Hatter's Castle

"The air must have done you good, anyway," continued Mamma, somewhat suspiciously. "You've got quite a colour."

Credulous as she was, the maternal instinct that was in her doubted such immediate efficacy in the usually impotent Levenford air.

"Yes! I feel much better now," replied Mary truthfully, with twitching lips and sparkling eyes.

"Grandma was saying something when you were out, about a letter she had seen you reading," persisted Mrs. Brodie, trailing after her nebulous idea. "I hope you're not up to any mischief your father would disapprove of. Don't set yourself up against him, Mary. Them that has tried it have aye regretted it. There's only one finish to that!"

She sighed reminiscently, and added, "He finds out eventually, and he'll be at you in the end, ay, and make it a bitter, bitter end."

Mary shook off her mantle with a shrug of her shoulders. In the space of the last hour her slim figure had regained its youthful and imperious vitality. She stood erect, filled with a fierce and confident joy.

"Mamma," she said gaily, "don't worry about me. My motto is now, 'Mary never knows defeat!'"

Mrs. Brodie shook her pathetically inclined head sadly, and, filled with a vague, uncomprehending foreboding, gathered up the messages; with a more melancholy inclination of her head, like an incarnate presage of misfortune and ill-omen, she passed slowly out of the room.

VI

"NESSIE! Mary!" shrilled Mrs. Brodie, in a fine frenzy of service, as she skittled about, helping Brodie to dress, "come and put on your father's gaiters."

It was the morning of Saturday the twenty-first of August, and one of the red-letter days in James Brodie's calendar. In a large-patterned, black-and-white check, knickerbocker suit he sat, his face like a full red sun, trying to struggle into his gaiters, which had not been used since a year that day, when, though he now chose to forget the fact, he had experienced the same difficulty in assuming them.

"What kind o witless trick was it to put a man's gaiters away damp?" he girned at his wife. "They'll not meet on me now. Desh it all, can't a man keep a thing decent in this house? These have shrunk."

Inevitably, when anything went wrong, the onus was thrust upon his wife's narrow shoulders.

"A man can't leave a thing about, but some senseless creature wastes it for him. How am I to go to the Show without gaiters? Ye'll be askin' me to go without my collar and tie next."

"But, Father," meekly replied Mrs. Brodie, "I think you must be wearing a shade larger boot this year. This new pair I ordered for you myself were something broader than the others."

"Nonsense!" he grunted. "You'll be saying that my feet have got bigger next."

Here Nessie burst into the room like a young foal, followed more slowly by Mary.

"Quick, girls," urged Mamma, "do up your father's gaiters for him. Look sharp now, he's behind time!" The young handmaidens launched themselves upon their knees, applying their nimble fingers with dexterity and strength to the task before them, whilst Brodie lay back, simmering, darting black glances at the apologetic figure of his wife. The catastrophe was the more unfortunate for Mrs. Brodie as, upon this day in particular, he might reasonably be relied upon to be in a good temper, and the thought of spoiling for herself the rare chance of a day without a rage, of having activated the passive volcano, was more humiliating to her than the actual insults of the moment.

It was the day of the Levenford Cattle Show, an outstanding agricultural event, which drew the pedigree of the county as regards both its stock and its human inhabitants. Brodie loved the show and made his attendance of it an unfailing annual institution. He loved the sleek cattle with their swollen udders, the full-muscled Clydesdale stallions, the high-stepping cobs in the ring, the fat-flanked porkers and thick, close-knit sheep, and he prided himself on his judgment of a best.

"I, a hatter!" he seemed to say, as he stood close to the judges, one hand gripping his famous ash plant, the other deep in his front pocket, "I'm more fitted for the job than them."

He was in his element, in the forefront of the judging, prominent amongst the best of them. Then, sauntering around the marquees with his hat well back on his head, he would slice with his penknife a sliver from this cheese and a sliver from that, tasting them critically; savour the different butters, the cream, the buttermilk; rakishly chaff the sonsiest of the dairymaids, who stood behind their exhibits.

That part of him which lay close to the soil flourished on days like these. From his mother's family, the Lumsdens, who had for generations farmed in the Barony of Winton, he drew that deeply rooted inheritance of the love of the land, its produce and beasts. His body craved the hardy exercise of the farm, for in his youth he had driven his team through the loam of Winton and had known also the thrill of the feel of the gun butt against his cheek. From his father, James Brodie, that bitter, morose, implacable man, of whom he was the sole child, he had derived a pride which nourished itself upon a desire to possess the land. Only the vicissitudes following his impoverished father's death, when the latter had killed himself by falling from his horse, had driven him, as a young man, into the abomination of trade.

But another, and a stronger reason existed which impelled him tothe Show, namely, the craving to associate on equal terms with the gentry of the county and the borough. Conducting himself there not obsequiously, but rather with a trace of arrogance, nevertheless a nod of recognition, a word of greeting, or a few moments' conversation with a notability of rank or distinction gratified him inwardly and intoxicated him with delight.

"I've done it, Father. I've finished first!" cried Nessie triumphantly. With her small fingers she had succeeded in buttoning up one of the refractory spats.

"Come along, Mary," implored Mrs. Brodie. "You're such a slow-coach. Your father hasn't got all day to wait."

"Let her take her time," said Brodie sardonically. "I might as well be late, now I'm about it. In fact, you might like to keep me here all day between you."

"She is never as quick at a thing as Nessie," sighed Mamma.

"That's it," at last said Mary, standing up with benumbed fingers.

Her father eyed her critically.

"You know you're getting lazy, that's what's wrong with you, my girl. Good sakcs, now I look at you you're getting as big as the side of a house. You should eat less and work more."

He stood up, contemplating himself in the mirror, whilst Mamma led the girls from the room, and, as his reflection gazed back at him from the glass with gradually increasing approval, his self-complacency was eventually restored. His thick muscular legs were set off to perfection by the rough knickerbockers, and under the fleecy homespun stockings his calves swelled nobly; his shoulders were as broad and straight as a wrestler's; not an ounce of fat marred his body; his skin was as unblemished as a child's. He was the perfect figure of a country gentleman and, as the fact which he already knew was borne in upon him more forcibly by the glamour of his image, he twirled his moustache and smoothed his chin with satisfied vanity.

At this point the door of his room slowly opened and Grandma Brodie put her head around the door jamb insinuatingly, espying how his mood lay before she spoke.

"Can I have a look at you before you go, James?" she wheedled, after a cautious pause. This day produced upon her decaying sensibility an emotion akin to excitement, sponsored by the almost forgotten memories of her youth which rushed incoherently in upon her. "You look real grand. Ye're the fine figure o' a man," she told her son. "Losh! But I wish I was going with ye."

"You're too old in the tooth for me to show you, Mother," jibed Brodie. "although ye might get a ribbon for toughness."

Her dull ears prevented her from hearing properly, her distant thoughts from understanding the full import of his remark. "Ay, I'm gettin' a trifle old to go," she lamented, "but I've seen the day I would have been among the foremost there at the milkin', and the showin', and the jiggin' after, and then the tig-taggin' on the lang drive hame in the cool o' the night air. It a' comes back to me." Her dull eyes glistened. "What grand scones and bannocks we used to have there, though I paid but little heed to them in they days." She sighed regretfully at her lost opportunities.

"Tuts, woman, can ye not keep you mind off your meat? You would think you were starved to hear you," Brodie chided her.

"No! No! James. I'm very grateful for all that you give me, and that's plenty. But maybe to-day if you were to see a nice, wee bit Cheddar cheese, no too dear there's a wheen o' bargains to be had at the end o' the day perhaps you might pick it up for me." She leered at him ingratiatingly.

Brodie burst into loud laughter. "Gad! You'll be the death of me, woman. Your god's in your belly. I expect to be seeing Sir John Latta to-day. Do you want me to be carrying pokes and parcels when I meet him," he shouted uproariously at her as he strode out of the room.

His mother hastened to the window of her room to see him swagger out of the house. She would sit there most of the day, straining her vision upon any passing stock; feasting her eyes upon the coloured cards the red firsts, the blue seconds, the green thirds and the indifferent yellows, which meant only highly commended; revelling in the press and bustle of the country throng; trying, but always unsuccessfully, to catch a glimpse of some old, familiar face amongst the passing crowd. There was always the chance too, ever present in her mind its very improbability whetting her fancy provokingly that her son might bring her back some small gift. She had asked for this, at any rate, and could do no more, she reflected complacently, as she settled herself eagerly in her chair to begin her pleasant vigil.

Downstairs on his way out, Brodie turned to Mary. "You better go down to the business and remind that ass Perry I'll not be in all day." The shop was known in the Brodie household only under the term of "the business"; the former term would have been considered paltry, even degrading. "He mightna remember that there's no holiday for him to-day. He's quite capable of forgetting his head, that one is. And run all the way, my lassie; it'll take some of the beef off you."

To Mamma he said, "I'll be back when you see me!" This was his valediction on such rare occasions as he chose to bid his wife farewell, but it was, in reality, a mark of unusual magnanimity, and Mamma accepted it with an appropriate gratitude.

"I hope you'll enjoy yourself, James," she said timidly, suiting her reply to his mood and the memorable nature of the event. Only on such infrequent and remarkable occasions did she dare use his baptismal name, but when they arose she ventured it in her reply, feeling that it consolidated what small and unsubstantial position she held in his esteem.

She did not dare to consider the attraction which the Show might offer to her; it was deemed sufficient gratification for her to admire the retreating, well-set-up figure of her husband, as he went off by himself upon any excursion of pleasure, and the preposterous idea that she might accompany him never entered her head. She had no clothes, she was required at home, her strength was insufficient to support the hardships of a day in the fresh air any one of these, or of a dozen further reasons, was, by her timid logic, sufficient to debar her from going. "I hope it'll keep fine for him," she murmured as, well pleased, she went back to wash the breakfast dishes, whilst Nessie waved good-bye to her father's back from the parlour window.

When the door had closed behind the master of the house Mary went slowly upstairs to her room, sat down on the edge of her bed and looked out of the window. She did not, in the clear brightness of the morning, see the three tall birch trees, their smooth boles shining with a lustrous sheen, standing upright like silver masts; she did not hear the whispered rustle of the leaves, flickering dark and light as they turned in the faint breeze. Engrossed within herself, she sat thinking of that remark which her father had made, turning it over in her mind uneasily, unhappily. "Mary, you're getting as big as a house," he had sneered, meaning, she fully realised, that she

was developing, filling out, as befitted her age and rapid growth.

Nevertheless, that single utterance, like a sudden shaft of light darting in, then out, of the darkness of her ignorance, had suddenly originated in her mind a profound disquiet.

Her mother, like a human ostrich, burying her head nervously at the slightest suggestion of the subject when it appeared on the domestic horizon, had not enlightened her on even the most elementary aspects of sex, and to any direct, ingenuous question which her daughter might address to her in this connection, Mamma would reply, in horror, "Hush at once, Mary! It's not a nice thing to talk

about. Good girls don't think of such things. That was a shameful thing to ask." Her acquaintance with other girls had been always so slight that she had never achieved information on this matter through the light, tittering remarks in which even the most simpering, pink and white maidens of the town occasionally indulged. Stray fragments of such conversations which she might have overheard

fell upon uncomprehending ears or were repudiated by the natural delicacy of her feeling, and she had lived in an unconscious simplicity, discrediting perhaps, if she ever considered this, the fable that babies were achieved through the assistance of the stork, but being sublimely unaware of the most rudimentary realities of procreation.

Even now the fact that for three months the normal functions of her body had been disturbed had not ruffled the limpid pool of her virgin mind, but this morning her father's coarse remark, twisted by some hidden convolution of her mind into a different sense, distorted into a different interpretation, had struck her with a crushing violence.

Was she different now? Agitatedly she ran her hands over her limbs and body. It was her body, her own, belonging entirely to herself; how could it have altered? In a panic she jumped up, locked her bedroom door and tore off her cashmere bodice and skirt, her petticoat, her clinging slip, undressed completely until she stood, bewildered, in a chaste nudity, touching her body with confused hands. Never before had she studied her figure with anything but a passing interest. She gazed stupidly at her creamy white skin, raised her arms above her head, lengthened her lithe, lovely figure into a taut, flawless beauty. The small mirror upon her table revealed in its inadequate depths no blemish or imperfection to confirm or allay her unformed fears, and though she twisted her head this way and that, her frightened eyes could detect no branding disfigurement crying aloud of an inward ugliness. She could not tell whether she was different, whether her bosom was fuller, the shell pink of her nipples less delicate, the soft curve of her hips more profound.

A fearful indecision took possession of her. Three months ago, when she had lain in Denis' arms in a state of unconscious surrender, her instincts had blindly guided her, and with closed eyes she had abandoned herself utterly to the powerful currents which permeated her being. Neither reason, had she wished it, nor knowledge, had she possessed it, intervened; in effect, while experiencing the rending emotions of a pain intolerably sweet, and a pleasure unbearably intoxicating, she had been so moved out of her own being that she had known nothing of what was actually taking place. Her feelings then had lifted her above consideration, but now she dimly wondered what mysterious chemistry had been inaugurated by the power of their embrace, if, perhaps, her lips against his, in some strange combination, had altered her irrevocably in some profound,

incomprehensible manner.

She felt powerless, lost in a perplexity of indecision, feeling that she must act to dispel immediately this sudden ferment in her mind, but unaware of how she should accomplish this. As she sombrely resumed the garments that lay scattered around her feet, she abandoned immediately the idea of approaching her mother, knowing well that Mamma's timid soul would leap in terror at the very mention of the topic. Involuntarily she turned towards the thought of Denis, her

perpetual consolation, but instantly, and adding to her dismay, she was aware that she would not see him for at least a week, and she reflected, further, that she might see him on this next occasion for a moment only. Since that wonderful talk with him in Bertorelli's, their meetings had been short although so sweet and by agreement carefully guarded, and whUe such fleeting glimpses of Denis as she thus obtained constituted the only felicity of her life, she felt now conclusively that, in these hasty exchanges of encouragement and love, she would never muster courage to invoke, even indirectly, his advice; at the mere idea a shameful blush pervaded her.

When she was again dressed, she unlorked the door and went downstairs, where Mamma, having finished what she called putting a face on things, had settled down luxuriously to an uninterrupted hour with her book. There were no problems like hers in such books, sadly reflected Mary; no indication in the vows, kissed finger tips, sweet speeches and happy endings, of the elucidation of her difficulty.

"I'll go down to the business with father's message. He asked me to go in the forenoon," she said, after a moment's indecision, addressing her mother's bowed, rapt figure.

Mrs. Brodie, sitting in the drawing room of a Sussex manor, surrounded by the society of her election, and in earnest conversation with the evangelical vicar of the parish, did not reply, did not even hear her daughter's voice. When immersed in a book she was, as her husband had put it, its slave.

"You're a perfect slave to that trash," he had once sneered at her, when she had failed to respond to his question. "To see ye slaverin' ower it is like a drunkard wi' a bottle. Ye wad sit readin' there if the house was burnin' about our ears."

Observing, therefore, with a clouded eye that it was useless to disturb her mother, that under the present circumstances she could not obtain from her a coherent, still less a comforting word, Mary departed silently and unnoticed, to execute her errand.

On the way to the town she remained immersed in her sad, questioning thoughts, walking limply, her head drooping, with slow steps; but although her journey was thus protracted, she reached her destination before she had even glimpsed the solution of her enigma.

In the shop Peter Perry was alone, lively, expanded, important, in the magnificence of sole responsibility, and he welcomed her with nervous effusion, his face lighting up with delight and his white cheeks becoming even more pale from the joyous shock of seeing her.

"This is an unexpected pleasure indeed, Miss Mary. Not often we have the pleasure of seeing you down at the business! Dear me! A great pleasure! A great pleasure!" he repeated agitatedly, rubbing his thin, transparent, tapering fingers together with quick, rustling movements; then he paused, completely at a loss. He was actually unnerved by the stroke of circumstances which had delivered Mary at the shop on the very day when, her father being absent, he might be permitted to talk to her, and, in his confusion, the scintillating con-

versations he had so frequently conducted in his imagination between himself and a bevy of queenly young ladies of the highest society, and which he regarded as a form of rehearsal for an occasion such as that which now presented itself, fled from him on the four winds. He was silent, he who had longed for this opportune moment, saying, "If a fellow could get the chance he might cut a pretty good dash with Miss Mary"; and tongue-tied, he who addressed his ironing board, through the steam in the back shop, with fluent, contemptuous ease.

A paralysing dumbness lay upon the man who, in his romantic leisure moments in bed on Sunday mornings, his eye fixed on his brass bed knob as on a coronet, had charmed a duchess with his courtly speech. He felt his flesh wilt, his skin tingle damply, the perspiration exude clammily from his pores; he lost his head completely and, his professional manner taking the bit between its teeth, he blurted out, "Pray be seated, Madam; what can I do for you to-day?"

He was horrified and what blood lay in his veins rushed painfully to his head, making her image swim before him through a haze of embarrassment. He did not colour that was an impossibility for him but his head swam with giddiness; yet to his amazement and relief, Mary manifested neither indignation nor surprise. In plain truth, her thoughts were still sadly distant, she had not quite recollected herself from the march of her dreary reverie, had not heard him, and instead of showing astonishment, she took quite gratefully the chair he had automatically proffered and sank down upon it with a tired sigh.

Then in a moment she looked up, as though seeing him for the first time.

"Oh! Mr. Perry," she exclaimed, "I I must have been thinking, I had no idea you were there."

He was slightly dismayed. Looking at his emasculate figure, it seemed the last possibility in the world that he should cherish, in the traditional manner, a secret passion for his employer's daughter, but such was indeed the case, and, in his highest, wildest and most furtive flights, he visualised even a partnership for an exceedingly worthy young man, to be achieved through an alliance to the house of Brodie, more binding than that of sordid trade. Mary, completely unaware of such optimistic visions, but vaguely pitying in her heart the timorous youth who lived in such manifest apprehension of her father, gazed at him mildly.

"I have a message for you, Mr. Perry," she said. "Mr. Brodie will not be in to-day and asks that you will attend to the business in his absence."

"Oh! Quite, Miss Brodie! I quite understand that your father would be at the Show to-day. In fact, I have made all arrangements to be here all day! I shall lunch here. I know well that the chief is extremely fond of such functions." Had Brodie heard himself referred to in such terms he would have annihilated his assistant with a single glance, but Perry had now recovered himself, was prepared to do himself justice, and privately considered his last florid remark rather good. "But even in the chief's absence the work will go on, Miss Brodie, and I hope go on well," he continued euphoniously. "You, personally, may rest assured I shall do my best, my very utmost to make things go smoothly." He was so earnest in his manner, his moist eye glistened so eloquently that, despite her apathy, Mary found herself thanking him, though for what reason she scarcely

knew.

Just then a customer came in, a shipwright who demanded a new cap and, though Mary would have gone at his entry, a languor of mind held her passive and relaxed, a lassitude of body bound her to the soothing comfort of the chair. She felt disinclined to begin her return home, and under her eye, although it followed his movements indifferently, Perry, seizing a delightful chance to exhibit his ability, served his client in his best style, accomplishing feats of extreme nimbleness and dexterity with boxes and the short step-ladder, and eventually with paper and string. When the purchaser had gone, he returned with a conscious air and, leaning across the counter, remarked confidentially, "Your father has a wonderful business here, Miss Brodie practically a monopoly.' rie was proud of that word too, and although it came out of a book on Economics he was wrestling with at nights, he gave the term the flavour of his own deep and

original deduction. "Not that if I might venture to suggest it it might not be increased by a few new ideas, a little novelty, perhaps, some new developments, even an extension of the business it could be done," he added insinuatingly.

