"THE GOOD SOLDIER\n\nBy Ford Madox Ford\n\n\n\n\nPART I\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nTHIS is the saddest story I have ever heard. We had known the\nAshburnhams for nine seasons of the town of Nauheim with an extreme\nintimacy--or, rather with an acquaintanceship as loose and easy and yet\nas close as a good glove's with your hand. My wife and I knew Captain\nand Mrs Ashburnham as well as it was possible to know anybody, and yet,\nin another sense, we knew nothing at all about them. This is, I believe,\na state of things only possible with English people of whom, till today,\nwhen I sit down to puzzle out what I know of this sad affair, I knew\nnothing whatever. Six months ago I had never been to England, and,\ncertainly, I had never sounded the depths of an English heart. I had\nknown the shallows.\n\nI don't mean to say that we were not acquainted with many English\npeople. Living, as we perforce lived, in Europe, and being, as we\nperforce were, leisured Americans, which is as much as to say that we\nwere un-American, we were thrown very much into the society of the\nnicer English. Paris, you see, was our home. Somewhere between Nice and\nBordighera provided yearly winter quarters for us, and Nauheim always\nreceived us from July to September. You will gather from this statement\nthat one of us had, as the saying is, a \"heart\", and, from the statement\nthat my wife is dead, that she was the sufferer.\n\nCaptain Ashburnham also had a heart. But, whereas a yearly month or so\nat Nauheim tuned him up to exactly the right pitch for the rest of the\ntwelvemonth, the two months or so were only just enough to keep\npoor Florence alive from year to year. The reason for his heart was,\napproximately, polo, or too much hard sportsmanship in his youth. The\nreason for poor Florence's broken years was a storm at sea upon our\nfirst crossing to Europe, and the immediate reasons for our imprisonment\nin that continent were doctor's orders. They said that even the short\nChannel crossing might well kill the poor thing.\n\nWhen we all first met, Captain Ashburnham, home on sick leave from an\nIndia to which he was never to return, was thirty-three; Mrs Ashburnham\nLeonora--was thirty-one. I was thirty-six and poor Florence thirty.\nThus today Florence would have been thirty-nine and Captain Ashburnham\nforty-two; whereas I am forty-five and Leonora forty. You will perceive,\ntherefore, that our friendship has been a young-middle-aged affair,\nsince we were all of us of quite quiet dispositions, the Ashburnhams\nbeing more particularly what in England it is the custom to call \"quite\ngood people\".\n\nThey were descended, as you will probably expect, from the Ashburnham\nwho accompanied Charles I to the scaffold, and, as you must also expect\nwith this class of English people, you would never have noticed it.\nMrs Ashburnham was a Powys; Florence was a Hurlbird of Stamford,\nConnecticut, where, as you know, they are more old-fashioned than even\nthe inhabitants of Cranford, England, could have been. I myself am a\nDowell of Philadelphia, Pa., where, it is historically true, there\nare more old English families than you would find in any six English\ncounties taken together. I carry about with me, indeed--as if it\nwere the only thing that invisibly anchored me to any spot upon the\nglobe--the title deeds of my farm, which once covered several blocks\nbetween Chestnut and Walnut Streets. These title deeds are of wampum,\nthe grant of an Indian chief to the first Dowell, who left Farnham in\nSurrey in company with William Penn. Florence's people, as is so\noften the case with the inhabitants of Connecticut, came from the\nneighbourhood of Fordingbridge, where the Ashburnhams' place is. From\nthere, at this moment, I am actually writing.\n\nYou may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it\nis not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or\nthe falling to pieces of a people to desire to set down what they have\nwitnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely\nremote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads.\n\nSome one has said that the death of a mouse from cancer is the whole\nsack of Rome by the Goths, and I swear to you that the breaking up\nof our little four-square coterie was such another unthinkable event.\nSupposing that you should come upon us sitting together at one of the\nlittle tables in front of the club house, let us say, at Homburg, taking\ntea of an afternoon and watching the miniature golf, you would have said\nthat, as human affairs go, we were an extraordinarily safe castle. We\nwere, if you will, one of those tall ships with the white sails upon a\nblue sea, one of those things that seem the proudest and the safest of\nall the beautiful and safe things that God has permitted the mind of men\nto frame. Where better could one take refuge? Where better?\n\nPermanence? Stability? I can't believe it's gone. I can't believe that\nthat long, tranquil life, which was just stepping a minuet, vanished in\nfour crashing days at the end of nine years and six weeks. Upon my word,\nyes, our intimacy was like a minuet, simply because on every possible\noccasion and in every possible circumstance we knew where to go, where\nto sit, which table we unanimously should choose; and we could rise and\ngo, all four together, without a signal from any one of us, always to\nthe music of the Kur orchestra, always in the temperate sunshine, or, if\nit rained, in discreet shelters. No, indeed, it can't be gone. You can't\nkill a minuet de la cour. You may shut up the music-book, close the\nharpsichord; in the cupboard and presses the rats may destroy the white\nsatin favours. The mob may sack Versailles; the Trianon may fall, but\nsurely the minuet--the minuet itself is dancing itself away into the\nfurthest stars, even as our minuet of the Hessian bathing places must\nbe stepping itself still. Isn't there any heaven where old beautiful\ndances, old beautiful intimacies prolong themselves? Isn't there any\nNirvana pervaded by the faint thrilling of instruments that have\nfallen into the dust of wormwood but that yet had frail, tremulous, and\neverlasting souls?\n\nNo, by God, it is false! It wasn't a minuet that we stepped; it was a\nprison--a prison full of screaming hysterics, tied down so that they\nmight not outsound the rolling of our carriage wheels as we went along\nthe shaded avenues of the Taunus Wald.\n\nAnd yet I swear by the sacred name of my creator that it was true. It\nwas true sunshine; the true music; the true splash of the fountains from\nthe mouth of stone dolphins. For, if for me we were four people with the\nsame tastes, with the same desires, acting--or, no, not acting--sitting\nhere and there unanimously, isn't that the truth? If for nine years I\nhave possessed a goodly apple that is rotten at the core and discover\nits rottenness only in nine years and six months less four days, isn't\nit true to say that for nine years I possessed a goodly apple? So it may\nwell be with Edward Ashburnham, with Leonora his wife and with poor dear\nFlorence. And, if you come to think of it, isn't it a little odd that\nthe physical rottenness of at least two pillars of our four-square\nhouse never presented itself to my mind as a menace to its security? It\ndoesn't so present itself now though the two of them are actually dead.\nI don't know....\n\nI know nothing--nothing in the world--of the hearts of men. I only know\nthat I am alone--horribly alone. No hearthstone will ever again witness,\nfor me, friendly intercourse. No smoking-room will ever be other than\npeopled with incalculable simulacra amidst smoke wreaths. Yet, in the\nname of God, what should I know if I don't know the life of the hearth\nand of the smoking-room, since my whole life has been passed in those\nplaces? The warm hearthside!--Well, there was Florence: I believe\nthat for the twelve years her life lasted, after the storm that seemed\nirretrievably to have weakened her heart--I don't believe that for one\nminute she was out of my sight, except when she was safely tucked up in\nbed and I should be downstairs, talking to some good fellow or other in\nsome lounge or smoking-room or taking my final turn with a cigar before\ngoing to bed. I don't, you understand, blame Florence. But how can she\nhave known what she knew? How could she have got to know it? To know it\nso fully. Heavens! There doesn't seem to have been the actual time. It\nmust have been when I was taking my baths, and my Swedish exercises,\nbeing manicured. Leading the life I did, of the sedulous, strained\nnurse, I had to do something to keep myself fit. It must have been then!\nYet even that can't have been enough time to get the tremendously long\nconversations full of worldly wisdom that Leonora has reported to\nme since their deaths. And is it possible to imagine that during our\nprescribed walks in Nauheim and the neighbourhood she found time to\ncarry on the protracted negotiations which she did carry on between\nEdward Ashburnham and his wife? And isn't it incredible that during\nall that time Edward and Leonora never spoke a word to each other in\nprivate? What is one to think of humanity?\n\nFor I swear to you that they were the model couple. He was as devoted\nas it was possible to be without appearing fatuous. So well set up,\nwith such honest blue eyes, such a touch of stupidity, such a warm\ngoodheartedness! And she--so tall, so splendid in the saddle, so fair!\nYes, Leonora was extraordinarily fair and so extraordinarily the real\nthing that she seemed too good to be true. You don't, I mean, as a rule,\nget it all so superlatively together. To be the county family, to look\nthe county family, to be so appropriately and perfectly wealthy; to be\nso perfect in manner--even just to the saving touch of insolence that\nseems to be necessary. To have all that and to be all that! No, it was\ntoo good to be true. And yet, only this afternoon, talking over the\nwhole matter she said to me: \"Once I tried to have a lover but I was\nso sick at the heart, so utterly worn out that I had to send him away.\"\nThat struck me as the most amazing thing I had ever heard. She said \"I\nwas actually in a man's arms. Such a nice chap! Such a dear fellow! And\nI was saying to myself, fiercely, hissing it between my teeth, as they\nsay in novels--and really clenching them together: I was saying to\nmyself: 'Now, I'm in for it and I'll really have a good time for once in\nmy life--for once in my life!' It was in the dark, in a carriage, coming\nback from a hunt ball. Eleven miles we had to drive! And then suddenly\nthe bitterness of the endless poverty, of the endless acting--it fell on\nme like a blight, it spoilt everything. Yes, I had to realize that I had\nbeen spoilt even for the good time when it came. And I burst out crying\nand I cried and I cried for the whole eleven miles. Just imagine me\ncrying! And just imagine me making a fool of the poor dear chap like\nthat. It certainly wasn't playing the game, was it now?\"\n\nI don't know; I don't know; was that last remark of hers the remark of\na harlot, or is it what every decent woman, county family or not county\nfamily, thinks at the bottom of her heart? Or thinks all the time for\nthe matter of that? Who knows?\n\nYet, if one doesn't know that at this hour and day, at this pitch of\ncivilization to which we have attained, after all the preachings of\nall the moralists, and all the teachings of all the mothers to all the\ndaughters in saecula saeculorum... but perhaps that is what all mothers\nteach all daughters, not with lips but with the eyes, or with heart\nwhispering to heart. And, if one doesn't know as much as that about the\nfirst thing in the world, what does one know and why is one here?\n\nI asked Mrs Ashburnham whether she had told Florence that and what\nFlorence had said and she answered:--\"Florence didn't offer any comment\nat all. What could she say? There wasn't anything to be said. With the\ngrinding poverty we had to put up with to keep up appearances, and the\nway the poverty came about--you know what I mean--any woman would have\nbeen justified in taking a lover and presents too. Florence once said\nabout a very similar position--she was a little too well-bred, too\nAmerican, to talk about mine--that it was a case of perfectly open\nriding and the woman could just act on the spur of the moment. She said\nit in American of course, but that was the sense of it. I think her\nactual words were: 'That it was up to her to take it or leave it....'\"\n\nI don't want you to think that I am writing Teddy Ashburnham down a\nbrute. I don't believe he was. God knows, perhaps all men are like that.\nFor as I've said what do I know even of the smoking-room? Fellows come\nin and tell the most extraordinarily gross stories--so gross that they\nwill positively give you a pain. And yet they'd be offended if you\nsuggested that they weren't the sort of person you could trust your wife\nalone with. And very likely they'd be quite properly offended--that is\nif you can trust anybody alone with anybody. But that sort of fellow\nobviously takes more delight in listening to or in telling gross\nstories--more delight than in anything else in the world. They'll\nhunt languidly and dress languidly and dine languidly and work without\nenthusiasm and find it a bore to carry on three minutes' conversation\nabout anything whatever and yet, when the other sort of conversation\nbegins, they'll laugh and wake up and throw themselves about in their\nchairs. Then, if they so delight in the narration, how is it possible\nthat they can be offended--and properly offended--at the suggestion\nthat they might make attempts upon your wife's honour? Or again:\nEdward Ashburnham was the cleanest looking sort of chap;--an excellent\nmagistrate, a first rate soldier, one of the best landlords, so they\nsaid, in Hampshire, England. To the poor and to hopeless drunkards, as I\nmyself have witnessed, he was like a painstaking guardian. And he never\ntold a story that couldn't have gone into the columns of the Field more\nthan once or twice in all the nine years of my knowing him. He didn't\neven like hearing them; he would fidget and get up and go out to buy a\ncigar or something of that sort. You would have said that he was just\nexactly the sort of chap that you could have trusted your wife with. And\nI trusted mine and it was madness. And yet again you have me. If poor\nEdward was dangerous because of the chastity of his expressions--and\nthey say that is always the hall-mark of a libertine--what about myself?\nFor I solemnly avow that not only have I never so much as hinted at an\nimpropriety in my conversation in the whole of my days; and more than\nthat, I will vouch for the cleanness of my thoughts and the absolute\nchastity of my life. At what, then, does it all work out? Is the whole\nthing a folly and a mockery? Am I no better than a eunuch or is the\nproper man--the man with the right to existence--a raging stallion\nforever neighing after his neighbour's womankind?\n\nI don't know. And there is nothing to guide us. And if everything is\nso nebulous about a matter so elementary as the morals of sex, what\nis there to guide us in the more subtle morality of all other personal\ncontacts, associations, and activities? Or are we meant to act on\nimpulse alone? It is all a darkness.\n\nII\n\nI DON'T know how it is best to put this thing down--whether it would\nbe better to try and tell the story from the beginning, as if it were a\nstory; or whether to tell it from this distance of time, as it reached\nme from the lips of Leonora or from those of Edward himself.\n\nSo I shall just imagine myself for a fortnight or so at one side of the\nfireplace of a country cottage, with a sympathetic soul opposite me.\nAnd I shall go on talking, in a low voice while the sea sounds in the\ndistance and overhead the great black flood of wind polishes the bright\nstars. From time to time we shall get up and go to the door and look out\nat the great moon and say: \"Why, it is nearly as bright as in Provence!\"\nAnd then we shall come back to the fireside, with just the touch of a\nsigh because we are not in that Provence where even the saddest stories\nare gay. Consider the lamentable history of Peire Vidal. Two years ago\nFlorence and I motored from Biarritz to Las Tours, which is in the Black\nMountains. In the middle of a tortuous valley there rises up an immense\npinnacle and on the pinnacle are four castles--Las Tours, the Towers.\nAnd the immense mistral blew down that valley which was the way from\nFrance into Provence so that the silver grey olive leaves appeared like\nhair flying in the wind, and the tufts of rosemary crept into the iron\nrocks that they might not be torn up by the roots.\n\nIt was, of course, poor dear Florence who wanted to go to Las Tours.\nYou are to imagine that, however much her bright personality came from\nStamford, Connecticut, she was yet a graduate of Poughkeepsie. I never\ncould imagine how she did it--the queer, chattery person that she was.\nWith the far-away look in her eyes--which wasn't, however, in the least\nromantic--I mean that she didn't look as if she were seeing poetic\ndreams, or looking through you, for she hardly ever did look at\nyou!--holding up one hand as if she wished to silence any objection--or\nany comment for the matter of that--she would talk. She would talk about\nWilliam the Silent, about Gustave the Loquacious, about Paris frocks,\nabout how the poor dressed in 1337, about Fantin-Latour, about the\nParis-Lyons-Mediterranée train-deluxe, about whether it would be\nworth while to get off at Tarascon and go across the windswept\nsuspension-bridge, over the Rhone to take another look at Beaucaire.\n\nWe never did take another look at Beaucaire, of course--beautiful\nBeaucaire, with the high, triangular white tower, that looked as thin\nas a needle and as tall as the Flatiron, between Fifth and\nBroadway--Beaucaire with the grey walls on the top of the pinnacle\nsurrounding an acre and a half of blue irises, beneath the tallness of\nthe stone pines, What a beautiful thing the stone pine is!...\n\nNo, we never did go back anywhere. Not to Heidelberg, not to Hamelin,\nnot to Verona, not to Mont Majour--not so much as to Carcassonne itself.\nWe talked of it, of course, but I guess Florence got all she wanted out\nof one look at a place. She had the seeing eye.\n\nI haven't, unfortunately, so that the world is full of places to which I\nwant to return--towns with the blinding white sun upon them; stone pines\nagainst the blue of the sky; corners of gables, all carved and painted\nwith stags and scarlet flowers and crowstepped gables with the little\nsaint at the top; and grey and pink palazzi and walled towns a mile or\nso back from the sea, on the Mediterranean, between Leghorn and Naples.\nNot one of them did we see more than once, so that the whole world for\nme is like spots of colour in an immense canvas. Perhaps if it weren't\nso I should have something to catch hold of now.\n\nIs all this digression or isn't it digression? Again I don't know. You,\nthe listener, sit opposite me. But you are so silent. You don't tell me\nanything. I am, at any rate, trying to get you to see what sort of life\nit was I led with Florence and what Florence was like. Well, she was\nbright; and she danced. She seemed to dance over the floors of castles\nand over seas and over and over and over the salons of modistes and over\nthe plages of the Riviera--like a gay tremulous beam, reflected from\nwater upon a ceiling. And my function in life was to keep that bright\nthing in existence. And it was almost as difficult as trying to catch\nwith your hand that dancing reflection. And the task lasted for years.\n\nFlorence's aunts used to say that I must be the laziest man in\nPhiladelphia. They had never been to Philadelphia and they had the New\nEngland conscience. You see, the first thing they said to me when I\ncalled in on Florence in the little ancient, colonial, wooden house\nbeneath the high, thin-leaved elms--the first question they asked me was\nnot how I did but what did I do. And I did nothing. I suppose I ought to\nhave done something, but I didn't see any call to do it. Why does one do\nthings? I just drifted in and wanted Florence. First I had drifted in\non Florence at a Browning tea, or something of the sort in Fourteenth\nStreet, which was then still residential. I don't know why I had gone\nto New York; I don't know why I had gone to the tea. I don't see why\nFlorence should have gone to that sort of spelling bee. It wasn't the\nplace at which, even then, you expected to find a Poughkeepsie graduate.\nI guess Florence wanted to raise the culture of the Stuyvesant crowd and\ndid it as she might have gone in slumming. Intellectual slumming, that\nwas what it was. She always wanted to leave the world a little more\nelevated than she found it. Poor dear thing, I have heard her lecture\nTeddy Ashburnham by the hour on the difference between a Franz Hals and\na Wouvermans and why the Pre-Mycenaean statues were cubical with knobs\non the top. I wonder what he made of it? Perhaps he was thankful.\n\nI know I was. For do you understand my whole attentions, my whole\nendeavours were to keep poor dear Florence on to topics like the finds\nat Cnossos and the mental spirituality of Walter Pater. I had to keep\nher at it, you understand, or she might die. For I was solemnly informed\nthat if she became excited over anything or if her emotions were really\nstirred her little heart might cease to beat. For twelve years I had to\nwatch every word that any person uttered in any conversation and I had\nto head it off what the English call \"things\"--off love, poverty, crime,\nreligion and the rest of it. Yes, the first doctor that we had when she\nwas carried off the ship at Havre assured me that this must be done.\nGood God, are all these fellows monstrous idiots, or is there a\nfreemasonry between all of them from end to end of the earth?... That is\nwhat makes me think of that fellow Peire Vidal.\n\nBecause, of course, his story is culture and I had to head her towards\nculture and at the same time it's so funny and she hadn't got to laugh,\nand it's so full of love and she wasn't to think of love. Do you know\nthe story? Las Tours of the Four Castles had for chatelaine Blanche\nSomebody-or-other who was called as a term of commendation, La\nLouve--the She-Wolf. And Peire Vidal the Troubadour paid his court to\nLa Louve. And she wouldn't have anything to do with him. So, out of\ncompliment to her--the things people do when they're in love!--he\ndressed himself up in wolfskins and went up into the Black Mountains.\nAnd the shepherds of the Montagne Noire and their dogs mistook him for\na wolf and he was torn with the fangs and beaten with clubs. So they\ncarried him back to Las Tours and La Louve wasn't at all impressed. They\npolished him up and her husband remonstrated seriously with her. Vidal\nwas, you see, a great poet and it was not proper to treat a great poet\nwith indifference.\n\nSo Peire Vidal declared himself Emperor of Jerusalem or somewhere\nand the husband had to kneel down and kiss his feet though La Louve\nwouldn't. And Peire set sail in a rowing boat with four companions to\nredeem the Holy Sepulchre. And they struck on a rock somewhere, and,\nat great expense, the husband had to fit out an expedition to fetch him\nback. And Peire Vidal fell all over the Lady's bed while the husband,\nwho was a most ferocious warrior, remonstrated some more about the\ncourtesy that is due to great poets. But I suppose La Louve was the more\nferocious of the two. Anyhow, that is all that came of it. Isn't that a\nstory?\n\nYou haven't an idea of the queer old-fashionedness of Florence's\naunts--the Misses Hurlbird, nor yet of her uncle. An extraordinarily\nlovable man, that Uncle John. Thin, gentle, and with a \"heart\" that made\nhis life very much what Florence's afterwards became. He didn't reside\nat Stamford; his home was in Waterbury where the watches come from. He\nhad a factory there which, in our queer American way, would change\nits functions almost from year to year. For nine months or so it would\nmanufacture buttons out of bone. Then it would suddenly produce brass\nbuttons for coachmen's liveries. Then it would take a turn at embossed\ntin lids for candy boxes. The fact is that the poor old gentleman, with\nhis weak and fluttering heart, didn't want his factory to manufacture\nanything at all. He wanted to retire. And he did retire when he was\nseventy. But he was so worried at having all the street boys in the town\npoint after him and exclaim: \"There goes the laziest man in Waterbury!\"\nthat he tried taking a tour round the world. And Florence and a young\nman called Jimmy went with him. It appears from what Florence told me\nthat Jimmy's function with Mr Hurlbird was to avoid exciting topics for\nhim. He had to keep him, for instance, out of political discussions. For\nthe poor old man was a violent Democrat in days when you might travel\nthe world over without finding anything but a Republican. Anyhow, they\nwent round the world.\n\nI think an anecdote is about the best way to give you an idea of what\nthe old gentleman was like. For it is perhaps important that you should\nknow what the old gentleman was; he had a great deal of influence in\nforming the character of my poor dear wife.\n\nJust before they set out from San Francisco for the South Seas old Mr\nHurlbird said he must take something with him to make little presents to\npeople he met on the voyage. And it struck him that the things to\ntake for that purpose were oranges--because California is the orange\ncountry--and comfortable folding chairs. So he bought I don't know\nhow many cases of oranges--the great cool California oranges, and\nhalf-a-dozen folding chairs in a special case that he always kept in his\ncabin. There must have been half a cargo of fruit.\n\nFor, to every person on board the several steamers that they\nemployed--to every person with whom he had so much as a nodding\nacquaintance, he gave an orange every morning. And they lasted him right\nround the girdle of this mighty globe of ours. When they were at North\nCape, even, he saw on the horizon, poor dear thin man that he was, a\nlighthouse. \"Hello,\" says he to himself, \"these fellows must be very\nlonely. Let's take them some oranges.\" So he had a boatload of his fruit\nout and had himself rowed to the lighthouse on the horizon. The folding\nchairs he lent to any lady that he came across and liked or who seemed\ntired and invalidish on the ship. And so, guarded against his heart and,\nhaving his niece with him, he went round the world....\n\n\n\nHe wasn't obtrusive about his heart. You wouldn't have known he had one.\nHe only left it to the physical laboratory at Waterbury for the benefit\nof science, since he considered it to be quite an extraordinary kind\nof heart. And the joke of the matter was that, when, at the age of\neighty-four, just five days before poor Florence, he died of bronchitis\nthere was found to be absolutely nothing the matter with that organ. It\nhad certainly jumped or squeaked or something just sufficiently to take\nin the doctors, but it appears that that was because of an odd formation\nof the lungs. I don't much understand about these matters.\n\nI inherited his money because Florence died five days after him. I wish\nI hadn't. It was a great worry. I had to go out to Waterbury just after\nFlorence's death because the poor dear old fellow had left a good many\ncharitable bequests and I had to appoint trustees. I didn't like the\nidea of their not being properly handled.\n\nYes, it was a great worry. And just as I had got things roughly settled\nI received the extraordinary cable from Ashburnham begging me to come\nback and have a talk with him. And immediately afterwards came one from\nLeonora saying, \"Yes, please do come. You could be so helpful.\" It was\nas if he had sent the cable without consulting her and had afterwards\ntold her. Indeed, that was pretty much what had happened, except that\nhe had told the girl and the girl told the wife. I arrived, however, too\nlate to be of any good if I could have been of any good. And then I had\nmy first taste of English life. It was amazing. It was overwhelming. I\nnever shall forget the polished cob that Edward, beside me, drove; the\nanimal's action, its high-stepping, its skin that was like satin. And\nthe peace! And the red cheeks! And the beautiful, beautiful old house.\n\nJust near Branshaw Teleragh it was and we descended on it from the high,\nclear, windswept waste of the New Forest. I tell you it was amazing\nto arrive there from Waterbury. And it came into my head--for Teddy\nAshburnham, you remember, had cabled to me to \"come and have a talk\"\nwith him--that it was unbelievable that anything essentially calamitous\ncould happen to that place and those people. I tell you it was the very\nspirit of peace. And Leonora, beautiful and smiling, with her coils of\nyellow hair, stood on the top doorstep, with a butler and footman and a\nmaid or so behind her. And she just said: \"So glad you've come,\" as if\nI'd run down to lunch from a town ten miles away, instead of having come\nhalf the world over at the call of two urgent telegrams.\n\nThe girl was out with the hounds, I think. And that poor devil beside me\nwas in an agony. Absolute, hopeless, dumb agony such as passes the mind\nof man to imagine.\n\nIII\n\nIT was a very hot summer, in August, 1904; and Florence had already been\ntaking the baths for a month. I don't know how it feels to be a patient\nat one of those places. I never was a patient anywhere. I daresay the\npatients get a home feeling and some sort of anchorage in the spot. They\nseem to like the bath attendants, with their cheerful faces, their air\nof authority, their white linen. But, for myself, to be at Nauheim\ngave me a sense--what shall I say?--a sense almost of nakedness--the\nnakedness that one feels on the sea-shore or in any great open space.\nI had no attachments, no accumulations. In one's own home it is as if\nlittle, innate sympathies draw one to particular chairs that seem to\nenfold one in an embrace, or take one along particular streets that seem\nfriendly when others may be hostile. And, believe me, that feeling is a\nvery important part of life. I know it well, that have been for so long\na wanderer upon the face of public resorts. And one is too polished up.\nHeaven knows I was never an untidy man. But the feeling that I had\nwhen, whilst poor Florence was taking her morning bath, I stood upon the\ncarefully swept steps of the Englischer Hof, looking at the carefully\narranged trees in tubs upon the carefully arranged gravel whilst\ncarefully arranged people walked past in carefully calculated gaiety,\nat the carefully calculated hour, the tall trees of the public gardens,\ngoing up to the right; the reddish stone of the baths--or were they\nwhite half-timber châlets? Upon my word I have forgotten, I who was\nthere so often. That will give you the measure of how much I was in\nthe landscape. I could find my way blindfolded to the hot rooms, to the\ndouche rooms, to the fountain in the centre of the quadrangle where the\nrusty water gushes out. Yes, I could find my way blindfolded. I know\nthe exact distances. From the Hotel Regina you took one hundred and\neighty-seven paces, then, turning sharp, left-handed, four hundred and\ntwenty took you straight down to the fountain. From the Englischer Hof,\nstarting on the sidewalk, it was ninety-seven paces and the same four\nhundred and twenty, but turning lefthanded this time.\n\nAnd now you understand that, having nothing in the world to do--but\nnothing whatever! I fell into the habit of counting my footsteps. I\nwould walk with Florence to the baths. And, of course, she entertained\nme with her conversation. It was, as I have said, wonderful what she\ncould make conversation out of. She walked very lightly, and her hair\nwas very nicely done, and she dressed beautifully and very expensively.\nOf course she had money of her own, but I shouldn't have minded. And yet\nyou know I can't remember a single one of her dresses. Or I can\nremember just one, a very simple one of blue figured silk--a Chinese\npattern--very full in the skirts and broadening out over the shoulders.\nAnd her hair was copper-coloured, and the heels of her shoes were\nexceedingly high, so that she tripped upon the points of her toes. And\nwhen she came to the door of the bathing place, and when it opened to\nreceive her, she would look back at me with a little coquettish smile,\nso that her cheek appeared to be caressing her shoulder.\n\nI seem to remember that, with that dress, she wore an immensely broad\nLeghorn hat--like the Chapeau de Paille of Rubens, only very white. The\nhat would be tied with a lightly knotted scarf of the same stuff as her\ndress. She knew how to give value to her blue eyes. And round her neck\nwould be some simple pink, coral beads. And her complexion had a perfect\nclearness, a perfect smoothness...\n\nYes, that is how I most exactly remember her, in that dress, in that\nhat, looking over her shoulder at me so that the eyes flashed very\nblue--dark pebble blue...\n\nAnd, what the devil! For whose benefit did she do it? For that of the\nbath attendant? of the passers-by? I don't know. Anyhow, it can't have\nbeen for me, for never, in all the years of her life, never on any\npossible occasion, or in any other place did she so smile to me,\nmockingly, invitingly. Ah, she was a riddle; but then, all other women\nare riddles. And it occurs to me that some way back I began a sentence\nthat I have never finished... It was about the feeling that I had when\nI stood on the steps of my hotel every morning before starting out\nto fetch Florence back from the bath. Natty, precise, well-brushed,\nconscious of being rather small amongst the long English, the lank\nAmericans, the rotund Germans, and the obese Russian Jewesses, I should\nstand there, tapping a cigarette on the outside of my case, surveying\nfor a moment the world in the sunlight. But a day was to come when I was\nnever to do it again alone. You can imagine, therefore, what the coming\nof the Ashburnhams meant to me. I have forgotten the aspect of many\nthings, but I shall never forget the aspect of the dining-room of the\nHotel Excelsior on that evening--and on so many other evenings. Whole\ncastles have vanished from my memory, whole cities that I have never\nvisited again, but that white room, festooned with papier-maché fruits\nand flowers; the tall windows; the many tables; the black screen round\nthe door with three golden cranes flying upward on each panel; the\npalm-tree in the centre of the room; the swish of the waiter's feet; the\ncold expensive elegance; the mien of the diners as they came in every\nevening--their air of earnestness as if they must go through a meal\nprescribed by the Kur authorities and their air of sobriety as if they\nmust seek not by any means to enjoy their meals--those things I shall\nnot easily forget. And then, one evening, in the twilight, I saw Edward\nAshburnham lounge round the screen into the room. The head waiter, a man\nwith a face all grey--in what subterranean nooks or corners do people\ncultivate those absolutely grey complexions?--went with the timorous\npatronage of these creatures towards him and held out a grey ear to be\nwhispered into. It was generally a disagreeable ordeal for newcomers but\nEdward Ashburnham bore it like an Englishman and a gentleman. I could\nsee his lips form a word of three syllables--remember I had nothing in\nthe world to do but to notice these niceties--and immediately I knew\nthat he must be Edward Ashburnham, Captain, Fourteenth Hussars, of\nBranshaw House, Branshaw Teleragh. I knew it because every evening just\nbefore dinner, whilst I waited in the hall, I used, by the courtesy of\nMonsieur Schontz, the proprietor, to inspect the little police reports\nthat each guest was expected to sign upon taking a room.\n\nThe head waiter piloted him immediately to a vacant table, three away\nfrom my own--the table that the Grenfalls of Falls River, N.J., had\njust vacated. It struck me that that was not a very nice table for the\nnewcomers, since the sunlight, low though it was, shone straight down\nupon it, and the same idea seemed to come at the same moment into\nCaptain Ashburnham's head. His face hitherto had, in the wonderful\nEnglish fashion, expressed nothing whatever. Nothing. There was in it\nneither joy nor despair; neither hope nor fear; neither boredom nor\nsatisfaction. He seemed to perceive no soul in that crowded room; he\nmight have been walking in a jungle. I never came across such a perfect\nexpression before and I never shall again. It was insolence and\nnot insolence; it was modesty and not modesty. His hair was fair,\nextraordinarily ordered in a wave, running from the left temple to the\nright; his face was a light brick-red, perfectly uniform in tint up to\nthe roots of the hair itself; his yellow moustache was as stiff as a\ntoothbrush and I verily believe that he had his black smoking jacket\nthickened a little over the shoulder-blades so as to give himself the\nair of the slightest possible stoop. It would be like him to do that;\nthat was the sort of thing he thought about. Martingales, Chiffney bits,\nboots; where you got the best soap, the best brandy, the name of the\nchap who rode a plater down the Khyber cliffs; the spreading power of\nnumber three shot before a charge of number four powder... by heavens, I\nhardly ever heard him talk of anything else. Not in all the years that\nI knew him did I hear him talk of anything but these subjects. Oh, yes,\nonce he told me that I could buy my special shade of blue ties cheaper\nfrom a firm in Burlington Arcade than from my own people in New York.\nAnd I have bought my ties from that firm ever since. Otherwise I should\nnot remember the name of the Burlington Arcade. I wonder what it looks\nlike. I have never seen it. I imagine it to be two immense rows of\npillars, like those of the Forum at Rome, with Edward Ashburnham\nstriding down between them. But it probably isn't--the least like that.\nOnce also he advised me to buy Caledonian Deferred, since they were due\nto rise. And I did buy them and they did rise. But of how he got the\nknowledge I haven't the faintest idea. It seemed to drop out of the blue\nsky.\n\nAnd that was absolutely all that I knew of him until a month ago--that\nand the profusion of his cases, all of pigskin and stamped with his\ninitials, E. F. A. There were gun cases, and collar cases, and shirt\ncases, and letter cases and cases each containing four bottles of\nmedicine; and hat cases and helmet cases. It must have needed a whole\nherd of the Gadarene swine to make up his outfit. And, if I ever\npenetrated into his private room it would be to see him standing, with\nhis coat and waistcoat off and the immensely long line of his perfectly\nelegant trousers from waist to boot heel. And he would have a slightly\nreflective air and he would be just opening one kind of case and just\nclosing another.\n\nGood God, what did they all see in him? for I swear there was all there\nwas of him, inside and out; though they said he was a good soldier. Yet,\nLeonora adored him with a passion that was like an agony, and hated\nhim with an agony that was as bitter as the sea. How could he arouse\nanything like a sentiment, in anybody?\n\nWhat did he even talk to them about--when they were under four\neyes?--Ah, well, suddenly, as if by a flash of inspiration, I know. For\nall good soldiers are sentimentalists--all good soldiers of that type.\nTheir profession, for one thing, is full of the big words, courage,\nloyalty, honour, constancy. And I have given a wrong impression of\nEdward Ashburnham if I have made you think that literally never in the\ncourse of our nine years of intimacy did he discuss what he would have\ncalled \"the graver things.\" Even before his final outburst to me, at\ntimes, very late at night, say, he has blurted out something that gave\nan insight into the sentimental view of the cosmos that was his.\nHe would say how much the society of a good woman could do towards\nredeeming you, and he would say that constancy was the finest of\nthe virtues. He said it very stiffly, of course, but still as if the\nstatement admitted of no doubt.\n\nConstancy! Isn't that the queer thought? And yet, I must add that poor\ndear Edward was a great reader--he would pass hours lost in novels of a\nsentimental type--novels in which typewriter girls married Marquises and\ngovernesses Earls. And in his books, as a rule, the course of true love\nran as smooth as buttered honey. And he was fond of poetry, of a certain\ntype--and he could even read a perfectly sad love story. I have seen his\neyes filled with tears at reading of a hopeless parting. And he loved,\nwith a sentimental yearning, all children, puppies, and the feeble\ngenerally... .\n\nSo, you see, he would have plenty to gurgle about to a woman--with\nthat and his sound common sense about martingales and his--still\nsentimental--experiences as a county magistrate; and with his intense,\noptimistic belief that the woman he was making love to at the moment was\nthe one he was destined, at last, to be eternally constant to.... Well,\nI fancy he could put up a pretty good deal of talk when there was no\nman around to make him feel shy. And I was quite astonished, during his\nfinal burst out to me--at the very end of things, when the poor girl was\non her way to that fatal Brindisi and he was trying to persuade himself\nand me that he had never really cared for her--I was quite astonished to\nobserve how literary and how just his expressions were. He talked like\nquite a good book--a book not in the least cheaply sentimental. You see,\nI suppose he regarded me not so much as a man. I had to be regarded as\na woman or a solicitor. Anyhow, it burst out of him on that horrible\nnight. And then, next morning, he took me over to the Assizes and I saw\nhow, in a perfectly calm and business-like way, he set to work to secure\na verdict of not guilty for a poor girl, the daughter of one of his\ntenants, who had been accused of murdering her baby. He spent two\nhundred pounds on her defence... Well, that was Edward Ashburnham.\n\nI had forgotten about his eyes. They were as blue as the sides of a\ncertain type of box of matches. When you looked at them carefully\nyou saw that they were perfectly honest, perfectly straightforward,\nperfectly, perfectly stupid. But the brick pink of his complexion,\nrunning perfectly level to the brick pink of his inner eyelids, gave\nthem a curious, sinister expression--like a mosaic of blue porcelain set\nin pink china. And that chap, coming into a room, snapped up the gaze of\nevery woman in it, as dexterously as a conjurer pockets billiard balls.\nIt was most amazing. You know the man on the stage who throws up sixteen\nballs at once and they all drop into pockets all over his person, on his\nshoulders, on his heels, on the inner side of his sleeves; and he stands\nperfectly still and does nothing. Well, it was like that. He had rather\na rough, hoarse voice.\n\nAnd, there he was, standing by the table. I was looking at him, with my\nback to the screen. And suddenly, I saw two distinct expressions\nflicker across his immobile eyes. How the deuce did they do it, those\nunflinching blue eyes with the direct gaze? For the eyes themselves\nnever moved, gazing over my shoulder towards the screen. And the gaze\nwas perfectly level and perfectly direct and perfectly unchanging. I\nsuppose that the lids really must have rounded themselves a little and\nperhaps the lips moved a little too, as if he should be saying: \"There\nyou are, my dear.\" At any rate, the expression was that of pride, of\nsatisfaction, of the possessor. I saw him once afterwards, for a moment,\ngaze upon the sunny fields of Branshaw and say: \"All this is my land!\"\n\nAnd then again, the gaze was perhaps more direct, harder if\npossible--hardy too. It was a measuring look; a challenging look. Once\nwhen we were at Wiesbaden watching him play in a polo match against the\nBonner Hussaren I saw the same look come into his eyes, balancing the\npossibilities, looking over the ground. The German Captain, Count Baron\nIdigon von Lelöffel, was right up by their goal posts, coming with the\nball in an easy canter in that tricky German fashion. The rest of\nthe field were just anywhere. It was only a scratch sort of affair.\nAshburnham was quite close to the rails not five yards from us and\nI heard him saying to himself: \"Might just be done!\" And he did it.\nGoodness! he swung that pony round with all its four legs spread out,\nlike a cat dropping off a roof....\n\nWell, it was just that look that I noticed in his eyes: \"It might,\" I\nseem even now to hear him muttering to himself, \"just be done.\"\n\nI looked round over my shoulder and saw, tall, smiling brilliantly and\nbuoyant--Leonora. And, little and fair, and as radiant as the track of\nsunlight along the sea--my wife.\n\nThat poor wretch! to think that he was at that moment in a perfect devil\nof a fix, and there he was, saying at the back of his mind: \"It might\njust be done.\" It was like a chap in the middle of the eruption of a\nvolcano, saying that he might just manage to bolt into the tumult and\nset fire to a haystack. Madness? Predestination? Who the devil knows?\n\nMrs Ashburnham exhibited at that moment more gaiety than I have\never since known her to show. There are certain classes of English\npeople--the nicer ones when they have been to many spas, who seem to\nmake a point of becoming much more than usually animated when they are\nintroduced to my compatriots. I have noticed this often. Of course, they\nmust first have accepted the Americans. But that once done, they seem to\nsay to themselves: \"Hallo, these women are so bright. We aren't going to\nbe outdone in brightness.\" And for the time being they certainly aren't.\nBut it wears off. So it was with Leonora--at least until she noticed me.\nShe began, Leonora did--and perhaps it was that that gave me the idea of\na touch of insolence in her character, for she never afterwards did any\none single thing like it--she began by saying in quite a loud voice and\nfrom quite a distance:\n\n\"Don't stop over by that stuffy old table, Teddy. Come and sit by these\nnice people!\"\n\nAnd that was an extraordinary thing to say. Quite extraordinary. I\ncouldn't for the life of me refer to total strangers as nice people.\nBut, of course, she was taking a line of her own in which I at any\nrate--and no one else in the room, for she too had taken the trouble to\nread through the list of guests--counted any more than so many clean,\nbull terriers. And she sat down rather brilliantly at a vacant table,\nbeside ours--one that was reserved for the Guggenheimers. And she just\nsat absolutely deaf to the remonstrances of the head waiter with his\nface like a grey ram's. That poor chap was doing his steadfast duty too.\nHe knew that the Guggenheimers of Chicago, after they had stayed there\na month and had worried the poor life out of him, would give him two\ndollars fifty and grumble at the tipping system. And he knew that Teddy\nAshburnham and his wife would give him no trouble whatever except what\nthe smiles of Leonora might cause in his apparently unimpressionable\nbosom--though you never can tell what may go on behind even a not quite\nspotless plastron!--And every week Edward Ashburnham would give him a\nsolid, sound, golden English sovereign. Yet this stout fellow was intent\non saving that table for the Guggenheimers of Chicago. It ended in\nFlorence saying:\n\n\"Why shouldn't we all eat out of the same trough?--that's a nasty New\nYork saying. But I'm sure we're all nice quiet people and there can be\nfour seats at our table. It's round.\"\n\nThen came, as it were, an appreciative gurgle from the Captain and I\nwas perfectly aware of a slight hesitation--a quick sharp motion in Mrs\nAshburnham, as if her horse had checked. But she put it at the fence all\nright, rising from the seat she had taken and sitting down opposite me,\nas it were, all in one motion. I never thought that Leonora looked her\nbest in evening dress. She seemed to get it too clearly cut, there\nwas no ruffling. She always affected black and her shoulders were too\nclassical. She seemed to stand out of her corsage as a white marble bust\nmight out of a black Wedgwood vase. I don't know.\n\nI loved Leonora always and, today, I would very cheerfully lay down my\nlife, what is left of it, in her service. But I am sure I never had the\nbeginnings of a trace of what is called the sex instinct towards her.\nAnd I suppose--no I am certain that she never had it towards me. As far\nas I am concerned I think it was those white shoulders that did it. I\nseemed to feel when I looked at them that, if ever I should press my\nlips upon them that they would be slightly cold--not icily, not without\na touch of human heat, but, as they say of baths, with the chill off. I\nseemed to feel chilled at the end of my lips when I looked at her...\n\nNo, Leonora always appeared to me at her best in a blue tailor-made.\nThen her glorious hair wasn't deadened by her white shoulders. Certain\nwomen's lines guide your eyes to their necks, their eyelashes, their\nlips, their breasts. But Leonora's seemed to conduct your gaze always to\nher wrist. And the wrist was at its best in a black or a dog-skin glove\nand there was always a gold circlet with a little chain supporting a\nvery small golden key to a dispatch box. Perhaps it was that in which\nshe locked up her heart and her feelings.\n\nAnyhow, she sat down opposite me and then, for the first time, she paid\nany attention to my existence. She gave me, suddenly, yet deliberately,\none long stare. Her eyes too were blue and dark and the eyelids were so\narched that they gave you the whole round of the irises. And it was a\nmost remarkable, a most moving glance, as if for a moment a lighthouse\nhad looked at me. I seemed to perceive the swift questions chasing each\nother through the brain that was behind them. I seemed to hear the brain\nask and the eyes answer with all the simpleness of a woman who was a\ngood hand at taking in qualities of a horse--as indeed she was. \"Stands\nwell; has plenty of room for his oats behind the girth. Not so much in\nthe way of shoulders,\" and so on. And so her eyes asked: \"Is this man\ntrustworthy in money matters; is he likely to try to play the lover; is\nhe likely to let his women be troublesome? Is he, above all, likely to\nbabble about my affairs?\"\n\nAnd, suddenly, into those cold, slightly defiant, almost defensive china\nblue orbs, there came a warmth, a tenderness, a friendly recognition...\noh, it was very charming and very touching--and quite mortifying. It was\nthe look of a mother to her son, of a sister to her brother. It implied\ntrust; it implied the want of any necessity for barriers. By God, she\nlooked at me as if I were an invalid--as any kind woman may look at a\npoor chap in a bath chair. And, yes, from that day forward she always\ntreated me and not Florence as if I were the invalid. Why, she would\nrun after me with a rug upon chilly days. I suppose, therefore, that her\neyes had made a favourable answer. Or, perhaps, it wasn't a favourable\nanswer. And then Florence said: \"And so the whole round table is begun.\"\nAgain Edward Ashburnham gurgled slightly in his throat; but Leonora\nshivered a little, as if a goose had walked over her grave. And I was\npassing her the nickel-silver basket of rolls. Avanti!...