It was night. Yvonne lay wide awake. A suffused sound of breathing filled the air. Now and then a moan or a smothered cry of pain broke sharply upon the stillness. The woman in the adjacent bed began to murmur broken words in her sleep: “For the children’s sake, Joe—my poor little children—I wish we was all dead.” Some poor tragedy reenacting itself in slumber. Yvonne listened pityingly. The woman had seemed as broken down that day with misery as she herself. Then silence again, and Yvonne fell back upon her own tragedy, which seemed to be working itself out in the staring wakeful hours.

She had not written to Everard. Pen, ink, and paper had been brought. The sister had propped her up with pillows in a posture especially comfortable for writing. But her strength had failed her. To ask him for money was more than her pride could do.

Instead, she had written a long outpouring to Joyce, which lay unposted under her pillow.

This pride was a seam of flint in her soft nature. She would have returned to Everard as his wife, willingly, gratefully, glad to lay her tired head on his shoulder, and feel his strong protection around her once more. But from any one rather than him would she accept charity. Illogical, irrational, absurd—but a reality none the less in her heart.

Perhaps it was a protest of wounded sex. If Everard had treated her differently on that disastrous day, the quivering feminine might have gone unscathed. But in his anger, pain and disillusion he had driven her wrongs towards him into her flesh, almost like infidelities. She was too generous to feel resentful. An offer of remarriage would be a natural acknowledgment of error. To accept his support, apart from him, stung her to the soul with a sense of being cast off as faithless wife or dishonest mistress, to whom, however, he was forgivingly and charitably disposed. And yet what was she to do? Joyce would save her from immediate want, but she could not look to him for anything but temporary assistance. More was preposterous.

At last she gave up thinking. Joyce, with his cleverness, would see some way out of her difficulties. Somewhat comforted, she fell asleep. The next day was long and intensely dismal. The more clearly she saw that Joyce’s counsel was the only course to follow, the more hateful it seemed to her to write the letter. She put it off from hour to hour. And then the terrible blow that had befallen her weighed upon her mind. She strove to realise herself moving about the world without a voice. It was as hard to grasp as the conception of herself as a bodiless shade on the banks of Acheron. When the elusiveness ceased, and the reality loomed upon her in all its grimness, she wept bitterly. The consequence was that, in her still weak state, she broke down with the mental worry, and, when Joyce next came, he found her in a far worse state than before. She could scarcely move or speak. Letter-writing was out of the question. By the merest chance he learned, during the five minutes the sister allowed him to have with her, that she had not yet written to Everard.

“But the mail goes to-morrow,” he said. “I have been making enquiries. If we don’t write now, we shall lose a month. Shall I write to Everard, seeing that your poor little self is incapable?”

She murmured assent, and sighed as if in grateful relief. Joyce comforted her as best he could and left her reluctantly. When he got home, he wrote the letter, a bald statement of facts to which he appended his signature and the address of his lodgings. He sealed it, directed it, in his nervous, characteristic handwriting and hurried out to post it at once. It was a most disagreeable duty over, for to communicate with his cousin went sorely against the grain. A pleasanter duty awaited him, as soon as he could settle down to his evening’s work, the correction of the first batch of proofs from the publishers.

In the course of time, Yvonne recovered her spirits and was on the mend again. Signs of returning strength showed themselves in her left arm, which, together with the throat on that side, had been affected by the disease. Her speaking voice also began to regain some of its old sweetness, though the surgeons confirmed their statement that the singing voice was irrevocably gone.

“Do say they are wrong,” said Yvonne casting a pleading look at Joyce.

“Perhaps they are,” said he; “let us hope.”

“Then I may not need Everard’s money, after all.”

“You will for a couple of years, at least,” he said kindly. “But you may be able to pay it back afterwards.”

