Chapter One.

At the Dying of the Year.

The New Year festivities were over; in the hall of the old country Manor the guests had danced and sung, had stood hand in hand in a widening circle, listening to the clanging of bells in the church-tower near by. Now, with much hooting and snorting of motors, the visitors from afar had departed to their homes, and the members of the house-party had settled themselves by the log fire for the enjoyment of a last chat.

There were eleven people left around the fire, counting the host and hostess, four men, and five girls, all young, as youth is counted in these days, the women averaging about twenty-four or five, the men a few years older, and in the mellow light of the fire, and of the massed candles in the old brass sconces on the walls, they looked a goodly company. They belonged, it was easy to see, to the cultured classes; whatever might be their means or present position, these people had been born of gentlefolks, had been educated according to the traditions of their kind, and were equipped with the weapons of courtesy and self-control, which had descended to them as a heritage from those passed and gone. Mentally, they might be guilty of anger and impatience; mentally, they might rage and storm—that was their own business, and concerned no one but themselves; in the presence of their fellow-creatures they could be trusted to present a smiling front.

There are occasions, however, when the most reserved natures are tempted to unclose, and of these the opening of the New Year is surely the most seductive. When the guests have departed, and the laughter is stilled, when for a last half-hour men and women sit quietly over the fire, there arises in the mind a consciousness of severance with the past, a sense of newness, which is not untouched with awe.

A new year has opened—what will it bring? What gifts, what losses, lie awaiting in its lap? When its last hour trembles away on the striking of a deep twelfth chime, what will happen to me? Where shall I be? In the language, the consciousness of earth—shall I be at all?

The tall dark girl, who had borne herself so proudly during the dance, shivered and bent forward to warm her hands at the fire.

“Whew! It’s eerie!” she cried. “How I hate new years, and birthdays, and anniversaries that make one think! What’s the use of them, anyway? One ambles along quite contentedly in the daily rut—it’s only when one’s eyes are opened to see that it is a rut...”

“And that there are a solid three hundred and sixty-five days of it ahead!” chimed in the man with the firm chin and the tired eyes. “Exactly! Then one pants to get out.”

“And bowl triumphantly along the road in a C-spring carriage, or the very latest divinity in motor-cars!” laughed the beauty who sat in the corner of the oak settle, agreeably conscious that the background was all that could be desired as a foil to her red-gold hair, and that the dim light shed a kindly illusion over a well-worn frock. “I object to ruts of every kind and persuasion. They disagree with me, and make me cross, and I’m so nice when I’m pleased! The parsons say that prosperity makes people hard and selfish, but it is just the other way about with me. When there’s not enough to go round—well, naturally, I keep it all for myself; but so long as I have everything I want, I like other people to be happy. I really do! I’d give them everything that was over.”

She looked around with a challenging smile, and the others obediently laughed and applauded. It was fashionable to have a new rôle, and it was Claudia’s rôle to be honest, and quite blatantly selfish. She was pretty enough to carry it off, and clever enough to realise that her plain speaking served as a blind. No one believed for a moment that she was speaking the truth, whereas, if she had not distracted attention by waving this red flag, they must certainly have discovered the truth for themselves. Claudia’s god was self; she would have seen her best friend cut up into mincemeat, to provide herself with a needed hors d’oeuvre.

The tall man with the large head and the sharp, hawklike features, sprang to his feet, and stood in the centre of the circle, aflush with excitement.

“Ruts!” he repeated loudly. “What’s the matter with us all is we’re content with ruts! The thing which depresses me most at the beginning of a year is to look back and realise the futility, the weakness, the lack of progress. Great heavens! how much longer are we to be content with ruts? Our youth is passing; in a short time it will have gone. What have we done with our years? If we had been worthy the name, we should have been done with ruts by now, they would have been paved over with a smooth white path—the path to fortune! We should have walked along it—our own road, a private road, forbidden to trespassers!”

A girl seated on an oak stool, in the shadow of the settle, raised her quiet eyes, and watched him while he spoke. She was a slim, frail thing, with hair parted in the centre and coiled flatly round her head. She had taken the lowest seat, and had drawn it into the shadow, but now she leaned forward, and the firelight searched her face. She was not beautiful, she was not even pretty, she was small and insignificant, she had made no effort to join in the conversation, and now, as John Malham finished speaking, she shrank back into her corner, and became once more a frail, shadowy shape; nevertheless, a beholder who had been vouchsafed that one glimpse would have found himself turning once and again to that shaded corner. He would have wanted to see that girl again; he would have been conscious of a strange attraction towards her; he would have asked himself curiously was it liking, or—hate?

The girl said nothing, but a man by her side punctuated the pause by a laugh. He was a handsome fellow, with a bright, quizzical face and a pair of audacious blue eyes.

“Oh, be hanged to fortune!” he cried loudly. “Be hanged to flagged paths! They’re the deepest ruts of all, if you could but see it. What’s wrong with us all is lethargy, slackness, the inability to move of our own accord. What we get matters nothing, it’s the getting that counts! Why, when I think of the whole wide world lying open, waiting, beckoning, and of fellows like myself pacing every day of our lives in a square mile cage in the City, I—I—” (he snapped his fingers in a frenzy of impatience) “I wonder how long I can carry my chains! They’ll snap some day, and I’ll be off, and it will be a long good-bye to the civilised world.”

The girl in the blue dress looked at him with wistful eyes, but she laughed more gaily than ever, and cried:

“Wait, please, till after the dance on the tenth, and when you do go, send home things to us, won’t you? Shawls and cashmeres, and embroideries. And pearls! I’ve always longed to know a real live pearl-fisher. He ought to remember us, oughtn’t he, everybody—because we’ve been so kind and patient with his vagaries? We all deserve something, but bags Me the pearls!”

“Oh, you shall have your pearls right enough,” said the handsome man, but there was a careless tone in his voice which made the promise seem worthless as sand, and he never glanced in the direction of the girl in the blue dress.

Pretty, wistful little Norah Boyce looked up quickly as if she were about to speak; thought better of it, and turned back to stare into the fire.

The girl seated on the oak stool leaned forward once again, and looked straight into the face of the handsome man. One white hand rested against her throat, a slim column of a throat, bare of ornament. Her fingers moved as though in