Classic Audiobook Collection - The Mistress of Shenstone by Florence Louisa Barclay ~ Full Audiobook [romance]

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

The Mistress of Shenstone by Florence Louisa Barclay audiobook. Genre: romance When war draws Lord Ingleby away from Shenstone Park, his wife, Lady Myra, becomes the lonely guardian of a great country house that feels too vast for one heart, one small toy poodle, and a growing fear of what each telegram might bring. Florence L. Barclay sets Myra amid autumn terraces, shuttered rooms, and watchful servants who see more than they say, then sends her beyond the safety of her title and estate when devastating news forces her to confront life without the future she had assumed. Seeking quiet on the Cornish coast, Myra finds instead a village full of sharp tongues and warm teacups, including the formidable Miss Murgatroyd sisters, and an unexpected encounter with Jim Airth, a man whose rough manner and guarded silence suggest wounds as deep as her own. As friendship turns toward something more dangerous, Myra must weigh duty against desire, pride against vulnerability, and grief against the possibility of joy, while the shadow of the war and an unseen secret keeps pressing in. A tender, character-driven romance about love after loss, and the courage it takes to forgive. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:21:51) Chapter 02 (00:47:46) Chapter 03 (01:17:04) Chapter 04 (01:44:30) Chapter 05 (02:08:34) Chapter 06 (02:39:47) Chapter 07 (03:10:09) Chapter 08 (03:39:24) Chapter 09 (04:10:03) Chapter 10 (04:30:44) Chapter 11 (05:03:40) Chapter 12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Mistress of Shenston by Florence Barkley 1. On the terrace at Shenston 3 o'clock on a dank afternoon early in November. The wintry sunshine in fitful gleams pierced the greyness of the leaden sky. The great trees in Shenton Park stood gaunt and bare, spreading wide arms over the sodden grass. All nature seemed to waiting the first fall of winter snow, which should hide its deadness and decay under a lovely pall of sparkling white,

beneath which a promise of fresh life to come might gently move and stir, and eventually spring forth. The mistress of Shenzhen moved slowly up and down the terrace, wrapped in her long cloak, listening to the soft drip, drip of autumn all around, noting the silent fall of the last dead leaves, the steely gray of the lake beyond, the empty flower garden, the deserted lawn. The large stone house had a desolate appearance, most of the rooms being evidently closed, but in one or two cheerful logs blazed, casting a ruddy glow upon the window panes, and sending forth a tempting promise of warmth and coziness within.

A tiny white toy poodle walked the terrace with his mistress, an agitated little bundle of white girls, sometimes running round and round her, then hurrying on before, or dropping behind, only to rush on in unexpected haste at the corners, almost tripping her up as she turned. Peter, said Lady Ingolby, on one of these occasions.

I do wish you would behave in a more rational manner. Either come to heal and follow sedately, as a dog of your age should do, or trot on in front, in the gaily juvenile manner you assume when Michael takes you out for a walk. But, for goodness' sake, don't be so fidgety.

And don't run round and round me in this bewildering way, or I shall call for William and send you in. I only wish Michael could see you. The little animal looked up at her, pathetically, through his teeth. tumbled girls, a soft silky mass, which had earned for him his name of shock-headed Peter. His eyes, red-rimmed from the cold wind at that unseeing look, often noticeable in a very old dog. Yet there was in them, and in the whole pose of his tiny body an anguish of anxiety, which

could not have escaped a genuine dog-lover. Even Lady Ingleby became partially aware of it. She stooped and patted his head. "'Poor little Peter,' she said more kindly. horrid for us both, having Michael so far away at this tiresome war. But he will come home before long, and we shall forget all the anxiety and loneliness. It will be spring again. Michael will have you properly clipped, and we will go to Brighton, where you enjoy trotting about and hearing people call you the British lion. I verily believe you consider yourself the size of the lions in Truffalgar Square.

I cannot imagine why a great big man, such as Michael, is so devoted to a tiny scrap of a dog such as you. Now, if he were a great Dane, or mighty St. Bernard. However, Michael loves us both, and we both love Michael, so we must be nice to each other, little Peter, while he is away. Myra Ingleby smiled, drew the folds of her cloak more closely around her and moved on. A small white shadow, with no wag to its tail, followed dejectedly behind. And the dead leaves, loosing their hold of the sapless branches, fluttered to the sudden turf, and the soft drip-drip of autumn fell all around.

The door of the lower hall opened. A footman, bringing a telegram, came quickly out. His features were set in well-trained impassivity, but his eyelids flickered nervously as he handed the silver-solver to his mistress. Lady Ingleby's lovely face paled to absolute whiteness beneath her large beaver hat, but she took up the orange envelope with a steady hand, opening it with fingers which did not tremble. As she glanced at the signature, the color came back to her cheeks. From Dr. Brand, she said with an involuntary exclamation of relief, and the waiting

footman turned and nodded furtively toward the house. A maid at a window dropped the blind and ran to tell the anxious household all was well. Meanwhile, Lady Ingleby read her telegram. Visiting patient in your neighborhood, can you put me up for the night? Arriving 4.30. Derek Brand Lady Ingleby turned to the footman William, she said Tell Mrs. Jarvis Sir Derek Brand is called to this neighborhood

And we'll stay here tonight They can light a fire at once in the magnolia room And prepare it for him He will be here in an hour Send the motor to the station Tell Grotley we will have tea in my sitting room As soon as Sir Derek arrives Send down word to the lodge to Mrs. Omera

That I shall want her up here this evening Oh, and, by the way, mention at once at the lodge that there is no further news from abroad. Yes, my lady, said the footman. And Myra Ingleby smiled at the reflection in the lad's voice and face of her own immense relief. He turned and hastened to the house. Peter, in a sudden access of misplaced energy barking furiously at his heels. Lady Ingleby moved to the front of the terrace and stood beside one of the stone lions, close to an empty vase, which in summer had been a brilliant mass of scarlet geraniums.

Her face was glad with expectation. Somebody to talk to at last, she said. I had begun to think I should have to brave dear mama and return to town. And Sir Derek, of all people, he wires from Victoria, so I conclude he sees his patient en route, or in the morning. How perfectly charming of him to give me a whole evening! I wonder how many people would, ever be able to, if they knew of it be breaking the tenth commandment concerning me peter you little fiend come here why the footmen and gardeners and postmen do not kick out your few remaining teeth passes me you pretend to be too unwell to eat your dinner and then behave like a frantic hyena because poor innocent william brings me a telegram

i shall write and ask michael if i may have you hanged and in high good humor lady ingleby went into the house but outside the dead leaves turn slowly and and rustled on the grass, while the soft drip-drip of autumn fell all around. The dying year was almost dead, and nature waited for her pall of snow. 2. The Forerunner What it is to have somebody to talk to at last! And you, of all people, dear doctor, though I still fail to understand how a patient who has brought you down to these parts can wait for your visit until tomorrow morning, thus giving a perfectly healthy person such as myself, the inestimable privilege of your company at tea, dinner, and breakfast,

with delightful tete-a-tates in between. All the world knows your minutes are golden. Thus, Lady Ingleby as she poured out the doctor's tea and handed it to him. Derek Brand placed the cup carefully on his corner of the folding tea-table, helped himself to thin bread and butter, then answered with his most charming smile. Mine would be a very dismal profession, dear lady, if it precluded me from ever having a meal or a conversation, or from spending a pleasant evening with a perfectly healthy person, I find the surest way to live one's life to the full, accomplishing the maximum amount of work

with the minimum amount of strain, is to cultivate the habit of living in the present, giving the whole mind to the scene, the subject, the person of the moment. Therefore, with your leave, we will dismiss my patience, past and future, and enjoy to the full this unexpected tete-a-tete. Myra Ingleby looked at her visitor. His 42 years sat lightly on him, notwithstanding the streaks of silver in the dark hair just over the temple. There was a youthful alertness about the tall athletic figure, but the lean brown face, clean-shaven and reposeful, held a look of quiet strength and power, mingled with keen, kindliness and ready comprehension,

which inspired trust and drew forth confidence. The burden of a great loneliness seemed lifted from Myra's heart. do you always put so much salt on your bread and butter she said and how glad i am to be the person of the moment only until this mysterious patient in the neighbourhood demands your attention you ought to be having a complete holiday and i must try to forget that i am talking to the greatest nerve specialists of the day and only realize the pleasure of entertaining so good a friend of michaels and my own otherwise i should be tempted to consult you for i really believe sir derrick for the first time in my life i am becoming neurotic the doctor did not need to look at his hostess his practised eye had already noted the thin cheeks the haunted look the purple shadows beneath the lovely grey eyes for which the dark fringes of black eyelashes were not altogether accountable he leaned forward and looked into the fire if such is really the case he said that you should be aware of it is so excellent a symptom that the condition cannot be serious. But I want you to remember, Lady Ingleby, that I count all my patient's friends, also that my friends may consider themselves at liberty at any moment to become my patients.

So consult me if I can be of any use to you. The doctor helped himself to more bread and butter, folding it with careful precision. Lady Ingleby held out her hand for his cup, grateful that he did not appear to notice the rush of unexpected tears to her eyes. She busied herself with the urn until she could control her voice, then said with a rather tremulous laugh. Ah, thank you. Presently, if I may, I gladly will consult you.

Meanwhile, how do you like the scene of the moment? Do you consider my boudoir improved? Michael made all these alterations before he went away. The new electric lights are a patent arrangement of his own. And had you seen his portrait? A wonderful likeness, isn't it? The doctor looked around him appreciatively. I have been admiring the room ever since I entered, he said.

It is charming. Then he raised his eyes to the picture over the mantelpiece. The life-sized portrait of a tall, bearded man with the high brow of the scholar and thinker, the eyes of the mystic, the gentle unruffled expression of the saint. He appeared old enough to be the father of the woman in whose boudoir his portrait was the central object. The artist had painted him in an old. old Norfolk shooting suit, leather leggings, hunting crop in hand, seated in a garden chair beside a rustic table. Everything in the picture was homely, old, and comfortable. The creases

in the suit were old friends. The ancient tobacco pouch on the table was worn and stained. Russet Brown predominated, and the highest light in the painting was the clear blue of those dreamy, musing eyes. They were bent upon the table, where sat in an expectant attitude of adoring attention, a white toy poodle. The palpable devotion between the big man and the tiny dog, the concentrated affection with which they looked at one another, were very cleverly depicted. The picture might have been called, we too. Also, it left an impression of a friendship in which there had been no room for a third. The doctor glanced for an instant at the lovely woman on the lounge behind the silver urn, and his subconsciousness propounded the question.

Where did she come in? But the next moment he turned to you. He turned to you. He turned in. But the next moment he turn towards the large armchair on his right, where a small dejected mass of white girls lay in a huddled heap. It was impossible to distinguish between head and tail. Is this the little dog? asked the doctor. Yes, that is Peter. But in the picture he is smart and properly clipped and feeling better than he does just now. Peter and Michael are devoted to each other, and when Michael is away, Peter is left in my charge. But I am not fond of small dogs, and I really consider Peter very much spoiled. Also, I always feel he just tolerates me

because I am Michael's wife and remains with me because, where I am, there Michael will return. But I am quite kind to him for Michael's sake. Only he really is a nasty little dog, and too old to be allowed to continue. Michael always speaks of him as if he were quite too good to live, and, personally, I think it is high time he went where all good dogs go.

I cannot imagine what is the matter with him now. Since yesterday afternoon he has refused all his food and been so restless and fidgety. He always sleeps on Michael's bed. And, as a rule, after I have put him there and close the door between Michael's room and mine, I hear no more of Peter, until he barks to be let out in the morning

and my maid takes him downstairs. But last night he whined and howled for hours. At length I got up, found Michael's old shooting jacket. the very one in the portrait and laid it on the bed. Peter crawled into it and cuddled down. I folded the sleeves around him, and he seemed content. But today he still refuses to eat.

I believe he is dyspeptic, or has some other complaint such as dogs develop when they are old? Honestly, don't you think? A little effect of poison in an attractive pill? Oh, hush, said the doctor. Peter may not be asleep. Lady Ingleby laughed. My dear Sir Derek, do you suppose animals understand our conversation?

Indeed, I do, replied the doctor. And more than that, they do not require the medium of language. Their comprehension is telepathic. They read our thoughts. A nervous rider or driver can terrify a horse. Dumb creatures will turn away from those who think of them with dislike or aversion, whereas a true lover of animals can win them without a spoken word. The thought of love and of goodwill

reaches them telepathically, winning instant trust and response. Also, if we take the trouble to do so, we can, to a great extent, arrive at their ideas in the same way. Extraordinary! exclaimed Lady Ingleby. Well, I wish you would thought read what is the matter with Peter.

I shall not know how to face Michael's homecoming if anything goes wrong with his beloved dog. The doctor lay back in his armchair crossed his knees the one over the other, rested his elbows on the arms of the chair, then let his fingertips meet very exactly. Instinctively, he assumed the attitude in which he usually sat when bending his mind intently

on a patient. Presently, he turned and looked steadily at the little white heap curled up in the big armchair. The room was very still. Peter, said the doctor suddenly. Peter sat up at once and peeped at the doctor through his curls. "'Poor little Peter,' said the doctor kindly.

Peter moved to the edge of the chair, sat very upright and looked eagerly across to where the doctor was sitting. Then he wagged his tail tapping the chair with quick, anxious little taps. "'The first wag I have seen in twenty-four hours,' remarked Lady Engelby. But neither Derek Brand nor shock-headed Peter heated the remark. The anxious eyes of the dog were gazing with an agony of question into the kind keen eyes of the man. Without moving, the doctor spoke. Yes, little Peter, he said. Peter's small, tufted tail ceased thumping. He sat very still for a moment, then quietly moved back to the middle of the chair, turned round and round three or four times, then lay down, dropping

his head between his paws with one long, shuddering sigh, like a little child which had sobbed itself to sleep. The doctor turned and looked at Lady Ingleby. "'What does that mean?' queried Myra astonished. "'Little Peter asked a question,' replied Sir Derek gravely, and I answered it. "'Wonderful. Will you talk this telepathy over with Michael when he comes home? It would interest him.' The doctor looked into the fire. "'It is a big subject,' he said. "'When I can spare the time I am thinking of writing an essay on the mental and spiritual development of animals, as revealed in the Bible.'

Bailam's ass, suggested Lady Ingleby promptly. The doctor smiled. Quite so, he said. But Bailam's ass is neither the only animal in the Bible nor the most interesting case. Have you ever noticed the many instances in which animals immediately obeyed God's commands, even when those commands ran counter to their strongest instincts? For instance, the lion who met the disobedient man of God on the road from Bethel, the instinct of the beast after slaying the man would have been

to maul the body, drag it away into his lair and devour it. But the divine command was, that he should slay but not eat the carcass nor tear the ass. The instinct of the ass would have been to flee in terror from the lion. But undoubtedly a divine assurance overcame her natural fear, and all men who passed by beheld this remarkable sight. A lion and an ass standing sentry, one on either side of the dead body of the man of God. And there they remained until the old prophet from Bethel arrived to fetch away the body and bury it. Extraordinary, said Lady Engelby. So they did. And now one comes to think of it there are plenty of similar instances. The instinct of the serpent which Moses lifted up on a pole

would have been to come scriggling down and go about biting the Israelites instead of staying up on the pole to be looked at for their healing. The doctor smiled. Quite so, he said. Only we must not quote him as an instance, because being made of brass, I fear he was devoid of instinct. Otherwise, he would have been an excellent case in point. And I believe animals possess far more spiritual life than we suspect. Do you remember a passage in the Psalms which says that the lions seek their meat from God? And, more striking still, in the same psalm, we read of the whole brute creation that

when God hides his face, they are troubled. Good heavens, said the doctor earnestly. I wish our spiritual life always answered to these two tests, that God's will should be paramount over our strongest instincts, and that any cloud between us and the light of his face should cause us instant trouble of soul. I like that expression, spiritual life, said Lady Ingleby. I am sure you mean by it what other people sometimes express so differently. Did you hear of the Duchess of Maldrum attending that big evangelistic meeting in the Albert Hall?

I really don't know exactly what it was. Some sort of non-sectarian mission, I gather, with a preacher over from America, and the meetings went on for a fortnight. It would never have occurred to me to go to them. But the dear old Duchess always likes to be in the know and to sample everything. Besides, she holds a proprietary stall.

So she sailed into the Albert Hall one afternoon in excellent time and remained throughout the entire proceedings. She enjoyed the singing. thought the vast listening crowd marvellous, was moved to tears by the eloquence of the preacher, and was leaving the hall more touch than she had been for years, and fully intending to return, bringing others with her when a smug person hovering about the entrance accosted her with,

"'Excuse me, madam, are you a Christian?' The Duchess raised her lorgnette in blank amazement, and looked him up and down. Very likely the tears still glistened upon her proud old face. Anyway, this impossible person appears to have considered, her a promising case. Emboldened by her silence, he laid his hand upon her arm and repeated his question. Madam, are you a Christian?

Then the Duchess awoke to the situation with a vengeance. My good man, she said clearly and deliberately, so that all in the lobby could hear. I should have thought it would have been perfectly patent to your finely trained perceptions that I am an engaging mixture of Jew, Turk, infidel and heathen Chinese. Now, if you will kindly stand aside, I will pass to my carriage. And the Duchess sampled no more evangelistic meetings. The doctor sighed. Tactless, he said.

Ah, the pity of it. When fools rush in where angels fear to tread. People scream with laughter when the Duchess tells it, said Lady Ingleby. But then she imitates the unctuous person so exactly, and she does not mention the tears. I have them from an eye-wish. witness. But, as I was saying, I like your expression, spiritual life. It really holds a meaning, and though one may have to admit one does not possess any, or that one does possess it at a low ebb,

yet one sees the genuine thing in others, and it is something to believe in, at all events. Look how peacefully little Peter is sleeping. You have evidently set his mind at rest. That is Michael's armchair, and therefore Peter's. Now we will send away the tea-things, and then, may I become a patient. End of chapters one and two. Chapter 3 of the Mistress of Shenzhen by Florence Barkley. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. 3. What Peter knew?

Isn't my good Grotly a curious-looking person? Said Lady Ingleby as the door closed behind the butler. I call him the gryphon, because he looks perpetual. sexually astonished. His eyebrows are like black horseshoes, and they mount higher and higher up his forehead as one's sentence proceeds. But he is very faithful and knows his work, and Michael approves him. Do you like this portrait of Michael? Garth Dalmain stayed here a few months before he lost his sight, poor boy, and painted us both. I believe mine was practically his last portrait. It hangs in the dining room. The doctor moved his chair opposite the fireplace, so that he could

sit facing the picture over the mantelpiece yet turn readily toward Lady Ingleby on his left. On his right, Little Peter, with an occasional sobbing sigh, slept heavily in his absent master's chair. The log fire burned brightly. The electric light from behind

amber glass sent a golden glow as of sunshine through the room. The dank, damp drip of autumn had no place in this warm luxury. The curtains were closely drawn, and that which is not seen, can be forgotten. The dark doctor glanced at the clock. The minute hand pointed to the quarter before six.

He lifted his eyes to the picture. I hardly know Lord Engelby sufficiently well to give an opinion, but I should say it is an excellent likeness possessing to a large degree the peculiar quality of all Dalman's portraits. The more you look at them, the more you see in them. They are such extraordinary character studies. With your increased knowledge of the person, grows your appreciation of the cleverness of the portrait. Yes, said Lady Ingleby, leaning forward to look intently up at the picture. It often startles me as I come into the room, because I see a fresh expression on the face, just according to my own mood or what I happen to have been doing.

And I realize Michael's mind on the subject more readily from the portrait than from my own knowledge of him. Garth Dalmaine was a genius. Now tell me, said the doctor gently. Why did you leave time? down your many friends your interest there in order to bury yourself down here during this dismal autumn weather surely the strain of waiting for news would have been less within such easy reach of the war office and of the evening papers lady ingleby laughed rather mirthlessly i came away sir derrick partly to escape from my dear mamma and as you do not know dear mamma it is almost impossible for you to understand how essential it was to escape when michael is away i am defenceless mamma swoops down takes up her abode in my house reduces my household according to their sex and temperament to rage hysterics or despair tells unpalatable home truths to my friends so that all save the duchess flee discomfited

then mamma proceeds to divide the spoil in other words she lies in wait for my telegrams and opens them herself saying that if they contain good news a dutiful daughter should delight in at once sharing it with her whereas if they contain her bad news which heaven forbid and surely with mamma snorting skyward heaven would not venture to do otherwise she is the right person to break it to me gently i bore it for six weeks then fled down here well knowing that not even the dear delight of bullying me would bring mamma to shenston in the autumn the doctor's face was grave for a moment he looked silently into the fire he was a man of many ideals and foremost among them was his ideal of the relation which should be between parents and children of the loyalty to a mother which even if forced to admit faults or failings should tenderly shield them from the knowledge or criticism of outsiders it hurt him as a sacrilege to hear a daughter speak thus of her mother yet he knew well from facts which were common knowledge how little caused the sweet lovable woman at her mother-it hurt him as a sacrilege to hear a daughter speak thus of her mother yet he knew well from facts which were common knowledge how little caused the sweet lovable woman at his side had to consider the tie either a sacred or a tender one. He had come to help, not to find fault. Also, the minute hand was hastening towards the hour, and the final instructions of the kind-hearted old Duchess of Maldrum

as she parted from him at the war office had been. Remember, six o'clock from London. I shall insist upon its being kept back until then. If they make difficulties, I shall camp in the entrance and hold up every messenger who attempts to pass out. but I am accustomed to have my own way with these good people. I should not hesitate to ring up Buckingham Palace if necessary as they very well know. So you may rest assured it will not leave London until six o'clock.

It gives you ample time. Therefore, the doctor said, I understand. It does not come within my own experience, yet I think I understand. But tell me, Lady Ingleby, if bad news were to come, would you sooner receive a it direct from the war office in the terribly crude wording which cannot be avoided in those telegrams? Or would you rather that a friend, other than your mother, broke it to you more gently?

Myra's eyes flashed. She sat up with instant animation. Oh, I would receive it direct, she said. It would be far less hard if it were official. I should hear the roll of the drums and see the wave of the flag, for England and for honor. A soldier's daughter and a soldier's wife should be able to stand up to anything. If they had to tell me Michael was in great danger, I should share his danger in receiving the news without flinching. If he were wounded as I read the telegram,

I should receive a wound myself and try to be as brave as he. All which came direct from the war would unite me to Michael, but interfering friends however well-meaning would come between. If he had not been shielded from a bullet or a sword-thrust, Why should I be shielded from the knowledge of his wound? The doctor screened his face with his hand. I see, he said.

The clock struck six. But that was not the only reason I left town, continued Lady Ingleby with evident effort. Then she flung out both hands towards him. Oh, doctor, I wonder if I might tell you a thing which has been a burden on my heart and life for years. There followed a tense moment. of silence, but the doctor was used to such moments and could usually determine during the

silence whether the confidence should be allowed or avoided. He turned and looked steadily at the lovely wistful face. It was the face of an exceedingly beautiful woman nearing 30, but the lovely eyes still held the clear candor of the eyes of a little child. The sweet lips quivered with quickly felt emotion. The low brow showed no trace of shame or sin. The doctor knew he was in the presence of one of the most popular hostesses, one of the most admired women in the kingdom. Yet, his keen professional insight revealed to him an arrested development, possibilities unfulfilled, a problem of inadequacy and consequent disappointment to which he had not the key. But those outstretched hands eagerly held it towards him. Could he bring help

if he accepted a knowledge of the solution? Or did help come too late? "'Dear Lady Ingleby,' he said quietly, "'Tell me anything you like, "'that is to say, anything which you feel assured "'Lord Ingleby would allow disgust with a third person.' "'Maira leaned back among the cushions and laughed. "'A gay little laugh, half of amusement, half of relief.' "'Oh, Michael would not mind,' she said.

"'Anything Michael would mind I have always told straight to himself, "'and they were silly little things, "'such as foolish people trying to make love to me.' or a foreign prince with moustaches like the german emperors offering to shoot michael if i would promise to marry him when his period of consequent imprisonment was over i cut the idiots who had presumed to make love to me ever after and assured the foreign prince i should undoubtedly kill him myself if he heard a hair of michael's head no dear doctor my life is clear of all that sort of complication my trouble is a harder one involving one's whole life problem and that problem is incompetence and inadequacy not towards the world i should not care a rap for that but towards the one to whom i owe most towards michael my husband the doctor moved uneasily in his chair and glanced at the clock oh hush he said do not no cried myra you must not stop me let me at last have the relief of speech my friend i am twenty-eight i have had ten years of married life yet i do not believe i have ever really grown up in heart and brain i am an undeveloped child and i know it and worse still michael knows it and michael does not mind

listen it dates back to years ago mamma never allowed any of her daughters to grow up we were permitted no individuality of our own no opinions no independence All that was required of us was to do her behests and follow in her train. Forgive the misquotation. We were always children in Mama's eyes. We grew tall, we grew good-looking, but we never grew up. We remained children to be snubbed, domineered over, and bullied. My sisters, who were good children, had plenty of jam and cake, and eventually husbands after Mama's own heart were found for them.

Perhaps you know how those men are. marriages have turned out. Lady Ingleby paused, and the doctor made an almost imperceptible sign of assent. One of the ladies in question, a most unhappy woman was under treatment in his mental sanatorium at that very moment, but he doubted whether Lady Inkelby knew it. I was the black sheep, continued Myra, finding no remark forthcoming. Nothing I did was ever right. Everything I did was always wrong. When Michael met me I was nearly eighteen, the height I am not. now but in the nursery, as regards mental development or knowledge of the world, and as regards character, a most unhappy, utterly reckless little child. Michael's love, when at last I realized

it was wonderful to me. Tenderness, appreciation, consideration were experiences so novel that they would have turned my head had not the elation they produced been counterbalanced by a gratitude which was overwhelming, and a terror of being handed back to Mama, which would have made me agree to anything. years later michael told me that what first attracted me to him was a look in my eyes just like the look in those of a favorite spaniel of his who was always in trouble with every one else and had just been accidentally shot by a keeper michael told me this himself and really thought i should be pleased somehow it gave me the key to my standing with him just that of a very tenderly loved pet dog no words can say how good he has always been to me if i lost him I should lose my all everything which makes home home and life a safe and certain thing But if he lost a little Peter it would be a more real loss to him than if he lost me

Because Peter is more intelligent for his size and really more of an actual companion to Michael than I am Many a time when he has passed through my room on the way to his with Peter tucked securely under his arm and saying Good night my dear to me has gone in and shut the door I have felt I could slay little Peter because he had the better place, and because he looked at me through his girls as he was carried away as if to say, you are out of it. Yet I knew I had all I deserved, and Michael's kindness and goodness and patience were beyond words. Only, only, ah, can you understand? I would sooner he had found fault and scolded. I would sooner have been shaken and called a fool than smiled at and left alone. I was in the

nursery when he married me. I have been in the schoolroom ever since, trying to learn life's lessons alone, without a teacher. Nothing has helped me to grow up. Michael has always told me I am perfect, and everything I do is perfect, and he does not want me different. But I have never really shared his life and interests. If I make idiotic mistakes, he does not correct me. I have to find them out when I repeat them before others. When I made that silly blunder about the brazen serpent, so kindly put me right. Michael would have smiled and let it pass as not worth correcting. Then I should have repeated it before a room full of people and wondered why they looked amused. Ah, but what do I care for people or the world? It is my true place beside Michael I want to win.

I want to grow up unto him in all things. Yes, I know that is a text. I am famous for misquotations, or rather misapplications. But it expresses my meaning, and as the Duchess remarks, when she has said something mild under provocation and her parrot swears. And now tell me, dear, wise, kind doctor, you, who have been the lifelong friend of that grand creature Jane Dalmaine, you who have done so much for dozens of women I know, tell me how I can cease to be inadequate towards my husband. The passionate flow of words ceased suddenly.

Lady Ingleby leaned back against the cushions. Peter sighed in his sleep. A clock in the hall chimed the quarter after six. The doctor looked steadily into the fire. He seemed to find speech difficult. At last, he said in a voice which shook slightly. Dear Lady Ingleby, he did not. He does not.

Think you so. No, no, she cried, sitting forward again. He thinks of me nothing but what is kind and right. But he never expected me to be more than a nice, affectionate, good-looking dog. And I, I have not known how to be better than his expectations. But, although he is so patient, he sometimes grows unutterably tired of being with me. All other pet creatures are dumb, but I love talking, and I constantly say silly things

which do not sound silly until I have said them. He goes off to Norway fishing, to the Angadine mountain climbing, to this horrid war risking his precious life. Anywhere to get away alone. Anywhere to. Hush, said the doctor, and laid a firm brown hand for a moment on the white fluttering fingers. You are overwrought by the suspense of these past weeks. You know perfectly well that Lord Ingleby volunteered for this border war because he was so keen on experimenting with his new explosives, and on trying these ideas for using electricity in modern warfare at which he has worked so long.

Oh, yes, I know, said Myra, smiling wistfully, tiresome things which keep him hours in his laboratory, and he has some very clever plan for long-distance signaling from fort to fort. Hieroglyphics in the sky, isn't it? You know what I mean? But the fact that he volunteered into all this danger merely to do experimenting makes it harder to bear than if he had been at the head of his old regiment and gone at the imperative call of duty.

However, nothing matters so long as he comes home safely. And now you, you, Sir Derek, must help me to become a real help-meat to Michael. Tell me how you helped. Oh, very well, we will not mention names. But give me wise advice. Give me hope. Give me courage. Make me strong.

The doctor looked at the clock. And even as he looked, the chimes in the hall rang out the half-hour. You have not yet told me, he said, speaking very slowly as if listening for some other sound. You have not yet told me your second reason for leaving town. Ah, said Lady Ingleby, and her voice held a deeper, older tone, a note bordering on tragedy. Ah, I left town, Sir Derek, because other people were teaching me love lessons, and I did not want to learn them apart from Michael. I stayed with Jane Dalmain and her blind husband before they went back to Glenish. You remember? They were in town for the production of his symphony. I saw that

ideal wedded life, and I realized something of what a perfect mating of souls could mean. And then, well, there were others, people who did not understand how holy I am Michael's. Nothing actually wrong, but not so fresh and youthful as Billy's innocent adoration. And I feared I should accidentally learn what only Michael must teach. Therefore I fled away. Oh, doctor, if I ever learned from another man that which I have failed to learn from my own husband, I should lie at Michael's feet and implore him to kill me. The doctor looked up at the portrait over the mantelpiece.

The calm, passionless face smiled blandly at the tiny dog. One sensitive hand, white and delicate as a woman's, was raised, four-finger uplifted, gently holding the attention of the little animal's eager eyes. The magic skill of the artist supplied the doctor with the key to the problem. A woman, as mate, as wife, as part of himself, was not a necessity in the life of this thinker, inventor, scholar, saint. He could appreciate dumb devotion. He was capable of unlimited kindness, leniency, patience, toleration. But woman and dog alike remained outside the citadel of his inner self. Had not her eyes resembled those of a favorite spaniel, he could, he

He would very probably not have wedded the lovely woman who now, during ten years had borne his name, and even then he might not have done so, had not the tyranny of her mother awakening his instinct of protection towards the weak and oppressed, aroused in him a determination to withstand that tyranny, and to carry her off triumphantly to freedom. The longer the doctor looked, the more persistently the picture said, We too. And where does she come in? Righteous wrath arose in the heart of Derek Brand, for his ideal as to man's worship of woman was a high one.

