When Amaryllis knew that John was going to get a few days' leave at Christmas a strange nervousness took possession of her. The personality of Denzil had been growing more real to her ever since they had parted, in spite of her endeavours to discipline her mind and control all emotion. The thought of him and the thought of the baby were inseparable and were seldom absent from her consciousness. All sorts of wonderful emotions held her, and exalted her imagination until she felt that Denzil was part of her daily life—and with the double interest her love for him grew and grew.

She had only seen John during the day when he had come to bid her good-bye before leaving for the Front, and most of the time they had been surrounded by the de la Paule family. But now she would have to face the fact of living with him again in an intimate relationship.

The thought appeared awful to her. There was something in her nature which resembled that of the bride of King Caudaules. She could not support the idea of belonging now to John; it seemed to her that he must have no rights at all. She had written to him dutifully each week letters about the place and her Committees in the County. She had not once mentioned the coming child.

Denzil's mother had been ill and the visit to Bath had been postponed, and after a fortnight alone at Ardayre she had come up to London. She had too much time to think there.

StÉpan had left her a list of books to get and she had been steadily reading them.

How horribly ignorant she had been! She realised that what knowledge she had possessed had never been centralised or brought to any use. She had known isolated histories of Europe, and never had studied them collectively or contemporarily to discover their effect upon human evolution. She had learned many things, and then never employed her critical faculties about them. A whole new world seemed to be opening to her view. She had determined not to be unhappy and not to look ahead, but in spite of these good resolutions she would often dream in the firelight of the joy of being clasped in Denzil's arms.

When she thought of John it was with tolerance more than affection. What did he really mean to her, denuded of the glamour with which she herself had surrounded him?

Practically nothing at all.

She was quite aware that her state of being was rendering all her mental and emotional faculties particularly sensitive, and she did her utmost to remember all Verisschenzko's counsel to discipline herself and remain serene. The morning John was expected to arrive she had a hard fight with herself. She felt very nervous and ill at ease. Above all things, she must not be unkind.

He was bronzed and looked well, he was more expansive also and plainly very glad to see her.

He held her close to him and bent to kiss her lips; but some undefined reluctance came over her, and she moved her head aside.

Something in her resented the caress. Her lips were now for Denzil and for no other man. It was she who was recalcitrant and turned the conversation into everyday things.

The de la Paule family had been summoned for luncheon and the afternoon passed among them all, and then the evening and the tÊte-À-tÊte dinner came.

John knocked at the door of her room while she was dressing. Her maid had just finished her hair and she wondered at herself that she should experience a sense of shyness and have to suppress an inclination to refuse to let him come in. And once any of these little intimate happenings would have given her joy!

She kept Adams there, and hurried into her tea-gown and then walked towards the door.

John had not spoken much, but stood by the fire.

How changed things were! Once he had to be persuaded and enticed to stay with her at such moments, and it was he who now seemed to desire to do so, and it was she who discouraged his wishes!

In Amaryllis' mind an agitation grew. What could she say to him presently—if he suggested coming to sleep in her room?

The knowledge in her breast rose as an insurmountable barrier between them.

During dinner she kept the conversation entirely upon his life at the Front—which indeed really interested her. She was not cold or stiff in her manner, but she was unconsciously aloof.

Then they went back into the library, each feeling exceedingly depressed.

When coffee had come and they were quite alone Amaryllis felt she could not stand the strain, and went to the piano. She played for quite a long time all the things she remembered that John liked best. She wanted the music to calm her, and she wanted to gain time. John sat in one of the monster chairs and gazed into the fire. He seemed to see pictures in the glowing coals.

The strange relentless fate which had pursued him always as far as happiness was concerned!

He remembered what his mother had said to him when she lay a-dying with a broken heart.

"John, we cannot see what God means in it all. There must be some explanation because He cannot be unjust. It is because we have missed the point of some lesson, probably, and so are given it again to learn. Do not ever be rebellious, my son, and perhaps some day light will come."

He had read an article in some paper lately ridiculing the theory that we have had former lives, but, after all, perhaps there was some foundation for the belief. Perhaps he was paying in this one for sins in a previous birth. That would account for the seeming inexorableness of the misfortunes which fell upon him now, since common sense told him that in this life such cruel blows were undeserved.

