W. B. Maxwell

NEWS had come; and it was bad news. Except that it conveyed desolation instead of comfort, she did not yet fully understand the long cablegram from Twining. Its one salient statement had been a blow sufficiently cruel to strike her down.

Twining had returned to Hobart in the relief ship. He had returned—without Dyke. He had brought back other people—but not Dyke.

The message had many map references, and she immediately recognised the first one—in Latitude seventy-seven degrees, forty minutes, south. That, of course, was Dyke’s base camp on the Barrier, near the place from which Captain Scott started. So it had been arranged. He was to follow Captain Scott’s line. He said it was a duty to the dead—to carry on the work.

Naturally it was to that point that Twining would go, to succour and relieve. The message said:—

“...Have taken away everybody from there. The large party that Dyke took with him all safe back. They left him Latitude eighty-five degrees south. Dyke going on with two.”

Emmie’s teeth, with retracted lips, began to chatter, and she repeated the words in a whisper. “Dyke going on—Dyke going on with two.”

Twining had not seen Dyke’s own ship, the Follower. The Follower was gone—somewhere else. Why? She could not understand. And what was the significance of that instruction to make more food depÔts, when all depÔts were already provided? On the supply of food from the base camp southwards depended all the security of Dyke’s return journey from the Pole. Was there something wrong with the carefully planned arrangements? Surely this must mean that he intended to come from the Pole by a slightly different line? But then—oh, the danger, the horrible danger of altered plans.

Twining had broken up the original base camp; he had taken everybody away. It could have only one meaning: that Dyke was not coming back exactly the same way that he had gone. It could not mean—no, a thousand times no—that he had been so long that they did not expect him back at all? No, they expected him at this other place. They were to meet him there.

She fell into a fit of shivering as the thought came to her that all this had happened months ago. Twining was speaking of events that were over, done with, for ever. Already Dyke’s journey was a thing of the past. At this hour Dyke and those two were safe, quite out of danger, or—

She threw herself face downwards on the bed, writhing and moaning.

Then after a while she set to work with the map again; trying to locate accurately that last map reference and find the exact point of the coast-line mentioned as the place of the new base camp to be established by the Follower. In spite of all her training, she was still apt to get confused in regard to Longitude. Latitude never troubled her.

Slowly the big map turned in her hands as she followed those thin north and south lines and the tiny numbers on the Antarctic circle; and as if with her weak trembling hands she had pushed the world itself round upon its axis, she stared in horror and amazement. That point to which Dyke had ordered the Follower was two thousand miles, a long sea voyage, away from the old place. It was right across the circle, on the opposite side of the map, facing Cape Horn instead of Australasia. The coast-line was in Coats Land. The new food depÔts were to be made on the edge of that vast unknown which stretches from there to the Pole without a single mark on the map to indicate men’s guesses at the secrets that it holds.

Then it was as if a bright light burst before her eyes, and she shook as if an explosion had set the room and the whole house rocking. She had understood at last the audacity and magnitude of Dyke’s aim.

He had never intended to retrace his steps. He meant to go straight on past the Pole, through the unknown, unguessed-at regions on that other side, straight on, right across the circle.

Presently she was sitting on the edge of her bed, crying, and talking aloud. “O Tony, this is too bad of you. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair. You have broken the spirit of our agreement, if not the letter. You knew very well that I would not have allowed it, if I had been consulted. And you said I should be consulted—you said my word was law—at the time I gave you the money.” She went on talking, half hysterically, just as a mother talks when news reaches her from a distance of a wild son’s reckless and inexcusable behaviour; saying the things that even she, his mother, would have been forced to say to him, had he been here within sound of her voice. “No, Tony, I can’t, I can’t forgive you for this. You could not have done it if you had thought of me.”

She went almost at once to Devonshire, in order to be with his father during this dreadful time.

Following on that cablegram from Lieutenant Twining to the unhappy patron and mock chieftain of the expedition, there came all sorts of messages from press correspondents in Tasmania. But evidently Twining had told them very little. They did not know what Emmie knew. Soon however the name of Dyke once more became prominent in English newspapers.

