"Mr Crimble," I whispered, "I have a message."

A tense excitement seized him. His face turned a dusky yellow. How curious it is to see others as they must sometimes see ourselves. Should I have gasped like that, if Mr Crimble had been Fanny's Mercury?

"A letter from Miss Bowater," I whispered, "and I am to say," the cadaverous face was close above me, its sombre melting eyes almost bulging behind their glasses, "I am to say that she is giving yours 'her earnest attention, let alone her prayers.'"

I remember once, when Adam Waggett as a noisy little boy was playing in the garden at home, the string of his toy bow suddenly snapped: Mr Crimble drew back as straight and as swiftly as that. His eyes rained unanswerable questions. But the parlourmaid had turned to meet me, and the next moment she and I were side by side in Lady Pollacke's springy carriage en route for my lodgings. I had given my message, but never for an instant had I anticipated it would have so overwhelming an effect.

There must have been something inebriating in Lady Pollacke's tea. My mind was still simmering with excitement. And yet, during the whole of that journey, I spent not a moment on Mr Crimble's or Fanny's affairs, or even on Brunswick House, but on the dreadful problem whether or not I ought to "tip" the parlourmaid, and if so, with how much. Where had I picked this enigma up? Possibly from some chance reference of my father's. It made me absent and harassed. I saw not a face or a flower; and even when the parlourmaid was actually waiting at my request in Mrs Bowater's passage, I stood over my money-chest, still incapable of coming to a decision.

Instinct prevailed. Just as I could not bring myself to complete Tom o' Bedlam with Miss Bullace looking out of her eyes at me, so I could not bring myself to offer money to Lady Pollacke's nice prim parlourmaid. Instead I hastily scrabbled up in tissue paper a large flat brooch—a bloodstone set in pinchbeck—a thing of no intrinsic value, alas, but precious to me because it had been the gift of an old servant of my mother's. I hastened out and lifting it over my head, pushed it into her hand.

Dear me, how ashamed of this impulsive action I felt when I had regained my solitude. Should I not now be the jest of the Pollacke kitchen and drawing-room alike?—for even in my anxiety to attain Mr Crimble's private ear, I had half-consciously noticed what a cascade of talk had gushed forth when Mr Crimble had closed the door of the latter behind him.

That evening I shared with Mrs Bowater my experiences at Brunswick House. So absorbed was I in my own affairs that I deliberately evaded any reference to hers. Yet her pallid face, seemingly an inch longer and many shades more austere these last two days, touched my heart.

"You won't think," I pleaded at last, "that I don't infinitely prefer being here, with you? Isn't it, Mrs Bowater, that you and I haven't quite so many things to pretend about? It is easy thinking of others when there are only one or two of them. But whole drawing-roomsful! While here; well, there is only just you and me."

"Why, miss," she replied, "as for pretending, the world's full of shadows, though substantial enough when it comes to close quarters. If we were all to look at things just bare in a manner of speaking, it would have to be the Garden of Eden over again. It can't be done. And it's just that that what's called the gentry know so well. We must make the best use of the mess we can."

I was tired. The thin, sweet air of spring, wafted in at my window after the precocious heat of the day, breathed a faint, reviving fragrance. A curious excitement was in me. Yet her words, or perhaps the tone of her voice, coloured my fancy with vague forebodings. I pushed aside my supper, slipped off my fine visiting clothes, and put on my dressing-gown. With lights extinguished, I drew the blind, and strove for a while to puzzle out life's riddle for myself. Not for the first or the last time did wandering wits cheat me of the goal, for presently in the quiet out of my thoughts, stole into my imagination the vision of that dreaming head my eyes had sheltered on.

"Hypnos," I sighed the word; and—another face, Fanny's, seemed to melt into and mingle with the visionary features. Why, why, was my desperate thought, why needed she allow the world to come to such close quarters? Why, with so many plausible reasons given in her letter for keeping poor Mr Crimble waiting, had she withheld the one that counted for most? And what was it? I knew in my heart that that could not be "making the best use of the mess." Surely, if one just told only the truth, there wasn't anything else to tell. It had taken me some time to learn this lesson.

