BOOK I

*

_Wednesday, September_ 5, 1906.

What on earth is the matter with Susan? Up to yesterday morning I have hardly had to find fault with her more than twice or thrice in four years. Yet, since last night, she has richly deserved a dozen sharp scoldings at the very least.

After all, poor Grandmamma must have been right. "My pet," grannie used to say whenever I told her that Susan was a treasure of pure gold; "My pet, I have had thirty or forty treasures myself, and I give you my word that even the best of them are only plated. Off the worst ones the plating wears soon. Off the better ones it wears late. But wait long enough, and sooner or later you shall see the copper or the pewter."

No doubt I ought to be grateful that Susan has lasted so well. All the same, it is maddening that the gilding should choose to come off just as I'm on the eve of starting for Sainte Veronique-sur-mer. Susan says everything is packed: but I can't risk it. Probably she has filled a trunk with opera-glasses and fans, and forgotten towels and soap. First thing in the morning she must unpack, and we must both go through everything with a list. But it's tiresome beyond words.

_Thursday, September_ 6.

Susan is worse than ever. Instead of toast, she brought me this morning two chunks of bread hardly browned, and, instead of tea, a tepid potion as black as night. I have asked her if she is ill, but she says she isn't. And, certainly, I never saw her look better in her life. The worst of it is that she keeps coming and going with such an air of--how shall I describe it? Not insolence: not even indifference. It is hard to find the word. When I blame her for some blunder, she looks, for the moment, duly meek and sorry; and when I send her off on some errand she departs as if she really wants to do her best in her old way. And in less than half an hour I am scolding her again.

On one point I've made up my mind. No starting for Sainte Veronique till Susan's either mended or ended. I'll wire Dupoirier not to expect us till Monday. Gibson shall take the telegram to the village at once. And, if there's no change for the better before post-time to-night, I'll write to Alice and borrow that pale little slip of a French maid of hers for the time I shall be in Sainte Veronique. Alice said something last week about sending her back to France for a change. Perhaps I'll take Susan too. Or perhaps I'll let her go to her friends till I come home again. She's been too good a girl all these years for me to part with her just because of what may be no more than a passing slackness and staleness. Besides, Susan is the only creature I really like to have about me. She is as wholesome and sweet as country cream and rosy-cheeked apples.

The word I couldn't think of has flashed upon me all of a sudden. It's a simple enough word and an obvious; and it would have come to me at once if I had had the grace to remember sooner that Susan, after all, is a human being.

Susan is merely preoccupied. I ought to have divined it hours ago, if I hadn't been so disgustingly devoted to my own right worshipful ease and comfort. I've never thought about it before: but, without doubt, Susan's cousins and uncles and aunts are as much to Susan as my own cousins and uncles and aunts are to me. Indeed, I hope and expect that they are vastly more. I wonder what is wrong? Is Susan's cousin going to be married? Or has her aunt joined the Salvation Army? Or has her uncle tumbled off a hayrick? Perhaps it's something far worse. Anyhow, the poor soul must think me adorably sympathetic when I reward her admirable reticence by shrewing her for every insignificant lapse. And, after the loving fidelity with which she has served me and cherished me so much over and above the best-paid hireling's duty, she must find me most consolingly grateful.

I will make her tell me. Probably it is something wherein I can give a bit of practical help.

_Later_.

I've tackled Susan.

She didn't make it too easy. While she was brushing my hair, I said abruptly, but quite cordially:

"By the way, Susan, I sha'n't go to Sainte Veronique to-night. Gibson's gone to the village with a telegram. I've told Monsieur Dupoirier to meet me on Monday."

By peeping through my hair I could see Susan's face in the glass, although she couldn't see mine.

"Very well, Miss Gertrude," Susan answered.

She called me "Miss Gertrude" in precisely the tone she has always used ever since she first came to Traxelby, before Alice was married and when Grandmamma was still alive; and she went on brushing my hair without a pause. But I noticed that her cheeks, reflected in the glass, first paled and then flamed. I flung my hair from my eyes and looked up at Susan without ado.

"Susan," I said, "you are unhappy about something. You ought to have told me. Perhaps I could have helped you. In any case I would have been less exacting in my wants and less sharp in my complaints."

"Thank you, Miss," said Susan unsarcastically and thankfully. But she only went on brushing my hair.

"You are unhappy?" I asked again.

"Oh, no, Miss, no," Susan answered quickly and warmly. And she brushed my hair harder than ever.

Looking at her once more in the glass, I saw that she was speaking the truth. Her face was still the playground of contending emotions, but, through her pretty, blue eyes, her spirit gazed out radiantly at the genial tourney. Altogether, Susan looked bewitching. In her country print, and with her yellow hair and rosy-red cheeks, she was just the sort of sweet, shy, rustic English beauty to fall head over ears in love with at first sight. The truth blazed upon me like a flash of lightning.

It was a few moments before I found my tongue. That some young man or other should begin to plague my bright-eyed Susan was the most natural thing in the world; and yet I had no more taken such a thing into my calculations than I had speculated as to what I should do if a burglar broke in by night and walked off with my silver combs and brushes. At last I said, rather lamely and stiffly:

"At any rate, Susan, you've got something on your mind."

Susan did not reply.

"What is it?" I asked. "Or rather, who is it?"

Susan's breath came and went more quickly. But still she did not answer.

I turned over the possibilities in my mind, and then put a question pointblank.

"Is it Gibson?"

"Oh, no, Miss, not Gibson." Her response was prompt, decisive, almost reproachful.

"I'm rather sorry," I said. "Gibson's a thoroughly decent, steady young fellow, and he will get on. I hope it's nobody worse than Gibson."

"Oh, no, Miss," said Susan swiftly and softly, "Not worse than Gibson."

As she did not offer the swain's name, or an account of his person, or any further information whatsoever, I sat dumb and began to feel a bit sulky. Apart from my personal loss of the best maid a woman ever had, I was aggrieved on Susan's own account. No doubt some small farmer's son had turned her silly little head and won her unguarded little heart. And after the rude delights of a rural courtship, my neat-handed, dainty pink-and-white Susan would have to settle down for forty years to drudge among kine and swine and turnips, and, most likely, a pack of lusty and highly dislikable children. The prospect so revolted me that I decided to do my whole duty.

"Susan."

"Yes, Miss?"

"Have you told your people--your relations--about all this?"

"No, Miss."

"Why not?"

"There's only my aunt, Miss," said Susan dutifully, "and she doesn't care. I've wrote----"

"Written. Not wrote. Say written."

