Did Ned Blackborough go to India, seeking dreams at the feet of some entranced immobile ascetic, hidden away even from the sunshine of the world under the shade of the bo-tree? Did he go to Algiers and seek for them in the desert among the pathless dunes, where every step is covered by the eternally-restless, eternally-recurring wind-writing of the sand ripples? Or remaining closer at hand did he, in some remote Cornish village seek to hear the secret of dreams that is told unceasingly in the roar and the hush of the sea? Or on the eternal snows, which dominate all Europe in its hurry and its hunt for gold, which look out with cold eyes on its civilisation, its culture, its crime, did he find what he sought hemmed in by calm glaciers, frozen, ice-bound?

The one would have served his purpose quite as well as another; that being the putting in of time in a manner which did not offend his sensibilities; for, as he told himself often, he was fast becoming a crank.

The world, as it was, did not amuse him very much; it seemed to him hopelessly vulgar, even in its highest ideals for individual success and individual culture.

Wherever he went, and as to that none but himself knew, he returned as usual, punctual to a day. It was early October therefore, when, a little thinner, considerably browner, he found himself walking down Accacia Road West, Blackborough, looking for No. 10, that being the address where he was told the Cruttendens lived.

He was going to see if Aura was happy. Viewed from the outside this appeared unlikely, for Accacia Road was not, so to speak, exhilarating, though it was broad and open enough, with the usual wide asphalt pavement at either side, and a rather new-looking well-swept road, all too large apparently for the requirements of the sparse-wheeled traffic, in the middle. Possibly the inhabitants of the desirable residences, many of which were still to let, had contemplated being carriage people and had failed of their intention.

As it was, it had a distinctly desolate air. At intervals of some thirty feet upon the pavement stood little pollarded lime-trees, each apparently glued to and supported by yard-wide gratings of cast iron, encircled by the mystic legend "Blackborough Municipal Board." The trees stood on their iron bases firmly, just as the green-shaving ones in the boxes of Dutch toys do on their wooden roundels, and Ned felt impelled by a desire to lift one up and set it down again skew-fashion, just out of the straight line, so as to break the interminable regularity which made him feel as if he must go on and on to the very end. And where that might be only Heaven knew; beyond mortal sight anyhow.

Then, mercifully, the very quaintness of that iron prison-window of a grating, between root and leaf, drew his thoughts away at a tangent, and he became immersed in an imaginary argument between them.

Between the white-feeling fibrelet, down in the darkness of Earth mother's breast, the small sightless seeker supplying the leaves with all things, and clamouring in return for the whisper of blue skies, fresh breezes, singing birds, and the smoke-dimmed foliage which had no tale to tell save of smuts, tradesmen's carts, electric trams, and babies' perambulators.

It was the number on one of the gates, uniform in size, structure, and colour--which occurred, like the gratings, at regular intervals--that made him pause at last, and look curiously at the house beyond it.

Impossible!

It was frankly impossible that Aura, living there, could be happy; although, no doubt, it was what is called by auctioneers a "most superior and desirable family residence." Semi-detached, it had a carriage sweep belonging to both houses, which trended away from a gate with "No. 10, Fernlea" upon it, past one bow-window, one front door, two bow windows, another front door, and a final bow-window to the further gate with its "No. 11, Heatherdale." Which was superfluous; the number or the name?

There was a butcher's trundle, with Hogg upon it in gold letters, standing at one gate, a butcher's trundle with Slogg upon it at the other; and as Ned Blackborough turned in, two butcher boys, each with flat baskets on their blue linen arms, passed out from the little narrow green lattice-work doors, which filled up the space between Fernlea on the one side and Heatherdale on the other, and the high garden walls which separated each couple of superior residences from their neighbouring couples. The boys took no notice of each other, being dignified rivals.

How could Aura be happy, thought Ned, in an environment where the only possibility of differentiating yourself from your neighbour was by employing Slogg instead of Hogg?

The door was opened to him by what is called a superior house-parlourmaid, a young person of lofty manners, frizzed hair, and much starch.

"Wot nyme?" she asked, superciliously.

"Lord Blackborough."

