UNREST By WARWICK DEEPING

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VII, Issue 2127, 8 December 1920, Page 4

UNREST By WARWICK DEEPING

CHAPTER, XXIV. For a week Martin Frensham relapsed Into bondage. The creative. spirit in him was silenced, the nobler discontents smothered. It was a mad week, a week of fierce •nd restless sensationalism. Judith Euddiger seemed possessed by the spirit of a Bacchante. She was grotesquely and imaginatively incorrigible, and indulged in wild and picturesque fooling that was gently screened f>y the groves and thickets of the Villa des Fleurs. She. played Diana; one moonlight night, adventuring out in a diaphanous garment, with Frensham as a wine-warmed Adonis. She made him jump with her into "The marble pool, and splash water about in the moonlight. On another evening sfie gathered some very fresh and risky acquaintances from Nice, dressed the men as. fauns, and the women as nymphs, and turned i the gardens into Arcadia. But Frensham ended the week with a most gorgeous cold that kept him in bed three days, and restored him to a wondering and self-disgusted sanity. It was one of those still, windless, annny mornings that give the south its yital charm, when Frensham wandered out into the garden and along one of the solemn cypress, walks towards the bee-hive, where he had sat and struggled with an elusive inspiration. He had known scores of such still, peaceful, radiant days, when the earth looks clean and beautiful, and the joy of life is pure and serene. Yet Frensham remembered one such morning that brought a thickness into his throat and a sense of moist heat to his eyes. It had been just such a morning as this when he had thrown open the shutters of their little Italian villa and given Nella her first glimpse of olives and cypresses, and blue of the sea, and the amethyst of the mountains. He remembered her running to him in her •white nightdress, and leaning out of the window beside him. He had never forgotten that look on her face, a delighted, shining wonder, a kind of tender and surprised awe that had touched him very deeply. He could remember putting his arm round her and drawing her to him, warm, and supple, and thrilling with life. Jhey had kissed for sheer joy. All his finer manhood had spoken in that kiss. Frensham wandered into the thatched shelter, sat down, rested his elbows on the table, and covered his face with his hands. That memory picture had shocked him, blinded him with a flash of supramundane light. His .vision seemed to turn inward upon himself; he beheld shameful and incredible madnesses that had eaten into his soul. What had he been doing! What happiness had he discovered in this life of his with Judith Buddiger? It had been a fever, a delirium. He looked backwards past it to those other days, days full of effort and of achievement, days of clean tenderness and affection, and of a fine assurance of manliness and pride. What madness had made him smash that past into ruins, and rush out like a -wild boy driven by his selfintoxicated vitality? For an hour Martin Frensham sat there alone like a man coming to his senses after a drunken sleep. His sanity, his real, habitual self returned to him, and with it a slow anguish that spread itself into every fibre of his being. He had never believed himself capable of such suffering; he ha"d never realised before what it meant to be alone. Judith Buddiger, drinking her coffee and reading a French paper on the terrace, saw Frensham coming up the steps, walking slowly, like a man who was tired. The expression on his face startled her. He looked haggard; his eyes seemed to have sunk into his head; his mouth had a grim sadness. "Have you taken your quinine, partner?" He glanced at her with a strange and intense curiosity, as though it had suddenly occurred to him to wonder what manner of woman this was who sat there smiling at him with, satirical shrewdness. He felt himself looking at her as at a stranger, and he was repelled by her just as he had been repelled the first time he had ever seen her. She had drawn her table and chair into the sunlight, and the white walls of the villa behind her threw down a glare of white light. Her face looked sallow and hard, with that smooth, plump, hardness that characterises a certain type of woman; the female egoist who has lived arrogantly, and escaped all suffering. "Well, what about that quinine?" "I forget. I think I took it."

Author of "Marriage by Conquest," "The King Behind the King," "The House of Spies," "The Bust of Borne," "Mad Barbara," etc.

"You look liverish." * He stared at her as though he had not heard. He was thinking, and his eyes held her in the critical core and centre of his thoughts. She refilled her coffee cup, and Frensham 'noticed how steady and firm her hand looked. "Buck c \rrj, Martin. What is it, an attack of aphasia?" "No." She gave him a shrewd and slightly vicious side-glance. "The old sentimental phase back; again? What a soft fool you are. I Really think I shall have to take you in hand and cure you." Frensham drew a chair forward and sat down, tilting his hat over his eyes to keep off the sun. For nearly -half a minute he did not speak, nor did he look at Judith Euddiger. "I .used to think I knew something about life. I was a passable theorist." She had picked up her paper, and she answered him casually, with her eyes still fixed on the page. - "Give up,theorising; it's dangerous." *>Facts! I The bloom on a butterfly's wing is a fact. Some things are very real, though you can't put them in a glass and measure .them.'' "Hear, hear, Mr Chesterton." He glanced at her impatiently. "Supposing I want to go back?" Her eyes met his over the top of the paper. "Do you? All I can say is that it would be very foolish. The case of Humpty-Dumpty, you know. Haven't you realised that?" She noticed that he winced. "I have been wondering." "Wonder as much as you like, partner, but don't dream. This is a reaction, I suppose. You are like a man with a loose tooth; you haven't quite the courage to pull it out. Shall I do ft for you?" "Just as you please." "Have you written that letter?" "No." She threw the paper on the table. '' Oh, infirm of purpose! Now I guess I 'll do some talking. Perhaps I 'll begin by asking you a question. Do you think, partner, you can turn to-day into yesterday, or pick up spilt quicksilver with a needle?" He kept a guarded silence. "Oh, come along now, let's have the papers on the table. Do you really think any woman will forgive a man when he has done what you have done? Such things cannot be forgiven; I speak as a woman. The sooner you realise that you have cut yourself adrift, utterly and irretrievably, the better it will be for all concerned." She knew by the look in his eyes that she was crushing the secret hope that had been reborn in him. He did not wish to betray himself, but Judith Buddiger was not deceived. "So that is your view?" "And isn't it the sane and honest view? - How can you expect a woman with an atom of pride to forgive you, and let you come back again? Do you think that she cares for you—now? Oh, your sentimentalism may paint all sorts of touching pictures! Such experiences kill love. What can you expect? You