"Yes, Miss. I've written to her twice since Christmas, not to speak of sending a coloured post-card from Malvern, and she hasn't answered never so much as a word."

This pricked me. I had heard it before; and, knowing as I did that Susan had neither father nor mother, nor brother nor sister, I ought to have put two and two together, and deduced the fact that Susan was alone in the world. But I had not been interested or unselfish enough to work it out.

"Of course, of course," I said. "I'd forgotten. But, Susan, why have you not spoken about it to me? When I found you had no parents, didn't I tell you that if you were in any doubt or trouble you were always to come to me?"

"Yes, Miss," answered Susan as dutifully as before. And she went on brushing my hair. I got up impatiently, and went and sat in my big chair by the window.

"No," I said. "Never mind my hair for a minute. Susan, I'm very much disappointed and put out. You are not treating either me or yourself fairly. With things as they are, I feel responsible for you. All this is very serious. You are young, and you have no experience."

Susan standing three feet away with lowered head, heard me out deferentially, although she knows quite well that I am six months her junior, and that it is hardly a year since I began to look after my own affairs. She simply said:

"Yes, Miss."

"Susan, look at me. Don't hang your head. Is this man respectable?"

"Oh, yes, Miss!"

"He says so himself, no doubt. But the world's full of very strange people. Who is he? Where does he come from? What is his name?"

Susan hung her head again, and did not answer. I saw that she had something to hide, so I tried another way.

"How far has it gone?"

"Well, Miss," she faltered after a pause. "He--he's asked me."

"When?"

"Yesterday, Miss."

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything, Miss."

"Susan, don't be ridiculous. You mean, you didn't say 'No.' You encouraged him?"

"Oh, no, Miss."

"Susan, I won't be trifled with. Either you encouraged him or you didn't. Which was it? You surely don't expect me to believe that, after he'd asked you, he was content to walk away again without any kind of an answer?"

"Please, Miss, he didn't ask me that way. It was in a letter."

"A letter! Susan, I hope you've said 'No.' Have nothing at all to do with him. A letter, indeed! Why didn't he speak out like a man to your face?"

"Please, Miss, he couldn't."

"Couldn't? Why not?"

"Because I've never seen him."

I burst out laughing. The affair was a trifle after all. At the most and worst it was some village moon-calf's clumsy wooing; at the least (and likeliest) it was a practical joke. But Susan thought otherwise. I stopped laughing at the sight of her proud flush and pain.

"Come, Susan," I coaxed, "be a sensible girl. It's some stupid joke."

"No, Miss," said Susan firmly.

"Then what have you done? Have you sent a reply?"

"Yes, Miss. No, Miss; I mean, no. That is, I've written the answer, but I haven't posted it."

"That's a good thing. What have you said?"

Susan was silent quite a long time. At length she looked at me plaintively, and answered:

"I've wrote----"

"Written."

"I've written two letters and torn them up again. I think the third one is the best. But somehow, Miss, it doesn't seem quite right. I'm wondering, Miss----"

"Yes."

"I'm wondering whether ... if I brought you his letter, Miss...?"

"Of course I will, Susan. If it's a letter that ought to be answered, I'll do whatever I can. Bring it me after lunch."

"Thank you, Miss," said Susan warmly. But her face darkened again as quickly as it had brightened. I could see that a great doubt or fear had her in its grip.

It was unkind of me; but I had had enough of the whole business for one morning. "Finish my hair, Susan," I said; and I sat down again before the glass.

Susan resumed the work. But she had hardly taken one of my tresses into her hand before she flung it from her almost madly, and fell on her knees at my feet.

"Miss Gertrude," she cried. "Promise! Swear before God that you will not take him away from me!"

I was thunderstruck. But she was still crouched at my side, gripping my knees.

"Susan," I said sternly, "you are forgetting yourself. Get up. You are not well. Go to your room. I shall manage my hair somehow. Go to your room and lie down."

She gripped me fiercelier than before. "Before God, Miss Gertrude," she repeated. "Promise! Swear! Swear you won't drive him away."

"Drive" was a more endurable word. Besides, her fear and anguish were so sincere that my mere dignity shrivelled away like scorched paper in their blaze. For a second or two it was impossible to be mistress and maid. We were two women.

"Susan," I said very kindly, "if I must swear anything I will swear this. Like you, I am fatherless and motherless. And I swear that I will do my whole duty by you. If I honestly fear that there is misery lurking for you in this offer of marriage, I'll work and fight against it even if you kneel here weeping and praying all day for a year. But if I can honestly believe that it is for your happiness, there's nothing in reason that I won't do to bring it to pass. Now go to your room."

She has gone.

I must take care not to be dragged into any ridiculous positions. If Susan were a novelette-reader, it would be a different thing. No doubt a weekly orgy of sentiment by proxy is generally effective in making the average young woman immune. But Susan is still a child of nature; and if this letter-writing suitor is a scoundrel (as I expect he is), the poor child has some bad hours ahead. I wish most heartily it hadn't happened! And to think that by this time to-morrow I was to have been settled down cosily at Sainte Veronique!

_Two o'clock_.

How lovely lunching alone once again! Somehow a visitor always begins to send my spirits down and down and down after the first two or three days. When I saw her off yesterday I felt I couldn't have stood even Alice much longer. How different we are! If Alice knew that I wasn't going to France till Monday, she would worry about my loneliness just as she would worry over my neuralgia or my influenza. I expect that at this very moment she is writing a long letter to Sainte Veronique on the old text--begging me to go into a smaller house, and to look out for a companion, or to spend the winter with them. And I would make a large bet that she'll redeliver her solemn warning about my solitariness making me morbid. Yet there may be a little in it. Who knows? If Susan doesn't stay, I may be awfully glad to go to Alice's for a month or two after all.

Now for Susan and her precious letter.

_After dinner_.

Alice is right. Solitude is a mistake. If I hadn't the diary-habit, I should explode like a shell into little bits.

Still, for Susan's sake and her incredible adorer's, it's a good thing there's no one here, not even Alice. If there was anybody at hand to listen, I don't see how I could contrive to hold my tongue. As it is, it only relieves me a very little to scribble it all down in this book.

No wonder Susan under-toasted the toast and over-brewed the tea! I don't wonder any longer even at her heroics and melodramatics while she was doing my hair.