Sudden awe left her hardly any voice for the necessary announcement, and she fled back precipitately to the kitchen. "Cookie!" she exclaimed, sinking into a chair. "Did you ever! Lord Blackborough, 'im as owns half the town an' is as rich as Crees' is--whoever Crees may be!--is in the parlor--such a real gent to look at too. And that ain't all. Missus called 'im 'Ned!' It's for all the world like that lovely tale in the Penny Cupid I was reading last night in bed, only he was a h'earl." Her pert eyes grew tender; she sighed.

"Did she now," said Cookie, a lazy-looking, fat lump of a girl, much of the same type. "Poor master! an' he, if you like, is a good-lookin' fellar; but I always did say she wasn't no lady. She haven't any lace on her underclothes--at least none to speak of."

Meanwhile, after her first glad incredulous cry of "Ned," Aura had hastily thrust away her work and risen.

As she came forward, a world of welcome in her face, in her outstretched hands, Ned Blackborough realised by his swift sense of disappointment how much--despite his own asseverations to the contrary--he had counted on unhappiness.

Truly women were kittle cattle. Truly it was ill prophesying for the feminine sex!

She was happy, radiantly happy. Her face, if thinner, was infinitely more vivid; if less beautiful in a way it was far more alive. It was this which struck him--the vitality of it--its firm grip on life--its almost exuberant power. It seemed to him as if two souls, two minds, two hearts looked out at him from her eyes.

He was no fool. He understood the position in a moment; he knew that love was worsted.

"So you are quite happy," he said, still holding her hand.

"Happy?" she echoed. "Oh, Ned! I have never been so happy in all my life--everything seems so new, everything seems to go on and on for ever, as if there was no end to interest and pleasure."

"I am glad," he said lamely, then added, "I shouldn't have thought----"

She followed his eyes, which had wandered to an electric blue paper covered with gigantic poppies of a deeper hue, with a frieze in which positively Brobdingnagian flowers, presumably of the same species, curled themselves in contortions terribly suggestive of a bad pain in their insides.

"Yea! isn't it awful?" she admitted with a laugh; "but I have taken all the furniture you see out of this room and stuffed it away in another empty one for the present"--an odd shy smile showed on her face, and seating herself on a stool once more she took up her work again and recommenced tucking a piece of muslin with new-born skill; for in the old days she had never touched a needle. "And it isn't quite so bad here at the back where one can't see people. But I wish my poor primroses would grow. I got them in a wood not so very far away, but the cats won't give them a chance--they scratch them up at night, poor things!" Her eyes were sorrowfully on the parallelogram of grass, gravel, and smut-blackened stems below the flight of grimy steps, which was described in the house-agent's list as a charming garden. "If it happens again I shall take them back. It is never fair to keep anything where it can't grow properly."

"Exactly so," he thought; but her face showed absolute unconsciousness.

"What do you find to do with yourself?" he asked suddenly. He felt he would go mad in a week.

"Do!"--she smiled. "Why, I never have half enough time! You see we can't afford to keep experienced servants, as yet. This house is really beyond our income, but my husband--Ted, I mean--was afraid I should not thrive in the town. It is very good of him, isn't it? to go to such expense for me."

"Very," assented Lord Blackborough, recognising Ted's phraseology and feeling bored.

"So I have to do most of the cooking," she went on quite eagerly. "It is rather fun, though Ted is quite awfully particular about his food. But he says I am getting quite a--a cordon bleue--that's right, isn't it?"

"Quite right," assented Ned gravely. He was beginning to wonder how he should get away from this atmosphere of satisfaction.

"And then," she went on, and whether she smiled or was grave he could not tell, for her face was bent over her work, "I have so much to think of--you cannot know how much. Sometimes I feel as if, somehow, the whole world was bound up in me."

For the life of him he could not help a thrill in answer to the thrill of her voice. So he sat looking at her sewing garments for another man's child, until his heart waxed hot, and he said--

"Has it never struck you, Aura, that all this is--just a little rough on me?"

She looked up at him, her beautiful eyes, twin stars of mysterious double life, brimming with swift tears.

"You--you shall be its godfather," she said softly.

He could have cursed, he could have laughed, he could have cried over the pure ridiculousness of the reply; but the pure motherhood in her eyes was too much for him.

"The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof." The phrase came back to his memory, reproving his individualism, setting aside all other claims as trivial.

"Well!" he said, rising as he spoke, "there is nothing more to be said. So--having found you happy--I must be going."

