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For a moment that thought, namely, that Edith was nothing to him, assuaged her; she might as well be jealous of a dog that he caressed and mumbled nonsense-love to, and her rage turned against herself for having been so insane as to give him scruples instead of welcome. What if she went back now into the room she had so lately left, and said to Edith, "Let him go; you will have to let him go. It is not you he cares for!" What if she challenged him to say which of them he chose? She knew well what his answer would be.

Inconceivable as was her folly in rejecting him, equally inconceivable was her mood on that morning – was it only the morning of to-day? – when she walked about the dewy garden in an ecstasy of happiness at the knowledge of her love. She had thought it was sufficient to love; it had made her happy to do that. But she had understood nothing of its nature then. It was only when she saw Brunnhilde awake to Siegfried's kiss that she had begun to understand. And the full understanding had come when Edward clasped and kissed her, and she for that moment had clung to him, only to push him away, to thrust from her just that which she wanted, which her whole soul needed. It was but a foolish fairy-tale she had told herself among the roses and sweet peas – a tale of sexless, bodiless love, fit for a Sunday School or a Bible-reading – a tale of white blossoms and white robes – a thing for children and old maids.

The Inquisition had another pair of pincers heating for her; they were ready now, and glowing. What if his moment's heat and flash of desire for her was but the fruit of excitement, but the froth which the music had stirred up in him? Certainly it had been easy to quell it. She had but to tell him to let go of her and he obeyed; to get out of the motor, and then he stood on the pavement. She despised his weakness, for surely a man who was in earnest, who was stirred even as she was stirred, not by some mere breeze of attraction, or by the excitement of a stimulated scene, but felt the heart's need, would not have relinquished her as easily as that. Yet it looked to her in unreasoning agony that it was so, for now he was with Edith, indulging in more madrigals, no doubt. Yet, when she thought as collectedly as might be for a second she had the cold water ready for those pincers. She knew really that what she now called his weakness was in reality of the same stuff as her own strength; that which made her strong – that grotesque angular old image called "Honour" – was one with the reason of his yielding to her. She was left alone with that now; next door a precisely similar idol presided over the two whom she raged to think upon.

Yet, if he had not so easily succumbed to her strength, or if, to put it more truthfully, if they had not both been held in by the force that restrained the hot impulse, that governed, that laid cool hands on the reins he had flung away, would she, so she asked herself now, have continued to persist, have ranged her will and purpose against his, till there was no more courage left in her? She did not know; swift and decisive though the struggle had been, it seemed to have taken all the force of which she was capable to make it at all.

For the moment there was remission for her at the hands of her jealousy, and she walked across to the window and stood behind the curtain looking out on to the moon-emblazoned river. The flood-tide was at its height, and the reflection of the lights from the farther bank lay on the lake-like surface in unwavering lines. Stars and moon burning in the blaze of an everlasting day, and something in the calm of the night, in the eternal progress of those shining worlds, gave her a momentary tranquillity, so that she was able to ask herself this question, on the answer to which all depended, with a mind aloof from herself. How long her will could have held out against her love she did not know, but she knew she would not have chosen to yield.

And at that moment she had won, had she but known it, the first real battle of her life. For that moment she stood with her banner waving round her. The next she was back in the thick of the mêlée again, without tactics, without any sense of there being any one in command of the army she fought with, or even of herself being but a unit in an immense warfare. She felt utterly alone, struggling, yet hardly knowing why, knowing only that the odds against her seemed desperate.

CHAPTER IX
EDWARD'S ABSENCE

The injury to Edith's ankle which, according to the authorized version, had happened on their return from the opera to the hotel, gave more trouble than she had expected, and ten days after its infliction she was still a limping pedestrian. This morning she was whiling away the half-hour that would elapse before the motor took her out with her mother, in a long chair in the strip of shade just outside the drawing-room window, with an unread paper on her knees, hearing rather than listening to Elizabeth's stormy performance on the piano. The agitation that sounded there was not confined to those musical excursions, for ever since that night at the opera there had been something about Elizabeth that her cousin would have summed up in the word "queer." Had not other circumstances and other people been "queer," too, she would probably have been content to define without analysis. As it was, she had spent a good deal of time during this last week in attempting to penetrate this queerness of Elizabeth, and seeing if it fitted in with other oddities. And she had come to the uncomfortable conclusion that they were not unconnected.

