Chapter VIII: Part 8

"He was hurried at the last," said her father. "He's got a long journey before him and won't be back for another three hours, he said. Then he'll go straight to the House. You are coming, of course; everybody will be there."

"Three hours," repeated Dora blankly. "Are you sure he said three hours?--And he won't be dining at home, you are quite certain that he won't come back? Oh"--she looked 'round the room--"what about Mr. Blair and Mr. Jefferson? I suppose they'll be coming here to work in his absence?"

Beadon produced a key from his pocket.

"No, my orders are to turn you all out and lock the door. Blair and Jefferson are to await Richard at the House. You're looking very pale and worried, Dora; why not come off with me now, and tell your maid to bring your evening things later? You're a grass-widow to-night, aren't you?" He glanced round the room. "Off with you all. There, now, that's right."

He locked the door and pocketed the key.

"Don't wait for me," said Dora nervously; "I've got things to do. If you go off now I'll join you at dinner; I couldn't possibly get to you before. Good-bye, Lord Creagh. Good-bye, Lord Meavy. Yes, father, you can count upon me. But do go now, I'm really busy; I won't ring for the men, I'll go to the door with you myself."

The door closed. She stood for a moment silent, fingering two keys in the bosom of her dress, looking round despairingly, starting at every sound and peering into the corners like a hunted animal at bay. Sure at last of being alone, she slipped into her boudoir, and, going to the writing-table, took out a telegraph form and proceeded to write hurriedly.

"I've got the three hours to myself," she said; "more, even, because he's dining out. What a fool I was to say I'd go to father. And yet I don't know, it will be better to be away in case either of the secretaries comes back and discovers the loss before to-morrow morning. I shall have to send the telegram to Mr. Brand myself; I can tell Felice that I'm going to the Park for a minute or two. Good Heavens, how white I am! I hope to goodness she won't guess there's anything wrong."

"A most uncomfortable place," said Lady Wereminster. "Have you got any room at all, Evelyn?" She looked icily in the direction of the lady at Mrs. Brand's right hand. "There's only one thing in the world that would ever make me in favour of franchise for women, and that is, that I should immediately use my power to press the passing of a Bill that would enable us, as spectators, to see and hear and to be seen and heard in the House of Commons. Grilles belong to the Middle Ages, and as nobody is even middle-aged now-a-days, one resents their existence."

"How full it is already," said Evelyn; "every seat taken. Look at the hats, and just see the Strangers' Gallery and the Speaker's!"

"Everybody flocks to a tussle like this," said Lady Wereminster, disposing of her skirts as comfortably as the limited space would allow. "Let us see what's to be the first question of the evening? These twopenny-halfpenny matters they're discussing now don't count. No, I absolutely refuse to keep quiet, Evelyn. Nothing important's going on. If the wife of the Member for East Mumsted--the mere prefix stamps the place as vulgar and suburban--is anxious to hear her husband stammering trivialities upon a matter which interests nobody except himself, she can give him unlimited scope for boredom in his own home circle. Give me the Agenda again, or whatever they call it, Evelyn. Good Heavens! we've got at least three-quarters of an hour of this before the business of the evening comes on. Who's that at the door?--Mr. Beadon, Mrs. Farquharson and Mr. Calvert. Fancy Dora honouring her husband by coming! Let's go and speak to them outside, shall we? I hope your husband's in vein to-night, Mrs. Farquharson."

"Well, we're in for a stormy evening," said Beadon cheerfully, piloting Lady Wereminster to a place of comparative seclusion. "Farquharson hasn't turned up yet even. I never saw such a man, he thrives on criticism. He knows as well as I that there is a regular organized claque of Irish Members here to-night ready to shriek him down, 'spoiling for a row,' as we used to say at Eton."

"Now, I'm not a betting man, as you know, Lady Wereminster," interposed Calvert, smiling genially, "but I'm ready to lay you long odds that that boy of mine arrives at the last moment cool and collected, with every fact marshalled and an indomitable flow of courage and good-will that would break the back of the most determined enemy. He's got the gift of humour, and in time that tells with the most angry crowd. They're up in arms against him to-night, I know; I can't quite make it out. He's got on too quickly, I suppose, and made enemies."

"A strong man is always loved or hated," said Evelyn. "Mr. Farquharson is not only an orator, but he knows how to hold his tongue. Such men are always attacked. Think what Cobden and Bright had to suffer in the Anti-Corn League agitation, and O'Connell in the Repeal year! And they were men with vulnerable spots, and the world hasn't found out Mr. Farquharson's weak spot yet."

"If they once rouse him they'll be amazed," Beadon said. "He's a man who asks no quarter and gives none. Well, I think you'd better take your seats, don't you?" He glanced at his watch. "In a quarter of an hour or so Farquharson will be speaking. Oh, there's Jefferson calling me; I expect Farquharson's come. Take care of yourself, my dear." He gave Dora's hand an affectionate squeeze before hurrying away.

