Samson and Delilah

Introduction

D.H Lawrence's short story “Samson and Delilah” first appears in vol. 21 no. 100 of The English Review, a modernist magazine which ran from 1908 to 1923 before it was absorbed into the The National Review. The English Review’s first editor was Ford Madox Hueffer, and he played an important role in D.H Lawrence's literary career. In 1909, Jessie Chambers sent Heuffer some of Lawrence's poems. Impressed with Lawrence's talent, Heuffer printed these poems in the 12th issue of The English Review, and he encouraged Lawrence to continue working on the manuscript of his first novel The White Peacock. After his initial publication in 1909, D.H Lawrence appeared to be a regular contributor to The English Review, and his stories and poems appear often. In 1911, The English Review was taken over by Austin Harrison, and the new editor continued to publish D.H Lawrence's work. Lawrence continued to make regular contributions to the magazine for the duration of the periodical’s run.

D.H Lawrence is now considered one of the great modernist authors and is known for writing on taboo subjects, such as sexuality and violence. However, none of this sexuality and violence seems to appear in “Samson and Delilah.” The short story does, however, contain many themes that are typical of D.H Lawrence's work such as tensions between a mother and father and some of Lawrence’s anti-war sentiments

“Samson and Delilah” is set in Cornwall, where D.H Lawrence and his wife, Freida Richthofen, attempted to settle in during World War I. This story, published in 1917, was likely written while the Lawrences were living in Cornwall. During their time in Cornwall, Lawrence and Freida were continually hounded by the local authorities and eventually expelled due to Lawrence’s anti-war sentiments and Freida’s German heritage. The story reflects Lawrence’s frustration with Cornwall and the Cornish people—he even goes so far as to call the Cornish people “mindless” (210).

“Samson and Delilah” tells the story of a husband returning home to his wife and daughter after he abandoned them for 15 years. At first, the wife doesn’t recognize the husband and refutes his claims. He persists, and she calls on soldiers stationed nearby to restrain him. He escapes and resumes his attempts to win her, to which it seems she eventually succumbs. In an era where social issues are heavily discussed, “Samson and Delilah” raises interesting questions about familial relations and the place of women. The story ends with the wife submitting to the advances of the man, leaving the reader with lingering questions regarding D.H Lawrence’s stance toward issues such as feminism and the place of women, particularly in a war-time context.

These lingering questions regarding women, as well as those about familial relationships and war make this relatively unknown story of D.H Lawrence worth studying. Not only in the context of his other works, but also in the context of modernism and the growing suffragette movement.

Transcription

A man got down from the motor-omnibus that runs from Penzance to St. Just-in-Penwith, and turned northwards, uphill towards the Polestar. It was only half-past six, but already the stars were out, a cold little wind was blowing from the sea, and the crystalline, three-pulse flash of the lighthouse below the cliffs beat rhythmically in the first darkness.

The man was alone. He went his way unhesitating, but looked from side to side with curiosity. Tall, ruined power-houses of tin mines loomed in the darkness from time to time, like remnants of some bygone civilisation. The lights of many miners' cottages scattered on the hilly darkness twinkled desolate in their disorder, yet twinkled with home.

He tramped steadily on, always alert with curiosity. He was a tall, well-built man, apparently in the prime of life. His shoulders were square and rather stiff; he leaned forwards a little as he went, from the hips, like a man who must stoop to lower his height. But he did not stoop his shoulders; he bent his straight back from the hips.

Now and again short, stumpy, thick-legged figures of Cornish miners passed him, and he invariably gave them good night, as if the familiarity pleased him. And as he went along the dreary road, looking now at the lights of the dwellings on land, now at the lights away to sea, vessels veering round in sight of the Longships Lighthouse, the whole of the Atlantic Ocean in darkness and space between him and America, he seemed extremely pleased with himself, with his own situation.

The houses began to close on the road; he was entering the straggling, formless, desolate mining village that he knew of old. On the left was a little space set back from the highway and cosy lights of an inn. There it was. He peered up at the sign: "The Tinners' Rest^[1]A fictionalized name for a real Cornish pub called “Tinners Arms”. D. H. Lawrence stayed there for a fortnight in 1916.." But he could not make out the name of the proprietor. He listened. There was excited talking and laughing, a woman's voice laughing shrilly among the men's.