Silent and oblivious all this time, they now took him up again in the interesting uncertainty as to his fate. The famous explorer lost, became worth space again. Anthony Dyke missing, gone from human ken, long over-due, was naturally more valuable than Anthony Dyke alive and well, ready to answer our representative’s questions at the end of a telephone wire. He took rank as a sensation that appealed to all readers, and was featured only less conspicuously than some Miss Jenkins, a pretty golden-haired flapper of seventeen, who started from home to go to a cinema palace three weeks ago and has not been seen or heard of since. A strange disappearance! His old photographs were brought out. His whole career was narrated—briefly, and without any intimate details that might discount his obituary notices. These were all ready, waiting.

As the weeks passed and the view of the newspapers grew more gloomy, their writers became more and more complimentary. They spoke of him as “the great Englishman.” They said that even after a war which had shown us by hundreds of instances how the fire of patriotism can overcome the disability of age, one must yet feel dumb with admiration as one thought of such an enterprise as this being undertaken by a man of sixty-two. They wished they could entertain any real hope that he would ultimately work his way back to safety, but they must point to the adverse opinion of an expert (in another column) who reminded one that the factors of time and food allowed no possibility of delay. Neither seals nor birds would be met with. And to eat the sledge dogs, when it became necessary, meant destroying the means of rapid movement. They feared that, at this date, there could be little doubt that the tragedy of ten years ago had been re-enacted. Dyke and his two companions had perished on their way back to the base. And venerable admirals, writing in confirmation of this verdict, paid eloquent tributes and called it a national loss.

It was a part of Emmie’s task at Endells to keep all these horrible newspapers out of reach of the poor old man. She said it merely lacerated one’s feelings to read them, and, as they were without information that he and she possessed, their opinion was quite valueless.

Twining’s letter came to her at Endells six weeks after his cabled message. He was scarcely more hopeful than the newspapers. And a little after this the newspapers themselves ceased to speak of Dyke. There was no more to be said.

Plainly old Mr. Dyke’s bodily strength was ebbing fast. That seat on the cliff saw them no more. It was as much as he could do to walk to church, with the aid of Emmie’s arm. In church he sat while others stood or kneeled; and always when the time came for the curate to read the prayer of promise that when two or three are gathered together in God’s name their requests will be granted, Emmie saw his hands, and then his whole body, begin to tremble. He used to close his eyes, and Emmie, looking down at him, saw the deep lines on his shrunken cheeks, his veined eyelids, and his bloodless lips, all in a sort of fluttering movement that was produced by the rapidity of his breathing.

In the mild spring weather they drove in a little old-fashioned phaeton with a staid old pony—Emmie driving and the old man at her side—through the deep-sunk lanes, never on the high road, along the sheltered valleys and sometimes high enough on the hillside to find a point where, stopping for a few minutes to rest the pony, they could look through the bars of a field gate across sloping grass land to the wide calm sea. He loved these outings in the pony carriage, and they did him good. They talked all the while of Anthony; he as a rule telling her of incidents connected with his son’s youth or early manhood, and she generally speaking of things that were to be done in the future. They comforted each other as best they could.

“As soon as he comes home, Mr. Dyke, he must help you to make the tenants do their duty in repairing these banks. They really are neglecting them.”

“Yes, I’ll get him to help me about that—and other matters. I am afraid I have been negligent myself this last year. But if Tony will settle down here, and—”

“Oh, he promised. He’ll keep his promise. He promised us both that he would never go away again.”

For although they did not attempt to conceal the torture of anxiety that both were suffering, neither had ever admitted even a transient fear that their belief in his return might not be justified. Nothing should shake her own faith, and she thought that the old man’s faith was as firm. But then, during one of these drives, he unconsciously allowed her to divine that it was not so.

They had been almost laughing as they spoke of the remarkable fact that Mr. Sturgess, the doctor, had added a really new anecdote to his repertory.

“It would have amused Tony to know that,” said Mr. Dyke.

“I will tell him in my next letter,” said Emmie.

The old man turned his thin nose and dim eyes, and looked at her in startled wonder.

“Do you mean,” he said, “that you are still writing to him?”

