The Shadow of the East

he had left London that morning, arriving at the Towers in the afternoon, and she was tired and excited with the events of the day. She leant back against the panelled embrasure, her mind

erson offering mute reception, radiating repose. In a few hours the room had become intimate, dear to her. She laughed happily-then checked at a guilty feeling of treason against the grey old walls in Paris that had so long sheltered her. She was not ungrateful, all her life she would remember with gratitude the love and care she had received. But the convent had been prison. Since her father had left her there, a tiny child, she had inwardly rebelled; the life was abhorrent to her, the restraint unbearable. With childish pride she had hidden her feelings, living through a period of acute misery with no hint to those about her of what she suffered. And the habit of suppression acquired in childhood had grown with her own development. As the years passed the limitations of the convent became more perceptible. She felt its cramping influence to the full, as if the walls were closing in to suffocate her, to bury her alive before she had ever known a fuller freer life. She had longed for expansion-ideas she could not formulate, desires she could not express, crowded, jostled in her brain. She wanted a wider outlook on life than the narrow convent windows offered. Brief excursions into the world to the homes of her friends had filled her with a yearning for freedom and for independence, for a greater range of thought and action. Her artistic studies had served to foster an unrest she struggled against bravely and to conceal which she became daily

old coat on which to pillow her brown curls. A jumbled remembrance of towns and country villages; of kind unknown women who looked compassionate and murmured over her in a dozen different languages. It had all been a medley of impressions and experiences-everything transient, nothing lasting, but the big untidy man who was her all. And then the convent. For a few years John Locke had reappeared at irregular intervals, and on the memory of those brief visits she had lived until he came again. Then he had ceased to come and his letters, grown short and few, full of vague promise

ainst the degradation of being handed over inexorably to the disposal and charity of a stranger. Though she had not been told she had guessed, years ago, that money for her maintenance was wanting. The kindly deception of the Mother Superior had been ineffectual. Gillian knew she was a pauper. The charity of the convent school had been hard to bear. The charity of a stranger would be harder. She writhed with the humiliation of it. She was nineteen-for two years she must go and be and endure at the whim of an unknown. And what would he be like, this man into whose hands her father had thrust her! What choice would John Locke be capable of making-what love had he shown during these last years that he should choose carefully and well? From among what class of man, of the society into which he had sunk, would he select one to give his daughter? He had written of "my old friend, Barry Craven." The name conveyed nothing-the adjective admitted of two interpretations. Which? Day and night she was haunted with visions of old men-recollections of faces seen when driving with her friends or visiting their homes; old men who had interested her, old men from whom she had instinctively shrunk. What type of man was it that was coming for her? There were times when her courage deserted her and the constantly recurring question made her nearly mad with fear. She was like a wild creature caught in a trap, listening to the feet of the keeper nearing-nearing. She had longed for the time when she could leave the Convent, she clung to it now with dread at the thought of the future. The London lawyer had written that Mr. Craven was returning from Japan to assume his guardianship, and she had traced his route with growing fear as the days slipped by-the keeper's tread coming closer and closer. She had masked the terror the thought of him inspired, preserving an outward apathy that seemed to imply complete indifference. And in the end he had come sooner than she expected, for they thought he would go first to London. One morning she had learned he was in Paris, that very afternoon she would know her fate. The day had been interminable. During his interview with the Mother Superior she had paced the room where she was waiting as it seemed for hours, her nerves at breaking point. When the Reverend Mother came back she could have shrieked aloud and her desperate eyes failed to interpret the expression on the Nun's face; she tried to speak, a husky whi

shy pale-faced girl to her eccentric heart with a s

he glanced now round the big room. Everywhere were evidences of lavish generosity, showered on her regardless of protest. Gillian's eyes filled slowly with tears. It was all a fairy story, too wonderful almost to be true. Why were they so good to her-how would she ever be able to repay the kindness lavished on her? Her thought

