Sibylla had allotted to Christine a small sitting-room on the first floor of the house to be her private resort during her visit; they neither of them liked a drawing-room existence all day long. Here Christine sat waiting John Fanshaw's arrival. She had taken much thought wherewithal she should be clothed, but that was rather the instinct which asserted itself in her on any occasion of moment than a token of confidence in the weapon of becoming apparel. A fair appearance was never to be wholly neglected by the wise, but she did not rely on it now. The most that any charming could do would be to extort a passing admiration, which in its turn might secure a transient forgiveness; but a reaction of feeling would surely wait on it. She did not want to be forgiven in that way. In truth she hardly wanted forgiveness at all; at any rate she would greatly dislike the process. She had been put in the corner, as she said. The position was not pleasant; but being called out again with the admonitions suitable to the moment was scarcely a more agreeable situation. By parting her from him, first in spirit, then in daily life, John had hardened her heart towards him. He had made her dwell more and more not on her sin, but on his right to inflict a penalty. More and more she had remembered what Caylesham had said, and had asked if he who benefited by the act—of his own will benefited by it—had any title to despise the hand which was guilty of it. John's distress, his doubts, struggles, and forlornness, had pleaded against this judgment of him while she was with him. The idea of them had grown faint with absence; John had left himself to be dealt with by reason then, and reason saw only what he had done; the eye could no longer trace the sorrow and the struggle which had gone with his deed.

Her mind was on Caylesham too. She had just read a letter from Anna Selford. It was full of Anna and her frocks. (Much advice was needed—when was Mrs. Fanshaw coming back to town?) It had a good deal to say of Blake and his handsome presents; and it touched on Caylesham with a rather acrimonious note. He had been to see them, and had not made himself very agreeable; really Anna did not see that there was anything to criticise, nor, above all, that Lord Caylesham had any call to set up as a critic if there were. Christine smiled over the passage, picturing so well the veiled irony and the intangible banter which Caylesham would mingle with his congratulations and infuse into his praises. Anna would not shrink nor retreat, but she would be angry and rather helpless before the sting of these slender darts. Memories stamped on her very soul stood out in salient letters, and the face of Caylesham seemed to hang in the air before her eyes. To remember loving is not to love, but it may make all other love seem a second-rate thing. She loved Caylesham no longer, but she was without power to love anyone as she had loved him. Others had his vices, others his virtues such as they were. The blend in him had been for her the thing her soul asked. Time could not wither the remembrance, though it had killed the feeling itself. Not John's displeasure was the greatest price she had paid; not John's forgiveness could undo or blot out the past. John's friendship and comradeship were the best thing the world had to offer her now—and she wanted them; but she wanted them not as the best, but because there was nothing better.

She had no thought of blame for Caylesham, nor of bitterness against him. Here her fairness of mind came in—her true judgment of herself. All along she had known what he was and what he gave, as well as what she was and gave. He had given all he had ever professed to give. (She was not thinking of words or phrases, but of the essence of the attachment, well known to both.) If it had not been all she sought, still she had accepted it as enough—as enough to make her happy, enough return for all she had to offer. She would not repudiate the bargain now. Frank had been straight and fair with her, and she would cast no stone at him. Only it was just very unlucky that matters should fall out in the way they had, and that she should be the sort of person she was—a bad sinner, because she could not minimise nor forget—a bad penitent, because she could not feel remorse that the fault had been committed, nor humbly seek forgiveness for it. It had abided with her always—now as a pleasure, now as a threatening danger, as both together sometimes. Even at this moment it was at once the cause of all her sorrow and her greatest solace in the world.

Yet in the days between the end of her love for Caylesham and the discovery which had been made by John there had been another happiness—when she was on good terms with her old friend John, when things went well with them, when he admired her—yes, when he treated her as something precious, clever, and brilliant. Then she had rejoiced in his pride in her, and given of the best she had to preserve and to strengthen it. Now, in resentment against John, she sought to deny this. But in what mood would John come? The maintenance of her denial depended largely on that.

Suddenly she heard the sound of wheels stopping before the gate of the house. She sat erect and listened. The hall-door opened. She waited till she heard it close again, then sprang up, cast a glance at a looking-glass over the mantelpiece, then turned and faced the door. Her lips were a little parted; she stood very still. Expectation mingled with defiance in her bearing. A few minutes passed before there was a knock at the door. She cleared her throat to cry:

"Come in!"