"Going," she echoed incredulously. "Oh, no! You must stop and see Ted. It is Saturday and he is always home by three. You might stop and come with us to Chorley Hill; we go there every week because I like it. You can see the Welsh mountains quite distinctly if it is clear."

Her eyes were clear anyhow. She was her old self again in her eagerness; the girl free, unfettered in every way, who had tramped those Welsh mountains with him so often. He could see her with the wind blowing amongst her bronze, uncovered curls, billowing amongst the folds of her white linen overall. Why did she wear black now? To save the washing bills he expected. And she spent her life chiefly, no doubt, in buying a herring and a half for three halfpence! She, who had never seen a sixpence! A flood of annoyed pity swept through him at the needlessness of the desecration, rousing his antagonism once more.

"As it is just on three now," he replied, "I'll stop and see him anyhow."

It might be wiser, he felt. It would be a thing got over, which, after the abruptness of their last parting, was desirable; though, on the whole, he was inclined to have done with it all, to congratulate Ted on his success, and renounce all claim on a woman who had evidently forgotten love in motherhood--and housekeeping.

He felt very bitter; though the question as to whether she could be more content forced itself upon him rudely.

"There he is!" cried Aura joyfully, as in the jerry-built house the grating noise of a latch-key in the front lock became distinctly audible at the back. "I'll run and tell him you are here, and then I can change my dress before we start."

It was on the whole a relief that they two--men who were rivals--should meet without the cause of the rivalry being present also. Though magnanimity was the only card to play. What else was possible when you could distinctly hear the cause of rivalry being kissed in the hall?

Ned Blackborough, therefore, was frankness itself. "How are you, Ted? I won't say I'm glad, but I do find Aura very well, and very happy--so--so that ends it, I suppose."

Ted, who was also looking the picture of health and happiness, flushed up with pleasure, and gripped Lord Blackborough's hand effusively. "Upon my soul, Ned," he cried, "you are just an awfully good sort--one of the best fellows living; and I feel I've been a bit of a beast. Only you don't know how the thought that we should have fallen out over this thing has worried me. It is real good to have you back again. And she is happy, isn't she?--bless her heart! though why she should have kept you in this horrid bare room at the back, I can't think. Come into the drawing-room, old man, it is something like. But it isn't a bad house, is it? Far too expensive, of course, but----"

Afloat on finance, Ted's conscious virtue overflowed like a cold douche on Ned's patience, which had almost succumbed under explanations that, after all, he "was getting along, but that it was safer--especially with expenses ahead--to have a wide margin," when Aura reappeared. She was wearing the white coat and skirt, the brown Tam-o'-Shanter in which she had gone to Plas Afon. Ned used often to say that in his last incarnation he must either have been a woman or a man milliner; now he recognised without effort, that not only had Aura knotted the Mechlin scarf about her neck but that she also carried the sables over her arm. So she also remembered.

The fact decided him in an instant. "Let me take those," he said coolly. She looked conscious as she gave up the furs, and remarked hurriedly, "We can walk there, Ted; but we might return by the five-thirty train from Elsham."

"Then I'll wire for the motor to meet me there," replied Ned. "It is only six miles to New Park and there is no object in my going round by Blackborough again; besides there is always a wait at the junction."

It seemed to him an interminable time before they left the lingering outskirts of the town behind them, and even when the last bow-window and gable tailed down into the original four-square cottage, the country about was still grime-clad, smut-bound. But Aura did not appear to notice it. In her eyes sat eternal hope, eternal spring, which finds the old world good.

Even when they sat finally on the sand-set bit of common, interspersed with straggly heath and unkempt gorse which was all the nature that Chorley Hill boasted, she did not seem to see the copious orange peel, the screws of sandwich paper which, to Ned's fastidiousness made the place horrible. Her eyes were on the distances where the Welsh hills showed blue.

"How I would love to see Cwmfaernog again!" she said suddenly, "you know, of course, the poor place had to be sold. Ted very nearly had to pay----"

Lord Blackborough cut short her repetition. "But he didn't," he remarked, "for I bought it."

"You bought it," she echoed incredulously; "Ted never told me that." She glanced to her husband, who, flat on the sand with his hat over his eyes, was apparently asleep in the sunshine. The attitude discovered the fact that six months of happy married life--and, no doubt, Aura's cooking--had made him perceptibly larger in the waist. He was evidently following Mr. Hirsch's example, thought Ned; though he might, like other folk, have grown leaner upon grief; for Ned, happily, had not lost the faculty of mocking at his own troubles.

