Leonora

id anything go wrong?' said Ros

a replied. '

oom. He says he w

t your father has been through a

,' Rose stated ruthlessly. 'However--'

ng them disconnected items of information about the funeral, which at their own passionate request they had been excused from attending. The talk was carried on in low tones, so that the rattle of a spoon in a saucer sounded loud and distinct. And in the drawing-room John steadily perused the 'Sig

e Aunt Hannah's savings immediately (Leonora thought), had the old man's original testament remained uncancelled. Once upon a time, Ryley, the despised poor relation, the offspring of an outcast from the family, was to have been put off with two hundred and fifty pounds, and the bulk of the Myatt joint fortune was to have passed in any case to John. The withdrawal of the paltry leg

r the supervision of the Court. The shares fell another five in twenty-four hours. The Bursley Conservative Club knew positively the same night that John had 'got out' at a ruinous loss, and this episode seemed to give vigorous life to certain rumours, hitherto faint, that John and his uncle had violently quarrelled at his aunt's funeral, and that when Meshach died Fred Ryley would be found to be the heir. Other rumours, that Ethel Stanway and Fred Ryley were about to be secretly married, that Dain would have been the owner of Prince but for the diffe

upon his gestures, his glances, his remarks, the inflections of his voice. The eyes of her soul were ever beholding his form. Even at breakfast, after the disappointment of the post, she would indulge in ridiculous hopes that he might be abroad very early and would look in, and not until bedtime did she cease to listen for his ring at the front door. No chance of a meeting was too remote for her wild fancy. But she dared not breathe his name, dared not even adumbrate an inquiry; and her husband and daughters appeared to have entered into a compact not to mention him. She did not take counsel with herself, examine herself, demand from herself what was the significance of these symptoms; she co

' Bessie p

ome in yet, eh?' said the stout lawyer, approac

; but the visit was at

es later Jo

for tea, Nora. E

ks,' was D

h sudden misgiving, wh

men were left tog

into the drawing-room, 'why are father

,' said Leono

has got ever su

the kitchen and

ngement to her husband, John had answered stiffly, with an unimpeachable righteousness, that everything possible must be done for his uncle. On this fourth day, Leonora sent Ethel and Milly in the morning, with a message that she herself would come in the afternoon, by way of change.

t of arranging Uncle Meshach's domestic affairs without affronting his

g a bit, eh?' he sa

ghed, 'wouldn't

you and th' wenches, and Fred as calls in of nights. But it's all one to me, I reckon. I take no pleasure i' li

he tried conventionally to cheer

at

his conundrum. 'For all of us

arked drily, 'you're no be

and of the night when he lay like a corpse on Ethel's bed at the mercy of his nephew, and of Aunt Hannah resting in the cold tomb just at the end of the street, her heart was filled

. The room was always obscure, and tha

A

he gas flared, 'that's better, isn

A

ed the clock. It was only a quarter past five. 'He may call yet,' she drea

ory knock at the hou

h explained. 'He keeps on bring

her that Arthur Twemlow might have called quite early in the afternoon and that Meshach might have forgotten to tell her. If he had perchance called, and p

she demanded, after a long silence, pre

Meshach; 'w

ed he said

's been in,' he added, 'wi' papers to sign, probate o' Hannah

, she dropped the paper; but she was still b

' Meshach gave a grim sigh. '

mentio

ays, "Well, you can make your will i' favour o' Fred, if you've a mind." "Nay, Meshach," her says, "never ask me to cut out our John's name." "Well," I says to her, "if you won't, I will. I

s extraordinary arrangement for dealing justly between the surviving members of the Myatt fami

know,'

. Hannah said it wasna' right as Fred should suffer for his mother and his grandfeyther. And then us give Fred and your John an equal c

I to sa

and Fred? It wouldna' be fair to Fred, not rightly fair, beca

is shrivelled features, as he laid this of

's body, with the ice-cold cloth in his hand, and something, some dim instinct of a fundamental propriety, preve

evidently

er a pause, 'John's i' smooth water a

so,' said

nd departed. And all the way up to Hillport she speculated upon t

pe. She sadly admitted that she no longer knew herself, and that the Leonora of old had been supplanted by a creature of incalculable moods, a feeble victim of strange crises of secret folly. Throug

said Bessie; 'they di

. The condition of the sharp end of his cigar showed that he was perturbed, fretful, and perhaps in a state of suspense. 'Well,' she thought with resignation, 'I may as well play the wife,'

he said, and to her surprise

intensifying all her allur

stopped, ostensibly to put the c

is vexation, and she wondered, with a touch of cynicism, what new schem

untry, Nora?' He looked at her audacious

summer, y

summer and the winter too

leave

act

bout the ho

ou like,' said

. She wished to believe that his suggestion about selling the house was me

would

in the country?' she asked him, using a tone of gentle, mild

yd to Knype,' he said. 'But look here, Nora

had now made up his mind to sell it. He must therefore still be in

tely resolved that nothing should induce her to assent to this monstrous proposal. Her heart hard