When she brought me her letter, addressed in a strong and distinguished hand to Miss Susan Briggs, The Grange, Traxelby, I saw at a glance that we hadn't to deal with a village bumpkin. Indeed, when I took the sheet of thick, good paper from the envelope and saw that it was embossed with the heading "Ruddington Towers," I wasn't surprised. I concluded instantly that Susan's pursuer was one of the three young artists of whom I've heard till I'm tired to death of them--the artists Lord Ruddington is said to have found starving in a Chelsea studio. I forget whether they've come down here to paint the hall or the chapel.

"Susan," I said, meaning to let her down gently, "I hope it isn't one of those young artists from London? An artist is interesting; but he's too impulsive, too vain, too unreliable. I hope----"

"Oh, no, Miss," said Susan hurriedly. "It isn't any of the young gentlemen that's doing the painting and decorating."

"Whoever he is," I answered, "he makes himself at home with Lord Ruddington's best stationery. Let me see."

I turned over the sheet and looked for the signature. Half-way down the third page I found it. The writer had signed himself with the single word "Ruddington."

"Susan," I demanded almost roughly, "why didn't you tell me about this at once?"

"If you please, Miss----"

"There's no if you please about it. Why, this creature, whoever he may be, is pretending to be Lord Ruddington."

Susan burst out crying, suddenly and copiously.

"Oh, Miss Gertrude," she sobbed; "I--I never thought it was pretending. I never dreamed any one could be so cruel. I thought it was real."

As I had begun to read the letter, I didn't take much notice. But Susan sobbed and talked on.

"Oh, Miss," she moaned, "to think I was nearly going to post the answer! I should never have been able to look the parish in the face again."

"Keep quiet, Susan," I said irritably. "Let me read it through."

And while Susan cried to herself softly, I read it straight through; turned back again and again to sentences here and there; and at last read it from beginning to end once more. This is what I read:--

RUDDINGTON TOWERS, September 4, 1906.

I discard the ordinary forms of beginning because this is an extraordinary letter.

Since I came to Ruddington last Wednesday, I have seen you three times. For the second and for the third times, I am thankful; but the first sufficed to open my eyes to the truth. There is not now, and cannot ever be anywhere, any woman in the world save you whom I shall seek for a wife.

Although I did not need to ponder this step for more than a moment on my own account, I have considered it long and well on yours. I recognize the many and great difficulties in the way; but not one of them is insurmountable.

The person from whom I have learned your name and address has not the faintest notion of what is in my mind.

If your answer must be that I am too late, or that you feel you could not establish my happiness without losing your own, no third party need ever know that this has passed between us. But if your affection is still yours to give, then I shall beg for the earliest possibility of trying to convince you that, in bestowing it upon me, you would at least not be throwing it away on some one fickle or ungrateful, or wilfully unworthy.

Until you give me leave, I must not say more.

RUDDINGTON.

When I finally laid the letter down, I became aware of the abundance of Susan's tears and the heartiness of her sobs. A plan occurred to me. I got up and gave Susan a key.

"Don't be silly, Susan," I said. "See. Take this key. Go to the library. Unlock the deep drawer in the cabinet by the window. Bring me that violet leather scrap-book with all the letters and cuttings about Lady Traxelby's funeral."

Susan dried her eyes and went.

While she was away, I tried to think. Of course the letter would prove to be a forgery. But, fortunately, there was a quick way of making assurance sure. The week after Grandmother died, Lord Ruddington, who had only just come of age, wrote his condolences to Alice from Oxford. He knew Grandmamma rather well as a boy, and he had met Alice once in town. I felt sure we had kept the letter. What I meant to do was, first, to make poor Susan look at the real Lord Ruddington's handwriting with her own eyes; and, second, to tease or soothe her into a good humour till she could laugh at the practical joke. At the same time I made up my mind that if I could identify the joker, who was clearly a person of sufficient education to know better, he should smart for his insolence and cruelty.

Susan came back hugging the great violet book. I opened it in my lap and turned the leaves, hating the practical joker more bitterly than ever for reviving these sad and sacred memories in a connection so contemptible. Susan watched me eagerly. She had divined that I was searching for something that bore upon her rosy hopes and ashen disappointment. At last I found it. There was the heading, "Christ Church."

My heart almost stood still. The bold, stylish, interesting handwriting was unmistakable. The real Lord Ruddington and Susan's were one and the same man.

It was Susan who broke the silence.

"Oh, Miss," she murmured in awestruck tones, "I believe it's real after all!"

"Yes, Susan," I answered slowly; "it is real. I'm sorry, truly sorry, that I hurt you by my doubts. But it is so very extraordinary. And it's so very serious and important. Surely it was best to suspect it till we were certain."

"Oh, yes, Miss," protested Susan gratefully. And when I did not speak, she glanced coyly towards a second loaded envelope which had been lying on the table beside Lord Ruddington's.

"What!" I said. "Surely there isn't another letter, is there?"

"No, Miss. It's only mine--the letter I nearly posted in answer."

"Show it to me--that is, of course, if you want me to see it."

Susan pulled out a folded sheet, opened it, and laid it on my knee.

The first thing about the document that struck me was the fact that it represented a prodigal consumption of ink. In the ordinary course, Susan doesn't write very badly. But, in answering Lord Ruddington, she had formed the characters slowly and hugely and singly, as a child does at school. In two places it was evident that sandpaper or a penknife had removed blots. Altogether it was the sort of handwriting in which one might have expected the milkman to declare to the kitchen-maid,

"The rose is red, the violet's blue, Honey is sweet, and so are you."

Susan's answer ran:--

Care of the Honourable Miss Langley, THE GRANGE, TRAXELBY, September 6, 1906.

SIR,--It was with the most various and lively emotions that I perused your Letter to which I am now endeavouring, though imperfectly, to reply.

I will have you know, Sir, that the first sentiment provoked in my bosom by your Epistle was one of Humiliation and Chagrin. "Better die," I cried, "a thousand deaths, than have lived to forget that Modesty which is the ornament of my Sex!" But I protest that after diligently examining my Conscience and ransacking my Memory, I cannot recall a single occasion in our casual intercourse when I have so far fallen from my duty as to offer you encouragement or to invite your present Advances.

Nevertheless, Sir, I am not blind to my woman's frailty; and, at the risk of forfeiting your Esteem, I will to-day indulge a boldness which I have never practised in the past, and will confess (shameless that I am!) that your conversation and person have not been distasteful to me. I perceive that my weakness has discovered to you the secret which I fondly hoped to conceal; and that I have succeeded but ill in my attempts to dissemble my Partiality from eyes and an Understanding, alas! too well accustomed to the sensibility of the female Heart.

