"It is the black imagination of this William Foster that will come like a suffocating cloud upon the imaginations of others, especially of----"

She suddenly broke off. Catherine, wondering why, glanced up at her mother and saw that she was looking towards the far end of the big drawing-room. Jenny was sitting there, under a shaded lamp. She had some work in her hands but her hands were still. Her head was turned away, but her att.i.tude, the curve of her soft, long, white throat, the absolute immobility of her thin body betrayed the fact that she was listening attentively.

"I would not let that child read William Foster's book for the world,"

Mrs. Ardagh whispered to Catherine.

Then she changed the subject, and spoke of some charity that she was interested in at the East End of London. Jenny's hands instantly began to move about her embroidery.

That night Catherine spoke to Mark of what her mother had said.

He only laughed.

"I cannot write for any one person, Kitty," he said, "or if I do it must be----"

"For whom?" she asked quickly.

"Myself," he replied.

Catherine slept very badly that night. She was thinking of William Foster and of Mark. They seemed to her two different men. And she had married--which?

Mark did no work in London. He knew too many people, he said, and besides, he wanted to rest. Catherine and he went out a great deal into society. At Christmas they ran over to Paris and spent three weeks there. During this holiday William Foster, it almost seemed, had ceased to exist. Mark Sirrett was light-hearted, gay, and the kindest, most thoughtful husband in the world. When they came back to London, Catherine went at once to see her mother. Mr. Ardagh had gone to the Riviera and Catherine found Mrs. Ardagh quite alone in the big house in Eaton Square.

"Why, where is Jenny Levita?" she asked.

Mrs. Ardagh made no reply for a moment. Her face, which was rather straw-colour than white, worked grotesquely as if under the influence of some strong emotion that she was trying to suppress. At length she said, in a chill, husky voice,

"Jenny has left me."

"Left you--why?"

"She was taken away from me. She was taken back to the sin from which I hoped I had rescued her."

"Oh, mother! By whom?"

Mrs. Ardagh put her handkerchief to her eyes.

"William Foster," she answered.

Catherine felt cold and numb.

"William Foster--I don't understand," she said slowly.

Mrs. Ardagh rolled and unrolled her handkerchief with trembling fingers.

"She got hold of that book--that black, wicked book," she said, and there was a sort of fury in her voice. "It upset her faith. It tarnished her moral sense. It reminded her of the--the man from whose influence I had drawn her. All her imagination was set in a flame by that hateful chapter."

"Which one?" Catherine asked.

Mrs. Ardagh mentioned the chapter which Catherine had most hated, most admired, and most feared.

"I fought with William Foster for Jenny's soul," she said, pa.s.sionately.

"But I am not clever. I have no power. I am getting old and tired. She cried. She said she loved me, but that goodness was not for her, that she must go, that life was calling her, that she must live--live!

William Foster had shown her death and she thought it life. I always knew that in Jenny good and evil were fighting, that her fate was trembling in the balance. That book turned the scale."

She sobbed heavily, then with a catch of her breath, she added,

"William Foster is a very wicked man."

Catherine flushed all over her face. But she said nothing. That night she told Mark of Jenny's fate. She expected him to be grieved. But he was not.

"An author who respects his art cannot consider every hysterical girl while he is writing," he said. "And, besides, it is only your mother's idea that she was influenced by my book. Long ago she showed you the bent of her mind."

"But, Mark, don't you remember how that chapter struck me when you first read it to me?"

"I remember that you thought it the finest chapter in the book, and you were right, Kitty. You've got artistic discernment, like your father.

Berrand and you would get on together. Directly he comes back I'll introduce you to each other."

Catherine said no more. From that time she devoted herself more than ever to her mother, who now, under the influence of sorrow, allowed her nature to come to its full flower. Abandoning the pleasures of society, which had long wearied her, she gave herself up to services, charities and good works in the poor parts of London. She carried Catherine with her on many of her expeditions, and there can be no doubt that her fervour and curious exaltation had a marked effect upon the girl.

Catherine had always been highly susceptible to influence, but she had been during most of her life attacked perpetually by two absolutely opposite influences. Now one of these, her father's, was removed from her. She came more than ever before under her mother's domination. For Mark, when he was not "William Foster," was simply a high-spirited and happy youth, full of energy and of apparently normal desires and intentions. He had that sort of genius which can be long asleep in the dark, while its possessor dances, like a mote, in sunshine.

In the spring the Sirretts made ready to leave London. As the day drew near for their departure Mark's manner changed, and he displayed symptoms of restlessness and of impatience. Catherine noticed them and asked their reason.

"I am longing to return to 'William Foster,' Kitty," he said.

She felt a sharp pain at her heart, but she only smiled and replied,

"I almost thought you had forgotten him."

"On the contrary, I have been preparing to meet him again all these months."

His dark eyes shone as he spoke. And once again that stranger stood before Catherine. She turned and went upstairs, saying that she must see to her packing. But when she was alone in her bedroom she shed some tears. That afternoon she went to Eaton Square to bid her mother good-bye. Mrs. Ardagh was looking unhappy.

"Your father returns from Italy on Wednesday," she said. "You'll just miss him."

"I am so sorry, mother," Catherine said.

Mrs. Ardagh looked at her in silence for a moment. Then she said in a low voice,

"I am not."

"Mother--but why?"

"I think you are better away from him. My heart tells me so. Oh, Kitty, I thank G.o.d every day of my life that Mark is--is such a good fellow, without those terrible ideas and theories of your poor father. You cannot think what I suffer."

It was the first time she had ever spoken so plainly on the subject, and even now she quickly changed to another topic. Mark had never introduced poor Mrs. Ardagh to "William Foster." And Catherine would not add another burden to those she already had to bear.

Surrey was looking very lovely in the spring weather. The trees were just beginning to let out the tips of their green secrets. The ground was dashed with blue and with yellow, where bloomed those flowers that are the sweetest of the year because they come the first, and whisper wonderful promises in the ears of all who love them. There had been some rain and the gra.s.s of lawns and hillsides was exquisite in the startling freshness of its vivid colour. Nature seemed uneasy with delight, like a child on a birthday morning. The tender beauty of everything around her rea.s.sured Catherine, who had come from town in a mood of strange apprehension. As she looked at the expectant woods awaiting their lovely costume in fragile nudity, at the violets that seemed to sing in odours, at that pale and shallow sky which is a herald of the deeper skies to come, it seemed to her impossible that Mark, who could be so blithe, so radiant, could turn to dark imaginings in such an atmosphere of exquisite enterprise. She was filled with hope and with a species of religious optimism. Some days pa.s.sed, Catherine and Mark spent them in a renewal of friendship with their domain. They were like two children and were gayer than the spring. Then one evening Mark said,

"And now, Kitty, I am going to start work again. Berrand has written that he will be in England next week and will come on here at once. But he won't disturb me. And my scheme is ready."