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 Computer Arithmetic
and Verilog HDL
Fundamentals

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

K10562_FM.indd 1 10/21/09 11:51:03 AM

 By the same author:

DIGITAL COMPUTER ARITHMETIC: Design and Implementation

SEQUENTIAL LOGIC: Analysis and Synthesis

VERILOG HDL: Digital Design and Modeling

DIGITAL DESIGN and Verilog HDL Fundamentals

THE COMPUTER CONSPIRACY

A novel

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

K10562_FM.indd 2 10/21/09 11:51:04 AM

 Computer Arithmetic
and Verilog HDL
Fundamentals

Joseph Cavanagh
Santa Clara University
California, USA

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

K10562_FM.indd 3 10/21/09 11:51:04 AM

 CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
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Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

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© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 To Dr. Ivan Pesic
for generously providing the SILOS Simulation Environment software
for all of my books that use Verilog HDL and for his continued support

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 CONTENTS

Preface ................................................................................................. xv

Chapter 1 Number Systems and Number Representations 1

1.1 Number Systems ..................................................................... 1

1.1.1 Binary Number System ............................................... 4
1.1.2 Octal Number System ................................................. 6
1.1.3 Decimal Number System ............................................ 8
1.2 Number Representations ......................................................... 12
1.2.1 Sign Magnitude ........................................................... 13
1.2.2 Diminished-Radix Complement ................................. 15
1.2.3 Radix Complement ..................................................... 18
1.3 Problems ................................................................................. 22

Chapter 2 Logic Design Fundamentals ....................................... 25

2.1 Boolean Algebra ..................................................................... 25

2.2 Minimization Techniques ....................................................... 32
2.2.1 Algebraic Minimization .............................................. 32
2.2.2 Karnaugh Maps ........................................................... 33
2.2.3 Quine-McCluskey Algorithm ..................................... 39
2.3 Combinational Logic .............................................................. 44
2.3.1 Multiplexers ................................................................ 47
2.3.2 Decoders ..................................................................... 53
2.3.3 Encoders ...................................................................... 56
2.3.4 Comparators ................................................................ 58
2.4 Sequential Logic ..................................................................... 60
2.4.1 Counters ..................................................................... 62
2.4.2 Moore Machines ......................................................... 71
2.4.3 Mealy Machines .......................................................... 78
2.5 Problems ................................................................................. 84

Chapter 3 Introduction to Verilog HDL ...................................... 93

3.1 Built-In Primitives .................................................................. 94

3.2 User-Defined Primitives ......................................................... 108
3.3 Dataflow Modeling ................................................................. 118
3.3.1 Continuous Assignment .............................................. 118
3.4 Behavioral Modeling .............................................................. 129
3.4.1 Initial Statement .......................................................... 129

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 viii Contents

3.4.2 Always Statement ....................................................... 129

3.4.3 Intrastatement Delay ................................................... 133
3.4.4 Interstatement Delay ................................................... 133
3.4.5 Blocking Assignments ................................................ 133
3.4.6 Nonblocking Assignments .......................................... 136
3.4.7 Conditional Statements ............................................... 138
3.4.8 Case Statement ............................................................ 141
3.4.9 Loop Statements .......................................................... 150
3.5 Structural Modeling ................................................................ 154
3.5.1 Module Instantiation ................................................... 154
3.5.2 Design Examples ......................................................... 155
3.6 Problems ................................................................................. 179

Chapter 4 Fixed-Point Addition ..................................................... 183

4.1 Ripple-Carry Addition ............................................................ 184

4.2 Carry Lookahead Addition ..................................................... 191
4.3 Carry-Save Addition ............................................................... 201
4.3.1 Multiple-Bit Addition ................................................. 201
4.3.2 Multiple-Operand Addition ......................................... 206
4.4 Memory-Based Addition ........................................................ 212
4.5 Carry-Select Addition ............................................................. 216
4.6 Serial Addition ........................................................................ 227
4.7 Problems ................................................................................. 234

Chapter 5 Fixed-Point Subtraction ............................................... 237

5.1 Twos Complement Subtraction .............................................. 238
5.2 Ripple-Carry Subtraction ........................................................ 243
5.3 Carry Lookahead Addition/Subtraction .................................. 250
5.4 Behavioral Addition/Subtraction ............................................ 267
5.5 Problems ................................................................................. 271

Chapter 6 Fixed-Point Multiplication ........................................ 275

6.1 Sequential Add-Shift Multiplication ....................................... 276
6.1.1 Sequential Add-Shift Multiplication
Hardware Algorithm .................................................... 278
6.1.2 Sequential Add-Shift Multiplication — Version 1 ...... 282
6.1.3 Sequential Add-Shift Multiplication — Version 2 ...... 285
6.2 Booth Algorithm Multiplication ............................................. 289
6.3 Bit-Pair Recoding Multiplication ........................................... 304

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 Contents ix

6.4 Array Multiplication ............................................................... 318

6.5 Table Lookup Multiplication .................................................. 329
6.6 Memory-Based Multiplication ............................................... 339
6.7 Multiple-Operand Multiplication ........................................... 344
6.8 Problems ................................................................................. 353

Chapter 7 Fixed-Point Division ..................................................... 359

7.1 Sequential Shift-Add/Subtract Restoring Division ................. 360
7.1.1 Restoring Division — Version 1 ................................. 362
7.1.2 Restoring Division — Version 2 ................................. 368
7.2 Sequential Shift-Add/Subtract Nonrestoring Division ........... 374
7.3 SRT Division .......................................................................... 382
7.3.1 SRT Division Using Table Lookup ............................. 393
7.3.2 SRT Division Using the Case Statement ..................... 397
7.4 Multiplicative Division ........................................................... 402
7.5 Array Division ........................................................................ 408
7.6 Problems ................................................................................. 423

Chapter 8 Decimal Addition ............................................................ 427

8.1 Addition with Sum Correction ............................................... 427
8.2 Addition Using Multiplexers .................................................. 437
8.3 Addition with Memory-Based Correction ............................. 444
8.4 Addition with Biased Augend ................................................ 454
8.5 Problems ................................................................................. 460

Chapter 9 Decimal Subtraction ...................................................... 463

9.1 Subtraction Examples ............................................................. 464
9.2 Two-Decade Addition/Subtraction Unit for A+B and A–B ... 467
9.3 Two-Decade Addition/Subtraction Unit for A+B, A–B,
and B–A .................................................................................. 481
9.4 Problems ................................................................................. 491

Chapter 10 Decimal Multiplication ................................................. 493

10.1 Binary-to-BCD Conversion .................................................... 493
10.2 Multiplication Using Behavioral Modeling ............................ 495
10.3 Multiplication Using Structural Modeling .............................. 498
10.4 Multiplication Using Memory ................................................ 510

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 x Contents

10.5 Multiplication Using Table Lookup ....................................... 524

10.6 Problems ................................................................................. 528

Chapter 11 Decimal Division ............................................................ 529

