Lucian arrived at the old vicarage towards the close of the afternoon. He had driven over from Oakborough through a wintry land, and every minute spent in the keen air had added to the buoyancy of his spirits. Never, he thought as he was driven along the valley, did Simonstower look so well as under its first coating of snow, and on the rising ground above the village he made his driver stop so that he might drink in the charm of the winter sunset. At the western extremity of the valley a shelving hill closed the view; on its highest point a long row of gaunt fir-trees showed black and spectral against the molten red of the setting sun and the purpled sky into which it was sinking; nearer, the blue smoke of the village chimneys curled into the clear, frosty air—it seemed to Lucian that he could almost smell the fires of fragrant wood which burned on the hearths. He caught a faint murmur of voices from the village street: it was four o’clock, and the children were being released from school. Somewhere along the moorland side a dog was barking; in the windows of his uncle’s farmhouse, high above the river and the village, lights were already gleaming; a spark of bright light amongst the pine and fir trees near the church told him that Mr. Chilverstone had already lit his study-lamp. Every sound, every sight was familiar—they brought the old days back to him. And there, keeping stern watch over the village at its foot, stood the old Norman castle, its square keep towering to the sky, as massive and formidable as when Lucian had first looked upon it from his chamber window the morning after Simpson Pepperdine had brought him to Simonstower.

He bade the man drive on to the vicarage. He had sent no word of his coming; he had more than once descended upon his friends at Simonstower without warning, and had always found a welcome. The vicar came bustling into the hall to him, with no sign of surprise.

‘I did not know they had wired to you, my boy,’ he said, greeting him in the old affectionate way, ‘but it was good of you to come so quickly.’

Lucian recognised that something had happened.

‘I don’t understand you,’ he said. ‘No one wired to me; I came down on my own initiative—I wanted to see my uncle on business.’

‘Ah!’ said the vicar, shaking his head. ‘Then you do not know?—your uncle is ill. He had a stroke—a fit—you know what I mean—this very morning. Your Aunt Judith is across at the farm now. But come in, my dear boy—how cold you must be.’

Lucian went out to the conveyance which had brought him over, paid the driver, and bade him refresh himself at the inn, and then joined the vicar in his study. There again were the familiar objects which spelled Home. It suddenly occurred to him that he was much more at home here or in the farmhouse parlour along the roadside than in his own house in London, and he wondered in vague, indirect fashion why that should be so.

‘Is my uncle dangerously ill, then?’ he asked, looking at the vicar, who was fidgeting about with the fire-irons and repeating his belief that Lucian must be very cold.

‘I fear so, I fear so,’ answered Mr. Chilverstone. ‘It is, I think, an apoplectic seizure—he was rather inclined to that, if you come to think of it. Your aunt has just gone across there. It was early this morning that it happened, and she has been over to the farm several times during the day, but this time I think she will find a specialist there—Dr. Matthews wished for advice and wired to Smokeford for some great man who was to arrive an hour ago. I am glad you have come, Lucian. Did you see Sprats before leaving?’