"So your seat's near ours?" said Lady Wereminster, somewhat displeased. "Evelyn"--in urgent parenthesis--"if that woman begins cackling at inopportune moments, you have my full permission to envelop her in my chuddah, and make the attendant take her out.--Well, the hats have been replaced by their owners now--I really don't know that the change is for the better. We were a middle-class lot enough eight or nine years ago, but now so many Labour Members have come in----!" She raised her eyes expressively. "One vacant seat only on the Ministerial benches--Mr. Farquharson's--oh, he's filled it now. A man of great distinction, your husband, Mrs. Farquharson; he's got the hall-mark of birth upon him as well as intellect. Thank goodness no one would ever think that his seat was paid for by working men's sixpences."

"Oh, he's very well in his way, as husbands go," said Mrs. Farquharson. "My father was certainly right in taking him up so warmly."

"That's the third time you've had to pick up that odious creature's bag," said Lady Wereminster in an undertone. "I never saw anybody's fingers shake so. I wish to goodness she was sitting further off. She makes me feel quite nervous."

"Oh, do be quiet now, there's a dear," said Evelyn. "Mr. Farquharson's rising. Ah!"

Farquharson's opening words were drowned in a low rumble of muttered comments and hisses. Then suddenly, as if at some preconcerted signal, the Labour Members, the Irish Party, and a great number of the Opposition, whose voices were never heard except on these occasions, broke into a clamour of groans. Evelyn grew pale. The scene was so overwhelming, coming as it did after a period of slackness and indifference, that even the Speaker's call to order was disregarded, and when eventually there came a lull, it was tense with envy and hatred.

Calvert was right. Farquharson faced the storm with the air of one who, at a policeman's bidding, is held up by street traffic. He looked perhaps a trifle bored at first; the delay was not serious, but inconvenient.

When at last he could make himself heard, he repressed the cheers of his colleagues with a gesture; Beadon, knowing his wishes, also hushed them down. There was a speck of dust on his right-hand shirt-cuff; he waited to flick it off deliberately with his handkerchief in the pause before he took up the broken thread of his speech.

When, in next day's papers, Evelyn read the report of his words, she wondered no longer at the spell he exercised over his audience, as, every nerve quickened by the strain he had just gone through, he spoke straight to the heart in simple language and a voice that even his enemies declared brought back memories of O'Connell in its passion and sweetness. The silence of the great hall is often broken by voices raucous and harsh and stammering; there were some who listened now for the mere sake of hearing the silver tongue ring unaccustomed echoes. Others, again, were swept away by the flow of easy words, chosen apparently with consummate care, yet which were in reality inspired by the moment's conflict; words carrying conviction because they were given with all the force of personal magnetism, and all the art of accomplished extempore oratory. Men shifted their positions as they listened; the anxious expression on Beadon's face and that of Farquharson's colleagues deepened into pride. On the Opposition benches lounging and brooding figures braced themselves. It was as though a clear flood and torrent had swept suddenly throughout the House, breaking down barriers, washing away envy and malice and lack of charity by sheer force of its onslaught, by reason of its purity and its wholesomeness.

Farquharson spoke to a silent House, a House which hung upon his words. But suddenly from the distance another noise made itself heard--cries, shouting and disturbance. Evelyn and those about her did not take the interruption seriously at first. Yet presently it penetrated to the body of the House; Members broke free from the spell of Farquharson's words and turned, uneasily aware that some important matter was in progress.

The shouts concentrated, then reached even to the gallery. One or two Members left their places, attendants were seen hurrying, now at the gallery door, and again in the lobby below that immediately faced the Ladies' Gallery. Farquharson went on speaking, apparently unmoved, but he had lost his hold upon his hearers. Every eye was turned away from him in the direction of a white-faced member of the Government who, at Beadon's direction, handed him a slip of paper.

Outside the House the noise reached its climax, the shouting of an angry mob at bay. Evelyn saw other Members come back hurriedly; there were whispered colloquies between separate members of the Opposition; the Irish benches were almost deserted. Then suddenly Beadon rose to his feet, catching convulsively his collar; he flung his hands up, with an inarticulate cry, and fell down as though he had been shot.

Evelyn heard the outside cry taken up again by those within the House itself, and saw peace broken visibly as though an earthquake had rent the whole assembly. Farquharson had leapt to Beadon's side, and was bending over him; for a moment the business of the House was set aside in the sense of imminent personal disaster. Impervious to private sorrow, the Leader of the Irish Party sprang upon his feet, gesticulating and pointing at the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. And Evelyn saw the men of his own party turn to look at Farquharson as though they could not trust the evidence of their own eyes; she saw him break and falter as the word "traitor" rang through the House.

In the Speaker's Gallery, confusion, horror; in the Peeresses' Gallery, a flash of light as women in evening dress rose hurriedly from their seats; in the Strangers' Gallery, a murmur of comment and dissension; the body of the House, convulsed with new and overwhelming emotion, collapsing like a house of cards.

An attendant with papers was at the door of the Ladies' Gallery; there was a rush in his direction. Evelyn must have pushed forward and bought one, how she hardly knew. She was just about to open it when Dora Farquharson, at her side, caught at her arm and fell, terror-stricken, across the seat; she felt Lady Wereminster snatch the paper from her with shaking fingers, and, while she was lifting Dora to her feet, she looked over her shoulder and read the headlines of the page aloud.