John entered and closed the door carefully behind him; but he did not advance towards her at once. He stood where he was, with a curious deprecatory smile on his face. She thought he looked rather old and worn, and he was shabbily dressed, as his habit was when he had to look after his own wardrobe without advice and criticism. He carried the sense of forlornness, as he had when he sat with Caylesham's cheque before him, and the air of being ashamed too. But his manner gave now no hint of anger. Christine's heart went out to him in a quick impulse of sympathy; but she crushed the feeling down, and would give no outward sign of it. She waited in stillness and silence. It was for him to speak, for him to set the note of their interview, and of more than their interview—of their future life, and of how they were to be to one another henceforward.

"Here I am, Christine. Mrs. Grantley told me I should find you in this room; and here I am."

She nodded her head coolly, but gave him no other welcome. He came two or three steps towards her, holding out his hands in front of him in an awkward way, and with that ashamed pleading smile still on his lips.

"I can't get on without my old girl," he said.

In a flash of her quick intuition she knew his mind. The one sentence revealed anything which his manner had left doubtful. He was doing what he thought wrong, and doing it because he could not help it. He was abandoning a great and just grievance, and thereby seemed to be sacrificing the claims of morality, condoning what deserved no forgiveness, impairing his own self-respect. His position, with all its obvious weakness, had not become untenable in theory, and his reason, hard-bound in preconceptions, was not convinced. He came under the stress of feeling, because his life had become intolerable, because, as he said in one of his phrases of rough affection, he could not get on without his old girl. The need he had of her conquered the grievance that he had against her, and brought him back to her. He came with no reproaches, no parade of forgiveness, with neither references to the past nor terms for the future.

It was a triumph for Christine, and of the kind she prized and understood best—a woman's triumph. It had not been expected; it was none too well deserved. A colour came on her cheeks, and she breathed rather quickly as she realised the completeness of it. For a moment she was minded to use it to the full, and, since she was no longer the criminal, to play the tyrant in her turn. But the very perfection of the victory forbade. It inspired in her a feeling which reproaches would have been powerless to raise—a great pity for him, a new and more genuine condemnation of herself. Had she been so much as that to him, and yet had used him so ill?

"I've been lonely too, John," she said. "Come and kiss me, my dear."

He came to her diffidently, and hardly touched her cheek when he kissed her.

"That doesn't feel a bit like you, John," she said, with a nervous laugh, as she made him sit by her on the sofa. "Now tell me all about everything! I know that's what you want to do."

That was what he wanted to do—to take her back into the life which was so empty and incomplete without her—to have her again to share his interests and to be a partner in his fortunes. Yet for the moment he could not do as she bade him. He was much moved, and was very unready at expressing emotion. He sat in silence, gently caressing her hand. It was she who spoke.

"Of course there's a lot to say; but don't let's say it, John. You'll know I'm feeling it, and I shall know that about you too. But don't let's say it." She broke into a smile again. "I should argue, you know—I always argue! And then—— But if we say nothing about it, perhaps we—well, perhaps we can nearly forget it, and take up the old life where we broke it off. And it wasn't a bad old life, after all, was it, in spite of the way we both grumbled?"

"My dear old girl!" he murmured.

"I suppose you must be as vulgar as you like to-day!" said Christine, with a dainty lift of her brow and an affected resignation. Then suddenly she turned and kissed him, saying gravely: "I'm grateful, John, and don't—don't think there's anything wrong in being generous."

"I only know I've got to have you back with me," he said. "That's all I know about it anyhow."

"I think it's enough, then," she whispered softly.