Amaryllis glanced at his face from the piano as she played. It was infinitely sad.

A great pity grew in her heart. What ought she to do not to be unkind?

Presently she finished a soft chord and got up and came to his side.

They were both suffering cruelly—but John was going back to fight. She must have some explanation with him which could make him return to France at peace in a measure. It was cowardly to shirk telling him the truth, and she could not let him go again into danger with this black shadow between them.

He looked up at her and rose from his chair.

"You play so beautifully," he said hastily. "You take one out of oneself. Now it is late and the day has been long. Let us go to bed, dearest child."

Amaryllis stiffened suddenly—the moment that she dreaded had come.

"I would rather that you slept in your dressing-room. I have ordered that to be prepared—"

He looked at her startled—and then he took her hand.

"Amaryllis—tell me everything. Why are you so changed?"

"I'm trying not to be, John."

"You are trying—that proves that you are, if you must try. Please tell me what this means."

She endeavoured to remain calm and not become unhinged.

"It was you yourself who altered me. I came to you all loving and human and you froze me. There is nothing to be done."

"Yes, there is. You know that I love you."

"Perhaps you do, but the family matters more to you than I do, or anything else in the world."

"That may have been so once, but not now," his voice throbbed with feeling.

"Alas!" was all she answered and looked down. John longed to appeal to her—but he was too honest to seek to soften her through the link of the child. Indeed, the thought of it had grown hateful to him. He only knew that he had played for a stake which now seemed worthless. Amaryllis and her love mattered more than any child.

He clenched his hands tightly; the pain of things seemed hard to bear.

Why had he not broken the thongs of reserve which held him long days ago and made love to her in words? But that would have been dishonest. He must at least be true; and he realised now that he had starved her—no matter what his motive had been.

"Amaryllis, tell me everything, please," and he held out his hands and drew her to the sofa and sat down by her side.

She could not control her emotion any longer, and her voice shook as she answered him:

"I know that it was not you—but Denzil, John—and the baby is his, not yours."

His face altered. He had not been prepared to hear this thing and he was stunned.

"Ferdinand is an awful possibility to contemplate there at Ardayre, if you have no son—" She went on, trying to be calm, "but do you not think that you might have told me? Surely a woman has the right to select the father of her child."

John could not answer her. He covered his face with his hands.

"You see it is all pitiful," she continued, her voice deep and broken with almost a sob in it. "Denzil is so like you—it was an easy transition to find that I loved him—because I was only loving the imaginary you I had made for myself. I cannot explain myself and do not make any excuse. There is something in me, whenever I think of the baby, that draws me to Denzil and makes me remember that night. John, we must just face the situation and try to find some way to avoid as much pain as we can. I hate to think it is hurting you, too."

"Did Denzil tell you this?" his voice was icy cold.

"No—it came to me suddenly when I heard him say a word."

"'Sweetheart'!" and now John's eyes flashed. "He called you again
'Sweetheart'!"

"No, he did not—he used the word simply in speaking of a picture—but I recognised his voice then immediately—it is a little deeper than yours."

"When did you see Denzil?"

She told him the exact truth about their meeting and his coming to
Ardayre, and how Denzil had endeavoured to keep his word.

"He would never have spoken to me—it was fate which sent him into the train, and then I made him speak—I could not bear it. After I recognised him, I made him admit that it was he. Denzil is not to blame. He left immediately and I have never seen him or heard from him since. It is I alone who must be counted with, John—Denzil will try never to see me again."

John groaned aloud.

"Oh God—the misery of it all!"

"John, I must tell you everything now while we are talking of these things. I love Denzil utterly. I thrill when I think of him; he seems to me my husband, not even only a lover. John, not long ago, when I felt the first movement of the child, I shook with longing for him—I found myself murmuring his name aloud. So you must think what it all means to me, so strongly passionate as I am. But I would never cheat you, John—I had to be honest. I could not go on pretending to be your wife and living a lie."

Tears of agony gathered in John Ardayre's blue eyes and rolled down his cheeks.

