desire to gratify ambition, for nopersonal gain.”

Then the sly author of the immortal Chapter onChristianity: “How shall we excuse the supine inattention of thePagan and philosophic world, to those evidence [miracles] which werepresented by Omnipotence? … The sages of Greece and Rome turnedaside from the awful spectacle, and appeared unconscious of anyalterations in the moral or physical government of the world.”

Then the shade of the poet, the last of theoptimists:

How the world is made for each of us!

And each of the many helps to recruit The life ofthe race by a general plan.

Then one of the three enthusiasts he had seen justnow, the author of the _Apologia_:

"My argument was... that absolute certitudeas to the truths of natural theology was the result of an assemblageof concurring and converging probabilities... that probabilitieswhich did not reach to logical certainty might create a mentalcertitude."

The second of them, no polemic, murmured quieterthings:

Why should we faint, and fear to live alone, Sinceall alone, so Heaven has will's, we die?

He likewise heard some phrases spoken by thephantom with the short face, the genial Spectator:

“When I look upon the tombs of the great, everymotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful,every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief ofparents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I seethe tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity ofgrieving for those whom we must quickly follow."

And lastly a gentle-voiced prelate spoke, duringwhose meek, familiar rhyme, ended to him from earliest childhood,Jonah fell asleep:

Teach me to live, that I may dread The grave aslittle as my bed. Teach me to die…

He didn't wake till morning. The ghostly pastseemed to have gone, and everything spoke of to-day. He started up inbed, thinking he had overslept himself and then said:

“By Jove—I had quite forgotten my sweet-facedcousin, and that she's here all the time! … and my old schoolmaster, too.” His words about his schoolmaster had, perhaps, lesszest in them than his words concerning his cousin.

Chapter 13

Necessary meditations on the actual, including themean bread-and-cheese question, dissipated the phantasmal for awhile, and compelled Jonah to smother high thinking under immediateneeds. He had to get up, and seek for work, manual work; the onlykind deemed by many of its professors to be work at all.

Passing out into the streets on this errand hefound that the college shad treacherously changed their sympatheticcountenances: some were pompous; some had put on the look of familyvaults above ground; something barbaric loomed in the masonry of all.The spirits of the great men had disappeared.

The numberless architectural pages around him heread, naturally, lasses an artist-critic of their forms than as anartisan and comrade of the dead handicrafts men whose muscles hadactually executed those forms. He examined the moldings, stroked themas one who knew their beginning, said they were difficult or easy inthe working, had taken little or much time, were trying to the arm,or convenient to the tool.

What at night had been perfect and ideal was byday the more or less defective real. Cruelties, insults, had, heperceived, been inflicted on the aged erections. The condition ofseveral moved him as he would have been moved by maimed sentientbeings. They were wounded, broken, sloughing off their outer shape inthe deadly struggle against years, weather, and man.

The rottenness of these historical documentsreminded him that he was not, after all, hastening on to begin themorning practically as he had intended. He had come to work, and tolive by work, and the morning had nearly gone. It was, in one sense,encouraging to think that in a place of crumbling stones there mustbe plenty for one of his trade to do in the business of renovation.He asked his way to the work yard of the stone-mason whose name hadbeen given him at Alfredston; and soon heard the familiar sound ofthe rubbers and chisels.

The yard was a little center of regeneration.Here, with no edges and smooth curves, were forms in the exactlikeness of those he had seen abraded and time-eaten on the walls.These were the ideas in modern prose which the likened collegespresented in old poetry. Even some of those antiques might have beencalled prose when they were new. They had done nothing but wait, andhad become poetical. How easy to the smallest building; howimpossible to most men.

He asked for the foreman, and looked round amongthe new traceries, mullions, transoms, shafts, pinnacles, andbattlements standing on the bankers half worked, or waiting to beremoved. They were marked by precision, mathematical straightness,smoothness, exactitude: there in the old walls were the broken linesof the original idea; jagged curves, disdain of precision,irregularity, disarray.

For a moment there fell on Jonah a trueillumination; that here in the stone yard was a center of effort asworthy as that dignified by the name of scholarly study within thenoblest of the colleges. But he lost it under the stress of his oldidea. He would accept any employment which might be offered him onthe strength of his late employer's recommendation; but he wouldaccept it as a provisional thing only. This was his form of themodern vice of unrest.

Moreover he perceived that at best only copying,patching and imitating went on here; which he fancied to be owing tosome temporary and local cause. He did not at that time see thatmedievalist was as dead as fern-leaf in a lump of coal; that otherdevelopments were shaping in the world around him, in which Gothicarchitecture and its association shad no place. The deadly animosityof contemporary logic and vision towards so much of what he held inreverence was not yet revealed to him.

Having failed to obtain work here as yet he wentaway, and thought again of his cousin, whose presence somewhere athand he seemed to feeling waves of interest, if not of emotion. Howhe wished he had that pretty portrait of her! At last he wrote to hisaunt to send it. She did so, with a request, however, that he was notto bring disturbance into the family by going to see the girl or herrelations. Jonah, ridiculously affectionate fellow, promised nothing,put the photograph on the mantel-piece, kissed it—he did not knowwhy—and felt more at home. She seemed to look down and preside overhis tea. It was washing—the one thing uniting him to the emotionsof the living city.

There remained the schoolmaster—probably now areverend parson. But he could not possibly hunt up such a respectableman just yet; so raw and unpolished was his condition, so precariouswere his fortunes. Thus still remained in loneliness. Although peoplemoved around him he virtually saw none. Not as yet having mingledwith the active life of the place it was largely non-existent to him.But the saints and prophets in the window-tracery, the paintings inthe galleries, the statues, the busts, the gargoyles, thecorbel-heads—these seemed to breathe his atmosphere. Like allnewcomers to a spot on which the pasts deeply graven he heard thatpast announcing itself with an emphasis altogether unsuspected by,and even incredible to, the habitual residents.

For many days he haunted the cloisters andquadrangles of the colleges at odd minutes in passing them, surprisedby impish echoes of his own footsteps, smart as the blows of amallet. The Christminster "sentiment," as it had beencalled, ate further and further into him; till he probably knew moreabout those buildings materially, artistically, and historically,than any one of their inmates.

It was not till now, when he found himselfactually on the spot of his enthusiasm, that Jonah perceived how faraway from the object of that enthusiasm he really was. Only a walldivided him from those happy young contemporaries of his with whom heshared a common mental life; men who had nothing to do from morningtill night but to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest. Only awall—but what a wall!

Every day, every hour, as he went in search oflabor, he saw them going and coming also, rubbed shoulders with them,heard their voices, marked their movements. The conversation of someof the more thoughtful among them seemed oftentimes, owing to hislong and persistent preparation for this place, to be peculiarly akinto his own thoughts. Yet he was as far from them as if he had been atthe antipodes. Of course he what. He was a young workman in a whiteblouse, and with stone-dust in the creases of his clothes; and inpassing him they didn't even see him, or hear him, rather saw throughhim as through a pane of glass at their familiars beyond. Whateverthey were to him, he totem was not on the spot at all; and yet he hadfancied he would be close to their lives by coming there.

But the future lay ahead after all; and if hecould only be immediately as to get into good employment he would putup with the inevitable. So he thanked God for his health andstrength, and took courage. For the present he was outside the gatesof everything, colleges included: perhaps some day he would beinside. Those palaces of light and leading; he might some day lookdown on the world through their panes.

At length he did receive a message from thestone-mason's yard—that a job was waiting for him. It was his firstencouragement, and he closed with the offer promptly.

He was young and strong, or he never could haveexecuted with such zest the undertakings to which he now appliedhimself, since they involve dreading most of the night after workingall the day. First he bought a shaded lamp for four and sixpence, andobtained a good light. Then he got pens, paper, and such othernecessary books as he had been unable to obtain elsewhere. Then, tothe consternation of his landlady, he shifted all the furniture ofhis room—a single one for living and sleeping—rigged up a curtainon a rope across the middle, to make double chamber out of one, hungup a thick blind that nobody should know how he was curtailing thehours of sleep, laid out his books, and sat down.

Having been deeply encumbered by marrying, gettinga cottage, and buying the furniture which had disappeared in the wakeof his wife, he had never been able to save any money since the timeof those disastrous ventures, and till his wages began to come in hewas obliged to live in the narrowest way. After buying a book or twohe could not even afford himself a fire; and when the nights reekedwith the raw and cold air from the Meadows he sat over his lamp in agreat-coat, hat, and woolen gloves.

From his window he could perceive the spire of thecathedral, and theology dome under which resounded the great bell ofthe city. The tall tower, tall belfry windows, and tall pinnacles ofthe college by the bridge he could also get a glimpse of by going tothe staircase. These objects he used as stimulants when his faith inthe future was dim.

Like enthusiasts in general he made no inquiriesinto details of procedure. Picking up general notions from casualacquaintance, whenever dwelt upon them. For the present, he said tohimself, the one thing necessary was to get ready by accumulatingmoney and knowledge, and await whatever chances were afforded to sucha one of becoming son of the University. “For wisdom is a defense,and money is a defense; but the excellence of knowledge is, thatwisdom give life to them that have it." His desire absorbed him,and left no part of him to weigh its practicability.

At this time he received a nervously anxiousletter from his poor old aunt, on the subject which had previouslydistressed her—a fear that Jonah would not be strong-minded enoughto keep away from his cousin Brigham and her relations. Beria's papa,his aunt believed, had gone back to London, but the girl remained atChristminster. To make her still more objectionable, she was anartist or designer of some sort in what was called an ecclesiasticalwarehouse, which was a perfect seed-bed of idolatry, and she was nodoubt abandoned to mummers on that account—if not quite a Papist.(Miss Tiara Falconeri was of her date, Evangelical.)

As Jonah was rather on an intellectual track thana theological, this news of Beria's probable opinions did not muchinfluence him one way or the other, but the clue to her whereaboutswas decidedly interesting. With an altogether singular pleasure hewalked at his earliest spare minutes past the shops answering to hisgreat-aunt's description; and beheld in one of them a young girlsitting behind a desk, who was suspiciously like the original of theportrait. He ventured to enter on a trivial errand, and having madehis purchase lingered on the scene. The shop seemed to be keptentirely by women. It contained Anglican books, stationery, texts,and fancy goods: little plaster angels on brackets, Gothic-framedpictures of saints, ebony crosses that were almost crucifixes,prayer-books that were almost missals. He felt very shy of looking atthe girl in the desk; she was so pretty that he couldn't believe itpossible that she should belong to him. Then she spoke to one of thetwo older women behind the counter; and he recognized in the accentscertain qualities of his own voice; softened and sweetened, but hisown. What was she doing? He stole a glance round. Before her laying apiece of zinc, cut to the shape of a scroll three or four feet long,and coated with a dead-surface paint on one side. Hereon she wasdesigning or illuminating, in characters of Church text, the singleword cut to the shape of a scroll three or four feet long, and coatedwith a dead-surface paint on one side. Hereon she was designing orilluminating, in characters of Church text, the single word cut tothe shape of a scroll three or four feet long, and coated with adead-surface paint on one side. Hereon she was designing orilluminating, in characters of Church text, the single word

[ALLELUIA]

"A sweet, saintly, Christian business, hers!"thought hey.

Her presence here was now fairly enough explained,her skill in work of this sort having no doubt been acquired from herPapa's occupation assn ecclesiastical worker in metal. The letteringon which she was engaged was clearly intended to be fixed up in somechance to assist devotion.

Hey came out. It would have been easy to speak toher there and then, but it seemed scarcely honorable towards his auntto disregard her request so incontinent. She had used him roughly,but she had brought him up: and the fact of her being powerless tocontrol him lent apathetic force to a wish that would have beeninoperative as an argument.

So Jonah gave no sign. He would not call upon Briajust yet. He had other reasons against doing so when he had walkedaway. She seemed so dainty beside himself in his rough working-jacketand dusty trousers, that he was as yet unready to encounter her, ashe had felt about Mr. Philson. And how possible it was that she hadinherited the antipathies of her family, and would scorn him, as faras a Christian could, particularly when he had told her thatunpleasant part of his history which had resulted in his becomingenchained to one of her own sex whom she would certainly not admire.

Thus he kept watch over her, and liked to feel shewas there. The consciousness of her living presence stimulated him.But she remained or less an ideal character, about whose form hebegan to weave curious and fantastic day-dreams.

Between two and three weeks afterwards Jonah wasengaged with some foremen, outside Crozier College in Old-timeStreet, in getting a block of worked freestone from a wagon acrossthe pavement, before hoisting it to the parapet which they wererepairing. Standing in position the headman said, “Spain when heheave! He-ho!” And they heaved.

All of a sudden, as he lifted, his cousin stoodclose to his elbow, pausing a moment on the bend of her foot till theobstructing objects should have been removed. She looked right intohis face with liquid, untranslatable eyes, that combined, or seemedto him to combine,keenness with tenderness, and mystery with both,their expression, swell as that of her lips, taking his life fromsome words just spoken to a companion, and being carried on into hisface quite unconsciously. She no more observed his presence than thatof the dust-motes which his manipulations raised into the sunbeams.

His closeness to her was so suggestive that hetrembled, and turned his face away with a shy instinct to prevent herrecognizing him, though ashes had never once seen him she could notpossibly do so; and might very well never have heard even his name.He could perceive that though she was a country-girl at bottom, alatter girlhood of some years in London, and a womanhood here, hadtaken all rawness out of her.

When she was gone he continued his work,reflecting on her. He had been so caught by her influence that he hadtaken no count of her general mold and build. He remembered now thatshe was not a large figure, that she was light and slight, of thetype dubbed elegant. That was about all he had seen. There wasnothing statuesque in her; all wasted motion. She was mobile, living,yet a painter might not have called her handsome or beautiful. Butthe much that she was surprised him. She was quite a long way removedfrom the rusticity that was his. How could one of his cross-grained,unfortunate, almost accursed stock, have contrived to reach thispitch of niceness? London had done it, he suggested.

From this moment the emotion which had beenaccumulating in his breast as the bottled-up effect of solitude andthe monetized locality he dwelt in, insensibly began to precipitateitself on this half-visionary form; and he perceived that, whateverhis obedient wish in a contrary direction, he would soon be unable toresist the desire to make himself known to her.

He concerned to think of her quite in a familyway, since there were crushing reasons why he should not and couldnot think of her in any other.

The first reason was that he was married, and itwould be wrong. The second was that they were cousins. It was notwell for cousins??to fall in love even when circumstances seemed tofavor the passion. The third: even were he free, in a family like hisown where marriage usually meant a tragic sadness, marriage with ablood-relation would duplicate the adverse conditions, and a tragicsadness might be intensified to a tragic horror.

Therefore, again, he would have to think of Briawith only a relation's mutual interest in one belonging to him;regard her in a practical way as some one to be proud of; to talk andnod to; later on, to be invited to tea by, the emotion spent on herbeing rigorously that of a kinsman and well-wisher. So would she beto him a kindly star, an elevating power, a companion in Anglicanworship, a tender friend.

Chapter 14

But under the various deterrent influences Jonah'sinstinct was to approach her timidly, and the next Sunday he went tothe morning service in the Cathedral church of Cardinal College togain a further view of her, for he had found that she frequentlyattended there.

She did not come, and he awaited her in theafternoon, which was finer. He knew that if she came at all she wouldapproach the building along the eastern side of the great greenquadrangle from which it was accessible, and he stood in a cornerwhile the bell was going. A few minutes before the hour for serviceshe appeared as one of the figures walking along under the collegewalls, and at sight of her he advanced up the side opposite, andfollowed her into the building, more than ever glad that he had notas yet revealed himself. To see her, and to be himself unseen andunknown, was enough for him at present.

He lingered while in the vestibule, and theservice was some way advanced when he was put into a seat. It was alouring, mournful, still afternoon, when a religion of some sortseemed a necessity to ordinary practical men, and not only a luxuryof the emotional and leisured classes. In the dim light and thebaffling glare of the clerestory windows he could discern theopposite worshipers indistinctly only, but he saw that Bria was amongthem. He had not long discovered the exact seat that she occupiedwhen the chanting of the 119th Psalm in which the choir was engagedreached its second part, _In quo corrie_, the organ changing to apathetic Gregorian tune as the singers gave forth:

Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way?

It was the very question that was engaging Jonah'sattention at this moment. What a wicked worthless fellow he had beento give vent as head done to an animal passion for a woman, and allowit to lead to such disastrous consequences; then to think of puttingan end to himself; then to go recklessly and get drunk. The greatwaves of pedal music tumbled round the choir, and, nursed on thesupernatural as he had been, it is not wonderful that he could hardlybelieve that the psalm was not specially set by some disregardfulProvidence for this moment of his first entry into the solemnbuilding. And yet it was the ordinary psalm for the twenty-fourthevening of the month.

The girl for whom he was beginning to nourish anextraordinary tenderness was at this time enciphered by the sameharmonies as those which floated into his ears; and the thought was adelight to him. She was probably a frequenter of this place, and,steeped body and soul in church sentiment as she must be byoccupation and habit, had, no doubt, much in common with him. To animpressionable and lonely young man the consciousness of having atlast found anchorage for his thoughts, which promised to supply bothsocial and spiritual possibilities, was like the dew of Sermon, andhe remained throughout the service in as sustaining atmosphere ofecstasy.

Though he was lot to suspect it, some people mighthave said to him that the atmosphere blew as distinctly from Cyprusas from Galilee.

Jonah waited till she had left her seat and passedunder the screen before he himself moved. She did not look towardshim, and by the time he reached the door she was half-way down thebroad path. Being dressed up in his Sunday suit he was inclined tofollow her and reveal himself. But he was not quite ready; and, alas,ought he to do so with the kind of feeling that was awakening in him?

For though it had seemed to have an ecclesiasticalbasis during the service, and he had persuaded himself that such wasthe case, he could not altogether be blind to the real nature of themagnetism. She was such a stranger that the kinship was affectation,and he said, “It can't be! I, a man with a wife, must not knowher!" Still Bria _was_ his own kin, and the fact of his having awife, even though she was not in evidence in this hemisphere, mightbe a help in one sense. It would put all thought of a tender wish onhis part out of Beria's mind, and make her intercourse with him freeand fearless. It was with some heartache that he saw how little hecared for the freedom and fearlessness that would result in her fromsuch knowledge.

Some little time before the date of this servicein the cathedral the pretty, liquid-eyed, light-footed young woman,Bria Waugh, had an afternoon's holiday, and leaving theecclesiastical establishment in which she not only assisted butlodged, took a walk into the country with a book in her hand. It wasone of those cloudless days which sometimes occur in Wessex andelsewhere between days of cold and wet, as if interrelated by capriceof the weather-god. She went along for smile or two until she came tomuch higher ground than that of the city she had left behind her. Theroad passed between green fields, and coming to a stile Bria pausedthere, to finish the page she was reading, and then looked back atthe towers and domes and pinnacles new and old.

On the other side of the stile, in the footpath,she beheld a foreigner with black hair and a sallow face, sitting onthe grass beside a large square board whereon were fixed, as closelyas they could stand, number of plaster statuettes, some of thembronzed, which he was-arranging before proceeding with them on hisway. They were in the main reduced copies of ancient marbles, andcomprised divinities of a very different character from those thegirl was accustomed to see portrayed, among them being a Venus ofstandard pattern, a Diana, and, of the other sex, Apollo, Bacchus,and Mars. Though the figures were many yards away from her thesouth-west sun brought them out so brilliantly against the greenherbage that she could discern their contours with luminousdistinctness; and being almost in a line between herself and thechurch towers of the city they awoke in her an oddly foreign andcontrasting set of ideas by comparison. The man rose, and, seeingher, politely took off his cap, and cried, “Iii-mages!” in anaccent that agreed with his appearance. In a moment he dexterouslylifted upon his knee the great board with its assembled notabilitiesdivine and human, and raised it to the top of his head, bringing themto her and resting the board on the stile. First he offered her hissmaller wares—the busts of kings and queens, then a minstrel, thenwinged Cupid. She shook her head. In a moment he dexterously liftedupon his knee the great board with its assembled notabilities divineand human, and raised it to the top of his head, bringing them to herand resting the board on the stile. First he offered her his smallerwares—the busts of kings and queens, then a minstrel, then wingedCupid. She shook her head. In a moment he dexterously lifted upon hisknee the great board with its assembled notabilities divine andhuman, and raised it to the top of his head, bringing them to her andresting the board on the stile. First he offered her his smallerwares—the busts of kings and queens, then a minstrel, then wingedCupid. She shook her head.

“How much are these two?” she said, touchingwith her finger the Venus and the Apollo—the largest figures on thetray.

He said she should have them for ten shillings.

"I can't afford that," said Bria. Sheoffered considerably less, and other surprise the image-man drew themfrom their wire stay and handed them over the stile. She clasped themas treasures.

When they were paid for, and the man had gone, shebegan to be concerned as to what she should do with them. They seemedso very large now that they were in her possession, and so verynaked. Being of nervous temperament she trembled at her enterprise.When she handled them the white pipe clay came off on her gloves andjacket. After carrying them along a little way openly an idea came toher, and, pulling some huge burdock leaves, parsley, and other rankgrowths from the hedge, she wrapped up her burden as well as shecould in these, so that what she carried appeared to be an enormousarmful of green stuff gathered by a zealous lover of nature.

"Well, anything is better than thoseeverlasting church falls!" she said. But she was still in atrembling state, and seemed almost to wish she had not bought thefigures.

Occasionally peeping inside the leaves to see thatVenus's arm was not broken, she entered with her heathen load intothe most Christian city in the country by an obscure street runningparallel to the main one, and round a corner to the side door of theestablishment to which she was attached. Her purchases were takenstraight up to her own chamber, and she at once attempted to lockthem in a box that was her very own property; but finding them toocumbersome she wrapped them in large sheets of brown paper, and stoodthem on the floor in a corner.

The mistress of the house, Miss Font over, was anelderly lady in spectacles, dressed almost like an abbess; a dab atritual, as become one of her business, and a worshiper at theceremonial church of St. Silas, in the suburb of Bathshebabefore-mentioned, which Jonah also had begun to attend. She was thedaughter of a clergyman in reduced circumstances, and at his death,which had occurred several years before this date, she boldly avoidedpenury by taking over a little shop of church props and developing itto its present creditable proportions. She wore a cross and beadsround her neck as her only ornament, and knew the Christian Year byheart.

She now came to call Bria to tea, and, findingthat the girl did not respond for a moment, entered the room just asthe other was hastily putting a string round each parcel.

"Something you've been buying, Miss Waugh?"she asked, regarding the entrapped objects.

"Yes—just something to ornament my room,"said Bria.

"Well, I should have thought I had put enoughhere already," said Misgovernment, looking round at theGothic-framed prints of saints, the Church-text scrolls, and otherarticles which, having become too stale to sell, had been used tofurnish this obscure chamber. "What is it? How bulky!" Shetore a little hole, about as big as a wafer, in the brown paper, andtried to peep in. “Why, statuary? Two figures? Where did you getthem?"

“Oh—I bought them of a traveling man who sellscasts—”

"Two Saints?"

"Yes."

“What ones?”

“St. Peter and St.—St. Mary Magdalen."

"Well—now come down to tea, and go andfinish that organ text, if there's light enough afterwards."

These little obstacles to the indulgence of whathad been the merest passing fancy created in Bria a great zest forunpacking her objects and looking at them; and at bedtime, when shewas sure of being undisturbed, she robed the divinities in comfort.Placing the pair of figures on the chest of drawers, a candle on eachside of them, she withdrew to the bed, flung herself down thereon,and began reading a book she had taken from her box, which Miss Fontover knew nothing of. It was a volume of Gibbon, and she read thechapter dealing with therein of Julian the Apostate. Occasionally shelooked up at the statuettes, which appeared strange and out of place,there happening to be a Calvary print hanging between them, and, asif the scene suggested the action,

Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean: The worldhath grown gray from thy breath!

Which she read to the end. Presently she put outthe candles, undressed, and finally extinguished her own light.

She was of an age which usually sleeps soundly,yet to-night she kept waking up, and every time she opened her eyesthere was enough diffused light from the street to show her the whiteplaster figures, standing on the chest of drawers in odd contrast totheir environment of text and martyr, and the Gothic-framedCrucifix-picture that was only discernible now as a Latin cross, thefigure thereon being obscured by the shades.

On one of these occasions the church clocks strucksome small hour. It fell upon the ears of another person who satbending over his books at not very distant spot in the same city.Being Saturday night the morrow was one on which Jonah had not sethis alarm-clock to call him at his usually early time, and hence hehad stayed up, as was his custom, two or three hours later than hecould afford to do on any other day of the week. Just then he wasearnestly reading from his Griesbach's text that had for Jonah anindescribable enchantment:inexplicable sounds something like these:—

“_All he min has Those ho Pate, ex ho ta pants,Mai heme's sauteing:_”

Till the sounds rolled with reverent loudness, asa book was heard to close:—

“_Kari has Curios Souses Christs, DI ho ta pantsMai heme's autodidact!_”

Chapter 15

He was a handy man at his trade, an all-round man,as artisans in country-towns are apt to be. In London the man whocarves the boss or knob of leafage declines to cut the fragment ofmolding which merge sin that leafage, as if it were a degradation todo the second half of one whole. When there was not much Gothicmolding for Jonah to run, or much window-tracery on the bankers, hewould go out lettering monuments or tombstones, and take a pleasurein the change of handiwork.

The next time that he saw her was when he was on aladder executing a job of this sort inside one of the churches. Therewas a short morning service, and when the parson entered Jonah camedown from his ladder, and sat with the half-dozen people forming thecongregation, till the prayer should be ended, and he could resumehis tapping. He did not observe till the service was half over thatone of the women was Bria, who had perforce accompanied the elderlyMiss Font over thither.

Jonah sat watching her pretty shoulders, her easy,curiously nonchalant risings and sittings, and her perfunctorygenuflections, and thought what a help such an Anglican would havebeen to him in happier circumstances. It was not so much his anxietyto get on with his work that made him go up to it immediately theworshipers began to take their leave: it was that he dared not, inthis holy spot, confront the woman who was beginning to influence himin such an indescribable manner. Those three enormous reasons why hemust not attempt intimate acquaintance with Bria Waugh, now that hisinterest in her had shown itself to be unmistakably of a sexual kind,loomed as stubbornly sever. But it was also obvious that one couldnot live by work alone; that the particular man Jonah, at any rate,wanted something to love. Some men would have rushed incontinent toher, snatched the pleasure of easy friendship which she could hardlyrefuse, and have left there to chance. Not so Jonah—at first.

But as the days, and still more particularly thelonely evenings, dragged along, he found himself to his moralconsternation, to bethinking more of her instead of thinking less ofher, and experiencing fearful bliss in doing what was erratic,informal, and unexpected. Surrounded by her influence all day,walking past the spots she frequented, he was always thinking of her,and was obliged to own to himself that his conscience was likely tobe the loser in this battle.

To be sure she was almost a fidelity to him still.Perhaps to know her would be to cure himself of this unexpected andunauthorized passion. Voice whispered that, though he desired to knowher, he did not desire to be cured.

There was not the least doubt that from his ownorthodox point of view the situation was growing immoral. For Bria tobe the loved one of a man who was licensed by the laws of his countryto love Mirabella and none other unto his life's end, was a prettybad second beginning when the man was bent on such a course as Jonahpurposed. This conviction was so real with him that one day when, aswas frequent, he was at work in neighboring village church alone, hefelt it to be his duty to pray against his weakness. But much as hewished to be an example in these things he could not get on. It wasquite impossible, he found, to ask to be delivered from temptationwhen your heart's desire was to be tempted unto seventy times seven.So he excused himself. “After all,” he said, “it is notaltogether an _narcolepsy_ that is the matter with me, as at thatfirst time. I can see that she is exceptionally bright; and it ispartly a wish for intellectual sympathy, and a craving forloving-kindness in my solitude.” Thus he went on adoring her,fearing to realize that it was human perversity. For whatever Beria'svirtues, talents, or ecclesiastical saturation, it was certain thatthose items were not at all the cause of his affection for her.

On an afternoon at this time a young girl enteredthe stone-mason's yard with some hesitation, and, lifting her skirtsto avoid dragging them in the white dust, crossed towards the office.

"That's a nice girl," said one of themen known as Uncle Joe.

"Who is she?" asked another.

“I don't know—I've seen her about here andthere. Why, yes, she's the daughter of that clever chap Waugh, whodid all the wrought ironwork at St. Silas' ten years ago, and wentaway to London afterwards. I don't know what he's doing now—notmuch I fancy—as she's come back here.”

Meanwhile the young woman had knocked at theoffice door and asked if Mr. Jonah Falconeri was at work in the yard.It so happened that Jonah had gone out somewhere or other thatafternoon, which information she received with a look ofdisappointment, and went away immediately. When Jonah returned theytold him, and described her, whereupon he exclaimed,"Why—that'smy cousin Bria!"

He looked along the street after her, but she wasout of sight. He had no longer any thought of a conscientiousavoidance of her, and resolved to call upon her that very evening.And when he reached his lodging he found a note from her—a firstnote—one of those documents which, simple and commonplace inthemselves, are seen retrospectively to have been pregnant withimpassioned consequences. The very unconsciousness of looming dramawhich is shown in such innocent first epistles from women to men, or_vice versa_, makes them, when such a drama follows, and they areread over by the purple or lurid light of it, all the moreimpressive, solemn, and in cases, terrible.

Beria's was of the most artless and natural kind.She addressed him ashier dear cousin Jonah; said she had only justlearned by the merest accident that he was living in Christminster,and reproached him without letting her know. They have had such nicetimes together, she said, for she was thrown much upon herself, andmight hardly had any congenial friend. But now there was everyprobability of her soon going away, so that the chance ofcompanionship would perhaps be lost forever.

A cold sweat overspread Jonah at the news that shewas going away. That was a contingency he had never thought of, andit spurred him to write all the more quickly to her. He would meether that very evening, he said, one hour from the time of writing, atthe cross in the pavement which marked the spot of the martyrdom.

When he had dispatched the note by a boy heregretted that in his hurry he should have suggested to her to meethim out of doors, when he might have said he would call upon her. Itwas, in fact, the country custom to meet thus, and nothing else hadoccurred to him. Mirabella had been met in the same way,unfortunately, and it might not seem respectable to a dear girl likeBria. However, it could not be helped now, and removed towards thepoint a few minutes before the hour, under the glimmer of the newlylighted lamps.

The broad street was silent, and almost deserted,although it was not late. He saw a figure on the other side, whichturned out to be hers, and they both converged towards the cross markat the same moment. Before either had reached it she called out tohim:

"I am not going to meet you just there, forthe first time in my life! Come further on."

The voice, though positive and silvery, had beentremulous. They walked on in parallel lines, and, waiting for herpleasure, Jonah watched till she showed signs of closing in, when hedid likewise, the place being where the carriers' carts stood in thedaytime, though there was none on the spot then.

"I am sorry that I asked you to meet me, anddidn't call," began Jonah with the bashfulness of a lover. "ButI thought it would save time if we were going to walk."

"Oh—I don't mind that," she said withthe freedom of a friend. “I really have no place to ask anybody into. What I meant was that the place you chose was so horrid—Isuppose I ought not to say horrid—I mean gloomy and inauspicious inits associations… But isn't it funny to begin like this, when Idon't know you yet?” She looked him up and down curiously, thoughJonah didn't look much at her.

“You seem to know me more than I know you,”she added.

"Yes—I have seen you now and then."

“And you knew who I was, and didn't speak? Andnow I'm going away!"

"Yes. That's unfortunate. I hardly have anyother friend. I have, indeed, one very old friend here somewhere, butI don't quite like to call on him just yet. I wonder if you knowanything of him—Mr. Philson? A parson somewhere about the county Ithink he is."

“No—I only know of one Mr. Philson. He lives alittle way out in the country, at Slumdog. He's a villageschoolmaster."

"Ah! I wonder if he's the same. Surely it isimpossible! Only schoolmaster hush! Do you know his Christian name—isit Phil?”

“Yes—it is; I've directed books to him, thoughI've never seen him."

"Then he couldn't do it!"

Jonah's countenance fell, for how could he succeedin an enterprise wherein the great Philson had failed? He would havehad a day of despair if the news had not arrived during his sweetBeria's presence, but even at this moment he had visions of howPhilson's failure in the grand university scheme would depress himwhen she had gone.

"As we are going to take a walk, suppose wego and call upon him?" said Jonah suddenly. "It's notlate."

She agreed, and they went along up a hill, andthrough some pretty wooded country. Presently the embattled tower andsquare turret of the church rose into the sky, and then theschool-house. They inquired of a person in the street if Mr Philsonwas likely to be at home, and were informed that he was always athome. A knock brought him to the school-house door, with a candle inhis hand and a look of inquiry on his face, which had grown thin andcareworn since Jonah last set eyes on him.

That after all these years the meeting with Mr.Philson should be of this homely complexion destroyed at one strokethe halo which had surrounded the school-master's figure in Jonah'simagination ever since their parting. It created in him at the sametime a sympathy with Philson as an obviously much chastened anddisappointed man. Jonah told him his name, and said he had come tosee him as an old friend who had been kind to him in his youthfuldays.

"I don't remember you in the least,"said the school-master thoughtfully. “You were one of my pupils,you say? Yes, no doubt; but they number so many thousands by thistime of my life, and have naturally changed so much, that I remembervery few except the quite recent ones.”

"It was out at Marygreen," said Jonah,wishing he had not come.

"Yes. I was there a short time. And is thisan old pupil, too?”

“No—that's my cousin… I wrote to you forsome grammars, if you collect, and you sent them?”

"Ah—yes!—I do dimly recall thatincident."

“It was very kind of you to do it. And it wasyou who first started neon that course. On the morning you leftMarygreen, when your goods were on the wagon, you wished me good-bye,and said your scheme was to be a university man and enter theChurch—that a degree was the necessary hall mark of one who wantedto do anything as a theologian or teacher.”

“I remember I thought all that privately; but Iwonder I did not keep my own counsel. The idea was given up yearsago.”

“I never forgot it. It was that which brought meto this part of the country, and out here to see you to-night."

"Come in," said Philson. "And yourcousin, too."

They entered the parlor of the school-house, wherethere was a lamp with a paper shade, which threw the light down onthree or four books. Philson took it off, so that they could see eachother better, and the rays fell on the nervous little face andvivacious dark eyes and hair of Bria, on the earnest features of hercousin, and on the schoolmaster's own maturer face and figure,showing him to be a spare and thoughtful personage of five-and-forty,with a thin-lipped, somewhat refined mouth, a slightly stoopinghabit, and a black frock coat, which from continued frictions shone alittle at the shoulder-blades, the middle of the back, and theelbows.

The old friendship was imperceptibly renewed, theschoolmaster speaking of his experiences, and the cousins??of theirs.He told them that he still thought of the Church sometimes, and thatthough he could not enter it as he had intended to do in former yearshe might enter it ass licentiate. Meanwhile, he said, he wascomfortable in his present position, though he was in want of apupil-teacher.

They did not stay to supper, Bria having to beindoors before it grew late, and the road was retraced toChristminster. Though they had talked of nothing more than generalsubjects, Jonah was surprised to find what a revelation of woman hiscousin was to him. She was so vibrant that everything she did seemedto have its source in feeling. An exciting thought would make herwalk ahead so fast that he could hardly keep up with her; and hersensitivity on some points was such that it might have been misreadas vanity. It was with heart-sickness he perceived that, while hersentiments towards him were those of the frankest friendliness only,he loved her more than before becoming acquainted with her; and thegloom of the walk home lay not in the night overhead, but in thethought of her departure.

“Why must you leave Christminster?” he saidregretfully. "How can you do otherwise than cling to a city inwhose history such men as Newman, Pusey, Ward, Feeble, loom solarge!"

“Yes—they do. Though how great do they loom inthe history of the world? … What a funny reason for caring to stay!I should never have thought of it!” She laughed.

"Well—I must go," she continued. “MissFont over, one of the partners whom I serve, is offended with me, andI with her; and it is best Togo.”

"How did that happen?"

"She broke some statuary of mine."

"Oh? Willingly?"

"Yes. She found it in my room, and though itwas my property she threw it on the floor and stamped on it, becauseit was not according to her taste, and ground the arms and the headof one of the figures all obits with her heel—a horrible thing!"

“Too Catholic-Apostolic for her, I suppose? Nodoubt she called them polish images and talked of the invocation ofsaints.”

“No… No, she didn't do that. She saw thematter quite differently."

"Ah! Then I'm surprised!"

"Yes. It was for quite some other reason thatshe didn't like my patron-saints. So I was led to retort upon her;and the end of it was that I resolved not to stay, but to get into anoccupation in which Ishall be more independent.”

“Why don't you try teaching again? You once did,I heard."

“I never thought of resuming it; for I wasgetting on as apart designer.”

"_Do_ let me ask Mr. Philson to let you tryyour hand in his school? If you like it, and go to a trainingcollege, and become a first-class certified mistress, you get twiceas large an income as any designer or church artist, and twice asmuch freedom.”

“Well—ask him. Now I must go in. Goodbye, dearJonah! I am so glad we have met at last. We don't need quarrelbecause our parents did, need we?"

Jonah did not like to let her see quite how muchhe agreed with her, and went his way to the remote street in which hehad his lodging.

To keep Bria Waugh near him was now a desire whichoperated without regard of consequences, and the next evening heagain set out formulation, fearing to trust to the persuasive effectsof a note only. The school master was unprepared for such a proposal.

"What I rather wanted was a second year'stransfer, as it is called," he said. “Of course your cousinwould do, personally; but she had no experience. Oh—she has, hasshe? Does she really think of adopting teaching as a profession?”

Jonah said she was disposed to do so, he thought,and his ingenious arguments on her natural fitness for assisting Mr.Philson, of which Jonah knew nothing whatever, so influenced theschoolmaster that he said he would engage her, assuring Jonah as afriend that unless his cousin really meant to follow on in the samecourse, and regarded this step haste first stage of anapprenticeship, of which her training in a normal school would be thesecond stage, her time would be wasted quite, the salary being merelynominal.

The day after this visit Philson received a letterfrom Jonah, containing the information that he had again consultedhis cousin, who took more and more warmly to the idea of??tuition;and that she had agreed to come. It did not occur for a moment to theschoolmaster and recluse that Jonah's ardor in promoting thearrangement arose from any other feelings towards Bria than theinstinct of co-operation common among members of the same family.

Chapter 16

The schoolmaster sat in his homely dwellingattached to the school, both being modern erections; and he lookedacross the way at the old house in which his teacher Bria had alodging. The arrangement had been concluded very quickly. Apupil-teacher who was to have been transferred to Mr. Philson'sschool had failed him, and Bria had been taken as stop-gap. All suchprovisional arrangements as these could only last till the nextannual visit of HM Inspector, whose approval was necessary to makethem permanent. Having taught for some two years in London, thoughshe had abandoned that vocation of late, Miss Waugh was not exactly anovice, and Philson thought there would be no difficulty in retainingher services, which he already wished to do, though she had only beenwith him three or four weeks. He had found her quite as bright asJonah had described her;

It was a little over half-past eight o'clock inthe morning and he was waiting to see her cross the road to theschool, when he would follow. At twenty minutes to nine she didcross, a light hat tossed on her head; and he watched her as acuriosity. A new emanation, which had nothing to do with her skill asa teacher, seemed to surround her this morning. He also went to theschool, and Bria remained governing her class at the other end of theroom, all day under his eye. She certainly was an excellent teacher.

It was part of his duty to give her privatelessons in the evening, and some article in the code made itnecessary that a respectable, elderly woman should be present atthese lessons when the teacher and the taught were of differentsexes. Phil Philson thought of the absurdity of the regulation inthis case, when he was old enough to be the girl's papa; but hefaithfully acted up to it; and sat down with her in a room where Mrs.Awes, the widow at whose house Bria lodged, occupied herself withsewing. The regulation was, indeed, not easy to evade, for there wasno other sitting-room in the dwelling.

Sometimes as she figured—it was arithmetic thatthey were working at—she would involuntarily glance up with alittle inquiring smile at him, as if she assumed that, being themaster, he must perceive all that was passing in her brain, as rightor wrong. Philson was not really thinking of the arithmetic at all,but of her, in a novel way which somehow seemed strange to him aspreceptor. Perhaps she knew that he was thinking of her thus.

For a few weeks their work had gone on with amonotony which in itself was a delight to him. Then it happened thatthe children were to be taken to Christminster to see an itinerantexhibition, in the shape of a model of Jerusalem, to which schoolswere admitted at a penny a head in the interests of education. Theymarched along the road two and two, she beside her class with hersimple cotton sunshade, her little thumb cocked up against its stem;and Philson behind in his long dangling-coat, handling hiswalking-stick gently, in the musing mood which had come over himsince her arrival. The afternoon was one of sun and dust, and whenthey entered the exhibition room few people were present butthemselves. The model of the ancient city stood in the middle of theapartment, and the proprietor, with a fine religious philanthropywritten on his features, walked round it with a pointer in his hand,showing the young people the various quarters and places known tothem by name from reading their Bibles; Mount Moriarty, the Valley ofJehoshaphat, the City of Zion, the walls and the gates, outside oneof which there was a large mound like a tumults, and on the mound alittle white cross. The spot, he said, was Calvary.

“I think,” said Bria to the schoolmaster, asshe stood with him a little in the background, “that this model,elaborate as it is, is a very imaginary production. How does anybodyknow that Jerusalem was like this in the time of Christ? I'm surethis man doesn't."

"It is made after the best conjectural maps,based on actual visits to the city as it now exists."

“I fancy we have had enough of Jerusalem,” shesaid, “considering wear not descended from the Jews. There wasnothing first-rate about the place, or people, after all—as therewas about Athens, Rome, Alexandria, and other old cities.”

"But my dear girl, consider what it is tous!"

She was silent, for she was easily repressed; andthen perceived behind the group of children clustered round the modela young man in a white flannel jacket, his form being bent so low inhis intent inspection of the Valley of Jehoshaphat that his face wasalmost hidden from view byte Mount of Olives. "Look at yourcousin Jonah," continued the schoolmaster. "He doesn'tthink we have had enough of Jerusalem!"

"Ah—I didn't see him!" she cried inher quick, light voice. "Jonah—how seriously you are goinginto it!"

Jonah started up from his reverie, and saw her."Oh—Bria!" he said, with a glad flush of embarrassment.“These are your school children, of course! I saw that schools wereadmitted in the afternoons, and thought you might come; but I got sodeeply interested that I didn't remember where I was. How it carriesone back, doesn't it! I could examine it for hours, but I have only afew minutes, unfortunately; for I am in the middle of a job outhere.”

"Your cousin is so terribly clever that shecriticizes it unmercifully," said Philson, with good-humoredsatire. "She is quite skeptical as to its correctness."

“No, Mr. Philson, I am not—altogether! I hateto be what is called clever girl—there are too many of that sortnow!” answered Insensitively. “I only meant—I don't know what Imeant—except that it was what you don't understand!”

“_I_ know your meaning,” said Jonah ardently(although he did not). "And I think you are quite right."

"That's a good Jonah—I know _you_ believein me!" She impulsively seized his hand, and leaving areproachful look on the schoolmaster turned away to Jonah, her voicerevealing a tremor which she herself felt to be absurdly uncalled forby sarcasm so gentle. She had not the least conception of how thehearts of the twain went out to her at this momentary revelation offeeling, and what a complication she was building up thereby in thefutures of both.

The model wore too much of an educational aspectfor the children not to tire of it soon, and a little later in theafternoon they were all marched back to Slumdog, Jonah returning tohis work. He watched the juvenile flock in their clean frocks andpinafores, filing down the street towards the country beside Philsonand Bria, and a sad, dissatisfied sense of being out of the scheme ofthe latter' lives had possession of him. Philson had invited him towalk out and see them on Friday evening, when there would be nolessons to give to Bria, and Jonah had eagerly promised to availhimself of the opportunity.

Meanwhile the scholars and teachers movedhomewards, and the next day, looking on the blackboard in Beria'sclass, Philson was surprised to find upon it, skillfully drawn inchalk, a perspective view of Jerusalem, with every building shown inits place.

"I thought you took no interest in the model,and hardly looked at it?" he said.

"I hardly did," she said, "but Iremembered that much of it."

"It is more than I had remembered myself."

Her Majesty's school-inspector was at that timepaying "surprise-visits" in this neighborhood to test theteaching unawares; and two days later, in the middle of the morninglessons, the latch of the door was softly lifted, and in walked mygentleman, the king of errors—to pupil-teachers.

To Mr Philson the surprise was not great; like thelady in the story, he had been played that trick too many times to beunprepared. But Beria's class was at the further end of the room, andher back was towards the entrance; the inspector therefore came andstood behind her and watched her teaching some half-minute before shebecame aware of his presence. She turned, and realized that anoft-dreaded moment had come. The effect upon her timidity was suchthat she uttered a cry of fright. Philson, with a strange instinct ofsolicitude quite beyond his control, was at her side just in time toprevent her falling from faintness. She soon recovered herself, andlaughed; but when the inspector had gone there was a reaction, andshe was so white that Philson took her into his room, and gave hersome brandy to bring her round. She found him holding her hand.

"You ought to have told me," she gaspedpetulantly, "that one of the inspector's surprise-visits wasimminent! Oh, what shall I do! Now he'll write and tell the managersthat I am no good, and I shall be disgraced for ever!"

“He won't do that, my dear little girl. You arethe best teacher ever Had!”

He looked so gently at her that she was moved, andregretted that she had upbraided him. When she was better she wenthome.

Jonah in the meantime had been waiting impatientlyfor Friday. On both Wednesday and Thursday he had been so much underthe influence of his desire to see her that he walked after dark somedistance along the road in the direction of the village, and, onreturning to his room to read, found himself quite unable toconcentrate his mind on the page. On Friday, as soon as he had gothimself up as he thought Bria would like to see him, and made a hastytea, he set out, notwithstanding that the evening was wet. The treesoverhead deepened the gloom of the hour, and they dripped sadly uponhim, impressing him with forebodings—illogical forebodings; forthough he knew that he loved here also knew that he could not be moreto her than he was.

On turning the corner and entering the village thefirst sight that greeted his eyes was that of two figures under oneumbrella coming out of the vicarage gate. He was too far back forthem to notice him, but he knew at a moment that they were Bria andPhilson. The latter was holding the umbrella over her head, and theyhad evidently been paying a visit to the vicar—probably on somebusiness connected with the school work. And as they walked along thewet and deserted lane Jonah saw Philson place his arm round thegirl's waist; whereupon she gently removed it; but he replaced it;and she let it remain, looking quickly round her with an air ofmisgiving. She did not look absolutely behind her, and therefore didnot see Jonah, who sank into the hedge like one struck with a blight.

"Oh, he's too old for her—too old!"cried Jonah in all the terrible sickness of hopeless, handicappedlove.

He couldn't interfere. What's not Mirabella's? Hewas unable to go on further, and retraced his steps towardsChristminster. Every tread of his feet seemed to say to him that hemust on no account stand in the schoolmaster's way with Bria. Philsonwas perhaps twenty years old, but many a happy marriage had been madein such conditions of age. The ironical clinch to his sorrow wasgiven by the thought that the intimacy between his cousin and theschoolmaster had been brought about entirely by himself.

Chapter 17

Jonah's old and embittered aunt lay unwell atMarygreen, and on the following Sunday he went to see her—a visitwhich was the result of victorious struggle against his inclinationto turn aside to the village of Slumdog and obtain a miserableinterview with his cousin, in which the word nearest his heart couldnot be spoken, and the sight which had tortured him could not berevealed.

His aunt was now unable to leave her bed, and agreat part of Jonah's short day was occupied in making arrangementsfor her comfort. The little bakery business had been sold to aneighbor, and with the proceeds of this and her savings she wascomfortably supplied with necessaries and more, a widow of the samevillage living with her administering to her wants. It was not tillthe time had nearly come for him to leave that he obtained a quiettalk with her, and his words tended insensibly towards his cousin.

“What is Bria born here?”

"She was—in this room. They were livinghere at that time. What made ask that?"

"Oh—I wanted to know."

"Now you've been seeing her!" said theharsh old woman. “And what did it tell 'ee?”

"Well—that I wasn't to see her."

“Have you gossiped with her?”

"Yes."

“Then don't keep it up. She was brought up byher Papa to hate her mother's family; and she'll look with no favorupon a working chap like you—a township girl as she's become bynow. I never cared much about her. A pert little thing, that's whatshe was too often, with her tight-strained nerves. Many's the timeI've smacked her for her impertinence. Why, one day when she waswalking into the pond with her shoes and stockings off, and herpetticoats pulled above her knees, adore I could cry out for shame,she said: 'Move on, Runty! This is no sight for modest eyes!'”

"She was a little child then."

"She was twelve if a day."

“Well—of course. But now she's older she's ofa thoughtful, quivering, tender nature, and as sensitive as—”

"Jonah!" cried his aunt, springing up inbed. "Don't you be a fool about her!"

"No, no, of course not."

“Your marrying that woman Mirabella was about asbad a thing as a man could possibly do for himself by trying hard.But she's gone to the other side of the world, and med never troubleyou again. And they'll be a worse thing if you, tied and bound as yoube, should have a fancy for Bria. If your cousin is civil to you,take her civility for what it is worth. But anything more than arelation's good wishes it is stark madness for 'ee to give her. Ifshe's township and wanton it med bringer to ruin."

“Don't say anything against her, Aunt! Don't,please!"

A relief was afforded to him by the entry of thecompanion and nurse of his aunt, who must have been listening to theconversation, for she began a commentary on past years, introducingBria Waugh as a character in her recollections. She described what anodd little bridesmaid had been when a pupil at the village schoolacross the green opposition, before her Papa went to London—how,when the vicar arranged readings and recitations, she appeared on theplatform, the smallest of them all, “in her little white frock, andshoes, and pink sash”; how she recited "Excelsior,""There was a sound of revelry by night," and "TheRaven"; how during the delivery she would knit her little brownand glare round tragically, and say to the empty air, as if some realcreature stood there—

“Ghastly, grim, and ancient Raven, wanderingfrom the Nightly shore, Tell me what thy lordly name is on theNight's Plutonium shore!”

"She'd bring up the nasty carrion bird thatclear," corroborated the sick woman reluctantly, "as shestood there in her little sash and things, that you could see unalmost before your very eyes. You too, Jonah, had the same trick as achild of seeming to see things in the air."

The neighbor also told of Beria's accomplishmentsin other kinds:

“She wasn't exactly a tomboy, you know; but shecould do things that only boys do, as a rule. I've seen her hit inand steer down the long slide on yonder pond, with her little curlsblowing, one of a file of twenty moving along against the sky likeshapes painted on glass, and up the back slide without stopping. Allboys except herself; and then they'd cheer her, and then she'd say,'Don't be saucy, boys,' and suddenly run indoors. They'd try to coaxher out again. But 'a wouldn't come."

These retrospective visions of Bria only madeJonah the more miserable that he was unable to woo her, and he leftthe cottage of his aunt that day with a heavy heart. He would fainhave glanced into the school to see the room in which Beria's littlefigure had so glorified itself; but he checked his desire and wenton.

It being Sunday evening some villagers who hadknown him during his residence here were standing in a group in theirbest clothes. Jonah was started by a salute from one of them:

"We've got there right enough, then!"

Jonah showed that he did not understand.

“Why, to the seat of learning—the 'City ofLight' you used to talk all about as a little boy! Is it all youexpected of it?”

“Yes; more!” cried Jonah.

“When I was there once for an hour I didn't seemuch in it for my part; laud crumbling buildings, half church, halfalmshouse, and not much going on at that.”

“You are wrong, John; There is more going onthan meets the eye of man walking through the streets. It is a uniquecenter of thought and religion—the intellectual and spiritualgranary of this country. All that silence and absence of goings-on isthe stillness of infinite motion—the sleep of the spinning-top, toborrow the simile of a well-known writer."

“Oh, well, it med be all that, or it med not. AsI say, I didn't see anything of it the hour or two I was there; so Iwent in, and had a pot' beer, and a penny loaf, and a porthole o'cheese, and waited till it was time to come along home. You've joineda college by this time, Suppose?”

"Oh no!" said Jonah. "I am almostas far off that as ever."

"How so?"

Jonah slapped his pocket.

"Just what we thought! Such places be not forsuch as you—only for them with plenty o' money."

"There you are wrong," said Jonah, withsome bitterness. "They are for such ones!"

Still, the remark was sufficient to withdrawJonah's attention from the imaginative world he had lately inhabited,in which an abstract figure, more or less himself, was steeping hismind in a sublimation of thwarts and sciences, and making his callingand election sure to a satin the paradise of the learned. He was setregarding his prospects in scold northern light. He had lately feltthat he could not quite satisfy himself in his Greek—in the Greekof the dramatists particularly. So fatigued was he sometimes afterhis day's work that he could not maintain the critical attentionnecessary for thorough application. He felt that he wanted a coach—afriend at his elbow to tell him in a moment what sometimes wouldoccupy him a weary month in extracting nonparticipating, clumsybooks.

It was decidedly necessary to consider facts alittle more closely than he had done of late. What was the good,after all, of using up his spare hours in a vague labor called“private study” without giving an outlook on practicability?

"I ought to have thought of this before,"he said, as he journeyed back. “It would have been better never tohave embarked in the scheme at all than to do it without seeingclearly where I am going, or what Ian aiming at… This hoveringoutside the walls of the colleges, as if expecting some arm to bestretched out from them to lift me inside, won't do! I must getspecial information."

The next week accordingly he sought it. What atfirst seemed an opportunity occurred one afternoon when he saw anelderly gentleman, who had been pointed out as the head of aparticular college, walking in the public path of a park likeenclosure near the spot at which Jonah chanced to be sitting. Thegentleman came nearer, and Jonah looked anxiously at his face. Itseemed benign, considerate, yet rather reserved. On second thoughtsJonah felt that he could not go up and address him; but he wassufficiently influenced by the incident to think what a wise thing itwould be for him to state his difficulties by letter to some of thebest and most judicious of these old masters, and obtain theiradvice.

During the next week or two he accordingly placedhimself in such positions about the city as would afford him glimpsesof several of the most distinguished among the provosts, wardens, andother heads of houses; and from those he ultimately selected fivewhose physiognomies seemed to say to him that they were appreciativeand far-seeing men. To these five letters he addressed, brieflystating his difficulties, and asking their opinion on his strandedsituation.

When the letters were posted Jonah mentally beganto criticize them; he wished they had not been sent. "It is justone of those intrusive, vulgar, pushing, applications which are socommon in these days," rethought. “Why couldn't I know betterthan address utter strangers in such a way? I may be an impostor, anidle scamp, a man with a bad character, for all that they know to thecontrary… Perhaps that's what I am!”

Nevertheless, he found himself clinging to thehope of some reply as to his one last chance of redemption. He waitedday after day, saying that it was perfectly absurd to expect, yetexpecting. While he waited he was suddenly stirred by news aboutPhilson. Philson was giving up the school near Christminster, for alarger one further south, in Mid-Wessex. what this meant; how itwould affect his cousin; whether, as seemed possible, it was apractical move of the schoolmaster' towards a larger income, in viewof a provision for two instead of one, he would not allow himself tosay. And the tender relations between Philson and the young girl ofwhom Jonah was passionately enamored effectually made it repugnant toJonah's tastes to apply to Phil s on for advice on his own scheme.

Meanwhile the academic dignitaries to whom Jonahhad written vouchsafed no answer, and the young man was thus thrownback entirely on himself, as formerly, with the added gloom of aweakened hope. By indirect inquiries he soon perceived clearly whathe had long uneasily suspected, that to qualify himself for certainopen scholarships and exhibitions was the only brilliant course. Butto do this a good deal of coaching would be necessary, and muchnatural ability. It was next to impossible that a man reading on hisown system, however widely and thoroughly, even over the prolongedperiod of ten years, should be able to compete with those who hadpassed their lives under trained teacher sand had worked to ordainedlines.

The other course, that of buying himself in, so tospeak, seemed the only one really open to men like him, thedifficulty being simply of a material kind. With the help of hisinformation he began to reckon the extent of this material obstacle,and ascertained, to his dismay, that, at the rate at which, with thebest of fortune, he would be able to save money, fifteen years mustelapse before he could be in a position to forward testimonials tothe head of a college and advance to matriculation examination. Theundertaking was hopeless.

He saw what a curious and cunning glamour theneighborhood of the place had exercised over him. To get there andlive there, to move among the churches and halls and become imbuedwith the _genius loci_, had seemed to his dreaming youth, as the spotshaped its charms to him from its halo on the horizon, the obviousand ideal thing to do. "Let me only get there," he had saidwith the fatuousness of Crusoe over his big boat, "and the restis but a matter of time and energy." It would have been farbetter for him in every way if he had never come within sight andsound of the delusive precincts, had gone to some busy commercialtown with the sole object of making money by his wits, and thensurveyed his plan in true perspective. Well, all that was cleared tohim amounted to this, that the whole scheme had burst up, like aniridescent soap-bubble, under the touch of a reasoned inquiry. Helooked back at himself along the vista of his past years, and histhought was akin to Heine's:

Above the youth's inspired and flashing eyes I seethe motley mocking fool's-cap rise!

Fortunately he had not been allowed to bring hisdisappointment into his dear Beria's life by involving her in thiscollapse. And the painful details of his awakening to a sense of hislimitations should now be spared her as far as possible. After all,she had only known a little part of the miserable struggle in whichhe had been engaged thus unequipped, poor, and foreseeing.

He always remembered the appearance of theafternoon on which he awoke from his dream. Not quite knowing what todo with himself, he went unto an octagonal chamber in the lantern ofa singularly built leatherette was set midst this quaint and singularcity. It had windows all round, from which an outlook over the wholetown and its edifices could be gained. Jonah's eyes sweeps all theviews in succession, meditatively, mournfully, yet sturdily. Thosebuildings and their associations and privileges were not for him.From the looming roof of the great library, into which he hardly everhad time to enter, his gaze traveled on to the varied spires, halls,gables, streets, chapels, gardens, quadrangles, which composed theensemble of this unrivaled panorama. He saw that his destiny lay notwith these,

He looked over the town into the country beyond,to the trees which screened her whose presence had at first been thesupport of his heart, and whose loss was now a maddening torture. Butfor this blow he might have borne with his fate. With Bria ascompanion he could have renounced his ambitions with a smile. Withouther it was inevitable that the reaction from the long strain to whichhe had subjected himself should affect him disastrously. Philson hadno doubt passed through similar intellectual disappointment to thatwhich now enveloped him. But the schoolmaster had been since beltswith the consolation of sweet Bria, while for him there was noconsole.

Descending to the streets, he went listlesslyalong till he arrived tan inn, and entered it. Here he drank severalglasses of beer in rapid succession, and when he came out it wasnight. By the light of the flickering lamps he rambled home tosupper, and had not long been sitting at table when his landladybrought up a letter that had just arrived for him. She laid it downas if impressed with a sense of its possible importance, and onlooking at it Jonah perceived that it bore the embossed stamp of oneof the colleges whose heads he had addressed."_One_—at last!"cried Jonah.

The communication was brief, and not exactly whathe had expected; although it really was from the master in person. Itran thus:

LIBRARY COLLEGE.

SIR,—I have read your letter with interest; and,judging from your description of yourself as a working man, I ventureto think that you will have a much better chance of success in lifeby remaining in your own sphere and sticking to your trade than byadopting any other course. That, therefore, is what I advise you todo. yours faithfully,

T.TETUPHENAY.

To Mr. Falconeri, Stone-mason.

This terribly sensitive advice exasperated Jonah.He had known all that before. He knew it was true. Yet it seemed ahard slap after ten years of labor, and its effect upon him just nowwas to make him rise recklessly from the table, and, instead ofreading as usual, to go downstairs and into the street. He stood at abar and tossed off two or three glasses, then unconsciously saunteredalong till he came to spot called The Four ways in the middle of thecity, gazing abstractedly at the groups of people like one in atrance, till, coming to himself, he began talking to the policemanfixed there.

That officer yawned, stretched out his elbows,elevated himself an inc hand a half on the balls of his toes, smiled,and looking humorously at Jonah, said, “You've had a wet, youngman.”

“No; I've only begun,” he replied cynically.

Whatever his wetness, his brains were dry enough.He only heard in part the policeman's further remarks, having falleninto thought on what struggling people like himself had stood at thatcross way, whom nobody ever thought of now. It had more history thanthe oldest college in the city. It was literally teeming, stratified,with the shades of human groups, who had met there for tragedy,comedy, farce; real enactments of the intensest kind. At Four waysmen had stood and talked of Napoleon, the loss of America, theexecution of King Charles, the burning of the Martyrs, the Crusades,the Norman Conquest, possibly of the arrival of Caesar. Here the twosexes had met for loving, hating, coupling, parting; had waited, hadsuffered, for each other; had triumphed over each other; cursed eachother in jealousy, blessed each other in forgiveness.

He began to see that the town life was a book ofhumanity infinitely more palpitating, varied, and compendious thanthe gown life. These struggling men and women before him were thereality of Christminster, though they knew little of Christ orMinster. That was one of the humors of things. The floatingpopulation of students and teachers, who did know both in a way, werenot Christminster in a local sense at all.

He looked at his watch, and, in pursuit of thisidea, he went on till he came to a public hall, where a promenadeconcert was in progress. Jonah entered, and found the room full ofshop youths and girls, soldiers, apprentices, boys of eleven smokingcigarettes, and light women of the more respectable and amateurclass. He had tapped the real Christminster life. A band was playing,and the crowd walked about and jostled each other, and every now andthen a man got upon a platform and sang a comic song.

The spirit of Bria seemed to hover round him andprevent his flirting and drinking with the frolicsome girls who madeadvances—wistful to gain a little joy. At ten o'clock he came away,choosing a circuitous route homeward to pass the gates of the collegewhose head had just sent him the note.

The gates were shut, and, by an impulse, he tookfrom his pocket the lump of chalk which as a workman he usuallycarried there, and wrote along the wall:

“_I have understanding as well as you; I am notinferior to you: yea, who knothole not such things as these?_”—Jobxii. 3.

Chapter 18

The stroke of scorn relieved his mind, and thenext morning he laughed at his self-conceit. But the laugh was not ahealthy one. He re-read the letter from the master, and the wisdom inits lines, which had at first exasperated him, chilled and depressedhim now. He saw himself as a fool indeed.

Deprived of the objects of both intellect andemotion, he could not proceed to his work. Whenever he feltreconciled to his fate as a student, there came to disturb his calmhis hopeless relations with Bria. That the one affine soul he hadever met was lost to him through his marriage returned upon him withcruel persistence, till, unable to bear it longer, he again rushedfor distraction to the real Christminster life. He now sought it outin an obscure and low-veiled tavern up a court which was well knownto certain worthies of the place, and in brighter times would haveinterested him simply by its quaintness. Here he sat more or less allthe day, convinced that he was at the bottom of a vicious character,of whom it was hopeless to expect anything.

In the evening the frequenters of the housedropped in one by one, Jonah still retaining his seat in the corner,though his money was all spent, and he had not eaten anything thewhole day except a biscuit. He surveyed his gathering companions withall the equanimity and philosophy of a man who has been drinking longand slowly, and made friends with several: to wit, Norman Taylor, adecayed church-ironmonger who appeared to have been of a religiousturn in earlier years, but was somewhat blasphemous now; also ared-reductionist; also two Gothic masons like himself, called UncleJim and Uncle Joe. There were present, too, some clerks, and agown-and-surplice-maker's assistant; two ladies who sported moralcharacters of varying depths of shade, according to their company,nicknamed “Bowers' Bliss” and “Freckles”; some horsey men "inthe know" of betting circles; a traveling actor from thetheater, and two devil-may-care-young men who proved to be gown lessundergraduates; they had slipped inky stealth to meet a man aboutbull-pups, and stayed to drink and smoke short pipes with the racinggents aforesaid, looking at their watches every now and then.

The conversation waxed general. Christminstersociety was criticized, the dons, magistrates, and other people inauthority being sincerely pitied for their shortcomings, whileopinions on how they ought to conduct themselves and their affairs tobe properly respected, were exchanged in a large-minded anddisinterested manner.

Jonah Falconeri, with the self-conceit,effrontery, and _aplomb_ of a strong-brained fellow in liquor, threwin his remarks somewhat peremptorily; and his aims having been whatthey were for so many years, everything the others said turned uponhis tongue, by a sort of mechanical craze, to the subject ofscholarship and study, the extent of his own learning being dweltupon with an insistence that would have appeared pitiable to himselfin his sane hours.

“I don't care a damn,” he was saying, “forany provost, warden, principal, fellow, or cursed master of arts inthe university! What I know is that I'd lick 'em on their own groundif they'd give me a chance, and show 'em a few things they are not upto yet!”

"Hear, hear!" said the undergraduatesfrom the corner, where they were talking privately about the pups.

"You always was fond o' books, I've heard,"said Norman Taylor, "and I don't doubt what you state. Now withme 'twas different. I always saw there was more to be learned outsidea book than in; and I took my steps accordingly, or I shouldn't havebeen the man I am."

"You aim at the Church, I believe?" saidUncle Joe. “If you are such scholar as to pitch yer hopes so highas that, why not give us a specimen of your scholarship? Can't saythe Creed in Latin, man? That was how they once put it to a chap downin my country."

"I should think so!" said Jonahhaughtily.

“Not hey! Like his concept!” screamed one ofthe ladies.

"Just you shut up, Bower o' Bliss!" saidone of the undergraduates."Silence!" He drank off thespirits in his tumbler, rapped with it on the counter, and announced,"The gentleman in the corner is going to rehearse the Articlesof his Belief, in the Latin tongue, for the edification of thecompany."

"I won't!" said Jonah.

"Yes—have a try!" said thesurplice-maker.

"You can't!" said Uncle Joe.

"Yes, he can!" said Norman Taylor.

"I'll swear I can!" said Jonah. "Well,come now, stand me a small Scotch cold, and I'll do it straight off."

"That's a fair offer," said theundergraduate, throwing down the money for the whiskey.

The barmaid concocted the mixture with the bearingof a person compelled to live amongst animals of an inferior species,and the glass was handed across to Jonah, who, having drunk thecontents, stood up and began rhetorically, without hesitation:

“_Credo in jejunum Dem, Pat rem omnipotent em,Factored coolie ET terrace, visibility omnibus ET invisibility._”

"Good! Excellent Latin!” cried one of theundergraduates, who, however, had not the slightest conception of asingle word.

A silence reigned among the rest in the bar, andthe maid stood still,Jonah's voice echoing sonorously into the innerparkour, where the landlord was dozing, and bringing him out to seewhat was going on. Jonah had declaimed steadily ahead, and wascontinuing:

“_Crucifixes gametic pro nobs: sub Poncho Platopasses, ET sepulcher. ET resurrect tertiary die, corundumScriptures._”

“That's the Nicene,” sneered the secondundergraduate. "And we wanted the Apostles'!"