Stooping a little he entered the warmly-lit bar. The lamp was burning, a buxom woman rose from the white-scrubbed deal table where the black and white and red cards were scattered, and several men—miners—lifted their faces from the game.

The stranger went to the counter, averting his face.His cap was pulled down over his brow.

"Good evening!" said the landlady in her rather ingratiating voice.

"Good evening. A glass of ale."

"A glass of ale," repeated the landlady suavely. "Cold night—but bright."

"Yes," the man assented laconically. Then he added, when nobody expected him to say any more: "Seasonable weather."

"Quite seasonable—quite," said the landlady. "Thank you."

The man lifted his glass straight to his lips and emptied it. He put it down again on the zinc counter with a click.

"Let's have another;'' he said.

The woman drew the beer, and the man went away with his glass to the second table, near the fire. The woman, after a moment's hesitation, took her seat again at the table with the card-players. She had noticed the man: a big fine fellow, well dressed—a stranger.

But he spoke with that Cornish-Yankee accent she accepted as the natural twang among the miners.

The stranger put his foot on the fender and looked into the fire. He was handsome, well coloured, with well-drawn Cornish eyebrows and the usual dark, bright, mindless Cornish eyes. He seemed abstracted in thought. Then he watched the card-party.

The woman was buxom and healthy, with dark hair and small, quick brown eyes. She was bursting with life and vigour; the energy she threw into the game of cards excited all the men; they shouted and laughed, and the woman held her breast, shrieking with laughter.

"Oh my, it'll be the death o' me," she panted. "Now come on, Mr. Trevorrow, play fair. Play fair, I say, or I s'll put the cards down."

"Play fair! Why, who’s played unfair?" ejaculated Mr. Trevorrow. "Do you mean t'accuse me as I haven't played fair, Mrs. Nankervis?"

"I do. I say it, and I mean it. Haven't you got the Queen of Spades? No

come on, no dodging round me. I know you've got that Queen, as well as I know my name's Alice."

"Well—if your name's Alice you'll have to have it—"

"Ay, now—what did I say? Did ever you see such a man? My word, but your missis must be easy took in, by the looks of things."

And off she went into peals of laughter. She was interrupted by the entrance of four men in khaki—a short, stumpy sergeant of middle age, a young corporal, and two young privates. The woman leaned back in her chair.

"Oh my!" she cried. "If there isn't the boys back; looking perished, I believe—"

"Perished, ma!" exclaimed the sergeant. "Not yet."

"Near enough," said a young private uncouthly.

The woman got up.

"I'm sure you are, my dears. You'll be wanting your suppers, I'll be bound."

"We could do with 'em."

"Let's have a wet first," said the sergeant.

The woman bustled about getting the drinks. The soldiers moved to the fire, spreading out their hands.

"Have your suppers in here, will you?" she said. "Or in the kitchen?"

"Let’s have it here," said the sergeant. "More cosier—if you don't mind."

"You shall have it where you like, boys, where you like."

She disappeared. In a minute a girl of about sixteen, tall and fresh, with dark, living young eyes, and well-drawn brows, and the immature softness and mindlessness of the sensuous Celtic type.

"Ho, Mabel! Evenin', Mabel! How's Mabel?" came the multiple greeting.

She replied to everybody m a soft voice—a strange, soft aplomb that was very attractive. And she moved round with rather mechanical, attractive movements, like a stiff young animal. The strange man by the fire watched her curiously. There was an alert, inquisitive, mindless curiosity on his well-coloured face.

"I'll have a bit of supper with you, if I might,” he said.

She looked at him with her clear, unreasoning eyes, just like the eyes of some non-human creature.

"I’ll ask mother," she said in her soft-breathing, gently sing-song voice.

When she came in again:

"Yes,” she said, almost whispering. "What will you have?"

"What have you got?" he said looking up into her face.

"There's cold meat—"

"That's for me, then."

