OF lb MORROW 
 
BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME 
 FROM THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 Henrg M, Sage 
 
 1891 
 
 .K.Z.3.7.t7!:. fp/Af... 
 
 351 3-1 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PR 5354.C5 1889 
 
 Children of to-morrow:a romance. 
 
 3 1924 013 546 530 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3546530 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 Dante Gabriel Rosetti : A Record and Study. 
 Shelley : A Biographical Study. 
 Life of Heine. 
 
 The Life, Works, and Correspondence of Joseph Severn. 
 In Two Vols. (In preparation.) 
 
 The Human Inheritance : and other Poems. 
 
 {Out of print.) 
 Earth's Voices : Transcripts from Nature. 
 Romantic Ballads : and Poems of Phantasy, zd Ed. 
 
 Sonnets of This Century. With Essay on the History 
 and Characteristics of the Sonnet. 
 
 {New Edition. 30th Thousand.) 
 American Sonnets. 
 
 &c. &c. 
 
Children of To-Morrow 
 
 A ROMANCE 
 
 WILLIAM SHARP 
 
 *' How leapt we into this Labyrinth of Love ? " 
 
 Giov. Florio, Seconde Fruies. 
 
 " We, who live more intensely and suffer more acutely than others, 
 are the Children of To-Morrow, for in us the new forces of the future 
 are already astir or even dominant." 
 
 H. P. SiwXarmill. 
 
 ilontion 
 CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY 
 
BALLANTYNE, HANSON 'AND CO. 
 EDINBURGH AND U)NDON 
 
DEDICATED 
 
 IN FRIENDSHIP AND ESTEEM 
 TO 
 
 JAMBS SUTHERLAND COTTON, M.A., 
 
 FELLOW AND LECTURER OF QUEEn's COLLEGE, OXFORD, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "INDIA,'' 
 
 ETC., ETC. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW- 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 The twilight of a raw evening early in May dimly 
 pervaded Felix Dane's- studio, sombre with the 
 drawn blue-black window-screens. The fire smoul- 
 dered in the grate, although every now and again the 
 flame spurted upward and cast fantastic flickerings 
 athwart the walls, or ruddy gleams upon the figures, 
 carven in marble or wrought in clay, which occupied 
 so much of the underspace of the lofty apartment. 
 The shadows were so deep that neither the size of 
 the room nor what it contained would have been 
 obvious to any intruder — to whom little would 
 have been visible but the partial outlines of various 
 sculptures, a white mass upon the floor, and a man, 
 with bent body and face shrouded in his hands, 
 seated in an arm-chair, a few yards from the fire. 
 By the side of the chair, to the right, was a low 
 table, whereon stood a cup of untasted coffee, 
 
z CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 several unopened letters, a copy of a weekly paper, 
 and a slim parchment-covered volume, with the 
 printed contents downward, as though the reader 
 had been interrupted, and had so placed the book 
 for easier resumption. 
 
 Had any of Felix Dane's friends observed him 
 at this moment he or she would have concluded 
 that the sculptor was asleep. It could , scarcely 
 have been imagined that he was in any strait of 
 wretchedness. Successful men are not supposed 
 to suffer from any profound sense of despair — 
 the lot, by common consent, of the ill- equipped, 
 the baffled, the already doomed. And that he 
 was, in a sense, greatly successful, not even 
 his rivals and detractors could deny. Was he 
 not still young — only in his thirty-fifth year? 
 Had he not achieved almost phenomenal success 
 as a sculptor? Had he not in Lydia Dane a 
 wife as handsome as she was distinguished; 
 blessed, moreover, with several hundreds a year 
 in her own right, and- with influential family 
 connections? To be dissatisfied in the face of 
 such weal would surely be iniquitous ; to sit in an 
 arm-chair in the dusk, with hands shrouding drawn 
 features, and a dull sense of despair and self-con- 
 tempt aching at the heart, would be folly as weak 
 as that of the Oriental king who, after having en- 
 graved There is no reality but Allah upon his palace- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 3 
 
 wall, fled from his harem and vast wealth to dwell 
 solitary in waste places. 
 
 Yet the silent occupant of the studio was not 
 asleep or physically exhausted. He, Felix Dane, 
 the most successful, and at one time the most pro- 
 mising, of English sculptors, the friend of the 
 leading painters, poets, and novelists of the day, 
 was so sick at heart, there in his well-known 
 Hampstead studio, the Sycamores, that he would 
 fain, in deepest earnest and without affectation 
 of renunciation, have forfeited position, compara- 
 tive wealth, and the still more cherished things 
 of his life, if only the old impulse, the old in- 
 sight, the old passion, might be his again, and the 
 hope and dream of his soul be once more no idle 
 fantasy. 
 
 He was suddenly startled from his attitude of 
 dejection by the abrupt entry of some evidently 
 unexpected visitor. The room was so enveloped 
 in shadow that the new-comer did not see the look 
 of chagrin and momentary anger that changed 
 Dane's expression. 
 
 " Are you there, Felix ? Why, what are you 
 sitting here for in this gloom ? The fire is almost 
 out, and it is wretchedly cold." 
 
 " That's just it : the fire is almost out," Dane 
 muttered as he rose and advanced towards his 
 wife. 
 
4 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 "What is all this on the floor, Felix? Has 
 there been an accident ? " 
 
 "Nothing that you need trouble about, Lydia. 
 Let us go into the house : you should not 
 come along that cold passage or into this 
 place." 
 
 " No ; light the lamp." 
 
 Without a word, Dane turned and lit a large 
 chain-lamp which swung from the ceiling, and 
 thereafter the candles on the projecting shelf of the 
 fireplace. As he did so, his face was reflected in 
 the antique Italian mirror which hung above it, 
 and Mrs. Dane found herself curiously regarding it 
 — as one might look for the first time at a stranger 
 in whom one was more than ordinarily interested 
 and had heard much discussed. 
 
 The face was that of a man who while still 
 young in years and energy had yet lived rapidly. 
 The features were fairly regular, the nose slightly 
 aquiline, the complexion pale, the forehead broad 
 rather than high, the eyes large and lustrous, but 
 of such an indeterminate hue that they at different 
 times appeared as dark-grey, purple-black, or gipsy- 
 brown. The hair that clustered about the forehead 
 was of a deep brown, every here and there just 
 threaded with grey. The general impression given 
 by the features was of mingled sensitiveness and 
 strength — as of one whose nerves were very mortal 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 5 
 
 indeed, but whose will was potent and beyond the 
 sway of other minds. A characteristic poise of the 
 head — backward thrown, half-interrogatively, half- 
 defiantly — added to the effect of keen mental alert- 
 ness which his personality had upon most people. 
 Tall, and powerfully built, he appeared more robust 
 than he actually was. 
 
 As his wife looked at his mirrored face she 
 noticed that some recent powerful emotion had left 
 its traces. She was too well accustomed to signs 
 of weariness upon these handsome features not to 
 know that the strained lines about the forehead 
 and mouth betokened no ordinary ennui. 
 
 Nor was it to be wondered at that casual acquaint- 
 ances and strangers regarded the twain as a couple 
 blessed by the gods. Mrs. Dane was what many 
 people called beautiful. She was certainly un- 
 usually handsome, and had an air of distinction, of 
 hereditary refinement, which in itself was full of 
 charm. With the advent of her thirtieth year she 
 had lost little of that which makes early woman- 
 hood so exquisite, for she had never been youth- 
 ful save in years ; and those who remembered her 
 on her twentieth birthday, when as Miss Lydia 
 Falconer she was presented at Court by her worldly 
 old aunt, Lady Margaret Trevor, could see little 
 change, save that of the inevitable, however slow, 
 growth towards maturity, in the Mrs. Felix Dane 
 
6 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 of thirty. Somewhat above the average height of 
 her sex, she had the further advantage of a good 
 figure : her features were regular, and her hazel 
 eyes could do everything but glow with tenderness. 
 The pale-brown hair, which, she habitually wore 
 coiled in broad plaits, exactly suited her complexion, 
 which was of almost waxen delicacy ; but composed 
 and dignified as she was with the stagnation ot 
 a sterile spiritual nature, her voice betrayed that 
 gentleness was not her most dominant trait. 
 It was firm, almost bell-like, in ordinary utter- 
 ance ; at other times it was apt to be hard and 
 metallic. 
 
 When Dane turned from the fireplace and 
 looked at his wife, the ghost of a mocking 
 smile played for a moment about his mouth. 
 She was staring now at him, now at what 
 lay in a heap upon the floor — a mass of shape- 
 less clay, yet in parts showing some human curve 
 or contour, a fragment of an arm, a divided 
 torso. 
 
 " I thought that something was the matter. 
 Was that due to an accident ? " and Mrs. Dane's 
 voice was almost tender, for she could understand 
 what a blow it would be to a sculptor to have his 
 best year's work suddenly brought to ruin ; almost 
 as tragical, to her, as the loss of valuable jewellery 
 or the failure of one of those monetary specula- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 7 
 
 tions wherewith she delighted to stimulate her 
 sluggish excitement. 
 
 " No, Lydia, it's my own doing." 
 
 " Your own doing ! What foolery is this, Felix ? 
 You are no longer the moonstruck boy who used 
 to vapour about ideal life and all that kind of 
 thing : you do not mean to tell me that you have 
 been so insane as to destroy that ' Hertha ' over 
 which you have already wasted so much time ? " 
 
 " Do not excite yourself, my dear Lydia. It is 
 my affair, and not yours. The wretched thing is 
 destroyed, and there's an end of it." 
 
 " But it ts my affair. You have done almost 
 nothing for months save to work away at ' Hertha:' 
 it was to be a great feature at next year's Academy, 
 and to bring you increased prosperity and influence, 
 and in all probability would have assured you the 
 next R.A.-ship." 
 
 "That is an honour I can very well dispense 
 with, ma chere. I know too many Academicians 
 to be in the least degree desirous of official associa- 
 tion with them. I admit, however, that if I had 
 not demolished ' Hertha ' she would probably have 
 brought about my election. She was so deadly 
 commonplace that she would have enraptured the 
 academical mind." 
 
 " I have no patience with you, Felix. You 
 throw away all your best chances ; indeed, it is 
 
8 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 a wonder to me how you have gained your pre- 
 sent reputation. I suppose some of your precious 
 poets or fledgling artists have been persuading you 
 to be truer to yourself, whatever that may mean. 
 I see you have the Metropolitan there : I noticed that 
 some scribbler, who had much better have attended 
 to his own business, said you might have done, 
 and even. yet might do, this, that, and the other 
 thing, but that, like many another man in art and 
 literature, you had sold your genius for excess of 
 gold. And you allow yourself to be influenced 
 by that kind of folly ! You pay attention to the 
 patronising nonsense of an art critic who would 
 only too thankfully sell his genius for what he 
 calls excess of gold, and " 
 
 " Permit me to interrupt your eloquent denuncia- 
 tions, Lydia, to inform you that the article in the 
 Metropolitan is written by Harold Field, whom you 
 as well as I know to be sincere as a man, loyal as 
 a friend, and one of the truest and keenest critics 
 we have." 
 
 " I do not call a man a friend who could write 
 that article, and I shall tell Mr. Field so when 
 next I see him." 
 
 "He wrote it because he is my friend, and 
 because he believes in me notwithstanding all the 
 poor work I have turned out." 
 
 Lydia looked contemptuously at her husband, 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. g 
 
 as she daintily picked her way through the debris 
 of what was once Hertha, the Earth-Goddess, and 
 stood between the fire and the low table. 
 
 " I hate mock modesty." 
 
 Dane made no reply, but looked quietly at his 
 wife, with such a curious mocking light in his eyes 
 that she felt uncomfortable. 
 
 "And now, Lydia, perhaps you will allow me 
 to escort you to the drawing-room. This is the 
 night of Sarasate's concert, is it not ? I under- 
 stand that Adama Acosta, the ' amateur-genius ' of 
 one society chronicler, the ' mad Jew ' of another, 
 will for the first time play in public — persuaded 
 thereto by Sarasate, it is said." 
 
 Lydia listened with sullen disdain, and partly to 
 show her indifference, partly from that craving of 
 jealous curiosity which consumes such natures as 
 hers, lifted the slim down-turned volume which lay 
 upon the little table. As she did so, one of the 
 letters fell to the floor, to be immediately picked up 
 and opened by her husband. 
 
 The latter was interrupted in perusal by an 
 abrupt exclamation. 
 
 " Sanpriel ? Who is Sanpriel ? " 
 
 " I know no more than you do ; for I see that 
 you have read the inscription on the fly-leaf." 
 
 "What impertinence ! — ' To Felix Dane, in admira- 
 tion of his earlier work.^ " As she scornfully com- 
 
lo CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 mented on the inscription she glanced at the first 
 page, which bore the curious title, " White Nights — 
 by Sanpriel— Printed for the Author," followed by 
 the printers' name and the date. 
 
 " Ah, some budding poet or soulful maiden who 
 is in mortal fear of the critics, or in dread, perhaps, 
 of what 'papa' would say! I congratulate, you 
 upon your new admirer, Felix." 
 
 Dane was too famiHar with his wife's habit of 
 sneering at all the things he most cared for, to 
 pay, as a rule, any attention to her scornful re- 
 marks, but for some reason he was deeply annoyed 
 at what she had just said. 
 
 " Give me that book, if you please, Lydia. 
 There are things you should not interfere with, 
 and this is one of them." 
 
 "Ah, here is a clue to the mystery ! A poem 
 called ' Hertha,' and turned down at a certain 
 page. . . . So, it is this young person's rhymed 
 nonsense that has made you dissatisfied with your 
 ' Hertha ' ? " 
 
 " I did not mean to tell you, for I knew that 
 you could not, or would not, understand ; but as 
 you have discovered what you call the clue, I 
 may assure you that you have at last gained the 
 information you, want. In that poem of 'Hertha,' 
 Sanpriel, whoever he or she may be, has a 
 finer conception than ever mine was. I was 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. n 
 
 vaguelj' dissatisfied with my work from the outset, 
 and latterly came to despise both it and myself; 
 and when this afternoon I gave up in despair, and 
 having glanced at that book, which had been 
 sent to me, found there a higher conception of 
 ' Hertha,' I had the good taste as well as the 
 strong impulse to destroy my handiwork. Hence- 
 forth I'll do nothing in ideal sculpture that I do 
 not know to be good ; and if I cannot succeed, 
 why, then, I'll restrict myself to portrait-sculp- 
 ture." 
 
 " I do not think our marriage has brought us 
 much happiness, Felix. You have disappointed me. 
 1 thought you would make a great name for your- 
 self, though I always did consider you were foolish 
 to discard painting for sculpture. Why couldn't 
 you have kept up both, for that matter ? And now 
 you are going to throw away all the chances you — 
 and I — have so laboriously won. And for what ? 
 For an ideal that does not exist, for a phantom of 
 your imagination ! If you would be like other 
 men, you would be much happier, much more re- 
 spected, much wealthier and more influential, and 
 would make me much more content with my 
 life." 
 
 " How tenderly considerate of you, Lydia ! But 
 you see, as I told you even before I married you, 
 I love my art above everything else — and not even 
 
12 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 to please j'OM can I discredit such talent as I may 
 possess. But as I have already said, let us leave 
 this cold room ; and don't you think, my dear, that 
 we might as well bury the tomahawk ? We have 
 long ago threshed out this subject of loyalty to 
 artistic ideals, and as we shall never agree, we 
 but waste our breath in vain assertions and 
 denials." 
 
 While he was speaking, his wife glanced 
 through the sextains on the pages which had 
 wrought him to such wrath with his own work : — 
 
 AU things before her were laid bare. 
 All knowledge and all power she had; 
 She knew no sorrow, felt no, care. 
 Had perfect vision, and was glad: 
 
 Even as in a glass she saw 
 
 The evolution of one law. 
 
 She watched the life of nations grow. 
 
 She heard the sound of puny wars. 
 
 Each mockery of triumph blow 
 
 Beneath the same unchanging stars : 
 She heard the sound of prayers rise. 
 Felt the old stillness 'midst the skies. 
 
 Within her brain each thought that passed 
 
 Within the minds of men was heldj 
 
 Her gaze on each new dreajn was castj 
 
 To her the mists were all dispelled; 
 She saw in flawless nakedness 
 Each truth that man would curse or bless. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 13 
 
 She had strange dreams, she felt the throb 
 Of the great -world-heart pulse and swing; 
 She heard the low continuous sob 
 Which universal death did wring 
 
 Amidst the loud discordant strife 
 
 For ever echoing from life. 
 
 To her all passions were as things 
 
 Of little heed, like leaves that fall. 
 
 Dead leaves the wind takes up and flings 
 
 Aside: der her they had no thrall — 
 
 She knew their heights and depths, but wise. 
 She looked through each with cold calm eyes. 
 
 How little seemed each living thing 
 How puny life of man — brute — flower : 
 And yet, how wonderful the Spring 
 That with regenerative power 
 
 Swept round the earth — how vast, how great, 
 
 Huma?iity confederate ! 
 
 This Hertha saw, and was content : 
 What mattered each small life was vain 
 When all in one great whole were blent. 
 When all were links in one vast chain 
 That rose from eartKs remotest sod 
 And passed the stars and reached to God! 
 
 " They may be fine and may be poor : to me 
 they are simply meaningless." 
 
 " Lydia, did you hear me ask for that book ? 
 Be so good as to return it to me." 
 
 With a sudden passionate gesture Mrs. Dane 
 threw it backward on to the smouldering fire. 
 Whether by the momentary draught thus caused, 
 
14 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 or accidentally, a red tongue of flame spurted forth, 
 hungrily licked the leaves, and before Felix was 
 able to snatch it away it was ablaze. 
 
 To Mrs. Dane's surprise — an agreeable surprise, 
 for" she had expected bitter reproaches for what 
 she could not but realise was malicious folly — ^her 
 husband took her action very quietly. He had 
 tried to rescue the slim booklet from destruction, 
 but had only succeeded in tearing away the outer 
 cover and the fly-leaf: the former he threw back 
 upon the coals, evanescently aflame again, and the 
 latter, curled at the edges with heat and partially 
 browned, he leisurely folded and placed in his 
 breast-pocket. He then lifted his letters, and 
 crossed the studio to the door, which he opened 
 and stood beside till his wife should pass out. 
 
 " If you have anything to say to me, Felix, I 
 should prefer it to this solemn silence ? " 
 
 " I have nothing to say to you, except to re- 
 mark that I forbid you on any pretext whatever, 
 unless invited by myself, to enter my studio again. 
 I must emphasise this command by the further 
 condition, that if you pay no attention to it I shall 
 work elsewhere." 
 
 Without a word, husband and wife walked along 
 the tiled and covered passage which connected the 
 studio and the house. > When they entered the 
 latter they walked across the hall — beautiful with 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 15 
 
 a falling fountain and a mass of greenery, and, on 
 pedestals, various replicas of famous sculptures — 
 and upstairs to the drawing-room, a large and 
 handsome apartment, which, notwithstanding the 
 refinement and taste displayed in its decoration, 
 had 3'et not the appearance of a room habitually 
 lived in by occupants who felt at home. 
 
 " Some of Dane's marble has got into his draw- 
 ing-room," a friend once remarked to Arlo Spence, 
 the famous impressionist and wit, who had at 'once 
 replied, " Yes, his ' Lydia ' is there." 
 
 There was a pause for some minutes after 
 entrance. Lydia reclined on a couch, and played 
 idly with a paper-knife ; Felix stood by the fire 
 and read his hitherto unopened letters. When he 
 had finished he glanced at his wife, and was half- 
 bewildered, half-amused to find himself admiring 
 her. 
 
 The subdued light, roseate in hue, from the huge 
 lamp on the book-table threw a warm gleam upon 
 her face ; the firelight shone and cast flickering 
 shadows upon her graceful figure ; and as she lay 
 there, Lydia Dane appeared the embodiment of re- 
 fined grace and beauty. 
 
 As Felix looked at her he realised, all the more 
 vividly on account of the gulf which separated them, 
 how fair to look upon his wife was ; and how, though 
 it never had appealed, though it did not now strongly 
 
i6 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 appeal to him, her beauty was of a nature that 
 fascinated many men. 
 
 " There are two kinds of women," he caught 
 himself repeating under his breath — " there are 
 two kinds of women — so says the Persian poet : 
 those who are made of fire, and those who are 
 made of water. Those created from fire know how 
 to love, and as a reward their hearts become as 
 molten gold, and they enjoy the second life : those 
 created from water are but semblances of women — 
 their hearts grow colder and colder till they be- 
 come blocks of ice — and when the wind of Death 
 comes they melt into nothingness, like the rime 
 of frost before the sun." 
 
 " Felix." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 "Was it not Gabriel Ford who commissioned 
 that ' Hertha ' ? " 
 
 " Yes. Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " Because I presume that he will hold you to 
 your bargain. You cannot substitute some other 
 work, whether inferior or superior, for it. More- 
 over, he is to dine with us to-night, and accom- 
 pany us to the concert ; so it might be as well if 
 you were prepared with your answer in case he 
 should ask to see or inquire about ' Hertha.' " 
 
 " You need not be uneasy. Ford commissioned 
 it, it is true, but only conditionally on my part. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 17 
 
 I said that if I sold it at all, he should have the 
 option of purchase. I warned him that I might 
 not sell it at all, or that I might never go on 
 with it. Moreover, I am not anxious for any 
 of my work to go to Ford ; nor do I imagine 
 that his wish to ' patronise ' me is wholly dis- 
 interested." 
 
 There was no sneer in Dane's concluding words, 
 and he did not even look at his wife as he spoke ; 
 yet she flushed, and a swift look of passing anger 
 came into her eyes. He knew that her fair skin 
 had reddened, and that her eyes were momentarily 
 alight ; and, though his gaze was averted, she too 
 knew that he knew it. 
 
 For though never a hint of the matter had 
 crossed the lips of either, both were aware that 
 Gabriel Ford entertained a more than merely 
 friendly admiration for Lydia. Felix himself was 
 indifferent, partly because his wife had alienated 
 herself from his sympathies, partly because he felt 
 assured that no breath of passion could do more 
 than rufQe for a moment the frozen calm of her 
 nature. Ford, the handsome and accomplished 
 but reputedly unscrupulous son of the millionaire 
 banker who controlled the great house of Fiora- 
 vante & Co., was not a man for whom he cared, 
 though the extreme interest which the history of 
 Israel and most things Judaic had for Felix Dane 
 
1 8 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 had prompted him to familiarity with Gabriel Ford, 
 who was quite unaware of the kind of interest he 
 excited, and, indeed, would have resented it, for 
 he never voluntarily admitted anything more 
 than a business relationship with the Hebrew 
 merchant-princes and bankers. In truth, Dane's 
 apprehension of the facts was based rather 
 upon vague surmise than upon actual knowledge. 
 Not that Ford was an ordinary Jew. Neither 
 he nor his father, Sir Lewis, belonged to the 
 Jewish community in London ; nor did either give 
 in adherence to any religion, save such as might 
 be implied in a greater largess to the Church 
 of England than to other ecclesiastical institu- 
 tions. But racially both were Jews, and 
 none the less so though in features they were 
 Caucasian rather than Semitic. The Fords, the 
 Montagues, the Despards, and a few other wealthy 
 families occupied a strange position. They were 
 not Christian, nor were they Jewish, in faith ; yet 
 they never intermarried save with the sons and 
 daughters of Israel. The orthodox Semites re- 
 garded them jealously, hating them because they 
 mixed mainly in Christian society, and. made 
 their wives and children cease from attendance 
 at the synagogue, but eager not to offend them 
 on account of their paramount influence and also, 
 to no slight extent, because of their reputed 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 19 
 
 earnest though disguised sympathies with Judaic 
 federation. 
 
 The silence which had ensued upon Dane's 
 words was broken by the entry of a servant, 
 who announced Mr. Gabriel Ford. 
 
 A tall, fair-haired man, slender of build, smooth 
 of face, and of a complexion that was almost 
 girlishly olive - toned, bowed as he approached 
 and took Mrs. Dane's hand in his own. Though 
 handsome, he would not have been a noteworthy 
 man but for his eyes, which were impenetrably 
 dark — black as night, though 'the deep night 
 of the South, not that of the North, blankly 
 nigrescent. 
 
 In the interval which elapsed before Felix — who 
 had left the room as soon as he had greeted the 
 visitor — returned in evening-dress, Lydia alluded 
 to the " Hertha " incident. 
 
 Ford listened, with a curious smile on his face 
 — a smile that somehow displeased his listener, for 
 she suddenly became more reserved. 
 
 Then, as if he had not apprehended what she 
 had said, and without preamble, he looked at her 
 intently as he uttered a remark whose abrupt irre- 
 levancy startled her. 
 
 " I do not understand ? " 
 
 " I repeat : it is just ten years ago, Lydia, since 
 you and I first met. You had not then encoun- 
 
20 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 tered Dane. Your excellent aunt yeafned after the 
 Fioravante coffers, but mistrusted the keeper's in- 
 tentions. Eh ? Has it ever occurred to — to — you 
 that as your aunt dropped a goodly flavouring of 
 gall into your pot of honey, you should discard the 
 mixture and select a new jar for yourself? " 
 
 " You are as fond of enigmas as ever, Gabriel. 
 All that I concern myself about is — that the past 
 ts the past. You and I might have — but why 
 talk of ' mights ' ? There is now a depth between 
 us which is bridgeless. But even in our friend- 
 ship you must be more careful. I know that my 
 husband suspects your attitude towards me. By 
 the way, Gabriel, do you know what he told me, I 
 suppose in some fit of prejudice ? He said you 
 were a Jew." 
 
 " What then ? " 
 
 "What then? Why, of course, I contradicted 
 him ; and with that arrogant gravity of his, he went 
 on to state that though you and Sir Lewis were 
 what is called ' enfranchised Jews,' you were racially 
 so exclusive that neither you nor any of your set 
 would, in any possible circumstances, marry a 
 Christian." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 "You are very laconic, my good Gabriel. Of 
 course it is not true ? " 
 
 " It is not true." 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 21 
 
 " What is not true ? " asked Felix, who at this 
 moment entered the room. 
 
 " That I am about to conduct the Paris house of 
 Fioravante & Co.," Ford answered with quiet readi- 
 ness ; " for though London has more drawbacks 
 than any other great city, it is yet the best place to 
 live in." 
 
 " The best for us, Ford, perhaps ; but not for 
 the three million or so of people of limited means 
 and of no means. A great city is a great ulcer." 
 
 " Heine says our civilisation is cancerous, you 
 know." 
 
 " Heine's own ' cancer of life ' made him say 
 many such things. Lydia, did you reply to the 
 Walfords that it would be impossible for me to 
 accept their invitation just now ; and have you 
 made up your mind as to whether you are going 
 or not ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I am to join them in Dorset to-morrow. 
 I told them you could not accompany me. Are you 
 going to the Cranes' ? You promised Sir Arthur, 
 that day you introduced him to me at the Gros- 
 venor Gallery, that you would spend a few days 
 at Forest Manor. Mr. Ford is going ; you might 
 journey to-morrow in company." 
 
 " No. I do not feel inclined to go anywhere at 
 present. I have too much to do." 
 
 " So it would seem," Lydia replied, in a low sar- 
 
22 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 castic tone. " Ah, there's the gong ; let us go down 
 to dinner." 
 
 So emphatic had Felix been in his determination 
 not to pay his promised visit to Sir Arthur Crane, 
 that Lydm was very considerably surprised when, 
 later, during the homeward drive, her husband 
 informed her that he too would leave home on 
 the morrow for a few days, and accompany 
 Gabriel Ford to the Cranes' place near Grantley. 
 
( 23 ) 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Through most of the concert Felix Dane sat in 
 mental and physical apathy. Not even the magic 
 of Sarasate's violin-playing roused him from his 
 despondency, almost over-sensitive as he generally 
 was to music ; and, with curious introspection, he 
 caught himself watching, with a scrutiny at once 
 observant and indifferent, his wife and Gabriel 
 Ford, as they sat two or three rows ahead of him. 
 He had been glad when he learned that the three 
 seats were not together, and only too willingly ob- 
 tained isolation at the expense of Lydia's company. 
 While the chords and sharp minors vibrated 
 stridently or through infinite delicacies of melody, 
 he pondered deeply on all manner of trifles — upon 
 the texture of an Oriental shawl a few yards away 
 from him, upon where the violets which lay enmassed 
 against yonder girl's bosom had grown, upon what 
 fate was in store for the tea-rose that nestled in 
 the dusky hair of the brunette just in front of him. 
 Often he would look at Lydia ; sometimes in un- 
 conscious admiration of her sculpturesque beauty. 
 
24 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 again in vague wonder at the fact that that woman, 
 so remote, so alien, so all unknown to him, should 
 be his wife. Nothing of that familiarity of deep 
 love, which is as the dew upon flowers, had ever 
 existed between them. Love is not love when its 
 buoyancy has vanished ; and never in the love, 
 in the affection which at first had mildly existed in 
 the heart of either for the other, had there been 
 one buoyant moment. At Ford also he looked as 
 though upon one of whom he was ignorant and to 
 whom he was indifferent : perhaps a sensation of 
 repulsion, physical in part, rendered his indiffer- 
 ence less fundamentally real. 
 
 Of his fallen aspirations, his slackening cunning 
 of mind and hand, even of his ruined " Hertha," 
 he thought nothing, or next to nothing. It was 
 all a blank, a sense of malfortune, a weariness, a 
 shadow whence there was no escape. 
 
 The sudden cessation of the song that had 
 followed Sarasate's last fantasia, the loud applause 
 that was sweeter in the ears of the singer than her 
 own notes, and a silence, filled as it were with the 
 palpitation of expectancy, stirred him to partial 
 attention. Ere he could relapse into apathy again, 
 his gaze was attracted by the strange figure which 
 appeared before the footlights. 
 
 Rumour had long wagged her tireless tongue 
 concerning Adama Acosta, the Jewish violinist^ 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 25 
 
 whose genius, it was said, Sarasate himself revered. 
 Little was known of him, scarce more than that he 
 was the child of the mad Dutch organist, Salathiel 
 Acosta, and a Spanish Countess, who in the fervour 
 of her passion for "the angel Salathiel" — as he 
 was often called on account of his extraordinary- 
 beauty — had given up position, kindred, nation, 
 and religion for love's sake, in the days when the 
 hereditary taint in the Acostas had not shown 
 itself; that, at an early age, their child Adama had 
 shown unmistakable genius, but was subject to 
 periods of melancholia, if not of actual insanity — 
 an idiosyncrasy, however, which had not prevented 
 his marriage with a very beautiful Englishwoman, 
 of whom nothing was ever known save that she 
 had spent most of her life in Mexico and was 
 possessed of considerable fortune. 
 
 Adama was reputed to be the father of a son — 
 of a daughter — of several children, all of whom 
 were mad, all of whom were musicians, all of 
 whom were beautiful, all of whom were deformed 
 — and so forth. 
 
 Only a few knew that his wife had died in 
 childbirth, and that the sole offspring of the 
 marriage was a girl, who was neither mad nor a 
 musician, but certainly rarely beautiful. His one 
 intimate friend, Sir Arthur Crane, knew that " the 
 divine amateur" had shown traces of his heredi- 
 
26 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 tary malady not long after his wife's death, and 
 that at intervals a shadow gloomed the imagery of 
 the brain and veiled the outer world in folds none 
 the less impenetrable because phantasmal. Sir 
 Arthur knew, also, of the strange fate which marked 
 out the Acostas. For several generations each 
 head of the family had suffered from intermittent 
 insanity, but in no instance had any daughter of 
 the line showed even the faintest trace of the 
 hereditary taint — neither she nor her children, nor 
 her children's children. Adama had once told his 
 friend that six generations back an Acosta, a 
 married girl, had fled with a Christian ; that she 
 had been recaptured and literally starved to death 
 as the penalty of a sin worse in the eyes of Israel 
 than murder itself ; but that ere death had relieved 
 her from her shame and sufferings, she had cursed 
 the men of her blood unto the seventh generation, 
 setting upon them the bane of madness, and upon 
 the women of her kindred, one in every seven, the 
 lust of alien beauty. And thus had it been. Unto 
 each Acosta there had been born but one son, and 
 to him madness in some form or other, temporally 
 or intransiently, had sooner or later come ; and 
 though not once did any of the women of the 
 house betray aught of the mysterious malady, 
 every now and again one — so Adama declared — 
 had committed, or attempted to commit, the unfor- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 27 
 
 givable sin. It was this secret curse, with 
 its uncertain visitations, much more than his 
 possession of ample means, that made the 
 public appearance of "the seventh and last 
 Acosta" — as he sometimes, to his friend Crane, 
 called himself — so intermittent, and latterly so 
 rare. Of his genius there was no question, 
 though in magic of touch he was surpassed 
 not only by his pupil Sarasate, but by one 
 or two other famous violinists who daily gave 
 to their art hours of manual labour, a mechanical 
 but necessary task of which he felt himself in- 
 capable. 
 
 Dane was not prepared to find in Adama Acosta 
 so striking a personality, nor, indeed, a man appa- 
 rently so advanced in years. 
 
 Tall, but very sparely built, with bent shoul- 
 ders ; with long grey-white hair hanging from a 
 head which would have been remarkable for its mas- 
 sive dignity had it not been for the face, so pain- 
 ful in its intensity, death-pale, cadaverous, baleful, 
 save when the eyes lit up with soft emotion. * As 
 soon, however, as the bow moved across the strings 
 of the violin, the whole expression and attitude 
 of the man changed. With head , poised like a 
 hawk's, with limbs trembling from nervous excite- 
 ment, and with eager, almost radiant glances across 
 the sea of unknown faces, he began his famous 
 
28 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " By the Waters of Babylon." The wailing cad- 
 ences, the passionate sorrow, the undertone of ex- 
 ultant fervour, electrified the audience — and with 
 them, Felix Dane. 
 
 As the last chords resounded through the hall, 
 Dane's gaze was suddenly attracted by a face 
 so beautiful that a thrill, subtler than any caused 
 by the violin music, stirred every nerve in his 
 body. The girl, apparently about twenty, or per- 
 haps a year or two more, sat at the end of the 
 row to his left. He could see only her profile, 
 but the poise of the head, the mass of lustrous 
 bronze-hued hair, the mobile features and noble 
 contours of the face, the complexion pale and deli- 
 cate as the most transparent white amber, and the 
 expression, rapt and wonderful under the influence 
 of Acosta's strains — all came upon him as a revela- 
 tion. Often, how often ! he had dreamed of this 
 ideal beauty ; and though in London, in Paris, in 
 Rome, in Venice, in the Greek isles, he had en- 
 countered women of rare loveliness of face and 
 figure, never had his eyes rested on one like 
 unto the girl upon whom he now gazed as though 
 fascinated. 
 
 From the cessation of applause and the moving 
 to and fro of members of the audience he was 
 vaguely aware that the first part of the concert was 
 over. With an impatient exclamation he turned 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 29 
 
 to answer some remark from his right-hand neigh- 
 bour, but when he turned again he noticed, with a 
 pang of disappointment, whose bitterness almost 
 made him smile at his folly, that the girl had 
 gone. 
 
 Starting to his feet, he caught a glimpse of a 
 tall, lithe figure passing down the sideway, and by 
 the movement and the gleam of the hair rather 
 than by the back-turned looks and whispered ques- 
 tions of those past whom she walked, he knew that 
 his vision had been no phantom. With eager 
 haste, and heedless of the salutes and occasional 
 friendly summons from acquaintances, he gained 
 the entrance-door, but too late to encounter the 
 object of his pursuit. 
 
 Baffled, he sought the doorkeeper, who, to 
 his delight, was able to give him the information 
 he asked, though he moved away in impatient 
 chagrin when he learned that " Miss Acosta " 
 would not return to her seat, as she had driven 
 home with her father, who was not to play again 
 that evening. No, the man had added in reply to 
 a final question, he did not know where Mr. Acosta 
 lived. 
 
 On his way back to his seat he met Ford, who 
 had been conveying a message from Mrs. Dane to 
 some friends she had descried. 
 
 " By the way, Ford, am I right in thinking 
 
30 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 that you said Adama Acosta and his daughter 
 were to be at the Cranes' ? " 
 
 "Yes, I said so. They are going down to 
 Yorkshire by the midnight mail — on account of 
 some whim of Acosta's as to travelhng by night. 
 But how do you know there is a daughter? I 
 don't beheve there are three people in this room 
 who have met her ? " 
 
 " Do you know her ? " 
 
 "Yes — intimately," Ford replied, with a ghost 
 of a smile, and with a look in his eyes that 
 made Felix vaguely uncomfortable. "Ah, there's 
 Signora Alba coming forward ; we must be seated. 
 One moment ; have you made up your mind not 
 to go to the Cranes' ? " 
 
 " No, I feel I need a change after all ; so I'll 
 run down to-morrow for a couple of days or so. 
 We shall meet at King's Cross, I suppose ? " 
 
 Throughout the rest of the concert Felix sat 
 in a dream. All manner of fantasies beset him. 
 He fancied that he had lived through many 
 earthly existences, and that in each he had met 
 and loved the beautiful girl whom he now knew 
 to be the daughter of Adama Acosta; that they 
 had endured many perils together, but that love 
 had guided them aright ; that they had rejoiced in 
 Greece, that they had laughed in Pagan Rome, 
 that they had intrigued in Medicean Florence, that 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 31 
 
 they had played desperate hazards for passion's 
 sake in the Venice of the Doges, and so forth in a 
 strange medley of all lands and epochs. A new 
 life began to animate his being ; the blood coursed 
 more swiftly; his latent energy bestirred itself. 
 Hopes, aspirations, determinations that had long 
 lain dormant haunted the chambers of his brain ; 
 and when the closing music of the trio of stringed 
 instruments was at an end, he rose to join his wife 
 with a feehng to which he had long been strange, 
 a sense of physical exhilaration, of mental elation 
 even, almost of triumph. 
 
 But when Ford had bidden good-night, and the 
 carriage had started, the old weariness flowed in 
 upon him again like a tide. At all times magneti- 
 cally sensitive, he was almost invariably conscious 
 of the drain upon his inner self in Lydia's presence, 
 of her malign influence upon his artistic nature, 
 of her cold, calm, sponge-like absorption of his 
 mental and spiritual vigour. Her silence was not 
 less exigent than her questioning : it was her 
 personality, antipathetic to the last degree, that 
 rendered life in her company mere existence. 
 
 In common with most highly-strung natures, 
 Felix experienced similar sensations, in more or 
 less acute form, with several people with whom he 
 was closely related, or whom he affectionately re- 
 garded. With his mother, for instance, whom he 
 
32 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 certainly loved genuinely if with no depth of 
 emotion, he could not remain for any length of 
 time, for Mrs. Erskine (for she had married again 
 shortly before Felix had wedded Lydia) was but 
 the passive counterpart of her daughter-in-law. 
 But, on most occasions, he could control or disguise 
 his sense of resilient energy — his feeling, as he 
 once put it to Harold Field, of being plucked feather 
 by feather, and left naked and void of motive-power. 
 Too often, however, he found himself quite unable 
 to subdue the sense of revolt with which Lydia 
 inspired him, struggle against it as he might. In 
 vain he conjured up all her good qualities, some 
 genuine, some imaginary ; in vain he placed him- 
 self in the wrong ; in vain, in despair, he leant as 
 it were against the very frail bulwark of his affec- 
 tion ; for over and above all crept the cold, resistless 
 tide of Lydia's spiritual impassivity. Thus when 
 alone with her he generally took refuge in silence, 
 or in the utterance of such commonplaces as occurred 
 to him in what he vaguely felt to be some happy 
 fortuitous way. 
 
 In the long drive Hampstead-ward husband and 
 wife spoke little. As the carriage rattled along 
 the thoroughfares and sped through quiet byroads, 
 Lydia seemed absorbed in her own thoughts ; as 
 for Felix, he was possessed of an intolerable rest- 
 lessness, which made him long to be out and afoot, 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 33 
 
 to walk swiftly onward, anywhere, with the scents 
 of the white lilac and the hawthorn blooms filling 
 the air, and the nocturnal fluting of the moon- 
 awakened thrushes rising and falling in prolonged 
 vibrations through the May night. 
 
 Something restrained him, however, from leaving 
 the carriage at Haverstock Hill. How was it he 
 found- it so difficult to tell Mrs. Dane that on the 
 morrow he purposed to go to the Cranes' after all ? 
 When at last he did announce the fact Lydia was 
 surprised, but said nothing. 
 
 A little later Hurst Road was entered, and then 
 the short avenue of The Sycamores ; and with a 
 cold kiss and a polite good-night, husband and wife 
 went their separate ways. 
 
< 34 ) 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 When Felix was just about to enter the York 
 express at King's Cross in the conviction that 
 Gabriel Ford had missed the train, he was saluted 
 by a young man with the inquiry as to whether 
 he were Mr. Felix Dane. 
 
 " I thought so, sir, from the description given 
 me by Mr. Ford. I was sent to tell you not to 
 expect him, as he finds he cannot leave town until 
 to-morrow: He said he would telegraph to his 
 cousin." 
 
 " His cousin ! Who is his cousin ? " 
 
 " I presume he meant Sir Arthur Crane, sir, but 
 those were his words." 
 
 A few minutes later and the express was beyond 
 the dreary suburban districts and speeding towards 
 the Cambridgeshire flats. As the sole occupant 
 of the carriage sat in the right-hand corner and 
 looked out upon the landscape, vividly green on 
 account of the rain that had fallen over-night, and 
 agleam every here and there with orchard-blooms 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 35 
 
 and a widespread surf of blackthorn and other 
 blossoms of field and hedgerow, he kept wondering 
 at his folly in feeling any manner of annoyance in 
 the fact that Ford was a cousin of Adama Acosta, 
 or perhaps of Miss Acosta. What could it matter 
 to him ? He was not so ignorant of human 
 nature, or of his own heart, as to be oblivious of 
 the truth that in a sense he loved this unknown 
 girl, of whose very nariie he was unaware. It was 
 ridiculous, no doubt ; but gunpowder will leap into 
 flame at the sudden accidental concentring of solar 
 rays through the most insignificant magnifying-glass. 
 If it should happen, he admitted to himself, if it 
 should so chance that he should never see her again 
 — and it was possible that the concert-attendant had 
 been mistaken — or if he should find that she was 
 married, or absolutely indifferent to him, still, he 
 had enjoyed his vision of love, and henceforth his 
 ideal would be a truer one, an imperishable posses- 
 sion, an enduring stimulus to utmost effort. 
 
 For there are natures so alert to the magic 
 of beauty, so sensitive to its instantaneous ap- 
 peal that their spiritual insight triumphs over 
 all ordinary limitations. In the briefest interview, 
 nay, in the apprehension of a passing remark, of 
 the inflection of a voice, in the revelation of a 
 glance, they know everything essential that is to be 
 
36 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 known. Naturally this faculty is rare — so rare 
 that it is laughed at and disbelieved in by many, 
 particularly by those who could not become spiri- 
 tually en rapport with others though their souls' 
 salvation depended thereupon ; but snow is rare in 
 Australia, for instance, yet is an occurrence credible 
 even by the North Queenslander. 
 
 A man must love a woman sensuously, or his 
 passion is apt to be of the intangible sort that has 
 the radiant tints but also the evanescence of dew. 
 But beyond bodily desire, remote even from the com- 
 munion of intimate friendship, there is the phantom- 
 lover, more beautiful than the physical environment, 
 rainbow-hued, immortal. When love's flame in- 
 tensifies to the white heat of passion — as it does 
 perhaps once in ten thousand instances — the phan- 
 tom-ideal and the loved one are identical, but even 
 then the former is imperishable and unchangeable, 
 while the latter is in sad sooth subject to the ebb 
 as well as to the flow of all mortal tides. 
 
 But fortunate are they who thus love dually, for 
 whatsoever time or change may bring, neither can 
 affect the ideal which has its abode in the heart of 
 the lover. There are men who have been passion- 
 ately in love, nay, who have even known ecstasies 
 of communion, who have never pressed their hps 
 against those of their beloved, never felt their own 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 37 
 
 heart beating against that of the woman who is 
 " all in all." 
 
 Thus was it with Felix Dane. Passion, save in 
 a vaguely ideal way, he had never felt, though he 
 was well aware of the potentialities of his nature. 
 He was not ignorant of its lower phase, for he was 
 no alien from the common lot, the unavoidable heri- 
 tage ; but his essentially pure mind and poetic tem- 
 perament kept him almost as ascetic in this respect 
 as any priest engirt with the armour of voluntary 
 sanctity. For his wife he had at no time felt more 
 than an admiring affection, which, in his inexperi- 
 ence, he had confused with more strenuous and 
 vital emotion ; but the marriage had scarce been 
 consummated ere he had learned how blind he had 
 been, and what a Nemesis would thenceforth dog 
 his footsteps. Perforce, therefore, the repressed 
 passion of his nature exercised itself in visionary 
 life, till it came to pass that, practical and worldly- 
 wise as he was, he really lived only in his studio, 
 where he could work at what he loved, and where 
 in spirit he was free from all trammels of circum- 
 stance. 
 
 Startling indeed was it, therefore, when at the 
 Sarasate concert he had caught a glimpse of that 
 haunting, ever-evanishing face of his ideal. Hereto- 
 fore he had seen it but as through a veil, as a light 
 
38 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 in a filmy cloud : now and henceforth it Was real 
 to him — for had he not, at a London concert, amid 
 the most ordinary surroundings, in the glare of 
 gas and the vitiated atmosphere of the hall, seen 
 her whom he had loved and wooed in the spirit ? 
 The face in itself, indeed, he had not actually 
 visioned formerly, but what of the accidents of fea- 
 ture when the animating loveliness was none other 
 than that which, as in the uncertain light of dusk, he 
 had long worshipped ? How his heart had beat, how 
 every nerve had thrilled, when there — but a score 
 of yards away — the ideal of whom he had dreamt, 
 the woman for whom he had, half-unconsciously, 
 longed, was visible to his bewildered gaze ! Well, 
 come what might, he had won something from life 
 of which no god that ever presided over human 
 destinies could deprive him. Henceforth his soul 
 knew its beloved — and no indifference or cruelty of 
 circumstance could stand between him and that 
 which he had inalienably won. 
 
 These, and such as these, were the thoughts 
 which thrilled him as the train swept northward. 
 A swift intoxicating elation — perhaps in part due 
 to the very motion of the " Flying Scotsman," 
 for in all things and at all times we complex 
 creatures are subject to all physical as well as 
 spiritual influences — occasionally lifted him to a 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 39 
 
 state of serene trust in himself and fate to which 
 he had long been strange ; but for the most part 
 he was restless, eager, perturbed by all manner 
 of uncertainties in the tragi-comedy in which he 
 dimly foresaw his participation. 
 
