“So, from her sky-like spirit, gentleness

Dropt ever like a sunlit fall of rain,

And his beneath drank in the bright caress

As thirstily as would a parched plain,

That long hath watched the showers of sloping grey

For ever, ever, falling far away.”—Lowell.

After Ralph had left, a more sombre hue stole over Evereld’s glowing sky. She began to think a little of the future, of the countless partings in store for them, and the more she thought the more silent and grave she became.

“You look tired, my dear,” said Mrs. Hereford as they walked back from church. “Come in with me and rest. The others have set their hearts on a stroll by the sea, but you had a long walk this afternoon.”

“Yes,” said Evereld, sitting down beside her hostess near the open window and looking out into the calm summer evening. “I wanted to tell you about our walk. And if ever you have time Ralph would so much like to talk to you too.”

The words were said with an effort and Mrs. Hereford glanced at the sweet girlish face with its downcast eyes and understood in a moment what was coming.

“You two are very old friends,” she said. “Bride told me that you had been brought up together and that a very nice German lady had done a great deal for you.”

“Yes,” said Evereld, falling naturally into all the old memories. “I don’t know what we should have done without her. You see the Mactavishs never really cared for us. But she cared, and dear old Bridget and Geraghty the butler; and Ralph was just like my brother until the day Sir Matthew turned him out of the house. He failed you know in the exam, for the Indian Civil, and they had a quarrel and Ralph had to go. It was only in that dreadful time after he had gone that I understood how I cared for him.”

“And had you not met him at all since then?” asked Mrs. Hereford.

“Yes, we met once by accident in the Christmas holidays and then I thought, I fancied, that he cared a little. But he said nothing till to-day, and now we understand each other, only Ralph will not let me bind myself in any way; he had not meant to speak yet at all, he said, but oh, I am so glad he didn’t wait.”

Mrs. Hereford took the girl’s hand in hers and stroked it silently. Her thoughts had flown back to a day in her own life when just such an understanding had been arrived at, she had been about the same age as Evereld, and looking back now she felt sad as she realised how much inevitable pain and suspense lay before this girl, what dire possibilities of misunderstanding, what weary hours of separation.

“That is just what I should have said,” she answered after that brief pause. “But now, understanding all it involves, I confess I don’t want Mollie and Bride to be in a hurry to follow your example. I want them to have five or six years of free happy girlhood before all the deeper joys and cares begin. Of course we can’t choose, and for you and Mr. Denmead, who have no real home, no near relations, very likely it is the best and happiest way. I am glad you told me about it, and you must promise if ever you need anyone to help you, to come to me. I suppose you can hardly make a confidant of Lady Mactavish?”

“No,” said Evereld, half laughing, half crying. “They are all so horrid about Ralph. When I am one and twenty and we can really be engaged of course they must all know, but to tell them this could do no good and might do great harm.”

“Sir Matthew did not insist then on your altogether breaking with your friend when he was sent away?”

“No,” said Evereld, “I don’t think anyone troubled to think about it until last Christmas. Then when I met him and told Sir Matthew about it, he did say something of the sort, but I told him I couldn’t leave off being Ralph’s friend, and he was very kind and did not forbid my writing to him in the holidays. If Ralph succeeds on the stage I believe Sir Matthew will be rather proud of him after all. He does so like people who succeed. I suppose we may still write to each other now and then.”

“Oh, I think as long as there is nothing underhand about it you may continue to write,” said Mrs. Hereford. “You will write as friends, not as lovers; you must deny yourselves that luxury until you come of age. I am not preaching what I haven’t practised, dear, for we had four years of that sort of thing before I was actually engaged. There are great drawbacks but I think some advantages.”

“Surely many advantages,” said Evereld. “And I am much more alone in the world than you were. You had brothers and sisters.”

