Chapter XIII: Part 13

"Of course he didn't mean it," she concluded; "and to-morrow he will be sorry for having spoken so. But I'm afraid that dear Myles will never understand that we are different from other people."

"You think we are?"

"I know we are. Surely we have proved that to one another, if not to the world."

"We can't expect people to take us at our own valuation. This row comes appositely in a way. God knows the truth, but all the same, perhaps the position is impracticable. The world would say that Myles was right, and that we were too--too original. Only what's to be done? Of course he can't forbid us to speak to one another--that's absurd. But, for some reason, our friendship makes him a miserable man. He's let that out to-night, poor dear chap."

"I wish I could understand his attitude; but I must make myself understand it, Christo. It is my duty."

"I believe I do know what he feels. It's pride more than jealousy. His mind is too well hung to be jealous, but pride is the bait to catch all big natures. He doesn't like to feel any other man has the power to please you."

"But remember the basis of our friendship. It must make a difference. And I have always been so frank. He knew--none better--what we were each to the other once; and he knows that I am fond of you and always must be so."

"Exactly; and that's not knowledge to make him particularly happy. We have accentuated it of late, and hurt him. He sees perils and troubles ahead that don't really exist--mere phantoms--yet, from his point of view, they look real enough. He cannot see, and so there's probably a growing inclination on his part to kick me out of Little Silver, if such a thing could be done. Yes, I appreciate his attitude, though he can't appreciate mine. It comes to this: my deep content in your society is making him very angry--and worse than angry. He's turning by slow degrees into a volcano. To-day came the first little eruption--a mere nothing. Myles will regret it, and to-morrow bank up the fire again in his usual Spartan way; but he is powerless to prevent the sequel. There may be a regular Pompeii and Herculaneum presently. Your husband is built that way, though I never guessed it. If you were mine, and he was in my position, I should not turn a hair, knowing you and knowing him; but he is different. He doesn't know me at all, and he doesn't know you as well as I do. He must be blind to a nature like yours by the accident of his own personal temperament."

"He understands me, I am sure--at least, I think so."

"Not all round. But that's beside the mark. The question is, What next?"

"No question at all. My whole life and soul must be devoted to making him happy in spite of himself."

"And what must I do?"

She did not answer, and before need of a definite decision and the necessity for action, Christopher fell back upon his customary methods.

"Obviously I must do nothing. Least done soonest mended--a proverb quite as wise as the one I found it on; for deeds make more bother in the world than the loudest words. I shall let Time try his hand. It will probably come out all right when Myles gets well. He's so sane in most things--only there's my volcano theory, I tell you what; I'll speak to your uncle and ask him if he sees any difficulty."

"Can't you make up your mind yourself?"

"No--unless you express a wish. Otherwise I shall go on as I am going. I'll see Mr. Endicott, and when Myles is fit again I'll see him. Yes, that's the road of wisdom. I'll meet him and say, 'Now, old chap, explode and give me the full force of the discharge. Tell me what you mean and what you want.'"

Honor, for her part, found loyalty wakened rather than weakened by her husband's remonstrances. She desired to return to him--to get back to his heart. Christopher wearied her just now, and when Mark Endicott entered from the sick-room, Honor bid Yeoland farewell and hastened to Myles.

Yeoland chatted awhile, shared some spirit and water with the blind man, and then, on a sudden, after private determination to do no such thing, broached the problem in his mind.

"Look here," he said; "I've had a nasty jar to-night, Mr. Endicott, and I'm in no end of a muddle. You know that I'm a well-meaning brute in my way, even granted that the way is generally wrong. But I wouldn't really hurt a fly, whereas now, in blissful ignorance, I've done worse. I've hurt a man---a man I feel the greatest respect for--the husband of my best friend in the world. It's jolly trying, because he and I are built so differently. There's an inclination on his part to turn this thing into the three-volume form apparently. It's such ghastly rot when you think of what I really am. In plain English, Stapledon doesn't like his wife to see so much of me. She only discovered this deplorable fact to-day, and it bewildered her as much as it staggered me. Heaven's my judge, I never guessed that he was looking at me so. Nor did Honor. Such kindred spirits as we are--and now, in a moment of weakness, the man bid her see me no more! Of course, he's too big to go in for small nonsense of that kind, and he'll withdraw such an absurd remark as soon as he's cool again; but straws show which way the wind blows, and I want to get at my duty. Tell me that, and I'll call you blessed."

"What is Honor to you?"

"The best part of my life, if you must know--on the highest plane of it."

"Don't talk about 'planes'! That's all tom-foolery! You're a wholesome, healthy man and woman--anyway, other people must assume so. I'll give you credit for believing yourself, however. I'll even allow your twaddle about planes does mean something to you, because honestly you seem deficient--degenerate as far as your flesh is concerned. All the same, Stapledon is right in resenting this arrangement with all his heart and soul. His patience has amazed me. Two men can't share a woman under our present system of civilisation."

"Which is to say a wife may not have any other intellectual kindred spirit but her husband. D'you mean that?"

"No, I don't. I mean that when a man openly says that a woman is the best part of his life, her husband can't be blamed for resenting it."

"But what's the good of lying about the thing? Surely circumstances alter cases? It was always so. He knew that Honor and I loved each other in our queer way long before he came on the scene. She can't stop loving me because she has married him."