As he thought of the closed door, of the lonely wife, humbly jealous of a toy poodle, yet blaming herself only for her loneliness, his jaw set and his brow darkened, and all the while he listened for a sound from the outer world which must soon come. Lady Ingleby noticed his intent gaze and leaning forward also looked up at the picture. The firelight shone on her lovely face and on the gleaming softness of her hair. Her lips parted in a tender smile, a pure radiance shone from her eyes. Ah, he is so good, she said. In all the years he has never once spoken harshly to me, and see how lovingly he looks at Peter, who really is a most unattractive little dog.

Did you ever hear the Duchess's Beaumou about Michael? He and I once stayed together at Overdean. but she did not ask us again until he was abroad fishing in Norway. So, of course, I went by myself. The Duchess always does those things frankly and explains them. Therefore, on this occasion, she said, My dear, I enjoy a visit from you. But you must only come when you can come alone.

I will never undertake again to live up to your good Michael. It really was a case of St. Michael and all angels. He was St. Michael, and we had to be all angels. wasn't it like the Duchess, and a beautiful testimony to Michael's consistent goodness? Oh, I wish you knew him better, and for the matter of that I wish I knew him better. But after all, I am his wife.

Nothing can rob me of that. And don't you think, when Michael comes home this time, somehow all will be different, better than ever before? The hall clock chimed three quarters after the hour. The clang of a bell resounded through the silent house. Peter sat up and barked once sharply. The doctor rose and stood with his back to the fire facing the door. Myra's question remained unanswered.

Hurried steps approached. A footman entered with a telegram for Lady Ingleby. She took it with calm fingers and without the usual sinking of the heart from sudden apprehension. Her mind was full of the conversation of the moment and the doctor's presser. made her feel so strong and safe, so sure of no approach of evil tidings. She did not hear Sir Derek's quiet voice say to the man, You need not wait. As the door closed, the doctor turned away and stood looking into the fire.

The room was very still. Lady Ingleby opened her telegram, unfolded it slowly, and read it through twice. Afterwards she sat on in such absolute silence that at length the doctor turned and looked at her. She met his eyes quietly. Sir Derek, she said. It is from the war office. They tell me Michael has been killed. Do you think it is true?

She handed him the telegram. Taking it from her, he read it in silence. Then, Dear Lady Ingleby, he said very gently. I fear there is no doubt. He has given his life for his country. You will be as brave in giving him as he would wish his wife to be.

Myra smiled, but the doctor saw her face slowly whiten. Yes, she said. Oh, yes, I will not fail him. I will be adequate, at last. Then, as if a sudden thought had struck her, Did you know of this? Is it why you came? Yes, said the doctor slowly. The Duchess sent me. She was at the war office this morning when the news came in,

inquiring for Ronald Ingram, who has been wounded and is down with fever. She telephoned for me and insisted on the telegram being kept back until six o'clock this evening, in order to give me time to get here and to break the news to you first if it seemed well. Myra gazed at him wide-eyed. And you let me say all that about Michael and myself? Dear lady, said the doctor, and few had ever heard that deep, firm voice so nearly tremulous. I could not stop you. but you did not say one word which was not absolutely loving and loyal.

How could I have? Weiried Myra, her face growing whiter and her eyes wider and a more bright. I have never had a thought which was not loyal and loving. I know, said the doctor, poor brave heart. I know. Myra took up the telegram and read it again. Killed, she said. Killed. I wish I knew how. The Duchess is ready to come to you immediately, if you would like to have her, suggested the doctor. No, said Myra, smiling vaguely. No, I think not.

Not unless dear Mama comes. If that happens, we must wire for the Duchess, because now... Now Michael is away. She is the only person who can cope with Mama. But please not, otherwise. Because... Well, you see, she said she could not live up to Michael. And it does not.

not sound funny now. Is there anybody you would wish sent for at once? inquired the doctor, wondering how much larger and brighter those big gray eyes could grow, and whether any living face had ever been so absolutely colorless. Anybody I should wish sent for at once? I don't know. Oh, yes, there is one person. If she could come.

Jane, you know. Jane Dalmaine. I always say she is like the base of a tune. So solid and satisfactory and beneath one. Nothing very bad could happen if Jane were there. But of course this has happened, hasn't it? The doctor sat down. I wired to Glynish this morning, he said.

Jane will be here early tomorrow. Then lots of people knew before I did, said Lady Ingleby. The doctor did not answer. She rose and stood looking down into the fire, Her tall, graceful figure drawn up to its full height, her back to the doctor, whose watchful eyes never left her for an instant. Suddenly she looked across to Lord Ingleby's chair.

And I believe Peter knew, she said in a loud, high-pitched voice. Good heavens, Peter knew, and refused his food because Michael was dead. And I said he had dyspepsia. Michael, oh Michael, your wife didn't know you were dead, but your dog knew oh michael michael little peter knew she lifted her arms toward the picture of the big man and the tiny dog then she swayed backward the doctor caught her as she fell

end of chapter three chapters four and five of the mistress of shenston by florence barkley this librivox recording is in the public domain four in safe hands. All through the night a Lady Ingleby lay gazing before her with bright unseeing eyes. The quiet woman from the lodge who had been before her own marriage, a devoted maid companion to Lady Ingleby, arrived in speechless sorrow, and helped the doctor tenderly with all there was to do. But when consciousness returned and realization, they were accompanied by no natural expressions of grief,

simply a settled stony silence, the white-set face, the bright unseeked. eyes. Margaret O'Mara knelt and wept and prayed, kissing the folded hands upon the silken quilt. But Lady Ingleby merely smiled vaguely, and once she said, Hush, my dear Maggie, at last we will be adequate. Several times during the night the doctor came, sitting silently beside the bed with watchful eyes and quiet touch. Myra scarcely noticed him, and again he wondered how much larger the big gray eyes would grow in the pale setting of that lovely face. Once he signed to the other watcher to follow him into the corridor.

Closing the door, he turned and faced her. He liked this quiet woman in her simple black marino gown, linen collar and cuffs, and neatly braided hair. There was an air of refinement and gentle self-control about her which pleased the doctor. Mrs. Omera, he said, she must weep, and she must sleep. She does not weep easily, sir, replied Margaret Omera, and I have known her to lie widely awake throughout an entire night with less cause for sorrow than this. Ah, said the doctor, and he looked keenly at the woman from the lodge.

I wonder what else you have known, he thought. But he did not voice the conjecture. Derek Brand rarely asked questions of a third person. His patience never had to find out that his knowledge of them came through the gossip or the breach of confidence of others. At last he could allow that fixed unseeing game. no longer. He decided to do what was necessary, with a quiet nod, in response to Margaret O'Mara's imploring look. He turned back the loose sleeve of the silk night dress. One firm hand grasped the soft arm beneath it. The other passed over it for a moment with swift, skillful pressure. Even Margaret's anxious eyes saw nothing more, and afterwards Mara often wondered what

would have caused that tiny scar upon the whiteness of her arm. Before long, she was quietly asleep. The doctor stood looking down upon her. There was tragedy to him in this perfect loveliness. Now the clear candor of the gray eyes was veiled. The childlike look was no longer there. It was the face of a woman, and of a woman who had lived and who had suffered. Watching it, the doctor reviewed the history of those ten years of wedded life, piecing together that which she herself had told him,

his own shrewd surmisings, and facts which were common knowledge. so much for the past the present for a few hours at least was merciful oblivion what would the future bring she had bravely and faithfully put from her all temptation to learn the glory of life and the completeness of love from any save from her own husband and he had failed to teach can the deaf teach harmony or the blind reveal the beauties of blended color but the future held no such limitations the garden enclosed was no longer barren against all others by an owner who ignored its fragrance. The gate would be on the latch, though all unconscious, until an eager hand pressed it, that its bolts and bars were gone and it dared swing open wide. Ah, mused the doctor, will the right man pass by? Youth teaches youth, but is there a man amongst us strong enough, and true enough and

pure enough to teach this woman nearing thirty, lessons which should have been learned during the golden days of girlhood? surely somewhere on this earth the one man walks and works and waits to whom she is to be the one woman. God sent him her way in the fullness of time. And in that very hour, while at last Myra slept and the doctor watched and mused and wondered, in that very hour under an eastern sky, a strong man, sick of life, worn and disillusioned, fighting a deadly fever in the sultry atmosphere of a soldier's tent cried out in bitterness of soul. Oh, God, let me die.

Then added the, Nevertheless, which always qualifies a brave soul's prayer for immunity from pain. Unless, unless, oh God, there still be some work left on this earth, which only I can do. And the doctor had just said,

send him her way, O God, in the fullness of time. The two prayers reached the throne of omniscience together. Derek Brand, looking up, saw the quiet eyes of Margaret Omera gazing gratefully at him across the bed. Thank you, she whispered. He smiled. Never to be done lightly, Mrs. O'Mara, he said. Everything else should be tried first, but there are exceptions to the strictest rules,

and it is fatal weakness to hesitate when confronted by the exception. Send for me when she wakes, and, meanwhile, lie down on that couch yourself and have some sleep. You are worn out. The doctor turned away, but not before he had caught the sudden look of dumb anguish which leaped into those quiet eyes. He reached the door, paused a moment, then came back. Mrs. Omera, he said with a hand upon her shoulder. You have a sorrow of your own. She drew away from him in terror.

Oh, hush, she whispered. Don't ask. Don't unnerve me, sir. Help me to think of her only. Then more calmly. But of course I shall think of you. of none but her while she needs me? Only, only, sir, as you are so kind, she drew from her bosom a crumpled telegram and handed it to the doctor. Mine came at the same time as

hers, she said simply. The doctor unfolded the war office message. Regret to report Sergeant O'Mara killed an assault on Targay yesterday. He was a good husband, said Margaret Omera simply, and we were very happy. The doctor held out his head. hand. I am proud to have met you, Mrs. Omera. This seems to me the bravest thing I have ever known a woman to do. She smiled through her tears. Thank you, sir, she said tremulously. But it is easier to bear my own sorrow when I have worked to do for her. God himself comfort you, my friend, said Derek Brand, and it was all he could trust his voice to say. Nor was he ashamed that he had to fumble blindly for the handle of the door. The doctor had finished. The doctor had finished

breakfast and was asking grotly for a timetable when word reached him that Lady Ingleby was awake. He went upstairs immediately. Myra was sitting up in bed propped with pillows. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright and hard. She held out her hand to the doctor. How good you have been! She said speaking very fast in a high unnatural voice. I'm afraid I have given you a great deal of trouble.

I don't remember much about last night, accepting that they said Michael had been killed. Has Michael really been killed, do you think? And will they give me details? Surely I have a right to know details? Nothing can alter the fact that I was Michael's wife, can it? Do go to breakfast, Maggie. There is nothing gained by standing there, smiling and saying that you do not want breakfast. Everybody wants breakfast at nine o'clock in the morning.

I should want breakfast if Michael had not been killed. Tell her she ought to have breakfast, Sir Derek. I believe she has been up all night. It is such a comfort to have her. She is so brave and bright, and so full of sympathy. She is very brave, said the doctor, and you are right as to her need of breakfast. Go downstairs for a little while, Mrs. O'Mara.

I will stay with Lady Engelby. She moved obediently to the door, but Sir Derek reached it before her. And the famous London specialist held the door open for the sergeant's young widow, with an air of deference, such as he would hardly have bestowed upon a queen. Then he came back to Lady Ingleby. His train left in three-quarters of an hour.

But his task here was not finished. She had slept, but before he dare leave her, she must weep. Where is Peter? inquired the excited voice from the bed. He always barks to be let out in the morning, but I have heard nothing of him yet. He was exhausted last night, poor little chap, said the doctor. He could scare. I carried him up myself and put him on the bed in the next room. The coat was still there. I wrapped him in it. He licked my hand and lay down content. I want to see him, said Lady Engelby. Michael loved him. He seems all I have left of Michael. I will fetch him, said the doctor. He went into the adjoining room, leaving the door

ajar. Maira heard him reach the bed, then followed a long silence. "'What is it?' she called at last. "'Is he not there? Why are you so long?' Then the doctor came back. He carried something in his arms wrapped in the old shooting jacket. "'Dear Lady Ingleby,' he said,

"'Little Peter is dead. He must have died during the night in his sleep. He was lying just as I left him, curled up in the coat, but he is quite cold and stiff. Faithful little heart,' said the doctor with motion, holding his burden tenderly. What?

cried Myra, with both arms outstretched. Peter has died because Michael is dead, and I, I have not even shed a tear. She fell back among the pillows in a paroxysm of weeping. The doctor stood by, silently, uncertain what to do. Myra's sobs grew more violent shaking the bed with their convulsive force. Then she began to shriek in articulately. about Michael and Peter, and to sob again with renewed violence. At that moment, the doctor heard the horn of a motor-car in the avenue.

Then almost immediately the clang of the bell and the sounds of an arrival below. A look of immense relief came into his face. He went to the top of the great staircase and looked over. The Honorable Mrs. Dalmaine had arrived. The doctor saw her tall figure in a dark green travelling coat walk rapidly across the hall. Jane, he said, Jeanette, ah, I knew you would not fail us. Come straight up. You have arrived at the right moment. Jane looked up and saw the doctor standing at the top of the stairs. Something wrapped in an old coat held carefully in his arms. She threw him one smile of greeting and assurance. Then, wasting no time and words, rapidly pulled off her coat, hat and fur gloves, flinging them in quick succession to the astonished butler.

The doctor only waited to see her actually mounting the stairs. Then, passing through Lady Ingleby's room, he laid Peter's little body back on his dead master's bed, still wrapped in the old tweet coat. As he stepped back into Lady Ingleby's room, closing the door between, he saw Jane Dalmane kneel down beside the bed and gather the weeping form into her arms

with a gesture of immense protective tenderness. Oh, Jane, sobbed Lady Ingleby as she hit her face in the sweet comfort. of that generous bosom. Oh, Jane! Michael has been killed, and Little Peter died because Michael was dead. Little Peter died, and I, had not even shed a tear.

The doctor passed quickly out, closing the door behind him. He did not wait to hear the answer. He knew it would be wise and kind and right. He left his patient in safe hands. Jane was there at last. All would be well. five lady ingleby's rest cure from the moment when the express for cornwall had slowly but irrevocably commenced to glide away from the paddington platform

when she had looked her last upon margaret omera's anxious devoted face softly framed in her simple widow's bonnet when she had realized that her somewhat original rest cure had really safely commenced and that she was leaving not only her worries but her very identity behind her lady Engelby had leaned back with closed eyes in a corner of her reserved compartment, and given herself up to quiet retrospection. The face in repose was sad, a quiet sadness as of regret which held no bitterness. The cheek upon which the dark fringe of lashes rested was white and thin, having lost the tint and contour of perfect health. But every now and then, during those hours of retrospection, the wistful droop of the sweet expressive mouth curved into a smile, and a dimple peered out unexpectedly, giving a look of youthfulness to the tired face. When London and its suburbs were completely left behind, and the summer sunshine blazed through the window from the clear blue of a radiant June sky,

Lady Ingleby leaned forward, watching the rapid unfolding of country lanes and hedges, wide commons golden with gorse, fir-woods carpeted with bluebells, mossy banks overhung with wild roses, honeysuckle, and travellers' joy. the indescribable greenness and soft fragrance of England an early summer, and as she watched, a responsive light shone in her sweet grey eyes. The drear sadness of autumn, the deadness of winter, the chill uncertainty of spring, all these were over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come,

murmurs the lover of canticles, and in Myra Ingleby's sad heart, there blossomed timidly flowers of hope. vague promise of future joy which life might yet hold in store A blackburn in the Hawthorne trilled gaily And Myra softly sang to an air of Garth Dalmanes the blackbird song Wake, wake, sad heart

Rise up and sing On God's fair earth mid-blossoms blue Fresh hope must ever spring There is no room for sad despair When heaven's love is everywhere Then as the train sped onward through Wiltshire, Somerset and Devon. Lady Ingleby felt the mantle of her despondents slipping from her, and reviewed the past,

much as a prisoner might glance back into his dark, narrow cell, from the sunlight of the open door as he stood at last on the threshold of liberty. Seven months had gone by since on that chill November evening, the news of Lord Ingleby's death had reached Shenzhen. The happenings of the weeks which followed now seemed vague and dreamlike to Mara, just a few event standing out clearly from the dim blur of misery. She remembered the reliable strength of the doctor, the unselfish devotion of Margaret Omera, the unspeakable comfort of Jane's wholesome understanding tenderness. Then the dreaded arrival of her mother followed immediately

according to promise by the protective advent of Georgina, Duchess of Meldrum, after which tragedy and comedy walked hand in hand, and the silence of mourning was enlivened by the hoity-toity of the Duchess, and the indignant sniffs of Mrs. Calder Gray. Later on, details of Lord Ingleby's death came to hand, and his widow had to learn that he had fallen, at the attempt upon Targay it is true,

but the victim of an accident, losing his life, not at the hands of the savage enemy, but through the unfortunate blunder of a comrade. Myra never very clearly grasped the details, a wall to be undermined, his own patent and fearful explosive. The grim enthusiast, with which he insisted upon placing it himself, arranging to have it fired by his patent

electrical plan. Then the mistaking of a signal. The fatal pressing of a button five minutes too soon. An electric flash in the mine, a terrific explosion, and instant death to the man whose skill and courage had made the gap through which crowds of cheering British soldiers, bursting from the silent darkness dashed to expectant victory. When full details reached the war office, a very great personage called it her house in Park Lane, personally, to explain to Lady Ingleby the necessity for the hushing up of some of these greatly to be deplored facts. The whole unfortunate occurrence had largely partaken of the nature of an experiment. The explosive, the new method of signaling, the portable

electric plant, all these were being used by Lord Ingleby and the young officers who assisted him, more or less experimentally and unofficially. The man whose unfortunate mistake caused the accident had an important career before him. His name must not know. be allowed to transpire. It would be unfair that a future of great promise should be blighted by what was an obvious accident. The few to whom the name was known had been immediately pledged to secrecy. Of course, it would be confidentially given to Lady Ingleby if she really desired to hear it, but... Then Myra took a very characteristic line. She sat up with instant decision, her pale face flushed, and her large pathetic grey eyes shone with sudden brightness. Parties,

me, sir, she said, for interposing. But I never wish to know that name. My husband would have been the first to desire that it should not be told. And, personally, I should be sorry that there should be any man on earth whose hand I could not bring myself to touch in friendship. The hand that widowed me, did so without intention, let it remain always to me an abstract instrument of the will of Providence. I shall never even try to guess to which of Michael's comrades that hand belonged.

lady ingleby was honest in making this decision and the very great person had stepped into his broom five minutes later greatly relieved and filled with admiration for lord ingleby's beautiful and right-minded widow she had always been all that was most charming now she added sound good sense to personal charm excellent incomparable poor ingleby poor ah he must not be mentioned even in thought yes lady ingleby was absolutely honest in coming to her decision and yet from that moment two names revolved perpetually in her mind around a ceaseless question the only men mentioned constantly by michael in his letters as being always with him in his experiments sharing his interests and his dangers Ronald Ingram and Billy Cathcart. Dear boys both. Her devoted adorers. Almost her dearest closest friends. Faithful, trusted, tried.

And now the haunting questions circled around all thought of them. Was it Ronald? Or was it Billy? Which? Billy or Ronnie? Ronnie or Billy. Myra had said, I shall never even try to guess.

And she had said it honestly. She did not try to guess. she guessed in spite of trying not to do so, and the certainty, and yet uncertainty of her surmising's told on her nerves, becoming a cause of mental torment which was with her subconsciously night and day. Time went on. The frontier war was over. England, as ever, had been bound to win in the end, and England had one.

It had merely been a case of time, of learning wisdom by a series of initial mistakes, of expending a large amount of British gold and British blood. England's supremacy was satisfactorily asserted, and those of her brave troops who had survived the initial mistakes came home. Among them, Ronald Ingram and Billy Cathcart. The former obviously older than when he went away, gaunt and worn, pale beneath his bronze, showing unmistakable signs of the effects of a severe wound and subsequent fever.

Too interesting for words, said the Duchess of Meldrum to Lady English, Engelby recounting her first sight of him. If only I were fifty years younger than I am, I would marry the dear boy immediately, take him down to Overdean and nurse him back to health and strength. Oh, you need not look incredulous, my dear Myra. I always mean what I say, as you very well know.

But Lady Ingleby denied all suspicion of incredulity and merely suggested languidly that, bar the matrimonial suggestion, The program was an excellent one and might well be carried out. Young Ronald, being of the same opinion, he was soon installed at Overdean, and had what he afterwards described as the time of his life, being pampered, spoiled, and petted by the dear old Duchess, and never allowing her to suspect that one of the chief attractions of Overdean

lay in the fact that it was within easy motoring distance of Shenzhen Park. Billy returned as young, as inconsequent, as irrepressible as ever. and yet in him also myra was conscious of a subtle change for which she all too readily found a reason far removed from the real one the fact was this both young men in their romantic devotion to her had yet been true to their own manhood and loyal at heart to lord ingleby but their loyalty had always been with effort therefore when the strain relaxed they met her again they were intensely conscious of her freedom and of their own resultant liberty this produced in them when with her a restraint and shyness which myra naturally construed into a confirmation of her own suspicions she having never found it the smallest effort to remember she was michael's and to be faithful in every thought to him was quite unconscious of her liberty there having been no strain in remaining true to the instincts of her own pure honest honourable nature there was no tension to relax so it very naturally came to pass that when one day ronald ingram had sought long with her silently studying his boots his strong face tense and miserable every now and then looking furtively at her then as his eyes met the calm friendliness of hers dropping them again to the floor poor ronnie she mused with his important career before him undoubtedly it was he who did it and billy knows it see how fidgety billy is while ronnie sits with me but by and by it would be no of course it was billy dear hot-headed impulse of young billy and ronald knowing it feels guilty also

poor little billy who was as a son to michael there was no mistaking the emotion on his face just now when i merely laid my hand on his oh impetuous scatterbrained boy dear heavens i wish he wouldn't hand me the bread and butter then into this atmosphere of misunderstanding and uncertainty intruded a fresh element a first cousin of lord ingleby's to whom had come the title minus the estates came to the conclusion that title and estates might as well go together. To that end, intruding upon her privacy on every possible occasion, he proceeded to pay business-like court to Lady Ingleby. Thus rudely, Myra awoke to the understanding of her liberty. At once, her whole outlook on life was changed. All things bore a new significance. Ronnie and Billy ceased to be comforts. Ronnie's nervous misery assumed a new importance, and, coupled with her own suspicions, filled her with a dismay.

horror. The Duchess's veiled jokes took point and hurt. A sense of unprotected loneliness engulfed her. Every man became a prospective and dreaded suitor. Every woman's remark seemed to hold an innuendo. Her name in the papers distracted her. She recognized the morbidness of her condition, even while she felt unable to cope with it. And, leaving Shenzhen, suddenly, came up to town and consulted Sir Derek Brand. Oh, my friend, she said, help me, I shall never face life again. The doctor heard her patiently, aiding the recital by his strong understanding silence. Then he said quietly, Dear Lady, the diagnosis is not difficult.

Also there is but one possible remedy. He paused. Lady Ingleby's imploring eyes and tense expectancy besought his verdict. Arrest cure. said the doctor with finality. Horrors, no, cried Myra. Would you shut me up within four walls? Cramm me with rice-pudding and every form of food I most attest?

Send a dreadful woman to pound, roll, and pummel me, and tell me gruesome stories. Keep out all my friends, all letters, all books, all news. And after six weeks sent me out into the world again, with my figure gone, and not a sane thought upon any subject under the sun. Dear doctor, think of it. stout and an idiot oh give me something in a bottle to shake and take three times a day and let me go the doctor smiled he was famed for his calm patience your somewhat highly colored description dear lady ingleby applies to a form of rescuer such as i rarely if ever recommend in your case it would be worse than useless we should gain nothing by shutting you up with the one person who is doing you harm and from whom we might must contrive your escape.

The one person, queried Myra wide-eyed. A charming person, smiled the doctor, where the rest of mankind are concerned, but very bad for you just now. But whom? Questioned Myra again. Whom can you mean? I mean Lady Ingleby, replied the doctor gravely. When I send you away for your rest cure, Lady Ingleby with her worries and questionings,

doubts and fears, must be left behind. I shall send you to a little out-of-the-world village on the wild sea-coast of Cornwall, where you know nobody and nobody knows you. You must go incognito as Miss or Mrs. Anything you please. Your rest cure will consist primarily in being set free, for a time, from Lady Ingleby's position, predicament, and perplexities. You must send word to all intimate friends telling them you are going into retreat, and they must not write until they hear again. You will have leave to write one letter a week to one person only,

and that person must be one of whom I can approve. You must eat plenty of wholesome food, roam about all day long in the open air, rise early, retire early. Live entirely in a simple, beautiful, wholesome present, firmly avoiding all remembrance of a sad past and all anticipation of an uncertain future. Nobody is to know where you are, accepting myself, the one friend to whom you may write. But we will arrange that somebody, say, for instance, your devoted attendant from the lodge shall hold herself free to come to you at an hour's notice should you be overwhelmed with a sudden sense of loneliness. The knowledge of this will probably keep the need from arising. You can communicate with me daily if you like by letter or by telegram,

but other people must not know where you are. I do not wish you followed by the anxious or restless thoughts of many minds. to-morrow i will give you the name of a place i recommend and of a comfortable hotel where you can order rooms it must be a place you have never seen probably one of which you have never heard we are nearing the end of may i should like you to start on the first of june if you want a house-party at shenston this summer you may invite your guests for the first of july lady ingleby will be at home again by then fully able to maintain her reputation as a hostess of unequalled charm graciousness and popularity morbid self-consciousness is a condition of mind from which you have hitherto been so completely free that this unexpected attack has altogether unnerved you and requires prompt and uncompromising measures yes jane dalmaine may be your correspondent you could not have chosen better this was the doctor's verdict and prescription and as his patients never disputed the one or declined to take the other myra found herself on the glorious first of june flying south in the great western express, bound for the little fishing village of Tregarth, where she had ordered rooms at the Moorhead Inn in the name of Mrs. Omera.

End of chapters four and five. Chapter six and seven of the mistress of Shenzhen by Florence Barkley. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Six. At the Moorhead Inn The ruddy glow of a crimson sunset illumined cliff and hamlet, tinting the distant ocean into every shade of golden glory, as Myra walked up the gravelled path to the rustic porch of the Moorhead Inn, and looked around her with a growing sense of excited refreshment. She had come on foot from the Little Wayside Station, her luggage following in a barrel, and this mode of progression minus a footman and maid, and carrying her own cloak umbrella

and traveling bag was in itself a charming novelty. At the door she was received by the proprietress, a stately lady in black satin, wearing a double row of large jet beads, who reminded her instantly of all Lord Ingleby's maiden ants. She seemed an accentuated, dignified, concentrated embodiment of them all, and Myra longed for Billy to share the joke. Aunt Ingleby requested Mrs. Omera to walk in and hope she had had a pleasant journey. Then she rang a very loud bell twice in order to summon a maid to show her to her room. And the maid not appearing at once requested Mrs. Omera, meanwhile, to write her name in the visitor's book.

Lady Ingleby walked into the hall passing a smoking room on the left and noting a door with coffee room upon it in gold lettering, down a short passage immediately opposite. Up from the center of the hall on her right went the rather wide, old-fashioned staircase,

and opposite to it against the wall between the smoking room and a door-labeled reception room stood a marble-topped table. Lying open upon this table was a ponderous visitor's book. A fresh page had been recently commenced as yet only containing four names.

The first three were dated May the 8th and read in crabbed precise writing. Miss Amelia Murgatroyd, Miss Eliza Murgatroyd, Miss Susanna Murgatroyd, Lonview Putney. Below these, bearing a date a week later, in a small, precise writing of unmistakable character and clearness the name, Jim Herth, London. Pen and ink lay ready, and without troubling to remove her glove, Lady Ingleby wrote beneath in large, somewhat sprawling handwriting. Mrs. Omera, the lodge, Shenzhen.

A maid appeared, took her cloak and bag, and preceded her up the stairs. As she reached the turn of the staircase, Lady Ingleby paused and looked back into the hall. The door of the smoking room opened and a very tall man came out, taking a pipe from the pocket of his loose Norfolk jacket. As he strolled into the hall, his face reminded her of Ronnie's, deep, bronzed and thin, only it was an older face, strong, rugged, purposeful. The heavy brown mustache could not hide the massive cut of chin and jaw. Catching sight of a fresh name in the book, he paused, then laying one large hand upon the table bent over and read it.

Myra stood still and watched, noting the broad shoulders and the immense length of limb in the leather leggings. He appeared to study the open page longer than was necessary for the mere reading of the name. Then, without looking round, reached up, took a cap from the antler of a stag's head high up on the wall, wall, stuck it on the back of his head, swung round and went out through the porch, whistling like a blackbird. Jim Ereth, said Myra to herself as she moved slowly on.

Jim Ereth of London. What an address. He might just as well have put, of the world. Across between a guardsman and a cowboy, and very likely he will turn out to be a commercial traveler. Then, as she reached the landing and came in sight of the rosy-cheeked maid holding open the door of a large, airy bedroom, she asked. added with a whimsical smile. All the same, I wish I had taken the trouble to write more neatly.

Seven. Mrs. Omera's correspondence. Letter from Lady Ingleby to the Honorable Mrs. Dalmaine. The Moorhead Inn, Tregarth Cornwall. My dear Jane, having been here a week, I think it is time I commenced my first letter to you. How does it feel to be a person considered preeminently suitable to minister to a mind diseased? Doesn't it give you a sense of being as it were rice pudding or brands essence or maltine something essentially safe and wholesome you should have heard how sir Derek jumped at you as soon as your name was mentioned tentatively as my possible correspondent I had barely whispered it when he left and clinched the matter I believe

wholesome was an adjective mentioned I hope you do not mind dear Jane I must confess I would sooner be macaroons or oyster patties even at the risk of giving my friend's occasional indigestion. But then I have never gone in for the role of being helpful in which you excel. Not that it is a role with you, dear Jane. Rather, it is an essential characteristic. You walk in and find a hopeless tangle, gather up the threads in those firm, capable hands, deftly sort and hold them, and lo, the tangle is over. The skein of life is once more ready for winding. Well, there is not much tangle about me just now, thanks to our dear doctor's most excellent prescription.

It was a veritable stroke of genius, this setting me free from myself. From the first day the sense of emancipation was indescribable. I enjoy being addressed as ma'am. I revel in being without a maid, though it takes me ages to do my hair, and I have serious thoughts of wearing it in pigtails down my back. When I remember the poor harassed, exhausted society self I left behind, I feel like buying a wooden spade and bucket and starting out all by myself. to build sandcastles on this delightful shore.

I have no one to play with, for I am certain the Miss Murgatroyds. I'm going to tell you of them, never made sandcastles. No, not even in their infancy a century ago. They must always have been the sort of children who wore white frilled bloomers, poplin frocks, and large leghorn hats with ribbons tied beneath their excellent little chins, and walked demurely with their governess, looking shocked at other infants who who who whooped and ran. I feel inclined to whoop and run now, and the Miss Murgatroyes are quite prepared to look shocked.