Very small phenomena – more remembered now than noticed at the time – had announced, like horns faintly blowing, the train of circumstances that were growing peaked, like a volcano-cone, and promised eruption. Such, for instance, had been her sense that something had happened on the afternoon when Edward had interrupted Elizabeth's practising. It was barely noticeable at the time, but it tended to confirm her view of subsequent happenings, which began to take shape and substance in her mind on the evening of the opera. That night Elizabeth had been rather oddly excited, and though an excited Elizabeth was a daily, if not an hourly, phenomenon, her excitement then had been of peculiar texture. Though not given to similes, it had represented itself, quaintly enough, to Edith's mind, under the image of Elizabeth holding some young living thing – a puppy or a kitten – down in a bucket of water to drown it, while to draw off attention from her employment she had been wildly and incoherently talkative. At the time it had struck Edith that her excitement was not merely a reaction from the climax of music and drama; she was certainly attempting to drown something, and while her tongue was voluble with vivid talk her fingers were holding something down, shrinking but resolute.

This was not wholly an affair of memory and interpretation; the impression had been conveyed to Edith at the time, and now, taken in conjunction with other events and conclusions, it assumed the importance of a cipher, when a numeral is prefixed to it. And the numeral, without doubt, was Edward. For on the night of the opera, after Elizabeth had gone to her bedroom, Edward had lingered for a talk, and he had been as inanimate as Elizabeth had been vivid, as grey as she had been rainbowed. He was absent-minded, preoccupied, inaccessible; he had nothing enthusiastic or enraptured to tell her about the opera which had so stirred his companion, and yet when questioned he said that so far from being disappointed with it it had been magnificent. To her comment that Elizabeth had seemed to enjoy it, he had for reply, that "he believed she did." Half a dozen times he had tried to rouse himself, and for a few minutes had pulled himself up by muscular effort, as it were, to a normal level, but as often as he thus exerted himself he fell back again below the surface, below waves and waters. And once more her own image of Elizabeth trying to drown something occurred to her. Then, again, Edward would ask after her injured ankle, and not listening to her reply, repeat his inquiries; he suggested a train for their return next morning to Heathmoor, having himself arranged half an hour before they were to drive down in his car. Finally, Edith, half-amused, half-piqued with him, had told him that whether he knew it or not, he was tired, and had better follow Elizabeth's example and go to bed. For a few minutes after that he had roused himself to the performance of the little loverlike speeches, the touches and hints of their relationship. It had never been the habit of either to be demonstrative, but to-night these attentions seemed to her purely mechanical things, wooden and creaking, not the result of the fatigue with which she had saddled him.

Since that night, instead of seeing him, as she was accustomed to do, every evening on his return from town, she had not once set eyes on him. He had telephoned next day that stress of business kept him that night in London (a thing that occasionally happened) but the same stress of business, it appeared, had prevented his coming down to his house next door ever since. A Sunday had intervened, and he had merely told her that he was engaged to pay a week-end visit, and this morning a further note had come, saying that a similar engagement prevented his coming down on the Saturday that was at hand. It was true that he had written to her with frequent regularity, for every morning presented her with a note from him, but those communications were of the most unsatisfactory description, with perfunctory regrets for his continued absence, and perfunctory assurances of the imperativeness of the employments which detained him. Once he had said that the hot weather had pulled him down from the usual serenity of his health, and visited him with headaches, but her inquiry and sympathy on this point had brought forth no further allusion to it. He was still staying at the Savoy Hotel, for while work was so heavy it was not worth while getting to Heathmoor late in the evening, only to leave by the early train in the morning. This, he said, would only add further fatigue to a fatiguing day. And he had clearly written in, between lines, "I should not set eyes on you, even. How is your ankle?"