Lucian replied that he had seen Sprats on the previous day. He sat down, answering the vicar’s questions respecting his daughter in mechanical fashion—he was thinking of the various events of the past twenty-four hours, and wondering if Mr. Pepperdine’s illness was likely to result in death. Mr. Chilverstone turned from Sprats to the somewhat sore question of the tragedy. It was to him a sad sign of the times that the public had neglected such truly good work, and he went on to express his own opinion of the taste of the age. Lucian listened absent-mindedly until Mrs. Chilverstone returned with news of the sick man. She was much troubled; the specialist gave little hope of Simpson’s recovery. He might linger for some days, but it was almost certain that a week would see the end of him. But in spite of her trouble Aunt Judith was practical. Keziah, she said, must not be left alone that night, and she herself was going back to the farm as soon as she had seen that the vicar was properly provided for in respect of his sustenance and comfort. Ever since her marriage Mrs. Chilverstone had felt that her main object in life was the pleasing of her lord; she had put away all thought of the dead hussar, and her romantic disposition had bridled itself with the reins of chastened affection. Thus the vicar, who under Sprats’s rÉgime had neither been pampered nor coddled, found himself indulged in many modes hitherto unknown to him, and he accepted all that was showered upon him with modest thankfulness. He thought his wife a kindly and considerate soul, and did not realise, being a truly simple man, that Judith was pouring out upon him the resources of a treasury which she had been stocking all her life. He was the first thing she had the chance of loving in a practical fashion; hence he began to live among rose-leaves. He protested now that Lucian and himself wanted for nothing. Mrs. Chilverstone, however, took the reins in hand, saw that the traveller was properly attended to and provided for, and did not leave the vicarage until the two men were comfortably seated at the dinner-table, the maids admonished as to lighting a fire in Mr. Damerel’s room, and the vicar warned of the necessity of turning out the lamps and locking the doors. Then she returned to her brother’s house, and for an hour or two Lucian and his old tutor talked of things nearest to their hearts, and the feelings of home came upon the younger man more strongly than ever. He began to wonder how it was that he had settled down in London when he might have lived in the country; the atmosphere of this quiet, book-lined room in a village parsonage was, he thought just then, much more to his true taste than that in which he had spent the last few years of his life. At Oxford Lucian had lived the life of a book-worm and a dreamer: he was not a success in examinations, and he brought no great honour upon his tutor. In most respects he had lived apart from other men, and it was not until the publication of his first volume had drawn the eyes of the world upon him that he had been swept out of the peaceful backwater of a student’s existence into the swirling tides of the full river of life. Then had followed Lord Simonstower’s legacy, and then the runaway marriage with Haidee, and then four years of butterfly existence. He began to wonder, as he ate the vicar’s well-kept mutton, fed on the moorlands close by, and sipped the vicar’s old claret, laid down many a year before, whether his recent life had not been a feverish dream. Looked at from this peaceful retreat, its constant excitement and perpetual rush and movement seemed to have lost whatever charm they once had for him. Unconsciously Lucian was suffering from reaction: his moral as well as his physical nature was crying for rest, and the first oasis in the desert assumed the delightful colours and soft air of Paradise.

Later in the evening he walked over to the farmhouse, through softly falling snow, to inquire after his uncle’s condition. Mrs. Chilverstone was in the sick man’s room and did not come downstairs; Miss Pepperdine received him in the parlour. In spite of the trouble that had fallen upon the house and of the busy day which she had spent, Keziah was robed in state for the evening, and she sat bolt upright in her chair plying her knitting-needles as vigorously as in the old days which Lucian remembered so well. He sat down and glanced at Simpson Pepperdine’s chair, and wished the familiar figure were occupying it, and he talked to his aunt of her brother’s illness, and the cloud which hung over the house weighed heavily upon both.

‘I am glad you came down, Lucian,’ said Miss Pepperdine, after a time. ‘I have been wanting to talk to you.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What about?’

Keziah’s needles clicked with unusual vigour for a moment or two.

‘Simpson,’ she said at last, ‘was always a soft-hearted man. If he had been harder of heart, he would have been better off.’

Lucian, puzzled by this ambiguous remark, stared at Miss Pepperdine in a fashion indicative of his amazement.

‘I think,’ continued Miss Pepperdine, with pointed emphasis, ‘I think it is time you knew more than you know at present, Lucian. When all is said and done, you are the nearest of kin in the male line, and after hearing the doctors to-night I’m prepared for Simpson’s death at any moment. It’s a very bad attack of apoplexy—if he lived he’d be a poor invalid all his life. Better that he should be taken while in the full possession of his faculties.’

Lucian gazed at the upright figure before him with mingled feelings. Miss Pepperdine used to sit like that, and knit like that, and talk like that, in the old days—especially when she felt it to be her duty to reprimand him for some offence. So far as he could tell, she was wearing the same stiff and crackly silk gown, she held her elbows close to her side and in just the same fashion, she spoke with the same precision as in the time of Lucian’s youth. The sight of her prim figure, the sound of her precise voice, blotted out half a score of years: Lucian felt very young again.