11.1 Restoring Division — Version 1 ............................................. 529
11.2 Restoring Division — Version 2 ............................................. 538
11.3 Division Using Table Lookup ................................................. 545
11.4 Problems ................................................................................. 550

Chapter 12 Floating-Point Addition ............................................... 551

12.1 Floating-Point Format ............................................................. 552
12.2 Biased Exponents ................................................................... 554
12.3 Floating-Point Addition .......................................................... 557
12.4 Overflow and Underflow ........................................................ 560
12.5 General Floating-Point Organization ...................................... 561
12.6 Verilog HDL Implementation ................................................. 564
12.7 Problems ................................................................................. 569

Chapter 13 Floating-Point Subtraction .......................................... 571

13.1 Numerical Examples ............................................................... 573
13.2 Flowcharts .............................................................................. 581
13.3 Verilog HDL Implementations ............................................... 584
13.3.1 True Addition ............................................................ 584
13.3.2 True Subtraction — Version 1 .................................. 589
13.3.3 True Subtraction — Version 2 .................................. 593
13.3.4 True Subtraction — Version 3 .................................. 598
13.3.5 True Subtraction — Version 4 .................................. 603
13.4 Problems ................................................................................. 608

Chapter 14 Floating-Point Multiplication .................................... 611

14.1 Double Bias ............................................................................ 613
14.2 Flowcharts .............................................................................. 614
14.3 Numerical Examples ............................................................... 616
14.4 Verilog HDL Implementations ............................................... 618
14.4.1 Floating-Point Multiplication — Version 1 .............. 618
14.4.2 Floating-Point Multiplication — Version 2 .............. 624
14.5 Problems ................................................................................. 631

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 Contents xi

Chapter 15 Floating-Point Division ................................................ 633

15.1 Zero Bias ................................................................................. 635
15.2 Exponent Overflow/Underflow .............................................. 638
15.3 Flowcharts .............................................................................. 641
15.4 Numerical Examples ............................................................... 643
15.5 Problems ................................................................................. 646

Chapter 16 Additional Floating-Point Topics ............................. 649

16.1 Rounding Methods ................................................................. 649
16.1.1 Truncation Rounding ................................................ 650
16.1.2 Adder-Based Rounding ............................................. 651
16.1.3 Von Neumann Rounding ........................................... 653
16.2 Guard Bits ............................................................................... 654
16.3 Verilog HDL Implementations ............................................... 654
16.3.1 Adder-Based Rounding Using Memory .................... 655
16.3.2 Adder-Based Rounding Using
Combinational Logic ................................................ 660
16.3.3 Adder-Based Rounding Using
Behavioral Modeling ................................................ 668
16.3.4 Combined Truncation, Adder-Based, and
von Neumann Rounding .......................................... 674
16.4 Problems ................................................................................. 680

Chapter 17 Additional Topics in Computer Arithmetic ......... 685

17.1 Residue Checking ................................................................... 686
17.1.1 Dataflow Modeling ................................................... 690
17.1.2 Structural Modeling .................................................. 693
17.2 Parity-Checked Shift Register ................................................ 717
17.3 Parity Prediction ..................................................................... 723
17.4 Condition Codes for Addition ................................................. 738
17.5 Logical and Algebraic Shifters ............................................... 747
17.5.1 Behavioral Modeling ................................................. 748
17.5.2 Structural Modeling .................................................. 753
17.6 Arithmetic and Logic Units .................................................... 760
17.6.1 Four-Function Arithmetic and Logic Unit ................ 760
17.6.2 Sixteen-Function Arithmetic and Logic Unit ............ 764
17.7 Count-Down Counter ............................................................. 771
17.8 Shift Registers ......................................................................... 775
17.8.1 Parallel-In, Serial-Out Shift Register ........................ 775
17.8.2 Serial-In, Serial-Out Shift Register ........................... 778

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 xii Contents

17.8.3 Parallel-In, Serial-In, Serial-Out Shift Register ........ 782

17.8.4 Serial-In, Parallel-Out Shift Register ........................ 787
17.9 Problems ................................................................................. 795

Appendix A Verilog HDL Designs for Select

Logic Functions ................................................. 801

A.1 AND Gate ............................................................................... 801

A.2 NAND Gate ............................................................................ 806
A.3 OR Gate .................................................................................. 809
A.4 NOR Gate ............................................................................... 811
A.5 Exclusive-OR Function .......................................................... 814
A.6 Exclusive-NOR Function ....................................................... 818
A.7 Multiplexers ............................................................................ 822
A.8 Decoders ................................................................................. 825
A.9 Encoders ................................................................................. 829
A.10 Priority Encoder ...................................................................... 833
A.11 Binary-to-Gray Code Converter ............................................. 836
A.12 Adder/Subtractor .................................................................... 843

Appendix B Event Queue ....................................................... 849

B.1 Event Handling for Dataflow Assignments ............................ 849
B.2 Event Handling for Blocking Assignments ............................ 854
B.3 Event Handling for Nonblocking Assignments ...................... 857
B.4 Event Handling for Mixed Blocking and Nonblocking
Assignments ............................................................................ 861

Appendix C Verilog HDL Project Procedure ......................... 865

Appendix D Answers to Select Problems ............................... 867

Chapter 1 Number Systems and Number Representations ...................... 867
Chapter 2 Logic Design Fundamentals ................................................... 869
Chapter 3 Introduction to Verilog HDL .................................................. 873
Chapter 4 Fixed-Point Addition .............................................................. 883
Chapter 5 Fixed-Point Subtraction .......................................................... 887
Chapter 6 Fixed-Point Multiplication ..................................................... 891
Chapter 7 Fixed-Point Division ............................................................... 897
Chapter 8 Decimal Addition ................................................................... 903
Chapter 9 Decimal Subtraction ............................................................... 907

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 Contents xiii

Chapter 10 Decimal Multiplication ........................................................... 908

Chapter 11 Decimal Division .................................................................... 912
Chapter 12 Floating-Point Addition .......................................................... 913
Chapter 13 Floating-Point Subtraction ...................................................... 915
Chapter 14 Floating-Point Multiplication ................................................. 918
Chapter 15 Floating-Point Division .......................................................... 924
Chapter 16 Additional Floating-Point Topics ........................................... 926
Chapter 17 Additional Topics in Computer Arithmetic ............................ 932

Index ................................................................................................. 943