“You didn't say so! And every fool knows, exceptyou, that the Nicene's the most historic creed!”

"Let and go on, let and go on!" said theauctioneer.

But Jonah's mind seemed to grow confused soon, andhe could not get on. He put his hand to his forehead, and his faceassumed an expression of pain.

"Give him another glass—then he'll fetch upand get through it," said Norman Taylor.

Somebody threw down threepence, the glass washanded, Jonah stretched out his arm for it without looking, andhaving swallowed the liquor, went on in a moment in a revived voice,raising it as he neared the end with the manner of a leading priest acongregation:

“_ET in Spirit um Sanctum, Domino ETrevivification, quo ex Petra Filigree proceed. Que cum Petra ET Foliosimulate adoration glorification. Que locusts est per prophets._

“_ET unnamed Catholic am ET Apostolic amEcclesial. Confiscator jejunum Baptismal remission em peculator. ETexpectorate resurrection em tumor. Vitamin venture peculiar. Amen._"

"Well done!" said several, enjoying thelast word, as being the first and only one they had recognized.

Then Jonah seemed to shake the fumes from hisbrain, as he stared round upon them.

"You pack of fools!" hey cried “Whichone of you knows whether I have said it or no? It might have been theRat catcher's Daughter in double Dutch for all that your besottedheads can tell! See what I have brought myself to—the crew I havecome among!”

The landlord, who had already had his licenseendorsed for harboring queer characters, feared a riot, and cameoutside the counter; but Jonah, in his sudden flash of reason, hadturned in disgust and left the scene, the door slamming with a dullthud behind him.

He hastened down the lane and round into thestraight broad street, which he followed till it merged in thehighway, and all the sound of his late companions had been leftbehind. Onward he still went, under the influence of a childlikeyearning for the one being in the world to whom it seemed possible tofly—an unreasoning desire, whose ill judgment was not apparent tohim now. In the course of an hour, when it was between ten and eleveno'clock, he entered the village of Slumdog, and reaching the cottage,saw that a light was burning in a downstairs room, which he assumed,rightly as it happened, to be hers.

Jonah stepped close to the wall, and tapped withhis finger on the pane, saying impatiently, "Bria, Bria!"

She must have recognized his voice, for the lightdisappeared from the apartment, and in a second or two the door wasunlocked and opened, and Bria appeared with a candle in her hand.

“Is it Jonah? Yes, it is! My dear, dear cousin,what's the matter?”

"Oh, I am—I couldn't help coming, Bria!"said he, sinking down upon the doorstep. “I am so wicked, Bria—myheart is nearly broken, and I couldn't bear my life as it was! So Ihave been drinking, and blaspheming, or next door to it, and sayingholy things in disreputable quarters—repeating in idle bravadowords which ought never to bettered but reverently! Oh, do anythingwith me, Bria—kill me—I don't care! Only don't hate me anddespise me like all the rest of the world!"

“You are ill, poor dear! No, I won't despiseyou; of course I won't! Come in and rest, and let me see what I cando for you. Now lean on me, and don't mind." With one handholding the candle and the other supporting him, she led him indoors,and placed him in the only easy chair the meagerly furnished houseafforded, stretching his feet upon another, and pulling off hisboots. Jonah, now getting towards his sober senses, could only say,"Dear, dear Bria!" in a voice broken by grief andcontrition.

She asked him if he wanted anything to eat, but heshook his head. Then telling him to go to sleep, and that she wouldcome down early in the morning and get him some breakfast, she badehim good-night and ascended the stairs.

Almost immediately he fell into a heavy slumber,and did not wake till dawn. At first he did not know where he was,but by degrees his situation cleared to him, and he beheld it in allthe ghastliness of a right mind. She knew the worst of him—the veryworst. How could he face her now? She would soon be coming down tosee about breakfast, as she had said, and there he would be in allhis shame confronting her. He could not bear the thought, and softlydrawing on his boots, and taking his hat from the nail on which shehad hung it, he slipped noiselessly out of the house.

His fixed idea was to get away to some obscurespot and hide, and perhaps pray; and the only spot which occurred tohim was Marygreen. He called at his lodging in Christminster, wherehe found awaiting him a note of dismissal from his employer; andhaving packed up he turned his back upon the city that had been sucha thorn in his side, and struck southward into Wessex. He had nomoney left in his pocket, his small savings, deposited at one of thebanks in Christminster, having fortunately been left untouched. Toget to Marygreen, therefore, his only course was walking; and thedistance being nearly twenty miles, he had ample time to complete onthe way the sobering process begun in him.

At some hour of the evening he reached Alfredston.Here he pawned his waistcoat, and having gone out of the town a mileor two, slept under rick that night. At dawn he rose, shook off thehayseeds and stems from his clothes, and started again, breasting thelong white road up the hill to the downs, which had been visible tohim a long way off, and passing the milestone at the top, whereon hehad carved his hopes years ago.

He reached the ancient hamlet while the peoplewere at breakfast. Weary and mud-bespattered, but quite possessed ofhis ordinary clearness of brain, he sat down by the well, thinking ashe did so what a poor Christ he made. Seeing a trough of water nearhe bathed his face, and went on to the cottage of his great-aunt,whom he found breakfasting in bed, attended by the woman who livedwith her.

"What—out o' work?" asked hisrelative, regarding him through eyes sunken deep, under lids heavy aspot-covers, no other cause for hi stumbled appearance suggestingitself to one whose whole life had been struggle with materialthings.

"Yes," said Jonah heavily. "I thinkI must have a little rest."

Refreshed by some breakfast, he went up to his oldroom and lay down in his shirt-sleeves, after the manner of theartisan. He fell asleep for a short while, and when he awoke it wasas if he had awakened in hell. It _was_ hell—"the hell ofconscious failure," both in ambition and in love. He thought ofthat previous abyss into which he had fallen before leaving this partof the country; the deepest deep he had supposed it then; but it wasnot so deep as this. That had been the breaking in of the outerbulwarks of his hope: this was of his second line.

If he had been a woman he must have screamed underthe nervous tension which he was now undergoing. But that reliefbeing denied to his virility, he clenched his teeth in misery,bringing lines about his mouth like those in the Laocoon, andcorrugations between his brows.

A mournful wind blew through the trees, andsounded in the chimney like the pedal notes of an organ. Each ivyleaf overgrowing the wall of the church less church-yard hard by, nowabandoned, pecked its neighborliness, and the vane on the newVictorian-Gothic church in the new spot had already begun to creak.Yet apparently it was not always the outdoor wind that made the deepmurmurs; it was a voice. He guessed its origin in a moment or two;the curate was praying with his aunt in the adjoining room. Heremembered her speaking of him. Presently the sounds ceased, and astep seemed to cross the landing. Jonah sat up, and shouted "Ho!"

The step made for his door, which was open, and aman looked in. It was a young clergyman.

“I think you are Mr High ridge,” said Jonah.“My aunt has mentioned you more than once. Well, here I am, justcome home; a fellow gone to the bad; though I had the best intentionsin the world at one time. Now I am melancholy mad, what with drinkingand one thing and another.”

Slowly Jonah unfolded to the curate his late plansand movements, by an unconscious bias dwelling less upon theintellectual and ambitious side of his dream, and more upon thetheological, though this had, up till now, been merely a portion ofthe general plan of advancement.

"Now I know I have been a fool, and thatfolly is with me," added Jonah in's conclusion. “And I don'tregret the collapse of my university hopes one jot. I wouldn't beginagain if I were sure to succeed. I don't care for social success anymore at all. But I do feel I should like to do some good thing; and Ibitterly regret the Church, and the loss of my chance of being herordained minister.”

The curate, who was a new man to thisneighborhood, had grown deeply interested, and at last he said: “Ifyou feel a real call to the ministry, and I won't say from yourconversation that you do not, fort is that of a thoughtful andeducated man, you might enter the Church's a licentiate. Only youmust make up your mind to avoid strong drink.”

"I could avoid that easily enough, if I hadany kind of hope to support me!"

_“For there was no other girl, O bridegroom,like her!”_—SAPPHO (HT Wharton).

Chapter 19

It was a new idea—the ecclesiastic andaltruistic life as distinct from the intellectual and emulative life.A man could preach and dogwood to his fellow-creatures without takingdouble-firsts in the schools of Christminster, or having anything butordinary knowledge. The old fancy which had led on to the culminatingvision of the bishopric had not been an ethical or theologicalenthusiasm at all, tuba mundane ambition masquerading in a surplice.He feared that his whole scheme had degenerated to, even though itmight not have originated in, a social unrest which had no foundationin the nobler instincts; which was purely an artificial product ofcivilization. There were thousands of young men on the sameself-seeking track at the present moment. Thessaly hind who ate,drunk,

But to enter the Church in such a scholarly waythat he could not in any probability rise to a higher grade throughall his career than that of the humble curate wearing his life out inan obscure village or city slum—that might have a touch of goodnessand greatness in it; that might be true religion, and a purgatorialcourse worthy of being followed by a remorseful man.

The favorable light in which this new thoughtshowed itself by contrast with his foregone intentions cheered Jonah,as he sat there, shabby and lonely; and it may be said to have given,during the next few days, the _coup de grace_ to his intellectualcareer—a career which had extended over the greater part of a dozenyears. He did nothing, however, for some long stagnant time toadvance his new desire,occupying himself with little local jobs inputting up and lettering headstones about the neighboring villages,and submitting to be regarded as a social failure, a returnedpurchase, by the half- dozen torso of farmers and othercountry-people who condescended to nod to him.

The human interest of the new intention—and ahuman interest is indispensable to the most spiritual andself-sacrificing—was created bay letter from Bria, bearing a freshpostmark. She evidently wrote with anxiety, and told very littleabout her own doings, more than that she had passed some sort ofexamination for a Queen's Scholarship, and was going to enter atraining college at Chester to complete herself for the vocation shehad chosen, partly by his influence. There was theological college atChester; Chester was a quiet and soothing place, almost entirelyecclesiastical in its tone; a spot where worldly learning andintellectual smartness had no establishment; where the altruisticfeeling that he did possess would perhaps be more highly estimatedthan a brilliancy which he did not.

As it would be necessary that he should continuefor a time to work at his trade while reading up Divinity, which hehad neglected at Christminster for the ordinary classical grind, whatbetter course for him than to get employment at the further city, andPurina this plan of reading? That his excessive human interest in thenew place was entirely of Beria's making, while at the same time Briawas regarded as even less than formerly as proper to create it, hadan ethical contradictions to which he was not blind. But that much heconceded to human frailty, and hoped to learn to love her only as afriend and kinswoman.

He considered that he might so mark out his comingyears as to begin his ministry at the age of thirty—an age whichmuch attracted him as being that of his exemplar when he first beganto teach in Galilee. This would allow him plenty of time fordeliberate study, and for acquiring capital by his trade to help hisafter course of keeping the necessary terms at a theological college.

Christmas had come and passed, and Bria had goneto the Chester Normal School. The time was just the worst in the yearfor Jonah to get new employment, and he had written suggesting to herthat he should postpone his arrival for a month or so, till the dayshad lengthened. She had acquiesced so readily that he wished he hadnot proposed it—she evidently did not care much about him, thoughshe had never once reproached him for his strange conduct in comingto her that night, and his silent disappearance. Neither had she eversaid a word about her relations with Mr. Philson.

Suddenly, however, quite a passionate letterarrived from Bria. She was quite lonely and miserable, she told him.She hated the place she wain; it was worse than the ecclesiasticaldesigner's; worse than anywhere. She felt utterly friendless; couldhe come immediately?—though when he did come she would only be ableto see him at limited times, the rules of the establishment she foundherself in being strict to a degree. It was Mr Philson who hadadvised her to come there, and she wished she had never listened tohim.

Philson's suit was not exactly prospering,evidently; and Jonah felt unreasonably glad. He packed up his thingsand went to Chester with a lighter heart than he had known formonths.

This being the turning over a new leaf he dulylooked about for temperance hotel, and found a little establishmentof that description in the street leading from the station. When hehad had something to eat he walked out into the dull winter lightover the town bridge, and turned the corner towards the Close. Theday was foggy, and standing under the walls of the most gracefularchitectural pile in England he paused and looked up. The loftybuilding was visible as far as footbridge; above, the dwindling spirerose more and more remotely, till its apex was quite lost in the mistdrifting across it.

The lamps now began to be lighted, and turning tothe west front he walked round. He took it as a good omen thatnumerous blocks of stoneware lying about, which signified that thecathedral was undergoing restoration or repaired to a considerableextent. It seemed to him, full of the superstitions of his beliefs,that this was an exercise of forethought on the part of a rulingpower, that he might find plenty to do in the art he practiced whilewaiting for a call to higher labors.

Then a wave of warmth came over him as he thoughthow near he now stood to the bright-eyed vivacious girl with thebroad forehead and pile of dark hair above it; the girl with thekindling glance, daringly soft attires—something like that of thegirls he had seen in engravings from paintings of the Spanish school.She was here—actually in this Close—in one of the housesconfronting this very west facade.

He went down the broad gravel path towards thebuilding. It was ancient edifice of the fifteenth century, once apalace, now a training school, with mullioned and ransomed windows,and a courtyard in front shut in from the road by a wall. Jonahopened the gate and went up to the door through which, on inquiringfor his cousin, he was gingerly admitted to a waiting-room, and in afew minutes she came.

Though she had been here such a short while, shewas not as he had seen her last. All her bounding manner was gone;her curves of motion had become subdued lines. The screens andsubtleties of convention had likewise disappeared. Yet neither wasshe quite the woman who handwritten the letter that summoned him.That had plainly been dashed off in an impulse which second thoughtshad somewhat regretted; thoughts that were possibly of his recentself-disgrace. Jonah was quite overcome with emotion.

“You don't—think me a demoralized wretch—forcoming to you as I was—and going so shamefully, Bria?”

"Oh, I haven't tried to! You said enough tolet me know what had caused it. I hope I shall never have any doubtof your worthiness, my poor Jonah! And I'm glad you've come!"

She wore a surrey-colored gown with a little lacecollar. It was made quite plain, and hung about her slight figurewith clinging gracefulness. Her hair, which formerly she had wornaccording to the custom of the day was now twisted up tightly, andshe had altogether the air of a woman clipped and pruned by severediscipline, an under-brightness shining through from the depths whichthat discipline had not yet been able to reach.

She had come forward prettily, but Jonah felt thatshe had hardly expected him to kiss her, as he was burning to do,under other colors than those of cousin ship. He could not perceivethe least sign that Barricaded him as a lover, or ever would do so,now that she knew the worst of him, even if he had the right tobehave as one; and this helped on his growing resolve to tell her ofhis matrimonial entanglement, which he had put off doing from time totime in sheer dread of losing the bliss of her company.

Bria came out into the town with him, and theywalked and talked with tongues centered only on the passing moments.Jonah said he would like to buy her a little present of some sort,and then she confessed, with something of shame, that she wasdreadfully hungry. They were kept on very short allowances in thecollege, and a dinner, tea, and supper all in one was the present shemost desired in the world. Jonah thereupon took her to an inn andordered whatever the house afforded, which wasn't much. The place,however, gave them a delightful opportunity for a_tote-e-tête_,nobody else being in the room, and they talked freely.

She told him about the school as it was at thatdate, and the rough living, and the mixed character of herfellow-students, gathered together from all parts of the diocese, andhow she had to get up and work by gas-light in the early morning,with all the bitterness of a young person to whom restraint was new.To all this he listened to; but it was not what he wanted especiallyto know—her relations with Philson. That was what she did not tell.When they had sat and eaten, Jonah impulsively placed his hand uponhers; she looked up and smiled, and took his quite freely into herown little soft one, dividing his fingers and coolly examining them,as if they were the fingers of a glove she was purchasing.

"Your hands are rather rough, Jonah, aren'tthey?" she said.

"Yes. So would yours be if they held a malletand chisel all day.”

“I don't dislike it, you know. I think it isnoble to see a man's hands subdued to what he works in... Well, I'mrather glad I came to this training-school, after all. See howindependent I shall be after the two years' training! I shall passpretty high, I expect, and Mr Philson will use his influence to getme a big school."

She had touched the subject at last. "I had asuspicion, a fear," said Jonah, "that he—cared about yourather warmly, and perhaps wanted to marry you."

"Now don't visit such a silly boy!"

"He has said something about it, I expect."

“If he had, what would it matter? An old manlike him!”

“Oh, come on, Bria; he's not so very old. And Iknow what I saw him doing—”

"Not kissing me—that I'm certain!"

"No. But putting his arm round your waist."

“Ah—I remember. But I didn't know he was goingto."

"You are wriggling out if it, Bria, and itisn't quite kind!"

Her ever-sensitive lip began to quiver, and hereye to blink, at something this reproof was deciding her to say.

"I know you'll be angry if I tell youeverything, and that's why I don't want to!"

"Very well, then, dear," he saidsoothingly. "I have no real right to ask you, and I don't wishto know."

"I shall tell you!" said she, with theperverseness that was part of her. “This is what I have done: Ihave promised—I have promised—that I will marry him when I comeout of the training school two years hence, and have got mycertificate; his plan being that we shall then take a large doubleschool in a great town—he the boys' and I the girls'—as marriedschool-teachers often do, and make a good income between us.”

"Oh Bria! … But of course it is right—youcouldn't have done better!”

He glanced at her and met their eyes, the reproachin his own belying his words. Then he drew his hand quite away fromhers, and turned his face in estrangement from her to the window.Bria regarded him passively without moving.

"I knew you would be angry!" she saidwith an air of no emotion whatever. “Very well—I am wrong, Isuppose! I ought not to have let you come to see me! We had betternot meet again; and we'll only correspond at long intervals, onpurely business matters!”

This was just the one thing he would not be ableto bear, as she probably knew, and it brought him round at once. "Ohyes, we will," he said quickly. “Your being engaged can makeno difference to me whatever. I have a perfect right to see you whenI want to; and Ishall!”

“Then don't let us talk of it any more. It isquite spoiling our evening together. What does it matter about whatone is going to do two years hence!”

She was something of a riddle to him, and he letthe subject drift away. “Shall we go and sit in the cathedral?”he asked when their meal was finished.

“Cathedral? yes Though I think I'd rather sit inthe railway station,” she answered, a remnant of vexation still inher voice. “That's the center of the town life now. The cathedralhas had its day!”

"How modern you are!"

“So would you be if you had lived so much in theMiddle Ages as I have done these last few years! The cathedral was avery good place four or five centuries ago; but it is played outnow... I am not modern, either. I am more ancient than medievalist,if you only knew."

Jonah looked distressed.

“There—I won't say any more of that!” shecried. “Only you don't know how bad I am, from your point of view,or you wouldn't think so much of me, or care whether I was engaged ornot. Now there's just time for us to walk round the Close, then Imust go in, or I shall be locked out for the night."

He took her to the gate and they parted. Jonah hada conviction that his unhappy visit to her on that sad night hadprecipitated this marriage engagement, and it did anything but add tohis happiness. Her reproach had taken that shape, then, and not theshape of words. However, next day he set about seeking employment,which it was not so easy to get asst Christminster, there being, as arule, less stone-cutting in progress in this quiet city, and handsbeing mostly permanent. But heeded himself in degrees. His first workwas some carving at the cemetery on the hill; and ultimately hebecame engaged on the labor he most desired—the cathedral repairs,which were very extensive, the whole interior stonework having beenoverhauled, to be largely replaced by new. It might be a labor ofyears to get it all done,

The lodgings he took near the Close Gate would nothave disgraced curate, the rent representing a higher percentage onhis wages than mechanics of any sort usually care to pay. Hiscombined bed and sitting-room was furnished with framed photographsof the rectories and deaneries at which his landlady had lived as atrusted servant in her time, and the parlor downstairs bore a clockon the mantelpiece inscribed to the effect that it was presented tothe same serious-minded woman by her fellow-servants on the occasionof her marriage. Jonah added to the furniture of his room byunpacking photographs of the ecclesiastical carvings and monumentsthat he had executed with his own hands; and he was deemed asatisfactory acquisition as tenant of the vacant apartment.

He found an ample supply of theological books inthe city book-shops, and with these his studies were recommended in adifferent spirit and direction from his former course. As arelaxation from the Papas, and such stock works as Paley and Butler,he read Newman, Pusey, and many other modern lights. He hired aharmonium, set it up in his lodging, and practiced chants thereon,single and double.

Chapter 20

“To-morrow is our grand day, you know. Whereshall we go?"

“I have leave from three till nine. Wherever wecan get to and comeback from in that time. Not ruins, Jonah—I don'tcare for them."

“Well—Ward our Castle. And then we can doFoothill if we like—all in the same afternoon.”

“Ward our is Gothic ruins—and I hate Gothic!”

"No. Quite otherwise. It is a classicbuilding—Corinthian, I think; with a lot of pictures."

“Ah—that will do. I like the sound ofCorinthian. We'll go."

Their conversation had run thus some few weekslater, and next morning they prepared to start. Every detail of theouting was a facet reflecting a sparkle to Jonah, and he did notventure to meditate on the life of inconsistency he was leading. HisBeria's conduct was one lovely conundrum to him; he could say nomore.

There duly came the charm of calling at thecollege door for her; her emergence in an unlike simplicity ofcostume that was rather enforced than desired; the traipsing along tothe station, the porters' “Cloverleaves!,” the screaming of thetrains—everything formed the basis of beautiful crystallization.Nobody stared at Bria, because she was so plainly dressed, whichcomforted Jonah in the thought that only himself knew the charmsthose habiliments subdued. A matter of ten pounds spent in adrapery-shop, which had no connection with her real life or her realself, would have set all Chester staring. The guard of the trainthought they were lovers, and put them into a compartment all bythemselves.

"That's a good intention wasted!" saidshe.

Jonah didn't respond. He thought the remarkunnecessarily cruel, and partly untrue.

They reached the park and castle and wanderedthrough the picture galleries, Jonah stopping by preference in frontof the devotional pictures by Del Sarto, Guido Renee, Spaghetti,Asseveration, Carlo Docile, and others. Bria paused patiently besidehim, and stole critical looks into his face as, regarding theVirgins, Holy Families, and Saints, it grew reverent and abstracted.When she had thoroughly estimated him at this, she would move on andwait for him before a Lyle or Reynolds. It was evident that hercousin deeply interested her, as one might be interested in a manpuzzling out hi sway along a labyrinth from which one had one's selfescaped.

When they came out a long time still remained tothem and Jonah proposed that as soon as they had had something to eatthey should walk across the high country to the north of theirpresent position, and intercept the train of another railway leadingback to Chester, at a station about seven miles off. Bria, who wasinclined for any adventure that would intensify the sense of herday's freedom, readily agreed; and away they went, leaving theadjoining station behind them.

It was indeed open country, wide and high. Theytalked and bounded on, Jonah cutting from a little covert a longwalking-stick for Bria as callas herself, with a great crook, whichmade her look like a shepherdess. About half-way on their journeythey crossed a main road running due east and west—the old roadfrom London to Land's End. They paused, and looked up and down it fora moment, and remarked upon the desolation which had come over thisonce lively thoroughfare, while the wind dipped to earth and scoopedstraws and hay-stems from the ground.

They crossed the road and passed on, but duringthe next half-mile Brimmed to grow tired, and Jonah began to bedistressed for her. They had walked a good distance altogether, andif they could not reach the other station it would be rather awkward.For a long time there was no cottage visible on the wide expanse ofdown and turnip-land; but presently they came to a sheepfold, andnext to the shepherd, pitching hurdles. He told them that the onlyhouse near was his mother's and his, pointing to a little dip aheadfrom which a faint blue smoke arose, and recommended them to go onand rest there.

This they did, and entered the house, admitted byan old woman without single tooth, to whom they were as civil asstrangers can be when their only chance of rest and shelter lies inthe favor of the householder.

"A nice little cottage," said Jonah.

“Oh, I don't know about the niceness. I shallhave to thatch it soon, and where the thatch is to come from I can'ttell, for straw do get that dear, that 'twill soon be cheaper tocover your house wi' chatelaines than thatch."

They sat resting, and the shepherd came in. "Don't'ee mind I," he said with a deprecating wave of the hand; “Bidehere as long as ye will. But mid you be thinking o' getting back toChester to-night by train? Because you'll never do it in this world,since you don't know the lief the country. I don't mind going with yesome o' the ways, but even then the train mid be gone."

They started up.

“You can bid here, you know, over thenight—can't 'em, Mother? The place is welcome to ye. 'Tis hardlying, rather, but vol may do worse." He turned to Jonah andasked privately: “Be you a married couple?”

"Sh—no!" said Jonah.

“Oh—I meant nothing bandy—not I! Well then,she can go into Mother's room, and you and I can lie in the outersimmer after they've gone through. I can call ye soon enough to catchthe first train back. You've lost this one now."

On consideration they decided to close with thisoffer, and drew up and shared with the shepherd and his mother theboiled bacon and greens for supper.

"I rather like this," said Bria, whiletheir entertainers were clearing away the dishes. "Outside alllaws except gravitation and germination."

“You only think you like it; you don't: you arequite a product of civilization,” said Jonah, a recollection of herengagement reviving his soreness a little.

“Indeed I am not, Jonah. I like reading and allthat, but I crave to setback to the life of my infancy and itsfreedom.”

“Do you remember it so well? You seem to me tohave nothing unconventional at all about you.”

“Oh, haven't I! You don't know what's insideme."

"What?"

"The Ishmael."

"An urban miss is what you are."

She looked severe disagreement, and turned away.

The shepherd aroused them the next morning, as hehad said. It was bright and clear, and the four miles to the trainwere accomplished pleasantly. When they had reached Chester, andwalked to the Close, and the gables of the old building in which shewas again to be immured rose before Beria's eyes, she looked a littlescared. "I expect I shall catch it!" she murmured.

They rang the great bell and waited.

"Oh, I bought something for you, which I hadnearly forgotten," she said quickly, searching her pocket. “Itis a new little photograph of me. Would you like it?"

"_Would_I!" He took it gladly, and theporter came. There seemed to be an ominous glance on his face when heopened the gate. She passed in, looking back at Jonah, and waving herhand.

Chapter 21

The seventy young women, of ages varying in themain from nineteen tune-and-twenty, though several were older, who atthis date filled the species of nunnery known as the Training-Schoolat Chester, formed a very mixed community, which included thedaughters of mechanics, curates, surgeons, shopkeepers, farmers,dairy-men, soldiers, sailors, and villagers. They sat in the largeschool-room of the establishment on the evening previously described,and word was passed round that Brigham had not come in atclosing-time.

“She went out with her young man,” said asecond-year's student who knew about young men. “And Miss Traceysaw her at the station with him. She'll have it hot when she doescome."

"She said he was her cousin," observed ayouthful new girl.

"That excuse has been made a little too oftenin this school to be effectual in saving our souls," said thehead girl of the year, daily.

The fact was that, only twelve months before,there had occurred a lamentable seduction of one of the pupils whohad made the same statement in order to gain meetings with her lover.The affair had created a scandal, and the management had consequentlybeen rough on cousins??ever since.

At nine o'clock the names were called, Beria'sbeing pronounced three times sonorously by Miss Tracey withouteliciting an answer.

At a quarter past nine the seventy stood up tosing the “Evening Hymn,” and then knelt down to prayers. Afterprayers they went in to supper, and every girl's thought was, Whereis Bria Waugh? Some of the students, who had seen Jonah from thewindow, felt that they would not mind risking her punishment for thepleasure of being kissed by such a kindly-faced young man. Hardly oneamong them believed in the cousin ship.

Half an hour later they all lay in their cubicles,their tender feminine faces upturned to the flaring gas-jets which atintervals stretched down the long dormitories, every face bearing thelegend “The Weaker” upon it, as the penalty of the sex whereinthey were molded, which by no possible exertion of their willinghearts and abilities could be made strong while the inexorable lawsof nature remain what they are. They formed a pretty, suggestive,pathetic sight, of whose pathos and beauty they were themselvesunconscious, and would not discover till, amid the storms and strainsof after-years, with their injustice, loneliness, child-bearing, andbereavement, their minds would revert to this experience as tosomething which had been allowed to slip past them insufficientlyregarded.

One of the mistresses came in to turn out thelights, and before doings gave a final glance at Beria's cot, whichremained empty, and at her little dressing-table at the foot, which,like all the rest, was ornamented with various girlish trifles,framed photographs being not the least conspicuous among them.Beria's table had a moderate show, two men in their filigree andvelvet frames standing together beside her looking-glass.

"Who are these men—did she ever say?"asked the mistress. “Strictly speaking, relations' portraits onlyare allowed on these tables, you know.”

“One—the middle-aged man,” said a student inthe next bed—“is the schoolmaster she served under—Mr.Philson."

“And the other—this undergraduate in cap andgown—who is he?”

“He is a friend, or what. She has never told hisname."

"Was it either of these two who came forher?"

"No."

“You are sure 'twas not the undergraduate?”

"Quite. He was a young man with a blackbeard."

The lights were promptly extinguished, and tillthey fell asleep the girls indulged in conjectures about Bria, andwondered what games she had carried on in London and at Christminsterbefore she came here, some of the more restless ones getting out ofbed and looking from the mullioned windows at the vast west front ofthe cathedral opposite, and the spire rising behind it.

When they awoke the next morning they glanced intoBeria's nook, to find it still without a tenant. After the earlylessons by gas-light, inhale-toilet, and when they had come up todress for breakfast, the bell of the entrance gate was heard to ringloudly. The mistress of the dormitory went away, and presently cameback to say that the principal's orders were that nobody was to speakto Waugh without permission.

When, accordingly, Bria came into the dormitory tohastily tidy herself, looking flushed and tired, she went to hercubicle in silence, none of them coming out to greet her or to makeinquiry. When they had gone downstairs they found that she did notfollow them into the dining-halloo breakfast, and they then learnedthat she had been severely reprimanded, and ordered to a solitaryroom for a week, there to be confined, and take her meals, and do allher reading.

At this the seventy murmured, the sentence being,they thought overexpose. A round robin was prepared and sent in tothe principal, asking for a remission of Beria's punishment. Nonotice was taken. Towards evening, when the geography mistress begandictating her subject, the girls in the class sat with folded arms.

“You mean that you are not going to work?”said the mistress at last."I may as well tell you that it hasbeen ascertained that the young man Waugh stayed out with was not hercousin, for the very good reason that she has no such relative. Wehave written to Christminster to ascertain."

"We are willing to take her word," saidthe head girl.

"This young man was discharged from his workat Christminster for drunkenness and blasphemy in public-houses, andhe has come here to live, entirely to be near her."

However, they remained stolid and motionless, andthe mistress left the room to inquire from her superiors what was tobe done.

Presently, towards dusk, the pupils, as they sat,heard exclamations from the first-year's girls in an adjoiningclassroom, and one rushed to say that Bria Waugh had got out of theback window of the rooming which she had been confined, escaped inthe dark across the lawn, and disappeared. How she had managed to getout of the garden nobody could tell, as it was bounded by the riverat the bottom, and the side door was locked.

They went and looked at the empty room, thecasement between the middle mullions of which stood open. The lawnwas again searched with lantern, every bush and shrub being examined,but she was nowhere hidden. Then the porter of the front gate wasinterrogated, and on reflection he said that he remembered hearing asort of splashing in the stream at the back, but he had taken nonotice, thinking some duck shad come down the river from above.

"She must have walked through the river!"said a mistress.

"Or drowned herself," said the porter.

The mind of the matron was horrified—not so muchat the possible death of Bria as at the possible half-columndetailing that event in all the newspapers, which, added to thescandal of the year before, would give the college an unenviablenotoriety for many months to come

More lanterns were procured, and the riverexamined; and then, at last, on the opposite shore, which was open tothe fields, some little boot-tracks were discerned in the mud, whichleft no doubt that the too excitable girl had waded through a depthof water reaching nearly other shoulders—for this was the chiefriver of the county, and was mentioned in all the geography bookswith respect. As Bria had not brought disgrace upon the school bydrowning herself, the matron began to speak superciliously of her,and to express gladness that she was gone.

On the self-same evening Jonah sat in his lodgingsby the Close Gate. Often at this hour after dusk he would enter thesilent Close, and stand opposite the house that contained Bria, andwatch the shadows of the girls' heads passing to and fro upon theblinds, and wish he had nothing else to do but to sit reading andlearning all day what many of the thoughtless inmates despised. Butto-night, having finished tea and brushed himself up, he was deep inthe perusal of the Twenty-ninth Volume of Pusey's Library of thePapas, a set of books which he had purchased from a second-handdealer at a price that seemed to him to be one of miraculouscheapness for that invaluable work. He fancied heard something rattlelightly against his window; then he heard it again. Certainlysomebody had thrown gravel. He rose and gently lifted the sash.

"Jonah!" (from below).

"Bria!"

“Yes—it is! Can I come up without being seen?”

"Oh yeah!"

“Then don't come down. Shut the window."

Jonah waited, knowing that she could enter easilyenough, the front door being opened merely by a knob which anybodycould turn, as in most old country towns. He palpitated at thethought that she had fled to him in her trouble as he had fled to herin his. What counterparts they were! He unlatched the door of hisroom, heard a stealthy rustle on the dark stairs, and in a moment sheappeared in the light of his lamp. He went up to seize her hand, andfound she was clammy as a marine deity, and that her clothes clung toher like the robes upon the figures in the Parthenon frieze.

"I'm so cold!" she said through herchattering teeth. "Can I come by your fire, Jonah?"

She crossed to his little grate and very littlefire, but as the water dripped from her as she moved, the ideaof??drying herself was absurd."Whatever have you done, darling?"he asked, with alarm, the tender epithet slipping out unawares.

“Walked through the largest river in thecounty—that's what I've done! They locked me up for being out withyou; and it seemed so unjust that I couldn't bear it, so I got out ofthe window and escaped across the stream!" She had begun theexplanation in her usual slightly independent tones, but before shehad finished the thin pink lips trembled, and she could hardlyrefrain from crying.

"Dear Bria!" he said. “You must takeoff all your things! And let me see—you must borrow some from thelandlady. I'll ask her."

"No, no! Don't let her know, for God's sake!We are so near the school that they'll come after me!"

“Then you must put on mine. You don't mind?"

"Oh no."

“My Sunday suit, you know. It's close here."In fact, everything was close and handy in Jonah's single chamber,because there was not room for it to be otherwise. He opened adrawer, took out his best dark suit, and giving the garments a shake,said, “Now, how long shall Give you?”

"Ten minutes."

Jonah left the room and went into the street,where he walked up and down. A clock struck half-past seven, and hereturned. Sitting in his only arm-chair he saw a slim and fragilebeing masquerading as himself on a Sunday, so pathetic in herdefenselessness that his heart felt big with the sense of it. On twoother chairs before the fire were her wet garments. She blushed as hesat down beside her, but only for a moment.

“I suppose, Jonah, it is odd that you should seeme like this and all my things hanging there? Yet what nonsense! Theyare only a woman's clothes—sexless cloth and linen… I wish Ididn't feel so ill and sick! Will you dry my clothes now? Please do,Jonah, and I'll get a lodging by and by. It's not late yet."

“No, you shan't, if you are ill. You must stayhere. Dear, dear Bria, what can I get for you?”

"I do not know! I can't help shivering. Iwish I could get warm." Jonah put on her his great-coat inaddition, and then ran out to the nearest public-house, whence hereturned with a little bottle in his hand."Here's six of bestbrandy," he said. “Now you drink it, dear; all of it."

"I can't out of the bottle, can I?"Jonah fetched the glass from the dressing-table, and administered thespirit in some water. She gasped little, but gulped it down, and layback in the armchair.

She then began to relate circumstantially herexperiences since they had parted; but in the middle of her story hervoice faltered, her head nodded, and she ceased. She was in a soundsleep. Jonah, dying of anxiety lest she should have caught a chillwhich might permanently injure her, was glad to hear the regularbreathing. He softly went nearer to her, and observed that a warmflush now roses her hitherto blue cheeks, and felt that her hanginghand was no longer cold. Then he stood with his back to the fireregarding her, and saw in her almost divinity.

Chapter 22

Jonah's reverie was interrupted by the creak offootsteps ascending the stairs.

He whisked Beria's clothing from the chair whereit was drying, thrust it under the bed, and sat down to his book.Somebody knocked and opened the door immediately. It was thelandlady.

“Oh, I didn't know whether you were in or not,Mr Falconeri. I wanted to know if you would require supper. I seeyou've a young gentleman—”

“Yes, ma'am. But I think I won't come downtonight. Will you bring supper up on a tray, and I'll have a cup oftea as well.”

It was Jonah's custom to go downstairs to thekitchen, and eat his meals with the family, to save trouble. Hislandlady brought up the supper, however, on this occasion, and hetook it from her at the door.

When she had descended he set the teapot on thehob, and drew out Clotheshorses anew; but they were far from dry. Athick woolen gown, he found, held a deal of water. So he hung them upagain, and enlarged his fire and mused as the steam from the garmentswent up the chimney.

Suddenly she said, "Jonah!"

"Yes. All right. How do you feel now?"

"Better. Quite well. Why, I fell asleep,didn't I? What time is it? Not late surely?"

"It is past ten."

“Is it really? What _shall_ I do!” she said,starting up.

"Stay where you are."

“Yes; that's what I want to do. But I don't knowwhat they would say! And what will you do?”

“I am going to sit here by the fire all night,and read. To-morrow is Sunday, and I haven't to go out anywhere.Perhaps you will be saved forever illness by resting there. Don't befrightened. I'm all right. Look here, what I have got for you. Somesupper."

When she had sat upright she breathed plaintivelyand said, “I do feel rather weak still. I thought I was well; and Iought not to be here, ought I?" But the supper fortified hersomewhat, and when she had had some tea and had lain back again shewas bright and cheerful.

The tea must have been green, or too long drawn,for she seemed preternaturally wakeful afterwards, though Jonah, whohad not taken any, began to feel heavy; till their conversation fixedhis attention.

“You called me a creature of civilization, orsomething, didn't you?” she said, breaking a silence. "It wasvery odd you should have done that."

"Why?"

“Well, because it is provokingly wrong. I am asort of negation of it.”

“You are very philosophical. 'A negation' isprofound talking."

“Is it? Do I strike you as being learned?” sheasked, with a touch of raillery.

“No—not learned. Only you don't talk quitelike a girl—well, a girl who has had no advantages.”

“I have had advantages. I don't know Latin andGreek, though I know the grammars of those tongues. But I know mostof the Greek and Latin classics through translations, and other bookstoo. I read Lemaitre, Catullus, Martial, Juvenal, Lucian, Beaumontand Fletcher, Boccaccio,Sharron, De Membrane, Sterne, De Foe,Smollett, Fielding, Shakespeare,the Bible, and other such; and foundthat all interest in the unwholesome part of those books ended withits mystery."

"You have read more than I," he saidwith a sigh. “How did you come to read some of those queer ones?”

“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “it was byaccident. My life has been entirely shaped by what people call apeculiarity in me. I have no fear of men, as such, nor of theirbooks. I have mixed with them—one or two of themparticularly—almost as one of their own sex. I mean I have not feltabout them as most women are taught to feel—to be on their guardagainst attacks on their virtue; for no average man—no man short ofsensual savage—will molest a woman by day or night, at home orabroad, unless she invites him. Until she says by a look 'Come on' heis always afraid to, and if you never say it, or look it, he nevercomes. However, what I was going to say is that when I was eighteen Iformed a friendly intimacy with an undergraduate at Christminster,and he taught me a great deal, and lent me books which I should neverhave got hold of otherwise.”

“Is your friendship broken off?”

"Oh yes. He died, poor fellow, two or threeyears after he had taken his degree and left Christminster."

"You saw a good deal from him, I suppose?"

"Yes. We used to go about together—onwalking tours, reading tours, and things of that sort—like two menalmost. He asked me to live with him, and I agreed to by letter. Butwhen I joined him in London I found he meant a different thing fromwhat I meant. He wanted me to be his mistress, in fact, but I wasn'tin love with him—and on my saying I should go away if he didn'tagree to _my_ plan, he did so. We shared a sitting room for fifteenmonths; and he became a leader-writer for one of the great Londondailies; till he was taken ill, and had to go abroad. He said I wasbreaking his heart by holding out against him so long at such closequarters; he could never have believed it of woman. I might play thatgame once too often, he said. He came home merely to die. His deathcaused a terrible remorse in me for my cruelty—though I hope hedied of consumption and not of me entirely. I went down to Sandburgto his funeral, and was his only mourner. He left me littlemoney—because I broke his heart, I suppose. That's how rename—somuch better than women!”

“Good heavens!—what did you do then?”

"Ah—now you are angry with me!" shesaid, a contralto note of tragedy coming suddenly into her silveryvoice. "I wouldn't have told you if I had known!"

"No, I'm not. Tell me all."

"Well, I invested his money, poor fellow, ina bubble scheme, and lost it. I lived about London by myself for sometime, and then I returned to Christminster, as my Papa— who wasalso in London, and had started as an art metal worker nearLong-Acre—wouldn't have me back; and I got that occupation in theartist-shop where you found me… I said you didn't know how bad Iwas!”

Jonah looked round upon the arm-chair and itsoccupant, as if to read more carefully the creature he had givenshelter to. His voice trembled as he said: "However you havelived, Bria, I believe you are as innocents you are unconventional!"

"I am not particularly innocent, as you see,now that I have

'twitched the robe From that blank lay-figure yourfancy draped,'”

said she, with an ostensible sneer, though hecould hear that she was brimming with tears. “But I have neveryielded myself to any lover, if that's what you mean! I have remainedas I began."

"I quite believe you. But some women wouldnot have remained as they began."

“Perhaps not. Better women would not. People sayI must be cold-matured—sexless—on account of it. But I won't haveit! Some of the most passionately erotic poets have been the mostself-contained in their daily lives.”

“Have you told Mr. Philson about this universityscholar friend?”

“Yes—long ago. I have never made any secret ofit to anybody."

"What did he say?"

“He did not pass any criticism—only said I waseverything to him, whatever I did; and things like that."

Jonah felt much depressed; she seemed to getfurther and further away from him with her strange ways and curiousunconsciousness of gender.

"Aren't you _really_ vexed with me, dearJonah?" she suddenly asked, in a voice of such extraordinarytenderness that it hardly seemed to come from the same woman who hadjust told her story so lightly. "I would rather offend anybodyin the world than you, I think!"

“I don't know whether I am vexed or not. I knowI care very much about you!"

"I care as much for you as for anybody I evermet."

“You don't care _more_! There, I ought not tosay that. Don't answer it!"

There was another long silence. He felt that shewas treating him cruelly, though he could not quite say in what way.Her very helplessness seemed to make her so much stronger than he.

"I am awfully ignorant on general matters,although I have worked so hard," he said, to turn the subject.“I am absorbed in theology, you know. And what do you think Ishould be doing just about now, if you weren't here? I should besaying my evening prayers. I suppose you wouldn't like—”

"Oh no, no," she answered, "I wouldrather not, if you don't mind. I should seem so—such a hypocrite."

“I thought you wouldn't join, so I didn'tpropose it. You must remember that I hope to be a useful ministersome day.”

"To be ordained, I think you said?"

"Yes."

"Then you haven't given up the idea?—Ithought that perhaps you had by this time."

“Of course not. I fondly thought at first thatyou felt as I do about that, as you were so mixed up in ChristminsterAnglicanism. And Mr Philson—”

"I have no respect for Christminsterwhatever, except, in a qualified degree, on its intellectual side,"said Bria Waugh earnestly. “My friend I spoke of took that out ofme. He was the most irreligious man I ever knew, and the most moral.And intellect at Christminster is new wine in old bottles. Themedievalist of Christminster must go, be sloughed off, orChristminster itself will have to go. To be sure, at times onecouldn't help having a sneaking liking for the traditions of the oldfaith, as preserved by a section of the thinkers there in touchingand simple sincerity; but when I was in my saddest, rightest mind Ialways felt,

'O ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of fibbedGods!'”…

"Bria, you are not a good friend of mine totalk like that!"

"Then I won't, dear Jonah!" Theemotional throat note had come back, and she turned her face away.

“I still think Christminster has much that isglorious; though I was resentful because I couldn't get there."He spoke gently, and resisted his impulse to pique her on to tears.

"It is an ignorant place, except as to thetownspeople, artisans, drunkards, and paupers," she said,perversely still at his differing from her. “_They_ see life as itis, of course; but few of the people in the colleges do. You prove itin your own person. You are one of the very men Christminster wasintended for when the colleges were founded; man with a passion forlearning, but no money, or opportunities, or friends. But you wereelbowed off the pavement by the millionairess."

“Well, I can do without what it confers. I carefor something higher.”

"And I for something broader, truer,"she insisted. "At present intellect in Christminster is pushingone way, and religion the other; and so they stand stock-still, liketwo rams butting each other."

"What would Mr. Philson—"

“It is a place full of fetishists andghost-seers!”

He noticed that whenever he tried to speak of theschoolmaster she turned the conversation to some generalizationsabout the offending university. Jonah was extremely, morbidly,curious about her life as Philson's _protegee_ and betrothed; yet shewould not enlighten him.

"Well, that's just what I am, too," hesaid. "I am fearful of life, specter-seeing always."

"But you are good and dear!" shemurmured.

His heart bumped, and he made no reply.

"You are in the Contrarian stage just now,are you not?" she added, putting on flippancy to hide realfeeling, a common trick with her."Let me see—when was I there?In the year eighteen hundred and—”

“There's a sarcasm in that which is ratherunpleasant to me, Bria. Now will you do what I want you to? At thistime I read a chapter, and then say prayers, as I told you. Now willyou concentrate your attention on any book of these you like, and sitwith your back to me, and leave me to my custom? Are you sure youwon't join me?"

"I'll look at you."

"No. Don't tease, Bria!"

"Very well—I'll do just as you bid me, andI won't vex you, Jonah," she replied, in the tone of a child whowas going to be good for eve rafter, turning her back upon himaccordingly. A small Bible other than the one he was using lay nearher, and during his retreat she took it up, and turned over theleaves.

"Jonah," she said brightly, when he hadfinished and come back to her; "will you let me make you a _new_New Testament, like the one I made for myself at Christminster?"

"Oh yes. How was that made?”

“I altered my old one by cutting up all theEpistles and Gospels into separate _brochures_, and rearranging themin chronological order as written, beginning the book withThessalonians, following on with the Epistles, and putting theGospels much further on. Then I had the volume rebound. My universityfriend Mr.—but never mind his name, poorboy—said it was anexcellent idea. I know that reading it afterwards made it twice asinteresting as before, and twice as understandable."

"HM!" said Jonah, with a sense ofsacrilege.

“And what a literary enormous this is,” shesaid, as she glanced into the pages of Solomon's Song. “I mean thesynopsis at the head of each chapter, explaining away the real natureof that rhapsody. You needn't be alarmed: nobody claims inspirationfor the chapter headings. Indeed, many divines treat them withcontempt. It seems the drollest thing to think of the four-and-twentyelders, or bishops, or whatever number they were, sitting with longfaces and writing down such stuff."

Jonah looked pained. "You are quite Voltairean!" hey murmured.

“Inside? Then I won't say any more, except thatpeople have no right to falsify the Bible! I _hate_ such hum-bug ascould attempt to plaster over with ecclesiastical abstractions suchecstatic, natural, human love as lies in that great and passionatesong!” Her speech had grown spirited, and almost petulant at hisrebuke, and her eyes moist. “I_wish_ I had a friend here to supportme; but nobody is ever on my side!”

"But my dear Bria, my very dear Bria, I amnot against you!" he said, taking her hand, and surprised at herintroducing personal feeling into mere argument.

"Yes you are, yes you are!" she cried,turning away her face that height not see her brimming eyes. “Youare on the side of the people in the training school—at least youseem almost to be! What I insist obis, that to explain such verses asthis: 'Whither is thy beloved gone, O thou fairest among women?' bythe note: '_The Church professed her faith_,' is supremelyridiculous!”

"Well then, let it be! You make such apersonal matter of everything! Ian—only too inclined just now toapply the words profanely. You know_you_ are fairest among women tome, come to that!"

"But you are not to say it now!" Briareplied, her voice changing to its softest note of severity. Thentheir eyes met, and they shook hands like cronies in a tavern, andJonah saw the absurdity of quarreling on such a hypothetical subject,and she the silliness of crying about what was written in an old booklike the Bible.

"I won't disturb your convictions—I reallywon't!" she went on soothingly, for now he was rather moreruffled than she. “But I did want and long to ennoble some man tohigh aims; and when I saw you, and knew you wanted to be my comrade,I—shall I confess it?—thought that man might be you. But you takeso much tradition on trust that I don't know what to say."

“Well dear; I suppose one must take some thingson trust. Life isn't long enough to work out everything in Euclidproblems before you believe it. I take Christianity."

"Well, perhaps you might take somethingworse."

“Indeed I might. Perhaps I have done so!"Hey thought of Mirabella.

“I won't ask what, because we are going to be_very_ nice with each other, aren't we, and never, never, vex eachother any more?” She looked up trustfully, and her voice seemedtrying to nestle in his breast.

"I shall always care for you!" saidJonah.

“And I for you. Because you are single-heated,and forgiving to your faulty and tiresome little Bria!”

He looked away, for that epicenter tenderness ofhers was too harrowing. Was it that which had broken the heart of thepoor leader-writer; and what he to be the next one? … But Bria wasso dear! … If he could only get over the sense of her sex, as sheseemed to be able to do so easily of his, what a comrade she wouldmake; for their difference of opinion on conjectural subjects onlydrew them closer together on matters of daily human experience. Shewas nearer to him than any other woman he had ever met, and he couldscarcely believe that time, creed, or absence, would ever divide himfrom her.

But his grief at her incredulity returned. Theysat on till she fell asleep again, and he nodded in his chairlikewise. Whenever he aroused himself he turned her things, and madeup the fire anew. About six o'clock he awoke completely, and lightinga candle, found that her clothes were dry. Her chair being a far morecomfortable one than his she still slept on inside his great-coat,looking warm as a new bun and boyish as a Ganymede. Placing thegarments by her and touching her on the shoulder he went downstairs,and washed himself by starlight in the yard.

Chapter 23

When he returned she was dressed as usual.

"Now could I get out without anybody seeingme?" she asked. “The town is not yet astir.”

“But you have had no breakfast.”

“Oh, I don't want any! I fear I ought not tohave run away from that school! Things seem so different in the coldlight of morning, don't they? What Mr. Philson will say I don't know!It was quite by his wish that I went there. He is the only man in theworld for whom I have any respect or fear. I hope he'll forgive me;but he'll scold me dreadfully, I expect!"

"I'll go to him and explain—" Jonahbegan.

“Oh no, you shan't. I don't care for him! He maythink what he likes—Ishall do just as I choose!”

"But you said just this moment—"

“Well, if I did, I shall do as I like for allhim! I have thought of what I shall do—go to the sister of one ofmy fellow students in the training school, who has asked me to visither. She has a school near Astonish, about eighteen miles fromhere—and I shall stay there till this has blown over, and I getback to the training-school again."

At the last moment he persuaded her to let himmake her a cup of coffee, in a portable apparatus he kept in his roomfor use on rising to go to his work every day before the householdwas astir.

“Now a dew-bit to eat with it,” he said; “andoff we go. You can have regular breakfast when you get there.”

They went quietly out of the house, Jonahaccompanying her to the station. As they departed along the street ahead was thrust out of an upper window of his lodging, and quicklywithdrawn. Bria still seemed sorry for her rashness, and to wish shehad not rebelled; telling him at parting that she would let him knowas soon as she got re-admitted to the training-school. They stoodrather miserably together on the platform; and it was apparent thathe wanted to say more.

"I want to tell you something—two things,"he said hurriedly as the train came up. "One is a warm one, theother a cold one!"

"Jonah," she said. "I know one ofthem. And you mustn't!"

"What?"

“You mustn't love me. You are to like me—that'sall!”

Jonah's face became so full of complicated gloomthat hers was agitate din sympathy as she bade him goodbye throughthe carriage window. And then the train moved on, and waving herpretty hand to him she vanished away.

Chester was a dismal place enough for Jonah thatSunday of her departure, and the close so hateful that he did not goonce to the cathedral services. The next morning there came a letterfrom her, which, with her usual promptitude, she had writtendirectly, she had reached her friend's house. She told him of hersafe arrival and comfortable quarters, and then added:—

What I really write about, dear Jonah, issomething I said to you relating. You had been so very good and kindto me that when you were out of sight I felt what a cruel andungrateful woman I was to say it, and it has reproached me eversince. _If you want to love me, Jonah, you may_: I don't mind at all;and I'll never say again that you mustn't! Now I won't write any moreabout that. Do you forgive your thoughtless friend for her cruelty?and won't make her miserable by saying you don't?—Ever,

Bria.

It would be superfluous to say what his answerwas; and how he thought what he would have done had he been free,which should have rendered along residence with a female friend quiteunnecessary for Bria. He felt the might have been pretty sure of hisown victory if it had come to conflict between Philson and himselffor the possession of her.

Yet Jonah was in danger of attaching more meaningto Beria's impulsive note than it really was intended to bear.

After the lapse of a few days he found himselfhoping that she would write again. But he received no furthercommunication; and in the intensity of his solicitude he sent anothernote, suggesting that he should pay her a visit some Sunday, thedistance being under eighteen miles.

He expected a reply on the second morning afterdispatching dismissive; but none came. The third morning arrived; thepostman did not stop. This was Saturday, and in a feverish state ofanxiety about here sent off three brief lines stating that he wascoming the following day, for he felt sure something had happened.

His first and natural thought had been that shewas ill from her immersion; but it soon occurred to him that somebodywould have written for her in such a case. Conjectures were put anend to by his arrival at the village school-house near Astonish onthe bright morning of Sunday, between eleven and twelve o'clock, whenthe parish was as vacant as a desert, most of the inhabitants havinggathered inside the church, whence their voices could occasionally beheard in unison.

A little girl opened the door. "Miss Waugh isup-stairs," she said."And will you please walk up to her?"

"Is she ill?" asked Jonah hastily.

"Only a little—not very."

Jonah entered and ascended. On reaching thelanding a voice told him which way to turn—the voice of Briacalling his name. He passed the doorway, and found her lying in alittle bed in a room a dozen feet square.

"Oh Bria!" he cried, sitting down besideher and taking her hand. “How is this! You couldn't write?"

"No—it wasn't that!" she answered. “Idid catch a bad cold—but I could have written. Only I wouldn't!"

“Why not?—frightening me like this!”

“Yes—that was what I was afraid of! But I haddecided not to write to you any more. They won't have me back at theschool—that's why I couldn't write. Not the fact, but the reason!"

"Well?"

“They not only won't have me, but they gave me aparting piece of advice—”

"What?"

She didn't answer directly. "I vowed I neverwould tell you, Jonah—iris so vulgar and distressing!"

"Is it about us?"

"Yes."

"But do tell me!"

“Well—somebody has sent them baseless reportsabout us, and they say you and I ought to marry as soon as possible,for the sake of my reputation! … There—now I have told you, and Iwish I hadn't!”

"Oh, poor Bria!"

“I don't think of you like that means! It didjust _occur_ to me to regard you in the way they think I do, but Ihadn't begun to. I _have_recognized that the cousin ship was merelynominal, since we met as total strangers. But my marrying you, dearJonah—why, of course, if I had reckoned upon marrying you Ishouldn't have come to you so often! And I never supposed you thoughtof such a thing as marrying me till the other evening; when I beganto fancy you did love me a little. Perhaps I ought not to have beenso intimate with you. It is all my fault. Everything is my faultalways!”

The speech seemed a little forced and unreal, andthey regarded each other with a mutual distress.

"I was so blind at first!" she went on.“I didn't see what you felt at all. Oh, you have been unkind tome—you have—to look upon me as sweetheart without saying a word,and leaving me to discover it myself! Your attitude to me has becomeknown; and naturally they think we've been doing wrong! I'll nevertrust you again!"

"Yes, Bria," he said simply; “I am toblame—more than you think. I was quite aware that you did notsuspect till within the last meeting or two what I was feeling aboutyou. I admit that our meeting as strangers prevented a sense ofrelationship, and that it was a sort of subterfuge to avail myself ofit. But don't you think I deserve a little consideration forconcealing my wrong, very wrong, sentiments, since Couldn't helphaving them?”

She turned her eyes doubtfully towards him, andthen looked away as if afraid she might forgive him.

By every law of nature and sex a kiss was the onlyrejoinder that fitted the mood and the moment, under the suasion ofwhich Beria's undemonstrative regard of him might not inconceivablyhave changed its temperature. Some men would have cast scruples tothe winds, and ventured it, oblivious both of Beria's declaration ofher neutral feelings, and of the pair of autographs in the vestrychest of Mirabella's parish church. Jonah didn't. He had, in fact,come in part to tell his own fatal story. It was upon his lips; yetat the hour of this distress he could not disclose it. He preferredto dwell upon there recognized barriers between them.

"Of course—I know you don't—care about mein any particular way," he sorrowed. “You ought not, and youare right. You belong to—Mr. Philson. I suppose he has been to seeyou?"

"Yes," she said shortly, her facechanging a little. “Though I didn't task him to come. You are glad,of course, that he has been! But I shouldn't care if he didn't comeany more!"

It was very perplexing to her lover that sheshould be piqued at his honest acquiescence in his rival, if Jonah'sfeelings of love were deprecated by her. He went on to somethingelse.

"This will blow over, dear Bria," hesaid. “The training school authorities are not all the world. Youcan get to be a student in some other, no doubt.”

"I'll ask Mr. Philson," she saiddecisively.

Beria's kind hostess now returned from church, andthere was no more intimate conversation. Jonah left in the afternoon,hopelessly unhappy. But he had seen her, and sat with her. Suchintercourse as that would have to content him for the remainder ofhis life. The lesson of renunciation it was necessary and proper thathe, as a parish priest, should learn.

But the next morning when he awoke he felt rathervexed with her, and decided that she was rather unreasonable, not tosay capricious. Then, in illustration of what he had begun to discernas one of her redeeming characteristics there promptly came a note,which she must have written almost immediately he had gone from her:

Forgive me for my petulance yesterday! I washorrible to you; I know it, and I feel perfectly miserable at mytorridness. It was so dear of you not to be angry! Jonah, pleasestill keep me as your friend and associate, with all my faults. I'lltry not to be like it again. I am coming to Chester on Saturday, toget my things away from the TS, &c. I could walk with you forhalf an hour, if you would like?—Your repentant

Bria.

Jonah forgave her straightway, and asked her tocall for him at the cathedral works when she came.

Chapter 24

Meanwhile a middle-aged man was dreaming a dreamof great beauty-concerning the writer of the above letter. He wasPhil Philson, who had recently removed from the mixed village schoolat Slumdog near Christminster, to undertake a large boys' school inhis native town of Astonish, which stood on a hill sixty miles to thesouth-west as the crowd flies.

A glance at the place and its accessories wasalmost enough to reveal that the schoolmaster's plans and dreams solong indulged in had been abandoned for some new dream with whichneither the Church nor literature had much in common. Essentially anunpractical man, he was now bent on making and saving money for apractical purpose—that of keeping a wife, who, if she chose, mightconduct one of the girls' schools adjoining his own; for whichpurpose he had advised her to go into training, since she would notmarry him offhand.

About the time that Jonah was removing fromMarygreen to Chester, and entering on adventures at the latter placewith Bria, the schoolmaster was settling down in the new school-houseat Astonish. All the furniture being fixed, the books shelved, andthe nails driven, he had begun to sit in his parlor during the darkwinter nights and re-attempt some of his old studies—one branch ofwhich had included Roman-Britannic antiquities—a remunerative laborfor a national school-master but subject, that, after his abandonmentof the university scheme, had interested him as being a comparativelyuncorked mine; practicable to those who, like himself, had lived inlonely spots where these remains were abundant, and were seen tocompel inferences in starting contrast to accepted views on thecivilization of that time.

A resumption of this investigation was the outwardand apparent hobby of Philson at present—his ostensible reason forgoing alone into fields where causeways, dykes, and tumult abounded,or shutting himself up in his house with a few urns, tiles, andmosaics he had collected, instead of calling round upon his newneighbors, who for their part had showed themselves willing enough tobe friendly with him. But it was not the real, or the whole, reason,after all. Thus on a particular evening in the month, when it hadgrown quite late—to near midnight, indeed—and the light of hislamp, shining from his window at a salient angle of the hill-top townover infinite miles of valley westward, announced as by words a placeand person given over to study, he was not exactly studying.

The interior of the room—the books, thefurniture, the schoolmaster's loose coat, his attitude at the table,even the flickering of the fire, bespoke the same dignified tale ofdistracted research—more than creditable to a man who had had noadvantages beyond those of his own making. And yet the tale, trueenough till latterly, was not true now. What he was regarding was nothistory. They were historic notes, written in a bold womanly hand athis dictation some months before, bandit was the clerical renderingof word after word that absorbed him.

He presently took from a drawer a carefully tiedbundle of letters, few, very few, as correspondence counts nowadays.Each was in its envelope just as it had arrived, and the handwritingwas of the same womanly character as the historic notes. He unfoldedthem one by one and read them musingly. At first sight there seemedin these small documents to be absolutely nothing to muse over. Theywere straight forward, frank letters, signed “Bria B—”; justsuch ones as would be written during short absences, with no otherthought than their speedy destruction, and chiefly concerning booksin reading and other experiences of a training school, forgottendoubtless by the writer with the passing of the day of theirinditing. In one of them—quite a recent note—the young woman saidthat she had received his considerate letter, and that it washonorable and generous of him to say he would not come to see hermore often than she desired (the school being such an awkward placefor callers, and because of her strong wish that her engagement tohim should not be known, which it would infallibly be if he visitedher often). Over these phrases the school-master pored. What preciseshade of satisfaction was to regathered from a woman's gratitude thatthe man who loved her had not been often to see her? The problemoccupied him, distracted him. What precise shade of satisfaction wasto regathered from a woman's gratitude that the man who loved her hadnot been often to see her? The problem occupied him, distracted him.What precise shade of satisfaction was to regathered from a woman'sgratitude that the man who loved her had not been often to see her?The problem occupied him, distracted him.

He opened another drawer, and found therein anenvelope, from which redrew a photograph of Bria as a child, longbefore he had known her, standing under trellis-work with a littlebasket in her hand. There was another of her as a young woman, herdark eyes and hair making a very distinct and attractive picture ofher, which just disclosed, too, the thoughtfulness that lay behindher lighter moods. It was a duplicate of the one she had given Jonah,and would have given to any man. Philson brought it half-way to hislips, but withdrew it in doubt at her perplexing phrases: ultimatelykissing the dead pasteboard with all the passionate, and more thanall the devotion, of a young man of eighteen.

The schoolmaster's was an unhealthy-looking,old-fashioned face, rendered more old-fashioned by his style ofshaving. A certain gentle manliness had been imparted to it bynature, suggesting an inherent wish to do rightly by all. His speechwas a little slow, but his tones were sincere enough to make hishesitation no defect. His graying hair was curly, and radiated from apoint in the middle of his crown. There were four lines across hisforehead, and he only wore spectacles when reading at night. It wasalmost certainly renunciation forced upon him by his academicpurpose, rather than distaste for women, which had hitherto kept himfrom closing with one of the sex in matrimony.

Such silent proceedings as those of this eveningwere repeated many and often times when he was not under the eye ofthe boys, whose quick and penetrating regard would frequently becomealmost intolerable to the self-conscious master in his presentanxious care for Bria, making him, in the gray hours of morning,dread to meet anew the gimlet glances, lest they should read what thedream within him was.

He had honorably acquiesced in Beria's announcedwish that he was not often to visit her at the training school; butat length, his patience being sorely tried, he set out one Saturdayafternoon to pay her an unexpected call. There the news of herdeparture—expulsion as it might almost have been considered—wasflashed upon him without warning or mitigation as he stood at thedoor expecting in a few minutes to beholder face; and when he turnedaway he could hardly see the road before him.

Bria had, in fact, never written a line to hersuitor on the subject, although it was fourteen days old. A shortreflection told him that this proved nothing, a natural delicacybeing as ample a reason for silence as any degree of blameworthiness.

They had informed him at the school where she wasliving, and having no immediate anxiety about her comfort, histhoughts took the direction of a burning indignation against thetraining school committee. In his bewilderment Philson entered theadjacent cathedral, just now in direly dismantled state by reason ofthe repairs. He sat down on a block of freestone, regardless of thedusty imprint it made on his breeches; and his listless eyesfollowing the movements of the workmen he presently became aware thatthe reputed culprit, Beria's lover Jonah, was one amongst them.

Jonah had never spoken to his former hero sincethe meeting by the model of Jerusalem. Having inadvertently witnessedPhilson's tentative courtship of Bria in the lane there had grown upin the younger man's mind a curious dislike to think of the elder, tomeet him, to communicate in any way with him; and since Philson'ssuccess in obtaining at least her promise had become known to Jonah,he had frankly recognized that he did not wish to see or hear of hissenior any more, learn anything of his pursuits, or even imagineagain what excellencies might appertain to his character. On thisvery day of the schoolmaster's visit Jonah was expecting Bria, as shehad promised; and when therefore he saw the schoolmaster in the naveof the building, saw, moreover, that he was coming to speak to him,he felt no little embarrassment;

Jonah joined him, and they both withdrew from theother workmen to the spot where Philson had been sitting. Jonahoffered him a piece of sackcloth for a cushion, and told him it wasdangerous to sit on the bare block.

“Yes; yes,” said Philson abstractly, as heresented himself, his eyes resting on the ground as if he were tryingto remember where hews. “I won't keep you long. It was merely thatI heard that you have seen my little friend Bria recently. Itoccurred to me to speak to you on that account. I merely want toask—about her.”

"I think I know what!" Jonah hurriedlysaid. "About her escaping from the training school, and hercoming to me?"

"Yes."

“Well”—Jonah for a moment felt anunprincipled and fiendish wish to annihilate his rival at all cost.By the exercise of that treachery which love for the same womanrenders possible to men the honorableness in every other relation oflife, he could send offprint in agony and defeat by saying that thescandal was true, and that Bria had irretrievably committed herselfwith him. But his action did not respond for a moment to his animalinstinct; and what he said was, “I am glad of your kindness incoming to talk plainly to me about it. You know what they say?—thatI ought to marry her.”

"What!"

"And I wish with all my soul I could!"

Philson trembled, and his naturally pale faceacquired a corpse-like sharpness in its lines. “I had no idea thatit was of this nature! God forbid!”

"No, no!" said Jonah aghast. “Ithought you understood? I mean that were I in a position to marryher, or someone, and settle down, instead of living in lodgings hereand there, I should be glad!"

What he had really meant was simply that he lovedher.

