"There!' said Jemima, quite blithely. 'What do you make of that?' She looked at Charles. To her cool amazement, nothing much was on his face. It expressed a faint disgust, a little shy and masculine discomfort. She had never really known Charles, but he now became a bigger stranger than ever.

'Is it true?' she asked.

'Yes it's true. What did you expect? When a man's wife runs off and leaves him

'Setting him an example which he feels bound to follow! Shall I go on reading her letter?'

'No. I decline to listen. It is mean of her; it is despicable- and like a woman. The whole thing is past. I've never seen her since I came back to you. I've never written her so much as a post card. There was a deuce of a scene, and then Why does she want to go digging up the

'You'll know why later on.'

'I won't listen. If you want the plain truth, you can have it from me.' 'Yes, I'll have it, please.'

She leaned back in her chair; she rolled the letter into a thin scroll and played her fingers round it.

She looked at her husband's pale and sulky face. She searched her own heart for rage, jealousy, or despair. There was nothing. This scene between them was effete. It was unlike what an interview between a married couple upon such a topic should be. Her resentment and disgust with her growing years, with her chilling blood, found

'Would you?' He was caustic. "They half-killed me and the making up was worse. We do have peace and quietness nowadays.'

came easy, almost businesslike, yet through him burned a certain shamed ferocity.

'It was soon after Tom's death, and soon after you took yourself off with Bertram'

'No, not with Bertram. Never!'

'It was the same thing. Don't interrupt. Beatrice wrote and asked me to run down for the week-end. I went. What do you expect of a man? We were both hard hit, and she-well, you remember how sympathetic she always was? I'd been having a deuce of a time-sleepless nights, and so on. She'd been ordered away to drink the waters. So - to cut it short

we

'You've got to know. It was Droitwich. Partly for health, you understand, and partly for well, now you've got it!'

'Yes, I've got it,' faltered Jemima, and they looked at each other with a certain blank savagery.

'But how dared you blame me?' she asked him at last. "Think what your attitude has been! The magnanimous husband! The man of rectitude!'

'Why not? I blame you for everything that happened. Any man of the world would. When a fellow's wife runs off and

'Well, never mind. You two went to Droitwich. Did you go again? I - did you keep on taking the

mean waters

'Yes, more or less from time to time.'

He amazed her. He had dropped so easily into it all; without any fuss, without any fineness. He had missed a great deal and been spared much. Jemima thought of her own mortal combat. How worn she had been and yet how victorious-when, finally, she sent for Charles! He had not

weary and disdainful. There was no splendor behind him.

He got up. He went to her, bending down, setting his hands on her shoulders.

'Jemima, I've loved you clean through; just you. I've been true. Things like that - going off to Droitwich just a hungry episode - it does n't count.'

'It counted for Beatrice. Take your hands off my shoulders.'

He left her at once, and stood by the empty fireplace.

'Yes, she cared,' he admitted coolly. 'Poor girl! She had always cared.'

His wife looked at him -maternally, indulgently.

It was true that he had remained faithful in all things that matter. He had bluntly broken his marriage vow, which she had never done. Yet he remained true, while she must always be false. Charles watched her face. He advanced.

'Don't sit there thinking of him, Jemima.'

'No, I won't. Go back to your chair, dear.'

'In a minute. Do you remember the day I came here to you?'

She nodded.

'We had our first interview up there' - he pointed to the ceiling.

'No, we did n't. I was watching for you at this window. I opened the front door myself. I only had one servantpurposely and purposely-I had sent her to church. It was Sunday. You took me straight into your arms, just inside the front door, which we had left wide open. I thought, "Thank goodness! Charles can be impulsive at last!"'

'I lost my head, just for the moment.' He turned sulky. 'I had not seen you for three years. I mean afterwards when we went upstairs and got to business.'

'Business!'

VOL. 14-NO 700

"That was it. And I meant it.'

'I believe you did. Now let me sit down. There is a bit more of the letter to read.'

