The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and The Masterpiece

umstances perhaps trivial, that he would have it to himself for the swift hour down to the country. Satisfactions of any sort seemed inapprop

opes and fears should drop from him: he should be stripped, as

s blue-green silhouettes of the Park on a silvery sky;-he had found himself responding to these with pity, repugnance and pleasure as normally as if they meant for him now what they always would have meant. That such impressions were so soon to cease must change all their meaning,-at least, so one would have supposed; he began to think of that and to wonder a little over the

in realising it. The doomed figure detached itself, became that of a piteous, a curious alien, whom one watched respectfully and from a distance. From a safe shore he observed the tossing of the rapidly sinking skiff with its helpless occupant. It required a great pull, push, and effort of his whole being, like that of awakening from a half-dr

. He was amused to observe that the pathetic old human vanity, by no means stunned, was pushing its head above the tossing surface in order to assure him again and again that he would bear it very well. It should be a graceful and gallant exit. If there were to be dark moments, moments when the cavern sucked him in and h

pected that it would not be so painful as to look at the other near thing that he must leave behind: his work; the work that with all its grind and routine-so hard to harness to at first-had now become so much a part of himself. The fact that he might come nearer to despair, nearer to the crumbling edge of the cavern, when he thought of leaving his work than when he thought of leaving his wife, was in itself a pain; but it was an old pain in a new guise. Kitty had for so long been one of the things that counted for less than his work. Vanity even raised its voice high enough to s

he judge Kitty. His own blindness was the fault, if fault there were, and even that blindness he could now see tolerantly. The dart and pang had gone from his memory of young love; his smile for it was indulgent; he was even glad that the memory was there, glad that he had known the illusion, even if it were at the price of failure in that happy realm of life. Little of the sadness could have been Kitty's; she had not known the bitterness of his slow awakening; sh

red for. Kitty was sweet to see; she made him very comfortable; she rarely irritated him. With friends and Kitty what did he want of women

last. At last something seemed to come to him which, in the pain of it, was completely adequate to the situation. It was the Kitty of six years ago that he saw most clearly, the girl he had fallen in love with, his bride; but there were all the other memories too, the little silent memories, the nothings, the everythings of daily life together; small joys, small sorrows. The breakfast-table, Kitty behind th

o say good-bye to them; that would be to bring them near. But he did want to see Kitty, at once. She was not near mind or soul; but she was near as life is near; near like the pulse of his heart; and, with all the other things, he felt,

aw the station slide outside the windows at last, saw the face of the station-master-he had never before known that the station-master was such a lovable person-he seemed so near the nest that he must be lovable-saw, beyond the flower-wreathed palings, the dog-cart waiting for him. But his deeper self rebuked the cynical side-glance. The trembl

g for these next weeks, with ease and lightness. He would be able to keep up before Kitty. Until the very end she should be spared everything; there was joy in the thought, and no longe

an house that they had found together, the buoyancy was gone and what was left was a sweetness and a great fatigue. H

, their friend and neighbour; it would not be difficult to act before him, and he knew that he could begin acting at once; but, for this first meeting of the new, short epoch, he must see Kitty alone. So he had his tea in the library-queer to go on having

lower groups of trees, vaguely directing his steps to the little summer-house that faced the west and was as full of sunlight at this hour as a fretted shell of warm, lapping sea-water. They could not see hi

the trees the roof of the summer-house heaped with illumined festoons of traveller's-joy

attitude of an involuntary eavesdropper. But the smile faded. A look of bewilderment came to his face. Kitty was weeping and Sir Walter was pleading wit

n, as he now knew, into some far other form of sufferin

hidden side. He had no feeling of will or choice; had they come out upon him he would have looked at t

ead dizzy and his heart stilled, as it were, to listen, it was this amazem

as imploring her to come away with him. "But you do love me," was the phrase th

appy in her knowledge of his love, deeper than that-though this depth was of thankfulness in her husband's heart-was the truth that the love was as yet a beautiful pa

espect his comprehension of Sir Walter; for Sir Walter's strength was reverent, even in his recklessness the

than the response to reality in others. There was the danger that her husband steadi

yet it was not indifference to Kitty that gave him his immunity; he had never cared more for Kitty; it was, perhaps, in a tenderer key, as he cared for the station-master, as he cared, now, for Sir Walter. He was himself soon to die and, as personalities, as related to his own life, people had ceased to count; but as lives that were to go on after he was dead, they co

He said that he woul

wept. Her voice, now that the stress of the situa

darling; he will always be here and everything w

o go away with you. He would smile, sadly and ironically, and say: 'Poor, silly child.' And then he would turn to his papers. I'm nothing to him but a doll, a conven

g seeing you wasted and thrown away!" Sir Walter broke out. "

ow that the other is there,

ng sort

her, indeed, the joy was deep, and that it was in such moments of power over

Walter. "I shall always wa

ye:-for

u who ar

g, Holland knew that Kitt

raft in planning it. The child knew how to plot and lie. It thought itself nobly justified, no doubt, and that its fidelity to duty gave it the right to every liberty of conscience. And before Sir Walter went there was

she had leaned her arms on the table and rested her head on them. He heard presently, that she was softly saying a prayer, and at the sound, tears filled