Peccavi

"Because," said the girl, impelled to frankness, yet hanging her head, "as a matter of fact, I've been more or less engaged myself."

"And you got out of it?"

"I broke it off."

"Simply because you had changed?"

"No – it was a mistake from the beginning. I had never really cared. That was my shame."

"And you broke your word – you had the courage!"

The tone was a low one of mere surprise. There was more in the look which accompanied the tone. But Gwynneth had her eyes turned inward, and her wonder was not yet.

"It had to be done," she said simply. "It was humiliating enough, but it was not so bad as going on.. Can anything be so bad as marrying a man you do not love, just because you have made a mistake, and are too proud to admit it?"

"No.. you are right.. that is the worst of all."

It might have been a studied picture that the two young women made, in the old oak room, with the firelight falling on their quaint sweet garb, and reddening their pensive faces, only conscious of the inner self. Nurse Ella was standing up, gazing down into the fire, her back turned to Gwynneth; but now her tone was enough. It was neither wistful nor bitter, but only heavy with conviction; and in another moment Nurse Ella was gone, not more abruptly than usual, but without letting Gwynneth see her face again. Then Gwynneth recalled the look with which the other had exclaimed upon her courage, and either she flattered herself, or that look had been one of envy pure and simple. Could it be that her friend's decided character was all self-conscious and acquired? Was her intolerance of the slightest hesitation, in matters of no account, a life's reaction from a fatal irresolution in some crisis of her own career?

Gwynneth never knew; for a fine mutual reserve distinguished the intimacy of this pair, and even drew them together, opposite as they were in so many other respects, more than impulsive confidences on either side. One had suffered; the other was suffering now; each was a little mystery to her friend. And there was one more reason for this: neither was sure of the other's sympathy: at every point of contact they diverged.

So Gwynneth used to wonder whether Nurse Ella was in reality a widow at all, and Nurse Ella was quite sure that Gwynneth was still in love, probably with the man she had jilted, according to the wise way of women; she was so ready to speak of love in the abstract; and once she spoke so passionately. This was in Kensington Gardens, one foggy Sunday, when the two nurses were on their way to church; for they were allowed to worship where they listed after matins at St. Hilda's. Nurse Ella rented a sitting under a fashionable preacher who discoursed with much wisdom and some acidity on topics of the hour; but Gwynneth was still seeking her spiritual ideal. They would walk together as far as the Bayswater Road, where their ways diverged, unless Nurse Ella could induce Gwynneth to go with her; on this particular morning they were arguing about a novel when the houses loomed upon them through the bare trees and the fog.

"She never would have forgiven him," Nurse Ella had declared, in crisp settlement of the point at issue. "No young wife would forgive a young husband who behaved like that. So it may be the cleverest novel in the language, but it isn't true to life." Whereupon Gwynneth, who had been defending a masterpiece with laudable spirit, walked some yards in silence. "Are you sure that it matters how people behave," she then inquired, "if you really love them?"

"How they behave?" echoed her friend. "Why, Gwynneth, of course! Nothing does matter except behaviour."

"It wouldn't to me," Gwynneth exclaimed, almost through her teeth.

"But surely what one does is everything!"

"Not in love," averred Gwynneth, whose convictions were few but firm; "and those two are more in love than any other couple I know in fiction or real life. No; you love people for what they are, not for what they do."

Nurse Ella laughed outright.

"That may be good metaphysics," said she, "but it's shocking common-sense! Our actions are the only possible test of our character, as its fruit is the only test of a tree."

In Gwynneth's eyes burnt wondrous fires, and on her cheeks; and her breath was coming very quickly. But most persons look straight ahead as they walk and talk, and between these two fell the kindly fog besides.

"Suppose you loved somebody," the young girl cried at last; "and suppose you suddenly discovered he had once done something dreadful – unspeakable. Would that alter your feeling towards him?"

"It could never fail to do so, Gwynneth."

"It would not alter mine!"

Nurse Ella turned her head. But in the road the fog seemed thicker than in the gardens. And, apart from its vigour, Gwynneth's tone had sounded impersonal enough.

"I believe it would," her friend persisted, "when the time came."