These notes, as has been mentioned, arrived with regularity, but they were not the only communications received at Arundel from him. Twice, to Edith's knowledge, Elizabeth had heard from him, and, allowing herself now to suspect everything and everybody, Edith imagined that her cousin had heard oftener than that. For the early post was delivered at the house an hour before breakfast-time, and was sent up to the rooms of its various destinations. But a week ago now, Edith, by chance, had come down before its arrival, and when it came had sorted it out herself and seen the neat unmistakable handwriting; and to-day, in obedience to a definite jealousy and suspicion, she had come down early again, and again found that Edward had written to her cousin. This time, hating herself for it, yet unable to resist, she had fingered the envelope and come to the conclusion that there were certainly two sheets in it. To neither of these letters had Elizabeth made the slightest allusion.

There remained to colour, as it were, all these various outlined features with a general "wash" the aspect of Elizabeth, the impression of her. Of Edward she could only judge by the tenor of his notes, and in them he revealed nothing except reticence. But Elizabeth was here, her moods, her appearance, her voice, all gave information about her; and if Edward's notes suggested reticence, Elizabeth suggested repression. It required very little knowledge of human nature (luckily for Edith, since her acquirements in that supreme branch of knowledge were of the most elementary description) to see that her mind was beset by some monstrous incubus. Often she sat silent and absorbed, and then, with an effort, would break into a torrent of broken-winged high spirits and gaiety, which presented the appearance of a fair forgery of her normal appreciative pleasure in life. Then, with equal suddenness, she would seem incapable of keeping up this spurious pageant, and in the middle of some voluble extravagance she would sink back again into a nervous silence. More than once this change had come on the ringing of the front door bell, which, sounding in the kitchen passage, was clearly audible from the garden. Not once or twice only in this last week had Edith seen her drop suddenly into a restless silence when this innocent harbinger was heard, while with eager and shrinking anxiety she watched beneath dropped eyelids for the appearance of a visitor. Sometimes some such would appear and Elizabeth would soon make an excuse for a visit to the house or a conjecture as to the arrival of the post.

Now up till the moment of her falling in love with Edward, Edith's potentialities for jealousy had remained practically dormant and sealed up in her nature, the reason presumably being that she had not cared enough about anybody to be able to wake that green-eyed monster, three-quarters fiend and one-quarter angel, from its hibernation. For though jealousy is a passion which at first sight seems wholly ugly and contemptible, it must not be forgotten that its very existence postulates the pre-existence among its ancestors of love. Love, we may say, represents one of its grandparents; it is always of that noble descent. Or, if it be argued that a passion so utterly mean is wholly lacking in the open-hearted trust which so emphatically is in the essence of love, it must at least be conceded that love is in the hand that turns the key or breaks the seal of the cell where jealousy lies confined, then flings open the door to let the wild and secret prisoner escape and roam. The love that is lofty, that seeks not its own, will no doubt wring its hands in despair to see what sort of intruder it has set loose, will use its best efforts, shocked at the appearance of this monster, to confine it again; but without love never has jealousy been allowed to get free, to root about among the springing crops of the heart, devouring, trampling, spoiling. And in Edith's case her love had from the first come mixed with the sense and pride of possession; its first act, while yet new-born, was to set guards round its treasure, sentinels to watch. To-day they were wide-eyed and alert.

From inside the drawing-room came the sound of the galloping squadrons of chord and scale and harmony; Brahms was working up to one of his great intellectual crises with an attack thought out, brilliantly manoeuvred, before delivering the irresistible assault. Then quite suddenly the music entirely ceased in the middle of a bar, and there was dead silence. For half a second Edith conjectured the turning of a page, but the half second grew and grew, and it was clear that it was no such momentary halt as this that had been called. Simply, Elizabeth had finished, had broken off in the middle.

An idea, an explanation leaped into Edith's mind, suggested to her by one of her green-eyed sentinels, and in her present mental condition, sapped as it was by the secret indulgence of a week's jealousy, she was unable to resist testing the accuracy of her conjecture as she was to resist the demands of her lungs for air. But in pursuance of her object she waited without moving until the pulse in her clenched hand had throbbed a hundred beats. Then very quietly she got out of her chair and went softly in through the open garden door into the drawing-room.

