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

ude towards her would have hurt had he not been beyond such hurts; but, looking back, he could not see that he had ever pushed Kitty aside nor relegated her to the place of plaything. No; th

it contemplations on deck to humour the dry tastes of the captain. She didn't care a bit for the cargo, or the purposes; she didn't care a bit for any of his interests nor wish to share them; his interests, in so far as specialized and unrelated to their romance, were, she intimated, by every retreating grace-as of gathered-up skirts and a backward smile for the captain in his prosy room-the captain's own particular manly business; her business was to be womanly, that is, to be

degrees lost many, even, of its warm, instinctive associations, and as he now sat thinking, near the summer-house, it took on its narrowest, if most piteous meaning. Kitty was essentially womanly. She needed some one to be in love with her. Her husband had ceased to be in love-though he had not ceased to be a loving husband-and she responded helplessly to a lover's appeal. Sir Walter's appeal was very persuasive. A ship of snowy, wing-like sails, a fairy ship, rocked on the waves at the very edge of Kitty's sheltered life. Only a shutting of the eyes, a holding of the breath, and she would be carried across the narrow intervening depth to the deck, to freedom, to safety-she would believe-to sails trimmed for an immortal romance. Would Kit

at he had left a little while ago so vividly aware of the sweetness that the shallow

tell her. He did not feel a tre

owing no need of skill, secure of secrecy. The eyes she quietly lifted to her husband were unclouded. He guessed the inner drama that held her thoughts, the tragically beautiful role that she herself played in it.

find a clue between the doomed man and the watcher. The self that he had found was adrift upon a sea, solitary indeed, and saw pigmy figures moving in the shifting lights and shadows of the shore. His mild preoccupation was with one figure, light, fluttering, f

's boudoir-and, in spite of immensities, he knew that his heart beat heavily under the burden of its project, how careful he must be, how delicate-to find her interviewi

see you, Kit

but surprise was all. "See me? Here I am. What is it?-No,

lk over somet

g. Will after lunch do? Don'

ee you now," said Holla

a shadow crossed her face. Suddenly,

ctly. I'll come

se made him smile at her and say:-"Don't bother to hurry. I can wait

sity was gone too. He felt oddly normal and reasonable, detached yet implicated; almost like a friendly family doctor come to break th

ten minutes when Kitty

arent to her husband's kindly but dispassionate eye. To other people Mrs. Holland's manner, the whispering vagueness of her voice, the wistful dwelling of her glance, was felt to be artificial only as the gold embroideries and serrated edges on the robes of a Fra Angelico angel are felt as something added and decorative. Kitty was far too intelligent to try to look like a Fra Angelico angel; she was picturesque as on

lower-dappled grass beneath its feet and the flutter of embroidered draperies. But Kitty, though accustomed to these graces, in herself, had not grown tired of them, the

ns hovered as a background, and, sharply drawn upon it, with the biting acid of his

mory struck them out;-the faces of the satisfied women, taking on, as years pass over them, as experience detaches from the craving, sentimental self, and frees the instincts to push, climb, cling in roots and tendrils for other selves, a vegetabl

ousness, almost sinister. For a moment, as the lines of the sharp new perception etched themselves, lines gossamer-like in fineness,

tion merely animal by contrast; open and obvious. Kitty's subtlety did not make her animal: it made her more than ever like an angel; but an ambiguous angel;

and distorting, so he told himself. Over and above all such morbidities was the f

ndow-seat where, sitting down himself, holding both her hands in his and looking up at her standing before him, he said with the quiet of long-prepared words: "Kitty, dear, I have s

eyes. She could not speak. She did not m

torpor of apprehension, and he hastened on so that she should

as of late. But it's not what I thought. It's fatal; and it will gallop now. He gives me one month-at the very most, two months." He spoke deliberately, though swiftly, and, as he finished, he smiled up at her, a reassuring smile. His wif

eeper oppressed by nightmare; the sound of them, the sight of her labouring breast hurt him. He put his arms around her and smiled now, as one smiles at

ought it was; it was for what he had said. It was a contagious terror. She cared. In some unexplained, unforeseen way

atter? What is

rom her; yet grasping, clinging as she held him off. He would not have thought her face capable of such f

y life. But one must face it; what else is there to

closed, tears ran down her face, as pite

t all? Don't you min

hovering, dreadful things, the dark forms of the cavern, encompassed, pressed upon him; despair and longing, the horror of annihilation, the agonising sweetness of life. It was as if a hidden wound had been opened and that his blood was gushing forth, not to peace, but to pain and torment. He felt his own sobs rising; s

! how dare you!" he cried. "You don't love me. You don't mind my dying. H

at each other; their hands seized each other; they spok

Kitty cried. "I've longed-longed. It is too horrible. How dare you come and tell me that you are

ng, Kitty-yo

can say that!

you as I did. But I've cared-good God! I see n

, unfaltering, assured, absolute. "Darling-darling-you love me? you do love me?-Oh, you shan't die-I won't let you die. My love will keep you with me. We will forget all th

-" he said, simp

own ears, were absurd. Yet he hadn't been dreaming yesterday. Kitty might make the words seem absurd; but even Kitty's eyes and Kitty's arms

pths of her rapture. She did not flush or falter or show, even, any shock or surprise. Her arms a

ow?" sh

. "I was sitting outside the summer-house. Y

l any more. You were only my husband, you weren't my lover.-And you don't know all. He doesn't know it. But I know it now. And I must tell you everything-all the dreadful weakness-you must understand it all. Perhaps, if this hadn't come, perhaps, if you hadn't been given b

dear, and I

loved me so much

dness, and to make our last month together a happy one for you. I was coming back to you with such lo

d it because you loved me so

dn't think you could be more than a little sad when you knew that you were

m with a self-reproach that deepened tenderness. She was only subtle, only sinister, when shut away, unloved. She was womanly, meant for love only, and her folly made her the more lovable. Love was all that was left him. One month of love. His hands yielded to her hands; his eyes