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 PREFACE

The purpose of this book is to present computer arithmetic for fixed-point, decimal,
and floating-point number representations for the operations of addition, subtraction,
multiplication, and division, and to implement those operations using the Verilog
Hardware Description Language (HDL). The Verilog HDL language provides a
means to model a digital system at many levels of abstraction.
The four basic operations are implemented in the execution unit of a computer
which includes the arithmetic and logic unit (ALU). The execution unit is the focal
point of the computer and performs all of the arithmetic and logical operations.
Addition and subtraction for all three number representations are relatively sim-
ple; however, multiplication and division are comparatively more complex. The
arithmetic algorithms for the three number representations are presented in sufficient
detail to permit ease of understanding.
The different modeling constructs supported by Verilog are described in detail.
Numerous examples are designed in each chapter for specific operations using the
appropriate number representation, including both combinational and clocked
sequential arithmetic circuits. Emphasis is placed on the detailed theory and design
of various arithmetic circuits using applicable algorithms. The Verilog HDL design
projects include the design module implemented using built-in primitives, dataflow
modeling, behavioral modeling or structural modeling, the test bench module, the
outputs obtained from the simulator, and the waveforms obtained from the simulator
that illustrate the complete functional operation of the design.
The book is intended to be tutorial, and as such, is comprehensive and self con-
tained. All designs are carried through to completion — nothing is left unfinished or
partially designed. Each chapter includes numerous problems of varying complexity
to be designed by the reader.
Chapter 1 covers the number systems of different radices, such as binary, octal,
binary-coded octal, decimal, binary-coded decimal, hexadecimal, and binary-coded
hexadecimal. The chapter also presents the number representations of sign magni-
tude, diminished-radix complement, and radix complement.
Chapter 2 presents a review of logic design fundamentals, including Boolean
algebra and minimization techniques for switching functions. The minimization
techniques include algebraic minimization using Boolean algebra, Karnaugh maps,
map-entered variables, the Quine-McCluskey algorithm, and the Petrick algorithm.
Various combinational logic macro functions are also presented. These include mul-
tiplexers of different sizes and types, such as linear-select multiplexers and nonlin-
ear-select multiplexers. The chapter also shows a one-to-one correspondence
between the data input numbers di of a multiplexer and the minterm locations in a

xv

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 xvi Preface

Karnaugh map. Decoders and encoders are presented together with comparators.
Sequential logic includes SR latches, D flip-flops, and JK flip-flops. Counters of dif-
ferent moduli are designed for both count-up and count-down counters. The com-
plete design process for Moore and Mealy synchronous sequential machines is
presented.
Chapter 3 introduces Verilog HDL, which will be used throughout the book to de-
sign the arithmetic circuits. Verilog HDL is the state-of-the-art method for designing
digital and computer systems and is ideally suited to describe both combinational and
clocked sequential arithmetic circuits. Verilog provides a clear relationship between
the language syntax and the physical hardware. The Verilog simulator used in this
book is easy to learn and use, yet powerful enough for any application. It is a logic
simulator — called SILOS — developed by Silvaco International for use in the design
and verification of digital systems. The SILOS simulation environment is a method to
quickly prototype and debug any logic function. It is an intuitive environment that dis-
plays every variable and port from a module to a logic gate. SILOS allows single-step-
ping through the Verilog source code, as well as drag-and-drop ability from the source
code to a data analyzer for waveform generation and analysis. This chapter introduces
the reader to the different modeling techniques, including built-in primitives for logic
primitive gates and user-defined primitives for larger logic functions. The three main
modeling methods of dataflow modeling, behavioral modeling, and structural model-
ing are introduced.
Chapter 4 presents fixed-point addition. The different categories of addition cir-
cuits are: ripple-carry addition, carry lookahead addition, carry-save addition, mem-
ory-based addition, carry-select addition, and serial addition. A ripple-carry adder is
not considered a high-speed adder, but requires less logic than a high-speed adder
using the carry lookahead technique. Using the carry lookahead method, a consider-
able increase in speed can be realized by expressing the carry-out couti of any stage i as
a function of the two operand bits ai and bi and the carry-in cin–1 to the low-order
stage0 of the adder. Carry-save adders (CSAs) save the carry from propagating to the
next higher-order stage in an n-bit adder. They can be used to add multiple bits of the
same weight from multiple operands or to add multiple n-bit operands. With the
advent of high-density, high-speed memories, addition can be easily accomplished by
applying the augend and addend as address inputs to the memory — the outputs are the
sum. A carry-select adder is not as fast as the carry lookahead adder, however it has a
unique organization that is interesting. The carry-select principle produces two sums
that are generated simultaneously. One sum assumes that the carry-in to that group
was a 0; the other sum assumes that the carry-in was a 1. The predicted carry is
obtained using the carry lookahead technique which selects one of the two sums. If a
minimal amount of hardware is a prerequisite and speed is not essential, then a serial
adder may be utilized. A serial adder adds the augend and addend one bit per clock
pulse — thus, eight clock pulses are required to add two bytes of data.
Chapter 5 presents fixed-point subtraction, which like addition, is relatively sim-
ple. It also shares much of the same circuitry as addition. The two operands for sub-
traction are the minuend and the subtrahend — the subtrahend is subtracted from the
minuend. Computers use an adder for the subtraction operation by adding the radix
complement of the subtrahend to the minuend. A 2s complementer is used that

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

 Preface xvii

produces either the uncomplemented version of the addend for addition or the 2s com-
plement version of the subtrahend for subtraction. Subtraction can be performed in all
three number representations: sign magnitude, diminished-radix complement, and
radix complement; however, radix complement is the easiest and most widely used
method for subtraction in any radix.
Chapter 6 presents several methods for fixed-point multiplication. The multipli-
cand is multiplied by the multiplier to generate the product. In all methods the product
is usually 2n bits in length. The sequential add-shift method is a common approach for
low-speed multiplication, but usually requires that the multiplier be positive. The
Booth algorithm is an effective technique for multiplying operands that are in 2s com-
plement representation, including the case where the multiplier is negative. Unlike the
sequential add-shift method, it treats both positive and negative operands uniformly;
that is, the multiplicand and multiplier can both be negative or positive. Another
method is bit-pair recoding that represents a speedup technique that is derived from the
Booth algorithm and assures that an n-bit multiplier will have no more than n/2 partial
products. It also treats both positive and negative multipliers uniformly; that is, there
is no need to 2s complement the multiplier before multiplying, or to 2s complement
the product after multiplying. A table lookup multiplier permits a multiply operation
for unsigned operands and positive signed operands. For signed operands, the multi-
plier must be positive — the multiplicand can be positive or negative. Multiplication
can be accomplished by using a table that contains different versions of the multipli-
cand to be added to the partial products. Firmware loads the multiplicand table in
memory and the multiplier prior to the multiply operation. With the advent of high-
capacity, high-speed random-access memories (RAMs), multiplication using RAM
may be a viable option. The multiplicand and multiplier are used as address inputs to
the memory — the outputs are the product. The operands can be either unsigned or
signed numbers in 2s complement representation. Multiple-operand multiplication is
also presented.
Chapter 7 covers several methods of fixed-point division, including the sequential
shift-add/subtract restoring division method in which the partial remainder is restored
to its previous value if it is negative. The speed of the division algorithm can be
increased by modifying the algorithm to avoid restoring the partial remainder in the
event that a negative partial remainder occurs. This method allows both a positive par-
tial remainder and a negative partial remainder to be utilized in the division process. In
nonrestoring division, a negative partial remainder is not restored to the previous value
but is used unchanged in the following cycle. SRT division was developed indepen-
dently by Sweeney, Robertson, and Tocher as a way to increase the speed of a divide
operation. It was intended to improve radix-2 floating-point arithmetic by shifting
over strings of 0s or 1s in much the same way as the Booth algorithm shifts over strings
of 0s in a multiply operation. SRT division is designed in this chapter using a table
lookup approach and using the case statement, which is a multiple-way conditional
branch. Convergence division is also covered in which a multiplier is used in the
division process; thus, the method is referred to as multiplicative division. A combi-
national array can be used for division in much the same way as an array was used for
multiplication. This is an extremely fast division operation, because the array is
entirely combinational — the only delay is the propagation delay through the gates.