Elizabeth was sitting with her back towards her at the writing-table that stood at the far end of the room. As Edith entered the swift passage of her pen ceased, and she sat with her head resting on one hand, thinking intently. Then, taking it up again, she began writing once more. Edith had seen enough for her present purpose, and she took an audible step forward. Instantly Elizabeth turned round, and as she turned she shut the blotting-book on her unfinished letter.

"Oh, how you startled me!" she said. "I thought somehow you had gone out driving with Aunt Julia."

Edith sat down.

"No, the car has not come round yet," she said. "It will be here in a minute. We shall pass the post-office; I will post your letter for you."

Elizabeth turned farther round in her chair, but her hand still lay on the closed blotting-book.

"Oh, I was only just beginning a scribble to father!" she said. "It will not be ready."

Edith considered the days of the week; but she felt that she knew it was not to her father that Elizabeth was writing.

"It will just catch the mail if I post it for you," she said. "Otherwise it will have to wait another week."

"Then it must wait another week," said Elizabeth.

Jealous people never themselves feel the wantonness and cruelty of their unconfirmed suspicions; they only know that these are not suspicions at all, but certainties.

"I noticed that you had a letter from Edward again this morning," she said.

Elizabeth slightly shifted the blotting-book, and Edith registered the fact – for so it seemed to her – that the letter was lying there.

"Again?" said Elizabeth.

Edith felt that she was not being wise. But jealousy is of all passions the most pig-headed; it only says "I must know, I must know!"

"Yes, you heard from him a week ago."

Elizabeth, who had been startled by her cousin's entry, was cool enough now. She perfectly understood what prompted this catechism. But little did Edith know how gallant a battle was being fought on her behalf by the girl whom she now so utterly distrusted and suspected; little also did she know that which Elizabeth was using her whole strength to conceal.

Elizabeth laughed; she meant to laugh, anyhow; the effort might pass for a laugh.

"Yes, I believe I did," she said. "And as for that, I rather fancy you have been hearing from him every day."

"Naturally. Did he say in his letter to you when he expected to come down here again? He has not told me that."

"No, he did not mention it, as far as I remember. He appears to be very busy."

"He appears to have time to write very long letters to you!" said Edith, hatred and resentment flashing out. Till that moment she had not known that she hated her cousin.

Elizabeth opened her blotting-book, took out of it her unfinished letter, and from under it Edward's. She slipped them into a piece of music that lay there, and, holding it in her hand, stood up and left the table.

"What do you know about the length of his letter to me?" she asked.

Edith saw her mistake. The instinct that said "I must know, I must know!" had been wonderfully ill-inspired in its notions of how to find out.

"I happened to take it up; it was a thick letter," she said, hopelessly trying to efface her steps, giving as reason an irrational excuse.

"I don't know the thickness of Edward's letter to you," said Elizabeth. "It is no concern of mine how many sheets he writes you."

She paused a moment.

"You speak as if you resent Edward's writing to me at all," she added.

Edith saw that she could get at nothing in this way. Swiftly and unexpectedly she shifted her attack, answering Elizabeth's comment by another question.

"Why does he keep away from Heathmoor?" she said.

Elizabeth had not been expecting anything of this kind. She winced as from a blow, and had to wait a moment before she could trust her voice to be steady.

"Has he not told you?" she asked. "I thought it was work during the week, and a couple of visits for the Sundays that he is away."

Two instincts were dominant in Edith – love and jealousy, inextricably intertwined, disputing for mastership. Love and its yearning anxiety – a cord, so to speak, of which jealousy held the other end, pulled her here.

"But it's so strange of him," she said; "and his letters are strange! I don't understand it at all. Can't you help me to understand, Elizabeth? You are so much cleverer than I! Has it anything to do with music?"

There was no mistaking the sudden and piteous sincerity of her tone. Half a minute ago she had been all anger, all hate, all suspicion. Now she appealed to her whom she had hated and suspected.

Elizabeth felt her eyes grow suddenly dim.

"If I were you, I wouldn't worry, Edith!" she said. "I should be quiet, not let my thoughts run away with me, and – and trust that everything is all right."

"Then there is something wrong?" asked Edith.

"I didn't say that. I didn't mean to imply it. Take it that he is busy, that he has visits he feels he must pay. Why should he conceal things from you? Why should you assume there is anything to conceal?"

