Fair Ines

THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

Q^

H

FAIR INES

r

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive

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'I don't know that I can undertake that."

Page 44

FAIR INES

BY

ETHEL TURNER

(Mrs. H. Ji. Curlrwis)

AUTHOR OF "that GIRL," "THE FAMILY AT MISRULE,'
"three LITTLE MAIDS," ETC

^* Oh, latv ye not fair Ines ?
She's gone into the West
To dazzle -when the sun goes doivn
And rob the -world of rest. "

Hood.

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON MCMX

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,

bkead street hilx, e.c, and

bungay, suffolk.

CONTENTS

Page

Prologue i

CHAPTER I
To Let — A Cottage 8

CHAPTER n
An Auction Sale 17

CHAPTER HI
The Whartons 31

CHAPTER IV
At David's 46

CHAPTER V
At Jonathan's 54

1381179

vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER VI

Page

Rust in Wheat 7^

CHAPTER VH
Hyacinth 79

CHAPTER Vni
Out of the Storm 93

CHAPTER IX
A Gallant Cavalier io7

CHAPTER X
Principally Parochial 121

CHAPTER XI
In the Yellow Sulky 135

CHAPTER XII
An Evening at David's 142

CHAPTER XIII
Easing the Burden i55

CONTENTS vii

CHAPTER XIV

Page

Hyacinth's Taste of Power . . . .166

CHAPTER XV
To Wendover and Back 178

CHAPTER XVI
"There is Some One Else" . . . .187

CHAPTER XVII
Sholto 194

CHAPTER XVIII
Some One Else 198

CHAPTER XIX
Iris 205

CHAPTER XX
To Let — A Cottage 214

CHAPTER XXI
One Wild, Wet Evening . . . .228

viii CONTENTS

CHAPTER XXII

Page

At David's and Jonathan's . . . .234

CHAPTER XXIII
Three Hundred Miles 245

CHAPTER XXIV
Cade ......... 247

CHAPTER XXV
The Last Strand 258

CHAPTER XXVI
In London 265

CHAPTER XXVII
Iris Smooths out the Scroll . . . 272

CHAPTER XXVIII
"All's Right with the World" . . .276

<^

PROLOGUE

At eighteen months of age, one perfectly calm
summer evening, the time somewhere between
six and seven, Ines began to scream quite
distressfully.

A devoted mother searched anxiously for a
pin ; a father, startled but philosophic, said
" Peaches," and looked at the fruit-plate to see
whether he had absent-mindedly given three
of these delicacies to his daughter instead of
the by-custom-sacred one. Two remained un-
touched on the plate. The infant had her hand
stretched out peremptorily.

" Want ! " she said.

" Want ! " she said again.

" Want ! " she screamed at last, finding that
no attention was being paid to her demands.

It was some time before the parents discovered
that it was the setting sun their offspring
demanded. It hung there, just across a moun-
tain gorge, a ball of red and orange, with incred-
ibly beautiful shafts of purple light.

And all offered here was an indiarubber doll
with its features erased, and a duck fashioned
by some well-meaning female out of cotton wool.

2 FAIR INES

What right-minded infant would not have
demanded the stretching out of parents' omni-
potent hands to obtain that better thing ?

At five the child's passion for beauty caused
her to be taken up by the police.

She was walking in the botanical gardens
with her nurse, — or rather without her nurse,
for that person had established herself on a seat
and given herself up to the delights of her
novelette.

Ines hovered for an hour or more among the
flower-beds, and no butterfly in all the place
did less damage.

But she came suddenly in her wanderings on
a bed of poppies of most bewildering beauty, and
she fairly flew into their midst ; gathered and
gathered, kissed them, talked to them. She
filled her upturned frock with the lovely things,
stuck them thickly into her hat, added now a
scarlet, now a yellow, now a purple one to the
huge bunch in her hand.

Law-abiding children on the paths watched
her in wildest envy. She must plainly be some
enormously favoured being — the Governor's
little girl, doubtless, or the head gardener's.
There was certainly nothing furtive about her
conduct; she even made dashes out from her
fairy fortress and gave of her wealth to them
from time to time — pink poppies, mauve poppiefe,
poppies like driven snow ; little boys and girls
stood along the path holding these in their

PROLOGUE 8

astonished hands, their eyes and mouths round
with wonder.

Someway the news was flashed to a gardener
on another path. He came along, rake in hand
and quite disbeheving.

Ines, with a sudden throb of pity for him in
his ugly earth-stained clothes, ran to him and
held out a handful of poppies.

" Here," she said with heartiest goodwill,
" you can have these, poor man."

Men who have to do with the earth seldom
have hearts of stone when confronted with
human frailty, but this particular gardener had
taken a most enormous pride in his poppies,
and used to hang about the bed on holidays
simply because he was thirsting to hear the
"Oh's!" and " Ah's ! " of the public. His
wrath was excusable. Besides, there were those
staring boys and girls ; plainly an example must
be made of this offender.

On the next path was a constable, who had
been sent to inquire about some breach of the
peace that had occurred the preceding day.
The gardener whistled for him.

" She's been stealing. Take her to gaol at
once," he said in a loud voice, and lower to the
man, " I've got to learn her a lesson, young imp.
Take her as far as the gate to give her a good
fright."

The policeman put his hand on her shoulder,
and she did not offer him a poppy, for with all

B 2

4 FAIR INES

those beautiful buttons he did not awaken her
sympathy hke the poor ugly gardener had
done.

" Come along with you,*' he said.

" Where to ? " she inquired amiably. " Com-
ing along " generally proved to be good fun.

" Gaol ! " he said darkly.

There was not a suspicion of fear in her eyes.

" Flowers there ? " she inquired. " Lots ?
Like this ? " She flung a loving glance at the
poppies.

" Come along," he said. " I'll get my 'and-
cuffs out to you in half a second."

She allowed herself to be steered along, the
angered gardener and a dozen or so of fright-
fully excited little boys and girls behind her.

But before they got to the gate something in
the sight of the little white-socked legs in front
of him softened the gardener's heart and made
him realise that few children could stand an
ordeal like this.

" There," he said to the constable, " that'll
do. She won't do it again, I dare say, eh,
Sissie ? "

He expected a terrified face to be turned to
him, expected drenched eyes and a trembling
mouth ready to promise good behaviour for the
rest of her life.

But when he looked under the sun-hat, the
face was quite unruffled ; just smiling and
happy.

PROLOGUE 5

He began to repent his softness. " I think
she'd better go to gaol, after all," he said.

Still no cloud came on the little face. Between
them they catechised her — the policeman and
the gardener. She had never heard of such a
place as gaol, had no idea whatever of the
offices of a policeman.

The gardener enlightened her ; it was plainly-
time that some one did. He drew a lurid
picture of malefactors like herself being dragged
off through the streets by policemen who were
quite adamant to parents' entreaties, and being
locked up in a dark stone place and fed on bread
and water.

And now it was the policeman's heart that
realised such terrors must be broken more softly
to such a child. "There, that'll do," he
said. " You'll go and give 'er convulsions in a
minute."

But the gardener, looking again under the
mushroom hat, found perfect trust and peace
still on the little face. He discharged a more
homely shot.

" Your mammy won't be able to get to you
— doors all padlocked, windows barred," he said.

Ines laughed in his face. " / know," she
said, " you're having fun with me."

She was used to people " having fun with
her " ; there were dozens of her father's artist
friends much addicted to the amusement.

The men looked at her helplessly. There is

6 FAIR INES

no saying what their next move would have
been but that the delinquent maid hove suddenly
in sight. Straight from the company of earls
and duchesses — indeed, they were still tucked
under her arm — she treated the sordid persons
in front of her with such haughtiness, they
quickly lowered their crests.

" Go on with you ! " she said. " A pretty
pair ! Not enough spunk to catch spielers, so
you try to take a baby up."

The gardener tried to defend himself from her
shower of words by pointing out the poppies,
most of which the child was still tightly grasping.

" Go on ! " said the maid. " I'm ashamed of
you calling yerselves men. A handful of flowers !
As if her father wouldn't have made it all right
with you, if yer'd come to me like gentlemen
and told me about it quietly."

So impressive, indeed, was the high-born
manner she had caught from the aristocratic
personages in her book, that before five minutes
more were gone the episode was over and she
was on her way home with her charge.

" But why did you take them, darling ? "
her much-shocked mother said.

" They were pretty," said Ines.

" But you can't go about taking everything
that you see is pretty," objected the mother.

" Yes, you can, mummie," said Ines, " when
they's not in shops or houseses." Which made
her second strenuous effort to insist that any-

PROLOGUE 7

thing beautiful in nature must belong to herself
quite as much as to any one else.

Time and circumstance, the policemen of life,
took her by the shoulder. " We'll have to
learn her," they said as grimly as the gardener
had done.

CHAPTER I

TO LET — A COTTAGE

" There the year is sweety and there
Earth is full of secret springs."

Atalanta in Calydon.

A CIRCLE of gently-swelling hills — Australian
hills, smooth and sweetly green as an English
park in the spring.

At the roots of the hills the village Wyama,
quiet and leisured, picturesque from the heights
or from a bird's point of view, but quite common-
place when you stood down on the white road
and looked it straight in the face.

Here and there the habitations, which for the
most part clustered or straggled about the
winding road in the hollow, stepped back and,
having climbed half-way up the hill-slopes,
clung there aslant.

Thus on a western slope two cottages stood
almost hand-in-hand, for not more than forty or
fifty feet separated their walls. Behind them,
their grazing-lands ran up to the hill's crest,
with not as much as a two-rail fence to mark
their division. In front ran down two long and

TO LET— A COTTAGE 9

narrow garden strips, but these of late years had
a stone wall between them.

Wyama would have told you sadly, but with
a certain amount of philosophic acceptance, of
the building of these places. How they had
belonged to a pair of brothers, a very David and
Jonathan, who since they were boys had worked
side by side in the district, asking nothing better
than to work side by side. And how in the
pride of their early manhood they had taken
unto themselves wives from other districts.
And how they had left behind them the old
farm in the hollow, and climbed higher and
built the hand-in-hand cottages, and there
carried in triumph the new wives, asking now
nothing better than that they should all live
happily together there to the end of their lives.
And how within a month the wives quarrelled.
How within a year they dragged their husbands
into the feud. And how within three, life was
so plainly impossible at such close quarters that
Mr. and Mrs. David flung off to try shopkeeping
in the city, and Mr. and Mrs. Jonathan, unable
to bear the sudden quiet, went further into the
country and prospered at cattle-raising.

Then stood the cottages empty for half a year,
for Wyama was comfortably settled itself, and
the soil of West Slope was not good enough to
attract outsiders very readily. So David and
Jonathan sulkily reduced the rents and adver-
tised the places in the papers, as well as plastering

10 FAIR INES

them with To Let notices. David's went
first,

John Erwin, an artist lately from the old
world, though Australian by birth, had been
staying at the village hotel, delighted with the
*' bits " that the waterfalls and creeks and dales
around afforded his brush. But while there he
was seized with the very paralysis that he had,
at medical orders, taken the long voyage to
Australia to ward off. Except for his young
daughter Ines, who was with him, he had no ties
in the world, and his " home " fitted into his
travelling-boxes that were covered with a crazy
patchwork of luggage labels from various towns
in England and Southern Europe. The city
doctor, hastily summoned, concurred with the
Wyama doctor : Erwin had better stay where
he was, and give the quiet hills the chance of
putting to rights his disordered nervous system.

" How long may it be, doctor ? " said Ines
— " honestly, if you please."

The doctor named a year — two years — even —
but there he pulled himself up and said that
that particular kind of paralysis always baffled
them, and it was possible that the patient might
surprise them yet by quite a rapid recovery.

" Six months ? " said the girl.

" Oh, come," said the doctor, " you must
give it a little longer than that."

So she went out to find a cottage where she
might make her invalid more comfortable, and

TO LET— A COTTAGE 11

at less expense than was possible in a wayside
hotel.

David's and Jonathan's were the only places
vacant in Wyama, and she instantly chose the
former, because Mrs. David had planted a
climbing rose by a verandah post, and Mrs.
Jonathan had done nothing at all to reclaim her
wilderness.

The furnishing question presented difficulties.

Mrs. Beattie, the minister's wife, was lending
her advice in the emergency — not so much
because it "was her duty, and she did," as
because she thought other people might consider
it her duty — one of the many odd, unscheduled
duties attached to her position.

" It's very expensive to get everything up
from the towns," she said. " Do you know the
Bartons had to pay three pounds for bringing
their new sideboard up ? "

" Well," said Ines with an eye-twinkle, as she
recalled the huge and pretentious article of
furniture, " I am sure it was well worth it — to
the carter."

Mrs. Beattie considered that ambiguity was
only permissible from the pulpit.

" I don't understand you," she said coldly.

" Oh," said Ines penitently, " all that glass
and carving — think how heavy it must be ! "

"It is certainly a very handsome affair,"
assented Mrs. Beattie, with a sigh at the thought
of her own scratched and shabby one, " but I

12 FAIR INES

suppose you don't want to spend heavy sums
like that in freight."

" Oh no, certainly not," said Ines ; " the
simplest things will answer. I think all furniture
ought to be made to fold up and pack into
portmanteaus, don't you ? "

Mrs. Beattie made no answer to this ; the
more she saw of the artist's daughter, the more
assured she was the girl was of a most frivolous
nature ; still, she was young, only nineteen or
thereabouts, and certainly could not be trusted
alone with so weighty a business as the setting
up of a home.

" I have heard of a house of furniture that is
to be sold by auction at Mur^vumba to-morrow
week, and I will go with you if you like,"
she said. " Brodie would charge you very
little to run the things over in his carts from
there."

Ines thanked her gratefully — the opportunity
seemed an excellent one — and ran off to David's
cottage to face the rooms, and see what she
would actually need to set up her housekeeping.

And when the morning of the sale came and
Mrs. Beattie rattled round to the hotel in her
hard-worked yellow sulky, the girl was quite
excited at the prospect of buying furniture.

She was in the highest spirits ; Mrs. Beattie
told her husband afterwards, it was plain the
girl had very little real feeling.

" Her poor father lying stricken on the balcony

TO LET— A COTTAGE 18

like that, and she going off as laughing and
happy as if she were going to a picnic," she
said.

But that was just it ; all life, now the first
heavy dread was removed, came along exactly
like a picnic. Erwin made a delightful invalid ;
true he could not move at present unassisted,
and that busy, brush-wielding arm of his lay
pathetically still ; but the old twinkle had come
back to his eyes, and the old jests and quaint
sayings back to his lips.

He was full of eagerness to get to the cottage,
and to send to town for the packing-cases of dear
old books and magazines and such.

He was going to think out all the pictures of
his future life during this idle time, he told Ines,
and really study the principles of his art as he
had had little time to do in his past roving life
of making pretty pot-boilers.

While Ines was away at the sale to-day he
was to mark — with his left hand — the cata-
logues lying beside him. And then, with
twenty pounds — for such a sum Ines had last
night decreed for the purpose, when they ran
over their oddly kept accounts — the lists were
to go to certain booksellers in Sydney and Paris
and Florence for such books and prints as would
help towards this end — this studying of Art
with neither pencil nor brush.

So there he lay in the balcony sunshine,
eager to begin on the catalogues.

14 FAIR INES

And off rattled Ines in the yellow sulky, every
sparkle of the glorious morning reflected in her
dancing eyes.

" Do you know," she said, in a sudden warm-
hearted burst to the woman beside her, *' this
will be the very first home I shall have had
since I was nine ! It is quite an intoxicating
thought. You can't believe how often I have
longed for beds, and chairs, and tables of our
very own."

" But why didn't you have a home in Eng-
land ? " said the lady, pricking up her ears at
the girl's tone, for, try as it would, Wyama had
been able to find out very little about this artist
beyond the fact that he had gone off, when Ines
was two or thereabouts, to see the Old World
galleries, as so many of the New World artists
do; that he had taken sixteen years to see
them, but as soon as ill health came had
turned with a sick longing to the land of his
birth.

A shadow crossed the girl's face. " When
mother died, ten years ago, poor father sold
everything. He could not bear the thought of
a home without her."

" And you have lived like this ever since ? "
said the lady, horrified at such a bringing up ;
*' just a holiday-making life like you had here
before he was ill ? "

The girl both nodded and shook her bright
young head.

TO LET— A COTTAGE 15

" Sometimes father used to have a fit of
qualms, and hustle me off to boarding-schools,"
she said, " but always before I'd been there six
months he would get so lonely, or I so homesick,
he had to send for me back again."

" No wonder you are so " breathed Mrs.

Beattie — the words really forced from her.
But then she stopped.

*' So what ? " said Ines, with sudden anxiety ;
" so what, dear Mrs. Beattie ? "

The woman turned her light blue eyes a
moment on the face beside her. A girlish face,
sweetly rounded, warmly coloured ; with eyes
of a hazel-grey, full of sunshine, and crinkly
brown hair with a sunshine glint in it massed
lightly under her shady hat. The hat was
quite simple — Mrs. Beattie's own, from a neigh-
bouring town, had probably cost twice as much
— but there was a little French twist to it here,
and a turn to the ribbon there, that defied the
power of all Wyama's eagerly emulous amateur
milliners. Similarly, the dress — merely muslin,
and every one knew that muslin cost nothing ;
but the same stamp of an artist's hand was
on it.

" So French ! " sighed the Wyama girls
despairingly, whenever it fluttered past.

" No wonder I am so what ? " repeated Ines
softly, and peeped mischievously under the dip
of her companion's hat.

" Feather-brained," had certainly been the

16 FAIR INES

term in Mrs. Beattie's mind, but the sudden
battery of those hazel eyes turned full upon her
undid her at once, and she softened.

" I mean, my dear," she said, " it is not to be
expected that you should be quite as steady as
other girls.'*

CHAPTER II

AN AUCTION SALE

And now they were at the sale.

The yellow sulky, its shafts on the ground,
stood among a contingent of forty-nine other
sulkies and buggies, and " Currant," the Beattie
veteran quadruped, was nibbling in a paddock
along with forty-nine other quadrupeds. Ines
had admired the business-like way in which
Mrs. Beattie unharnessed him and took him into
the paddock : the care of the horse, when no one
else was about to relieve her, was another of the
unscheduled duties of the minister's wife.

" But why Currant ? " said Ines, hearing her
friend by this name adjure the animal to " come
up."

Mrs. Beattie looked a little apologetic, for
indeed the vicarage was not given to wanton
humour in the naming of its dumb animals.

" Our boy Charlie called it that," she said.
"He is the one who — went to sea."

The sudden film that came over her hard blue
eyes sent Ines' thoughts to a tale the landlady
had told her of the managing and worrying

C 17

18 FAIR INES

ways of Mrs. Beattie having driven her eldest
boy to run away to sea.

" Of course it is a foolish name," she went on ;
" he was called Prince Charlie when we bought
him, but some way we cannot break ourselves of
using the other."

" Oh, it is a very good name," said Ines
warmly, her anxiety to praise the Charlie who
brought that film over the mother's eyes leading
her to forget that it was the crushed, unindi-
vidual look of the steed that made the name a
fitting one.

" He is a much better horse than you may
think," said Mrs. Beattie coldly.

" I'm sure he is," agreed Ines quickly. " Look
how soon he has brought us over the hills ; it is
hardly eleven yet."

" We had better get inside and look round,"
said Mrs. Beattie, mollified much more readily
than was her habit.

They wandered through the rooms ; the sale
was at a bankrupt farmer's, whose home had
been held as the acme of style and "gentility"
by the poorer farmers around. Mrs. Beattie grew
quite excited as they made their progress among
the chattels and movables.

" Look at this couch," she whispered to Ines.
She punched it in several parts of its anatomy
and sat down heavily on several other parts.
" Springs everywhere ; and see all this plush and
the tassels — why, it must have cost eight pounds

AN AUCTION SALE 19

at least — and yet Mrs. Jordan wouldn't give a
halfpenny to the new organ. My dear, you
ought to bid for it — it would be a bargain at five
pounds."

" But it isn't long enough for father to lie
comfortably on," objected Ines ; " and think of
lying on plush on a summer's day ! And the
colour of it — no, we won't let that tempt us."

" Well, what about this sideboard ? " said Mrs.
Beattie, undaunted — " real cedar, my dear ; and
see the canopy top ; and here's a cupboard most
beautifully fitted to hold wine-bottles." Then
she remembered that she was the minister's
wife, and added, " Of course you need not use
it for wine, you could keep other things
in it."

" Yes," said Ines dreamily, " there was one
in a house we stayed in at Cannes, and the
landlady's little boy used it for his white mice.
I wonder where they kept the wine."

" Well, how much would you go to for it ? "
said Mrs. Beattie, ignoring the reminiscence.
" You might get it knocked down to you for six
pounds."

" Six pounds ! " cried Ines. " Six pounds for
that ! "

" We may even get it for less," said the min-
ister's wife, joyously glad to find the girl im-
pressed at last.

" What a wicked waste of money it would be,"
breathed Ines. " Just think what lovely things

C 2

20 * FAIR INES

six pounds can buy ! " She looked at the red
horror with indignant eyes.

" Oh, well," said Mrs. Beattie, " if you think
you can't afford it, of course ; but I thought you
told me you had brought fifty pounds to buy the
things with."

" So I have," said Ines unhappily, and dare
not add, " but not things like these."

In the bedrooms the girl was equally difficult
to deal with. She said she could not afford
wardrobes, so Mrs. Beattie only sighed a little at
their handsome mirrors.

" But you must have beds," said the distressed
lady.

Ines looked meditatively at the nightly
couches where Mr. Jordan and Mrs. Jordan, and
the whole tribe of Jordan had reposed for many
years, and a mutinous look came over her
face.

" I think I will let my one extravagance be
quite new beds — beds warranted fresh-laid, in
fact," she said. "Think of the years we have
used other people's beds in hotels and boarding-
houses — don't you think it is a justifiable
ambition, Mrs. Beattie ? "

" Well, there is a good deal in that," agreed
Mrs. Beattie. "I confess I shouldn't like it
myself. Let us go into the kitchen."

" I'll bid for this lot for you," she said pre-
sently, indicating a consignment of heavy black
boilers and saucepans — " that is, if they go at

AN AUCTION SALE 21

anything under twelve shillings. One or two
are a little burnt, but you could have it scoured
off."

" Oh, oh," cried Ines, " please don't — the
horrid, black, heavy things ! "

" Don't be such a child ! " said Mrs. Beattie ;
" saucepans cannot be pretty."

" But they can," the girl insisted — " dear
little enamel things, and aluminium. What on
earth could father and I eat that would need
cooking in those monstrous things ? "

" Oh, well," said Mrs. Beattie, " of course you
are a small family. But perhaps they would
make two lots of them — I could do with a few
myself."

But no, the girl would not have as much as one
of them.

" I'm going to do a lot of the cooking myself,
and I should die if I had to do it in those," she
said. " Do you know, for nearly a month once
on the Pyrenees we lived in my chafing-dish,
and you know the size of that saucepan."

But Mrs. Beattie, with a hopeless look on her
face, led the way to the front room, where the
bidding was beginning.

Three-quarters of an hour went past in the
overloaded room, and not one thing had Ines
lifted a finger for. The clock went — the solid
black marble monument with gilt statues and
columns that Murwumba farmers' wives thought
the handsomest and most enviable thing in the

22 FAIR INES

world, albeit it eternally pointed to a quarter
to four — the clock went for fifteen shillings, and
Ines sat unmoved. The carpet, the thick floral
carpet — " real Wilton pile," as Mrs. Beattie
wailed, was knocked down to the butcher for
three pounds despitfe Mrs. Beattie imploring
permission to say " Three five."

The ownership of the plush sofa was trans-
ferred to the landlord of the hotel. The great
red sideboard with the canopy top became the
property of a poultry farmer for the sum of six
pounds ten.

A ship that never was on land and sea — a
pink and green blown-glass ship under a glass
shade was going, going at seventeen and six.

" A pound," said Mrs. Beattie with a sudden
wildness in her eye.

" But I don't want it," said Ines, dismayed
at the idea of such a possession.

" No," said Mrs. Beattie in a fluttering way,
" it — it is for myself. I — my bedroom is a little
bare — make a pretty ornament."

And the girl remembered the story of sailor
Charlie, and squeezed her hand in a most
sympathetic manner.

Now and again while these proceedings were
going on, there had peeped in at the door an odd
Kttle elfin figure, a little girl of six, with a worried,
restless look on her face.

" One of the little Jordans," Mrs. Beattie
answered, when Ines, who was watching the

AN AUCTION SALE 28

child, asked to whom she belonged. It was an
open secret this morning that Mrs. Jordan and
several of her girls had shut themselves up in
the dairy while the sale of their goods was
proceeding, it being inconvenient for them to
entirely leave the farm at the time.

Ines noticed that the child, each time she
appeared in the doorway, listened to the bidding
for a moment with intense anxiety on her face,
then shrank back into the hall, relief in her
eyes.

The auctioneer came to the very last lot in
the room — a common little mantelpiece orna-
ment— a china shepherd holding a tiny lamb
under his arm.

" What bids for this," he said — " sixpence ?
Thank you, ma'am, ninepence ? Going at nine-
pence, ninepence, ninepence, going, going "

But at that moment a piercing shriek rang
over the room, and every eye turned to the door.
There stood the little girl with a white, strained
face, wringing her hands in the wildest way.

" Daft," said some one.

Others seemed amused. For the most part,
however, no one seemed to understand what was
wrong, and the auctioneer, anxious to get on to
other rooms, went on in his high voice.

" Ninepence — this handsome china ornament,
going for ninepence."

" A shilling," called Ines' clear voice across
the room.

24 FAIR INES

" Two shillings," growled a heavy-faced
farmer not far away from her.

" Three shillings," said Ines.

" Four shillings," said the farmer.

" Five shillings," said Ines.

" Six shillings, hang it ! " said the farmer,
turning an angry red face on the rival bidder.

" Seven shillings," said Ines steadily.

The auctioneer turned the article over in his
hand for a better inspection ; he would not have
given threepence for it himself; but that was
no matter.

" Seven shillings," he cried ; " this unique
ornament in finest china going for seven shil-
lings ! "

" Eight," said the farmer.

" Nine," said Ines.

Mrs. Beattie was almost in convulsions.
" Are you mad ? " she whispered. " They have
them at Sands in Wyama at sixpence each.
Are you quite mad ? "

" Not quite," said Ines, a steady eye on the
farmer.

He was plainly weakening. As long as it was
a matter of silver his courage was high, but this
was running into a matter of actual gold.

" Nine and six," he said.

" Ten," said Ines.

She had won. The farmer shook his head
ruef\illy, and backed out of the doorway.

" Ten shillings," said the auctioneer ; " going

AN AUCTION SALE 25

at ten shillings, ten, ten — no one make a higher
bid ? It's yours, miss."

Mrs. Beattie was almost purple with sup-
pressed wrath.

" Of all the wild, mad, insane proceedings "

she began.

But Ines had the ridiculous little ornament
safely in her hand, and was smiling across to the
wild-eyed child. The little one, however, gave
her one look of horror and reproach, and fled
away out of sight.

The crowd was moving slowly out of the room,
and even Mrs. Beattie's access of wrath had to
wait.

Out in the passage Ines made a flank move-
ment, and instead of being swept into the
dining-room with other pressing would-be pur-
chasers, found herself free of Mrs. Beattie, and
indeed quite alone. Then off she set on her
quest ; room after room she hunted through, in
cupboards, under the beds — often a child's
refuge in an anguish of desolation — through the
kitchen and pantries.

The heavy-faced farmer was standing at the
back door.

" Did you notice a child pass through ? " said
Ines, " a little girl, in a pink frock and no
hat ? "

The farmer looked hard at her, then jerked
his head in the direction of some distant out-
buildings.

86 FAIR INES

" Cryin' her eyes out," he said fiercely.

The girl ran across the ground. Past the cow-
bails, the calf-pen — no sign of the child.

But near the fowl-houses a sound of hiccoughs
reached her, and she hurried in. And there,
sitting on a hen's nest, sobbing her very heart
out, was the little pink frock.

" There," said Ines, " don't cry, darling ;
look, it's quite safe."

The child drew the ornament wildly to her,
and went on sobbing, but very different sobs
now that the relieved tears fell down on the
little lamb.

" You dear little thing ! " said Ines, her own
eyes wet: she stooped to kiss the tear-stained
face.

But the child darted off, in a fit of half shyness,
half shame at her tears, and fled away into the
bush, her shepherd fast in her hand.

At the back door Ines found the farmer still
standing. He looked hard at her again, then
spoke.

" Would you be agreeable to take twelve
shillings for that nornyment, miss ? " he said.

Ines shook her head. " I really couldn't,"
she said.

" It's like this," he said, going very red,
" it belongs to a little kid as has her heart set on
it. I seen her cry out when it was put up."

Then Ines laughed out. " Let us shake hands
on it," she said.

AN AUCTION SALE 9T

Then the farmer gave a great roar, and gripped
her outstretched hand.

" Ain't a man a blunderbuss now ? " he said.
" Cost you ten shilHngs, so I have. Might 'a
guessed a girl like you would 'a noticed."

The kitchen was emptying as Ines hurried
back, conscience-stricken, to Mrs. Beattie. The
contingent of saucepans was being gathered up
by the baker's wife, the very doormat had been
knocked down to some one, and Ines reflected
she really could have done with the doormat,
and so have retained a remnant of Mrs. Beattie's
respect.

There were only the bedrooms left, where
there was nothing she might buy.

Oh no, happy respite, there was the hall.
The auctioneer was stopping there now for a
second, and she determined she would buy
anything, everything, blindly, just so as not to
appear too ungrateful to her friend.

But the idea of bidding personally was hateful
again. She pushed gently through the crowd to
try to find her protector again, and as she pushed,
the linoleum beneath her feet, and the hat-rack
over her head, and a gaudily painted drain-pipe
umbrella-stand at her elbow rapidly changed
hands. There was no time to reach Mrs.
Beattie, but the auctioneer noticed the girl
who had bought the shepherd as he indi-
cated the last lot, a barometer hanging on the
wall.

28 FAIR INES

" This very fine barometer in its han'somely
carved case — what offers ? — no one make a single
bid ? — what say ? — come, some one — will you
offer a pound, miss ? — you seem to have a taste
for art things. Shall I start it at a pound,
miss ? "

Ines nodded desperately. There was nothing
she wanted much less than a barometer, and she
had not the remotest notion what they should
cost, but Mrs. Beattie must be appeased.

" A pound — this fine barometer — unfailing
index of the weather to be expected — absolute
necessity in a farming community — only a
pound — a pound ? "

But the farming community had for years
seen the handsome article pointing stead-
fastly to Rain, through a drought and fine,
through a deluge, and did not rise to the
occasion.

" Gone," said the auctioneer, and Ines found
herself in possession of the first of her household
gods.

Not one word dare she speak, however, to the
minister's wife for the first four miles of the
return journey, and that lady drove on in the
stoniest silence.

But during the fifth mile the girl peeped
under the woman's hat two or three times,
and at the sixth white stone she slipped an arm
round the rigid waist, and rubbed a soft cheek
penitently against the rein-arm.

AN AUCTION SALE 29

" I'm dreadfully sorry," she whispered ; " do
forgive me. I know I've wasted your time
shamefully, and I'm coming up to the Rectory to
sew some lovely little things for the bazaar to
try to make up."

Mrs. Beattie struggled hard with herself ; nor
husband, nor children, nor servants, nor friends
ever found her as easily appeased as this after an
injury; it was her immovable custom to main-
tain, even after expressions of sorrow had been
exacted, a dignified after-sulking for at least an
hour.

Why did her resentment melt like this before
the witch of a girl at her elbow ?

She tried to consolidate it again. " Five
good hours wasted," she began, " and what
have you done ? Wasted ten shillings on a
silly little ornament for a child to break — oh
yes, that red-faced man told me about it, but if
you had wanted to make up to the child you
could have bought her another shilling ornament
p,t the store, and it would have been just the
same to her."

" Not ;w5<," said Ines softly.

" And then you go and spend a pound on a
barometer that has been the laughing-stock of
the neighbourhood for years."

" Yes, that was foolish," admitted Ines, and
the tone of her voice was so penitent that Mrs.
Beattie, to her own amazement, found herself
smiling indulgently.

30 FAIR INES

" Oh, well," she said, " I suppose we all make
foolish purchases at times." And the recollec-
tion of the blown-glass ship, that was keeping
the barometer company under the seat of the
sulky, suddenly ceased from gnawing at her
conscience.

CHAPTER III

THE WHARTONS

Away on the eastern slopes of Wyama stood
the house and wide lands of the Whartons.
Time was — eighty or ninety years ago — when
all Wyama belonged to one Wharton, a lieutenant
in the army who, serving the country he had
been sent to help to keep in order, had the mis-
fortune to lose a leg in a pitched engagement
with some turbulent miners. The then Governor
of the Colony, anxious to compensate him both
for his past services and his misfortunes, pressed
upon him one of the big land grants that were
such common gifts at the time, and the lieu-
tenant hung up his sword and sent to England
for a library of books upon model farming.

A squad of convicts reared him his house —
a long, low, solidly built, brick place. He had
been told that his walls would have to be of
wood, like all of the early places, but hobbling
round his new estate he found one day some
clay of excellent quality, and the next, among
his *' assigned " men, an English brickmaker
doing time.

31

82 FAIR INES

He introduced the two, therefore, and the
result still showed, red and rough, but very
durable, in the older portions of Wendover
House, as he called the place after his old English
home. He himself grew sheep on the place, and
waxed wealthy from them ; his sons added cattle
when the possession of the estate fell to them ;
and his grandsons, Douglas and Sholto, at present
managing it, kept the fine, park-like paddocks
exclusively for exclusive cattle. As years had
gone past, many thousand acres had been sold
to improve the remaining thousands, but it was
still one of the largest and most remunerative
estates in the State, and a stranger had not been
half-an-hour in Wyama before it had been
pointed out to him half-a-dozen times.

The present occupants of Wendover were Mrs.
Wharton, a thin, ceaselessly active woman of
seventy ; her two sons, Douglas and Sholto ; and
her unmarried daughters. Cade and Elizabeth.

To Ines, just settled down with her father in
David's cottage, there fluttered in one morning
Mrs. Beattie, quite agitated.

" The Whartons are coming to call on you
this afternoon," she said ; "is there anything
I can do to help ? I met Miss Cade, and she
asked me were you quite settled. Did I do
wrong ? Would you rather have had more time
to prepare for them ? "

" Oh no," laughed Ines ; " bring on your
bears."

THE WHARTONS 33

Mrs. Beattie frowned at such shocking irrever-
ence directed against the first family in the
district by a chit of a girl in a cottage like
this. ,

" I assure you they don't call on every one,'*
she said. " It will be a very fortunate thing
for you — a lonely girl like you are — if they
like you."

" But suppose," said Ines — " suppose such a
terrible thing, Mrs. Beattie, as that I don't like
them ? What then ? "

" Oh, nonsense," said Mrs. Beattie ; it was
so preposterous to imagine not liking people who
owned an estate like Wendover that she simply
could not waste breath over discussing it.
" Now, would you like me to lend you Lucy to
help you with the afternoon tea-things, or shall
I send one of the children ? I wish they had
waited till that State girl I have got you had
arrived."

" Have you anything to say against the after-
noon tea I have prepared for you on several
occasions ? " said Ines.

" Certainly not. I've enjoyed it very much,"
said Mrs. Beattie ; " beautifully arranged, I
will say."

" Very well," said Ines ; " what is good enough
for the friend who has helped me over several
tight places is quite good enough for stray
callers."

But Mrs. Beattie departed only half mollified ;

84 FAIR INES

the beaten brass tray, the quaint thin cups and
saucers and the lemon served as alternative for
milk, and the tiny almond cakes, pleased a
certain novelty-loving side of her own nature,
but she was by no means sure what the Whartons
would think of an afternoon tea equipage so
entirely unlike the solid and important one that
was borne in to the Wendover drawing-room
by the Wendover housemaid on the stroke of
four.

Mrs. Wharton and her daughters sparred a
little after their customary fashion, as they
drove the two or three miles that separated
East Slope from West Slope.

Cade had wanted the victoria to be dragged
out for the visit from its seldom-disturbed repose
in the coach-house. It was not often that she
asked such a thing, for the wagonette and the
dogcart and pony-carriage were all pleasanter
for these country roads, and she was quite
content for the dust-sheets to be lifted from the
victoria only on occasions when such distin-
guished visitors were staying in the house as the
Governor's wife or the Bishop's sister.

Why she had proffered the request she hardly
knew herself, though if she had brutally dissected
her own motives she would have found that a
desire to impress " that girl " was at the bottom
of the reason.

Ines had held a subtle and tantalising interest
for Cade since the days when the girl and her

THE WHARTONS 85

father had first come to the township. Life in
Wyama was undoubtedly a narrow affair,
though Mrs. Wharton would have been appalled
at such a notion, and Elizabeth would have
practically pointed out the impossibility of such
an accusation being true. Did they not con-
tinually have visitors staying in the house ?
Aunts and cousins mostly, and for any prolonged
stay, it is true ; but still politicians came occa-
sionally from Friday to Monday, and distin-
guished visitors from England and other countries
were rarely allowed to leave Australia's shores
without being carried off to see the model
Wendover estate and spend a night there. Was
there not a special suite of rooms — bedroom,
dressing-room, bath-room and sitting-room kept
entirely for such visitors ? Did they not give
a garden-party every spring and an evening at
home every autumn ? Did they not subscribe
to the city libraries and receive parcels of the
newest fiction twice a week by train ?

Life at Wendover dull, narrow ! Why, the
difficulty was, as Mrs. Wharton insisted, to find
sufficient hours in every day for the manifold
interests of their life.

" Oh yes, we're busy enough," Cade would
agree restlessly.