"It isn't easy to argue with you, Yeoland," answered Mark quietly; "but this I see clearly: your very attitude towards the position proclaims you a man of most unbalanced mind. There's a curious kink in your nature--that is if you're not acting. Suppose Honor was your wife and she found greater pleasure in the society of somebody else, and gradually, ignorantly, quite unconsciously slipped away and away from you; imperceptibly, remember--so subtly that she didn't know it herself--that nobody but you knew it. How much of that would you suffer without a protest?"

"I shouldn't bother--not if she was happy. That's the point, you see: her happiness. I constitute it in some measure--eh? Or let us say that I contribute to it. Then why need he be so savage? Surely her happiness is his great ambition too?"

"Granted. Put the world and common sense and seemliness on one side. They don't carry weight with you. Her happiness then--her lasting happiness--not the trumpery pleasure of to-day and to-morrow."

"Is it wise to look much beyond to-morrow when 'happiness' is the thing to be sought?"

"Perhaps not--as you understand it--so we'll say 'content.' Happiness is a fool's goal at best. You love Honor, and you desire for her peace of mind and a steadfast outlook founded on a basis strong enough to stand against the storms and sorrows of life. I assume that."

"I desire for her the glory of life and the fulness thereof."

"You must be vague, I suppose; but I won't be, since this is a very vital matter. I don't speak without sympathy for you either; but, in common with the two of you--Myles and yourself--this silly woman is uppermost in my mind--her and her good. So, since you ask, I tell you I'm disappointed with you; you've falsified my predictions of late, and your present relations with Honor have drifted into a flat wrong against her husband, though you may be on a plane as high as heaven, in your own flabby imagination. This friendship is not a thing settled, defined, marked off all round by boundaries. No friendship stands still, any more than anything else in the universe. Even if you're built of uncommon mud, lack your share of nature, and can philander to the end of the chapter without going further, or thinking further, that is no reason why you should do so. The husband of her can't be supposed to understand that you're a mere curiosity with peculiar machinery inside you. He gives you the credit of being an ordinary man, or denies you the credit of being an extraordinary one, which you please. So it's summed up in a dozen words: either see a great deal less of Honor, or, if you can't breathe the same air with her apart from her, go away, as an honourable man must, and put the rim of the world between you. Try to live apart, and let that be the gauge of your true feeling. If you can bide at Godleigh happy from month to month without sight of her or sound of her voice, then I'll allow you are all you claim to be and give you a plane all to yourself above the sun; but if you find you can do no such thing, then she's more to you by far than the wife of another man ought to be, and you're not so abnormal as you reckon yourself. This is going right back upon your renunciation in the beginning--as pitiful a thing as ever I heard tell about."

"Stay here and never see her! How would you like it? I mean--you see and hear with the mind, though your eyes are dark. Of course I couldn't do that. What's Godleigh compared to her?"

"And still you say that sight of her and sound of her voice is all you want to round and complete your life?

"Emphatically."

"You're a fool to say so."

"You don't believe it?"

"Nor would any other body. Least of all her husband."

"A man not soaked in earth would."

"Find him, then. Human nature isn't going to put off its garment at your bidding. If you're only half-baked--that's your misfortune, or privilege. You'll have to be judged by ordinary standards nevertheless."

"Then I must leave the land of my fathers--I must go away from Godleigh because a man misunderstands me?"

"You must go away from Godleigh because, on your own showing, you can't stop in it without the constant companionship of another man's wife."

"What a brute you'd make me! That's absolutely false in the spirit, if true in the letter. The letter killeth. You to heave such a millstone!"

"You're a poorer creature than I thought," answered Mark sternly, "much poorer. Yet even you will allow perhaps that it is to her relations with her husband, not her relations with you, that Honor Endicott must look for lasting peace--if she's to have it."

"Yet I have made her happier by coming back into her life."

"It's doubtful. In one way yes, because you did things by halves--went out of her life and then came back into it at the wrong moment. I won't stop to point out the probable course of events if you had kept away altogether; that might not be fair to you perhaps, though I marvel you missed the lesson and have forgotten the punishment so soon. Coming back to her, ghost-haunted as she was, you did make her happier, for you lifted the horror of fear and superstition from her. But now her lasting content is the theme. How does your presence here contribute to that?"

"It would very considerably if Stapledon was different."

"Or if he was dead--or if--a thousand 'ifs.' But Stapledon is Stapledon. So what are you going to do with the advice I've given you?"

"Not use it, I assure you. Consider what it means to drive me away from Godleigh!"

"For her lasting content."

"I don't know about that. Of course, if it could be proved."

"You do know; and it has been proved."

"Not to my satisfaction. I resent your putting me in a separate compartment, as if I was a new sort of beast or a quaint hybrid. I'm a very ordinary man--not a phenomenon--and there are plenty more people in the world who think and act as I do."

"Go and join them, then," said Mr. Endicott, "for your own peace of mind and hers. Get out of her life; and remember that there's only one way--that leading from here. I'm sorry for you, but you'll live to know I've spoken the truth, unless your conscience was forgotten, too, when the Lord fashioned you."

Yeoland grumbled a little; then he brightened up.