Edith instinctively shrank from making the direct accusation which all this week her jealousy had been dinning in her ears so that her head rang with it. Elizabeth would simply deny it, but it would put her on her guard (here jealousy was busy to prompt) and the chance of finding out more would be lost. Her emotion had narrowed and enfeebled the scope and power of thought; she could make no plan.

"I am very unhappy," she said simply.

Elizabeth took a step towards her.

"I am sorry for that, dear," she said. "But – but don't make yourself unhappy. Don't contribute to it."

The expected summons came, and even as the wheels of the motor crunched the gravel Lind sounded the gong and Mrs. Hancock entered. The household books had proved at least a sovereign less than she had expected, also the coral necklace with the pearl clasp had come back from the jeweller's in its new case, with Edith's initials on it. She felt that these two delightful phenomena were somehow dependent on each other; the money she had spent on the new case seemed to be returned to her by the modesty of the household books.

"Dearest, are you ready?" she asked Edith. "Let us start at once and we can go round by the old mill. And what delicious tunes you have been playing, Elizabeth, my dear. Edward will think you have got on when he hears you again. Why, you hardly limp at all this morning, Edith! I knew that the lotion I gave you last night would make you better."

Mrs. Hancock settled herself among her cushions. She had lately got a new one, rather stiff and resisting, which admirably supported the small of her back. The footstool from the stores continued to give complete satisfaction.

"And such a lovely day!" she said. "Just not too hot! Oh, what a jolt, and yet I hardly felt it at all with my new cushion. I see there has been a dreadful accident in a Welsh colliery. So sad for the poor widows and families! What a lot of misery there is in the world. But, as Mr. Martin says, we should not dwell on it too much, for fear of dimming our sense of thankfulness for all our blessings. And Edward? Have you heard from Edward? When is that naughty boy coming back? You will have to scold him, dear, for neglecting you while he absorbs himself in making money. There! Did you not hear the cuckoo just say 'Cuck'? – there is a rhyme about it. Yes, Edward is really quite greedy, stopping up in London like this to make money. Yet, after all, dear, you must consider that he is working for you, making himself rich for you."

Edith turned round sharply, so sharply, in fact, that her mother was startled, for sudden movements were not characteristic of her.

"Do you really think that is all, mother?" she said. "And if so, how about the Sundays? He was not here last Sunday, and he is not coming down for next Sunday."

"But what do you mean, Edith?" asked Mrs. Hancock. "You have not had a quarrel or anything?"

What Edith could not say to her cousin was possible now.

"No, we have not quarrelled," she said. "But what if he doesn't even care to quarrel? What if he has ceased to care at all? Or" – it came out with difficulty – "or if he cares for somebody else?"

Mrs. Hancock was sufficiently disturbed not to call attention to another cuckoo, that, in defiance of the rhyme, was still gifted with complete speech.

"But what a wild and dreadful idea!" she said. "Have you any reason for supposing so?"

So far could Edith go. But she could not tell her mother that she had definite suspicions that affinities, attractions had begun to exert their force between her lover and Elizabeth. The chief feeling that kept her silent was pride. The confession would be humiliating; she would be acknowledging herself as having failed to feed the affection she had inspired. Her love for him, genuine though it was, and the best of which her nature was capable, was not large enough to make her drown herself. She still kept her own head above water, not guessing that it is through the drowning, the asphyxiation of self, that the full life of love is born. A second cause of reticence, less dominant, was her belief in Edward's loyalty. It was overlaid with suspicion, which, ivy-like, covered it, and thrust pushing tendrils between the stones of its solidity, but beneath all this rank growth it was still there. She did not yet quite soberly believe all that she suspected. She sat silent a moment, to her mother's huge discomfort, weighing her pride in the balance and confusing it with her loyalty.

"If it were not for his absence I should not have any reason," she said. "But I don't understand his absence."

The gospel according to Mr. Martin was of the greatest assistance on this point.