"I wonder why he never told me," said Aura, vaguely vexed, making Ned--like the fool that he was, he told himself--instant in excuse.

"He didn't know, I expect; my agent bought it for me. Yes! there it is with Martha and Adam--you know they are married?"

Aura laughed. "Yes! I had a letter from Martha saying she was agreeably disappointed with her lot. That is what I am, too;" she paused. "I should love to go there again. Will you take me some day?"

"Perhaps," he replied soberly, while his pulses bounded.

"May would be the best month for me," she said dreamily. "Besides there are the wild hyacinths--they are like the floor of heaven!"

The floor of heaven! What vague memory was it that woke with those words? A blue sea, a ripple on a boat's side----

Then Ted woke also, clamouring for tea. They had it at a little inn, and were very merry; only after a time the conversation always seemed to drift away towards something to eat, or something to buy. It is always the herring or the penny which had to be paid for it. That was Ted's fault. The sum of his life seemed to be made up of duodecimal fractions.

"We shall have to foot it a bit if we are to catch the train," said Ted gaily as they started; "hold on to me, Aura, it's a bit slippery down the hill."

So with his arm tucked into hers, and Ned on the other side, they made their way talking and laughing. Before long, however, the talk resolved itself into an argument between the two men, Ted defending the action of a certain company, Ned stigmatising it as a swindle.

"The short cut over the water-meadow, Aura," said Ted, interrupting himself. "She is signalled, and it will save time." He drew back as he spoke to let her cross the plank-bridge which spanned the ditch and to clinch his point. "I maintain," he went on, "that the prospectus was as fair as any prospectus can be, for one is bound to put on rose-coloured spectacles in writing one, or the thing won't catch on. Men who have money to invest ought to know----"

"Take care," cried Ned, who was watching Aura; but he was an instant too late. There was a tiny piece of orange peel on the plank--the rest of it lay amongst the water-cresses in the ditch--her foot slipped on it, and she caught at the hand-railing to steady herself, so wrenching herself round by a strong effort to avoid dropping feet foremost into the mud.

It was quite a small affair, but the shock of it left her colourless, half on, half off the plank.

"My dearest!" cried Ted in a fearful fuss, "you aren't----"

"Not a bit," she interrupted gaily, "Give me your hand up, please." But there was a scared, frightened look in her eyes, and five minutes afterwards, as they were hurrying on, she slackened speed.

"We haven't over much time, my dear," said Ted grudgingly.

She looked at him almost with reproach. "I suppose it is falling so, so suddenly," she began.

"Ted," interrupted Lord Blackborough, "I believe I'd better take your wife back in the motor. Sorry I can't take you, but it is only the little De Dion. If you run for it you'll just get it. We shall be home before you will, with that wait at the junction."

"You don't mind, do you, darling?" asked Ted, solicitously.

Five minutes afterwards he waved his handkerchief from the train at them as they made their way leisurely across the water-meadow.

"You will be home in half an hour, and have a good rest," said Ned consolingly, as those beautiful eyes with the eternal hope in them looked into his with that vague dread growing to them.

"Yes," she said cheerfully, "it was only the start."

But ten minutes later in the car, she laid her hand suddenly on Ned's as it held the steering gear.

"Oh, Ned!" she said, "I'm--I'm so afraid!" Her voice was an appeal, and he bent hastily to kiss the hand which clung to his, as it would have clung to any human being.

"Cheer up!" he said huskily, "Nothing's going to go wrong! I'll have you home in no time; so let me steer straight, will you?"

The little car swept along at top speed. She sat still, her face drawn and pale, her hands holding hard to the white folds of her dress.

Twelve miles at least, allowing for speed limits through the town, and New Park close at hand; just in fact, round the corner. He made the calculation rapidly, and began to sound the hooter.

"I shall take you in here," he said decisively, "and telephone to Ted. Then when you've had a good rest you can go home."

The gates, set wide open at his signalling, slipped past in the growing dusk, a rabbit or two showed nimble across the smooth surface of the drive.

"It will be best, perhaps," said Aura, with a catch in her breath.

"Of course it will be best," he replied cheerfully, as he drew up in the wide portico.