The stranger sat at the end of the table and ate with the tired, quiet soldiers. Now, the landlady was interested in him. Her brow was knit rather tense, there was a look of panic in her large healthy face, but her small brown eyes were fixed most dangerously. She was a big woman, but her eyes were small and tense. She drew near the stranger. She wore a rather loud-patterned flannelette blouse and a dark skirt.

"What will you have to drink with your supper?" she asked; and there was a new, dangerous note in her voice.

He moved uneasily.

"I'll go on with ale."

She drew him another glass. Then she sat down on the bench at the table with him and the soldiers and fixed him with her attention.

"You've come from St. Just, have you?" she said.

He looked at her with those clear, dark, inscrutable Cornish eyes, and answered at length:

"No, from Penzance."

"Penzance! But you're not thinking of going back there to-night?"

"No—no."

He still looked at her with those wide, clear eyes that had no human meaning in them. Her anger began to rise. It was seen on her brow. Yet her voice was still suave and deprecating.

"I thought not—but you're not living in these parts, are you?"

"No—no, I'm not living here." He was always slow in answering, as if something intervened between him and any outside question.

"Oh, I see," she said. "You've got relations down here."

Again he looked straight into her eyes, as if looking for his own answer there.

"Yes," he said.

He would say no more. She rose in a pet. The anger was tight on her brow. There was no more laughing and card-playing that evening, though she kept up her motherly, suave, good-humoured way with the men. But they knew her; they were all afraid of her.

The supper was finished, the table cleared, the stranger did not go. Two of the young soldiers went off to bed, with their cheery:

"Good night, ma. Good night, Mabel."

The stranger talked a little to the sergeant about the war^[2]Story takes place in the early days of World War I which began in 1914., which was in its first year, about the New Army^[3]The New Army, often called Kitchener's Army was a volunteer army of the British Army formed in 1914 following the outbreak of the First World War., a fragment of which was quartered in this district, about America.

The landlady darted looks at him from her small eyes, minute by minute the electric storms welled in her bosom, as still he did not go. She was quivering with suppressed violent passion, something frightening and abnormal. She could not sit still for a moment. Her heavy form seemed to flash with sudden, involuntary movements as the minutes passed by, and still he sat there, and the tension on her heart grew unbearable. She watched the hands of the clock move on. Three of the soldiers had gone to bed, only the crop-headed, terrier-like old sergeant remained.

The landlady sat behind the bar fidgetting spasmodic¬ally with the newspaper. She looked again at the clock. At last it was five minutes to ten.

"Gentlemen—the enemy!" she said in her diminished, furious voice. "Time, please.”

The men began to drop out, with a brief good night. It was a minute to ten. The landlady rose.

"Come," she said. "I'm shutting the door."

The last of the miners passed out. She stood, stout and menacing, holding the door. Still the stranger sat on by the fire, his black overcoat opened, smoking.

"We're closed now, sir," came the perilous, narrowed voice of the landlady.

The little, dog-like, hard-headed sergeant touched the arm of the stranger.

“Closing time," he said.

The stranger turned round in his seat, and his quick¬ moving, dark, meaningless eyes went from the sergeant to the landlady.

“I'm stopping here to-night," he said in his laconic Cornish-Yankee accent.

The landlady I seemed to tower. Her eyes lifted strangely, frightening.

“Oh, indeed!" she cried. "Oh, indeed! And whose orders are those, may I ask? "

He looked at her again.

"My orders," he said.

Involuntarily she shut the door and advanced like a great, dangerous bird. Her voice rose, there was a touch of hoarseness in it.

"And what might your orders be, if you please?" she cried. "Who might you be, to give orders in the house? "

He sat still, watching her.

"You know who I am," he said. "Anyway, I know you."

"Oh, do you? Oh, do you? And who am I then, if you'll be so good as to tell me? "

He stared at her with his bright dark eyes.

"You're my missis, you are," he said. "And you know it as well as I do."

She started as if something had exploded in her.

Her eyes lifted and flared madly.

"Do I know it indeed!" she cried. "I know no such thing! I know no such thing! Do you think a man's going to walk into this bar, and tell me off-hand I'm his missis, and I'm going to believe him? I say to you, whoever you may be, you're mistaken. I know myself for no missis of yours, and I'll thank you to go out of this house this minute, before I get those that will put you out."

