Amelia E. Barr “Time the shuttle drives; but we Give to every thread its hue And elect our destiny.” ––Burleigh.

It had been raining a little when Denas bade her mother farewell, but by the time she reached the top of the cliff the rain had become fog. She stood still awhile and turned her face to the sea, and saw one drift after another roll inland, veiling the beach, and the boats, and the cottages, and leaving the whole scene a spectacle of desolation.

It affected her painfully. The love and hope in her heart did not lift her above the depressing influence of that mournful last view of her home. Was the thing that she was going to do worth while? Was anything in life worth while? The little town had a half-awakened Monday-morning look. Every 139 one seemed to be beginning another week with an “Oh, dear me!” sort of feeling. Miss Priscilla was just dressing her shop window, and as cross as crossed sticks over her employment. She said that Denas was late, and wondered “for goodness’ sake why she was so dressed up.”

It gave Denas a kind of spiteful pleasure to answer: “She was dressed to go to Burrell Court and spend a day with Mrs. Burrell. When she sent Mr. Burrell word the day she would come the carriage would call for her.”

“If you mean the day I can spare you best, I cannot spare you at all this week. There now!”

“I am not thinking of you sparing me, Priscilla. I am waiting for a fine day.”

“Upon my word! Am I your mistress or are you mine? And what is more, that Roland Tresham is not coming here again. I have some conscience, thank goodness! and I will not sanction such ways and such carryings on any longer. He is a dishonourable young man.”

“Has he not paid you, Priscilla?”

Before Priscilla could find the scathing words she required, an hostler from the Black Lion entered the shop and put a letter into the hand of Denas.

Priscilla turned angrily on the man and ordered him to leave her shop directly. Then she said: “Denas Penelles, you are a bad girl! I am going to write to Mrs. Burrell this day, and to your father and mother also.”

“I would not be a fool if I was you, Priscilla.”

Denas was reading the letter, and softly smiling 140 as she uttered the careless words. For indeed affairs were at a point now where Priscilla’s interference would hurt herself more than others. The note was, of course, from Roland. It told her that all was ready, and that the weather being so bad as to render walking very tiresome and miserable, he had engaged a carriage which would be waiting for her on the west side of the parish church at seven o’clock that night; and her lover would be waiting with it, and if Roland was to be believed, everything joyful and marvellous was waiting also.

This letter was the only sunshine throughout the day. Priscilla’s bad temper was in the ascendant, both in the shop and in the workroom. She scolded Denas for working so slowly, she made her unrip whatever she did. She talked at Denas in talking to the other girls, and the girls all echoed and shadowed their mistress’ opinions and conduct. Denas smiled, and her smile had in it a mysterious satisfaction which all felt to be offensive. But for the certain advent of seven o’clock, the day would have been intolerable.

About half-past six she put on her hat and cloak, and Miss Priscilla ordered her to take them off. “You are not going outside my house to-night, Denas Penelles,” she said. “If you sew until ten o’clock, you will not have done a day’s work.”

“I am going home, Priscilla. I will work for you no more. You have behaved shamefully to me all day, and I am going home.”

Priscilla had not calculated on such a result, and it was inconvenient to her. She began to talk more 141 reasonably, but Denas would listen to no apology. It suited her plans precisely to leave Priscilla in anger, for if Priscilla thought she had gone home she would not of course send any word to her parents. So she left the workroom in a pretended passion, and shut the shop door after her with a clash that made Miss Priscilla give a little scream and the forewoman ejaculate:

“Well, there then! A good riddance of such a bad piece! I do say that for sure.”

Very little did Denas care for the opinions of Priscilla and her work-maidens. She knew that the word of any girl there could be bought for a day’s wage; she was as willing they should speak evil as well of her. Yet it was with a heart full of anger at the day’s petty slights and wrongs that she hastened to the place mentioned by Roland. As she turned into the street at one end the carriage entered it at the other. It came to meet her; it stopped, and Roland leaped to her side. In another moment she was in the carriage. Roland’s arm was around her; he was telling her how grateful he was; how happy! how proud! He was promising her a thousand pleasures, giving her hope after hope; vowing an unalterable and never-ending love.