"And I know that it would not," said Gwynneth, half under her breath and half through her teeth.

"Well, Gwynneth," said Nurse Ella, with a laugh, "we were evidently born to differ. In my view that would be the one sort of excuse for changing one's mind about a man – whereas you see others!"

"But I am not talking about one's mind," cried Gwynneth; "the feeling I mean, the feeling those two have in the book, lies infinitely deeper than the mind."

"And no crime could alter it?"

"Not if he atoned – not if the rest of his life were one long atonement."

"But, Gwynneth, that would make all the difference."

Gwynneth walked on in silence. She was reconsidering her own last words.

"Atonement or no atonement," she exclaimed at length, "it would make no difference – if I loved the man. Atonement or no atonement!" repeated Gwynneth defiantly.

Nurse Ella had a passion for the last word, but they were come to her corner, and there was Gwynneth glowing through the fog, her eyes alight, her cheeks flaming, a new being in the puzzled eyes of her friend.

"Come with me, Gwynneth," begged Nurse Ella, at length; "don't go off by yourself. Come, dear, and hear a shrewd, hard-headed sermon, without sentiment or superstition!"

Gwynneth smiled. That was the last thing to meet her mood.

"Then where shall you go?"

"Either St. Simeon's or All Souls'," said Gwynneth. "I haven't made up my mind."

Nurse Ella shook her head over an admission as characteristic as her disapproval. This was the Gwynneth that she knew.

"When do you make it up!" exclaimed Nurse Ella without inquiry.

"When it's a matter of the least importance," said Gwynneth, choosing to reply. "What can it signify which church I go to, what difference can it possibly make? As a matter of fact I rather think of going to All Souls'."

"I thought you didn't care about music and nothing else?"

"I don't know that there is nothing else. I think of going to see. I have often thought of it before, but St. Simeon's is rather nearer, and I generally end by going there. I shall decide on the way."

"What a girl you are, Gwynneth!" exclaimed Nurse Ella, with frank impatience. "You never seem to know your own mind – never!"

Gwynneth made no reply; but she kindled afresh, and this time very tenderly, as she went her own way through the fog.

XXX

THE WOMAN'S HOUR

All Souls' was dark and hazy with its share of the ubiquitous fog, here a little aggravated by the subtle fumes of incense newly burnt. In the haze hung quivering constellations of sallow gaslight, and through it gleamed an embroidered frontal, and the silken backs of praying priests, lit by candles four. Delicate strains came from an invisible organ; a light patter and a rich rustling from the feet and garments of some departing after matins, some taking their places for choral eucharist, women to the left, men to the right. Men and women, goers and comers alike, with few exceptions, bowed the knee with Romish humility at the first or the last glimpse of that shimmering frontal with the four candles above and the motionless vestments below.

The congregation was one of well-dressed women and well-to-do men; their quiet devotion was not the less noteworthy on that account. A fine reverence animated every face: the stray observer would have missed the passive countenance of the merely pious, as Gwynneth did, and discovered in its stead the happy ardour of those whose religion was a delight rather than a duty. Yet the congregation took scarcely any part in the actual service. Few untrained voices joined in the exquisite singing; few, in the body of the church, left their places to take part in the sacred climax. The congregation might have been only an audience; yet somehow it was not. Somehow also there was nothing spectacular in an office of equal dignity, distinction, and fervour.

Yet the yellow lights in a yellow fog, the perfect organ, trained voices, rich embroideries, incense, genuflexions, all these seemed at one religious pole; and Long Stow church on a summer's day, with the sky above and the birds singing, and Mr. Carlton in his surplice in the sun, surely that was at the other! It was Gwynneth's fate, at all events, to carry that single service in her heart and mind for ever, and to put every other one against it. She did so now, involuntarily at first, and then unwillingly, as she knelt or stood at the end of her row – her cambric cuffs and fine lawn streamers in high relief against the rich furs and the sombre feathers of those about her.

