"You can strike the last items off your list," rejoined Philippa decidedly; "I certainly don't want them. I just want to be allowed to do nothing in particular except see a great deal of your lovely country in the quietest and laziest way possible, please. These little villages fascinate me--all cl.u.s.tering round a church which looks far too big and important for the number of cottages. Why have you so many churches about here? I counted eight on my way from the station."

"Ah!" was the reply, "times have changed in these parts since the days when the priors and monks raised these churches, and since the countryside was thickly populated. Silk and wool were staple industries here then. Many and various causes have brought about the change. First they say that the Black Death raged more violently here than in any other part of England, and second---- Excuse me!" Major Heathcote broke off suddenly as the butler handed him a telegram. "How did this come at this hour?"

"Miss Brooks sent it up, sir; Bailey's boy brought it on a bicycle--she thought----" The man's voice trailed away into silence at the look on his master's face.

Major Heathcote's eyes were fixed on the pink slip in his hand, and Philippa, who was watching him, saw his face darken suddenly and his rather square jaw shoot forward as a strong man's will in the face of danger.

Then he rose quickly and walked round to his wife.

"Old girl!" he said, "I am afraid the boy isn't very fit--Jack wires that he seems seedy, and that they have got a man over from York.

Don't be anxious, it's probably nothing much--but I think I'll run up and see."

"d.i.c.kie! Oh, Bill!" faltered Marion. "What does he say? Let me see."

"That's all. Just 'd.i.c.kie doesn't seem well, have wired for Stevens from York,'" he repeated. His hand was tightly clenched on the crumpled ball of paper. "Wait a moment, darling. Let me think a minute----"

"Yes! Ford! The car round at once, please,"--he gave the order sharply,--"and bring me a Bradshaw. I think I can get to Eastminster in time to catch the 9.15, which should get to Carton Junction in time for the North Express. Now, dearest,"--he turned to his wife again,--"you must try not to be too anxious. I will----"

Marion had regained her composure, and rising she laid her hand on his arm. "All right, Bill," she interrupted quickly. "I'm coming--you are quite right--we must hope for the best. How long can you give me?"

"Ten minutes."

"Very well. I won't keep you waiting." She was half across the room as she spoke.

"Is there anything I can do?" asked Philippa. It hardly seemed the moment to offer anything but the most practical form of sympathy to the man who stood motionless just as his wife had left him, with his eyes fixed upon the chair she had quitted. Her question recalled him to himself with a start, but he did not reply.

"I am afraid there was more in the telegram than you told Marion," she said gently.

"Yes," he answered huskily. "I won't tell her--yet. It said 'Come at once--very anxious.'" Then something between a sob and a groan burst from him, and he squared his shoulders. "But we must----" Then he turned and went away. The sentence wasn't finished. That obvious pitiful plat.i.tude with which most of us are only too sadly familiar--that phrase which comes most naturally to our lips when our hearts are torn and bleeding with anxiety and the very earth seems to rock beneath our feet. Often when we are tortured with enforced inaction and we do nothing--can do nothing--but hope for the best. So easy to say, but oh, how difficult to do!

Ten minutes later Philippa was standing at the front door where the car was waiting. She heard Marion's voice giving some hurried instructions to her maid and turned to meet her. "You are warm enough?" she asked.

"Will you have a fur coat? Take mine."

"No, no," said Marion; "I have everything, thank you, dear." Then she lifted her face to Philippa and the two friends clung together for a moment in loving sympathy. Then she released herself. "Where is Bill?" she asked.

"I am here," he answered from close behind her. "Are you ready?

That's right."

"And you, Philippa!" said Marion suddenly, "Forgive me! I--forgot.

What will you do?"

"I shall be perfectly all right," said Philippa. "The only thing you can do for me is not to think about me at all."

She stooped to tuck the rug more closely as she spoke. Major Heathcote was already seated at the wheel. "I will telegraph," he said.

"Please do," replied Philippa, and in another moment the car was speeding down the drive, a dark shadow behind the radius of light thrown by its powerful lamps which shone a streak of gold upon the moonlit gravel.

Philippa watched it out of sight and then re-entered the house.

"Will you return to the dining-room, miss?" inquired the butler.

"No, thank you," she answered. In truth in the hurry and stress of the last few minutes the interrupted dinner seemed vague and far away.

"Perhaps you will take your coffee in the hall, miss," said the man, and in response to the suggestion Philippa seated herself in a deep arm-chair in front of the glowing logs. The two dogs, Spiker and Darracq, whimpering a little in the sure sympathy of faithful canine hearts, crept close beside her, and finally, after many restless turnings, curled themselves into two little b.a.l.l.s in the fold of her gown.

All her thoughts were with her friends. She pictured them speeding through the clear moonlight, where the dark lines of the banks cut the silver flood on either side of the road--arriving at the railway station--G.o.d grant nothing occur to delay them--then the train, which even at express speed must seem to crawl on such an errand--and finally arriving--to find--what?--Ah! what?

It was easy to see that the joy of both parents centred in that one little life; no jesting could disguise the ring of love and pride in both voices as they spoke of d.i.c.kie. She recalled the instinctive, protective love clearly visible in tone and gesture as the two anxious souls had striven to give courage to each other. The eternal trinity of love--husband and wife and child--and the greater the love the greater the risk of sorrow and of loss. Ah! that might be so, but who would grudge the risk in the greater possession?