And Denas surrendered herself to his charm. After the last three dreadful days, it did seem a kind of heaven to be taken right out of a life so hard and unlovely and so full of painful emotions; to be kissed and flattered and to be treated like a lady. The four miles she had expected to walk went like a happy dream; she was sorry when they 142 were passed and the bare railway station was reached. It was but a small place lit by a single lamp, but Roland improvised a kind of couch, and told her to sleep while he watched and smoked a cigar.

In a short time he returned, and said that there was no train to Plymouth until midnight; but an express for London would pass in half an hour, and they had better take it. Denas thought a moment, and answered with a decision that made Roland look curiously at her: “No. I will not go to London to be married. I know the preacher at Plymouth. We will wait for the Plymouth train.” It was not a very pleasant wait. It was cold and damp and inexpressibly dreary, and Roland could not avoid showing that he was disappointed in not taking the London train.

But the hours go by, no matter to what measure, and midnight came, and the train came, and the comfort and privacy of a first-class carriage restored the lover-like attitude of the runaways. Early in the morning they reached Plymouth, and as soon as possible they sought the house of the Wesleyan preacher. It stood close to the chapel and was readily found. A written message on Roland’s card brought him at once to the parlour. He looked with interest and curiosity and some disapproval at the couple.

“Mr. Tresham,” he said, glancing at the card which he held in his hand, “you wish me to marry you. I think–––” He was going to make some inquiries or objections, but he caught the expression 143 of anxiety in the face of Denas, and then he looked carefully at her and asked:

“Have I not seen you before?”

“Yes, sir, when you preached at St. Penfer last summer. I am the daughter of John Penelles.”

“The fisher Penelles?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Oh! Yes, Mr. Tresham, I will marry you at once. It will be the best thing, under the circumstances, I am sure. Follow me, sir.” As they went along a narrow covered way, he called a servant and gave her an order, and then opening a door ushered the would-be bride and bridegroom into the chapel, and straight to the communion rail.

Denas knelt down there, and for a few moments lost herself in sincere prayer. After all, in great emotion prayer was her native tongue. When she stood up and lifted her eyes, the preacher’s wife and two daughters were at her side, and the preacher himself was at the communion table, with the open book in his hand. The bare chapel in the grey daylight; the strange tones of the preacher’s voice in the empty place; the strange women at her side––it was all like a dream. She felt afraid to move or to look up. She answered as she was told, and she heard Roland answer also. But his voice did not sound real and happy, and when he took the plain gold ring from the preacher’s hand and said after him, “With this ring I thee wed,” she raised her eyes to her husband’s face. It was pale and sombre. No answering flash of love met hers, and she felt it difficult to restrain her tears.

In truth, Roland was smitten with a sudden irresolution that was almost regret. As Denas knelt praying, there had come to his mind many a dream he had had of his own wedding. He had always thought of it in some old church that would be made to glow with bride-roses and ring with bride-music. Young maidens and men of high degree were to tread the wedding march with him. Dancing and feasting, gay company and rich presents, were to add glory to some fair girl wife, whom he would choose because, of all others, she was the loveliest; and the wealthiest, and the most to be desired.

And then his eyes fell upon the girl at his feet, in her plain dark dress crushed and disordered with a night’s travel; the bare, empty chapel; the utter want of music, flowers, company, or social support of any kind; the small, rigid-looking preacher without surplice or insignia of holy office; the half-expressed disapproval on the countenances of the three women present as witnesses––it was not thus Elizabeth was married; it was not thus he himself ought to have been married. How the surroundings might affect Denas he did not even think; and yet the poor girl also had had her dreams, which this cold, dreary reality in no measure redeemed.

