Chapter 1

The Flesh and the Devil

In the outer hall with its pair of Corinthian columns of polished black marble Lord Elphin was handing his overcoat to the footman, when he saw the drawing-room door move slightly, revealing a tiny chink, immediately closed again; a thin line of brilliant light, instantly eclipsed.

Through the momentary opening slipped a slim agile figure, and a voice-a woman's voice, of singularly clear intonation and a remarkable full and seductive quality, exclaimed:

"Morning, James! Here am I ... I always know your knock, you know,-right, every time! ... Banged the door quick, did I? Well I beg pardon; but mother doesn't want her little preparations spied on. She wants everybody to be dazzled by the sudden revelation of the magnificent tout ensemble. Five minutes, and all will be ready. The gong will sound, and all the house may come to feast their eyes on the table laid out for to-morrow's festivities."

James looked at the girl without saying a word. How pretty and how charming she was,-his Grace, his future wife, with her delicate features, her rosy complexion and her aureola of yellow-gold hair,-to say nothing of the soft, undulating lines of her young, strong body, and the chaste promises they gave of pleasures to come. He stood silent, watching her gay smile and the happy look shining in her bright eyes. Long after she had finished speaking, he could still hear the crystal-clear vibrations of her musical voice. How full it was of feeling,-something far better than a host of words.

She really loved him fondly then? But if so, why? ... yes! why? His brow puckered under the stress of thought, while doubt and bitterness twisted his lips awry.

The girl noted these symptoms, and a sudden alarm blanched her sensitive face.

"For heaven's sake, James, what is wrong? Tell me what is the matter; please, please, tell your little girl ... Tell me everything. I am brave, you know I am ... But there! It's all a mistake, isn't it? Nothing serious has befallen you? ... No! you can't be angry because I shut the door in your face just now. No! it can't be that ... Can't you speak, James? You're driving me mad!"

"Silly child! why! what a taking you're in! I was only a bit disappointed, because I came for you, and now I've got to wait,-wait ages! I know what your mother's five minutes mean; two of 'em go to the hour! ... Uncle Dick's come; the very first thing he did was to ask for you, and he gave me no peace till I came off to fetch you."

"And I'm only too impatient to make his acquaintance ... But five minutes, what is five minutes? You may laugh, but you're quite wrong; it's all but ready, really, and mother counts so on her surprises. Think how vexed she would be, if you were not there to compliment her on the way she'd laid out the Christmas dinner ... Come, never spoil her pleasure. A little patience,-if not for my sake, then for my people's."

"Little coax!"

"Ah! there's your dear old smile back again ... Fie, sir! what an ogre you are for terrifying little girls. How awfully cross you looked! Come along now! I am going to take you upstairs into the drawing-room. I want your advice about the presents I have bought to give away to folks to-morrow."

In the drawing-room, as they were going under the chandelier, from which depended a branch of mistletoe, James suddenly threw his arms round Grace's neck. The girl straggled, pushing him away with a laugh,-a merry, ringing laugh, clear and sweet as a linnet's pipe.

"Oh! you little rebel ... How dare you break the good old custom?"

Blushing, with downcast lids, she put up her lips to be kissed. Lord Elphin stooped, and took a lover's kiss, a proper lover's kiss, wet and intimate.

The girl sprang back, grown suddenly pale and solemn-faced.

"Oh! James!. . . "

And a flood of tears drowned her cheeks, while with her handkerchief she began to rub her lips furiously, as if she would never leave off.

The same thoughts that had filled the man's mind just before, once more corrugated his brow with lines of chagrin and ill-humor. He shrugged his shoulders, and turning his back, pretended to be examining a picture on the wall, while Grace went on crying silently and soundlessly.

But at this moment the gong made itself heard, beaten by a rapid, peremptory, impatient hand. Grace began dabbing her pocket-handkerchief:

"That's Mamma telling us everything is ready. Shall we go down?"

"Grace,. . . you don't love me, then?"