\n\nIV\n\nSo began those nine years of uninterrupted tranquillity. They were\ncharacterized by an extraordinary want of any communicativeness on the\npart of the Ashburnhams to which we, on our part, replied by leaving out\nquite as extraordinarily, and nearly as completely, the personal note.\nIndeed, you may take it that what characterized our relationship was an\natmosphere of taking everything for granted. The given proposition was,\nthat we were all \"good people.\" We took for granted that we all liked\nbeef underdone but not too underdone; that both men preferred a good\nliqueur brandy after lunch; that both women drank a very light Rhine\nwine qualified with Fachingen water--that sort of thing. It was also\ntaken for granted that we were both sufficiently well off to afford\nanything that we could reasonably want in the way of amusements fitting\nto our station--that we could take motor cars and carriages by the day;\nthat we could give each other dinners and dine our friends and we could\nindulge if we liked in economy. Thus, Florence was in the habit of\nhaving the Daily Telegraph sent to her every day from London. She was\nalways an Anglo-maniac, was Florence; the Paris edition of the New York\nHerald was always good enough for me. But when we discovered that\nthe Ashburnhams' copy of the London paper followed them from England,\nLeonora and Florence decided between them to suppress one subscription\none year and the other the next. Similarly it was the habit of the Grand\nDuke of Nassau Schwerin, who came yearly to the baths, to dine once with\nabout eighteen families of regular Kur guests. In return he would give a\ndinner of all the eighteen at once. And, since these dinners were rather\nexpensive (you had to take the Grand Duke and a good many of his suite\nand any members of the diplomatic bodies that might be there)--Florence\nand Leonora, putting their heads together, didn't see why we shouldn't\ngive the Grand Duke his dinner together. And so we did. I don't suppose\nthe Serenity minded that economy, or even noticed it. At any rate, our\njoint dinner to the Royal Personage gradually assumed the aspect of a\nyearly function. Indeed, it grew larger and larger, until it became a\nsort of closing function for the season, at any rate as far as we were\nconcerned. I don't in the least mean to say that we were the sort of\npersons who aspired to mix \"with royalty.\" We didn't; we hadn't any\nclaims; we were just \"good people.\" But the Grand Duke was a pleasant,\naffable sort of royalty, like the late King Edward VII, and it was\npleasant to hear him talk about the races and, very occasionally, as a\nbonne bouche, about his nephew, the Emperor; or to have him pause for\na moment in his walk to ask after the progress of our cures or to be\nbenignantly interested in the amount of money we had put on Lelöffel's\nhunter for the Frankfurt Welter Stakes.\n\nBut upon my word, I don't know how we put in our time. How does one put\nin one's time? How is it possible to have achieved nine years and to\nhave nothing whatever to show for it? Nothing whatever, you understand.\nNot so much as a bone penholder, carved to resemble a chessman and with\na hole in the top through which you could see four views of Nauheim.\nAnd, as for experience, as for knowledge of one's fellow beings--nothing\neither. Upon my word, I couldn't tell you offhand whether the lady who\nsold the so expensive violets at the bottom of the road that leads to\nthe station, was cheating me or no; I can't say whether the porter who\ncarried our traps across the station at Leghorn was a thief or no when\nhe said that the regular tariff was a lira a parcel. The instances of\nhonesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as the\ninstances of dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one's\nkind, one ought to have acquired the habit of being able to know\nsomething about one's fellow beings. But one doesn't.\n\nI think the modern civilized habit--the modern English habit of taking\nevery one for granted--is a good deal to blame for this. I have observed\nthis matter long enough to know the queer, subtle thing that it is; to\nknow how the faculty, for what it is worth, never lets you down.\n\nMind, I am not saying that this is not the most desirable type of life\nin the world; that it is not an almost unreasonably high standard. For\nit is really nauseating, when you detest it, to have to eat every day\nseveral slices of thin, tepid, pink india rubber, and it is disagreeable\nto have to drink brandy when you would prefer to be cheered up by warm,\nsweet Kümmel. And it is nasty to have to take a cold bath in the morning\nwhen what you want is really a hot one at night. And it stirs a little\nof the faith of your fathers that is deep down within you to have to\nhave it taken for granted that you are an Episcopalian when really you\nare an old-fashioned Philadelphia Quaker.\n\nBut these things have to be done; it is the cock that the whole of this\nsociety owes to Æsculapius.\n\nAnd the odd, queer thing is that the whole collection of rules applies\nto anybody--to the anybodies that you meet in hotels, in railway trains,\nto a less degree, perhaps, in steamers, but even, in the end, upon\nsteamers. You meet a man or a woman and, from tiny and intimate sounds,\nfrom the slightest of movements, you know at once whether you are\nconcerned with good people or with those who won't do. You know, this\nis to say, whether they will go rigidly through with the whole programme\nfrom the underdone beef to the Anglicanism. It won't matter whether they\nbe short or tall; whether the voice squeak like a marionette or rumble\nlike a town bull's; it won't matter whether they are Germans, Austrians,\nFrench, Spanish, or even Brazilians--they will be the Germans or\nBrazilians who take a cold bath every morning and who move, roughly\nspeaking, in diplomatic circles.\n\nBut the inconvenient--well, hang it all, I will say it--the damnable\nnuisance of the whole thing is, that with all the taking for granted,\nyou never really get an inch deeper than the things I have catalogued.\n\nI can give you a rather extraordinary instance of this. I can't remember\nwhether it was in our first year--the first year of us four at Nauheim,\nbecause, of course, it would have been the fourth year of Florence and\nmyself--but it must have been in the first or second year. And that\ngives the measure at once of the extraordinariness of our discussion and\nof the swiftness with which intimacy had grown up between us. On the one\nhand we seemed to start out on the expedition so naturally and with\nso little preparation, that it was as if we must have made many such\nexcursions before; and our intimacy seemed so deep....\n\nYet the place to which we went was obviously one to which Florence at\nleast would have wanted to take us quite early, so that you would\nalmost think we should have gone there together at the beginning of our\nintimacy. Florence was singularly expert as a guide to archaeological\nexpeditions and there was nothing she liked so much as taking people\nround ruins and showing you the window from which some one looked down\nupon the murder of some one else. She only did it once; but she did\nit quite magnificently. She could find her way, with the sole help\nof Baedeker, as easily about any old monument as she could about any\nAmerican city where the blocks are all square and the streets all\nnumbered, so that you can go perfectly easily from Twenty-fourth to\nThirtieth.\n\nNow it happens that fifty minutes away from Nauheim, by a good train, is\nthe ancient city of M----, upon a great pinnacle of basalt, girt with\na triple road running sideways up its shoulder like a scarf. And at the\ntop there is a castle--not a square castle like Windsor, but a castle\nall slate gables and high peaks with gilt weathercocks flashing\nbravely--the castle of St Elizabeth of Hungary. It has the disadvantage\nof being in Prussia; and it is always disagreeable to go into that\ncountry; but it is very old and there are many double-spired churches\nand it stands up like a pyramid out of the green valley of the Lahn. I\ndon't suppose the Ashburnhams wanted especially to go there and I didn't\nespecially want to go there myself. But, you understand, there was no\nobjection. It was part of the cure to make an excursion three or four\ntimes a week. So that we were all quite unanimous in being grateful\nto Florence for providing the motive power. Florence, of course, had\na motive of her own. She was at that time engaged in educating Captain\nAshburnham--oh, of course, quite pour le bon motif! She used to say to\nLeonora: \"I simply can't understand how you can let him live by your\nside and be so ignorant!\" Leonora herself always struck me as being\nremarkably well educated. At any rate, she knew beforehand all that\nFlorence had to tell her. Perhaps she got it up out of Baedeker before\nFlorence was up in the morning. I don't mean to say that you would ever\nhave known that Leonora knew anything, but if Florence started to tell\nus how Ludwig the Courageous wanted to have three wives at once--in\nwhich he differed from Henry VIII, who wanted them one after the other,\nand this caused a good deal of trouble--if Florence started to tell us\nthis, Leonora would just nod her head in a way that quite pleasantly\nrattled my poor wife.\n\nShe used to exclaim: \"Well, if you knew it, why haven't you told it all\nalready to Captain Ashburnham? I'm sure he finds it interesting!\" And\nLeonora would look reflectively at her husband and say: \"I have an idea\nthat it might injure his hand--the hand, you know, used in connection\nwith horses' mouths....\" And poor Ashburnham would blush and mutter and\nwould say: \"That's all right. Don't you bother about me.\"\n\nI fancy his wife's irony did quite alarm poor Teddy; because one evening\nhe asked me seriously in the smoking-room if I thought that having too\nmuch in one's head would really interfere with one's quickness in polo.\nIt struck him, he said, that brainy Johnnies generally were rather muffs\nwhen they got on to four legs. I reassured him as best I could. I told\nhim that he wasn't likely to take in enough to upset his balance. At\nthat time the Captain was quite evidently enjoying being educated by\nFlorence. She used to do it about three or four times a week under\nthe approving eyes of Leonora and myself. It wasn't, you understand,\nsystematic. It came in bursts. It was Florence clearing up one of the\ndark places of the earth, leaving the world a little lighter than she\nhad found it. She would tell him the story of Hamlet; explain the form\nof a symphony, humming the first and second subjects to him, and so on;\nshe would explain to him the difference between Arminians and Erastians;\nor she would give him a short lecture on the early history of the United\nStates. And it was done in a way well calculated to arrest a young\nattention. Did you ever read Mrs Markham? Well, it was like that... .\n\nBut our excursion to M---- was a much larger, a much more full dress\naffair. You see, in the archives of the Schloss in that city there was\na document which Florence thought would finally give her the chance to\neducate the whole lot of us together. It really worried poor Florence\nthat she couldn't, in matters of culture, ever get the better of\nLeonora. I don't know what Leonora knew or what she didn't know,\nbut certainly she was always there whenever Florence brought out any\ninformation. And she gave, somehow, the impression of really knowing\nwhat poor Florence gave the impression of having only picked up. I can't\nexactly define it. It was almost something physical. Have you ever seen\na retriever dashing in play after a greyhound? You see the two running\nover a green field, almost side by side, and suddenly the retriever\nmakes a friendly snap at the other. And the greyhound simply isn't\nthere. You haven't observed it quicken its speed or strain a limb; but\nthere it is, just two yards in front of the retriever's outstretched\nmuzzle. So it was with Florence and Leonora in matters of culture.\n\nBut on this occasion I knew that something was up. I found Florence some\ndays before, reading books like Ranke's History of the Popes, Symonds'\nRenaissance, Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic and Luther's Table\nTalk.\n\nI must say that, until the astonishment came, I got nothing but pleasure\nout of the little expedition. I like catching the two-forty; I like the\nslow, smooth roll of the great big trains--and they are the best trains\nin the world! I like being drawn through the green country and looking\nat it through the clear glass of the great windows. Though, of course,\nthe country isn't really green. The sun shines, the earth is blood red\nand purple and red and green and red. And the oxen in the ploughlands\nare bright varnished brown and black and blackish purple; and the\npeasants are dressed in the black and white of magpies; and there are\ngreat Rocks of magpies too. Or the peasants' dresses in another field\nwhere there are little mounds of hay that will be grey-green on\nthe sunny side and purple in the shadows--the peasants' dresses are\nvermilion with emerald green ribbons and purple skirts and white shirts\nand black velvet stomachers. Still, the impression is that you are drawn\nthrough brilliant green meadows that run away on each side to the dark\npurple fir-woods; the basalt pinnacles; the immense forests. And there\nis meadowsweet at the edge of the streams, and cattle. Why, I remember\non that afternoon I saw a brown cow hitch its horns under the stomach\nof a black and white animal and the black and white one was thrown right\ninto the middle of a narrow stream. I burst out laughing. But Florence\nwas imparting information so hard and Leonora was listening so intently\nthat no one noticed me. As for me, I was pleased to be off duty; I was\npleased to think that Florence for the moment was indubitably out of\nmischief--because she was talking about Ludwig the Courageous (I think\nit was Ludwig the Courageous but I am not an historian) about Ludwig\nthe Courageous of Hessen who wanted to have three wives at once and\npatronized Luther--something like that!--I was so relieved to be off\nduty, because she couldn't possibly be doing anything to excite herself\nor set her poor heart a-fluttering--that the incident of the cow was a\nreal joy to me. I chuckled over it from time to time for the whole rest\nof the day. Because it does look very funny, you know, to see a black\nand white cow land on its back in the middle of a stream. It is so just\nexactly what one doesn't expect of a cow.\n\nI suppose I ought to have pitied the poor animal; but I just didn't. I\nwas out for enjoyment. And I just enjoyed myself. It is so pleasant to\nbe drawn along in front of the spectacular towns with the peaked\ncastles and the many double spires. In the sunlight gleams come from\nthe city--gleams from the glass of windows; from the gilt signs of\napothecaries; from the ensigns of the student corps high up in the\nmountains; from the helmets of the funny little soldiers moving their\nstiff little legs in white linen trousers. And it was pleasant to get\nout in the great big spectacular Prussian station with the hammered\nbronze ornaments and the paintings of peasants and flowers and cows;\nand to hear Florence bargain energetically with the driver of an ancient\ndroschka drawn by two lean horses. Of course, I spoke German much more\ncorrectly than Florence, though I never could rid myself quite of the\naccent of the Pennsylvania Duitsch of my childhood. Anyhow, we were\ndrawn in a sort of triumph, for five marks without any trinkgeld, right\nup to the castle. And we were taken through the museum and saw the\nfire-backs, the old glass, the old swords and the antique contraptions.\nAnd we went up winding corkscrew staircases and through the Rittersaal,\nthe great painted hall where the Reformer and his friends met for the\nfirst time under the protection of the gentleman that had three wives at\nonce and formed an alliance with the gentleman that had six wives, one\nafter the other (I'm not really interested in these facts but they have\na bearing on my story). And we went through chapels, and music rooms,\nright up immensely high in the air to a large old chamber, full of\npresses, with heavily-shuttered windows all round. And Florence became\npositively electric. She told the tired, bored custodian what shutters\nto open; so that the bright sunlight streamed in palpable shafts into\nthe dim old chamber. She explained that this was Luther's bedroom and\nthat just where the sunlight fell had stood his bed. As a matter of\nfact, I believe that she was wrong and that Luther only stopped, as it\nwere, for lunch, in order to evade pursuit. But, no doubt, it would have\nbeen his bedroom if he could have been persuaded to stop the night. And\nthen, in spite of the protest of the custodian, she threw open another\nshutter and came tripping back to a large glass case.\n\n\"And there,\" she exclaimed with an accent of gaiety, of triumph, and of\naudacity. She was pointing at a piece of paper, like the half-sheet of a\nletter with some faint pencil scrawls that might have been a jotting of\nthe amounts we were spending during the day. And I was extremely happy\nat her gaiety, in her triumph, in her audacity. Captain Ashburnham had\nhis hands upon the glass case. \"There it is--the Protest.\" And then, as\nwe all properly stage-managed our bewilderment, she continued: \"Don't\nyou know that is why we were all called Protestants? That is the pencil\ndraft of the Protest they drew up. You can see the signatures of Martin\nLuther, and Martin Bucer, and Zwingli, and Ludwig the Courageous....\"\n\nI may have got some of the names wrong, but I know that Luther and Bucer\nwere there. And her animation continued and I was glad. She was better\nand she was out of mischief. She continued, looking up into Captain\nAshburnham's eyes: \"It's because of that piece of paper that you're\nhonest, sober, industrious, provident, and clean-lived. If it weren't\nfor that piece of paper you'd be like the Irish or the Italians or the\nPoles, but particularly the Irish....\"\n\nAnd she laid one finger upon Captain Ashburnham's wrist.\n\nI was aware of something treacherous, something frightful, something\nevil in the day. I can't define it and can't find a simile for it. It\nwasn't as if a snake had looked out of a hole. No, it was as if my heart\nhad missed a beat. It was as if we were going to run and cry out; all\nfour of us in separate directions, averting our heads. In Ashburnham's\nface I know that there was absolute panic. I was horribly frightened and\nthen I discovered that the pain in my left wrist was caused by Leonora's\nclutching it:\n\n\"I can't stand this,\" she said with a most extraordinary passion; \"I\nmust get out of this.\" I was horribly frightened. It came to me for\na moment, though I hadn't time to think it, that she must be a madly\njealous woman--jealous of Florence and Captain Ashburnham, of all people\nin the world! And it was a panic in which we fled! We went right down\nthe winding stairs, across the immense Rittersaal to a little terrace\nthat overlooks the Lahn, the broad valley and the immense plain into\nwhich it opens out.\n\n\"Don't you see?\" she said, \"don't you see what's going on?\" The panic\nagain stopped my heart. I muttered, I stuttered--I don't know how I got\nthe words out:\n\n\"No! What's the matter? Whatever's the matter?\"\n\nShe looked me straight in the eyes; and for a moment I had the feeling\nthat those two blue discs were immense, were overwhelming, were like\na wall of blue that shut me off from the rest of the world. I know it\nsounds absurd; but that is what it did feel like.\n\n\"Don't you see,\" she said, with a really horrible bitterness, with a\nreally horrible lamentation in her voice, \"Don't you see that that's the\ncause of the whole miserable affair; of the whole sorrow of the world?\nAnd of the eternal damnation of you and me and them... .\"\n\nI don't remember how she went on; I was too frightened; I was too\namazed. I think I was thinking of running to fetch assistance--a doctor,\nperhaps, or Captain Ashburnham. Or possibly she needed Florence's tender\ncare, though, of course, it would have been very bad for Florence's\nheart. But I know that when I came out of it she was saying: \"Oh,\nwhere are all the bright, happy, innocent beings in the world? Where's\nhappiness? One reads of it in books!\"\n\nShe ran her hand with a singular clawing motion upwards over her\nforehead. Her eyes were enormously distended; her face was exactly that\nof a person looking into the pit of hell and seeing horrors there. And\nthen suddenly she stopped. She was, most amazingly, just Mrs Ashburnham\nagain. Her face was perfectly clear, sharp and defined; her hair was\nglorious in its golden coils. Her nostrils twitched with a sort of\ncontempt. She appeared to look with interest at a gypsy caravan that was\ncoming over a little bridge far below us.\n\n\"Don't you know,\" she said, in her clear hard voice, \"don't you know\nthat I'm an Irish Catholic?\"\n\n\nV\n\nTHOSE words gave me the greatest relief that I have ever had in my\nlife. They told me, I think, almost more than I have ever gathered at\nany one moment--about myself. I don't think that before that day I had\never wanted anything very much except Florence. I have, of course, had\nappetites, impatiences... Why, sometimes at a table d'hôte, when there\nwould be, say, caviare handed round, I have been absolutely full of\nimpatience for fear that when the dish came to me there should not be\na satisfying portion left over by the other guests. I have been\nexceedingly impatient at missing trains. The Belgian State Railway has\na trick of letting the French trains miss their connections at Brussels.\nThat has always infuriated me. I have written about it letters to The\nTimes that The Times never printed; those that I wrote to the Paris\nedition of the New York Herald were always printed, but they never\nseemed to satisfy me when I saw them. Well, that was a sort of frenzy\nwith me.\n\nIt was a frenzy that now I can hardly realize. I can understand it\nintellectually. You see, in those days I was interested in people with\n\"hearts.\" There was Florence, there was Edward Ashburnham--or, perhaps,\nit was Leonora that I was more interested in. I don't mean in the way of\nlove. But, you see, we were both of the same profession--at any rate as\nI saw it. And the profession was that of keeping heart patients alive.\n\nYou have no idea how engrossing such a profession may become. Just as\nthe blacksmith says: \"By hammer and hand all Art doth stand,\" just as\nthe baker thinks that all the solar system revolves around his morning\ndelivery of rolls, as the postmaster-general believes that he alone\nis the preserver of society--and surely, surely, these delusions are\nnecessary to keep us going--so did I and, as I believed, Leonora,\nimagine that the whole world ought to be arranged so as to ensure the\nkeeping alive of heart patients. You have no idea how engrossing such a\nprofession may become--how imbecile, in view of that engrossment, appear\nthe ways of princes, of republics, of municipalities. A rough bit of\nroad beneath the motor tyres, a couple of succeeding \"thank'ee-marms\"\nwith their quick jolts would be enough to set me grumbling to Leonora\nagainst the Prince or the Grand Duke or the Free City through whose\nterritory we might be passing. I would grumble like a stockbroker whose\nconversations over the telephone are incommoded by the ringing of bells\nfrom a city church. I would talk about medieval survivals, about the\ntaxes being surely high enough. The point, by the way, about the missing\nof the connections of the Calais boat trains at Brussels was that the\nshortest possible sea journey is frequently of great importance to\nsufferers from the heart. Now, on the Continent, there are two special\nheart cure places, Nauheim and Spa, and to reach both of these baths\nfrom England if in order to ensure a short sea passage, you come by\nCalais--you have to make the connection at Brussels. And the Belgian\ntrain never waits by so much the shade of a second for the one coming\nfrom Calais or from Paris. And even if the French train, are just on\ntime, you have to run--imagine a heart patient running!--along the\nunfamiliar ways of the Brussels station and to scramble up the high\nsteps of the moving train. Or, if you miss connection, you have to wait\nfive or six hours.... I used to keep awake whole nights cursing that\nabuse. My wife used to run--she never, in whatever else she may have\nmisled me, tried to give me the impression that she was not a gallant\nsoul. But, once in the German Express, she would lean back, with one\nhand to her side and her eyes closed. Well, she was a good actress. And\nI would be in hell. In hell, I tell you. For in Florence I had at once\na wife and an unattained mistress--that is what it comes to--and in\nthe retaining of her in this world I had my occupation, my career, my\nambition. It is not often that these things are united in one body.\nLeonora was a good actress too. By Jove she was good! I tell you, she\nwould listen to me by the hour, evolving my plans for a shock-proof\nworld. It is true that, at times, I used to notice about her an air\nof inattention as if she were listening, a mother, to the child at her\nknee, or as if, precisely, I were myself the patient.\n\nYou understand that there was nothing the matter with Edward\nAshburnham's heart--that he had thrown up his commission and had left\nIndia and come half the world over in order to follow a woman who had\nreally had a \"heart\" to Nauheim. That was the sort of sentimental ass he\nwas. For, you understand, too, that they really needed to live in India,\nto economize, to let the house at Branshaw Teleragh.\n\nOf course, at that date, I had never heard of the Kilsyte case.\nAshburnham had, you know, kissed a servant girl in a railway train,\nand it was only the grace of God, the prompt functioning of the\ncommunication cord and the ready sympathy of what I believe you call\nthe Hampshire Bench, that kept the poor devil out of Winchester Gaol for\nyears and years. I never heard of that case until the final stages of\nLeonora's revelations....\n\nBut just think of that poor wretch.... I, who have surely the right, beg\nyou to think of that poor wretch. Is it possible that such a luckless\ndevil should be so tormented by blind and inscrutable destiny? For there\nis no other way to think of it. None. I have the right to say it, since\nfor years he was my wife's lover, since he killed her, since he broke\nup all the pleasantnesses that there were in my life. There is no priest\nthat has the right to tell me that I must not ask pity for him, from\nyou, silent listener beyond the hearth-stone, from the world, or from\nthe God who created in him those desires, those madnesses....\n\nOf course, I should not hear of the Kilsyte case. I knew none of their\nfriends; they were for me just good people--fortunate people with broad\nand sunny acres in a southern county. Just good people! By heavens, I\nsometimes think that it would have been better for him, poor dear, if\nthe case had been such a one that I must needs have heard of it--such a\none as maids and couriers and other Kur guests whisper about for years\nafter, until gradually it dies away in the pity that there is knocking\nabout here and there in the world. Supposing he had spent his seven\nyears in Winchester Gaol or whatever it is that inscrutable and\nblind justice allots to you for following your natural but ill-timed\ninclinations--there would have arrived a stage when nodding gossips\non the Kursaal terrace would have said, \"Poor fellow,\" thinking of his\nruined career. He would have been the fine soldier with his back now\nbent.... Better for him, poor devil, if his back had been prematurely\nbent.\n\nWhy, it would have been a thousand times better.... For, of course, the\nKilsyte case, which came at the very beginning of his finding Leonora\ncold and unsympathetic, gave him a nasty jar. He left servants alone\nafter that.\n\nIt turned him, naturally, all the more loose amongst women of his own\nclass. Why, Leonora told me that Mrs Maidan--the woman he followed from\nBurma to Nauheim--assured her he awakened her attention by swearing that\nwhen he kissed the servant in the train he was driven to it. I daresay\nhe was driven to it, by the mad passion to find an ultimately satisfying\nwoman. I daresay he was sincere enough. Heaven help me, I daresay he was\nsincere enough in his love for Mrs Maidan. She was a nice little thing,\na dear little dark woman with long lashes, of whom Florence grew quite\nfond. She had a lisp and a happy smile. We saw plenty of her for the\nfirst month of our acquaintance, then she died, quite quietly--of heart\ntrouble.\n\nBut you know, poor little Mrs Maidan--she was so gentle, so young. She\ncannot have been more than twenty-three and she had a boy husband out in\nChitral not more than twenty-four, I believe. Such young things ought to\nhave been left alone. Of course Ashburnham could not leave her alone. I\ndo not believe that he could. Why, even I, at this distance of time am\naware that I am a little in love with her memory. I can't help smiling\nwhen I think suddenly of her--as you might at the thought of something\nwrapped carefully away in lavender, in some drawer, in some old house\nthat you have long left. She was so--so submissive. Why, even to me she\nhad the air of being submissive--to me that not the youngest child will\never pay heed to. Yes, this is the saddest story...\n\nNo, I cannot help wishing that Florence had left her alone--with her\nplaying with adultery. I suppose it was; though she was such a child\nthat one has the impression that she would hardly have known how to\nspell such a word. No, it was just submissiveness--to the importunities,\nto the tempestuous forces that pushed that miserable fellow on to ruin.\nAnd I do not suppose that Florence really made much difference. If it\nhad not been for her that Ashburnham left his allegiance for Mrs Maidan,\nthen it would have been some other woman. But still, I do not know.\nPerhaps the poor young thing would have died--she was bound to die,\nanyhow, quite soon--but she would have died without having to soak her\nnoonday pillow with tears whilst Florence, below the window, talked to\nCaptain Ashburnham about the Constitution of the United States.... Yes,\nit would have left a better taste in the mouth if Florence had let her\ndie in peace....\n\nLeonora behaved better in a sense. She just boxed Mrs Maidan's\nears--yes, she hit her, in an uncontrollable access of rage, a hard blow\non the side of the cheek, in the corridor of the hotel, outside Edward's\nrooms. It was that, you know, that accounted for the sudden, odd\nintimacy that sprang up between Florence and Mrs Ashburnham. Because\nit was, of course, an odd intimacy. If you look at it from the outside\nnothing could have been more unlikely than that Leonora, who is\nthe proudest creature on God's earth, would have struck up an\nacquaintanceship with two casual Yankees whom she could not really have\nregarded as being much more than a carpet beneath her feet. You may\nask what she had to be proud of. Well, she was a Powys married to\nan Ashburnham--I suppose that gave her the right to despise casual\nAmericans as long as she did it unostentatiously. I don't know what\nanyone has to be proud of. She might have taken pride in her patience,\nin her keeping her husband out of the bankruptcy court. Perhaps she did.\n\nAt any rate that was how Florence got to know her. She came round a\nscreen at the corner of the hotel corridor and found Leonora with the\ngold key that hung from her wrist caught in Mrs Maidan's hair just\nbefore dinner. There was not a single word spoken. Little Mrs Maidan was\nvery pale, with a red mark down her left cheek, and the key would not\ncome out of her black hair. It was Florence who had to disentangle it,\nfor Leonora was in such a state that she could not have brought herself\nto touch Mrs Maidan without growing sick.\n\nAnd there was not a word spoken. You see, under those four eyes--her own\nand Mrs Maidan's--Leonora could just let herself go as far as to box Mrs\nMaidan's ears. But the moment a stranger came along she pulled herself\nwonderfully up. She was at first silent and then, the moment the key was\ndisengaged by Florence she was in a state to say: \"So awkward of me... I\nwas just trying to put the comb straight in Mrs Maidan's hair....\"\n\nMrs Maidan, however, was not a Powys married to an Ashburnham; she was\na poor little O'Flaherty whose husband was a boy of country parsonage\norigin. So there was no mistaking the sob she let go as she went\ndesolately away along the corridor. But Leonora was still going to play\nup. She opened the door of Ashburnham's room quite ostentatiously, so\nthat Florence should hear her address Edward in terms of intimacy and\nliking. \"Edward,\" she called. But there was no Edward there.\n\nYou understand that there was no Edward there. It was then, for the\nonly time of her career, that Leonora really compromised herself--She\nexclaimed.... \"How frightful!... Poor little Maisie!...\"\n\nShe caught herself up at that, but of course it was too late. It was a\nqueer sort of affair....\n\nI want to do Leonora every justice. I love her very dearly for one thing\nand in this matter, which was certainly the ruin of my small household\ncockle-shell, she certainly tripped up. I do not believe--and Leonora\nherself does not believe--that poor little Maisie Maidan was ever\nEdward's mistress. Her heart was really so bad that she would have\nsuccumbed to anything like an impassioned embrace. That is the plain\nEnglish of it, and I suppose plain English is best. She was really what\nthe other two, for reasons of their own, just pretended to be. Queer,\nisn't it? Like one of those sinister jokes that Providence plays upon\none. Add to this that I do not suppose that Leonora would much have\nminded, at any other moment, if Mrs Maidan had been her husband's\nmistress. It might have been a relief from Edward's sentimental\ngurglings over the lady and from the lady's submissive acceptance of\nthose sounds. No, she would not have minded.\n\nBut, in boxing Mrs Maidan's ears, Leonora was just striking the face of\nan intolerable universe. For, that afternoon she had had a frightfully\npainful scene with Edward.\n\nAs far as his letters went, she claimed the right to open them when she\nchose. She arrogated to herself the right because Edward's affairs were\nin such a frightful state and he lied so about them that she claimed the\nprivilege of having his secrets at her disposal. There was not, indeed,\nany other way, for the poor fool was too ashamed of his lapses ever to\nmake a clean breast of anything. She had to drag these things out of\nhim.\n\nIt must have been a pretty elevating job for her. But that afternoon,\nEdward being on his bed for the hour and a half prescribed by the\nKur authorities, she had opened a letter that she took to come from a\nColonel Hervey. They were going to stay with him in Linlithgowshire for\nthe month of September and she did not know whether the date fixed would\nbe the eleventh or the eighteenth. The address on this letter was,\nin handwriting, as like Colonel Hervey's as one blade of corn is like\nanother. So she had at the moment no idea of spying on him.\n\nBut she certainly was. For she discovered that Edward Ashburnham was\npaying a blackmailer of whom she had never heard something like three\nhundred pounds a year... It was a devil of a blow; it was like death;\nfor she imagined that by that time she had really got to the bottom of\nher husband's liabilities. You see, they were pretty heavy. What had\nreally smashed them up had been a perfectly common-place affair at Monte\nCarlo--an affair with a cosmopolitan harpy who passed for the mistress\nof a Russian Grand Duke. She exacted a twenty thousand pound pearl tiara\nfrom him as the price of her favours for a week or so. It would have\npipped him a good deal to have found so much, and he was not in the\nordinary way a gambler. He might, indeed, just have found the twenty\nthousand and the not slight charges of a week at an hotel with the fair\ncreature. He must have been worth at that date five hundred thousand\ndollars and a little over. Well, he must needs go to the tables and lose\nforty thousand pounds.... Forty thousand solid pounds, borrowed from\nsharks! And even after that he must--it was an imperative passion--enjoy\nthe favours of the lady. He got them, of course, when it was a matter\nof solid bargaining, for far less than twenty thousand, as he might, no\ndoubt, have done from the first. I daresay ten thousand dollars covered\nthe bill. Anyhow, there was a pretty solid hole in a fortune of a\nhundred thousand pounds or so. And Leonora had to fix things up; he\nwould have run from money-lender to money-lender. And that was quite in\nthe early days of her discovery of his infidelities--if you like to call\nthem infidelities. And she discovered that one from public sources. God\nknows what would have happened if she had not discovered it from public\nsources. I suppose he would have concealed it from her until they were\npenniless. But she was able, by the grace of God, to get hold of the\nactual lenders of the money, to learn the exact sums that were needed.\nAnd she went off to England.\n\nYes, she went right off to England to her attorney and his while he\nwas still in the arms of his Circe--at Antibes, to which place they had\nretired. He got sick of the lady quite quickly, but not before Leonora\nhad had such lessons in the art of business from her attorney that she\nhad her plan as clearly drawn up as was ever that of General Trochu for\nkeeping the Prussians out of Paris in 1870. It was about as effectual at\nfirst, or it seemed so.\n\nThat would have been, you know, in 1895, about nine years before the\ndate of which I am talking--the date of Florence's getting her hold over\nLeonora; for that was what it amounted to.... Well, Mrs Ashburnham had\nsimply forced Edward to settle all his property upon her. She could\nforce him to do anything; in his clumsy, good-natured, inarticulate\nway he was as frightened of her as of the devil. And he admired her\nenormously, and he was as fond of her as any man could be of any woman.\nShe took advantage of it to treat him as if he had been a person whose\nestates are being managed by the Court of Bankruptcy. I suppose it was\nthe best thing for him.\n\nAnyhow, she had no end of a job for the first three years or so.\nUnexpected liabilities kept on cropping up--and that afflicted fool did\nnot make it any easier. You see, along with the passion of the chase\nwent a frame of mind that made him be extraordinarily ashamed of\nhimself. You may not believe it, but he really had such a sort of\nrespect for the chastity of Leonora's imagination that he hated--he was\npositively revolted at the thought that she should know that the sort\nof thing that he did existed in the world. So he would stick out in an\nagitated way against the accusation of ever having done anything. He\nwanted to preserve the virginity of his wife's thoughts. He told me that\nhimself during the long walks we had at the last--while the girl was on\nthe way to Brindisi.\n\nSo, of course, for those three years or so, Leonora had many agitations.\nAnd it was then that they really quarrelled.\n\nYes, they quarrelled bitterly. That seems rather extravagant. You\nmight have thought that Leonora would be just calmly loathing and he\nlachrymosely contrite. But that was not it a bit... Along with Edward's\npassions and his shame for them went the violent conviction of the\nduties of his station--a conviction that was quite unreasonably\nexpensive. I trust I have not, in talking of his liabilities, given the\nimpression that poor Edward was a promiscuous libertine. He was not;\nhe was a sentimentalist. The servant girl in the Kilsyte case had been\npretty, but mournful of appearance. I think that, when he had kissed\nher, he had desired rather to comfort her. And, if she had succumbed to\nhis blandishments I daresay he would have set her up in a little house\nin Portsmouth or Winchester and would have been faithful to her for four\nor five years. He was quite capable of that.\n\nNo, the only two of his affairs of the heart that cost him money were\nthat of the Grand Duke's mistress and that which was the subject of\nthe blackmailing letter that Leonora opened. That had been a quite\npassionate affair with quite a nice woman. It had succeeded the one with\nthe Grand Ducal lady. The lady was the wife of a brother officer and\nLeonora had known all about the passion, which had been quite a real\npassion and had lasted for several years. You see, poor Edward's\npassions were quite logical in their progression upwards. They began\nwith a servant, went on to a courtesan and then to a quite nice woman,\nvery unsuitably mated. For she had a quite nasty husband who, by means\nof letters and things, went on blackmailing poor Edward to the tune of\nthree or four hundred a year--with threats of the Divorce Court. And\nafter this lady came Maisie Maidan, and after poor Maisie only one more\naffair and then--the real passion of his life. His marriage with Leonora\nhad been arranged by his parents and, though he always admired her\nimmensely, he had hardly ever pretended to be much more than tender to\nher, though he desperately needed her moral support, too....\n\nBut his really trying liabilities were mostly in the nature of\ngenerosities proper to his station. He was, according to Leonora, always\nremitting his tenants' rents and giving the tenants to understand that\nthe reduction would be permanent; he was always redeeming drunkards\nwho came before his magisterial bench; he was always trying to put\nprostitutes into respectable places--and he was a perfect maniac about\nchildren. I don't know how many ill-used people he did not pick up and\nprovide with careers--Leonora has told me, but I daresay she exaggerated\nand the figure seems so preposterous that I will not put it down.\nAll these things, and the continuance of them seemed to him to be his\nduty--along with impossible subscriptions to hospitals and Boy Scouts\nand to provide prizes at cattle shows and antivivisection societies....\n\nWell, Leonora saw to it that most of these things were not continued.\nThey could not possibly keep up Branshaw Manor at that rate after the\nmoney had gone to the Grand Duke's mistress. She put the rents back at\ntheir old figures; discharged the drunkards from their homes, and sent\nall the societies notice that they were to expect no more subscriptions.\nTo the children, she was more tender; nearly all of them she supported\ntill the age of apprenticeship or domestic service. You see, she was\nchildless herself.\n\nShe was childless herself, and she considered herself to be to blame.\nShe had come of a penniless branch of the Powys family, and they had\nforced upon her poor dear Edward without making the stipulation that\nthe children should be brought up as Catholics. And that, of course,\nwas spiritual death to Leonora. I have given you a wrong impression if\nI have not made you see that Leonora was a woman of a strong, cold\nconscience, like all English Catholics. (I cannot, myself, help\ndisliking this religion; there is always, at the bottom of my mind, in\nspite of Leonora, the feeling of shuddering at the Scarlet Woman,\nthat filtered in upon me in the tranquility of the little old Friends'\nMeeting House in Arch Street, Philadelphia.) So I do set down a good\ndeal of Leonora's mismanagement of poor dear Edward's case to the\npeculiarly English form of her religion. Because, of course, the only\nthing to have done for Edward would have been to let him sink down until\nhe became a tramp of gentlemanly address, having, maybe, chance love\naffairs upon the highways. He would have done so much less harm; he\nwould have been much less agonized too. At any rate, he would have\nhad fewer chances of ruining and of remorse. For Edward was great\nat remorse. But Leonora's English Catholic conscience, her rigid\nprinciples, her coldness, even her very patience, were, I cannot help\nthinking, all wrong in this special case. She quite seriously and\nnaïvely imagined that the Church of Rome disapproves of divorce; she\nquite seriously and naïvely believed that her church could be such\na monstrous and imbecile institution as to expect her to take on the\nimpossible job of making Edward Ashburnham a faithful husband. She had,\nas the English would say, the Nonconformist temperament. In the United\nStates of North America we call it the New England conscience. For, of\ncourse, that frame of mind has been driven in on the English Catholics.\nThe centuries that they have gone through--centuries of blind and\nmalignant oppression, of ostracism from public employment, of being, as\nit were, a small beleagured garrison in a hostile country, and therefore\nhaving to act with great formality--all these things have combined to\nperform that conjuring trick. And I suppose that Papists in England are\neven technically Nonconformists.\n\nContinental Papists are a dirty, jovial and unscrupulous crew. But that,\nat least, lets them be opportunists. They would have fixed poor dear\nEdward up all right. (Forgive my writing of these monstrous things in\nthis frivolous manner. If I did not I should break down and cry.) In\nMilan, say, or in Paris, Leonora would have had her marriage dissolved\nin six months for two hundred dollars paid in the right quarter. And\nEdward would have drifted about until he became a tramp of the kind I\nhave suggested. Or he would have married a barmaid who would have made\nhim such frightful scenes in public places and would so have torn out\nhis moustache and left visible signs upon his face that he would have\nbeen faithful to her for the rest of his days. That was what he wanted\nto redeem him....\n\nFor, along with his passions and his shames there went the dread of\nscenes in public places, of outcry, of excited physical violence; of\npublicity, in short. Yes, the barmaid would have cured him. And it would\nhave been all the better if she drank; he would have been kept busy\nlooking after her.\n\nI know that I am right in this. I know it because of the Kilsyte case.\nYou see, the servant girl that he then kissed was nurse in the family of\nthe Nonconformist head of the county--whatever that post may be called.\nAnd that gentleman was so determined to ruin Edward, who was the\nchairman of the Tory caucus, or whatever it is--that the poor dear\nsufferer had the very devil of a time. They asked questions about it\nin the House of Commons; they tried to get the Hampshire magistrates\ndegraded; they suggested to the War Ministry that Edward was not the\nproper person to hold the King's commission. Yes, he got it hot and\nstrong.\n\nThe result you have heard. He was completely cured of philandering\namongst the lower classes. And that seemed a real blessing to Leonora.\nIt did not revolt her so much to be connected--it is a sort of\nconnection--with people like Mrs Maidan, instead of with a little\nkitchenmaid.\n\nIn a dim sort of way, Leonora was almost contented when she arrived at\nNauheim, that evening....\n\nShe had got things nearly straight by the long years of scraping in\nlittle stations in Chitral and Burma--stations where living is cheap\nin comparison with the life of a county magnate, and where, moreover,\nliaisons of one sort or another are normal and inexpensive too. So that,\nwhen Mrs Maidan came along--and the Maidan affair might have caused\ntrouble out there because of the youth of the husband--Leonora had just\nresigned herself to coming home. With pushing and scraping and with\nletting Branshaw Teleragh, and with selling a picture and a relic of\nCharles I or so, had got--and, poor dear, she had never had a really\ndecent dress to her back in all those years and years--she had got, as\nshe imagined, her poor dear husband back into much the same financial\nposition as had been his before the mistress of the Grand Duke had\nhappened along. And, of course, Edward himself had helped her a little\non the financial side. He was a fellow that many men liked. He was so\npresentable and quite ready to lend you his cigar puncher--that sort\nof thing. So, every now and then some financier whom he met about would\ngive him a good, sound, profitable tip. And Leonora was never afraid of\na bit of a gamble--English Papists seldom are, I do not know why.\n\nSo nearly all her investment turned up trumps, and Edward was really in\nfit case to reopen Branshaw Manor and once more to assume his position\nin the county. Thus Leonora had accepted Maisie Maidan almost with\nresignation--almost with a sigh of relief. She really liked the poor\nchild--she had to like somebody. And, at any rate, she felt she could\ntrust Maisie--she could trust her not to rook Edward for several\nthousands a week, for Maisie had refused to accept so much as a trinket\nring from him. It is true that Edward gurgled and raved about the girl\nin a way that she had never yet experienced. But that, too, was almost a\nrelief. I think she would really have welcomed it if he could have come\nacross the love of his life. It would have given her a rest.\n\nAnd there could not have been anyone better than poor little Mrs Maidan;\nshe was so ill she could not want to be taken on expensive jaunts....\nIt was Leonora herself who paid Maisie's expenses to Nauheim. She handed\nover the money to the boy husband, for Maisie would never have allowed\nit; but the husband was in agonies of fear. Poor devil!\n\nI fancy that, on the voyage from India, Leonora was as happy as ever she\nhad been in her life. Edward was wrapped up, completely, in his girl--he\nwas almost like a father with a child, trotting about with rugs and\nphysic and things, from deck to deck. He behaved, however, with great\ncircumspection, so that nothing leaked through to the other passengers.\nAnd Leonora had almost attained to the attitude of a mother towards Mrs\nMaidan. So it had looked very well--the benevolent, wealthy couple of\ngood people, acting as saviours to the poor, dark-eyed, dying young\nthing. And that attitude of Leonora's towards Mrs Maidan no doubt partly\naccounted for the smack in the face. She was hitting a naughty child who\nhad been stealing chocolates at an inopportune moment. It was certainly\nan inopportune moment. For, with the opening of that blackmailing letter\nfrom that injured brother officer, all the old terrors had redescended\nupon Leonora. Her road had again seemed to stretch out endless; she\nimagined that there might be hundreds and hundreds of such things\nthat Edward was concealing from her--that they might necessitate more\nmortgagings, more pawnings of bracelets, more and always more horrors.\nShe had spent an excruciating afternoon. The matter was one of a divorce\ncase, of course, and she wanted to avoid publicity as much as Edward\ndid, so that she saw the necessity of continuing the payments. And she\ndid not so much mind that. They could find three hundred a year. But it\nwas the horror of there being more such obligations.\n\nShe had had no conversation with Edward for many years--none that went\nbeyond the mere arrangements for taking trains or engaging servants. But\nthat afternoon she had to let him have it. And he had been just the same\nas ever. It was like opening a book after a decade to find the words the\nsame. He had the same motives. He had not wished to tell her about the\ncase because he had not wished her to sully her mind with the idea\nthat there was such a thing as a brother officer who could be a\nblackmailer--and he had wanted to protect the credit of his old light\nof love. That lady was certainly not concerned with her husband. And he\nswore, and swore, and swore, that there was nothing else in the world\nagainst him. She did not believe him.