This consoled her, and she began to build great schemes. On another occasion she said to him irrelevantly:—

“Do you think I ought to write to Everard?” She had raised him by this time to the position of father confessor. A certain feminine weakness in Joyce’s nature, developing gradually, through his intercourse with her, into a finer sensitiveness, made it easy for her to give him her confidence, to speak with him much as she used to speak with Geraldine. And yet, he being a man, his utterances on such questions, had for her all their masculine weight.

“It is a matter entirely of your own inclination,” he replied oracularly.

“But I don’t know what my inclination is,” said Yvonne. “Everard once told me that it was a much harder thing to know what one’s duty was than to do it when you know what it is.”

“He was plagiarising from George Eliot,” said Joyce, not ill-pleased at a malicious hit at the Bishop. And then, teasingly to Yvonne: “And I’m sure they both put it a little more grammatically.”

“I won’t talk grammar,” cried Yvonne. “I always hated it. It is silly stuff. You understood perfectly what I meant, did n’t you?”

“Perfectly,” said Joyce.

“Then what’s the good of grammar?” cried Yvonne, triumphantly. “But you make me forget what I was going to say. It was something quite clever. Oh yes! Substitute ‘inclination’ for ‘duty,’ and you have my difficulty. Now do tell me what I am to do.”

“Well, wait until you hear from Everard, and then write him a nice long letter,” said Joyce.

“That’s just what I wanted to do,” said she; “you are so good to me.”

She was to leave the hospital in January. The time was rapidly approaching. Much of their time together was spent in the discussion of plans for the immediate future. Yvonne wanted to sell her furniture, which Joyce had inspected and found in safe hands. He opposed the idea. What was the use, when she would want it again, as soon as she was comfortably situated? In three months she would be in receipt of funds. Everard might cable her back a remittance long before. In the meantime, he could advance her a lump sum out of his capital.

“Then you can take unfurnished rooms and put in your own things at once. It will be much cheaper.”

“But suppose I don’t pay you back,” said Yvonne. “How can you make me?”

“I can suggest nothing but a bill of sale on the furniture,” he replied laughingly.

“What is that?”

“Well, you sign a paper saying that if the debt is not paid in three months, at the end of that time I can put in the brokers and sell your furniture and take all the money.”

“Oh, that would be lovely!” cried Yvonne. “Do let me do it. I should feel so businesslike. Draw it up now and I ’ll sign it.”

“It will have to be registered,” said Joyce.

“Well, register it then. What’s to prevent you?”

“I was only jesting,” said Joyce.

“But I’m quite serious. Don’t you see how serious I am? Come—to please me.”

The idea caught her childish fancy, and she spoke quite in her old, gay mood. She was sitting up now, partially dressed, and, being able to move her limbs more freely, reached for writing materials that lay on the little table by her bed.

“There, draw it up at once, as fearfully legally as you can, with all kinds of ‘afore-saids’ in it.”

Joyce fell into her humour, and drew up the document in due form, read it over to her solemnly, and called one of the nurses to witness the signatures. Then he wrote out a cheque for the amount of the loan, which she locked up in her despatch-box. He went away with the bill of sale in his pocket. On his next visit he informed her that it had been registered and that he would be a merciless creditor. The frivolity of the proceedings cheered him.

Meanwhile, the real problem of Yvonne’s arrangements presented itself. The idea of going at once into unfurnished rooms was abandoned. She was far too weak and helpless as yet for the worries of housekeeping. He suggested a boarding-house. But Yvonne shrank from the prospect of living among strangers.

“Besides, you could n’t come and see me as often as I should like,” she added, with a little air of worldly wisdom. “You haven’t an idea what scandal is talked in those places.” So Joyce quickly acquiesced in her taboo of boarding-houses, and found the choice of domicile narrowed down to furnished apartments.

