"How could I? I didn't even know what to order. I just said, 'A pretty dress for the afternoon.' 'A hat with roses.' 'An evening cloak.'

Descriptions like that. And there was the habit, too, and little things--oddments. They grow into mountains! And I bought furniture to make my room look pretty and homelike. You remember you said I deserved to have one nice room!"

Apparently this extravagance also could be traced to my influence! It was useless to waste any more words. I went straight to the point.

"How much?"

"Oh!" she started and shivered. "I'm ashamed to say. And now--we are going away, and the bills have to be paid. I'm a new customer, and they keep sending them in. And the house books! They have run on. Jacky gave me some money. I _meant_ to pay them, honestly I did, Evelyn, but somehow the money frittered away till there wasn't enough left. I paid some--but there are others left. Jacky would hate it, if we left the parish in debt."

"How much?" I repeated, and she flushed to the roots of her hair.

"Over--a hundred! Nearer--_two_, I'm afraid, Evelyn!"

It was more than I had expected. I had to make fresh calculations, and revise several plans. Subconsciously, I had known that the trouble was monetary, and had made a special study of my pa.s.s book before leaving the flat.

"I can let you have a hundred at once, and settle the rest of the bills for you next month, if that will do."

She looked at me with tear-filled eyes.

"Do you think I deserve it?"

"I'm not sure that you do, but Mr Merrivale _does_! He shan't have any new worry just now, if I can prevent it. You are sure you have told me everything, Delphine? That is _all_!"

"I'll show you the bills. I knew you would help. You were the only person I could bear to ask; but you did not wait to be asked. I do love you, Evelyn, and I shall never forget! You understand, don't you, that it is only a loan? I shall pay you back!"

"I know you will, when you can. It's a comfort that you need not hurry.

I can wait for years."

"You will have to, I'm afraid. Three years! I hadn't a penny of my own when I married, but an old aunt left us all two hundred and fifty pounds, to be paid when we were twenty-five. That's my fortune! Jacky teases me about it, for I was always planning what I will do when it comes. I had decided to buy a tiny two-seater, and learn to drive. I told him that it would be useful in the parish, but really I was thinking of the fun for myself. Are you shocked?"

"Not a bit!"

"Well, it would be a waste of energy if you were, for I shall never have it now. The money will go to repay you--and to pay interest on the loan. I shall pay five per cent."

"I only get four."

"I insist upon five! I should like to feel that you had made a good investment." She waved her hand with a lordly air which made me laugh.

And she laughed, too, with obvious enjoyment. "Oh, my dear, what a relief! I shall sleep happily to-night for the first time for weeks. I can never tell you how wretched I've felt; so worried, and guilty, and trapped! Honestly it will be a lesson for life. You have helped me for the moment, but my worst punishment is to come. When he is well again, quite strong and fit, I must tell Jacky!" Her face clouded. "He won't say much, but his face! It will be an awful ordeal, but I suppose it will be good for me!"

I thought--but did not say--that it would be good for him too. The shock might teach him to be more understanding in his treatment of his girl wife.

Soon after that I suggested paying a flying call on the General, and Delphine a.s.sented eagerly, no doubt feeling, as I did myself, that it would be a relief to be spared a further _tete-a-tete_. The dear old man was delighted to see me, and was eager to hear when Charmion and I were coming back to "Pastimes". Something in his manner, in the way his old eyes searched my face, made me suspect that he knows.

I travelled to town alone, and arrived at the flat feeling tired and dispirited. Bridget wanted to know if I had seen anything of her man.

She also seemed a trifle out of temper.

"Some people," she said darkly, "don't know when they are well off!"

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

A BRUTE--AND A REVELATION.

Christmas has come and gone. The little girls left us a fortnight before, and the flat felt very quiet without them, but I busied myself arranging for the fray. The tree was a huge success; so was the dinner next day. Nevertheless, I shed tears on my pillow when I went to bed, for if a solitary woman is ever justified in feeling "lone and lorn," it is certainly at the season when everybody who possesses a family rushes to it as a matter of course.

It was very gratifying to have made other people happy, but I had a hungry longing to be made happy myself. By an unfortunate coincidence, neither Kathie's greeting, nor Charmion's, nor Delphine's, arrived until the twenty-seventh, and Aunt Eliza's turkey never arrived at all, having presumably lost its label, and been eaten by the postman as treasure trove. The one and only parcel from a distance came from--Mr Maplestone! He had called the week before, and asked permission to send evergreens from the "Hall". He said it was so difficult to get holly with berries on it in town, and all children loved red berries.

Presumably his trees grew crackers as well as berries, for about a dozen boxes of the most gorgeous varieties were enclosed in the crate. There was no letter, but just a card with "For the children," written in a corner.

On Boxing Day I made Winifred and Marion write letters of thanks--a weary process from which they emerged splattered with tears and ink.

"Why are you laughing, Miss Harding?" they inquired resentfully. I did not tell them that I was chuckling at my own cleverness in avoiding a personal acknowledgment. I did not know that the Squire had ever seen my writing, but he might have done. No risks should be run.

