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 Data Mining and Analysis:
Foundations and Algorithms

Mohammed J. Zaki

Proof stage

“Do not Distribute”

DATA MINING AND ANALYSIS

The fundamental algorithms in data mining and analysis form the basis
for the emerging field of data science, which includes automated meth-
ods to analyze patterns and models for all kinds of data, with applications
ranging from scientific discovery to business intelligence and analytics.
This textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate data mining courses
provides a broad yet in-depth overview of data mining, integrating related
concepts from machine learning and statistics. The main parts of the book
include exploratory data analysis, pattern mining, clustering, and classifi-
cation. The book lays the basic foundations of these tasks, and also covers
cutting-edge topics such as kernel methods, high-dimensional data analy-
sis, and complex graphs and networks. With its comprehensive coverage,
algorithmic perspective, and wealth of examples, this book offers solid
guidance in data mining for students, researchers, and practitioners alike.

Key Features:

• Covers both core methods and cutting-edge research

• Algorithmic approach with open-source implementations
• Minimal prerequisites, as all key mathematical concepts are pre-
sented, as is the intuition behind the formulas
• Short, self-contained chapters with class-tested examples and exer-
cises that allow for flexibility in designing a course and for easy
reference
• Supplementary online resource containing lecture slides, videos,
project ideas, and more

Mohammed J. Zaki is a Professor of Computer Science at Rensselaer

Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York.

Wagner Meira Jr. is Associate Professor of Computer Science at Univer-

sidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil.
DATA MINING
AND ANALYSIS
Foundations and Algorithms
MOHAMMED J. ZAKI
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York

WAGNER MEIRA, JR.

Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of

education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521766333
c Mohammed J. Zaki and Wagner Meira, Jr. 2014

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2014

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Zaki, Mohammed J., 1971-
Data mining and analysis : foundations and algorithms / Mohammed J. Zaki, Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York, Wagner Meira, Jr., Universidade Federal de
Minas Gerais, Brazil.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-521-76633-3 (hardback)
1. Data mining. I. Meira, Wagner, 1967- II. Title.
QA76.9.D343Z36 2014
006.3′ 12–dc23 2013037544

ISBN 978-0-521-76633-3 Hardback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of

URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Contents

Preface page ix

1 Data Mining and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 Data Matrix 1
1.2 Attributes 3
1.3 Data: Algebraic and Geometric View 4
1.4 Data: Probabilistic View 14
1.5 Data Mining 25
1.6 Further Reading 30
1.7 Exercises 30

PART ONE: DATA ANALYSIS FOUNDATIONS 31

2 Numeric Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
2.1 Univariate Analysis 33
2.2 Bivariate Analysis 42
2.3 Multivariate Analysis 48
2.4 Data Normalization 52
2.5 Normal Distribution 54
2.6 Further Reading 60
2.7 Exercises 60

3 Categorical Attributes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
3.1 Univariate Analysis 63
3.2 Bivariate Analysis 72
3.3 Multivariate Analysis 82
3.4 Distance and Angle 87
3.5 Discretization 89
3.6 Further Reading 91
3.7 Exercises 91

4 Graph Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
4.1 Graph Concepts 93
4.2 Topological Attributes 97

v
vi Contents

4.3 Centrality Analysis 102

4.4 Graph Models 112
4.5 Further Reading 132
4.6 Exercises 132

5 Kernel Methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134

5.1 Kernel Matrix 138
5.2 Vector Kernels 144
5.3 Basic Kernel Operations in Feature Space 148
5.4 Kernels for Complex Objects 154
5.5 Further Reading 161
5.6 Exercises 161

6 High-dimensional Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

6.1 High-dimensional Objects 163
6.2 High-dimensional Volumes 165
6.3 Hypersphere Inscribed within Hypercube 168
6.4 Volume of Thin Hypersphere Shell 169
6.5 Diagonals in Hyperspace 171
6.6 Density of the Multivariate Normal 172
6.7 Appendix: Derivation of Hypersphere Volume 175
6.8 Further Reading 180
6.9 Exercises 180

7 Dimensionality Reduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

7.1 Background 183
7.2 Principal Component Analysis 187
7.3 Kernel Principal Component Analysis 202
7.4 Singular Value Decomposition 208
7.5 Further Reading 213
7.6 Exercises 214

PART TWO: FREQUENT PATTERN MINING 215

8 Itemset Mining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217

8.1 Frequent Itemsets and Association Rules 217
8.2 Itemset Mining Algorithms 221
8.3 Generating Association Rules 234
8.4 Further Reading 236
8.5 Exercises 237

9 Summarizing Itemsets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242

9.1 Maximal and Closed Frequent Itemsets 242
9.2 Mining Maximal Frequent Itemsets: GenMax Algorithm 245
9.3 Mining Closed Frequent Itemsets: Charm algorithm 248
9.4 Nonderivable Itemsets 250
9.5 Further Reading 256
9.6 Exercises 256
Contents vii

10 Sequence Mining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

10.1 Frequent Sequences 259
10.2 Mining Frequent Sequences 260
10.3 Substring Mining via Suffix Trees 267
10.4 Further Reading 277
10.5 Exercises 277

11 Graph Pattern Mining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281

11.1 Isomorphism and Support 281
11.2 Candidate Generation 285
11.3 The gSpan Algorithm 289
11.4 Further Reading 297
11.5 Exercises 298