A low, rumbling voice shook up from the kitchen. Mrs Bowater was talking to herself. Dejection drew over me again at the thought of the deceit I was in, and I looked at my love for Fanny as I suppose Abraham at the altar of stones looked at his son Isaac. Then suddenly a thought far more matter-of-fact chilled through my mind. I saw again Mr Crimble huddling down towards me in that echoing hall, heard my voice delivering Fanny's message, and realized that half of what I had said had been written in mockery. It had been intended for my eye only—"Let alone my prayers." In the solitude of the darkness the words had a sound far more sinister than even Fanny can have intended.

Mr Crimble, however, had accepted them apparently in good faith—to judge at least from the letter which reached me the following morning:—

"Dear Miss M.,—Thank you. I write with a mind so overburdened that words fail me. But I realize that Miss Bowater has no truer friend than yourself, and shall be frank. After that terrible morning you might well have refused to help me. I cannot believe that you will—for her sake. This long concealment, believe me, is not of my own seeking. It cannot, it must not, continue, a moment beyond the necessity. For weeks, nay, months, I have been tortured with doubts and misgivings. Her pride, her impenetrable heedlessness; oh, indeed, I realize the difficulties of her situation. I dare not speak till she gives consent. Yet silence puts me in a false position, and tongues, as perhaps even you may be aware, begin to wag. Nor is this my first attempt, and—to be more frank than I feel is discreet—there is my mother (quite apart from hers) now, alas, aged and more dependent on my affection and care than ever. To make a change now—the talk, the absence of Christian charity, my own temperament and calling! I pray for counsel to guide my stumbling bark on this sea of darkest tempest.

"Can F. decide that her affections are such as could justify her in committing her future to me? Am I justified in asking her? You, too, must have many anxieties—anxieties perhaps unguessed at by those of coarser fibre. And though I cannot venture to ask your confidences, I do ask for your feminine intuition—even though this may seem an intrusion after my sad discomfiture the other day. And yet, I assure you, it was not corporeal fear—are not we priests the police of the City Beautiful? Might I not have succeeded merely in making us both ridiculous? But that is past, and the dead past must bury its dead: there is no gentler sexton.

"Need I say that this letter is not the fruit of any mere impulse. The thought, the very image of her never leaves my consciousness night or day; and I get no rest. I am almost afraid at the power she has of imprinting herself on the mind. I implore you to be discreet, without needless deception. I will wait patiently. My last desire is to hasten an answer—unless, dear Miss M., one in the affirmative. And would it be possible—indeed the chief purpose of this letter was to make this small request—would it be possible to give me one hour—no tea—this afternoon? There was a phrase in your whispered message—probably because of the peculiar acoustic properties of Brunswick House—that was but half-caught. We must not risk the faintest shadow of misunderstanding.

"Believe me, yours most gratefully, though 'perplexed in the extreme,'

"Harold Crimble.

"PS.—I feel at times that it is incumbent on one to burn one's boats; even though out of sight the further shore.

"And the letter: would it be even possible to share a glance at that?"

My old habit of hunting in the crannies of what I read had ample opportunity here. Two things stood out in my mind: a kind of astonishment at Mr Crimble's "stumbling bark" which he was asking me to help to steer, and inexpressible relief that Fanny's letter was buried beyond hope of recovery before he could call that afternoon. The more I pitied and understood his state of mind, the more helpless and anxious I felt. Then, in my foolish fashion, I began again picturing in fancy the ceremony that would bring Mr Crimble and my landlady into so close a relationship. Why did he fear the wagging of tongues so much? I didn't. Would Miss Bullace be a bridesmaid? Would I? I searched in my drawer and read over the "Form of Solemnization of Matrimony." I came to "the dreadful day of judgment," and to "serve" and "obey," and shivered. I was not sure that I cared for the way human beings had managed these things. But at least, bridesmaids said nothing, and if I——

While I was thus engaged Mrs Bowater entered the room. I smuggled my prayer-book aside and gave her Fanny's letter. She was always a woman of few words. She folded it reflectively; took off her spectacles, replaced them in their leather case, and that in her pocket.

"'Soap, handkerchiefs, stockings,'" she mused, "though why in the world she didn't say 'silk' is merely Fanny's way. And I am sure, miss," she added, "she must have had one peculiar moment when the thought occurred to her of the bolt."

