CHAPTER II.

Six months later. Walter was back in England, better in health, brown and handsome. Florence was in a seventh heaven of happiness. Her husband was her very devoted lover; the children were as good as gold; the little house near Regent’s Park was decorated with all manner of Indian draperies and _bric-à-brac_—what more could the heart of woman desire?

“Really,” she said, “it was worth your going away to know the delight of getting you back again.”

“Yes, darling; shall I go away again?”

“No, you dear stupid! Walter, why doesn’t Mr. Fisher come and see us? He has only been once since you returned, and then he seemed most anxious to go away again.”

“I suppose he was afraid Ethel Dunlop would come in.”

“I wish he hadn’t fallen in love with her,” Florence said; “I shall always reproach myself about it. But, really, he was so good and kind that I half hoped she would like him.”

“A woman under thirty doesn’t marry a man merely because he is good and kind, unless matrimony is her profession.”

“I can’t help thinking it might have been different if he had spoken to her,” Florence said; “it is so absurd of a man to write. I wouldn’t have accepted you if you had proposed in a letter.”

“Oh, wouldn’t you?” he laughed; “that was a matter in which you wouldn’t have been allowed to decide for yourself. One must draw the line somewhere. It is all very well to let women do as they like in little things; but in a big one like marrying you, why——”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Florence laughed, putting her hand over his mouth. He kissed it, and jerked back his head.

“I wonder what Fisher said in his letter, Floggie?”

“I should think it was very proper and respectful.”

“The sort of letter a churchwarden or an archbishop would write. Poor chap, I expect he feels a little sore about it. He hadn’t a very good time with his first wife, I fancy. Probably he wanted to make a little sunshine for his sober middle-age. I dare say he would have been awfully good to her if she had taken him.”

“I wish she had, and I wish he would come here again,” Florence said; “he was so very kind about taking the house, and I always liked him.”

“I am afraid,” Walter said, with a sigh, “he hasn’t quite forgiven me for putting Wimple on to him. It really was a ghastly thing for _The Centre_ to get reviews from other papers palmed off on it as fresh ones. I can’t think, setting aside the lowness of cheating, how Wimple could be such a fool as to suppose that Fisher wouldn’t find out that they had been prigged.”

“He was quite taken in at first. I remember his telling me that Mr. Wimple wrote very well.”

“You see, those Scotch papers are uncommonly clever. How Wimple expected not to be found out I can’t imagine. If he had prigged from the _Timbuctoo Journal_, of course he might have escaped. Fisher must have sworn freely. It made him look such an ass”—and Walter laughed, in spite of himself.

“Is there a _Timbuctoo Journal_?” Florence asked innocently.

“No, you sweet idiot—perhaps there is, though. Should think it would be interesting. Probably gives an account of a roast-missionary feast now and then.”

“You horrid thing!” said Florence. “I wish Mr. Wimple were in Timbuctoo, and that I knew how poor Aunt Anne was getting on.”

“Poor, dear old fool!—we never dreamed what would come of that introduction, either, did we?”

“Oh, Walter, I shall never forget what I suffered about her at the cottage when she told me she was going to marry Mr. Wimple. And then, after she had vanished, there were the bills at Witley and Guildford. I can’t imagine what she did with all the things she bought, for she was only at the cottage a week or so without me.”

“Probably sent them to Wimple at Liphook.”

“She couldn’t send him chickens and claret, and cakes and chocolate, and a dozen other things.”

“Oh yes, she could—trust her,” laughed Walter. “It is very odd,” he went on, “but I have always had an idea, somehow, that there was a feminine attraction at Liphook. If it was the young lady we saw with him that morning at Waterloo Station, I don’t think much of her. How did you manage to pay all the bills, Floggie dear? You didn’t owe a penny when I came back, and had saved something too—I never knew such a frugal little woman.”

“Steggall’s bill was the worst,” Florence said; “there were endless waggonettes.”

“Probably she spent her time in showing Wimple the beauties of the country. How did you manage to pay them all, Floggie?”

“Lived on an egg one day, and nothing the next.”

“That’s what a woman always does. A man would have robbed Peter to pay Paul. You ought to have a reward. It is too cold at Easter, but if I could get away for a fortnight this Whitsuntide we might take a run to Monte Carlo.”