12 Pattern and Rule Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302

12.1 Rule and Pattern Assessment Measures 302
12.2 Significance Testing and Confidence Intervals 317
12.3 Further Reading 329
12.4 Exercises 329

PART THREE: CLUSTERING 331

13 Representative-based Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333

13.1 K-means Algorithm 333
13.2 Kernel K-means 338
13.3 Expectation Maximization Clustering 341
13.4 Further Reading 360
13.5 Exercises 361

14 Hierarchical Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

14.1 Preliminaries 364
14.2 Agglomerative Hierarchical Clustering 366
14.3 Further Reading 372
14.4 Exercises and Projects 373

15 Density-based Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

15.1 The DBSCAN Algorithm 375
15.2 Kernel Density Estimation 379
15.3 Density-based Clustering: DENCLUE 385
15.4 Further Reading 390
15.5 Exercises 391

16 Spectral and Graph Clustering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394

16.1 Graphs and Matrices 394
16.2 Clustering as Graph Cuts 401
16.3 Markov Clustering 416
16.4 Further Reading 422
16.5 Exercises 423
viii Contents

17 Clustering Validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 425

17.1 External Measures 425
17.2 Internal Measures 441
17.3 Relative Measures 449
17.4 Further Reading 461
17.5 Exercises 462

PART FOUR: CLASSIFICATION 465

18 Probabilistic Classification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 467
18.1 Bayes Classifier 467
18.2 Naive Bayes Classifier 473
18.3 Further Reading 477
18.4 Exercises 477

19 Decision Tree Classifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 479

19.1 Decision Trees 481
19.2 Decision Tree Algorithm 483
19.3 Further Reading 494
19.4 Exercises 494

20 Linear Discriminant Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 496

20.1 Optimal Linear Discriminant 496
20.2 Kernel Discriminant Analysis 503
20.3 Further Reading 509
20.4 Exercises 510

21 Support Vector Machines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512

21.1 Linear Discriminants and Margins 512
21.2 SVM: Linear and Separable Case 518
21.3 Soft Margin SVM: Linear and Nonseparable Case 522
21.4 Kernel SVM: Nonlinear Case 528
21.5 SVM Training Algorithms 532

22 Classification Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546

22.1 Classification Performance Measures 546
22.2 Classifier Evaluation 560
22.3 Bias-Variance Decomposition 569
22.4 Further Reading 578
22.5 Exercises 579

Index 583
Preface

This book is an outgrowth of data mining courses at RPI and UFMG; the RPI course
has been offered every Fall since 1998, whereas the UFMG course has been offered
since 2002. Although there are several good books on data mining and related topics,
we felt that many of them are either too high-level or too advanced. Our goal was to
write an introductory text that focuses on the fundamental algorithms in data mining
and analysis. It lays the mathematical foundations for the core data mining methods,
with key concepts explained when first encountered; the book also tries to build the
intuition behind the formulas to aid understanding.
The main parts of the book include exploratory data analysis, frequent pattern
mining, clustering, and classification. The book lays the basic foundations of these
tasks, and it also covers cutting edge topics such as kernel methods, high dimensional
data analysis, and complex graphs and networks. It integrates concepts from related
disciplines such as machine learning and statistics, and is also ideal for a course on data
analysis. Most of the prerequisite material is covered in the text, especially on linear
algebra, and probability and statistics.
The book includes many examples to illustrate the main technical concepts. It also
has end of chapter exercises, which have been used in class. All of the algorithms in the
book have been implemented by the authors. We suggest that readers use their favorite
data analysis and mining software to work through our examples, and to implement the
algorithms we describe in text; we recommend the R software, or the Python language
with its NumPy package. The datasets used and other supplementary material such as
project ideas, slides, and so on, are available online at the book’s companion site and
its mirrors at RPI and UFMG:

• http://dataminingbook.info
• http://www.cs.rpi.edu/ zaki/dataminingbook
• http://www.dcc.ufmg.br/dataminingbook

Having understood the basic principles and algorithms in data mining and data
analysis, readers will be well equipped to develop their own methods or use more
advanced techniques.

ix
x Preface

2 3

14 6 7 15 5 4 19 18 8

13 16 20 21 11 9 10

17 22 12
Figure 1. Chapter dependencies

Suggested Roadmaps

The chapter dependency graph is shown in Figure 0.1. We suggest some typical
roadmaps for courses and readings based on this book. For an undergraduate level
course, we suggest the following chapters: 1–3, 8, 10, 12–15, 17–19, and 21–22. For an
undergraduate course without exploratory data analysis, we recommend Chapters 1,
8–15, 17–19, and 21–22. For a graduate course, one possibility is to quickly go over the
material in Part I, or to assume it as background reading and to directly cover Chapters
9–23; the other parts of the book, namely frequent pattern mining (Part II), clustering
(Part III), and classification (Part IV), can be covered in any order. For a course on
data analysis the chapters must include 1–7, 13–14, 15 (Section 2), and 20. Finally, for
a course with an emphasis on graphs and kernels we suggest Chapters 4, 5, 7 (Sections
1–3), 11–12, 13 (Sections 1–2), 16–17, and 20–22.