The man rose to his feet, stretching his head towards her a little. He was a handsomely built Cornishman in the prime of life.

"What, you don't know me?" he said in his steady voice, emotionless, but rather smothered and pressing; it reminded one of the girl's. "I should know you anywhere."

The woman was baffled.

"So you may say," she replied staccato. "So you may say. That's easy enough. My name's known and respected by most people for ten miles round. But I don't know you."

Her voice ran to sarcasm. "I can't say I know you. You're a perfect stranger to me, and I don't believe I’ve ever set eyes on you before to-night."

Her voice was very nasty and sarcastic.

“Yes, you have," replied the man in his reasonable way. "Yes, you have. Your name’s my name and that girl Mabel is my girl. You're my missis right enough."

He spoke as if it were an accepted fact. His face was handsome, with a strange, watchful alertness and a fundamental detachment that maddened her.

“You villain!" she cried. "You villain, to come to this house and dare to speak to me. You villain, you downright rascal!"

He looked at her.

"Aye," he said unmoved. "All that." But he was frightened of her.

She towered and drew near to him menacingly.

"You’re going out of this house, aren't you?" She stamped her foot in sudden madness. "This minute!"

He watched her. He knew she wanted to strike him.

"No," he barked suddenly. "I've told you I’m stopping here."

He was afraid of her personality, but it did not alter him. She wavered. Her small, tawny-brown eyes concentrated in a point of vivid, sightless fury, like a tiger's. The man was wincing, but he stood his ground. Then she bethought herself. She would gather her forces.

"We'll see whether you're stopping here," she said. And she turned, with a curious, frightening lifting of her eyes, and surged out of the room. The man, listening, heard her go upstairs, heard her tapping at a bedroom door, heard her saying: "Do you mind coming down a minute, boys? I want you, I'm in trouble."

The man in the bar took off his cap and his black overcoat and threw them on the seat behind him. His black hair was short and touched with grey at the temples. He wore. a well-cut, well-fitting suit of dark grey, American in style, and a turn-down collar. He looked well-to-do, a fine, solid figure of a man. The rather rigid look of the shoulders came from his having had his collar-bone twice broken in the mines.

The little terrier of a sergeant, in dirty khaki, looked at him furtively.

"She's your missis?" he asked, jerking his head in the direction of the departed woman.

“Yes, she is," barked the man.

“Not seen her for a long time, haven't ye?"

"Sixteen years come March month."

"Hm!"

And the sergeant laconically resumed his smoking.

The landlady was coming back, followed by the three young soldiers, who entered rather sheepishly in trousers and shirt and stocking-feet. The woman stood histrionically at the end of the bar and exclaimed:

"That man refuses to leave the house, claims he's stopping the night here. You know very well I've no bed, don't you? And this house doesn't accommodate travellers. Yet he's going to stop in spite of all! But not while I've a drop of blood in my body, that I declare with my dying breath. And not if you men are worth the name of men and will help a woman as has no one to help her."

Her eyes sparkled, her face was flushed pink, she breathed with difficulty. She was drawn up like an Amazon.

The young soldiers did not quite know what to do. They looked at the man, they looked at the sergeant, one of them looked down and fastened his braces on the second button.

"What say, sergeant?" asked one whose face twinkled for a little devilment.

"Man says he's husband to Mrs. Nankeryis," said the sergeant.

“He's no husband of mine. I declare I never set eyes on him before this night. It's a dirty trick, nothing else—it's a dirty trick."

"Why, you're a liar, to say you never set eyes on me before," barked the man near the hearth. "You're married to me, and that girl Mabel is mine—well enough you know it."

The young soldier looked on in delight, the sergeant smoked unperturbed.

"Yes," sang the landlady, slowly shaking her head in supreme sarcasm, "it sounds very pretty, doesn't it? But, you see, we don't believe a word of it, and how are you going to prove it?" She smiled nastily.

The man watched in silence for a moment, then he said:

"It wants no proof."

"Oh, yes, but it does I Oh, yes, but it does, sir; it wants a lot of proving!" sang the lady's sarcasm. "We're not such gulls as all that, to swallow your words whole."