‘It may not be so bad as you think,’ he said. ‘Even the best doctors may err.’

Miss Pepperdine shook her head.

‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s all over with Simpson. And I think you ought to know, Lucian, how things are with him. Simpson has been a close man, he has kept things to himself all his life; and of late he has been obliged to confide in me, and I know a great deal that I did not know.’

‘Yes?’ said Lucian.

‘Simpson,’ she continued, ‘has not done well in business for some time. He had a heavy loss some years ago through a rascally lawyer whom he trusted—he always was one of those easy-going men that will trust anybody—and although the old Lord Simonstower helped him out of the difficulty, it ultimately fell on his own shoulders, and of late he has had hard work to keep things going. Simpson will die a poor man. Not that that matters—Judith and myself are provided for. I shall leave here, afterwards. Judith, of course, is married. But as regards you, Lucian, you lent Simpson some money a few months ago, didn’t you?’

‘My dear aunt!’ exclaimed Lucian, ‘I——’

‘I know all about it,’ she said, ‘though it’s only recently that I have known. Well, you mustn’t be surprised if you have to lose it, Lucian. When all is settled up, I don’t think there will be much, if anything, over; and of course everybody must be paid before a member of the family. The Pepperdines have always had their pride, and as your mother was a Pepperdine, Lucian, you must have a share of it in you.’

‘I have my father’s pride as well,’ answered Lucian. ‘Of course I shall not expect the money. I was glad to be able to lend it.’

‘Well,’ said Miss Pepperdine, with the air of one who deals out justice impartially, ‘in one way you were only paying Simpson back for what he had laid out on you. He spent a good deal of money on you, Lucian, when you were a boy.’

Lucian heard this news with astonished feelings.

‘I did not know that,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I am careless about these things, but I have always thought that my father left money for me.’

‘I thought so too, until recently,’ replied Miss Pepperdine. ‘Your father thought that he did, too, and he made Simpson executor and trustee. But the money was badly invested. It was in a building society in Rome, and it was all lost. There was never a penny piece from it, from the time of your father’s death to this.’

Lucian listened in silence.

‘Then,’ he said, after a time, ‘my uncle was responsible for everything for me? I suppose he paid Mr. Chilverstone, and bought my clothes, and gave me pocket-money, and so on?’

‘Every penny,’ replied his aunt. ‘Simpson was always a generous man.’

‘And my three years at Oxford?’ he said inquiringly.

‘Ah!’ replied Miss Pepperdine, ‘that’s another matter. Well—I don’t suppose it matters now that you should know, though Simpson wouldn’t have told you, but I think you ought to know. That was Lord Simonstower—the old lord. He paid every penny.’

Lucian uttered a sharp exclamation. He rose from his chair and took a step or two about the room. Miss Pepperdine continued to knit with undiminished vigour.

‘So it would seem,’ he said presently, ‘that I lived and was educated on charity?’

‘That is how most people would put it,’ she answered, ‘though, to do them justice, I don’t think either Lord Simonstower or Simpson Pepperdine would have called it that. They thought you a promising youth and they put money into you. That’s why I want you to feel that Simpson was only getting back a little of his own in the money that you lent him, though I know he would have paid it back to the day, according to his promise, if he’d been able. But I’m afraid that he would not have been able, and I think his money affairs have worked upon him.’

‘I wish I had known,’ said Lucian. ‘He should have had no anxiety on my account.’

He continued to pace the floor; Miss Pepperdine’s needles clicked an accompaniment to his advancing and retreating steps.

‘I thought it best,’ she observed presently, ‘that you should know all these things—they will explain a good deal.’

‘Yes,’ he answered, ‘it is best. I should know. But I wish I had known long ago. After all, a man should not be placed in a false position even by his dearest friends. I ought to have been told the truth.’

Miss Pepperdine’s needles clicked viciously.

‘So I always felt—after I knew, and that is but recently,’ she answered. ‘But, as I have said to you before, Simpson Pepperdine is a soft-hearted man.’