"_Treachery in the Foreign Office; the text of the secret Treaty in the hands of a Foreign Power. A European war inevitable._"

Below: "_The Emperor's letter to Lord Gaunt given verbally. Startling disclosures._"

*CHAPTER VIII*

"The longer I live the more I am certain that the great difference between men--between the feeble and the powerful, the great and the insignificant, is energy, invincible determination--a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory. That quality will do anything that can be done in this world; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities will make a two-legged creature a man without it."--SIR F. FOWELL BUXTON.

"I have been sitting here with my pen in my hand, wondering how to find words in which to tell you what really happened at that awful scene in the House of Commons," Lady Wereminster wrote to Hare next day, with shaking hand. "I want to put it all down in plain English, to make myself see the main facts more clearly--at present my whole vision seems blurred and vague. I now know something of what women felt when they stood outside a door and knew that within the room their husbands were being racked. One of my nieces was out in South Africa during the war, you know. She told me that one of the most terrible things she saw was a man, a common soldier, in one of the hospitals at Kimberley, who had been wounded by expanding bullets in the hand between the thumb and forefinger, and in the thigh. Both, under ordinary conditions, would have been mere flesh-wounds; as things were, the space between the forefinger and thumb had swollen as high as a muscular man's arm, and the wound in the thigh was in the same condition. But the man could not die, and medical convention prevented his doctor from putting him out of pain. He lingered on, to Mary's knowledge, in agony, from the battle of Roidam, which took place on the fifth of May, until she left Kimberley on the thirty-first of the month. Throughout that time he had not even momentary cessation from torture. And when she went away the doctor told her that the man's vitality was such that he might well last a fortnight longer.

"A fortnight--think! Remembrance of that suffering man flashed back to me the other night in the House. Nobody likes having to see physical pain; as for mental pain, the only way we treat it is to slur it over. Like St. Thomas, we can only understand wounds we can put our fingers into and probe.

"But you have imagination; you can guess what last night meant to Richard Farquharson and us all. He had been warned that some mischief was afloat, but he never dreamed how far it could go. He came in quite buoyant and undismayed; the first taunts and invective left him unmoved. He bore them down by sheer force of will; giving one rather the impression of facing his enemies 'with his tongue in his cheek,' as Shakespeare says. But presently he began to realize that matters were serious enough to bring the best he had in him to the fore, and then he did indeed give us the best he had of truth and sincerity. He shook off his cynicism and indifference like a cloak. The words sound cold--oh, if I could but make you hear the man's speech as we heard it, spell-bound, breathless! Old members of the House, who had been there for forty and fifty years, say they never heard any speech approach it. I suppose he actually reached the summit of his power in those few moments. Then downfall came.

"The panic that spread as the news about the Treaty filtered through the House was absolutely indescribable. Farquharson never flinched. That's where blood tells. A man of the people in a like crisis would have wavered and lost his head. But when our class is face to face with imminent peril, mental or physical, we are encompassed with a host of silent witnesses, before whom it is impossible to quail. Voices of our dead forbears murmur, 'We are watching you from the heights. We, too, knew danger in our day, and met it. And our blood flows in you, remember. Be true, not only to yourself, but to the dignity of your race.'

"You will remember the story of that Marquis in the Revolution who, driving to the guillotine with other aristocrats, finely attired, sniffed at a rose to the last, because, as he explained, the smell of the rabble so annoyed him?

"We found afterwards that influence had been at work undermining all one side of the House with suggestions and innuendoes. It appears that the whole of the Opposition was expecting some dramatic _denoument_ to Farquharson's speech; what it was they didn't know, but they were prepared for some great climax which would tell in their favour. Anonymous letters had been sent to individual members; the whole work had been done subtly. But for that I doubt if there would have been that instantaneous reaction, the sudden change of aspect between a great assembly hanging on a man's words, one with him in spite of themselves, and a body of men scenting treachery and dishonour, furious at having been fooled and tricked. It took one back to Pilate's house, to the judgment of Christ, when the crowd cried 'Crucify Him, crucify Him!'

"They say that but for Mr. Beadon's seizure a vote of censure would have been moved at once. Under the circumstances it was impossible to go on with the ordinary business of the day; at the moment we all feared that the poor Prime Minister would actually die in his seat. The House was adjourned. There are rumours of Mr. Farquharson's resignation, but I heard just now that he absolutely refuses to give up his post until he is assured that he has lost the confidence of the country. It seems as though he could not take in the fact that he had hardly a friend in the world except our own little coterie. He got on too well and too quickly not to arouse envy and jealousy on all sides.

"I send you, under separate cover, some cuttings from the papers; the leading ones were of course non-committal, the others are full of invective and denunciation. As for the _Moon_, it did not mince matters at all. Caring not a jot what it said so long as it just escaped the law of libel, it practically accused Farquharson of selling the nation for his own ends. As you know, he has never been popular with the Press. No newspaper can say of him, 'This is my puppet; I pull the strings and he does as I direct.'

"It is now supposed that Mr. Farquharson's study and safe must have been opened by duplicate keys on the afternoon of the great crisis in the House. The question is how an impression could have possibly been taken of the key of the safe, as it never leaves Mr. Farquharson's personal possession. The safe was ransacked, nearly everything in it being taken--everything official, I mean; private papers were left. Detectives are at work on the affair, of course.