But, oh, the freedom of being nobody, and of having nothing to think of or do, and everything I see and hear gives me joy, a lark rising from the turf, and caroling its little self up into the blue, the great Atlantic breakers pounding upon the shore, the fisher-folk standing at the doors of their picturesque thatched cottages. All things seem alive with an exuberance of living, to which I have long been a stranger. Do you know this coast, with its high moorland at splendid cliffs, and far below its sand coves and ever-moving, rolling, surging, deep green sea? Wonderful, beautiful, infinite.

My inn is charming, primitive yet comfortable. We have excellent coffee, fried fish in perfection, real nursery toast, farm butter, and homemade bread. when you supplement these with marmalade and mulberry jam other things all cease to be necessities stray travelers come and go in motors merely lunching or putting up for one night but there are only four other permanent guests these all furnish me with unceasing interest and amusement the three miss murgatoroids oh jane they are so anti-deluvian and quaint three ancient sisters by name amelia eliza and susanna their village but Putney rejoices in the name of Lawn View, so characteristic and suitable, because no view reaching beyond the limits of their own front lawn appears to these dear ladies to be worthy of regard. They never go abroad, excepting to the Isle of White, because they do not like foreigners. A party of quite charming Americans arrived just before dinner the other day in an automobile and

kept us lively during their flying visit. They were cordial over the consummate, friendly over the fish, and quite confidential by the time we reached the third course. But, alas, these delightful cousins from the other side were considered foreigners by the Miss Murgotroids, who consequently encased themselves in the frigid armour of their own self-conscious primness, and passed the mustard without a smile. I felt constrained afterwards to apologize for my countrywomen. But the Americans, overflowing with appreciative good nature, explained that they had come over expressly in order to see old British relics of every kind.

They asked me whether I did not think the Miss Mergatroyds might have stepped right out of Dickens. I was fairly nonplussed because I thought they were going to say, out of the ark. You know how one mentally finishes a sentence as soon as it is begun. And I simply dared not confess that I have not read Dickens. Alas, how ignorant of our own standard literature we are apt to feel when we talk to Americans and find it completely a part of their everyday life. But I must tell you more about the Miss Murgatroyds, Amelia, Eliza, and Susanna.

When quite at peace among themselves, which is not often, they are Millie, Lizzie, and Susie, but a little ripped within the lute is marked by the immediate use of their full baptismal names. Poor Susanna being the youngest, the youthful side of 60 and inclined to be kittenish and giddy is very rarely Susie. Miss Murgatroyd Amelia,

is stern and unbending. She wears a cameo brooch the size of a tablespoon and lays down the law in precise and elegant English, even when asking Susie to pass the crumpets. Miss Eliza, the second sister, is meek and unoffending. Her attitude toward Miss Amelia is one of perpetual apology. She addresses Susie as, My dear love, accepting on occasions when Susie's behavior

has put her quite outside the pale. Then she calls her, My dear Susanna. And sighs. I am inclined to think Miss Eliza suffers from a demonstrative nature which has never had an outlet. But Susie is a lively one. Susie would be a flirt if she dared, and if any man were bold enough to flirt with her under Miss Amelia's eye. Susie is barely 55, and her elder sisters regard her as a mere child, and are very ready with reproof and correction.

Susie has a pink and white complexion, a soft, fat little face in plump, dimpled hands, and Susie is given to vanity. Jim Earth held open the door of the coffee room for her one day and Susie, I should say Susanna, has been in a flutter ever since. Poor naughty Susie! Miss Murgatroyd has changed her place at meals. They have a table in the center of the room, and made her sit with her back to Jim Arth who has a round table all to himself in the window. Now I must tell you about Jim Arth and have a curious coincidence connected with him, which you must not repeat to the doctor for fear he should move me on. Let me confess at once that I am extremely interested in Jim Earth, and it is sweet and generous of me to admit it, for Jim Ereth is not in the least interested in me. He rarely vouchsves me a word or a glance.

He is a bear and a savage, but such a fine good-looking bear, in such a splendid and interesting savage. He is quite the tallest man I ever saw, with immense limbs, lean and big-boned, yet moves with the supple grace of an Indian. He was through that campaign last year, and had a terrible turn of sunstroke and fever during which his head was shaved. Consequently, his thick brown hair is now at the stage of standing straight up all over it like a bottle brush. I know Susie longs to smooth it down, but that would be a task beyond Susie's utmost efforts. His brows are very stern and level, and his eyes, deep set beneath them, of that gentian blue which makes one think of Alpine Heights.

They can flash and gleam on occasions and sometimes look almost purple. He wears a heavy brown mustache and his jaw and chin are terrifying in their masterful strength. Yet he smokes an old briar pipe, whistles like a blackbird, and derives immense amusement from playing up to naughty Susie's coyness when the cameo brooch is turned another way. I have seen his eyes twinkle with fun when Miss Susanna has purposely let fall her handkerchief, and he has reached out a long arm, picked up. it up and restored it. Whereupon Susie has hastened out in the wake of her

sisters in a blushing flutter. Miss Eliza turning to whisper, Oh, my dear love, oh, Susanna. I try when these things happen to catch Jim Ere's merry eye and share the humor of the situation. But he stolidly sees the wall through me on all occasions, and would tread heavily on my poor handkerchief if I took to

dropping it. Miss Mergertroyd tells me that he is a confirmed hater of feminine beauty, upon which poor Miss Susanna takes a surreptitious prink into the gold-framed mirror over the reception-room mantelpiece and says plaintively, Oh, do not say that, Amelia. But Amelia does say that, and a good deal more. When first I saw Jim Ereth, I thought him across between a cowboy and a guardsman, and I think so still.

But what do you suppose he turns out to be beside? An author, and, stranger still, he is writing an important book called Modern Warfare. its methods and requirements in which he is explaining and working out many of michael's ideas and experiments he was right through that border war and took part in the assault on targay he must have known michael intimately all this information i have from miss murgatroyd i sometimes sit with them in the reception-room after dinner where they wind wool and knit endless winding perpetual knitting at five minutes to ten miss murgatroyd says now my dear eliza now susanna which is the signal for bestowing all their goods and chattels into black satin work bags then at ten o'clock precisely miss murgatroyd rises and they procession up to bed ah no i beg their pardons the miss murgatroyds never go to bed they all retire to rest jim airth and his doings form a favorite topic of conversation they speak of him as mr airth which sounds so funny he is not the sort of person and one would ever call Mr. To me, he has been Jim Eirth,

ever since I saw his name in small, neat writing in the visitor's book. I had to put mine just beneath it, and of course I wrote, Mrs. Omera. Then, as an address seemed expected, added, the lodge, Shenston. Just after I had written this, Jim Ereth came into the hall

and stood quite still, studying it. I saw him from halfway up the stairs. At first I thought he was marveling at my shocking handwriting, but now I believe the name Shentston caught his eye. No doubt he knew it to be Michael's family seat. Do you know, it was so strange the other night, Miss Murgatroyd held forth in the reception room about Michael's death.

She explained that he was the first to dash into the breach and fell with his face to the foe. She also added that she used to know poor, dear, Lady Inkelby intimately. This was interesting and seemed worthy of further inquiry. It turned out that she is a distant cousin, of a weird old person who used to call every year on Mama for a subscription to some society for promoting thrift among the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands. Dear Mama used annually to

jump upon this courageous old party and flatten her out, and listening to the process was to us a fearful joy, but annually she returned to the charge. On one of these occasions, just before my marriage, Miss Mergatroyd accompanied her, hence her intimate knowledge of poor dear Lady Ingleby. Also, she has a friend who quite recently saw Lady Ingleby driving in the park. And poor thing she had sadly gone off in looks. I felt inclined to prink in the golden mirror after the manner of Susie and exclaim, Oh, do not say that, Amelia?

Isn't it queer the way in which such people as these worthy ladies yearn to be able to say they know us? For really, when all is said and done, we are not very much worth knowing. I would rather know a cosmopolitan cowboy such as Jim Areth than half the titled folk on my visiting list. But really, Jane, I must not mention him again, or you will think I am infected with Susie's flutter. Not so, my dear.

He has shown me no little courtesies, given few signs of being conscious of my presence, barely returned to my morning greeting, though my lonely table is just opposite his in the large bay window. But in this new phase of life, everything seems of absorbing interest, and the individuality of the few people I see takes on an exaggerated importance. Really, that sentence might almost be Sir Derrick's. Also, I really believe Jim Air's peculiar fascination consists in the fact that I am conscious

of his disapproval. If he thinks of me at all, it is not with admiration nor even with liking. And this is a novel experience, for I have been spoiled by perpetual approval and satiated by senseless and unmerited adulation. Oh, Jane, as I walk along these cliffs, and hear the Atlantic breakers pounding against their base far down below, as I watch the seagulls circling around on their strong white wings, as I realize the strength, the force, the liberty in nature, the growth and progress which accompanies life, I feel I have never really lived. Nothing has ever felt strong either beneath me or around me or against me.

had i once been mastered and held and made to do as another willed i should have felt love was a reality and life would have become worth living but i have just dawdled through the years doing exactly as i pleased making mistakes and nobody troubling to set me right failing and nobody disappointed that i had not succeeded i realize now that there is a key to life and a key to love which has never been placed in my hands what it is i know not but if i ever learn it will be from just such a man as jim i have never really talked with him yet i am so conscious of his strength and virility that he stands to me in the abstract for all that is strongest in manhood and most vital in life much of the benefit of my time here quite unconsciously to himself comes to me from him when he walks in into the house, whistling like a blackbird. When he hangs up his cap on an antler a foot or two higher than other people could reach, when he plows unhesitatingly through his meals with a book or a paper stuck up in front of him, when he dumps his big boots out into the passage, long after the quiet house has hushed into repose, and I smile in the darkness at the thought of how the sound will have annoyed

Miss Murgatroyd, startled Miss Eliza, and made naughty Miss Susanna's heart flutter. When all these things happen every day, I am conscious that a clear understanding of the past, a new strength for the future, and a fresh outlook on life come to me, simply from the fact that he is himself and that he is here. Jim Areth may not be a saint, but he is a man. Dear Jane, I should scarcely venture to send you this epistle were it not for all the adjectives, wholesome, helpful, understanding, etc., which so rightly apply to you. You will not misunderstand.

Of that I have no fear. But do not tell the doctor more than that I am very well, in excellent spirits and happier than I have ever been in my life. Tell Garth I loved his last song. How often I sing to myself as I walk in the sea breeze and sunshine, the hair bells waving round my feet. On God's fair earth, mid-blossoms blue, fresh hope must ever spring. I trust I sing it in tune, but I know I have not much here. And how is your little Geoffrey? "'Is he the beautiful shining eyes we all remember?'

"'I have often laughed over your account of his sojourn at Overdeen "'and of how our dear naughty old duchess stirred him up to rebel against his nurse. "'You must have had your hands full when you and Garth returned from America.' "'Oh, Jane, how different my life would have been if I had had a little son?' "'Ah, well, there is no room for sad despair, when heaven's love is everywhere.' Tell Garth I love it, but I wish he wrote simpler accompaniments. That one beats me. Yours, dear Jane, gratefully and affectionately, Myra Ingleby.

Letter from the Honorable Mrs. Dalmaine to Lady Ingleby. Castle Glenyshe N. B. My dear My dear Myra. No, I have not the smallest objection to representing rice pudding or anything else plain and wholesome, providing I agree with you and suffice for the need of the moment. I am indeed glad to have so good a report. It proves Derek right in his diagnosis and prescription. Keep to the latter faithfully in every detail.

I am much interested in your account of your fellow guest at the Moorhead Inn. No, I do not misunderstand your letter. Nor do I credit you with any foolish sentimentality or Susie-like flutterings. Jim Earth stands to you for an absolute. thing, uncompromising manhood in its strength and assurance, very attractive after the loneliness and sense of being cut adrift which have been your portion lately. Only remember, where living men and women are concerned, the safely abstract is apt suddenly to become the perilously personal, and your future happiness may be seriously involved before you realize the danger.

I confess, I fail to understand the man's avoidance of you. He sounds the sort of fellow who would be friendly and pleasant toward all women and passionately loyal to one. Perhaps you, with your sweet loveliness, a fact, my dear, notwithstanding the observations in the park of Miss Amelia's crony, may remind him of some long closed page of past history, and he may shrink from the pain of a consequent turning of memory's leaves. No doubt Miss Susanna recalls some nice old maiden aunt, and he can afford to respond to her blandishments. What do you say of the way in which Americans know our standard authors reminds me of a fellow passenger on board the Baltic on our outward voyage, a charming

woman from Hartford, Connecticut who sat beside us at meals. She had been spending five months in Europe traveling incessantly and finished up with London, her first visit to our capital, expecting to be altogether too tired to enjoy it, but founded a place of such abounding interest and delight that life went on with fresh zest and fatigue was forgotten. Every street, she explained, is so familiar. We have never seen them before, and yet they are more familiar than the streets of our native cities. It is the London of Dickens and a thackeray. We know it all. We recognize the streets as we come to them. The places are home-like to us. We have known them all our lives. I enjoy.

this tribute to our English literature. But I wonder, my dear Myra, how many streets east of Temple Bar in our dear old London are home-like to you? Garth insists upon sending you at once a selection of his favourites from among the works of Dickens.

So expect a bulky package before long. You might read them aloud to the Miss Mergatroyds while they knit and wind wool. Garth thoroughly enjoyed our trip to America. You know why we went. Since he lost his sight all sounds means so much to him. He is so boyishly eager to hear all there is to be heard in the world.

Any possibility of a new sound experience fills him with enthusiastic expectation, and away we go. He set his heart upon hearing the thunderous roar of Niagara, so off we went by the White Starline. His enjoyment was complete, when at last he stood close to the horseshoe fall on the Canadian side, with his hand on the rail at the place where the spray showers over you, and the great red rushing boom seems all around. And as we stood there together, a little bird on a twig beside us began to sing. Garth is putting it all into a symphony. How true it is what you say of the genial friendliness of Americans. I was thinking it over on our homeward voyage. It seems to me that, as a rule, they are so far less self-conscious than we. Their minds are fully at liberty to grow out at once

in keenest appreciation and interest to meet a new acquaintance. Our senseless British greeting, How do you do? That everlasting question which neither expects nor waits an answer can only lead to trite remarks about the weather, whereas America's,

I am happy to meet you, Mrs. Dalmaine. Or, I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Ingleby, is an open door through which we pass at once to fuller friendliness. Too often in the moment of introduction, the reserved British nature turns in upon itself, sensitively debating what impression it is making,

nervously afraid of being too expansive, fearful of giving itself away. But, as I said, the American mind comes forth to meet us with prompt interest and appreciative expectation, and we make more friends in that land of ready sympathies in half an hour than we do in half a year of our own stiff social functions. Perhaps you will put me down as biased in my opinion. Well, they were wondrous good to Garth and me, and we depend so greatly upon people saying exactly the right thing at the right moment. When friendly looks cannot be seen,

tactful words become more than ever a necessity. Yes, little Jeff's eyes are bright and shining and the true golden brown. In many other ways he is very like his father. Garth sends his love and promises you a special accompaniment to the Blackbird's song, such as can easily be played with one finger.

It seems so strange to address this envelope to Mrs. Omera. It reminds me of a time when I dropped my own identity and used another woman's name. I only wish your experiment might end as happily as mine. Ah, Myra, my dearest, there is a best for every life. Sometimes we can only reach it by a rocky path or along a thorny way, and those who fear the pain come to it not at all. But such of us as have attained can testify that it is worthwhile.

From all you have told me lately, I gather the best has not yet come your way, Keep on expecting. Do not be content with less. We certainly must not let Derek know that Jim Ayreth. What a nice name, was a Targay. He would move you on promptly. Report again next week, and do abide, if necessary, beneath the safe chapernage of the cameo brooch. Yours in all fidelity, Jane Dalmaine. End of Chapter 6 and 7. and Ten of the Mistress of Shenzhen by Florence Barkley. This Libervox recording is in the public domain.

Eight. In Horseshoe Cove. Lady Ingleby sat in the honeysuckle arbor, pouring her tea from a little brown earthenware teapot, and spreading substantial slices of homemade bread with the creamiest of farm butter when the aged postman hobbled up to the garden gate of the Moorhead Inn with a letter for Mrs. Omera.

For a moment she could scarcely bring herself to open an envelope bearing another name than her own. Then, smiling in her momentary hesitation, she tore it open with a keen delight of one who, accustomed to a dozen letters a day, has passed a week without receiving any. She read Mrs. Dalmain's letter through rapidly, and, once she laughed aloud, and once a sudden color flamed into her cheeks. Then she laid it down and helped herself to honey, real Heather honey, golden in the comb. She took up her letter again and read it carefully, weighing each word. Then, good old Jane, she said,

that is rather neatly put, the safely abstract, becoming the perilously personal. She has acquired the knack of terse and forceful phraseology from her long friendship with the doctor. I can do it myself when I try. Only my Sir Derricky's sentences are apt merely to sound well

and mean nothing at all. And, after all, does this of Jane's mean anything worthy of consideration? could six foot five of abstraction eating its breakfast in complete unconsciousness of one's presence returning one's timid good-morning with perfunctory politeness and relegating one while still debating the possibility of venturing a remark on the weather to obvious oblivion ever become perilously personal lady ingleby laughed again returned the letter to its envelope and proceeded to cut herself a slice of home-made currant cake as she finished it with a final cup of tea she thought with amusement of the amusement of the envelope of its envelope and proceeded to cut herself a slice of home-made currant cake as she finished it with a final cup of tea she thought with amusement of the amusement of the the difference between this substantial meal in the honeysuckle arbor of the old inn garden, and the fashionable teas then going on in crowded drawing-rooms in town, where people hurried in,

took a tiny roll of thin bread and butter and a sip of lukewarm tea, which had stood sufficiently long to leave an abiding taste of tannin. Heard or imparted a few more or less detrimental facts concerning mutual friends, then hurried on elsewhere to a cucumber sandwich, colder tea, which had stood even longer at a fresh installment of gossip. "'Oh, why do we do it?' mused Lady Ingleby. Then, taking up her scarlet parasol, she crossed the little lawn and stood at the garden gate in the afternoon sunlight, debating in which direction she should go. Usually her walks took her along the top of the cliffs, where the larks, springing from the short turf and clumps of waving hair bells, sang themselves up into the sky. She loved being high above the sea and hearing the distant thunder of the breakers on the rocks below.

But today the steep little street down through the fishing village to the cove looked inviting. The tide was out and the sands gleamed golden. Also, from her seat in the arbor she had seen Jim Eyre's tall figure go swinging along the cliff edge, silhouetted against the clear blue of the sky. And one sentence in the letter she had just received made this into a factor which turned her feet toward the shore. The friendly Cornish folk sitting on their doorsteps in the sunshine, smiled at the lovely woman, in white serge, who passed down their village streets so tall and graceful beneath the shade of her scarlet parasol. An item in the doctor's prescription had been the discarding of widow's weeds,

and it had seemed quite natural to Myra to come down to her first Cornish breakfast in a cream-surge gown. Arrived at the shore, she turned in the direction she usually took one up above, and walked quickly along the firm, smooth sand, pausing occasionally to pick up a beautifully marked stone, or to examine a brilliant sea anemone or gleaming jellyfish left stranded by the tide. Presently she reached a place where the cliff jutted out toward the sea, and, climbing over slippery rock studded with shining pools in which crimson seaweed waved, crabs scudded sideways from her passing shadow, and darting shrimps flicked across and buried themselves hastily in the sand.

Myra found herself in a most fascinating cove. The line of cliff here made a horseshoe, not quite half a mile in length. The little bay within this curve was a place of almost fairy-like beauty. The sand, a soft, glistening white, decked with delicate crimson seaweed. The cliffs towering up above gave welcome shadow to the shore, yet the sun behind them still gleamed and sparkled on the distant sea. Myra walked to the center of the horseshoe, then, picking up a piece of driftwood, scooped out a comfortable hollow in the sand about a dozen yards from the foot of the cliff, stuck her open parasol up behind it to shield herself from the observation from above of any chance passerby, and, settling comfortably into the soft hollow, lay back watching through half-closed lids the fleeting shadows,

the blue sky, the gently moving sea. Little white clouds blushed rosy red, an opal tint gleamed on the water. The moving ripple seemed too far away to break the restful silence. Lady Ingleby's eyelids drooped lower and low, and a little. lower. Yes, my dear Jane, she murmured dreamily watching a snow-white sail as it rounded the point, curtsied and vanished from view. Undoubtedly, a, a well-expressed sentence. But far from, from being fact, the safely abstract, could hardly require a, a, a cameo. The long walk, the sea-breeze, the distant lapping of the water, all these combined,

had done their soothing work. Lady Ingleby slept peacefully in Horseshoe Cove, and the rising tide crept in. Nine. Jim Earth, to the rescue. An hour later, a man swung along the path at the summit of the cliffs, whistling like a blackbird. The sun was setting,

and as he walked, he reveled in the gold and crimson of the sky, in the opal tints upon the heaving sea. The wind had risen as the sunset, and breakers were beginning. to pound along the shore. Suddenly, something caught his eye, far down below. By Joe, he said,

a scarlet poppy on the sands. He walked on until his rapid stride brought him to the center of the cliff above horseshoe cove. Then, good lord, said Jim Earth and stood still. He had caught sight of Lady Ingleby's white skirt reposing on the sand beyond the scarlet parasol. Good Lord, said Jim

Earth. Then he scanned the horizon. Not a boat to be seen. His quick eye traveled along the cliff the way he had come. Not a living thing in sight. On to the fishing village. Faint threads of ascending vapor indicated chimneys. Two miles at least, muttered Jim Earth. I could not run it and get back with a boat under three quarters of an hour. Then he looked down into the cove. Both ends cut off. The water will reach her feet in ten minutes. We'll sweep the base of the cliff in twenty. Exactly beneath the spot where he stood, more than halfway down, was a ledge about six feet long by four feet wide. Leading himself over the edge, holding to tufts of grass, tiny shrubs, jutting stones, cracks in the surface of the sandstone, he managed to reach this

narrow ledge dropping the last ten feet and landing on it by an almost superhuman effort of balance. One moment he paused, carefully took its measure, then leaning over looked down. Sixty feet remained, a precipitous slope with nothing to which foot could hold or hand could cling. Jim Areth buttoned his Norfolk jacket and tightened his belt. Then, slipping, feet foremost off the ledge, he glissauded down on his back, bending his knees at the exact moment when his feet thudded heavily onto the sand. For a moment the shock stunned him. Then he got up and looked around. He stood within ten yards of the scarlet parasol

on the small strip of sand still left uncovered by the rapidly advancing sweep of the rising tide. Ten. Yo-ho, we go. A cameo chapernage, murmured Lady Ingleby and suddenly opened her eyes. Sky and sea were still there,

but between them, closer than sea or sky, looking down upon her with a tense light in his blue eyes, stood Jim Eirth. Why, I've been asleep, said Lady Ingleby. You have, said Jim Eirth, and meanwhile the sun has set and the tide has come up. Allow me to assist you to rise. Lady Ingleby put her hand into his and he helped her to her feet. She stood beside him, gazing, with wide startled eyes at the expanse of sea, the rushing waves, the tiny strip of sand.

The tide seems very high, said Lady Ingleby. Very high, agreed Jim Ereth. He stood close beside her, but his eyes still eagerly scanned the water. If by any chance a boat came round the point, there would still be time to hail it. We seem to be cut off, said Lady Ingleby. We are cut off, replied Jim Eirth laconically. Then I suppose we must have a boat, said Lady Ingleby. An excellent suggestion, replied Jim Eirth, dryly.

If a boat were to be had. But unfortunately we are two miles from the hamlet, and this is not a time when boats pass in and out, nor would they come this way. When I saw you from the top of the cliff I calculated the chances as to whether I could reach the boats and be back here in time. But before I could have returned with a boat, you would have been very wet, finished Jane Erth somewhat lamely. He looked at the lovely face close to his shoulder.

It was pale and serious but showed no sign of fear. he glanced at the point of cliff beyond twenty feet above its rocky base the breakers were dashing but round that point would be safety can you swim asked jim aearth eagerly myra's calm gray eyes met his steadily a gleam of amusement dawned in them if you put your hand under my chin and count one two one two very loud and quickly i can swim nearly ten yards she said jim airth laughed his eyes met her in sudden comprehending comradeship. By Jove, you're plucky, they seem to say. But what he really said was, then swimming is no-go. No-go for me, said Myra earnestly,

nor for you waited by me. We should never get round that eddying whirlpool. It would merely mean that we should both be drowned, but you can easily do it alone. Oh, go at once. Go quickly, and don't look back. I shall be all right. I shall just sit down against the cliff and wait. I have always been fond of the sea.

Jim Ereth looked at her again, and this time open admiration shone in his keen eyes. Ah, brave, he said, a mother of soldiers. Such women make us a fighting race. Myra laid her hand on his sleeve. My friend, she said, it was never given me to be a mother. but I am a soldier's daughter and a soldier's widow, and I am not afraid to die. Oh, I do beg of you, give me one hand clasp and go. Jim Eirth took the hand held out, but he kept it firmly in his own. You shall not die, he said between his teeth,

Do you suppose I would leave any woman to die alone? And you, you of all women. By heaven, he repeated doggedly, you shall not die. "'Do you think I could go, and leave?' He broke off abruptly. Myra smiled. His hand was very strong, and her heart felt strangely restful. And had he not said,

You, of all women? But even in what seemed likely to be her last moments, Lady Ingleby's unfailing instinct was to be tactful. "'I am sure you would leave no woman in danger,' she said, and some, alas, might have been easier to save than I. Plump little Miss Susie would have floated. Jim Eyre's big laugh rang out. And Miss Murgatroyd could have sailed away in her cameo, he said.

Then as if that laugh had broken the spell which held him inactive. Come, he cried, and drew her to the foot of the cliff. We have not a moment to lose. Look, do you see the way I came down? See that long slide in the sand? I toboggined down there on my back. Pretty steep and nothing to hold to, I admit, but not so very far up, after all. And where my slide begins is a blessed ledge four foot by six.

He pulled out a huge clasp-knife, opened the largest blade, and commenced hacking steps in the face of the cliff. We must climb, said Jim Earth. I have never climbed, whispered Myra's voice behind him. You must climb to-day, said Jim Earth. I could never even climb trees. whispered Myra, you must climb a cliff tonight. It is our only chance. He hacked on rapidly. Suddenly he paused. Show me your reach, he said. Mine would not do. Put your left hand there. So, now stretch up with your right, as high as you can, easily.

Ah, three foot six or thereabouts. Now your left foot close to the bottom. Step up with your right as high as you can comfortably. Two foot nine. Good. One step more or less might make all the difference by and by. Now listen while I work. What a godsend for us that there happens to be just here this stratum of soft sand. We should have been done for had the cliff been serpentine marble. You must choose between two plans. I could scrape you a step, wider than the rest, almost a ledge, just out of reach of the water, leaving you there while I go on up and finish. Then I could return for you. You could climb in front, I helping from below. You would feel safer. Or, you must follow me up now step by step as I cut them.

I could not wait on a ledge alone, said Myra. I will follow you step by step. Good, said Jim Ereth. It will save time. I am afraid you must take off your shoes and stockings. Nothing will do for this work but naked feet. We shall need to stick our toes into the sand and make them cling on like fingers. He pulled off his own boots and stockings, then drew the belt from his Norfolk jacket, and fastened it firmly round his left ankle in such a way that a long end would hang down behind him as he mounted. "'See that,' he said.

"'When you are in the niches below me, it will hang close to your hands. If you are slipping and feel you must clutch at something, catch hold of that. Only, if possible, shout first, and I will stick on like a limpet and try to withstand the strain. but don't do it unless really necessary he picked up mira's shoes and stockings and put them into his big pockets at that moment an advance wave rushed up the sand and caught their bare feet oh jim air cried mirea go without me i have not a steady head i cannot climb he put his hands upon her shoulders and looked full into her eyes you can climb he said you must climb you shall climb We must climb or drown. And remember, if you fall, I fall too. You will not be saving me by letting yourself go.

She looked up into his eyes despairingly. They blazed into hers from beneath his bent brows. She felt the tremendous mastery of his will. Her own gave one final struggle. I have nothing to live for, Jim Earth, she said. I am alone in the world. So am I, he cried. I have been worse than alone for a half-score of years.

But there is life to live for. Would you throw away the highest of all gifts? I want to live. Good God. I must live, and so must you. We live or die together. He loosed her shoulders and took her by the wrists. He lifted her trembling hands and held them against his breast.

For a moment they stood so, in absolute silence. Then Myra felt herself completely. dominated. All fear slipped from her. But the assurance which took its place was his courage, not hers, and she knew it. Lifting her head she smiled at him with white lips. I shall not fall, she said. Another wave swept round their ankles and remained there. Good, said Jim Ereth, and loosed her wrists. We shall owe our lives to each other. Next time I look into your face, please God, we shall be in safety. He sprang up the face of the cliff, standing in the highest niches he had made.

Now follow me carefully, he said, slowly and carefully. We are not in a position to hurry. Always keep each hand and each foot firmly in a niche. Are you there? Good. Now don't look either up or down, but keep your eyes on my heels. Directly I move, come on to the empty places. See? Now then. Can you manage? Good. On we go. After all, it won't take long.

I say, what fun if the Miss Murgatroyds peeped over the cliff. Amelia would be so shocked at our bare feet. Eliza would cry, oh, my dear love. And Susie would promptly fall upon us. Hello? Steady down there. Don't laugh too much. Fine night, this.

I bought it in Mexico. and if the big blade gives out there are two more. Also a saw and a corkscrew. Mind the falling sand does not get into your eyes. Tell me if the niches are not deep enough and remember there is no hurry. We are not aiming to catch any particular train. Steady down there. Don't laugh.

Up we go. Oh, good. This is a third of the way. Don't look either up or down. watch my heels i wish they were more worth looking at and remember the belt is quite handy and i am as firm as a rock up here you and all the miss murgatroyds might hang on it together steady down there all right i won't mention them by the way the water must be fairly deep below us now if you fell you would merely get a ducking i should slide down and pull you out and we would start afresh good lord Oh, never mind. Nothing. Only my knife slipped, but I caught it again.

We must be halfway by now. How lucky we have Michael Satting marks to guide us. I can't see the ledge from here. Let's sing Nancy Lee. I suppose you know it. I can always work better to a good rollicking tune. Then as he drove his blade into the cliff, Jim Air's gay voice rang out.

Of all the wives as air you know, Yeho, lads, ho. Yo-ho, yo-ho. There's none like Nancy Lee, I trow. Yo-ho, lads, ho, yo-ho. See, there she stands. Blow, I've struck a rock. Not a big one, though.