© 2010 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

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Wood. Don’t see her. Remember, she is your child and my wife.
Show the angel’s side once more. Be true to your own soul. Listen.
You are your child’s religion. While she worships you, while she
holds you the ideal of all that is pure and lovely, the spirit of good in
you is kept alive by her devotion. If you cast yourself down from that
altar you kill in yourself everything that is not vile, base, devilish; you
ruin the mind you and I have watched over and kept pure; you throw
yourself and her into an endless hell. You are a woman—you will
have pity.”
He poured out these words in a hot lava-torrent of passionate
emotion which surprised and moved the woman to whom sensations
were the breath of life. However, she was not conquered; she looked
up in his face and said with languid insolence:
“So! One can make fire out of wood at last! Well, you should have
woke up sooner. I intend to see my daughter.”
George heard the patter of Nouna’s steps on the polished floor of
the room within. With one rapid glance at the window, which was
some few feet further down the verandah than the spot where he
stood, and without one word or sound to warn her of his intention, he
snatched Chloris up in his arms, and ran across the lawn towards
the river in a slanting direction away from the window, to a spot
where he saw a couple of boats moored to the bank. Utterly taken by
surprise, and as instinctively submissive as her sex usually are to a
masculine coup of this kind, Chloris White scarcely uttered a faint
exclamation until, seeing the direction of their course, she asked,
coolly:
“Are you going to drown me?”
“No. Though it’s what you deserve,” he panted briefly. And
reaching the boats, he got into the nearest, a solidly built skiff, put
Chloris down on the cushioned seat in the stern, pushed the boat off,
and paddled her easily with the tide to the shadow of the trees, so
that Nouna, if she came to the window, might not see them.
“What do you expect to gain by this astonishing stratagem?” asked
Chloris.
“I intend to prevent you seeing Nouna until she has got clear of the
house.”
“In the meantime young Wood will have met her, she will have
found out that Chloris White is at home, and will have made up her
mind to wait until she does see me.”
George made no answer. He was indeed considering what step he
should next take. Luckily for him his silence, which was really the
result of want of resource, impressed Chloris White differently. She
was not used to being thwarted and treated as a person of small
account, and she grew impatient and fretful at being made a fool of.
To be forced to sit, with a complexion adapted for the half-light of the
verandah and the lamps of the dinner table, in the full yellow glare of
the evening sun, hatless, with no becoming sunshade to throw a soft
shadow over her face, exposed without any of the clever artifices of
her treasury to the disillusionised stare of the pleasure-crews that
rowed past, was an ordeal which subdued the haughty security of
this queen of an artificial realm more surely than innocent George
could have guessed. She looked up at him, blinking in the
unaccustomed strong daylight, with a malignant expression of
spiteful hatred, and then looked over the boat-side into the shallow
water, cowering miserably before the combined forces of blunt,
coarse, overmastering nature, and blunt, coarse, overmastering
man.
“Well, you have got your way this once—make the most of it,” she
said bitterly. “Let me get back on the bank; the sun makes my head
ache.”
 “You will let her go without seeing her?” said George, utterly
unconscious in the earnest realities that were occupying him, of the
frivolous details which had gained his victory, and suspicious of her
good faith.
“Yes, yes, yes, I tell you. She can go and you can go—the sooner
the better. I am worn out with your coarse violence; I must go to my
room and lie down.”
George paddled slowly back to where there was a pathway among
the trees. An inkling of the truth broke upon him as he compared the
superb disdain and contemptuous coolness with which this woman
had treated him in the verandah with the broken-spirited petulance
she showed now. He became rather ashamed of his stratagem, and
helped the humbled woman to land very gently, with lowered eyes,
feeling for the first time a spark of human kinship with her in this little
exhibition of unamiable nature. “I am sorry if I have been rough,” said
he humbly. “You see I have been much disturbed to-day.”
She made no answer, being by this time safe on the bank. She
gave him—feeling more at ease already in the shade of the trees—
one flashing, enigmatical glance which, while it did not betray her
thoughts or her feelings towards him very definitely, yet renewed the
impression of evil which her feminine helpless querulousness in the
boat had for the time laid in abeyance; then she turned, and letting
her golden-coloured gown trail after her on the narrow path, she
walked away with the free motion from the hip, and graceful, alluring
bearing which had come to her with her Eastern blood. But to
George she looked, as she got further and further from his sight in
the black and dim recesses of the plantation, like a huge, sinuous
serpent, with head and upper part raised from the ground, ready to
spring at and coil round its victim.
He remembered with a start that her word was not to be relied on,
and bringing the boat with a few strokes back to where he had first
found it, he jumped ashore, made fast the painter, and crossed the
lawn rapidly to the window of the drawing-room. Nouna was there
alone, leaning over a low chair, utterly absorbed in the picture of
Guinevere at the window. She turned round on hearing footsteps,
and screamed at sight of her husband. He sprang across the floor to
her; but, struck suddenly with a terribly vivid sense of the likeness
between her and the wretched woman he had just left, he felt his first
impulse to take her in his arms freeze up, and merely said that she
must come home with him. She cast a last lingering look of
admiration at the paintings on the walls, and let her husband lead
her out through the hall, where she tried to lag behind him with
inquisitive glances into all the corners, burying her head among the
hot-house flowers in a subdued ecstasy of enjoyment, and altogether
showing a manifest reluctance to leave this strange little paradise of
delights. They walked down the avenue in silence, except that he
told her to make haste, and rebuked her rather sharply for a stealthy
glance behind her at the house.
At the lodge-gates the fly in which he had come was waiting.
When he had helped her in there came upon him a strong sense that
he and she—an ill-assorted pair enough, with many a struggle and a
heart-pang in store for them—were all that was left, each to the
other, in a mass of tumbled ruins of fair prospects that had been
solid and stately that morning. And as she cowered, very silent and
subdued, expecting a scolding for her escapade, he put his arms
round her, just before the sheltered road where they were driving
joined the highway, and pressed a fervent, throbbing kiss on her lips.
She returned it demonstratively, according to her wont, and then, as
they were close upon the High Street, they had to calm down their
exuberance, and he asked:
“What were you thinking about, Nounday?”
“I was thinking how lovely it would be to live in a house like that,”
she answered naïvely.
It was natural enough, and George said so to himself, and would
not let himself be tortured by the thought that the innocent remark
was significant.
 CHAPTER XXIV.
Throughout the journey back to town from Richmond there was,
after that brief caress, scarcely more communication between
George and his wife than if they had been strangers. Nouna,
surprised in a flagrant act of disobedience, was disposed, by the
very leniency with which she had been treated, to look upon her
husband’s reserve as ominous; while he on his own side was too
much absorbed in considering what steps he ought next to take to