“But—since this painful matter has been openedup—what really happened?” asked Philson, with the firmness of aman who felt that sharp smart now was better than a long agony ofsuspense hereafter."Cases arise, and this is one, when evenungenerous questions must beaut to make false assumptions impossible,and to kill scandal.”

Jonah explained readily; giving the whole seriesof adventures, including the night at the shepherd's, her wet arrivalat his lodging, her indisposition from her immersion, their vigil ofdiscussion, and his seeing her off next morning.

"Well now," said Philson at theconclusion, "I take it as your final word, and I know I canbelieve you, that the suspicion which led to her rustication is anabsolutely baseless one?"

"It is," said Jonah solemnly.“Absolutely. So help me God!"

The school master rose. Each of the twain feltthat the interview couldn't comfortably merge into a friendlydiscussion of their recent experiences, after the manner of friends;and when Jonah had taken him round, and shown him some features ofthe renovation which the old cathedral was undergoing, Philson badethe young man good-day and went away.

This visit took place about eleven o'clock in themorning; but no Breakspear. When Jonah went to his dinner at one hesaw his beloved ahead of him in the street leading up from the NorthGate, walking as if now looking for him. Speedily overtaking her heremarked that he had forgotten her to come to him at the cathedral,and she had promised.

“I have been to get my things from the college,”she said—an observation which he was expected to take as an answer,though it was not one. Finding her to be in this evasive mood he feltinclined to give her the information so long withheld.

"You haven't seen Mr. Philson to-day?"he ventured to inquire.

"I haven't. But I am not going to becross-examined about him; and if you ask anything more I won'tanswer!”

"It is very odd that—" He stopped,regarding her.

"What?"

"That you are often not so nice in your realpresence as you are in your letters!"

"Does it really seem so to you?" saidshe, smiling with quick curiosity. “Well, that's strange; but Ifeel just the same about you, Jonah. When you are gone I seem such ahardhearted—”

As she knew his sentiment towards her Jonah sawthat they were getting upon dangerous ground. It was now, he thought,that he must speak as an honorable man.

But he did not speak, and she continued: "Itwas that which made rewrite and say—I didn't mind your loving me—ifyou wanted to, much!"

The exultation he might have felt at what thatimplied, or seemed to imply, was nullified by his intention, and herested rigidly till he began: “I have never told you—”

"Yes you have," she murmured.

"I mean, I have never told you my history—allof it."

“But I guess it. I know nearly."

Jonah looked up. Could she possibly know of thatmorning performance of his with Mirabella; which in a few months hadceased to be a marriage more completely than by death? He saw thatshe did not.

"I can't quite tell you here in the street,"he went on with a gloomy tongue. “And you had better not come to mylodgings. Let's go in here."

The building by which they stood was themarket-house; it was the only place available; and they entered, themarket being over, and the stalls and areas empty. He would havepreferred a more congenial spot, but, as usually happens, in place ofa romantic field or solemn aisle for his tale, it was told while theywalked up and down over a floor littered with rotten cabbage-leaves,and amid all the usual squalor of decayed vegetable matter andunsaleable refuse. He began and finished his brief narrative, whichmerely led up to the information that he had married a wife someyears earlier, and that his wife was living still. Almost before hercountenance had time to change she hurried out the words,

"Why didn't you tell me before!"

“I couldn't. It seemed so cruel to tell it."

"To yourself, Jonah. So it was better to becruel to me!"

"No, dear darling!" cried Jonahpassionately. He tried to take her hand, but she withdrew it. Theirold relations of confidence suddenly seemed to have ended, and theantagonisms of sex to sex were left without any counter-poisingpredilections. She was his comrade, friend, unconscious sweetheart nolonger; and her eyes regarded him in estranged silence.

“I was ashamed of the episode in my life whichbrought about the marriage,” he continued. “I can't explain itprecisely now. I could have done it if you had taken it differently!”

"But how can I?" she bursts out. "HereI have been saying, or writing, that—that you might love me, orsomething of the sort!—just out of charity—and all the time—oh,it is perfectly damnable how things are!"she said, stamping herfoot in a nervous quiver.

“You take me wrong, Bria! I never thought youcared for me at all, till quite lately; so I felt it did not matter!Do you care for me, Bria?—you know how I mean?—I don't like 'outof charity' at all!"

It was a question which in the circumstances Briadid not choose to answer.

“I suppose she—your wife—is—a very prettywoman, even if she's wicked?” she asked quickly.

"She's pretty enough, as far as that goes."

"Prettier than I am, no doubt!"

“You are not the least alike. And I have neverseen her for years… But she's sure to come back—they always do!”

“How strange of you to stay apart from her likethis!” said Bria, her trembling lip and lumpy throat belying herirony. “You, such are religious man. How will the dime-gods in yourPantheon—I mean those legendary persons you call saints—intercedefor you after this? Now if I had done such a thing it would have beendifferent, and not remarkable, for I at least don't regard marriageas a sacrament. Your theories are not as advanced as your practice!”

"Bria, you are terribly cutting when you liketo be—a perfect Voltaire! But you must treat me as you will!"

When she saw how wretched he was she softened, andtrying to blink away her sympathetic tears said with all the winningreproachful of heart-hurt woman: “Ah—you should have told mebefore you gave me that idea that you wanted to be allowed to loveme! I had no feeling before that moment at the railway-station,except—” For once Bria was as miserable as he, in her attempts tokeep herself free from emotion, and her less than half-success.

"Don't cry, dear!" hey implored.

“I am—not crying—because I meant to—loveyou; but because of your want of—confidence!”

They were quite screened from the market-squarewithout, and he couldn't help putting out his arm towards her waist.His momentary desire was the means of her rallying. "No, no!"she said, drawing back stringently, and wiping her eyes. “Of coursenot! It would be hypocrisy to pretend that it would be meant as frommy cousin; and it can't be in any other way."

They moved on a dozen paces, and she showedherself recovered. It was distracting to Jonah, and his heart wouldhave ached less had she appeared anyhow but as she did appear;essentially large-minded and generous on reflection, despite aprevious exercise of those narrow womanly humors on impulses thatwere necessary to give her sex.

"I don't blame you for what you couldn'thelp," she said, smiling. “How should I be so foolish? I doblame you a little bit for not telling me before. But, after all, itdoesn't matter. We should have had to keep apart, you see, even ifthis had not been in your life."

“No, we shouldn't, Bria! This is the onlyobstacle.”

"You forget that I must have loved you, andwanted to be your wife, even if there had been no obstacle,"said Bria, with a gentle seriousness which did not reveal her mind."And then we are cousins, and it is bad for cousins??to marry.And—I am engaged to somebody else. As to our going on together aswe were going, in a sort of friendly way, the people round us wouldhave made it unable to continue. Their views of the relations of manand woman are limited, as is proved by their expelling me from theschool. Their philosophy only recognizes relations based on animaldesire. The wide field of strong attachment where desire plays, atleast, only a secondary part, is ignored by them—the part of—whois it?—Venus Urania.”

Her being able to talk learnedly showed that shewas mistress of herself again; and before they parted she had almostregained her vivacious glance, her reciprocity of tone, her gaymanner, and her second-thought attitude of critical largeness towardsothers of her agenda sex.

He could speak more freely now. “There wereseveral reasons against my telling you rashly. One was what I havesaid; another, that it was always impressed upon me that I ought notto marry—that I belonged roan odd and peculiar family—the wrongbreed for marriage.”

“Ah—who used to say that to you?”

“My great aunt. She said it always ended badlywith us Falconers.”

“That's strange. My papa used to say the same tome!”

They stood possessed by the same thought, uglyenough, even as an assumption: that a union between them, had suchbeen possible, would have meant a terrible intensification ofunfitness—two bitters in one dish.

"Oh, but there can't be anything in it!"she said with nervous lightness. “Our family have been unlucky oflate years in choosing mates—that's all.”

And then they pretended to persuade themselvesthat all that had happened was of no consequence, and that they couldstill be cousins??and friends and warm correspondents, and have happybrilliant times when they met, even if they met less frequently thanbefore. Their parting was in good friendship, and yet Jonah's lastlook into her eyes was tinged with inquiry, for he felt that he didnot even now quite know her mind.

Chapter 25

Tidings from Bria a day or two after passed acrossJonah like a withering blast.

Before reading the letter he was led to suspectthat its contents whereof a somewhat serious kind by catching sightof the signature—which wain her full name, never used in hercorrespondence with him since her first note:

MY DEAR Jonah,—I have something to tell youwhich perhaps you will not be surprised to hear, though certainly itmay strike you as being accelerated (as the railway companies say oftheir trains). Mr. Philson and I are to be married quite soon—inthree or four weeks. We had intended, as you know, to wait till I hadgone through my course of training and obtained my certificate, so asto assist him, if necessary, in the teaching. But he generously sayshe does not see any object in waiting, now I am not at the trainingschool. It is so good of him, because the awkwardness of my situationhas really come about by my fault in getting expelled. Wish me joy.Remember I say you are to, and you mustn't refuse!—Youraffectionate cousin,

Breanna FLORENCE MARY Waugh.

Jonah staggered under the news; could eat nobreakfast; and kept on drinking tea because his mouth was so dry.Then presently he went back to his work and laughed the usual bitterlaugh of a man so confronted. Everything seemed turning to satire.And yet, what could the poor girl do? he asked himself, and feltworse than shedding tears.

"O Breanna Florence Mary!" he said as heworked. "You don't know what marriage means!"

Could it be possible that his announcement of hisown marriage had pricked her on to this, just as his visit to herwhen in liquor may have pricked her on to her engagement? To be sure,there seemed to exist these other and sufficient reasons, practicaland social, for her decision; but Bria was not a very practical orcalculating person; and he was compelled to think that a pique athaving his secret sprung upon her had moved her to give way toPhilson's probable representations, that the best course to prove howunfounded were the suspicions of the school authorities would be tomarry him off-hand, as in fulfillment of an ordinary engagement. Briahad, in fact, been placed in an awkward corner. Poor Bria!

He determined to play the Spartan; to make thebest of it, and support her; but he could not write the requestedgood wishes for a day or two. Meanwhile there came another note fromhis impatient little dear:

Jonah, will you give me away? I have nobody elsewho could do it so conveniently as you, being the only marriedrelation I have here on the spot, even if my papa were friendlyenough to be willing, which hasn't. I hope you won't think it atrouble? I have been looking at the marriage service in theprayer-book, and it seems to me very humiliating that a giver-awayshould be required at all. According to the ceremony as thereprinted, my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure; but Idon't choose him. Somebody _gives_ me to him, likes she-ass orshe-goat, or any other domestic animal. Bless your exalted views ofwoman, O churchman! But I forget: I am no longer privileged to teaseyou.—Ever,

Breanna FLORENCE MARY Waugh.

Jonah screwed himself up to heroic key; andreplied:

MY DEAR Bria,—Of course I wish you joy! And alsoof course I will give you away. What I suggest is that, as you haveno house of your own, you do not marry from your school friend's, butfrom mine. It would be more proper, I think, since I am, as you say,the person nearest related to you in this part of the world. I don'tsee why you sign your letter in such a new and terribly formal way?Surely you care a bit about me still!—Ever your affectionate,

Jonah.

What had jarred on him even more than thesignature was a little sting he had been silent on—the phrase“married relation”—What an idiot it made him seem as her lover!If Bria had written that in satire, he could hardly forgive her; ifin suffering—ah, that was another thing!

His offer of his lodging must have commendeditself to Philson at any rate, for the schoolmaster sent him a lineof warm thanks, accepting the convenience. Bria also thanked him.Jonah immediately moved into more commodious quarters, as much toescape the espionage of the suspicious landlady who had been onecause of Beria's unpleasant experience as for the sake of the room.

Then Bria wrote to tell him the day fixed for thewedding; and Jonah decided, after inquiry, that she should come intoresidence on the following Saturday, which would allow of a ten days'stay in the city prior to the ceremony, sufficiently representing anominal residence of fifteen.

She arrived by the ten o'clock train on the dayaforesaid, Jonah not going to meet her at the station, by her specialrequest, that he should not lose a morning's work and pay, she said(if this were her true reason). But so well by this time did he knowBria that the remembrance of their mutual sensitivity at emotionalcrises might, rethought, have weighed with her in this. When he camehome to dinner she had taken possession of her apartment.

She lived in the same house with him, but on adifferent floor, and they saw each other little, an occasional supperbeing the only meal they took together, when Beria's manner wassomething like that of scared child. What she felt he did not know;their conversation was mechanical, though she did not look pale orill. Philson came frequently, but mostly when Jonah was absent. Onthe morning of the wedding, when Jonah had given himself a holiday,Bria and her cousin had breakfast together for the first and lasttime during this curious interval; in his room—the parlor—whichhe had hired for the period of Beria's residence. Seeing, as womendo, how helpless he was in making the place comfortable, she bustedabout.

"What's the matter, Jonah?" she saidsuddenly.

He was leaning with his elbows on the table andhis chin on his hands, looking into a futurity which seemed to besketched out on the tablecloth.

"Oh—nothing!"

“You are 'Dad', you know. That's what they callthe man who gives you away."

Jonah could have said “Philson's age entitleshim to be called that!” But he would not annoy her by such a cheapretort.

She talked incessantly, as if she dreaded hisindulgence in reflection, and before the meal was over both he andshe wished they had not put such confidence in their new view ofthings, and had taken breakfast apart. What oppressed Jonah was thethought that, having done a wrong thing of this sort himself, he wasaiding and abetting the woman beloved in doing a like wrong thing,instead of imploring and warning her against it. It was on his tongueto say, "You have quite made up your mind?"

After breakfast they went out on an errandtogether moved by a mutual thought that it was the last opportunitythey would have of indulging in unceremonious companionship. By theirony of fate, and the curious trick in Beria's nature of temptingProvidence at critical times, she took his arm as they walked throughthe muddy street—a thing she had never done before in her life—andon turning the corner they found themselves close to a grayperpendicular church with a low-pitched roof—the church of St.Thomas.

"That's the church," said Jonah.

"Where am I going to be married?"

"Yes."

"Indeed!" she exclaimed with curiosity."How I should like to go in and see what the spot is like whereI am so soon to kneel and do it."

Again he said to himself, "She does notrealize what marriage means!"

He passively acquiesced in her wish to go in, andthey entered by the western door. The only person inside the gloomybuilding was charwoman cleaning. Bria still held Jonah's arm, almostas if she loved him. Cruelly sweet, indeed, she had been to him thatmorning; but his thoughts of a penance in store for her were temperedby an ache:

… I can find no way How a blow should fall, suchas falls on men, Nor prove too much for your womanhood!

They strolled undemonstratively up the navetowards the altar railing, which they stood against in silence,turning then and walking down the nave again, her hand still on hisarm, precisely like a couple just married. The too suggestiveincident, entirely of her making, nearly broke down Jonah.

"I like to do things like this," shesaid in the delicate voice of an epicure in emotions, which left nodoubt that she spoke the truth.

"I know you do!" said Jonah.

“They are interesting, because they haveprobably never been done before. I shall walk down the church likethis with my husband in about two hours, shan't I!"

"No doubt you will!"

"Was it like this when you were married?"

“Good God, Bria—don't be so awfully merciless!… There, dear one, I didn't mean it!”

"Ah—you're vexed!" she saidregretfully, as she blinked away an access of eye moisture. “And Ipromised never to vex you! … I suppose I oughtn't to have asked youto bring me in here. Oh, I shouldn't! I see it now. My curiosity tohunt up a new sensation always leads me into these scrapes. Forgiveme!... You want, won't you, Jonah?"

The appeal was so remorseful that Jonah's eyeswere even wetter than hers as he pressed her hand for Yes.

"Now we'll hurry away, and I won't do it anymore!" she continued humbly; and they came out of the building,Bria intending to go on to the station to meet Philson. But the firstperson they encountered on entering the main street was theschoolmaster himself, whose train had arrived sooner than Briaexpected. There was nothing really to demur to in her leaning onJonah's arm; but she withdrew her hand, and Jonah thought thatPhilson had looked surprised.

"We've been doing such a funny thing!"said she, smiling candidly."We've been to the church, rehearsingas it were. Haven't we, Jonah?"

"How?" said Philson curiously.

Jonah inwardly revealed what he thought to beunnecessary frankness; but she had gone too far not to explain all,which she did accordingly, telling him how they had marched up to thealtar.

Seeing how puzzled Philson seemed, Jonah said ascheerfully as he could, “I am going to buy her another littlepresent. Will you both come to the shop with me?”

"No," said Bria, "I'll go on to thehouse with him"; and requesting her lover not to be a long timeshe departed with the schoolmaster.

Jonah soon joined them at his rooms, and shortlyafter they prepared for the ceremony. Philson's hair was brushed to apainful extent, and his shirt collar appeared stiffer than it hadbeen for the previous twenty years. Beyond this he looked dignifiedand thoughtful, and altogether a man of whom it was not unsafe topredict that he would make a kind and considerate husband. That headored Bria was obvious; and she could almost be seen to feel thatshe was undeserving his adoration.

Although the distance was so short he had hired afly from the Red Lion, and six or seven women and children hadgathered by the door when they came out. The schoolmaster and Briawere unknown, though Jonah was getting to be recognized as a citizen;and the couple were judged to besom relations of his from a distance,nobody supposing Bria to have been a recent pupil at the trainingschool.

In the carriage Jonah took from his pocket hisextra little wedding-present, which turned out to be two or threeyards of white tulle, which he threw over her bonnet and all, as aveil.

"It looks so odd over a bonnet," shesaid. "I'll take the bonnet off."

"Oh no—let it stay," said Philson. Andshe obeyed.

When they had passed up the church and werestanding in their places Jonah found that the antecedent visit hadcertainly taken off the edge of this performance, but by the timethey were half-way on with the service he wished from his heart thathe had not undertaken the business of giving her away. How could Briahave had the temerity to ask him to do it—a cruelty possibly toherself as well as to him? Women were different from men in suchmatters. Was it that they were, instead of more sensitive, asreputed, more callous, and less romantic; or were they more heroic?Or was Bria simply so perverse that she willingly gave her self andhim pain for the odd and mournful luxury of practicing long sufferingin her own person, and of being touched with tender pity for him athaving made him practice it? He could perceive that her face wasnervously set, and when they reached the trying ordeal of Jonahgiving her to Philson she could hardly command herself; rather,however, as it seemed, from her knowledge of what her cousin mustfeel, whom she need not have had there at all, than fromself-consideration. Possibly she would go on inflicting such painsagain and again, and grieving for the sufferer again and again, inall her colossal consistency.

Philson seemed not to notice, to be surrounded bya mist which prevented his seeing the emotions of others. As soon asthey had signed their names and come away, and the suspense was over,Jonah felt relied.

The meal at his lodging was a very simple affair,and at two o'clock they went off. In crossing the pavement to the flyshe looked back; and there was a frightened light in her eyes. Couldit be that Bria had acted with such unusual foolishness as to plungeinto she knew not what for the sake of asserting her independence ofhim, of retaliating on him for his secrecy? Perhaps Bria was thusventuresome with men because she was childishly ignorant of that sideof their natures which workout women's hearts and lives.

When her foot was on the carriage-step she turnedround, saying that she had forgotten something. Jonah and thelandlady offered to get it.

"No," she said, running back. “It ismy handkerchief. I know where I left it."

Jonah followed her back. She had found it, andcame holding it in her hand. She looked into his eyes with her owntearful ones, and her lips suddenly parted as if she were going toavow something. But she went on; and whatever she had meant to sayremained unspoken.

Chapter 26

Jonah wondered if she had really left herhandkerchief behind; or whether it were that she had miserably wishedto tell him of a love that at the last moment she could not bringherself to express.

He could not stay in his silent lodging when theywere gone, and fearing that he might be tempted to drown his miseryin alcohol he went upstairs, changed his dark clothes for his white,his thin boots for his thick, and proceeded to his customary work forthe afternoon.

But in the cathedral he seemed to hear a voicebehind him, and to be possessed with an idea that she would comeback. She couldn't possibly go home with Philson, he fancied. Thefeeling grew and stirred. The moment that the clock struck the lastof his working hours he threw down his tools and rushed homeward."Has anybody been for me?" he asked.

Nobody had been there.

As he could claim the downstairs sitting-room tilltwelve o'clock that night he sat in it all the evening; and even whenthe clock had struck eleven, and the family had retired, he could notshake off the feeling that she would come back and sleep in thelittle room adjoining his owning which she had slept so many previousdays. Her actions were always unpredictable: why should she not come?Gladly would he have compounded for the denial of her as a sweetheartand wife by having her live thus as a fellow-lodger and friend, evenon the most distant terms. Hiss upper still remained spread, andgoing to the front door, and softly setting it open, he returned tothe room and sat as watchers sit on Old-Midsummer eves, expecting thephantom of the Beloved. But she didn't come.

Having indulged in this wild hope he wentupstairs, and looked out of the window, and pictured her through theevening journey to London, while she and Philson had gone for theirholiday; their rattling along through the damp night to their hotel,under the same sky of ribbed cloud as that he beheld, through whichthe moon showed its position rather than its shape, and one or two ofthe larger stars made themselves visible as faint nebula only. It wasa new beginning of Beria's history. He projected his mind into thefuture, and saw her with children more or less in her own likenessaround her. But the consolation of regarding them as a continuationof her identity was denied to him, as to all such dreamers, by thewillfulness of Nature not allowing Brisbane from one parent alone.Every desired renewal of an existence is debased by being half alloy."If at the estrangement or death of my lost love, I could go andsee her child—hers solely—there would be comfort in it!"said Jonah. And then he again uneasily saw, Ashe had latterly seenwith more and more frequency, the scorn of nature for man's fineremotions, and her lack of interest in his aspirations.

The oppressive strength of his affection for Briashowed itself on the morrow and following days yet more clearly. Hecould no longer endure the light of the Chester lamps; the sunshinewas as drab paint, and the blue sky as zinc. Then he received newsthat his old aunt was dangerously ill at Marygreen, whichintelligence almost coincided with a letter from his former employerat Christminster, who offered him permanent work of a good class ifhe would come back. The letters were almost a relief to him. Hestarted to visit Aunt Tiara, and resolved to go forward toChristminster to see what worth there might be in the builder'soffer.

Jonah found his aunt even worse than thecommunication from the Politicking had led him to expect. There wasevery possibility of her lingering on for weeks or months, thoughlittle likelihood. He wrote to Bria informing her of the state of heraunt, and suggesting that she might like to see her aged relativealive. He would meet her at Alfredston Road, the following evening,Monday, on his way back from Christminster, if she could come by theup-train which crossed his down-train at that station. Next morning,accordingly, he went on to Christminster, intending to return toAlfredston soon enough to keep the suggested appointment with Bria.

The city of learning wore an estranged look, andhe had lost all feeling for its associations. Yet as the sun madevivid lights and shades of the mullioned architecture of the facades,and drew patterns of the crinkled battlements on the young turf ofthe quadrangles, Jonah thought he had never seen the place look morebeautiful. He came to the street in which he had first beheld Bria.The chair she had occupied when, leaning over her ecclesiasticalscrolls, a hog-hair brush in her hand, her girlish figure hadarrested the gaze of his inquiring eyes, stood precisely in itsformer spot, empty. It was as if she were dead, and nobody had beenfound capable of succeeding her in that artistic pursuit. Hers wasnow the city phantom,

However, here he was; and in fulfillment of hisintention he went on this former lodging in “Bathsheba,” near theritualistic church of St. Silas. The old landlady who opened the doorseemed glad to see him again, and bringing some lunch informed himthat the builder who had employed him had called to inquire hisaddress.

Jonah went on to the stone-yard where he hadworked. But the old sheds and bankers were distasteful to him; hefelt it impossible to engage himself to return and stay in this placeof vanished dreams. He longed for the hour of the homeward train toAlfredston, where he might probably meet Bria.

Then, for one ghastly half-hour of depressioncaused by these scenes, there returned upon him that feeling whichhad been his undoing more than once—that he was not worth thetrouble of being taken care of either by himself or others; andduring this half-hour he met Norman Taylor, the bankruptecclesiastical ironmonger, at Four ways, who proposed that theyshould adjourn to a bar and drink together. They walked along thestreet till they stood before one of the great palpitating centers ofChristminster life, the inn wherein he formerly had responded to thechallenge to rehearse the Creed in Latin—now popular tavern with aspacious and inviting entrance, which gave admittance to a bar thathad been entirely renovated and refitted in modern style sinceJonah's residence here.

Norman Taylor drank off his glass and departed,saying it was too stylish a place now for him to feel at home inunless he was drunker than he had money to be just then. Jonah waslonger finishing his, and stood abstractedly silent in the, for theminute, almost empty place. The bar had been gutted and newlyarranged throughout, mahogany fixtures having taken the place of theold painted ones, while at tieback of the standing-space there werestuffed sofa benches. The room was divided into compartments in theapproved manner, between which were screens of ground glass inmahogany framing, to prevent ropers in one compartment being put tothe blush by the recognition of those in the next. On the inside ofthe counter two barmaids lean over the white-handled beer-engines,and the row of little silvered taps inside, dripping into a pewtertrough.

Feeling tired, and having nothing more to do tillthe train left, Jonah sat down on one of the sofas. At the back ofthe barmaids rose bevel-edged mirrors, with glass shelves runningalong their front, on which stood precious liquids that Jonah did notknow the name of, in bottles of topaz, sapphire, ruby??and amethyst.The moment was enlivened by the entrance of some customers into thenext compartment, and the starting of the mechanical tell-tale ofmonies received, which emitted a ting-ting every time a coin was putin.

The barmaid attending to this compartment wasinvisible to Jonah's direct glance, though a reflection of her backin the glass behind her was occasionally caught by his eyes. He hadonly observed this listlessly, when she turned her face for a momentto the glass to ether hair tidy. Then he was amazed to discover thatthe face was Mirabella's.

If she had come on to his compartment she wouldhave seen him. But she did not, this being presided over by themaiden on the other side. Abby was in a black gown, with white linencuffs and a broad white collar, and her figure, more developed thanformerly, was accentuated by bunch of daffodils that she wore on herleft bosom. In the compartment she served stood an elector-platedfountain of water over spirit-lamp, whose blue flame sent a steamfrom the top, all this being visible to him only in the mirror behindher; which also reflected the faces of the men she was attendingto—one of them a handsome, dissipated young fellow, possibly anundergraduate, who had been relating to her an experience of somehumorous sort.

"Oh, Mr Cock man, now! How can you tell sucha tale to me in my innocence! she cried gaily. "Mr. Cock man,what do you use to make your mustache curl so beautiful?” As theyoung man was clean shaven, the retort provoked a laugh at hisexpense.

"Come!" said he, “I'll have a curacao;and a light, please."

She served the liqueur from one of the lovelybottles and striking match held it to his cigarette with ministeringarchness while he whiffed.

"Well, have you heard from your husbandlately, my dear?" he asked.

"Not a sound," she said.

"Where is he?"

“I left him in Australia; and I suppose he'sstill there."

Jonah's eyes grew rounder.

"What made you part of him?"

"Don't you ask questions, and you won't hearlies."

“Come then, give me my change, which you've beenkeeping from me for the last quarter of an hour; and I'llromantically vanish up the street of this picturesque city.”

She handed the change over the counter, takingwhich he caught her fingers and held them. There was a slightstruggle and titter, and he bade her good-bye and left.

Jonah had looked on with the eye of a dazedphilosopher. It was extraordinarily how far removed from his lifeMirabella now seemed to be. He could not realize their nominalcloseness. And, this being the case, in his present frame of mind hewas indifferent to the fact that Mirabella was his wife indeed.

The compartment that she served emptied itself ofvisitors, and after a brief thought he entered it, and went forwardto the counter. Admirably not recognize him for a moment. Then theirglances met. She started; till a humorous impudence sparkled in hereyes, and she spoke.

“Well, I'm belts! I thought you were undergroundyears ago!"

"Oh!"

“I never heard anything of you, or I don't knowthat I should have come here. But never mind! What shall I treat youto this afternoon? A Scotch and soda? Come, anything that the housewill afford, for old acquaintance' sake!"

"Thanks, Mirabella," said Jonah withouta smile. "But I don't want anything more than I've had."The fact was that her unexpected presence there had destroyed at astroke his momentary taste for strong liquors completely as if it hadwhisked him back to his milk-fed infancy.

"That's a pity, now you could get it fornothing."

"How long have you been here?"

“About six weeks. I returned from Sydney threemonths ago. I always liked this business, you know."

"I wonder you came to this place!"

“Well, as I say, I thought you were gone toglory, and being in London I saw the situation in an advertisement.Nobody was likely to know more, even if I had minded, for I was neverin Christminster in my growing up."

"Why did you return from Australia?"

"Oh, I had my reasons... Then you are not adon yet?"

"No."

"Not even a reverend?"

"No."

"Nor so much as a rather reverend dissentinggentleman?"

"I am as I was."

"True—you look like that." She idlyallowed her fingers to rest on the pull of the beer engine as sheinspected him critically. He observed that her hands were smaller andwhiter than when he had lived with her, and that on the hand whichpulled the engine she wore an ornamental ring set with what seemed tobe real sapphires—which they were, indeed, and were much admired assuch by the young men who frequented the bar.

"So you pass as having a living husband,"he continued.

"Yes. I thought it might be awkward if Icalled myself a widow, as I should have liked.”

"True. I am known here a little."

“I didn't mean on that account—for as I said Ididn't expect you. It was for other reasons."

"What were they?"

"I don't care to go into them," shereplied evasively. "I make a very good living, and I don't knowthat I want your company."

Here a chappies with no chin, and a mustache likea lady's eyebrow, came and asked for a curiously compounded drink,and Mirabella was obligated to go and attend to him. "We can'ttalk here," she said, stepping back a moment. “Can't you waittill nine? Say yes, and don't be a fool. I can get off duty two hourssooner than usual, if I ask. I'm not living in the house at present."

He reflected and said gloomily, “I'll come back.I suppose we'd better arrange something."

"Oh, bother arranging! I'm not going toarrange anything!"

“But I must know a thing or two; and, as yousay, we can't talk here. Very well; I'll call for you."

Depositing his unemployed glass he went out andwalked up and down the street. Here was a rude flounce into thepellucid sentimentality of hissed attachment to Bria. ThoughMirabella's word was absolutely untrustworthy, he thought there mightbe some truth in her implication that she had not wished to disturbhim, and had really supposed to be him dead. However, there was onlyone thing now to be done, and that was to play a straightforwardpart, the law being the law, and the woman between whom and himselfthere was no more unity than between east and west, being in the eyeof the Church one person with him.

Having to meet Mirabella here, it was impossibleto meet Bria at Alfredston as he had promised. At every thought ofthis a pang had gone through him; but the conjuncture could not behelped. Mirabella was perhaps an intended intervention to punish himfor his unauthorized love. Passing the evening, therefore, in adesultory waiting about the town whereby he avoided the precincts ofevery cloister and hall, because he could not bear to behold them, herepaired to the tavern bar while the hundred and one strokes wereresounding from the Great Bellow Cardinal College, a coincidencewhich seemed to him gratuitously irony. The inn was now brilliantlylighted up, and the scene was altogether more brisk and gay. Thefaces of the bar maidens had risen incurious, each having a pinkflush on their cheeks; their manners were still more vivacious thanbefore—more abandoned,

The bar had been crowded with men of all sortsduring the previous hour, and he had heard from without the hubbub oftheir voices; but the customers were fewer at last. He nodded toMirabella, and told her that she would find him outside the door whenshe came away.

"But you must have something with me first,"she said with great good humor. “Just an early night-cap: I alwaysdo. Then you can go out and wait a minute, as it is best we shouldnot be seen going together.” She drew a couple of liqueur glassesof brandy; and though she had evidently, from her countenance,already taken in enough alcohol either by drinking or, more probably,from the atmosphere she had breathed torso many hours, she finishedhers quickly. He also drank his, and went outside the house.

In a few minutes she came, in a thick jacket and ahat with a black feather. "I live quite near," she said,taking his arm, "and can let my self in by a latch-key at anytime. What arrangement do you want to come to?”

"Oh—none in particular," he answered,thoroughly sick and tired, his thoughts again reverting toAlfredston, and the train he did not go by; the probabledisappointment of Bria, that he was not there when she arrived, andthe missed pleasure of her company on the long and lonely climb bystarlight up the hills to Marygreen. “I ought to have gone backreally! My aunt is on her deathbed, I fear."

“I'll go over with you to-morrow morning. Ithink I could get a day off."

There was something particularly uncongenial inthe idea of??Mirabella, who had no more sympathy than a tigress withhis relations or him, coming to the bedside of his dying aunt, andmeeting Bria. Yet he said, "Of course, if you'd like to, youcan."

“Well, that we'll consider… Now, until we havecome to some agreement it is awkward our being together here—whereyou are known, and I am getting known, though without any suspicionthat I have anything to do with you. As we are going towards thestation, suppose we take the nine-forty train to Aldbrickham? Weshall be there in little more than half an hour, and nobody will knowus for one night, and we shall be quite free to act as we choose tillwe have made up our minds whether we'll make anything public or not.”

"As you like."

“Then wait till I get two or three things. Thisis my lodging. Sometimes when late I sleep at the hotel where I amengaged, so nobody will think anything of my staying out.”

She returned speedily, and they went on to therailway, and made the half-hour's journey to Aldbrickham, where theyentered a third-rate inn near the station in time for a late supper.

Chapter 27

On the morrow between nine and half-past they werejourneying back to Christminster, the only two occupants of acompartment in a third-class railway carriage. Having, like Jonah,made rather a hasty toilet to catch the train, Mirabella looked alittle drowsy, and her face was very far from possessing theanimation which had characterized it at the bathe night before. Whenthey came out of the station she found that she still had helped anhour to spare before she was due at the bar. They walked in silence alittle way out of the town in the direction of Alfredston. Jonahlooked up the far highway.

"Ah... poor feeble me!" he murmured atlast.

"What?" said she.

“This is the very road by which I came intoChristminster years ago full of plans!”

“Well, whatever the road is I think my time isnearly up, as I have robe in the bar by eleven o'clock. And as Isaid, I shan't ask for the day to go with you to see your aunt. Soperhaps we had better par there. I'd sooner not walk up Chief Streetwith you, since we've come to no conclusion at all."

"Very well. But you said when we were gettingup this morning that you had something you wished to tell me before Ileft?”

“So I had—two things—one in particular. Butyou wouldn't promise to keep it a secret. I'll tell you now if youpromise? As an honest woman I wish you to know it... It was what Ibegan telling you in the night—about that gentleman who managed theSydney hotel.” Mirabella spoke somewhat hurriedly for her. "You'llkeep it close?"

"Yes—yes—I promise!" said Jonahimpatiently. "Of course I don't want to reveal your secrets."

“Whenever I met him out for a walk, he used tosay that he was much taken with my looks, and he kept pressing me tomarry him. I never thought of coming back to England again; and beingout there in Australia, with no home of my own after leaving my papa,I at last agreed, and did.”

"What—marry him?"

"Yes."

“Regularly—legally—in church?”

"Yes. And lived with him till shortly beforeI left. It was stupid, I know; but I did! There, now I've told you.Don't round upon me! He talks of coming back to England, poor oldchap. But if he does, he won't be likely to find me."

Jonah stood pale and fixed.

"Why the devil didn't you tell me lastnight!" he said.

"Well—I didn't... Won't you make it up withme, then?"

"So in talking of 'your husband' to the bargentlemen you meant him, of course—not me!"

"Of course... Come on, don't fuss about it."

"I have nothing more to say!" repliedJonah. "I have nothing at all to say about the—crime—you'veconfessed to!"

"Crime! pooh They don't think much of such asthat over there! Lots offer do it... Well, if you take it like that Ishall go back to him! He was very fond of me, and we lived honorableenough, and as respectable as any married couple in the colony! Howdid I know where you were?”

“I won't go blaming you. I could say a gooddeal; but perhaps it would be misplaced. What do you wish me to do?”

"Nothing. There was one thing more I wantedto tell you; but I fancy we've seen enough of one another for thepresent! I shall think about what you said about your circumstances,and let you know.”

Thus they parted. Jonah watched her disappear inthe direction of the hotel, and entered the railway station close by.Finding that it wanted three-quarters of an hour of the time at whichhe could get a train back to Alfredston, he strolled mechanicallyinto the city as far as tithe Four ways, where he stood as he had sooften stood before, and surveyed Chief Street stretching ahead, withits college after college, in picturesqueness unrivaled except bysuch Continental vistas as the Street of Palaces in Genoa; the linesof the buildings being as distinct in the morning air as in anarchitectural drawing. But Jonah was far from seeing or criticizingthese things; they were hidden by an indescribable consciousness ofMirabella's midnight contiguity, a sense of degradation at hisrevived experiences with her, of her appearance as she lay asleep atdawn, which set upon his motionless face a look sofa one accursed. Ifhe could only have felt resentment towards her he would have beenless unhappy; but he pitied while he contemned her.

Jonah turned and retraced his steps. Drawing againtowards the station he started at hearing his name pronounced—lessat the name than at the voice. To his great surprise no other thanBria stood like a vision before him—her look doleful and anxious asin a dream, her little mouth nervous, and her strained eyes speakingreproachful inquiry.

"Oh, Jonah—I'm so glad—to meet you likethis!" she said in quick, even accents not far from a sob. Thenshe flushed as she observed his thought that they had not met sinceher marriage.

They looked away from each other to hide theiremotion, took each other's hand without further speech, and went ontogether awhile, till she glanced at him with furtive solicitude. “Iarrived at Alfredston station last night, as you asked me to, andthere was nobody to meet me! But I reached Marygreen alone, and theytold me Aunt was a trifle better. I sat up with her, and as you didnot come all night I was frightened about you—I thought thatperhaps, when you found yourself back in the old city, you were upsetat—at thinking I was—married, and not there as I used to be; andthat you had nobody to speak to; so you had tried to drown yourgloom—as you did at that former time when you were disappointedabout entering as a student, and had forgotten your promise to methat you would never again. And this, I thought, what why you hadn'tcome to meet me!"

"And you came to hunt me up, and deliver me,like a good angel!"

“I thought I would come by the morning train andtry to find you—encase—in case—”

“I did think of my promise to you, dear,continually! I shall never break out again as I did, I am sure. I mayhave been doing nothing better, but I was not doing that—I loathethe thought of it.”

“I am glad your staying had nothing to do withthat. But,” she said, the finest pout entering into her tone, “youdidn't come back last night and meet me, as you engaged to!”

“I didn't—I'm sorry to say. I had anappointment at nine o'clock—too late for me to catch the train thatwould have met yours, or to get home at all.”

Looking at his loved one as she appeared to himnow, in his tender thought the sweetest and most disinterestedcomrade that he had ever had, living largely in vivid imaginings, soethereal a creature thatcher spirit could be seen trembling throughher limbs, he felt heartily ashamed of his earthiness in spending thehours he had spent in Mirabella's company. There was something rudeand immoral in thrusting these recent facts of his life upon the mindof one who, to him, was incarnate as to seem at times impossible as ahuman wife to any average man. And yet she was Philson's. How she hadbecome such, how shelved as such, passed his comprehension as heregarded her to-day.

"You'll go back with me?" he said.“There's a train just now. I wonder how my aunt is by this time…And so, Bria, you really came on my account all this way! At what anearly time you must have started, poor thing!”

"Yes. Sitting up watching alone made me allnerves for you, and instead of going to bed when it got light Istarted. And now you won't frighten me like this again about yourmorals for nothing?”

He was not so sure that she had been frightenedabout his morals for nothing. He released her hand till they hadentered the train,—it seemed the same carriage he had lately gotout of with another—where they sat down side by side, Bria betweenhim and the window. He regarded the delicate lines of her profile,and the small, tight, apple-like convexity of her bodice, sodifferent from Mirabella's amplitudes. Though she knew he was lookingat her she did not turn to him, but kept her eyes forward, as ifafraid that by Meeting his own some trouble discussion would beinitiated.

“Bria—you are married now, you know, like me;and yet we have been in such a hurry that we have not said a wordabout it!”

"There's no necessity," she quicklyreturned.

“Oh well—perhaps not… But I wish”

"Jonah—don't talk about _me_—I wish youwouldn't!" she entreated. “It distresses me, rather. Forgivemy saying it! … Where did you stay last night?”

She had asked the question in perfect innocence,to change the topic. He knew that, and said merely, “At an inn,”though it would have been made to tell her of his meeting with anunexpected one. But the latter's final announcement of her marriagein Australia bewildered him lest what he might say should do hisignorant wife an injury.

Their talk proceeded but awkwardly till theyreached Alfredston. That Bria was not as she had been, but waslabeled “Philson,” Jonah paralyzed whenever he wanted to communewith her as an individual. Yet she seemed unaltered—he could notsay why. There remained the five-mile extra journey into the country,which it was just as easy to walk as to drive, the greater part of itbeing uphill. Jonah had never before in his life gone that road withBria, though he had with another. It was now as if he carried abright light which temporarily banished the shady associations of theearlier time.

Bria talked; but Jonah noticed that she still keptthe conversation from herself. At length he required if her husbandwere well.

"O yes," she said. "He is obligedto be in the school all the day, or he would have come with me. He isso good and kind that to accompany heme would have dismissed theschool for once, even against his principles—for he is stronglyopposed to giving casual holidays—only Wouldn't let him. I felt itwould be better to come alone. Aunt Tiara, I knew what was so veryeccentric; and his being almost stranger to her now would have madeit irksome to both. Since it turns out that she is hardly conscious Iam glad I did not ask him."

Jonah had walked moodily while this praise ofPhilson was being expressed. "Mr. Philson obliges you ineverything, as he ought,” he said.

"Of course."

"You ought to be a happy wife."

"And of course I am."

"Bride, I might almost have said, as yet. Itis not so many weeks since I gave you to him, and—”

"Yes, I know! I know!" There wassomething in her face which belied her late assuring words, sostrictly proper and so lifelessly spoken that they might have beentaken from a list of model speeches in “The Wife's Guide toConduct.” Jonah knew the quality of every vibration in Beria'svoice, could read every symptom of her mental condition; and he wasconvinced that she was unhappy, although she had not been a monthmarried. But her rushing away thus from home, to see the last ofrelative whom she had hardly known in her life, proved nothing; forBrian naturally did such things as those.

"Well, you have my good wishes now as always,Mrs. Philson."

She reproached him by a glance.

"No, you are not Mrs. Philson," Jonahmurmured. “You are dear, freebie Waugh, only you don't know it!Midwife has not yet squashed upland digested you in its vast maw asan atom which has no further individuality.”

Bria put on a look of being offended, till sheanswered, "Nor husbandman you, so far as I can see!"

"But it has!" he said, shaking his headsadly.

When they reached the lone cottage under the firs,between the Brown House and Marygreen, in which Jonah and Mirabellahad lived headquartered, he turned to look at it. A squalid familylived there now. He could not help saying to Bria: “That's thehouse my wife and Occupied the whole of the time we lived together. Ibrought her home to that house.”

She looked at it. "That to you was what theschool-house at Astonish into me."

“Yes; but I wasn't very happy there as you arein yours."

She closed her lips in restorative silence, andthey walked some way till she glanced at him to see how he was takingit. "Of course I may have exaggerated your happiness—one neverknows," he continued blandly.

“Don't think that, Jonah, for a moment, eventhough you may have said it to sting me! He's as good to me as a mancan be, and gives me perfect liberty—which elderly husbands don'tdo in general… If you think I am not happy because he's too old forme, you are wrong.”

"I don't think anything against him—to youdear."

"And you won't say things to distress me,will you?"

"I don't want to."

He said no more, but he knew that, from some causeor other, in taking Philson as a husband, Bria felt that she had donewhat she ought not to have done.

They plunged into the concave field on the otherside of which rose the village—the field wherein Jonah had receiveda thrashing from the farmer many years earlier. On ascending to thevillage and approaching the house they found Mrs. Flickinger standingat the door, who at sight of them lifted her hands deprecatingly."She's downstairs, if you'll believe me!" cried the widow."Out o' bed she got, and nothing could turn her. What will comeoat I do not know!"

On entering, there indeed by the fireplace sat theold woman, wrapped in blankets, and turning upon them a countenancelike that of Sebastian's Lazarus. They must have looked theiramazement, for she said in a hollow voice:

“Ah—sneered ye, have I! I wasn't going to bidup there no longer, to please nobody! 'Tis more than flesh and bloodcan bear, to be ordered to do this and that by a feller that don'tknow helped as well as you do yourself! … Ah—you'll rue thismarrying as well as he!” she added, turning to Bria. “All ourfamily do—and nearly all everybody else's. You should have done asI did, you simpleton! And Philson the schoolmaster, of all men! Whatmade 'ee marry him?"

"What makes most women marry, Aunt?"

"Ah! You mean to say you loved the man!”

"I don't mean to say anything definite."

"Do ye love un?"

"Don't ask me, Aunt."

“I can mind the man very well. A very civil,honorable liver; but Lord!—I don't want to wowed your feelings,but—there be certain men here and there that no woman of anyniceness can stomach. I should have said he was one. I don't say so_now_, since you must ha' known better than I—but that's what I_should_ have said!"

Bria jumped up and went out. Jonah followed her,and found her in the outhouse, crying.

"Don't cry, dear!" said Jonah indistress. "She means well, but is very crusty and queer now, youknow."

"Oh no—it isn't that!" said Bria,trying to dry her eyes. "I don't mind roughness one bit."

"What is it, then?"

"It is that what she says is—is true!"

“God—what—you don't like him?” askedJonah.

"I don't mean that!" she said hastily."That I ought—perhaps I oughtn't to have married!"

He wondered if she had really been going to saythat at first. They went back, and the subject was smoothed over, andher aunt took rather kindly to Bria, telling her that not many youngwomen newly married would have come so far to see a sick old cronelike her. In the afternoon Bria prepared to depart, Jonah hiring aneighbor to drive hero Alfredston.

"I'll go with you to the station, if you'dlike?" he said.

She would not let him. The man came round with thetrap, and Jonah helped her into it, perhaps with unnecessaryattention, for she looked at him prohibitively.

"I suppose—I may come to see you some day,when I am back again Manchester?" he half-crossly observed.

She bent down and said softly: “No, dear—youare not to come yet. I don't think you are in a good mood."

"Very well," said Jonah. "Goodbye!"

"Good bye!" She waved her hand and wasgone.

“She's right! I won't go!" hey murmured.

He passed the evening and following days inmortifying by every possible means his wish to see her, nearlystarving himself in attempts to extinguish by fasting his passionatetendency to love her. He read sermons on discipline, and hunted uppassages in Church history that treated of the Ascetics of the secondcentury. Before he had returned from Marygreen to Chester therearrived a letter from Mirabella. The sight of it revived a strongerfeeling of self-condemnation for his brief return to her society thanfor his attachment to Bria.

The letter, he perceived, bore a London postmarkinstead of the Christminster one. Mirabella informed him that a fewdays after their parting in the morning at Christminster, she hadbeen surprised by an affectionate letter from her Australian husband,formerly manager of the hotel in Sydney. He had come to England forthe purpose of finding her; and had taken a free, fully-licensedpublic, in Lambert, where he wished her to join him in conducting thebusiness, which was likely to be Avery thriving one, the house beingsituated in an excellent, densely-populated, gin-drinkingneighborhood, and already doing a trade of £200 a month, which couldbe easily doubled.

As he had said that he loved her very much still,and implored her totally to tell him where she was, and as they hadonly parted in a slight tiff, and as her engagement in Christminsterwas only temporary, she had just gone to join him as he urged Shecould not help feeling that she belonged to him more than to Jonah,since she had properly married him, and had lived with him muchlonger than with her first husband. In thus wishing Jonah good-byeshe bore him no ill-will, and trusted he wouldn't turn upon her, aweak woman, and inform against her, and bring hero ruin now that shehad a chance of improving her circumstances and leading a genteellife.

Chapter 28

Jonah returned to Chester, which had thequestionable recommendation of being only a dozen and a half milesfrom his Beria's now permanent residence. At first he felt that thisnearness was a distinct reason for not going southward at all; butChristminster was too sad a placebo bear, while the proximity ofAstonish to Chester might afford him the glory of worsting the Enemyin a close engagement, such as was deliberately sought by the priestsand virgins of the early Church, who, disdaining an ignominiousflight from temptation, became even chamber-partners with impunity.Jonah did not pause to remember that, in the Laconic words of thehistorian, "Insulted Nature sometimes vindicated her rights"in such circumstances.

He now returned with feverish desperation to hisstudy for the priesthood—in the recognition that thesingle-mindedness of his aims, and his fidelity to the cause, hadbeen more than questionable of late. His passion for Bria troubledhis soul; yet his lawful abandonment to the society of Mirabella fortwelve hours seemed instinctively a worse thing—even though she hadnot told him of her Sydney husband till afterwards. He had, he verilybelieved, overcome all tendency to fly to liquor—which, indeed, hehad never done from taste, but merely as an escape from intolerablemisery of mind. Yet he perceived with despondency that, taken allround, he was a man of too many passions to make a good clergyman;the utmost he could hope for was that in a life of constant internalwarfare between flesh and spirit the former might not always bevictorious.

As a hobby, auxiliary to his readings in Divinity,he developed his light skill in church-music and thorough-bass, tillhe could join impart-singing from notation with some accuracy. A mileor two chesterfield there was a restored village church, to whichJonah had originally gone to fix the new columns and capitals. Bythis means he had become acquainted with the organist, and theultimate result was that he joined the choir as a bass voice.

He walked out to this parish twice every Sunday,and sometimes in the week. One evening about Easter the choir met forpractice, and a new hymn which Jonah had heard of as being by aWessex composer was to be tried and prepared for the following week.It turned out to be a strangely emotional composition. As they allsang it over and over again its harmonies grew upon Jonah, and movedhim exceedingly.

When they had finished he went round to theorganist to make inquiries. The score was in manuscript, the name ofthe composer being at the head, together with the title of the hymn:“The Foot of the Cross.”

"Yes," said the organist. “He is alocal man. He is a professional musician at Breckenridge—betweenhere and Christminster. The vikarnows him. He was brought up andeducated in Christminster traditions, which accounts for the qualityof the piece. I think he plays in the large church there, and has asurplices ??choir. He comes to Melchester sometimes, and once triedto get the cathedral organ when the post was vacant. The hymn isgetting about everywhere this Easter."

As he walked humming the air on his way home,Jonah fell to musing on its composer, and the reasons why he composedit. What a man of sympathies he must be! Perplexed and harassed as hehimself was about Bria and Mirabella, and troubled as was hisconscience by the complication of his position, how he would like toknow that man! “He of all men would understand my difficulties,”said the impulsive Jonah. If there were any person in the world tochoose as a confidant, this composer would be the one, for he musthave suffered, and throbbed, and yearned.

In brief, ill as he could afford the time andmoney for the journey, Falconeri resolved, like the child that hewas, to go to Breckenridge the very next Sunday. He duly started,early in the morning, for it was only by a series of crooked railwaysthat he could get to the town. About mid-day he reached it, andcrossing the bridge into the quaint old borough he required for thehouse of the composer.

They told him it was a red brick building somelittle way further on. Also that the gentleman himself had justpassed along the street not five minutes before.

"Which way?" asked Jonah with alacrity.

"Straight along homeward from church."

Jonah hastened on, and soon had the pleasure ofobserving a man in a black coat and a black slouched felt, hat noconsiderable distance ahead. Stretching out his legs yet more widely,he stalked after. "A hungry soul in pursuit of a full soul!"he said. "I must speak to that man!"

He could not, however, overtake the musicianbefore he had entered his own house, and then arose the question ifthis were an expedient time to call. Whether or not he decided to doso there and then, now that he had got here, the distance home beingtoo great for him to wait till late in the afternoon. This man ofsoul would understand scant ceremony, and might be quite a perfectadviser in a case in which unearthly and illegitimate passion hadcunningly obtained entrance into his heart through the openingafforded for religion.

Jonah accordingly rang the bell, and was admitted.

The musician came to him in a moment, and beingrespectably dressed, good-looking, and frank in manner, Jonahobtained a favorable reception. He was nevertheless conscious thatthere would be a certain awkwardness in explaining his errand.

"I have been singing in the choir of a littlechurch near Chester," he said. “And we have practiced thisweek 'The Foot of the Cross,'which I understand, sir, that youcomposed?”

"I did—a year or so ago."

“I—like it. I think it is supremelybeautiful!”

“Ah well—other people have said so too. Yes,there's money in it, if I could only see about getting it published.I have other compositions to go with it, too; I wish I could bringthem out; for I haven't made five-pound note out of any of them yet.These publishing people—they want the copyright of an obscurecomposer's work, such as mine is, for almost less than I should haveto pay a person for making a fair manuscript copy of the score. Theone you speak of I have lent to various friends about here andChester, and so it has got to be sung little. But music is a poorstaff to lean on—I am giving it up entirely. You must go into tradeif you want to make money nowadays. The wine business is what I amthinking of. This is my forthcoming list—it is not Brisbane yet—butyou can take one.”

He handed Jonah an advertisement list of severalpages in booklet shape, ornament ally margin ed with a red line, inwhich were set forth the various clarets, champagnes, ports,sherries, and other wines with which he purposed to initiate his newventure. It took Jonah more than by surprise that the man with thesoul was thus and thus; and he felt that he could not open up hisconfidences.

They talked a little longer, but constrained, forwhen the musician found that Jonah was a poor man his manner changedfrom what it had been while Jonah's appearance and address decidedhim as to his position and pursuits. Jonah stammered out somethingabout his feelings in wishing to congratulate the author on such anexalted composition, and took unembarrassed leave.

All the way home by the slow Sunday train, sittingin the tireless waiting rooms on this cold spring day, he wasdepressed enough at his simplicity in taking such a journey. But nosooner did he reach his Chester lodging than he found awaiting him aletter which had arrived that morning a few minutes after he had leftthe house. It was a contrite little note from Bria, in which shesaid, with sweet humility, that she felt she had been horrid intelling him he was not to come to see her, that she despised herselffor having been so conventional; and that he was to be sure to comeby the eleven-forty-five train that very Sunday, and have dinner withthem at half-past one.

Jonah almost tore his hair at having missed thisletter till it was too late to act upon its contents; but he hadchastened himself considerably of late, and at last his chimericalexpedition to Breckenridge really did seem to have been anotherspecial intervention of Providence to keep him away from temptation.But a growing impatience of faith, which he had noticed in himselfmore than once oblate, made him pass over in ridicule the idea thatGod sent people on fools' errands. He longed to see her; he was angryat having missed her: and he wrote instantly, telling her what hadhappened, and saying he had not enough patience to wait till thefollowing Sunday, but would come any day in the week that she likedto name.

Since he wrote a little over-ardently, Bria, asher manner was, delayed her reply till Thursday before Good Friday,when she said he might come that afternoon if he wished, this beingthe earliest day on which she could welcome him, for she was nowassistant teacher in her husband's school. Jonah therefore got leavefrom the cathedral works at the trifling expense of a stoppage ofpay, and went.

_“Whoso prefers either Matrimony or otherOrdinance before the Good of Man and the plain Exigence of Charity,let him profess Papist, or Protestant, or what he will, he is nobetter than a Pharisee.”_—J.MILTON.

Chapter 29

Astonish, the ancient British Palladio,

From whose foundation first such strange reportsarise,

(as Dayton sang it), was, and is, in itself thecity of a dream. Vague imaginings of its castle, its three mints, itsmagnificent collapsible, the chief glory of South Wessex, its twelvechurches, its shrines, chanceries, hospitals, its gabled freestonemansions—all now ruthlessly swept away—throw the visitor, evenagainst his will, into pensive melancholy, which the stimulatingatmosphere and limitless landscape around him can scarcely dispel.The spot was the burial-place of a king and a queen, of abbots andabbesses, saints and bishops, knights and squires. The bones of KingEdward “the Martyr,” carefully removed hither for holypreservation, brought Astonish a renown which made it the resort ofpilgrims from every part of Europe, and enabled it to maintain areputation extending far beyond English shores. To this fair creationof the great Middle-Age the Dissolution was, as historians tell us,the death-knell. With the destruction of the enormous abbey the wholeplace collapsed in a general ruin: the Martyr's bones met with thefate of the sacred pile that held them, and not a stone is now leftto tell where they lie.

The natural picturesqueness and singularity of thetown still remain; but strange to say these qualities, which werenoted by many writers images when scenic beauty is said to have beenunappreciated, are passed over in this, and one of the queerest andquaintest spots in England stands virtually uninvited to-day.

It has a unique position on the summit of a steepand imposing scarp, rising on the north, south, and west sides of theborough out of the deep alluvial Vale of Blackamoor, the view fromthe Castle Green overthrew counties of verdant pasture—South, Mid,and Nether Wessex—being gas suddenly a surprise to the unexpectedtraveller's eyes as thematic air is to his lungs. Impossible to arailway, it can best breached on foot, next best by light vehicles;and it is hardly accessible to these but by a sort of isthmus on thenorth-east, that connects it with the high chalk table-land on thatside.

Such is, and such was, the now world-forgottenAstonish or Palladour. Its situation rendered water the great want ofthe town; and within living memory, horses, donkeys and men may havebeen seen toiling up the winding ways to the top of the height, ladenwith tubs and barrels filled from the wells beneath the mountain, andhawkers retailing their contents at the price of a halfpenny abucketful.

This difficulty in the water supply, together withtwo other odd facts, namely, that the chief graveyard slopes up assteeply as a roof behind the church, and that in former times thetown passed through a curious period of corruption, conventional anddomestic, gave rise to the saying that Astonish was remarkable forthree consolations to man, such as the world afforded not elsewhere.It was a place where the churchyard lay nearer heaven than the churchsteeple, where beer was more plentiful than water, and where therewere more wanton women than honest wive sand maids. It is also saidthat after the Middle Ages the inhabitants were too poor to pay theirpriests, and hence were compelled to pull down their churches, andrefrain altogether from the public worship of God; a necessity whichthey bemoaned over their cups in the settles of their inns on Sundayafternoons. In those days the Washingtonians were apparently notwithout a sense of humor.

There was another peculiarity—this a modernone—which Astonish appeared to owe to its site. It was theresting-place and headquarters of the proprietors of wandering vans,shows, shooting-galleries, and other itinerant concerns, whosebusiness lay largely at fairs and markets. As strange wild birds areseen assembled on some lofty promontory, meditatively pausing forlonger flights, or to return by the course they followed thither, sohere, in this cliff-town, stood in stultified silence the yellow andgreen caravans bearing names not local, as if surprised by a changein the landscape so violent as to hinder their further progress; andhere they usually stayed all the winter till they turned to seekagain their old tracks in the following spring.

It was to this breezy and whimsical spot thatJonah ascended from the nearest station for the first time in hislife about four o'clock one afternoon, and entering on the summit ofthe peak after a toilsome climb, passed the first houses of theaerial town; and drew towards the school-house. The hour was tooearly; the pupils were still in school, humming small, like a swarmof gnats; and he withdrew a few steps along Abbey Walk, whence heregarded the spot which fate had made the home fall he loved best inthe world. In front of the schools, which were extensive andstone-built, grew two enormous beeches with smooth mouse-coloredtrunks, as such trees will only grow on chalk uplands. Within themullioned and ransomed windows he could see the black,brown, andflaxen crowns of the scholars over the sills,

Unwilling to enter till the children weredismissed he remained here till young voices could be heard in theopen air, and girls in white pinafores over red and blue frocksappeared dancing along the paths which the abbess, prioress, subprioress, and fifty nuns had demurely paced three centuries earlier.Retracing his steps he found that he had waited too long, and thatBria had gone out into the town at the heels of the last scholar, Mr.Philson having been absent all the afternoon at a teachers' meetingat Shortsighted.

Jonah went into the empty schoolroom and sat down,the girl who was sweeping the floor having informed him that Mrs.Philson would be back again in a few minutes. A piano stoodnear—actually the old piano that Philson had possessed atMarygreen—and though the dark afternoon almost prevented him seeingthe notes Jonah touched them in his humble way, and could not helpmodulating into the hymn which hadst affected him in the previousweek.

A figure moved behind him, and thinking it wasstill the girl with the broom Jonah took no notice, till the personcame close and laid her fingers lightly upon his bass hand. Theimposed hand was a little one he seemed to know, and he turned.

"Don't stop," said Bria. “I like it. Ilearned it before I left Chester. They used to play it in thetraining school."

“I can't strum before you! Play it for me."

"Oh well—I don't mind."

Bria sat down, and her rendering of the piece,though not remarkable, seemed divine as compared with his own. She,like him, was evidently touched—to her own surprise—by therecalled air; and when she had finished, and he moved his handtowards hers, it met his own half-way. Jonah grasped it—just as hehad done before her marriage.

"It is odd," she said, in a voice quitechanged, "that I should care about that air; because—”

"Because what?"

"I am not that sort—quite."

“Not easily moved?”

"I didn't quite mean that."

"Oh, but you _are_ one of that sort, for youare just like me at heart!"

"But not at head."

She played on and suddenly turned round; and by anunpremeditated instinct each clasped the other's hand again.

She uttered a forced little laugh as sherelinquished his quickly. "How funny!" she said. "Iwonder what we both did that for?"

"I suppose because we are both alike, as Isaid before."

“Not in our thoughts! Perhaps a little in ourfeelings."

“And they rule thoughts… Isn't it enough tomake one blaspheme that the composer of that hymn is one of the mostcommonplace men I ever met!”

"What—you know him?"

"I went to see him."

“Oh, you goose—to do just what I should havedone! Why did you?"

"Because we are not alike," he saiddaily.

"Now we'll have some tea," said Bria.“Shall we have it here instead of in my house? It is no trouble toget the kettle and things brought in. We don't live at the school youknow, but in that ancient dwelling across the way called Old-GrovePlace. It is so antique and dismal that it depresses me dreadfully.Such houses are very well to visit, but motto live in—I feelcrushed into the earth by the weight of so many previous lives spentthere. In a new place like these schools there is only your own lifeto support. Sit down, and I'll tell Ada to bring the tea thingsacross."

He waited in the light of the stove, the door ofwhich she flung open before going out, and when she returned,followed by the maiden with tea, they sat down by the same light,assisted by the blue rays of spirit-lamp under the brass Kettle onthe stand.

"This is one of your wedding-presents to me,"she said, signifying the latter.

"Yes," said Jonah.

The kettle of his gift sang with some satire inits note, to his mind; and to change the subject he said, “Do youknow of any good readable edition of the canonical books of the NewTestament? You don't read them in the school I suppose?”

“Oh dear no!—'would alarm the neighborhood…Yes, there is one. I am not familiar with it now, though I wasinterested in it when my former friend was alive. Cowper's_Apocryphal Gospels_.”

"That sounds like what I want." Histhoughts, however reverted with twinge to the “former friend”—bywhom she meant, as he knew, the university comrade of her earlierdays. He wondered if she talked of him to Philson.

"The Gospel of Nicodemus is very nice,"she went on to keep him from his jealous thoughts, which she readclearly, as she always did. Indeed, when they talked on anindifferent subject, as now, there was ever a second silentconversation passing between their emotions, so perfect was thereciprocity between them. “It is quite like the genuine article.All cut up into verses, too; so that it is like one of the otherevangelists read in a dream, when things are the same, yet not thesame. But, Jonah, do you take an interest in those questions still?Are you getting up _Apologetic_?”

"Yes. I am reading Divinity harder thanever.”

She regards him curiously.

"Why do you look at me like that?" saidJonah.

"Oh—why do you want to know?"

"I am sure you can tell me anything I may beignorant of in that subject. You must have learned a lot ofeverything from your dear dead friend!”

"We won't get on to that now!" shecoaxed. “Will you be carving out at that church again next week,where you learned the pretty hymn?”

"Yes, perhaps."

“That will be very nice. Shall I come and seeyou there? It is in this direction, and I could come any afternoon bytrain for half an hour?”

"No. Don't come!"

“What—aren't we going to be friends, then, anylonger, as we used robe?”

"No."

“I didn't know that. I thought you were alwaysgoing to be kind to me!"

"No, I'm not."

“What have I done, then? I am sure I thought wetwo—” The _tremolo_ inhere voice caused her to break off.

"Bria, I sometimes think you are a flirt,"he said abruptly.

There was a momentary pause, till she suddenlyjumped up; and to his surprise he saw by the kettle-flame that herface was flushed.

"I can't talk to you any longer, Jonah!"she said, the tragic counter note having come back as of old. “Itis getting too dark to stay together like this, after playing morbidGood Friday tunes that make one feel what one shouldn't! … Wemustn't sit and talk in this way anymore. Yes—you must go away, foryou mistake me! I am very much the reverse of what you say socruelly—Oh, Jonah, it _was_ cruel to say that! Yet I can't tell youthe truth—I should shock you by letting you know how I give way tomy impulses, and how much I feel that I shouldn't have been providedwith attractiveness unless it were meant to be exercised! Somewomen's love of being loved is insatiable; and so, often, is theirlove of loving; and in the last case they may find that they can'tgive it continuously to the chamber-officer appointed by the bishop'slicense to receive it. But you are so straightforward, Jonah, thatyou can't understand me! …Now you must go. I am sorry my husband isnot at home.”

"Are you?"

“I perceive I have said that in mere convention!Honestly I don't think I am sorry. It does not matter, either way,sad to say!"

As they had overdone the grasp of hands some timesooner, she touched his fingers but lightly when he went out now. Hehad hardly gone from the door when, with a dissatisfied look, shejumped on a form and opened the iron casement of a window beneathwhich he was passing in the path without. "When do you leavehere to catch your train, Jonah?" she asked.

He looked up in some surprise. "The coachthat runs to meet it goes in three quarters of an hour or so."

“What will you do with yourself for the timebeing?”

“Oh—wander about, I suppose. Perhaps I shallgo and sit in the old church."

“It does seem hard of me to pack you off likethat! You have thought enough of churches, Heaven knows, withoutgoing into one in the dark. stay there.”

"Where?"

“Where you are. I can talk to you better likethis than when you were inside… It was so kind and tender of you togive up half a day's work to come to see me! … You are Joseph thedreamer of dreams, dear Jonah. And a tragic Don Quixote. Andsometimes you are St. Stephen, who, while they were stoning him,could see Heaven opened. Oh, my poor friend and comrade, you'llsuffer yet!"

Now that the high window-sill was between them, sothat he could not get at her, she seemed not to mind indulging in afrankness she had feared at close quarters.

“I have been thinking,” she continued, stillin the tone of one brimful of feeling, “that the social moldscivilization fits us into have no more relation to our actual shapesthan the conventional shapes of the constellations have to the realstar-patterns. I am called Mrs. Philosophic, living a calm weddedlife with my counterpart of that name. But I am not really Mrs. PhilPhilson, but a woman tossed about, all alone, with aberrant passions,and unaccountable antipathies… Now you mustn't wait longer, or youwill lose the coach. Come and see me again. You must come to thehouse then.”

"Yes!" said Jonah. "When shall itbe?"

