Is all this true?” asked Yvonne, mournfully.

“Yes, worse luck,” replied Joyce, looking up from his Sunday newspaper.

“It is very dreadful,” said Yvonne.

She was finishing “The Wasters,” Joyce’s lately published novel. It was not a success. Its cultivated style received recognition everywhere, but the unrelieved pessimism, powerfully as it was presented, repelled most readers. He was inclined to be depressed at its reception. To Yvonne, however, it was a revelation. She closed the book with a sigh, and remained for some time gazing absently at the cover. Then she rose in her quick way.

“Let us go out—into the sunshine—or I shall cry. I feel miserable, Stephen.”

“On account of that wretched book?”

“That and other things. Take me to Regent’s Park—to see the flowers.”

He assented gladly and Yvonne went to put on her things. Shortly afterwards they were side by side on the garden seat of a westward bound omnibus.

“I feel better,” said Yvonne, breathing in the summer air. “Don’t you?”

“It is nice,” answered Joyce. “I shall be better pleased when we are out of these joyless streets. The Pentonville Road on a Sunday is depressing. I haven’t seen a smile on a human face since we have been out. What grey lives people lead.”

“But they can’t all be unhappy,” she said.

The ’bus stopped for a moment. Three or four young roughs, in Sunday clothes, with coarse, animal faces and discordant speech passed by below on the pavement, and noisily greeted a couple of quiet-looking girls, evidently acquaintances.

“These seem cheerful enough,” said Yvonne.

Joyce shrugged his shoulders.

“Did it ever occur to you what misery men of that type work in the world? By the laws of their class they will all marry—and marry young. Fancy a woman’s life in the hands of any of those fellows.”

The ’bus moved on. Yvonne was silent.

His tone was that of the book she had just been reading. She stole a side glance at him. His face in repose was always sad and brooding. To-day she seemed to read more clearly in it the lines that the breaking of the spirit had caused. She identified him with the characters in the sordid scenes he had described. Presently she laid her hand lightly on his arm.

“Do you think we live a very grey life—now?”

“You have a very hard, dull, monotonous life,” he replied.

“I don’t,” said Yvonne stoutly. “I am very pleased and contented. I only want one thing to make me perfectly happy.”

“So does every one. The one thing just makes the difference. It’s the one thing we can’t possibly get.”

“It is n’t what you imagine,” said Yvonne. “You are thinking of money and all that.”

“No. It’s your voice.”

“It is n’t!” cried Yvonne, with a touch of petulant earnestness. “It is to see you bright and happy—as you used to be long, long ago. You might have known.”

“It is very dear of you,” he answered, after a pause. “I am selfish—and can’t understand your sweet spirit. Sometimes I seem to have a stone heart, like the man in the German story.”

“You have a warm, generous heart, Stephen. What other man would have done what you have for me?”

“It was pure selfishness on my part,” he replied. “The loneliness was too appalling. And then, further, I am never quite sure I have acted rightly by you.”

“I am,” she said. “And I’m the best judge, I think.”

But Joyce was correct in his bitter self-analysis. Now and then his sensitive fibres vibrated. But generally the weight of the past years was on his heart, and repressed continuous emotion. To live on these intimate terms with Yvonne and never consider the possibility of loving her, after the way of men, was absurd. The chivalrous instincts awakened by her implicit trust in him, and the double barrier which forbade a love that could result in marriage, made him dismiss such considerations. But often, in gloomy introspective moods, his self-contempt denied these instincts as arrogant pretensions, and attributed the absence of warmer feelings towards Yvonne to the petrifaction of all emotional chords. Of late, however, he had ceased to speculate, taking his insensibility for granted.

When they arrived at the Regent’s Park, they proceeded for some distance northwards up the great avenue. It was crowded. Joyce looked about him, with a fidgeted air, at the stream of passers-by.

“Let us get away from the people and sit under a tree,” he said at length.

Yvonne slipped her hand impulsively through his arm.

“I wish you knew how proud I am of you,” she said.

“It’s for your sake, too, Yvonne, dear,” he replied in a touched voice.

She made one of her magnificent little gestures with the hand holding her sunshade.

“I have never done anything to be ashamed of yet,” she said proudly, and glanced from Joyce to a pompous elderly couple with an air of defiance. Then she brought him abruptly to a stand before a flower-bed bright in its summer glory.

“Oh, how lovely! Look!”

She broke into little joyous exclamations. Colour affected her like music. A glow came into her cheek. She became again the thing of warmth and sunshine that had gladdened him four years before, when his degradation lay heavy on him.