“Yes, and a profession which was very absorbing,” said Mrs. Hereford, suppressing a sigh. “Oh, I do think it is a very great gain for you, only I want you to realise that it is the sort of life that needs no end of patience and courage and strength. There will be days when all will not be so bright as you fancy. But I won’t croak any more. You are likely to be much better at waiting than I was, for impulsiveness is the bane of all Irish folk.”

“And you will talk to Ralph?” pleaded Evereld, knowing how much he would value the sympathy and counsel of such a woman, and secretly longing that Mrs. Hereford should know him and appreciate him better.

“Yes, to be sure,” said her hostess, with the smile that had won so many hearts. “We will collogue together after breakfast.”

She was true to her promise and while Macneillie was amusing everyone with stories of various contretemps of stage life, she contrived to carry off Ralph to see the invalided patriot; after which they had a cosy little talk in the drawing-room with no one but Baby Donal, a sturdy little man of three, to keep them company.

“Evereld has told me about yesterday afternoon,” said Mrs. Hereford, who was quite well aware that she must plunge boldly into the very heart of the matter and not wait for him to beat about the bush.

“I should never have spoken so soon if it had not been for the thought of her Swiss tour with that knave and his solicitor,” said Ralph hotly. “Forgive me for the expression, but it is not too strong for him.”

Mrs. Hereford laughed a little.

“You needn’t measure your words so carefully; a Kelt is accustomed to much more fiery language than that. And you really think Sir Matthew Mactavish a knave? I confess he is a man I intuitively dislike, but I thought he was a great philanthropist and very much respected.”

“So he is,” said Ralph, his face hardening, “but some day the world will find him out. Some day when he has ruined and murdered others as he ruined and murdered my father. What a mistake it is only to hang people who are taken red-handed! They should rather hang the speculators whose victims may be reckoned by hundreds. There are far more cruel ways of murdering people than by poison, or knives, or guns.”

She had watched him closely as he spoke and saw that his wrath and indignation were genuine and deep. A great pity filled her heart, and she understood how intolerable it must seem to Ralph that the girl he loved should still be in the power of this despicable sham philanthropist.

“I think you were quite right to speak to Evereld,” she said warmly. “And now that you have spoken, the worst of your anxiety ought to be over. The knowledge that you belong to each other will be strength to both of you.”

All the bitterness died out of his face at her words, leaving it once more frank and boyish, and ingenuous as it was meant to be. The rasping sense of injustice had done some damage to his character, but the goodness of Macneillie and the gift of Evereld’s love had already done much to obliterate the traces of the evil influence. His heart went out now to the brave noble-minded woman who so readily gave him her thought and sympathy.

“Evereld told me you would understand,” he said gratefully, “I don’t think I could have kept silent, but of course evil-minded people are sure to say that it is only her fortune I want.”

“Evil be to him that evil thinks,” said Mrs. Hereford. “No one who had talked with you for half an hour even could believe you a fortune hunter. And when you have lived as many years as I have done in public life, you will learn to trouble yourself very little indeed as to what people say. We shall never be true to ourselves, or of much use to any good cause, till the fear of public opinion has died in us.”

“Does living in public life teach one that? I should have thought it would have taught one to howl with the wolves, to be always on the look-out for ways of pleasing the public and stroking people the right way, to dread nothing so much as alienating or offending your audience.”

“Many people would agree with that view, but I believe it is false for all that. Why meddle with what does not concern you? Your work is to live your own life, to be just and independent, to be true to your own conscience, and to be a hard-working actor. You have nothing to do with the result on other people, you can never tell what it may be; and even if you pare down your actions till you fancy they will please everyone you will end by forfeiting the esteem of all. It’s like the old fable of the man who first rode his ass to market and finally carried it.”

“Certainly Macneillie’s life is ruled in the way you approve,” said Ralph thoughtfully. “There never was a manager who so sturdily refused to bow down to the public. He will not humour the depraved taste for morbid and dubious plays which has taken possession of the country of late, but insists on giving only what is really good. The result, however, is that while a manager who runs one of these risky modern plays makes a fortune, Macneillie merely earns a competence.”