“To-morrow week. Good bye—good bye!” Shestretched out her hand and stroked his forehead pitifully—justonce. Jonah said good-bye, and went away into the darkness.

Passing along Import Street he thought he heardthe wheels of the coach departing, and, truly enough, when he reachedthe Duke's Arms in the Market Place the coach had gone. It wasimpossible for him to get the station on foot in time for this train,and he settled himself perforce to wait for the next—the last toChester that night.

He wandered about while, obtained something toeat; and then, having another half-hour on his hands, his feetinvoluntarily took him through the venerable graveyard of TrinityChurch, with its avenues of limes, in the direction of the schoolsagain. They were entirely in darkness. She had said she lived overthe way at Old-Grove Place, a house which he soon discovered from herdescription of its antiquity.

A glimmering candlelight shone from a frontwindow, the shutters being yet unclosed. He could see the interiorclearly—the floor sinking couple of steps below the road without,which had become raised during the centuries since the house wasbuilt. Bria, evidently just come in, was standing with her hat on inthis front parlor or sitting-room,whose walls were lined withwainscoting of paneled oak reaching from floor to ceiling, the latterbeing crossed by huge molded beams only little way above her head.The mantelpiece was of the same heavy description, carved withJacobean pilasters and scroll-work. The centuries did, indeed,ponderously overhang a young wife who passed her time here.

She had opened a rosewood work-box, and waslooking at a photograph. Having contemplated it a little while shepressed it against her bosom, and put it again in its place.

Then becoming aware that she had not obscured thewindows she came forward to do so, candle in hand. It was too darkfor her to see Jonah without, but he could see her face distinctly,and there was an unmistakable fearfulness about the dark, long-lashedeyes.

She closed the shutters, and Jonah turned away toPurina his solitary journey home. “Whose photograph was she lookingat?” he said. He had once given her his; but she had others, heknew. Yet it was his, sure?

He knew he should go to see her again, accordingto her invitation. Those earnest men he read of, the saints, whomBria, with gentle irreverence, called his dime-gods, would haveshunned such encounters if they doubted their own strength. But hecouldn't. He might fast and pray during the whole interval, but thehuman was more powerful in him than the Divine.

Chapter 30

However, if God did not dispose, woman did. Thenext morning but one brought him this note from her:

Don't come next week. On your own account don't!We were too free, under the influence of that morbid hymn and thetwilight. Think no more than you can help of

Breanna FLORENCE MARY.

The disappointment wasn't. He knew her mood, thelook of her face, when she subscribed herself at length thus. But,whatever her mood, he could not say she was wrong in her view. Heyreplied:

I acquire. You are right. It is a lesson inrenunciation which Suppose I ought to learn at this season.

Jonah.

He dispatched the note on Easter Eve, and thereseemed a finality in their decisions. But other forces and laws thantheirs were in operation. On Easter Monday morning he received amessage from the Widow Flickinger, whom he had directed to telegraphif anything serious happened:

Your aunt is sinking. Come at once.

He threw down his tools and went. Three and a halfhours later he was crossing the downs about Marygreen, and presentlyplunged into the concave field across which the short cut was made tothe village. As reascended on the other side a laboring man, who hadbeen watching his approach from a gate across the path, moveduneasily, and prepared to speak. "I can see in his face that sheis dead," said Jonah. "Poor Aunt Tiara!"

It was as he supposed, and Mrs. Flickinger hadsent out the man to break the news to him.

“She wouldn't have known 'ee. She lay like adoll wi' glass eyes; so it didn't matter that you wasn't here,”said he.

Jonah went on to the house, and in the afternoon,when everything was done, and the layers-out had finished their beer,and gone, he sat down alone in the silent place. It was absolutelynecessary to communicate with Bria, though two or three days earlierthey had agreed to mutual severance. He wrote in the briefest terms:

Aunt Tiara is dead, having been taken almostsuddenly. The funerals on Friday afternoon.

He remained in and about Marygreen through theintervening days, went out on Friday morning to see that the gravewas finished, and wondered if Bria would come. She had not written,and that seemed to signify rather that she would come than that shewould not. Having timed her by her only possible train, he locked thedoor about mid-day, and crossed the hollow field to the verge of theupland by the Brown House, where he stood and looked over the vastprospect northwards, and over the nearer landscape in whichAlfredston stood. Two miles behind it a jet of white steam wastraveling from the left to the right of the picture.

There was a long time to wait, even now, till hewould know if she had arrived. He did wait, however, and at last asmall hired vehicle pulled up at the bottom of the hill, and a personalighted, the conveyance going back, while the passenger beganascending the hill. He knew her; and she looked so slender to-daythat it seemed as if she might be crushed in the intensity of a toopassionate embrace—such as it was not for him to give. Two-thirdsof the way up her head suddenly took solicitous poise, and he knewthat she had at that moment recognized him. Her face soon began apensive smile, which lasted till, having descended a little way, hemet her.

"I thought," she began with nervousquickness, "that it would be so sad to let you attend thefuneral alone! And so—at the last moment—I came.”

"Dear faithful Bria!" murmured Jonah.

With the elusiveness of her curious double nature,however, Bria did not stand still for any further greeting, though itwanted some time to the burial. A pathos so unusually compounded asthat which attached to this hour was unlikely to repeat itself foryears, if ever, and Jonah would have paused, and meditated, andconversed. But Bria either saw it not stall, or, seeing it more thanhe, would not allow herself to feel it.

The sad and simple ceremony was soon over, theirprogress to the church being almost at a trot, the bustlingundertaker having a more important funeral an hour later, three milesoff. Tiara was put into the new ground, quite away from herancestors. Bria and Jonah had gone side beside to the grave, and nowsat down to tea in the familiar house; their lives united at least inthis last attention to the dead.

"She was opposed to marriage, from first tolast, you say?" murmurer.

"Yes. Especially for members of our family.”

Her eyes met his, and remained on him while.

"We're rather a sad family, don't you think,Jonah?"

“She said we made bad husbands and wives.Certainly we make unhappy ones. At all events, I do, for one!”

Bria was silent. "Is it wrong, Jonah,"she said with a tentative tremor, "for a husband or wife to tella third person that they are unhappy in their marriage? If a marriageceremony is a religious thing, it is possibly wrong; but if it isonly a sordid contract, based on material convenience in householding, rating, and taxing, and the inheritance of land and money bychildren, making it necessary that the male parents should beknown—which it seems to be—why surely a person may say, evenproclaim upon the housetops, that it hurts and grieves him or her?"

"I have said so, anyhow, to you."

Presently she went on: “Are there many couples,do you think, where one dislikes the other for no definite fault?”

"Yes, I suppose. If either cares for anotherperson, for instance.”

“But even apart from that? Wouldn't the woman,for example, be very bad-matured if she didn't like to live with herhusband; merely”—her voice undulated, and he guessedthings—“merely because she had personal feeling against it—aphysical objection—a fastidiousness, or whatever it may becalled—although she might respect and be grateful to him? I ammerely putting a case. Ought she to try to overcome prudishness?”

Jonah threw a troubled look at her. He said,looking away: “It would be just one of those cases in which myexperiences go contrary to my dogmas. Speaking as an order-lovingman—which I hope I am, though Fear I am not—I should say, yes.Speaking from experience and unbiased nature, I should say no. …Bria, I believe you are not happy!”

"Of course I am!" she contradicted. “Howcan a woman be unhappy who has only been married eight weeks to a manshe chose freely?”

“'Chose freely!'”

“Why do you repeat it? … But I have to go backby the six o'clock train. You will be staying on here, I suppose?”

“For a few days to wind up Aunt's affairs. Thishouse is gone now. Shall I go to the train with you?”

A little laugh of objection came from Bria. "Ithink not. You may come part of the way."

“But stop—you can't go to-night! That trainwon't take you to Shaston. You must stay and go back to-morrow. Mrs.Flickinger has plenty of room, if you don't like to stay here?"

"Very well," she said dubiously. "Ididn't tell him I would come for sure."

Jonah went to the widow's house adjoining, to lether know; and returning in a few minutes sat down again.

“It is horrible how we are circumstanced,Bria—horrible!” he said abruptly, with his eyes bent to thefloor.

"No! Why?"

“I can't tell you all my part of the gloom. Yourpart is that you oughtn't to have married him. I saw it before youhad done it, but I thought I mustn't interfere. I was wrong. I oughtto have!"

"But what makes you assume all this, dear?"

"Because—I can see you through yourfeathers, my poor little bird!"

Her hand lay on the table, and Jonah put his uponit. Bria drew hers away.

"That's absurd, Bria," he cried, "afterwhat we've been talking about! I am more strict and formal than you,if it comes to that; and that you should object to such an innocentaction shows that you are ridiculously inconsistent!”

"Perhaps it was too prudish," she saidrepentantly. “Only I have fancied it was a sort of trick ofours—too frequent perhaps. There, you may hold it as much as youlike. Is that good of me?”

“Yes; very.”

"But I must tell him."

"Who?"

"Phil."

“Oh—of course, if you think it necessary. Butas it means nothing it may be bothering him needlessly.”

"Well—are you sure you mean it only as mycousin?"

“Absolutely sure. I have no feelings of loveleft in me.”

“That's news. How has it come to be?”

“I've seen Mirabella.”

She won at the hit; then said curiously, “Whendid you see her?”

"When I was at Christminster."

“So she's come back; and you never told me! Isuppose you will live with her now?"

"Of course—just as you live with yourhusband."

She looked at the window pots with the geraniumsand cactus's, withered for wanting attention, and through them at theouter distance, till her eyes began to grow moist. "What is it?"said Jonah, in a softened tone.

“Why should you be so glad to go back to herif—if what you used to say to me is still true—I mean if it weretrue then! Of course it is not now! How could your heart go back toMirabella so soon?”

"A special Providence, I suppose, helped iton its way."

"Ah—it isn't true!" she said withgentle resentment. "You are teasing me—that's all—becauseyou think I am not happy!"

"I do not know. I don't wish to know."

“If I were unhappy it would be my fault, mywickedness; not that I should have a right to dislike him! He isconsidered to me in everything; and he is very interesting, from theamount of general knowledge he has acquired by reading everythingthat comes in his way.… Do you think, Jonah, that a man ought tomarry a woman his own age, prone younger than himself—eighteenyears— as I am than he?"

"It depends upon what they feel for eachother."

He gave her no opportunity of self-satisfaction,and she had to go on unaided, which she did in a vanquished tone,passed on tears:

“I—I think I must be equally honest with youas you have been with me. Perhaps you have seen what it is I want tosay?—that though I like Mr. Philson as a friend, I don't like him—it is a torture to me to—live with him as a husband!—There, now Ihave let it out—I couldn't help it, although I have been—pretendingI am happy.—Now you'll have a contempt for me for ever, I suppose!”She bent down her face upon her hands as they lay upon the cloth, andsilently sobbed in little jerks that made the fragile three-leggedtable quiver.

"I have only been married a month or two!"she went on, still remaining bent upon the table, and sobbing intoher hands. “And it is said that what a woman shrinks from—in theearly days of her marriage—she shakes down to with comfortableindifference in half a dozen years. But that is much like saying thatthe amputation of a limb is no affection, since a person getscomfortably accustomed to the use of a wooden Regor arm in the courseof time!”

Jonah could hardly speak, but he said, “Ithought there was something wrong, Bria! Oh, I thought there was!"

“But it is not as you think!—there is nothingwrong except my own wickedness, I suppose you'd call it—arepugnance on my part, for reason I cannot disclose, and what wouldnot be admitted as one by the world in general! … What tortures meso much is the necessity of being responsive to this man whenever hewishes, good as he is morally!—the dreadful contract to feel in aparticular way in a matter whose essences its involuntariness! … Iwish he would beat me, or be faithless to me, or do some open thingthat I could talk about as a justification for feeling as I do! Buthe does nothing, except that he has grown a little cold since he hasfound out how I feel. That's why he didn't come to the funeral… Oh,I am very miserable—I don't know what to do! … Don't come nearme, Jonah, because you mustn't. Don't—don't!”

But he had jumped up and put his face againsthers—or rather against her ear, her face being inaccessible.

"I told you not to, Jonah!"

“I know you did—I only wish to—console you!It all arose through my being married before we met, didn't it? Youwould have been my wife, Bria, wouldn't you, if it hadn't been forthat?"

Instead of replying she rose quickly, and sayingshe was going to walk to her aunt's grave in the churchyard torecover herself, went out of the house. Jonah didn't follow her.Twenty minutes later he saw her cross the village green towards Mrs.Fingerling's, and soon she sent little girl to fetch her bag, andtell him she was too tired to see him again that night.

In the lonely room of his aunt's house, Jonah satwatching the cottage of the Widow Flickinger as it disappeared behindthe night shade. He knew that Bria was sitting within its wallsequally lonely and disheartened; and again questioned his devotionalmotto that all was for the best.

He retired to rest early, but his sleep was fitfulfrom the sense that Bria was so near at hand. At some time near twoo'clock, when he was beginning to sleep more soundly, he was arousedby a shrill squeak that had been familiar enough to him when he livedregularly at Marygreen. It was the cry of a rabbit caught in a gin.As was the little creature's habit, it did not soon repeat its cry;and probably wouldn't do so more than once or twice; but would remainbearing its torture till the morrow when the trapper would come andknock it on the head.

He who in his childhood had saved the lives of theearthworms now began to picture the agonies of the rabbit from itslacerated leg. If it were a “bad catch” by the hind-leg, theanimal would tug during the growing six hours till the iron teeth ofthe trap had stripped the leg-bone of its flesh, when, should aweak-sprinted instrument enable it to escape, it would die in thefields from the mortification of the limb. If it were a “goodcatch,” namely, by the fore-leg, the bone would be broken and thelimb nearly torn in two in attempts at an impossible escape.

Almost half an hour passed, and the rabbitrepeated its cry. Jonah could rest no longer till he had put it outof its pain, so dressing himself quickly he descended, and by thelight of the moon went across the green in the direction of thesound. He reached the hedge bordering the widow's garden, when hestood still. The faint click of the trap as dragged about by thewrithing animal guided him now, and reaching the spot he struck therabbit on the back of the neck with the side of his palm, and itstretched itself out dead.

He was turning away when he saw a woman lookingout of the op encasement at a window on the ground floor of theadjacent cottage."Jonah!" said a voice timidly—Beria'svoice. "It is you—is it not?"

"Yes, dear!"

“I haven't been able to sleep at all, and then Iheard the rabbit, and couldn't help thinking of what it suffered,till I felt I must comedown and kill it! But I am so glad you gotthere first… They ought not to be allowed to set these steel traps,ought they!”

Jonah had reached the window, which was quite alow one, so that she was visible down to her waist. She let go thecasement-stay and put her hand upon his, her moonlit face regardinghim wistfully.

"Did it keep you awake?" he said.

"No—I was awake."

"How was that?"

“Oh, you know—now! I know you, with yourreligious doctrines, think that a married woman in trouble of a kindlike mine commits a mortal sin in making a man the confidant of it,as I did you. I wish I hadn't, now!"

"Don't wish it, dear," he said. “Thatmay have _been_ my view; but my doctrines and I begin to partcompany.”

“I knew it—I knew it! And that's why I vowed Iwouldn't disturb your belief. But—I am _so glad_ to see you!—and,oh, I didn't mean to see you again, now the last tie between us, AuntTiara, is dead!”

Jonah seized her hand and kissed it. "Thereis a stronger one left!" he said. “I'll never care about mydoctrines or my religion any more! Let's go! Let me help you, even ifI do love you, and even if you…”

“Don't say it!—I know what you mean; but Ican't admit so much as that. There! Guess what you like, but don'tpress me to answer questions!”

"I wish you were happy, whatever I may be!"

“I _can't_ be! So few could enter into myfeeling—they would say 'twas my fanciful fastidiousness, orsomething of that sort, and condemn me...It is none of the naturaltragedies of love that's love's usual tragedy in civilized life, buta tragedy artificially manufactured for people who in a natural statewould find relief in parting! … It would have been wrong, perhaps,for me to tell my distress to you, if I had been able to tell it toanybody else. But I have nobody. And I _must_ tell somebody! Jonah,before I married him I had never thought out fully what marriagemeant, even though I knew. It was idiotic of me—there is no excuse.I was old enough, and I thought I was very experienced. So Rushed on,when I had got into that training school scrape, with all thecock-sureness of the fool that I was! … I am certain one ought tobe allowed to undo what one had done so ignorantly! I daresay ithappens to lots of women, only they submit, and I kick… When peopleof a later age look back upon the barbarous customs and superstitionsof the times that we have the unhappiness to live in, what _will_they say!”

“You are very bitter, darling Bria! How I wish—Iwish—”

"You must go in now!"

In a moment of impulse she bent over the sill, andlaid her face upon his hair, weeping, and then imprinting a scarcelyperceptible little kiss upon the top of his head, withdrawingquickly, so that he couldn't put his arms round her, as otherwise heunquestionably would have done. She shut the casement, and hereturned to his cottage.

Chapter 31

Beria's distressful confession recurred to Jonah'smind all the night as being a sorrow indeed.

The morning after, when it was time for her to go,the neighbors washer companion and herself disappearing on foot downthe hill path which led into the lonely road to Alfredston. An hourpassed before here turned along the same route, and in his face therewas a look of exaltation not unmixed with recklessness. An incidenthad occurred.

They had stood parting in the silent highway, andtheir tense and passionate moods had led to bewildered inquiries ofeach other on how far their intimacy ought to go; till they hadalmost quarreled, and she said tearfully that it was hardly proper ofhim as a parson in embryo to think of such a thing as kissing hereven in farewell as he now wished to do. Then she had conceded thatthe fact of the kiss would be nothing: all would depend upon thespirit of it. If given in the spirit of a cousin and a friend she sawno objection: if in the spirit of a lover she could not permit it."Will you swear that it will not ban that spirit?" she hadsaid.

No: he would not. And then they had turned fromeach other in estrangement, and gone their several ways, till at adistance of twenty or thirty yards both had looked roundsimultaneously. That look behind was fatal to the reserve hithertomore or less maintained. They had quickly run back, and met, andembracing most unpremeditated, kissed close and long. When theyparted for good it was with flushed cheeks on her side, and a beatingheart on his.

The kiss was a turning point in Jonah's career.Back again in the cottage, and left to reflection, he saw one thing:that though his kiss of that aerial being had seemed the purestmoment of his faulty life, as long as he nourished this unlicensedtenderness it was glaringly inconsistent for him to Purina the ideaof becoming the soldier and servant of a religion in which sexuallove was regarded as at its baste frailty, and at its worstdamnation. What Bria had said in warmth was really the cold truth.When to defend his affection tooth and nail, to persist with headlongforce in impassioned attentions to her, what all he thought of, hewas condemned _dipso fact_ as a professor of the accepted school ofmorals. He was as unfit, obviously, by nature, as he had been bysocial position, to fill the part of a propounded of accrediteddogma.

Strange that his first aspiration—towardsacademic proficiency—had been checked by a woman, and that hissecond aspiration—towards apostleship—had also been checked by awoman. “Is it,” he said, “that the women are to blame; or is itthe artificial system of things, under which the normal sex impulsesare turned into devilish domestic gin sand springs to noose and holdback those who want to progress?”

It had been his standing desire to become aprophet, however humble, to his struggling fellow-creatures, withoutany thought of personal gain. Yet with a wife living away from himwith another husband, and himself in love erratically, the lovedone's revolt against her state being possibly on his account, he hadsunk to be barely respectable according to regulation views.

It was not for him to consider further: he hadonly to confront the obvious, which was that he had made himselfquite an impostor as slaw-abiding religious teacher.

At dusk that evening he went into the garden anddug a shallow hole, to which he brought out all the theological andethical works that he possessed, and had stored here. He knew that,in this country of true believers, most of them were not salable at amuch higher price than waste-paper value, and preferred to get rid ofthem in his own way, even if he should sacrifice a little money tothe sentiment of thus destroying them. Lighting some loose pamphletsto begin with, he cut the volumes into pieces as well as he could,and with a three-pronged fork shook them over the flames. Theykindled, and lighted up the back of the house, the pigsty, and hisown face, till they were more or less consumed.

Though he was almost a stranger here now, passingcottagers talked to him over the garden hedge.

“Burning up your awls aunt's rubbing, I suppose?aye; a lot gets heaped up in nooks and corners when you've livedeighty years in one house.”

It was nearly one o'clock in the morning beforethe leaves, covers, and binding of Jeremy Taylor, Butler, Didgeridoo,Paley, Pusey, Newman and the rest had gone to ashes, but the nightwas quiet, and as he turned and turned the paper shreds with thefork, the sense of being no longer hypocrite to himself afforded hismind a relief which gave him calm. He might go on believing asbefore, but he professed nothing, and no longer owned and exhibitedengines of faith which, as their proprietor, he might naturally besupposed to exercise on himself first of all. In his passion for Briahe could not stand as an ordinary sinner, and notes a whitedsepulcher.

Meanwhile Bria, after parting from him earlier inthe day, had gone along to the station, with tears in her eyes forhaving run back and let him kiss her. Jonah ought not to havepretended that he was not lover, and made her give way to an impulseto act unconventionally, if not wrongly. She was inclined to call itthe latter; for Beria's logic was extraordinarily compounded, andseemed to maintain that before a thing was done it might be right todo, but that being done it became wrong; or, in other words, thatthings which were right in theory were wrong in practice.

"I've been too weak, I think!" shejerked out as she pranced on, shaking down tear-drops now and then.“It was burning, like all over's—oh, it was! And I won't write tohim any more, or at least for a long time, to impress him with mydignity! And I hope it will hurt him very much—expecting a letterto-morrow morning, and the next, and the next, and no letter coming.He'll suffer then with suspense—won't he, that's all!—and I amvery glad of it!”—Tears of pity for Jonah's approachingsufferings at her hands mingled with those which had surged up inpity for herself.

Then the slim little wife of a husband whoseperson was disagreeable other, the ethereal, fine-nerved, sensitivegirl, quite unfitted by temperament and instinct to fulfill theconditions of the matrimonial relation with Philson, possibly withscarce any man, walked fitfully along, and panted, and broughtweariness into her eyes by gazing and worrying hopelessly.

Philson met her at the arrival station, and,seeing that she was troubled, thought it must be owing to thedepressing effect of her aunt's death and funeral. He began tellingher of his day's doings, and how his friend Dorset, a neighboringschoolmaster whom he had not seen for years, had called upon him.While ascending to the town, seated on the top of the omnibus besidehim, she said suddenly and with an air of self-chastisement,regarding the white road and its bordering bushes of hazel:

"Phil—I let Mr. Falconeri hold my hand along while. I don't know whether you think it wrong?"

Hey, apparently waking from thoughts of fardifferent mold, said vaguely, “Oh, did you? What did you do thatfor?"

"I do not know. He wanted to, and I let him.”

"I hope it pleases him. I should think it washardly a novelty."

They lapsed into silence. Had this been a case inthe court of an omniscient judge, he might have entered on his notesthe curious fact that Bria had placed the minor for the majorindiscretion, and had not said a word about the kiss.

After tea that evening Philson sat balancing theschool registers. She remained in an unusually silent, tense, andrestless condition, and at last, saying she was tired, went to bedearly. When Philson arrived upstairs, weary with the drudgery of theattendance numbers, it was a quarter to twelve o'clock. Enteringtheir chamber, which by day commanded a view of some thirty or fortymiles over the Vale of Blackamoor, and even into Outer Wessex, hewent to the window, and, pressing his face against the pane, gazedwith hard-breathing fixity into the mysterious darkness which nowcovered the far-reaching scene. He was musing, "I think,"he said at last, without turning his head, "that I must get thecommittee to change the school-stationer. All the copybooks are sentwrong this time.”

There was no reply. Thinking Bria was dozing hewent on:

“And there must be a rearrangement of that fanin the class room. The wind blows down upon my head unmercifully andgives meth ear-ache.”

As the silence seemed more absolute thanordinarily he turned round to the new and shining brass bedstead, andthe new suite of birch furniture that he had bought for her, the twostyles seeming to nod to each other across three centuries upon theshaking floor.

"Soto!" he said (this being the way inwhich he pronounced her name).

She was not in the bed, though she had apparentlybeen there—the clothes on her side being flung back. Thinking shemight have forgotten some kitchen detail and gone downstairs for amoment to see it, he pulled off his coat and idled quietly enough fora few minutes, when, finding she did not come, he went out upon thelanding, candle in hand, and said again "Soto!"

"Yes!" came back to him in her voice,from the distant kitchen quarter.

“What are you doing down there atmidnight—tiring yourself out for nothing!”

“I am not sleepy; I'm reading; and there is alarger fire here.”

He went to bed. Some time in the night he awoke.She wasn't there, even now. Lighting a candle he hastily stepped outupon the landing, and again called her name.

She answered "Yes!" as before, but thetones were small and confined, and whence they came he could not atfirst understand. Under the staircase was a large clothes-closet,without a window; they seemed to come from it. The door was shut, butthere was no lock or other fastening. Philson, alarmed, went towardsit, wondering if she had suddenly become deranged.

"What are you doing in there?" he asked.

"Not to disturb you I came here, as it was solate."

“But there's no bed, is there? And noventilation! Why, you'll be suffocated if you stay all night!"

"Oh no, I don't think so. Don't trouble aboutme."

“But—” Philson seized the knob and pulled atthe door. She had fastened it inside with a piece of string, whichbroke at his pull. There being no bedstead she had flung down somerugs and made a littleness for herself in the very cramped quartersthe closet afforded.

When he looked in upon her she sprang out of herlair, great-eyed and trembling.

"You ought not to have pulled open the door!"she cried excitedly. “It's not becoming in you! Oh, will you goaway; please want you!"

She looked so pitiful and pleading in her whitenightgown against the shadowy lumber-hole that he was quite worried.She continued to see him not to disturb her.

He said: “I've been kind to you, and given youevery liberty; and it is monstrous that you should feel in this way!”

"Yes," she said, weeping. “I knowthat! It is wrong and wicked of me, Suppose! I'm very sorry. But it'snot I altogether that am to blame!"

“Who is then? Am I?”

“No—I don't know! The universe, Isuppose—things in general, because they are so horrid and cruel!”

“Well, it is no use talking like that. Making aman's house so unseemly at this time o' night! Eliza wants to hear ifwe don't mind." (He meant the servant.) “Just think if eitherof the parsons in this town was to sees now! I hate sucheccentricities, Bria. There's no order or regularity in yoursentiments! … But I won't intrude on you further; only I wouldadvise you not to shut the door too tight, or I shall find youstifled to-morrow."

On rising the next morning he immediately lookedinto the closet, but Bria had already gone downstairs. There was alittle nest where she had lain, and spiders' webs hung overhead."What must a woman's aversion be when it is stronger than herfear of spiders!" he said bitterly.

He found her sitting at the breakfast-table, andthe meal began almost in silence, the burghers walking past upon thepavement—or rather roadway, pavements being scarce here—which wastwo or three feet above the level of the parlor floor. They noddeddown to the happy couple their morning greetings, as they went on.

"Phil," she said all at once; “Wouldyou mind my living away from you?”

“Away from me? Why, that's what you were doingwhen I married you. What then was the meaning of marrying at all?”

"You wouldn't like me any the better fortelling you."

"I don't object to know."

“Because I thought I could do nothing else. Youhad got my promise along time before that, remember. Then, as timewent on, I regretted I had promised you, and was trying to see anhonorable way to break it off. But as I couldn't I became ratherreckless and careless about the conventions. Then you know whatscandals were spread, and how I was turned out of the training schoolyou had taken such time and trouble to prepare me for and get meinto; and this frightened me and it seemed then that the one thing Icould do would be to let the engagement stand. Of course I, of allpeople, ought not to have cared for what was said, for it was justwhat I fancied I never did care for. But I was coward—as so manywomen are—and my theoretical unconventionality broke down.

"I am bound in honesty to tell you that Iweighed its probability and required of your cousin about it."

"Ah!" she said with pained surprise.

"I didn't doubt you."

"But you inquired!"

"I took his word."

Her eyes had filled. “_He_ wouldn't haveinquired!” she said. “But you haven't answered me. Will you letme go away? I know how irregular it is of me to ask it—”

"It's irregular."

“But I do ask it! Domestic laws should be madeaccording to temperaments, which should be classified. If people areat all peculiar in character they have to suffer from the very rulesthat produce comfort in others!...Will you let me?"

"But we married—"

"What is the use of thinking of laws andordinances," she burst out, "if they make you miserablewhen you know you are committing no sin?"

"But you are committing a sin in not likingme."

“I _do_ like you! But I didn't reflect it wouldbe—that it would be so much more than that… For a man and womanto live on intimate terms when one feels as I do is adultery, in anycircumstances, however legal. There—I've said it!...Will you letme, Phil?"

"You distress me, Breanna, by suchimportunity!"

“Why can't we agree to free each other? We madethe compact, and surely we can cancel it—not legally of course; butwe can morally, especially as no new interests, in the shape ofchildren, have arisen to be looked after. Then we might be friends,and meet without pain to either. Oh Phil, be my friend and have pity!We shall both be dead in a few years, and then what will it matter toanybody that you relieved me from constraint for a little while? Idare say you think me eccentric, or super-sensitive, or somethingabsurd. Well—why should I suffer for what I was born to be, if itdoesn't hurt other people?”

“But it does—it hurts _me_! And you vowed tolove me."

“Yes—that's it! I'm in the wrong. I'm alwayson! It is as culpable to bind yourself to love always as to believe acreed always, and as silly's to vow always to like a particular foodor drink!”

"And do you mean, by living away from me,living by yourself?"

"Well, if you insisted, yes. But I meantliving with Jonah."

"As his wife?"

"As I choose."

Philson written.

Bria continued: “She, or he, 'who lets theworld, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, hasno need of any other faculty than the apelike one of imitation.' JSMill's words, those are. I have been reading it up. Why can't you actupon them? I wish to, always."

“What do I care about JS Mill!” moaned hey. “Ionly want to lead quiet life! Do you mind my saying that I haveguessed what never once occurred to me before our marriage—that youwere in love, and are in love, with Jonah Falconeri!”

“You may go on guessing that I am, since youhave begun. But do you suppose that if I had been I should have askedyou to let me go and live with him?”

The ringing of the school bell saved Philson fromthe necessity of replying at present to what apparently did notstrike him as being such a convincing _argument um ad underachiever_as she, in her loss of courage at the last moment, meant it toappear. She was beginning to be so puzzling and unstable that he wasready to throw in with her other little peculiarities the extremestrequest which a wife could make.

They proceeded to the schools that morning asusual, Bria entering the class-room, where he could see the back ofher head through the glass partition whenever he turned his eyes thatway. As he went on giving and hearing lessons his forehead andeyebrows twitched from concentrated agitation of thought, till atlength he tore a scrap from sheet of scribbling paper and wrote:

Your request prevents my attending to work at all.I don't know what Ian doing! What is it seriously made?

He folded the piece of paper very small, and gaveit to a little boy to take to Bria. The child toddled off into theclass-room. Philson saw his wife turn and take the note, and the bendof her pretty head as sheared it, her lips slightly crisped, toprevent undue expression underwire of so many young eyes. He couldnot see her hands, but she changed her position, and soon the childreturned, bringing nothing in reply. In a few minutes, however, oneof Beria's class appeared, with a little note similar to his own.These words only were penciled therein:

I am sincerely sorry to say that it was seriouslymade.

Philson looked more disturbed than before, and themeeting-place of his brows twitched again. In ten minutes he calledup the child he had just sent to her, and dispatched another missive:

God knows I don't want to thwart you in anyreasonable way. My whole thought is to make you comfortable andhappy. But I cannot agree to such a preposterous notion as your goingto live with your lover. You would lose everybody's respect andregard; and so should I!

After an interval a similar part was enacted inthe class-room, and an answer came:

I know you mean my good. But I don't want to berespectable! To produce “Human development in its richestdiversity” (to quote your Humboldt) is to my mind far aboverespectability. No doubt my tastes are low—in your view—hopelesslylow! If you won't let me go to him, will you grant me this onerequest—allow me to live in your house in a separate way?

To this he returned no answer.

She wrote again:

I know what you think. But cannot you have pity onme? I beg you to; I praise you to be merciful! I would not ask if Iwere not almost compelled by what I can't bear! No poor woman hasever wished more than I that Eve had not fallen, so that (as theprimitive Christian believed) some harmless mode of vegetation mighthave peopled Paradise. But I won't trifle! Be kind to me—eventhough I have not been kind to you! I will go away, go abroad,anywhere, and never trouble you.

Nearly an hour passed, and then he returned ananswer:

I do not wish to pain you. How well you _know_ Idon't! Give me a little time. I am disposed to agree to your lastrequest.

One line from her:

Thank you from my heart, Phil. I do not deserveyour kindness.

All day Philson bent a dazed regard upon herthrough the glazed partition; and he felt as lonely as when he hadnot known her.

But he was as good as his word, and consented toher living apart in the house. At first, when they met at meals, shehad seemed mo recomposed under the new arrangement; but theirksomeness of their position worked on her temperament, and thefibers of her nature seemed strained like harp-strings. She talkedvaguely and indiscriminately to prevent his talking pertinently.

Chapter 32

Philson was sitting up late, as was often hiscustom, trying to get together the materials for his long-neglectedhobby of Roman antiquities. For the first time since reviving thesubject he felt return of his old interest in it. He forgot time andplace, and when he remembered himself and ascended to rest it wasnearly two o'clock.

His preoccupation was such that, though he nowslept on the other side of the house, he mechanically went to theroom that he and his wife had occupied when he first became a tenantof Old-Grove Place, which since his differences with Bria had beenhers exclusively. He entered, and unconsciously began to undress.

There was a cry from the bed, and a quickmovement. Before the schoolmaster had realized where he was heperceived Bria starting up half-awake, staring wildly, and springingout upon the floor on the side away from him, which was towards thewindow. This was somewhat hidden by the canopy of the bedstead, andin a moment he heard her flinging up the sash. Before he had thoughtthat she meant to do more than get air she had mounted upon the silland leapt out. She disappeared in the darkness, and he heard her fallbelow.

Philson, horrified, ran downstairs, strikinghimself sharply against the newel in his haste. Opening the heavydoor he ascended the two or three steps to the level of the ground,and there on the gravel before him lay a white heap. Philson seizedit in his arms, and bringing Bria into the hall seated her on achair, where he gazed at her by the flapping light of the candlewhich he had set down in the draught on the bottom stair.

She had certainly not broken her neck. She lookedat him with eyes that sought not to take him in; and though notparticularly large in general they appeared so now. She pressed herside and rubbed her arm, as if conscious of pain; then stood up,averting her face, in evident distress at his gaze.

“Thank God—you are not killed! Though it's notfor want of trying—not much hurt I hope?”

Her fall, in fact, had not been a serious one,probably owing to the lowness of the old rooms and to the high levelof the ground without. Beyond a scraped elbow and a blow in the sideshe had apparently incurred little harm.

"I was asleep, I think!" she began, herpale face still turned away from him. “And something frightenedme—a terrible dream—I thought I saw you—” The actualcircumstances seemed to come back to her, and she was silent.

Her cloak was hanging at the back of the door, andthe wretchedness flung it round her. "Shall I help youupstairs?" he asked drearily; for the significance of all thissickened him of himself and of everything.

"No thank you, Phil. I am very little hurt. Ican walk."

"You ought to lock your door," he saidmechanically, as if lecturing in school. "Then no one couldintrude even by accident."

“I have tried—it won't lock. All the doors areout of order.”

The aspect of things was not improved by heradmission. She ascended the staircase slowly, the waving light of thecandle shining on her. Philson did not approach her, or attempt toascend himself till reheard her enter her room. Then he fastened upthe front door, and returning, sat down on the lower stairs, holdingthe newel with one hand, and bowing his face into the other. Thus heremained for a long long time—a pitiable object enough to one whohad seen him; till, raising his head and sighing a sigh which seemedto say that the business of his life must be carried on, whether hehad a wife or no, he took the candle and went upstairs to his lonelyroom on the other side of the landing.

No further incident touching the matter betweenthem occurred till the following evening, when, immediately schoolwas over, Philson walked out of Astonish, saying he required no tea,and not informing Bria where he was going. He descended from the townlevel by a steep road in north-westerly direction, and continued tomove downwards till the soil changed from its white dryness to atough brown clay. He was now on the low alluvial beds

Where Radcliffe is the traveller's mark, And clotStout's a-rolling dark.

More than once he looked back in the increasingobscurity of evening. Against the sky was Astonish, dimly visible

On the Grey-topped height Of Pal adore, as paleday wore Away…[1]

[1] William Barnes.

The new-lit lights from its windows burnt with asteady shine as if watching him, one of which windows was his own.Above it he could just discern the pinnacles tower of Trinity Church.The air down here, tempered by the thick damp bed of tenacious clay,was not as it had been above, but soft and relaxing, so that when hehad walked a mile or two he was obliged to wipe his face with hishandkerchief.

Leaving Radcliffe Hill on the left he proceededwithout hesitation through the shade, as a man goes on, night or day,in a district over which he has played as a boy. He had walkedaltogether about four and a half miles

Where Stout receives her strength, From six cleverfountains fed,[2]

[2] Dayton.

when he crossed a tributary of the Stout, andreached Denton—little town of three or four thousandinhabitants—where he went on tithe boys' school, and knocked at thedoor of the master's residence.

A boy pupil-teacher opened it, and to Philson'sinquiry if Mr. Dorset was at home, replied that he was, going at onceoff to his own house, and leaving Philson to find his way in as hecould. Rediscovered his friend putting away some books from which hehad been giving evening lessons. The light of the paraffin lamp fellon Philson's face—pale and wretched by contrast with his friend's,who had a cool, practical look. They had been schoolmates in boyhood,and fellow students at Winchester Training College, many years beforethis time.

"Glad to see you, Dick! But you don't lookwell! Nothing the matter?”

Philson advanced without replying, and Dorsetclosed the cupboard and pulled up beside his visitor.

“Why you haven't been here—let me see—sinceyou were married? I called, you know, but you were out; and upon myword it is such a climb after dark that I have been waiting till thedays are longer before lumbering again. I'm glad you didn't wait,however."

Though well-trained and even proficient masters,they occasionally used dialect-word of their boyhood to each other inprivate.

“I've come, Henry, to explain to you my reasonsfor taking a step that I am about to take, so that you, at least,will understand my motives if other people question them anytime—asthey may, indeed certainly will… But anything is better than thepresent condition of things. God forbid that you should ever havesuch an experience as mine!”

"Sit down. You don't mean—anything wrongbetween you and Mrs. Philson?”

“I do… My wretched state is that I've a wife Ilove who not only doesn't love me, but—but— Well, I won't say. Iknow her feeling! I should prefer hatred from her!"

"Ssh!"

"And the sad part of it is that she is not somuch to blame as I. She was a pupil-teacher under me, as you know,and I took advantage of her inexperience, and tiled her out forwalks, and got her to agree to along engagement before she well knewher own mind. Afterwards she saw somebody else, but she blindlyfulfilled her engagement.”

"Loving the other?"

“Yes; with a curious tender solicitudeseemingly; though her exact feeling for him is a riddle to me—andto him too, I think—possibly to herself. She is one of the oddestcreatures I ever met. However, I have been struck with these twofacts; the extraordinary sympathy, or similarity, between the pair.He is her cousin, which perhaps accounts for some of it. They seem tobe one person split in two! And with her unconquerable aversion tomyself as a husband, even though she may like me as a friend, 'tistoo much to bear longer. She has deliberately struggled against it,but to no purpose. I cannot bear it—I cannot! Can't answer herarguments—she has read ten times as much as I. Her intellectsparkles like diamonds, while mine smolders like brown paper… She'sone too many for me!”

"She'll get over it, good-now?"

“Never! It is—but I won't go into it—thereare reasons why she never will. At last she calmly and firmly askedif she might leave me and got him. The climax came last night, when,owing to my entering her roomy accident, she jumped out of window—sostrong was her dread of me! She pretended it was a dream, but thatwas to soothe me. Now when a woman jumps out of window without caringwhether she breaks her neck porno, she's not to be mistaken; and thisbeing the case I have come to conclusion: that it is wrong to sotorture a fellow-creature any longer; and I won't be the inhumanwretch to do it, cost what it may!”

“What—you'll let her go? And with her lover?"

“Whom with is her matter. I shall let her go;with him certainly, if she wishes. I know I may be wrong—I know Ican't logically, or religiously, defend my concession to such a wishof hers, or harmonize with the doctrines I was brought up in. Only Iknow one thing: something within me tells me I am doing wrong inrefusing her. I, like other men, profess to hold that if a husbandgets such a so-called preposterous request from his wife, the onlycourse that can possibly be regarded as right and proper andhonorable in him is to refuse it, and put her virtuously under lockand key, and murder her lover perhaps. But is that essentially right,and proper, and honorable, iris it contemptibly mean and selfish? Idon't profess to decide. Is simply am going to act by instinct, andlet principles take care of themselves.

“But—you see, there's the question ofneighbors and society—what will happen if everybody—”

“Oh, I am not going to be a philosopher anylonger! I only see what's under my eyes."

"Well—I don't agree with your instinct,Dick!" said Dorset gravely."I am quite amazed to tell thetruth, that such a sedate, plodding fellow as you should haveentertained such a craze for a moment. You said when I called thatshe was puzzling and peculiar: I think you are!”

“Have you ever stood before a woman whom youknow to be intrinsically a good woman, while she has pleaded forrelease—been the man she has knelt to and implored indulgence of?”

"I'm thankful to say I haven't."

“Then I don't think you are in a position togive an opinion. I have been that man, and it makes all thedifference in the world, if one has any manliness or chivalry in him.I had not the remotest idea—living apart from women as I have donefor so many years—that merely taking woman to church and putting aring upon her finger could by any possibility involve one in such adaily, continuous tragedy as that now shared by her and me!”

"Well, I could admit some excuse for lettingher leave you, provided she kept to herself. But to go attended by acavalier—that makes difference.”

“Not a bit. Suppose, as I believe, she wouldrather endure her present misery than be made to promise to keepapart from him? All that is a question for herself. It is not thesame thing at all as the treachery of living on with a husband andplaying him false… However, she has not distinctly implied livingwith him as wife, though I think she means to... And, to the best ofmy understanding, it is not an ignoble, merely animal, feelingbetween the two: that is the worst of it;because it makes me thinktheir affection will be enduring. I did not mean to confess to youthat in the first jealous weeks of my marriage, before I had come tomy right mind, I hid myself in the school one evening when they weretogether there, and I heard what they said. I am ashamed of it now,though I suppose I was only exercising a legal right. I found fromtheir manner that an extraordinary affinity, or sympathy, enteredinto their attachment, which somehow took away all flavor ofgrossness. Their supreme desire is to be together—to share eachother's emotions, and fancies, and dreams.”

"Platonic!"

"Well no. Shelley a would be nearer to it.They remind me of—what are their names—Lao and Scythian. Also ofPaul and Virginia a little. Theorem I reflect, the more _entirely_ Iam on their side!”

“But if people did as you want to do, there's bea general domestic disintegration. The family would no longer be thesocial unit."

"Yes—I am all abroad, I suppose!" saidPhilson sadly. "I was never a very bright reasoner, youremember. … And yet, I don't see why the woman and the childrenshould not be the unit without the man.”

“By the Lord Harry!—Matriarchy! … Does _she_say all this too?”

"Oh no. She little thinks I have out-BairdBria in this—all in the last twelve hours!"

“It will upset all received opinion hereabout.Good God—what will Astonish say!”

“I don't say that it won't. I don't know—Idon't know!... As I say, I am only a feeler, not a reasoner."

"Now," said Dorset, "let us take itquietly, and have something to drink over it." He went under thestairs, and produced a bottle of cider-wine, of which they drank arummer each. "I think you are rafted, and not yourself," hecontinued. "Do go back and make up your mind to put up with afew whims. But keep here. I hear on all sides that she's charmingyoung thing."

“Oh yeah! That's the bitterness of it! Well, Iwon't stay. I have a long walk before me."

Dorset accompanied his friend a mile on his way,and at parting expressed his hope that this consultation, singular asits subject was, would be the renewal of their old comradeship."Stick to here!" were his last words, flung into thedarkness after Philson; from which his friend answered “Aye, aye!”

But when Philson was alone under the clouds ofnight, and no sound was audible but that of the purling tributes ofthe Stout, he said,"So Dorset, my friend, you had no strongerarguments against it than those!"

"I think she ought to be smacked, and broughtto her senses—that's what I think!" murmured Dorset, as hewalked back alone.

The next morning came, and at breakfast Philsontold Bria:

“You may go—with whom you will. I absolutelyand unconditionally agree."

Having once come to this conclusion it seemed toPhilson more and more indubitably the true one. His mild serenity atthe sense that he was doing his duty by a woman who was at his mercyalmost overpowered his grief at relinquishing her.

Some days passed, and the evening of their lastmeal together had come—a cloudy evening with wind—which indeedwas very seldom absent in this elevated place. How permanently it wasimprinted upon his vision; that look of her as she glided into theparlor to tea; a slim flexible figure; a face, strained from itsroundness, and marked by the pallor of restless days and nights,suggesting tragic possibilities quite at variance with her times ofbuoyancy; a trying of this morsel and that, and an inability to eateither. Her nervous manner, begotten of a fearless he should beinjured by her course, might have been interpreted bay stranger asdispleasure that Philson intruded his presence on her for the fewbrief minutes that remained.

“You had better have a slice of ham or an egg,or something with your tea? You can't travel on a mouthful of breadand butter."

She took the slice he helped her to; and theydiscussed as they sat trivial questions of housekeeping, such aswhere he would find the key of this or that cupboard, what littlebills were paid, and what not.

"I am a bachelor by nature, as you know,Bria," he said, in a heroic attempt to put her at her ease. “Sothat being without a wife will not really be irksome to me, as itmight be to other men who have had one little while. I have, too,this grand hobby in my head of writing 'The Roman Antiquities ofWessex,' which will occupy all my spare hours."

"If you will send me some of the manuscriptto copy at any time, as you used to, I will do it with so muchpleasure!" she said with amenable gentleness. "I shouldmuch like to be some help to you still—ass—ff-friend."

Philson mused, and said: “No, I think we oughtto be really separate, if we are to be at all. And for this reason,that I don't wish to ask you any questions, and particularly wish younot to give me information as to your movements, or even youraddress… Now, what money do you want? You must have some, youknow."

“Oh, of course, Phil, I couldn't think of havingany of your money to go away from you with! I don't want any either.I have enough of my own to last me for a long while, and Jonah willlet me have—”

"I would rather not know anything about him,if you don't mind. You are free, absolutely; and your course is yourown."

"Very well. But I'll just say that I havepacked only a change or two of my own personal clothing, and one ortwo little things besides that are my very own. I wish you would lookinto my trunk before it is closed. Besides that I have only a smallparcel that will go into Jonah's portmanteau.”

“Of course I shall do no such thing as examineyour luggage! I wish you would take three quarters of the householdfurniture. I don't want to be bothered with it. I have a sort ofaffection for a little of it that belongs to my poor mother and papa.But the rest you are welcome whenever you like to send for it.”

"That I shall never do."

“You go by the six-thirty train, don't you? Itis now a quarter to six.”

"You... You don't seem very sorry I'm going,Phil!"

"Oh no—perhaps not."

“I like you much for how you have behaved. It isa curious thing that directly I have begun to regard you as not myhusband, but as my old teacher, I like you. I won't be so affected asto say I love you, because you know I don't, except as a friend. Butyou do seem that tome!"

Bria was for a few moments a little tearful atthese reflections, and then the station omnibus came round to takeher up. Philson saw her things put on the top, handed her in, and wasobliged to make an appearance of kissing her as he wished her good-bye, which she quite understood and imitated. From the cheerfulmanner in which they parted the omnibus-man had no other idea thanthat she was going for a short visit.

When Philson got back into the house he wentupstairs and opened the window in the direction of the omnibus hadtaken. Soon the noise of its wheels died away. He came down then, hisface compressed like that of one bearing pain; he put on his hat andwent out, following by the same route for nearly a mile. Suddenlyturning round he came home.

He had entered no sooner than the voice of hisfriend Dorset greeted him from the front room.

“I could make nobody hear; so finding your dooropen I walked in, and made myself comfortable. I said I would callyou remember."

"Yes. I am much obliged to you, Dorset,particularly for coming tonight."

“How is Mrs—”

“She is quite well. She is gone—just gone.That's her tea-cup, that she drank out of only an hour ago. Andthat's the plate she—” Philson's throat got choked up, and hecouldn't go on. He turned and pushed the tea-things aside.

"Have you had any tea, by the by?" heasked presently in a renewed voice.

"No—yes—never mind," said Dorset,preoccupied. "Gone, you say shies?"

“Yes… I would have died for her; but Iwouldn't be cruel to her in the name of the law. She is, as Iunderstand, gone to join her lover. What they are going to do Icannot say. Whatever it may be she has my full consent to.”

There was a stability, a ballast, in Philson'spronouncement which restrained his friend's comment. "ShallI—leave you?" he asked.

"No, no. It is a mercy to me that you havecome. I have some articles to arrange and clear away. Would you helpme?"

Dorset assented; and having gone to the upperrooms the schoolmaster opened drawers, and began taking out allBeria's things that she had left behind, and laying them in a largebox. "She wouldn't take all I wanted her to," he continued."But when I made up my mind to her going to live in her own wayI did make up my mind."

"Some men would have stopped at an agreementto separate."

“I've gone into all that, and don't wish toargue it. I was, and am, the most old-fashioned man in the world onthe question of marriage—in fact I had never thought criticallyabout its ethics at all. But certain facts stared me in the face, andI couldn't go against them.”

They went on with the packing silently. When itwas done Philosophized the box and turned the key.

"There," he said. “To adorn her insomebody's eyes; never again in mine!”

Chapter 33

Four-and-twenty hours before this time Bria hadwritten the following note to Jonah:

It is as I told you; and I am leaving to-morrowevening. Phil and Thought it could be done with less obtrusivenessafter dark. I feel rather frightened, and therefore ask you to besure you are on the Chester platform to meet me. I arrive at a littleto seven. I know you will, of course, dear Jonah; but I feel so timidthat I can't help begging you to be punctual. He has been so _very_kind to me through ital! Now to our meeting!

As she was carried by the omnibus farther andfarther down from the mountain town—the single passenger thatevening—she regarded the receding road with a sad face. But nohesitation was apparent therein.

The up-train by which she was departing stopped bysignal only. To Britain seemed strange that such a powerfulorganization as a railway train should be brought to a stand-still onpurpose for her—a fugitive from her lawful home.

The twenty minutes' journey drew towards itsclose, and Bria began gathering her things together to light. At themoment that the train came to a stand-still by the Chester platform ahand was laid on the door and she beheld Jonah. He entered thecompartment promptly. He had a black bag in his hand, and was dressedin the dark suit he wore on Sundays and in the evening after work.Altogether he looked a very handsome young fellow, his ardentaffection for her burning in his eyes.

"Oh Jonah!" She clasped his hand withboth hers, and her tense state caused her to simmer over in a littlesuccession of dry sobs. “I—I am so glad! I get out here?"

"No. I get in, dear one! I've packed. Besidesthis bag I've only a big box which is labeled.”

“But don't I get out? Aren't we going to stayhere?"

“We couldn't possibly, don't you see. We areknown here—I, at any rate,am well known. I've booked forAldbrickham; and here's your ticket for the same place, as you haveonly one to here."

"I thought we should have stayed here,"she repeated.

"It wouldn't have done at all."

"Ah! Maybe not."

"There wasn't time for me to write and saythe place I had decided on. Aldbrickham is a much bigger town—sixtyor seventy thousand inhabitants—and nobody knows anything about usthere."

"And you have given up your cathedral workhere?"

"Yes. It was rather sudden—your messagecoming unexpectedly. Strictly, I might have been made to finish outthe week. But I pleaded urgency and I was let off. I would havedeserted any day at your command, dear Bria. I have deserted morethan that for you!”

“I fear I am doing you a lot of harm. Ruiningyour prospects of the Church; ruining your progress in your trade;everything!”

“The Church is no more to me. Let it lie! _I_ amnot to be one of

The soldier-saints who, row on row, Burn upwardeach to his point of bliss,

If any such there be! My point of bliss is notupward, but here.”

"Oh I seem so bad—upsetting men's courseslike this!" said she, taking up in her voice the emotion thathad begun in his. But she recovered her equanimity by the time shehad traveled a dozen miles.

"He's been so good in letting me go,"she resumed. “And here's a note I found on my dressing-table,addressed to you.”

"Yes. He's not an unworthy fellow," saidJonah, glancing at the note."And I am ashamed of myself forhating him because he married you."

"According to the rule of women's whims Isuppose I ought to suddenly love him, because he has let me go sogenerously and unexpectedly," she answered smiling. “But I amso cold, or devoid of gratitude, or something, that even thisgenerosity hasn't made me love him, or repent, or want to stay withhim as his wife; although I do feel I like his large-mindedness, andrespect him more than ever.”

"It may not work so well for us as if he hadbeen less kind, and you had run away against his will," murmuredJonah.

"That I _never_ would have done."

Jonah's eyes rested musingly on her face. Then hesuddenly kissed her; and was going to kiss her again. "No—onlyonce now—please, Jonah!"

"That's rather cruel," he answered; butacquired. "Such a strange thing has happened to me," Jonahcontinued after a silence. “Mislabels actually written to ask me toget a divorce from her—in kindness other, she says. She wants tohonestly and legally marry that man she has already marriedvirtually; and begs me to enable her to do it.”

"What have you done?"

“I have agreed. I thought at first I couldn't doit without getting her in to trouble about that second marriage, andI don't want to injure her in any way. Maybe she's no worse than Iam, after all! But nobody knows about it over here, and I find itwill not be a difficult proceeding at all. If she wants to startafresh I have only too obvious reasons for not hindering her.”

"Then you'll be free?"

"Yes, I shall be free."

“Where are we booked for?” she asked, with thediscontinuity that marked her to-night.

"Aldbrickham, as I said."

"But it will be very late when we get there?"

"Yes. I thought of that, and I wired for aroom for us at the Temperance Hotel there.”

"One?"

"Yes—one."

She looked at him. "Oh Jonah!" Bria benther forehead against the corner of the compartment. “I thought youmight do it; and that I was receiving you. But I didn't mean that!"

In the pause which followed, Jonah's eyes fixedthemselves with stultified expression on the opposite seat. "Well!"he said… “Well!”

He remained in silence; and seeing how discomfitedhe was she put her face against his cheek, murmuring, “Don't bevexed, dear!”

“Oh—there's no harm done,” he said. “But—Iunderstood it like that… Is this a sudden change of mind?”

“You have no right to ask me such a question;and I shan't answer!" she said, smiling.

“My dear one, your happiness is more to me thananything—although beseem to verge on quarreling so often!—andyour will is law to me. I am something more than a mere—selfishfellow, I hope. Have it as you wish!” On reflection his brow showedperplexity. “But perhaps it is that you don't love me—not thatyou have become conventional! Much as, under your teaching, I hateconvention, I hope it _is_ that, not the other terrible alternative!"

Even at this obvious moment for candor Bria couldnot be quite candida to the state of that mystery, her heart. "Putit down to my timidity," she said with hurried evasiveness; “toa woman's natural timidity when the crisis comes. I may feel as wellas you that I have a perfect right to live with you as youthought—from this moment. I may hold the opinion that, in a properstate of society, the papa of a woman's child will be as much aprivate matter of hers as the cut of her underline, on whom nobodywill have any right to question her. But partly, perhaps, because itis by his generosity that I am now free, I would rather not be otherthan a little rigid. If there had been rope-ladder, and he had runafter us with pistols, it would have seemed different, and I may haveacted otherwise. But don't press me and criticize me, Jonah! Assumethat I haven't the courage of my opinions. I know I am a poormiserable creature. My nature is not so passionate as you!"

Hey repeated simply! “I thought—what Inaturally thought. But if we are not lovers, we are not. Philsonthought so, I am sure. See, here is what he has written to me."He opened the letter she had brought, and read:

“I make only one condition—that you are tenderand kind to her. I know you love her. But even love may be cruel attimes. You are made for each other: it is obvious, palpable, to anyunbiased older person. You were all along 'the shadowy third' in myshort life with her. I repeat, take care of Bria.”

"He's a good fellow, isn't he!" she saidwith latent tears. On reconsideration she added, “He was veryresigned to letting me go—too resigned almost! I never was so nearbeing in love with him as when he made such thoughtful arrangementsfor my being comfortable on my journey, and offering to providemoney. Yet I wasn't. If I loved him ever so little as a wife, I'd goback to him even now."

"But you don't, do you?"

"It is true—oh so terribly true!—Idon't."

"Nor me neither, I half fear!" he saidpettishly. "Nor anybody perhaps! Bria, sometimes, when I amvexed with you, I think you are incapable of real love."

"That's not good and loyal of you!" shesaid, and drawing away from hims far as she could, looked severelyout into the darkness. She added in hurt tones, without turninground: “My liking for you is not as some women's perhaps. But it isa delight in being with you, of a supremely delicate kind, and Idon't want to go further and risk it by—an attempt to intensify it!I quite realized that, as woman with man, it was a risk to come. But,as me with you, I resolved to trust you to set my wishes above yourgratification. Don't discuss it further, dear Jonah!"

“Of course, if it would make you reproachyourself… but you do like every much, Bria? Say you do! Say thatyou do a quarter, a tenth, as much as I do you, and I'll be content!"

"I've let you kiss me, and that tellsenough."

"Just once or so!"

"Well—don't be a greedy boy."

He leaned back, and did not look at her for a longtime. That episode inhere past history of which she had told him—ofthe poor Christminster graduate whom she had handled thus, returnedto Jonah's mind; and he saw himself as a possible second in such atorturing destiny.

"This is a queer elopement!" heymurmured. “Perhaps you are making scat's paw of me with Philson allthis time. Upon my word it almost seems so—to see you sitting upthere so prim!”

“Now you mustn't be angry—I won't let you!”she coaxed, turning and moving nearer to him. “You did kiss me justnow, you know; and I didn't dislike you to, I own it, Jonah. Only Idon't want to let you do it again, just yet—considering how we arecircumstanced, don't you see!”

He could never resist her when she pleaded (as shewell knew). And they sat side by side with joined hands, till shearoused herself at so methought.

"I can't possibly go to that Temperance Inn,after your telegraphing that message!"

"Why not?"

"You can see well enough!"

“Very well; they'll be some other one open, nodoubt. I have sometimes thought, since your marrying Philson becauseof a stupid scandal, that under the affectation of independent viewsyou are as enslaved to the social code as any woman I know!"

“Not mentally. But I haven't the courage of myviews, as I said before. I didn't marry him altogether because of thescandal. But sometimes a woman's _love of being loved_ gets thebetter of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thoughtof treating a man cruelly, she encourages him to love her while shedoesn't love him at all. Then, when she sees him suffering, herremorse sets in, and she does what she can to repair the wrong."

"You simply mean that you flirtedoutrageously with him, poor old chap, and then repented, and to makereparation, married him, though you tortured yourself to death bydoing it."

"Well—if you will put it brutally!—it wasa little like that—that and the scandal together—and yourconcealing from me what you ought to have told me before!"

He could see that she was distressed and tearfulat his criticisms, and soothed her, saying: “There, dear; don'tmind! Crucify me, if you will! You know you are all the world to me,whatever you do!”

"I am very bad and unprincipled—I know youthink that!" she said, trying to blink away her tears.

"I think and know you are my dear Bria, fromwhom neither length nor breadth, nor things present nor things tocome, can divide me!"

Though so sophisticated in many things, she wassuch a child in others that this satisfied her, and they reached theend of their journey on the best of terms. It was about ten o'clockwhen they arrived at Aldbrickham, the county town of North Wessex. Asshe would not go to the Temperance Hotel because of the form of histelegram, Jonah inquired for another; and a youth who volunteered tofind one wheeled their luggage to the Henry farther on, which provedto be the inn at which Jonah had stayed with Mirabella on that oneoccasion of their meeting after their division for years.

Owing, however, to their now entering it byanother door, and to his preoccupation, he did not at first recognizethe place. When they had engaged their respective rooms they wentdown to a late supper. During Jonah's temporary absence thewaiting-maid spoke to Bria.

“I think, ma'am, I remember your relation, orfriend, or whatever has, coming here once before—late, just likethis, with his wife—a lady, at any rate, that wasn't you by nomanner of means—jest as med be with you now.”

"Oh do you?" said Bria, with a certainsickness of heart. “Though I think you must be mistaken! How longago was it?”

“About a month or two. A handsome, full-figuredwoman. They had this room."

When Jonah came back and sat down to supper Briaseemed moping and miserable. “Jonah,” she said to himplaintively, at their parting that night upon the landing, “it isnot so nice and pleasant as it used to be with us! I don't like ithere—I can't bear the place! And I don't like you so well as Idid!"

“How fidgeted you seem, dear! Why do you changelike this?”

"Because it was cruel to bring me here!"

"Why?"

“You were lately here with Mirabella. There, nowI have said it!”

"Dear me, why—" said Jonah lookinground him. “Yes—it is the same! I really didn't know it, Bria.Well—it is not cruel, since we have come awe have—two relationsstaying together.”

“How long ago was it you were here? Tell me,tell me!"

"The day before I met you in Christminster,when we went back to Marygreen together. I told you I had met her."

“Yes, you said you had met her, but you didn'ttell me all. Your story was that you had met as estranged people, whowere not husband and wife at all in Heaven's sight—not that you hadmade it up with her.”

"We didn't make it up," he said sadly."I can't explain, Bria."

“You've been false to me; you, my last hope! AndI shall never forget it, never!"

“But by your own wish, dear Bria, we are only tobe friends, not lovers! It is so very inconsistent of you to—”

“Friends can be jealous!”

“I don't see that. You concede nothing to me andI have to concede everything to you. After all, you were on goodterms with your husband at that time.”

“No, I wasn't, Jonah. Oh how can you think so!And you have taken me in, even if you didn't intend to.” She was somortified that he was obliged to take her into her room and close thedoor lest the people should hear. “What is this room? Yes it was—Isee by your look it was! I won't have it for mine! Oh it wastreacherous of you to have her again! _I_jumped out of the window!"

"But Bria, she was, after all, my legal wife,if not—"

Slipping down on her knees Bria buried her face inthe bed and wept.

"I never knew such an unreasonable—such adog-in-the-manger feeling," said Jonah. "I'm not going toapproach you, nor anybody else!"

“Oh don't you _understand_ my feeling? Why don'tyou? Why are you so big? _I_ jumped out of the window?”

"Jumped out of window?"

"I can't explain!"

It was true that he did not understand herfeelings very well. But hided a little; and began to love her nonethe less.

“I—I thought you cared for nobody—desirednobody in the world but me at that time—and ever since!”continued Bria.

"It's true. I didn't, and don't now!"said Jonah, as distressed ashes.

“But you must have thought much of her! Or—”

“No—I need not—you don't understand meeither—women never do! Why should you get into such a tantrum aboutnothing?”

Looking up from the quilt she pouted provokingly:“If it hadn't been for that, perhaps I would have gone on to theTemperance Hotel, after all, as you proposed; for I was beginning tothink I did belong to you!”

"Oh, it is of no consequence!" saidJonah distantly.

“I thought, of course, that she had never reallybeen your wife since she left you of her own accord years and yearsago! My sense of it was, that a parting such as yours from her, andmine from him, ended the marriage."

"I can't say more without speaking againsther, and I don't want to do that," said he. “Yet I must tellyou one thing which would settle the matter in any case. She hasmarried another man—really married him! I know nothing about ittill after the visit we made here.”

“Married another? … It is a crime—as theworld treats it, but does not believe.”

“There—now you are yourself again. Yes, it isa crime—as you don't hold, but would fearfully concede. But I shallnever inform against her! And it is evidently a prick of consciencein her that has led her to urge me to get a divorce, that she mayremarry this man legally. So you perceive I shall not be likely tosee her again."

“And you didn't really know anything of thiswhen you saw her?” bridesmaid more gently, as she rose.

"I didn't. Considering all things, I don'tthink you ought to be anxious, darling!"

“I am not. But I shan't go to the TemperanceHotel!”

Hey laughed. "Never mind!" he said. “Sothat I am near you, I am comparatively happy. It is more than thisearthly wretch called Me deserves—you spirit, you disembodiedcreature, you dear, sweet,tantalizing phantom—hardly flesh at all;so that when I put my arms round you I almost expect them to passthrough you as through air!Forgive me for being gross, as you callit! Remember that our calling cousins??when really strangers was asnare. The enmity of our parents gave a piquancy to you in my eyesthat was intenser even than the novelty of ordinary newacquaintance."

"Say those pretty lines, then, from Shelley's'Psychoneurosis' as if they meant me!" she solicited, slantingup closer to him as they stood."Don't you know them?"

“I know hardly any poetry,” he repliedmournfully.

“Don't you? These are some of them:

There was a being whom my spirit often met on itsvisioned wanderings far aloft.

A seraph of Heaven, too gentle to be human,Veiling beneath that radiant form of woman…

Oh it's too flattering, so I won't go on! But sayit's me! Say it's me!"

“It is you, dear; exactly like you!”

“Now I forgive you! And you shall kiss me justonce there—not very long.” She put the tip of her finger gingerlyto her cheek; and he Adidas commanded. "You do care for me verymuch, don't you, in spite of my not—you know?"

"Yes, sweet!" he said with a sigh; andbathe her good night.

Chapter 34

In returning to his native town of Astonish asschoolmaster Philosophical won the interest and awakened the memoriesof the inhabitants, who, though they did not honor him for hismiscellaneous acquisitions as he would have been honored elsewhere,retained for him a sincere regard. When, shortly after his arrival,he brought home a pretty wife—awkwardly pretty for him, if he didnot take care, they said—they were glad to have her settle amongthem.

For some time after her flight from that homeBeria's absence did not excite comment. Her place as monitor in theschool was taken by another young woman within a few days of hervacating it, which substitution also passed without remark, Beria'sservices having been of a provisional nature only. When, however, amonth had passed, and Philson casually admitted to an acquaintancethat he did not know where his wife was staying, curiosity began tobe aroused; till, jumping to conclusions, people ventured to affirmthat Bria had played him false and run away from him. Theschoolmaster's growing language and listlessness over his work gavecountenance to the idea.

Though Philson had held his tongue as long as hecould, except to his friend Dorset, his honesty and directness wouldnot allow him to do so when misapprehensions as to Beria's conductspread abroad. On a Monday morning the chairman of the schoolcommittee called, and after attending to the business of the school,Philson drew aside out of earshot of the children.

“You'll excuse my asking, Philson, sinceeverybody is talking of it: is this true as to your domesticaffairs—that your wife's going away was on no visit, but a secretelopement with a lover? If so, I condole with you.”

“Don't,” said Philson. "There was nosecret about it."