“It is a beautiful world, Stephen.”

“You are right, dear. It is. And you are the most beautiful thing in it.”

The glow deepened on her face, and a bright moisture appeared in her eyes as she glanced upwards.

“That’s very, very foolish. But you said it as if you meant it.”

“I did indeed, Yvonne.”

“Let us go and find a place under the trees,” she said softly.

They left the main avenue and wandered on over the green turf, seeking for a long time a piece of shade untenanted by sprawling men, or lovers, or heterogeneous families. At last they found a lonely tree and sat down beneath it.

“Are you happier here?” she asked.

“Much. It is so peaceful. When I was in South Africa I yearned for civilisation and men and women. Now I am in London, I am happiest away from them. Men are funny animals, Yvonne.”

Yvonne looked down at the ground and nervously plucked at the grass. Then she raised her eyes quickly.

“When are you going to be quite happy, Stephen?”

“I am happy enough now.”

“But when you get home, the black mood may come over you again. Can’t you forget all the horrid past—the prison—and all that?” It was the first time she had ever alluded to it directly; her voice quavered on the word.

“No, I can never forget it,” he replied in a low tone. “If I live to be a hundred, I shall remember it on my deathbed.”

“You seem to feel it—just like a woman does—who has been on the streets—as if nothing could wipe it away.”

He was startled. Signs had not been wanting of a change coming over Yvonne, but he had never heard a saying on her lips of such perceptive earnestness. It was strange, too, that she had hit upon a parallel that had been in his mind since the night he had met Annie Stevens.

“Nothing can wipe it away, Yvonne. It is like a woman’s sense of degradation—just as you say.”

“I would give anything—my voice over again, if I had it—to help you. You have never told me about it—the dreadful part of it—I want to know—every bit—tell me now, will you?”

“You would loathe me, as much as I loathe myself, if I told you.”

He was lying on one elbow, by her side. She ventured a gossamer touch upon his forehead.

“You don’t know much about a woman, although you do write books,” she said.

The touch and the tone awoke a great need of expansion. He struggled for a few moments, and at last gave way.

“Yes, I ’ll tell you—from the very beginning.” And there in the quasi-solitude of their tree—one of innumerable camping-spots for recumbent figures, that met the eye on all sides—he gave, for the first time, definite utterance to the horrors that had haunted him for six years. He told her the old story of the earthenware pot careering down the stream in company with the brazen vessels; of his debts, staring ruin, and his yielding to the great temptation; of his trial, his sentence rendered heavier by the fact that his malversations had brought misery into other lives. He described to her in lurid detail just what the prison-life was, what it meant, how its manifold degradation ate into a man’s flesh, became infused in his blood and ran for ever through his veins. He spared her nothing of which decency permitted the telling. Now and then Yvonne shivered a little and drew in a quick breath; but her great eyes never left his face—save once when he showed her his hands still scarred by the toil from which delicate fingers never recover.

He had spoken jerkily, in hard, dry tones; so he ended abruptly. There was silence. Yvonne’s little gloved hand crept to his and pressed it. Then, with a common impulse, they rose to their feet.

“Thank you for telling me,” she said, coming near to him and taking his arm. “I did not know how how terrible it has been—and I never realised what a brave man you are.”

“I—brave, Yvonne?” he cried with a bitter laugh.

“Yes—to have gone through that and to be the loyal, tender, true-hearted gentleman that you are.”

He looked down at her and saw her soft eyes filled with tears and her lips quivering.

“You still feel the same to me, Yvonne, now that you know it all?” he asked, bending forward on his stick.

“More,” she answered. “Oh,—much more.”

They walked back to the Park gates in a happy silence, drawn very near to one another, since both hearts were very full. So close together did they walk, so softened was the man’s face, and so sweetly proud the woman’s, that they might have been taken for lovers. But if love was hovering over them, he touched neither with an awakening feather. And so they passed on their way untroubled.

That day was, in a certain sense, a landmark in their lives. Yvonne never referred to the prison again, but she learned to know when its shadow was over him and at such times her nature melted in tenderness towards him.

The days wore on. The second novel, over whose pages Yvonne had cast gleams of sunshine, was finished and disposed of to the same publishers. His source of income from occasional journalism showed signs of becoming steadier. But all the same, the struggle with poverty continued hard. Yvonne fell ill again and lost her music-lessons. It took some time after her recovery to pay off the debts incurred for doctor, medicine, and invalid necessaries. To obtain funds to take her to the seaside for a few days, Joyce was forced to ask his publishers for an advance. However, the trip restored Yvonne to health again, and their uneventful life pursued its usual course.

