Book + 

IV + 

XXXV + 

I + 

A stump of candle in the neck of a bottle flickered once or twice and threatened to go out. Getting up, Stephen found a fresh candle and lit it, then she returned to her packing-case upon which had been placed the remnants of a chair minus its legs and arms. + 

The room had once been the much prized salon of a large and prosperous villa in Compiègne, but now the glass was gone from its windows; there remained only battered and splintered shutters which creaked eerily in the bitter wind of a March night in 1918. The walls of the salon had fared little better than its windows, their brocade was detached and hanging, while a recent rainstorm had lashed through the roof making ugly splotches on the delicate fabric⁠—a dark stain on the ceiling was perpetually dripping. The remnants of what had once been a home, little broken tables, an old photograph in a tarnished frame, a child’s wooden horse, added to the infinite desolation of this villa that now housed the Breakspeare Unit⁠—a Unit composed of Englishwomen, that had been serving in France just over six months, attached to the French Army Ambulance Corps. + 

The place seemed full of grotesquely large shadows cast by figures that sat or sprawled on the floor. Miss Peel in her Jaeger sleeping-bag snored loudly, then choked because of her cold. Miss Delmé-Howard was gravely engaged upon making the best of a difficult toilet⁠—she was brushing out her magnificent hair which gleamed in the light of the candle. Miss Bless was sewing a button on her tunic; Miss Thurloe was peering at a half-finished letter; but most of the women who were herded together in this, the safest place in the villa and none too safe at that be it said, were apparently sleeping quite soundly. An uncanny stillness had descended on the town; after many hours of intensive bombardment, the Germans were having a breathing space before training their batteries once more upon Compiègne. + 

Stephen stared down at the girl who lay curled up at her feet in an army blanket. The girl slept the sleep of complete exhaustion, breathing heavily with her head on her arm; her pale and rather triangular face was that of someone who was still very young, not much more than nineteen or twenty. The pallor of her skin was accentuated by the short black lashes which curled back abruptly, by the black arched eyebrows and dark brown hair⁠—sleek hair which grew to a peak on the forehead, and had recently been bobbed for the sake of convenience. For the rest her nose was slightly tip-tilted, and her mouth resolute considering her youth; the lips were well-modelled and fine in texture, having deeply indented corners. For more than a minute Stephen considered the immature figure of Mary Llewellyn. This latest recruit to the Breakspeare Unit had joined it only five weeks ago, replacing a member who was suffering from shell-shock. Mrs. Breakspeare had shaken her head over Mary, but in these harassed days of the German offensive she could not afford to remain shorthanded, so in spite of many misgivings she had kept her. + 

Still shaking her head she had said to Stephen: “Needs must when the Bodies get busy, Miss Gordon! Have an eye to her, will you? She may stick it all right, but between you and me I very much doubt it. You might try her out as your second driver.” And so far Mary Llewellyn had stuck it. + 

Stephen looked away again, closing her eyes, and after a while forgot about Mary. The events that had preceded her own coming to France, began to pass through her brain in procession. Her chief in The London Ambulance Column, through whom she had first met Mrs. Claude Breakspeare⁠—a good sort, the chief, she had been a staunch friend. The great news that she, Stephen, had been accepted and would go to the front as an ambulance driver. Then Puddle’s grave face: “I must write to your mother, this means that you will be in real danger.” Her mother’s brief letter: “Before you leave I should very much like you to come and see me,” the rest of the letter mere polite empty phrases. The impulse to resist, the longing to go, culminating in that hurried visit to Morton. Morton so changed and yet so changeless. Changed because of those blue-clad figures, the lame, the halt and the partially blinded who had sought its peace and its kindly protection. Changeless because that protection and peace belonged to the very spirit of Morton. Mrs. Williams a widow; her niece melancholic ever since the groom Jim had been wounded and missing⁠—they had married while he had been home on leave, and quite soon the poor soul was expecting a baby. Williams now dead of his third and last stroke, after having survived pneumonia. The swan called Peter no longer gliding across the lake on his white reflection, and in his stead an unmannerly offspring who struck out with his wings and tried to bite Stephen. The family vault where her father lay buried⁠—the vault was in urgent need of repair⁠—“No men left, Miss Stephen, we’re that short of stonemasons; her ladyship’s bin complainin’ already, but it don’t be no use complainin’ these times.” Raftery’s grave⁠—a slab of rough granite: “In memory of a gentle and courageous friend, whose name was Raftery, after the poet.” Moss on the granite half effacing the words; the thick hedge growing wild for the want of clipping. And her mother⁠—a woman with snow-white hair and a face that was worn almost down to the spirit; a woman of quiet but uncertain movements, with a new trick of twisting the rings on her fingers. “It was good of you to come.” “You sent for me, Mother.” Long silences filled with the realization that all they dared hope for was peace between them⁠—too late to go back⁠—they could not retrace their steps even though there was now peace between them. Then those last poignant moments in the study together⁠—memory, the old room was haunted by it⁠—a man dying with love in his eyes that was deathless⁠—a woman holding him in her arms, speaking words such as lovers will speak to each other. Memory⁠—they’re the one perfect thing about me. “Stephen, promise to write when you’re out in France, I shall want to hear from you.” “I promise, Mother.” The return to London; Puddle’s anxious voice: “Well, how was she?” “Very frail, you must go to Morton.” Puddle’s sudden and almost fierce rebellion: “I would rather not go, I’ve made my choice, Stephen.” “But I ask this for my sake, I’m worried about her⁠—even if I weren’t going away, I couldn’t go back now and live at Morton⁠—our living together would make us remember.” “I remember too, Stephen, and what I remember is hard to forgive. It’s hard to forgive an injury done to someone one loves.⁠ ⁠…” Puddle’s face, very white, very stern⁠—strange to hear such words as these on the kind lips of Puddle. “I know, I know, but she’s terribly alone, and I can’t forget that my father loved her.” A long silence, and then: “I’ve never yet failed you⁠—and you’re right⁠—I must go to Morton.” + 

Stephen’s thoughts stopped abruptly. Someone had come in and was stumping down the room in squeaky trench boots. It was Blakeney holding the time-sheet in her hand⁠—funny old monosyllabic Blakeney, with her curly white hair cropped as close as an Uhlan’s, and her face that suggested a sensitive monkey. + 

“Service, Gordon; wake the kid! Howard⁠—Thurloe⁠—ready?” + 

They got up and hustled into their trench coats, found their gas masks and finally put on their helmets. + 

Then Stephen shook Mary Llewellyn very gently: “It’s time.” + 

Mary opened her clear, grey eyes: “Who? What?” she stammered. + 

“It’s time. Get up, Mary.” + 

The girl staggered to her feet, still stupid with fatigue. Through the cracks in the shutters the dawn showed faintly. + 

II + 

The grey of a bitter, starved-looking morning. The town like a mortally wounded creature, torn by shells, gashed open by bombs. Dead streets⁠—streets of death⁠—death in streets and their houses; yet people still able to sleep and still sleeping. + 

“Stephen.” + 

“Yes, Mary?” + 

“How far is the Poste?” + 

“I think about thirty kilometres; why?” + 

“Oh, nothing⁠—I only wondered.” + 

The long stretch of an open country road. On either side of the road wire netting hung with pieces of crudely painted rag⁠—a camouflage this to represent leaves. A road bordered by rag leaves on tall wire hedges. Every few yards or so a deep shell-hole. + 

“Are they following, Mary? Is Howard all right?” + 

The girl glanced back: “Yes, it’s all right, she’s coming.” + 

They drove on in silence for a couple of miles. The morning was terribly cold; Mary shivered. “What’s that?” It was rather a foolish question for she knew what it was, knew only too well! + 

“They’re at it again,” Stephen muttered. + 

A shell burst in a paddock, uprooting some trees. “All right, Mary?” + 

“Yes⁠—look out! We’re coming to a crater!” They skimmed it by less than an inch and dashed on, Mary suddenly moving nearer to Stephen. + 

“Don’t joggle my arm, for the Lord’s sake, child!” + 

“Did I? I’m sorry.” + 

“Yes⁠—don’t do it again,” and once more they drove forward in silence. + 

Farther down the road they were blocked by a farm cart: “Militaires! Militaires! Militaires!” Stephen shouted. + 

Rather languidly the farmer got down and went to the heads of his thin, stumbling horses. “Il faut vivre,” he explained, as he pointed to the cart, which appeared to be full of potatoes. + 

In a field on the right worked three very old women; they were hoeing with a diligent and fatalistic patience. At any moment a stray shell might burst and then, presto! little left of the very old women. But what will you? There is war⁠—there has been war so long⁠—one must eat, even under the noses of the Germans; the bon Dieu knows this, He alone can protect⁠—so meanwhile one just goes on diligently hoeing. A blackbird was singing to himself in a tree, the tree was horribly maimed and blasted; all the same he had known it the previous spring and so now, in spite of its wounds, he had found it. Came a sudden lull when they heard him distinctly. + 

And Mary saw him: “Look,” she said, “there’s a blackbird!” Just for a moment she forgot about war. + 

Yet Stephen could now very seldom forget, and this was because of the girl at her side. A queer, tight feeling would come round her heart, she would know the fear that can go hand in hand with personal courage, the fear for another. + 

But now she looked down for a moment and smiled: “Bless that blackbird for letting you see him, Mary.” She knew that Mary loved little, wild birds, that indeed she loved all the humbler creatures. + 

They turned into a lane and were comparatively safe, but the roar of the guns had grown much more insistent. They must be nearing the Poste de Secours, so they spoke very little because of those guns, and after a while because of the wounded. + 