dispel her fears of punishment by so much as a few gentle words.
The fact was that George, who, like other reserved people of
strong feelings, could only control the expression of those feelings,
when strongly excited, by mounting over himself the strictest guard,
wore on this occasion an unconscious panoply of sternness which
was far more alarming to the impressionable Nouna than the most
passionate outpouring of invective could have been. As the hansom
they had taken from Waterloo Station drove up to the door of their
house, and George flung the doors open with a sudden impulsive
movement forward as if he would have sprung out without waiting for
the driver to pull up, he was recalled to a consciousness of his wife’s
presence by a frightened moan at his elbow, and looking round
hastily, he saw her huddled up in the corner watching him with eyes
full of fear. The sight startled him horribly, for the discovery of the
evening had poisoned his mind with evil knowledge and rank
suspicions.
“What is the matter? Why are you looking frightened?” he asked
with a constrained look and tone which seemed to the frightened
creature both fierce and harsh.
Nouna drew a long, shivering breath and did not answer, her eyes
moving with the helpless, agonised expression of a field-mouse
imprisoned for a few moments in human hands. Not in the least
understanding the effect his manner had upon her, Lauriston’s
suspicions suddenly took form as he remembered the presence of
Rahas at Thames Lawn. As a matter of fact Nouna was entirely
ignorant that either the Oriental merchant or Sundran was at the
house she had just visited with the harmlessly quixotic intention of
pleading for Dicky Wood. But Lauriston could not know that, could
scarcely at that moment have believed his wife’s oath if she had
sworn the truth. He turned sharply round in his seat to get a full view
of her face, and she, scared out of all self-control, uttered a little
shriek. He did not touch her, he did not attempt to reassure her; with
a heavy, hopeless sigh he turned away, took off his hat, and passed
his hand over his forehead. They had reached home, the footman
was advancing from the open door; George noticed with disgust that
the man must have witnessed the little scene. He got out and held
out his hand to his wife, who rejected it and hung back until he
quietly gave place to the servant, and walked to meet the Colonel,
the sight of whom on the pathway a short distance from the house,
had been the cause of his start forward in the hansom.
As the two men met they exchanged eager, anxious glances.
“Well!” said the Colonel shortly.
Lauriston, who looked haggard, white, and shaken, waited for him
to speak further.
“What has—she done?”
Unwilling so much as to mention the name of the woman he
reluctantly acknowledged as his daughter, Lord Florencecourt
glanced towards the house she had just entered to indicate whom he
meant.
“Done! What has she done? God knows.”
“Well, what do you suspect? You can speak out to me; I am not
sensitive now. Has she done—the worst? You looked at her as if you
could have killed her. I saw as you passed.”
Poor George stared at him in consternation.
“I looked—at my wife—as if I could have—killed her!” he repeated
stupidly.
“Yes, by Jove, you did.”
George said nothing more for a few moments, being altogether
shocked to learn that he could become unconsciously the most
repulsive of tyrants to the very creature whom, in all the wreck of his
life and his hopes, he unswervingly and with a new smarting fervour,
adored.
 “I suppose,” he said at last, “I’m going off my head. I swear I hadn’t
the least idea there was anything unusual in my manner. Poor little
thing!” he murmured abstractedly, while the Colonel continued to
regard him very curiously.
George turned instinctively towards his home, and glanced
through the trees at the windows of his wife’s room with a great
yearning in his whole face. The Colonel put his arm briskly through
the young man’s, and tried to lead him towards the nearest gate.
They had wandered into Kensington Gardens.
“Come and dine with me at the Wellington Club. I’ve called twice
at your place since I left you, and have been hovering about ever
since on the look-out for you. Come—a glass of Rudesheimer——”
George drew back. “No, thanks, Colonel; I can’t come to-night. I
must go back to my wife. You see—leaving her like that——”
He stammered and stopped. The Colonel considered him again
attentively.
“You’ve not been telling her anything of our talk this afternoon,
have you?” he asked, with a shade of contempt. “I cannot
understand that craze of a newly-married man to be babbling of all
his affairs to his wife. I should as soon think of consulting a new
hunter as to an investment in Consols.”
“I have told her nothing.”
“Then what is the matter with you? You look more upset than you
did this afternoon.”
“I have seen Nouna’s mother.”
The Colonel’s jaw dropped, and his irritability suddenly
disappeared.
“Madame di—di Valdestillas?” he said in a subdued, tentative
tone.
“Oh, no; I’ve had my way. There’s an end once for all to all
humbug,” answered George bitterly. “I’ve seen Chloris White.”
Then both remained silent for a while. Truly after this there
seemed little to be said. At last the Colonel said in a low voice:
“Now, my boy, you see what I’ve had to live through the last few
years. You don’t wonder any longer at my opinion of women?”
But George felt no sympathetic softening. He thought that a man
should make sure of the death of his first wife before he married a
second, and that he should show a little human feeling for his own
daughter.
“I don’t wonder either, Colonel, at Chloris White’s opinion of men,”
he said drily.
“You think you have a grievance against me, I see.”
“Frankly, I do. Why didn’t you make a clean breast of it when you
found it was I who had married your daughter? You might have
trusted me, Colonel, as if I had had no tongue; you know that. And
you saw me fall into a villainous trap and live on that infamous
woman’s money. O God! The thought of it! When just a whisper
would have put me right.”
“Well, well, the murder’s out now, and one sees things differently. I
knew what your wife’s influence over you was, and I thought if I
breathed a word it would get to her ears and set her clamouring for
her pitiful title. A man’s a weak thing in a beautiful woman’s hands,
as no one knows better than I. I’ll do what I can for you; I’m bound to,
and I will. What do you propose to do?”
“Resign my commission, give back every cursed penny I can, and
get employment abroad to work off the rest.”
Lord Florencecourt looked up, startled.
“Resign your commission! You mustn’t think of that. The worst’s
over now; it is I, not you, who have anything to fear from the devil.
Give up your house, of course; I’ll allow you five hundred, six
hundred a year. You are quite free from any obligation, for I
acknowledge your wife is my daughter, and her mother would force
me in any case to contribute to her support. Do you see?”
“Quite. I accept your offer, Colonel, in this way. You shall allow
Nouna five hundred a year until we have cleared off every farthing
we have spent under a misapprehension. But for the future my wife
and I will live on my earnings and what I have besides of my own.”
“But why leave the army?”
“Cowardice, partly. I feel disgraced and beaten down, and I’ve lost
heart for the old ambitions. And—I have other reasons. Over here
there is a constant risk of Nouna’s meeting——”
He hurried this last sentence, but stopped abruptly in the middle of
it.
 “You might exchange. Come now, that would solve all difficulties.
Nobody would know the style you used to keep here, and you could
make a fresh start quietly.”
George considered the proposal for a few seconds, and then
shook his head.
“Look here, Colonel, it’s no use denying it; I’m broke—as surely as
a man who’s gone to the dogs on his own account; the only
difference is that I’ve been thrown to ’em. There’s an awfulness
about the thing I’ve been made to do that has bowled me over—
pride, self-respect, and all. I shall work round again all right, I’ve no