Presently the gates of John's mouth were loosed, and he began to tell all his news. It was mainly about his business—how it flourished, how he had built up his credit again, of the successes he had won; that as soon as he had paid off his debts—a moment of embarrassment befell him here—they would be as well off as ever they had been; horses could be bought again, the diamonds could reappear, there would be no need to stint Christine of any of the things that she loved. All that he had longed for sympathetic ears to hear in the last months came bubbling out now. And Christine was ready to listen. As he talked and she heard, the old life seemed to revive, the old interests of every day came back, exercised anew their uniting power, and brought with them the old friendship and comradeship. Christine had said that they could "nearly forget." The words had her courage in them; they had her caution too. To forget what had come upon them and between them was impossible—in Christine's obstinate heart even at this moment hardly desired; but it was possible nearly to forget—at most times so nearly to forget as to relegate the thing to some distant chamber of the heart and not let it count in the commerce and communion of the life which they lived together and which bound them to one another with all its ties. That was the best thing which could be looked for, since the past, being irrevocable in deed, is also not to be forgotten in thought. They were picking up and piecing together the fragments. The ruin here had not been as utter as it had at poor Tom Courtland's, where the same process was being undertaken; but there had been a crash, and, though the pieces might be joined, there would be marks to show the fracture. Yet even the memory that refused to die brought its good with it. After the ruin came the love which had in the end sought restoration; if the one could not be forgotten, the other would always claim an accompanying remembrance. From this remembrance there might well emerge an affection deeper, stronger, and more proof against the worries and the friction of common life which in the old days had so often disturbed their peace and interrupted their friendship.

Before dinner Christine found an opportunity to visit Sibylla in her room. Her own brief excitement and agitation had passed off; Sibylla seemed the more eager of the two about the event of the day. Christine related it. Her comments on it and on what it meant ran very much in the foregoing vein, but was modified by her usual veneer of irony for which her friend made easy allowance. Sibylla had been prepared for an ecstasy of sympathetic congratulation; but it was evident that though congratulation might be welcomed, ecstasy would be out of place. Neither Christine's conclusions from the past nor her anticipations of the future invited it.

"How reasonable you are, Christine!" sighed Sibylla. "And how immoral!" she added, with a smile. "You're not really very sorry about it all, you know. You're just very glad the trouble is over. And you don't expect a bit more than it's quite likely you'll get! Do you know, you're very useful to me?"

"My reasonableness or my immorality?"

"One's an example and the other's a warning," laughed Sibylla.

"I don't think I'm immoral. I've had an awful lesson, and I intend to profit by it. There'll be nothing more of that sort, you know."

"Why not?" Sibylla asked, curious to probe her friend's mind.

"I don't know. No temptation—being sorry for John—being afraid—being, between ourselves, thirty-five. It all sounds rather mixed, but it results in a good resolution. And as for the future——" She frowned just a little. "Oh, it'll be all right, and a great deal better than I've been thinking lately."

"I must get more like you—not quite like you, but more like you. I must—I must!" Sibylla declared vehemently. "Has being thirty-five a great deal to do with it? Because then I can wait and hope."

"I should think it had a good deal to do with it," admitted Christine dispassionately. "Oh, well, I needn't run myself down too much. Really John has a good deal to say to it."

"I've Frank too."

"Yes, you have; and you're in love with your husband, my dear."

"That doesn't always make it easier."

"At any rate it keeps up one's interest in the whole affair," smiled Christine.

"You're happy, anyhow?"

"Happy? Yes, reasonably happy—and I suppose immorally too. At any rate, I'm settled, and that's really a comfort in its way."

"I don't know that I care so much about being settled. Perhaps I shall at thirty-five!"

The idea of years making any difference to her moods or her needs seemed rather a new one to Sibylla. Evidently she was holding it in her mind and turning it over in her thoughts.