“Monte Carlo makes me think of Mrs. North. I should like to see her again; she was very fascinating.”

“Why didn’t you go and see her?”

“I was not sure that you would like it. There was evidently something wrong.”

He was silent for a few minutes. “Do you know,” he said presently, “when there is something wrong with a woman I think it is a reason for going, and not for staying away. It’s the only chance for setting it right. What is the use of goodness if it isn’t used for the benefit of other people?”

“Walter,” Florence said, and she stood up and clasped her hands—“she said nearly the same thing to me that evening she was here. There was something almost desperate in her manner; it has haunted me ever since; and I should have gone to see her but that I was afraid of your being angry.”

“What, at your going to see a woman who perhaps needed your help? If she were up a moral tree, you might have done her some good.”

“I can’t bear to think I missed a chance of doing that. Walter,” she added, with a sigh, “sometimes I fear that I am very narrow.”

“No, dear, you are only a little prim Puritan, and I love you for it as I love you for everything; so please, Floggie, will you take me to Monte Carlo this Whitsuntide, or may I take you?”

“You are a wicked spendthrift, as bad as Aunt Anne; I believe it runs in the family. What is to be done with the children while we go to Monte Carlo?”

“We’ll leave them with the mother-in-law.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call my mother that horrid name.”

“I thought it would make you cross. I say, I really do wish we knew what had become of the Wimples.”

“I think they must be all right, somehow,” Florence said, “or else——”

“Or else she would have arrived to borrow a five-pound note. I wonder how Wimple likes it. Well, darling, I must be off to the office. It’s all agreed about Whitsuntide, then, Fisher permitting.”

“Go away,” Florence laughed; “go to the office, you bad person.”

“Very well, I will,” he said, in a patient voice; “but I really do wish Aunt Anne would turn up. I want some more scissors; I lost all those she gave me, and some one stole the case.”

“And Catty broke my velvet pincushion. It is, clearly, time that she turned up.”

When Walter had gone, Florence thought of Mrs. North again. “It was rather unkind of me not to be nice to her, for she was generous to Aunt Anne,” she said to herself. “I wonder whether I could go and call upon her now. I might explain that I never dared to mention Madame Celestine’s bills.”

But she had no more time in which to think of Mrs. North, for there were the inevitable domestic matters to arrange; and then Ethel Dunlop came in, full of her engagement to George Dighton.

“I always imagined it was merely friendship,” Florence said, thinking regretfully of the editor.

“Did you?” said Ethel, brightly. “We thought so ourselves for a long time, I believe; but we found out that we were mistaken. By the way, Florence, you can’t think how good Mr. Fisher has been to us.”

“Mr. Fisher? Well, you don’t deserve anything from him.”

“No, I don’t. Still, it wasn’t my fault that he proposed; I never encouraged him. How droll it was of him to come and pour out his troubles to you.”

“I think it was manly and dignified,” Florence said; “it proved that he wasn’t ashamed of wanting to marry you. Did he write a nice letter, Ethel?”

“Yes, very, I think.”

“How did he begin?”

“He began, ‘My dear Miss Ethel,’ and ended up, ‘Yours very faithfully.’”

“I am afraid you did lead him on a little bit.”

“Indeed I did not. He asked me to come and see his mother when she had this house, and he was always here.”

“That was very nice of him,” Florence said; “it shows that he is very fond of his mother.”

“Oh yes, it was very nice of him,” Ethel answered, “and he is very fond of his mother; but I found that he generally came a little before I did, and he always saw me home. I couldn’t refuse to let him do so, because he evidently thought it a matter of duty to see that I arrived safely at my own street door. Middle-aged men always seem to think that a girl must get into mischief the moment she is left to her own devices.”

“How did he know of your engagement?”

“I wrote and told him. He had been so kind that I felt it was due to him. I told him we should be as poor as church mice, as George would be in a government office all his life, with little to do and less to spend, after the manner of those officials; and he wrote back such a nice letter, inquiring into all our affairs and prospects—you would have thought he was our godfather, at least.”

“He does that sort of thing to everybody,” Florence said; “he is astonishingly kind. He always seems to think he ought to do something for the good of every one he knows.”