Remember this step will be slightly more to your right. And waves her hands upon the key, and every day when I'm away, she'll watch over me. And whisper low when tempests blow. Oh, hang these unexpected stones. that's finished my big blade for jack at sea yo ho lads ho yo ho now the chorus the sailor's wife the sailor's star shall be come on you sing too yo ho we go across the sea came lady ingleby's voice from below rather faint and quavering that's right shouted jim hearth keep it up i can see the ledge now just above us the bows and pipes the watch below you ho lads ho yo ho yo ho then here's a health afore we go yo ho lads ho yo ho a long long life to my sweet wife and mates at sea keep it up down there i have one hand on the ledge

and keep our bones from davy jones where we be and keep our bones from davy jones where ye be quavered lady ingleby making one final effort to move up into the the vacant niches, though conscious that her fingers and toes were so numb that she could not feel them gripped the sand. Then Jim Ayre's whole body vanished suddenly from above her as he drew himself onto the ledge. "'Yaho we go!' came his gay voice from above. "'Yo-ho, yo-ho!' sang Lady Ingleby in a faint whisper. She could not move on into the empty niches. She could only remain where she was, clinging to the face of the cliff. She suddenly thought of a fly on a wall, and remembered a particular fly years ago on her nursery wall. She had followed its ascent with a small, interested finger, and her nurse had come by with

a duster and saying, nasty thing, had ruthlessly flicked it off. The fly had fallen, fallen dead on the nursery carpet. Lady Ingleby felt she too was falling. She gave one agonized glance upward to the towering cliff with a line of sky above it. Then everything swayed. and dropped. A mother of soldiers, her brain insisted, must fall without screaming. Then a long arm shot down from above. A strong hand gripped her firmly.

One step more, said Jim Eyre's voice close to her ear, and I can lift you. She made the effort, and he drew her on to the ledge beside him. Thank you very much, said Lady Ingleby. And who was Davy Jones? Jim Air's face was streaming with perspiration. His mouth was full of sand. His heart was beating in his throat.

But he loved to play the game, and he loved to see another do it. So he laughed as he put his arm around her, holding her tightly so that she would not realize how much she was trembling. Davy Jones, he said, is a gentleman who has a locker at the bottom of the sea into which all drowned things go. I am afraid your pretty parasol has gone there, and my boots and stockings. But we may well spare him those.

Oh, I say, Yes, do have a good cry. Don't mind me. And don't you think between us we could remember some sort of a prayer? For if ever two people face death together we have faced it. And, by God's mercy, here we are.

Alive. End of chapters eight, nine, and ten. Chapter 11 and 12 of the Mistress of Shenzhen by Florence Barkley. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. 11. To its sea and sky. Myra never forgot Jim Ayre's prayer. Instinctively, she knew it to be the first time he had voiced his soul's thanksgiving or petitions in the presence of another. Also, she realized that, for the first time in her whole life, prayer became to her a reality. As she crouched on the

ledge beside him, shaking uncontrollably so that, but for his own arm about her, she must have lost her balance and fallen. As she heard that strong soul expressing in simple unorthodox language, its gratitude for life and safety, mingled with earnest petition for keeping through the night and complete deliverance in the morning. It seemed to Myra that the heavens opened and the felt presence of God surrounded them in their strange isolation. An immense peace filled her. By the time those disjointed halting sentences were finished, mire had ceased trembling. And when Jim Eirth, suddenly at a loss,

how else to wind up his prayer, commenced, Our Father, who art in heaven, Myra's sweet voice united with his, full of an earnest fervor of petition. At the final words, Jim Ereth withdrew his arm, and a shy silence fell between them. The emotion of the mind had awakened

an awkwardness of body. In that uniting Our Father, their souls had leapt on, beyond where their bodies were quite prepared to follow. lady ingleby saved the situation she turned to jim arreth with that impulse of sweetness which could never be withstood in the rapidly deepening twilight he could just see the large wistful gray eyes in the white oval of her face do you know she said i really couldn't possibly sit all night on a ledge the size of a chesterfield sofa with a person i had to call mr i could only sit there with an old and intimate friend who would naturally call me myra and whom i might call jim unless i may call you, Jim, I shall insist on climbing down and swimming home. And if you address me as Mrs. Omera, I shall certainly become hysterical and tumble off. Why, of course, said Jim Earth.

I hate titles of any kind. I come from an old Quaker stock and plain names with no prefixes always seem best to me. And are we not old and trusted friends? Was not each of those minutes on the face of the cliff a year? While that second which elapsed between the slipping of my knife for my right hand and the catching of it against my knee by my left may go at ten years. Ah, think if it had dropped altogether. No, don't think. We were barely halfway up. Now you must contrive to put on your shoes and stockings. He produced them from his pocket.

And then we must find out how to place ourselves most comfortably and safely. We have but one enemy to fight during the next seven hours? Cramp. You must tell me immediately if you feel it threatening anywhere. I have done a lot of scouting in my time, and I know a dodge or two. I also know what it is to lie in one position for hours, not daring to move a muscle, the cold sweat pouring off my face, simply from the agonies of cramp. We must guard against that.

Jim, said Myra, how long shall we have to sit here? He made a quick movement as if the sound of his name from her lips for the first time met much to him, and there was in his voice an added depth of joyousness as he answered. It would be impossible to climb from here to the top of the cliff. When I came down, I had a sheer drop of ten feet. You see, the cliff slightly overhangs just above us. So far as the tide is concerned, we might clamber down in three hours, but there is no moon, and by then it will be pitch dark.

We must have light for our descent if I am to land you safe and unshaken at the bottom. Dawn should be breaking soon after three. The sun rises tomorrow at three forty-four, but it will be quite light before the bottom. then. I think we may expect to reach the Moorhead in by 4 a.m. Let us hope Miss Murgatroyd will not be looking out of her window as we stroll up the path. What are they all thinking now? Questioned Lady Ingleby. I don't know and I don't care, said Jim Areth, gaily. You're alive, and I'm alive,

and we've done a record climb. Nothing else matters. No, but seriously, Jim. Well, seriously, it is very unlikely that I shall be missed at all. I often dine elsewhere and let myself in quite late or stop out altogether. How about you? Why, curiously enough, said Myra. Before coming out I locked my bedroom door. I have the key here. I had left some papers lying about.

I am not a very tidy person. On the only other occasion upon which I locked my door, I omitted dinner altogether and went to bed on returning from my evening walk. I am supposed to be doing a rest cure here. The maid tried my door, went away, and did not. turn up again until next morning. Most likely she has done the same tonight. Then I don't suppose they will send out a search party, said Jim Eirth.

No, we are so alone down here. We only matter to ourselves, said Myra. And to each other, said Jim Eirth quietly. Myra's heart stood still. Those four words spoken so simply by that deep, tender voice, meant more to her than any words had ever meant. They meant so much that they made for themselves a silence. A vast holy temple of wonder and realization wherein they echoed back and forth, repeating themselves again and again.

The two on the ledge sat listening. The chant of mutual possession, so suddenly set going, was too beautiful a thing to be interrupted by other words. Even Lady Ingleby's unfailing habit of tactful speech was not allowed to spoil the deep sweetness of this unexpected situation. Myra's heart was waking, and when the heart is stirred, the mind sometimes forgets to be tactful. At length, don't you remember, he said very low, what I told you before we began to climb. Did I not say that if we succeeded in reaching the ledge safely, we should owe our lives to each other? Well, we did, and we do. Ah, no, cried Myra impulsively.

No, Jim Earth, you, glad. and safe and free, were walking along the top of these cliffs. I, in my senseless folly, lay sleeping on the sand below while the tide rose around me. You came down into danger to save me, risking your life in so doing. I owe you my life, Jim, Earth. You owe me nothing. The man beside her turned and looked at her, with his quiet, whimsical smile. I am not accustomed to have my statements amended, he said dryly. It was growing so dark, they could only just discern each other's faces. Lady Ingleby laughed.

She was so unused to that kind of remark that at the moment she could frame no suitable reply. Presently, I suppose I really owe my life to my scarlet parasol, she said. Had it not attracted your attention, you would not have seen me. Should I not? questioned Jim Ereth, his eyes on the white loveliness of her face.

Since I saw you first on the afternoon of your arrival, Have you ever once come within my range of vision without my seeing you and taking in every detail? On the afternoon of my arrival? Question Lady Ingleby astonished. Yes, replied Jim Ereth deliberately. Seven o'clock on the first of June. I stood at the smoking room window at a loose end of all things. Sick of myself, dissatisfied with my manuscript, tired of fried fish, don't laugh.

Small things as well as great go to make. up the sum of a man's depression. Then the gate swung back, and you, in golden capitals, the sunlight in your eyes came up the garden path. I judged you to be a woman grown, in years perhaps not far short of my own age. I guessed you, a woman of the world with a position to fill, and a knowledge of men and things. Yet you looked just a lovely child stepping into fairyland. The joyful surprise of unexpected holiday danced in your radiant eyes. Since then, the beautiful side of life has always been you, you, in golden capitals. Jim Eirth paused and sat silent.

It was quite dark now. Myra slipped her hand into his, which closed upon it with a strong, unhesitating clasp. Go on, Jim, she said softly. I went out into the hall and saw your name in the visitor's book. The ink was still wet. The handwriting was that of a holiday child. I should like to set you copies. The name surprised me, agreeably.

I had expected to be able at once to place the woman who had walked up the path. It was a surprise and a relief to find that my fairyland princess was not, after all, a fashionable beauty or society leader, but owned just a simple Irish name and lived at a lodge. Go on, Jim, said Lady Ingleby rather tremulously. Then the name Shenzhen interested me, because I know the Ingleby's. at least I knew Lord Ingleby well, and I shall soon know Lady Ingleby. In fact, I have written today asking for an interview. I must see her on business connected with notes of her husbands, which, if she gives me

permission, are to be embodied in my book. I suppose if you live near Shenzden Park, you know the Engelby's. Yes, said Myra. But tell me, Jim, if—if you noticed so much that first day. If you were—if you wanted to set me copies— "'Yes, I know I write a shocking hand. "'Why would you never look at me? "'Why were you so stiff and unfriendly?

"'Why were you not as nice to me as you were to Susie, for instance?' "'Jimirth sat long in silence staring out into the darkness. "'At last he said, "'I want to tell you. "'Of course I must tell you. "'But may I ask a few questions first?' "'Lady Ingleby also gazed unseeingly into the darkness, "'but she leaned a little nearer to the broad shore,

shoulder beside her. Ask me what you will, she said. There is nothing in my whole life I would not tell you, Jim Eirth. Her cheek was so close to the rough Norfolk jacket that if it had moved a shade near she would have rested against it. But it did not move, only the clasp on her hand tightened. Were you married very young? asked Jim Ereth. I was not quite eighteen.

It is ten years ago. Did you marry for love? There was a long silence. while both looked steadily into the darkness. Then Myra answered, speaking very slowly. To be quite honest, I think I married chiefly to escape from a very unhappy home. Also, I was very young and knew nothing,

nothing of life and nothing of love. And how can I explain, Jim Ereth? I have not learned much during these ten long years. Have you been unhappy? He asked the question very low. Not exactly unhappy. My husband was a very good man, kind and patient beyond words towards me. But I often vaguely felt I was missing the best in life.

Now, I know I was. How long have you been? How long has he been dead? The deep voice was so tender that the question could bring no pain. Seven months, replied Lady Engelby. My husband was killed in the assault on Targay. At Targay, exclaimed Jim Earth, surprised into betraying.

his astonishment, then at once recovering himself. Ah, yes, of course, seven months. I was there, you know. But within himself he was thinking rapidly and much was becoming clear. Sergeant Omera. Was it possible? An exquisite refined woman such as this, bearing about her the unmistakable hallmark of high birth and perfect breeding. The sergeant was a fine fellow and superior, but good lord, her husband. Yet girls of eighteen do foolish things and repent ever after. A runaway match from an unhappy home. Then cast off by her relations and now left friendless and alone.

But Sergeant Omera, yet no other Omera fell at Targay. And there was some link between him and Lord Ingleby. Then into his musing came Myra's soft voice from close behind him in the darkness. My husband was always good to me, but— And Jim Ayrth laid his other. hand over the one he held. I am sure he was, he said gently. But if you had been older and had known more of love and life you would have done differently. Don't try to explain. I understand. And Myra gladly left it at that. It would have been so very difficult to explain further without

explaining Michael, and all that really mattered was that, with or without explanation, Jim Earth understood. And now, tell me, she suggested softly. "'Ah, yes,' he said, pulling himself together with an effort. "'My experience also misses the best, and likewise covers ten long years. "'But it is a harder one than yours. "'I married, when a boy of twenty-one, a woman older than myself, supremely beautiful. "'I went mad over her loveliness. "'Nothing seemed to count or matter but that.

"'I knew she was not a good woman, but I thought she might become so. "'And even if she didn't, it made no difference. i wanted her afterwards i found she had laughed at me all the time also there had all the time been another an older man than i who had laughed with her he had not been in a position to marry her when i did but two years later he came into money then she left me jim arthur paused his voice was hard with pain the night was very black in the dark silence they could hear the rhythmic thunder of the waves pounding monotonously against the cliff below i divorced her of course and he married her but i went abroad and stayed abroad i never could look upon her as other than my wife she had made a hell of my life robbed me of every illusion wrecked my ideals embittered my youth but i had said before god that i took her for my wife until death parted us and so long as we were both alive what power could free me from that solemn oath it seemed to me that by remaining in another hemisphere i made her second marriage less sinful often at first i was tempted to shoot myself as a means of writing this other wrong but in time i outgrew that morbidness and realized that though love is good life is the greatest gift of all to throw it away voluntarily is an unparonable sin.

The suicides' punishment should be loss of immortality. Well, I found work to do of all sorts, in America and elsewhere. And a year ago, she died. I should have come straight home, only I was booked for that muddle on the frontier they called a war. I got fever after Targay, was invalid at home, and here I am recruiting and finishing my book. Now you can understand why loveliness in a woman fills me with a sort of panic, even while a part of me still leaps up instinctively to worship it.

I had often said to myself that if I ever ventured upon matrimony again it should be a plain face and a noble heart, though all the while I knew I should never bring myself really to want the plain face. And yet, just as the burnt child dreads the fire, I have always tried to look away from beauty. Only, my fairyland princess, may I say it, days ago I began to feel certain that in you, you in golden capitals,

the loveliness and the noble heart went together. But from the moment when stepping out of the sunset you walked up the garden path right into my heart, the fact of you, just being what you are and being here meant so much to me that I did not dare let it mean more. Somehow I never connected you with widowhood, and not until you said this evening on the shore,

I am a soldier's widow, did I know that you were free? There. Now you have heard all there is to hear. I made a bad mistake at the beginning, but I hope I am not the sort of chap you need mine sitting on a ledge with and calling Jim. For answer, Myra's cheek came trustfully to rest against the sleeve of the rough tweed coat. Jim, she said. Oh, Jim. Presently. So you know the Inglebees, remarked Jim Ereth. Yes, said Myra. Is the lodge near Shenzhen Park? The lodge is in the park.

It is not at any of the gates. I am not a gatekeeper, Jim. It is a pretty little house standing by itself just inside the north entrance. Do you rent it from them? Myra hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. No, it is my own. Lord Ingleby gave it to me.

Lord Ingleby? Jim Err's voice sounded like knitted brows. Why not Lady Ingleby? It was not hers to give. All that is hers was his. I see. Which of them did you know first? I have known Lady Ingleby all my life, said Myra truthfully.

And I have known Lord Ingleby since his marriage. Ah, then he became your friend because he married her. Myra laughed. Yes, she said. I suppose so. What's the joke? only that it struck me as an amusing way of putting it, but it is undoubtedly true.

Have they any children? Myra's voice shook slightly. No, none. Why do you ask? Well, in the campaign I often shared Lord Ingleby's tent, and he used to talk in his sleep. Yes? There was one name he often called and repeated.

Lady Ingleby's heart stood still. Yes, she said hardly, breathing. It was Peter, continued Jim Ereth. The night before he was killed he kept turning in his sleep and saying, Peter, hello little Peter, come here. I thought perhaps he had a little son named Peter. He had no son, said Lady Ingleby, controlling her voice with effort. Peter was a dog of which he was very fond. Was that the only name he spoke? The only one I ever heard, replied Jim Ereth. Then suddenly Lady Inkelby clasped both hands round his arm. Jim, she whispered brokenly.

Not once have you spoken my name. It was a bargain. We were to be old and intimate friends. I seem to have been calling you Jim all my life. But you have not yet called me Myra. Let me hear it now, please. Jim Eirth laid his big hand over both of hers. I can't, he said.

Hush. I can't. Not up here. It means to. much. Wait until we get back to earth again. Then, oh, I say, can't you help? This kind of emotion was an unknown quantity to Lady Engleby. So was the wild beating of her own heart. But she knew the situation called for tact and was not tactful speech always her special forte.

Jim, she said, are you not frightfully hungry? I should be. Only I had an enormous tea before coming out. Would you like to hear what I had for tea? No, I am afraid it would make you feel worse. I suppose dinner at the inn was over long ago. I wonder what variation of fried fish they had, and whether Miss Susanna choked over a fishbone and had to be requested to leave the room. Oh, do you remember that evening? You looked so dismayed and alarmed, I quite thought you were going to the rescue. I wonder what time it is. We can soon tell that, said Jim Airth. cheerfully. He dived into his pocket, produced a match-box which he had long been fingering turnabout with his pipe and tobacco pouch, struck a light, and looked at his watch.

Myra saw the lean, brown face in the weird flare of the match. She also saw the horrid depth so close to them which she had almost forgotten. A sense of dizziness came over her. She longed to cling to his arm, but he had drawn it resolutely away. Half past ten, said Jim Ayreth. Miss Murgatroyd has dawned her nightcap. Miss Eliza has sighed, Good night, summer, good night, good night, at her open lattes. And Susie, folding her plump hands, has said, Now I lay me.

Myra laughed. And they will all be listening for you to dump out your big boots, she said. That is always your good-night to the otherwise silent house. No, really? Does it make a noise? said Jim Earth ruefully. Never again. "'Oh, but you must,' said Myra.

"'I love—I mean, Susie loves the sound and listens for it. Jim, that match reminds me. Why don't you smoke?' "'Surely it would help with the hunger and be comfortable and cheering.' "'Jimmyr's pipe and pouch were out in a twinkling. "'Sure you don't mind. It doesn't make you sick or give you a headache.' "'No, I think I like it,' said Myra. "'In fact, I am sure I like it.

That is, I like to sit beside it. No, I don't do it myself. Another match flared, and again she saw the chasm and the nearness of the edge. She bore it until the pipe was drawing well then. Oh, Jim, she said, I am so sorry, but I am afraid I am becoming dizzy. I feel as though I must fall over. She gave a half sob. Jim Ereth turned instantly alert.

Nonsense, he said, but the sharp word sounded tender. Four good feet of width are as safe as forty. Change your position a bit. He put his arm around her, and moved her so that she leant more completely against the cliff at their backs. Now forget the edge, he said, and listen. I am going to tell you camp yarns and tales of the Wild West. Then as they sat in the darkness, Jim Earth smoked and talked, painting vivid word-pictures of life and adventure in other lands. And Myra listened, absorbed and enchanted, every moment realizing more fully as he unconsciously,

revealed it, the manly strength and honest simplicity of his big nature, with its fun and its fire. It's huge capacity for enjoyment, its corresponding capacity for pain. And as she listened, her heart said, oh, my cosmopolitan cowboy,

thank God you found no title in the book to put you off. Thank God you found no name which you could place, relegating its poor possessor to the ranks of society leaders in which you would have had no share. and oh, most of all, I thank God for the doctor's wise injunction.

Leave behind you your own identity. Twelve, under the morning star. The night wore on. Stars shone in the deep purple sky, bright watchful eyes looking down unwearied upon the sleeping world. The sound of the sea below fell from a roar to a murmur and drew away into the distance. It was a warm June night.

and very still. Jim Airth had moved along the ledge to the further end and sat swinging his legs over the edge. His content was so deep and full that ordinary speech seemed impossible, and silence a glad necessity. The prospect of that which the future might hold in store made the ledge too narrow to contain him. He sought relief in motion and swung his long legs out into the darkness. It had not occurred to him to wonder at his companion's silence. The reason for his own had been so all-sufficient. At length he struck a match to see the time. Then, turning with a smile, held it so that its light illuminated Myra. She knelt upon the ledge, her hands pressed against the overhanging cliff, her head turned in terror away from it. Her face was ashen in its whiteness,

and large tears rolled down her cheeks. Jim dropped the match with an exclamation and groped towards her in the darkness. "'Dear!' he cried. "'Oh, my dear, what is the matter?' "'selfish fool that I am. "'I thought you were just resting, quiet and content.' "'His groping hands found and held her. "'Oh, Jim!' sobbed Lady Ingleby. "'I am so sorry. "'It is so weak and unworthy.

"'But I am afraid I feel faint. "'The whole cliff seems to rock and move. "'Every moment I fear it will tip me over. "'And you seemed miles away.' "'You are faint,' said Jim Ayrth, and no wonder. There is nothing weak or unworthy about it. You have been quite splendid. It is I who have been a thoughtless ass. But I can't have you fainting up here. You must lie down at once. If I sit on the edge with my back to you, can you slip along behind me and lie at full

length, leaning against the cliff? No, oh no, I couldn't, whispered Myra. It frightens me so horribly when you hang your legs over the edge, and I can't bear to touch the cliff. It seems worse than the black emptiness. It rogues to and fro and seems to push me over. Oh, Jim, what shall I do? Help me. Help me. You must lie down, said Jim Earth between his teeth. Here, wait a minute. Move out a little way. Don't be afraid. I have hold of you. Let me get behind you. That's right. Now you are not. not touching the cliff. Let me get my shoulders firmly into the hollow at this end and my feet

fixed at the other. There, with my back rammed into it like this, nothing short of an earthquake could dislodge me. Now, dear, turn your back to me and your face to the sea and let yourself go. You will not fall over. Do not be afraid. Very gently, but very firmly, he drew her into his arms. tired, frightened, faint. Lady Ingleby was conscious at first of nothing save the intense relief of the sense of his great strength about her. She seemed to have been fighting the cliff and resisting the gaping darkness until she was utterly worn out.

Now she yielded to his gentle insistence and sank into safety. Her cheek rested against his rough coat and it seemed to her more soothing than the softest pillow. With a sigh of content, she folded her hands upon her breast. and he laid one of his big ones firmly over them both. She felt so safe and held. Then she heard Jim Air's voice close to her ear.

We are not alone, he said. You must try to sleep, dear. But first, I want you to realize that we are not alone. Do you know what I mean? God is here. When I was a very little chap, I used to go to a dame school in the Highlands. And the old dame made me learn by heart

the hundred and thirty-ninth psalm. I have repeated parts of it in all sorts of places of difficulty and danger. I am going to say my favorite verses to you now. Listen. Whither shall I go from thy spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall be light about me.

Yes, the darkness hideth not from thee, but the night shineth as the day. The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God. How great is the sum of them? If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand. When I awake I am still with thee. The deep voice ceased. Lady Ingleby opened her eyes.

I was nearly asleep, she said. How good you are, Jim. No, I am not good, he answered. I'm a tough chap, full of faults and beset by failings. Only, if you will trust me, please God, I will never fail you. But now I want you to sleep, and I don't want you to think about me. I am merely a thing which by God's providence is allowed to keep you in safety. Do you see that wonderful planet, hanging like a lamp in the sky?

Watch it, while I tell you some lines written by an American woman on the thought of that last verse. And with his cheek against her soft hair and his strong arms firmly round her, Jim Hath repeated slowly Mrs. Beecher's Toe's matchless poem. Still, still with thee when purple morning breaketh, when the bird waketh and the shadows flee. Thayer than morning, lovelier than daylight. dawns the sweet consciousness i am with thee alone with thee amid the mystic shadows the solemn hush of nature newly born alone with thee in breathless adoration in the calm dew and freshness of the morn as in the dawning or the waveless ocean the image of the morning star doth rest so in this stillness thou beholdest only thine image in the waters of my breast

when sinks the soul subdued by toil to slumber its closing eye looks up to thee in prayer sweet the repose beneath thy wings o'er shadowing but sweeter still to wake and find thee there so shall it be at last in that bright morning when the soul waketh and life's shadows flee o in that hour fairer than daylight's dawning shall rise the glorious thought i am with thee jimair's voice ceased He waited a moment in silence. Then, do you like it? He asked softly. There was no answer. Myra slept as peacefully as a little child. He could feel the regular motion of her quiet breathing beneath his hand.

Thank God, said Jim Earth, with his eyes on the morning star. End of chapters 11 and 12. Chapter 13 and 14 of the Mistress of Shenston by Florence Barkley. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Thirteen. The Awakening When Lady Ingleby opened her eyes, she could not for a moment imagine where she was. Dawn was breaking over the sea. Her rift of silver in the purple sky had taken the place of the morning star. She could see the silvery gleam reflected in the ocean.

Why am I sleeping so close to a large window? queried her bewildered mind. Or am I on a balcony? Why do I feel so extraordinarily strong and rested? Questioned her slowly awakening body. She lay quite still and considered the matter. Then looking down, she saw a large brown hand clasping both hers. Her head was resting in the curve of the arm to which the hand belonged. The strong right arm was flung over and around her.

All questionings were solved by two short words. Jim Earth. Lady Ingleby lay very still. She feared to break the deep spell of restfulness which held her. She hesitated to bring down to earth the exquisite sense of heaven by which she was surrounded. As the dawn broke over the sea, a wonderful light dawned in her eyes, a radiant such as had never shown in those sweet eyes before. Dear God, she whispered, am I to know the best?

Then she gently withdrew one hand and elated on the hand which had covered both. Jim, she said. Jim, look, it is dead. Yes, came Jim Ayers' voice from behind her. Yes? What? Come in. Hello? Oh, I say. Mara smiled into the dawning. She had already come through those first moments of astonished realization, but Jim Ereth awoke to the situation more quickly than she had done. Hello, he said. I meant to keep watch all the time, but I must have slept. Are you all right?

Sure. No cramp. Well, I have a cramp in my left leg which will make me kick down the cliff in another minute if I don't move it. Let me help you up. That's the way. Now you sit safely there while I get unwedged. By Jove. I believe I've grown into the cliff like a fossil ichthyosaurus. Did you ever see an Nict Theosaurus. Doesn't it seem years since you said, And who is Davy Jones? Don't you want some breakfast?

I suppose it's about time we went home. Talking gaily all the time, Jim Earth drew up his long limbs, rubbing them vigorously, stretched his arms above his head, then passed his hand over his tumbled hair. My wig, he said. What a morning!

And how good to be alive! Myra stole a look at him. his eyes were turned seaward the same dawn light was in them as shown in her own don't you want breakfast said jim arthur pulled out his watch i do said myra gaily and now i can venture to tell you what delicious home-made bread i had for tea what time is it jim half-past three in a few minutes the sun will rise watch did you ever before see the dawn is it not wonderful always more of pearl and silver than i'm a-and-a-half-past three in a few minutes the sun will rise watch did you ever before see the dawn is it not wonderful always more of pearl and silver than at sunset look how the narrow rift has widened and spread right across the sky the monarch of day is coming see the little herald clouds in livery of pink and gold now watch where the sea looks brightest ah there is the tip of his blood-red rim rising out of the ocean and how quickly the whole ball appears now see the rippling path of gold and crimson a royal highway on the water-o'eroy on the ocean and how quickly the whole ball appears now see the rippling path of gold and crimson a royal highway on the waters right from the shore below us to the footstool of his brilliant majesty. A new day has begun, and we have not said good morning. Why should we? We did not say good-night.

How ideal it would be never to say good-morning and never to say good-night. The night would be always good, and so with the morning. All life would be one grand crescendo of good, better, best. What, have we found the best? Ah, how, how? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? I did not mean to say that yet. Are you ready for the climb down? No, I can't allow any peeping over and considering. If you really feel afraid of it, I will run to Tregard as quickly as possible,

rouse the sleeping village, bring ropes and men and haul you up from the top. I absolutely decline to be hauled up from the top or to be left here alone, declared Lady Ingleby. Then the sooner we start down, the better, said Jim Earth. I'm going first. He was over the edge before Myra could open her lips to expostulate. Now turn round.

Hold on to the ledge firmly with your hands and give me your feet. Do you hear? Do as I tell you. Don't hesitate. It is less steep than it seemed yesterday. We are quite safe. Come on. That's right.

Then Lady Ingleby passed through a most terrifying five minutes while she yielded in blind obedience to the strong hands beneath her and the big voice which encouraged and threatened alternately. But when the descent was over and she stood on the shore beside Jim Ereth, when together they turned and looked up in silence up the path of glory on the rippling waters to the blazing beauty of the rising sun, thankful tears rushed to Lady Engelby's eyes. Oh, Jim, she exclaimed, God is good. It is so wonderful to be alive. Then Jim Eirth turned, his face transfigured, the sunlight,

in his eyes and opened his arms. Myra, he said, we have found the best. They walked along the shore and up the steep street of the sleeping village, hand in hand, like happy children. Arrived at the Moorhead Inn, they pushed open the garden gate

and stepped noiselessly across the sunlit lawn. The front door was firmly bolted. Jim Ereth slipped round to the back, but returned in a minute shaking his head. Then he felt in his pocket for the big knife which had served them so well, pushed back the catch of the coffee-room window, softly raised the sash,

swung one leg over, and drew Myra in after him. Once in the familiar room with its mustard pots and salt cellars, its tablecloths, left on in readiness for breakfast, they both elapsed into fits of uncontrollable laughter.

Laughter the more overwhelming because it had to be silent. Jim, recovering first, went off to the larder to forage for food. lady ingleby flew noiselessly up to her room to wash her hands and smooth her hair she returned in two minutes to find jim very proud of his success setting out a crusty home-made loaf a large cheese and a foaming tankard of ale lady ingleby longed for tea and had never in her life drunk ale out of a pewter pot but not for worlds would she have spoiled jim hare's boyish delight in the success of his raid on the larder so they sat at the centre table mirea in miss murgatroyd place and jim in susy's and consumed their bread and cheese and drank their beer with huge appetites and prodigious enjoyment and jim used miss susanna's napkin and pretended to be sentimental over it and mirea reproved him after the manner of miss murgatroyd reproving susy after which they simultaneously exclaimed oh my dear love in miss eliza's most affecting manner then linked fingers for a wish and could neither of them think of one By the time they had finished and cleared away it was half-past five.

They passed into the hall together. You must get some more sleep, said Jim Earth authoritatively. I will if you wish it, whispered Myra. But I never in my whole life felt so strong or so rested. Jim, I shall sit at your table and pour out your coffee at breakfast. Let's aim to have it at nine as usual. It will be such fun to watch the murgatorids and to remember our cheese and beer. If you are down first, order our breakfast at the same table.

All right, said Jim Ereth. Myra commenced mounting the stairs but turned on the fifth step and hung over the banisters to smile at him. Jim Ereth reached up his hand. How can I let you go? He exclaimed suddenly. Myra leaned over and smiled into his adoring eyes. How can I go? She whispered tenderly.

Jim Ereth took both her hands and his. His eyes. blazed up into hers. Myra, he said, when shall we be married? Myra's face flamed, just as the soft white clouds had flamed when the sun arose.

But she met the fire of his eyes without flinching. When you will, Jim, she answered gently. As soon as possible, then, said Jim Earth eagerly. Myra withdrew her hands and mounted two more steps, then turned to bend and whisper, why?

Because. replied Jim Areth. "'I do not know how to bear "'that there should be a day "'or an hour or a minute "'when we cannot be together.' "'Ah, do you feel that too?' "'whispered Myra.

