Tom stayed at Cambridge two days, having meant to stay a week, but he found the need of getting home again imperative. He longed to tell Ted all about it, but something prevented him. Ted was as delightful as ever, but Tom felt that the difference between them could not be bridged by a confidence, as you bridge over a ravine first by a wire or a rope, and strengthen it till it will bear men and beasts. His confidence, he felt, would not reach to the other side, but dangle dismally in the air. Before he left, however, he had another talk with him, in which he expressed his feelings about the ravine, though he made no direct attempts to bridge it over.

“These two days have been charming,” he said; “you must be dreadfully happy here, Teddy.”

Ted looked up suspiciously.

“Is Saul also among the prophets?” he asked. “You nearly startled me out of my wits yesterday by saying that you liked quiet country life, and cows, and now you like Cambridge!”

Tom frowned and looked about for inspiration.

“I spent a week in London a month ago,” he said, “and enjoyed it immensely. There were a heap of people I knew, and I went dancing and dining all{175} night, and all day the noise of the town roared round me. Then I went home, and as it was a lovely day, I got out at the park gates and walked. Do you remember that little hollow just to the left of the drive, where I shot two woodcock one day? Well, it is full of birch trees, and the birch trees were beginning to have a little green cloud of leaves round them, and all over the ground were clumps of primroses pushing up among last year’s dead leaves. The sun was setting, and the rays struck the birch trunks horizontally. I felt as if I could have sat there for ever and looked at it. As a matter of fact, in five minutes I was tired of it, and went on walking.”

“Is it a parable?” asked Ted.

“Yes; obviously Cambridge is the quiet, little, green hollow. I remember I used to think it so terrible that people should live there for ever, and only busy themselves with what went on in the little hollow. I was wrong. When I stopped in the little hollow at home, I thought there could be nothing more lovely than to live there always.”

“In fact, you wanted to—you envied the birds which did?”

“In the same way as one envies people who grow beards, when one is shaving in the morning,” said Tom. “I wouldn’t ever really grow one myself. But I envied the birds to whom such a hollow was native and natural.”

Markham laughed.

“Birds and beards—what metaphor are you going to employ next?”

Tom stood in front of him, smoking meditatively.{176}

“If the green hollow satisfies you, you are right to live there always; but one cannot be two people. I couldn’t live there always. I said just now I was in love with cows and country life. So I am; but if I knew there was nothing else, I should be absolutely wretched. Of course, every human being is a mass of limitations, saddled with the idea that he can be unlimited, and, personally, I can’t limit myself to living always in the green hollow, and any one who can seems to me necessarily more limited than I. A man is judged by his power of desire. To desire much is better than to desire little.”

“You are not very convincing,” remarked Ted.

“No one has ever convinced anybody of anything, except by triumphant achievement of some sort,” said Tom, “and because I call you a bird in a green hollow, I shan’t convince you you had better have been a man, or that I am one either. But what I mean is this. We are all human beings, and we ought to live in a human environment. We differ from beasts chiefly because we have high and intelligible emotions. It is our duty to mix with all sorts of people, to know what every one is thinking about, to be ecstatically miserable, to be ecstatically happy, and to fall in love.”

“Oh, that part of human life is well looked after,” said Markham; “it is almost universal to fall in love. I suppose, by the way, that you are going off now because your ten minutes—or was it five—in the green hollow is over?”

Markham spoke rather bitterly. These two days had been very pleasant to him, and Tom’s delightful{177} habit of falling back at once into his old relations with every one made him feel that his own circle had narrowed, while Tom’s had widened, and his remarks about green hollows had emphasized this.

Tom looked up.

“No, I am not the least tired of it,” he said, “and that is partly the reason why I am going. It is always a pity to stop till one is tired of a thing. You see, necessarily I am not so much at home here as you are, and that I should be tired of it some time goes without saying. But I have another reason for going, which perhaps you will know about soon.”

“You said that last night,” said Markham.

“Only once? I wonder I haven’t said it oftener.”

He paused a moment, and mentally threw a rope across the ravine, and saw it fail to reach the other side, and dangle helplessly in the air.

“Well, good-bye, old boy; I must be off if I am to catch my train,” he said. “I’m going straight home. Messages of all sorts, I suppose? I read Aristophanes most mornings with your father. I am very stupid, but he is very kind.”