Acknowledgments
Initial drafts of this book have been used in many data mining courses. We received
many valuable comments and corrections from both the faculty and students. Our
thanks go to

• Muhammad Abulaish, Jamia Millia Islamia, India

• Mohammad Al Hasan, Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis
• Marcio Luiz Bunte de Carvalho, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
• Loı̈c Cerf, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
• Ayhan Demiriz, Sakarya University, Turkey
• Murat Dundar, Indiana University Purdue University at Indianapolis
• Jun Luke Huan, University of Kansas
 Preface xi

• Ruoming Jin, Kent State University

• Latifur Khan, University of Texas, Dallas
• Pauli Miettinen, Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, Germany
• Suat Ozdemir, Gazi University, Turkey
• Naren Ramakrishnan, Virginia Polytechnic and State University
• Leonardo Chaves Dutra da Rocha, Universidade Federal de São João del-Rei, Brazil
• Saeed Salem, North Dakota State University
• Ankur Teredesai, University of Washington, Tacoma
• Hannu Toivonen, University of Helsinki, Finland
• Adriano Alonso Veloso, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
• Jason T.L. Wang, New Jersey Institute of Technology
• Jianyong Wang, Tsinghua University, China
• Jiong Yang, Case Western Reserve University
• Jieping Ye, Arizona State University

We would like to thank all the students enrolled in our data mining courses at RPI
and UFMG, and also the anonymous reviewers who provided technical comments on
various chapters. We appreciate the collegial and supportive environment within the
computer science departments at RPI and UFMG. In addition, we thank NSF, CNPq,
CAPES, FAPEMIG, Inweb – the National Institute of Science and Technology for
the Web, and Brazil’s Science without Borders program for their support. We thank
NSF Lauren Cowles, our editor at Cambridge University Press, for her guidance and
patience in realizing this book.
Finally, on a more personal front, MJZ dedicates the book to his wife, Amina,
for her love, patience and support over all these years, and to his children, Abrar and
Afsah, and his parents, and WMJ gratefully dedicates the book to his wife Patricia, to
his children, Gabriel and Marina, and to his parents, Wagner and Marlene, for their
love, encouragement and inspiration.
CHAPTER 1 Data Mining and Analysis

Data mining is the process of discovering insightful, interesting, and novel patterns, as
well as descriptive, understandable, and predictive models from large-scale data. We
begin this chapter by looking at basic properties of data modeled as a data matrix. We
emphasize the geometric and algebraic views, as well as the probabilistic interpreta-
tion of data. We then discuss the main data mining tasks, which span exploratory data
analysis, frequent pattern mining, clustering, and classification, laying out the roadmap
for the book.

1.1 DATA MATRIX

Data can often be represented or abstracted as an n × d data matrix, with n rows and
d columns, where rows correspond to entities in the dataset, and columns represent
attributes or properties of interest. Each row in the data matrix records the observed
attribute values for a given entity. The n × d data matrix is given as
 
X1 X2 · · · Xd
x x 11 x 12 · · · x 1d 
 1 
 
D =.
x2 x 21 x 22 · · · x 2d 
. .. .. .. .. 

. . . . . 
xn x n1 x n2 · · · x nd

where xi denotes the i th row, which is a d-tuple given as

xi = (x i1 , x i2 , . . . , x id )

and X j denotes the j th column, which is an n-tuple given as

X j = (x 1 j , x 2 j , . . . , x nj )