But the ring was on her finger; she was Roland’s wife. Nothing could ever make her less. She heard the preacher say: “Come into the vestry, Mrs. Tresham, and sign the register.” And then Roland gave her his arm and kissed her, and she went with the little company, and took the pen from her husband’s 145 hand, and wrote boldly for the last time her maiden name:

“Denasia Penelles.”

Roland looked inquiringly at her, and she smiled and answered: “That is right, dear. I was christened Denasia.”

Very small things pleased Roland, and the new name delighted him. All the way to London he spoke frequently of it. “You are now Denasia, my darling,” he said. “Let the old name slip with the old life. Besides, Denasia is an excellent public name. You can sing under it splendidly. Such a noble name! Why did you let everyone spoil it?”

“Everyone thought Denas was my name. Father and mother always called me Denas, and people forgot that it was only part of my name. Fisher-folk have short names, or nicknames.”

“But, really, Denasia Penelles is a very distinguished name. A splendid one for the public.”

“Why not Denasia Tresham?”

“Because, my dear, there are Treshams living in London who would be very angry at me if I put their name on a bill-board. The Treshams are a very proud family.”

“Roland, it would kill my father if I put his name on anything that refers to a theatre. You don’t know how he feels on that subject. It is a thing of life and death––I mean the soul’s life or death––to him.”

A painful discussion, in which both felt hurt and angry and both spoke in very affectionate terms, followed. It lasted until they reached the great 146 city which stretches out her hands to every other city. Roland had secured rooms in a very dull, respectable house in Queen’s Square, Bloomsbury. He had often stayed there when his finances did not admit of West End luxuries, and the place was suitable for many other reasons.

Then followed two perfectly happy weeks for Denas. She had written a few lines to her parents while waiting for a train at Exeter, and she then resolved not to permit herself to grieve about their grief, because it could do them no good and it would seriously worry and annoy Roland. And Roland was so loving and generous. At his command modistes and milliners turned his plebeian bride into a fashionable, and certainly into a very lovely lady. She had more pretty costumes than she had ever dreamed of; she had walking-hats and dress-hats, and expensive furs, and she grew more beautiful with each new garment. They went to theatres and operas; they went riding and walking; they had cosey little dinners at handsome restaurants; and Roland never once named money, or singing, or anything likely to spoil the charm of the life they were leading.

During this happy interval Denas did not quite forget her parents. She wrote to them once, and she very often wondered through whom and in what manner they received the news of their loss. It was her own hand which dealt the blow. Miss Priscilla really thought Denas had gone back to her home, and she resolved on the following Sunday afternoon to walk down to the fishing village and 147 “make it up” with her. About Wednesday, however, there began to be floating rumours of the truth. Several people called on Priscilla and asked after the whereabouts of Denas; and the landlord of the Black Lion was talking freely of the large bill Roland had left unsettled there. But none of these rumours reached the ears of the fisher-folk, nor were they likely to do so until the St. Penfer Weekly News appeared. The first three days of the week had been so foggy that no boat had cared to risk a sail over the bar; but on Thursday morning all was clear, and the men were eager to get out to sea. John Penelles was hastening toward his boat, when he heard a voice calling him. It was the postman, and he turned and went to meet him.

“Here be a letter for you, John Penelles. Exeter postmark. I came a bit out of my way with it. I thought you would be looking for news.”

The man was thinking of Denas and the reports about her flight; but John’s unconcern puzzled him, and he did not care to say anything more definite to the big fisherman. And, as it happened, a letter was expected from Plymouth, on chapel business; for the very preacher who had married Roland and Denas had been asked to come to St. Penfer and preach the yearly missionary sermon. John had no doubt this letter from Exeter referred to the matter. He said so to the postman, and with the unconscious messenger of sorrow in his hand went back to his cottage.