\n\nHe had done it once too often--and she was wrong for the first time, so\nthat he acted a rather creditable part in the matter. For he went right\nstraight out to the post-office and spent several hours in coding a\ntelegram to his solicitor, bidding that hard-headed man to threaten to\ntake out at once a warrant against the fellow who was on his track. He\nsaid afterwards that it was a bit too thick on poor old Leonora to\nbe ballyragged any more. That was really the last of his outstanding\naccounts, and he was ready to take his personal chance of the Divorce\nCourt if the blackmailer turned nasty. He would face it out--the\npublicity, the papers, the whole bally show. Those were his simple\nwords....\n\nHe had made, however, the mistake of not telling Leonora where he was\ngoing, so that, having seen him go to his room to fetch the code for\nthe telegram, and seeing, two hours later, Maisie Maidan come out of his\nroom, Leonora imagined that the two hours she had spent in silent agony\nEdward had spent with Maisie Maidan in his arms. That seemed to her to\nbe too much. As a matter of fact, Maisie's being in Edward's room had\nbeen the result, partly of poverty, partly of pride, partly of sheer\ninnocence. She could not, in the first place, afford a maid; she\nrefrained as much as possible from sending the hotel servants on\nerrands, since every penny was of importance to her, and she feared to\nhave to pay high tips at the end of her stay. Edward had lent her one\nof his fascinating cases containing fifteen different sizes of scissors,\nand, having seen from her window, his departure for the post-office, she\nhad taken the opportunity of returning the case. She could not see why\nshe should not, though she felt a certain remorse at the thought that\nshe had kissed the pillows of his bed. That was the way it took her.\n\nBut Leonora could see that, without the shadow of a doubt, the incident\ngave Florence a hold over her. It let Florence into things and Florence\nwas the only created being who had any idea that the Ashburnhams were\nnot just good people with nothing to their tails. She determined at\nonce, not so much to give Florence the privilege of her intimacy--which\nwould have been the payment of a kind of blackmail--as to keep Florence\nunder observation until she could have demonstrated to Florence that\nshe was not in the least jealous of poor Maisie. So that was why she\nhad entered the dining-room arm in arm with my wife, and why she had so\nmarkedly planted herself at our table. She never left us, indeed, for a\nminute that night, except just to run up to Mrs Maidan's room to beg her\npardon and to beg her also to let Edward take her very markedly out into\nthe gardens that night. She said herself, when Mrs Maidan came rather\nwistfully down into the lounge where we were all sitting: \"Now, Edward,\nget up and take Maisie to the Casino. I want Mrs Dowell to tell me all\nabout the families in Connecticut who came from Fordingbridge.\" For it\nhad been discovered that Florence came of a line that had actually owned\nBranshaw Teleragh for two centuries before the Ashburnhams came there.\nAnd there she sat with me in that hall, long after Florence had gone to\nbed, so that I might witness her gay reception of that pair. She could\nplay up.\n\nAnd that enables me to fix exactly the day of our going to the town of\nM----. For it was the very day poor Mrs Maidan died. We found her dead\nwhen we got back--pretty awful, that, when you come to figure out what\nit all means....\n\nAt any rate the measure of my relief when Leonora said that she was an\nIrish Catholic gives you the measure of my affection for that couple.\nIt was an affection so intense that even to this day I cannot think of\nEdward without sighing. I do not believe that I could have gone on any\nmore with them. I was getting too tired. And I verily believe, too, if\nmy suspicion that Leonora was jealous of Florence had been the reason\nshe gave for her outburst I should have turned upon Florence with the\nmaddest kind of rage. Jealousy would have been incurable. But Florence's\nmere silly jibes at the Irish and at the Catholics could be apologized\nout of existence. And that I appeared to fix up in two minutes or so.\n\nShe looked at me for a long time rather fixedly and queerly while I was\ndoing it. And at last I worked myself up to saying:\n\n\"Do accept the situation. I confess that I do not like your religion.\nBut I like you so intensely. I don't mind saying that I have never had\nanyone to be really fond of, and I do not believe that anyone has ever\nbeen fond of me, as I believe you really to be.\"\n\n\"Oh, I'm fond enough of you,\" she said. \"Fond enough to say that I wish\nevery man was like you. But there are others to be considered.\" She was\nthinking, as a matter of fact, of poor Maisie. She picked a little piece\nof pellitory out of the breast-high wall in front of us. She chafed it\nfor a long minute between her finger and thumb, then she threw it over\nthe coping.\n\n\"Oh, I accept the situation,\" she said at last, \"if you can.\"\n\n\nVI\n\nI REMEMBER laughing at the phrase, \"accept the situation\", which she\nseemed to repeat with a gravity too intense. I said to her something\nlike:\n\n\"It's hardly as much as that. I mean, that I must claim the liberty of a\nfree American citizen to think what I please about your co-religionists.\nAnd I suppose that Florence must have liberty to think what she pleases\nand to say what politeness allows her to say.\"\n\n\"She had better,\" Leonora answered, \"not say one single word against\nmy people or my faith.\" It struck me at the time, that there was an\nunusual, an almost threatening, hardness in her voice. It was almost\nas if she were trying to convey to Florence, through me, that she\nwould seriously harm my wife if Florence went to something that was an\nextreme. Yes, I remember thinking at the time that it was almost as if\nLeonora were saying, through me to Florence:\n\n\"You may outrage me as you will; you may take all that I personally\npossess, but do not you care to say one single thing in view of the\nsituation that that will set up--against the faith that makes me become\nthe doormat for your feet.\"\n\nBut obviously, as I saw it, that could not be her meaning. Good people,\nbe they ever so diverse in creed, do not threaten each other. So that I\nread Leonora's words to mean just no more than: \"It would be better if\nFlorence said nothing at all against my co-religionists, because it is a\npoint that I am touchy about.\"\n\nThat was the hint that, accordingly, I conveyed to Florence when,\nshortly afterwards, she and Edward came down from the tower. And I want\nyou to understand that, from that moment until after Edward and the girl\nand Florence were all dead together, I had never the remotest glimpse,\nnot the shadow of a suspicion, that there was anything wrong, as the\nsaying is. For five minutes, then, I entertained the possibility that\nLeonora might be jealous; but there was never another flicker in that\nflame-like personality. How in the world should I get it?\n\nFor, all that time, I was just a male sick nurse. And what chance had I\nagainst those three hardened gamblers, who were all in league to conceal\ntheir hands from me? What earthly chance? They were three to one--and\nthey made me happy. Oh God, they made me so happy that I doubt if even\nparadise, that shall smooth out all temporal wrongs, shall ever give me\nthe like. And what could they have done better, or what could they have\ndone that could have been worse? I don't know....\n\nI suppose that, during all that time I was a deceived husband and that\nLeonora was pimping for Edward. That was the cross that she had to take\nup during her long Calvary of a life....\n\nYou ask how it feels to be a deceived husband. Just Heavens, I do not\nknow. It feels just nothing at all. It is not Hell, certainly it is not\nnecessarily Heaven. So I suppose it is the intermediate stage. What\ndo they call it? Limbo. No, I feel nothing at all about that. They are\ndead; they have gone before their Judge who, I hope, will open to them\nthe springs of His compassion. It is not my business to think about\nit. It is simply my business to say, as Leonora's people say: \"Requiem\naeternam dona eis, Do mine, et lux perpetua luceat eis. In memoria\naeterna erit....\" But what were they? The just? The unjust? God knows! I\nthink that the pair of them were only poor wretches, creeping over this\nearth in the shadow of an eternal wrath. It is very terrible....\n\nIt is almost too terrible, the picture of that judgement, as it appears\nto me sometimes, at nights. It is probably the suggestion of some\npicture that I have seen somewhere. But upon an immense plain, suspended\nin mid-air, I seem to see three figures, two of them clasped close in an\nintense embrace, and one intolerably solitary. It is in black and white,\nmy picture of that judgement, an etching, perhaps; only I cannot tell an\netching from a photographic reproduction. And the immense plain is the\nhand of God, stretching out for miles and miles, with great spaces above\nit and below it. And they are in the sight of God, and it is Florence\nthat is alone.... And, do you know, at the thought of that intense\nsolitude I feel an overwhelming desire to rush forward and comfort her.\nYou cannot, you see, have acted as nurse to a person for twelve years\nwithout wishing to go on nursing them, even though you hate them with\nthe hatred of the adder, and even in the palm of God. But, in the\nnights, with that vision of judgement before me, I know that I hold\nmyself back. For I hate Florence. I hate Florence with such a hatred\nthat I would not spare her an eternity of loneliness. She need not have\ndone what she did. She was an American, a New Englander. She had not the\nhot passions of these Europeans. She cut out that poor imbecile of an\nEdward--and I pray God that he is really at peace, clasped close in the\narms of that poor, poor girl! And, no doubt, Maisie Maidan will find her\nyoung husband again, and Leonora will burn, clear and serene, a northern\nlight and one of the archangels of God. And me.... Well, perhaps, they\nwill find me an elevator to run.... But Florence... .\n\nShe should not have done it. She should not have done it. It was playing\nit too low down. She cut out poor dear Edward from sheer vanity;\nshe meddled between him and Leonora from a sheer, imbecile spirit of\ndistrict visiting. Do you understand that, whilst she was Edward's\nmistress, she was perpetually trying to reunite him to his wife? She\nwould gabble on to Leonora about forgiveness--treating the subject from\nthe bright, American point of view. And Leonora would treat her like the\nwhore she was. Once she said to Florence in the early morning:\n\n\"You come to me straight out of his bed to tell me that that is my\nproper place. I know it, thank you.\"\n\nBut even that could not stop Florence. She went on saying that it was\nher ambition to leave this world a little brighter by the passage of her\nbrief life, and how thankfully she would leave Edward, whom she thought\nshe had brought to a right frame of mind, if Leonora would only give him\na chance. He needed, she said, tenderness beyond anything.\n\nAnd Leonora would answer--for she put up with this outrage for\nyears--Leonora, as I understand, would answer something like:\n\n\"Yes, you would give him up. And you would go on writing to each other\nin secret, and committing adultery in hired rooms. I know the pair\nof you, you know. No. I prefer the situation as it is.\" Half the time\nFlorence would ignore Leonora's remarks. She would think they were not\nquite ladylike. The other half of the time she would try to persuade\nLeonora that her love for Edward was quite spiritual--on account of her\nheart. Once she said:\n\n\"If you can believe that of Maisie Maidan, as you say you do, why cannot\nyou believe it of me?\" Leonora was, I understand, doing her hair at\nthat time in front of the mirror in her bedroom. And she looked round\nat Florence, to whom she did not usually vouchsafe a glance,--she looked\nround coolly and calmly, and said:\n\n\"Never do you dare to mention Mrs Maidan's name again. You murdered her.\nYou and I murdered her between us. I am as much a scoundrel as you. I\ndon't like to be reminded of it.\"\n\nFlorence went off at once into a babble of how could she have hurt a\nperson whom she hardly knew, a person whom with the best intentions, in\npursuance of her efforts to leave the world a little brighter, she had\ntried to save from Edward. That was how she figured it out to herself.\nShe really thought that.... So Leonora said patiently:\n\n\"Very well, just put it that I killed her and that it's a painful\nsubject. One does not like to think that one had killed someone.\nNaturally not. I ought never to have brought her from India.\" And that,\nindeed, is exactly how Leonora looked at it. It is stated a little\nbaldly, but Leonora was always a great one for bald statements.\n\nWhat had happened on the day of our jaunt to the ancient city of M----\nhad been this:\n\nLeonora, who had been even then filled with pity and contrition for the\npoor child, on returning to our hotel had gone straight to Mrs Maidan's\nroom. She had wanted just to pet her. And she had perceived at first\nonly, on the clear, round table covered with red velvet, a letter\naddressed to her. It ran something like:\n\n\"Oh, Mrs Ashburnham, how could you have done it? I trusted you so. You\nnever talked to me about me and Edward, but I trusted you. How could you\nbuy me from my husband? I have just heard how you have--in the hall they\nwere talking about it, Edward and the American lady. You paid the\nmoney for me to come here. Oh, how could you? How could you? I am going\nstraight back to Bunny....\" Bunny was Mrs Maidan's husband.\n\nAnd Leonora said that, as she went on reading the letter, she had,\nwithout looking round her, a sense that that hotel room was cleared,\nthat there were no papers on the table, that there were no clothes on\nthe hooks, and that there was a strained silence--a silence, she said,\nas if there were something in the room that drank up such sounds as\nthere were. She had to fight against that feeling, whilst she read the\npostscript of the letter.\n\n\"I did not know you wanted me for an adulteress,\" the postscript began.\nThe poor child was hardly literate. \"It was surely not right of you and\nI never wanted to be one. And I heard Edward call me a poor little rat\nto the American lady. He always called me a little rat in private, and\nI did not mind. But, if he called me it to her, I think he does not love\nme any more. Oh, Mrs Ashburnham, you knew the world and I knew nothing.\nI thought it would be all right if you thought it could, and I thought\nyou would not have brought me if you did not, too. You should not have\ndone it, and we out of the same convent....\"\n\nLeonora said that she screamed when she read that.\n\nAnd then she saw that Maisie's boxes were all packed, and she began a\nsearch for Mrs Maidan herself--all over the hotel. The manager said that\nMrs Maidan had paid her bill, and had gone up to the station to ask the\nReiseverkehrsbureau to make her out a plan for her immediate return\nto Chitral. He imagined that he had seen her come back, but he was not\nquite certain. No one in the large hotel had bothered his head about the\nchild. And she, wandering solitarily in the hall, had no doubt sat down\nbeside a screen that had Edward and Florence on the other side. I never\nheard then or after what had passed between that precious couple. I\nfancy Florence was just about beginning her cutting out of poor dear\nEdward by addressing to him some words of friendly warning as to the\nravages he might be making in the girl's heart. That would be the sort\nof way she would begin. And Edward would have sentimentally assured her\nthat there was nothing in it; that Maisie was just a poor little rat\nwhose passage to Nauheim his wife had paid out of her own pocket. That\nwould have been enough to do the trick.\n\nFor the trick was pretty efficiently done. Leonora, with panic growing\nand with contrition very large in her heart, visited every one of\nthe public rooms of the hotel--the dining-room, the lounge, the\nschreibzimmer, the winter garden. God knows what they wanted with a\nwinter garden in an hotel that is only open from May till October. But\nthere it was. And then Leonora ran--yes, she ran up the stairs--to see\nif Maisie had not returned to her rooms. She had determined to take that\nchild right away from that hideous place. It seemed to her to be all\nunspeakable. I do not mean to say that she was not quite cool about it.\nLeonora was always Leonora. But the cold justice of the thing demanded\nthat she should play the part of mother to this child who had come from\nthe same convent. She figured it out to amount to that. She would leave\nEdward to Florence and to me--and she would devote all her time to\nproviding that child with an atmosphere of love until she could be\nreturned to her poor young husband. It was naturally too late.\n\nShe had not cared to look round Maisie's rooms at first. Now, as soon as\nshe came in, she perceived, sticking out beyond the bed, a small pair of\nfeet in high-heeled shoes. Maisie had died in the effort to strap up a\ngreat portmanteau. She had died so grotesquely that her little body had\nfallen forward into the trunk, and it had closed upon her, like the jaws\nof a gigantic alligator. The key was in her hand. Her dark hair, like\nthe hair of a Japanese, had come down and covered her body and her face.\n\nLeonora lifted her up--she was the merest featherweight--and laid her\non the bed with her hair about her. She was smiling, as if she had just\nscored a goal in a hockey match. You understand she had not committed\nsuicide. Her heart had just stopped. I saw her, with the long lashes on\nthe cheeks, with the smile about the lips, with the flowers all about\nher. The stem of a white lily rested in her hand so that the spike of\nflowers was upon her shoulder. She looked like a bride in the sunlight\nof the mortuary candles that were all about her, and the white coifs of\nthe two nuns that knelt at her feet with their faces hidden might have\nbeen two swans that were to bear her away to kissing-kindness land, or\nwherever it is. Leonora showed her to me. She would not let either of\nthe others see her. She wanted, you know, to spare poor dear Edward's\nfeelings. He never could bear the sight of a corpse. And, since she\nnever gave him an idea that Maisie had written to her, he imagined that\nthe death had been the most natural thing in the world. He soon got over\nit. Indeed, it was the one affair of his about which he never felt much\nremorse.\n\n\n\n\nPART II\n\nI\n\nTHE death of Mrs Maidan occurred on the 4th of August, 1904. And then\nnothing happened until the 4th of August, 1913. There is the curious\ncoincidence of dates, but I do not know whether that is one of those\nsinister, as if half jocular and altogether merciless proceedings on the\npart of a cruel Providence that we call a coincidence. Because it may\njust as well have been the superstitious mind of Florence that forced\nher to certain acts, as if she had been hypnotized. It is, however,\ncertain that the 4th of August always proved a significant date for her.\nTo begin with, she was born on the 4th of August. Then, on that date, in\nthe year 1899, she set out with her uncle for the tour round the world\nin company with a young man called Jimmy. But that was not merely a\ncoincidence. Her kindly old uncle, with the supposedly damaged heart,\nwas in his delicate way, offering her, in this trip, a birthday present\nto celebrate her coming of age. Then, on the 4th of August, 1900, she\nyielded to an action that certainly coloured her whole life--as well\nas mine. She had no luck. She was probably offering herself a birthday\npresent that morning.... On the 4th of August, 1901, she married me, and\nset sail for Europe in a great gale of wind--the gale that affected her\nheart. And no doubt there, again, she was offering herself a birthday\ngift--the birthday gift of my miserable life. It occurs to me that I\nhave never told you anything about my marriage. That was like this:\nI have told you, as I think, that I first met Florence at the\nStuyvesants', in Fourteenth Street. And, from that moment, I determined\nwith all the obstinacy of a possibly weak nature, if not to make her\nmine, at least to marry her. I had no occupation--I had no business\naffairs. I simply camped down there in Stamford, in a vile hotel, and\njust passed my days in the house, or on the verandah of the Misses\nHurlbird. The Misses Hurlbird, in an odd, obstinate way, did not like\nmy presence. But they were hampered by the national manners of these\noccasions. Florence had her own sitting-room. She could ask to it whom\nshe liked, and I simply walked into that apartment. I was as timid as\nyou will, but in that matter I was like a chicken that is determined\nto get across the road in front of an automobile. I would walk into\nFlorence's pretty, little, old-fashioned room, take off my hat, and sit\ndown.\n\nFlorence had, of course, several other fellows, too--strapping young\nNew Englanders, who worked during the day in New York and spent only the\nevenings in the village of their birth. And, in the evenings, they\nwould march in on Florence with almost as much determination as I myself\nshowed. And I am bound to say that they were received with as much\ndisfavour as was my portion--from the Misses Hurlbird....\n\nThey were curious old creatures, those two. It was almost as if they\nwere members of an ancient family under some curse--they were so\ngentlewomanly, so proper, and they sighed so. Sometimes I would see\ntears in their eyes. I do not know that my courtship of Florence made\nmuch progress at first. Perhaps that was because it took place almost\nentirely during the daytime, on hot afternoons, when the clouds of dust\nhung like fog, right up as high as the tops of the thin-leaved elms. The\nnight, I believe, is the proper season for the gentle feats of love, not\na Connecticut July afternoon, when any sort of proximity is an almost\nappalling thought. But, if I never so much as kissed Florence, she let\nme discover very easily, in the course of a fortnight, her simple wants.\nAnd I could supply those wants....\n\nShe wanted to marry a gentleman of leisure; she wanted a European\nestablishment. She wanted her husband to have an English accent,\nan income of fifty thousand dollars a year from real estate and no\nambitions to increase that income. And--she faintly hinted--she did\nnot want much physical passion in the affair. Americans, you know, can\nenvisage such unions without blinking.\n\nShe gave cut this information in floods of bright talk--she would pop a\nlittle bit of it into comments over a view of the Rialto, Venice, and,\nwhilst she was brightly describing Balmoral Castle, she would say that\nher ideal husband would he one who could get her received at the British\nCourt. She had spent, it seemed, two months in Great Britain--seven\nweeks in touring from Stratford to Strathpeffer, and one as paying\nguest in an old English family near Ledbury, an impoverished, but still\nstately family, called Bagshawe. They were to have spent two months\nmore in that tranquil bosom, but inopportune events, apparently in her\nuncle's business, had caused their rather hurried return to Stamford.\nThe young man called Jimmy had remained in Europe to perfect his\nknowledge of that continent. He certainly did: he was most useful to us\nafterwards.\n\nBut the point that came out--that there was no mistaking--was that\nFlorence was coldly and calmly determined to take no look at any man who\ncould not give her a European settlement. Her glimpse of English home\nlife had effected this. She meant, on her marriage, to have a year\nin Paris, and then to have her husband buy some real estate in the\nneighbourhood of Fordingbridge, from which place the Hurlbirds had come\nin the year 1688. On the strength of that she was going to take her\nplace in the ranks of English county society. That was fixed.\n\nI used to feel mightily elevated when I considered these details, for\nI could not figure out that amongst her acquaintances in Stamford there\nwas any fellow that would fill the bill. The most of them were not\nas wealthy as I, and those that were were not the type to give up the\nfascinations of Wall Street even for the protracted companionship of\nFlorence. But nothing really happened during the month of July. On the\n1st of August Florence apparently told her aunts that she intended to\nmarry me.\n\nShe had not told me so, but there was no doubt about the aunts, for, on\nthat afternoon, Miss Florence Hurlbird, Senior, stopped me on my way to\nFlorence's sitting-room and took me, agitatedly, into the parlour. It\nwas a singular interview, in that old-fashioned colonial room, with the\nspindle-legged furniture, the silhouettes, the miniatures, the portrait\nof General Braddock, and the smell of lavender. You see, the two poor\nmaiden ladies were in agonies--and they could not say one single thing\ndirect. They would almost wring their hands and ask if I had considered\nsuch a thing as different temperaments. I assure you they were almost\naffectionate, concerned for me even, as if Florence were too bright for\nmy solid and serious virtues.\n\nFor they had discovered in me solid and serious virtues. That might\nhave been because I had once dropped the remark that I preferred General\nBraddock to General Washington. For the Hurlbirds had backed the losing\nside in the War of Independence, and had been seriously impoverished and\nquite efficiently oppressed for that reason. The Misses Hurlbird could\nnever forget it.\n\nNevertheless they shuddered at the thought of a European career for\nmyself and Florence. Each of them really wailed when they heard that\nthat was what I hoped to give their niece. That may have been partly\nbecause they regarded Europe as a sink of iniquity, where strange\nlaxities prevailed. They thought the Mother Country as Erastian as any\nother. And they carried their protests to extraordinary lengths, for\nthem....\n\nThey even, almost, said that marriage was a sacrament; but neither Miss\nFlorence nor Miss Emily could quite bring herself to utter the word.\nAnd they almost brought themselves to say that Florence's early life had\nbeen characterized by flirtations--something of that sort.\n\nI know I ended the interview by saying:\n\n\"I don't care. If Florence has robbed a bank I am going to marry her and\ntake her to Europe.\" And at that Miss Emily wailed and fainted. But Miss\nFlorence, in spite of the state of her sister, threw herself on my neck\nand cried out: \"Don't do it, John. Don't do it. You're a good young\nman,\" and she added, whilst I was getting out of the room to send\nFlorence to her aunt's rescue:\n\n\"We ought to tell you more. But she's our dear sister's child.\"\n\nFlorence, I remember, received me with a chalk-pale face and the\nexclamation:\n\n\"Have those old cats been saying anything against me?\" But I assured\nher that they had not and hurried her into the room of her strangely\nafflicted relatives. I had really forgotten all about that exclamation\nof Florence's until this moment. She treated me so very well--with such\ntact--that, if I ever thought of it afterwards I put it down to her deep\naffection for me.\n\nAnd that evening, when I went to fetch her for a buggy-ride, she had\ndisappeared. I did not lose any time. I went into New York and engaged\nberths on the \"Pocahontas\", that was to sail on the evening of the\nfourth of the month, and then, returning to Stamford, I tracked out, in\nthe course of the day, that Florence had been driven to Rye Station.\nAnd there I found that she had taken the cars to Waterbury. She had, of\ncourse, gone to her uncle's. The old man received me with a stony, husky\nface. I was not to see Florence; she was ill; she was keeping her room.\nAnd, from something that he let drop--an odd Biblical phrase that I have\nforgotten--I gathered that all that family simply did not intend her to\nmarry ever in her life.\n\nI procured at once the name of the nearest minister and a rope\nladder--you have no idea how primitively these matters were arranged in\nthose days in the United States. I daresay that may be so still. And\nat one o'clock in the morning of the 4th of August I was standing in\nFlorence's bedroom. I was so one-minded in my purpose that it never\nstruck me there was anything improper in being, at one o'clock in the\nmorning, in Florence's bedroom. I just wanted to wake her up. She was\nnot, however, asleep. She expected me, and her relatives had only just\nleft her. She received me with an embrace of a warmth.... Well, it was\nthe first time I had ever been embraced by a woman--and it was the last\nwhen a woman's embrace has had in it any warmth for me.... I suppose it\nwas my own fault, what followed. At any rate, I was in such a hurry\nto get the wedding over, and was so afraid of her relatives finding me\nthere, that I must have received her advances with a certain amount of\nabsence of mind. I was out of that room and down the ladder in under\nhalf a minute. She kept me waiting at the foot an unconscionable\ntime--it was certainly three in the morning before we knocked up that\nminister. And I think that that wait was the only sign Florence ever\nshowed of having a conscience as far as I was concerned, unless her\nlying for some moments in my arms was also a sign of conscience. I fancy\nthat, if I had shown warmth then, she would have acted the proper wife\nto me, or would have put me back again. But, because I acted like a\nPhiladelphia gentleman, she made me, I suppose, go through with the part\nof a male nurse. Perhaps she thought that I should not mind.\n\nAfter that, as I gather, she had not any more remorse. She was only\nanxious to carry out her plans. For, just before she came down the\nladder, she called me to the top of that grotesque implement that I went\nup and down like a tranquil jumping-jack. I was perfectly collected. She\nsaid to me with a certain fierceness:\n\n\"It is determined that we sail at four this afternoon? You are not lying\nabout having taken berths?\"\n\nI understood that she would naturally be anxious to get away from the\nneighbourhood of her apparently insane relatives, so that I readily\nexcused her for thinking that I should be capable of lying about such\na thing. I made it, therefore, plain to her that it was my fixed\ndetermination to sail by the \"Pocahontas\". She said then--it was a\nmoonlit morning, and she was whispering in my ear whilst I stood on\nthe ladder. The hills that surround Waterbury showed, extraordinarily\ntranquil, around the villa. She said, almost coldly:\n\n\"I wanted to know, so as to pack my trunks.\" And she added: \"I may be\nill, you know. I guess my heart is a little like Uncle Hurlbird's. It\nruns in families.\"\n\nI whispered that the \"Pocahontas\" was an extraordinarily steady boat....\n\nNow I wonder what had passed through Florence's mind during the two\nhours that she had kept me waiting at the foot of the ladder. I would\ngive not a little to know. Till then, I fancy she had had no settled\nplan in her mind. She certainly never mentioned her heart till that\ntime. Perhaps the renewed sight of her Uncle Hurlbird had given her the\nidea. Certainly her Aunt Emily, who had come over with her to Waterbury,\nwould have rubbed into her, for hours and hours, the idea that any\naccentuated discussions would kill the old gentleman. That would recall\nto her mind all the safeguards against excitement with which the poor\nsilly old gentleman had been hedged in during their trip round the\nworld. That, perhaps, put it into her head. Still, I believe there was\nsome remorse on my account, too. Leonora told me that Florence said\nthere was--for Leonora knew all about it, and once went so far as to\nask her how she could do a thing so infamous. She excused herself on\nthe score of an overmastering passion. Well, I always say that an\novermastering passion is a good excuse for feelings. You cannot help\nthem. And it is a good excuse for straight actions--she might have\nbolted with the fellow, before or after she married me. And, if they had\nnot enough money to get along with, they might have cut their throats,\nor sponged on her family, though, of course, Florence wanted such a lot\nthat it would have suited her very badly to have for a husband a clerk\nin a dry-goods store, which was what old Hurlbird would have made of\nthat fellow. He hated him. No, I do not think that there is much excuse\nfor Florence.\n\nGod knows. She was a frightened fool, and she was fantastic, and I\nsuppose that, at that time, she really cared for that imbecile. He\ncertainly didn't care for her. Poor thing.... At any rate, after I had\nassured her that the \"Pocahontas\" was a steady ship, she just said:\n\"You'll have to look after me in certain ways--like Uncle Hurlbird is\nlooked after. I will tell you how to do it.\" And then she stepped over\nthe sill, as if she were stepping on board a boat. I suppose she had\nburnt hers!\n\nI had, no doubt, eye-openers enough. When we re-entered the Hurlbird\nmansion at eight o'clock the Hurlbirds were just exhausted. Florence had\na hard, triumphant air. We had got married about four in the morning\nand had sat about in the woods above the town till then, listening to a\nmocking-bird imitate an old tom-cat. So I guess Florence had not found\ngetting married to me a very stimulating process. I had not found\nanything much more inspiring to say than how glad I was, with\nvariations. I think I was too dazed. Well, the Hurlbirds were too dazed\nto say much. We had breakfast together, and then Florence went to pack\nher grips and things. Old Hurlbird took the opportunity to read me a\nfull-blooded lecture, in the style of an American oration, as to the\nperils for young American girlhood lurking in the European jungle. He\nsaid that Paris was full of snakes in the grass, of which he had had\nbitter experience. He concluded, as they always do, poor, dear old\nthings, with the aspiration that all American women should one day be\nsexless--though that is not the way they put it.. ..\n\nWell, we made the ship all right by one-thirty--an there was a tempest\nblowing. That helped Florence a good deal. For we were not ten minutes\nout from Sandy Hook before Florence went down into her cabin and her\nheart took her. An agitated stewardess came running up to me, and I went\nrunning down. I got my directions how to behave to my wife. Most of them\ncame from her, though it was the ship doctor who discreetly suggested\nto me that I had better refrain from manifestations of affection. I was\nready enough. I was, of course, full of remorse. It occurred to me that\nher heart was the reason for the Hurlbirds' mysterious desire to keep\ntheir youngest and dearest unmarried. Of course, they would be\ntoo refined to put the motive into words. They were old stock New\nEnglanders. They would not want to have to suggest that a husband must\nnot kiss the back of his wife's neck. They would not like to suggest\nthat he might, for the matter of that. I wonder, though, how Florence\ngot the doctor to enter the conspiracy--the several doctors.\n\nOf course her heart squeaked a bit--she had the same configuration of\nthe lungs as her Uncle Hurlbird. And, in his company, she must have\nheard a great deal of heart talk from specialists. Anyhow, she and they\ntied me pretty well down--and Jimmy, of course, that dreary boy--what in\nthe world did she see in him? He was lugubrious, silent, morose. He had\nno talent as a painter. He was very sallow and dark, and he never shaved\nsufficiently. He met us at Havre, and he proceeded to make himself\nuseful for the next two years, during which he lived in our flat in\nParis, whether we were there or not. He studied painting at Julien's, or\nsome such place....\n\nThat fellow had his hands always in the pockets of his odious,\nsquare-shouldered, broad-hipped, American coats, and his dark eyes were\nalways full of ominous appearances. He was, besides, too fat. Why, I was\nmuch the better man....\n\nAnd I daresay Florence would have given me the better. She showed signs\nof it. I think, perhaps, the enigmatic smile with which she used to look\nback at me over her shoulder when she went into the bathing place was a\nsort of invitation. I have mentioned that. It was as if she were saying:\n\"I am going in here. I am going to stand so stripped and white and\nstraight--and you are a man....\" Perhaps it was that....\n\nNo, she cannot have liked that fellow long. He looked like sallow putty.\nI understand that he had been slim and dark and very graceful at\nthe time of her first disgrace. But, loafing about in Paris, on her\npocket-money and on the allowance that old Hurlbird made him to keep out\nof the United States, had given him a stomach like a man of forty, and\ndyspeptic irritation on top of it. God, how they worked me! It was\nthose two between them who really elaborated the rules. I have told you\nsomething about them--how I had to head conversations, for all those\neleven years, off such topics as love, poverty, crime, and so on. But,\nlooking over what I have written, I see that I have unintentionally\nmisled you when I said that Florence was never out of my sight. Yet\nthat was the impression that I really had until just now. When I come to\nthink of it she was out of my sight most of the time.\n\nYou see, that fellow impressed upon me that what Florence needed most\nof all were sleep and privacy. I must never enter her room without\nknocking, or her poor little heart might flutter away to its doom. He\nsaid these things with his lugubrious croak, and his black eyes like\na crow's, so that I seemed to see poor Florence die ten times a day--a\nlittle, pale, frail corpse. Why, I would as soon have thought of\nentering her room without her permission as of burgling a church. I\nwould sooner have committed that crime. I would certainly have done it\nif I had thought the state of her heart demanded the sacrilege. So at\nten o'clock at night the door closed upon Florence, who had gently,\nand, as if reluctantly, backed up that fellow's recommendations; and\nshe would wish me good night as if she were a cinquecento Italian lady\nsaying good-bye to her lover. And at ten o'clock of the next morning\nthere she would come out the door of her room as fresh as Venus rising\nfrom any of the couches that are mentioned in Greek legends.\n\nHer room door was locked because she was nervous about thieves; but\nan electric contrivance on a cord was understood to be attached to her\nlittle wrist. She had only to press a bulb to raise the house. And I was\nprovided with an axe--an axe!--great gods, with which to break down her\ndoor in case she ever failed to answer my knock, after I knocked really\nloud several times. It was pretty well thought out, you see.\n\nWhat wasn't so well thought out were the ultimate consequences--our\nbeing tied to Europe. For that young man rubbed it so well into me that\nFlorence would die if she crossed the Channel--he impressed it so fully\non my mind that, when later Florence wanted to go to Fordingbridge, I\ncut the proposal short--absolutely short, with a curt no. It fixed her\nand it frightened her. I was even backed up by all the doctors. I seemed\nto have had endless interviews with doctor after doctor, cool, quiet\nmen, who would ask, in reasonable tones, whether there was any reason\nfor our going to England--any special reason. And since I could not see\nany special reason, they would give the verdict: \"Better not, then.\" I\ndaresay they were honest enough, as things go. They probably imagined\nthat the mere associations of the steamer might have effects on\nFlorence's nerves. That would be enough, that and a conscientious desire\nto keep our money on the Continent.\n\nIt must have rattled poor Florence pretty considerably, for you see, the\nmain idea--the only main idea of her heart, that was otherwise cold--was\nto get to Fordingbridge and be a county lady in the home of her\nancestors. But Jimmy got her, there: he shut on her the door of the\nChannel; even on the fairest day of blue sky, with the cliffs of England\nshining like mother of pearl in full view of Calais, I would not have\nlet her cross the steamer gangway to save her life. I tell you it fixed\nher.\n\nIt fixed her beautifully, because she could not announce herself\nas cured, since that would have put an end to the locked bedroom\narrangements. And, by the time she was sick of Jimmy--which happened in\nthe year 1903--she had taken on Edward Ashburnham. Yes, it was a bad\nfix for her, because Edward could have taken her to Fordingbridge, and,\nthough he could not give her Branshaw Manor, that home of her ancestors\nbeing settled on his wife, she could at least have pretty considerably\nqueened it there or thereabouts, what with our money and the support of\nthe Ashburnhams. Her uncle, as soon as he considered that she had really\nsettled down with me--and I sent him only the most glowing accounts of\nher virtue and constancy--made over to her a very considerable part of\nhis fortune for which he had no use. I suppose that we had, between us,\nfifteen thousand a year in English money, though I never quite knew\nhow much of hers went to Jimmy. At any rate, we could have shone in\nFordingbridge. I never quite knew, either, how she and Edward got rid\nof Jimmy. I fancy that fat and disreputable raven must have had his six\ngolden front teeth knocked down his throat by Edward one morning whilst\nI had gone out to buy some flowers in the Rue de la Paix, leaving\nFlorence and the flat in charge of those two. And serve him very right,\nis all that I can say. He was a bad sort of blackmailer; I hope Florence\ndoes not have his company in the next world.\n\nAs God is my Judge, I do not believe that I would have separated those\ntwo if I had known that they really and passionately loved each other.\nI do not know where the public morality of the case comes in, and, of\ncourse, no man really knows what he would have done in any given case.\nBut I truly believe that I would have united them, observing ways and\nmeans as decent as I could. I believe that I should have given them\nmoney to live upon and that I should have consoled myself somehow. At\nthat date I might have found some young thing, like Maisie Maidan, or\nthe poor girl, and I might have had some peace. For peace I never had\nwith Florence, and hardly believe that I cared for her in the way of\nlove after a year or two of it. She became for me a rare and fragile\nobject, something burdensome, but very frail. Why it was as if I\nhad been given a thin-shelled pullet's egg to carry on my palm from\nEquatorial Africa to Hoboken. Yes, she became for me, as it were, the\nsubject of a bet--the trophy of an athlete's achievement, a parsley\ncrown that is the symbol of his chastity, his soberness, his\nabstentions, and of his inflexible will. Of intrinsic value as a wife,\nI think she had none at all for me. I fancy I was not even proud of the\nway she dressed.\n\nBut her passion for Jimmy was not even a passion, and, mad as the\nsuggestion may appear, she was frightened for her life. Yes, she was\nafraid of me. I will tell you how that happened. I had, in the old days,\na darky servant, called Julius, who valeted me, and waited on me, and\nloved me, like the crown of his head. Now, when we left Waterbury to go\nto the \"Pocahontas\", Florence entrusted to me one very special and very\nprecious leather grip. She told me that her life might depend on that\ngrip, which contained her drugs against heart attacks. And, since I was\nnever much of a hand at carrying things, I entrusted this, in turn, to\nJulius, who was a grey-haired chap of sixty or so, and very picturesque\nat that. He made so much impression on Florence that she regarded him as\na sort of father, and absolutely refused to let me take him to Paris. He\nwould have inconvenienced her.\n\nWell, Julius was so overcome with grief at being left behind that he\nmust needs go and drop the precious grip. I saw red, I saw purple. I\nflew at Julius. On the ferry, it was, I filled up one of his eyes; I\nthreatened to strangle him. And, since an unresisting negro can make\na deplorable noise and a deplorable spectacle, and, since that was\nFlorence's first adventure in the married state, she got a pretty idea\nof my character. It affirmed in her the desperate resolve to conceal\nfrom me the fact that she was not what she would have called \"a pure\nwoman\". For that was really the mainspring of her fantastic actions. She\nwas afraid that I should murder her....\n\nSo she got up the heart attack, at the earliest possible opportunity, on\nboard the liner. Perhaps she was not so very much to be blamed. You must\nremember that she was a New Englander, and that New England had not yet\ncome to loathe darkies as it does now. Whereas, if she had come from\neven so little south as Philadelphia, and had been an oldish family, she\nwould have seen that for me to kick Julius was not so outrageous an act\nas for her cousin, Reggie Hurlbird, to say--as I have heard him say to\nhis English butler--that for two cents he would bat him on the pants.\nBesides, the medicine-grip did not bulk as largely in her eyes as it did\nin mine, where it was the symbol of the existence of an adored wife of a\nday. To her it was just a useful lie....\n\nWell, there you have the position, as clear as I can make it--the\nhusband an ignorant fool, the wife a cold sensualist with imbecile\nfears--for I was such a fool that I should never have known what she was\nor was not--and the blackmailing lover. And then the other lover came\nalong....\n\nWell, Edward Ashburnham was worth having. Have I conveyed to you the\nsplendid fellow that he was--the fine soldier, the excellent landlord,\nthe extraordinarily kind, careful and industrious magistrate, the\nupright, honest, fair-dealing, fair-thinking, public character? I\nsuppose I have not conveyed it to you. The truth is, that I never\nknew it until the poor girl came along--the poor girl who was just as\nstraight, as splendid and as upright as he. I swear she was. I suppose\nI ought to have known. I suppose that was, really, why I liked him so\nmuch--so infinitely much. Come to think of it, I can remember a thousand\nlittle acts of kindliness, of thoughtfulness for his inferiors, even\non the Continent. Look here, I know of two families of dirty,\nunpicturesque, Hessian paupers that that fellow, with an infinite\npatience, rooted up, got their police reports, set on their feet, or\nexported to my patient land. And he would do it quite inarticulately,\nset in motion by seeing a child crying in the street. He would wrestle\nwith dictionaries, in that unfamiliar tongue.... Well, he could not bear\nto see a child cry. Perhaps he could not bear to see a woman and not\ngive her the comfort of his physical attractions. But, although I liked\nhim so intensely, I was rather apt to take these things for granted.\nThey made me feel comfortable with him, good towards him; they made me\ntrust him. But I guess I thought it was part of the character of any\nEnglish gentleman. Why, one day he got it into his head that the head\nwaiter at the Excelsior had been crying--the fellow with the grey\nface and grey whiskers. And then he spent the best part of a week, in\ncorrespondence and up at the British consul's, in getting the fellow's\nwife to come back from London and bring back his girl baby. She had\nbolted with a Swiss scullion. If she had not come inside the week he\nwould have gone to London himself to fetch her. He was like that. Edward\nAshburnham was like that, and I thought it was only the duty of his rank\nand station. Perhaps that was all that it was--but I pray God to make\nme discharge mine as well. And, but for the poor girl, I daresay that I\nshould never have seen it, however much the feeling might have been over\nme. She had for him such enthusiasm that, although even now I do not\nunderstand the technicalities of English life, I can gather enough. She\nwas with them during the whole of our last stay at Nauheim.\n\nNancy Rufford was her name; she was Leonora's only friend's only child,\nand Leonora was her guardian, if that is the correct term. She had lived\nwith the Ashburnhams ever since she had been of the age of thirteen,\nwhen her mother was said to have committed suicide owing to the\nbrutalities of her father. Yes, it is a cheerful story.... Edward always\ncalled her \"the girl\", and it was very pretty, the evident affection\nhe had for her and she for him. And Leonora's feet she would have\nkissed--those two were for her the best man and the best woman on\nearth--and in heaven. I think that she had not a thought of evil in her\nhead--the poor girl....\n\nWell, anyhow, she chanted Edward's praises to me for the hour together,\nbut, as I have said, I could not make much of it. It appeared that he\nhad the D.S.O., and that his troop loved him beyond the love of men.\nYou never saw such a troop as his. And he had the Royal Humane Society's\nmedal with a clasp. That meant, apparently, that he had twice jumped off\nthe deck of a troopship to rescue what the girl called \"Tommies\", who\nhad fallen overboard in the Red Sea and such places. He had been twice\nrecommended for the V.C., whatever that might mean, and, although owing\nto some technicalities he had never received that apparently coveted\norder, he had some special place about his sovereign at the coronation.\nOr perhaps it was some post in the Beefeaters'. She made him out like a\ncross between Lohengrin and the Chevalier Bayard. Perhaps he was.... But\nhe was too silent a fellow to make that side of him really decorative. I\nremember going to him at about that time and asking him what the D.S.O.\nwas, and he grunted out:\n\n\"It's a sort of a thing they give grocers who've honourably supplied the\ntroops with adulterated coffee in war-time\"--something of that sort. He\ndid not quite carry conviction to me, so, in the end, I put it directly\nto Leonora. I asked her fully and squarely--prefacing the question with\nsome remarks, such as those that I have already given you, as to the\ndifficulty one has in really getting to know people when one's intimacy\nis conducted as an English acquaintanceship--I asked her whether her\nhusband was not really a splendid fellow--along at least the lines\nof his public functions. She looked at me with a slightly awakened\nair--with an air that would have been almost startled if Leonora could\never have been startled.\n\n\"Didn't you know?\" she asked. \"If I come to think of it there is not\na more splendid fellow in any three counties, pick them where you\nwill--along those lines.\" And she added, after she had looked at me\nreflectively for what seemed a long time:\n\n\"To do my husband justice there could not be a better man on the earth.\nThere would not be room for it--along those lines.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said, \"then he must really be Lohengrin and the Cid in one\nbody. For there are not any other lines that count.\"\n\nAgain she looked at me for a long time.\n\n\"It's your opinion that there are no other lines that count?\" she asked\nslowly.\n\n\"Well,\" I answered gaily, \"you're not going to accuse him of not being a\ngood husband, or of not being a good guardian to your ward?