"My first thought was best," he said. "I should not have bothered you with all this nonsense, for it really is nonsense when you think of it seriously. I should have stuck to my resolve--to see Myles himself and thrash this out, man to man. And so I will the moment he's up to it. The truth is, we're all taking ourselves much too seriously, which is absurd. Good-night, my dear sir. And thank you for your wisdom; but I'll see Stapledon--that is the proper way."

*CHAPTER VIII.*

*THE ROUND ROBIN*

Before they slept that night Myles had expressed deep sorrow to Honor for his utterances and declared contrition.

"The suffering is mine," he said; "to look back is worse for me than for you."

His wife, however, confessed on her side to a fault, and blamed herself very heartily for a lapse, not in her love, but in her thoughtfulness and consideration. She declared that much he had spoken had been justified, while he assured her that it was not so.

The days passed, and health returned to Myles; upon which Christopher Yeoland, believing the recent difficulty dead, very speedily banished it from his mind, met Stapledon as formerly in perfect friendship, never let him know that he had heard of the tribulation recorded, and continued to lead a life quite agreeable to himself, in that it was leavened from time to time by the companionship of Honor.

Spring demanded that Myles should be much upon the farm, and the extent of his present labours appeared to sweep his soul clean again, to purify his mind and purge it of further disquiet. All that looked unusual in his conduct was an increased propensity toward being much alone, or in sole company of his dogs; yet he never declined Honor's offers to join him.

She had not failed to profit vitally by the scene in the sick-room, yet found herself making no return to peace. Now, indeed, Honor told herself that her husband's state was more gracious than her own; for there began dimly to dawn upon her heart the truth of those things that Myles had hurled against her in the flood of his wrath. She divined the impossible persistence of this divided love, and she felt fear. She was sundered in her deepest affections, and knew that her peace must presently suffer, as that of Myles had already suffered. Her peculiar attitude was unlike that of her husband or the other man. She saw them both, received a measure of worship from both, and grew specially impatient against the silent, pregnant demeanour of Mark Endicott. His regard for her was steadily diminishing, as it seemed, and he took some pains that she should appreciate the fact.

It grew slowly within her that the position was ceasing to be tenable for human nature, and not seldom she almost desired some shattering outburst to end it. She was greatly puzzled and oftentimes secretly ashamed of herself; yet could she not lay a finger on the point of her offending. Nevertheless she missed some attributes of a good wife, not from the conventional standpoint, which mattered nothing to her, but from her own standard of right-doing.

Meantime, behind the barriers now imperceptibly rising and thickening between man and wife, behind the calm and masklike face that he presented to the world, Myles Stapledon suffered assault of storm upon storm. He knew his highest ambitions and hopes were slipping out of reach; he marked with punctuations of his very heart's throb the increasing loneliness and emptiness of his inner life; and then he fought with himself, while his love for Honor waxed. In process of time he came gradually to convince himself that the problem was reduced to a point. She loved Christopher Yeoland better than she loved him, or, if not better, then, at least, as well. She did not deny this, and never had. Life with him under these circumstances doubtless failed every way, because his own temperament was such that he could not endure it placidly. He doubted not that his wife went daily in torment, that she saw through him to the raging fire hidden from all other eyes. He gave her credit for that perspicacity, and felt that her existence with him, under these circumstances, must be futile. He then convinced himself that her life, if spent with Christopher, would be less vain. Through dark and hidden abodes of agony his soul passed to this decision; he tried to make himself feel that he loved her less by reason of these things; and finally he occupied thought upon the means by which he might separate himself from her and pass out of her life.

In the misty spring nights, under budding woodland green, or aloft in the bosom of silence upon the high lands, he wandered. A dog was his companion always, and his thoughts were set upon the magic knife, that should cut him clean out of his wife's existence with least possible hurt to her. By constitution, conviction, instinct, the idea of suicide was vile to him. He had spoken of the abstract deed without detestation in Mark Endicott's company, had even admitted the possibility of heroic self-slaughter under some circumstances; but faced with it, he turned therefrom to higher roads, not in fear of such a course, but a frank loathing rather, because, under conditions of modern life, and with his own existence to be justified, he held it impossible to vindicate such a step. And that door closed; he thought of modern instances, and could recall none to serve as a precedent for him. He turned, then, to consider the mind of Christopher Yeoland, and endeavoured to perceive his point of view. Blank failure met him there; but the thought of him clenched Stapledon's hand, as it often did at this season, and he knew that hate was growing--a stout plant of many tendrils--from the prevalent fret and fever of his mind. He worked early and late to starve this passion, but toil was powerless to come between his spirit and the problem of his life for long.

His tribulation he concealed, yet not the outward marks of it. The eyes of the farm were bright, and it was natural that he should be the focus of them all. There came a night when Myles and his wife were gone to Chagford at the wish of others, to lend weight in some parochial entertainment for a good cause. Mr. Endicott was also of the party, and so it chanced that the work-folk had Bear Down house-place to themselves. The opportunity looked too good to miss, and their master was accordingly discussed by all.

"Some dark branch of trouble, no doubt," said Henry Collins. "Time was when he would smoke his pipe and change a thought with the humblest. Now he's such a awnself man, wi' his eyes always turned into his head, so to say."

