The Devil's Garden

he through coach to Rodchurch Road, she did not suffer during the journey from too curious observation of strangers. She was go

er in alighting. Evidently he noticed nothing strange about her appearance. She at once announced the good news that Dale h

. Here, let me carry t

lease don't troub

len hurried down the street to tell others. Soon the whole village knew that Mr. Dale had triumph

d was rapturously pleased at seeing her mistress ho

atever have you d

and it has given me a bad headache. I don't want any te

f yesterday sleep seemed to be the one good thing left in the world

lf, but in the darkness she could think only of her husband. She was haunted by the expression of his face, by the tone of his voice, when he had asked her if she supp

arches and eddying round their piers; then she became sure that he would not drown himself. He was a vigorous swimmer-such a de

Why, with instinct prompting her, had she not resisted him, refused to let him leave her, stayed with him in spite of

en the discovery of her secret far worse than she had ever conceived as possible, when timorously thinking of untoward hazards that one day or another might lead to disclosur

e than once surprised her by keeping quite calm when she had expected and dreaded perilous energy. Especially she remembered a day out on the Manninglea road when a runaway horse with an empty cart came galloping toward them

do is to interfere with a bolting horse when there's a vehicle behind it. "Mind you," he added, "I'd have had a try at bringing it to anchor if there'd been anybody in the ca

, nevertheless, when you got him inside the sacred edifice, his behavior was perfect, and you could not watch him on his knees or hear him say "Christ have mercy upon us, O Lord Christ have mercy on us," without being convinced that he did truly believe in a

t the strain of three long waiting days and four long sleepless

from the bottom of the stairs, "would you b

k you, Mr

r, and change your mind," said

-but thank you

the way you shut yoursel

feeling quite mys

idgett laughed amiably. "I won't press you-that is, I won't press you to honor me with your company; but I do respectfully p

nk y

ad a note from h

Mr.

es

oden uprights rattled. She had nearly asked a question which would have betrayed the

blic library. Lambeth-y

did he

" Mr. Ridgett laughed again. "And told me that the clocks ought to be wound

ing in her situation remained. Since Will was alive now, he would continue to live. And that little circumstance of his remembering about the clocks was full of promise-

er felt quite so strongly-he would seize upon the overthrow of Mr. Barradine's reputation as the obvious means of obtaining his own revenge. Then she thought of what such a scandal would mean to a gentleman of Mr. Barradine's state and status. Mr. Barradi

istress-the plain matter-of-fact idea presented itself: that if Dale were not rendered irresponsible by jealous ire, one might hope that he would eventually fall in wit

ng to fade; and it seemed that as the ugly marks of his hands disappeared from her skin, the memory of all the causes that had brought them there began itself to weaken. Certainly the despairing anguish that she had felt, the submission to his unpardo

holding her down and shaking her; that graze above the knee, outside the right thigh had come when she rolled over by the chest of drawers. Raising her eyes in order to see if the lip and eyebrow continued to mend satisfactorily, she was surprised by the general expression of her face. Positive

omen. She had never understood them, and possibly never would do so. For instance, how strange that old Will should not for a moment have been softened by a recognition of her success in extricating him from his difficulty! One might have exp

cting that she was about to

r till he dropped. Noble and splendid love had spoken in that-such love as few women are lucky enough to get. Oh, s

hile were all prayers. With each one of them she prayed her husband to go on loving her; to come back and bruise her limbs, to punish her with f

he whole disaster might have been averted. But for that horrible square inch of pink cardboard, all would have been well, her ordeal would not have been suffered in vain. The wickedly strong intoxicant had of course begun the mischief by making her blurt out those imbecile words that first set Will on the rampage; but it was the knowledge of the telltale ticket

dering that the cost was the same as two single fares. Not so stupid, however, as the thrifty idea that if she and Will traveled home in different train

hurch, but a dread of loquacious and inquisiti

y one or two people visible at a time, and yet she dared not go down and walk through it. Were she to show herself, all the idle shopkeepers would issue fro

agon; then Mr. Norton the vicar appeared, going from house to house, distributing handbills of special services. And she wondered if he and his wife had ever had a hidden domestic storm in their outwardly tranquil existence. Mrs. Norton must have been quite pretty once, and perhaps at that period she caused Mr. Norton anxieties. But if she had ever needed for