"But, Mrs Bowater," I cried in snake-like accents, "you said you were 'soliciting no divulgements.'"

Mrs Bowater's mouth opened in silent laughter. "Between you——" she began, and broke off. "Gracious goodness, but here's that young man, Mr Crimble, calling again."

Mr Crimble drank tea with me, though he ate nothing. And now, his darkest tempest being long since stilled, I completely absolve myself for amending the message which Lady Pollacke's tesselated hall had mercifully left obscure. He sat there, almost like a goldfish—though black in effect beyond description—gaping for the crumb that never comes. "She bade me," I muttered my falsehood, "she bade me say secretly that she has had your letter, that she is giving it her earnest attention, her earnest attention, alone, and in her prayers."

The dark liquid pupils appeared for one sheer instant to rotate, then he turned away, and, as if quite helplessly, stifled an unsheltered yawn.

"'Alone,'" he cried desperately. "I see myself, I see myself in her young imagination!"

I think he guessed that my words were false, that his ear had not been as treacherous as all that. Whether or not, no human utterance have I ever heard so humble, tragic, final. It knelled in my ear like the surrender of all hope. And yet it brought me, personally, some enlightenment. It was with Mr Crimble's eyes that I now scanned not only his phantom presence in Fanny's imagination, but my own, standing beside him—a "knick-knack" figure of fun, pygmied beneath the flappets of his clerical coat, like a sun-beetle by a rook. The spectacle strengthened me without much affecting Fanny. She was no longer the absolute sultana of my being. I could think now, as well as adore.

How strange it is that when our minds are needled to a sharp focus mere "things" swarm so close. There was not a single ornament or book or fading photograph in Mrs Bowater's parlour that in this queer privacy did not mutely seem to cry, "Yes, here am I. This is how things go."

I leant forward and looked at him. "We mustn't care what she sees, what she thinks, if only we can go on loving her."

"'Can, can'?" echoed Mr Crimble, "I have prayed on my knees not to."

This was a sharp ray on my thoughts of love. "But why?" I said. "Even when I was a child, I knew by my mother's face that I must go on, and should go on, loving her, Mr Crimble, whether she loved me or not. One can't make a bad mistake in giving, can one? And yet—well, you must remember that I cannot but have been a—a disappointment; that as long as I live I can't expect any great affection, any disproportionate one, I mean."

"But, but," he stumbled on, "a daughter's affection—it's different. I mustn't brood on my trouble. It unhinges me. Why, the clock stops. But nevertheless may God bless you for that."

"But surely," I persisted, smiling as cheerfully as I could, "Nil desperandum, Mr Crimble. And you know what they say about fish in the sea."

His eye rolled round on me as if a serpent had spoken. "I am sorry, I am sorry," he repeated rapidly, in the same low, unemphatic undertone as if to himself. "I must just wait. You have never seen a sheep—a bullock, shall we call him?—being driven to the slaughter-house. On, on—from despair to despair. That's my position." His face was emptied of expression, his eyes fixed.

These words, his air, his look, this awful private thing—I can't say—it shocked and frightened me beyond words. But I answered him steadily none the less. "Listen, Mr Crimble," I said, "look at me, here, what I am. I have had my desperate moments too—more alone in the world than you can ever be! And I swear before God that I will never, never be not myself." I wonder what the listener thought of this little challenge, not perhaps what Mr Crimble did.

"Well," he replied, with sudden calm, "that's the courage of the martyrs, and not all of them perhaps have been Christians, if history is to be credited. Yes, and in sober truth, I assure you, you, that I would go to the stake for—for Miss Bowater."

He rose, and in that instant of dignity I foresaw what was never to be—lawn sleeves encasing those loose, black arms. He had somehow wafted me back to my Confirmation.

"And the letter? I have no wish to intrude. But her actual words. I mayn't see that?"

"You will please forgive me," I entreated helplessly, "it is buried; because, you see, Fanny—you see, Mrs Bowater——"

"Ah," he said. "It is this deception which dismays, scandalizes me most. But you will keep me informed?"

He seized his soft round hat, and it was on this cold word we parted. I stood by the window, with hand stretched out to summon him back. But no word of comfort or hope came to my aid, and I watched him out of sight.