"The housekeeper, please!" he called, glad for once of the decorous hurry of obedience. "Take Mrs. Cruttenden, if you please, Mrs. Adgers, and let her rest for a little," he said to the dignified lady who appeared as if by magic. Then, only waiting to add in a lower voice, "and look after her; you understand," he was in the car again before it had had time to run down, and was off over a short cut to St. Helena's Hospital, which lay on the hill about three miles off.

Thence he returned in twenty minutes with Sister Ann, leaving Dr. Ramsay to follow more leisurely.

Finally, having sent the car in charge of a chauffeur to bring Ted along, he sat in the library and smoked, feeling half derisive at the irony of fate. If he had indeed been Aura's husband, and the father of this coming child, what more could he have done?

Dr. Ramsay arrived cool and collected and went upstairs. Ted arrived in a terrible state of fuss and also went upstairs. Then the house reverted to its usual staid routine. The gong sounded at dressing-time, and, clad in due decorum, Ned dined alone in the huge red dining-room which looked like a big mouth ready to swallow him up. The footman, overlooked by the butler, handed him the courses gravely, the butler filled his glass with '98 Pomeroy. Ned had not asked for it this time, but it was considered the proper thing with sudden and serious illness in the house. And all the while he was thinking how little life and death would affect him, if all these things could be swept away, and he be indeed nothing more than Carlyle's forked radish with a consciousness.

Then he smoked and read again till ten o'clock, when the footman, overlooked by the butler, brought the whisky and water into the library, and Dr. Ramsay came with it.

"I shall want help," he said, "but I don't want to alarm him--her husband. She is as brave as possible, but he--so I thought you----"

"Whom do you want?" asked Ned, going to the telephone.

Dr. Ramsay named a London specialist, and Ned looked up quickly.

"As bad as that?" he asked.

"As bad as it can be, I'm afraid," replied the doctor.

After the specialist had been summoned and duly bribed, there was nothing to do but sit and smoke again, since the memory of those beautiful eyes with the eternal hope of the world's immortality in them, haunted him beyond the cure of sleep. If he had been her husband, could he have done more, could he have felt more?

The London man arrived about one o'clock, and Ned, after the slight bustle of his coming and going upstairs, heard no more noise. The house seemed to settle down into the usual silence of night.

What was going on upstairs? Would she pass into the Unseen? Would she settle the question once and for all?

It was just as the red October sunrise was beginning to glow through the trees of the park, that Ned, standing at the window to watch it, heard the click of the door handle behind him, and turned to see the London doctor, a tall man with eyeglasses and a stoop.

"Well!" he said eagerly. "How is she?"

"As well as can--ah--ah--be expected," said the specialist, who appeared to be afflicted with a stammer, "after such a very serious--ah--ah--operation as--ah--ah--was necessary to save the--the--the interesting patient's life. But--ah--ah--D.V. it is saved, and--and I need hardly say we--we have every reason to be thankful, even though the future is, or may be--of course----"

Here Dr. Ramsay entered the room, and he turned to him. "I was just preparing Mr. Cruttenden for the--ah--possibility----"

"This is Lord Blackborough, sir," interrupted Peter Ramsay impatiently. "I told you I had given Mr. Cruttenden a sleeping draught after the immediate danger to life was over. Mrs. Cruttenden was brought to Lord Blackborough's house just after the accident. Now, sir, if you are in a hurry they are ready to take you to the station."

"Just so--ah!" murmured the great man, a trifle confused. "Very pleased to make your acquaintance, my lord. Thanks, Doctor--ah----"

"Ramsay," said the latter, carrying him off still blandly stuttering.

When Peter Ramsay returned he found Ned looking at the sunrise once more. The whole sky was growing red, the daylight was outpaling the lamp beside which Ned had watched for this dawn.

Suddenly he spoke. "Is it worth while, I wonder, saving life--sometimes? Considering what motherhood means to some women, I doubt it."

And then without another word he turned from the window, and sitting down at the writing-table rested his head on his hand, and stared out vacantly into the room, seeing nothing but those beautiful eyes, twin stars of two souls.

Those eyes that were never to be satisfied! No, it was not worth it.

Then he glanced round at the doctor who stood professionally silent. "I'll give you a piece of advice," he said, "and then we'll drop the subject. If you have anything to say, tell her, not him. You will make it easier for her, I expect, than he will."