 Was it the excitement of anticipation, or the 
 mere change of scene and almost rhythmic move- 
 ment of the train, the reaction after the " Hertha " 
 incident, or the relief in escape from Lydia's numb- 
 ing personality, coupled with the unselfish satisfac- 
 tion that she too was travelling at the moment 
 towards enjoyment — mayhap it was not one but all 
 of these which secretly unclosed again the portals 
 of the chamber wherein slept his long-dormant 
 artistic imagination. 
 
 With a sigh of weariness, almost of disgust, at 
 what he recalled of his recent work, with a bitter 
 smile at the well-deserved fate of his " Hertha," 
 and yet another at the squandered certainty of that 
 R. A. -ship upon which Lydid, for no other than that 
 of commercial and social reasons, had set her heart, 
 he gave himself up to idea after idea, revelling in 
 the imaginary accomplishment of sculpture which 
 should excel all modern art, excited as beautiful 
 possibility after possibility came shadowily stealing 
 forth or leapt fully created from the inner sanctu- 
 aries of his brain. 
 
40 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Life, whose splendours had recently appeared so 
 tawdry, whose apparel of miseries had seemed so 
 sordid, was now as though touched with the magic 
 of the spring which laughed and burgeoned around. 
 In place of avenues of dull outlook there stretched 
 perspectives irradiated with a glow that was not 
 of the common earth. Not since the days of his 
 youth had he experienced such a vital surge of 
 hope and energy. For the last ten years of his 
 manhood he had slowly but surely passed toward 
 the shadowed way of life, and had feared, nay, 
 had felt, the advent of that autumn from which 
 many serene souls are saved even to the end of 
 their fourscore years — the autumn of youth. 
 
 But now, again, he, by friendly and hostile critics 
 once hailed, gladly or deprecatingly, as the typical 
 romanticist, looked forth and beheld all things in 
 that light whereby alone genius can reach the heights 
 whereto it strives. Yes, he would not again fall 
 away. Realist and romanticist — words constantly 
 in foolish application — he would be, he was, both : 
 ' henceforth he should not work at all unless in 
 harmony with the truths both of nature and of 
 imagination. 
 
 Genius, particularly since the great arising of 
 the tide of scientific knowledge and inquiry, has 
 complexities of which few observers seem to be 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 41 
 
 aware. It is so often asserted that with the 
 passing away of the old faiths there would be 
 nothing left for the poet, the idealist, but to bewail 
 the golden past, to cry out that all the poetry and 
 romance of life have been banished to an exile from 
 which there may be no return. This may be true 
 of the third-rate poets, the third-rate artists, and all 
 whose vision is narrowly circumscribed; it is not true 
 of those, whether they work with pencil or brush or 
 have no creative faculty, whose intellectual scope 
 is not bounded by immediate horizons. It is no 
 new thing, this hesitant outlook, this partial eclipse 
 of hope. It is a phase that has come to humanity 
 again and again, and whose recurrence is more 
 frequent as our race grows older and, mayhap for 
 a season, a little wearier. There will be, as of 
 yore, new perspectives — all in good time. Science 
 will bring us to a goal whose far shining we do not 
 even descry as yet ; but Nature — and we are only 
 the spoilt children of Nature — abhors abrupt tran- 
 sitions, and will not help us to perceive clear hori- 
 zons till we have learned how to accommodate our 
 eyesight to a serener atmosphere. Meanwhile it 
 is folly to lament the inevitable. One of the most 
 obvious lessons of human history is, that with 
 growth in the main comes partial retrogression 
 somewhere, that we cannot have our " New Days " 
 
24 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 without intermediate glooms and dawns. Not in 
 the golden age itself was there ever a time more 
 wonderful, more romantic, than the present. Now, 
 however, we have to search for the accidents of the 
 true, and as the old limitations to our knowledge of 
 the world we inhabit recede farther and farther — 
 till this little earth shall no longer have a mystery 
 to baffle the curious — to seek in the infinite possi- 
 bilities beyond our present sphere, and above all in 
 the imperishable youth and variety of the - human 
 heart, that which the old legends of ignorance and 
 surmise wrought for our joy and wonder. When 
 we cease to wonder we cease to live, in any 
 other sense than that of mere existence. Those 
 who have the faculty of vision perceive that the 
 closer and more profound the study of nature be, 
 the more unprejudiced the acceptation of its hints 
 of beauty and horror, hope and despair, pitifulness 
 and irresponsible brutalities, the likelier that one's 
 insight will be more penetrative, one's apprehen- 
 sion more acute, one's outlook more serene. Felix 
 Dane was no third-rate artist, though each work 
 of his had ever fallen far short of his concept ; 
 but as he was a man of genius — most abused 
 word ! — and not merely of talent, he was also a 
 deep and fearless student of life. The frightful 
 banalities, the cruelties, the heedless brutalities 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 43 
 
 of nature did not cloud his vision of what was inter- 
 blent therewith and lay beyond. 
 
 The hours passed, and Fehx looked with amaze 
 at his watch when the train drew up just outside 
 York. But the hour there recorded, as well as the 
 sight of the familiar Ouse, along whose waters he 
 had often rowed in boyhood, and the massive front 
 of the Minster, convinced him that he had indeed 
 fleeted the time right royally. 
 
 At York he had to change in order to resume 
 his journey to Grantley by a local line, and in 
 less than an hour was again speeding on, though 
 now eastward. The ensuing two hours were weari- 
 some ; but at last the small deserted-looking station 
 was reached. 
 
 As he stepped across the platform and took 
 his seat in the dogcart from Forest Manor which 
 had been sent to meet him, he was conscious first 
 of a peculiar crispness in the air, and then of the 
 unmistakable briny smell of the sea. Yet even when 
 Grantley Rise was reached he could not descry the 
 German Ocean ; all that he saw in the near distance 
 was a great crescent of apparently narrow forest. 
 
 In reply to his inquiry the groom told him 
 that the Manor lay in a small park on the verge of 
 the forest, and within sound of the sea — whose deep 
 resonant boom was indeed already faintly audible. 
 
44 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 As the cart rattled down a birch-margined slope, 
 where the white foam of the elder and the black- 
 thorn and a perfect maze of the blooms of the 
 dog-rose made the floating fragrance almost in- 
 toxicating, the groom remarked that they were 
 passing through West Dingle, and that from the 
 rise just beyond both the sea and Forest Manor 
 would be visible. 
 
 It was with a thrill of gladness that Felix all 
 at once caught a glimpse of leagues of ocean, 
 deep blue in the May afternoon. The sea ever 
 held him in thraldom, and beside it he was wont, 
 as he asserted, to live twice as keenly as usual. To 
 be within sound of its voice, within sight of its calm 
 or turbulent life, was a joy all the more precious in 
 that it was often productive of a mood that, for 
 lack of a better word, he called inspirational. 
 
 Suddenly the dogcart swerved to the left, and 
 though the now loud and insistent boom of the sea 
 seemed to be close by, it was no longer visible, 
 on account of a gorse-tufted ridge — among whose 
 golden blooms flitted innumerable yellowhammers 
 and stonechats — which curved northward. Again 
 to the left, and an elm-avenue was entered ; then 
 an ivied undercliff was passed, and, on higher 
 ground, a grove of curiously distorted and 
 evidently very ancient yews ; and then the many- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 45 
 
 gabled weather-stained old Manor came into 
 immediate view, not more than fivescore yards 
 from the sea-wind haunted oaks which formed the 
 outlying eastern flank of the once vast Grantley 
 Forest. 
 
 With eager eyes he scanned the balconied 
 stairway in front of the Manor, the lawns and 
 gardens that lay to the left, and the French win- 
 dows of the house itself ; but nowhere did he see 
 the figure upon which he longed to look once 
 more. From the groom he had learned that Mr. 
 and Miss Acosta had arrived shortly after ten that 
 morning. 
 
 As he dismounted at the lowest step an elderly 
 gentleman, clad in rough tweeds of a somewhat 
 pronounced pattern, descended with outstretched 
 hands and a hearty welcome. 
 
 " Delighted to see you, Mr. Dane ; most kind of 
 you to come to us quiet folk out of your busy 
 London. Nothing like keeping promises, and I 
 was determined not to let you off your visit. 
 Sorry Ford couldn't come down with you, but 
 he'll be here to-morrow, I expect. Meanwhile 
 we'll do our best to amuse you, and you'll be in- 
 terested to meet my old friend Adama Acosta, who 
 is here with his daughter on one of his sudden 
 visits. Perhaps you've met him in London ? " 
 
46 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " 1 heard him plaj'ing at St. James's Hall last 
 night. What a marvellous musician he is ! And 
 if all accounts be true, Sir Arthur, he has experi- 
 enced strange vicissitudes." 
 
 " Yes ; he's had some rough buffetings from 
 fate. Ah, here is Lady Crane. My dear, this 
 is our very welcome guest, Mr. Felix Dane." 
 
 Felix shook hands with a largely-built, stout 
 woman of fifty, comely of feature, but with an ob- 
 vious hardness of expression and prideful demean- 
 our indicative of a certain lack of good-breeding. 
 Her eyes were bright black, but of an unchanging 
 beady glitter ; her broad fair face was expression- 
 less ; and though she moved with ease and even 
 dignity, and spoke with fluent suavity, her intona- 
 tion and some occult or not easily definable man- 
 nerism testified against her constantly implied 
 claim to be a woman of natural culture and heredi- 
 tary refinement. Possibly her Semitic origin might 
 not have been suspected by most people, though 
 to some it was obvious apart from definite know- 
 ledge ; on the other hand, her husband was as 
 absolutely the English type as though he could 
 trace his ancestry back through squires and mer- 
 chants and yeomen till the days long before any 
 son of Israel set foot in Britain. Tall, robust, 
 somewhat cumbrously but not coarsely framed, his 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 47 
 
 rubicund face was refined by the white whiskers 
 and moustache trimmed Kaiser-fashion, and by the 
 curly grey hair which age had not thinned ; while 
 his blue eyes were still alert with energy, when not 
 heavy with a dull content. 
 
 " I am charmed to see you again, Mr. Dane, and 
 I hope that you have left all your tiresome work 
 behind you — I mean, that you are not going to 
 allow yourself to do or think of anything but rest 
 and enjoyment. Do you recollect our having met 
 before — it was at one of the Despards' musical 
 evenings, I think ? " 
 
 " Of course I remember, Lady Crane. Gabriel 
 Ford did me the honour of introduction to you, and 
 I bored you for full twenty minutes with my enthu- 
 siasm for Sarasate, whom you had not then heard." 
 "Ah, but I have done so since, and entirely 
 agree with you. No, this way; you must be 
 dying for a cup of tea. There is nothing hke it 
 ' after a journey. You are not one of those tire- 
 some people with nerves, are you, Mr. Dane ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid I must plead guilty. But as to tea, 
 no nerveless individual could be a greater slave to 
 it than I am." 
 
 " Well, you shall have some such as " 
 
 "Now, Olivia, don't say such as can't be got 
 elsewhere in this country," interrupted her hus- 
 
48 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 band ; " you're always repeating that fiction. 
 Take my word for it, Mr. Dane — ah, excuse me, 
 here's Robert with a message from our friends. 
 Well, Robert ? " 
 
 " Miss Acosta sent word to say, Sir Arthur, as 
 neither she nor Mr. Acosta would be in to tea. 
 They've gone a walk to Wolf's Crag." 
 
 " Very good. And now Mr. Dane, as soon as 
 you've finished your tea, I want you to come and 
 give me some advice about my pictures and sculp- 
 tures, which I am rearranging. Your own ' Jave- 
 lin-thrower' — which I bought at Montague's sale 
 - — is already the occupant of the best place." 
 
 " Ah, you have the ' Thrower,' have you ? I'm 
 glad of that. It is one of the best things I've done." 
 
 " So Miss Acosta says, and she seems to know 
 everything you've done." 
 
 Felix felt as though the heavens had opened and 
 dazzled him with excess of light. That she — she 
 — should like his " Javelin-thrower," should know 
 everything of his, it was too good to be true, absurd 
 almost, incredible ! His fear had been that she 
 might not give a second thought to him ; that she 
 might never have heard of him ; but if she knew 
 his work so well, and had the judgment to pick 
 out his little-known " Javelin-thrower " as his best 
 achievement in sculpture, she must have artistic 
 
CHILDREN OF TOrMORROW. 
 
 49 
 
 instincts and interests. Here then, was a bond 
 of sympathy — a bond that Felix welcomed as he 
 might a way of .escape from some sore strait of 
 life. Strange, that this new tide of inspiration 
 which had come to him should have been propelled 
 by two women, both unknown to him : Sanpriel, 
 the author of " White Nights," and the beautiful 
 daughter of Adama Acosta. 
 
 " Is — is — Miss Acosta " 
 
 " Oh yes, she is staying with us also. By the 
 way, they have a quaint old house not very far 
 from where you live : a place called Dreamthorpe, 
 almost on the heath at Hampstead." 
 
 " Dreamthorpe — Dreamthorpe," repeated Felix 
 amaze.dly ; " why, of course I know the dear old 
 house. Arthur Graham has it ; I know hinj well." 
 
 " Yes, just so ; but he sublet it for this year to 
 Acosta. He and his daughter have been there 
 since January, off and on." 
 
 " Good God, and I never knew it ! "What 
 a" 
 
 " What do you say, Mr. Dane ? You seem dis- 
 turbed ? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing, Sir Arthur. Your mention of 
 Graham put me in mind of something I had for- 
 gotten." 
 
 "Your own mention of him, I presume; but 
 
 D 
 
so CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 never mind, here we are. Now do tell me what 
 kind of general arrangement I should adopt." 
 
 He accompanied his host in a kind of waking 
 dream. He answered yea or nay as the spirit 
 moved him, but luckily did not betray his complete 
 absorption in his own thoughts ; nor did he make 
 any palpable error in direction, for which, in his 
 ingratitude, he craved no benison upon the gods. 
 
 It was with a sense of relief that he found him- 
 self at last in his bedroom, and alone. 
 
 Through the open window came all manner of 
 sweet fragrances from the garden-plots underneath, 
 with confused but exquisite odours from the forest ; 
 on the narrow lawns the blackbirds hopped to and 
 fro, with piercing flute-like cries, and in the, wood- 
 land a thrush sang its vesper-song in such an 
 ecstasy of abandonment that Felix almost imagined 
 himself again in the garden of Dante's villa at 
 Verona, where once he had heard a nightingale 
 sing till it fluttered earthward, killed by the excess 
 of its own passion. Below, and through all, came 
 the deep, hollow boom of the sea, now rising, 
 now falling, but ever insistent. To the enthralled 
 listener there was something ominous in that re- 
 Jentless, that for ever inquiescent undertone. 
 
( 51 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 He was aroused at last from his reverie by the 
 sound of the dressing-bell, an interruption he 
 would almost have resented were it not for the 
 fact that ere long now he should surely meet Miss 
 Acosta. 
 
 In his impatience he dressed in half the usual 
 time, and with a swift step, and eyes alert with an 
 eagerness which made his pulse quicken, he de- 
 scended to the drawing-room, which was on the 
 ground-floor — a long, narrow room, with French 
 windows, and at its sinister or western end a 
 curious curve, so complete that it almost formed 
 an ante-room. 
 
 The door was ajar, and moved back noiselessly 
 at his touch. For a moment he hesitated, and then 
 entered. There was no one visible. He was con- 
 scious of a sense of disappointment, strangely com- 
 mingled with one of relief, as he slowly advanced 
 across the thick carpet, and halted, in an attitude 
 
52 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 of indecision, by the side of a table whereon 
 stood a huge Japanese bowl filled with the carmine 
 and cream-colour blooms of magnificent roses, sur- 
 rounded by a medley of books, some obviously 
 foreign, but none, whether by accident or dis- 
 crimination, out of harmony with the dominant 
 tones. 
 
 Suddenly he gave a slight start, and was con- 
 scious of a curious sensation of surprise, almost of 
 bewilderment, as he noticed among the books a slim 
 parchment-covered volume with, above, " White- 
 Nights," and below Sanpriel, in the familiar bronze- 
 gold lettering. 
 
 How strange it would be, he thought, if this 
 unknown " Sanpriel " should indirectly prove a 
 potent influence in his life as well as in his art ! 
 If Miss Acosta, for example, should have been as 
 much impressed by the book as he was, it would 
 be another bond between them — a bond all the 
 subtler from the surety that Sanpriel's poems could 
 of necessity be only of limited appeal. 
 
 He lifted the little volume and instinctively 
 glanced at the fly-leaf, whereon was an inscription. 
 Yes ; the handwriting was identical with that on the 
 copy which Lydia had contemptuously thrown on 
 the fire — a year, some months, no, but a single day 
 ago. He recognised it in a moment. Ah, she was 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 53 
 
 a friend, then, of the Cranes ; that accounted for 
 the presence of " White-Nights " in such an un- 
 liliely place. There it was writ unmistakably, in 
 that small, firm, yet womanly penmanship : " To 
 Sir Arthur and Lady Crane, from their affectionate 
 Sanpriel." 
 
 Just as he was about to turn over the leaves 
 he became aware, in some vague way, that he was 
 not alone. He looked about him, but could see no 
 one, tUl suddenly he perceived the slight move- 
 ment of a shadow on the carpet near the western 
 window. 
 
 Four or five steps brought him to a standstill, 
 thrilled as by an electric shock. 
 
 There, facing the splendour of the sunset, and 
 herself irradiated by the golden glow, stood, clad 
 in a straight simple gown of softest and whitest 
 material, the beautiful visiqn of the previous night. 
 The sun-rays burned in her hair, till its waves 
 and curves of bronze shone like flame ; her neck 
 and arms, bare and delicately white, gleamed like 
 antique ivory in candle-light ; and in her attitude, 
 the pose of head and bust and body, there was 
 such repose, such beauty, that the sculptor who 
 looked upon her trembled as every sensitive nerve 
 answered to the magic. 
 
 Slowly, and as if drawn rather by some occult 
 
54 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 magnetic influence than of her own conscious will, 
 Miss Acosta, after a long sigh, half of pain, half of 
 exquisite enjoyment, turned and looked upon Felix 
 Dane. 
 
 There are moments when speech is as impos- 
 sible as it is unnecessary; nay, when utterance 
 would mean the violation of a charm that might 
 never again be as potent. Such a moment had 
 arrived, as simultaneously as incalculably, for the 
 man and woman who now confronted each other. 
 
 Felix gazed with such a rapt intentness that, 
 for a brief interval, all thought either of himself or 
 his companion lay dormant. Beautiful as he had 
 thought Miss Acosta from the glimpse he had ob- 
 tained at the concert, he found her even lovelier 
 than his passionate after-dream : then he had seen 
 but the features ; now he looked into eyes such as 
 never before had stirred him to his depths. 
 
 They were large, and had the softness and 
 duskiness of twilight, so deep that to him they 
 seemed as the midsummer darkness itself, purple- 
 black, dewy-soft, luminous though without moon or 
 star. Depth within depth lay the shadows cast by 
 the thoughts of an ardent and imaginative mind ; 
 yet they were depths inscrutable, and for ever in- 
 violate of shallow or irreverent questioning. 
 
 She was taller, too, than he had fancied, and 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 55 
 
 though not less lithe or graceful, somewhat less 
 girlish in the contours of her figure. 
 
 Her gaze answered his, steadfast, serene; but 
 she was the first to become conscious of something 
 strained — something so strained, indeed, as to be 
 perilously near the verge of absurdity. 
 
 With a smile and a slight flush, she advanced a 
 step or two with outstretched hand, — " Mr. Felix 
 Dane, I am sure ? I consider myself half-hostess 
 here, so you must permit me to introduce myself — 
 though, if I mistake not, here are Lady Crane and 
 my father." 
 
 As she spoke, and her voice was of rare delicacy 
 and charm, she moved forward towards her father, 
 as if instinctively, Felix noticed. 
 
 As soon as the introductions were over, he 
 realised how strong was the likeness between 
 Adama Acosta and his daughter, though the re- 
 semblance was that which death bears to life. Mr. 
 Acosta, too, impressed him even more than on the 
 previous night. There was something noble and 
 dignified, as well as dominant and eccentric, in his 
 whole physiognomy ; though at first the attention 
 was unduly arrested by the deathly pallor of the 
 face, set off by the long white hair that fell negli- 
 gently about it, and the sombre gleam of the large, 
 dark eyes. 
 
S6 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " I am very glad to meet you, Mr. Dane. I 
 know your work well, and if you will allow an old 
 man — or one who feels as though he were an old 
 man — to express his opinion, I should like to add 
 that you seem to me one of the very few sculptors 
 from whom much may be expected. But we'll talk of 
 this afterwards. Sculpture is a hobby of mine, and 
 I probably know as much about it as any layman." 
 
 " I'm pleased to hear it, Mr. Acosta. But I 
 often wonder if there will ever again be a wide- 
 spread love, a widespread appreciation even, of 
 sculpture. I hope for, but I hardly dare say I 
 expect to see it." 
 
 " That is what Sanpriel says ; she " 
 
 " What who says ? " interrupted Felix, in 
 amazement. 
 
 Mr. Acosta stared at his companion, who had 
 spoken with quite tragic emphasis ; and then, with 
 a momentary laugh, replied, " I suppose the name 
 puzzles you. Sanpriel is certainly a rare name 
 anywhere, and absolutely unique in this country in 
 all probability." 
 
 " Yes, but who is Sanpriel ? I have a particular 
 reason for wishing to know." 
 
 " What is your reason, Mr. Dane ? " 
 
 " Oh, well — ah — she, or he, published a remark- 
 able little volume recently — and " 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 57 
 
 " Dear me, have you seen ' White-Nights ' ? 
 Well, since you admire it, you must let me intro- 
 duce you to the author. Sanpriel, my dear, step 
 forward and make your best bow." 
 
 To Felix's astonishment and confusion, and 
 almost to his dismay, Miss Acosta, smilingly and 
 with the ghost of a blush on her fair face, advanced 
 and made a curtsey of mock gravity. 
 
 " Oh, if only you were a reviewer, Mr. Dane, 
 what an awkward position you would have placed 
 yourself in ! You would be bound to maintain 
 what you said in private, and yet would yearn to 
 be critical — and so it would happen that the last 
 case of poor ' White- Nights ' would be very much 
 worse than the first. But you are only a sculptor, 
 and so I shall not listen to anything you say to me 
 about my booklet." 
 
 At this moment Sir Arthur entered, in company 
 with a stout elderly ecclesiastic who was Rector 
 of Grantley ; and in the partial dispersion thus 
 caused, Fehx and Miss Acosta were left standing 
 beside each other. Under a sudden impulse the 
 former turned and looked meaningly at Sanpriel 
 as he spoke : 
 
 " It will, I hope, please the author of ' White- 
 Nights ' to hear that I have taken her lesson to 
 heart. The book came to me in the nick of time. 
 
58 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 I was engaged on the sorriest piece of work I had 
 ever done. If I had gone on with it, I should have 
 been elected to the Academy, and probably have 
 never done anything in sculpture worth a second 
 thought. It was your Hertha that killed my 
 Hertha." 
 
 " What do you mean, Mr. Dane ? Were 
 you at work upon a Hertha? Surely you did 
 not" 
 
 "Yes, I destroyed it. Ah, there is the dinner- 
 gong. We shall talk of this again. Miss Acosta. 
 I must now go and offer Lady Crane my arm." 
 
 Seldom had Felix ever better enjoyed a dinner- 
 party. True he found his hostess extremely 
 difficult to converse with, for her interests were 
 very narrow, and except the Ford^ and the Des- 
 pards they seemed to have no acquaintances in 
 common. What amused him was her obvious 
 tone of condescension when she found that he did 
 not know the Monterolis and the Barons Stock- 
 meyer, and other financial princes of Israel. Yet, 
 notwithstanding this drawback, and the distance 
 between himself and Sanpriel, he managed to 
 obtain keen pleasure and stimulus from his sur- 
 roundings. 
 
 During the last course he was challenged by 
 Sir Arthur. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 59 
 
 " What is this I hear from Acosta,' Mr. Dane ? 
 He says that you are one of the romanticists ? " 
 
 " And if so, what then, Sir Arthur ? " 
 
 " What then ? Why, as I am always telling 
 that foolish enthusiast here, Sanpriel, no good 
 either in art or literature — I won't speak of music, 
 with my good friend Acosta at hand to overwhelm 
 me with, his eloquent wrath— can come out of your 
 new-fangled romanticism. Classical art and litera- 
 ture have withstood the test of time, and they 
 have a dignity and repose which all your roman- 
 ticism never achieves." 
 
 Felix was on the point of reply when he noticed 
 that Miss Acosta was about to speak. 
 
 " Before you two engulf yourselves in an endless 
 argument,'' she began, somewhat hesitatingly at first, 
 till she became conscious of the deference as well 
 as courtesy with which both men awaited what she 
 had to say, " would it not be as well to see if you 
 don't both mean the same thing, though you apply 
 a different t'sm to each ? I have so often heard 
 this subject discussed at my father's house, and 
 have considered it so impartially, that I have come 
 to believe there are only two ways of looking 
 at art — and of course I use the word in the most 
 comprehensive sense — namely, the point of view of 
 those who see in it mere representation, and the 
 
6o CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 point of view of those who use it and look to it for 
 interpretation. Most of the former call themselves 
 classicists, most of the latter romanticists. Among 
 the latter, however, there are of course many who 
 prefer classic to so-called romantic art and literature 
 — but it generally amounts to little more than a 
 dislike for or indifference to contemporary work. 
 The wider one's sympathies, the truer one's culture, 
 the surer is one's insight into what is real, whether 
 it be antique, or mediaeval, or modern, or con- 
 temporary. As I have heard my father say, every 
 creative artist is of necessity a romanticist." 
 
 " Yes," interposed Adama Acosta ; " I have said 
 so often, and I am convinced of its truth. When- 
 ever the dominant taste of the day is towards what 
 is misleadingly called classicism it will be found that 
 the artistic productions of the period are critical 
 and illustrative merely, or when nominally original 
 are derivative and third-rate in every respect save 
 valuable but often exaggerated attention to tech- 
 nique. Look at the fashionable poetry of the day : 
 — polished and graceful verse for the most part, 
 but without a breath of real life in it. The ex- 
 cessive laudation of the prosaic eighteenth century 
 literature (and not so much for its few splendid 
 achievements as its polished mediocrity) is sig- 
 nificant." 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 6i 
 
 "Yes," resumed Sanpriel; "and it is further 
 significant that these minor writers — whom my 
 father wickedly calls tertiary scribes, for he won't 
 even admit them as secondary — almost invariably 
 despair about, and very often despise, our own time. 
 Nothing is so good now as it was then : everything 
 is now crude, or in bad taste, or too vehement, 
 or too dramatic, or too little en regie — in fact, 
 too everything except commonplace. Enthusiasm of 
 any kind is their special abhorrence. Look at their 
 particular newspapers. In this week's ' Critical 
 Review,' for instance, there are three consecutive 
 articles which are deplorable in their narrowness. 
 One is an emphatic puff of an exceedingly poor 
 book, and praises just those things in it which are 
 at once derivative and indifferent — but it is written 
 by one of the set, who will expect similar kind of 
 treatment when his own turn comes ; another is a 
 general article upon American poets and novelists, 
 betraying almost as much impertinence as igno- 
 rance ; and the third is a paper upon the poetry of 
 the Victorian age, mainly occupied with a lament 
 for the halcyon days of Pope and Gray and 
 Collins. Praise of these three great writers, and 
 others of the time, is of course right ; but when the 
 writer says that the Victorian epoch has produced 
 no poetry to compare with theirs, either in matter 
 
62 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 or manner, he simply stultifies himself in his office 
 as critic." 
 
 " I see you are no amateur in regard to perio- 
 dical literature, or some of it, Miss Acosta," Felix 
 remarked with a smile. "Wait till you publish 
 another book, and not privately, and then you will 
 know to the full the tender mercies of the ' Critical 
 Review' gentry." 
 
 "Well, all this is very reasonable, no doubt," 
 broke in the host, "but I still maintain that classicism 
 is synonymous with sterling and romanticism with 
 spurious art." 
 
 " What of Shakespeare, Chatterton, Coleridge, 
 Keats, Scott, Tennyson, William Morris, Rossetti 
 — to mention but a few of the older and modern 
 great names which occur to me ? Each of those I 
 specified may be considered in the truest sense 
 of the word a romanticist." 
 
 " I never heard of either Morris or Rossetti, 
 Mr. Dane, or at any rate have never read anything 
 of theirs ; arid of the others, indeed I am acquainted 
 but slightly even with Tennyson and Scott — 
 though Shakespeare I do know pretty thoroughly. 
 I should have thought both Shakespeare and Scott 
 classical." 
 
 "Would you think so if they were living. Sir 
 Arthur ? " 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 63 
 
 " Eh, what ? Well, upon my soul I can't say. 
 By Jove, d'ye know, Dane, I don't believe I 
 should ! " 
 
 Every one laughed at Sir Arthur's half-rueful, 
 half-humorous discomfiture ; but Sanpriel gave a 
 glance of quick and eager sympathy towards Felix, 
 as though expectant of further utterance which 
 should express her own convictions. 
 
 " The whole question. Sir Arthur, lies in the 
 spirit. As long as people confuse the spirit with 
 the letter, so long will there be confusion and 
 misapprehension. I am a Romanticist, as I am 
 glad to find are Miss and Mr. Acosta, but I have 
 nothing to do with, and care nothing for what I 
 think you mean by, romanticism. These isms 
 are abominable. None of us wants romanticism ; 
 we want, and look for, and try to intensify the 
 romantic spirit — a very different thing. Roman- 
 ticism of the stereotyped kind is a mere phase ; 
 the romantic spirit can never die as long as 
 the creative impulse is potent. It is apt to be 
 blurred, to be misled, to be distorted — though it 
 sounds paradoxical to use these words for so 
 abstract a thing." 
 
 " Now I see that my wife is anxious to rise, 
 and I fear that we have been boring both her 
 and Mr. Carter with our arguments." 
 
64 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 "Not at all, not at all, my dear Sir Arthur," 
 hurriedly exclaimed the Rector, as he gulped down 
 the port he had been sipping ; " on the contrary, 
 charming, most charming, I assure you. So — eh, 
 ah, such cultivated talk is eh, h'm, ah, delightful. 
 Our yound friend Sanpriel, too " 
 
 But here Lady Crane broke in with some remark 
 of local interest for her husband, and Felix was 
 amused to see the look of quiet disdain which 
 Miss Acosta cast upon the inane and foolish cleric, 
 whose condescending manner and perpetual bana- 
 lities were almost the only disagreeable things 
 she had to undergo at Forest Manor. 
 
 With mock seriousness Sir Arthur turned 
 towards Felix, and told him that he must now 
 utter his final word upon romanticism, as thence- 
 forth the subject was to be tabooed ; for he. Sir 
 Arthur, could never do battle with three such 
 doughty antagonists. 
 
 " So now, Dane, out with it ; have you any- 
 thing more to say about your Romantic Spirit ? " 
 
 " I have nothing to say about my romantic 
 spirit," Felix replied laughingly ; " but as you are 
 so insistent, here are my urbana dicta. It should 
 never, of course, be taken for granted that the ro- 
 mantic spirit must in its manifestations be restricted 
 to art or literature that is obviously romantic. It 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 65 
 
 must, of course, manifest itself variously — but its 
 mere aspects are of secondary import. We have 
 experienced within the last decade or two the curi- 
 ous contradiction of a strong wave of romanticism 
 (its comparative futility due, it seems to me, to its 
 emphasis on archaic niethods), and a commonplace 
 acceptation thereof as a mere phenomenon. It has 
 been a gross blunder — that of the abrupt division 
 of the Romantic and the Realistic sentiment. There 
 is no vital reason why a man in a railway carriage 
 should not look upon life through the romantic 
 atmosphere just as sincerely as did iEschylus (the 
 greatest ancient romanticist) when looking through 
 the ilex-boughs upon the hillsides of Hellas, as 
 Chaucer when he walked in the Islington meadows, 
 as Blake when he saw the elm-branches become 
 wings of angels, as Ossian, even, when he brooded 
 by his melancholy sea. I can descry no new motor 
 in civilisation, in science, or in nature that must 
 tend to eradicate the romantic spirit : it is but a 
 change of outlook. The world is as wonderful now 
 as it ever was, and the potentialities of life not one 
 whit less marvellous and fascinating essentially than 
 in the olden days. Believe me, Mr. Acosta's 'ter- 
 tiary scribes ' existed in some guise or other in the 
 golden age itself; there must have been shepherds 
 then who lamented the prehistoric grace in the 
 
66 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 handling of the crook, swains who sang dolefully 
 of the lost lyric art. We are really all divided into 
 the number of those who have the beautiful, artistic, 
 spiritual faculty of wonder, or into the number of 
 those who have it not ; and in some ages the won- 
 der-eyed prevail, and then we have our Homers 
 and Shakespeares, our Coleridges and Keatses, our 
 Titians and Leonardos and Turners, our Beethoven s 
 and Chopins and Wagners ; while at other periods 
 we have the indifferentists, optimists and pessimists 
 alike. But, as in everything in Nature, there is in 
 humanity an endless ebb and flowi There are 
 souls that grow and grow, and there are souls which 
 are slowly perishing. Perhaps in neither case is 
 the motive-force what we call good or evil. Nature 
 has far deeper roots than our human parochialism 
 has cognisance of. But there, I am straying from 
 the subject and becoming metaphysical. You have 
 had my finis, Sir Arthur. So henceforth let roman- 
 ticism and classicism join politics, and keep out of 
 our way." 
 
 Hereupon the ladies rose and left the room. As 
 she passed, Sanpriel glanced at Fehx. He could 
 not flatter himself that there was any special signi- 
 ficance in the look, yet it thrilled him with keen 
 elation. 
 
( 67 ) 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The evening was one long memorable to Felix 
 Dane. Everything helped to produce a sense of 
 delicious repose, a languor without apathy. The 
 flowers in the drawing-room, particularly some 
 great clusters of white lilacs, emitted fragrances 
 poignant enough to have been overpowering, had 
 it not been for the open window at the farther end 
 of the apartment, whence came softly at intervals 
 a breath of air laden with forest odours and 
 bearing with it the undertone of the-' sea. Sir 
 Arthur and the Rector had left the room for an 
 hour or so to attend to some pressing local matter, 
 and Lady Crane had become so absorbed in her 
 novel that she had closed her eyes so as to more 
 fully realise the persons and scenes depicted, and 
 had become unconscious of all extraneous matters. 
 The music of violin and piano soothed her, though 
 had she had any idea of the labyrinth of love 
 wherein Felix and Sanpriel had already begun to 
 wander unwittingly, she would have been as alert 
 
68 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 as any wary barn-fowl when a kestrel hangs 
 poised in air. 
 
 Adama Acosta was restless. The sea-sound 
 disturbed him, and the gradually deepening stag- 
 nancy of the atmosphere affected his nerves. 
 Occasionally he played, sometimes a fragmentary 
 melody, again in impromptu accompaniment to 
 Sanpriel. 
 
 How beautiful the latter seemed, Felix thought, 
 as he watched her sitting beyond the black ebony 
 piano, whereon lay a cluster of blood-red poppies ; 
 her soft white dress, her delicate arms and neck, 
 and those large dusky eyes filled with vague 
 reverie and the dreamy pleasure of the music 
 which she loved almost as well as did her father. 
 
 There was but little conversation, yet each felt 
 as though some bond had drawn them close. 
 The graciousness of familiarity was already a 
 solvent among the inevitable conventionalities, the 
 familiarity of spirits akin, not that of vulgar in- 
 discriminacy, the bane of so much contemporary 
 social life. 
 
 The last sense of strangeness departed when 
 Lady Crane, after an abrupt return to a conscious- 
 ness of her surroundings, and the announcement of 
 a bad headache, bade her guests good-night and 
 left the room. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 69 
 
 Felix was amused to note the instinctive 
 expression of relief upon Acosta's face, and San- 
 priel in turn smiled as she perceived the identity 
 of sentiment in both her companions. 
 
 Suddenly Acosta walked up to Felix and looked 
 at him earnestly for a few moments ere he spoke. 
 
 " I like you, Felix Dane. Will you come and 
 see us informally in Hampstead ? You are the 
 first man of your race whom I have asked to visit 
 us at the promptings of inclination and heedless 
 of the usual formalities. In other words, will you 
 look in upon us whensoever you care ? " 
 
 " I take your kindness as a great compliment, 
 Mr. Acosta. Although you may be surprised to 
 hear it, I am somewhat lonely in my life; and as 
 I grow older I care less and less for people with 
 whom I have little in common, and more and 
 more for those with whom I can feel myself in 
 sympathy." 
 
 " You know we are Jews, do you not ? " 
 
 " I — I — understood so, from our host," Felix 
 answered rather hesitatingly, with an apprehen- 
 sive glance at Sanpriel, for he was uncertain 
 how she would regard either her father's question 
 or his answer. " Fortunately I am in keen sym- 
 pathy with what may be called the new cause of 
 Israel, as possibly he may have told you." 
 
70 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 "Yes, he did tell me so. We are, however, 
 ourselves outcasts to a certain extent from our 
 own people, for we are of the league of the ' Chil- 
 dren of To-morrow.' " 
 
 " May I ask who and what are the ' Children 
 of To-morrow ' ? " 
 
 "Yes; but let us go out into the open air. 
 Sanpriel and I have often spent the hour before rest 
 talking and playing in the yew-grove which you 
 probably noticed as you drove up the avenue." 
 
 Felix gladly acceded, and as soor^ as Miss 
 Acosta had procured a light shawl, and the gentle- 
 men their hats (while Adama brought also his 
 violin), the three crossed the south lawn and 
 strolled slowly towards the yews. 
 
 The stars hung like drops of white fire, but 
 owing to the vaporous breath of earth without 
 palpitation or sparkle. The white spaces of lilac 
 and thorn, interspersed with laurels, and, farther 
 back, oaks and scattered firs, seemed alive with 
 birds ; everywhere there was a commingled sound 
 of twittering, faint warbles, and rustling of nervous 
 flight. From the parklands beyond came the occa- 
 sional lowing of cattle and the stamping of the 
 horses that had been turned out to grass, and here 
 and there, indeed, their misshapen shadows caught 
 the eye. Between two great walnuts the bats 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 71 
 
 flittered untiringly ; and across the pastures came 
 the rasping, strangulating cry of the goatsucker as 
 it hawked the beetles and moths which flitted by on 
 bristling shards. Beyond the avenue, deep within 
 a great beech, a nightingale sang intermittently, 
 now giving forth its preliminary tcheug-tcheug- 
 tcheug, anon uttering piercing minors, but oftenest 
 reiterating certain tremulous notes^all the prelude 
 to the rapture which ere long would break forth 
 into uncontrollable song. Among the firs still the 
 cushats crooned monotonously, and from where 
 the oaks rose in ridges came the cries of the 
 curlews and plovers which perpetually haunted the 
 margin of the land, whereon the sea broke heavily 
 as with the sound of distant thunder. 
 
 " Is not this a perfect night ? " Sanpriel re- 
 marked in a voice into which the dreamy languor 
 of the evening had passed ; " the sounds that we 
 hear make the silence only the more impressive. 
 I love this place beyond words, if only for the sea 
 that lies yonder. Death is not death in such a 
 place as this ; here he is but the kindly, mysterious, 
 merciful spirit of the dusk." 
 
 " What makes you think of death. Miss Acosta, 
 unless it be the exquisite reposefulness, the sense 
 of absolute human quiescence, which environs us 
 just now ? " 
 
72 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " You may well ask her that question, Dane ! 
 Every time — from the first visit we ever paid here 
 — that we have come this way by night, Sanpriel 
 has invariably recurred to the subject of death. 
 She is not morbid, and elsewhere I am sure she 
 feels as full of hope and energy as she looks — but 
 here it is always the beauty, or the poignancy, or 
 the brutality, or the heedlessness, or the some- 
 thing else of death. I do not understand it; and 
 I think, Sanpriel, carina, that this place cannot be 
 good for you. I'll have to take you south when 
 we next want a sudden holiday. You will be 
 becoming as foolish as I am sometimes, and be- 
 lieve that the wave which is to drown you has 
 already left its far-off seas." 
 
 " Do you believe that? " Sanpriel asked with start- 
 ling vehemence. " For I too, father, have sometimes 
 felt the same thing overwhelmingly. Only a little 
 ago I had, in a moment, and without any predisposi- 
 tion to such thoughts, an irresistible conviction that 
 the last sound I should hear would be the boom of 
 the sea yonder — that sea, yonder shore, no other." 
 
 " What do you think, Dane ? Had I not better 
 remove this young woman out of the reach of 
 temptation ? " 
 
 Felix laughed lightly, but uneasily ; and after a 
 few moments replied hesitatingly — 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 73 
 
 " It is strange, but I suppose it goes to prove 
 what a subtle thing magnetism is, thought-trans- 
 ference rather. The idea of death, of death here, 
 within sound of yonder sea, seems to have occurred 
 to all three of us simultaneously, or very nearly so. 
 Perhaps it is to be so, for all we know. Perhaps 
 we three may unveil the darkness, if any veil there 
 be, at one and the same time." 
 
 " Don't, Mr. Dane ! I do not know why, but what 
 you say seems, in some absurd fashion, to be so pro- 
 bable that I am already deep in despondency.'' 
 
 " Oh, Miss Acosta, you must be well aware that 
 these moods signify nothing. Their value is in 
 their possible inspiration of a ' Melancholia ' or of a 
 poem Hke Shelley's 'Stanzas written in Dejection,' 
 or, if you will permit me to say so, your own lines 
 entitled ' In Una Silva Oscura.' " 
 
 " Ah, now you are swinging round too far : you 
 know as well as I do that such moods are not mere 
 vagrant irresponsible dreams. But here we are : 
 are not these wonderful old yews ? There is a 
 superstition that whoever walks among them three 
 nights following is foredoomed to sudden and early 
 death — or, if he or she be not young, at any rate to 
 sudden death ere long." 
 
 " Now, Sanpriel, there you are again talking 
 about death. I believe you are as fond of think- 
 
74 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 ing about it in your own way as Gabriel is as a 
 chemist." 
 
 " Yes," resumed Acosta in reply to an interrup- 
 tion from Felix, " I do mean Ford. Of course he 
 is not a chemist save as an amateur, and then only 
 in a special direction ; but he has long made a 
 secret study of poisons. I understand that he 
 hopes to discover some poison so strong that it 
 will arrest all the ordinary processes of decay, and 
 enable one to lie as though dead for any reason- 
 able number of years, and then to come to life 
 again." 
 
 " To what end ? " 
 
 " Oh, I do not know. He will never discover 
 it, nor does he in his heart of hearts think he will. 
 He is as fond of playing with some impossible 
 theory as a boy is with a ball. But he is beyond 
 question a curious and deep student in toxicology. 
 I remember that he told me, some months ago, he 
 had discovered the nature and constituents of the 
 poudre d'or of the Borgias — a poison so subtle and 
 in its traces so untraceable, that even the alert eyes 
 and wits of the gentry of mediaeval Italy could not . 
 discover anything about it — though there was no 
 lack of victims, it is said. But to revert to what 
 I began to tell you. I told you that we were in a 
 sense outcasts from our people ; but of course I 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 75 
 
 mean only from the orthodox majority, and then 
 only in point of faith, the rigours of Judaic faith, 
 and not in point of race. We ' Children of To- 
 Morrow ' are Jews in all verity, though perhaps 
 we have no right to adopt a name which our Dutch 
 compatriot Siwaarmill has bestowed in no exclu- 
 sive sense." 
 
 " May I ask what Siwaarmill's words are ? " 
 
 " They are in Dutch, but they run thus : ' We, 
 who live more intensely and suffer more acutely 
 than others, are^he Children of To-morrow, because 
 in us the new forces of the future are already astir 
 or even dominant.' Siwaarmill does not allude to 
 Jews or to any other religious nationalities, but to 
 those of all peoples who, as he says, live more 
 intensely and suffer more acutely than others. He 
 sees, as do so many of us, that the old conven- 
 tionalities, the old moralities even, are in process 
 of rapid evolution, if not of dissolution ; and he 
 perceives that now, as always heretofore, the future 
 is foreshadowed in the present, the To-morrow is 
 foretold in certain vivid moments of To-day." 
 
 " In what sense, then, are you Jews and yet 
 not orthodox ? In what sense are you Children of 
 To-Morrow ? " 
 
 Acosta was about to reply, but with impetuous 
 eagerness his daughter answered for him. 
 
76 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " We are Jews in that we are proud of our race, 
 proud of our history, proud of our victories over 
 our long national agony of nigh upon two thousand 
 years, proud of our enduring martyrdom, proud 
 of our great poets, philosophers, leaders, heroes, 
 patriots, 'artists, and musicians, proud of our slow 
 but sure emergence from the rank and file of 
 modern peoples, proud of our previsioned destinies, 
 proud of our inevitable triumph." 
 
 Felix stood for a few moments bewildered by 
 the heightened beauty of Sanpriel, and by the 
 passion that animated her words, which she had 
 uttered with a rapid and almost tragic intensity. 
 He had never reahsed that the incorruptible Jewish 
 pride of which he had read could be a vital force in 
 the present day, had not dreamt that a new Banner 
 of Israel had been uplifted, that a new impetus had 
 commenced to stir the ancient and long-suffering 
 clan of the Semites. 
 
 A look of abstract passion, of reverie in which 
 there was something of ecstasy, had come into 
 Sanpriel's face, and it was evident to both her 
 companions that, in the exaltation into which her 
 impetuous outburst had swept her, she had be- 
 come momentarily oblivious of her surround- 
 ings. 
 
 Acosta looked at his daughter with elate 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 77 
 
 and happy eyes, and muttered some words in 
 Hebrew. 
 
 " Yes, my friend, my daughter speaks as be- 
 comes a daughter of Israel who has devoted her- 
 self to a great and noble cause. She and I both 
 have our artistic aims to fulfil, but over and above 
 all we work for the glory of Israel. Every day, 
 every hour, we move, or hope we move, nearer to 
 our goal. Either of us would gladly give up life 
 if we could thereby accelerate the redemption of 
 our people ; either of us would die rather than by 
 any act of ours retard the consummation of our 
 national hope. I tell you, Felix Dane, that I too 
 have had my sacrifice. I, Adama Acosta, the last 
 of our accursed family, a family doomed by the 
 blight of an anathema which God heard and per- 
 mitted, I, Adama Acosta, the Jew, not only loved 
 but was beloved by a beautiful woman, a Christian 
 and of noble rank. To give her up, to assuage my 
 passion with the bitterness of renunciation, was 
 torture ; but I should no more have defiled myself 
 by marriage with her than I should have cursed 
 Jehovah in the Holy of Holies at Jerusalem. , Yet 
 we loved each other — my God ! how we loved each 
 other ! She would have followed me, but I feared 
 the spell of her beauty ; in her voice I dreaded the 
 persuasion of the siren ; and so — I slew her." 
 
