"So it is because light opera has come into fashion again that you are going to give up singing? Such a thing never happened before: a woman who succeeded on the stage, who has not yet failed, whose voice is still fresh, who is in full possession of her art, to say suddenly, 'Money and applause are nothing to me, I prefer a few simple nuns to art and society.' Nothing seems to happen in life, life is always the same; _rien ne change mais pourtant tout arrive_, even the rare event of a successful actress relinquishing the stage."

"It is odd," she said as they followed the path through the wintry wood, startled now and again by a rabbit at the end of the alley, by a c.o.c.k pheasant rising up suddenly out of the yew hedges, and, beguiled by the beauty of the trees, they pa.s.sed on slowly, pausing to think what a splendid sight a certain wild cherry must be in the spring-time. At the end of the wood Owen returned to the subject of their conversation.

"Yes, it is strange that an actress should give up her art."

"But, Owen, it isn't so strange in my case as in any other; for you know I was always a hothouse flower. You took me away to Paris and had me trained regardless of expense, and with your money it was easy to get an engagement."

"My money had nothing to do with your engagements."

"Perhaps not; but I only sang when it pleased me; I could always say, 'Well, my good man, go to So-and-so, she will sing for you any parts you please'; but I can only sing the parts I like."

"You think, then, that if you had lived the life of a real actress, working your way up from the bottom, what has happened wouldn't have happened; is that what you mean?"

"It is impossible for me to answer you. One would have to live one's life over again."

"I suppose no one will ever know how much depends upon the gift we bring into the world with us, and how much upon circ.u.mstances," and Owen compared the gift to the father's seed and circ.u.mstances to the mother's womb.

"So you are quite determined?" And they philosophised as they went, on life and its meaning, on death and love, admiring the temples which an eighteenth-century generation had built on the hillsides.

"Here are eight pillars on either side and four at either end, serving no purpose whatever, not even shelter from the rain. Never again in this world will people build things for mere beauty," Owen said, and they pa.s.sed into the depths of the wood, discovering another temple, and in it a lad and la.s.s.

"You see these temples do serve for something. Why are we not lovers?" And they pa.s.sed on again, Owen's heart filled with his sorrow and Evelyn's with her determination.

She was leaving by the one train, and when they got back to the house the carriage was waiting for her.

"Good-bye, Owen."

"Am I not to see you again?"

"Yes, you will see me one of these days."

"And that was all the promise she could make me," he said, rushing into Lady Ascott's boudoir, disturbing her in the midst of her letters. "So ends a _liaison_ which has lasted for more than ten years. Good G.o.d, had I known that she would have spoken to me like this when I saw her in Dulwich!"

Even so he felt he would have acted just as he had acted, and he went to his room thinking that the rest of his life would be recollection. "She is still in the train, going away from me, intent on her project, absorbed in her desire of a new life ... this haunting which has come upon her."

III

And so it was. Evelyn lay back in the corner of the railway carriage thinking about the poor people, and about the nuns, about herself, about the new life which she was entering upon, and which was dearer to her than anything else. She grew a little frightened at the hardness of her heart. "It certainly does harden one's heart," she said; "my heart is as hard as a diamond. But is my heart as hard as a diamond?" The thought awoke a little alarm, and she sat looking into the receding landscape. "Even so I cannot help it." And she wondered how it was that only one thing in the world seemed to matter--to extricate the nuns from their difficulties, that was all.

Her poor people, of course she liked them; her voice, she liked it too, without, however, being able to feel certain that it interested her as much as it used to, or that she was not prepared to sacrifice it if her purpose demanded the sacrifice. But there was no question of such sacrifice: it was given to her as the means whereby she might effect her purpose. If the Glasgow concert were as successful as the Edinburgh, she would be able to bring back some hundreds of pounds to the nuns, perhaps a thousand. And what a pleasure that would be to her!

But the Glasgow concert was not nearly so successful: her manager attributed the failure to a great strike which had just ended; there was talk of another strike; moreover her week in Glasgow was a wet one, and her manager said that people did not care to leave their houses when it was raining.

"Or is it," she asked, "because the taste has moved from dramatic singing to _il bel canto?_ In a few years n.o.body will want to hear me, so I must make hay while the sun shines."

Her next concert succeeded hardly better than the Glasgow concert; Hull, Leeds, Birmingham were tried, but only with moderate success, and Evelyn returned to London with very little money for the convent, and still less for her poor people.

"It is a disappointment to me, dear Mother?"

"My dear child, you've brought us a great deal of money, much more than we expected."

"But, Mother, I thought I should be able to bring you three thousand pounds, and pay off a great part of your mortgage."

"G.o.d, my child, seems to have thought differently."

The door opened.

"Now who is this? Ah! Sister Mary John."

"May I come in, dear Mother?"

"Certainly."

"You see, I was so anxious to see Miss Innes, to hear about the concert tour--"

"Which wasn't a success at all, Sister Mary John. Oh, not at all a success."

"Not a success?"

"Well, from an artistic point of view it was; I brought you some of the notices," and Evelyn took out of her pocket some hundreds of cuttings from newspapers. It had not occurred to her before, but now the thought pa.s.sed through her mind, formulating itself in this way: "After all, the mummeress isn't dead in me yet; bringing my notices to nuns! Dear me! how like me!" And she sat watching the nuns, a little amused, when the Prioress asked Sister Mary John to read some pa.s.sages to her.

"Now I can't sit here and hear you read out my praises. You can read them when I am gone. A little more money and a little less praise would have suited me better, Sister Mary John."

"Would you care to come into the garden?" the nun asked. "I was just going out to feed the birds. Poor things! they come in from the common; our garden is full of them. But what about singing at Benediction to-day? Would you like to try some music over with me and forget the birds?"

"There will be plenty of time to try over music."

The door opened again. It was the porteress come to say that Monsignor had just arrived and would like to speak with the Prioress.

"But ask him to come in.... Here is a friend of yours, Monsignor. She has just returned from--"

"From a disastrous concert tour, having only made four hundred pounds with six concerts. My career as a prima donna is at an end. The public is tired of me."

"The artistic public isn't tired of you," said Sister Mary John.

"Read, Monsignor; she has brought us all her notices."

"Oh, do take them away, Sister Mary John; you make me ashamed before Monsignor. Such vanity! What will he think of my bringing my notices to read to you? But you mustn't think I am so vain as that, Monsignor; it was really because I thought the nuns would be interested to hear of the music--and to excuse myself. But you know, Mother, once I take a project in hand I don't give it up easily. I have made up my mind to redeem this convent from debt, and it shall be done. My concert tour was a failure, but I have another idea in my head; and I came here to tell it to you. I don't know what Monsignor will think of it. I have been offered a good deal of money to go to America to sing my own parts, for Wagner is not yet dead in America."

"But, Miss Innes, I thought you intended to leave the stage?"

"I have left the stage, but I intend to go back to it. That is a point on which I will have to talk to Monsignor." Evelyn waited for the prelate to speak.

"Such determination is very unusual, and if the cause be a good one I congratulate you, Mother Prioress, on your champion who, to defend you, will start for the New World."

"Well, Monsignor, unless you repudiate the motives of those who went to Palestine to fight for the Holy Sepulchre, why should you repudiate mine?"

"But I haven't said a word; indeed--"