For letters were unusual events with John. If this referred to the missionary service, he would have 148 to read it in public next Sunday, and he was much pleased and astonished that it should have been sent to him. He felt a certain importance in the event, and was anxious to share his little triumph with his “old dear.” Joan did not quite appreciate his consideration. She had her hands in the dough, and her thoughts were upon the pipeclaying which she was going to give to the flagged floor of her cottage. She had hoped men-folks with their big boots would keep away until her work was dry and snow-white.

“Here be a letter from Exeter, Joan, to me. ’Twill be about the missionary service. I thought you would like to know, my dear.”

“Hum-m-m!” answered Joan. “I could have done without the news, John, till the bread was baked and the floor was whitened.” She had her back to John, but, as he did not speak again, she turned her face over her shoulder and looked at him. The next moment she was at his side.

“What is it, John? John Penelles, speak to me.”

John stood on the hearth with his left arm outstretched and holding an open letter. His eyes were fixed on it. His face had the rigid, stubborn look of a man who on the very point of unconsciousness arrests his soul by a peremptory act of will. He stood erect, stiff, speechless, with the miserable slip of white paper at the end of his outstretched arm.

Joan gently forced him back into his chair; she untied his many neckcloths; she bared his broad, hairy chest; she brought him water to drink; and at length her tears and entreaties melted the stone-like 149 rigour; his head fell forward, his eyes closed, his hand unclasped, and the letter fell to the floor. It did not interest Joan; nothing on earth was of interest to her while her husband was in that horror of stubborn suffering.

“John,” she whispered, with her face against his face––“John! My John! My good heart, be yourself and tell Joan what is the matter. Is it sickness of your body, John? Is it trouble of your mind, John? Be a man, and speak to God and to me. God is our refuge and our strength––think o’ that. A very present help in trouble––present, not a long way off, John, not in heaven; but here in your heart and on your hearth. Oh, John! John! do speak to me.”

“To be sure, Joan! The letter, dear; read it––read it aloud––I may be mistaken––it isn’t possible, I’m sure. God help us both!”

Joan lifted the letter and read aloud the words written so hastily in a few moments of time, but which brought to two loving hearts years of anxious sorrow:

“‘Dear Father and Mother:––I have just been married to Roland Tresham, and we are on our way to London. I love Roland so much, I hope you will forgive me. I will write more from London. Your loving child,

“‘Denas Tresham.’”

“Oh, Joan, my dear! My heart be broken! My heart be broken! My heart be broken!”

“Now, John, don’t you be saying such wisht dismal, ugly words. A heart like yours is hard to break. Not even a bad daughter can do it. Oh, my dear, don’t you talk like that there! Don’t, John.”

“’Tis the Lord’s will, Joan––I do know that.”

“It be nothing of the kind, John. It be the devil’s will when a child do wrong such love as yours and mine. And there, now! Will you break your brave old heart, that has faced death a hundred times, for the devil? No, ’tis not like to be, I’m sure. Look at the worst of it. Denas does say she be married. She does write her name with his name. What then? Many a poor father and mother have drunk the cup we be drinking––nothing strange have come to us.”

“I do not believe she be the man’s wife.”

“Aw, my dear, I do believe it. And Denas be my daughter, and I will not let you or any other man say but that she be all of an honest woman. ’Tis slander against your awn flesh and blood to say different, John.” And Joan spoke so warmly that her temper had a good effect upon her husband. It was like a fresh sea-breeze. He roused himself and sat upright, and began to listen to his wife’s words.

“Denas be gone away––gone away for ever from us––never more our little maid––never more! All this be true. But, John, her heart was gone a long time ago. Our poor ways were her scorn; she have gone to her awn, my dear, and we could not keep her. ’Tis like the young gull you brought home one day, and, when it was grown, no love kept it 151 from the sea. You gave it of your best, and it left you; it lay in your breast, John, and it left you. My dear! my dear! she be the man’s wife. Say that and feel that and stick to that. He be no son to us, that be sure; but Denas is our daughter. And maybe, John, things are going to turn out better than you think for. Denas be no fool.”