You entreat me to despatch my answer by the hand of your courier, or, at the latest, by to-morrow's coach; and you affirm, Sir, that in the meantime you are consumed by the ardours of Impatience, and that you will partake neither refreshment nor rest. Far be it from me to prolong Sufferings which do me so much Honour, especially when they are endured by one for whom I have Regard and Esteem. But, Sir, I will have you bear with me while I remind you that this is a Business too weighty for haste; and that your present protestations of undying Fidelity and Adoration will be dearly purchased if I must endure in the future the bitter frosts of Indifference or the icy blasts of Reproach and Scorn.

I beseech you, Sir, to temper Passion with Patience, and not to increase by your Importunity the insupportable Distraction of happy, thrice unhappy

SUSAN.

"Goodness gracious, Susan!" I said, after I had got to the end of this amazing document; "in the name of everything, what on earth is all this?"

"It is my answer to his Lordship, Miss," Susan answered penitently.

"But, Susan, I don't understand. What is this about a courier and to-morrow's coach? And what do you mean by saying that his person and conversation are not distasteful to you? Didn't you assure me this morning that you'd never even seen him? Yet here you are writing to him about 'occasions in your casual intercourse.' Susan, I don't like to say it, but I'm very much afraid that----"

I pulled myself up. What I had been on the point of saying was that Susan had grossly deceived me, and that her case confirmed all I had ever heard as to the deepness of still waters and the duplicity that invariably underlies an appearance of baby innocence. But I remembered just in time that, with all the duplicity in the world to help her, the letter she had shown me would still be beyond Susan's powers. So I screwed a new tail to my unfinished speech and said:

"I'm afraid this won't do."

"I thought it didn't seem quite right, Miss," said Susan meekly. "More especially the piece about the coach. That was why I didn't post it."

"Susan, don't prevaricate," I said sternly. "It isn't like you, and I won't put up with it. If I am to have any more to do with this affair, you must really begin to treat me with perfect candour. Why did you tell me you had never seen Lord Ruddington?"

"If you please, Miss, I never _have_ seen him."

"Never?"

"Not that I know of. I've seen----"

Susan paused and blushed.

"Go on, go on," I said impatiently. "You have seen--whom?"

"Please, Miss, there was a young gentleman in a dark green suit when we were at the post-office on Saturday. He stared at me as we went in; and when we came out he followed us as far as the Golden Eagle, looking at me all the time."

"It was very wrong of you to encourage him, Susan. But how do you know it was Lord Ruddington?"

"I don't, Miss. Maybe it's only my fancy."

"Susan, look here. Look at your own letter. Goodness knows where you got all this grand old-fashioned language from. It's the sort of language they used when Lord Ruddington's great-grandmother wasn't a day older than you are now. But that isn't my point. What I want to know is why you write to Lord Ruddington in this letter about 'occasions' when you have met?"

"I know it sounds wrong, Miss," replied Susan, more humbly than ever. "But that was just the way it was in the book. Those were the very words."

"The book?" I echoed, bewildered.

"Yes, Miss. I copied it out of the old book that's been lying in the lumber-room ever since I came to Traxelby. Perhaps you haven't seen it, Miss?"

Light was breaking over me, but I couldn't make out the full truth till Susan went on:

"The back is torn off, Miss. It has a picture of a young lady in a short-waisted muslin frock looking very sad and writing at a table. There's a wicked little boy in the corner of the room with nothing on but wings, and a and arrow, just going to shoot the young lady. The book's called The Complete Letter-Writer."

It took all my self-control and all my solicitude for poor worried Susan to restrain me from laughing loud and long. But, after the first shock of comicality, I was soon steadied again by the hard facts which still rose up before me. At another time this clearing up of the mystery of Susan's Late Georgian grammar and Johnsonian vocabulary would have been droll past resistance. But Lord Ruddington's letter was lying on the table.

Happily the beckoning hands of Fortune had not spoiled Susan yet. The prospect of wealth and rank had confused her brains, but it had not dazzled her inmost, sound self or altered her sterling principles or shaken her out of her well-worn ways. The mistress-elect of Ruddington Towers and my social superior of the near future still addressed me with the simple, respectful openness for which I have always liked her so well. After I had sat I don't know how long, silently trying to work out a solution, she said for the third time:

"I knew it didn't sound right, Miss. I will tear it up and burn it. And perhaps ... when you're not too busy ... perhaps, Miss Gertrude, you would tell me what I ought to say."

"Of course, Susan, of course," I answered. "I've promised you already. But it isn't easy."

Susan accepted the situation, and stood patiently awaiting the end of my meditations.

"Sit down, Susan," I said at last.

She sat down.

"I am obliged to ask you a few plain questions."

"Yes, Miss."

"If it turns out that he is really in earnest, do you wish to marry Lord Ruddington?"

"Oh yes, Miss, please!"

"You don't understand. In his letter he asks if you are free--if your affection is still yours to give. Now, is there anybody else that you're promised to already?"

"Oh no, Miss!"

"Not Gibson?"

Susan looked troubled. When she answered, it was falteringly, and without her usual openness.

"No, Miss." And she added uneasily, "I have never promised to be engaged to Gibson."

"But does Gibson expect that some day you will?"

"He oughtn't to, Miss," rejoined Susan, making shockingly quick progress in cunning.

"I mean, has Gibson talked to you in that way? And have you listened? Come, Susan, don't be silly. I am forced to ask these things. I've never seen Lord Ruddington, but from all I've heard of him he isn't the sort that would want to make himself happy by making another man miserable for life--not even if the other man is only Gibson. Lord Ruddington's letter is strange. For instance, it's rather stiff and dry, and like the letter of a much older man. But it rings true; it rings honourable. You must be honourable too. Otherwise the whole business will end in misery for everybody. Come, Susan. I don't want to preach a sermon, but you know as well as I do that if you and Gibson truly care for one another you will be a happier and better woman in a four-roomed cottage with Gibson than with Lord Ruddington at the Towers. Tell me how things stand."

After a struggle Susan blurted out:

"Yes, Miss, Gibson _has_ asked me."

"When?"

"Well, Miss, the last time was last week."

"You didn't accept him. I've gathered that already. But did you give him a plain refusal?"

"Well, Miss----"

"Answer Yes or No, Susan, straight out. Have you let Gibson think that, if he gets on, some day you will marry him?"

Susan's eyes filled with tears. Her cheeks burned red.

"Come, Susan, tell me."

She broke into weeping.

"Oh, no, Miss, no!" she moaned between her sobs. "Not Gibson. Truly, Miss. I've never said a single word to encourage Gibson."