“That may be,” said Mrs. Hereford, “but the result also is that the one Manager is a curse to his country and the other a Godsend. Your habit of mind isn’t so commercial that you measure success by the solid gold it brings in.”

“I hope not,” said Ralph laughing. “But to one who knows how hard and wearing and anxious the life of such a man is bound to be, want of great visible success seems rather rough. However, to return to the point we started from, it is a great comfort to know that you don’t think I was wrong to speak to Evereld yesterday. And a greater comfort still to know that she has you for a friend; one never feels safe somehow with a man like Sir Matthew Mactavish, but if she may turn to you in any difficulty I shall not worry half so much.”

“I will promise you to be to her just what I would try to be to one of my own sisters,” said Mrs. Hereford. “And you, too, must promise to treat us all as friends. Come in whenever you like, this week; you must make the most of your chance of seeing Evereld.”

Macneillie in the meantime had been learning to know Ralph’s future wife. He had been a little surprised at first to find that she was a decidedly reserved girl, not strikingly pretty, rather short, and wholly unlike the being he would have expected Ralph to fall in love with. This was, however, merely his first impression, he had not been two minutes in the room with her before he observed how well her head was set on her shoulders; how in spite of her want of height there was that indescribable touch of dignity in her carriage which he had vainly tried to impart to many a novice on the stage. Then she spoke to him during a pause in the general talk, most of her talking he discovered was done to fill up gaps, and when she spoke a sort of transformation scene took place. Her face suddenly became lovely, the china-blue eyes seemed to radiate light and sweetness, the colour deepened in the softly-rounded cheeks and the most charming dimple made itself seen.

“We are all so much looking forward to ‘The Winter’s Tale’ to night,” she said.

“You have not seen Ralph act before?” asked Macneillie, knowing quite well what the answer would be but wishing for another variety of the transformation scene.

The blue eyes seemed to deepen in colour and an exquisite tenderness softened the whole face.

“Never on the stage,” she said. “Of course I have seen him just as an amateur. Do you think he is getting on well?”

Now this last question was one to enthrall the heart of any Manager. Actually this girl did not leap to the conclusion that her lover was by nature a full-fledged actor, but asked if he was getting on.

“She is the most sensible little woman I ever came across,” thought Macneillie to himself. “In such a case even Mrs. Siddons might have qualified her advice as to marriage.”

By and bye Evereld found herself keeping guard over Baby Donal in the drawing-room and talking to Ralph, while Macneillie and Max Hereford adjourned to the smoking-room. The two lovers were serenely happy and saw the future opening before them in all the gorgeous hues of dawn. But Macneillie received a stab from his unconscious companion which was destined to rankle in his heart. They had been speaking of Monkton Verney and not unnaturally Max Hereford, knowing that Christine Greville was a friend but knowing nothing of the true state of affairs, referred to her case.

“I only hope she will be able to get her divorce,” he said casually, “but of course there is a doubt.”

“A doubt?” said Macneillie frowning. “Why Sir Roderick never attempted to deny his guilt.”

“Oh, yes, there is no doubt as to his guilt, and had she been married in Scotland all would have been well, for Scotland has one and the same law for men and women. Unluckily she was married in England.”

“I don’t understand you. I know little of the law,” said Macneillie, “but certainly in my country there would be no difficulty when it was a clear case of the breach of the seventh commandment.”

“There would be no difficulty in England for a man,” said Max Hereford, “but a woman cannot get a divorce here unless she can prove cruelty as well as adultery on the part of her husband. It is only one of the instances of our scandalous habit of setting up different standards of morality for men and women.”

“How much longer are the English going to put up with such a grave injustice?” said Macneillie.