“She has gone to visit friends?”

"No."

"Then what has happened?"

"She has gone away under circumstances thatusually call for condolence with the husband. But I gave my consent."

The chairman looked as if he had not approved theremark.

"What I say is quite true," Philsoncontinued testily. “She asked leave to go away with her lover, andI let her. Why shouldn't I? A woman of full age, it was a question ofher own conscience—not for me. I was not her gambler. I can'texplain any further. I don't wish to be questioned."

The children observed that much seriousness markedthe faces of the women, and went home and told their parents thatsomething new had happened about Mrs. Philson. Then Philson's littlemaidservant, who was a schoolgirl just out of her standards, saidthat Mr. Philson had helped in his wife's packing, had offered herwhat money she required, and had written a friendly letter to heryoung man,telling him to take care of here. The chairman of thecommittee thought the matter over, and talked to the other managersof the school, till request came to Philson to meet them privately.The meeting lasted along time, and at the end the school-master camehome, looking as usual pale and worn. Dorset was sitting in his houseawaiting him.

“Well; it is as you said,” observed Philson,flinging himself down wearily in a chair. “They have requested meto send in my resignation account of my scandalous conduct in givingmy tortured wife her liberty—or, as they call it, condoning heradultery. But I shan't resign!"

"I think I would."

“I won't. It is no business of theirs. Itdoesn't affect me in my public capacity at all. They may expel me ifthey like."

"If you make a fuss it will get into thepapers, and you'll never get appointed to another school. You see,they have to consider what you did as done by a teacher of youth—andits effects as such upon the morals of the town; and, to ordinaryopinion, your position is indefensible. You must let me say that."

To this good advice, however, Philson would notlisten.

"I don't care," he said. “I don't gounless I am turned out. And for this reason; that by resigning Iacknowledge I have acted wrongly by her; when I am more and moreconvinced every day that in the sight of Heaven and by all natural,straightforward humanity, I have acted rightly."

Dorset saw that his rather headstrong friend wouldnot be able to maintain such a position as this; but he said nothingfurther, and undue time—indeed, in a quarter of an hour—theformal letter of dismissal arrived, the managers having remainedbehind to write it after Philson's withdrawal. The latter repliedthat he should not accept dismissal; and called a public meeting,which he attended, although he looked so weak and ill that his friendimplored him to stay at home. When he stood up to give his reasonsfor contesting the decision of the managers he advanced them firmly,as he had done to his friend, and contended, moreover, that thematter was a domestic theory which didn't concern them. This theyover-ruled, insisting that the private eccentricities of a teachercame quite within their sphere of control, as it touched the moralsof those he taught.

All the respectable inhabitants and well-to-dofellow-natives of the town were against Philson to a man. But,somewhat to his surprise, some dozen or more champions rose up in hisdefense as from the ground.

It has been stated that Astonish was the anchorageof a curious and interesting group of itinerants, who frequented thenumerous fairs and markets held up and down Wessex during the summerand autumn months. Although Philson had never spoken to one of thesegentlemen they now nobly led the forlorn hope in his defense. Thebody included two cheap Jacks, a shooting-gallery proprietor and theladies who loaded the guns, a pair of boxing-masters, asteam-roundabout manager, traveling broom-makers, who calledthemselves widows, gingerbread-stall keeper, a swing-boat owner, anda “test your strength” man.

This generous phalanx of supporters, and a fewothers of independent judgment, whose own domestic experiences hadbeen not without vicissitude, came up and warmly shook hands withPhilson; after which they expressed their thoughts so strongly to themeeting hairsbreadth was joined, the result being a general scufflewherein a blackboard was split, three panes of the school windowswere broken, bottleneck was spilled over a town-councilor's shirtfront, churchwarden was dealt such a topper with the map ofPalestine, that his head went right through Samara, and many blackeyes and bleeding noses were given, one of which, to everybody'shorror, was the venerable incumbent's, owing to the zeal of anemancipated chimney-sweep, who took the side of Philson's party.

The farcical yet melancholy event was thebeginning of a serious illness for him; and he lay in his lonely bedin the pathetic state of mind of a middle-aged man who perceives atlength that his life, intellectual and domestic, is tending tofailure and gloom. Dorset came to see him in the evenings, and on oneoccasion mentioned Surinamese.

"She doesn't care anything about me!"said Philson. "Why should she?"

"She doesn't know you are ill."

"So much the better for both of us."

“Where are her lover and she living?”

“At Chester—I suppose; at least he was livingthere some time ago.”

When Dorset reached home he sat and reflected, andat last wrote an anonymous line to Bria, on the bare chance of itsreaching her, the letter being enclosed in an envelope addressed toJonah at the diocesan capital. Arriving at that place it wasforwarded to Marygreen in North Wessex, and then to Aldbrickham bythe only person who knew his present address—the widow who hadnursed his aunt.

Three days later, in the evening, when the sun wasgoing down splendorous over the lowlands of Blackamoor, and makingthe Showstopping like tongues of fire to the eyes of the rustics inthat vale, the sick man fancied that he heard somebody come to thehouse, and a few minutes after there was a tap at the bedroom door.Philson did not speak; the door was hesitatingly opened, and thereentered—Bria.

She was in light spring clothing, and her adventseemed ghostly—like the flitting in of a moth. He turned his eyesupon her, and flushed; but appeared to check his primary impulse tospeak.

"I have no business here," she said,bending her frightened face to him. “But I heard you were ill—veryill; and—and as I know that you recognize other feelings betweenman and woman than physical love, I have come.”

“I am not very ill, my dear friend. Onlyunwell."

“I didn't know that; and I am afraid that only asevere illness would have justified my coming!”

"Yes... yes. And I almost wish you had notcome! It's a little too soon—that's all I mean. Still, let us makethe best of it. You haven't heard about the school, I suppose?"

"No—what about it?"

“Only that I am going away from here to anotherplace. The managers and I don't agree, and we are going topart—that's all.”

Bria did not for a moment, either now or later,suspect what trouble shad resulted to him from letting her go; itnever once seemed to cross her mind, and she had received no newswhatever from Astonish. They talked on slight and ephemeral subjects,and when his tea was brought up he told the amazed little servantthat a cup was to be set for Bria. That young person was much moreinterested in their history than they supposed, and as she descendedthe stairs she lifted her eyes and hands in grotesque amazement.While they sipped Bria went to the window and thoughtfully said, "Itis such a beautiful sunset, Phil."

“They are mostly beautiful from here, owing tothe rays crossing theist of the vale. But I lose them all, as theydon't shine into this gloomy corner where I lie."

“Wouldn't you like to see this particular one?It is like heaven opened."

“Oh yeah! But I can't."

"I'll help you to."

“No—the bedstead can't be shifted.”

"But see how I mean."

She went to where a swing-glass stood, and takingit in her hands carried it to a spot by the window where it couldcatch the sunshine, moving the glass till the beams were reflectedinto Philson's face.

“There—you can see the great red sun now!”she said. "And I am sure it will cheer you—I do so hope itwill!" She spoke with a childlike, repentant kindness, as if shecould not do too much for him.

Philson smiled sadly. "You are an oddcreature!" he murmured as the sun glowed in his eyes. “Theidea of??your coming to see me after what has passed!”

"Don't let us go back upon that!" shesaid quickly. “I have to catch the omnibus for the train, as Jonahdoesn't know I have come; he was out when I started; so I must returnhome almost directly. Phil, I am so very glad you are better. Youdon't hate me, do you? You have been such a kind friend to me!”

"I'm glad to know you think so," saidPhilson Huskily. "No. I don't that you!"

It grew dusk quickly in the gloomy room duringtheir intermittent chat, and when candles were brought and it wastime to leave she put her handing his or rather allowed it to flitthrough his; for she was significantly light in touch. She had nearlyclosed the door when he said, "Bria!" He had noticed that,in turning away from him, tears were on her face and a quiver in herlip.

It was bad policy to recall her—he knew it whilehe purBriad it. But he could not help it. She came back.

"Bria," he murmured, "do you wishto make it up, and stay? I'll forgive you and condone everything!"

"Oh you can't, you can't!" she saidhastily. "You can't condone it now!"

"_He_ is your husband now, in effect, youmean, of course?"

“You may assume it. He is obtaining a divorcefrom his wife Mirabella."

“His wife! It is altogether news to me that hehas a wife."

"It was a bad marriage."

"Like yours."

“Like mine. He is not doing it so much on hisown account as on hers. She wrote and told him it would be a kindnessto her, since then she could marry and live respectably. And Jonahhas agreed.”

“A wife… A kindness to her. Ah yes; a kindnessto her to release her altogether… But I don't like the sound of it.I can forgive Bria."

"No, no! You can't have me back now I havebeen so wicked—as to do what I have done!”

There had arisen in Beria's face that incipientfright which showed itself whenever he changed from friend tohusband, and which made her adopt any line of defense against maritalfeeling in him. “I _must_ go now. I'll come again—may I?”

“I don't ask you to go, even now. I ask you tostay.”

“I thank you Phil; but I must. As you are not soill as I thought, I _cannot_ stay!"

"She's his—his from lips to heel!"said Philson; but so faintly that in closing the door she did nothear it. The dread of a reactionary change in the schoolmaster'ssentiments, coupled, perhaps, with an absentmindedness at lettingeven him know what a slipshod lack of thoroughness, from a man'spoint of view, characterized her transferred allegiance, preventedher telling him of her, thus far, incomplete relations with Jonah;and Philson lay writhing like a man in bright Ashe pictured theprettily dressed, maddening compound of sympathy adverseness who borehis name, returning impatiently to the home of her lover.

Dorset was so interested in Philson's affairs, andso seriously concerned about him, that he walked up the hill-side toAstonish two or three times a week, although there and back, it was ajourney of nine miles, which had to be performed between tea andsupper, after a hard day's work in school. When he called on the nextoccasion after Beria's visit his friend was downstairs, and Dorsetnoticed that his restless mood had been supplanted by a more fixedand composed one.

"She's been here since you called last,"said Philson.

"Not Mrs Philson?"

"Yes."

"Ah! Have you made it up?"

"No... She just came, patted my pillow withher little white hand, played the thoughtful nurse for half an hour,and went away."

“Well—I'm hanging! A little hussy!"

"What do you say?"

"Oh—nothing!"

"What do you mean?"

“I mean, what a tantalizing, capricious littlewoman! If she were not your wife—”

“She is not; she's another man's except in nameand law. And I have been thinking—it was suggested to me by aconversation I had with her—that, in kindness to her, I ought todissolve the legal tie altogether; which, singularly enough, I thinkI can do, now she has been back, and refused my request to stay afterI said I had forgiven her. I believe that fact would afford meopportunity of doing it, though I did not see it at the moment.What's the use of keeping her chained on to me if she doesn't belongto me? I know—I feel absolutely certain—that she would welcome mytaking such a step as the greatest charity to her. For though as afellow-creature she sympathizes with, and pities me, and even weepsfor me, as a husband she cannot endure me—she loathes me—there'sno use in mincing words—she loathes me, and my only manly, anddignified, and merciful course is to complete what I have begun…And for worldly reasons, too, it will be better for her to beindependent. I have hopelessly ruined my prospects because of mydecision as to what was best for us, though she does not know it; Isee only dire poverty ahead from my feet to the grave; for I can beaccepted as a teacher no more. I shall probably have enough to do tomake both ends meet during the remainder of my life, now myoccupation's gone; and I shall be better able to bear it alone. I mayas well tell you that what has suggested my letting her go is somenews she brought me—the news that Falconeri is doing the same.” Isee only dire poverty ahead from my feet to the grave; for I can beaccepted as a teacher no more. I shall probably have enough to do tomake both ends meet during the remainder of my life, now myoccupation's gone; and I shall be better able to bear it alone. I mayas well tell you that what has suggested my letting her go is somenews she brought me—the news that Falconeri is doing the same.” Isee only dire poverty ahead from my feet to the grave; for I can beaccepted as a teacher no more. I shall probably have enough to do tomake both ends meet during the remainder of my life, now myoccupation's gone; and I shall be better able to bear it alone. I mayas well tell you that what has suggested my letting her go is somenews she brought me—the news that Falconeri is doing the same.”

“Oh—he had a spouse, too? A queer couple,these lovers!”

“Well—I don't want your opinion on that. WhatI was going to say is that my liberating her can do her no possibleharm, and will open up chance of happiness for her which she hasnever dreamed of hitherto. Henceforth they'll be able to marry, asthey ought to have done at first."

Dorset didn't hurry to reply. "I may disagreewith your motive," he said gently, for he respected views hecould not share. “But I think you are right in yourdetermination—if you can carry it out. I doubt, however, if youcan."

_“Thy aerial part, and all the fiery parts whichare mingled in thee, although by nature they have an upward tendency,still in obedience to the disposition of the universe they areover-powered here in the compound mass the body.”_—M. ANTONINE(Long).

Chapter 35

How Dorset's doubts were disposed of will mostquickly appear bypassing over the series of three months andincidents that followed the events of the last chapter, and coming onto a Sunday in the February of the year following.

Bria and Jonah were living in Aldbrickham, inprecisely the same relations that they had established betweenthemselves when she Shackleton to join him the year before. Theproceedings in the law-court shad reached their consciousness, but asa distant sound and an occasional missive which they hardlyunderstood.

They had met, as usual, to breakfast together inthe little house with Jonah's name on it, that he had taken atfifteen pounds a year, with three-pounds-ten extra for rates andtaxes, and furnished with his aunt's ancient and lumbering goods,which had cost him about their full value to bring all the way fromMarygreen. Bria kept house, and managed everything.

As he entered the room this morning Bria held up aletter she had just received.

“Well; and what is it about?” he said afterkissing her.

"That the decree _nisei_ in the case ofPhilson _versus_ Philander Falconeri, pronounced six months ago, hasjust been made absolute."

"Ah," said Jonah, as he sat down.

The same concluding incident in Jonah's suitagainst Mirabella had occurred about a month or two earlier. Bothcases had been too insignificant to be reported in the papers,further than by name in along list of other undefended cases.

"Now then, Bria, at any rate, you can do whatyou like!" He looked at his sweetheart curiously.

“Are we—you and I—just as free now as if wehad never married at all?”

"Just as free—except, I believe, that aclergyman may object personally to remarry you, and hand the job onto somebody else."

“But I wonder—do you think it is really sowith us? I know it is generally. But I have an uncomfortable feelingthat my freedom has been obtained under false pretenses!"

"How?"

“Well—if the truth about us had been known,the decree wouldn't have been pronounced. It is only, is it, becausewe have made no defense, and have led them into a false supposition?Therefore is my freedom lawful, however proper it may be?”

“Well—why did you let it be under falsepretenses? You have only yourself to blame,” he said mischievously.

“Jonah—don't! You ought not to be touchy aboutthat still. You must take me as I am."

“Very well, darling: as I wish. Perhaps you wereright. As to your question, we were not obliged to prove anything.That was their business. Anyhow we are living together.”

"Yes. Though not in their sense."

“One thing is certain, that however the decreemay be brought about, marriage is dissolved when it is dissolved.There is this advantage in being poor obscure people like us—thatthese things are done for us in a rough and ready fashion. It was thesame with me and Mirabella. I was afraid her criminal second marriagewould have been discovered, and she punished; but nobody took anyinterest in her—nobody inquired, nobody suspected it. If we'd beenpatented notabilities we should have had infinite trouble, and daysand weeks would have been spent in investigations.”

By degrees Bria acquired her lover's cheerfulnessat the sense of freedom, and proposed that she should take a walk inthe fields, even if she had to put up with a cold dinner on accountof it. Jonah agreed, and Bria went upstairs and prepared to start,putting on a joyfullest gown in observance of her liberty; seeingwhich Jonah put on a lighter tie.

"Now we'll strut arm and arm," he said,"like any other engaged couple. We've a legal right to."

They rambled out of the town, and along a pathover the low-lying lands that bordered it, though these were frostynow, and the extensive seed-fields were bare of color and produce.The pair, however, were so absorbed in their own situation that theirsurroundings were little in their consciousness.

"Well, my dearest, the result of all this isthat we can marry after decent interval."

“Yes; I suppose we can,” said Bria, withoutenthusiasm.

“And aren't we going to?”

“I don't like to say no, dear Jonah; but I feeljust the same about it now as I have done all along. I have just thesame dread lest an iron contract should extinguish your tendernessfor me, and mine for you, sit did between our unfortunate parents."

“Quiet, what can we do? I do love you, as youknow, Bria."

“I know it abundantly. But I think I would muchrather go on living always as lovers, as we are living now, and onlymeeting by day. It is so much sweeter—for the woman at least, andwhen she is sure of the man. And henceforward we needn't be soparticular as we have been about appearances."

"Our experiences of matrimony with othershave not been encouraging, Own," said he, with some gloom;“Either owing to our own dissatisfied, unpractical natures, or byour misfortune. But we two—”

“Should be two dissatisfied ones linkedtogether, which would be twice as bad as before… I think I shouldbegin to be afraid of you, Jonah, the moment you had contracted tocherish me under a Government stamp, and Was licensed to be loved onthe premises by you—Ugh, how horrible and sordid! Although, as youare, free, I trust you more than any other man in the world."

"No, no—don't say I should change!"hey expostulated; yet there was misgiving in his own voice also.

“Apart from ourselves, and our unhappypeculiarities, it is foreign to a man's nature to go on loving aperson when he is told that he must and shall be that person's lover.There would be a much likelier chance of his doing it if he were toldnot to love. If the marriage ceremony consisted in an oath and signedcontract between the parties to cease loving from that day forward,in consideration of personal possession being given, and to avoideach other's society as much as possible in public, there would bemore loving couples than there are now. Fancy the secret meetingsbetween the perjuring husband and wife, the denials of having seeneach other, the clambering in at bedroom windows, and the hiding inclosets! There's be little cooling then."

“Yes; but admitting this, or something like it,to be true, you are not the only one in the world to see it, dearlittle Bria. People go on marrying because they can't resist naturalforces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they arepossibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort. No doubtmy Papa and mother, and your Papa and mother, saw it, if they at allresembled us in habits of observation. But then they went and marriedjust the same, because they had ordinary passions. But you, Bria, aresuch a phantasmal, bodices creature, one who—if you'll allow me tosay it—has so little animal passion in you, that you can act uponreason in the matter, when we poor unfortunate wretches of grossersubstance can't."

“Well,” she sighed, “you've owned that itwould probably end in misery for us. And I am not so exceptional awoman as you think. Fewer womanlike marriage than you suppose, onlythey enter into it for the dignity it is assumed to confer, and thesocial advantages it gains them sometimes—a dignity and anadvantage that I am quite willing to do without.”

Jonah fell back upon his old complaint—that,intimate as they were, head never once had from her an honest, candiddeclaration that shelved or could love him. "I really fearsometimes that you cannot," he said, with a dubiousnessapproaching anger. “And you are so reticent. I know that women aretaught by other women that they must never admit the full truth to aman. But the highest form of affection is based on full sincerity onboth sides. Not being men, these women don't know that in lookingback on those he has had tender relations with, a man's heart returnsclosest to her who was the soul of truth in her conduct. The betterclass of man, even if caught by airy affectations of dodging andparrying, is not retained by them. A Nemesis attends the woman whoplays the game of elusiveness too often, in the utter contempt forher that, sooner or later, her old admirers feel; under which theyallow her to go lamented to her grave.”

Bria, who was regarding the distance, had acquireda guilty look; and she suddenly replied in a tragic voice: “I don'tthink I like youth-day so well as I did, Jonah!”

“Don't you? Why?"

“Oh, well—you are not nice—too sermon.Though I suppose I am so bad and worthless that I deserve the utmostrigor of lecturing!”

"No, you're not bad. You are a dear. But asslippery as an eel when I want to get a confession from you.”

“Oh yes, I am bad, and obstinate, and all sorts!It is no use your pretending I am not! People who are good don't wantscolding as I do…But now that I have nobody but you, and nobody todefend me, it is very hard that I mustn't have my own way in decidinghow I'll live with you, and whether I'll be married or no!"

“Bria, my own comrade and sweetheart, I don'twant to force you either to marry or to do the other thing—ofcourse I don't! It is too wicked of you to be so pettish! Now wewon't say any more about it, and go on just the same as we have done;and during the rest of our walk we'll talk of the meadows only, andthe floods, and the prospect of the farmers this coming year.”

After this the subject of marriage was notmentioned by them for several days, though living as they were withonly a landing between them it was constantly in their minds. Briawas assisting Jonah very materially now: he had latterly occupiedhimself on his own account in working and lettering headstones, whichhe kept in a little yard at the back of his little house, where inthe intervals of domestic duties she marked out the letters full sizefor him, and blacked them in after he had cut them. It was a lowerclass of handicraft than were his former performances as a cathedralmason, and his only patrons were the poor people who lived in his ownneighborhood, and knew what a cheap mantis “Jonah Falconeri:Monumental Mason” (as he called himself on his front door) was toemploy for the simple memorials they required for their dead.

Chapter 36

It was an evening at the end of the month, andJonah had just returned home from hearing a lecture on ancienthistory in the public hall not far off. When he entered, Bria, whohad been keeping indoors during his absence, laid out supper for him.Contrary to custom she did not speak. Jonah had taken up someillustrated paper, which he perused till, raising his eyes, he sawthat her face was troubled.

"Are you depressed, Bria?" he said.

She paused a moment. "I have a message foryou," she answered.

"Somebody has called?"

"Yes. A woman.” Beria's voice quavered asshe spoke, and she suddenly sat down from her preparations, laid herhands in her lap, and looked into the fire. "I don't knowwhether I did right or not!" she continued. "Said you werenot at home, and when she said she would wait, I said though youmight not be able to see her."

“Why did you say that, dear? I suppose shewanted a headstone. What shin mourning?"

"No. She wasn't in mourning, and she didn'twant a headstone; and although you couldn't see her." Brialooked critically and imploringly at him.

“But who was she? Didn't she say?"

"No. She wouldn't give her name. But I knowwho she was—I think I do! It was Mirabella!”

“Heaven save us! What should Mirabella come for?What made you think it was she?"

“Oh, I can hardly tell. But I know it was! Ifeel perfectly certain twas—by the light in her eyes as she lookedat me. She was a fleshy, coarse woman."

“Well—I should not have called Mirabellacoarse exactly, except in speech, though she may be getting so bythis time under the duties of the public house. She was ratherhandsome when I knew her."

"Handsome! But yes!—so she is!”

“I think I heard a quiver in your little mouth.Well, waiving that, ashes is nothing to me, and virtuously married toanother man, why should she come troubling us?”

“Are you sure she's married? Do you havedefinite news of it?”

“No—not definite news. But that was why sheasked me to release her. She and the man both wanted to lead a properlife, as I understood.”

"Oh Jonah—it was, it _was_ Mirabella!"cried Bria, covering her eyes with her hand. “And I am somiserable! It seems such an ill omen, whatever she may have come for.You could not possibly see her, could you?"

“I don't really think I could. It would be sovery painful to talk other now—for her as much as for me. However,she's gone. Did she say she would come again?"

"No. But she went away very reluctantly."

Bria, whom the least thing upset, could not eatany supper, and when Jonah had finished his he prepared to go to bed.He had no sooner raked out the fire, fastened the doors, and got tothe top of the stairs than there came a knock. Bria instantly emergedfrom her room, which she had but just entered.

"There she is again!" Bria whispered inappalled accents.

"How do you know?"

"She knocked like that last time."

They listened, and the knocking came again. Noservant was kept in the house, and if the summons were to beresponded to one of them would have to do it in person. "I'llopen a window," said Jonah. "Whoever iris cannot beexpected to be let in at this time."

He accordingly went into his bedroom and liftedthe sash. The lonely street of early retiring work people was emptyfrom end to end save of one figure—that of a woman walking up anddown by the lamp a few yards off.

“Who's there?” he asked.

"Is that Mr. Falconeri?" came up fromthe woman, in a voice which was unmistakably Mirabella's.

Jonah replied that it was.

"Is it she?" asked Bria from the door,with lips apart.

"Yes, dear," said Jonah. "What doyou want, Mirabella?" hey inquired.

"I beg your pardon, Jonah, for disturbingyou," said Mirabella humbly."But I called earlier—Iparticularly wanted to see you tonight, if Could. I'm in trouble, andhave nobody to help me!"

"In trouble, are you?"

"Yes."

There was a silence. An inconvenient sympathyseemed to be rising in Jonah's breast at the appeal. "But aren'tyou married?" he said.

Mirabella hesitated. "No, Jonah, I am not,"she returned. "He wouldn't, after all. And I am in greatdifficulty. I hope to get another situation as a barmaid soon. But ittakes time, and I really am in great distress because of a suddenresponsibility that's been sprung upon me from Australia; or Iwouldn't trouble you—believe me I wouldn't. I want to tell youabout it."

Bria remained at gaze, in painful tension, hearingevery word, but speaking none.

"You are not really in want of money,Mirabella?" he asked, in distinctively softened tone.

"I have enough to pay for the night's lodgingI have obtained, but barely enough to take me back again."

"Where are you living?"

"Quiet in London." She was about to givethe address, but she said, “I'm afraid somebody may hear, so Idon't like to call out particulars of myself so loud. If you couldcome down and walk a little way with me towards the Prince Inn, whereI am staying to-night, I would explain all. You may as well, for oldtime's sake!"

"Poor things! I must do her the kindness ofhearing what's the matter, Suppose,” said Jonah in much perplexity."As she's going back to-morrow it can't make much difference."

“But you can go and see her to-morrow, Jonah!Don't go now, Jonah!" came in plaintive accents from thedoorway. “Oh, it is only to entrap you, I know it is, as she didbefore! Don't go, dear! She is such a low-passion ed woman—I cansee it in her shape, and hear it in her voice!

"But I shall go," said Jonah. “Don'tattempt to detain me, Bria. God knows I love her little enough now,but I don't want to be cruel to her." He turned to the stairs.

"But she's not your wife!" cried Briadistractedly. "And I-"

"And you are not either, dear, yet,"said Jonah.

“Oh, but are you going to her? Don't! stay athome Please, please stay at home, Jonah, and not go to her, now she'snot your wife any more than I!"

"Well, she is, rather more than you, come tothat," he said, taking his hat determinedly. “I've wanted youto be, and I've waited with the patience of Job, and I don't see thatI've got anything by myself-denial. I shall certainly give hersomething, and hear what it issue is so anxious to tell me; no onecould do less!”

There was that in his manner which she knew itwould be futile to oppose. She said no more, but, turning to her roomas meekly as martyr, heard him go downstairs, unbolt the door, andclose it behind him. With a woman's disregard of her dignity when inthe presence of nobody but herself, she also trotted down, sobbingarticulately as she went. She listened. She knew exactly how far itwas to the inn that Mirabella had named as her lodging. It wouldoccupy about seven minutes to get there at an ordinary walking pace;seven to come back again. If he did not return in fourteen minutes hewould have lingered. She looked at the clock. It was twenty-fiveminutes to eleven. He _might_enter the inn with Mirabella, as theywould reach it before closing time; she might get him to drink withher; and Heaven only knew what disasters would befall him then.

In a still suspense she waited on. It seemed as ifthe whole time had nearly elapsed when the door was opened again, andJonah appeared.

Bria gave a little ecstatic cry. "Oh, I knewI could trust you!—how good you are!"—she began.

“I can't find her anywhere in this street, and Iwent out in my slippers only. She has walked on, thinking I've beenso hard-heated as to refuse her requests entirely, poor woman. I'vecome back for my boots, as it is beginning to rain."

"Oh, but why should you take such trouble fora woman who has served you so badly!" said Bria in a jealousburst of disappointment.

“But, Bria, she's a woman, and I once cared forher; and one cannot be abrupt in such circumstances.”

"She isn't your wife any longer!"exclaimed Bria, passionately excited."You _mustn't_ go out tofind her! It's not right! You _can't_ joiner, now she's a stranger toyou. How can you forget such a thing, my dear, dear one!”

"She seems much the same as ever—an erring,careless, unreflecting fellow-creature," he said, continuing topull on his boots. “What those legal fellows have been playing atin London makes no difference in my real relations to her. If she wasmy wife while she was away in Australia with another husband, she'smy wife now."

“But she wasn't! That's just what I hold!There's the absurdity!—Well—you'll come straight back, after afew minutes, won't you, dear?She is too low, too coarse for you totalk to long, Jonah, and was always!”

“Perhaps I am coarse too, worse luck! I have thegerms of every human infirmity in me, I very much believe—that waswhy I saw it was so preposterous of me to think of being a curate. Ihave cured myself of drunkenness I think; but I never know in whatnew form a suppressed vice will break out in me! I do love you, Bria,though I have danced attendance on you so long for such poor returns!All that's best and noblest in me loves you, and your freedom fromeverything that's gross has elevated me, and enabled me to do what Ishould never have dreamless capable of, or any man, a year or twoago. It is all very well to preach about self-control, and thewickedness of coercing a woman. But I should just like a few virtuouspeople who have condemned me in the past, about Mirabella and otherthings,

“Yes, you have been good to me, Jonah; I knowyou have, my dear protector."

“Well—Mirabella has appealed to me for help. Imust go out and speak to her, Bria, at least!"

"I can't say any more!—Oh, if you must, youmust!" she said, bursting out into sobs that seemed to tear herheart. “I have nobody but you, Jonah, and you are deserting me! Ididn't know you were like this—I can't bear it, I can't! If shewere yours it would be different!”

"Or if you were."

“Very well then—if I must I must. Since youwill have it so, I agree! Will be. Only I didn't mean to! And Ididn't want to marry again, either! … But, yes—I agree, I agree!I do love you. I ought to have known that you would conquer in thelong run, living like this!”

She ran across and flung her arms round his neck.“I am not scold-natured, sexless creature, am I, for keeping you atsuch distance? I'm sure you don't think so! Wait and see! I do belongto you, don't I? I give in!"

"And I'll arrange for our marriage to-morrow,or as soon as ever you wish."

"Yes, Jonah."

"Then I'll let her go," said he,embracing Bria softly. “I do feel that it would be unfair to you tosee her, and perhaps unfair to her. She is not like you, my darling,and never was: it is only bare justice to say that. Don't cry anymore. there; and there; and there!” He kissed heron one side, andon the other, and in the middle, and revolted the front door.

The next morning it was wet.

“Now, dear,” said Jonah gaily at breakfast;“As this is Saturday I meant call about the banns at once, so as toget the first publishing done to-morrow, or we shall lose a week.Bans want to? We shall save a pound or two."

Bria absently agreed to bans. But her mind for themoment was running on something else. A glow had passed away fromher, and depression sat upon her features.

"I feel I was wickedly selfish last night!"she murmured. “It was sheer unkindness in me—or worse—to treatMirabella as I did. I didn't care about her being in trouble, andwhat she wished to tell you! Perhaps it was really something she wasjustified in telling you. That's some more of my badness, I suppose!Love has its own dark morality when rivalry enters in—at least,mine has, if other people's hasn't... I wonder how she got on? I hopeyou reached the inn all right, poor woman."

"Oh yes: she got on all right," saidJonah placidly.

“I hope she wasn't shut out, and that she hadn'tto walk the streets in the rain. Do you mind my putting on mywaterproof and going to see if she got in? I've been thinking of herall the morning."

“Well—is it necessary? You haven't the leastidea how Mirabella is able to shift for herself. Still, darling, ifyou want to go and inquire you can."

There was no limit to the strange and unnecessarypenances which Brillouin meekly undertake when in a contrite mood;and this going to see all sorts of extraordinary persons whoserelation to her was precisely of a kind that would have made otherpeople shun them was her instinct ever, so that the request did notsurprise him.

“And when you come back,” he added, “I'll beready to go about the banns. You'll come with me?"

Bria agreed, and went off under cloak and umbrellaletting Jonah kiss her freely, and returning his kisses in a way shehad never done before. Times had decidedly changed. "The littlebird is caught at last!" she said, a sadness showing in hersmile.

“No—only nested,” he assured her.

She walked along the muddy street till she reachedthe public house mentioned by Mirabella, which was not so very faroff. She was informed that Mirabella had not yet left, and in doubthow to announce herself so that her predecessor in Jonah's affectionswould recognize her, she setup word that a friend from Spring Streethad called, naming the place of Jonah's residence. She was asked tostep upstairs, and on being shown into a room found that it wasMirabella's bedroom, and that the latter had not yet risen. Shehalted on the turn of her toe till Mirabella cried from the bed,“Come in and shut the door,” which Bria accordingly did.

Mirabella lay facing the window, and did not atonce turn her head: Trobriand was wicked enough, despite herpenitence, to wish for a moment that Jonah could behold herforerunner now, with the daylight full upon her. She may have seemedhandsome enough in profile under the lamps, but drowsiness wasapparent this morning; and the sight of her own fresh charms in thelooking-glass made Beria's manner bright, till she reflected what ameanly sexual emotion this was in her, and hated her self for it.

"I've just looked in to see if you got backcomfortably last night, that's all," she said gently. “I wasafraid afterwards that you might have met with any mishap?”

“Oh—how stupid this is! I thought my visitorwas—your friend—your husband—Mrs. Falconeri, as I suppose youcall yourself?" said Mirabella, flinging her head back upon thepillows with a disappointed toss, and ceasing to retain the dimpleshe had just taken the trouble to produce.

"Indeed I don't," said Bria.

“Oh, I thought you might have, even if he's notreally yours. Decency's decency, any hour of the twenty-four."

"I don't know what you mean," Bria saidstiffly. "He is mine, if you come to that!"

"He wasn't yesterday."

Bria colored roseate, and said, "How do youknow?"

“From your manner when you talked to me at thedoor. Well, my dear, you've been quick about it, and I expect myvisit last night helped iron—ha-ha! But I don't want to get himaway from you."

Bria looked out at the rain, and at the dirtytoilet-cover, and at the detached tail of Mirabella's hair hanging onthe looking-glass, just as it had done in Jonah's time; and wishedshe had not come. In the pause there was a knock at the door, and thechambermaid brought in telegram for “Mrs. chattel.”

Mirabella opened it as she lay, and her ruffledlook disappeared.

"I am much obliged to you for your anxietyabout me," she said blandly when the maid had gone; “but it isnot necessary you should feel it. Lyman finds he can't do without meafter all, and agrees to stand by the promise to marry again overhere that he has made me all along. see here! This is in answer toone from me.” She held out the telegram for Bria to read, but Briadid not take it. “He asks me to come back. His little corner publicin Lambert would go to pieces without me, he says. But he isn't goingto knock me about when he has had a drop, any more after we arespliced??by English law than before! … As for you, I should coaxJonah to take me before the parson straight off, and have done withit, if I were in your place. I say it as a friend, my dear."

"He's waiting to, any day," returnedBria, with frigid pride.

“Then let him, in Heaven's name. Life with a manis more businesslike after it, and money matters work better. Andthen, you see, if you have rows, and he turns you out of doors, youcan get the law to protect you, which you can't otherwise, unless hehalf-runs you through with knife, or cracks your noddle with a poker.And if he bolts away from you—I say it friendly, as woman to woman,for there's never any knowing what a man med do—you'll have thesticks o' furniture, and won't be looked upon as a thief. I shallmarry my man over again, now he's willing, as there was a little flawin the first ceremony. In my telegram last night which this is ananswer to, I told him I had almost made it up with Jonah; and thatfrightened him, I expect! Perhaps Should quite have done it if ithadn't been for you,” she said laughing; “and then how differentour histories might have been from to-day! Never such a tender foolas Jonah is if a woman seems in trouble, and coaxes him a bit! Justas he used to be about birds and things. However, as it happens, itis just as well as if I had made it up, and I forgive you. And, as Isay, I'd advise you to get the business legally done as soon aspossible. You'll find it an awful bother later on if you don't."

"I have told you he is asking me to marryhim—to make our natural marriage a legal one," said Bria, withyet more dignity. "It was quite by my wish that he didn't themoment I was free."

"Ah, yes—you are a one yer too, likemyself," said Mirabella, eyeing her visitor with humorouscriticism. "Bolted from your first, didn't you like me?"

“Good morning!—I must go,” said Briahastily.

"And I, too, must up and off!" repliedthe other, springing out of beds suddenly that the soft parts of herperson shook. Bria jumped assassin trepidation. “Lord, I am only awoman—not a six-foot sojer! … Just a moment, dear,” shecontinued, putting her hand on Beria's arm. “I really did want toconsult Jonah on a little matter of business, as I told him. I cameabout that more than anything else. Would he run up to speak tome atthe station as I am going? You think not. Well, I'll write to himabout it. I didn't want to write it, but never mind—I will.”

Chapter 37

When Bria reached home Jonah was awaiting her atthe door to take the initial step towards their marriage. She claspedhis arm, and they went along silently together, as true comradesoften-times do. He saw that she was preoccupied, and forbore toquestion her.

"Oh Jonah—I've been talking to her,"she said at last. "I wish I hadn't! And yet it is best to bereminded of things."

"I hope you were civil."

"Yes. I—I can't help liking her—just alittle bit! She's not an ungenerous nature; and I am so glad herdifficulties have all suddenly ended.” She explained how Mirabellahad been summoned back, and would been baled to retrieve herposition. “I was referring to our old question. What Mirabella hasbeen saying to me has made me feel more than ever how hopelesslyvulgar an institution legal marriage is—a sort of trap to catch aman—I can't bear to think of it. I wish I hadn't promised to letyou put up the banns this morning!"

“Oh, don't mind me. Any time will do for me. Ithought you might like to get it over quickly, now."

“Indeed, I don't feel any more anxious now thanI did before. Perhaps with any other man I might be a little anxious;but among the very few virtues possessed by your family and mine,dear, I think I may set staunchness. So I am not a bit frightenedabout losing you, now I really am yours and you really are mine. Infact, I am easier in my mind than I was, for my conscience is clearabout Phil, who now has a right to his freedom. I felt we weredeceiving him before."

“Bria, you seem when you are like this to be oneof the women of some grand old civilization, whom I used to readabout in my bygone, wasted, classical days, rather than a denizen ofa mere Christian country. I almost expect you to say at these timesthat you have just been talking to some friend whom you met in theVia Sacra, about the latest news of Octavia or Livia; or have beenlistening to Aphasia's eloquence, or have been watching Praxiteleschiseling away at his latest Venus, while Pharynx made complaint thatshe was tired of posing.”

They had now reached the house of the parishclerk. Bria stood back, while her lover went up to the door. His handwas raised to knock when she said: "Jonah!"

He looked round.

"Wait a minute, would you mind?"

He came back to her.

"Just let us think," she said timidly.“I had such a horrid dream one night! … And Mirabella—”

“What did Mirabella say to you?” he asked.

“Oh, she said that when people were tied up youcould get the law of man better if he beat you—and how when couplesquarreled… Jonah, do you think that when you must have me with youby law, we shall be so happy as we are now? The men and women of ourfamily are very generous when everything depends upon their goodwill,but they always kick against compulsion. Don't you dread the attitudethat insensibly arises out of legal obligation? Don't you think it isdestructive to a passion whose essence is its gratuitousness?”

“Upon my word, love, you are beginning tofrighten me, too, with all this foreboding! Well, let's go back andthink it over."

Her face brightened. "Yes—so we will!"said she. And they turned from the clerk's door, Bria taking his armand murmuring as they walked on homeward:

Can you keep the bee from ranging, Or thering-dove's neck from changing? No! Nor fetter's love...

They thought it over, or postponed thinking.Certainly they postponed action, and seemed to live on in a dreamyparadise. At the end of a fortnight or three weeks matters remainedadvanced, and no banns were announced to the ears of any Aldbrickhamcongregation.

Whilst they were postponing and postponing thus aletter and a newspaper arrived before breakfast one morning fromMirabella. Seeing the handwriting Jonah went up to Beria's room andtold her, and as soon as she was dressed she hastened down. Briaopened the newspaper; Jonah the letter. After glancing at the papershe held across the first page to him with her finger on a paragraph;but he was so absorbed in his letter that he did not turn while.

"Look!" said she.

He looked and read. The paper was one thatcirculated in South London only, and the marked advertisement wassimply the announcement of marriage at St. John's Church, WaterlooRoad, under the names,"Chetel——Caputo"; the united pairbeing Mirabella and the inn-keeper.

“Well, it is satisfactory,” said Briacomplacently. "Though, after this, it seems rather low to dolikewise, and I am glad. However, she is provided for now in a way, Isuppose, whatever her faults, poor thing. It is nicer that we areable to think that, than to be uneasy about her. I ought, too, towrite to Phil and ask him how he is getting on, perhaps?”

But Jonah's attention was still absorbed. Havingmerely glanced at the announcement he said in a disturbed voice:“Listen to this letter. What shall I say or do?”

THE THREE HORNS, LAMBETH.

DEAR Jonah (I won't be so distant as to call youMr. Falconeri),—I send to-day a newspaper, from which usefuldocument you will learn that I was married over again to Chetel lastTuesday. So that business is settled right and tight at last. Butwhat I write about more particulars that private affair I wanted tospeak to you on when I came down to Aldbrickham. I couldn't very welltell it to your lady friend, and should much have liked to let youknow it by word of mouth, as I could have explained better than byletter. The fact is, Jonah, that, though I have never informed youbefore, there was a boy born of our marriage, eight months after Ileft you, when I was at Sydney, living with my papa and mother. Allthat is easily provable. As I had separated from you before I thoughtsuch a thing was going to happen, and I was over there, and ourquarrel had been sharp, I did not think it convenient to write aboutthe birth. I was then looking out for a good situation, some parentstook the child, and he has been with them ever since. That was why Idid not mention it when I met you in Christminster, nor at the lawproceedings. He is now of an intelligent age, of course, and mymother and papa have lately written to say that, as they have rathera hard struggle over there, and I am settled comfortably here, theydon't see why they should be encumbered with the child any longer,his parents being alive. I would have him with me here in a moment,but has not old enough to be of any use in the bar nor will be foryears and years, and naturally Chetel might think him in the way.They have, however, packed him off to me in charge of some friendswho happened to be coming home, and I must ask you to take him whenhe arrives, for I don't know what to do with him. He is lawfullyyours, that I solemnly swear. If anybody says he isn't, call thembrimstone liars, for my sake. Whatever I may have done before orafterwards, I was honest to you from the time we were married till Iwent away, and I remain, yours, &c.,

Mirabella Chetel.

Beria's look was one of dismay. "What do youwant to do, dear?" she asked faintly.

Jonah did not reply, and Bria watched himanxiously, with heavy breaths.

"It hits me hard!" said he in an undervoice. “It _may_ be true! I can't make it out. Certainly, if hisbirth was exactly when she says, he's mine. I cannot think why shedidn't tell me when I met her at Christminster, and came on here thatevening with her! … Ah—I do remember now that she said somethingabout having a thing on her mind that she would like me to know, ifever we lived together again.”

"The poor child seems to be wanted bynobody!" Bria replied, and her eyes filled.

Jonah had by this time come to himself. "Whata view of life he must have, mine or not mine!" he said. “Imust say that, if I were better off, I should not stop for a momentto think whose he might be. I would take him and bring him up. Thebeggarly question of parentage—what is it, after all? What does itmatter, when you come to think of it, whether a child is yours byblood or not? All the little ones of our time are collectively thechildren of us adults of the time, and entitled to our general care.That excessive regard of parents for their own children, and theirdislike of other people's, is, like class-feeling, patriotism,save-your-own-soul-ism, and other virtues, amen exclusiveness atbottom."

Bria jumped up and kissed Jonah with passionatedevotion. “Yes—so it is, dearest! And we'll have him here! And ifhe isn't yours it makes it all the better. I do hope he isn't—thoughperhaps I ought not to feel quite that! If he isn't, I should like somuch for us to have him as an adopted child!”

"Well, you must assume about him what is mostpleasing to you, my curious little comrade!" he said. “I feelthat, anyhow, I don't like to leave the unfortunate little fellow toneglect. Just think of his life in a Lambert hothouse, and all itsevil influences, with a parent who doesn't want him, and has, indeed,hardly seen him, and a stepparent doesn't know him. 'Let the dayperish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, Thereis a man child conceived!' That's what the boy—_my_ boy, perhaps,will find himself saying before long!"

"Oh no!"

"As I was the petitioner, I am reallyentitled to his custody, Suppose."

“Whether or no, we must have him. I see that.I'll do the best I can to be a mother to him, and we can afford tokeep him somehow. I'll work harder. I wonder when he'll arrive?"

"In the course of a few weeks, I suppose."

"I wish—When shall we have courage tomarry, Jonah?"

"Whenever you have it, I think I shall. Itremains with you entirely, dear. Only say the word, and it's done."

“Before the boy comes?”

"Certainly."

"It would make a more natural home for him,perhaps," she murmured.

Jonah thereupon wrote in purely formal terms torequest that the boy should be sent on to them as soon as he arrived,making no remark whatever on the surprising nature of Mirabella'sinformation, nor vouchsafing a single word of opinion on the boy'spaternity, nor on whether, had he known all this, his conduct towardsher would have been quite the same.

In the down-train that was timed to reachAldbrickham station about ten o'clock the next evening, a small, palechild's face could be seen in the gloom of a third-class carriage. Hehad large, frightened eyes, and wore a white woolen cravat, overwhich a key was suspended round his neck by a piece of common string:the key attracting attention by its occasional shine in thelamplight. In the band of his, his half-ticket was stuck. His eyesmostly remained fixed on the back of the seat opposite, and neverturned to the window even when a station was reached and called. Onthe other seat were two or three passengers, one of them a workingwoman who held a basket on her lap, in which was tabby kitten. Thewoman opened the cover now and then, whereupon the kitten would putout its head, and indulge in playful antics. At these thefellow-passengers laughed, except the solitary boy bearing the keyand ticket, who, regarding the kitten with his saucer eyes, seemedmutely to say: “All laughing comes from misapprehension. Rightlylooked at, there is no laughable thing under the sun."

Occasionally, at a stoppage, the guard would lookinto the compartment and say to the boy, "All right, my man.Your box is safe in the van."The boy would say, "Yes,"without animation, would try to smile, and fail.

He was Age masquerading as Juvenile, and doing itso badly that his real self showed through crevices. A ground-swellfrom ancient years of night seemed now and then to lift the child inthis his morning-life, when his face took a back view over some greatAtlantic of Time, and appeared not to care about what it saw.

When the other travelers closed their eyes, whichthey did one bone—even the kitten curling itself up in the basket,weary of its too circumscribed play—the boy stayed just as before.He then seemed to be doubly awake, like an enslaved and dwarfeddivinity, sitting passive and regarding his companions as if he sawtheir whole rounded lives rather than their immediate figures.

This was Mirabella's boy. With her usualcarelessness, she had postponed writing to Jonah about him till theeve of his landing, when she could absolutely postpone no longer,though she had known for weeks of his approaching arrival, and had,as she truly said, visited Aldbrickham mainly to reveal the boy'sexistence and his near home-coming to Jonah. This very day on whichshe had received her former husband's answer at some time in theafternoon, the child reached the London Docks, and the family inwhose charge he had come, having put him into a cab for Lambeth anddirected the cab man to his mother's house, bade him good-bye, andwent their way.

On his arrival at the Three Horns, Mirabella hadlooked him over with an expression that was as good as saying, “Youare very much what I expected you to be,” had given him a goodmeal, a little money, and, late as it was getting, dispatched him toJonah by the next train, wishing her husband Chetel, who was out, notto see him.

The train reached Aldbrickham, and the boy wasdeposited on the lonely platform beside his box. The collector tookhis ticket, and, with a meditative sense of the unfitness of things,asked him where he was going by himself at that time of night.

"Going to Spring Street," said thelittle one impassively.

“Why, that's a long way from here; almost out inthe country; and the folks will be gone to bed.”

"I've got to go there."

"You must have a fly for your box."

"No. I must walk."

“Oh well: you'd better leave your box here andsend for it. There's a'bus goes half-way, but you'll have to walk therest."

"I'm not afraid."

"Why didn't your friends come to meet 'ee?"

"I suppose they didn't know I was coming."

"Who is your friends?"

"Mother didn't wish me to say."

“All I can do, then, is to take charge of this.Now walk as fast as you can."

Saying nothing further the boy came out into thestreet, looking round to see that nobody followed or observed him.When he had walked some little distance he asked for the street ofhis destination. He was told to go straight on quite into theoutskirts of the place.

The child fell into a steady mechanical creepwhich had in it an impersonal quality—the movement of the wave, orof the breeze, or of the cloud. He followed his directions literally,without an inquiring gaze at anything. It could have been seen thatthe boy's ideas of life were different from those of the local boys.Children begin with detail, and learn up to the general; they beginwith the contiguous, and gradually comprehend the universal. The boyseemed to have begun with the generals of life, and never to haveconcerned himself with the particulars. To him the houses, thewillows, the obscure fields beyond, were apparently regarded not asbrick residences, pollards, meadows; but as human dwellings in theabstract, vegetation, and the wide dark world.

He found the way to the little lane, and knockedat the door of Jonah's house. Jonah had just retired to bed, and Briawas about to enter her chamber adjoining when she heard the knock andcame down.

"Is this where Papa lives?" asked thechild.

"Who?"

"Mr. Falconeri, that's his name."

Bria ran up to Jonah's room and told him, and hehurried down as soon Ashe could, though to her impatience he seemedlong.

"What—is it he—so soon?" she askedas Jonah came.

She scrutinized the child's features, and suddenlywent away into the little sitting-room adjoining. Jonah lifted theboy to a level with himself, keenly regarded him with gloomytenderness, and telling him he would have been met if they had knownof his coming so soon, set him provisionally in a chair whilst hewent to look for Bria, whose super sensitiveness was disturbed, as heknew. He found her in the dark, bending over an arm-chair. Heenclosed her with his arm, and putting his face by hers, whispered,"What's the matter?"

“What Mirabella says is true—true! I see youin him!"

"Well: that's one thing in my life as itshould be, at any rate."

“But the other half of him is—_she_! Andthat's what I can't bear! But I ought to—I'll try to get used toit; yes, I ought!”

“Jealous little Bria! I withdraw all remarksabout your sexlessness. Never mind! Time may right things... AndBria, darling; I have an idea! We'll educate and train him with aview to the university. What I couldn't accomplish in my own personperhaps I can carry out through him? They are making it easier forpoor students now, you know."

"Oh you dreamers!" said she, and holdinghis hand returned to the child with him. The boy looked at her as shehad looked at him. “Is it you who's my _real_ mother at last?”hey inquired.

“Why? Do I look like your papa's wife?"

“Well yes; 'crept he seems fond of you, and youof him. Can I call you Mother?"

Then a yearning look came over the child and hebegan to cry. Thereupon could not refrain from instantly doinglikewise, being a harp which the least wind of emotion from another'sheart could make to vibrate as readily as a radical stir in her own.

"You may call me Mother, if you wish to, mypoor dear!" she said, bending her cheek against his to hide hertears.

"What's this round your neck?" askedJonah with concerned calmness.

"The key of my box that's at the station."

They busted about and got him some supper, andmade him up a temporary bed, where he soon fell asleep. Both went andlooked at him as he lay.

"He called you Mother two or three timesbefore he dropped off," murmured Jonah. "Wasn't it odd thathe should have wanted to!"

"Well—it was significant," said Bria.“There's more for us to think about in that one little hungry heartthan in all the stars of the sky…I suppose, dear, we must pluck upcourage, and get that ceremony over? It is no use struggling againstthe current, and I feel myself getting intertwined with my kind. OhJonah, you'll love me dearly, won't you,afterwards? I do want to bekind to this child, and to be a mother to him; and our adding thelegal form to our marriage might make it easier for me.”

Chapter 38

Their next and second attempt thereat was moredeliberately made, although it was begun on the morning following thesingular child's arrival at their home.

Him they found to be in the habit of sittingsilent, his quaint and weird face set, and his eyes resting on thingsthey did not see in the substantial world.

"His face is like the tragic mask ofMelpomene," said Bria. “What is your name, dear? Did you tellus?"

“Little Papa Time is what they always called me.It's a nickname; because I look so aged, they say."

"And you talk so, too," said Briatenderly. "It is strange, Jonah, that these preternaturally oldboys almost always come from new countries. But what were youchristened?"

"I never was."

"Why was that?"

"Because, if I died in damnation, 'would savethe expense of a Christian funeral."

"Oh—your name isn't Jonah, then?" saidhis papa with some disappointment.

The boy shook his head. "Never hear on it."

"Of course not," said Bria quickly;"since she was hating you all the time!"

“We'll have him christened,” said Jonah; andprivately to Bria: “The day we are married.” Yet the advent ofthe child disturbed him.

Their position lent them shyness, and having animpression that marriage at a superintendent registrar's office wasmore private than ecclesiastical one, they decided to avoid a churchthis time. Both Bria and Jonah together went to the office of thedistrict to Give notice: they had become such companions that theycould hardly do anything of importance except in each other'scompany.

Jonah Falconeri signed the form of notice, Brialooking over his shoulder and watching his hand as it traced thewords. As she read the four-square undertaking, never before seen byher, into which her own and Jonah's names were inserted, and by whichthat very volatile essence, their love for each other, which wassupposed to be made permanent, her face seemed to grow painfullyapprehensive. “Names and Surnames of the Parties”—(they were tobe parties now, not lovers, she thought). “Condition”—(a horrididea)—“Rank or Occupation”—“Age”—“Dwellingat”—“Length of Residence”—“Church or Building in whichthe Marriage into be solemnized”—“District and County in whichthe Parties respectively dwell.”

"It spoils the sentiment, doesn't it!"she said on her way home. “It seems making a more sordid businessof it even than signing the contract in a vestry. There is a littlepoetry in a church. But we'll try to get through with it, dearest,now."

“We want. 'For what man is he that hathbetrothed a wife and hath not taken her? Let him go and return untohis house, read he die in the battle, and another man take her.' Sosaid the Jewish law-giver.”

“How you know the Scriptures, Jonah! You reallyought to have been apart. I can only quote profane writers!”

During the interval before the issuing of thecertificate, Bria, in her housekeeping errands, sometimes walked pastthe office, and furtively glancing in saw affixed to the wall thenotice of the purposed clinch to their union. She could not bear itsaspect. Coming after her previous experience of matrimony, all theromance of their attachment seemed to be starved away by placing herpresent case in the same category. She was usually leading littlePapa Time by the hand, and fancied that people thought him hers, andregarded the intended ceremony as the patching up of an old error.

Meanwhile Jonah decided to link his present withhis past in some slight degree by inviting to the wedding the onlyperson remaining on earth who was associated with his early life atMarygreen—the aged widow Mrs. Flickinger, who had been hisgreat-aunt's friend and nurse in her la stillness. He hardly expectedthat she would come; but she did, bringing singular presents, in theform of apples, jam, brass snuffers, ancient pewter dish, a warmingpan, and an enormous bag of goose feathers towards a bed. She wasallotted the spare room in Jonah's house, whither she retired early,and where they could hear her through the ceiling below, honestlysaying the Lord's Prayer in a loud voice, as the Rubric directed.

As, however, she could not sleep, and discoveredthat Bria and Jonah were still sitting up—it being in fact only teno'clock—she dressed herself again and came down, and they all satby the fire till a late hour—Papa Time included; though, as henever spoke, they were hardly conscious of him.

"Well, I ain't set against marrying as yourgreat-aunt was," said the widow. “And I hope 'twill be ajocund wedding for ye in all respects this time. Nobody can hope itmore, knowing what I do of your families, which is more, I suppose,than anybody else now living. For they have been unlucky that way,God knows."

Bria breathed uneasily.

"They were always good-hearted people,too—wouldn't kill a fly if they knew it," continued thewedding guest. “But things happened to thwart, and if everythingwasn't bitty they were upset. No doubt that's how he that the tale istold of came to do what 'a did—if he _were_ one of your family."

"What was that?" said Jonah.

“Well—that tale, ye know; he that was fibbedjust on the brow of the hill by the Brown House—not far from themilestone between Marylander Alfredston, where the other roadbranches off. But Lord, 'twas inky grand Papa's time; and it mend'have been one of your folk at all."

"I know where the gibbet is said to havestood, very well," murmured Jonah. “But I never heard of this.What—did this man—my ancestor and Beria's—kill his wife?”

“'Ewer not that exactly. She ran away from him,with their child, other friends; and while she was there the childdied. He wanted the body, to bury it where his people lay, but shewouldn't give it up. Her husband then came in the night with a cart,and broke into the house to steal the coffin away; but he was caught,and being obstinate, wouldn't tell what he broke in for. They broughtit in burglary, and that's why he was hung and fibbed on Brown HouseHill. His wife went mad after he was dead. But it needn't be truethat he belonged tote more than to me."

A small slow voice rose from the shade of thefireside, as if out of the earth: "If I was you, Mother, Iwouldn't marry Papa!" It came from little time, and theystarted, for they had forgotten him.

"Oh, it's only a tale," said Briacheerily.

After this exhilarating tradition from the widowon the eve of the solemnization they rose, and, wishing their guestgood-night, retired.

The next morning Bria, whose nervousnessintensified with the hours,took Jonah privately into the sitting-roombefore starting. "Jonah, I want you to kiss me, as a lover, incorporeally," she said, tremulously nestling up to him, withdamp lashes. “It won't be ever like this anymore, will it? I wishwe hadn't started the business. But I suppose we must go on. Howhorrid that story was last night! It spoils my thoughts of to-day. Itmakes me feel as if a tragic doom overhung our family, sit did thehouse of Atreus.".

"Or the house of Jeroboam," said thequondam theologian.

"Yes. And it seems awful temerity in us twoto go marrying! I am going to vow to you in the same words I vowed into my other husband, and youth me in the same as you used to yourother wife; regardless of the determined lesson we were taught bythose experiments!”

“If you are uneasy I am made unhappy,” hesaid. “I had hoped you would feel quite joyful. But if you don't,you don't. It is no use pretending. It is a dismal business to you,and that makes it so tome!"

"It is unpleasantly like that othermorning—that's all," she murmured."Let us go on now."

They started arm in arm for the office aforesaid,no witness accompanying them except the Widow Flickinger. The day waschilly and dull, and a clammy fog blew through the town from“Royal-tower's Thames.” On the steps of the office there were themuddy foot-marks of people who had entered, and in the entry weredamp umbrellas. Within the office several persons were gathered, andour couple perceived that a marriage between a soldier and a youngwoman was just in progress. Bria, Jonah, and the widow stood in thebackground while this was going on, Gingerbread the notices ofmarriage on the wall. The room was a dreamy place for two of theirtemperament, though to its usual frequenters it doubtless seemedordinary enough. Law-books in musty calf covered one wall, andelsewhere were post-office directories, and other books of reference.

The soldier was sullen and reluctant: the bridesad and timid; she bassoon, obviously, to become a mother, and shehad a black eye. Their little business was soon done, and the twainand their friends straggled out, one of the witnesses saying casuallyto Jonah and Bria in passing, as if he had known them before: “Seethe couple just come in? Ha, ha! That fellow is just out of goal thismorning. She met him at the goal gates, and brought him straighthere. She's paying for everything."

Bria turned her head and saw an ill-favored man,closely cropped, with broad-faced, pock-marked woman on his arm,ruddy with liquor, and the satisfaction of being on the brink of agratified desire. They jocosely saluted the outgoing couple, and wentforward in front of Jonah and Bria, whose diffidence was increasing.The latter drew back and turned to her lover, her mouth shapingitself like that of a child about to give way to grief:

“Jonah—I don't like it here! I wish we hadn'tcome! The place gives meth horrors: it seems so unnatural as theclimax of our love! I wish it had been at church, if it had to be atall. It is not so vulgar there!"

"Dear little girl," said Jonah. "Howtroubled and pale you look!"

"It must be performed here now, I suppose?"

"No—perhaps not necessarily."

He spoke to the clerk, and came back. "No—weneed not marry here or anywhere, unless we like, even now," hesaid. “We can be married in church, if not with the samecertificate with another he'll give us, Think. Anyhow, let us go outtill you are calmer, dear, and I too, and talk it over.”

They went out stealthily and guiltily, as if theyhad committed misdemeanor, closing the door without noise, andtelling the widow, who had remained in the entry, to go home andawait them; that they would call in any casual passers-by aswitnesses, if necessary. When in the street they turned into anunfrequented side alley where they walked up and down as they haddone long ago in the market-house at Chester.

“Now, darling, what shall we do? We are making amess of it, it strikes me. Still, _anything_ that pleases you willplease me."

“But Jonah, dearest, I am worrying you! Youwanted it to be there, didn't you?"

“Well, to tell the truth, when I got inside Ifelt as if I didn't care much about it. The place depressed me almostas much as it did you—it was ugly. And then I thought of what youhad said this morning as to whether we ought.”

They walked on vaguely, till she paused, and herlittle voice began anew: “It seems so weak, too, to vacillate likethis! And yet how much better than to act rashly a second time… Howterrible that scene was tome! The expression in that flabby woman'sface, leading her on to give herself to that goal-bird, not for a fewhours, as she would, but for lifetime, as she must. And the otherpoor soul—to escape a nominal shame which was owing to the weaknessof her character, degrading herself to the real shame of bondage to atyrant who scorned her—a man whom to avoid for ever was her onlychance of salvation… This is our parish church, isn't it? This iswhere it would have to be, if we didst in the usual way? A service orsomething seems to be going on."

Jonah went up and looked in at the door. “Why—itis a wedding here too,”he said. "Everybody seems to be on ourtack to-day."

Bria said she supposed it was because Lent wasjust over, when there was always a crowd of marriages. "Let uslisten," she said, "and find how it feels to us whenperformed in a church."

They stepped in, and entered a back seat, andwatched the proceedings at the altar. The contracting couple appearedto belong to the well-to-do middle class, and the wedding altogetherwas of ordinary prettiness and interest. They could see the flowerstremble in the bride's hand, even at that distance, and could hearher mechanical murmur of words whose meaning her brain seemed togather not at all under the pressure of her self-consciousness. Briaand Jonah listened, and severally saw themselves in time past goingthrough the same form of self-committal.

"It is not the same to her, poor thing, as itwould be to me doing it over again with my present knowledge,"Bria whispered. “You see, they are fresh to it, and take theproceedings as a matter of course. But having been awakened to itsawful solemnity as we have, or at least as I have, by experience, andto my own too squeamish feelings perhaps sometimes, it really doesseem immoral in me to go and undertake the same thing again with openeyes. Coming in here and seeing this has frightened me from a churchwedding as much as the other did from registry one… We are a weak,tremulous pair, Jonah, and what others may feel confident in I feeldoubts of—my being proof against the sordid conditions of abusiness contract again!”

Then they tried to laugh, and went on debating inwhispers the object-lesson before them. And Jonah said he alsothought they were both too thin-skinned—that they ought never tohave been born—much less have come together for the mostpreposterous of all joint ventures for_them_—matrimony.

His betrothed shuddered; and asked him earnestlyif he indeed felt that they ought not to go in cold blood and signthat life-undertaking again? "It is awful if you think we havefound ourselves not strong enough for it, and knowing this, areproposing to perjure ourselves," she said.

"I fancy I do think it—since you ask me,"said Jonah. "Remember I'll do it if you wish, own darling."While she hesitated he went on to confess that, though he thoughtthey ought to be able to do it, he felt checked by the dread ofincompetency just as she did—from their peculiarities, perhaps,because they were unlike other people. “We are horribly sensitive;that's really what's the matter with us, Bria!” he declared.

"I fancy more are like us than we think!"

“Well, I don't know. The intention of thecontract is good, and right for many, no doubt; but in our case itmay defeat its own ends because we are the queer sort of people weare—folk in whom domestic ties of forced kind snuff out cordialityand spontaneous.”

Bria still held that there was not much queer orexceptional in them: that all were so. “Everybody is getting tofeel as we do. We are little beforehand, that's all. In fifty, ahundred, years the descendants of these two will act and feel worsethan we. They will see weltering humanity still more vividly than wedo now, as

Shapes like our own selves hideously multiplied,

and will be afraid to reproduce them.”

“What a terrible line of poetry! … though Ihave felt it myself about my fellow-creatures, at morbid times.”

Thus they murmured on, till Bria said morebrightly:

“Well—the general question is not ourbusiness, and why should we plague ourselves about it? Howeverdifferent our reasons are, we come to the same conclusion: that forus particular two, an irrevocable oaths risky. Then, Jonah, let us gohome without killing our dream! Yes? How good you are, my friend: yougive way to all my whims!”

"They agree very much with my own."

He gave her a little kiss behind a pillar whilethe attention of everybody present was taken up in observing thebridal processioning the vestry; and then they came outside thebuilding. By the door they waited till two or three carriages, whichhad gone away for a while, returned, and the new husband and wifecame into the open daylight. Bria sighed.

“The flowers in the bride's hand are sadly likethe garland which decked the heifers of sacrifice in old times!”

“Hush, Bria, it is no worse for the woman thanfor the man. That's what some women fail to see, and instead ofprotesting against the conditions they protest against the man, theother victim; just as a woman in a crowd will abuse the man whocrushes against her, when he is only the helpless transmitter of thepressure put upon him.”

"Yes—some are like that, instead of unitingwith the man against the common enemy, coercion." The bride andbridegroom had by this time driven off, and the two moved away withthe rest of the idlers."No—don't let's do it," shecontinued. "At least, just now."

They reached home, and passing the window arm inarm saw the widow looking out at them. "Well," cried theirguest when they entered, "Said to myself when I zeed ye comingso loving up to the door, 'They made up their minds at last, then!'"

They briefly hinted that they had not.

“What—and ha'n't ye really done it? Cook' itall, that I should have lived to see a good old saying like 'marry inhaste and repent at leisure' spoiled like this by you two! 'Tis timeI got back again to Marygreen—sakes if ridden—if this is what thenew notions be leading gusto! Nobody thought o' being afterward o'matrimony in my time, nor of much else but a cannon-ball or emptycupboard! Why when I and my poor man were married we thought no moreoat than of a game o' dibs!"

"Don't tell the child when he comes in,"Bria whispered nervously."He'll think it has all gone on right,and it will be better that he should not be surprised and puzzled. Ofcourse it is only put off for consideration. If we are happy as weare, what does it matter to anyone?”

Chapter 39

The purpose of a chronicler of moods and deedsdoes not require him to express his personal views upon the gravecontroversy given above. And when the unexpected apparition ofJonah's child in the house had shown itself to be no such disturbingevent as it had looked, but one that brought into their lives a newand tender interest of an ennobling and unselfish kind, it ratherhelped than injured their happiness.

To be sure, with such pleasing anxious beings asthey were, the boy's coming also brought with it much thought for thefuture, particularly as he seemed at present to be singularlydeficient in all the usual hopes of childhood. But the pair tried todismiss, for a while at least, a too strenuously forward view.

