Beyond the Rocks

The Crow stayed on after all the other guests had left. He knew his

hostess wished to talk to him.

It had begun to pour with rain, and the dripping streets held out no

inducement to them to go out.

They pulled up their two comfortable arm-chairs to the sparkling wood

fire, and then Colonel Lowerby said: "You look sad, Queen Anne. Tell me about it."

"Yes, I am sad," said Anne. "The position is so hopeless. Hector loves

her--loves her really--and I do not wonder at it; and she seems just

everything that one could wish for him. A thousand times above Morella

in intellect and understanding. All the things Hector and I like she

sees at once. No need of explaining to her, as one has to to mother and

Morella always."

"Yes," said the Crow. He did not argue with her as usual.

"It seems so fearful to think of her forever bound to that dreadful old

grocer, whom she treats with so much deference and gentleness. The whole

thing has made me sad. Hector is perfectly miserable; and, do you know,

they are going to Beechleigh for Whitsuntide. Sir Patrick Fitzgerald is

her uncle--and, of course, Hector is going, too, and--"

She did not finish her sentence. Her voice died away in a pathetic note

as she gazed into the fire.

The Crow fidgeted; he had been devoted to Anne since she was a child of

ten, and he hated to see her troubled.

"Look here," he said. "I investigated her thoroughly at luncheon, and I

don't often make a mistake, do I?"

"No," said Anne. "Well--?"

"Well, she appeared to me to have some particular quality of

sweetness--you were right about her looking like an angel--and I think

she has got an angel's nature more or less; and when people are really

like that there is some one up above looks after them, and I don't think

we need worry much--you and I."

"Dear old Crow!" said Anne; "you do comfort me. But all the same, angel

or not, Hector is so attractive--and he is a man, you know, not one of

these anæmic, artistic, æsthetic things we see about so often now; and

thrown together like that--how on earth will they be able to help

themselves?"

The Crow was silent.

"You see," she continued, "beyond Morella, who is too absolutely

unalluring and respectable to come to harm anywhere, and Miss Linwood,

who only cares for bridge, there will hardly be another woman in the

house who has not got a lover, and the atmosphere of those things is

catching--don't you think so?"