III + 

The Poste de Secours was a ruined auberge at the crossroads, about fifty yards behind the trenches. From what had once been its spacious cellar, they were hurriedly carrying up the wounded, maimed and mangled creatures who, a few hours ago, had been young and vigorous men. None too gently the stretchers were lowered to the ground beside the two waiting ambulances⁠—none too gently because there were so many of them, and because there must come a time in all wars when custom stales even compassion. + 

The wounded were patient and fatalistic, like the very old women back in the field. The only difference between them being that the men had themselves become as a field laid bare to a ruthless and bloody hoeing. Some of them had not even a blanket to protect them from the biting cold of the wind. A Poilu with a mighty wound in the belly, must lie with the blood congealing on the bandage. Next to him lay a man with his face half blown away, who, God alone knew why, remained conscious. The abdominal case was the first to be handled, Stephen herself helped to lift his stretcher. He was probably dying, but he did not complain except inasmuch as he wanted his mother. The voice that emerged from his coarse, bearded throat was the voice of a child demanding its mother. The man with the terrible face tried to speak, but when he did so the sound was not human. His bandage had slipped a little to one side, so that Stephen must step between him and Mary, and hastily readjust the bandage. + 

“Get back to the ambulance! I shall want you to drive.” + 

In silence Mary obeyed her. + 

And now began the first of those endless journeys from the Poste de Secours to the Field Hospital. For twenty-four hours they would ply back and forth with their light Ford ambulances. Driving quickly because the lives of the wounded might depend on their speed, yet with every nerve taut to avoid, as far as might be, the jarring of the hazardous roads full of ruts and shell-holes. + 

The man with the shattered face started again, they could hear him above the throb of the motor. For a moment they stopped while Stephen listened, but his lips were not there⁠ ⁠… an intolerable sound. + 

“Faster, drive faster, Mary!” + 

Pale, but with firmly set, resolute mouth, Mary Llewellyn drove faster. + 

When at last they reached the Field Hospital, the bearded Poilu with the wound in his belly was lying very placidly on his stretcher; his hairy chin pointing slightly upward. He had ceased to speak as a little child⁠—perhaps, after all, he had found his mother. + 

The day went on and the sun shone out brightly, dazzling the tired eyes of the drivers. Dusk fell, and the roads grew treacherous and vague. Night came⁠—they dared not risk having lights, so that they must just stare and stare into the darkness. In the distance the sky turned ominously red, some stray shells might well have set fire to a village, that tall column of flame was probably the church; and the Boches were punishing Compiègne again, to judge from the heavy sounds of bombardment. Yet by now there was nothing real in the world but that thick and almost impenetrable darkness, and the ache of the eyes that must stare and stare, and the dreadful, patient pain of the wounded⁠—there had never been anything else in the world but black night shot through with the pain of the wounded. + 

IV + 

On the following morning the two ambulances crept back to their base at the villa in Compiègne. It had been a tough job, long hours of strain, and to make matters worse the reliefs had been late, one of them having had a breakdown. Moving stiffly, and with red rimmed and watering eyes, the four women swallowed large cups of coffee; then just as they were they lay down on the floor, wrapped in their trench coats and army blankets. In less than a quarter of an hour they slept, though the villa shook and rocked with the bombardment. + 

XXXVI + 

I + 

There is something that mankind can never destroy in spite of an unreasoning will to destruction, and this is its own idealism, that integral part of its very being. The ageing and the cynical may make wars, but the young and the idealistic must fight them, and thus there are bound to come quick reactions, blind impulses not always comprehended. Men will curse as they kill, yet accomplish deeds of self-sacrifice, giving their lives for others; poets will write with their pens dipped in blood, yet will write not of death but of life eternal; strong and courteous friendships will be born, to endure in the face of enmity and destruction. And so persistent is this urge to the ideal, above all in the presence of great disaster, that mankind, the wilful destroyer of beauty, must immediately strive to create new beauties, lest it perish from a sense of its own desolation; and this urge touched the Celtic soul of Mary. + 

For the Celtic soul is the stronghold of dreams, of longings come down the dim paths of the ages; and within it there dwells a vague discontent, so that it must forever go questing. And now as though drawn by some hidden attraction, as though stirred by some irresistible impulse, quite beyond the realms of her own understanding, Mary turned in all faith and all innocence to Stephen. Who can pretend to interpret fate, either his own fate or that of another? Why should this girl have crossed Stephen’s path, or indeed Stephen hers, if it came to that matter? Was not the world large enough for them both? Perhaps not⁠—or perhaps the event of their meeting had already been written upon tablets of stone by some wise if relentless recording finger. + 

An orphan from the days of her earliest childhood, Mary had lived with a married cousin in the wilds of Wales; an unwanted member of a none too prosperous household. She had little education beyond that obtained from a small private school in a neighbouring village. She knew nothing of life or of men and women; and even less did she know of herself, of her ardent, courageous, impulsive nature. Thanks to the fact that her cousin was a doctor, forced to motor over a widely spread practice, she had learnt to drive and look after his car by filling the post of an unpaid chauffeur⁠—she was, in her small way, a good mechanic. But the war had made her much less contented with her narrow life, and although at its outbreak Mary had been not quite eighteen, she had felt a great longing to be independent, in which she had met with no opposition. However, a Welsh village is no field for endeavour, and thus nothing had happened until by a fluke she had suddenly heard of the Breakspeare Unit via the local parson, an old friend of its founder⁠—he himself had written to recommend Mary. And so, straight from the quiet seclusion of Wales, this girl had managed the complicated journey that had finally got her over to France, then across a war-ravaged, dislocated country. Mary was neither so frail nor so timid as Mrs. Breakspeare had thought her. + 

Stephen had felt rather bored just at first at the prospect of teaching the new member her duties, but after a while it came to pass that she missed the girl when she was not with her. And after a while she would find herself observing the way Mary’s hair grew, low on the forehead, the wide setting of her slightly oblique grey eyes, the abrupt sweep back of their heavy lashes; and these things would move Stephen, so that she must touch the girl’s hair for a moment with her fingers. Fate was throwing them continually together, in moments of rest as in moments of danger; they could not have escaped this even had they wished to, and indeed they did not wish to escape it. They were pawns in the ruthless and complicated game of existence, moved hither and thither on the board by an unseen hand, yet moved side by side, so that they grew to expect each other. + 

“Mary, are you there?” + 

A superfluous question⁠—the reply would be always the same. + 

“I’m here, Stephen.” + 

Sometimes Mary would talk of her plans for the future while Stephen listened, smiling as she did so. + 

“I’ll go into an office, I want to be free.” + 

“You’re so little, you’d get mislaid in an office.” + 

“I’m five foot five!” + 

“Are you really, Mary? You feel little, somehow.” + 

“That’s because you’re so tall. I do wish I could grow a bit!” + 

“No, don’t wish that, you’re all right as you are⁠—it’s you, Mary.” + 

Mary would want to be told about Morton, she was never tired of hearing about Morton. She would make Stephen get out the photographs of her father, of her mother whom Mary thought lovely, of Puddle, and above all of Raftery. Then Stephen must tell her of the life in London, and afterwards of the new house in Paris; must talk of her own career and ambitions, though Mary had not read either of her novels⁠—there had never been a library subscription. + 

But at moments Stephen’s face would grow clouded because of the things that she could not tell her; because of the little untruths and evasions that must fill up the gaps in her strange life-history. Looking down into Mary’s clear, grey eyes, she would suddenly flush through her tan, and feel guilty; and that feeling would reach the girl and disturb her, so that she must hold Stephen’s hand for a moment. + 

One day she said suddenly: “Are you unhappy?” + 

“Why on earth should I be unhappy?” smiled Stephen. + 

All the same there were nights now when Stephen lay awake even after her arduous hours of service, hearing the guns that were coming nearer, yet not thinking of them, but always of Mary. A great gentleness would gradually engulf her like a soft sea mist, veiling reef and headland. She would seem to be drifting quietly, serenely towards some blessed and peaceful harbour. Stretching out a hand she would stroke the girl’s shoulder where she lay, but carefully in case she should wake her. Then the mist would lift: “Good God! What am I doing?” She would sit up abruptly, disturbing the sleeper. + 

“Is that you, Stephen?” + 

“Yes, my dear, go to sleep.” + 

Then a cross, aggrieved voice: “Do shut up, you two. It’s rotten of you, I was just getting off! Why must you always persist in talking!” + 

Stephen would lie down again and would think: “I’m a fool, I go out of my way to find trouble. Of course I’ve grown fond of the child, she’s so plucky, almost anyone would grow fond of Mary. Why shouldn’t I have affection and friendship? Why shouldn’t I have a real human interest? I can help her to find her feet after the war if we both come through⁠—I might buy her a business.” That gentle mist, hiding both reef and headland; it would gather again blurring all perception, robbing the past of its crude, ugly outlines. “After all, what harm can it do the child to be fond of me?” It was so good a thing to have won the affection of this young creature. + 

II + 

The Germans got perilously near to Compiègne, and the Breakspeare Unit was ordered to retire. Its base was now at a ruined château on the outskirts of an insignificant village, yet not so very insignificant either⁠—it was stuffed to the neck with ammunition. Nearly all the hours that were spent off duty must be passed in the gloomy, damp-smelling dugouts which consisted of cellars, partly destroyed but protected by sandbags on heavy timbers. Like foxes creeping out of their holes, the members of the Unit would creep into the daylight, their uniforms covered with mould and rubble, their eyes blinking, their hands cold and numb from the dampness⁠—so cold and so numb that the starting up of motors would often present a real problem. + 