“Of course I am,” she said, with a gasp. “I write every week now, instead of once a fortnight. Naturally there will be a great many letters—counting those that Mr. Twining had taken with him on the Heather Bell. And Tony won’t get the rest till he arrives at Hobart. But he’ll like having them, no matter how many they are”; and she tried to smile. “He can read them—or glance through them—on the voyage home.” Then her voice broke. “Oh, dear Mr. Dyke, you have hurt me so dreadfully. Why did you seem surprised? Why did you look at me like that—as if you thought it was useless to go on writing to him?”

“My dearest Emmie, nothing of the sort.” The old fellow made a gallant effort to speak firmly and cheerfully. “You are absolutely right. I don’t know what I was thinking about. My mind had wandered—it does now, occasionally. Yes, tell him that Sturgess has been to London and learnt a fresh tale. Tell him all the news. Abertors! Don’t forget to say that Abertors has been let furnished.”

No one believed really, except her. Only she who did not dare to doubt, contrived to go on believing. The others merely pretended. In the village the kindly friendly little shop people assumed a pitying expression that betrayed them at once.

“Mr. Dyke du sim poorly. Very old he is, for sure,” said Mrs. Prince, the post-mistress, to Miss Verinder, who was buying stamps. “A great age it is—and now what with his grief to—”

Miss Verinder, so firm as to seem stern and haughty, said that Mr. Dyke was feeling anxiety but no grief. Why should he grieve when there was nothing to grieve about?

“Oh, have yu a’ had good tidings, miss?” asked the post-mistress eagerly.

“No, it is improbable that we shall have tidings of any kind for a long time. I have told you so, again and again. Don’t you understand that the seasons are different down there?”

“Yes, miss, so you did mention to my husband.”

“Down there the winter is beginning. The ship that has gone to look for Mr. Anthony will encounter frozen seas. Mr. Anthony’s own ship—unless he has already got away—will be fast in the ice. If so, he cannot be expected at any navigable port until the autumn.”

It was just the same with those old servants at the house. Talking to her of Master Anthony they spoke, as their master did, nearly always of his youth. Hannah, standing with Emmie in his dressing-room, pointed down into the walled garden and said how when he was quite a little chap, and she herself a young girl, he had a lovely black velvet suit with a lace collar; and wearing this much admired costume, he lay upon the grass down there on an April day. Then a sharp shower began; but Master Anthony, never seeming to notice the downpour, still lay there, till he was wet through and through. “Oh, there was a to-do, for fear he should take cold.” Everybody in the house had loved the child.

All this was naturally put by Hannah into the past tense; but Emmie, wincing, noticed that Hannah still used the same tense as she went on to speak of later days, when she said how it was his kindness, his unfailing kindness, that had won the hearts not only of the tenants but of every man and woman for miles round.

“Yes,” said Hannah finally, with a sigh, “he was a kind gentleman.”

“He is a kind gentleman,” said Miss Verinder. “And a great hero too. As you’ll say, when he comes home and all the world is praising him.”

“I’m sure we do hope so, miss.”

But she knew that they merely acted hope; they had no hope, truly. She ceased to talk to them in the friendly open way that had become habitual. She let the house itself talk to her about him, and not its servants.

Everything spoke of him. There was not a room that had not legends to tell and memories to revive. Sometimes on these mornings of early spring she went by herself into his dressing-room, and remained there for a long while. It was a large comfortable room, beautifully neat and clean, smelling of lavender; with two spacious walnut wardrobes, a big writing-table, and chairs covered in newly-washed chintz—a room that seemed to have been occupied quite recently and to be waiting for some one to use it again to-morrow. She opened the latticed casements more widely to let in more air and sunlight, and stood looking down into the little garden, and thought of him, dreamed of him. In imagination she could hear him down below on the terrace, banging away at the cook’s box as he and the electrician mended it—a splendid grey-haired giant, full of power and will. In imagination she could see him moving along the grass path between the crocuses and daffodils—a child dressed in black velvet and white lace; a child with a man’s great soul already developing in him, careless of rain and storm, incapable of petty fears, daring and yet loving nature.

Sometimes she played with his things, rearranging the writing materials in the small cabinet on the table, or she opened the wardrobes, and fetching out the old-fashioned garments, shook them, brushed them, refolded them. This made him seem more certainly alive. These things were not a dead man’s property.