Depending on the application domain, rows may also be referred to as entities,

instances, examples, records, transactions, objects, points, feature-vectors, tuples, and so
on. Likewise, columns may also be called attributes, properties, features, dimensions,
variables, fields, and so on. The number of instances n is referred to as the size of the
1
Other documents randomly have
different content
“And you’ve thought,” Katherine pursued steadily, “of what it will be
after we’re married. Mother always wanting me. Your having to be in
a place that you hate. And even if we went to live somewhere else,
of Mother always keeping her hand on us, never letting go, never
allowing you to be free, knowing about Anna—their all knowing—
you’ve faced it all?”
“I’ve faced it all,” he answered, trying to laugh. “I can’t leave you,
Katie, and that’s the truth. And if I’ve got to have your mother and
the family as well, why, then, I’ve got to have them.... But, oh! my
dear, how your mother despises me! Well, I suppose I am a weak
young man! And I shall forget Russia in time.... I’ve got to!” he
ended, almost under his breath.
She looked at him queerly.
“All right,” she said, “I know now what we’ve got to do.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Wait. I must go and speak to Uncle Tim. I shall be an hour. Be
ready for me out here under this tree in an hour’s time. It will be
seven o’clock.”
“What do you mean?” he asked her again, but she had gone.
She had picked up an old garden hat in the hall, and now very
swiftly hurried up the village road. She walked, the dust rising about
her and the black cloud gaining in size and strength behind her.
Uncle Tim’s house stood by itself at the farther end of the village.
She looked neither to right nor left, did not answer the greeting of
the villagers, passed quickly through the little garden, over the
public path and rang the rusty, creaking bell. An old woman, who
had been Uncle Tim’s housekeeper for an infinite number of years,
opened the door.
“Ah, Miss Kathie,” she said, smiling. “Do ee come in. ’E’s gardenin’,
poor soul. All of a sweat. Terrible ’ot ’tis, tu. Makin’ up thunder I’m
thinkin’.”
Katherine went into the untidy, dusty hall, then into her uncle’s
study. This had, ever since her childhood, been the same, a litter of
bats, fishing-rods, specimens of plants and flowers drying on blotting
paper, books lying in piles on the floor, and a pair of trousers
hanging by a nail on to the back of the door.
She waited, seeing none of these familiar things. She did not, at
first, see her uncle when he came in from the garden, perspiration
dripping down his face, his old cricket shirt open at the neck, his
grey flannel trousers grimed with dust.
“Hullo, Katie!” he cried, “what do you want? And if it’s an invitation
to dinner tell ’em I can’t come.” Then, taking another look at her, he
said gravely, “What’s up, my dear?”
She sat down in an old arm-chair which boasted a large hole and
only three legs; he drew up a chair close to her, then suddenly, as
though he saw that she needed comfort, put his arms round her.
“What’s the matter, my dear?” he repeated.
“Uncle Tim,” she said, speaking rapidly but quietly and firmly, “you’ve
got to help me. You’ve always said that you would if I wanted you.”
“Why, of course,” he answered simply. “What’s happened?”
“Everything. Things, as you know, have been getting worse and
worse at home ever since—well, ever since Phil and I were
engaged.”
“Yes, I know,” he said.
“It hasn’t been Phil’s fault,” she broke out with sudden fierceness.
“He’s done everything. It’s been my fault. I’ve been blind and stupid
from the beginning. I don’t want to be long, Uncle Tim, because
there’s not much time, but I must explain everything so that you
shall understand me and not think it wrong. We’ve got nearly two
hours.”
“Two hours?” he repeated, bewildered.
“From the beginning Mother hated Phil. I always saw it of course,
but I used to think that it would pass when she knew Phil better—
that no one could help knowing him without loving him—and that
was silly, of course. But I waited, and always hoped that things
would be better. Then in the spring down here there was one awful
Sunday, when Aunt Aggie at supper made a scene and accused
Philip of leading Henry astray or something equally ridiculous. After
that Philip wanted me to run away with him, and I—I don’t know—
but I felt that he ought to insist on it, to make me go. He didn’t
insist, and then I saw suddenly that he wasn’t strong enough to
insist on anything, and that instead of being the great character that
I’d once thought him, he was really weak and under anyone’s
influence. Well, that made me love him in a different way, but more
—much more—than I ever had before. I saw that he wanted looking
after and protecting. I suppose you’ll think that foolish of me,” she
said fiercely.
“Not at all, my dear,” said Uncle Tim, “go on.”
“Well, there was something else,” Katherine went on. “One day some
time before, when we first came to Garth, he told me that when he
was in Russia he had loved another woman. They had a child, a boy,
who died. He was afraid to tell me, because he thought that I’d think
terribly of him.
“But what did it matter, when he’d given her up and left her? Only
this mattered—that I couldn’t forget her. I wasn’t jealous, but I was
curious—terribly. I asked him questions, I wanted to see her as she
was—it was so strange to me that there should be that woman, still
living somewhere, who knew more, much more, about Phil than I
did. Then the more questions I asked him about her the more he
thought of her and of Russia, so that at last he asked me not to
speak of her. But then she seemed to come between us, because we
both thought of her, and I used to wonder whether he wanted to go
back to her, and he wondered whether, after all, I was jealous about
her. Then things got worse with everyone. I felt as though everyone
was against us. After the Faunder wedding Henry and Phil had a
quarrel, and Henry behaved like a baby.
“I’ve had a dreadful time lately. I’ve imagined anything. I’ve been
expecting Phil to run away. Millie said he would—Mother’s been so
strange. She hated Phil, but she asked him to Garth, and seemed to
want to have him with her. She’s grown so different that I simply
haven’t known her lately. And Phil too—it’s had a dreadful effect on
him. He seems to have lost all his happiness—he hates Garth and
everything in it, but he’s wanted to be near me, and so he’s come.
So there we’ve all been.” She paused for a moment, then went on
quickly. “Just now—this afternoon—it all came to a climax. Aunt
Aggie had found out from Henry about the Russian woman. She lost
her temper at tea, and told Mother before us all. Phil has been
expecting this to happen for weeks, and had been almost hoping for
it, because then he thought that Mother and Father would say that
he must give me up, and that then I would refuse to leave him. In