"'Two?' cried Jim Earth. "'Do you? "'Mira, come back.' "'But Lady Ingleby fled up the stairs "'like a hair. "'She had not run so fast "'since she was a little child of ten. "'He heard her happy laugh

"'in the closing of her door. "'Then he unbarred the front entrance. and stepping out stood in the sunshine on the path where he had seen his fairyland princess arrive. He stretched his arms over his head. Mine, he said, mine altogether. Oh, my God, at last I have won the highest. Then he raced down the street to the beach, and five minutes later, in the full strength of his vigorous manhood, he was swimming up the golden path towards the rising sun.

fourteen golden days the week which followed was one of ideal joy and holiday both knew instinctively that no after-days could ever be quite as these first days they were an experience which came not again and must be realized and enjoyed with whole-hearted completeness at first jim hearth talked with determination of a special license and pleaded for no delay but lady ingleby usually vague to a degree on questions of law or matters of business, fortunately felt doubtful as to whether it would be wise to be married in a name other than her own, and, though she might have solved the difficulty by at once revealing her identity to Jim Ereth, she was anxious to choose her own time and place for this revelation, and had set her heart upon making it amid the surroundings of her own beautiful home at Shenzhen. You see, Jim, she urged, I have a few friends in town and at Shenzhenstown who take an interest

in my doings, and I could hardly reappear among them. married, could I, Jim? It would seem such an unusual and unexpected termination to a rescuer. Wouldn't it, Jim? Jim Ears' big laugh brought Miss Susie to the window. It caused sad waste of Susanna's time that her window looked out on the honeysuckle arbor. It might make quite a run on rescuers, said Jim Ereth. Ah, but they couldn't all meet you, said Myra, and the look he received from those sweet eyes atoned for the vague inaccuracy of the rejoinder. So they agreed to have one week of this free untrammeled life

before returning to the world of those who knew them, and he promised to come and see her in her own home before taking the final steps which would make her altogether his. So they went for gay walks along the cliffs in the breezy sunshine, and Myra, clinging to Jim's arm, looked down from above upon their ledge. They revisited Horseshoe Cove at low water, and Jim Air spent hours cutting their... hurried niches into proper steps, so as to leave a staircase to the ledge up which people,

who chanced in future to be caught by the tide, might climb to safety. Myra sat on the beach and watched him, her eyes alight with tender memories, but she absolutely refused to mount again. No, Jim, she said. Not until we come here on our honeymoon. Then, if you wish, you shall take your wife back to the place where we pass those wonderful hours. But not now.

Jim, who expected always to have his own way unless he was given excellent reasons in black and white for not having it, was about to expostulate and insist when he saw tears on her lashes and a quiver of the sweet smiling lips and gave in at once without further question. They hired a tent and pitched it on the shore at Tregarth. Myra telegraphed for a bathing dress, and Jim went into the sea in his flannels and tried to teach her to swim, holding her up beneath her chin and saying, one, two, one, two, far louder than Myra had ever had it said to her before. Thus, amid much splashing and laughter, Lady Ingleby accomplished her swim of ten yards. Miss Murgatroyd was shocked, nay, more than shocked.

Miss Murgatroyd was scandalized. She took to her bed forthwith, expecting Miss Eliza and Miss Susanna to follow her example, in the spirit if not to the letter, but released from Amelia, personal supervision, romantic little Susie led Eliza astray, and the two took a furtive and fearful joy in seeing all they could of the goings-on of the couple, who had boldly converted

the prosaic Cornish Hotel into a land of excitement and romance. From the moment when on the morning of their adventure, Myra, with yellow roses in the belt of her white gown, had swept into the coffee room at five minutes past nine, saying, My dear, Jim, have I kept you waiting? I hope the coffee is not cold.

All life had seemed transformed to Miss Susie. Turning quickly, she had caught the look Jim Earth gave to the lovely woman who took her place opposite him at his hitherto lonely table, and, still smiling into his eyes, lifted the coffee pot. Amelia's stern whisper had recalled her to her senses and prevented any further glancing round, but she had heard Myra say,

I forgot your sugar, Jim. One lump or two. And Jim Eress reply, As usual, thanks, dear. Not knowing that we're not knowing that we're not, With a silent twinkle of fun, he laid an envelope over his cup as assigned to Myra, waiting with poised sugar-tongs that, as usual, meant no sugar at all. Later on, when she one day met Lady Ingleby alone in a passage,

Miss Susanna ventured two hurried questions. Oh, tell me, my dear, is it really true that you are going to marry Mr. Earth? And have you known him long? And Myra, smiling down into Susie's plump, anxious face, replied, Well, as a matter of fact, Miss Susanna, Jim Earth is going to marry me, and I cannot explain how long I have known him. I seem to have known him all my life.

Ah, whispered Miss Susanna with a knowing smile of conscious perspicacity. Eliza and I felt sure it was a tiff. This remark appeared absolutely incomprehensible to Lady Ingleby, and not until she had repeated it to Jim and he had shouted with laughter and called her a bare-faced deceiver, did she realize that the Tiff was supposed to have been operative during the whole time she and Jim Earth had sat at

separate tables and showed no signs of acquaintance. However, she smiled kindly into the archly nodding face. Then, in the consciousness of her own great happiness, enveloped little Susie in her beautiful arms and kissed her. Miss Susanna never forgot that embrace. It was to her a reflected realization of what it must be to be loved by Jim Ereth. And thereafter, whenever Miss Mergatroyd saw fit to use such adjectives as, indecent, questionable, or highly improper, Miss Susie bravely gathered up her woolwork and left the room.

Thus the golden days went by, and a letter came from Jim Ereth from Lady Ingleby's secretary. Her ladyship was away at present, but would be returning to Shenzden on the following Monday, and would be pleased to give him an interview on Tuesday afternoon. The two o'clock express from Charing Cross would be met at Shenzhenstyn's state, but would be returning unless he wrote suggesting another. Now that is very civil, said Jim to Myra as he passed her the letter, and how well it suits our plans. We had already arranged both to go up to town on Monday and you on to Shenzhen.

So I can come down by that two o'clock train on Tuesday, get my interview with Lady Ingleby over as quickly as may be, and dash off to my girl at the lodge. I hope to goodness she won't want to give me tea. Which she? asked Myra, smiling. i shall certainly want to give you tea then i shall decline lady ingleby's said jim with decision even during those wonderful days he went on steadily with his book myra sitting near him in the smoking-room writing letters or reading while he worked i do better work if you are within reach or at all events within sight jim had said and it was impossible that lady ingleby's mind should not have contrasted the thrill of pleasure this gave her with the old sense of being in the way if work was to be done, and of being shut out from the chief interests of Michael's life by the

closing of the laboratory door. Ah, how different from the way in which Jim already made her a part of himself, enfolding her into his every interest. She wrote fully of her happiness to Mrs. Dalmaine, telling her in detail the unusual happenings which had brought it so rapidly to pass. Also a few lines to her old friend, the Duchess of Maldrum, merely announcing the fact of her engagement and the date of her return to Shenzhen, promising full particulars later. This letter also had a message for Ronald and Billy should they chance to be at Overdeen.

Sunday evening, their last at Tregarth came all too soon. They went to the little church together, sitting among the simple Fisherfolk at Evensong. As they looked over one hymn book and sang Eternal Father, Strong to Save, both thought of Davy Jones in the middle of the hymn and had to exchange a smile. Yet with an instant added,

reverence of petition and thanksgiving. Thus evermore shall rise to thee, glad hymns of praise from land and sea. Jim Eirth's big bass boomed through the little church, and Myra, close to his shoulder, sang with a face so radiant that none could doubt the reality of her praise. Then back to a cold supper at the Moorhead Inn, after which they strolled out to the honeysuckle arbor for Jim's evening pipe and a last quiet talk. It was then that Jim Eirth said suddenly. By the way, I wish you would tell me more about Lady Ingleby.

What kind of a woman is she? Easy to talk to. For a moment Myra was taken aback. Why, Jim, I hardly know. Easy? Yes, I think you will find her easy to talk to. Does she speak of her husband's death, or is it a tabooed subject? She speaks of it, said Myra softly, to those who can understand. "'Ah, do you suppose she will like to hear details of those last days?' "'Possibly, if you feel inclined to give them, Jim, do you know who did it?'

"'A surprise silence in the arbor.' Jim removed his pipe and looked at her. "'Do I know who did what?' he asked slowly. "'Do you know the name of the man who made the mistake which killed Lord Ingleby?' Jim returned his pipe to his mouth. Yes, dear, I do, he said quietly. But how came you to know of the blunder? I thought the whole thing was hushed up at home. It was, said Myra, but Lady Ingleby was told and I heard it then.

Jim, if she asked you the name, should you tell her? Certainly I should, replied Jim Earth. I was strongly opposed from the first to any mystery being made about it. I hate a hushing-up policy. But there was the fellow's future to consider. The world never lets a thing of that sort drop. He would always have been pointed out as the chap who killed Ingleby, just as if he had done it on purpose,

and every man of us knew that it would be a millstone round the neck of any career. And then the whole business had been somewhat irregular, and the powers that be have a way of taking all the kudos, if experiments are successful, and making a what on earth were you dreaming of row at the chance to be a failure. Hence the fact that we are all such stick in the muds in the service. Nobody dares be original. The risks are too great and too astonishingly unequal. If you succeed, you get a D.S.O. from a grateful government and a laurel crown from an

admiring nation. If you fail, an indignant populist derides your name, and a pained an astonished government claps you into jail. That's not the way to encourage progress or make fellow-sprosepruders. prompt to take the initiative. The right or the wrong of an action should not be determined by its success or failure. Lady Ingleby's mind had paused at the beginning of Jim's tirade. They could not have taken Michael's kudos, she said. It must have been patented. He was always most careful to patent all his inventions.

A what? said Jim Ereth. Oh, I see. Kudos, my dear girl, means glory, not a new kind of explosive. "'And why do you call Lord Ingleby Michael?' "'I knew him intimately,' said Lady Ingleby. "'I see. Well, as I was saying, I protested about the hushing up, but was talked over, and the few who knew the facts pledged their word of honour to keep silence.

Only the name was to be given to Lady Ingleby if she desired to know it, and some of us thought you might as well put it in the times at once as tell a woman. Then we heard she had decided not to know.' "'What do you think of her decision?' asked Lady Ingleby. "'I think it proved her to be a very just-minded woman and a very unusual one if she keeps it. But it would be rather like a woman to make a fine decision such as that during the tension of a supreme moment and then indulge in private speculation afterwards.' "'Did you hear her reason, Jim?'

She said she did not wish that a man should walk this earth whose hand she could not bring herself to touch in friendship. "'Poor loyal soul,' said Jim Eirth greatly moved. "'Maira, if I got accidentally done for as Ingleby was, "'should you feel so, for my sake?' "'No,' cried Myra passionately. "'If I lost you, my beloved, "'I should never want to touch any other man's hand "'in friendship or otherwise as long as I lived.'

"'Ah,' mused Jim Ereth, "'then you don't consider Lady Ingleby's reason for her decision, proved a love such as ours. Myra laid her beautiful head against his shoulder. Jim, she said brokenly. I do not feel myself competent to discuss any other love. One thing only is clear to me. I never realized what love meant,

until I knew you. A long silence in the honeysuckle arbor. Then Jim Earth cried almost fiercely to the woman in his arms. Can you really think that you have been right, to keep me waiting, even for a day? And she who loved him with a love beyond expression could frame no words in answer to that question. Thus it came to pass that in the days to come it was there,

unanswered, ready to return and beat upon her brain with merciless reiteration. Was I right to keep him waiting even for a day? In the hall beside the marble table where lay the visitor's book they paused to say good-night. From the first, Myra had never allowed him up the stairs until her door was closed. If you don't keep the rules I think it right to make, Jim,

she had said with her little tender smile, I shall in self-defense engage Miss Mergatroyd as chaperone, and what sort of a time would you have then? So Jim was pledged to remain below until her door had been shut five minutes. After which he used to tramp up the stairs whistling. A long, long life to my sweet wife and mates at sea, and keep our bones from Davy Jones where

we be and may you meet a mate as sweet then his door would bang and myra would venture to give vent to her suppressed laughter and to sing a soft little yoho we go yo ho yo for sheer overflowing happiness but this was the last evening a parting impended also there had been tense moments in the honeysuckle arbor jim's blue eyes were mutinous he stood holding her hands against his breast as he had done in horseshoe cove when the wave swept round their feet and he had cried you must climb so to-morrow night he said you will be at the lodge shenston and i at my club in town do you know how hard it is to be away from you even for an hour do you realize that if you had not been so obstinate we never need have been parted at all we could have gone away from here husband and wife together if you had really cared you wouldn't have wanted to wait mire smiled up into his angry eyes jim she whispered it is so silly to say if you had really cared because you know perfectly well that i care for you more than any woman in the world has ever cared for any man before and i do assure you jim that you couldn't have married me validly from here and think how awful it would be to love as much as we love and then find out we were not validly married and when you come to my home and fetch me away from there you will admit yes really admit that i was right you will have to apologize humbly for having said bosh so often jim dearest look at the clock i must go poor miss murgertroyd will grow so tired of listening for us she always leaves her door crack open so does miss Susanna they

have all taken to sleeping with their doors ajar I definitely led the conversation round to riddles yesterday when I was alone with them for a few minutes and asked sternly when is a door not a door they all answered when it is a jar quite unabashed and Miss Eliza asked another I believe Susie stands at her crack in the darkness in hopes of seeing you march by no Don't say naughty words. They are dears, all three of them. And we shall miss them horribly tomorrow.

Oh, Jim, I've just had such a brilliant idea. I shall ask them to be my bridesmaids. Can't you see them following me up the aisle? It would be worse than the Duchess giving Jane away. Ah, you don't know that story. I will tell it you some day. Jim, say good-night quickly and let me go. Once, said Jim Earth, tightening his...

grasp on her wrists. Once, Myra, we said no good night and no good morning. Jim, darling, said Myra gently. On that night before I went to sleep you said to me, We are not alone, God is here. And then you repeated part of the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm. And Jim, I thought you the best and strongest man I had ever known, and I felt that all my life I should trust you, as I trusted my God. Jim Ereth, loose the hands he had held so tightly and kissed them very gently. Good night, my sweetheart, he said, and God bless you. Then he turned away to the marble table.

Myra ran swiftly up the stairs and closed her door. Then she knelt beside her bed and sobbed uncontrollably, partly for joy and partly for sorrow. The unanswered question commenced its reality. reiteration. Ah, was I right to keep him waiting? Presently she lifted her head, held her breath, and stared into the darkness. A vision seemed to pass across her room. A tall bearded man in evening clothes. In his arms, a tiny dog peeping at her through its curls as if to say, I have the better place. Where do you come in? The tall man turned

at the door. Good night, my dear Myra, he said kindly. The vision passed. Lady Ingleby buried her face in the bedclothes. That, for ten long years, she said. Then in the darkness she saw the mutinous fire of Jim Ayre's blue eyes and felt the grip of his strong hands on hers. How can I say good-night? protested his deep voice passionately.

And with a rush of happy tears Myra clasped her hands whispering, Dear God, am I at last to know the best? And up the stairs came Jim Eirth, whistling like a nightingale. But as a concession to Miss Murgatroyd's ideas concerning suitable Sabbath music, he discarded Nancy Lee and whistled. Eternal Father strong to save, whose arm hath bound the restless wave. Who bids the mighty ocean deep? Its own appointed limits keep.

Oh, hear us when we cry to thee? And kneeling beside her bed in the darkness, Myra made of it her evening prayer. End of chapters 13 and 14 Chapter 15, 16 and 17 of the Mistress of Shenzhen by Florence Barkley. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. 15. Where is Lady Ingleby? When Jim Ereth left the train on the following Tuesday afternoon, he looked eagerly up and down the platform, hoping to see Myra.

True, they had particularly arranged not to meet until after his interview with Lerbe. Lady Ingleby. But Myra was so charmingly inconsequent and impulsive in her actions. It would be quite like her to reverse the whole plan they had made, and if her desired to see him in any measure resembled his huge hunger for a sight of her, he could easily understand such a reversal. However, Myra was not there. And with a heavy sense of unreasonable disappointment, Jim Euth chucked his ticket to a waiting porter, passed through the little station, and found a smart turnout with tantam ponies waiting outside. The groove of the grue of at the leader's head touched his hat.

For Shenzhen Park, sir. Yes, said Jim Arth and climbed in. The groom touched his hat again. Her ladyship said, sir, that perhaps you might like to drive the ponies yourself, sir. No thank you, said Jim Arth shortly. I never drive other people's ponies. The groom's comprehending grin was immediately suppressed. He touched his hat again, gathered up the reins, mounted the driver's seat,

and the perfectly matched ponies swung at once into a fast trot. Jim Eirth, a connoisseur in horse flesh, hide them with approval. They flew along the narrow Surrey lanes between masses of wild roses and Clomatus. The villagers were working in the hay fields, shouting gaily to one another as they tossed the hay. It was a matchless June day in a perfect English summer. Jim Ere's disappointment at Myra's non-appearance was lifting rapidly in the enjoyment of the drive. After all, it was best to adhere to plans once made, and every step of these jolly little tapping hoops was bringing him nearer to the lodge.

Perhaps she would be at the window. He had particularly told her not to be. These ponies have been well handled, he remarked approvingly to the groom as they flew round a bend. Yes, sir, said the groom, with the inevitable movement towards his hat, whip and hand going up together. Her ladyship always drives them herself, sir. Fine whip her ladyship, sir. This item of information surprised Jim Ereth. Judging by Lord Ingleby's age and appearance, he had expected to find Lady Ingleby a sedate and stately matron of sixty. It was somewhat surprising to hear of her as a fine whip. However, he had no time to weigh the matter further. Passing an ivy-clad church on the village

green, they swung through massive iron gates of a very fine design, and entered the stately avenue of Shunston Park. To the left in a group of trees stood a pretty little gabled house. "'What house is that?' asked Jim Earth quickly. "'The lodge, sir.' "'Who lives there?' "'Mrs. O'Mara, sir.' "'Has Mrs. O'Mara returned?' "'I don't know, sir. She was up at the house with her ladyship this morning.'

"'Then she has returned,' said Jim Ereth. The groom looked perplexed, but made no comment. Jim Ereth turned in his seat and looked back at the lodge. It was a far smaller house than he had expected. expected. This fact did not seem to depress him. He smiled to himself as at some thought which gave him amusement and pleasure. While he still looked back, a side door opened. A neatly dressed woman in black, apparently a superior lady's maid appeared on the doorstep, shook out a white tablecloth, and re-entered the house. They flew up on the avenue, Jim Ereth noting every tree with appreciation

and pleasure. The fine old house came into view, and a moment later they drew up at the entrance. "'Good driving,' remarked Jim Earth approvingly as he tipped the little groom. Then he turned to find the great doors already standing wide and a stately butler, with immense black eyebrows, waiting to receive him. "'Will you come to her ladyship's sitting-room, sir?' said the butler and led the way. Jim Eirth entered a charmingly appointed room and looked around. It was empty. "'Cindly wait here, sir, while I acquaint her ladyship with your arrival,'

said the pompous person with the eyebrows and went out noiselessly closing the door behind him. Left alone, Jim Earth commenced taking rapid note of the room, hoping to gain therefrom some ideas as to the taste and character of its possessor. But almost immediately his attention was arrested by a life-size portrait of Lord Ingleby hanging above the mantelpiece. Jim Earth walked over to the hearth rug and stood long, looking with silent and tetness at the picture. Excellent, he said to himself at life.

last extraordinarily clever that chap shall paint myra if i can lay hands on him what a jolly little dog and what devotion mutual and absorbing i suppose that is peter queer to think that i should have been the last to hear him calling peter i wonder whether lady ingleby liked peter if not i doubt if she would have had much of a look in if anyone went to the wall it certainly wasn't peter he was still absorbed in the picture when the butler returned with a long message solemnly delivered her ladyship is out on the ground sir as it is so warm in the house sir her ladyship requests that you come to her in the grounds if you will allow me sir i will show you the way jim arth restrained an inclination to say buck up and followed the butler along the corridor down a wide staircase to a lower hall they stepped out on to a terrace running the full length of the house below it an old-fashioned garden with box borders bright flower-beds a fountain in the centre beyond this a smooth lawn sloping down to a beautiful lake which sparkled and gleamed in the afternoon sunshine on this lawn well to the right half-way between the house and the water stood a group of beaches beneath their spreading boughs in the cool inviting shadow were some garden chairs jim arith could just discern in one of these the white gown of a woman holding a scarlet parasol. The butler indicated this clump of trees. Her ladyship said, sir, that she would await you under the beaches. He returned to the house, and Jim Ereth was left to make his way alone to Lady Ingleby, guided by the gleam among the trees of her brilliant parasol.

Even at that moment it gave him pleasure to find Lady Ingleby's taste in sunshades resembling Myras. He stood for a minute on the terrace, taking in the matchless beauty of the place. Then his face grew sad and stern. What a home to leave, he said, and to leave it, never to return. He still wore a look of sadness as he descended the steps leading to the flower garden, made his way along the narrow gravel path, then stepped on to the soft turf of the lawn and walked towards the clump of beaches. Jim Earth, tall and soldierly, broad-shouldered and erect, might have made an excellent impression upon Lady Ingleby had she watched his coming,

but she kept her parasol between herself and her approaching guest. In fact, he drew quite near, near enough to distinguish the ripples of soft lace about her feet, the long, graceful sweep of her gown, and still she seemed unconscious of his close proximity. He passed beneath the beaches and stood before her, and even then the parasol concealed her face. But Jim Areth was never at a loss when sure of his ground.

Lady Ingleby, he said with grave farm, I was told to. Then the parasol was flung aside, and he found himself looking down into the lovely laughing eyes of Myra. To see Jim airspace change from its look of formal gravity to one of rapturous delight was to Myra well worth the long effort of sitting immovable. He flung himself down before her with boyish abandon and clasped both herself and her chair in his long arms. Oh, you, darling, he said, bending his face over hers while he, his blue eyes danced with delight. Oh, Myra, what century since yesterday!

How I have longed for you! I almost hoped you would, after all, have come to the station. How I have grudged wasting all this time in coming to call on old Lady Ingleby! Myra, has it seemed long to you? Do you realize, my dear girl, that it can't go on any longer? That we cannot possibly live through another twenty-four hours of separation? But oh, you tease! There was I, ramping with impatience at every wasted moment,

and here were you, sitting under this tree, hiding your face and pretending to be Lady Ingleby. The astonished and astonishing old party in the eyebrows certainly pointed you out as Lady Ingleby when he started me off on my pilgrimage. I say, how lovely you look! What billowy softness! It wouldn't do for cliff-climbing,

"'But it's A-1 for sitting on lawns.' "'I can't help it. I must.' "'Jim,' said Myra, laughing and pushing him away, "'what has come to you, my dearest old boy? "'You will really have to behave. We are not in the honeysuckle arbor. "'The astonishing old party in the eyebrows "'is most likely observing us from a window, "'and will have good cause to look astonished

"'if he sees you carrying on in such a manner. "'Jim, how nice you look in your town-cloth. I always like a gray frock coat. Stand up and let me see. Oh, look at the green of the turf on those immaculate knees. What a pity. Did you don't all this finery for me? Of course not, silly, said Jim Ereth, rubbing his knees vigorously.

When I haul you up cliffs, I wear old Norfolk coats. And when I duck you in the sea, I wear flannels. I considered this the correct attire in which to pay a formal call on Lady Ingleby. and now before she has had a chance of being duly impressed by it i have spoilt my knees hopelessly worshipping at your shrine where is lady ingleby why doesn't she keep her appointments jim said myra looking up at him with eyes full of unspeakable love yet dancing with excitement and delight jim do you admire this place this place cried jim stepping back apace so as to command a good view of the lake and woods beyond It is absolutely perfect. We have nothing like this in Scotland. You can't beat for all-round beauty a real old mellow lived in English country seat,

especially when you get a twenty-acre lake with islands and swans all complete. And I suppose the woods beyond, as far as one can see, belong to the Inglebees, or rather to Lady Ingleby. What a pity there is no sun. Jim, said Myra, I have so looked forward to showing you my home. home. He stepped close to her at once. Then show it to me, dear, he said. I would rather be alone with you in your own little home. I saw it as we drove up, then waiting about in this vast

expanse of beauty for Lady Ingleby. Jim, said Myra, do you remember a little tune I often hummed down in Cornwall, and when you asked me what it was I said you should hear the words some day? Jim looked puzzled. Really, dear, you hummed so many little tunes. "'Oh, I know,' said Myra, "'and I have not much ear. "'But this was very special. "'I want to sing it to you now. "'Listen.'

"'And looking up at him her soft eyes full of love, "'Mira sang with slight alterations of her own, "'the last verse of the old Scotch ballad, Hunting Tower. "'Blair in Athos mine, Jamie. "'Fair Dunkeld is mine, laddie, "'St. Johnston's Bower, and Hunting Tower, "'and all that's mine is thine, laddie.

Very pretty, said Jim, but you've mixed it, my dear. Jamie bestowed all his possessions on the lassie. You sang it the wrong way around. No, no, cried Myra eagerly. There is no wrong way around. Providing they both love, it does not really matter which gives. The one who happens to possess bestows.

If you were a cowboy, Jim, and you loved a woman with lands and houses, and taking her you would take all that was hers. "'I guess I'd take her out to my ranch and teach her to milk cows,' laughed Jim Ereth, then turning about under the tree and looking in all directions. "'But seriously, Myra, where is Lady Ingleby? She should keep her appointments. We cannot waste our whole afternoon waiting here. I want my girl, and I want her in her own little home alone.

Cannot we find, Lady Ingleby?' Then Myra rose, radiant and came and stood before him. The sunbeam shone through the beech leaves and danced in her gray eyes. She had never looked more perfect in her sweet loveliness. The man took it all in, and the glory of possession lighted his handsome face. She came and stood before him, laying her hands upon his breast. He wrapped his arms lightly about her. He saw she had something to say, and he waited.

Jim, said Myra. Jim, dearest. There is just one name I want to bear more than any other. There is just one thing I long to be. Then I shall be content. I want to have the right to be called Mrs. Jim Ereth. I want more than all else beside to be your wife. But, until I am that, and may it be very soon,

until you make me Mrs. Jim Ereth, dearest, I am Lady Ingleby. 16. Under the Beaches at Shenston Jim Ayre's arms fell slowly to his sides. He still looked into those happy, loving eyes, but the joy in his own died out, leaving them merely cold blue steel. His face slowly whitened, hardened, froze into lines of silent misery. Then he moved back a step, and Myra's hands fell from him. You, Lady Ingleby, he said. Myra gazed at him in unspeakable dismay. Jim, she cried.

Jim, dearest, why should you mind it so much? She moved forward and tried to take his hand. Don't touch me, he said sharply, then. You, Myra! You! Lord Ingleby's widow! The furious misery of his voice stung, Myra. Why should he resent the noble name she bore,

the high rank which was hers? Even if it placed her socially far above him, had she not just expressed her readiness, her longing, to resign all for him. Had not her love already placed him on the topmost pinnacle of her regard? Was it generous? Was it worthy of Jim Earth to take her disclosure thus? She moved towards the chairs with gentle dignity. Let us sit down, Jim and talk it over, she said quietly. I do not think you need find it so overwhelming a matter as you seem to imagine. Let me tell you all about it, or rather, suppose you ask me any questions you like jim airth sat blindly down upon the chair

farthest from her put his elbows on his knees and sank his face into his hands without any comment myra rose moved her chair close enough to enable her to lay her hand upon his arm should she wish to do so sat down again and waited in silence jim airth had but one question to ask he asked it without lifting his head who is mrs. Omera She is the widow of Sergeant Omera, who fell at Targay. We both lost our husbands in that disaster, Jim. She had been, for many years, my maid attendant. When she married the sergeant, a fine soldier whom Michael held in high esteem,

I wished still to keep her near me. Michael had given me the lodge to do with as I pleased. I put them into it. She lives there still. Oh, Jim, dearest, tried to realize that I have not said one word to you which was not completely truthful. Let me explain how I came to be in Cornwall under her name instead of my own. If I put my hand in yours, Jim, I could tell you more easily. No. Very well. Never mind. After I received the telegram last November telling me of my husband's death, I had a very bad

nervous breakdown. I do not think it was caused so much by my loss as by a prolonged mental strain which had preceded it. Just as I had moved to town, I had moved to Tam. and was getting better full details arrived and I had to be told that it had been an accident you know all about the question as to whether I should hear the name or not you also know my decision the worry of this threw me back what you said in the arbor was perfectly true I am a woman Jim often a weak one and I was very much alone I decided rightly in a supreme moment possibly you know who it was who graciously undertook to bring me the news from the war office But afterwards I began to wonder. I allowed myself to guess. Men from the front came home. My surmising circled ceaselessly around two, dear fellows of whom I was really fond.

At last I felt convinced I knew by intangible yet unmistakable signs, which was he who had done it. I grew quite sure. And then... I hardly know how to tell you, Jim. Of all impossible horrors, the man who had killed Michael wanted to marry

me. Oh, don't groan, darling. You make me so unhappy. But I do not wonder you find it difficult to believe. He cared very much, poor boy, and I suppose he thought that, as I should remain in ignorance, the fact need not matter. It seems hard to understand, but a man in love sometimes loses all sense of proportion, at least so I heard someone say, or words to that effect. I did not allow it ever to reach the point of an actual proposal, but I felt I must flee away. There were others, and it was terrible to me. I loved none of them, and I had made up my mind never to marry again unless I found my ideal. Oh, Jim! She laid her hand upon his knee. It might have been a falling leaf for all the sign he gave. She left it

there and went on speaking. People gossiped. Society papers contained constant trying paragraphs. Even my widow's weeds were sketched and copied. My nerves grew worse. Life seemed unendurable. At last I consulted a great specialist who is also a trusted friend. He ordered me a rest cure. Not to be shut up within four walls with my own worries, but to go right away alone. To leave my own identity, and all appertaining there too completely behind. To go to a place where I had never been, where I knew no one and should not be known. to live in the open air,

fair simply, rise early, retire early, but above all, as he quaintly said, leave Lady Ingleby behind. I followed his advice to the letter. He is not a man one can disobey. I did not like the idea of taking a fictitious name, so I decided to be Mrs. O'Mara, and naturally entered her address in the visitor's book as well as her name.

On that evening of arrival, you were quite right, Jim. I felt just a happy child entering a new world of beauty and delight, all holiday and rest. And then, I saw you. And, oh, my beloved, I think almost from the first moment my soul flew to you, as to its unquestioned mate. Your vitality became my source of vigor. Your strength filled and upheld everything in me which had been weak and faltering. I owed you much before we had really spoken. afterwards I owed you life itself and love and all all Jim myra paused silently controlling her emotion then bending forward laid her lips upon the roughness of his hair it might have been the stirring of the breeze for all the sign he made when I found at first that you had come from the war when I realized that you must have known Michael I praised the doctor's wisdom in making me drop my own name also the murgatroyd would have come from the war when I realized that you must have known Michael I praised the doctor's wisdom in making me drop my own name also the murgatroyds would have

known it immediately, and I should have had no peace. As it was, Miss Murgatroyd occasionally held forth in the sitting-room concerning poor dear Lady Ingleby, whom she gave us to understand she knew intimately. And then, oh, Jim, when I came to know my cosmopolitan cowboy, when he told me he hated titles and all that I pertained to them. Then, indeed, I blessed the moment when I had writ myself down plain Mrs. Omera, and I resolved not to tell him of my title until he loved me enough not to mind it, or wanted me enough, to change me at once from Lady Ingleby of Shenzhen Park into plain Mrs. Jim Ayreth of, anywhere he chooses to take me. Now you will understand why I thought I could not marry you validly in Cornwall.