At this time there occurred one or two small mishaps; Bless broke her wrist while cranking her engine; Blakeney and three others at a Poste de Secours, were met by a truly terrific bombardment and took cover in what had once been a brick-field, crawling into the disused furnace. There they squatted for something over eight hours, while the German gunners played hit as hit can with the tall and conspicuous chimney. When at last they emerged, half stifled by brick-dust, Blakeney had got something into her eye, which she rubbed; the result was acute inflammation. + 

Howard had begun to be irritating, with her passion for tending her beautiful hair. She would sit in the corner of her dugout as calmly as though she were sitting at a Bond Street hairdresser’s; and having completed the ritual brushing, she would gaze at herself in a pocket mirror. With a bandage over her unfortunate eye, Blakeney looked more like a monkey than ever, a sick monkey, and her strictly curtailed conversation was not calculated to enliven the Unit. She seemed almost entirely bereft of speech these days, as though reverting to species. Her one comment on life was: “Oh, I dunno⁠ ⁠…” always said with a jaunty, rising inflection. It meant everything or nothing as you chose to take it, and had long been her panacea for the ills of what she considered a stupid Creation. “Oh, I dunno.⁠ ⁠…” And indeed she did not; poor, old, sensitive, monosyllabic Blakeney. The Poilu who served out the Unit’s rations⁠—cold meat, sardines, bread and sour red Pinard⁠—was discovered by Stephen in the very act of attempting to unload an aerial bomb. He explained with a smile that the Germans were sly in their methods of loading: “I cannot discover just how it is done.” Then he showed his left hand⁠—it was minus one of the fingers: “That,” he told her, still smiling, “was caused by a shell, a quite little shell, which I was also unloading.” And when she remonstrated none too gently, he sulked: “But I wish to give this one to Maman!” + 

Everyone had begun to feel the nerve strain, except perhaps Blakeney, who had done with all feeling. Shorthanded by two, the remaining members of the Unit must now work like veritable niggers⁠—on one occasion Stephen and Mary worked for seventy hours with scarcely a respite. Strained nerves are invariably followed by strained tempers, and sudden, hot quarrels would break out over nothing. Bless and Howard loathed each other for two days, then palled up again, because of a grievance that had recently been evolved against Stephen. For everyone knew that Stephen and Blakeney were by far the best drivers in the Breakspeare Unit, and as such should be shared by all the members in turn; but poor Blakeney was nursing a very sore eye, while Stephen still continued to drive only with Mary. They were splendidly courageous and greathearted women, every one of them, glad enough as a rule to help one another to shoulder burdens, to be tolerant and kind when it came to friendships. They petted and admired their youngest recruit, and most of them liked and respected Stephen, all the same they had now grown childishly jealous, and this jealousy reached the sharp ears of Mrs. Breakspeare. + 

Mrs. Breakspeare sent for Stephen one morning; she was sitting at a Louis Quinze writing-table which had somehow survived the wreck of the château and was now in her gloomy, official dugout. Her right hand reposed on an ordnance map, she looked like a very maternal general. The widow of an officer killed in the war, and the mother of two large sons and three daughters, she had led the narrow, conventional life that is common to women in military stations. Yet all the while she must been filling her subconscious reservoir with knowledge, for she suddenly blossomed forth as leader with a fine understanding of human nature. So now she looked over her ample bosom not unkindly, but rather thoughtfully at Stephen. + 

“Sit down, Miss Gordon. It’s about Llewellyn, whom I asked you to take on as second driver. I think the time has now arrived when she ought to stand more on her own in the Unit. She must take her chance like everyone else, and not cling quite so close⁠—don’t misunderstand me, I’m most grateful for all you’ve done for the girl⁠—but of course you are one of our finest drivers, and fine driving counts for a great deal these days, it may mean life or death, as you yourself know. And⁠—well⁠—it seems scarcely fair to the others that Mary should always go out with you. No, it certainly is not quite fair to the others.” + 

Stephen said: “Do you mean that she’s to go out with everyone in turn⁠—with Thurloe for instance?” And do what she would to appear indifferent, she could not quite keep her voice from trembling. + 

Mrs. Breakspeare nodded: “That’s what I do mean.” Then she said rather slowly: “These are strenuous times, and such times are apt to breed many emotions which are purely fictitious, purely mushroom growths that spring up in a night and have no roots at all, except in our imaginations. But I’m sure you’ll agree with me, Miss Gordon, in thinking it our duty to discourage anything in the nature of an emotional friendship, such as I fancy Mary Llewellyn is on the verge of feeling for you. It’s quite natural of course, a kind of reaction, but not wise⁠—no, I cannot think it wise. It savours a little too much of the schoolroom and might lead to ridicule in the Unit. Your position is far too important for that; I look upon you as my second in command.” + 

Stephen said quietly: “I quite understand. I’ll go at once and speak to Blakeney about altering Mary Llewellyn’s time-sheet.” + 

“Yes, do, if you will,” agreed Mrs. Breakspeare; then she stooped and studied her ordnance map, without looking again at Stephen. + 

III + 

If Stephen had been fearful for Mary’s safety before, she was now ten times more so. The front was in a condition of flux and the Postes de Secours were continually shifting. An Allied ambulance driver had been fired on by the Germans, after having arrived at the spot where his Poste had been only the previous evening. There was very close fighting on every sector; it seemed truly amazing that no grave casualties had so far occurred in the Unit. For now the Allies had begun to creep forward, yard by yard, mile by mile, very slowly but surely; refreshed by a splendid transfusion of blood from the youthful veins of a great child-nation. + 

Of all the anxieties on Mary’s account that now beset Stephen, Thurloe was the gravest; for Thurloe was one of those irritating drivers who stake all on their own inadequate judgment. She was brave to a fault, but inclined to show off when it came to a matter of actual danger. For long hours Stephen would not know what had happened, and must often leave the base before Mary had returned, still in doubt regarding her safety. + 

Grimly, yet with unfailing courage and devotion, Stephen now went about her duties. Every day the risks that they all took grew graver, for the enemy, nearing the verge of defeat, was less than ever a respecter of persons. Stephen’s only moments of comparative peace would be when she herself drove Mary. And as though the girl missed some vitalizing force, some strength that had hitherto been hers to draw on, she flagged, and Stephen would watch her flagging during their brief spells together off duty, and would know that nothing but her Celtic pluck kept Mary Llewellyn from a breakdown. And now, because they were so often parted, even chance meetings became of importance. They might meet while preparing their cars in the morning, and if this should happen they would draw close together for a moment, as though finding comfort in nearness. + 

Letters from home would arrive for Stephen, and these she would want to read to Mary. In addition to writing, Puddle sent food, even luxuries sometimes, of a prewar nature. To obtain them she must have used bribery and corruption, for food of all kinds had grown scarce in England. Puddle, it seemed, had a mammoth war map into which she stuck pins with gay little pennants. Every time the lines moved by so much as a yard, out would come Puddle’s pins to go in at fresh places; for since Stephen had left her to go to the front, the war had become very personal to Puddle. + 

Anna also wrote, and from her Stephen learnt of the death of Roger Antrim. He had been shot down while winning his V.C. through saving the life of a wounded captain. All alone he had gone over to no-man’s-land and had rescued his friend where he lay unconscious, receiving a bullet through the head at the moment of flinging the wounded man into safety. Roger⁠—so lacking in understanding, so crude, so cruel and remorseless a bully⁠—Roger had been changed in the twinkling of an eye into something superb because utterly selfless. Thus it was that the undying urge of mankind towards the ideal had come upon Roger. And Stephen as she sat there and read of his passing, suddenly knew that she wished him well, that his courage had wiped one great bitterness out of her heart and her life forever. And so by dying as he had died, Roger, all unknowing, had fulfilled the law that must be extended to enemy and friend alike⁠—the immutable law of service. + 

IV + 

Events gathered momentum. By the June of that year 700,000 United States soldiers, strong and comely men plucked from their native prairies, from their fields of tall corn, from their farms and their cities, were giving their lives in defence of freedom on the blood-soaked battlefields of France. They had little to gain and much to lose; it was not their war, yet they helped to fight it because they were young and their nation was young, and the ideals of youth are eternally hopeful. + 

In July came the Allied counteroffensive, and now in her moment of approaching triumph France knew to the full her great desolation, as it lay revealed by the retreating armies. For not only had there been a holocaust of homesteads, but the country was strewn with murdered trees, cut down in their hour of most perfect leafing; orchards struck to the ground, an orgy of destruction, as the mighty forces rolled back like a tide, to recoil on themselves⁠—incredulous, amazed, maddened by the outrage of coming disaster. For mad they must surely have been, since no man is a more faithful lover of trees than the German. + 

Stephen as she drove through that devastated country would find herself thinking of Martin Hallam⁠—Martin who had touched the old thorns on the hills with such respectful and pitiful fingers: “Have you ever thought about the enormous courage of trees? I have and it seems to me amazing. The Lord dumps them down and they’ve just got to stick it, no matter what happens⁠—that must need some courage.” Martin had believed in a heaven for trees, a forest heaven for all the faithful; and looking at those pitiful, leafy corpses, Stephen would want to believe in that heaven. Until lately she had not thought of Martin for years, he belonged to a past that was better forgotten, but now she would sometimes wonder about him. Perhaps he was dead, smitten down where he stood, for many had perished where they stood, like the orchards. It was strange to think that he might have been here in France, have been fighting and have died quite near her. But perhaps he had not been killed after all⁠—she had never told Mary about Martin Hallam. + 