that way he’d escape.
“But it seemed”—here Katherine, dropping her voice, spoke more
slowly—“that Mother had known all the time. That horrid Mr.
Seymour in London had told her. She’d known for months, and had
never said anything—Mother, who would have been horrified a year
ago. But no—She said nothing. She only told Aunt Aggie that she
oughtn’t to make scenes in the drawing-room, and that it wasn’t her
business.
“Philip saw then that his last chance was gone, that she meant never
to let me go, and that if she must have him as well she’d have him.
He’s sure now that I’ll never give Mother up unless she makes me
choose between him and her—and so he’s just resigned himself.”
Uncle Tim would have spoken, but she stopped him.
“And there’s more than that. Perhaps it’s foolish of me, but I’ve felt
as though that woman—that Russian woman—had been coming
nearer and nearer and nearer. There was an evening the other night
when I felt that she’d come right inside the house. I went into the
hall and listened. That must seem ridiculous to anyone outside the
family, but it may be that thinking of anyone continually does bring
them—does do something.... At least for me now she’s here, and
she’s going to try and take Phil back again. Mother wants her, it’s
Mother, perhaps, who has made her come. Mother can make Phil
miserable in a thousand ways by reminding him of her, by
suggesting, by ...” With a great cry Katherine broke off: “Oh, Mother,
Mother, I did love you so!” and bursting into a passion of tears, clung
to her uncle as though she were still a little child.
Then how he soothed her! stroking her hair, telling her that he loved
her, that he would help her, that he would do anything for her. He
held her in his arms, murmuring to her as he had done so many
years ago:
“There, Katie, Katie ... it’s all right, it’s all right. Nobody will touch
you. It’s all right, it’s all right.”
At last, with a sudden movement, as though she had realised that
there was little time to waste, she broke from him and stood up,
wiping her eyes with her handkerchief; then, with that strange note
of fierceness, so foreign to the old mild Katherine, she said:
“But now I see—I see everything. What Millie said is true—I can’t
have it both ways, I’ve got to choose. Mother doesn’t care for
anything so much as for beating Philip, for humiliating him, for
making him do everything that she says. That other woman too—
she’d like to see him humiliated, laughed at—I know that she’s like
that, cruel and hard.
“And he’s only got me in all the world. I can beat that other woman
only by showing her that I’m stronger than she is. I thought once
that it was Phil who would take me and look after me, but now it is I
that must look after him.
“If we stay, if we do as Mother wishes, we shall never escape. I love
everything here, I love them all, I can’t leave them unless I do it
now, now! Even to-morrow I shall be weak again. Mother’s stronger
than we are. She’s stronger, I do believe, than anyone. Uncle Tim,
we must go to-night!”
“To-night!” he repeated, staring at her.
“Now, at once, in an hour’s time. We can drive to Rasselas. There’s
the London Express at eight o’clock. It’s in London by midnight. I
can wire to Rachel. She’ll have me. We can be married, by special
licence, to-morrow!”
He did not seem astonished by her impetuosity. He got up slowly
from his chair, knocked over with his elbow the blotting-paper upon
which were the dried flowers, swore, bent down and picked them up
slowly one by one, rose at last and, very red in the face with his
exertions, looked at her. Then he smiled gently, stroking his fingers
through his beard.
“My dear, how you’ve changed!” he said.
“You understand, Uncle Tim,” she urged. “I couldn’t tell Millie. They’d
make it bad for her afterwards, and it would hurt Mother too. I don’t
want Mother to be left alone. It’s the only thing to do. I saw it all in
a flash this evening when Mother was speaking. Even to-morrow
may be too late, when I see the garden again and the village and
when they’re all kind to me. And perhaps after all it will be all right.
Only I must show them that Phil comes first, that if I must choose, I
choose Phil.”
She paused, breathlessly. He was grave again when he spoke:
“You know, my dear, what you are doing, don’t you? I won’t say
whether I think you right or wrong. It’s for you to decide, and only
you. But just think. It’s a tremendous thing. It’s more than just
marrying Philip. It’s giving up, perhaps, everything here—giving up
Garth and Glebeshire and the house. Giving up your Mother may be
for ever. I know your Mother. It is possible that she will never forgive
you.”
Katherine’s under lip quivered. She nodded her head.
“And it’s hurting her,” he went on, “hurting her more than ever
anything has done. It’s her own fault in a way. I warned her long
ago. But never mind that. You must realise what you’re doing.”
“I do realise it,” Katherine answered firmly. “It needn’t hurt her
really, if her love for me is stronger than her hatred of Philip. I’ve
thought it all out. If she loves me she’ll see that my love for her isn’t
changed at all,—that it’s there just as it always was; that it’s only
that she has made me choose, either Phil’s happiness or
unhappiness. I can only choose one way. He’s ready to give up
everything, surrender all the splendid things he was going to do,
give up half of me, perhaps more, to the family—perhaps more. He
hates the life here, but he’ll live it, under Mother and grandfather
and the rest, for my sake. It isn’t fair that he should. Mother, if she
loves me, will see that. But I don’t believe,” here Katherine’s voice
trembled again, “that she cares for anything so much as beating
Philip. He’s the first person in the world who ever opposed her....
She knows that I’ll love her always, always, but Phil’s life shan’t be
spoilt. Nothing matters beside that.”
She stopped, her breast heaving, her eyes flashing; he looked at her
and was amazed, as in his queer, isolated life he had never been
before, at what love can do to the soul.
“Life’s for the young,” he said, “you’re right, Katherine. Your Mother
will never forgive me, but I’ll help you.”
“No,” Katherine said, “you’re not to be involved, Uncle Tim. Mother
mustn’t lose anyone afterwards. You’re to know nothing about it. I
shall leave a note with someone to be taken up to the house at half-
past nine. I’ve told you because I wanted you to know, but you’re
not to have anything to do with it. But you’ll love me just the same,
won’t you? You won’t be any different, will you? I had to know that.
With you and Millie and Aunt Betty and Father caring for me
afterwards, it won’t be quite like breaking with the family. Only,
Uncle Tim, I want you to do for me what you can with Mother. I’ve
explained everything to you, so that you can tell her—show her.”
“I’ll do my best,” he said. Then he caught her and hugged her.
“Good luck,” he said—and she was gone.