have humiliated a woman, insulted her in the most flagrant fashion, left her at the mercy of the tongues of her sister women. If she is human, she hates you. Yes, I am giving you bitter medicine; I am not adding syrup to the truth; it is kinder to be brutal." His face seemed to grow more haggard, but there was a dull and resentful fire in his eyes. "No doubt you enjoy this." "Why should I enjoy it?" " It is a kind of triumph for you.'' "My friend, be careful. I am giving you good advice; there is nls final pledge between us; we please each other on our merits. Try and smother a too sentimental conscience; write that letter and learn to respect your own sincerity. '' "I can't write it." "Why not?" "You can draw your own conclusions. '' She gave him one ■ stabbing look, picked up her paper, and resumed her reading. "Very well. Delude yourself with fancies, but I shall begin to think you are a coward." "You must think what you please." "I shall." He rose and left her there, carrying away with him an impression of callousness and hard, white indifference, yet Judith Euddiger had been far more moved than he had imagined. The combative spiri( in her had been challenged. Frensham had angered her very bitterly; she had thought him subdued, shackled, content to surrender the past with no more regrets and struggles. But that other woman in the grey island so far away still influenced him, still drew him. Nella, the wife, had not been cast out of Frensham's heart. It was even possible that she might reclaim all that had been hers. Judith Euddiger took the matter into her own hands. If Frensham had not ; the courage or the desire to write to Nella she would write the letter for him. And that letter was written and posted that same day. Judith said no-" thing to Frensham about it. The touch was feline, shrewdly intuitive; she believed that Frensham would thank her when she chose to let him discover the truth. Some days passed. Frensham kept more and more to himself, and Judith did not quarrel with his aloofness. His reserve did not trouble her. She imagined that he was passing through a period of depression; that his turbid ' conscience would clear itself; that he was better left alone. This was not her first emotional experience. Men grew tired of the Bvronic attitude; they emerge from it in due course like boys breaking bounds, mad for some healthy piece of mischief. The man in Frensham would reassert himself. Some day she would look at him roguishly, and he would steal apples as Adam stole for Eve. Yet the real Martin Frensham eluded her. He let her go down to Nice and amuse herself, while he remained in the garden, pretending to work or to read. For Frensham was suffering, and su€-

fering so acutely that he loathed the very idea of meeting people, of having to talk to them, and of having to meet • their eyes. The great revulsion had " overtaken him. Judith Euddiger's words had moved him towards the past j instead of making him turn from it. i He had become vividly conscious of j Nella. Her presence seemed to per- j vade the place, so that the garden of i the Villa des Fleurs became more mys- , terious, and filled with (a. tragic melancholy. He could not escape from the j sense of her presence, nor did he desire c to escape from it, for all his memories f were conspiring to strengthen the illu- $ sion. He began to fancy that he would \ meet her somewhere in the shade of the c cypresses. Her voice haunted him. In j the midst of his loneliness he'was pos- i ses'sed by a great yearning for her, and for the love that he iiad thrown f away. j Hence an acute misery, a hopeless- ■? ness that grew more and more tor- v menting. The more deeply he became I conscious of his shame and his folly, I the more deeply was he convinced that ; he had destroyed her 15ve for him, that, it would be impossible for .her to forgive. Judith Euddiger's frank warnings were not to be ignored. It was then, when he realised that he had lost her irretrievably, that Martin Frensham understood, the nature of the thing that he had lost. The madness had left him; his eyes saw clearly, his brain was able to think.. He was amazed, confounded. He saw Nella, the real Nella, rising • between him and the vapoury, flambuoy--1 ant image of an intoxicated desire. He looked at the two women, and judged between them, and knew how Nature had fooled him. He began to hate Judith Euddiger, hate her savagely, in thinking of his wife. And then came the consummation of - his scheme. His own deeds stood up and 1 accused him, and he faced them like a j man who had done some violent deed during a fit of madness. ■ Even trivial memories tortured him. 8 He remembered throwing those flowers 1 into the grate and leaving that cheque [ as a last message. How had he con- [ trived to do such things, to wound her [ so brutally? His own caddishness f amazed him, and filled him with a fury r of remorse. - s [To be Continued on Saturday.]' * When colds and influenza are preva- [ lent let'' NAZOL'' protect your family. [ One dose a day keeps colds away. Good j for all ages. Sixty dosos 1/6. .4 1