"How can you say such things?"

"Well! but how do you account for your tears, your terror,-I might say, your disgust? How you started back! . ... If you loved me, you would have returned my kiss ... Don't you know you will very soon be my wife, my dear, delicious little wife! ... When we are married, will you still be so particular! ... Kissing, real kissing, shall you always loathe it! ... No! perhaps not! But then, I shall be justified in thinking it's a sense of duty, not love at all, has changed you ... Oh! you don't realize the pleasures of kissing,-because you don't love me the same way I love you. Perhaps someone else..."

"James! for God's sake, not another word. How can you imagine such a thing! ... It's only that I am a poor ignorant little girl, who does not understand things. I did not mean to wound you, believe me, James; I would not hurt you for the world ... But there are some things that frighten me ... I know it's got to be done; and it shall be done ... Forgive me, James for talking like this; it shakes me up more than I can tell you, merely to speak of it and I would never dare to say one word to my mother. I know, James, I must obey you, when I'm your wife; and will obey, joyfully, with all the joy of sacrifice ... For I do think it is the greatest sacrifice a woman can make. A woman must indeed be wretched to consent to such things with a man she does not love..."

"You see, my dear . .

"Let me finish! ... Alas! why force me to say such things? ... You pretend not to understand me, and all the while you know far better than I do what I want to express ... Oh! I say it very badly; it's all so difficult! We must wait, James,-wait till we're married!"

"Wait! how you say the word; how calmly and quietly you argue away! ... You're composed enough, you have no feelings ... If only you knew how I suffer!"

The girl shuddered, and a sharp pain shot through her clean, healthy flesh and pierced her maiden, but not insensible bosom. Her voice took a serious and infinitely gentle cadence, as she said:

"And don't I suffer?"

"Really? No! no! that's foolishness ... Your disgust! your wry face! the way you rubbed and rubbed your lips!"

"Oh! hush, hush! How should I know? ... Oh! what a thing to talk about! ... Don't you hear the gong? it's just like thunder all over the house! Come along quick, if you don't want mother to be coming after me to scold me."

Her clear eyes glittered with good humor and innocent fun. Her anger was gone already, without leaving a trace of ill-will behind it. Her lover stood awkward and embarrassed, quite nonplussed at her changing moods. But the old frown remained. The blood was beating hard in the man's veins, and his breathing was heavy and oppressed.

Erect at the dining-room door, her arms extended in an attitude of proud proprietorship, Mrs. Marjoribanks stood waiting to be complimented. The servants were ranged in a row along the wall, silent and lost in admiration. Indeed from one end of the United Kingdom to the other this Christmas Eve, you could hardly have found a table better ordered for to-morrow's feast, and sideboards more elegantly arranged, than in this dining-room in a pretty little bijou house in Pembroke Square, Earl's Court,-a quarter of town nevertheless where every household realizes to the full the obligations incident to the great national festival, Christmas Day, that time of open hearted hospitality and exuberant good cheer. Solemnly the good lady received the compliments paid her by her husband, by her sons, and by James her future son-in-law. Then followed a torrent of words, as she drew attention to each separate detail, from the arrangement of the rare orchids, which meandered all round the board in and out amidst the glass and silver, to the huge plum-pudding that stood round and imposing as the centerpiece of all these wonders.

In a short while Grace returned, mued in her furs.

"I am going with James. He wants to introduce me to his Uncle Dick, who only arrived this evening."

"Very well, my dear! Only don't stay too late."

"It is only nine o'clock," observed James. "It's a goodish step, I know, from here to Portland Place, but all the same I shall bring her back before midnight, never fear."

A hansom was standing at the front-door. The two young people got in and without a word said, the driver whipped up his horse and started off at a good pace. The streets were filled with a busy, swarming crowd of pedestrians, each loaded with numerous parcels. The shops were brilliantly lighted up, and their doors opening and shutting continually, while the clerks darted to and fro, eager to serve the throng of customers whose serried ranks overflowed even on to the pavements outside. All the wage-earners, who for months past had been economizing on their expenses, depositing their savings shilling by shilling at the "Club," had just withdrawn this money, and were now bent on spending it in provisions for the Christmas dinner and presents to give away on Boxing Day to family and friends.