“Perhaps he mistakes himself for a minor providence, and goes about living up to it.”

“Oh, Ethel!”

“And then,” Ethel went on, altogether ignoring the slightly shocked look on her friend’s face, “he said that, perhaps, a word might be put in somewhere and something done for George. He didn’t say any more, but I gathered that cabinet ministers occasionally range themselves round a newspaper office, seeking whom they may oblige.”

“Oh, Ethel!” exclaimed Florence again, “that is just your little exaggerated way.”

“Well, at any rate, he thinks he can do something, and he evidently wants to be good to us.”

“He seems to delight in doing kind things,” Florence answered; “you know how good he was about Walter.”

“He ought to have married Mrs. Baines. He would have been much better than Alfred Wimple”—with which wise remark Ethel went away, full of her own happiness, and Florence sat down and thought over Mr. Fisher’s generosity.

“He is always doing kind things,” she said to herself. “It was he who sent Walter to India, and perhaps set him up for the rest of his life; and he who gave that horrid Mr. Wimple work, only to find himself cheated and insulted in return. I can’t think what I shall do whenever I meet Mr. Wimple.” But she swiftly dismissed that disagreeable person from her mind, and returned to the consideration of Mr. Fisher’s virtues. “He is so unselfish,” she thought. “It isn’t every one who would try to help on the man for whom he had been refused. Yet it is very odd that, with all his goodness, Mr. Fisher is not a bit fascinating; I quite understand Ethel’s refusing him. I have an idea that few go out of their way to be good to him. Some people seem to live in the world to give out kindness, and others only to take it in.” The reflection felt like a self-reproach. She did so little for others herself, and yet she was always longing to do more in life than merely to take her own share of its enjoyment. She wanted most to help Aunt Anne; she longed to see her, to comfort and soothe her, and perhaps to lend her a little money. She felt convinced that Aunt Anne must want some money by this time, and that she was miserable with Mr. Wimple. “I am so afraid he isn’t kind to her,” she said to herself; “I am certain he hasn’t married her for love—there is some horrid reason that we are not clever enough to guess. I only wish she had never left Mrs. North; she was so happy there, and looked so grand driving about and giving presents; and perhaps if she had stayed she might, eventually, have been able to pay for them.” Then, almost against her will, Mrs. North’s face was before her again. She could see it quite plainly, lovely and restless, but with a sad look in the blue eyes that was like an appeal for kindness. “I feel as if there were an aching in her heart for something she has missed in life. But perhaps that is nonsense, or it is only that I don’t understand her—we are so different. I have half a mind to go and call on her. I wonder if she would care to see me?”

Some more hesitation, some curiosity and kindly feeling, and then Florence put on her prim little bonnet and her best furs, for she remembered Mrs. North’s magnificent array and felt that it would not do to look shabby. She took the train from Portland Road to South Kensington, and walked slowly to Cornwall Gardens.

“I won’t leave Walter’s card,” she thought, “or any cards at all if she is out; for, though I am glad to go and see her, I don’t want to be on visiting terms.”

But Mrs. North was at home, and Florence was shown into a gorgeous drawing-room, all over draperies, and bits of colour, and tall palms, and pots of lovely flowers. In the midst of them sat Mrs. North, a little lonely figure by a piled-up wood fire, for the early spring day was cold and dreary. She rose as her visitor entered, and came just a step forward. She was lovelier than ever. With a cry of joyful surprise, she held out her hands to Florence.

“_You!_” she exclaimed. “Oh, Mrs. Hibbert, I never thought you would come and see me at all; but now—oh, it is good of you! Did you think how glad I should be?”

“I didn’t know whether you would care to see me or not,” Florence said, surprised at her delight.

“Care?” Mrs. North almost gasped, and Florence fancied that her lip quivered; “indeed I do, only no one—won’t you sit down?”—and she made a cosy corner on a low couch, with a pile of soft, silk-covered cushions.

“I was so sorry not to be able to come and see you last year——”

“I quite understand,” Mrs. North said, and the colour rushed to her face. “I did not expect it.”

“You were so kind about Madame Celestine”—Florence went on, thinking that she, too, would have a heap of down cushions in her drawing-room, and not noticing Mrs. North’s confusion—“and about all those dreadful bills.”

