"EVELYN INNES."

The moment she had written the address, she threw the pen aside, and she sat striving against an uncontrollable sense of misery. At last her pent-up tears ran over her eyelids. She flung herself on her bed, and lay weeping, shaken by short, choking sobs. All her courage of the morning had forsaken her; she could not face her new life, she could not send away Owen. Her inmost life rose in revolt. Why was this new sacrifice demanded of her? Why was her life to be made so hard, so impossible for her to endure? She felt she could not live in the life which she foresaw awaited her. Then she felt that she was being tried beyond the endurance of any woman. But the storm did not last, her sobs died away. She sat up, mopping her eyes with a soaking pocket handkerchief, and utterly exhausted by the violence of her emotions, she began to undress. She felt the impossibility of saying her prayers, her one longing was for sleep, oblivion; she wished herself dead, and was too worn out to put the thought from her, though she knew it was wrong.

In the morning the first thing she saw was the letter to Owen. There it was! And every word and letter sank into her brain. "Sir Owen Asher, Bart., Riversdale, Northamptonshire." She would have to post it, and never again would she see him. She questioned the right of the priest in obtaining from her a promise not to see him, so long as she did not sin.

But Owen was an approximate cause of mortal sin....

Ashamed of her instability, and feeling herself unworthy and no longer pure as absolution had made her, she went that afternoon to St.

Joseph's, and in confession laid the matter before Monsignor Mostyn.

Regarding the money question, he approved of what she had written to Sir Owen, and he was far more indulgent regarding her breakdown than she had dared to hope. He had expected some such mental crisis. It was extraordinary the strength it gave her even to see his stern, grave face; she was thrilled by his certainty on all points, and it no longer seemed difficult to send the letter she had written, or to write a similar letter to Ulick, which he advised her to send by the same post.

She began it the moment she got home, and she wrote in perfect confidence and courage, the words coming easily to her, so easily that there were times when she seemed to hear Monsignor speaking over her shoulder.

"Dear Ulick,--A very great event has happened in my life since I saw you. The greatest event that can happen in any life--Grace has been vouchsafed to me. Now I understand how sinful my life has been, as much from a human as a religious point of view. I deserted my dear father, I left him alone to live as best he could. I was not even faithful to my lover. From a worldly point of view I owed him everything, yet for the sake of my pa.s.sion for you I encouraged myself for a while to dwell on his faults, to see nothing in him but the small and the mean. I strove to degrade him in my eyes so that I might find some excuse for loving you. You were nice, Ulick, you were kind, you were good to me, and I was enthusiastic about your genius. One of my greatest troubles now is that I shall not be able to sing your opera. For a long while this very thing prevented my repentance. I said to myself, 'It is impossible, I cannot, I have promised, I must do what I said I would do. He will think me hateful if I do not create the part.' But these hesitations between what is certainly right and what is certainly wrong existed in me because I did not then perceive how very little the things of this world are, compared with eternal things, and that nothing matters compared with the necessity of saving our souls. All this is now quite clear to me, and it would therefore be madness for me to remain on the stage, recognising as I do that it is a source of grave temptation to me. You will try to understand, dear Ulick, you will try to look at things from my point of view. You will see that it is impossible for me to act otherwise.

"I am living now with my father, and must not see you when you return to London. I have promised my confessor not to see you. One of these days, in years to come, when you and I are different beings, we may meet, but we must not see each other at present. I must beg of you not to write or to try to see me. My resolve is unalterable, and any attempt on your part to induce me to return to my old life will be useless. It as already far away and inconceivable to me. I know that by asking you not to come to Dulwich I am robbing my father of his friend. I have never brought happiness to anyone, not to father, not to Sir Owen, not to you, not to myself. If other proof were wanting, would not this fact be enough to convince me that my life has been all wrong? What it will be in the future I don't know, I have confidence in the goodness of G.o.d and in the wisdom of my spiritual adviser.--Sincerely yours,

"EVELYN INNES."

"_P.S._--In course of conversation with my father, I mentioned inadvertently that you were my lover; I begged him not to be angry with you, but I know that I should not have mentioned your name. I must ask you to forgive me this too."

The next day and the day following were lived within herself, sometimes viewing G.o.d far away, as if at one end of a great plain, and herself kneeling penitent at the other. She was filled with thoughts of his infinite goodness and mercy, and of the miraculous intercession of the Virgin at the moment when she was about to commit a crime that would have lost her her soul for ever. She went to Ma.s.s daily, and took peculiar delight in reciting the hymn which Monsignor had given her for a penance. She regretted it was not more. It seemed to her such a trivial penance, and she reflected on the blackness of her sins, and the penances which the saints had imposed upon themselves. But her chief desire was to keep herself pure in thought, and she read pious books when she was alone, and encouraged her mind to dwell on the profound mystery in which she was going to partic.i.p.ate, and to believe in the marvellous change it would produce in her.