78 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 "What!" cried Felix, horrified; "you slew 
 her ? " 
 
 "Yes, though not with any weapon forged of 
 man. I forbade her to follow rrie. When, in all 
 the recklessness of loving sacrifice, she did so, I 
 refused to see her — though I lay upon the floor of 
 my chamber, grovelling in my agony of mind and 
 body, and with my heart in fierce revolt and clam- 
 ouring for its beloved. Then she came in unto me 
 and stood before me, and prayed that she might at 
 least be allowed to join my people ; but the Lord 
 gave me strength to resist the terrible temptation, 
 and led me to see as in a flash that if she remained 
 I should be won over by her and go forth for ever 
 from Israel; and so, with face averted that I 
 might not be overcome by the terror and the glory 
 of her eyes, I bade her depart from me and return 
 not. Thereupon she stood a long while silent, but 
 in the end laughed bitterly, and said to me that my 
 curse would be to desire her for evermore, and that 
 in the fulness of time my pride of Israel would be 
 humbled to the dust. Then she went forth, and in 
 the morning they found her body among the sedges 
 in the river." 
 
 A deep silence followed this avowal. Scarce a 
 sound now palpitated distinctly, save the troublous 
 voice of the sea, calling, calling, calling with its 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 79 
 
 ancient monotony of reiteration. The moonlight 
 irradiated the upper branches of the yews, but 
 made them look even more distorted and vaguely 
 human than their wont, and when suddenly a 
 nightjar swept by with its muffled whirr all started 
 as though conscious they were upon haunted ground 
 and had seen the unlaid ghost gHde by. 
 
 Then, with a low voice, in which his hearers 
 detected something strained and painfully vibrant, 
 Acosta spoke again. 
 
 " And verily, she spoke not wholly in vain. I 
 have wrought for my people; I have renounced 
 and forsworn many temptations ; I have come nearer 
 and nearer to the goal to which I have striven — but 
 from my heart, from the depths of my being, from my 
 inmost soul, I crave still and yearn unspeakably for 
 my lost love. Yea, indeed, is the undying desire of 
 her become part of me. Yet not wholly hath she 
 prevailed, for my daughter Sanpriel is even as I 
 am, and would let no lust of the flesh overcome the 
 passion of the spirit. Yet " — and here, for the first 
 time, Felix saw some indication of that abnormal 
 insanity in Adama Acosta of which he had heard, 
 for the man's whole manner and appearance changed, 
 and he spoke as one distraught, with savagery of 
 expression, gleaming eyes, and words strident and 
 metallic — "Yet, in case she should, let me again 
 
8o CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 lay upon her the blight of unfulfilled hopes and 
 the curse of untimely death ; yea, if ever she wed 
 with one not of our people, with other than a 
 Semite, may" 
 
 " Stop, father, stop ! " cried Sanpriel imploringly, 
 as she laid her hands on his upraised arm ; " you 
 know not what you are saying when you add yet 
 another curse to those that haunt our lives. You 
 have sworn that you will never curse man or 
 woman, and yet you are about to speak the irrevoc- 
 able word ! Fear not for me, father. Surely you 
 know that Sanpriel Acosta is not likely to betray 
 her trust, to desert the cause to which she is 
 wedded." 
 
 Acosta hesitated, and stood looking now at San- 
 priel, now at Felix, now vaguely at the yew-boughs 
 and the stars which seemed to hang upon the outer 
 branches. An owl veered past with a scream that 
 seemed to two at least who heard it to have an 
 echo of derision, and with a louder swell than usual 
 came the hollow and indifferent voice of the sea, 
 a listless chime dully surcharged with the echo of 
 things irrevocable and irrecoverable, and weighty 
 with inarticulate prophecies. 
 
 Then the madness which ever lurked in the 
 inner chambers of his brain came forth laughing 
 and regnant. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 8i 
 
 " Take off your hands, woman ; what have I to 
 do with you or this man ? Go your own ways, 
 and leave me to mine. Your time is short ; I saw 
 Azrael fly overhead but a moment ago, and his 
 shadow fell upon you both. I see love in your 
 eyes : love then, poor fools, while ye may. It is 
 the last dream, the last madness of humanity. 
 Why do you not take her in your arms, man ? 
 She loves you — look at the light in her eyes, see 
 the flame in her cheeks ! Why do you not run to 
 his breast, fair maid, who art so like one who was 
 dear to me long, long ago — my Sanpriel, who died, 
 ah, God knows when ! Why do you not run to 
 him ? See, he perisheth for love of thee — his 
 eyes betray him — I can hear his heart beating 
 louder than the fall of the seas yonder. Nay, 
 speak not, implore not ; I am no judge. If ye have 
 not sinned, go hence in the peace of righteous- 
 ness ; if ye have sinned, go hence in the peace of 
 doom. No, I know you not, save that we three 
 have all lain drowned in yonder sea — have felt the 
 waves roll over and about us, and the tide-sand 
 fill our mouths and hollow eyes — and that now we 
 are here again. Nay, I am a Judge of Israel ; I am 
 Moses Ben Ezra ; I am the law-giver, Salathiel ; I 
 pronounce you both man and wife — may Jehovah 
 Himself not come between you — in life and death 
 
82 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 may body and soul of each of you be one with the 
 other ! " 
 
 Then, ere Sanpriel could speak again, the mad 
 musician seized his violin, and immediately the 
 night air throbbed and thrilled with a music as 
 wild and rare as ever swept from the lute of 
 Israfel. 
 
 Felix felt as though he were in a dream. Be- 
 side him stood Sanpriel, scarce whiter in her vest- 
 ments than in her colour, with clasped hands and 
 eyes dark and ominous from tearless suffering ; a 
 few feet away was Adama Acosta, erect, with white 
 hair about his deathly pale face and eyes gleam- 
 ing with excitement, his violin against his left 
 shoulder, and with bow that seemed animated by 
 some demon of fantasy ; around were the ancient 
 yews, here black and weary as with great age, 
 there white in the moonshine, and filled with what 
 seemed appealing arms, and limbs contorted in a 
 medley of tortured creatures ; beyond all, the 
 night, hushed, aromatic, seductive, and the per- 
 petual booming undertone of the sea, now moan- 
 ing and sibillant, anon harsh and resonant as with 
 swift-following thunders. 
 
 So wild and fantastic had Acosta's gestures 
 been when he first upraised his violin that Felix 
 had mechanically stepped forward to intervene 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 83 
 
 against he knew not what sudden violence of 
 frenzy, but Sanpriel had arrested his impulsive 
 advance and whispered to him to be still. 
 
 " Hush ! It is the one thing that will make 
 him well again. He is never long distraught when 
 he has his violin. He does not see or hear us 
 now, and if he be not interrupted, he will play 
 away all his frenzy." 
 
 But for all her forced calmness she was trembling, 
 and erewhile she would have fallen had her com- 
 panion not caught her and gently moved her back 
 a step or two till she could lean against a forked 
 branch which gave her ample support. Yet, wit- 
 tingly or unwittingly, her hand lay long in that of 
 Felix, who was as one rapt in a dream of assured 
 beatitudes ; indeed, throughout all the time that 
 Acosta played he was electrified by that ghiall hand 
 he held in his, like a white roseleaf within a shell. 
 It touched him, it thrilled him, it gave him a wild 
 desire to kiss it passionately, and then — why then, 
 there was the sea beyond, the sea that each had 
 foreseen as a grave, the sea with its wave-music 
 for requiem, its windless depths for peace, and its 
 long, inalienable silence. 
 
 Now fitfully, again with prolonged chords as of 
 despair, and yet again with a sad pitifulness that 
 brought tears to the eyes of his listeners, Adama 
 
8-4 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 played on till all his frenzy had expended itself. 
 Then, exhausted by the physical and mental strain, 
 he threw himself upon the ground and sobbed like 
 a wearied child. 
 
 Sanpriel stole to his side and gently soothed 
 him, and with tender caresses wrought him again to 
 his manliness. At last he recovered, and, with a 
 long sigh, looked at his companions, and then, hav- 
 ing taken his daughter's arm, slowly walked away. 
 
 The latter gave Felix a glance. It was but a 
 sudden light turned upon him, but he knew that it 
 bade him follow, and in silence. He picked up the 
 violin, and kept a few paces behind the musician 
 and his daughter, the former of whom seemed to 
 have become feeble and stricken in years. 
 
 Not a word was spoken till the house was 
 reached, and then Sanpriel gave her hand to Dane, 
 took the violin, and with a smile which had in it 
 more of infinite pathos than aught else, passed out 
 of his sight by a side-door. 
 
 As he crossed the hall he was met by the butler, 
 who informed him that Sir Arthur had some urgent 
 correspondence to attend to, and begged to be ex- 
 cused reappearance, and, as he already knew, Lady 
 'Crane had gone to her bed some time previously. 
 Only too thankfully he found himself free to go at 
 once to his own room. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 85 
 
 Was it possible, he thought, as he sat by his 
 open window and inhaled the sweet scents which 
 stole upward upon the soft night-wind, was it pos- 
 sible that but a day had elapsed since he had seen 
 Sanpriel at the concert ? Was it conceivable that 
 less than thirty hours ago he had realised his 
 artistic decline, had been reinspired by some stray 
 verses in a poem by an unknown writer, and had 
 destroyed his long-worked-at "Hertha"? Could it 
 be that in so short a time ago he had experienced 
 one of the too familiar disagreements with Lydia ? 
 
 Lydia ! How strange the very name sounded 
 to him ! It was as though it belonged to some 
 distant relative, some friend's wife, some woman 
 of whom he had heard particulars which had 
 scarce interested him. For the first time in his 
 married life, moreover, he saw her in mental vision 
 exactly as she was — every plait of her hair, every 
 calm line in her features, every curve of her neck, 
 each poise and mould of limb, just as if she or her 
 phantasm stood or lay before him. In love one's 
 eyes are veiled, and even in the unruffled placidities 
 of affection one's vision is, in absence, apt to be 
 blurred ; it is only when we are indifferent, when 
 no echo of passion, no whisper of affectionate heed 
 even, stirs the heart, that in absence we see clearly 
 every feature, every expression, of those near to 
 
86 CHILDREN OP TO-MORROW. 
 
 us — as we might image forth a casual friend or 
 any ordinary acquaintance. Deep love is like deep • 
 water that runs darkly in shadow ; in vain we 
 peer into its depths for the beloved face, in vain 
 we strain our ears to catch the thrilling tones, ibr 
 at most only a fugitive gleam of eyes or a haunting 
 gesture is revealed to us, at most we hear only an. 
 uncertain, a too tantalising echo. Love sees not 
 clearly ; when the blue mist lifts from the avenues 
 and perspectives of the land wherein he would fain 
 linger, he shrinks and cowers, and all- affrighted 
 and distraught evanishes to other undiscovered 
 Edens. 
 
 Lydia : how the name galled him ! • How true it 
 was oi her ! Yet why he knew not. Names may 
 help to mould characters, but they do not affect 
 physique or one's inherent individuality. To Felix 
 Dane, however, it seemed as though no other name 
 in the world was so weighted with dull apathy, so 
 significant of lifelessness, of soullessness, of nega- 
 tions manifold. Yet he was not unaware of his 
 having yielded to that last vanity of human ego- 
 tism, and found in accidental nomenclature the 
 secret clues of nature. Lydia — what if she had 
 been called Leonora, or Lavinia, or Lucretia, and if 
 she — Sanpriel — had been Lydia? That Felix 
 laughed with mocking incredulity at this idea was 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 87 
 
 proof to him, if proof he needed, that the passion of 
 an overwhelming love had usurped his heart, proud 
 and elate in its consciousness of inevitable tyranny. 
 
 What Acosta and Sanpriel had said about their 
 Judaic loyalty, still more what the latter had led 
 him to infer by her enthusiastic ardour in the 
 cause of New Israel, of which he knew but little, 
 perturbed him strangely ; yet over and above all 
 was the happy fact that Adama himself had wel- 
 comed him as a friend, had sought his intimacy, had 
 shown him that he had touched the musician's heart 
 as no other man had done for long. Even in his 
 madness would Acosta have allotted Sanpriel and 
 himself to each other, have wedded them as a 
 Judge of Israel, with Jehovah called upon as wit- 
 ness ? No, surely not, Felix thought, and as he 
 so convinced himself his heart swiftlier pulsed at 
 the memory of that strange betrothal, that weird 
 wedding. 
 
 Now at last he no longer disguised from himself 
 that the passion which had lain dormant from the 
 dawn of adolescence had come — like one of those 
 brilliant ocean flowers which rise to the surface only 
 when in all the fulness of their beauty — ail-unex- 
 pectedly upon him. Right or wrong, for weal or 
 woe, a new life was his. He was as one who, sus- 
 pended in mid-air, had severed the rope beneath 
 
88 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 his grasp, so that he had no option but to climb 
 farther or fall into the abyss. 
 
 The thought brought him a keen exultation. He 
 loved, even though Sanpriel might never love him. 
 No sense of loyalty to his wife forced him to sur- 
 render something of his vantage ; he could not be 
 disloyal, he argued, where there had never been 
 loyalty. Neither had ever loved the other; in 
 mind if not in deed each had turned elsewhere 
 for what of life-glamour had been denied them. 
 He knew not how much foundation there was 
 for his suspicions of Lydia and Ford; for one 
 thing, he believed in his wife's chastity in the con- 
 viction that she could not do more than dally 
 haughtily with the thin ghost of a phantasmal pas- 
 sion. Ford he neither liked nor trusted ; but what 
 then ? What right had he to interfere ? He wished 
 no subterfuge, no intrigue; but if they cared to 
 force upon him a divorce, he would only too 
 willingly stand aloof and permit them to do as 
 seemed to them best. It might be immoral, it 
 might be wrong, but the truth remained; and he 
 had no desire to wrap himself in sophistications, 
 and go on his way crying out " All is well," when 
 in deep verity all should be ill. 
 
 But as for definite action of any kind, no idea 
 thereof crossed his mind. His reflections about 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 89 
 
 Lydia were as vague as they were brief ; and when 
 he thought of Sanpriel it was as one dreams of 
 Paradise, with ecstasy poignant indeed, but touched 
 with a sense of infinite remoteness. Then below all 
 his fluctuating hopes, regrets, and visionary dreams 
 was the, to him, exquisite conviction that his genius 
 had been reborn, had been dipped in rainbow-gold, 
 had been touched with the magic chrism that the 
 Spirit of Beauty carrieth but none hath seen. 
 
 Wearied at last with stress of emotion, he un- 
 dressed and lay down. For some time he could not 
 sleep : the vagrant odours which came in at the 
 open window intoxicated rather than soothed him, 
 and the intermittent booming and resilient sough of 
 the sea charmed his unwilling ears. But erewhile 
 slumber settled upon him, and then from the do- 
 minion of day-dreams he passed to those of night. 
 
 Through all the visions that held him in thrall, 
 sometimes strangely real and coherent, oftenest in- 
 choate, he was haunted always by the face of San- 
 priel. But through each was a sense of mockery, 
 over all an unexpressed prophecy of doom. Again 
 and again he and she were about to go forth to 
 some unpermitted Eden, but ever something terrible 
 intervened ; again and again he was rewedded by 
 Adama Acosta, and then banned with an anathema 
 too terrible to endure. Through each and every 
 
90 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 dream brooded this latent curse; it pulsed, it 
 clamoured, it sobbed with dread unvarying reitera- 
 , tion. 
 
 For, out beyond, the sea moaned and sobbed, 
 with the night-wind, now astir and ready for tem- 
 pestuous flight, wrestling with the inward tide : 
 moaned and sobbed, and sobbed and moaned, with 
 ever, below all, its old, brooding, monotonous boom, 
 the dull chime of oblivion. 
 
( 91 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 It was late when he opened his eyes next morning. 
 His first impression was one of chill, and almost 
 immediately he was aware of the swish of rain and 
 the loud vehemence of wind. 
 
 Over his dressing-table lay a number of wet 
 blossoms, blooms which had been torn from the 
 roses that clustered close up to his window, and 
 among them, but newly dead, a delicat^ sulphur 
 butterfly. The tablecover and white curtains were 
 soaked, and a letter which lay on the floor seemed 
 but a white sop. Mechanically he lifted the latter, 
 and as soon as he had glanced at it, recognised it 
 as one that Lydia's maid had brought him just ere 
 he had left home. He had thrust it in his pocket 
 with intention of perusal in the hansom that con- 
 veyed him to King's Cross, but had failed of re- 
 membrance ; it must, he realised, have escaped 
 from the breast-pocket of his coat when he had 
 thrown the latter on the chair by the window. 
 The gum of the flap had softened, but the enclosed 
 
92 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 missive had thus been more affected by the damp. 
 Still, it was possible to make out portions of it ; 
 that it was only legible here and there was just 
 as well, Felix admitted with a grim smile, when 
 he perceived that some mistake had occurred. 
 For the letter began " Dear Gabriel." It was 
 probable that in her haste she had enclosed the 
 written message she had meant for her husband 
 to Gabriel Ford, since it was quite clear that the 
 communication intended for the latter had gone 
 awkwardly astray. 
 
 Felix's first instinct was to do his utmost 
 to decipher the epistle ; his second, to destroy it 
 unread, as it was not meant for him. 
 
 " I've certainly no right to read it," he muttered 
 hesitatingly. " It would be a low thing to do ; 
 and yet — and yet — no, I know what I shall do," 
 and as he spoke he refolded it and placed it in his 
 coat-pocket again. 
 
 Neither Sanpriel nor her father were at break- 
 fast ; the latter, indeed, was unwell, and — as Felix 
 heard with chagrin — talked of a. speedy return to 
 London. 
 
 The forenoon was spent somewhat listlessly. 
 Having no letters to attend to and nothing to 
 do, Dane lit his cigar and strolled forth to have a 
 look at the sea. For some reason he did not 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 93 
 
 attempt to define, he avoided the yew-grove where 
 in the bygone night-tide he had witnessed such 
 a strange scene, where he had been wedded to 
 Sanpriel by the father who would have slain her 
 rather than see her married to another than one 
 of her own people. 
 
 A short distance from the lawns and flower- 
 gardens to the east of the house ran vagrantly the 
 first undergrowth and scattered arborage of the 
 forest. A few yards farther on and the scattered 
 oaks, bushes, and ashes grew denser, and then 
 the ancient oak forest itself opened up in endless 
 avenues and groves, i^-^ 
 
 It was with delight that he walked through 
 the woodlands. The dark rugged boles of the 
 oaks, the huge branches which threw vast masses 
 of shadow across the mossed ground, the wind- 
 flowers, violets, and wild hyacinths that clustered 
 among the gnarled roots which lay like uncouth 
 limbs of strange creatures, or stretched in shim- 
 mering spaces where the sunbeams leapt and danced 
 and gleamed in fantastic revelry, all were as a feast 
 to his eyes. How gladsome, also, sounded the cries 
 of the thrushes and finches, the woodlark and hedge- 
 sparrow, the sweet bubbling music of the black- 
 cap, and, with startling alterations of distance and 
 direction, the bell-hke voice of the cuckoo. So 
 
94 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 complete was the suggestion of forest depths that it 
 was with a start of surprise he heard, suddenly, as 
 he crossed a hyacinth-covered hollow, the sea-sound, 
 of which he had been vaguely conscious from the 
 first, become suddenly loud and urgent. When he 
 reached the eastward end of the short slope and 
 stood among some of the hugest oaks he had ever 
 seen, he beheld the sea breaking upon the sands 
 but a few feet away. The day was stormy, and 
 the rain-clouds still swept by, though the sunlight 
 flashed forth in a dozen places, and made the ocean 
 seem in parts as though resplendent with liquid 
 topaz and chrysoprase and sapphire. The mar- 
 vellous jubilation of the sea in a clearing gale was 
 ever a joy to charm him, who loved ocean as few 
 do, loved it because he knew it in all its phases, 
 had sailed much upon it, and found in it at all 
 times a wonder and significance and mystery 
 which no other aspect of nature afforded in like 
 degree. 
 
 It was with keen delight, therefore, that he 
 walked along the grassy dunes which fringed the 
 forest, and watched the endless variety of the sea, 
 — heard the crying of the gulls and oyster-openers 
 and sanderlings blent with the surge and resilience 
 of the waves, the sibillant hiss of foamy waters 
 running swiftly into myriads of hollow shells and 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 95 
 
 all manner of little nooks and crannies among 
 the tiny rock-citadels scattered along the sands, 
 with, under all, the deep booming undertone of 
 ocean itself. 
 
 He did not dwell much upon memories of San- 
 priel; neither did Lydia, nor the minor circum- 
 stances of his life, nor even his work, much occupy 
 his thoughts. But when he turned back to Forest 
 Manor it was with the knowledge that he had 
 gained a new energy, that he had been as it were 
 reborn. Love had overwhelmed him ; for the 
 surest token of its mastery is the impetus of high 
 resolve, which it stimulates and supports. 
 
 Yet — so inconsequent and frail is high-strung 
 emotion — he was conscious of something of relapse, 
 of the return of the shadow, mayhap, of his late in- 
 differency, when, on his return to the house, he 
 learned that Gabriel Ford had arrived. 
 
 The butler could not tell him where Mr. Ford 
 was ; he had seen him last in the drawing-room 
 with Miss Acosta, but they had gone out together 
 — possibly, however, they had returned. 
 
 With swift step, and with an expression into 
 which something of a native imperiousness, almost 
 arrogance, had entered, Felix entered the drawing- 
 room, but a glance satisfied him that no one was 
 present. 
 
96 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 He advanced to the open French window at the 
 far end, where on the previous afternoon he had 
 seen Sanpriel irradiated by the glory of the setting 
 sun. For a moment or two the memory took pos- 
 session of him, and his heart beat the quicker ; but 
 even while his eye softened he caught sight of 
 two figures slowly advancing along one of the box- 
 hedged avenues which engirt the west garden. 
 
 One was Sanpriel; the other was — not Adama 
 Acosta, as he hoped, but — Gabriel Ford. 
 
 Felix stepped on to the lawn and walked towards 
 the twain, whose faces, however, were averted, for 
 they had turned into a side avenue. They did not 
 see him, and so absorbed were they in their con- 
 versation that they did not hear his approach along 
 the soft turf till he Was close upon them. Sanpriel 
 was speaking as he drew near, but he only caught 
 the closing words of her remarks. 
 
 " Why do you object to the name, Mr. Ford ? 
 It seems to me that you are but half-hearted in our 
 cause." 
 
 " No, Sanpriel, I am not half-hearted ; but I 
 think we should" work without ostentation and 
 exert our influence as secretly as possible." 
 
 " I do not agree with you." 
 
 " But you ought to agree with me. I have 
 more experience than you, and I see that the cause 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. g; 
 
 is often retarded by such frankness as you delight 
 in. But to change the subject for a moment, why 
 is it that you have gone back to calling me ' Mr. 
 Ford ' ? You have done so each time you have 
 addressed me by name." 
 
 " It really is a matter of no importance, but you 
 know my dislike to unnecessary informalities." 
 
 " Dear me, Sanpriel, you have suddenly changed 
 your character ! May I inquire if Mr.' Felix 
 Dane" 
 
 But at this moment Felix's footsteps were over- 
 heard, and the conversation came to an abrupt close. 
 
 Miss Acosta's face slightly flushed as she caught 
 Dane's gaze fixed earnestly upon her, and Ford 
 frowned and bit his lip ere he greeted the new- 
 comer with anything but cordial welcome. 
 
 After a few incidental remarks, which served but 
 little to remove the sense of strain experienced by 
 each, the walk was resumed. 
 
 There was an ernbarrassing silence, until San- 
 priel broke it by calmly taking up the thread of 
 the conversation in which she had been engaged 
 ere Felix had appeared. 
 
 " We were discussing some aspects of the ques- 
 tion which is so dear to us, Mr. Dane — the subject 
 which my father broached ■ last night. Mr. Ford 
 here, who of course is one of us" 
 
 G 
 
98 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 But here Ford interrupted the speaker with a 
 remark uttered in a tone which could not disguise 
 his chagrin. 
 
 " I think, Miss Acosta, we had better not dis- 
 cuss this subject further at present. It can have 
 no interest for Mr. Dane ; and, moreover, as it is 
 a matter in which he can have no possible concern, 
 I am sure he would prefer that we should talk 
 on some theme in which we can take a common 
 interest." 
 
 Felix experienced , a desire to say something 
 bitter, for his dislike and mistrust of Ford had 
 suddenly turned from the passive to the active 
 stage ; but he controlled himself, and replied 
 quietly that he already knew about the aspirations 
 and aims of the Redemption movement among the 
 Jews ; that he himself might in some measure be 
 enlisted among those, whether Judaic or not, who 
 called themselves Children of To-morrow ; and 
 that his interests were keenly awakened in what 
 he had heard of the new movement. 
 
 " In a sense, Mr. Dane is one of us, you will- 
 now be glad to hear," Sanpriel remarked in a tone 
 wherein the irony was not wholly disguised. 
 
 Ford shot a quick glance from one to the other, 
 and it was clear that he was far from pleased. 
 
 " For myself at any rate, I decline to discuss 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 99 
 
 a question which is, or should be, so private 
 to us.'' 
 
 " Then you are a Jew, Ford ? " asked Felix. 
 
 " Yes. Why do you ask ? " 
 
 " Because we certainly inferred — my wife and I 
 — that you were not." 
 
 " I cannot help your inferences. I do not 
 see " 
 
 " That ' we inferred ' was only a polite way of 
 saying that you certainly, on one occasion, told -us 
 that though you intimately knew the Monterolis 
 and Cranes, and others, you were absolutely un- 
 related to them except in business." 
 
 This was a home-thrust that pierced Gabriel 
 Ford in his weakest part. It suited him to adopt 
 two r6ks : in secret, and among his kindred, that 
 of the Jewish emancipator ; in public, that of the 
 wealthy, art-loving, unprejudiced Gentile. 
 
 Sanpriel looked at him fixedly while Felix was 
 speaking, and was convinced that he had indeed 
 misled his friends as to his nationality — a short- 
 coming which in her eyes was as impolitic as it 
 was despicable. 
 
 " That is not the case." 
 
 " Excuse me, Ford, I am not in the habit 
 of uttering untruths. Did you not, also, tell my 
 wife, two nights ago, that you were not a Jew ? 
 
loo CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 She unquestionably informed me of the circum- 
 stance. By the way, that reminds me of the fact 
 that I have a letter for you, from her." 
 
 Skilled as he was in physiognomic control. Ford 
 was unable to repress a start and an apprehensive 
 glance at the speaker. In another moment, how- 
 ever, he had regained his self-possession, and 
 took the missive which Felix handed to him, 
 without the slightest trace either of eagerness 
 or reluctance. 
 
 "Ah, from Mrs. Dane? I suppose it is about 
 that newly discovered fugue by Bach which I 
 promised to lend her. In the hurry of departure 
 I came away without having sent it off, but I'll 
 write to my man by the afternoon mail." 
 
 Then, without glancing -at the letter, he put it in 
 his pocket, and with an ease of demeanour that 
 did him credit commenced some chit-chat about the 
 Sarasate concert, Adama Acosta's performance, and 
 other matters musical. 
 
 A restraint, however, lay upon his two com- 
 panions, that was not altogether the result of what 
 all three felt to have been an untimely and dis- 
 agi'eeable rencontre. It would have been strange 
 if after the events of the past night Felix and 
 Sanpriel could have walked side by side as new 
 acquaintances merely ; each felt a magnetic current 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. loi 
 
 flowing from the other; both were conscious that 
 the hand of destiny, of circumstance, of chance, 
 had wrought certain vital threads of their being 
 into a woof that bound them each to each. 
 
 Now and again a slight touch, a mere hint of 
 contact, sent a thrill along Felix's nerves, and 
 though Sanpriel seemed to studiously avoid his 
 swift and searching, glances, he knew that in her 
 eyes there was a strange and fugitive light that 
 was not native to their fathomless serenity. 
 
 How personal the conversation — or Gabriel 
 Ford's monologue rather — had become ! he vaguely 
 reflected once or twice ; nor was it till a certain 
 accent of quite unnecessary emphasis in the re- 
 petition of "your wife " aroused him that he under- 
 stood, for the first time, how he had given Ford 
 cause for resentment. 
 
 Ford was jealous — of Sanpriel ! Could he, then, 
 thought Felix, have any real love for Lydia ? 
 Or was he playing a double game, with self- 
 interest and possibly passion of a kind on the one 
 side, and self-indulgence and mere desire on the 
 other ? 
 
 This insistent reminding of him, and Sanpriel, 
 that there was a Mrs. Dane in the background, 
 witnessed, clearly enough, to an intention to pre- 
 judice him in Miss Acosta's eyes — or, rather, to 
 
102- CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 render any growth of love, perhaps even of friend- 
 ship, between her and himself impossible. 
 
 How much right of interference had he ? Felix 
 wondered. Was he a kinsman ? Was he a guardian? 
 Was he a lover ? Was he, even, a suitor accepted 
 of Adama Acosta ? This, of course, he would find 
 out as soon as opportunity favoured him. 
 
 But as for Sanpriel herself, how did she look 
 upon him, if, indeed, he had not mistaken a quick 
 and almost passionate sympathy for the conscious 
 or unwitting birth of a more potent emotion ? If, 
 he argued, she had felt something of that electric 
 flash which had thrilled him to his inmost being 
 when he first confronted her at the sunset window 
 in Forest Manor, then she must be aware that 
 love, unquestioning, imperious, irresistible love, 
 had come to them like lightning out of heaven. 
 And if she were so aware, how looked she upon 
 the front of circumstance? That he had pre- 
 sumably loved before, that at any rate he was 
 married, and that in all likelihood he knew not 
 the peril of his blind venture; that, again, she 
 might not give way openly to the summons of 
 love, that marriage with him was a thing banned 
 and impossible, that a higher cause than that of a 
 woman's heart refused enfranchisement from bonds 
 which were not altogether of her own making, 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 103 
 
 — these, and such ponderings as these, occupied 
 Felix's mind even while his outer senses were 
 alert to his surroundings, and his brief answers 
 and remarks sufficiently coherent. 
 
 Erewhile Miss Acosta complained of weariness, 
 and so all three turned towards the house. Soon 
 after they had entered the drawing-room through 
 the open window, Sanpriel left in order to join 
 her father ; and, at the same time, Ford, having 
 remarked he had letters to write, went to the 
 library. I 
 
 A dull listlessness overcame Felix, and he knew 
 not how to combat it. After some loitering by 
 the book-covered table, and an indifferent glance 
 through an illustrated paper which he had duly 
 looked through some days previously, he turned 
 to the escritoire and sat down to write a brief 
 letter to Lydia. 
 
 Thrice he finished a note, and each time im- 
 patiently tore it up in fragments. Finally he 
 selected a telegram form, and wrote simply a 
 message to the effect that he was glad of the 
 rest and change at Forest Manor, and should 
 remain for some days. 
 
 As he inscribed his signature Lady Crane 
 entered, and then ensued a period of dull gossip 
 about matters of no moment to either till Felix 
 
104 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 felt as though one of the silent evenings at The 
 Sycamores, with Lydia alone for company, would 
 by comparison be delightful. 
 
 With unutterable relief he heard the luncheon- 
 gong sound, though, to his surprise in one in- 
 stance, and chagrin in the other, neither Ford nor 
 Sanpriel was present at the table. 
 
 After lunch his host suggested a long ride 
 inland to see a friend of his, whom Felix also 
 knew, and as the, latter was a good horseman, 
 and riding his favourite exercise, he gladly enough 
 agreed to the proposal. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon before they reached 
 Forest Manor again, so late that there was but 
 time in which to dress for dinner. 
 
 Once again life became other than, mere exist- 
 ence, when he saw Sanpriel standing near the 
 piano, talking with Sir Arthur. She looked so 
 beautiful, and welcomed him with such simple 
 dignity, and yet with a friendliness that had in 
 it something of no mere conventional cordiality, 
 that his ennui suddenly vanished. 
 
 It certainly did not detract from his satisfaction 
 when he learned that Lady Crane had gone to 
 Crevil Court to Witness an archery tournament, 
 and that she had persuaded^ — more likely, Felix 
 thought, had imperatively required — Ford to 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. lo; 
 
 accompany her. She had left word that dinner 
 was not to be delayed on her account, and thus 
 it was that, as soon as Adama Acosta, looking 
 pale and worn, but calm and almost stately in 
 a certain pathetic dignity of demeanour that was 
 as a kind of instinctive protest, had joined them, 
 and the gong had sounded, Felix was asked by 
 Sir Arthur to take Miss Acosta in to dinner, 
 " while we two old fogies will follow, and attend 
 to our gross appetites ; for no doubt you, Dane, 
 will be quite as enthusiastic as my friend Sanpriel 
 in the discussion of poetry, art, romance, and all 
 the rest of it, to the exclusion of all such base 
 matters as fish, flesh, and fowl." 
 
 It was certainly a delightful dinner, and none 
 the less so because Sir Arthur's laughing suggestion 
 was borne out by no. undue abstinence on the part 
 of his younger guests. Even when Felix thought 
 it all over, later on, he scarce realised how wide 
 had been the reach of their topics, how relatively 
 profound had been their diving into speculative 
 depths, how mentally alert and how swift in 
 sympathy each had been with the other. In that 
 hour, disturbed as it was by endless minor inter- 
 ruptions, how close he had drawn to the beautiful 
 woman for whom his whole heart and soul now 
 yearned ! how akin he found himself in all matters 
 
io6 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 of art ! how stimulated to worthier endeavour than 
 he had ever been before ! Felix Dane was passion- 
 ately in love, and thus the common vanity which 
 we all share in degree was in his case sublimated 
 to an emotion wherein the .personal argument 
 exercised no dominion. He tortured himself with 
 no calculations as to whether so beautiful and rare 
 a creature as Sanpriel could love him, whether 
 there were anything in his appearance or manner 
 or nature that could, for her, afford attraction or 
 fascination ; he knew that his life and hers had 
 touched, and that though her will might be en- 
 throned serene above the mischances of circumstance, 
 all else of her turned towards him with the same 
 unwitting yearning as, with an inevitableness that 
 seems not void of conscious desire, the golden- 
 lily of Brazil grows towards its male counterpart. 
 Perhaps — he pondered, nay, he believed — that to 
 such an one as Sanpriel love was so absolute, so 
 royal a- thing that no thought was given to the 
 fugitive minor attendants which are commonly so 
 obvious, like the daws and magpies and sparrow- 
 hawks that flutter vehemently after the first sky- 
 ward circles of the eagle. 
 
 There was but that one drop of dubious bitter in 
 his cup of joy : Sanpriel's fervour, her passion for 
 the cause of her people which she had so deeply to 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 107 
 
 heart. Could love enter in at gates so guarded ? 
 Could any flag of surrender ever wave from battle- 
 ments which were thus inviolable ? This dread 
 would haunt him again and again, though he strove 
 to overcome it ; but at last as a phantom con- 
 strained to obedience, it veiled its presence, though 
 it departed not. 
 
 After dinner there was an interval of music, 
 though Acosta declined to play on account of the 
 mingled weariness and despondency which still 
 held him in thrall. But even the early departure 
 of father and daughter was compensated for by 
 the promise of both to spend a few days in 
 June on Felix's house-boat — one or two idle days 
 upon the Thames on its remoter reaches. 
 
 Not long after Mr. and Miss Acosta had left the 
 room, the sound of carriage-wheels was heard, and 
 Sir Arthur, having first bidden his guest to go out 
 into the grounds and smoke, if he felt so inclined, 
 hurried off to meet his wife. 
 
 An hour later, as Felix was strolling through the 
 yews, endeavouring to create in fancy the scene 
 that had been enacted there when last he stood 
 among the gaunt, contorted branches of the ancient 
 trees, he was startled at the abrupt appearance of a 
 figure from out of the deep shadow of one of them, 
 scarce ten yards away. 
 
io8 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 The next moment he recognised Gabriel Ford. 
 • As the latter cleared the reach of shadow, the 
 moonlight shone full upon his face, which was 
 white and set. 
 
 " I have come out to meet you, Felix Dane. 
 I suppose you can guess my errand." 
 
 " No, I cannot." 
 
 " That letter you handed to me — the letter from 
 Mrs. Dane ? " 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " That letter was open, although it was a private 
 note addressed to me." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Well ? By God, you take it coolly ! Are you 
 in the habit of opening other people's letters ? " 
 
 " Not as a regular thing." 
 
 "Look here, Dane, drop that tone, and answer 
 me frankly. Did you open Mrs. Dane's letter 
 to me ? " 
 
 " I did." 
 
 Ford stepped a little nearer, and the lines in 
 his face hardened. 
 
 " Your reason for so forgetting yourself? " 
 
 " I omitted to tell you what you will yourself 
 have noticed, that the writing on the envelope was 
 blurred, though not then, as now, indecipherable. 
 Just as I was about to leave home two mornings 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 109 
 
 ago, the servant handed me a note from Mrs. 
 Dane. I had not time to glance at it at the 
 moment, and put it in my pocket with intention 
 to read it in the hansom ; however, I forgot all 
 about it. Last night or early this morning there 
 was a rising of wind and rain, and as I had left 
 the window open, everything near the latter was 
 soaked. The letter meant for you fell out of 
 my breast-pocket, and was no doubt soon pretty 
 thoroughly damped. When I picked it up I could 
 just make out my own name on the envelope, and 
 recognised the letter as that which my servant 
 had handed to me." 
 
 " What ? Do you mean to say that it was 
 addressed to you ? " 
 
 " Yes. In her haste my wife must have en- 
 closed the note meant for me in an envelope 
 addressed to you, or to some one else." 
 
 A look of mingled surprise, chagrin, and sus- 
 picion came into Ford's face, though he could not 
 but believe that Dane spoke the truth. 
 
 "And the sequel? You read the letter? " 
 
 " No. I saw that it began ' Dear Gabriel.' 
 It was news to me that my wife and you were 
 so intimate as to call each other 'Gabriel' and 
 ' Lydia,' but it is, of course, no affair of mine. 
 I did not read your letter — which I dare say 
 
no CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 was no easy task for you, as much of it seemed 
 indecipherable through the damp." 
 
 " That is all you know of the letter ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " On your word of honour ? " 
 
 " My word is sufficient for those who are them- 
 selves men of honour." 
 
 Ford took no notice of the implied rebuke, but 
 shifted restlessly. 
 
 " I have been too hasty," he said at last in a 
 constrained voice, "and beg your pardon. It 
 so happened that there was something private 
 in the letter; something about^ — about — a mutual 
 friend, and of course I " — ■ — 
 
 " There is no necessity to explain," Fehx in- 
 terrupted coldly ; " I have nothing to do with my 
 wife's private correspondence. And now 1 think 
 I'll stroll back ; it is becoming chilly." 
 
 The two men walked side by side for some 
 time without speaking, but at last Felix broke 
 the constraint. 
 
 " Are you going to make any stay here ? " 
 
 Ford shot a quick glance at his companion, and 
 was about to make a not over-courteous reply, 
 but he controlled himself. 
 
 " I do not know ; it depends on circumstances. 
 Are you ? " 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. in 
 
 " In my case also it depends on circum- 
 stances." 
 
 " Such as the stay or departure of Miss 
 Acosta ? " 
 
 Ford spoke with a distinct sneer, but though 
 Felix was conscious of it, he showed no sign of 
 having apprehended its significance. 
 
 " Undoubtedly Miss Acosta is the chief attrac- 
 tion here," he replied quietly, " and she and I 
 have many interests in common. Her father, 
 also, I find a most interesting man." 
 
 " What would Mrs. Dane say to it ? " 
 
 The sarcastic laugh that accompanied the 
 remark made the latter offensive, but still Felix 
 maintained his attitude of calm and somewhat 
 contemptuous indifference. 
 
 " That question is not in your usual good taste, 
 Ford. But let us change the subject. I want to 
 hear more about the aims and hopes of those who 
 call themselves emancipated Jews." 
 
 " Oh, damn the Jews ! " 
 
 " Certainly do so if it afford any relief to your 
 feelings. I have myself known some whom I 
 could damn most heartily." 
 
 " I want to speak to you about a personal 
 matter, Dane." 
 
 "Well!" 
 
112 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " Probably you do not know that I intend to 
 marry Miss Acosta ? " 
 
 A furious surge of blood made Felix's heart 
 throb as though it were about to burst, and a 
 choking sensation came into his throat, but with 
 a powerful effort he controlled himself. It was 
 not merely that the announcement gave him a 
 shock ; he resented the arrogant tone in which the 
 remark had been made, and the " I intend to 
 marrj'," with its implication as to Sanpriel's con- 
 sent being a secondary matter. 
 
 " I was not aware of your intention." 
 
 " It is not intention, merely ; Adama Acosta 
 knows of and approves my suit." 
 
 " And Miss Acosta ? " 
 
 "Miss Acosta will do as she thinks right. 
 She sees that her father wishes it, and that the 
 cause of — of" 
 
 " The Jews ? " 
 
 " That the cause which ■ she has so much to 
 heart may thereby be materially helped. There- 
 fore, even if she were indifferent to me, which she 
 is not, she would not hesitate to do what is her 
 manifest duty." 
 
 " So far as I can judge she does not seem to 
 have the staunchest or most enthusiastic ally in 
 you : the cause of Israel is not so important 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 113 
 
 with you as the cause of Gabriel Ford, eh, 
 mon ami?" Felix remarked, with a short cynical 
 laugh. 
 
 " You do not know what you are talking about, 
 and Miss Acosta is, to say the least of it, indis- 
 creet in her zeal. The best way to nip a revolu- 
 tion or a reform is to chatter freely about it ere 
 the time of fruition is at hand." 
 
 " Dear me, I had no idea you were of the re- 
 formers of any kind. How interested Mrs. Dane 
 — Lydia, I should say — will be to hear about your 
 Jewish bund ! It is true that she has a stupid pre- 
 judice against your people — a prejudice so strong 
 that the word seems euphemistic ; but no doubt 
 your persuasive powers will modify or even con- 
 vert her opinions." 
 
 He saw . that his shaft had gone home, and 
 that the poison was rankling, and it was with 
 cruel pleasure that he made the wound deeper. 
 
 " And in any case she will be most interested 
 to hear about Miss Acosta. I shall write to her 
 about it to-night. Sanpriel Acosta : . she cannot 
 but admire the name at any rate. I must tell 
 Lydia how much in love you are, and how beauti- 
 ful Miss Sanpriel is." 
 
 Twice Ford essayed to speak, but each time 
 his hesitation overcame him. At last, and it was 
 
 H 
 
114 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 curious what a metallic ring had come into 
 his voice, he replied that he did not think 
 either matter could have any special interest for 
 Mrs. Dane. 
 
 Silence again ensued, and both men walked up 
 the avenue with slightly quickened step. 
 
 The rare beauty of the cloud-drift caught Felix's 
 attention, and with his characteristically swift re- 
 sponsiveness to any extraneous object either beau- 
 tiful or strange or unusual, he became absorbed, 
 almost to obliviousness, of his companion. 
 
 The moon seemed as though poised, like a cres- 
 set of primrose-fire, on the summit of the highest 
 among the yews ; but she threw upward such a 
 flood of light that the dappled curds of cloud, quies- 
 cent surf of the storm that had drifted inland, were 
 fringed with faint yellow. Elsewhere, white as snow 
 and soft as lambswool, stretched long peninsulas of 
 irradiate vapour, save towards the south-west, where 
 the accumulated drift was as softly grey as the 
 breast of a cushat, but, at its hither extremities, 
 fibrous, and frayed by little circling eddies of 
 wind. 
 
 Some wild-fowl, flying in a vast wedge-wise figure, 
 as they crossed the great space where the amber 
 radiances prevailed, no longer blurred and dusky 
 as when clearing their way through the farther 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 115 
 
 glooms, grew as black and as clearly defined as 
 rooks in the first afterglow. 
 
 So absorbed was Felix in observation and in 
 vague trains of surmise, that he was unconscious 
 of Ford's having left him, till, suddenly looking 
 round with an abrupt sense of isolation, he dis- 
 covered that he was alone. 
 
 Instead of entering the house when he reached 
 the broad stone balcony that extended to right and 
 left of the triple stairway, he turned, descended the 
 few steps at the drawing-room gable, and strolled 
 into what was called the Labyrinth, though its 
 flower-haunted, box-bordered ways, devious as they 
 were, had little of the' intricacies of the old-fashioned 
 maze. 
 
 One of those happy mischances which as often 
 lead us to the golden as their contraries to the iron 
 gates of experience had conducted him thither ; for 
 as he stopped to inhale the over-sweet pungent 
 odour of the blossoms of a ceringa, he caught sight 
 of a tall white figure standing among some late- 
 flowering almonds, in whose profuse beauty he 
 had been lost in admiration that forenoon, when 
 walking in the Labyrinth with Sanpriel and Ford. 
 Although half-lost in shadow, there was no doubt 
 as to whose it was. 
 
 With eager eyes he hastened forward, and as 
 
Ii6 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 he saw Sanpriel come towards him, he felt an 
 almost irresistible temptation to take her in his 
 arms, and by the passion of his kisses declare 
 the love that consumed him. A line from one of 
 the Elizabethan poets came into his mind, and 
 almost as he reached Sanpriel he muttered Florio's 
 complaint, " How leapt we into this labyrinth of 
 love ? " 
 
 " Are you composing a poem, Mr. Dane," asked 
 Miss Acosta, with a low laugh. " No ? I suppose 
 that, like myself, you have come here to obtain a 
 breath of sweet garden-air before going to bed. 
 But now I must hasten in ; I promised my father 
 not to be away many minutes. But do not let me 
 take you in ; I will say good-night now." 
 
 '' I am so sorry you cannot remain out a little 
 longer, Miss Acosta; the night is glorious, and 
 the air delightful after the morning's storm. But 
 if you must go in, let me accompany you." 
 
 As they slowly walked towards the house, Felix 
 made some further arrangements about the pro- 
 jected house-boat holiday, but when he added 
 that he should call very shortly at Dreamthorpe, 
 he fancied he detected something of hesitation in 
 his companion's manner. 
 
 The idea that she perhaps regretted her father's 
 open invitation to him, or that possibly Ford had 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 117 
 
 prejudiced her against too frank a friendship, 
 determined him to broach the subject which was 
 causing such an ache at his heart. 
 
 " Miss Acosta, we have known each other but 
 a few hours in point of time, though circumstances 
 have done for us what weeks of casual intercourse 
 might not have accomplished ; and on this ground 
 I am emboldened to ask you a question • of a 
 private nature." 
 
 Impressed as much by something in his 
 voice as by his words, Sanpriel gave a startled 
 glance at his face, and then, in a low voice, 
 assented. 
 