It was nearly dark when he got home, but the evening was still and warm, and after tea he took a short stroll up to the top of the hill in front of the house, and watched the crimson-splashed west paling to saffron before the approach of night. In front lay a gentle slope of thick-growing, tussocky grass, and beyond, a clump of silver-stemmed birch trees, standing slender and still luminous in the gathering dusk. Through the bushes the little noises of night crept stealthily about, and one by one the stars were lit{178} in the velvet sky, and all things lay hushed under the benediction of night.

But in his mind, as the colours faded out of earth and air, a golden morrow dawned and brightened. He would see her to-morrow; he would come as a man to a woman; he would claim his right to know his fate, be it best or worst. He would not have hastened even if he could those few hours that lay between him and the next day. There had been something in their intercourse of late which made him know, or think he knew, that it would be well with him. The fine instinct of a lover, which formulates nothing, made him absolutely and entirely happy at the present moment. Unconsciously, he enjoyed the pleasures of the Higher Hedonist, who knows that the long-drawn pause before the full melody bursts out is of infinite moment. The anticipation of pain is nearly always keener, especially to imaginative and emotional people, than the pain itself, and the same thing is true, even in a higher degree, of joy. Not that Tom was conscious at the time that he was pro tempore a philosopher of the Higher Hedonist school. All he knew was that the thought of May flooded the half hour he sat alone and looked at the paling west, and made it a rosary of passionately happy moments.

Tom, who could never be in time for breakfast at an easy half-past nine at Cambridge, found no difficulty in getting to the vicarage at half-past eight. Breakfast passed as usual, Mr. Markham making vitriolic comments on the tactics of the Liberal party, and May and Tom trying to originate intelligent{179} observations on politics, which they seldom or never succeeded in doing, and after breakfast Mr. Markham and Tom lit pipes and began on their Aristophanes.

The vicar observed that Tom was even less attentive than usual, and, with a certain amount of tact, remembered, at the end of half an hour, that he had some pressing work to do.

Tom shut up his book at once, and hoped he hadn’t already taken up too much of the vicar’s time. The vicar replied: “Not at all,” and nobody knew what to say next.

But a remembrance of his own days of love and youth, the memory of standing in a quiet shaded garden, and offering to a girl his life and love, came across the elder man, and he turned to the window with his hands in his pockets, so as not to look at Tom.

“You needn’t go up yet, need you?” he asked. “I am coming your way in half an hour, and we might go up together. May has got an idle morning to-day; make her play croquet with you. There’s a capital new set I ordered the other day, which we put up on Saturday.”

“Thanks, I’ll wait,” said Tom bluntly. “I suppose I shall find Miss Markham in the garden?”

“Yes; I saw her go out just now. You’ll be ready in half an hour, then?”

May was seated under a tree at the far end of the garden, and Tom strolled across the lawn to her. There was a book in her lap, which she was not reading, and she saw him coming and smiled. For the first time in his life Tom found the difficulty of{180} seeing some one he knew, a long way off, approaching, and beginning to smile at the right moment, non-existent.

He sat down on the grass by her, and for a few moments neither spoke a word. But when a thing is inevitable the most awkward people cannot prevent it. Then he got up and knelt by her. She was sitting in a low chair, and their eyes were on a level, and he looked her gravely in the face.

“I love you more than the whole world,” said Tom bravely, “and I have come to ask you whether you care for me at all.”

“Yes, Tom,” she said, and their lips met in a lover’s first kiss.

Tom’s marriage with May Markham took place in July. It was celebrated quietly at Applethorpe, but the world and his wife condescended to take considerable interest in it. The season was beginning to wear a little thin, and the marriage of a wealthy and fairly well-connected young man, who had many friends, with an absolutely unknown girl who, the world said, was extraordinarily beautiful, and who, so said his wife, was rather a stick, was a matter of some interest when interests were beginning to get rather few. Moreover, for various reasons, this particular marriage had been talked about to a certain extent, and when a thing is talked about, its reputation is made. It matters very little whether abuse or praise is showered on anything, as long as it is showered with sufficient liberality, and a little story connected with Tom was the subject of both abuse and praise, and when these are mixed in the right proportions,{181} the matter becomes one of almost overwhelming interest. The story, which the intelligent reader may take for what it is worth, but which certainly was not true, was merely that he had been engaged to Miss Maud Wrexham. But the world and his wife care not at all whether a story is true or not: it is sufficient if it amuses or interests them. Fiction, after all, adds a great charm to human life, and if we did away with fiction altogether, we should have to discard pleasant little fictions as well as unpleasant little fictions. Such a prospect would strike terror into the whole human race from George Washington down to Ananias and Sapphira.