“Yes, I remember. Then you did not stay away on purpose?” Mrs. North leaned forward while she spoke, and waited breathlessly for the answer.

“Why, of course not.” A happy look came over the girlish face.

“And did you come now to tell me about Mrs. Baines? I should love to hear about her. Of course I knew she would not write. Was she very angry at my paying the bill?”

“Well, no——” and Florence hesitated.

“Do tell me. I don’t in the least mind if she was. How furious she would be with me now, and how she would gather her scanty skirts and pass me by in scornful silence.” Mrs. North laughed, an almost shrill laugh that seemed to be born of sorrow and pain. She was very strange, Florence thought, and her manner was oddly altered. “Do tell me,” she asked again—“was she very angry?”

“I am ashamed to say that she never knew you had paid it.”

“You were afraid to tell her?”

“I never had a good opportunity.”

“It doesn’t matter a bit. It saved her from being worried, poor thing,—that was the chief point. So long as a thing is done, it doesn’t matter who does it—unless it’s a bad thing. It matters then very much—especially to the person who does it,” Mrs. North added, with a little bitter laugh. “The pain of it”—she stopped again, and went on suddenly, “Tell me more about Mrs. Baines. Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you not seen her lately?”

“Not for a long time.”

“But what has become of her?”

Florence hesitated again. “I cannot tell you.”

“Dear lady!” said Mrs. North, her face merry with sudden fun. “You have not quarrelled with her? A Madonna doesn’t quarrel, surely? Oh, how rude I am—but you will forgive me, won’t you?” She got up from the other end of the couch and rang the bell. “Bring some tea,” she said to the servant, “and quickly.”

“Don’t have tea for me, please——” Florence began.

“Oh yes, yes,” Mrs. North said entreatingly. “I feel, dear Mrs. Hibbert, that we are going to talk scandal—therefore we must have tea. I have had enough scandal lately,” she added, with a sigh, “but still when it isn’t about one’s self it is so exhilarating, as Mrs. Baines would have said; now, please, go on.”

“Go on with what?”

Mrs. North pulled out a little scented lace handkerchief and twirled it into a ball in her excitement.

“About Mrs. Baines. There is some exciting news—I know it; I feel it in the air. Ah, here’s the tea. I will pour it out first, and then, while we drink it, you must tell me all about her. Some sugar and cream?—there, now we look more cosy. Where is the old lady? What have you done with her? You have not locked her up?” she asked quickly.

“No,” laughed Florence, thinking how good the tea was, and how pretty were the cups and the little twisted silver spoons. “I have not locked her up.”

“And you have really not quarrelled with her?”

“No,” answered Florence, a little doubtfully. “Though I sometimes fear that she is angry with me for what she called my lack of sympathy. Really, Mrs. North, I don’t know how to tell you; but the fact is,—she is married again.”

“No, no?” cried Mrs. North. “Oh, it’s too lovely! And who is the dear old gentleman?”

“It’s a young one,” and Florence laughed, for she could not help being amused. “I don’t know if you ever saw him—Mr. Wimple?” Mrs. North rocked to and fro, with wicked delight, till the last words came; then she grew quite grave.

“Oh, but I am sorry,” she said, “for I have seen him; and he didn’t look nice; he looked—rather horrid.”

“I am afraid he did,” Florence answered regretfully.

“Do tell me all about it”—but the only account that Florence was able to give did not satisfy Mrs. North. “You must have seen something of the love-making beforehand?” she said.

“I am afraid I saw nothing of that either,” Florence explained, “for I was in London, and she was at the cottage.”

“I thought she liked him when she was here,” Mrs. North said; “but, of course, I never dreamed of her being in love with him. She used to meet him and go to contemplate the Albert Memorial. Sometimes, when I was out alone, I drove by them; but I pretended to be blind, for I did not want to invite him here—he was so unattractive. He called once, but I did not encourage him to come again. I would give anything to see them together. If I knew where she lived, I would brave everything, and call upon her, though she probably wouldn’t let me in.”