“Oh, Joan, how could she?”

At this point Joan broke down and began to sob passionately, and John had to turn comforter. And thus the painful hours went by, and the bread was not baked, and the boats went to sea without John; and the two sorrowful hearts sat together on their lonely hearth and talked of the child who had run away from their love. They were uncertain what to say to their neighbours, uncertain what their neighbours would say to them. John thought he ought to go to Exeter and see all the clergymen there, and so find out if Denas had been lawfully married. Joan thought it “a wisht poor business to go looking for bad news. Sit at your fireside, old man, or go far out to sea if you like it better, and if bad news be for you it will find you out, do be sure of that.”

The next day it did find them out. The St. Penfer News, published on Thursday, which was market-day, contained the following item: “On Monday night the daughter of John Penelles, fisher, ran off with Mr. Roland Tresham. The guilty pair went direct to London. Great sympathy is felt for the girl’s father, who is a thoroughly upright man and a Wesleyan local preacher of the St. Penfer circuit.”

One of the brethren thought it his duty to show this paragraph to John. And the “old man” in John gained the mastery, and with a great oath he swore the words were a lie. Then, being sneeringly contradicted, he felled “the man of duty” prone upon the shingle. Then he went home and thoroughly terrified Joan. The repressed animal passion of a lifetime raged in him like a wild beast. He used words which horrified his wife, he kicked chairs and tables out of his way like a man drunk with strong liquor. He said he would go to St. Merryn’s and get his money, and follow Roland and Denas to the end of the world; and if they were not married, they should marry or die––both of them. He walked his cottage floor the night through, and all the powers of darkness tortured and tempted him.

For the first time in all their wedded life Joan dared not approach her husband. He was like a giant in the power of his enemies, and his struggles were terrible. But she knew well that he must fight and conquer alone. Hour after hour his ceaseless tramp, tramp, tramp went on; and she could hear him breathing inwardly like one who has business of life and death in hand.

Toward dawn she lost hold of herself and fell asleep. When she awoke it was broad daylight, and all was still in the miserable house. Softly she opened the door and looked into the living-room. John was on his knees; she heard his voice––a far-off, awful voice––the voice of the soul and not of the body. So she went back, and with bowed head 153 sat down on the edge of her bed and waited. Very cold was the winter morning, but she feared to make a movement. She knew it was long past the breakfast hour; she heard footsteps passing, the shouts of the fishers, the cries of the sea-birds; she believed it to be at least ten o’clock.

But she sat breathlessly still. John was wrestling as Jacob wrestled; a movement, a whisper might delay the victory or the blessing. She almost held her breath as the muttered pleading grew more and more rapid, more and more urgent. Then there was a dead silence, a pause, a long deep sigh, a slow movement––and John opened the door and said softly, “Joan.” There was the light of victory on his face; the cold strong light of a lifted sword. Then he sat down by her side; but what he told her and how she comforted him belong to those sacred, secret things which it is a sacrilege against love to speak of.

They went together to the cold hearth, and kindled the fire, and made the meal both urgently needed, and, as they ate it, John spoke of the duty before him. He had sworn at Jacob Trenager and knocked him down; he had let loose all the devils within him; he had failed in the hour of his trial, and he must resign his offices of class leader and local preacher.

It was a bitter personal humiliation. How his enemies would rejoice! Where he had been first, he must be last. After he had eaten, he took the plan out of the Bible and looked at it. As he already knew, he was appointed to preach at St. Clair the 154 following evening. He had prepared his sermon on those three foggy days that began the week. He then thought he had never been so ready for a preaching, and he had the desire of a natural orator for his occasion. But how could he preach to others when he had failed himself? The flight of his daughter was in every mouth, and in some measure he would be held responsible for her sin. Was not Eli punished for his son’s transgressions? The duty before him was a terrible one. It made his brown face blanch and his strong, stern mouth quiver with mental anguish.