“But he shan’t wear them again,” she said to herself. “We’ll make a bonfire of them. It is absurd not to have got rid of them ages ago. I won’t have him looking as he did that last Christmas, in this horrid little black coat. No, we’ll have a bonfire.”

At night when Mr. Dyke had gone to bed and all the house was shuttered and barred, she sat alone by the dying embers in the oak parlour, or stood looking into the round mirrors as if almost expecting that they would show a reflection of something more than emptiness behind her. She had then a feeling of vagueness and unreality, and it seemed to her that she too was acting. What was it all about—this tightening of the throat, this beating of the heart, this hot dull aching of the brain? Why had she begun to pace the room, like a tragedy queen, with clenched hands and wild eyes? Pretence? There was no real necessity for these exaggerated poses in order to shew an empty room and a vacant chair the ravages of mental agony.

“Courage, Emmie. Sit down. Don’t walk about.”

Who said that? She stood listening and trembling. No one, of course. But it was what he would have said, had he been here. The place was not really haunted. There are no ghosts—and if there were ghosts they must be ghosts of the dead not of the living. No one had spoken. She had merely supplied ordinary words to an ordinary thought.

She sat down on one side of the hearth and looked at the big deep chair on the other side of it. She had found him sitting there that Christmas eve long after she herself had gone upstairs, long after midnight. She had come down again. The fire had burnt itself out, the hearth was cold, and he was so completely lost in thought that he did not hear her slippered footfall. She had known then that she must let him go, that she could not keep him with her, that the sacrifice was inevitable.

“Tony,” she had said, “this is disgraceful of you. What do you mean by staying down here, hours after you ought to have been in bed?”

“If it comes to that,” he said, shaking off his reverie and speaking gaily, “why haven’t you gone to bed yourself?”

And again it was as though she heard his voice, clear and distinct, speaking to her from the empty chair in this haunted room.

She was sleeping very badly at this time, often hearing the church clock strike the hours till dawn before she fell into light dozes. Now in the middle of the night there came a knocking at the door of her room. Startled, she called out loudly.

The door opened a little way, and the old man spoke to her.

“Emmie, forgive me. Can you get up? I have something to tell you.”

She had turned on the light, and hastily putting a cloak round her she went to him in the corridor. He was wrapped in the loose folds of a dressing-gown, so white and feeble a thing as seen thus, so bony and thin, that his aspect gave her a new shock of pain. Because of the confusion of his spirit, forgetting the electric light, he carried a candle that was guttering and smoking in his shaky hand.

“What’s the matter, Mr. Dyke? Are you ill?” And she took the candle from him and blew it out.

“No, dear—not ill. But I have been thrown into great agitation by a dream. Emmie dear, I am still under the influence of it. Help me. It was like a vision. But dare one attach importance to it? Emmie, it was so wonderful. I did not know I was asleep—but I suppose I must have been.”

“Oh, Mr. Dyke, what was it?” She too was shaking now, so much that the candle fell from its socket and rolled against the wainscoat. “Tell me what it was.”

“Anthony,” he said.

“Yes, Anthony. I knew it”; but she clung to him. “What did you see? What did you hear?”

“I saw him, but I could not hear anything.”

“Dead?”

“No, alive. Oh, yes, I saw him move—he raised his arm, he seemed to hold his hand to his eyes, and then—But, Emmie, I heard nothing. That’s what makes me so doubtful. Tell me what you think. No, don’t tell me—I can’t get rid of this agitation. I can’t think clearly.” Then it was as if the old man had suddenly convinced himself. “Why should I doubt? He is alive. My boy, my boy still lives. Some merciful power has sent me this message.”

“Yes, yes—that is what we will think. But, dear Mr. Dyke, you mustn’t stay here or you will catch cold.” And with her arm round him she led him back into his room.

He looked about him vaguely.

“Get back to bed now.”

“Yes, dear. But first I want to tell you all. I want to describe everything, for you to remember it. He seemed to be shading his eyes with his hand, looking forward. And when he dropped his hand I saw the face very bright, with a very strong light upon it—like the strongest sunshine. He wasn’t alone, Emmie. There was some one else, on the ground by his feet. And then he seemed to be calling out—though I couldn’t hear. Yet I seemed to understand that he was calling to me—asking me to wait for him—or to stay with him—not to desert him. Then, Emmie dear, though there was no sound to his voice, I spoke myself. I called to him to be quick, because I couldn’t wait. Then, immediately it was gone—and I felt I must go to you.”