That girl down at the hotel, that slight un-
formed girl with the exquisite face that the
dullest farmer on the road turned round to see
again, awoke in Cade a mood of strange unrest

D 2

86 FAIR INES

and dissatisfaction. There was the natural pang
of envy for the girl's beauty and youth — poor
Cade was three-and-thirty and absolutely with-
out any claim to looks — but there was also a
feeling of exasperation that a moneyless girl
should dance so happily along Life's highway
and extract joy and gladness from all sorts of
trifling things, while she (Cade) and her mother
and Elizabeth, for all their wealth, walked along
so soberly and heavily.

But perhaps the precise cause for the sug-
gestion about the victoria was the pique Cade
felt at the girl's plain lack of interest in them-
selves, the Whartons, of Wendover House.

They had passed the artist and his daughter
frequently on the roads, themselves driving, as
is the fixed habit of country people, the Erwins
walking, and with inexplicable enjoyment as
travellers not uncommonly do. But Ines' face
never quickened with any interest as it might
have done upon viewing the chief family in the
district ; it is to be questioned whether her eyes
really saw them at all, though those same eyes
could follow with much eagerness a merry child
trotting past on a pony, a string of bullocks
yoked to a dray, a Chinaman staggering between
his balancing baskets. But a narrow-faced old
lady and two plain, somewhat dowdy girls well
on in life — what interest did they hold for those
eager young eyes, that had had set out for them,
almost as soon as they could see, so much of

THE WHARTONS 37

the Old World's intoxicating beauty, so many
of its vivid interests and strong personalities ?

That is mainly why, when the call was
decided upon for that afternoon, Cade suggested
the victoria should be used.

" It is months since it was out," she said ;
" the leather will be getting musty. I don't
think we ought to get out of the habit of using
it when we pay calls."

" Call at one of those bits of cottages in the
victoria ! You must be out of your senses,
child," said Mrs. Wharton, who, despite her
limitations, had a sound sense of proportion.

" They have only taken it because there was
no other place to take," said Cade sulkily.

" Why, they're as poor as rats. You must
know that. The man's an artist." Mrs.
Wharton had all the landed proprietor's con-
tempt for nomads. She would have grudgingly
granted you that there was an exception here
and there, for she had read of Leighton's and
Millais' splendid homes ; but it would have
required an earthquake to shake her firmly-
conceived notion that artists were a superior
species of gipsy, who moved from town to town
earning odd five-pound notes for painting one's
portrait in oils or one's favourite view in water-
colours.

Even Elizabeth seemed to have a distorted
notion of the new-comers. Elizabeth was of a
sparse and narrow build, with light, worried-

38 FAIR INES

looking grey eyes and an undecided mouth. At
forty she was as completely under the rule of
her autocratic old mother as she had been at four.

" It would be ridiculous, of course, to go in
the victoria," she said ; " the pony-carriage will
do quite well. But I think Luke might as well
put on his livery."

" Put on his livery, when he's got those
fowls to pluck before he goes, and all the
windows to hose the minute he gets back !
Why, he would have to shave, too — the whole
afternoon wasted ! At your age, Elizabeth,
I might have expected a little more sense."
The vigorous old lady actually snorted in her
anger.

Elizabeth's nose grew a little pink, as was
ever its wont when she was acutely hurt — and
nothing hurt her quite so severely as reference
to her age.

" Perhaps you'd rather not go at all," she
said coldly. " I don't see that we can spare
the afternoon if Douglas is bringing that
American here to-night. I have the Worcester
china to give out, and the silver, and to do the
table flowers and make the salad, and fifty
things."

"I've said I'll go, and I'll go," said the
determined old lady. " Go and get on your
hats. Cade, tell Luke the dogcart will do ;
Sholto has just come in it, and it will save time
harnessing again."

THE WHARTONS 39

She resented the loss of the afternoon herself,
for she had a new man in the orchard whom she
was anxious to follow up and surprise in some
expected ignorance of pruning. But she was
also alive to the duties of her position, and
when Mrs. Beattie had told her of the mother-
less girl and her paralysed father settling down
among them, she had at once determined to
extend the Wendover hand to them. Still, it
was quite enough, she considered, that it was
the Wendover hand ; any glove that came
handy would do to cover it.

She looked critically at the two cottages as
Luke drew up.

" What fools men are," she said ; but this
was merely the remark she always made when
she saw the isolated places and remembered
the story of their building.

" Why," said Elizabeth, " the other one is
taken too. Look, the windows are open, and
there's a man digging — two men."

And such, indeed, was the condition of
Jonathan's cottage. The air of neglect that
had so long hung over it was hardly dispersed,
but undoubtedly it was occupied. Smoke was
rising from its chimney, and its windows, still
cob webbed and opaque with dust, were flung
up ; several travelling-rugs were airing on a
fence, and two or three trunks and portmanteaus
still stood out on the verandah.

" Two men and a boy," said Elizabeth, as

40 FAIR INES

they climbed down to the ground from the
high step.

" Like the sums we used to do at school,"
said Cade. " Why, one of them looks like a
gentleman."

" And one of them is a Chinaman," said Mrs.
Wharton. " Isn't it Hop Ling, Elizabeth ? I've
a great mind to go and ask the rascal why he
didn't come to the lettuce-beds on Monday
when I had engaged him."

" Oh, I don't think I would. Mother," said
Cade uncomfortably, for her digging gentleman
appeared to her more and more deserving of
the title as they drew nearer to where he
was working close beside the low dividing
wall.

But Mrs. Wharton was bent upon her
defective Celestial ; her wrath stirred again as
she remembered the unsatisfactory lettuce-beds
with which no one but a Chinaman seemed
able to do anything. She walked to the wall
and looked over.

" My good man," she said in the bland,
patronising tone she kept for such of her trades-
men and dependants as had not offended her,
" will you allow me to speak to your Chinaman ?
I engaged him to come to me last Monday, and
this is Friday."

Her " good man " took off a blue cap and
bent his head in the swift accustomed fashion
not common to anybody's " good men."

THE WHARTONS 41

" With much pleasure," he said. *' John, a
lady wishes to speak to you."

He moved away himself out of earshot, carrying
his spade with him ; but the boy stopped work
and looked and listened with interest as a boy
will.

" Why you not come to me, John ? " de-
manded the lady. " All my lettucee they makee
no hearts — every day get worse. Why you not
come when I engage you ? "

Hop Ling regarded her with the magnificent
unblinking serenity of his race.

" No savee," he said.

" You very bad man, John, you savee quite
well," said Mrs. Wharton ; " why you not come
Monday ? "

John remained imperturbable. " You no
engagee me," he said.

" I did engage you : you say the same thing
each time for excuse, John. Did you forget ? "

" Welly bad head top," said John gravely.

" Well, when you give me days ? " persisted
Mrs. Wharton.

John surveyed the ground he was at work
upon.

" Byemby, when all this done," he answered ;
then he waved his hand over the twin garden
in which the ladies were standing, " and byemby
when all that done."

Mrs. Wharton's temper rose as the last hope
for her lettuce died.

42 FAIR INES

" You very untrustworthy fellow, John," she
said. " Don't you know that the first engage-
ment you make is the one you ought to keep ?
You ought not to make others until that is
fulfilled."

John's face resumed its smooth bland look ;
the faint crinkles of intelligence that had
appeared around the eyes died away.

" No savee," he murmured mournfully.

" Oh, mother," said Cade impatiently, " do
come along. Can't you see he doesn't want to
come and has no intention of coming ? And
I don't wonder, either, the way you follow
him round to see if he is doing his work
properly."

Mrs. Wharton took not the faintest notice of
the outburst, but beckoned majestically to the
boy, who was still resting on his garden-fork
good-humouredly watching the fray.

He came at once, but in a guarded manner ;
he was a native of the district, and had been
employed on the Wendover lettuce-beds before
this himself.

" Kindly go and tell that man I wish to speak
to him."

The boy crossed the ground to Cade's digging
gentleman and gave the message, which was
obeyed at once.

" You are ? " began Mrs. Wharton.

The man gave her a keen glance. " The
present tenant of this cottage," he said.

THE WHARTONS 48

" Yes, yes," said Mrs. Wharton ; "so I
imagine. It was your name I asked for."

Elizabeth's nose grew pink again. Cade's pale
cheeks red.

" Scott Sheldon, at your service," he said,
a little stiffly but not discourteously.

" I think you are probably not aware, Mr.
Sheldon," said the undaunted old lady, " as you
are doubtless a new-comer to Wyama, that in
engaging the services of this man, Hop Ling,
you have forced him to break an engagement
he made to come to me for the whole of this
week. My lettuce-beds and the asparagus-plots
are almost ruined."

" I am sorry to hear this." Sheldon looked
in rather a perturbed way at the Chinaman.
" Why didn't you tell me this. Hop Ling ? "

" No savee," said Hop Ling, smiling widely.

" Will you kindly make him understand that
he is to come to me to-morrow for the week ? "
said Mrs. Wharton.

Sheldon rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

" I'm afraid I can't do that," he said ; " he
accepted my engagement to come to me for
three months, and I have already waited a week
for him while he put the garden you are standing
in in order. He told me he had no further
engagement."

" Perhaps not. The race is not to be trusted
as far as it may be seen," said Mrs. Wharton ;
" but now that you understand the situation

U FAIR INES

you will have the kindness to see that the
fellow is at my house — Wendover House — at
seven to-morrow morning. Good-afternoon."
She gathered her black silk skirts a little more
tightly in her hand and made to move away.
Cade and Elizabeth clutched their sunshades
closer to them, ready to follow. But the battle
was not won.

The new tenant of Jonathan's cottage stood
in silence a moment. He was rather above the
average height, of a lean build, though well
enough knit. The face was clean-shaven, and
not without a certain look of power ; the eyes
a greyish brown, compellent. Not in the least
good-looking, the girls decided, for it was with
a square jaw and unsmiling mouth and hard
young eyes that he was surveying them.

" I don't know that I can undertake that,"
he said slowly ; " my work here is important —
to me. To let the man go now would be a
serious hindrance."

" And what about my lettuces ? " said the
indignant lady. " They are of no account,
I presume ? "

Sheldon's eyes grew harder. " If you honestly
consider that a few lettuces for table are as
important as a man's livelihood you may have
him," he said.

" This is your livelihood ? " The lady's gloved
hand waved over the sloping, weed-choked
place.

THE WHARTONS 45

" It is."

" Oh, if that is so I suppose I must waive
my claim," said Mrs. Wharton discontentedly ;
*' but it means that we shall have no salads for
weeks. My lettuce-beds "

The young man flung back his head as if he
had had enough of the subject.

" John," he said, " you will go and fulfil your
engagement with this lady to-morrow."

But John backed precipitately away. " No
— no," he said. "Me no plomisee to go to her
never. Only say byemby. Me no likee."

" You will perhaps absolve me from blame,"
said Sheldon, and moved his spade-hand as if
anxious to get back to work. But the old lady,
with eyes full of anger, was walking swiftly up
the path to David's cottage.

CHAPTER IV

AT David's

David's cottage, in the time of David him-
self, was merely one of the commonplace,
weatherboard, mud-coloured places with which
all Australian country towns are at first bespat-
tered, until with leisure and the accumulation
of money, there grows up the feeling for archi-
tecture on a more artistic and individual plan.

It had been possessed of the customary front
verandah, the narrow hall with two circum-
scribed rooms on either side of it, and the
kitchen with another small room or two at the
rear, that made it of the identical pattern that
was used in the making of three parts of the
cottages in Wyama ; as if houses were of just
about the same importance to the scheme of
life as Crimean shirts, and might just as readily
be drafted out by the hundred dozen and
scattered around, " ready made."

But Ines had happened along just as David
had come up, sulky at the non-letting of his
cottage, to put it in the painters' hands and see
if " redding " it up a little would find it a tenant.

46

AT DAVID'S 47

It is possible that David had latent artistic
possibilities quite unsuspected by his wife. But
it is just possible also that he was a mere human
man, as well as a landlord, and Ines had turned
her eyes upon him.

Anyway, before he went back to his shop-
keeping in the city, he was committed to several
improvements that afterwards, in colder blood,
he hardly liked to tell Mrs. David about.

For instance, he had consented to letting Ines
have it all her own way with the painting. Let
her choose the colours as she would, which
permission alone would have horrified Mrs.
David, who knew as well as any one that to
expect a girl, not quite twenty, to select durable
colours, would be to expect a miracle.

Then Ines had demonstrated to David how
sorely she needed air — that, in fact, she and her
father simply could not breathe without air,
though so many of the other people in the
village seemed so constituted that they were
able to do so in their homes. And she had
wheedled him into taking some partitions down
inside, — the one that made the hall, for instance,
and the one between the two rooms that had
been sitting-room and dining-room.

This gave her, although it opened directly on
to the front door, a large and airy apartment
that delighted her, although David looked at it
with many misgivings when it was done.

" But I thought young ladies like you," he

48 FAIR INES

said, " liked to have drorin'-room and hall and
dining-room all separate. It's the first thing
a poor woman thinks of, having them separate,
after she's had to get along in one room for
everything."

" Oh, we'll manage," said Ines joyfully, and
her eyes sparkled so delightfully at the sight of
her big room that David dismissed his qualms
and consoled himself by recollecting that the
partitions could go back when these people left
and he got everyday tenants again. He even
added a French window at the far end of the
room, and with the despised partitions con-
structed beyond it a kind of summer room or
verandah where the paralysed artist might have
his sofa and be in the sunlight all day.

So when Mrs. Wharton and her daughters
stepped on the verandah and found the front
door open to all the winds of heaven, they found,
instead of the dead little passage they were
accustomed to find in such houses, the pleasantest
of rooms spread out before them.

The plastered walls were distempered in a
cool and delightful shade of green, except for
a deep frieze of cream, on which Ines had herself
painted here and there, in swift, telling strokes,
a loose trailing pattern of nasturtiums and
green leaves. Cream curtains hung fresh and
untortured at the windows, a light stencil
pattern of nasturtium leaves defining their
borders.

AT DAVID'S 49

The floor was polished, and had rugs here and
there of green and white colouring. For the
rest, a furniture dealer, come to appraise, would
have found the room a tragedy and gone away
with tears in his eyes.

For there was nothing but a low divan, piled
with cushions in covers soft in texture and
colouring, a few chairs, a low bookcase, a little
round table under one window, and a larger
one, square, under another.

On the walls pictures in plenty — delightful
" bits " of foreign towns, an Alp, gleaming
white out of darkness, a Spanish child face with
unscrutable eyes and babyish lips, a Venetian
house-front with its feet in green water that
was exquisitely patched with shadow.

None of the pictures were of any great value,
for Erwin had never been much more than a
pretty trifler with the brush, but they were full
of tender memories and delight for themselves.
Flowers too, there were, here and there, tawny
and gold and crimson velvet nasturtiums, lifting
burning faces out of shallow brass bowls. Cade
looked at their beauty in surprise : at Wendover
House, where the rose-garden never failed and
the orchid-house gave freely of its treasures,
they had never thought of gathering such things
as nasturtiums for the vases.

But here came the young mistress of the
house — after they had rapped some half-a-dozen
times.

50 FAIR INES

" Oh, I am so very sorry," she said, " it is so
hot too. The bell is broken, and I have not had
it mended yet."

She found them comfortable seats, produced
palm leaves, set a simple punkah in motion.

Mrs. Wharton unburdened her mind at once of
the defaulting Chinaman ; she had to talk of
something, and all her mind at the moment was
concentrated on lettuces. Besides, it was as well
the girl should know that the new neighbour had
undesirable qualities. Then Ines found that
she too had been unwillingly " undesirable " ;
she had kept John from the Wendover lettuce-
bed the whole of last week.

" But come and see what he has done," she
said, after she had been graciously forgiven for
not having known. " Oh, I am going to have
such a lovely garden. I lie awake nearly every
night planning it. Isn't gardening lovely ? I've
never had a big one to myself before, though
I've done wonders with window-boxes and little
beds."

Mrs. Wharton was almost conquered. Cade
and Elizabeth took but the most tepid interest
in gardening, but with herself it was an all-
absorbing passion. This eager face, all aglow
with the subject, warmed her heart. She went
outside again into the sunshine with her young
hostess, and listened to the soaring plans as they
walked round the domain.

Here was going to be a rose-bed, cream and

AT DAVID'S 51

yellow roses only. No earth was to show at
all, nothing but a carpet of deep purple pansies
around the roses' feet. Delphiniums were going
into this bed — all the sweet range of tender
blues, and for their carpet, lobelia. Over that
archway, wisteria was already growing ; did
not Mrs. Wharton think a coppery polyanthus
planted on the other side would make a lovely
tangle in the spring ? That thin ring-barked
gum tree with its branches all lopped close, was
it not an eyesore in a garden ? But here were
a crimson and a white rambler planted at the
base, and they were to be trained to make of it
a pillar of fire and snow. This long, low dividing
wall of crude field stones, did it not offer itself to
a delicious scheme of small creeping things —
periwinkle, mosses, lichens, Virginia creeper ?
How could people have lived here and never
done anything to it yet ?

Mrs. Wharton entirely forgot her lettuces,
forgot that her man waiting outside had those
fowls to pluck when he went home. She
poured out advice, threw what little cold water
was necessary on the kindling schemes, but
offered other schemes in their place. Such a
spot was too exposed for delphiniums, but what
about ten week stocks in all the mauve grada-
tions ? That corner was too shady for clumps
of daffodils, but what about lilies of the valley ?

" Too dear," said Ines decidedly. " I looked
them up in the catalogue and they were ten

58 FAIR INES

shillings a dozen. We are only allowing our-
selves a pound for all the spring bulbs."

" And quite enough too," said the old lady,
" far too much indeed. You will send no more
orders to the seedsman, my dear, till we have
seen that Wendover cannot supply you. I have
twice as many lilies of the valley as I need."

In the background Cade and Elizabeth, pro-
foundly uninterested, sighed softly, and recalled
Ines to her duties. She carried them back into
the coolness of her green and white room, and
without leaving them produced the tea-things.

Cade and Elizabeth watched her in a fasci-
nated way ; their own belongings that had
always so entirely satisfied them seemed suddenly
clumsy, ugly — early Victorian. Their very
frocks dissatisfied them, their good linen coats
and skirts made by an expensive tailor. Yet
what did Ines wear ? It was only a white
muslin with a pale blue sprig in it here and
there. A blue ribbon made her waist-belt, a
blue ribbon was threaded through the little
muslin collar and knotted at the neck, a cluster
of pink live roses was tucked into her waist-
ribbon.

" She's like a girl in a book, or a poem, or a
picture," thought Elizabeth, watching her envi-
ously ; " she looks as if she has never seen or
heard anything ugly in her whole life. I wonder
has she ? I wonder what her life has been to
make her like this ? "

AT DAVID'S 53

Later, when Mr. Erwin waked from his after-
noon sleep, and was able to see the visitors on
his sunny verandah for a little time, Cade put a
question brusquely to the girl.

" If you came across something horribly ugly
what would you do ? " she said.

Ines looked quite startled for a moment.

" Where — what sort of thing ? " she said.

" Anything — anywhere," said Cade.

Ines looked thoughtful. " I'd turn round and
go some other way to avoid it," she said.

" If there wasn't any other way ? " persisted
Cade.

" I think I'd try to cover it up," said Ines,
after a minute's pause, " grow flowers over it, or
drape it over with something. What would you
do?"

" Neither," said Cade. " I think there is a
certain strength in ugliness. The world would
be very tame if you made everything pretty-
pretty like that. There are quite as many ugly
things in nature as pretty ones, / think. It
doesn't look as if we shall be very good friends,
does it ? "

" I think we might be very good enemies,
though," said Ines, smiling.

CHAPTER V

AT Jonathan's

" Out of the night that covers me.

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul."

Henley.

At Jonathan's none of these changes had taken
place. The mean hall, papered with a cheap,
glazed paper, still confronted the open door.
The front sitting-room, that in Mrs. Jonathan's
time had been a shrine for a plush suite, a black
and gold overmantel, and a bewildering number
of the small articles which ladies make " out of
nothing " for sale at church bazaars, was now
practically destitute. There was a table it was
true, but it had not even the decent covering of
a cloth over its scratched, gaunt anatomy.
There were two chairs. There was a packing-
case, its top littered with paper-covered pam-
phlets and books on farming. Absolutely no other
article. Across the passage a room was fur-
nished as a bedroom : that is to say, there was
a stretcher bed in it, while some clothes hung
behind the door, and two or three portmanteaus,

54 _

AT JONATHAN'S 55

expensive-looking, heavy affairs in tan leather,
stood against the wall.

The next two rooms were entirely empty.
The bath-room was furnished with its stationary
galvanized bath, a towel and a pat of soap.
The kitchen had the bare requisites for the
plainest cooking, together with a table and a
chair.

This was the home of Scott Sheldon, the
eldest son of his mother who had been a widow,
but not for long. Scott's own father had been
a hard-working country doctor of unblemished
reputation. His step-father, acquired when he
was a little lad of six, was a baronet, impecu-
nious, and with standards of honour that were
puzzling at times even to a little lad of six.
When Scott was ten, and the new little half-
brother, Cecil, an exquisitely pretty four-year-
old, the baronet died and left his widow very
little but debts. A brother of the dead country
doctor stepped forward at this point and gave
Lady Barnsley a hundred a year for the educa-
tion of his nephew, Scott Sheldon, family pride
forbidding that the little fellow should be
dependent on the baronet's invisible income.

Lady Barnsley still had two hundred a year,
the fruit of careful provision for her by her first
husband, but from her second husband's estate
she realised little more than fifty pounds a
year.

As she pointed out, therefore, to her eldest son,

56 FAIR INES

the avuncular hundred for education was out of
all proportion for such a purpose, and seemed an
almost cruel contrast to the prospects of little
Cecil, for whom no uncle, though he had several
possessed of titles, money and honours, stepped
forward and offered to assist to the extent of a
suit of clothes.

Scott, a squarely built, plain lad with the big
heart and fine nature of his father, agreed
instantly.

" We'll go halves, of course," he said, " keep
half for Cec and half for me."

" Perhaps your Uncle Evan wouldn't like
that," said Lady Barnsley doubtfully. She
was a delicate- looking, fluffy-haired woman,
with appealing blue eyes, and the weak mouth
that so often accompanies such.

" Oh, he won't mind," said Scott, " I s'pose
he didn't think a hundred would go as far as you
say you can make it."

" It would not run to a good boarding-school
for both of you," said his mother, " though it
would be just sufficient for you alone. But it
would be enough for us to live here in this
country town and for you both to go to the
Grammar School."

Scott's face fell. He had so passionately
wanted to go away to a big school and be a boy
amongst boys.

Since the advent of his step-father they had
lived a nomadic sort of life, now in Continental

AT JONATHAN'S 57

hotels, now in narrow, fashionable quarters in
London. For five years he had been like a
plain, honest little English plant that asks
nothing better than to be left to spread out its
roots in some clean, free field, but is denied it.
He had been pulled up and transplanted in so
many sorts of strange soils that his roots began
to have a numb sort of feeling.

And even now it might not be healthy,
ordinary, school-boy life.

He looked round the drawing-room of the
still fashionable little house that his mother had
taken in a country town. It seemed to consist
to his crude eyes chiefly of lamp-shades and
cushions, and since these were so strictly guarded
from boyish contact he felt that they must be
among the very expensive things of life.

" We — we, couldn't we do without quite so
many of this sort of thing, mother ? " he said
half timidly — " Education's a big thing, you
know." His uncle, at the funeral, had im-
pressed it upon him how important education
was. The world outside — oh, he had had
glimpses of that struggling, teeming world, Paris
glimpses, London glimpses, glimpses in nearly
all the big cities of the Continent — would claim
him in another five or six years, and a thrill of
fear passed through his boyish soul at the
thought of getting into that fighting world
without a weapon. His uncle had impressed
upon him that education was the only weapon

58 FAIR INES

when there was no wealth. Yes, he must make
an effort to assure himself that the weapon
would be good.

" Do without so many of what ? " said his
mother.

Scott instanced, timidly, the lamp-shades,
those mammoth, rose-pink affairs of chiffon and
fine lace, that might not be approached without
a warning word, that gave so abominable a
light one could not even learn one's home
lessons by them, that were a constant source of
danger from a match. Surely here, said his
practical young mind, was the place to econo-
mise.

But his mother had wept, had called him
barbarous in wishing to take from her her poor
little comforts, had said he was as ruthless as
his father, who had once actually asked her to
leave overcrowded England and let him start
his profession again in some new country like
Australia.

" A country where I might have had to do
my own work, a country where there are black
fellows and bushrangers, and bush fires and
other frightful things. How can you be so
cruel, Scott ? Look at me, do I look fit for the
rough things of life ? "

Scott looked at her and realised his barbarity.
This frail little figure with the wet, blue eyes
and the trailing dress of pathetic black, of
course she must have her comforts. He would
defend her lamp-shades for her with his life.

AT JONATHAN'S 59

"That's all right, darling mother," he said,
his own eyes full of tears, " you shall always
have pretty things. I'll go to the Grammar
School here and come home at nights. Then
there'll be plenty left for Cec, won't there ? "

Still Lady Barnsley was not quite satisfied ;
she had an uncomfortable feeling that the uncle
might not quite approve of the transaction,
though he had certainly told her that he left
the details of the education to her since he hated
details.

" I feel as if, perhaps, your uncle ought to
know," she said weakly.

" Tell him," quoth Scott, seeing no reason for
concealment. " Say I'm quite willing to go to
the Grammar School. It's a rattling good
school, they say. And that then there'll be
enough for both of us."

But Lady Barnsley conveyed the resolution in
her own way.

She stated the fact that she was most averse
from sending her dear eldest son away from her
own care to a public school. That he had
expressed a great wish to go to the Grammar
School here in the town where she was
making her home, and that she was unwilling
to thwart him. That, of course, keeping him at
home would make a difference to her expenses,
but that she thought by dint of careful manage-
ment, she could make the hundred just suffice
for the purpose.

The uncle, who had always hated detail, was

60 FAIR INES

not too well pleased with the notion, but he
disliked interference and imagined that a mother
was the best person to leave to manage her son's
affairs. So he merely continued to send his
cheques quarterly, marked " For the education
of my nephew, Scott Sheldon."

Two or three times in the next five years he
journeyed all the way to the Little Mitcham
Grammar School, to personally receive the head
master's report and see his nephew. The
report was invariably favourable ; the head
master said he had no more dependable, finer-
natured lad in the school than Scott. Not
clever, nor brilliant in the least, but hard-
working, determined, full of spirit and courage.
If he wanted brilliancy there was Cecil, now.

Scott brought Cecil up to be introduced to
the gruff uncle who never would cross his
mother's threshold. Cecil had the face of a
chorister on a Christmas card, his mother's eyes,
his mother's skin helped him to it ; Scott had
taken his swarthy complexion and keen, dark
eyes from his father.

Cecil already — at ten — wrote verse that was
without a doubt unique, kept ahead of his
school-fellows in all class subjects, played both
violin and piano in the manner of a young
virtuoso, painted in water colour with no little
skill, and withal, not uncommonly, carried off
sports' prizes for fleet running, high jimiping
and so on.

AT JONATHAN'S 61

His mother's pride in him was both pathetic
and contagious.

Scott, Hving beside her, came under the
influence of it, and soon his own pride in Cecil
almost equalled hers. The gifted lad was
lovable too ; he poured out a wealth of hero-
worship at Scott's feet, and never dreamed of
undertaking anything of which Scott disap-
proved.

" A pardlike spirit, beautiful and swift," was
the quotation that the wife of the head master,
a poetic, sentimental lady, had applied to Cecil,
and the quotation spreading into the school,
had given the boy the nickname of " The
Pard."

There was one thing unusual about him — his
extreme susceptibility to pain and discomfort ;
another thing he had inherited from his mother,
unlike Scott, who had his father's Stoic virtues
of fortitude and endurance. As a baby, a smack
on the arm had been enough to throw sensitive
Cecil almost into convulsions. As a six-year-old,
a fall, a cut knee, a bad bruise, brought so
deathly a look to his face that onlookers used
to be quite alarmed. To Scott, vigorous, well-
hardened, it used to seem so pitiful a thing that
on all possible occasions when pain might be
borne by proxy, he took it on himself, and made
Cecil stand by. There was the farmer's thrash-
ing for the stolen apples — how many men are
there in the world who have not just one stolen

62 FAIR INES

apple blotting their boyhood's fair page !
Cecil had been practically under the whip when
Scott had rushed the farmer, game as a young
bull-dog, and had hung doggedly on to his
whip arm.

" Cut, you little ass," Scott shouted, as Cecil,
white as a sheet, hung tremblingly near.

Upon which permission Cecil promptly dashed
through the orchard gate, and made off down the
road as if all the fiends of Hades were in pursuit.

Of course, Scott was no match for the farmer,
though he had been able to delay matters ; the
man, a surly, ill-conditioned fellow, always at
enmity with the school-boys, got the boy down,
and inflicted such a thrashing for his inter-
ference, that Scott carried the wales on his body
for weeks after.

Still, he reflected grimly, unpleasant as it was,
it was better than if it had been Cecil ; Cecil
would have never come through it alive.

Similarly at school he saved Cecil's skin a
dozen times in the course of the years they were
there together, by cheerfully shouldering the
younger boy's transgressions.

" This is Cec," he had said, proudly displaying
him to his uncle.

The gruff fellow looked at the slight, beautiful
boy, with the brilliant eyes and the delicately
cut mouth.

" Hum," he said, and turned away indiffer-
ently. He had no notion whatever that he

AT JONATHAN'S 63

himself had been paying Cecil's quarterly school
bills, and Cecil's violin and piano lessons for so
long. He had no notion that Cecil was better
dressed than Scott, who in truth, as his mother
often complained, never paid for dressing.
Scott seemed happy enough, spoke affection-
ately of his mother, was evidently proud of the
girlish-looking half-brother, and there the matter
ended.

At nineteen Scott went to Oxford, partly on
a scholarship that he had won by sheer hard
and unremitting work, partly on what could be
spared from Cecil's needs out of the hundred
pounds.

His ambitions were not as soaring as Cecil's.
Cecil wished to be the greatest musician, artist,
and poet, the world had ever known. Scott felt a
career like his father's would entirely satisfy him.

After three years at Oxford he began to walk
the hospitals, and felt that his weapon for fighting
the great world was coming closer every day to
his hand.

And just at that point the gruff uncle died
without making any will, and the son who
returned from America to receive his inheritance
saw no reason whatever for continuing that
long-paid hundred a year to a cousin he had
never seen.

Great consternation reigned in Lady Barns-
ley's breast, for Cecil's artistic habits grew more
and more expensive.

64k FAIR INES

She went to fling herself on the charity of
her second husband's brother, a prosperous
London merchant. She implored his aid in
giving a chance to a youth acknowledged by all
who knew him to be most rarely talented.

The merchant detested talent, distrusted it
with all his heart. He sent his sister-in-law
away weeping because the only offer of help
that he made his nephew was the promise of
a stool in his counting-house.

" He's got to take it, too," said Scott shortly,
when acquainted with the mission. " Look
here, mother, you and I have been doing our
best to make a fool of Cecil. He's seventeen
now, and no more fit for a man's work than a
girl. All these accomplishments of his are very
pretty, but just about as much use to him as
a buttonhole of flowers would be in a shipwreck."

" But he may be one of the greatest poets of
the century," wailed Lady Barnsley. She said
nothing now of art, for she had secretly coaxed
a great painter down to the boy's studio, and
he had told her frankly that, though pretty
and full of a delicate imagination, the pictures
she had thought so great were in no respect a
whit better than those of five out of every six
of the students at any serious art class in
London.

Similarly, a great musician, wheedled into
a frank opinion, would say nothing beyond the
fact that the boy had a good ear and an

AT JONATHAN'S 65

accurate memory ; he could not discern any
sign of great promise.

But the only poet approached for opinion had
declared that it was impossible to tell at such
an early age, and had quoted Tennyson's
" Juvenilia " as an example.

*' Ten years hence England may ring with his
name as a poet," the mother protested tearfully.

" Well," said Scott patiently, " taking a stool
in an office isn't going to stop it. If he's going
to be a poet it will out sooner or later. But if
he isn't, what are you going to give him to fight
the world with ? "

His own boyish fear of that world where men
must fight and struggle as soon as they were
grown, had returned to him. His proposed
medical career was at an end for him — for the
present. He had counted hopefully on his
uncle's help for two or three years more,
and had looked forward to the day when he
could go down to the kindly old fellow and tell
him he needed it no longer. But this sudden
cutting off left him just launched at sea and
without an oar. He must put back modestly
and shape that oar now for himself.

But experience and growing wisdom showed
him the wrongfulness of the course his mother
was taking with Cecil. Where stretched the
fair, ever-smiling sea that she vaguely expected
should see his voyaging ? The lad must cease
from playing in the shallows and at once learn

66 FAIR INES

something of seamanship. Indeed, he was so
insistent that Lady Barnsley finally gave in to
him, and consented to Cecil going up to London
and entering the sordid office. She nourished
the secret hope that the old merchant would be
so struck by his talent and winning ways that
he would speedily make him a partner, which
would, in some slight degree, compensate for
the loss of his chances as a poet.

But Scott must actually see him into his
uncle's care in London, and Scott must find
some work that would enable them both to
board together in the unpretentious boarding-
house that was to serve until Lady Barnsley
could dispose of her house in Little Mitcham
and come to London.

Scott accompanied the " pard-like spirit " to
the den of commerce and handed it over to
the uncle — quite as grim and gruff a one as his
own had been. Uncles seemed to him to shed
all their illusions about life very readily.

The old merchant gave ten minutes of his
time to conversation with Cecil, and then sum-
moned his confidential clerk and delivered him
over into that person's care.

" Take him and lick him into shape, Smith,"
he said. " I'm his uncle, God help me, but
I wouldn't attempt the job myself."

Cecil walked after the clerk, the pink of
mortification upon his face, which still possessed
much of its choir-boy quality.

Scott, smarting for the boy, spoke up a little

AT JONATHAN'S 67

warmly ; instanced the mother's possibly un-
wise education, but stated that it was not too
late, and that there was any amount of good in
the boy.

The old merchant heard him out with
patience ; something in Scott's blunt manner
and plain face took his liking, while Cecil's good
looks and manners had done nothing but irritate
him. He questioned him as to what he was
doing himself.

" Looking for a job too," said Scott, with
a rather grim smile.

" And what can you do ? Piano and violin
too ? "

Scott had to confess to a moderate knowledge
of Latin, Greek and the higher mathematics.
Also to about six months' acquaintance with
the complicated piece of machinery known as
the human frame divine. It was to further that
knowledge that he was " looking for a job."

The old man regarded him thoughtfully from
under shaggy eyebrows.

" Can't offer you as soft a job as I've given
that lily-handed nephew of mine. A pound a
week he's to cost me for making a nuisance of
himself — oh, don't tell me ! I know the type."

" Give him his chance," said Scott good-
humouredly.

" Well — aren't I doing it ? A pound a week,
just because your mother had blue eyes and
cried. But she didn't cry over you — didn't
mention you, I believe. How was that ? "

F 2

68 FAIR INES

" She knew I was able to shift for myself,"
Scott said.

" Hum. Proud at all ? "

" Not unduly, I hope," Scott smiled.

*' There's a billet vacant down in our office
at the Docks. Two pounds a week, but it's
take off your coat and sweat at it. What do
you say ? "

" I say thank you," said Scott, and stood up
energetically. " I calculated that I was going
to waste three months looking for something,
and then that it wouldn't be much more than
fifty a year. Thank you, sir."

The old merchant kept his eye on Scott. He
let him " sweat at it " for nearly a year to test
him ; then, pleased with the result, gave him
work in which he might use his brain and which
brought with it a salary of two hundred.

Scott saved a hundred and twenty in the
first year of it towards the medical course that
was waiting, like a serial story, to be continued.
The year after he saved a hundred. And both
years he could have put more away only that
he was continually helping Cecil, who was still
drearily drawing his one pound a week and
finding his tastes refused to be satisfied upon
such a meagre sum.

Then came the great tragedy. The old
merchant's name was forged to a cheque for
two hundred pounds, and suspicion for three
days pointed directly to Cecil. He at least
had cashed the cheque.

AT JONATHAN'S 69

The old man, blind with rage at his misused
trust, set the law in motion.

The following day Scott walked into his
private room without knocking, and stood
before him with ashen cheeks and wild eyes.

" I did it," he said ; " Cecil only cashed it
for me."

The old man's rage increased, for here his
trust had been greater. With Cecil he had
known in his inmost heart that he should not
actually prosecute, for the sake of the name
which was his own. But he had no motive for
upholding the stainlessness of the name of
Sheldon, and with a frightful oath at his own
misjudged trust, he rang up for a police officer
before Scott had fairly finished his speech.

The trial was purely a formal matter, for no
defence was offered, and within a month the
boy — he was still little more than that — was
beginning to work out his sentence of three years
with hard labour.

At the end of it, of course, life in England was
impossible. The medical career seemed broken
for ever.

" You must find me fifty pounds imme-
diately," he said sternly to Lady Barnsley, the
day that he was released, " you and Cecil be-
tween you. I shall leave for Australia at the
end of this week. You can sell something." He
almost said contemptuously, " Sell your lamp-
shades." During the long years in prison he had
had time to think over many things.

70 FAIR INES

His mother gave him the roll of notes tremb-
Hngly ; the next day he walked out of her
presence to his exile without one further word.

She tried to console herself by packing for
him ; she ordered him two or three new suits,
ties, shirts, collars, forgetting that he was going
to a land of " black fellows and bushrangers and
other horrible things." She bought some hand-
some portmanteaus and a cabin trunk, and had
his initials " S. S." printed on them in gold.
He used to look at them grimly as they con-
fronted him for weeks in his third-class cabin.

Cecil went down to see him off. The choir-
boy expression had faded from his face and the
brilliancy from his eyes. He looked merely
what he was — a self-centred young man, prone
to fits of extreme nervousness and despondency.
One of the fits was plainly on him now as he
timidly came up to where Scott stood on the deck
watching the final preparations for departure.