He left her. He flung himself savagely into his chair.

"The letter! What the devil

'I'm very sorry.' Her hand, calmly outstretched, arrested him. 'I must read it.'

'But why? I don't want to listen. I won't. Tear it up. I forbid you to answer it. Can't you see that

He broke off in bashful disgust. 'Can't you see that as I said just now it was a hungry episode?'

'My dear' she looked into his cold and weary face there is a bit more that you've simply got to listen to.'

She unrolled the letter and read:

'So now I lie dying. It may come at any moment; it must come within three weeks. The doctors say so. Let me see him, Jemima. Send him to me. If he could be with me at the last, then I would not feel so horribly afraid

'Stop!' said Charles huskily.

But Jemima read on. She flowed. 'I write to you because I know that you will send him. You, of all women in the world, will understand.'

'Yes, I understand. I, "of all women," quoted Jemima gravely and folding the letter up. "That is her tribute to me. I, "of all women."

She looked at Charles and he now appeared conventionally shocked just that! He had recovered himself. 'Poor soul!' he said coolly.

He never stirred. He seemed built into that luxurious chair. He did not mean to go.

Jemima bounded up; she rang the bell. She could hardly understand the fiery indignation of her aroused heart. He did not mean to go! And Beatrice, who had loved him, lay dying.

When the parlormaid came in, she gave meticulous instructions that his bag was to be packed for an immediate journey, for possibly a lengthy visit. And they were to send for a cab. It must be at the house in ten minutes.

When they were alone again she said, 'You'll just catch the seven-five. There's a change at Horsham and a long wait. You can dine there.'

'But I'm not going to-night. I must think it over. I may not go at all. Don't you see? If I went to-night I should arrive late. The house is miles from anywhere. There is no place where I could put up. You are so unpractical. Now, to-morrow morning!' "To-morrow morning she may be

dead.'

'So she may to-night, so far as that goes,' he retorted, with perfect truth. 'But arriving late! Don't you see?

The imprudence of it- the unfairness to Beatrice even looking at it in that light. Think of her. Don't you ever think of anything, Jemima, but your own headlong impulses? The house is sure to be crammed with relatives, and

'Relatives! Can't you see that you've got first claim? She wants you, poor thing and you don't want to go. That's at the back of it. Have n't you got a bit of feeling for her, Charles?'

'I'm dazed, that's all.' He looked vague. 'And I love you,' he added in a funny voice. 'Surely you don't want me to go?'

'She wants you to go feel about it.'

that's all I

"Then you are n't jealous?'
'Jealous!'

As she echoed him, the ineptitude of that once ferocious quality-jealousy -struck her as almost amusing.

She had outlived jealousy. Or she had outlived love. Which was it?

'Of course I am not jealous. I want you out of this house and on your way to her before it is too late.'

Charles was impressed anew by the sheer magnificence of women. They could always skim over the primitive enmity of the thing if the position were big enough. For his part, he would be skinned alive before he would allow Jemima to go to Bertram if he were dying. Yet he was convinced that she would go.

The fact that Jemima could appear noble because she had become indifferent had not yet suggested itself to his still abundant complacence.

He thought also of Beatrice. She had very often marred the moment; she had prevented him from really loving her had he ever been in danger of it by the bitter things she used to say of his wife; things that scraped him raw, for it was his wife he loved. Then she would suddenly drop

to extreme tenderness and murmur some effulgent 'Poor little Jemmy!' She became more tender to Jemima than he was himself.

Women were a plague and a problem! 'I can't go,' he said blusteringly. 'I won't go. To-morrow morning, perhaps. Why can't I wire first? That's it.' Jemima went and knelt beside him. She kissed him, and this she had not done for ever so long. Very early in their reunion they had come to the sensible conclusion that mere marital night and morning peckings were not only ridiculous but an assault upon the memory of kisses that had been.

Now she kissed him. Her lips were cool and fresh and lingering.

'You'll go,' she said in her tenderest voice.

