The autumn hardened into winter and the winter softened into spring, and the relations between Yvonne and the Canon seemed to follow the seasons’ difference. He had learned her limitations and no longer set her tasks beyond her powers.

“You must not try to put a butterfly into harness,” said Mrs. Winstanley, who had gradually been gaining lost influence. He had called to consult her upon some parochial question and the talk had turned upon Yvonne. The Canon bit his lip. He had fallen into the habit of making confidences and regretting them a moment afterwards.

“You do Yvonne injustice.”

“I did once, I grant,” she replied; “but now, as you see, I am pleading for her.”

“Yvonne needs no advocate with me,” said the Canon, stiffly.

“She may.”

“What do you mean, Emmeline?”

“If you don’t understand her nature, you may misinterpret her conduct. You see, Everard, she is young and light-natured—and so, like seeks like. You may always count upon me to keep things straight outside.”

She had laid her hand upon his arm, and spoke in her quiet, authoritative voice. Her manner was too dignified to be intrusive. She was eminently the woman of sense. Her reference was well understood by him, but being a man accustomed to the broad issues of life, he did not appreciate the delicate pleasure such a conversation afforded her.

On this occasion, he went from her house straight to the Rectory, and in the drawing-room found young Evan Wilmington bidding good-bye to Yvonne. Her sunniest smile rested on the young fellow; when the door shut upon him, the after-glow of amusement was still upon her face. The Canon felt an absurd pang of jealousy. Such had not been infrequent of late, since he had abandoned his scheme of reorganisation. In fact, as Yvonne had fallen from his conjugal ideal—the woman who, as an impeccable consort and mother of children was to lend added dignity to his days—his feelings as regards her had been growing more helplessly human. His conception of the dove-like innocence of her nature had suffered no change. Her pure voice had ever been to him the speech of a purer soul. It was no vulgar jealousy that pained him; but jealousy it was, all the same.

He went to her and put his hands against her cheeks and held up her face.

“Don’t smile too much on young Evan,” he said. “It is not good for him. I want all your best smiles for myself, sweetheart.”

“He has been making me laugh,” said Yvonne.

“And I cannot?”

“He is a silly boy and you are the venerable Canon Chisely.”

“That’s it,” he said, rather bitterly, releasing her.

Her expression changed. She caught him, as he was turning away, by the lapels of his coat.

“Are you serious, Everard? You are! Forgive me if I have hurt you. I can’t bear to do it. Do you wish me to see less of Mr. Wilmington—really?”

Looking into her eyes he felt ashamed of his pettiness.

“See your friends as much as you like, my child,” he said, with a revulsion of feeling.

The matter was settled for the time being, but thenceforward the even tenor of their life was disturbed occasionally by such outbursts. Once he grew angry. “You have the same smile for any man who speaks to you, Yvonne.” She replied with gentle logic, “That ought to prove that I like all equally.”

“Your husband included.”

She turned away wounded. “You have no right to say that.”

“Then what have I a right to say, Yvonne?”

“Anything,” she cried, facing him with brightening eyes, “anything except that I do not try with all my heart and soul to be a good wife to you.”

This time it was he who said “Forgive me.” Unconsciously her influence grew upon him in his lighter moods, as he excluded her from participation in his serious concerns. To win from her a flash other than dutiful he would humour any caprice. Yvonne was too shrewd not to perceive this. His tenderness touched her, saddened her a little. On her birthday he gave her a pair of tiny ponies and a diminutive phaeton—a perfect turn-out. He lived for a week on the delight in her face when they were brought round (an absolute surprise) to the front door. Yet that evening she said, with her little air of seriousness, after she had been meditating for some time in silence, with puckered brow:—

“I wonder if I am quite such a child as you think me, Everard. I should like something to happen to show you that I am a woman.”

“Don’t say that, dear,” he replied, contentedly, holding up his glass of port to the light and peering into it—he was a specialist in ports—“such a chance would probably be some calamity.”

Yvonne was not alone in noting the true inwardness of the Canon’s course of action. Mrs. Winstanley did so, to her own chagrin. The ponies were as distasteful to her as the beast of the Apocalypse. She was with Lady Santyre, in the latter’s barouche, when she first saw them. Yvonne, aglow with the effort of driving, was sending them down the Fulminster Road at a rattling pace. She nodded brightly as she passed, pointing to the ponies with her whip.