Delphine and her husband are settled at Davos, and he is beginning to improve. She writes sweet little letters, and I'm sure this illness has arrived at a providential moment. The shock of realising that her Jacky's life was in danger was like a lightning flash lighting up a dark landscape. In its blaze she saw revealed the true value of things, and the sloping path on which her feet were set. I don't expect her to grow up all at once, settle down to all work and no play, and behave as though she were forty instead of twenty-two; I don't expect the Vicar to give up being absent-minded and exacting; but I do honestly believe that it will do him good to have his shock, and that he is just enough to realise his own share of the blame. Then they will kiss and begin again, and things will go better, because there will be understanding to leaven love.

Talking of understandings, there was a marvellous calm in the flat overhead for some nights in early January, and Bridget informed me that Mr Nineteen had been taken to a nursing home to have an operation.

Since our tragic encounter, Mrs Nineteen (her real name is Travers) and I have exchanged furtive bows when we have met in the hall. I always felt guilty, and anxious to "make it up," and had an instinct that she felt the same, though neither had the courage to speak; but, of course, after the operation I had to stop and inquire. She flushed, and said, "Pretty well, thank you. The doctors are satisfied, but it will be a long cure." A week later I met her coming in with a book under her arm.

She had been "reading aloud. Her husband felt the time so long. For an active man, it was a great trial to lie in bed." To judge by her face, it was an exhausting experience to his wife to sit by his side. I said impetuously: "If Mr Travers would allow me, I should be so glad to read aloud to him sometimes, when you are not able to go. I am fond of reading aloud; I believe I do it pretty well."

"I don't," she said dejectedly. "It makes me yawn. John says I mumble." She looked at me sharply, distrustfully. "You are very kind, but--it's too much! Why should you--"

"I'd like to, if you will let me. I--I was rude to you--that day! I've been remorseful ever since. If you'd allow me to do this, I should feel that I was forgiven."

"You spoke the truth," she said shortly. "And I brought it on myself.

I had no business to complain about those poor children, knowing why they were here; but there are some moods in which one is bound to have a vent. You hurt my pride, of course, but--it's not the first time!" She bit her lip, turned aside for a moment, then added quickly, "I didn't tell John!"

"Thank you. I'm glad of that. He'll be more willing to let me come.

Please tell him that I'm so sorry to have disturbed him, and want to 'make up' by helping him while he is ill. My time is my own. I can go any day--at any time--to read any book."

She made no promise, and for several days seemed to avoid meeting me face to face, then one morning she came to the door and asked to see me.

Some business had arisen which necessitated a day out of town. Her husband dreaded being left alone. Did I really mean my kind offer, and if so would to-morrow afternoon--

I went. He is a dark, sharp-featured man, with thick eyebrows and a chronic scowl. He also looks shockingly ill, and is growing a beard.

The combination is enough to strike terror into the feminine soul. The very maid who opened the door looked pityingly at me when I p.r.o.nounced his name; as for his nurse, she fairly bounced with relief when I was announced. Her expression said as plainly as words, "I've had my turn-- now you can have yours!"

"Harding?" he said graciously. "Oh, yes! You are the woman who bangs the doors." He let me read for two hours on end, and then said, "Stupid book. I can't think how they ever get published!" but when I left, he asked, "When will you come again?" which was as far in the way of thanks as it is possible for him to get.

For the next three weeks I went constantly to the Home, and never once did that man say a gracious word. If I arrived late, he growled and said, "Thought you were never coming! Hardly worth beginning at all."

If I was early, his greeting was, "I was just having a nap! Haven't closed my eyes since two this morning, and now you have roused me up!"

If I read a book, he preferred a newspaper. If I read a newspaper, it crackled, and worried his head. If I made a remark, he disagreed; if I was silent, "Was there _no_ news?--_nothing_ going on to tell a poor wretch tied to his bed?" If I said he looked better, he would have me to know that nurses and doctors alike were deluding him with lies. He knew for a fact that he was dying fast. If I said he looked tired, he felt better than he had done all the week. It was impossible to please him--impossible to win a smile or a gracious word. Never have I met a human being so twisted and warped in mind. To go into his room is like entering a black tunnel--one leaves it with the feeling of breaking bonds. The matron of the Home is a brisk, capable woman, with a face full of kindly strength; we generally met and exchanged a few words on stairs or landing, and it was easy to see that her patience was wearing thin. There came a day when she met me with a red face, beckoned me into her private room, and poured forth a stream of angry confidences.

"I really must speak to some one about Mr Travers. His poor wife has enough to bear. I can't trouble her. The man is insufferable; he upsets the whole house. His nurse has just been to me in tears.

Nothing will please him. He rings his bell all day, and half the night, and for nothing--literally nothing! Just an excuse to give trouble. We have honestly done our best--more than our best. With such a patient it is easier to give in than to protest, but I'm beginning to think we've been wrong. He is not getting on as quickly as he should. I believe his temper is keeping him back."

"I'm sure of it! You are an expert at healing, and I'm a beginner, but I'm a great believer in the power of the mind. He is poisoning himself."

"He is poisoning every one else! I can't submit to have my whole house upset. If he were fit to be moved, he should be out of it to-day. It's all I can do to be civil, and not blaze out, and tell him what I think!"

"I shouldn't try!"