And I wanted, was it selfish? I wanted the joy of revealing my own identity when I had you at last in my own beautiful home. Oh, my dear, my dear, cannot our love stand the test of so light a thing as this? She ceased speaking, and awaited. She was sure of her victory, but it seemed strange in dealing with so fine a nature as that of the man she loved that she should have had to fight so hard

over what appeared to her appaltry matter. But she knew false pride often rose gigantic about the smallest things, the very unworthiness of the cause seeming to add to the unreasonable growth of its dimensions. She was deeply hurt, but she was a woman and she loved him. She waited patiently to see his love for her arise victorious over unworthy pride.

At last, Jim Earth stood up. I cannot face it yet, he said slowly. I must be alone. I ought to have known from the very first that you were, R. Lady Ingleby. I am very sorry that you should have to suffer for that which is no fault of your own. I must go now. In 24 hours, I will come back to talk it over.

He turned without another word, without a touch, without a look. He swung round on his heel and walked away across the lawn. Myra's dismayed eyes could scarcely follow him. He mounted the terrace, passed into the house. A door closed. Jim Ereth was gone. 17. Surely you knew.

Myra Ingleby rose. and wended her way slowly towards the house. A stranger meeting her would probably have noticed nothing amiss with the tall, graceful woman, whose pallor might have well been due to the unusual warmth of the day. But the heart within her was dying. Her joy had received a mortal wound. The man she adored, with a love which had placed him at the highest,

was slowly slipping from his pedestal, and her hands were powerless to keep him there. A woman may drag her own pride in the dust and survive, the process, but when the man she loves falls, then indeed her heart dies within her. She had loved to call Jim Areth a cowboy. She knew him to be avowedly cosmopolitan. But was he also a slave to vulgar pride? Being plain Jim Ereth himself, did he grudge noble birth and ancient lineage to those to whom they rightfully belonged? Professing to scorn titles, did he really set upon them so exaggerated a value that he

would turn from the woman he was about to wed merely because she owned a title while he had none. Myra, entering the house, passed to her sitting-room. Green awnings shaded the windows. The fireplace was banked with ferns and lilies. Bowls of roses stood about, while here and there pots of growing frisias poured their delicate fragrance around. Myra crossed to the hearth-rug and stood gazing up at the picture of Lord Ingleby. The gentle refinement of the scholarly face seemed accentuated by the dim light. Lady Ingleby dwelt in memory upon the consistent courtesy of the dead man's manner,

his unfailing friendliness and equability to all, courteous to men of higher rank, considerate to those of lower, genial to rich and poor alike. Oh, Michael, she whispered, have I been unfaithful? Have I forgotten how good you were? But still her heart died within her.

The man who had stalked across the lawn, leaving her without a touch or look, held it in the hollow of his hand. A dog cart clattered up to the portico. Men's voices sounded in the hall. Tramping feet hurried along the corridor. Then Billy's excited young voice cried, May we come in?

Followed by Ronnie's deeper tones. If we shall not be in the way. The next moment she was grasping a hand of each. You dear boys, she said, I have never been more glad to see you. Do sit down. Or have you come to play to play tennis. We have come to see you, dear Queen, said Billy. We are staying at Overdean.

The Duchess had your letter. She told us the great news, also that you were returning yesterday. So we came over to, too. To congratulate, said Ronald Ingram, and he said it heartily and bravely. Thank you, said Myra, smiling at them, but her sweet voice was tremulous. These first congratulations coming just now were almost more than she could bear. then with characteristic simplicity and straightforwardness she told these old friends the truth you dear boys it is quite sweet of you to come over and an hour ago you would have found me radiant there cannot have been a happier woman in the whole world than i but you know i met him and we became engaged while i was doing my very original rescuer which consisted chiefly in being mrs omera to all intents and purposes instead of myself this afternoon he knows for the first time that i am lady ingleby of shenston and boys the shock has been too much for him he is such a splendid man but a dear delightful cowboy sort of person he has lived a great deal abroad and been everything you can imagine that bestrides a horse and does brave things he finished up at your horrid little war and got fever at targay you must have known him he calls it a muddle on the frontier and now he is writing a book

about it and about other muddles in how to avoid them. But he has a quite eccentric dislike to titles and big properties, so he has shied really badly at mine. He has gone off, to face it out, alone. Hence you find me sad instead of gay. Billy looked at Ronnie telegraphing. Is it? It must be. Shall we tell her? Ronnie telegraphed back. It is, it can be no other. you tell her. Lady Ingleby became aware of these cross-currents. What is it, boys? she said. Dear Queen, cried Billy with hardly suppressed excitement. May we ask the cowboy person's name? Jim Airth, replied Lady Ingleby, a sudden rush of color flooding her pale cheeks.

In that case, said Billy, he is the chap we met tearing along to the railway station as if all the furies were loose at his heels. He looked neither to the right nor to the left, nor for that matter in front of him, and our dog-cart had to take to the path. So he did not see two old comrades, nor did he hear their hail. But he cannot possibly have been fleeing from your title, dear lady, and hardly from your property, seeing that his own title is about the oldest known in Scottish history, while mile after mile of more and stream and forest belong to him. surely you knew that the fellow who called himself Jim Earth when out ranching in the West, and still keeps it as his no de plume, is, when at home, James Earl of Eirth and Monteth

and a few other names I have forgotten. The finest old title in Scotland. End of chapters 15 through 17. Chapter 18 and 19 of the Mistress of Shenzhen by Florence Barkley. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Eighteen. What Billy had to tell. Did you bring your rackets, boys? Lady Engelby had said with fine self-control,

adding, when they admitted rackets left in the hall. Ah, I am glad you never can resist the chestnut court. It seems ages since I saw you two fight out a single. Do go on and begin. I will order tea out there in half an hour and follow you. Then she escaped to the terrace, flew across garden and lawn, and sought the shelter of the beaches. Arrived there, she sank into the chair

in which Jim Air that sat so immovable and covered her face with her trembling fingers. Oh, Jim, Jim, she sobbed. My darling, how grievously I wronged you. My king among men! How I misjudged you. Imputing to you thoughts of which you in your noble large-heartedness

would scarcely know the meaning. Oh, my dear, forgive me. and oh come to me through this darkness and explain what i have done wrong explain what it is you have to face tell me what has come between us for indeed if you leave me i shall die myra now felt certain that the fault was hers and she suffered less than when she had thought it his yet she was sorely perplexed for if the earl of arith and monteth might write himself down jim arith in the morehead in visitors book and be blameless why might not Lady Ingleby of Shenzhen, take an equally simple name, without committing an unpardonable offense? Myra pondered, wept, and reasoned round in a circle, growing more and more bewildered and perplexed.

But by and by she went indoors and tried to remove all traces of recent tears. She must not let her sorrow make her selfish. Ronald and Billy would be wanting tea, and expecting her to join them. Meanwhile, the two friends, their rackets under their arms, had strolled through the shubbery at the front of the house to the beautiful tennis lawns, long renowned as being the most perfect in the neighborhood. Many a tournament had been there fought out in presence of a gay crowd lining the courts beneath the shady chestnut trees. But on this day the place seemed sad and deserted. They played one set in silence, hardly troubling to score, then walked to the net and stood close together one on either side. we must tell her said ronald examining his racket minutely i suppose we must agreed billy reluctantly we could not let her marry him

duffer you don't suppose he would dream of marrying her he will come back and tell her himself to-morrow we must tell her to spare her that interview she need never see him again i say ron did you see her go quite pink when she told us his name and in spite of the trouble to-morrow she looks half a dozen years younger than when she went away. You know she does, old man. Oh, that's the rescuer, explained Ronnie, but without much conviction. Rescures always have that effect. That's why women go in for them. Did you ever hear of a man doing a rest cure? Well, I've heard of you at Overdeen, said Billy maliciously. Rot, you don't call staying with the Duchess a rest cure. Good heavens, men. You're you get about the liveliest time of your life when her grace of Maldram undertakes to nurse you. Did you hear about old Pilberry the parson and the toucan?

Yes, shut up. You've told me that unholy story twice already. I say, Ronnie, we are begging the question. Who's to tell her? You, said Ronald decidedly. She cares for you like a mother and will take it more easily from you. Then I can step in later on with her manly comfort. "'Confound you,' said Billy highly indignant.

"'I'm not such a kid as you make out. "'But I'll tell you this. "'If I thought it would be for her real happiness "'and could be pulled through, "'I would tell her I did it. "'Then find earth to-morrow and tell him I had told her so.' "'Ass,' said Ronnie affectionately, "'as if that could mend matters.

"'Don't you know the Earl? "'He was against the hushing-up business from the first. "'He would simply punch your head "'for daring to lie to her "'and go and tell her. the exact truth himself. Besides, at this moment he is thinking more of his side of the question than of hers. We fellows have a way of doing that. If he had thought first of her, he would have stayed with her and seen her through, instead of rushing off like this, leaving her heart-broken

and perplexed. "'Confound him,' said Billy earnestly. "'I say, Billy, you know women.' It was the first time Ronnie had admitted this. "'Don't you think? If a woman turned in horror from a man she had loved, she might, if he were tactfully on the spot, turned to a man who had long loved her, and of whom she had undoubtedly been fond. My knowledge of women, declaimed Billy dramatically, leads me to hope that she would fall into the arms of the man who loved her well enough to risk incurring her displeasure by bravely telling her himself that which she ought. Confound you, whispered Ronnie who had glanced past Billy. Shut up. The meshes of this net are better than the other,

and the new patent sockets undoubtedly keep it. You patient people, said Lady Ingleby's voice just behind Billy. Don't you badly need tea? We were admiring the new net, said Ronald Ingram, frowning at Billy, who with his back to Lady Ingleby continued admiring the new net, helplessly speechless. There were brave attempts at merriment during tea. Ronald told all the latest over Dean stories, then described the annual concert which had just taken.

place mrs. Dalmain was there and sang divinely she sings her husband's songs he accompanies her it is awfully fine to see the light on his blind face as he listens while her glorious voice comes pouring forth when the song is over he gets up from the piano gives her his arm and apparently leads her off very few people realize that as a matter of fact she is guiding him she gave as an encore a jolly little new thing of his quite simple, but everybody wanted it twice over, an air like summer wind blowing through a pine wood

with an accompaniment like a blackbird whistling. Words something about on God's fair earth, mid-blossoms blue, I forget the rest. Go ahead, Bill. There is no room for sad despair when heaven's love is everywhere, quoted Billy who had an excellent memory. Myra rose hastily.

I must go in, she said. But play as long as you like. Billy walked beside her towards the shrubbery. May I come in and see you presently, dear Queen. There is something I ought to say. Come when you will, Billy, boy, said Lady Engelby with a smile. You will find me in my sitting-room. And Billy looked furtively at Ronald, hoping he had not seen.

Words and smile undoubtedly partook of the maternal. It was a very grave-faced young man who half an hour later appeared in Lady Ingleby's sitting room, closing the door carefully behind him. Lady Ingleby knew at once that he had come on some matter which, at all events to himself, appeared of paramount importance.

Billy's days of youthful escapades were over. This must be something more serious. She rose from her Davenport and came to the sofa. Sit down, Billy, she said, indicating an armchair opposite, Lord Ingleby's chair and Little Peters. Both had now left it empty. Billy filled it readily, unconscious of its associations.

Rippin' flowers, remarked Billy looking round the room. Yes, said Lady Ingleby. She devoutly hoped Billy was not going to propose. Jolly room, said Billy. At least I always think so. Yes, said Lady Ingleby, so do I. Billy's eyes, roaming anxiously around for fresh inspiration, lighted on the portrait over the mantelpiece. he started and paled then he knew his hour had come there must be no more beating about the bush billy was a soldier and a brave one he had led a charge once running up a hill ahead of his men in face of a perfect hail of bullets first came billy then the battalion not a man could keep within fifty yards of him they always said afterwards that billy came through that charge alive because he sprinted so fast that no bullets could touch him-and-a-money could touch him they always said afterwards that billy came through that charge alive because he sprinted so fast that no bullets could touch him. He rushed at the subject now with the same headlong courage.

Lady Ingleby, he said, there is something Ronnie and I both think you ought to know. Is there, Billy? said Myra. Then suppose you tell it me. We have sworn not to tell, continued Billy, but I don't care a damn, I mean a pin, for an oath, if your happiness is at stake. You must not break an oath, Billy, even for my sake, said Myra, gently. Well, you see, if you wished it, you were to be the one exception. Suddenly, Lady Ingleby understood. Oh, Billy, she said, does Ronald wish me to be told? This gave Billy a pang. So Ronnie really counted after all, and would walk in, over the broken hearts of Billy and another, in role of manly comforter. It was hard, but loyally

Billy made answer. Yes. Ronnie says it is only right, and I think so too. I've come to do it, if you will let me. Lady Ingleby sat with clasped hands considering. After all, what did it matter? What did anything matter compared to the trouble with Jim? She looked up at the portrait,

but Michael's pictured face intent on Little Peter gave her no sign. If these boys wished to tell her and get it off their minds, why should she not know? it would put a stop once and for all to ronnie's tragic love-making yes billy she said you may as well tell me the room was very still a rosebud tapped twice against the window-pane it might have been a warning finger neither noticed it it tapped a third time billy cleared his throat and swallowed quickly then he spoke the man who made the blunder he said and fired the mind too soon The man who killed Lord Ingleby by mistake was the chap you call Jim Earth. Nineteen, Jim Earth decides. Lady Ingleby awaited Jim Earth's arrival in her sitting-room.

As the hour drew near, she rang the bell. Grotly, she said when the butler appeared, the Earl of Airth, who was here yesterday, will call again this afternoon. When his lordship comes, you can show him in here. I shall not be at home to anyone else. You need not bring tea until I ring for it. Then she sat down, quietly waiting. She had resumed the morning temporarily laid aside.

The black gown hanging about her in soft, trailing folds, added to the graceful height of her slight figure. The white tokens of widowhood at neck and risk gave to her unusual beauty a pathetic suggestion of wistful loneliness. Her face was very pale. A purple tint beneath the tired eyes betokened tears and sleeplessness. But the calm, steadfast look in those sweet eyes revealed a mind free of all doubt, a heart, completely at rest. She leaned back among the sofa cushions, her hands folded in her lap, and waited.

Bees hummed in and out of the open windows. The scent of Frisias filled the room, delicate, piercingly sweet, yet not oppressive. To one man forever afterwards the scent of Frisias recalled that afternoon. The exfrizias filled the room. The exquisite sweetness of that lovely face, the trailing softness of her widow's gown. Steps in the hall. The door opened. Groatley's voice, pompously sonorous, broke into the waiting silence. The Earl of Eirth, milady, and Jim Eirth walked in. As the door closed behind him, Myra rose. They stood, silently confronting one another beneath Lord Ingleby's picture. It almost seemed as though the thoughtful scholarly face

must turn from its absorbed contemplation of the little dog to look down for a moment upon them. They presented a psychological problem, these brave hearts in torment, which would surely have proved interesting to the calm student of metaphysics. Silently they faced one another for the space of a dozen heartbeats. Then Myra, with a swift movement, went up to Jim Ereth, put her arms about his neck and laid her head upon his breast. "'I know, my beloved,' she said. You need not give yourself the pain of trying to tell me.

How? A single syllable seemed the most Jim's lips for the moment could manage. Billy told me. He and Ronald Ingram came over yesterday afternoon soon after you left. They had passed you on your way to the station. They thought I ought to know, so Billy told me. Jim Ayre's arms closed around her, holding her tightly. My poor girl, he said brokenly.

"'They meant well, Jim. They are dear boys. They knew you would come back and tell me yourself. And they wanted to spare us both that pain. I am glad they did it. You were quite right when you said it had to be faced alone. I could not have been ready for your return if I had not heard the truth and had time to face it alone. I am ready now, Jim.' Jim Earth laid his cheek against her soft hair with a groan. "'I have come to say goodbye, Myra. It is all that remains to be said. Goodbye. Myra raised a face of terrified questioning.

Jim Ereth pressed it back to its hiding place upon his breast. I am the man, Myra, whose hand you could never bring yourself to touch in friendship. Myra lifted her head again. The look in her eyes was that of a woman prepared to fight for happiness and life. You are the man, she said, whose little finger is dearer to me. me than the whole body of anyone else has ever been. Do you suppose I will give you up, Jim, because of a thing which happened accidentally in the past, before you and I ever met? Ah, how little you men understand a woman's heart. Shall I tell you what I felt when Billy told me

after the first bewildering shock was over? First, sorrow for you, my dearest. A realization of how appalling the mental anguish must have been at the time. Secondly, thankfulness. Yes, intense overwhelming thankfulness, to know at last what had come between us. And to know it was this thing, this mere ghost out of the past, nothing tangible or real, no wrong of mine against you, or of yours against me, nothing which need divide us. Jim Ereth slowly unlocked his arms, took her by the wrists, holding her hands against his breast. Then he looked into her eyes with a silent sadness, more forcible than speech.

My own poor girl, he said at length, it is impossible for me to marry Lord Ingleby's widow. The strength of his will mastered hers, and, just as in horse shoe cove her fears had yielded to his dauntless courage, so now Myra felt her confidence ebbing away before his stern resolve. Fearful of losing it altogether, she drew away her hands and turned to the sofa. Oh, Jim, she said, sit down and live. Let us talk it over.

She sank back among the cushions and drawing a bowl of roses hastily toward her, buried her face in them, fearing again to meet the settled sadness of his eyes. Jim Ayers sat down in the chair left vacant by Lord Ingleby and Peter. Listen, dear, he said. I need not ask you never to doubt my love. That would be absurd from me to you. I love you as I did not know it was possible for a man to love a woman. I love you in such a woman.

way that every fiber of my being will hunger for you night and day through all the years to come. But, well, it would always have come hard to me to stand in another man's shoes and take what has been his. I did not feel this when I thought I was following Sergeant Omerer, because I knew he must always have been in all things so utterly apart from you. I could, under different circumstances, have brought myself to follow Ingleby, because I realized that he never awakened in you such love as as yours for me. His possessions would not have waded me, because it so happens I have lands and houses of my own where we could have lived. But, to stand in a dead man's shoes when he is dead through an act of mine, to take to myself, another man's widow, when she would still,

but for a reckless movement of my own right hand, have been a wife. Myra, I could not do it. Even with our great love it would not mean happiness. Think of it. Think of it. Think. as we stood together in the sight of God while the church, in solemn voice, required and charged us both, as we should answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts should be disclosed, that if either of us knew any impediment why we might not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, we should then confess it. I should cry, her husband died by my hand,

and leave the church with the brand of Cain and the infamy of David upon me. Myra lifted frightened eyes, met his beseechingly, then bent again over the roses. Or even if I pass through that ordeal, standing mute in the solemn silence, what of the moment when the church bade me to take your right hand in my right hand? Myra, my right hand. She rose came swiftly over and knelt before him. She took his hand and covered it with tears and kisses.

She held it, sobbing, to her heart. Dearest, she said. I will never ask you to do for my sake anything you feel impossible or wrong. But, oh, in this, I know you are mistaken. I cannot argue or explain. I cannot put my reasons into words. But I know our living, longing, love ought to come before the happenings of a dead past.

Michael lost his life through an accident. That the accident was caused by a mistake on your part is fearfully hard for you. But there is no moral wrong in it. You might as well blame the company whose boat took him abroad, or the government which decided on the expedition, or the war office people who accepted him when he volunteered. I am sure I don't know what David did. I thought he was a quite excellent person.

But I do know about Cain, and I am perfectly certain that the brand of Cain could never rest on anyone because of an unpremeditated accident. Oh, Jim! Cannot you look at it reasonably? I looked at it reasonably, after a while, until yesterday, said Jim Earth. At first, of course, all was blank, ghastly despair. Oh, Myra, let me tell you.

I have never been able to tell anyone. Go back to the couch. I can't let you kneel here. Sit down over there and let me tell you. Lady Ingleby rose at once and returned to her seat. then sat listening. Her yearning eyes fixed upon his bowed head. He had momentarily forgotten

what the events of that night had cost her. So also had she. Her only thought was of his pain. Jim Ereth began to speak in low, hurried tones, haunted with a horror of reminiscence. I can see it now. The little stuffy tent. The hidden light.

I was already sickening for fever, working with the temperature of 102. I hadn't slept for two nights, and my head felt as if it were two large eyes and those eyes both bruises. I knew I ought to knock under and give the job to another man, but Ingleby and I had worked it all out together, and I was dead keen on it. It was a place where no big guns could go, but our little arrangement which you could carry in one hand would do better and surer work than half a dozen big guns. There was a long wait after Ingleby and the other fellow, it was Ingram, started. "'Cathcart left behind with me "'was in and out of the tent.

"'But he couldn't stay still two minutes. "'He was afraid of missing the rush. "'So I was alone when the signal came. "'We found afterwards "'that Ingram had crawled out of the tunnel "'and gone to take a message to the nearest ambush. "'Ingleby was left alone. "'He signalled, placed, as agreed.

"'I took it to be fire, and acted instantly. "'The moment I had done it I realized my mistake. "'But that same, instant came the roar and the hot silent night was stern to pandemonium. I dashed out of the tent shouting for Ingleby. Good God it was like hell. The yelling, swearing tommies making up for the long and forced silence and inaction, the hordes of dark devilish faces leering in their fury and jeering at our discomfiture.

For inside their outer wall was a rampart of double the strength and we were no nearer taking Targay. Afterwards, if I hadn't don't up at once to my mistake, nobody would have known how the thing had happened. Even then they tried to persuade me the wrong signal had been given. But I knew better. And on the spot it was impossible to find.

Well, any actual proofs of what had happened. The gap had been filled at once with the crowds of yelling jostling tommies mad to get into the town. Jove, how those chaps fight when they get the chance. When all was over, several were missing who were not among the dead. They must have forced themselves in

where they could not get back and been taken prisoners. God alone knows their fate, poor beggars. Yet I envied them, for when the row was over, my hell began. Myra, I would have given my whole life to have had that minute over again, and it was maddening to know that the business

might have been done all right with any old fuse. Only we were so keen over our new ideas for signaling and our portable electric apparatus. Oh, good Lord, I, new despair those days and nights. I was down with fever, and they took away my sword and guns and razors. I couldn't imagine why. Even despair doesn't take me that way. But if a chap could have come into my tent and said, you didn't kill Ingleby after all, he's all right and alive. I would have given my life gladly for that moment's relief. But no present anguish can undo a past mistake. Well,

I pulled through the fever. Life has to be a moment's relief. I had to be a moment's relief. I was a little. I was to be lived and I suppose I'm not the sort of chap to take a morbid view. When I found the thing was to be kept quiet, when the few who knew the ins and out stood by me like the good fellows they were, saying it might have happened to any of them, and as soon as I got fit again I should see the only rotten thing would be to let it spoil my future, I made up my mind to put it clean away and live it down. You know they say out in the great western country, God Almighty hates a quitter. It is one of the stimulating tenets of their fine practical theology. I had fought through other hard times. I determined to fight through this.

I succeeded so well that it even seemed natural to go on with the work Inkelby and I had been doing together and carry it through. And when notes of his were needed, I came to his own home without a qualm to ask his widow. The woman I, by my mistake had widowed, for permission to have and to use them. I came, my mind full of the rich joy of life and love, with scarcely room for a passing pang of regret, as I entered the house without a master, the home without a head, knowing I was about to meet the woman I had widowed. Truly, the mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small. I had thrown off too easily what should have been a lifelong burden of regret.

In the woman I had widowed I found, the woman I was about to wed. good God, was there ever so hard a retribution? Jim, said Myra gently, is there not another side to the picture? Does it not strike you that it should have seemed beautiful to find that God and his wonderful providence had put you in a position to be able to take care of Michael's widow, left so helpless and alone, that in saving her life by the strength of your right hand, you had atoned for the death that hand had unwittingly dealt, that, though the past cannot be undone, it can

sometimes be wiped out by the present. Oh, Jim, cannot you see it thus? And keep and hold the right to take care of me forever? My beloved, let us never from this moment part. I will come away with you at once.

We can get a special license and be married immediately. We will let Shenzhen, and let the house in Park Lane, and live abroad, anywhere you will, Jim. Only together, Together. Take me away today. Maggie O'Mara can attend me until we are married. But I can't face life without you. Jim, I can't. God knows I can't. Jim Erth looked up a gleam of hope in his sad eyes. Then he looked away that her appealing loveliness might not too much tempt him while making his decision.

He lifted his eyes, and alas, they fell on the portrait over the mantelpiece. He shivered. I can never marry Lord Ingleby's widow, he said. Myra, how can you wish it? The thing would haunt us. It would be evil, unnatural. Night and day it would be there. It would come between us.

Someday you would reproach me. Ah, hush, cried Myra sharply. Not that. I am suffering enough. At least spare me that. Then, putting aside once more her own pain. Would it not be happiness to you, Jim? She asked with wistful gentleness. Happiness, cried Jim Eirth violently. It would be hell. Lady Ingleby rose her face as white as the

large Aram Lily in the corner behind her. Then that settles it, she said. And do you know, I think we had better not speak of it anymore. I am going to ring for tea. And if you will excuse me for a few moments while they are bringing it, I will search a among my husband's papers and try to find those you require for your book. She passed swiftly out. Through the closed door, the man she left alone heard her giving quiet orders in the hall. He crossed the room in two great strides to follow her. But at the door he paused, turned, and came slowly back.

He stood on the hearth rug, with bent head, rigid, motionless. Suddenly he lifted his eyes to Lord Ingleby's portrait. Curse you! he said through clenched teeth and beat his fists upon the marble mantelpiece curse your explosives and curse your inventions and curse you for taking her first then he dropped into a chair and buried his face in his hands oh god forgive me he whispered brokenly but there is a limit to what a man can bear he scarcely noticed the entrance of the footman who brought tea but when a lighter step paused at the door he lifted a hatchet face expecting to see Myra. A quiet woman entered simply dressed in black Marino. Her white linen collar and cuffs gave her the look of a hospital nurse.

Her dark hair, neatly parted, was smoothly coiled round her head. She came in deferentially, yet with a quiet dignity of manner. I have come to pour your tea, my lord, she said. Lady Ingleby is not well and fear she must remain in her room. She asks me to give you these papers. Then the Earl of Earth and Monteth rose to his feet and held out his hand. I think you must be Mrs. Omera, he said. I am glad to meet you, and it is kind of you to give me tea.

I have heard of you before, and I believe I saw you yesterday on the steps of your pretty house as I drove up the avenue. Will you allow me to tell you how often when we stood shoulder to shoulder in times of difficulty and danger I had reason to respect and admire the brave comrade I knew as Sergeant Omera. Before quitting Shenston, Jim Ereth sat at Myra's Davenport and wrote a letter, leaving it with Mrs. Omera to place in Lady Ingleby's hands as soon as he had gone. I do not wonder you felt unable to see me again. Forgive me for all the grief I have caused and am causing you. I shall go abroad as soon as may be, but am obliged to remain in town until I have completed work

which I am under contract with my publishers to finish. It will take a month at most. It will take a month at most. If you want me, Myra, I mean if you need me, I could come at any moment. A wire to my club would always find me. End of chapters 18 and 19. Chapter 20 and 21 of the Mistress of Shenzhen by Florence Barkley. This Lieberfog's recording is in the public domain. Twenty. A better point of view. In the days which followed, Jim Airth suffered all the pangs which come to a man who has made a decision prompted by pride rather than by conviction. It had always seemed to him essential that a man should appear in all things without shame or

blame in the eyes of the woman he loved. Therefore, to be obliged suddenly to admit that a fatal blunder of his own had been the cause, even in the past, of irreparable loss and sorrow to her, had been an unacknowledged but intolerable humiliation. That she should have anything to overlook or to forgive in accepting himself and his love was a connoisse. condition of things to which he could not bring himself to submit, and her sweet generosity and devotion rather increased than soothed his sense of wounded pride. He had been superficially honest in the reasons he had given to Myra regarding the impossibility of marriage between them. He had said all the things which he knew others might be expected to say. He had mercilessly expressed

what would have been his own judgment had he been asked to pronounce an opinion concerning any other man and woman in like circumstances. As he voiced them, they had sent him. They had sounded tragically plausible and stoically just. He knew he was inflicting almost unbearable pain upon himself and upon the woman whose whole love was his, but that pain seemed necessary to the tragic demands of the entire ghastly situation. Only after he had finally left her and was on his way back to town did Jim Earth realize that the pain he had thus inflicted upon her and upon himself had been a solace to his own

wounded pride. His had been the mistake, and it re-established him. in his own self-respect and sense of superiority, that his should be the decision, so hard to make, so unfalteringly made, bringing down upon his own head a punishment out of all proportion to the fault committed. But, now that the strain and tension were over, his natural honesty of mind we asserted itself, forcing him to admit that his own selfish pride had been at the bottom of his high-flown tragedy. Myra's simple, loving view of the case had been the right one. Yet, thrusting it from him, He had ruthlessly plunged himself and her into a hopeless abyss of needless suffering.

By degrees he slowly realized that in so doing he had deliberately inflicted a more cruel wrong upon the woman he loved than that which he had unwittingly done her in the past. Remorse and regret nod at his heart, added to an almost unbearable hunger for Myra. Yet he could not bring himself to return to her with this second and still more humiliating confession of failure. his one hope was that Myra would find their separation impossible to endure and would send for him. But the days went by, and Myra made no sign. She had said she would never send for him unless assured that coming to her would mean happiness to him.

To this decision she quietly adhered. In a strongly virile man, love towards a woman is in its essential qualities naturally selfish. Its keynote is, I need, its dominant, I want. want. Its full major cord, I must possess. On the other hand, the woman's love for the man is essentially unselfish. Its keynote is, he needs, it's dominant, I am his, to do it as he pleases. It's full major chord. Let me give all. In the book of canticles, one of the greatest love poems ever written we find this truth exemplified. We see the woman's heart learning its lesson in a fine crescendo of self-surrender.

In the first stanza, she says, My beloved is mine, and I am his. In the second, I am my beloved, and he is mine. But in the third, all else is merged in the instinct of joy of giving. I am my beloved, and his desire is towards me. This is the natural attitude of the sexes, designed by an all-wise creator, but designed for a condition of ideal perfection, no perfect law could be framed for imperfection.