She did not reply, which oppressed him with the feeling that somehow he did not seem to be holding her attention; the conversation appeared to him rather one-sided.

"I hope you are well?" he enquired, after a considerable pause.

"Quite well," she echoed mechanically.

"You look to me, if I may say so, somewhat thinner in the face."

She raised her eyes.

"You think I'm thinner."

"Decidedly!" He seized the opportunity to regard her impassive, shadowed face with an expression of respectful solicitude and, as he leaned upon the counter, supported his small chin in his long fingers and posed his figure generally with an air of studied admiration.

"In fact," he continued boldly, '"although as beautiful as ever, if you will permit me to say so, you look slightly indisposed. I am afraid the heat of the day is trying you. Could I get you a glass of water?"

Before she could refuse he had raised himself in a passion of service, was off like a shot, returned instantly with a brimming tumbler of sparkling water and had pressed the cold, clouded glass into her unresistant hand. "Drink it, Miss Mary," he insisted, "it will do you good." As she took a few sips so as not to hurt his feelings, a sudden anxious thought filled him with concern.

"I trust you have not been ill. You are so pale. Have you seen your physician?" he enquired in his best manner.

At his affected words, Mary stopped with the glass half raised to her lips as though a light had broken upon her with a sudden effulgence, showing her a pathway she must follow. She looked at Perry with the full force of her attention, then turned her gaze through the open doorway and beyond, whilst her mind filled with a sudden resolution that made her lips firm and straight.

For a moment she remained still, then, with a quick impulse, she got up and murmured, "I must go now, Mr. Perry. Thank you for your kindness"; and before he could collect himself, she moved quietly away and went out of the shop, leaving him gazing blankly at the tumbler, the vacant chair, the empty air. What a strange girl, he thought, to go like that when he was behaving so admirably to her; but then, to be sure, women were strange creatures, and on the whole he had, he considered, acquitted himself very creditably. Mr. Perry began to whistle.

When Mary walked into the street she turned, not to the right, which was the direction for home, but to the left which would take her, if she pursued the road to its termination, to the far, Knoxhill end of the Borough. Peter Perry's chance remark had given her the solution she had been blindly seeking and it was that which now impelled her in this contrary direction. She would go and see a

doctor. Doctors were wise, trustworthy, kind; they healed, advised, comforted, yet respected one's confidence. Immediately she thought of the only practitioner she knew, Doctor Lawrie who, although he had not been in her home once in ten years, was nominally the family doctor, and she now remembered vividly the last time he had spoken to her, when he had placed his hand upon her small head and

remarked with a pompous benignity, "Penny for a curl, young lady! Come along! Is it a bargain? You'll never miss it." She had been ten then, and while he had not secured the ringlet she had received the penny. Although she had not met him since, she saw him frequently, driving in his dogcart, everywhere and at every hour, always in a hurry and, in her eyes, maintaining always the look her childish mind had memorised, of one learned, august and apart. He lived at Knox-

hill, in a large residence, old, mottled by lichen, but still imposing, breasting the ascent halfway up the hill, and as she made her way resolutely along the street, she recollected having heard that his hour of consultation began at noon.

It was considerable distance to the doctor's house, and soon she was forced to case the impulsive rapidity of her pace, she who a few months ago could have run the whole way without once losing breath. As her steps flagged, her resolution faltered slightly, and she began to wonder how she would approach him. The thought of seeking his advice had dawned upon her so happily that the difficulties of achieving this object had not occurred to her; but now they obtruded themselves upon her notice painfully, obviously, and with every step became more insurmountable. Should she begin by consulting him about her health? He would, she realised, instantly marvel that she should have come alone, without the escort and protection of her mother. Such a thing was unheard of and she conceived that he might even refuse to see her in her unaccompanied state; if he consented to see her and she advanced, in her inexperience some insufficient reason for her visit, she felt certain that with a few searching questions he would riddle any flimsy tissue which she might fabricate and leave her helpless and ashamed. At this she reflected sadly that the only way would be to tell the truth absolutely and to throw herself upon his mercy. Suppose, then, he were to disclose the visit to her parents; did the purpose she sought to achieve justify such a frightful hazard? Her thoughts wandered on in a maze of unreasoning perplexity as she began to ascend the in-line of Knoxhill.

At length she reached the gate of the doctor's residence, where his big, brass plate, dented in its early, uneasy days by an occasional stone from some mischievous urchin, and now polished into a smooth, undecipherable, respected serenity, shone like the eye of an oracle, compelling thither the weary and the sick.

Outside the gate, as she stood for a moment quelling her misgivings and mustering her courage, she saw approaching in the distance an elderly man whom she recognised as an acquaintance of her father's, and realising with a sudden start that she could not risk going in whilst he was in sight, she turned her back upon him and walked slowly past the house. From out of the corner of her eye she observed the big, solid house with its severe Georgian porch, its windows swathed in mysterious saffron curtains; felt it, with a growing uneasiness, looming more largely upon her, felt her doubts rush back upon her with a greater and more disquieting force. It was a mistake to visit a doctor who knew her so well. Denis might not like her taking a step like this without first consulting him; another time would be more propitious for her visit; she was not ill, but well and as normal as ever; she was making herself the victim of her own imagination, obviously, unnecessarily, dangerously.

Now the street was clear and she perceived that she must enter at once or not at all; telling herself that she would go in first and face her difficulties afterwards, she had placed her hand upon the gate handle when she recollected that she had no money with her to pay the fee which, even if he did not demand it, she must at once discharge to avoid a complication leading to discovery. She withdrew her hand and was again beginning to resume her indecisive pacing upon

the pavement, when, abruptly, she saw a maid looking from behind the curtains of a front window. Actually the maid observed nothing, but to Mary's excited fancy the servant's eye appeared to be regarding her suspiciously, and in the accusation of this apparent scrutiny the last shreds of her resolution dissolved. She felt she could endure the suspense of her indecision no longer, and with a guilty countenance she moved off hastily down the street, as though detected in some atrocious action.

As she fled down the street, retracing the whole of the weary way she had come, the repression of her unrelieved desire almost stifled her. She felt herself a blunderer and a coward; her face burned with shame and confusion; she felt she must at all costs avoid the public gaze. To keep away from any one who might know her, and to return home as quickly as possible, she did not follow the High

Street but took instead the alternative route a narrow, shabby alley named College Street, but referred to always as the Vennel which branched off the circuitous sweep of the main thoroughfare and drove, under the railway, directly towards the Common. With lowered head she plunged into the murk of the Vennel as if to hide herself there and hurried along the mean, disreputable street with its ill-paved causeway and gutters filled with broken bottles, empty tins and the foul litter of a low quarter. Only the desire to rush from recognition drove her through this lane which, tacitly forbidden to her, she never entered; but even in her precipitate flight its misery laid a sordid hand upon her.

Women stared at her from open courts as they stood idle, slatternly, bare-armed, talking in groups; a mongrel dog chased her, barking, snapping at her heels; a cripple, dirty and deformed, taking his ease upon the pavement, shouted after her for alms, pursuing her with his voice whiningly, importunately, insultingly.

She hurried with a greater speed to escape from the depressing confines of the lane and had almost made her way through, when she discerned a large crowd of people bearing down upon her. For one tragic, transient instant she stood still, conceiving this to be a mob rushing to assault her. Immediately, however, the sound of a band fell upon her ears, and she observed that the host, surrounded by an attendant rabble of dirty children and racing, mangy curs, descending

upon her like a regiment marching to battle, was the local branch of the Salvation Army, newly formed in Levenford. In the rush of its youthful enthusiasm, its devoted members were utilising the holiday by parading the low quarters of the town even at this early hour of the day to combat and offset any vice or debauchery that might be liberated on the occasion of the Cattle Show.

Onwards they came, banners flying, dogs barking, cymbals crashing, the band blaring out the hymn : "Throw out the Life-line", whilst the soldiers of both sexes joined their voices loudly with harmonious fervour.

As they advanced she pressed herself against the wall, wishing the pavement to open beneath her feet and engulf her, and while they swept past, she shrank into herself as she felt the buffet and sway of the surging bodies coarsely against her own. Suddenly, as they rolled past, a female private of the army, flushed with righteousness and the joy of her new uniform, seeing Mary there so frightened and humiliated, dropped for a moment her piercing soprano and, thrusting her face close to Mary's, whispered in one hot, penetrating breath:

"Sister, are you a sinner? Then come and be saved; come and be washed in the Blood of the Lamb!"

Then, merging her whisper into the burden of the hymn, she sang loudly, "Some one is sinking to-day", swung again into the fervent strains and was gone, tramping victoriously down the street.

A sense of unutterable degradation possessed Mary as she supported herself against the wall, feeling with her sensitive nature that this last disgrace represented the crowning manifestation of an angry Providence. In the course of a few hours the sudden, chance direction of her thoughts into an obscure and foreign channel had altered the whole complexion of her life. She could not define the feeling which possessed her, she could not coherently express or even understand the dread which filled her, but as she stumbled off upon her way

home she felt, in a nausea of self-reproach, that she was unworthy to live.

VH

ON the Monday after the Cattle Show a considerable commotion occurred in the Brodie household. The ra-ta-tat of the postman on that morning was louder than usual and his mien fraught with a more important significance, as he handed to Mrs. Brodie a letter embellished by a row of strange stamps, a thin, flimsy oblong which crackled mysteriously between her agitated fingers. Mamma, with a

palpitating heart, looked at this letter which she had been anticipating for days. There was no need for her to consider who had sent it, for she recognised immediately the thin, "foreign" envelopes which she had herself solicitously chosen and carefully packed for Matt. She was alone and, in a transport of gratitude and expectation, she pressed the envelope to her lips, then close against her bosom, until, after a moment, as though she had by contact absorbed its hidden message directly into her heart, she withdrew it and turned it over in her red, work-wrinkled hands. Although she felt that the letter was exclusively hers she saw that it was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. James Brodic, and she dared not open it; she dared not run upstairs and cry joyfully to her husband,

"A letter from Matt!" Instead she took this first, precious, unsubstantial bulletin from abroad and placed it carefully upon her husband's plate. She waited. She waited submissively, yet with an eager, throbbing impatience, for the news from her son, returning from time to time into the kitchen from the scullery to reassure herself that the letter was still there, that this phenomenal missive, which had miraculously traversed three thousand leagues of strange seas and exotic lands to reach her safely, had not now suddenly vanished into the empty air.

At last, after what seemed to her an eternity, Brodie came down, still showing in his disposition, she observed thankfully, remnants of the previous day's pleasure. Immediately she brought him his porridge and, having placed this gently before him, stood expectantly a short distance off. Brodie took up the letter, weighed it silently on the palm of his huge hand, seemed to consider it dispassionately, weighed it ostentatiously again, then put it down unopened before him and commenced to eat his porridge. As he supped one spoonful after another, bent forward in a crouching attitude with both elbows upon the table, he kept his eyes fixed upon the envelope and maliciously affected not to see her.

Under the refinement of his malice she remained in the background, her hands pressed tightly together, her body tense with a fever of anticipation, until she could no longer endure the suspense.

"Open it, Father," she whispered.

He affected a violent, exaggerated start.

"Bless my soul, woman, you near scared the life out me. What are ye hangin' about there for? Oh! I see! I see! It's this bit o' a thing that's drawin' ye." He jerked his spoon towards the letter and lay back negligently in his chair, contemplating her. He was, he told himself in the full flush of his amiability, having a rare game with her. "Ye've the look o' a wasp ower the jam pot," he drawled. "The same kind o' sickly hunger about ye. I was thinkin' mysel' it looked pretty thin; pretty poor stuff, I've no doubt."

"It's the thin note paper I bought for him to save postage," Mamma pleaded. "Ye can get a dozen sheets o' it into the one envelope."

"There's not a dozen sheets here. No, I question if there's more nor two or three at the outside. I hope that doesna mean bad news," he said sadly, cocking one small, spiteful eye at her.

"Oh! Will ye not open it and put my mind at rest, Father?" she implored. "I'm fair eaten up with anxiety, ye must surely see."

He lifted his head arrestingly.

"There's plenty time plenty o' time," he drawled, spinning out the words. "If ye've waited ten weeks, another ten minutes’ll not burst ye. Away and bring me the rest o' my breakfast."

Sighing with uncertainty, she was obliged to drag herself away from the letter and go back to the scullery to dish up his bacon and eggs whilst she trembled continually in the fear that he might read the epistle and suddenly destroy it in her absence.

"That's the spirit," he cried broadly, as she hastily returned. "I ha vena seen ye run like that since the day ye ate the green grosets. 1 know how to make ye souple. I'll have ye dancin' in a minute."

But she did not reply; he had baited her into dumbness. Accordingly, when he had finished breakfast, he again picked up the letter.

"Well, I suppose we better see what is inside it," he drawled casually, taking as long as he could to slit the envelope and extract the largely written sheets. Silence reigned whilst he protracted his reading of the epistle intolerably, but all the time Mamma's anxious eyes never left his face, seeking there some expression which might transmit to her a verification of her hopes and a negation of her fears.

At length he threw it down, declaring:

"Nothing in it! A pack o' nonsense!"

The moment he relinquished them, Mrs. Brodie threw herself upon the sheets and, seizing them with longing, brought them close to her myopic eyes and drank the closely written lines thirstily. She observed at once from the superscription that the letter had been written on board the Irrawaddy and that it had been posted almost immediately the ship berthed.

"Dear Parents," she read, "I take up my pen to write you after a most fearful and unending attack of mal de mer, or more plainly, sea-sickness. This dreadful affliction settled upon me first in the Irish Sea, but in the Bay of Biscay I was so ill I wished to die, and would have prayed to be thrown to the fishes but for the thought of you at home. My cabin being close and unendurable, and my berth companion turning out to be a vulgar fellow addicted to a heavy indulgence in drink I at first attempted to remain on deck, but the waves were so gigantic and the sailors so uncharitable that I was forced to descend again to my hot, disagreeable quarters. In this confined space, as I lay in my bunk I was rattled about in a most awful and distressing manner, sometimes being lifted up to the ceiling and sticking there for a minute before falling heavily. When I had fallen back on my berth my stomach seemed to have remained above, for so much did I experience a feeling of emptiness and exhaustion that it seemed as if my middle was devoid of its contents. To make matters worse, I could in addition eat nothing, but vomited all the time, night as well as day. My cabin mate, as the term goes here, who occupied the lower bunk, used the most frightful language on the first night when I was sick and made me get up in my night-shirt in the cold heaving cabin to change places with him. The only thing which kept down and indeed which kept my poor body and soul together was a nourishing drink which one of the stewards kindly brought me. He called it stingo, and I must confess that I found it agreeable and that it was truly the means of saving my life for you. Altogether it was a frightful time, I can well assure you.

"Well, to continue, by the time we had passed Gibraltar, which is nothing but a bare one-sided rock, much bigger than our own Levcnford Rock but not so pretty, and were well into the Mediterranean, I managed to get my sea legs. The sea here was more blue than anything I have seen tell Nessie it was more blue even than her eyes and I was the more able to enjoy this and also the lovely colours of the sunsets as it was so mercifully calm. I could still hardly swallow a bite, but at Port Said we took in supplies of fruit and I was able to eat some fresh dates and some very delicious oranges, which were very sweet, and skinned easily like tangerines, but much larger.

I had also a fruit called a papaia which is juicy like a small melon but with a green skin and a pinkish colour of flesh. Very refreshing! I think they did me good ; in fact, I am sure they did me great good.

"I did not go ashore here as I had been warned that Port Said was a very wicked place and dangerous for Europeans unless armed. A gentleman on board here told me a long story about an adventure he had in a heathen temple and in other places there, but I will not repeat it from motives of modesty and also as I am not sure that he was speaking the truth. But it seems that there are astonishing things out here. In this connection tell Agnes I am true to her memory. I forgot to say that they come off to the ship in boats at Port Said and sell very good rahat-lakoum which is an excellent sweet, although you would never judge so from the name.

"We passed very slowly through the Suez Canal, a narrow ditch bounded on either side by miles of sandy desert with purple mountains in the distance. This canal is not much to look at and passes through some dull-looking sheets of water called the Bitter Lakes, but it is, they say, very important. Sometimes we saw men with white cloaks, mounted not on camels as you at home might have expected

but on fast horses on which they galloped away whenever they caught sight of the ship. I must tell you that I also saw palm trees for the first time just like the one in the church hall, only very much larger and thicker. In the Red Sea the heat was very great but after we had well passed Aden and some curious islands called the Twelve Apostles, when I was just hoping to have a nice time by joining the ladies in deck games, conversation, and music, the heat again suddenly became frightful. Mamma, those drill suits you got me are no use, they are so thick and heavy. The correct thing to do is to have them made in India by a native. They say they are very clever at it and have the right material, which is tussore silk and certainly not that drill you got me. Also while on this subject, please tell Mary that the glass piece of the flask she gave me smashed in the first storm, and Nessie's compass is points different from the one on the ship.

"Anyway, I went down with the heat, and although eating better ~-

I like the curries very much I lost pounds. I am sure I got very thin and this caused me much embarrassment which, together with my lack of energy, debarred me from joining in social life and I could only sit alone, thinking of my unused mandolin and looking unhappily at the ladies and at the sharks which followed the ship in great numbers.

"After the heat came the rain, what is referred to here as a monsoon a chota (small) monsoon, but it was wet enough for me just like a never-ending Scotch mist which drenched everything all day long. We went through the mist until we reached Ceylon, putting in at Colombo. This has a wonderful harbour. I could see miles and miles of calm water. Very comforting! We had had it rough in the

Indian Ocean. Some people went ashore to buy precious stones, moon-stones, opals, and turquoises, but I did not go as they say you are simply robbed and that the moonstones are full of flaws, that is cracks. Instead my friend the steward gave me a choice Colombo pineapple. Although it was large I was surprised to find that I could finish the whole of it. Very palatable! My bowels were a trifle loose on the following day and I thought I had dysentery but mercifully have been spared this, also malaria, so far. It must have been the pineapple.

"However, the worst thing of all was yet to come. In the Indian Ocean we had a typhoon, which is the worst kind of horrible storm you could ever imagine. It all began by the sky going quite purple, then dark yellow like brass. I thought it very pretty at first but suddenly all we passengers were ordered below and I took this rightly as a bad omen, for all at once the wind hit the ship like a blow. A man who was standing at his cabin had his hand caught by the sudden

slam of the door and his thumb was torn right off. A seaman had his leg broken also. It was terrible.

"I was not sick, but must now confess I was almost apprehensive. The sea came up, not like the waves in the Bay of Biscay, but with a fearful high swell like round hills. I was obliged soon to give over looking through the porthole. The ship groaned so much in her timbers I thought she would surely burst asunder. The rolling was most awful; and on two occasions we went over so far and remained there so long I feared we should never come back. But Providence was kind and finally we reached the delta of the Ganges, great banks of sand and very muddy water. We had a pilot to take us up from the mouth of the Hooghly and we went up the river so slowly that we took days. On the banks are a multitude of little patches of cultivation all irrigated by ditches. I have seen coconut palms, also bananas growing on the trees. The natives here are, of course, black

and seem to work in nothing but loin cloths, although some have turbans. They squat on their haunches as they work on their patches, but some also cast nets in the yellow river water and catch fish which are said to be good. The whites have sun helmets Father, your topee is the very thing.

"Now I must close. I have written this letter at intervals, and now we have docked. I am much impressed with the size of the place and the docks. The sky here seems full of house tops and minarets.

"I read a bit of my Bible every day. I am not indisposed. I think I shall do well here.

"With love to all at home, I remain,

"Your dutiful son,

"MATT."