"Broody-like," declared Churdles Ash; "an' do make his friends o' dumb beasts more'n ever, an' looks to dogs for his pleasure."

"Ess; an' wanders about on moony nights, an' hangs awver gates, like a momet to frighten pixies, if wan may say so without disrespect," continued Collins.

"A gert thinker he've grawed of late," said Cramphorn; "an' if I doan't knaw the marks of thought, who should?"

"Sure a common man might 'most open a shop with the wisdom in his head," admitted Sam Pinsent; and Jonah answered--

"He ban't wise enough to be happy, however. A red setter's a very gude dog, but no lasting company for a married man--leastways, he shouldn't be. Theer's somethin' heavy as a millstone round his neck, an' dumb beasts can't lift it, fond of 'em as he is. The world's a puzzle to all onderstandin' people; yet theer's none amongst us havin' trouble but can find a wiser man than hisself to lighten the load if he'll awnly look round him. Theer's Endicott, as have forgot more of the puzzle of life than ever Stapledon knawed; an' theer's Ash, a humble man, yet not without his intellects if years count for anything; an' me, as have some credit in company, I b'lieve. Ess, theer's auld heads at his sarvice, yet he goes in trouble, which is written on his front and in his eyes. Best man as ever comed to Endicott's tu, present comp'ny excepted."

"Theer's nought as we could do for his betterment, I s'pose?" asked Gaffer Ash. "I've knawed chaps quick to take fire at any advice, or such bowldaciousness from theer servants; but if you go about such a deed in the name of the Lard, nobody of right honesty can say nothin' against you. Now theer's a way to do such a thing, an' that is by an approach all together, yet none forwarder than t'others. Then, if the man gets angry, he can't choose no scapegoat. 'Tis all or none. A 'round robin' they call the manifestation. You puts a bit of common sense, or a few gude Bible thoughts in the middle, an' writes your names about, like the spokes of a cart-wheel, or the rays of the sun sticking out all around. So theer's nothin' to catch hold of against them as send it."

"Seein' we doan't knaw wheer the shoe pinches, the thing be bound to fail," said Pinsent. "If us knawed wheer he was hit, I be sure auld blids like you an' Jonah would have a remedy, an' belike might find the very words for it in the Scriptures; but you caan't offer medicine if you doan't know wheer a body's took to."

"'Tis the heart of un," said Cramphorn. "I'm allowed an eye, I think, an' I've seed very clear, if you younger men have not, that this cloud have drifted awver him since Squire Yeoland comed to his awn--an' more'n his awn. Stapledon be out o' bias wi' the world here an' theer no doubt."

"I'm sure they'm gert friends, sir, an' awften to be seed abroad of a airly mornin' together 'pon the lands," piped in Tommy Bates.

"Shut your mouth, bwoy, till us axes your opinion," retorted Jonah. "An' come to think on't, seein' the nature of the argeyment, you'd best clear out of this an' go to bed."

"Let un listen to his betters," said Mr. Ash. "'Tis right he should, for the less he listens to men as a bwoy, the bigger fule he'll be come he graws. 'Tis a falling out contrary to all use," he continued. "Missis was set 'pon squire fust plaace; then, second place, he died; an', third place, she married t'other; fourth place, he comed to life; an' fifthly an' lastly, 'pon this thumb of mine, he graws rich as Solomon, an' bides in pomp an' glory to Godleigh again."

"An' they'm awften about together, drivin' an' walkin' for that matter; though God, He knaws I'd be the last to smell a fault in missis," said Jonah.

"Damn bowldacious of the man, however," declared Pinsent.

"'Tis so; an' all of a piece wi' his empty life, fust to last; an' that's what's makin' Myles Stapledon go heavy an' forget to give me an' others 'Gude-marnin'' or 'Gude-evenin',' 'cordin' to the time of day. He thinks--same as I do--that theer's a sight tu much o' Yeoland in the air; an' yet he's that worshipful of his wife that, though maybe she frets him, he'd rather grizzle hisself to fiddle-strings than say a word to hurt her. 'Mazin' what such a wonnerful woman sees in that vain buzz-fly of a man."

"You'm right, no doubt, Jonah," assented Ash. "An' if 'tis as you say, an' we'm faaced wi' the nature of the ill, us might do our little in all gude sarvice an' humbleness towards the cure."

"The cure would be to knock that cockatrice 'pon the head an' scat his empty brains abroad wance for all. Then the fule would have to be buried fair an' square, wi' no more conjuring tricks," declared Jonah Cramphorn.

"You'm an Auld Testament man, for sartain!" admitted Collins in some admiration.

"Fegs! So he be; but these here ain't Auld Testament days," said Churdles Ash; "an' us caan't taake the law in our awn hands, no matter how much mind we've got to it. 'Tis a New Testament job in my judgment, an' us'll do a 'round robin' to rights, an' set out chapter an' verse, an' give the poor sawl somethin' very high an' comfortin' to chew 'pon. Truth to tell, he's a thought jealous of his lady's likin' for t'other. I mean no rudeness, an' if I doan't know my place at fourscore, when shall I? But so it seems; an' the fact thraws un back 'pon dogs an' his awn devices, which is very bad for his brain."

"What's the gude o' texts to a jealous man, whether or no?" asked Jonah scornfully.