Then Florence began to be a little puzzled. What did Mrs. North mean? Had she done anything—anything bad? Almost without knowing it she looked up and asked, “Is Mr. North quite well?” The colour flew to Mrs. North’s face again.

“Oh yes, I suppose so,” she answered coldly. “Naturally I don’t inquire after his health.”

“You had had a telegram last time I saw you——”

“I remember”—it was said bitterly. “I wondered why he was coming back so suddenly.”

“I thought perhaps he was at home still.”

“At home! He may be. I don’t know where he is. I have not the least idea. It is no concern of mine.”

“Then he did not return after all?” Florence said, bewildered. Mrs. North looked at her for a moment in silence. Then she got up and stood leaning against the mantelpiece, which was covered with flowers and _bric-à-brac_.

“Mrs. Hibbert,” she said, and it seemed as if her lips moved reluctantly, but she showed no other sign of emotion—“you know—what has happened to me, don’t you?”

“No,” answered Florence, breathlessly, and she stood up too. Mrs. North glanced quickly at the door, almost as if she expected to see her visitor flee towards it.

“Mr. North divorced me,” she said, very slowly.

“I didn’t know,” Florence answered, and began to put on her glove.

“I thought you didn’t,” and there came a bitter little laugh. “I knew you didn’t; and yet, deep down in the bottommost corner of my heart, I hoped you did.”

“You must forgive me for saying that, if I had, I should not have come, though I am very, very sorry for you.”

“As a judge is when he sends a prisoner into solitary confinement, or to be hanged, and turns away to his own comfortable life?” Florence buttoned her glove. “And you will never come and see me again, of course?” she added, with another little burst.

“I do not think I can,” Florence said gently.

“I don’t want you,” Mrs. North answered quickly, while her cheeks burned a deeper and deeper red. “It was only a test question.”

“I am very sorry for you,” Florence said again, “very, very. You are so young; and you seem to have no one belonging to you. But there are some things that are impossible, if——”

“Oh, I know,” burst out Mrs. North again; “I know. My God! and this is a Christian country—yes, wait,” she said, for she fancied Florence was going. “I know you are kind and gentle, and you are—good,” she added, almost as an afterthought; “and you and the women like you try very hard to keep your goodness close among yourselves, and never to let one scrap of it touch women like me. Tell me,” she asked—“did you marry the man you loved best in the world?”

“Yes,” Florence answered unwillingly, afraid of being dragged into an argument.

“Then you have never known any temptation to do wrong. Where does the merit of doing right come in?”

“I would rather not discuss it,” Florence said, gently but coldly.

“Oh, let me speak—not for my own sake, for I shall be strong enough to make some sort of life for myself after a time; but for the sake of other women who may be in my position and judged as you judge me. When I was eighteen I was persuaded to marry a man old enough to be my father.”

“But if you didn’t care for him——”

“So many of us think that love is half a myth till our own turn comes. They said I should be happy, and I wanted to be. Of course I wasn’t: human nature is not so easily satisfied. He was rather kind at first. But after a time he grew tired of me. I suppose I wasn’t much of a companion to him. He went abroad and left me alone, again and again. At first my sister was with me; she married and went away. Mrs. Baines came a little while before that——” She stopped, as if unable to go on without some encouragement.

“Yes?” Florence said, listening almost against her will.

“And I was young and inexperienced. How could I know the danger in so many things that amused me? At last I fell in love; I had been so lonely, I was so tired, and I had never cared for any one in my whole life before.”

“But you knew that it was wrong. You were married.”

“Oh yes, but the paths of virtue had been deadly dull, and trodden with a man I did not love and whom I had been made to marry. The man I did love was young and handsome,—he is a soldier. The rest of the story was natural, even if it was wicked.”

“And then?” asked Florence, wonderingly.

“Then my husband came back, and there were the usual details. He heard something that sent him flying home to look after his honour. He had forgotten to look after mine—or my happiness.”

“And the man?”

“He had gone to India with his regiment. He telegraphed over, ‘No defence,’ and that was the end of it.”

“I hope he will come back and make you reparation.”

“He has not written me a line,” Mrs. North said, and the tears came into her eyes for a moment—“not a word, not a sign. Perhaps he is dead—India is a country that swallows up many histories; or, perhaps,” she added desperately, “he, too, despises me now. People flee from me as if I had the plague,” she added, with the bitter laugh again. “Oh, there are no people in the world who encourage wickedness as do the strictly virtuous.”