" I — won't you say good-bye ? " he said, —
and tears sprang into his eyes as he said it.

A senseless fury possessed Scott. He could
hardly restrain himself from taking his half-
brother by the neck and dropping him over the
side of the vessel into the mixture of bilge water
and muddy Thames that lapped there. But he
just managed to restrain himself.

" Pah ! " he said, and turned on his heel and
shut himself in his cabin till the vessel was well
out to sea.

CHAPTER VI

RUST IN WHEAT

" Each life's unfulfilled, you see.
It hangs stillj patchy and scrappy.
We have not sighed deep, laughed free.
Starved, feasted, despaired — been happy."

Youth and Art.

At the commencement of the long voyage to
AustraHa Scott had determined that there could
be no longer any other life for him but one on
the land. It was a detail that he knew rather
less about the land than he knew of the Wolfian
theory of the universe. He set himself doggedly
to acquire what knowledge was possible when
the only soil beneath his feet was separated by
a several miles' depth of water. The ship's
library was a well-endowed one, and the young
nation's providence for its immigrants had
stocked the steerage shelves with countless
books and pamphlets teeming with information
about Australian soil.

A first- class passenger, Munro by name, a
man of great wealth and an ardent believer in
the exhaustless resources of Australia, took
much interest in the immigrants at the other

71

72 FAIR INES

end of the vessel and spent many a day talking
to them, answering their endless questions about
the new land, and giving advice and the best
information in his power.

Scott was not exactly an immigrant, for he
had paid his full third-class fare, but he was
glad to avail himself of Munro's kindly advice.

Munro on his part became greatly interested
in the sombre-eyed, self-contained young
Englishman, who seemed applying himself al-
most savagely to the task of acquiring all
information possible about soils and tempera-
tures and irrigation, and so on.

Munro's particular enthusiasm was the possi-
bility of turning New South Wales into the
richest wheat-growing district in the world. He
believed that with the greatest ease she could
entirely transcend with wheat the reputation she
had in the world's ear for wool growing.

" Only, mind you," he said to Scott, " it's got
to be a certain kind of wheat, and wheat with-
out rust. That's the little task I've set myself
to accomplish before I'm called to judgment up
above. I've got to produce a wheat that will
stand a test where all other wheats have failed.
Do you know how many kinds of wheat there
are ? — do you know anything at all of wheat ? "

" No," said Scott, " but I should like to— if
there is anything in it. See here, Mr. Munro,
I'm not a brilliant chap, but I've got fairly good
powers of grafting at anything. Suppose I took

RUST IN WHEAT 73

this up — this experiment business — do you
think, as a man of business, that I could make
a livelihood at it ? I'll confess I'm attracted
to it from your accounts."

" Let me show you a little further," said
Munro.

And now the long days in the tropics saw the
two men seated in a quiet corner of the deck,
intent on the contents of one of Munro's boxes.

Children gathered near when first the contents
were brought out, their imagination soaring at
the sight of dozens of tiny bags securely fastened
at the neck. But when, on these being opened,
nothing appeared but grains of common wheat
such as were daily flung to common fowls, why
then they no longer made little nuisances of
themselves, but let the two men alone.

Scott soon learned to discriminate between
Bearded and Beardless Wheats, Red and White
Wheats, Woolly Wheats. He could pick out the
coarse Polish Wheat at a glance ; the rarer Spelt
Wheat carried his thoughts over the centuries :
this was what the Swiss lake-dwellers and
ancient Romans had cultivated and what still
was grown in many mountainous parts of Europe.

Munro was enthusiastic over Mummy Wheat.
The original Mummy Wheat, he told Scott, had
been grown from seeds found in the Egyptian
mummy cases — or at all events, such was the
story. Wheat from these grains had been
grown in England with ears having ten or eleven

74 FAIR INES

branches, and as many as a hundred and fifty
grains in one ear ; whilst sixty ears had been
produced from one single seed.

Scott wanted to know why any other sort
was ever planted, and Munro was forced to
acknowledge that, despite this prolific quality,
this wheat did not serve the purposes of the
farmers as well as many others.

That was the problem — to find a wheat that
would serve all the purposes of the farmer, that
would resist disease, grow in a hot climate, not
be too particular about soil, and produce a
phenomenal number of bushels to the acre.

Munro's enthusiasm communicated itself to
Scott ; the latter felt it might be a not unworthy
life work to devote himself to the subject. Only
would it pay ? Could he make a livelihood ?

Nearing Perth, Munro made him an offer.
The proximity to the goldfields sent an electric
tingle of restlessness among the immigrants.
Why go to farther States and labour from dawn
to dusk for countless years when nuggets might
— just might — be picked up for the stooping ?

A certain percentage decided to " stop off "
and take their chance when the vessel reached
the city ; the steadier heads, and the married
men, persuaded by fearful wives, reluctantly
overcame the temptation. Scott was balancing
the notion himself when Munro made his offer.
Munro already had three experimental farms of
his own where his wheat theories were under-

RUST IN WHEAT 75

going test. Would Sheldon undertake a fourth ?
In short, if he, Munro, hired a place in a locality
he had in mind, would Sheldon undertake for
two years — two seasons were the very least they
might make suffice — to devote himself to the
experiments ?

Scott's heart leaped at the idea. Nearing
land his old boyish fear of plunging into the
fighting world without a weapon had returned.

" I should like it of all things," he said.

" I propose to take a place somewhere to the
west," Munro continued, " quite a small place
will do. Doubtless I can get such a one as I
have in my mind for fifty pounds a year.
I should allow you fifty for working expenses
and fifty for your own salary. How does that
strike you ? "

" It strikes me as uncommonly generous,"
said Scott impetuously. " You know nothing
of me, unless it is to know I am quite ignorant
of the work. But I'll do my best to see you
are not sorry."

Munro became a little more cautious : he was
wealthy because he had never forgotten in his
life to be, first of all, a good man of business.
As a matter of fact, he allowed his other three
experimenters salaries of a hundred and fifty
a year, and none of them had displayed the
grasp and ability that Scott did. Still, of coiurse,
some offset must be made for ignorance of land
matters.

76 FAIR INES

He looked keenly at the young man. " Of
course, we will have the matter on a proper
business basis," he said. " You have never
talked of yourself or your people, I notice, but
doubtless you can give me quite satisfactory
accounts. For instance, what have you been
doing since you left school ? "

The colour dropped clean out of Scott's face.

" Eh ? " said Munro, looking at him more
sharply.

Scott looked him full in the face.

" I was three years at Oxford," he said, " six
months walking the hospitals, eighteen months
in a merchant's office — three years in Dartmoor
— they were up a week before I came away."

Munro got up and flung tempestuously back
to his own class. But nearing Adelaide eight
days later he returned.

" See here," he said, " I've been thinking that
over. I recognise that you weren't compelled to
tell me. Most men would have kept it to them-
selves."

Scott merely looked out to sea.

" I've decided to let it make no difference.
What was it f or ? "

" Forgery," said Scott, and looked physically
sick for a moment.

" Hum. Well, have you got any money
at all ? "

" Thirty pounds."

" Better than nothing ; I needn't give you

RUST IN WHEAT 77

anything on trust in that case. I'll find the
farm, and send in just the necessary imple-
ments. At the end of each three months I'll pay
you a visit, and if all is satisfactory, pay you
your salary. Will that do ? "

" That will do, thank you."

Munro recollected that the salary for that
length of time would amount to twelve pounds
ten, an incredibly paltry sum it seemed to
himself at that moment.

" At the same time," he added, and a little
more genially, " I have no objection to you
making whatever you can for yourself out of the
farm, after all the wheat experiments are seen
to. You will naturally have much time over.
I'd advise you to try a little dairying or poultry.
You might even run a few sheep. It will all be
experience to you."

*' Thank you," said Scott, " I'm more than
satisfied." He swallowed a lump in his throat.
" You shan't regret it, Mr. Munro."

" I hope not. I hope not," said Munro, and
hastened back to the first-class deck. He might
be employing Sheldon, but he felt diffident
about lingering any longer for those long talks
with a man who had been in Dartmoor three
years.

Landed in Sydney, Munro cast around for his
new farm, and settled upon Wyama.

The Whartons were friends of his of many
years' standing ; and the country around was

78 FAIR INES

country upon which he had long cast an approv-
ing eye. When he found Jonathan's farm was
to let, a place with just the soil and slope to suit
his experiments, he at once took it upon lease.
At Wendover House he could always count upon
pleasant hospitality when he ran up to see how
the experiment was working.

Nothing could have been arranged more
comfortable he considered. There was even an
excellent Government farm in an adjacent town,
where his new disciple could go once or twice a
week for the agricultural lectures that were
delivered there by an expert.

He returned to Sydney within two days, and
presenting Scott with his railway ticket — with
only just a shade of doubt in his eyes — he urged
him to get away and begin operations without
any further delay.

And so Fate, who had been sitting aloft
holding the separate threads of two lives so
wide apart for so many years, now with a decisive
movement of her hands brought them close, close
together.

There was nothing any longer but a low stone
wall dividing them from actual union.

CHAPTER VII

HYACINTH

Scott himself, however, at this period, would
as soon have thought of crossing that low stone
wall and entering into communication with the
bright-haired girl on the other side of it, as of
hammering on the doors of heaven and de-
manding speech with the angels within.

It was Hyacinth who arranged the whole
matter.

Ines had refused to have a competent servant
installed in her cottage. " We really can't
afford it," she said to Mrs. Beattie, who was
demonstrating the impossibility of the girl
managing her own work.

" Can't afford it ! " repeated Mrs. Beattie,
" and you've just sent an order to the florists
for bulbs and seeds and plants ! And all those
frightfully expensive art books in there that
have just come ! Why, you must have more
money than you know what to do with ! "

Ines was used to Mrs. Beattie's well-inten-
tioned, penetrating ways by this time.

" Ah but," she said gravely, " those are
79

80 FAIR INES

luxuries. Father and I have always been able
to supply ourselves with the luxuries of life by
going without the necessities."

Mrs. Beattie stiffened as she always did at
irreverence.

" That is simple nonsense, of course," she said ;
*' there are some things every one must have."

" But who is to decide what those things
must be ? " said Ines. " One's neighbours or
one's self ? "

" What is an actual necessity for me, must be
the same for you. The things themselves
decide," said Mrs. Beattie.

" Sideboards with canopy tops ? " said Ines
mischievously — ^Mrs. Beattie continually be-
moaned the loss of that bargain at the sale.

" Ah well, you will live to regret missing that
yet. It would have filled up that long, bare
wall, and think of the things it would have
held."

" But, then, I couldn't have afforded anything
for it to hold," protested Ines. "No, no;
father's motto for ever ! "

" And what is that, pray ? "

" Take care of the luxuries and the necessities
will take care of themselves."

Mrs. Beattie sighed patiently, and attacked
the question of a servant again.

A strong woman from a cottage ten minutes'
walk away came in night and morning to assist
Mr. Erwin, and move him from his bedroom to

HYACINTH 81

the sunny verandah or the sitting-room. She
also did the scrubbing and laundry work of the
cottage.

Mrs. Beattie was much opposed to the em-
ployment of this woman, who added to her
crime of not coming to church that of drink.

" It would be money into your pocket to give
her up, and take a strong, capable general, who
would manage everything for you and help your
father too."

But Ines had come to lean on the woman who
drank and never went to church. She was a
big, tender-hearted creature, who had nursed a
crippled husband devotedly for years, and
worked nobly for his support. It was only after
his death that her loneliness had betrayed her
into drink. Since David's cottage had been
taken, and the wide eye of its lamp looked down
all through the long, dark evenings on her little
home at the foot of the hill, she had pulled up
remarkably. It reminded her that some one
was depending upon her again.

" She suits father so wonderfully," said Ines,
" no capable general could have the knack of
those big bony hands of hers. No, no, you
must leave me Mrs. Shore."

But in addition to Mrs. Shore's salary the
girl felt quite unable to take a servant in the
house.

" Apart from the fourteen or fifteen shillings
a week for her wages she would double my bills,

82 FAIR INES

and never let me into my own kitchen," she
said, " and father loves my cooking."

In the end, however, she consented to having
a " State girl " to help her, for she grew to grudge
the time the household tasks took her away from
her invahd.

It was Mrs. Beattie who, in her post of district
visitor for the State children drafted into homes
in the locality, suggested this means of help.

Ines listened to the details with profound
attention. She might, she learned, become
possessed of an able-bodied girl of twelve to
sixteen, who was one of the many hundreds of
orphans fathered and mothered by the State.
The girl would come to her with a good stock of
clothing, but when that was worn out the
clothing would be the employer's own charge.

" Unbleached calico is good enough, and
strong lilac prints — you would have some old
clothes of your own also," commented Mrs.
Beattie, " that question need not trouble you."

No actual wages were to be paid it seemed,
though Ines must send a sum of seven or eight
shillings a month for the State to bank to the
account of its orphan, which sum at the end of
the period of orphanhood, namely sixteen,
would be handed to the girl together with her
freedom.

Also a trifle of weekly pocket-money must be
paid, and doctors' bills met in case of illness.

The other items on the great blue document

HYACINTH 88

sent by the State for signature need not worry
them, Mrs. Beattie assured father and daughter.
A good home with respectable people, that was
the main point upon which the would-be-fatherly
State insisted.

" My only fear is that Ines will be too lax, Mr.
Erwin," Mrs. Beattie said, shaking her head at
Ines; "they want keeping up to the mark —
these girls — little wretches some of them are.
Kindness seems to demoralise them, but with
a strict hand, I have seen some of them turn out
quite well."

Still it was not without misgivings Ines
awaited the arrival of the girl, who after some
months' delay, was assigned to her. She was
thirteen, stated the document, and her name
was Eliza Hopper.

When one stood on the verandah and looked
out at dusk with wide eyes on the world that lay
stretched out in billows to the horizon line, and
reflected that one had consented to take an
entity from that world, a flesh-and-blood girl,
Eliza Hopper, aged thirteen, and be responsible
for her welfare, moral and physical, one felt
a sudden shrinking of com-age. Suppose one
failed ? Suppose some day, somewhere, a deep
voice asked, " What did you do with Eliza
Hopper, aged thirteen ? " Ines began to wish
she had not been so much in haste to get a some-
body, for whom she must be responsible, to wash
her dishes.

G 2

84 FAIR INES

But then through the dusky garden came the
form of Mrs. Beattie, followed close behind by a
small, square figure dragging a telescope basket.

At the gate twinkled the lights of the yellow
sulky that had cheerfully added to its day's
duties the task of calling at the station for the
State orphan, and delivering her into the hands
of her future mistress.

" So very good of you — thank you so much,"
Ines said, kissing the grim Rectory lady with
much warmth. The Rectory lady liked the
young girl's kisses ; there was a warmth and
spontaneity about them that appealed to a long-
chilled heart. Ines never seemed to take for
granted the kindnesses done to her ; they always
seemed to her lovely things, and when done by
some one whose life was congested with such
services, touching things.

" But you will come in and have dinner — do,
dear; there are some lovely quail Mr. Wharton
sent, done on toast and with buttered bread-
crumbs." The girl urged her towards the
verandah.

" No, no — choir practice night, and I must
see Bobbie and Fred started at their home-
lessons. Couldn't possibly waste the time.
She's small, but may answer."

Ines had taken a small, rough hand in hers in
the darkness; that was the only welcome she
had yet had time to give to the State orphan.
But now she drew her forward.

HYACINTH 85

" And this is little Eliza," she said; "I am so
glad you have come to help me, dear. Are you
tired ? Was the journey very long ? "

" No," said a sullen voice.

" No, Miss Ines ! " corrected Mrs. Beattie
sharply.

" No, Miss Ines," muttered the girl.

Ines gave the rough, cold hand another gentle
little pressure.

"See, dear — you sit on the step a minute," she
said ; " I want to take Mrs. Beattie to the gate."

Tucked in the sulky, Mrs. Beattie seemed too
anxious to start.

" A nasty, sullen little wretch, I'm afraid,"
she said; "I'm so sorry. I particularly asked
the Matron to select me a nice one. I suppose
she was the only one. Still, I'll do my best to
exchange her for you if she doesn't answer.
Remember, a strict hand — that is what they
want. They say she can work well and she's
past the school age, so you won't have to send
her away for half a day."

" You have been very, very good," said
Ines, " and I dare say she is not sullen at all —
just shy. I should be desperately shy myself in
her place, poor little soul."

The yellow sulky bumped away. " Remem-
ber, a strict hand," floated back through the
dark.

" A strict hand ! " assented the young
laughing voice.

86 FAIR INES

And at Jonathan's, Scott went in, content, to
his tea. He had heard her voice yet another
time.

Ines took the little girl into the pleasant light
of the cottage, and up to the sofa where the
invalid lay.

" Here is my little helper come out of the
darkness, father," she said.

Erwin laid his well hand over the red one that
still grasped fumly the handle of the Japanese
basket. He looked at her compassionately;
she was such a plain, dull, sulky-looking atom.

" Out of the darkness into the light, like a
little moth," he said whimsically ; " well, I hope
we shan't burn your wings. You have wings,
haven't you — tucked away somewhere under
that grey cloak ? "

The girl lifted sullen eyes.

" No," she said. Then she looked half
aggressively at Ines. " I mean. No, sir."

" Oh yes, you have," smiled Ines ; " they are
folded just now, that is all. Nice, gauzy wings
that will let you float anywhere you like. I
will show you them some day."

The girl sighed. She was used to all sorts of
people — ^kind people, cruel people, people who
were indifferent. But she had not come across
mad people before.

" Come along and have some tea," said Ines,
and swept her off to the kitchen. There, on a
small table that held pretty china and a vase of

HYACINTH 87

pansies, was spread a pleasant meal that caught
the girl's eyes instantly.

" But you must take your hat off first, and
put down the basket," said Ines, and led the
way across the passage to a little room — a
dainty little room with the bedstead enamelled
pale blue, and the box dressing-table and
washstand covered in a soft cretonne, patterned
in big blue daisies. Pictures on the wall, happy
refreshing things, not just crude almanacs.
On the dressing-table a blue vase filled with pink
roses.

" Now wash, and take off your hat, and then
come out to yom* tea," Ines said.

" Aren't you 'fraid I'll mess your room ? " said
the girl fearfully ; " I can go out to the tap or to
me own room."

" This is your room," smiled Ines.

The girl looked disbelievingly at the flowery
bedspread and the pink roses, then distrust-
fully at the pictures, but said nothing at all.
When Ines came back she found the girl had
carefully put her hat and grey cloak under the
bed to save " messing the counterpin." She
had also unstrapped the telescope basket that
held all her possessions, and she directed Ines'
attention to the written list that was pasted
inside the lid.

*' Matron said for you to look through straight
off," she said.

" But not when there are two hot little

88 FAIR INES

birds waiting for you in the kitchen," said
Ines.

"Straight off," said Eliza; "here, I'll sing
out and you tick them off. One best dress —
under there, the plaid one ; two working-dresses ;
four night-gowns "

" Nonsense, nonsense, to-morrow will do,"
said Ines ; " come to tea."

" It's the rule," said Eliza sulkily.

" Not my rule," said Ines ; " come along at
once."

But they did their duty by the Institution's
rule the next day, and all the orphan's wardrobe
was laid out in stacks on the bed. The under-
clothing was of serviceable, unbleached calico,
made without a vestige of trimming. " Some
of the girls crochet lovely and put it on their
best things," Eliza said ; " there was one going
to teach me, but she left."

The State did not harrow the feelings of the
orphans it sent away by insisting on a uniform,
but the Matron could not think of beauty when
she went to select materials, while the demands
of serviceability pressed so hard. Yet she not
infrequently was liberal with colour in the
matter of best dresses, wotting that the grey
woof of life for her charges demanded an occa-
sional brilliant thread. But she had no dis-
crimination.

Eliza was a sallow, peak-faced creature with
inky hair cut quite short and dull grey eyes.

HYACINTH 89

And her best frock was a creation of green and
red plaid, the material so thick and stout that
when set in gathers round the waist, as was
the customary pattern in the Institution, it
stuck out in clumsy folds, and made the child
look as broad as she was long.

She gave the dress a savage tweak as she held
it for Ines' inspection.

" 'Twas bought for Jess Jenkins," she said,
" on'y Jess didn't like it, and she could always
get round Matron ; so they said it could do for
me. I wanted vilet like Lucy's. Now I've got
to wear it two years. I like my workings
better."

The " workings " were dark lilac prints
made in a shapeless fashion, straight from the
neck. Stout aprons of holland were supplied in
good number.

The boots seemed the sorest spot, however, in
the outfit. There was one stout pair of calf
boots, in nowise different from boys' bluchers.

" They make your feet that tired," said Eliza,
with a sigh, " I'd much rather be barefoot."

And there was another pair, calf also, but cut
a little more with regard to the shape of a foot.

" Me Sunday ones," said Eliza. " I'm goin*
to do like Jess Jenkins. She saved her six-
pences— you got to give me sixpence a week
pocket, it's the rule — and she got a pair o' tans,
just lovely, two straps and a buckle, four and
six."

90 FAIR INES

" Put them all away — quickly," said Ines.
The crude, ugly garments positively hurt her
eyes.

Eliza laid them on the shelves that a carpenter
had put up for the purpose.

She looked admiringly at the said shelves ;
Ines had treated them just as she did her own —
covered them with pale blue wallpaper, and put
pale blue bags of lavender here and there. The
whole was hidden by a curtain of the daisied
cretonne.

" It's a real shame to cover 'em up with my
ugly things," the girl said.

" Do you like pretty things ? " Ines said,
though she knew she might just as well have
asked did she like flowers, and sunlight, and
rainbows, and the colours on the breasts of birds.
The instinct is God-given and universal.

The girl began to cry. " I never get none,"
she said, " everything I get's ugly. Matron,
she thinks anything does for me 'cause I'm bad
looking. Lucy, her hair curls, and they give her
blue ribbing — ^Matron's sister did. Christmas I
wanted the box with shells on it off the tree — all
lined with pale blue. And I got a frog that was
a pincushion. Threw it away next day, so I
did. Jess, she got the shell box, and she'd got
a handkicher sashy too."

Ines put her arm round the poor little ugly
thing.

" See here, dear," she said, " I'm going to

HYACINTH 91

look after you now. I'll make you a new lot of
clothes, and you shall help choose the stuffs
yourself. I told you I was going to find your
wings for you, didn't I ? "

Mrs. Beattie was shut up with a cold for a
fortnight, and unable to do anything to effect the
change she had spoken of. But when at last she
knocked at David's cottage she imagined Ines
had managed the exchange herself ; for the door
was answered by a smiling-faced girl, who wore
the neatest of pink print frocks, with a white
muslin apron made with frills, and white muslin
collar and cuffs.

Ines had gone down to the village to the post,
but the little maid was quite equal to the event ;
she ushered the visitor in to wait, and she
offered a new book and a magazine to while
away the time, reappearing after a few
minutes with the tea-tray, just as Ines always
had it.

" When did you come ? " demanded Mrs.
Beattie.

Eliza smiled. " You brunged me yourself,"
she said.

" You are not Eliza Hopper," said Mrs. Beattie
decisively.

" No, ma'am," said Eliza happily, " Miss Ines
said as I could choose a new name, and I choosed
Hyacinth."

" What absurd folly ! " ejaculated Mrs.
Beattie, and Ines returning at the moment, and

92 FAIR INES

Eliza withdrawing, she proceeded to dilate on
the excessive folly of unsuitable names.

" Yes, I know it sounds a little absurd," said
Ines penitently, " and I did suggest less fantastic
ones. I hoped she might like Rosie, or Eva, or
Lily, or Beryl — something pretty and simple.
But I found she had such a frantic passion for
the name of Hyacinth that I yielded. I told her,
though, I should probably call her Cynthia
before people, and we would keep Hyacinth for
private use."

" It will entirely unfit her for life," protested
Mrs. Beattie.

" I think not," said Ines gently ; " there's a
pink hyacinth out in the garden, and she's got
an idea that she would like to make herself just
as fresh, and clean, and fragrant as that. It
is a pathetic little ambition, but it won't do any
harm."

" My dear," said Mrs. Beattie, " you are hope-
less. When you have lived in the world as long
as I have done, you will find this sort of thing
does not wear."

" Shall I ? " said Ines, with wistful eyes—'* I
wonder shall I ? "

CHAPTER VIII

OUT OF THE STORM

" He looked at her as a lover can ;
She looked at him as one who awakes ;
The past was asleep and her life began."

The Statue and the Btist.

It was Hyacinth who broke down the stone-
wall barrier, and brought the grey thread of
life on Jonathan's side into actual communica-
tion with the gold thread on David's side.

It was a wild, wet evening, and the eyes of
the two cottages blinked out as if through a haze
of thick tears on the village below.

Mrs. Shore's invariable hour for attention to
the invalid was seven o'clock ; not once before
had she missed it. But to-night it was eight,
and Ines went to peer again and again through
the darkness for a sight of the angular, familiar
figure.

Erwin was tired, inclined to be fractious with
the waiting. He would not listen to Ines'
suggestion that she and Hyacinth should be-
tween them move him in his invalid-chair into
the bedroom, and help him on to the bed. He
declared that he would stay where he was all

93

94 FAIR INES

night; but he plainly felt much injured and
upset.

At last Hyacinth came to the door and made
round, excited eyes to denote to Ines that her
presence was required in the kitchen.

The girl slipped away from her father's side,
closed the door, and hastened outside. Mrs.
Shore had arrived at last, but the vision was
much more terrifying than reassuring. She
was plainly suffering from the effects of drink,
and was such a mud-splashed, soaking creature,
it was difficult to recognise her for the same
trustworthy, respectable woman who had come
and gone so long.

" I said as I'd come, and I done it," she said,
and plunged across the kitchen. " See that " —
she displayed a bleeding forehead — " fell over a
log. See that " — she held out an arm dripping
with mud — " fell in the creek. Six times I've
been down on my blessed nose this night. But
said as I'd come, and I done it."

Ines was quite white with the shock.

" You can go back at once, Mrs. Shore," she
said ; "I am ashamed of you and much disap-
pointed."

" Now then — none of your talk," shouted the
woman; "get out of the way, and I'll go and
get him to bed. Oh I'm drunk sure 'nough, but
not too drunk for that."

" You'll do nothing of the sort," said Ines
spiritedly; "do you think I would have him

OUT OF THE STORM 95

upset by seeing you in this state ? Go back at
once — I don't want a noise out here." She
took the woman's arm, led her firmly to the door
and opened it.

But then she paused aghast. The storm had
increased in fury, and beat wildly in their faces
at the opening of the door. One could not have
turned a dog out — much less a woman who had
been so long a tower of strength for them. She
shut the door again and looked helplessly at her
visitor.

" N'more of this," said Mrs. Shore, " I've got
to get that man to bed. Out of the way or I'll
lay about with my hands."

Ines walked across and locked the door that
led from the kitchen into the house.

" Hyacinth," she said in a low voice, " I'm
sorry, but I'm afraid she must have your bed-
room to-night — I'll lock her in. You can have
a bed made up in mine."

Hyacinth's eyes went round with horror.
That muddy, dishevelled figure in the pale blue
room round which she had twined a very passion
of love !

" There's yer pa's bell," she said, too agitated
to remember that she was learning not to use
this phrase.

" Come with me," said Ines, " I can't leave

you alone with her. Come along — I'll lock the

door after us, and leave her in here for a time."

" Miss Ines, she'd clean ruing my room,"

96 FAIR INES

wailed the little girl. " Oh, I know 'em ! me aunt
was took same way once a week, and me mother
too — only not so ofing. They're fair terrors,
worse'n men a lot."

Erwin fretfully wanted to know wasn't that
Mrs. Shore's voice he heard, and why didn't she
come and put him to bed.

" Yes, it is her voice," said Ines, thankful
that the storm had been able to drown its sig-
nificant loudness, " but she is not well, dear.
Will you wait a little longer, patiently, while I
see what I can do with her ? "

" If she's well enough to walk up here, she is
well enough to do all I want," Erwin said
crossly.

" She is frightfully wet ; I must give her
some dry clothes. I'm afraid you miist wait,
dear," Ines said.

Her brain was working rapidly. Perhaps
there was something one could give to intoxi-
cated people to sober them suddenly, and bring
them to their senses ! Hyacinth would know,
possibly — Hyacinth, who held keys to much
strange knowledge of which she herself was
ignorant.

She spent a few minutes pacifying her invalid,
finding him a fresh magazine, begging him to have
patience. Then she slipped away again to
confer with Hyacinth. And there was no sign
of the girl !

The bedrooms were empty, the little lobby

OUT OF THE STORM 97

near the kitchen where a moment since the pink
frock had been standing, showed bare. She
was not in the bath-room, not in the narrow
passage that ran along the kitchen quarters,
not in the httle blue bedroom for which she had
so desperately feared " ruing."

There remained nowhere but the kitchen, and
the key of that was in Ines' own hand.

Then the back door was opened by a hurried
hand, and in burst the little girl, triumph on
her face. She wore a man's coat and a man's
soft hat ; just behind her was Scott Sheldon.

" He'll pretty soon fix things for us," she said,
her voice bursting with pride in her deed. " I
was a muggins not to think of him afore."

Ines, startled, turned to the new-comer who
had stridden hastily across the threshold he had
never thought to cross, and had closed the door
in the face of the wild storm outside.

" You must certainly let me help you. Miss
Erwin," said Scott, "it is a most unpleasant
position for you. Where is she ? "

Ines showed her key. " I was so afraid of
her getting to my father and upsetting him.
Yet such a night — I couldn't let her go out into
the storm again, could I ? She is soaking wet as
it is. What can we do ? "

Scott rubbed his chin a moment. *' Where
does she live ? " he said, " I'll soon marshal her
home and tell her people to see her into dry
things. She can't stay here, whatever happens."

98 FAIR INES

*' Right at the foot of the hill," Ines said,
" and she has no people at all. She would lie
there wet till morning. I have a little bed-
room "

*' No, no, no," cried Hyacinth.

" Dear, we could take all the pretty things
away first, and make it nice again to-morrow."

" No, no, no," Hyacinth said, and the tears
gushed out wildly, " the stable — chuck her out
in that. She'd be dry there, and I'll lend her
my blankets."

" Why," said Scott, " I might have thought
of it before — I have several empty rooms — she
shall have one of them ; we can manage some
sort of a shake-down for her. Perhaps you will
give me some dry things for her."

" But oh, what a trouble for you," said Ines
distractedly. " How can I calmly push my
troubles off on to your shoulders ? "

Scott's sombre face gleamed with a sudden
smile ; it was like a touch of sunshine on a winter
landscape.

" See how much broader they are than yours,"
he said.

" But, but " said Ines ; then she gathered

comfort from his eyes, clear, warm, hazel, that
were telling her he was most honestly glad to be
of service to her.

" Ah well," she said, " I thank you with all
my heart."

" An' I do too," said the voice of Hyacinth,

OUT OF THE STORM 99

quivering with delight. " Let me come an'
help — oh, bless you, I know how to manage 'em
— there was me aunt, she "

" Now see here. Miss Erwin," said Scott,
" you must please obey orders and let me take
charge. The first order is that you go away into
the house and sit down quietly. This small
woman will help me far better than you can.
She has given me to understand that she knows
the business."

" Me aunt," began Hyacinth proudly — " me
mother, but not so ofing. An' in our street
there "

" I must see her dry first," said Ines, and
opened the child's coat — " yes, see, she ran to
you in her print frock ; it is dripping."

" Yes, yes," said Scott, " I had forgotten ; the
water was pouring off her."

" My troubles I " said Hyacinth, " nothink
matters now me bedroom's not goin' to get
spiled."

But Ines hastened her to that beloved apart-
ment, and saw a hasty change effected, though
the girl clung to hat and coat.

"He lent me 'em," she said, "I'm goin' back
with him to help him fix her up. I don' mind
what I do for 'er now she ain't goin' to have me
bed."

But Scott would have no feminine help at
all in the removal. He dismissed Ines into the
security of the house, impressing it upon her

H 2

100 FAIR INES

that her part must be to keep the invalid from
worrying. He kept Hyacinth a moment or
two to hold the door open for him. Then in he
marched to confront the angry, powerful woman,
who was beginning to batter at the door and
throw tins about to testily to her disapproval of
the locked door.

" My word, he mus' be strong," Hyacinth
said, admiringly recounting after the event,
" he jus' tooked her by the arm an' she fought
him like anything, but he never let go and off he
marched her into the rain, same as if he'd been
a bobby running her in."

He came back after twenty minutes or so
for dry clothes for her. Luckily there were a
working-dress, shoes and stockings that the
woman kept in the laundry for use on wash-days.
Ines added blankets and other comforts.

" I have made up a fire for her," he said, " you
can put her out of your thoughts now. She is
a good deal more comfortable than she deserves
to be."

Then off he went again.

Ines had to break it to her father that Mrs.
Shore would be quite unavailable to-night.

" But Hyacinth and I can manage beauti-
fully," she said.

" Go away," said Erwin, " I shall stay where
I am all night. Now, go away — you only upset
me."

But there was knocking again outside, and
here was Scott back yet again.

OUT OF THE STORM 101

" Now I have come to help your father into
bed," he said in the most businessHke fashion.
*' It is the only thing that will give our unfor-
tunate friend a chance to go to sleep. She has it
on her mind that she hasn't seen him comfort-
able, and she is not so lost, it is plain, that she
can bear the thought of his discomfort."

Again there was the natural disinclination
to trouble a stranger ; then again Ines found
reassurement in the man's eyes : he was the one
under the obligation, not she.

She took him in to her father, and introduced
him as their neighbour who was kindly giving
Mrs. Shore a room this wild night. She set them
talking, and brought coffee both to cement the
sudden acquaintance, and to warm Scott after
his wet journeyings.

A sudden remark of Sheldon's precipitated
them into a warm friendship. He was leaning
back in his arm-chair, the delicate china cup in
his hand, pictures, books, cushions, all the
gentle touches of life to which he had been
stranger now for years, once more around him.
That hideous chasm of years seemed suddenly
gone. He might have been back in Lady
Barnsley's lamp-shaded drawing-room, sipping
his after-dinner coffee.

His eyes, wandering along the pleasing green
wall that Mrs. Beattie had wanted to fill up
with the red sideboard, was arrested by a picture.

" Why," he said, " that's the bridge at Little
Mitcham ! "

102 FAIR INES

Erwin's canvases never soared to great
subjects. He had practically never outgrown
the desire to paint moss-covered mill-wheels,
and rustic bridges, and ruined churches, that
assails most art students in their very early
days. But the years had taught him to handle
them more dexterously. This was the old
bridge at Little Mitcham, it was true, but the
old air hung about it, soft and strange, and the
old skies of boyhood looked down on it, and the
water that lapped the sloping green sides was
the same smiling water in which Scott's eyes had
so often been reflected. In the near distance
among the trees a grey tower was suggested
with a skilful flick or two of purple paint.
Scott had not the slightest trouble in recog-
nising it for the tower of his old Grammar
School.

Erwin was delighted. The picture had
always so pleased himself that he could not bear
to part with it. He was so often dissatisfied
with his work ; he was able to realise that he
had only been given the artist's eye to see

" The beauty and the wonder and the power.
The shapes of things, their colours, lights and shades,
Changes, surprises,"

not the hand that might worthily make these
live for other eyes to see.

But he had almost satisfied himself with this
little picture. He had snatched it out of the
heart of a warm autumn landscape, and here,

He laid his finger on one end of the bridge.

Page 103

OUT OF THE STORM 103

twelve thousand miles away, a wild storm out-
side, it glowed out on his walls so warm and
vivid it first caught the eye of the visitor, and
then forced his instant recognition.

" You really know it ? " cried Ines.

He had set his coffee-cup down and gone to
look closer.

" I jumped off at that spot " — he laid his finger
on one end of the bridge — " when I was ten to
save a boy."

Ines had not time to commend the courage of
the act before he added to the statement —

" It was not that his life was in danger —
merely his best hat. Probably it was to save
myself too — he was my brother and so much
younger I should have been held responsible had
it gone down."

*' But why should you have jumped ? " said
Ines ; " it looks deep — why didn't you run over
the bridge and down the bank — and — and hook
it out with a stick in the approved fashion ? "

Scott was looking at the little picture with
smouldering eyes.

" Because there was always a good deal of the
young ass about me, I suppose," he said slowly ;
" I saw it was turning over and would soon fill
and sink, so I took the short cut. And it's not
quite as deep as you've made it look, Mr. Erwin.
I touched the bottom and nearly smashed my
foot — remember I was laid up all the holidays
for it."

104 FAIR INES

" Oh," said Ines, *' was it really as shallow as
that, are you sure — sure ? If you say so I shall
break my heart afresh."

" I'm afraid it couldn't have been much over
four feet, or I shouldn't have hurt myself so
badly," said Scott.

" And that was in — oh, about what year
would that have been ? "

Scott deducted fifteen years from his present
age.

*' Must have been about ninety-two," he
said.

" And we were there — when, father ? "

The date was on the picture, the artist re-
minded them — they turned it eagerly over —
August ninety-one.

" And four feet deep ! " Ines cried again.
" Listen, father, you shall now hear one of the
hidden tragedies of my life. The time you
painted that — do you remember? — I was with you
— a scrap of a girl who was quite happy to play
for hours near you while you painted. I had a
little china doll — had just bought her in a shop
in the High Street of Mitcham, and something
about her blue eyes or black-painted head
appealed to me passionately. I had never
loved a doll so dearly on so short an acquaint-
ance. Well, I was holding her up to look over the
side of the bridge at the mighty river rolling
beneath — and she fell in."
Erwin was listening, amused.

OUT OF THE STORM 105

" I don't remember that," he said ; " I do
remember being undecided whether to put you
in the picture leaning over in your white frock,
but thinking better of it as you seemed so
restless."