“Yes, yes. I’m glad you came. But now—”

“Emmie, I don’t like to ask you. Yes, I will. Pray with me a minute. When two or three are gathered together. Would you mind? You said once that you did believe in some universal power. Well, will you pray to that? I don’t know if I believe in much else myself. Everything is slipping from me.”

He sank upon his knees, and Emmie took the quilt from the bed and held it round him, kneeling by his side while he prayed. It was pitiful, heart-rending, the weak, weak voice quavering breathlessly in the silent night.

“O merciful God, make this thing true. O God of mercy grant our prayer. Have mercy on us, have mercy on us. Oh, spare my boy. Have mercy on my brave boy. Grant to us two who love him that he may come back to us safely.”

She got him into bed again, covered him warmly, and he feebly pressed her hand.

“Thank you, dear Emmie. That was kind of you. Yes, when two or three are gathered together. Very kind. But you are always kind.”

She stayed there for some time after he had fallen asleep, and then went back to her room. She was exhausted by the agitation that had been communicated to her; but before lying down she wrote a note in her memorandum book. “During the night of April 18-19, Mr. Dyke dreamed that he saw Tony,” and so on. Then, worn out, she slept deeply, dreamlessly.

Louisa, rousing her in the morning, said that Mr. Dyke was ill and Dr. Sturgess had been sent for.

The poor old man was light-headed, babbling confusedly, unable to recognize Emmie or anybody else; and Dr. Sturgess told her immediately that the illness could have but one termination.

A little more than a fortnight later she was writing to Anthony to tell him of his loss.

She shut herself in the flat, and would see no one—not loyal Mrs. Bell clambering up those steep stairs breathlessly, not even affectionate, grateful Mildred lightly springing up them to be rebuffed at the guarded door again and again, not anyone at all. She had ceased to count the months now, dreading the tale of them, refusing to recognize their numbers. She only knew, by the warm air and the brilliant sunbeams that sent dancing fire between the leafy branches of the plane-tree, that it was high summer and that all the world of the noisy streets was gay.

Reverting to an old habit, she used to go out at night, and even then it was not dark enough to harmonise with her thoughts. Louisa always accompanied her. They crossed the Brompton Road, seeking the silence and darkness beside the closed churchyard, wandered through Ennismore Gardens into Prince’s Gate; flitting like ghosts in the grey lamp-light and vanishing in the grey shadow—like two faded and fading ghosts that haunted the broad roads and empty spaces which they had both known in lifetime and youth. On into Queen’s Gate, past its largest house, shrinking from those lighted windows and the sound of music; along the Cromwell Road, round and about the once animated neighbourhood; to and fro—thus they did their phantom walk, night after night.

She could not bear the sight of the daylight crowd. She felt hatred and contempt for these thousands of well-fed comfortable people who ate, slept, and amused themselves in mean security, while the great men, the heroes, the Dykes of the world, were giving their noble lives to distant peril and toil. Nothing short of an urgent call of duty would force her to face the garish sunlight and the heartless mob.

But such a summons came, and with Louisa she went for two days to that town in the midlands.

They returned by an evening train, sitting side by side at a table in the Pullman car; Emmie looking pale and well-bred, Louisa grey-haired, solid, severe, but so well-dressed and dignified as to seem a friend of the other lady and not her servant. No one would have noticed them or thought about them, if they had not aroused a little curious attention by asking for tea and eggs instead of the table-d’hÔte dinner that the rest of the passengers were devouring. When they had finished their tea, Louisa put on spectacles and read the Strand Magazine; while Miss Verinder thought of what had happened at Upperslade Park, and of what this release might have meant to her once, a long time ago, many, many years ago. Coming now, it seemed like the last cruel mockery of fate.

That same night, although she was very tired, she wrote to Anthony to tell him of this second death.

She continued to write to him even more often; telling him about Louisa or the cat, telling him anything that could possibly interest him.