All roads of thought seemed to lead back to Mary; and these days, in addition to fears for her safety, came a growing distress at what she must see⁠—far more terrible sights than the patient wounded. For everywhere now lay the wreckage of war, sea-wrack spewed up by a poisonous ocean⁠—putrefying, festering in the sun; breeding corruption to man’s seed of folly. Twice lately, while they had been driving together, they had come upon sights that Stephen would have spared her. There had been that shattered German gun-carriage with its stiff, dead horses and its three dead gunners⁠—horrible death, the men’s faces had been black like the faces of negroes, black and swollen from gas, or was it from putrefaction? There had been the deserted and wounded charger with its foreleg hanging as though by a rag. Near by had been lying a dead young Uhlan, and Stephen had shot the beast with his revolver, but Mary had suddenly started sobbing: “Oh, God! Oh, God! It was dumb⁠—it couldn’t speak. It’s so awful somehow to see a thing suffer when it can’t ask you why!” She had sobbed a long time, and Stephen had not known how to console her. + 

And now the Unit was creeping forward in the wake of the steadily advancing Allies. Billets would be changed as the base was moved on slowly from devastated village to village. There seldom seemed to be a house left with a roof, or with anything much beyond its four walls, and quite often they must lie staring up at the stars, which would stare back again, aloof and untroubled. At about this time they grew very short of water, for most of the wells were said to have been poisoned; and this shortage of water was a very real torment, since it strictly curtailed the luxury of washing. Then what must Bless do but get herself hit while locating the position of a Poste de Secours which had most inconsiderately vanished. Like the Allied ambulance driver she was shot at, but in her case she happened to stop a bullet⁠—it was only a flesh wound high up in the arm, yet enough to render her useless for the moment. She had had to be sent back to hospital, so once again the Unit was shorthanded. + 

It turned hot, and in place of the dampness and the cold, came days and nights that seemed almost breathless; days when the wounded must lie out in the sun, tormented by flies as they waited their turn to be lifted into the ambulances. And as though misfortunes attracted each other, as though indeed they were hunting in couples, Stephen’s face was struck by a splinter of shell, and her right cheek cut open rather badly. It was neatly stitched up by the little French doctor at the Poste de Secours, and when he had finished with his needle and dressings, he bowed very gravely: “Mademoiselle will carry an honourable scar as a mark of her courage,” and he bowed yet again, so that in the end Stephen must also bow gravely. Fortunately, however, she could still do her job, which was all to the good for the shorthanded Unit. + 

V + 

On an autumn afternoon of blue sky and sunshine, Stephen had the Croix de Guerre pinned on her breast by a white-haired and white-moustached general. First came the motherly Mrs. Claude Breakspeare, whose tunic looked much too tight for her bosom, then Stephen and one or two other members of that valiant and untiring Unit. The general kissed each one in turn on both cheeks, while overhead hovered a fleet of Aces; troops presented arms, veteran troops tried in battle, and having the set look of war in their eyes⁠—for the French have a very nice taste in such matters. And presently Stephen’s bronze Croix de Guerre would carry three miniature stars on its ribbon, and each star would stand for a mention in dispatches. + 

That evening she and Mary walked over the fields to a little town not very far from their billets. They paused for a moment to watch the sunset, and Mary stroked the new Croix de Guerre; then she looked straight up into Stephen’s eyes, her mouth shook, and Stephen saw that she was crying. After this they must walk hand in hand for a while. Why not? There was no one just then to see them. + 

Mary said: “All my life I’ve been waiting for something.” + 

“What was it, my dear?” Stephen asked her gently. + 

And Mary answered: “I’ve been waiting for you, and it’s seemed such a dreadful long time, Stephen.” + 

The barely healed wound across Stephen’s cheek flushed darkly, for what could she find to answer? + 

“For me?” she stammered. + 

Mary nodded gravely: “Yes, for you. I’ve always been waiting for you; and after the war you’ll send me away.” Then she suddenly caught hold of Stephen’s sleeve: “Let me come with you⁠—don’t send me away, I want to be near you.⁠ ⁠… I can’t explain⁠ ⁠… but I only want to be near you, Stephen. Stephen⁠—say you won’t send me away.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Stephen’s hand closed over the Croix de Guerre, but the metal of valour felt cold to her fingers; dead and cold it felt at that moment, as the courage that had set it upon her breast. She stared straight ahead of her into the sunset, trembling because of what she would answer. + 

Then she said very slowly: “After the war⁠—no, I won’t send you away from me, Mary.” + 

XXXVII + 

I + 

The most stupendous and heartbreaking folly of our times drew towards its abrupt conclusion. By November the Unit was stationed at St. Quentin in a little hotel, which although very humble, seemed like paradise after the dugouts. + 

A morning came when a handful of the members were together in the coffee-room, huddled round a fire that was principally composed of damp brushwood. At one moment the guns could be heard distinctly, the next, something almost unnatural had happened⁠—there was silence, as though death had turned on himself, smiting his own power of destruction. No one spoke, they just sat and stared at each other with faces entirely devoid of emotion; their faces looked blank, like so many masks from which had been sponged every trace of expression⁠—and they waited⁠—listening to that silence. + 

The door opened and in walked an untidy Poilu; his manner was casual, his voice apathetic: “Eh bien, mesdames, c’est l’Armistice.” But his shining brown eyes were not at all apathetic. “Oui, c’est l’Armistice,” he repeated coolly; then he shrugged, as a man might do who would say: “What is all this to me?” After which he grinned broadly in spite of himself, he was still very young, and turning on his heel he departed. + 

Stephen said: “So it’s over,” and she looked at Mary, who had jumped up, and was looking in her turn at Stephen. + 

Mary said: “This means⁠ ⁠…” but she stopped abruptly. + 

Bless said: “Got a match, anyone? Oh thanks!” And she groped for her white metal cigarette case. + 

Howard said: “Well, the first thing I’m going to do is to get my hair properly shampooed in Paris.” + 

Thurloe laughed shrilly, then she started to whistle, kicking the recalcitrant fire as she did so. + 

But funny, old, monosyllabic Blakeney with her curly white hair cropped as close as an Uhlan’s⁠—Blakeney who had long ago done with emotions⁠—quite suddenly laid her arms on the table and her head on her arms, and she wept, and she wept. + 

II + 

Stephen stayed with the Unit right up to the eve of its departure for Germany, then she left it, taking Mary Llewellyn with her. Their work was over; remained only the honour of joining the army’s triumphal progress, but Mary Llewellyn was completely worn out, and Stephen had no thought except for Mary. + 

They said farewell to Mrs. Claude Breakspeare, to Howard and Blakeney and the rest of their comrades. And Stephen knew, as indeed did they also, that a mighty event had slipped into the past, had gone from them into the realms of history⁠—something terrible yet splendid, a oneness with life in its titanic struggle against death. Not a woman of them all but felt vaguely regretful in spite of the infinite blessing of peace, for none could know what the future might hold of trivial days filled with trivial actions. Great wars will be followed by great discontents⁠—the pruning knife has been laid to the tree, and the urge to grow throbs through its mutilated branches. + 

III + 

The house in the Rue Jacob was en fête in honour of Stephen’s arrival. Pierre had rigged up an imposing flagstaff, from which waved a brand new tricolour commandeered by Pauline from the neighbouring baker; flowers had been placed in the study vases, while Adèle had contrived to produce the word “welcome” in immortelles, as the pièce de résistance, and had hung it above the doorway. + 

Stephen shook hands with them all in turn, and she introduced Mary, who also shook hands. Then Adèle must start to gabble about Jean, who was quite safe although not a captain; and Pauline must interrupt her to tell of the neighbouring baker who had lost his four sons, and of one of her brothers who had lost his right leg⁠—her face very dour and her voice very cheerful, as was always the way when she told of misfortunes. And presently she must also deplore the long straight scar upon Stephen’s cheek: “Oh, la pauvre! Pour une dame c’est un vrai désastre!” But Pierre must point to the green and red ribbon in Stephen’s lapel: “C’est la Croix de Guerre!” so that in the end they all gathered round to admire that half-inch of honour and glory. + 

Oh, yes, this homecoming was as friendly and happy as good will and warm Breton hearts could make it. Yet Stephen was oppressed by a sense of restraint when she took Mary up to the charming bedroom overlooking the garden, and she spoke abruptly. + 

“This will be your room.” + 

“It’s beautiful, Stephen.” + 

After that they were silent, perhaps because there was so much that might not be spoken between them. + 

The dinner was served by a beaming Pierre, an excellent dinner, more than worthy of Pauline; but neither of them managed to eat very much⁠—they were far too acutely conscious of each other. When the meal was over they went into the study where, in spite of the abnormal shortage of fuel, Adèle had managed to build a huge fire which blazed recklessly half up the chimney. The room smelt slightly of hothouse flowers, of leather, of old wood and vanished years, and after a while of cigarette smoke. + 

Then Stephen forced herself to speak lightly: “Come and sit over here by the fire,” she said, smiling. + 

So Mary obeyed, sitting down beside her, and she laid a hand upon Stephen’s knee; but Stephen appeared not to notice that hand, for she just let it lie there and went on talking. + 

“I’ve been thinking, Mary, hatching all sorts of schemes. I’d like to get you right away for a bit, the weather seems pretty awful in Paris. Puddle once told me about Teneriffe, she went there ages ago with a pupil. She stayed at a place called Orotava; it’s lovely, I believe⁠—do you think you’d enjoy it? I might manage to hear of a villa with a garden, and then you could just slack about in the sunshine.” + 