doubt, but I can’t set to it in England or in the army. Help me to get
away as fast as I can; it’s the greatest kindness you can do me.”
He had made up his mind past gainsaying. The Colonel was
deeply moved, self-reproach adding force to his compassion.
“If you won’t be persuaded,” he began slowly, “I suppose I must
help you your own way. How would Paris suit you?”
“Any place would suit me where I could get anything to do. And
Paris would be lively for Nouna,” he added, half to himself.
The Colonel would have preferred that Nouna’s name should be
left out of the discussion. He continued: “A young American, a
connection of Lady Millard’s, who is engaged in a bank here called
the ‘London, New York, and Chicago,’ was telling me at their place a
few nights ago that the firm intend to start a branch establishment in
Paris, for the use chiefly of the English and American colonies. They
have an opening for a young man of good birth and address. It’s a
wretched thing, I know, for you,” he went on with a change of voice,
glancing again regretfully from head to foot of the handsome young
soldier.
“Can you get it for me?” asked Lauriston, with a first sign of
eagerness.
“I think so, but—the salary is miserable and——”
“What will they give?”
“Something like a hundred and twenty at the outside to begin with.
It’s starvation.”
“Not a bit of it. It’s more than my pay.”
“Yes, but your wife!”
 “My wife?” George’s face broke with a ray of a smile. “She shall be
all right. She is no more than a bird to keep; and we shall live very
near the housetops, where she will be at home.”
In fact, the idea of having her all to himself again sprang up a
bright little fountain in desolation, unlooked for in his breast. The
Colonel pulled his moustache. Nouna, he thought, was the sort of
bird to make a very uncomfortable flapping against the bars of any
but the most expensive of cages.
“When can I know whether they will give me the berth?” George
asked.
“I almost think, from the manner in which they spoke, that what I
should say about you would settle it. They are particular as to the
stamp of man. You could hear in a week.”
“How soon can I get away, Colonel?”
“As soon as you like; I’ll see that it’s all right.”
“Thanks. I want to wind up all my affairs here quietly, and slip away
at any moment when I have arranged for the payment of the debts
we have incurred.”
“You can make me security for those. And, by the by, I can give
you some good introductions in Paris.”
“Many thanks, Colonel, but it would only be prolonging the social
death-struggle. One can only die game to society on—on the income
we shall have.”
“Don’t you think, for your wife’s sake, you are wrong in resolving to
be so independent? How will you keep her amused?”
“Oh, that won’t be difficult in Paris. The very air is more
exhilarating than here, and she is just the person to appreciate its
pleasures.”
“But the pleasures ladies love are no cheaper there than here,
remember.”
Lauriston would not be cheated out of the rags of comfort he had
collected for himself, and Lord Florencecourt was obliged to leave
him without even discovering how small the income was to which the
young fellow was trusting. The money he had inherited from his aunt
—all he had to depend on besides what his own work could produce
—brought him in only a little over a hundred a year; and he had even
been obliged to encroach upon next year’s income in the early days
of his marriage, when it seemed easier to trust to the literary work he
had been promised for the future than to refuse his new-made wife
the pretty trifles she set her heart upon. Now the idea of making
money by writing again occurred to him, and pricked him to instant
action with the thought that something might still be made of life if
Nouna could only be induced to be happy in her changed
circumstances. This was Lauriston’s weak side. He knew that if
Chloris White chose to be as bad as her word, and to excite Rahas’s
evil thirst for Nouna’s beauty, he should have to enter into a conflict
with a stealthy and unscrupulous enemy, the thought of whose
underhand weapons filled him with fury and loathing. He must get
away with his wife at once, as secretly as he could, trusting that the
mother might overpower the fiend in Chloris, and induce her to leave
her child safe in the care of a man whom she must at least respect.
In the meantime the change in their circumstances must be made
known to Nouna without delay.
George returned to the big house which was so detestably
impregnated with the thought of Chloris and her vilely earned money,
and inquiring for his wife, learnt that she was in her bath. This was
with Nouna by no means the perfunctory daily ceremony of
Europeans, but was a luxurious pleasure in which she spent many
hours of the hot summer days, having had a room fitted up to recall,
as far as possible, her dim half-imagined memories of the cool inner
courts of an Indian palace. George knocked at the door and Nouna,
recognising the tread, in a timid and uncertain voice bade him come
in. The room was paved and wainscoted with tiles; the bath, a large
one six feet square, but only three deep, was sunk into the floor with
two steps down into the water on all the sides, the whole being lined
with sea-green tiles that gave a pretty tint to the water. A lamp hung
in brass chains from the ceiling; a long mirror reaching down to the
ground occupied the middle of the wall. A sofa, a rug, a table with
fruit and coffee, and a little window conservatory with thin lace
curtains before it, were all the rest of the furniture. Nouna, in a blue
and white cotton garment which was no great encumbrance, was
peering up from the corner of the bath furthest from the door like a
frightened water-nix. As George came over to her, she made straight
for the opposite corner, and seeing that she did not mean to be
approached nearer, he moved away from the bath and sat down on
the sofa.
“I frightened you just now, I am afraid, Nouna,” he began in a very
humble voice.
“No-o,” she answered, plucking up spirit as she saw she was safe
from attack.
“I mean, perhaps you thought me cross and—and rough, because
I didn’t talk to you much on the way home.”
“You were cross and rough.”
“Well, I’m very sorry, for I didn’t mean to be. I had had news which
upset me and made me so wretched that I forgot everything else.”
“What news?” she asked very softly, sliding through the water to
the side of the bath nearest to him, and leaning her bare wet arms
on the tiles of the floor. For she began, now that her fright was over,
to see that he was unhappy.
He paused for a few moments to consider how he should best
break it to her. At last it came out, however, with masculine
bluntness.
“You know what you would say, Nouna, if you heard that there had
been a mistake—about the money—supposed to be left us, and that
we were as poor as ever again, and had to give up this house and
everything—even your jewels!”
The water all round the poor child began to quiver with little
widening ripples, as she trembled at the shock of this most dire
calamity; even his previous suggestion of it seemed to have had no
effect in softening the blow. As for George, he felt that all the
previous horrors of the miserable day had produced no pang so
acute as the one he now felt, when he had to deal with his own
hands the blow which crushed, for the time at least, all the bright
happiness of the only creature he loved in the world. He sat like a
culprit, with hanging head and loosely clasped hands, too much
afraid of breaking down himself to attempt to soften the gloomy
picture by a word of hope. It was she who broke the silence first.
“My jewels! No, I sha’n’t have to give those up,” she whispered
eagerly, “for they were given me by mamma!”
George looked at her with haggard eyes, noticing that the mere
mention of her mother soothed her, let in a ray of sweet sunshine at
once upon the black-looking prospect.
“But supposing we were so badly in debt that even they had to be
sold!” he suggested in a hoarse voice that he tried in vain to clear.
“Then I should drown myself!” cried Nouna tragically, and she
descended a step lower into the water as if to fulfil the dread purpose