\"\n\nShe spoke then, slowly, like a person who is listening to the sounds\nin a sea-shell held to her ear--and, would you believe it?--she told me\nafterwards that, at that speech of mine, for the first time she had a\nvague inkling of the tragedy that was to follow so soon--although the\ngirl had lived with them for eight years or so:\n\n\"Oh, I'm not thinking of saying that he is not the best of husbands, or\nthat he is not very fond of the girl.\"\n\nAnd then I said something like:\n\n\"Well, Leonora, a man sees more of these things than even a wife. And,\nlet me tell you, that in all the years I've known Edward he has never,\nin your absence, paid a moment's attention to any other woman--not by\nthe quivering of an eyelash. I should have noticed. And he talks of you\nas if you were one of the angels of God.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" she came up to the scratch, as you could be sure Leonora would\nalways come up to the scratch, \"I am perfectly sure that he always\nspeaks nicely of me.\"\n\nI daresay she had practice in that sort of scene--people must have been\nalways complimenting her on her husband's fidelity and adoration. For\nhalf the world--the whole of the world that knew Edward and Leonora\nbelieved that his conviction in the Kilsyte affair had been a\nmiscarriage of justice--a conspiracy of false evidence, got together by\nNonconformist adversaries. But think of the fool that I was....\n\nII\n\nLET me think where we were. Oh, yes... that conversation took place on\nthe 4th of August, 1913. I remember saying to her that, on that day,\nexactly nine years before, I had made their acquaintance, so that it had\nseemed quite appropriate and like a birthday speech to utter my little\ntestimonial to my friend Edward. I could quite confidently say that,\nthough we four had been about together in all sorts of places, for all\nthat length of time, I had not, for my part, one single complaint to\nmake of either of them. And I added, that that was an unusual record for\npeople who had been so much together. You are not to imagine that it was\nonly at Nauheim that we met. That would not have suited Florence.\n\nI find, on looking at my diaries, that on the 4th of September, 1904,\nEdward accompanied Florence and myself to Paris, where we put him up\ntill the twenty-first of that month. He made another short visit to us\nin December of that year--the first year of our acquaintance. It must\nhave been during this visit that he knocked Mr Jimmy's teeth down his\nthroat. I daresay Florence had asked him to come over for that purpose.\nIn 1905 he was in Paris three times--once with Leonora, who wanted some\nfrocks. In 1906 we spent the best part of six weeks together at Mentone,\nand Edward stayed with us in Paris on his way back to London. That was\nhow it went.\n\nThe fact was that in Florence the poor wretch had got hold of a Tartar,\ncompared with whom Leonora was a sucking kid. He must have had a hell of\na time. Leonora wanted to keep him for--what shall I say--for the good\nof her church, as it were, to show that Catholic women do not lose their\nmen. Let it go at that, for the moment. I will write more about her\nmotives later, perhaps. But Florence was sticking on to the proprietor\nof the home of her ancestors. No doubt he was also a very passionate\nlover. But I am convinced that he was sick of Florence within three\nyears of even interrupted companionship and the life that she led\nhim....\n\nIf ever Leonora so much as mentioned in a letter that they had had a\nwoman staying with them--or, if she so much as mentioned a woman's name\nin a letter to me--off would go a desperate cable in cipher to that poor\nwretch at Branshaw, commanding him on pain of an instant and horrible\ndisclosure to come over and assure her of his fidelity. I daresay he\nwould have faced it out; I daresay he would have thrown over Florence\nand taken the risk of exposure. But there he had Leonora to deal with.\nAnd Leonora assured him that, if the minutest fragment of the real\nsituation ever got through to my senses, she would wreak upon him the\nmost terrible vengeance that she could think of. And he did not have a\nvery easy job. Florence called for more and more attentions from him as\nthe time went on. She would make him kiss her at any moment of the day;\nand it was only by his making it plain that a divorced lady could never\nassume a position in the county of Hampshire that he could prevent\nher from making a bolt of it with him in her train. Oh, yes, it was a\ndifficult job for him.\n\nFor Florence, if you please, gaining in time a more composed view of\nnature, and overcome by her habits of garrulity, arrived at a frame\nof mind in which she found it almost necessary to tell me all about\nit--nothing less than that. She said that her situation was too\nunbearable with regard to me.\n\nShe proposed to tell me all, secure a divorce from me, and go with\nEdward and settle in California.... I do not suppose that she was really\nserious in this. It would have meant the extinction of all hopes of\nBranshaw Manor for her. Besides she had got it into her head that\nLeonora, who was as sound as a roach, was consumptive. She was always\nbegging Leonora, before me, to go and see a doctor. But, none the less,\npoor Edward seems to have believed in her determination to carry him\noff. He would not have gone; he cared for his wife too much. But, if\nFlorence had put him at it, that would have meant my getting to know of\nit, and his incurring Leonora's vengeance. And she could have made it\npretty hot for him in ten or a dozen different ways. And she assured me\nthat she would have used every one of them. She was determined to spare\nmy feelings. And she was quite aware that, at that date, the hottest she\ncould have made it for him would have been to refuse, herself, ever to\nsee him again....\n\nWell, I think I have made it pretty clear. Let me come to the 4th of\nAugust, 1913, the last day of my absolute ignorance--and, I assure you,\nof my perfect happiness. For the coming of that dear girl only added to\nit all.\n\nOn that 4th of August I was sitting in the lounge with a rather odious\nEnglishman called Bagshawe, who had arrived that night, too late for\ndinner. Leonora had just gone to bed and I was waiting for Florence and\nEdward and the girl to come back from a concert at the Casino. They had\nnot gone there all together. Florence, I remember, had said at first\nthat she would remain with Leonora, and me, and Edward and the girl\nhad gone off alone. And then Leonora had said to Florence with perfect\ncalmness:\n\n\"I wish you would go with those two. I think the girl ought to have the\nappearance of being chaperoned with Edward in these places. I think the\ntime has come.\" So Florence, with her light step, had slipped out after\nthem. She was all in black for some cousin or other. Americans are\nparticular in those matters.\n\nWe had gone on sitting in the lounge till towards ten, when Leonora had\ngone up to bed. It had been a very hot day, but there it was cool. The\nman called Bagshawe had been reading The Times on the other side of\nthe room, but then he moved over to me with some trifling question as\na prelude to suggesting an acquaintance. I fancy he asked me something\nAbout the poll-tax on Kur-guests, and whether it could not be sneaked\nout of. He was that sort of person.\n\nWell, he was an unmistakable man, with a military figure, rather\nexaggerated, with bulbous eyes that avoided your own, and a pallid\ncomplexion that suggested vices practised in secret along with an uneasy\ndesire for making acquaintance at whatever cost.... The filthy toad... .\n\nHe began by telling me that he came from Ludlow Manor, near Ledbury.\nThe name had a slightly familiar sound, though I could not fix it in\nmy mind. Then he began to talk about a duty on hops, about Californian\nhops, about Los Angeles, where he had been. He fencing for a topic with\nwhich he might gain my affection.\n\nAnd then, quite suddenly, in the bright light of the street, I saw\nFlorence running. It was like that--I saw Florence running with a face\nwhiter than paper and her hand on the black stuff over her heart. I tell\nyou, my own heart stood still; I tell you I could not move. She rushed\nin at the swing doors. She looked round that place of rush chairs, cane\ntables and newspapers. She saw me and opened her lips. She saw the\nman who was talking to me. She stuck her hands over her face as if she\nwished to push her eyes out. And she was not there any more.\n\nI could not move; I could not stir a finger. And then that man said:\n\n\"By Jove: Florry Hurlbird.\" He turned upon me with an oily and uneasy\nsound meant for a laugh. He was really going to ingratiate himself with\nme. \"Do you know who that is?\" he asked. \"The last time I saw that girl\nshe was coming out of the bedroom of a young man called Jimmy at five\no'clock in the morning. In my house at Ledbury. You saw her recognize\nme.\" He was standing on his feet, looking down at me. I don't know what\nI looked like. At any rate, he gave a sort of gurgle and then stuttered:\n\n\"Oh, I say....\" Those were the last words I ever heard of Mr Bagshawe's.\nA long time afterwards I pulled myself out of the lounge and went up to\nFlorence's room. She had not locked the door--for the first time of\nour married life. She was lying, quite respectably arranged, unlike\nMrs Maidan, on her bed. She had a little phial that rightly should have\ncontained nitrate of amyl, in her right hand. That was on the 4th of\nAugust, 1913.\n\n\n\n\nPART III\n\nI\n\nTHE odd thing is that what sticks out in my recollection of the rest of\nthat evening was Leonora's saying:\n\n\"Of course you might marry her,\" and, when I asked whom, she answered:\n\n\"The girl.\"\n\nNow that is to me a very amazing thing--amazing for the light of\npossibilities that it casts into the human heart. For I had never had\nthe slightest conscious idea of marrying the girl; I never had the\nslightest idea even of caring for her. I must have talked in an odd way,\nas people do who are recovering from an anaesthetic. It is as if one had\na dual personality, the one I being entirely unconscious of the other.\nI had thought nothing; I had said such an extraordinary thing. I don't\nknow that analysis of my own psychology matters at all to this story.\nI should say that it didn't or, at any rate, that I had given enough of\nit. But that odd remark of mine had a strong influence upon what came\nafter. I mean, that Leonora would probably never have spoken to me at\nall about Florence's relations with Edward if I hadn't said, two hours\nafter my wife's death:\n\n\"Now I can marry the girl.\"\n\nShe had, then, taken it for granted that I had been suffering all that\nshe had been suffering, or, at least, that I had permitted all that she\nhad permitted. So that, a month ago, about a week after the funeral of\npoor Edward, she could say to me in the most natural way in the world--I\nhad been talking about the duration of my stay at Branshaw--she said\nwith her clear, reflective intonation:\n\n\"Oh, stop here for ever and ever if you can.\" And then she added, \"You\ncouldn't be more of a brother to me, or more of a counsellor, or more of\na support. You are all the consolation I have in the world. And isn't\nit odd to think that if your wife hadn't been my husband's mistress, you\nwould probably never have been here at all?\"\n\nThat was how I got the news--full in the face, like that. I didn't say\nanything and I don't suppose I felt anything, unless maybe it was with\nthat mysterious and unconscious self that underlies most people. Perhaps\none day when I am unconscious or walking in my sleep I may go and spit\nupon poor Edward's grave. It seems about the most unlikely thing I could\ndo; but there it is. No, I remember no emotion of any sort, but just the\nclear feeling that one has from time to time when one hears that some\nMrs So-and-So is au mieux with a certain gentleman. It made things\nplainer, suddenly, to my curiosity. It was as if I thought, at that\nmoment, of a windy November evening, that, when I came to think it over\nafterwards, a dozen unexplained things would fit themselves into place.\nBut I wasn't thinking things over then. I remember that distinctly. I\nwas just sitting back, rather stiffly, in a deep arm-chair. That is what\nI remember. It was twilight.\n\nBranshaw Manor lies in a little hollow with lawns across it and\npine-woods on the fringe of the dip. The immense wind, coming from\nacross the forest, roared overhead. But the view from the window was\nperfectly quiet and grey. Not a thing stirred, except a couple of\nrabbits on the extreme edge of the lawn. It was Leonora's own little\nstudy that we were in and we were waiting for the tea to be brought. I,\nas I said, was sitting in the deep chair, Leonora was standing in the\nwindow twirling the wooden acorn at the end of the window-blind cord\ndesultorily round and round. She looked across the lawn and said, as far\nas I can remember:\n\n\"Edward has been dead only ten days and yet there are rabbits on the\nlawn.\"\n\nI understand that rabbits do a great deal of harm to the short grass in\nEngland. And then she turned round to me and said without any adornment\nat all, for I remember her exact words:\n\n\"I think it was stupid of Florence to commit suicide.\"\n\nI cannot tell you the extraordinary sense of leisure that we two seemed\nto have at that moment. It wasn't as if we were waiting for a train,\nit wasn't as if we were waiting for a meal--it was just that there was\nnothing to wait for. Nothing. There was an extreme stillness with the\nremote and intermittent sound of the wind. There was the grey light in\nthat brown, small room. And there appeared to be nothing else in the\nworld. I knew then that Leonora was about to let me into her full\nconfidence. It was as if--or no, it was the actual fact that--Leonora\nwith an odd English sense of decency had determined to wait until Edward\nhad been in his grave for a full week before she spoke. And with some\nvague motive of giving her an idea of the extent to which she must\npermit herself to make confidences, I said slowly--and these words too I\nremember with exactitude--\"Did Florence commit suicide? I didn't know.\"\n\nI was just, you understand, trying to let her know that, if she were\ngoing to speak she would have to talk about a much wider range of things\nthan she had before thought necessary.\n\nSo that that was the first knowledge I had that Florence had committed\nsuicide. It had never entered my head. You may think that I had been\nsingularly lacking in suspiciousness; you may consider me even to have\nbeen an imbecile. But consider the position.\n\nIn such circumstances of clamour, of outcry, of the crash of many\npeople running together, of the professional reticence of such people\nas hotel-keepers, the traditional reticence of such \"good people\" as the\nAshburnhams--in such circumstances it is some little material object,\nalways, that catches the eye and that appeals to the imagination. I had\nno possible guide to the idea of suicide and the sight of the little\nflask of nitrate of amyl in Florence's hand suggested instantly to\nmy mind the idea of the failure of her heart. Nitrate of amyl, you\nunderstand, is the drug that is given to relieve sufferers from angina\npectoris.\n\nSeeing Florence, as I had seen her, running with a white face and\nwith one hand held over her heart, and seeing her, as I immediately\nafterwards saw her, lying upon her bed with the so familiar little brown\nflask clenched in her fingers, it was natural enough for my mind to\nframe the idea. As happened now and again, I thought, she had gone out\nwithout her remedy and, having felt an attack coming on whilst she was\nin the gardens, she had run in to get the nitrate in order, as quickly\nas possible, to obtain relief. And it was equally inevitable my mind\nshould frame the thought that her heart, unable to stand the strain\nof the running, should have broken in her side. How could I have known\nthat, during all the years of our married life, that little brown\nflask had contained, not nitrate of amyl, but prussic acid? It was\ninconceivable.\n\nWhy, not even Edward Ashburnham, who was, after all more intimate with\nher than I was, had an inkling of the truth. He just thought that she\nhad dropped dead of heart disease. Indeed, I fancy that the only people\nwho ever knew that Florence had committed suicide were Leonora, the\nGrand Duke, the head of the police and the hotel-keeper. I mention these\nlast three because my recollection of that night is only the sort of\npinkish effulgence from the electric-lamps in the hotel lounge. There\nseemed to bob into my consciousness, like floating globes, the faces of\nthose three. Now it would be the bearded, monarchical, benevolent head\nof the Grand Duke; then the sharp-featured, brown, cavalry-moustached\nfeature of the chief of police; then the globular, polished and\nhigh-collared vacuousness that represented Monsieur Schontz, the\nproprietor of the hotel. At times one head would be there alone, at\nanother the spiked helmet of the official would be close to the healthy\nbaldness of the prince; then M. Schontz's oiled locks would push in\nbetween the two. The sovereign's soft, exquisitely trained voice would\nsay, \"Ja, ja, ja!\" each word dropping out like so many soft pellets\nof suet; the subdued rasp of the official would come: \"Zum Befehl\nDurchlaucht,\" like five revolver-shots; the voice of M. Schontz would go\non and on under its breath like that of an unclean priest reciting\nfrom his breviary in the corner of a railway-carriage. That was how it\npresented itself to me.\n\nThey seemed to take no notice of me; I don't suppose that I was even\naddressed by one of them. But, as long as one or the other, or all three\nof them were there, they stood between me as if, I being the titular\npossessor of the corpse, had a right to be present at their conferences.\nThen they all went away and I was left alone for a long time.\n\nAnd I thought nothing; absolutely nothing. I had no ideas; I had no\nstrength. I felt no sorrow, no desire for action, no inclination to\ngo upstairs and fall upon the body of my wife. I just saw the pink\neffulgence, the cane tables, the palms, the globular match-holders, the\nindented ash-trays. And then Leonora came to me and it appears that I\naddressed to her that singular remark:\n\n\"Now I can marry the girl.\"\n\nBut I have given you absolutely the whole of my recollection of that\nevening, as it is the whole of my recollection of the succeeding three\nor four days. I was in a state just simply cataleptic. They put me to\nbed and I stayed there; they brought me my clothes and I dressed; they\nled me to an open grave and I stood beside it. If they had taken me to\nthe edge of a river, or if they had flung me beneath a railway train,\nI should have been drowned or mangled in the same spirit. I was the\nwalking dead.\n\nWell, those are my impressions.\n\nWhat had actually happened had been this. I pieced it together\nafterwards. You will remember I said that Edward Ashburnham and the girl\nhad gone off, that night, to a concert at the Casino and that Leonora\nhad asked Florence, almost immediately after their departure, to follow\nthem and to perform the office of chaperone. Florence, you may also\nremember, was all in black, being the mourning that she wore for a\ndeceased cousin, Jean Hurlbird. It was a very black night and the girl\nwas dressed in cream-coloured muslin, that must have glimmered under the\ntall trees of the dark park like a phosphorescent fish in a cupboard.\nYou couldn't have had a better beacon.\n\nAnd it appears that Edward Ashburnham led the girl not up the straight\nallée that leads to the Casino, but in under the dark trees of the park.\nEdward Ashburnham told me all this in his final outburst. I have told\nyou that, upon that occasion, he became deucedly vocal. I didn't pump\nhim. I hadn't any motive. At that time I didn't in the least connect him\nwith my wife. But the fellow talked like a cheap novelist.--Or like a\nvery good novelist for the matter of that, if it's the business of a\nnovelist to make you see things clearly. And I tell you I see that thing\nas clearly as if it were a dream that never left me. It appears that,\nnot very far from the Casino, he and the girl sat down in the darkness\nupon a public bench. The lights from that place of entertainment must\nhave reached them through the tree-trunks, since, Edward said, he could\nquite plainly see the girl's face--that beloved face with the high\nforehead, the queer mouth, the tortured eyebrows, and the direct eyes.\nAnd to Florence, creeping up behind them, they must have presented the\nappearance of silhouettes. For I take it that Florence came creeping up\nbehind them over the short grass to a tree that, I quite well remember,\nwas immediately behind that public seat. It was not a very difficult\nfeat for a woman instinct with jealousy. The Casino orchestra was, as\nEdward remembered to tell me, playing the Rakocsy march, and although\nit was not loud enough, at that distance, to drown the voice of Edward\nAshburnham it was certainly sufficiently audible to efface, amongst the\nnoises of the night, the slight brushings and rustlings that might have\nbeen made by the feet of Florence or by her gown in coming over the\nshort grass. And that miserable woman must have got it in the face,\ngood and strong. It must have been horrible for her. Horrible! Well, I\nsuppose she deserved all that she got.\n\nAnyhow, there you have the picture, the immensely tall trees, elms most\nof them, towering and feathering away up into the black mistiness that\ntrees seem to gather about them at night; the silhouettes of those two\nupon the seat; the beams of light coming from the Casino, the woman all\nin black peeping with fear behind the tree-trunk. It is melodrama; but I\ncan't help it.\n\nAnd then, it appears, something happened to Edward Ashburnham. He\nassured me--and I see no reason for disbelieving him--that until that\nmoment he had had no idea whatever of caring for the girl. He said that\nhe had regarded her exactly as he would have regarded a daughter. He\ncertainly loved her, but with a very deep, very tender and very tranquil\nlove. He had missed her when she went away to her convent-school; he\nhad been glad when she had returned. But of more than that he had been\ntotally unconscious. Had he been conscious of it, he assured me, he\nwould have fled from it as from a thing accursed. He realized that it\nwas the last outrage upon Leonora. But the real point was his entire\nunconsciousness. He had gone with her into that dark park with no\nquickening of the pulse, with no desire for the intimacy of solitude.\nHe had gone, intending to talk about polo-ponies, and tennis-racquets;\nabout the temperament of the reverend Mother at the convent she had left\nand about whether her frock for a party when they got home should be\nwhite or blue. It hadn't come into his head that they would talk about a\nsingle thing that they hadn't always talked about; it had not even\ncome into his head that the tabu which extended around her was not\ninviolable. And then, suddenly, that--He was very careful to assure me\nthat at that time there was no physical motive about his declaration. It\ndid not appear to him to be a matter of a dark night and a propinquity\nand so on. No, it was simply of her effect on the moral side of his life\nthat he appears to have talked. He said that he never had the slightest\nnotion to enfold her in his arms or so much as to touch her hand. He\nswore that he did not touch her hand. He said that they sat, she at one\nend of the bench, he at the other; he leaning slightly towards her\nand she looking straight towards the light of the Casino, her face\nilluminated by the lamps. The expression upon her face he could only\ndescribe as \"queer\". At another time, indeed, he made it appear that he\nthought she was glad. It is easy to imagine that she was glad, since\nat that time she could have had no idea of what was really happening.\nFrankly, she adored Edward Ashburnham. He was for her, in everything\nthat she said at that time, the model of humanity, the hero, the\nathlete, the father of his country, the law-giver. So that for her,\nto be suddenly, intimately and overwhelmingly praised must have been\na matter for mere gladness, however overwhelming it were. It must have\nbeen as if a god had approved her handiwork or a king her loyalty. She\njust sat still and listened, smiling. And it seemed to her that all the\nbitterness of her childhood, the terrors of her tempestuous father, the\nbewailings of her cruel-tongued mother were suddenly atoned for. She\nhad her recompense at last. Because, of course, if you come to figure\nit out, a sudden pouring forth of passion by a man whom you regard as a\ncross between a pastor and a father might, to a woman, have the aspect\nof mere praise for good conduct. It wouldn't, I mean, appear at all in\nthe light of an attempt to gain possession. The girl, at least, regarded\nhim as firmly anchored to his Leonora. She had not the slightest inkling\nof any infidelities. He had always spoken to her of his wife in terms of\nreverence and deep affection. He had given her the idea that he regarded\nLeonora as absolutely impeccable and as absolutely satisfying. Their\nunion had appeared to her to be one of those blessed things that are\nspoken of and contemplated with reverence by her church.\n\nSo that, when he spoke of her as being the person he cared most for in\nthe world, she naturally thought that he meant to except Leonora and\nshe was just glad. It was like a father saying that he approved of a\nmarriageable daughter... And Edward, when he realized what he was doing,\ncurbed his tongue at once. She was just glad and she went on being just\nglad.\n\nI suppose that that was the most monstrously wicked thing that Edward\nAshburnham ever did in his life. And yet I am so near to all these\npeople that I cannot think any of them wicked. It is impossible of me\nto think of Edward Ashburnham as anything but straight, upright and\nhonourable. That, I mean, is, in spite of everything, my permanent view\nof him. I try at times by dwelling on some of the things that he did\nto push that image of him away, as you might try to push aside a large\npendulum. But it always comes back--the memory of his innumerable acts\nof kindness, of his efficiency, of his unspiteful tongue. He was such a\nfine fellow.\n\nSo I feel myself forced to attempt to excuse him in this as in so many\nother things. It is, I have no doubt, a most monstrous thing to attempt\nto corrupt a young girl just out of a convent. But I think Edward had\nno idea at all of corrupting her. I believe that he simply loved her.\nHe said that that was the way of it and I, at least, believe him and I\nbelieve too that she was the only woman he ever really loved. He said\nthat that was so; and he did enough to prove it. And Leonora said that\nit was so and Leonora knew him to the bottom of his heart.\n\nI have come to be very much of a cynic in these matters; I mean that it\nis impossible to believe in the permanence of man's or woman's love. Or,\nat any rate, it is impossible to believe in the permanence of any early\npassion. As I see it, at least, with regard to man, a love affair, a\nlove for any definite woman--is something in the nature of a widening\nof the experience. With each new woman that a man is attracted to\nthere appears to come a broadening of the outlook, or, if you like, an\nacquiring of new territory. A turn of the eyebrow, a tone of the voice,\na queer characteristic gesture--all these things, and it is these things\nthat cause to arise the passion of love--all these things are like so\nmany objects on the horizon of the landscape that tempt a man to walk\nbeyond the horizon, to explore. He wants to get, as it were, behind\nthose eyebrows with the peculiar turn, as if he desired to see the world\nwith the eyes that they overshadow. He wants to hear that voice applying\nitself to every possible proposition, to every possible topic; he wants\nto see those characteristic gestures against every possible background.\nOf the question of the sex-instinct I know very little and I do not\nthink that it counts for very much in a really great passion. It can be\naroused by such nothings--by an untied shoelace, by a glance of the\neye in passing--that I think it might be left out of the calculation. I\ndon't mean to say that any great passion can exist without a desire for\nconsummation. That seems to me to be a commonplace and to be therefore a\nmatter needing no comment at all. It is a thing, with all its accidents,\nthat must be taken for granted, as, in a novel, or a biography, you\ntake it for granted that the characters have their meals with some\nregularity. But the real fierceness of desire, the real heat of a\npassion long continued and withering up the soul of a man is the craving\nfor identity with the woman that he loves. He desires to see with the\nsame eyes, to touch with the same sense of touch, to hear with the\nsame ears, to lose his identity, to be enveloped, to be supported. For,\nwhatever may be said of the relation of the sexes, there is no man who\nloves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his\ncourage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be\nthe mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are\nall so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own\nworthiness to exist. So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition,\nthe man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the\nencouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of\nhis own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as\nthe shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages\nof the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will\nhave been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story. And\nyet I do believe that for every man there comes at last a woman--or no,\nthat is the wrong way of formulating it. For every man there comes\nat last a time of life when the woman who then sets her seal upon his\nimagination has set her seal for good. He will travel over no more\nhorizons; he will never again set the knapsack over his shoulders; he\nwill retire from those scenes. He will have gone out of the business.\nThat at any rate was the case with Edward and the poor girl. It was\nquite literally the case. It was quite literally the case that his\npassions--for the mistress of the Grand Duke, for Mrs Basil, for little\nMrs Maidan, for Florence, for whom you will--these passions were merely\npreliminary canters compared to his final race with death for her. I\nam certain of that. I am not going to be so American as to say that all\ntrue love demands some sacrifice. It doesn't. But I think that love will\nbe truer and more permanent in which self-sacrifice has been exacted.\nAnd, in the case of the other women, Edward just cut in and cut them\nout as he did with the polo-ball from under the nose of Count Baron von\nLelöffel. I don't mean to say that he didn't wear himself as thin as a\nlath in the endeavour to capture the other women; but over her he wore\nhimself to rags and tatters and death--in the effort to leave her alone.\n\nAnd, in speaking to her on that night, he wasn't, I am convinced,\ncommitting a baseness. It was as if his passion for her hadn't existed;\nas if the very words that he spoke, without knowing that he spoke them,\ncreated the passion as they went along. Before he spoke, there was\nnothing; afterwards, it was the integral fact of his life. Well, I must\nget back to my story.\n\nAnd my story was concerning itself with Florence--with Florence,\nwho heard those words from behind the tree. That of course is only\nconjecture, but I think the conjecture is pretty well justified. You\nhave the fact that those two went out, that she followed them almost\nimmediately afterwards through the darkness and, a little later, she\ncame running back to the hotel with that pallid face and the hand\nclutching her dress over her heart. It can't have been only Bagshawe.\nHer face was contorted with agony before ever her eyes fell upon me\nor upon him beside me. But I dare say Bagshawe may have been the\ndetermining influence in her suicide. Leonora says that she had that\nflask, apparently of nitrate of amyl, but actually of prussic acid, for\nmany years and that she was determined to use it if ever I discovered\nthe nature of her relationship with that fellow Jimmy. You see, the\nmainspring of her nature must have been vanity. There is no reason why\nit shouldn't have been; I guess it is vanity that makes most of us keep\nstraight, if we do keep straight, in this world.\n\nIf it had been merely a matter of Edward's relations with the girl I\ndare say Florence would have faced it out. She would no doubt have made\nhim scenes, have threatened him, have appealed to his sense of humour,\nto his promises. But Mr Bagshawe and the fact that the date was the 4th\nof August must have been too much for her superstitious mind. You see,\nshe had two things that she wanted. She wanted to be a great lady,\ninstalled in Branshaw Teleragh. She wanted also to retain my respect.\n\nShe wanted, that is to say, to retain my respect for as long as she\nlived with me. I suppose, if she had persuaded Edward Ashburnham to bolt\nwith her she would have let the whole thing go with a run. Or perhaps\nshe would have tried to exact from me a new respect for the greatness of\nher passion on the lines of all for love and the world well lost. That\nwould be just like Florence.\n\nIn all matrimonial associations there is, I believe, one constant\nfactor--a desire to deceive the person with whom one lives as to some\nweak spot in one's character or in one's career. For it is intolerable\nto live constantly with one human being who perceives one's small\nmeannesses. It is really death to do so--that is why so many marriages\nturn out unhappily.\n\nI, for instance, am a rather greedy man; I have a taste for good\ncookery and a watering tooth at the mere sound of the names of certain\ncomestibles. If Florence had discovered this secret of mine I should\nhave found her knowledge of it so unbearable that I never could have\nsupported all the other privations of the régime that she extracted from\nme. I am bound to say that Florence never discovered this secret.\n\nCertainly she never alluded to it; I dare say she never took sufficient\ninterest in me.\n\nAnd the secret weakness of Florence--the weakness that she could not\nbear to have me discover, was just that early escapade with the fellow\ncalled Jimmy. Let me, as this is in all probability the last time I\nshall mention Florence's name, dwell a little upon the change that had\ntaken place in her psychology. She would not, I mean, have minded if I\nhad discovered that she was the mistress of Edward Ashburnham. She would\nrather have liked it. Indeed, the chief trouble of poor Leonora in those\ndays was to keep Florence from making, before me, theatrical displays,\non one line or another, of that very fact. She wanted, in one mood,\nto come rushing to me, to cast herself on her knees at my feet and to\ndeclaim a carefully arranged, frightfully emotional, outpouring as to\nher passion. That was to show that she was like one of the great erotic\nwomen of whom history tells us. In another mood she would desire to come\nto me disdainfully and to tell me that I was considerably less than a\nman and that what had happened was what must happen when a real male\ncame along. She wanted to say that in cool, balanced and sarcastic\nsentences. That was when she wished to appear like the heroine of a\nFrench comedy. Because of course she was always play acting.\n\nBut what she didn't want me to know was the fact of her first escapade\nwith the fellow called Jimmy. She had arrived at figuring out the sort\nof low-down Bowery tough that that fellow was. Do you know what it is to\nshudder, in later life, for some small, stupid action--usually for some\nsmall, quite genuine piece of emotionalism--of your early life? Well, it\nwas that sort of shuddering that came over Florence at the thought that\nshe had surrendered to such a low fellow. I don't know that she need\nhave shuddered. It was her footling old uncle's work; he ought never to\nhave taken those two round the world together and shut himself up in his\ncabin for the greater part of the time. Anyhow, I am convinced that the\nsight of Mr Bagshawe and the thought that Mr Bagshawe--for she knew that\nunpleasant and toadlike personality--the thought that Mr Bagshawe would\nalmost certainly reveal to me that he had caught her coming out of\nJimmy's bedroom at five o'clock in the morning on the 4th of August,\n1900--that was the determining influence in her suicide. And no doubt\nthe effect of the date was too much for her superstitious personality.\nShe had been born on the 4th of August; she had started to go round the\nworld on the 4th of August; she had become a low fellow's mistress on\nthe 4th of August. On the same day of the year she had married me; on\nthat 4th she had lost Edward's love, and Bagshawe had appeared like a\nsinister omen--like a grin on the face of Fate. It was the last straw.\nShe ran upstairs, arranged herself decoratively upon her bed--she was a\nsweetly pretty woman with smooth pink and white cheeks, long hair,\nthe eyelashes falling like a tiny curtain on her cheeks. She drank the\nlittle phial of prussic acid and there she lay.--Oh, extremely charming\nand clear-cut--looking with a puzzled expression at the electric-light\nbulb that hung from the ceiling, or perhaps through it, to the stars\nabove. Who knows? Anyhow, there was an end of Florence.\n\nYou have no idea how quite extraordinarily for me that was the end of\nFlorence. From that day to this I have never given her another thought;\nI have not bestowed upon her so much as a sigh. Of course, when it has\nbeen necessary to talk about her to Leonora, or when for the purpose of\nthese writings I have tried to figure her out, I have thought about her\nas I might do about a problem in algebra. But it has always been as a\nmatter for study, not for remembrance. She just went completely out of\nexistence, like yesterday's paper.\n\nI was so deadly tired. And I dare say that my week or ten days of\naffaissement--of what was practically catalepsy--was just the repose\nthat my exhausted nature claimed after twelve years of the repression of\nmy instincts, after twelve years of playing the trained poodle. For\nthat was all that I had been. I suppose that it was the shock that did\nit--the several shocks. But I am unwilling to attribute my feelings\nat that time to anything so concrete as a shock. It was a feeling so\ntranquil. It was as if an immensely heavy--an unbearably heavy knapsack,\nsupported upon my shoulders by straps, had fallen off and left my\nshoulders themselves that the straps had cut into, numb and without\nsensation of life. I tell you, I had no regret. What had I to regret?\nI suppose that my inner soul--my dual personality--had realized long\nbefore that Florence was a personality of paper--that she represented a\nreal human being with a heart, with feelings, with sympathies and with\nemotions only as a bank-note represents a certain quantity of gold. I\nknow that sort of feeling came to the surface in me the moment the\nman Bagshawe told me that he had seen her coming out of that fellow's\nbedroom. I thought suddenly that she wasn't real; she was just a mass\nof talk out of guidebooks, of drawings out of fashion-plates. It is even\npossible that, if that feeling had not possessed me, I should have run\nup sooner to her room and might have prevented her drinking the prussic\nacid. But I just couldn't do it; it would have been like chasing a scrap\nof paper--an occupation ignoble for a grown man.\n\nAnd, as it began, so that matter has remained. I didn't care whether\nshe had come out of that bedroom or whether she hadn't. It simply didn't\ninterest me. Florence didn't matter.\n\nI suppose you will retort that I was in love with Nancy Rufford and that\nmy indifference was therefore discreditable. Well, I am not seeking to\navoid discredit. I was in love with Nancy Rufford as I am in love with\nthe poor child's memory, quietly and quite tenderly in my American sort\nof way. I had never thought about it until I heard Leonora state that I\nmight now marry her. But, from that moment until her worse than death, I\ndo not suppose that I much thought about anything else. I don't mean to\nsay that I sighed about her or groaned; I just wanted to marry her as\nsome people want to go to Carcassonne.\n\nDo you understand the feeling--the sort of feeling that you must get\ncertain matters out of the way, smooth out certain fairly negligible\ncomplications before you can go to a place that has, during all your\nlife, been a sort of dream city? I didn't attach much importance to my\nsuperior years. I was forty-five, and she, poor thing, was only just\nrising twenty-two. But she was older than her years and quieter. She\nseemed to have an odd quality of sainthood, as if she must inevitably\nend in a convent with a white coif framing her face. But she had\nfrequently told me that she had no vocation; it just simply wasn't\nthere--the desire to become a nun. Well, I guess that I was a sort of\nconvent myself; it seemed fairly proper that she should make her vows to\nme. No, I didn't see any impediment on the score of age. I dare say no\nman does and I was pretty confident that with a little preparation, I\ncould make a young girl happy. I could spoil her as few young girls have\never been spoiled; and I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive.\nNo man can, or if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him. But,\nas soon as I came out of my catalepsy, I seemed to perceive that my\nproblem--that what I had to do to prepare myself for getting into\ncontact with her, was just to get back into contact with life. I had\nbeen kept for twelve years in a rarefied atmosphere; what I then had\nto do was a little fighting with real life, some wrestling with men\nof business, some travelling amongst larger cities, something harsh,\nsomething masculine. I didn't want to present myself to Nancy Rufford as\na sort of an old maid. That was why, just a fortnight after Florence's\nsuicide, I set off for the United States.\n\nII\n\nIMMEDIATELY after Florence's death Leonora began to put the leash upon\nNancy Rufford and Edward. She had guessed what had happened under the\ntrees near the Casino. They stayed at Nauheim some weeks after I went,\nand Leonora has told me that that was the most deadly time of her\nexistence. It seemed like a long, silent duel with invisible weapons,\nso she said. And it was rendered all the more difficult by the girl's\nentire innocence. For Nancy was always trying to go off alone with\nEdward--as she had been doing all her life, whenever she was home for\nholidays. She just wanted him to say nice things to her again.\n\nYou see, the position was extremely complicated. It was as complicated\nas it well could be, along delicate lines. There was the complication\ncaused by the fact that Edward and Leonora never spoke to each other\nexcept when other people were present. Then, as I have said, their\ndemeanours were quite perfect. There was the complication caused by the\ngirl's entire innocence; there was the further complication that both\nEdward and Leonora really regarded the girl as their daughter. Or it\nmight be more precise to say that they regarded her as being Leonora's\ndaughter. And Nancy was a queer girl; it is very difficult to describe\nher to you.\n\nShe was tall and strikingly thin; she had a tortured mouth, agonized\neyes, and a quite extraordinary sense of fun. You, might put it that\nat times she was exceedingly grotesque and at times extraordinarily\nbeautiful. Why, she had the heaviest head of black hair that I have ever\ncome across; I used to wonder how she could bear the weight of it. She\nwas just over twenty-one and at times she seemed as old as the hills, at\ntimes not much more than sixteen. At one moment she would be talking of\nthe lives of the saints and at the next she would be tumbling all over\nthe lawn with the St Bernard puppy. She could ride to hounds like\na Maenad and she could sit for hours perfectly still, steeping\nhandkerchief after handkerchief in vinegar when Leonora had one of her\nheadaches. She was, in short, a miracle of patience who could be almost\nmiraculously impatient. It was, no doubt, the convent training that\neffected that. I remember that one of her letters to me, when she was\nabout sixteen, ran something like:\n\n\"On Corpus Christi\"--or it may have been some other saint's day, I\ncannot keep these things in my head--\"our school played Roehampton at\nHockey. And, seeing that our side was losing, being three goals to\none against us at halftime, we retired into the chapel and prayed for\nvictory. We won by five goals to three.\" And I remember that she seemed\nto describe afterwards a sort of saturnalia. Apparently, when the\nvictorious fifteen or eleven came into the refectory for supper, the\nwhole school jumped upon the tables and cheered and broke the chairs on\nthe floor and smashed the crockery--for a given time, until the\nReverend Mother rang a hand-bell. That is of course the Catholic\ntradition--saturnalia that can end in a moment, like the crack of a\nwhip. I don't, of course, like the tradition, but I am bound to say that\nit gave Nancy--or at any rate Nancy had--a sense of rectitude that I\nhave never seen surpassed. It was a thing like a knife that looked\nout of her eyes and that spoke with her voice, just now and then. It\npositively frightened me. I suppose that I was almost afraid to be in a\nworld where there could be so fine a standard. I remember when she was\nabout fifteen or sixteen on going back to the convent I once gave her\na couple of English sovereigns as a tip. She thanked me in a peculiarly\nheartfelt way, saying that it would come in extremely handy. I asked her\nwhy and she explained. There was a rule at the school that the pupils\nwere not to speak when they walked through the garden from the chapel\nto the refectory. And, since this rule appeared to be idiotic and\narbitrary, she broke it on purpose day after day. In the evening the\nchildren were all asked if they had committed any faults during the day,\nand every evening Nancy confessed that she had broken this particular\nrule. It cost her sixpence a time, that being the fine attached to the\noffence. Just for the information I asked her why she always confessed,\nand she answered in these exact words:\n\n\"Oh, well, the girls of the Holy Child have always been noted for their\ntruthfulness. It's a beastly bore, but I've got to do it.\"\n\nI dare say that the miserable nature of her childhood, coming before the\nmixture of saturnalia and discipline that was her convent life, added\nsomething to her queernesses. Her father was a violent madman of\na fellow, a major of one of what I believe are called the Highland\nregiments. He didn't drink, but he had an ungovernable temper, and the\nfirst thing that Nancy could remember was seeing her father strike her\nmother with his clenched fist so that her mother fell over sideways\nfrom the breakfast-table and lay motionless. The mother was no doubt an\nirritating woman and the privates of that regiment appeared to have been\nirritating, too, so that the house was a place of outcries and perpetual\ndisturbances. Mrs Rufford was Leonora's dearest friend and Leonora\ncould be cutting enough at times. But I fancy she was as nothing to Mrs\nRufford. The Major would come in to lunch harassed and already spitting\nout oaths after an unsatisfactory morning's drilling of his stubborn men\nbeneath a hot sun. And then Mrs Rufford would make some cutting remark\nand pandemonium would break loose. Once, when she had been about twelve,\nNancy had tried to intervene between the pair of them. Her father had\nstruck her full upon the forehead a blow so terrible that she had lain\nunconscious for three days. Nevertheless, Nancy seemed to prefer her\nfather to her mother. She remembered rough kindnesses from him. Once\nor twice when she had been quite small he had dressed her in a clumsy,\nimpatient, but very tender way. It was nearly always impossible to get\na servant to stay in the family and, for days at a time, apparently, Mrs\nRufford would be incapable. I fancy she drank. At any rate, she had so\ncutting a tongue that even Nancy was afraid of her--she so made fun of\nany tenderness, she so sneered at all emotional displays. Nancy must\nhave been a very emotional child.\n\nThen one day, quite suddenly, on her return from a ride at Fort William,\nNancy had been sent, with her governess, who had a white face, right\ndown South to that convent school. She had been expecting to go there in\ntwo months' time. Her mother disappeared from her life at that time. A\nfortnight later Leonora came to the convent and told her that her mother\nwas dead. Perhaps she was. At any rate, I never heard until the very end\nwhat became of Mrs Rufford. Leonora never spoke of her.\n\nAnd then Major Rufford went to India, from which he returned very seldom\nand only for very short visits; and Nancy lived herself gradually into\nthe life at Branshaw Teleragh. I think that, from that time onwards, she\nled a very happy life, till the end. There were dogs and horses and old\nservants and the Forest. And there were Edward and Leonora, who loved\nher.\n\nI had known her all the time--I mean, that she always came to the\nAshburnhams' at Nauheim for the last fortnight of their stay--and I\nwatched her gradually growing. She was very cheerful with me. She always\neven kissed me, night and morning, until she was about eighteen. And she\nwould skip about and fetch me things and laugh at my tales of life in\nPhiladelphia. But, beneath her gaiety, I fancy that there lurked some\nterrors. I remember one day, when she was just eighteen, during one of\nher father's rare visits to Europe, we were sitting in the gardens, near\nthe iron-stained fountain. Leonora had one of her headaches and we were\nwaiting for Florence and Edward to come from their baths. You have no\nidea how beautiful Nancy looked that morning.\n\nWe were talking about the desirability of taking tickets in\nlotteries--of the moral side of it, I mean. She was all in white, and\nso tall and fragile; and she had only just put her hair up, so that\nthe carriage of her neck had that charming touch of youth and of\nunfamiliarity. Over her throat there played the reflection from a little\npool of water, left by a thunderstorm of the night before, and all the\nrest of her features were in the diffused and luminous shade of her\nwhite parasol. Her dark hair just showed beneath her broad, white hat\nof pierced, chip straw; her throat was very long and leaned forward, and\nher eyebrows, arching a little as she laughed at some old-fashionedness\nin my phraseology, had abandoned their tense line. And there was a\nlittle colour in her cheeks and light in her deep blue eyes. And to\nthink that that vivid white thing, that saintly and swanlike being--to\nthink that... Why, she was like the sail of a ship, so white and so\ndefinite in her movements. And to think that she will never... Why, she\nwill never do anything again. I can't believe it...