However, on this particular Christmas Eve of 1883, amid all this exuberance of life and gaiety, there yet occurred moments of sad pause and reflexion, whenever the shrill voices of the street Arabs were heard crying the evening papers. At such moments an eddy appeared in the human tide that beat along the fronts of the tall houses. At that date everybody, from the roughest "docker" to the most elegant "languid swell," was eagerly interested in the Sudan, mad for news from the seat of war. It was only a short six weeks since the day Hicks Pacha had been defeated and slain. The unfortunate General's head had been sent to the Malidi, and was now grinning from a gibbet, while his body lay rotting on the field of battle. The ten thousand men he led against the Dervishes had let themselves be massacred without striking a blow, paralyzed by panic and terror. Egyptian dogs! the debris of the rebellious Arabi Pasha's troops, old enemies of England lately vanquished by her soldiers, whom the British Power would fain have turned to account to stay the dreaded Malidi's advance. Poor fighting stuff, those Egyptian battalions!

But General Hicks, an Englishman, and many other English officers, had perished with them. While the cowardly rabble were throwing away their rifles and bolting, a handful of brave men, a sacred band, had gathered round the chief. They had stood shoulder to shoulder, sabring the blacks, to the last man; not one had surrendered. Their heads lined the banks of the Nile,grim trophies the Malidi displayed to encourage the riverside population, murderous Arabs, cruel negroes, to undertake a Jehad, a "Holy War," for the extermination of the hated British. All England was boiling with indignation, and demanded instant reprisals.

The cab rolled swiftly along Bond Street, where the jewellers' windows glittered under the electric lamps. James had taken Grace's hand, and was softly caressing it.

He gazed long and fixedly at her elegant profile, as graceful as an old fashioned ivory miniature, till she smiled back at him. Yes, she was indeed a charming creature, so pretty, so very pretty,-and so good and kind into the bargain. But ... why did she make him suffer so atrociously? She was cruel, she was a flirt! what a provoking smile she had, what a way of nestling up to him! ... After all said and done, was she really quite so simple as she seemed! ... Chaste physically beyond a doubt; but some of these little ways were too knowing by half for an ingenue, they meant refinement, since ... Ah! how it pinched him, this impatience to possess her! And she! did she feel nothing at all? Still when they were dancing together, her clear gray eyes would swim in an ecstasy of pleasure, deep pools dark as the sea under a stormy sky! They flashed and sparkled like the lightning, while her nostrils would dilate and quiver. Her supple form abandoned itself voluptuously to his arm, in such a way that had he relaxed his hold, she would have fallen. He could feel her whole body tremble in his embrace ... Then surely! ... Sometimes too, when he held her hand in his, as he was doing now, she would blush up and the hot blood mantle in her cheeks ... Then the things she had said just now, when he kissed her,-a real kiss, the true kiss, the only one that counts in love? ... So she had said just now, when he kissed her.-a real kiss, the true kiss, the only one that counts in love? ... So she had some heat in her after all? Yes! yes! that was plain enough; there was fire lurking underneath the snow. Only the affected minx, like every other young miss, said no! when she meant yes! He must just have her willy nilly,-just have her without a word,-love her and no beating about the bush, postponing all excuses till afterwards ... Afterwards?-but then, as they were going to be married!"

The hansom was swinging down Piccadilly by this time. In spite of the lateness of the hour the shops were blazing with light, and rows of vehicles stood waiting, drawn up along the sidewalks. They soon reached Piccadilly Circus and the cab turned down Coventry Street. Using the end of her umbrella, the girl was just pushing up the little trap in the roof; but James grasped her arm, and the lid fell to again. Still she persisted in her endeavor to stop the driver.