After the evening walk she used to sit at her desk, with only her reading lamp to make a bright circle of light and with all the rest of the room in darkness. If not writing a letter to him, she read his old letters to her. The thin paper rustled and shook in the lamp-light; and it seemed to her that the man whom all the world believed to be dead was standing close behind her; that at any moment he might step forward, put his hand upon her shoulder, and speak to her.

Did she still truly believe that he was alive? She went on writing to him. In some oppressively hot weather during the month of August she suffered from great lassitude; her head ached day after day, and noises in the head bothered her. Louisa wanted her to see a doctor, but she resolutely refused. Alone in the room, with the sides and corners of it all vague and shadowy, where the light of her single lamp did not reach them, she distressed herself by imaging that she could hear voices—not his voice ever, the voices of other people, strangers, talking about Anthony. It was not an illusion; because she knew perfectly well that she was merely imagining it. This imagined talk was just a translation of her own thoughts. But she could not stop it; for a little while it was quite beyond her control.

These unknown imaginary people were saying that he was alive and they had seen him. They had met him in Bond Street. “Yes, I didn’t recognize him at first. I thought, there’s a thundering big man. Where have I seen those big shoulders before? Then I saw it was Dyke. You know, the man they said had perished five hundred miles on the other side of the Pole. Anthony Dyke. Dyke. Dyke. Dyke!”

And suddenly she began to laugh and beat upon the desk with her open hand. A thought had come to her that seemed to be at once tragic and ludicrous. “Am I going mad?” she asked herself; and for perhaps a minute she laughed unrestrainedly. “That would be too bad,” she said, aloud. “No, I won’t go out of my mind, Tony. It wouldn’t be fair—for you to have had a mad mistress as well as a mad wife”; and she became quite quiet again. Then, looking round, she saw that Louisa had entered the room.

“I’ve nothing to do,” said Louisa. “May I sit in here with you till you go to bed?”

“No,” said Emmie. “Leave me alone, please.”

“I fancied I heard something—as if you were making a noise.”

“Don’t believe what you hear,” said Emmie, with a faint smile, “and only half that you see”; and the smile vanishing, her face became rigid.

On another night she suddenly sprang up from her desk, hurried across to the door, and turned on all the light switches. Every lamp glowed and grew bright. She had been on the point of starting a letter when an agony of horror and dread took possession of her. She stood now clinging to the back of a chair, her teeth chattering, her face ghastly. He was dead—while the horror lasted she seemed, in this brightly-lit room, to have visions of him. She saw him lying stiff on the snow, a huge black form stretched upon the dazzling whiteness. And she saw him seated, staring at her, with his hands clasped about his knees—like those frozen figures in the Andes—dead now for many months.

She made no noise. She fought the hallucination, she fought the abominable mind-destroying thoughts that had produced it; she fought, as if for her own life and his. And gradually the horror passed, the anguish lessened. Finally they were gone.

She sat down at the desk again, shaking and sobbing. Her tears fell upon the paper after she had written a few words, so that she had to tear it up and throw it away. Then, drying her eyes, she started once more.

She refused now even to glance at the newspapers; she would not look at anything that could remind her of the passing days—those days that she dared not count. September was close upon her, and still she went on writing to him.

Old Louisa came into the room late one night, to fetch the cat.

“Won’t you go to bed, miss?”

“No,” said Emmie, “I am busy. I have something to finish.”

“Is it so very important?” asked Louisa. “Won’t it keep?”

Emmie answered with great firmness. “No, it won’t. The mail goes to-morrow. I am writing to Mr. Dyke.”

Louisa looked at her.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” said Emmie, wildly and fiercely. “I tell you I’m writing to Mr. Dyke.”

“Yes, miss,” said Louisa; and she went out of the room very softly, leaving the cat. “I’ll come back,” she whispered, on the threshold.

September had come; and Mildred Parker was talking to her on the telephone, reminding her that there would be no Miss Parker after Thursday next, but a Mrs. Beckett instead.

Mildred spoke of the wedding arrangements, the inexhaustible success of The Danger Signal, the amazing affability and good humour of Mr. Parker.

“He monopolises Alwyn. He trots about after him and crows over him as if Alwyn was a wonderful egg that he had laid, or a treasure that he had pecked out of the gravel. Sometimes I can’t get near Ally because of him. Honestly, Emmeline, he and mummy both go on as if it was they who had found me a husband, and I ought to thank them on my knees for finding me such a nice one.” And Emmie heard the girl’s fresh young laughter.