"It appears that Mr. Farquharson went out early that afternoon, leaving the Prime Minister to lock the door. Lord Creagh, who was with Mr. Beadon all the time, says that he never parted with the key until he returned it to his son-in-law. Both of Mr. Farquharson's secretaries can prove alibis on the day in question; the servants have borne irreproachable characters for years. The fact that Richard himself spent the afternoon with Herr von Kirsch, the representative of that Government into whose possession this special information was proved to have been given that very day, is dead against him. Mr. Farquharson means, I hear, 'to face the music' to-night; the papers will tell you that most of the other Ministers have been suddenly stricken down with influenza. Wereminster says that the party is in a state of absolute panic; they got into office on a wave of public emotion, and are terrified lest the tide should turn.

"Did I tell you that Dora Farquharson was there? Somehow or other, I don't know how, the three of us got together at the door of the Ladies' Gallery, and were the first to read the paper--Evelyn, Dora and I. I think Evelyn did one of the pluckiest things I ever saw a woman do in my life. There was such confusion in the House below that no noise in the Ladies' Gallery was likely to be specially noticed. The tumult was shocking and the rush. With Dora Farquharson clinging to her arm she read the news aloud, and calmed the tumult. 'They dare to say Mr. Farquharson has done this thing,' she said; 'it is a lie. It may not be proved to-day or to-morrow, but it is a lie all the same.' You should have seen those women pause. We are like sheep, after all; we follow our strong leader, be it man or woman. Another woman took Evelyn's cue; she was, I think, one of the heads of the women's franchise movement, or some such thing. Anyway she was quick enough to see that in a moment of national excitement it would speak well for women if they could comport themselves quietly and with dignity. To quote the morning papers, 'In spite of the disturbance and dissension below, the occupants of the Ladies' Gallery withdrew in perfect order, and with no signs of excitement, a great contrast to the prevailing attitude of the House.'

"Evelyn and I led the way with Dora Farquharson. She had, of course, to be taken home at once and put to bed. One dreads the advent of the evening papers; more still the comments of the foreign Press. And if we dread them, what must Richard Farquharson feel? I never knew how much I loved my country until now. These low little papers!--every stone they fling hurts me personally. To hint of corruption and bribery here, in England!--I am only a woman, and I feel this acutely. Again, what can it be to Richard Farquharson? As things stand, it is as though he had wounded almost to death what he loves best and would sacrifice most for. This is a blow at his heart, and a blow at the nation. How to meet it, decadent as we are, demoralized by that love of luxury and advertisement which brings us day by day nearer disaster and downfall?"

*CHAPTER IX*

"Never make a defence ... before you are accused."--CHARLES I.

In youth, a great crisis may only spiritualize and refine the features; in maturity, it leaves ineradicable scars.

The first great blow of Calvert's life had embittered him; the second left him shattered. Farquharson was like his son, more to him in some ways than his own son would have been. Parents have always to face the possibility that their children may go absolutely contrary to their wishes; the transfusion of two souls may create a being which develops on entirely different lines from those desired by they who willed it to exist. But Farquharson had fulfilled Calvert's every hope; his appointment in the Ministry was the culmination of Calvert's ambition. Calvert, looking upon him, felt that he could say his _Nunc Dimittis_ thankfully; how easy to depart in peace when one had left behind, as legacy to the empire, so strong a man of war!

But human strength is, after all, limited; no single unit can hold on steadily against a battalion of armed foes. Farquharson woke the day after the attack in the House to find himself hemmed in, surrounded by enemies, his name bandied from one man to another, in the dockyard, on tubs at Hyde Park Corner, in open booths at Walworth Bridge Road. The socialists saw their opportunity and made the most of it: "A starving man may steal a loaf of bread and be sent to prison for five days--this man, who has sold the secrets of his nation, will probably go unscathed because he is of gentle birth."

It was torture to Calvert to go out that day; he never knew when in 'bus or tube or district railway he would hear Farquharson's name spoken contemptuously by strangers. For men spoke of circumstantial evidence, and "Circumstantial evidence is the hardest to disprove, and frequently unreliable," as a great criminal lawyer once said. Brand had done his work well. But--"In so gloomy a climate as ours we must expect the powers of darkness to prevail," said Lady Wereminster.

Stunned and horrified, Farquharson himself did not at first take in the full force of the rumours that were being spread about him. It was impossible to conceive that he should be suspected of treachery. When, the night before, he lost grip of his audience, he had at first believed that it was through some fault of his own. He had never seen suspicion in men's eyes before. But next day's papers were more explicit. Men and women discussed the subject over the luncheon table, at Princes or the Piccadilly Hotel. "Such a pity--one had always thought Mr. Farquharson quite a nice-minded man." There is after all no ball so light to fling as that of a man's or woman's character, and no sport so amusing to the players.