l the decent estates will have been broken up, and we shall be left alone in the middle of streets of villas rented at

m fr

's a hard nut to crack, is Dain. But he went up to two thousand, and

he exclaim

imagine it wa

Dain in the street, and in response to an inquiry about the health of the hypochondriacal niece, Mrs. Dain, gorgeously attired, had replied: 'Her had but just rallied up off th' squab as I come out.' These were the people who wanted to evict her from her house. And they would cover its walls with new papers, and its floors with new carpets, in t

hn?' She came to the point with a fra

g,' he retorted, controlling him

she proceeded, 'I dar

can stand. I know all about Uncle Meshach, what I wanted to know was whether you cared to sell

s a mark

l the house, John,' she answere

ed. 'That finishes it. I suppose y

t of the roo

it conceivable that he expected her to be willing to sell her house?..

ged. And then Rose

rove back

she said to the girl in a trembling voice. 'Aren't you surprised?' She seldom talked

as concerned,' said Rose coldly, with a slight hint of

he sound of the piano and of Milly's voice in the brilliant ecstatic phrases of the song grew fainter. She shook violently, like a child who is recovering from a fit of sobs, and without thinking she fastened her

re; but she wished to isolate herself completely, and to find tranquillity in the isolation. The calm spring night, chill but not too cold, cloudy but not too dark, favoured her intention. She gazed about her at the obscure nocturnal forms of things, at the silent trees, and the mysterious clouds gently rounded in their vast shape, and the sharp slant of th

d, and she was swept and drenched with happiness as a ship by the ocean. She forgot everything in the tremendous shock of joy. She felt as though she could have waited no more, and that now she might expire in a bliss intense and fatal, in a sigh o

you?' h

es

tective grasp, she covered-but in imagination only-she covered his face, which she could shadowily see, with brave and abandoned kisses; and she whispered to him, but unheard: 'Admit that I am made for love.' She feared, in

inary tone, but she spoke. Her voice exquisitely trembled, a

and Mr. Myatt said you had only been gone a few minutes, and so I came right away. I gue

r smiling face, caught by him dimly in the obscurity of the

for a while, the strong influence of convention f

lling this place?' he inq

you

d, 'I did hea

make-believe of woe-the question of the sale had ceased

en't really

f cour

was infallibly certain of his entire sympathy. Explanations

he house?' She invited him

demanded

ng here like this.' As soon as she had uttered the words she su

ercoat and walked several times to and fro

ueer, you and I, some day. So i

yielded herself with poignant and magnificent joy to the profound drama which had been magically created by this apparently commonplace dialogue. The climax had been achieved, and she was conscious of being lifted into a sublime exultation, and of being cut off from all else in the world save him.

myself I was mad. I said to myself that no man in his senses could behave as I was behaving. And when I got to Southampton I said I would go right back. And yet I couldn't help getting into the special for London. And when I got to London I said I would act sensible and go back. But I met young Burgess, and the next thing I knew I was at Euston. And here I am pretending that it's my new London branch that brings me over, and doing business I don't want to do in Knype and Cauldon and Bursley. And I'm killing myself-yes, I am; I

led with glorious pride that her image should have drawn this strong, shrewd self-possessed man acros

r her answer

hed. 'Oh, yes!... I'

u, what I feel about you. You're so quiet and simple and direct and yet-y

g very excited, and this,

hell of a fi

, almost thrilling joy in hearing a

said, 'there's no

e demanded, imperiously

ive, expectant smile. She loved to see him out of repose, eage

ey were on the brink of a rushing river, and he was about to pick her up in his arms, like a trifle, and carry her sa

down and cross my legs and say that fate, or whatever you call it, hasn't done me right? Do you suppose that two sensibl

ut

d, are you?' He d

at

yth

, then, that by some marvellous plan he would perform the impossible fe

kon it up,'

rsley, and the solitary red signal in the valley, she breathed out her spirit like an aerial essence, and merged into unity with him. And the strange far-off noises of no

of a phrase from the Jewel Song. 'Mother! Aren't you coming in?' The girl finished the phrase with inviting gaiety, holding t

and lighted rooms, of the preoccupied lives, only increased the felicity of her halcyon dream. And in the dreamy and brooding silence all things retreated and gradua

ting for you to come in!' She varied a little the phrase from the Jewel Song. 'To come in!

