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And then the letter proceeded in the usual strain of accusation and libel. Of course Alan was ashamed of reading these things; and still more ashamed of being annoyed by them. The philosopher, we know, would never be annoyed even by anonymous post-cards, which reflected upon the morals of his female relations and were read by the delighted inhabitants of his kitchen before he received them. The philosopher would rejoice, perhaps, at the thought that cook, housemaid, parlour-maid, and nurserymaid have read these libels, believe in them, will repeat them joyfully, and will exaggerate them.

Alan was probably not a philosopher, because the constant arrival of these letters did not make his countenance more cheerful when he went up to see Alma in the evening.

His gloom communicated itself to Miranda. She found it hard any longer to believe in a girl who could not cultivate enthusiasm for Alan. She was dejected and unhappy. She went little to the Abbey during these weeks; she lost interest in the place wherein she was wont to delight. Her cheek grew pale and her eyes heavy. She was kind to Alma, but she ceased her endeavours to interest her in the things which her husband would look for. Alma, for her part, became sullen and silent, restless in the house, and restless in the garden, where she walked for hours. She did not go again to the farm, and when her mother came, received her with a coldness which was worse than any of her ancient insubordination. Desdemona alone preserved a demeanour of cheerfulness, even beyond that to which her friends were accustomed to see in her.

Therefore, during these three weeks when the banns were being published, and while the man and the woman about to take upon themselves indissoluble and lifelong vows should have

been growing to know each other more and more, they were drifting apart. Alan was every day more sombre, colder, more of a schoolmaster, and less of a lover. Alma every day more silent, less prodigal of her smiles, more reserved, and-a thing patent to her fiancé and of very unpleasing omenmore sullen.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

"There's nought in this bad world like sympathy; 'Tis so becoming to the soul and face; Sets to soft music the harmonious sigh, And robes sweet friendship in a Brussels lace.'

EANTIME, there seemed, to Desdemona's observant eyes, to be growing up in the Abbey a kind of restlessness. Unquiet betokens change. Was it, she asked, that the Monks and Sisters were tired of the Abbey or of each other? No; she made inquiries, and found that the general feeling was quite in the contrary direction. The place appeared to them still a most delightful haven. Yet there was a certain sadness prevalent. Could this melancholy be a contagious disorder taken from one or two afflicted members? Nelly, for instance, had obviously been pale of face and sad of aspect for some timepast. She seemed to take a comparatively feeble interest in the matter of dress; she was known on more than one occasion to shut herself up alone in her own cell for hours; her delight in riding, dancing, talking, acting, singing, lawn-tennis, and all the pleasures in which she was once foremost, no longer what it had been. Doubtless, in her case, the cause was in some way to be attributed to Tom Caledon. They must have quarrelled;. otherwise, why did they avoid each other? Why did they look at each other guiltily, as people do who have a secret between them? To be sure, Desdemona could not know the nature of the admonition which Tom pro

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nounced after the Court of Love. And that was all their secret.

As for Tom Caledon himself, he too was grown melancholy. In these bad days he mooned he who had been the most companionable of men, who had ever fled from the solitude of self as eagerly as any murderer of ancient story-he who was formerly never out of spirits, never tired of laughing with those who laughed, and singing, metaphorically, with those who sang, was grown as melancholy as Jacques in ! the Forest of Arden.

'Perhaps,' said Desdemona-she was sitting in her own capacious cell, and Miranda was with her; Mr. Paul Rondelet was also with them--he was seen a good deal with Miranda during these days Perhaps, Miranda, the presence of two perpetually wet blankets, such as Tom and Nelly, has imperceptibly saddened our refectory and drawing-room. Blankets which will not dry, however long you hang them out, would sadden even the Laundry of Momus.'

Paul Rondelet was leaning against the mantelshelf, a position which he affected because-he was no more free from personal vanity than yourself, my readers, although so advanced in thought-it showed to advantage his slender figure, and allowed the folds of the tightly-buttoned frock which he always wore to fall gracefully. He looked up languidly, and began to stroke his smooth cheek with great sadness, while he let fall from an overcharged soul the following utterance:

'Momus is the only one of the gods who is distinctly vulgar. How depressing is mirth! How degrading it is to watch a laughing audience-a mere mob with uncontrolled facial muscles! Momus is the god of musichalls.'

'Cheerfulness is not mirth,' said Miranda quietly; but you are sad yourself, Desdemona.'

I am,' she replied, clasping her hands, I am. It is quite true; I am encumbered with my Third Act.'

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And I,' said Miranda the straightforward, 'am sad for Alan's sake.'

But you, Mr. Rondelet-Desdemona turned to the Thinker, whom she loved at all times to bring out'you, too, are melancholy. You neglect your monastic vows; you seldom appear at the refectory; you contribute nothing to the general happiness; you are visible at times, walking by yourself, with knitted brows. Is this to be explained?'

Paul Rondelet lifted his white brow and played with his eye-glass, and sighed. Then he gazed for a moment at Miranda.

