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THE WHITE DOVE

By William J. Locke

New York: John Lane Company

1899


                   O White Dove of the Pity Divine

                             J. H. Skunk


[Illustration: 0009]





THE WHITE DOVE




CHAPTER I--FATHER AND SON


“ Life is a glorious thing,” said the girl.

Sylvester Lanyon looked at her half in amusement, half in wistfulness.
There was no doubt whatever of her sincerity. Therein lay the pathetic.
To reply that the shadow of death and suffering clouded life's glory was
too obvious a rejoinder. So he smiled and said,--

“Well?”

“We ought to conquer it, make it our own, and live it to the full.”

“If it is to be conquered by us weak wretches, it can't be such a
glorious thing,” he remarked.

“But who said we were weak wretches?” she retorted. “You're not one,
and I'm not one!” She laughed, flushing a little. “No, I'm not,” she
repeated.

If Sylvester Lanyon had been endowed with the power of graceful words,
here was a chance for a pretty compliment. It was challenged by the
girl's self-conscious glance and by the splendid vitality of her youth;
for Ella Defries usually carried the air of a conqueror with a certain
sweet insolence. Some such idea passed vaguely through his mind, but,
unable to express it, he said, shifting his ground lamely,--

“You see I'm getting elderly.”

“Nonsense!” she said. “You're only five and thirty. My own age to a
day.”

“I don't quite follow,” said he.

“A woman is always ten years older than a man. You ought to know that.”

“And that proves?”

“That you ought to go into the world and win fame and mix with the
brilliant men and women in London who can appreciate you.”

“I don't want to mix with more brilliant men and women than those who
are under this _roof of Woodlands_,” said Sylvester.

Ella flushed again, but this time she drooped her eyes and bent her head
over her sewing for some time abandoned. A smile played round her lips.

“Your Aunt Agatha, for instance.”

“No, dear soul. The other two.”

He rose and filled his pipe from a tobacco jar on the mantel-piece.
The room, furnished with the solid mahogany and leather of a bygone
generation, was his father's particular den, where, however, of all
rooms in the house, he was least likely to find the privacy for which it
was set apart. Ella, during her periodical visits to Ayresford, calmly
monopolised it; Sylvester strolled in naturally from his widowed house
over the way; Miss Agatha Lanyon, although she pretended to cough at
the smoke, would leave her knitting promiscuously about on chairs
and tables, while the little grandchild Dorothy spilled the ink with
impunity over the Turkey carpet.

There was a silence while Sylvester lit his pipe and settled down again
in the leathern armchair by the fire.

“I want no better company than the dear old man's, and yours,” said he.

“My conversation is not fit for an intellectual man,” said Ella, with a
humility that contrasted with her conquering attitude of a few moments
before.

“You are a very clever girl,” said Sylvester.

She shook her head with a little air of scorn and threw her sewing on
the table.

“Oh, no. It pleases my vanity to think so. But what do I know in
comparison with you? What can I do? You go to a bedside and hold the
keys of life and death in your hand. To you, all the hidden forces and
mysteries of nature are every-day commonplaces. Professor Steinthal of
Vienna, whom I met the other day at Lady Milmo's, told me that, if you
chose, you could become the greatest bacteriologist in Europe.”

“Did he say that?” asked Sylvester, eagerly.

“Yes, and that is why you ought to go away and live in London and fulfil
your life gloriously.”

A look of amusement came into his grave eyes, and lit for a moment the
sombreness of a face prematurely careworn.

“I _am_ going to London,” he said. “I sold the practice this morning.”

Ella rose from her chair impetuously. “Why didn't you tell me at once,
instead of letting me say all these silly things? It is just like a
man.”

“You took my apathy so much for granted,” he said, laughing.

“I suppose I am a weak wretch, after all,” said Ella.

Sylvester put down his pipe and stood by her side.

“It is really all your doing, Ella. This is not the first time you have
pointed out my way to me. And it won't be the last, will it?”

There was a note of pathetic appeal in his tone that made her heart beat
a little faster. Of all the phases of his manhood that her instinctive
feminine alertness had caused him to present to her, this one moved her
the most strongly. An unwonted shy tenderness came into her eyes.

“It is for you to settle that,” she said.

He looked at her for a moment as if about to speak, but some inward
conflict seemed to check the words. A man's memories and dead loves rise
up sometimes and stare at him in sad reproach.

“I wish I had the gift of speech,” he said.

“What do you want to say?” she asked gently.

He smiled whimsically. “If I could tell you that, I should have the
gift.”

“You'll let me see something of you in London, won't you?”

“Why, of course! Whom else should I want to see? Frodsham's practice is
a large one--I am buying a share, you know. A specialist generally has
his hands full. I shall have neither the time nor the desire to go
about butterflying. Besides, it is only a few people that like me. I'm
generally looked upon as a'stick.'”

His head had been turned aside; and while there had been no danger of
his glance, Ella had scanned his face as a girl does that of a
man who is already something more to her than friend or brother. It
was thin and intellectual, somewhat careworn, with deep vertical lines
between the brows. The hair was black and wavy, thinning a little over
the temples; the features well cut and sensitive; the eyes, deeply
sunken, possessing keenness, but little brilliance; a moustache,
standing well away at each end from the cheeks, accentuated their sharp
contours. Yet in spite of the intellectual delicacy of the face, the
tanned, rough skin, corresponding with the well-knit wiriness of his
frame, gave assurance of strong physical health.

The last epithet in his remarks, so at variance with the character she
was idealising from her scrutiny, moved her ready indignation.

“I should like to have, a quarter of an hour with the fool that said
so!” she exclaimed.

“You are loyal to your friends,” said Sylvester.

They discussed the point. Ella let loose the fine scorn of five and
twenty for the shallow society that could not appreciate a man of his
calibre. Her championship was sweet for him to hear. For some time
past he had been gradually growing conscious of the force that this
sympathetic intelligence and this warm nature were bringing into his
life. Unwittingly he had revealed the fact to Ella. As woman, and
especially the fresh girl, is responsive, and gives bit by bit of
herself, as it is craved, Ella, when she looked into her heart, found
much that had been yielded. The situation therefore was sweet and
delicate.

“My going will be a blow to my father,” he said after a while. “I hardly
like to tell him.”

“He wouldn't stand in your way,” said Ella. “He's not like that. We have
talked it over scores of times. He is as anxious as I am for you to take
your proper place in the world.”

“Dear old fellow,”