Mamma drew in her breath ecstatically, as she wiped away the tears which seemed to have escaped from her over-flowing heart. Her heart swelled in a paran of joy and gratitude, singing within her,

"What a letter! What a son!" The news seemed too potent for her, alone, to contain, and a wild impulse seized her to run into the open street, to traverse the town, waving aloft the letter, crying out the brave chronicle of this epoch-making voyage.

Brodie read her mood distinctly, with a derisive penetrating eye.

"Call out the bellman," he said, "and shout the news through the Borough. Go on. Have it blurted out to everybody. Pah! wait till ye git, no' his first, but his twenty-first letter. He's done nothing yet but eat fruit and be namby-pamby."

Mamma's bosom heaved indignantly.

"The poor boy's had a dreadful time," she quivered. "Such sickness! Ye mustna begrudge him the fruit. He was aye fond o' it." Only this aspersion upon her son made her answer him back. He looked at her sardonically. "It seems ye made a fine mess of the outfit! My topee was the only fit article he had," he said, as he rose from the table.

"Ill take it up with that manager at Lennie's this very day," cried Mamma, in a choking voice. "He told me with his own lips that drill was being worn out there. The idea of such deceit! It might have sent my son to his death o' sunstroke."

"Trust you to make a mess o' anything, auld wife," he launched at her pleasantly, as a parting shot. But now his arrows did not penetrate or wound; they did not reach her as she stood in that far-off land, where tall palms waved majestic fronds against an opal sky, and soft bells pealed from temples in the scented dusk.

At last she started from her reverie.

"Mary!" she called out to the scullery, "here's Matt's letter! Read it and take it to Grandma when you've finished with it" adding presently in an absent voice, "then bring it back to me." Immediately she returned to her sweet meditation, considering that in the afternoon she would send the precious missive to Agnes Moir. Mary should take it down, together with a jar of homemade jam and a cake. Agnes might have had a letter herself, although that, Mrs. Brodie complacently reflected, was doubtful; but at any rate she would be overjoyed to hear, in any manner, of the heroic tidings of his journey and the splendid news of his arrival. To send down the letter at once was also, Mamma was well aware, the correct thing to do, and the added libations of cake and jam would embellish the titbit delightfully for Agnes, a good, worthy girl of whom she consistently approved.

When Mary returned, Mamma demanded, "What did Matt's grandma say about his letter?"

"Something about wishing she could have tasted that pineapple," remarked Mary indifferently.

Mamma bridled as she carefully took the sacred letter from her daughter. "The like of that," she said, "and the poor boy nearly drowned and consumed by sharks. You might show a little raaore interest yourself with your brother in such danger. Ye've been trailing about like a dead thing all morning. Now, are ye listening to me? I want you to run over to Agnes with it this afternoon. And you're to take a parcel over to her as well."

"Very well," said Mary. "When am I to be back?"

"Stay and have a chat with Agnes if you like. And if she asks you to wait for tea, I'll allow you to do so. You can come to no harm in the company of a Christian girl like that."

Mary said nothing, but her lifeless manner quickened. A frantic plan, which had hung indefinitely in her mind during the previous sleepless night, began already to take substantial form under this unexpected offering of chance.

She had resolved to go to Darroch. To venture there alone would be for her, at any time, a difficult and hazardous proceeding, fraught with grave possibilities of discovery and disaster. But if she were to undertake such an unheard-of excursion at all, the timely message of Mamma's was clearly her opportunity. She knew that a train left Levenford for Darroch at two o'clock, covering the four miles between the two towns in fifteen minutes, and that the same train made the return journey, leaving Darroch at four o'clock. If, incredibly, she ventured upon the expedition, she saw that she would have more than one hour and a half to accomplish her purpose, and this she deemed to be adequate. The sole question which concerned her was her ability to deliver her message successfully before two o'clock, and, more vitally, whether she could disentangle herself from the embarrassing and effusive hospitality of Agnes in time for her train.

With the object of speed in her mind she worked hard all morning and had finished her household duties before one o'clock when, snatching a few mouthf uls of food, she hurried upstairs to change.

But, as she reached her room at the head of the stairs, a remarkable sensation overtook her. She felt suddenly light, ethereal, and giddy; before her startled eyes the floor of her bedroom moved gently upwards and downwards, with a slow seesawing instability; the walls, too, tottered in upon her like the falling sides of a house of cards; across her vision a parabola of lights danced, followed instantly by darkness. Her legs doubled under her and she sank silently down upon the floor in a faint. For a long time she lay recumbent upon her back, unconscious. Then gradually her prone position restored her feeble circulation, tiny currents of blood seemed to course again under the dead pallor of her skin, and with a sigh she opened her eyes, which fell immediately upon the hands of the clock that indicated the time to be half -past one. Agitatedly she raised herself upon her elbow, and, after several fruitless attempts, at last forced herself to stand upright again. She felt unsteady and languid, but her head was light and clear, and with soft, limp fingers, that felt to her useless for the purpose, she compelled herself to dress hastily. Then hurriedly she went downstairs.

Mamma met her with the letter and the package and a host of messages, greetings and injunctions for Agnes. So engrossed was she in her benevolent generosity that she failed to notice her daughter's distress.

"And don't forget to tell her it's the new season's jam," she called out, as Mary went out of the gate, "and that the cake has two eggs in it," she added. "And don't leave the letter. Say I want it back!" she shouted, finally.

Mary had twenty minutes to get to the station, which was enough time and no more. The heavy parcel, containing two pounds of cake and two pounds of jam, dragged upon her arm; in her weak state the thought of the rich cake sickened her and the sweet jam smeared itself cloyingly over her imagination. She had no time to deliver it to Agnes and manifestly it was impossible for her to carry it about all afternoon. Already in her purpose she stood committed to a desperate act and now an incitement to further rashness goaded her. Something urged her to dispose of Mamma's sumptuous present, to drop it silently in the gutter or cast it from her into an adjacent garden. Its weight oppressed her and her recoil from the contemplation of its contents thrust her into sudden recklessness. Beside the pathway stood a small boy, ragged, barefooted and dirty, who chalked lines disconsolately upon a brick wall. As she passed, with one sudden, unregenerate impulse, Mary thrust the bundle upon the astounded urchin. She felt her lips move, heard herself saying,

"Take it! Quick! Something to eat!"

The small boy looked up at her with astonished, distrustful eyes which indicated, more clearly than articulate speech, his profound suspicion of all strangers who might present him with heavy packages under the pretext of philanthropy. With one eye still mistrustfully upon her, he tore open the paper cover to ensure he was not being deceived, when, the richness of the contents having been thus revealed to his startled eyes, he tucked the parcel under his arm, exploded into activity before this peculiar lady might regain her sanity, and vanished like a puff of smoke down the street.

Mary felt shocked at her own temerity. A sudden pang struck her as to how she would conceal from Mamma her inexcusable action, or, failing this, how she might ever explain away the dissipation into thin air of the fruits of her mother's honest labour. Vainly she tried to obtain comfort by telling herself she would deliver the letter to Agnes when she returned after four, but her face was perturbed as she hastened onwards to the station.

In the train for Darroch she made a powerful effort to concentrate her fatigued attention upon the conduct of her scheme, tracing mentally in advance the steps she would take; she was determined that there should be no repetition of the weakness and indecision of the day before. Darroch she knew sufficiently well, having visited it several times before it had become vested for her with a halo of glamour and romance as the place in which Denis lived. Since she had known that he resided there, the drab town, consisting in the main of chemical and dye works, the effluent of which frequently polluted the clear Leven in its lower reaches, had undergone a manifest and magical metamorphosis. The ill-cobbled, narrow streets assumed a wider aspect because Denis moved along them, and the

smoke-splashed buildings became more splendid because amongst them he had his being.

As she drew slowly nearer to this enchanted place Mary, in spite of her crushing anxiety, felt actually a breathless anticipation. Although it was not her intention to see Denis, she could not suppress a throb of excitement as drawing near to him in his own environment.

When the train steamed into Darroch station she quickly left her compartment, surrendered her ticket, and was amongst the first of the small handful of passengers to leave the platform. Walking without hesitation, and as rapidly as her strength permitted, she passed along the main street, inclined sharply to the left, and entered a quieter residential locality. None of the persons she encountered knew her; her appearance caused neither stir nor interest. Darroch, though lacking the county atmosphere, was as large a township as Levenford; was, indeed, the only other large town within a radius of twelve miles, and it was easy for Mary to slip unnoticed through the busy streets and to submerge her identity beneath that of the crowd which thronged them. It was for these very reasons that she had chosen Darroch for her present purpose.

When she had proceeded halfway along the secondary street she observed, to her relief, that her memory had served her correctly, and, confronted by a crescent of terrace houses, she advanced resolutely to the end house and at once rang the bell loudly. A diminutive maid in a blue cotton overall opened the door.

"Is the doctor at home?" asked Mary.

"Will you please to come in," replied the small domestic, with the indifferent air of one who is tired of repeating the formula endlessly.

Mary was shown into the waiting room. It was a poor room with dull walls and a thin, worn carpet upon the floor, furnished by an array of chairs in varying degrees of decrepitude and a large oak table bearing several tattered, dog-eared, out-of-date periodicals and a pink china pot containing a languishing aspidistra.

"What is the name?" apathetically inquired the slave of the door.

"Miss Winifred Brown," replied Mary distinctly.

Clearly she was, she now saw, a liar! Whilst she should have been in Levenford, sitting in amiable conference with her brother's legitimately engaged fiancee, here she was, having cast her mother's parcel from her, four miles away, giving a false name and waiting in the house of a strange doctor, whose name and domicile she had recollected only by fortunate chance. The faint colour which had entered her face as she enunciated the fictitious name now violently flushed it at these thoughts, and it was with difficulty that she essayed to thrust the feeling of guilt from her as she was ushered into the consulting room.

The doctor was a middle-aged man, bald, untidy, disillusioned, and the possessor of an indifferent, cheap practice. It was not his usual consulting hour, which caused him a justifiable annoyance, but his economic position was such as to compel him to see patients at any hour. He was a bachelor and his housekeeper had just served him up a midday meal of fat boiled beef with suet puddings, which he had eaten hurriedly, and, as a result, the chronic indigestion, due to

badly cooked food, irregular hours and septic teeth, to which he was a martyr, was beginning to gnaw at him painfully. He looked surprisedly at Mary.

"Is it a call?" he enquired.

"No! I have come to consult you," she replied, in a voice which seemed far away and unrecognisable as her own.

"Be seated then," he said abruptly. Immediately he sensed the unusual and his irritation deepened. He had long ceased to derive interest from the clinical aspect of his cases, and any deviation from the humdrum routine of ordinary practice associated with the rapid issuing of bottles, containing dilute solutions of cheap drugs and colouring agents, always dismayed him; he was, in addition, anxious to get back to his couch and lie down; a spasm of pain gripped his middle as he remembered that his evening surgery would be heavy this night.

"What is it?" he continued shortly.

Haltingly she began to tell him, blushed, faltered, went on again, speaking in a daze. How she expressed herself she did not know, but apparently his aroused suspicions were confirmed.

"We must examine you," he told her coldly. "Will it be now, or shall you return with your mother?" Hardly understanding what he meant, she did not know how to reply. His impersonal manner discouraged her, his callous air chilled her, and his general slovenly appearance, with ragged, untrimmed moustache, uncared-for finger nails, and grease spots on his waistcoat, affected her equally with a sense of strong antipathy. She told herself, however, that she must go through with her ordeal, and in a low voice she said, "I cannot come back again, Doctor."

"Take your things off, then, and prepare yourself," he told her bluntly, indicating the couch as he went out of the room.

In her awkward timidity she had barely time to loosen her clothing and lie down upon the shabby, torn settee before he returned. Then with eyes shut and clenched teeth she submitted herself to his laboured and inexpert examination. It was agony for her, mentally and physically. She shrank in her fastidious mind from his coarse and uncouth presence and the touch of his unskilful fingers made her wince with pain. At last it was over and, with a few short words, he

again left the room.

Inside the space of five minutes she was back again in her chair, dressed, and gazing dumbly at him as he lumbered back to his desk.

The doctor was for once slightly at a loss. He had met this calamity frequently in women of a different class, but he was, despite his obtuse, case-hardened intellect, aware that this girl, who was nothing more than a frightened child, was uninstructed and innocent. He felt that her unconscious defloration had undoubtedly coincided with her conception. He realised why she had so self-consciously given him an assumed name and in his dry, empty heart a vague pity stirred. At first, with all the anxiety of the unsuccessful practitioner jealous of his meagre reputation, he had suspected that she desired him to apply some means of terminating her condition, but now he realised fully the extent of her sublime ignorance. He moved uncomfortably in his chair, not knowing how to begin.

"You are not married?' he said at length, in a flat voice.

She shook her head with swimming, terrified eyes.

"Then I advise you to get married. You are going to have a baby."

At first she hardly understood. Then her lips contorted with a quivering spasm, her eyes overflowed and tears ran soundlessly down her face. She felt paralysed, as though his words had bludgeoned her. He was talking to her, trying to tell her what she must do, what she must expect, but she scarcely heard him. He receded from her; her surroundings vanished; she was plunged into a grey mist of utter and incomparable dejection, alone with the obsessing horror of certain and inevitable calamity. From time to time fragments of his meaning came to her, like haggard shafts of daylight glancing suddenly through the swirling wreaths of fog which encircled her.

"Try not to worry," she heard him say; then again through the enveloping pall came the words, "You are young; your life is not wasted."

What did he know or care? His well-meant platitudes left her untouched and cold. Instinctively she realised that to him she represented merely a transient and unwelcome incident in his monotonous day, and, as she rose and asked to know his charge, she detected instantly in his eye a half -veiled flicker of relief. Her intuition had not deceived her, for, having taken his fee and shown her to the door, he fled immediately to his bismuth bottle, took a large dose, settled himself down, with a sigh of relief, to rest and straight away completely forgot her.

As she passed out of the house into the street it was just three o'clock. She had an hour to wait for her train if ever she would take it. In a lorture of mind she walked down the street whispering to herself, "God! Oh God! Why have You done this to me? I've never done You any harm. Stop this from happening. Stop it!" A blind unreason possessed her as to why and how her body had been singled out by the Almighty for this obscene experiment. It struck her as a supremely unjust manifestation of the Divine omnipotence. Strangely, she did not blame Denis; she felt herself simply the victim of some tremendous, incomprehensible fraud.

No! She did not blame Denis; she felt, instead, that she must fly to him. Caution was now abandoned to the winds in the extremity of her anguish and, with a strained face, she walked along Main Street, at the far end of which stood the Lomond Wine and Spirit Vaults Owen Foyle, proprietor. Around the corner was a wide, double gate leading into a yard, from which an open, winding stair ascended to the Foyle house.

She crept up this stairway and knocked faintly at the door. From inside came the tinkle of a piano. The tinkle continued, but no one came in answer; then she heard a voice cry, "Rosie, me chick, is that somebody at the door ? See if anybody's there." Some one replied, in childish tones, "I'm at my scales, Mother; you go, or wait and let them knock again." And the sound of the piano was resumed with redoubled energy and a loudness expressive of intense application.

After a moment's irresolute pause Mary was about to knock upon the door more loudly, when suddenly, as she advanced her hand, a sharp whistle shrilled from outside the yard and drew gradually nearer to her.

She turned and, at the same moment, Denis appeared at the foot of the stairs, his head tilted back enquiringly, his eyes widening with surprise as he perceived her. Observing immediately that Mary was in acute distress, he ran up the steps.

"Mary!" he exclaimed hurriedly, "what is it?"

She could not reply, could not utter his name.

"What is the matter, dearest Mary?" murmured Denis, coming close to her, taking her cold hand and smoothing it gently in his. "Is it your father?"

She shook her head without gazing at him, knowing that if she did so, she must break down abjectly.

"Come away," she whispered. "Come away before anyone comes."

Oppressed, he followed her slowly down the steps.

In the street, he asked fiercely, "Have they been bad to you at home? Tell me quickly what the trouble is, dear? If anybody has touched you, I'll kill him."

There was a pause, then she said slowly, indistinctly, painfully, dropping each word from her lips like a leaden weight:

"I am going to have a baby."

His face whitened as if he had received a frightful wound and became gradually more pale, as though his strength and vigour flowed out from him. He dropped her hand and looked at her with dilated, starting eyes.

"Are you sure?" he jerked out at last.

"I'm sure."

"How do you know?"

"Something seemed wrong with me. I went to a doctor. He told me."

"A a doctor ? It's certain, then ?"

"Certain," she echoed dully.

It was irrevocable, then. With one sentence she had thrust upon his shoulders a load of misery and responsibility, which turned him from a gay, whistling boy into a mature and harassed man. Their love-making had been a trap, the playful dalliance and the secret meetings of the past merely snares to lure and entangle him in this draggled predicament. The pleasant, sanguine expectations of marrying her, all the alluring preparations which he had contemplated, now felt like chains binding and drawing him towards an obligation he must inevitably fulfil. A heavy sigh burst from him. In the masculine society in which he moved nothing was considered more derogatory to the male, or more ridiculous, than to be victimised into a marriage of necessity. His prestige would be lost, he would

be lampooned at the street corners, his name would become an obloquy. He felt the position so intolerably for himself that he was moved by a desire to escape and in a flash he thought of Canada, Australia, America. He had often thought of emigrating and the prospects that existed in these new countries for an unattached young man never appealed to him more entrancingly than at this moment. Another thought struck him.

"When did the doctor say that you would " he paused, unable to complete the sentence. Nevertheless she was now able to understand his meaning.

"He said February," she replied, with an averted face.

Only five more months and he would be the father of her child! That exquisite night they had spent together by the Leven was to produce a child, a child that would be nameless unless he married her immediately. The pressing necessity for marriage again obtruded itself distastefully upon him. He did not know how long she might remain undiscovered before the condition of her pregnancy became obvious. Although he had at times heard stories bandied amongst his companions of how peasant girls working on the land had remained in this state of pregnancy, undetected until the actual birth occurred, he doubted if Mary had the strength or fortitude to continue the concealment for any length of time. And yet she must do so. He was not in a position to provide a home for her immediately. She must wait. There was, of course, nothing visible yet. He looked at her closely, and as he observed her pendent figure, weighted with an infinitely heavier despondency than his, for the first time he began to think of her rather than himself.

Now that she had told him she waited helplessly, as if, attending in submission for him to direct her movements, her attitude invoked him dumbly as to what she should do. With a powerful effort he pulled himself together; yet, as he spoke, his words sounded harsh and unconvincing in his ears.

"This is a bit of a mess we're in, Mary, but we'll straighten it out all right. We must go and talk it over."

"Have I got to go back home to Levenford?" she asked in a low tone.

He pondered a minute before replying. "I'm afraid it's best for you to do that. Did you come in by train?"

"Yes, and if I'm going back, I must leave here at four," He took out his watch, which indicated half-past three. Although they had exchanged only a few sentences they had been standing there, in the street, for half an hour.

"You can't wait till the next," he agreed. "It's too late."

An idea struck him. The waiting room at the station was usually empty at this time; they could go there until her train departed. He took her arm and drew it into his. At this, the first sign of tenderness he had manifested towards her since she had told him the dreadful news, she looked at him piteously and her drawn features were transcended by a pale smile.

“I’ve only got you, Denis," she whispered, as they moved off together. At the station, however, the waiting room was unfortunately full; an old woman, some farm servants and two dye workers from the print works sat staring at each other and at the plain board walls.

It was impossible to talk there, so Denis took Mary to the far end of the platform, where, as the short walk had given him time to collect himself and the soft feel of her arm reminded him of her charm and beauty, of the delightful attractions of her fresh body, he mustered a smile.