" Restless ! Of course I was," said Ines, " 1
remember my tragic situation as keenly as
possible. On the one hand my doll, gone, sunk
out of sight beneath the cruel waters. On the
other — you. All my little griefs I knew were so
real to you that if I told you you would plunge
in and perhaps be drowned in trying to save her
for me."

" It would have depended on my coat," said
Erwin. " Possibly if it had been very old and
the day very warm — well, there is no knowing
what foolishness I might have been guilty of."

*' Picture me," said Ines, " torn to pieces like
that ! No one knows what a frenzy of agony a
child can endure. My heart positively bleeds
for myself at this distance. And you dare to tell
me it was hardly four feet deep, Mr. Sheldon."

'* You could have waded in and got it with a
stick," smiled Scott.

Erwin acted now like a spoiled child. Nothing
would induce him to go to bed. Ines must get
out the sketch-books and look through and see
if there were any other bits of Mitcham or the
neighbourhood.

And so an hour or two flew past. Scott's
boyish pleasure in the ray of sunlight that had

106 FAIR INES

fallen athwart his life, soon died down. He
grew nervous — anxious to get away. Yet he
must await Erwin's pleasure. He could not
seize the great chair and push it off to the bed-
room, and force the man to bed. But he grew
quieter, quieter ; presently he found he was not
even allowing himself to meet Ines' bright gaze.

But at last Erwin consented to be helped to
bed.

" A very decent fellow," was the ultimatum
when Sheldon was gone ; " positively helped me
just as well as Mrs. Shore does. He's coming in
the morning, too, if she isn't better. We shall
find him a pleasant neighbour, I can see. Very
decent of him to come to the rescue like this.
Plainly a man of a good deal of discernment and
education."

Ines said little. Scott had not seemed in the
least eager to come again, had plainly been
anxious to get away last night. All that he
seemed bent on doing was helping them over the
difficulty Mrs. Shore had made.

He had certainly not grasped at the invitation
Mr. Erwin had extended — to come in and spend
another evening soon, looking at the sketches.
When it was proffered he had looked instantly
away from them both, and had muttered some-
thing about working very hard at nights, and
about not being his .own master.

Ines felt oddly piqued.

CHAPTER rx

A GALLANT CAVALIER

" Oh turn again, fair Ines I
Before the fall of night.
For fear the moon should shine alone

And stars unrivalled bright.
And blessed will the lover be

That walks beneath their light.
And breathe the love against thy cheek
1 dare not even write ! "

Hood.

Wyama began to take a deep interest in the
frequency with which Mr. Douglas Wharton's
horse was seen to ascend the hill near the top
of which clung the cottages of David and
Jonathan.

Wyama saw no reason to suppose that Mr.
Douglas rode up so frequently to see young
Sheldon, the reserved, quiet fellow who had
taken Jonathan's and was planting it in oddest
fashion with small squares of wheat.

And it did not tell itself that the eldest son of
Wendover House spent so many of his after-
noons that had hitherto been strictly devoted to
the superintendence of the estate, just to while
away the hours for a paralysed artist.

Wyama was healthily human. On the hill
107

108 FAIR INES

dwelt a beautiful maiden ; it regarded it as
inevitable, therefore, that the feet of many
knights' horses should go pricking up the rise.
Sholto Wharton rode up almost every day.

Ines had not been two months at David's
before Sholto was her thankful slave, pressing
eagerly to see her at every possible chance.
But Wyama did not busy itself with his visits ;
no one had time to notice which way the horse
of a boy of sixteen was turning.

But with Mr. Douglas it was a different
matter. Mr. Douglas was older even than the
elder Miss Wharton, and her age was perilously
close to forty. He, like Sholto, was good-
looking ; it had often been commented on that
the men of the Wharton family had absorbed
all the good looks, and the girls had been woe-
fully forgotten.

Douglas, in these days, was a stone heavier
than his critical conscience permitted him any
pleasure in being. Now and again when he
brushed his hair, he looked at it doubtfully on
top, where it was certainly no thicker than it
had been ten years ago. Sometimes when his
intimate friends married, or had sons born to
them, he sighed, for both of these things had
been in his own scheme for himself, and yet they
had never come off.

Possibly his education had been too well
attended to. The only son of the house for
many years. Lieutenant Wharton had been loath
to send him away to school, and had engaged

A GALLANT CAVALIER 109

instead for his education the services of a bril-
liant young Cambridge man who had been
obliged to break off a most promising career at
the University, and come to Australia for his
health.

Douglas was young, ardent, purposeful, and
swiftly was kindled by the flame that burned in
his tutor, one Kemp. The man had a passion
for everything being of the best. It might be
quite simple of its kind, but there must be no
doubt about it being brought to the highest
degree of perfection. If they were undertaking
to grow pansies from seed, tutor and pupil, first
of all the seed must be of the best strain pro-
curable, and next they must spend themselves
unsparingly in the matter of soil, situation,
attention. If they were carpentering in the old
tool shed, merely making a boat together to
sail on the Wyama creek, there must be nothing
slipshod in the wood. A simple design might
be chosen, but there must be no slovenly touch
about it, not one unfaithful part. The same
with all lessons, all games.

The little girls and their governesses laughed
and shook their heads. Life was too short for
such care, they declared ; too crowded with
thousands of things each of which demanded a
little attention. It would be absurd to work
like that over everything one did.

" No," said young Kemp, " either let them
alone or swot your hardest."

He died suddenly ; worked clean out before

110 FAIR INES

he was four-and-twenty. It was as if a flame
he had himself sedulously fanned and fed had
consumed him.

Douglas was at an impressionable age when
the young man died, and the death accentuated
the memory of the teachings. He went to
school and managed to shake off a little of the
influence, but he was never able to eradicate
the now strongly formed habit of " swotting."
Also he developed a keenly critical faculty as he
grew older ; nothing quite satisfied him, he saw
flaws everywhere. " Douglas' divine discon-
tent," laughed his sisters.

At forty he was still unmarried, though most
unwillingly so. His sisters, and even his mother
foretold for him a crooked stick so long had been
his searching in the wood. But he shook his
head and kept up the seeking.

She must be young, of that he was quietly
assured. When he was eighteen, forty had
struck him as in nowise too old for a lady, his
youthful fancy being at the time chained by a
charmer of that age. But now he was forty,
eighteen struck him as the ideal age.

She must be beautiful ; of that he was abso-
lutely assured, and the beauty must go deeper
than the skin. It was this second qualification
that led him to make no further advances to
several girls whose faces he had temporarily
admired. She must be of gentle birth, of
gentle breeding, and gloriously healthy. His

A GALLANT CAVALIER 111

own open-air life among the sunlit spaces of
Wendover made the thought of ill-health or
delicacy abhorrent to him. She must be accom-
plished and well-educated, else how might she
befit her post of future lady of Wendover ?

The Wyama girls had long since accepted him
as a hopeless bachelor ; hardly one of them
troubled to as much as stick a rose in the front
of her dress when he was to be expected. " Such
ridiculous ideals ! " they said, tossing their
heads ; Cade had been indiscreet enough to
whisper once to a close friend a few of the
qualities her eldest brother thought necessary in
his bride.

Cade herself fell so short of the qualities that
she took a vicious pleasure in taunting her
brother for his romantic notions.

He had just rejected a fresh candidate for
his vacant post. That is to say, a discerning
mother had angled for an invitation to Wendover
and had brought there for a couple of weeks a
daughter who unaccountably " hung fire." The
girl was good-looking, bright in manner, and
eager now to please where once she had only
sought to be pleased.

But Douglas did nothing more than ride out
with her in an afternoon and make one at a
bridge table with her at night. He never asked
her to walk across and look at the creek in the
moonlight, or to saunter up and down the
passion-vine walk.

112 FAIR INES

" What in the world was the matter this
time ? " said Cade, when mother and daughter
had packed up and departed unwept, unsung.

" God lor', you're not serious, are you ? " said
Douglas; " she'll never see thirty again."

It was not callous indifference to a sister's
feelings — a sister who also would never see
thirty again — that permitted him to make this
speech. For he had explained to both sisters
once and for all, that any disparaging remarks
he made about age referred only to the special
standard he had set for himself in matrimonial
matters. Over thirty was nothing to most men,
the bloom of womanhood, an assurance that the
insipidity of girlhood was exchanged for the
riper mind and good-fellowship of companionable
womanhood.

It was merely that temperamentally he felt
unable to be attracted by any one over the first
rosy exuberance of girlhood.

But Cade was very scathing ; for, womanlike,
whatever he might say to the contrary, she
applied the disparagement to herself.

" I think — I think the way men look at these
things is just wicked," she said passionately;
" you — why should you be so fastidious ? You
are over forty yourself — you are getting a bald
patch, you are beginning to put on flesh ; you
are getting settled in your ways, didactic. Let
me tell you this, no fresh and beautiful young
girl such as you expect will ever care for you.
She may accept you because you have money.

A GALLANT CAVALIER 113

But don't flatter yourself it will be because she
loves you as she could love a man of five-and-
twenty."

" Keep your hair on, keep your hair on, my
dear child," said Douglas, helping himself,
perfectly unmoved, to another cigar out of the
big box a servant had just brought out for him
to the verandah.

" You have let opportunities slip away,"
continued Cade, " and now instead of being
more fastidious than ever you ought to expect
to have to take some one a little faded and
pa55^."

" Heaven forbid ! " said Douglas.

*' You ought ; you are passe yourself," cried
Cade, now thoroughly worked up to her subject.
" Do you ever look at yourself in the glass ?
What do you see there that is going to attract
any beautiful girl ? "

" I see a remarkably well preserved man,"
said Douglas, and puffed his lazy, tantalising
cigar smoke over the verandah rail. " And let
me tell you this, young woman, if you were half
as well preserved you wouldn't be here at this
moment trying to scratch my eyes out. No,
you'd have a home of your own and something
better to do."

It was a bitter brotherly speech, but the
allusion to his bald patch rankled and demanded
revenge.

" See me," he continued; " here I am, happy
as a king though unmarried. If the right

114 FAIR INES

maiden comes along, very well and good. If she
doesn't, also well and good. I can rub along.
See you, disappointed, getting bad-tempered,
don't care a dump about anything. You know
you ought to be ashamed to wear the hideous
frocks you do."

" I c-could have m-married if I'd 1-liked,"
said Cade, dissolving into tears at the spectacle
of herself thus held up to view.

" Of course you could, of course you could,"
said Douglas soothingly — by now more than a
little ashamed of himself, " why, the drawing-
room used to be littered up with 'em at one
time. But don't you see, my girl, since you
didn't like, you've no right to be turning sour
now. Why don't you enjoy life and make the
most of your opportunities ? You've got
enough of them. The mater only tyrannises
over you because you've got so little spirit, she
finds it's the easiest course. Assert yourself,
enjoy yourself, and for the rest, let me alone."

It was not much more than a month after this
wordy encounter, that there fluttered right
down amongst them a maiden actually possessed
of all the qualifications demanded by Douglas.

He seemed positively dazed at the happening
after so many years ; again and again he turned
his horse's head to the hill, and pressed up to
assure himself yet again that his ideal was indeed
flesh and blood.

Cade looked on somewhat sardonically. She
remembered quite well what she had told him

A GALLANT CAVALIER 115

respecting the impossibility of a man of his age
making a young girl care for him. More than
that, she knew that he remembered.

But she said nothing when she saw him hang
up his punching ball on a verandah and exercise
at it for twenty minutes a day ; nothing when
she found a bottle of much-advertised hair
restorer on his washstand. She merely smiled
at him.

He made an open ally of Elizabeth. He had
persuaded Ines to let him teach her to ride.
Or rather he had persuaded her father that she
was looking a little pale, and that nothing but
horse-exercise would counteract the effect of the
sick-nursing she was doing.

Erwin consented with much readiness. In
truth it irked him inexpressibly that the hey-
day of his girl's youth should be sacrificed at his
invalid-chair.

He drove her from him to garden from time to
time, or to go for a jolting drive in Mrs. Beattie's
hard-working sulky. More than that he had
been unable to manage ; she flatly refused to
play golf, to join the tennis club, to go to picnics.

But when Douglas appeared one day, riding
on his usual grey horse, and leading beside him
a brown, soft-eyed creature with a skin like
satin and a mane like wavy silk, who could have
refused to be lifted up into the saddle ? Eliza-
beth had actually sent a riding- skirt in addition
to lending her saddle. In common gratitude to
Elizabeth they must not be sent back unused.

I 2

116 FAIR INES

And so began the riding-lessons. They
occupied an hour of every day. At first Ines
would only go about the adjacent paddocks,
from where she might be summoned at any
moment by Hyacinth waving from the verandah.
But gradually as the sense of security deepened
and the invalid professed himself more and more
independent of her, they went farther afield.

And from among his wheat-patches Scott
watched them with tragic eyes. A few times
during the absences he had laid down his tools
and gone to talk with Erwin on his verandah ;
a thing he never did when Ines was at home,
which was a fact the girl noticed rather curiously.

For some time Erwin had been both puzzled
and hurt at the aloofness of his neighbour.
Invalided as he was, he had come to feel he had
an invalid's privilege to be entertained, and had
called out cheery invitations to Scott from his
verandah, after the first few days' introduction,
or had sent Hyacinth to the wall with a message
asking him to come and smoke.

Scott made excuses ; he was going out, he had
arrears of work, his animals must be attended to.
Erwin accepted the statements cheerfully once or
twice, but the third time he plainly felt rebuffed.

" I shan't ask him again, Ines," he said, " he
certainly wants to show me that he can't waste
his valuable time with a crippled neighbour."

" You ain't goin' to be arstked in no more,'*
said Hyacinth, gone to return two of Scott's
chickens which had escaped bounds.

A GALLANT CAVALIER 117

*'No?" smiled Scott, "how's that, Hya-
cinth ? »

" Sez he won't have charity visits. Sez you
don't want to waste time with cripples. But
he's not like ornerary cripples a bit, I think.
You should 'a' seen me aunt, all drawed up in a
'cap, and y'ad to feed her like a baby. Why
don't you come, Mr. Shelding ? "

This was a serious matter, and Scott went
over the following day, carefully watching for
an hour when Ines was away.

Erwin was a little stiff. He was whiter, and
thinner too, than when Scott had been there
last ; there was plainly no improvement in his
condition, and his restlessness in confinement
seemed to demand an explanation why this
neighbour withheld the neighbourliness that
might have given some alleviation of the hard lot.

Scott smoked in silence for a little time, then
with a sudden whitening of the face, took his
pipe out of his mouth.

" I want to explain to you why I don't
accept your kind invitations, Mr. Erwin," he
said. " I should like to come very much, but
it is not fair to you ; I am a disgraced man."

Erwin had all the catholicity of the cosmo-
politan, and the face in front of him was both a
strong and a good one.

"Whatever it was, it is past," he said; " it
is the present that matters."

" What do you know of my present ? " said
Scott.

118 FAIR INES

" Just as much as you know of mine," said
Erwin tranquilly.

Scott turned this over in his mind, his pipe in
his hand.

" You mean you are willing to accept me as
I stand, even though I tell you I am an outcast
from all decent society ? " he said at last.

" Exactly," said Erwin ; " whatever happened
it was a mistake, your mistake, some one else's
mistake. You aren't making any more. Fill
up your pipe and chuck me the matches."

Scott swallowed hard.

" But what about your daughter ? " he said,
and his heart thumped against his side.

Erwin moved restlessly. The limitations of
womanhood were always annoying him.

" Yes, yes," he said, " of course that's a
different thing. One has to keep one's women-
folk in cotton wool, of course. Not that I think,
mind you, that my little girl could get any harm
from you, whatever you were. Still, it's cus-
tomary, of course."

" Of course," assented Scott.

" Perhaps when she's out " Erwin began.

" That will be best," said Scott.

" But the evenings are the worst — I get so
abominably lonely in an evening, Sheldon."

" Perhaps you could tell her she need not
speak to me," suggested Scott, his heart fit to
burst at the exquisite torment he was proposing
for himself.

A GALLANT CAVALIER 119

" I might send her to bed," Erwin said a little
eagerly, " it would be a genuine charity, Sheldon,
if you'd sometimes spare an evening to a fellow
with one leg, in very truth, in the grave."

" Oh come, it's not as bad as that," said
Scott, and saw the plain vision of that delicate
room with its flowers and pictures and easeful
chairs, and Ines rising and going away with
averted face, sent to bed because he was not fit
to sit in the same atmosphere with her.

Still, he would see her. He would be nearer
to her even than when she was working in her
garden and he in his, which had hitherto seemed
the summit of joy to him. He would hear her
voice about the thin-walled place, speaking to
Hyacinth, to the dog, the kittens. He would
sit in the chairs she had sat in, see her work-
basket again with the frills of blue muslin in the
making, and the little silver thimble, and the
strawberry pincushion, into which for some
occult reason she sometimes ran her needle.

" You'll come ? " Erwin said wistfully, " and
not mind if I send her away ? You'll under-
stand ? She's no mother, you know ; I have to
be both parents."

" I'll come," said Scott, " and I'll understand
— entirely."

" Don't let me be selfish, though," said Erwin,
" an invalid grows to be an exacting beast.
Don't come when you've anything better to do."

" I shan't easily get that," said Scott, " I'm

120 FAIR INES

the loneliest devil in the world. It will mean
more than you can guess to come in here in an
evening."

So much Ines heard — just his last speech, as
she came through the room, flushed from her
ride, and out to the back verandah. There was
a heart-stir in the man's voice, too, and her girl
heart answered it. Lonely ! Of course he must
be — and coming in now often in an evening.
How glad she was the room was so pretty ; she
would fill it with flowers — ^make it prettier
still ! She would make coffee — he had drunk
three cups that first night, and said he had
tasted none like it for many years. They would
talk over voyages, and England, and their
childish memories of France and Flanders and
of Lille, where they had both spent a miserable
winter, and of Verona, which they both remem-
bered as permeated with sunshine.

He was coming often now in an evening. She
did not even confess to herself that she had been
oddly hurt because he had so studiously re-
frained from coming before. He was coming
often in an evening because he too was lonely.

And then she was informed that when he did
come she would be expected to retire to bed,
there being no other sitting-room in the cottage !

It was this embargo more than anything else
in the beginning, that entirely destroyed any
chance of the success of the siege Douglas was
laying to her heart.

CHAPTER X

PRINCIPALLY PAROCHIAL

The yellow sulky was slowly climbing the
Three Hill Rise, which steep bit of elevation
had to be surmounted ere one could get away
from the sleepy leisure of Wyama, and plunge
into the more bustling life of Murwumba.

Currant took his own way and plodded up in
his peculiarly dreary and dogged fashion, Mrs.
Beattie sitting with the reins loose in her
lap, but mechanically murmuring " Get up "
from time to time as a matter of duty.

The lady felt as much at peace with the
world as, constitutionally, she was able. A few
things rankled — her servant after breakfast had
scraped a hole in the enamel of the new milk
boiler ; one of the stops of the organ had sud-
denly refused to act; and Bobbie, her second
son, had climbed a tree in his new school suit
and left three square inches of the tweed of it
on a fork of a high bough. But in the main
the world was going smoothly.

The stipend fund was practically made up
this quarter without any humiliating necessity

122 FAIR INES

of themselves being obliged to help get up a
concert or a bazaar to make the figures stretch
to the rightful number.

Mrs. Wharton had given — and without undue
pressure — fifty pounds to the building fund for
the new schoolroom, and several lesser amounts
had been promised with positive cheerfulness.

True, a sale of work would be necessary to
complete the amount that was required before
the trustees would consent to begin operations,
but when a sale of work was not for her hus-
band's stipend arrears, Mrs. Beattie quite
enjoyed it. It involved hard work, it was true,
but it brought the parishioners into friendlier
touch with each other than anything else. At
the last one, for instance. Miss Dwyer, the
baker's niece, who gave music lessons and had
never before subscribed a penny to any church
object, sent in to the Children's Clothes Stall
a beautifully smocked frock. Every one knew
that the fine stitching had been meant for a
little niece, but Miss Dwyer and the little
niece's mother having quarrelled violently a
week before the bazaar, the Children's Clothes
Stall unexpectedly reaped the benefit. The
little garment — it was positively a triumph of
intricate smocking — was snapped up by the
doctor's wife for her small girl ; but when the
same small girl was seen in it at church the
following week, the second party to the quarrel,
the mother of the denuded little niece, was so

PRINCIPALLY PAROCHIAL 123

overcome at the sight that she owned herself
humbly in the wrong to Miss Dwyer before the
church gate was reached. The result, not an
immediate one — for smocking, interlarded with
crotchets and quavers and minor scales, takes
time — was that a twin frock appeared in church
on Sabbath mornings and all was peace : or as
near peace as might be obtained in any parish :
you could not stay to worry over the circum-
stance that the doctor's wife did not like the
duplication of a garment which she had been
pleased to consider exclusive, and sat down a
little sulkily to make her child another frock
for church.

Then there was Miss Elizabeth's cushion.
Miss Elizabeth, urged possibly by the presence
of so much art on the hill, conceived the idea of
" going in for stencilling."

After she had stencilled a border of atten-
uated waratahs round the morning-room table-
cloth, and a " new art " design in each corner of
her own bedspread, and tulips up and down her
own window curtains, and irises at irregular
intervals along the walls of a back passage,
she came rather to a standstill.

Mrs. Wharton had much too profound a con-
tempt for anything Elizabeth could do in the
art line to allow her to touch with profaning
fingers anything for the important rooms of the
house. If this stencilling — silly, monotonous
work she considered it, Herself — were really the

124 FAIR INES

latest thing in decoration, and if the upholsterer
who did much work from time to time in the
Wendover drawing-room considered it suitable —
well, they would have an art decorator up for a
day or two and have the thing done properly.
But this messing, amateur work of Elizabeth's
was not to be taken seriously.

Sholto, big, warm-hearted lad, touched at the
sight of Elizabeth's nose, which, at the snub,
assumed its wonted pink aspect, promptly
invited her to come and operate on the frieze
in his bedroom. It was the only undecorated
frieze in the house, and had been left in a state
of plain cream plaster at the boy's own request ;
for, he said, to wake and look up and find ships
sailing, or maidens dancing, or trees sprouting
right up against his ceiling would be enough to
unhinge his mind in the early hours. Later
in the day, he said, the mind had more fortitude,
and could bear up against such shocks in other
rooms.

But the poor little pink nose unmanned him,
and he gave Elizabeth's arm a warm squeeze.

" If it will promise faithfully not to break its
little neck on the step-ladder, and if it will put
hay or onions, or whatever the proper thing is,
to take the smell of paint away, it shall come and
have a go at my wall, so it shall," he said.

" But you won't like it, will you ? " Elizabeth
said doubtfully.

" Like it no end," he returned stoutly. " I'm

PRINCIPALLY PAROCHIAL 125

much impressed by what you say. Any one can
have a podgy paperhanger's patterns on his
walls, but it isn't every one who can bestow a
touch of irresistible individuality on a room."
Sholto was delighting in an alliterative vein of
late.

So Elizabeth, her heart warmed by the per-
mission, set out to bestow the touch.

For a week all was well. She was merely
thinking out her design. She felt, as possibly
Raphael felt when, after being confined to
relatively small work for long, the Pope handed
over to him the fresco decoration of the Camera
della Segnatura. All space seemed hers, and
she went about with eager eyes searching for
patterns, till it seemed she saw men as stencils
walking.

Finally she settled on her design. Brown
tree boughs conventionalised to dip and meet at
certain points ; at each point two doves sitting
peaceably. " I'm trying to get the effect of
perfect peace and rest, so suitable for a bed-
room," she had said, the fire of art burning in
her light-blue eyes. Down each corner of the
room a tree trunk was to be stencilled, as if
springing luxuriantly from the floor or skirting-
board, and reaching up to the frieze, where it
would send its carefully-measured branches all
along the top of the wall for innumerable care-
fully measured birds to sit upon.

Even the cutting of the stencil, though

126 FAIR INES

rather a large piece of work, was surmounted.
And then came the appHcation. " It is such
rapid work, once the pattern is cut," Ehzabeth
said, " that I hope to be finished by to-night,
Sholto. But if I should want an extra day, you
won't mind sleeping in one of the spare rooms for
just one night, will you ? "

But three weeks, four weeks, five weeks
passed and there were only two tree trunks
done and two sides of the frieze. A start was
indeed made on the third side, and the bough
design was completed, but the ties of the birds
had broken, and Elizabeth was too tired and
discouraged to make a fresh bird stencil ; so
the remaining points gaped empty.

Indeed, the whole effect was extremely dis-
piriting ; and when the ardent decorator climbed
down finally from the steps which she had
mounted on top of a heavy table, her poor nose
went pink with mortification.

She had plainly held the stencil crookedly,
for some of the turtle-doves sat two or three
inches higher than their fellows. And were
they turtle-doves at all ? Sholto could not be
persuaded that they were not intended for
fowls roosting, and gravely pointed out the
fact that she had given them two legs apiece,
whereas every one knew that roosting fowls only
possessed one. Details of the great scheme
were splashes of brown paint here and there on
the lower wall, brown paint on the linoleum.

PRINCIPALLY PAROCHIAL 127

brown paint on the bed curtains and the chairs
and the wardrobe mirror.

For a fortnight the heavy table and the steps
and the Httle pots of paint and the sheets of cut
tin congested the room.

" If you don't finish, I'll get it done at your
expense," Sholto threatened.

" Of course I am going to finish. Any one is
liable to a few mistakes," Elizabeth said.

Another fortnight passed.

" If you don't finish, I'll finish it myself,"
said Sholto. " I'm sick of sleeping in spare
rooms ; I'm beginning to feel like a stranger
within the gates."

" I told you I am trying to cut new stencils ;
don't be so impatient," said Elizabeth irritably.

At last she had them cut, though indeed she
had quite lost interest in the work ; and but
for exposing herself to the family's laughter she
would have called in a professional long before
this.

When she at last put on a big protective apron
and set out for the room, she found it locked.

" Mr. Sholto's had it locked for more'n a
week," volunteered a maid. " Wouldn't even
let me in to give it its cleaning on Wednesday."

Elizabeth waited for the boy's return and asked
for the key. He beat up all the family and bade
them come and look.

" Just a few little notions of my own," he said
deprecatingly, and, unlocking, displayed them.

128 ^ FAIR INES

In the spaces where the birds should have been
he had painted opossums hanging by their tails
to the boughs. Up the tree trunks he had native
bears climbing, each with a young one on its
back. Six or seven kangaroos loped in fine style
across the fourth wall, while the remaining
places were filled in with here a kookaburra,
there a platypus, here two emus, there a native
cat.

He had pressed Mr. Erwin into the joke, and
that gentleman had outlined the creatures with
his left hand while Sholto sat beside him turning
them into stencils, with the result that met
Elizabeth's stricken gaze. Even Mrs. Wharton
had to smile.

" But to-morrow," she said, " we'll send for
Jackson and have the place freshly kalsomined
— if they can kalsomine over that dark paint.
If not, he must paper it all over."

" Who steals my purse, steals trash," said
Sholto ; " but he who filches my frieze from me
I'll shoot on the spot."

And he was so obdurate in the matter that
Jackson was called in only to cover up the
splashes on the lower wall ; and Elizabeth's
frieze remained and became quite famous.

But it sent her back to less soaring work — the
cushion, in fact, that Mrs. Beattie, jogging up
the hill behind Currant, considered had helped
to promote the peace of the parish.

It was of beautiful design ; and Elizabeth

PRINCIPALLY PAROCHIAL 129

grew so enamoured of it as she worked on it
that it was a real wrench to hand it over, as
promised, to the fancy-work stall. She hung
near it half the day of the sale, watching to
see who the purchaser might be. A Mrs. Patter-
son it was, a bitter-tongued woman, who had
estranged nearly every one from her and lived
a lonely life in a cottage just out of the town.

The Whartons had hardly spoken to her for
years. But when Elizabeth saw her buy the
cushion, buy it quite eagerly, and speak with
praise about its " novelty," all old scores were
forgotten, and Elizabeth actually went and
invited her to have tea with her in the marquee
outside, and paid the double charge with real
pleasure.

The matter did not even end there ; Elizabeth
drove out to the lonely cottage on several
occasions later on, and Mrs. Patterson, not
realising that any one could be calling to renew
acquaintance with a cushion, became positively
gracious.

At the very top of the rise Currant stood still,
as was his wont after a climb, until he had
rested somewhat.

Sheldon, walking five miles to his weekly
wheat lesson in the next township, overtook the
sulky, and would have passed with a formal
" Good afternoon."

But Mrs. Beattie was instantly alert. She
had a word or two for this young man. She

180 FAIR INES

did not at all approve of this young man. He
did not come to church ; he was to be seen
working in his wheat-patches at any time on a
Sunday ; when her husband had called on him,
he had given no account whatever of himself,
though that, Mrs. Beattie had determined, was
possibly Mr. Beattie's fault, who never asked
the right questions.

But when she herself had gone to see him one
afternoon when she had been with Ines, and
when she herself had plied him with question
after question — and who else was privileged
to question the strange young men in the parish
if not herself ? — Scott had been absolutely
monosyllabic.

" I hope you like this place," she said ;
" strangers generally do."

" Oh yes," said Scott.

" Is it as pretty as the place you come from ? "

" Yes."

" And where was that ? I am always interested
in knowing where people come from, aren't
you ? "

" No," said Scott, " not in the least."

She tried again after a minute or two. " Are
you related to the Sheldons of Mundanoon ? "

" No."

" Perhaps the Bathurst Sheldons ? "

" No."

" It is not a very common name."

" Isn't it ? " said Scott.

i

PRINCIPALLY PAROCHIAL 131

" I once knew a clergyman named Sheldon —
the Rev. James Sheldon — possibly an uncle ? "

" Not an uncle."

" Your father was not a clergyman ? "

" No."

" A farmer ? "

" No."

She discontentedly realised that she could not
go through the whole list, from tinker, tailor.

" You are not a Presbyterian, I think ? "

" No."

" Surely not a Roman Catholic ? "

" No."

" But my husband said you did not belong to
our church."

" No."

" Ah, Wesleyan, then. Well, I have known
some very good Wesleyans, too. You will find
Mr. Barker an excellent minister — a trifle prolix,
possibly, and, if I may say it, lax in some matters,
but in earnest, very much in earnest."

" Yes ? "

In the end she went back much ruffled to
Ines.

" Positively the only thing he volunteered of
his own free-will," she said, " was that he was a
Wesleyan. I might have saved my time. Well,
I wish Mr. Barker joy with him."

" A Wesleyan ? Why, he said he used to go
as a boy to St. Michael's, in Little Mitcham, and
that is a Church of England," said Ines thought-

132 FAIR INES

lessly. " Father had a painting of it, and he
remembered it quite well."

" He is English, then, is he ? " said Mrs.
Beattie thirstily.

" He spoke of coming from England," Ines
answered more guardedly.

" I dare say his father was some petty trades-
man, though he looks like a gentleman himself,"
said Mrs, Beattie. " When a man refuses to
tell what his father was, you may be sure it
was some trade he is ashamed of."

" You didn't ask him point blank what his
father was ? " said Ines.

" Of course I did," said Mrs. Beattie indig-
nantly. " Why not, pray ? We must know
something of the people who settle down among
us. Perhaps not every one could ask, but I, the
wife of his minister, have surely some privileges."

" But I thought you found out that Mr.
Barker was his minister," said Ines mischiev-
ously.

No one ever found Mrs. Beattie quite in the
wrong.

" When I put the question about his father
he was not to know that I was not the wife of
his minister," she said.

Nothing could have persuaded the lady that
she had overstepped the bounds of good taste.
There were countless questions that she really
would like to have put, but had refrained.
Questions like — How was it that, while his

PRINCIPALLY PAROCHIAL 133

clothes were so well cut and his portmanteaus of
so obviously expensive a make, he had no
furniture ? Why was he living alone ? How
much was he making out of this abandoned
farm of Jonathan's, and so on ?

She washed her hands of him, however, after
this ; delivered him over, body and soul, to Mr.
Barker, and was nonplussed when Mr. Barker,
on being taxed, repudiated the new member of
his flock. This gentleman had gone up dutifully
to Jonathan's at Mrs. Beattie's instigation,
though he was portly and hated hills. But
Scott had calmly denied that he was of that
minister's faith, and he had been obliged to trot
down again without as much as the encourage-
ment of a cup of tea.

Scott's eyes had smouldered as he let Mrs.
Beattie out of his gate ; a more obnoxious
woman he felt he had never met.

And yet those quick, curious eyes of hers,
glancing about his room, had really been full of
kindness ; she quite yearned to " red things up "
for him, to sew a button on his coat, to mother
him a little. Had he not so rebuffed her, she
would have continually been sending him jars
of her own preserved peaches, pots of her best
marmalade and pickles, bottles of her home-
made hop beer. But she must have him classi-
fied first, like the rest of her parishioners, and
know just in which of her mental pigeon-holes
to keep him.

184 FAIR INES

She washed her hands of him for weeks and
weeks, only giving him a jerk of her head as she
walked up Ines' garden. She was not to know
that he felt more kindly to her now ; that he
had taken himself to task for being possibly
discourteous to her. For Erwin had spoken of
her with warmth.

" A porcupine, perhaps, sir, but full of the
milk of human kindness. As possibly porcu-
pines always are, only we never trouble to get
past the bristles. Her kindnesses to my little
girl have been as the sands of the sea."

Scott no longer disliked his inquisitor ; and
now, as he passed her motionless vehicle, he
took off his hat with a smile that was positively
genial.

She looked at him more and more suspici-
ously ; why, he was actually good-looking
when he smiled like that ; there was something
which was quite captivating and boyish about
him as he smiled up at her and strode on with
easy, swinging steps through the bright sunshine,
as if he loved every breath of it.

Mr. Douglas walked somewhat heavily.
Mr. Douglas' head did not show crisp young
hair like this when he uncovered it.

And Ines had blushed the other day, blushed
in the oddest, most unaccountable manner,
when the name of the neighbour had come up
in conversation.

This must be seen to without delay.

CHAPTER XI

IN THE YELLOW SULKY

He was at the foot of the first hill when she
overtook him. Indeed she had tried not to be
so long, but Currant would not budge one step
until he had had the spell he considered necessary
after the hill. Still, when that was over he put
his ears back and loped forward with big,
uneven strides, rattling the sulky and its occupant
vigorously after him. Mrs. Beattie had never
suffered from indigestion in her life ; Currant and
the yellow sulky saw to that.

" Let me give you a lift, Mr. Sheldon," she
said, pulling up when she caught her prey.

" You are very good," said Scott, " but I like
the walk. The air is like wine on a day like
this."

" It is the same air up here," she smiled.

" That's so," he said, and showed his teeth
pleasantly a moment, " but it is not the same
locomotion. A walk like this shakes one up."

Mrs. Beattie might have pointed out that
Currant was peculiarly fitted to perform the
same office, but she contented herself with

13s

136 FAIR INES

saying, " Oh, very well — if you compel a lady to
a solitary drive when she would like a com-
panion."

" That is a very different matter," Scott said,
and without more ado climbed in beside her
with as gallant an air as he could muster.
Deep in his heart he was not displeased ; this
was a friend of Ines, this woman beside him ; it
were impossible that she could go very far and
not mention the name. He would be able to
warm himself again at the sound of her name ;
the opportunities of so doing were so seldom
that he could not let one pass.

Mrs. Beattie made no mistake this time. She
asked him no questions at all ; merely rippled
out for him what seemed an endless stream of
parochial news — ^Mrs. Patterson's unfortunate
temper, Jack Anderson's dog that had been
caught in a rabbit trap, Miss Dwyer's good for-
tune in getting the Evanses' three girls as music
pupils, the Evanses' marvellous output of butter
per week, the forthcoming sale of work.

Scott waited patiently ; Wyama was a place
of limitations ; if the population was to be
passed in review like this they must run up
sooner or later against the longed-for name.

The Whartons were brought out in array.
Mrs. Wharton, who had with such generosity
just given fifty pounds to the fund; Sholto
Wharton, who was such a fine lad and so full of
humour. (Mr. Sheldon had heard, of course, of

IN THE YELLOW SULKY 137

the wonderful frieze he had painted round his
bedroom ? Every one was taken in to see it ; so
dehghtfully AustraHan. For her part she did
the same thing, encouraged by all means in her
power the love of Australian things ; it was a
sentiment one felt was due to one's country.)
Miss Cade and Miss Elizabeth, such nice lady-
like girls — not pretty, perhaps, but, then, beauty
was nothing ; it was worth that counted, and
the world was beginning to realise the fact. Or,
at all events, so it seemed to her. In her young
days there seemed to be much more talk of
beauty, and running after beauty than now.
People were growing more sensible.

" Or more resigned, perhaps," said Scott,
" they think beauty is dying out. For myself
I'm inclined to think so too. At all events, when
I was seventeen I used to think every second
girl I talked to was pretty. But I don't think
so now. Are there any pretty girls in Wyama ? "
He felt that he was approaching his subject with
Machiavellian discreetness.

Mrs. Beattie shot a disturbed glance at him.

" A few," she said shortly.

Then she returned to her psean of the Whar-
tons : the acres they owned, the horses, the
value of the horses, the prize cattle — statistics
were showered upon his devoted head.

" And the place is entailed, mind you ! At
least, I don't know whether I am quite right in
saying entailed — am I ? Does entail hold in

188 FAIR INES

Australia ? At all events it is the same thing,
Mr. Douglas inherits the whole estate ; oh, the
sisters and Sholto are well provided for too, but
all that vast place, all those wonderful horses go
to Mr. Douglas and no one else."

" Indeed," said Scott indifferently. But he
did not feel indifferent. His antagonism to
Douglas was of the fiercest order.

" Yes, a fortunate woman his wife will be.
One of the richest properties in the state,
Wendover is. It is a marvel to every one that
he has not married before. But," — mysteri-
ously— " he is going to mend his ways at
last."