On the other side of the nave, far back and close to the wall, a grizzled gentleman stood and knelt by turns, in much obscurity; and his attention never flagged. No detail of the elaborate ritual appeared unfamiliar to this worshipper, and yet for a time his expression was rather that of the alien critic. Gradually, however, the lines disappeared from his forehead, his eyes opened wider, and brightened with the peaceful ardour which he himself had already remarked in the eyes of others. He was a tall thin man, very weather-beaten and rather bent, wearing a new overcoat and a soft muffler; there was nothing in his appearance to declare him of the cloth himself. His grey beard was close trimmed. He wore gloves and carried a tall hat shoulder high in the press going out. He was no more readily recognisable as the lonely builder of Long Stow church, than Gwynneth in her nurse's garb as the niece of Sir Wilton Gleed. But their separate fates brought them face to face in the porch, and recognition was immediate on both sides.

"Miss Gleed?" said Robert Carlton, raising his hat before it covered his grey hairs.

"Mr. Carlton!" she exclaimed in turn. There had been no time to think, and her voice told only of her surprise; her own ear noticed it, and she had time to marvel at herself.

"I thought I could not be mistaken," Carlton was saying. And they were shaking hands.

"I never expected to see you here," said Gwynneth, with a strange emphasis, as though the declaration were due to herself.

"I never thought of coming until an hour or two ago."

No more had Gwynneth: then the miracle was twofold. Her heart gave thanks. It was not afraid.

Meanwhile the crowd was carrying them gently, insensibly, but side by side, across the flagged yard to the gate.

"It's the first Sunday I've spent in town for years," observed Carlton; "you are here altogether, I believe?"

"Well, for some years, at least. I am learning to be a nurse."

And Gwynneth blushed for her conspicuous attire, just as Carlton gave a downward glance at the quaint cap on a level with his shoulder.

"So I heard," he said. "May I ask which hospital you are at?" He could recall none where the uniform was so picturesque.

"You would not know it, Mr. Carlton; it is a private hospital on Campden Hill."

They had passed through the gate, and they paused with one consent.

"Are you returning there now, Miss Gleed?"

"Yes – through the gardens."

"Then so far our way is the same." He did not ask whether he might accompany her, but took the outer edge of the pavement as a matter of course. "I am staying at Charing Cross," he explained as they walked; "early this morning I went to the abbey. I did mean to go back there; then I suddenly thought I should like to come here instead. I was once one of the assistant clergy at this church."

"I know," said Gwynneth. She would not deny it. That was why she had so often thought of coming to All Souls' – only to resist the temptation time and time again. Why, to-day of all days, had she been unable to resist? Why had she thought of him this morning, and why had the thought been so strong? These were questions for a lifetime's consideration. Now she was walking at his side.

"It was strange to go back there after so many years," pursued Carlton, with the fine unguarded candour which he had brought back with him into the world; "that service, in particular, was very strange to me. I did not care for it at first. It seemed so artificial after our simple service in the country. Then I looked at the faces of the men near me, and I saw how narrow one can get. It was not artificial to them; it was only beautiful; and there lies the root of the whole matter. Simple services for simple folk – that is my watchword now – but beauty, brightness, elaboration by all means for those who need it and can appreciate it. It is the right thing for these rich congregations of hard-worked professional men and busy society women; the trappings of their religious life must not compare meanly with those of their daily lives; let us order God's house as we would our own. But the opposite is the case – though the principle is the same – with a primitive country parish like ours at Long Stow.. And yet I had not the wit to see that when I went there first."

He was musing aloud as men seldom do unless very sure of their audience. How came he to be so sure of Gwynneth? They had seen nothing of each other; this was the first time they had been alone together long enough to exchange ideas; yet in a moment he was revealing his as few men do to more than one woman in the world. And the one woman's heart was singing at his side.

She was with him; that was enough. Already it was the sweetest hour of all her life; for the thought of him had haunted her for months, and was full of pain; but in his presence all pain passed away. That was so wonderful to Gwynneth! So wonderful was it that she herself was aware of it at the time; it was her one great discovery and surprise. To be with him was to forget all that he had ever done, all that she had never before forgotten – the good with the evil. It was to sweep aside the earthly and the palpable, to feel the divine domination of spirit over spirit, and the peace which comes with even the secret surrender of soul to soul. Hers was a conscious surrender, and Gwynneth made it without shame. Since it was her secret, why should she be ashamed? She was exalted, exultant, and yet serene. She might carry her secret to the grave; her life would be the richer for it, for these few minutes, for every word he spoke. So she caught each one as it fell, and laid the treasure in her heart, even while she listened for the next.