It was on Friday morning that Agnes handed her Ulick's letter. She did not read it at once, it lay on the table while she was dressing, and she was uncertain whether it would not be better to put off reading it until she came back from St. Joseph's.

"Alas, from our first meeting, and before it, we were aware of the fate which has overtaken us. We heard it in our hearts, that numb restlessness, that vague disquietude, that prophetic echo which never dies out of ears attuned to the music of destiny ... Love you less, you who are the source of all joy to me? Evelyn, my heart aches and my brain is light with grief, but the terrible cert.i.tude persists that we are being drawn asunder. I see you like a ship that has cleared the harbour bar, and is already amid the tumult of the ocean.... We are ships, and the destiny of ships is the ocean, the ocean draws us both: we have rested as long as may be, we have delayed our departure, but the tide has lifted us from our moorings. With an agonised heart I watched the sails of your ship go up, and now I see that mine, too, are going aloft, hoisted by invisible hands. I look back upon the bright days and quiet nights we have rested in this tranquil harbour. Like ships that have rested a while in a casual harbour, blown hither by storms, we part, drawn apart by the eternal magnetism of the sea. I would go to you, Evelyn, if I could, and pray you not to leave me. But you would not hear: destiny hears no prayers. In the depths of our consciousness, below the misery of the moment, there lies a certain sense that our ways are different ways, and that we must fare forth alone, whither we know not, over the ocean's rim; and in this sense of destiny we must find comfort. Will resignation, which is the highest comfort, come to us in time? My eyes fall upon my music paper, and at the same time your eyes turn to the crucifix. Ours is the same adventure, though a different breeze fills the sails, though the prows are set to a different horizon.

G.o.d is our quest--you seek him in dogma, I in art.

"But, Evelyn, my heart is aching so. How awful the word never, and the years are filled with its echoes. And the wide ocean which lies outside the harbour is so lonely, and I have no heart for any other joy. 'May we not meet again?' my heart cries from time to time; 'may not some propitious storm blow us to the same anchorage again, into the same port?' Ah, the suns and the seas we shall have sailed through would render us unrecognisable, we should not know each other. Last night I wandered by the quays, and, watching the constellations, I asked if we were divided for ever, if, when the earth has become part and parcel of the stars, our love will not reappear in some starry affinity, in some stellar friendship.--Yours,

"ULICK DEAN."

The symbol of the ships seemed to Evelyn to express the union and the division and the destiny that had overtaken them. She sat and pondered, and in her vision ships hailed each other as they crossed in mid-ocean.

Ships drew together as they entered a harbour. Ships separated as they fared forth, their prows set towards different horizons. She sat absorbed in the mystery of destiny. Like two ships, they had rested side by side in a casual harbour. They had loved each other as well as their different destinies had allowed them. None can do more. She loved him better--in a way--but he was less to her than Owen. She felt that, and he had felt that.... As he said, if they were to meet again they would not recognise each other, so different were the suns that would shine upon them and the oceans they would travel through. She understood what he meant, and a prevision of her future life seemed to nicker up in her brain, like the sea seen through a mist; and through vistas in the haze she saw the lonely ocean, and her bark was already putting off from the sh.o.r.e. All she had known she was leaving behind. The destiny of ships is the ocean.

Owen's letter she received in the evening about six o'clock. She changed colour at the sight of it, and her hand trembled, and she tore the envelope across as she opened it.

"You ask me to make no attempt to save you. You ask me to stand on the bank while you struggle and are dragged down by the current. Evelyn, I have never disobeyed your slightest wish before, but I declare my right to use all means to save you from a terrible fate. I return to London to do so. G.o.d only knows if I shall succeed.... In any case I hope you will never allude again to any money questions. What I gave, I gave, and unless you want to kill me outright, never speak again of returning my presents.--As ever,

OWEN ASHER."

Her eyes ran through the lines, and her heart said, "How he loves me."

But the temptation to see him quenched instantly in remembrance of her Communion, and she tore the letter hastily into two pieces, as if by destroying it she destroyed the difficulty it had created for her. She must not see him. But how was she to avoid meeting him? To-morrow be would be waiting in the street for her, and she walked about the room too agitated to think clearly. He seemed like the devil trying to come between her and G.o.d. She must not see him, of that she was quite sure.