Had he told the exact truth, he would have confessed that his debts worried him, that his anxiety about the future was very great. In fact, that he was entirely absorbed in the worry of his duns and the trouble of having no income at all in the immedlate future. But he did not tell the truth. When facts are vulgar, truthseekers like Paul Rondelet avoid them.

'The conduct of life,' he said grandly, is a problem so vast, so momentous, that there is not always room for pleasant frivolities, even for those of this little society. These are the trifles of a vacation. When serious thoughts obtrude themselves

'I see,' said Desdemona, interrupting ruthlessly. Why not write them down, and have done with them?' Paul Rondelet shook his head. You are accustomed to interpret men's thoughts,' he said, 'you can give life and action to words; but you do not know by what mental effortswhat agonies of travail- those words were produced.'

'Perhaps not,' said Desdemona most unfeelingly. I suppose small men suffer in their attempt to say things well. Shakespeare, Shelley and Byron, do not seem to have endured these throes.'

Small men! Oh, this fatal lack of appreciation.

There was a cloud upon the whole Abbey. The sadness was not con

fined to the three or four named above; it was, with one exception, general. While Nelly lingered alone in her cell, while Tom Caledon rode or walked moodily in the lanes, while Mr. Paul Rondelet was seen to go alone with agitated steps, so that those who beheld thought that he was grappling with some new and brilliant thing in verse, the whole fraternity seemed drifting into a constrained self-consciousness most foreign to the character of the Order. Nobody now went off in happy solitude to lecture an empty hall; the three journals of the Abbey appeared at more irregular intervals; Cecilia gave no concerts; nobody translated a new play; nobody invented a new amusement. Instead of general conversation, there was a marked tendency to go about in pairs. And when there was any singing at all, which was not every evening, as of old, it generally took the form of a duet.

What had befallen the Abbey?

There was, as I have said, one exception: Brother Peregrine alone was cheerful. Nothing ever interfered with a cheerfulness which, at this juncture, was unsympathetic; neither rainy weather, nor the general depression of the Brethren, nor even the sadness of Nelly, whom he continued to follow like a shadow. And yet, though he was always with her, though the Sisters wondered whether Nelly had accepted him, and while she wondered why he was silent, Brother Peregrine had not spoken the expected words.

To the rest it seemed as if the Court of Love, the judgment of Paris, and all their masques, sports, dances, and entertainments, were become part and parcel of a happy past which would never return again. Brother Peregrine alone was the same as he had always been. He alone was unconscious of the general discontent. This was due to his eminently unsympathetic character. He came to the Abbey with the purely selfish de

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sign of getting as much pleasure out of so novel a society as possible. got a great deal. When he told stories, or did Indian tricks, or performed feats on horseback, which he had learned in India, the Sisters of the Order laughed and applauded; it was he who devised pageants, suggested things to Desdemona, and improved on her ideas. Thus the Judgment of Paris was his doing, and he acted, as we know, as Sister Rosalind's counsel in the Court of Love. While he could bask in the sunlight of fair eyes, delight in the music of girls' laughter, drink good wine, sit at feasts, listen to music, and be himself an active part in the promotion of all modern forms of conviviality, he was happy. He was exactly like the illustrious Panurge, in one respect, in being entirely without sympathy. You knew him, therefore, as well the first day as the fiftieth; there was nothing to be got out of him except what he offered at first. Had he put his creed

into words, it would have been something like this: Everybody wants to enjoy life. I mean to, whether other people do or not; I take whatever good the gods send, and mean to use it for myself; if people wrong me, or annoy me by suffering, pain, or complaint, I go away, or else I take no notice of them.'

The Abbey was an excellent place for such a man, because in no other place were the ways of life so smooth. And a man of such a temperament would be very long in discovering what Desdemona, with her quick sympathies, felt as soon as it beganthe growing constraint.

For, of course, the Brethren and the Sisters were not going to sit down and cry or sulk, as is the wont of the outer world. There was neither growling nor grumbling in the Abbey, unless it were in each member's cell. Brother Peregrine noted nothing, because there was no outward change. If Nelly's cheek was pale, she listened to him still, and he followed her as

before. If the Order, generally, was depressed, there was still the functions-guest night, choral night, theatre, concert, dancing, all were duly celebrated. The Lady Abbess presided at the refectory, Desdemona performed her duties as directress of ceremonies, and the only difference was that the sparkle had gone out of the wine-it was gone flat. This

they all perceived, except Brother Peregrine, who still thought the goblet as mousseux and as brilliant as before. The climax was reached when they attempted one of their old costume balls, which had been a sort of spécialité of the Abbey. They got as many guests to fill the rooms as they could bring together; but-it was not possible to disguise the truth-it fell flat. The guests went away early; there was little spirit in the dancing; and the chief actors, who ought to have thrown life into it-the Monks and Sisters were languid.

Next evening, after dinner, when they were all collected in the drawingroom, Desdemona lifted up her voice, and asked, tearfully:

'What is it, children? Is the wine of life already run down to the lees!' No one answered, but the Sisters gathered round her as if they looked to her for help.

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'Are there no more cakes and ale?' she went on. Everything fails. Can the Abbey-our Abbey of Thelemabe a failure?'

