“Yes,” I thought. “This bare platform is, for me, rich with the memory of a dear friend! She was sitting on that very bench, and invited me to share it, with some quotation from Shakespeare—I forget what. I’ll try the Earl’s plan for the Dramatisation of Life, and fancy that figure to be Lady Muriel; and I won’t undeceive myself too soon!”
So I strolled along the platform, resolutely “making-believe” (as children say) that the casual passenger, seated on that bench, was the Lady Muriel I remembered so well. She was facing away from me, which aided the elaborate cheatery I was practising on myself: but, though I was careful, in passing the spot, to look the other way, in order to prolong the pleasant illusion, it was inevitable that, when I turned to walk back again, I should see who it was. It was Lady Muriel herself!
The whole scene now returned vividly to my memory; and, to make this repetition of it stranger still, there was the same old man, whom I remembered seeing so roughly ordered off, by the Stationmaster, to make room for his titled passenger. The same, but “with a difference”: no longer tottering feebly along the platform, but actually seated at Lady Muriel’s side, and in conversation with her! “Yes, put it in your purse,” she was saying, “and remember you’re to spend it all for Minnie. And mind you bring her something nice, that’ll do her real good! And give her my love!” So intent was she on saying these words, that, although the sound of my footstep had made her lift her head and look at me, she did not at first recognise me.
I raised my hat as I approached, and then there flashed across her face a genuine look of joy, which so exactly recalled the sweet face of Sylvie, when last we met in Kensington Gardens, that I felt quite bewildered.
Rather than disturb the poor old man at her side, she rose from her seat, and joined me in my walk up and down the platform, and for a minute or two our conversation was as utterly trivial and commonplace as if we were merely two casual guests in a London drawing-room. Each of us seemed to shrink, just at first, from touching on the deeper interests which linked our lives together.
The Elveston train had drawn up at the platform, while we talked; and, in obedience to the Stationmaster’s obsequious hint of “This way, my Lady! Time’s up!”, we were making the best of our way towards the end which contained the sole first-class carriage, and were just passing the now-empty bench, when Lady Muriel noticed, lying on it, the purse in which her gift had just been so carefully bestowed, the owner of which, all unconscious of his loss, was being helped into a carriage at the other end of the train. She pounced on it instantly. “Poor old man!” she cried. “He mustn’t go off, and think he’s lost it!”
“Let me run with it! I can go quicker than you!” I said. But she was already halfway down the platform, flying (“running” is much too mundane a word for such fairy-like motion) at a pace that left all possible efforts of mine hopelessly in the rear.
She was back again before I had well completed my audacious boast of speed in running, and was saying, quite demurely, as we entered our carriage, “and you really think you could have done it quicker?”
“No indeed!” I replied. “I plead ‘Guilty’ of gross exaggeration, and throw myself on the mercy of the Court!”
“The Court will overlook it—for this once!” Then her manner suddenly changed from playfulness to an anxious gravity.
“You are not looking your best!” she said with an anxious glance. “In fact, I think you look more of an invalid than when you left us. I very much doubt if London agrees with you?”
“It may be the London air,” I said, “or it may be the hard work—or my rather lonely life: anyhow, I’ve not been feeling very well, lately. But Elveston will soon set me up again. Arthur’s prescription—he’s my doctor, you know, and I heard from him this morning—is ‘plenty of ozone, and new milk, and pleasant society’!”
“Pleasant society?” said Lady Muriel, with a pretty make-believe of considering the question. “Well, really I don’t know where we can find that for you! We have so few neighbours. But new milk we can manage. Do get it of my old friend Mrs. Hunter, up there, on the hillside. You may rely upon the quality. And her little Bessie comes to school every day, and passes your lodgings. So it would be very easy to send it.”
“I’ll follow your advice, with pleasure,” I said; “and I’ll go and arrange about it tomorrow. I know Arthur will want a walk.”
“You’ll find it quite an easy walk—under three miles, I think.”
“Well, now that we’ve settled that point, let me retort your own remark upon yourself. I don’t think you’re looking quite your best!”
“I daresay not,” she replied in a low voice; and a sudden shadow seemed to overspread her face. “I’ve had some troubles lately. It’s a matter about which I’ve been long wishing to consult you, but I couldn’t easily write about it. I’m so glad to have this opportunity!”
“Do you think,” she began again, after a minute’s silence, and with a visible embarrassment of manner most unusual in her, “that a promise, deliberately and solemnly given, is always binding—except, of course, where its fulfilment would involve some actual sin?”
“I can’t think of any other exception at this moment,” I said. “That branch of casuistry is usually, I believe, treated as a question of truth and untruth—”
“Surely that is the principle?” she eagerly interrupted. “I always thought the Bible-teaching about it consisted of such texts as ‘lie not one to another’?”
“I have thought about that point,” I replied; “and it seems to me that the essence of lying is the
