Jack Raymond

"No, I don't think that; and, Molly, I have taken nothing for granted."

"Nothing? Not when you refused an in­vitation to come and see me after — how long was it? Seven — eight years?"

"It was an invitation to uncle's house. As for seeing you, I had waited so long for that that I could have patience a little longer till you could come to me, rather than..."

After a little pause he added slowly:

"I couldn't go into his house. If ever we get to know each other well, you'll understand why; but I can't explain."

"Jack!" she burst out suddenly; "what was it between you and uncle? No, don't tell me if you don't want to. I had no right to ask; it's not my business. But one hears bits and scraps of things... all sorts of things..."

"You have every right to ask," he answered gravely. "But I don't think I have any right to tell you."

"Do you think that's fair to me?"

"No, but then it's not a fair position all round. I think while you are accepting anything from uncle he has a right to ask that his enemies should not tell you things against him. Don't you?"

"Does that mean that you are his enemy? In the real sense of the word? Have you nothing to tell me but things against him?"

"Nothing."

"And nothing about Aunt Sarah? Are you her enemy too?"

He paused a moment.

"I have nothing to say about her, one way or the other."

"Jack, whatever the thing was that hap­pened, it's more than ten years ago; and she lies awake at night and cries about you still. Last winter, when she had pleurisy, and we thought she was going to die, she clung to me and kept on repeating that she had 'done her best' for you. What wrong has she done you? I don't believe Aunt Sarah ever harmed a fly in her life. Granted, you may have something against uncle; but why should you hate her?"

He put the subject aside.

"I don't hate her."

"You despise her then," the girl broke in quickly.

"That I can't help. She's lukewarm, like the angel of Laodicea; I would she were hot or cold."

Passionate tears glittered in Molly's eyes.

"You will make me hate you!" she said, in her suppressed, vehement way. "An old woman, as broken down and feeble as she is; and you will let her go on worrying and fret­ting over some dead-and-gone quarrel of your schoolboy days... She asked me the other day to forgive her if she'd made mistakes in bringing me up. To forgive her, the only person in the world that ever cared for me! She's got it into her head that you were made what she calls 'wicked' by being unhappy at home, and that it was somehow her fault. Were you so unhappy, Jack?"

"Unhappy!" He repeated the word with a quick throb in his voice that made the girl start and look round at him. "Look here, Molly," he went on with evident effort, "what's the use of raking up all this? I've nothing against Aunt Sarah, except that she was a coward and passed by on the other side. Anyhow, if she's been kind to you, I'm grateful to her for that, and she needn't worry about the rest. As for uncle, I haven't any­thing to say except what's better unsaid. If you want to know why I couldn't come to the house — well, I tried to kill him once, and that's reason enough."

"I asked him about it one day, and he told me you..."

"Don't!" he interrupted. "I don't want to hear anything from you, or to tell you any­thing. Don't get your impressions of him from me — they wouldn't be just. And judge of me by what you see yourself, not by what any one has told you; if I'm a bad lot you'll soon find it out without any telling."

She turned to him with a smile. There was a peculiar charm in this sudden softening of the stern, untried face.

"No one told me you were bad; and if they did, I shouldn't believe it at second hand. I do think you have a long memory; but that's a family failing. There are some things I remember..."

She broke off.

"Tiddles?" he asked.

Her face lit up suddenly, wonderfully. "How did you know? "

Then they both laughed, and in the silence that followed their kinship was real to them for the first time.

"He is a most unhappy man," she said, looking out across the green space with sombre, thoughtful eyes. "He has spent his life in trying to shape the souls of his fellow creatures; and there's not one living thing that loves or respects him."

"Except Aunt Sarah..."

"Her life has been spent in keeping up a fiction. She's getting old now, and it's wear­ing thin; and she's scared at the truth under­neath it, and miserable."

"The truth?"

"That she despises him in her heart."

"Was that why you couldn't come to Paris? " he asked abruptly.

She slipped her arm through his. "You're good at understanding. I couldn't leave her; you don't know what a desolate house it is.

They go through life avoiding each other's eyes; they are like people haunted by a ghost. Uncle keeps up an elaborate pretence of having forgotten that you ever existed, and she pretends he's not pre­tending."

"And you?"

"I pretend not to see. And the neighbours pretend there was never any old scandal about you. We all pretend."

"Molly, don't you see how all that will end? Some day you'll come to a split with uncle, a deadly split. That's inevitable, because you're a live human creature."

"Possibly; but it won't be in her life­time."

"She's not so old; she may live another thirty years. And what do you suppose she'd do then?"

"Whatever he told her to do."

"And if he told her to turn you out?"

"She'd do it, of course. But it would kill her. And it won't happen. Remember, I'm just all she's got in the world, even if she is lukewarm. And he knows that; he's grateful to me for sticking to her. Poor thing, she can't help it if she was born that way; I don't suppose the man in Laodicea could. Why didn't the Lord give him more courage, instead of abusing him for being a coward?"

He laughed softly. "At least no one will accuse you of being 'born that way', my dear."

They walked back like old friends, talking of his plans for future work. Since Helen died he had not spoken so confidentially to any one.

For the next month London wore a su

"I suppose she'll write to uncle and com­plain of you?" said Jack. She shrugged her shoulders.

"I dare say. I've given up a good deal for uncle; but I'm not going to give up my only brother for him, and the sooner he under­stands that the better. He'll be angry for a bit, and then give in. He always does when he sees I really mean a thing."

Jack's heart beat quicker as he took out his latch-key. The thing that he had longed for, toiled for, waited for, the close, intimate sister-love, had become an actual possibility at last. If only for one afternoon he would have her alone with him, by his fire, a vivid presence in his life.

"Come in, Molly; I've only a bed-sitting-room, you know. Oh, Mrs. Smith has made a fire! That was thoughtful of her."

Then he drew back suddenly and stood on the threshold, staring blankly into the room. Theo was stretched at full-length on the hearth rug, watching the dance of shadows on the fire-lit ceiling. The hot glow of the red coals shone on his head; on the slim, strong hands with their blunted finger-tips; on the characteristic, irregular lines of chin and brow. He seemed to bask in the heat like a su