"Every gude; an' even a bachelor same as me can see it. Fust theer'll be the calm process o' handlin' the Word an' lookin' up chapter an' verse, each in turn; then the readin', larnin', markin', an' inwardly digestin'; then, if we pick the proper talk, he'll come to a mood for Christ to get the thin end of the wedge in wi' un. An' so us'll conquer in the name of the Lard."

"'Pears to me as a bloody text or two wouldn't be amiss. I'd like to fire the man up to go down-long to Christopher Yeoland an' take a horse-whip to un, an' tan the hide off un. Theer's nought cools a lecherous heart like a sore carcase," growled Jonah, reverting to his Old Testament manner.

Then Mr. Collins created a diversion.

"I won't have no hand in it anyways," he said. "'Tis a darned sight tu perilous a deed to come between a man and wife, even with a text of Scripture, 'specially when you call home how hard 'tis to find lasting work. Us might all get the sack for it; an' who'd pity us?"

"All depends 'pon how 'tis done. Wi' a bit of round writin' the blame doan't fall nowheers in partickler."

"'Tis the wise ch'ice of words such a contrivance do depend on; an' what more wise than Paul?" inquired Jonah Cramphorn. "I read the seventh of Romans to my wife 'pon our wedding night, and never regretted it. He hits the nail on the head like a workman; an' if theer's trouble arter, the chap will be fallin' out wi' an anointed apostle, not us. Ess, I be come round to your opinion, Ash. Us had better send it than not. You wouldn't have had the thing rise up in your head if Providence didn't mean us to do it."

"Might be safer to send it wi'out names, come to think of it," suggested Collins; but Gaffer Ash scorned the cowardly notion.

"Wheer's the weight of that? No more'n a leaf in the wind wi'out names. No sensible pusson would heed advice, gude or ill, as comed so. 'Tis awnly evil-doers as be feared to sign an' seal their actions."

"Us might send it to she, instead of he," suddenly suggested Cramphorn. "Her's more to us, God bless her; an' a woman's better able to brook such a thing. She doan't see how this here do 'pear to other people, else she'd never give the chap as much as 'Gude-marnin'' again. An' her'll be fust to mark the righteous motives to the act. Gimme the big Bible from the dresser-drawer, Tom Bates; an' then go to your bed. Us doan't want a green youth like you in the document.

"A dangerous thing to give advice wheer it ban't axed," mused Pinsent; "an' specially to your betters."

"So dangerous that I'll have no part nor lot in it," declared Henry. "The dear lady's temper ban't what it was, so your darter tells me, Cramphorn; an' you've got a mother an' sister to keep, Samuel, so you'd best to bide out of it along wi' me."

Mr. Cramphorn was turning over the leaves of an old Bible thoughtfully.

"Paul's amazin' deep versed in it, seemin'ly," he said. "'Pears as he was faaced wi' just such a evil when he wrote an' warmed up they Corinthians. Listen to this here. 'An' unto the married I command, yet not I, but the Lard, Let not the wife depart from her husband: But an' if she depart, let her remain unmarried.'"

"Awften had a mind 'pon that scripture myself," declared Mr. Ash.

"An' lower down he's at 'em again. Hark to this: 'Art thou bound to a wife? seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a wife? seek not a wife.' I reckon most men doan't need to be told that last. Then theer's another bracing word further on. Parson Scobell preached 'pon it awnly last month. Ephesians, fifteenth of five: 'See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fules, but as wise.'"

"Tu strong for a lady," said Mr. Ash.

"Not so, Churdles. I'm the last to say or set a hand to any awver-bitter speech. 'Tis what her wants to awpen her butivul eyes, an' shaw her the right road, same as them 'twas fust writ for. An' here--same chapter: 'Wives, submit yourselves to your awn husbands, as unto the Lard.' Ban't tawld to submit theerselves to young, flauntin' bachelors, you see; an' then it says how women should hold theer awn men in special reverence."

"Theer's the twinge, an' I'd have 'e put that in for sartain," declared Churdles. "If her reverenced un, her wouldn't go about in high-wheeled, cranky dog-carts with t'other. Ess, put that down; together wi' any light hint against the lust of the flaish, so long as you can find it set out in parlour language."

Mr. Cramphorn took pencil and paper to his task; and Gaffer Ash, with the help of a round candlestick, drew a shaky circle in the middle of a sheet of foolscap. "Our names will all stick around," he said; "an' in the midst Jonah will set chapter an' verse. Perhaps ten verses might be enough to right the wrong, an' if you'm quick, Cramphorn, us'll get it in a henvelope an' addressed to missis, then slip it off to bed an' leave the manifestation 'pon the table against her comes home."

"More respectful to send it through the post," ventured Collins; and Churdles admitted that it might be so.

"P'raps you'm right theer, Henery. Ess, for sure you be; an' you'm gwaine into Chaggyford wi' the cart fust thing to-morrow, so you can post it theer; then 'twill come wi' all the dignity of the mail," he said.

Jonah finished his pious task and wrote his name; Churdles Ash, who had only learned to write in middle-age, set down a shaky signature, half schoolboy's, half senile in its wavering line; Pinsent wrote a laboured but well-regulated hand, and Mr. Collins also subscribed, yet with such uneasiness that one might have imagined he was signing his own death-warrant.