immediately.
“What, Nouna!” cried George, “don’t you think me worth living for?
Do you think, when I’ve lost everything else, you ought to take away
just what would console me for it all? Do you, Nouna?”
She hung her head, and crawling, meek and ashamed like a truant
dog, out of the water, laid herself face downwards on the tiled floor at
a little distance from his feet. But when he stooped towards her she
said, her voice ringing out with passionate sincerity:
“Don’t touch me! Let me lie here till I’m good, and then you may
pick me up and forgive me.”
“But listen. I’ve something else to tell you, something that perhaps
you will like to hear.”
“What is it?” She raised her head and looked up at him.
“We shall be very poor, as I told you, and sha’n’t be able to have a
nice house, or many pretty things. But I’m going to take you to live in
Paris——”
“Paris!” He had scarcely uttered the word when she repeated it like
a shout of triumph, and springing up from the floor, snatched a lace-
bordered and embroidered sheet which was lying on a little white
porcelain stove in one corner of the room, and wrapping it round her
with one dexterous sweeping movement, slipped off her bathing-
dress like a loose skin from underneath it, and flinging herself on to
the sofa beside her husband, put a transformed and glowing face up
to his, as she whispered in a tone of rapture: “Then I don’t mind
anything—anything, for I shall see mamma!”
With an uncontrollable impulse George drew himself away from
her and started to his feet. He felt sick, and a film gathered before
his eyes, preventing him from finding the handle of the door, which
he sought with cold, clammy fingers.
“George!” said a low voice behind him. He scarcely heard,
scarcely recognised it, and made no answer.
 “George!” A little hand found its way to his throat, and was laid
against his neck.
His arms fell down listlessly, and as he stood still and felt that he
was touched by clinging fingers, and heard Nouna’s voice in its most
caressing tones, his sight came again; he looked down and put his
hands on his wife’s shoulder.
“Why are you going away, George? Why are you going away?”
“I don’t feel well, dearest.”
“Well, sit by me, and I will take your head in my lap and nurse
you.”
She led him gently back to the sofa. But presently, when she had
curled herself up in a corner of it, and making him lie full length had
pillowed his head upon her breast, and administered kisses and eau
de Cologne alternately with great lavishness, she peered into his
face with a new inspiration, and said mysteriously:
“You are not ill—you are unhappy.”
He protested he was only grieving at the change in their fortunes
for her sake.
Nouna laughed gently. “I was silly,” she said, “and wicked. In the
first moments of surprise one does not know what one says. I don’t
mind at all. I would rather be poor in Paris than rich in London.”
He shivered, though Nouna, with some tact, believing he was
jealous, had not mentioned her mother again. But she examined his
face attentively, and saw that the drawn, hopeless look remained.
After a few moments she slipped her shoulder away very tenderly
from beneath his head, which she transferred to a cushion; and
George heard the door softly shut after her as she went out. He
called to her, but she took no notice, and he supposed she had gone
to dress. But in a few minutes the ghost-like figure glided in again,
looking just the same, and came to where he was now sitting upright
on the sofa.
“There!” she said triumphantly, and she put her jewellery, piece by
piece, down to a little gold bar brooch which he had given her before
their marriage, into her husband’s pockets. “You can go and sell
them this minute if you like. You see I don’t mind a bit. Not—a—bit,”
she repeated deliberately, and then looked into his face to see
whether this willing act of self-sacrifice had brought him consolation.
 George smiled at her and told her she was a good child; but his
smile was still very sad, and the hand which he placed on her
shoulder trembled. Then Nouna, who was sitting on the rug at his
feet, began to cry quietly; their usual mutual position was reversed; it
was she who now wanted to get nearer to him, and did not know
how. A strange deadness seemed to have come over him, so that he
did not notice even her tears. He was indeed arranging his plans for
their departure from England, with some distrust of his wife’s
fortitude at the end. At last, when amazement at this singular state of
affairs had dried her eyes, and she had sat mournfully staring at her
husband in utter silence for some minutes, a light broke upon her
face, and she sprang up suddenly into a kneeling position. Joining
her hands together above his knees like a child and looking out
instinctively at the glimpse of darkening sky visible between the
leaves of the plants in her little window conservatory, she said with
all the solemnity and timidity of a person who is undertaking for the
first time an arduous responsibility:
“Pray God to comfort my husband George, if I cannot.”
This startled George and broke him up altogether, reserve and
fortitude and manly dignity and all. He snatched her up in his arms
with such impetuous haste that her slippers flew off and exposed
little pink toes to the air, and enfolding her in a hug that went nigh to
stopping her breath, burst into sobs like a hungry and beaten child.
 CHAPTER XXV.
To George Lauriston’s infinite surprise and comfort, his young
wife, instead of dealing him fresh wounds in his misfortune by
lamentations over their altered lot, fell quite naturally into the
woman’s part of helpmeet, and eased the wrench of breaking from
his old career by an unwavering brightness and sweetness which
woke in him the fairest hopes of what their life together might yet be.
On the other hand, this sudden change from winsome wilfulness to
still more winsome womanliness could not fail to rouse in him some
anxiety as to its cause. Had she received any communication from
her mother, either through the hateful Rahas or some other channel?
Her secretive nature made it difficult to discover the truth on such
points.
“Why are you so kind to me now, little woman?” he asked her two
days after the memorable return from Norfolk, when their
preparations for departure were already half made.
“Kind! Wasn’t I always kind to you?” she asked, not quite
evasively, yet with more understanding than she affected to have.
“Yes, but not quite in the same sweet way.”
“Ah ha! It’s the pictures and the music and the sermons you’ve
taken me to beginning to have an effect at last,” she said, not
flippantly, for though she laughed her eyes began to glisten.
George was touched, but greatly puzzled.
“Have you heard anything from Sundran since she left?” asked he
carelessly, after allowing an interval to elapse so that the question
might appear to have no connection with what had gone before.
“No,” said Nouna; then, after a pause, she looked up at her
husband mysteriously. “Do you know what I think?”
“Well!”
“I believe she has managed, how I don’t know, to find her way
back to mamma. I’ve been thinking it over a great deal, and I fancy
when she found out the Colonel,”—(she lowered her voice)—“she
thought she ought to let mamma know where to find him.” And
Nouna finished with a slow emphatic nod of her small head.
“That’s a very clever suggestion,” said George, who indeed had
reason to think so. He felt relieved, for Nouna’s want of candour had
never gone the length of deliberately planned deceit, and he decided
upon the strength of this short dialogue that she had heard nothing.
The real reason of his wife’s altered conduct was not likely to
occur to him. Coming of a race which places the one sex in such
complete subjection to the other that confidence between them is
impossible, she possessed, together with that cautious over-
reticence which is the weapon of the weak, its correlative virtue—a
delicate tact which avoided a sensitive place discreetly, and made no
attempt to lay bare a wound which her lord wished to conceal.
Something had happened to make George unhappy—this kind
husband who had cherished her so tenderly, who had denied her no