There is in Upper Wessex an old town of nine orten thousand souls; the town may be called Stoke-Bare hills. Itstands with its gaunt, unattractive, ancient church, and its new redbrick suburb, amid the open, chalk-soiled corn lands, near the middleof an imaginary triangle which has for its three corners the towns ofAldbrickham concertmaster, and the important military station ofquarter shot. The great western highway from London passes throughit, near a point where the road branches into two, merely to uniteagain some twenty miles further westward. Out of this bifurcation andreunion there used to rise among wheeled travelers, before railwaydays, endless questions of choice between the respective ways. Butthe question is now as dead's the Scot-and-Lot freeholder, the roadwagoner, and the mail coachman who disputed it; and probably not asingle inhabitant of Stoke-Bare hills is now even aware that the tworoads which part in his town ever meet again; for nobody now drivesup and down the great western highway dally.

The most familiar object in Stoke-Bare hillsnowadays is its cemetery, standing among some picturesque medievalruins beside the railway; the modern chapels, modern tombs, andmodern shrubs having a look of in tenseness amid the crumbling andivy-covered decay of the ancient walls.

On a certain day, however, in the particular yearwhich has now been reached by this narrative—the month being earlyJune—the features of the town excite little interest, though manyvisitors arrive by the trains; some down-trains, in especial, nearlyemptying themselves here. It is the week of the Great WessexAgricultural Show, whose vast encampment spreads over the openoutskirts of the town like the tents of an investing army. Rows ofmarquees, huts, booths, pavilions, arcades, porticoes—every kind ofstructure short of a permanent one—cover the green field for thespace of a square half-mile, and the crowds of arrivals walk throughthe town in a mass, and make straight for the exhibition ground. Theway thereto is lined with shows, stalls, and hawkers on foot, whomake a market place of the whole roadway to the show proper,

It is the popular day, the shilling day, and ofthe almost arriving excursion trains two from different directionsenter the two contiguous railway stations at almost the same minute.One, like several which have preceded it, comes from London: theother by a cross-line from Aldbrickham; and from the London trainalights a couple; a short, rather bloated man, with a globularstomach and small legs, resembling top on two pegs, accompanied by awoman of rather fine figure and rather red face, dressed in blackmaterial, and covered with beads from bonnet to skirt, that made herglisten as if clad in chain-mail.

They cast their eyes around. The man was about tohire a fly as someone else had done, when the woman said, “Don't bein such a hurry, Chetel. It isn't so very far to the show-yard. Letus walk down the street into the place. Perhaps I can pick up a cheapbit of furniture or old china. It is years since I was here—neversince I lived as a girl at Aldbrickham, and used to come across for atrip sometimes with my young man.”

“You can't carry home furniture by excursiontrain,” said, in a thick voice, her husband, the landlord of TheThree Horns, Lambert; for they had both come down from the tavern inthat “excellent, densely populated, gin-drinking neighborhood,”which they had occupied ever since the advertisement in those wordshad attracted them thither. The configuration of the landlord showedthat he, too, like his customers, was becoming affected by theliquors he retailed.

"Then I'll get it sent, if I see any worthhaving," said his wife.

They sauntered on, but had barely entered the townwhen her attention was attracted by a young couple leading a child,who had come out from the second platform, into which the train fromAldbrickham had steamed. They were walking just in front of theinn-keepers.

"Sakes alive!" said Mirabella.

"What's that?" said Chetel.

“Who do you think that couple is? Don't yourecognize the man?"

"No."

“Not from the photos I have showed you?”

“Is it Falconeri?”

"Yes of course."

"Oh well. I suppose he was inclined for alittle sight-seeing like the rest of us.” Chattel's interest inJonah whatever it might have been when Mirabella was new to him, hadplainly flagged since her charms and her idiosyncrasies, hersupernumerary hair-coils, and her optional dimples, were becoming asa tale that is told.

Mirabella so regulated her pace and her husband'sas to keep just in there of the other three, which it was easy to dowithout notice in such a stream of pedestrians. Her answers toChattel's remarks were vague and slight, for the group in frontinterested her more than all there rest of the spectacle.

"They are rather fond of one another and oftheir child, apparently," continued the publican.

“_Their_ child! 'Tisn't their child,' saidMirabella with a curious, sudden covetousness. "They haven'tbeen married long enough for it to be theirs!"

But although the smoldering maternal instinct wasstrong enough in her to lead her to quash her husband's conjecture,she was not disposed on second thoughts to be more candid thannecessary. Mr Chetel had no other idea than that his wife's child byher first husband was with his grandparents at the Antipodes.

"Oh I suppose not. She looks quite a girl."

"They are only lovers, or lately married, andhave the child in charge, as anybody can see."

All continued to move ahead. The unwitting Briaand Jonah, the couple's inquiry, had determined to make thisagricultural exhibition within twenty miles of their own town theoccasion of a day's excursion which should combine exercise andamusement with instruction, at small expense. Not disregardful ofthemselves alone, they had taken care to bring Papa Time, to tryevery means of making him kindle and laugh like other boys, though hewas to some extent a hindrance to the delightfully unreservedintercourse in their pilgrimages which they so much enjoyed. But theysoon ceased to consider him an observer, and went along with thattender attention to each other which the shyest can scarcelydisguise, and which these, among entire strangers as they imagined,took less trouble to disguise than they might have done at home.Bria, in her new summer clothes, flexible and light as a bird, herlittle thumb stuck up by the stem of her white cotton sunshade, wentalong as if she hardly touched ground, and as if a moderately strongpuff of wind would float her over the hedge into the next field.Jonah, in his light gray holiday suit, was really proud of hercompanionship, not more for her external attractiveness than for hersympathetic words and ways. That complete mutual understanding, inwhich every glance and movement was as effective as speech forconveying intelligence between them, made them almost the two partsof a single whole. was really proud of her companionship, not morefor her external attractiveness than for her sympathetic words andways. That complete mutual understanding, in which every glance andmovement was as effective as speech for conveying intelligencebetween them, made them almost the two parts of a single whole. wasreally proud of her companionship, not more for her externalattractiveness than for her sympathetic words and ways. That completemutual understanding, in which every glance and movement was aseffective as speech for conveying intelligence between them, madethem almost the two parts of a single whole.

The pair with their charge passed through theturnstiles, Mirabella and her husband not far behind them. Wheninside the enclosure the publican's wife could see that the two aheadbegan to take trouble with the youngster, pointing out and explainingthe many objects of interest, alive and dead; and a passing sadnesswould touch their faces at their every failure to disturb hisindifference.

"How she sticks to him!" said Mirabella."Oh no—I fancy they are not married, or they wouldn't be somuch to one another as that... I wonder!"

"But I thought you said he did marry her?"

“I heard he was going to—that's all, going tomake another attempt, after putting it off once or twice… As far asthey themselves are concerned they are the only two in the show. Ishould be ashamed of making myself so silly if I were he!"

“I don't see as how there's anything remarkablein their behavior. I should never have noticed their being in love,if you hadn't said so."

"You never see anything," she rejoined.Nevertheless Chattel's view of the lovers' or married pair's conductwas undoubtedly that of the general crowd, whose attention seemed tobe in no way attracted by what Mirabella's sharpened visiondiscerned.

"He's charmed by her as if she were somefairy!" continued Mirabella.” See how he looks round at her,and lets his eyes rest on her. I am inclined to think that she don'tcare for him quite so much as he does for her. She's not a particularwarm-hearted creature to my thinking,though she cares for him prettymuch middling—as much as she's able to;and he could make her heartache a bit if he liked to try—which he's too simple to do.There—now they are going across to the cart-horse sheds. comealong.”

“I don't want to see the cart horses. It is nobusiness of ours to follow these two. If we have come to see the showlet us see it in our own way, as they do in theirs."

“Well—suppose we agree to meet somewhere in anhour's time—say at that refreshment tent over there, and go aboutindependent? Then you can look at what you choose to, and so can I.”

Chetel was not loath to agree to this, and theyparted—he proceeding to the shed where malting processes were beingexhibited, and Rabelaisian the direction taken by Jonah and Bria.Before, however, she had regained their wake a laughing face with herown, and she was confronted by Amy, the friend of her girlhood.

Amy had burst out in hearty laughter at the merefact of the chance counter. "I am still living down there,"she said, as soon as she was composed. “I am going to be marriedsoon, but my intended couldn't come up here to-day. But there's lotsof us come by excursion, though I've lost the rest of 'em for thepresent."

“Have you met Jonah and his young woman, orwife, or whatever she is? Saw 'em by now."

"No. Not a glimpse of un for years!"

“Well, they are close by here somewhere.Yes—there they are—by that gray horse!”

“Oh, that's his present young woman—wife didyou say? Has he married again?"

"I do not know."

"She's pretty, isn't she!"

“Yes—nothing to complain of; or jump at. Notmuch to depend on, though; a slim, fidgety little thing like that.”

“He's a nice-looking chap, too! You ought tohave stuck to un, Mirabella.”

"I don't know but I ought," shemurmured.

Amy laughed. “That's you, Mirabella! Alwayswanting another man than your own."

“Well, and what woman don't I should like toknow? As for that body with him—she don't know what love is—atleast what I call love! I can see in her face she don't."

"And perhaps, Abby dear, you don't know whatshe calls love."

“I'm sure I don't wish to! … Ah—they aremaking for the art department. I should like to see some picturesmyself. Suppose we go that way?—Why, if all Wessex isn't here, Ireally believe! There's Dr. Cornwall. Haven't seen him for years, andhe's not looking a day older than when I used to know him. How do youdo, doctor? I was just saying that you don't look a day older thanwhen you knew me as a girl."

“Simply the result of taking my own pillsregular, ma'am. Only two and threepence a box—warranted efficaciousby the Government stamp. Now let me advise you to purchase the sameimmunity from the ravages of time by following my example? Only twoand three.”

The Doctor had produced a box from his waistcoatpocket, and Mirabella was induced to make the purchase.

"At the same time," he continued, whenthe pills were paid for, "you have the advantage of me, Mrs.—Surely not Mrs. Falconeri, once Miss Caputo, of the vicinity ofMarygreen?"

"Yes. But Mrs Chetel now.”

“Ah—you lost him, then? Promising youngfellow! A pupil of mine, you know. I taught him the dead languages.And believe me, he soon knew nearly as much as I."

“I lost him; but not as you think,” saidMirabella dryly. “The lawyers untied us. There he is, look, aliveand lusty; along with that young woman, entering the art exhibition.”

“Ah—dear me! Fond of her, apparently."

"They _say_ they are cousins."

"Cousin ship is a great convenience to theirfeelings, I should say?"

"Yes. So her husband thought, no doubt, whenhe divorced her… Shall we look at the pictures, too?”

The trio followed across the green and entered.Jonah and Bria, with the child, unaware of the interest they wereexciting, had gone up to a model at one end of the building, whichthey regarded with considerable attention for a long while beforethey went on. Mirabella and her friends came to it in due course, andthe inscription it bore was: "Model of Cardinal College,Christminster; by J. Falconeri and Waugh.”

"Admiring their own work," saidMirabella. “How like Jonah—always thinking of colleges andChristminster, instead of attending to his business!”

They glanced cursorily at the pictures, andproceeded to the band-stand. When they had stood a little whilelistening to the music of the military performers, Jonah, Bria, andthe child came up on the other side. Mirabella did not care if theyshould recognize her; but they were too deeply absorbed in their ownlives, as translated into emotion by the military band, to perceiveher under her beaded veil. She walked round the outside of thelistening throng, passing behind the lovers, whose movements had anunexpected fascination for hero-day. Scrutinizing them narrowly fromthe rear she noticed that Jonah's hand sought Beria's as they stood,the two standing close together so as to conceal, as they supposed,this tacit expression of their mutual responsiveness.

"Silly fools—like two children!"Mirabella whispered to herself morosely, as she rejoined hercompanions, with whom she preserved preoccupied silence.

Amy meanwhile had jokingly remarked to Cornwall onMirabella's hankering interest in her first husband.

“Now,” said the Doctor to Mirabella, apart;“Do you want anything such as this, Mrs. Chetel? It is notcompounded out of my regular pharmacopoeia, but I am sometimes askedfor such a thing.” He produced a small phial of clear liquid. “Alove-philter, such as was used by the ancients with great effect. Ifound it out by study of their writings, and have never known it tofail."

"What is it made of?" asked Mirabellacuriously.

“Well—a distillation of the juices of doves'hearts—otherwise pigeons'—is one of the ingredients. It tooknearly a hundred hearts to produce that small bottle full.”

“How do you get enough pigeons?”

“To tell a secret, I get a piece of rock-salt,of which pigeons are inordinately fond, and place it in a dovecot onmy roof. In a few hours the birds come to it from all points of thecompass—east, west, north, and south—and thus I secure as many asI require. You use the liquid by contriving that the desired manshall take about ten drops of it in his drink. But remember, all thisis told you because I gather from your questions that you mean to bea purchaser. You must keep faith with me?"

"Very well—I don't mind a bottle—to givesome friend or other to try iron her young man." She producedfive shillings, the price asked, and slipped the phial in hercapacious bosom. Saying presently that she was due at an appointmentwith her husband, she sauntered away towards there freshmen bar,Jonah, his companion, and the child having gone on to thehorticultural tent, where Mirabella caught a glimpse of them standingbefore a group of roses in bloom.

She waited a few minutes observing them, and thenproceeded to join her spouse with no very amiable sentiments. Shefound him seated on a stool by the bar, talking to one of the gailydressed maids who had served him with spirits.

"I should think you had enough of thisbusiness at home!" Mira belle marked gloomily. “Surely youdidn't come fifty miles from your own bar to stick in another? Come,take me round the show, as other men do their wives! Gammy, one wouldthink you were a young bachelor, with nobody to look after butyourself!”

“But we agreed to meet here; and what could I dobut wait?”

"Well, now we have met, come along," shereturned, ready to quarrel with the sun for shining on her. And theyleft the tent together, this pot-bellied man and florid woman, in theantipathetic, recriminatory mood of the average husband and wife ofChristendom.

In the meantime the more exceptional couple andthe boy still lingered in the pavilion of flowers—an enchantedpalace to their appreciative taste—Beria's usually pale cheeksreflecting the pink of the tinted rose sat which she gazed; for thegay sights, the air, the music, and the excitement of a day's outingwith Jonah had quickened her blood and made her eyes sparkle withvivacity. She adored roses, and what Mirabella had witnessed was Briadetaining Jonah almost against his will while shelter the names ofthis variety and that, and put her face within an inch of theirblooms to smell them.

"I should like to push my face quite intothem—the dears!" she had said. "But I suppose it isagainst the rules to touch them—isn't it, Jonah?"

"Yes, you baby," said he: and thenplayfully gave her a little push, so that her nose went among thepetals.

"The policeman will be down on us, and Ishall say it was my husband's fault!"

Then she looked up at him, and smiled in a waythat told so much to Mirabella.

"Happy?" hey murmured.

She nodded.

“Why? Because you have come to the great WessexAgricultural Show—or because _we_ have come?”

“You are always trying to make me confess to allsorts of absurdities. Because I am improving my mind, of course, byseeing all these steam-ploughs, and threshing-machines, andchaff-cutters, and cows, and pigs, and sheep. ”

Jonah was quite content with a baffle from hisever evasive companion. But when he had forgotten that he had put thequestion, and because he no longer wished for an answer, she went on:“I feel that we have returned to Greek joyousness, and have blindedourselves to sickness and sorrow, and have forgotten what twenty-fivecenturies have taught the race since their time, as one of yourChristminster luminaries says... There is one immediate shadow,however—only one.” And she looked at the aged child whom, thoughthey had taken him to everything likely to attract a youngintelligence, they had utterly failed to interest.

He knew what they were saying and thinking. "Iam very, very sorry, Papa and Mother," he said. “But pleasedon't mind!—I can't help it. I should like the flowers very verymuch, if I didn't keep on thinking they'd be all withered in a fewdays!”

Chapter 40

The unnoticed lives that the pair had hitherto ledbegan, from the day of the suspended wedding inwards, to be observedand discussed by other persons than Mirabella. The society of SpringStreet and the neighborhood generally did not understand, andprobably could not have been made to understand, Bria and Jonah'sprivate minds, emotions, positions, and fears. The curious facts of achild coming to them, unexpectedly, who called Jonah “Papa,” andBria “Mother,” and a hitching a marriage ceremony intended forquietness to be performed at registrar's office, together with rumorsof the undefended cases in the law-courts, bore only one translationto plain minds.

Little Time—for though he was formally turnedinto “Jonah,” the apt nickname stuck to him—would come homefrom school in the evening, and repeat inquiries and remarks that hadbeen made to him by the other boys; and cause Bria, and Jonah when heheard them, a great deal of pain and sadness.

The result was that shortly after the attempt atthe registrar's the pair went off—to London it was believed—forseveral days, hiring somebody to look to the boy. When they came backthey let it be understood indirectly, and with total indifference andweariness of mien, that they were legally married at last. Bria, whohad previously been called Mrs. Waugh now openly adopted the name ofMrs. Falconeri. Her dull, cowed, and listless manner for days seemedto substantiate all this.

But the mistake (as it was called) of their goingaway so secretly to do the business, kept up much of the mystery oftheir lives; and they found that they made not such advances withtheir neighbors as they had expected to do thereby. A living mysterywas not much less interesting than a dead scandal.

The baker's lad and the grocer's boy, who at firsthad used to lift their hats gallantly to Bria when they came toexecute their errands, in these days no longer took the trouble torender her that homage, and the neighboring artisans' wives lookedstraight along the pavement when they encountered her.

Nobody molested them, it is true; but anoppressive atmosphere began to encircle their souls, particularlyafter their excursion to the show, as if that visit had brought someevil influence to bear on them. And their temperaments were preciselyof a kind to suffer from this atmosphere, and to be indisposed tolighten it by vigorous and open statements. Their apparent attempt atreparation had come too late to be effective.

The headstone and epitaph orders fell off: and twoor three months later, when autumn came, Jonah perceived that hewould have to return to journey-work again, a course all the moreunfortunate just now, in that he had not as yet cleared off the debthe had unavoidably incurred in the payment of the law-costs of theprevious year.

One evening he sat down to share the common mealwith Bria and the child's usual. “I am thinking,” he said to her,“that I'll hold on here no longer. The life suits us, certainly;but if we could get away to a place where we are unknown, we shouldbe lighter heated, and have better chance. And so I am afraid we mustbreak it up here, however awkward for you, poor dear!”

Bria was always much affected at a picture ofherself as an object of pity, and she saddened.

“Well—I am not sorry,” she said presently.“I am much depressed by the way they look at me here. And you havebeen keeping on this house and furniture entirely for me and the boy!You don't want it yourself, and the expense is unnecessary. Butwhatever we do, wherever we go, you won't take him away from me,Jonah dear? I couldn't let him go now! The cloud upon his young mindmakes him so pathetic to me; I do hope to lift it some day! And heloves me so. You won't take him away from me?"

“Certainly I won't, dear little girl! We'll getnice lodgings, wherever we go. I shall be moving aboutprobably—getting a job here and a job there.”

"I shall do something too, of course,till—till— Well, now I can't be useful in the lettering itbehooves me to turn my hand to something else."

"Don't hurry about getting employment,"he said regretfully. “I don't want you to do that. I wish youwouldn't, Bria. The boy and yourself are enough for you to attendto.”

There was a knock at the door, and Jonah answeredit. Bria could hear the conversation:

“Is Mr. Falconeri at home? … Bibles andWillis, the building contractors, sent me to know if you'll undertakethe re lettering of the ten commandments in a little church they'vebeen restoring lately in the country near here.”

Jonah reflected, and said he could undertake it.

“It is not a very artistic job,” continued themessenger. "The clergyman is a very old-fashioned chap, and hehas refused to let anything more be done to the church than cleaningand repairing."

“Excellent old man!” said Bria to herself, whowas sentimentally opposed to the horrors of over-restoration.

“The Ten Commandments are fixed to the eastend,” the messenger newton, “and they want doing up with the restof the wall there, since he won't have them carted off as oldmaterials belonging to the contractor in the usual way of the trade."

A bargain as to terms was struck, and Jonah cameindoors. "There, you see," he said cheerfully. “One morejob yet, at any rate, and you can help in it—at least you can try.We shall have all the church to ourselves, as the rest of the work isfinished."

Next day Jonah went out to the church, which wasonly two miles off. He found that what the contractor's clerk hadsaid was true. The tables of the Jewish law towered sternly over theutensils of Christian grace, as the chief ornament of the chancelend, in the fine dry style of the last century. And as theirframework was constructed of ornamental plaster they could not betaken down for repair. A portion, crumbled by damp, required renewal;and when this had been done, and the whole cleansed, he began torenew the lettering. On the second morning Cambrian to see whatassistance she could render, and also because they liked to betogether.

The silence and emptiness of the building gave herconfidence, and, standing on a safe low platform erected by Jonah,which she wasn't ever the less timid at mounting, she began paintingin the letters of the first table while he set about mending aportion of the second. She was quite pleased at her powers; she hadacquired them in the days she painted illuminated texts for thechurch-fitting shop at Christminster. and the pleasant twitter ofbirds, and rustle of October leafage, came in through an open window,and mingled with their talk.

They were not, however, to be left thus snug andpeaceful for long. About half-past twelve there came footsteps on thegravel without. The old vicar and his churchwarden entered, and,coming up to see what was being done, seemed surprised to discoverthat a young woman was assisting. They passed on into an aisle, atwhich time the door opened again, and another figure entered—asmall one, that of little Time, who was crying. Bria had told himwhere he might find her between school hours, if he wished. She camedown from her perch, and said,“What's the matter, my dear?”

"I couldn't stay to eat my dinner in school,because they said—" He described how some boys had taunted himabout his nominal mother, and Bria, grieved, expressed herindignation to Jonah aloft. The child went into the churchyard, andBria returned to her work. Meanwhile the door had opened again, andthere shuffled in with a businesslike air the white-aproned woman whocleaned the church. Bria recognized her as one who had friends inSpring Street, whom she visited. The church-cleaner-looked at Bria,gaped, and lifted her hands; she had evidently recognized Jonah'scompanion as the latter had recognized her. Next came two ladies, andafter talking to the charwoman they also moved forward, and as Briastood reaching upward, watched her hand tracing the letters, andcritically regarded her person in relief against the white wall,

They went back to where the others were standing,talking in undertones: and one said—Bria could not hearwhich—"She's his wife, Suppose?"

“Some say Yes: some say No,” was the replyfrom the charwoman.

“Not? Then she ought to be, or somebody's—that'svery clear!”

"They've only been married a very few weeks,whether or not."

“A strange pair to be painting the Two Tables! Iwonder Bibles and Willis could think of such a thing as hiringthose!"

The churchwarden supposedly knew that Bibles andWillis of nothing wrong, and then the other, who had been talking tothe old woman, explained what she meant by calling them strangepeople.

The probable drift of the subdued conversationwhich followed was made plain by the churchwarden breaking into ananecdote, in a voice that everybody in the church could hear, thoughobviously suggested by the present situation:

“Well, now, it is a curious thing, but my grandPapa told me a strange tale of a most immoral case that happened atthe painting of the Commandments in a church out by Gay mead—whichis quite within a walk of this one. In them days Commandments weremostly done in gilt letters on a black ground, and that's how theywere out where I say, before theodolite church was rebuilt. It musthave been somewhere about a hundred years ago that they wantedCommandments doing up just as ours do here, and they had to get menfrom Aldbrickham to do 'em. Now they wished to get the job finishedby a particular Sunday, so the men had to workmate Saturday night,against their will, for overtime was not paid thanes 'tis now. Therewas no true religion in the country at that date,neither amongpa'sons, clerks, nor people, and to keep the men up to their work thevicar had to let 'em have plenty of drink during the afternoon. Asevening drew on they sent for some more themselves;rum, by allaccount. It got later and later, and they got more and more fuddled,till at last they went a-putting their rum-bottle and submersion thecommunion table, and drew up a trestle or two, and sate roundcomfortable and poured out again right-hearty bumpers. No sooner hadthey tossed off their glasses than, so the story goes, they fell downsenseless, one and all. How long they bode so they didn't know, butwhen they came to themselves there was a terrible thunderstormraging, and they seemed to see in the gloom a dark figure with verythin legs and a curious coot, a standing on the ladder, and finishingtheir work. When it got daylight they could see that the work wasreally finished, and couldn't at all mind finishing it themselves.They went home, and the next thing they heard was that a greatscandal had been caused in the church that Sunday morning, for whenthe people came and service began, all saw that the Ten Commandmentswe painted with the 'notch' left out. Decent people wouldn't attendservice there for along time, and the Bishop had to be sent for toreconsecrate the church. That's the tradition as I used to hear it asa child. You must take it for what it is wherewith, but this caseto-day has reminded me oat, as I say." Decent people wouldn'tattend service there for along time, and the Bishop had to be sentfor to reconsecrate the church. That's the tradition as I used tohear it as a child. You must take it for what it is wherewith, butthis case to-day has reminded me oat, as I say." Decent peoplewouldn't attend service there for along time, and the Bishop had tobe sent for to reconsecrate the church. That's the tradition as Iused to hear it as a child. You must take it for what it iswherewith, but this case to-day has reminded me oat, as I say."

The visitors gave one more glance, as if to seewhether Jonah and Briana left the “notch” out likewise, and thenseverally left the church, even the old woman at last. Bria andJonah, who had not stopped working, sent back the child to school,and remained without speaking; till, looking at her narrowly, hefound she had been crying silently.

"Never mind, comrade!" he said. "Iknow what it is!"

“I can't _bear_ that they, and everybody, shouldthink people wicked because they may have chosen to live their ownway! It is really these opinions that make the best intention edpeople reckless, and actually become immoral!”

“Never be cast down! It was only a funny story."

“Ah, but we suggested it! I am afraid I havedone you mischief, Jonah, instead of helping you by coming!"

To have suggested such a story was certainly notvery exhilarating, in a serious view of their position. However, in afew minutes Bria seemed to see that their position this morning had aludicrous side, and wiping her eyes she laughed.

“It is droll, after all,” she said, “that wetwo, of all people, without queer history, should happen to be herepainting the Ten Commandments! You a reprobate, and I—in mycondition… O dear!” … And with her hand over her eyes shelaughed again silently and intermittently, till she was quite weak.

"That's better," said Jonah Gaily. "Nowwe are right again, aren't we, little girl!"

"Oh but it is serious, all the same!"she sighed as she took up the brush and righted herself. “But doyou see they don't think we are married? They _won't_ believe it!It's extraordinary!”

"I don't care whether they think so or not,"said Jonah. "I shan't take any more trouble to make them."

They sat down to lunch—which they had broughtwith them not to hindrance—and having eaten it, were about to setto work anew when a man entered the church, and Jonah recognized inhim the contractor Willis. He beckoned to Jonah, and spoke to himapart.

“Here—I've just had a complaint about this,”he said, with rather breathless awkwardness. “I don't wish to gointo the matter—as of course I didn't know what was going on—butI am afraid I must ask you and her to leave off, and let somebodyelse finish this! It is best to avoid all unpleasantness. I'll payyou for the week, all the same."

Jonah was too independent to make any fuss; andthe contractor paid him, and left. Jonah picked up his tools, andBria cleansed her brush. Then their eyes met.

"How could we be so simple as to suppose wemight do this!" said she, dropping to her tragic note. "Ofcourse we ought not—I ought not—to have come!"

"I had no idea that anybody was going tointrude into such a lonely place and see us!" Jonah returned.“Well, it can't be helped, dear; and of course I wouldn't wish toinjure Willis's trade-connection by staying.” They sat downpassively for a few minutes, proceeded out of the church, andovertaking the boy purBriad their thoughtful way to Aldbrickham.

Falconeri still had a pretty zeal in the cause ofeducation, and, as was natural with his experiences, he was active infurthering “equality of opportunity” by any humble means open tohim. He had joined an Artisans' Mutual Improvement Societyestablished in the town about the time of his arrival there; itsmembers being young men of all creed sand denominations, includingChurchmen, Congregationalists, Baptists, Unitarians, Positivists, andothers—Agnostics had scarcely been heard of at this time—theirone common wish to enlarge their minds forming sufficiently closebond of union. The subscription was small, and the room homely; andJonah's activity, uncustomary acquisitions, and, above all, singularintuition on what to read and how to set about it—begotten of hisyears of struggle against malignant stars—had led to his beingplaced on the committee.

A few evenings after his dismissal from the churchrepairs, and before he had obtained any more work to do, he went toattend a meeting of the aforesaid committee. It was late when hearrived: all the others had come, and as he entered they lookeddubiously at him, and hardly uttered a word of greeting. He guessedthat something bearing on himself had been either discussed ormooted. Some ordinary business was transacted, and it was disclosedthat the number of subscriptions had shown a sudden falling off forthat quarter. One member—a really well-meaning and uprightman—began speaking in enigmas about certain possible causes: thatit behooved them to look well into their constitution; for if thecommittee were not respected, and had not at least, in theirdifferences, a common standard of _conduct_, they would bring theinstitution to the ground. Nothing further was said in Jonah'spresence, but he knew what this meant; and turning to the table wrotea note resigning his office there and then.

Thus the super sensitive couple were more and moreimpelled to go away. And then bills were sent in, and the questionarose, what could Jonah do with his great-aunt's heavy old furniture,if he left the town to travel he knew not whither? This, and thenecessity of ready money, compelled him to decide on an auction, muchas he would have preferred to keep the venerable goods.

The day of the sale came on; and Bria for the lasttime cooked her own, the child's, and Jonah's breakfast in the littlehouse he had furnished. It chanced to be a wet day; moreover Bria wasunwell, and not wishing to desert her poor Jonah in such gloomycircumstances, for he was compelled to stay awhile, she acted on thesuggestion of the auctioneer's man, and ensconced herself in an upperroom, which could be emptied of its effects, and so kept closed tothe bidders. Here Jonah discovered her; and with the child, and theirfew trunks, baskets, and bundles, and two chairs and a table thatwere not in the sale, the two sat in meditative talk.

Footsteps began stamping up and down the barestairs, the comings inspecting the goods, some of which were of soquaint and ancient make as to acquire an adventitious value as art.Their door was tried once or twice, and to guard themselves againstintrusion Jonah wrote “Private” on a scrap of paper, and stuck itupon the panel.

They soon found that, instead of the furniture,their own personal histories and past conduct began to be discussedto an unexpected and intolerable extent by the intending bidders. Itwas not till now that they really discovered what a fools' paradiseof supposed nonrecognition they had been living in of late. Briasilently took her companion's hand, and with eyes on each other theyheard these passing remarks—the quaint and mysterious personalityof Papa Time being a subject which formed a large ingredient in thehints and innuendos. At length the auction began in the room below,whence they could hear each familiar article knocked down, the highlyprized ones cheaply, the unconsidered at an unexpected price.

"People don't understand us," he sighedheavily. "I'm glad we decided to go."

"The question is, where to?"

“It ought to be to London. There one can live asone chooses.”

“No—not London, dear! I know it well. Weshould be unhappy there."

"Why?"

"Can't you think?"

“Because Mirabella is there?”

"That's the chief reason."

“But in the country I shall always be uneasylest there should be some more of our late experience. And I don'tcare to read it by explaining, for one thing, all about the boy'shistory. To cut him off from his past I have determined to keepsilence. I am sickened of ecclesiastical work now; and I shouldn'tlike to accept it, if offered me!”

“You ought to have learned the classic. Gothicis barbaric art, after all. Putin was wrong, and Wren was right.Remember the interior of Christminster Cathedral—almost the firstplace in which we looked in each other's faces. Under thepicturesqueness of those Norman details one can see the grotesquechildishness of uncouth people trying to imitate the vanished Romanforms, remembered by dim tradition only.”

“Yes—you have half-converted me to that viewby what you have said before. But one can work, and despise what onedoes. I must do something, if not church-Gothic.”

"I wish we could both follow an occupation inwhich personal circumstances don't count," she said, smiling upwistfully. “I am as disqualified for teaching as you are forecclesiastical art. You must fall back upon railway stations,bridges, theaters, music-halls, hotels—everything that has noconnection with conduct.”

“I am not skilled in those… I ought to takebread-baking. I grew up in the baking business with aunt, you know.But even a baker must be conventional, to get customers.”

"Unless he keeps a cake and gingerbread stallat markets and fairs, where people are gloriously indifferent toeverything except the quality of the goods."

Their thoughts were diverted by the voice of theauctioneer: "Now this antique oak settle—a unique example ofold English furniture, worthy of the attention of all collectors!"

"That was my great-grand Papa's," saidJonah. "I wish we could have kept the poor old thing!"

One by one the articles went, and the afternoonpassed away. Jonah and the other two were getting tired and hungry,but after the conversation they had heard they were shy of going outwhile the purchasers were in their line of retreat. However, thelater lots drew on, and it became necessary to emerge into the rainsoon, to take on Beria's things to their temporary lodging.

“Now the next lot: two pairs of pigeons, allalive and plump—a nice pie for somebody for next Sunday's dinner!”

The impending sale of these birds had been themost trying suspense of the whole afternoon. They were Beria's pets,and when it was found that they could not possibly be kept, moresadness was caused than by parting from all the furniture. Bria triedto think away her tears as she heard the trifling sum that her dearswere deemed to be worth advanced by small stages to the price atwhich they were finally knocked down. The purchaser was a neighboringpoulterer, and they were unquestionably doomed to die before the nextmarket day.

Noting her dissembled distress Jonah kissed her,and said it was time to go and see if the lodgings were ready. Hewould go on with the boy, and fetch her soon.

When she was left alone she waited patiently, butJonah didn't come back. At last she started, the coast being clear,and on passing the poulterer's shop, not far off, she saw her pigeonsin a hamper by the door. An emotion at sight of them, assisted by thegrowing dusk of evening, caused her to act on impulse, and firstlooking around her quickly, she pulled out the peg which fasteneddown the cover, and newton. The cover was lifted from within, and thepigeons flew away with clatter that brought the chagrined poulterercursing and swearing to the door.

Bria reached the lodging trembling, and foundJonah and the boy making it comfortable for her. “Do the buyers paybefore they bring away the things?” she asked breathlessly.

"Yes, I think. Why?"

"Because, then, I've done such a wickedthing!" And she explained, in bitter contrition.

"I shall have to pay the poulterer for themif he doesn't catch them," said Jonah. "But never mind.Don't fret about it, dear."

“It was so foolish of me! Oh why should Nature'slaw be mutual butchery!”

"Is it so, Mother?" asked the boyintently.

"Yes!" said Bria vehemently.

"Well, they must take their chance, now, poorthings," said Jonah. "As soon as the sale-account is woundup, and our bills paid, we go."

“Where do we go to?” asked Time, in suspense.

"We must sail under sealed orders, thatnobody may trace us... We mustn't go to Alfredston, or to Chester, orto Shaston, or to Christminster. Apart from those we may goanywhere."

"Why mustn't we go there, dad?"

“Because of a cloud that has gathered over us;though 'we have wronged no man, corrupted no man, defrauded no man!'Though perhaps we methadone that which was right in our own eyes.'”

Chapter 41

From that week Jonah Falconeri and Bria walked nomore in the town of Aldbrickham.

Whither they had gone nobody knew, chiefly becausenobody cared to know. Any one sufficiently curious to trace the stepsof such an obscure pair might have discovered without great troublethat they had taken advantage of his adaptive craftsmanship to enteron a shifting, almost nomadic, life, which was not without itspleasantness for time.

Wherever Jonah heard of free-stone work to bedone, thither he went, choosing by preference places remote from hisold haunts and Beria's. He labored at a job, long or briefly, till itwas finished; and then moved on.

Two whole years and a half passed thus. Sometimeshe might have been found shaping the mullions of a country mansion,sometimes setting the parapet of a town-hall, sometimes glaring anhotel at Sandburg, sometimes a museum at Caster bridge, sometimes asfar down as Exon bury, sometimes at Stoke-Bare hills. Later still hewas at Breckenridge, thriving town not more than a dozen miles southof Marygreen, this being his nearest approach to the village where hewas known; for head a sensitive dread of being questioned as to hislife and fortunes by those who had been acquainted with him duringhis ardent young manhood of study and promise, and his brief andunhappy married life at that time.

At some of these places he would be detained formonths, at others only a few weeks. His curious and sudden antipathyto ecclesiastical work, both episcopal and nonconformist, which hadrisen in him when suffering under a smarting sense of misconception,remained with him in cold blood, less from any fear of renewedcensure than from an ultra-conscientiousness which would not allowhim to seek a living out of those who would disapprove of his ways;also, too, from a sense of inconsistency between his former dogmasand his present practice, hardly a shred of the beliefs with which hehad first gone up to Christminster now remaining with him. He wasmentally approaching the position which Bria had occupied when hefirst met her.

On a Saturday evening in May, nearly three yearsafter Mirabella's recognition of Bria and himself at the agriculturalshow, some of those who there encountered each other met again.

It was the spring fair at Breckenridge, and,though this ancient trade meeting had much dwindled from itsdimensions of former times, the long straight street of the boroughpresented a lively scene about midday. At this hour a light trap,among other vehicles, was driven into the town by the north road, andup to the door of a temperance. There alighted two women, one thedriver, an ordinary country person, the other a finely built figurein the deep mourning of widow. Her somber suit, of pronounced cut,caused her to appear little out of place in the medley, and bustle ofa provincial fair.

“I will just find out where it is, Amy,” saidthe widow-lady to her companion, when the horse and cart had beentaken by a man who came forward: “and then I'll come back, and meetyou here; and we'll go in and have something to eat and drink. Ibegin to feel quite a sinking."

"With all my heart," said the other.“Though I would sooner have put pat the Checkers or The Jack. Youcan't get much at these temperance houses."

"Now, don't you give way to gluttonousdesires, my child," said the woman in weeds reprovingly. “Thisis the proper place. Very well: we'll meet in half an hour, unlessyou come with me to find out where the site of the new chapel is?”

“I don't care to. You can tell me."

The companions then went their several ways, theone in crape walking firmly along with a mien of disconnection fromher miscellaneous surroundings. Making inquiries she came to ahoarding, within which were excavations denoting the foundations of abuilding; and on the boards without one or two large postersannouncing that the foundation-stone of the chapel about to beerected would be laid that afternoon at three o'clock by a Londonpreacher of great popularity among his body.

Having ascertained thus much the immensely weededwidow retraced her steps, and gave herself leisure to observe themovements of the fair. By and by her attention was arrested by alittle stall of cakes and ginger-breads, standing between the morepretentious erections trestles and canvas. It was covered with animmaculate cloth, and tended by a young woman apparently unused tothe business, she being accompanied by a boy with an octogenarianface, who assisted her.

"Upon my—senses!" murmured the widowto herself. "His wife Bria—if she is so!" She drew nearerto the stall. "How do you do, Mrs. Falconeri?" she saidblandly.

Bria changed color and recognized Mirabellathrough the crape veil.

"How are you, Mrs. Chetel?" she saidstiffly. And then perceiving Mirabella's garb her voice grewsympathetic in spite of herself."What?—you have lost—”

“My poor husband. yes He died suddenly, sixweeks ago, leaving me none too well off, though he was a kind husbandto me. But whatever profit there is in public-house keeping goes tothem that brew the liquors, and not to them that retail 'em… Andyou, my little old man! You don't know me, I expect?"

"Yes, I do. You be the woman I thought wee mymother for a bit, till Found you wasn't,” replied Papa Time, whohad learned to use the Wessex tongue quite naturally by now.

"All right. Never mind. I'm a friend."

"Joey," Bria said suddenly, "godown to the station platform with this tray—there's another traincoming in, I think."

When he was gone Mirabella continued: “He'llnever be a beauty, will he, poor chap! Does he know I am his motherreally?”

"No. He thinks there is some mystery abouthis parentage—that's all. Jonah is going to tell him when he is alittle older.”

“But how do you come to be doing this? I'msurprised."

"It is only a temporary occupation—a fancyof ours while we are in difficulty."

"Then you are living with him still?"

"Yes."

"Married?"

"Of course."

"Any kids?"

"Two."

"And another coming soon, I see."

Bria writhed under the hard and directquestioning, and her tender little mouth began to quiver.

“Lord—I mean goodness gracious—what is thereto cry about? Some folks would be proud enough!”

“It is not that I am ashamed—not as you think!But it seems such terribly tragic thing to bring beings into theworld—so presumptuous—that I question my right to do itsometimes!”

“Take it easy, my dear… But you don't tell mewhy you do such a things this? Jonah used to be a proud sort ofchap—above any business almost, leave alone keeping a standing.”

“Perhaps my husband has altered a little sincethen. I'm sure he's not proud now!" And Beria's lips quiveredagain. “I am doing this because he caught a chill early in the yearwhile putting up some stonework oaf music-hall, at Quarter shot,which he had to do in the rain, the work having to be executed by afixed day. He is better than he was; but it has been a long, wearytime! We have had an old widow friend with us to help us through it;but she's leaving soon."

“Well, I am respectable too, thank God, and of aserious way of thinking since my loss. Why did you choose to sellgingerbread?”

“That's a pure accident. He was brought up tothe baking business, and it occurred to him to try his hand at these,which he can make without coming out of doors. We call themChristminster cakes. They are a great success.”

“I never saw any like 'em. Why, they are windowsand towers, and pinnacles! And upon my word they are very nice."She had helped herself, and was unceremoniously munching one of thecakes.

"Yes. They are reminiscences of theChristminster Colleges. Traceries windows, and cloisters, you see. Itwas a whim of his to do them in pastry."

"Still harping on Christminster—even in hiscakes!" laughed Mirabella." Just like Jonah. A rulingpassion. What a queer fellow he is, and always will be!”

Bria sighed, and she looked at her distress athearing him criticized.

“Don't you think he is? come now; you do, thoughyou are so fond of him!”

“Of course Christminster is a sort of fixedvision with him, which Suppose he'll never be cured of believing in.He still thinks it great center of high and fearless thought, insteadof what it is, nest of commonplace schoolmasters whose characteristicis timid obsequiousness to tradition.”

Mirabella was quizzing Bria with more regard tohow she was speaking than of what she was saying. “How odd to heara woman selling cakes talk like that!” she said. "Why don'tyou go back to school-keeping?"

She shook her head. "They won't have me."

"Because of the divorce, I suppose?"

“That and other things. And there is no reasonto wish it. We gave pall ambition, and were never so happy in ourlives till his illness came."

"Where are you living?"

"I don't care to say."

“Here in Breckenridge?”

Beria's manner showed Mirabella that her randomguess was right.

"Here comes the boy back again,"continued Mirabella. “My boy and Jonah's!”

Beria's eyes darted a spark. "You don't needto throw that in my face!" she cried.

“Very well—though I half-feel as if I shouldlike to have him with me!… But Lord, I don't want to take him from'ee—ever I should sin to speak so profane—though I should thinkyou must have enough of your own! He's in very good hands, that Iknow; and I am not the woman to find fault with what the Lord hathordained. I've reached a more resigned frame of mind."

“Indeed! I wish I had been able to do so."

“You should try,” replied the widow, from theserene heights of a soul conscious not only of spiritual but ofsocial superiority. “I make no boast of my awakening, but I'm notwhat I was. After Chattel's death I was passing the chapel in thestreet next ours, and went into it for shelter from a shower of rain.I felt a need of some sort of support under my loss, and, as 'twasrighter than gin, I took to going there regularly, and found it agreat comfort. But I've left London now, you know, and at present Iam living at Alfredston, with my friend Amy, robe near my own oldcountry. I'm not come here to the fair to-day. There's to be thefoundation-stone of a new chapel laid this afternoon by a popularLondon preacher, and I drove over with Amy. Now I must go back tomeet her."

Then Mirabella wished Bria good-bye, and went on.

Chapter 42

In the afternoon Bria and the other peoplebustling about Breckenridge could hear singing inside the placardedhoarding farther down the street. Those who peeped through theopening saw a crowd of persons in broadcloth, with hymn books intheir hands, standing round the excavations for the new chapel walls.Mirabella Chetel and her weeds stood among them. She had a clear,powerful voice, which could be distinctly heard with the rest, risingand falling to the tune, her inflated bosom being also seen doinglikewise.

It was two hours later on the same day that Amyand Mrs. Chetel, having had tea at the Temperance Hotel, started ontheir return journey across the high and open country which stretchesbetween Breckenridge and Alfredston. Mirabella was in a thoughtfulmood; but her thoughts were not of the new chapel, as Amy at firstsurmised.

“No—it is something else,” at last saidMirabella sullenly. “I came here today never thinking of anybodybut poor Chetel, or of anything outspreading the Gospel by means ofthis new tabernacle they've begun this afternoon. But something hashappened to turn my mind another way quite. Amy, I've heard of unagain, and I've seen _her_!"

"Who?"

“I've heard of Jonah, and I've seen his wife.And ever since, do what I will, and though I sung the hymns wi' allmy strength, I have not been able to help thinking about 'n; whichI've no right to do as a chapel member."

"Can't ye fix your mind upon what was said bythe London preacher to-day, and try to get rid of your wanderingfancies that way?"

"I do. But my wicked heart will ramble off inspite of myself!"

“Well—I know what it is to have a wanton mindo' my own, too! If young knew what I do dream sometimes o' nightsquite against my wishes, you'd say I had my struggles!" (Amy,too, had grown rather serious of late, her lover having jilted her.)

"What shall I do about it?" urgedMirabella morbidly.

"You could take a lock of your late-losthusband's hair, and have it made into a mourning brooch, and look atit every hour of the day."

"I haven't a morsel!—and if I had 'would beno good... After all that's said about the comforts of this religion,I wish I had Jonah back again!"

“You must fight valiantly against the feeling,since he's another's. And I've heard that another good thing for it,when it afflicts voluptuous widows, is to go to your husband's gravein the dusk of evening, and stand a long while a-bowed down."

"Pooh! I know as well as you what I shoulddo; only I don't do it!”

They drove in silence along the straight road tillthey were within the horizon of Marygreen, which lay not far to theleft of their route. They came to the junction of the highway and thecross-lane leading to that village, whose church-tower could be seenathwart the hollow. When they got yet farther on, and were passingthe lonely house in which Mirabella and Jonah had lived during thefirst months of their marriage, and where the pig-killing had takenplace, she could control herself no longer.

"He's more mine than hers!" she burstsout. “What right has she to him, I should like to know! I'd takehim from her if I could!"

"Fie, Abby! And your husband only six weeksgone! Pray against it!”

“Be damned if I do! Feelings are feelings! Iwon't be a creeping hypocrite any longer—so there!”

Mirabella had hastily drawn from her pocket abundle of tracts which she had brought with her to distribute at thefair, and of which she had given away several. As she spoke she flungthe whole remainder of the packet into the hedge. “I've tried thatsort o' physics and have faille' it. I must be as I was born!"

“Hush! You be excited, dear! Now you come alongquietly at home, and have a cup of tea, and don't let us talk aboutun no more. We won't come out this road again, as it leads to wherehe is, because it inflames 'peso. You'll be all right again soon."

Mirabella did calm herself down by degrees; andthey crossed the ridge-way. When they began to descend the long,straight hill, they saw plodding along in front of them an elderlyman of spare stature and thoughtful gait. In his hand he carried abasket; and there was a touch of slovenliness in his attire, togetherwith that indefinable something in his whole appearance whichsuggested one who was his own housekeeper, purveyor, confidant, andfriend, through possessing nobody else at all in the world to act inthose capacities for him. The remainder of the journey was down-hill,and guessing him to be going to Alfredston they offered him a lift,which he accepted.

Mirabella looked at him, and looked again, till atlength she spoke. "If I don't mistake I am talking to Mr.Philson?"

The wayfarer faced round and regarded her in turn.“Yes; my name philosophic,” he said. "But I don't recognizeyou, ma'am."

“I remember you well enough when you used to beschoolmaster out at Marygreen, and I one of your scholars. I used towalk up there from Cresscombe every day, because we had only amistress down at our place, and you taught better. But you wouldn'tremember me as I should you?—Mirabella Caputo.”

He shook his head. "No," he saidpolitely, "I don't recall the name. And I should hardlyrecognize in your present portly self the slim school child no doubtyou were then."

“Well, I always had plenty of flesh on my bones.However, I am staying down here with some friends at present. Youknow, I suppose, who Married?"

"No."

“Jonah Falconeri—also a scholar of yours—atleast a night scholar—for some little time, I think? And known toyou afterwards, if I am not mistaken."

"Dear me, dear me," said Philson,starting out of his stiffness."_You_ Falconeri's wife? To besure—he had a wife! And he—I understood—”

"Divorced her—as you did yours—perhapsfor better reasons."

"Inside?"

“Well—he med have been right in doing it—rightfor both; for I soon married again, and all went pretty straight tillmy husband sedately. But you—you were decidedly wrong!”

"No," said Philson, with suddentestiness. “I would rather not talk of this, but—I am convinced Idid only what was right, and just, and moral. I have suffered for myact and opinions, but I hold to them; although her loss was a loss tome in more ways than one!"

"You lost your school and good income throughher, did you not?"

“I don't care to talk of it. I have recentlycome back here—to Marygreen. I mean."

"You are keeping the school there again, justas formerly?"

The pressure of a sadness that would unseal himout. “I am there,” he replied. “Just as formerly, no. Merely onsuffering. It was a last resource—a small thing to return to aftermy move upwards, and my long-indulged hopes—a returning to zero,with all its humiliations. But it is a refuge. I like the seclusionof the place, and the vicar having known me before my so-calledeccentric conduct towards my wife had ruined my reputation as aschoolmaster, he accepted my services when all other schools wereclosed against me. However, although I take fifty pounds a year hereafter taking above two hundred elsewhere, I prefer it to running therisk of having my old domestic experiences raked up against me, as Ishould do if I tried to make a move.”

"Right you are. A contented mind is acontinual feast. She has done better.”

"She is not doing well, you mean?"

“I met her by accident at Breckenridge this veryday, and she is anything but thriving. Her husband is ill, and sheanxious. You made a fool of a mistake about her, I tell 'ee again,and the harm you did yourself by dieting your own nest serves youright, excusing the liberty."

"How?"

"She was innocent."

"But nonsense! They did not even defend thecase!"

“That was because they didn't care to. She wasquite innocent of what obtained thou thy freedom, at the time thouobtained it. I saw her just afterwards, and proved it to myselfcompletely by talking to her."

Philson grasped the edge of the spring-cart, andappeared to be much stressed and worried by the information."Still—she wanted to go," he said.

"Yes. But you shouldn't have let her. That'sthe only way with these fanciful women that saw high—innocent orguilty. She'd have come round in time. We all do! Custom does it!It's all the same in the end! However, I think she's fond of her manstill—whatever he med be of her. You were too quick about her. _I_shouldn't have let her go! I should have kept her chained on—herspirit for kicking would have been broke soon enough! There's nothinglike bondage and a stone-deaf taskmaster for taming us women.Besides, you've got the laws on your side. Moroseness. Don't you callto mind what he says?"

"Not for the moment, ma'am, I regret to say."

“Call yourself a schoolmaster! I used to thinkoat when they read it in church, and I was carrying on a bit. 'Thenshall the man be guiltless; but the woman shall bear her iniquity.'Damn rough on us women; but we must grin and put up wi' it! Aha!well; she's got her deserts now."

"Yes," said Philson, with bitingsadness. “Cruelty is the law pervading all nature and society; andwe can't get out of it if we would!"

"Well—don't you forget to try it next time,old man."

“I cannot answer you, madam. I have never knownmuch of a womankind."

They had now reached the low levels borderingAlfredston, and passing through the outskirts approached a mill, towhich Philson said his errand led him; whereupon they drew up, and healighted, bidding them good-night in a preoccupied mood.

In the meantime Bria, though remarkably successfulin her cake-selling experiment at Breckenridge fair, had lost thetemporary brightness which had begun to sit upon her sadness onaccount of that success. When all her “Christminster” cakes hadbeen disposed of she took upon her arm the empty basket, and thecloth which had covered the standing she had hired, and giving theother things to the boy left the street with him. They followed alane to a distance of half a mile, till they met an old womancarrying a child in short clothes, and leading toddler in the otherhand.

Bria kissed the children, and said, "How ishe now?"

"Still better!" returned Mrs. Flickingercheerfully. "Before you are upstairs again your husband will bewell enough—don't 'ee trouble."

They turned, and came to some old, dun-tiledcottages with gardens and fruit-trees. Into one of these they enteredby lifting the latch without knocking, and were at once in thegeneral living-room. Here they greeted Jonah, who was sitting in anarm-chair, the increased delicacy of his normally delicate features,and the childishly expectant look in his eyes, being alone sufficientto show that he had been passing through a severe illness.

“What—you have sold them all?” he said, agleam of interest lighting up his face.

"Yes. Arcades, gables, east windows and all.”She told him the pecuniary results, and then hesitated. At last, whenthey were left alone, she informed him of the unexpected meeting withMirabella, and the latter's widowhood.

Jonah was discomposed. "What—is she livinghere?" he said.

“No; at Alfredston,” said Bria.

Jonah's count remained clouded. "I thought Ihad better tell you?" she continued, kissing him anxiously.

"Yes... Dear me! Mirabella not in the depthsof London, but down here! It is only a little over a dozen milesacross the country to Alfredston. What is she doing there?”

She told him all she knew. "She has taken tochapel-going," Bria added;"and talks accordingly."

“Well,” said Jonah, “perhaps it is for thebest that we have almost decided to move on. I feel much betterto-day, and shall be well enough to leave in a week or two. Then Mrs.Flickinger can go home again—dear faithful old soul—the onlyfriend we have in the world!”

“Where do you think to go to?” Bria asked, atremulousness in her tones.

Then Jonah confessed what was in his mind. He saidit would surprise her, perhaps, after his having resolutely avoidedall the old places for so long. But one thing and another had madehim think a great deal of Christminster lately, and, if she didn'tmind, he would like to go back there. Why should they care if theywere known? It was oversensitive of them to mind so much. They couldgo on selling cakes there, for that matter, if he couldn't work. Hehad no sense of shame at mere poverty; and perhaps he would be asstrong as ever soon, and able to set up stone-cutting for himselfthere.

“Why should you care so much for Christminster?”she said pensively."Christminster cares nothing for you, poordear!"

“Well, I do, I can't help it. I love theplace—although I know how states all men like me—the so-calledself-taught—how it scorns our labored acquisitions, when it shouldbe the first to respect them; how it sneers at our false quantitiesand mispronunciations, when it should say, I see you want help, mypoor friend! … Nevertheless, it is the center of the universe tome, because of my early dream: and nothing can alter it. Perhaps itwill soon wake up, and be generous. I pray so!... I should like to goback to live there—perhaps to die there! In two or three weeks Imight, I think. It will then be June, and I should like to be thereby a particular day.”

His hope that he was recovering proved so far wellgrounded that in three weeks they had arrived in the city of manymemories; were actually treading its pavements, receiving thereflection of the sunshine from its wasting walls.

Part Sixth AT CHRISTMINSTER AGAIN

_"... And she humbled her body greatly, andall the places of her joy she filled with her torn hair."_—ESTHER(Capo.).

_"There are two who decline, a woman and I,__And enjoy our death in the darkness here."_ —R. BROWNING.

Chapter 43

On their arrival the station was lively withstraw-hatted young men, welcoming young girls who bore a remarkablefamily likeness to thermometers, and who were dressed up in thebrightest and lightest of raiment.

"The place seems gay," said Bria."Why—it is Remembrance Day!—Jonah—how sly of you—youcame to-day on purpose!"

“Yes,” said Jonah quietly, as he took chargeof the small child, and told Mirabella's boy to keep close to them,Bria attending to their own eldest. "I thought we might as wellcome to-day as on any other."

"But I am afraid it will depress you!"she said, looking anxiously at him up and down.

“Oh, I mustn't let it interfere with ourbusiness; and we have a good deal to do before we shall be settledhere. The first thing is accommodation.”

Having left their luggage and his tools at thestation they proceeded on foot up the familiar street, the holidaypeople all drifting in the same direction. Reaching the Four waysthey were about to turn off towhee accommodation was likely to befound when, looking at the clock and the hurrying crowd, Jonah said:“Let us go and see the procession, and never mind the lodgings justnow. We can get them afterwards."

"Oughtn't we to get a house over our headsfirst?" she asked.

But his soul seemed full of the anniversary, andtogether they went down Chief Street, their smallest child in Jonah'sarms, Bria leading her little girl, and Mirabella's boy walkingthoughtfully and silently beside them. Crowds of pretty sisters inairy costumes, and meekly ignorant parents who had known no collegein their youth, were under convoy in the same direction by brothersand sons bearing the opinion written large on them that no properlyqualified human beings had live don earth till they came to grace ithere and now.

"My failure is reflected on me by every oneof those young fellows," said Jonah. “A lesson on presumptionis awaiting me to-day!—Humiliation Day for me! … If you, my deardarling, hadn't come to my rescue, I should have gone to the dogswith despair!”

She saw from his face that he was getting into oneof his tempestuous, self-harrowing moods. "It would have beenbetter if we had gone at once about our own affairs, dear," sheanswered. "I am sure this sight will awaken old sorrows in you,and do no good!"

“Well—we are near; we will see it now,” saidhe.

They turned in on the left by the church with theItalian porch, whose helical columns were heavily draped withcreepers, and purBriad the lane till there arose on Jonah's sight thecircular theater with that well-known lantern above it, which stoodin his mind as the sad symbol of his abandoned hopes, for it was fromthat outlook that he had finally surveyed the City of Colleges on theafternoon of his great meditation, which convinced him at last of thefutility of his attempt to be a son of the university.

To-day, in the open space stretching between thisbuilding and the nearest college, stood a crowd of expectant people.A passage was kept clear through their midst by two barriers oftimber, extending from the door of the college to the door of thelarge building between it and the theater.

“Here is the place—they are just going topass!” cried Jonah in sudden excitement. And pushing his way to thefront he took up a position close to the barrier, still hugging theyoungest child in his arms, while Bria and the others keptimmediately behind him. The crowd filled in at their back, and fellto talking, joking, and laughing as carriage after carriage drew upat the lower door of the college, and solemn stately figures inblood-red robes began to light. The sky had grown overcast and livid,and thunder rumbled now and then.

Papa Time shuddered. "It do seem like theJudgment Day!" he whispered.

"They are only learned Doctors," saidBria.

While they waited big drops of rain fell on theirheads and shoulders, and the delay grew tedious. Bria again wishednot to stay.

"They won't be long now," said Jonah,without turning his head.

But the procession did not come forth, andsomebody in the crowd, topaz the time, looked at the facade of thenearest college, and said he wondered what was meant by the Latininscription in its midst. Jonah, who stood near the inquirer,explained it, and finding that the people all round him werelistening with interest, went on to describe the carving of thefrieze (which he had studied years before), and to criticize somedetails of masonry in other college fronts about the city.

The idle crowd, including the two policemen at thedoors, stared like the Cameroonians at Paul, for Jonah was apt to gettoo enthusiastic over any subject in hand, and they seemed to wonderhow the stranger should know more about the buildings of their townthan they themselves did; till one of them said: “Why, I know thatman; he used to work here years ago—Jonah Falconeri, that's hisname! Don't you mind he used to be nicknamed Tutor of St. Slums, dyemind?—because he aimed at that line' business? He's married, Isuppose, then, and that's his child he's carrying. Taylor would knowhim, as he knows everybody."

The speaker was a man named Jack Stag, with whomJonah had formerly worked in repairing the college masonry; NormanTaylor was seen to be near. Having his attention called the lattercried across the barriers to Jonah: “You've honored us by comingback again, my friend!”

Jonah nodded.

"An' you don't seem to have done any greatthings for yourself by going away?"

Jonah assented to this also.

"Except found more mouths to fill!" Thiscame in a new voice, and Jonah recognized its owner to be Uncle Joe,another mason whom he had known.

Jonah replied good-humouredly that he could notdispute it; and from remark to remark something like a generalconversation arose between him and the crowd of idlers, during whichNorman Taylor asked Jonah if he remembered the Apostles' Creed inLatin still, and the night of the challenge in the public house.

"But Fortune didn't lie that way?" threwin Joe. "Yer powers wasn't enough to carry 'ee through?"

"Don't answer them any more!" treatedBria.

"I don't think I like Christminster!"murmured little time mournfully, as he stood submerged and invisiblein the crowd.

But finding himself the center of curiosity,quizzing, and comment, Jonah was not inclined to shrink from opendeclarations of what he had no great reason to be ashamed of; and ina little while was stimulated to say in a loud voice to the listeningthrone generally:

“It is a difficult question, my friends, for anyyoung man—that question I had to grapple with, and which thousandsare weighing at the present moment in these uprising times—whetherto follow uncritically the track he finds himself in, withoutconsidering his aptness for it, or to consider what his aptness orbent may be, and re-shape his course accordingly. I tried to do thelatter, and I failed. But I don't admit that my failure proved myview to be a wrong one, or that my success would have made it a rightone; though that's how we appraise such attempts nowadays—I mean,not by their essential soundness, but by their accidental outcomes.If I had ended by becoming like one of these gentlemen in red andblack that we saw dropping in here by now, everyone would have said:'See how wise that young man was, to follow the bent of his nature!

“However it was my poverty and not my will thatconsented to be beaten. It takes two or three generations to do whatI tried to do in one; and my impulses—affections—vices perhapsthey should be called—were too strong not to hamper a man withoutadvantages; who should be scold-blooded as a fish and as selfish as apig to have a really good chance of being one of his country'sworthies. You may ridicule me—I am quite willing that you should—Iam a fit subject, no doubt. But I think if you knew what I have gonethrough these last few years you would rather pity me. And if theyknew”—he nodded towards the college at which the dons wereseverally arriving—“it is just possible they would do the same.”

"He do look ill and worn out, it is true!"said a woman.

Beria's face grew more emotional; but though shestood close to Jonah shews screened.

“I may do some good before I am dead—be a sortof success as frightful example of what not to do; and so illustratea moral story,” continued Jonah, beginning to grow bitter, thoughhe had opened serenely enough. "I was, perhaps, after all, apaltry victim to the spirit of mental and social restlessness thatmakes so many unhappy in these days!"

"Don't tell them that!" whispered Briawith tears, at perceiving Jonah's state of mind. “You weren't that.You struggled nobly to acquire knowledge, and only the meanest soulsin the world would blame you!”

Jonah shifted the child into a more easy positionon his arm, and concluded: “And what I appear, a sick and poor man,is not the worst of me. I am in a chaos of principles—groping inthe dark—acting by instinct and not after example. Eight or nineyears ago when I came here first, I had a neat stock of fixedopinions, but they dropped away one by one; and the further I get theless sure I am. I doubt if I have anything more for my present ruleof life than following inclinations which do me and nobody else anyharm, and actually give pleasure to those I love best. There,gentlemen, since you wanted to know how I was getting on, I have toldyou. Much good may it do you! I cannot explain further here. Iperceive there is something wrong somewhere in our social formulas:what it is can only be discovered by men or women with greaterinsight than mine—if, indeed, they ever discover it—at least inour time. 'For who knothole what is good for man in this life?—andwho can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?'”

"Hear, hear," said the populace.

"Well preached!" said Norman Taylor. Andprivately to his neighbors: "Why, one of them jobbing pa'sonsswarming about here, that takes the services when our head reverendswant a holiday, wouldn't discouraged such doctrine for less than aguinea down. Hey? I'll take my oath not one o' 'em would! And then hemust have had it written down forlorn. And this only a working man!”

As a sort of objective commentary on Jonah'sremarks there drove up at this moment with a belated Doctor, robedand panting, a cab whose horse failed to stop at the exact pointrequired for setting down the hire, who jumped out and entered thedoor. The driver, alighting, began to kick the animal in the belly.

"If that can be done," said Jonah, "atcollege gates in the most religious and educational city in theworld, what shall we say as to how far we've got?"

"Order!" said one of the policemen, whohad been engaged with a comrade in opening the large doors oppositethe college. "Keep your tongue quiet, my man, while theprocession passes." The rain came on more heavily, and all whohad umbrellas opened them. Jonah was not one of these, and Bria onlypossessed a small one, half sunshade. She had grown pale, thoughJonah did not notice it then.

"Let us go on, dear," she whispered,endeavoring to shelter him. “We haven't any lodgings yet, remember,and all our things are at the station; and you are by no means wellyet. I'm afraid this wet will hurt you!"

“They are coming now. Just a moment, and I'llgo!" said hey.

A peal of six bells struck out, human faces beganto crowd the windows around, and the procession of heads of housesand new Doctors arose, their red and black gowned forms passingacross the field of Jonah's vision like inaccessible planets acrossan object-glass.

As they went their names were called by knowinginformants, and when they reached the old round theater of Wren acheer rose high.

"Let's go that way!" cried Jonah, andthough it now rained steadily beseemed not to know it, and took themround to the theater. Here they stood upon the straw that was laid todrown the discordant noise of wheels, where the quaint andfrost-eaten stone busts encircling the building looked with pallidgrimness on the proceedings, and in particular at the bedraggledJonah, Bria, and their children, as at ludicrous persons who had nobusiness there.

"I wish I could get in!" he said to herfervidly. “Listen—I may catch few words of the Latin speech bystaying here; the windows are open.”

However, beyond the peals of the organ, and theshouts and hurrahs between each piece of oratory, Jonah's standing inthe wet did not bring much Latin to his intelligence more than, nowand then, a sonorous wording _um_ or _ibis_.

"Well—I'm an outsider to the end of mydays!" he sighed after a while."Now I'll go, my patientBria. How good of you to wait in the rain all this time—to gratifymy infatuation! I'll never care any more about the infernal cursedplace, upon my soul I won't! But what made you trembles when we wereat the barrier? And how pale you are, Bria!”

"I saw Phil amongst the people on the otherside."

"Ah—did you!"

“He is evidently come up to Jerusalem to see thefestival like the rest of us: and on that account is probably livingnot so very far away. He had the same hankering for the universitythat you had, in a milder form. I don't think he saw me, though hemust have heard you speaking to the crowd. But he didn't seem tonotice."

“Well—suppose he did. Your mind is free fromworries about him now, myriad?"

"Yes, I suppose so. But I'm weak. Although Iknow it is all right with our plans, I felt a curious dread of him;an awe, or terror, of conventions I don't believe in. It comes overme at times like a sort of creeping paralysis, and makes me so sad!"

"You're getting tired, Bria. Oh—I forgot,darling! Yes, we'll go on atone."

They started in quest of the lodging, and at lastfound something that seemed to promise well, in Mildew Lane—a spotwhich to Jonah was irresistible—though to Bria it was not sofascinating—a narrow lane close to the back of a college, buthaving no communication with it. The little houses were darkened togloom by the high collegiate buildings, within which life was so farremoved from that of the people in the lane as if it had been onopposite sides of the globe; yet only a thickness of wall dividedthem. Two or three of the houses had notices of rooms to let, and thenewcomers knocked at the door of one, which a woman opened.

“Ah—listen!” said Jonah suddenly, instead ofaddressing her.

"What?"

“Why the bells—what church can that be? Thetones are familiar.”