nes. It was her first experience of ownership, of responsibility for a living creature that was dependent on her and for which she was answerable. And it was likely to prove an arduous responsibility. He was single-minded and jealous in his allegiance; Miss Craven he tolerated indiffer

ed herself critically in the big mirror. She looked with grave amusement. Was that Gillian Locke? She wondered did a butterfly feel more incongruous when it shed its dull grub skin. For so many years she had worn the sombre garb of the con

as wanting. She was unable to express in her own likeness the almost startling exposition of character that distinguished her ordinary work. She had been her own limitation. Her failure had puzzled her, causing a searching mental inquiry. She had no knowledge herself of how her special gift took form, the work grew involuntarily under her hand. She was aware of no definite impression received, no attempt at soul analysis. Vaguely she supposed that in some subtle

shook her head. Appearance had never mattered before, but now she wanted so much to please-to be a credit to the interest shown, to repay the time and money spent upon her. Her

uld the Reverend Mother say

on the plate glass slab scattering brushes and bottles, and still laughing sh

taken hold of her, from the first moment she had loved it. Throughout the long railway journey and during the five mile drive from the station, she had anticipated, and the actuality had outstripped her anticipation. The beauty of the park, the herds of grazing deer, had delighted her; the old grey house itself had stayed her spellbound. She had not imagined anything half so lovely, so impressively enduring. She had seen nothing to compare with its fine proportions, with the luxury of its setting. It differed utterly from the French Chateaux where she had visited; there toil obtruded, vineyards and rich fields of crops clustered close to the very walls of the seigneur's dwellings, a source of wealth simply displayed; here similar activities were banished to unseen regions, and scrupulously kept ave

met them at the station-a short broad-shouldered man inclining to stoutness, with thick grey hair and close-pointed beard. To go down deliberately to them seemed impossible. But while she hesitated in an agony of self-consciousness Mouston precipitated the inevitable by dashing on ahea

wonder, but the keen blue eyes looking at her from under bushy grey eyebr

flicked the offended organ

she said

nging girlish outburst of amusement that Craven had never yet heard. He looked at her as she knelt on the rug soothing the poodle's outraged feelings and smiling at Peters who was offering his own more adequate

o convent training. But he had made no effort at further understanding, for the past was always present dominating inclinations and impulses-perpetual memory, jogging at his elbow. There were days when the only relief was physical exhaustion and he disappeared for hours to fight his devils in solitude. And in any case he was not wanted, it was better in every way for him to efface himself. There was nothing for him to do-thanks to

ed her face and she pushed the dog aside and rose hastily to her feet. Shyness supervened a

nd her tongue has wagged for a solid hour by the clock. I am now au fait with everything that has happened at the Towers since I was here last-do your ears burn, Pete

like most of the house, the table an oasis on a desert of Persian carpet, a huge fi

om-in a panel over the high carved mantelpiece. But it had been removed and for it had been substituted a beautiful painting of Barry's

ly, and from time immemorial the portrait of the last reigning Craven had hung over the fireplace in the big dining room waiting to give place to its successor. It all seemed bound up somehow with the terrible change that had taken place in him since his return from Japan-a change she was beginning more and more to connect with the man who

he painful thoughts that came crowding in upon her

rmal furniture and fine pictures, appealed to her. The arrangements were in perfect harmony, nothing clashed or ja

nd of dreams, tenanted with shadowy inhabitants of her own imagining-puppets who moved obedient to her will through all the devious paths of make-believe; a spirit world where she ranged free of the narrow walls that restricted her liberty. It had been easy to pretend in the convent-how much easier here in the solid embodiment of a dream castle and stimulated by the real human affection for which her heart had starved. The love she had hitherto known had