"Even now I'd like to hear Maister Endicott 'pon it," he murmured. "If he was against it, I'd never willingly countenance the step."

"He'm wan of the family; an' whenever was it knawn as a female gived credit to them of her awn blood for sense?" inquired Jonah. "Why, 'tis last thing they think of. No; us o' the land will send this here for gude or evil. We'm doin' our duty an' shan't be no worse thought of. She'm a wonnerful woman--a queen among 'em at her best--always was so--an' she'll think the better of us for this transaction."

"She'm just the sort to put a bit on our wages if the 'round robin' worked to her betterment--a most grateful woman," said Sam Pinsent, who from doubt had suddenly sprung to the extremity of hope.

"Ess--an' if her didn't, he would, so like as not," declared Gaffer Ash. "If this sets all right an' makes 'em happy an' sensible an' onderstandin', in the name of the Lard and of Paul, how much smoother 'twill be for all parties!"

"An' if all works well an' nobody don't do nothin'," suggested Pinsent, "it might be a question whether us shouldn't send in another to remind 'em of theer well-wishers. However, that's in the future."

"'Twould be like sendin' in a bill, an' not to be dreamt of," answered Cramphorn. "'Tis awnly a small-fashioned mind as would think of such a thing."

Pinsent retorted; but at that moment footsteps and voices warned the company. Pipes were relighted; the Bible was placed in the dresser-drawer; wide innocence sat upon each brown face; and, like lead within the breast pocket of Henry Collins, reposed the 'round robin' destined, as all hoped, to such notable issues.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*RED DAWN*

The admonition culled from Paul was duly posted, and henceforth Collins avoided his mistress with utmost care, while Pinsent, fear again overtaking him, did likewise. Cramphorn, on the contrary, itched to hear or see some definite result of his daring, while as for the ancient Ash, he went unmoved upon his way. To tell truth, the missive made an impression as deep as any of those responsible for it could have desired; but they never knew of its results, for the outgrowth of them was swept away by greater concerns. When Honor first received the "round robin," she felt amused; then she became annoyed; and, lastly, she grew anxious. The sort of men responsible for this audacity she understood, and she was aware the action sprang from honest purpose and most laudable intent. Cramphorn, the master spirit, worshipped her with high devotion, and she knew it; for the rest, they had but done as he bid them. The selected quotations, which Honor carefully consulted, were not indeed apposite, yet had this value, that they showed her how present relations appeared in the eyes of an ignorant, though impartial countryside. She was astounded at such an uncharitable and painful mistake; yet, seeing that the error existed, and was probably widespread, the wife felt thankful to know it. She fluctuated between contempt and anger, then finally fell back upon a condition of real concern. First she thought of showing the paper to Myles, but feared that his lack of humour might prompt him to austere treatment of her censors. To speak to Christopher was out of the question, and Honor, after some demur, decided that her uncle should know. From him she expected full measure of sympathy in her embarrassment, but she was disappointed of this hope.

"Very interesting and instructive," said the old man, after his niece had begun in laughter and ended with recitation of every text to which the document referred; "very interesting. So we may learn from the mouths of babes and sucklings."

"I ought to be cross with them. Fancy Cramphorn so greatly daring, despite his feudal instincts!"

"Shows how much and how deeply the man must have felt constrained to act. You say you should be cross. Why? They only try to give you some practical light. There's a great, deep goodwill behind this."

"But it is such nonsense."

"They don't think so."

"Surely you're not going to take it seriously, Uncle Mark?"

"Most seriously; and so do you, though you pretend to laugh--as if I didn't know every note in your laughter, like every note in a ring of bells. It is serious. You cannot defy simple, wholesome usage and custom for ever."

"But who has a right to speak while Myles is silent? If I hurt him, he would tell me. He is quite himself again."

"Shows how little you know him, for all your love of him. You are hurting him, and my ear tells me more than all your senses can tell you. He lives in a dreary hell and speaks out of it. I can almost see his face when I hear his voice."

"I'm always thinking of him."

"Yes, with a moiety of your thoughts. It isn't allowed one woman to make two men wholly happy--else you might succeed. But you're only following the old, stale road and making two men wholly miserable. Any fool in a petticoat can manage as much. That's the foundation your present content is built upon. There's awful wickedness in it, to my mind; and double-distilled sin coming from such as you, because you're not a fool at all, but have sense enough to profit by experience. You must be aware that Myles is a wretched man; and, though you may not think it, Yeoland knows very well he's living in a wrong atmosphere--a mere shadow of happiness. Better far you make one happy, out-and-out, than keep each miserable. One has got to smart, and the sooner you decide which, the better for both."

"That you should ever speak so!"

"You've fallen away much of late--in mind and conduct I mean. Your fine, sharp instincts are grown blunter. You can live this mean, half-and-half life; and you don't understand, or you won't. There's no passion in it, I do think, and I suppose you can go on being fond of two men without disgracing Endicott breed; but I'll speak plainly, since it's vital I should. Men are different. They're not built to go on mooning with a talking doll for ever. Even Christopher Yeoland is made of flesh and blood. A woman may be all mind; a man never is. Now, what are you, and what are you doing? You're a married woman, and you're ruining the life of about the worthiest man I've been happy to meet since my own brother--your dear father--died. End it--if Yeoland hasn't got strength and determination sufficient to do so. Tell him your mind; be true to your husband, and bid the man go--if he is a man."