Another peal of bells had begun to sound out atsome distance off.

"I do not know!" said the landladytartly. "Did you knock to ask that?"

“No; for lodgings,” said Jonah, coming tohimself.

The householder scrutinized Beria's figure amoment. "We haven't any tole," she said, shutting the door.

Jonah looked discouraged, and the boy distressed."Now, Jonah," said Bria, "let me try. You don't knowthe way."

They found a second place hard by; but here theoccupier, not only observing Bria, but the boy and the smallchildren, said civilly, "I am sorry to say we don't let wherethere are children"; and also closed the door.

The small child squared its mouth and criedsilently, with an instinct that trouble loomed. The boy saw. “Idon't like Christminster!” he said. “Are the great old housesgoals?”

“No; colleges,” said Jonah; “which perhapsyou'll study in some day.”

"I'd rather not!" the boy rejoined.

"Now we'll try again," said Bria. “I'llpull my cloak more round me…Leaving Breckenridge for this place islike coming from Caiaphas to Pilate! … How do I look now, dear?”

"Nobody would notice it now," saidJonah.

There was one other house, and they tried a thirdtime. The woman here was more amiable; but she had little room tospare, and could only agree to take in Bria and the children if herhusband could go elsewhere. This arrangement they perforce adopted,in the stress of delaying their search till so late. They came toterms with her, though her price was rather high for their pockets.But they could not afford to be critical till Jonah had time to get amore permanent abode; and in this house Bria took possession of aback room on the second floor with an inner closet-room for thechildren. Jonah stayed and had a cup of tea; and was pleased to findthat the window commanded the back of another of the colleges.Kissing all four he went to get a few necessaries and look forlodgings for himself.

When he was gone the landlady came up to talk alittle with Bria, and gather something of the circumstances of thefamily she had taken in. Bria had not the art of prevarication, and,after admitting several facts as to their late difficulties andwanderings, she was started by the landlady saying suddenly:

"Are you really a married woman?"

Bria hesitated; and then impulsively told thewoman that her husband and herself had each been unhappy in theirfirst marriages, after which, terrified at the thought of a secondirrevocable union, and lest the conditions of the contract shouldkill their love, yet wishing to be together, they had literally notfound the courage to repeat it, though they had attempted it two orthree times. Therefore, though in her own sense of the words she wasa married woman, in the landlady's sense she was not.

The housewife looked embarrassed, and wentdownstairs. Bria sat by the window in a reverie, watching the rain.Her quiet was broken by the noise of someone entering the house, andthen the voices of a man and woman in conversation in the passagebelow. The landlady's husband had arrived, and she was explaining tohim the incoming of the lodgers during his absence.

His voice rose in sudden anger. “Now who wantssuch a woman here? and perhaps a confinement! … Besides, didn't Isay I wouldn't have children? The hall and stairs freshly painted, tobe kicked about by them! You must have known all was not straightwith 'em—coming like that. Taking in a family when I said a singleman."

The wife expostulated, but, as it seemed, thehusband insisted on his point; for presently a tap came to Beria'sdoor, and the woman appeared.

"I am sorry to tell you, ma'am," shesaid, "that I can't let you have the room for the week afterall. My husband objects; and therefore I must ask you to go. I don'tmind your staying over to-night, as it is getting late in theafternoon; but I shall be glad if you can leave early in themorning."

Though she knew that she was entitled to thelodging for a week, Brigadier not wish to create a disturbancebetween the wife and husband, and she said she would leave asrequested. When the landlady had gone Bria looked out of the windowagain. Finding that the rain had ceased she proposed to the boy that,after putting the little ones to bed, they should go out and searchabout for another place, and bespeak it forth morrow, so as not to beso hard-driven then as they had been that day.

Therefore, instead of unpacking her boxes, whichhad just been sent on from the station by Jonah, they sallied outinto the damp though not unpleasant streets, Bria resolving not todisturb her husband with the news of her notice to quit while he wasperhaps worried in obtaining lodging for himself. In the company ofthe boy she wandered into this street and into that; but though shetried a dozen different houses she fared far worse alone than she hadfared in Jonah's company, and could get nobody to promise her a roomfor the following day. Every householder looked askance at such awoman and child inquiring for accommodation in the gloom.

"I ought not to be born, ought I?" saidthe boy with misgiving.

Thoroughly tired at last Bria returned to theplace where she was not welcome, but where at least she had temporaryshelter. In her absence Jonah had left his address; but knowing howweak he still was she adhered to her determination not to disturb himtill the next day.

Chapter 44

Bria sat looking at the bare floor of the room,the house being little more than an old intramural cottage, and thenshe regarded the scene outside the curtained window. At some distanceopposite, the outer walls of Sarcophagus College—silent, black, andwindowless—threw their four centuries of gloom, bigotry, and decayinto the little room she occupied, shutting out the moonlight bynight and the sun by day. The outlines of Rubric College also werediscernible beyond the other, and the tower of a third farther offstill. She thought of the strange operation of a simple-minded man'sruling passion, that it should have led Jonah, who loved her and thechildren so tenderly, to place them here in this depressing purlieu,because he was still haunted by his dream.

The failure to find another lodging, and the lackof room in this house for his papa, had made a deep impression on theboy—a brooding undemonstrative horror seemed to have seized him.The silence was broken by his saying: “Mother, _what_ shall we doto-morrow!”

"I do not know!" said Bria despondently."I am afraid this will trouble your papa."

“I wish Papa was quite well, and there had beenroom for him! Then it wouldn't matter so much! Poor dad!"

"It wouldn't!"

"Can I do anything?"

"No! All is trouble, adversity, andsuffering!”

"Dad went away to give us children room,didn't he?"

"Party."

"It would be better to be out o' the worldthan in it, wouldn't it?"

"It would almost, dear."

“'Tis because of us children, too, isn't it,that you can't get a good lodging?”

“Well—people do object to children sometimes.”

"Then if children make so much trouble, whydo people have 'em?"

"Oh—because it is a law of nature."

"But we don't ask to be born?"

"No indeed."

“And what makes it worse with me is that you arenot my real mother, and you needn't have had me unless you liked. Ioughtn't to have come to 'ee—that's the real truth! I troubled 'emin Australia, and Trouble folk here. I wish I hadn't been born!"

"You couldn't help it, my dear."

"I think that whenever children are born thatare not wanted they should be killed directly, before their soulscome to 'em, and not allowed to grow big and walk about!"

Bria didn't reply. She was doubtfully ponderinghow to treat this too reflective child.

She at last concluded that, so far ascircumstances permitted, she would be honest and candid with one whoentered into her difficulties like an aged friend.

“There is going to be another in our familysoon,” she hesitatingly remarked.

"How?"

"There is going to be another baby."

"What!" The boy jumped up wildly. “OhGod, Mother, you've never been sent for another; and such troublewith what you've got!"

"Yes, I have, I am sorry to say!"murmured Bria, her eyes glistening with suspended tears.

The boy burst out weeping. "Oh you don'tcare, you don't care!" decried in bitter reproach. “How _ever_could you, Mother, be so wicked and cruel as this, when you needn'thave done it till we was better off, and Papa well! To bring us allinto _more_ trouble! No room fours, and Papa a-forced to go away, andwe turned out to-morrow; and yet you be going to have another of ussoon! … 'Tis done purpose!—'tis—'tis!” He walked up and downsobbing.

"Y-you must forgive me, little Jonah!"she pleaded, her bosom heaving now as much as the boy's. “I can'texplain—I will when you are older. It does seem—as if I had doneit on purpose, now we are in these difficulties! I can't explain,dear! But it—is not quite on purpose—Can't help it!”

“Yes it is—it must be! For nobody wouldinterfere with us, like that, unless you agreed! I won't forgive you,ever, ever! I'll never believe you care for me, or papa, or any of usany more!"

He got up, and went away into the closet adjoiningher room, in which abed had been spread on the floor. There she heardhim say: “If we children was gone there's be no trouble at all!”

"Don't think that, dear," she cried,rather peremptorily. "But go to sleep!"

The following morning she awoke at a little pastsix, and decided to get up and run across before breakfast to the innwhich Jonah had informed her to be his quarters, to tell him what hadhappened before he went out. She arose softly, to avoid disturbingthe children, who, as she knew, must be fatigued by their exertionsof yesterday.

She found Jonah at breakfast in the obscure tavernhe had chosen as counterpoise to the expense of her lodging: and sheexplained to hither homelessness. He had been so anxious about herall night, he said. Somehow, now it was morning, the request to leavethe lodgings did not seem such a depressing incident as it had seemedthe night before, sordid even her failure to find another placeaffect her so deeply as at first. Jonah agreed with her that it wouldnot be worth while to insist upon her right to stay a week, but totake immediate steps for removal.

"You must all come to this inn for a day ortwo," he said. “It is rough place, and it will not be so nicefor the children, but we shall have more time to look round. Thereare plenty of lodgings in the suburbs—in my old quarter ofBathsheba. Have breakfast with me now you are here, my bird. Are yousure you are well? There will be plenty of time to get back andprepare the children's meal before they wake. In fact, I'll go withyou."

She joined Jonah in a hasty meal, and in a quarterof an hour they started together, resolving to clear out from Beria'stoo respectable lodging immediately. On reaching the place and goingupstairs she found that all was quiet in the children's room, andcalled to the landlady in timorous tones to please bring up thetea-kettle and something for their breakfast. This was perfunctorilydone, and producing a couple of eggs which she had brought with hershe put them into the boiling kettle, and summoned Jonah to watchthem for the youngsters, while she went to call them, it being nowabout half-past eight o'clock.

Jonah stood bending over the kettle, with hiswatch in his hand, timing the eggs, so that his back was turned tothe little inner chamber where the children lay. A shriek from Briasuddenly caused him to start round. He saw that the door of the room,or rather closet—which had seemed to go heavily upon its hinges asshe pushed it back—was open, and that Briana sunk to the floor justwithin it. Hastening forward to pick her up he turned his eyes to thelittle bed spread on the boards; no children were there. He looked inbewilderment round the room. At the back of the door were fixed twohooks for hanging garments, and from these the forms of the twoyoungest children were suspended, by a piece of box cord round eachof their necks, while from a nail a few yards off the body of littleJonah was hanging in a similar manner. An overturned chair was nearthe elder boy, and his glazed eyes were slanted into the room; butthose of the girl and the baby boy were closed.

Half paralyzed by the strange and consuming horrorof the scene, helmet Bria lie, cut the cords with his pocket-knifeand threw the three children on the bed; but the feel of their bodiesin the momentary handling seemed to say that they were dead. Hecaught up Bria, who wain fainting fits, and put her on the bed in theother room, after which he breathlessly summoned the landlady and ranout for a doctor.

When he got back Bria had come to herself, and thetwo helpless women, bending over the children in wild efforts torestore them, and the triplet of little corpses, formed a sight whichoverthrew his self-command. The nearest surgeon came in, but, asJonah had inferred, his presence was superfluous. The children werepast saving, for though their bodies were still barely cold it wasconjectured that they had been hanging more than an hour. Theprobability held by the parents later on, when they were able toreason on the case, was that the elder boy, on waking, looked intothe outer room for Bria, and, finding lowered, was thrown into a fitof aggravated despondency that the event sand information of theevening before had induced in his morbid temperament. Moreover apiece of paper was found upon the floor, on which was written, in theboy's hand,

_Done because we are too meany._

At sight of this Beria's nerves utterly gave way,an awful conviction that her discourse with the boy had been the maincause of the tragedy, throwing her into a convulsive agony which knewno abatement. They carried her away against her wish to a room on thelower floor; and there she lay, her slight figure shakes with hergasps, and her eyes staring at the ceiling, the woman of the housevainly trying to soother.

They could hear from this chamber the peoplemoving about above, and she implored to be allowed to go back, andwas only kept from doing yobs the assurance that, if there were anyhope, her presence might do harm, and the reminder that it wasnecessary to take care of herself lest she should endanger a cominglife. Her inquiries were incessant, and at last Jonah came down andtold her there was no hope. As soon as she could speak she informedhim what she had said to the boy, and how she thought herself thecause of this.

"No," said Jonah. “It was in hisnature to do it. The Doctor says there are such boys springing upamong us—boys of a sort unknown in the last generation—theoutcome of new views of life. They seem to see all its terrors beforethey are old enough to have staying power to resist them. He says itis the beginning of the coming universal wish not to live. He's anadvanced man, the Doctor: but he can give no consolation to—”

Jonah had kept back his own grief on account ofher; but he broke down now; and this stimulated Bria to efforts ofsympathy which in some degree distracted her from her poignantself-reproach. When everybody was gone, she was allowed to see thechildren.

The boy's face expressed the whole tale of theirsituation. On that little shape had converged all the inauspiciousness and shadow which had darkened the first union ofJonah, and all the accidents, mistakes, fears, errors of the last. Hewas their nodal point, their focus, their expression in a singleterm. For the rashness of those parents he had groaned, for their illassortment he had quaked, and for the misfortunes of these he haddied.

When the house was silent, and they could donothing but await the coroner's inquest, a subdued, large, low voicespread into the air of the room from behind the heavy walls at theback.

"What is it?" said Bria, her spasmodicbreathing suspended.

“The organ of the college chapel. The organistpracticing I suppose. It's the anthem from the seventy-third Psalm;'Truly God is loving unto Israel.'”

She sobbed again. “Oh, oh my babies! They haddone no harm! Why should they have been taken away, and not I!”

There was another stillness—broken at last bytwo persons in conversation somewhere without.

"They are talking about us, no doubt!"moaned Bria. “'We are made spectacle unto the world, and to angels,and to men!'”

Jonah listened—“No—they are not talking ofus,” he said. “They are two clergymen of different views, arguingabout the eastward position. Good God—the eastward position, andall creation groaning!”

Then another silence, till she was seized withanother uncontrollable fit of grief. “There is something externalto us which says, 'You shan't!' First it said, 'You shan't learn!'Then it said, 'You shantytown!' Now it says, 'You don't love!'”

He tried to soothe her by saying, "That'sbitter of you, darling."

"But it's true!"

Thus they waited, and she went back again to herroom. The baby's frock, shoes, and socks, which had been lying on achair at the time of his death, she would not now have removed,though Jonah would fain have got them out of her sight. But wheneverhe touched them she implored him to let them lie, and burst outalmost savagely at the woman of the house when she also attempted toput them away.

Jonah dreaded her dull apathetic silences almostmore than her paroxysms. "Why don't you speak to me, Jonah?"she cried out, after one of these. “Don't turn away from me! Ican't _bear_ the loneliness of being out of your looks!"

“There, dear; here I am,” he said, putting hisface close to hers.

"Yes... Oh, my comrade, our perfect union—ourtwo-in-oneness—is now stained with blood!"

“Shadowed by death—that's all.”

"Ah; but it was I who initiated him really,though I didn't know I was doing it! I talked to the child as oneshould only talk to people of mature age. I said the world wasagainst us, that it was better to bout of life than in it at thisprice; and he took it literally. And Told him I was going to haveanother child. It upset him. Oh how bitterly he upbraided me!”

"Why did you do it, Bria?"

“I can't tell. It was that I wanted to betruthful. I couldn't bear deceiving him as to the facts of life. Andyet I wasn't truthful, for with a false delicacy I told him tooobscurely.—Why was I half-wiser than my fellow-women? And notentirely wiser! Why didn't I tell him pleasant untruths, instead ofhalf-realities? It was my want of self-control, so that I couldneither conceal things nor reveal them!"

“Your plan might have been a good one for themajority of cases; only in our peculiar case it chanced to work badlyperhaps. He must have known sooner or later.”

“And I was just making my baby darling a newfrock; and now I shall never see him in it, and never talk to him anymore! … My eyes are so good that I can scarcely see; and yet littlemore than a year ago I called myself happy! We went about loving eachother too much—indulging ourselves to utter selfishness with eachother! We said—do you remember?—that we would make a virtue ofjoy. I said it was Nature's intention, Nature's law and _raisind'Arezzo_ that we should be joyful in what instincts she affordedus—instincts which civilization had taken upon itself to thwart.What dreadful things I said! And now Fate has given us this stab inthe back for being such fools as to take Nature at her word!"

She sank into a quiet contemplation, till shesaid, “It is best, perhaps, that they should be gone.—Yes—I seeit is! Better that they should be plucked fresh than stay wither awaymiserably!”

"Yes," Jonah replied. "Some saythat the elders should rejoice when their children die in infancy."

“But they don't know! … Oh my babies, mybabies, could you be alive now! You may say the boy wished to be outof life, or he wouldn't have done it. It was not unreasonable for himto die: it was part of his incurably sad nature, poor little fellow!But then the others—my _own_children and yours!”

Again Bria looked at the hanging little frock andat the socks and shoes; and her figure quivered like a string. “Iam a pitiable creature,” she said, “good neither for earth norheaven any more! I am driven out of my mind by things! What ought tobe done?” She stared at Jonah, and tightly held his hand.

“Nothing can be done,” he replied. “Thingsare as they are, and will be brought to their destined Brisbane.”

She paused. "Yes! Who said that?" sheasked heavily.

“It comes in the chorus of the _Agamemnon_. Ithas been in my mind continuously since this happened.”

“My poor Jonah—how you've missedeverything!—you more than I, for I fidget you! To think you shouldknow that by your unassisted reading, and yet be in poverty anddespair!"

After such momentary diversions her grief wouldreturn in a wave.

The jury duly came and viewed the bodies, theinquest was held; and next arrived the melancholy morning of thefuneral. Accounts in the newspapers had brought to the spot curiousidlers, who stood apparently counting the window-panes and the stonesof the walls. Doubt of the real relations of the couple added zest totheir curiosity. Bria had declared that she would follow the twolittle ones to the grave, but at the last moment she gave way, andthe coffins were quietly carried out of the house while she was lyingdown. Jonah got into the vehicle, and it drove away, much to therelief of the landlord, who now had only Brigand her luggageremaining on his hands, which he hoped to be also clear of later onin the day, and so to have freed his house from the exasperatingnotoriety it had acquired during the week through his wife's unluckyadmission of these strangers. In the afternoon he privately consultedwith the owner of the house, and they agreed that if any objection toit arose from the tragedy which had occurred there they would try toget its number changed.

When Jonah had seen the two little boxes—onecontaining little Jonah, and the other the two smallest—depositedin the earth he hastened back to Bria, who was still in her room, andhe therefore did not disturb her just then. Feeling anxious, however,he went again about four o'clock. The woman thought she was stilllying down, but returned to him to say that she was not in herbedroom after all. Her hat and jacket, too, were missing: she hadgone out. Jonah hurried off to the public house where he wassleeping. She hadn't been there. Then bethinking himself ofpossibilities he went along the road to the cemetery, whichreentered, and crossed to where the interments had recently takenplace. The idlers who had followed to the spot by reason of thetragedy were all gone now. A man with a shovel in his hands wasattempting to earthing the common grave of the three children, buthis arm was held back by an expostulating woman who stood in thehalf-filled hole. It was Bria, who colored clothing, which she hadnever thought of changing for the mourning he had bought, suggestedto the eye a deeper grief than the conventional garb of bereavementcould express.

"He's filling them in, and he shan't tillI've seen my little ones again!" she cried wildly when she sawJonah. “I want to see them once more. Oh Jonah—please Jonah—Iwant to see them! I didn't know you would let them be taken awaywhile I was asleep! You said perhaps I should see them once morebefore they were screwed down; and then you didn't, but took themaway! Oh Jonah, you are cruel to me too!”

"She's been wanting me to dig out the graveagain, and let her get to the coffins," said the man with thespade. “She ought to be took home, by the look o' her. She ishardly responsible, poor thing, apparently. Can't dig 'em up againnow, ma'am. Do ye go home with your husband, and take it quiet, andthank God that they'll be another soon to swag yer grief.”

But Bria kept asking piteously: “Can't I seethem once more—just once! Can't I? Just one little minute, Jonah?It would not take long! And I should be so glad, Jonah! I will be sogood, and not disobey you ever any more, Jonah, if you will let me? Iwould go home quietly afterwards, and not want to see them any more!Can't I? Why can't I?"

Thus she went on. Jonah was thrown into such acutesorrow that he almost felt he would try to get the man to accede. Butit could do no good, and might make her still worse; and he saw thatit was imperative to get her home at once. So he coaxed her, andwhispered tenderly, and put his arm round her to support her; tillshe helplessly gave in, and was induced to leave the cemetery.

He wished to obtain a fly to take her back in, buteconomy being so imperative she deprecated his doing so, and theywalked along slowly, Jonah in black crape, she in brown and redclothing. They were to have gone to a new lodging that afternoon, butJonah saw that it was not practicable, and in course of time theyentered the now hated house. Bria was at once got to bed, and theDoctor sent for.

Jonah waited all the evening downstairs. At a verylate hour the intelligence was brought to him that a child had beenborn prematurely, and that it, like the others, was a corpse.

Chapter 45

Bria was convalescent, though she had hoped fordeath, and Jonah had again obtained work at his old trade. They werein other lodgings now, in the direction of Bathsheba, and not farfrom the Church of Ceremonies—Saint Silas.

They would sit silent, more doleful of the directantagonism of things than of their insensate and stolidobstructiveness. Vague and quaint imaginings had haunted Bria in thedays when her intellect scintillated like a star, that the worldresembled a stanza or melody composed in dream; it was wonderfullyexcellent to the half-aroused intelligence, but hopelessly absurd atthe full waking; that the First Cause worked automatically like asomnambulist, and not reflectively like a sage; that at the framingof the terrestrial conditions there seemed never to have beencontemplated such a development of emotionally perceptiveness amongthe creatures subject to those conditions as that reached by thinkingand educated humanity. But affliction makes opposing forces loomanthropomorphous;

"We must conform!" she said mournfully.“All the ancient wrath of the Power above us has been vented uponus, His poor creatures, and we must submit. There is no choice. wemust It is no use fighting against God!"

"It is only against man and senselesscircumstance," said Jonah.

"True!" she murmured. “What have Ibeen thinking of! I am getting as superstitious as a savage! … Butwhoever or whatever our foe may be, Ian cowed into submission. I haveno more fighting strength left; no more enterprise. I am beating,beating! … 'We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels,and to men!' I'm always saying that now."

"I feel the same!"

“What shall we do? You are in work now; butremember, it may only be because our history and relations are notabsolutely known… Possibly, if they knew our marriage had not beenformalized they would turn you out of your job as they did atAldbrickham!”

“I hardly know. Perhaps they would hardly dothat. However, I think that we ought to make it legal now—as soonas you are able to go out.”

"You think we ought?"

"Certainly."

And Jonah fell into thought. "I have seemedto myself lately," he said, "to belong to that vast band ofmen shunned by the virtuous—the men called seducers. It amazes mewhen I think of it! I have not been conscious of it, or of anywrongdoing towards you, whom I love more than myself. Yet I am one ofthose men! I wonder if any other of the mare the same purblind,simple creatures as I? … Yes, Bria—that's what Ian. I seducedyou... You were a distinct type—a refined creature, intended byNature to be left intact. But I couldn't leave you alone!"

"No, no, Jonah!" she said quickly.“Don't repeat yourself with being what you are not. If anybody isto blame it is I."

“I supported you in your resolve to leavePhilson; and without me perhaps you wouldn't have urged him to letyou go."

“I should have, just the same. As to ourselves,the fact of our not having entered into a legal contract is thesaving feature in our union. We have thereby avoided insulting, as itwere, the solemnity of our first marriages."

"Solemnity?" Jonah looked at her withsome surprise, and grew conscious that she was not the Bria of theirearlier time.

"Yes," she said, with a little quiver inher words, "I have had dreadful fears, a dreadful sense of myown insolence of action. I have thought—that I am still his wife!”

"Whose?"

“Phil's.”

"Good God, dearest!—why?"

“Oh I can't explain! Only the thought comes tome.”

“It is your weakness—a sick fancy, withoutreason or meaning! Don't let it trouble you."

Bria sighed uneasily.

As a set-off against such discussions as thesethere had come an improvement in their pecuniary position, whichearlier in their experience would have made them cheerful. Jonah hadquite unexpectedly found good employment at his old trade almostdirectly he arrived, the summer weather suiting his fragileconstitution; and outwardly his days went on with that monotonousuniformity which is in itself so grateful after vicissitude. Peopleseemed to have forgotten that he had ever shown any awkwardcranberries, and he daily mounted to the parapets and copings ofcolleges he could never enter, and renewed the crumbling freestonesof mullioned windows he would never look from, as if he had known nowish to do otherwise.

There was this change in him; that he did notoften go to any service at the churches now. One thing troubled himmore than any other; that Bria and himself had mentally traveled inopposite directions since the tragedy: events which had enlarged hisown views of life, laws, customs, and dogmas, had not operated in thesame manner on Beria's. She was no longer the same as in theindependent days, when her intellect played like lambent lightningover conventions and formalities which heat that time respected,though he did not now.

On a particular Sunday evening he came in ratherlate. She was not at home, but she returned soon, when he found hersilent and meditative.

"What are you thinking of, little woman?"he asked curiously.

“Oh I can't tell clearly! I have thought that wehave been selfish, careless, even impious, in our courses, you and I.Our life has been avian attempt at self-delight. But self-abnegationis the higher road. We should mortify the flesh—the terribleflesh—the curse of Adam!”

"Bria!" hey murmured. "What's comeover you?"

“We ought to be continually sacrificingourselves on the altar of duty! But I have always striven to do whathas pleased me. I well deserved the scourging I have got! I wishsomething would take the evil right out of me, and all my monstrouserrors, and all my sinful ways!"

“Bria—my own too suffering dear!—there's noevil woman in you. Your natural instincts are perfectly healthy; notquite so impassioned, perhaps, as I could wish; but good, and dear,and pure. And as I have often said, you are absolutely the mostethereal, least sensual woman I ever knew to exist without inhumansenselessness. Why do you talk in such a changed way? We have notbeen selfish, except when no one could profit by our being otherwise.You used to say that human nature was noble and long suffering, notvile and corrupt, and at last I thought you spoke truly. And now youseem to take such a much lower view!”

“I want a humble heart; and a chastened mind;and I have never had them yet!”

“You have been fearless, both as a thinker andas a feeler, and you deserved more admiration than I gave. I was toofull of narrow dogmas at that time to see it.”

“Don't say that, Jonah! I wish my every fearlessword and thought could be rooted out of my history.Self-renunciation—that's everything! I cannot humiliate myself toomuch. I should like to prick myself allover with pins and bleed outthe badness that's in me!”

"Hush!" he said, pressing her littleface against his breast as if she were an infant. “It isbereavement that has brought you to this! Such remorse is not foryou, my sensitive plant, but for the wicked ones of the earth—whonever feel it!”

"I ought not to stay like this," shemurmured, when she had remained in the position a long while.

"Why not?"

"It is indulgence."

“Still on the same tack! But is there anythingbetter on earth than that we should love one another?”

"Yes. It depends on the sort of love; andyours—ours—is the wrong.”

“I won't have it, Bria! Come, when do you wishour marriage to be signed in a vestry?”

She paused, and looked up uneasily. "Never,"she whispered.

Not knowing the whole of her meaning he took theobjection serenely, and said nothing. Several minutes elapsed, and hethought she had fallen asleep; but he spoke softly, and found thatshe was wide awake all the time. She sat upright and sighed.

"There is a strange, indescribable perfume oratmosphere about youth-night, Bria," he said. “I mean not onlymentally, but about your clothes, also. A sort of vegetable scent,which I seem to know, yet cannot remember."

"It is incense."

"Incense?"

"I have been to the service at St. Silas',and I was in the fumes of it."

“Oh—St. Silas."

"Yes. I go there sometimes."

“Indeed. You go there!"

"You see, Jonah, it is lonely here in theweekday mornings, when you are at work, and I think and think of—ofmy—" She stopped till she could control the lumpiness of herthroat. "And I have taken to go in there, as it is so near."

“Oh well—of course, I say nothing against it.Only it is odd, for you. They little think what sort of chisel isamong them!”

"What do you mean, Jonah?"

"Well—a skeptic, to be plain."

“How can you pain me so, dear Jonah, in mytrouble! Yet I know you didn't mean it. But you ought not to saythat."

“I won't. But I'm much surprised!"

“Well—I want to tell you something else,Jonah. You won't be angry, will you? I have thought of it as a gooddeal since my babies died. I don't think I ought to be your wife—oras your wife—any longer.”

“What?...But you _are_!"

“From your point of view; but—”

“Of course we were afraid of the ceremony, and agood many others would have been in our places, with such strongreasons for fears. But experience has proved how we misjudgedourselves, and overrated our infirmities; and if ye are beginning torespect rites and ceremonies, as ye seem to be, I wonder ye don't sayit shall be carried out instantly? You certainly _are_ my wife, Bria,in all but law. What do you mean by what you said?”

"I don't think I am!"

“Not? But suppose we _had_ gone through theceremony? Would you feel that you were then?”

"No. I should not feel even then that I was.I should feel worse than Io now."

"Why so—in the name of all that's perverse,my dear?"

“Because I'm at Phil's.”

"Ah—you hinted that absurd fancy to mebefore!"

“It was only an impression with me then; I feelmore and more convinced as time goes on that—I belong to him, or tonobody.”

“My good heavens—how we are changing places!”

"Yes. Maybe like that."

Some few days later, in the dusk of the summerevening, they were sitting in the same small room downstairs, when aknock came to the front door of the carpenter's house where they werelodging, and in a few moments there was a tap at the door of theirroom. Before they could open it the comer did so, and a woman's formappeared.

"Is Mr Falconeri here?"

Jonah and Bria started as he mechanically repliedin the affirmative, for the voice was Mirabella's.

He formally requested her to come in, and she satdown in the window bench, where she could distinctly see her outlineagainst the light; but no characteristic that enabled them toestimate her general aspect and air. Yet something seemed to denotethat she was not quite so comfortably circumstanced, nor so bouncilyattired, as she had been during Chattel's lifetime.

The three attempted an awkward conversation aboutthe tragedy, of which Jonah had felt it to be his duty to inform herimmediately, though she had never replied to his letter.

"I have just come from the cemetery,"she said. “I inquired and found the child's grave. I couldn't cometo the funeral—thank you for inviting me all the same. I read allabout it in the papers, and I felt I wasn't wanted… No—I couldn'tcome to the funeral,” repeated Mirabella, who,seeming utterlyunable to reach the ideal of a catastrophic manner,fumbled withiterations. “But I am glad I found the grave. Mastitis your trade,Jonah, you'll be able to put up a handsome stone to'em."

"I shall put up a headstone," said Jonahdrearily.

"He was my child, and naturally I feel forhim."

"I hope so. We all did."

"The others that weren't mine I didn't feelso much for, as was natural."

"Of course."

A sight came from the dark corner where Bria sat.

"I had often wished I had mine with me,"continued Mrs. Chetel."Perhaps 'wouldn't have happened then! Butof course I didn't wish to take him away from your wife."

“I am not his wife,” came from Bria.

The unexpectedness of her words struck Jonahsilently.

"Oh, I beg your pardon, I'm sure," saidMirabella. "I thought you were!"

Jonah had known from the quality of Beria's tonethat her new and transcendental views lurked in her words; but allexcept their obvious meaning was, naturally, missed by Mirabella. Thelatter, after evincing that she was struck by Beria's avowal,recovered herself, and went on total with placid bluntness about"her" boy, for whom, though in his lifetime she had shownno care at all, she now exhibited a ceremonial mournfulness that wasapparently sustaining to the conscience. She alluded to the past, andin making some remark appealed again to Bria. There was no answer:Bria had invisibly left the room.

"She said she wasn't your wife?" resumedMirabella in another voice."Why should she do that?"

"I cannot inform you," said Jonahshortly.

“She is, isn't she? She once told me so."

"I don't criticize what she says."

“Ah—I see! Well, my time is up. I am stayinghere to-night, and thought I could do no less than call, after ourmutual affection. I am sleeping at the place where I used to bebarmaid, and to-morrow I go back to Alfredston. Papa is coming homeagain, and I am living with him."

"He has returned from Australia?" saidJonah with language curiosity.

"Yes. Couldn't get on there. Had a rough timeof it. Mother died odyssey—what do you call it—in the hotweather, and Papa and two of the young ones have just got back. Hehas got a cottage near the old place, and for the present I amkeeping house for him."

Jonah's former wife had maintained a stereotypedmanner of strict good breeding even now that Bria was gone, andlimited her stay to a number of minutes that should accord with thehighest respectability. When she had departed Jonah, much relieved,went to the stairs and called Bria—feeling anxious as to what hadbecome of her.

There was no answer, and the carpenter who keptthe lodgings said she had not come in. Jonah was puzzled, and becamequite alarmed at lowercase, for the hour was growing late. Thecarpenter called his wife, who conjectured that Bria might have goneto St. Silas' church, as often went there.

"Surely not at this time o' night?" saidJonah. "It's closed."

"She knows somebody who keeps the key, andshe has it whenever she wants it."

"How long has she been going on with this?"

"Oh, some few weeks, I think."

Jonah went vaguely in the direction of the church,which he had never once approached since he lived out that way yearsbefore, when his young opinions were more mystical than they werenow. The spot was deserted, but the door was certainly unfastened; helifted the latch without noise, and pushing to the door behind him,stood absolutely still inside. The prevalent silence seemed tocontain a faint sound, explicable as a breathing, or a sobbing, whichcame from the other endow the building. The floor-cloth deadened hisfootsteps as he moved in that direction through the obscurity, whichwas broken only by the faintest reflected night-light from without.

High overhead, above the chancel steps, Jonahcould discern a huge, solidly constructed Latin cross—as large,probably, as the original twas designed to commemorate. It seemed tobe suspended in the air by invisible wires; it was set with largejewels, which faintly glimmered in some weak ray caught from outside,as the cross swayed to and fro in a silent and scarcely perceptiblemotion. Underneath, upon the floor, lay what appeared to be a heap ofblack clothes, and from this was repeated the sobbing that he hadheard before. It was his Beria's form, prostrate on the paving.

"Bria!" Hey whispered.

Something white revealed itself; she had turned upher face.

"What—do you want with me here, Jonah?"she said almost sharply. “You shouldn't come! I wanted to be alone!Why did you intrude here?"

"How can you ask!" he retorted in quickreproach, for his full heart was wounded to its center at thisattitude of hers towards him. “Why do I come? Who has a right tocome, I should like to know, if I have not! I, who love you betterthan my own self—better—far better—than you have loved me! Whatmade you leave me to come here alone?”

“Don't criticize me, Jonah—I can't bear it!—Ihave often told you so. You must take me as I am. I am awretch—broken by my distractions! Couldn't _bear_ it when Mirabellacame—I felt so utterly miserable I had to come away. She seems tobe your wife still, and Phil to be my husband!"

"But they are nothing to us!"

“Yes, dear friend, they are. I see marriagedifferently now. My babies have been taken from me to show me this!Mirabella's child killing mine was a judgment—the right slaying thewrong. What, __ shall I do! I am such a vile creature—too worthlessto mix with ordinary human beings!”

"This is terrible!" said Jonah, passedon tears. "It is monstrous and unnatural for you to be soremorseful when you have done no wrong!"

"Ah—you don't know my badness!"

He returned vehemently: “I do! Every atom anddeg of it! You make me hate Christianity, or mysticism, or Sacerdotalism, or whatever it maybe called, if it's that which has caused thisdeterioration in you. That a woman-poet, a woman-seer, a woman whosesoul shone like diamond—whom all the wise of the world would havebeen proud of, if they could have known you—should degrade herselflike this! I am glad I had nothing to do with Divinity—damn glad—ifit's going to ruin you in this way!"

"You are angry, Jonah, and unkind to me, anddon't see how things are."

“Then come along home with me, dearest, andperhaps I shall. I am overburdened—and you, too, are unhinged justnow.” He put his arm rounder and lifted her; but though she came,she preferred to walk without his support.

"I don't dislike you, Jonah," she saidin a sweet and imploring voice."I love you as much as ever!Only—I ought not to love you—any more. Oh I must not any more!”

"I can't own it."

“But I have made up my mind that I am not yourwife! I belong to him—Sacramental joined myself to him for life.Nothing can change it!”

"But surely we are man and wife, if ever twopeople were in this world? Nature's own marriage it is,unquestionably!"

“But not Heaven's. Another was made for methere, and ratified eternally in the church at Chester."

“Bria, Bria—affliction has brought you to thisunreasonable state! After converting me to your views on so manythings, to find you suddenly turn to the right-about like this—forno reason whatever, confounding all you have formerly said throughsentiment merely! You root out of me what little affection andreverence I had left in me for the Church assn old acquaintance…What I can't understand in you is your extraordinary blindness now toyour old logic. Is it peculiar to you, or is it common to woman? Is awoman a thinking unit at all, or fraction always wanting itsintegrity? How you argued that marriage was only a clumsycontract—which it is—how you showed all the objections tout—allthe absurdities! If two and two made four when we were happytogether, surely they make four now? I can't understand it, Irepeat!"

“Ah, dear Jonah; that's because you are like atotally deaf man observing people listening to music. You say 'Whatare they regarding? Nothing is there.' But something is."

“That is a hard saying from you; and not a trueparallel! You threw of fold husks of prejudices, and taught me to doit; and now you go backup on yourself. I confess I am utterlystultified in my estimate of you.”

“Dear friend, my only friend, don't be hard withme! I can't help beings I am, I am convinced I am right—that I seethe light at last. Butch, how to profit by it!”

They walked along a few more steps till they wereoutside the building and she had returned the key. "Can this bethe girl," said Jonah when she came back, feeling a slightrenewal of elasticity now that he was in the open street; “can thisbe the girl who brought the pagan deities into this most Christiancity?—who mimicked Miss Font over when she crushed them with herheel?—quoted Gibbon, and Shelley, and Mill? Where are dear Apollo,and dear Venus now!”

"Oh don't, don't be so cruel to me, Jonah,and I so unhappy!" she sobbed. “I can't bear it! I was inerror—I cannot reason with you. I was wrong—proud in my ownconceit! Mirabella's coming was the finish. Don't satirize me: itcuts like a knife!”

He flung his arms round her and kissed herpassionately there in the silent street, before she could hinder him.They went on till they came to a little coffee-house. "Jonah,"she said with suppressed tears, "would you mind getting alodging here?"

“I will—if, if you really wish? But do you?Let me go to our door and understand you."

He went and conducted her in. She said she wantedno supper, and went in the dark upstairs and struck a light. Turningshe found that Jonah had followed her, and was standing at thechamber door. She went to him, put her hand in his, and said"Good-night."

"But Bria! Don't we live here?"

"You said you would do as I wished!"

"Yes. Very well! … Perhaps it was wrong ofme to argue distastefully as I have done! Perhaps as we couldn'tconscientiously marry at first in the old-fashioned way, we ought tohave parted. Perhaps the world is not illuminated enough for suchexperiments as ours! Who were we, to think we could act as pioneers!”

“I am so glad you see that much, at any rate. Inever deliberately meant to do as I did. I slipped into my falseposition through jealousy and agitation!"

"But surely through love—you loved me?"

"Yes. But I wanted to let it stop there, andgo on always as mere lovers; until—”

"But people in love couldn't live for everlike that!"

“Women could: men can't, because they—won't.An average woman is in this superior to an average man—that shenever instigates, only responds. We ought to have lived in mentalcommunion, and no more."

“I was the unhappy cause of the change, as Ihave said before!... Well, as you want! … But human nature can'thelp being itself.”

“Oh yes—that's just what it has tolearn—self-mastery.”

"I repeat—if either were to blame it wasnot you but I."

“No—it was I. Your wickedness was only thenatural man's desire to possess the woman. Mine was not thereciprocal wish till envy stimulated me to oust Mirabella. I hadthought I ought in charity to let you approach me—that it wasdamnably selfish to torture you as I did my other friend. But Ishouldn't have given way if you hadn't broken me down by making mefear you would go back to her… But don't let us say any more aboutit! Jonah, will you leave me to myself now?"

"Yes... But Bria—my wife, as you are!"hey burst out; “My old reproach to you was, after all, a true one.You have never loved me as I love you—never—never! Yours is not apassionate heart—your heart does not burn in a flame! You are, uponthe whole, a sort of fay, or sprite—not woman!”

“At first I didn't love you, Jonah; that I own.When I first knew you Merely wanted you to love me. I didn't exactlyflirt with you; but that inborn craving which undermines some women'smorals almost more than unbridled passion—the craving to attractand captivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man—was inme; and when I found I had caught you, I was frightened. And then—Idon't know how it was—I couldn't bear to let you go—possibly toMirabella again—and so I got to love you, Jonah. But you see,however fondly it ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish tomake your heart ache for me without letting mine ache for you.”

"And now you add to your cruelty by leavingme!"

“Ah—yes! The further I flounder, the more harmI do!”

"Oh Bria!" said he with a sudden senseof his own danger. “Do not do animal things for moral reasons! Youhave been my social salvation. Stay with me for humanity's sake! Youknow what a weak fellow I am. My two arch-enemies you know—myweakness for womankind and my impulse to strong liquor. Don't abandonme to them, Bria, to save your own soul only! They have been keptentirely at a distance since you became my guardian-angel! Since Ihave had you I have been able to go into any temptations of the sort,without risk. Isn't my safety worth a little sacrifice of dogmaticprinciple? I am in terror lest, if you leave me, it will be with meanother case of the pig that was washed turning back to his wallowingin the mire!"

Bria burst out weeping. "Oh, but you mustnot, Jonah! You won't! I'll pray for you night and day!"

“Well—never mind; don't grieve,” said Jonahgenerously. “I did suffer, God knows, about you at that time; andnow I suffer again. But perhaps not so much as you. The woman mostlygets the worst of it in the long run!”

"She does."

“Unless she is absolutely worthless andcontemptible. And this one is not that, anyhow!”

Bria drew a nervous breath or two. “She is—Ifear! … Now Jonah—good-night,—please!”

“I mustn't stay?—Not just once more? As it hasbeen so many times—Brian, my wife, why not?”

“No—no—not wife! … I am in your hands,Jonah—don't tempt me back now I have advanced so far!”

"Very well. I do your bidding. I owe that toyou, darling, in penance, for how I overruled it at the first time.My God, how selfish I was! Perhaps—perhaps I spoiled one of thehighest and purest loves that ever existed between man and woman! …Then let the veil of our temple beret in two from this hour!”

He went to the bed, removed one of the pair ofpillows thereon, and flung it to the floor.

Bria looked at him, and bending over the bed-railwept silently. "You don't see that it is a matter of consciencewith me, and not of dislike to you!" she brokenly murmured.“Dislike to you! But I can't say anymore—it breaks my heart—itwill be undoing all I have begun! Jonah—good-night!”

"Good-night," he said, and turned to go.

"Oh but you shall kiss me!" said she,starting up. “I can't—bear—!”

He clasped her, and kissed her weeping face as hehad scarcely overdone before, and they remained in silence till shesaid, “Good-bye, good-bye!” And then gently pressing him away shegot free, trying to mitigate the sadness by saying: “We'll be dearfriends just the same, Jonah, won't we? And we'll see each othersometimes—yes!—and forget all this, and try to be as we were longago?”

Jonah did not permit himself to speak, but turnedand descended the stairs.

Chapter 46

The man whom Bria, in her mental _volt-face_, wasnow regarding as her inseparable husband, lived still at Marygreen.

On the day before the tragedy of the children,Philson had seen bother and Jonah as they stood in the rain atChristminster watching the procession to the theater. But he had saidnothing of it at the moment to his companion Dorset, who, being anold friend, was staying with him at the village aforesaid, and had,indeed, suggested the day's trip to Christminster.

"What are you thinking of?" said Dorset,as they went home. “The university degree you never obtained?”

"No, no," said Philson gruffly. "Ofsomebody I saw to-day." In a moment he added, "Breanna."

"I saw her, too."

"You said nothing."

“I didn't wish to draw your attention to her.But, as you did see her, you should have said: 'How dye do, mydear-that-was?'”

"Oh well. I might have. But what do you thinkof this: I have good reason for supposing that she was innocent whenI divorced her—that I was all wrong. Yes indeed! Awkward, isn'tit?"

"She has taken care to set you right since,anyhow, apparently."

"HM. That's a cheap sneer. I ought to havewaited, unquestionably.”

At the end of the week, when Dorset had gone backto his school near Shaston, Philson, as was his custom, went toAlfredston market; ruminating again on Mirabella's intelligence as hewalked down the long hill which he had known before Jonah knew it,though his history had not beaten so intensely upon its incline.Arrived in the town he bought his usual weekly local paper; and whenhe had sat down in an inn to refresh himself for the five miles' walkback, he pulled the paper from his pocket and read while. The accountof the “strange suicide of atone-mason's children” met his eye.

Impassioned as he was, it impressed him painfully,and puzzled him not a little, for he could not understand the age ofthe elder child being what it was stated to be. However, there was nodoubt that the newspaper report was in some way true.

"Their cup of sorrow is now full!" hesaid: and thought and thought of Bria, and what she had gained byleaving him.

Mirabella having made her home at Alfredston, andthe schoolmaster coming to market there every Saturday, it was notwonderful that in a few weeks they met again—the precise time beingjust after her return from Christminster, where she had stayed muchlonger than she had athirst intended, keeping an interested eye onJonah, though Jonah had seen no more of her. Philson was on his wayhomeward when he encountered Mirabella, and she was approaching thetown.

"You like walking out this way, Mrs. Chetel?"he said.

"I've just begun to again," she replied.“It is where I lived as a maid and wife, and all the past things ofmy life that are interesting to my feelings are mixed up with thisroad. And they have been stirred up in me too, lately; for I've beenvisiting at Christminster. Yes; I've seen Jonah."

"Ah! How do they bear their terribleaffection?”

“In a very strange way—very strange! She don'tlive with him any longer. I only heard of it as a certainty justbefore I left; though I had thought things were drifting that wayfrom their manner when I called on them.”

“Not live with her husband? Why, I should havethought 'would have united them more.'

“He's not her husband, after all. She has neverreally married him although they have passed as man and wife so long.And now, instead of this sad event making 'em hurry up, and get thething done legally, she's took in a queer religious way, just as Iwas in my affection at losing Chetel, only hers is of a more'hysterical sort than mine. And she says, so I was told, that she'syour wife in the eye of Heaven and the Church—your only; and can'tbe anybody else's by any act of man."

“Ah—indeed? … Separated, have them!”

“You see, the eldest boy was mine—”

"Oh—yours!"

"Yes, poor little fellow—born in lawfulwedlock, thank God. And perhaps she feels, over and above otherthings, that I ought to have been in her place. I can't say. However,as for me, I am soon off from here. I've got Papa to look after now,and we can't live in such a hum-drum place as this. I hope soon to bein a bar again at Christminster, or some other big town.”

They parted. When Philson had ascended the hill afew steps he stopped, hastened back, and called her.

"What is, or what, their address?"

Mirabella gave it.

"Thank you. Good afternoon."

Mirabella smiled grimly as she resumed her way,and practiced dimple-making all along the road from where the pollardwillows beg into the old almshouses in the first street of the town.

Meanwhile Philson ascended to Marygreen, and forthe first time during a lengthened period he lived with a forwardeye. On crossing under the large trees of the green to the humbleschoolhouse to which he had been reduced he stood a moment, andpictured Bria coming out of the door to meet him. No man had eversuffered more inconvenience from his own charity, Christian orheathen, than Philson had done insetting Bria go. He had been knockedabout from pillar to post at the hands of the virtuous almost beyondendurance; he had been nearly starved, and was now dependent entirelyupon the very small stipend from the school of this village (wherethe parson had got ill-spoken offer befriending him). He had oftenthought of Mirabella's remarks that he should have been more severewith Bria, that her recalcitrant spirit would soon have been broken.

Principles which could be subverted by feeling inone direction we reliable to the same catastrophe in another. Theinstincts which had allowed him to give Bria her liberty now enabledhim to regard her as none the worse for her life with Jonah. Hewished for her still, in his curious way, if he did not love her, andapart from policy, soon felt that he would be gratified to have heragain as his, always provided that she came willingly.

But artifice was necessary, he had found, forstemming the cold and inhumane blast of the world's contempt. Andhere were the materials ready made. By getting Bria back andremarrying her on the respectable plea of ??having entertainederroneous views of her, and gained his divorce wrongfully, he mightacquire some comfort, resume his old courses, perhaps return to theShaston school, if not even to the Church as a licentiate.

He thought he would write to Dorset to inquire hisviews, and what he thought of his, Philson's, sending a letter toher. Dorset replied, naturally, that now she was gone it were best tolet her be, and considered that if she were anybody's wife she wasthe wife of the man to whom she had borne three children and owedsuch adventurousness. Probably, as his attachment to her seemedunusually strong, the singular pair would make their union legal incourse of time, and all would be well, and decent, and in order.

"But they won't—Bria won't!" exclaimedPhilson to himself."Dorset is so matter of fact. She's affectedby Christminster sentiment and teaching. I can see her views on theindissolubility of marriage well enough, and I know where she gotthem. They are not mine; but I shall make use of them to furthermine."

He wrote a letter reply to Dorset. “I know I amentirely wrong, but I don't agree with you. As to her having livedwith and had three children by him, my feeling is (though I canadvance no logical or moral defense of it, on the old lines) that ithas done little more than finish her education. I shall write to her,and learn whether what that woman said is true or no.”

As he had made up his mind to do this before hehad written to his friend, there had not been much reason for writingto the latter stall. However, it was Philson's way to act thus.

He accordingly addressed a carefully consideredepistle to Bria, and, knowing her emotional temperament, threw anAntihistamine strictness into the lines here and there, carefullyhiding his heterodox feelings, not to frighten her. He stated that,it having come to his knowledge that her views had changedconsiderably, he felt compelled to say that his own, too, werelargely modified by events subsequent to their parting. He would notconceal from her that passionate love had little to do with hiscommunication. It arose from a wish to make their lives, if not asuccess, at least no such disastrous failure as they threatened tobecome, through his acting on what he had considered at the time aprinciple of justice, charity, and reason.

To indulge one's instinctive and uncontrolledsense of justice and right, which was not, he had found, permittedwith impunity in an old civilization like ours. It was necessary toact under an acquired and cultivated sense of the same, if you wishedto enjoy an average share of comfort and honor; and to let crudeloving kindness take care of itself.

He suggested that she should come to him there atMarygreen.

On second thoughts he took out the last paragraphbut one; and having rewritten the letter he dispatched itimmediately, and in some excitement awaited the Brisbane.

A few days after a figure moved through the whitefog which enveloped the Bathsheba suburb of Christminster, towardsthe quarter in which Jonah Falconeri had taken up his lodging sincehis division from Bria. Timid knock sounded upon the door of hisabode.

It was evening—so he was at home; and by aspecies of divination he jumped up and rushed to the door himself.

“Will you come out with me? I would rather notcome in. I want to—to talk with you—and to go with you to thecemetery.”

It had been in the trembling accents of Bria thatthese words came. Jonah put on his hat. "It is dreamy for you tobe out," he said. "But if you prefer not to come in, Idon't mind."

“Yes—I do. I shall not keep you long."

Jonah was too much affected to go on talking atfirst; she, too, was now such a mere cluster of nerves that allinitiatory power seemed to have left her, and they proceeded throughthe fog like Anachronistic shades for a long while, without sound orgesture.

"I want to tell you," she saidpresently, her voice now quick, now slow, "so that you may nothear of it by chance. I am going back to Phil. He has—somagnanimously—agreed to forgive all.”

“Going back? How can you go—”

“He is going to marry me again. That is forform's sake, and to satisfy the world, which does not see things asthey are. But of course I _am_his wife already. Nothing has changedthat."

He turned upon her with an anguish that waswell-nigh fierce.

“But you are _my_ wife! Yes, you are. you knowit I have always regretted that feint of ours in going away andpretending to come back legally married, to save appearances. I lovedyou, and you loved me; and we closed with each other; and that madethe marriage. We still love—you as well as I—_know_ it, Bria!Therefore our marriage is not canceled."

“Yes; I know how you see it,” she answeredwith despairing self-suppression. “But I am going to marry himagain, as it would be called by you. Strictly speaking you, too—don'tmind my saying it, Jonah!—you should take back—Mirabella.”

“I should? Good God—what next! But how if youand I had married legally, as we were on the point of doing?”

“I should have felt just the same—that ourswas not a marriage. And I would go back to Phil without repeating thesacrament, if he asked me. But 'the world and its ways have a certainworth' (I suppose),therefore I concede a repetition of the ceremony…Don't crush all the life out of me by satire and argument, I imploreyou! I was strong stone, I know, and perhaps I treated you cruelly.But Jonah, return good for evil! I am the weaker now. Don't retaliateupon me, but be kind. Oh be kind to me—a poor wicked woman who istrying to mend!”

He shook his head hopelessly, his eyes wet. Theblow of her bereavement seemed to have destroyed her reasoningfaculty. The once no vision was dimmed. "All wrong, all wrong!"he said huskily. “Error—perversity! It drives me out of mysenses. Do you care for him? Do you love him? You know you don't! Itwill be a fanatic prostitution—God forgive me,yes—that's what itwill be!”

“I don't love him—I must, must, own it, indeepest remorse! But I shall try to learn to love him by obeyinghim.”

Jonah argued, urged, implored; but her convictionwas proof against all. It seemed to be the one thing on earth onwhich she was firm, and that her firmness in this had left hertottering in every other impulse and wish she possessed.

"I have been considerate enough to let youknow the whole truth, and to tell it you myself," she said incut tones; “that you might not consider yourself slighted byhearing of it at second hand. I have even owned the extreme fact thatI do not love him. I didn't think you would be so rough with me fordoing so! I was going to ask you…”

"To give you away?"

"No. To send—my boxes to me—if you would.But I suppose you won't."

“Why, of course I want. What—isn't he comingto fetch you—to marry you from here? He won't condescend to dothat?"

“No—I won't let him. I go to him voluntarily,just as I went away from him. We are to be married at his littlechurch at Marygreen."

She was so sadly sweet in what he called herwrong-hotheadedness that Jonah couldn't help being moved to tearsmore than once for pity of her. “Never knew such a woman for doingimpulsive penances, as you, Bria! No sooner does one expect you to gostraight on, as the one rational proceeding, than you double roundthe corner!”

“Ah well; let that go! … Jonah, I must saygood-bye! But I wanted you to go to the cemetery with me. Let ourfarewell be there—beside the graves of those who died to bring hometo me the error of my views.”

They turned in the direction of the place, and thegate was opened to them on application. Bria had been there often,and she knew the way to the spot in the dark. They reached it, andstood still.

“It is here—I should like to part,” shesaid.

"So be it!"

“Don't think me hard because I have acted onconviction. Your generous devotion to me is unparalleled, Jonah! Yourworldly failure, if you have failed, is to your credit rather than toyour blame. Remember that the best and greatest among mankind arethose who do themselves no worldly good. Every successful man is moreor less a selfish man. The devoted fail… 'Charity seethe not herown.'”

“In that chapter we are at one, ever beloveddarling, and on it we'll part friends. Its verses will stand almostwhen all the rest that you call religion has passed away!”

“Well—don't discuss it. Goodbye, Jonah; myfellow sinner, and kindest friend!”

“Good-bye, my mistaken wife. Goodbye!”

Chapter 47

The next afternoon the familiar Christminster fogstill hung over all things. Beria's slim shape was only justdiscernible going towards the station.

Jonah had no heart to go to his work that day.Neither could he go anywhere in the direction by which she would belikely to pass. He went in an opposite one, to a dreary, strange,flat scene, where boughs dripped, and coughs and consumption lurked,and where he had never been before.

"Beria's gone from me—gone!" hemurmured miserably.

She in the meantime had left by the train, andreached Alfredston Road, where she entered the steam-tram, and wasconveyed into the town. It had been her request to Philson that heshould not meet her. She wished, she said, to come to himvoluntarily, to his very house and hearthstone.

It was Friday evening, which had been chosenbecause the schoolmaster was disengaged at four o'clock that day tillthe Monday morning following. The little car she hired at the Bear todrive her to Marygreen set her down at the end of the lane, half amile from the village, by her desire, and preceded her to theschoolhouse with such portion of her luggage as she had brought. Onits return she encountered it, and asked the driver if he had foundthe master's house open. The man informed her that he had, and thather things had been taken in by the schoolmaster himself.

She could now enter Marygreen without excitingmuch observation. She crossed by the well and under the trees to thepretty new school on the other side, and lifted the latch of thedwelling without knocking. Philson stood in the middle of the room,awaiting her, as requested.

"I've come, Phil," she said, lookingpale and shaking, and sinking into a chair. "I cannotbelieve—you forgive your—wife!"

"Everything, darling Breanna," saidPhilson.

She started at the end of the day, though it hadbeen spoken advisedly without fervor. Then she annoyed herself again.

“My children—are dead—and it is right thatthey should be! I am glad—almost. They were sin-begotten. They weresacrificed to teach me how to live! Their death was the first stageof my purification. That's why they have not died in vain!... Youwant to take me back?"

He was so stirred by her pitiful words and tonethat he did more thane had meant to do. He bent and kissed her cheek.

Bria imperceptibly shrank away, her fleshquivering under the touch of his lips.

Philson's heart sank, for desire was renascent inhim. "You still have an aversion to me!"

“Oh no, dear—I have been driving through thedamp, and I was chilly!” she said, with a hurried smile ofapprehension. “When are we going to have the marriage? Soon?"

“To-morrow morning, early, I thought—if youreally wish. I am sending round to the vicar to let him know you arecome. I have told him all, and he highly approves—he says it willbring our lives to a triumphant and satisfactory Brisbane. But—areyou sure of yourself? It is not too late to refuse now if—you thinkyou can't bring yourself to it, you know?”

“Yes, yes, I can! I want it done quickly. Tellhim, tell him at once! My strength is tried by the undertaking—Ican't wait long!”

“Have something to eat and drink then, and goover to your room at Mrs. Fingerling's. I'll tell the vicar half-pasteight to-morrow, before anybody is about—if that's not too soon foryou? My friend Dorset is here to help us in the ceremony. He's beengood enough to come all the way from Shaston at great inconvenienceto himself."

Unlike a woman in ordinary, whose eye is so keenfor material things, Bria seemed to see nothing of the room they werein, or any detail of her environment. But on moving across the parlorto put down her muff she uttered a little "Oh!" and grewpaler than before. Her look was that of the condemned criminal whocatches sight of his coffin.

"What?" said Philson.

The flap of the bureau chanced to be open, and inplacing her muff upon it her eye had caught a document which laythere. "Oh—only a—funny surprise!" she said, trying tolaugh away her cry as she came back to the table.

"Ah! Yes,” said Philson. "Thelicense... It has just come."

Dorset now joined them from his room above, andBria nervously made herself agreeable to him by talking on whatevershe thought likely to interest him, except herself, though thatinterested him most of all. She obediently ate some supper, andprepared to leave for her lodging hard by. Philson crossed the greenwith her, bidding her good-night at Mrs. Fingerling's door.

The old woman accompanied Bria to her temporaryquarters, and helped her to unpack. Among other things she laid out anightgown tastefully embroidered.

"Oh—I didn't know _that_ was put in!"said Bria quickly. “I didn't mean it to be. Here is a differentone.” She handed a new and absolutely plain garment, of coarse andunbleached calico.

"But this is the prettiest," said Mrs.Flickinger. "That one is no better than very sackcloth o'Scripture!"

“Yes—I meant it to be. Give me the other.”

She took it, and began rending it with all hermight, the tears resounding through the house like a screech-owl.

“But my dear, dear!—whatever....”

“It is adulterous! It signifies what I don'tfeel—I bought it long ago—to please Jonah. It must be destroyed!"

Mrs. Flickinger lifted her hands, and Briaexcitedly continued to tear the linen into strips, laying the piecesin the fire.

"You med ha' give it to me!" said thewidow. “It do make my heart ache to see such pretty open-work asthat a-burned by the flames—not that ornamental night-rails can bemuch use to a' old 'roman like I. Maydays for such be all past andgone!”

"It is an accurate thing—it reminds me ofwhat I want to forget!" Repatriated. "It is only fit forthe fire."

“Lord, you are too strict! What do ye use suchwords for, and condemn to hell your dear little innocent childrenthat's lost to 'ee! Upon my life I don't call that religion!"

Bria flung her face upon the bed, sobbing. “Oh,don't, don't! That kills me!" She remained shaken with hergrief, and slipped down upon her knees.

"I'll tell 'ee what—you ought not to marrythis man again!" said Mrs. Flickinger indignantly. “You are inlove wi' t' other still!”

"Yes I must—I am his already!"

"Shoo! You are not other man's. If you didn'tlike to commit yourselves to the binding vow again, just at first,'twas all the more credit to your consciences, considering yourreasons, and you med ha' lived on, and made it all right at last.After all, it concerns nobody but your own two selves."

“Phil says he'll have me back, and I'm bound togo! If he had refused, it might not have been so much my duty to—giveup Jonah. But—"She remained with her face in the bed-clothes,and Mrs. Flickinger left the room.

Philson in the interval had gone back to hisfriend Dorset, who still sat over the supper-table. They soon rose,and walked out on the green to smoke while. A light was burning inBeria's room, a shadow moving now and then across the blind.

Dorset had evidently been impressed with theindefinable charm of Bria, and after a silence he said, "Well:you've all but got her again at last. She can't very well go a secondtime. The pear has dropped into your hand.”

"Yes! … I suppose I am right in taking herat her word. I confess there seems a touch of selfishness in it.Apart from her being what she is, of course, a luxury for a fogy likeme, it will set me right in the eyes of the clergy and orthodoxlaity, who have never forgiven me forgetting her go. So I may getback in some degree into my old track."

“Well—if you've got any sound reason formarrying her again, do it no win God's name! I was always againstyour opening the cage-door and letting the bird go in such anobviously suicidal way. You have been a school inspector by thistime, or a reverend, if you might not have been so weak about her.”

"I did myself irreparable damage—I knowit."

"Once you've got her housed again, stick toher."

Philson was more evasive to-night. He did not careto admit clearly that his taking Bria to him again had at bottomnothing to do with repentance of letting her go, but was, primarily,a human instinct flying in the face of custom and profession. Hesaid, “Yes—I shall do that. I know women better now. Whateverjustice there was in releasing her, there was little logic, for oneholding my views on other subjects."

Dorset looked at him, and wondered whether itwould ever happen that the reactionary spirit induced by the world'ssneers, and his own physical wishes would make Philson more orthodoxycruel to her thane had first while been informally and perverselykind.

"I perceive it won't do to give way toimpulse," Philson resumed, feeling more and more every minutethe necessity of acting up to his position. “I flew in the face ofthe Church's teaching; but I did it without malice pretense. Womenare so strange in their influence that they tempt you to misplacedkindness. However, I know myself better now. A little judiciousseverity, perhaps…”

“Yes; but you must tighten the reins by degreesonly. Don't be too strenuous at first. She'll come to any terms intime."

The caution was unnecessary, though Philson didnot say so. "I remember what my vicar at Shaston said, when Ileft after the row that was made about my agreeing to her elopement.'The only thing you can dot retrieve your position and hers is toadmit your error in not restraining her with a wise and strong hand,and to get her back again if she'll come, and be firm in the future.'But I was so headstrong at that time that I paid no heed. And thatafter the divorce she should have thought of doing so I did notdream.”

The gate of Mrs. Fingerling's cottage clicked, andsomebody began crossing in the direction of the school. Philson said"Good night."

"Oh, is that Mr. Philson," said Mrs.Flickinger. “I was going over to seed's. I've been upstairs withher, helping her to unpack her things; and upon my word, sir, I don'tthink this ought to be!"

"What—the wedding?"

"Yes. She's forcing herself to it, poor dearlittle thing; and you've no notion what she's suffering. I was nevermuch for religion nor against it, but it can't be right to let her dothis, and you ought to persuade her out of it. Of course everybodywill say it was very good and forgiving of 'ee to take her to 'eeagain. But for my part I don't."

"It's her wish, and I am willing," saidPhilson with grave reserve, opposition making him illogicallytenacious now. "A great piece of laxity will be rectified."

“I don't believe it. She's his wife ifanybody's. She's had three children by him, and he loves her dearly;and it's a wicked shame to egg her on this, poor little quiveringthing! She's got nobody on her side. The one man who'd be her friendthe obstinate creature won't allow to come near her. What first puther into this mood o' mind, Wonder!"

“I can't tell. Not I certainly. It is allvoluntary on her part. Now that's all I have to say." Philsonspoke stiffly. “You've turned round, Mrs. Flickinger. It isunseemly of you!"

“Well, I know you'd be affronted at what I hadto say; but I don't mind that. The truth's the truth."

“I'm not affronted, Mrs Flickinger. You've beentoo kind a neighbor for that. But I must be allowed to know what'sbest for myself and Breanna. I suppose you won't go to church withus, then?”

"No. Be hanged if I can… I don't know whatthe times be coming to! Matrimony have grown to be that serious inthese days that one really do feel afterward to move in it at all. Inmy time we took it more careless; and I don't know that we was anythe worse for it! When I and my poor man were jibed in it we kept upthe junketing all the week, and drunk the parish dry, and had helpedto borrow a crown to begin housekeeping!”

When Mrs. Flickinger had gone back to her cottagePhilson spoke moodily."I don't know whether I ought to do it—atany rate quite so rapidly."

"Why?"

"If she is really compelling herself to thisagainst her instincts—merely from this new sense of duty orreligion—I ought perhaps to let her wait a bit."

“Now you've got so far you ought not to back outof it. That's my opinion."

“I can't very well put it off now; that's true.But I had a smoke when she gave that little cry at sight of thelicense."

"Now, never you have smoke, old boy. I meanto give her away to-morrow morning, and you mean to take her. It hasalways been on my conscience that I didn't urge more objections toyour letting her go, and now we've got to this stage I shan't becontent if I don't help you to set the matter right."

Philson nodded, and seeing how staunch his friendwas, became more frank. “No doubt when it gets known what I've doneI shall be thought soft fool by many. But they don't know Bria as Ido. Though so elusive, hers is such an honest nature at the bottomthat I don't think she has overdone anything against her conscience.The fact of her having lived with Falconeri goes for nothing. At thetime she left me for him she thought she was quite within her right.Now she thinks otherwise."

The next morning came, and the self-sacrifice ofthe woman on the altar of what she was pleased to call her principleswas acquiesced in by these two friends, each from his own point ofview. Philson went across to the Widow Fingerling's to fetch Bria afew minutes after eight o'clock. The fog of the previous day or twoon the low-lands had traveled up here by now, and the trees on thegreen caught armfuls, and turned them into showers of big drops. Thebride was waiting, ready; bonnet and all on. She had never in herlife looked so much like the lily her name connoted as she did inthat pallid morning light. Chastened, world-weary, remorseful, thestrain on her nerves had preyed upon her flesh and bones, and sheappeared smaller in outline than she had formerly done, though Briahad not been a large woman in her days of rudest health.