But he stood unmoved near the fire. She stood with one hand resting on the zinc-covered bar; the sergeant sat with legs crossed, smoking, on the seat half-way between them; the three young soldiers in their shirts and braces stood wavering in the gloom behind the bar. There was silence.

“Do you know anything of the whereabouts of your husband, Mrs. Nankervis? Is he still living" asked the sergeant in his judicious fashion.

Suddenly the landlady began to cry, great scalding tears, that left the young men aghast.

“I know nothing of him," she sobbed, feeling for her pocket handkerchief. "He left me when Mabel was a baby, went mining to America, and after about six months never wrote a line nor sent me a penny-bit. I can't say whether he's alive or dead, the villain. All I've heard of him's to the bad—and I've heard nothing for years an' all, now." She sobbed violently.

The golden-skinned, handsome man near the fire watched her as she wept. He was frightened, he was troubled, he was bewildered; but none of his emotions altered him underneath.

There was no sound in the room but the violent sobbing of the landlady. The men, one and all, were overcome.

"Don't you think as you'd better go to-night?" said the sergeant to the man, with sweet reasonableness. "You'd better leave it a bit and arrange something between you. You can't have much claim on a woman if you've been gone like that."

The landlady sobbed heart-brokenly. The man watched her large breasts shake. They seemed to cast a spell over his mind.

"How I've treated her, that's no matter," he replied. "I've come back, and I'm going to stop in my own home —for a bit, anyhow. There, you've got it."

"A dirty action," said the sergeant, his face flushing dark. "A dirty action, to come, after deserting a woman for that number of years, and want to force yourself on her! A dirty action—as isn't allowed by the law."

The landlady wiped her eyes.

"Never you mind about law nor nothing," cried the man in a strange, strong voice. "I'm not going out of this public to-night."

The woman turned to the soldiers behind her and said, in a wheedling, sarcastic tone:

"Are we going to stand it, boys? Are we going to be done like this, Sergeant Thomas, by a scoundrel and a bully as has led a life beyond mention in those America mining camps, and then wants to come back and make havoc of a poor woman's life and savings, after having left her with a baby in arms to struggle as best she might? It's a crying shame if nobody will stand up for me-a crying shame—!"

The soldiers and the little sergeant were bristling. The woman stooped and rummaged under the counter for a minute. Then, unseen to the man away near the fire, she threw out a plaited grass rope, such as is used for binding bales, and left it lying near the feet of the young soldiers in the gloom at the back of the bar.

Then she rose and fronted the situation.

“Come now," she said to the man in a reasonable, coldly-coaxing tone, "put your coat on and leave us alone. Be a man, and not worse than a brute of a German. You can get a bed easy enough in St. Just, and if you've nothing to pay for it, sergeant would lend you a couple of shillings, I'm sure he would.''

All eyes were fixed on the man. He was looking down at the woman like a creature bewitched.

"I've got money of my own," he said. "Don't you be frightened for your money, I've plenty of that, for the time."

"Well, then," she coaxed in a cold, almost sneering propitiation, "put your coat on and go where you're wanted—be a man, not a brute of a German."

She had drawn quite near to him in her challenging, coaxing intentness. He looked down at her with his bewitched face.

"No, I shan’t," he said. "I shan't do no such thing. You'll put me up for to-night."

“Shall I?" she cried. And suddenly she flung her arms round him, hung on to him with all her powerful weight, calling to the soldiers: "Get the rope, boys, and fasten him up."

The man reared, looked round with maddened yes, and heaved his powerful body. But the woman was powerful also, and very heavy, and was clenched with the determination of death. Her face, with its exulting, horribly vindictive look, was turned up to him from his own breast; he reached back his head frantically to get away from it. Meanwhile the young soldiers, after having watched this frightful Laocoön^[4]Laocoön was a figure in Greek and Roman Mythology who was strangled by sea serpents. writhing for a moment, stirred, and the malicious one darted swiftly with the rope. It was tangled a little.

"Give the end here," cried the sergeant.

Meanwhile the big man heaved and struggled, swung the woman round against the seat and the table in his convulsive effort to get free. But she pinned down his arms like a cuttle-fish wreathed heavily upon him.