"Don't you see he is going all out of the way?"

"He is going all right where I told him. I've got something to tell you, Grace; I've been waiting a long time to have a talk with you,-a talk on which our happiness, both our happiness, depends, believe me!"

"You really frighten me! You look so strange, and your voice is quite changed. Why all this mystery? I have never seen you before like you are to-night ... You are nervous and full of fancies. Have I not always listened to you, when you wished to say anything? What in the world can you have to tell me? We are all alone together; why don't you speak out now?"

Presently, dear. Where I am going to take you, we can talk more at ease."

She shook her head, while her eyes, searched James's face, trying to divine his real thoughts.

"Very well! I know you're a gentleman, utterly incapable of anything felonious. Wherever you please to take me, I'm ready to go with you."

Nevertheless she withdrew the hand he was stroking gently as he spoke. Her heart felt oppressed, she could not tell why, and she experienced a malaise and a sort of shuddering fear that grew more accentuated every moment.

Internally she blamed herself for not better resisting these ever increasing anxieties, which appeared to her childish in the extreme.

The cab turned yet another corner and entered the narrow thoroughfare of Wardour Street, stopping finally in front of a small hotel. The hall-porter came forward quickly with an expectant look, and a bearing at once self important and obsequious. Grace noted every detail with nervous eagerness. The house seemed to her decent enough in appearances, but yet with a certain over accentuated look of extreme respectability, the door too shiny with immaculate varnish, the entrance hall too luxuriously cozy, and above all its furniture too loud and obtrusive. You could not help thinking the heavy hangings had been specially chosen to drown cries for help, while underneath the porter's fawning manner lurked a soupcon of familiarity that seemed to bespeak him an accomplice in some proposed act of scoundrelism. Grace was filled with uneasiness and a sinister melancholy. Still she raised no objection, but obediently followed James as he climbed the stairs in tow of the landlord, who had run out to welcome his customers.

A curious type, this landlord,-a little, meagre, bald-headed Swiss, with enormous hands,-the malefactor's hands, having abnormally exaggerated thumbs, excellent tools for midnight assassination. At the same time the best fellow in the world, useful, obliging and liberal,-particularly in giving advice, the sort of advice that rascals bestow on other people, always contriving to keep just to windward of the law themselves. And what a practical head to be sure! when the Marlborough Street police magistrate fined him for admitting travelers without luggage, he would calmly proceed to make up the amount by petty additions to his guests' daily bills. In the same fashion he recouped himself for the compensation he paid to his

"man of straw," the supposed Manager, when on a repetition of the offence Justice supplemented the fine with a term of imprisonment.

Arriving at the first floor, this gentleman drew aside and threw open a door. James let his companion enter first, and following her in, turned the key in the lock and shot to a bolt. The electric light revealed a bright, clean bedroom with a fresh looking paper and curtains. But the first thing that drew Grace's attention was the bed, which with its copper rods and mother-of-pearl rings and its embroidered silk counterpane, had a certain air of furtive coquetry about it.

Grace stood still in the middle of the room, struck dumb, refusing to understand. James, very red and round-eyed, suddenly took her in his arms. She shook herself free, and without a word, her figure held very stiff and upright, made for the door. He grasped her by the two wrists, crushing them brutally and hurting her very much ... The girl grew paler and paler, and a cloud seemed to come before her eyes; but still her silence remained unbroken. He slipped his hands up along her arms, and pushing her by the shoulders, winding one arm meanwhile round her waist, drew her towards the bed. Then he tried to kiss her. At this her open hands contracted like a bird's claws and she planted her nails in the skin of his face, screaming;

"I would rather you killed me!"

"Silly little fool! Aren't you going to be my wife? You don't know what it is . . , Come now, and I'll show you ... Look here; own up, you would be very vexed, if I were to take you at your word and let you off? . . .You would make fine fun of me,-and you would be great well right too!"

