Her first love--Marie-Angele:

"I love you for your few caresses, I love you for my many tears."

Where was Marie-Angele now? Alex knew nothing of her. No doubt she had married, had borne children, and somewhere in her native Soissons was gay and prosperous still.

Alex dimly hoped so.

Queenie Torrance.

Her thoughts even now dwelt tenderly for a moment on that fair, irresponsive object of so much devotion. On Queenie as a pale, demure schoolgirl, her fair curls rolled back from her white, open brow, in her black-stuff dress and ap.r.o.n. On Queenie, the blue ribbon for good conduct lying across her gently-curving breast, serenely telling fibs or surrept.i.tiously carrying off the forbidden sweets and dainties procured for her by Alex, or gazing with cold vexation on some extravagant demonstration of affection that had failed to win her approval.

In retrospect Alex could see Queenie again, the white, voluminous ball dresses she had worn, the tiny wreath of blue forget-me-nots, once condemned as "bad form" by Lady Isabel.

On Queenie Goldstein her thoughts dwelt little. She had heard long ago from Barbara of Queenie's divorce, in an action brought by her husband, which had afforded the chief scandal of the year 1899, and then no one had heard or even seen anything of Queenie for a long while, and Barbara had said that she was reported to be abroad with her father.

Five years later Barbara had written excitedly:

"You remember that awful Queenie Goldstein? and how full the papers were of her pictures, when that dreadful divorce case of hers was on, and the five co-respondents and everything? You'll hardly believe it, but she's in London again, having succeeded in marrying an American whom every one says is _the_ coming millionaire. I saw her at the theatre myself, in a box, absolutely slung with diamonds. She's taken to making up her face tremendously, but she hasn't altered much, and she's received everywhere. They say her husband simply adores her."

Alex still remembered the rebuke with which Mother Gertrude had handed her that letter, bidding her remind her sister that things of the world, worldly, had no place in the life of a nun.

Nevertheless, although she had put the thought from her, she knew that in her heart she had felt a certain gladness that her erstwhile playmate, given over though she might be to the world, the flesh and the Devil, had yet not found those things that she coveted to have failed her.

Queenie, at least, had known what she wanted, and Alex' thoughts of her held no condemnation.

From Queenie, her mind went to the memory of Noel Cardew, and she was faintly surprised at the unvivid presentment of him which was all that she could evoke.

Noel had held no real place in her life at all.

Nothing that would endure had ever pa.s.sed between him and her. It was years since she had thought of their ill-starred engagement, and then it had always been in connection with Sir Francis and Lady Isabel--their brief pride and pleasure in it, and the sudden downfall of their hopes.

Of Noel himself she had scarcely a recollection. Perhaps her clearest one was that of the earnest young egoist, only made attractive by a certain simplicity, who had taken her to sit in a disused ice-house one hot summer day, and had talked about photography. Of the later Noel, Alex was astounded to find that she retained no impression at all.

She could not even remember whether it was he or his brother Eric who had married red-haired Marie Munroe in the same year that she herself had taken her first vows as a nun.

Perhaps it was Noel.

At all events, he had probably married long ago, and Alex could believe that some corner of land in Devonshire was the better for the earnest supervision that he would accord to it, both in his own person and in that of the generation that would doubtless succeed him.

Mother Gertrude.

At the last and most worshipped of the shrines before which Alex had offered the sad, futile, unmeasured burnt-offerings of her life, her thoughts lingered least.

It had all been a mistake.

She had given recklessly, foolishly, squandering her all because life had cheated her of any outlet for a force of the strength of which she had had no measure given her, and now she had to pay the bitter penalty for a folly which had not even been met by answering human affection.

She wrote no letter to Mother Gertrude, and received no word from her.

As the days crept on, Alex, without volition of her own, found that her journey to England had been arranged for--that money was to be advanced to her for her expenses, that she was expected to supplement with it her utter penury of worldly possessions. One day she went out, frightened and at a loss, and entered some of the first shops she saw, in a street that led down from the Pincio Gates.

They were not large shops, and she had difficulty in making herself understood, but she purchased a ready-made blue-serge skirt, with a coat that she called a jacket, and an ugly black toque, that most resembled in shape those that she remembered seeing in London ten years earlier.