 " If you consider that I am taking an undue 
 liberty, forgive me; but — but — is it the case that 
 you are engaged to be married to Gabriel Ford ? 
 I understand so from the latter." 
 
 He could not see her face, which she had 
 averted as soon as he had commenced speaking, 
 and though he fancied that she trembled for a 
 moment, like a doe at the distant bark of a hound, 
 he could not tell how his question had affected 
 her. 
 
 But a chill came into his heart when she 
 walked onward without reply, and still with face 
 averted. 
 
 Was it, then, true? Could she, willingly or 
 
ii8 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 otherwise, be betrothed to a man with whom, 
 despite his racial relationship and general culture, 
 she had really so little in common ? 
 
 A huge moth flew by with a harsh bristling 
 crackle of its shards, and from the lawns beyond 
 the Manor came the scream, at once wailing and 
 strident, of a peacock; but scarce another sound 
 broke the stillness, save the faint susurrus of the 
 wind upon the wet grass and the crish-crash of 
 the gravel upon which they walked. 
 
 So, Sanpriel resented his question, and was 
 going to leave him without a word ; and then 
 his house of sand would collapse, and his next 
 tide of life know it no more ! As they both 
 abruptly stopped at a side entrance, which led 
 into the hall through one of the conservatories, 
 he held out his hand in an impulse of combined 
 hope and despair. 
 
 Sanpriel did not at first take it, but she turned 
 and looked upon him, and he saw that in her 
 eyes there was nothing of resentment. 
 
 " Good-night, Mr. Dane. I am not angry at 
 your question, though it has made me think, 
 — and wonder. But what you assert is not 
 true." 
 
 Felix eagerly leaned forward and caught the 
 hand that was outstretched to him, but he re- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 119 
 
 tained it as, in a low impassioned voice, he again 
 spoke. 
 
 " He assured me that it was true ; tell me 
 again that it is not so, — San Miss Acosta ! " 
 
 He felt an instantaneous quiver thrill the hand 
 he held, and even in the half-light where she 
 stood, he could see that a flush had come and 
 ebbed upon her face. 
 
 " It is not true. I am not engaged to him, — 
 nor in any circumstances that I can foresee is 
 such a thing possible between Mr. Ford and 
 myself." 
 
 As Sanpriel spoke she disengaged her hand, 
 and then, almost ere he realised her absence, he 
 found himself standing alone. 
 
 But it was with a new life at his heart that he 
 entered the house ; the regnant feeling that had 
 upborne him of late had returned, and his pulse 
 beat as though under some potent stimulus. 
 
 When he entered the drawing-room he found 
 no one there save Sir Arthur and Lady Crane, 
 but so elated was he by what he had just learned, 
 that he could have, been amiable and entertaining 
 even to the Rector of Grantley, to whom, on the 
 previous evening, he had felt contemptuously 
 hostile. 
 
 Half-an-hour or so passed in disconnected chat. 
 
120 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 and then Ford entered. He seemed preoccupied, 
 and far from cheerful; and once a baleful light 
 came into his eyes when' he heard that Dane had 
 met Miss Acosta in the Labyrinth, and noticed 
 how alert and almost joyous were his expression 
 and voice. 
 
 Lady Crane, wont to retire at an early hour, 
 remained in the room till late, and made a 
 sufficient number of malappropriate remarks to 
 have set her two guests wrangling had not 
 each been on his guard, though for different 
 reasons. 
 
 At last, to every one's relief, she said good-night 
 and departed. Soon afterwards Felix followed suit, 
 but was startled, as he passed along the corridor 
 leading to his apartment, to hear strains of wild 
 and discordant music coming from Adama Acosta's 
 room. 
 
 So strident, so savagely inchoate were they, that 
 he feared the musician had again been overtaken 
 by one of his brief attacks of frenzy ; but though 
 his heart was sore for Sanpriel, he could not ven- 
 ture to intrude. For some minutes, however, he 
 lingered in the corridor, till the fitful strains of the 
 vioUn abruptly ceased ; and then, satisfied that 
 Acosta had charmed away his distemper, he went 
 to his own room. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 121 
 
 But, till slumber became profound, his dreams 
 were perturbed by imaginary and real echoes of 
 sound, now of a music wild and barbaric, shrill 
 and clamorous, now of swelling, resonant tones, 
 borne inward, across dune and woodland, from 
 leagues of violent sea. 
 
( 122 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Dane woke with a start next morning when he 
 heard a voice by his bedside. 
 
 " It is a note, sir, from Mr. Ford ; he is wait- 
 ing for an answer.'' 
 
 Felix opened it with a strong feeling of curi- 
 osity, and with some misgivings, which proved 
 unfounded. 
 
 Dear Dane, — I should much like to talk over 
 and explain some remarks we made to each other 
 yesterday. It is a glorious day, and as Sir Arthur 
 is busy, he has asked me to ride with you, a 
 pleasure I would have tried to ensure in any case. 
 As it is late, I presume you will soon be out, so 
 will order your horse to be in readiness. If you 
 cannot come at once, wiU you ride round by the 
 seaward side of the forest for about two miles, 
 then turn to the left, and turn eastward again at 
 the first road to the right : thus we may meet and 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 123 
 
 ride homeward together. Please send me word 
 by bearer. — Yours, 
 
 " Gabriel Ford." 
 
 He by no means felt anxious for Ford's com- 
 pany, but he could not without discourtesy refuse 
 the proposed arrangement. He sent word, ac- 
 cordingly, that he had slept late, and so was not 
 ready to go out at once, but that in half-an-hour 
 he should be ready, and would follow in the course 
 indicated. 
 
 Having had his bath and dressed, he strolled 
 down to the breakfast-room, but found no one 
 there. Norgate, the butler, notable for his reti- 
 cence and monosyllabic utterances, vouchsafed no 
 remarks, and as Felix was absorbed in some cor- 
 respondence that had arrived over-night, he learned 
 nothing of the movements of the other inmates of 
 Forest Manor. 
 
 Ere he had begun his breakfast he was informed 
 that his horse was at the door, so that by the time 
 he had satisfied his hunger he did not delay to 
 bid his host or hostess good-morning, but, having 
 lit a cigar, mounted the handsome chestnut mare 
 which had been placed at his disposal, and rode 
 away. 
 
 As he crossed the avenue, just before the bend 
 
124 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 which shrouded the yew-grove from view, he 
 turned and loolied at the house, in the hope that 
 Sanpriel might be at one of the windows, but, 
 to his disappointment, there was no sign of her 
 in either her own or her father's room. For 
 a moment, however, he reined in his horse as he 
 fancied he caught sight, at the library window, of 
 Gabriel Ford ; but when he looked again there was 
 no figure there. He smiled at the absurdity of his 
 fancy, and then rode on. 
 
 The morning was blithe and fresh, and move- 
 ment itself a very joy. Everywhere the birds were 
 in a state of rapturous energy, though here and 
 there a thrush, more lovelorn than its fellows, or 
 an ecstatic little blue tit, poured forth a sweet, 
 swift, lilting music that was simply intoxicating. 
 Scents from the grass, the cowslips, and mar- 
 guerites, from the trailing hedges of wild rose and 
 honeysuckle, from the clumps of gold-flowered 
 gorse through whose spiky branches flitted stone- 
 chats and yellowhammers innumerable, and from 
 the forest beyond, with its violet-covered glades 
 and dells haunted of the late-flowering primrose, 
 mixed with the more pungent odours from the 
 sand-dunes and the sea. Everywhere there was a 
 sense of joy — in the blue sky, fretted with flying 
 shreds of white cloud, in the wandering voice of 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 125 
 
 the cuckoo passing over the woods and uplands, in 
 the bubbling, trilling, omnipresent songs of the 
 larks, poised, decrescent, or spirally ascending 
 over the meadows, wherein the cattle stood or 
 lay contentedly, with scarce a gadfly in that crisp 
 and buoyant air to whisk from their sunlit flanks. 
 
 As he rode onward and crossed the dunes, he 
 felt joyous with the long-forgotten gaiety of youth ; 
 so blithe was he that he would fain have raced the 
 sea-gull or the deceptive, ever onward-sweeping 
 curve of the foam-line. 
 
 Filled with glad thoughts and dreams bright in 
 rainbow gold, he reached the grassy promontory 
 that cut off the sands, two miles north-eastward 
 of Forest Manor, without having given a second 
 thought to Gabriel ~ Ford — -till suddenly he caught 
 sight of the cart-road to the left which he had been 
 directed to follow. With a sigh of regret at having 
 to go inland, he turned and rode away from the 
 sea, which was all in turmoil with the surge of the 
 incoming tide. 
 
 Scarce fifty yards beyond the high sand-ridge 
 which hid the sea from the mainland he came upon 
 the track that led to the right, along which he 
 mechanically rode; absorbed in thought. 
 
 He must have advanced close upon a mile when 
 the stillness and sombre aspect of the locality 
 
126 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 suddenly fascinated his attention. What a change 
 to the scenery through which he had ridden since 
 he left Forest Manor! Here all was barrenness, 
 and owing to the absence of birds, and apparently 
 of all other living creatures, the sterility had 
 nothing of beauty in it. There are moods in 
 most of us when the desolation of nature may be 
 our exhilaration, in the same way as, for some in- 
 scrutable reason, we are sometimes stimulated to 
 keen elation by the most commonplace or even 
 disagreeable environment — a sleety day in a locality 
 void of novelty or any particular charm, for ex- 
 ample. But wherever there be desolation without, 
 apparently, the humblest agencies of nature at 
 work- — save the two greatest, air and water — there 
 is no stimulus or help for any creature. The 
 most sordid hovels may be redeemed by a child's 
 laugh, nay, by a drunkard's oath even, so precious 
 is the breath of life; the most barren and un- 
 attractive waste may be pleasurable because of the 
 brown moth that flickers above the sand, the 
 carrion-fly, or the grey lizard darting among the 
 stones. 
 
 Felix — subject as he was to every atmospheric 
 change and apt to yield to the most extraneous 
 of influences upon physical mood — was at once 
 conscious of a sense of despondency. The place 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 127 
 
 was so gloomy, so lifeless ; not even a dotterel or 
 redshank flitted along the ground, and if a gull 
 wheeled overhead, it was to pass swiftly away with 
 a discordant scream. His mare also seemed to 
 resent the soil ; she stamped her feet and grew 
 restless, and sniffed the air as if apprehensively. 
 Along the flat clay-like stones which cropped up 
 here and there, and by the margins of the rank 
 sea-grass that grew in sickly patches, he noticed a 
 white powdery substance, like the salt residue of the 
 surf of primeval seas. Sali: why, of course, he 
 muttered, he must be among the salt-marshes, 
 perhaps in those of Ratho, of which he remembered 
 having heard dire accounts. What a strange place 
 to have been appointed as a rendezvous! And 
 how was it possible for Ford to meet him in the 
 salt-marsh when it stretched for leagues eastward 
 till it met the sea ? The reflection perturbed him, 
 and a frown came upon his face. Under a sharp 
 touch of the whip the mare bounded forward, then 
 reared, and would have swung round ; but, angry 
 at he knew not what, he forced her onward. 
 
 Suddenly she gave a leap and nearly threw her 
 rider, but before he could recover from his surprise 
 she had again plunged wildly forward, and seemed 
 in nervous distress, for her nostrils palpitated like 
 valves of a machine, her eyes were strained and 
 
128 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 bloodshot, and down her neck the sweat poured in 
 thick dark runlets. 
 
 What could , this frantic labouring mean, Felix 
 wondered ; but he understood when in another 
 moment he realised that, with all her plunging and 
 other efforts, the mare was not advancing a yard. 
 
 He had ridden into the marsh of Ratho, that 
 fatal quicksand where for centuries many an in- 
 advertent wayfarer has encountered death. He 
 remembered it all now, and in that extraordinary 
 inconsequence of thought which comes to some 
 of us at times of great peril or distress, he was 
 conscious of speculating as to whether it was a man 
 or woman who had last perished among these salt- 
 morasses. 
 
 A swift glance around him showed close at hand 
 a patch of tufty grasses, sufficient perhaps to afford 
 firm footing — a grannock, as the fen-men call such 
 places. 
 
 Half-slipping, half-swinging from his horse, he 
 found, to his relief, that he was only at the begin- 
 ning of the quaking morass, and that though he 
 might sink over his ankles here and there, he 
 would have no difficulty in leaping from grannock 
 to grannock till he gained the rime-whitened sands 
 beyond. But what about the mare? In vain he 
 strove with encouraging words and tautened bridle. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 129 
 
 and at last with swishing lashes of the whip, to 
 assist her: the poor beast had become distraught 
 with fear, and was rapidly exhausting herself in 
 her ceaseless struggles, which, misdirected as they 
 were, only made her chances worse. From the 
 appearance of the soil Felix felt certain that they 
 were only upon the verge of the quicksand, and 
 that, though the mare might sink a few feet, she 
 would touch solid footing ere long, and then become 
 quieted. He recollected having caught a glimpse 
 of a hovel not far beyond the juncture of the marsh 
 and the inland roads, and he determined to run 
 thither in the hope of obtaining assistance. 
 
 It was not, however, without some awkward 
 slips and plunges — in each of which he was con- 
 scious of something treacherous in the loose soil — 
 that he regained firm ground, and then, with a back- 
 ward glance and encouraging cry to the mare, who, 
 either through exhaustion or having touched a 
 solid foundation, was almost quiet, he ran rapidly 
 along the edge of the salt-marsh. 
 
 In about ten minutes he had reached the hovel, 
 only to find that it was, and had plainly long been, 
 unoccupied and ruinous. From where he stood 
 he could see no other habitation or sign of human 
 being : nothing anywhere but the sand-ridge to the 
 south, the bare uplands and distant forest to the 
 
130 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 west, and east and northward the barren leagues 
 of the Sands of Ratho. 
 
 Setting his foot on a jutting stone at a corner 
 of the wall, he cHmbed on to the roof, and from 
 the vantage of the long smokeless chimney looked 
 eagerly around. Still nothing visible save what 
 he had already seen : no sign of human life, and, 
 so far as he could make out, no road even, for it 
 seemed as though half-a-mile farther on the cart- 
 path meandered vaguely into a heath-clad sandy 
 waste and there lost itself, 
 
 And " what of Gabriel Ford ? Where was he ? 
 In what. direction could he be coming? According 
 to the lie of the land, it could scarcely be from any 
 other quarter than from the north-west, where the 
 Forest of Grantley lay dark in the strong sunlight 
 — but in the intervening space there was not even 
 a crow in sight. 
 
 With an impatient exclamation Felix hastened 
 back to the marsh, not without hope that the mare 
 might have recovered herself, or at least might be 
 quiescent enough to let him help in her deliverance. 
 But as he approached the place where he had left 
 her he saw that she was inextricably in the toils. 
 She must have floundered madly after he had left, 
 for she was at least twenty yards farther into the 
 quicksand, but already she had sunk to her belly. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 131 
 
 which heaved wildly against the enclosing grit, 
 loose as snow-powder, yet irresistible as a vice. 
 
 He could not even venture to go near her. A 
 single attempt sufficed to show him the folly of 
 such a venture, for it was with difficulty that he 
 regained the grannock from which he had stepped 
 into the quicksand. It was not easy to judge what 
 was safe ground and what was not, for on the sur- 
 face there was little or no sign of the treacherous 
 turmoil underneath, save here and there a serpen- 
 tine motion as of drifting dust, or an occasional 
 momentary undulation. 
 
 At last the mare had ceased struggling, except 
 spasmodically. Her eyes were greatly distended, 
 but were glazed, and with the froth that fell from 
 her mouth ran a continuous thin stream of watery 
 blood. The sight was a piteous one, and his 
 heart bled for the suffering of his fellow-creature, 
 but he could do nothing. If only he had had a 
 gun or revolver with him, he muttered, he would 
 soon have put an end to her agony. 
 
 Slowly but surely she sank deeper and deeper, 
 and at last even the saddle became swallowed up 
 in the quicksand. He could not leave, though 
 he would fain have spared himself the pain of his 
 useless witness of the mare's end. In a brief 
 while longer she had sunk to her neck, to her 
 
132 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 head, and then her ears filled. Suddenly she 
 gave a shrill, human-like cry; her ears quivered 
 among the enveloping sand ; her nostrils, wildly 
 panting, emitted foam and blood, and then the 
 sands engulfed her and left no trace, save for a 
 few moments a little drift of blood-stained froth. 
 
 Sick at heart, and with rage at he scarce knew 
 what or whom throbbing in his pulses, Felix leapt 
 from grannock to grannock till he gained the path, 
 and then strode rapidly homeward.- 
 
 What did it all mean ? Why had Ford not 
 met him ? Why had he sent him on this fool's 
 errand ? Could he — was it possible that the 
 man could have been such a villain as to have 
 endeavoured to compass his death ? 
 
 But no, he thought. Ford could not have calcu- 
 lated upon such an outcome of the ride towards 
 the Marsh of Ratho, for he must have known that 
 in all probability he, Felix, would notice the danger 
 in time. And yet — and yet — he may have thought 
 the game a safe one, and always with the chance 
 of success ; or perhaps Ford had really meant to 
 meet him at the verge of the quicksand, there force 
 a quarrel upon him, and somehow or other ensure 
 his death in the morass. If so, why had he not 
 kept his appointment ? The whole affair seemed 
 wrapped in mystery, and the more he reflected 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 133 
 
 upon its various aspects the more puzzled he 
 became. 
 
 It was a long walk back by the shore, and it 
 was not rendered pleasant by the weather, which 
 had changed with true East Anglian abrupt- 
 ness. 
 
 The white fibrous clouds of the morning had 
 drawn closelier to each other, and had thickened 
 into grey densities, and across the sea there im- 
 pended a slate-hued gloom, ominous of downpour. 
 Landward, a thin drizzling rain had commenced 
 to fall, and what had been so blithe and beautiful 
 seemed somewhat sombre and dreary. 
 
 In ordinary circumstances the walk would have 
 been nothing, but Felix was tired by his exertions, 
 and, moreover, worried and impatient. But at 
 last he came upon the extreme limit of Grantley 
 Forest, passed through the yew-grove, and so up 
 the avenue to the Manor. 
 
 As he walked across the terrace to the door he 
 saw Norgate regarding him with as much curiosity 
 as that individual ever manifested ; and for the 
 first time he realised that his appearance did not 
 betoken a pleasant ride, for not only was he horse- 
 less, but his boots and trousers were soiled with 
 clay and sand and the mud from the hovel-roof 
 He was glad that Norgate and no other was 
 
134 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 there, for the man was as discreet as he was 
 respectful. 
 
 " Has Mr. Ford returned, Norgate ? I missed 
 him somehow, and rode into an infernal quicksand 
 some two or three miles along the shore. I had 
 rather a narrow escape from it myself, and the 
 poor mare came to grief." 
 
 " I am glad to see you safe, sir. But it was 
 extraordinary that you ventured on to Ratho Sands 
 when the notice warned wayfarers that they must 
 go no farther in that direction." 
 
 " Notice ? I saw no notice." 
 
 " That's strange, sir, for after the gale yesterday 
 morning Sir Arthur sent one of the men round 
 to see if it had not been blown down, and it was 
 reported all right. Sir Arthur has a horror of 
 the place, for several deaths have occurred there 
 within the last few years ; and he has had notice- 
 boards stuck up at each quarter." 
 
 " H'm ; that makes it stranger still. But has 
 Mr. Ford come back from his ride." 
 
 " From his ride, sir ? " 
 
 "Dear me, Norgate, don't you 'understand what 
 I say? Mr. Ford was to meet me either along 
 the shore or at Ratho Morass, but I saw no sign 
 of him. Perhaps he miscalculated the time and 
 rode back by a different way." 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 135 
 
 " Mr. Ford went no ride since breakfast, sir. 
 About an hour ago he drove to the station with Mr. 
 and Miss Acosta, and went to London with them." 
 
 "What! Miss Acosta — and — and — her father 
 gone to London ? I heard no word of this either 
 last night or this morning ? " 
 
 " Mr. Acosta was taken ill last night, sir ; and 
 this morning he and Miss Sanpriel thought they 
 had better return to London at once. Everything 
 was hurriedly arranged. Both Mr. and Miss 
 Acosta wanted to see you before they left, but 
 though they were in the library with Mr. Ford 
 at the time you left, no one saw you going 
 away." 
 
 A flash of remembrance came into Felix's mind, 
 and he saw again Gabriel's face looking out at 
 him from the window; his fancy had not been 
 false after all. With a flush of anger upon his 
 face, he was about to say something concerning 
 Ford, when he checked himself. 
 
 " Did you say that Miss Acosta asked to see 
 me?" 
 
 "Yes; and Mr. Ford told her that you had 
 gone off for a ride somewhere, most likely to join 
 them at the station and say good-bye." 
 
 " Curse him ! " 
 
 " Sir ? " 
 
136 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. ' 
 
 " Nothing. When is the next train to London ? " 
 
 "There is no other to York, sir, till the slow 
 
 train at two o'clock. It gets in shortly before 
 
 four, and in time to catch the south mail which 
 
 gets into London at eight." 
 
 "Then will you see to my things, Norgate, 
 and have a trap ready to take me to Grantley 
 in time for the two o'clock train ? Where is Sir 
 Arthur ? " 
 
 " In his study, sir ; first room beyond the library." 
 Felix immediately went to the latter, and was 
 relieved to find his host in and disengaged. 
 
 As succinctly as he could he narrated his ex- 
 periences, but said nothing about either Ford 
 or the Acostas. He wished to leave without 
 giving offence to Sir Arthur or Lady Crane, and 
 he knew th-at he could scarce do so at once when 
 he had heard from the former of the abrupt de- 
 parture of the other guests ; so he made as much 
 of the " shock " he had received as he well could, 
 and asserted that, as he did not feel well, he 
 would prefer to go home and pay the rest of his 
 visit later on. Moreover, he said he wished at 
 once to purchase a handsome chestnut mare which 
 a friend wanted to dispose of, wherewith to replace 
 Lady Crane's horse, which, through his careless- 
 ness, had come to such a tragic end. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 137 
 
 Sir Arthur would not hear of the latter excuse, 
 and protested that the fault was his for not having 
 warned his guest about the fatal quicksands ; but 
 added how amazed he was at the absence of any 
 notice-board, as such had certainly existed the 
 previous day, and as there had been no storm 
 since that could have blown it down. 
 
 " Ratho is most deadly after a gale, especially 
 if from the east or south-east ; and on such 
 occasions I always send a man to see to the 
 warning-boards, for fear any poor tramp, seaman, 
 or other stranger should inadvertently flounder 
 into the quicksand. It is so well known all along 
 this northern coast that only strangers could fall a 
 victim to it." 
 
 While Sir Arthur was speaking a startling idea 
 had flashed across Felix, but he determined to test 
 it himself. 
 
 His host, he was thankful to find, took his sug- 
 gestion of departure in good part, though he laugh- 
 ingly asserted that there had been a carefully 
 concocted conspiracy among his guests to deprive 
 him and Lady Crane of any company save that of 
 each other. Felix smiled uneasily, and with a 
 hypocritical suavity that surprised himself, pre- 
 tended much surprise at the news of the sudden 
 departure of the Acostas. 
 
138 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Having expressed a wish to write one or two 
 notes and telegrams, he went into the library. As 
 soon as he had hurriedly written upon a form and 
 finished a short business letter, he made as though 
 to rise from the desk, but suddenly his attention 
 was attracted by a clear impress upon the white 
 blotting-paper. With conscious curiosity, he held 
 it up to the light, and there, to his amazement, he 
 saw his own name legibly written. The next 
 moment he recognised the writing as identical with 
 that on the fly-leaf of "White-Nights." He still 
 had the fly-leaf in his pocket-book, and in a few 
 seconds he had compared the two " Felix Danes." 
 They were identical, so that Sanpriel had written 
 to him ere she left ! Where, then, was her 
 letter ? 
 
 He looked eagerly about, but could not descry 
 a letter anywhere. Finally he rang the bell, and 
 when Norgate appeared, asked him with an eager- 
 ness he could not altogether control if Miss Acosta 
 had left a note for him. 
 
 "No, sir, she did not. But just about the time 
 you rode away she was sitting at that table writing 
 a note. As there were no envelopes in the case, 
 she asked me to fetch her one, which I did. She 
 then addressed but did not stamp it." 
 
 " Did she return to the library after having gone 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 139 
 
 out into the hall when the carriage was at the 
 door?" 
 
 "No. Why, let me see; yes, Mr. Dane, I 
 believe she did — for a scarf, or glove, or some- 
 thing." 
 
 " Did Mr. Ford come back ? " 
 
 " Not that I know of, sir." 
 
 Felix was so far satisfied at what he had learned 
 from Norgate, though, if he had seen the momen- 
 tary smile on the butler's face as he closed the door 
 after him, he might have been rendered suspicious. 
 
 Having looked at his watch, and found that he 
 had close upon half-an-hour to spare ere early 
 lunch, he passed out of the library, crossed the 
 hall and the terrace, and went round to the stables. 
 There he sought out the head-groom, and asked 
 him to speak to him for a few minutes. He told 
 him about the loss of the mare, whereat Smith 
 seemed somewhat perplexed, but reiterated what 
 Norgate and Sir Arthur had already asserted about 
 the notice-board. 
 
 " And not only that, sir, but Mr. Ford was round 
 that way for a ride early this morning, and as he 
 knows every inch of the ground, and 'ow pertickler 
 Sir Arthur is, he'd certainly 'ave told me or some one 
 if the board had been blowed down or any scamp 
 interfered with it." 
 
140 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 So his suspicions were not unfounded, and an 
 angry light came into Felix's eyes as he asked 
 Smith if he were sure that Mr. Ford had ridden 
 Ratho-way early that morning. 
 
 " Certainly, sir. He was up early, and Brown 
 saddled his horse for him. He mentioned that he 
 had just heard that Mr. Acosta was going back to 
 town by the mornin' train, and that he was goin' 
 too, but wanted a breath o' sea-air first. When he 
 came back I asked him if he had gone far, an' he 
 said he had gone to the joint-roads ; but he must 
 'ave been thinking o' summut, for he went a bit 
 farther nor that." 
 
 " How do you know ? " 
 
 " Because I noticed in his horses' hoofs bits of 
 a blackish clay that is found nowhere hereabouts 
 but in the morass round about and beyond Ratho 
 Quicksand. He must have ridden to the edge of 
 the latter, I expect, and then turned." 
 
 Felix gave the man a sovereign, heedless whether 
 the amount of the tip might not make Smith 
 suspiciously reflective, and then walked slowly 
 back to the house. So, it was true : Gabriel 
 Ford had played with him. Even if he had 
 not intercepted a letter from Sanpriel, he had 
 deceived him about the meeting, had given him 
 directions that in the instance of a stranger were 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 141 
 
 perilously inadvertent, and, it would seem, had 
 even gone the length of riding eastward toward 
 Ratho Morass in order to remove the warning 
 notice which Sir Arthur had erected at that 
 dangerous locality. 
 
 Yet everything had been done so naturally, and 
 with so little room for proof of guiltyintention. So 
 clever a man as Ford could well afford to laugh 
 at any accusations based on such slender grounds, 
 nor would he have any difficulty in explaining his 
 contradictory messages and actions. 
 
 Felix recognised this, and his tide of anger 
 against his rival — rival in a double sense — became 
 more strenuous as he realised his astuteness and 
 sang-froid. If he had only kept the note which 
 Ford had sent to him, it would always have 
 been something,- though it would have proved 
 nothing. 
 
 Throughout lunch he had to make himself as 
 agreeable as possible, and anything distraught or 
 apparently heedless in his manner was attributed 
 by his hosts to his regret at the death of the mare 
 and the shock which his nervous system seemed to 
 have sustained. 
 
 A little later, after a definite promise to return 
 and spend some weeks in the early autumn — a 
 promise all the more readily made when he learned 
 
142 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 that the Acostas were going to spend August at 
 Forest Manor — he bade farewell to Lady Crane, 
 and, accompanied by Sir Arthur, drove to Grantley. 
 
 As the dogcart mounted the rise of Oakdene, 
 Sir Arthur reined in the horse and pointed back- 
 ward with his whip. 
 
 " There, Dane, that's the last glimpse of the sea 
 you'll have till you come north again. But now, 
 listen: you hear the boom of it quite distinctly? 
 Yes ? Well, a few yards away, as soon as we're 
 round yon boulder, you won't hear a sound, strain 
 your ears as you may." 
 
 It was as Sir Arthur said. Not a sound, not a 
 vibration of the ocean, was audible, though in the 
 air the brine still made a crispness. But the sud- 
 den cessation of the undertone to which he had 
 grown so accustomed, which seemed to him, he 
 scarce knew how, so interblent with the life of 
 Sanpriel, with the lives of Sanpriel and himself, 
 added in some mysterious fashion to his despon- 
 dency. 
 
 Nor did his dejection leave him when at last he 
 found himself in the train. The latter stopped at 
 every little station, and the time appeared endless ere 
 the engine puffed into York. He had about quarter of 
 an hour to wait, so solaced himself with some strong 
 tea, and then strode up and down, still thinking. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 143 
 
 thinking, thinking, in a weary round of speculation 
 and hesitancy. 
 
 He was roused by the inward rush of the Edin- 
 burgh express, and mechanically went forward to 
 take a seat in a carriage, oblivious of the fact that 
 he was about to enter the wrong train, when he 
 was greeted by the familiar voice of his friend, 
 Harold Field. 
 
 " Hillo, Dane, where are you off to ? Coming 
 north ? " 
 
 " Ah, how do you do, old fellow ? I didn't notice 
 you. No, I'm going back to London." 
 
 " Then you're trying a very roundabout way, for 
 this train is bound for Edinburgh ! " 
 
 " By Jove ! so it is. What an ass I am ! But the 
 south mail hasn't come into the station yet, and I 
 had a vague idea this must be it." 
 
 " Well, we'll have time for a cigarette and a chat. 
 Your train won't start for five minutes yet. Ours 
 is a special express, and I'm here as the ' art 
 special ' of the Metropolitan. However, you'll see 
 all about this in the papers shortly ; and so now tell 
 me about yourself. You finished your ' Hertha ' 
 before you left town, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Look here, Harold, we're old friends, and I 
 want you to answer me frankly. What do you 
 honestly think about my ' Hertha ' ? " 
 
144 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Field looked somewhat embarrassed, and hesitated 
 in reply. 
 
 " Well, old chap, you know, artists and critics 
 often look at things very differently, and I have no 
 doubt that the artists are oftenest right. Now, 
 what do you think of ' Hertha ' ? " 
 
 Felix laughed at the kindly but too obvious 
 subterfuge. 
 
 " My, dear boy, I see what's in your mind as 
 clearly as though it were written in large Roman 
 capitals ! You don't want to hurt my feelings, but 
 you think my 'Hertha' would be poor as the first 
 ambitious work of a youngster, and is execrable as 
 the production of Felix Dane ! " 
 
 " No, no, Dane, I don't go that length — but — 
 but " 
 
 " Yes, I quite understand ; and what's more, I 
 entirely agree with you. You will be pleased to 
 hear that I smashed it up before I left London." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " True enough ; I smashed the poor feeble thing 
 to pieces. Henceforth I'll do good work — or none 
 at all." 
 
 Harold Field was one of Dane's most intimate 
 friends, and he had also a great admiration for his 
 genius, though he had lamented, both privately and 
 publicly, the decadence of his conceptive powers. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 145 
 
 Knowing Felix as he did, he rejoiced at the news 
 he had just heard, for he believed that the latter 
 had capacities which could carry him far beyond 
 all rivalry. 
 
 With a swift movement he seized his friend's 
 hand and gave it a strong, affectionate grip. 
 
 " You were right, Dane. The thing was poor ; 
 far below the kind of work you ought to be doing. 
 But now you'll prosper. Some new force has come 
 into your life, I see. As I have often said, no poet 
 or artist can be great till, aesthetically speaking, 
 he be born again. Most of us reach our fifties 
 still M;«learning : happy are the few whose eyes 
 the gods unveil while yet they can rejoice in out- 
 look and are in their full vigour. But now, old 
 fellow, we must part ; yonder's your train, and it 
 will start in a couple of minutes. By the way, I 
 travelled up from Dorset yesterday with your 
 wife." 
 
 "With Lydia? Why, I did not know she had 
 left the Walfords'. Were you there ? " 
 
 "Yes. She received a letter yesterday which 
 she said necessitated her return to town. I under- 
 stood her to say that she had to meet you. But 
 now be off, or you'll miss your train ; there's your 
 porter beckoning you. Good-bye ! I'll look you 
 up soon at The Sycamores ! " 
 
 K 
 
146 CHILDREN OP TO-MORROW. 
 
 Field's last words still further complicated the 
 maze of Felix's thoughts. 
 
 There were three other passengers in his car- 
 riage, and his opposite neighbour was of an in- 
 quiririg and communicative turn of mind, and when- 
 ever he dared to look up from his newspaper to 
 glance through the window he was assailed with 
 some unwelcome remark. 
 
 He wanted to think the whole matter out, and to 
 discover what relevancy, if any, Lydia's prevarica- 
 tion had to Ford's action, but he simply could not 
 concentrate his thoughts owing to the nervous 
 perturbation caused him by his talkative neighbour, 
 and even more by the glassy stare of a bookless 
 and newspaperless spinster who sat at the far 
 corner and transfixed him ever and again with her 
 maddening, empty, relentless gaze. 
 
 " How on earth do people travel for hours and 
 grudge themselves even a penny paper ? " he 
 muttered to himself in exasperation. " And why 
 in Heaven's name does that woman not sleep, or 
 look out of the window, or do anything but stare 
 fixedly at me when I'm not looking ? Thank God ! 
 there's Doncaster. I'll get some illustrated papers 
 there, and choke her and this fellow off." 
 
 But when he stepped on to the platform he 
 noticed that the next carriage was empty, for its two 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 147 
 
 recent occupants had alighted. With an eagerness 
 which made the unoccupied spinster stare more 
 absorbedly than ever, he gathered up his things 
 and joyfully installed himself in the vacant com- 
 partment. 
 
 But even when by himself his thoughts were 
 fantastically uncontrollable, and he could think of 
 nothing long, nor of the sum of things in their due 
 relation. 
 
 How different, he realised, the journey southward 
 to what its counterpart had been a few days ago. 
 It was not that his life was not fuller and richer, 
 but that a cloud which had not then risen above the 
 horizon now cast a gloom whence he could not 
 escape. He could not even make up his mind 
 what to do when he reached London. It often 
 happens that when we are advancing towards some 
 momentous decision we leave the gathering of 
 the clues to chance, and only make up our minds 
 when the two shadowy portals of choice suddenly 
 confront us : and thus was it with Felix Dane. 
 Finally, by that strange contrariety for which it is 
 so difficult to account, he became immersed in 
 some journalistic details which had no real interest 
 for him, and gradually grew indifferent to the 
 tyranny of his inmost thoughts, almost content, 
 indeed, in the peace of his negative quiescence. 
 
148 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 But when, after four hours that seemed daylong, 
 he found himself standing on the platform at King's 
 Cross, all hesitancy suddenly left him, and he was 
 again as alert as of yore. Having deposited himself 
 and his slight baggage in a hansom, he was soon 
 bowling along Hampstead-ward, and in rather over 
 half-an-hour recognised the houses of the lower 
 end of Hurst Road. 
 
 The house below his own, which was separated 
 from the latter by a large garden, was called 
 Elleray, and it was here that he had instructed 
 the cabman to stop. 
 
 Having paid the fare and taken up his Glad- 
 stone-bag, he stood at the door of Elleray till the 
 man had driven away ; then he walked onward a 
 few yards till he came to a small oaken door marked 
 " Studio. Private." 
 
 This door, which he unfastened with a latch- 
 key, opened into a covered passage which led to 
 the studio, wherein a minute or two later he 
 stumbled through the darkness towards the fire- 
 place, on the mantel of which he knew he should 
 find a candle and matches. 
 
 How gloomy and deserted, he thought, the large 
 apartment seemed in the flickering candle-light ! 
 How gaunt everything was ! nay, how it seemed 
 as though there were that pathetic and yet 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 149 
 
 repellent negligence which death often invites in 
 places once haunted of life ! Upon the floor still 
 lay the shapeless mass of what had been his 
 " Hertha/' and as he looked upon it something 
 humanly piteous in the ruin affected him, and he 
 turned impatiently away. What a chill there was ! 
 what a sense of lifelessness ! Could he ever have 
 worked and dreamed in this room ? Could he ever 
 again dream and work herein ? he wondered, as the 
 sensation of he knew not what vital estrangement 
 grew upon him. 
 
 All at once he knew jn part what had occurred. 
 He was indeed in the room where a dead man had 
 once worked, for he, the old Felix Dane, no longer 
 lived, would never work or dream here again. He 
 himself, the Felix Dane who now- stood like a 
 stranger come to look upon an alien inheritance, 
 had surely little in common with that other of his 
 name, who, it seemed to him, had lived dully a 
 commonplace life, without hope or strenuous en- 
 deavour. 
 
 " Yes, my old self died with ' Hertha,' " he mut- 
 tered ; " and now that I am come again, it is as a 
 stranger, with new aims, new energies, new hopes. 
 What will be the end of it all ? But now, my 
 God ! I have to simulate the dead man and live 
 with ker, who never loved me then, and will love 
 
ISO CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 me less now, an alien. An alien ! ay, so I feel 
 in all truth — a foreigner who may speak a tongue 
 familiar to both, but who has naught else in 
 common." 
 
 " Why did I not go and see Ford first of all," 
 he resumed, speaking in an undertone, as was his 
 wont when alone ; " it might have been better, 
 and have saved further misunderstandings. But 
 - no ; since Lydia has come home so suddenly, and 
 in order to meet me, as she asserted, it is best to 
 see her first." 
 
 The] smile on his face was a hard and un- 
 pleasant one as he passed along the corridor that 
 connected the studio with the house, but when he 
 entered the hall none who might have met him 
 would have perceived any trace of hurry or 
 curiosity. 
 
 There was, however, no one visible, and he 
 walked leisurely upstairs to the drawing-room; 
 The door was ajar, and by the dim light from the 
 solitary lamp he could see that no one was present. 
 
 For a moment he hesitated, and then walked 
 onward towards the room which Lydia called her 
 boudoir, though as a matter of fact she used it 
 but seldom, save occasionally in the evenings when 
 he was from home, or at work in his studio, as 
 occasionally happened. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 151 
 
 As he approached, he could distinctly hear two 
 voices, and almost immediately he recognised one 
 of them as that of the man whom he had come 
 to seek. 
 
 " So, they are together," he thought. " Well, 
 I shall confound them by my sudden appearance, 
 and it will not be difficult to gather in how far 
 my suspicions of Gabriel Ford are just.'' 
 
 With a firm but noiseless grasp he turned the 
 handle, but simultaneously he realised that the 
 door was locked. An ugly look came into his 
 eyes, but he made no sound. Suddenly an idea 
 occurred to him, and he walked softly a few steps 
 farther along. Lydia's bedroom lay beyond her 
 boudoir, and a heavy portiere was all that divided 
 them ; and Felix thought it possible that the bed- 
 room-door might not be fastened. 
 
 His surmise was correct, and a few moments 
 later, having quietly closed the door, he stood 
 close to the portiere. It was not an action which 
 he would have permitted himself, if it had not 
 been for the boudoir-door having been locked, — 
 not even then, perhaps, but for the untruth of 
 which Lydia had been guilty when she had 
 informed her friends that she had to return to 
 meet her husband. 
 
 Although Lydia and Ford spoke in subdued 
 
152 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 tones, he could hear what was said as clearly as 
 though he were sitting beside them. 
 
 For the first few moments, as he stood by the 
 heavy plush curtain, there was a silence so deep 
 and thrilling that he felt as though he were in 
 a dream. 
 
 "Yes, I do love you, Gabriel. I have done 
 so all along, as you know. And I am tired, tired, 
 of all this empty bondage to htm. But " ■ 
 
 Could that voice be Lydia's ? Felix wondered. 
 For the first time he heard in it a vibration 
 that he had never discovered therein before, — for 
 the first time its metallic clarity had become 
 strangely softened. It was not a beautiful nor a 
 moving voice, even now, to his ears, but how 
 distinct from that he knew so well, which 
 sometimes haunted him in dreams till he fancied 
 he should go mad with its lifeless, persistent 
 utterance ! 
 
 " Do not utter any ' buts,' Lydia dearest. 
 Surely the time is now past when there should 
 be any barrier between us. You have been cruel 
 to my love for you, but hitherto you have been 
 loyal to a man who dislikes you ; now, however, 
 you need be so no longer, since he loves another, 
 and would fain unite his life with hers." 
 
 " Gabriel, swear to me that you know this 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 153 
 
 thing to be true, that you know my husband to 
 be in love with this Sanpriel Acosta — that you 
 know him to be actually unfaithful to me ! " 
 
 Felix smiled bitterly as he at last recognised 
 Ins Lydia ; there could be no mistaking that 
 hard, icy voice. 
 
 " I swear it. But now, darling, kiss me and 
 say good-night, for though it is not likely, it is 
 just possible that Dane may have returned to 
 London— and if so, he could soon be here." 
 
 " We should hear him if he arrived." 
 
 " Supposing he did come, could I get away 
 from the house without his of any one else seeing 
 me?" 
 
 " Yes ; you could go downstairs by the passage 
 at the end of this corridor, which would lead you 
 to the studio. You could go through it and out 
 by the private passage beyond ; the doors all open 
 from the inside. Oh, stay, Gabriel, stay : I am 
 at once so miserable and so happy. I love you, 
 I love you ! " 
 
 The unmistakable yearning in his wife's voice 
 touched Dane deeply, so deeply that all resent- 
 ment died away from him, and a feeling of infinite 
 pity conflicted with the strange inextricable maze 
 of emotion in which his soul laboured. 
 
 As he heard the rustling of garments and the 
 
154 CHILDREN OP TO-MORROW. 
 
 sound of a passionate kiss, the old line which had 
 occurred to him when he came upon Sanpriel in 
 the garden rose to his lips, and inaudibly he mut- 
 tered it over and over again — " How leapt we into 
 this labyrinth of love ? " 
 
 Suddenly hot tears rose to his eyes, and he 
 almost cried out ; but the next moment, all un- 
 angered and unresentful, and with a strange 
 quiescence at his heart, he passed from the bed- 
 room and out into the corridor, and so down into 
 the chill darkness of the studio. He groped 
 towards the arm-chair where a few days ago he 
 had sat with bent head, in a greater agony but 
 not in such blank numbness as now ; and there, 
 again, he sat silent, bowed, and with his face in 
 his hands. Verily, indeed, was the old Felix 
 Dane dead, and here was his burial-place. 
 
( IS5 ) 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 For a long time he sat, overcome by a numb 
 pain, a dull curiosity at he knew not what. Such 
 slaves of association are we that not even can we 
 be enfranchised from a loathed serfdom without 
 some half-instinctive yearning for the old bondage. 
 It is said that the Russian serfs were wont to 
 miss the tyranny which for generations had held 
 them in thrall, and literally to kiss the hand that 
 had thrashed them ; and true it is that new-won 
 liberty often seems more lawless than regenerative. 
 There are many of us, bondagers indeed, who have 
 known the passionate yearning for freedom, and 
 when freedom has come or has been gained, have 
 found ourselves pitiably linked to our own past. 
 The strong man is he who has no past — who 
 yearly, daily, hourly burns his ships behind him. 
 
 " It all seems piteous and despicable somehow," 
 Felix muttered at last, as with a weary sigh he 
 sat back in the chair and pressed his hands to 
 his hot forehead. 
 
156 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " It is inconceivable to me, this inability to 
 cut myself adrift from — from — Lydia. This bond- 
 age is worse than the old one. I suppose it is 
 that, now I know she does indeed love another, 
 all my old resentment against her has passed 
 away. Blame her ? Good God ! why should I 
 blame her? She is but doing what I am doing, 
 and the day is past when there is any distinction 
 between what is right or wrong for a man and 
 right or wrong for a woman. The new wave 
 of a more natural morality is upon us, but we 
 who are on its fringe, who are its flying spin- 
 drift rather, must suffer. Those who come after 
 us will laugh at our pitiable barterings of love, — 
 at our marriage markets, which might so often be 
 truly called slaughter-houses, for there innocence of 
 soul, and spiritual purity, and true manliness and 
 womanliness are continuously being slain outright. 
 Perhaps the day is not so far distant when 
 marriage as we now know it will exist only in 
 barbarous and semi-civilised lands — the day when 
 men will be unable to buy and women to sell 
 that which nature loves to see in surrender, but 
 loathes to behold in barter. But as for us: we, 
 Lydia and I, have found our separate ways. I am 
 glad, glad beyond words, if love has really come 
 to her. Yet is it possible ? Can Lydia know love 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 157 
 
 as men and women know it who have hot blood 
 in their veins ? If only she could have sur- 
 rendered herself to Gabriel Ford without the spur 
 of jealous rage ! She is proud with that insane 
 pride of the narrow-minded, and though she does 
 not love me, she is bitter against me for my love 
 of another : this it is that has caused her to listen 
 to her lover. God forgive me, it is my fault ; 
 whatever Lydia may be, she would have held her- 
 self apart but for the madness of jealousy. But 
 no — there was real passion in her voice to-night ; 
 for the first time the ice about her heart gave 
 way. And she knows what I never withheld from 
 her, that I am of those who look upon love as 
 no subject to the tyranny of human laws. Again 
 and again she has heard me say that no human 
 tie can come between two natures craving for each 
 other. Yet Heaven knows what self-sophistication, 
 what pitfalls, what snares beleaguer us. It cannot 
 be well to do what may cause incommensurable 
 hurt to others — and yet, and yet, ah ! God knows 
 it is all a mystery, a weary, interminable maze. 
 
 "Ay, we who feel thus and suffer thus are 
 indeed the Children of To-morrow — though in 
 us the new forces of the future are spirits of 
 torment, driving us blindly forward, sometimes 
 crying for the new heights we vaguely descry. 
 
158 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 oftenest clinging to familiar objects, or looking 
 back longingly to ways that we may never again 
 traverse. With Sanpriel — ah ! my darling, my 
 darling, how dark the way is before us / — we may 
 well cry : — 
 
 'Forlorn the -way, yet with strange gleams of gladness j 
 Sfld beyond words the voices far behind. 
 Yet we, perplext with our diviner madness. 
 Must heed them 'not — the Goal is still to find! 
 What though beset by pain, and fear, and sorrow, 
 We must not fail, we Children of To-morrow! 
 
 ' We must not fail ' — but nature, alas ! pays no 
 heed to human ' must nots.' Well, so let it be : 
 Lydia must go her way, and I mine." 
 