lled the world over-must be so great. With the exception of one subject her knowledge was negligible. But he too was an artist-hopeless to attempt that topic, she concluded with swift contempt for her own limitations; to offer the opinions of a convent-bred amateur to one who had studied in famous Paris ateliers and was acquainted with the art of many countries would be an impertinence. But yet she knew that sometime she must break through the wall that her own diffidence had built up; in the intimacy of country house life the continuance of such an attitude would be both impossible and ridiculous. Contritely she acknowledged that the tension between them was largely her own fault, a disability due to training. But she could not go through life sheltering behind that wholly inadequate plea. If there was anything in her at all she must rise above the conventions in which she had been reared; she had done with the narrowness of the past, now she must think broadly, expansively, in all things-even in the trivial matter of social intercourse. A saving sense of humour sent a laugh bubbling into her throat which nearly escaped. It was such a little thing, but she had magnified it so greatly. What, after all, did it amo

glass turning rapidly and then more slowly until, with a little tinkle, it snapped as the hand clenched suddenly, the knuckles showing white through the tanned skin. Gillian drew a quick breath. Had she been the cause of the mishap-had she stared noticeably, and he been angry at an impertinence? Her cheeks burned and in a misery o

rutiny. Immersed in his thoughts he was very obviously miles away from Craven Towers and the vicinity of a troublesome ward. And suddenly it hurt. She was nothing to him

ed, the tablecloth between them scored and creased with conflicting sketches. She drew a sharp little sigh of relief. Only she had noticed, and she did not matter. For a few moments her thoughts ran riot until she pulled them up frowningly. It was no business of hers-she had no right even to speculate on his affairs. Angry with herself she turned for distraction to the portraits on the walls-they at least would offer no disturbing problem. But her determination to keep her thoughts from her guardian met with a check at the outset for she found herself staring at Barry Craven as she had visualised him in that first moment of meeting-steel-clad. It was the picture of a young man, dressed in the style of the Elizabethan period, wearing a light inlaid cuirass and leaning negligently against a stone balustrade, a hooded falcon on his wrist. The resemblance to the owner of Craven Towers was remarkable-the same build, the same haughty carriage of the head, the sa

the agent's magnetic s

costume portrait of Mr. Craven, except that in treatm

s lau

poet, sculptor, and musician-there are two volumes of his verse in the library and the marble Hermes in the hall is his work. When he was seventeen he left the Towers to go to court. He seems to have been universally beloved, judging from various letters that have come down to us. He was a close friend of Sir Philip Sidney and one of Spense

ted out an expedition to America. He gave no reason. Distaste for the artificial existence prevailing at Court, sorrow at the death of his friend Sidney, or a wander-hunger fed on the tales brought home by the numerous merchant adventurers may have been the cause of this surprising step. His decision provoked dismay among his friends and brought a furious tirade from Elizabeth who commanded him to remain near her. But in spite of royal oaths and entreaties-more of the former than the latter-he sailed to Virginia on a land expedition. Two letters came from hi

e again, "the Lover of Love!" she repeat

who may have been fool enough to lose her h

ined in a green and yellow melancholy for h

said Craven, with a hard laugh. "The family traditions h

you are

en Peter, who has the family history at his fingers' ends, cannot deny it." His voice was provoca

s Craven, touched in a tender spot. But now some intuition warned her to silence. Sh

was totally different. The old Barry had been neither hard nor cynical, the new Barry was both. In the last few weeks she had had ample opportunity for judging. She perceived that a heavy shadow lay upon him darkening his home-coming-she had pictured it so very differently, and she sighed ov

the room and sat down at the piano. For a while his hands moved silently over the keys, then he began to play, and his playing was exquisite. Gillian sat and marvelled. Peters and music had seemed widely apart. He had appeared so essentially a sportsman; in spite of the literary tendency that his sympathetic account of the Elizabethan Barry Craven had suggested she had associated him with rougher, mo

whispered, under cover of some crashing ch

ectors, and grimacing at an audience?" she r

f foreboding came over her, a strange indefinite fear that was formless but that weighed on her like a crushing burden. The happiness of the last few weeks seemed suddenly swamped in the recollection of the misery rampant in the world. Who, if their inmost hearts were known, were truly happy? And her thoughts, becoming more personal, flitted back over the desolate days of her own sad girlhood

easurable. What more did she want? Was she so selfish that she could even think of the unhappiness that was over? Shame filled her, and she raised her eyes to the woman beside her with a sudden rush of gratitude and love. But Miss Craven, interested at last in her game, was blind to her surroundings, and with a little smile Gillian turned her attention to the silent occupant of the chair near her. Craven had come into the room a few minutes before. He wa

hat lay before her. And as she planned with eager confidence her hand moved soothin