"Very good," I said. "But don't go on like that. There's nothing to cry about. If you can't be sensible, we must talk about it some other time."

I confess that, for a minute or two, I had indulged a hope that Gibson would prove to be Susan's favoured lover, and that, accordingly, Lord Ruddington's monstrous infatuation could be nipped in the bud. And when my hope was found to be groundless, I felt more than a little nettled. I foresee endless annoyance and inestimable losses of time and temper over this unheard-of madness of my preposterous young neighbour. We've been told for years that we shall see wonders when Lord Ruddington comes to live at the Towers; and, seeing he's only been here a week, I must admit he hasn't lost much time.

When Susan stopped crying she was less tractable. I suppose she resented my catechising her about Gibson. After all, I shouldn't have liked it myself. As soon as she was dry-eyed, she became a little more dry-hearted, and a good deal more dry-witted as well. She was more defiant, less dependent: much more the prospective lady of the Towers and much less the actual lady's-maid at the Grange. I noticed this in her answer to my first remark after her tears had ceased to flow.

"Susan," I said, "this is a matter which won't be any the worse of a night's delay. I will sleep on it, and so must you. Understand, I say _sleep_. I don't mean that you're to lie awake and let it worry you. We shall write Lord Ruddington a better answer to-morrow than we can to-day. Meanwhile, it won't do him any harm to be kept waiting a few hours longer."

"No," said Susan, "it won't. I've always heard it said that it does them no good to throw yourself at their heads."

For once she did not call me "Miss," and both the matter and the manner of her speech jarred on me. From Susan it sounded hard and vulgar. It was as if my rare and sweet Susan had suddenly descended to live a moment of her life two or three planes lower down.

I sent her off with some messages about dinner, and with enough plain work to occupy her for the rest of the day. And, now that I have put the whole thing down in black and white, I begin to understand how cordially I dislike it.

_Friday, September_ 7, 5 _a.m._

Such a wretched night! I hope Lord Ruddington has had a still worse one. He deserves it, and I don't. Besides, he has something to gain (or thinks he has), while I only have something to lose. Even if he rushes out of his infatuation as precipitately as he rushed into it, Susan can never be the same nice girl again.

I have thought about it all the many hours of this blessed night that I have been awake; and I have dreamt about it all the few nightmarish minutes I have been asleep--twisty, scary, jumpy dreams that I can't half remember.

Heaven knows I was vexed enough when Alice would persist in teasing me last Sunday about Lord Ruddington. What would Alice not have said if she had known that he was hardly three miles away at the very time she was plaguing me? On Wednesday, at the station, her last words were, "Gertie, don't be a fool." From Alice's point of view, Gertie will be a fool if Gertie doesn't so play her cards as to become Lady Ruddington.

I did so hate it. If I am happy, why can't people leave me alone? Alice will be dreadfully indignant if ever she finds out that I knew Lord Ruddington was coming at once to the Towers. But if I had told her, she would only have fought against me going off to Sainte Veronique. Yet, why in the world should I be going to a place like Sainte Veronique at the fag-end of the season? I'm going simply and solely because I was determined not to give the tiniest scrap of opportunity to the gossips and matchmakers who would have been so ready to connect the young spinster of Traxelby Grange with the young bachelor of Ruddington Towers.

But I'm wandering away from my own point. I say, Alice's chaff and hints and coaxings were bad enough; but this farce of Susan's is a million times worse. I admit I'm weak enough to care what people say and think; and what sort of a position will it be when all the world knows that his noble lordship of Ruddington is come to the Grange a-wooing, not me but my maid? It's perfectly hateful.

_Noon_.

Susan is herself again. I don't mean that she isn't still burdened with the worries and anxieties of her amazing good luck. Indeed, she confesses that she has had a wakeful night. But in her work and her behaviour she's once more as good as gold.

After all, it was lean and ungenerous of me yesterday to be jarred by her one low-class remark. We are none of us at our best every single minute of our lives.

When I'd written in this diary, with my teeth chattering, at five o'clock this morning, I crawled back into bed in a very sour temper; and if Susan had come in sulky with a second lot of weak toast and strong tea, it would have finished me off. As it was, I lay trying to get warm, and wondering whether it mightn't be better to leave Susan and Ruddington to patch up their ridiculous match in their own unthinkable way.

At a quarter to seven Susan brought me three perfect square inches of toast, and a perfect tablespoonful of China tea in that sweet little thin birds'-egg-coloured porcelain cup which I thought was broken. She saw at once that I hadn't slept; and, in her quiet, untoadying, genuine old way, she was ever so much concerned. But I didn't let her begin talking.

I must do my duty by Susan.

Haven't I often felt inwardly virtuous on the strength of my compassion (more sentimental than practical!) for Susan's motherlessness? How do I know that the poor good creature has not consciously pitied me on the same account? It isn't too much to say that Susan has been almost a mother to me over and over again. Surely, then, it is my duty to be a mother to her in this big, sudden strain on her simple wits.

Rumour says that Ruddington is all right. But Rumour sometimes has a lying tongue even when she speaks in a man's praise. I have no guarantee whatever that Lord Ruddington intends to treat Susan honourably. If he doesn't, I know I shall be a poor defender of Susan, and that I can't hope to be his match in worldly knowledge and cunning. But I don't mean to fail for want of doing my best.

This is the reply I have drafted:--

THE GRANGE, TRAXELBY, Friday.

Your letter of Tuesday was not one to be answered, or even acknowledged, in a hurry.

Indeed, it is only after hesitation that I decide to answer it at all. How do I know that this unaccountable flame of passion has not died down as quickly as it sprang up?

But there is a reason why, if I am to reply at all, I ought to do so to-day. To-morrow we are going to France. We shall be away a month.

You ask me if I am free to bestow my affection where I will. The answer is--Yes.

Deeply disturbed though I am by your surprising letter, I will not make a difficult situation more difficult still by anything like coyness. In fairness to both of us, I will speak as plainly and shortly and practically as I can.

There is only one direct question in your letter, and I have answered it above. But there is an indirect question also. You want to know if the affection which I have not given elsewhere can be given to Lord Ruddington. The answer is--I do not know.

You have seen _me_, but I have not seen _you_. Again, if I consent, you will remain in your old rank and station, while I must make a great and exacting and perilous change. Above all, you declare that you have the fullest possible inward light on this matter, whereas I have nothing of the kind. Thus you have a threefold advantage over me.

Reading your letter as an offer of marriage, the most I can say to-day is that, for the present, I do not refuse it.