“Not long, I fancy, when once they realise it. But at present half of them are ignorant of the true state of things, while the evil-minded are of course unwilling to rob themselves of what they regard as a prerogative. The law as it stands is not only unjust to women but to all moral men. How easily one can picture a case where, because divorce was not granted, it was impossible for the innocent woman to marry a man who loved her.”

Macneillie assented quietly. No one could have guessed how terribly this suggestion moved him, how clearly he saw in his own mind the picture of an innocent woman and an upright law-abiding man with their lives wrecked by this double-standard of morality.

“I think,” he said presently, “that at any rate in Miss Greville’s case there will be little difficulty in proving Sir Roderick’s cruelty.”

“I hope it may be so,” said Max Hereford, “but I understand from her solicitor that different views prevail as to what does exactly constitute legal cruelty. The case is not likely to come on yet for many months and the suspense must be terribly trying for her, far worse of course than for anyone in private life.”

“Her decision to stay at Monkton Verney till the case is over seems to me wise,” said Macneillie. “Your Cave of Adullam is a great Godsend. I wonder what made you think of such a plan.”

“Oh, the ‘cave’ was my wife’s doing,” said Max Hereford. “Miss Claremont is delighted to have her old friend Miss Greville there, and since Barry Sterne has undertaken the entire management of her theatre there is no need for her to be troubled in any way about outside things. Why Flo, Kittie,” he exclaimed breaking off as two pretty little girls darted into the room, their sunburnt faces aglow with eagerness.

“Daddy, there’s a man with the beautifullest voice you ever heard and we want sixpence for him,” they cried in a breath, “do come and hear him.”

And by sheer force of determination the two small elves dragged their father from the depths of his easy chair.

“The tyranny of daughters is a thing you have yet to learn, Mr. Macneillie,” he said with a smile, as with one elf on his shoulder and the other impetuously pulling at his hand he sauntered out to the front door.

Macneillie flung the end of his cigarette into the grate and began to pace the room restlessly. The words so unconsciously spoken seemed to put the finishing touch to his pain, the fatherly pride of his companion’s face haunted him and filled him with envy, and over and over in his mind he revolved the torturing doubt which had first been suggested to him that morning. Would the law free Christine?

Meanwhile through the open door there was wafted to him only too distinctly the familiar song of the street tenor:

“Love once again: Meet me once again:

Old love is waking, shall it wake in vain?”

Such a life as Macneillie’s may have two very different effects on the man called upon to endure it. Either it will harden and embitter him, and he will gradually become a mere cynical observer of others; or it will deepen and widen his whole character, and he will become more and more tender towards the lives of other people. Lynx-eyed to detect and prompt to check as far as possible all that he deemed undesirable or in the least risky among the members of his company, he was nevertheless always kind-hearted with regard to any genuine attachment. He knew Ralph now very intimately and was quite well aware that his feeling for Evereld was no mere passing fancy. In his own grievous anxiety and suspense there was comfort in throwing himself into the affairs of his protÉgÉ, and a growing desire to see this love story happily worked out took possession of him. He had, moreover, taken a great fancy to Evereld, and began now to consider things from her point of view, trying to picture to himself just how she would probably feel with regard to Ralph’s profession. She had never seen him on the stage, had never in fact seen him act at all since the time she had been of an age to understand what love meant. He wondered how the play that night would strike her. Would Florizel’s lovemaking possibly jar a little upon her as she sat there watching it from her place in the stalls? Or would that gracious womanly wisdom which he had noticed in her save her from all petty jealousies, all thoughts unworthy of a great art? He thought it would. Still a girl of nineteen in love with a man like Ralph Denmead might perchance be excused if she were not entirely able to forget herself and her own story in the contemplation of Shakspere’s play.

“I know what I will do,” he thought to himself. “No one who understands the training, the learning, the drilling, the matter of fact element of sheer hard work that makes up the life of an actor is likely to think stage lovemaking a dangerous pastime. I will persuade Mrs. Hereford to bring her this morning to rehearsal.”