Therefore, if the working out prove often a failure, the fault lies in the imperfection of the workers, not in the perfection of the law. In those rare cases where the love is ideal, the man's I take and the woman's I give blend into an ideal union, each completing and modifying the other. But where sin of any kind comes in,

a false note has been struck in the divine harmony and the grand court of mutual love fails to ring true. Into their perfect love, Jim Ereth had introduced the discord of false pride. It had become the basis of his line of action, and their symphony of life, so beautiful at first in its sweet theme of mutual love and trust, now lost its harmony and jarred into a hopeless jangle. The very fact that she faithfully adhered to her trustful unselfishness, acquiescing without a murmur in his decision, made readjustment the more impossible. Thus the weeks went by. Jim Areth worked feverishly at his proofs, drinking and smoking when he should have been

eating and sleeping, going off suddenly after two or three days of continuous sitting at his desk on desperate bouts of violent exercise. He walked down to Shenzhen by night, sat in bitterness of spirit under the beaches surrounded by empty wicker chairs, a silent ghostly garden party, watched the dawn break over the lake, prowled around the house where Lady Ingleby lay sleeping and narrowly escaped arrest at the hands of Lady Ingleby's night watchman, leaving for London by the first train in the morning more sick at heart than when he started. Another time, he suddenly turned in at Paddington, took the train down to Cornwall, and astonished the Miss Murgatroyds by stalking into the coffee room, the gaunt ghost

of his old gay self. Afterwards he went off to Horseshoe Cove, climbed the cliff and spent the night on the ledge, dwelling in morbid misery on the wonderful memories with which that place was surrounded. It was then that fresh hope and the complete acceptance of a better point of view came to Jim Earth. As he sat on the ledge

hugging his lonely misery, he suddenly became strangely conscious of Myra's presence. It was as if the sweet wistful grey eyes were turned upon him in the darkness. The tender mouth smiled lovingly, while the voice he knew so well

asked in soft merriment, as under the beaches at Shenzhen, What has come to you, you dearest old boy? He had just put his hand into his pocket and drawn out his spirit flask. He held it for a moment while he listened, spellbound to that whisper, then flung it away into the darkness far down to the sea below. Davy Jones may have it, he said and laughed aloud.

Who where he be? It was the first time Jim Hereth had laughed since that afternoon beneath the Shenzhenbeaches. Then, with the sense of Myra's presence still so near him, he lay with his back to the cliff, his face to the moonlit sea. It seemed to him as if again he drew her, shaking and trembling but unresisting into his arms, holding her there in safety until her trembling ceased,

and she slept the untroubled sleep of a happy child. All the best and noblest in Jim Ereth awoke at that hollowed memory of faithful strength on his part and trustful peace on hers. My God, he said. What a nightmare it has been! And what a fool I, to think anything could come between you.

us. Has she not been utterly mine since that sacred night spent here? And I have left her to loneliness and grief. I will arise and go to my beloved. No past, no shame, no pride of mine shall come between us any more. He raised himself on his elbow and looked over the edge. The moonlight shone on rippling water lapping the foot of the cliff. He could see his watch by its bright light. Midnight. He must wait until three for the tide to go down. He leaned back again, his arms folded across his chest, but Myra was still safely

within them. Two minutes later, Jim Herth slept soundly. The dawn awoke him. He scrambled down to the shore and once again swam up the golden path toward the rising sun. As he got back into his clothes, it seemed to him that every vestige of that black nightmare had been left behind in the gay-tossing waters.

On his way to the railway station he passed a farm. The farmer's wife had been up since sunrise, churning. She gladly gave him a simple breakfast of homemade bread with butter fresh from the churn. He caught the six o'clock express for town, tubbed, shaved, and lunched at his club. At a quarter to three he was just coming down the steps into Piccadilly very consciously, clothed and in his right mind, debating which train he could take for Shenzden if, as in duty-bound, he looked in at his publishers first. when a telegraph boy dashed up the steps into the club,

and the next moment the Hall Porter hastened after him with a telegram. Jim Ereth read it, took one look at his watch, then jumped headlong into a passing taxi cab. "'Caring Cross,' he shouted to the chauffeur, "'and a sovereign if you do it in five minutes.' As the flag tinged down and the taxi glided swiftly forward into the whirl of traffic, Jim Eirth unfolded the telegram and read it again. It had been handed in at Shenzhenston at two.

To fifteen, Come to me at once, Myra. A shout of exaltation arose within him. Twenty-one, Michael Veritas. On the morning of that day, while Jim Ayreth, braced with a new resolve and a fresh outlook on life, was speeding up from Cornwall, Lady Ingleby sat beneath the scarlet chestnuts watching Ronald and Billy play tennis. They had entered for a tournament and discovered that they required constant practice such as,

apparently, could only be obtained at Chesden. In reality, they came over so frequently in honest-hearted trouble and anxiety over their friend, of whose unexpected sorrow they chanced to be the sole confidants. Lady Inglby refused herself to all other visitors. In the trying uncertainty of these few weeks while Jim Erth was still in England, she dreaded questions or comments. To Jane Dalmaine she had written the whole truth. The Dalmains were at Worcester, attending a music festival in that noblest of English cathedrals, but they expected soon to return to Overdean when Jane had promised to come to her.

Meanwhile, Ronald and Billy turned up often, doing their valiant best to be cheerful, but Myra's fragile look and large, pathetic eyes alarmed and horrified them. Obviously, things had gone more hopelessly wrong than they had anticipated. They had known at once that Eirth would not marry Lady Ingleby, but it had never occurred to them

that Lady Ingleby would still wish to marry Eirth. ronald stoutly denied that this was the case but billy affirmed it though refusing to give reasons ronald had never succeeded in extorting from billy one word of what had taken place when he had told lady ingleby that jemarthe was the man if you wanted to know how she took it you should have told her yourself said billy and it will be a saving of useless trouble ron if you never ask me again thus the days went by and though she always seemed gently pleased to see them both no possible opening had been given to Ronald for assuming the role of manly comforter. I shall give it up, said Ronnie at last in bitterness of spirit. I tell you, I shall give it up, and marry the Duchess. Don't be profane, counseled Billy. It would be more to the point to find air than explain to him, in carefully chosen language,

that letting Lady Ingleby die of a broken heart will not atone for blowing up her husband. I always knew our news would make no difference from the moment I saw her go quite pink when she told us his name. She never went pink over Ingleby, you bet. I didn't know they could do it after twenty. Much you know, then, ejaculated Ronnie scornfully. I've seen the Duchess go pink. Scarlet, do you mean?

amended Billy. So have I, old chap. But that's another pair of boots, as you very well know. Oh, don't be vulgar, sighed Ronnie, wearily. Let's cut the whole thing and go to town. Henley begins tomorrow. But next day they turned up at Shenzhen, earlier than usual. And that morning, Lady Ingleby was feeling strangely restful and at peace,

not with any expectations of future happiness, but resigned to the inevitable, and less apart from Jim Earth. She had fallen asleep the night before beset by haunting memories of Cornwall and of their climb up the cliff. At midnight she had awakened with a start, fancying herself on the ledge and feeling that she was falling. But instantly Jim Air's arms seemed to enfold her.

She felt herself drawn into safety. Then that exquisite sense of strength and rest was hers once more. So vivid had been the dream that its effect remained with her when she rose. Thus she sat watching the tennis with a little smile of content on her sweet face. She is beginning to forget, thought Ronnie exulted. My vantage! he shouted. significantly to Billy over the net. Deuce, responded Billy,

smashing down the ball with unnecessary violence. No, cried Ronnie, outside, my boy. Game and a love set to me. Stay to lunch, boys, said Lady Ingleby as the gong sounded, and they all three went gaily into the house. As they passed through the hall afterwards, their motor stood at the door, so they bade her goodbye and turned to find their rackets.

At that moment they heard, heard the sharp ting of a bicycle bell. A boy had ridden up with a telegram. Grotly, waiting to see them off, took it, picked up a silver solver from the hall table and followed Lady Ingleby to her sitting room. There seemed so sudden a silence in the house that Ronald and Billy with one accord stood listening. Twenty minutes to two, said Billy, glancing at the clock. Spirits are walking. The next moment a cry rang out from Lady Ingleby's sitting room. A cry of such mingled bewilderment, wonder and relief that they looked at one another in amazement. Then, without waiting to question or consider, they hastened to her.

Lady Ingleby was standing in the middle of the room an open telegram in her hand. Jim, she was saying. Oh, Jim! Her face was so transfigured by thankfulness and joy that neither Ronald nor Billy could frame a question. They merely gazed at her. "'Oh, Billy, oh, Ronald,' she said. "'He didn't do it.' "'Oh, think what this will mean to Jim Ayreth. "'Stop the boy, quick. "'Bring me a telegram form.

"'I must send for him at once. "'Oh, Jim, Jim!' "'He said he would give his life "'for the relief of the moment "'when someone should step into the tent "'and tell him he had not done it. "'And now I shall be that someone.' "'Oh, how do you spell Piccadilly?'

please call groatly if we lose no time he may catch the three o'clock express groatly tell the boy to take this telegram and have it sent off immediately give him half a crown and say he may keep the change now boys shut the door the whirlwind of excitement was succeeded by sudden stillness lady ingleby sank upon the sofa burying her face for a moment in the cushions in the silence they heard the telegraph boy disappearing rapidly into the distance ringing his bell a very unnecessary number of times when it could be heard no longer lady ingleby lifted her head michael is alive she said great scott exclaimed ronnie and took a step forward billy made no sound but he turned very white, backed to the door and leaned against it for support. Think what it means to Jim Ereth, said Lady Ingleby. Think of the despair and misery through which he passed, and after all he had not done it. May we see? asked Ronald eagerly holding out his hand for the telegram. Billy licked his dry lips, but no sound would come.

Read it, said Myra. Ronald took the telegram and read it aloud. to Lady Ingleby, Shenzden Park, Shenzden, England, reported death a mistake, taken prisoner Targay, escaped, arrived Cairo, large bribes and rewards to pay, cable 500 pounds to Cooks immediately, Michael Veritas. Great Scott, said Ronnie again. Billy said nothing, but his eyes never left Lady Engelby's radiant face. Think what it will mean to Jim Eirth, she repeated. "'Er, yes,' said Ronnie. "'It considerably changes the situation, for him. "'What does Veritas mean?'

"'That,' replied Lady Ingleby, "'is our private code, Michael's and mine. "'My mother once wired to me in Michael's name "'and to Michael in mine. "'Dear Mama occasionally does eccentric things, "'and it made complications. "'Michael was very much annoyed, "'and after that we took to signing our telegram

veritas, which means this is really from me. Just think, said Ronnie, he, a prisoner, and we all marching away. But I remember now, we always suspected prisoners had been taken at Targay. And positive proofs of Lord Ingleby's death were difficult to, well, don't you know, to find. I mean, there couldn't be a funeral. We had to conclude it because we believed him to have been right inside the tunnel. He must have got clear after all before Earth sent the flash

and getting in with the first rush been unable to return. Of course he has reached Cairo with no money and no means of getting home and the chaps who helped him will stick to him like leeches till they get their pay. What shall you do about cabling? Lady Ingleby seemed to collect her thoughts

with difficulty. Of course the money must be sent and sent at once, she said. Oh, Ronnie, could you go up to town about it for me. I would give you a check and a note to my bankers. They will know how to cable it through. Could you, Ronnie? Michael must not be kept waiting, yet I must stay here to tell Jim. It never struck me that I might have gone up to town myself. And now I have wired to Jim to come down here. Oh, my dear Ronnie, could you? Of course I could, said Ronald cheerfully. The motor is

at the door. I can catch the two-thirty if you write the note at once. No need for for a check, just write a few lines authorizing your bankers to send out the money. I will see them personally, explain the whole thing, and hurry them up. The money shall be in Cairo tonight, if possible. Lady Ingleby went to her Davenport. No sound broke the stillness save the rapid scratching of her pen. Then Billy spoke. I will come with you, he said hoarsely.

Why do that? objected Ronald. You may as well go on in the motor to over. over Dean and tell them there I am going to town said Billy decidedly then he walked over to where the telegram still lay on the table may I copy this he asked of Lady Ingleby do she said without looking around and Ronnie you take the original to show them at the bank ah no I must keep that for Jim here is paper make two copies Billy Billy had already copied the message into his pocketbook with shaking fingers he copied it again, handing the sheet to Ronald without looking at him.

The note written Lady Ingleby rose. Thank you, Ronald, she said. Thank you more than I can say. I think you will catch the train. And goodbye, Billy. But Billy was already in the motor. End of chapters twenty and twenty-one. Chapters twenty-two and twenty-three of the mistress of Shenzhen by Florence Barkley.

This Lieber-Vox recording is in the public domain. 22. Lord Ingleby's wife. The journey down from town had been as satisfactorily rapid as even Jay Mearth could desire. He had caught the train at Charing Cross by five seconds. The hour's run passed quickly in glowing anticipation of that which was brought nearer by every turn of the wheels. Myra's telegram was drawn from his pocketbook many times.

Each word seemed fraught with tender meaning. Come to me at once. It was so exactly Myra's simple direct method of expression. Most people would have said, Come here, or come to Shenzhen, or merely come. Come to me seemed a tender, though unconscious response to his resolution of the night before. I will arise and go to my beloved.

Now that the parting was nearly over, he realized how terrible had been the blank of three weeks spent apart from Myra. Her sweet personality was so knit into his life that he needed her, not at any particular. time or in any particular way, but always, as the air he breathed, or as the light which made the day. And she? He drew a well-worn letter from his pocket-book, the only letter he had ever

had from Myra. I shall always want you, it said, but I could never send unless the coming would mean happiness for you. Yet she had sent. Then she had happiness in store for him. Had she instinctively realized his change of mind, or had she gauged his desperate hunger by her own and understood that the satisfying of that must mean happiness, whatever else of sorrow might lie in the background? But there should be no background of anything but perfect joy when Myra was his wife. Would he not have the turning of the fair leaves of her book of life? Each page should unfold fresh happiness, hold new surprises as to what life and love could mean. He would know how to guard her from the faintest shadow of disillusion. Even now it was his right to keep her from that.

How much, after all, should he tell her of the heart-searchings of these wretched weeks? Last night he had meant to tell her everything. He had meant to say, I have sinned against heaven, the heaven of our love, and before thee, and am no more worthy. But was it not essential to a woman's happiness to believe the man she loved to be an always worthy? out of his pocket came again the well-worn letter. I know you decided as you felt right, wrote Myra. Why perplex her with explanations?

Let the dead past bury its dead. No need to cloud even momentarily the joy with which they could now go forward into a new life. And what a life. Wedded life with Myra. Shenston Junction! shouted a porter, and Jim Earth was across the platform before the train had stopped. the tandem ponies waited outside the station and this time j mayrth gathered up the reins with a gay smile flicking the leader lightly before he had said i never drive other people's ponies in response to her ladyship's message but now all that's mine is thine laddie he whistled huntington tower as he drove between the hayfields sprays of overhanging traveller's joy brushed his shoulder in the narrow lanes it was good to be alive on such a day. It was good not to be leaving England in England's most perfect weather.

Should he take her home to Scotland for their honeymoon or down to Cornwall? What a jolly little church. Evidently, Myra never slacked pace for a gate. How the ponies dashed through and into the avenue. Poor Mrs. Omera! It had been difficult to be civil to her when she had appeared instead of Myra to give him tea. Of course Scotland would be jolly with so much to show her. But Cornwall meant more in its associations. Yes, he would arrange for the honeymoon in Cornwall. Be married in the morning, up in town, no fuss,

then go straight down to the Old Moorhead Inn. And after dinner they would sit in the honeysuckle arbor and... Grotly showed him into Myra's sitting-room. She was not there. He walked over to the mantelpiece. It seemed year since that evening when in a sudden fury against fate, he had crashed his fists upon its marble edge. He raised his eyes to Lord Ingleby's portrait.

Poor old chap. He looked so content and so pleased with himself and his little dog. But he must have always appeared more like Myra's father than her, than anything else. On the mantelpiece lay a telegram. After the manner of leisurely country post offices, the full address was written on the envelope. It caught Jim Harris' eye, and hardly conscious of doing so he took it up and read it. lady ingleby shenstyn park england he laid it down england he wondered idly who could have been wiring her from abroad then he turned he had not heard her enter but she was standing behind him mira he cried and caught her to his heart the rapture and relief of that moment were unspeakable no word seemed possible he could only strain her to him silently with all his strength and realize that she was safely there at last

mire had lifted her arms and laid them lightly about his neck hiding her face upon his breast he never knew exactly when he began to realize a subtle change about the quality of her embrace the woman's passionate tenderness seemed missing it rather resembled the trustful clinging of a little child an uneasy foreboding for which he could not account assailed jim earth kiss me myra he said peremptorily and she lifting her sweet face to his kissed him at once but it was the pure loving kiss of a little child then she withdrew herself from his embrace and standing back he looked at her perplexed the light upon her face seemed hardly earthly oh jim she said god's ways are wonderful i have such news for you my friend i thank god it came before you had gone beyond recall and i who had been the one unwittingly to add so terribly to the weight of the lifelong cross you had to bear am privileged to be the one to lift it quite away. Jim, you did not do it. Jim Eirth gazed at her in troubled amazement. Into his mind involuntarily came the awesome Scotch word, Faye.

I did not do what, dear, he asked, gently, as if he were speaking to a little child whom he was anxious not to frighten. You did not kill Michael. What makes you think I did not kill Michael, dear? Question Jim Eirth, gently. "'Because,' said Myra, with clasped hands, "'Michael is alive.' "'Dearest heart,' said Jim Earth tenderly,

"'you are not well. These awful three weeks in what went before have been too much for you. The strain has upset you. I was a brute to go off and leave you, but you knew I did what I thought right at the time, didn't you, Myra? Only now I see the whole thing quite differently.

Your view was the true one. we ought to have acted upon it and been married at once. Oh, Jim, said Myra, thank God we didn't. It would have been so terrible now. It must have been a case of, Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. In our unconscious ignorance, we might have gone away together, not knowing Michael was alive.

Beads of perspiration stood on Jim Eyre's forehead. My darling, you are ill, he said in a voice of agonized anxiety. I am afraid you are very ill. Do sit down quietly on the couch and let me ring. I must speak to the Omera woman or somebody. Why didn't the fools let me know? Have you been ill all these weeks?

Myra let him place her on the couch, smiling up at him reassuringly as he stood before her. You must not ring the bell, Jim, she said. Maggie is at the lodge, and Grotly would be so astonished. I am quite well. He looked around in man-like helplessness, yet feeling something must be done.

A long ivory fan of exquisite workmanship lay on a table near. He caught it up and handed it to her. She took it, and to please him opened it, fanning herself gently as she talked. I am not, ill, Jim, really, dear, I am not. I am only strangely happy and thankful. It seems too wonderful for our poor earthly hearts to understand. and I am a little frightened about the future, but you will help me to face that, I know.

And I am rather worried about little things I have done wrong. It seems foolish, but as soon as I realized Michael was coming home, I became conscious of hosts of sins of a mission, and I scarcely know where to begin to set them right. And the worst of all is, Jim, we have lost little Peter's grave. No one seems able to locate it. It is so trying of the gardeners. and so wrong of me because of course i ought to have planted it with flowers and michael would have expected a little marble slab by now but i stupidly was too ill to see the funeral and now anson declares they put him in the plantation and george swears it was in the shrubbery

i have been consulting grotly who always has ideas and expresses them so well and he says choose a suitable spot milady order a handsome tomb planted with choice flowers and who's to be the wiser till the resurrection? Grootly is always resourceful, but of course I never deceive Michael. Fancy little Peter rising from the shrubbery when Michael had mourned for years over a marble tomb on the lawn. But it really is a great worry. They must all begin digging and keep on

until they find something definite. It will be good for the shrubbery and the plantation, like the silly old man in the parable. No, I mean fable, who pretended he had a hidden treasure. oh jim don't look so distressed i ought not to pour out all these trivial things to you but since i have known michael is coming back my mind seems to have become foolish and trivial again michael always has that effect upon me because though he himself is so great and clever he really thinks trivial and unimportant things are a woman's vocation in life but oh jim jim airth with you i am always lifted straight to the borkman's big things. And our big thing today is this, that you never killed Michael.

Do you remember telling me how, as you lay in your tent recovering from the fever, if someone could have come in and told you Michael was alive and well, and that you had not killed him after all, you would have given your life for the relief of that moment? Well, I am that someone, and this is the moment. And when I first had the telegram, I could think of nothing. Absolutely nothing, Jim. But, I was that someone. But I was the time, and I was the telegram. I could think of nothing, absolutely nothing, Jim, but what it would be to you. What telegram? gasped Jim Ereth. In heaven's name, Myra, what do you mean? Michael's telegram. It lies on the mantelpiece. Read it, Jim. Jim Eirth turned, took up the

telegram and drew it from the envelope with steady fingers. He still thought Myra was raving. He read it through, slowly. The wording was unmistakable, but he read it through again. as he did so he slightly turned so that his bag was toward the couch the blow was so stupendous he could only realize one thing for the moment that the woman who watched him read it must not as yet see his face she spoke is it not almost impossible to believe jim ronald and billy were lunching here when it came billy seemed stunned but ronny was delighted he said he had always believed the first man to rush in had been captured and that no actual proofs of michael's death had ever been found they never explained to me before that there had been no funeral i suppose they thought it would seem more horrible but i never take much account of bodies if it weren't for the burden of having a weird little urn about and wondering what to do with it i should approve of cremation i sometimes felt i ought to make a pilgrimage to see the grave i knew michael would have wished it he sets much store by graves all the ingleby's lie in family vaults "'That makes it worse about Peter. "'Roney went up to town at once to telegraph out the money.

"'Billy went with him. "'Do you think five hundred is enough? "'Jim? "'Jim! Are you not thankful? "'Do say something, Jim?' "'Jim Erth put back the telegram upon the mantelpiece. "'His big hand shook. "'What is veritas?' he asked without looking round.

"'That is our private code, Jim. Michael's and mine. My mother once wired to me in Michael's name and to him and mine, poor Mama often does eccentric things to get her own way, and it made complications. Michael was very much annoyed. So we settled always to sign important telegrams, veritas, which means this is really from me.

Then your husband is coming home to you, said Jim Earth slowly. Yes, Jim. The sweet voice faltered for you. for the first time and grew tremulous. Michael is coming home. Then Jim Eirth turned round and faced her squarely. Myra had never seen anything so terrible as his face.

You are mine, he said. Not his. Myra looked up at him in dumb, sorrowful appeal. She closed the ivory fan, clasping her hands upon it. The unquestioning finality of her patient silence goaded Jim Eirth to madness and let loose the torrent of his teeth.

fierce wild protest against this inevitable, this unrelenting fate. You are mine, he said, not his. Your love is mine. Your body is mine. Your whole life is mine. I will not leave you to another man. Ah, I know I said we could not marry. I know I said I should go abroad. But you would have remained faithful to me and I to you. We might have been apart. we might have been lonely, we might have been at different ends of the earth, but we should have been each other's. I could have left you to loneliness,

but by God I will not leave you to another. Myra Rose moved forward a few steps and stood leaning her arm upon the mantelpiece and looking down upon the bank of ferns and lilies. Hush, Jim, she said gently. You forget to whom you are speaking. I am speaking, cried Jim Earth in furious desperation,

to the woman I have won for my own, and who is mine and none others. If it had not been for my pride and my folly, we should have been married by now. Married, Myra, and far away. I left you, I know. But, by heaven, I may as well tell you all now. It was pride,

damnable false pride that drove me away. I always meant to come back. I was waiting for you to send. But anyhow I should have come back. Would to God I had done as you implored me to do. By now we should have been together, out of reach of this cursed telegram, and far away.

Myra slowly lifted her eyes and looked at him. He, blinded by pain and passion, failed to mark the look, or he might have taken warning. As it was he rushed on headlong. Myra, very white, with eye, lids lowered, leaned against the mantelpiece, slowly furling and unfurling the ivory fan. But, darling, urged Jim Ereth, it is not yet too late. Oh, Myra, I have loved you so. Our love has been so wonderful. Have I not taught you what love is? The poor called

travesty you knew before, that was not love. Oh, Myra, you will come away with me, my own beloved. You won't put me through the hell of leaving you to another man. Myra, look at me. Say you will come. Then Lady Ingleby slowly closed the fan, grasping it firmly in her right hand. She threw back her head and looked Jim Earth full in the eyes. So this is your love, she said. This is what it means. Then I thank God I have hitherto only known the cold travesty, which at least has kept me pure and held me high. What? Would you drag me down to the level of the woman you have scorned for a dozen years? And dragging me down, would you also trail with me in the mire, the noble name of the man whom you have ventured to call friend?

My husband may not have given me much of those things a woman desires, but he has trusted me with his name and with his honor. He has left me, mistress of his home. When he comes back he will find me what he himself made me, "'Mrs. of Shenton. "'He will find me where he left me, "'awaiting his return. "'You are no longer speaking "'to a widow, Lord Erth, "'nor to a woman left desolate.

"'You are speaking to Lord Ingleby's wife, "'and you may as well learn "'how Lord Ingleby's wife "'guards Lord Ingleby's name, "'and defends her own honour and his. "'She lifted her hands swiftly "'and struck him with the ivory fan "'twice across the cheek.

"'Treater,' she said, and coward. Leave this house and never set foot in it again. Jim Earth staggered back, his face livid, ashen, his hand involuntarily raised toward off a third blow. Then the furious blood surged back. Two crimson streaks marked his cheek. He sprang forward, with a swift movement caught the fan

from Lady Ingleby's hands and whirled it above his head. His eyes blazed into hers. For a moment she thought he was going to strike her. She neither flinched nor moved. Only the faintest smile curved the corners of her mouth into a scornful question. Then Jim Ereth gripped the van in both hands. With a twist of his strong finger snapped it in half, the halves into quarters and again with another wrench, crushed those into a hundred fragments, flung them at her feet, and turning on his heel left the room and left the house. Twenty-three What Billy knew

"'Ronald and Billy had spoken but little "'as they sped to the railway station earlier on that afternoon. "'Rummy go,' volunteered Ronald, "'launching the tentative comment into the somewhat oppressive silence. "'Billy made no rejoinder. "'Why did you insist on coming with me?' asked Ronald. "'I'm not coming with you,' replied Billy laconically. "'Where then, Billy? Why so tragic?

"'Are you going to leap from London Bridge?' "'Don't do it, Billy, boy. you never had a chance. You were merely a nice kid. I'm the chap who might be tragic, and see, I'm going to the bank to dispatch the wherewithal for bringing the old boy back. Take example by my fortitude, Billy.

Billy's explosion when it came was so violent, so choice, and so unlike Billy, that Ronald relapsed into wondering silence. But once in the train locked into an empty first-class smoker, Billy turned a white face to his friend. "'Roney,' he said, "'I am going straight to Sir Derek Brand. "'He is the only man I know with a head on his shoulders.'

"'Thank you,' said Ronnie. "'I suppose I dandle mine on my knee. "'But why this urgent need of a man with his head so uniquely placed?' "'Because,' said Billy, "'that telegram is a lie.' "'Nonsense, Billy. "'The wish is father to the thought. "'Oh, shame on you, Billy.'

"'Poor old Ingleby.' "'It's a little. A lie, repeated Billy doggedly. But look, objected Ronald, unfolding the telegram. Here you are. Veritas. What do you make of that? Veritas be hanged, said Billy. It's a lie, and we've got to find out what damned rascal has sent it. But what possible reason have you to throw doubt on it? inquired Ronald gravely.

Oh, confound you, burst out Billy at last. I picked up the pieces. A very nervous, white-faced young man sat in the green leather armchair and Dr. Brand's consulting room. He had shown the telegram and jerked out a few incoherent sentences, after which Sir Derek, by means of carefully chosen questions, had arrived at the main facts. He now sat at his table considering them. Then, turning in his revolving chair, he looked steadily at Billy.

Kathcart, he said quietly, "'What reason have you for being so certain of Lord Ingleby's death "'and that this telegram is therefore a forgery?' "'Billy moistened his lips. "'Oh, confound it,' he said. "'I picked up the pieces.' "'I see,' said Sir Derek and looked away. "'I have never told a soul,' said Billy.

"'It's not a pretty story, but I can give you details if you like.' "'I think you had better give me details,' said Sir Derek gravely. So, with white lips, Billy gave them. The doctor rose, buttoning his coat. Then he poured out a glass of water and handed it to Billy. Come, he said. Fortunately, I know a very cute detective from our own London force who happens just now to be in Cairo.

We must go to Scotland Yard for his address and a code. In fact, we had better work it through them. You have done the right thing, Billy, and done it promptly, but we have no time to lose. twenty-four hours later, the doctor called at Shenzhen Park. He had telegraphed his train requesting to be met by the motor, and he now asked the chauffeur to wait at the door in order to take him back to the station. I could only come between trains, he explained to Lady Ingleby,

so you must forgive the short notice and the peremptory tone of my telegram. I could not risk missing you. I have something of great importance to communicate. The doctor waited a moment, hardly knowing how to proceed. He had seen Myra Ingleby under many varying conditions. He knew her well, and she was a woman so invariably true to herself that he expected to be able to foresee exactly how she would act under any given combination of circumstances. In this undreamed-of development of Lord Ingleby's return, he anticipated finding her gently

acquiescent, eagerly ready to resume again the duties of wifehood, with no thought of herself, but filled with anxious desire in all things to please. the man who, with his whims and fancies, his foibles and ideas, had for nine months passed completely out of her life. Derek Brand had expected to find Lady Ingleby in the mood of a typical April day, sunshine and showers rapidly alternating, whimsical smiles succeeded by ready tears, then with lashes still wet, gay laughter at some mistake of her own, or an incongruous behavior on the part of her devoted but erratic household, speedily followed by pathetic anxiety over her own supposed shortcomings in view of Lord Ingleby's requirements on his return.

Instead of this charming personification of unselfish, inconsequent, tender femininity, the doctor found himself confronted by a calm, cold woman with hard unseeing eyes, a woman in whom something had died, and dying, had slain all the best and truest in her womanhood. Another man was the prompt conclusion at which the doctor arrived, and this conclusion coupled with the exigency of his own pressing engagements, brought him without preamble very promptly to the point. Lady Ingleby, he said, a cruel and heartless wrong has been done you by a despicable scoundrel, for whom no retribution would be too severe.

I am perfectly aware of that, replied Lady Ingleby calmly. But I fail to understand, Sir Derek, why you should consider it necessary to come down here in order to discuss it. This most unexpected reply for a moment, completely non-plus the doctor. But rapid mental adjustment formed an important part of his professional equipment. I fear we are speaking at cross-purposes, he said gently. Forgive me, if I appear to have trespassed upon a subject of which I have no knowledge, whatever. I am referring to the telegram received by you yesterday, which led you to suppose

the report of Lord Ingleby's death was a mistake, and that he might shortly be returning home. "'My husband is alive,' said Lady Ingleby. He has telegraphed to me from Cairo, and I expect him back very soon. For answer, Derek Brand drew from his pocketbook two telegrams. "'I am bound to tell you at once, dear Lady Ingleby,' he said, "'that you have been cruelly deceived. The message from Cairo was a heartless fraud, designed in order to obtain money. Billy Cathcart had reason to suspect its genuineness and brought it to me.

I cabled at once to Cairo with this result. He laid two telegrams on the table before her. The first is a copy of one we sent yesterday to a detective out there. The second I received three hours ago. No one, not even Billy, has heard of its arrival. I have brought it immediately to you. Lady Ingleby slowly lifted the paper containing the first message. She read it in silence.

Watch Cook's Bank and arrest man personating Lord Ingleby who will call for draft of money, cable particulars promptly. The doctor observed her closely as she laid down the first message without comment and took up the second. Former valet of Lord Ingleby's arrested, confesses to dispatch a fraudulent telegram, cable instructions. Lady Ingleby folded both papers and laid them on the table beside her. The calm impassivity of the white face had undergone no change.