 A cold draught struck upon him, and he rose 
 to shut the door which he supposed he had left 
 unfastened. It was, however, shut, and he then 
 found that when he had first entered the studio 
 he had left the outer-passage door ajar. This 
 he closed, and again sat down, and ere long had 
 once more assumed his former attitude of profound 
 despondency. 
 
 What a home-coming ! he thought bitterly, and 
 yet without any self-commiseration, for he was not 
 the man to bewail hardships which he had himself 
 induced or furthered. 
 
 Then his thoughts wandered to Sanpriel, and 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 159 
 
 he wondered what the next few weeks would bring 
 forth ; and then at last, out of sheer weariness, 
 his thoughts passed into incoherent visions, till 
 these again merged into sleep. 
 
 How long he slept he never realised, for the 
 events that followed his awakening drove thought 
 of time from his mind. 
 
 His dreams were curiously close to circum- 
 stance, for his vision fashioned forth his studio 
 as it then was, with he himself sitting, face in 
 hands, in the arm-chair. Then it seemed to him 
 as if the inner door softly opened, and as if a 
 figure, the figure of a man, quietly entered, and, 
 carefully stepping among the dibris of " Hertha," 
 crossed the room. 
 
 He did not recognise the dream-figure, for its 
 face was averted or in a deep shadow, and it passed 
 from his vision almost as soon as he had seen it. 
 Then he fancied that the intruder had come up 
 behind him and had touched him, lightly but 
 firmly, while simultaneously there was a crunching 
 of hard clay under the stranger's feet. Already 
 he was half-awake, influenced no doubt either by 
 the imaginary touch or sound ; but when he felt, 
 or fancied he felt, a warm breath upon his neck, 
 his consciousness suddenly swept back in one 
 vivid wave. 
 
i6o CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Still, for a few moments he did not stir ; and 
 though he had a conviction that some living thing 
 had been close to him, he wished to assure himself 
 that he was not dreaming. The mind awakes 
 before the body, and the latter often delays 
 obedience to volition ; so that even when, a 
 moment or two after he had been conscious of 
 a warm breath, he wished to spring to his feet, 
 he found that movement did not follow will. 
 
 But when, with a distinctness unmistakable in 
 the intense silence that prevailed, there came the 
 click of a turned lock, the spell was broken. 
 
 Felix sprang to his feet and stared about him ; 
 but in the deep obscurity of the room, so deep 
 that only large and light-hued objects loomed from 
 the shadow, he could see no one. Had he been 
 dreaming after all ? No ; he felt assured he had 
 heard that. Surely it had been close to him, 
 and therefore must have come from the door of, 
 the outer passage, the same which he had secured 
 a short time before. 
 
 He stepped swiftly towards it, and at a glance 
 saw that it was ajar. A slit of dull light, con- 
 veyed through the glass roofing of the corridor, 
 betrayed the fact even before he had grasped the 
 handle. The next moment he had thrown the door 
 open, and was looking eagerly along the passage. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. i6l 
 
 Almost simultaneously he saw the street-door 
 open and swiftly close again — but in the interval he 
 had caught a glimpse of a slim shadowy figure 
 passing forth from the corridor. It was Gabriel 
 Ford ; he did not see his face, but he recognised 
 him none the lees. 
 
 For some seconds Felix hesitated, and he had 
 almost made up his mind to remain where he was, 
 when suddenly a passion of anger overcame him as 
 he thought of the double game that Ford was play- 
 ing with Sanpriel and Lydia, and of what mischief 
 he had already tried to wreak upon him. If Lydia 
 loved Ford, and he honestly loved her, Felix felt 
 that he had not the wish nor, with his views, 
 the right to interfere ; but if Ford were scoundrel 
 enough to betray both women — for betrayal of 
 Sanpriel it would be if he married her to serve his 
 private ends, and betrayal of Lydia if her surrender 
 were only to form the basis of a liaison — he should 
 find that he had as determined a man as himself 
 to reckon with. ' 
 
 Hastily snatching the hat he had thrown on a 
 sofa when he had first entered the studio, he ran 
 along the passage and swung back the oaken street- 
 door. 
 
 As he sprang out on to the pavement a hansom 
 drove past, northward-bound, and for a moment 
 
 L 
 
165 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 delayed him ; but a second or two later he was in 
 the middle of the road, eagerly scanning the foot- 
 way farther down. 
 
 He was just in time. A figure, which he felt 
 sure was that of Ford, was rapidly turning into 
 Beech Road, a byway which branched to the right 
 about a hundred yards below The Sycamores. 
 
 He was about to pursue, though to what end 
 he did not clearly know, when he stopped short as 
 he heard the hansom draw up at the house just 
 beyond his own. An idea had occurred to him, 
 and he hoped that the cabman would be amenable. 
 
 He watched the passenger get down, pay his 
 fare, and enter at his gateway, and then the driver 
 stand in his high box as he brought the horse round 
 for the return journey. 
 
 Hurriedly walking towards the hansom, he hailed 
 the man, and asked him if he could drive double- 
 quick to Albemarle Street. 
 
 " Right you are, sir ; my horse is pretty fresh, 
 and it's going home for me. What number ? " 
 
 Fehx gave him the number of Ford's house, or 
 rather of the large mansion where he had his rooms, 
 and then promised the man extra-fare if he managed 
 the distance in twenty minutes — adding that he 
 was to go by the Swiss Cottage and not by Beech 
 Road. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 163 
 
 The next minute he was being whirled along 
 towards his goal, where it was his one wish to 
 arrive before the man whom he had long in- 
 stinctively disliked, and now hated. 
 
 His mind was in a ferment with conflicting 
 ideas, and even the cool night-air and the rapid 
 motion did not disperse the thronging thoughts 
 that environed his central purpose. Just as the 
 hansom swung round the corner of Orchard Street 
 into Oxford Street he wondered what hour it was : 
 that it was far advanced he could see by the 
 deserted aspect of the great thoroughfare. He 
 looked at his watch,, but discovered that it must 
 have stopped during the forenoon of the past day ; 
 and it was in vain that he kept eyes and ears alert 
 for any public clock. 
 
 Down South Moulton Street — and as he drew 
 near his goal he thought no more of time, but 
 only of the man whom he had cbme to intercept, 
 and of that which stood between them. 
 
 How his head swam, and how difficult it was to 
 think of any one thing long ! he muttered, with 
 a vague feeling that mind and body were over- 
 strained, and that he must take care. 
 
 Albemarle Street ! What had he come here 
 for ? Ah, of course, to see Gabriel Ford ; and 
 with a confused sensation, which puzzled rather 
 
i64 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 than annoyed him, he paid and discharged the 
 cabman. 
 
 A wide-arched passage led to a flight of stairs, 
 and it was on the first landing that Ford had his 
 rooms. Felix had been there once before ; he had 
 gone with Lydia one Sunday to see a new picture 
 by Ford, for the latter was an artist, and, though 
 an amateur, able to hold his own with most of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 He rang the bell, and after the lapse of some 
 minutes without answer he did so again and yet 
 again. At last he heard some one fumbling along 
 the passage, and then the door was opened, and 
 an elderly man — more like a goat than a human 
 being, Felix thought — looked forth with anything 
 but a cordial aspect. 
 
 " Has Mr. Ford returned yet ? " 
 
 " Returned ? Were you expecting him ?" 
 
 " Yes. You know me, don't you ? My name 
 is Felix Dane." 
 
 " Oh yes, I remember you, Mr. Dane. But I 
 don't know nothink about Mr. Ford's movements. 
 He comes an' goes without notice. I am not 
 allowed to fasten up the door at any time, as he 
 comes in wi' his latchkey whenever he likes." 
 
 " Well, he'll be here shortly, I know ; so I'll go 
 in and await his arrival." 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 165 
 
 " Excuse me, Mr. Dane, but it's agin " 
 
 Felix, however, took no notice of the protest, 
 but passed on and, thrusting aside the portiere that 
 hung outside the studio, walked in. 
 
 The old man closed the door with a bang, mut- 
 tered something viciously about fools making calls 
 "just afore cock-crow," and then in surly silence 
 struck a match and lit a single gas-jet in the studio. 
 
 " If you're expectin' Mr. Ford, no doubt he'll be 
 'ere soon. He'll let hisself in, so if you don't 
 want nothink else I'll go back to my bed." 
 
 He received no answer, so, grumbling more 
 viciously than before, returned to his own room. 
 
 Felix had forgotten about old Samson, all about 
 his expected interview with Ford — for, in the in- 
 different light, he had just caught a glimpse of a 
 portrait which enthralled him. It was Sanpriel ; 
 a far-off, uninspired, almost lifeless portrait — but 
 yet beyond doubt she and no other. The sight 
 sent the blood coursing more swiftly through his 
 veins again, and the confused sensations in his 
 head almost disappeared. 
 
 As soon as Samson had roughly drawn-to the 
 portiere again, he took a slip of paper and lit the 
 other jets. He remembered the room well, and 
 there seemed to be but little alteration in it save 
 for three new canvases on separate easels, which 
 
i66 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 he had not seen before. The studio was dark and 
 gloomy, with its tapestried walls, and its lack of 
 all ornamentation save weapons of many lands and 
 old armour, a few brilliant Japanese fans, and some 
 large blue Chinese jars. 
 
 On the easel next the fireplace was the portrait 
 of Sanpriel — a half-length life-size likeness, full 
 face, and with the large eyes looking dreamily forth. 
 In her hair were two blood-red poppies ; blood-red 
 poppies also clustered at her neck, and both hands 
 toyed with a mass of them in her lap. The effect 
 was unpleasant : the canvas seemed as though 
 stained with blood. It was unfinished, and in a 
 blank space in the right comer Felix descried some 
 words scrawled in charcoal. They were not easy 
 to decipher, but at last he made out, " The blood 
 of Miriam Acosta shall be as the poppies of the 
 field." Miriam : was not that the name of the un- 
 fortunate woman who had laid upon the members 
 of her family a curse that should work itself out 
 through seven generations ? What made Ford 
 commemorate that anathema in this fashion ? In 
 his dull resentment Felix felt inclined to destroy 
 the portrait- as it stood ; but, half-mechanically, he 
 passed on to the other iCasels. 
 
 At the first of the two he looked in astonish- 
 ment. It was almost the exact replica of the well- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 167 
 
 known "Lilith" of a great painter, but the beauti- 
 ful woman who sat in luxurious abandonment while 
 she combed out the tresses of her long hair was 
 no other than — Lydia. On the frame were in- 
 scribed, the words from Rossetti's Lilith-sonnet : 
 
 " And still she sits, young while the earth is old. 
 And, subtly of herself contemplative, 
 Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave, 
 Till heart and body and life are in its hold." 
 
 There was no mistaking the surer hand and 
 surer artistic insight of the painter here ; and 
 Dane knew intuitively from the two portraits that 
 whatever intent Ford might have in regard to 
 marriage wjth Sanpriel, he loved Lydia. That he 
 did not really know the former, that he had no 
 insight into her nature, required no further proof. 
 The third canvas, though it was a subject-picture, 
 arrested his attention none the less. It was an 
 unpleasant picture, representing as it did one of 
 the long stone or slate slabs in a dissecting-room, 
 with recumbent upon it the naked figure of a man. 
 No one was visible, and the rest of the ipartment 
 was undisclosed by the pale yellow flame of a 
 candle, whose whole light was concentrated upon 
 the corpse. By the side of the latter, tied by a 
 string to the left arm, was a small square placard, 
 on which, beneath some indecipherable letters and 
 
i68 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 figures, was roughly printed, Found Dead: cause 
 not ascertained. What gave the picture an evil 
 fascination for Felix was the unmistakable likeness 
 of the features of the dead man to his own ; and 
 the longer he looked at them the more obvious 
 was the resemblance. 
 
 With a shudder, partly at the cold-blooded horror 
 of the painting, partly from some occult feeling of 
 superstitious dread, keen though transient, he 
 turned away, and walked across to Sanpriel's por- 
 trait again, at which he looked long and earnestly. 
 
 Suddenly an intense inclination overcame him to 
 accomplish what Ford had failed to do — not from 
 any spirit of rivalry, but from an overmastering 
 desire to represent the true Sanpriel. 
 
 He was an expert painter, though of late 
 years he had wrought but little with the brush, 
 and then only, for his own pleasure. When he 
 found that he could paint well only in rare moods, 
 he had wisely concluded to restrict himself profes- 
 sionally to the chisel ; yet the few portraits he had 
 made of friends were valued not only for their 
 fidelity, but for their artistic worth. 
 
 Heedless of what Ford might with justice 
 hold him guilty, he seized the palette and brushes 
 which lay on a low table, among tubes of all 
 shapes and sizes, and after a few moments' hesi- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 169 
 
 tation, with alternate use of brush and knife made 
 an essential difference in the portrait. He had 
 but touched the eyes, and here and there a line 
 about the lips and mouth — yet it was Sanpriel 
 herself, not yet her truest self indeed, but much 
 more so than before. 
 
 So absorbed was he in contemplation of the 
 features he knew so well and yet evaded his eager 
 memory when he tried to create a mental likeness 
 which would surpass that upon the canvas before 
 him, that he did not hear the sound made by the 
 opening and shutting of the hall-door; nor, situ- 
 ated as he was with his face to the portiere, did 
 he notice the pale face and startled expression 
 of Gabriel Ford, who had silently entered the 
 studio. 
 
 Ford made no sound, but stood rooted to the 
 ground. His lips were ashy pale, and a look, 
 half of fear and half of amaze, was in his eyes. 
 
 How came it that he saw Felix Dane sitting 
 there in. his studio, at work upon the portrait of 
 Sanpriel Acosta, when, scarce more than an hour 
 ago, he had left him, asleep and apparently over- 
 come by profound weariness, in his own studio at 
 The Sycamores ? True, it was possible that Dane 
 might have awaked, and have driven to Albemarle 
 Street. There was actually time for him to have 
 
I70 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 done so, for he, Ford, had walked all the way ; 
 but it was unlikely. 
 
 It was for the second time a wave of dread 
 enthralled him. When, cautiously and silently, he 
 had passed through the dark studio of The Syca- 
 mores, he had been startled by the sound of low 
 breathing, and when, in the gloom that was almost 
 darkness, he had discerned Felix, his heart had 
 almost stood still. He had had strange thoughts 
 that evening; among others, again and again that 
 of a man struggling wildly among the quicksands of 
 Ratho — and to see that man, and after all that had 
 just occurred, sitting silently in the darkness and 
 chill of his own studio, had been overmuch for his 
 nerves. Gabriel Ford prided himself upon being a 
 materialist, and on his freedom from superstition, 
 but, Uke most materialists, he could not stem the tide 
 of hereditary sentiment stronger than any personal 
 idiosyncrasy. It was only by a great effort that 
 he had overcome his sudden fear, and had con- 
 vinced himself by touch, light as a feather, yet tan- 
 gible, of Dane's actual presence ; then, with a new 
 apprehension, he had swiftly and quietly made good 
 his escape. 
 
 He had not seen Dane's figure at the end of the 
 passage as he had shpped forth from the outer 
 door, nor had he seen him in Hurst Road ; and 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 171 
 
 he had concluded, naturally, that he had been un- 
 observed. 
 
 He had intended to take a hansom homeward, 
 but too many emotions excited him, _and he pre- 
 ferred to walk and think over in motion the com- 
 plexities in which he had involved himself. So, 
 Dane had not perished in the quicksand ; but what 
 did this abrupt return to London portend ? If he 
 had come by the midnight mail, he might have 
 naturally enough gone to his studio so as not to dis- 
 turb Lydia or the household, and have there fallen 
 asleep through sheer weariness ; if, on the other 
 hand, he had arrived earlier, why had he not gone 
 into the house ? — what had he suspected ? — what 
 had he, perhaps, seen or overheard ? 
 
 When Ford had reached his rooms and quietly 
 let himself in, he had at once perceived that there 
 was a light in his studio. He did not imagine that 
 this was due to any other cause than carelessness 
 on the part of his old servant, Samson, but with 
 his wonted caution he had made no sound in 
 entrance. 
 
 His last thoughts, as he had walked down Albe- 
 marle Street, had been of the true portent of his 
 vision of Dane. Had he, after all, been mistaken, 
 and imagined a reality where none had been ? No, 
 he felt assured, he could not have been mistaken. 
 
172 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Had Dane, then, succumbed to anything other than 
 sleep ? — in other words, had he been tempted to 
 put an end to himself — was he even then dead, or 
 dying ? Surely he had heard his low breathing — 
 though that might have been fancy. 
 
 It was, therefore, with a shock that drove the 
 blood from his lips and face that, as soon as he was 
 inside of the portiere, he had seen Felix Dane seated 
 before his easel. Again, and more strongly than 
 before, a supernatural dread took possession of him, 
 and he would have been relieved rather than sur- 
 prised if his enemy had suddenly become visibly 
 fantasmal and then disappeared. 
 
 Did it mean that the latter had fallen a victim 
 to the quicksand, and that he had returned in 
 spirit to haunt the man who had been the cause 
 of his death ? But the very thought brought with 
 it, to a man like Ford, its antidote ; he did not 
 believe in spirits, but he was absolutely convinced 
 that if apparitions did exist, they were harmless. 
 
 The next moment reason triumphed altogether, 
 when he saw the painter's brush leave a distinct 
 impression on the canvas. An apparition might 
 take on a semblance beyond visual detection, but 
 it could not transfer material pigment to material 
 canvas. 
 
 But the intensity of his gaze had magnetically 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 173 
 
 affected Dane, who suddenly laid down the brush 
 and glanced round. 
 
 Both men looked at each other fixedly without 
 speaking. 
 
 Ford was still ashy pale, and there was a 
 furtive gleam in his eyes ; but he was no coward, 
 and here, in his own rooms, was conscious of a 
 defiance which he would not have felt had he 
 and Dane encountered in the studio of The Syca- 
 mores. 
 
 "Considering the hour and the circumstances, 
 this is a pleasure I could not have anticipated," 
 he remarked at last, dryly, with a sarcastic bow. 
 
 " With which of these two women are you in 
 love ? " demanded Felix, heedless of what had just 
 been said, as with a wave of his arm he indicated 
 the portraits of Sanpriel and Lydia. 
 
 In a flash Ford realised that a crucial moment 
 had arrived. He had perforce to judge Dane from 
 his own standpoint, and he knew that in similar 
 circumstances he would have been prepared with 
 the final argument. There was a look in his 
 antagonist's eyes that he could not fathom, but he 
 surmised that it signified — murder. 
 
 There is no man so ignorant of the real springs 
 of human action as the so-called man of the world 
 — and a man of the world Gabriel Ford was, and 
 
174 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 prided himself upon beingl Doubly wronged as 
 Dane was, and evidently roused to the extreme of 
 endurance, what else had he come there for but to 
 take the life of his enemy — or, at least, to force 
 upon him a life-and-death struggle? So Ford 
 argued, or so, rather, flashed his intuition through 
 his brain, and the apprehension which had lain dor- 
 mant in his heart ever since he knew that Dane 
 had escaped the quicksand prompted him to resort 
 to subterfuge. With that understanding of the 
 almost irresistible appeal of seeming candour which 
 characterises the incandid, he determined to declare 
 himself frankly — and falsely. 
 
 " I love neither, Dane, in the sense that you 
 mean. But I feel I owe you an apology concerning 
 a foolish statement I made to you at Forest Manor. 
 I am not, and never was, engaged to Sanpriel 
 Acosta ; nor, though we are very old friends, has 
 there ever been, or is there likely to be, any question 
 of a marriage between us." 
 
 " In a word, you lied to me ? " 
 
 "Oh, come, my dear fellow, don't put it so 
 offensively. You know how weak we all are when 
 it comes to a question of jealousy." 
 
 " Then you were merely jealous as a friend ? " 
 Felix dryly interrupted. 
 
 " Merely as a friend. I have known the Acostas 
 
.CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 175 
 
 for a long time, and have always looked upon 
 Sanpriel as something of a sister, and I resented 
 her obvious preference for your company. I admit 
 it frankly, I was jealous ; it is my nature, and I 
 cannot help it ; but it meant nothing. If you 
 had asked Sanpriel — though, of course, it is not a 
 question you could have had any right to ask 
 her — she would have told you that nothing of the 
 kind existed between us." 
 
 A momentary sniile crossed Felix's face. Ford 
 saw and understood it, and an angry gleam came 
 into his eyes, but almost simultaneously passed 
 away. 
 
 " I have no right to ask you, Dane, if you are 
 in love with- Miss Acosta. You are a married man, 
 and, moreover, there are racial reasons which 
 would stand imperatively in the way of marriage 
 with her, were you free. I simply wish to assure 
 you that, if circumstances permitted, you would 
 find me a friend and not a rival." 
 
 So frank was Ford in this avowal that Felix 
 believed him, and the dark cloud of which he 
 had been conscious seemed to have greatly lifted. 
 Still, he thought he would put Ford's genuineness 
 to a severe test. 
 
 " If that is so, will you let me have this portrait 
 of Miss Acosta ? You will remember that you 
 
1/6 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 promised me one of your paintings in exchange 
 for that little ' Dionysos ' of mine which you parti- 
 cularly wished and I refused to let you have save 
 in a friendly way in exchange for a picture by 
 you ? I see that you have done this portrait 
 from memory — and, as you have observed, I have 
 thoughtlessly taken the liberty of touching it up, 
 as I felt that I could catch just that peculiar ex- 
 pression which had escaped you." 
 
 Ford hesitated, but would have definitely de- 
 clined had he not at the moment happened to 
 glance at the neighbouring portrait of Lydia. 
 If he refused that of Sanpriel, he could hardly 
 retain Lydia's, and, for more than one good 
 reason, he did not wish the latter to leave his 
 possession. Moreover, he did not know Lydia if 
 he were not sure that he could persuade her to 
 be a thorn in her husband's flesh on account of 
 the portrait of her rival. 
 
 With a graciousness that did him credit, con- 
 sidering the chagrin and jeaious anger that moved 
 him, he acceded. 
 
 " I hesitated for a moment or two, Dane, because 
 I had thought of giving it as a present to my 
 old friend Adama Acosta. But, as you hint I 
 have failed to make a good portrait of it, if you 
 care to have it, it is yours." 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 177 
 
 "You give it to me freely, to do what I like 
 with ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 Without a word, Felix lifted a curved Malay 
 blade which lay on the paint-table, and slashed 
 the canvas into long strips, till nothing remained 
 save a few long trailing shreds. 
 
 At first Ford had made a savage exclamation, 
 and his face had become livid with fury ; but there- 
 after he looked on with sullen silence. 
 
 " It is' better thus," Felix remarked simply, as 
 he laid the. knife down again and faced his com- 
 panion. 
 
 " Have you anything more to say — or do ? " 
 
 " Ford, do you love my wife ? " 
 
 " I decline to answer any such question." 
 
 " If you play falsely either by Sanpriel on the one 
 hand or by Lydia on the other, you shall answer 
 for it — to me." 
 
 " How could I be false to your wife ? " 
 
 " You know. Beware, Gabriel Ford ; you are 
 playing a difficult game. A man who is false to a 
 woman who gives up everything for him is kin to 
 a murderer — and should be treated as such." 
 
 " This moral lesson comes well from you, Dane ; 
 in the circumstances, I think it would be more 
 seemly if you kept your diatribes to yourself." 
 
 M 
 
178 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Suddenly Felix staggered, grew deathly pale, 
 and then without a word of warning fell prone. 
 
 Ford sprang forward and, having lifted him by 
 the shoulders, poised his inert figure against a 
 couch that stood near. 
 
 Was he in a swoon, or dead ? The suddenness 
 of the collapse seemed to indicate some heart weak- 
 ness ; but, on the other hand, despite the white 
 and drawn features, there was no lividness about 
 the lips or hollows of the eyes. 
 
 It took but a few seconds to unfasten the 
 waistcoat and shirt, and then, with his hand over 
 the insensible man's heart, he realised that death 
 was not imminent, and that Felix was only in a 
 swoon. 
 
 He had some vague recollection of having heard 
 of Dane's having in early manhood been subject to 
 severe fainting attacks, a complaint inherited from 
 his father and grandfather, who yet had been 
 strong men, and had lived to advanced years ; 
 probably this, he thought, was some such attack, 
 unpleasant but not dangerous. 
 
 As Ford looked down at his fallen rival a curious 
 look came into his face. He even grew a little 
 paler, as, having shot a searching glance round the 
 studio, and particularly at the portiere, he stepped 
 towards a cabinet at the other end of the room. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 179 
 
 As he let down the desk-leaf of it there was 
 disclosed a mirror; in this he could see both the 
 portiere and the unconscious man who leaned in 
 death-like fashion against the couch near the easel 
 on which stood Sanpriel's ruined portrait. 
 
 He pulled out a drawer beneath the mirror, and 
 touched a spring which revealed an inner hollow. 
 In this was an old-fashioned silver snuff-box. He 
 opened this, and glanced at the soft white dust 
 within it, and then looked again and again, in the 
 mirror, at the heavy curtain and at the recum- 
 bent figure. 
 
 He seemed to be in a strangely hesitant mood. 
 At last he muttered "Why not ? " and rose. 
 
 But as he turned he caught sight of the ragged 
 remains of what had been Sanpriel's portrait. 
 They altered his decision, whatever it was, for he 
 closed the snuff-box with an abrupt snap. The 
 sound, slight as it was, startled him, and he looked 
 round apprehensively, but almost simultaneously 
 regained composure. With a swift movement he 
 stepped towards the easel whereon stood the pic- 
 ture called " Found Dead." The likeness between 
 the corpse and the man who lay unconscious a few 
 feet away, which had been unmistakable before, 
 was now startlingly close — so close that the artist 
 shuddered. 
 
i8o CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " No — no — it would never do," he muttered ; 
 " what madness to dream of it ! That torn canvas, 
 this picture, his death happening here, the hour 
 and circumstances — what a fool, what a fool I 
 am ! " — and as he spoke, so softly that not the 
 most strained ears could have heard him, he 
 turned to the cabinet again and, having replaced 
 the antique snuff-box, closed the lid. 
 
 He then stepped to an oaken piece of furniture 
 that was part bookcase and part sideboard, and 
 took thence a decanter of brandy, from which he 
 poured a large glassful into a tumbler. 
 
 This he forced down Felix's throat, and ere long 
 had the satisfaction of seeing him opening his eyes 
 and coming swiftly back to consciousness. Ere 
 the latter had quite returned, however, Ford had 
 summoned Samson. 
 
 " Samson," he said sternly as the man en- 
 tered, "you see what comes of breaking my 
 rules. Mr. Dane here has unfortunately been 
 drinking — and see what he has done to my pic- 
 ture there ! " 
 
 " I saw 'ee was drunk, sir, when 'ee came in. 
 But 'ee was so quiet I thought he'd sleep it off — 
 and I knew 'ee was a friend o' yours." 
 
 The man was disrespectful, and had an unplea- 
 sant leer upon his face, but Ford contented him- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. i8i 
 
 self with telling him sharply to go out and hail 
 a cab. 
 
 A little later, Felix, feeling well again save for a 
 sense of great prostration, was driven home, and 
 arrived in time to astonish the not very early- 
 rising housemaid. 
 
( 182 ) 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 The month that followed Dane's abrupt return 
 home was one wherein he lived a dual life. At 
 The Sycamores, when with Lydia, at the houses 
 of friends, and in ordinary social intercourse he 
 seemed to himself as though he were in a dream. 
 Often he found himself in the attitude of a spec- 
 tator ; the guests at his table appeared real only 
 with the reality of dreams, always with that 
 vague uncertainty which accompanies visionary 
 figures ; and their ' voices often struck him as 
 coming from far away, or as being mere hollow 
 echoes. 
 
 But in his studio, when alone with his work 
 and his thoughts, and, above all, when at Dream- 
 thorpe, in the company of Sanpriel and Adama 
 Acosta, he was conscious of the pulse of life. Day 
 and night he thought of Sanpriel ; for even in sleep 
 she dominated his imagination, and her fantasm be- 
 came at last to him even as his own soul. Never 
 had such a summer made the earth glorious, he 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 183 
 
 thought ; never had the skies been so blue, the 
 flowers so numerous, the birds so jubilant, the 
 earth-joy so intoxicating. He had always loved 
 Hampstead Heath, with its magnificent outlook 
 across leagues of rolling country, but now he had 
 come to look upon it as a Promised Land, the 
 Land of the Sunset, the Land of Rest. Never in 
 all his sojournings abroad had he seen such magic 
 landscape, for here every gorse-bush glowed with 
 the ardour of love, every pine-branch breathed 
 forth a windy music, poignant, haunting, sweet 
 beyond words. 
 
 He had gone to Dreamthorpe the very after- 
 noon of the day on which, faint and weary, he 
 had been driven home from Gabriel Ford's 
 rooms. He had long known the quaint old 
 house, ivy-covered, with its gables, which had 
 once been red, stained to a ruddy brown — 
 close to the Heath, yet as secluded from the outer 
 world as though miles away from the haunts 
 of men. 
 
 Adama Acosta had recovered from his indis- 
 position, and the welcome which Felix received 
 from him and his daughter was so true that 
 it was surer medicine to his ill than any skill of 
 physician. 
 
 Both with father and daughter he found him- 
 
1 84 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 self in thorough sympathy in all matters literary 
 and artistic, and, man of wide and deep culture 
 though he was, he gained more insight and a 
 keener enjoyment in those frequent hours at 
 Dreamthorpe than he had acquired in all his 
 somewhat solitary years. 
 
 But as the days went by he came more and 
 more to avoid a subject which had once been 
 for him full of the most vivid interest, and latterly 
 he strove, even when alone with Acosta, to keep 
 in abeyance all allusion to or discussion oi the 
 new movement in Israel. He saw, although not 
 until after he had intuitively guessed, that, in 
 his presence, the subject was distasteful to San- 
 priel ; yet, by some strange contradictoriness, she 
 would not infrequently, when they walked to- 
 gether in the qiiaint old hedgerow-hidden garden, 
 or sat in the low-roofed drawing-room which 
 looked out upon it, introduce the theme, and ex- 
 patiate upon it with the familiar ardent enthusiasm. 
 Latterly, however, Felix's sensitive ears had caught 
 — or so he fancied — something strained in San- 
 priel's voice when she was most eloquent upon 
 the immediate hopes of her father and herself 
 Once, when she had been carried away by her 
 own ardour, and had glorified renunciation of all 
 that the individual held most precious, if thereby 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 185 
 
 the general good were to be aided, she had 
 become conscious of the fixity of her companion's 
 gaze, and had then all at once flushed, while 
 such a look — surcharged for a moment with the 
 mingled joy and pathos of surrender — came into 
 her eyes, that Felix almost yielded to the passion 
 which possessed him and prompted him to tell her 
 then and there of the love which had given 
 him new life and hope and energy. But the 
 sudden, sharp, strident wail of her father's violin 
 gave Sanpriel an excuse to turn abruptly, and, 
 with a hurried word, pass into the house. 
 
 As June slowly lapsed towards its midmost, he 
 spent many evenings, instead of afternoons, at 
 Dreamthorpe. He liked best to arrive at the after- 
 glow, and then to sit or walk with Sanpriel in the 
 gradual twilight, when the flowers and even the 
 grass emitted their rarest fragrance, and when 
 through the stillness rippled and throbbed the 
 voice of the blackcap or the long vibrant notes 
 of merle and thrush. The cries of children and 
 laughter of wayfarers upon the Heath, the barking 
 of dogs, and occasionally the soft lowing of distant 
 cattle, with below all the indeterminate undertone, 
 the vague gnat-like hum borne upward from the 
 populous leagues beyond the heights, accentuated 
 rather than detracted from the sense of exquisite 
 
1 86 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 remoteness, of happy serenity and repose, of which 
 both were at such moments conscious. 
 
 He knew that Ford sometimes came to Dream- 
 thorpe, but he had not yet encountered him there ; 
 nor did he take heed of him at all, for, apart from 
 Gabriel's own admission to him, he had intuitively 
 learned that Sanpriel neither liked nor trusted the 
 man whom her father — in his vague, inconsequent 
 way — had come to look upon as a probable son-in- 
 law. 
 
 Ford, however, had several times been at The 
 Sycamores since the night Felix had returned 
 home ; once as the guest of both Mr. and Mrs. 
 Dane, but otherwise as the friend of Lydia. Occa- 
 sionally Felix had entered the drawing-room and 
 found them in earnest conversation, and at first he 
 noticed how much younger and happier his wife 
 seemed. But after a week or two had passed he 
 noticed a growing hardness in Lydia's face, and 
 more than once he thought he saw in her eyes a 
 look as of dull rage. She had become strangely 
 watchful of him ; at meals, at " evenings " or 
 " afternoons " at friends' houses, wherever they 
 met in fact, he could not but notice the stealthy 
 yet steady gaze of those cold grey-blue eyes of 
 hers. 
 
 Once — and it was the first time that he had 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 187 
 
 ever known Lydia prevaricate — when he had re- 
 turned late from Dreamthorpe he had noticed 
 round the point of one of his wife's slippers a 
 little clay, a new composite which he had that 
 very morning obtained from Paris, and so knew 
 that she miist have been in his studio, though, 
 in reply to his question, she denied having been 
 there. 
 
 A little later, and while. Felix was sitting in 
 apparent absorption in a magazine, she caught 
 sight of the clay upon her slipper, and flushed as 
 she knew that she had betrayed herself. But her 
 voice was harder than ever when she rose and 
 said good-night. 
 
 What would be the result if Sanpriel and Lydia 
 met ? Felix sometimes wondered, but always with 
 the hope that auspicious fate would keep them 
 apart. 
 
 One day close upon midsummer he and Lydia 
 went by special invitation to the Dilletante Club to 
 view a number of paintings, drawings, and etch- 
 ings by members. As they entered they met, 
 just as they were about to mount the stairs, Mr. 
 and Miss Acosta, but, to the evident surprise of 
 the latter, Felix only bowed, as though delay were 
 inconvenient, or in the circumstances undesir- 
 able. 
 
i88 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Lydia, who for some time had been wont to 
 scrutinise every one to whom her husband bowed or 
 spoke, could not but be struck by the beauty of the 
 girl who had just passed, nor fail to perceive the 
 bright welcome, almost radiance, of her smile as she 
 had recognised Felix. 
 
 "Who are these people?" she asked, and her 
 voice had that metallic vibration in it which always 
 set his nerves on edge. 
 
 " These ? Who ? Oh, they are the Acostas, 
 father and daughter. You have probably heard 
 Ford speak of them. Ah, there are the Elliotts, 
 and Mrs. Warwick with them." 
 
 " Ah, so that was Sanpriel ? " Lydia remarked, 
 without heed of her husband's latest words. 
 
 There was a great crush at the " Dilletante," and 
 to Felix's relief, further conversation with Lydia 
 was impracticable. The exhibition was even better 
 than usual, but also, as usual, the prevalent tone 
 was even more " realistic " than at the Salon. The 
 members might have been pure-blooded Latins, if 
 the testimony of their works were to be considered. 
 Scenes of torture, episodes of mental agony, martyr- 
 dom, and the like, combined with several really 
 artistic and several unmistakably insincere, and 
 therefore indecent, " nudities," made the walls ap- 
 pear a curious contrast to the suave conventionali- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 189 
 
 ties and general appearance of the guests of the 
 club. It did not take long to discover that two 
 pictures by Gabriel Ford attracted the greatest 
 amount of attention. One was the " Found Dead " 
 which Felix had already seen, though he noticed, 
 with a curious sensation which he could not define, 
 that the face had been sufficiently altered to obviate 
 any comparisons of likeness to him ; and the other, 
 cynically entitled "An Immortal Soul," represented 
 the bloated corpse of a drunkard who had died by 
 the wayside. 
 
 " How horrible ! " Felix said to himself, as he 
 turned away in disgust ; " and what folly for men 
 like Ford to call themselves naturalists, realists ! 
 It is only man who obtrudes death upon our notice ; 
 the very animals have a worthier instinct." 
 
 Nature, truly enough, has her decencies, and 
 avenges their violation. When death occurs in her 
 unusurped regions, how speedily the innumerable 
 agencies at her command make haste to obliterate 
 the insignia of decease ! — the leaves fall and cover 
 the stricken doe, whose flesh will incredibly soon be 
 removed from sight and become part of the general 
 life around ; the grasses enshroud the corpse, and 
 ere long only a few harmless bones will remain, and 
 these ere long will have the fruitful earth about them, 
 or delicate mosses or lichen will recapture them from 
 
190 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 wanton ugliness. Birth and death are her chosen 
 secrets ; her veil of mystery should always envelop 
 the one, her dignified reticence protect the other. 
 
 " Artists like Ford," Felix continued to himself, 
 " are at enmity with our beneficent mother Nature. 
 They constantly violate her dignity and despoil her 
 of what she would fain disguise. There is some- 
 thing about human death which should protect it 
 from too realistic depicture on canvas. No artistic 
 representation can ever adequately convey the hor- 
 ror or terror, the beauty or dignity, of the final act 
 of life ; " and it was with an uncomfortable sense of 
 nausea, a feeling of revolt, a sensation as of having 
 witnessed some treachery against his fellow-men, 
 that he turned away from the much-praised canvases. 
 
 It was on the day subsequent to the exhibition 
 at the Dilletante Club that his happy dream 
 received a certain shock. 
 
 Anxious to remove any false impression his 
 reticence at the club entrance may have given, 
 and eager to see Sanpriel after the interminable 
 interval of a day and a half, he had, early in the 
 afternoon, made his way to Dreamthorpe. Acosta 
 was busy, and though his daughter was writing, she 
 gladly put aside her manuscripts, and, as the heat 
 was tempered by a cool breeze, suggested a stroll 
 round the garden. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 191 
 
 So absorbed were both during the half-hour 
 which ensued that neither noticed, if either heard, 
 the clang of the gate-bell. 
 
 They were close to the house when he glanced 
 to the right with a startled look. At the window 
 of the drawing-room stood Lydia, looking at him 
 with an expression which he knew of old. Ford 
 stood behind her, and Felix fancied that he saw 
 upon his face a smile of malicious enjoyment. 
 
 The next moment Lydia stepped forth, and 
 greeted Sanpriel with a cold politeness that had in 
 it too much of condescension to please either Miss 
 Acosta or her lover. 
 
 " I have so often heard of you. Miss Acosta, 
 that I have ventured to call upon you. Our 
 mutual friend, Mr. Ford, assured me that I might 
 do so, and as he pressed me to come with him 
 to-day, I willingly agreed, as you see. I was sorry 
 not to meet you at the Dilletante Club yesterday, but 
 my husband did not tell me in time who you were." 
 
 "You are most welcome, Mrs. Dane," Sanpriel 
 replied gravely. With the best will to be courteous, 
 she could not be cordial, for she instinctively dis- 
 liked Lydia, and could not but resent the conde- 
 scending tone of her words. 
 
 Lydia, however, quickly discovered that she had 
 no inexperienced girl to deal with, and she soon 
 
192 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 changed her manner, and did her utmost to make 
 herself pleasant. So successful was she that 
 her husband was put off his guard, and was con- 
 scious almost of an affectionate glow towards her, 
 and Sanpriel also was in great part won over ; 
 Ford alone perceived, and was amused by, the 
 feline grace and ease wherewith polite dissimula- 
 tion was practised. 
 
 Afternoon tea was served in the garden, and 
 before Lydia made ready for departure a definite 
 arrangement had been come to in regard to the 
 house-boat holiday. 
 
 Felix shared the expense of a house-boat on the 
 Thames, for the months of May, June, and July, 
 with Richard Prendergast, the landscape-painter, and 
 by a mutual arrangement each had the boat for six 
 weeks, Prendergast till midsummer's-day, and Felix 
 thence until the close of July. As in the previous 
 summer Lydia had expressed her distaste for 
 another experience of the kind, her husband had 
 hoped that she would not join him on the Lotus. 
 How delightful it would be if he could spend a 
 week or two, at least, without other company than 
 that of Sanpriel and her father 1 and the more 
 he thought of the idea the more feasible it 
 seemed. In July there were several sets of friends 
 whom he had promised a few days on the river. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 193 
 
 and it would be much pleasanter for Lydia to go 
 then, if she wished, when she would have acquaint- 
 ances about her, and when the weather would be 
 disagreeably hot in town. So he argued, knowing 
 not that it was otherwise ordained. 
 
 A chance inquiry from Acosta, who had joined 
 the small party, and at whom Lydia looked as at 
 some strange and rather repellent species oi genus 
 homo, precipitated matters. 
 
 " Oh no, I have not forgotten ; far from it," 
 Felix had replied, in some confusion. "We must 
 arrange for the trip immediately, and I know it 
 will do you and Miss Acosta good — it is always 
 so delightful on the river in the early summer. 
 But you will take things as they come. Miss 
 Acosta, won't you ? For I shall have very simple 
 fare to offer you, as my wife does not find the 
 river climate suit her, and does not intend to try 
 the Lotus again this year." 
 
 This was a diplomatic move on the part of Felix, 
 and as such Lydia no doubt regarded it, for she 
 immediately played her counter-check. 
 
 "Would the beginning of July be too late for 
 you, Miss Acosta? No? Well, in that case I 
 shall join you, so that we can all have a pleasant 
 time of it together. And Mr. Ford, you will come 
 then also, will you not ? I know how fond of the 
 
 N 
 
194 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Thames you are, and I am sure a quiet week of 
 idlesse will be as good for you as for any of us." 
 
 " It will give me the greatest pleasure," Ford 
 answered lightly, and then, turning to Felix, added 
 that he supposed there was accommodation for all, 
 and that of course he should only join them if his 
 advent were not to cause any inconvenience. 
 
 Felix gave him the requisite assurances, politely 
 if not cordially, and then asked Lydia if she could 
 not leave Hampstead earlier — a question he had no 
 sooner asked than he regretted having done so, 
 as it was his one hope that his wife should not 
 be able to leave home ere the beginning of July. 
 Greatly to his relief, however, she replied curtly 
 that her, that their engagements rendered that 
 impracticable. 
 
 Then, after some conditional arrangements and 
 a few polite words between Lydia and Sanpriel 
 on the subject of their new acquaintanceship, Mrs. 
 Dane shook hands with her hosts, and declared 
 that she must go. 
 
 " Felix, you are coming too, I suppose ? My 
 brother and his wife are to dine with us to-night, 
 and dinner is to be an hour earlier than usual, so 
 that they may get back to Walthamstow in good 
 time." 
 
 Dane secretly anathematised his brother-in-. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 195 
 
 law and his wife, but there was no help for 
 it, so he had to bid farewell to the Acostas. 
 His chagrin was not mitigated by the knowledge 
 that Ford had remained, nor by what he had 
 overheard the latter say — words to the effect 
 that he wanted to have a long talk with Sanpriel, 
 and was glad to find her disengaged. He half- 
 suspected — what was the case — that Ford 
 had spoken, with interest to cause him uneasi- 
 ness, but none the less he felt sufficiently miser- 
 able. 
 
 A few days later, however, and an event oc- 
 curred which indirectly restored him to almost 
 jubilant spirits. Lydia's aunt, Lady Margaret 
 Trevor, suddenly announced her intention of 
 coming to The Sycamores for a week — an annual 
 infliction which Felix sometimes patiently endured 
 and sometimes evaded by precipitate retreat to 
 Paris or elsewhere. There was no love lost 
 between him and Lady Margaret, but Lydia had 
 a genuine liking for the hard, worldly, arrogant 
 old woman, and, moreover, was sole heir-pre- 
 sumptive to her aunt's not inconsiderable for- 
 time. 
 
 As soon as he knew that Lydia had despatched 
 her letter of welcome, and had made her arrange- 
 ments, he announced that he was going up the 
 
196 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 river for a week or so, as he could not settle to 
 work, and felt that the advent of Lady Margaret 
 would be as the last straw. 
 
 Some bitter words followed, but, to his relief, 
 without allusion to the Acostas, and so he set 
 forth gladly, and in due time communicated his 
 new suggestion to Adama and Sanpriel, both of 
 whom gladly agreed to take advantage of the 
 glorious weather that had set in, and to join Felix 
 at Pangbourne on the morrow. He smiled as he 
 noticed how relieved both seemed when they heard 
 that Mrs. Dane could not possibly leave Hamp- 
 stead for a week or more, and that there would 
 be no one on board the Lotus but their host and 
 themselves. 
 
 He went home feeling as though he were ten 
 years younger and life a vision of halcyon days, 
 and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening 
 in making arrangements for the river-trip. Lydia 
 had gone out to dinner with some friends whom 
 he did not know, and he was thankful to be 
 alone. 
 
 He had commenced to work at sculpture again, 
 and, inspired by a passage in Sanpriel's book, 
 had so far wrought an heroic figure representing 
 ^' Destiny." All the meretricious tendency that had 
 spoiled his later work had disappeared, and though 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 197 
 
 in the rough " Destiny " seemed almost too simple 
 in its details, he well knew that it was likely to 
 prove not only the greatest thing he had ever 
 done, but to rank among the foremost achieve- 
 ments of modern sculpture. Dane was singularly 
 free from conceit, but he had that justifiable vanity 
 which enables a man of genius to estimate more 
 or less aright his own work apart from the fact 
 of its being his own. 
 
 He was sorry to leave what he had begun to 
 work at with so much new impulse and power, 
 but he could still carry on his efforts in miniature 
 on board the Lotus — and what pleasure, he 
 thought, in showing each touch, each modelling, 
 to Sanpriel, and in being aided by her sympathy 
 and appreciation ! 
 
 He had scarce finished breakfast next morning, 
 when, to his surprise, Lydia came into the room, 
 dressed to go out. 
 
 He rose, kissed her politely, and then asked 
 her whither she was bound so early. 
 
 " I have to meet Aunt Margaret at Victoria 
 at 10.45, ^^'^ go w^*^h h^^ t° ^^^ Gascoignes'. 
 Mrs. Gascoigne and her daughter are going to 
 America to join Mr. Gascoigne, and they leave 
 London about two o'clock. Aunt Margaret and 
 I promised to go and say good-bye to them to- 
 
198 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 day, and have early lunch with them. I promised 
 also that you would come." 
 
 "You had no right to do so, Lydia. You 
 know perfectly well that I never go anywhere in 
 the first part of the day." 
 
 " Are you coming ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " When are you going on the house-boat ? " 
 
 " To-day. I'm eager to get away. I've never 
 been so sick of London before. By the way, 
 Lydia, you may tell Lady Margaret that I shall 
 make a point of running up to town some day 
 before she leaves." 
 
 " Thank you ; I prefer you to deliver your pre- 
 varications yourself," his wife replied, in a tone 
 so cold and quiet as almost to disguise the sneer 
 that animated it. " Pray remember that I, and 
 the Acostas, and — and — Mr. Ford are to join 
 you a week hence. I presume you will return 
 for a day before then ? And have you left in- 
 structions about your letters ? You have ? Well, 
 good-bye — but do not expect me to smooth over 
 Aunt Margaret's displeasure. You have already 
 offended her, and she told me she was very dis- 
 appointed in you — in which sentiment she is not 
 altogether alone." 
 