"It's not so bad, Mary, after all, so long as we stick together."

"If you left me now, Denis, I should drown myself in the Leven. I'd kill myself somehow."

As her eyes met his, he could see that she meant absolutely every grim word she uttered, and he pressed her arm again, tenderly. How could he, even for an instant, have considered leaving this lovely, defenceless creature who, but for him, would still have been a virgin and who now, because of him, was soon to be a mother. And how passionately attached to him she was! It thrilled him with a fierce joy to see her complete dependence upon him and her submission to his

will. His spirit was recovering from the cutting injury which it had received and he began to think coherently, as his normal self.

"You'll leave everything to me!" he said.

"Everything," she echoed.

"Then you must go home, dear, and try to behave as if nothing had happened. I know how difficult it will be but you must give me as long as possible to make our arrangements."

"When can we be married?" It cost her a powerful effort to utter the words, but in her new-found knowledge she felt dimly that her body would remain unchaste until she knew when he would marry her.

He reflected.

"I have a big business trip towards the end of the year it means a lot. Could you wait until after then?" he asked doubtfully. "I could fix up everything by then and we could be married and go straight into a little cottage somewhere not in Darroch or Levenford but perhaps in Garshake."

His idea of a cottage in Garshake cheered them both and each immediately visioned the quiet, old village that clustered so snugly around an arm of the estuary.

"I could wait for that," Mary replied wistfully, viewing in her mind's eye one of the small, whitewashed cottages of which the village was composed one smothered in red rambler roses, with a doorway festooned by creeping nasturtiums in which her baby would mysteriously come into her arms. She looked at Denis and

almost smiled.

"I'll not fail you, dear," he was saying. "If you will be brave and hold out as long as ever you can."

The train was now in the station, and the old woman, the farm servants and the two workmen were scrambling to their places. She had time only to take a hurried farewell of him as he helped her into a seat, but, as the train began to move, he ran along beside her until the last moment, holding her hand, and before he was forced to let go, she called to him, courageously:

"I'm remembering your motto, Denis, dear!" He smiled and waved his cap bravely, encouragingly, in reply, until the train circled the bend and they were torn from each other's sight.

She was certainly valiant, and now that she knew the worst she was prepared to exercise all her hardihood to achieve her only hope of happiness. Seeing Denis had saved her. He was, and would be, her salvation, and strengthened by the thought that he shared her secret, she now felt fortified to endure anything until he would take her away with him for good. She shuddered at the recollection of her visit to the doctor but firmly she blotted out from her mind the odious experiences of the last two hours. She would be brave for Denis!

Back again in Levenford she hastened to deliver the letter to Agnes Moir and discovered to her relief that Agnes had gone upstairs for tea. She therefore left the letter for her at the shop with all Mrs. Brodie’s messages of attachment and affection and escaped, mercifully, without questioning.

As she took the way home she reflected that her mother was sure to discover at a later date her defection in the matter of the parcel, but, involved in a deeper and more serious trouble, she did not care. Let Mamma scold, weep, or bewail, she felt that she had only a few months more until she would be out of a house which she now detested.

Every sense within her turned towards the suggestion Denis had tentatively advanced and in her imagination she consolidated it into actuality; thrusting the thought of her present condition from her, she concentrated her sanguine hopes eagerly upon the cottage she would share with him in Garshake.

VIII

BRODIE sat in his office reading the Levenford Advertiser, with the door slightly open so that he could, at infrequent intervals, raise a vigilant eye towards the shop without interfering with the comfortable perusal of his paper. Perry was ill, confined to bed, as his agitated mother had announced to Brodie that morning, with a severe boil which partially prevented his walking and debarred him entirely from sitting down. Brodie had muttered disagreeably that he required his assistant to stand up, not to sit down, but on being assured

that the sufferer would certainly be relieved through constant poulticing and be fit for duty in the morning, he had consented with a bad grace to allow him the day off. Now, enthroned on his chair at the top of the steps leading to his sanctum, Brodie devoted an almost exclusive attention to the report of the Cattle Show. He was glad that business was quiet this morning and that he was not constrained to lower himself to the menial work of the shop, which he detested and which was now entirely Perry's obligation. A few moments ago he had been obliged to leave his seat to serve a labouring man who had rolled uncouthly in, and, in his indignation, he had hustled the man out with the first hat he could lay hands on. What did he care, he asked himself, whether or not the thing suited ? He couldn't be bothered over these infernal trifles; a thing like that was Perry's job; he wanted to read his paper in peace, like any other gentleman.

With an outraged air he had come back and began again at the opening lines of the report.

"The Levenford and District Annual Cattle Show," he read, "took place on Saturday the 21 st inst. and was attended by a large and distinguished gathering." He perused the whole report slowly, carefully, sedulously, until at the finish of the article he came upon the paragraph beginning: "Amongst those present." His eye glimmered anxiously then flared into triumph, as he saw that his name was there! Amongst the distinguished names of the borough and county, towards the end of the list, no doubt, but not absolutely at the end, stood the name of James Brodie. He banged his fist triumphantly upon his desk. By Gad! That would show them! Every one read the Levenford Advertiser which was published once a week, on Friday and every one would see his name flourishing there, near to no less a personage than the Lord Lieutenant of the County. Brodie glowed with vanity. He liked the look of himself in print. The capital "J" of the James had a peculiar, arresting curl and as for his surname nay, his family name spelt in the correct manner, not with a "y" but with the terminal "ie", he was prouder of this than of all his other possessions together. He cocked his head to one side, never removing his eyes from this arresting name of his. Actually he had read through the wordy report, tantalising in its verbosity, simply to find himself living in the public eye through the medium of these two printed words. He gloated over them.

James Brodie! His lips unconsciously formed the words as he rolled them silently over upon his tongue. "You're a proud man, Brodie," he whispered to himself. "Eh! You're proud; and by God! you have reason to be." His eyes blurred with the intensity of his feeling and the entire list of dazzling personages, with their titles, honours and distinctions, fell out of focus into one solitary name which seemed indelibly to have stamped its image upon his retina. James Brodie!

Nothing seemed to surpass these simple yet suggestive words.

A slight deviation of the current of his ideas caused his nostrils to dilate with resentment at the thought of having been called upon to lower himself in his own eyes, by serving a common workman diis very morning. That had been well enough twenty years ago when he was a struggling man forced into business by necessities over which he had no control. But now he had his hired servant to

do this work for him. He felt the encounter of this morning a slur upon his name and a choleric indignation swelled within him at the unfortunate Perry for having failed him.

"Ill boil him," he cried, "the pimply little snipe." He had never been meant for business, that he had always known, but, as he had been compelled to adopt it, he had transmuted its substance into something more appropriate to his name and bearing. He had never considered himself a man of commerce but had, from the first, adopted the part of the impoverished gentleman obliged to live by an unfitting and unbecoming occupation. Yet his very personality had, he felt, strangely dignified that occupation into something worthy of him. It had ceased to be paltry and had become unique. From the outset he had never run after people; they had, indeed, been obliged to whistle to his tune and to meet him in all his foibles and vagaries.

In his early days he had once thrown a man out of his shop for an impolite word; he had startled the town into recognising him; he did not curry favour but stood bluntly as if to say, "Take me as I am or leave me"; and his anomalous policy had been singularly successful. He had achieved a reputation for rude honesty and downright dealing; the more arbitrary of his maxims were repeated like epigrams in the gossip of the town; amongst the gentry he had been recognised in the local term as a "character", and his original individuality had acquired for him their patronage. Yet, the more his personality had unfolded, the more he had disdained the vehicle of its expansion.

He felt himself now a personage, superior to the claims of trade. A vast satisfaction possessed him that he should have attained eminence, despite the unworthy nature of his profession. His vast pride could not differentiate between the notoriety he had achieved and the more notable distinction which he desired. He was spurred on-ward by his success. He wished to make his name resound. "I'll show them," he muttered arrogantly. "I'll show them what I can do."

At that moment some one came into the shop. Brodie looked up in irritation, his lordly glance daring the intruder to demand attention from the compeer of the county's nobility; but curiously, he was not asked to descend. A young man leapt lightly over the counter, mounted the steps and came into the office, shutting the door behind him. It was Denis Foyle.

Three days ago, when Denis had seen the train take Mary away from him, an avalanche of remorse had fallen upon him and had immediately swept over and engulfed him. He considered that he had acted towards Mary with a cold and cowardly selfishness. The sudden blow to his self-esteem had taken him so completely unawares, that he had, for the moment, forgotten how much he really cared for her. But he did love her; indeed, he realised more maturely, and in her absence, that he craved for her. The burden of her condition lent her, in his more complete consideration, a pathetic appeal which he had previously resisted. If his situation was unpleasant, hers was unbearable, and he had offered nothing in alleviation but a few weak and mawkish condolences. He had writhed inwardly to contemplate what she must now think of his abject and unresourceful timidity, and the realisation that he had no certain access to her to tell her all that he now experienced, to express his contrition and adoration with the utmost fervency, filled him with despair.

For two days he endured these steadily growing feelings, when, suddenly, a definite and extraordinary line of action presented itself to him. He thought it bold, strong and daring. In reality it was the reflex of the battery of self-reproaches upon his taut nerves, and although it was merely rash, presumptuous, and foolish, it represented an outlet for his constrained feelings and he saw in it the opportunity to vindicate himself in his own and in Mary's eyes.

Essentially, it was this urge to justify himself which now moved him, as he stood before Brodie, saying:

"I came in like this, Mr. Brodie, because I thought you mightn't agree to see me otherwise. I’m Denis Foyle of Darroch."

Brodie was astounded at the unexpectedness of this entry and at the audacity it betokened, but he made no sign. Instead he settled himself more deeply in his chair; his head seemed to sink right into the magnitude of his shoulders, like a rock sunk on the summit of a hill. "Son of the pub keeper?" he sneered.

"Exactly," replied Denis politely.

"Well, Mister Denis Foyle" he emphasised the mister ironically "what do you want here?" He began to hope to goad Foyle into an assault, so that he might have the pleasure of thrashing him.

Denis looked straight at Brodie and, disregarding the other's manner, proceeded according to his plan.

"You may be surprised at my visit, but I felt I must come to you, Mr. Brodie. I have not seen your daughter, Miss Mary Brodie, for over three months. She has consistently avoided me. I wish to tell you frankly that I have an attachment for your daughter and have come to ask your permission to allow me to see her."

Brodie gazed upwards at the young man with a heavy masklike face which showed nothing of the tide of rising amazed anger he felt at the other's demand. After a moment's lowering stare at Foyle he said, slowly, "I am glad to hear from your own lips I have been obeyed! My daughter has refused to see you because I forbade her to look at ye! Do you hear me? I forbade her, and now that I've seen

what ye are I still forbid her."

"Why, Mr. Brodie, may I ask?"

"Must I explain my actions to you? The fact that I order it is enough for my daughter. I do not explain to her; I command."

"Mr. Brodie, I should be glad to know your objection to me. I should do my best to meet you in any way you desired." With all his power Foyle tried to propitiate the other. "I'm very anxious to please you! Let me know what to do and I'll do it."

Brodie leered at him:

"I want ve to take your smooth face out o’ my office and never show it in Levenford again; and the quicker ye do't the better yell please me."

With a deprecating smile Foyle replied:

"Then it's only my face you object to, Mr. Brodie." He felt he must win the other around somehow!

Brodie was beginning to become enraged; the fact that he could not beat down this young sprig's eyes, nor yet provoke him to temper, annoyed him. With an effort he controlled himself and said sneeringly:

"I'm not in the habit of exchanging confidences with your kind, but as I have a moment to spare, I will tell you what I object to. Mary Brodie is a lady; she has blood in her veins of which a duchess might be proud, and she is my daughter. You are a low-down Irish scum, a nothing out of nothing. Your father sells cheap drink and I've no doubt your forbears ate potato peelings out o' the pot." Denis still met his eyes unflinchingly, although the insults quivered inside him.

Desperately he forced himself to be calm. "The fact that I am Irish surely does not condemn me," he replied in a level voice. "I don't drink not a drop. In fact, I'm in a totally different line of business, one which I feel will one day bring a great return."

"I've heard about your business, my pretty tatie-picker. Long trips over the countryside, then back to loaf about for days. I know your kind. If ye think that you can make money by hawkin' tea around Scotland then you're stupid, and if ye think ye can make up for your rotten family by takin' up a trashy job like that, then you're mad."

"I wish you would let me explain to you, Mr. Brodie."

Brodie contemplated him savagely.

"Explain to me! You talk like that to me, you damned commercial traveller. Do you know who you're speakin' to? Look!" he roared, flourishing the paper and thrusting it in front of the other. "See this, if you can read! These are the people I associate with " He inflated his chest and shouted, "I would as soon think of letting my daughter consort with you as I would let her mix with swine."

With a considerable effort Foyle controlled his temper.

"Mr. Brodie," he pleaded. "I wish you would listen to me. Surely you must admit that a man is what he makes himself that he himself controls his own destiny, irrespective of what his parents may be. I am not ashamed of my ancestry, but if that it what you object to, surely it does not damn me."

Brodie looked at the other frowningly.

"Ye dare to talk that damned new-fangled socialism to me!" he roared angrily. "One man is as good as another, I suppose! What are we comin' to next. You fool! I'll have none of ye. Get out!"

Denis did not move. He saw clearly that this man was not amenable to reason; that he might batter his head against a stone wall with more avail; he saw that, with such a father, Mary's life must be a procession of terrifying catastrophes. But, because of her, he determined to maintain his control, and, quite quietly, he said, "I am sorry for you, Mr. Brodie. You belong to an age that is passing; you do not understand progress. And you don't understand what it is to make friends; you must only make enemies. It is not I who am mad!"

Brodie got up, lowering, his rage like that of an angry bull. "Will you get out, you young swine?" he said thickly, "or will I smash you?" He advanced towards the other heavily. In a second Denis could have been out of the office, but a hidden antagonism had been aroused in him by Brodie's insults and, although he knew he ought to go for Mary's sake, nevertheless he remained. Confident that he

could take care of himself, he was not afraid of the other's lumbering strength and he realised, too, that if he went now, Brodie would think lie had driven him out like a beaten dog. In a voice suffused by resentment he exclaimed:

"Don't touch me! I've suffered your insults, but don't go any further!"

At these words Brodie's anger swelled within him until it almost choked him.

"Will I not, though," he cried, his breath coming in quick noisy gusts. "I've got ye like a rat in a trap and I'll smash ye like a rat."

With a heavy ferocious stealth he advanced slowly towards the other, carefully manoeuvred his towering bulk near to him; then, when he was within a yard of Denis, so near that he knew it was impossible for him to escape, his lips drew back balef ully upon his gums, and suddenly he raised his mammoth fist and hurled it with crushing force full at young Foyle's head. A sharp, hard, brittle crack split the air. There had been no head for him to hit; quicker than a lightning flash, Foyle had slipped to one side and Brodie's hand struck the

stone wall with all the power of a sledge hammer. His right arm dropped inertly to his side; his wrist was broken. Denis, looking at him with his hand on the door knob, said quietly:

"I'm sorry, Mr. Brodie. You see that after all there are some things you do not understand. I warned you not to try anything like that."

Then he was gone, and not a moment too soon. The heavy, mahogany, revolving chair, thrown across the room by Brodie's left arm like a shot from a catapult, crashed against the light door and shivered the glass and framework to atoms.

Brodie stood, with heaving nostrils and dangling arm, staring stupidly at the wreckage. He felt conscious of no pain in his injured arm, only an inability to move it, but his swelling breast was like to burst with defeated fury. The fact that this young pup above every one had bearded him, and gotten away with it, made him writhe with wounded pride; the physical hurt was nothing, but the damage to his pride was deadly.

The fingers of his left hand clenched convulsively. Another minute, he was certain, he would have cornered and broken him. But to have been outdone without so much as a blow having been struck against him! Only a faint remnant of self-control and a glimmering of sense prevented him from running blindly into the street after Foyle, in an effort to overtake and crush him. It was the first time in his life that any one had dared to get the upper hand of him, and he ground his teeth to think that he had been outfaced and outwitted by the effron-

tery of such a low-born upstart.

"By God!" he shouted to the empty room, "I'll make him pay for it."

Then he looked down at his useless hand and forearm which had already become blue and swollen. He realised that he must have the condition seen to and also that he must invent some story to explain it some balderdash about having slipped on the stairs, he thought. Sullenly he went out of the shop, banged shut the front door, locked it, and went off.

Meanwhile it had dawned upon Denis, since his departure, that by his rash action he had done incalculable harm to Mary and himself. Before the interview he had imagined that he might ingratiate himself with her father and so obtain his consent to see her. This, he had assumed, would make it easy for them to arrange the events towards a definite plan of escape. Indeed, he had fondly estimated that Brodie might view him with less disapproval, might even conceive some slight regard for him. To have succeeded in his project would undoubtedly have expedited the course of such sudden steps as they might later be obliged to take, would also have tempered the shock of the subsequent and inevitable disclosure.

He had not then known Brodie. He had frequently considered Mary's delineation of him, but had imagined that her account was perhaps tinged with filial awe or that her sensitive nature magnified the stature of his odious propensities. Now he fully understood her terror of Brodie, felt her remarks to have erred on the side of leniency towards him. He had a few moments ago seen him in a condition

of such unbalanced animosity that he began to fear for Mary's safety; he cursed himself repeatedly for his recent imprudent action.

He was completely at a loss as to what step to take next, when suddenly, as he passed a stationer's shop in the High Street, it occurred to him that he might write her a letter, asking her to meet him on the following day. He entered the shop and bought a sheet of notepaper and an envelope. Despite his anxiety his power of blandishment remained, and he wheedled the old lady behind the counter to sell him a stamp and to lend him pen and ink. This she did willingly, with a

maternal smile, and whilst he wrote a short note to Mary, she watched him solicitously out of the corner of her eye. When he had finished he thanked her gracefully and outside, was about to drop the letter in the pillar box when a thought struck him and he withdrew his hand as if it had been stung. He turned slowly round to the kerb and then after a moment, at the confirmation of his thought, he tore the letter into small pieces and scattered them in the gutter. He had suddenly realised that if, by chance, this communication were intercepted, Brodie would immediately apprehend that he had wilfully deceived

him, that Mary had been meeting him continually and clandestinely. He had made one serious mistake that day and he was determined not to commit another. Buttoning up his jacket tightly, he plunged his hands in his pockets and, with his chin thrust pugnaciously forwards, he walked quickly away. He had decided to reconnoitre the neighbourhood of the Brodie's house.

Unfamiliar with the locality, he became slightly out of his reckoning in the outskirts of the town, but, by means of his general sense of direction, he made a series of detours and at length arrived within sight of Mary's home. Actually he had never seen this house before, and now, as he surveyed it, a feeling of consternation invaded him.

It seemed to him more fitted for a prison than a home and as inappropriate for the housing of Mary's soft gentleness as a dark, confined vault might be for a dove. The squat, grey walls seemed to enclose her with an irrevocable clasp, the steep-angled ramparts implied her subjection, the deep, embrasured windows proclaimed her detention under a constrained duress.

As he surveyed the house, he murmured to himself, "I'll be glad to take her away from there and she'll be glad to come. That man's not right! His mind is twisted somewhere. That house is like him, somehow!"