It carried him back a whole decade and his head felt bursting.

'Why can't you always be like this?' he asked.

He gave her a look which reached her soul. She stood up quickly. She looked through the window.

'It does n't matter about me,' she said stiffly. 'It is Beatrice who matters. And here is the cab.'

'You've ordered a cab!'

'Yes. Did n't you hear me arrange everything with Vardon? She is putting in your bag now. Your hat and gloves! Here they are.'

She picked them up from the sidetable, where he had flung them down when he came in from the club.

The English Review

'And your stick is in the hall. Or shall it be an umbrella? No - an umbrella's absurd.'

She spoke rapidly, with ghastly airiness.

Charles, like a man who dreams, jammed his hat on and went to the door.

Jemima flung her arms round his neck. Again she kissed him, with a curious, superb passion.

'Let me know how she is. Stop as long as as long as stand?'

-you under'It's absurd,' grumbled Charles. 'I hate to be hustled like this.'

Jemima watched the cab drive off. Then she went upstairs and sat in the big-bowed window. She felt stunned, yet sunny. She was filled with the most extraordinary, the most heavenly calm. She appeared to have divested herself of several things that had hindered her progress towards God.

Charles caught his train. He sat in it, thinking of women and his heart felt

sore.

'She does n't love me,' he said. 'She'd have flown into a temper if she had loved me. She did n't seem to care a hang.'

As for Droitwich, as for the dying woman toward whom - against his wish he hurried, he hardly reflected upon all of that. It was Jemima for him, now and always.

ONE of the most interesting booksellers' catalogues that has come my way for many moons lies now before me- relating to a collection of 125 Stevenson letters for which the modest or immodest (I am insufficiently versed in autograph values to say which) sum of £2,200 is asked. Speaking as a layman, but with recollections of the prices at the Red Cross sales of MSS., I should say that this is not dear. I refer at the moment purely to finance. When it comes to spiritual worth, to the revelation of the soul of the writer of these letters, appraisement falters, for the value of the collection to the student of R.L.S. and to his future biographers is beyond estimation. This may be gauged by the analysis which the bookseller has made, informing us that of the 125 letters, 119 of which were written to Sir Sidney Colvin and six to Lady Colvin (then Mrs. Sitwell), 64 (comprising 18,150 words) are wholly unpublished, and 61 have been only partly published, 9,200 words out of their total of 31,050 words being new.

Now, over 25,000 words (representing a space equal to between 16 and 17 pages of the Outlook) of fresh and personal intimacy, hot from the untrammeled pen of the most fascinatingly autobiographical of modern authors, are a possession indeed!

That there were very good reasons for withholding publication in full, no one acquainted with Sir Sidney Colvin's editorial tact and sagacity will doubt. The time was not yet, and is not yet. Nor, if it were permissible

for any purchaser of the collection to rush into print with his discoveries, would Sir Sidney and Lady Colvin ever have allowed the collection to leave their hands. When, from patriotic motives, they decided to sell these letters in order that the proceeds might form some tangible reply to the War Loan appeal, they were influenced by the knowledge that the copyright law was their guaranty against indiscretion. According to recent decisions regarding this, one of the most complex branches of our legislation, the property acquired by a purchaser is merely the substance, the paper and the ink; the spirit- the words belongs to the heirs or assignees of the original writer. This is a point on which I happen to be only too well informed, owing to the intricacies of the case of another letter writer and autobiographer of genius, Charles Lamb. Although Lamb died as long ago as 1834, no new letter in his hand coming to light to-day could be given to the world by its finder without the risk of prosecution by the publishing firm which within the past few years acquired the copyright from a descendant of Edward Moxon. I know at the moment of a packet of new letters that passed between Lamb and Fanny Kelly, the actress, to whom in 1819 he proposed, but even if I were able to secure possession of them, I could not print them, except by arrangement with the firm in question.

In course of years these new Stevenson letters will, of course, be printed in their entirety; and judging by the