 As she finished speaking, Lydia turned and 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 199 
 
 walked from the room with that air of wounded 
 dignity and cold superiority combined which Felix 
 always resented so much, howsoever silently. 
 
 He contented himself, however, with a low 
 bow, as he held the door open for his wife, and 
 with a single quiet remark — 
 
 " Good-bye, Lydia. I know you always enjoy 
 having your Aunt Margaret here, and I hope you 
 will have a pleasant week." 
 
 How warm the sunshine seemed on the carpet, 
 he thought, as he returned to the table ; and 
 what a glow there was among the ferns in the 
 corner stand ! A little ago the room had seemed 
 somewhat cheerless. The canary, which had been 
 sitting silent, had suddenly commenced to sing 
 blithely. The urn hissed as though in emula- 
 tion, and there was that happy air throughout 
 the breakfast-room which is the supreme tonic. 
 
 He rose, crossed the room, and sat down in 
 a long leathern arm-chair which was irradiated 
 with sunlight, and stretched himself luxuriously. 
 Outside, the sparrows twittered in wildest jubila- 
 tion, and even that most soul-depressing of all 
 sounds, the wail of the London milkman, rose and 
 fell with a certain pleasant aptness. 
 
 " By Jove ! " thought Felix, " it never struck me 
 before,, but the reason why I've always cursed 
 
200 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 that milkman is my own lack of imagination. 
 Milk suggests cows, — cows suggest meadows, — 
 meadows suggest green hedges and shady beeches, 
 and larks, and cowslips, and blue skies, and 
 pretty dairymaids, and curds and cream, — oh, well 
 there, I'm getting rather mixed ; but, 'pon my 
 word, that fellow's cry to-day seems to me quite 
 poetic, and to suit the hour and season to per- 
 fection." 
 
 But soon his pleasant languor gave way to 
 eagerness, and having hailed a hansom — his bag- 
 gage having been already taken forward — he drove 
 off to the Great Western Station. 
 
 Delighted as he was to be again on the Lotus, 
 and to see and hear about him the river he loved 
 so well, the three or four hours of waiting slipped 
 by very slowly. At length, however, a carriage 
 drove up to the meeting-place near Pangbourne, 
 and a little later his guests were on board the 
 house-boat. 
 
 What a day-close it was, and what an evening 
 that followed ! Felix almost felt tempted to throw 
 overboard his small model of " Destiny " in order 
 to propitiate the too-auspicious Fates. 
 
 But at last, after hours of languorous ease, 
 happy talk, violin music, and short, sweet breaks 
 of song, the time came for separation. Slowly 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 201 
 
 and reluctantly Sanpriel said good-night and went 
 to her cabin, though in her eyes there was a 
 dreamy light which was that of a new strange joy. 
 
 For a little longer Acosta and Felix sat enjoy- 
 ing the midsummer eve, the latter smoking and 
 idly watching the moths as they flickered out from 
 the beeches in whose shadow the boat lay moored, 
 and the former intent upon some reverie of the 
 past or future. 
 
 The sound of the low wind among the sedges 
 and grasses, and in the beech-boughs overhead, 
 with the soft lapping of the water and swish of 
 the central current, made indolence inexpressibly 
 seductive. There was a low humming, too, of 
 gnats, as they danced in aerial mazes below and 
 through the outspreading alder-branches, and from 
 inland shallows came mellowly the croaking of 
 frogs. Occasionally a thrush or blackbird sang 
 a few notes, but only to cease immediately, as 
 though awed by the dusk and silence. There 
 was no moon, and the stars shone dimly through 
 the heat-vapours that had not yet been absorbed ; 
 all save Venus, which hung low, and pulsed and 
 flamed as though heavy with liquid fires. 
 
 When Felix lay down to sleep it was to the 
 soothing lipse-lapse of the flowing water, while 
 through the hollows of dreamland rose and fell 
 
202 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 in haunting cadences the last verse of a song 
 of Sanpriel's, one that he knew well, having heard 
 her sing it again and again : — 
 
 " Sweet, sweet is sleep 
 
 That knows no waking: 
 Sweet the forsaking 
 Of treasured toys we no more care to keep. 
 Sweet, sweet is sleep ! 
 O heart within my breast. 
 Thou shalt have rest J " 
 
 And as he lay adream with the sound of the 
 flowing river in his ears, it seemed to him as 
 though it passed into the dull insistent monotone 
 of the sea — the sea that moaned in calm or swept 
 thunderously between the Yew-Grove and the 
 Sands of Ratho. 
 
( 203 ) 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 " The halcyon days that come but once in life 
 Music and moonlight, and the passionate dream." 
 
 The days that followed seemed to Felix to be 
 almost flawless. It was true midsummer weather, 
 seldom, save during the noon-heats, too warm 
 for walking or rowing, and never even after dark 
 too chill for late idling upon the deck of the Lotus. 
 He thought of nothing save the present. It was 
 enough for him to live, to enjoy. The world 
 seemed so beautiful : his new-born genius laughed 
 in its strength, like a tyrant willing to be flattered 
 into indolent complaisance, but ready at a moment 
 to reassert his sway. 
 
 As for Sanpriel, she entered heart and soul into 
 his artistic aims and dreams. Every day they 
 spent hours talking of what each meant or hoped 
 to do in art and literature ; and both helped each 
 other, apart from the magnetism of love, for there 
 is in genuine artistic communion a bond of infinite 
 service. 
 
204 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Throughout the morning hours, sometimes even 
 till late in the afternoon, Acosta kept to the cabin, 
 which he had to himself, and worked steadily at 
 his new cantata, the "Triumph of Israel." When 
 he joined the others ashore, or sat with them 
 under the awning on the Lotus, he was mostly- 
 silent — so silent that it was obvious he was haunted 
 by reveries and indifferent to what he saw and 
 heard around him. Ere long his two companions 
 ceased to take much heed of him, and spoke' as 
 though there were none to listen to their conver- 
 sation. 
 
 But in the evenings Adama would, as it were, 
 come to life again. At dinner he talked fluently, 
 sometimes of the great hopes he and Sanpriel had 
 in common, oftener of music, art, and literature ; 
 and then afterwards, in the dusk, would bring forth 
 his violin and play to his entranced hearers till he 
 himself fell under the spell of his own music, and 
 slowly became silent, absorbed, heedless of his sur- 
 roundings. Thereafter Felix and Sanpriel would 
 sit quietly beside each other, sometimes talking in 
 low tones, oftener content to sit still and dream, 
 while they watched the white and grey lights in 
 the velvety flow of the river or the stars hanging 
 like sUver fruit among the branches of the oaks and 
 alders, or listened to the wash of the water along- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 205 
 
 side of the Lotus. Occasionally Felix would bring 
 out his paint-box and attempt, for Sanpriel, impres- 
 sionistic sketches of the scenes of evening or night : 
 a labourer walking home at sundown, with bent head 
 and weary gait — a clump of ancient alders — swans 
 emerging from a backwater — an outrigger manned 
 by stalwart young fellows in flannels — barges with 
 lanterns like eyes and small steam yachts emitting 
 smoke and swift spurts of flame — a late rower, 
 •with the water from his paddles dripping white or 
 amber, as the crescent-moon shone upon the river 
 from where it hunglow in the heavens — and so forth. 
 These Sanpriel always appropriated, and treasured, 
 . and saw in them a joy and beauty of which there 
 was sometimes but the merest hint. It was a 
 happiness to him, however, to know that she laid 
 such stress upon their possession. She seemed 
 to him, indeed, to grow more beautiful day by day. 
 Deep down in those fathomless eyes of hers there 
 was a light that evaded recognition, a light that 
 whenever, for a moment, it became visible to him 
 flashed like lightning along his nerves and touched 
 the utmost springs of his passion. Night and day, 
 day and night, he thought of her, even when by 
 her side, and laughing and talking most familiarly. 
 Everything beautiful suggested some quality of 
 hers : the waterlily in the backwater, the swan 
 
2o6 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 adrift upon the current, the curve and motion of 
 the surge which a steam-barge sent athwart stream, 
 the wind blowing across grass or the young grain, 
 the swaying of a poplar, the song of lark or hedge- 
 sparrow or shy goldfinch, the prolonged thrilling 
 vibrations of the missel-thrush : in one and all he 
 saw Sanpriel, heard the voice of Sanpriel — always, 
 everywhere,' Sanpriel, Sanpriel, Sanpriel. 
 
 As for Lydia, and Ford, and his habitual London 
 life, they hardly entered into his thoughts at all. 
 When, the first morning on the house-boat, he had 
 received some letters which had worried him, in- 
 cluding a curt and biting one from his wife, he 
 had despatched a telegram to prevent any further 
 letters from being forwarded to him till he should 
 write for them ; and by the afternoon post he had 
 written to Lydia and told her that the Lotus would 
 be moving. to and fro, that he wished to have an 
 absolute _rest, and that he had telegraphed home to 
 countermand the sending of letters and packets. 
 
 As day followed day he forgot all about his 
 promise to run up to Hampstead and see Lady 
 Margaret, and this it was that precipitated the close 
 of his halcyon hours. Ford had been in Paris for 
 some days, and so had known nothing of the 
 absence of the Acostas from Dreamthorpe, but on 
 the day after his return he had called there, and, 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 207 
 
 to his anger and chagrin, had learned whither and 
 with whom they had gone. Resentful as he was, 
 Lydia's anger was more imperative. That morn- 
 ing, a Saturday, she had sent three telegrams to 
 different addresses along Thames-side, any one of 
 which she felt sure would reach her husband. They 
 were to remind him that Lady Margaret was to 
 leave on Monday morning, and that friends were 
 coming to dinner — whom she did not specify. But 
 when the late afternoon came without word frojn 
 Felix, and when Ford arrived with his news, 
 strangely enough as unexpected as unwelcome, 
 her jealous wrath could not disguise itself even 
 from her aunt. Lady Margaret Trevor was not 
 the woman to pour oil upon troubled waters ; she 
 preferred to cast all available oil upon smoulder- 
 ing flames, and watch them leap up and scorch 
 and consume all within their reach. Wljiat lay 
 dormant in Lydia's mind was electrified into pas- 
 sionate suspicion, and not even the presence of the 
 man she loved could make her, during the long, 
 dull dinner, gracious and seemly. She felt happier, 
 however, after she had written to Felix, and told 
 him how offended Lady Margaret was, and how- 
 she, Lydia, had made arrangements to join the 
 Lotus party on Monday, and would be escorted by 
 Gabriel Ford. 
 
2o8 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Felix, however, had not received any telegram. 
 Early in the forenoon he and the Acostas had 
 driven a long distance inland to see an old priory 
 and its beautiful gardens, and had there spent the 
 day. When, on his return, he found two of the 
 messages which Lydia had despatched, it was too 
 late even to send a reply ; and though he com- 
 plaisantly reproached himself for his neglect of his 
 aunt-in-law, he could not repress a sigh of thank- 
 fulness at having so unconsciously succeeded in 
 evasion. 
 
 He felt instinctively, when he told the news to 
 his guests at dinner, that it was unwelcome. Of 
 course they could say nothing about Mrs. Dane, 
 nor indeed discuss the matter at all ; but later on 
 Sanpriel alluded to Ford's advent. 
 
 " I know you do not care for him : may I ask 
 why ? " she inquired, as they sat sipping their 
 coffee on deck, and watched the slow uprising of 
 the yellow crescent above an eyot a few hundred 
 yards down the river. 
 
 " Well, we have little in common, though we are 
 both artists. We have no aims in which we share 
 — for Ford does not care a straw about art in any 
 other than a purely selfish way. Then as a man 
 — to be frank, I don't trust him. My wife values 
 his friendship, and therefore he is always welcome 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 209 
 
 at The Sycamores, but he comes to see her 
 and not me, for there is no love lost between 
 us." 
 
 On the few occasions, latterly, when Felix had 
 alluded to Lydia, he had noticed that Sanpriel had 
 glanced at him, sometimes curiously, sometimes 
 with a look whose significance he could not fathom, 
 but always so swiftly and momentarily that he 
 knew not whether it were voluntary or purely in- 
 stinctive. And so it was when he mentioned her 
 in connection with Ford — though the glance that 
 searched his eyes seemed to him to endure longer 
 than a moment. 
 
 Both Acosta and his daughter seemed de- 
 pressed that evening, and their host himself felt 
 somewhat despondent, though he scarce knew 
 why, unless it was at the prospect of the uncon- 
 genial company which would soon be forced upon 
 him. Sanpriel, however, was a little distraught 
 on her father's account, for he did not seem well, 
 and she knew that physical and mental depression 
 generally preceded one of his brief attacks of 
 frenzy. Fortunately, he seemed to shake off his 
 indisposition as the evening advanced, and long 
 ere midnight the three friends were again adrift 
 on the tide of happiness. 
 
 As Felix and Sanpriel stood in the shadow 
 
 o 
 
210 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 bidding each other good-night, he held her hand in 
 his while he suggested a plan for the morrow. 
 
 "Let us have one quiet and perfect day, Miss 
 Acosta, to end fittingly what has been, to me at 
 any rate, one of the happiest weeks any mortal 
 could desire. If your father come with us, well and 
 good ; but if he prefer to stay here and work at his 
 cantata, let us row up the backwater and spend the 
 day under the shade of the willows and alders." 
 
 A slight flush came into her face, but she 
 quickly acquiesced; and then Felix let go her 
 hand and went to his cabin triumphant and happy 
 because she had not resented his long clasp ; nay, 
 had even, so he persuaded hiniself, returned his 
 parting pressure. 
 
 The morrow, however, brought the first sighs 
 of change, and ere breakfast was over the thunder- 
 clouds had massed themselves heavily in all direc- 
 tions, and a warm, large-dropping rain began to 
 fall. Dane was weather-wise, and able con- 
 scientiously to prophesy a fine afternoon ; but 
 though the others laughed at his augury, 
 and considered it to be but the ghost of his 
 wish, they were ere long convinced — for about 
 noon the rain ceased, and by three there was not 
 a cloud in the sky, only a thin filmy mist near 
 the horizons. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 211 
 
 Adama had been at work most of the morning, 
 but the electric atmosphere had affected his nerves, 
 and, after lunch, he declared that his headache 
 was so painful he would lie down during the 
 afternoon, but bade his companions go off- and 
 enjoy themselves up-stream. 
 
 The air was fresh and sweet, though the elec- 
 tricity which had been generating for days had not 
 been wholly exhausted. The tall reeds and -sedges 
 glittered in vivid green, and when the sunlight 
 flashed upon the broad flags, among which the 
 purple iris and yellow marshmallow grew pro- 
 fusely, the effect was almost dazzling. With 
 what rapture the birds twittered and sang, though 
 no more with the fulness and frequency of the 
 bygone love-weeks of April and May ; and how 
 gladsome everything appeared, from the swallows 
 swooping above the water-lilies amid-stream to 
 the wet daisied grasses and green glades on the 
 mainland 1 Even the vagrant who tramped negli- 
 gently along the meadow-path on the southern bank 
 appeared not ill-content — and to the eyes of the 
 two spectators who watched him for a few moments, 
 the sunlight, glowing, redundant, transmutive as 
 an alchemist's wand, seemed to ennoble his soiled 
 humanity. 
 
 In the sheer pleasure of movement, they pre- 
 
212 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 ferred for a time the open stream, but at last 
 Felix grew tired of rowing, and both felt the 
 heat, which, being damper than of late, was 
 the less endurable. He therefore oared the boat 
 round, let it drift for a while, and then, when 
 the upper reach of the backwater was gained, 
 guided it in below the sweeping boughs of the 
 alders — so wide and dense-foliaged just there that 
 the retreat they hid was secure from all casual 
 boaters. 
 
 The coolness and shade were welcome after 
 the glare of the flashing water and the hot white- 
 ness of the underspaces of the sky, and ere- 
 while an exquisite nook was reached, where the 
 pool was blue as a turquoise except where covered 
 with water-lilies or overhung by green branches, 
 which made the depths reflect intricate black 
 shadows shot through and through with lines 
 and dappled spaces of fluent emerald. 
 
 A beech threw its lowest bough half-way across, 
 and to its stalwart girth Felix fastened the boat. 
 
 For a time they talked upon all manner of 
 things bearing upon their two arts, but gradually, 
 though he would fain have avoided so perilous 
 a theme, the conversation turned upon the hopes 
 of Israel, and the great part the nation might yet 
 play in the world's history. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 213 
 
 "There are so few who realise what we are," 
 urged Sanpriel eagerly, in reply to a question. 
 " We are the torch-bearers of the moderns. Do 
 you know what one of our foremost contemporary 
 poets, Emma Lazarus, has said ? Here are her 
 words : ' Every student of the Hebrew language 
 is aware that we have in the conjugation of our 
 verbs a mode known as the intensive voice, which, 
 by means of an almost imperceptible modification 
 of vowel-points, intensifies the meaning of the 
 primitive root. A similar significance seems to 
 attach to the Jews themselves in connection with 
 the people among whom they dwell. They are 
 the intensive form of any nationality whose lan- 
 guage and customs they adopt.' Is not that well 
 put ? " 
 
 " It is ; and it is surely true. Who is Miss 
 Lazarus ? " 
 
 " Ah, you must read her poems : she is dead 
 now, but her words will live. Such poems as 
 ' The Crowing of the Red Cock,' ' The Banner of 
 the Jew,' and ' Rosh-Hashanah ' are like Hfe- 
 blood to us weary and famished children of 
 Israel. Ah, my friend, we are yet going to 
 lead you to a hope greater than any that has 
 yet dawned upon humanity. Will you let me 
 recite to you two little prose-poems by Emma 
 
214 CHILDREN OF TO-MOKROW. 
 
 Lazarus ? One, called ' The Test,' embodies that 
 terrible quality which makes our people so mis- 
 understood ; the other, called ' The Sower,' will 
 remind you what we are. Here is ' The Test ' : — 
 
 '■ Daylong I brooded upon the Passion of Israel. 
 J saw him bound to the -wheel, nailed to the cross, cut off 
 
 by the sitwrd, burned at the stake, tossed into the seas. 
 And always the patient, resolute, martyr face arose in 
 
 silent rebuke and defiance. 
 A Prophet . . . a Poet . . . a pladdbrowed Sage . . . 
 
 these I saw, with princes and people in their train : 
 
 the monumental dead and the standard-bearers of the 
 
 future. 
 And suddenly I heard a burst of mocking laughter, and 
 
 turning, I beheld the shuffling gait, the ignominious 
 
 features, the sordid mask of the son of the Ghetto J 
 
 But here is the reverse side, ' The Sower ' : — 
 
 « 
 ' Over a boundless plain -went a tnan, carrying seed. 
 
 His face "mas blackened by sun and rugged from tempest, 
 scarred and distorted by pain. Naked to the loins, 
 his back isfas ridged with furrows, his breast was 
 ploughed litith stripes. 
 
 From, his hand dropped the fecund seed. 
 
 And behold, there started frmn the soil a blade, a sheaf, 
 a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud-aspir- 
 ing tree. Its arms touched the ends of the horizon, 
 the heavens "mere dccrkened with its shadow. 
 
 It bare blossoms of gold and blossoms of blood, fruitage 
 of health and fruitage of poison; birds sang amid 
 its foliage, and a serpent was coiled about its stem. 
 
 Under its branches a divinely beautiful man, crowned with 
 thorns, was nailed to a cross. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 215 
 
 'And the tree put forth treacherous boughs to strangle the 
 Sower : his flesh was bruised and torn, but cunningly 
 he disentangled the murderous knot and passed to the 
 eastward. 
 
 Again there dropped from his hand the fecund seed. 
 
 And behold, again there started from the soil a blade, a 
 sheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud- 
 aspiring tree. Crescent-shaped like little emerald 
 mootts were the leaves : it bare blossoms of silver and 
 blossoms of blood, fruitage of health and fruitage of 
 poison; birds sang amid its foliage and a serpent was 
 coiled about its stem. 
 
 Under its branches a turbaned, mighty-limbed Prophet 
 brandished a drawn sword. 
 
 And behold this tree likewise puts forth perfidious arms 
 to strangle the Sower: but cunningly he disentangles 
 the murderous knot and passes on. 
 
 Lo, his hanas are not empty of grain, the strength of his 
 arm is not spent. 
 
 What germ hast thou saved for the future, O miraculous 
 Husbandman ? Tell me, thou Planter of Christhood 
 and Islam : tell me, thou seed-bearing Israel! " 
 
 "They are certainly beautiful and pregnant 
 lines. But it seems to me the Sower might also be 
 taken as representative of the Spirit of Humanity." 
 
 " You can so take it if you will ; just as we 
 adopt the name of ' Children of To-morrow/ 
 although Siwaarmill is not a Jew, nor writes 
 for Jews, but means his words for all who suffer 
 and live acutely." 
 
 "Whenever I hear that phrase, I think of the 
 lines of Omar Khayyam : — 
 
2i6 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 ' Alike for those who for To-DAT prepare, 
 And those that after some To-morrow stare, 
 
 A muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries, 
 " Fools, your Reward is neither Here nor There." ' " 
 
 " Ah, how sad he is, the beautiful old Persian 
 poet ! " Sanpriel exclaimed ; " how sad despite all 
 his bantering and abandon ! One can often hear 
 the sigh beneath his laughter ! After all, what 
 has collective modern pessimism to add to — 
 
 ' Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise ! 
 One thing at least is certain — This Life flies : 
 
 One thing is certain and the rest is Lies ; 
 The Flower that once has blown for ever dies ' ? " 
 
 " Ay, and their terrible complement or com- 
 mentary, a few quatrains farther on, Miss Acosta ; 
 do you remember ? — 
 
 ' I sent my Soul through the Invisible, 
 Some letter of that After-life to spell : 
 
 And by-and-by my Soul returned to me, 
 And answered, " I Myself am HeaVn and Hell : " 
 
 Heaven's but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire, 
 And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire.'" 
 
 " I remember well ; I do not think you could 
 quote the first line of a single quatrain in the 
 ' RubSiylt ' that 1 could not at once follow up 
 with the proper sequence. The quatrains I have 
 oftenest thought of sadly are these four : — 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 217 
 
 ' Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears 
 To-day of past Regret and future Fears : 
 
 To-morrow ! — why, To-morrow I may be 
 Myself with Yesterday's Seven Thousand Years. 
 
 For some we loved, the loveliest and the best 
 That from his vintage rolling Time hath prest, 
 
 Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before. 
 And one by one crept silently to rest. 
 
 And we that now make merry in the Room 
 They left, and Summer dresses in new bloom, 
 
 Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth 
 Descend — ourselves to make a Couch — for whom ? 
 
 Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend. 
 Before we too into the Dust descend ; 
 
 Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie. 
 Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer — and sans End ! ' " 
 
 While Sanpriel was repeating the lines one of 
 the earlier quatrains came into Felix's mind, and 
 when she had finished he added in a low voice, 
 but in a tone that betrayed the true significance 
 of the words — 
 
 " ' A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
 A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread — and Thou 
 
 Beside me singing in the Wilderness — 
 Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow ! ' " 
 
 A slight flush came into Sanpriel's face, but she 
 took no notice of the quotation, and immediately 
 asked some questions about other Persian poets 
 whose works have been translated. 
 
21 8 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 But the spell of Omar's lines had settled upon 
 them, and after a time they became silent, and 
 each fell into a reverie which was all the sweeter 
 for the presence of the other, though no words were 
 said nor even glances interchanged. 
 
 Sanpriel sat leaning back against the stern- 
 cushions, idly playing with a water-lily she had 
 plucked, with her eyes dreamily fixed upon 
 the green perspectives of the backwater; Felix 
 leaned over the side and looked down into the 
 still shallows, and watched the water-beetles and 
 minnows darting to and fro, and shadow-birds 
 flitting among the shadow-branches. As often 
 happens when emotion is high-wrought, a certain 
 reaction had set in with him. It seemed to him 
 that Sanpriel was hopelessly removed from his 
 love ; that to Lydia he would have to forfeit all 
 that he held most dear ; that the previous To-day 
 on which Omar laid such stress was slipping 
 away from him, all unused and unenjoyed — and 
 he repeated another of the Persian's couplets :-^ 
 
 " The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop, 
 The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one," 
 
 with a sad feeling as if they had been written of 
 
 himself. Slowly, however, his thoughts drifted 
 
 into other channels, and as he became more lost 
 
 in happy reveries of work and love he grew almost 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 219 
 
 oblivious of Sanpriel's presence. So quiet were 
 they that the swallows sometimes swooped close 
 above them and the water-hens swam close by. 
 A kingfisher, resplendent in purple and glowing 
 azure, forgot his coyness and flashed backward 
 and forward at intervals, and the ousels seemed no 
 shyer than the sharded green beetles and wall- 
 flower-moths and large, white, flickering butterflies 
 which flew hither and thither, like blossoms and 
 leaflets blown abroad. 
 
 But when the sun, setting low by the river- 
 reaches, sent a flood of golden light through the 
 alders so that it fell upon the backwater and made 
 its silent surface all agleam, Sanpriel stirred and 
 gave a low laugh. 
 
 " We must be going back to the Loins now, Mr. 
 Dane. But though we have been so silent, I have 
 had such a happy afternoon : it has been a Day of 
 Rest indeed. But I have left my father alone long 
 enough — and, besides, there is a slight chill here 
 now." 
 
 He was about to urge a little longer stay, and 
 words of still stronger pleading would have fol- 
 lowed them, but almost as she spoke there was 
 a loud splashing, and the next moment a four- 
 oared boat, with two or three girls in the stern- 
 sheets, entered the backwater, and was lightly 
 
220 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 moored by the young fellow in the bow to an im- 
 pendent willow. 
 
 So there was nothing for it but to row Lotus- 
 ward, and Felix managed to control his chagrin at 
 the interlopers, and laugh and chat as blithely as 
 though he knew nought of the overtrue songs of 
 Omar and other prophets of To-day and mockers 
 of To-morrow. 
 
 But so radiant was the sundown, so peaceful the 
 afterglow, that both yielded to the happy quiescence 
 of nature, and Adama Acosta vaguely wondered, as 
 he looked at them, how it was that youth and hap- 
 piness, potent though these are, could so irradiate' 
 human faces with the light as of an assured and 
 serene joy. 
 
 The evening was not less happy, though no dif- 
 ferent from those which had preceded it. Acosta 
 played melody after melody, and Sanpriel, too tired 
 to sing, as she said, at last yielded, and sang again 
 the song of her own, wedded to her father's 
 music, which Felix knew so well. For some un- 
 fathomable reason, however, it now pained him to 
 hear it, and he could barely restrain the tears from 
 his ej'es when the singer's voice ceased in one 
 long, tender vibration. Perhaps it was the emo- 
 tion that she put into it, or the subtle pathos of 
 the cadences to which it was set, or something in 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 221 
 
 the exquisite hush of the gloaming, violet-hued, 
 dewy, scarce yet star-litten. 
 
 Sweet, sweet is life 
 
 That knows no sorrow : 
 
 O golden morrow. 
 With what hid things is your bright coming rife f 
 
 Sweet, sweet is life. 
 Can grief , can;pain be where 
 
 Joy fills the air ? 
 
 Sweet, sweet is sleep 
 
 That knows no waking : 
 Sweet the forsaking 
 Of treasured toys we no more care to keep. 
 Sweet, sweet is sleep ! 
 O heart within m.y breast. 
 Thou shall have rest! 
 
 But when he lay down in his berth and, for a 
 long while, vainly strove to induce sleep, it was 
 not Sanpriel's song that haunted him. For he 
 had now consciously cast off his past from him, he 
 had now in spirit divorced himself utterly from 
 Lydia and his wedded life, and found that the 
 Hour of Repentance had no meaning, no reality 
 for him. It was of Omar's quatrain that he 
 thought : — 
 
 " Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring 
 Your Winter^garment of Repentance fling : 
 
 The Bird of Time has but a little way 
 To flutter— and the Bird is on the Wing." 
 
( 222 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Monday was dull and heavy. There was neither 
 wind nor rain, though the clouds hung low, and 
 the upper edges of those in the west were fringed 
 and, in places, deeply serrated. Along the river- 
 reaches the mists hung, or dispersed slowly in 
 their smoke-like vapours. The water, grey and 
 lustreless, flowed monotonously, though the swirl- 
 ing of the surface-currents, and the force of under- 
 eddies caused it to take on a certain serpentine 
 grace. 
 
 No one felt very much inclined for pleasure- 
 seeking, so by common consent the morning was 
 devoted to correspondence and such work as might 
 be feasible. But either letter-writing was uncon- 
 genial and work impossible, or else the atmos- 
 pheric pressure was accountable, for ere long all 
 three found themselves on the deck cif the Lotus, 
 and each with the same excuse of laziness. About 
 noon the small steam-cutter for which Felix had 
 arranged duly arrived, and took the house-boat in 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 223 
 
 tow up-stream. Motion was delightful on that 
 still day, and the spirits of all on board the Lotus 
 rapidly rose ; and by the time, late in the after- 
 noon, that King's Ferry was reached, they, or 
 Sanpriel and Felix at any rate, had become almost 
 happy again. 
 
 It was at King's Ferry that the new-comers 
 were to arrive — the hour and place having been 
 altered from those originally fixed upon. Felix 
 disembarked about four o'clock, and walked, about 
 a mile, to the little station — but whether he had 
 been late in starting, or had loitered by the way, 
 he did not arrive in time to meet Lydia and Ford 
 as the train came into the station. Neither was 
 the fly that Lydia had oi"dered by telegram in 
 attendance, and so both time and temper were lost 
 ere arrangeinents were made for the transference 
 of the baggage. At no time was Mrs. Dane fond 
 of walking, and in the country she detested it. It 
 did not improve matters that the road was rough 
 and, despite the yester thunder-showers, dusty, 
 and that the atmosphere was hot and almost 
 stifling. In the heavy air the gnats and midges 
 seemed to multiply each moment, and the pinging 
 noise of the wasps among the vervain and loose- 
 strife, or as they clung to the purple scabious-tufts, 
 was unpleasantly strident and added to the sense 
 
224 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 of heat-weariness. Even the small blue butterflies, 
 sprites of perpetual motion, fluttered weakly among 
 the blooms of the elder and bryony ; and there 
 was a vicious twang in the darting to and fro of 
 the brown dragon-flies over the bladder-campions 
 and limp knapweeds. 
 
 They seemed to have very little to say to each 
 other, Felix and Lydia and Ford, as they tramped 
 along the road to King's Ferry. To Dane it 
 appeared as though the midsummer glory were 
 over, the autumn come before her date; and 
 surely, he thought, there must be more than 
 twenty-four hours between the cool, sweet sum- 
 mer's afternoon in the backwater and that, hot 
 and dusty, wherein he now walked anything but 
 blithely. 
 
 To his immense relief, however, Lydia recovered 
 from or disguised her irritation as soon as she 
 boarded the Lotus. If she was not cordial to 
 Sanpriel, who greeted her with friendly welcome, 
 she was neither rude nor supercilious, and she 
 became almost friendly when she found that her 
 own stern-cabin, that which she had occupied the 
 previous summer, had been reserved for her. A 
 frown, however, crossed her face when she learned 
 that, of the two adjoining cabins, separate though 
 both enteted by the same outer door, one, that 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 225 
 
 astern, was occupied by her husband, and the 
 other by Sanpriel. But it soon became evident 
 that she had not come to make open war. By 
 many a covert sneer or unnecessary interference 
 she let it be seen that she was mistress of the 
 Lotus, but otherwise she made herself almost 
 agreeable to Miss Acosta ; as for Adama, she dis- 
 liked him, but was polite in her manner. 
 
 Altogether the dreaded Monday night passed 
 more pleasantly than Felix had dared to antici- 
 pate, and though he sorely missed the happy 
 evenings of the past week, he felt by no means 
 ill-content as he took a last turn upon the deck 
 of the house-boat with Ford, and smoked in 
 silence. 
 
 He knew that his companion hated him, but he 
 had never yet broached the subject of the quick- 
 sand episode, except on the first occasion when 
 he had met Gabriel after the studio episode on the 
 night of his return from Grantley. He had then 
 referred meaningly to the loss of the mare and to 
 the extraordinary disappearance of the warning- 
 board, but his remarks had been taken with such 
 mingled indifference and conventionally polite atten- 
 tion that he had been staggered. In any case, 
 he had realised, no good was to be gained by the 
 reopening of a dubious subject. He should have 
 
 p 
 
226 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 demanded an explanation at the . time he saw Ford 
 in his studio, or, if his fainting attack rendered that 
 impossible, then immediately afterward ; but since 
 the opportunity had gone by, he felt that it was 
 wisest to let it appear as though he suspected 
 nothing, or, at least, as though any suspicions he 
 might have entertained had been assuaged. 
 
 But as he walked the deck of the Lotus in 
 the solitary company of the man whom he disliked 
 and distrusted, and who, he was well aware, hated 
 him, he was on the point of breaking his resolution 
 and demanding a satisfactory explanation. If, 
 he thought, he could force Ford into a position 
 wherefrom he could not emerge without betraying 
 himself somehow, that individual would perforce 
 have to leave. The temptation was great, but, 
 rather from the idea that the opportunity was not 
 altogether suitable than from any fear of con- 
 sequences, he decided to preserve his reticence, 
 at any rate for a time. 
 
 The next few days passed pleasantly enough. 
 The weather improved, though there was some 
 rain every day, and the atmosphere was dull and 
 close. Notwithstanding Lydia's efforts to prevent 
 separation, it again and again happened that Felix 
 and Sanpriel got away together, sometimes for an 
 hour or so at a time, either ashore or in the small 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 227 
 
 boat, and even on the Loius they were not alto- 
 gether deprived of intervals of uninterrupted com- 
 munion. 
 
 By Thursday evening the house-boat had drifted 
 down-stream as far as Windsor, but by this time 
 it was evident to all that a break-up in the party 
 must soon occur. Adama Acosta's growing ab- 
 sence of mind had become unpleasantly obvious, 
 and there were other signs of mental trouble 
 which made Sanpriel anxious on account of her 
 father. Lydia had become strangely taciturn, and 
 to her husband's eyes there was a look in her 
 face which he almost feared, though he could not 
 fathom it. Ford, again, was at all times ill at 
 ease, however suave and attentive he might be 
 in demeanour : sometimes he sought Sanpriel's 
 company, and sometimes Lydia's, though latterly 
 he absented himself more and more from either, 
 save when they were together ; at all times, how- 
 ever, he avoided the company of Felix. As for 
 the latter himself, he could not but be conscious 
 of the growing strain, the gathering electricity — 
 but he looked only for the ordinary dull and 
 commonplace conclusion, and now indeed rather 
 wearied for it. On the Lotus he could never 
 depend upon privacy with Sanpriel ; in Hampstead 
 he could at any time walk over to Dreamthorpe 
 
228 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 with the . practical certainty of finding her at 
 home. Lydia worried him unspeakably, not so 
 much by her acts or words as by what these 
 often implied; her very personality affected him 
 unpleasantly, though he did his best to disguise 
 this fact from himself, and, when disguise was 
 useless, to overcome it. Thus it came about, 
 by common agreement, that the holiday would 
 come to an end on Saturday, unless the weather 
 improved, in which case it might be prolonged 
 till Monday or Tuesday. 
 
 But on Friday afternoon there seemed little 
 likelihood of a change for the better. The 
 atmosphere was even closer and heavier than it 
 had been of late, and the physical depression 
 which all experienced rendered the prospect of a 
 break-up one actually of relief. 
 
 All day, Felix noticed, Lydia had been in a per- 
 turbed and nervous state. The sight of him and 
 Sanpriel together, seated, or fishing, or walking to 
 and fro, seemed to exasperate her. Her voice was 
 sharp and bitter, and the lines in her cold, hand- 
 some face had deepened. He had been puzzled to 
 account for the change, save on the ground that 
 the strain which each experienced was proving in- 
 supportable to his wife ; but a remark from Sanpriel 
 in part at least explained the cause. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 229 
 
 " I fear that Mr. Ford is making dispeace between 
 your wife and yourself, Mr. Dane — indeed, also be- 
 tween her and me. I have twice lately accidentally 
 overheard something he said to her, and in each 
 instance it was untruthful, but at the same time 
 credited by her. Perhaps I have no right to make 
 the suggestion, but will you not leave me and take 
 Mrs. Dane a row, or sit beside her ? She is all 
 alone, you see, at present ; and as she is neither 
 reading nor working, I fear that she is ill-content." 
 
 Felix was unwilling, but he felt that Sanpriel 
 was right ; and in any case he could not have 
 refused her request. 
 
 But whether owing to the electric state of the 
 atmosphere and the doubled transmission of sound, 
 or whether she guessed the true origin of his 
 motive, Lydia rose as her husband approached, and 
 with a contemptuous glance at him, and another 
 of evil import at Sanpriel, passed along the deck 
 and down the stairs which led to the saloon. A 
 moment or two later he heard her cabin-door loudly 
 slammed and the lock turn. 
 
 He went back to Sanpriel's side, and ere long 
 they were again in earnest conversation, after the 
 first constraint consequent upon Lydia's action had 
 passed away — so absorbed, indeed, did they be- 
 come that they did not hear the small boat glide up 
 
230 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 alongside the Lotus, nor were they conscious of 
 the nearness of Ford, as he stood up and main- 
 tained the boat in position by means of the 
 lower loop-rope. He listened for some time, with 
 a contemptuous sneer on his lips and an evil, 
 furtive look in his eyes, but without eagerness, till 
 he overheard Felix urge his companion to come 
 on deck, after the others had gone to their cabins, 
 for a last talk about his sculpture and her new 
 book — in case the holiday should come to an end 
 on the morrow. 
 
 Before Sanpriel could reply, Felix, with an ex- 
 pression of scornful anger which he could not 
 control, caught sight of Ford. 
 
 "You put me in mind of the man Mr. Acosta 
 told us about last night, Mr. Ford — the man who 
 was never overheard, though often unexpectedly 
 seen." 
 
 The sneering tone was too obvious to be over- 
 looked, and Ford showed plainly that he both un- 
 derstood and resented the remark. For the first 
 time he allowed his ill-will to become visible, and 
 he scowled as he replied that he had just that 
 moment glided alongside, and had been about to 
 hail Miss Acosta when Dane spoke. By the time, 
 however, that he had secured the boat and come 
 on deck his manner had again completely changed, 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 231 
 
 and he appeared anxious to be, or at least to seem, 
 on good terms with his host. 
 
 After dinner, Acosta remained but a short time 
 in the open air. The nervous headache from which 
 he had been suffering for days had grown worse 
 instead of better, and he seemed quite unable to 
 maintain any sequent conversation. After he had 
 departed the others sat quietly for a time, though 
 Sanpriel and the two men ere long drifted into 
 conversation. 
 
 Fehx had gone to the saloon to fetch another 
 cigar, when, as he turned to go on deck again, he 
 was met by Lydia. He saw that she had come to 
 intercept him, and was half-startled, half-curious at 
 the set look in her face. When she spoke, how- 
 ever, it was in her usual slow, hard voice, 
 
 " Felix, I suppose you won't object to a change 
 of cabins for to-night? I have told Roberts to 
 transfer the sheets and so forth from my room to 
 yours, and from yours to mine." 
 
 " Why ? Your cabin is surely the more com- 
 fortable of the two ? " 
 
 " Possibly ; but I cannot sleep in it. I think I 
 'should sleep better in a smaller one." 
 
 " As you wish the change, Lydia, of course I am 
 willing to oblige, you. Has Roberts already seen 
 to it ? Yes ? Well, I'll go at once to the stern- 
 
232 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 cabin, as I left my cigar-case in my boating- 
 flannels." 
 
 Lydia turned without a word and went on deck 
 again. What could her real motive be? he won- 
 dered, as he groped about for his cigar-case. She 
 had never before complained of sleeplessness, 
 and there had been something in the tone of her 
 words which made him dubious as to her sin- 
 cerity. 
 
 Having found the cigar-case, he recrossed the 
 saloon, and as he passed the steward's pantry 
 stooped to pick up a key that he descried on the 
 deerskin outside. He recognised it as Roberts' 
 skeleton-key for the opening of all the outer and 
 inner doors of the private cabins when the guest- 
 keys should be lost, mislaid, or not forthcoming 
 when the berths had to be remade and the cabins 
 tidied. As the steward was not there, he placed 
 the key in his pocket, meaning to return it to 
 Roberts in the morning, or when he next saw him, 
 and then went on deck. 
 
 There was a brief vision of moonrise, but after 
 a few minutes of veiled light the mist, or opaque 
 undercloud, blotted it and the few visible stars from 
 view. As the night deepened, silence fell upon 
 the small party. The two men smoked, and occa- 
 sionally FeUx made a remark, but latterly he too 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 233 
 
 ceased all attempt at conversation. Sanpriel lay 
 back in a wicker-chair, and seemed deep in reverie 
 — not an unhappy one, her companion thought, as 
 he noted the faint smile that haunted her mouth — 
 and Lydia sat on a side-seat, and looked straight 
 astern, as though she descried something steadily 
 advancing through the darkness. 
 
 A barge sailed past, hay-laden, with three or 
 four large red and green lanterns ; a man at the 
 bow stood with a long pole, and as the helmsman 
 listened for his comrade's directing cries he whistled 
 a popular tune. Soon the barge became shadowy, 
 and then its bulk merged altogether into the gloom, 
 though, for a time, there were one or two bright 
 lights upon the water, as the lower reaches caught 
 the reflections from the lanterns, and the thin shrill 
 whistling was borne backward by some wandering 
 eddy of air. 
 
 Then again silence. A little later came a splash- 
 ing sound of oars, and a four-oared boat went by. 
 In a blithe tenor voice the " stroke " was singing, 
 and a fragment of his song came to those on 
 board the Lotus : — 
 
 Love in my heart; oh, heart of me, heart of me ! 
 
 Loiie is my tyrant. Love is supreme. 
 What if it passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me ! 
 
 Love is a phantom, and Life is a dream ! 
 
234 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 What if it passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me! 
 What if it .... heart of me . . . me ! 
 
 and the song died away in the distance. 
 
 Privet-hawk and other moths fluttered by, some 
 with jarring sound, others, like the flickering ghost- 
 moth, in spectral silence. The frogs in the shallows 
 and inland pools croaked incessantly, and once and 
 again a barn-owl swooped past, with its whirring 
 cry. There was no other sound, save the flow of 
 the water, which, though the night was windless, 
 seemed every now and again to surge more rapidly 
 and to swirl along in fiercer eddies. 
 
 Sanpriel was the first to make a move. 
 
 " I think I shall bid good-night," she said to 
 Mrs. Dane, as she slowly rose and gathered her 
 light Shetland shawl about her. 
 
 The latter turned and looked at the speaker, but 
 did not reply, nor did she seem to be aware of 
 Miss Acosta's outstretched hand. 
 
 " Good-night, Mrs. Dane. Are you coming 
 below, or are you going to stay on deck for 
 a while ? " 
 
 Lydia shortly answered " Good-night," and then 
 turned and looked steadily astern again; but a 
 minute or two later she rose, and, having shaken 
 hands silently with Ford and her husband, followed 
 Sanpriel below. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 235 
 
 A low laugh from his companion roused Felix's 
 resentment. He did not wish Ford to remain 
 long on deck, and for this and other reasons he 
 thought the opportunity would be a good one 
 on which to refer to what had happened at 
 Grantley. 
 
 " You seem amused at something, Mr. Ford ? " 
 When alone with him, Felix invariably adopted a 
 formal address, though before the others he dropped 
 the " Mr." when he spoke to or of Ford at all, 
 which was seldom. " If so, I am sorry to have 
 to demand your attention to another matter. 
 You remember the day you and the Acostas left 
 Grantley ? " 
 
 "Yes."' 
 
 " Will you explain to me what you did with the 
 letter that Miss Acosta wrote to me and left in 
 the library ? " 
 
 " Why do you ask me ? " His voice had a cold 
 steely ring in it, and he had half-risen from his 
 reclining attitude and thrown his nearly finished 
 cigar overboard. 
 
 " Because you returned to the library and took 
 the letter from the place where Miss Acosta had 
 left it for me." 
 
 Ford hesitated for a few moments. He knew 
 that his companion had doubtless found out from 
 
236 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Sanpriel herself about a letter having been written 
 and left for him, but, he thought, the rest must be 
 surmise, and an effort at " bluffing " him. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean what I say — that you appropriated the 
 letter which Miss Acosta left for me." 
 
 " I did not." 
 
 "You are a liar, Gabriel Ford." Felix spoke 
 quietly, but in a tone of contemptuous dis- 
 belief. 
 
 Ford sprang to his feet, and seemed about to 
 reply in great anger, but his companion calmly 
 beckoned to him to be seated again. 
 
 "Sit down again, pray. I have one or two 
 other questions to ask you. What did you do 
 with that letter ? " 
 
 Suddenly a wave of reckless indifference came 
 over him. He realised that Dane was about to 
 force him into a corner, and as he was not 
 altogether undesirous of a quarrel, he thought he 
 might as well meet the accusations — so far, at 
 any rate — with cynical frankness. 
 
 "The letter? Well, my good friend, by the 
 same kind of mistake as you made when you opened 
 Mrs. Dane's letter to me, I opened Miss Acosta's to 
 you ; but not until afterwards, for, thinking it was a 
 letter of my own, I put it in my pocket, and there 
 
CHILDREN OP TO-MORROW. 237 
 
 found it some three days later. It was a mere line 
 to mention that, she and her father were returning 
 to London — and so I forgot all about it. Very 
 sorry, I am sure. Delightful place, Grantley, is it 
 not ? " 
 
 " That also is false. Will you now tell me what 
 your object was in asking me to meet you at Ratho 
 quicksand ? " 
 
 " Well, really, my motives were rather complex. 
 Perhaps I hoped you might ride into the quicksand, 
 and perhaps I didn't ; perhaps I wished you out of 
 the way at the time when the Acostas were leav- 
 ing ; perhaps I wished — well, my dear Mr. Dane, 
 I hardly know all what I wished." 
 
 "You wished to murder me?" 
 
 " Evidence rather shaky, eh ? " Ford spoke in a 
 sneering tone, and leant forward, so that unwit- 
 tingly he brought his face into the light of the lamp 
 that hung from the awning. 
 
 "Yes, if unsupported. But you rode to Ratho 
 early in the morning and removed the warning 
 that Sir Arthur Crane had placed there." 
 
 "That is a lie. I was not within a mile of 
 Ratho." 
 
 " It is not a lie. The head-groom noticed that 
 in your horse's hoofs there was a peculiar blackish 
 clay which is found absolutely nowhere save at the 
 
238 CHILDREN OP TO-MORROW. 
 
 margins of the quicksand. The proof, therefore, 
 of your having been there is incontrovertible." 
 