But he laid the plan on the table and crossed out carefully all the figures which represented John Penelles. Then he wrote a few lines to the superintendent and enclosed his self-degradation. Joan wondered what he would do about the St. Clair appointment, for he had asked no one to take his place, and early in the afternoon he told her to get the lantern ready, as he was going there. She divined what he purposed to do, and she refused to go with him. He did not oppose her decision; perhaps he was glad she felt able to spare herself and him the extra humiliation.

Never had the little chapel been so crowded. All his mates from the neighbouring villages were present; for everyone had some share of that itching curiosity that likes to see how a soul suffers. A few of the leaders spoke to him; a great many appeared to be lost in those divine meditations suitable to the house of worship. John’s first action awakened everyone present to a sense of something 155 unusual. He refused to ascend the pulpit. He passed within the rails that enclosed the narrow sacred spot below the pulpit, drew the small table forward, and, without the preface of hymn or prayer, plunged at once into his own confession of unworthiness to minister to them. He read aloud the letter which he had received from his daughter, and averred his belief in its truthfulness. He told, with the minutest veracity, every word of his quarrel with Jacob Trenager. He confessed his shameful and violent temper in his own home; his hatred and his desire and purposes of revenge; and he asked the pardon of Trenager and of every member of the church which had been scandalized by the action of his daughter and by his own sinfulness.

His voice, sad and visibly restrained by a powerful will, throbbed with the burning emotions which made the man quiver from head to feet. It was impossible not to feel something of the anguish that looked out of his large patient eyes and trembled on his lips. Women began to sob hysterically, men bent their heads low or covered their faces with their hands; an irresistible wave of sorrow and sympathy was carrying every soul with it.

But, even while John was speaking, a man rose and walked up the aisle to the table at which John stood. He turned his face to the congregation, and, lifting up his big hand, cried out:

“Be quiet, John Penelles. I be to blame in this matter. I be the villain! There isn’t a Cornishman living that be such a Judas as I be. ’Twas under my old boat Denas Penelles found the love-letters 156 that couldn’t have come to her own home. Why did I lend my boat and myself for such a cruel bad end? Was it because I liked the young man? No, I hated him. What for, then?” He put his hand in his pocket, took out a piece of gold, and, in the sight of all, dashed it down on the table.

“That’s what I did it for. One pound! A wisht beggarly bit of money! Judas asked thirty pieces. I sold Paul Pyn for one piece, and it was too much––too much for such a ghastly, mean old rascal. I be cruel sorry––but there then! where be the good of ‘sorry’ now? That bit of gold have burnt my soul blacker than a coal! dreadful! aw, dreadful! I wouldn’t touch it again to save my mean old life. And if there be a man or a woman in Cornwall that will touch it, they be as uncommon bad as I be! that is sure.”

“Paul, I forgive you, and there is my hand upon it. A man can only be ‘sorry.’ ‘Sorry’ be all that God asks,” said John Penelles in a low voice.

“I be no man, John. I be just a cruel bad fellow. I never had a child to love me or one to love. No woman would be my wife. I be kind of forsaken––no kith or kin to care about me,” and, with his brown, rugged face cast down, he began to walk toward the door. Then Ann Bude rose in the sight of all. She went to his side; she took his hand and passed out of the chapel with him. And everyone looked at the other, for Paul had loved Ann for twenty years and twenty times at least Ann had refused to be his wife. But now, in this hour of his shame and sorrow, she had gone to his side, 157 and a sigh and a smile passed from heart to heart and from face to face.