She made no answer, only continued to exhaust herself in unavailing struggles, bent on breaking away from his hold. Then she gave a sudden cry of agony:

"Oh! James, James! Have mercy! Respect my honor!"

Without a word; he went on striving to push her down on the bed. She could hear the panting of his lungs, and feel on her neck the hot burning moisture of his laboring breath, the thick strong-smelling breath of an animal in heat ... It was beyond bearing. She threw her body sideways and lowered her head, only one thought left to be rid of this moist breath, this odious vapour that scorched her neck behind.

The man pushed and pushed. Already she was bent backwards over the edge of the bed, when she noticed he was holding her now with one hand only. The other was occupied making ready for the act. She uttered a howl of rage, and with a sudden bound was once more free.

Then ensued a wild chase round and round the centre table. The girl ran on and on in a circle without an attempt to deviate, her arms held up in front of her face. Giddy and distraught, she would crash into a piece of furniture, stagger and fall; then up again with a bound, only to fall again heavily against the wall bruise herself. The man, at once hideous and ridiculous with his frantic gestures and disordered dress, pursued his victim with might and main,-and overtook her at last. He was just preparing to lift her in his arms and bear her to the bed, when he staggered and turned ghastly pale. His features were drawn and rigid, while the eyes turned in his head and grew dim and glassy ... She failed to comprehend and remained standing there like a woman of stone, bursting with terror and disgust.

Then he began to re-arrange his dress, and going for a towel, moistened it in the water-jug. She bent her head forward and watched him at work, without word or gesture, her eyes half glazed.

Yet when he stood upright again, it was she who spoke first, with slow articulation and a curious gentleness of utterance:

"I want to go away ... to go away from here ... Are you coming?"

She went to the looking-glass, and examined her face suspiciously. He patted his hair into place. Then they left the house. But Grace made him dismiss the cab. They could walk up Regent Street as far as Portland Place, where he lived and where Uncle Dick was expecting them. On the way she talked to him in a friendly enough way. Only now and again her voice failed her, shaken by a nervous trembling. And it was only at the very door of his house, just as he was inserting the latch-key in the lock, that she laid her hand on his arm, and said:

"It is quite understood all is over between us ... You realize that, I trust?"

Lord Elphin started back, and stood there before her on the broad pavement, so strongly moved he could not speak. Then suddenly he burst out in a tearful, broken voice, clasping his hands together and vehemently protesting:

"Oh! Grace ... my darling Grace! Forgive me!"

She shook her head in sign of refusal, with a nervous staccato movement again and again repeated.

"But I love you ... I tell you, I love you ... My darling! if I did not love you..."

No lies! The thing's impossible. Love! no! no! Sensuality, if you like,-and beastliness! The first condition of true love is respect."

"Love admits no conditions. Passion..."

She gave a gesture expressive of extreme weariness interrupting him:

"I beg and pray you, James, nave some pity on me ... Say no more! not a word more! ... I am utterly broken down. If you still care anything for my feelings, you will open that door at once."

Lord Elphin turned the key in the lock and threw open the front-door.

Uncle Dick dropped his fork to run forward and greet his "future niece." Without interrupting the flow of his words of welcome, he soon resumed his favorite instrument. For the worthy gentleman was a gourmand, and just now moreover he was by way of swallowing double mouthfuls, to make up for the compulsory abstinence occasioned him by sea-sickness. But he possessed a gift of speaking quite distinctly with his mouth full, and could dispose of his food excellently well, talking good, sensible, pleasant talk all the while.

"God bless you both! ... You have chosen well, James! I said so, directly I saw her photograph; and I say the same thing now, on fuller and completer information. She will be an honor to the family! I am a bit of a physiognomist, and I tell you the girl is as good as she is pretty ... Now I'll tell you what you should do, James. With Her Gracious Majesty's permission, you must take service in Egypt and join us fellows in the Sudan,-come to Khartoum, where it won't be long before General Gordon will be badly wanting some brave English swords. For they are mightily mistaken over yonder, I'm convinced, if they think they are going to finish off those black devils with nothing better than their cowardly Egyptians. The fellaheen are brave enough as long as the enemy is out of sight. All very well to set Englishmen to officer them, but when the push comes, they lose their heads ... What earthly good cocking a good jockey on the back of an arrant screw, eh?"