" Indeed," said Scott, and he wondered if the
woman would think him mad if he leapt out of
the sulky. To calmly sit beside her while she
told him of Ines' engagement would be, he felt,
beyond his powers of endurance.

She whipped Currant up as if she knew what
he was meditating.

" The ways of Providence are inscrutable,"
she said ; " Mr. Erwin little dreamed when that
stroke of his overtook him at the hotel that it
was the most fortunate thing that could have
happened."

" I trust he realises the fact," said Scott
sardonically.

" Of course he does," said Mrs. Beattie,
" what father wouldn't be willing to undergo
a little bodily inconvenience for an opportunity

IN THE YELLOW SULKY 139

for his daughter to make a match so briUiant
a girl in a London season might envy her ? "

Scott closed his teeth hard one second.

" They are actually engaged, then ? " he said.
Better get the bad moment over instantly.

" Well, I won't say that," said Mrs. Beattie
unwillingly, "it is not given out yet, but I
believe it is practically settled. Her father
confided in me that it was an inexpressible
comfort to him to realise that she would be safe
when he had gone. He has very little to leave
her. And Mrs. Wharton has not raised the
least objection ; indeed Miss Cade told me she
has been prepared to take Miss Erwin to her
heart ever since she went up to the cottage and
discovered that she had a passion for gardening."

" And the lady herself ? " said Scott's dry
lips.

" Oh, of course, girls are a little difficult,"
said IVIrs. Beattie ; she could hardly say that
she ached to box Ines' ears for her silly shilly-
shallying in the matter. Douglas had proposed,
she knew, but when taxed, Ines had denied an
engagement.

Of course, it was all the silly nonsense of a
girl who liked to heighten her value by not
giving in too soon. At the same time there was
that blush to be explained, that sudden, un-
accountable wave of colour that had once
rushed over the girl's face at Scott's name.

There must be no nonsense like this when

140 FAIR INES

Providence had worked so hard to settle the
matter so beautifully for all concerned.

The young man beside her looked white, dull ;
as if the wine of the day had suddenly failed
him.

" I think I'd like to get out and walk now,"
he said in a low voice. The voice had a tremble
in it, an absolutely inconquerable tremble.

The quick, light eyes beside him bent them-
selves on him, and all his secret was bare to her.

A tear came into the eyes, the hard, curious
eyes of the woman. She was intensely sorry
for him ; her heart, indeed, actually bled for
him for the moment. She had boj^s herself, and
some day they, too, might suffer like this. But
still, he must not be allowed to interfere with
the direct workings of Providence.

" It will mean wonderful happiness for her,"
she said in a low voice ; " she would have had
to work for her living. She doesn't look the
sort of girl to have to work, does she ? You
must think of that."

" Yes," said Scott, " of course. But I think
I will get out and walk."

She gave him a sympathetic rub with her arm.
There was nothing she would not have done for
him. She determined that Ines' engagement
once settled, she would bend all her energies to
finding a nice girl for this poor lad with the
fixedly staring grey eyes.

" Let me get out,'* he said again.

IN THE YELLOW SULKY 141

Then she had a brilliant thought. Why
should he not marry Elizabeth or Cade ? Well,
possibly Elizabeth was a little old for him, but
Cade could not be so very many years his senior.
It would not be so unequal after all ; Cade had
no looks, and her youth was gone and her
temper a little uncertain, but then she had
money for ample compensation for such trifling
defects. And he was young and good-looking,
and plainly a gentleman — Cade would be
fortunate in such a husband.

She felt herself by this actually a coadjutor
of Providence, and said in an almost solemn
voice, " Mr. Sheldon, I want you to come to
afternoon tea with me to-morrow. Miss Cade
Wharton is coming. I want you to know her."

" Forgive me," said Scott, " I must walk the
rest of the way. Good-bye ! Thank you for
the lift."

He pulled the reins for himself, and Currant
turned his head as if to inquire who was taking
liberties with him.

But the young man had leapt out without
waiting for the horse to do more than slacken,
and Mrs. Beattie regretfully watched him stride
on in front of her at a great pace for a few
hundred yards and then swing off along a
branching road down which it were useless to
follow him.

CHAPTER XII

AN EVENING AT DAVID'S

" The face of her, the eyes of her.
The lips, the'^little chin, the stir
Of shadows round her mouth. "

Time's Revenges.

Ines' constant ministrations had clothed the
naked dividing wall between the two cottage
gardens with the loveliest garment of green,
splashed here and there with the blue of creeping
jenny, the grey blue of stone crop, mesembry-
anthemum's radiant upturned faces, and climb-
ing geranium's many colours.

The plants crept over to Scott's desolate side ;
laid tentative little fingers on the bareness
there ; then, with a rush, spread joyously along
in their tender task of beauty.

Scott loved every blossom that crossed to his
side. He had a feeling that Ines had sent them
across, though he would have been amazed to
know that indeed she had so done.

No one knew how often her trowel filled up
little crannies on the wall-top with rich soil,
and stuck quick-growing plants in them, and
gave them just the necessary turn and twist

142

AN EVENING AT DAVID'S 143

that should induce them to creep — not on her
own side.

She had thought that she must go hungry for
primroses in AustraHa, since she might not go
and dig them up out of the woods for herself.
But Mrs. Wharton had sent her along a great
basketful of the thick-leaved little plants, and
she had set them with keenest pleasure in deep
pockets of earth along the wall-top, and now
there they were, clumps of the tender yellow
things, smiling shyly, clumps of their braver
cousins, polyanthuses, with their velvet faces of
brown and crimson ; there they were for the
lonely man next door to enjoy the touch of
England as well as herself.

She was a little sick for England in thbse days
of wearing anxiety, while the bright sun of
Australia smiled so persistently all the time.
And the more peculiarly English flowers curi-
ously ministered to the sickness. Her patch
of lilies of the valley, her little corner of real
snowdrops, not snowfiakes, the ineffable cleanli-
ness and joy of the tulips near the verandah,
the little bush of lad's love, the tangle of London
pride, the lavender plant, the first crocuses,
they both gave and took from her the acutest
sense of nostalgia.

And so it must be with Scott, she reasoned :
that poor, lonely fellow who had but just torn
up his roots from English soil, and was trying
to set himself again in new land, with not so

144 FAIR INES

much as one friendly hand to help pat down
the raw and roughened soil around him.

She continually presented him with plants.
Her father's embargo she refused to treat
seriously, and if ever she saw Scott working in
his little wheat-patches when she was gardening,
she would make some merry communication or
other.

Erwin himself might be lying on the front
verandah all the time the communication took
place.

" Mr. Sheldon," she would call insistently.

Mr. Sheldon, cap in hand, would cross to the
wall.

" Take this creeping rose and put it in this
instant at the foot of that post — no, that one ;
it will get a better aspect. Your verandah is
a simple disgrace to you."

And he would obey, and worship the rose as
it grew to beauty.

" Mr. Sheldon, are you there ? "

" I believe I am, Miss Erwin."

" Didn't I see you merely walking up and
down ? "

" I was thinking, I believe."

" You mustn't think when you are out of
doors and the sun shines. Take your spade and
dig a nice little bed over there. Needn't be
very big. I'm going to give you some of my
cactus dahlias. Only, mind, you must feed
them well, or they won't work for you."

AN EVENING AT DAVID?S 145

What could Sheldon do when Erwin lay there
quite unprotesting — even smiling at his daugh-
ter's bullying ways.

" Mr. Sheldon ! "

" Miss Erwin ! "

"I do get so tired of your horrid wheat-
patches. Next time you go to Murwumba I am
going to climb over the wall and set poppy seeds
all up and down the rows. Won't it look lovely
when the sweet little things peep up everywhere?"

Perhaps Sheldon would " forget his place " —
would answer her girlish nonsense boyishly.

" If you do, I'll come over and sow wheat in
your pansy bed. I've got a new bag of it."

" Have you, really ? Didn't the last go
right ? Don't tell me any rust is coming on
that last lot."

" Yes, unluckily. But I think I know where
I went wrong. I overdid the sulphate."

Erwin hardly troubled about the embargo
now. The little girl was safe. When he slipped
out of life, Douglas would be there to take his
place. He had the highest respect for Douglas ;
there was no one he had ever met to whom he
felt he would more willingly give his little girl.
But the good fellow bored him a little ; when he
wanted company he asked for no one better
than Sheldon.

And what harm could Sheldon do her ? It
was a big sea, this sea of life ; ships that pass
in the night must speak to each other in passing.

146 FAIR INES

Even were Sheldon the black pirate barque
that he said he was, it could not hurt a little
white-sailed boat to call out to him " All's well "
from time to time. More especially when there
was a man-o'-war hovering near, anxious to take
up the boat with little white sails.

He let things drift comfortably along, and
even on the nights when Scott came in — and
they were most nights now — and Ines most
contumaciously refused to go to bed, alleging
important sewing and the need of the big lamp —
he lay back trustfully in his big chair, and
even occasionally enjoyed the battle of words
that sometimes waged between the two. But,
for the most part, Ines sat and stitched in
silence, stitched dreams and plans and terrors
into a filmy mass of frills.

Now and again Scott, glancing across at her,
would find her hands idle, her ej'^es staring out
before her at the unblinded window. Subtly
conscious that her face was not visible to her
father, quite unconscious that Scott was there,
so she would sit, the straight lines of her figure a
little drooped, her mouth corners quite straight,
her eyes filled with the woe of the universe.

It startled Scott, this mood of hers. What
could be her grief ? What was it those wide,
mournful eyes were looking at ?

One evening the conversation brought out in
so many words the truth of the fact he dreaded.

Erwin was talking art, leaning back among

AN EVENING AT DAVID'S 147

his pile of soft pillows and talking a little lan-
guidly but with a good deal of enjoyment.
He had phrased happily two or three times,
and that always gave him pleasure ; he had
reduced to actual words a nebulous theory of art
that had often floated through his mind ; he
had forced Scott to see the error of his ideas on
one particular point, and it was by no means
easy to force such a thing, for as a thinker Scott
was, as he knew well, far ahead of himself.

Scott retaliated for having been proven wrong
by flinging a burning brand into the conversation.

" There's more humbug about art than there
is about anything else in the world," he said.
*' You have just declared that these sales we
were talking of, £60,000 for an original Rem-
brandt, £80,000 for a Botticelli, and so on, show
that the love of art is deepening in us as a nation."

" And I maintain it," said Erwin ; "at all
events, it illustrates it better than if the cable
had said it was for racehorses these big sums had
changed hands."

" Not a bit of it," said Scott ; " not a bit
more than when the papers announce that a rare
stamp has changed hands for a preposterous
number of thousands. It's no more love of art
that crowds those art sales than it is love of
the moon. It's just the philatelist's thirst for
an original, a first issue. I'm not objecting to
the thirst, mind you ; let a man have his hobbies.
All I protest against is that it should be done

L 2

148 FAIR INES

under the cloak of a love for art. Not one man
in ten thousand can tell the difference between
a clever copy and an original. The experts
may know — it's their business ; but you and I —
well, I, at all events — get precisely as much
artistic gratification out of the copy that is a
clever forgery as out of the genuine canvas."

"If it is only a question of sincere artistic
gratification," said Ines, " I know it was never
those worth-their-weight-in-rubies pictures we
used to see in Italy that gave me this feeling.
I could admire them reverently — now and again
I could understand them. If I had been rich I
should like to have bought one and presented
it to my native town. But I didn't want to
bring them home and hang them up because
they awoke exalted moods in me or appealed
passionately to my sense of beauty. The
pictures that did that were, as a rule, modest
little affairs, with a twenty- or a fifty-guinea
ticket on them."

" That's because you were an ignorant little
puss," said Erwin.

" Perhaps," said Ines ; " anyhow, I never
sighed that I hadn't twenty thousands for a
Rubens, but sometimes I've felt a sense of hunger
for months because I hadn't twenty guineas for
a bit of canvas that spoke straight to me."

And now Scott put in some fighting for his
hostess.

" You ought not to have had to sigh," he said ;

AN EVENING AT DAVID'S 149

" you ought to have been able to go to the
nearest stationer and order a fine reproduction
of it in colour."

" For a couple of pounds, I suppose ? " said
Erwin.

" Well, yes," said Scott, " if you couldn't get
it for thirty shillings or a pound. The ideal
price for a picture is half-a-guinea, of course."

" Go on," said Erwin ; " this is interesting.
The only plaint I've ever had to make against
this world is that it never appreciated me enough
to pay more than fifty guineas for a canvas of
mine. I didn't know before that the buyer had
paid just fifty-one pounds nineteen and sixpence
too much for it."

" He did," said Scott ; " that is, if he had only
wanted it for its charm and beauty, and had not
minded some one else buying it for the sake of
possessing the original. There ought to be no
difference between reproductions of books and
pictures."

" What insensate nonsense ! " said Erwin.

" Oh, I know what you'll say," Scott said,
" but it isn't so. You'll tell me it is the intimate
work of the artist's hands that counts — just the
amount of his own ego he was able to spread on
the canvas for you ; that no reproduction can
hope to reproduce this. I tell you it isn't."

" You're not seriously in earnest, Sheldon ?
You're just foisting a freakish fancy on me, as
our friend Sholto would say."

160 FAIR INES

*' I am not," said Scott. " Take the giants of
literature. They pour their work out palpitat-
ingly on paper — young Sholto's jargon is con-
tagious, isn't it ? — but they don't say, Behold
this masterpiece ! bear it carefully to the National
Gallery or Westminster Abbey and charge the
nation sixty thousand pounds for it. This
manuscript is instinct with life, just as it flowed
from my hand. No, they chuck it to the printer
and he reels off ten thousand or ten million copies
of it, and if it wants it all the world can go buy.
Can you conceive of one copy of Vanity Fair,
and that the property of some haughty noble-
man who condescends to allow his housekeeper
to display it to the vulgar herd on Thursdays,
two to five, if the family happens to be away ? "

" Don't make my blood run cold," said Ines.
" I simply can't conceive such a thing."

" Of course you can't," Scott said ; " instead,
what do you do ? You take half-a-crown from
your pocket and go out and purchase the giant
bound in cloth. You bring him home, and every
one of his tricks he must do for you, you only,
while you sit at ease in your own arm-chair.
Why should I have to know that though I can
get a few of Whistler's pictures in reproduction,
by far the greater number of them are shut up
in English private houses and the owners would
no more dream of giving or selling copyright of
them than they would dream of letting there be
duplicates made of their clothes or their jewels ? "

AN EVENING AT DAVID'S 151

*' But, you Goth," said Erwin, " aren't you
going to allow anything for the instinct of exclu-
siveness ? Savages haven't it, but men of cul-
ture have. I'm not going to buy a picture a
duplicate of which I'll meet in every house
in the village."

" You don't object to your books being dupli-
cated. You buy your copies of Nietzsche and
Maeterlinck and Bernard Shaw " — he ran his eye
over the adjacent book-table — " and don't in
the least object if you walk into the next house
and find it also in possession of the trio. Indeed,
you are actually pleased ; it creates a bond
between you at once."

" But," said Ines, " pictures are more obtru-
sive— pictures stare one in the face all the time.
When you tire of a book you can give it a push
to the back of the bookcase. But unless we
follow the Japanese and build us a go-down,
we've got to confront our pictures for shorter or
longer periods — generally longer ; it is surprising
how long a picture will hang on a wall after a
whole household has outgrown it. I certainly
should get a sensation of disgust if I met my
selection of pictures in every third house in the
village."

" You wouldn't be in the least danger of doing
so. Miss Erwin;" said Scott; "with tens of thou-
sands of good pictures in the world and tens of
thousands of varying tastes, the kaleidoscope
wouldn't often turn up the same pattern."

152 FAIR INES

" Although it be a little out of fashion, there
is much sense and valour in this Welshman,"
quoted Ines whimsically, " eh, daddie ? "

But then there came the sudden electricity
into the conversation.

" Ines," said her father, " when you are
mistress of Wendover, for the love of Heaven
don't take that sort of notion with you ! It is
my dearest pleasure to lie and think of you as a
patron of the fine arts — going to the spring ex-
hibitions and gladdening the poor devils of
painters' hearts by buying all the pictures you
have hanging space for. You won't insist on
ten-shilling pictures, my girl ? "

" No, daddie," said Ines gravely ; " I shall
always offer the more dignified half -guinea."

" But you'll buy pictures, my girl — originals,
plenty of them ? " he persisted. " To the devil
with all reproductions ! "

" I'll buy originals, daddie," said the girl,
*' whenever I can't get reproductions just as
good at a guinea." There was a fine colour in
her cheeks, and for one second her eyes, lifting
themselves, met Scott's. The man's were full of
renunciation ; the thing he had known so well
so long, was known still better to him, that was
all. The girl's eyes were baffling ; not proud or
confused or shy, simply wistful. Scott could
not read them at all.

" I'll get the coffee," she said, and sHpped
away.

AN EVENING AT DAVID'S 153

Scott moved closer to his host and spoke in a
slightly thicker voice than usual.

" Did you ever tell her — Miss Erwin — that I
had disgraced my name ? "

Erwin looked much disturbed at such a sudden
cloud on the bright evening.

" Er — er — you told me that I had better," he
said uncomfortably.

" And you did ? "

" Yes ; just a few words."

" Can you remember what you said ? "

" Er — I'm not quite sure, Sheldon."

" Try to remember, if you don't mind."

" Oh, just what you told me. That you had
done something disgraceful in the past and that
you were trying to live it down."

Scott swallowed hard.

" I don't think I quite said that," he said ;
" I told you I was a disgraced man."

" Isn't it the same ? " said Erwin a little
timidly.

" No," said Scott, " thank God, it isn't. If
you don't mind I should like to tell you a little
more of my life. I'm beginning to see there is
no reason I should not."

" Yes, yes," said Erwin, " whenever you like,
my dear fellow. To-morrow night, eh ? To-
night ? "

" No, not to-night ; you are tired," said Scott
compunctiously, for indeed the invalid looked
curiously fragile.

154 FAIR INES

" Well, perhaps I am tired. To-morrow night,
then. Is that Mrs. Shore I hear ? I should
like her to see me to bed at once."

He had his coffee in his bedroom, and Ines and
Scott drank theirs alone. Neither spoke one
word all the time.

When Ines put down her cup, she saw that
Scott had gone a little white.

" Will you walk down as far as the gate with
me, Miss Erwin ? " he said ; " you will think it
strange of me to ask you, but there is something
I should like to tell you."

And now Ines' colour flamed up to the very
roots of her hair. Her hand trembled, her
heart thudded so loudly she thought he must
hear.

" Will you come ? " he said again, for she did
not move.

" Yes, I will come," she said, her voice low.

CHAPTER XIII

EASING THE BURDEN

" In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody but unbowed."

Henley.

The whole thing had become suddenly in-
supportable to Scott.

He could never hope to be anything more
than a friend to this girl ; apart from his disgrace,
apart from his poverty, apart from her engage-
ment there was the impossible bar he had him-
self made.

But a very fury of passion against Douglas
had seized him. He could no longer bear that
they should stand in such inconceivably different
positions before her — Douglas with his head held
proudly, as his lands and wealth and unblem-
ished records entitled him to hold it ; himself a
fugitive from the land of his birth, his head
hanging, his eyes unable to meet his fellows'.

He could not bear her pity any longer ; oh, he
knew why she had been so friendly and full of
kindness to him ! She would have been the

156 FAIR INES

same to any stoned and limping dog that came
along. He would not have her pity any more ;
he could not support it one further instant.

At the gate she paused, fair Ines, into whose
ear many a confession of man's love had been
poured ; you had only to look at her eyes, her
shining hair, that incomparable turn of neck,
to know that this must be so. Yet there she
stood, not won by any of them. Her lashes lay
on her cheeks ; never before had she found it so
impossible to lift them.

" Miss Erwin," he said, " I asked your father
once to tell you about me — my disgrace. He did
so, I learn. Now I want to tell you myself."
And now her lashes lifted.
" Don't," she said. " Father didn't want to
know. I don't. Whatever you did you are
sorry, and it is past."

" But I never did anything except act like
an egregious fool," he said, his voice full of
sudden passion.

She looked at him startled, and without more
ado he plunged into his part.

He told of his mother, of Cecil, the whole
story right up to the forgery.

Cecil had committed the forgery, not himself.
He, the elder brother, had merely taken the
punishment. He had got in the habit of doing
so from earliest youth.

" Mind, I don't commend myself for taking
his lickings when he was a delicate little chap,"

EASING THE BURDEN 157

he said ; " any big fellow would have done as
much. But he was a man when he did this
thing — two-and-twenty ; I ought to have left
him to sweat it out himself."

" It was — beautiful of you, though, not to
do so," said Ines.

She was able to see the beauty of the act, but
at the same time she shrank appalled at such a
wild self-sacrifice.

" Beautiful ! " he said ; "it was raving in-
sanity. It was the mere frothy emotionalism
of a boy. They played on my good nature — I'd
always had a fair store of that. Some one ought
to have protected me from myself."

" Tell me all about it," she said briefly. Her
heart seemed shedding tears for the tragedy
from which he was tearing away the curtain
that had covered it for four long years.

The words were nothing, but looking down he
caught the glint of tears in her eyes. So he
told her all.

Not a word in praise of his own deed — very
little in complaint of Cecil ; it was the futility of
his sacrifice that seemed to have driven the iron
into his soul.

To Scott the whole thing leapt into life again :
he saw himself opening the door of the tiny
sitting-room he and Cecil had shared while they
had been in the London office, opening it with
a blither hand than usual. He had just paid
his quarter's salary into the bank intact, thanks

158 FAIR INES

to his frugality and some overtime work that he
had been doing. It brought him nearer than
ever to the day when he could go back to his
interrupted medical course. He had whistled
for sheer lightness of heart as he came up the
staircase ; they would have a jolly evening to
celebrate the event, he determined — would get
Iris and her mother, the boarders from the
ground floor sitting-room, to come up and help
Cecil make music. No, they would be reck-
lessly extravagant for once ; they would carry
Iris and her mother off to the Gondoliers, which,
a play-bill had told him as he came home, was
running at one of the theatres. Yes, Cecil's
high-class repertoire and the vague, plaintive
little songs of Iris, were not in keeping with his
mood to-night. He wanted something light and
rollicking ; he would see to it, too, that he him-
self sat next to Iris ; he was going to pay the
piper and Cecil could mind the mother. He
went up-stairs two steps at a time.

His mother was sitting on the sofa — his
mother, out of mourning, of course, years ago,
but with eyes more tear-drenched than he re-
membered, even when his step-father lay just
dead.

She sprang to her feet as he came in, she flung
herself a minute on his neck, then she drooped
lower, lower ; to his incredulous horror he found
she was kneeling to him, clasping him around
the knees, praying, beseeching some wild thing

EASING THE BURDEN 159

of him. His startled senses after a little time
conveyed to him the meaning of the words she
was babbling between the sobs that shook her
so wildly. Cecil had wanted money, he had got
with bad companions — ah, why had he, Scott,
failed in the charge she had given him of the
boy ? He had wanted money desperately and
had signed his uncle's name to a cheque. Hun-
dreds of similar cheques passed through his
fingers weekly ; he had madly supposed it might
not be detected ; in all that great stream of
paper money always going forth to be cashed,
the rash boy, beside himself with worries, had
thought one more would hardly be noticed, and
had promised himself that he would pay the
simi back almost immediately. Even if it were
detected the boy told himself that his uncle
could not do anything to him, because their
names were the same ; at the worst he would
turn him out of the office, and he detested the
office so heartily the fear of that held no very
great terror.

The attempt was the most pitiful of failures ;
in truth it was so clumsily done it had not a
hope of success. The uncle's anger burst its
bounds. He swore by Heaven that, name or no
name, he would prosecute. Cecil, in terror,
wired for his mother ; he simply lacked the '
courage to go to Scott with the story. Lady
Barnsley was in London in the course of two
hours, despite the fact that there was no train :

160 FAIR INES

she had gone to a friend and commandeered the
use of a motor-car for the frightful emergency.
She went on her knees to her brother-in-law,
and wept till she was absolutely unrecognisable
for a pretty woman. The old man was adamant
— or else he determined to strike terror into her
heart before he forgave. He got up and left her,
almost in hysterics, in his office, then sent his
confidential clerk in to assist her to a cab. Like
a drowning woman she thought of Scott — Scott,
who had always saved Cecil before.

" You want me — you actually want me to say /
did this accursed thing ? " Scott burst out at last.
" Great heavens, do you know it means gaol ? "

Yes, she knew — the uncle had seared her
roughly with the fact. " It wouldn't kill you,''^
she whispered — " you have courage, strength ;
Cecil would die under it — he would be dead in
less than a month. You know he would."

Yes, he did know it. Cecil was hardly less
abnormally sensitive now, as a young man, than
he had been as a beautiful and precocious boy,
whose lips had gone blue, whose pulse had
almost failed in moments of pain or fear of
punishment.

" You know he would not survive it a week,"
wailed the mother. " The doctor told me only
six months ago his heart showed signs of great
weakness and that he would not answer for the
consequences of any great shock. You know it
means actual death to him."

EASING THE BURDEN 161

Yes, Scott had small doubt of this. That
Cecil could survive disgrace and imprisonment
certainly seemed impossible to hope. But yet,
warmly though he loved the boy — he had had no
one but his mother and Cecil to occupy his heart
all his life — he was too sane, too human, too
healthily attached to life and all its chances to
readily contemplate so intolerable a thing.

He refused angrily : it seemed incredible to
him that a mother — she was his mother as well
as Cecil's — could ask so inhuman a sacrifice
from one brother to another.

The conflict lasted all the night — every hour
of it that lay between the seven o'clock of a
London dusk and the seven of a London dawn.
Afterwards the memory was only a confused
blur to Scott, like the memory of some frightful
nightmare that paralysed the senses.

Sometimes Cecil came into it — Cecil, already
looking as nearly like a corpse as he might ;
Cecil, who one minute bade his mother be still
and protested that nothing would allow him to
let Scott do what she asked, and the next wept
as wildly as any girl, or fell back shivering,
unconscious with sheer terror, and had to be
revived with spirits and a little green bottle of
smelling-salts that was hastily borrowed from
Iris down-stairs, who also was subject to fainting
attacks.

In the end Scott seemed to grow stupefied ; he
began to think that there was indeed nothing

162 FAIR INES

else to be done. There seemed no other alter
native ; either Cecil and his mother must be
sacrificed, or he himself must. The habit of a
lifetime showed him only one path.

His mother was pathetically optimistic. The
uncle would relent when he knew it was Scott,
to whom he had of late showed many marks of
favour, and not Cecil, whom he had always
frankly disliked and despised. Even if the
worst came to the worst and he did prosecute,
it would be a light sentence, a first offender's
sentence — three months probably !

" Three days would ruin me for life — in my
profession," Scott had said, his throat working.

" No, no. You could go to a new country,
study there at a fresh university," she said ;
" Cecil and I would strip ourselves of everything
to give you the money to do so. The whole of
both our lives would be devoted to trying to
repay you for the sacrifice."

Different moods came and went with Scott
during that frightful, endless night. Now it
was a mood of exaltation — a sort of illumination
of the wonderful words that " greater love than
this hath no man, that a man should lay down
his life for another." That quiet youth of his
in Little Mitcham had given time for much
reading and some dreaming ; it seemed to him
that chivalry demanded this of him. Such a
mood was succeeded by one of pity, sheer self-
pity that he was so little to his mother that she

EASING THE BURDEN 163

could ask this of him, so Httle to Cecil that he
could accept it of him. Finally indifference
came ; his feelings were benumbed — let them
have their way.

His mother, hardly daring to breathe lest she
disturb the victory she had won, sent for a cab.
Cecil lay in an exhausted sleep on the sofa and
did not know the moment he was left alone.

They were at the office the moment the doors
were open, and Lady Barnsley remained in the
cab while her eldest son walked up the steps
with the gait almost of a drunken man. Two
minutes later the old merchant arrived.

" I did it," Scott said, with wild eyes and ashen
cheeks. " Cecil only cashed it for me."

It was not all this Scott told to the girl with
wet eyes in the far-off Australian garden — just
the bare outline of it was all he troubled her with,
though now and again feeling became too strong
for him and she had an illuminating flash or two
of the whole affair.

" It was noble — noble of you," she said as he
finished. She even put out her hand and wrung
his for a moment, so swept off her feet she was
by the wave of sympathy that washed over her.

He clung to the warm girl hand a moment,
then dropped it with a hard effort.

" No," he said. " Do bcHeve me. Miss Erwin,
it was not noble at all. Oh, I'm not trying to
depreciate myself ; I dare say I thought it a bit
fine myself once or twice while I was shut up.

M 2

164 FAIR INES

But it really wasn't. I tell you it was mere
sentimentalism that a man of my age— I was
six-and-twenty — ought not to have been guilty
of. If there'd been anything noble about it
I shouldn't feel as I do now — a bitter hatred
for them both — my mother as well as Cecil."

" You don't," said Ines, " only now and again
in flashes, which is only human. You know
you don't hate them all the time."

" I always despise them," said Scott, " and
I'd never willingly touch their hands again."

" Have they done as they said ? " said Ines,
with natural curiosity ; " sent you help — tried
to repay ? " She knew more than a little of
the austerity of her neighbour's life.

" They tried," said Scott ; " oh, I'll give them
credit for that. They paid my passage — I've
been able to return it to them, thank Heaven !
And they've sent money three or four times ;
but I send it back — it would choke me to touch
it."

" Thank you for telling me, thank you very
much ! I can't tell you how I appreciate your
confidence," said Ines. " Have you told any one
else ? "

"Not I," said Scott. "Who would have
believed me ? I'm not even sure if your father
will, but I'm going to tell him on chance. No ;
I've got to go through with it, of course,
only "

" Only what ? " said Ines.

EASING THE BURDEN 165

His voice became suddenly thick.

" I couldn't bear for you to think me a black-
guard," he said. " I don't owe him that — that
to shelter him you should think ill of me."

He seemed to himself to be standing more
erect ; he had flung off the intolerable weight
that had made his shoulders stoop. He felt the
equal of Douglas — ah, had he only met her
sooner ! Her eyelashes still gleamed wet in the
faint light from the cottage. She was standing
quite close to him, the breeze blowing her hair
till once a little loosened strand of it actually
touched his cheek. It was unendurable that he
might not catch her in his arms, strain her to
him, kiss her with lips that longed so bitterly.
Something like a groan forced itself to his lips.

" What did you say ? " she said startled.

He shook his head. He was almost past
speech. He opened the gate and walked out,
then came back one instant.

" Thank you for listening," he said in a thick-
ened voice. " Good-night ! " And without even
touching her hand again he went ; she saw him
striding up his own garden path, saw him open
his door, walk in and- shut it behind him.

She went back to her cottage and cried herself
to sleep like a child.

CHAPTER XIV

hyacinth's taste of power

" Oh, love as loug as love thou canst.
Oh, love as long as love will keep.
The day will come, the day will come.
When at a grave you stand and weep."

Freiligrath.

Ines was dressed for going out by nine o'clock
the next morning.

" Lor', Miss Ines ! " said Hyacinth, to whom
the sight of Ines with gloves on had become an
extremely rare one, so persistently had the girl
stayed about the cottage and immediate pad-
docks for the last two months. " Goin' to town.
Miss Ines ? " Hyacinth always spoke of a visit
to the sleepy little village as " going to town."

" No," said Ines, " I'm going to walk over to
Wendover ; I want to use the telephone."

Hyacinth quite approved of this. She brushed
an imaginary speck off her young mistress's sleeve.

" Glad you've got on your leaf dress, Miss
Ines," she said.

" And you don't want me to add any pink
bows ? " said Ines, smiling.

" No, yous was right, miss."

" What ? " said Ines, shaking her head.

i66

HYACINTH'S TASTE OF POWER 167

" I mean you was right," corrected Hyacinth ;
" virginy creeper, that's what you are, turning
to brown and yellow." She reflected a moment,
and then added argumentatively, " But yous
laid pink roses with the virginy on the cloth,
I seen you. Miss Ines."

" Ah, but," said Ines gravely, " Virginia
creeper is so much prettier than my dress, I can
take liberties with it."

" What a bit of luck yom* shoes match, miss —
not being new ones neither," continued the little
maid — " and your gloves. Think I'll have
brown, too, for my new winter dress as you said
I could have." She held her head on one side,
considering Ines with the eye of an artist that
is seeking hints for its own guidance.

She spoke without fear of being snubbed. Ines
permitted plenty of these intimate little remarks
from her lonely young handmaid. The girl's
brightened face was sufficient reward ; it was
only when Mrs. Beattie was in the house, de-
livering some of the lectures that Ines did not
know State orphans ought to receive, that any
of the old sullenness showed.

A perfect passion for beauty and colour had
taken possession of the poor, plain little thing.
The seed of it that Ines had planted in her during
her first week in the cottage had sprouted mar-
vellously, and it was only by a good deal of
vigilance that Ines was able to keep it in restraint
at all.

168 FAIR INES

The child, released suddenly from the drab of
life in which she had moved so long, tended, as
was natural, to a riot of colour.

She wanted to put green and yellow paper,
pinked into fantastic patterns, on the shelves of
the snow-white dresser. She yearned to festoon
red art muslin round the plain little bath-room,
to enamel the verandah chairs strawberry pink
" like down at Mrs. Huggins," to put big coloured
" tie backs " with butterfly bows on the straight
hanging curtains of the sitting-room.

Ines found she had to assume the position now
of lecturer on the subjects of restraint in art and
the doctrine of suitability, and it was much
harder work than the mere pointing out of beauty
had been.

" Yes, I think I'll pick on brown," Hyacinth
repeated, resting on the broom with which she
had been sweeping out her shining little kitchen,
washing-up operations being completed.

" I thought you said crimson," said Ines, and
added temptingly, " like that deep crimson
dahlia in the round bed."

The rich colour and velvety texture of the
cactus dahlia filled the little girl's eye at once.

" Oh, so," she said, " yes. Look at it now.
Miss Ines. Prettier than brown a lot. When
you're in the sun, colours jump out of you, miss,
but when you're not that brown does look a bit
dull. That's why I said about the pink bows."

" I mustn't delay," said Ines. " I don't want

HYACINTH'S TASTE OF POWER 169

to keep Mrs. Shore here too long. Now what
have you to do ? "

" Turn out your room nine to ten, ten to a
quarter-parst water me own garding, quarter-
parst to half gather the peas, half to quarter-to
shell 'em, quarter-to his chicking brof and a
flower on the tray — snapdragon I think ; there's
a beauty out this morning, and you can always
play rabbits with it when you're tired of lookin'
at it. L'eleven to quarter-parst "

"That will do," smiled Ines. "I shall be
back by then I hope. And, Hyacinth ! "

" Miss ! "

" Remember, even if Mrs. Shore is a little
sharp with you, you are not to say anything
about that to her."

Hyacinth began to sweep industriously to
save herself the necessary answer.

" Do you hear me. Hyacinth ? " repeated
Ines, turning back from the step.

Hyacinth swept harder than ever, banging her
broom round so vigorously that the tins began
to rattle.

" Eliza," said Ines gently, " do you hear me ? "

" Very well, Miss Ines," said Hyacinth,
brought to her knees in an instant.

" You promise ? "

" See my finger wet, see it " began Hya-
cinth recklessly.

" Just a plain promise will do," said Ines.

" I promise solemnly not to round on Mrs,

170 FAIR INES

Shore," said Hyacinth discontentedly ; " all the
same, Miss Ines, she rounds on me somethink
dreadful, when you're not 'ere."

" There's no need for you to go near her,"
said Ines.

Hyacinth considered this aspect of the matter,
but it promised dulness. She temporised.

" Y'only mean, of course, I'm not to say that
when she gets on to me ? "

"Yes, yes, that is all I mean," said Ines hastily.

Mrs. Shore was perfectly well able to hold her
own in the war that ceaselessly went on between
herself and Hyacinth, excepting only in one
instance. When matters reached a crisis be-
tween them Hyacinth used to say —

" Yah, old 'toxication, who had to be locked
up in the kitching and a gentleman sent for to
proteck the mistress ! "

At this poor Mrs. Shore used to break down
and weep helplessly. That black, stormy even-
ing, months ago now, was the sole occasion of
her backsliding — to any palpable degree at all
events — since Mr. Erwin had needed her. Both
Mr. Erwin and Miss Ines, and even the gentle-
man who had been sent for, had been most
magnanimous in the matter, and, after once
assuring her that they knew quite well the fault
would never be repeated, had never by word or
look referred to it again.

But Hyacinth had found in the occurrence a
very effective weapon of defence against the

HYACINTH'S TASTE OF POWER 171

uncertainties of temper that the bi-daily visitor
permitted herself to show in the kitchen.

The moment matters grew strained between
them Hyacinth would begin to lurch about the
kitchen with a fixed and glassy eye, or pick up
a tumbler and go through a spirited pantomime
of drinking at a bar, or drop suddenly on to a
chair and give vent to foolish babblings.

It was not from Mrs. Shore alone the girl had
picked up this character study ; her portrayals
showed the mark of the more frequent and
intimate study that is best yielded in one's
immediate domestic circle.

It was only after Mrs. Shore had borne this
cross in silence for some months that Ines dis-
covered it. She had been much puzzled to
find the reason why the woman would go into
the kitchen with a smile on her face for her
eleven o'clock tea and so frequently emerge in
a flood of tears. Finally it all came out with a
sob. It was that girl in there. Wouldn't give
it a rest, not a day. Smallest thing, like set a
saucepan down a minute on the clean table,
and there she was, rubbing it into her.

" Rubbing what ? " Ines said, mystified.

" Oh, you know," said poor Mrs. Shore.

But Ines was quite at sea.

" Me sudden illness that night," whispered
the woman.

So Ines was forced to keep the peace by the
threat of pains and penalties to be suffered.