When the question of moving the vote of censure was fixed for the next evening, Calvert's last hope died. Who was there to stand by Farquharson? Beadon was lying sick to death. Shock had snapped some lesion of the brain, and he lay paralyzed. Richard would pull through, of course--what would he not pull through? But the older man felt the shame, the ignominy of his position almost as keenly as he did himself. Farquharson, called to account for his actions by a set of men who did not know the meaning of the word honour; Farquharson, impeached by some who could scarcely spell the word--Farquharson, steady of purpose, sure of aim, a king amongst puppets, held in contumely, derided, blackened a little as a man or woman must always be blackened by the mud thrown even by the very scum of humanity.

It was bitter, it was unbearable. Calvert counted the hours until the moment when, across the Bar of the House, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs would have publicly to repudiate a deed which the powers of hell themselves would never have forced him to commit.

Evelyn, instead of having been paralyzed by the shock, found it had quickened every instinct. She felt as if she were charged with a new and strange force, a kind of super-consciousness which made her the recipient of a thousand telepathic messages, along which communications carried with the speed and safety of a telegram. It took her away from ordinary surroundings and left her indifferent even to all Brand said and did--although he naturally spared her nothing. There is an inner chamber to every heart, a place of refuge and concealment of which at times one may mercifully turn the key. Evelyn withdrew there now when he attacked her; safe within its four walls, she listened to his criticism of Farquharson as one listens to the ravings of a madman. He could touch her no longer; he could hurt her no more. That is the comfort of receiving a mortal wound. The thrust of spear and bayonet may tear and lacerate to an unendurable pitch of torture, but a blow at the heart kills.

"As we have seen nothing of Mrs. Farquharson," said Lady Wereminster, "we will charitably suppose that for once she has been of use to her husband. There are women who fail in every minor office who can yet rise to occasions. And a man in trouble must have sympathy, no matter from what source. Dora Farquharson has got the opportunity of her life if she did but know. Never expect me to pity a woman who can't keep her husband. She's a fool, and I hate fools. Men are naturally more domestic animals than women. The ties of daily intimacy make enduring claims upon them. A man may be consumed by the fire of undying passion for one woman, but he's dependent on the one he lives with, if she will only minister to his daily needs, and never let his supply of whisky or cigarettes run short, and be ready with a new dish or a soothing medicine as each is required."

"If Dora fails her husband now----" said Evelyn. She stopped.

"Oh, if it were but the ideal marriage," said Lady Wereminster. "With the right woman he would have braved all this and carried it through triumphantly. They have been married long enough now to have begun to form the deeper ties of union and of confidence. It partly amuses, partly hurts me when people talk of the early days of marriage as though all the sweetness and ardour and passion and tenderness of life were concentrated in them. When two people really love each other those things not only endure and strengthen, but take exquisite sanctity as years go by. The plant strengthens. Its blooms are finer. As the years go, its colour and texture are fit to grow in the Garden of God. Something of the Eternal Love has filtered directly through from some crevice of heaven and shone upon them; their scent isn't of this world, but eternity."

"And you think that might apply to Mr. Farquharson and his wife?" said Evelyn. She stood quite silently, looking away from Lady Wereminster.

"Never," said Lady Wereminster; "but men are human. They're like dogs who are hurt. They cringe away into corners where, for a while, they miss accustomed voices, and presently creep out, ready to lick the hand of even the hardest master so long as he is master. When men are hurt they slink off, in much the same way; but daily routine tells. They are creatures of habit, who miss even the harshest voice if they have once got used to it. Dora Farquharson is on the spot, and there's the other tie.... How far that will tell one doesn't know. Fatherhood affects different men differently, but I have an idea it will constitute a strong claim on Mr. Farquharson."

There was a knock at Evelyn's bedroom door; her maid entered with a letter.

"The man is waiting for an answer, ma'am."

"Excuse me," said Evelyn. The letter was from Mrs. Farquharson, so hurried, so incoherent that she did not at first grasp the meaning of the few excited words.

"Please come at once, no matter what you're doing. I must have you; I must speak to you. I am almost out of my mind with agony and horror; you mustn't fail me. Richard doesn't know I'm writing. I don't know what to do. For God's sake, come at once."

"She's failed him again," said Evelyn slowly. Lady Wereminster snatched the letter from her.

"It isn't that at all. Here, get on your things, I'll take you on in the car. That it should come to-day of all days--poor Mr. Farquharson!"

Dawn--cold, grey, chilling. The stir and bustle of servants' steps; low voices. The household at Chester Street had been hurrying to and fro sending telegrams and dispatches and messages ever since Evelyn had arrived at twelve o'clock on the previous day. While the Leader of the Opposition was preparing his vote of censure on the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and such members as were in the country were hurriedly returning to town in order to be present at one of the most dramatic debates of the century, the fate of Farquharson's child hung in the balance between life and death.

Lady Wereminster was right; when Evelyn entered the house she saw at once how matters stood and sent for the doctor. She had found Dora in a state bordering on frenzy, bitter, reproachful, incoherent. The torrent of words with which she was met dazed Evelyn so that she could scarcely take in their full force; Farquharson, very still and pale, was standing upright by the fire-place in the dining-room, listening with a face that might have been carved in marble, so still was it, so utterly expressionless. But Evelyn, entering, saw the deep lines cut obliquely from nostril to lip; saw the furrows in the brow, cut as if by a chisel--those lines of ineradicable pain which the years deepen instead of smoothing.