Although she had been less than her hour with her uncle, she knew
that she had no time to spare. She was haunted, as she hurried
back again down the village road by alarms, regrets, agonising
reproaches that she refused to admit. She fortified her
consciousness against everything save the immediate business to
which she had bound herself, but every tree upon the road, every
hideous cottage, every stone and flower besieged her with
memories. “You are leaving us for ever. Why? For Panic?... For
Panic?” ... She could hear the voices that would follow the retreat.
“But why did she run away like that? It wasn’t even as though their
engagement had been forbidden. To be married all in a hurry and in
secret—I don’t like the look of it.... She was always such a quiet,
sensible girl.”
And she knew—it had not needed Uncle Tim’s words to show her—
that this act of hers was uprooting her for ever from everything that
had made life for her. She would never go back. More deeply than
that, she would never belong again, she, who only six months ago
had been the bond that had held them all together....
And behind these thoughts were two figures so strangely, so
impossibly like one another—the first that woman, suddenly old,
leaning back on to Katherine’s breast, fast asleep, tired out, her
mother—the second that woman who, only that afternoon, had
turned and given both Katherine and Philip that look of triumph....
“I’ve got you both—You see that I shall never let you go. You
cannot, cannot, cannot, escape.” That also was her mother.
She stopped at the village inn, ‘The Three Pilchards’, saw Dick
Penhaligan, the landlord, and an old friend of hers.
“Dick, in half-an-hour I want a jingle. I’ve got to go to Rasselas to
meet the eight train. I’ll drive myself.”
“All right, Miss Katherine,” he said, looking at her with affection.
“ ’Twill be a wild night, I’m thinkin’. Workin’ up wild.”
“Twenty minutes, Dick,” she nodded to him, and was off again. She
crossed the road, opened the little wicket gate that broke into the
shrubbery, found her way on to the lawn, and there, under the oak,
was Philip, waiting for her. As she came up to him she felt the first
spurt of rain upon her cheek. The long lighted windows of the house
were watching them; she drew under the shadow of the tree.
“Phil,” she whispered, her hand on his arm, “there isn’t a moment to
lose. I’ve arranged everything. We must catch the eight o’clock train
at Rasselas. We shall be in London by twelve. I shall go to Rachel
Seddon’s. We can be married by Special Licence to-morrow.”
She had thought of it so resolutely that she did not realise that it
was new to him. He gasped, stepping back from her.
“My dear Katie! What are you talking about?”
“Oh, there isn’t any time,” she went on impatiently. “If you don’t
come I go alone. It will be the same thing in the end. I saw it all this
afternoon. Things can’t go on. I understood Mother. I know what
she’s determined to do. We must escape or it will be too late. Even
to-morrow it may be. I won’t trust myself if I stay; I’m afraid even to
see Mother again, but I know I’m right. We have only a quarter of
an hour. That suit will do, and of course you mustn’t have a bag or
anything. There’s that cousin of yours in the Adelphi somewhere.
You can go to him. We must be at the ‘Three Pilchards’ in a quarter
of an hour, and go separately, of course, or someone may stop us....”
But he drew back. “No, no, no,” he said. “Katie, you’re mad! Do you
think I’m going to let you do a thing like this? What do you suppose
I’m made of? Why, if we were to go off now they’d never forgive
you, they’d throw you off—”
“Why, of course,” she broke in impatiently, “that’s exactly why we’ve
got to do it. You proposed it to me yourself once, and I refused
because I didn’t understand what our staying here meant. But I do
now—it’s all settled, I tell you, Phil, and there’s only ten minutes. It’s
the last chance. If we miss that train we shall never escape from
Mother, from Anna, from anyone. Oh! I know it! I know it!”
She scarcely realised her words; she was tugging at his sleeve,
trying to drag him with her.
But he shook her off. “No, Katie, I tell you I’m not such a cad. I
know what all this means to you, the place, the people, everything.
It’s true that I asked you once to go off, but I didn’t love you then as
I do now. I was thinking more of myself then—but now I’m ready for
anything here. You know that I am. I don’t care if only they let me
stay with you.”
“But they won’t,” Katherine urged. “You know what they’ll do. They’ll
marry us, they’ll make you take a house near at hand, and if you
refuse they’ll persuade you that you’re making me miserable. Oh!
Phil! don’t you see—if I were sure of myself I’d never run off like
this, but it’s from myself that I’m running. That’s the whole point of
everything. I can’t trust myself with Mother. She has as much
influence over me as ever she had. I felt it to-day more than I’ve
ever felt it. There she is over both of us. You know that you’re
weaker with her than I am. It isn’t that she does anything much
except sit quiet, but I love her, and it’s through that she gets at both
of us. No, Phil, we’ve got to go—and now. If not now, then never. I
shan’t be strong enough to-morrow. Don’t you see what she can do
in the future, now that she knows about Anna....” Then, almost in a
whisper, she brought out: “Don’t you see what Anna can do?”
“No,” he said, “I won’t go. It’s not fair. It’s not—”
“Well,” she answered him, “it doesn’t matter what you do, whether
you go or not. I shall go. And what are you to do then?”
She had vanished across the lawn, leaving him standing there.
Behind all his perplexity and a certain shame at his inaction, a fire of
exultation inflamed him, making him heedless of the rain or the low
muttering thunder far away. She loved him! She was freeing him! His
glory in her strength, her courage, flew like a burning arrow to his
heart, killing the old man in him, striking him to the ground, that old
lumbering body giving way before a new creature to whom the
whole world was a plain of victory. He stood there trembling with his
love for her....
Then he realised that, whatever he did, there was no time to be lost.
And after all what was he to do? Did he enter and alarm the family,
tell them that Katherine was flying to London, what would he gain
but her scorn? How much would he lose to save nothing? Even as he
argued with himself some stronger power was dragging him to the
house. He was in his room; he had his coat and hat from the hall; he
saw no one; he was in the dark garden again, stepping softly
through the wicket-gate on to the high road—Then the wind of the
approaching storm met him with a scurry of rain that slashed his
face. He did not know that now, for the first moment since his
leaving Russia, Anna was less to him than nothing. He did not know
that he was leaving behind him in that dark rain-swept garden an
indignant, a defeated ghost....