James gazed at him with delighted eyes, sorely tempted to throw himself into his arms and start kissing him madly. However he restrained his enthusiasm and asked him with a smile:

"And Grace?"

"Oh! take her with you! take her with you! Be quick and get spliced, and come along. There's room enough for both of you in my house. You will be as welcome as Khartoum as the flowers in May. And I don't think she will stand idle either, our dear Grace: I have a shrewd notion those pretty little hands are clever ones too. She shall help look after the wounded. Nothing in the world so good for a sick man as a woman's care, a kind gentle woman's care. I have seen old war-dogs, hard-bitten wild fellows, fly into a passion, snatch the medicine bottle out of the Surgeon Major's hands and smash it against the wall. But the instant they heard a woman's coaxing voice, they would smooth down. Nothing like women for finding 'the soft answer that turneth away wrath,' and good words that go straight home to a poor chap's heart and bring tears of comfort to his eyes ... The mere presence of a woman at their bedside raises the morale of the wounded,-and you know as well as I do, there's nothing like a wholesome moral tone to make wholesome wounds."

Grace gazed at Uncle Dick all the while he was speaking, smiling at him in an approving way. His chatter relieved the tension of her nerves, the feverish activity of her overwrought brain. She listened, and remembered every word Uncle Dick said, while an internal voice went on repeating over again within her, the words, "Never! never! never!" and for the twentieth time she recalled the whole evening once more before her mind's eye. While helping her mother to arrange the Christmas dinner, she had grown impatient at James's delay in coming. When at last she heard the firm blows on the knocker, quick peremptory, incisive blows, she had instantly recognized her lover's hand, and had run out to welcome him, her heart leaping with joy ... Ah! she understood now why he had that strange look that had frightened her ... And that kiss! that horrible kiss! ... And then the betrayal, the trap! ... that odious room, in the odious hotel! It had witnessed some fine scenes before now no doubt that room, that villainous room! ... And once more she saw James, frantic, his dress disordered his face contracted by hideous spasms...

Meantime she went on smiling at Uncle Dick, as it were endorsing all he said. "Besides," he continued "the voyage would infallibly do you both a world of good,-physically and morally ... Just look at me, I've only been here three hours, and I am bound to confess the London winter is a poor thing for the lungs ... Then another point. Your English education is excellent,-on the whole. It is solid; it develops a girl's physique and turns out good housewives who are at the same time admirable ladies of society,-but there is a reverse side to the medal ... On the Continent young girls are taught to be afraid of man; the English miss is encouraged to trust him, and boys and girls share the same sports and games. Now excess is always a bad thing. You see, our English girls get too much accustomed to camaraderie, and our young men being gentlemanly and polite, let them gain a certain ascendancy. Later on, flirtation comes in. This is worse still; young girls are naturally cruel, because they are ignorant, and make men suffer. Seeing their admirers so humble and supplicatory, they imagine themselves in some way their superiors ... Highly civilized all this, I allow; but it is not natural. Woman must always be the passive party, she is man's inferior. Try and persuade her anything different, and you expose her to much misery and mistake. Up their very wedding-day, English young ladies have not a suspicion of what awaits them; then,-what a shock, what a humiliation, they undergo! Many remain unhappy all their lives after, without ever being able to say precisely why they suffer ... You take my advice, and choose the Sudan for your wedding trip!"

James was delighted. Bravo, good Uncle Dick! Surely a special Providence had sent him just then, and had told him just what to say! But time was flying. Grace called attention to the lateness of the hour, and James accompanied her home. Again she declined a cab; so they took the Underground, and had only a few steps to walk to reach Pembroke Square.