She swept across the room, and, catching Dora's trembling figure in her arms, put her hand above the girl's mouth and checked the hideous torrent of words.

"You must come up-stairs at once to your room," she said sharply. "You've sent for the nurse, of course, Mr. Farquharson? Then please do so at once. Come up with me, Dora--or, better still, let your husband carry you. No, I'm not going to listen to a word now; you're better for the moment, and this sort of scene does you no good at all. You may think I'm speaking harshly, but I'm not. Send for Felice, Mr. Farquharson, will you? Or, if she's hysterical, the head housemaid, please; she's a sensible woman."

"It's awful, it's ghastly," said Dora, fighting them both, as they tried to carry her up-stairs, between spasms of pain. "It's unendurable, and I won't bear it. Doctors are beasts; I know this man won't give me chloroform until the very end. I won't bear it till the end, do you hear? Why should I be tortured so for a man I loathe? I won't have it, I tell you; I won't have it!" Her voice rose to a shriek. "Make the doctor come, Evelyn; make him give me something. I won't stand it, I tell you; I won't stand--oh, God----"

This was the prelude of hours of revolt and rebellion. It seemed to Evelyn that for a lifetime she had listened to Dora's ravings. She tried to excuse them on the score of delirium, and failed. In some ways Dora was a typical modern woman, eager to take all that life offered her and pay no penalty; rebellious at the gift of a new responsibility which compelled her to take life from another point of view.

Nurse and doctor both came presently, and then another nurse was sent for, Mrs. Farquharson was too unmanageable for one alone.

Evelyn, sitting in the room beyond, was called for ceaselessly. No one could do anything so well as Evelyn. No one else fanned Dora in the right way, or knew when she wanted her pillows moved. Now she must have her head laved; now she wanted special scent on her handkerchief. The pillows were wrong again now.... No, Evelyn could not have anything to eat at this moment. How could she when Dora was in such pain? She could go down-stairs and have something presently, when the nurse had finished her meal.

But the "presently" never came. Hour after hour Evelyn sat, waging perhaps the hardest battle of her life, as Dora's rebellion gave way to hatred, and hatred to passion so intense that the very room seemed charged with it. Evelyn had seen Farquharson come to the door; from her bed his wife had recognized him, and poured out such a torrent of contempt that Evelyn ran to her and put her hand upon the quivering mouth.

She dragged her tired limbs now to the head of the stairs, but Farquharson had gone. She wondered which would be the hardest ordeal, the facing of that stern tribunal before which he would presently stand at bay, or the one through which he had just passed.

Of late Evelyn's prayers had been merely mechanical. To-night they concentrated; let him have this at least, dear God--one thing in the world which might comfort and cheer him.... But where it became a question of the child's life or Dora's there was, in Dora's mind, no choice. She had never wanted the child from the first, she loved her own life.

At midnight Evelyn heard Farquharson return. She knew by the sound of his footsteps that the vote had gone against him. She tried to disengage her hand from Dora's, but failed. By the time she was free, he had gone to his own room; she heard him move heavily across it.

Physically spent herself after hours of struggle with a woman whose strength in intervals of pain was almost incredible, Evelyn watched day dawn, with a face that was haggard and worn. Dora's shrinking at pain she would have borne so gladly shattered her. In moments of physical anguish souls are revealed, and she had never seen Dora in so pitiful, so low, so unworthy a light as she did now. Wearied out at last, she moved mechanically, like one in a dream, going to and from the sick-room as she was bidden. Dora had got her way; the doctor had administered chloroform long before he would have given it in the case of a courageous patient. Sitting alone in the little anteroom, Evelyn watched grey shadows come and go, frightened servants stepping on tiptoe, the doctor and the nurse, even Farquharson, whose ravaged face put him beyond the reach even of her spoken sympathy. In the house it was presently rumoured that the real struggle with death had begun; the piteous struggle of the child to whom Dora had denied any chance of vitality which might have given her one added pain.

The end came in the morning as light trembled into being. As if in a dream, Evelyn heard a cry that pierced her heart; a cry that seemed to sound the death-knell of her own dream-child, that put Farquharson further away from her. Some smell of chloroform or ether--she was no longer able to distinguish between the two--was penetrating into the inner room. When presently her name was called, it seemed to make a definite atmosphere through which she feebly groped her way to Dora's bedroom. One of the nurses met her there with a tiny bundle in her arms. Evelyn took it; it was pitifully light.

"He may not live," the nurse said; "the doctor thought his father would like to see him. I must go back to the room, Mrs. Farquharson is so dreadfully nervous and hysterical; we are both quite worn out. Just hark at her now! Would you kindly take the baby down, Mrs. Brand."

The gods have an unlimited belief in one's powers of endurance. Slowly, with breaking heart, her eyes drowned partly for self-pity, partly for fear lest the flickering little life she held might breathe its last before the end of her journey, she went downstairs and entered the sitting-room where Farquharson stood waiting. She saw his face as he greeted her, its pallor, its anxiety transfigured suddenly by the light which comes but once in a lifetime to a man, and that only when he looks upon his firstborn son. Without a word he held out his arms; without a word Evelyn handed him her dear burden. Then the room rocked, she put out her hands blindly, swaying. So bitter, so cruel, so overwhelming was the moment's agony, that it was as though a chord had snapped in her heart, and left her struggling for breath. But Farquharson neither saw nor heard. She closed the door gently--how she did not know--and left him alone with his son.