Meanwhile Katherine had gone, rapidly, without pause, to her

bedroom. She was conscious of nothing until she reached it, and
then she stood in the middle of the floor, struck by a sudden,
poignant agony of reproach that took, for the moment, all life from
her. Her knees were trembling, her heart pounding in her breast, her
eyes veiled by some mist that yet allowed her to see with a fiery
clarity every detail of the room. They rose and besieged her, the
chairs, the photographs, the carpet, the bed, the wash-hand-stand,
the pictures, the window with the old, old view of the wall, the
church-tower, the crooked apple-tree clustered in a corner, the bed
of roses, the flash of the nook beyond the lawn. She covered her
eyes with her hand. Everything was still there, crying to her “Don’t
leave us! Is our old devotion nothing, our faithful service? Are you,
whom we have trusted, false like the rest?”
She swayed then; tears that would never fall burnt her eyes. The
first rain lashed her window, and from the trees around the church
some flurry of rooks rose, protesting against the coming storm. She
drove it all down with a strong hand. She would not listen....
Then, as she found her coat and hat, a figure rose before her, the
one figure that, just then, could most easily defeat her. Her Mother
she would not see, Millie, Henry, the Aunts could not then touch her.
It was her Father.
They were breaking their word to him, they who were standing now
upon their honour. His laughing, friendly spirit, that had never
touched her very closely, now seemed to cling to her more nearly
than them all. He had kept outside all their family trouble, as he had
kept outside all trouble since his birth. He had laughed at them,
patted them on the shoulder, determined that if he did not look too
closely at things they must be well, refused to see the rifts and
divisions and unhappiness. Nevertheless he must have seen
something; he had sent Henry to Cambridge, had looked at Millie
and Katherine sometimes with a gravity that was not his old manner.
Seeing him suddenly now, it was as though he knew what she was
about to do, and was appealing to her with a new gravity: “Katie, my
dear, I may have seemed not to have cared, to have noticed
nothing, but now—don’t give us up. Wait. Things will be happier.
Wait. Trust us.”
She beat him down; stayed for another moment beside the window,
her hands pressed close against her eyes.
Then she went to her little writing-table, and scribbled very rapidly
this note:

Darling Mother,
I have gone with Philip by the eight train to London. We
shall be married as soon as possible. I shall stay with
Rachel until then. You know that things could not go on as
they were.
Will you understand, dear Mother, that if I did not love you
so deeply I would not have done this? But because you
would not let Phil go I have had to choose. If only you will
understand that I do not love you less for this, but that it is
 for Phil’s sake that I do it, you will love me as before. And
you know that I will love you always.
Your devoted daughter,
Katherine.