\n\nAnyhow, we were chattering away about the morality of lotteries. And\nthen, suddenly, there came from the arcades behind us the overtones of\nher father's unmistakable voice; it was as if a modified foghorn had\nboomed with a reed inside it. I looked round to catch sight of him. A\ntall, fair, stiffly upright man of fifty, he was walking away with an\nItalian baron who had had much to do with the Belgian Congo. They must\nhave been talking about the proper treatment of natives, for I heard him\nsay:\n\n\"Oh, hang humanity!\"\n\nWhen I looked again at Nancy her eyes were closed and her face was more\npallid than her dress, which had at least some pinkish reflections from\nthe gravel. It was dreadful to see her with her eyes closed like that.\n\n\"Oh!\" she exclaimed, and her hand that had appeared to be groping,\nsettled for a moment on my arm. \"Never speak of it. Promise never to\ntell my father of it. It brings back those dreadful dreams...\" And, when\nshe opened her eyes she looked straight into mine. \"The blessed saints,\"\nshe said, \"you would think they would spare you such things. I don't\nbelieve all the sinning in the world could make one deserve them.\"\n\nThey say the poor thing was always allowed a light at night, even in her\nbedroom.... And yet, no young girl could more archly and lovingly have\nplayed with an adored father. She was always holding him by both coat\nlapels; cross-questioning him as to how he spent his time; kissing the\ntop of his head. Ah, she was well-bred, if ever anyone was.\n\nThe poor, wretched man cringed before her--but she could not have done\nmore to put him at his ease. Perhaps she had had lessons in it at her\nconvent. It was only that peculiar note of his voice, used when he was\noverbearing or dogmatic, that could unman her--and that was only visible\nwhen it came unexpectedly. That was because the bad dreams that the\nblessed saints allowed her to have for her sins always seemed to her\nto herald themselves by the booming sound of her father's voice. It\nwas that sound that had always preceded his entrance for the terrible\nlunches of her childhood... .\n\nI have reported, earlier in this chapter, that Leonora said, during that\nremainder of their stay at Nauheim, after I had left, it had seemed to\nher that she was fighting a long duel with unseen weapons against silent\nadversaries. Nancy, as I have also said, was always trying to go off\nwith Edward alone. That had been her habit for years. And Leonora found\nit to be her duty to stop that. It was very difficult. Nancy was used\nto having her own way, and for years she had been used to going off\nwith Edward, ratting, rabbiting, catching salmon down at Fordingbridge,\ndistrict-visiting of the sort that Edward indulged in, or calling on the\ntenants. And at Nauheim she and Edward had always gone up to the Casino\nalone in the evenings--at any rate, whenever Florence did not call for\nhis attendance. It shows the obviously innocent nature of the regard of\nthose two that even Florence had never had any idea of jealousy. Leonora\nhad cultivated the habit of going to bed at ten o'clock.\n\nI don't know how she managed it, but, for all the time they were at\nNauheim, she contrived never to let those two be alone together, except\nin broad daylight, in very crowded places. If a Protestant had done that\nit would no doubt have awakened a self-consciousness in the girl. But\nCatholics, who have always reservations and queer spots of secrecy, can\nmanage these things better. And I dare say that two things made this\neasier--the death of Florence and the fact that Edward was obviously\nsickening. He appeared, indeed, to be very ill; his shoulders began\nto be bowed; there were pockets under his eyes; he had extraordinary\nmoments of inattention.\n\nAnd Leonora describes herself as watching him as a fierce cat watches an\nunconscious pigeon in a roadway. In that silent watching, again, I think\nshe was a Catholic--of a people that can think thoughts alien to ours\nand keep them to themselves. And the thoughts passed through her mind;\nsome of them even got through to Edward with never a word spoken. At\nfirst she thought that it might be remorse, or grief, for the death\nof Florence that was oppressing him. But she watched and watched, and\nuttered apparently random sentences about Florence before the girl, and\nshe perceived that he had no grief and no remorse. He had not any idea\nthat Florence could have committed suicide without writing at least a\ntirade to him. The absence of that made him certain that it had been\nheart disease. For Florence had never undeceived him on that point. She\nthought it made her seem more romantic.\n\nNo, Edward had no remorse. He was able to say to himself that he had\ntreated Florence with gallant attentiveness of the kind that she desired\nuntil two hours before her death. Leonora gathered that from the look in\nhis eyes, and from the way he straightened his shoulders over her as\nshe lay in her coffin--from that and a thousand other little things. She\nwould speak suddenly about Florence to the girl and he would not start\nin the least; he would not even pay attention, but would sit with\nbloodshot eyes gazing at the tablecloth. He drank a good deal, at that\ntime--a steady soaking of drink every evening till long after they had\ngone to bed.\n\nFor Leonora made the girl go to bed at ten, unreasonable though that\nseemed to Nancy. She would understand that, whilst they were in a\nsort of half mourning for Florence, she ought not to be seen at public\nplaces, like the Casino; but she could not see why she should not\naccompany her uncle upon his evening strolls though the park. I don't\nknow what Leonora put up as an excuse--something, I fancy, in the nature\nof a nightly orison that she made the girl and herself perform for the\nsoul of Florence. And then, one evening, about a fortnight later, when\nthe girl, growing restive at even devotional exercises, clamoured once\nmore to be allowed to go for a walk with Edward, and when Leonora was\nreally at her wits' end, Edward gave himself into her hands. He was just\nstanding up from dinner and had his face averted.\n\nBut he turned his heavy head and his bloodshot eyes upon his wife and\nlooked full at her.\n\n\"Doctor von Hauptmann,\" he said, \"has ordered me to go to bed\nimmediately after dinner. My heart's much worse.\"\n\nHe continued to look at Leonora for a long minute--with a sort of heavy\ncontempt. And Leonora understood that, with his speech, he was giving\nher the excuse that she needed for separating him from the girl, and\nwith his eyes he was reproaching her for thinking that he would try to\ncorrupt Nancy.\n\nHe went silently up to his room and sat there for a long time--until\nthe girl was well in bed--reading in the Anglican prayer-book. And about\nhalf-past ten she heard his footsteps pass her door, going outwards. Two\nand a half hours later they came back, stumbling heavily.\n\nShe remained, reflecting upon this position until the last night of\ntheir stay at Nauheim. Then she suddenly acted. For, just in the same\nway, suddenly after dinner, she looked at him and said:\n\n\"Teddy, don't you think you could take a night off from your doctor's\norders and go with Nancy to the Casino. The poor child has had her visit\nso spoiled.\"\n\nHe looked at her in turn for a long, balancing minute.\n\n\"Why, yes,\" he said at last.\n\nNancy jumped out of her chair and kissed him. Those two words, Leonora\nsaid, gave her the greatest relief of any two syllables she had ever\nheard in her life. For she realized that Edward was breaking up, not\nunder the desire for possession, but from the dogged determination to\nhold his hand. She could relax some of her vigilance.\n\nNevertheless, she sat in the darkness behind her half-closed jalousies,\nlooking over the street and the night and the trees until, very late,\nshe could hear Nancy's clear voice coming closer and saying:\n\n\"You did look an old guy with that false nose.\" There had been some sort\nof celebration of a local holiday up in the Kursaal. And Edward replied\nwith his sort of sulky good nature:\n\n\"As for you, you looked like old Mother Sideacher.\"\n\nThe girl came swinging along, a silhouette beneath a gas-lamp; Edward,\nanother, slouched at her side. They were talking just as they had talked\nany time since the girl had been seventeen; with the same tones, the\nsame joke about an old beggar woman who always amused them at Branshaw.\nThe girl, a little later, opened Leonora's door whilst she was still\nkissing Edward on the forehead as she had done every night.\n\n\"We've had a most glorious time,\" she said. \"He's ever so much better.\nHe raced me for twenty yards home. Why are you all in the dark?\"\n\nLeonora could hear Edward going about in his room, but, owing to the\ngirl's chatter, she could not tell whether he went out again or not.\nAnd then, very much later, because she thought that if he were drinking\nagain something must be done to stop it, she opened for the first time,\nand very softly, the never-opened door between their rooms. She wanted\nto see if he had gone out again. Edward was kneeling beside his bed with\nhis head hidden in the counterpane. His arms, outstretched, held out\nbefore him a little image of the Blessed Virgin--a tawdry, scarlet and\nPrussian blue affair that the girl had given him on her first return\nfrom the convent. His shoulders heaved convulsively three times, and\nheavy sobs came from him before she could close the door. He was not a\nCatholic; but that was the way it took him.\n\nLeonora slept for the first time that night with a sleep from which she\nnever once started.\n\nIII\n\nAND then Leonora completely broke down--on the day that they returned\nto Branshaw Teleragh. It is the infliction of our miserable minds--it is\nthe scourge of atrocious but probably just destiny that no grief comes\nby itself. No, any great grief, though the grief itself may have gone,\nleaves in its place a train of horrors, of misery, and despair. For\nLeonora was, in herself, relieved. She felt that she could trust Edward\nwith the girl and she knew that Nancy could be absolutely trusted. And\nthen, with the slackening of her vigilance, came the slackening of\nher entire mind. This is perhaps the most miserable part of the entire\nstory. For it is miserable to see a clean intelligence waver; and\nLeonora wavered.\n\nYou are to understand that Leonora loved Edward with a passion that was\nyet like an agony of hatred. And she had lived with him for years and\nyears without addressing to him one word of tenderness. I don't know how\nshe could do it. At the beginning of that relationship she had been\njust married off to him. She had been one of seven daughters in a bare,\nuntidy Irish manor-house to which she had returned from the convent I\nhave so often spoken of. She had left it just a year and she was just\nnineteen. It is impossible to imagine such inexperience as was hers.\nYou might almost say that she had never spoken to a man except a priest.\nComing straight from the convent, she had gone in behind the high walls\nof the manor-house that was almost more cloistral than any convent could\nhave been. There were the seven girls, there was the strained mother,\nthere was the worried father at whom, three times in the course of that\nyear, the tenants took pot-shots from behind a hedge. The women-folk,\nupon the whole, the tenants respected. Once a week each of the girls,\nsince there were seven of them, took a drive with the mother in the old\nbasketwork chaise drawn by a very fat, very lumbering pony. They paid\noccasionally a call, but even these were so rare that, Leonora has\nassured me, only three times in the year that succeeded her coming home\nfrom the convent did she enter another person's house. For the rest of\nthe time the seven sisters ran about in the neglected gardens between\nthe unpruned espaliers. Or they played lawn-tennis or fives in an angle\nof a great wall that surrounded the garden--an angle from which the\nfruit trees had long died away. They painted in water-colour; they\nembroidered; they copied verses into albums. Once a week they went to\nMass; once a week to the confessional, accompanied by an old nurse. They\nwere happy since they had known no other life.\n\nIt appeared to them a singular extravagance when, one day, a\nphotographer was brought over from the county town and photographed them\nstanding, all seven, in the shadow of an old apple tree with the grey\nlichen on the raddled trunk. But it wasn't an extravagance.\n\nThree weeks before Colonel Powys had written to Colonel Ashburnham:\n\n\"I say, Harry, couldn't your Edward marry one of my girls? It would be\na god-send to me, for I'm at the end of my tether and, once one girl\nbegins to go off, the rest of them will follow.\" He went on to say that\nall his daughters were tall, upstanding, clean-limbed and absolutely\npure, and he reminded Colonel Ashburnham that, they having been married\non the same day, though in different churches, since the one was a\nCatholic and the other an Anglican--they had said to each other, the\nnight before, that, when the time came, one of their sons should marry\none of their daughters. Mrs Ashburnham had been a Powys and remained\nMrs Powys' dearest friend. They had drifted about the world as English\nsoldiers do, seldom meeting, but their women always in correspondence\none with another. They wrote about minute things such as the teething of\nEdward and of the earlier daughters or the best way to repair a Jacob's\nladder in a stocking. And, if they met seldom, yet it was often enough\nto keep each other's personalities fresh in their minds, gradually\ngrowing a little stiff in the joints, but always with enough to talk\nabout and with a store of reminiscences. Then, as his girls began\nto come of age when they must leave the convent in which they were\nregularly interned during his years of active service, Colonel Powys\nretired from the army with the necessity of making a home for them. It\nhappened that the Ashburnhams had never seen any of the Powys girls,\nthough, whenever the four parents met in London, Edward Ashburnham was\nalways of the party. He was at that time twenty-two and, I believe,\nalmost as pure in mind as Leonora herself. It is odd how a boy can have\nhis virgin intelligence untouched in this world.\n\nThat was partly due to the careful handling of his mother, partly to the\nfact that the house to which he went at Winchester had a particularly\npure tone and partly to Edward's own peculiar aversion from anything\nlike coarse language or gross stories. At Sandhurst he had just kept\nout of the way of that sort of thing. He was keen on soldiering, keen on\nmathematics, on land-surveying, on politics and, by a queer warp of his\nmind, on literature. Even when he was twenty-two he would pass hours\nreading one of Scott's novels or the Chronicles of Froissart. Mrs\nAshburnham considered that she was to be congratulated, and almost every\nweek she wrote to Mrs Powys, dilating upon her satisfaction.\n\nThen, one day, taking a walk down Bond Street with her son, after having\nbeen at Lord's, she noticed Edward suddenly turn his head round to take\na second look at a well-dressed girl who had passed them. She wrote\nabout that, too, to Mrs Powys, and expressed some alarm. It had been,\non Edward's part, the merest reflex action. He was so very abstracted at\nthat time owing to the pressure his crammer was putting upon him that he\ncertainly hadn't known what he was doing.\n\nIt was this letter of Mrs Ashburnham's to Mrs Powys that had caused\nthe letter from Colonel Powys to Colonel Ashburnham--a letter that was\nhalf-humorous, half longing. Mrs Ashburnham caused her husband to\nreply, with a letter a little more jocular--something to the effect\nthat Colonel Powys ought to give them some idea of the goods that he\nwas marketing. That was the cause of the photograph. I have seen it, the\nseven girls, all in white dresses, all very much alike in feature--all,\nexcept Leonora, a little heavy about the chins and a little stupid about\nthe eyes. I dare say it would have made Leonora, too, look a little\nheavy and a little stupid, for it was not a good photograph. But the\nblack shadow from one of the branches of the apple tree cut right\nacross her face, which is all but invisible. There followed an extremely\nharassing time for Colonel and Mrs Powys. Mrs Ashburnham had written\nto say that, quite sincerely, nothing would give greater ease to\nher maternal anxieties than to have her son marry one of Mrs Powys'\ndaughters if only he showed some inclination to do so. For, she added,\nnothing but a love-match was to be thought of in her Edward's case.\nBut the poor Powys couple had to run things so very fine that even the\nbringing together of the young people was a desperate hazard.\n\nThe mere expenditure upon sending one of the girls over from Ireland to\nBranshaw was terrifying to them; and whichever girl they selected might\nnot be the one to ring Edward's bell. On the other hand, the expenditure\nupon mere food and extra sheets for a visit from the Ashburnhams to them\nwas terrifying, too. It would mean, mathematically, going short in so\nmany meals themselves, afterwards. Nevertheless, they chanced it, and\nall the three Ashburnhams came on a visit to the lonely manor-house.\nThey could give Edward some rough shooting, some rough fishing and\na whirl of femininity; but I should say the girls made really more\nimpression upon Mrs Ashburnham than upon Edward himself. They appeared\nto her to be so clean run and so safe. They were indeed so clean run\nthat, in a faint sort of way, Edward seems to have regarded them rather\nas boys than as girls. And then, one evening, Mrs Ashburnham had with\nher boy one of those conversations that English mothers have with\nEnglish sons. It seems to have been a criminal sort of proceeding,\nthough I don't know what took place at it. Anyhow, next morning Colonel\nAshburnham asked on behalf of his son for the hand of Leonora. This\ncaused some consternation to the Powys couple, since Leonora was the\nthird daughter and Edward ought to have married the eldest. Mrs Powys,\nwith her rigid sense of the proprieties, almost wished to reject the\nproposal. But the Colonel, her husband, pointed out that the visit would\nhave cost them sixty pounds, what with the hire of an extra servant,\nof a horse and car, and with the purchase of beds and bedding and extra\ntablecloths. There was nothing else for it but the marriage. In that way\nEdward and Leonora became man and wife.\n\nI don't know that a very minute study of their progress towards complete\ndisunion is necessary. Perhaps it is. But there are many things that\nI cannot well make out, about which I cannot well question Leonora, or\nabout which Edward did not tell me. I do not know that there was ever\nany question of love from Edward to her. He regarded her, certainly, as\ndesirable amongst her sisters. He was obstinate to the extent of saying\nthat if he could not have her he would not have any of them. And, no\ndoubt, before the marriage, he made her pretty speeches out of books\nthat he had read. But, as far as he could describe his feelings at all,\nlater, it seems that, calmly and without any quickening of the pulse, he\njust carried the girl off, there being no opposition. It had, however,\nbeen all so long ago that it seemed to him, at the end of his poor life,\na dim and misty affair. He had the greatest admiration for Leonora.\n\nHe had the very greatest admiration. He admired her for her\ntruthfulness, for her cleanness of mind, and the clean-run-ness of her\nlimbs, for her efficiency, for the fairness of her skin, for the gold of\nher hair, for her religion, for her sense of duty. It was a satisfaction\nto take her about with him.\n\nBut she had not for him a touch of magnetism. I suppose, really, he did\nnot love her because she was never mournful; what really made him\nfeel good in life was to comfort somebody who would be darkly and\nmysteriously mournful. That he had never had to do for Leonora. Perhaps,\nalso, she was at first too obedient. I do not mean to say that she was\nsubmissive--that she deferred, in her judgements, to his. She did not.\nBut she had been handed over to him, like some patient medieval virgin;\nshe had been taught all her life that the first duty of a woman is to\nobey. And there she was.\n\nIn her, at least, admiration for his qualities very soon became love of\nthe deepest description. If his pulses never quickened she, so I have\nbeen told, became what is called an altered being when he approached her\nfrom the other side of a dancing-floor. Her eyes followed him about full\nof trustfulness, of admiration, of gratitude, and of love. He was also,\nin a great sense, her pastor and guide--and he guided her into what,\nfor a girl straight out of a convent, was almost heaven. I have not the\nleast idea of what an English officer's wife's existence may be like. At\nany rate, there were feasts, and chatterings, and nice men who gave her\nthe right sort of admiration, and nice women who treated her as if she\nhad been a baby. And her confessor approved of her life, and Edward let\nher give little treats to the girls of the convent she had left, and\nthe Reverend Mother approved of him. There could not have been a happier\ngirl for five or six years. For it was only at the end of that time\nthat clouds began, as the saying is, to arise. She was then about\ntwenty-three, and her purposeful efficiency made her perhaps have a\ndesire for mastery. She began to perceive that Edward was extravagant in\nhis largesses. His parents died just about that time, and Edward, though\nthey both decided that he should continue his soldiering, gave a great\ndeal of attention to the management of Branshaw through a steward.\nAldershot was not very far away, and they spent all his leaves there.\n\nAnd, suddenly, she seemed to begin to perceive that his generosities\nwere almost fantastic. He subscribed much too much to things connected\nwith his mess, he pensioned off his father's servants, old or new, much\ntoo generously. They had a large income, but every now and then they\nwould find themselves hard up. He began to talk of mortgaging a farm or\ntwo, though it never actually came to that.\n\nShe made tentative efforts at remonstrating with him. Her father, whom\nshe saw now and then, said that Edward was much too generous to his\ntenants; the wives of his brother officers remonstrated with her in\nprivate; his large subscriptions made it difficult for their husbands\nto keep up with them. Ironically enough, the first real trouble between\nthem came from his desire to build a Roman Catholic chapel at Branshaw.\nHe wanted to do it to honour Leonora, and he proposed to do it very\nexpensively. Leonora did not want it; she could perfectly well drive\nfrom Branshaw to the nearest Catholic Church as often as she liked.\nThere were no Roman Catholic tenants and no Roman Catholic servants\nexcept her old nurse who could always drive with her. She had as many\npriests to stay with her as could be needed--and even the priests did\nnot want a gorgeous chapel in that place where it would have merely\nseemed an invidious instance of ostentation. They were perfectly\nready to celebrate Mass for Leonora and her nurse, when they stayed at\nBranshaw, in a cleaned-up outhouse. But Edward was as obstinate as a hog\nabout it. He was truly grieved at his wife's want of sentiment--at her\nrefusal to receive that amount of public homage from him. She appeared\nto him to be wanting in imagination--to be cold and hard. I don't\nexactly know what part her priests played in the tragedy that it all\nbecame; I dare say they behaved quite creditably but mistakenly. But\nthen, who would not have been mistaken with Edward? I believe he was\neven hurt that Leonora's confessor did not make strenuous efforts to\nconvert him. There was a period when he was quite ready to become an\nemotional Catholic.\n\nI don't know why they did not take him on the hop; but they have queer\nsorts of wisdoms, those people, and queer sorts of tact. Perhaps they\nthought that Edward's too early conversion would frighten off other\nProtestant desirables from marrying Catholic girls. Perhaps they saw\ndeeper into Edward than he saw himself and thought that he would make\na not very creditable convert. At any rate they--and Leonora--left him\nvery much alone. It mortified him very considerably. He has told me that\nif Leonora had then taken his aspirations seriously everything would\nhave been different. But I dare say that was nonsense. At any rate, it\nwas over the question of the chapel that they had their first and\nreally disastrous quarrel. Edward at that time was not well; he supposed\nhimself to be overworked with his regimental affairs--he was managing\nthe mess at the time. And Leonora was not well--she was beginning to\nfear that their union might be sterile. And then her father came over\nfrom Glasmoyle to stay with them.\n\nThose were troublesome times in Ireland, I understand. At any rate,\nColonel Powys had tenants on the brain--his own tenants having shot at\nhim with shot-guns. And, in conversation with Edward's land-steward,\nhe got it into his head that Edward managed his estates with a\nmad generosity towards his tenants. I understand, also, that those\nyears--the 'nineties--were very bad for farming. Wheat was fetching only\na few shillings the hundred; the price of meat was so low that cattle\nhardly paid for raising; whole English counties were ruined. And Edward\nallowed his tenants very high rebates.\n\nTo do both justice Leonora has since acknowledged that she was in the\nwrong at that time and that Edward was following out a more far-seeing\npolicy in nursing his really very good tenants over a bad period. It was\nnot as if the whole of his money came from the land; a good deal of it\nwas in rails. But old Colonel Powys had that bee in his bonnet and, if\nhe never directly approached Edward himself on the subject, he preached\nunceasingly, whenever he had the opportunity, to Leonora. His pet idea\nwas that Edward ought to sack all his own tenants and import a set of\nfarmers from Scotland. That was what they were doing in Essex. He was of\nopinion that Edward was riding hotfoot to ruin.\n\nThat worried Leonora very much--it worried her dreadfully; she lay\nawake nights; she had an anxious line round her mouth. And that, again,\nworried Edward. I do not mean to say that Leonora actually spoke to\nEdward about his tenants--but he got to know that some one, probably\nher father, had been talking to her about the matter. He got to know it\nbecause it was the habit of his steward to look in on them every morning\nabout breakfast-time to report any little happenings. And there was a\nfarmer called Mumford who had only paid half his rent for the last\nthree years. One morning the land-steward reported that Mumford would be\nunable to pay his rent at all that year. Edward reflected for a moment\nand then he said something like:\n\n\"Oh well, he's an old fellow and his family have been our tenants for\nover two hundred years. Let him off altogether.\"\n\nAnd then Leonora--you must remember that she had reason for being very\nnervous and unhappy at that time--let out a sound that was very like a\ngroan. It startled Edward, who more than suspected what was passing in\nher mind--it startled him into a state of anger. He said sharply:\n\n\"You wouldn't have me turn out people who've been earning money for us\nfor centuries--people to whom we have responsibilities--and let in a\npack of Scotch farmers?\"\n\nHe looked at her, Leonora said, with what was practically a glance of\nhatred and then, precipitately, he left the breakfast-table. Leonora\nknew that it probably made it all the worse that he had been betrayed\ninto a manifestation of anger before a third party. It was the first and\nlast time that he ever was betrayed into such a manifestation of anger.\nThe land-steward, a moderate and well-balanced man whose family also had\nbeen with the Ashburnhams for over a century, took it upon himself to\nexplain that he considered Edward was pursuing a perfectly proper course\nwith his tenants. He erred perhaps a little on the side of generosity,\nbut hard times were hard times, and every one had to feel the pinch,\nlandlord as well as tenants. The great thing was not to let the land\nget into a poor state of cultivation. Scotch farmers just skinned your\nfields and let them go down and down. But Edward had a very good set of\ntenants who did their best for him and for themselves. These arguments\nat that time carried very little conviction to Leonora. She was,\nnevertheless, much concerned by Edward's outburst of anger. The fact is\nthat Leonora had been practising economies in her department. Two of the\nunder-housemaids had gone and she had not replaced them; she had spent\nmuch less that year upon dress. The fare she had provided at the dinners\nthey gave had been much less bountiful and not nearly so costly as\nhad been the case in preceding years, and Edward began to perceive a\nhardness and determination in his wife's character. He seemed to see a\nnet closing round him--a net in which they would be forced to live like\none of the comparatively poor county families of the neighbourhood. And,\nin the mysterious way in which two people, living together, get to know\neach other's thoughts without a word spoken, he had known, even before\nhis outbreak, that Leonora was worrying about his managing of the\nestates. This appeared to him to be intolerable. He had, too, a great\nfeeling of self-contempt because he had been betrayed into speaking\nharshly to Leonora before that land-steward. She imagined that his nerve\nmust be deserting him, and there can have been few men more miserable\nthan Edward was at that period. You see, he was really a very simple\nsoul--very simple. He imagined that no man can satisfactorily accomplish\nhis life's work without loyal and whole-hearted cooperation of the woman\nhe lives with. And he was beginning to perceive dimly that, whereas\nhis own traditions were entirely collective, his wife was a sheer\nindividualist. His own theory--the feudal theory of an over-lord doing\nhis best by his dependents, the dependents meanwhile doing their best\nfor the over-lord--this theory was entirely foreign to Leonora's nature.\nShe came of a family of small Irish landlords--that hostile garrison in\na plundered country. And she was thinking unceasingly of the children\nshe wished to have. I don't know why they never had any children--not\nthat I really believe that children would have made any difference. The\ndissimilarity of Edward and Leonora was too profound. It will give you\nsome idea of the extraordinary naïveté of Edward Ashburnham that, at the\ntime of his marriage and for perhaps a couple of years after, he did not\nreally know how children are produced. Neither did Leonora. I don't mean\nto say that this state of things continued, but there it was. I dare say\nit had a good deal of influence on their mentalities. At any rate, they\nnever had a child. It was the Will of God.\n\nIt certainly presented itself to Leonora as being the Will of God--as\nbeing a mysterious and awful chastisement of the Almighty. For she had\ndiscovered shortly before this period that her parents had not exacted\nfrom Edward's family the promise that any children she should bear\nshould be brought up as Catholics. She herself had never talked of the\nmatter with either her father, her mother, or her husband. When at last\nher father had let drop some words leading her to believe that that was\nthe fact, she tried desperately to extort the promise from Edward. She\nencountered an unexpected obstinacy. Edward was perfectly willing\nthat the girls should be Catholic; the boys must be Anglican. I don't\nunderstand the bearing of these things in English society. Indeed,\nEnglishmen seem to me to be a little mad in matters of politics or of\nreligion. In Edward it was particularly queer because he himself was\nperfectly ready to become a Romanist. He seemed, however, to contemplate\ngoing over to Rome himself and yet letting his boys be educated in the\nreligion of their immediate ancestors. This may appear illogical, but\nI dare say it is not so illogical as it looks. Edward, that is to say,\nregarded himself as having his own body and soul at his own disposal.\nBut his loyalty to the traditions of his family would not permit him to\nbind any future inheritors of his name or beneficiaries by the death\nof his ancestors. About the girls it did not so much matter. They would\nknow other homes and other circumstances. Besides, it was the usual\nthing. But the boys must be given the opportunity of choosing--and\nthey must have first of all the Anglican teaching. He was perfectly\nunshakable about this.\n\nLeonora was in an agony during all this time. You will have to remember\nshe seriously believed that children who might be born to her went in\ndanger, if not absolutely of damnation, at any rate of receiving false\ndoctrine. It was an agony more terrible than she could describe. She\ndidn't indeed attempt to describe it, but I could tell from her voice\nwhen she said, almost negligently, \"I used to lie awake whole nights. It\nwas no good my spiritual advisers trying to console me.\" I knew from her\nvoice how terrible and how long those nights must have seemed and of\nhow little avail were the consolations of her spiritual advisers. Her\nspiritual advisers seemed to have taken the matter a little more calmly.\nThey certainly told her that she must not consider herself in any way\nto have sinned. Nay, they seem even to have extorted, to have threatened\nher, with a view to getting her out of what they considered to be a\nmorbid frame of mind. She would just have to make the best of things,\nto influence the children when they came, not by propaganda, but by\npersonality. And they warned her that she would be committing a sin if\nshe continued to think that she had sinned. Nevertheless, she continued\nto think that she had sinned.\n\nLeonora could not be aware that the man whom she loved passionately\nand whom, nevertheless, she was beginning to try to rule with a rod of\niron--that this man was becoming more and more estranged from her. He\nseemed to regard her as being not only physically and mentally cold, but\neven as being actually wicked and mean. There were times when he would\nalmost shudder if she spoke to him. And she could not understand how\nhe could consider her wicked or mean. It only seemed to her a sort of\nmadness in him that he should try to take upon his own shoulders the\nburden of his troop, of his regiment, of his estate and of half of his\ncountry. She could not see that in trying to curb what she regarded as\nmegalomania she was doing anything wicked. She was just trying to keep\nthings together for the sake of the children who did not come. And,\nlittle by little, the whole of their intercourse became simply one of\nagonized discussion as to whether Edward should subscribe to this or\nthat institution or should try to reclaim this or that drunkard. She\nsimply could not see it.\n\nInto this really terrible position of strain, from which there appeared\nto be no issue, the Kilsyte case came almost as a relief. It is part\nof the peculiar irony of things that Edward would certainly never have\nkissed that nurse-maid if he had not been trying to please Leonora.\nNurse-maids do not travel first-class, and, that day, Edward travelled\nin a third-class carriage in order to prove to Leonora that he was\ncapable of economies. I have said that the Kilsyte case came almost as a\nrelief to the strained situation that then existed between them. It\ngave Leonora an opportunity of backing him up in a whole-hearted and\nabsolutely loyal manner. It gave her the opportunity of behaving to him\nas he considered a wife should behave to her husband.\n\nYou see, Edward found himself in a railway carriage with a quite pretty\ngirl of about nineteen. And the quite pretty girl of about nineteen,\nwith dark hair and red cheeks and blue eyes, was quietly weeping. Edward\nhad been sitting in his corner thinking about nothing at all. He had\nchanced to look at the nurse-maid; two large, pretty tears came out of\nher eyes and dropped into her lap. He immediately felt that he had\ngot to do something to comfort her. That was his job in life. He was\ndesperately unhappy himself and it seemed to him the most natural\nthing in the world that they should pool their sorrows. He was quite\ndemocratic; the idea of the difference in their station never seems to\nhave occurred to him. He began to talk to her. He discovered that her\nyoung man had been seen walking out with Annie of Number 54. He moved\nover to her side of the carriage. He told her that the report probably\nwasn't true; that, after all, a young man might take a walk with Annie\nfrom Number 54 without its denoting anything very serious. And he\nassured me that he felt at least quite half-fatherly when he put his arm\naround her waist and kissed her. The girl, however, had not forgotten\nthe difference of her station.\n\nAll her life, by her mother, by other girls, by schoolteachers, by the\nwhole tradition of her class she had been warned against gentlemen. She\nwas being kissed by a gentleman. She screamed, tore herself away; sprang\nup and pulled a communication cord.\n\nEdward came fairly well out of the affair in the public estimation; but\nit did him, mentally, a good deal of harm.\n\nIV\n\nIT is very difficult to give an all-round impression of a man. I wonder\nhow far I have succeeded with Edward Ashburnham. I dare say I haven't\nsucceeded at all. It is ever very difficult to see how such things\nmatter. Was it the important point about poor Edward that he was very\nwell built, carried himself well, was moderate at the table and led a\nregular life--that he had, in fact, all the virtues that are usually\naccounted English? Or have I in the least succeeded in conveying that\nhe was all those things and had all those virtues? He certainly was them\nand had them up to the last months of his life. They were the things\nthat one would set upon his tombstone. They will, indeed, be set upon\nhis tombstone by his widow.\n\nAnd have I, I wonder, given the due impression of how his life was\nportioned and his time laid out? Because, until the very last, the\namount of time taken up by his various passions was relatively small. I\nhave been forced to write very much about his passions, but you have to\nconsider--I should like to be able to make you consider--that he rose\nevery morning at seven, took a cold bath, breakfasted at eight, was\noccupied with his regiment from nine until one; played polo or cricket\nwith the men when it was the season for cricket, till tea-time.\nAfterwards he would occupy himself with the letters from his\nland-steward or with the affairs of his mess, till dinner-time. He\nwould dine and pass the evening playing cards, or playing billiards with\nLeonora or at social functions of one kind or another. And the greater\npart of his life was taken up by that--by far the greater part of his\nlife. His love-affairs, until the very end, were sandwiched in at\nodd moments or took place during the social evenings, the dances and\ndinners. But I guess I have made it hard for you, O silent listener, to\nget that impression. Anyhow, I hope I have not given you the idea that\nEdward Ashburnham was a pathological case. He wasn't. He was just a\nnormal man and very much of a sentimentalist. I dare say the quality\nof his youth, the nature of his mother's influence, his ignorances, the\ncrammings that he received at the hands of army coaches--I dare say that\nall these excellent influences upon his adolescence were very bad for\nhim. But we all have to put up with that sort of thing and no doubt it\nis very bad for all of us. Nevertheless, the outline of Edward's\nlife was an outline perfectly normal of the life of a hard-working,\nsentimental and efficient professional man.\n\nThat question of first impressions has always bothered me a good\ndeal--but quite academically. I mean that, from time to time I have\nwondered whether it were or were not best to trust to one's first\nimpressions in dealing with people. But I never had anybody to deal with\nexcept waiters and chambermaids and the Ashburnhams, with whom I\ndidn't know that I was having any dealings. And, as far as waiters\nand chambermaids were concerned, I have generally found that my first\nimpressions were correct enough. If my first idea of a man was that he\nwas civil, obliging, and attentive, he generally seemed to go on being\nall those things. Once, however, at our Paris flat we had a maid\nwho appeared to be charming and transparently honest. She stole,\nnevertheless, one of Florence's diamond rings. She did it, however,\nto save her young man from going to prison. So here, as somebody says\nsomewhere, was a special case.\n\nAnd, even in my short incursion into American business life--an\nincursion that lasted during part of August and nearly the whole of\nSeptember--I found that to rely upon first impressions was the best\nthing I could do. I found myself automatically docketing and labelling\neach man as he was introduced to me, by the run of his features and by\nthe first words that he spoke. I can't, however, be regarded as really\ndoing business during the time that I spent in the United States. I was\njust winding things up. If it hadn't been for my idea of marrying the\ngirl I might possibly have looked for something to do in my own country.\nFor my experiences there were vivid and amusing. It was exactly as if I\nhad come out of a museum into a riotous fancy-dress ball. During my life\nwith Florence I had almost come to forget that there were such things as\nfashions or occupations or the greed of gain. I had, in fact, forgotten\nthat there was such a thing as a dollar and that a dollar can be\nextremely desirable if you don't happen to possess one. And I had\nforgotten, too, that there was such a thing as gossip that mattered.\nIn that particular, Philadelphia was the most amazing place I have ever\nbeen in in my life. I was not in that city for more than a week or ten\ndays and I didn't there transact anything much in the way of business;\nnevertheless, the number of times that I was warned by everybody against\neverybody else was simply amazing. A man I didn't know would come up\nbehind my lounge chair in the hotel, and, whispering cautiously beside\nmy ear, would warn me against some other man that I equally didn't know\nbut who would be standing by the bar. I don't know what they thought I\nwas there to do--perhaps to buy out the city's debt or get a controlling\nhold of some railway interest. Or, perhaps, they imagined that I wanted\nto buy a newspaper, for they were either politicians or reporters,\nwhich, of course, comes to the same thing. As a matter of fact, my\nproperty in Philadelphia was mostly real estate in the old-fashioned\npart of the city and all I wanted to do there was just to satisfy myself\nthat the houses were in good repair and the doors kept properly painted.\nI wanted also to see my relations, of whom I had a few. These were\nmostly professional people and they were mostly rather hard up because\nof the big bank failure in 1907 or thereabouts. Still, they were very\nnice. They would have been nicer still if they hadn't, all of them, had\nwhat appeared to me to be the mania that what they called influences\nwere working against them. At any rate, the impression of that city was\none of old-fashioned rooms, rather English than American in type,\nin which handsome but careworn ladies, cousins of my own, talked\nprincipally about mysterious movements that were going on against them.\nI never got to know what it was all about; perhaps they thought I knew\nor perhaps there weren't any movements at all. It was all very secret\nand subtle and subterranean. But there was a nice young fellow called\nCarter who was a sort of second-nephew of mine, twice removed. He was\nhandsome and dark and gentle and tall and modest. I understand also that\nhe was a good cricketer. He was employed by the real-estate agents\nwho collected my rents. It was he, therefore, who took me over my own\nproperty and I saw a good deal of him and of a nice girl called Mary, to\nwhom he was engaged. At that time I did, what I certainly shouldn't do\nnow--I made some careful inquiries as to his character. I discovered\nfrom his employers that he was just all that he appeared, honest,\nindustrious, high-spirited, friendly and ready to do anyone a good turn.\nHis relatives, however, as they were mine, too--seemed to have something\ndarkly mysterious against him. I imagined that he must have been mixed\nup in some case of graft or that he had at least betrayed several\ninnocent and trusting maidens. I pushed, however, that particular\nmystery home and discovered it was only that he was a Democrat. My own\npeople were mostly Republicans. It seemed to make it worse and more\ndarkly mysterious to them that young Carter was what they called a sort\nof a Vermont Democrat which was the whole ticket and no mistake. But I\ndon't know what it means. Anyhow, I suppose that my money will go to\nhim when I die--I like the recollection of his friendly image and of the\nnice girl he was engaged to. May Fate deal very kindly with them.\n\nI have said just now that, in my present frame of mind, nothing would\never make me make inquiries as to the character of any man that I liked\nat first sight. (The little digression as to my Philadelphia experiences\nwas really meant to lead around to this.) For who in this world can\ngive anyone a character? Who in this world knows anything of any other\nheart--or of his own? I don't mean to say that one cannot form an\naverage estimate of the way a person will behave. But one cannot be\ncertain of the way any man will behave in every case--and until one can\ndo that a \"character\" is of no use to anyone. That, for instance, was\nthe way with Florence's maid in Paris. We used to trust that girl with\nblank cheques for the payment of the tradesmen. For quite a time she was\nso trusted by us. Then, suddenly, she stole a ring. We should not have\nbelieved her capable of it; she would not have believed herself capable\nof it. It was nothing in her character. So, perhaps, it was with Edward\nAshburnham.\n\nOr, perhaps, it wasn't. No, I rather think it wasn't. It is difficult\nto figure out. I have said that the Kilsyte case eased the immediate\ntension for him and Leonora. It let him see that she was capable of\nloyalty to him; it gave her her chance to show that she believed in him.\nShe accepted without question his statement that, in kissing the girl,\nhe wasn't trying to do more than administer fatherly comfort to\na weeping child. And, indeed, his own world--including the\nmagistrates--took that view of the case. Whatever people say, one's\nworld can be perfectly charitable at times... But, again, as I have\nsaid, it did Edward a great deal of harm.\n\nThat, at least, was his view of it. He assured me that, before that\ncase came on and was wrangled about by counsel with all sorts of\ndirty-mindedness that counsel in that sort of case can impute, he\nhad not had the least idea that he was capable of being unfaithful to\nLeonora. But, in the midst of that tumult--he says that it came suddenly\ninto his head whilst he was in the witness-box--in the midst of those\naugust ceremonies of the law there came suddenly into his mind the\nrecollection of the softness of the girl's body as he had pressed her\nto him. And, from that moment, that girl appeared desirable to him--and\nLeonora completely unattractive.\n\nHe began to indulge in day-dreams in which he approached the nurse-maid\nmore tactfully and carried the matter much further. Occasionally he\nthought of other women in terms of wary courtship--or, perhaps, it\nwould be more exact to say that he thought of them in terms of tactful\ncomforting, ending in absorption. That was his own view of the case. He\nsaw himself as the victim of the law. I don't mean to say that he saw\nhimself as a kind of Dreyfus. The law, practically, was quite kind to\nhim. It stated that in its view Captain Ashburnham had been misled by an\nill-placed desire to comfort a member of the opposite sex, and it fined\nhim five shilling for his want of tact, or of knowledge of the world.\nBut Edward maintained that it had put ideas into his head.\n\nI don't believe it, though he certainly did. He was twenty-seven then,\nand his wife was out of sympathy with him--some crash was inevitable.\nThere was between them a momentary rapprochement; but it could not last.\nIt made it, probably, all the worse that, in that particular matter,\nLeonara had come so very well up to the scratch. For, whilst Edward\nrespected her more and was grateful to her, it made her seem by so\nmuch the more cold in other matters that were near his heart--his\nresponsibilities, his career, his tradition. It brought his despair of\nher up to a point of exasperation--and it riveted on him the idea that\nhe might find some other woman who would give him the moral support that\nhe needed. He wanted to be looked upon as a sort of Lohengrin.\n\nAt that time, he says, he went about deliberately looking for some woman\nwho could help him. He found several--for there were quite a number of\nladies in his set who were capable of agreeing with this handsome and\nfine fellow that the duties of a feudal gentleman were feudal. He would\nhave liked to pass his days talking to one or other of these ladies. But\nthere was always an obstacle--if the lady were married there would be a\nhusband who claimed the greater part of her time and attention. If, on\nthe other hand, it were an unmarried girl, he could not see very much of\nher for fear of compromising her. At that date, you understand, he had\nnot the least idea of seducing any one of these ladies. He wanted\nonly moral support at the hands of some female, because he found men\ndifficult to talk to about ideals. Indeed, I do not believe that he had,\nat any time, any idea of making any one his mistress. That sounds queer;\nbut I believe it is quite true as a statement of character.\n\nIt was, I believe, one of Leonora's priests--a man of the world--who\nsuggested that she should take him to Monte Carlo. He had the idea that\nwhat Edward needed, in order to fit him for the society of Leonora,\nwas a touch of irresponsibility. For Edward, at that date, had much the\naspect of a prig. I mean that, if he played polo and was an excellent\ndancer he did the one for the sake of keeping himself fit and the other\nbecause it was a social duty to show himself at dances, and, when there,\nto dance well. He did nothing for fun except what he considered to be\nhis work in life. As the priest saw it, this must for ever estrange him\nfrom Leonora--not because Leonora set much store by the joy of life, but\nbecause she was out of sympathy with Edward's work. On the other hand,\nLeonora did like to have a good time, now and then, and, as the priest\nsaw it, if Edward could be got to like having a good time now and then,\ntoo, there would be a bond of sympathy between them. It was a good idea,\nbut it worked out wrongly.\n\nIt worked out, in fact, in the mistress of the Grand Duke. In anyone\nless sentimental than Edward that would not have mattered. With Edward\nit was fatal. For, such was his honourable nature, that for him to enjoy\na woman's favours made him feel that she had a bond on him for life.