She put her empty cup on a table beside her, and folding her hands behind her head leaned back in her chair as thought after thought came crowding into her mind.

Her surroundings affected her--the ancient house with its atmosphere of the past--of people dead and gone--of joy and sorrow ever blending in lives lived out for good or ill. The weapons on the walls--the faded banners, relics of warfare, now hanging limp and tattered beneath the weight of years in this hall of peace--the peace of an English home.

Home! The word had held no meaning for her of late. While her father had been alive, home to her had been with him, but even then it had no abiding-place; and since then, the charming apartment in Paris or the villa at Cannes with all their comfort and luxury seemed but to mock the word.

"No," she mused, "home for me should be England."

England and home, surely synonymous terms. And then, suddenly, a feeling of intense loneliness broke over her like a wave. She felt like a bit of driftwood, cast up upon a summer sh.o.r.e where flowers and verdure smiled on every side and all was peace; but at the next tide, once more the waters would engulf her and drag her back to the sparkling, restless ocean. She smiled to herself at the foolish simile even as she thought of it. It was absurd to compare the gay life to which she had been accustomed to an engulfing ocean; but never mind, for once she would give her thoughts a free rein and be honest with herself, and acknowledge that the life she had lived was utterly unsatisfying to her.

Was it merely the boredom of a blasee woman? Surely it was something deeper than that which she felt. Now, to state her case fairly--to balance the pros and cons--what had she to complain of? Was it reasonless discontent? She hoped not. Why, she had all, or nearly all that counts as the world reckons for happiness--youth, looks, intelligence to enjoy, money--surely a goodly array of pros; and also entire freedom to please herself and arrange her own comings and goings. Ah! she wasn't sure that this last item in the tale of her possessions did not go far to invalidate the rest. And yet only this morning she had rejoiced in her freedom, and now she had discovered, or thought she had, that here was the very root of her discontent. She did not want this boasted freedom now that she had got it, for, put into plain words, it meant that no one, not one human being, really minded whether she came or went, no one claimed the service she would so willingly have rendered to any one in a position to demand it.

How easy to say that life should mean service for others, but, so far as she was concerned, no one wanted of her more than the cheap small change of daily sociable intercourse, and what she longed to offer was both hands full of gold--pure gold. She thought of the women in the cottages she had pa.s.sed that day, living hard, toilsome lives, but all for somebody--all working day and night that loved ones might be clothed and fed and comforted. Ah! that was the point, the crux of the whole matter.

And having thus arrived at the nature of her trouble, she turned her mind to finding a remedy. She arraigned herself at the bar of her conscience on a charge of idleness, but justice dismissed the accusation. Idle she was not, she never lacked occupations; her reading, her music, her sewing, for she was a skilled embroideress, more than filled her leisure hours. But who profited? Herself alone!

For a woman of her cla.s.s what was there--what opening for the willing service of hand and heart? First and foremost, marriage. Well, marriage was, for her at all events, impossible without a great love to sanctify the bond, and love had not come to her. Had her mother spoken truly when she had reproved her for holding an ideal too high for this work-a-day world? Possibly.

Of course she might do as other women she knew of, who gave up their lives of ease and pleasure and spent their days in the crowded courts and alleys of great cities, waging war against the giants of dirt and ignorance and disease. Or, she thought whimsically, she could join the ranks of Women with a capital W, and hurl herself into a vortex of meetings and banner-wavings, like other unemployed. No, anything but that.

Poor souls, clamouring for place and power as they imagine it, without realising that even should they obtain beyond their wildest hopes, they are even now throwing away that priceless heritage of future generations--the dignity of their mothers. Those stately gentlewomen, our mothers and our grandmothers, living decorous and well-ordered lives, busy with manifold duties, wielding an influence impossible to over-estimate for good to their descendants, their country and the nation,--they are gone--their example is unheeded--their teaching is laid aside; but who will make good the loss to children yet unborn?

A log rolled from the fire with a soft crash, and Philippa roused herself. "Well," she said as she rose, "what is the use of thinking and wondering. 'Do the thing that's nearest,' which at the moment, my little dogs, is to go to bed!"

Spiker and Darracq uncurled themselves drowsily and sat up with questioning eyes. She rang the bell and delivered them into the butler's care, and then walked slowly up-stairs. The mood of her musings was still on her, and she was more than a little sleepy.

As she reached the top of the staircase she heard the man turn the switch, and the hall below her was plunged in sudden darkness. Before her the long corridor was dimly lighted by a few lights at a long distance from each other. All was very still. She heard the swish-swishing of her gown on the thick carpet and that was all. "How quiet," she thought, "so different from the glare in the pa.s.sages of the hotel last night, with its echo of voices and perpetual banging of doors."

At the end of the gallery she turned to the right, and later to the right again, and twisting the handle of the first door on the left opened it wide. Instead of the firelight she expected the room was brilliantly lighted, and before she could move, a man who was standing in the centre started forward. His eyes met hers with a look in which love and longing and rapture were all blended. He moved quickly to her with outstretched hands. "Phil!" he said, "Phil! dear love! At last!"

CHAPTER III

THE STRANGER

"'Twas strange, 'twas pa.s.sing strange.

'Twas pitiful, 'twas wondrous pitiful."--_Oth.e.l.lo_.