Mary said, very conscious of the unnoticed hand: “Do you really want to go away, Stephen? Wouldn’t it interfere with your writing?” Her voice, Stephen thought, sounded strained and unhappy. + 

“Of course I want to go,” Stephen reassured her, “I’ll work all the better for a holiday. Anyhow, I must see you looking more fit,” and she suddenly laid her hand over Mary’s. + 

The strange sympathy which sometimes exists between two human bodies, so that a touch will stir many secret and perilous emotions, closed down on them both at that moment of contact, and they sat unnaturally still by the fire, feeling that in their stillness lay safety. But presently Stephen went on talking, and now she talked of purely practical matters. Mary must go for a fortnight to her cousins, she had better go almost at once, and remain there while Stephen herself went to Morton. Eventually they would meet in London and from there motor straight away to Southampton, for Stephen would have taken their passages and if possible found a furnished villa, before she went down to Morton. She talked on and on, and as she did so her fingers tightened and relaxed abruptly on the hand that she had continued to hold, so that Mary imprisoned those nervous fingers in her own, and Stephen made no resistance. + 

Then Mary, like many another before her, grew as happy as she had been downhearted; for the merest trifles are often enough to change the trend of mercurial emotions such as beset the heart in its youth; and she looked at Stephen with gratitude in her eyes, and with something far more fundamental of which she herself was unconscious. And now she began to talk in her turn. She could type fairly well, was a very good speller; she would type Stephen’s books, take care of her papers, answer her letters, look after the house, even beard the lugubrious Pauline in her kitchen. Next autumn she would write to Holland for bulbs⁠—they must have lots of bulbs in their city garden, and in summer they ought to manage some roses⁠—Paris was less cruel to flowers than London. Oh, and might she have pigeons with wide, white tails? They would go so well with the old marble fountain. + 

Stephen listened, nodding from time to time. Yes, of course she could have her white fan-tailed pigeons, and her bulbs, and her roses, could have anything she pleased, if only she would get quite well and be happy. + 

At this Mary laughed: “Oh, Stephen, my dear⁠—don’t you know that I’m really terribly happy?” + 

Pierre came in with the evening letters; there was one from Anna and another from Puddle. There was also a lengthy epistle from Brockett who was praying, it seemed, for demobilization. Once released, he must go for a few weeks to England, but after that he was coming to Paris. + 

He wrote: “I’m longing to see you again and Valérie Seymour. By the way, how goes it? Valérie writes that you never rang her up. It’s a pity you’re so unsociable, Stephen; unwholesome, I call it, you’ll be bagging a shell like a hermit crab, or growing hairs on your chin, or a wart on your nose, or worse still a complex. You might even take to a few nasty habits towards middle life⁠—better read Ferenczi! Why were you so beastly to Valérie, I wonder? She is such a darling and she likes you so much, only the other day she wrote: ‘When you see Stephen Gordon give her my love, and tell her that nearly all streets in Paris lead sooner or later to Valérie Seymour.’ You might write her a line, and you might write to me⁠—already I’m finding your silence suspicious. Are you in love? I’m just crazy to know, so why deny me that innocent pleasure? After all, we’re told to rejoice with those who rejoice⁠—may I send my congratulations? Vague but exciting rumours have reached me. And by the way, Valérie’s very forgiving, so don’t feel shy about telephoning to her. She’s one of those highly developed souls who bob up serenely after a snubbing, as do I, your devoted Brockett.” + 

Stephen glanced at Mary as she folded the letter: “Isn’t it time you went off to bed?” + 

“Don’t send me away.” + 

“I must, you’re so tired. Come on, there’s a good child, you look tired and sleepy.” + 

“I’m not a bit sleepy!” + 

“All the same it’s high time.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Are you coming?” + 

“Not yet, I must answer some letters.” + 

Mary got up, and just for a moment their eyes met, then Stephen looked away quickly: “Good night, Mary.” + 

“Stephen⁠ ⁠… won’t you kiss me good night? It’s our first night together here in your home. Stephen, do you know that you’ve never kissed me?” + 

The clock chimed ten; a rose on the desk fell apart, its overblown petals disturbed by that almost imperceptible vibration. Stephen’s heart beat thickly. + 

“Do you want me to kiss you?” + 

“More than anything else in the world,” said Mary. + 

Then Stephen suddenly came to her senses, and she managed to smile: “Very well, my dear.” She kissed the girl quietly on her cheek, “And now you really must go to bed, Mary.” + 

After Mary had gone she tried to write letters; a few lines to Anna, announcing her visit; a few lines to Puddle and to Mademoiselle Duphot⁠—the latter she felt that she had shamefully neglected. But in none of these letters did she mention Mary. Brockett’s effusion she left unanswered. Then she took her unfinished novel from its drawer, but it seemed very dreary and unimportant, so she laid it aside again with a sigh, and locking the drawer put the key in her pocket. + 

And now she could no longer keep it at bay, the great joy, the great pain in her heart that was Mary. She had only to call and Mary would come, bringing all her faith, her youth and her ardour. Yes, she had only to call, and yet⁠—would she ever be cruel enough to call Mary? Her mind recoiled at that word; why cruel? She and Mary loved and needed each other. She could give the girl luxury, make her secure so that she need never fight for her living; she should have every comfort that money could buy. Mary was not strong enough to fight for her living. And then she, Stephen, was no longer a child to be frightened and humbled by this situation. There was many another exactly like her in this very city, in every city; and they did not all live out crucified lives, denying their bodies, stultifying their brains, becoming the victims of their own frustrations. On the contrary, they lived natural lives⁠—lives that to them were perfectly natural. They had their passions like everyone else, and why not? They were surely entitled to their passions? They attracted too, that was the irony of it, she herself had attracted Mary Llewellyn⁠—the girl was quite simply and openly in love. “All my life I’ve been waiting for something.⁠ ⁠…” Mary had said that, she had said: “All my life I’ve been waiting for something.⁠ ⁠… I’ve been waiting for you.” + 

Men⁠—they were selfish, arrogant, possessive. What could they do for Mary Llewellyn? What could a man give that she could not? A child? But she would give Mary such a love as would be complete in itself without children. Mary would have no room in her heart, in her life, for a child, if she came to Stephen. All things they would be the one to the other, should they stand in that limitless relationship; father, mother, friend, and lover, all things⁠—the amazing completeness of it; and Mary, the child, the friend, the beloved. With the terrible bonds of her dual nature, she could bind Mary fast, and the pain would be sweetness, so that the girl would cry out for that sweetness, hugging her chains always closer to her. The world would condemn but they would rejoice; glorious outcasts, unashamed, triumphant! + 

She began to pace restlessly up and down the room, as had ever been her wont in moments of emotion. Her face grew ominous, heavy and brooding; the fine line of her mouth was a little marred; her eyes were less clear, less the servants of her spirit than the slaves of her anxious and passionate body; the red scar on her cheek stood out like a wound. Then quite suddenly she had opened the door, and was staring at the dimly lighted staircase. She took a step forward and then stopped; appalled, dumbfounded at herself, at this thing she was doing. And as she stood there as though turned to stone, she remembered another and spacious study, she remembered a lanky colt of a girl whose glance had kept straying towards the windows; she remembered a man who had held out his hand: “Stephen, come here.⁠ ⁠… What is honour, my daughter?” + 

Honour, good God! Was this her honour? Mary, whose nerves had been strained to breaking! A dastardly thing it would be to drag her through the maze of passion, with no word of warning. Was she to know nothing of what lay before her, of the price she would have to pay for such love? She was young and completely ignorant of life; she knew only that she loved, and the young were ardent. She would give all that Stephen might ask of her and more, for the young were not only ardent but generous. And through giving all she would be left defenceless, neither forewarned nor forearmed against a world that would turn like a merciless beast and rend her. It was horrible. No, Mary must not give until she had counted the cost of that gift, until she was restored in body and mind, and was able to form a considered judgment. + 

Then Stephen must tell her the cruel truth, she must say: “I am one of those whom God marked on the forehead. Like Cain, I am marked and blemished. If you come to me, Mary, the world will abhor you, will persecute you, will call you unclean. Our love may be faithful even unto death and beyond⁠—yet the world will call it unclean. We may harm no living creature by our love; we may grow more perfect in understanding and in charity because of our loving; but all this will not save you from the scourge of a world that will turn away its eyes from your noblest actions, finding only corruption and vileness in you. You will see men and women defiling each other, laying the burden of their sins upon their children. You will see unfaithfulness, lies and deceit among those whom the world views with approbation. You will find that many have grown hard of heart, have grown greedy, selfish, cruel and lustful; and then you will turn to me and will say: ‘You and I are more worthy of respect than these people. Why does the world persecute us, Stephen?’ And I shall answer: ‘Because in this world there is only toleration for the so-called normal.’ And when you come to me for protection, I shall say: ‘I cannot protect you, Mary, the world has deprived me of my right to protect; I am utterly helpless, I can only love you.’ ” + 

And now Stephen was trembling. In spite of her strength and her splendid physique, she must stand there and tremble. She felt deathly cold, her teeth chattered with cold, and when she moved her steps were unsteady. She must climb the wide stairs with infinite care, in case she should inadvertently stumble; must lift her feet slowly, and with infinite care, because if she stumbled she might wake Mary. + 