172 FAIR INES

Hyacinth had been mulcted of a sash, a pink
hair-ribbon, even sentenced to wear the plaid
frock for one whole day, and yet the sinful
propensity was not eradicated. It was in truth
the girl's sole taste of what it was like to wield
power ; she could not entirely relinquish it.

At last Ines set off. Scott, sowing fresh
wheat, watched the brown frock till it merged
in the autumn landscape of which it all the time
seemed a part — warm brown stuff of a texture a
little rough, soft brown felt hat, nestling on the
brown-gold hair, brown silk scarf twisted round
her neck and fluttering out in the breeze, russet
gloves, russet shoes that matched — she was too
good an artist for it to be as Hyacinth had
assumed by a " bit of luck."

She walked with a less springing step than
usual. Hyacinth's chatter had distracted her
for a little time, but indeed something gnawed
at her all the time.

There was a numbness in her father's left
hand this morning that worried her. The doc-
tors had not told her that such might be ex-
pected, or even if to be expected, whether it
might prove to be a new danger. It was just
a thing that had not occurred before, and though
she made light of it to him when he fretfully
complained he could not hold his magazine
comfortably, though she rubbed the hand and
laughed and said it was the first bite of winter,
still she did not like it. She thought she would

HYACINTH'S TASTE OF POWER 173

send Hyacinth quietly to ask the doctor to come
round — he came only twice a week now. Then
she remembered that he was away, taking two
days' duty at the hospital in Bonnethorne,
twenty miles away, where an inexplicable out-
break of typhoid had taxed the staff beyond its
powers. She must ring him up and ask him if
there were any gravity in the symptom.

How to ring him up ? She could not do it
by the proxy of Hyacinth, or Mrs. Shore — or
even of Scott, next door, who would have shown
such pleasure in being asked. None of them
could answer the doctor's questions but herself.

She lingered for a short time, even when her
hat was on in the hope that Mrs. Beattie might
drive up, as she often did in the early morning
after driving her boys to the preparatory school
that had so tiresomely established itself three
miles from the Rectory. When Ines asked why
the boys did not walk the distance like most
Australian boys, who thought nothing of three
miles, Mrs. Beattie only shook her head doubt-
fully. She hardly liked to explain that she never
settled down properly to the day's duties until
she had seen the school-gate safely closed on her
offspring.

It was during the walk to school one day that
Charlie had run away to sea. There were only
two left now, Bobbie and Fred. Suppose that
a similar wild idea entered into their heads while
traversing that dusty red road ? Certainly she

174 FAIR INES

nagged less now, even when they brought their
nature collections into their bedrooms ; and she
let them keep two pets each ; some of poor
Charlie's grievances with his home life had been
that she " got on to a fellow so " and " never
let a chap keep a dog." But boys seemed to
lack understanding somehow. Charlie had gone
one hot summer day ; suppose Bobbie and Fred
had some grievance brewing in their round little
heads, and took the road's long chance to run
clean away out of her arms ? The drive to
school — the little boys hated deliberately walking
to the hated place — had established itself as an
intimate and precious part of the day. They
drove in turns, Bobbie and Fred ; they gnawed
their breakfast fruit in the intervals ; they talked
about congenial subjects like the habits of centi-
pedes, and the chances of Fraser winning the
school bat, never of undone home-lessons, or
unaccountable holes in Sunday trousers, or pond
aquaria in washstand soap-dishes beginning to
smell to heaven. That long, red road that
wound up, up as far as the preparatory school
and then with a sharp turn vanished round a
corner, always gave Mrs. Beattie a sense of
insecurity and humiliation. It was upon it that
Charlie had been seen by an acquaintance for
the very last time, trudging determinedly, his
face set away from his mother and towards the
sea that called him from hundreds of miles away.
But plainly, this morning busy Mrs. Beattie

HYACINTH'S TASTE OF POWER 175

had no time for the Erwins, so Ines could not
calculate on doing her errand and being back in
three-quarters of an hour, which was Currant's
time unless he felt otherwise disposed. Driving,
Ines could have telephoned from the post
office, but when it came to a matter of walking
it was almost as short to cut across the paddocks
at the north end of the village and then up one
of the long drives that led to Wendover. She
could count on using the Wendover telephone
the moment she reached it, and not to have to
wait for half-a-dozen other people to take the
order of priority, and exact the precise three
minutes' conversations from the telephone to
which their pennies entitled them.

Furthermore, Mrs. Wharton appealed to the
anxious girl as a very tower of comfort in dis-
tress. Lieutenant Wharton had suffered from
paralysis before his death, the effects of his
almost forgotten accident reasserting them-
selves in this form as the physical powers grew
feebler. Several times the old lady had made
suggestions invaluable to the invalid's comfort ;
she had even, on one or two occasions, prompted
the doctor with a hint about something the
specialists had done for the Lieutenant. So the
girl turned her face to Wendover, yearning for
assurance from the old woman that the new
numbness was nothing to mind about.

But at the cottage gate something prompted
her, and she ran back along the path.

176 FAIR INES

" Daddie, a horrid memory pressed that I had
only kissed you fourteen times this morning,"
she said, reappearing at Erwin's chair, " and
you know seventeen is our inviolable number."

They exchanged three more, he pretending to
protest, but in reality sunning himself in the
warmth of her love.

" Be off," he said. " I was just congratu-
lating myself that I had got rid of you for once.
Be off, you limpet ! And why doesn't that
cavalier of yours bring your horse along ? I
shall begin to think he has jilted you, if I don't
see him here in another day or two."

The words were playful, but there was a faint
shade of anxiety in his eyes. Certainly Douglas
had asked his permission to speak to Ines. And
certainly Ines had blushed and hidden her face
on her father's shoulder when he had teasingly
asked was all well.

But the rides had been discontinued, and
Douglas had not been to the cottage for days.
Surely there had been no quarrel between the
young people as early as this ?

" You have not quarrelled, have you, my
girl — you and Wharton ? " he said anxiously.

" What an idea ! " said Ines. " I don't
believe he would let me quarrel with him if
I tried."

Erwin gave a sigh of relief. A year ago he
had lain worrying half of every night to think
of leaving his little girl unprovided for. But

HYACINTH'S TASTE OF POWER 177

Providence had been marvellously good, as Mrs.
Beattie had often reminded him, and he could
think of the future now with the most perfect
peace in his heart.

" Be off," he cried again.

She kissed him passionately once more.

" I couldn't love any mere husband as I do
you, you dearest, dearest of fathers," she said,
breathless with the statement and the fervent
kiss together.

He pulled her ears, and a wisp of her hair, and
bade her not make blisters come to her wicked
little tongue.

But the gratified love shining in his eyes sent
her away with a swelling heart.

CHAPTER XV

TO WENDOVER AND BACK

Up the Wendover slopes she went with
hastening steps.

She loved the bushland approaches to this
great place. The gums had been let alone here,
towering red gums, blue gums, silver gums,
bean-like saplings, they had it all their own wild
way up the slopes ; just space enough had been
cleared for a ten-foot- wide path to wind between
them, that was all, and no one troubled to even
sweep up the thick carpet of grey-green leaves
that had so softly fallen.

It was different, of course, when you began to
come to the white fences. The hand of man
was discernible then, an indefatigable hand.
Lawns, smooth as velvet, spread themselves
here and there ; English oaks and elms and
sycamores waved their branches, and happily
enough, among the coral trees and the planes
and the camphor laurels. Here stretched a
pergola, wistaria hanging heavily through its
widely latticed roof. Here was the long, vine-
covered walk leading to the tennis courts ; many

178

TO WENDOVER AND BACK 179

a tale of love had been whispered here, with
the green and brown passion fruit hanging down
shamelessly to listen. There blazed the flower-
beds and in the midst of them, large, red-faced,
comfortable, sprawled the big house itself.
Architecturally it was of low structure, and
indeed it seemed to sprawl. The first time Ines
had seen it, some ridiculous flight of imagination
had induced her to liken it in her mind to some
great, comfortable animal basking there in the
sunlight. And though she knew it well by this,
and in a measure was fond of it, the simile had
never quite departed from her. It always
struck her as a house without a soul.

As she went up the well-gravelled, immediate
drive, she was able to conceive pretty well of
the occupations of the entire family. Douglas
was away on horseback somewhere ; since she
would not leave the cottage and ride with him
in a morning he had returned to his morning
work of looking after the estate. Sholto was
probably at the Rectory. It was vacation at
the University just now, but Sholto's Greek was
of so negligible a quantity that the examiners
might be disposed not to notice that it was there
in the next examination, if he did not make some
slight effort between terms. The ladies of the
household were, doubtless, in what Sholto termed
a perfect pother of pots and pans. It was not
that there were no maids at Wendover, but
housekeeping was on such a tremendous scale

N2

;^ FAIR INES

there that it took help from every one to keep
the great wheel moving.

Cade was probably on the back verandah
filling the thirty odd vases of drawing-room,
dining-room and halls with flowers. It was work
for which sjie had not the least taste nor liking,
but Mrs. Wharton would not have dreamed of
allowing a housemaid to waste time and enjoy
herself doing it.

Elizabeth, doubtless, was conscientiously plod-
ding through the dusting of the drawing-room's
precious china, of which there were, what Sholto
called, countless cartloads. Presently she would
have to check the laundry linen with the house-
maid ; then there were the week's bills to be
gone through with the cook, the orchids to
water — she hated orchids, but the new glass-
house gardener was so incompetent Mrs. Wharton
turned the task over to Elizabeth lest a Cypri-
pedium should receive a drachm too much water,
or a Peristeria a drachm too little. It was
doubtful whether Elizabeth would get a moment
to as much as think out a new stencil pattern
until late in the afternoon.

If they had delighted in their work, or had
even felt a glow of interest in it, it would have
been a different thing ; but long, long years of
it had made it inexpressibly monotonous to
both of them and they went through it in the
dreariest way. Yet it never occurred to either
of them to firmly refuse to so squander so many

TO WENDOVER AND BACK 181

hours of the day. Their mother had settled it,
years since, in her own mind, that they could
do nothing better with their time, and they al-
ways seemed to lack the spirit to resist the
tight rein with which she still drove them. It
is more than possible, too, they realised vaguely
that there were a great number of hours between
breakfast and bed-time, and that those hours
might seem doubly long if they turned too many
of these little duties over to hired hands.

Ines' ring disturbed the ponderous machinery
of the house, which was always in full working
order at this hour. It was very rarely the front-
door bell rang so early. Even Mrs. Beattie had
been taught that she must not come to Wendover
on any pretext, earlier than the luncheon hour.
This was Mrs. Wharton's hour in the kitchen,
the hour that strained the patience of the cook
and the kitchenmaid almost to snapping point.
She went through pantries, poked into the ice-
chest, lifted the lid of the bread-pans, weighed
out stores, all with an air of the profoundest
suspicion that she would find everything want-
ing. Even when she found nothing whatever
to complain about, she never went further than
giving a dissatisfied sort of sniff. Then the
writings upon the kitchen slates began, the
elaborate orders for luncheon — there were rarely
less than four courses even for that meal, — the
menu for the late dinner, the meals for the
servants, and the semi-servants, such as the

182 FAIR INES

visiting upholsterer, the dressmaker making
morning blouses, the electrician who was fixing
the kitchen bells, and so on.

Sholto, dropping in unexpectedly for lunch
once with the Erwins, expressed his satisfaction
at the simplicity of the meal he received — a
savoury omelette, cooked in the chafing-dish at
table, cream cheese and brown bread-and-
butter, a rock melon, a glass of light wine and
later black coffee.

" Our meals seem perfect orgies in com-
parison," he complained.

Ines' ring disturbed all this — the concentra-
tion of half the members of the household on
the question of luncheon, to which event it
still wanted three hours.

" I won't see any one^'' said Mrs. Wharton
to the housemaid. " You can tell them so.
The idea of disturbing me as early as this !
I haven't even been out to start the men. And
Miss Cade won't see them — I don't want the
flowers standing about all day. And Miss
ElijZabeth won't. Don't show them in the
drawing-room ; Miss Elizabeth's in there dusting
and can't be hindered. If they come as early
as this they must expect to stand at the door.
You can go and see who it is."

The girl came back to report Miss Erwin —
wanted to use the telephone, wanted to see Mrs.
Wharton ; if Mrs. Wharton very much engaged,
would not ask to see her but hoped she might
use the telephone.

TO WENDOVER AND BACK 183

" You told her I would be there in a moment ?
You showed her into the drawing-room ? "

" No, ma'am."

" Do you mean to tell me you left her at the
door ? "

" You said I was to," said the maid sulkily.

" I didn't expect you to act like a born fool,"
said Mrs. Wharton, brushing her indignantly
aside and stalking to the front door.

The young girl's able generalship, her beauty,
her pathetic position, her love of gardening, one
or all of these had completely won over the tart
old woman. She went to her now, hands out-
stretched, sincere anxiety in her eyes ; she knew
that nothing but an emergency had brought her
thus far so early.

Ines told her tale, and was reassured quite in
motherly fashion. The new chill in the air
would be enough to account for it ; his circulation,
of course, must be very bad lying there so long.
Still, they would ring up the doctor.

The doctor seemed reassuring too ; asked
plenty of questions, said "Yes" and "Yes" in
answer to them ; told Ines she might give a dose
or two of the red medicine perhaps, said that as
he found he must come over that afternoon to
see Mrs. Huggins' young hopeful, who was
reported to have appendicitis but much more
probably had an attack of green peaches, he
would try to make time to come up the hill
too — just to reassure her, that was all.

The girl hung up the receiver at last, relief on

184 FAIR INES

her face. The tension had been too great for
her and she found, to her dismayed amaze, that
she was crying and could not stop. And, equally
to her amaze, that she was crying actually in
Mrs. Wharton's arms.

They had a luxurious ten minutes together in
a little room off the hall. The girl had not
allowed herself the relief of giving way for
months ; the woman had not fondled and com-
forted any one like this since her grown children
were quite small. Something in her old heart
stirred, something that told her that the sweetest
thing life could yet give to her would be the feel
of little grandchildren climbing into her lap,
clinging around her neck.

Ines dared not indulge long, for she was
anxious to be back at her post. The old lady
offered to have the dogcart got ready, which
was certainly an offer that she would not have
made to Cade or Elizabeth at a sacred hour
like the present, when Luke was cleaning the
harness.

But Ines refused ; it would take the half-
hour's walk to blow the signs of tears from her
face, she said. She must have that time alone,
quite alone to get calm once more.

Mrs. Wharton walked down to the edge of
the bushland drive with her. Then she kissed
her wistfully.

" Be quick and make up your mind, dear,"
she said. " You are keeping me on tenterhooks

TO WENDOVER AND BACK 185

as well as that boy of mine. He is a good boy,
child — we should all do our best to make you
happy. You are not a coquette, are you ? "

Nor Cade nor Elizabeth nor Sholto, no, nor
Douglas himself could have credited it that this
was the overbearing, tyrannous old mother they
knew, speaking in this almost suing tone.

The girl started away from the old woman's
arm, her face flaming crimson.

" Yes, I am a coquette," she said. " I don't
love him. I shall never marry him. I — I — oh
I am treating him shamefully ! "

She began to cry again, then broke away and
started off, almost running to get back home.

But the long slopes gave her back her self-
control again, the keen wind of the early autumn
dried her tears. By the time she had crossed
the flat paddocks at the north of the village she
was mistress of herself once more, as indeed she
must be before she reached her cottage. Out
of sheer defiance to her own spirits she began
to sing — a little French song it was that she had
known as a child —

" Ah ! si j'avais un sou tout rond,
J'acheterais un blanc mouton.

La Verdi, la Verdon
Et ioupe ! sautez done, la Verdon."

To Scott, hastening down the slope to her
through a tangle of bush, the gay words were
carried and flung in his face in all their merry
insolence. A very sweat broke out on his brow.

186 FAIR INES

Then she saw him.

" Good-morning, Mr. Sheldon," she said gaily.
" What are you doing down here ? — they won't
let you make a wheat-patch here, you know ;
this belongs to Mr. Huggins, and if he saw us
trespassing he would get us both took up."

Then she lifted her eyes to his face ; she had
been diffident of doing so before, fearing her
eyelids were still reddened. But now she was
tense in every limb in a second.

" Tell me," she cried. " Father— he is ill ! "
She sprang from him, started to run.

He strode after her, caught her arm, tucked
it firmly in his own.

" Hold on to me," he said ; " we can go more
quickly so. Now, you've got to be a brave
girl."

" Don't be slow," she gasped. " Tell me at
once."

" I'm going to," he said, and held her arm
more tightly. " Your father is dead. He died
half-an-hour ago, in my arms. Quite pain-
lessly. Believe me, quite painlessly."

CHAPTER XVI

* THERE IS SOME ONE ELSE '

It was the day after the funeral.

Mrs. Beattie had been obliged to pack up her
telescope basket and return home to Bobbie and
Fred, Mr. Beattie and the organ. She had stayed
with Ines for the two days preceding the funeral
the funeral's long and unreal day, and all the
next morning.

But as the girl only shook her head when
delicately approached on the subject of crape
and the dressmaker, shook it wearily, and as she
only sat and stared out of the window and did
not even cry, it seemed to Mrs. Beattie, passion-
ately eager though she was to be of comfort,
that there was no further use for her and she had
better therefore return to her legitimate duties.

So she sent Hyacinth down to the Rectory
to request the attendance of Currant and the
sulky, and she packed up, and wandered un-
certainly round the silent sitting-room, and
more than ever was oppressed with the sense of
the space to spare in it and the crying pity it
was that the chance to buy in the red sideboard

had been missed.

187

188 FAIR INES

She stood disconsolately before the barometer,
which seemed to hold an honoured place in one
corner. Ines had declared she must find a use
for the object since she had spent a solid pound
upon it, and she had tried it variously as a letter
rack, a bill file, a duster holder, and a port-
folio. Finally she had had a brilliant notion;
she illuminated and stuck up in it every Sunday
what she called her text for the week, and what
Mrs. Beattie called shocking irreverence.

For the texts were from Mark Twain, quite
as likely as not, or from Gilbert, or Alice in
Wonderland. Cheery, humorous little bits of
wisdom they were, and they helped to keep the
flag of courage flying in the two cottages oftener
than any of them dreamed.

To-day Mrs. Beattie was confronted by the
verse —

" The centipede was happy quite
Until the toad for mn
Inquired which leg comes after which ?

Which worked her mind to such a pitch.
She lay bewildered in the ditch.
Considering how to run."

The text had not been changed for a whole
week.

The episode of the purchase of the barometer
came back to the lady, mingled with the memory
of the blown-glass ship and Charlie. The memory
of Charlie produced restlessness. She must get
back to Bobbie and Fred at once — a nostalgia
for her own home assailed her. But she made
one more effort with Ines while Currant came

« THERE IS SOME ONE ELSE' 189

leisurely up the hill, with Mr. Beattie, dreamy-
eyed, holding the reins, and Hyacinth on the
back seat, given up to the luxurious fancy that
this was another funeral and she was chief
mourner. Hyacinth held her handkerchief to her
eyes the whole way, and after a time Mr. Beattie,
catching the flutter of it out of his eye corners,
turned and asked had she something in her eye.
When he saw her tragic face — she had just been
reciting the " Dust to dust " portion out of the
Prayer-book to herself — he came to the conclu-
sipii that his wife had misjudged her and that
she was a most tender-hearted girl. When they
got to the gate he gave her a shilling, surrepti-
tiously, and bade her buy herself some chocolate.
On which the girl thanked him with her very
heart in her eyes, for she had passionately wanted
to " go into black " for her late master, and Miss
Ines seemed to be taking no steps whatever in
the matter. The shilling would at least buy
crape for her sleeve and a handkerchief with a
black border.

" My dear," said Mrs. Beattie, as the sulky
came in sight and still Ines sat aimlessly looking
out of the window, " you must rouse yourself ;
you must indeed. It is more than time that
you saw to your mourning. Make it yourself if
you like ; it will give you something to do.
Except the best dress — you had better leave
that to Parker and Lang — crape is difficult
stuff. Now, will you let me help ? If you
don't like to go down to the shops just yet,

190 FAIR INES

make a list out and I will go to Bonnethorne
for you. Six yards will be ample, as you won't
like to have much trimming. Shall I get voile,
or what about Persian cord ? It wears well but
never is so good a black as voile, I think. And
what about dyeing ? Your brown now — it is all
wool, I think ; that ought to take the dye well."

Ines found that she must make an effort and
be explicit.

" Dear Mrs. Beattie," she said, "it is good of
you. But don't trouble. I shall not think
of buying mourning. He " — she paused just
one second — " hated it more than you can guess.
A woman a mass of black used to make him feel
positively ill, he said. He could not bear the
colour to come near him."

" But — but," said Mrs. Beattie doubtfully,
" he is gone now, my dear, and he would wish
you to do what is the orthodox thing, I am sure."

" No ; daddie never wished me to do that in
his life," said the girl with a dreary little smile.

" Even if you don't wear it at home you must
when you go out," urged Mrs. Beattie, " people
would think it so strange. Just let me order
you one dress, Ines." Her voice was actually
beseeching.

But Ines would not listen. Nothing would
induce her to send for the length of black
material.

" But you canH wear colours, it would be
positively unnatural," wailed Mrs. Beattie.

'THERE IS SOME ONE ELSE' 191

" I have some white woollens — I will wear
those if you like," Ines said, with a wan smile,
" and there is a grey somewhere. But not
black, indeed."

So Mrs. Beattie departed, adding it to her
tasks to soothe the susceptibilities of the neigh-
bourhood on the subject by explaining that
artists never acted like ordinary people, and that
the poor man had left solemn injunctions for
his daughter not to wear black.

Mrs. Shore remained in the cottage, as some
sort of a prop to Ines and Hyacinth. Mrs. Whar-
ton had driven over in the morning and begged
to carry them both off to Wendover until things
were settled.

But how could Ines accept such an invitation ?

" She is a girl and to be won," said the old
woman to Douglas on her return, calmly appro-
priating Shakespeare's wisdom for her own.
" Go over this afternoon and refuse to take no."

So Douglas went.

The girl met him with burning face, and
checked the rush of words of love that sprang to
his lips at this first sight of her in her desolation.

" I have treated you shamefully," she said.
" I dare not even ask you to forgive me. When
you asked me two months ago if I could care
for you, I — I said I didn't know."

" Yes," he said, puzzled, " that was not
treating me shamefully, little girl. Of course
you didn't know. I hadn't given you long

1$2 FAIR INES

enough. I have been quite content to wait —
and hope."

" But I did know," the girl said, her cheeks
burning deeper and still more deep ; " I knew
quite well I could never care for you. It was
for his sake — my father's. He wanted it so
badly — he was so terrified at the thought of
leaving me unprovided for. I — I felt nothing
mattered but letting his mind be at rest."

" And you would have married me ? " Douglas
said with a slow, quiet smile that gave his face a
good deal of character of its own ; " well, I should
not have objected to that. The love would have
come." He drew nearer to her ; there was deep
love in his eyes ; she was hard to win, this little
girl, but ultimately it would be all right ; he
really had no very serious doubt of it.

" No," she said vehemently, " I should never
have married you. That is where I have been
so — so callous to you. Listen ! The doctor
told me these three months were the critical ones
of his illness — that he might be taken suddenly
— as he was ; or make quite a good recovery."

" Yes ? " said Douglas, still uncomprehending.

" I sacrificed you. If it were indeed his last
few months I decided he should be happy till
the end of them — should go happy. He trusted
you so much."

" And if he had recovered ? "

" Then I decided he would be strong enough
to bear the truth, which was that I did not

'THERE IS SOME ONE ELSE' 193

return your love and could never, never marry
you."

" Ah ! " he said, and sat with his eyes fixed
on the carpet for nearly five minutes.

" It was unforgivable of me," she said in
a stifled tone. " I shall never forgive myself.
It seems like the most heartless coquetry, for
I know I let you think there might be hope.
Only — it wasn't quite heartless. Nothing could
tell you how I suffered over it."

" If I try again, Ines — very, very hard — not
just yet, perhaps, but some months ahead — a
year ahead if you wish it — might there be a
little hope for me ? "

Still the girl shook her head, drearily.

" A girl is not always sure of her feelings,"
he pleaded. " You may change to me. If I
am patient — very patient ? "

It was a brave man and a good who stood
before her.

But still she shook her head.

" Then there is some one else ? " he said
quietly.

And now the colour rushed all over her face.
She had no need to speak one word. He was
answered now.

" If you knew how I hate myself," she sobbed,
" you would forgive me."

He lifted her hand to his lips.

" I forgive you with all my heart," he said.
" Good-bye, little girl."

CHAPTER XVII

SHOLTO

Then there came Sholto, hard on his brother's
heels.

Mrs. Shore would have kept him back, for she
knew the girl lay huddled up on the desolate
sofa of the back verandah. But the boy pushed
wildly past the woman, the tears running down
his own cheeks, for he had caught the sound
of sobs.

He went out and fell down on his knees beside
her, put both his arms round her.

" Ines," he said, " Ines, Ines ! "

Never in all his after life did Sholto feel so
divine a flame of love as the one that at sixteen
consumed him for this girl years ahead of him
in age.

He ached to fight the world for her, to do
some heroic act that should even cost him his
life so long as she was served, but these things
might not be, and all he might do was to kneel
beside her like this and cry like a child just
because she was so hurt and cried. No one else
had comforted her so much. When they both
were a little calmer and sitting side by side, he,

194

SHOLTO 195

horribly ashamed of his eyes, said in a low
voice —

" Are you going to marry old Douglas, Ines ? "

" No," she said, " though I do like him very,
very much."

" He's a good chap," said the younger brother
generously.

" I know, I know."

" But you aren't going to marry him ? "

" Oh no."

" Ines ! " — he flung a tempestuous arm round
her again — " darling, do wait for me. I'll be
twenty in — in no time. I'm a man now, though
I don't seem very old. Do wait for me, darling.
Oh, I would work for you so hard ; all the rest
of my life would go to trying to make you happy.
Do say you will, darling, darling ! "

Ines actually kissed him, the poor blurred face
so close to her own was so loving, so boyish, so
beseeching. There was not a suspicion of a
smile on her face ; she did not even ask him to
consider himself as her brother ; just murmured,
" Poor old Sholto — dear old Sholto 1 I love you
for loving me so much. I care for you almost
more than every one in Wyama."

" As much as Douglas ? " asked the working
lips. He knew that she was refusing him, and
his poor young heart was almost bursting with
his misery, but he wanted to hear that he was
preferred to that brother of his.

" Much more than Douglas," she assented.

o 2

196 FAIR INES

" Then why won't you ? Darling, darling !
four years is no difference at all — I'm much older
than you really because I'm a man. I could
never love more than this — I could never love
any woman after you."

She was very gentle with him. She did not
even smile at this statement, or assure him that
he would love like this half-a-dozen times before
he was twenty.

But it was essential that she should not give
a spark of hope for him to keep wildly fanning
into life while his studies came to an absolute
standstill.

" It's a dreary world, Sholto," she said.
" You love me and can't have me, and " — the
words stuck in her throat — " there's some one
I care for and — can't have."

The boy sat up as straight as a soldier ; dropped
her hand as if it burned him. Just twice his
chest rose and fell.

" Of course. We might have expected it,"
he said. " In England, of course. But why
shouldn't you have him ? You'll be able to go
back now. Why not go by the next boat ? —
that will be the best. I'll get you all the dates
of sailing. It's — it's only six weeks on board.
In six weeks you'll be happy again, dar — Miss
Ines."

Ines rang for tea, which Hyacinth brought —
Hyacinth, quite annoyed because the young
gentleman stood looking out into the back

SHOLTO 197

garden all the time instead of noting how deftly
the tray was arranged.

Going away, the boy lingered a moment before
he mounted his horse ; Ines was giving the
beautiful creature the piece of sugar it had never
failed to get from her hand. He repeated his
intentions of sending at once to Sydney for
information about each and all of the mail
steamers ; he stated the fact that relatives often
trusted him with the task of choosing their
berths, as he really knew a thing or two in that
way.

" I couldn't bear for them to give you a cabin
where you'd get the afternoon sun in the tropics,"
he said ; " morning sun doesn't matter — the
cabins get a chance to cool down before bed-
time."

" I haven't settled anything yet," she said,
" but when I do it will be to you and you only
I'll come for help."

He gathered the reins into his hand and
looked at the stirrup.

" 'Fraid you think me a pretty choice speci-
men of a young ass, Miss Ines," he said.

" I think you the dearest boy in the world,"
the girl said warmly.

He flung himself up into the saddle.

" No, no," he smiled, " a particularly perfect
puppy in the pink of preservation."

But the quick young tears had come to his
eyes again.

CHAPTER XVIII

SOME ONE ELSE

" Love has been so long
Subdued in me, eating me through and through.
That now 'tis all of me and must have way."

On a Balcony.

" An' now," said Hyacinth to Mrs. Shore,
" 'ere comes that Mr. Shelding. Like a party
it's been, the whole day. Hasn't it ? But I
dare say the same tea'll do him, if you left the
pot on the stove. He won't be as p'ticler as
real gentlemen like Mr. Wharton and young
Mr. Wharton, will he ? "

They were in the kitchen discussing the week's
events, not a little exhilarated and lifted out of
their usual rut by the sudden happenings.

Hyacinth was setting a tray for Ines, setting
it with much care and affection. All the time
that Mrs. Beattie had been there the task of
carrying things actually to her mistress's side
had been denied her ; Mrs. Beattie had insisted
upon doing that office herself. But at last the
house was their own again.

At the same time she did not hasten to make
198

SOME ONE ELSE 199

the tea. She was giving Ines time to calm down
again.

The fatherless girl had shut herself in on the
secluded back verandah, for the large sitting-
room, giving, as it did, straight on to the front
verandah, lacked privacy too much for use just
now. And the tears, at last freely started by
Sholto's boyish affection, seemed as if they never
would cease to flow.

She moved the big screen that had so long
been used to keep draughts away from the sofa
head — moved it until it hid the sofa — and then she
crept into its shelter and, lying face downwards,
buried her head in the pillows and let the sobs
come.

" Do 'er good," said Mrs. Shore, who now and
again heard the pathetic sound in the kitchen.
" Unnatchral it was, her not shedding a tear all
this time. I've seen 'em like that before, bear up
quite stony all the first day and the second day —
even with th' undertakers tramping round. An'
if I'd my way they wouldn't be let into houses,
them men, not till they'd put list slippers on.
Plain croolty I call it at times when people has
got nothink to do but strain their ears for sounds.
But I never see even the stoniest of 'em last out
the funeral day like she did and not cry one
tear."

" I have," said Hyacinth, " me aunt did.
Never cried a drop till me father went down and
told her a week after that the ole man, me

200 FAIR INES

uncle, hadn't kep' up his 'surance and she
wouldn't get a sixpence."

" I'm talking about people who've got their
natchral affections," said Mrs. Shore with dignity.

" Meanin' me aunt hadn't ? " cried Hyacinth,
up in arms at once.

" Didn't you tell me yourself she useter throw
saucepan lids at him ? " said Mrs. Shore
pacifically.

Hyacinth assumed a limp and lurching atti-
tude in a second.

" Only when she was like that," she said, and
added with a confidential wink, " you under-
stand ! "

But Mrs. Shore was too genuinely depressed
at the trouble in the house to care about insults
to-day. Besides, what did her own good be-
haviour matter now ? There was no one, not
one soul left who needed her.

" You'd think there'd be some one as 'ud
come and stand by her just now, wouldn't
you ? " she said, and mopped her eyes as the
uncontrollable sobs reached her again. " Not
just Mrs. Beattie ; she don't count, of course."

" Of course not," agreed Hyacinth ; " she's
paid to do it, 't least, it's part of his work,
clergyman an' all that — any one that dies she's
got to go an' do the same. My goodness, isn't
the house a diff'rent place without her ! "

" Listen," said Mrs. Shore pitifully, " it's
heart-breaking, isn't it ? "

SOME ONE ELSE 201

Hyacinth's heart was by no means as soft as
that of the scarred old woman who had battled
with life since she was nine years old — fifty long
years now.

" Yes," she said judicially, " it's hard for her.
But it's the best thing that could have 'appened.
He was quite useless, and she'd have lost 'er
chanst always tied up by his side."

Mrs. Shore rose up and began feebly to fold
an armful of tea towels she had brought in from
the line. Hyacinth's philosophy was too much
for her ; she suffered from a heart constitution-
ally too warm, though there were few who
suspected her of the malady.

** All the same," Hyacinth went on, yielding
a little, " I wish there was some relingtive as
would come. There's her black 'as got to be
thought of. Suit her real well, it will."

" Not as much as an aunt, isn't there ? " said
Mrs. Shore anxiously. An aunt would have
been an immense load off her own mind.

'* On'y forynurs right over in Englan'," said
Hyacinth.

The light began to die out across the sky as
Ines sobbed her heart out on the sofa. It had
been about half-past four when Sholto went, and
it was almost an hour later now.

The first violence of her grief was spent ;
sometimes she sat upright, away from the
cushions and looked about her with eyes round
with terror. The loneliness appalled her ; she

202 FAIR INES

dared not think of life at all without that
helpless figure in the house to plan and care
for.

The long stress of the long, long year was
over ; the almost intolerable strain of the last
three months, when she had been entirely
obsessed by the doctor's prediction — recovery
or death. But not even physical relief had
come with the sudden snapping of the strain ;
nothing but a frenzied feeling of loss at no
longer having the strain.

She stared down at her helplessly hanging
hands ; what was there any more for them to
do ? She pressed them together, she bit her
lips, forced down the sob that rose again in her
throat. She was not going to break into crying
again ; it would distress Hyacinth and Mrs.
Shore, but here were the shadows gathering
deeper and deeper, and what was she to do ?
No one in all the house but Hyacinth and Mrs.
Shore — not one who really cared ! Ah, why had
she sent Sholto away ? He would have helped
to keep the terror of the loneliness away another
hour or two.

How could she bear it ? — oh, why didn't Scott
come ? She suddenly felt she must die if Scott
did not come and gather her into his arms. He
had never told her he loved her ; never once by
word of lip. But she knew. Never had any
man who had come to care for her looked at her
with just the look that came into his eyes when
they met. He loved her, he loved her but he

SOME ONE ELSE 203

would never tell her so, never with that black
blot behind him in the English life ! Well, she
would tell him, then, that was all. Between
herself and him, both of them struggling,
drowning in a sea of misery, what question could
there be of pride ?

" The next-door gentleman at the door,
dearie," said Mrs. Shore outside the screen, and
delicately refraining from as much as a look
within.

Hyacinth almost pushed the old woman down,
so fiercely did she thrust her aside, saying in a
wrathful whisper, " I'm servant here, not you.
You're only the char, nory."

Inside the screen she said, " Mr. Shelding at
the door, Miss Ines, an' I tole him it wasn't no
use, you'd been seein' other gen'lmen and was
that upset. So he sez to arst you if you could see
him to-morrer."

The desolate girl thrilled with a wave of
returning life.

" No, no," she said ; " I will see him now."

" Your eyes is real bad," said Hyacinth
significantly.

" I don't care," said the girl, and pushed the
screen away and stood up in the shadowy room.
" Ask him to come."

Hyacinth walked through the sitting-room.
" After all," she said to herself, " it's gettin'
pretty dark, an' it's only him. I wouldn't have
liked Mr. Douglas to have seed her with her face
all blotched like that."

204 FAIR INES

Scott came across the little space at a step,
his heart so full for her suffering that he could
not speak one word.

He had seen Douglas enter that afternoon and
had been glad, honestly glad to think that there
was some one with the right to comfort her.
He came himself, not with the right but only
the consuming wish to comfort. He had been
unable to sit in his cottage and picture her there
alone for the first time as the shadows gathered
so sombrely. How came it that they had all gone,
one after another, and left her there quite alone
with only that unfortunate old woman and that
ignorant girl ? He must see to this for himself.

The girl took a step to meet him. She seemed
to have suddenly lost control of herself.

" Oh," she said, " how could you be so long
in coming ? "

Then he read the incredible tale in her swim-
ming eyes, and a simple madness seized him.
He snatched her in his arms, kissed her again,
again, again, wet cheeks, poor eyes, piteously
trembling lips.

She clung to him wildly, sobbed, laughed,
shivered in her joy and misery.

It was not for five minutes that remembrance
came hurtling down on him like a poisoned
javelin.

His arms dropped to his sides, he looked at
her with ashen cheeks.

" God forgive me," he said, " I had forgotten.
I am engaged."

CHAPTER XIX

IBIS

And this is how it sometimes seems to some
men that Fate dehghts to work. They see her
sitting bland, smiling, allowing her victims to
play in the sunshine, careless and unafraid, as
calm-eyed children. She stoops down and
whispers to them that this is how she has
ordered life for them ; oh yes, others have felt
her whip, but not these — she is always going to
grant sunshine for these. She puts her hand
into the bag by her side, and with a large,
benevolent smile flings out of it golden balls,
honours and gifts of most exquisite love. They
grasp them eagerly and go on happily with their
play ; it will be always so, always this sunshine,
always these lovely gifts.

Then they look up and suddenly all her face
has darkened. She snatches back her gifts, she
drives them out of the sunshine. Even that is
not enough ; she pursues them wherever they
try to creep, pursues them with stinging pebbles,
sometimes with whips and sharp-edged stones.
Nothing they can do any more can placate her.

205

206 FAIR INES

True, they did nothing before to deserve her
smiles, but now, however they strive, she is
relentless. On and on she drives them — will
she ever weary ? Will the pitiless stones follow
them right through the rest of life ?

Scott had asked the question. Now Ines
asked it. But Fate kept her counsel closely, as
she ever does

The incredible thing indeed was true.

It was to Iris, the friend of that far-away
London boarding-house, that Scott was engaged.
She was a frail little thing, quite pathetically
beautiful. The soul of a poet shone out of her
great blue eyes ; her mouth was sensitive, the
colour ebbed to and fro in her cheeks with every
mood.