It must have been Walker, she said. Michael always considered him a scamp and shifty, but I delighted in him because he played the banjo quite excellently and was so useful at parish entertainments. Michael took him abroad, but had to dismiss him on landing. He wrote and told me the fact, but gave no reasons. Poor Walker. I do not wish him punished, because I know Michael would think it was largely my own fault for putting banjo playing before character. If Walker had written me a begging letter, I should most likely have sent him the money. I have a fatal habit of believing in people and of wanting everybody to be happy. Then, as if these last words recalled a momentarily forgotten wound, the stony apathy

returned to voice and face. If Michael is not coming back, said Lady Ingleby, I am indeed alone. The doctor rose and stood looking down upon her, perplexed and sorrowful. Is there not someone who should be told immediately of this change of affairs, Lady Ingleby? he asked gravely no one she replied emphatically there is nobody whom it concerns intimately accepting myself and not many know of the arrival of yesterday's news i wrote to jane and i suppose the boys told it at overdean if by any chance it gets into the papers we must send a contradiction but no explanation please i dislike the publication of wrong-doing it only leads to imitation and repetition besides even a poor warm of a valet should be shielded if possible from public execration. We could not explain the extenuating circumstances. I do not suppose the news has become widely known, said the doctor.

Your household heard of it, of course? Yes, replied Lady Ingleby. Ah, that reminds me, I must stop operations in the shrubbery and plantation. There is no object in little Peter having a grave when his master has none. This was absolutely unintelligible to the doctor, but at such times he never asked unnecessary questions for his own enlightenment. So, after all, Sir Derek, added Lady Ingleby, Peter was right. Yes, said the doctor. Little Peter was not mistaken. Had I remembered him, I might have doubted the telegram, remarked Lady Ingleby.

What can have aroused Billy's suspicions? Like Peter, said the doctor. said the doctor. doctor. Billy had, from the first, felt very sure. Do not mention to him that I told you the doubts originated with him. He is a sensitive lad, and the whole thing has greatly distressed him. Dear Billy, said Lady Ingleby. The doctor glanced at the clock and buttoned his coat. He had one minute to spare. My friend, he said, a second time I have come as the bearer of evil tidings. Not evil, replied Myra in a tone of hopeless sadness. this is not a world to which we could possibly desire the return of one we love.

There is nothing wrong with the world, said the doctor. Our individual heaven or hell is brought about by our own actions. Or by the actions of others. Amandaed Lady Ingleby bitterly. Or by the actions of others, agreed the doctor. But even then, we cannot be completely happy unless we are true to our best selves, nor wholly miserable unless to our own ideals we become false i fear i must be off but i do not like leaving you thus alone lady ingleby glanced at the clock rose and gave him her hand you have been more than kind sir derrick in coming to me yourself i shall never forget it and i am expecting jane champion dalmaine i mean why do one's friends get married any minute she is coming direct from town the faeater

has gone to the station to meet her. Good, said the doctor, and clasped her hand with the strong, silent sympathy of a man who, desiring to help, yet realizes himself in the presence of a grief he is powerless either to understand or to assuage. Good, very good, he said as he stepped into the motor, remarking to the chauffeur,

We have nine minutes, and if we miss the train, I must ask you to run me up to town. And he said it a third time, even more emphatically. when he had recovered from his surprise at that which he saw as the motor flew down the avenue. For, after passing Lady Ingleby's Fayettean returning from the station empty, excepting for a traveling coat and alligator bag left upon the seat, he saw the Honorable Mrs. Dalmain walking slowly beneath the trees in earnest conversation with a very tall man who carried his hat,

letting the breeze blow through his thick, rumpled hair. Both were too preoccupied to notice the motor, but as the man turned his haggard face toward his car, companion, the doctor saw in it the same stony look of hopeless despair which had grieved and baffled him in Lady Ingleby's. The two were slowly wending their way toward the house by a path leading down to the terrace. Evidently, the man, thought the doctor. Well, I am glad Jane has him in tow. Poor souls. Providence has placed them in wise hands. If faithful counsel and honest plain speaking can avail them anything, they will undoubtedly receive both from our good.

Jane. Providence also arranged that the London Express was one minute late and the doctor caught it, whereat the chauffeur rejoiced, for he was walking out with her ladyship's maid, whose evening off it chanced to be. The all-important events of life are apt to hang upon the happenings of one minute. End of chapters 22 and 23. Chapter 24, 25, and 26 of the Mistress of Shenzhen by Florence Barkley. This Libervox recording is in the public domain. 24. Mrs. Dalmaine reviews the situation. So you see, Jane, concluded Lady Ingleby pathetically.

As Michael is not coming back, I am indeed alone. Loving Jim Ereth as you do, said Jane Dalmaine. Did, interposed Lady Ingleby. Did and do? said Jane Dalmain. You would have been worse than alone if Michael had after I'll come back. Oh, Myra, I cannot imagine anything more unendurable than to love one man and be obliged to live with another. I should not have allowed myself to go on loving Jim, said Lady Ingleby. Rubbish, pronounced Mrs. Dalmaine with forceful decision. My dear My dear Myra, that kind of remark paves the way for the devil and is one of his feet.

favorite devices. More good women have been tripped by over confidence in their ability to curb and to control their own affections than by direct temptation to love where love is not lawful. Men are different. Their temptations are not so subtle. They know exactly to what it will lead if they dally with sentiment. Therefore, if they mean to do the right thing in the end, they keep clear of the danger at the beginning. We cannot possibly forbid ourselves to go on loving where love has once been allowed to reign supreme. I know you would not in the first instance have let yourself care for Jim Ereth had you not been free.

But once loving him, if so appalling a situation could have arisen as the unexpected return of your husband, your only safe and honorable course would have been to frankly tell, Lord Ingleby. I grew to love Jim Ereth while I believed you dead. I shall always love Jim Ereth, but I want before all else to be a good woman

and a faithful wife. Trust me to be faithful. Help me to be good. Any man worth his salt would respond to such an appeal. And shoot himself? suggested Lady Ingleby. I said man, not coward, responded Mrs. Dalmaine with fine scorn. Jane, you are so strong-minded, murmured Lady Ingleby. It goes with your linen collars, your tailor-made coats, and your big boots. I cannot picture myself in a linen collar, nor can I conceive of myself.

as standing before Michael and informing him that I loved Jim. Jane Dalmain laughed good-humoredly, plunged her large hands into the pockets of her tweet coat, stretched out her serviceable brown boots and looked at them. If, by strong-minded, you mean a wholesome dislike to the involving of a straightforward situation in a tangle of disingenuous sophistry, I plead guilty, she said.

Oh, don't quote Sir Derek, retorted Lady Ingleby Crossley. You ought to have married him. I never could understand such an artist, such a poet, such an eclectic idealist as Garth Dalmain, falling in love with you, Jane. A sudden light of womanly tenderness illumined Jane's plain face. The wife looked out from it in simple, unconscious radiance. Nor could I, she answered softly.

It took me three years to realize it as an indubitable fact. I suppose you are very happy, remarked Myra. Jane was silent. There were shrines in that strong nature too holy sacred to be easily unveiled. I remember how I hated the idea after the accident, said Myra, of your tying yourself to blindness.

Oh, hush, said Jane Dalmane quickly. You tread on sacred ground and you forget to remove your shoes. From the first, the sweetest thing between my husband and myself has been that together we learn to kiss that cross. "'Dear old thing,' said Lady Ingleby affectionately,

"'you deserve to be happy. "'All the same I never can understand "'why you did not marry Derek Brandt.' Jane smiled. "'She could not bring herself to discuss her husband, "'but she was very willing at this critical juncture "'to divert Lady Ingleby from her own troubles "'by entering into particulars concerning herself and the doctor.

"'My dear,' she said, "'Derick and I were far too much alike "'ever to have dovetailed into marriage. All our points would have met, and our differences gaped wide. The qualities which go to the making of a perfect friendship by no means always ensure a perfect marriage. There was a time when I should have married Derek had he asked me to do so, simply because I implicitly trusted his judgment in all things, and it would never have occurred to me to refuse him anything he asked. But it would not have resulted in our mutual happiness.

Also, at that time, I had no idea what love really meant. I know that. I know that more understood love until, until Garth taught me, than you understood it before you met Jim Eirth. I wish you would not keep on alluding to Jim Eirth, said Myra wearily. I never wish to hear his name again, and I cannot allow you to suppose that I should ever have adopted your strong-minded suggestion and admitted to Michael that I loved him. I should have done nothing of the kind. I should have devoted myself to pleasing Michael in all things, and made myself, yes, Jane.

need not look amused and incredulous though i don't wear collars and shooting boots i can make myself do things i should have made myself forget that there was such a person in this world as the earl of earth and monteth oh spare him that laughed mrs dalman don't call the poor man by his titles if he must be hanged at least let him hang as plain jim earth if one had to be wicked it would be so infinitely worse to be a wicked earl then wicked in any other walk of life it savours so painfully of the penny dreadful or the cheap novelette also my dear there is nothing to be gained by discussing a hypothetical situation with which you do not after all find yourself confronted mercifully lord ingleby is not coming back mercifully exclaimed lady ingleby really jane you are crude beyond words and most unsympathetic you should have heard how tactfully the doctor broke it to me and how kindly he alluded to me my loss. My dear Myra, said Mrs. Dalmaine, I don't waste sympathy on false sentiment. And if Derek had known you were already engaged to another man, instead of devoting to you four hours of his valuable time, he would have sent a six-penny wire. Telegram, a forgery, except heartfelt congratulations. Jane, you are brutal. And seeing that I have just told you the

whole story of these last weeks with the cruel heart-breaking finale of yesterday, I fail to Understand how you can speak of me as engaged to another man. Instantly, Jane Dalman's whole bearing altered. She ceased looking quizzically amused, and left off swinging her brown boot. She sat up, uncrossed her knees, and, leaning her elbows upon them held out her large, capable hands to Lady Ingleby. Her noble face, grandly strong and tender in its undeniable plainness, was full of womanly understanding and sympathy.

Ah, my dear, she said. said. Now we must come to the crux of the whole matter. I have merely been playing around the fringe of the subject in order to give you time to recover from the inevitable strain of the long and painful recital you have felt necessary to make in order that I might fully understand your position in all its bearings. The real question is this. Are you going to forgive Jim Airth? I must never forgive him, said Lady Ingleby with finality, because if I forgave him, I could not let him go. Why let him go, when his going leaves your whole life desolate?

Because, said Myra, I feel I could not trust him, and I dare not marry a man whom I love as I love, Jim Ereth, unless I can trust him as implicitly as I trust my God. If I loved him less, I would take the risk. But I feel for him something which I can neither understand nor define. Only I know that in time it would make him so completely master of me that, unless I could trust him absolutely, I should be afraid. Is a man never to be trusted again? asked Jane, because under sudden fierce temptation he has

failed you once. It is not the failing once, said Myra. It is the light thrown upon the whole quality of his love, of that kind of love. The passion of it makes it selfish, selfish to the degree of being utterly regardless of right and wrong, and careless of the welfare of its unfortunate object. My fair name would have been smirched. My honor dragged in the mire. My present blighted. My future ruined. But what did he care? It was all swept aside in the one sentence. You are mine, not his. You must come away with me. I cannot trust myself to a love which has no standard of right and wrong. We look at it from different points of view. You see only the man and his temptation. I knew the priceless treasure of the love. Therefore, the sin against that love seems to

me unforgivable. Mrs. Dalmaine looked earnestly at her friend. Her steadfast eyes were deeply troubled. Myra, she said, you are absolutely right in your definitions and correct in your conclusions. But your mistake is this. You make no allowance for the sudden, desperate, overwhelming nature of the temptation before which Jim Airth fell. Remember all that led up to it. Think of it, Myra. He stood so alone in the world. No mother, no wife, no woman's tenderness.

And those ten hard years of worse than loneliness when he fought the horrors of dissolution, the shame of betrayal, the bitterness of desertion, the humiliation of the stain upon his noble name. Against all this, during ten long years, he struggled, fought a manful fight and overcame, then strong, hardened, lonely, a man grown to man's full heritage of self-contained independence,

he met you, Myra. His ideals returned, purified and strengthened by their passage through the fire. Love came, now, in such gigantic force, that the pygmy passion of his early youth was dwarfed and superseded. It seemed a new and untasted experience such as he had not dreamed life could contain. Three weeks of it he had, growing uncertainty, increasing in richness every day, yet tempered by the patient waiting your pleasure for eagerly expected fulfillment. Then the blow, so terrible to his sensibilities

and to his manly pride, the horrible knowledge that his own hand had brought loss and sorrow to you, whom he would have shielded from the faintest shadow of pain. Then his mistake in allowing false pride to come between you. Three weeks of growing hunger and regret followed by your summons, which seemed to promise happiness after all. For, remember, while you had been bringing yourself to acquiesce in his decision as absolutely final, so that the news of Lord Ingleby's return meant no loss to you and to him, merely the relief of his exculpation, he had been coming round to a more reasonable point of view and realizing that, after all, he had not lost you.

You sent for him, and he came, once more aglow with love and certainty, only to hear that he had not only lost you himself, but must leave you to another man oh myra can you not make allowance for a moment of fierce madness can you not see that the very strength of the man momentarily turned in the wrong direction brought about his downfall you tell me you called him coward and traitor you might as well have struck him such words from your lips must have been worse than blows i admit he deserved them yet st peter was thrice a coward and a traitor but his lord making allowance for a sudden yielding to temptation, did not doubt the loyalty of his love, but gave him a chance of three-fold public confession and forgave him.

If divine love could do this, oh, Myra, can you let your lover go out into the world again, alone, without one word of forgiveness? How do I know he wants my forgiveness, Jane? He left me in a towering fury. And how could my forgiveness reach him, even supposing he desired it, or I could give it. Where is he now?

He left you in despair, said Mrs. Dalmaine, and he is in the library. Lady Ingleby rose to her feet. Jane, Jim Arth in this house? Who admitted him? I did, replied Mrs. Dalmaine coolly. I smuggled him in. Not a soul saw a center. That was why I sent the carriage on ahead when we reached the park gates. We walked up the avenue, turned down on the terrace and slipped by the lower door. He has been sitting in the library ever since. If you decide not to see him, I can go down and tell him so. He can go out as he came in, and none of your household will know he

has been here. Dear Myra, don't look so distraught. Do sit down again and let us finish our talk. That is right. You must not be hurried. A decision which affects one's whole life cannot be made in a minute, nor even in an hour. Lord Earth does not wish to force an interview, nor do I wish to persuade you to grant him one. He will not be surprised if I bring him word that you would rather not see him. Rather not, cried Myra with clasped hands. Oh, Jane, if you could know what the mere thought of seeing him means to me, you would not say, rather not, but dare not.

Let me tell you how we met, said Mrs. Dalmaine, ignoring the last remark. I reached Charing Cross in good time, stopped at the bookstall for a supply of papers, secured an empty compartment and settled down to a quiet hour. Jim Erth dashed into the station with barely one minute in which to take his ticket and reach the train. He tore up the platform as the train began to move, had not time to reach a smoker, wrenched open the door of my compartment, jumped in headlong and sat down upon my papers, turned to apologize, and found himself shut in alone for an hour with a friend to whom

you had written weekly letters from Cornwall, and of whom you had apparently told him rather nice things, or at all events things which led him to consider me trustworthy. He recognized me by a recent photograph which you had shown him. I remember, said Myra, I kept it in my writing case. He took it up and looked at it several times. I often spoke to him of you. He introduced himself with straightforward simplicity, continued Mrs. Dalmaine, and then, we neither of us knew quite how it happened. In a few minutes we were talking without reserve. I believe he felt frankness with me on his part might enable me in the future to be a comfort to you. You are his one thought. Also, that if I interceded you would perhaps grant him that which he came to seek, the opportunity

to ask for your forgiveness. Of course, we neither of us had the slightest idea of the possibility that yesterday's telegram could be incorrect. He sails for America almost immediately, but could not bring himself to leave England without having expressed to you his contrition and obtained your pardon. He would have written, but did not feel he ought, for your sake, to run the risk of putting explanations onto paper. Also, I honestly believe it is breaking his heart, poor fellow, to feel that you and he parted forever in anger. His love for you is a very great love, Myra. Oh, Jane, cried Lady Ingleby, I cannot let him go, and yet I cannot make him marry him. I love him with every fiber of my whole being, and yet I cannot trust him.

Oh, Jane, what shall I do? You must give him a chance, said Mrs. Dalmaine, to retrieve his mistake and to prove himself the man we know him to be. Say to him, without explanation, what you have just said to me, that you cannot let him go, and see how he takes it. Listen, Myra, the unforeseen developments of the last few hours have put it into your power to give Jim Earth his chance. You must not rob him of it. Years ago, when Garth and I were in an apparently hopeless tangle of irretrievable mistake,

Derek found us a way out. He said if Garth could go behind his blindness and express an opinion which he only could have given while he had his sight, the question might be solved. I need not trouble you with details, but that was exactly what happened, and our great happiness resulted. Now, in your case, Jim Eirth must be given the chance to go behind his madness, regain his own self-respect, and prove himself worthy of your trust. Have you told anyone of the second telegram from Cairo? I saw nobody, said Lady Ingleby, from the moment Sir Derek left me until you walked in.

Very well. Then you and Derek and I are the only people in England who know of it. Jim Earth will have no idea of any change of conditions since yesterday. Do you see what that means, Myra? Lady Ingleby's pale face flushed. Oh, Jane, I dare not, if he failed again. He will not fail, replied Mrs. Dalmaine with decision. But should he do so, he will have proved himself, as you say, unworthy of your trust.

Then you can forgive him and let him go. I cannot let him go. cried Myra, and yet I cannot marry him, unless he is all I have believed him to be. Ah, my dear, my dear, said Mrs. Dalmaine tenderly. You need to learn a lesson about married life. True happiness does not come from marrying an idol thrown on a pedestal. Before Galatia could wed Pygmalion, she had to change from marble into glowing flesh and blood and step down from off her pedestal. Love should not make us blind to one another's false. It should only make us infinitely tender and completely understanding.

Let me tell you a shrewd remark of Aunt Georgina's on that subject. Speaking to a young married woman who considered herself wronged and disillusioned because, the honeymoon over, she discovered her husband not to be in all things absolutely perfect. Ah, my good girl, said Aunt Gina, wrapping the floor with her ebony cane. You made a foolish mistake if you imagined you were marrying an angel when we have it on the highest authority that the angels neither marry nor are given in marriage men and women who are human enough to marry are human enough to be full of faults and the best thing marriage provides is that each gets somebody who will love forgive and understand if you had waited for perfection

you would have reached heaven a spinster which would have been to say the least of it dull when you had had the chance of matrimony on earth go and make it up with that nice boy of yours or I shall find him some pretty. But the little bride, her anger dissolving in laughter and tears had fled across the lawn in pursuit of a tall figure in tweeds, stalking in solitary dudgeon towards the river. They disappeared into the boat-house,

and soon after we saw them in a tiny skip for two and heard their happy laughter. Silly babies, said Aunt Gina crossly. They'll do it once too often when I'm not there to spank them. And then they'll be a shipwreck. Oh, why did Adam marry and spoil that peaceful garden? Whereat Tommy the old Scarlet McCaw swung head downwards from his golden perch,

with such shrieks of delighted laughter mingled with appropriate profanity, that Aunt Gina's good-humor was instantly restored. Give him a strawberry, somebody, she said, and spoke no more on things matrimonial. Myra laughed. The Duchess's views are always refreshing. I wonder whether Michael. and I made the mistake of not realizing

each other to be human, of not admitting there was anything to forgive and therefore never forgiving. Well, don't make it with Jim Ereth, advised Mrs. Dalmaine, for he is the most human man I ever met. Also the strongest and one of the most lovable. Myra, there is nothing to be gained by waiting. Let me send him to you now.

And remember, all he asks or expects is one word of forgiveness. "'Oh, Jane!' cried Lady Ingleby with clasped hands. "'Do wait a little while. Give me time to think. Time to consider. Time to decide.' "'Nonsense, my dear,' said Mrs. Dalmaine. When but one right course lies before you, there can be no possible need for hesitation or consideration. You are merely nervously postponing the inevitable.

You remind me of scenes we used to have in the outpatient department of a hospital in the east end of London. to which I once went for training. When patients came to the surgery for teeth extraction and the pretty sympathetic little nurse in charge had got them safely fixed into the chair, as one of the doctor's prompt and alert came forward with unmistakably business-like forceps ready, the terrified patient would exclaim,

Oh, let the nurse do it, let the nurse do it. The idea, evidently being that three or four different pulls by the nurse were less alarming than the sharp certainty of one from the doctor. Now, my dear Myra, you have to face your ordeal. If it is to be successful, there must be no uncertainty. Oh, Jane, I wish you were not such a decided person. I am sure when you were the nurse the poor things preferred the doctors.

I am terrified, yet I know you are right. And, oh, you dear, don't leave me. See me through. I am never away from Garth for a night, as you know, said Mrs. Dalmaine. but he and little Jeff went down to Overdean this morning with Simpson and nurse, so if your man can motor me over during the evening, I will stay as long as you need me. Ah, thanks, said Lady Ingleby. And now, Jane, you have done all you can for me. And God knows how much that means.

I want to be quite alone for an hour. I feel I must face it out and decide what I really intend doing. I owe it to Jim, I owe it to myself, to be quite sure what I mean to say before. I see him. Order tea in the library. Tell him I will see him, and at the end of the hour sent him here. But Jane, not a hint of anything which has passed between us. I may rely on you. My dear, said Mrs. Dalmane gently. I play the game. She rose and stood on the hearth rug, looking intently at her husband's painting of Lord Ingleby. And Myra, she said at last, I do entreat you to remember you are dealing with an unknown quantity.

You have never before known intimately a man of Jim Ayre's temperament. His love for you, and yours for him, hold elements as yet not fully understood by you. Remember this in drawing your conclusions. I had almost said, let instinct guide rather than reason. I understand your meaning, said Lady Ingleby. But I dare not depend upon either instinct or reason. I have not been a religious woman, Jane, as of course you know, but I have been learning lately, and as I learn I try to practice.

I feel myself to be in so dark and difficult a place that I am trying to say, Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. Ah, you are right, said Jane's deep earnest voice. That is the best of all. God's hand alone leads surely out of darkness into light. She put a kind arm, firmly around her friend for a moment. Then, I will send him to you in an hour, she said, and left the room.

Lady Ingleby was alone. Twenty-five. The test. The door of Myra's sitting-room opened quietly and Jim Earth came in. She awaited him upon the couch sitting very still, her hands folded in her lap. The room seemed full of flowers and of soft sunset light. He closed the door and came and stood before her. For a few moments they looked steadily into one another's faces.

Then Jim Eyre spoke, very low. It's so good of you to see me, he said. It is almost more than I had ventured to hope. I am leaving England in a few hours. It would have been hard to go without this. Now it will be easy. She lifted her eyes to his and waited in silence. Myra, he said, can you forgive me?

I do not know, Jim, she answered gently. I want to be quite honest with you and with myself. If I had cared less, I could have forgiven more easily. I know, he said. Oh, Myra, I know. And I would not have you forgive lightly so great a sin against our love. But, dear, if, before I go, you could say, I understand, it would mean almost more to me than if you said,

I forgive. Jim, said Myra gently, a tremor of tenderness in her sweet voice. I understand. He came quite near and took her hands in his, holding them for a moment with tender reverence. Thank you, dear, he said. You are very good. He loosed her hands, and again she folded them in her lap. He walked to the mantelpiece and stood looking down upon the ferns and lilies. She marked the stoop of his broad shoulders, the way in which he seemed to find it difficult to hold up his head. Where was the proud, gay carriage of the man who swung along the Cornish cliffs whistling like a blackbird? Jim, she said, understanding fully, of course I forgive fully if it is possible that between you

and me forgiveness should pass. I have been thinking it over since I knew you were in the house, and wondering why I feel it's so impossible to say I forgive you. And Jim? I think it is because you and I are so one that there is no room for such a thing as forgiveness to pass from me to you or from you to me. Complete comprehension and unfailing love take the place of what would be forgiveness between those who were less to each other. He lifted his eyes for a moment full of dumb anguish which wrung her heart. Myra, I must go, he said brokenly.

There was so much I had to tell you, so much to explain. But all need of this seems swept away By your divine tenderness and comprehension All my life through I shall carry with me Deep hidden in my heart These words of yours Oh my dear My dear

Don't speak again Let them be the last Only may I say it Never let thoughts of me sadden your fair life I am going to America A grand place for fresh beginnings A land where one can work and truly live.

A land where earnest endeavor meets with full of success, and where a man's energy may have full scope. I want you to think of me, Myra, as living and working and striving, not going under. But if ever I feel like going under, I shall hear your dear voice singing at my shoulder in the Little Cornish Church on the quiet Sabbath evening in the sunset, eternal father strong to save.

And, when I think of you, my dear, my dear i shall know your life is being good and beautiful every hour and that you are happy with he lifted his eyes to lord ingleby's portrait they dwelt for a moment on the kind quiet face with one of the best of men said jimareth bravely he took a last look at her face silent tears stole slowly down it and fell upon her folded hands a spasm of anguish shot across jimere's set features ah i must go he said that suddenly. God keep you always. He turned so quickly that his hand was actually upon the handle of the door before Myra reached him, though she sprang up and flew across the room. Jim, she said breathlessly. Stop, Jim. Oh, stop.

Listen, wait. Jim, I have always known. I told Jane so. That if I forgave you, I could not let you go. She flung her arms round his neck as he stood gazing at her in dumb bewilderment. Jim, my beloved, I cannot let you go. Or if you go, you must take me with you. I cannot live without you, Jim, Erth. For the space of a dozen heartbeats he stood silent, while she hung around him, her head upon his breast,

her clinging arms about his neck. Then a cry so terrible burst from him that Myra's heart stood still. Oh, my God, he cried. This is the worst of all. Have I, in falling, dragged her down? Now, indeed, am I broken? Broken.

What was the loss of my own pride, my own honor, my own self-esteem to this? Have I soiled her fair whiteness, weakened the noble strength of her sweet purity? Oh, not this, my God, not this! He lifted his hands to his neck, took hers by the wrists, and forcibly drew them down, stepping back apace, so that she must lift her head. Then holding her hands against his breast. Lady Ingleby, he said, lift your eyes and look into my face. Slowly, slowly, Myra lifted her grey eyes.

The fire of his held her. She felt the strength of him mastering her, as it had often done before. She could scarcely see the anguish in his face so vivid was the blaze of his blue eyes. Lady Ingleby, he said, and the grip of his hands. on hers tightened. Lady Ingleby, we stood like this together, you and I, on a fast,

narrowing strip of sand. The cruel sea swept up, relentless. A high cliff rose in front, our only refuge. I held you thus and said, We must climb, or drown.

Do you remember? I say it now again. The only possible right thing to do is steep and difficult, but we must climb. We must mount above our lower selves, away from this narrowing strip of dangerous sand, away from this cruel sea of fierce temptation, up to the breezy cliff-top,

up to the blue above, into the open of honour and right and perfect purity. You stood there, until now, you stood there, brave and beautiful. I dragged you down. God forgive me, I brought you into danger. Hush, listen. you must climb again. You must climb alone. But when I am gone, your climbing will be easy. You will soon find yourself standing safe and high above these treacherous dangerous waters. Forgive me if I seem rough. He forced her gently backwards to the couch.

Sit there, he said, and do not rise until I have left the house. And if ever these moments come back to you, Lady Ingleby, remember, the whole blame was mine. Hush. I tell you, hush. And will you loose my hands? But Myra clung to those big hands, laughing and weeping and striving to speak. Oh, Jim! My Jim! You can't leave me to climb alone, because I am all your own, and free to be yours and

no other man's, and together, thank God, we can stand on the cliff-top where his hand has led us. Dearest, Jim, dearest, don't pull away from me, because, I must cling on until you have read these telegrams. Oh, Jim, read them quickly. Sir Derek Brand brought them down from town this afternoon. And, oh, forgive me that I did not tell you at once. I wanted you to prove yourself what I knew you to be. Faithful, loyal, honorable, brave, the man of all men whom I trust.

The man who will never fail me in the upward climb until we stand together beneath the blue on the heights of God's eternal hills. Oh, Jim! Her voice faltered into silence. For Jim Earth knelt at her feet, his head in her lap, his arms flung around her, and he was sobbing as only a strong man can sob, when his heart has been strained to breaking point, and sudden relief has come. Myra laid her hands gently upon the roughness of his hair.

Thus they stayed long, without speaking or moving. And in those sacred minutes, Myra learned the lesson which ten years of wedded life had failed to teach, that in the strongest man there is sometimes the eternal child, eager, masterful, dependent, full of needs, and that in every woman's love there must therefore be an element of the eternal mother, tender, understanding, patient, wise, yet self-surrendering, able to bear, ready to forgive. Her strength made perfect in weakness. At length Jim Hereth lifted his head. The last beams of the setting sun, entering through the western window illumined with a ray of golden glory, the lovely face above him. But he saw on it a radiance more bright than the

reflected glory of any earthly sunset. Maira, he said awe and wonder in his voice. Myra, what is it? And clasping her hands about his neck as he knelt before her, she drew his head to her breast and answered, I have learned to lesson my mind. I have learned to lesson my beloved, a lesson only you could teach. And I am very happy and thankful, Jim, because I know that at last, I, even I, am ready for wifehood. 26. What shall we write? The hall at the Moorhead Inn seemed very home-like to Jim Earth and Myra, as they stood together looking around it on their arrival. Jim had set his heart upon bringing his wife there on the evening of their wedding day.

Therefore, they had left down immediately after the ceremony, dined en route, and now stood as they had so often stood before when bidding one another good night in the lamplight beside the marble table. "'Oh, Jim, dear,' whispered Myra, throwing back her travelling cloak, "'doesn't it all seem natural? Look at the old clock. Five minutes past ten. The Miss Murgatroyd's must have gone up in stage procession exactly four minutes ago.'

look at the stag's head there is the antler on the topmost point of which you always hung your cap myra yes dear oh i hope the murgatroyds are still here let's look in the book yes see here are their names with date of arrival but none of departure and oh dearest here is jim arthur as i first saw it written and look at mrs omera just beneath it how well i remember glancing back from the turn of the staircase, seeing you come out and read it, and wishing I had written it better. You can set me plenty of copies now, Jim. Myra? Yes, dear. Do you know I am going to fly up and unpack? Then I will come out to the honeysuckle arbor and sit with you while you smoke. And we need not mind being late, because the dear ladies, not knowing we have returned, will not all be sleeping with doors ajar. But, oh, Jim, you must. However late it is, plump your boots out and

the passage, just for the fun of making Miss Susanna's heart jump unexpectedly. Myra, oh, I say, my wife. Yes, darling, I know, but I am perfectly certain Aunt Ingleby is peeping out of her little office at the end of the passage. Also, Polly has finished helping Sam place our luggage upstairs, and I can feel her hanging over the top banisters. Be patient for just a little while, my Jim. Let's put our names in the visitor's book. What shall we write? really we shall be obliged eventually to let them know who you are think what an excitement for the miss murgatroyds but just for once i am going to write myself down by the name of all others i have most wished to bear

so smiling gaily up at her husband then bending over the table to hide her happy face from the adoration of his eyes the newly-made countess of earth and monteth took up the pen and without pausing to remove her glove wrote in the visitor's book of the moorhead inn in the clear, bold handwriting peculiarly her own. End of chapters 24 through 26. End of the Mistress of Shenston by Florence Barkley.