The idea was with her still as she sat rather silent at the dinner-table that evening. They had a little party, for all the Raymores joined them, and young Mallam was there also, their guest for the night. Christine was very gay and satirical. John watched her with ready admiration, but less ready understanding. The young men were rather noisy, toasting to-morrow's wedding to the confusion of the bridegroom and the equal confusion of Eva Raymore, to whose not distant destiny both Jeremy's words and Jeremy's eyes made references by no means covert. Kate Raymore and her husband looked on with the subdued and tempered happiness which was the outcome of their great sorrow, their triumph over it, and the impending departure of their son, to complete the working out of his atonement. They talked of the Selfords with some irony, of poor Harriet Courtland, of Tom and his children with a sympathetic hopefulness and a touch of amusement at the importance their dear old Suzette Bligh was assuming and was, it seemed, to assume in the household. Sibylla's own thoughts widened the survey, embracing in it the couple down at Old Mill House—the faithful patient woman whose love made even the ridiculous touching; the broken old man who had given the best of his life in expiation for a brief madness, and now crept home to end his days, asking nothing but peace, hoping at best not to be despised or shunned. Above in his cot lay her little son, at the other end of the scale, at the beginning of all things; and opposite to her was Grantley himself, unbroken, but not unchanged; obedient to the lessons, but never put out of heart by them; doing violence to what he had held most truly and most preciously himself in order to the search and discovery of something more true and precious still. The idea of the ever-passing years and of feelings and fortunes appropriate to each stage of life helped her, but was not enough. There were differences of minds too, of tempers and of views; and every one of them implied a fitting in, perhaps a paring away here or an addition there—a harmonising; these things must be if the system was to work. Reluctantly and gradually her ardent mind, by nature ever either buoyant in the heaven of assured hope or cast down to the depths of despair, bowed to the middle conclusion, and consented to look through the eyes of wisdom and experience. Happy he who can so look and yet look without bitterness, who can see calamity without despair, and accept partial success without peevishness. There were the hopeless cases. These must be explained, or left unexplained, by what creed or philosophy you chose to hold. There were—surely there were!—the few perfect ones, where there was not even danger nor the need for effort or for guard. Of such she had deemed hers one. It had needed much to open her eyes—much sorrow and wrong in her own life—much sorrow, wrong, and calamity in the lives which passed within her view. But her eyes were open now. Yet she took courage—she took courage from Grantley, whose crest was not lowered, though his heart was changed.

So spoke reason, and to it Sibylla bowed. The array of cases, the marshalling of instances—all that the people and the lives about her had represented and typified—their moral was not to be denied. But reason is not the sole governor, nor even the only teacher. It might open her eyes; it might even moderate the arrogance of her demands; it could not change the temper of her heart. She was not even chilled, far less embittered. She went forth to meet life and love as ardently as ever. The change was that she knew more what these things were which she started forth to welcome, and perceived better to what she must attune herself. She would hope and enjoy still. But she asked no more a privilege over her fellows. She could hope as a mortal without immunity from evil, and enjoy as one to whom there is allotted a portion of sorrow—and not of her own only, nor perhaps of her making, nor of her fault, since by her own act and by nature's will her being was bound up with the being of others, and her happiness or misery, success or failure, lay in the common fortune and the common weal. For any mortal perfect independence is a vain thing fondly imagined—most vain and fond when it is demanded together with all for which any approach to it was once eagerly abandoned.

The battle was won. As John Fanshaw sacrificed his great grievance, so she hers. As old Mumple had expiated his fault and paid his price, so she hers. As Grantley schooled his heart, so she hers. She walked with him that night in the garden while the rest made merry with games and songs and jokes within, their gay laughter echoing down to the old house where the long-parted husband and wife sat at last hand in hand. She bowed her head, and put her hands in Grantley's, saying:

"At the first sign from you it was easy to forgive. How could I not forgive you? But it's hard to ask to be forgiven, Grantley?"

"It was necessary that these things should come," he answered gravely. "They have come and gone. What are they now between thee and me?"

Wisdom had made her point, and for a while now she wisely held her peace, leaving her work to another who should surely bring it to an excellent issue—to love, tempered by sorrow and self-knowledge, yet triumphant, and looking forward to new days, new births, new victories.

"The old time is done," said Grantley. "There's a new dawn. And, Sibylla, the sunrise is golden still."

"My ever true lover, we'll ride on the downs to-morrow," said she.

"Into the gold?" he asked, in loving banter.

"Yes," she answered bravely. "Haven't we found the way now?"

"It may be hard to keep it."

"We shall be together—you and I. And more than you and me. And—and—well, I intend to be unreasonable again just for this evening! I'll expect everything, and demand everything, and dream everything again, just for to-night—just for to-night, Grantley!"

She ended in a merry laugh, as she stood opposite him with dancing eyes.

"You're always thorough. I was afraid you were going to be a bit too thorough with those delusions. Need we make quite so clean a sweep of them?"

"As if I ever should!" Sibylla sighed.

"Perhaps we've been doing one or two of them a little injustice?" he suggested.

"We'll let them stay a little bit and see if they can clear their characters," said she. "There might be one great truth hidden among them."

"I rather fancy there is," said Grantley Imason, "and we'll have the fellow out of his disguise."

THE END

PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, PRINTERS

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