‘He has been a kind-hearted man,’ said Lucian. He was thinking, as he walked about the room, glancing at the well-remembered objects, that the money which he had wasted in luxuries that he could well have done without would have relieved Mr. Pepperdine of anxiety and trouble. And yet he had never known, never guessed, that the kindly-hearted farmer had anything to distress him.

‘I think we all seem to walk in darkness,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘I never had the least notion of this. Had I known anything of it, Uncle Simpson should have had all that I could give him.’

Miss Pepperdine melted. She had formed rather hard thoughts of Lucian since his marriage. The side-winds which blew upon her ears from time to time represented him as living in a style which her old-fashioned mind did not approve: she had come to consider him as extravagant, frivolous, and unbalanced. But she was a woman of sound common sense and great shrewdness, and she recognised the genuine ring in Lucian’s voice and the sincerity of his regret that he had not been able to save Simpson Pepperdine some anxiety.

‘I’m sure you would, my boy,’ she said kindly. ‘However, Simpson has done with everything now. I didn’t tell Judith, because she frets so, but the doctors don’t think he’ll ever regain consciousness—it will only be a matter of a few days, Lucian.’

‘And that only makes one wish that one had known of his anxieties sooner,’ he said. ‘Five years ago I could have helped him substantially.’

He was thinking of the ten thousand pounds which had already disappeared. Miss Pepperdine did not follow his line of thought.

‘Yes, I’ve heard that you’ve made a lot of money,’ she said. ‘You’ve been one of the lucky ones, Lucian, for I always understood that poets generally lived in garrets and were half-starved most of their time. I’m sure one used to read all that sort of thing in books; but perhaps times have changed, and so much the better. Simpson always read your books as soon as you sent them. Upon my word, I’m sure he never understood what it was all about, except perhaps some of the songs and ballads, but he liked the long words, and he was very proud of these little green books—they’re all in his bureau there, along with his account-books. Well, as I was saying, I understand you’ve made money, Lucian. Take care of it, my boy, for you never know when you may want it, and want it badly, in this world. There’s one thing I want you to promise me. I don’t yet know how things will be when Simpson’s gone, but if he is a bit on the wrong side of the ledger, it must be made up by the family, and you must do your share. It mustn’t be said that a Pepperdine died owing money that he couldn’t pay. I’ve already talked it over with Judith, and if there is money to be found, she and I and you must find it between us. If need be, all mine can go,’ she added sharply. ‘I can get a place as a housekeeper even at my age.’

Lucian gave her his promise readily enough, and immediately began to wonder what it might imply. But he agreed with her reasoning, and assured himself that, if necessary, he would live on a crust in order to carry out her wishes. And soon afterwards he set out for the vicarage, promising to return for news of Mr. Pepperdine’s condition at an early hour in the morning.

As he walked back over the snow Lucian was full of thought. The conversation with Miss Pepperdine had opened a new world to him. He had always believed himself independent: it now turned out that for years and years he had lived at other men’s charges. He owed his very food to the charity of a relative; another man, upon whom he had no claim, had lavished generosity upon him in no unstinted fashion. He was full of honest gratitude to these men, but he wished at the same time that he had known of their liberality sooner. He felt that he had been placed in a false position, and the feeling lowered him in his own estimation. He thought of his father, who earned money easily and spent it freely, and realised that he had inherited his happy-go-lucky temperament. Yet he had never doubted that his father had made provision for him, for he remembered hearing him tell some artist friends one afternoon in Florence that he had laid money aside for Lucian’s benefit, and Cyprian Damerel had been a man of common sense, fond of pleasure and good living and generous though he was. But Lucian well understood the story of the Roman building society—greater folk than he, from the Holy Father downwards, had lost money out of that feverish desire to build which has characterised the Romans of all ages. No doubt his father had been carried away by some wave of enthusiasm, and had put all his eggs into one basket, and they had all been broken together. Still, Lucian wished that Mr. Pepperdine had told him all this on his reaching an age of understanding—it would have made a difference in many ways. ‘I seem,’ he thought, as he plodded on through the snow, ‘I seem to have lived in an unreal world, and to have supposed things which were not!’ And he began to recall the days of sure and confident youth, when his name was being extolled as that of a newly risen star in the literary firmament, and his own heart was singing with the joy of pride and strength and full assurance. He had never felt one doubt of the splendour of his career, never accepted it as anything but his just due. His very certainty on these matters had, all unknown to himself, induced in him an unassuming modesty, at which many people who witnessed his triumphs and saw him lionised had wondered. Now, however, he had tasted the bitterness of reverse; he had found that Fortune can frown as easily as she can smile, and that it is hard to know upon what principle her smiles and frowns are portioned out. To a certain point, life for Lucian had been a perpetual dancing along the primrose way—it was now developing into a tangle wherein were thorns and briars.