Honor Stapledon listened to this grave rebuke with a heaving breast.

"You call that justice! You would ask him, after all he has suffered and endured, to go away from his own? You would coldly bid him turn his back on all that makes life worth living for him--Godleigh?"

"Without the least remorse, if he can't stop decently."

"To judge so vilely! If you cannot understand and appreciate the fact that Christopher isn't made of common clay, then the case is hopeless."

"Coarse clay or china clay, he's a callous, cruel devil to do what he is doing; and you can tell him so from me."

"I'm only sorry that you so hatefully misunderstand Christo."

For once the blind man let his anger run over. It had been boiling for many days, and now, before this attitude in Honor, he could restrain the explosion no more.

"Damn Christo!" he said. "Damn him for a poor, white-livered, whole cowardice of curs rolled into one! Your husband's worth a wilderness of his sort, and you ought to know it, and--there, I'll not say more. I blamed Myles first for being jealous of nought; now I blame him no more. Reason is with him. And though this boneless thing doesn't know better, you ought to, if only to credit your stock. What's come to you? What's sapped up all your old sense and self-respect?"

She stared at his wrath as at a new experience.

"I am unchanged," she answered, "though all the rest of my little world is going mad it seems. I have been misled and mistaken, if you are right, though I am not sure at all that you are. Certainly I thought after his illness, and the things he said to me then, that Myles was looking at this matter from my own rational stand-point. He grew sensible again--the old, wise Myles. But if you are correct in this monstrous belief, Myles must have set my mind at rest at the cost of his own peace. Yet could he hide that from me?"

"Not if your eyes were as they used to be. There must be no more rest at any rate--neither rest nor peace--till I'm proved right and the case is righted, or I'm shown wrong, when I'll not be backward in begging for forgiveness. Only remember, it's got to come from you--this clearing up. Myles will do nothing while he thinks your happiness is in blossom; he'll go on silently fretting his soul sour; and t'other will do nothing--that I'll swear to--unless a pitchfork be taken to him. Enough said now. Have it out with your husband, and first put yourself in his place so far as your knowledge of him allows. Look out of his eyes, and try to feel what this means to such a man--ay, or any other man worth calling one."

"I will think of what you say. At least, you are right when you tell me that I have degenerated. Happiness means degeneration, I suppose."

"You're the last leaf of an old tree, and I'd have you live beautifully, and make a good end, and leave a fragrant memory to your children."

"He's the last of his line, too--Christopher."

"That rests with him probably. It is well that he should be if he's no more than appears. But I have done, and am cool again. I'm sorry if I've hurt you. I love you better far than anything in the world, yet you've given me cause for deep mourning of late days."

Honor prepared to speak, but did not do so. She looked at her uncle's wrinkled, grey face and blind eyes, bent down, kissed him on the forehead, and then hastened away without any more words.

While the matter of this serious speech was in his wife's mind, it chanced that Stapledon and the Squire of Godleigh met after the dawn hour, each being led to the same spot upon his homeward way. Neither had seen the other for some weeks, and by mutual exchange of thought, a common subject leaped to the mind of each.

Myles had been upon Kes Tor to see the sunrise; Christopher was returning from a further point; and now in the valley beneath Batworthy Farm they met, where Teign, touched with ruddy gold of the morning, wound murmuring along. Upon one bank the hill rose sharply under silver birch, mountain ash, oak, and concourse of tall pines; to the north more gradual acclivities of shaggy moor extended, and these were broken into leek-green beds of sphagnums, and gemmed with ruddy sundews, where springs opened or rivulets wound with little bubbling whispers to the river. A red dawn scattered the stream with stars and sparks reflected from low eastern clouds above the sunrise; and this radiance, thrown upward from the water, touched the under-leaf of the alders, where they hung above the stream and slashed the shadows with sanguine light. A spirit, sweet, fresh and dewy as any naiad, dwelt here; the place was bedecked with mossy greens and olives, duns and transparent velvet-browns, all softened and swept with the purest opaline blue, by contrast of dawn shadows with dawn fire. Rock shapes upon the river-bed, perfect in their relations of colour and of form, made most harmonious medley of manifold planes. They were touched by sunshine, modelled to the outlines of their mosses by great violet shadows spread between flame-lances from on high, blended by ripple and shimmer of reflected light from the river, broken in mass by the green rushes and tall grasses, by the dancing briar, its point under a waterfall, by the snowy blossoms of great umbel-bearers, and by the majestic foliage of king fern. Teign splashed and spouted crystal-bright through this display of forms and colours, and there was pleasant music of water and murmur of new-born leaves, while red light came and went through the dawn purity, soaked each dingle with misty gold, and chequered the river with many shades of ambers and agates and roses agleam together.

"Sons of the young morning--you and I! This is our hour, and we suck life from the risen day," said Christo, extending a hand to the other as they met at stream-side.

"Rain's coming," answered Myles; "and this splendour will be drowned long before noon."

"Then let us make the most of it. I'm glad we met here. A happy place to talk in, with fair things to fill one's eyes."

"What is there to talk about? I'm afraid our interests are too widely separated."