"Then, my dear, dismiss it altogether," said Mrs. Hancock, with relief. "Why, it was that very point that Mr. Martin spoke of last Sunday. Ah! I remember; you could not go to church because of your ankle. But he told us that we ourselves were responsible for most of our own unhappiness, and that if we only determined to feel cheerful and thankful we should find the causes of thankfulness being multiplied round us. Was it not a coincidence that he preached on that very subject? One can hardly call it a coincidence; indeed, one feels sure there must have been some purpose behind it. What lovely sunshine, is it not? And there is the old mill. So picturesque! Tell Denton to stop a moment and let us look at it."

A pause was made for the contemplation of this particular cause for thankfulness, and Mrs. Hancock put up her parasol to temper the other.

"Well, that is nice!" she said. "Shall we drive on? I have never heard Mr. Martin more convincing and eloquent, and I'm sure he practises what he preaches, for he has always got a smile and a pleasant word for everybody. So dismiss it all from your mind, dear, and I'll be bound you will find Edward coming down here before many days are past, just the same as ever, showing how right Mr. Martin is, for your cheerfulness will be rewarded. I see nothing odd in his having to stop up in town all the week; and as for his going away for a couple of Sundays to see his friends, what could be more natural? You would not wish him to be without friends, I am sure, or to shirk the claims of friendship. And since you said that his absence was your only ground for your dreadfully foolish idea, I think we may consider that we've disposed of that. Now let us look about us and enjoy ourselves. Oh, there's a windmill! How its sails are going round!"

Mrs. Hancock cast a slightly questioning glance at her daughter to see if Mr. Martin's wonderful prescription was acting at once, like laughing-gas, and, finding that Edith still sat serious and silent, proceeded to administer other fortifying medicines.

"He has often told us to busy ourselves with plans and thoughts for others," she said. "And there, again, how he practises what he preaches: he has had the dining-room repapered, since Mrs. Martin thought it was a little gloomy, and has given her the most beautiful new carpet for her sitting-room. And I'm sure I've never been happier in my life than this summer, with all your future, dear, to plan and scheme for, and with Elizabeth as well to think about. I must say I haven't had a moment to think about myself, even if I had wanted to."

Her kind face beamed with such smiles as Mr. Martin considered to be symptomatic of the Christian life.

"I've got a plan about Elizabeth," she said, "though it's a secret yet. But I should like to tell you about it. I am thinking of making a proposal to Elizabeth and suggesting that she should not go back to India as early as October. There is no great affection between her and her stepmother, and I expect she often feels very lonely and unhappy there, with no music and, as far as I can judge, only soldiers to talk to. Dear Elizabeth! I think she is enjoying our quiet life at Heathmoor. I dare say that after those dreadful wildernesses and jungles in India it seems to her one round of excitement and pleasure and parties and operas, all given her free. Indeed, I have a further plan still, which will make her quite wild with pleasure, I am sure. I am thinking of asking her to come with me to Egypt, and I have written to ask Uncle Bob about it, just to see if he will allow it before I say anything to her. Of course, he would pay for her journey – and, indeed, it is all on the way to India – and her hotel expenses. But I should not dream of charging her for her share of our sitting-room, if we have one. I shall go shares with Edward in that, and I dare say the servants at the hotel would not expect her to tip them!"

Mrs. Hancock's plans for other people always necessitated a certain amount of interpretation; it was important to look at them from her point of view. Here the interpretation was easy. It had occurred to her that she would be rather lonely when Edith and Edward left after their marriage, and that in Egypt it would be pleasant to have somebody in constant attendance on her, since the other two, presumably, would want to make all kinds of expeditions that she herself might not care to join in. She liked Elizabeth's vitality and fervour, finding it stimulating. This point she touched on next.

"I declare Elizabeth is as good as a tonic," she said, "with all her high spirits and gaiety, though for the last ten days she has not been quite so lively. I dare say it is the hot weather, though, to be sure, she ought to be used to that. Here we are, on the heath again. We shall be at home in ten minutes. How quickly we have come! Well, my darling, I do think I have managed to disperse your clouds for you this morning. I don't think Edward's absence will give you any more anxiety now that we have talked so fully about it. There is nothing like talking a thing thoroughly over. You will see that it will not be long before his stress of work is finished. Perhaps he is making quantities and quantities of money, for I hear that sometimes on the Stock Exchange people make fortunes in quite a short time. Would not that be exciting?"