IV + 

Ten days later Stephen was saying to her mother: “I’ve been needing a change for a very long time. It’s rather lucky that a girl I met in the Unit is free and able to go with me. We’ve taken a villa at Orotava, it’s supposed to be furnished and they’re leaving the servants, but heaven only knows what the house will be like, it belongs to a Spaniard; however, there’ll be sunshine.” + 

“I believe Orotava’s delightful,” said Anna. + 

But Puddle, who was looking at Stephen, said nothing. + 

That night Stephen knocked at Puddle’s door: “May I come in?” + 

“Yes, come in do, my dear. Come and sit by the fire⁠—shall I make you some cocoa?” + 

“No, thanks.” + 

A long pause while Puddle slipped into her dressing-gown of soft, grey Viyella. Then she also drew a chair up to the fire, and after a little: “It’s good to see you⁠—your old teacher’s been missing you rather badly.” + 

“Not more than I’ve been missing her, Puddle.” Was that quite true? Stephen suddenly flushed, and both of them grew very silent. + 

Puddle knew quite well that Stephen was unhappy. They had not lived side by side all these years, for Puddle to fail now in intuition; she felt certain that something grave had happened, and her instinct warned her of what this might be, so that she secretly trembled a little. For no young and inexperienced girl sat beside her, but a woman of nearly thirty-two, who was far beyond the reach of her guidance. This woman would settle her problems for herself and in her own way⁠—had indeed always done so. Puddle must try to be tactful in her questions. + 

She said gently: “Tell me about your new friend. You met her in the Unit?” + 

“Yes⁠—we met in the Unit, as I told you this evening⁠—her name’s Mary Llewellyn.” + 

“How old is she, Stephen?” + 

“Not quite twenty-two.” + 

Puddle said: “Very young⁠—not yet twenty-two⁠ ⁠…” then she glanced at Stephen, and fell silent. + 

But now Stephen went on talking more quickly: “I’m glad you asked me about her, Puddle, because I intend to give her a home. She’s got no one except some distant cousins, and as far as I can see they don’t want her. I shall let her have a try at typing my work, as she’s asked to, it will make her feel independent; otherwise, of course, she’ll be perfectly free⁠—if it’s not a success she can always leave me⁠—but I rather hope it will be a success. She’s companionable, we like the same things, anyhow she’ll give me an interest in life.⁠ ⁠…” + 

Puddle thought: “She’s not going to tell me.” + 

Stephen took out her cigarette case from which she produced a clear little snapshot: “It’s not very good, it was done at the front.” + 

But Puddle was gazing at Mary Llewellyn. Then she looked up abruptly and saw Stephen’s eyes⁠—without a word she handed back the snapshot. + 

Stephen said: “Now I want to talk about you. Will you go to Paris at once, or stay here until we come home from Orotava? It’s just as you like, the house is quite ready, you’ve only got to send Pauline a postcard; they’re expecting you there at any moment.” And she waited for Puddle’s answer. + 

Then Puddle, that small but indomitable fighter, stood forth all alone to do battle with herself, to strike down a sudden hot jealousy, a sudden and almost fierce resentment. And she saw that self as a tired old woman, a woman grown dull and tired with long service; a woman who had outlived her reason for living, whose companionship was now useless to Stephen. A woman who suffered from rheumatism in the winter and from lassitude in the summer; a woman who when young had never known youth, except as a scourge to a sensitive conscience. And now she was old and what had life left her? Not even the privilege of guarding her friend⁠—for Puddle knew well that her presence in Paris would only embarrass while unable to hinder. Nothing could stay fate if the hour had struck; and yet, from the very bottom of her soul, she was fearing that hour for Stephen. And⁠—who shall presume to accuse or condemn?⁠—she actually found it in her to pray that Stephen might be granted some measure of fulfilment, some palliative for the wound of existence: “Not like me⁠—don’t let her grow old as I’ve done.” Then she suddenly remembered that Stephen was waiting. + 

She said quietly: “Listen, my dear, I’ve been thinking; I don’t feel that I ought to leave your mother, her heart’s not very strong⁠—nothing serious, of course⁠—still, she oughtn’t to live all alone at Morton; and quite apart from the question of health, living alone’s a melancholy business. There’s another thing too. I’ve grown tired and lazy, and I don’t want to pull up my roots if I can help it. When one’s getting on in years, one gets set in one’s ways, and my ways fit in very well with Morton. I didn’t want to come here, Stephen, as I told you, but I was all wrong, for your mother needs me⁠—she needs me more now than during the war, because during the war she had occupation. Oh, but good heavens! I’m a silly old woman⁠—did you know that I used to get homesick for England? I used to get homesick for penny buns. Imagine it, and I was living in Paris! Only⁠—” And now her voice broke a little: “Only, if ever you should feel that you need me, if ever you should feel that you want my advice or my help, you’d send for me, wouldn’t you, my dear? Because old as I am, I’d be able to run if I thought that you really needed me, Stephen.” + 

Stephen held out her hand and Puddle grasped it. “There are some things I can’t express,” Stephen said slowly; “I can’t express my gratitude to you for all you’ve done⁠—I can’t find any words. But⁠—I want you to know that I’m trying to play straight.” + 

“You’d always play straight in the end,” said Puddle. + 

And so, after nearly eighteen years of life together, these two staunch friends and companions had now virtually parted. + 

XXXVIII + 

I + 

The Villa Del Ciprés at Orotava was built on a headland above the Puerto. It had taken its name from its fine cypress trees, of which there were many in the spacious garden. At the Puerto there were laughter, shouting and singing as the oxen wagons with their crates of bananas came grating and stumbling down to the wharf. At the Puerto one might almost have said there was commerce, for beyond the pier waited the dirty fruit steamers; but the Villa del Ciprés stood proudly aloof like a Spanish grandee who had seen better days⁠—one felt that it literally hated commerce. + 

The villa was older than the streets of the Puerto, though much grass grew between their venerable cobbles. It was older than the oldest villas on the hill, the hill that was known as old Orotava, though their green latticed shutters were bleached by the suns of innumerable semitropical summers. It was so old indeed, that no peasant could have told you precisely when it had come into being; the records were lost, if they had ever existed⁠—for its history one had to apply to its owner. But then its owner was always in Spain, and his agent who kept the place in repair, was too lazy to bother himself over trifles. What could it matter when the first stone was laid, or who laid it? The villa was always well let⁠—he would yawn, roll a cigarette in his fingers, lick the paper with the thick, red tip of his tongue, and finally go to sleep in the sunshine to dream only of satisfactory commissions. + 

The Villa del Ciprés was a low stone house that had once been tinted a lemon yellow. Its shutters were greener than those on the hill, for every ten years or so they were painted. All its principal windows looked over the sea that lay at the foot of the little headland. There were large, dim rooms with rough mosaic floors and walls that were covered by ancient frescoes. Some of these frescoes were primitive but holy, others were primitive but distinctly less holy; however, they were all so badly defaced, that the tenants were spared what might otherwise have been rather a shock at the contrast. The furniture, although very good of its kind, was sombre, and moreover it was terribly scanty, for its owner was far too busy in Seville to attend to his villa in Orotava. But one glory the old house did certainly possess; its garden, a veritable Eden of a garden, obsessed by a kind of primitive urge towards all manner of procreation. It was hot with sunshine and the flowing of sap, so that even its shade held a warmth in its greenness, while the virile growth of its flowers and its trees gave off a strangely disturbing fragrance. These trees had long been a haven for birds, from the crested hoopoes to the wild canaries who kept up a chorus of song in the branches. + 

II + 

Stephen and Mary arrived at the Villa del Ciprés, not very long after Christmas. They had spent their Christmas Day aboard ship, and on landing had stayed for a week at Santa Cruz before taking the long, rough drive to Orotava. And as though the fates were being propitious, or unpropitious perhaps⁠—who shall say?⁠—the garden was looking its loveliest, almost melodramatic it looked in the sunset. Mary gazed round her wide-eyed with pleasure; but after a while her eyes must turn, as they always did now, to rest upon Stephen; while Stephen’s uncertain and melancholy eyes must look back with great love in their depths for Mary. + 

Together they made the tour of the villa, and when this was over Stephen laughed a little; “Not much of anything, is there, Mary?” + 

“No, but quite enough. Who wants tables and chairs?” + 

“Well, if you’re contented, I am,” Stephen told her. And indeed, so far as the Villa del Ciprés went, they were both very well contented. + 

They discovered that the indoor staff would consist of two peasants; a plump, smiling woman called Concha, who adhered to the ancient tradition of the island and tied her head up in a white linen kerchief, and a girl whose black hair was elaborately dressed, and whose cheeks were very obviously powdered⁠—Concha’s niece she was, by name Esmeralda. Esmeralda looked cross, but this may have been because she squinted so badly. + 

In the garden worked a handsome person called Ramon, together with Pedro, a youth of sixteen. Pedro was lighthearted, precocious and spotty. He hated his simple work in the garden; what he liked was driving his father’s mules for the tourists, according to Ramon. Ramon spoke English passably well; he had picked it up from the numerous tenants and was proud of this fact, so while bringing in the luggage he paused now and then to impart information. It was better to hire mules and donkeys from the father of Pedro⁠—he had very fine mules and donkeys. It was better to take Pedro and none other as your guide, for thus would be saved any little ill-feeling. It was better to let Concha do all the shopping⁠—she was honest and wise as the Blessed Virgin. It was better never to scold Esmeralda, who was sensitive on account of her squint and therefore inclined to be easily wounded. If you wounded the heart of Esmeralda, she walked out of the house and Concha walked with her. The island women were often like this; you upset them and per Dios, your dinner could burn! They would not even wait to attend to your dinner. + 