The only child of a mother who worshipped
her, who lived only for her, it practically seemed
another edition of the case of Lady Barnsley
and Cecil. Only, the girl was full of sweetness
as well as of sentiment, full of endearing little
ways, capable of a love for all the unhappy
people in the world. That, perhaps, was the
flaw in her soundness ; she had a leaning towards
the unhappy. Even as a child she never be-
stowed all the wealth of her affection on a healthy
and merry little kitten or dog ; it was always the
crippled ones, the dejected, that she gathered
to her heart.

The mother, a Mrs. Bassett, a widow with an
income just large enough to enable her to live

IRIS 207

and bring up her one child in moderate comfort,
had of late years kept up no settled home. In
the winter she carried her girl off to Italy or
the South of France, to protect her from
climatic dangers. In the summer they wan-
dered pleasantly among the English lakes, or
took a Devonshire cottage, or tasted the plea-
sures of one of the quieter seaside places. For
headquarters in London they retained the
ground floor at the modest but comfortable
boarding-house to which Scott and Cecil had
found their way.

The young people soon made friends ; the
boys on the top floor seemed lonely — what more
natural thing than that the ground floor should
ask them down to the piano ? Mrs. Bassett
had unimpeachable characters of them from the
landlady : clerks in an office they were certainly,
and badly off, but sons of Lady Barnsley and,
better than that, nephews of John Barnsley, the
big woollen merchant in Gravesend Street.

So the intimacy continued. Scott, working
doggedly hard both at his office work and his
medical reading, which he was trying to keep
up, did not avail himself of the drawing-room
invitations as much as Cecil, but still he went
from time to time. He was a man with the
home passion deeply planted in him, and this
simple, pleasant room with gentle little Mrs.
Bassett and large-eyed Iris moving about it
seemed the nearest approach to his notions of

208 FAIR INES

home that he had yet been granted. He never
hked to think of that wandering childhood of
his, spread out over half the map of Europe.
And in the lamp-beshaded home in Little Mit-
cham, something had always been lacking.
But here was gentleness, genuineness, much
affection, and the graces of life to which he had
been quite a stranger for those two first stren-
uous years in London. He found it very
pleasant after a hard day's work.

He was not in the least in love with Iris. He
felt himself indeed at any time better able to
talk to Mrs. Bassett. Iris was too fond of
poetry for him ; he had never cared for poetry.
She never looked at things quite healthily, it
seemed to himself, who had already all a medi-
cal man's keen admiration of the perfectly
normal. Besides, it seemed clear to him that
she preferred Cecil's companionship ; she and
Cecil had very many things in common.

Quite conceivably he might have drifted
into love with her ; she was so pretty, so femin-
ine, and she formed so entirely his whole gallery
of girl-acquaintance at present.

But in the midst of the pleasant days he was
plunged without a second's warning straight
into the ice-cold sea of the tragedy.

When he stood dazed in the ante-room of the
court after his sentence, a constable touched his
arm. " Ladies to see you," he said. " Not
quite the rule, in course, but I can manage it

IRIS 209

as the Court's not riz yet. You can have five
minutes."

He walked to the door, admitted the ladies —
Mrs. Bassett and Iris — and then considerately
turned his back.

Iris rushed to Scott's side, seized his hand,
pressed it, the tears running down the delicate
fairness of her face. She believed in him, she
did not care a bit if he had done this dreadful
thing : never let him think he had no friends
left ; all the three years she would be thinking
of him and praying for him — he must promise
her not to lose courage — he must promise her
never to lose faith. She was half beside herself
with agitation ; a doctor would have diagnosed
the attack as hysteria.

Poor little Mrs, Bassett stood helplessly by.
She herself had been immeasurably shocked at
the crime, and of her own will would have never
taken the hand of its perpetrator again. She
felt all the indignation and fear of a mother-
hen who has just learnt that a fox has been in
company with her only chicken.

But Iris had dragged her to the court. Iris
had insisted on sitting through the entire trial
and listening to every word. Iris had, after
the sentence, seized her by the arm and carried
her off to a side door, and insisted that she
should bribe the constable to an immediate
interview with the sentenced man. She had
obeyed. No one but herself knew the force of

210 FAIR INES

will that existed in her slender daughter — no
one but herself would have credited the fact
that so frail-looking a creature had an obstinacy
absolutely inconquerable, by a mother at least.

She stood now, looking in a terrified way from
Scott to the girl. He seemed behaving very
well ; he thanked Iris steadily for her great
kindness ; he assured her that it would be the
only memory that he should care to dwell on
during his imprisonment ; but he honestly
seemed embarrassed by the visit, and looked
over at her mother once or twice as if to say,
" Why on earth did you let her come to a place
Hke this ? "

Still, the memory was really a pleasant one
in the blank dead days that followed. How
blank and how dead the days, let that man say
who has watched one thousand and ninety-five of
them crawl by, one by one — always one by one.

When he became entitled to indulgences — as
after a year he did, so hard was he striving,
lashed by the awful fear that he might sink to
degradation like his companions, surrounded
always by them and cut off from hope — when
he became entitled to these, Iris began to write
to him. Her hysteria seemed in nowise to
have abated ; the letters she wrote to him were
practically love-letters. How might he dream
that he was merely the object of the girl's im-
measurable pity — merely the crippled cat of
her childhood ! She did not even guess this

IRIS 211

herself. When the long term was over she was
there to meet him, Mrs. Bassett, resigned and
subjected, by her side.

They carried him off in a cab to the boarding-
house. He tried his best not to go, appealed
to Mrs. Bassett that he ought not to go, that he
was no fit person now to take there. The lady
only sighed and looked helplessly at Iris.

" Tell him you insist on him coming, mother,"
the girl said.

" I insist on you coming," Mrs. Bassett said
with perfect obedience.

In the drawing-room Scott found they were
left together, himself and Iris, grown even
prettier than ever and with a kind of startling,
ethereal beauty now. Again she took his hand,
spoke words of courage, hope, affection.

How could she know that this was mere
depraved artistic temperament in herself ; that a
definite picture was formed in her mind of a man,
deeply, darkly sinning though repentant, and
herself, the guardian angel of his life, dragging
him out of the mire and ever pointing upward ?

How could he know it either ? Shattered by
the confinement, his nerve gone, almost his
courage gone ; the floodgates of emotion opened
at the sight, the odour of this room where he
had leaned back in that chair and dreamed his
dreams of life, and close beside him this sweet-
faced girl — he had seen no woman's face at all
for three long years — what wonder if he trembled

P 2

212 FAIR INES

exceedingly and lost his self-control ? He tried
to thank her for her wonderful goodness to him,
and broke down completely.

She put her arms round his neck in a passion
of abnegation and he told himself that he was
in love, cruelly, pitifully in love. He summoned
his manhood to him and went out at once and told
Mrs. Bassett ; begged her to carry the girl away
to the Continent and give her such gaiety and
occupation that she would speedily forget him.
It were preposterous to think that he could
contemplate shadowing her life, preposterous
to think that he would allow her to suffer for
her generosity.

Mrs. Bassett merely shook her head de-
jectedly. Iris had announced her intention of
" sticking to him," and that intention would
be, she knew, carried out. Only twice before
in her life had she really thwarted the girl, and
on both occasions she had nearly lost her, for
Iris threatened to go into a decline so promptly,
and had seemed so instantly on the point of
doing so, that the poor lady had hauled down
her flag in submission.

She did not want a third doctor to come
round and chill her heart with a diagnosis of
" symptoms of rapid decline — if she has set her
heart on anything let her have her way."

" No," the unfortunate mother said, " we
must make the best of it. You must start in
another country. We mustn't cross her."

Scott absolutely refused, however, to hold the

IRIS 218

girl bound to him. He intended to start for
Australia in two days, he said, and she was to
remember he held her free as air.

She had looked up at him with a great shining
in her eyes.

" But / hold you bound," she said softly.

Never, even on the long, weary voyage, had
Scott been able to derive pleasure from his
" engagement." He had the sense all the time
that he was taking advantage of a girl's romantic
sense of sacrifice.

Every time he wrote in answer to her letters
— and many of these came to the wheat farm —
beautiful letters, couched in both lofty and
tender vein, letters intended to keep him from
slipping again from the path of righteousness
among the temptations of the new land — every
time he answered these letters he told her she
was free, free as air, and he should rejoice to
hear that she was engaged to a man whose life
was not irretrievably ruined.

But she only wrote back, on pale mauve paper
delicately scented with heliotrope : " I am
engaged to a man whose life is not irretrievably
ruined. I am engaged to you."

" But when did you first realise you did not
really love her ? " said Ines, listening with most
rueful countenance to the best outline Scott
could give, in fairness to both Iris and himself,
of this chapter of his life.

" God help me," answered Scott, " I knew it
from the first moment I saw your face."

CHAPTER XX

TO LET — A COTTAGE

The autumn days slipped insensibly away,
and winter, the mild Australian winter lay on
Wyama, hill and dale.

David's cottage still held Ines. In Jonathan's
Scott was yet to be found.

At first every one had insisted that Ines must
leave her cottage, that it was inconceivable to
imagine her staying there in the loneliness and
with the place full of such sad memories.

And Ines, bowing for once to the accepted
notion that what every one said must of necessity
be right, wrote to David and informed him that
though six months of her lease still had to run,
she would be greatly obliged if, under the cir-
cumstances, he could see his way to cancel it,
or if he could not do this, if he would give her
permission to sub-let.

Now David had been carried quite off his
respectable feet by Ines, whom he still remem-
bered as a young lady who had induced him to
make alterations to his cottage that no landlord
in rightful possession of his senses should have
dreamed of making.

214

TO LET— A COTTAGE 215

When the time arrived for Mrs. David to say
she would " run up to Wyama and have a look
at the old place," then David knew his bad
quarter of an hour would be well on the way.

He had never explicitly told his wife about
the changes that had been made ; had merely
referred casually to having had to do a " few
little jobs " at the place, artists, as every one
knew, not being like " ordinary people."

At the distance of twelve months he was not
too clear himself as to what the alterations had
been ; he had merely a confused memory that
walls had been torn up by the roots and carried
out and made to do duty in other places. That
strange and perishable colourings had been used
in the painting, and that a dado had been
caused to flourish right up next to the ceiling,
instead of down near the skirting-board where
ordinary people, not connected with art, were
content to keep their dadoes, the same proving
economical in the end, being easily renewed
when soiled by furniture and children's fingers.

The letter from his tenant filled his breast
with fear. Once the cottage was empty Mrs.
David would insist upon going to see it. Half-
a-dozen times lately, when the suburban road
had been exceptionally dusty and the suburban
people exceptionally slow to pick up the bar-
gains she offered them, she had " wondered how
little Wyama was gettin' along," "wondered if
that there red rose she put in was growin' yet,"

216 FAIR INES

*' wondered if lizards still came out and sat on
that silly ole stone wall."

No, David had not the courage to precipitate
a crisis. So he wrote laboriously —

" Dear Miss," he wrote, " Being sorry not to
oblige it being a lady and young and trouble
having come to her and cetera but the patitions
made it unpossible, others not in the art line
not liking notions but re the sublet you can do
as you like and Cross at the news agency would
be the best man for her to give it to."

Cross at the News Agency came and looked
round, doubtfully ; the skied dado prejudiced
him at once ; but he supplied a large board that
said " To Let," and he requested five shillings
for five insertions in the Wyama News of the
fact that a desirable cottage property was to let.

Numbers of people came at once to look —
such numbers, indeed, that Ines began at once
to pack her books and to write to Sydney to
inquire about rooms. Most of the people she
recognised, however, with surprise ; there was
Miss Dwyer, for instance, who would surely find
it impossible to run about and deliver two
music lessons (at sixpence a lesson) twice a week
to thirty pupils from so out-of-the-way a place.
There was the butcher's wife, who had bought
the Wilton pile carpet at the sale ; there were
quite a dozen farmers' wives from farms on
which you might have reasonably supposed them
settled for life. Certainly they, most of them.

TO LET— A COTTAGE 217

instanced hypothetical aunts or sisters-in-law
or cousins-by-marriage as the reason of their
coming to " take a look round," said aunts,
sisters-in-law and cousins having asked them to
keep their eyes open for a suitable place.

How was Ines to know that she and her
cottage were regarded in Wyama just now as
something almost as interesting as the Bioscope
Exhibition which came to Wyama two or three
times a year ? And undoubtedly cheaper : you
paid sixpence for entrance to the Bioscope Hall,
while at the cottage admission was absolutely
free as long as that notice board was up.

At last rumour might be confirmed. Walls
had been removed ; it was no idle tale. There
was no sideboard ; there was no piano — not as
much as one for which payment was being made
at the rate of half-a-crown a week. There was
no carpet — just bits of mats lay about, while
the boards were made dark and slippery. Plenty
of pictures — old stock of the artist's of course
that had not moved off. The servant's room
done up just ridiculous ; enough to unfit a girl
for service the rest of her life. And it was true
as death about her not going into black. White
dresses all the time — ^just a black band at the
waist, and even that, it was said, Mrs. Beattie
had to beg for on her bended knee.

After a time Ines unpacked her books again ;
it was plain sub-letting took a little time. She
had been a little shy at first about showing pros-

218 FAIR INES

pective tenants round herself, and had left the
task to Hyacinth ; but as the weeks slipped by
she determined that it was work she must take
upon her own shoulders for fear Hyacinth might
be missing desirable points.

A few people, genuinely seeking new homes,
came along. And then Ines found that what
was one man's meat was undoubtedly another
man's poison.

" No front room ! " one woman said.

" On the contrary," smiled Ines, "it is all
front room.'*

" I mean no proper sitting-room," said the
woman, looking from side to side as if she
might detect one hidden away.

" I like the feeling of spaciousness it gives,"
said Ines.

" But you can't do without a sitting-room,"
urged the woman, the wife of a prosperous
poultry farmer who had professed himself
satisfied with West Slope for his own purposes
if " the missis " liked the cottage. " You must
have a sitting-room. Why, you'd have to have
your meals in the same room as you kep' your
ornyments and the piano ! "

Ines showed the back verandah, which had
been so cosily closed in that it made a very
presentable little room.

" I have my meals chiefly here now," she said.
" Perhaps you might like to do the same."

The woman looked round the limited space.

TO LET— A COTTAGE 219

" Eight of us to dinner, Sundays, — we always
kill a pair, and either my sister or his sister and
their families come, — how'd we squeeze in ?
How'd the girl get roun' the table to move the
plates ? "

There was reason in this.

The woman was back in the large sitting-
room.

" And the carpet it 'ud take if you did keep
it as a sitting-room — or a drorin'-room — you
could really call that sized room a drorin'-room
and not be puttin' on side."

" You don't like polished boards ? " said Ines.

The woman looked a little offended.

" My man's always been able to give me a
carpet," she said. " My trouble is my present
one's next to new and would do quite well in
a proper room. But it would only be a ohaysus,
as the saying is, here."

Once or twice she seemed on the point of
yielding — of graciously forgiving the removal of
the partitions, for something pleased her. Per-
haps it was the green glazed pot with the daffodils
growing and flowering in it ; perhaps it was the
way the sunlight lay on the stream above the
bridge at Little Mitcham ; perhaps it was that
the nasturtiums near the ceiling appealed to a
novelty-loving sense in her own heart.

But in the end a memory assailed her, and
made the whole thing absolutely impossible.
Where would they put the 'all stand ? Cedar

220 FAIR INES

and a big glass let in, bevelled edges, mind
you, a box for the time-table and things,
place for rumbrellers, hold eight 'ats all at the
same time. Where would they put the 'all
stand ?

Ines realised that persuasion was useless,
gave her visitor a cup of tea seeing that she had
come so far, and saw her out to her buggy with
the best grace she could muster.

But she saw her mistake at last, and began to
wonder which would cost the least : to put the
partitions back in their places, or to let the
cottage stand untenanted until the end of the
lease.

One hundred a year still remained to her she
found, but the doctoring and the indulgence of
her father's last wishes had brought the current
account of loose money very low. She crinkled
her brows in hard thought when the clerk at
the bank in the village, in answer to her question
as to her balance there, said, " Seven pounds,
fourteen and eightpence, Miss Erwin." The
next twenty-five pounds — her income was to
come along in sums of that size quarterly — was
not due for two months.

Plainly there was not sufficient margin to
continue to pay fifteen shillings a week for the
cottage and also to pay for living elsewhere.

She explained this to Mrs. Beattie, to Mrs.
Wharton, to the doctor's wife, all of whom were
telling her she must not stay up there. Of

TO LET— A COTTAGE 221

course, they all promptly invited her to come
and stay with them. Wendover had room and
to spare, surely, for a slip of a girl. Mrs. Beattie
could have found no one she would rather have
to occupy her painfully severe spare room at
the Rectory ; the doctor's wife would have been
thankful for the companionship. But the girl,
bruised and bleeding still, clung passionately
to her independence, her solitude.

" I'm not even sure if it's proper, just you and
no one but a girl like Hyacinth living here all
alone," Mrs. Beattie said, as her last word one
afternoon as she was driving away after a
fruitless attempt to dislodge Ines from her
stronghold.

At this Ines went in with crinkled brows. She
had seen Mrs. Beattie's very doubtful gaze go to
the blue cap that could be seen amid the wheat
two hundred yards away.

Hyacinth met her. Hyacinth plainly pleased
about something, though trying hard to conceal
her pleasure.

" She's been at it again," she announced ;
" thought she had when she never turned up
for the ironing : baker's boy he tole me, he says he
saw her over near Murwumba, slep' in the bush,
never came home for nights an' nights, got
stickin' plaster on her forrid, one of her thumbs
tied up. A tramp, he got in her winder when
she was away, and took her blankets and 'er
clock what you gave her, and her weddin' ring

222 FAIR INES

that was too loose, and everythink he could lay
his hands on. Police, he's just gone and she's
sitting there quite dazed like."

Ines heard the story with a sick heart. She
had proved the poor old woman's sterling good-
ness more than ever during the time of her own
trouble. She caught up a cap.

" I'm going down to see her," she said.

" You'll have to let me come with you ; master,
he never let you go alone, you know," said Hya-
cinth, only too eager to see a scene where a
tramp and a policeman had so recently been
among the dramatis personae.

" No," said Ines, troubled ; " I can't let you,
with that dreadful cough of yours. It is begin-
ning to rain too. No, I will put on my macin-
tosh and be back soon. Light the lamp and
set tea. You won't be lonely with Mr. Sheldon
so close at hand."

Hyacinth felt a little ill-used, but cheered up
after a minute or two. She had been wanting
her mistress out of the house for some days to
get a chance to try on a beautiful opera cloak
that she had only lately discovered in one of
the boxes marked, " Not wanted on the voyage."
These boxes had become a perennial resource to
the girl during Ines' absences ; their treasures
seemed endless.

Ines hurried through the garden and away
down the hill through the light rain and the
gathering shadows. She carried a lantern for

TO LET— A COTTAGE 223

the return journey, for indeed it was a rough
bit of country.

The poor old woman was sitting alone, sober
and dazed amid the ruin of her home. The
baker's boy had not exaggerated the story of
the tramp's depredations — nothing the man
could carry and turn to any account had been
left behind.

Other little comforts that Ines had been used
to seeing about the place had gone too ; the
lamp — the old woman was sitting with only the
light from a bit of candle — the tablecloth, the
rocking-chair, the carpet, the china ornaments,
the varnished safe that had been full of relics
of old days.

The tramp was not responsible for the absence
of these ; they had been recklessly sent for by
their owner to satisfy the demands of the
publican at Murwumba, into whose debt the old
woman had plunged deeply diu-ing her week's
absence.

Ines was stricken with remorse to think that,
so full of her own troubles had she been, she had
never given the poor old thing a thought for all
this week ; had never even missed the customary
gleam of light far down the hill.

She took the old, trembling hands in her own.

" Oh, I am so sorry, so very sorry for this,"
she said ; and indeed the abject misery of this
" cottage interior " as the artists call it, would
have touched harder hearts.

224 FAIR INES

" Own fault," said Mrs. Shore drearily, " own
fault, my dear. Brought it on meself. No one
to blame."

" I didn't even know you were away. When
did you get back ? "

" Two days," said the old woman, " three
p'raps. Sat in this chair all the time. Don't
never want to get out of it."

" But has no one been to see you ? " Ines
cried.

" Oh yes," said the old woman apathetically ;
" Mitchell and the new pleece, and Johnnie —
baker's boy, you know, good boy." She looked
with vague appreciation at .Johnnie's silent
tribute to misfortune — half a loaf of bread, an
apple and a little heap of peppermints.

" Mrs. Beattie can't have heard," said Ines,
comforting herself.

" Don't go to church," said the old woman
succinctly.

Ines lit a fire and made tea, found a tin of
sardines, jam, biscuits, and insisted on a meal
being eaten.

Then for ten minutes they sat in silence —
battered old woman with the wistful eyes,
smooth-cheeked girl with the corners of her
niouth drooped over these world woes.

"Don' worry about me, missie dear," the old
voice said at last. "I'm nearly through with
things. Sixty's old when you've had a life like
mine."

TO LET— A COTTAGE 225

" You will live to be seventy at least," said
Ines inexorably. " Now the question is, what
are you going to do ? Ten years is a good
time."

Mrs. Shore looked round her stripped room
with eyes into which fear began to creep.
Certainly the prospect of ten years without any
comforts left was a little terrifying.

" It'll have to be the asylum," she said
sullenly ; then added, with a gleam in her eyes,
" they're not kep' like prisoners, I hear. They
can break out sometimes. An' they've always
got to take you back after you've done your
time."

This to be the end of a life of almost unex-
ampled endurance and devotion ! It was more
than any eager-hearted girl could bear.

" Now see here," said Ines, after her thoughts
had moved with lightning swiftness for a time,
" I have thought everything out. Listen to
this. I can't let my cottage, so I shall go on
living in it for several months more at least.
It is lonely for me there with no one older than
Hyacinth. I want you to come and live with
me as long as I am there."

" I wouldn't live on no one's charity," said
the old woman angrily ; " leastways on no one's
but State's — that don't count quite so much.
I've always worked my way along, I have."

" I don't propose to show you charity," said
Ines promptly; "I am not rich enough to.
Q

226 FAIR INES

I have very little left, and I can't send Hyacinth
away. No ; this is what I propose."

She placed her hastily-conceived offer before
the old woman.

There was room at the cottage, now, for one
extra. Ines would make a room neat and
comfortable for her, her own cupboard, own
teapot, own bed, and so on ; she would not feel
too much uprooted. There would be meals for
her always, either in the kitchen with Hyacinth
or in her own room. In return she would do
Ines' washing and ironing, but there would be
no wages — she must quite understand that Ines
could not afford to offer charity. Such work,
however, would not take her more than one day
in the week. Ines would undertake to find
other work for her — a little washing, or nursing,
or sewing — that would put a few shillings for
spending money into her pocket weekly.

Mrs. Shore thought the proposition out in
silence. All the best part of her nature cried
out in thankfulness at this prospect of being
protected against herself from the temptations
that loneliness and the long, empty hours made
so irresistible to her.

" Well," she said, " since it's doin' you a
favour. Miss Ines, I'm willin'. You'll be able
to have all the white frocks you like now. But
mind, I wouldn't accep' no one's charity.^^

" I'm sure you wouldn't," said Ines heartily.

It was agreed that she should " move up " in

Just outside the gate Scott was standing.

Page 227

TO LET— COTTAGE 227

the morning. They remembered that another
source of income for her would be this cottage,
which would possibly bring something like half-
a-crown a week.

" Good-night," said Ines ; " I must run back
now. I have left Hyacinth alone."

" I shall call her Eliza," said the old woman
firmly ; " she can't expect me to Hyacinth
her."

It was too late to argue the matter now.

" I will send her down in the morning to help
you carry little things," Ines said, " and Johnnie
baker boy will bring the rest. You will be sure
to come ? I feel I can't manage another day
without a responsible person in the house."

" It's hurryin' me," grumbled Mrs. Shore.
" There's a lot will want doing here for a tenant.
I don't think I can manage to be there till after
lunch. You must wait till then, Miss Ines."

" Afternoon will do, quite well," said Ines
meekly. " Good-night, Mrs. Shore."

She lighted her lantern, and started out into
the damp, dark air.

Just outside the gate Scott was standing, as
he had patiently stood all through the interview.

Q2

CHAPTER XX

ONE WILD, WET EVENING

" The moon made thy lips pale^ heloved ;
The wind made thy bosom chill."

ShEIjLEY.

They had spoken no word to each other since,
their young hearts broken by the bitter cruelty
of fate, they had agreed to part for ever on
the day when Hyacinth had remarked it was
" almost like a party."

What else might they do ?

Oh, virtue is not a quality that belongs, as a
cynic says, exclusively to the angels.

Here were two flesh-and-blood young things,
wild with unavailing love for each other, and yet
piteously, pitifully trying to do " the right
thing."

How could they but consider that far-off girl
who had so nobly stepped forward when all the
rest of the world hung back ? Not once did
Ines feel anything but admiration for her ; not
even in her wildest moment of temptation did
she contemplate reaching out for her own happi-
ness at the expense of that of Iris.

As for Scott, he did her bidding. Almost he
228

ONE WILD, WET EVENING 229

would have sacrificed Iris ; this, when his love
for the girl so close to him became a pain past
endurance. He would tell himself at such a
time that Iris had not really cared for him, had
acted as she had done out of a very insanity of
pity. At others he saw the absolute improb-
ability of so acting ; indeed, the girl must have
cared, have cared so genuinely that with a nature
organised so excessively finely as was hers to
brutally write that he loved another would be
to give an actual death-blow.

At other times, again, he forgot everything
and gave himself up to the intoxication of the
incredible fact that it was for himself that Ines
cared, not for Douglas, not for any of the men
she had met in the past — just for him alone.

Night after night he would walk his garden
staring with tireless eyes at the lamp-light
shining through the blind of her sitting-room.

Fate was relentless in her dealings with his
life ; well, he would not whine — would just
forge along as best he could on the directed lines.
His was a perfectly simple nature, and took it
that there were directed lines. One was never
left in doubt as to which were these lines. It
was only when one was not honest and tried to
confuse the issues for oneself, that one paused
to wonder whether the lines that led through
the luxurious valley might not actually be the
ones directed, and not those that ran to the
austere hill's top.

880 FAIR INES

But he allowed himself this weakness — this
standing in the garden and flooding his heart
with the light of her lamp, and the knowledge
that she loved him too,

Ines made an even more heart-breaking effort
than his ; she tried to cut herself off from thinking
of him at all. He belonged to Iris ; it was
wrong, actually wrong for her to remember the
dear clasp of his arms, the rain of his kisses on
her face, his eyes with their look of incredulous
happiness. Yet they seemed with her always,
these memories ; with her when she rose, with
her as she filled her day full as she might with
work that should make her forget, with her as,
wearied yet sleepless, she put out her light.

It was his eyes that she seemed to see all the
time — those grey, insistent eyes that had always
been watching her when he talked to her father,
that made themselves felt across the wall of
stones, across the street when they passed each
other, across life itself.

But she must not think of them ; they were
for Iris to think of, brave, noble Iris watching
on the other side of the sea. For herself she
must work, walk till she almost dropped — any-
thing, anything to get away from this love and
feel at peace with herself.

Yet when the cottage would not let, joy leapt
like a live thing in her heart. She need not
go away — she could not go away ; indeed, how,
if she went, might she have enough to live on ?

ONE WILD, WET EVENING 231

Besides, she was of a little use here ; she was
making a home for Mrs. Shore and for Hyacinth,
who, if she left, would be condemned to the
drab of life again.

Her first thought for taking Mrs. Shore had
been indeed for the woman's own protection.
Instantly afterwards she hugged the new tie she
had made that kept her where she could still see
the man she loved with all her heart.

They had agreed that they must not talk to
each other, that might make the conflict hard
beyond all hope of victory. But for her to see
his cap moving about the wheat; for him to
watch her light, sometimes to hear her voice —
ah, the Fates must leave them little things like
that!

And then she ran out into the rain and almost
into his arms. Almost. He dropped them to
his side the next second.

" Ah," she said, " you should not have come
— you should not have come."

But her heart leapt high and insolent with joy.

He steadied his voice.

" I can't let you run about like this alone,"
he said. " I watched you come out. It is now
nearly eight."

Had it taken so long to persuade the obstinate
old woman that she would not be taking charity ?

She steadied her voice, pressed her hand to
that leaping heart, and told him of the occurrence.

" You should have sent Hyacinth for me," he

282 FAIR INES

said. " I would have gone to Mrs. Shore. You
must never do this again — do you hear, Ines ? "

The assumption of authority did not vex her ;
it only wrapped her warmly like a garment in the
bitter cold of winter.

" Promise me," he said.

" I promise."

" The house hasn't let — what are you going
to do ? "

" No, it hasn't let — no one will take it."

" Thank God for that ! "

" Oh hush ! You shouldn't. Ah, we oughtn't
to be talking — it makes it harder, oh, so much
harder ! "

" Nothing could be harder than it is, Ines — it
is too hard. I — can't bear it." He stopped
stock still in the rain ; they stared at each other
with wet, white faces and wild young eyes.

" Ines ! " he said, the odour of his wet macin-
tosh so close gave her a feeling of dizziness.
" Ines, one more kiss."

One second since he had been swearing to
himself he would not say it.

" No," she said, and prayed that he would
not listen to her.

" No ! " and prayed that he would. " No,"
and prayed, like a Jesuit, " yes, yes ! I can be
sorry after."

Then the clean rain swept her face, a gust of
it sent cold, sword-like, from heaven.

" No," she gasped, " dear, dear Scott, no !

ONE WILD, WET EVENING 233

Don't let's do anything we'll be sorry for after-
wards. Think of her. Let us think of her."

Still he did not move. Still his lips seemed
seeking for her face in the darkness.

" Think of mc," she whispered ; " don't make
— it harder for me."

That was the weapon. He yielded to it at
once.

They were almost at her garden gate. He
opened it — almost pushed her inside ; then
plunged back to the darkness of the bush, to
walk and walk till he should have himself in
hand again.

CHAPTER XXII

AT David's and Jonathan's

" And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins."

Atalanta in Calydon.

The spring had come, winter had departed.
Not so much as a footmark had he left behind
him. Where had he gone ? Who cared ? Per-
haps he sank away, slowly, imperceptibly into
the ground and was absorbed into the soil as
were most other things from kings to field
flowers.

Perhaps he rose in the night, and, clutching
the mane of the west wind as it stampeded by,
was borne on its back to far and uncomprehended
lands that needed his presence.

Perhaps the clouds dropped low and caught
him up to the skies, there to lie hidden and
harmless till another year.

Who cared where was the place of his now
abiding ?

Winter had gone, and the spring was here ;
that was all that mattered.

The wattle had waked and all Wyama was
234

AT DAVID'S AND JONATHAN'S 235

sweetly awave with it. West Slope stood with
its feet in a tangle of gold — gold for a girdle,
gold wreathed round its head. Half-way down,
the cottages clung just as they had clung since
they were born there. Still they looked down
on the village with inscrutable eyes ; still their
hands hung, side by side as if but a moment
were needed and they would be clasped for ever.

And in all that time, all the time it had taken
for the slow sap to rise up into the wattle, and
swell it root and branch, and break out into
new leaves, and push out pin-point buds and
swell these, a little larger and a little larger
till they burst into gold, all the hours, and
days, the weeks and months this had taken,
they had spoken no other word to each other,
those two on either side of that long stone wall.
Not one other word, though the sap had stirred
in them too, and swelled most piteously, though
their young hearts were bursting — bursting just
like the wattle with a wealth of gold.

These are not the days of troubadors. Scott
had no lyre. He merely worked doggedly at
the task that he had taken up.

Mariana of the Moated Grange lives in a poem.

Ines met the problem of the days and nights
with work. She dare not grant h6rself the
luxury of saying

"I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead."

The twenty-five pounds quarterly was not

286 FAIR INES

quite enough for comfort for three of them,
though it went further than many would have
supposed.

Mrs. Shore and Hyacinth had taken to working
off their enmity in rival poultry and vegetable
undertakings. Two surprisingly prolific patches
of cauliflowers, peas and such culinary delights
sprang into existence ; broods of chickens
chipped their way out of eggs, were steered
through the Scylla of chickendom, and appeared,
brown to a turn, or delicately masked in sauce,
under the dish-cover on Ines' table. Milk and
fruit were cheap. Living came in reality to less
than it had done many a time in the French or
Italian villages, where they had been promised
that they could live on next to nothing and
grow fat.

But Hyacinth's trifling wages must be paid and
her pathetic love of pretty colours satisfied to a
reasonable extent ; books and magazines and
such must be bought to keep the waters of life
from stagnation. So Ines took up again a craft
she had practised a little in London — metal
work. Sheets of brass and copper were sent
from town, and for several hours in the day
there came to Scott in his wheat, sounds of the
sharp tap, tapping. Then there went back to
the Arts and Crafts Society in the city quaint
brass finger-bowls, coffee-trays of delightful
design, finger-plates for doors, panels for furni-
ture. There came to be an actual demand for

AT DAVID'S AND JONATHAN'S 237

the work of the unseen country member — the
lady at Wyama. It was not that her work was
as intrinsically good as that of other people who
had spent years at it, but her designs were so
full of originality and charm that they covered
the defects of manual skill. In a little time her
earnings were quite considerable. Then she had
a Stencil class once a week in her large room,
many of the neighbouring girls as well as
Elizabeth Wharton being only too glad to have
such an opportunity for acquiring the easy art.
For years afterwards, when Ines was no longer
to be found in Wyama, traces of her influence
could be seen on the cushions, curtains and even-
ing scarves of the township, while friezes became
positively popular and dadoes were foresworn.

All this time Mr. Munro had come periodically
to look after his wheat experiments. At first
the records had been a little success, failure,
failure, a little success ; but for the last six months
the failures had been fewer, and Scott had quite
a valuable note-book full of observations and
deductions.

The old man said very little ; he had been very
taciturn since Scott had made that confidence
on board ship, but he was none the less pleased.
None of the other three men he had engaged in
the work had gone so far, made such persistent
study of soils. Scott had been conscienceless in
his demands for soil samples — not just enough
for a flower-pot full for this class of seed and a

288 FAIR INES

flower-pot full for that. He insisted upon having
a couple of cartloads from all manner of dis-
tricts, and he had his place laid out like a chess-
board and labelled such and such a soil and such
and such a seed sown under such and such
circumstances.

Munro examined the accounts sharply, and
was at any time prepared to find that Scott had
" done him in," as he termed it ; but as time
went on he found his Englishman returned him
better value for less money than the Scotchman,
the Dane, or the Australian he had set severally
to work.

On his last visit, after looking silently at the
specimens and noting the sincerity that had
evidently been put into the work, he approached
Scott.

" Find it pays you well enough ? "

" By no means," said Scott. " At the end of
my time — a week now, isn't it ? — I'll have to
try something else, of course. Still, I've learnt
a lot ; it will all come in useful."

" What's your idea ? "

Scott shook his head. " I shall have to go
out and look for it," he said. " I had thought
a farm, but it's too slow ; those fellows have been
at it for two generations." He waved his arm
to Wyama — Wyama with its modest and strug-
gling-looking homesteads scattered in all direc-
tions ; it seemed as if Wendover, sprawling on
the eastern hills, had left little for any one else.

AT DAVID'S AND JONATHAN'S 239

*' That's because they are fools," said the old
man.

" Perhaps. But I can't wait. It is essential
that I should be making a bigger income. I may
try sheep, perhaps — I've been making a few ex-
periments with them so far — learning the ropes."

" Wheat's the thing," urged the old man.

" For you," said Scott, " not for me. I ought
to have made my way to the wool-sheds, I
believe ; they tell me that's work soon learned
and five pounds a week can be earned at it."

" Wheat's the thing," said the old man ;
" they don't shear all the year round, remember.
See here, I'll give you a change. You can have
Macmurtrie's job at Merinderie ; he's spoiling
to be sent up to my Queensland place. Yes,
you can have Macmurtrie's, and I'll put Hansen
in here ; do him good to see your methods."

" And the salary ? " said Scott. He dare not
contemplate any more of this fifty pounds a
year work.

The old man had had an excellent lunch over
at Wendover ; had just received a telegram
telling him that his favourite racehorse had
won the Cup in Melbourne ; in Queensland the
wool crop of his great station had been thou-
sands of pounds better than the year before ;
here in New South Wales the horses he was
breeding were at the very top of the market.
Let but this wheat hobby of his succeed and he
positively had nothing left to ask of Fortune.

240 FAIR INES

" Stick up to it with all your might and we'll
call it two fifty," he said ; " there's a good
furnished cottage, too — Macmurtrie was a
married man, and I had to pander to his wife's
tastes. You can be a married man yourself on
that, eh ? But mind, all your time's mine then
— you'll have to eat wheat and drink wheat and
dream wheat till you worry the thing through.
Well, what do you say ? "

" I say it's a most generous offer," said Scott,
" most generous. But "

" Well ? "

" Will you give me two or three hours to
decide ? "

The old man nodded, his estimation of his
employee falling a little ; he considered it a time
when much promptness should have been
shown.

" Where shall I come, sir ? To Wendover ?
Will six o'clock suit you ? "

" That'll do."

When he had gone Scott walked up David's
path and knocked at the door.

Hyacinth answered it

" Lor, Mr. Shelding," she said, " you never
come, do you ? " and added confidentially,
" Quarrelled, haven't you ? "

" Miss Erwin in ? " said Scott ceremoniously.

Hyacinth was recalled to her place.

" She's having afternoon tea with Mrs. Beattie,
they're in the brekfus-room," which was the

AT DAVID'S AND JONATHAN'S 241

name she herself chose to call the back verandah
when she did not term it " the morning-room."

Scott took a seat in the big sitting-room, and
exhausted his geography of distant places to
which he considered Mrs. Beattie might well be
consigned.

Mrs. Beattie bristled at the news Hyacinth
brought ; the very roses in her bonnet seemed to
quiver into fresh life.