'No-no,' they declared unanimously.

'Are you happy here, my dears?' she asked the Sisters.

They looked at one another, blushed with one consent for some reason of their own unexplained, and then murmured that they had never been so happy before, and never could be happier in the future.

Brother Peregrine remarked that he himself felt perfectly, monastically happy. Indeed, he looked it, standing before them all, with his thin figure, his complacent smile, and his

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wonderful absence of any appreciation of the situation. Under any circumstances, if Brother Peregrine himself had no personal care he would have looked equally happy.

Desdemona contemplated him with a little wonder. Was the man perfectly self-contained? Even Paul Rondelet's philosophy of separation did not rise to these heights of blind

ness.

If you are perfectly happy,' said Desdemona, sharply, Desdemona, sharply, you are not monastically happy. Perhaps, on the other hand, you deserve to be pitied.'

'Let us invent something,' said Peregrine cheerfully, as if a fillip of that kind would restore happiness, just as certain ladies fly to little suppers with something hot in order to soothe the wounded spirit. Has everybody lectured?' He looked round radiantly, conveying his belief that a lecture was the one thing wanting.

No one would hear of lectures.

'I have learned a new conjuring trick,' he went on. Would you like to see that?'

'I think,' said Desdemona, 'that the present situation will not be improved by tricks.'

'When the knights and ladies of the middle ages,' Brother Peregrine went on, nothing daunted, 'were shut up in their castles for the winter, they used to amuse themselves—

'Moult tristement,' said Desdemona.

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With games. Sometimes they played hot cockles, the laws of which I dare say we could recover if we tried; or blind man's buff, which you would perhaps rather not play; or touch me last, which I can fancy might be made as graceful a pastime as lawn-tennis. Then there was the game of gabe, at which everybody tried to out-brag everybody else; and the favourite game of le roy ne ment pas, at which everybody had to answer truthfully whatever questions were asked. There were to be no reservations; the answers were to be absolutely truthful.'

'I should think,' said Desdemona, 'that your games must have been almost maddening in their stupidity. I would as soon suggest to the Abbey that we should amuse ourselves at bouts rimes. Will you play something, Cecilia ?'

She went to the piano and began to play some melancholy yearning music, such as might fall upon sad souls with a sympathetic strain. Desdemona listened and reflected. All this dejection and constraint could not arise from disgust at Brother Hamlet's madness, or from sympathy with Tom Caledon. Sympathy there was, no doubt. Everybody liked Tom. Disgust, there was, no doubt. Everybody was indignant with Alan. But

that all the springs of joy should be devoured by the disappointment of one Brother, and the crochets of another, seemed absurd.

And suddenly a thought came into her mind. Desdemona caught it and smiled. Then she looked round the room and smiled again. Cecilia was playing her melancholy music: the Sisters were listening, pensive; the Brothers stood or sat about among them in silence. Tom Caledon was in one window, looking gloomily upon the twilight garden; Nelly was in another, pulling a rose to pieces. On the faces of all, except of two, there was in different degrees a similar expression, one of constraint, perhaps of impatience, and perhaps of hope.

Of course the two exceptions were Brother Peregrine and Paul Rondelet. When the former, who had no taste for music, was cut short by Desdemona, he retreated to a table at the other end of the long room, where, with a perfectly happy face, he found a book of burlesques, and read it with appreciation. Paul Rondelet entered the drawing room just as Cecilia began to play. He, too, having no real ear for music, though he talked much of the Higher Music, and held Wagner among his gods, retired to the same part of the room as the Brother whom

most he disliked. Here he found Mr. Pater's volume on the Renaissance, with which, while the following scene was enacted, he refreshed his soul.

'As for Peregrine,' said Desdemona to herself, looking at his perfectly happy and perfectly unsympathetic face, 'that man may have escaped from some great unhappiness, such as a convict's prison, or something as bad, so that everything else seems joy; or he may be a perfectly selfish person, incapable of seeing beyond the outward forms, or which I hope is not the case-he may have secured Nelly, and so chuckles easily over his own future.'

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Then she looked at the other man. Either Mr. Pater had made some remark, which displeased Paul Rondelet, or he was thinking of something unpleasant, unconnected with that author. 'As for that man,' thought Desdemona, there is something wrong with him. To be sure, he never ought to have been a Monk at all. He has an anxious look. Perhaps he is in debt. It requires a man of a much higher stamp than that poor fellow to bear up against debt. Or some one may have derided his poetry.'

It will be seen that Desdemona was

not very far wrong in any of her conjectures. But then she was a witch, a

sorceress.

'As for the rest,' she continued to herself, they are all afflicted with the same malady. It is not ennui, it is not boredom, it is not anxiety. What can it be but one thing?'

And, as before, the sweetest and most gratified of smiles played about her comely face.

'Of course, she said aloud, so that all started, 'I knew it would come, sooner or later. At least, I ought to have known, but did not think, being quite a stupid old woman. And now it has come.'

'What do you mean, dear Desdemona?' asked Cecilia, stopping her music.

'My dear,' said Desdemona, 'be good enough to stop that melancholy

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