Winding Paths Part 69

To Dudley he merely said:

"I know you'll always be a good friend to chum. I'm thankful she will at least have you."

Dudley did not say much in reply, but he looked sufficiently unhappy, and withal so glad of the service, that it spoke volumes.

To Hal he said:

"Chum is very fond of you, Hal. You'll keep an eye on her, won't you?

Perhaps there is no one else but you who can."

Quick tears shone in Hal's eyes.

"Of course I will... two eyes.. I don't know that I shall let her out of my sight at all."

Other evening, because Dudley was so often at Holloway, Hal went to dinner with the Three Graces. d.i.c.k often fetched her from the office, and they went back together. Now that she had become interested in the East End, they had schemes to talk over, and she and Quin were never weary of discussing odd characters there, and odd histories, and plans for different amus.e.m.e.nts.

d.i.c.k joined in a times, but was very busy with his new book.

Alymer Hermon had grown strangely quiet. At intervals, for the sake of old times, he and Hal sparring matches, but if, as wat not very usual, he happened to be at home, he was inclined to do little else but lounge and smoke, and watch her while presumably reading a paper.

Hal did not notice it particularly. She had many other things on her mind just then, and Alymer only filled a very small corner. She was glad he was progressing so satisfactorily. He was well started up the ladder now, and though he had had no single big chance to distinguish himself once for all, it was generally regarded as merely a matter of time. She fancied she did not meet him so much at Lorraine's, but as she did not go nearly so often herself, on account of the Holloway visits, she could not really know.

But she noticed that Lorraine also was a little different - a little more reserved and likewise quieter. She seemed still to be ailing a good deal, and to have lost interest in her profession.

Yet she did not seem unhappy. On the contrary, Hal thought her happier than usual in an undemonstrative, dreamy sort of way. She was interested in the East End social evenings, and on one occasion went herself.

She was also interested in Basil Hayward, and motored up with lovely flowers for him; but she talked far less of the theatre, and seemed indisposed to consider a new part.

"I want a real long rest this summer," she had said, "free from rehearsals and everything."

In mid-June Sir Edwin was married, with a great deal of display, and much paragraphing of newspapers. The day before the wedding, Hal received a beautiful gold watch and chain from him.

"Do not be angry, and do not send it back," he wrote. "Keep it and wear it in memory of some one who was known to you only, and who has since died. To me, it is like honouring the memory of my best self if I can persuade you thus to perpetuate it. Good-bye, Little Girl; and G.o.d bless you."

Hal kept the watch and wore it, and the only one who demurred was Alymer Hermon. It was spoken of at the Cromwell Road flat one evening, when he was present but taking no part in the conversation. d.i.c.k admired it, and she told him it had been given to her recently.

Qin was not there, and a moment later d.i.c.k was called away to speak to some one at the telephone. Alymer looked up at Hal suddenly, with a very direct gaze.

"Lorraine told me Sir Edwin gave you the watch the other day. I don't know how you can keep it, much less wear it. You ought to throw it into the Thames."

Hal flushed up angrily.

"Of course I'm interested in your opinion on the matter," she said, "but I had not thought of asking for it."

Hermon flushed too, but he stood his ground.

"It would be the opinion of most men."

"Most men 'don't appeal to me in the least. I am quite satisfied with my own opinion in this matter."

"Still, I wish you wouldn't wear it," he urged, a little boyishly.

"The man has shown himself a cad. He was in a tight corner, and he let a woman buy him out."

"And don't most men take help from a woman at some time or other?"

He winced, but answered st.u.r.dily:

"Not monetary help. Besides, he didn't worry much about getting you talked of, did he?"

Hal was just going to make a sarcastic retort, when d.i.c.k reappeared, and the matter was dropped.

But when she came to think of it afterwards, she could not but a little struck at Alymer's att.i.tude, and wondered why he had taken so much interest in her action.

A few days later Basil Hayward died.

Hal was not there at the time, but Dudley had not come home at all the previous night, and she was afraid that his friend was worse. In the afternoon she had been detained at the office, and she hardly liked to go up to Holloway in the evening without knowing if she was wanted.

So she sat anxiously waiting for Dudley. When at last he arrived he looked haggard and worn and ill. Hal stood up when he came in, and waited for him to speak.

"It's all over," he said, and sank into his chair as if he were dead-beat.

Hal's hart ached with sympathy. She felt instinctively there was more here than grief for a friend whose death could only be regarded as a merciful release.

She was right. For the last three weeks Dudley and Ethel had been in almost daily contact beside the dying man's bed. Silently, devotedly they had served him together.

But while Ethel was occupied only with the sufferer, Dudley, in the long night-watches, had seen at last what manner of woman it was he had pa.s.sed by for the pretty, shallow, selfish little sister.

Ever since the elopement, three months ago, he had been changing. It had been the bitter blow that had stabbed him awake. In some mysterious way new aspects, new ideas, new understanding, began to develop, where before had been chiefly a narrow outlook and rigid conformity.

It was though in the fulfilling of her work, Life had harrowed his soul with a bitter harrowing, that it might bring forth the better fruit in its season. The harrowing had seared and scarred, but aldready the new richness was showing, the new promise of a n.o.bler future.

The All-wise Mother works very much in human life as she does in nature - topping off a hope here, and a hope there; ploughing, pruning, harrowing the soil and branches of the mind and spirit, that they may bring forth rich fruit in due season.

The life that she pa.s.ses by unheeded, leaving it only to the suns.h.i.+ne and wind and rain, often grows little else but rank vegetation, and develops rust and mould - never the crops that are life-giving and life-sustaining to the world; never the great thoughts, great deeds, wide sympathies, that raise mankind to the skies.

But for Dudley the harrowing was not yet finished. Perhaps, indeed, no moment of all had been quite so bitter as the sense of his utter unworthiness and utter incapability to help Ethel in her hour of direst need.

The mere thought unnerved him for the little he might have done. He was so imbued with the idea of his helplessness, that he could only stammer a few broken sentences she seemed scarcely capable of hearing.

He had but one consolation. Towards the end, the sick man, suddenly opening his eyes, looked round for his sister, and seeing she was absent, had regarded Dudley with his whole face full of a question.

Dudley leant down to him.

"Yes, old chap," he asked tenderly. "What is it?"

"Ethel... chum... you will try and help her?"

Then Dudley, with his new understanding, had grasped all that the dying man hoped.