With his mind still clouded by apprehension, he wormed himself into a hollow in the hedgerow behind him, sat down on the bank, lit a cigarette, and began to turn over certain projects in his mind. Faced with the imperative necessity of seeing Mary, he began to review mentally a series of impossible plans and incautious designs of achieving the object. He was afraid of making another imprudent blunder, and yet he felt that he must see her at once, or the opportunity would be for ever lost. His cigarette was almost burned out when suddenly the stern look vanished from his face and he smiled audaciously at

the obvious simplicity of the excellent expedient which had struck him. Nothing was to prevent him now, in open daylight, from advancing boldly and knocking upon the front door. Mary would almost assuredly open the door herself, whereupon he would sign immediately for silence and, after delivering a note into her own hands, leave us urbanely and openly as he had come. He knew enough of the household to understand that, with Brodie at business and little Nessie at school, the only other person who might answer the door would be Mrs. Brodie. If this latter contingency occurred, she did not know him, Brodie would not yet have warned her against him, and he would merely enquire for some fictitious name and make a speedy and apologetic departure.

Rapidly he tore a leaf out of his pocketbook and scribbled on it, in pencil, a short message, telling Mary that he loved her and asking her to meet him outside the Public Library on the following 'evening. He would, for preference, have selected a more secluded meeting place, but he feared that the only pretext she might advance for leaving the house would be to visit the Library. When he had finished he rolled the paper into a small, neat square, pressed it tight in his palm, and, flicking the dust from his clothing, sprang up. He turned his head briskly towards his objective and had assumed all the ingenuous artlessness of a simple visitor, when all at once his face fell, his brow darkened, and he flung himself violently back into his hiding place. Coming along the pavement, and approaching the house from the lower end of the road, was Brodie himself, his wrist bandaged, his arm supported by a sling.

Denis bit his lip. Nothing, apparently, went right with him! It was impossible for him to approach the house now and he realised bitterly that Brodie, in his resentment, would almost certainly caution the household against him and so jeopardise his chances of utilising the scheme successfully upon another occasion. With a heavy heart he considered, also, that Brodie's anger might react upon Mary, although he had so carefully protected her during his unhappy interview at the shop. He watched Brodie draw nearer, detected with concern that

the injured wrist was encased in plaster, observed the thunder blackness ot his face, saw him crash open the gate and finally let himself into the house. Denis experienced a strong sense of misgiving. So long as Mary lived beside that monstrous man, and in that monstrous house, he realised that he would never be at rest. Straining his ears for some sound, some cry, some call for help, he waited outside interminably. But there was only silence silence from behind the cold, grey walls of that eccentric dwelling. Then, finally, he got up and walked dejectedly away.

IX

MARY BRODIE sat knitting a sock for her father. She leaned slightly forward, her face pale and shadowed, her eyes directed towards the long steel needles which flashed automatically under her moving fingers. Click-click went the needles! Nowadays she seemed to hear nothing but that sound, for in every moment of her leisure she knitted. Mamma had decreed sententiously that, as the devil found work more readily for idle hands, Mary must keep hers employed, even in her spare moments, and she had'been set the task of completing one pair of socks each week. She was now finishing her sixth pair!

Old Grandma Brodie sat watching, with her lips pursed up as if they had been stitched together. She sat with her withered legs crossed, the pendent foot beating time to the clinking music, saying nothing, but keeping her eyes perpetually fixed upon Mary, inscrutable, seeming to think all manner of things that no one, least of all Mary, could know of. Sometimes, Mary imagined that those bleared, opaque eyes were penetrating her with a knowing, vindictive suspicion, and when her own eyes met them, a spark of antagonism was struck from

the stony pupils. She had, of late, felt as if the eyes of the old sibyl were

binding some spell upon her which would compel her to move her tired fingers ceaselessly, unwillingly, in the effort to utilise an unending skein of wool.

It was an agreeable diversion for the crone to watch the young girl, but, in addition, it was her duty, the task assigned to her six weeks ego. Her head shook slightly as she recollected that incredible afternoon when her son had come in, with his arm bandaged and his face black as night, remembered the solemn conclave between Brodie and his wife behind the locked door of the parlour. There had been none of the usual bluster, no roaring through the house, only a dour grinding silence! What it had been about she had been unable to

guess, but certainly some grave disaster had been in the air. Her daughter-in-law's face had been drawn with fright for days afterwards; her lips had twitched while she had enrolled her as an auxiliary in the watching of Mary, saying only, "Mary's not allowed out of the house. Not a step beyond the front gate. It's an order." Mary was a prisoner, that was all, and she, in effect, the gaoler. Behind the mask of her face she revelled in the thought of it, of this disgrace

for Mary. She had never liked the girl and her occupation now afforded her the deepest gratification and delight.

Her present meditations were interrupted by the entry of Mrs. Brodie. Mamma's eyes sought out Mary.

"Have you turned the heel yet?" she enquired, with a forced assumption of interest.

"Nearly," replied Mary, her pale face unchanging from its set, indifferent apathy.

"You're getting on finely! You'll set your father up in socks for the winter before you've finished."

"May I go out in the garden a minute?"

Mamma looked out of the window ostentatiously. "It's smirring of rain, Mary. I think you better not go just now. When Nessie comes in maybe it'll be off, and you can take her out for a stroll around the back."

Mamma's feeble diplomacy! The will of Brodie, wrapped up in too plausible suggestions or delivered obviously in the guise of uplifting quotations from Scripture, had pressed round Mary like a net for six weeks, each week of which had seemed like a year a year with long, long days. So oppressed and weakened in her resistance was she now that she felt obliged to ask permission for her

every action.

"May I go up to my room for a little, then?" she said dully.

"Certainly, Mary! If you would like to read, tear, take this;" and, as her daughter went slowly out of the room, Mrs. Brodie thrust upon her a bound copy of Spurgeon's sermons that lay conveniently ready upon the dresser. But immediately Mary had gone, a glance passed between the two women left in the room and Mamma nodded her head slightly. Grandma at once got up, willingly forsaking her warm corner by the fire, and hobbled into the parlour, where she sat down at the front window, commanding from this vantage a complete view of any one who might attempt to leave the house. The constant observation ordained by Brodie was in operation. Yet Mamma had hardly been alone a moment before another thought crossed her mind. She pondered, then nodded to herself, realising this to be a favourable opportunity to execute her husband's mandate, and, holding her skirts, she mounted the stairs, and entered her daughter's

room, determined to say a "good word" to Mary.

"I thought I would come up for a little chat," she said brightly. "I havena had a word with you ror a day or two."

"Yes, Mamma!"

Mrs. Brodie considered her daughter critically. "Have you seen the light yet, Mary?" she asked slowly.

Mary knew instinctively what was coming, knew that she was to receive one of Mamma's recently instituted pious talks which had made her at first either tearful or rebellious, which had never at any time made her feel better spiritually, and which now merely fell senselessly upon her stoic ears. These elevating discourses had become intolerable during her incarceration and, together with every other form of high-minded exhortation, had been thrust upon her, heaped upon her head like reproaches, at all available opportunities. The

reason was not far to seek. At the conclusion of that awful session in the parlour Brodie had snarled at his wife, "She's your daughter! It's your job to get some sense of obedience into her. If you don't, by God! I'll take the strap across her back again and over yours too."

"Do you feel yourself firm on the rock yet, Mary?" continued Mamma earnestly.

"I don't know," replied Mary, in a stricken voice.

"I can see yoi haven't reached it yet," Mamma sighed gently. "What a comfort it would be to your father and me if we saw you more-abounding in faith, and goodness, and obedience to your parents." She took Mary's passive hand. "You know, my dear, life is short. Suppose we were called suddenly before the Throne in a state of unworthiness What then? Eternity is long. There is no chance to

repent then. Oh! I wish you would see the error of your ways. It makes it so hard for me, for your own mother that has done everything for you. It's hard that your father should blame me for that stiff, stubborn look that's still about ye just as if ye were frozen up. Why, I would do anything. I would even get the Rev. Mr. Scott himself to speak to you, some afternoon when your father wasna in! I read such a comforting book the other day of how a wayward woman

was made to see the light by one of God's own ministers." Mamma sighed mournfully, and after a long impressive pause, enquired:

"Tell me, Mary, what is in your heart now?"

"I wish, Mamma, you'd leave me a little," said Mary, in a low tone. "I don't feel well."

"Then you've no need of your mother, or the Almighty either," said Mamma with a sniff. Mary looked at her mother tragically. She realised to the full the other's feebleness, ineptitude and impotence. From the very beginning she had longed for a mother to whom she could unbosom her inmost soul, on whom she might have leaned clingingly, to whom she might have cried passionately, "Mother,

you are the refuge of my torn and afflicted heart! Comfort me and take my suffering from me! Wrap me in the mantle of your protection and shield me from the arrows of misfortune!"

But Mamma was, alas, not like that. Unstable as water, and as shallow, she reflected merely the omnipresent shadow of another stronger than herself. Upon her lay the heavy shade of a mountain whose ominous presence overcast her limpid nature with a perpetual and compelling gloom. The very tone of this godly conversation was merely the echo of Brodie's irresistible demand. How could she

speak of the fear of Eternity when her fear of Brodic dwarfed this into insignificance, into nothingness? For her there was only one rock, and that the adamantine hardness of her husband's furious will. Woe! Woe to her, if she did not cling submissively to that! She was, of course, a Christian woman, with all the respectable convictions which this implied. To attend church regularly on Sundays, even to frequent, when she could escape from her duties, an occasional fervent, week-night meeting, to condemn the use of the grosser words of the vocabulary such as "Hell" or "Damn", fully justified her claim to godliness; and when, for her relaxation, she read a work of fiction, she perused only such good books as afforded the virtuous and saintly heroine a charming and godly husband in the last chapter, and afforded herself a feeling of pure and elevated refinement. But she could no more have supported her daughter in this crisis of her life than she could have confronted Brodie in his wrath. All this Mary comprehended fully.

"Will you not tell me, Mary?" Mamma persisted. "I wish I knew what was goin' on inside that stubborn head of yours!" She was continually in fear that her daughter might be secretly contemplating some discreditable step which would again arouse Brodie's ungovernable fury. Often in her shuddering anticipation she felt, not only the lash of his tongue, but the actual chastisement with which he had threatened her.

"There's nothing to tell you, Mamma," replied Mary sadly. "Nothing to say to you."

She was aware that if she had attempted to unburden herself, her mother would have stopped her with one shrill, protesting cry and, with deaf ears, have fled from the room. "No! No! don't tell me! Not a word more. I won't hear it. It's not decent," Mary could almost hear her crying, as she ran. Bitterly she repeated:

"No! I've nothing at all to tell you!"

"But you must think of something. I know you're thinking, by the look of you," persisted Mrs. Brodie. Mary looked full at her mother.

"Sometimes I think I would be happy if I could get out of this house and never come back' she said bitterly. Mrs. Brodie held up her hands, aghast.

"Mary!" she cried. "What a thing to say! Ye should be thankful to have such a good home. It's a good thing your father doesna hear ye he would never forgive such black ingratitude!"

"How can you talk like that," cried Mary wildly. "You must feel as I do about it. This has never been a home to us. Can't you feel it crushing us? It's like part of father's terrible will. Remember I haven't been out of it for six weeks and I feel oh! I feel broken to pieces," she sobbed.

Mrs. Brodie eyed these tears gratefully, as a sign of submission.

"Don't cry, Mary," she admonished; "although ye should be sorry for talking such improper nonsense about the grand place you're privileged to live in. When your father built it 'twas the talk o' Levenford."

"Yes," sobbed Mary, "and so are we. Father makes that so, too. We don't seem like other people. We're not looked on like ordinary people."

"I should think not!" bridled Mrs. Brodie. "We're far and above them."

"Oh! Mother," cried Mary, "you would never understand what I mean. Father has frightened you into his own notions. He's driving us all into some disaster. He keeps us apart from people. We've got no friends. I never had a chance like anybody else; I've been so shut off from everything."

"And a good job too," interposed Mamma. "It's the way a decent girl should be brought up. You should have been shut off a bit more, by the way you've been goin' on."

Mary did not seem to hear her, but, gazing blindly in front of her, pursued that last thought to its bitter end. "I was shut up in a prison in darkness," she whispered; "and when I did escape I was dazzled and lost my way." An expression of utter hopelessness spread slowly over her face.

"Don't mumble like that," cried Mamma sharply. "If ye can't speak up honestly to your mother, don't speak at all. The idea! Ye should be thankful to have folks to take care of ye and keep ye in here out of harm."

"Harm! I haven't done much harm in the last few weeks," echoed Mary, in a flat voice.

"Mary! Mary!" cried Mamma reprovingly. "You should be showing a better spirit. Don't answer so sulkily. Be bright and active and show more respect and deference to your parents. To think of the low young men of the district running after you should bring the blush of shame to your face. You ought to be glad to stay in to escape from them and not be always hanging about looking so gloomy.

Why! When I think what you're being protected from " Mamma stopped for very modesty and shuddered virtuously as she pushed Spurgeon's sermons nearer Mary. Concluding on the highest and most elevated note, she arose and, as she retreated to the door, said significantly, "Have a look at that, my girl. It'll do ye more good than any light talk ye might hear outside." Then she went out, closing the door behind her with a soft restraint which harmonised with the

godly thoughts which filled her mind.

But Mary did not touch the book that had been so persistently thrust upon her; instead, she looked hopelessly out of the window. Heavy masses of cloud shut out the sky, turning the short October afternoon more quickly towards the night. A soft, insistent rain blurred the window panes; no wind stirred; her three silver birches, bereft of leaves, were silent in a misty, melancholy reverie. She had of late gazed at them so often that she knew them in every mood and thought of them as her own. She had seen them shed their leaves. Each leaf had come fluttering down sadly, slowly, like a lost hope, and with each fall Mary had cast away a fragment of her faith. They had been like symbols to her, these three trees, and so long as they had breathed through their living foliage, she had not despaired. But the last leaflet had gone and this evening, like her, they were denuded, enwrapped in cold mist, lost in profound despondency.

Her child was living in her womb. She had felt it throb with an ever-increasing surge of life; this throbbing, living child that no one knew of but Denis and herself. She was undiscovered. Concealment, which had at first so much worried her, had not been easy, but now it did not trouble her at all; for, at this moment, her mind was occupied by a deeper and more awful contemplation.

Yet, as she sat so passive by her window, she recollected how the first movement within her had caused her a pang, not of fear, but of sublime yearning. She had been transcended by a swift illumination which lit up the dark spaces of her mind, and a fierce desire for her child had seized her. This desire had, through many dark hours, sustained her fortitude, had filled her with a brave endurance of her present misery. She had felt that she now suffered for the child, that

the more she endured, the more she would be recompensed by its love.

But that seemed a long time ago, before hope had finally left her. She had then still believed in Denis.

Since that afternoon when she had gone to Darroch she had not seen him. Imprisoned in the house by the will of her father, she had lived through these six, unendurable weeks without a glimpse of Denis. Sometimes she had imagined she had seen his figure lurking outside the house; often, at night, she had felt that he was near; once she had wakened with a shriek to a faint tapping on her window; but now she realised that these had been merely illusions of her disordered fancy and she was finally convinced that he had deserted her.

He had abandoned her. She would never see him again.

She longed for night to come to bring sleep to her. In the beginning of her sorrow she had been unable to rest; then, strangely, she had slept profoundly, with a slumber often pervaded by exquisite dreams, dreams that were filled with an extraordinary felicity. Then she was always with Denis amongst enchanting surroundings, exploring with him a sunlit land of gay, old cities, and mingling with laughing people, living upon strange and exotic foods. These pleasant phantasies, by their happy augury for the future, had at one time cheered and comforted her; but that was past; she sought now no visions of unreality. The sleep which she desired was a dreamless one. She had resolved to kill herself. Vividly she remembered her words to him on Darroch Station, when she had, with an unconscious, dreadful foreboding, told what she would do if he deserted her. Her only refuge lay in death. Unknown to any one she had concealed in her room a packet of salts of lemon which she had removed from the high shelf above the washtubs in the scullery. To-night she would go to bed in the usual way and, in the morning, they would find her dead. The living child that had never breathed would be dead too, she realised, but that was the best thing that could happen. Then they would bury her with her unborn child in the wet earth and she would be finished and at peace. She got up and opened a drawer. Yes! It was there safely. With calm fingers she opened slightly one end of the white packet and gazed at

the harmless appearance of the contents within. Unconsciously, she reflected how strange it was that these inert, innocent crystals should be so full of deadly potentiality; yet she was aware that they held no menace for her, but only a benign succour. They would enable her with a single, quick motion to escape from the hopeless, cumulative bondage of her existence and, when she swallowed them, she would drain in one final, convulsive gulp the last bitter dregs of life itself. Tranquilly, she reflected that at bedtime she must bring up water in

a cup to dissolve the crystals.

She replaced the packet, closed the drawer, and, returning to the window, sat down and began again to knit. She would finish the sock to-night for her father. As she thought of him, she had no active emotion towards him everything within her was passive, as though her feelings had already died. He never spoke to her. His arm was healed. His life went on unchanged and, even after she was dead, would go on unchanged, with the same unfailing regularity, in the same proud indifference, smoothed by the same adulation and cringing subservience from Mamma.

She stopped knitting for a moment and glanced out of the window. Nessie was coming in from school. Compassion invaded her for her small, susceptible sister who had been at first infected with her misery. She would be sorry to leave Nessie. Poor Nessie! She would be all alone! Strangely, however, the diminutive figure did not enter the gate, but instead, stood in the gathering dusk, making a peculiar, determinate sign. It was not Nessie, but another small girl who,

posted indomitably in the rain, waved her arm upwards with a significant, yet hidden intention. Mary looked at her fixedly, but as she did so the movements ceased and the little puppet moved away. Two people then came into view and passed out of sight down the road, leaving it void and black as before. A sigh burst from Mary, expressive of the dispersion of a dim, unborn hope; she rubbed her eyes vaguely and covered them dumbly with her hands.

She removed her hands and immediately again viewed the child, waving more emphatically, more appealingly than before. She stared uncomprehendingly, then, feeling that she must be the victim of some strange hallucination of her disordered senses, expecting the phenomenon to vanish as instantaneously and magically as it had appeared, slowly, unbelievingly, she opened her window and looked out.

Immediately, out of the dim obscurity, a round object, thrown with unerring accuracy, struck her upon the shoulder and dropped with a soft thud at her feet, whilst at the same instant the street became vacant and empty. Mechanically Mary closed the window and sat down again. She would have dismissed the whole episode as a delusion of her tired brain but for the fact that upon the floor lay the missile which had impinged upon her out of the gathering darkness, like a small meteor falling from the invisible sky. She looked at the round object more closely. It was an apple.

She stooped and retrieved the apple, which felt smooth and polished and warm, as if for a long time it had been harboured in hot, human hands, and as she held it in her small palm, she scarcely knew why she should have abandoned her knitting for the contemplation of so absurd an object. It was, she recognised of the pippin variety a King Pippin and immediately there flashed across her memory a

remark once made to her by Denis: "We're fond of apples at home," he had said; "we always have a barrel of King Pippins standing in the pantry." At this sudden thought, from merely looking perplexedly at the apple, she began to inspect it closely and discovered, to her surprise and growing agitation, a faint circular cut, made necessarily by a fine blade, encircling the entire core. Her wan cheeks flooded with a high, nervous colour as she plucked at the short dried stem which was still adherent to the apple, but they paled instantly and the blood drained from her face, as a neat round plug of the firm, white fruit came away easily in her grasp, revealing a hollowed-out centre which was packed tightly with a roll of thin paper. With frantic haste and a pitiful agitation her nervous fingers fumblingly extracted and unrolled the cylinder, then, suddenly, the action of her fluttering heart almost ceased. It was a letter from Denis! He had written to her. He had not abandoned her. Her wild, incredulous eyes fastened themselves avidly upon this letter which had reached her with all the timely mercy of a reprieve. Feverishly she read on, saw that it had been written almost a fortnight previously, that it addressed her in most fervent terms. A great joy came upon her like a full, dazzling light suddenly turned upon her, blinding her by its unexpectedness, warming her with its radiance. The words of the letter shone before her eyes, their meaning flooded her like a glow of heat penetrating a chilled and icy body. She had been mad to doubt him. He was Denis, her Denis and he loved her!