One day a strange phenomenon occurred. A visitor was announced. It was the sister who had tended Yvonne in the hospital. Once before, while Yvonne was living in the Pimlico lodgings, she had paid a flying visit. On this occasion she stayed for a couple of hours with Yvonne, who, happy as she was with Joyce, felt a wonderful relief in talking again familiarly with one of her own sex. She poured forth the little history of all that had befallen her since she had left the hospital.

“Do you mean to tell me,” the sister said at last, “that you keep house together on this romantically Platonic basis?”

Yvonne regarded her, wide-eyed.

“Of course. Why should n’t we?”

The sister was a woman of the world. When she had entered the room and perceived the unmistakable signs of a man’s general presence, she had drawn her own conclusions.

That these were erroneous, Yvonne’s innocent candour most clearly proved. Yet she was astonished, perhaps a little disappointed. The offending Eve lingers in many women, even after much self-whipping—for the greater comfort of their lives.

“But how can a man look at you and not fall in love with you?” she asked downright.

Yvonne laughed, and ran to the kettle that was boiling over on the gas-stove—she was making tea for her visitor.

“Oh, you can’t think of the number of people who have said those same words to me! Why, that is why I am so happy with Stephen—he has never dreamed of making love to me; never once—really. And, do you know, he’s the only man I ’ve ever had much to do with who has n’t.”

“He looks like a man who has seen a great deal of trouble,” said the sister.

Yvonne’s laugh faded, and a great seriousness came into her eyes.

“Awful trouble,” she said in a very low and earnest voice.

“Perhaps that makes him different from other men,” said the sister, taking her hand and smoothing it.

“Perhaps,” replied Yvonne.

It was a new light, quick and clear, flashed upon their relations. Her woman’s instinct clamoured for confirmation.

“Do you think that if he had not this great trouble, he would necessarily have fallen in love with me, like the others?”

“It stands to reason,” replied the elder woman gently—“if he’s a man at all. And he is a man—one, too, that many women could love and be proud of.”

“Oh, thank you for saying that!” cried Yvonne, impulsively. “I am proud of him.” An imperceptible smile played over the sister’s plain, pleasant face. Her calling had brought her a certain knowledge of human nature, and taught her to judge by suppressions. This side-light on the inner lives of the two beings whose fortunes had long ago interested her, quickened her sympathies for them. She determined to keep them in view for the future—and with this intention she offered Yvonne opportunities for continuing the friendship.

“So you ’ll come and see me often,” she said at last. “I have n’t very many friends.”

“And I haven’t any at all,” said Yvonne, smiling. “And oh! you don’t know what a comfort it would be to have a woman to go to now and then!”

The visit left Yvonne thoughtful and happy. A new feeling towards Joyce budded in her heart and the process was accompanied by tiny shocks of tender resentment. So conscious was she of this, that that evening whilst Joyce was working in the armchair opposite to her, she suddenly broke into a little musical laugh. He looked up and caught the reflection of her smile.

“What is amusing you, Yvonne?”

She still smiled, but a deep red flush showed beneath her dark skin.

“My thoughts,” she said, in a tone that admitted of no further question.

Yet she would have liked to tell him. It was so humorous that she should feel angry because he did not fall in love with her.

Sometimes light moods are delicate indexes to far-away, unknown commotions. Afterwards, in the serious moments, when the birdlike inconsequence fled away from her and she realised herself as a grown woman to whom had come the knowledge of life, this that she had laughed and blushed over appeared sad and painful. It kept her awake sometimes at nights. Once she got out of bed, lit her candle, and looked closely at her face in the glass. But she returned comforted. She was not getting old and unattractive.

Yet a vague ferment in her nature began to puzzle her sorely. Her mind, that was once as simple as a child’s and as clear as spring water, seemed now tangled with many complexities; she saw into it, as in a glass, darkly. Life, for the first time appeared to her incomplete. She was weighed down with a sense of failure. The very facts that had caused the happy possibility of her comradeship with Joyce smote her as proofs of the inadequacy of her own womanhood. The essential fierce vanity of sex was touched.

Once only before had she used her sex as a weapon—on that miserable day at Ostend, to keep Everard by her side. Then she had felt the fire of shame. Now she was tempted to use it again, and the shame burned deeper.

And Joyce, familiarised with the daily sweetness of her companionship, did not notice the gradually stealing increase of tenderness in her ways.