Yvonne was beginning to be a vital interest in his life. On the days that the hospital was not open to him, he sent her little notes of his doings and of such things as might amuse her. In her helpless dependence she grew to be what Noakes had been to him in his latter days—with the sweet and subtle difference made by her sex. He had moods almost of happiness. Yet, like Noakes, Yvonne had not the power of freeing him from himself, from the awful memories, from the taint that clung to him. His crime and its punishment was his hair-shirt, for ever next the sensitive skin, never for the shortest intervals forgotten. Small incidents were never wanting to bring back the old burning anguish. Already in the streets he had passed, unrecognised, two old prison-associates. The sight of them was hateful. Once, in the Strand, he came face to face with a man, his chief intimate in that fashionable demi-reputable world which had drawn him to his precipice. The man cut him dead. On another occasion he met a troop of his cousins from Holland Park on the terrace of the British Museum. He noticed a girl recognize him and turn round another way, with a start, as he sprang hurriedly by through the folding doors. After such encounters, he cowered under the sense of everlasting disgrace. The old longing that always had lain dormant within him revived with intense poignancy; the longing to redeem his self-respect by some wild heroic deed of atonement. Sometimes he thought of realising all his capital, including the publisher’s eighty pounds and giving it to Yvonne. But soon she would be beyond the need of his help and his sacrifice would be merely silly. Common-sense leads us generally to the most hopeless commonplace. Nor did patient bearing of his lot appeal to his sensitive fancy as an expiation. The self-respect that would enable him to free the world’s back with cheerful calm could only be purchased by some great self-sacrifice. But what chances for such were offered in his humdrum, poverty-stricken life?

The days passed uneventfully. He wrote from morning to night, either in the Museum or in his attic, with a fierce determination to earn a livelihood that braced his powers. His attempts at occasional journalism were fairly encouraging. The new novel grew daily in gloomy bulk. Often, on Yvonne-less days, he strolled up to the secondhand bookshop, where he had bought the French novels, and chatted with the proprietor, with whom he had struck up an acquaintance. He was a snuffy, rheumy-eyed old man, Ebenezer Runcle by name, with chronic bronchitis and a deep disdain for the remnant of the universe outside his bookshop. But for the lumbering, chaotic, higgledy-piggledy world of volumes within its book-lined walls, he had a passionate veneration. Joyce found him a mine of extraordinary and useless information. To sit on a pile of books and listen to unceasing gossip about Gregory Nazianzene, Sozomen, Evagrius, Photius—about Aristotle, Averrhoes, Duns Scotus, and the Schoolmen—about Hakluyt and Purchas—about forgotten historians, churchmen, poets, dramatists, of all countries in Europe; to turn over musty old editions of famous printers, the Aldi, Junta, Elzevirs, Stephani, Allobrandi, Jehans, which the old man shuffled off to procure from dim recesses of the shelves, was a new intellectual delight. It was a renewal of the keen book-interest of his Oxford days, and a mental stimulus such as he had not received for many weary years. Gradually it appeared that Mr. Runcle looked forward to his visits; and Joyce, who had been shy at first of trespassing upon his time, gladly took advantage of his welcome. Sometimes he helped the old man in the constant work of rearranging and cataloguing the stock. One afternoon, he found him wheezing so painfully with his complaint, that he persuaded him to sit in the little back parlour, while he himself took charge of the establishment and served customers till closing time. After that he dropped into the habit of playing salesman. The old man seemed a lonely, pathetic figure. Joyce’s heart instinctively warmed toward him.

One afternoon, toward the middle of January, he visited Yvonne for the last time in the hospital. She received him, as on the last two or three occasions, in the sister’s little sitting-room just outside the ward. For the first time, however, she was completely dressed, and only now did Joyce realise how thin and fragile she had become. She looked absurdly small in the great cane armchair before the fire.

“So I am to call for you on Thursday at twelve and carry you off to your new abode,” he said.

“Have you settled yet?” asked Yvonne.

“No, not yet. If I can get the place in Elm Park, I shall give up the other. I shall hear to-morrow.”

Yvonne looked wistfully into the fire, and sighed.