He suddenly understood the suffering, that she, too, must be undergoing.

What right had he to have taken this young and loving woman and then to have used her for his own aims, however high?

"Amaryllis—you cannot forgive me. I see now that I was wrong."

But the sympathy which she had felt when she had looked at him from the piano welled up again in Amaryllis's heart and drowned all resentment. She knew that he must be enduring pain greater than hers, so she stretched out her hands to him, and he took them and held them in his.

"Of course, I forgive you, John—but I cannot cease from loving Denzil, that is the tragedy of the thing. I am his really, not yours, even if I never see him again, and that is why we must not make any pretences. John dearest, let us be friends—and live as friends, then everything won't be so hard."

He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering acutely—must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?

"But I love you, Amaryllis—I love you, dearest child—"

And now again she said "Alas!"—and that was all.

"Amaryllis—this is a frightful sacrifice to me—must you insist upon it?"

Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose—and she stood up and faced him.

"I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up, conventional girl—milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will—I had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and passionate as a savage"—her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,—"I could not belong to two men—it would utterly degrade me, then I do not know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul—and while he lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what passion means to me—fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family, and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the only terms I can offer you now."

John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.

Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.

"John," she whispered softly, "won't you always be my dearest friend? And when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must love it because it is mine and an Ardayre—and the comfort of that must fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of life—perhaps that is why fate forced me to know."

John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips—those he told himself he must renounce for evermore.

"Amaryllis,"—his voice was husky still, "yes—I will be your friend, darling—and I will love your child. I was very wrong to marry you, but it was not quite hopeless then, and you were so young and splendid and living—and I was growing to love you, and for these reasons I hoped against hope—and then when I knew that everything was impossible—I felt that I must make it up to you in every other way I could. I don't know how to put things into words, I always was dull, but I thought if I gratified all your wishes perhaps—Ah!—I see it was very cruel. Darling, I would have told you the truth—presently—but then the war came, and the thought of Ferdinand here drove me mad and it forced my hand."

She looked up at him with her sweet true eyes—her one idea was now to comfort him since she need no longer fear.

"John, if you had explained the whole thing to me—I do not know, perhaps I should have agreed with you, for I, too, have much of this family pride, and I cannot bear to think of Ferdinand—or his children which may be, at Ardayre. I might have voluntarily consented—I cannot be sure. But somehow just lately I have been thinking very much about spiritual things, things I mean beyond the material, those great forces which must be all around us, and I have wondered if we are not perhaps too ignorant yet to upset any laws. Perhaps I am stupid—I don't know really. I have only been wondering—but perhaps there are powerful currents connected with laws, whether they are just or unjust, simply because of the force of people's thoughts for hundreds of years around them."

They went to the sofa then and sat down. It made John happier to hear her talk. His strong will was now conquering the outward show of his emotion at last.

"It may be so—"

"You see, supposing anything should happen to Ferdinand," she went on, "then Denzil would have been naturally the next heir—and now—if the child is a boy—"

John started.

"We neither of us thought of that."

"But nothing is likely to happen to Ferdinand; he won't enlist—it is only you, dear John, who are in danger, and Denzil, too—but surely the war cannot go on long now?"

John wondered if he should tell her what he really felt about this, or whether it were wiser to keep her quietly in this hopeful dream of a speedy end. He decided to say nothing; it was better for her health not to agitate her mind—events would speak for themselves, alas, presently.

He talked quietly then of Ardayre and of his boyhood and of its sorrows; he was determined to break down his own reserve, and Amaryllis listened interestedly, and gradually some kind of peace and calm seemed to come to them both, and they resolutely banished the thought of the future, and sought only to think of the present. And then at last John rose and took her hand:

"Go to bed now, dear girl,—and to-morrow I shall have quite conquered all the feelings which could disturb you, and just remember always that I am indeed your friend."

She understood at last the greatness of his sacrifice and the fineness of his soul, and she fell into a passion of weeping and ran from the room.

But John, left alone, sank down into the same chair as he had done once before on the night he was waiting for Denzil, and, as then, he buried his face in his hands.