. Miss Craven was shuffling vigorously. "Thank you, Peter," she said, with a smiling nod, "it's like old times to

and sat down near the card table. Miss Crave

asked, adding for Gillian's benefit

for youthful indiscretions-none of 'em very fierce when all's said and done. The Hamer-Banisters have gone under at last-more's the pity-and Hamer is let to some wealthy Australians who are possessed

ume. How are th

rd is absorbed in things Egyptian, and Alex

raven

s it th

brows twitc

inciples of this particular organization and she was very voluble and rather cryptic. It appears to embrace the rights of ma

owntrodden poor," continued Peters. "It doesn't sound very original, but I'm told that the propaganda is novel in

Horringford was a model landlord and

women. She was routed the other day by the mother of a family who told her bluntly to her face she didn't know what she was talking about-which was doubtless perfectly true. But the manner of telling seems to have been disagreeable and Alex was very annoyed and complained to Thomson, the new agent. He, poor chap, was between the devil and the deep sea, for the tenants had also been complaining that they were being interfered with. So he had to go to Horringford and there was a royal row. The upshot of it was that Alex rang me up on the 'phone this morning to tell me that Horringford was behaving like a bear, that he was so wrapped up in his musty mummies that he had

little more for Alex-" suggested Miss Craven, blow

ingford was nearly twenty years her senior, always reserved and absorbed in his Egyptian researches. Alex hadn't an idea in the world outside the stables. Horringford bored her infinitely, and with Alex-li

's sudden question was startling, for he had n

Alex has to say," he said at last, "then I shall tell her a few things I think she ought to

hy

are two very different people. I know-because I have se

ip does not succumb to

g that she was a little frightened at the hornet's nest she had raised. I imagine she won't be sorry to run away for a whil

n Horringford?" said Miss Craven, wi

But above all I blame the system that

been allowed to choose her own

lian was sitting on the arm of Miss Craven's chair, sorting the patience cards into a leather case. She looked up quickly. "I thoug

people who arrogate to themselves the right of settling their daughters' lives, who have so trained them that resistance to family wishes becomes almost an impossibility. A good suitor presents himself

n," said Peters warmly, "if he had on

estion, the problem of husband choosing," she went on thoughtfully. "Being a bachelor I can discuss it with perfect equanimity. But if in a moment of

y high plane, dear lady,"

l-know too much about you!" she smiled. Pe

or some time and when at last he spoke his voice was curiously strained. "I don't think my opinion counts for very much, but it seems to

terness of his tone seemed fraught with hidden meaning, and she racked her brains to find a topic that would lessen the tension that seemed to have fallen on the room.

n a general conversation, to remember that she might at a

tatingly. "Then you hold with the French custom of arranged marriages?" suggested Pet

e voulez vous?" she smiled. "Some of my friends were married. Their parents arranged the marriages. It seems that-" she stammered and went on hurriedly-"that there is much to be considered in choosing a husband,

nds happy?" asked

are co

"Marriage should bring more than contentment. It's

ted across th

swim-it was a daily habit, she could do anything in the water. But that morning she swam out to sea-and she did not come back." The low voice sank almost to a whisper. Miss Craven looked up incredulously. "Do you mean she deliberately drowned herself?" Gillian made a little gesture of evasion. "She was very unhappy," she said softly. And in the silence that followed her troubled gaze turned almost unconsciously to her guardian. He had risen and was standing with his hands in his

l to accept the husband who is chosen for her, Miss Locke?" asked

ned in the

as she had said before, and sto