*CHAPTER X*

"The cord breaks at the last by the weakest pull."--Old Spanish Proverb.

At one point in pain, all sense of value dies. Nothing is left but the overwhelming realization that, throb by throb, it will increase until it reaches the climax, when a woman bites her pillow to stifle her shrieks, and a man in all probability blows out his brains--the shortest way of escape. To the woman there succeeds what may be called reaction, a temporary lull, in which body, mind and soul are alike so bruised and stricken that, possibly from sheer weariness, sleep may come for a brief hour. But next day the pain begins again and concentrates again, and so on and on from day to day and week to week, the only change being that soul and mind and body become daily a little more bruised, a little more stricken.

This is worse than a mere period of spiritual dryness; it is an active wrestling with the powers of hell. It is in such moments that religion fails, and the faith to which one was born seems to spell restriction. One would prefer to fling it away altogether, to deny its truth, to escape to a world where the light of the heart might give out its full radiance, even if the soul shrank in gloom.

Doubts creep in in such moments of peril. Catholics do not mince matters. They do not expect to cheat God in their lives and the devil in their deaths by tardy repentance. If they sin, they risk eternal damnation, and know it.

The description of a picture she had once seen had often been in Evelyn's thoughts lately. God sat in judgment on His throne. Before Him was ranged a tribe of kneeling figures--kings laying down their sceptres, soldiers their swords, queens their jewels, men their symbols of ambition, women their guerdons of beauty. Some hung back as though unwilling to give up so soon all that was pleasant. In the foreground of the picture knelt a young girl's shrinking form. Her eyes, mystical and reverent, were looking at the throne; she held one hand bravely outstretched, but the other was concealed within the drapery of her gown. In the hand that pointed direct to God there was the half of a little human heart, her own, all that she had to give, for the other half was withheld. Amongst so vast a crowd of worshippers she thought that perhaps God might not see the gift she offered was divided.

Torn with conflict, every energy, every force concentrated on one prevailing thought, the daily routine of her life temporarily suspended, what had Evelyn now to give God? Little pitiful utterings of prayer, the mechanical moving of lips to the rhythm of habitual words--that was all. Yet, after all, what proof had she that what she had been taught in childhood was true?--Think of the bitterness that would come, if at the end of life, when the secrets of all are revealed, we were to find that we had given up love, in bitterness and agony, for the sake of a phantom God and a phantom creed....

The thought passed. Belief held her still. But in the conflict between self and soul lay her real torment.

It was the sight of Farquharson's child that had broken her, a child born in rebellion and anger, wresting its life from the God of Being in spite of its mother's cowardice. She felt as if her own child had been stolen from her. Wounded and weeping tears of blood, she must stand by and watch it in another woman's arms.

The inscrutable laws of human destiny! Call them rather those of blind chance, since some of us seem born only to be first tossed to and fro on the waves of disaster, and then thrown, helpless and mangled beyond recognition, upon the shore with other refuse.

It was in such a mood as this that Evelyn awaited Lady Wereminster's arrival a week after the vote of censure. Farquharson had allowed himself this specified time in which to battle with public opinion. If at the end it still went against him he would hand in his resignation. It is only when a man is called upon to defend his honour that he knows which are his friends and which his foes.

All through the week Evelyn had hoped against hope; had worked and striven on his behalf as much as she dared, only to meet an icy wall of indifference. The world had given its verdict. Temporarily the Farquharsons were to be ostracized. When your acquaintances in high places are openly accused of bribery and corruption by the foreign Press, it is high time to revise your visiting-list. Obviously Mr. Farquharson had to resign. That he should continue to hold such an important post would make matters very uncomfortable for all who knew him. Eventually things might blow over; but in the meantime society shrugged its shoulders, and shook its discreet skirts free from the least trace of contamination.

"The time is up. We shall know Mr. Farquharson's decision to-night," Lady Wereminster said. "I must save you from hearing the news shouted in the open street. I shall come on to see you directly his announcement is made, if it is made to-night."

The moments crept by, and hours, while Evelyn waited. Mercifully she was alone. Brand had been called to the country on some mysterious business, and she had sent her servant away for the night. West Kensington is not usually a neighbourhood where there is much traffic during the social hours of the evening; its inmates are more inclined to go by foot or rail to their engagements than by carriage or motor. But it seemed to Evelyn that night that the streets were full of noise and movement. Time after time she heard the approaching hoot of a motor, and went to the door to find that the sound existed only in imagination.

But Lady Wereminster came at last, slowly, with head bent and lagging steps. Her news was written on her face. Evelyn drew her into the inner room without a word.

"He has resigned," Lady Wereminster whispered. "And he looks as if it were his death-blow."