He loved her, had tried with all his power to reach her, had attempted, even, to place a message through her window by night. She saw now that she had been right in feeling that he was near to her, but her foolish cry of fear had driven him away. Still, nothing mattered in the face of his wonderful news. Her heart beat as she read that he had taken their house the cottage in Garshake. They could move into it upon the first of January. It was called Rosebank in summer a bower of roses, in winter a warm, safe haven to enclose them both. He was doing all that lay within his power and he was not afraid! She was touched beyond measure at his endeavours, at what he had done for her. How he had worked for her! He would have come to her openly, but for the fact that their plans were not mature. They must have a roof to cover them, a house to shelter them, before they could take any drastic step; until then, he must be wary for her sake. Yes! she must wait wait a little longer; wait until his last summer trip of the year was over, until he could devote himself to her. Then he would take her away with him for ever, care for her, and look to her safety and comfort. Her eyes grew dim with tears of happiness as she read his promises to cherish her. Could she wait? She must wait. She could endure anything, so long as he took her to him in the end.

When she had finished the letter, for a moment she remained quite still, as though the shock of unexpected happiness had petrified her into stone and she sat like a marble effigy, rigid and motionless. Then, slowly, a pulsating essence flowed through her veins; mysterious currents, set in motion by the moving words of his letter, circulated in her being; after what had been an eternity of deathlike inanition she lived and, as in an awakening Galatea, a tinge of life pervaded her, colour rushed into her face, her body, her limbs. Her eyes sparkled eagerly with the joy of living, her constrained lips parted softly, fervidly, and the sad immobility of her face was transfigured by a rush of sanguine joy. Like a watcher forgotten upon some solitary isle, who, worn with an endless, fruitless vigil, has long abandoned hope, the sudden sight of the means of her rescue filled her with an unbelievable, almost unbelieving ecstasy. The loud beating of her reawakened heart sang in her ears with a rapturous refraia; the pale hands holding the letter became animate, vitalised and active; eagerly the fingers seized a pencil that lay near and wrote urgently

on the reverse side of the paper.

It was a short note, saying that she was well and, now that she had heard from him, happy. She said nothing of the tortures of mind she had suffered, or of the abyss into which she had been sinking. She told him she would abide gladly in her present home if only he came for her in December, and she blessed him repeatedly for his letter. She had not time to write more, for, outside the house, in the rapidly fading light, she discerned that the patient, tenacious figure of the child had again reappeared and was gazing expectantly towards the

window. It was Rose it must be Rose that small devoted sister he had spoken of. She blessed Rose! And now, replacing the message in the hollow apple, she raised the window sash and, throwing with all her strength, watched the sphere go sailing through the air and bound twice upon the road before coming to rest. Dimly she glimpsed Rose running to recover it, saw her extract the letter and place it in her coat pocket, observed her wave her hand significantly, triumphantly, and, as if to symbolise the sweetness of her triumph, go off down the road, exultantly munching the bruised and battered pippin.

A quiver of grateful admiration ran through Mary as the small figure passed out of sight, marching indomitably with the same invincible air, the same jaunty courage, as Denis. A slight smile of recollection moved her as she remembered Rose' careless touch upon the piano. The folly of judging the intrepid messenger by the execution of those scales!

And now Mary arose and stretched her limbs luxuriously. She raised her arms above her head in an attitude of unconscious aspiration and, whilst her figure seemed to draw itself upwards, her head fell back, her throat grew taut. As she gazed 'to wards heaven, her face filled with a supreme thanksgiving, which seemed insensibly to pass into an invocation for the future. She was alive again, brave, filled with new hope, new courage. Little prickling streams ran through her skin. Suddenly, as she lowered her arms and again relaxed her body, she felt hungry. For weeks she had eaten nothing but the insipid, choking mouthfuls thrust down at meal time under the eye of her father, and the delicious return of the zest to live now made her voracious.

Within her body the unformed child leapt and throbbed, as if in sympathy and gratitude for the reprieve which had been granted to it.

And Mary, feeling the weak impotence of that thankful impulse, was moved with a sudden pity. In the revulsion of her feeling she turned quickly, in a passion of self-reproach, to the drawer where she had concealed the salts of lemon, and lifting the packet in a frenzy of disgust, concealed it in her hand and hastened downstairs. As she hurried past the half -open door of the parlour, she saw old Grandma Brodie nodding drowsily, and she realised happily that Rose had not been observed, that for once the sentinel slept at her post. Quickly she went through the kitchen and entered the scullery where, with a feeling of aversion, she thrust the contents of the packet, not back upon its shelf, but into the sink, where a rapid stream from the tap washed it away from her for ever. Then, with a new freedom, she went to a cupboard, poured out a glass of milk and cut herself a thick wedge of cold steamed pudding left over from dinner. The pudding was luscious and full of soft, sweet currants; her teeth bit into it with relish.

The milk tasted like a draught of some rich nectar, cool as the froth from melting snowflakes. She was prolonging her meal as long as possible, by sipping slowly and nibbling the last crust of pudding, when her mother entered the scullery. Mamma looked at Mary curiously.

"You're hungry?" she remarked. "I wish I could eat like that. The sermons have improved your appetite."

"Let me cut you a piece of this, Mamma."

"No! We're to have it heated up to-morrow. It doesn't matter about me."

By her attitude Mrs. Brodie conveyed that Mary was selfish to consume the pudding, that she herself would have desired it, but that she was deliberately sacrificing her personal gratification in the interests of the common good. Mary looked apologetic. With the first mouthful she had enjoyed for weeks she had been made to feel greedy.

"I'm glad to see you in a better frame of mind, anyway," said Mamma, noting the look. "Keep it up for your father to-night. I want him to see I've been speaking to you."

Here a light step sounded in the hall. This time it was, in reality, Nessie, who came in gaily, glistening like a young seal from the rain.

"It's awfully wet now," she cried; "and I want a piece and jelly." Her mother looked at her fondly.

"Ye've a braw colour on your cheeks, dear. That's the way I like my bairns to look; not white and miserable." This was a veiled hint to Mary, and as a further reproof to her elder daughter, Mamma gave Nessie, as a treat, not bread and jelly, but white bread with butter and carraway seeds spread upon it.

"Carvie! Lovely!" cried Nessie; "and I deserve it. Oh! Mary, you do look better to-night yourself. I'm glad! You'll soon be bonny like me," she added with a giggle, inconsequently twirling about.

"Why do you deserve it, pettie?" queried Mamma.

"Well!" replied Nessie importantly, "we had the school inspector this afternoon, and the whole junior school had what he called a memory test, and who do you think was first?"

"Who?" demanded Mamma, with bated breath.

"Me!" shrieked Nessie, waving her bread and carvie.

"My word!" said Mamma. "Your father will be pleased." She looked at Mary, as if to say, "That's the kind of daughter I prefer." Actually she was not in the least exultant at the scholastic success. What delighted her was that she had, in this achievement, a tangible asset to put the lord and master of the house in a complacent frame of mind.

Mary looked at Nessie tenderly, feeling how near she had been to leaving her for ever.

"That was just splendid!" she said, and placed her cheek lovingly against her sister's cold, wet face.

A STILLNESS lay over Levenford. Sunday afternoon was always quiet; the morning bells had then rung themselves out; the bustle of the shops and the noise of shipyards were hushed; no step echoed in the empty street; the people, sunk in the lethargy produced by a heavy dinner following a long sermon, sat indoors, stiffly trying to read, or slept uncomfortably in their chairs.

But this afternoon was unusually still. A dull, yellow sky pressed down upon the town and imprisoned it in a vault of heavy silence. Within this vault the stagnant air was difficult to breathe and filled the lungs with a sense of vitiation. The streets seemed narrowed, the houses nearer to each other, and the Winton and Doran Hills, usually so majestic and remote, were low and close at hand as if, cowering from the encroaching sky, they crept in upon the town for protection.

The trees stood petrified in the sultry air, their stripped branches drooping like stalactites in a cave. No birds were to be seen. Desolate and depopulated, the landscape lay in such an oppressive silence as might precede a battle, and the deserted town, empty ot nte and movement, stood like a beleaguered city fearfully awaiting the onset of an attack.

Mary sat upstairs at her bedroom window. Now, at every opportunity, she stole away to her room, finding in that retreat alone a sanctuary in which she obtained solitude and refuge. She felt ill. In church that morning an intolerable sickness had seized her and during dinner she had been compelled to remain quiescent and uncomplaining while her head and body ached incessantly. Now, as she sat with her chin cupped in both hands, looking out upon the strange immobility of the land, she wondered if it lay within her power to last out the next two days.

With a faint shudder, she reviewed in her mind her struggles of the past eight weeks. In his first note Denis had asked her to wait only until the middle of December, but it was now the twenty-eighth day of that month and she had still to endure the torture of her life at home for another two days. It was, she realised, not his fault. He had been obliged to extend the scope of his business activities in the North and was now acting for hia firm in Edinburgh and Dundee. They were pleased with his work; the delay was in actuality advantageous; but at present she found it hard to bear.

Only two more days! Then with Denis beside her in their snug and strong cottage by the Garshake shore a fastness to enclose them both she could face anything. She had visioned their cottage continuously that it stood always firm, white and steadfast in her mind, like a beacon, a shining emblem of protection, drawing her towards its safety. But she was losing faith in her ability to continue the struggle against the growing lassitude of her body and the ever- present dread of discovery.

She was, in effect, seven and a half months pregnant, but her fine, firm body had, until lately, retained its shape adequately. She had grown more mature and paler in her face, but no noticeable distortion in her form had taken place, and any alteration in her appearance had been attributed to the effects of the more rigid discipline to which she had been subjected. But recently, she had been obliged to lace herself more tightly, and to strain to hold her back and shoulders erect in order to maintain, in the face of greater difficulty and with

unceasing effort, the semblance of her natural figure. The cramping grip of her corset almost stifled her, but she was now compelled to suffer this continually, to sit passively under the cold eye of Brodie whilst she felt her child turn protestingly under the unnatural restraint, and to preserve in the face of everything an aspect of unconcern and tranquillity.

She imagined, too, that of late, in spite of her every precaution, Mamma had entertained a vague uneasiness regarding her. Frequently she had looked up to intercept a doubting, questioning glance levelled acidly at her. Faint unformed suspicions, she realised, moved like latent shadows in her mother's mind, and only the preposterous nature of their purport had hitherto prevented them from assuming more definite shape.

The last three months had dragged past more slowly and more fearfully than all the years of her life which had preceded them, and now, with the climax imminent and relief at hand, her strength seemed to be leaving her. To-day, a numb pain in her back added to her distress, and at intervals small, sweeping waves of suffering traversed her. As the memory of all that she had endured rose poig-

nantly before her, a tear splashed down her check.

This quiet movement, the coursing of a teardrop down her face, which disturbed her sad, statuesque passivity, had its counterpart in nature. Whilst she gazed, the front gate, which had all day hung half-open upon its listless hinges, was impelled into sluggish motion and swung slowly shut with a loud clang, as though an invisible hand had negligently pushed it. A moment later, a heap of dead leaves which lay in the far corner of the courtyard stirred, and a handful eddied, raised themselves spirally upwards on the air with a sighing susurrus, then subsided and were still.

Mary viewed both of these movements with a sensation of disturbance; perhaps her state induced such disquiet, for they had been in themselves insignificant, but the contrast of the sudden, unwarranted movements against the close, imperturbable quiet of the day was starkly arresting. The hush outside deepened, whilst the brassy sky grew more sombre and crept lower to the earth. As she sat, quiescent, awaiting another surge of pain, the front gate again swung gently open, hesitated, and recoiled with a more resounding concussion than before; the long- drawn-out, noisy creak of the opening gate came to her like an interrogation and the quick-following clang like an abrupt and decisive reply. A faint ripple undulated across the field which lay opposite and the long grasses ruffled like smoke; under her staring eyes, a wisp of straw lying in the roadway was suddenly whisked high into the air and flung far out of sight by an unseen and inexplicable force. Then the silent air was filled with a soft, quick pattering, and a mongrel dog came racing down the street, its sides panting, its ears laid back flat, its eyes cowering. With a startled curiosity Mary marked its stricken aspect and asked herself the reason of its haste and terror.

The answer to her unspoken question came like a sigh from a long way off, a low-pitched hum which swept in from beyond the Winton Hills and echoed around the house. It encircled the grey walls, twisted sinuously through the embrasures of the parapet, whirled amongst the chimneys, spun around the solemn, granite balls, dwelt an instant at Mary's window, then receded in a gradual diminuendo, like the roar of a defeated wave upon a shingle shore. A long silence ensued, then the sound returned, swelling in from the distant hills more loudly, remaining longer than before, and retreating more slowly to a vantage point less remote.

At the end of this last, shivering drone the door of the bedroom opened and Nessie came precipitately in.

"Mary, I'm frightened," she cried. "What's that noise? It's like a great, big, humming-top."

"It's nothing but the wind."

"But there's no wind at all. Everything's as. quiet as the grave and what a colour the sky is! Oh! I'm feared of it, Mary."

"There's going to be a storm, I think, but don't worry; you'll be all right, Nessie."

"Oh! Dearie me," cried Nessie, with a shiver, "I hope there'll be no lightning. I'm that scared of it. If it hits you they say it burns you up, and if you sit near steel that attracts it more than anything."

"There's not a steel thing in the room," Mary reassured her.

Nessie came closer.

"Let me stay with you a little," she entreated; "you seem to have been far away from me lately. If ye let me bide with you that sound will not seem so fearsome." She sat down and placed her thin arm around her sister; but instinctively Mary drew away.

"There you are again! You won't even let me touch you. You don't love me like you used to," Nessie grieved, and, for a moment, it looked as though she would rise and go out in childish pique. Mary sat silent; she could not justify her action, but she took Nessie's hand and pressed it gently. Partly reassured by this gesture, Nessie's hurt expression faded and she pressed Mary's hand in return. Thus, hand in hand, the two sisters looked out silently upon the panting

earth.

The atmosphere had now become dry and rare and infused with an acrid, saline character which irritated the nostrils like brine. The dun sky had darkened to a blackish purple, meeting the near horizon like smoke, blotting out distant objects and throwing into strange relief those that were near. The sense of increasing isolation from the outer world thus produced was terrifying to Nessie. She gripped Mary's hand more tightly as she cried, "These clouds are coming on top of us. It's like a big black wall. Oh! I'm feared of it. Will it fall on us?"

"No, dear," whispered Mary, "it can't hurt us." But the dark, enclosing barrier still advanced, and upon its summit streaks of lighter saffron lay, like spume upon the crest of a breaking comber. Against this background the three birch trees had lost their soft, silvery mobility; stiff and livid, they gripped the soil mure tenaciously with their sinewy roots, their stems standing straight, with closely furled branches, like masts awaiting oppressively the batter of a hurricane.

From amongst the now hidden hills came a secret mutter like the tattoo of muffled drums. It seemed as if it rolled along the crests of the hilltops, bouading down the ravines, across the streams and up the gulleys, the close-following notes chasing each other with a frantic revelry.

"That's thunder," shivered Nessie. "It's like guns firing."

"It's a long way off," Mary comforted her. "It may pass over us without breaking here."

" I feel it's going to be a terrible storm. Will we both go to Mamma, Mary?"

"You go if you like," replied Mary, "but you're just as safe here, dear."

The thunder drew nearer. It ceased to rattle continuously and instead pealed brokenly; but now each peal was loud as an explosion and each succeeding explosion more violent than the one before. This ominous quality of approach conveyed to Nessie the impression that she was the focus of some blind, celestial fury, which was surely converging upon her and would ultimately destroy her.

"I'm sure it'll get us," she gasped. "Oh! there's the lightning."

An ear-splitting crash accompanied the first flash of lightning, a thin, blue streak which darted raggedly across the dead sky, as if the detonation of the thunder had suddenly cracked the bowl of the firmament, allowing, for one quivering instant, a dazzling and unearthly light to penetrate.

"It's forked!" cried Nessie. "That's more dangerous than sheet. Come away from the window!" She tugged at Mary's arm.

"You're as safe here as anywhere," Mary repeated.

"Oh! It's no good saying that. This room of yours gets the worst of it! I'm going away to Mamma. I'll put my head below the blankets in her room till that awful lightning stops. Come away or you'll be struck;" and she rushed out of the room in a panic.

Mary did not follow her but continued to watch the growing storm alone. She felt like a lonely watcher in a tower, obsessed by pain and danger, for whose diversion a gigantic tourney was waged by nature's forces. The discord which raged outside was a drastic anodyne, which served to distract her from her increasing pain, the pangs of which seemed to her to be slowly intensifying. She was glad to be alone once more, glad that Nessie had left her. It was easier for her to suffer in solitude. The thunder fulminated wildly, and the lightning cas-

caded like fluid across the sky with a blinding intensity. Often, the onset of her pain would synchronise with a flash, and then she felt that she, a speck within the universe, was linked by the chain of light to this titanic upheaval of the heavens.

As the distracting influence of the storm upon her failed, the disturbance ceased to be palliative; she began, involuntarily, to interpret it in terms of her bodily suffering and became herself involved in the tumult around her. The rolling waves of thunder lifted her in their upward sweep and carried her off upon their undulating echoes, until, suddenly, a violet lightning flash would stab her with pain and cast her down again upon the ground. When the thunder failed, the wind, which had been rapidly increasing in volume, swept her back again into the midst of the chaos. This wind especially frightened Mary, began, indeed, to terrify her. The first soughing onset and retreat which had whirled the leaves and then left them motionless, had been but the prelude to a series of deeper and more powerful attacks. Now there was no retreat and with crushing vigour the full force of the blast struck the land. Mary felt the strong, stout house tremble to its foundations, as though an infinity of tearing fingers were rending each stone from its bed of mortar. She saw her own trees whipped downwards, like drawn bows bent double under some prodigious strain; with each gust they bent; then, liberated, again sprang upwards with a twanging sound. The arrows they released were invisible, but they penetrated Mary's room as shafts of pain. The long grasses in the field were no longer gently ruffled, but were flattened as though a gigantic scythe had decimated them. Each fierce blast of the gale battered at the windows, rattling them in their frames, then rushed howling around the house, with all the uncouth demons of sound loosed and rampant upon its wings.

Then the rain began. It fell at first in heavy, solitary gouts which stained the wind-swept pavements with spots each as large as a crown piece. Faster and faster came the drops, until a solid sheet of water deluged the earth. Water splashed upon the open roadways, hissed and dripped from the roofs and gutters of houses, spattered against trees, flattened shrubs and bushes by its very density and weight. Water flooded everything. The gutters were at once filled to overflowing and ran like torrents; the streets became watercourses, and running

streams, filled with floating debris, sluiced along the main thorough- fares.

With the commencement of the rain the lightning gradually ceased, the thunder passed over, and the air chilled perceptibly; but the storm, instead of abating, grew more violent with every moment. The wind gained velocity. Mary heard it drive the rain in waves, like sea surf, upon the roof of the house! then she faintly heard a snap and saw the flagstaff, riven from the turret, fall clattering to the ground.