\nThat was the way it worked out in practice. Psychologically it meant\nthat he could not have a mistress without falling violently in love with\nher. He was a serious person--and in this particular case it was\nvery expensive. The mistress of the Grand Duke--a Spanish dancer of\npassionate appearance--singled out Edward for her glances at a ball that\nwas held in their common hotel. Edward was tall, handsome, blond and\nvery wealthy as she understood--and Leonora went up to bed early. She\ndid not care for public dances, but she was relieved to see that Edward\nappeared to be having a good time with several amiable girls. And that\nwas the end of Edward--for the Spanish dancer of passionate appearance\nwanted one night of him for his beaux yeux. He took her into the dark\ngardens and, remembering suddenly the girl of the Kilsyte case, he\nkissed her. He kissed her passionately, violently, with a sudden\nexplosion of the passion that had been bridled all his life--for\nLeonora was cold, or at any rate, well behaved. La Dolciquita liked this\nreversion, and he passed the night in her bed.\n\nWhen the palpitating creature was at last asleep in his arms he\ndiscovered that he was madly, was passionately, was overwhelmingly in\nlove with her. It was a passion that had arisen like fire in dry corn.\nHe could think of nothing else; he could live for nothing else. But La\nDolciquita was a reasonable creature without an ounce of passion in\nher. She wanted a certain satisfaction of her appetites and Edward had\nappealed to her the night before. Now that was done with, and, quite\ncoldly, she said that she wanted money if he was to have any more of\nher. It was a perfectly reasonable commercial transaction. She did not\ncare two buttons for Edward or for any man and he was asking her to\nrisk a very good situation with the Grand Duke. If Edward could put up\nsufficient money to serve as a kind of insurance against accident she\nwas ready to like Edward for a time that would be covered, as it were,\nby the policy. She was getting fifty thousand dollars a year from her\nGrand Duke; Edward would have to pay a premium of two years' hire for a\nmonth of her society. There would not be much risk of the Grand Duke's\nfinding it out and it was not certain that he would give her the keys of\nthe street if he did find out. But there was the risk--a twenty per cent\nrisk, as she figured it out. She talked to Edward as if she had been a\nsolicitor with an estate to sell--perfectly quietly and perfectly coldly\nwithout any inflections in her voice. She did not want to be unkind\nto him; but she could see no reason for being kind to him. She was a\nvirtuous business woman with a mother and two sisters and her own old\nage to be provided comfortably for. She did not expect more than a five\nyears' further run. She was twenty-four and, as she said: \"We Spanish\nwomen are horrors at thirty.\" Edward swore that he would provide for her\nfor life if she would come to him and leave off talking so horribly; but\nshe only shrugged one shoulder slowly and contemptuously. He tried\nto convince this woman, who, as he saw it, had surrendered to him her\nvirtue, that he regarded it as in any case his duty to provide for her,\nand to cherish her and even to love her--for life. In return for her\nsacrifice he would do that. In return, again, for his honourable love\nshe would listen for ever to the accounts of his estate. That was how he\nfigured it out.\n\nShe shrugged the same shoulder with the same gesture and held out her\nleft hand with the elbow at her side:\n\n\"Enfin, mon ami,\" she said, \"put in this hand the price of that tiara at\nForli's or...\" And she turned her back on him.\n\nEdward went mad; his world stood on its head; the palms in front of the\nblue sea danced grotesque dances. You see, he believed in the virtue,\ntenderness and moral support of women. He wanted more than anything to\nargue with La Dolciquita; to retire with her to an island and point out\nto her the damnation of her point of view and how salvation can only\nbe found in true love and the feudal system. She had once been his\nmistress, he reflected, and by all the moral laws she ought to have gone\non being his mistress or at the very least his sympathetic confidante.\nBut her rooms were closed to him; she did not appear in the hotel.\nNothing: blank silence. To break that down he had to have twenty\nthousand pounds. You have heard what happened. He spent a week of\nmadness; he hungered; his eyes sank in; he shuddered at Leonora's touch.\nI dare say that nine-tenths of what he took to be his passion for\nLa Dolciquita was really discomfort at the thought that he had been\nunfaithful to Leonora. He felt uncommonly bad, that is to say--oh,\nunbearably bad, and he took it all to be love. Poor devil, he was\nincredibly naïve. He drank like a fish after Leonora was in bed and he\nspread himself over the tables, and this went on for about a fortnight.\nHeaven knows what would have happened; he would have thrown away every\npenny that he possessed.\n\nOn the night after he had lost about forty thousand pounds and whilst\nthe whole hotel was whispering about it, La Dolciquita walked composedly\ninto his bedroom. He was too drunk to recognize her, and she sat in his\narm-chair, knitting and holding smelling salts to her nose--for he was\npretty far gone with alcoholic poisoning--and, as soon as he was able to\nunderstand her, she said:\n\n\"Look here, mon ami, do not go to the tables again. Take a good sleep\nnow and come and see me this afternoon.\"\n\nHe slept till the lunch-hour. By that time Leonora had heard the news.\nA Mrs Colonel Whelan had told her. Mrs Colonel Whelan seems to have been\nthe only sensible person who was ever connected with the Ashburnhams.\nShe had argued it out that there must be a woman of the harpy variety\nconnected with Edward's incredible behaviour and mien; and she advised\nLeonora to go straight off to Town--which might have the effect of\nbringing Edward to his senses--and to consult her solicitor and her\nspiritual adviser. She had better go that very morning; it was no good\narguing with a man in Edward's condition.\n\nEdward, indeed, did not know that she had gone. As soon as he awoke he\nwent straight to La Dolciquita's room and she stood him his lunch in her\nown apartments. He fell on her neck and wept, and she put up with it for\na time. She was quite a good-natured woman. And, when she had calmed\nhim down with Eau de Mélisse, she said: \"Look here, my friend, how much\nmoney have you left? Five thousand dollars? Ten?\" For the rumour went\nthat Edward had lost two kings' ransoms a night for fourteen nights and\nshe imagined that he must be near the end of his resources.\n\nThe Eau de Mélisse had calmed Edward to such an extent that, for the\nmoment, he really had a head on his shoulders. He did nothing more than\ngrunt:\n\n\"And then?\"\n\n\"Why,\" she answered, \"I may just as well have the ten thousand dollars\nas the tables. I will go with you to Antibes for a week for that sum.\"\n\nEdward grunted: \"Five.\" She tried to get seven thousand five hundred;\nbut he stuck to his five thousand and the hotel expenses at Antibes. The\nsedative carried him just as far as that and then he collapsed again. He\nhad to leave for Antibes at three; he could not do without it. He left a\nnote for Leonora saying that he had gone off for a week with the Clinton\nMorleys, yachting.\n\nHe did not enjoy himself very much at Antibes. La Dolciquita could\ntalk of nothing with any enthusiasm except money, and she tired\nhim unceasingly, during every waking hour, for presents of the most\nexpensive description. And, at the end of a week, she just quietly\nkicked him out. He hung about in Antibes for three days. He was cured\nof the idea that he had any duties towards La Dolciquita--feudal or\notherwise. But his sentimentalism required of him an attitude of Byronic\ngloom--as if his court had gone into half-mourning. Then his appetite\nsuddenly returned, and he remembered Leonora. He found at his hotel at\nMonte Carlo a telegram from Leonora, dispatched from London, saying;\n\"Please return as soon as convenient.\" He could not understand why\nLeonora should have abandoned him so precipitately when she only thought\nthat he had gone yachting with the Clinton Morleys. Then he discovered\nthat she had left the hotel before he had written the note. He had\na pretty rocky journey back to town; he was frightened out of his\nlife--and Leonora had never seemed so desirable to him.\n\n\nV\n\nI CALL this the Saddest Story, rather than \"The Ashburnham Tragedy\",\njust because it is so sad, just because there was no current to draw\nthings along to a swift and inevitable end. There is about it none of\nthe elevation that accompanies tragedy; there is about it no nemesis, no\ndestiny. Here were two noble people--for I am convinced that both Edward\nand Leonora had noble natures--here, then, were two noble natures,\ndrifting down life, like fireships afloat on a lagoon and causing\nmiseries, heart-aches, agony of the mind and death. And they themselves\nsteadily deteriorated. And why? For what purpose? To point what lesson?\nIt is all a darkness.\n\nThere is not even any villain in the story--for even Major Basil, the\nhusband of the lady who next, and really, comforted the unfortunate\nEdward--even Major Basil was not a villain in this piece. He was a\nslack, loose, shiftless sort of fellow--but he did not do anything to\nEdward. Whilst they were in the same station in Burma he borrowed a\ngood deal of money--though, really, since Major Basil had no\nparticular vices, it was difficult to know why he wanted it. He\ncollected--different types of horses' bits from the earliest times to\nthe present day--but, since he did not prosecute even this occupation\nwith any vigour, he cannot have needed much money for the acquirement,\nsay, of the bit of Genghis Khan's charger--if Genghis Khan had a\ncharger. And when I say that he borrowed a good deal of money from\nEdward I do not mean to say that he had more than a thousand pounds from\nhim during the five years that the connection lasted. Edward, of course,\ndid not have a great deal of money; Leonora was seeing to that. Still,\nhe may have had five hundred pounds a year English, for his menus\nplaisirs--for his regimental subscriptions and for keeping his men\nsmart. Leonora hated that; she would have preferred to buy dresses for\nherself or to have devoted the money to paying off a mortgage. Still,\nwith her sense of justice, she saw that, since she was managing\na property bringing in three thousand a year with a view to\nre-establishing it as a property of five thousand a year and since the\nproperty really, if not legally, belonged to Edward, it was reasonable\nand just that Edward should get a slice of his own. Of course she had\nthe devil of a job.\n\nI don't know that I have got the financial details exactly right. I am\na pretty good head at figures, but my mind, still, sometimes mixes up\npounds with dollars and I get a figure wrong. Anyhow, the proposition\nwas something like this: Properly worked and without rebates to the\ntenants and keeping up schools and things, the Branshaw estate should\nhave brought in about five thousand a year when Edward had it. It\nbrought in actually about four. (I am talking in pounds, not dollars.)\nEdward's excesses with the Spanish Lady had reduced its value to about\nthree--as the maximum figure, without reductions. Leonora wanted to get\nit back to five.\n\nShe was, of course, very young to be faced with such a\nproposition--twenty-four is not a very advanced age. So she did things\nwith a youthful vigour that she would, very likely, have made more\nmerciful, if she had known more about life. She got Edward remarkably on\nthe hop. He had to face her in a London hotel, when he crept back from\nMonte Carlo with his poor tail between his poor legs. As far as I can\nmake out she cut short his first mumblings and his first attempts at\naffectionate speech with words something like: \"We're on the verge\nof ruin. Do you intend to let me pull things together? If not I shall\nretire to Hendon on my jointure.\" (Hendon represented a convent to\nwhich she occasionally went for what is called a \"retreat\" in Catholic\ncircles.) And poor dear Edward knew nothing--absolutely nothing. He did\nnot know how much money he had, as he put it, \"blued\" at the tables. It\nmight have been a quarter of a million for all he remembered. He did not\nknow whether she knew about La Dolciquita or whether she imagined that\nhe had gone off yachting or had stayed at Monte Carlo. He was just dumb\nand he just wanted to get into a hole and not have to talk. Leonora did\nnot make him talk and she said nothing herself.\n\nI do not know much about English legal procedure--I cannot, I mean, give\ntechnical details of how they tied him up. But I know that, two days\nlater, without her having said more than I have reported to you, Leonora\nand her attorney had become the trustees, as I believe it is called,\nof all Edward's property, and there was an end of Edward as the good\nlandlord and father of his people. He went out. Leonora then had three\nthousand a year at her disposal. She occupied Edward with getting\nhimself transferred to a part of his regiment that was in Burma--if that\nis the right way to put it. She herself had an interview, lasting a\nweek or so--with Edward's land-steward. She made him understand that the\nestate would have to yield up to its last penny. Before they left for\nIndia she had let Branshaw for seven years at a thousand a year. She\nsold two Vandykes and a little silver for eleven thousand pounds and\nshe raised, on mortgage, twenty-nine thousand. That went to Edward's\nmoney-lending friends in Monte Carlo. So she had to get the twenty-nine\nthousand back, for she did not regard the Vandykes and the silver\nas things she would have to replace. They were just frills to the\nAshburnham vanity. Edward cried for two days over the disappearance of\nhis ancestors and then she wished she had not done it; but it did not\nteach her anything and it lessened such esteem as she had for him. She\ndid not also understand that to let Branshaw affected him with a feeling\nof physical soiling--that it was almost as bad for him as if a woman\nbelonging to him had become a prostitute. That was how it did affect\nhim; but I dare say she felt just as bad about the Spanish dancer.\n\nSo she went at it. They were eight years in India, and during the whole\nof that time she insisted that they must be self-supporting--they had\nto live on his Captain's pay, plus the extra allowance for being at the\nfront. She gave him the five hundred a year for Ashburnham frills, as\nshe called it to herself--and she considered she was doing him very\nwell.\n\nIndeed, in a way, she did him very well--but it was not his way. She was\nalways buying him expensive things which, as it were, she took off her\nown back. I have, for instance, spoken of Edward's leather cases. Well,\nthey were not Edward's at all; they were Leonora's manifestations. He\nliked to be clean, but he preferred, as it were, to be threadbare. She\nnever understood that, and all that pigskin was her idea of a reward to\nhim for putting her up to a little speculation by which she made eleven\nhundred pounds. She did, herself, the threadbare business. When they\nwent up to a place called Simla, where, as I understand, it is cool in\nthe summer and very social--when they went up to Simla for their healths\nit was she who had him prancing around, as we should say in the United\nStates, on a thousand-dollar horse with the gladdest of glad rags all\nover him. She herself used to go into \"retreat\". I believe that was very\ngood for her health and it was also very inexpensive.\n\nIt was probably also very good for Edward's health, because he pranced\nabout mostly with Mrs Basil, who was a nice woman and very, very kind to\nhim. I suppose she was his mistress, but I never heard it from Edward,\nof course. I seem to gather that they carried it on in a high romantic\nfashion, very proper to both of them--or, at any rate, for Edward; she\nseems to have been a tender and gentle soul who did what he wanted. I do\nnot mean to say that she was without character; that was her job, to\ndo what Edward wanted. So I figured it out, that for those five years,\nEdward wanted long passages of deep affection kept up in long, long\ntalks and that every now and then they \"fell,\" which would give Edward\nan opportunity for remorse and an excuse to lend the Major another\nfifty. I don't think that Mrs Basil considered it to be \"falling\"; she\njust pitied him and loved him.\n\nYou see, Leonora and Edward had to talk about something during all these\nyears. You cannot be absolutely dumb when you live with a person unless\nyou are an inhabitant of the North of England or the State of Maine. So\nLeonora imagined the cheerful device of letting him see the accounts of\nhis estate and discussing them with him. He did not discuss them much;\nhe was trying to behave prettily. But it was old Mr Mumford--the farmer\nwho did not pay his rent--that threw Edward into Mrs Basil's arms. Mrs\nBasil came upon Edward in the dusk, in the Burmese garden, with all\nsorts of flowers and things. And he was cutting up that crop--with his\nsword, not a walking-stick. He was also carrying on and cursing in a way\nyou would not believe.\n\nShe ascertained that an old gentleman called Mumford had been ejected\nfrom his farm and had been given a little cottage rent-free, where\nhe lived on ten shillings a week from a farmers' benevolent society,\nsupplemented by seven that was being allowed him by the Ashburnham\ntrustees. Edward had just discovered that fact from the estate accounts.\nLeonora had left them in his dressing-room and he had begun to read\nthem before taking off his marching-kit. That was how he came to have a\nsword. Leonora considered that she had been unusually generous to old Mr\nMumford in allowing him to inhabit a cottage, rent-free, and in giving\nhim seven shillings a week. Anyhow, Mrs Basil had never seen a man in\nsuch a state as Edward was. She had been passionately in love with\nhim for quite a time, and he had been longing for her sympathy and\nadmiration with a passion as deep. That was how they came to speak about\nit, in the Burmese garden, under the pale sky, with sheaves of severed\nvegetation, misty and odorous, in the night around their feet. I think\nthey behaved themselves with decorum for quite a time after that, though\nMrs Basil spent so many hours over the accounts of the Ashburnham estate\nthat she got the name of every field by heart. Edward had a huge map of\nhis lands in his harness-room and Major Basil did not seem to mind. I\nbelieve that people do not mind much in lonely stations. It might\nhave lasted for ever if the Major had not been made what is called a\nbrevet-colonel during the shuffling of troops that went on just before\nthe South African War. He was sent off somewhere else and, of course,\nMrs Basil could not stay with Edward. Edward ought, I suppose, to have\ngone to the Transvaal. It would have done him a great deal of good to\nget killed. But Leonora would not let him; she had heard awful stories\nof the extravagance of the hussar regiment in war-time--how they left\nhundred-bottle cases of champagne, at five guineas a bottle, on the\nveldt and so on. Besides, she preferred to see how Edward was spending\nhis five hundred a year. I don't mean to say that Edward had any\ngrievance in that. He was never a man of the deeds of heroism sort and\nit was just as good for him to be sniped at up in the hills of the North\nWestern frontier, as to be shot at by an old gentleman in a tophat at\nthe bottom of some spruit. Those are more or less his words about it. I\nbelieve he quite distinguished himself over there. At any rate, he had\nhad his D.S.O. and was made a brevet-major. Leonora, however, was not in\nthe least keen on his soldiering. She hated also his deeds of heroism.\nOne of their bitterest quarrels came after he had, for the second\ntime, in the Red Sea, jumped overboard from the troopship and rescued a\nprivate soldier. She stood it the first time and even complimented him.\nBut the Red Sea was awful, that trip, and the private soldiers seemed\nto develop a suicidal craze. It got on Leonora's nerves; she figured\nEdward, for the rest of that trip, jumping overboard every ten minutes.\nAnd the mere cry of \"Man overboard\" is a disagreeable, alarming and\ndisturbing thing. The ship gets stopped and there are all sorts of\nshouts. And Edward would not promise not to do it again, though,\nfortunately, they struck a streak of cooler weather when they were\nin the Persian Gulf. Leonora had got it into her head that Edward was\ntrying to commit suicide, so I guess it was pretty awful for her when\nhe would not give the promise. Leonora ought never to have been on that\ntroopship; but she got there somehow, as an economy.\n\nMajor Basil discovered his wife's relation with Edward just before\nhe was sent to his other station. I don't know whether that was a\nblackmailer's adroitness or just a trick of destiny. He may have known\nof it all the time or he may not. At any rate, he got hold of, just\nabout then, some letters and things. It cost Edward three hundred pounds\nimmediately. I do not know how it was arranged; I cannot imagine how\neven a blackmailer can make his demands. I suppose there is some sort of\nway of saving your face. I figure the Major as disclosing the letters\nto Edward with furious oaths, then accepting his explanations that the\nletters were perfectly innocent if the wrong construction were not put\nupon them. Then the Major would say: \"I say, old chap, I'm deuced hard\nup. Couldn't you lend me three hundred or so?\" I fancy that was how it\nwas. And, year by year, after that there would come a letter from the\nMajor, saying that he was deuced hard up and couldn't Edward lend him\nthree hundred or so? Edward was pretty hard hit when Mrs Basil had to go\naway. He really had been very fond of her, and he remained faithful to\nher memory for quite a long time. And Mrs Basil had loved him very much\nand continued to cherish a hope of reunion with him. Three days ago\nthere came a quite proper but very lamentable letter from her to\nLeonora, asking to be given particulars as to Edward's death. She had\nread the advertisement of it in an Indian paper. I think she must have\nbeen a very nice woman....\n\nAnd then the Ashburnhams were moved somewhere up towards a place or a\ndistrict called Chitral. I am no good at geography of the Indian Empire.\nBy that time they had settled down into a model couple and they never\nspoke in private to each other. Leonora had given up even showing the\naccounts of the Ashburnham estate to Edward. He thought that that was\nbecause she had piled up such a lot of money that she did not want him\nto know how she was getting on any more. But, as a matter of fact, after\nfive or six years it had penetrated to her mind that it was painful to\nEdward to have to look on at the accounts of his estate and have no hand\nin the management of it. She was trying to do him a kindness. And, up in\nChitral, poor dear little Maisie Maidan came along....\n\nThat was the most unsettling to Edward of all his affairs. It made him\nsuspect that he was inconstant. The affair with the Dolciquita he had\nsized up as a short attack of madness like hydrophobia. His relations\nwith Mrs Basil had not seemed to him to imply moral turpitude of a\ngross kind. The husband had been complaisant; they had really loved each\nother; his wife was very cruel to him and had long ceased to be a wife\nto him. He thought that Mrs Basil had been his soul-mate, separated from\nhim by an unkind fate--something sentimental of that sort.\n\nBut he discovered that, whilst he was still writing long weekly letters\nto Mrs Basil, he was beginning to be furiously impatient if he missed\nseeing Maisie Maidan during the course of the day. He discovered himself\nwatching the doorways with impatience; he discovered that he disliked\nher boy husband very much for hours at a time. He discovered that he\nwas getting up at unearthly hours in order to have time, later in the\nmorning, to go for a walk with Maisie Maidan. He discovered himself\nusing little slang words that she used and attaching a sentimental value\nto those words. These, you understand, were discoveries that came so\nlate that he could do nothing but drift. He was losing weight; his eyes\nwere beginning to fall in; he had touches of bad fever. He was, as he\ndescribed it, pipped.\n\nAnd, one ghastly hot day, he suddenly heard himself say to Leonora:\n\n\"I say, couldn't we take Mrs Maidan with us to Europe and drop her at\nNauheim?\"\n\nHe hadn't had the least idea of saying that to Leonora. He had merely\nbeen standing, looking at an illustrated paper, waiting for dinner.\nDinner was twenty minutes late or the Ashburnhams would not have been\nalone together. No, he hadn't had the least idea of framing that speech.\nHe had just been standing in a silent agony of fear, of longing, of\nheat, of fever. He was thinking that they were going back to Branshaw in\na month and that Maisie Maidan was going to remain behind and die. And\nthen, that had come out.\n\nThe punkah swished in the darkened room; Leonora lay exhausted and\nmotionless in her cane lounge; neither of them stirred. They were both\nat that time very ill in indefinite ways.\n\nAnd then Leonora said:\n\n\"Yes. I promised it to Charlie Maidan this afternoon. I have offered to\npay her ex's myself.\"\n\nEdward just saved himself from saying: \"Good God!\" You see, he had not\nthe least idea of what Leonora knew--about Maisie, about Mrs Basil, even\nabout La Dolciquita. It was a pretty enigmatic situation for him. It\nstruck him that Leonora must be intending to manage his loves as she\nmanaged his money affairs and it made her more hateful to him--and more\nworthy of respect.\n\nLeonora, at any rate, had managed his money to some purpose. She had\nspoken to him, a week before, for the first time in several years--about\nmoney. She had made twenty-two thousand pounds out of the Branshaw\nland and seven by the letting of Branshaw furnished. By fortunate\ninvestments--in which Edward had helped her--she had made another six or\nseven thousand that might well become more. The mortgages were all\npaid off, so that, except for the departure of the two Vandykes and the\nsilver, they were as well off as they had been before the Dolciquita\nhad acted the locust. It was Leonora's great achievement. She laid the\nfigures before Edward, who maintained an unbroken silence.\n\n\"I propose,\" she said, \"that you should resign from the Army and that\nwe should go back to Branshaw. We are both too ill to stay here any\nlonger.\"\n\nEdward said nothing at all.\n\n\"This,\" Leonora continued passionlessly, \"is the great day of my life.\"\n\nEdward said:\n\n\"You have managed the job amazingly. You are a wonderful woman.\" He\nwas thinking that if they went back to Branshaw they would leave\nMaisie Maidan behind. That thought occupied him exclusively. They must,\nundoubtedly, return to Branshaw; there could be no doubt that Leonora\nwas too ill to stay in that place. She said:\n\n\"You understand that the management of the whole of the expenditure of\nthe income will be in your hands. There will be five thousand a year.\"\nShe thought that he cared very much about the expenditure of an income\nof five thousand a year and that the fact that she had done so much\nfor him would rouse in him some affection for her. But he was thinking\nexclusively of Maisie Maidan--of Maisie, thousands of miles away from\nhim. He was seeing the mountains between them--blue mountains and the\nsea and sunlit plains. He said:\n\n\"That is very generous of you.\" And she did not know whether that were\npraise or a sneer. That had been a week before. And all that week he had\npassed in an increasing agony at the thought that those mountains, that\nsea, and those sunlit plains would be between him and Maisie Maidan.\nThat thought shook him in the burning nights: the sweat poured from him\nand he trembled with cold, in the burning noons--at that thought. He\nhad no minute's rest; his bowels turned round and round within him: his\ntongue was perpetually dry and it seemed to him that the breath between\nhis teeth was like air from a pest-house.\n\nHe gave no thought to Leonora at all; he had sent in his papers. They\nwere to leave in a month. It seemed to him to be his duty to leave that\nplace and to go away, to support Leonora. He did his duty.\n\nIt was horrible, in their relationship at that time, that whatever she\ndid caused him to hate her. He hated her when he found that she proposed\nto set him up as the Lord of Branshaw again--as a sort of dummy lord,\nin swaddling clothes. He imagined that she had done this in order to\nseparate him from Maisie Maidan. Hatred hung in all the heavy nights and\nfilled the shadowy corners of the room. So when he heard that she\nhad offered to the Maidan boy to take his wife to Europe with him,\nautomatically he hated her since he hated all that she did. It seemed to\nhim, at that time, that she could never be other than cruel even if, by\naccident, an act of hers were kind.... Yes, it was a horrible situation.\n\nBut the cool breezes of the ocean seemed to clear up that hatred as if\nit had been a curtain. They seemed to give him back admiration for her,\nand respect. The agreeableness of having money lavishly at command,\nthe fact that it had bought for him the companionship of Maisie\nMaidan--these things began to make him see that his wife might have been\nright in the starving and scraping upon which she had insisted. He was\nat ease; he was even radiantly happy when he carried cups of bouillon\nfor Maisie Maidan along the deck. One night, when he was leaning beside\nLeonora, over the ship's side, he said suddenly:\n\n\"By jove, you're the finest woman in the world. I wish we could be\nbetter friends.\"\n\nShe just turned away without a word and went to her cabin. Still, she\nwas very much better in health.\n\nAnd now, I suppose, I must give you Leonora's side of the case....\n\nThat is very difficult. For Leonora, if she preserved an unchanged\nfront, changed very frequently her point of view. She had been\ndrilled--in her tradition, in her upbringing--to keep her mouth shut.\nBut there were times, she said, when she was so near yielding to the\ntemptation of speaking that afterwards she shuddered to think of those\ntimes. You must postulate that what she desired above all things was\nto keep a shut mouth to the world; to Edward and to the women that he\nloved. If she spoke she would despise herself.\n\nFrom the moment of his unfaithfulness with La Dolciquita she never acted\nthe part of wife to Edward. It was not that she intended to keep herself\nfrom him as a principle, for ever. Her spiritual advisers, I believe,\nforbade that. But she stipulated that he must, in some way, perhaps\nsymbolical, come back to her. She was not very clear as to what she\nmeant; probably she did not know herself. Or perhaps she did.\n\nThere were moments when he seemed to be coming back to her; there were\nmoments when she was within a hair of yielding to her physical passion\nfor him. In just the same way, at moments, she almost yielded to the\ntemptation to denounce Mrs Basil to her husband or Maisie Maidan\nto hers. She desired then to cause the horrors and pains of public\nscandals. For, watching Edward more intently and with more straining of\nears than that which a cat bestows upon a bird overhead, she was aware\nof the progress of his passion for each of these ladies. She was aware\nof it from the way in which his eyes returned to doors and gateways; she\nknew from his tranquillities when he had received satisfactions.\n\nAt times she imagined herself to see more than was warranted. She\nimagined that Edward was carrying on intrigues with other women--with\ntwo at once; with three. For whole periods she imagined him to be a\nmonster of libertinage and she could not see that he could have anything\nagainst her. She left him his liberty; she was starving herself to build\nup his fortunes; she allowed herself none of the joys of femininity--no\ndresses, no jewels--hardly even friendships, for fear they should cost\nmoney.\n\nAnd yet, oddly, she could not but be aware that both Mrs Basil and\nMaisie Maidan were nice women. The curious, discounting eye which one\nwoman can turn on another did not prevent her seeing that Mrs Basil was\nvery good to Edward and Mrs Maidan very good for him. That seemed her to\nbe a monstrous and incomprehensible working of Fate's. Incomprehensible!\nWhy, she asked herself again and again, did none of the good deeds that\nshe did for her husband ever come through to him, or appear to him as\ngood deeds? By what trick of mania could not he let her be as good to\nhim as Mrs Basil was? Mrs Basil was not so extraordinarily dissimilar to\nherself. She was, it was true, tall, dark, with soft mournful voice and\na great kindness of manner for every created thing, from punkah men to\nflowers on the trees. But she was not so well read as Lenora, at any\nrate in learned books. Leonora could not stand novels. But, even with\nall her differences, Mrs Basil did not appear to Leonora to differ so\nvery much from herself. She was truthful, honest and, for the rest, just\na woman. And Leonora had a vague sort of idea that, to a man, all women\nare the same after three weeks of close intercourse. She thought that\nthe kindness should no longer appeal, the soft and mournful voice no\nlonger thrill, the tall darkness no longer give a man the illusion\nthat he was going into the depths of an unexplored wood. She could not\nunderstand how Edward could go on and on maundering over Mrs Basil. She\ncould not see why he should continue to write her long letters after\ntheir separation. After that, indeed, she had a very bad time.\n\nShe had at that period what I will call the \"monstrous\" theory of\nEdward. She was always imagining him ogling at every woman that he came\nacross. She did not, that year, go into \"retreat\" at Simla because she\nwas afraid that he would corrupt her maid in her absence. She imagined\nhim carrying on intrigues with native women or Eurasians. At dances she\nwas in a fever of watchfulness.\n\nShe persuaded herself that this was because she had a dread of scandals.\nEdward might get himself mixed up with a marriageable daughter of some\nman who would make a row or some husband who would matter. But, really,\nshe acknowledged afterwards to herself, she was hoping that, Mrs Basil\nbeing out of the way, the time might have come when Edward should return\nto her. All that period she passed in an agony of jealousy and fear--the\nfear that Edward might really become promiscuous in his habits.\n\nSo that, in an odd way, she was glad when Maisie Maidan came along--and\nshe realized that she had not, before, been afraid of husbands and\nof scandals, since, then, she did her best to keep Maisie's husband\nunsuspicious. She wished to appear so trustful of Edward that Maidan\ncould not possibly have any suspicions. It was an evil position for\nher. But Edward was very ill and she wanted to see him smile again. She\nthought that if he could smile again through her agency he might return,\nthrough gratitude and satisfied love--to her. At that time she thought\nthat Edward was a person of light and fleeting passions. And she could\nunderstand Edward's passion for Maisie, since Maisie was one of those\nwomen to whom other women will allow magnetism. She was very pretty; she\nwas very young; in spite of her heart she was very gay and light on her\nfeet. And Leonora was really very fond of Maisie, who was fond enough of\nLeonora. Leonora, indeed, imagined that she could manage this affair\nall right. She had no thought of Maisie's being led into adultery; she\nimagined that if she could take Maisie and Edward to Nauheim, Edward\nwould see enough of her to get tired of her pretty little chatterings,\nand of the pretty little motions of her hands and feet. And she thought\nshe could trust Edward. For there was not any doubt of Maisie's passion\nfor Edward. She raved about him to Leonora as Leonora had heard girls\nrave about drawing masters in schools. She was perpetually asking her\nboy husband why he could not dress, ride, shoot, play polo, or even\nrecite sentimental poems, like their major. And young Maidan had the\ngreatest admiration for Edward, and he adored, was bewildered by and\nentirely trusted his wife. It appeared to him that Edward was devoted\nto Leonora. And Leonora imagined that when poor Maisie was cured of her\nheart and Edward had seen enough of her, he would return to her. She had\nthe vague, passionate idea that, when Edward had exhausted a number of\nother types of women he must turn to her. Why should not her type have\nits turn in his heart? She imagined that, by now, she understood him\nbetter, that she understood better his vanities and that, by making him\nhappier, she could arouse his love.\n\nFlorence knocked all that on the head....\n\n\n\n\nPART IV\n\nI\n\nI HAVE, I am aware, told this story in a very rambling way so that it\nmay be difficult for anyone to find their path through what may be a\nsort of maze. I cannot help it. I have stuck to my idea of being in a\ncountry cottage with a silent listener, hearing between the gusts of the\nwind and amidst the noises of the distant sea, the story as it comes.\nAnd, when one discusses an affair--a long, sad affair--one goes back,\none goes forward. One remembers points that one has forgotten and one\nexplains them all the more minutely since one recognizes that one has\nforgotten to mention them in their proper places and that one may have\ngiven, by omitting them, a false impression. I console myself with\nthinking that this is a real story and that, after all, real stories are\nprobably told best in the way a person telling a story would tell them.\nThey will then seem most real.\n\nAt any rate, I think I have brought my story up to the date of Maisie\nMaidan's death. I mean that I have explained everything that went before\nit from the several points of view that were necessary--from Leonora's,\nfrom Edward's and, to some extent, from my own. You have the facts for\nthe trouble of finding them; you have the points of view as far as I\ncould ascertain or put them. Let me imagine myself back, then, at\nthe day of Maisie's death--or rather at the moment of Florence's\ndissertation on the Protest, up in the old Castle of the town of\nM----. Let us consider Leonora's point of view with regard to Florence;\nEdward's, of course, I cannot give you, for Edward naturally never spoke\nof his affair with my wife. (I may, in what follows, be a little hard\non Florence; but you must remember that I have been writing away at this\nstory now for six months and reflecting longer and longer upon these\naffairs.) And the longer I think about them the more certain I\nbecome that Florence was a contaminating influence--she depressed and\ndeteriorated poor Edward; she deteriorated, hopelessly, the miserable\nLeonora. There is no doubt that she caused Leonora's character to\ndeteriorate. If there was a fine point about Leonora it was that she\nwas proud and that she was silent. But that pride and that silence broke\nwhen she made that extraordinary outburst, in the shadowy room that\ncontained the Protest, and in the little terrace looking over the river.\nI don't mean to say that she was doing a wrong thing. She was certainly\ndoing right in trying to warn me that Florence was making eyes at her\nhusband. But, if she did the right thing, she was doing it in the wrong\nway. Perhaps she should have reflected longer; she should have spoken,\nif she wanted to speak, only after reflection. Or it would have been\nbetter if she had acted--if, for instance, she had so chaperoned\nFlorence that private communication between her and Edward became\nimpossible. She should have gone eavesdropping; she should have watched\noutside bedroom doors. It is odious; but that is the way the job is\ndone. She should have taken Edward away the moment Maisie was dead.\nNo, she acted wrongly.... And yet, poor thing, is it for me to condemn\nher--and what did it matter in the end? If it had not been Florence, it\nwould have been some other... Still, it might have been a better woman\nthan my wife. For Florence was vulgar; Florence was a common flirt who\nwould not, at the last, lacher prise; and Florence was an unstoppable\ntalker. You could not stop her; nothing would stop her. Edward and\nLeonora were at least proud and reserved people. Pride and reserve are\nnot the only things in life; perhaps they are not even the best things.\nBut if they happen to be your particular virtues you will go all to\npieces if you let them go. And Leonora let them go. She let them go\nbefore poor Edward did even. Consider her position when she burst out\nover the Luther-Protest.... Consider her agonies....\n\nYou are to remember that the main passion of her life was to get Edward\nback; she had never, till that moment, despaired of getting him back.\nThat may seem ignoble; but you have also to remember that her getting\nhim back represented to her not only a victory for herself. It would, as\nit appeared to her, have been a victory for all wives and a victory for\nher Church. That was how it presented itself to her. These things are a\nlittle inscrutable. I don't know why the getting back of Edward should\nhave represented to her a victory for all wives, for Society and for\nher Church. Or, maybe, I have a glimmering of it. She saw life as a\nperpetual sex-battle between husbands who desire to be unfaithful to\ntheir wives, and wives who desire to recapture their husbands in the\nend. That was her sad and modest view of matrimony. Man, for her, was a\nsort of brute who must have his divagations, his moments of excess, his\nnights out, his, let us say, rutting seasons. She had read few novels,\nso that the idea of a pure and constant love succeeding the sound of\nwedding bells had never been very much presented to her. She went,\nnumbed and terrified, to the Mother Superior of her childhood's convent\nwith the tale of Edward's infidelities with the Spanish dancer, and all\nthat the old nun, who appeared to her to be infinitely wise, mystic and\nreverend, had done had been to shake her head sadly and to say:\n\n\"Men are like that. By the blessing of God it will all come right in the\nend.\"\n\nThat was what was put before her by her spiritual advisers as her\nprogramme in life. Or, at any rate, that was how their teachings came\nthrough to her--that was the lesson she told me she had learned of them.\nI don't know exactly what they taught her. The lot of women was patience\nand patience and again patience--ad majorem Dei gloriam--until upon the\nappointed day, if God saw fit, she should have her reward. If then, in\nthe end, she should have succeeded in getting Edward back she would have\nkept her man within the limits that are all that wifehood has to expect.\nShe was even taught that such excesses in men are natural, excusable--as\nif they had been children.\n\nAnd the great thing was that there should be no scandal before the\ncongregation. So she had clung to the idea of getting Edward back with a\nfierce passion that was like an agony. She had looked the other way; she\nhad occupied herself solely with one idea. That was the idea of having\nEdward appear, when she did get him back, wealthy, glorious as it were,\non account of his lands, and upright. She would show, in fact, that in\nan unfaithful world one Catholic woman had succeeded in retaining the\nfidelity of her husband. And she thought she had come near her desires.\n\nHer plan with regard to Maisie had appeared to be working admirably.\nEdward had seemed to be cooling off towards the girl. He did not\nhunger to pass every minute of the time at Nauheirn beside the child's\nrecumbent form; he went out to polo matches; he played auction bridge\nin the evenings; he was cheerful and bright. She was certain that he was\nnot trying to seduce that poor child; she was beginning to think that\nhe had never tried to do so. He seemed in fact to be dropping back\ninto what he had been for Maisie in the beginning--a kind, attentive,\nsuperior officer in the regiment, paying gallant attentions to a bride.\nThey were as open in their little flirtations as the dayspring from on\nhigh. And Maisie had not appeared to fret when he went off on excursions\nwith us; she had to lie down for so many hours on her bed every\nafternoon, and she had not appeared to crave for the attentions of\nEdward at those times. And Edward was beginning to make little advances\nto Leonora. Once or twice, in private--for he often did it before\npeople--he had said: \"How nice you look!\" or \"What a pretty dress!\"\nShe had gone with Florence to Frankfurt, where they dress as well as\nin Paris, and had got herself a gown or two. She could afford it, and\nFlorence was an excellent adviser as to dress. She seemed to have got\nhold of the clue to the riddle.\n\nYes, Leonora seemed to have got hold of the clue to the riddle. She\nimagined herself to have been in the wrong to some extent in the past.\nShe should not have kept Edward on such a tight rein with regard to\nmoney. She thought she was on the right tack in letting him--as she\nhad done only with fear and irresolution--have again the control of his\nincome. He came even a step towards her and acknowledged, spontaneously,\nthat she had been right in husbanding, for all those years, their\nresources. He said to her one day:\n\n\"You've done right, old girl. There's nothing I like so much as to have\na little to chuck away. And I can do it, thanks to you.\"\n\nThat was really, she said, the happiest moment of her life. And he,\nseeming to realize it, had ventured to pat her on the shoulder. He had,\nostensibly, come in to borrow a safety-pin of her. And the occasion of\nher boxing Maisie's ears, had, after it was over, riveted in her mind\nthe idea that there was no intrigue between Edward and Mrs Maidan. She\nimagined that, from henceforward, all that she had to do was to keep him\nwell supplied with money and his mind amused with pretty girls. She was\nconvinced that he was coming back to her. For that month she no longer\nrepelled his timid advances that never went very far. For he certainly\nmade timid advances. He patted her on the shoulder; he whispered into\nher ear little jokes about the odd figures that they saw up at the\nCasino. It was not much to make a little joke--but the whispering of it\nwas a precious intimacy....\n\nAnd then--smash--it all went. It went to pieces at the moment when\nFlorence laid her hand upon Edward's wrist, as it lay on the glass\nsheltering the manuscript of the Protest, up in the high tower with the\nshutters where the sunlight here and there streamed in. Or, rather, it\nwent when she noticed the look in Edward's eyes as he gazed back into\nFlorence's. She knew that look.\n\nShe had known--since the first moment of their meeting, since the moment\nof our all sitting down to dinner together--that Florence was\nmaking eyes at Edward. But she had seen so many women make eyes at\nEdward--hundreds and hundreds of women, in railway trains, in hotels,\naboard liners, at street corners. And she had arrived at thinking that\nEdward took little stock in women that made eyes at him. She had formed\nwhat was, at that time, a fairly correct estimate of the methods of,\nthe reasons for, Edward's loves. She was certain that hitherto they had\nconsisted of the short passion for the Dolciquita, the real sort of\nlove for Mrs Basil, and what she deemed the pretty courtship of Maisie\nMaidan. Besides she despised Florence so haughtily that she could not\nimagine Edward's being attracted by her. And she and Maisie were a\nsort of bulwark round him. She wanted, besides, to keep her eyes on\nFlorence--for Florence knew that she had boxed Maisie's ears. And\nLeonora desperately desired that her union with Edward should appear to\nbe flawless. But all that went....\n\nWith the answering gaze of Edward into Florence's blue and uplifted\neyes, she knew that it had all gone. She knew that that gaze meant that\nthose two had had long conversations of an intimate kind--about their\nlikes and dislikes, about their natures, about their views of marriage.\nShe knew what it meant that she, when we all four walked out together,\nhad always been with me ten yards ahead of Florence and Edward. She did\nnot imagine that it had gone further than talks about their likes and\ndislikes, about their natures or about marriage as an institution. But,\nhaving watched Edward all her life, she knew that that laying on of\nhands, that answering of gaze with gaze, meant that the thing was\nunavoidable. Edward was such a serious person.\n\nShe knew that any attempt on her part to separate those two would be to\nrivet on Edward an irrevocable passion; that, as I have before told\nyou, it was a trick of Edward's nature to believe that the seducing of a\nwoman gave her an irrevocable hold over him for life. And that touching\nof hands, she knew, would give that woman an irrevocable claim--to be\nseduced. And she so despised Florence that she would have preferred it\nto be a parlour-maid. There are very decent parlour-maids.\n\nAnd, suddenly, there came into her mind the conviction that Maisie\nMaidan had a real passion for Edward; that this would break her\nheart--and that she, Leonora, would be responsible for that. She went,\nfor the moment, mad. She clutched me by the wrist; she dragged me down\nthose stairs and across that whispering Rittersaal with the high painted\npillars, the high painted chimney-piece. I guess she did not go mad\nenough.\n\nShe ought to have said:\n\n\"Your wife is a harlot who is going to be my husband's mistress.. .\"\nThat might have done the trick. But, even in her madness, she was\nafraid to go as far as that. She was afraid that, if she did, Edward and\nFlorence would make a bolt of it, and that, if they did that, she would\nlose forever all chance of getting him back in the end. She acted very\nbadly to me.\n\nWell, she was a tortured soul who put her Church before the interests of\na Philadelphia Quaker. That is all right--I daresay the Church of Rome\nis the more important of the two.\n\nA week after Maisie Maidan's death she was aware that Florence had\nbecome Edward's mistress. She waited outside Florence's door and met\nEdward as he came away. She said nothing and he only grunted. But I\nguess he had a bad time.\n\nYes, the mental deterioration that Florence worked in Leonora was\nextraordinary; it smashed up her whole life and all her chances. It\nmade her, in the first place, hopeless--for she could not see how, after\nthat, Edward could return to her--after a vulgar intrigue with a vulgar\nwoman. His affair with Mrs Basil, which was now all that she had to\nbring, in her heart, against him, she could not find it in her to call\nan intrigue. It was a love affair--a pure enough thing in its way. But\nthis seemed to her to be a horror--a wantonness, all the more detestable\nto her, because she so detested Florence. And Florence talked....\n\nThat was what was terrible, because Florence forced Leonora herself to\nabandon her high reserve--Florence and the situation. It appears that\nFlorence was in two minds whether to confess to me or to Leonora.\nConfess she had to. And she pitched at last on Leonora, because if it\nhad been me she would have had to confess a great deal more. Or, at\nleast, I might have guessed a great deal more, about her \"heart\",\nand about Jimmy. So she went to Leonora one day and began hinting and\nhinting. And she enraged Leonora to such an extent that at last Leonora\nsaid:\n\n\"You want to tell me that you are Edward's mistress. You can be. I have\nno use for him.