" I thought you told me he had never crossed
the threshold since your father died," she
said.

Ines had stood up with startled eyes.

" He has not," she said ; " something must
have happened. I will go and see."

" And I will go with you," said Mrs. Beattie,
standing up also, a very tower of conscious
strength. " It is not proper that a young girl
like you should receive gentlemen alone."

She followed Ines into the sitting-room and
sharply regarded their greeting. She took a
seat exactly between them : Scott was on the
sofa, Ines on a wicker chair, she herself on a stiff
one, as became her attitude.

" It is a warm day," she said.

Scott agreed.

" No doubt rain is coming up from the east,"
she said.

Scott thought it possible.

"It is needed. The farmers have had a dis-
couraging spring, a most discouraging spring.

242 FAIR INES

Last year there was fully an inch more rainfall
during this same month."

" Indeed," said Scott.

" If no rain comes the prospects for the show
will be quite destroyed."

Scott was a man of simple methods, not in
the least versed in drawing-room fencing. A
very big question had arisen and must be
answered at once. It could not be delayed
because a little sallow-faced woman with light
blue eyes and preposterous vegetation in her
bonnet stood between them and barked, just
like the agitated little fox-terrier that rushes to
the door, and refuses you admission to the house
to which you have been so warmly invited.

Scott looked, at her with a pleasant enough
smile.

" As you may imagine, Mrs. Beattie," he said,
" I didn't come to discuss weather. I came
because I had an important question that I
wanted to ask Miss Erwin. Shall you think me
hopelessly lost to good manners if I beg her to
walk out on to the verandah with me ? "

The green rose agitated itself violently ; it
communicated its movement to the grey and
the purple until the entire ornamentation
seemed fiercely amove.

" I must say, Mr. Sheldon, that I never —
never heard such a request made to a lady in my
life before. ' Will I get up and walk out of the
room ' — that is what you are asking me ? "

AT DAVID'S AND JONATHAN'S 243

" No, no," said Scott, " it is I who ask to be
allowed to move."

" I sit in this room with an orphan girl — a girl
with no one else to look after her — and you
flatly, without any explanation, ask to be left
alone with her ! " The poor woman was act-
ually gasping ; she had no doubt whatever that,
but for the happy accident of her own presence
here this afternoon, Scott would have by this
time asked Ines to marry him. What other
important question could any young man have
to ask of a young girl ?

" Dear Mrs. Beattie," Ines said, " you forget
Mr. Sheldon and I are old friends ; my father
welcomed him here night by night, my friend
must welcome him. Of course I will come on
to the verandah with you, Mr. Sheldon ! But
I will get your tea first, Mrs. Beattie — I remem-
ber you had only just started it. Come and have
this chair ; it is more comfortable. And will
you have a book till I come back ? I shan't be
many minutes."

But Mrs. Beattie was beyond speech. She
got up, tremulously pulled down her veil,
collected a few stray possessions — her district
note-book, Bobbie's printing-book which she
had brought to show Ines, a shabby hand-bag,
an umbrella, — and stalked to the door.

" Listen to his question," she said. " I will
go home again."

Ines followed her to the gate, refusing to

R 2

244 FAIR INES

believe that she could be in earnest. She tried
laughter, cajolery, pleading. Mrs. Beattie was
adamant, and climbed into the stronghold of
the yellow sulky.

" Let her go — what does she matter ? " Scott
had whispered at a moment when he might
whisper unobserved.

But Ines had been honestly distressed.

Finding, however, that nothing would soften
the indignant lady, she drew back.

" You are behaving both childishly and with
great unkindness, Mrs. Beattie," she said. " I
think, after all, I had better let you go home."

But she watched sadly from the gate till the
yellow blur had merged into the wattle at the
foot of the hill.

Then she went back to Scott.

CHAPTER XXIII

THREE HUNDRED MILES

" Yet I will but say what mere friends say.
Or only a thought stronger ;
1 will hold your hand but as long as all may.
Or so very little longer."

Browning.

Scott plunged headlong into the news of
Munro's offer.

" Of course you took it ? " Ines said, but
she drew her breath in a little ; there was a still
colder sea to be plunged into, she found, and
she was already so very, very cold.

" I was a coward," he said in a low tone ;
" to save my life I could not answer him * yes '
on the spot, I had to wait for you to bid me to
say it."

" Is — is it very far away ? " Her lips
trembled suddenly like a child's.

" Three hundred miles."

" Three — hundred miles ! "

" Three hundred."

Their eyes saw the entire distance, mile after
mile stretching away into eternity, she at one
end of it, he at the other. And there was only

245

246 FAIR INES

one way they might shirk the terrors of it. They
might sweep Iris clear out of their way, run
down to Mr. Beattie, stand before him together
at the altar for ten little minutes, then take the
three hundred miles hand-in-hand. The same
devil whispered the same thought to each of
them ; their eyes fell before each other's just a
moment ; their faces paled and coloured, coloured
and paled.

Then they looked at each other with piteous
courage.

" Three hundred miles makes no difference,"
said Ines.

" Not the least," assented Scott.

" When shall you go ? "

" Straight away, I believe."

" Scott " — the girl's voice sounded as if she
were drowning — " don't say good-bye to me
when the time comes — I couldn't bear it.
Just go."

" I — couldn't bear it either."

" Scott "

" My darling " Indeed he did not know

he used the word.

" Go now, will you ? "

They did not dare to even take each other's
hand.

Just looked once more, once more, and parted.

CHAPTER XXIV

CADE

" The hope I dreamed of was a dream,
Was but a dream : and now I wake.
Exceeding comfortless and worn and old
For a dream's sake."

Christina Rossetti.

Two hours later, starting off for Wendover to
accept Munro's offer, Scott met the boy from
the post office pressing up.

" Cable for you, Mr. Sheldon," he said, and
stood watching with interested eyes while Scott
read. Cables were very infrequent events in
the little post office, and this one, running as
it did into a matter of twenty-four words at
three shillings a word, caused him to regard the
young man from the hillside with much more
care than he had heretofore exercised.

The paper in Scott's hands shook for just one
imperceptible second.

" Cecil has confessed. Your presence urgently
needed. Catch next boat. Big legacy. A hundred
pounds cabled with this for fare."

The sender was his mother.

347

248 FAIR INES

He stood still a moment, the impulse again
strong to go back and tell Ines at once of the
matter.

Then with a groan he realised that, much as
the message meant, it left life still an arid desert
for him.

Three hundred miles or twelve thousand — it
made no difference.

He broke the Government rules by presenting
the messenger with a gratuity of half-a-crown ;
he might have forgotten it in the shock of the
moment but that the boy said significantly :
" We've got the hundred coming along to the
office next train ; Mr. Evans says he'll be able
to give it you by eleven to-morrow. A hundred's
a lot of money, isn't it, sir ? "

" It is," said Scott, and promptly disbursed
half-a-crown for the information.

Then he continued his walk to Wendover to
tell Munro of the impossibility of accepting his
offer.

Cade was in the garden when he got there —
Cade fluttering about in a blue muslin dress,
with a girlish hat on her head and a basket of
roses on her arm.

Indeed she was to be forgiven : Mrs. Beattie
had dropped outrageous hints in her barefaced
attempt to console Scott for the loss of Ines.
Cade had actually been presented with the notion
that the young man at Jonathan's, who had
already fluttered her heart, was much attracted

CADE 249

to herself, but would need some encouragement,
as he seemed to be of a most retiring disposition,
and would naturally consider his position most
unequal to hers.

Cade, left neglected for so many years, began
actually to thrill when she met the man. He
was attracted to her — ah, blessed thought, she
had not then lost all power to attract !

She had been quite charming to him one after-
noon when they had met at the Rectory. Mrs.
Beattie had entrapped Scott there in her
determined manner, entreating his help for
Bobbie, who, she said, was in difficulties with
his collection of beetles. Scott had confessed
to having collected beetles himself as a boy,
and had thought he had not even yet forgotten
all his lore. He promised a Saturday afternoon
most cheerfully for the little fellow, and, armed
with some shallow boxes, sheets of cork and
pins, made his way to the Rectory, there to be
conducted, as he imagined, to the boy's own
quarters.

But instead, he was established in the drawing-
room at an insecure little table, cleared of its
ornaments while he waited.

Bobbie was there, Bobbie in his best suit, and
with a very sulky and very clean face. Fred
lurked in the doorway, Fred also attired in
garments that in nowise suited the hallowed
freedom of Saturday afternoon.

** Well," said Scott good-naturedly, trying to

250 FAIR INES

dispel the boy's suUenness which he attributed
to shyness, " let's get on ; bring on your bears,
old man."

Bobbie produced a few miserable specimens
of the insects ; they were roughly piled up in
cocoa tins that held also old nails, bits of string,
pebbles and what not.

Scott gave the boy a keen look. Was this
the " enthusiastic beetle collector " his mother
had spoken of ?

Remembering the infinitude of care he had
bestowed on his own specimens at an equally
early age, he felt rather disgusted that he should
have been asked to waste time on some one so
little in earnest.

But possibly the boy only wanted putting on
the right lines. He opened one of the boxes
he had brought, cut the sheet of cork to fit the
bottom of it, pasted a piece of writing-paper on
the lid, and then, showing the best spot to pierce
Mr. Beetle's spine, he began to sort and transfix
the specimens.

This was a hairy-tailed cockchafer, he said,
and neatly wrote its name and number on the
lid ; this was a black-striped whale beetle. Here
was an Emperor, here a King ; that dull-coloured
one was known as the Potato beetle ; this little
chap as the Macleay Tick beetle.

Bobbie looked merely bored at the statements,
though his mother pretended the liveliest interest
and tried to enliven the proceedings by making

CADE 251

such remarks as " Potato beetle ; look, Bobbie,
that must be the one that makes the potatoes
so bad ; Variable Apple beetle, called so from
its changeable green wings, I suppose."

In the doorway Fred fidgeted ceaselessly. He
would not join the circle of three heads at the
rickety little table, protesting that he didn't
collect, but he sighed heavily from time to time,
and whenever Scott looked over to him he was
looking impatiently at the clock. How was Scott
to know that the boys had been caught on their
way to play football with their compeers, torn
out of their jerseys, and thrust hastily into their
detested best suits, all because their mother
had " been and gone " and invited some one to
come and help them with one of their nature
collections ?

At the time Bobbie felt no more interest in
beetles than in the differential calculus ; he had
collected, it was true, a few months ago, but
that was no reason that he should lose his dearly-
prized Saturday afternoon.

After a little time, however, his sulkiness
abated, and he began to perceive that Scott
might be a man and a brother and not a subtly
introduced Saturday school-master.

The growing order among the specimens
interesting him at last, and Scott's remarks on
the quaint habits of the different creatures made
him forget the goal he had meant to get.

When Mrs. Beattie slipped away murmuring

252 FAIR INES

something about tea, Fred, who had been for
some time lending half an ear, came from his
stronghold of the door and stood — half -persuaded
to go in for beetles too — by the table. If only
they had not been in the drawing-room, and in
their best clothes, they would have forgiven the
lost game.

And then, just as the second box full was
being classified, who should drive up but Miss
Cade Wharton ? She had been invited to come
and discuss the formation of her proposed club
for reading the work of Australian poets.

There was an " Old English Poetry Club " in
Murwumba, and it seemed a reflection on the
culture of Wyama that nothing of the sort
existed here. It was Sholto who had suggested
that they should let Chaucer alone for a time,
and get to know their own poets instead. " List
to the lays of the languishing local lights," was
his remark to his sister, who was undertaking
to find members for the club.

Cade, like Scott, had had no notion that
there would be any other visitor at the Rectory.
But, unlike Scott, she was far from being ill-
pleased.

The little boys glowered at her from the corner
to which they had retreated with a finicking
strip of cake each and a finicking plate to hold
against the crime of crumbs on the carpet.

" Can't we go now ? " they asked their mother
in a loud whisper.

CADE 253

" Certainly not," whispered Mrs. Beattie,
" that would be most ill-bred."

So they had to sit and listen to the fact that
Miss Cade hated those horrid beetles, and didn't
know how any one could pick them up. Stamps
she considered an infinitely cleaner hobby for
any boy ; she had collected stamps herself.
They had to listen to the plans for the new
club : their father and mother were enrolled ;
even they themselves, they found to their
horror, were enrolled as " Associate Members."

" Even school-boys ought to know their
Gordon and their Kendall and their Paterson
and their Lawson," said Miss Cade.

They found that Mr. Sheldon was not being
enrolled, and envied him his courage.

When pressed hard for his reason, he laughed
and said he had never liked the idea of taking
his literature in public. He liked it best in
bed, last thing at night.

" Can't we go now ? " said Bobbie, out loud
this time and with defiance on his face.

Through the open window had come a shout
from the football paddock.

" Certainly not," said his mother, and frowned
at him so severely that Scott hastened to swallow
the rest of his tea and go back to the boxes.

But what sort of an entertainment was it
now to them ? Scott made an effort to get
back to his earlier manner of anecdote that he
had seen was successful with the boys, but Miss

254 FAIR INES

Cade had no notion of not talking too, and
capped his interesting bits of information about
the golden cockchafer with a long reminiscence
of how one flew into church one day and nearly
settled on a lady's bonnet.

A howl of triumph was wafted through the
window.

" Can't we go now ? " wailed Bobbie, and at
last Scott understood that these were mere
victims in front of him, not embryo entomolo-
gists. He stood up himself.

" This will have to be continued in our next,
Mrs. Beattie," he said ; " perhaps the boys
would like to come up to my cottage some day
when they've nothing better to do — eh, boys ? "

The boys were regarding him with beaming
faces. They would have promised to go to the
end of the world at some future date, so long as
they might be released now.

" Well," said Mrs. Beattie reluctantly, " you
may go for just a little game ; but don't get too
rough with each other."

The boys backed from the room as decorously
as they might, then tore to their rooms to strip
off the clothes of ceremony.

" Excuse me just a minute," Mrs. Beattie
said ; " if I don't see to it they are quite capable
of playing football in those knickerbockers."

Scott could not rush after her and demand
his hat and the opening of the front door, so
for ten minutes he had to sustain a conversation

CADE 255

with Cade, which was precisely what his hostess
intended him to do.

The situation actually angered him. Try as he
would he could not keep quite aloof from people,
as he considered a man in his situation ought to
do. There were a few things he wanted less
than an introduction to people like the Whar-
tons. Yet he could not be a boor. When Miss
Cade met him so graciously, what could he do
but respond with as much geniality as he could
muster ? He must have succeeded beyond
his expectations, for long afterwards Cade
treasured the thought of their tete-a-tete in the
choked little drawing-room of the Rectory.

And when Munro mentioned that the man was
coming for an interview with himself at Wen-
dover at six o'clock, Cade could not resist the
somewhat pathetic desire to be " discovered "
in a picturesque situation.

She had roses tucked in her belt — just as Ines
might have had — roses stuck in the ribbon of
her hat, roses in her gathering-basket.

" Ah, Mr, Sheldon ! " she cried, genuine
pleasure in her eyes at the sight of some one who
was *' attracted to her," " I am glad to see you
at Wendover. Don't they say it is never too
soon to make use of your friends ? I am going
to request you to climb this ladder and cut me
some of those roses at the top of the trellis."

But he only looked at her with troubled eyes.

" Don't write me down a churl," he said.

256 FAIR INES

" but indeed I must not stop ; may I call one
of your gardeners ? I see one across there. I am
afraid I am five minutes late for my appoint-
ment as it is."

He called to the man, lifted his hat and strode
on along the wide, smooth drive. The muslin
dress, the girlish hat, the roses — he had not even
seen them with his outer vision.

Even when she learned that he was going away,
Cade could not quite let the cherished notion
that she had an attraction for him die. It was
not that she had come to actually care for him,
but she had found the thought that she was
cared for inexpressibly sweet and soothing.

She gathered roses the next day and asparagus
and strawberries, and drove off with them to
Mrs. Beattie, who had a keen appreciation of
such things.

And Mrs. Beattie, touched by the attention,
found herself unburdening her mind of the
ingratitude and high-handed behaviour of Ines.

" I have done with her — done with her for
ever," she said, a red spot burning on her cheek.
" I think we have all been mistaken in her.
I consider the way she treated your brother
was disgraceful. And now this young Sheldon
— you can see he has quite lost his head ; it will
be the same with him soon. Of course she would
not dream of marrying any one so frightfully
poor ; she is merely flirting with him."

*' You — you mean," said poor Cade, her little

CADE 257

rose-coloured dream suddenly paling into plain
grey, " that Mr. Sheldon, too, cares for her ? "
She was aware of the state of the affections
of both her brothers, but this idea had never
crossed her mind before.

Mrs. Beattie was so thoroughly upset by the
happening that she entirely forgot her con-
fidante was also the object of her recent match-
making attempt.

" He is simply mad about her — clean, raving
mad," she said wrathfully.

Driving home, Cade turned her eyes to West
Slope, and seemed to see her rival's exquisite
face in all its young glow and charm.

" Oh, things aren't fair ! " she said passion-
ately, " things aren't fair at all I "

CHAPTER XXV

THE LAST STRAND

There was no longer a trace of wattle on
West Slope ; things of richer hue had taken its
place. Orange Christmas bells flamed in the
bush fastnesses, waratahs lit the grey greenness
here and there with scarlet points of flame.

No longer were the swelling hills clothed in
tender green. Summer was here, and her hot
breath had scorched nearly all the land into a
weary tint of brown.

" Miss Ines," said Hyacinth, " I've been
thinking about my new frock as you said I
could have, and I've picked on green. The girl
next door's got one, an' it looks that cool you
can't think."

She wiped her perspiring face as she spoke.

Ines was standing on the verandah looking
across at the horizon line. She did not seem to
hear Hyacinth's remark.

But Hyacinth was not easily repulsed.

" That new dress as you said I could have,
Miss Ines," she said patiently. " How do you
like the notion of green — pale, mind you, and
258

THE LAST STRAND 259

just p'raps a pink bow in me hair to relief
it?"

" Yes," said Ines, " very well. If you like."

*' There's one at sevenpence at Jay's," con-
tinued Hyacinth undaunted, " only it mightn't
wash. Sevenpence is cheap, isn't it ? If you
go to ninepence now there's one as has got pink
rosebuds on and 'ud wash lovely, the man says."

" Very well, very well," said Ines.

Hyacinth picked a few more bits of fluff off
the doormat.

" At 'levenpence ha'penny there's one just —
ravenously lovely. Miss Ines. Maiden-'air fern
sort of pattern and poppies. Like a real garden.
Takes your breath it's that pretty. 'Spose you
wouldn't go to 'levenpence ha'penny, Miss
Ines ? "

Ines drew her brows together.

" That mat is quite clean enough. Hyacinth,"
she said. " Go and get on with your other
work. You can get the frock I promised,
though you really have a great many. Seven-
pence is quite enough for a print. I won't give
more."

Hyacinth drooped, and went inside.

Mrs. Shore came out — ^Mrs. Shore with her
head hanging a little.

" An' I'm really to go. Miss Ines ? " she said.

" I gave you fair warning," said Ines. " I said
if you relapsed again I could not have you here."

" It wasn't as bad as time before, Miss Ines,"
s 2

2e0 FAIR INES

said the old woman ; " only one night away, and
able to do me washing same as ever next day.
You mustn't be too hard on a little thing like
that."

" I should never know when to depend on
you again," said Ines coldly ; " I will do as I
said — try to find you work somewhere till your
cottage is empty. But I won't break my word."
The last words were delivered quite sharply.

The old woman went inside again timidly, and
Ines left the horizon line alone and stared at her
garden.

Spring had gone out of that too : the jonquils,
the daffodils, the violets, the anemones, all were
gone. Portulacca blazed on the stone wall,
crude sunflowers and gaillardia made masses of
colour here and there, but the soul of the once
sweet place was departed. It might have been
any one's garden to-day. Ines was honestly
trying to find something to do with the long day
stretching before her. Three months of her
lease had still to run, and she felt too spiritless
to make new plans or do anything but stay just
as she was.

She told herself that when the cool autumn
came she would feel more energy, more inclina-
tion to take an interest in her own life, but until
then she wanted to stay quiet and undisturbed.

There were days when she never opened her
lips from morning till night except for some
necessary word to Hyacinth or Mrs. Shore.

THE LAST STRAND 261

Days when she slipped away and hid in the
bush whenever she saw a Wharton vehicle
creeping up the road, or the yellow sulky or
any one from the outer world.

Why was there no place in the world where
any one with a hurt like hers could creep and be
free from sight and sound of other people ?

Why had gone all the kindly impulses that
had once warmed her blood ? What was this
cruelly sharp light in which she now saw her
little world ?

Hyacinth she found nothing but a tiresome,
common girl with a distorted love of colour.
Mrs. Shore, a weak, miserable old woman, hardly
worth the effort of keeping from her besetting
sin. Oh, probably she would give her just one
more trial, but she did not feel greatly interested
in the result. Mrs. Beattie she could hardly
bear to see and speak to. It was not that they
were not reconciled after their quarrel. When
the news came that Scott had sailed for England,
Mrs. Beattie went up quite humbly to the
cottage and asked Ines' forgiveness for her fit
of bad temper.

And Ines had forgiven her quite freely, even
given her a brass tray and a stencilled table-
cloth, when asked, for the bazaar for reducing
the church debt. But she found herself now-a-
days continually irritated almost beyond en-
durance by the woman's ill-fitting clothes, by
the extrenie dowdiness of her bqnnets, by her

262 FAIR INES

parochial chatter, by the very sight of Currant
and the sulky.

The salt of life had lost its savour, and where-
withal might it be salted ?

She had expected that the knowledge that she
had done the right thing would keep her up —
exalt the days for her. But such was not the
case. Scott had gone. She had waved fare-
well to him ; by this time he must be in England.
Soon he would write to her as they had agreed,
would tell her of his marriage. But at present
all was silence, and, once the letter had come,
all would be silence again till eternity.

The morning dew and verdure had gone from
her life as they had gone from the Wyama
hills. Some scorching breath had taken both
together.

She had waved to Scott. That was the only
memory she cherished just at present.

When the time of his sailing was known to
her — a Saturday at noon — she packed a small
bag on the day before, and told Mrs. Shore that
she was going away for a day or two. All the
two hundred miles to Sydney she travelled, and
stayed the night at the house of a one-time friend.
Mrs. Beattie imagined her gone, as she had gone
two or three times before, to arrange matters
connected with her metal work.

Not till the gangways were taken away did
the girl show herself on the wharf, for deep in
her heart she knew that neither of them was as

THE LAST STRAND 263

strong as they imagined. But she could not —
ah, she could not let him go without a farewell
look.

The great liner was moving imperceptibly ;
countless strands of coloured ribbon fluttered
in the wind, one end held in the hands on board,
one by those left behind on the wharf. Women
waved gay or sad farewells from behind great
baskets and bouquets of flowers, the parting
trophies.

But Scott stood apart from all this, quite
alone ; perhaps almost the only soul on board
with no one to call good-bye, good-bye.

Then a little back from the concourse of people
on the wharf he saw her, in her white dress,
with the black ribbon at her waist, and the black
hat framing her white face.

There was nothing that they might do but
wave and gaze at each other, gaze at each other
and wave.

But it comforted them both in some subtle
manner, warmed their poor young hearts though
it blinded their eyes.

The last strand of ribbon snapped. The
crowd broke up and the girl's figure was lost
in it.

On deck the solitary figure near the funnel
became a blur that faded and disappeared.
Scott had gone. Ines had gone. But the
world rolled steadily as ever ; steadily as ever
shone the sun.

264 FAIR INES

It was no more to that world, that sun, Ines
whispered to herself, than the crushing out of
life of two ants, the breaking of two butter-
flies' wings, the sudden fall to earth of two
birds.

CHAPTER XXVI

IN LONDON

" No, when the fight begins within himself
A man's worth something."

Browning.

In London Scott made straight for his mother's
house.

He found her altered — less fluffy, less care-
fully dressed ; lines of care were on her face,
shadows under her eyes ; there seemed a new
sincerity about her — something had been born
in her amid her troubles that had deepened her
nature.

She put her arms round her lost son's neck,
but the action was a timid one ; she expected
repulse. Yet the love shining in her eyes was
very deep — deeper than it had ever been. Scott
thrilled as he realised it. She had sacrificed
him, but she loved him after all, and she was his
mother. He stooped his head and kissed her
tenderly again and again, complete forgiveness
in every kiss.

Then she told him her news, haltingly an^
265

266 FAIR INES

with tears, but with no comments, no lament-
ations for herself.

Cecil had had an illness a year ago that had
brought him to the verge of death. Iris had
helped to nurse him back to convalescence, and
had obtained a great influence over him which
she used in the wisest way, strengthening his
character in a manner that even his mother
could hardly believe. There came a day when
the unhappy boy unburdened himself to the
girl of his miserable crime, and his stili more
miserable conduct in letting his brother bear
his guilt.

And now Iris took his life into her hands as if
it had been a piece of plastic clay and she the
potter.

There had been a flaw in the first making of
him, she allowed, but he was to rise from this
illness an absolutely new man, and a happy man.

Cecil mournfully asked how that might be —
what happiness might he ever reach to across
the ruined life of a brother ?

Iris turned her clear eyes on him.

" Of course you must retrieve that first of
all," she said. " The first day that you are really
strong we will go to your uncle and tell him
everything."

Cecil lay back among the cushions of his sofa
and trembled exceedingly for a minute or two.
Then he rose suddenly to his feet, a great, gaunt
boy with hollow eyes.

IN LONDON 267

" I'm strong enough this moment," he said.
" If I wait till I'm stronger I shall be too
weak."

And indeed he knew himself.

Iris sent for a cab ; then hastily ran to Lady
Barnsley's room and acquainted her with her
son's decision.

The fragile-looking girl carried everything
before her as she had a habit of doing ; though
indeed, on this one occasion, she had not to plead
very long.

" It will kill him," the mother said.

" No," said Iris, "it is the not teUing that is
killing him. Can't you see it ? It is that that
has caused this breakdown. It is sapping his
life, and you know it."

Yes, the mother did know it. Indeed it was
sapping her own life too ; the sacrifice she had
demanded in an hour of sheer insanity of grief
had become a thing almost too monstrous for
her to bear the thought of.

She had grown pale, large-eyed, had with-
drawn herself from the world, lived in an atmo-
sphere of unceasing reproach ever since the event.
And not the least bitter part of her knowledge
was that the sacrifice had availed little. Cecil
was eating his heart out more surely even than
he would have done had he gone through with
his punishment himself.

So Iris carried the day, and the mother sat
back in her chair shaken to the soul, but almost

268 FAIR INES

thankful that some one had given him courage
to make the right stand at last.

The cabman pulled up at the address given
to him, the old merchant's city ojffice whose
dingy steps both Scott and Cecil had trodden
so often.

" Wait for us," Iris said.

The cabman's eye was on Cecil. " Will I
lend him a hand ? " he said.

Iris turned her eyes to Cecil.

" No, thank you," she said ; "he is quite
strong enough."

Cecil pulled himself together and followed her.

At the door of the merchant's own room,
however, he quailed again.

" I — I don't believe I'll be able to speak," he
said.

And now the girl gave him a little sympathetic
pressure on his arm.

" That's all right," she said. " I'll tell."

But when they got inside, and the old merchant
was frowning heavily at the interruption and the
sight of petticoats in business hours, he recovered
again, and took the matter into his own hands.

" I've been a coward and rogue, sir," he said.

" But he is ill and very sorry, Mr. Barnsley,"
supplemented Iris, with cheeks as white as his
own.

Barnsley shot a glance at her. " He seems
able to speak, madam," he said,

Iris swallowed hard.

IN LONDON 269

" You are quite right," she said. " I oughtn't
to interrupt. Only to say this — he is just out
of a sick bed — make him sit down."

" Sit down," said Barnsley, quite without
emotion. Then he saw that the only chairs
were set back against the wall — half the length
of the room from his desk. He could not
let a slip of a girl go and get them, and his
nephew was clearly incapable of the task, so he
strode across the carpet and brought the seats
himself.

" Now then," he said grimly.

" I've been a coward and a scoundrel for five
years," repeated Cecil, " and I'm sick of it.
I haven't come to ask you to forgive me — I don't
want to be forgiven. Only I've got to tell you,
of course."

The telling took five minutes at most — five
years of misery and crime that had infected so
many healthy lives, and the tale of it took five
minutes ! At the end of it the merchant sat
silent for a long space of time. His thoughts
had gone to the scapegoat.

" Where is he now — your brother ? " he asked
at last.

" Australia," said Cecil.

" Doing anything ? "

" Not much."

*' Had to give up medicine, I suppose ? "

" Yes."

Silence again ; just the sharp eyes glancing

270 FAIR INES

to and fro from under the shaggy eyebrows.
Then he spoke again.

" What do you propose to do ? "

" As right a thing as I can at this late hour,"
Cecil said. " Give myself up to the authorities
and do what I can to clear his name."

" H'm. Prepared to go straight on with it ? "

" This afternoon."

" H'm." Barnsley got up and took a couple
of turns up and down his room. Then he pulled
up.

" Go home now," he said, " and come and see
me again in the morning. I've got to think
this over." Then he looked at Iris. " May I
ask what you have to do with this ? " he said.

Cecil looked at her with kindling eyes.

" Trying to show a cur that he needn't be a
cur always," he said.

The old man shook hands with her.

" Bring him to see me to-morrow, my dear,"
he said.

He held his hand out to Cecil.

" It's the first time I've liked you in your
life, lad," he said.

They went again on the morrow, and the old
man laid before them his intentions.

They found that thinking it all over had left
him merciful ; he found himself grown too old
for schemes of vengeance. Sheldon had paid
the price for the crime ; it must not be charged
for again.

IN LONDON 271

" See here," he said, " I made my will some
months ago, and little as I liked you you got
your share with the rest of the family — five
hundred a year to be exact. I gave myself the
pleasure last night of crossing your name out,
and putting Sheldon's in in your place."

" Thank you, sir," said Cecil, and meant it
honestly.

" He won't wait for it either till I'm dead,"
continued Barnsley ; "his income starts from
to-day."

" Thank you," said Cecil again, his mind
hugely relieved to know that Scott might at
once go on with his course.

" For you," said Barnsley, " the best thing
you can do is make and sign a full confession, and
then slip off to Canada and change your name.
Make a fresh start, my lad. Here's a bit of
paper to help it."

The bit of paper was for two thousand pounds.

" But ! " gasped Cecil, " my punishment !
I want to take it, don't you understand ? "

" You've taken it, I haven't a doubt," said
Barnsley. " The thing now is to get a move
on you. You've been sitting with your feet in
the gutter long enough."

Cecil stumbled blindly back to his cab.

CHAPTER XXVII

IRIS SMOOTHS OUT THE SCROLL

" If you loved only what were worth your love,
Love were clear gain and wholly well for you."

Browning.

And so Scott came home to find the papers
devoting quite a paragraph each to his name.

Fear seized him for Cecil's safety ; it was
intolerable that the sacrifice should have been
in vain after all. But the law stretched but
a feeble arm after the real culprit who, it dis-
covered, had fled the country. It had had an
eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and even
when it found it had not been quite the right
eye, precisely the right tooth, it felt it had had
a glut of the affair, and it made merely a per-
functory effort to reach the real offender.

The brothers did not meet. Before Scott's
ship came up the Thames, Cecil was on Canadian
soil, the light in his eyes more hopeful, more
purposeful than any that had shone there since
he was an ambitious school-boy.

It was arranged that Lady Barnsley was to
follow him, leaving her name and title behind
272

IRIS SMOOTHS OUT THE SCROLL 273

her, and taking the name that Cecil had chosen
for his future one in the new land.

There was then nothing to delay the marriage
of Iris and Scott, Barnsley's munificent repar-
ation making it possible for the medical career
to be resumed at any moment. Only the girl
was oddly captious now.

She seemed paler and frailer than ever ;
instead of welcoming Scott with eagerness she
shrank from him plainly in dismay.

He feared that his manner had lacked the
warmth and eagerness of the gladly returned
lover, and began to urge as strongly as he could
that the marriage be celebrated almost imme-
diately.

" Will you let it be next month ? " he begged.

" Ah — not as soon as that."

" Six weeks ? " he said. " Why delay any
longer ? "

She agreed finally to six weeks, looking like
some particularly forlorn but determined martyr
as she did so.

He went away perplexed — only to be re-
called by a messenger just as he gained his
hotel.

When he went back the girl looked whiter
than ever ; her face seemed nothing but eyes,
big, tragic eyes.

" I am not going to break my word, Scott,"
she said. " I promised to marry you and I will.
But I feel I must not, in honesty to you, let you

274 FAIR INES

marry me till I have told you the real state of
my feelings."

" Yes," said Scott, absolutely at sea. He
tried to take her hand as a lover should. But
she shivered away from him.

" I have come to — care for Cecil," she
whispered.

It was out — the frightful secret that had been
gnawing at her for the last few months.

She had come to care for Cecil. Of course
she had come to care for Cecil.

Was not he the maimed creature now ? The
praise of Scott was in every one's mouth, Scott
was strong and well, was passing rich, able to
pursue the profession he loved. But Cecil was
broken in health, in spirit, in reputation ; the
finger of scorn pointed at him ; he had fled from
the land of his birth and was alone in a far-
away land. Of course she had come to care
for Cecil.

But why was Scott laughing ? Was ever
tragedy met before like this with smiles ?

" Forgive me," he said ; " I'm laughing
because I'm sure the Fates are laughing at us.
We have both been so industriously attempting
to manage our own lives, and all the time they
have been so much better managed for us."

And he told her of Ines and the tale of his
life in Wyama.

Mrs. Bassett was amazed when they came out
of the drawing-room half-an-hour later, hand-

IRIS SMOOTHS OUT THE SCROLL 275

in-hand and laughing Hke two children, for she
knew of the impossibly tragic part Iris had set
herself to play — to marry this one man while
she cared for another. Could it be that, after
all, she cared for this one best ?

But the girl flung a loving arm round her
waist.

" Come and pack up, darling," she said. " We
are going to Canada to Cecil at once. Scott,
I wonder couldn't we manage to have the same
wedding day after all ? Only four people in it,
instead of two ? "

Scott said that he would hasten to do his part
in the matter ; that he purposed starting for
Marseilles in a couple of hours, there to catch
up the week's liner that had already started on
its journey to Australia.

CHAPTER XXVIII

* all's right with the world'

" And there they were in each other's arms as if the long
years had never been."

W. Morris. The Sundering Flood.

She was trying to start the stone wall into
beauty once again when he came.

The summer lay dead and autumn was burst-
ing into its warm and lovely life — the Australian
autumn that is like another spring. The very
wattle was deceived and bloomed again, not in
the riotous manner of its spring blooming
perhaps, but it tipped the bush with golden
lights, and made golden once again the girdle
on West Slope.

Scott had sent no word of his coming ; a cable
could not explain, and he was travelling as fast
as any letter might.

He saw her moving up and down the long
wall as he came up the slope. She was in white,
and there was a black ribbon at her waist, just
as on the day when she had faded from his
eyes as he thought for ever.

376

'ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD' 277

But there was a red carnation stuck in the
waist ribbon.

" She's getting over it," Hyacinth had said
joyfully, noting the return to her old habit of
wearing flowers. " She's getting just like her-
self again. Made me a pincushing for my room
and some new musling collars."

" She's getting over it — improving a lot," Mrs.
Beattie had said, with satisfaction. " I am sure
Charlie coming back from sea has done her a
lot of good : she is always asking him up to
spend evenings with her, and he says she plays
games with him and sings and is as gay as any-
thing."

" She's getting over it," Cade Wharton said.
" She has hired a horse for a couple of hours a
day and rides all round the countryside. I
shouldn't wonder if there mightn't be a chance
for you yet, Douglas."

But Douglas knew that his answer had been
a final one.

" She isn't getting over it a bit," said Mrs.
Shore, whose old eyes had clearer vision than
most ; " she's just trying to be cheerful so as to
keep us cheerful. I don't believe she'll ever get
over it. Some things you can't : look at me ;
I'll never get over losing my man, not if the Lord
goes on forgetting me and leaves me to live to
be a 'undred. But I've got up to knowin' you
can't go round with a long lip all the time. I'm
cheerful enough I hope."

278 FAIR INES

Hyacinth could not resist such a fine oppor-
tunity.

" Bit too cheerful, now and again, eh, Mrs.
Shore ? " she said.

Ines set her plants, tiny promises of all the
colours of the sunset and the dawn. She tried
to look ahead, the five or six months that must
pass before their blossoming.

She would be — where would she be ? It
seemed as if some shutter fell in her brain every
time she tried to make plans for the future. She
felt as if here was the only niche in the world
that would not be absolutely intolerable just
yet, and she stayed on, paying for the cottage
month by month, much to David's content.
Some day, of course, she must strike out into
the sea, but just for a little longer this quiet
backwater.

She had a trowel full of nemophylla in her
hand — the spring before, the top of the wall had
been starred all over with the intense blue of
the eager little flower.

" It's like handsful of heaven," Scott had
said, when she called him to admire.

" I hope you are properly grateful to me for
reaching it down," she returned.

" I — am properly grateful," he said, and looked
across at her, — ah, she remembered even now
how he looked across.

A sudden sense, almost of sickness assailed
her. How could she grow " handsful of heaven "

* ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD' 279

ever again ? It must be something else — some-
thing plain and bright and matter-of-fact,
portulacca, for instance.

But first she must put the nemophylla away.
She dug a hole in the ground at her feet — laid in
the little plants, leaves and roots and all, and
covered them over with the moist brown earth.
A blinding tear fell on the little grave.

Footsteps came up the quiet path ; she moved
hurriedly to get away from them, fearful of
lifting eyes a-swim to a visitor.

Then they were in each other's arms, and there
was no woe any longer for them in all the world,
nor had there ever been any, nor would there be
any more until the end of time.

THE END

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