At this she got up and began to pace up and down the room, hardly able to endure the racking ache which now seemed continually an element of her being. She had felt nothing of the kind before, nothing to equal this in all her life. She wondered, uncertainly, if she should ask her mother for some remedy, thinking that a hot application might perhaps do good, but, reluctantly, she abandoned the idea as dangerous. She did not know that such an antidote would have been ineffectual, for, although she had no apprehension of her condition, she was already advanced in the throes of a premature labour. Like the untimely darkness of the premature night which now began to fall upon the outraged earth, this precipitate travail had already, and too soon, begun to lay its mantle of suffering upon her. The mental hardships she had undergone were demanding an un-

dreamed-of toll, which she could not escape, and she had now, in all her unpreparedness, unconsciously begun to solve the dreadful mystery of the nativity of her child.

By this time she felt that it was impossible for her to go downstairs for tea, and, in despair, she loosened her corset and began again to pace up and down the narrow confines of her room. Between these pacings she stopped, supporting her body between her open palms. She discovered that it was easier for her to meet the paroxysms in a stooping posture and, from time to time, she stood crouching

against the end of her bed, her forehead pressed downwards against the cold metal of the rails.

As she remained heedlessly like this, in one of these spasms, suddenly the door opened and her mother entered the room. Mrs. Brodie had come to satisfy herself that Mary had suffered no ill effects from the storm and to reprimand her for not taking greater precautions, for Nessie had run to her with the story that lightning was striking into the room. She was herself terrified by the tempest and her overstrung nerves were quiveringly set for an outburst of recrimination.

But now, as she stood, unobserved, regarding her daughter, the rebuke that lay half-formed upon her lips remained unuttered. Her jaw dropped slowly, she gasped, whilst the room, rocked by the fury of the wind, seemed to oscillate about her. Mary's abandonment, her relaxed attitude, the profile of her unrestrained figure, plucked at the instrument of the mother's memory and touched a hidden chord in her mind, bringing back suddenly the unforgettable remembrance of her own travail. An illuminating flash, more terrible than any lightning stroke, pierced her understanding. All the latent, the unthought-of and unthinkable misgivings which had been dormant within her, bounded before her in one devastating conviction. The pupils of her eyes dilated into pools of horror and, clutching her shrunken bosom with her left hand, she raised her right drunkenly and pointed her finger at Mary.

"Look look at me!" she stammered.

With a start Mary turned and, her brow dewed with perspiration, looked at her mother dumbly. Immediately the mother knew, knew inexorably, and Mary saw that she was discovered. Instantly a shriek burst from Mrs. Brodie like the cry of an outraged animal. Higher and more piercing than the wind it shrilled inside the room and echoed screechingly through the house. Again and again she shrieked,

lost in the grasp of hysteria. Blindly Mary clutched at her mother's dress.

"I didn't know, Mamma," she sobbed. "Forgive me. I didn't know what I was doing."

With short, stabbing blows Mrs. Brodie thrust Mary from her. She could not speak; her breath came stertorously from her in panting spasms.

"Mamma! Dear Mamma! I understood nothing! I didn't know I was wicked. Something's hurting me now. Help me!" she begged her.

The mother found her tongue with difficulty.

"The disgrace! Your father!" she moaned. "Oh! It's a nightmare. I'm not awake."

She screeched again madly. Mary was terrified; this outcry imprisoned her in a cell of iniquity; she heard in each scream the wide broadcast of her disgrace.

"Oh! Please, Mamma, don't call out like that," implored Mary, her head hanging abjectly; "only stop and I'll tell you everything."

"No! No!" shrieked Mamma. "I'll hear nothing! Ye’ll have to face your father. I'll be party to nothing. I'm not responsible. It's only yourself to blame."

Mary's limbs trembled violently. "Dear Mamma! Is there no excuse for me?" she whispered. "I was so ignorant."

"Your father will kill ye for this," screamed Mrs. Brodie. "It's your fault."

"I implore you, Mamma," pleaded Mary feverishly, "not to tell father. Help me for two days more only two days" she cried desperately, trying to bury her head on her mother's breast "dear, kind Mamma. Keep it between us till then. Only two days more! Please Oh! Please!"

But again her mother, terrified beyond reason, thrust her off and cried out wildly:

"You must tell him at once. I'm no' to blame. Oh! The wickedness of ye to get us into such trouble. Oh! The wickedness, the wickedness!"

Then, with a bitter finality, Mary realised that it was hopeless to entreat her mother further. A great fear descended on her and, with it, the rushing desire to escape. She felt that if she left her, Mamma might recover her control. She desired urgently to get out of the room, and pushing past her mother, she began hastily to descend the stairs. But when she was halfway down, suddenly she raised her head and saw at the foot of the staircase, standing in the hall, the heavy figure of her father.

Brodie had the custom, every Sunday afternoon after dinner, of resting. He went with the regularity of clockwork into the parlour, closed the door, drew the curtains, removed his frock coat and laid his ponderous bulk down upon the sofa, where he slept heavily for two or three hours. But to-day he had been disturbed by the storm, and he had slept only in snatches, which was worse than not sleeping at all. The loss of his sleep had aggravated him, rendering his temper

sour, and, in addition, he took it as a matter of great annoyance to his sense of order that his time-honoured ritual should have been deranged in such an outrageous fashion. The culmination of his vexation had been achieved when he had been aroused from a snatch of sleep by the fall of the flagstaff from his house. He was in a flaming rage and, as he stood in his shirt sleeves, looking at Mary, his upturned face reflected the bitter resentment of his mood.

"Have we not enough noise outside that you must start that infernal din upstairs?" he shouted. "How can a man sleep with such a fiendish blattering in his ears? Who was making that noise? Was it you?" He glared at her.

Mamma had followed Mary and now stood swaying upon the top landing, rocking herself to and fro, with her arms clasped upon her breast. Brodie turned his inflamed eye upon her.

"This is a braw house for a man to rest in," he flared. "Do I not work hard enough for ye through the week ? What is this day made for, will ye tell me ? What's the use of all that godly snivellin' talk of yours if ye must go and ring our ears like this. Can I not lay down for a minute without this damned wind howlin', and you howlin' like a hyena too?"

Mrs. Brodie did not reply but still swayed hysterically at the top of the stairs.

"What are you going on about? Are you gone silly?" bawled Brodie. "Has the thunder turned your reason to make ye stand like a drunken fishwife?"

Still she was silent, and it then dawned upon him, from her manner, that some disaster had occurred.

"What is it?" he shouted roughly, "Is it Nessie? Has the lightning

hit her? Is she hurt?"

Mamma shook her whole body in a frantic negation the catas-

trophe was worse than that!

"No! No!" she gasped. "It's her her!" She raised her hand accusingly against Mary. Not even the most shadowy instinct of protection was in her. Her terror of Brodie in this awful calamity was so unbounded that her only impulse was to disclaim all responsibility, all knowledge of the crime. She must at all costs defend herself from any charge of liability in the matter.

"For the last time," raged Brodie, "I ask ye what it is. Tell me, or by God I'll come up to ye both."

"It wasn't my fault," cringed Mrs. Brodie, still shielding herself from the undelivered charge, "I've brought her up always like a Christian girl. It's her own natural badness." Then, realising that she must tell or be beaten, she strained her body to the utmost, threw her head back and, as if each word cost her an unbearable effort of ejaculation, sobbed:

"If you must know. She's going she's going to have a child."

Mary stiffened, whilst the blood drained from her face. Her mother, like Judas, had betrayed her. She was lost trapped her father below, her mother above.

Brodie's great frame seemed to shrink imperceptibly; his bellicose eyes became faintly bemused and, in a muddled fashion, he looked at Mary.

"What wha' " he muttered. He raised his eyes uncomprehendingly to Mamma, saw her frantic plight, and again lowered his gaze upon Mary. He paused, whilst his mind grappled with the inconceivable, unfathomable news. Suddenly he shouted,

"Come here!"

Mary obeyed. Each step she took seemed to lower her into her own tomb. Brodie seized her roughly by the arm and looked her up and down. A sickening feeling went through him.

"My God!" he repeated to himself, in a low tone. "My God! I believe it's true. Is it?" he cried thickly. Her tongue lay mutely in her mouth from shame. Still holding her arm, he shook her unmercifully, then, releasing her suddenly, allowed her to recoil heavily upon the floor.

"Are you with child ? Tell me quickly or I'll brain you," he shouted.

As she told him, she thought he would surely kill her. He stood there looking at her as if she were a viper that had stung him. He raised his arm as if to strike her, to crush her skull with one blow of his hammer fist, to wipe out with one blow her obliquity and his dishonour. He wanted to strike her, to trample on her, grind her under the heels of his boots into a mangled, bloody pulp. A vast

brutal passion seethed in him. She had dragged his name into the mire. The name of Brodie! She had lowered his heritage into the slime of ill fame. The whole place would reek of it. He would see the smirks, the sneers, the significant nods as he strode down the High Street; at the Cross he would hear the stray word of mockery and the half -muffled laugh of derision. The niche he had cut and was still carving for himself would be shattered; the name, the reputation

he had made for himself would be ruined and he himself cast down-wards in contumely through this thing that lay weeping at his feet. But he did not strike her. The intensity of his feeling burned suddenly into a heat which turned his gross rage into a subtle and more dangerous channel. In a different manner he would show her! He saw sharply a means of vindicating his honour. Yes, by God! He would show them in the Borough how he dealt with this sort of thing. They would see the stand that he was taking. She was now no daughter of his. He would cast her from him as unclean.

Then, suddenly, a second, loathsome suspicion came into his mind, a suspicion which gathered in aversion, becoming more certain the longer he contemplated it. He touched Mary with his huge, heavy boot.

"Who was the man?" he hissed at her. "Was it Foyle?" He saw from her look that he was right. For the second time that hateful young upstart had dealt him a crushing blow, this time more deadly than before. He would rather it had been any one, the basest and most beggarly scoundrel in the town, any one but Foyle! But it was he, the smooth-faced, blarneying, young corner boy who had possessed the body of Mary Brodie; and she, his child, had suffered him to do so. A lucid mental picture, revolting in its libidinous detail, rose up and tortured him. His face worked, the skin around his nostrils twitched, a thick, throbbing vessel corded itself upon his temple. His features, which had at first been suffused with a high angry flush, now became white and hard as chiselled granite. His jaw set ruthlessly like a trap, his narrow forehead lowered with an inhuman barbarity. A cold ferocity, more terrifying than the loud-mouthed abuse which he usually displayed, tempered his rage like an axe blade. He kicked Mary viciously. The hard sole of his boot sank into her soft side.

"Get up, you bitch!" he hissed, as he again spurned her brutally with his foot. "Do you hear me? Get up."

From the staircase the broken voice of Mamma senselessly repeated,

"I'm not to blame! I'm not to blame!" Over and over came the words, "I'm not to blame. Don't blame me." She stood there abjectly, cringingly, protesting ceaselessly in a muttering voice her inculpability, whilst behind her the terrified figures of Nessie and the old woman were dimly outlined. Brodie gave no heed to the interruption. He had not heard it.

"Get up," he repeated, "or I'll help ye up"; and, as she rose, he lifted

her to her feet with a final jerk of his foot.

Mary staggered up. Why, she thought, did he not kill her and be done with it? Her side, where he had kicked her, stabbed with a piercing hurt. She was too terrified to look at him. She felt that he was torturing her only to destroy her in the end.

"Now," he ground out slowly from between his clenched teeth, with words that bit into her like vitriol, "you'll listen to me."

As she stood there, bent and drooping, he moved his head slightly and thrust forward his hard, relentless face into hers. His eyes gleamed closely, with a concentrated, icy glitter that seared her with its chill.

"You'll listen to me, I say. You'll listen to me for the last time. You are not my daughter any longer. I am going to cast you out like a leper! Like a leper you filthy slut! That's what I'm going to do to you and your unborn bastard. I'm going to settle with your fancy man in my own time, but you you're going out to-night."

He repeated the last words slowly, whilst he pierced her with his cold eyes. Then, as though reluctant to abandon the satisfaction of her abasement under his glare, he turned slowly, walked heavily to the door and flung it open. Immediately a terrific inrush of wind and rain filled the hall, clattering the pictures on the walls, billowing the hanging coats on the stand, and rushing upwards with the force of a battering-ram towards the clinging group upon the stairs.

"It's a beautiful night for a stroll," snarled Brodie, with drawn lips. "It's dark enough for you to-night! You can walk the streets to your heart's content to-night, you strumpet!"

With a sudden thrust of his arm he caught her by the neck and compressed it within his huge, prehensile grasp. No sound but the

howling of the wind filled the hall. Of the three terrorised onlookers,

the uncomprehending child, the mother, and the half -fearful, half-

gloating old woman, not one spoke. They stood paralysed to silence.

The feel of her soft yet resistant throat fascinated him ; he wanted to

squeeze it like a pipestem until it snapped, and, for an instant, he stood

thus, fighting the impulse; but he started violently and, with a sudden

tug, dragged her to the door.

"Now," he shouted, "you're going out and you'll never come back not until you crawl back and grovel down to lick these boots that have kicked you."

At that, something within Mary spoke. "I will never do that," she whispered from her pale lips.

"No!" yelled Brodie. "You will never come back, you harlot!"

He pushed her, with a violent, final thrust, from him. She disappeared into the raging blackness beyond. As she vanished completely to sight and sound, as though she had stepped over a precipice, he stood there in an ecstasy of passion, his fists clenched, filling his lungs with the wet, saline air, shouting at the pitch of his voice, "Don't come back, you whore! you whore!" He shouted the last word again, and again, as if its repetition afforded him, in its coarse vituperation, a satisfaction, an alleviation of his fury. Then he turned upon his heel and shut her out into the night.

XI

MARY rested where she had fallen. She felt stunned, for Brodie's final, brutal thrust had thrown her heavily, flat upon her face, into the rough, gravel courtyard. The rain, driven in straight, parallel spears, impinged painfully upon her lightly covered body and spattered the surface of the puddle in which she lay. Already she was soaked to the skin, but the wetness of her rain-saturated clothing brought, at that moment, only a refreshing coolness to the fever that burned within her. She had felt under her father's terrible eyes that

he would surely murder her and now, although her bruised and aching body still burned, a sense of escape filled her mind and transfigured its terror to lightness and relief. She had been cast out shamefully, but she was alive; she had left for ever a home which had become lately a hated prison; and now she plucked together her shattered forces and bravely fixed her mind upon the future.

Denis, she became aware amongst the fearful confusion of her thoughts, was perhaps sixty miles away; she was enveloped in a storm of unprecedented magnitude; she had no coat, no hat, insufficient clothing and no money; but now she had courage. Firmly she compressed her wet lips as she desperately endeavoured to examine her position. Two courses lay open to her: the one to attempt to reach the cottage at Garshake, the other to go to Denis' mother at Darroch.

It was twelve miles to Garshake and, beyond the fact that she knew that it was named Rosebank, she had no knowledge of where the cottage stood; besides, even if she succeeded in getting inside, she would be alone, penniless and without food; and now she realised

that she needed succour of some kind. She therefore abandoned all thought of reaching Rosebank and turned, inevitably, to the alter- native idea. She must go to Denis' mother! At least she would receive shelter from her, shelter until Denis returned. His mother would not refuse her that; and she hearteningly recollected that once Denis had said to her, "If the worst happened, you could come to my mother."

She would do that! She must do that. To get to Darroch she would be obliged to walk. She was not aware of any train which left Levenford for Darroch on Sunday

night; and if one did run she did not know its time of departure, nor had she the cost of her ticket. Two routes therefore offered themselves for her choice. The first was the main artery of communication between the two places, a broad main thoroughfare nearly five miles long, the other, a narrow, unfrequented road running directly across the open countryside, narrowing here to a lane and there to a mere track, but avoiding the circuitous windings of the outskirts of both towns, and shorter than the former by almost two miles. Her strength was now so insufficient, and her sufferings so great, that she decided to take the latter route because it was the lesser distance. She thought she could walk three miles.

Prostrate upon the ground and protected by the high wall of the courtyard she had not appreciated the full power of the storm, which was, indeed, the worst which had ravaged the Scottish Lowlands for over a century. The wind, springing from the southwest, tore past at the unprecedented velocity of sixty miles an hour. In the town only those driven by necessity were abroad, and of these only the hardiest remained for more than a few moments in the open. Slates torn from the roofs of houses sailed downwards through the air, each with the force and cutting violence of a falling guillotine; whole chimney pots were wrenched off, flung through the air entire, and dashed upon the cobblestones below; the large, thick, plate-glass window of the Building Society's office was blown into pieces, like dry parchment, by the force of the wind alone. Amongst the roar of the hurricane the reports of falling objects as they struck upon the streets came continuously, like a bombardment. In the Newtown the gable of a newly erected house was caved in by the blast and the wind, entering the aperture like a wedge, prised off the roof and seized it. Off flew the entire roof, its sides extended like the planing wings of a bird, soaring through the air, until finally the wind ceased to support it and it dived like a plummet into the black water of the estuary a full three hundred yards away.

In the low-lying parts of the town the ceaseless rain caused such flooding that entire areas lay under water; houses stood apart like isolated dwellings rising from a strange lagoon, and the deluge, rushing around them, percolated the walls, entered through doors and windows, and completely inundated the lower floors.

The lightning which ran riot over the surrounding countryside produced a less diffuse but more deadly havoc. A shepherd, herding on the Doran hills, was struck instantly dead; two farm servants sheltering under a tree were struck down and their charred bodies crushed by the fall of the riven tree; livestock suffered severely; countless sheep and cattle were killed as they lay in the open or sought a more precarious shelter under trees, and a full score of cattle

crouching against a wire fence were electrocuted by the conduit of the fluid current.

A thunderbolt fell, and, crashing into a sailing barque at anchor in Port Doran Bay, sank it instantly. Other ships, in the river mouth and in the Firth, dragged their anchors and broke their moorings and were battered by the waves as they ran aground on the Doran shore.

Unaware of all this, Mary slowly raised herself to her feet. The wind took hold of her and almost cast her down again, but she bore against it, and, inclining her body sharply into the teeth of the gale, set out through the pitch of the night. Her sodden garments flapped about her like drenched sails and hampered her movements, clinging bindingly to her legs at each step she took. As she left the front of her home a leaden gutter, stripped from the coping by a single gust, came hurdling viciously towards her, like a last malevolent gesture from the house; but, though it passed dangerously near her head, it missed her and buried itself deeply in the wet ground.

She had not proceeded a hundred yards before she was compelled to rest. Though this point marked the situation of the last lamppost of the road, now the darkness was unrelieved and, for a moment, she imagined the light had been blown out, but as she resumed her way, she tripped upon the prone column of the disrupted lamp. With head downwards she stumbled on, feeling her way like a blind woman and keeping the road only through her sense of direction and by her familiarity with it. The noise about her was frightful, so deafening that if she had shouted aloud she would not have heard her own voice. The wind, like some gigantic orchestra, traversed madly the gamut of its compass. The deep diapason of the pipe organ mingled with the reedy treble of clarionets; bugles shrilled against the bass of oboes; the wailing of violins, the clash of cymbals, the

booming of drums were blended together into an unearthly cacophony of dissonance.

Every now and then, out of the blackness, unseen objects struck her. Flying twigs of trees stung her face, torn-up branches and shrubs flung themselves against her. Once a soft tentacle entwined itself about her neck and arms. She shrieked with terror, lifting her soundless voice against the hurricane, thinking that living arms had corded themselves about her, but, as she raised her hands in panic, she discovered that she was enveloped by a sheaf of hay blown from some obliterated stack.

With the utmost difficulty she had now traversed about a mile of her journey, and, though she was not yet halfway towards her objective, the most fearful part lay immediately ahead. Here the road closed in almost to a pathway and wandered, unflanked by any guiding fence or boundary, without line of demarcation from

the adjacent woodland, through a thick grove of firs. This wood was always tenebrous, with gloomy trees that whispered elegies, but now, in this fearsome night, which itself lay around her like a dense forest, the wood became frightful and repulsive, like the central darkness, the very heart of the forest of the night. She shuddered to think of entering it. Once, when a child, upon an expedition with some others, she had lost herself amongst these stern, austere trees, had run amongst them, forlornly seeking her companions, and she now recalled with painful vividness her youthful terror, a terror which returned upon darker wings as, mustering all her courage and her strength, she plunged into the coppice.