The young soldier had got the rope once round, the brisk sergeant helping him. The woman sank heavily lower; they got the rope round several times. In the struggle the victim fell over against the table. The ropes tightened till they cut his arms. The woman clung to his knees. Another soldier ran in a flash of genius and fastened the strange man's feet with the pair of braces. Seats had crashed over, the table was thrown against the wall, but the man was bound, his arms pinned against his sides, his feet tied. He lay half fallen, sunk against the table, still for a moment.

The woman rose, and sank, faint, on to the seat against the wall. Her breast heaved, she could not speak, she thought she was going to die. The bound man lay against the over-turned table, his coat all twisted beneath the ropes, leaving the loins exposed. The soldiers stood around, a little dazed.

The man began to struggle again, heaving instinctively against the ropes, taking great deep breaths. His face, with its golden skin, flushed dark and surcharged; he heaved again. The great veins in his neck stood out. But it was no good, he went relaxed. Then again, suddenly, he jerked his feet.

"Another pair of braces, William," cried the excited soldier. He threw himself on the legs of the bound man and managed to fasten the knees. Then again there was stillness. They could hear the clock tick.

The woman looked at the prostrate figure, the strong straight limbs, the strong back bound in subjection, the wide-eyed face that reminded her of a calf tied in a sack in a cart, only its head stretched dumbly backwards. And she was appeased.

The bound-up body began to struggle again. She watched, fascinated, the muscles working, the shoulders, the hips, the large clean thighs. Even now he might break the ropes. She was afraid. But the lively young soldier sat on the shoulders of the bound man, and. after a few perilous moments there was stillness again.

“Now," said the judicious sergeant to the bound man, "if we untie you will you promise to go off and make no more trouble? "

"You'll not untie him in here," cried the woman. "I wouldn't trust him as far as I could blow him."

There was silence.

"We might carry him outside and undo him there," said the soldier. "Then we could get the policeman if he made any more bother."

"Yes," said the sergeant, "we could do that." Then again, in an altered, almost severe tone, to the prisoner: "If we undo you outside will you take your coat and go without creating any more disturbance?"

But the prisoner would not answer; he only lay with wide, dark, bright eyes, like a bound animal. There was a space of perplexed silence.

"Well, then, do as you say," said the woman irritably. "Carry him out amongst you, and let us shut up the house."

They did so. Picking up the bound man the four soldiers staggered clumsily into the silent square in front of the inn, the woman following with the cap and the overcoat. The young soldiers quickly unfastened the braces from the prisoner's legs, and they hopped indoors. They were in their stockinged feet, and outside the stars flashed cold. They stood in the doorway watching. The man lay quite still on the cold ground.

"Now," said the sergeant in a subdued voice, "I'll loosen the knot and he can work himself free, if you go in, missis."

She gave a last look at the dishevelled, bound man as he sat on the ground. Then she went indoors, followed quickly by the sergeant. Then they were heard locking and barring the door.

The man seated on the ground outside worked and. strained at the rope. But it was not so easy to undo himself even now. So, with hands bound, making an effort, he got on his feet, and went and worked the cord against the rough edge of an old wall. The rope, being of a kind of plaited grass, soon frayed and broke, and he freed him¬self. His arms were hurt and bruised from the bonds. He rubbed them slowly. Then he pulled his clothes straight, stooped, put on his cap, struggled into his overcoat, and walked away.

The stars were very brilliant. Clear as crystal the beam from the lighthouse under the cliffs struck rhythmic¬ally on the night. Dazed, the man walked along the road past the churchyard. Then he stood leaning up against a wall for a long time.

He was roused because his feet were so cold. So he pulled himself together and turned again in the silent night back towards the inn.

The bar was in darkness. But there was a light in the kitchen. He hesitated. Then very quietly he tried the door.

He was surprised to find it open. He entered and quietly closed it behind him. Then he went down the step past the bar-counter and through to the lighted doorway of the kitchen. There sat his wife, planted in front of the range, where a furze fire was burning. She sat in a chair full in front of the range, her knees wide apart on the fender. She looked over her shoulder at him as he entered, but she did not speak. Then she stared in the fire again.

