"I think you do not know the fame of Ian Verity," said Philippa.

"Oh, I don't thank you for personal fame. I would prefer something less showy but of far more value. But as a matter of fact, what I should choose had got very little to do with it."

"We all know what we should like, but we can't choose our prize."

"No," rejoined Isabella quickly, "You are quite right, we cannot choose and we cannot all win.

"'And what reward for strivers who are losers?

A wooden spoon? Sometimes not even that.

Nor, does this seem, since men may not be choosers, A thing to wonder at;'"

she quoted, smiling. "The wooden spoon is mine, and I suppose I ought to cultivate a decent grat.i.tude for favour received."

"What nonsense!" said Philippa, laughing. "You are not a loser. You have won a great deal more than you know. Some day you will learn how deep an affection your readers have for you, and your heart will be warmed by the knowledge of the happiness you have given to thousands."

Isabella smiled. "Well, well; we shall see," she said serenely.

"You will be dragged from your retirement when that day comes,"

continued Philippa. "You will not be able to hide your light any longer, and I shall be dazzled by the splendour of it."

"Not a bit of it. Here I am, and here I shall stay. I take comfort in the fact that no one connects Ian Verity with an elderly and unattractive spinster hidden in a hermitage on Bessmoor. You will not betray me, I know, and it is good of you to come and visit me in my solitude. I am growing old and you have all your life before you. I have crossed to the shady side of the road while you walk still in the sunshine. I have thought of you often since we met."

"And I of you," answered Philippa quietly, and then after a moment's pause she added, "You do not ask me what I have been doing."

"That does not mean that I do not care to know," replied Isabella gently. She was sitting looking out on the moor, leaning back in her chair with her hands folded in her lap. Something in the rigidity of her att.i.tude told Philippa that she was listening intently.

"I have been helping to nurse Francis Heathcote."

CHAPTER XIV

ROPES OF GOSSAMER

"Deep in my heart the tender secret dwells, Lonely and lost to light for evermore Save when to thine my heart responsive swells, Then trembles into silence as before."

Isabella did not move, but Philippa could see that her breath was coming fast as though she had been running; otherwise she gave no sign of having heard.

"He has been very ill," continued the girl, "but he is better now."

The older woman rose suddenly from her seat and moved a few steps forward, and stood with her back towards her companion and with one hand on the oaken pillar as though to steady herself.

"Is he--conscious?" she asked in a low voice.

"He recognises the doctor and his old nurse, but we cannot tell how much he remembers about his long illness."

"Is he--happy?"

"I think he is perfectly happy," replied Philippa slowly.

There was a short silence, and then Isabella resumed her seat.

Philippa glanced at her and then turned away her eyes, but she answered the unspoken question she had read in her friend's face.

"It is impossible to say. The doctor cannot tell. At first he thought it would be only a matter of days or perhaps weeks; but now the improvement has been very great, and it seems as though if all goes well he might live some time. You see, his memory returned quite suddenly, and the shock was very great. It was almost too much for his strength. We can only go on from day to day. It is useless to look forward."

At last Isabella spoke. "You must forgive me," she said brokenly, and with an evident effort to regain her composure. "But it is a long time since I have heard his name. I thank you for telling me, but--there is something I cannot understand. What are you doing here--you--a child, with a face and form of the past?"

"I met him quite by accident. I went into his room, mistaking it for my own, on the first evening after my arrival. I came to stay with Marion Heathcote, who is an old friend of mine."

"And he?"

"He thinks I am----"

Isabella nodded. "It was the sight of you recalled his memory?"

"Yes."

"And you have not undeceived him?"

"It was not possible to tell him of his mistake. He was too weak."

"Tell me some more, please."

And Philippa told her, beginning from the beginning. She told her of the doctor's plea--of Jane Goodman's words--of all the phases of his recent illness--only of his words of love to her she did not speak.

And during the recital Isabella watched her with a look of deep scrutiny, but she did not interrupt. Only when the story was all told she said--

"I wonder why you did it?"