It was almost impossible to trace the pathway. Gropingly she crept along, keeping both arms extended, with flat palms outstretched in front of her. This extension of her arms gave her an excruciating hurt in that side of her chest where her father had kicked her, but she was obliged to hold them so in order to protect her head and face from the contact of the trees, and to ascertain more exactly the direction of her laborious progress.

The wind which, in the open land, had maintained a constant direction, now whirled around the tree trunks with a hundred currents and eddies, in a manner which rendered direct forward movement impossible. Mary was tossed this way and that way, like a ship beating its course amongst a swirl of treacherous tides, without moon or stars to guide her in the perilous pitch of the night. She had

begun to wander from the path when, suddenly, an erratic vortex caught her, swept away her balance, and flung her violently to the left. She fell with all her weight, and the palm of her left hand impaled itself upon the dagger-sharp point of a low, broken fir branch which projected horizontally from the main trunk. For one agonising moment her hand remained nailed to the wood, then she plucked it free and staggered to her feet.

Onwards she went. She was now utterly lost. She wanted to get out of the wood but she could not. Dizzily she felt her way from tree to tree, the blood streaming from her wounded hand, permeated by terror, by the throbbing of her injured side and the recurrent pains within her body. Chilled to the bone, her wet hair streaming dankly, her skin infiltrated with rain water, she mazed about the wood in the darkness. She stumbled and got up, swayed backwards and staggered onwards, to the insane music of the tornado as it bellowed through the trees. The pandemonium of sound dinning upon her ears seemed of itself to swing her about, controlling her movements by its stupendous rhythm. Light-headedly she gyrated amongst the rending of uprooting trees, lost to everything but pain and her desire to escape from the horror of this besetting forest.

Her head became light and giddy, and now it seemed to her that the blackness was peopled with wild, living creatures that dashed about her, touching her, plucking at her with their fingers, pressing against and hurrying past her in an orgy of stampeding movement. She felt the cold, gusty breathing of the wet things as they slid and buffeted their way through the forest. They whispered into her ears strange, sad tidings of Denis and of her child; they bellowed loudly in her father's tones and wailed like her mother. Every sound about

her she construed into the weird and incoherent speech of these visionary beings. At intervals she knew she was going mad, that no forms surrounded her. that she was alone, deserted, forgotten in the wood, but as she staggered on, her mind again became obscured, clouded by the visions of her terror.

Suddenly, when it seemed as though she must completely lose her reason, she paused in a kind of numb wonder. She raised her tortured eyes upwards to the sky and beheld the moon, a thin crescent, pale and without radiance, which lay flat upon its back amongst the banked clouds, as though the gale had blown it over. She saw it only for a moment, then it was obscured by the racing clouds, but she

observed that the wind now came upon her in one direct, tearing line of motion, that she no longer felt the hard trunks of the firs.

She was out of the wood! She sobbed with relief, and immediately ran blindly to escape from it and from the gibbering creatures it contained. She had lost the road, together with all sense of her bearings, and the instinct of flight alone impelled her as, with a crouching, stumbling motion, she hastened anywhere. The wind was now assisting her, lifting her from her feet and lengthening her shambling steps. She was in some kind of field and long, dank grasses whipped

her legs as she slid forward upon the soft turf. It was not cultivated land, for she passed amongst clumps of bracken, slipped and stumbled against half -buried, moss-grown boulders, and ripped through clusters of bramble bush; but she was now beyond logical thought and did not pause to deduce her whereabouts from the nature of the country she traversed.

Then, all at once, amongst the tumult, she became aware of a deep, sonorous cadence, which, as she went on, grew louder, and swelled to the roar of rushing water. It was the sound of a broad river, swollen to overflowing, and so engorged by turbid waters that its rushing turbulence sounded in her ears like the resonance of a cataract. With every step she took, this sound grew louder till it seemed as though the river, glutted with the debris of the uplands, advanced menacingly upon her, bearing, unseen amongst the seething waters, palings and fencing, the wreckage of a dozen bridges, whole tree trunks and the

bodies of dead sheep and cattle.

She was upon its very brink before she understood that it was the Leven; the same Leven which had sung to her so softly with its lilting purl, which had added to the rapture of Denis and herself as, meandering past, it had serenaded their love. Now, like herself, it was altered beyond recognition. The moon was still obscured and nothing was visible to her, but as she stood terrified, listening upon the high, exposed bank, for an instant, in her fearful extremity, she was tempted to let herself slide into these invisible, booming waters below, to forget and be forgotten. A shudder ran through her bruised body as she repulsed the thought. Like a command to live came the thought that, no matter what happened, she still had Denis. She must live for Denis, and now she felt him beckoning to her. She turned abruptly from the sound as though to cut off its appeal but, as she moved, in the careless hurry of her recoil, her wet shoe slipped, she stumbled, her foot again slithered on the surface of a greasy clod and she shot feet first down the steep slope. Her hands clutched desperately at the short grass and rushes of the bank, but the weeds that she grasped broke immediately in her clasp or uprooted easily from the wet soil. Her feet tore two furrows in the yielding clay as she dug them fiercely into it in a fruitless effort to save herself. With her arms she clung to the wet bank, but she found nothing to retard her descent.

The smooth surface of the declivity was as steep and treacherous as that of a glacier and, instead of arresting her fall, these frantic movement: inly served to increase her speed. She was precipitated with irresistible momentum into the unseen river below. She entered the water with a soundless splash and immediately sank down amongst the long water weeds which grew from the bottom, whilst water rushed into her lungs as she gasped from shock and terror.

The force of the current drove her body rapidly along the river bed, amongst the entangling grasses, and swept her downstream for thirty yards before she came at last to the surface.

She could not swim but, instinctively, with the effort of preservation, she made a few, feeble, despairing strokes, trying to keep her head above the surface of the water. It was impossible. The intense spate of the torrent had raised a series of high, undulating waves which swept repeatedly over her, and finally a swirling undertow caught her legs and sucked her down. This time she remained under so long that her senses almost left her. Bells rang in her ears, her lungs were ballooned, her eyeballs bursting; red stabs of light danced before her; she was suffocating. But she came once more to the surface and, as she emerged, inert and half insensible, the end of a floating log of wood was flung by a wave into her right armpit. Unconsciously, she seized it and feebly clasped it against her. She floated. Her body was submerged, her hair streaming behind her

in the current, but her face lay above water and, with great, gasping breaths, she filled and refilled her chest with air. With all feeling suspended but the necessity of respiration, she clung to the log, amidst the strange flotsam that dashed every now and then against her, and was borne rapidly down the river. Her rate of movement was so great that, as consciousness returned to her more fully, she realised that, if she did not quickly reach the bank, she would soon be swept amongst the sharp rocks which spiked the rapids that lay immediately above Levenford. With the remains of her strength, and still clinging to the log, she kicked out with her legs. The cold of the river water was infinitely more cutting than of the rain, cutting from the frigidity of an ice-crusted, snow-capped mountain source and from the added chill of tributary hill streams fed by melted snow. This cold pierced to the marrow of Mary's bones; her limbs lost all sensation and, although her legs moved feebly at the command of her will, she did not feel them stir. The air, too, had become so frigid that hailstones began to fall. They were large pellets, hard as stone, sharp as icicles, that churned the water like shot and bounced off the log like bullets. They rained mercilessly upon Mary's face and head, bruising her eyes, whipping her cheeks and cutting her lower lip. Because she must hold the log so grimly with both her

hands she could not shield herself and she was compelled to suffer this pitiless, pelting shower, unprotected. Her teeth chattered; her wounded hand was seared and freezing; dreadful cramps seized her middle; she felt she was perishing from the cold. The immersion in the glacial water was killing her. At that moment, as she struggled towards the bank, a single thought obsessed her not of herself or of Denis, but of the child within her. A compelling instinct suddenly flowered within her as though a message, passing by some strange communication between the child and her own being, had suddenly told her that, if she did not quickly get out of the water, it must die.

Never before had she thought so lovingly of the child. At times she had hated it as part of her own despicable body, but now an overpowering desire for it overtook her. If she died it must die. She thought of the living infant, entombed in her drowned body, floating out to sea, moving more and more feebly in the prison of her lifeless flesh. Without speech she prayed that she might live, live to give it birth.

She had now reached a point where the engorged river had burst its banks and overflowed into the neighbouring fields. She could feel this quieter water to the left of her and, with her puny force, she essayed to direct herself to it. Again and again she tried to draw away from the main stream, only to be sucked back again. She had almost abandoned hope when, at a sharp bend of the river, her log was suddenly deflected from its course by a powerful eddy, and she floated into an area where she could feel no waves, no swirl, no wild onrush. She let the log drift on until it came to rest, then, trembling, she lowered her legs. They touched bottom and she stood up, thigh deep in the water. The weight of the water and her frozen state almost prevented her moving, but, though gaining only inches at a time, she moved slowly away from the sound of the river. At length she was clear of the flood. She looked round. To her intense joy she saw, amidst the impenetrable darkness around her, a light. The sight of

this light was like a divine balm laid suddenly upon each of her wounds. For what seemed to her like years she had been moving in a world of tenebrous shadows, where each step was fraught with obscure suspense and an unseen danger that might annihilate her.

The faint, unflickering ray gleamed serenely and in the dim illumination she saw comfort and serenity. Hereabouts, she recollected, was situated a small and isolated croft, but whosoever dwelt here could never refuse to shelter her in her terrible condition on so terrible a night. Cowering, she advanced towards the light.

Now she could hardly walk. Low in her body a heavy weight seemed to bear her down and lacerating pains tore her with every movement. Bent almost double, she persisted on her way. The light had been so near and yet, the farther she advanced, the more it seemed to recede from her! Her feet squelched deep into the inundated ground so that it was an effort to withdraw them, and with each step she seemed to sink deeper into the marshland which she was now obliged to cross. Still, she progressed, going deeper and deeper into the swamp, sinking to her knees as she plodded through a foul mixture of mud and water. One of her shoes was plucked from her foot by the adhesion of the quagmire and she was unable to retrieve it; her skin, blenched white by her prolonged immersion, now

became smeared and splashed with mire; the remnants of her clothing trailed behind in draggled tatters.

At length, it appeared to her that she was slowly gaining ground and approaching nearer to the light of the croft, when abruptly, following a forward step, she failed to find bottom with her feet. She began to sink into the bog. She shrieked. The warm, quaggy mud sucked at her legs with a soft insistence, drawing her downwards into its embrace. She was unable to withdraw either foot and, at her struggles, gaseous bubbles erupted from the slough and stifled her with their miasma. Downwards she sank. It seemed to her that she had been saved from the clean, cold death of the river in order to be destroyed more fittingly here. This sludge was a more suitable winding sheet than the pure water of the mountain streams. In such corruption as this her violated body had been destined to disintegrate and, dissolving, become finally part of its substance. To have surmounted such peril as she had that night endured and to be robbed of succour when within sight of it, infuriated her. In a passion of endeavour she struggled to support herself; with a shriek she flung herself forward, clawing wildly at the wet moss which covered the surface of the morass. The glutinous stuff offered little hold, but with such frenzy did she tear at it with her extended fingers that she succeeded, with a last superhuman effort, in drawing herself clear by the power of her arms alone. Then, pantingly, she dragged her body to a firmer part of the marsh, where she lay completely exhausted. She could now no longer walk and therefore, after a few moments rest, she began to crawl slowly forward on all fours like a stricken animal. But in escaping from the bog she had utilised the last dregs of her strength; although she was on solid ground and no more than fifty yards from the house, she realised that she would never attain it.

She gave up, and, sobbing weakly, lay on the ground, hopeless, with powerless limbs relaxed, whilst a fresh downpour of rain deluged her. Yet, as she lay there, the faint lowing of cattle came to her through the storm. After a moment she again heard the sound and, looking to the right, she perceived, dimly outlined in the obscurity, the darker outlines of a low building. She became aware through the drifting vapours in her brain that here was shelter of some kind. Raising herself, she staggered with a last, delirious effort, into the shed and collapsed unconscious upon the floor.

The sanctuary she had attained was a poor outbuilding, the mean byre of the small farm. Being built of thick stones with the crevices closely stuffed with moss, it was warm inside; and, having so insignificant a height, the chilling blast rushed over it, so that it had, in addition, escaped the fury of the wind. The air was filled with the blended odours of straw, dung, and the sweet smell of the animals themselves. The three milch cows standing in their stalls moved with gentle, resigned movements, their bodies almost invisible, their pale udders faintly luminous amongst the shadows. The cows, their large, sad eyes inured to the darkness, looked with a docile timidity at the strange human creature which rested, scarcely breathing, upon the floor of the byre. Then, having identified it as passive and harmless, they turned their heads disinterestedly and again began calmly ruminating with silent moving jaws.

For only a few moments Mary remained in happy insensibility. She was restored to consciousness by the powerful spur of pain. Waves of pain swept over her. The pain began in her back, travelled round her body and down the inside of her thighs with a slow, fulminating grip which gradually crept to an intolerable crisis. Then suddenly it left her, limp, drained and helpless.

During the whole of her tragic journey she had endured these pangs. Now they became insupportable, and, lying amongst the ordure of the shed, she suffered with closed eyes. Her arms and legs were extended flaccidly; her body was pressed into the steaming dung and plastered with drying mud. Moans of pain broke from between her clenched teeth; a damp sweat beaded her forehead and trickled slowly over her shut eyelids; her features, disfigured by filth and distorted by her insupportable experiences, were rigidly set, but around her head the emanation of her sufferings seemed to have condensed in a faint, translucent radiance which encircled her dying face like a nimbus.

The inactive intervals of her pains grew shorter whilst the paroxysms lengthened. When a pain abated the passive anticipation of the next was torture. Then it would begin, graspingly envelop her, permeate her with agony, and squander itself through her every nerve. Her cries were combined with the shriek of the ever present wind. Everything she had undergone was as nothing compared to her present torture. Her body writhed about the stone floor feebly; blood mingled with the sweat and dirt about her. She prayed for death. Dementedly she called upon God, on Denis, on her mother. She besought the clemency of her Saviour in gasps, which broke in anguish from between her clenched teeth. In answer to her cries only the wind responded. Rising up, it shrieked and mocked at her as it rushed above the shed. She lay abandoned until, at last, when she

could not have lived through one further exacerbation, the gale rose to its loudest, highest pitch and, amidst the culmination of the storm, she was delivered of a son. Till the last torture abated she was conscious. Then, when there was no more pain for her to endure, she relapsed into the deep well of forgetfulness.

The child was small, puny, premature. Bound still to its insensible mother it clawed feebly at her, and at the empty air, with its diminutive fingers. Its head sagged upon its frail neck. It rested there, scarcely breathing, while the mother lay slowly blanching from a slow, seeping haemorrhage. Then it cried with a weak and fitful cry.

As if in answer to that call the door of the shed opened slowly and the rays of a lantern dimly penetrated the darkness. An old woman came into the byre. A thick, plaid shawl was wrapped around her head and shoulders; her wooden, solid clogs clattered as she walked. She had come to reassure herself as to the safety and comfort of her beasts and now she went to them, smoothing their necks, patting their sides, talking encouragingly to them. "Eh, Pansy lady," she muttered. "Come up, Daisy! Come awa', Belle; come up, leddy, leddy! Come, leddy, leddy! But what a night! What a storm! But dinna steer, dinna fash, ye're a' richt, my hinnies! You've a good, stout roof abin ye; ye maunna be frichted! I'm near enough tae ye.

You'll be " Abruptly she broke off, and raised her head into a listening attitude. She imagined she had heard within the byre a faint, puling cry. But she was old and deaf and her ears rang with the echo of the hurricane, and, mistrusting her own perception of the sound, she was about to turn away and resume her task when she distinctly heard the slight, plaintive call repeated.

"Guidsakes! what is't at a', at a'," she murmured. "I'm shair I heard something Something unco' like a wean greetin'." With an unsteady hand she lowered her lantern; peering about in the darkness; then suddenly she paused, with incredulous, awestruck eyes,

"The Lord save us!" she cried. "It's a bairn and and its mother.

God in Heaven, she's deid! Oh! The nicht that this has been! What a thing for ma auld een to see!" In a second she had placed her lantern on the stone floor and was down upon her aged knees. She had no fastidious delicacy as she plied her coarse hands with the adept, experienced movements of a woman of the soil to whom nature was an open book. Quickly, but without flurry, she disengaged the child and wrapped it warmly in a corner of her plaid. Then she turned to the mother and, with an expert pressure, at once evacuated the womb, and controlled the bleeding. All the time she spoke to herself, while she worked:

"Did ye see the like! She's nearly gane! The puir thing! And her so young and so bonnie. I maun dae ma best for her. That's better though. Why in God's name did she no' come to the house, though. I would have letten her in. Ah, well, 'twas the will o' the Almighty I cam' out to the beasts." She slapped Mary's hands, rubbed her cheeks, covered her with the remainder of the plaid, and hastened off.

Back in her comfortable kitchen she shouted to her son, who sat before the huge crackling log fire:

"Quick, man! I want ye to run like fury to Levenford for a doctor. Ye maun get yin at a' costs. There's an ill woman in the byre. Go, in God's name, at once, and no' a word frae ye. It's life or death."

He stared at her dully. "What," he cried stupidly, "in our byre?"

"Ay," she shouted, "she's been driven in by the storm. If ye dinna hurry, she'll be gane. Haste ye! Haste ye awa' for help."

He got up mazedly and began to struggle into his coat.

"It's the maist unheard-o' thing," he muttered; "in our byre. What's wrang wi' her, ava', ava'?"

"Never mind," she flared; "gang awa' this meenute. Never mind the horse. Ye maun rin like fury."

She hustled him out of the door, and when she had assured herself that he had gone, took a pan, poured into it some milk from a jug on the dresser, and hurriedly heated it upon the fire. Then she took a blanket from the kitchen bed, her own bed, and rushed again to the cowshed, with the blanket on her arm and the hot milk in her hand. She wrapped Mary tightly in the blanket and, raising her head gently, poured with difficulty a few drops of hot milk between her blue lips. She shook her head doubtfully.

"I'm afraid to move her," she whispered; "she's gae far through."

Taking the infant in the crook of her arm, she removed it to the warm kitchen, and returned with a clean, damp cloth and another blanket for Mary.

"There, ma bonnie, that'll hap ye up warm," she whispered, as she encompassed the limp form in this second covering. Then, tenderly, with the cloth, she wiped the mud from the white cold face. She had done all that was possible, and now she waited patiently, crouching down, without once removing her eyes from Mary, from time to time chafing the lifeless hands, stroking the cold brow beside her.

For almost an hour she remained thus.

At last the door was flung open and a man entered the byre in a bluster of wind and rain.

"Thank God ye've come, Doctor," cried the old woman. "I was feared ye wouldna."

"What is the trouble?" he demanded abruptly, as he advanced towards her.

In a few words she told him. He shook his head dispassionately and bent his tall, spare form down beside the figure on the floor. He was a young man, this Doctor Renwick, skilful in his work, but new to Levenford and anxious to build up a practice, and this had drawn him out on foot on such a night when two other doctors approached before him had refused to go. He looked at Mary's pale, sunken face, then felt her soft, fluttering pulse; whilst he contemplated the second hand of his watch with a serene tranquillity, the old woman gazed at him anxiously.