Will you write to me once a week (not more) while I am at Sainte Veronique? Our address will be at the Hotel du Dauphin.

Meanwhile, I beg most earnestly that you will not try to see me before we leave to-morrow. This journey to France is surely providential, and we must not throw its advantages away.

I am going to be very frank indeed. To a poor girl, with her living to earn, your offer is so tempting and marvellous that, if you pressed it immediately and in person, I fear I might be swept off my feet into acceptance long before I could be sure that love will exist on both sides. For your own sake, if not for mine, do not put me to such proof. What would my consent be worth if you won it solely through the powers of your wealth and birth to dazzle my eyes and confuse my brain?

My month abroad will serve two ends. By correspondence we shall know one another better; and our first meeting will thereby be made less embarrassing and formidable--especially to me. Again (and you must forgive me for saying it), time and absence may reveal to you more of your own heart and mind. Perhaps you will repent most bitterly of your letter which I am now answering, and, if so, it will surely be better to admit that you have been the victim of a passing madness rather than to fasten life-long unhappiness upon us both.

SUSAN BRIGGS.

I can hardly say I am proud of this production. Quite the contrary. Both in matter and style, it's altogether too un-Susanish. Indeed, now that I've tried and failed, I'm beginning to have more respect for the effusion of the young lady in the short-waisted muslin frock. Perhaps if I'd taken out the bits about the coach and the casual intercourse her letter would have been better than mine.

Heaven knows what Susan will make of it! I'm positively nervy every time I hear her on the stairs.

All the same, I've said the best thing to Lord Ruddington, even if I've said it in the worst way. Going to Sainte Veronique bright and early to-morrow morning is quite a good scheme. If the noble lord comes hot-foot after us, I can certainly manage him better at Sainte Veronique than here at the Grange. Besides, I'm half persuaded that the poor boy's paroxysm won't last long. If needs be, we'll go to Alice's when we come back to England.

I think we'll travel by Dieppe. It means more train-journey on the other side, but he's less likely to track us and bother us that way. Of course, if he did anything of the kind, it would be abominable. But one never knows where a madman will draw the line.

_Before dinner_.

Susan isn't happy.

I can see she doesn't like my draft. But she's docile, and she's going to use it.

I made the poor thing sit beside me at my desk while we went through it together. At the end she said:

"Thank you, Miss. But I hate to think I've caused so much trouble."

"That's nothing, Susan," I said. "Just tell me plainly if you think it'll do."

"It's beautiful, Miss," said Susan. "Only..."

"Only what?"

"Well, Miss, very likely I'm wrong. But it seems to leave him a way of backing out again."

I was prepared for this. So I said, severely:

"Susan, what do you mean?"

"About going away," answered Susan doggedly. "About being a month in France, and not saying Good-bye, and only having him write once a week. It seems to give him a chance of changing his mind."

"Very well, Susan. Shall we tear this up? How will it be to write and tell Lord Ruddington that you will be disengaged to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock?"

"Oh no, Miss, please no!" gasped Susan, turning pale. "I couldn't, really I couldn't. I could never face him."

"Why not?"

Tears came into Susan's eyes.

"I should be as dumb as a fish, Miss. I should just sit and sit and never be able to say a word--and then he'd think I was stupid and he'd go away."

"So I think myself," I said. "That's why this letter is sensible. After he's written to you two or three times, you'll feel less strange and more able to meet him."

"Yes, Miss. But it's such a long way and such a long time. He might change his mind."

"Susan," I began, with all the grown-up, worldly-wise solemnity I could muster, "listen to me. If he's going to change his mind as easy as that, won't you be better without him?"

Susan looked dubious. "I don't think I would go as far as that, Miss," she said candidly.

Evidently it was necessary to rub the truth well in.

"Susan," I said, "I admit that lords don't marry lady's-maids every day. This case is unusual. But it isn't the first. Before we were born, dukes have married dairy-maids and earls have married their cooks. A few of them have been happy all their lives long. Most of them have been miserable before the end of the honeymoon."

Susan began to pout. I piled it on thicker.

"I won't mention names," I said. "But I know a case myself. The son of a duke took a fancy to a poor governess, and married her for her looks. He was infatuated with her at first sight, he followed her everywhere, he wouldn't take her refusal, he quarrelled with his father for her sake: and at last he got her. What happened? Although she was as well educated as he was, he tired of her in a year."

"But I suppose, Miss, she has all she wants?" said Susan, pouting harder than ever.

"She has all she wants," I replied scornfully, "in the way of house and clothes and food. But, Susan, think. What if she wants _him_?"

Susan was silent. I drove it home.

"What if she wants _him_? And what if she hardly ever sees him? Susan, I don't care to talk to you about such things; but this affair of Lord Ruddington is too serious for mincing words. The reason why the woman I'm telling you about never sees her husband is that he's the slave of another woman--a woman neither so pretty nor so clever nor so good-tempered nor even so well-born as his poor wife. Susan, would you like a life like that, even if you could live it in silks and old laces amidst all the luxury of Ruddington Towers?"

Susan was blushing hotly, as I had intended and hoped she would.

"Oh no, Miss," she said eagerly, all her honest blood and good training coming to the rescue. "But I don't think Lord Ruddington would do those sort of things."

"You think. But you don't know. Susan, I'm going to put you an old-fashioned question. Do you think it would be right to marry a man--never mind whether it's Lord Ruddington, or Gibson, or any other man--if you didn't love him?"

I was trying my poor, honest Susan too searchingly. Tears again shone in her blue eyes. Her colour came and went. She turned away her head.

"Never mind, Susan," I said, very much more kindly. "I can guess your answer. And I can read your mind. You don't love Lord Ruddington. It isn't possible you should, at present. But you think it will be so lovely to be Lady Ruddington that you mean to make yourself love him whatever happens."

"Yes. That's it, Miss," sobbed Susan. "I don't deserve that you should be so kind to me, Miss."

"The danger is, Susan, that we can't depend on Love coming whenever we beckon to it. Perhaps Lord Ruddington is cold and unlovable. Perhaps he's too passionate to be affectionate. Unless you can love him in return, his love will only torture you. Susan, make quite sure of your ground. You are not like other girls. A mistake of this kind would first sour you and then kill you. Think of it all in this light, and you will understand my answer to Lord Ruddington better."

"I do, Miss," said Susan urgently. "I understand it quite well now. And I know it's best. Please, Miss Gertrude, if you'll show me how to address it I'll send it to-night."

I took up an envelope and addressed it to Lord Ruddington.