“You come home,” smiled Ramon, “and you say, ‘What burns? Is my villa on fire?’ Then you call and you call. No answer⁠ ⁠… all gone!” And he spread out his hands with a wide and distressingly empty gesture. + 

Ramon said that it was better to buy flowers from him: “I cut fresh from the garden when you want,” he coaxed gently. He spoke even his broken English with the soft, rather singsong drawl of the local peasants. + 

“But aren’t they our flowers?” inquired Mary, surprised. + 

Ramon shook his head: “Yours to see, yours to touch, but not yours to take, only mine to take⁠—I sell them as part of my little payment. But to you I sell very cheap, Señorita, because you resemble the santa noche that makes our gardens smell sweet at night. I will show you our beautiful santa noche.” He was thin as a lath and as brown as a chestnut, and his shirt was quite incredibly dirty; but when he walked he moved like a king on his rough bare feet with their broken toenails. “This evening I make you a present of my flowers; I bring you a very big bunch of tabachero,” he remarked. + 

“Oh, you mustn’t do that,” protested Mary, getting out her purse. + 

But Ramon looked offended: “I have said it. I give you the tabachero.” + 

III + 

Their dinner consisted of a local fish fried in oil⁠—the fish had a very strange figure, and the oil, Stephen thought, tasted slightly rancid; there was also a small though muscular chicken. But Concha had provided large baskets of fruit; loquats still warm from the tree that bred them, the full flavoured little indigenous bananas, oranges sweet as though dripping honey, custard apples and guavas had Concha provided, together with a bottle of the soft yellow wine so dearly beloved of the island Spaniards. + 

Outside in the garden there was luminous darkness. The night had a quality of glory about it, the blue glory peculiar to Africa and seen seldom or never in our more placid climate. A warm breeze stirred the eucalyptus trees and their crude, harsh smell was persistently mingled with the thick scents of heliotrope and datura, with the sweet but melancholy scent of jasmine, with the faint, unmistakable odour of cypress. + 

Stephen lit a cigarette: “Shall we go out, Mary?” + 

They stood for a minute looking up at the stars, so much larger and brighter than stars seen in England. From a pond on the farther side of the villa, came the queer, hoarse chirping of innumerable frogs singing their prehistoric love songs. A star fell, shooting swiftly earthward through the darkness. + 

Then the sweetness that was Mary seemed to stir and mingle with the very urgent sweetness of that garden; with the dim, blue glory of the African night, and with all the stars in their endless courses, so that Stephen could have wept aloud as she stood there, because of the words that must not be spoken. For now that this girl was returning to health, her youth was becoming even more apparent, and something in the quality of Mary’s youth, something terrible and ruthless as an unsheathed sword, would leap out at such moments and stand between them. + 

Mary slipped a small, cool hand into Stephen’s, and they walked on towards the edge of the headland. For a long time they gazed out over the sea, while their thoughts were always of one another. But Mary’s thoughts were not very coherent, and because she was filled with a vague discontent, she sighed and moved even nearer to Stephen, who suddenly put an arm round her shoulder. + 

Stephen said: “Are you tired, you little child?” And her husky voice was infinitely gentle, so that Mary’s eyes filled with sudden tears. + 

She answered: “I’ve waited a long, long time, all my life⁠—and now that I’ve found you at last, I can’t get near you. Why is it? Tell me.” + 

“Aren’t you near? It seems to me you’re quite near!” And Stephen must smile in spite of herself. + 

“Yes, but you feel such a long way away.” + 

“That’s because you’re not only tired out but foolish!” + 

Yet they lingered; for when they returned to the villa they would part, and they dreaded these moments of parting. Sometimes they would suddenly remember the night before it had fallen, and when this happened each would be conscious of a very great sadness which their hearts would divine, the one from the other. + 

But presently Stephen took Mary’s arm: “I believe that big star’s moved over more than six inches! It’s late⁠—we must have been out here for ages.” And she led the girl slowly back to the villa. + 

IV + 

The days slipped by, days of splendid sunshine that gave bodily health and strength to Mary. Her pale skin was tanned to a healthful brown, and her eyes no longer looked heavy with fatigue⁠—only now their expression was seldom happy. + 

She and Stephen would ride far afield on their mules; they would often ride right up into the mountains, climbing the hill to old Orotava where the women sat at their green postigos through the long, quiet hours of their indolent day and right on into the evening. The walls of the town would be covered with flowers, jasmine, plumbago and bougainvillea. But they would not linger in old Orotava; pressing on they would climb always up and up to the region of health and trailing arbutus, and beyond that again to the higher slopes that had once been the home of a mighty forest. Now, only a few Spanish chestnut trees remained to mark the decline of that forest. + 

Sometimes they took their luncheon along, and when they did this young Pedro went with them, for he it was who must drive the mule that carried Concha’s ample lunch-basket. Pedro adored these impromptu excursions, they made an excuse for neglecting the garden. He would saunter along chewing blades of grass, or the stem of some flower he had torn from a wall; or perhaps he would sing softly under his breath, for he knew many songs of his native island. But if the mule Celestino should stumble, or presume, in his turn, to tear flowers from a wall, then Pedro would suddenly cease his soft singing and shout guttural remarks to old Celestino: “Vaya, burro! Celestino, arre! Arre⁠—boo!” he would shout with a slap, so that Celestino must swallow his flowers in one angry gulp, before having a sly kick at Pedro. + 

The lunch would be eaten in the cool upland air, while the beasts stood near at hand, placidly grazing. Against a sky of incredible blueness the Peak would gleam as though powdered with crystal⁠—Teide, mighty mountain of snow with the heart of fire and the brow of crystal. Down the winding tracks would come goats with their herds, the tinkle of goat-bells breaking the stillness. And as all such things have seemed wonderful to lovers throughout the ages, even so now they seemed very wonderful to Mary and Stephen. + 

There were days when, leaving the uplands for the vale, they would ride past the big banana plantations and the glowing acres of ripe tomatoes. Geraniums and agaves would be growing side by side in the black volcanic dust of the roadway. From the stretching Valley of Orotava they would see the rugged line of the mountains. The mountains would look blue, like the African nights, all save Teide, clothed in her crystalline whiteness. + 

And now while they sat together in the garden at evening, there would sometimes come beggars, singing; ragged fellows who played deftly on their guitars and sang songs whose old melodies hailed from Spain, but whose words sprang straight from the heart of the island: + 

“A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace, + 

But now I am tormented because I have seen thee. + 

Take away mine eyes oh, enemy! Oh, belovèd! + 

Take away mine eyes, for they have turned me to fire. + 

My blood is as the fire in the heart of Teide. + 

A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace.” + 

The strange minor music with its restless rhythms, possessed a very potent enchantment, so that the heart beat faster to hear it, and the mind grew mazed with forbidden thoughts, and the soul grew heavy with the infinite sadness of fulfilled desire; but the body knew only the urge towards a complete fulfilment.⁠ ⁠… “A-a-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace.” + 

They would not understand the soft Spanish words, and yet as they sat there they could but divine their meaning, for love is no slave of mere language. Mary would want Stephen to take her in her arms, so must rest her cheek against Stephen’s shoulder, as though they two had a right to such music, had a right to their share in the love songs of the world. But Stephen would always move away quickly. + 

“Let’s go in,” she would mutter; and her voice would sound rough, for that bright sword of youth would have leapt out between them. + 

V + 

There came days when they purposely avoided each other, trying to find peace in separation. Stephen would go for long rides alone, leaving Mary to idle about the villa; and when she got back Mary would not speak, but would wander away by herself to the garden. For Stephen had grown almost harsh at times, possessed as she now was by something like terror, since it seemed to her that what she must say to this creature she loved would come as a deathblow, that all youth and all joy would be slain in Mary. + 

Tormented in body and mind and spirit, she would push the girl away from her roughly: “Leave me alone, I can’t bear any more!” + 

“Stephen⁠—I don’t understand. Do you hate me?” + 

“Hate you? Of course you don’t understand⁠—only, I tell you I simply can’t bear it.” + 

They would stare at each other pale-faced and shaken. + 

The long nights became even harder to endure, for now they would feel so terribly divided. Their days would be heavy with misunderstandings, their nights filled with doubts, apprehensions and longings. They would often have parted as enemies, and therein would lie the great loneliness of it. + 

As time went on they grew deeply despondent, their despondency robbing the sun of its brightness, robbing the little goat-bells of their music, robbing the dark of its luminous glory. The songs of the beggars who sang in the garden at the hour when the santa noche smelt sweetest, those songs would seem full of a cruel jibing: “A-a-a-y! Before I saw thee I was at peace, but now I am tormented because I have seen thee.” + 

Thus were all things becoming less good in their sight, less perfect because of their own frustration. + 

VI + 

But Mary Llewellyn was no coward and no weakling, and one night, at long last, pride came to her rescue. She said: “I want to speak to you, Stephen.” + 

“Not now, it’s so late⁠—tomorrow morning.” + 

“No, now.” And she followed Stephen into her bedroom. + 

For a moment they avoided each other’s eyes, then Mary began to talk rather fast: “I can’t stay. It’s all been a heartbreaking mistake. I thought you wanted me because you cared. I thought⁠—oh, I don’t know what I thought⁠—but I won’t accept your charity, Stephen, not now that you’ve grown to hate me like this⁠—I’m going back home to England. I forced myself on you, I asked you to take me. I must have been mad; you just took me out of pity; you thought that I was ill and you felt sorry for me. Well, now I’m not ill and not mad any more, and I’m going. Every time I come near you you shrink or push me away as though I repelled you. But I want us to part quickly because.⁠ ⁠…” Her voice broke: “because it torments me to be always with you and to feel that you’ve literally grown to hate me. I can’t stand it; I’d rather not see you, Stephen.” + 

