Sekhet. Irene Miller
the previous day he had indulged himself in a holiday on the strength of an invitation from the noble lord who had rented the shooting on a big estate some twenty miles distant. Evidently it had been a proud and happy occasion for the little doctor, and it was with ill-concealed gratification that he rattled off the list of those who had likewise been at this illustrious shooting-party. In it was one name very familiar to Evarne—Morris Kenyon. She had never seen her father's early friend, but Leo often dwelt lovingly upon his college life, and Morris Kenyon had been, apparently, the central figure of those never-to-be-forgotten days.
Dr. Crossways took his departure from "The Retreat" in a state of high dudgeon. Accustomed as he was to being called in to cope with every trivial ailment of the local gentry, his professional pride was outraged by Mr. Stornway's presuming to approach so very near to Death's portals without his steps having been carefully guided down the path thereto by the controlling hand of a disciple of Æsculapius. It was absolutely insulting—it really bordered on Christian Science!
After parting from the irate doctor, Evarne returned to her father's room. He raised his weary eyelids as she entered, and looked at her with a troubled, almost remorseful, expression. He had realised vaguely for some time past that he was soon to seek the society of his dearly beloved heroes of antiquity; but not until this solemn medical visitation had he seriously considered the practical earthly results of his soul winging its flight to the fields of Asphodel.
When once he should be fairly off upon this interesting journey, his young daughter would be left quite alone in this world of sin and woe. What was to become of her? He was singularly devoid of relations. A few distant cousins and a poverty-stricken and decrepit uncle comprised his entire stock in that line of goods, while he knew nothing of his wife's common family beyond the fact that she had a number of half-brothers and sisters somewhere in Australia. He had but little money to leave his daughter, and the girl had no training in any means of earning a livelihood. He sighed despondently, as too late he recognised this neglected duty.
Evarne sat down by his side, and tenderly stroked his hand. Ere long out came her little bit of interesting news—Mr. Morris Kenyon was within twenty miles of Heatherington.
At the mention of this familiar name a sudden light flashed into poor Leo's worried eyes. Surely for "auld lang syne" this once dear friend would look after his young daughter until she was able to support herself? Morris was married to a charming wife—unfortunately now a confirmed invalid. Leo had met the young lady at the time of her wedding, and been favourably impressed. Surely she would feel for the desolate situation of the young orphan. Filled with this idea, he bade Evarne write, telling of her father's condition, and begging that Morris would spare time to come over to visit him.
The letter was duly posted that night; the answer arrived by return, the day after, Morris himself appeared upon the scene. Leo wished to see his friend alone, so on his arrival he was ushered by Mrs. Jarman direct to the sick-room.
With engaging readiness Morris undertook to watch over the welfare of the dying man's daughter when the time came, and lightly brushed aside the broken thanks. But Leo's gratitude was insistent and touching to witness. He dwelt much upon the otherwise lonely situation of the girl.
"It is such a weight off my mind," he murmured again and again. "I never before realised how I have neglected my duty to the child." And he sighed a deep breath of relief.
"Now, you must see her," he went on, as with a trembling hand he rang a bell that stood by his side. In almost immediate answer to the summons Evarne appeared in the doorway.
Leo had made no mention of his daughter's striking personal beauty. Dutiful, unselfish, intelligent—these, and other eminently desirable mental and moral attributes had he ascribed to her as recommendations in Morris's eyes; but upon the subject of that physical quality that counts for so much more than all the virtues under the sun, the unworldly Leo had been silent. Kenyon had somehow expected to see a stolid, robust, and, to him, altogether uninteresting country damsel, and he with difficulty hid his surprise on beholding the fair vision that answered the summons.
Evarne's manner was touched with timidity, but she was not at all shy. She now stood silent and motionless for a moment, surveying her father's friend with a grave and interested gaze. Then, without waiting for any introduction, she advanced towards him with outstretched hand and a little smile of welcome upon her lips. Kenyon rose, and as he clasped her hand and looked with the eye of a connoisseur more closely into those charming features, he was half-ashamed at the consciousness of a distinct sense of satisfaction in the prospect of playing guardian angel to such a singularly lovely creature.
He left "The Retreat" that evening feeling thoroughly recompensed for the loss of his half-day's shooting, and that just occasionally the fulfilling of the duties demanded by friendship might bring their own reward.
Leo Stornway lingered for more weeks than either he or the doctor had anticipated, but one morning, just at the beginning of the New Year, he was found lying calm, pallid, pulseless. His race was run. Silently and in loneliness the end had come to a silent lonely life.
His desire had been to dispose of his earthly frame in as classical a manner as possible. The notion he would have really revelled in would have been a funeral pyre on the common, with the villagers solemnly running races and engaging in wrestling bouts in honour of his Manes, in true Greek style. This being obviously out of the question, he had set his heart upon the nearest thing possible—ordinary cremation. This urgent desire was found solemnly written on the back of a used envelope.
Hereupon arose trouble for Evarne. The local undertaker, who respectfully yet promptly put in an appearance, was aghast at her intention of arranging for the burning of her father's body. He had no sympathy whatsoever with innovations in his staid and respectable business.
"It's the last thing you will ever be able to do for your dear, dead parent, Miss Evarne," said the dour-looking man. "Give him a solid coffin—it needn't even be oak, we have good lines in elm and ash—but do give him a decent coffin, and have him put under the earth like he ought to be!"
Mrs. Jarman was of opinion that such a departure from conventionality would be absolutely indecent. She also waxed eloquent in another direction.
"I allus thought you loved your poor dead Pa. I could 'ave sworn you wouldn't 'ave 'urt a 'air of his 'ead!" she repeated again and again, as if Evarne's resolve now disposed of that supposition once and for all.
Dr. Crossways was so sure that had he only been consulted in reasonable time neither cremation nor burial would now be under discussion at all, that he declined to offer the least suggestion of any sort. As to the vicar and the curate, they called together on a visit of combined sympathy and expostulation. Both seemed convinced that a case of cremation must prove a serious inconvenience to the Almighty on the Judgment Day—even if it did not place Him in an absolute dilemma.
Into this general confusion and misery, Morris Kenyon—summoned by Mrs. Jarman—descended with all the eclat of the God in the Machine. He arrived at the very moment when the two rival dressmakers of Heatherington, having appeared simultaneously armed with yard measures and black patterns, were quarrelling in stage whispers in the porch.
This weighty matter settled, he proceeded to take all the arrangements into his capable hands. Finally, he sat down to a quiet conversation with the grateful Evarne, the more beautiful for the pallor and distress, concerning her future.
He learnt that her great ambition was to become an artist. She possessed decided talent, combined with an ardent appreciation of the beautiful, but she was absolutely without training, and had evidently no idea of the long years of steady labour—to say nothing of the "filthy lucre"—that must be offered at the shrine of Art by would-be disciples. Looking at Morris, her big eyes filled with a wistful anxiety, she inquired if the little money her father had left could, by the strictest economy, be made to last out until she was able to thus keep herself. If not—and she had evidently come to this conference with her ideas fully formed—could she not learn shorthand and typewriting? Even then she hoped that, by rising early and working at her painting after office hours and on Sundays, she might ultimately