“Don’t say that,” Florence answered, “for, indeed, it is not true.”

“But it is,” Mrs. North said eagerly. “I have proved it: once do wrong, and men and women seem to combine to prevent you from ever doing right again. You can’t make a Magdalen of me”—and she held out her hands. “I am young; I am a girl still; you can’t expect me to go in sackcloth and ashes all my life—and that in solitude. I want to be happy; I am hungry—and aching for happiness.”

“I hope you will get some still, but——”

“How can I? Men shun me, unless they want to make me worse; and women fly from me, as if they feared their own respectability would vanish at the mere sight of me. It seems to be made of brittle stuff.”

“It is not that,” Florence interrupted—“but a difference must be made; there must be some punishment—something done to prevent——”

“That is why so many women go on doing wrong,” Mrs. North continued, as if she had not heard the interruption; “they cannot bear the treatment of that portion of the world which has remained unspotted or unfound-out. Oh, the cruelty of good women! I sometimes think it is only the people who have sinned or who have suffered who really know how to feel.”

“That is not true——” Florence began, but still Mrs. North did not heed her.

“Do you know,” she said, speaking under her breath, “I am so sorry for women now that I believe I could kneel down beside a wicked, drunken creature in a gutter, and kiss her, and bring her back, and be tender to her in the hope of making her better. For I understand not only the sin, but the pain and the misery, and the good people, and all else that have driven her there.”

“But some difference must be made—you cannot expect to be received as if people thought you now what they thought you once?”

“I know that,” Mrs. North said scornfully. “People can’t ask me to their parties. I don’t want to go to them. They may not want me for the friend of their daughters, though I should not harm them——” and she burst into tears.

“It isn’t possible,” Florence said helplessly.

“But need men and women flee from me as if I were a leper? People who have known me for years, and might make me better, women especially, who might make me a little happier and ashamed of having done wrong. But no—no; they gather their skirts, and do not see me as they pass, though a year ago they crowded here. They are waiting to hear that I am dead, or have grown wickeder still. They would feel a sort of pleasure in hearing it, and be glad they did not risk their spotless reputations by trying to prevent it.”

“I think you must let me go away,” Florence said gently, determined to end the interview.

“Oh yes, you had better go!”—and Mrs. North put the backs of her hands against her flushed cheeks to cool them. “My tea has not poisoned you, and I have not ‘contaminated you,’ as Mrs. Baines would say. If you ever think of me in the midst of your own successful life, believe this, that if I had had all that you have had, I might have been as good as you—who knows? As it is, I have my choice between isolation, with a few breaths of occasional scorn, or the going farther along a road on which, no doubt, you think I am well started.”

“Please let me go,” Florence said gently, almost carried away by Mrs. North’s beauty when she looked up at her face, but feeling that she ought to stand by the principles that had been a part of her religion. “This has been so painful, I am sure you must want to be alone.”

“Oh yes, it has been painful enough, but it has been instructive also,” Mrs. North said; and then she added gently, “I think I would rather you go now. Yes, please go,” she entreated suddenly, while a sob choked her, and she dabbed her tears with her little lace handkerchief, vainly struggling to laugh again.

“I think it would be better,” Florence said; “but perhaps some day, if I may—I will——” She stopped, for she felt that she ought to consult her husband before she promised to come again.

“Oh yes, I understand,” Mrs. North said. “You will come again if you can; but if you don’t, it will only increase my respect for goodness. I shall think how precious it is, how valuable—it has to be guarded like the Koh-i-noor. Good-bye, Mrs. Hibbert, good-bye.” She rang the bell and bowed almost haughtily, so that Florence felt herself dismissed.

“Good-bye,” the latter said, and slowly turned from the room. Somehow she knew that Mrs. North watched her until the door had half closed, and then threw herself, a little miserable heap, among the silk cushions. But she was halfway down the stairs before she realized it, and the servant was waiting to show her out.

“Oh, I was cold and cruel,” she thought, when the street door had closed behind her, “but I could not help it; there is no sin in the world so awful as that one.”

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