Grace was still gentle and pleasant-mannered, and on the way found indifferent subjects to talk about. James thought he might venture some further excuses for his behavior, and just as the front-door was opened and she was reaching him her hand, he stammered:

"Once more, Grace I. . . Forget and forgive . . "Not a word more of that!"

"Yes! one word ... one word, giving me a little hope!"

"Alas, James! if I said the word, it could only come from my lips, not from my heart ... You ask me to forget? Well! let us both forget. Here's my hand, James! I give it to you as a friend ... Goodbye!" and the door closed between them.

She walked upstairs with a firm step, holding herself stiff and erect. But the instant she was alone in her own room,-her virginal chamber, so carefully arranged and prettily decorated, she threw a wild look round her, her highly strung nerves relaxed, and she had barely time to dismiss her maid before she burst into a tempest of tears. Elbows on the table and head buried in her hands, she wept long and copiously. Great was the relief, her bursting heart over-flowing in water and mechanically easing the pressure of her feelings. A numbness came over her brain, and she cried and cried, without any very precise idea remaining as to the true reason of her grief. Filtering through her fingers, the light of the fight electric lamp tormented her retina. When she looked up, her tears blurred the light, which flashed and sparkled, vaguely diffused in long straggling rays that diverged in all directions. Hardly knowing what she did. Grace fixed her eyes on the incandescent centre of dazzling light. A feeling of languor overcame her, and she began to experience impulses of excessive generosity, a longing for self-abnegation and self-sacrifice. Instantly the thought of James appealed to her; but as suddenly a nauseating feeling of repulsion dissipated the vision. Grace discovered she bore within her henceforth a horror of the male, a profound contempt and loathing for the flesh. It was humanity as a whole she would fain cherish, in an infinite craving after impersonal love, impersonal tenderness. By charity, she longed to turn to the benefit of all the world the affection that filled her heart to overflowing.

Poignant was her distress, the very irresolution and uncertainty of her fate driving her to despair. Winking her eyelids, she withdrew her gaze from the vivid point of light that had riveted her attention. Looking round the room, they fell upon her Bible where it lay on a side table. She reached for the sacred volume and opening it at hazard, read: "All these things have I pondered. And considering how the sun shineth alike on the just and on the unjust, how he enlighteneth the sufferings which the good man suffereth, and turneth not away from the triumph of the evil man, lol I did conceive in mine heart the bitterness of a doubting spirit." Then she fell back again into her former attitude, sobbing wildly.

Outside in the garden, a cat was crying his love plaint, a long wail of impatience and distress, again and again repeated more and more insistently. Grace went to the chimney, took down her fowling-piece, and walking to the open window, was raising the weapon to her shoulder, when by a sudden revulsion of purpose she desisted and replaced the gun in its accustomed place.

Seated once more in her lounging-chair, she instantly fell again under the domination of the one brilliant point of vivid light, while all else around her appeared fugitive, vague and indefinite, as though wrapped in fog. She saw the sky studded with stars. Her straining gaze pierced further yet and embraced the infinite. She heard the celestial concert, the harmony of the spheres,-the choir of assembled angels surrounding the Lord's throne and hymning His praises. She saw Jesus, of a superhuman beauty shining in glory, His smile awaking Faith and spreading Blessedness abroad. And He pointed her to the road that leads to the Kingdom of the Elect, by the paths of Charity and Self-Effacement.

Then she rose stiffly and walked with a firm tread to her secretaire. Slowly and deliberately she began to write, the silence of night only broken by the scratching of her pen, accompanied by the strident clamours of the torn and tabby outside, frenziedly proclaiming the fierce sting of desire, the ardent agony of the concupiscent flesh. And this is what she wrote:

"Dear Uncle,-if you will let me call you so. I want to hold your niece; yet I shall never be James's wife! I shall never marry,-neither him, nor anyone else. Do not ask me why; no questions, I beseech you, dear Uncle. Will you take me with you to Khartoum? I should love to go there to tend the poor wounded soldiers.

Grace Marjoribanks