\" That was really a calamity for Leonora, because, once\nstarted, there was no stopping the talking. She tried to stop--but\nit was not to be done. She found it necessary to send Edward messages\nthrough Florence; for she would not speak to him. She had to give him,\nfor instance, to understand that if I ever came to know of his intrigue\nshe would ruin him beyond repair. And it complicated matters a good deal\nthat Edward, at about this time, was really a little in love with her.\nHe thought that he had treated her so badly; that she was so fine. She\nwas so mournful that he longed to comfort her, and he thought himself\nsuch a blackguard that there was nothing he would not have done to make\namends. And Florence communicated these items of information to Leonora.\n\nI don't in the least blame Leonora for her coarseness to Florence; it\nmust have done Florence a world of good. But I do blame her for giving\nway to what was in the end a desire for communicativeness. You see that\nbusiness cut her off from her Church. She did not want to confess what\nshe was doing because she was afraid that her spiritual advisers\nwould blame her for deceiving me. I rather imagine that she would have\npreferred damnation to breaking my heart. That is what it works out at.\nShe need not have troubled.\n\nBut, having no priests to talk to, she had to talk to someone, and\nas Florence insisted on talking to her, she talked back, in short,\nexplosive sentences, like one of the damned. Precisely like one of the\ndamned. Well, if a pretty period in hell on this earth can spare her\nany period of pain in Eternity--where there are not any periods--I guess\nLeonora will escape hell fire.\n\nHer conversations with Florence would be like this. Florence would\nhappen in on her, whilst she was doing her wonderful hair, with a\nproposition from Edward, who seems about that time to have conceived the\nnaïve idea that he might become a polygamist. I daresay it was Florence\nwho put it into his head. Anyhow, I am not responsible for the oddities\nof the human psychology. But it certainly appears that at about that\ndate Edward cared more for Leonora than he had ever done before--or,\nat any rate, for a long time. And, if Leonora had been a person to play\ncards and if she had played her cards well, and if she had had no sense\nof shame and so on, she might then have shared Edward with Florence\nuntil the time came for jerking that poor cuckoo out of the nest. Well,\nFlorence would come to Leonora with some such proposition. I do not mean\nto say that she put it baldly, like that. She stood out that she was not\nEdward's mistress until Leonora said that she had seen Edward coming out\nof her room at an advanced hour of the night. That checked Florence\na bit; but she fell back upon her \"heart\" and stuck out that she had\nmerely been conversing with Edward in order to bring him to a better\nframe of mind. Florence had, of course, to stick to that story; for even\nFlorence would not have had the face to implore Leonora to grant her\nfavours to Edward if she had admitted that she was Edward's mistress.\nThat could not be done. At the same time Florence had such a pressing\ndesire to talk about something. There would have been nothing else to\ntalk about but a rapprochement between that estranged pair. So Florence\nwould go on babbling and Leonora would go on brushing her hair. And then\nLeonora would say suddenly something like:\n\n\"I should think myself defiled if Edward touched me now that he has\ntouched you.\"\n\nThat would discourage Florence a bit; but after a week or so, on another\nmorning she would have another try.\n\nAnd even in other things Leonora deteriorated. She had promised Edward\nto leave the spending of his own income in his own hands. And she had\nfully meant to do that. I daresay she would have done it too; though, no\ndoubt, she would have spied upon his banking account in secret. She\nwas not a Roman Catholic for nothing. But she took so serious a view\nof Edward's unfaithfulness to the memory of poor little Maisie that she\ncould not trust him any more at all.\n\nSo when she got back to Branshaw she started, after less than a month,\nto worry him about the minutest items of his expenditure. She allowed\nhim to draw his own cheques, but there was hardly a cheque that she did\nnot scrutinize--except for a private account of about five hundred a\nyear which, tacitly, she allowed him to keep for expenditure on his\nmistress or mistresses. He had to have his jaunts to Paris; he had to\nsend expensive cables in cipher to Florence about twice a week. But she\nworried him about his expenditure on wines, on fruit trees, on harness,\non gates, on the account at his blacksmith's for work done to a new\npatent Army stirrup that he was trying to invent. She could not see\nwhy he should bother to invent a new Army stirrup, and she was really\nenraged when, after the invention was mature, he made a present to the\nWar Office of the designs and the patent rights. It was a remarkably\ngood stirrup.\n\nI have told you, I think, that Edward spent a great deal of time,\nand about two hundred pounds for law fees on getting a poor girl, the\ndaughter of one of his gardeners, acquitted of a charge of murdering her\nbaby. That was positively the last act of Edward's life. It came at a\ntime when Nancy Rufford was on her way to India; when the most horrible\ngloom was over the household; when Edward himself was in an agony and\nbehaving as prettily as he knew how. Yet even then Leonora made him a\nterrible scene about this expenditure of time and trouble. She sort of\nhad the vague idea that what had passed with the girl and the rest of\nit ought to have taught Edward a lesson--the lesson of economy. She\nthreatened to take his banking account away from him again. I guess that\nmade him cut his throat. He might have stuck it out otherwise--but the\nthought that he had lost Nancy and that, in addition, there was nothing\nleft for him but a dreary, dreary succession of days in which he could\nbe of no public service... Well, it finished him.\n\nIt was during those years that Leonora tried to get up a love affair of\nher own with a fellow called Bayham--a decent sort of fellow. A really\nnice man. But the affair was no sort of success. I have told you about\nit already... .\n\nII\n\nWELL, that about brings me up to the date of my receiving, in Waterbury,\nthe laconic cable from Edward to the effect that he wanted me to go to\nBranshaw and have a chat. I was pretty busy at the time and I was half\nminded to send him a reply cable to the effect that I would start in\na fortnight. But I was having a long interview with old Mr Hurlbird's\nattorneys and immediately afterwards I had to have a long interview with\nthe Misses Hurlbird, so I delayed cabling.\n\nI had expected to find the Misses Hurlbird excessively old--in the\nnineties or thereabouts. The time had passed so slowly that I had the\nimpression that it must have been thirty years since I had been in the\nUnited States. It was only twelve years. Actually Miss Hurlbird was just\nsixty-one and Miss Florence Hurlbird fifty-nine, and they were both,\nmentally and physically, as vigorous as could be desired. They were,\nindeed, more vigorous, mentally, than suited my purpose, which was to\nget away from the United States as quickly as I could. The Hurlbirds\nwere an exceedingly united family--exceedingly united except on one set\nof points. Each of the three of them had a separate doctor, whom they\ntrusted implicitly--and each had a separate attorney. And each of them\ndistrusted the other's doctor and the other's attorney. And, naturally,\nthe doctors and the attorneys warned one all the time--against each\nother. You cannot imagine how complicated it all became for me. Of\ncourse I had an attorney of my own--recommended to me by young Carter,\nmy Philadelphia nephew.\n\nI do not mean to say that there was any unpleasantness of a grasping\nkind. The problem was quite another one--a moral dilemma. You see, old\nMr Hurlbird had left all his property to Florence with the mere request\nthat she would have erected to him in the city of Waterbury, Ill., a\nmemorial that should take the form of some sort of institution for the\nrelief of sufferers from the heart. Florence's money had all come to\nme--and with it old Mr Hurlbird's. He had died just five days before\nFlorence.\n\nWell, I was quite ready to spend a round million dollars on the relief\nof sufferers from the heart. The old gentleman had left about a million\nand a half; Florence had been worth about eight hundred thousand--and\nas I figured it out, I should cut up at about a million myself. Anyhow,\nthere was ample money. But I naturally wanted to consult the wishes of\nhis surviving relatives and then the trouble really began. You see, it\nhad been discovered that Mr Hurlbird had had nothing whatever the matter\nwith his heart. His lungs had been a little affected all through his\nlife and he had died of bronchitis. It struck Miss Florence Hurlbird\nthat, since her brother had died of lungs and not of heart, his money\nought to go to lung patients. That, she considered, was what her brother\nwould have wished. On the other hand, by a kink, that I could not at the\ntime understand, Miss Hurlbird insisted that I ought to keep the money\nall to myself. She said that she did not wish for any monuments to the\nHurlbird family. At the time I thought that that was because of a New\nEngland dislike for necrological ostentation. But I can figure out now,\nwhen I remember certain insistent and continued questions that she put\nto me, about Edward Ashburnham, that there was another idea in her mind.\nAnd Leonora has told me that, on Florence's dressing-table, beside her\ndead body, there had lain a letter to Miss Hurlbird--a letter which\nLeonora posted without telling me. I don't know how Florence had time to\nwrite to her aunt; but I can quite understand that she would not like\nto go out of the world without making some comments. So I guess Florence\nhad told Miss Hurlbird a good bit about Edward Ashburnham in a few\nscrawled words--and that that was why the old lady did not wish the name\nof Hurlbird perpetuated. Perhaps also she thought that I had earned the\nHurlbird money. It meant a pretty tidy lot of discussing, what with the\ndoctors warning each other about the bad effects of discussions on the\nhealth of the old ladies, and warning me covertly against each other,\nand saying that old Mr Hurlbird might have died of heart, after all,\nin spite of the diagnosis of his doctor. And the solicitors all had\nseparate methods of arranging about how the money should be invested and\nentrusted and bound. Personally, I wanted to invest the money so that\nthe interest could be used for the relief of sufferers from the heart.\nIf old Mr Hurlbird had not died of any defects in that organ he had\nconsidered that it was defective. Moreover, Florence had certainly died\nof her heart, as I saw it. And when Miss Florence Hurlbird stood out\nthat the money ought to go to chest sufferers I was brought to thinking\nthat there ought to be a chest institution too, and I advanced the sum\nthat I was ready to provide to a million and a half of dollars. That\nwould have given seven hundred and fifty thousand to each class of\ninvalid. I did not want money at all badly. All I wanted it for was to\nbe able to give Nancy Rufford a good time. I did not know much about\nhousekeeping expenses in England where, I presumed, she would wish\nto live. I knew that her needs at that time were limited to good\nchocolates, and a good horse or two, and simple, pretty frocks. Probably\nshe would want more than that later on. But even if I gave a million and\na half dollars to these institutions I should still have the equivalent\nof about twenty thousand a year English, and I considered that Nancy\ncould have a pretty good time on that or less. Anyhow, we had a stiff\nset of arguments up at the Hurlbird mansion which stands on a bluff\nover the town. It may strike you, silent listener, as being funny if you\nhappen to be European. But moral problems of that description and the\ngiving of millions to institutions are immensely serious matters in my\ncountry. Indeed, they are the staple topics for consideration amongst\nthe wealthy classes. We haven't got peerage and social climbing to\noccupy us much, and decent people do not take interest in politics or\nelderly people in sport. So that there were real tears shed by both\nMiss Hurlbird and Miss Florence before I left that city. I left it quite\nabruptly. Four hours after Edward's telegram came another from Leonora,\nsaying: \"Yes, do come. You could be so helpful.\" I simply told my\nattorney that there was the million and a half; that he could invest\nit as he liked, and that the purposes must be decided by the Misses\nHurlbird. I was, anyhow, pretty well worn out by all the discussions.\nAnd, as I have never heard yet from the Misses Hurlbird, I rather\nthink that Miss Hurlbird, either by revelations or by moral force, has\npersuaded Miss Florence that no memorial to their names shall be erected\nin the city of Waterbury, Conn. Miss Hurlbird wept dreadfully when she\nheard that I was going to stay with the Ashburnhams, but she did not\nmake any comments. I was aware, at that date, that her niece had been\nseduced by that fellow Jimmy before I had married her--but I contrived\nto produce on her the impression that I thought Florence had been a\nmodel wife. Why, at that date I still believed that Florence had been\nperfectly virtuous after her marriage to me. I had not figured it out\nthat she could have played it so low down as to continue her intrigue\nwith that fellow under my roof. Well, I was a fool. But I did not think\nmuch about Florence at that date. My mind was occupied with what was\nhappening at Branshaw. I had got it into my head that the telegrams had\nsomething to do with Nancy. It struck me that she might have shown signs\nof forming an attachment for some undesirable fellow and that Leonora\nwanted me to come back and marry her out of harm's way. That was what\nwas pretty firmly in my mind. And it remained in my mind for nearly ten\ndays after my arrival at that beautiful old place. Neither Edward nor\nLeonora made any motion to talk to me about anything other than the\nweather and the crops. Yet, although there were several young fellows\nabout, I could not see that any one in particular was distinguished by\nthe girl's preference. She certainly appeared illish and nervous, except\nwhen she woke up to talk gay nonsense to me. Oh, the pretty thing that\nshe was....\n\nI imagined that what must have happened was that the undesirable young\nman had been forbidden the place and that Nancy was fretting a little.\nWhat had happened was just Hell. Leonora had spoken to Nancy; Nancy had\nspoken to Edward; Edward had spoken to Leonora--and they had talked and\ntalked. And talked. You have to imagine horrible pictures of gloom and\nhalf lights, and emotions running through silent nights--through whole\nnights. You have to imagine my beautiful Nancy appearing suddenly to\nEdward, rising up at the foot of his bed, with her long hair falling,\nlike a split cone of shadow, in the glimmer of a night-light that burned\nbeside him. You have to imagine her, a silent, a no doubt agonized\nfigure, like a spectre, suddenly offering herself to him--to save his\nreason! And you have to imagine his frantic refusal--and talk. And talk!\nMy God!\n\nAnd yet, to me, living in the house, enveloped with the charm of the\nquiet and ordered living, with the silent, skilled servants whose mere\nlaying out of my dress clothes was like a caress--to me who was hourly\nwith them they appeared like tender, ordered and devoted people,\nsmiling, absenting themselves at the proper intervals; driving me to\nmeets--just good people! How the devil--how the devil do they do it?\n\nAt dinner one evening Leonora said--she had just opened a telegram:\n\n\"Nancy will be going to India, tomorrow, to be with her father.\"\n\nNo one spoke. Nancy looked at her plate; Edward went on eating his\npheasant. I felt very bad; I imagined that it would be up to me to\npropose to Nancy that evening. It appeared to me to be queer that they\nhad not given me any warning of Nancy's departure--But I thought that\nthat was only English manners--some sort of delicacy that I had not got\nthe hang of. You must remember that at that moment I trusted in Edward\nand Leonora and in Nancy Rufford, and in the tranquility of ancient\nhaunts of peace, as I had trusted in my mother's love. And that evening\nEdward spoke to me.\n\nWhat in the interval had happened had been this:\n\nUpon her return from Nauheim Leonora had completely broken down--because\nshe knew she could trust Edward. That seems odd but, if you know\nanything about breakdowns, you will know that by the ingenious torments\nthat fate prepares for us, these things come as soon as, a strain having\nrelaxed, there is nothing more to be done. It is after a husband's long\nillness and death that a widow goes to pieces; it is at the end of a\nlong rowing contest that a crew collapses and lies forward upon its\noars. And that was what happened to Leonora.\n\nFrom certain tones in Edward's voice; from the long, steady stare that\nhe had given her from his bloodshot eyes on rising from the dinner table\nin the Nauheim hotel, she knew that, in the affair of the poor girl,\nthis was a case in which Edward's moral scruples, or his social code,\nor his idea that it would be playing it too low down, rendered Nancy\nperfectly safe. The girl, she felt sure, was in no danger at all from\nEdward. And in that she was perfectly right. The smash was to come from\nherself.\n\nShe relaxed; she broke; she drifted, at first quickly, then with an\nincreasing momentum, down the stream of destiny. You may put it that,\nhaving been cut off from the restraints of her religion, for the first\ntime in her life, she acted along the lines of her instinctive desires.\nI do not know whether to think that, in that she was no longer herself;\nor that, having let loose the bonds of her standards, her conventions\nand her traditions, she was being, for the first time, her own natural\nself. She was torn between her intense, maternal love for the girl and\nan intense jealousy of the woman who realizes that the man she loves has\nmet what appears to be the final passion of his life. She was divided\nbetween an intense disgust for Edward's weakness in conceiving this\npassion, an intense pity for the miseries that he was enduring, and a\nfeeling equally intense, but one that she hid from herself--a feeling of\nrespect for Edward's determination to keep himself, in this particular\naffair, unspotted.\n\nAnd the human heart is a very mysterious thing. It is impossible to say\nthat Leonora, in acting as she then did, was not filled with a sort of\nhatred of Edward's final virtue. She wanted, I think, to despise him. He\nwas, she realized gone from her for good. Then let him suffer, let him\nagonize; let him, if possible, break and go to that Hell that is the\nabode of broken resolves. She might have taken a different line. It\nwould have been so easy to send the girl away to stay with some friends;\nto have taken her away herself upon some pretext or other. That would\nnot have cured things but it would have been the decent line,... But, at\nthat date, poor Leonora was incapable of taking any line whatever.\n\nShe pitied Edward frightfully at one time--and then she acted along\nthe lines of pity; she loathed him at another and then she acted as her\nloathing dictated. She gasped, as a person dying of tuberculosis gasps\nfor air. She craved madly for communication with some other human soul.\nAnd the human soul that she selected was that of the girl.\n\nPerhaps Nancy was the only person that she could have talked to. With\nher necessity for reticences, with her coldness of manner, Leonora had\nsingularly few intimates. She had none at all, with the exception of\nthe Mrs Colonel Whelen, who had advised her about the affair with La\nDolciquita, and the one or two religious, who had guided her through\nlife. The Colonel's wife was at that time in Madeira; the religious she\nnow avoided. Her visitors' book had seven hundred names in it; there was\nnot a soul that she could speak to. She was Mrs Ashburnham of Branshaw\nTeleragh.\n\nShe was the great Mrs Ashburnham of Branshaw and she lay all day upon\nher bed in her marvellous, light, airy bedroom with the chintzes and\nthe Chippendale and the portraits of deceased Ashburnhams by Zoffany and\nZucchero. When there was a meet she would struggle up--supposing it were\nwithin driving distance--and let Edward drive her and the girl to the\ncross-roads or the country house. She would drive herself back alone;\nEdward would ride off with the girl. Ride Leonora could not, that\nseason--her head was too bad. Each pace of her mare was an anguish.\n\nBut she drove with efficiency and precision; she smiled at the Gimmers\nand Ffoulkes and the Hedley Seatons. She threw with exactitude pennies\nto the boys who opened gates for her; she sat upright on the seat of the\nhigh dog-cart; she waved her hands to Edward and Nancy as they rode off\nwith the hounds, and every one could hear her clear, high voice, in the\nchilly weather, saying: \"Have a good time!\"\n\nPoor forlorn woman!...\n\nThere was, however, one spark of consolation. It came from the fact that\nRodney Bayham, of Bayham, followed her always with his eyes. It had been\nthree years since she had tried her abortive love-affair with him. Yet\nstill, on the winter mornings he would ride up to her shafts and just\nsay: \"Good day,\" and look at her with eyes that were not imploring,\nbut seemed to say: \"You see, I am still, as the Germans say, A. D.--at\ndisposition.\"\n\nIt was a great consolation, not because she proposed ever to take him\nup again, but because it showed her that there was in the world one\nfaithful soul in riding-breeches. And it showed her that she was not\nlosing her looks.\n\nAnd, indeed, she was not losing her looks. She was forty, but she was as\nclean run as on the day she had left the convent--as clear in outline,\nas clear coloured in the hair, as dark blue in the eyes. She thought\nthat her looking-glass told her this; but there are always the\ndoubts.... Rodney Bayham's eyes took them away.\n\nIt is very singular that Leonora should not have aged at all. I suppose\nthat there are some types of beauty and even of youth made for the\nembellishments that come with enduring sorrow. That is too elaborately\nput. I mean that Leonora, if everything had prospered, might have\nbecome too hard and, maybe, overbearing. As it was she was tuned down\nto appearing efficient--and yet sympathetic. That is the rarest of all\nblends. And yet I swear that Leonora, in her restrained way, gave the\nimpression of being intensely sympathetic. When she listened to you she\nappeared also to be listening to some sound that was going on in the\ndistance. But still, she listened to you and took in what you said,\nwhich, since the record of humanity is a record of sorrows, was, as a\nrule, something sad.\n\nI think that she must have taken Nancy through many terrors of the night\nand many bad places of the day. And that would account for the girl's\npassionate love for the elder woman. For Nancy's love for Leonora was an\nadmiration that is awakened in Catholics by their feeling for the Virgin\nMary and for various of the saints. It is too little to say that the\ngirl would have laid her life at Leonora's feet. Well, she laid\nthere the offer of her virtue--and her reason. Those were sufficient\ninstalments of her life. It would today be much better for Nancy Rufford\nif she were dead.\n\nPerhaps all these reflections are a nuisance; but they crowd on me. I\nwill try to tell the story.\n\nYou see--when she came back from Nauheim Leonora began to have her\nheadaches--headaches lasting through whole days, during which she could\nspeak no word and could bear to hear no sound. And, day after day,\nNancy would sit with her, silent and motionless for hours, steeping\nhandkerchiefs in vinegar and water, and thinking her own thoughts. It\nmust have been very bad for her--and her meals alone with Edward must\nhave been bad for her too--and beastly bad for Edward. Edward, of\ncourse, wavered in his demeanour, What else could he do? At times he\nwould sit silent and dejected over his untouched food. He would utter\nnothing but monosyllables when Nancy spoke to him. Then he was simply\nafraid of the girl falling in love with him. At other times he would\ntake a little wine; pull himself together; attempt to chaff Nancy about\na stake and binder hedge that her mare had checked at, or talk about the\nhabits of the Chitralis. That was when he was thinking that it was\nrough on the poor girl that he should have become a dull companion. He\nrealized that his talking to her in the park at Nauheim had done her no\nharm.\n\nBut all that was doing a great deal of harm to Nancy. It gradually\nopened her eyes to the fact that Edward was a man with his ups and downs\nand not an invariably gay uncle like a nice dog, a trustworthy horse or\na girl friend. She would find him in attitudes of frightful dejection,\nsunk into his armchair in the study that was half a gun-room. She would\nnotice through the open door that his face was the face of an old, dead\nman, when he had no one to talk to. Gradually it forced itself upon her\nattention that there were profound differences between the pair that she\nregarded as her uncle and her aunt. It was a conviction that came very\nslowly.\n\nIt began with Edward's giving an oldish horse to a young fellow called\nSelmes. Selmes' father had been ruined by a fraudulent solicitor and the\nSelmes family had had to sell their hunters. It was a case that had\nexcited a good deal of sympathy in that part of the county. And Edward,\nmeeting the young man one day, unmounted, and seeing him to be very\nunhappy, had offered to give him an old Irish cob upon which he was\nriding. It was a silly sort of thing to do really. The horse was worth\nfrom thirty to forty pounds and Edward might have known that the gift\nwould upset his wife. But Edward just had to comfort that unhappy young\nman whose father he had known all his life. And what made it all the\nworse was that young Selmes could not afford to keep the horse even.\nEdward recollected this, immediately after he had made the offer, and\nsaid quickly:\n\n\"Of course I mean that you should stable the horse at Branshaw until you\nhave time to turn round or want to sell him and get a better.\"\n\nNancy went straight home and told all this to Leonora who was lying\ndown. She regarded it as a splendid instance of Edward's quick\nconsideration for the feelings and the circumstances of the distressed.\nShe thought it would cheer Leonora up--because it ought to cheer any\nwoman up to know that she had such a splendid husband. That was the last\ngirlish thought she ever had. For Leonora, whose headache had left her\ncollected but miserably weak, turned upon her bed and uttered words that\nwere amazing to the girl:\n\n\"I wish to God,\" she said, \"that he was your husband, and not mine. We\nshall be ruined. We shall be ruined. Am I never to have a chance?\" And\nsuddenly Leonora burst into a passion of tears. She pushed herself up\nfrom the pillows with one elbow and sat there--crying, crying, crying,\nwith her face hidden in her hands and the tears falling through her\nfingers.\n\nThe girl flushed, stammered and whimpered as if she had been personally\ninsulted.\n\n\"But if Uncle Edward...\" she began.\n\n\"That man,\" said Leonora, with an extraordinary bitterness, \"would give\nthe shirt off his back and off mine--and off yours to any...\" She could\nnot finish the sentence.\n\nAt that moment she had been feeling an extraordinary hatred and contempt\nfor her husband. All the morning and all the afternoon she had been\nlying there thinking that Edward and the girl were together--in the\nfield and hacking it home at dusk. She had been digging her sharp nails\ninto her palms.\n\nThe house had been very silent in the drooping winter weather. And then,\nafter an eternity of torture, there had invaded it the sound of opening\ndoors, of the girl's gay voice saying:\n\n\"Well, it was only under the mistletoe.\"... And there was Edward's gruff\nundertone. Then Nancy had come in, with feet that had hastened up the\nstairs and that tiptoed as they approached the open door of Leonora's\nroom. Branshaw had a great big hall with oak floors and tiger skins.\nRound this hall there ran a gallery upon which Leonora's doorway gave.\nAnd even when she had the worst of her headaches she liked to have her\ndoor open--I suppose so that she might hear the approaching footsteps\nof ruin and disaster. At any rate she hated to be in a room with a shut\ndoor.\n\nAt that moment Leonora hated Edward with a hatred that was like hell,\nand she would have liked to bring her riding-whip down across the girl's\nface. What right had Nancy to be young and slender and dark, and gay at\ntimes, at times mournful? What right had she to be exactly the woman\nto make Leonora's husband happy? For Leonora knew that Nancy would have\nmade Edward happy.\n\nYes, Leonora wished to bring her riding-whip down on Nancy's young face.\nShe imagined the pleasure she would feel when the lash fell across those\nqueer features; the pleasure she would feel at drawing the handle at\nthe same moment toward her, so as to cut deep into the flesh and to\nleave a lasting wheal.\n\nWell, she left a lasting wheal, and her words cut deeply into the girl's\nmind....\n\nThey neither of them spoke about that again. A fortnight went by--a\nfortnight of deep rains, of heavy fields, of bad scent. Leonora's\nheadaches seemed to have gone for good. She hunted once or twice,\nletting herself be piloted by Bayham, whilst Edward looked after the\ngirl. Then, one evening, when those three were dining alone, Edward\nsaid, in the queer, deliberate, heavy tones that came out of him in\nthose days (he was looking at the table):\n\n\"I have been thinking that Nancy ought to do more for her father. He is\ngetting an old man. I have written to Colonel Rufford, suggesting that\nshe should go to him.\"\n\nLeonora called out:\n\n\"How dare you? How dare you?\"\n\nThe girl put her hand over her heart and cried out: \"Oh, my sweet\nSaviour, help me!\" That was the queer way she thought within her mind,\nand the words forced themselves to her lips. Edward said nothing.\n\nAnd that night, by a merciless trick of the devil that pays attention\nto this sweltering hell of ours, Nancy Rufford had a letter from her\nmother. It came whilst Leonora was talking to Edward, or Leonora would\nhave intercepted it as she had intercepted others. It was an amazing and\na horrible letter.. ..\n\nI don't know what it contained. I just average out from its effects on\nNancy that her mother, having eloped with some worthless sort of fellow,\nhad done what is called \"sinking lower and lower\". Whether she was\nactually on the streets I do not know, but I rather think that she eked\nout a small allowance that she had from her husband by that means of\nlivelihood. And I think that she stated as much in her letter to Nancy\nand upbraided the girl with living in luxury whilst her mother starved.\nAnd it must have been horrible in tone, for Mrs Rufford was a cruel sort\nof woman at the best of times. It must have seemed to that poor girl,\nopening her letter, for distraction from another grief, up in her\nbedroom, like the laughter of a devil.\n\nI just cannot bear to think of my poor dear girl at that moment....\n\nAnd, at the same time, Leonora was lashing, like a cold fiend, into the\nunfortunate Edward. Or, perhaps, he was not so unfortunate; because he\nhad done what he knew to be the right thing, he may be deemed happy.\nI leave it to you. At any rate, he was sitting in his deep chair, and\nLeonora came into his room--for the first time in nine years. She said:\n\n\"This is the most atrocious thing you have done in your atrocious\nlife.\" He never moved and he never looked at her. God knows what was in\nLeonora's mind exactly.\n\nI like to think that, uppermost in it was concern and horror at the\nthought of the poor girl's going back to a father whose voice made\nher shriek in the night. And, indeed, that motive was very strong with\nLeonora. But I think there was also present the thought that she wanted\nto go on torturing Edward with the girl's presence. She was, at that\ntime, capable of that.\n\nEdward was sunk in his chair; there were in the room two candles, hidden\nby green glass shades. The green shades were reflected in the glasses\nof the book-cases that contained not books but guns with gleaming brown\nbarrels and fishing-rods in green baize over-covers. There was dimly to\nbe seen, above a mantelpiece encumbered with spurs, hooves and bronze\nmodels of horses, a dark-brown picture of a white horse.\n\n\"If you think,\" Leonora said, \"that I do not know that you are in love\nwith the girl...\" She began spiritedly, but she could not find any\nending for the sentence. Edward did not stir; he never spoke. And then\nLeonora said:\n\n\"If you want me to divorce you, I will. You can marry her then. She's in\nlove with you.\"\n\nHe groaned at that, a little, Leonora said. Then she went away.\n\nHeaven knows what happened in Leonora after that. She certainly does not\nherself know. She probably said a good deal more to Edward than I have\nbeen able to report; but that is all that she has told me and I am not\ngoing to make up speeches. To follow her psychological development of\nthat moment I think we must allow that she upbraided him for a great\ndeal of their past life, whilst Edward sat absolutely silent. And,\nindeed, in speaking of it afterwards, she has said several times: \"I\nsaid a great deal more to him than I wanted to, just because he was so\nsilent.\" She talked, in fact, in the endeavour to sting him into speech.\n\nShe must have said so much that, with the expression of her grievance,\nher mood changed. She went back to her own room in the gallery, and sat\nthere for a long time thinking. And she thought herself into a mood\nof absolute unselfishness, of absolute self-contempt, too. She said to\nherself that she was no good; that she had failed in all her efforts--in\nher efforts to get Edward back as in her efforts to make him curb his\nexpenditure. She imagined herself to be exhausted; she imagined herself\nto be done. Then a great fear came over her.\n\nShe thought that Edward, after what she had said to him, must have\ncommitted suicide. She went out on to the gallery and listened; there\nwas no sound in all the house except the regular beat of the great clock\nin the hall. But, even in her debased condition, she was not the person\nto hang about. She acted. She went straight to Edward's room, opened the\ndoor, and looked in.\n\nHe was oiling the breech action of a gun. It was an unusual thing for\nhim to do, at that time of night, in his evening clothes. It never\noccurred to her, nevertheless, that he was going to shoot himself with\nthat implement. She knew that he was doing it just for occupation--to\nkeep himself from thinking. He looked up when she opened the door, his\nface illuminated by the light cast upwards from the round orifices in\nthe green candle shades.\n\nShe said:\n\n\"I didn't imagine that I should find Nancy here.\" She thought that she\nowed that to him. He answered then:\n\n\"I don't imagine that you did imagine it.\" Those were the only words\nhe spoke that night. She went, like a lame duck, back through the long\ncorridors; she stumbled over the familiar tiger skins in the dark hall.\nShe could hardly drag one limb after the other. In the gallery she\nperceived that Nancy's door was half open and that there was a light in\nthe girl's room. A sudden madness possessed her, a desire for action, a\nthirst for self-explanation.\n\nTheir rooms all gave on to the gallery; Leonora's to the east, the\ngirl's next, then Edward's. The sight of those three open doors, side by\nside, gaping to receive whom the chances of the black night might bring,\nmade Leonora shudder all over her body. She went into Nancy's room.\n\nThe girl was sitting perfectly still in an armchair, very upright, as\nshe had been taught to sit at the convent. She appeared to be as calm\nas a church; her hair fell, black and like a pall, down over both her\nshoulders. The fire beside her was burning brightly; she must have just\nput coals on. She was in a white silk kimono that covered her to the\nfeet. The clothes that she had taken off were exactly folded upon the\nproper seats. Her long hands were one upon each arm of the chair that\nhad a pink and white chintz back.\n\nLeonora told me these things. She seemed to think it extraordinary that\nthe girl could have done such orderly things as fold up the clothes she\nhad taken off upon such a night--when Edward had announced that he was\ngoing to send her to her father, and when, from her mother, she had\nreceived that letter. The letter, in its envelope, was in her right\nhand.\n\nLeonora did not at first perceive it. She said:\n\n\"What are you doing so late?\"\n\nThe girl answered: \"Just thinking.\"\n\nThey seemed to think in whispers and to speak below their breaths. Then\nLeonora's eyes fell on the envelope, and she recognized Mrs Rufford's\nhandwriting.\n\nIt was one of those moments when thinking was impossible, Leonora said.\nIt was as if stones were being thrown at her from every direction and\nshe could only run. She heard herself exclaim: \"Edward's dying--because\nof you. He's dying. He's worth more than either of us....\"\n\nThe girl looked past her at the panels of the half-closed door.\n\n\"My poor father,\" she said, \"my poor father.\" \"You must stay here,\"\nLeonora answered fiercely. \"You must stay here. I tell you you must stay\nhere.\"\n\n\"I am going to Glasgow,\" Nancy answered. \"I shall go to Glasgow tomorrow\nmorning. My mother is in Glasgow.\"\n\nIt appears that it was in Glasgow that Mrs Rufford pursued her\ndisorderly life. She had selected that city, not because it was more\nprofitable but because it was the natal home of her husband to whom she\ndesired to cause as much pain as possible.\n\n\"You must stay here,\" Leonora began, \"to save Edward. He's dying for\nlove of you.\"\n\nThe girl turned her calm eyes upon Leonora. \"I know it,\" she said. \"And\nI am dying for love of him.\"\n\nLeonora uttered an \"Ah,\" that, in spite of herself, was an \"Ah\" of\nhorror and of grief.\n\n\"That is why,\" the girl continued, \"I am going to Glasgow--to take my\nmother away from there.\" She added, \"To the ends of the earth,\" for, if\nthe last months had made her nature that of a woman, her phrases were\nstill romantically those of a schoolgirl. It was as if she had grown\nup so quickly that there had not been time to put her hair up. But she\nadded: \"We're no good--my mother and I.\"\n\nLeonora said, with her fierce calmness:\n\n\"No. No. You're not no good. It's I that am no good. You can't let that\nman go on to ruin for want of you. You must belong to him.\"\n\nThe girl, she said, smiled at her with a queer, far-away smile--as if\nshe were a thousand years old, as if Leonora were a tiny child.\n\n\"I knew you would come to that,\" she said, very slowly. \"But we are not\nworth it--Edward and I.\"\n\nIII\n\nNANCY had, in fact, been thinking ever since Leonora had made that\ncomment over the giving of the horse to young Selmes. She had been\nthinking and thinking, because she had had to sit for many days silent\nbeside her aunt's bed. (She had always thought of Leonora as her aunt.)\nAnd she had had to sit thinking during many silent meals with Edward.\nAnd then, at times, with his bloodshot eyes and creased, heavy mouth,\nhe would smile at her. And gradually the knowledge had come to her\nthat Edward did not love Leonora and that Leonora hated Edward. Several\nthings contributed to form and to harden this conviction. She was\nallowed to read the papers in those days--or, rather, since Leonora was\nalways on her bed and Edward breakfasted alone and went out early, over\nthe estate, she was left alone with the papers. One day, in the papers,\nshe saw the portrait of a woman she knew very well. Beneath it she read\nthe words: \"The Hon. Mrs Brand, plaintiff in the remarkable divorce case\nreported on p. 8.\" Nancy hardly knew what a divorce case was. She had\nbeen so remarkably well brought up, and Roman Catholics do not practise\ndivorce. I don't know how Leonora had done it exactly. I suppose she had\nalways impressed it on Nancy's mind that nice women did not read these\nthings, and that would have been enough to make Nancy skip those pages.\n\nShe read, at any rate, the account of the Brand divorce\ncase--principally because she wanted to tell Leonora about it. She\nimagined that Leonora, when her headache left her, would like to know\nwhat was happening to Mrs Brand, who lived at Christchurch, and whom\nthey both liked very well. The case occupied three days, and the report\nthat Nancy first came upon was that of the third day. Edward, however,\nkept the papers of the week, after his methodical fashion, in a rack in\nhis gun-room, and when she had finished her breakfast Nancy went to\nthat quiet apartment and had what she would have called a good read.\nIt seemed to her to be a queer affair. She could not understand why one\ncounsel should be so anxious to know all about the movements of Mr Brand\nupon a certain day; she could not understand why a chart of the bedroom\naccommodation at Christchurch Old Hall should be produced in court.\nShe did not even see why they should want to know that, upon a certain\noccasion, the drawing-room door was locked. It made her laugh; it\nappeared to be all so senseless that grown people should occupy\nthemselves with such matters. It struck her, nevertheless, as odd that\none of the counsel should cross-question Mr Brand so insistently and so\nimpertinently as to his feelings for Miss Lupton. Nancy knew Miss Lupton\nof Ringwood very well--a jolly girl, who rode a horse with two white\nfetlocks. Mr Brand persisted that he did not love Miss Lupton.... Well,\nof course he did not love Miss Lupton; he was a married man. You might\nas well think of Uncle Edward loving... loving anybody but Leonora. When\npeople were married there was an end of loving. There were, no doubt,\npeople who misbehaved--but they were poor people--or people not like\nthose she knew. So these matters presented themselves to Nancy's mind.\nBut later on in the case she found that Mr Brand had to confess to a\n\"guilty intimacy\" with some one or other. Nancy imagined that he must\nhave been telling some one his wife's secrets; she could not\nunderstand why that was a serious offence. Of course it was not very\ngentlemanly--it lessened her opinion of Mrs Brand. But since she found\nthat Mrs Brand had condoned that offence, she imagined that they could\nnot have been very serious secrets that Mr Brand had told. And then,\nsuddenly, it was forced on her conviction that Mr Brand--the mild\nMr Brand that she had seen a month or two before their departure to\nNauheim, playing \"Blind Man's Buff\" with his children and kissing his\nwife when he caught her--Mr Brand and Mrs Brand had been on the worst\npossible terms. That was incredible.\n\nYet there it was--in black and white. Mr Brand drank; Mr Brand had\nstruck Mrs Brand to the ground when he was drunk. Mr Brand was adjudged,\nin two or three abrupt words, at the end of columns and columns of\npaper, to have been guilty of cruelty to his wife and to have\ncommitted adultery with Miss Lupton. The last words conveyed nothing to\nNancy--nothing real, that is to say. She knew that one was commanded not\nto commit adultery--but why, she thought, should one? It was probably\nsomething like catching salmon out of season--a thing one did not do.\nShe gathered it had something to do with kissing, or holding some one in\nyour arms.. ..\n\nAnd yet the whole effect of that reading upon Nancy was mysterious,\nterrifying and evil. She felt a sickness--a sickness that grew as she\nread. Her heart beat painfully; she began to cry. She asked God how He\ncould permit such things to be. And she was more certain that Edward did\nnot love Leonora and that Leonora hated Edward. Perhaps, then, Edward\nloved some one else. It was unthinkable.\n\nIf he could love some one else than Leonora, her fierce unknown heart\nsuddenly spoke in her side, why could it not be herself? And he did not\nlove her.... This had occurred about a month before she got the letter\nfrom her mother. She let the matter rest until the sick feeling went\noff; it did that in a day or two. Then, finding that Leonora's headaches\nhad gone, she suddenly told Leonora that Mrs Brand had divorced her\nhusband. She asked what, exactly, it all meant.\n\nLeonora was lying on the sofa in the hall; she was feeling so weak that\nshe could hardly find the words. She answered just:\n\n\"It means that Mr Brand will be able to marry again.\"\n\nNancy said:\n\n\"But... but...\" and then: \"He will be able to marry Miss Lupton.\"\nLeonora just moved a hand in assent. Her eyes were shut.\n\n\"Then...\" Nancy began. Her blue eyes were full of horror: her brows were\ntight above them; the lines of pain about her mouth were very distinct.\nIn her eyes the whole of that familiar, great hall had a changed aspect.\nThe andirons with the brass flowers at the ends appeared unreal; the\nburning logs were just logs that were burning and not the comfortable\nsymbols of an indestructible mode of life. The flame fluttered before\nthe high fireback; the St Bernard sighed in his sleep. Outside the\nwinter rain fell and fell. And suddenly she thought that Edward might\nmarry some one else; and she nearly screamed.\n\nLeonora opened her eyes, lying sideways, with her face upon the black\nand gold pillow of the sofa that was drawn half across the great\nfireplace.\n\n\"I thought,\" Nancy said, \"I never imagined.... Aren't marriages\nsacraments? Aren't they indissoluble? I thought you were married. ..\nand...\" She was sobbing. \"I thought you were married or not married as\nyou are alive or dead.\" \"That,\" Leonora said, \"is the law of the church.\nIt is not the law of the land....\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" Nancy said, \"the Brands are Protestants.\" She felt a sudden\nsafeness descend upon her, and for an hour or so her mind was at rest.\nIt seemed to her idiotic not to have remembered Henry VIII and the basis\nupon which Protestantism rests. She almost laughed at herself.\n\nThe long afternoon wore on; the flames still fluttered when the maid\nmade up the fire; the St Bernard awoke and lolloped away towards the\nkitchen. And then Leonora opened her eyes and said almost coldly:\n\n\"And you? Don't you think you will get married?\"\n\nIt was so unlike Leonora that, for the moment, the girl was frightened\nin the dusk. But then, again, it seemed a perfectly reasonable question.\n\"I don't know,\" she answered. \"I don't know that anyone wants to marry\nme.\"\n\n\"Several people want to marry you,\" Leonora said.\n\n\"But I don't want to marry,\" Nancy answered. \"I should like to go on\nliving with you and Edward. I don't think I am in the way or that I am\nreally an expense. If I went you would have to have a companion. Or,\nperhaps, I ought to earn my living....\"\n\n\"I wasn't thinking of that,\" Leonora answered in the same dull tone.\n\"You will have money enough from your father. But most people want to be\nmarried.\"\n\nI believe that she then asked the girl if she would not like to marry\nme, and that Nancy answered that she would marry me if she were told to;\nbut that she wanted to go on living there. She added:\n\n\"If I married anyone I should want him to be like Edward.\"\n\nShe was frightened out of her life. Leonora writhed on her couch and\ncalled out: \"Oh, God!...\"\n\nNancy ran for the maid; for tablets of aspirin; for wet handkerchiefs.\nIt never occurred to her that Leonora's expression of agony was for\nanything else than physical pain.\n\nYou are to remember that all this happened a month before Leonora went\ninto the girl's room at night. I have been casting back again; but I\ncannot help it. It is so difficult to keep all these people going. I\ntell you about Leonora and bring her up to date; then about Edward, who\nhas fallen behind. And then the girl gets hopelessly left behind. I wish\nI could put it down in diary form. Thus: On the 1st of September they\nreturned from Nauheim. Leonora at once took to her bed. By the 1st\nof October they were all going to meets together. Nancy had already\nobserved very fully that Edward was strange in his manner. About the 6th\nof that month Edward gave the horse to young Selmes, and Nancy had cause\nto believe that her aunt did not love her uncle. On the 20th she read\nthe account of the divorce case, which is reported in the papers of the\n18th and the two following days. On the 23rd she had the conversation\nwith her aunt in the hall--about marriage in general and about her own\npossible marriage, her aunt's coming to her bedroom did not occur until\nthe 12th of November....\n\nThus she had three weeks for introspection--for introspection beneath\ngloomy skies, in that old house, rendered darker by the fact that it lay\nin a hollow crowned by fir trees with their black shadows. It was not\na good situation for a girl. She began thinking about love, she who had\nnever before considered it as anything other than a rather humorous,\nrather nonsensical matter. She remembered chance passages in chance\nbooks--things that had not really affected her at all at the time. She\nremembered someone's love for the Princess Badrulbadour; she remembered\nto have heard that love was a flame, a thirst, a withering up of the\nvitals--though she did not know what the vitals were. She had a vague\nrecollection that love was said to render a hopeless lover's eyes\nhopeless; she remembered a character in a book who was said to have\ntaken to drink through love; she remembered that lovers' existences\nwere said to be punctuated with heavy sighs. Once she went to the little\ncottage piano that was in the corner of the hall and began to play. It\nwas a tinkly, reedy instrument, for none of that household had any turn\nfor music. Nancy herself could play a few simple songs, and she found\nherself playing. She had been sitting on the window seat, looking out on\nthe fading day. Leonora had gone to pay some calls; Edward was looking\nafter some planting up in the new spinney. Thus she found herself\nplaying on the old piano. She did not know how she came to be doing it.\nA silly lilting wavering tune came from before her in the dusk--a tune\nin which major notes with their cheerful insistence wavered and melted\ninto minor sounds, as, beneath a bridge, the high lights on dark waters\nmelt and waver and disappear into black depths. Well, it was a silly old\ntune....\n\nIt goes with the words--they are about a willow tree, I think: Thou art\nto all lost loves the best The only true plant found.\n\n--That sort of thing. It is Herrick, I believe, and the music with the\nreedy, irregular, lilting sound that goes with Herrick, And it was\ndusk; the heavy, hewn, dark pillars that supported the gallery were like\nmourning presences; the fire had sunk to nothing--a mere glow amongst\nwhite ashes.... It was a sentimental sort of place and light and\nhour....\n\nAnd suddenly Nancy found that she was crying. She was crying quietly;\nshe went on to cry with long convulsive sobs. It seemed to her that\neverything gay, everything charming, all light, all sweetness, had gone\nout of life. Unhappiness; unhappiness; unhappiness was all around her.\nShe seemed to know no happy being and she herself was agonizing....