owing, three heavily-laden chars-a-bancs arrived one after another from Rodhaven. The tourists filled the street, and for about two hours the aspect of things was lively

ined there. It was Mr. Barradine, riding slowly toward her between the churchyard and the Roebuck stables. She shrank back

esh and nerves, quailed and grew weak at the mere sight of him; as though inherited instincts were controlling her, and would always control her whenever she was in his presence; as though she the descendant of serfs must infallibly submit to the

s power to rule and subordinate, accustomed for forty years to the unfailing subjection of such things as servants, horses, and women. Her heart bumped against her stays, and her face became red and then white, when she thought that he intended

e disappeared, the

and exaltation could not be long sustained. After excitement she returned rapidly to a passive and unimaginati

r and an outcast. Sinners did wrong because they enjoyed the sin; but she had never been vicious, or even selfishly anxious for pleasure. Pleasure! She had never cared f

known where all this was leading. What she told Will was substantially correct as to the beginning-but of course her eyes had been opened before anything definite occurred. Then she had told Auntie that she was afraid; and then it was that Auntie ought to have saved her, and didn't. Far from it. Auntie, who in e

were others-and she said she would never forgive him. Yet she did forgive him. Finally, there came the outrage of his stopping at the Cottage with somebod

en a nasty girl, she would not have made such a marriage; instead of being anxious to secure respectability, however humble, she would have followed Auntie's suggestions and looked out for another protector instead of for a husband. And she had wanted to tell Dale the whole truth; but there again she had been overruled. Auntie forbade her to utter a whisper or hint of it; she said that Mr. Barradine would never pardon such a betrayal of his confid

her tenderly happy that she could make him happy. Now after eleven years her feeling toward him was all unselfish and beautiful, a gentle a

nother fatal consequence of the Barradine slavery. If so, what cause she had to hate and curse him! The episode with him was simply an irksomeness:

the one thing that made her envious of other women. The idea of having a child of her own made her almost faint with longing-a baby to nurse, a little burden to wheel about in a perambulator,

e was wholly mean and base: he was the embodied principle of evil that had spoiled the past and that still threatened the future. She wished that he might eventually suffer as much as he had m

to the window and stay

shop fronts shone brightly, but all the rest grew dark, like a river or a canal instead of a street.

sing, her thoughts drifted

addles he had made for them were satisfactory, insinuate his fingers between saddle-tree and hunter's withers to see if there was plenty of room, and generally render himself obsequiously agreeable. That was good for trade. But then the hunting gradually fascinated him, and he followed on foot throughout the season, h

butterfly nets, children's fishing-rods, stamp albums, and picture post-cards. Two years ago the elder sister tumbled down-stairs and injured her spine; and since then she had been bedridden, lying in the upper room at the back of the house, with nothing to a

ave, cutting out, beginning and finishing gaiters, breeches, and stable-jackets, doing all the work that was ever done at Frayne's; and at night she went round trying to get orders, delivering the goods that she had completed, an

e Gauntlet Inn, was greatly to blame. The tradesmen had a little club at the Gauntlet, where Cope employed a horrid brazen barmaid who sometimes sang comic songs to the club members. Mrs. Cope felt strongly about the barmaid, and quite took the vic

im for the fine example he had set for others. No, dear old Will, though he liked his glass of beer as well as anybody, would often go a whole week on tea and coffee; and she t

t that the workhouse would be the end for him and Mrs. Silcox. But early this summer people had been startled by hearing that the Courier had appointed Silcox as their reporter; and local critics were of opinion that Silcox had taken very kindly to literature, and that he was shaping well, and might per

ates raced, and habitually ran after women-that is, when he possessed the use of his legs and was able to run. But he was a heavy drinker, and it was no unusual thing for the helpers at the Roebuck stables to have to get out a conveyance at closing time and drive Richard, speechless, motionless, to Vine-Pits Farm. He never went to the Gauntlet, but always to the Roebuck-beginning the evening in the hotel bill

at she was not the only sad inhabitant of Rodchurch.