John stood still, with his eyes fixed on the piece of gold. It lay on the table like a guilty thing. All Pyn’s sin seemed to have passed into it. Men and women stood up to look at it where it lay––the wretched tool of a bad man. It was a relief when Jacob Trenager gave out a hymn, a greater relief that John Penelles went out while they were singing it. Brothers and sisters all wished to talk about John and John’s trouble, but to talk to him in his grief and humiliation was a different thing. Only the old chapel-keeper watched him going along the rocky coast at a dangerous speed, his lantern swinging wildly to his big strides.

But a five-minutes’ walk brought John to a place where he was alone with God and the sea. Oh, then, how he cried out for pity! for comfort! for help! for forgiveness! His voice was not the inaudible pleading of a man praying in his chamber; it was like the despairing call of a strong swimmer in the death-billows. It went out over the ocean; it went out beyond time and space; it touched the heart of the Divinity who pitieth the sufferers, “even as a father pitieth his children.”

There was a glow of firelight through his cottage window, but no candle. Joan was bending sorrowfully over the red coals. John was glad of the dim light, glad of the quiet, glad of the solitude, for Joan was only his other self––his sweeter and more hopeful self. He told her all that had passed. She stood up beside him, she held his head against her 158 breast and let him sob away there the weight of grief and shame that almost choked him. Then she spoke bravely to the broken-down, weary man:

“John, my old dear, don’t you sit on the ash-heap like Job, and bemoan yourself and your birthday, and go on as if the devil had more to do with you than with other Christians. Speak up to your Heavenly Father, and ask Him ‘why,’ and answer Him like a man; do now! And go to Exeter in the morning, and make yourself sure that Denas be a honest woman. I, her mother, be sure of it; but there then! men do be so bad themselves, they can’t trust their own hearts, nor their own ears and eyes. ‘I believe’ will make a woman happy; but a man, God knows, they must go to the law and the testimony, or they are not satisfied. It’s dreadful! dreadful!”

They talked the night away, and early in the morning John went to Exeter. With the proofs of his daughter’s marriage in his hand, he felt as if he could face his enemies. Joan was equal to them without it. She knew they would find her out, and they found her singing at her work. Her placid face and cheery words of welcome nonplussed the most spiteful; the majority who came to triumph over her went away without being able to say one of the many evil thoughts in their hearts; and not a few found themselves hoping and wishing good things for the bride.

But it was a great effort, and many times that day Joan went into the inner room, and buried her face in her pillow, and had her cry out. Only she 159 confidently expected John to bring back the proofs of her child’s marriage, and in that expectation she bore without weakening the slant eye, and the shrugged shoulder, and the denying looks of her neighbours. And of course John found no minister in Exeter who had married Denas Penelles and Roland Tresham; and it never once struck him that Denas had been married in Plymouth and found no time to write until she reached Exeter. Neither did Joan think of such a possibility; yet when her husband came in without a word and sat down with a black, stubborn face, she knew that he had been disappointed.

That night John held his peace, even from good; and Joan felt that for once she must do the same. So they sat together without candle, without speech, bowed to the earth with shame, feeling with bitter anguish that their old age had been beggared of love, and honour, and hope, and happiness; and, alas! so beggared by the child who had been the joy and the pride of their lives.

At the same hour Denas sat with Roland in one of the fine restaurants to be found in High Holborn. They had eaten of the richest viands, the sparkle of the champagne cup was in both their eyes, and they were going anon to the opera. Denas had a silk robe on and a little pink opera cloak. Her long pale gloves and her bouquet of white roses were by her side. Roland was in full evening dress. Their eyes flashed; their cheeks flamed with pleasant anticipations. They rose from their dinner with smiles and whispered love-words; and Roland 160 ordered with the air of a lord, “A carriage for the opera.”

From John and Joan these events were mercifully hidden. It is only God who can bear the awful light of omniscience and of omnipresence. The things we cannot see! The things we never know! Let us be unspeakably grateful for this blessed ignorance! For many a heart would break that lives on if it only knew––if it only saw––how unnecessary was its love to those it loves so fondly!