\n\nShe remembered that Edward's eyes were hopeless; she was certain that he\nwas drinking too much; at times he sighed deeply. He appeared as a man\nwho was burning with inward flame; drying up in the soul with thirst;\nwithering up in the vitals. Then, the torturing conviction came to\nher--the conviction that had visited her again and again--that Edward\nmust love some one other than Leonora. With her little, pedagogic\nsectarianism she remembered that Catholics do not do this thing. But\nEdward was a Protestant. Then Edward loved somebody....\n\nAnd, after that thought, her eyes grew hopeless; she sighed as the old\nSt Bernard beside her did. At meals she would feel an intolerable desire\nto drink a glass of wine, and then another and then a third. Then she\nwould find herself grow gay.... But in half an hour the gaiety went; she\nfelt like a person who is burning up with an inward flame; desiccating\nat the soul with thirst; withering up in the vitals. One evening she\nwent into Edward's gun-room--he had gone to a meeting of the National\nReserve Committee. On the table beside his chair was a decanter of\nwhisky. She poured out a wineglassful and drank it off. Flame then\nreally seemed to fill her body; her legs swelled; her face grew\nfeverish. She dragged her tall height up to her room and lay in the\ndark. The bed reeled beneath her; she gave way to the thought that she\nwas in Edward's arms; that he was kissing her on her face that burned;\non her shoulders that burned, and on her neck that was on fire.\n\nShe never touched alcohol again. Not once after that did she have such\nthoughts. They died out of her mind; they left only a feeling of shame\nso insupportable that her brain could not take it in and they vanished.\nShe imagined that her anguish at the thought of Edward's love for\nanother person was solely sympathy for Leonora; she determined that\nthe rest of her life must be spent in acting as Leonora's\nhandmaiden--sweeping, tending, embroidering, like some Deborah, some\nmedieval saint--I am not, unfortunately, up in the Catholic hagiology.\nBut I know that she pictured herself as some personage with a depressed,\nearnest face and tightly closed lips, in a clear white room, watering\nflowers or tending an embroidery frame. Or, she desired to go with\nEdward to Africa and to throw herself in the path of a charging lion so\nthat Edward might be saved for Leonora at the cost of her life.\nWell, along with her sad thoughts she had her childish ones. She knew\nnothing--nothing of life, except that one must live sadly. That she now\nknew. What happened to her on the night when she received at once the\nblow that Edward wished her to go to her father in India and the blow\nof the letter from her mother was this. She called first upon her sweet\nSaviour--and she thought of Our Lord as her sweet Saviour!--that He\nmight make it impossible that she should go to India. Then she realized\nfrom Edward's demeanour that he was determined that she should go to\nIndia. It must then be right that she should go. Edward was always right\nin his determinations. He was the Cid; he was Lohengrin; he was the\nChevalier Bayard.\n\nNevertheless her mind mutinied and revolted. She could not leave that\nhouse. She imagined that he wished her gone that she might not witness\nhis amours with another girl. Well, she was prepared to tell him that\nshe was ready to witness his amours with another young girl. She would\nstay there--to comfort Leonora.\n\nThen came the desperate shock of the letter from her mother. Her mother\nsaid, I believe, something like: \"You have no right to go on living your\nlife of prosperity and respect. You ought to be on the streets with me.\nHow do you know that you are even Colonel Rufford's daughter?\" She did\nnot know what these words meant. She thought of her mother as sleeping\nbeneath the arches whilst the snow fell. That was the impression\nconveyed to her mind by the words \"on the streets\". A Platonic sense of\nduty gave her the idea that she ought to go to comfort her mother--the\nmother that bore her, though she hardly knew what the words meant. At\nthe same time she knew that her mother had left her father with another\nman--therefore she pitied her father, and thought it terrible in herself\nthat she trembled at the sound of her father's voice. If her mother\nwas that sort of woman it was natural that her father should have had\naccesses of madness in which he had struck herself to the ground. And\nthe voice of her conscience said to her that her first duty was to her\nparents. It was in accord with this awakened sense of duty that she\nundressed with great care and meticulously folded the clothes that she\ntook off. Sometimes, but not very often, she threw them helter-skelter\nabout the room.\n\nAnd that sense of duty was her prevailing mood when Leonora, tall,\nclean-run, golden-haired, all in black, appeared in her doorway, and\ntold her that Edward was dying of love for her. She knew then with her\nconscious mind what she had known within herself for months--that Edward\nwas dying--actually and physically dying--of love for her. It seemed\nto her that for one short moment her spirit could say: \"Domine, nunc\ndimittis,... Lord, now, lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.\" She\nimagined that she could cheerfully go away to Glasgow and rescue her\nfallen mother.\n\nIV\n\nAND it seemed to her to be in tune with the mood, with the hour, and\nwith the woman in front of her to say that she knew Edward was dying of\nlove for her and that she was dying of love for Edward. For that fact\nhad suddenly slipped into place and become real for her as the niched\nmarker on a whist tablet slips round with the pressure of your thumb.\nThat rubber at least was made.\n\nAnd suddenly Leonora seemed to have become different and she seemed to\nhave become different in her attitude towards Leonora. It was as if\nshe, in her frail, white, silken kimono, sat beside her fire, but upon a\nthrone. It was as if Leonora, in her close dress of black lace, with the\ngleaming white shoulders and the coiled yellow hair that the girl had\nalways considered the most beautiful thing in the world--it was as\nif Leonora had become pinched, shrivelled, blue with cold, shivering,\nsuppliant. Yet Leonora was commanding her. It was no good commanding\nher. She was going on the morrow to her mother who was in Glasgow.\n\nLeonora went on saying that she must stay there to save Edward, who was\ndying of love for her. And, proud and happy in the thought that Edward\nloved her, and that she loved him, she did not even listen to what\nLeonora said. It appeared to her that it was Leonora's business to save\nher husband's body; she, Nancy, possessed his soul--a precious thing\nthat she would shield and bear away up in her arms--as if Leonora were\na hungry dog, trying to spring up at a lamb that she was carrying. Yes,\nshe felt as if Edward's love were a precious lamb that she were bearing\naway from a cruel and predatory beast. For, at that time, Leonora\nappeared to her as a cruel and predatory beast. Leonora, Leonora with\nher hunger, with her cruelty had driven Edward to madness. He must be\nsheltered by his love for her and by her love--her love from a great\ndistance and unspoken, enveloping him, surrounding him, upholding him;\nby her voice speaking from Glasgow, saying that she loved, that she\nadored, that she passed no moment without longing, loving, quivering at\nthe thought of him.\n\nLeonora said loudly, insistently, with a bitterly imperative tone:\n\n\"You must stay here; you must belong to Edward. I will divorce him.\"\n\nThe girl answered:\n\n\"The Church does not allow of divorce. I cannot belong to your husband.\nI am going to Glasgow to rescue my mother.\"\n\nThe half-opened door opened noiselessly to the full. Edward was there.\nHis devouring, doomed eyes were fixed on the girl's face; his shoulders\nslouched forward; he was undoubtedly half drunk and he had the whisky\ndecanter in one hand, a slanting candlestick in the other. He said, with\na heavy ferocity, to Nancy:\n\n\"I forbid you to talk about these things. You are to stay here until I\nhear from your father. Then you will go to your father.\"\n\nThe two women, looking at each other, like beasts about to spring,\nhardly gave a glance to him. He leaned against the door-post. He said\nagain:\n\n\"Nancy, I forbid you to talk about these things. I am the master of this\nhouse.\" And, at the sound of his voice, heavy, male, coming from a deep\nchest, in the night with the blackness behind him, Nancy felt as if her\nspirit bowed before him, with folded hands. She felt that she would go\nto India, and that she desired never again to talk of these things.\n\nLeonora said:\n\n\"You see that it is your duty to belong to him. He must not be allowed\nto go on drinking.\"\n\nNancy did not answer. Edward was gone; they heard him slipping and\nshambling on the polished oak of the stairs. Nancy screamed when there\ncame the sound of a heavy fall. Leonora said again: \"You see!\"\n\nThe sounds went on from the hall below; the light of the candle Edward\nheld flickered up between the hand rails of the gallery. Then they heard\nhis voice:\n\n\"Give me Glasgow... Glasgow, in Scotland.. I want the number of a man\ncalled White, of Simrock Park, Glasgow... Edward White, Simrock Park,\nGlasgow... ten minutes... at this time of night...\" His voice was\nquite level, normal, and patient. Alcohol took him in the legs, not the\nspeech. \"I can wait,\" his voice came again. \"Yes, I know they have a\nnumber. I have been in communication with them before.\"\n\n\"He is going to telephone to your mother,\" Leonora said. \"He will make\nit all right for her.\" She got up and closed the door. She came back\nto the fire, and added bitterly: \"He can always make it all right for\neverybody, except me--excepting me!\"\n\nThe girl said nothing. She sat there in a blissful dream. She seemed to\nsee her lover sitting as he always sat, in a round-backed chair, in\nthe dark hall--sitting low, with the receiver at his ear, talking in a\ngentle, slow voice, that he reserved for the telephone--and saving\nthe world and her, in the black darkness. She moved her hand over the\nbareness of the base of her throat, to have the warmth of flesh upon it\nand upon her bosom.\n\nShe said nothing; Leonora went on talking....\n\nGod knows what Leonora said. She repeated that the girl must belong\nto her husband. She said that she used that phrase because, though\nshe might have a divorce, or even a dissolution of the marriage by the\nChurch, it would still be adultery that the girl and Edward would be\ncommitting. But she said that that was necessary; it was the price that\nthe girl must pay for the sin of having made Edward love her, for the\nsin of loving her husband. She talked on and on, beside the fire. The\ngirl must become an adulteress; she had wronged Edward by being so\nbeautiful, so gracious, so good. It was sinful to be so good. She must\npay the price so as to save the man she had wronged.\n\nIn between her pauses the girl could hear the voice of Edward, droning\non, indistinguishably, with jerky pauses for replies. It made her glow\nwith pride; the man she loved was working for her. He at least was\nresolved; was malely determined; knew the right thing. Leonora talked\non with her eyes boring into Nancy's. The girl hardly looked at her and\nhardly heard her. After a long time Nancy said--after hours and hours:\n\n\"I shall go to India as soon as Edward hears from my father. I cannot\ntalk about these things, because Edward does not wish it.\"\n\nAt that Leonora screamed out and wavered swiftly towards the closed\ndoor. And Nancy found that she was springing out of her chair with\nher white arms stretched wide. She was clasping the other woman to her\nbreast; she was saying:\n\n\"Oh, my poor dear; oh, my poor dear.\" And they sat, crouching together\nin each other's arms, and crying and crying; and they lay down in the\nsame bed, talking and talking, all through the night. And all through\nthe night Edward could hear their voices through the wall. That was how\nit went.... Next morning they were all three as if nothing had happened.\nTowards eleven Edward came to Nancy, who was arranging some Christmas\nroses in a silver bowl. He put a telegram beside her on the table. \"You\ncan uncode it for yourself,\" he said. Then, as he went out of the door,\nhe said: \"You can tell your aunt I have cabled to Mr Dowell to come\nover. He will make things easier till you leave.\" The telegram when it\nwas uncoded, read, as far as I can remember: \"Will take Mrs Rufford to\nItaly. Undertake to do this for certain. Am devotedly attached to Mrs\nRufford. Have no need of financial assistance. Did not know there was a\ndaughter, and am much obliged to you for pointing out my duty.--White.\"\nIt was something like that. Then the household resumed its wonted course\nof days until my arrival.\n\n\nV\n\nIT is this part of the story that makes me saddest of all. For I ask\nmyself unceasingly, my mind going round and round in a weary, baffled\nspace of pain--what should these people have done? What, in the name of\nGod, should they have done?\n\nThe end was perfectly plain to each of them--it was perfectly manifest\nat this stage that, if the girl did not, in Leonora's phrase, \"belong to\nEdward,\" Edward must die, the girl must lose her reason because Edward\ndied--and, that after a time, Leonora, who was the coldest and the\nstrongest of the three, would console herself by marrying Rodney Bayham\nand have a quiet, comfortable, good time. That end, on that night,\nwhilst Leonora sat in the girl's bedroom and Edward telephoned down\nbelow--that end was plainly manifest. The girl, plainly, was half-mad\nalready; Edward was half dead; only Leonora, active, persistent,\ninstinct with her cold passion of energy, was \"doing things\". What then,\nshould they have done? worked out in the extinction of two very splendid\npersonalities--for Edward and the girl were splendid personalities, in\norder that a third personality, more normal, should have, after a long\nperiod of trouble, a quiet, comfortable, good time.\n\nI am writing this, now, I should say, a full eighteen months after\nthe words that end my last chapter. Since writing the words \"until\nmy arrival\", which I see end that paragraph, I have seen again for a\nglimpse, from a swift train, Beaucaire with the beautiful white tower,\nTarascon with the square castle, the great Rhone, the immense stretches\nof the Crau. I have rushed through all Provence--and all Provence no\nlonger matters. It is no longer in the olive hills that I shall find my\nHeaven; because there is only Hell... .\n\nEdward is dead; the girl is gone--oh, utterly gone; Leonora is having\na good time with Rodney Bayham, and I sit alone in Branshaw Teleragh. I\nhave been through Provence; I have seen Africa; I have visited Asia to\nsee, in Ceylon, in a darkened room, my poor girl, sitting motionless,\nwith her wonderful hair about her, looking at me with eyes that did\nnot see me, and saying distinctly: \"Credo in unum Deum omnipotentem....\nCredo in unum Deum omnipotentem.\" Those are the only reasonable words\nshe uttered; those are the only words, it appears, that she ever\nwill utter. I suppose that they are reasonable words; it must be\nextraordinarily reasonable for her, if she can say that she believes in\nan Omnipotent Deity. Well, there it is. I am very tired of it all....\n\nFor, I daresay, all this may sound romantic, but it is tiring, tiring,\ntiring to have been in the midst of it; to have taken the tickets; to\nhave caught the trains; to have chosen the cabins; to have consulted\nthe purser and the stewards as to diet for the quiescent patient who did\nnothing but announce her belief in an Omnipotent Deity. That may sound\nromantic--but it is just a record of fatigue.\n\nI don't know why I should always be selected to be serviceable. I don't\nresent it--but I have never been the least good. Florence selected me\nfor her own purposes, and I was no good to her; Edward called me to come\nand have a chat with him, and I couldn't stop him cutting his throat.\n\nAnd then, one day eighteen months ago, I was quietly writing in my\nroom at Branshaw when Leonora came to me with a letter. It was a very\npathetic letter from Colonel Rufford about Nancy. Colonel Rufford had\nleft the army and had taken up an appointment at a tea-planting\nestate in Ceylon. His letter was pathetic because it was so brief, so\ninarticulate, and so business-like. He had gone down to the boat to meet\nhis daughter, and had found his daughter quite mad. It appears that at\nAden Nancy had seen in a local paper the news of Edward's suicide. In\nthe Red Sea she had gone mad. She had remarked to Mrs Colonel Luton,\nwho was chaperoning her, that she believed in an Omnipotent Deity. She\nhadn't made any fuss; her eyes were quite dry and glassy. Even when she\nwas mad Nancy could behave herself.\n\nColonel Rufford said the doctor did not anticipate that there was any\nchance of his child's recovery. It was, nevertheless, possible that if\nshe could see someone from Branshaw it might soothe her and it might\nhave a good effect. And he just simply wrote to Leonora: \"Please come\nand see if you can do it.\"\n\nI seem to have lost all sense of the pathetic; but still, that simple,\nenormous request of the old colonel strikes me as pathetic. He was\ncursed by his atrocious temper; he had been cursed by a half-mad wife,\nwho drank and went on the streets. His daughter was totally mad--and yet\nhe believed in the goodness of human nature. He believed that Leonora\nwould take the trouble to go all the way to Ceylon in order to soothe\nhis daughter. Leonora wouldn't. Leonora didn't ever want to see Nancy\nagain. I daresay that that, in the circumstances, was natural enough.\nAt the same time she agreed, as it were, on public grounds, that someone\nsoothing ought to go from Branshaw to Ceylon. She sent me and her old\nnurse, who had looked after Nancy from the time when the girl, a child\nof thirteen, had first come to Branshaw. So off I go, rushing through\nProvence, to catch the steamer at Marseilles. And I wasn't the least\ngood when I got to Ceylon; and the nurse wasn't the least good. Nothing\nhas been the least good. The doctors said, at Kandy, that if Nancy could\nbe brought to England, the sea air, the change of climate, the voyage,\nand all the usual sort of things, might restore her reason. Of course,\nthey haven't restored her reason. She is, I am aware, sitting in the\nhall, forty paces from where I am now writing. I don't want to be in the\nleast romantic about it. She is very well dressed; she is quite quiet;\nshe is very beautiful. The old nurse looks after her very efficiently.\n\nOf course you have the makings of a situation here, but it is all very\nhumdrum, as far as I am concerned. I should marry Nancy if her reason\nwere ever sufficiently restored to let her appreciate the meaning of the\nAnglican marriage service. But it is probable that her reason will\nnever be sufficiently restored to let her appreciate the meaning of the\nAnglican marriage service. Therefore I cannot marry her, according to\nthe law of the land.\n\nSo here I am very much where I started thirteen years ago. I am the\nattendant, not the husband, of a beautiful girl, who pays no attention\nto me. I am estranged from Leonora, who married Rodney Bayham in my\nabsence and went to live at Bayham. Leonora rather dislikes me, because\nshe has got it into her head that I disapprove of her marriage with\nRodney Bayham. Well, I disapprove of her marriage. Possibly I am\njealous. Yes, no doubt I am jealous. In my fainter sort of way I seem to\nperceive myself following the lines of Edward Ashburnham. I suppose that\nI should really like to be a polygamist; with Nancy, and with Leonora,\nand with Maisie Maidan and possibly even with Florence. I am no doubt\nlike every other man; only, probably because of my American origin I am\nfainter. At the same time I am able to assure you that I am a strictly\nrespectable person. I have never done anything that the most anxious\nmother of a daughter or the most careful dean of a cathedral would\nobject to. I have only followed, faintly, and in my unconscious desires,\nEdward Ashburnham. Well, it is all over. Not one of us has got what he\nreally wanted. Leonora wanted Edward, and she has got Rodney Bayham, a\npleasant enough sort of sheep. Florence wanted Branshaw, and it is I\nwho have bought it from Leonora. I didn't really want it; what I\nwanted mostly was to cease being a nurse-attendant. Well, I am a\nnurse-attendant. Edward wanted Nancy Rufford, and I have got her. Only\nshe is mad. It is a queer and fantastic world. Why can't people have\nwhat they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet\neverybody has the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it;\nit is beyond me.\n\nIs there any terrestial paradise where, amidst the whispering of the\nolive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they like\nand take their ease in shadows and in coolness? Or are all men's lives\nlike the lives of us good people--like the lives of the Ashburnhams,\nof the Dowells, of the Ruffords--broken, tumultuous, agonized, and\nunromantic, lives, periods punctuated by screams, by imbecilities, by\ndeaths, by agonies? Who the devil knows?\n\nFor there was a great deal of imbecility about the closing scenes of the\nAshburnham tragedy. Neither of those two women knew what they wanted. It\nwas only Edward who took a perfectly clear line, and he was drunk most\nof the time. But, drunk or sober, he stuck to what was demanded by\nconvention and by the traditions of his house. Nancy Rufford had to be\nexported to India, and Nancy Rufford hadn't to hear a word of love from\nhim. She was exported to India and she never heard a word from Edward\nAshburnham.\n\nIt was the conventional line; it was in tune with the tradition of\nEdward's house. I daresay it worked out for the greatest good of the\nbody politic. Conventions and traditions, I suppose, work blindly but\nsurely for the preservation of the normal type; for the extinction of\nproud, resolute and unusual individuals.\n\nEdward was the normal man, but there was too much of the sentimentalist\nabout him; and society does not need too many sentimentalists. Nancy was\na splendid creature, but she had about her a touch of madness. Society\ndoes not need individuals with touches of madness about them. So Edward\nand Nancy found themselves steamrolled out and Leonora survives, the\nperfectly normal type, married to a man who is rather like a rabbit.\nFor Rodney Bayham is rather like a rabbit, and I hear that Leonora is\nexpected to have a baby in three months' time.\n\nSo those splendid and tumultuous creatures with their magnetism and\ntheir passions--those two that I really loved--have gone from this\nearth. It is no doubt best for them. What would Nancy have made of\nEdward if she had succeeded in living with him; what would Edward have\nmade of her? For there was about Nancy a touch of cruelty--a touch of\ndefinite actual cruelty that made her desire to see people suffer. Yes,\nshe desired to see Edward suffer. And, by God, she gave him hell.\n\nShe gave him an unimaginable hell. Those two women pursued that poor\ndevil and flayed the skin off him as if they had done it with whips. I\ntell you his mind bled almost visibly. I seem to see him stand, naked to\nthe waist, his forearms shielding his eyes, and flesh hanging from him\nin rags. I tell you that is no exaggeration of what I feel. It was as\nif Leonora and Nancy banded themselves together to do execution, for the\nsake of humanity, upon the body of a man who was at their disposal. They\nwere like a couple of Sioux who had got hold of an Apache and had him\nwell tied to a stake. I tell you there was no end to the tortures they\ninflicted upon him.\n\nNight after night he would hear them talking; talking; maddened,\nsweating, seeking oblivion in drink, he would lie there and hear the\nvoices going on and on. And day after day Leonora would come to him and\nwould announce the results of their deliberations.\n\nThey were like judges debating over the sentence upon a criminal; they\nwere like ghouls with an immobile corpse in a tomb beside them. I don't\nthink that Leonora was any more to blame than the girl--though Leonora\nwas the more active of the two. Leonora, as I have said, was the\nperfectly normal woman. I mean to say that in normal circumstances her\ndesires were those of the woman who is needed by society. She desired\nchildren, decorum, an establishment; she desired to avoid waste, she\ndesired to keep up appearances. She was utterly and entirely normal even\nin her utterly undeniable beauty. But I don't mean to say that she acted\nperfectly normally in this perfectly abnormal situation. All the world\nwas mad around her and she herself, agonized, took on the complexion of\na mad woman; of a woman very wicked; of the villain of the piece. What\nwould you have? Steel is a normal, hard, polished substance. But, if you\nput it in a hot fire it will become red, soft, and not to be handled. If\nyou put it in a fire still more hot it will drip away. It was like\nthat with Leonora. She was made for normal circumstances--for Mr Rodney\nBayham, who will keep a separate establishment, secretly, in Portsmouth,\nand make occasional trips to Paris and to Budapest.\n\nIn the case of Edward and the girl, Leonora broke and simply went all\nover the place. She adopted unfamiliar and therefore extraordinary and\nungraceful attitudes of mind. At one moment she was all for revenge.\nAfter haranguing the girl for hours through the night she harangued for\nhours of the day the silent Edward. And Edward just once tripped up, and\nthat was his undoing. Perhaps he had had too much whisky that afternoon.\nShe asked him perpetually what he wanted. What did he want? What did he\nwant? And all he ever answered was: \"I have told you\". He meant that\nhe wanted the girl to go to her father in India as soon as her father\nshould cable that he was ready to receive her. But just once he tripped\nup. To Leonora's eternal question he answered that all he desired in\nlife was that--that he could pick himself together again and go on with\nhis daily occupations if--the girl, being five thousand miles away,\nwould continue to love him. He wanted nothing more, He prayed his God\nfor nothing more. Well, he was a sentimentalist.\n\nAnd the moment that she heard that, Leonora determined that the girl\nshould not go five thousand miles away and that she should not continue\nto love Edward. The way she worked it was this:\n\nShe continued to tell the girl that she must belong to Edward; she was\ngoing to get a divorce; she was going to get a dissolution of marriage\nfrom Rome. But she considered it to be her duty to warn the girl of the\nsort of monster that Edward was. She told the girl of La Dolciquita, of\nMrs Basil, of Maisie Maidan, of Florence. She spoke of the agonies\nthat she had endured during her life with the man, who was violent,\noverbearing, vain, drunken, arrogant, and monstrously a prey to his\nsexual necessities. And, at hearing of the miseries her aunt had\nsuffered--for Leonora once more had the aspect of an aunt to the\ngirl--with the swift cruelty of youth and, with the swift solidarity\nthat attaches woman to woman, the girl made her resolves. Her aunt said\nincessantly: \"You must save Edward's life; you must save his life. All\nthat he needs is a little period of satisfaction from you. Then he will\ntire of you as he has of the others. But you must save his life.\"\n\nAnd, all the while, that wretched fellow knew--by a curious instinct\nthat runs between human beings living together--exactly what was going\non. And he remained dumb; he stretched out no finger to help himself.\nAll that he required to keep himself a decent member of society was,\nthat the girl, five thousand miles away, should continue to love him.\nThey were putting a stopper upon that.\n\nI have told you that the girl came one night to his room. And that\nwas the real hell for him. That was the picture that never left his\nimagination--the girl, in the dim light, rising up at the foot of his\nbed. He said that it seemed to have a greenish sort of effect as if\nthere were a greenish tinge in the shadows of the tall bedposts that\nframed her body. And she looked at him with her straight eyes of an\nunflinching cruelty and she said: \"I am ready to belong to you--to save\nyour life.\"\n\nHe answered: \"I don't want it; I don't want it; I don't want it.\"\n\nAnd he says that he didn't want it; that he would have hated himself;\nthat it was unthinkable. And all the while he had the immense temptation\nto do the unthinkable thing, not from the physical desire but because of\na mental certitude. He was certain that if she had once submitted to him\nshe would remain his for ever. He knew that.\n\nShe was thinking that her aunt had said he had desired her to love him\nfrom a distance of five thousand miles. She said: \"I can never love you\nnow I know the kind of man you are. I will belong to you to save your\nlife. But I can never love you.\"\n\nIt was a fantastic display of cruelty. She didn't in the least know\nwhat it meant--to belong to a man. But, at that Edward pulled himself\ntogether. He spoke in his normal tones; gruff, husky, overbearing, as he\nwould have done to a servant or to a horse.\n\n\"Go back to your room,\" he said. \"Go back to your room and go to sleep.\nThis is all nonsense.\"\n\nThey were baffled, those two women.\n\nAnd then I came on the scene.\n\n\nVI\n\nMY coming on the scene certainly calmed things down--for the whole\nfortnight that intervened between my arrival and the girl's departure.\nI don't mean to say that the endless talking did not go on at night or\nthat Leonora did not send me out with the girl and, in the interval,\ngive Edward a hell of a time. Having discovered what he wanted--that\nthe girl should go five thousand miles away and love him steadfastly\nas people do in sentimental novels, she was determined to smash that\naspiration. And she repeated to Edward in every possible tone that the\ngirl did not love him; that the girl detested him for his brutality, his\noverbearingness, his drinking habits. She pointed out that Edward in the\ngirl's eyes, was already pledged three or four deep. He was pledged to\nLeonora herself, to Mrs Basil, and to the memories of Maisie Maidan and\nto Florence. Edward never said anything.\n\nDid the girl love Edward, or didn't she? I don't know. At that time I\ndaresay she didn't though she certainly had done so before Leonora had\ngot to work upon his reputation. She certainly had loved him for what\nI call the public side of his record--for his good soldiering, for his\nsaving lives at sea, for the excellent landlord that he was and the good\nsportsman. But it is quite possible that all those things came to\nappear as nothing in her eyes when she discovered that he wasn't a good\nhusband. For, though women, as I see them, have little or no feeling of\nresponsibility towards a county or a country or a career--although they\nmay be entirely lacking in any kind of communal solidarity--they have\nan immense and automatically working instinct that attaches them to the\ninterest of womanhood. It is, of course, possible for any woman to cut\nout and to carry off any other woman's husband or lover. But I rather\nthink that a woman will only do this if she has reason to believe that\nthe other woman has given her husband a bad time. I am certain that\nif she thinks the man has been a brute to his wife she will, with her\ninstinctive feeling for suffering femininity, \"put him back\", as\nthe saying is. I don't attach any particular importance to these\ngeneralizations of mine. They may be right, they may be wrong; I am only\nan ageing American with very little knowledge of life. You may take my\ngeneralizations or leave them. But I am pretty certain that I am right\nin the case of Nancy Rufford--that she had loved Edward Ashburnham very\ndeeply and tenderly.\n\nIt is nothing to the point that she let him have it good and strong as\nsoon as she discovered that he had been unfaithful to Leonora and that\nhis public services had cost more than Leonora thought they ought to\nhave cost. Nancy would be bound to let him have it good and strong then.\nShe would owe that to feminine public opinion; she would be driven to it\nby the instinct for self-preservation, since she might well imagine\nthat if Edward had been unfaithful to Leonora, to Mrs Basil and to the\nmemories of the other two, he might be unfaithful to herself. And,\nno doubt, she had her share of the sex instinct that makes women be\nintolerably cruel to the beloved person. Anyhow, I don't know whether,\nat this point, Nancy Rufford loved Edward Ashburnham. I don't know\nwhether she even loved him when, on getting, at Aden, the news of his\nsuicide she went mad. Because that may just as well have been for the\nsake of Leonora as for the sake of Edward. Or it may have been for the\nsake of both of them. I don't know. I know nothing. I am very tired.\nLeonora held passionately the doctrine that the girl didn't love Edward.\nShe wanted desperately to believe that. It was a doctrine as necessary\nto her existence as a belief in the personal immortality of the soul.\nShe said that it was impossible that Nancy could have loved Edward\nafter she had given the girl her view of Edward's career and character.\nEdward, on the other hand, believed maunderingly that some essential\nattractiveness in himself must have made the girl continue to go on\nloving him--to go on loving him, as it were, in underneath her official\naspect of hatred. He thought she only pretended to hate him in order\nto save her face and he thought that her quite atrocious telegram from\nBrindisi was only another attempt to do that--to prove that she had\nfeelings creditable to a member of the feminine commonweal. I don't\nknow. I leave it to you. There is another point that worries me a good\ndeal in the aspects of this sad affair. Leonora says that, in desiring\nthat the girl should go five thousand miles away and yet continue to\nlove him, Edward was a monster of selfishness. He was desiring the ruin\nof a young life. Edward on the other hand put it to me that, supposing\nthat the girl's love was a necessity to his existence, and, if he did\nnothing by word or by action to keep Nancy's love alive, he couldn't be\ncalled selfish. Leonora replied that showed he had an abominably selfish\nnature even though his actions might be perfectly correct. I can't make\nout which of them was right. I leave it to you.\n\nIt is, at any rate, certain that Edward's actions were perfectly--were\nmonstrously, were cruelly--correct. He sat still and let Leonora take\naway his character, and let Leonora damn him to deepest hell, without\nstirring a finger. I daresay he was a fool; I don't see what object\nthere was in letting the girl think worse of him than was necessary.\nStill there it is. And there it is also that all those three presented\nto the world the spectacle of being the best of good people. I assure\nyou that during my stay for that fortnight in that fine old house, I\nnever so much as noticed a single thing that could have affected that\ngood opinion. And even when I look back, knowing the circumstances, I\ncan't remember a single thing any of them said that could have betrayed\nthem. I can't remember, right up to the dinner, when Leonora read out\nthat telegram--not the tremor of an eyelash, not the shaking of a hand.\nIt was just a pleasant country house-party.\n\nAnd Leonora kept it up jolly well, for even longer than that--she kept\nit up as far as I was concerned until eight days after Edward's funeral.\nImmediately after that particular dinner--the dinner at which I\nreceived the announcement that Nancy was going to leave for India on the\nfollowing day--I asked Leonora to let me have a word with her. She took\nme into her little sitting-room and I then said--I spare you the record\nof my emotions--that she was aware that I wished to marry Nancy; that\nshe had seemed to favour my suit and that it appeared to be rather a\nwaste of money upon tickets and rather a waste of time upon travel to\nlet the girl go to India if Leonora thought that there was any chance of\nher marrying me.\n\nAnd Leonora, I assure you, was the absolutely perfect British matron.\nShe said that she quite favoured my suit; that she could not desire for\nthe girl a better husband; but that she considered that the girl ought\nto see a little more of life before taking such an important step. Yes,\nLeonora used the words \"taking such an important step\". She was perfect.\nActually, I think she would have liked the girl to marry me enough but\nmy programme included the buying of the Kershaw's house about a mile\naway upon the Fordingbridge road, and settling down there with the girl.\nThat didn't at all suit Leonora. She didn't want to have the girl within\na mile and a half of Edward for the rest of their lives. Still, I think\nshe might have managed to let me know, in some periphrasis or other,\nthat I might have the girl if I would take her to Philadelphia or\nTimbuctoo. I loved Nancy very much--and Leonora knew it. However, I left\nit at that. I left it with the understanding that Nancy was going\naway to India on probation. It seemed to me a perfectly reasonable\narrangement and I am a reasonable sort of man. I simply said that I\nshould follow Nancy out to India after six months' time or so. Or,\nperhaps, after a year. Well, you see, I did follow Nancy out to India\nafter a year.... I must confess to having felt a little angry with\nLeonora for not having warned me earlier that the girl would be going.\nI took it as one of the queer, not very straight methods that Roman\nCatholics seem to adopt in dealing with matters of this world. I took\nit that Leonora had been afraid I should propose to the girl or, at any\nrate, have made considerably greater advances to her than I did, if I\nhad known earlier that she was going away so soon. Perhaps Leonora\nwas right; perhaps Roman Catholics, with their queer, shifty ways, are\nalways right. They are dealing with the queer, shifty thing that is\nhuman nature. For it is quite possible that, if I had known Nancy was\ngoing away so soon, I should have tried making love to her. And that\nwould have produced another complication. It may have been just as well.\n\nIt is queer the fantastic things that quite good people will do in order\nto keep up their appearance of calm pococurantism. For Edward Ashburnham\nand his wife called me half the world over in order to sit on the back\nseat of a dog-cart whilst Edward drove the girl to the railway station\nfrom which she was to take her departure to India. They wanted, I\nsuppose, to have a witness of the calmness of that function. The girl's\nluggage had been already packed and sent off before. Her berth on the\nsteamer had been taken. They had timed it all so exactly that it went\nlike clockwork. They had known the date upon which Colonel Rufford would\nget Edward's letter and they had known almost exactly the hour at which\nthey would receive his telegram asking his daughter to come to him. It\nhad all been quite beautifully and quite mercilessly arranged, by Edward\nhimself. They gave Colonel Rufford, as a reason for telegraphing, the\nfact that Mrs Colonel Somebody or other would be travelling by that ship\nand that she would serve as an efficient chaperon for the girl. It was a\nmost amazing business, and I think that it would have been better in\nthe eyes of God if they had all attempted to gouge out each other's eyes\nwith carving knives. But they were \"good people\". After my interview\nwith Leonora I went desultorily into Edward's gun-room. I didn't know\nwhere the girl was and I thought I might find her there. I suppose I had\na vague idea of proposing to her in spite of Leonora. So, I presume,\nI don't come of quite such good people as the Ashburnhams. Edward was\nlounging in his chair smoking a cigar and he said nothing for quite five\nminutes. The candles glowed in the green shades; the reflections were\ngreen in the glasses of the book-cases that held guns and fishing-rods.\nOver the mantelpiece was the brownish picture of the white horse. Those\nwere the quietest moments that I have ever known. Then, suddenly, Edward\nlooked me straight in the eyes and said:\n\n\"Look here, old man, I wish you would drive with Nancy and me to the\nstation tomorrow.\"\n\nI said that of course I would drive with him and Nancy to the station on\nthe morrow. He lay there for a long time, looking along the line of his\nknees at the fluttering fire, and then suddenly, in a perfectly calm\nvoice, and without lifting his eyes, he said:\n\n\"I am so desperately in love with Nancy Rufford that I am dying of it.\"\n\nPoor devil--he hadn't meant to speak of it. But I guess he just had to\nspeak to somebody and I appeared to be like a woman or a solicitor. He\ntalked all night.\n\nWell, he carried out the programme to the last breath.\n\nIt was a very clear winter morning, with a good deal of frost in it.\nThe sun was quite bright, the winding road between the heather and the\nbracken was very hard. I sat on the back-seat of the dog-cart; Nancy was\nbeside Edward. They talked about the way the cob went; Edward pointed\nout with the whip a cluster of deer upon a coombe three-quarters of a\nmile away. We passed the hounds in the level bit of road beside the high\ntrees going into Fordingbridge and Edward pulled up the dog-cart so that\nNancy might say good-bye to the huntsman and cap him a last sovereign.\nShe had ridden with those hounds ever since she had been thirteen.\n\nThe train was five minutes late and they imagined that that was because\nit was market-day at Swindon or wherever the train came from. That was\nthe sort of thing they talked about. The train came in; Edward found her\na first-class carriage with an elderly woman in it. The girl entered the\ncarriage, Edward closed the door and then she put out her hand to shake\nmine. There was upon those people's faces no expression of any kind\nwhatever. The signal for the train's departure was a very bright red;\nthat is about as passionate a statement as I can get into that scene.\nShe was not looking her best; she had on a cap of brown fur that did not\nvery well match her hair. She said:\n\n\"So long,\" to Edward.\n\nEdward answered: \"So long.\"\n\nHe swung round on his heel and, large, slouching, and walking with a\nheavy deliberate pace, he went out of the station. I followed him\nand got up beside him in the high dog-cart. It was the most horrible\nperformance I have ever seen.\n\nAnd, after that, a holy peace, like the peace of God which passes all\nunderstanding, descended upon Branshaw Teleragh. Leonora went about her\ndaily duties with a sort of triumphant smile--a very faint smile, but\nquite triumphant. I guess she had so long since given up any idea of\ngetting her man back that it was enough for her to have got the girl out\nof the house and well cured of her infatuation. Once, in the hall,\nwhen Leonora was going out, Edward said, beneath his breath--but I just\ncaught the words:\n\n\"Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean.\" It was like his sentimentality\nto quote Swinburne. But he was perfectly quiet and he had given up\ndrinking. The only thing that he ever said to me after that drive to the\nstation was:\n\n\"It's very odd. I think I ought to tell you, Dowell, that I haven't any\nfeelings at all about the girl now it's all over. Don't you worry about\nme. I'm all right.\" A long time afterwards he said: \"I guess it was only\na flash in the pan.\" He began to look after the estates again; he\ntook all that trouble over getting off the gardener's daughter who had\nmurdered her baby. He shook hands smilingly with every farmer in the\nmarket-place. He addressed two political meetings; he hunted twice.\nLeonora made him a frightful scene about spending the two hundred pounds\non getting the gardener's daughter acquitted. Everything went on as if\nthe girl had never existed. It was very still weather.\n\nWell, that is the end of the story. And, when I come to look at it I see\nthat it is a happy ending with wedding bells and all. The villains--for\nobviously Edward and the girl were villains--have been punished by\nsuicide and madness. The heroine--the perfectly normal, virtuous and\nslightly deceitful heroine--has become the happy wife of a perfectly\nnormal, virtuous and slightly deceitful husband. She will shortly become\na mother of a perfectly normal, virtuous slightly deceitful son or\ndaughter. A happy ending, that is what it works out at.\n\nI cannot conceal from myself the fact that I now dislike Leonora.\nWithout doubt I am jealous of Rodney Bayham. But I don't know whether\nit is merely a jealousy arising from the fact that I desired myself to\npossess Leonora or whether it is because to her were sacrificed the only\ntwo persons that I have ever really loved--Edward Ashburnham and Nancy\nRufford. In order to set her up in a modern mansion, replete with\nevery convenience and dominated by a quite respectable and eminently\neconomical master of the house, it was necessary that Edward and Nancy\nRufford should become, for me at least, no more than tragic shades.\n\nI seem to see poor Edward, naked and reclining amidst darkness, upon\ncold rocks, like one of the ancient Greek damned, in Tartarus or\nwherever it was.\n\nAnd as for Nancy... Well, yesterday at lunch she said suddenly:\n\n\"Shuttlecocks!\"\n\nAnd she repeated the word \"shuttlecocks\" three times. I know what was\npassing in her mind, if she can be said to have a mind, for Leonora has\ntold me that, once, the poor girl said she felt like a shuttlecock\nbeing tossed backwards and forwards between the violent personalities of\nEdward and his wife. Leonora, she said, was always trying to deliver her\nover to Edward, and Edward tacitly and silently forced her back again.\nAnd the odd thing was that Edward himself considered that those two\nwomen used him like a shuttlecock. Or, rather, he said that they sent\nhim backwards and forwards like a blooming parcel that someone didn't\nwant to pay the postage on. And Leonora also imagined that Edward and\nNancy picked her up and threw her down as suited their purely vagrant\nmoods. So there you have the pretty picture. Mind, I am not preaching\nanything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in\nthis or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can\nonly exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitful\nflourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful\nare condemned to suicide and to madness. But I guess that I myself,\nin my fainter way, come into the category of the passionate, of the\nheadstrong, and the too-truthful. For I can't conceal from myself the\nfact that I loved Edward Ashburnham--and that I love him because he was\njust myself. If I had had the courage and virility and possibly also the\nphysique of Edward Ashburnham I should, I fancy, have done much what\nhe did. He seems to me like a large elder brother who took me out on\nseveral excursions and did many dashing things whilst I just watched him\nrobbing the orchards, from a distance. And, you see, I am just as much\nof a sentimentalist as he was.. ..\n\nYes, society must go on; it must breed, like rabbits. That is what we\nare here for. But then, I don't like society--much. I am that absurd\nfigure, an American millionaire, who has bought one of the ancient\nhaunts of English peace. I sit here, in Edward's gun-room, all day and\nall day in a house that is absolutely quiet. No one visits me, for I\nvisit no one. No one is interested in me, for I have no interests. In\ntwenty minutes or so I shall walk down to the village, beneath my own\noaks, alongside my own clumps of gorse, to get the American mail. My\ntenants, the village boys and the tradesmen will touch their hats to me.\nSo life peters out. I shall return to dine and Nancy will sit opposite\nme with the old nurse standing behind her. Enigmatic, silent, utterly\nwell-behaved as far as her knife and fork go, Nancy will stare in front\nof her with the blue eyes that have over them strained, stretched brows.\nOnce, or perhaps twice, during the meal her knife and fork will be\nsuspended in mid-air as if she were trying to think of something that\nshe had forgotten. Then she will say that she believes in an Omnipotent\nDeity or she will utter the one word \"shuttle-cocks\", perhaps. It is\nvery extraordinary to see the perfect flush of health on her cheeks, to\nsee the lustre of her coiled black hair, the poise of the head upon\nthe neck, the grace of the white hands--and to think that it all means\nnothing--that it is a picture without a meaning. Yes, it is queer.\n\nBut, at any rate, there is always Leonora to cheer you up; I don't want\nto sadden you. Her husband is quite an economical person of so normal\na figure that he can get quite a large proportion of his clothes\nready-made. That is the great desideratum of life, and that is the end\nof my story. The child is to be brought up as a Romanist.\n\nIt suddenly occurs to me that I have forgotten to say how Edward met\nhis death. You remember that peace had descended upon the house; that\nLeonora was quietly triumphant and that Edward said his love for the\ngirl had been merely a passing phase. Well, one afternoon we were in\nthe stables together, looking at a new kind of flooring that Edward was\ntrying in a loose-box. Edward was talking with a good deal of animation\nabout the necessity of getting the numbers of the Hampshire territorials\nup to the proper standard. He was quite sober, quite quiet, his skin\nwas clear-coloured; his hair was golden and perfectly brushed; the\nlevel brick-dust red of his complexion went clean up to the rims of his\neyelids; his eyes were porcelain blue and they regarded me frankly and\ndirectly. His face was perfectly expressionless; his voice was deep and\nrough. He stood well back upon his legs and said:\n\n\"We ought to get them up to two thousand three hundred and fifty.\"\nA stable-boy brought him a telegram and went away. He opened it\nnegligently, regarded it without emotion, and, in complete silence,\nhanded it to me. On the pinkish paper in a sprawled handwriting I read:\n\"Safe Brindisi. Having rattling good time. Nancy.\"\n\nWell, Edward was the English gentleman; but he was also, to the last,\na sentimentalist, whose mind was compounded of indifferent poems and\nnovels. He just looked up to the roof of the stable, as if he were\nlooking to Heaven, and whispered something that I did not catch.\n\nThen he put two fingers into the waistcoat pocket of his grey, frieze\nsuit; they came out with a little neat pen-knife--quite a small\npen-knife. He said to me:\n\n\"You might just take that wire to Leonora.\" And he looked at me with a\ndirect, challenging, brow-beating glare. I guess he could see in my eyes\nthat I didn't intend to hinder him. Why should I hinder him?\n\nI didn't think he was wanted in the world, let his confounded tenants,\nhis rifle-associations, his drunkards, reclaimed and unreclaimed, get on\nas they liked. Not all the hundreds and hundreds of them deserved that\nthat poor devil should go on suffering for their sakes.\n\nWhen he saw that I did not intend to interfere with him his eyes became\nsoft and almost affectionate. He remarked:\n\n\"So long, old man, I must have a bit of a rest, you know.\"\n\nI didn't know what to say. I wanted to say, \"God bless you\", for I also\nam a sentimentalist. But I thought that perhaps that would not be quite\nEnglish good form, so I trotted off with the telegram to Leonora. She\nwas quite pleased with it."