proof of his affection. Her woman’s heart was deeply touched; if she
had any curiosity it could wait for its satisfaction until by and by when
he was better; in the meantime she would be loyally good to him,
even to the extent of checking her secret sobs over the parting with
the plants and perfumes and knick-knacks which had grown into her
frivolity-loving heart.
George got the bank appointment, through the efforts of Lord
Florencecourt, who told him he had had a close race with a
connection of the man who was to be manager of the Paris branch.
“He’s a disagreeable man, the manager, Mr. Gurton,” said the
Colonel. “I hope you’ll get on all right with him. The young fellow he
wanted to get in is a lad he calls his nephew, but by all accounts he
is what nephews have a trick of turning out to be. Gurton is rather
savage over the disappointment; fortunately I was able to prove that
the lad is not so steady as he might be.”
“Thank you, Colonel. It’s very good of you to take so much trouble.
I’m sorry about the mysterious nephew. Unless he’s an exceptionally
just man, it will make him so ready to find fault with me. And of
course I’m quite raw to the work.”
“Oh, I don’t think it’s difficult—mere routine for the most part. My
boy, it is a shame for you to be tied to such work.”
 “Well, all work is routine; it can’t be worse for that than the army.
And then there are prizes. Who knows but I may end my days as a
prosperous banker, with an income which would make a General’s
mouth water?”
Between the Colonel’s hearty friendship and help on the one hand,
and Nouna’s unexpected and discreet sympathy on the other,
Lauriston was beginning to realise that the worst stains of the
degradation he had felt so keenly might in time be wiped out, and in
this reaction he was inclined at first to lose remembrance of Chloris
White’s threats, and to look upon the smallness of his means as the
present difficulty which would need the sternest grappling with. He
could not bear the thought of plunging his wife straight from the
unbridled extravagance and luxury which she had lately enjoyed with
so keen a zest to an existence more meagre than that which had
palled upon her so soon in the first days of their marriage. That she
was preparing with great fortitude for such a plunge was proved to
him the day before they started. She was rather silent and
abstracted at dinner that evening, and when it was over she walked
with a listless and melancholy tread into the quaint drawing-rooms,
the shelves and brackets of which George found were bare of their
load of fantastic trifles. Fans, screens, mirrors, ivory carvings, all had
disappeared; only half a dozen small porcelain vases, filled with
fresh flowers that morning, remained.
“You’ve been packing up, I see, busy little woman,” said George,
trying to speak cheerfully, as he stood with his arm round her in the
room which already began to wear a desolate look, as if the soul had
died out of it.
“No, not packing, only making a list of them. Here it is. I thought
they could pack them up themselves after we were gone,” she said,
sadly.
By “they” she indicated with a shudder the mysterious enemies
who were driving forth her and her husband from their beautiful
home, and forcing them to make horrid things called inventories of
her little Turkish tables, and the soft sofas on which she had been so
fond of resting, and the big oak bookcase which was the pride of
George’s heart. She held out two or three half-sheets of her
husband’s foolscap paper, closely scribbled on both sides with her
spidery, illegible writing.
“What’s this?” asked George, running his eyes over it and reading
aloud at random. “ ‘One pair of pink garters with silver clasps, and
with a little knob come off the clasp of one!’ ” He turned to the next
page and read: “ ‘Two fans with pearl handles and one with
tortoiseshell which I have never used. Except once’ ” was screwed
into the space above as an afterthought. George picked out another
item. “ ‘A hand-mirror that makes you look pretty, as if you had a
crown on, for the top is a silver coronet.’ ” Further on the entries grew
fuller and more eloquent, as if the very description of the beauty of
her treasures had become a labour of love. “ ‘Two lovely
embroidered dresses, one pale blue silk, all over little silver birds
with their little wings spread out as if they were flying in the sky. The
other is pink with white roses and lilies, very nearly as pretty as the
other one, and besides it is less worn.’ ” Even her velvet slippers,
each pair described with loving minuteness, were faithfully put down.
“They are all there; I haven’t kept back anything, indeed,”
explained Nouna in great haste, as George, after reading some
naïve entries in silence, turned his back upon her, a proceeding
which seemed to her ominous. “I’ve only kept just the things I had
before we came here.”
But then he put his arms round her quite suddenly, and held her
close to him as he said:
“And who do you think will be able to get into those little doll’s
garments of yours if you leave them behind? The frocks might do for
babies’ gowns, certainly, and the red velvet slippers might be hung
upside down for watch-pockets, but they will never find grown-up
people small enough to wear them, my word for it!”
Nouna twisted her left shoulder up to her uneasily, and a little
haughtily; she had considered the drawing up of this list as a very
business-like proceeding, and now she was being laughed at for it.
Her husband saw this in time to kiss away the gathering frown. His
own taste would have preferred the sacrifice of the dainty though
now most inappropriate wardrobe; but he knew that during long
hours of the day he should have to be away from his wife, and as
experience had taught him that she could find more entertainment in
an embroidered sash than in the whole literature of the English
language, and that moreover her moral qualities could shine out
strongly upon occasion in spite of this unorthodox taste, he decided
that she should have the solace in exile of all her private treasures
except the jewels, which he intended to despatch to Chloris White at
the moment of leaving England.
“You think I mind giving these things up!” Nouna said superbly.
“But I am not a child; they are nothing to me.”
Nevertheless, when her husband told her he would help her to
pack them up, as they were of no use to any one but her, she leapt
about the room for joy, and rushed off to take advantage of the
permission in a state of frantic excitement.
They got away safely from England within a week of the fateful
visit to “Thames Lawn,” all difficulties being smoothed away by the
co-operation of the Colonel who, while he made no effort to see his
daughter again, did everything in his power to help her and her
husband to get away quickly and quietly. They prided themselves on
managing everything very neatly, and both men hoped that the
young husband and wife would be able to get lost, not only to the
world, but to the vicious and vindictive Chloris White, even without
the adoption of a feigned name, which the Colonel advised, but
which Lauriston declined to resort to.
“If they made up their minds to find me, Nouna’s peculiar beauty
would be clue enough to track me by to the end of the world,” said
he. “I have done nothing to disgrace my name, and it’s one of my
deepest wishes to make my wife so proud of it that she will forget
that she ever had any other.”
They started in the early morning from Charing Cross, Lord
Florencecourt meeting them at the station to see them off. The
greeting between father and daughter was a curious one. Nouna,
whose prejudice against the Colonel had hitherto found vent in
avoidance or in sauciness, now received him with a low bow and
humble touch of the hand of decorous respect, while in her lowered
eyes hatred of the man who had abandoned her mother struggled
with her strong native sense of the majesty of a father. The Colonel’s
manner, on the other hand, was nervous and jerky. He was grieved
to lose Lauriston, delighted to lose his daughter, and haunted by a
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