She would lock herself in her room. But then she would miss Holy Communion, and her heart was set on the Sacrament; the Sacrament alone could give her strength to persevere. To see him and to hear him would ruin her peace of mind, and peace of mind was essential to the reverent reception of the Sacrament. It was lost already, or very nearly. She stopped in her walk, she looked into her soul, she asked herself if any thought had crossed her mind which would render her unfit for Communion ... and on the spot she resolved to go straight to Monsignor and consult him. He would advise her, he would find some way out of the difficulty.

But it was now six; she could not get to St. Joseph's before seven. It was late, but she did not think he would refuse to see her; he would know that it was only a matter of the greatest moment that would bring her to inquire for him at that hour.

It was as she expected. Monsignor did not receive anyone so late in the evening.

"Yes, I know, but I think Monsignor Mostyn will see me. Tell him--tell him that my business does not admit delay."

She was shown into the same waiting-room. This seemed to her a favourable presage, and she offered up a prayer that Monsignor would not refuse to see her; everything depended on that. She listened for his step; twice she was mistaken; at last the door opened. It was he, and he guessed, before she had time to speak, what had happened.

"One of those men," he said, "has come again into your life?"

She nodded, and, still unable to speak, she searched in her pocket for their letters.

"I received these letters to-day--one this morning, the other, Sir Owen's, just now. That was why I came. I felt that I had to see you."

"Pray sit down, my child, you are agitated." He handed her a chair.

"You remember you said I might go to Communion on Sunday, and if I were to meet him to-morrow it would--there is no temptation, I don't mean that--but I do not wish to be reminded of things which you told me I was to try to forget."

The priest stood reading the letters, and Evelyn sat looking into s.p.a.ce, absorbed in the desire to escape from Owen. All her faith was in Monsignor, and she believed he would be able to save her from Owen's intrusion.

"I don't think you need fear anything from Mr. Dean."

"No, not from him."

Monsignor continued to read Ulick's letter. Evelyn wished he would read Owen's; Ulick's interested her not in the least.

"Mr. Dean seems a very extraordinary person. Does he believed in astrology, the casting of horoscopes, or is it mere affectation?"

"I don't know; he always talks like that. He believes, or says he believes, in Lir and the great Mother Dana, in the old Irish G.o.ds. But, Monsignor, please read Sir Owen's letter. I want to know what I am to do."

He walked once across the room, and when he returned to the table he said half to himself, as if his thoughts had long out-stripped his words--

"I am glad I advised you to leave Park Lane, for of course he will go there first."

"He will easily find out I'm at Dulwich, he need not even ask--he will guess it at once."

"Yes, to be sure."

"If I am not to meet him I must go away--but where? All my friends and acquaintances are his friends. You would approve of none of them Monsignor," she said, smiling a little.

He did not seem to hear her. Suddenly he said, "I think you had better go and spend a few days at the Pa.s.sionist Convent. The Reverend Mother sent you an invitation through me, you remember, so we need have no hesitation in proposing it. Indeed, I feel confident that they will receive you with the greatest pleasure. It will do you a great deal of good. You will have peace and quiet, my child; you will find yourself in an atmosphere of faith and purity which cannot but be helpful to you in your present unsettled state."

It seemed to Evelyn that that was what she had wanted all the time, only she had not been able to say so. Yes; to spend a week with those dear nuns, to sit in the convent garden, to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament in the convent church, it would be a real spiritual luxury.

"Yes, I should love to go," she said. "I feel it is just what I need. I have so much to think out, so much to learn, and at home there are a hundred things to distract me."

"Very well, then, that is settled. I will send the Reverend Mother word to-morrow; but there is no necessity, you can write yourself, and say you are coming in the afternoon; she will only have to get your room ready."

"But, Monsignor, my Communion? I had forgotten it was from you I was to receive Holy Communion. Of course I know it doesn't really make any difference, but still, you heard my confession, and I would far rather receive Communion this first time from you than from anyone else. I don't think it could be quite the same thing--if it weren't from you."

"And I should be sorry too, my child, as by G.o.d's grace I have been the means of bringing you thus far, not to complete your reconciliation to him. But I think we can manage that too without much difficulty. I say Ma.s.s to-morrow at nine o'clock, and will give you Communion then, and you can go to the convent for your retreat early in the afternoon. Will that suit you?"

And Evelyn could not find words to express her grat.i.tude.

That evening she sat with her father. He was busy stringing a lute, and they had not spoken for some time; they often spent quite long whiles without speaking, and only occasionally they raised their eyes to see each other. The sensation of the other's presence was sufficient for their happiness.