withdrew

write you to-morrow,' Art

rn in some definite state of mind. She loosed Bran, and the dog, when he had finished his elephantine gambades, followed her cl

nner; on committee-meeting days, when he was engaged at the Town Hall, John sometimes dined at the Tiger. His attitude produced small effect on Leonora. She was far too completely absorbed in herself to be perturbed by the offensive

ading the newspapers, she had sometimes timidly envied the heroines of the matrimonial court who had bought romance at the price of esteem and of peace. Then suddenly the whole matter slipped into unreality, and she could not credit it. Was it possible that she, a respectable matron, a known figure, the mother of adult daughters, had fallen in love with a man not her husband, had had a secret interview with her lover, and was anticipating, not a retreat, but an advance? And she thought, as every honest woma

falling in love? Can o

barrier. She could not leave them; she could not forfeit the right to look them in the eyes without embarrassment ... And then the next moment-somehow, she did not know how-the difficulty of the girls was arranged. And she had departed. She h

ere vain. She felt that she must write a brief and firm letter to Arthur and tell him to desist. She saw with extraordinary clearness that this course was

: "And her husband's aunt scarcely cold

was Mrs. Dain's, coming from

stopping, and then, when she caught sight of Bran: '

peated, astonished. The carr

us as your dog had brukken his leg. What tales one hears!' Mrs. Dain h

ivate comment, her gaze fixed on the

she could not proceed. She knew that she could not compose a letter which would be effective. She went to the window and looked out, bitin

e room. 'Father's done something to himse

at the animal was now fast by the collar, and he had demanded a large dose of morphia, together with a hypodermic instrument. Having obtained these, and precise instructions for their use, John had hurried away. It was not till three hours had elapsed that a startling suspicion had disturbed the chemist's easy mind. By that time, his preparations completed, John had dropped unconscious from the arm-chair in his office at the works, and Bursley was provided with one of those morbid sensations which more than joy or triumph electrify the stagnant pulses of a provincial town. Scores of persons followed

they have foreseen the situation, they might have expected to think. It did not occur to them to search for the causes of the disaster, nor to speculate upon its results in regard to themselves: they surrendered to the supreme fact. They were all incapable of logical and ordered reflections, and in the hushed torpor of their secret hearts there wandered, loosely, little disconnected ideas and sensations; as that the Stanway family was at length getting its full share of vicissitude and misfortune, that John was after all more important and more truly dominant and more intimately a

ly beginning to live; we have the future; but she-she will have nothing. She will be the widow.' And the significance of that terrible word-all that it implied of social diminishment, of feeding on memory, and of mere waiting for death-seemed to cling about Leonora as she stood restlessly observant by the bed. And when Rose ur

after an absence, 'Uncle Meshach is here with Mr

Leonora answered, wi

fler encircled his shrivelled neck in loose folds. No one spoke as the old and feeble man, with short uncertain steps, drew Arth

uncon

ra no

ch clumsily, and struck it, and came still nearer to the bed. All wondered apprehensively what the old man was going to do, but none dared interfere or protest because he was so old, and so precariously attached to life, and because he was the head of

lad's unconscious right

e clutched Arthur's arm again,

had forsaken the bedside. She was surprised to see Fred Ryley in the hall, self-conscious but apparently determined to

ab, will you?' said Twemlow q

ng his moustache nervously. 'No

h his stick he stopped and looked round at Leonora. 'Lass!' he exclaimed, 'thou toldst me Joh

ed inquiringl

ly, pointing to the drawing-ro

up with him,' Arthur exp

go back to New York-at once,' sh

nted, 'I suppo

to me-until after

t--' he

eason and his judgment, has not the sligh

he said in a p

ly. 'You aren't to write, and you aren't

long?'

ad. 'I don't kno

't that

t fiercely. And her accents were so full of entreaty, of comman

t,' he said, f

she could no

to do nothing at all

aw no alternative t

od-night she went upstairs and resumed her place by the

to be here, mother?'

ra replied. 'He must

ignal' reporter had called to inquire for news, and the hour was growing l

?' Leono

y, 'it's just as well to

ld in the drawing-room,' Ethel

agreed. 'And tell

hen, her heels touching the scrap of hearthrug which lay like a little island on the red tiles in front of the range. Rose and Millicent had retired to bed till three o'clock. Ethel, as the eldest,

and so satiate had the sensation of being alone with her mate. Images of Arthur Twemlow did not distract her. With the full strength of her mind she had shut an iron door on the episode in the garden; it was as though it had never existed. And she gazed at John with calm and sad compassion. 'I would not sell my home,' she reflected, 'and here is the consequence of refusal.' She wished she had yielded-and she could perceive how unimportant, comparatively, bricks-and-mortar might be-but she did not bl

ears, struck her and overwhelmed her. She saw that nothing is so subtly influential as constant uninterrupted familiarity, nothing so binding, and perhaps nothing so sacred. It was a trifle that they had not loved. They had lived. Ah! she knew him so profoundly that words could not describe her knowledge

at the moment he exhaled a sigh, so softly delicate and gentle that it might have been the sigh of an infant sinking to sleep. She put her ear quickly to the still breast

yond the earthly sense. John's body lay suddenly deserted and residual; that deceitful brain, and that lying tongue, and that murderous hand had already begun to decay; and the informing fragment of eternal and u

young and beautiful girl whose flushed cheek was pressed a