"I must try to tell you consecutively," she went on presently. She stretched her hand out trembling towards the liqueur glass of brandy which Evelyn had poured out for her, and drank it off at a gulp. "I'm unnerved, I suppose. It was one of the most awful things I've ever witnessed. The scene in the House the other night was nothing to it; men were beside themselves then with the sudden shock, the very noise and tumult helped to carry one through. But to-night there was a frozen silence, a great icy wall of horror and contempt and deadly purpose, that turned the very blood in one's veins. When Mr. Farquharson entered, I thought of a time in Egypt when I had seen the people shrink from a man who was stricken with leprosy. One looked to right and left and asked, 'Where are his friends? Where are the people who have canonized him and idolized him, fawned at his feet, and cringed before him?'"

There were tears in her eyes; she stopped abruptly. Evelyn, quite tearless, listened.

"And then?" she said.

"It was as though when he spoke they were stripping him threadbare," said Lady Wereminster, her mouth rigid. "To my mind, he dealt with charge upon charge with absolute sincerity and conviction. His hearers listened with the air of spectators at a play, a play whose chief actor lacked what the French call _vraisemblance_. There's nothing so impossible to grip as an audience that has wrapped itself in the cloak of indifference. I suppose at heart there isn't a man in the House but covets Farquharson's position; not a man but thinks he could fill it as adequately were he called upon to do so. And jealousy, as you know, has been at the root of every betrayal, of every libel, since the world began."

"Were there no cheers, no interruptions?" asked Evelyn. Her hands, gripped tightly together, alone betrayed her. "Surely his colleagues cheered him? It was the least they could do."

"There's not a man amongst the lot," said Lady Wereminster. "They were all deadly nervous. Each waited to see what his neighbour was going to do before he dared act on his own initiative. One or two nodded to Farquharson, that was all. There was only one course open to him, and he took it."

"He resigned, then?" said Evelyn.

"He explained very clearly at the beginning of his speech that it was the only course open to him under the circumstances. The whole affair being without precedence, I understand that he was practically given a free hand in his way of dealing with it. He said that he had from the first courted the fullest inquiry; he had immediately put matters into the hands of Scotland Yard. Everything that could be done had been done to compel the Power which had bought the information to admit from what source it was obtained. Up to the present moment its refusal was absolute. He accounted briefly for his actions on the day in question; even reading a letter from Von Kirsch, which, in my view, entirely cleared him. He said he knew that as yet he stood in the position of a man who had not legally proved his innocence, but that up till now he had not thought it possible that his fellow-members should seriously suspect him. In the face of public opinion, which he supposed was echoed by the House, he would resign his office until he was once more asked by his colleagues to take a seat in that great assembly. The whole speech was on these lines--direct, concise and manly. But he ended as he had begun, in silence."

"Silence!"

In the street below a man and woman were singing the refrain of a popular music-hall melody. The windows of the little flat opened on to the street, so in the pause that followed the words echoed distinctly, accompanied by the giggling murmur of the crowd, and the strumming of three primary chords on the piano-organ.

"Don't you wish 'e might get it, Bill?
Oh, ain't he a powerful man!"

"Good-bye, I'm going now," said Lady Wereminster brokenly. "The street boys will be here soon, calling the extra specials. Well, you're prepared for them now, thank God. Go to bed soon. You're looking absolutely dead beat." She took the girl's face in her hands and turned it towards the light of the little lamp which stood upon the three-cornered table by the mantelpiece. "Your heart's been bad again, hasn't it? Your face has got its old grey look--the look that always frightens me."

"Oh, I'm all right," said Evelyn tonelessly.

At the door Lady Wereminster turned suddenly back and put her arms round Evelyn again, as tenderly as a mother.

"Hold on," she said; "you are one of those who must hold on, because we expect you to. So far you've been brave, Evelyn; don't give in now."

Usually a quiet sleeper, Lady Wereminster found that night that her thoughts were as clear, her mind as capable of action, as in the day. She had a pleasant little boudoir attached to her bedroom; at about two o'clock in the morning she rose from her bed and flung herself down upon the couch, a most unusual proceeding.

To be able to see from only one point of view is indescribably consoling. Unluckily for her, Lady Wereminster could put herself in other people's places, could judge the result of her own work as critically as she judged the work of others. When she had, more or less, compelled Farquharson to marry, she had acted emotionally; her one idea had been to save Evelyn from threatened scandals. She had not reckoned, for one moment, on Farquharson's temperament. She had practically bid him seek a wife--any wife. What was the result? She forgot that she was dealing with a reckless and adventurous man--the type upon which one can never count with certainty. There had always been a spark of dare-devilry in Farquharson's nature. She had expected him to weigh the various advantages of the various charming ladies who tripped across his social stage as possible candidates for marriage. Instead of doing this, he had flung himself headlong into the first abyss which gaped before him. It would have been worth another man's while perhaps to marry Dora; but Farquharson could get on without Beadon's influence. And Dora's character was, as any woman of discernment would observe, one which must inevitably repel and alienate him. Such women are like cancerous growths; they eat away a man's vitality, robbing him in time of strength and force of will.

And she was responsible for this outrageous marriage--she, Mary Wereminster. She who had always prided herself upon her judgment and balance. Lives are, after all, very dangerous chemicals to play with. Mix the wrong two together, and disaster follows.