“How fond the dear Canon is of that little woman,” said Lady Santyre, her thin lips closing as if on an acidulated drop.

“Psha!” said Mrs. Winstanley, with one of her rare exhibitions of temper. “If he were a few years older, it would be senile infatuation! She is beginning to curl him round her finger.”

But there was one subject near to Yvonne’s heart on which the Canon was inflexible—Joyce. Often Yvonne had sought to soften him toward the black sheep, but in his gentlest moods the mention of his cousin’s name turned him to adamant. He even resented Yvonne’s helpful friendship before her marriage. On the afternoon that he had passed Joyce on the stairs, he had spoken as strongly to Yvonne as good taste permitted. Now that he had authority over her, he forbade her to hold further communication with the man who had disgraced his name. Finally she abandoned her attempts at conciliation, but pity prevailing over wifely obedience, she kept up her correspondence with Joyce, unknown to the Canon. That is to say, she wrote cheery, gossipy letters now and then to the address she had received from Cape Town, trusting to luck for their ultimate delivery, but receiving very few in return, for Joyce had often not the heart to write.

She was reading, one day, his last letter, many pages closely filled. It had come that morning, under Miss Vicary’s cover, according to her request. The envelope lay on the table in the centre of the room; but she had taken the letter to the broad, cushioned window-seat, her favourite place in summer, where she could see the old abbey, and enjoy the scent of the mignonette and syringa from the beds below. It was the quiet afternoon hour, before tea, when she generally read or idled or sang to herself. She was at peace with all the world, and her heart was full of pity for Joyce.

Yet it was the most hopeful of the four letters she had received from him. The previous ones had told of struggles and privations innumerable; the aimless tramp from one town to another in the search for more than starvation wages; the hopeless attempts to live in mining camps, where unskilled labour was a drug in the market; sickness, and the dwindling of his little capital. This one took up the tale broken off some months before. Noakes and himself had left the mines, had wandered, sometimes alone, sometimes with other adventurers, into Bechuanaland, where he had purchased with his last remaining pounds a share in a small farm. It was a haven of rest. But the country was unhealthy. The work was hard. Noakes lay ill in bed; medical advice was a hundred and fifty miles away. To cheer the invalid, he had schemed out a novel on the life they had recently passed through, and was writing it at nights for Noakes to read during the day. He was writing it on a bundle of yellow package-paper which had remained over from the stock of a small “store” once run by the chief owner of the farm.

He spoke of the comfort of her letters. Four of them had just come to his hands at once. He had read them aloud to Noakes, who was even more friendless than himself. Yvonne’s heart was touched at the thought of the poor man who never got a letter, and had to extract vicarious comfort from his friend’s. She knew him quite well through Joyce’s description, and loved him for the quaint lovableness that appeared in the narrative of their joint fortunes.

“He shall have a letter all to himself,” said Yvonne aloud; and she rose to put her idea into execution.

But just as she was bringing her writing materials to the window-seat, which was strewn with the sheets of Joyce’s letter, the Canon came into the room.

“Can you give me some tea quickly, dear?” he said, ringing the bell. “I am called away to Bickerton.”

He sank into a chair with a sigh of relief. It had been a busy day and the weather was hot.

“Would you like me to drive you over?” asked Yvonne.

“Dearly,” said the Canon. He leaned back, and stretched out his hand in a gesture of contented invitation.

“It won’t be taking you from your correspondence? You seem up to your eyes in it.”

“Oh, it can wait,” said Yvonne, smiling down upon him as he held her hand.

Soon the servant brought the tea, and Yvonne established herself over the tea-cups. The Canon, whilst waiting, glanced idly at the books and odds and ends on the table by his side. Suddenly he uttered an exclamation of surprise. He had become aware of the foreign envelope, with the Cape Colony stamp and its address to “Mrs. Chisely, care of Miss Vicary.” He also recognised Joyce’s handwriting which happened to be singularly striking in character. His brow grew dark.

“What is the meaning of this, Yvonne?”

“A letter from Stephen,” she replied with a sudden qualm.

“And sent to you clandestinely. You have been corresponding with him secretly in defiance of my express desire. How dared you do it?”

He spoke in harsh tones, bending upon her all the hardness of a stern face. She had never seen him angered like this before. She was frightened, but she steadied herself and looked him in the face.