But in a minute they were come as far as he intended to escort her; there were the palings and the stark trees close upon them in the fog; and an omnibus passing, huge as a house. Gwynneth had been treading thin air; now she was back in the sticky streets, inhaling the raw mist, to exhale it in clouds under a microscopic magenta sun. They had stopped at the corner; he was hesitating: her breath disappeared.

"I have to get over to that side sooner or later," he said. "I may just as well walk across with you, if you don't mind."

"I shall be delighted," said Gwynneth, frankly, brightly; but her breath came like a puff of smoke, and she felt her colour come with it as they crossed the road.

"I want to tell you about the church," he said, as they entered upon the broad walk. "This is the first Sunday that I haven't taken service there since the beginning of August."

"The first!" exclaimed Gwynneth. "Have you actually gone on up to now without a roof?"

Carlton turned in his stride.

"But we have a roof, Miss Gleed!"

"You have one?"

"It has been on some weeks."

Gwynneth was standing quite still. "Do you mean to say that the church is finished?" she cried, incredulous.

"Yes," said Carlton; "thank God, I can say that at last."

"But it seems such a short time! I don't understand. It seemed impossible to me – by yourself?"

"Oh, but I have not been by myself. I have had help."

"At last!"

"I wonder you have not heard. Everybody has helped me – everybody!"

"Do you mean – my people – among others?"

And Gwynneth preferred walking on to facing him here.

"Is it possible you haven't heard?" exclaimed Carlton, incredulous in turn.

"Not a word," replied Gwynneth, bitterly. "They never write."

But her bitterness was new-born of her indignation, not that they never wrote, but that they had not written to tell her this. He told her himself with much feeling and more embarrassment.

"Why, Miss Gleed, I owe everything to Sir Wilton! It is the last thing I ever – I can hardly realise it yet – or trust myself to speak of it to you. My heart is so full! But it is Sir Wilton who has finished the church; he came to me, and he took it over. He called for tenders; he poured in workmen; the place has been like a hive. So the roof was on in a month; and we never missed a Sunday, we had one service all the time; but now we have three and four – thanks entirely to Sir Wilton Gleed!"

He paused. But Gwynneth had nothing to say, and his embarrassment increased. It was so hard to speak of Sir Wilton's magnanimity without alluding to his previous attitude, and thus indirectly to its notorious cause; and Carlton could not see that his companion was entirely taken up with his news, could not realise the surprise it was to her, or apprehend for a moment what impression it had made. He might, however, have had some inkling of her view from the manner in which Gwynneth eventually said that she was glad to hear her uncle had done something.

"Something?" echoed Carlton. "He has done everything, and it is like his generosity that you should hear it first from me!"

Gwynneth shook her head unseen, though now he was looking at her, his eyebrows raised; but she seemed intent upon picking her steps through the thin mud of the broad walk.

"And what that is like," continued Carlton, "from my point of view, you will see when I tell you why I am in town to-day. It is the first Sunday I have missed; but Mr. Preston of Linkworth and other friends are kindly dividing my duty between them. Sir Wilton has arranged that, by the way. He telegraphed yesterday to save me the journey; for I was going down for the day, and returning to-morrow. Yet I came up last Monday, and am still hard at work – buying for the new church."

Gwynneth asked what it was that he had to buy; but her tone was so mechanical that Robert Carlton did not at once reply. He was beginning to feel strangely disappointed, to wish that he had gone his own gait to Charing Cross, or at least held his peace about the church. But there was one point upon which he felt constrained to convince his companion before they parted; he might do more than justice to an absent man; but she should not do less. And the spire of St. Mary Abbot's was already dimly discernible through the yellow haze.