She wore these clothes, with a white cotton blouse that fastened at the back and came high up under her chin, for some days before she left Rome, so as to grow accustomed to them, and to lose the sense of awkwardness that they produced in her.

The heavy boots and a pair of black-cotton gloves that she had brought from Belgium, still served her. The day of her departure was fixed, and she wrote to Barbara, but she knew neither by what route she was going nor how long the journey would take.

Her companions, selected by the Superior of the convent, proved to be an old lady and her daughter who were going to Paris. Evidently they knew her story, for they looked at her with scared, curious faces and spoke to her very little. Both were experienced travellers, and on the long, hot journey in the train, when it seemed as though the seats of the railway carriage were made of molten iron, they extended themselves with cushions and little paper fans, and slept most of the way. At Genoa the daughter, timidly, but with kindness, pressed Alex to eat and drink, and after that she spoke to her once or twice, and gave her a friendly invitation to join them at the small _pension_ in Paris to which they were bound, for a night's halt before she proceeded to Boulogne and thence to England. Alex accepted with bewildered thankfulness.

She was weak and exhausted, and the old lady and her daughter were pitiful enough, and saw her into the train next day, and gave her the provision of sandwiches which she had not thought to make for herself.

The train sped through flat, green country, with tall poplars shading the small, narrow French houses that dotted the line on either side. Her eye dilated as she gazed on the sea, when at last Boulogne was reached.

She remembered the same grey expanse of rolling waves tipped with foam on the morning, eight years ago, when the girl Alex Clare had crossed to Belgium, tearful, indeed, and frightened, but believing herself to be making that new beginning which should lead to the eventual goal which life must surely hold in store for her.

Only eight years, and the bitterness of a lifetime's failure encompa.s.sed her spirit.

XXIII

N.W.

Alex got off the boat at Folkestone, dazed and bewildered. She had been ill all through the crossing, and her head was still swimming. She grasped her heavy, clumsy suit-case and was thankful to have no luggage, when she saw the seething crowd of pa.s.sengers, running after uniformed porters in search of heavy baggage that was being flung on to trucks to an accompaniment of noise and shouting that frightened her.

She made her way to the train and into a third-cla.s.s carriage, too much afraid of its starting without her to dare to go in search of the hot tea which she saw the pa.s.sengers drinking thankfully. It was a raw, grey day, and Alex, in her thin serge coat and skirt, that had been so much too hot in Italy, shivered violently. Her gloves were nearly thread-bare and her hands felt clammy and stiff. She took off her little black-straw toque and leant her head against the back of the seat, wishing that she could sleep.

It seemed to her that the other people in the carriage were looking at her suspiciously, and she closed her eyes so as not to see them.

After a long while the train started.

Alex tried to make plans. In the shabby purse which she had clasped in her hand all the way, for fear of its being stolen, was a piece of paper with Barbara's address. She would not go to Clevedon Square, for fear of Cedric's unknown wife. Cedric with a wife and child! Alex marvelled, and could not believe that she might soon make the acquaintance of these beings who seemed to her so nearly mythical.

The thought of Barbara as a widow living in a little house of her own in Hampstead, seemed far less unfamiliar. Barbara had always written regularly to Alex, and had twice been to see her when she was in the English house and once in her early days in Belgium.

Barbara had often said in her letters that she was very lonely, and that it was terrible having to live so far out of town because of expenses.

Ralph, poor dear, had left her very, very badly off, and there had been very little more for her on the death of Sir Francis. Alex supposed that Downshire Hill must be a very unfashionable address, but she did not connect "N.W." with any particular locality.

She was always very stupid at finding her way about, and, anyhow, her bag was heavy. She decided that she would take a cab.

At Charing Cross it was raining, and the noise was deafening. Alex had meant to send Barbara a telegram from Folkestone, but had not known where to find the telegraph office, and she now realized with a pang of dismay that her sister would not be expecting her.

"How stupid I am, and how badly I manage things," she thought. "I hope she won't be out."

The number of taxis at the station bewildered Alex, who had only seen one or two crawling about the streets in Rome, and had heard of them, besides, as ruinously expensive. She found a four-wheeled cab and put her bag on the floor. The man did not get down from his box to open the door for her, as she expected. He leant down and asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"Where d'you want to go, Miss?"