"You know best, Miss," said Susan, glancing at the draft once more. "But ... but oughtn't a girl like me to say 'your lordship'? Besides----"

She checked herself. It was a new thing for Susan to question my judgment on any point, however small.

"Besides what?" I asked.

"Well, Miss, it seems to look strange beginning the letter without anything to start off, like."

"Lord Ruddington set us the example," I explained. "I thought it was rather clever and delicate of him. He couldn't write in the third person, could he? And he couldn't very well call you 'Madam,' or 'Dear Miss Briggs,' or 'Dear Susan.' No. It's far better for both the letters to be as they are."

"Thank you, Miss," said Susan, as humbly and teachably as she had ever spoken in her life.

She has gone to her own room. I do hope she won't write it out in that frightful, blotty school-girl hand. I ought to have told her to write more quickly and freely, and less as if she's doing it with a paint-brush. Still, I'm deeply thankful we're getting on so nicely.

To-morrow, the glorious sea, and the cider, and dear old Sainte Veronique!

9.30 _p.m._

More worry and tangle. I feel all bruised and weak, as if I'd been battered about in the surf on a stony beach.

While I was walking in the garden after dinner, Gibson came across from the stables and began hanging about. I had a presentiment as to what he wanted, and I nearly bolted back into the house. Susan had been quite enough for one day. But, although it was dusk, I could see his trouble sitting, so to speak, on Gibson's shoulders. There was nothing for it but to face it out.

"Good-evening, Gibson," I said. "Do you want to speak to me?"

"I do, Ma'am," Gibson answered. His manner was perfectly respectful, but his tone was almost imperative.

"What is the matter?"

"You told me, Ma'am, I could have a holiday, beginning Monday. Hughes is well able now to look after the horses. If I couldn't trust him, I wouldn't go."

"But, Gibson, we talked over all this on Tuesday, and it was settled you should go. Why do you want me to discuss it again?"

Gibson looked awkward; shifted his cap from one hand to the other; shifted it back again. Suddenly he demanded bluntly:

"Will you mind, Ma'am, if I go to France?"

"To France?" I said, bewildered. "Why France?"

Gibson floundered through an unconvincing explanation. He affected to have doubts as to the Future of the Horse. He declared that, until lately, he had clung to a belief that "these here motor-cars would die out, same as the bicycles did;" but, tardily and bitterly, he has changed his mind. It seems the Horse will not become extinct. There will always be a few horses in the country, just as there will always be a few bows and arrows. But the number of horse-owners in the near future as compared with the horse-owners of the near past is to be in pretty much the same proportion as the archery-club amateurs of to-day in comparison with the English bowmen at Crecy and Agincourt. Gibson didn't put it exactly in this way, but his point is that the Horse, as the Psalmist says, is a vain thing for safety when a young man is looking well ahead for his bread and butter. Gibson wants to stay at Traxelby as long as I will keep him: but, "begging pardon, Ma'am, with a single lady one never knows," and therefore he thinks it is high time he should put himself in the way of qualifying as a chauffeur. Hence France.

"You do right to improve yourself, Gibson," I said. "But why France? Nowadays you can learn to be a chauffeur far better in England."

His face darkened.

"Asking pardon, Ma'am," he said obstinately, "I have a fancy for learning in France."

"Very well," I said. "It's your holiday, and you can spend it wherever you like. If you can manage the language, go to France by all means."

"Then you haven't any objection, Ma'am?"

"Why should I?"

Gibson hesitated. Then he stammered:

"I was afraid, Ma'am, that ... that me goin' to France the same time as you, Ma'am, wouldn't be ... I mean, it would look like taking a liberty."

I perceived that Gibson, like many others of his class, conceives France as a territory about the size of the Isle of Wight, with Paris in the middle.

"But France is a very big country, Gibson," I said. "Far larger than England. Even if I did object to you, we shouldn't be likely to meet. You couldn't learn to be a chauffeur at Saint Veronique. It's the last place in the world. That's why I go there."

Gibson looked at me narrowly.

"I thank you, Ma'am," he said curtly and proudly. And he made room for me to pass.

In his own fashion, Gibson is as good and as likable as Susan. Never till this week has either of them caused me the slightest anxiety. I saw in a flash how matters stood; and I felt in my heart that Gibson deserved the more sympathy of the two. He was deeper-natured than Susan: prouder and capable of a grand passion which my sweeter and shallower Susan could neither receive nor return. His clean-shaven face was almost as handsome as Susan's was pretty; and if he had enjoyed Susan's advantages instead of being brought up among grooms and stable-boys, he might have been as refined. Rather rashly, I let myself go and said:

"No, Gibson, I'm not going in yet. You have not told me what it is that is really troubling you. There is something on your mind."

He stood stock-still at the path-side and vouchsafed no answer for a long time. At last he said abruptly:

"Then you won't prevent me, Ma'am, coming to France?"

"How could I stop you? France is a free country. I couldn't make the French army shoot you, or the French police lock you up. But I'd better say plainly, Gibson, that I object to you coming to Sainte Veronique unless I send for you."

The colour mounted to Gibson's cheeks. He drew himself up and seemed to take some sudden decision. He was about to speak, when the clatter of buckets at the pump, where Hughes was gone for water, drew his gaze to the beloved stables. I followed his eyes as they ranged over the red roofs which had sheltered him at work and at play, at bed and at board, both in Grandma's time and mine, ever since he came to Traxelby as a half-fed boy of fourteen. He heard Nero's neighing and Boxer's answering bark; and I could see that he suffered. But these dear old sights and sounds did not soften his face for long. He pulled himself together again, and began decisively:

"Then if you please, Ma'am, with all respect----"

"No, Gibson," I said, like lightning; "don't finish. Let me finish for you. You were going to say that you give me notice, that you will leave this old place, that you'll give up everything, just to be a free man. No. Don't interrupt. Above all, do have just a little bit of common sense. For instance, instead of giving up Traxelby simply so that you can come to Sainte Veronique, how would it be if you told me like a sensible man what you want to come to Sainte Veronique for?"

He struggled hard with his pride. I helped him out.

"Surely you can trust me, Gibson?"

"I don't say I can't, Ma'am."

"Very well, Gibson," I answered shortly "I've done my best. Good-night."

"No!" cried Gibson, springing across my path. "Miss Gertrude, I ask your pardon It would break my heart to leave this place. But ... good God, this is too hard for me to bear!"

"Speak less loudly," I said. "Now, tell me. Is it about Susan?"

He bent his head.