 

For the next three months the newly wedded pair disappeared out of the ken of their fellows, but about the middle of October they came back to Applethorpe, and lived at the Park with old Mr. Carlingford. That amiable old cynic had completely lost his heart to May, who, for a time, extinguished his desire for observing the weaknesses of human nature. But I am bound to add that, as soon as the two went abroad, his habit returned on him.

His remark on their return is worth recording. May was tired with the journey, and went to bed early, and he and Tom sat up over the fire, while Tom descanted on perfect womanhood. The old gentleman listened with amusement and satisfaction, and when he took up his candle to go to bed he turned to his son and said—

“I believe you are more in love with her than ever. What time are family prayers to be?{182}”

“At nine,” said Tom.

Mr. Carlingford was so much pleased at the brilliance of his induction that he appeared punctually next morning, and seemed to take an intelligent interest in a lesson from Joshua.

Tom and May had been out one day hunting in a delightful sloppy week following a frosty Christmas, and after a long run had got home rather tired and stiff, after dark had fallen. Tea was laid in the hall, and as soon as May had finished she went upstairs to change her riding habit, while Tom sat on with his chair drawn close up to the grate, smoked cigarettes, and reflected that really the nicest part of hunting was getting home again. He proposed to have a hot bath before dinner, but the fire was too good to leave just yet.

He had just arrived at these comfortable conclusions when May came down again, with her hat and jacket on.

Tom looked up in surprise.

“Where on earth are you going, dear?” he asked.

“I’ve just been told that poor old Lambert is dying,” said May, “and I must go down to see him. Poor old fellow, he was in danger yesterday, and he was so frightened of death. I ought not to have gone out hunting to-day, Tom; he may be dead.”

“But you oughtn’t to go out now,” said Tom; “you’re awfully tired. I suppose all has been done that can be done.”

“Tom, I must go!” said she.

“Well, send round to the stables, and tell them to have the brougham out at once.{183}”

“No, dear, I can’t wait.”

Tom got up.

“Well, you shan’t go alone. I shall come with you.”

“No, why should you?”

“Nonsense, May,” said Tom, putting on his hat and coat, and opening the front door. “Good Lord, it’s beginning to snow again! I was afraid it would.”

They walked on some time in silence, and then Tom, thrusting his hand through May’s arm, found she had only got a thin jacket on.

“May, you really shouldn’t come out like this,” he said. “You will catch your death of cold. You must go back and put something thicker on.”

“No, I can’t, I can’t,” said May quickly. “I may be too late as it is.”

“May, it’s madness. Here, I forgot—take this.”

Tom took off his coat and held it out for her.

“No, Tom, it’s all right; I don’t want anything more.”

“I insist on your putting it on,” said Tom.

“Please, Tom.”

“May, do as you are told,” said Tom. “My darling, you shall put it on. I really mean it!”

Tom had his way, and the two walked quickly on again, Tom’s long coat almost touching the ground, and the sleeves coming nearly to the tips of her fingers. This time May thrust her hand through Tom’s arm.

“You’re very good to me,” she said. “Ah, here’s the house! Come inside; you can’t wait in the snow. They will all be in the other room.{184}”

A woman, with eyes red with weeping, opened the door to them, and as soon as she saw May, burst out crying again.

“Thank God you’ve come, miss,” she said. “He’s been asking for you all the evening, and he’s far gone. And how are you, Master Tom? Won’t you come by the fire, sir? You’re all over snow. It’s a poor fire, I’m afraid, but we’ve had no time to think of aught to-day.”

Tom felt utterly bewildered and helpless. He tried to respond to the woman’s greeting, but found no words. May in the mean time had slipped off her coat.

“He’s in here, I suppose,” she said. “I will go in at once.”

The two went in together, and Tom sat down by the fire. The door had been left half open, and he could hear words spoken inside.

“Here’s Miss May, Jack,” said the woman, keeping to the name she had always known her by; “she’s come to see you.”

There was the sound of a chair being moved along the ground, and after a moment’s silence he heard May’s voice.

“Dear old friend, I have come just in time to see you before you go. It is not so dreadful, is it? Christ has taken you by the hand; He is just going to cure you of all your pain and suffering, and what is even better, of all your sin. He has been t............