He was too full of these thoughts to care for conversation, even with his old tutor, and he pleaded fatigue and went to bed. He lay awake for the greater part of the night, thinking over his talk with Miss Pepperdine, and endeavouring to arrange his affairs so that he might make good his promise to her, and when he slept, his sleep was troubled by uneasy dreams. He woke rather late in the morning with a feeling of impending calamity hanging heavily upon him. As he dressed, Mr. Chilverstone came tapping at his door—something in the sound warned Lucian of bad news. He was not surprised when the vicar told him that Simpson Pepperdine had died during the night.

He walked over to the farm as soon as he had breakfasted, and remained there until noon. Coming back, he overtook the village postman, who informed him that the letters were three hours late that morning in consequence of the heavy fall of snow, which had choked up the roads between Simonstower and Oakborough.

‘It’ll be late afternoon afore I’ve finished my rounds,’ he added, with a strong note of self-pity. ‘If you’re going up to the vicarage, sir, it ’ud save me a step if you took the vicar’s letters—and there’s one, I believe, for yourself.’

Lucian took the bundle of letters which the man held out to him, and turned it over until he found his own. He wondered why Haidee had written to him—she had no great liking for correspondence, and he had not expected to hear from her during his absence. He opened the letter in the vicar’s study, without the least expectation of finding any particular news in it.

It was a very short letter, and, considering the character of the intimation it was intended to make, the phrasing was commendably plain and outspoken. Lucian’s wife merely announced that his plans for the future were not agreeable to her, and that she was leaving home with the intention of joining Eustace Darlington in Paris. She further added that it was useless to keep up pretences any longer; she had already been unfaithful, and she would be glad if Lucian would arrange to divorce her as quickly as possible, so that she and Darlington might marry. Either as an afterthought, or out of sheer good will, she concluded with a lightly worded expression of friendship and of hope that Lucian might have better luck next time.

It is more than probable that Haidee was never quite so much her true self in her relation to Lucian as when writing this letter. It is permitted to every woman, whatever her mental and moral quality, to have her ten minutes of unreasoning romance at some period of her life, and Haidee had hers when she and Lucian fell in love with each other’s beauty and ran away to hide themselves from the world while they played out their little comedy. It was natural that they should tire of each other within the usual time; but the man’s sense of duty was developed in Lucian in a somewhat exceptional way, and he was inclined to settle down to a Darby and Joan life. Haidee had little of that particular instinct. She was all for pleasure and the glory of this world, and there is small wonder that the prospect of exile in a land for which she had no great liking should have driven her to the salvation of her diamonds and herself by recourse to the man whom she ought to have married instead of Lucian. There was already a guilty bond between them; it seemed natural to Haidee to look to it as a means of drawing her away from the dangers which threatened her worldly comfort. It was equally natural to her to announce all these things to Lucian in pretty much the same terms that she would have employed had she been declining an invitation to some social engagement.

Lucian read the letter three times. He gave no sign of whatever emotion it called up. All that he did was to announce in quiet, matter-of-fact tones that he must return to London that afternoon, and to beg the loan of the vicar’s horse and trap as far as Wellsby station. After that he lunched with Mr. and Mrs. Chilverstone, and if they thought him unusually quiet, there was good reason for that in the fact that Simpson Pepperdine was lying dead in the old farmhouse behind the pine groves.