It was a small, narrow kitchen. He dropped his cap on the table, that was covered with yellowish American cloth, and took a seat, with his back to the wall, near the oven. His wife still sat with her knees apart, her feet on the steel fender, and stared into the fire motionless. Her skin was smooth and rosy in the firelight. Everything in the house was very clean and bright. The man sat silent too, his head dropped. And thus they remained.

It was a question who would speak first. The woman leaned forward and poked the ends of the sticks in between the bars of the range. He lifted his head and looked at her.

"Others gone to bed, have they?" he asked. But she remained closed in silence.

“’S a cold night out," he said, as if to himself.

And he laid his large, yet well-shapen, workman's hand on the top of the stove, that was polished black and smooth as velvet. She would not look at him, yet she glanced out of the corners of her eyes.

His eyes were fixed brightly on her, the pupils large and electric like those of a cat.

"I should have picked you out among a thousand," he said.

She was silent for some time. Then she turned in her chair upon him.

"What do you think of yourself," she said, "coming back on me like this after over fifteen years^[5]Original reads ‘year’? You don't think I've not heard of you, neither, in Bute City and elsewhere? "

He was watching her with his clear, translucent, un¬ challenged eyes.

"Yes," he said. "Chaps comes an' goes—I've heard tell of you from time to time."

She drew herself up.

"And what lies have you heard about me?” she demanded superbly

"I dunno as I've heard any lies at all—'cept as you was getting on very well, like."

His voice ran easy and detached. Her anger stirred again in her violently. But she subdued it, because of the danger there was in him, and more, perhaps, because of the beauty of his head and his level-drawn brows, which she could not bear to forfeit.

"That's more than I can say of you," she said. "I've heard more harm than good about you."

"Aye, I dessay," he said, looking into the fire. It was a long time since he had seen the furze burning, he said to himself. There was a silence, during which she watched his face.

"Do you call yourself a man?" she said, more in contemptuous reproach than in anger. "Leave a woman, as you've left me, you don't care to what! —and then to turn up in this fashion· without a word to' say for yourself."

He stirred in his chair, planted his feet apart, and, resting his arms on his knees, looked steadily into the fire without answering. So near to her was his head and the close black hair she could scarcely refrain from touching it.

"Do you call that the action of a man?" she repeated.

“No," he said, reaching and poking the bits of wood into the fire with his fingers. "I didn't call it anything, as I know of."

She watched him in his actions. There was a longer and longer pause between each speech, though neither knew it.

“I wonder what you think of yourself?" she exclaimed with vexed emphasis. "I wonder what sort of a fellow you take yourself to be!" She was really perplexed as well as angry.

"Well," he said, lifting his head to look at her, "I guess it takes my sort to make up all sorts."

Her heart beat fiery hot as he lifted his face to her. She breathed heavily, averting her face, almost losing her self-control.

“And what do you take me to be?" she cried in real distress.

His face was lifted, watching her, watching her soft, averted face, and the softly heaving mass of her breasts.

“I take you," he said with that laconic truthfulness which exercised such power over her, "to be a fine woman—as fine a built woman as I've seen, handsome with it as well."

Her heart beat fiery hot.

"Not handsome to you," she said cryptically.

He made no answer to this, but sat with his bright, quick eyes upon her.

Then he rose. She started involuntarily. But he only said in his soft, measured way:

"It's warm in here, now."

And he pulled off his overcoat, throwing it on the table.

She sat as if slightly cowed whilst he did so.

"Them ropes has given my arms something, they have," he said abstractedly, feeling his arms with his hands.

Still she sat in her chair before him, slightly cowed.

“Wasn't half a bad dodge of yours to hang on to me like that," he said, "and get me tied up—not half a bad dodge. You fixed me up proper—proper, you did."

He went behind her chair and put his hands over her shoulders on to her full soft breasts. She shrank as if struck.

“But I don't think no harm of you for it," came his balanced, soft, absent voice, as his strong fingers seemed to move her very heart. "You're a darn sight too fine a woman for me to bear you any grudge, you are that! "

He put his hand under her soft, full chin and lifted her face. Almost a groan of helpless, desirous resentment came from her lips as he kissed her.