"There was nothing else to be done. You would have done the same yourself," replied Philippa simply.

"Yes," cried Isabella, with a little cry that was more than half a sob; "you are right. I should have done the same myself; but--I have loved Francis Heathcote all my life. I should have done the same; but I did not have the chance--did I? After all these years----

"Listen," she continued, as she leaned forward resting her chin on her clasped hand, while into her eyes there crept the look of one who is blind to what is actually before her, but entranced with some inward vision visible to herself alone. "Listen, and I will tell you what I can about that past which died so long ago and which is yet alive to-day. When I was a girl, scarcely more than a child, I came to live with an aunt in Bessacre village. My mother was dead, and my father, who was one of those delightful but utterly unpractical people that the world calls rolling stones, was seldom or never in England.

"My aunt was a woman rather hard to describe. My father used to say that she had the brains of a rabbit and the tongue of a viper, and perhaps that best explains her. She meant to be kind, I think, but she was without exception the silliest and most empty-headed person I have ever known. I do not say this unkindly; she gave me what she could, and it was very little--just clothes and food; but of sympathy or human understanding not a particle. And so it followed that I was very lonely, which may in part account for what I have to tell.

"Francis Heathcote and I were about the same age, and during the holidays we played a great deal together, and all the happiness of those childish years I owe to him. We were allowed a good deal of freedom, and there is hardly a stone or a tree in the park that does not hold some memory of delight for me.

"Then of course came his college days, and he was more seldom at home, but even so something of the old comradeship remained to us. And then--one summer--circ.u.mstances threw us more closely together again.

I was at the age for dreams, and as I told you before, more than half a fool, and G.o.d knows what ropes I wove out of gossamer--until--Phil came.

"She was very beautiful, and I expect you know the rest. One thing I can honestly say, I was never jealous of her--I could not wonder that Francis loved her. Every one revelled in her beauty, even I who watched my ropes melt away into nothingness as the dew of the morning before the sun's rays. I watched their courtship. It was some time before he won her, and--Francis used to tell me all his hopes and fears--I think I was some use to him at that time--a sort of safety-valve." She gave a little whimsical smile. "It wasn't always quite easy to listen to his rhapsodies about the girl he loved, but, after all, it meant that we were together, and that was a great deal to me. I do not think the world ever held any one more keen, more eager than he was--so full of the joy of living, so ardent in his love. How his whole face used to light up when he spoke of her! Every one loved him, rich and poor alike. And then came his accident--you know all about it?" Philippa made a gesture of a.s.sent. "And there, so far as I am concerned, the story ended. All my remembrance lies in the happy days when we were boy and girl together--when we grew to manhood and womanhood almost before we realised it. I never spoke to him again--I cannot say I did not see him, for I saw him driving once with Lady Louisa. He did not know me."

"Have you never been to the High House since?"

"Only once. It was after I heard that Phil--that his engagement was broken off. It is not a visit that I care to remember. I think I was half crazed with grief for him. Anyway, I felt that I could bear it no longer, and I went and practically forced myself into Lady Louisa's presence. I did not know her very well, she was not the sort of woman any one ever knew well--very cold in manner and reserved--and I had always been afraid of her, but I forgot my fear that day. I have a horrid recollection of being very foolish--of begging her upon my knees to let me do some little thing, even the smallest, for him--and finally of creeping out of the house humbled and despairing, with my whole world in pieces. It had been pretty well shattered before that. I don't know that Lady Louisa was unkind to me, but if she was she had every excuse; and, poor soul, I know how she must have felt--like a tigress defending her young. For it was then that all sorts of rumours were rife about him. People said that he was hopelessly mad--that he had tried to murder her--that he had been taken away to an asylum--and heaven knows how many more lies. And of course she must have thought, and with good reason, that I was an hysterical idiot. Well, I quarrelled with my aunt over it--not the interview, she knew nothing of that, but over the gossip. You can imagine what food for talk in the village, and most of it was her fault, and I was maddened by it.