Stephen stared at her, white and aghast. Then all in a moment the restraint of years was shattered as though by some mighty convulsion. She remembered nothing, was conscious of nothing except that the creature she loved was going. + 

“You child,” she gasped, “you don’t understand, you can’t understand⁠—God help me, I love you!” And now she had the girl in her arms and was kissing her eyes and her mouth: “Mary⁠ ⁠… Mary.⁠ ⁠…” + 

They stood there lost to all sense of time, to all sense of reason, to all things save each other, in the grip of what can be one of the most relentless of all the human emotions. + 

Then Stephen’s arms suddenly fell to her sides: “Stop, stop for God’s sake⁠—you’ve got to listen.” + 

Oh, but now she must pay to the uttermost farthing for the madness that had left those words unspoken⁠—even as her father had paid before her. With Mary’s kisses still hot on her lips, she must pay and pay unto the uttermost farthing. And because of an anguish that seemed past endurance, she spoke roughly; the words when they came were cruel. She spared neither the girl who must listen to them, nor herself who must force her to stand there and listen. + 

“Have you understood? Do you realize now what it’s going to mean if you give yourself to me?” Then she stopped abruptly⁠ ⁠… Mary was crying. + 

Stephen said, and her voice had grown quite toneless: “It’s too much to ask⁠—you’re right, it’s too much. I had to tell you⁠—forgive me, Mary.” + 

But Mary turned on her with very bright eyes: “You can say that⁠—you, who talk about loving! What do I care for all you’ve told me? What do I care for the world’s opinion? What do I care for anything but you, and you just as you are⁠—as you are, I love you! Do you think I’m crying because of what you’ve told me? I’m crying because of your dear, scarred face⁠ ⁠… the misery on it.⁠ ⁠… Can’t you understand that all that I am belongs to you, Stephen?” + 

Stephen bent down and kissed Mary’s hands very humbly, for now she could find no words any more⁠ ⁠… and that night they were not divided. + 

XXXIX + 

I + 

A strange, though to them a very natural thing it seemed, this new and ardent fulfilment; having something fine and urgent about it that lay almost beyond the range of their wills. Something primitive and age-old as Nature herself, did their love appear to Mary and Stephen. For now they were in the grip of Creation, of Creation’s terrific urge to create; the urge that will sometimes sweep forward blindly alike into fruitful and sterile channels. That well-nigh intolerable life force would grip them, making them a part of its own existence; so that they who might never create a new life, were yet one at such moments with the fountain of living.⁠ ⁠… Oh, great and incomprehensible unreason! + 

But beyond the bounds of this turbulent river would lie gentle and most placid harbours of refuge; harbours in which the body could repose with contentment, while the lips spoke slow, indolent words, and the eyes beheld a dim, golden haze that blinded the while it revealed all beauty. Then Stephen would stretch out her hand and touch Mary where she lay, happy only to feel her nearness. The hours would slip by towards dawn or sunset; flowers would open and close in the bountiful garden; and perhaps, if it should chance to be evening, beggars would come to that garden, singing; ragged fellows who played deftly on their guitars and sang songs whose old melodies hailed from Spain, but whose words sprang straight from the heart of the island: + 

“Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless; + 

Thy lips are as cool as the sea at moonrise. + 

But after the moon there cometh the sun; + 

After the evening there cometh the morning. + 

The sea is warmed by the kiss of the sun, + 

Even so shall my kisses bring warmth to thy lips. + 

Oh, thou whom I love, thou art small and guileless.” + 

And now Mary need no longer sigh with unrest, need no longer lay her cheek against Stephen’s shoulder; for her rightful place was in Stephen’s arms and there she would be, overwhelmed by the peace that comes at such times to all happy lovers. They would sit together in a little arbour that looked out over miles upon miles of ocean. The water would flush with the afterglow, then change to a soft, indefinite purple; then, fired anew by the African night, would gleam with that curious, deep blue glory for a space before the swift rising of the moon. “Thy lips are as cool as the sea at moonrise; but after the moon there cometh the sun.” + 

And Stephen as she held the girl in her arms, would feel that indeed she was all things to Mary; father, mother, friend and lover, all things; and Mary all things to her⁠—the child, the friend, the beloved, all things. But Mary, because she was perfect woman, would rest without thought, without exultation, without question; finding no need to question since for her there was now only one thing⁠—Stephen. + 

II + 

Time, that most ruthless enemy of lovers, strode callously forward into the spring. It was March, so that down at the noisy Puerto the bougainvilleas were in their full glory, while up in the old town of Orotava bloomed great laden bushes of white camellias. In the garden of the villa the orange trees flowered, and the little arbour that looked over the sea was covered by an ancient wisteria vine whose mighty trunk was as thick as three saplings. But in spite of a haunting shadow of regret at the thought of leaving Orotava, Stephen was deeply and thankfully happy. A happiness such as she had never conceived could be hers, now possessed her body and soul⁠—and Mary also was happy. + 

Stephen would ask her: “Do I content you? Tell me, is there anything you want in the world?” + 

Mary’s answer was always the same; she would say very gravely: “Only you, Stephen.” + 

Ramon had begun to speculate about them, these two Englishwomen who were so devoted. He would shrug his shoulders⁠—Dios! What did it matter? They were courteous to him and exceedingly generous. If the elder one had an ugly red scar down her cheek, the younger one seemed not to mind it. The younger one was beautiful though, as beautiful as the santa noche⁠ ⁠… some day she would get a real man to love her. + 

As for Concha and the cross-eyed Esmeralda, their tongues were muted by their ill-gotten gains. They grew rich thanks to Stephen’s complete indifference to the price of such trifles as sugar and candles. + 

Esmeralda’s afflicted eyes were quite sharp, yet she said to Concha: “I see less than nothing.” + 

And Concha answered: “I also see nothing; it is better to suppose that there is nothing to see. They are wealthy and the big one is very careless⁠—she trusts me completely and I do my utmost. She is so taken up with the amighita that I really believe I could easily rob her! Quien sabe? They are certainly queer those two⁠—however, I am blind, it is better so; and in any case they are only the English!” + 

But Pedro was very sorely afflicted, for Pedro had fallen in love with Mary, and now he must stay at home in the garden when she and Stephen rode up to the mountains. Now they wished to be all alone it seemed, and what food they took would be stuffed into a pocket. It was spring and Pedro was deeply enamoured, so that he sighed as he tended the roses, sighed and stubbed the hard earth with his toes, and made insolent faces at the good-tempered Ramon, and killed flies with a kind of grim desperation, and sang songs of longing under his breath: “A-a-a-y! Thou art to me as the mountain. Would I could melt thy virginal snows.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Would I could kick thy behind!” grinned Ramon. + 

One evening Mary asked Pedro to sing, speaking to him in her halting Spanish. So Pedro went off and got his guitar; but when he must stand there and sing before Mary he could only stammer a childish old song having in it nothing of passion and longing: + 

“I was born on a reef that is washed by the sea; + 

It is a part of Spain that is called Teneriffe. + 

I was born on a reef.⁠ ⁠…” + 

sang the unhappy Pedro. + 

Stephen felt sorry for the lanky boy with the lovesick eyes, and so to console him she offered him money, ten pesetas⁠—for she knew that these people set much store by money. But Pedro seemed to have grown very tall as he gently but firmly refused consolation. Then he suddenly burst into tears and fled, leaving his little guitar behind him. + 

III + 

The days were too short, as were now the nights⁠—those spring nights of soft heat and incredible moonlight. And because they both felt that something was passing, they would turn their minds to thoughts of the future. The future was drawing very near to the present; in less than three weeks they must start for Paris. + 

Mary would suddenly cling to Stephen: “Say that you’ll never leave me, beloved!” + 

“How could I leave you and go on living?” + 

Thus their talk of the future would often drift into talk of love, that is always timeless. On their lips, as in their hearts, would be words such as countless other lovers had spoken, for love is the sweetest monotony that was ever conceived of by the Creator. + 

“Promise you’ll never stop loving me, Stephen.” + 

“Never. You know that I couldn’t Mary.” + 

Even to themselves their vows would sound foolish, because so inadequate to compass their meaning. Language is surely too small a vessel to contain those emotions of mind and body that have somehow awakened a response in the spirit. + 

And now when they climbed the long hill to the town of old Orotava on their way to the mountains, they would pause to examine certain flowers minutely, or to stare down the narrow, shadowy bystreets. And when they had reached the cool upland places, and their mules were loosed and placidly grazing, they would sit hand in hand looking out at the Peak, trying to impress such pictures on their minds, because all things pass and they wished to remember. The goat-bells would break the lovely stillness, together with the greater stillness of their dreaming. But the sound of the bells would be lovely also, a part of their dreaming, a part of the stillness; for all things would seem to be welded together, to be one, even as they two were now one. + 

They no longer felt desolate, hungry outcasts; unloved and unwanted, despised of the world. They were lovers who walked in the vineyard of life, plucking the warm, sweet fruits of that vineyard. Love had lifted them up as on wings of fire, had made them courageous, invincible, enduring. Nothing could be lacking to those who loved⁠—the very earth gave of her fullest bounty. The earth seemed to come alive in response to the touch of their healthful and eager bodies⁠—nothing could be lacking to those who loved. + 

And thus in a cloud of illusion and glory, sped the last enchanted days at Orotava. + 