 Felix saw a look of baffled fury, with something 
 of momentary fear in it, come into Ford's face ; but 
 when the latter spoke it was without a change in 
 his mocking tone. 
 
 " Did he really ? Well, it is possible, in my ab- 
 sence of mind, that I may have ridden as far as the 
 quicksand, but I saw no notice-board." 
 
 " So it amounts to this, Gabriel Ford : you tried 
 to inveigle me into a quicksand — you certainly 
 deceived me in an ungentlemanly manner, even 
 according to your own version — and you stole a 
 letter that was addressed to me. You are a liar 
 and a scoundrel." 
 
 To his surprise. Ford sat quite still and did not 
 say a word. 
 
 " I repeat, you are a liar and a scoundrel. I 
 should have spoken to you earlier about this, but as 
 long as you were my wife's guest I could not well 
 do so. As our party is going to break up to- 
 morrow, I take the opportunity of letting you know 
 what I think of you. In these circumstances you 
 cannot be surprised when I add that henceforth I 
 forbid you my studio — I do not say my house, for 
 if my wife care to see you or any of her friends, I 
 have neither the right nor the wish to interfere — 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 239 
 
 and, in a word, decline the honour of further ac- 
 quaintance so far as I am concerned." 
 
 When Felix had finished he lit another cigar, and 
 quietly resumed smoking as though he had con- 
 cluded the most ordinary conversation. 
 
 His companion sat looking at him with an evil 
 glitter in his eyes. At last he rose. 
 
 "Good-night, Felix Dane. You have the king 
 of trumps, but I hold the ace — and I have the 
 other honours in my hand ; " and with a sneering 
 laugh he rose, loungfed across the deck, and then 
 went below. 
 
 What did Ford's enigmatic farewell mean, he 
 pondered : was it a threat, or a mere idle assertion 
 of imaginary vantage ? He rose, threw away the 
 cigar he had just lighted, and walked slowly to 
 and fro. 
 
 How still and dark the night was ! Not a thing 
 was visible ten yards away from the Lotus, and 
 even the water was but faintly illumed, save where 
 the house-boat lanterns sent serpentine trails of 
 light across the flood. 
 
 How was it that Sanpriel did not come on deck 
 as she had promised ? Was she unwell ? Or had 
 she fallen asleep ? Or did she fear a tete-a-tete in 
 that dark and seductive silence ? 
 
 He became nervously impatient, and at last 
 
240 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 stepped softly down the ladder and into the 
 saloon. 
 
 The outer door of the central port-cabins was 
 closed. Should he open it, he pondered, and tap 
 gently at Sanpriel's door? — though if he did so would 
 Lydia not overhear the summons ? 
 
 While he was hesitating, he distinctly heard a 
 slight rustle. This decided him — for it came from 
 the inner side of the door. He gently turned the 
 handle of the latter, which, however, remained fast. 
 It was locked, and from the inside. What did it 
 mean ? Had Lydia — but just then he remembered 
 the steward's skeleton-key which he had picked up 
 and placed in his pocket, and with a swift gesture 
 brought it forth, applied it to the lock, and noise- 
 lessly opened the door. 
 
 He was startled, as Sanpriel stepped forward, to 
 see how white she was, and he even fancied that 
 she was trembling. 
 
 " What is it ? Has anything alarmed you ? " he 
 asked in a low tone. 
 
 " I will tell you on deck. I want to get away 
 — to get into the air." 
 
 Mechanically he relocked the door, and followed 
 her on deck. 
 
 " Why are you so white? Has anything frightened 
 you ? " he asked again, as soon as they were alone 
 
' CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 241 
 
 — though Sanpriel would not sit down, but leant 
 against the tafFrail. 
 
 " Perhaps it is foolish of me ; but when I said 
 good-night to Mrs. Dane as we parted at our cabin- 
 doors she gave me such a strange look. I heard 
 her go in and lock her door. A little later I left 
 my cabin and crossed the saloon to say good- 
 night to my father, but as he was asleep I went 
 back. Quarter of an hour or so afterwards I heard 
 a rustle and then the clicking of a lock. Thrice 
 since then I have tried to get out, but each time I 
 found the outer-door locked, and no key visible 
 anywhere. It made me nervous. I am glad you 
 came." 
 
 It was quite clear to Felix that Lydia had sus- 
 pected — perhaps Ford had put her on her guard — 
 that Sanpriel might go on deck again, and had 
 taken the precaution to lock her in ; but, angry as 
 he felt, he passed the matter lightly over, and ere 
 long his companion seemed to have recovered her 
 composure. 
 
 They talked in voices instinctively hushed — 
 partly of their plans for work, partly of when they 
 should meet in Hampstead, partly of the happy 
 week they had spent. 
 
 "To me the happiest week of my life," added 
 Felix in a low vibrating tone that betrayed the 
 
 Q 
 
242 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 deep emotion which otherwise he with difficulty 
 controlled. 
 
 He had drawn a little closer to her. Her 
 dress touched him — and he was conscious of it 
 through every nerve. Without conscious thought 
 he lifted his hand and it met hers^clasped it — 
 held it — drew it towards his lips — and the next 
 moment he was covering it with passionate 
 kisses. 
 
 "Sanpriel!" 
 
 It was the first time he had addressed her by 
 her own name. He felt the tremor of her hand. 
 
 " Sanpriel — Sanpriel — I love you ! Oh, my 
 darling — my darling ! " 
 
 She did not utter a word, but he knew that she 
 was yielding ; ah, so slightly, but still yielding. 
 Suddenly he leaned forward, still holding her hand 
 in his firm clasp, and kissed her : the next moment 
 his arms were round her, and his lips pressed, 
 against hers. 
 
 In the joy, the mad intoxication of the moment, 
 he heard nothing, saw nothing. The whole world 
 was lost to him. It was one throb of rapture. 
 Her lips, her eyes, close to his face, her heart 
 beating against his — the sweet, turbulent, un- 
 speakable passion of love regnant in both — it was 
 the height and crown of life — nay, it was the 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 243 
 
 quintessence of life, the one immortal moment that 
 is dropped into every cup of mortal years. 
 
 " Speak one word, my darling ! Tell me, San- 
 priel, tell me that you love me ! Ah, I know it, I 
 feel it — but only tell it me, dear — whisper it — I 
 dare scarce believe it. Oh, Sanpriel, Sanpriel, 
 my heart's delight, my beautiful one, how I love 
 you ! " 
 
 He kissed her passionately again, and felt her 
 lips touching his in return, but ere the whisper 
 came for which his soul yearned she had repelled 
 him and was looking out beyond him with a fixed 
 and terrified stare. 
 
 " What is it, Sanpriel ? What is it, my dar- 
 ling ? " 
 
 " Look, what is that ? " 
 
 He turned, and a superstitious thrill for a 
 moment unnerved him, as he descried, a few feet 
 away, a shadowy figure, wherefrom two eyes literally 
 shone. They were like some feline animal's, palely 
 luminous, save that they did not wax and wane. 
 
 But even as he looked he made out the outlines 
 of a face, white, rigid, tense, as of one from the 
 dead. 
 
 A low cry caught his ear, and Sanpriel stumbled, 
 against him and fell in a swoon at his feet. Indif- 
 ferent now to aught else, he knelt beside her and 
 
244 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 lifted her head, and as he kissed her lips and 
 chafed her hands he pleaded with her to open 
 her eyes and speak to him, as though across 
 the gulf of unconsciousness she could hear his 
 loving summons. 
 
 He had no thought of calling any one, but he 
 remembered that a fire-bucket stood near the 
 gangway, filled with water. He turned, reached 
 towards it, and plunged his handkerchief therein, 
 and therewith moistened Sanpriel's lips and laved 
 her forehead. 
 
 Ah, was that not a sigh ? — yes, another, and yet 
 another ! " Thank God, she's coming to," he mut- 
 tered, and again he pressed his lips to hers and 
 whispered lovingly. 
 
 What was that hoarse hissing sound close be- 
 hind, him ? He started, stumbled, and then sprang 
 to his feet, but when he looked round he could 
 descry nothing, no one. Stop ! what was that yon- 
 der — a blackness amidst the darkness, that moved, 
 that glided, that disappeared ! Should he follow ? 
 No, he would not leave Sanpriel. Besides — he 
 knew now who the phantom was; below all its 
 concentrated fury he had ■ recognised the voice 
 which had uttered that hoarse hissing cry — " Curse 
 you !" 
 
 It was Lydia : she had followed them, over- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 245 
 
 heard all, no doubt — he thought. Well, no matter 
 now. But what of Sanpriel ? He must shield 
 her. 
 
 Even while he pondered what to do, Sanpriel 
 opened her eyes, passed her hand once or twice 
 across her forehead, then with a low sobbing cry 
 staggered to her feet. 
 
 " Hu^h, dear ! You are all right now. Do 
 not be frightened." 
 
 " But what was ii ? " 
 
 "Nothing. It was an owl, or cat perhaps; 
 an animal's eyes, at any rate." 
 
 " No — no — Felix — I saw a face, white and ter- 
 rible. I — I — think it was Lydia's, your wife's !" 
 
 Even in his agitation and fear for her, his heart 
 beat faster when he heard her call him by 
 his name — the name of all names in the world 
 now. 
 
 "Whatever it was, you are safe with me, 
 Sanpriel." 
 
 " Oh, I must go below now, at once, at once ! 
 Let me go, dear I Yes, yes, I love you, but let 
 me go. No — no — no — I cannot go back to sleep 
 there — near her! But I'll get some things from 
 my cabin and then sit up with my father." 
 
 "Hush, Sanpriel dear, don't be foolish. You 
 need have no fear. Lock your cabin-door and 
 
246 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 fall asleep. You really saw nothing; there was 
 nothing there. I must have seen it if there were. 
 Your nerves are overwrought." 
 
 To his surprise and happiness she believed 
 him, and gave a great sigh of relief. 
 
 "Ah, well, I suppose you are right. I am 
 foolish and hysterical. Good-night — Felix ! " 
 
 As she spoke she leaned up, lightly kissed 
 his cheek, and before he could intercept her had 
 glided forward and disappeared down the com- 
 panion-ladder. 
 
 He followed, but just in time to hear her cabin- 
 door close and the lock click. 
 
 There was no one in the saloon, and all the 
 cabin-doors were closed ; he could see that at a 
 glance by the light of the pendent lamp which 
 burned low, but clearly enough. 
 
 With a long sigh of excitement, he put out the 
 lamp and went to his cabin, that which Lydia 
 had occupied till that evening, and two or three 
 hours ago had interchanged for his. 
 
 Strange that after such an experience he should 
 have slept at all, but in less than an hour, 
 slumber, deep and profound, had come to him. 
 To him only, the chief actor in the drama, came 
 rest and forgetfulness. 
 
 For a long time Lydia lay in her berth as 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 247 
 
 though she were a dead woman — motionless, 
 soundless, and with wide-staritig eyes. The one 
 passion of which she was capable — a mad, over- 
 whelming jealousy — had taken possession of her. 
 She neither thought of nor cared for any other 
 thing. There was room only for hate ; hate of 
 Felix, hate of Sanpriel. But at last she thought 
 of Gabriel : ah, she muttered, he not only loved 
 her, but also hated her husband. The thought 
 drew her lover closer to her heart ; her eyes 
 closed wearily ; and gradually she dozed off into 
 broken sleep. 
 
 Lydia never dreamed, but the emotions she had 
 experienced must have excited her brain. Half- 
 awake — for she wondered at her fancies, and at 
 the naturalness of everything around her, the 
 coverlet on her berth, the window-sofa she could 
 just dimly descry, the small square curtained win- 
 dow — she dreamed that there was a sound at her 
 door, just a faint, uncertain, almost inaudible sound, 
 and that a minute or so later a shadowy shape 
 outlined -itself in the darkness. Who could it be, 
 so stealthy, so silent, apparently so motionless ? 
 She gave a sigh of weariness and turned her head. 
 Surely, she thought, she must now be awake ; nay, 
 she knew she was ; but she would not look out 
 into the dark room again, nor imagine fantasmal 
 
248 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 figures. Again, a sound — low, but audible. No 
 — no — she repeated — she was becoming nervous : 
 she would pay no heed to creaking boards or 
 straining wood-joints. She pulled the bed-clothes 
 close up to her face and turned her head well into 
 the pillow — determined to yield to no foolish weak- 
 ness of eyes or ears. Ah, she would scold Roberts 
 on the morrow, she thought : had not some dust 
 fallen lightly upon her face, and the pillow ? How 
 careless of him ! how — how — ah, sleep must be 
 coming, though sounds, and scenes new and 
 strange in aspect, yet not wholly unfamiliar, are — 
 what confusion and medley everywhere ! — and how 
 close it is, how stifling ! — ah, there is coolness now : 
 how delicious, and what sweet scents ! — and how 
 happy she and Felix as a youth and maiden wan- 
 dering through the woodlands — no, she and Gabriel 
 — no — she and — ah, how terrible ! she has become 
 blind and can see no one, nothing, can hear not a 
 sound, cannot cry out even — ^though in her dream- 
 agony she muttered " Gabriel." 
 
 What made the dream-figure start ? Softly and 
 silently as any shadow it had drawn close to the 
 berth : then a dark arm had risen above the sleep- 
 ing woman, and slowly, steadily, a thin white 
 powder was sprinkled upon her face and upon the 
 pillow beyond her nostrils. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 249 
 
 A minute passed — two — three — and then 
 there came from the bed a sound of sobbing 
 breath. 
 
 Then the dark figure muttered, in a tone so low 
 • that none listening might have heard it, " So now 
 Tve played my ace of trumps, Felix Dane — and have 
 the game in my hands" 
 
 It was at this moment when another Shadow 
 had entered the cabin — a Shadow with a chill and 
 terrifying breath, though invisible to mortal eyes 
 — that the dying woman muttered " Gabriel " — that 
 the dark figure started. 
 
 Gabriel Ford trembled like an aspen. A cold 
 sweat broke out on his forehead ; nor could he 
 repress a low, shuddering respiration. But sud- 
 denly he stooped and listened intently, and re- 
 covered something of his composure. 
 
 " Why did he mutter ' Gabriel ' — and in her 
 voice, too ? Perhaps I imagined it : curse these 
 nerves that play such tricks. I do not like to 
 touch him : but there'll be light enough from that 
 window — I see a gleam of moonlight." 
 
 He crossed the cabin, softly pulled back the 
 small curtain, though his heart" beat the quicker 
 as one of the brass rings jangled. The night 
 had cleared, though a thick white mist lay 
 along the surface of the water. A long slow- 
 
2,0 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 moving finger of moonlight came in at the window 
 and pointed at the face, white and awful, of the 
 corpse. 
 
 " How ghastly he looks ! " Ford muttered, as he 
 stepped lightly back to look at the man who could 
 no longer be his enemy, nor come between him 
 and Sanpriel, between him and Lydia. Ah, if 
 Lydia knew — with all her love, how she yet would 
 hate him ! That must never be. Good God, how 
 he loved her, cold, and serene, and impassive 
 though she seemed to others ! 
 
 Then he stooped to look at death in the face 
 of Felix Dane. 
 
 But sharp was the low cry, terrible his trembling 
 agony, when, in place of the man whom he had 
 come to kill, he saw the corpse of the woman he 
 loved — the dead body, with the awful, staring eyes 
 of Lydia ! 
 
 He could not believe it : no, no, it was impos- 
 sible. He stooped, and looked close, and put his 
 hand upon her heart. Then he knew what deed 
 he had done — and the soul died out of the man 
 at that moment. 
 
 He felt it, he was conscious of the change : for 
 the moment he no longer knew sorrow or remorse, 
 not even a longing for the woman whom he had 
 Ipved, and murdered. She was dead, and that was 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 251 
 
 an end of it. What did that white thing matter 
 to him ? She would be none the wiser. It was 
 better than to grow old — and to be preyed upon 
 when no longer able to prey. 
 
 He stooped again and mechanically blew away 
 the white powder that lay about her nostrils and 
 mouth, and upon the pillow. Then with his 
 handkerchief he removed the faintest lingering 
 trace. The body showed no sign of aught save 
 the calmest death. The extreme blueness of the 
 lips and of the hollows under the eyes seemed to 
 indicate heart-disease. 
 
 There was but one other precaution to take. 
 Once more he stooped, and blew into her nostrils : 
 a single grain of the powder might have betrayed 
 him, would, at any rate, arouse suspicions. He 
 succeeded, but his lips came in contact with those 
 of what had been Lydia. He shuddered, and 
 again a wave of horror and agony overcame him. 
 Unable to endure it longer, he turned to steal 
 silently from the cabin, but ere he went he took 
 one farewell glance at the woman whom he had 
 thus terribly kissed for the last time. 
 
 Whether disturbed by his touch, or fallen so 
 by muscular contraction, her lips now formed into 
 a smile — but a smile of the most awful mockery. 
 Gabriel Ford went forth knowing that he should 
 
252 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 never forget it here, nor ever hereafter, if any 
 hereafter there were. 
 
 Then deep silence settled down upon the Lotus 
 — though none knew such profound quiescence, 
 such fathomless sleep, as Lydia Dane. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 253 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 Felix awoke with the thin sweet crying of the 
 swallows close under the stern of the Lotus. A 
 glance outward told him that it was a glorious 
 morning, fresh and joyous, with a blue wind-swept 
 sky. He fancied, however, that it- was much 
 earlier than it was, but all the more readily went, 
 lightly clad, on deck, intending to have a sunrise 
 swim. When he reached the deck, however, he 
 saw that the sun had been up an hour or more, 
 though there was no one visible save the man 
 who represented the crew, who was far forward, 
 and in the enjoyment of a meditative pipe. 
 
 Ere long he was in the water, and swimming 
 vigorously against the stream. He felt light- 
 hearted and almost joyous again, though he knew 
 that he had the change in the weather to thank 
 rather than actual circumstance. 
 
 As he turned and floated down-stream with the 
 current, he noticed that neither the boat nor the 
 small punt was alongside of the Lotus, but as 
 
254 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 there was no one near when he went aboard 
 again he returned to his cabin without enquiry 
 as to their whereabouts. 
 
 In a few minutes he was dressed and on deck 
 once more, and hailed the "crew," which had 
 again, pipe in mouth, made its appearance. 
 
 " Hillo, Peterson, where are the boats ? " 
 
 "Mr. Ford was up early this morning, sir, and 
 he went off in the punt ; Miss Acosta went away 
 in the boat rather less nor 'alf-an-'our before you 
 came on deck." 
 
 "Where did they go to, — on the river, or 
 ashore ? " 
 
 " Oh, ashore, sir. Mr. Ford said as how he 
 was goin' for a walk, but would be back in good 
 time for breakfast ; and Miss Acosta said as how 
 she hadn't slept very well, and wanted to go for 
 a stroll, and gather some wild-flowers. Yonder's 
 the boat, beside the alder-stump." 
 
 " It's shallow enough for you to get over the 
 bows and wade ashore, Peterson ; so just fetch the 
 boat, will you ? I'll go and meet Miss Acosta." 
 
 A few minutes later Felix pushed off from the 
 Lotus, and oared the boat ashore again. On the 
 foOt-splash he noticed a pair of small shoes and 
 a pair of slim stockings, whereby he concluded 
 that Sanpriel had either had to wade ashore from 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 255 
 
 among the flags, or that she had feared the heavy 
 dews among the grasses on the mainland. 
 
 He had not walked a hundred yards after dis- 
 embarking ere he found that the latter surmise 
 was correct, for then he caught sight of Sanpriel, 
 with her dress gathered up nearly to her knees 
 in kirtle fashion, walking slowly through the tall, 
 dew-pearled meadow grass. 
 
 She seemed the very incarnation of summer, he 
 thought. The sun shone all about her, making her 
 hair glow with almost metallic lustre and her skin 
 gleam like ivory. Over her right shoulder hung 
 her large straw-hat, secured by broad cherry- 
 coloured ribbons ; and with both arms she upheld 
 her dress, with its wealth of gathered campions and 
 sweet-smelling orchises, honeysuckle and dogroses 
 and bindweed, wild-thyme and rest-harrow, speed- 
 well and lady's-fingers, meadow crane's-bill and 
 yellow bedstraw, corn-cockles and scabious, hare- 
 bells and marguerites, and yellow toad-flax and 
 spearwort, and many other wild-blooms to be found 
 in that prolific region. 
 
 As she walked bare-footed through the grass 
 and shook the dew from the wild-rye and cow- 
 parsley, her lover thought she might be taken for 
 the goddess Freya. How beautiful she seemed, in 
 her youth and grace and loveliness ! her every 
 
256 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 movement was exquisite. A coquettish breezelet 
 came wandering by and loosened some of the tresses 
 of her hair^ — and how they rippled and shone as 
 their aerial lover tossed them out and caressed 
 them and played with them in a manner that made 
 her other lover wildly envious ! 
 
 Above, there was a bewildering chorus of larks, and 
 on the honeysuckle, dogrose, privet, bryony, and 
 wild-clematis sprays around the redbreasts sang 
 tlieir blithe but last-o'-summer songs, while the 
 chaffinches, piped and the blackbirds called aloud as 
 though midsummer days were not on the wane. 
 
 Everywhere there was nothing but joy and 
 freshness. In the farther meadows the cattle 
 lowed out of sheer content, while their fragrant 
 breath went up in thin whorls of steam ; and 
 among the elms and on the low-lying lands the 
 rooks cawed and fluttered and wheeled and swept 
 as if the autumnal equinox and the fowler's gun 
 were impossible things, rooky legends beyond the 
 belief of all sensible wingsters. 
 
 "This indeed is youth — the joy of life," Felix 
 thought, as he stepped lightly across the dewy 
 thyme-set grass, and, unseen by Sanpriel, drew 
 close. He was almost at her side before she 
 turned round and saw him. 
 
 A swift blush swept across her face and a light 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 257 
 
 of surprised joy came into her eyes, and then, ere 
 she could say a word, his arms were round her and 
 his kisses upon her lips. 
 
 " Sanpriel, you are so beautiful that you must 
 avoid elfin-circles — you would certainly be carried 
 away as a fairy princess ! Ah, my darling, how 
 glad I am to meet you here ! Though I fell asleep 
 last night with the memory of your farewell kiss on 
 my lips, I woke this morning with a dreadful fear 
 that it was all a dream, and now — now I see you 
 here, more beautiful than ever, I — I — but what is 
 it, dear? You are not angry with me, are you ? " 
 
 She had drawn herself up, while a look of 
 haughty displeasure had come into her face and 
 numbed her lover's eloquence. 
 
 "We are not alone, Mr. Dane." 
 
 Felix swung round, and stared angrily at Pord, 
 who had suddenly stepped out from behind a huge 
 old mid-meadow oak. 
 
 To his surprise, however. Ford seemed neither 
 resentful nor chagrined, though it was obvious that 
 both his companions looked upon his sudden in- 
 trusion with anything but friendly eyes. 
 
 " Good-morning, Sanpriel," and as he spoke 
 he held out his hand in greeting. Miss Acosta, 
 however, did not take it, but bowed coldly, and 
 then turned her eyes riverward. He gave a 
 
 R 
 
258 I CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 momentary glance of angry astonishment, but did 
 not attempt to force recognition. 
 
 He nodded to Felix, who stiffly acknowledged 
 the salute, but did' not speak. 
 
 " I am sorry if I am interrupting you," Ford re- 
 sumed in a tone of quiet dignity and with nothing 
 of his habitual self-assertiveness ; " I came ashore 
 for a walk, and as I was on my way back I caught 
 sight of you two — eh — ah — gathering flowers." 
 
 Sanpriel flushed slightly, as she thought of what 
 Gabriel must have seen and probably overheard, 
 but she gave no sign of relenting from her attitude 
 of contemptuous indifference. 
 
 Felix could not but feel grateful at his rival's 
 courteous reserve, and as he could never bear 
 resentment in- face of conciliation, he changed 
 his manner, and politely suggested that all three 
 should now walk back together, as it would ere 
 long be time for breakfast. Surely, he thought, 
 Sanpriel was showing her dislike of Ford with un- 
 necessary emphasis — unless, indeed, .she had re- 
 cently had good cause to make her resentful. He 
 frowned as the idea occurred to him, but a glance 
 at what just then took place made him feel too 
 happy for anger against even Gabriel Ford. 
 
 As, in silence, the three had turned to go river- 
 ward. Ford had taken his place at Miss Acosta's 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 259 
 
 left side ; Sanpriel, however, without ostentation, 
 but without any effort at dissimulation, slipped from 
 her central position and walked along to the right 
 of Felix. 
 
 Not unwilhng to render the snub less trying to 
 his rival, he asked Ford lightly a question about 
 which he felt really quite indifferent. 
 
 " Did you see Mrs. Dane before you left ? " 
 
 There could be no doubt about it, Felix thought, 
 as he noticed the ghastly pallor of his companion's 
 face, of as much of it as he could see, averted as it 
 was — he was in ill-health, beyond question. His 
 voice, too, so much softer than its wont, was 
 strangely low. 
 
 " No, I did not." 
 
 Ford glanced round as he spoke,- and found San- 
 priel's eyes fixed upon him for a moment. Her 
 gaze seemed to fluster him, for, with a slight access 
 of colour and more hurried speech, he added — 
 
 " She was not up, was she, when you came 
 ashore ? I thought she was a confirmed late- 
 riser. Moreover, she — she — did not seem to me 
 very well last night." 
 
 " Didn't she ? H'm, well, perhaps not," Felix ad- 
 mitted, as he recalled the incidents of the evening. 
 
 The rest of the walk was in silence, save when 
 Sanpriel made some remark about the wild-flowers 
 
26o CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 she loved so well, as she stooped to pick up a spray 
 of enchanter's nightshade or millefoil, of agrimony 
 or pungent meadow-sweet. 
 
 How absorbed and indifferent Ford seems ! 
 thought Felix, as he noticed that he made no effort 
 at conversation, and was apparently oblivious even 
 of Sanpriel's bewitching appearance as, bare-headed 
 and bare-footed, she walked — a very embodiment 
 of grace and beauty — through the sunlit dewy 
 morning. 
 
 Having helped Sanpriel into the boat, he took 
 the oars, and having waited till Ford sprang in as 
 he shoved the bow off-shore, sculled swiftly toward 
 the Lotus. 
 
 His gaze dwelt upon the woman he loved . in- 
 cessantly, but ere long he noticed an anxious look 
 come into her eyes. 
 
 " There is my father leaning over the taffrail — 
 but — but — he does not look well. He is so white, 
 and seems nervous and strange : I know that look 
 so well. I wonder if anything has gone wrong with 
 him — perhaps he has been missing me, dear old 
 father ; wondering if I've been drowned, perhaps." 
 
 Acosta gave a solemn unsmiling response to his 
 daughter's salute as the boat drew up alongside, 
 and as soon as the three were on deck he asked 
 Felix to speak with him privily for a moment. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 261 
 
 Sanpriel watched them apprehensively, particu- 
 larly when she saw her lover start and grow 
 pale. 
 
 " My friend," Adama Acosta began, as soon as 
 he had withdrawn from the others, " that which 
 Cometh to us all has come unto you — for there is no 
 evasion of sore pain and sorrow for any of us. A 
 stranger hath come hither to seek out one of us — 
 your wife, Lydia." 
 
 In a moment Felix understood that the stranger 
 to whom Acosta alluded was none other than Death, 
 and that Lydia was dead. 
 
 A great fear came upon him that Death had not 
 voluntarily come, but had been summoned — that, 
 in a word, his wife, after what she had witnessed 
 between Sanpriel and himself, and with the know- 
 ledge of what lay between herself and Gabriel Ford, 
 had committed suicide. 
 
 He turned and walked slowly down the com- 
 panion-ladder and into the saloon, followed by 
 Acosta. 
 
 Stopping at Lydia's cabin-door, he looked stead- 
 fastly at his companion. 
 
 " I understand. But tell me all; is there any- 
 thing more to tell ? " 
 
 Acosta looked surprised, but replied, " Nay, I 
 know not ; she is gone. It must have been very 
 
262 'CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 sudden. This morning, not half-an-hour ago, her 
 maid came to me and said that she was frightened 
 about Mrs. Dane, that she could not get any answer 
 from her, and that the door was locked. I called to 
 her also, but could get no reply. I then told the 
 steward, and he opened it with his duplicate-key, 
 which he had picked up from the table" 
 
 " Yes ; I left it there," Felix interrupted mecha- 
 nically. 
 
 ." Then the maid went in, and the next moment 
 came out trembling and sobbing. I entered, and 
 saw at once what had happened. I am something 
 of a physician, and recognised the aspect of heart- 
 disease. I immediately told Roberts to send the 
 man — Peterson is his name, I think — to the nearest 
 village or town where a doctor could be obtained. 
 I then relocked the room — though I was puzzled by 
 the absence of any key in the inside — though, as I 
 have said, the door was locked." 
 
 Felix went in alone, and closed the door behind 
 him. Acosta had pulled the square patch of blind 
 across the little window, and the room was in a 
 kind of twilight gloom ; but Lydia's white face 
 was outlined with startling distinctness. The mock- 
 ing smile had disappeared. There was a look of 
 great weariness upon the face, but otherwise it was 
 calm and reposeful. 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 263 
 
 Was this his wife ? he wondered : the woman 
 with whom he had lived ten years, and who yet 
 was scarce stranger and more far removed from him 
 in death than she had been in life ? It was piti- 
 able. All these years, and yet to have been utter 
 strangers to each other : to have lived with each 
 other, to have slept side by side, to have been 
 knit together by a hundred minor circumstances, 
 and yet to have been wide as the poles asunder in 
 reality. And what of all the disappointment, and 
 new hope, and passion of jealousy ? Were these 
 things dead also ? Lydia looked so utterly, irre- 
 trievably, irrevocably dead, that — oh ! cruellest 
 wrong of all — he could not credit her immortality. 
 Not a wave upon the deep, not a rain-drop fallen 
 in mid-ocean, seemed more utterly lost than she. 
 
 It was with genuine and bitter pain at his heart 
 that he could not feel more grief for the dead 
 woman who had been his wife ; but he could 
 not. He had no heed of Sanpriel at the moment, 
 whatever remote consciousness lay below his con- 
 centrated thoughts ; but he felt that, even if he 
 had loved no other woman, even if he had in some 
 degree really loved her, she was now so utterly 
 dead to him that his past had died with her. If 
 Lydia Dane was no more, neither was the old 
 Felix Dane. He looked steadily at the white 
 
264 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 face as at that of one whom he had known -in 
 boyhood. The tears came to his eyes when the 
 pity of it all overcame him — tears for Lydia's 
 sake, not for his loss of her, but for her wasted 
 years, her barren life, her sterile hopes, and cold, 
 loveless joys. Stooping, he kissed the cold fore- 
 head, passed his hand lightly across the dull, 
 glazed eyes, and then sat down on the low 
 window-sofa and buried his face in his hands, as 
 he thought — thought — thought. 
 
 Less than an hour later he was disturbed by 
 the advent of the doctor. A few questions, a brief 
 examination, and the latter seemed quite satisfied 
 that syncope had been the cause of death. 
 
 When Felix went on deck again he was thank- 
 ful that his guests had gone. He did not wish 
 to see even Sanpriel — nay, he would fain have 
 avoided her had she been on board. Even pas- 
 sion is chilled for a time by the breath of mor- 
 tality. 
 
 Ford had left an oral message with the doctor, 
 and Felix had a pang of sympathy with the man 
 whose loss was really a loss, whose love had been 
 the one cherished bloom of Lydia's life. He felt 
 as though henceforth they might be friendly, if 
 not friends — for he knew nothing of the fury of 
 baffled hate and baffled hope, the cancer of an 
 
CHILDREN OF. TO-MORROW. 265 
 
 eating despair, then gnawing at the heart of Gabriel 
 Ford. 
 
 There was a brief note from Sanpriel. In a 
 few earnest words she said that she and her father 
 knew he would rather be alone, and that he had 
 their deepest sympathy. There was nothing else ; 
 no words of conventional condolence ; no vain 
 parleying with empty words. 
 
 As he sat alone that night on the deck of 
 the Lotus, there came to him a great wave of 
 regret for the life he and Lydia had led. It was 
 not the fault of either altogether ; the evil of a 
 harsh and unnatural tyranny had ruined ihet'r 
 lives, as it has ruined thousands, and will yet ruin 
 Heaven knows how many more. 
 
 But so little was the dead woman part of him 
 that, even in sleep, her memory — though her 
 body lay so near him — did not haunt the cham- 
 bers of his brain. When, at last, wearied with 
 many thoughts and the dull pain that beset him, 
 he fell into a troubled sleep, it was to dream of 
 his strange and ominous marriage to Sanpriel in 
 the twilit Yew-Grove at Grantley, with Adama 
 Acosta's eyes gleaming insanely, and, behind all 
 and through all, the monotonous boom of the sea, 
 swelling at times in dull thunders, or crying aloud 
 with long reverberant voice. 
 
( 266 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 It would have been mockery for Felix Dane to 
 have asserted that the month which followed the 
 death of his wife was one of unhappiness. In 
 no sense was it so, though the joy which he had 
 confidently anticipated from his knowledge of 
 Sanpriel's love for him was neither as serene nor 
 as poignant as he had imaged forth for himself. 
 Perhaps it was because he did not see her, and 
 because there was an element of uncertainty in 
 their future, even in its most roseate aspect ; 
 perhaps it was for some subtler or more complex 
 reason. 
 
 But whatever the joy that the knowledge of 
 her love brought to him, there was no diminution 
 in his love for her. Every morning he thought 
 of her with added yearning ; every night she 
 dominated more absolutely his waking and sleep- 
 ing dreams. For the first week of his return to 
 Hampstead he had not gone to Dreamthorpe; 
 and when at last he went thither, it was to find 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 267 
 
 that the Acostas were out of town, and would 
 not be back till the late autumn. 
 
 For the most part he lived in his studio. He 
 slept in the house, and had his breakfast there, 
 but never entered the bedroom which had been 
 Lydia's, nor even the drawing-room. A glance at 
 their desolate aspect had been sufficient for him. 
 He wished to forget Lydia, for to remember was 
 not to know any sentimental regret, any vague 
 longing, but to resent dull and wasted years. He 
 blamed himself much more than her, but he did 
 not disguise from himself the fact that she had con- 
 sciously, as well as heedlessly, set herself against 
 all his ideals and his loyalty to his art. She had 
 vulgarised his life ; that, he was willing to admit, 
 might be due in part to some weakness of his 
 own, for he had always argued that the man of 
 genius should show his strength by holding him- 
 self aloof from influences which he knew to be of 
 deterioration. That they might be inevitable sig- 
 nified little; disease, poverty, all the ills of life 
 might be unavoidable, yet the strenuous soul would 
 be superior to the most commonplace, the most 
 sordid, the dreariest environment. So he argued 
 — who had known nothing of disease or poverty. 
 The slow wear and tear of uncongenial intimacy he 
 had known — and, as he well knew, had not pre- 
 
268 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 served himself intact, but had slowly deteriorated 
 in mental and spiritual insight. Sanpriel had 
 electrified him into a new life ; it was owing to 
 her influence that his genius was again militant, 
 that he could look forward and not backward. 
 When a man of genius — whatever his art be — 
 ceases to look forward, the creative instinct in him 
 is dead or dying — and to the true artist this is 
 a death beside which that of the body is of little 
 moment. 
 
 He could not recall one helpful word of Lydia's. 
 If she had been merely unappreciative or even 
 indifferent, it would not have mattered much ; it 
 would have made his outer life less happy, but 
 it would not have affected his real self. But 
 never to have uttered even the most conventional 
 word of encouragement, never to have coldly 
 approved anything save what was meretricious, 
 never to have shown aught but contemptuous dis- 
 like of his worthiest efforts — (his was to alienate 
 her from him beyond even the redemption of 
 death. He was not one of those natures who 
 cast a glamour round whatever they have lost, 
 even when formerly unvalued and perhaps de- 
 spised. Neither to himself nor any one else did 
 he pretend grief ; but only to himself did he admit 
 that Lydia had never once helped him as she had 
 
CHILDREN OP TO-MORROW. 269 
 
 done by her death. So thus it was that he came 
 to think less and less of his wife, and even to 
 shun the very rooms wherewith he had so long 
 associated her. Gradually she became but a faded 
 memory ; so little had she ever entered into his 
 life that he never caught himself hstening in- 
 stinctively for the rustle of her dress or the sound 
 of her voice. She had, for him, died the second 
 death — that most terrible and piteous passing, 
 where there is "no resurrection in the minds 
 of men." 
 
 From early morning till three or four o'clock 
 each ■ afternoon he worked in his studio, fashion- 
 ing forth his " Destiny " — a sombre and impres- 
 sive figure of a woman of heroic mould, in whose 
 regnant smile there was something ominous and 
 terrible. Thereafter he would attend to his cor- 
 respondence, and then walk the three miles or so 
 which lay between him and his club. At the latter 
 he read the papers and magazines, sometimes 
 chatted with artist acquaintances, who, however, 
 for the most part, left him alone, in the impres- 
 sion that the poignancy of his recent loss would 
 still be almost unendurable — occasionally spent 
 an hour with a friend in the smoking-room, and 
 then, having dined, walked or drove back to Hamp- 
 stead. It was not to Frognal, however, but to the 
 
270 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Heath itself that he drove ; and it was then that the 
 happiest hour of the twenty-four was spent. It 
 was his habit to walk down the lane by the side of 
 Dreamthorpe, or stand upon the Heath beyond its 
 gates, and imagine that he and Sanpriel were there 
 together, that her light it was that shone from one 
 of the rooms, that her step it was which he heard 
 sometimes upon the gravel nigh the late-flowering 
 laurels and ceringas. They were silent eves mostly, 
 those July and early August vespers • of his ; for 
 even those latest songsters of summer, the white- 
 throat, chaffinch, and green linnet, had ceased 
 to call their music through the afterglow, and in 
 the hazy moonlit twilight only the hawk-moth 
 and the musk-beetle jarred the stillness with their 
 rustling flight, or the strident locust among the 
 wild angelica or spreading sprays of hedge-parsley. 
 In the large and mellow affluence of the harvest- 
 moon there was something pastoral and idyllic 
 even on Hampstead Heath, nor was the effect 
 ruined by the distant laughter and blent sounds 
 from belated wayfarers or from happy couples 
 going linked arm-in-arm and in some vague 
 way sensitive to the charm and mystery of the 
 August night, even when most ignorant and 
 boorish. 
 
 One afternoon in the second week of August, 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 271 
 
 more than a month after the death of Lydia, he 
 was standing in the garden of The Sycamores, 
 wondering with yearning and pain at his heart 
 when he should hear from Sanpriel. He had 
 written, but had received no answer, and he feared 
 that she and her father might not be at Forest 
 Manor at all, but perhaps abroad. He had befen 
 watching a long narrow exodus of swifts, the last 
 lingerers of their kindred, and was noting the 
 uneasiness among the house-martins, which had 
 begun to congregate and indulge in that tumultuous 
 hesitancy which for some weeks precedes departure, 
 when he caught sight of the postman, whom he at 
 once and eagerly intercepted. 
 
 There was but one letter for him, and though it 
 bore the Grantley postmark, was not in Sanpriel's 
 writing. With anxious eyes he glanced through 
 its contents, relieved to find that the Acostas were 
 at Forest Manor, and that at last, at last, he should 
 soon see his soul's beloved. 
 
 "Dear Mr. Dane," — it ran, — "I am sure that 
 you will keep your promise to us, and come and 
 spend some weeks here. The pleasure will be on 
 our side mostly, for we can offer you but dull en- 
 tertainment, though, as I hear that you want both 
 change and rest, perhaps that is an inducement 
 
272 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 rather than the reverse. We are almost alone, 
 and you can be as quiet as you like. My husband, 
 I regret to say, is laid up with rheumatic gout, and 
 is confined to his room, but Miss Acosta and 
 Gabriel Ford are here, and both will, I am sure, 
 heartily welcome you. I must tell you, however, 
 what you will be very sorry to hear, that poor 
 Adama Acosta's head-trouble has greatly increased 
 — in fact, he is now dependent upon others. He has 
 no longer any frenzied attacks ; the disease shows 
 itself in strange, brooding fancies and in complete 
 loss of memory. He does not recollect at noon 
 what he said or saw at breakfast, and he does not 
 even seem to recognise any one with the excep- 
 tion of Sanpriel. The doctors say there is no pos- 
 sibility of recovery. It is very sad. I am so 
 thankful for the latter's sake that Gabriel Ford is 
 here. He is evidently in love with her, and in the 
 circumstances she could hardly do better. And 
 this brings me to another reason for your coming, 
 dear Mr. Dane ; I want you to lend me your aid 
 in bringing these two young people together, 
 but, first, to act as peacemaker. I like Sanpriel, 
 but she is very aggravating sometimes with her 
 sentimental notions, and is quite foolishly prejudiced 
 against Gabriel. Would you believe it — she at 
 present, for some inscrutable reason, actually re- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 273 
 
 fuses to be left alone with him, and will only 
 answer his remarks at table in monosyllables. It 
 is all mere contrariness, of course — but very stupid. 
 I told her, only this morning, that G. F. would cer- 
 tainly take his departure in a huff, and not give her 
 another chance, and she positively looked radiant ! 
 So, you see, you are urgently required by every 
 one ! Do write by return and say that we may 
 expect you at once. — Most sincerely yours, 
 
 Olivia Crane." 
 
 So unutterably thankful was he at the prospect 
 of again seeing Sanpriel, of living in the same 
 house with her, of having daily companionship 
 with her again, that he could not dally with even 
 the appearance of hesitancy. 
 
 With a look so buoyant and vigorous, so joyous 
 indeed, that he scandalised the maiden ladies who 
 lived in the opposite house in Hurst Road, he walked 
 to the post-office at Swiss Cottage and despatched 
 a telegram to Lady Crane, to the effect that he 
 should arrive at Grantley on the following after- 
 noon. Then he walked homeward again, and set 
 to work with almost boyish eagerness to "put 
 things to rights " ere what he hoped would be 
 a long holiday. The evening was spent in de- 
 stroying old letters, sending cheques for outstand- 
 
274 CHILDREN OP TO-MORROW. 
 
 ing accounts, and so forth. Before he locked up 
 his studio, however, he took a long farewell look 
 at his unfinished " Destiny." 
 
 "She would do as she stands," he muttered. 
 " By Jove ! I've never done anything like that 
 before. It almost frightens me. She sees every- 
 thing, and is scornful of our fretful dreams and 
 plans and vain prayers. That look she has — 
 what unutterable things it seems to convey ! I 
 wonder what she sees for me, — for us ? " 
 
 As he spoke he walked close up to the statue 
 and looked into the sombre face. Was it some 
 strange accident of his touch, or but the vagary 
 of his excited fancy, that in the relentless, in- 
 scrutable features there was a grandiose reflection 
 of those of Lydia ? He shuddered, looked at the 
 sculptured face with a sensation akin to fear, and 
 turped abruptly away. 
 
 But when, next morning, he found himself in 
 the " Flying Scotsman " he forgot all about his 
 carven " Destiny." Lydia's impassive indifference 
 might brood upon the latter's face ; his Destiny, 
 not that fashioned of his hands, was brighter than 
 the rainbow, was engirt with a light of joy such 
 as never was upon sea or land. 
 
 As the train whirled across the sun-swept flats 
 of Cambridge and Lincoln, his spirits rose higher 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 275 
 
 and higher. He was going to Sanpriel — that 
 was enough ; for it meant so much — new hope, 
 new energy, new hfe. All his past life, all where- 
 with Sanpriel had nothing to do, fell away from 
 him. In its unreality it became not unpleasant 
 to look upon, as a barren and desolate tract will 
 seem fair when surveyed from the heights that 
 are soon to shut it off for ever. 
 
 He had never felt so serenely hopeful before. 
 For the first time he knew what it was to be an 
 autocrat over circumstances. " We, what may we 
 not do together ? " and he smiled triumphantly as 
 the thought flashed upon him. 
 
 At York he changed his train, and it was well 
 on in the afternoon before he reached Grantley. 
 The dogcart was waiting for him, but the groom 
 was a stranger, and seemed to have but newly gone 
 into service at Forest Manor ; at any rate Felix 
 gained but little information from him, save that 
 Sir Arthur was still confined to his bed. 
 
 How sweet and fresh the air was, with its 
 crispness and faint odour of brine, after the ex- 
 hausted atmosphere of London ! What a delight 
 the hedges wherein the bryony berries ripened 
 in the sun, and the honeysuckle-copses where the 
 goldfinch sang his last thrilling summer-notes! 
 How beautiful the fluttering of the copper butter- 
 
276 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 flies among the teasels and the autumnal gentians, 
 and the blue day-moths flickering among the wild- 
 barley ! Every object appealed to him ; scarce a 
 dandelion or dusty tansy escaped his notice. In 
 happiness the mind becomes so alert that it 
 observes the minutest details — not with the same 
 unreasoning accuracy or intensity as in great grief, 
 but with a blithe acceptation of every living thing. 
 
 When Grantley Rise was surmounted, and he 
 saw again the azure stretch of ocean, heard again 
 the deep brooding voice which had so often haunted 
 his dreams, a sense of infinite peace and rest came 
 upon him. Behind, the dead Lydia, and the dead 
 past ; yonder, Sanpriel, and life, and the rainbow- 
 future. 
 
 As he passed the Yew- Grove where, all unwitting 
 of his act, Adama Acosta had married his daughter 
 to an alien, he looked eagerly upward, but could 
 only descry the seared trunks of the nearer trees 
 and the thick mass of black-green foliage. 
 
 When the dogcart drew up at the Manor there 
 was no one visible on the stone-terrace nor at the 
 door, save Norgate, as suavely silent as of yore. 
 
 " Yes, sir, they're all in," that individual replied 
 in answer to a question, "except Mr. Ford, who 
 has ridden to Fenwick to attend to some business 
 for Sir Arthur. Lady Crane is engaged for a 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 277 
 
 few minutes with Mr. Carter, the Rector, in the 
 library, but she told me to tell you that Miss 
 Acosta is in the drawing-room, and will give you 
 a cup of tea." 
 
 Felix silently thanked the gods for their mercies, 
 and made haste towards the drawing-room, fearful 
 lest Lady Crane and the Rector might have trans- 
 acted their business before he could see Sanpriel 
 alone. 
 
 The moment he entered the room he saw 
 nothing but Sanpriel — a tall, white figure, silent, 
 motionless. 
 
 She was clad in soft, white, clinging stuff, 
 where the only colour was afforded by the sash 
 of saffron gauze-silk round her waist and falling 
 down the front of her dress, and by the cluster 
 of yellow tea-roses amid the little cloud of lace 
 at her neck. 
 