"Well, that will do for a start. I want to talk, if you'll listen. Frankly, Stapledon, we are not what we might be each to the other. I wish I understood you better. There's hardly a man in the world that I regard more deeply. Yet I know right well you don't echo the sentiment. We grow less intimate daily, instead of better friends. Yet we're bound together in a sort of way by the past, however distasteful that may be to you. At least I should say we must be. And so many common interests--say what you please to the contrary. Both fairly intelligent and intellectual, both prone to probe under the surface of things. What's the barrier? Frankly I have no idea. I thought at one time it might have to do with Honor; and so did Mr. Endicott. He talked to me with amazing vigour and plain choice of homely words. Yes, honestly, he made me feel like a criminal lunatic for about a week. Then, thank God, you recovered your health, and we met, and I saw at a glance that the old man was utterly wrong and had been engaged with a mare's nest. Yet there's a gulf between us, despite so much that we enjoy in common."

"Since you wish to speak of this, I say that there are some things that cannot be enjoyed in common."

Yeoland started.

"You mean that I was wrong, then, and Mr. Endicott right? But don't you see how infernally greedy and unreasonable you are? Either that, or you continue to misunderstand me of set purpose. I gave you Honor for your own; yet you grudge me my place at Godleigh--at the footstool of the throne you share with her. What do I rob you of? Do the birds rob you when they eat the crumbs fallen from your table? I cannot remotely judge of your attitude."

"That is true; but every other man can. And it may be that many do."

"Have you considered that this position you take is in some measure a reflection on your wife?"

"I have not, and if I had, I do not ask your criticism upon that."

"Well, I shall never see how you hold any ground for this ridiculous animosity, Stapledon; but for the sake of argument, you must be conceded a case. What is your exact grievance in English? The thing I have done I can do again: go; but before we imagine you bidding me to do so, or picture me as obeying, out of regard for Honor--before that climax, I say, consider what you are doing in common justice. By banishment you take from me every temporal and spiritual treasure worth living for. As I stand here, I believe I am a happy man--almost; happy in Godleigh; happy in renewed intercourse with Honor; happy--on my oath before Heaven--in the knowledge that she belongs to you. I may be unfinished and unfurnished--only half a man, as Mark Endicott didn't hesitate to tell me; but, such as I am, this hillside is my life, and, if you bade me depart from it and I went, then I should presently die."

Myles lifted his head and looked from under his brows half in contempt, half in dubiety.

"You're a slight thing to turn a man's hair grey--a slight thing on your own showing," he answered. "Can you dissect yourself so glibly and mean it? You parade your own emptiness without flinching. Yet you believe what you say, no doubt; and there may be truth in it, but not all the truth. I can't suppose you utterly abnormal in your attitude towards other people, just because you say you are."

"I say no such thing. It was Endicott who said so. I say that my view of life is very much more exalted and my standards higher than--yours, for instance. If you could understand my plane, you would understand me; but you can't. The aesthetic habit of mind is beyond your percipience."

"Then we can leave it out. You may deceive yourself with big words, nobody else. What are you going to do? That is the question. The fact that my peace of mind and my salvation are bound up in my wife is unfortunate, because I neither wish you to consider me, nor do I desire to be under any further obligation. But Honor is my wife, and, as that relationship is understood by common men, it carries with it definite limitations. She loves you, and never attempts to hide it. Her primitive nature is big enough to find room in her heart for us both; but my still more primitive nature can't tolerate this attitude. I'm not big enough to share her with anybody else, not big enough to watch her happier than the day is long in your company."

"You think soberly and honestly that the world grows too small for the three of us?"

"Little Silver does."

"We might toss up which of us blows his brains out."

"Try to feel as serious as I do, Christopher Yeoland. Try to look at the future of this woman's life, since you have approached me upon it."

"I do so, and I see a life not necessarily unhappy. A woman heroic enough to love two men deserves double share of happiness; don't you think so?"

"I suppose you're in earnest, though God knows it is not easy to argue with such a babbler."

"No, I'm not flippant. It is you who have got the perspective of this thing all wrong. If you were a little older, you would see how absurd it is to try and turn pure comedy into drama. If you were only a better judge of character--can't you understand that I'm incapable of tragedy? There's nothing hurting you, or going to hurt you, but your own narrow nature. When we're all white-headed--the day after to-morrow, or so--when we are all grown into the sere and yellow--you will be the first to laugh, through toothless gums, at this, and say that I was right."

"Well, we won't argue, because there's no solid ground where we can meet as a foundation for any possible sort of understanding. You take such a view of life and its responsibilities as I should have supposed impossible for a reasonable being. We're different to the roots, and, materialist though I am, I recognise, a million times more deeply than you can, the demands of this existence and the need to justify it. Now listen, and then we will part: I tell you that in my judgment as her husband, my wife's ultimate happiness and content and mental health will be more nearly assured if you go out of her life than if you stop in it. I ask you to go out of it. I recognise all that this demand means, especially as coming from me to you. You'll gauge the depth of my convictions that I can bring myself to ask you so much--for her sake, not mine."

"You want me to turn my back upon Godleigh?"

"I do; as that is apparently the only way you can turn your back on Bear Down."

"You have no right to ask such a thing."

"Under the circumstances I consider that I have."

"There is another alternative."

"I cannot see it then."