“I shall feel awfully lonesome there, by myself. I am beginning to dread it. You won’t think me silly, will you? I used not to mind living alone. But then it was different. You ’ll come and see me very, very often. Bring your writing, and I ’ll be as quiet as a mouse and won’t disturb you. You don’t know how frightened and nervous I am. I suppose it’s because I have been so ill.”

“You poor little thing,” said Joyce, looking down upon her, as he stood on the hearthrug, “I wish I knew some motherly soul to take care of you—or that I could take care of you myself,” he added, with a smile.

“Oh, I wish you could,” cried Yvonne, piteously, with an appealing glance. “Oh, Stephen—could n’t you? I would n’t give you much trouble.”

“Do you mean, Yvonne, that you would like me to get lodgings in the same house as you?” asked Joyce, with a sudden flash in his eyes.

“Yes,” said Yvonne. “Just at first. Until I feel stronger. I have been longing to ask you, but I didn’t dare. Don’t think me selfish and horrid.”

The notion dawned upon him like an inspiration. Why had he not thought of it before? Why should he not find a garret above her rooms whence he could look protectingly down upon her, in brotherly affection, instead of leaving her ill and alone to the dubious mercy of landladies and lodging-house servants? He was quite bewildered by the charm of her proposal.

“But, Yvonne, do you know what undreamed of happiness you are offering me?” he said.

“Then you would like it?” she cried gladly.

“Why, my dear child!” said Joyce; and he walked about the room to express his feelings.

“I have thought it all out,” said Yvonne, sagely. “We can go to much cheaper rooms than you intended me to have, so that you can pay the same for your own lodgings as you pay now. I would n’t lead you into extravagances for anything in the world.”

“If it comes to that,” said Joyce, “the second floor is vacant where I lodge now.”

“But that is delightful!” cried Yvonne. “The fates have arranged it on purpose for us.” They talked for a while over the new plan. Joyce’s acquiescence, relieving her of much nervous dread of loneliness, raised her spirits wonderfully.

“You won’t tyrannise over me too much, will you? If I am going out with tan shoes, you won’t send me indoors to put on black ones? Promise me.”

He laughed. The idea of such an attitude towards her seemed to belong more to comic opera than to real life. And yet he felt his authority. She regarded him with the implicit trust of a stray child.

The sister came in and stayed whilst afternoon tea was in progress. She had built up a lone woman’s romance for these two, and had taken them both into her friendship. Hence the use of the sitting-room, the tea and her wise counsels to Joyce as to the proper care of Yvonne. When she left them alone again, a silence fell upon them, and with it the gloomy cloud upon Joyce, that no sunshine could dispel for long. He looked broodingly into the fire, the lines deepening on his face, the old pain in his eyes.

Was it a right thing that he was about to do—to associate his tarnished name with hers? It was all very well to dream of the sweetness and light that daily companionship with her would bring into his life—but was he fit, socially, morally, spiritually, to live with her? It was taking advantage of her innocence. His sensitiveness shrank, as if from the suggestion of a baser disloyalty to her trustingness.

Yvonne, leaning back in her long chair, kept her dark eyes fixed upon him. At first she wondered at his sudden gloom, and fancied distressedly that it proceeded from her proposal. But suddenly an illumination, such as she had never in her life experienced, lit up her mind, and caused her a strange little thrill. She called his name softly. He started, turned, rose at her sign and bent low over her chair.

“I want to come and live with you more than ever now, Stephen,” she said; and as she spoke her voice seemed to have regained its musical softness. “I mean to try and drive away the sad thoughts from you. Perhaps, after all, though I can’t sing, I may do a little good in the world.”

Her tenderness touched him. He wished she was a child that he might kiss her. The temptation to receive this boon the gods were giving him was too strong. He yielded entirely. And from that hour began Yvonne’s conscious battle with the powers of darkness in the desolate depths of a man’s heart.