"There is nothing we have not to buy, for the interior," he said at length. "The lectern is the one exception, and I have had it straightened and lacquered into a new thing. Sir Wilton wanted me to keep it as it was; but that would never have done. However, he would have an inscription to the effect that it is the same lectern which was in the fire, which is quite a sufficient advertisement of the fact. I was in favour of restoring the communion plate also, but Sir Wilton insisted on presenting us with a new set, which I have been choosing among other things this week. The other things are too numerous to mention – carpets, curtains, collecting-boxes, alms-bags, a Litany desk, and the hundred and one things you take for granted as part of the church itself. But each has to be chosen and bought, and I only wish that I had had your help. I have found the best things most difficult to choose – the plate and a very handsome cross and candlesticks of polished brass – all of which are my choice, but Sir Wilton's gift. So is the organ which is being built for us. Can you wonder, then, that his generosity has moved me more than I can possibly tell you?"

"Indeed, no!" cried Gwynneth, in her own kind voice; but her honour was all for the man who claimed it for another; and, until she opened them now, her lips had been pursed in mute rebellion. She could fancy so much that the true generosity would never even see! Gwynneth had not that sort herself; she did not profess to have it. On the other hand, she was anxious to be fair, even in her own mind; so she asked a question or two concerning the hired and skilled labour which had been thrown into the scale with such effect; and, after all, it appeared that Sir Wilton Gleed had not paid for this.

"But he wanted to," said Carlton, quickly. "It was not his fault that I would not hear of his doing so; it was my obstinacy, because I had set my heart on rebuilding the church myself, in one sense or the other."

"Yet you said he took it over from you!"

"So he did, Miss Gleed. He lent me his influence and support; that was much more to me than the money, which I had and didn't want. Besides, he is a business man, which I am not, and he did take the whole business off my hands. That is what I meant."

Gwynneth wondered whether it was what the countryside understood; but said no more about the matter. She had other things to think of during their last moments together; for she had stopped at the corner near the palace; nor did she mean to let him accompany her any further. She was still so decided and serene. She was still exalted and strengthened out of all self-knowledge in the quiet presence of the man she loved, and must love for ever, even though her love were to remain her heart's prisoner for this life. This life was not all.

So it was that she could look her last upon him, perhaps for ever, with her own face transfigured and beautified by a joy not of earth alone: so it was that she could speak to him, and hear him speak, without a tremor to the end.

His church was to be consecrated that day week – Advent Sunday. The bishop was coming to perform the ceremony; his voice softened as he spoke of the bishop, who was to be his own guest at the rectory. His face shone as he added that. It was going to be a very simple ceremony. And here something set him twisting at one of his gloves; then suddenly he looked Gwynneth in the eyes.

"You don't happen to be coming down, Miss Gleed?"

"I don't think it very likely."

"It – it wouldn't of course be worth your while – "

"It would! It would! It would be more than worth it; but, to be quite frank, I don't know that I shall ever come down again, Mr. Carlton."

Was he sorry? He did not even show surprise; and not a word more: for he had heard stray words in Long Stow concerning Gwynneth's departure and its reason as alleged. "I should have liked you to see the church," was all he said.

"And do you know," rejoined Gwynneth, speaking out her mind at last, "that I am in no great hurry to see it? I know it is foolish of me – for no one man could have finished such a work – no other man living would have got as far as you did without a soul to help you! Yet somehow I don't so much want to see the church that they came in and finished; it would spoil the picture that I can see so plainly now, and always shall – of the stones you cut and the walls you built with your own two hands – and every other hand against you!"

She was holding out her own. Carlton looked from it to her face, a strange surprise in his eyes. He had wriggled out of one of his gloves, and was twisting it round the iron paling at the corner where they stood.

"May I come no further?" he said.

"No, I could not think of taking you another yard out of your way. And it is really not so very many yards from where we stand!"

Gwynneth smiled brightly; but her voice was the very firm one of this half-hour of her existence. And ever afterwards she was to marvel why neither smile nor words were an effort to her at the time: so his presence supported her to the end, when the clasp of that indomitable hand, now bare, and horny even through her glove, left Gwynneth outwardly unmoved. She returned his pressure with honest warmth; her smile was kind and bright; then the cold mist fell between them in a widening yellow gulf, with a diminishing patter of firm footsteps, that Carlton could hear when the nurse's streamers had quite disappeared in the fog.