"You mean," I said, "you've fallen in love with Susan." And then, although my spirit was quailing and failing at the desperate sight of the poor lad's agony, I actually forced myself to try and laugh him out of it, as if it had been no more than a mild attack of calf-love.

"Really, Gibson," I said, as banteringly and gaily as I could, "I'm surprised at you. You're behaving as if Susan's going to Siberia for life instead of to France for a month. No doubt it's very painful and upsetting to be head over ears in love, though I confess I don't know much about it. But surely, Gibson, you can manage to exist without seeing Susan for four little weeks? Be more of a man."

"It's because I'm a man, Ma'am," he rejoined firmly, "that my right place is at Sinn Veeronik. You talk of four little weeks, Ma'am. When them four little weeks are over, shall I see the same Susan as went away?"

His earnestness was so terrible that I could not maintain my hollow banter, and I was silent.

"I put it plain, Ma'am. When them four little weeks are over, shall I ever see Susan any more?"

I couldn't answer. Worse still, I guessed that his next move would be to ask me how much I knew. So I clung fast to the one hope that buoys me up in all this outrageous business--the hope that Time and Separation will restore Lord Ruddington to such senses as he may possess, and that Susan, like a ruffled dove, will home back to Gibson's faithful heart after all.

"You can't answer, Ma'am," he said almost fiercely.

"Of course I can't, you foolish fellow," I said, recovering my wits and making a show of irritation. "I can't answer for Susan any more than I can for you. How do I know that, when we come back in four weeks' time, poor Susan won't find you consoling yourself with somebody else?"

He brushed my trifling aside.

"Then I'll tell you, Ma'am, something you don't know," he almost hissed in my ear. "God knows who it is: but some one's turned Susan's head. She doesn't do no more than give me hints. It's driving me mad. She doesn't name the party: but it's somebody richer'n a lord."

Gibson flung down his cap and lifted his right hand.

"Hark ye, Miss Gertrude," he said harshly and chokily. "Hark ye while I swear. This is my Bible oath. If he touches a hair on Susan's head, saving what's honest, I'll break every bone in his body! Don't matter to me if it's the king himself. Whoever he is, I'll wring his neck, and swing for it gladly. If I don't, may I be struck dead!"

"Silence, Gibson!" I said sternly. "Don't speak like this to me."

"Then how shall I speak, Ma'am? Answer me that. Me that's worshipped every inch of ground that Susan's trod on for years and years! Me that would go through fire and water and hell----"

"Gibson, listen. You think you've told me what I don't know. What if I knew it already?"

He faced me, startled.

"I say, what if I knew it already? I've never seen this man; but what if I can give you my word that Susan has only written to him once in her life? What if her only letter was to say that she does not love this man, and that she does not know she ever can or will, and that, if she cannot, all the money in the world won't bribe her into marrying him? What if she has told him that she is glad she is going to France? What if she has forbidden him to try and see her till she comes back to England? What if she will see you again, Gibson, before she sees him? Most important of all, what if I tell you that I have made up my mind to look after Susan in this affair as if she were my own younger sister? What if I promise you that she shall not come to harm?"

Gibson drank in my words with greedy ears and devoured me with searching eyes.

"God bless you, Miss Gertrude, God bless you!" he faltered; "and God grant it may be true!"

"So you think I would tell you lies, Gibson?"

"No, Ma'am, no. You're dealing with me fair. But how long will you be able to manage Susan if her head gets any more turned? And oh, Miss Gertrude ... I ask pardon--but this isn't no job for a young lady like you, as pure as an angel, that doesn't know this wicked world. Ma'am, if he's a scoundrel, he'll deceive Susan and he'll deceive you, Ma'am, as easy as looking at you! Oh, Ma'am, you don't understand! I can put up with losing Susan, though it'll kill me. I can put up with her being took away honest. But----"

He brought his lips to my ear and finished his sentence:

"If there's any devil's work, it'll be murder for him and hanging for me. Miss Gertrude, may I come to France?"

I drew a step away.

"No, Gibson," I answered, assuming a calmness and a mastery which I did not feel. "You can't come to France. There is no need. I am sorry for you--deeply sorry--and I respect you for some of the things you have said. But you are excited. You have been brooding. You've got morbid, exaggerated fears."

He came towards me again.

"Gibson, wait till I've finished. You stopped me saying something that ought to satisfy you. It is this. At Sainte Veronique, Susan will be under my eye all the time. If this man follows her, I shall know. And I pledge you my word that, if he comes, I will write to you--no, I will telegraph--and then you can do whatever you please."

"You pledge me your word, Ma'am?"

"I said so."

For at least five seconds he scrutinized my face. Then he stooped down low, as if he was going to kneel at my feet, and began hunting for the cap which he had thrown down among the nasturtiums. He was a long time finding it. When he got up again, he said in clear, low, sad tones:

"Miss Gertrude, I pray to God that I may live to do one half as much for you as you have done this night for me."

"Cheer up, Gibson," I said; "things are hardly ever as bad as they look. Enjoy your holiday all you can. Write down your address and give it me in the morning. It's getting chilly. Good-night."

I hadn't moved twenty yards before he was at my heels once more.

"I beg your pardon, Ma'am," he said breathlessly, "but there's just one other thing."

"Yes?"

"I'm thinking, Ma'am, perhaps you won't name it to Susan that I've spoke like this to-night?"

"You may be easy in mind, Gibson, I'm not likely to say a word about it. And be careful that you never name it to her yourself that we've had this talk."

"Never, Ma'am, as long as I live," said Gibson fervently. And so I managed to get away. On the whole, the Gibson part of this drama of ours has tried me more than Susan's. That Susan should marry a lord, and become mistress of Ruddington Towers, is no more than an oddity, an awkwardness. But it is a very different thing to look on while an honest lad like Gibson sees the girl he worships bribed away from him with money.

To say that I feel like a bather banged about on the stones by the breakers is to put it too weakly. My brains feel like a battlefield, where Greeks and Trojans, Hector and Achilles, have been trampling, and slashing, and charging all the long day. And for Helen and Paris, I have a lady's-maid and a groom!

_Bed-time_.

Another thunderbolt--the loudest and horriblest and most abominable yet!

Susan must be stark mad.

Instead of copying out my draft, she has simply tucked it inside the specimen envelope I addressed, and has posted it to Ruddington!

I'm too utterly sick and tired and disgusted to write down in this diary all that Susan said--which wasn't much--and all that I said--which was even less, but entirely to the point. Susan has gone off, crying--as if she's the one with the grievance!

Thank God for bed!

* BOOK II *

*DIEPPE*

*