Then Mildred spoke seriously and with intense affection. She said she knew quite well that Emmeline had some great sorrow, and it had almost broken her heart to be stopped always by that inexorable door, and never once to be allowed to give a hug of sympathy. She was thinking of Emmeline constantly. She hoped and prayed that Emmeline’s private grief, whatever it might be, would presently pass away.

“Thank you, Mildred.”

Then Mildred gave thanks for the cheque, saying she felt ashamed to take it because it was “such a whopper.” And after that she said, although she must not urge Emmeline to come to the wedding itself, she wondered if Emmeline would feel up to coming to a little afternoon party at which friends would see the presents all laid out on tables.

“No, dear. I’m afraid you must excuse me.”

“All right,” said Mildred. “Then I won’t be hateful and selfish about it. Only I hope you do know, darling Emmeline, what a tremendous difference it would make to us, and how dreadfully, dreadfully I miss you. I am so happy that I must not say it spoils my happiness. No, that would be wicked, and ungrateful too—when perhaps I really owe it all to you. But if anything could spoil it for me, it would be your absence.... One moment. Can you hold on, please? Alwyn wants to speak to you himself.”

Then she heard the young man’s voice, deep and strong, yet very musical; seeming to vibrate with tenderness although so firm.

“Miss Verinder, is that you? I wanted to say I feel just what Mildrings feels. It would make all the difference in the world to us. I must not press it, but I shall think it most awfully ripping of you if you do come.”

She went. It was another fight with herself; but if her presence would really give any pleasure to this girl and boy, why should she spare her own pain?

Louisa dressed her with great care, in one of those greyish frocks covered in transparent black lace and gauze that, except for their length or shortness, belong to no particular age and fashion. Her shoes, stockings and hat were of the most modern style.

“Can I wear a veil with this hat?” asked Emmie.

“I should certainly wear a veil,” said Louisa, looking at the dark circles round her eyes, and at that something more than pallor, the dull opaque waxenness of complexion that comes to people when for a long time they have been deprived of sunlight.

Like all such small parties, it was a very big one. The house in Ennismore Gardens was scarcely large enough for it. Mildred and her future husband devoted themselves to Miss Verinder, waiting upon her at tea, whispering the names of celebrated actors and actresses, then leading her through the throng, and taking her upstairs to see the lovely presents.

The presents and the long tables occupied both the back and the front drawing-room, and all about them there was pressure and excitement. The great majority of the guests were young people; their bright faces glowed with life and hope. The atmosphere seemed full of pretty, kindly thoughts. Even the stout and heavy elders felt a stirring of sentimental memories and an over-brimming sympathy. It was so pleasant to think of the happy young girl about to be united, amidst the joy and satisfaction of parents and relatives, to the honest young man that she loved.

Only here and there a matron of years pushed along the tables anxiously and murmured to herself or a friend. “I suppose it’s here. But I haven’t yet seen my silver and tortoise-shell pin tray.”

Then all at once Emmie heard or thought she heard voices saying Anthony’s name. It was like that semi-illusion of the flat—the imagined voices of strangers talking about him. “Dyke—yes, Dyke.” These people just ahead of her were saying the words. She moved towards them, listening.

“Yes, found by the relief party.... Yes, Dyke. Anthony Dyke, the explorer.... Extraordinary. Given up by everybody. Risen from the dead, as it were. If he has a wife and children, what must be their feelings?”

She asked one of them what all this meant.

“That man Dyke has been found—alive, you know.”

“But is it a fact?” she asked quietly. “Who says so?”

They said the news had been cabled; it was in the evening papers, at the clubs, everywhere.

She turned and took Mildred’s arm.

“Mildred, dear, I want to go home. Help me to get away quietly. A taxi-cab.”

“Yes, at once.” Mildred, distressed and solicitous, took her down by a back staircase. “But dear Emmeline, what is it? You’re ill. You’re trembling—oh, you’re crying.”

“No, I’m not ill. Everything is quite all right. Only I’m a little hysterical—for the moment.”

At the flat a cablegram was waiting for her.

“Done the trick. Coming home. Love. Tony.”