“I couldn’t help it, Everard,” she said, gently. “The poor fellow regards me as his only friend. I was forced to disobey you.”

“That poor fellow has been guilty of mean robbery. He has herded with ruffians in a common gaol. He has dragged an old honoured name through the mire. For a man like that—once a knave always a knave. I don’t choose to have my wife keeping up friendly relations with an outcast member of my family. I am deeply offended with you—I pass over the underhand nature of the correspondence, which in itself deserves reprobation.”

“I believe in Stephen,” replied Yvonne, growing very white. “He has been punished a thousand times over. He will live an honourable man to the end of his life. And if you read how he speaks of the few silly letters I have written him—his joy and gratitude—you would not wish to deprive him of them.”

“Do you mean to say that you are deliberately setting yourself in opposition to my wishes, Yvonne?” asked the Canon in angry surprise.

Yvonne was in great distress. She could not defy him openly, and yet she knew that no power on earth would prevent her from doing Joyce her little deeds of mercy.

She looked at him piteously for a moment, and then sank by his chair and clasped his knees. “I can’t do what you want, Everard,” she cried. “We were such friends in days past—And when I met him again, he looked so broken and lonely—I could n’t in my heart let him go—and having given him my friendship, I can’t be so cruel as to take it from him now. I can’t feel what you do about the disgrace. I haven’t the capacity perhaps. And I promised his dead mother to be kind to him. ====== I did indeed. “I can’t do what you want, Everard,” she cried. “We were such friends in days past—And when I met him again, he looked so broken and lonely—I could n’t in my heart let him go—and having given him my friendship, I can’t be so cruel as to take it from him now. I can’t feel what you do about the disgrace. I haven’t the capacity perhaps. And I promised his dead mother to be kind to him. === I did indeed, Everard, friendship, I can’t be so cruel as to take it from him now. I can’t feel what you do about the disgrace. I haven’t the capacity perhaps. And I promised his dead mother to be kind to him. I did indeed. “I can’t do what you want, Everard,” she cried. “We were such friends in days past—And when I met him again, he looked so broken and lonely—I could n’t in my heart let him go—and having given him my friendship, I can’t be so cruel as to take it from him now. I can’t feel what you do about the disgrace. I haven’t the capacity perhaps. And I promised his dead mother to be kind to him. I did indeed, Everard—and a promise like that I must keep.”

He put her not unkindly from him and, rising to his feet, took two or three turns about the room. Stopping, he said:—

“Why did you not tell me of this promise before?”

“I was afraid to vex you,” said Yvonne.

“You have vexed me much more by deceiving me,” he replied.

But there the matter had to end. He could not bid her break her word, nor would he allow himself to yield to a tempting sophistry that women’s ante-nuptial promises were annulled by marriage. To regain his good graces, however, Yvonne pledged herself never to intercede with him on Joyce’s behalf in the future—in fact to preserve an absolute silence concerning the black sheep and his doings.

This settled, she drove him over to Bickerton in her pony carriage. And the even tenor of her life went on.

It was many weeks before the letters arrived at the farm in South Africa. The monthly ox-waggons that came from the nearest post-town brought them, together with the usual load of farm and household requisites, tinned provisions, and liquors. Day after day, Joyce had stood by the prickly-pear hedge on the rise behind the house, looking over the dreary plain, in wistful watch for the specks on the horizon that alone connected him with civilisation. They arrived at night—a blustering August night, with frost in the air, and a cloudless sky in which the Southern Cross gleamed. Before waiting to help unload and outspan the teams, he rushed into the house with the meagre post-bundle. It contained a few colonial newspapers, some letters for Wilson, the farmer who was away, and the two letters from Fulminster. The rough table, on which he sorted them by the light of a flaring chimneyless lamp, was drawn up to the bedside of Noakes.

“One for you, old man,” said Joyce.

“For me?”

Noakes stretched out his thin arm eagerly, and clutched the undreamed of prize.

“From Yvonne. It’s to cheer you up, old chap, I expect. It’s just like her, you know.”.

Joyce ran through his letter rapidly and went out to superintend the unloading. But Noakes, who was past work, remained in bed and pored over Yvonne’s simple lines till the tears came into his eyes.