 She advanced a step or two with outstretched 
 hands, and with an eager look in her eyes that 
 almost immediately gave way to one of longing 
 and deep love and uttermost welcome. 
 
 " Sanpriel ! " 
 
 " Felix ! " 
 
 Each spake but the name of the other, yet no 
 words could have more amply conveyed their joy. 
 He took her hands in his and drew her towards 
 
278 CHILDREN OP TO-MORROW. 
 
 him, and pressed upon her lips a long lingering 
 kiss. 
 
 " My darling, my darling, it is joy unspeakable 
 to me to see you again. Tell me that you still 
 love me, that our separation has wrought no 
 change." 
 
 " I do love you, Felix ; I am no weather-vane, 
 to be idly blown this way and that," was the 
 grave reply, so grave in tone that her lover 
 instinctively looked into her eyes to see what 
 possible reserve lay hidden there as yet unex- 
 pressed. 
 
 " I have longed for you, dear, night and day. 
 Not an evening has passed that I have not haunted 
 Dreamthorpe like a ghost — and, indeed, I often 
 felt like one, for nothing seemed to be real where 
 you were not present. As I told you when I 
 wrote to you " 
 
 " Wrote to me ? I never received any letter 
 from you. A week ago I wrote to you — but it 
 was not in answer to any letter of yours." 
 
 " What was it about, Sanpriel ? " Felix asked 
 eagerly, still holding and caressing her hand. " I 
 never had -any word from you since — since — you 
 left the Lotus." 
 
 "Then there has been treachery somewhere," 
 and an angry light came into her eyes as she 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 279 
 
 spoke; but the next moment, as she looked into 
 those of her< lover and saw the very passion of 
 joy that lived therein, she flushed with a happy 
 smile, leant forward and kissed him, and whispered, 
 " It was but a single word, dear ; I did not even 
 address you or sign my name. All I wrote was ' 
 ' Come t ' That was more than a week ago, and 
 you never answered it. Then I feared — well, I 
 know not what I feared ; but now our twi- 
 light has waned, Felix, and even if the new day 
 do not bring us what our hearts crave, at least 
 we" 
 
 " Sanpriel, dearest, why should it not ? Why 
 should you fear that it " 
 
 " Hush ! sit down ; here is Lady Crane coming," 
 and almost as she spoke the hostess entered, with 
 Mr. Carter following close behind. 
 
 Lady Crane was perhaps surprised to find Felix 
 looking so unlike the ordinary widower, with an 
 expression, indeed, of far greater content and even 
 happiness than he had worn during his last stay 
 at Forest Manor ; and as for Mr. Carter, he looked 
 at the new visitor with a stare of dignified reproof; 
 but all the same it was a relief to her to have 
 a cheerful guest, and she very wisely concluded 
 that Dane had accepted the inevitable with the 
 good grace characteristic of well - bred people. 
 
28o CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 •Consequently he rose greatly in her estimation, 
 and she congratulated herself on his advent. 
 
 While he was telling her something about his 
 work, in response to a polite but uninterested 
 question, Sanpriel rose and left the room — hot to 
 appear again till dinner-time, Lady Crane remarked, 
 as she had gone to sit with her father and Sir 
 Arthur. 
 
 "A melancholy couple for a young girl, Mr. 
 Dane — the one ill with gouty rheumatism, the other 
 silent and brooding, and heedless of everything 
 and every one save his daughter. But you will 
 cheer her up, I know ; I declare, she seemed to 
 me like a different girl when she left the room just 
 now — that languor of body and manner of which I 
 spoke to you, Mr. Carter, seems to have vanished." 
 
 Felix felt a little uncomfortable, particularly as 
 the Rector's glassy stare was fixed upon him in 
 a curiously scrutinising way, but he managed to 
 divert the conversation, and, with an adaptability 
 which amused him, to broach and discuss subjects 
 of interest to Mr. Carter and his hostess. By the 
 time that the dressing-gong sounded he had, in- 
 deed, quite won over the pompous but worthy 
 Rector, who now looked upon him as a young 
 man of parts, though too self-opinionated and 
 sometimes heedless of the convictions of older and 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 28 r 
 
 wiser people than himself — in other words, of James 
 Fotheringham Carter, Rector of Grantley and Fen- 
 wick-Upper. 
 
 When he returned to the drawing-room he 
 found that Gabriel Ford had joined Lady Crane 
 and Mr. Carter. Much as he disliked the former, 
 and strong as were his suspicions that it was he 
 who was responsible for the latest miscarriage of 
 the letters, he could not but be sensible of the 
 curious change that had come over Ford's manner 
 towards himself. He was not apologetic, not even 
 noticeably conciliatory, but he seemed anxious to 
 avoid any possible cause of friction, and, at any 
 rate in public, to disguise his smouldering resent- 
 ment. He also avoided the direct meeting of 
 his gaze — or so it seemed to Felix — but why or 
 wherefore, if not imaginary, was of course inex- 
 plicable. 
 
 At dinner Sanpriel was quiet and strangely 
 reticent. Although the cluster of dark crimson 
 roses which she wore against the breast, of her 
 primrose silk dress threw a little • colour into her 
 face, it yet was too .pale for perfect health, and Felix's 
 heart yearned over her with all the passionate ten- 
 derness of love. 
 
 It was evident to all that Ford was making 
 special efforts to attract Miss Acosta's attention, if 
 
282 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 not her interest, but without success. Once he ad- 
 dressed her by name, her own name, and she did 
 not appear to hear him ; he repeated hjs question 
 to " Miss Acosta," and then she gravely looked at 
 him, and coldly replied that she did not know. 
 
 This was during the dessert, and Lady Crane 
 seemed perturbed that her well-meant efforts were 
 of so little avail. Suddenly an idea occurred to 
 her. 
 
 "Mr. Dane, I remember how fond you are of 
 the sea. Will you take these two silly young 
 people a walk ? " 
 
 " I do not feel inclined to go out to-night, 
 Lady Crane," Sanpriel somewhat hurriedly inter- 
 rupted. " I am tired and sleepy, and I want to 
 sit with my father for a while." 
 
 "Now that's just what you ought not to do, 
 my dear ; , sitting and brooding is the very worst 
 thing for you. You need not go far — go to the 
 Yew-Grove, for instance. Have you been there 
 yet, Mr. Dane — I mean by night ? " 
 
 "Yes, I have. But I shall be only too glad 
 to go again if Miss Acosta will come." 
 
 A little colour had come into Sanpriel's face at 
 Lady Crane's question, but it immediately ebbed as 
 she was conscious of Ford's scrutinising gaze. 
 
 Knowing from experience that argument with 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 283 
 
 her hostess was useless, she agreed to the pro- 
 posal, and a httle later left the room to obtain 
 a shawl as a protection against the dew, and to 
 reassure her father about her absence. 
 
 When she returned the two young men rose 
 and went out with her, both, though for different 
 reasons, thankful that the long dinner was at an 
 end. 
 
 The moon was in crescent, and the stars bright 
 and close-set ; a soft wind stirred the branches of 
 the trees, and kept up a continuous sussurrus 
 among the foliage, and in the undergrowth and 
 tall grasses. The odours from the shore were pun- 
 gent and delicious, and the heavy booming of 
 ocean, while as insistent as of yore, struck so 
 freshly and sharply upon the ear that its melan- 
 choly, the habitual note of warning that the sea 
 never wholly loses, was as though in abeyance. 
 
 It was like a dream to Felix to be in the Yew- 
 Grove once more. If only he could be there alone 
 with Sanpriel, he thought longingly, or even with 
 Adama Acosta for company ! Ford spoke little, 
 but he acted, as he knew he acted, as a deterrent 
 to their happiness, to their conversation even. 
 
 It was a joy, however, to Felix to know that 
 Sanpriel must inevitably be also thinking of what 
 had happened there in the sweet spring night so 
 
284 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 memorable to them both — and once, stooping in 
 the yew-made gloom to avoid a broken branch, he 
 caught her hand for a moment's loving pressure, 
 and felt her caressing response. This was enough 
 to make even the memory of the bygone night of 
 May a mere dream as compared with the happy 
 reality. But her plea of weariness had been no 
 subterfuge ; tired she unmistakably was, and sorry 
 though he was to lose her, it was Felix himself who 
 proposed a return to the house. 
 
 She said good-night as soon as they had 
 entered the drawing-room. She had not trusted 
 • herself to do more than glance for a moment at 
 Felix as she took his hand, but in it there was 
 enough for him to build many a fair dream-palace 
 upon throughout the coming hours of absence. 
 
 As she entered the corridor wherefrom her own 
 and Mr. Acosta's room opened off she heard a 
 step behind her. The next moment she regretted 
 that she had looked round, for Ford stood by her 
 side, and she could see by his expression that he 
 had followed her with intent, for in his pale face 
 and rigid features she read his determination to 
 have his say, whatsoever that might be. 
 
 " Sanpriel." 
 
 " I have told you that I am Miss Acosta to you 
 — now and always. What do you mean by fol- 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 285 
 
 lowing me? I can have nothing to say to you. 
 Good-night." 
 
 "Stop, San — Miss Acosta. I have something 
 to say to you. You love Felix Dane. Hush ! 
 you need not protest or wax indignant. I am 
 not blind, and I can see what is so very obvious. 
 Not that it is any new thing; he 'loved you, and 
 you loved him, during his wife's lifetime." 
 
 She resented the sneer, but took no outward 
 notice of it. " Have you anything else to say ? 
 You are tiresome as well as impertinent, and . I 
 do not choose to stand here talking to you." 
 
 " Miss Acosta, I wish to ask you a question — 
 a question to which I have a right to demand an 
 answer : What is the reason of your extreme re- 
 sentment against me ? What have I done, except 
 to dare to love you, that is so unforgivable in 
 your eyes ? " 
 
 As his question was unanswered save by a 
 scornful glance, he resumed : 
 
 " I know that you consider I acted treacher- 
 ously with one or more letters which you wrote 
 to Dane, or he wrote to you — I forget which ; but 
 all that I can say is, your suspicions are absolutely 
 unfounded." 
 
 " I do not believe you ; and in your heart of 
 hearts you know that I do not believe you. But 
 
286 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 I have another reason which even you, sophist 
 though you be, cannot explain away. You seem 
 to forget that you recently dared to hint a shame- 
 less thing to. me — to hint that the death of Lydia 
 Dane was no accident, but the act of her husband. 
 You shrank under my scorn at the time, and I 
 saw the lie furtively lurking in your face, like an 
 assassin in the twilight, and that lie it is that must 
 for ever stand between you and me, Gabriel Ford — 
 yeaj though we two were left alone, and my most 
 passionate hopes, my very soul's salvation, depended 
 upon my forgetfulness of it. It is unforgetable — 
 for ever unforgetable, for ever unforgivable." 
 
 There was a silence of a few moments, and 
 then Ford, in a low, sneering tone, full of repressed 
 malice, rage, and bafHed passion, spoke again. 
 
 " What if it were no lie at all. Miss Sanpriel 
 Acosta ? What if I could prove that Mrs. Dane 
 did not die a natural death, but was — murdered? 
 Ay, and that the murderer was her husband ? " 
 
 Sanpriel smiled in scorn, but with so strange an 
 expression that he hesitated for a moment before 
 he went on. 
 
 " There is ample circumstantial evidence : Dane's 
 dislike of his wife, his love for you, your presence 
 on the house-boat, Lydia's jealousy, his eager- 
 ness for freedom from her yoke ! But there is 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 2S7 
 
 further evidence. Some time ago Dane was in 
 my rooms in my absence, and there he possessed 
 himself of a certain poison of which I had told 
 him when speaking of my chemical experiments. 
 I could prove that he took some away with him." 
 
 There was no answer, and he then asked 
 angrily if she had naught to say. 
 
 "You won't answer? Well, shall I tell you 
 what I am going to do ? I shall go back to 
 London to-morrow, and give such information in 
 the proper quarters as will involve the exhumation 
 of Lydia Dane's body, and then your lover will 
 be arrested, and, on my evidence to back the logic 
 of facts and probabilities, he shall hang — and then 
 there will be an end to all his fine dreams, and you 
 will have the blood of a second victim upon your 
 head ! Do you understand ? Well, there is but 
 one way in which to save him : will you take it ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " By God ! you are obstinate to the last. Well, 
 so be it. I shall denounce Felix Dane." 
 
 Sanpriel took a step forward, till her hand 
 reached one of the corridor-bells. Then she stood 
 for a few moments with such a look of contemp- 
 tuous loathing that the man before her was unable 
 to return her steadfast gaze. 
 
 " No," she said at last, slowly and impressively, 
 
288 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " no, you will not denounce any one, for you, you, 
 Gabriel Ford, are the murderer of Mrs. Dane ! " 
 
 He started and looked apprehensively around, 
 and then in a hoarse voice answered her accusa- 
 tion. 
 
 "You speak at random. Beware what folly 
 you talk. How dare you say such a thing ? " 
 
 Suddenly she came forward, fearless now, for 
 she knew she had entrapped him. Her words 
 were whispered rather than spoken aloud, but 
 they were as trumpets of shame in the ears of 
 the guilty man who heard them. 
 
 " Because, Gabriel Ford, I saw you stealthily 
 leave Lydia Dane's cabin in the early morning, but 
 while yet dark. I did not know at the time that 
 you were a murderer, but I know it now — I knew 
 it the day you tried to cast the foul suspicion on 
 another." 
 
 Ford seemed too utterly taken aback to speak, 
 and his accuser did not spare him. 
 
 " I could not sleep, and so I left my cabin and sat 
 beside my father, holding his hand till his headache 
 left him and he slept. Then I rose to go back to my 
 own room. It was then that I caught sight of a dark 
 figure passing through the outer door and stealing 
 into Mrs. Dane's cabin. I waited, not knowing 
 what to do. I thought that it might perchance 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 289 
 
 be Mr. Dane, returned to seek for something he had 
 left in the room he had by some strange chance 
 exchanged that night. But at last the moonlight 
 came in a narrow stream into the cabin, and ere 
 long I saw you come forth, pale and trembling like 
 the assassin you were. It was not till we re- 
 gained the Lotus after our walk at sunrise that I 
 knew what- you were." 
 
 Then, before he could speak or make a gesture, 
 she stepped back and rang the bell and almost 
 simultaneously entered her room, the bolt of which 
 shot to, so that even if he had attempted to follow 
 hec he would have failed. 
 
 But Ford had no thought of any such attempt. 
 He knew that he had lost the game whatever 
 happened ; henceforth Sanpriel, as well as Lydia, 
 was dead to him. The passion of revenge might 
 yet be his, but all he was conscious of was a dull 
 and ruthless sense of utter and ignominious failure. 
 
( 290 ) 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 All next day Adama Acosta was so unwell that 
 his daughter did not make her appearance, and 
 morning, noon, and afternoon had but one inter- 
 esting episode for Felix — the departure of Ford. 
 
 He did not know of the latter's intention till, 
 having accidentally emerged from the Labyrinth 
 just as the trap drew up at the terrace-steps, he 
 encountered the traveller. 
 
 " I see you have your baggage with you, Mr. 
 Ford ? Are you going back to London ? " 
 
 " Yes, I am. You will hear from me shortly, 
 no doubt," Ford replied, meaningly, and with 
 studied insolence of demeanour. " I shall be back 
 to-morrow or next day, at latest." Then, suddenly 
 leaning from the front-seat, as the coachman gave 
 the reins a shake, he asked sneeringly if Felix were 
 well acquainted with proverbs. 
 
 "For if you are, I should hke you to ponder 
 over one which bids you mfike hay while the sun 
 shines. It seems to mt that the sun is — eh — ah 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW, 291 
 
 — about to set. Good-bye, Felix Dane : I don't 
 think we shall ever forget each other." 
 
 " Is the man mad, or what ? " muttered Felix 
 angrily, as he stared after the departing dogcart, 
 and wondered what significance lay behind Ford's 
 enigmatic farewell. "He is fond of Parthian 
 shots ; the only thing is, they fall rather wide of 
 the mark. However, he's gone, and that's good 
 news." 
 
 To his relief. Lady Crane did not associate him, 
 or even Sanpriel, with Ford's departure; for one 
 thing, she evidently believed the Otter's assurance 
 that he would shortly return. 
 
 Sanpriel did not appear at dinner, but she came 
 in at dessert, and accompanied Lady Crane to the 
 drawing-room, whither Felix followed with the 
 least permissible loss of time. 
 
 For some time he could get no chance of un- 
 heard speech with her, but at last an opportunity 
 occurred. 
 
 " My dear, do sing that song to me about Love. 
 I'm sure Mr. Dane would like to hear it also ; 
 she has been singing nothing else, Mr. Dane, ever 
 since she came here this time." 
 
 Sanpriel seemed unwontedly shy of singing, but 
 after she had hesitatingly reminded her companion, 
 who had joined his entreaties to those of Lady 
 
292 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 Crane, that it was associated with the last night 
 on board the Lotus — for a fragment of the song 
 had floated to them from one of the rowers in 
 a boat — and intuitively perceived that his whole 
 association was with her, she yielded. 
 
 The music to which it was set had a peculiar 
 lilt in it, but the passion wherewith the singer 
 electrified it was almost all her own. Her lover 
 listened entranced, for he knew that she was sing- 
 ing to him : — 
 
 Love in my heart : oh, heart of me, heart of me ! 
 
 Love is my tyrant. Love is supreme. 
 What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me ! ' 
 
 Love is a phantom, and Life is a dream.! 
 
 What if he change th, oh, heart of me, heart of me ! 
 
 Oh, can the waters be void of the wind? 
 What if he wendeth afar and apart from, me, 
 
 What if he leave m.e to perish behind f 
 
 What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me! 
 
 Aflame i? the dusk, a breath of Desire ? 
 Nay, my sweet Love is the heart and the soul of me. 
 And I am the innermost heart of his fire ! 
 
 Love in my heart: oh, heart of me, heart of me ! 
 
 Love is my tyrant. Love is supreme. 
 What if he passeth, oh, heart of me, heart of me ! 
 
 Love is a phantom., and Life is a dream ! 
 
 Felix could not speak when the last note died 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 293 
 
 away, for as he stood beside the singer he saw 
 the rich colour in her face and could hear the 
 quickened breath, and though her eyes did not 
 look up ,at his, he knew that in them there was 
 the light of a serene and wondrous joy. 
 
 Lady Crane drowsily muttered her approval, 
 and still more drowsily begged that the song 
 might be repeated. Sanpriel, however, sang some- 
 thing else, and before it was finished Felix had 
 the satisfaction of assurance that his hostess was 
 deaf to what was going on around her. 
 
 " Sanpriel," he whispered, as, having finished 
 her song, she played idly a fragmentary air, 
 " will you meet me in the Yew-Grove a little 
 later on ? I have much to say to you — and 
 the night is so glorious that you will take no 
 harm." 
 
 " I will try, but Lady Crane likes to know that 
 the house is shut up before she goes to bed. 
 You go now, and I shall follow shortly if I 
 can." 
 
 Felix slipped quietly from the room, and ere 
 long was pacing among the yews, eagerly hoping 
 that nothing might prevent the interview. He 
 was so wrought to excitement that he felt as 
 though some crucial moment were approaching — 
 his happiness, he knew, lay in perilous balance. 
 
294 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 and a word from Sanpriel, for all that had passed, 
 might dash it to the ground. 
 
 The night was absolutely still, save at rare 
 intervals when the strident, rasping cry of the 
 corncrake came from the wheat-fields and mea- 
 dows beyond the avenue. Not a breath stirred 
 in the branches, not a motion of air crept along 
 the grass or among the tufts of fennel and gipsy- 
 wort. Although the moon was in ample crescent, 
 her light was intercepted by a thin fibrous veil 
 of cloud, through which here and there a star 
 glimmered, white and dewy, but without lustre. 
 In the open there was sufficient light for the 
 blurred shadows of trees and shrubs to be seen, 
 but in the Yew- Grove the obscurity was so deep 
 that one might have moved from tree to tree and 
 been invisible. 
 
 A faint rustling sound was the first intimation 
 that Felix had of Sanpriel's advent. He had 
 expected her by the avenue, and had strained his 
 ears to hearken to her step oh the gravel ; but she 
 had come along the grass from the end of the 
 terrace. 
 
 " Sanpriel 1 " 
 
 She heard the low passionate vibration of his 
 voice before she descried the outline of his figure, 
 and with a quick gesture came towards him, and 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 295 
 
 the next moment was in his arms, with her head 
 upon his breast and his kisses raining down upon 
 her face. 
 
 " My darling, my darling — I feared you might 
 not be able to come to me. Sanpriel, my dearest, 
 I have so longed for you, so wearied for you, and 
 I feared that we were never to be left alone here." 
 
 " I came because you asked me, Felix dear, but 
 I was going to have sought you to-night at any 
 rate — I had thought of the library, but this is 
 better every way. Felix, how greatly do you love 
 me?" 
 
 " How greatly do I love you, my darling ? Why 
 do you ask me ? You cannot doubt me ? I love 
 you, Sanpriel, in all truth, better than life itself: 
 I love you better than my art, than my inmost 
 dream, than my furthermost hope ! I would barter 
 my immortality for your love here. I love you 
 beyond words, beyond dream, beyond conjecture ! 
 You are my life, my heart, my soul ! Oh ! my 
 darling, my darling, do you not know that you are 
 everything to me ? I never knew love till I saw you, 
 and a strong man can love but once as I love you. 
 I cannot tell you what you are to me, but can only 
 utter over and over again what I have said. Love 
 has no range of eloquence, dearest; it can but 
 repeat the beautiful, sacred old commonplaces. If 
 
296 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 I loved you less I could protest more variously 
 — but, Sanpriel, / love you, and more than that 
 I cannot say, for with me that means every- 
 thing ! " 
 
 She too trembled with the excess of his emotion, 
 and as he kissed her again in passionate protest, 
 she clung to him for a moment with a sob in her 
 throat. 
 
 " I know you love me, Felix — I know how you 
 love me, for it is as I love you. But — but — is your 
 love so great that it will understand?" 
 
 " What do you mean, dear ? Tell me what is 
 troubling you, for I feel that there is some trouble 
 here in this loving, throbbing heart." 
 
 " Felix, you know what is the doom upon me as 
 one of my race if I should marry you, a Christian, 
 a Gentile ? " 
 
 " Yes — yes — I know. But " 
 
 " And you know what it means ? That I should 
 not only be excommunicated by the Rabbis, but 
 banned by my people, and cursed as a traitor and 
 renegade by those whom it has been my lifelong 
 hope and ambition to serve ? That I should be as 
 an outcast; but worse than any poor sinful outcast, 
 for a woman may sink to depths of iniquity and yet 
 be faithful to her people and reverent of Jehovah — 
 but I, a renegade, an apostate, a traitor, a setter at 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 297 
 
 naught of the Thorah, I should be accursed, and my 
 name and family be brought to shame." 
 
 " But love — our love — Sanpriel," Felix stam- 
 mered, while a great fear came into his heart, and 
 his voice grew strained and hoarse. 
 
 " Do you set our personal love, then, above 
 everything — above aspiration and hope and long, 
 glorious effort? Am I to forfeit all that I have 
 done, all that I and my father, have helped to for- 
 ward, so that my life may have its crown of joy — 
 so that, even, your life may be made beautiful and 
 strenuous in noble work ? " 
 
 "God forgive me, Sanpriel, I am so weak. I 
 dare not — I cannot give up my love — my hope. 
 You are everything to me — religion, faith, work, 
 aspiration, hope ! If you cannot listen to me, let 
 me go hence — but do not ask me to do what is 
 impossible. I am weaker than you — a man always 
 is weaker than a woman in divine unselfishness — 
 and I cannot, I cannot forfeit my so sweet inherit- 
 ance. Oh, Sanpriel ! you love me — will you not 
 sacrifice something for me ? I know how infinitely 
 greater yours must be than ever mine, at any time, 
 could by any possibility have been or be — but, as 
 God is my witness, there is nothing that I would 
 not give up for you. Sanpriel, tell me if it be pos- 
 sible for me to become a Jew, if" 
 
298 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 " Hush ! you wrong Love when you urge such 
 a plea. Love that demands surrender of honour 
 is but the poor piteous ghost of Love's very self. 
 No — but, my darling, there is one way " 
 
 With an eager cry he leant forward and strove 
 through the gloom to see the secret of her eyes, 
 but too overwrought was he by wild fear and 
 wilder hope to do aught than listen tremblingly 
 for what her next words would disclose. 
 
 " There is one way — a way of sacrifice too, but 
 one wherein I alone shall suffer, so that it is of 
 little import. Felix, if I marry you I shall have 
 committed the inexcusable sin, the unforgivable 
 treachery, and I shall have no part or lot in Israel, 
 but be a stumbling-block and a curse where I had 
 been a help and a hope. But — but — if I become 
 yours none the less, and go forth with you, and 
 live with you — voluntarily, openly, heedless of cen- 
 sure just or unjust — I should still be reprobated 
 and banned, but I should not be cast out of Israel, 
 I should not be excommunicated from my faith, I 
 should still be allowed to work for the redemption 
 of my people, for I should still be a daughter of 
 Israel, though as one fallen and disgraced! Felix, 
 Felix, do you understand ? Can your love accept 
 me thus — for thus only can our lives be wedded 
 together ? " 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 299 
 
 There was a pause of silence so deep after her 
 passionate outcry had throbbed upon her lover's 
 ears, so deep, so terrible — with the ominous 
 pulse of the sea vibrating through it — that a 
 sickening dread came upon her that the gulf she 
 had feared had indeed opened and swallowed up 
 the fair and beautiful love which had united 
 them. 
 
 But Felix was tortured by no conflict of judg- 
 ment, was distracted by no considerations of right 
 or wrong, weal or ill, compromise or inexpediency ; 
 his whole soul was filled with reverent love and 
 wonder at the nobility of the woman whom he 
 loved. He knew well what a sacrifice she was 
 willing to make for his sake, and never before had 
 he realised what a flawless and divine thing is the 
 absolutely pure and unselfish love of woman. Yet, 
 great as the sacrifice was, he would have been the 
 mere fool of a shallow convention if he had hesi- 
 tated for a moment to accept it. Love does not 
 only demand unquaHfied surrender; it imperiously 
 claims an all-unstinted acceptance. 
 
 At last he spoke, but though, scarcely above a 
 whisper, and though no direct answer to her plead- 
 ing, his words were the sweetest to Sanpriel she 
 had yet heard from his lips — sweeter than love's 
 first avowal, for then the conqueror had but 
 
300 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 knocked at the gates of gold ; now, irresistible and 
 triumphant, he had entered in. 
 
 " / am not worthy of you, Sanpriel." 
 
 That was all, but it was sufficient. She nestled 
 up close to him, and touched him with caressing 
 hands, and kissed his down-turned face, and whis- 
 pered again and again that she loved him, oh ! 
 beyond words, beyond thought of his. 
 
 Softly through the night, still as a dream, but 
 fragrant with earth-odours, sweet and poignant, 
 stole the faint wind, just arisen from his sleep 
 among the pine-boughs in the far woodlapds. 
 There was the innumerous rustling of green leaves 
 beneath his light step, the susurrus of the fanning 
 of his wing as he rose upward through the dewy 
 glooms, unlit now of moon or star, save on the 
 extreme horizon, where the pale fire of Jupiter 
 shone without scintillation. 
 
 And loudly, imperiously, clamorously, the sea's 
 voice called beyond the darkness of the land, now 
 with a hoarse surf-like whisper, now with thunderous 
 resonance, and anon with a heavy booming, — deep, 
 mysterious, awful. 
 
( 301 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 " And buries them up quite 
 In. a labyrinth of light ; 
 And then, how deep I — O, deep, 
 Is the passion of their sleep." 
 
 — Edgar Allan Poe. 
 
 All next day the atmosphere grew denser and 
 heavier. Its burning breath shrivelled the more 
 delicate flowers, even where they drooped in the 
 shade. Through the air, which palpitated like the 
 blast of a furnace, nothing passed save the yellow 
 wasps, radiating the heat, nothing broke the pain- 
 ful hush save the fierce drone of a hornet, or the 
 loud, monotonous, metallic hum of the bronze- 
 winged beetle. From the forest not an eddy of 
 wind wandered, and the sea, though audible, had a 
 stifled brooding sound, which made the silence of 
 the land doubly silent. 
 
 Throughout the morning and forenoon Felix had 
 roamed restlessly from room to room, in and out of 
 the Labyrinth, along the terrace, down the avenue 
 to the Yew-Grove, but always alone. Sanpriel had 
 
302 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 sent word at breakfast that she was suffering from 
 headache, and Lady Crane had, long ere lunch, 
 succumbed to the enervating influences of the day. 
 In ordinary circumstances he would have been the 
 first to have suffered, for he was exceptionally 
 sensitive to atmospheric states, but with his heart 
 all aglow with the delirium of passion, with his 
 utmost being quick with an electric joy and elation 
 such as, but a few months earlier, he had but 
 vaguely dreamt of as possible, he could not remain 
 quiescent. Ah, the joy of the past night! He 
 could scarce trust himself to dwell upon his happi- 
 ness, he so feared oblivion of aught save his love 
 for Sanpriel. For her sake he must needs be on 
 his guard, he knew, but at times it seemed im- 
 possible to him that upon every leaf was not writ 
 his secret, that upon every wave of air was not 
 borne the joyous rumour of it. 
 
 Towards the late afternoon the atmosphere 
 grew somewhat cooler, but otherwise no whit 
 less oppressive. The cloudy gloom darkened to- 
 wards the eastward, but overhead and elsewhere 
 it spread itself into one vast brazen pall. 
 
 Felix was standing by the bow-window of the 
 library, thinking that he should go down to the 
 dunes and watch the purple and green discoloura- 
 tions of the waters and the swift change when the 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 303 
 
 imminent storm came, unless, indeed, it should brood 
 itself away and come to nought, when suddenly he 
 caught sight of Sanpriel as she crossed the avenue 
 and entered among the yews. 
 
 She had recovered and had gone to meet him, 
 whom, doubtless, she had seen from her window 
 a short time before — for he had last come from the 
 Yew-Grove — so he thought, with a thrilf of joy. 
 In a few moments he had leapt across the terrace 
 and was in swift pursuit. 
 
 Just as he reached the yews he caught sight of 
 her again, standing hesitatingly, as though uncertain 
 whether to proceed or not. Once she looked back, 
 but did not see him as he stood close to the trunk 
 of one of the sombre old trees, and then went on 
 till she reached the skirt of the forest, which she 
 entered and almost immediately became lost to 
 view. He might have called, but the sweet whim 
 of dallying with his delight made him keep silent 
 and follow swiftly after. It is Whim that is the 
 soul of Destiny — the irresponsible, heedless, fan- 
 tastic vagary of Fate that blows into nothingness 
 the gossamer of human circumstance and human 
 plan. 
 
 He came up with her at last where the forest 
 broke stragglingly towards the sand-dunes. She 
 heard his step when close upon her, and looked 
 
304 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 round, and then, with a radiant smile, came towards 
 him with outstretched hands. 
 
 She had gathered a great cluster of poppies, but 
 these she had thrown away as she advanced. Poor 
 love is so superstitious, so swayed by omens fortu- 
 nate and malign, that Felix was not foolish beyond 
 the wont of lovers in his acceptation of the cir- 
 cumstance as of happy augury. Ever since he had 
 seen her portrait in Ford's studio he had associated 
 these blood-red poppies with her tragic family his- 
 tory. By that voluntary and instinctive act of hers, 
 she, as it were, threw away all her past — and now 
 gave herself up to him, and their new future, unre- 
 gretfully, absolutely. 
 
 They felt so alone there in the forest stillness, 
 so secret from all prying eyes, so remote from 
 word or glance which would conflict with their 
 great joy, that they cared not whither they wan- 
 dered, nor how time fleeted the golden moments 
 by. They loved, and were together, and alone ; 
 their heaven was about them, they, the Adam 
 and Eve of the sole paradise which is vouchsafed 
 to us — the sweet, radiant, wondrous Garden of 
 To-day, that lies amidst the abysses of the sound- 
 less and viewless Dark. 
 
 But after a while, hand in hand, too happy 
 almost for words however low and tender, they 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 305 
 
 wandered onwards till they passed into the shadow 
 of a vast oak — the outpost, the farthest sentinel, the 
 first herald of. the sea-wind to the forest beyond. 
 There was nothing shoreward but a sloping dune, 
 sparsely beset with long dry grass and yellow horn- 
 poppies, and then, close by at full tide, the sea itself. 
 The tide, however, had not been long upon the flow, 
 and so the surf had not yet reached, would not for 
 some time reach, the lower slope of the dune. 
 
 The lovers sat down in a mossy place engirt 
 with far-spreading gnarled roots, glad to be still, 
 glad to rest there together in the overwhelming 
 happiness which had come upon them. It was of 
 the future — that happy, golden-hued, rainbow-r 
 tinted future which seemed so assured — that each 
 dreamed, sitting there hand clasped in hand. 
 
 The inky phalanx of cloud in the south-east had, 
 with a motion so stealthy that it seemed motion- 
 less, crept landward, and now impended its vast 
 overshadowing bulk far inland. Furtive flashings 
 of light played upon the black, bulging hollows 
 of its front, and a strange lurid light as of bur- 
 nished brass widened along its bronze-hued bases. 
 Casual gusts of a cold wind ruffled the seas, whereon 
 a heavy swell rounded and lapsed, and the grasses 
 shivered even when no current of air waylaid 
 them. A few fallen leaves danced and circled 
 
 u 
 
3o6 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 fantastically, but still there was no sojind save 
 the rising moan of the sea and the thin, shrewd, 
 crying of the wind a league waveward, like a 
 far-off multitude of scythes. 
 
 They were now oblivious of storm or calm. In 
 their own hearts was a passion greater than the 
 one, deeper than the other. 
 
 " How beautiful it is, Felix, that future which 
 lies before us ! " Sanpriel whispered at last, and 
 turned and looked at him with eyes so radiant 
 that his heart leapt within him. 
 
 " Ah, my darling, yes ! We ' children of To- 
 morrow ' have suffered and must still suffer, but 
 what joy is ours ! Oh, Sanpriel ! you do not know 
 what your love is to me. My powers have intensi- 
 fied tenfold : I shall achieve what no modern has 
 yet accomplished — I feel it — I know it — in every 
 fibre of my being ! And you — you — my heart's 
 delight — you, too, shall do nobler work than you 
 could otherwise have done ; you, too, shall sing 
 away the pain and inspire afresh the flagging 
 spirit of our fellows." 
 
 " Oh, it is all so beautiful, so wonderful ! Can 
 Life indeed give us such boon — Love, that is the 
 touchstone of all miracles, can it indeed reward us 
 thus marvellously ? " 
 
 Louder and louder came the moan of the sea ; 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 307 
 
 nearer and nearer the insistent crying of the wind ; 
 darker the gloom overhead. But still they heard 
 not nor saw. 
 
 Suddenly both rose, as by a simultaneous in- 
 stinct. His eyes had a strained passionate look in 
 them, and hers darkened and then fell beneath their 
 yearning gaze. 
 
 " Sanpriel " — and his voice was but a whisper, 
 low, tremulous, but potent with a magic irresistible 
 — " this is our wedding-day ! Now are we man 
 and V^ife. My darling 1 My darling ! " 
 
 Louder still the moan of the sea, and the wind 
 now was upon the margins of the land, and over- 
 head there was a savage, soundless, rending apart 
 and inward-rushing of livid, purpureally illumined 
 masses of thunderous cloud. 
 
 But in a rapture that penetrated, that passed 
 forth and engirt them as with a halo of consuming 
 fire, the lovers were clasped in each other's arms, 
 lips pressed against lips, heart beating wildly 
 against heart, soul merged with soul in a passion 
 of longing and joy that wrought them so that they 
 were as one body and one soul. 
 
 Then it seemed as if the heavens split and swept 
 apart. There was one vast, deafening, terror of 
 sound, and simultaneously a sword of flame came 
 forth, a blinding, scorching stream of white fire. A 
 
3o8 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 frightful crash followed, and the great oak fell all 
 stricken and rent — the toil and glory of centuries 
 brought low in a single moment. 
 
 And but a few feet away lay two figures, so 
 closely knit that they seemed as one — scorched, 
 devoured of flame, stricken black, terrible, irrecog- 
 nisable, by the sword of the lightning. 
 
 And the roar of the sea drowned its inarticulate 
 moan ; and the wind shrieked as it swept with 
 flying foam into the forest ; and overhead the 
 frightful howling and blasting of the thunder was 
 as that of some mad creature of the Abyss let 
 loose upon the world. 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 Prolonged as was the tempest, it at the last ex- 
 pended its violence with strange suddenness. Ere 
 nightfall the incessant, dose-following thunders had 
 passed away, and the crescent-moon hung in a cloud- 
 less waste of far-reaching, star-sprinkled, purple- 
 black sky. But still the seas surged and toiled 
 under the fierce tyranny of the wind, and all the 
 woodlands, till far inland, groaned beneath its 
 might. 
 
 Through the forest a lonely white-haired man 
 
CHILDREN OP TO-MORROW. 309 
 
 aimlessly wandered, sometimes stopping and listen- 
 ing intently, as though in expectancy of some voice 
 that echoed not, sometimes playing fitfully upon 
 the violin which he carried with the loving heed 
 of a mother for her first-born, sometimes staring 
 eagerly to right and left, and starting as his vision 
 fashioned forth some wind-swayed birch into the 
 figure of his Sanpriel, flying towards him on swift 
 and gladsome feet. 
 
 To the tired, benumbed brain of Adama Acosta 
 no sorrow or grief could now enter. He was 
 happy if he had his violin in his hands and San- 
 priel by his side, and he was vaguely distressed 
 and distraught when the latter was absent ; but 
 ■ beyond this no penalty of life could add to or 
 thwart his peace. 
 
 He had been perturbed by the thunder, and 
 had at last wandered forth, looking for Sanpriel, 
 in a low voice calling her name as he went. 
 None had observed him going out or forestward, 
 and when once he reached the woodland he was lost 
 to view. Vague memories of old ramblings sea- 
 ward guided his way towards the dunes, and thither 
 at last he arrived, weary and piteous with querulous 
 longing. 
 
 When he came upon the fallen oak he stared 
 at it in dull surprise, and would have sat down 
 
3IO CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 
 
 upon a great bole that lay earthward had he 
 n'ot caught sight of something like the figure 
 of a man prone upon the ground a few yards 
 away. 
 
 Slowly — because of a certain childish awe and 
 horror at his heart — he drew nigh to the silent 
 thing. What was it ? Was it not two figures 
 clasped close in the embrace of some mysterious, 
 some unheard-of death ? He could not think — 
 what was it that lay so heavily upon his brain, 
 what weight of what incommensurable gloom ? 
 Sanpriel ! He glanced swiftly and with startled 
 eyes at what lay beside him, but the next moment 
 his gaze wandered, and he half-turned. 
 
 " Sanpriel 1 " he cried in a tremulous, quavering 
 voice, " Sanpriel ! Sanpriel ! " 
 
 Then again he looked round, and suddenly sank 
 upon his knees, and broke into a passion of sob- 
 bing, dry, tearless, impotent, heart-breaking sobs. 
 
 The hollow booming of the sea and its moan- 
 ing undertone was close by now, for the tide had 
 reached inland within a yard or two of the base of 
 the dune. 
 
 Was it something in its relentless voice, or 
 something human-like in the crying of the wind 
 beyond where the white crests of the waves 
 loomed ghostly through the dusk, that touched 
 
CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. 311 
 
 him ? — or did he know, as an ignorant child will 
 know, that death had defrauded him of his heart's 
 treasure ? 
 
 Suddenly he sprang to his feet, grasped the thing 
 that terrified him, and with unwonted strength 
 half-lifted, half-dragged his burden down the 
 slope, nor rested, panting and laughing strangely, 
 till the waters greedily lapped round, seized, and 
 with eager resilient clingings carried it seaward. 
 
 He could not see far, because of the gloom and 
 the flying spray : but he saw the black burden he 
 had given up to the ocean borne under and out- 
 ward, and his frenzy left him quiet and trem- 
 bling. 
 
 Louder and louder the sea called, but for a time 
 he would ncJt listen. Erewhile he started and 
 groped wildly for his violin, and when he saw it 
 a-glitter on the moonlit slope of the dune ran back, 
 eagerly muttering vague sounds of joy. To and 
 fro he walked, playing fragments of forgotten 
 melodie.s, vagrant chords of incoherent music. 
 Swifter and swifter grew the medley, and bJent 
 confusedly with the heavy fall of the waves upon 
 the sand and the hoarse resurgence of the ebbing 
 •tide. Fierce, passionate, strident notes were borne 
 inland by the wind — a requiem as wild and way- 
 ward as its very self. 
 
312 CHILDREN OF TO-MORROW. y 
 
 All at once, as he stood upon the dune in the 
 moonlight, erect, darkly-outlined, with his long 
 white hair tossed about his head, he gave a cry, 
 threw down his violin, and ran seaward. 
 
 With straining eyes and outstretched* arms 
 he stood for a brief space, heedless of the surf 
 that flooded to his ankles, or of the salt spray 
 blown into his face. Then suddenly he leapt 
 into the waters, and fell prone with the receding 
 wave, and was swept out on the breast of the 
 tide. 
 
 And louder and louder the sea moaned, till the 
 booming echoes of its thunders shook the ground 
 far inland, and became one with the voice of the 
 tempestuous wind. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 A Golden Heart. 
 
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 The House of Raby. 
 
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 'Twixt Love and Duty. 
 
 BY MRS. ALFRED HUNT. 
 Thornicroft's Model. 
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 Self Condemned. I That other Person 
 
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 Fated to be Free. 
 
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 The Dark Colleen. 
 The Queen of Connaught, 
 
 BY MARK KERSHA W, 
 Colonial Facts and Fictions. 
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 A Drawn Game. 
 "The Wearing of the Green." 
 
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 Oakshott Castle 
 
 BY JOHN LEYS. 
 The Lindsays. 
 
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 In Exchange for a Soul. 
 
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 Patricia Kemball. 
 The Atonement of Leam Dundaa 
 
CtiATTO ^ WlMbtlS, PidCAbiLLV. 
 
 31 
 
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 E. LvNK X-iNTON, continued — 
 The WopJ^-^tell Lost. 
 Under wFtlcK^ Lord P | Paston Cacew. 
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 Gideon Fleyce, 
 
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 Dear Lady Disdain Miss Misanthrope 
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 A fair Saxon. Camiola. 
 
 Linley Rochford. 
 
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 Quaker Cousins. 
 
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 The New Republic. 
 
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 Half-a-dozen Daughters. 
 
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 A Secret of the Sea. 
 
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 Hathercourt Rectory. 
 
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 Stories Weird and Wonderful. 
 BY D. CHRISTIE MURRAY, 
 
 Hearts. 
 
 Way of the World. 
 
 A Bit of Human 
 Nature. 
 
 First Person Sin- 
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 Cynic Fortune. 
 
 ALIfe's Atonement 
 A Model Father. 
 Joseph's Coat. 
 Coals of Fire. 
 BytheGateofthe 
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 Old Blazer's Hero. 
 
 JiY ALICE O'HANLON. 
 The Unforeseen. 
 
 BY MRS. OLIPHANT. 
 Whiteladles. | The Primrose Path. 
 The Greatest Heiress In England. 
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 Held In Bondage. 
 
 Strath more. 
 
 Chandos. 
 
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 idalla. 
 
 Cecil Castle- 
 
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 PrInoGsa Naprax- 
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 Ariadne. 
 
 Friendship. 
 
 Moths. 
 
 Piplstreilo. 
 
 A Village Com- 
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 Bimbi. | Wanda. 
 
 Frescoes. 
 
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 Othmar. 
 
 Wisdom, Wltj and 
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 Lost Sip Maeeihg- 
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 APerfectTreasure 
 
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 Murphy's Master. 
 
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 Cecil's Tryst. 
 
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 Walter's Word. 
 
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 Gwendoline's Har- 
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 Lady Lovelace. 
 
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 Gerald. 
 
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 Autobiography of a Thief. 
 
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 Weird Stories. | Fairy Water. 
 
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 Women are Strange. 
 
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32 
 
 500^5 PVBLISHBD SV CMATTO &■ WlNDUS. 
 
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 BY JAMES RU NCI MAN. 
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 Grace Balmalgn's Sweetheart. 
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 Gaslight and Daylight. 
 
 BY JOHN SAUNDERS. 
 Bound to the Wheel. 
 One Against the World. 
 Guy Waterman. | Two Dreamers, 
 The Lion in the Path. 
 
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 Joan Merryweather. | The High IVlitls. 
 IVIargaret and Elizabeth. 
 Heart Salvage. | Sebastian. 
 
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 Rogues and Vagabonds. 
 The Ringo' Bells. | Mary Jane Married. 
 Mary Jane's Memoirs, 
 Tales of To-day. 
 
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 The Mysteries of Heron Dyke. 
 TheGoiden Hoop. I By Devious Ways. 
 
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 The Afghan Knife. 
 
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 The Violin-Player. 
 
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 Old Stories Re-told. 
 
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 Diamond Cut Diamond. 
 
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 Mr. Scarborough's Family. 
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 Anne Furness. I Mabel's Progress. 
 
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 Tom Sawyer. | A Tramp Abroad. 
 The Stolen White Elephant. 
 
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 .Mark Twain, continved. 
 
 A Pleasure Trl.p on the Continent 
 
 Huckleberry Finn. [of Europe 
 
 Life on the Mississippi. 
 
 The Prince and the Pauper. 
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 Mistress Judith. 
 
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 Saint Mungo's City._ 
 
 Beauty and the Beast. 
 
 Lady Bell. | Noblesse Oblige. 
 
 Citoyenne Jacqueline | Disappeared 
 
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 Cavalry Life. | Regimental Legends 
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 Sabina. 
 
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 Rachel Armstrong: or.Love&TheoIoey. 
 
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 Paul Ferroll. 
 
 Why Paul Ferroll Killed his Wife, 
 POPULAR- SHILLING BOOKS. 
 
 Jeff Briggs's Love Story. By Bret 
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 The Twins of Table Mountain. By 
 
 A Day's Tour. By Percy Fitzgerald. 
 
 Mrs. Gainsborough's Diamonds. By 
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 A Dream and a Forgetting. By ditto, 
 
 A Romance of the Queen's Hounds. 
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 Kathleen Mavourneen, By Mrs. 
 
 Lindsay's Luck. By Mrs. Burnett. 
 
 Pretty Polly Pemberton. By Dittc. 
 
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 Curly. By John Coleman. Illus- 
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 Wife or No Wife? By T. W. Speight 
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 Louis Stevenson. ' 
 
 I. CODES AND GO, limited, PRINTERS, GREAT SAFFRON HILL, E,a