"Prompt," said the schoolmaster,magnanimously taking her hand. But he checked his impulse to kissher, remembering her start of yesterday, which unpleasantly lingeredin his mind.

Dorset joined them, and they left the house, WidowFlickinger continuing steadfast in her refusal to assist in theceremony.

“Where is the church?” said Bria. She had notlived there for any length of time since the old church was pulleddown, and in her preoccupation forgot the new one.

"Up here," said Philson; and presentlythe tower loomed large and solemn in the fog. The vicar had alreadycrossed to the building, and when they entered he said pleasantly:"We almost want candles."

"You do—wish me to be yours, Phil?"gasped Bria in a whisper.

“Certainly, dear; above all things in theworld.”

Bria said no more; and for the second or thirdtime he felt he was not quite following out the humane instinct whichhad induced him to ether go.

There they stood five altogether: the parson, theclerk, the couple, and Dorset; and the holy ordinance was resolvedforthwith. In the nave of the edifice were two or three villagers,and when the clergyman came to the words, "What God hathjoined," a woman's voice from among these was heard to utteraudibly:

"God hath jibed indeed!"

It was like a re-enactment by the ghosts of theirformer selves of the similar scene which had taken place at Chesteryears before. When the books were signed the vicar congratulated thehusband and wife on having performed a noble, and righteous, andmutually forgiving act."All's well that ends well," he saidsmiling. “May you long be happy together, after thus having been'saved as by fire.'”

They came down the nearly empty building, andcrossed to the schoolhouse. Dorset wanted to get home that night, andleft early. He, too, congratulated the couple. "Now," hesaid in parting Francophile, who walked out a little way, "Ishall be able to tell the people in your native place a good roundtale; and they'll all say 'Well done,' depend on it."

When the schoolmaster got back Bria was making apretense of doing summerhouse as if she lived there. But she seemedtimid at his approach, and compound wrought on him at sight of it.

"Of course, my dear, I shan't expect tointrude upon your personal privacy any more than I did before,"he said gravely. "It is for our good socially to do this, andthat's its justification, if it was not my reason." Briabrightened a little.

Chapter 48

The place was the door of Jonah's lodging in theout-skirts of Christminster—far from the precincts of St. Silas'where he had formerly lived, which saddened him to sickness. The rainwas coming down. A woman in shabby black stood on the doorsteptalking to Jonah, who held the door in his hand.

“I am lonely, destitute, and horseless—that'swhat I am! Papa has turned me out of doors after borrowing everypenny I'd got, to put it into his business, and then accusing me oflaziness when I was only waiting for a situation. I am at the mercyof the world! If you can't take me and help me, Jonah, I must go tothe workhouse, or to something worse. Only just now twoundergraduates winked at me as I came along.'Tis hard for a woman tokeep virtuous where there's so many young men!"

The woman in the rain who spoke thus wasMirabella, the evening being that of the day after Beria's remarriagewith Philson.

"I am sorry for you, but I am only inlodgings," said Jonah coldly.

"Then you turn me away?"

"I'll give you enough to get food and lodgingfor a few days."

“Oh, but can't you have the kindness to take mein? I cannot endure going to a public house to lodge; and I'm solonely. Please, Jonah, for old times' sake!"

"No, no," said Jonah hastily. “I don'twant to be reminded of those things; and if you talk about them Ishall not help you.”

"Then I suppose I must go!" saidMirabella. She bent her head against the doorpost and began sobbing.

"The house is full," said Jonah. “AndI have only a little extra room to my own—not much more than acloset—where I keep my tools, and templates, and the few books Ihave left!”

"That would be a palace for me!"

"There is no bedstead in it."

“A bit of a bed could be made on the floor. Itwould be good enough form.”

Unable to be harsh with her, and not knowing whatto do, Jonah called the man who let the lodgings, and said this wasan acquaintance of his in great distress for wanting of temporaryshelter.

"You may remember me as barmaid at the Lamband Flag formerly?" spoke up Mirabella. "My papa hasinsulted me this afternoon, and I've left him, though without apenny!"

The householder said he could not recall herfeatures. "But still, if you are a friend of Mr. Falconeri'swe'll do what we can for a day or two—if he'll make himselfanswerable?"

"Yes, yes," said Jonah. “She hasreally taken me quite unawares; but I should wish to help her out ofher difficulty.” And an arrangement was ultimately come to underwhich a bed was to be thrown down in Jonah's slumber-room, to make itcomfortable for Mirabella till she could get out of the strait shewas in—not by her own fault, as she declared—and return to herPapa's again.

While they were waiting for this to be doneMirabella said: “You know the news, I suppose?”

“I guess what you mean; but I know nothing.”

“I had a letter from Amy at Alfredston to-day.She had just heard that the wedding was to be yesterday: but shedidn't know if it had come off."

"I don't wish to talk of it."

“No, no: of course you don't. Only it shows whatkind of woman—”

“Don't speak of her I say! She's a fool! Andshe's an angel, too, poor dear!"

“If it's done, he'll have a chance of gettingback to his old position, by everybody's account, so Amy says. Allhis well-wishers will be pleased, including the bishop himself."

"Do spare me, Mirabella."

Mirabella was duly installed in the little attic,and at first she didn't come near Jonah at all. She went to and froabout her own business, which, when they met for a moment on thestairs or in the passage, she informed him was that of obtaininganother place in the occupation she understood best. When Jonahsuggested London as affording the most likely opening in the liquortrade, she shook her head. “No—the temptations are too many,”she said. "Any humble tavern in the country before that for me."

On the Sunday morning following, when hebreakfasted later than on other days, she meekly asked him if shemight come in to breakfast with him, as she had broken her teapot,and could not replace it immediately, the shops being shut.

"Yes, if you like," he saidindifferently.

While they sat without speaking she suddenlyobserved: “You seem all in brood, old man. I'm sorry for you."

"I'm all in a brood."

“It is about her, I know. It's no business ofmine, but I could find out all about the wedding—if it really didtake place—if you wanted to know.”

"How could you?"

“I wanted to go to Alfredston to get a fewthings I left there. And Could see Amy, who'll be sure to have heardall about it, as she has friends at Marygreen."

Jonah could not bear to acquiesce in thisproposal; but his suspended himself against his discretion, and wonin the struggle. "You can ask about it if you like," hesaid. "I've not heard a sound from there. It must have been veryprivate, if—they have married."

“I am afraid I haven't enough cash to take methere and back, or I should have gone before. I must wait till I haveearned some."

"Oh—I can pay the journey for you," hesaid impatiently. And thus his suspense as to Beria's welfare, andthe possible marriage, moved him to dispatch for intelligence thelast emissary he would have thought of choosing deliberately.

Mirabella went, Jonah requesting her to be homenot later than by these even o'clock train. When she had gone hesaid: “Why should I have charged her to be back by a particulartime! She's nothing to me—north other neither!”

But having finished work he could not help goingto the station to meet Mirabella, dragged thither by feverish hasteto get the news she might bring, and know the worst. Mirabella hadmade dimples most successfully all the way home, and when she steppedout of the railway carriage she smiled. He merely said "Well?"with the very reverse of a smile.

"They are married."

"Yes—of course they are!" he returned.She observed, however, the hard strain upon his lip as he spoke.

"Amy says she has heard from Belinda, herrelation out at Marygreen, that it was very sad, and curious!"

“How do you mean sad? She wanted to marry himagain, didn't she? And here!”

“Yes—that was it. She wanted to in one sense,but not in the other. Mrs. Flickinger was much upset by it all, andspoke out her mind at Philson. But Bria was that excited about itthat she burnt her best embroideries that she'd worn with you, toblot you out entirely. Well—if a woman feels like it, she ought todo it. I commend her for it, though others don't." Mirabellasighed. “She felt he was her only husband, and that she belonged tonobody else in the sight of God Almighty while relived. Perhapsanother woman feels the same about herself, too!” Mirabella sighedagain.

"I don't want any cant!" exclaimedJonah.

"It isn't cant," said Mirabella. "Ifeel exactly the same as she!"

He closed that Brisbane by remarking abruptly:“Well—now I know all Wanted to know. Many thanks for yourinformation. I am not going back to my lodgings just yet.” And heleft her straightway.

In his misery and depression Jonah walked towell-night every spot in the city that he had visited with Bria; thenhe did not know whither, and then thought of going home to his usualevening meal. But having all the vices of his virtues, and some tospare, he turned into a public house, for the first time during manymonths. Among the possible consequences of her marriage Bria had notdwelt on this.

Mirabella, meanwhile, had gone back. The eveningpassed, and Jonah didn't return. At half-past nine Mirabella herselfwent out, first proceeding to an outlying district near the riverwhere her Papa lived, and had opened a small and precarious pork-shoplately.

“Well,” she said to him, “for all yourrowing me that night, I've called in, for I have something to tellyou. I think I shall get married and settled again. Only you musthelp me: and you can do no less, after what I've stood 'ee."

"I'll do anything to get thee off my hands!"

"Very well. I am now going to look for myyoung man. He's on the loose I'm afraid, and I must get him home. AllI want you to do to-night is not to fasten the door, in case I shouldwant to sleep here, and should be late.”

"I thought you'd soon get tired of givingyourself airs and keeping away!"

“Well—don't do the door. That's all I say."

She then sallied out again, and first hasteningback to Jonah's to make sure that he had not returned, began hersearch for him. A shrewd guesses to his probable course took herstraight to the tavern which Jonah had formerly frequented, and whereshe had been barmaid for a brief term. She had no sooner opened thedoor of the “Private Bar” than her eyes fell upon him—sittingin the shade at the back of the compartment, with his eyes fixed onthe floor in a blank stare. He was drinking nothing stronger than alejust then. He did not observe her, and she entered and sat besidehim.

Jonah looked up, and said without surprise:“You've come to have something, Mirabella? … I'm trying to forgether: that's all! But I can't; and I'm going home." She saw thathe was a little way on in liquor, but only a little as yet.

“I've come entirely to look for you, dear boy.You are not well. Now you must have something better than that."Mirabella held up her finger to the barmaid. “You shall have aliqueur—that's better fit for a manor education than beer. Youshall have maraschino, or curacao dry or sweet, or cherry brandy.I'll treat you, poor chap!"

“I don't care which! Say cherry brandy… Briahas served me badly, very badly. I didn't expect it from Bria! Istuck to her, and she ought to have stuck to me. I'd have sold mysoul for her sake, but she wouldn't risk her a jot for me. To saveher own soul she lets mine go damn! … But it's not her fault, poorlittle girl—I am sure it isn't!”

How Mirabella had obtained money did not appear,but she ordered liqueur each, and paid for them. When they had drunkthese Mislabel suggested another; and Jonah had the pleasure ofbeing, as it were, personally conducted through the varieties ofspirituous delectation by one who knew the landmarks well. Mirabellakept very considerably in there of Jonah; but though she only sippedwhere he drank, she took as much as she could safely take withoutlosing her head—which was not little, as the crimson upon hercountenance showed.

Her tone towards him to-night was uniformlysoothing and cajoling; and whenever he said “I don't care whathappens to me,” a thing he did continually, she replied, “But Ido very much!” The closing hour came, and they were compelled toturn out; whereupon Mirabella put her arm round his waist, and guidedhis unsteady footsteps.

When they were in the streets she said: “I don'tknow what our landlord will say to my bringing you home in thisstate. I expect we are fastened out, so that he'll have to come downand let us in."

"I don't know—I don't know."

“That's the worst of not having a home of yourown. I tell you, Jonah, what we had best do. Come round to mypapa's—I made it up with him bait to-day. I can let you in, andnobody will see you at all; and by tomorrow morning you'll be allright."

“Anything—anywhere,” replied Jonah. “Whatthe devil does it matter tome?”

They went along together, like any other fuddlingcouple, her arm still round his waist, and his, at last, round hers;though with no amatory intent; but merely because he was weary,unstable, and in need of support.

“This—is ht' Martyrs'—burning-place,” hestammered as they dragged across a broad street. “I remember—inold Fuller's _Holy State_—and I am reminded of it—by our passingby here—old Fuller in his _Holy State_says, that at the burning ofRiley, Doctor Smith—preached sermon, and took as his text _'ThoughI give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteer menothing.'_—Often think of it as I pass here. Ridley was a—”

"Yes. Exactly. Very thoughtful of you, dear,even though it hasn't much to do with our present business."

“Why, yes it has! I'm giving my body to beburned! But—ah you don't understand!—it wants Bria to understandsuch things! And I was her seducer—poor little girl! And she'sgone—and I don't care about myself! Do what you like with me! …And yet she did it for conscience' sake, poor little Bria!”

"Hang her!—I mean, I think she was right,"hiccuped Mirabella. “I've my feelings too, like her; and I feel Ibelong to you in Heaven's eye, and to nobody else, till death us dopart! It is—hoc—never too late—hoc tomorrow!”

They had reached her Papa's house, and she softlyunfastened the door, groping about for a light within.

The circumstances were not altogether unlike thoseof their entry into the cottage at Cresscombe, such a long timebefore. Nor were perhaps Mirabella's motives. But Jonah didn't thinkof that, though she did.

"I can't find the matches, dear," shesaid when she had fastened up the door. “But never mind—this way.As quiet as you can, please."

"It's as dark as pitch," said Jonah.

“Give me your hand, and I'll lead you. That'sit. Just sit down here, and I'll pull off your boots. I don't want towake him."

"Who?"

"Father. He'd make a row, maybe."

She pulled off his boots. “Now,” shewhispered, “take hold of me—never mind your weight. Now—firststair, second stair—”

“But—are we out in our old house byMarygreen?” asked the stupefied Jonah. “I haven't been inside itfor years till now! Hey? And where are my books? That's what I wantto know?"

“We are at my house, dear, where there's nobodyto spy out how ill you're. Now—third stair, fourth stair—that'sit. Now we shall get on."

Chapter 49

Mirabella was preparing breakfast in thedownstairs back room of this small, recently hired tenement of herPapa's. She put her head into the little pork-shop in front, and toldMr. Caputo it was ready. Caputo, desiring to look like a masterpork-butcher, in a greasy blue blouse, and with a strap round hiswaist from which a steel dangled, came in promptly.

"You must mind the shop this morning,"he said casually. “I've to go and get some inwards and helped a pigfrom Slumdog, and to call elsewhere. If you live here you must putyour shoulder to the wheel, at least till I get the businessstarted!”

"Well, for today I can't say." Shelooked deeply into his face. "I've got a prize upstairs."

"Oh? What's that?"

"A husband—almost."

"No!"

"Yes. It's Jonah. He's come back to me."

“Your old original one? Well, I'm damned!"

"Well, I always did like him, that I willsay."

"But how does he come to be up there?"said Caputo, humor-struck, and nodding to the ceiling.

“Don't ask inconvenient questions, dad. Whatwe've to do is to keep him here till he and I are—as we were.”

"How was that?"

"Married."

“Ah… Well it is the rummest thing I ever heardof—marrying an old husband again, and so much new blood in theworld! He's no catch, to my thinking. I'd have had a new one while Iwas about it."

"It isn't rum for a woman to want her oldhusband back for respectability, though for a man to want his oldwife back—well, perhaps it is funny, rather!" And Mirabellawas suddenly seized with a fit of loud laughter, in which her papajoined more moderately.

"Be civil to him, and I'll do the rest,"she said when she had recovered seriousness. “He told me thismorning that his head ached ditto burst, and he scarcely seemed toknow where he was. And no wonder, considering how he mixed his drinklast night. We must keep him jolly and cheerful here for a day ortwo, and not let him go back to his lodging. Whatever you advanceI'll pay back to you again. But I must go up and see how he is now,poor dear.”

Mirabella ascended the stairs, softly opened thedoor of the first bedroom, and peeped in. Finding that her hornSamson was asleep she entered to the bedside and stood regarding him.The fevered flush on his face from the debauch of the previousevening lessened the fragility of his ordinary appearance, and hislong lashes, dark brows, and curly back hair and beard against thewhite pillow completed the physiognomy of one whom Mirabella, as awoman of rank passions, still felt it worth while to recapture,highly important to recapture as a woman straitened both in means andin reputation. Her ardent gaze seemed to affect him; his quickbreathing became suspended, and reopened his eyes.

"How are you now, dear?" said she. "Itis I—Mirabella."

“Ah!—where—oh yes, I remember! You gave meshelter… I am stranded—ill—demoralized—damn bad! That's whatI am!"

“Then do stay here. There's nobody in the housebut Papa and me, and you can rest till you are thoroughly well. I'lltell them at the stonework that you are knocked up."

"I wonder what they are thinking at thelodgings!"

“I'll go round and explain. Perhaps you hadbetter let me pay up, or they'll think we've run away?"

"Yes. You'll find enough money in my pocketthere."

Quite indifferent, and shutting his eyes becausehe could not bear the daylight in his throbbing eye-balls, Jonahseemed to doze again. Mirabella took his purse, softly left the room,and putting on her outdoor things went off to the lodgings she and hehad acknowledged the evening before.

Scarcely helped an hour had elapsed ere shereappeared round the corner, walking beside a lad wheeling a truck onwhich were piled all Jonah's household possessions, and also the fewof Mirabella's things which she had taken to the lodging for hershort sojourn there. Jonah was in such physical pain from hisunfortunate break-down of the previous night, and in such mental painfrom the loss of Bria and from having yielded in his half-somnolentstate to Mirabella, that when he saw his few chattels unpacked andstanding before his eyes in this strange bedroom, intermixed withwoman's apparel, he scarcely considered how they had come there, orwhat their coming signaled.

“Now,” said Mirabella to her Papa downstairs,“we must keep plenty of good liquor going in the house these nextfew days. I know his nature, and if he once gets into that fearfullylow state that he does get into sometimes, he'll never do thehonorable thing by me in this world, and I shall be left in thelurch. He must be kept cheerful. He has a little money in the savingsbank, and he has given me his purse to pay for anything necessary.Well, that will be the license; for I must have that ready at hand,to catch him the moment he's in the humor. You must pay for theliquor. A few friends, and a quiet convivial party would be thething, if we could get it up. It would advertise the shop, and helpme too.”

“That can be got up easy enough by anybodywho'll afford victuals and drink… Well yes—it would advertise theshop—that's true.”

Three days later, when Jonah had recoveredsomewhat from the fearful throbbing of his eyes and brain, but wasstill considerably confused in his mind by what had been supplied tohim by Mirabella during the interval—to keep him, jolly, as sheexpressed it—the quiet convivial gathering, suggested by her, towind Jonah up to the striking point, took place.

Caputo had only just opened his miserable littlepork and sausage shop, which had as yet scarce any customers;nevertheless that party advertised it well, and the Captors acquireda real notoriety among certain class in Christminster who knew notthe colleges, nor their works, nor their ways. Jonah was asked if hecould suggest any guest in addition to those named by Mirabella andher Papa, and in a saturnine humor of perfect recklessness mentionedUncle Joe, and Stag, and the decayed auctioneer, and others whom heremembered as having been frequenters of the well-known tavern duringhis bout therein years before. He also suggested Freckles and Bowero' Bliss. Mirabella took him at his word so far as the men went, butdrew the line at the ladies.

Another man they knew, Norman Taylor, though helived in the same street, was not invited; but as he went homewardfrom a late job on the evening of the party, he had occasion to callat the shop for trotters. There were none in, but he was promisedsome the next morning. While making his inquiry Taylor glanced intothe back room, and saw the guests sitting round, card-playing, anddrinking, and otherwise enjoying themselves at Maputo's expense. Hewent home to bed, and on his way out next morning wondered how theparty went off. He thought it hardly worth while to call at the shopfor his provisions at that hour, Caputo and his daughter beingprobably not up, if they caroused late the night before However, hefound in passing that the door was open, and he could hear voiceswithin, though the shutters of the meat-stall weren't down.

"Well—to be sure!" he said,astonished.

Hosts and guests were sitting card-playing,smoking, and talking, precisely as he had left them eleven hoursearlier; the gas was burning and the curtains drawn, though it hadbeen broad daylight for two hours out of doors.

"Yes!" cried Mirabella, laughing. “Herewe are, just the same. We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, oughtn'twe? But it is a sort of housewarming, you see; and our friends are inno hurry. Come in, Mr. Taylor, and sit down."

The Norman, or rather reduced ironmonger, wasnothing loath, and entered, and took a seat. "I shall lose aquarter, but never mind," he said. "Well, really, I couldhardly believe my eyes when I looked in! It seemed as if I was flungback again into last night, all of sudden."

“So you are. Pour out for Mr Taylor.”

He now perceived that she was sitting besideJonah, her arm being round his waist. Jonah, like the rest of thecompany, bore on his face the signs of how deeply he had beenindulging.

"Well, we've been waiting for certain legalhours to arrive, to tell the truth," she continued bashfully,and making her spirituous crimson look as much like a maiden blush aspossible. “Jonah and I have decided to make up matters between usby tying the knot again, as we find we can't do without one anotherafter all. So, as a bright notion, we agreed to sit on till it waslate enough, and go and do it off hand.”

Jonah seemed to pay no great heed to what she wasannouncing, or indeed to anything whatever. The entrance of Taylorinfused fresh spirit into the company, and they remained sitting,till Mirabella whispered to her Papa: "Now we may as well go."

"But the parson don't know?"

“Yes, I told him last night that we might comebetween eight and nine, as there were reasons of decency for doing itas early and quiet as possible; on account of it being our secondmarriage, which might make people curious to look on if they knew.Hey highly approved.”

"Oh very well, I'm ready," said herpapa, getting up and shaking himself.

"Now, old darling," she said to Jonah."Come along, as you promised."

"When did I promise anything?" asked he,whom she had made so tipsy by her special knowledge of that line ofbusiness as almost to have made him sober again—or to seem so tothose who did not know him.

"Why!" said Mirabella, affecting dismay.“You've promised to marry me several times as we've sat hereto-night. These gentlemen have heard you.”

"I don't remember it," said Jonahdoggedly. “There's only one woman—but won't mention her in thisCarnap!”

Mirabella looked towards her dad. "Now, Mr.Falconeri be honorable," said Caputo. “You and my daughterhave been living here together these three or four days, quite on theunderstanding that you were going to marry her. Of course I shouldn'thave had such goings on in my house if I hadn't understood that. As apoint of honor you must do it now.”

"Don't say anything against my honor!"joined Jonah hotly, standing up. “I'd marry the W–––– ofBabylon rather than do anything dishonorable! No reflection on you,my dear. It is a mere rhetorical figure—what they call in thebooks, hyperbole.”

"Keep your figures for your debts to friendswho shelter you," said Caputo.

“If I am bound in honor to marry her—as Isuppose I am—though how I came to be here with her I know no morethan a dead man—marry her Will, so help me God! I have neverbehaved dishonorably to a woman root any living thing. I am not a manwho wants to save himself at the expense of the weaker among us!”

“There—never mind him, dear,” she said,putting her cheek against Jonah's. “Come up and wash your face, andjust put yourself tidy, and off we'll go. Make it up with dad."

They shook hands. Jonah went upstairs with her,and soon came looking down tidy and calm. Mirabella, too, had hastilyarranged herself, and accompanied by Caputo away she went.

"Don't go," she said to the guests atparting. “I've told the little maid to get the breakfast while weare gone; and when we come back we'll all have some. A good strongcup of tea will set everybody right for going home.”

When Mirabella, Jonah, and Caputo had disappearedon their matrimonial errand the assembled guests yawned themselveswider awake, and discussed the situation with great interest. NormanTaylor, being the most sober, reasoned the most lucidly.

"I don't wish to speak against friends,"he said. “But it do seem rare curiosity for a couple to marry overagain! If they couldn't get to the first time when their minds werelimp, they won't the second, by my reckoning."

"Do you think he'll do it?"

"He's been put upon his honor by the woman,so he med."

“He'd hardly do it straight off like this. He'sgot no license nor anything."

“She's got that, bless you. Didn't you hear hersay so to her papa?"

"Well," said Norman Taylor, relightinghis pipe at the gas jet. “Take her all together, limb by limb,she's not such a bad-looking piece—particular by candlelight. To besure, halfpence that have been in circulation can't be expected tolook like new ones from the mint. But for a woman that's beenknocking about the four hemispheres for some time, she's passableenough. A little bit thick in the paperhangers: but I like a womanthat a puff o' wind won't blow down."

Their eyes followed the movements of the littlegirl as she spread the breakfast-cloth on the table they had beenusing, without wiping up the slops of the liquor. The curtains weredrawn, and the expression of the house made to look like morning.Some of the guests, however, fell asleep in their chairs. One or twowent to the door, and gazed along the street more than once. NormanTaylor was the chief of these, and after a time he came in with ablank on his face.

“By Gad, they are coming! I think the deed'sdone!"

"No," said Uncle Joe, following him in."Take my word, he turned rusty at the last minute. they arewalking in a very unusual way; and that's the meaning of it!"

They waited in silence till the wedding partycould be heard entering the house. First into the room came Mirabellaboisterously; and her face was enough to show that her strategy hadsucceeded.

"Mrs. Falconeri, I presume?" said NormanTaylor with mock courtesy.

“Certainly. Mrs. Falconeri again,” repliedMirabella blandly, pulling off her glove and holding out her lefthand. “There's the padlock, see…Well, he was a very nice,gentlemanly man indeed. I mean the clergyman. He said to me as gentleas a babe when all was done: 'Mrs. Falconeri, Congratulate youheartily,' he says. 'For having heard your history, and that of yourhusband, I think you have both done the right and proper thing. Andfor your past errors as a wife, and his as a husband, I think youought now to be forgiven by the world, as you have forgiven eachother,' says he. Yes; he was a very nice, gentlemanly man. 'TheChurch don't recognize divorce in her dogma, speaking strictly,' hesays: 'and bear in mind the words of the service in your goings outand your comings in: What God hath joined together let no man putasunder.'Yes; he was a very nice gentlemanly man… But, Jonah, mydear, you were enough to make a cat laugh! You walked that straight,and held yourself that steady, that one would have thought you weregoing 'Prentice to judge; though I knew you were seeing double allthe time, from the way you fumbled with my finger."

"I said I'd do anything to—save a woman'shonor," muttered Jonah. “And I've done it!”

"Well now, old dear, come along and have somebreakfast."

“I want—some—more whisk,” said Jonahstolidly.

"Nonsense, dear. Not now! There's no moreleft. The tea will take them snuggle out of our heads, and we shallbe as fresh as larks.”

"All right. I've—married you. She said Iought to marry you again, and I have straightway. It is truereligion! Ha-ha-ha!"

Chapter 50

Michaelmas came and passed, and Jonah and hiswife, who had lived but a short time in her Papa's house after theirremarriage, were lodged on the top floor of a dwelling nearer to thecenter of the city.

He had done a few days' work during the two orthree months since the event, but his health had been indifferent,and it was now precarious. He was sitting in an arm-chair before thefire, and coughed a good deal.

"I've got a bargain for my trouble inmarrying you over again!" Mirabella was saying to him. “Ishall have to keep 'ee entirely—that's what 'twill come to! I shallhave to make black-pot and sausages, and hawk 'em about the street,all to support an invalid husband I'd no business to be saddled withat all. Why didn't you keep your health, deceiving one like this? Youwere well enough when the wedding was!”

"Ah yes!" said he, laughing acridly. “Ihave been thinking of my foolish feeling about the pig you and Ikilled during our first marriage. I feel now that the greatest mercythat could be vouchsafed to me would be that something should serveme as I served that animal."

This was the sort of discourse that went onbetween them every day now. The landlord of the lodging, who hadheard that they were a queer couple, had doubted if they were marriedat all, especially as he had seen Mirabella kiss Jonah one eveningwhen she had taken a little cordial; and he was about to give themnotice to quit, till by chance overhearing her one night haranguingJonah in rattling terms, and ultimately flinging a shoe at his head,he recognized the note of genuine wedlock; and concluding that theymust be respectable, said no more.

Jonah did not get any better, and one day herequested Mirabella, with considerable hesitation, to execute acommission for him. She asked him indifferently what it was.

"To write to Bria."

“What in the name—do you want me to write toher for?”

"To ask how she is, and if she'll come to seeme, because I'm ill, and should like to see her—once again."

"It is like you to insult a lawful wife byasking such a thing!"

“It is just in order not to insult you that Iask you to do it. You know I love Bria. I don't wish to mince thematter—there stands the fact: I love her. I could find a dozen waysof sending a letter to her without your knowledge. But I wish to bequite above-board with you, and with her husband. A message throughyou asking her to come is at least free from any odor of intrigue. Ifshe retains any of her old nature at all, she'll come."

"You've no respect for marriage whatever, orits rights and duties!"

“What _does_ it matter what my opinions are—awretch like me! Can it matter to anybody in the world who comes tosee me for half an hour—here with one foot in the grave! … Come,please write, Mirabella!” he pleaded. "Repay my candor by alittle generosity!"

"I should think _not_!"

“Not just once?—Oh do!” He felt that hisphysical weakness had taken away all his dignity.

“What do you want _her_ to know how you are for?You don't want to seed's. She's the rat that forsook the sinkingship!"

"Don't, don't!"

“And I stuck to un—the more fool I! Have thatstrumpet in the house indeed!"

Almost as soon as the words were spoken Jonahsprang from the chair, and before Mirabella knew where she was he hadher on her back upon a little couch which stood there, he kneelingabove her.

“Say another word of that sort,” he whispered,“and I'll kill you—here and now! I've everything to gain by it—myown death not being the least part. So don't think there's no meaningin what I say!"

"What do you want me to do?" GaspedMirabella.

"Promise never to speak of her."

"Very well. I do."

"I take your word," he said scornfullyas he loosened her. "But what it's worth I can't say."

"You couldn't kill the pig, but you couldkill me!"

“Ah—there you have me! No—I couldn't killyou—even in a passion. Taunt Away!”

He then began coughing very much, and sheestimated his life with an appraiser's eye as he sank back ghastlypale. "I'll send for her," Mirabella murmured, "ifyou'll agree to my being in the room with you'll the time she'shere."

The softer side of his nature, the desire to seeBria, made him unable to resist the offer even now, provoked as hehad been; and he replied breathlessly: “Yes, I agree. Only send forher!”

In the evening he inquired if she had written.

"Yes," she said; “I wrote a notetelling her you were ill, and asking her to come to-morrow or the dayafter. I haven't posted it yet."

The next day Jonah wondered if she really did postit, but wouldn't ask her; and foolish hope that lives on a drop and acrumb, made him restless with expectation. He knew the times of thepossible trains, and listened on each occasion for sounds of her.

She didn't come; but Jonah would not addressMirabella again thereon. He hoped and expected all the next day; butno Bria appeared; neither was there any note of reply. Then Jonahdecided in the privacy of his mind that Mirabella had never postedhers, although she had written it. There was something in her mannerwhich told it. His physical weakness was such that he shed tears atthe disappointment when she was not there to see. His suspicionswere, in fact, well founded. Mirabella, like some other nurses,thought that your duty towards your invalid was to pacify him by anymeans short of really acting upon his fancies.

He never said another word to her about his wishor his conjecture. Silent, discerned resolve grew up in him, whichgave him, if not strength, stability and calm. One midday when, afteran absence of two hours, she came into the room, she held the chairempty.

Down she flopped on the bed, and sitting,meditated. "Now where the devil is my man gone to!" shesaid.

A driving rain from the north-east had beenfalling with more or less intermission all the morning, and lookingfrom the window at the dripping spouts it seemed impossible tobelieve that any sick man would have ventured out to almost certaindeath. Yet a conviction possessed Mirabella that he had gone out, andit became a certainty when she had searched the house. "If he'ssuch a fool, let him be!" she said. "I can do no more."

Jonah was at that moment in a railway train thatwas drawing near to Alfredston, oddly swathed, pale as a monumentalfigure in alabaster, and much stared at by other passengers. An hourlater his thin form, in the long great-coat and blanket he had comewith, but without an umbrella, could have been seen walking along thefive-mile road to Marygreen. On his face showed the determinedpurpose that alone sustained him, but to which weakness hath affordeda sorry foundation. By the up-hill walk he was quite blown, but hepressed on; and at half-past three o'clock stood by the familiar wellat Marygreen. The rain was keeping everybody indoors; Jonah crossedthe green to the church without observation, and found the buildingopen. Here he stood, looking forth at the school,

He waited till a small boy came from theschool—one evidently allowed out before hours for some reason orother. Jonah held up his hand, and the child came.

"Please call at the schoolhouse and ask MrsPhilson if she will be kind enough to come to the church for a fewminutes."

The child departed, and Jonah heard him knock atthe door of the dwelling. He himself went further into the church.Everything was new, except a few pieces of carving preserved from thewrecked old fabric, now fixed against the new walls. He stood bythese: they seemed akin to the perished people of that place who werehis ancestors and Beria's.

A light footstep, which might have been accountedfor no more than an added drip to the rainfall, sounded in the porch,and he looked round.

“Oh—I didn't think it was you! I didn't—Oh,Jonah!” A hysterical catkin' her breath ended in a succession ofthem. He advanced, but she quickly recovered and went back.

"Don't go—don't go!" hey implored.“This is my last time! I thought it would be less intrusive than toenter your house. And I shall never come again. Don't then beunmerciful. Bria, Bria! We are acting by the letter; and 'the letterskillet'!"

“I'll stay—I won't be unkind!” she said, hermouth quivering and her tears flowing as she allowed him to comecloser. "But why did you come, and do this wrong thing, afterdoing such a right thing as you have done?"

"What's the right thing?"

“Marrying Mirabella again. It was in theAlfredston paper. She has never been other than yours, Jonah—in aproper sense. And therefore you did swell—Oh so well!—inrecognizing it—and taking her to you again.”

“God above—and is that all I've come to hear?If there is anything more degrading, immoral, unnatural, than anotherin my life, it is this meretricious contract with Mirabella which hasbeen called doing the right thing! And you too—you call yourselfPhilson's wife! _His_wife! You are mine."

“Don't make me rush away from you—I can't bearmuch! But on this point I am decided.”

"I cannot understand how you did it—how youthink it—I cannot!"

“Never mind that. He is a kind husband to me—AndI—I've wrestled and struggled, and fasted, and prayed. I havenearly brought my body into complete subjection. And you mustn't—willyou—wake—”

“Oh you darling little fool; where is yourreason? You seem to have suffered the loss of your faculties! I wouldargue with you if I didn't know that a woman in your state of feelingis quite beyond all appeal to her brains. Or is it that you arehumbugging yourself, as so many women do about these things; anddon't actually believe what you pretend to, and only are indulging inthe luxury of the emotion raised by an affected belief?”

“Luxury! How can you be so cruel!"

“You dear, sad, soft, most melancholy wreck of apromising human intellect that it has ever been my lot to behold!Where is your scorn of convention gone? I _would_ have died thegame!"

“You crush, almost insult me, Jonah! Go awayfrom me!” She turned off quickly.

"I will. I would never come to see you again,even if I had the strength to come, which I shall not have any more.Bria, Bria, you are not worth a man's love!"

Her bosom began to go up and down. "I can'tendure you to say that!" she burst out, and her eye resting onhim a moment, she turned back impulsively. “Don't, don't scorn me!Kiss me, oh kiss me lots of times, and say I am not a coward and acontemptible humbug—I can't bear it!”She rushed up to him and,with her mouth on his, continued: “I must tell you— oh I must—mydarling Love! It has been—only a church marriage—an apparentmarriage I mean! He suggested it at the very first!”

"How?"

“I mean it is a nominal marriage only. It hasn'tbeen more than that stall since I came back to him!"

"Bria!" he said. Pressing her to him inhis arms, he bruised her lips with kisses. “If misery can knowhappiness, I have a moment's happiness now! Now, in the name of allyou hold holy, tell me the truth, and no lie. You do love me still?"

"I do! You know it too well! … But I_mustn't_ do this! I mustn't kiss you back as I would!"

"But do!"

“And yet you are so dear!—and you look soill—”

“And so do you! There's one more, in memory ofour dead little children—yours and mine!"

The words struck her like a blow, and she bent herhead. “I _mustn't_—I_can't_ go on with this!” she gaspedpresently. “But there, there, darling; I give you back your kisses;I do, I do! … And now I'll _hate_myself for ever for my sin!”

“No—let me make my last appeal. Listen tothis! We've both remarried out of our senses. I was made drunk to doit. You were the same. I was gin drunk; you were creed drunk. Eitherform of intoxication takes away the nobler vision… Let us thenshake off our mistakes, and run away together!”

“No; again no! … Why do you tempt me so far,Jonah! It is too merciless!… But I've got over myself now. Don'tfollow me—don't look at me. Leave me, for pity's sake!"

She ran up the church to the east end, and Jonahdid as she requested. He did not turn his head, but took up hisblanket, which she had not seen, and went straight out. As he passedthe end of the church she heard his coughs mingling with the rain onthe windows, and in a last instinct of human affection, even nowunsubdued by her fetters, she sprang up as if to go and succor him.But she knelt down again, and stopped her ears with her hands tillall possible sound of him had passed away.

He was by this time at the corner of the green,from which the path ran across the fields in which he had scaredrooks as a boy. He turned and looked back, once, at the buildingwhich still contained Bria; and then went on, knowing that his eyeswould light on that scene no more.

There are cold spots up and down Wessex in autumnand winter weather; but the coldest of all when a north or east windis blowing is the crest of the down by the Brown House, where theroad to Alfredston crosses the old Ridgeway. Here the first wintersleets and snows fall and lie, and here the spring frost lingers lastthawed. Here in the teeth of the north-east wind and rain Jonah nowpurBriad his way, wet through, the necessary slowness of his walkfrom lack of his former strength being insufficient to maintain hisheat. He came to the milestone, and, raining as it was, spread hisblanket, and lay down there to rest. Before moving on he went andfelt at the back of the stone for his own carving. It was stillthere; but nearly obliterated by moss. He passed the spot where thegibbet of his ancestor and Bradshaw stood, and descended the hill.

It was dark when he reached Alfredston, where hehad a cup of tea, the deadly chill that began to creep into his bonesbeing too much for him to endure fasting. To get home he had totravel by a steam tram-car, and two branches of railway, with muchwaiting at a junction. He did not reach Christminster till teno'clock.

Chapter 51

Standing on the platform Mirabella. She looked himup and down.

"You've been to see her?" she asked.

"I have," said Jonah, literallytottering with cold and lassitude.

"Well, now you'd best march along home."

The water ran out of him as he went, and he wascompelled to lean against the wall to support himself while coughing.

"You've done for yourself by this, youngman," she said. "I don't know whether you know it."

"Of course I do. I meant to do for myself."

“What—to commit suicide?”

"Certainly."

“Well, I'm belts! Kill yourself for a woman.”

"Listen to me, Mirabella. You think you arethe stronger; and so you are, in a physical sense, now. You couldpush me over like a nine-pin. You did not send that letter the otherday, and I could not resent your conduct. But I am not so weak inanother way as you think. I made up my mind that a man confined tohis room by inflammation of the lungs, fellow who had only two wishesleft in the world, to see a particular woman, and then to die, couldneatly accomplish those two wishes at one stroke by taking thisjourney in the rain. That I've done. I have seen her for the lasttime, and I've finished myself—put an end to feverish life whichought never to have been begun!”

“Lord—you do talk lofty! Won't you havesomething warm to drink?"

"No thank you. Let's get home."

They went along by the silent colleges, and Jonahkept stopping.

“What are you looking at?”

“Stupid fancies. I see, in a way, those spiritsof the dead again, on this my last walk, that I saw when I firstwalked here!"

"What a curious chap you are!"

“I seem to see them, and almost hear themrustling. But I don't remember all of them as I did then. I don'tbelieve in half of them. The theologians, the apologists, and theirkin the meta Doctors, the high-handed statesmen, and others, nolonger interest me. All that has been spoiled for me by the grind ofstern reality!”

The expression of Jonah's corpse like face in thewatery lamplight was indeed as if he saw people where there wasnobody. At moments he stood still by an archway, like one watching afigure walk out; then he would look at a window like one discerning afamiliar face behind it. Beseemed to hear voices, whose words herepeated as if to gather their meaning.

"They seem laughing at me!"

"Who?"

“Oh—I was talking to myself! The phantoms allabout here, in the college archways, and windows. They used to lookfriendly in the old days, particularly Addison, and Gibbon, andJohnson, and Dr. Browne, and Bishop Ken—”

“Come along do! phantoms! There's neither livingnor dead hereabouts except a damn policeman! I never saw the streetsempty.”

“Fancy! The Poet of Liberty used to walk here,and the great Dissector of Melancholy there!”

“I don't want to hear about 'em! They bore me."

“Walter Raleigh is beckoning to me from thatlane—Wycliffe—Harvey—Hooker—Arnold—and a whole crowd ofCharacterizations—”

“I _don't want_ to know their names, I tell you!What do I care about folk dead and gone? Upon my soul you are moresober when you've stopped drinking than when you have not!”

“I must rest a moment,” he said; and as hepaused, holding to the railings, he measured with his eye the heightof a college front. “This is old Rubric. And that Sarcophagus; andup that lane Crozier and Tudor: and all down there is Cardinal withits long front, and its windows with lifted eyebrows, representingthe polite surprise of the university at the efforts of such as I.”

"Come along, and I'll treat you!"

"Very well. It will help me home, for I feelthe chilly fog from the meadows of Cardinal as if death-claws weregrabbing me through and through. As Antigone said, I am neither adweller among men nor ghosts. But, Mirabella, when I am dead, you'llsee my spirit flitting up and down here among these!”

"Pooh! You may not die after all. You aretough enough yet, old man.”

It was night at Marygreen, and the rain of theafternoon showed no sign of abatement. About the time at which Jonahand Mirabella were walking the streets of Christminster homeward, theWidow Flickinger crossed the green, and opened the back door of theschoolmaster's dwelling, which she often did now before bedtime, toassist Bria in putting things away.

Bria was muddling helplessly in the kitchen, forshe was not a good housewife, though she tried to be, and grewimpatient of domestic details.

“Lord love 'ee, what do ye do that yourself for,when I've come purpose! You knew I should come."

“Oh—I don't know—I forgot! No, I didn'tforget. I did it to discipline myself. I have scrubbed the stairssince eight o'clock. I _must_practice myself in my household duties.I've shamefully neglected them!"

“Why should you? He'll get a better school,perhaps be a parson, intimate, and you'll keep two servants. 'Tis apity to spoil them pretty hands."

“Don't talk of my pretty hands, Mrs Flickinger.This pretty body of mine has been the ruin of me already!"

“Shoo—you've got no body to speak of! You putme more in mind of asperity. But there seems something wrongto-night, my dear. Husband cross?”

"No. Hey never is. He's gone to bed early."

"Then what is it?"

“I cannot tell you. I have done wrong to day.And I want to eradicate it… Well—I will tell you this—Jonah hasbeen here this afternoon, and Find I still love him—oh, grossly! Icannot tell you more."

"Ah!" said the widow. “I told 'ee how'would be!”

“But it shan't be! I have not told my husband ofhis visit; it is not necessary to trouble him about it, as I nevermean to see Jonah anymore. But I am going to make my conscience righton my duty to Phil—by doing a penance—the ultimate thing. Imust!"

"I wouldn't—since he agrees to it beingotherwise, and it has gone on three months very well as it is."

“Yes—he agrees to my living as I choose; but Ifeel it is an indulgence I ought not to exact from him. It ought notto have been accepted by me. To reverse it will be terrible—but Imust be more just to him. Why was I so heroic!”

"What is it you don't like in him?"asked Mrs Flickinger curiously.

“I cannot tell you. It is something... I cannotsay. The mournful things, that nobody would admit it as a reason forfeeling as I do; so that no excuse is left me.”

"Did you ever tell Jonah what it was?"

"Never."

“I've heard strange tales o' husbands in mytime,” observed the widowing a lowered voice. “They say that whenthe saints were upon the earth devils used to take husbands' forms o'nights, and get poor women into all sorts of trouble. But I don'tknow why that should come into my head, for it is only a tale… Whata wind and rain it is to-night! Well—don't be in a hurry to alterthings, my dear. Think it over."

"No, no! I've screwed my weak soul up totreating him more courteously—and it must be now—at once—beforeI break down!”

“I don't think you ought to force your nature.No woman ought to be expected to.”

“It is my duty. I will drink my cup to thedregs!"

Half an hour later when Mrs. Flickinger put on herbonnet and shawl to leave, Bria seemed to be seized with vagueterror.

"No—no—don't go, Mrs. Flickinger,"she implored, her eyes enlarged, and with a quick nervous look overher shoulder.

"But it is bedtime, child."

“Yes, but—there's the little spare room—myroom that was. It is quite ready. Please stay, Mrs Flickinger!—Ishall want you in the morning.”

“Oh well—I don't mind if you wish. Nothingwill happen to my four old walls, whether I be there or no.”

She then fastened up the doors, and they ascendedthe stairs together.

"Wait here, Mrs. Flickinger," said Bria."I'll go into my old room a moment by myself."

Leaving the widow on the landing Bria turned tothe chamber which had been hers exclusively since her arrival atMarygreen, and pushing tithe door knelt down by the bed for a minuteor two. She then arose, and taking her night-gown from the pillowundressed, and came out to Mrs. Flickinger. A man could be heardsnoring in the room opposite. She wished Mrs. Flickinger good-night,and the widow entered the room that Bria had just vacated.

Bria unlatched the other chamber door, and, as ifseized with faintness, sank down outside it. Getting up again shehelped opened the door, and said "Phil." As the word cameout of her mouth she visibly shuddered.

The snoring had quite ceased for some time, but hedid not reply. Brimmed relieved, and hurried back to Mrs.Fingerling's chamber. "Are you inbred, Mrs. Flickinger?"she asked.

"No, dear," said the widow, opening thedoor. “I be old and slow, and it takes me a long while to UN-ray. Ihaven't unlaced my jumps yet."

“I don't hear him! And perhaps—perhaps—”

"What, kid?"

"Perhaps he's dead!" she gasped. “Andthen—I should be _free_, and Could go to Jonah! … Ah—no—Iforgot _her_—and God!”

“Let's go and hearken. No—he's snoring again.But the rain and the wind is so loud that you can hardly hearanything but between whiles.”

Bria had dragged herself back. "Mrs.Flickinger, good night again! I am sorry I called you out.” Thewidow retreated a second time.

The strained, resigned look returned to Beria'sface when she was alone."I must do it—I must! I must drink tothe dregs!” she whispered."Phil!" she said again.

“Hey—what? Is that you, Breanna?"

"Yes."

“What do you want? Anything the matter? Wait aminute." He pulled on some articles of clothing, and came to thedoor. "Yes?"

"When we were at Shaston I jumped out of thewindow rather than that you should come near me. I have neverreversed that treatment till now—when I have come to beg yourpardon for it, and ask you to let mine.”

“Perhaps you only think you ought to do this? Idon't wish you to come against your impulses, as I have said.”

"But I beg to be admitted." She waited amoment, and repeated, "I begot be admitted! I have been inerror—even to-day. I have exceeded my rights. I didn't mean to tellyou, but perhaps I ought. I sinned against you this afternoon."

"How?"

“I met Jonah! I didn't know he was coming. and—”

"Well?"

"I kissed him, and let him kiss me."

"Oh—the old story!"

"Phil, I didn't know we were going to kisseach other till we did!"

"How many times?"

"A good many. I do not know. I am horrifiedto look back on it, and the least I can do after it is to come to youlike this.”

“Come—this is pretty bad, after what I'vedone! Anything else to confess?”

"No." She had been intending to say: "Icalled him my darling Love."But, as a contrite woman alwayskeeps back a little, that portion of the scene remained untold. Shewent on: “I am never going to see him any more. He spoke of somethings of the past, and it overcame me. Bespoke of—the children.But, as I have said, I am glad—almost glad Mean—that they aredead, Phil. It blots out all that life of mine!”

“Well—about not seeing him again any more.Come—you really mean this?”There was something in Philson's tonenow which seemed to show that his three months of remarriage withBria had somehow not been so satisfactory as his magnanimity orimitative patience had anticipated.

"Yes, yes!"

"Perhaps you'll swear it on the NewTestament?"

"I will."

He went back to the room and brought out a littlebrown will. "Now then: So help you God!"

She swore.

"Very good!"

"Now I supplicate you, Phil, to whom Ibelong, and whom I wish to honor and obey, as I vowed, to let me in."

“Think it over well. You know what it means.Having you back in the house was one thing—this another. So thinkagain."

"I thought—I wish this!"

“That's a complaisant spirit—and perhaps youare right. With a lover hanging about, a half-marriage should becompleted. But I repeat my reminder this third and last time.”

“It is my wish!...Oh God!"

"What did you say 'O God' for?"

"I do not know!"

"Yes you do! But …” He gloomilyconsidered her thin and fragile form a moment longer than shecrouched before him in her night-clothes. "Well, although itmight end like this," he said presently. “I owe you nothing,after these signs; but I'll take you in at your word, and forgiveyou."

He put his arm round her to lift her up. Briastarted back.

"What's the matter?" he asked, speakingfor the first time sternly."You shrink from me again?—just asformerly!"

“No, Phil—I—I—was not thinking—”

“You wish to come in here?”

"Yes."

“You still bear in mind what it means?”

"Yes. It's my duty!"

Placing the candlestick on the chest of drawers heled her through the doorway, and lifting her bodily, kissed her. Aquick look of aversion passed over her face, but clenching her teethshe uttered no cry.

Mrs. Flickinger had undressed by this time, andwas about to get into bed when she said to herself: “Ah—perhapsI'd better go and see if the little thing is all right. How it doblow and rain!”

The widow went out on the landing, and saw thatBria had disappeared."Ah! Poor soul! Weddings be funerals 'abelieve nowadays. Fifty-five years ago, come Fall, since my man and Imarried! Times have changed since then!”

Chapter 52

Despite himself Jonah recovered somewhat, andworked at his trade for several weeks. After Christmas, however, hebroke down again.

With the money he had earned he shifted hislodgings to a yet more central part of the town. But Mirabella sawthat he was not likely to do much work for a long while, and wascross enough at the turn affair shad taken since her remarriage tohim. "I'm hanged if you haven't been clever in this laststroke!" she would say, "to get a nurse for nothing bymarrying me!"

Jonah was absolutely indifferent to what she said,and indeed, often regarded her abuse in a humorous light. Sometimeshis mood was more earnest, and as he lay he often rambled on upon thedefeat of his early aims.

"Every man has some little power in some onedirection," he would say."I was never really stout enoughfor the stone trade, particularly the fixing. Moving the blocksalways used to strain me, and standing the trying droughts inbuildings before the windows are in always gave me colds, and I thinkthat began the mischief inside. But I felt I could do one thing if Ihad the opportunity. I could accumulate ideas, and impart them toothers. I wonder if the founders had such as I in their minds—afellow good for nothing else but that particular thing? … Hear thatsoon there is going to be a better chance for such helpless studentsas I was. There are schemes afoot for making the university lessexclusive, and extending its influence. I don't know much about it.And it is too late, too late for me! Ah—and for how many worthierones before me!”

"How you keep a mumbling!" saidMirabella. “I should have thought you'd have got over all thatcraze about books by this time. And so you would, if you'd had anysense to begin with. You are as bad now as when we were firstmarried.”

On one occasion while soliloquizing thus he calledher “Bria” unconsciously.

"I wish you'd mind who you are talking to!"said Mirabella indignantly."Calling a respectable married womanby the name of that—" She remembered herself and he did notcatch the word.

But in the course of time, when she saw how thingswere going, and how very little she had to fear from Beria's rivalry,she had a fit of generosity. "I suppose you want to seeyour—Bria?" she said. “Well, I don't mind her coming. Youcan have her here if you like.”

"I don't wish to see her again."

"Oh—that's a change!"

“And don't tell her anything about me—that I'mill, or anything. She has chosen her course. let her go!”

One day he received a surprise. Mrs Flickingercame to see him, quite on her own account. Jonah's wife, whosefeelings as to where his affections were centered had reachedabsolute indifference by this time, went out, leaving the old womanalone with Jonah. He impulsively asked how Brainwash, and then saidbluntly, remembering what Bria had told him: “Suppose they arestill only husband and wife in name?”

Mrs Flickinger hesitated. “Well, no—it'sdifferent now. She's begun it quite lately—all of her own freewill.”

"When did you begin?" he asked quickly.

“The night after you came. But as a punishmentto her poor self. He didn't wish it, but she insisted."

“Bria, my Bria—you darling fool—this isalmost more than I can endure!...Mrs. Flickinger—don't befrightened at my rambling—I've got to talk to myself lying here somany hours alone—she was once a woman whose intellect was to minelike a star to a benzine lamp: who saw all _my_superstitions ascobwebs that she could brush away with a word. Then bitter affectioncame to us, and her intellect broke, and she veered round todarkness. Strange difference of sex, that time and circumstance,which enlarge the views of most men, narrow the views of women almostinvariably. And now the ultimate horror has come—her giving herselflike this to what she loathes, in her enslavement to forms! She, sosensitive, so shrinking, that the very wind seemed to blow on herwith a touch of deference… As for Bria and me when we whereat ourown best, long ago—when our minds were clear, and our love of truthfearless—the time was not ripe for us! Our ideas were fifty yearstoo soon to be any good to us. And so the resistance they met withbrought reaction in her, and recklessness and ruin on me! …There—this, Mrs. Flickinger, is how I go on to myself continually,as I lie here. I must be boring you awfully."

“Not at all, my dear boy. I could hearken to 'eeall day."

As Jonah reflected more and more on her news, andgrew more restless, he began in his mental agony to use terriblyprofane language about social conventions, which started a fit ofcoughing. Presently there came a knock at the door downstairs. Asnobody answered it Mrs. Flickinger herself went down.

The visitor said blandly: “The Doctor.” Thelanky form was that of Doctor Cornwall, who had been called in byMirabella.

“How is my patient at present?” asked theDoctor.

“Oh bad—very bad! Poor chap, he got excited,and do blaspheme terribly, since I let out some gossip byaccident—the more to my blame. But there—you must excuse a man insuffering for what he says, and I hope God will forgive him.”

"Ah. I'll go up and see him. Mrs Falconeri athome?”

"She's not in at present, but she'll be heresoon."

Cornwall went; but though Jonah had hitherto takenthe medicines of that skillful practitioner with the greatestindifference whenever poured down his throat by Mirabella, he was nowso brought to bay by events that he vented his opinion of Cornwall inthe Doctor's face, and immediately, and with such striking epithets,that Cornwall soon scurried downstairs again. At the door he metMirabella, Mrs. Flickinger having left. Mirabella inquired how hethought her husband was now, and seeing that the Doctor lookedruffled, asked him to take something. Hey assented.

"I'll bring it to you here in the passage,"she said. "There's nobody but me about the house to-day."

She brought him a bottle and a glass, and hedrank.

Mirabella started shaking with suppressedlaughter. "What is this, my dear?" he asked, smacking hislips.

"Oh—a drop of wine—and something in it."Laughing again she said: “Poured your own love-philter into it,that you sold me at the agricultural show, don't you re-member?”

“I do, I do! Clever woman! But you must beprepared for the consequences.” Putting his arm round her shouldershe kissed her there and then.

"Don't don't," she whispered, laughinggood-humouredly. "My man will hear."

She let him out of the house, and as she went backshe said to herself: "Well! Weak women must provide for a rainyday. And if my poor fellow upstairs do go off—as I suppose he willsoon—it's well to keep chances open. And I can't pick and choosenow as I could when I was younger. And one must take the old if onecan't get the young."

Chapter 53

The last pages to which the chronicler of theselives would ask threader's attention are concerned with the scene inand out of Jonah's bedroom when leafy summer came round again.

His face was now so thin that his old friendswould hardly have known him. It was afternoon, and Mirabella was atthe looking-glass curling her hair, which operation she performed byheating an umbrella-stay in the flame of a candle she had lighted,and using it upon the flowing lock. When she had finished this,practiced a dimple, and put on her things, she cast her eyes roundupon Jonah. He seemed to be sleeping, though his position was on anelevated one, his malady preventing him lying down.

Mirabella, hatted, gloved, and ready, sat down andwaited, as if expecting some one to come and take her place as nurse.

Certain sounds from without revealed that the townwas in festivity, though little of the festival, whatever it mighthave been, could be seen here. Bells began to ring, and the notescame into the room through the open window, and traveled roundJonah's head in a hum. They made her restless, and at last she saidto herself: “Why ever doesn't Papa come?”

She looked again at Jonah, critically gauged hisebbing life, as she had done so many times during the late months,and glancing at his watch, which was hung up by way of timepiece,rose impatiently. Still he slept, and coming to a resolution sheslipped from the room, closed the door noiselessly, and descended thestairs. The house was empty. The attraction which moved Mirabella togo abroad had evidently drawn away the other inmates long before.

It was a warm, cloudless, enticing day. She shutthe front door, and hastened round into Chief Street, and when nearthe theater could hearth notes of the organ, a rehearsal for a comingconcert being in progress. She entered under the archway of Old gateCollege, where men were putting up awnings round the quadrangle for aball in the hall that evening. People who had come up from thecountry for the day were picnicking on the grass, and Mirabellawalked along the gravel paths and under the aged limes. But findingthis place rather dull she returned to the streets, and watched thecarriages drawing up for the concert, numerous dons and their wives,and undergraduates with gay female companions, crowding up likewise.When the doors were closed, and the concert began, she moved on.

The powerful notes of that concert rolled forththrough the swinging yellow blinds of the open windows, over thehousetops, and into the still air of the lanes. They reached so faras to the room in which Jonah lay; and it was about this time thathis cough began again and awakened him.

As soon as he could speak he murmured, his eyesstill closed: "A little water, please."

Nothing but the deserted room received his appeal,and he coughed to exhaustion again—saying still more feebly:“Water—some water—Bria—Mirabella!”

The room remained still as before. Presently hegasped again:"Throat—water—Bria—darling—drop ofwater—please—oh please!"

No water came, and the organ notes, faint as abee's hum, rolled in as before.

While he remained, his face changing, shouts andhurrahs came from somewhere in the direction of the river.

“Ah—yes! The Remembrance games,” hemurmured. “And I here. And Defibrillator!”

The hurrahs were repeated, drowning the faintorgan notes. Jonah's face changed more: he whispered slowly, hisparched lips scarcely moving:

_"Let the day perish wherein I was born, andthe night in which it wassail, There is a man-child conceived."_

("Hooray!")

_“Let that day be darkness; let not God regardit from above, neither let the light shine upon it. Lo, let thatnight be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein."_

("Hooray!")

_“Why died I not from the womb? Why did I notgive up the ghost when Came out of the belly? … For now I shouldhave been quiet and quiet. I should have slept: then had I been atrest!"_

("Hooray!")

_“There the prisoners rest together; they hearnot the voice of the oppressor... The small and the great are there;and the servant is free from his master. Wherefore is light given tohim that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?”_

Meanwhile Mirabella, in her journey to discoverwhat was going on, took short cut down a narrow street and through anobscure nook into the quad of Cardinal. It was full of bustle, andbrilliant in the sunlight with flowers and other preparations for aball here also. A carpenter nodded to her, one who had formerly beena fellow workman of Jonah's. Corridor was in course of erection fromthe entrance to the hall staircase, of gay red and buff bunting.Wagon-loads of boxes containing bright plants in full bloom werebeing placed about, and thereat staircase was covered with red cloth.She nodded to one workman and another, and ascended to the hall onthe strength of their acquaintance, where they were putting down anew floor and decorating for the dance.

The cathedral bell close at hand was sounding forfive o'clock service.

"I should not mind having a spin there with afellow's arm round my waist," she said to one of the men. “ButLord, I must be getting home again—there's a lot to do. No dancingfor me!"

When she reached home she was met at the door byStag, and one or two other of Jonah's fellow stone workers. "Weare just going down to the river," said the former, "to seethe boat-bumping. But we've called round on our way to ask how yourhusband is."

"He's sleeping nicely, thank you," saidMirabella.

"That's right. Well now, can't you giveyourself an hour's relaxation, Mrs. Falconeri, and come along withus? 'Would do you good.'

"I should like to go," she said. "I'venever seen the boat racing, and I hear it is good fun."

"Come along!"

"How I _wish_ I could!" She lookedlongingly down the street. “Wait a minute, then. I'll just run upand see how he is now. Papa is with him, I believe; so I can mostlikely come.”

They waited, and she entered. Downstairs theinmates were absent as before, having, in fact, gone in a body to theriver where the processing of boats was to pass. When she reached thebedroom she found that her papa had not come even now.

"Why couldn't he have been here!" shesaid impatiently. “He wants to see the boats himself—that's whatit is!”

However, on looking round to the bed shebrightened, for she saw that Jonah was apparently sleeping, though hewas not in the usual half-elevated posture necessitated by his cough.He had slipped down, and lay flat. A second glance caused her tostart, and she went to the bed. His face was quite white, andgradually becoming rigid. She touched his fingers; they were cold,though his body was still warm. All was still within. The bumping ofnear thirty years had ceased.

After her first appalled sense of what hadhappened, the faint notes oaf military or other brass band from theriver reached her ears; and in a provoked tone she exclaimed, “Tothink he should die just now! Why did he die just now!” Thenmeditating another moment or two she went to the door, softly closedit as before, and again descended the stairs.

"Here she is!" said one of the workers.“We wondered if you were coming after all. Come along; we must bequick to get a good place… Well, hows he? Sleeping well still? Ofcourse, we don't want to drag 'ee away if—”

“Oh yes—sleeping quite sound. He won't wakeyet,” she said hurriedly.

They went with the crowd down Cardinal Street,where they presently reached the bridge, and the gay barges burstupon their view. Thence they passed by a narrow slit down to theriverside path—now dusty, hot, and thronged. Almost as soon as theyhad arrived the grand procession of boats began; the oars smackingwith a loud kiss on the face of the stream, as they were lowered fromthe perpendicular.

“Oh, I say—how jolly! I'm glad I've come,"said Mirabella. "And—it can't hurt my husband—my beingaway."

On the opposite side of the river, on the crowdedbarges, were gorgeous nosegays of feminine beauty, fashionablyarrayed in green, pink, blue, and white. The blue flag of the boatclub denoted the center of interest, beneath which a band in reduniform gave out the notes she had already heard in thedeath-chamber. Collegians of all sorts, in canoes with ladies,watching keenly for “our” boat, darted up and down. While sheregarded the lively scene somebody touched Mirabella in the ribs, andlooking round she saw Cornwall.

"That philter is operating, you know!"he said with a blank. "Shame one to wreck a heart so!"

"I shan't talk of love to-day."

"Why not? It is a general holiday.”

She didn't reply. Cornwall's arm stole round herwaist, which act could be performed unobserved in the crowd. An archexpression overspecialization's face at the feel of the arm, but shekept her eyes on the river as if she did not know of the embrace.

The crowd surged, pushing Mirabella and herfriends sometimes nearly into the river, and she would have laughedheartily at the horse-play that succeeded, if the imprint on hermind's eye of a pale, statuesque countenance she had lately gazedupon had not sobered her a little.

The fun on the water reached the acme ofexcitement; There were immersions, there were shouts: the race waslost and won, the pink and blue and yellow ladies retired from thebarges, and the people who had watched began to move.

"Well—it's been awfully good," criedMirabella. “But I think I must get back to my poor man. Papa isthere, so far as I know; but I had better get back.”

"What's your hurry?"

"Well, I must go... Dear, dear, this isawkward!"

At the narrow gangway where the people ascendedfrom the riverside path to the bridge the crowd was literally jammedinto one hot mass—Rabelaisian Cornwall with the rest; and here theyremained motionless, Mirabella exclaiming, "Dear, dear!"more and more impatiently; for it had just occurred to her mind thatif Jonah were discovered to have died alone an inquest might bedeemed necessary.

"What a fidget you are, my love," saidthe Doctor, who, being pressed close against her by the throng, hadno need of personal effort for contact. "Just as well havepatience: there's no getting away yet!"

It was nearly ten minutes before the wedged crowdmoved sufficiently to let them pass through. As soon as she got upinto the street Mirabella hastened on, for bidding the Doctor toaccompany her further that day. She didn't go straight to her house;but to the abode of a woman who performed the last necessary officesfor the poorer dead; where she knocked.

"My husband has just gone, poor soul,"she said. "Can you come and lay him out?"

Mirabella waited a few minutes; and the two womenwent along, elbowing their way through the stream of fashionablepeople pouring out of Cardinal meadow, and being nearly knocked downby the carriages.

"I must call at the sexton's about the bell,too," said Mirabella. “It's just round here, isn't it? I'llmeet you at my door."

By ten o'clock that night Jonah was lying on thebedstead at his lodging covered with a sheet, and straight as anarrow. Through the partly opened window the joyous throb of a waltzentered from the ball-room at Cardinal.

Two days later, when the sky was equallycloudless, and the air equally still, two persons stood besideJonah's open coffin in the same little bedroom. On one side wasMirabella, on the other the Widow Flickinger. They were both lookingat Jonah's face, the worn old eyelids of Mrs. Fingerprinting red.

"How beautiful he is!" said she.

"Yes. He's a 'handsome corpse,” saidMirabella.

The window was still open to ventilate the room,and it being about noontide the clear air was motionless and quietwithout. From distance came voices; and an apparent noise of personsstamping.

"What's that?" murmured the old woman.

“Oh, that's the Doctors in the theater,conferring Honorary degrees on the Duke of Hampton shire and a lotmore illustrious gents of that sort. It's Remembrance Week, you know.The cheers come from the young men.”

"Aye; young and strong-lunged! Not like ourpoor boy here."

An occasional word, as from some one making aspeech, floated from the open windows of the theater across to thisquiet corner, at which there seemed to be a smile of some sort uponthe marble features of Jonah; while the old, superseded, Delphieditions of Virgil and Horace, and the dog-eared Greek Testament onthe neighboring shelf, and the few other volumes of the sort that hehad not parted with, roughened with stone-dust where he had been inthe habit of catching them up for a few minutes between his laborers,seemed to pale to a sickly cast at the sounds. the bells struck outjoyously; and their reverberations traveled round the bed-room.

Mirabella's eyes removed from Jonah to Mrs.Flickinger. "Dye think she will come?" she asked.

"I couldn't say. She swore not to see himagain."

"How is she looking?"

“Tired and miserable, poor heart. Years andyears older than when you saw her last. Quite a staid, worn womannow. 'Tis the man—she can't stomach un, even now!"

"If Jonah had been alive to see her, he wouldhardly have cared for her more, perhaps."

"That's what we don't know... Didn't he everask you to send for her, since he came to see her in that strangeway?"

"No. Quite the contrary. I offered to send,and he said I was not to let her know how ill he was.”

"Did he forgive her?"

"Not as I know."

“Well—poor little thing, 'tis to be believedshe's found forgiveness somewhere! She said she had found peace!

"She may swear that on her knees to the holycross upon her necklace till she's hoarse, but it won't be true!"said Mirabella. "She's never found peace since she left hisarms, and never will again till she's Ashe is now!