When all was settled, the stores taken in, the teams secured, the natives who had driven them established in the huts, and finally the Englishman in charge provided with food and whisky and sent to sleep, Joyce sat down by his friend’s side and gave himself up to the greatest pleasure his life then held. The wind howled outside, and the draught swept in through the cracks on the doors, and the ill-fitting windows, and up the rude chimney beneath which a fire was smouldering. Noakes coughed incessantly. The atmosphere was tainted with the smell of the lamp, the thin smoke from the fuel, the piles of sacking and mealy-bags that lay in corners of the room, and the strips of bultong or dried beef hanging in the gloom of the rafters. The room itself, occupying nearly the whole area of the ground-floor of the rudely built wooden house, was cheerless in aspect. The table, two or three wooden chairs, some shelves holding cooking utensils and odds and ends of crockery, a litter of stores and boxes, a frameless dirty oleograph of the bubble-blowing boy, a churchman’s almanac, two years old, against the wall, and Noakes’s sack bed—that was all the room contained. In a corner was a ladder leading to the loft, where Joyce and the farmer slept, and whence now came the muffled sounds of the snoring of the English driver. But for a few moments Joyce forgot the cheerless surroundings.

He sat late with Noakes, reading the letters aloud and talking of Yvonne. At last, after a short silence, Noakes raised himself on his elbow and gazed earnestly at his friend. He was very gaunt and wasted—

“That’s the only tender thing a woman has ever done for me,” he said. “No,” he added in reply to Joyce’s questioning look, “my wife was never tender. God knows why she married me.”

“We ’ll make our fortunes and go back, and you shall know her,” said Joyce.

“No. I shall never go back. I shall never get half a mile beyond this door again.”

“Nonsense,” said Joyce. “You ’ll pull round when the spring comes.”

“I have performed my allotted task. It was a severe portion and it has finished me off.”

“Look here, old man,” cried Joyce, “for God’s sake don’t talk like that. I can’t live in this accursed place by myself. You’ve been broken down by our hard times—but you ’ll get over it all, with this long rest.”

“I am going to a longer one, Joyce. I don’t mind going, you know. And then you ’ll be free of me. I am but a cumberer of the ground—I am of no use—I never have been of any use—I have been carrying water in a sieve all my life.”

He began to cough. Joyce put his arm around him for support, and tended him gently.

“You have a lot to do, old man,” he said soon after. “The foolscap has come, and a great jar of ink, and you can start copying out the manuscript to-morrow.”

“Ah yes, I can do that,” said Noakes.

“Now go to sleep. I ’ll sit by you, if you like,” said Joyce.

He moved the lamp to a ledge behind Noakes’s head, and sat down near by, with the budget of newspapers. Noakes composed himself to sleep. At last he spoke, without turning round.

“Joyce.”

“Yes, old man.”

“Make me a promise.”

“Willingly.”

“Bury that dear lady’s letter with me.”

“Will it make you happy to promise?”

“Yes.”

“Then I promise,” said Joyce, humouring him. “Now I’m not going to talk to you any more.”

A few minutes later, his breathing told Joyce that he slept. The newspapers fell from Joyce’s hand, and he put his elbows on his knees and crouched over the smouldering logs. Noakes spoke truly. There was little chance of recovery. He would be left alone again soon. It would be very comfortless. The poor wreck who was dragging out his last days upon that wretched bed had been an unspeakable solace to him. Without his womanlike devotion he would have died of fever six months back on the Arato goldfield. Without the influence of his calm fatalism, he would have given up heart long ago. Without his steadfast purity of soul, he would have gone recklessly to the devil. The thought of losing him was a great pang.

He himself, too, was far from strong. The climate, the hard manual labour for which he was physically unfit were telling upon him heavily. He yearned for home, for civilised life, for the lost heritage of honour. Yvonne’s letter, telling of the little commonplaces of the lost sweet life of decent living, had revived the ever dormant longing. He began to dream of her, of that last day he had seen her, of her voice singing Gounod’s serenade.

It was difficult to picture her as married to his cousin Everard, whom, in the days of his vanity, he had despised as a prig and now dreaded as a scornful benefactor. It was a strange mating. And yet she seemed happy and unchanged.

The wind blustered outside. The cold draught whistled through the room. Joyce rose to his feet with a shiver, went to a corner for a couple of sacks, which he threw over the sleeping man, and, after having wistfully read Yvonne’s letter once more, ascended the ladder to the loft, where the shapeless mattress of dried grass and sacking awaited him.