She laid this against the looking-glass on her dressing-table, glanced

once more at the room, then went.
Upon the stairs she met Henry.
“Hullo!” he cried, “going out? There’s a lot of rain coming.”
“I know,” she answered quietly. “I have to see Penhaligan. It’s
important.”
He looked at her little black hat; her black coat. These were not the
things that one put on for a hurried excursion into the village.
“You’ll be late for dinner,” he said.
“No, I shan’t,” she answered, “I must hurry.” She brushed past him;
she had an impulse to put her arms round his neck and kiss him, but
she did not look back.
She went through the hall; he turned on the stairs and watched her,
then went slowly to his room.
When she came out on to the high road the wind had fallen and the
rain was coming in slow heavy drops. The sky was all black, except
that at its very heart there burnt a brilliant star; just above the
horizon there was a bar of sharp-edged gold. When she came to the
‘Three Pilchards’ the world was lit with a strange half-light so that,
although one could see all things distinctly, there was yet the
suggestion that nothing was what it seemed. The ‘jingle’ was there,
and Philip standing in conversation with Dick Penhaligan.
“Nasty night ’twill be, Miss Katherine. Whisht sort o’ weather.
Shouldn’t like for ’ee to get properly wet. Open jingle tu.”
“That’s all right, Dick,” she answered. “We’ve got to meet the train.
I’ve been wet before now, you know.”
She jumped into the trap and took the reins. Philip followed her. If
Mr. Penhaligan thought there was anything strange in the proceeding
he did not say so. He watched them out of the yard, gave a look at
the sky, then went whistling into the house.
They did not speak until they had left the village behind them, then,
as they came up to Pelynt Cross, the whole beauty of the sweep of
stormy sky burst upon them. The storm seemed to be gathering
itself together before it made its spring, bunched up heavy and black
on the horizon, whilst the bar of gold seemed to waver and hesitate
beneath the weight of it. Above their heads the van of the storm,
twisted and furious, leaned forward, as though with avaricious
fingers, to take the whole world into its grasp.
At its heart still shone that strange glittering star. Beneath the sky
the grey expanse of the moon quivered with anticipation like a
quaking bog; some high grass, bright against the sky, gave little
windy tugs, as though it would release itself and escape before the
fury beat it down. Once and again, very far away, the rumble of the
thunder rose and fell, the heavy raindrops were still slow and
measured, as though they told the seconds left to the world before it
was devastated.
Up there, on the moor, Philip put his arm round Katherine. His heart
was beating with tumultuous love for her, so that he choked and his
face was on fire; his hand trembled against her dress. This was
surely the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to him. He
had seemed so utterly lost, and, although he had known that she
loved him, he had resigned himself to the belief that her love stayed
short of sacrifice. He had said to himself that he was not enough of
a fellow for it to be otherwise. And now he did not care for any of
them! No one, he realised, had ever, in all his life, made any great
sacrifice for him—even Anna had let him go when he made life
tiresome for her.
Surging up in him now was the fine vigour of reassurance that
Katherine’s love gave to him. It was during that drive to Rasselas
station that he began, for the first time, to believe in himself. He did
not speak, but held Katherine with his arm close to him, and once,
for a moment, he put his cheek against hers.
But she was not, then, thinking of Philip, she was scarcely aware
that he was with her. Her whole will and purpose was concentrated
on reaching the station in time. She thought: “If we missed that
train we’re finished. We’ll have to come back. They’ll have found my
note. Mother won’t be angry outwardly, but she’ll hate Phil twice as
much as ever, and she’ll never loose her hold again. She’ll show him
how ashamed he should be, and she’ll show me how deeply I’ve
hurt her. We shall neither of us have the courage to try a ‘second
time’.”
How was it that she saw all this so clearly? Never before these last
months had she thought of anything save what was straight in front
of her.... The world was suddenly unrolled before her like a map of a
strange country.
Meanwhile, although she did not know it, she was wildly excited. Her
imagination, liberated after those long years of captivity, flamed now
before her eyes. She felt the storm behind her, and she thought that
at the head of it, urging it forward, was that figure who had pursued
her, so remorselessly, ever since that day at Rafiel when Philip had
confessed to her.
Anna would keep them if she could, she would drag them back,
miserable fugitives, to face the family—and then how she would
punish Philip!
“Oh, go on! Go on!” Katherine cried, whipping the pony; they began
to climb a long hill. Suddenly the thunder broke overhead, crashing
amongst the trees of a dark little wood on their right. Then the rain
came down in slanting, stinging sheets. With that clap of thunder
the storm caught them, whirled up to them, beat them in the face,
buffeted in their eyes and ears, shot lightning across their path, and
then plunged them on into yet more impenetrable darkness. The
world was abysmal, was on fire, was rocking, was springing with a
thousand gestures to stop them on their way. Katherine fancied that
in front of her path figures rose and fell, the very hedges riding in a
circle round about her.
“Oh! go on! Go on!” she whispered, swaying in her seat, then feeling
Philip’s arm about her. They rose, as though borne on a wave of wild
weather, to the top of the hill. They had now only the straight road;
they could see the station lights. Then the thunder, as though
enraged at their persistence, broke into a shattering clatter—the soil,
the hedges, the fields, the sky crumbled into rain; a great lash of
storm whipped them in the face, and the pony, frightened by the
thunder, broke from Katherine’s hand, ran wildly through the dark,
crashed with a shuddering jar into the hedge. Their lamps fell; the
‘jingle’, after a moment’s hesitation, slipped over and gently dropped
them on to the rain-soaked ground.
Katherine was on her feet in an instant. She saw that by a happy
miracle one of the lamps still burned. She went to the pony, and
found that, although he was trembling, he was unhurt. Philip was
trying to turn the ‘jingle’ upright again.
“Quick!” she cried. “Hang the lamp on the cart. We must run for it—
the shaft’s broken or something. There’s no time at all if we’re to
catch that train. Run! Run! Phil! There’s sure to be someone coming
in by the train who’ll see the ‘jingle’.”
They ran; they were lifted by the wind, beaten by the rain, deafened
by the thunder, and Katherine as she ran knew that by her side was
her enemy:
“You shan’t go! You shan’t go! I’ve got you still!”
She could hear, through the storm, some voice crying, “Phil! Phil!
Come back! Come back!”
Her heart was breaking, her eyes saw flame, her knees trembled,
she stumbled, staggered, slipped. They had reached the white
gates, had passed the level crossing, were up the station steps.
“It’s in! It’s in!” gasped Philip. “Only a second!”
She was aware of astonished eyes, of the stout station-master, of
someone who shouted, of a last and strangely distant peal of
thunder, of an open door, of tumbling forward, of a whistle and a
jerk, and then a slow Glebeshire voice:
“Kind o’ near shave that was, Miss, I’m thinkin’.”
And through it all her voice was crying exultantly: “I’ve beaten you—
you’ve done your worst, but I’ve beaten you. He’s mine now for
ever”—and her eyes were fastened on a baffled, stormy figure left
on the dark road, abandoned, and, at last, at last, defeated....
 CHAPTER V
THE TRENCHARDS
Henry waited, for a moment, on the stairs. He heard the door close
behind Katherine, heard the approaching storm invade the house,
heard the cuckoo-clock in the passage above him proclaim seven
o’clock, then went slowly up to his room. Why had Katherine gone
out to see Penhaligan in those clothes, in such weather, at such an
hour?... Very strange.... And her face too. She was excited, she had
almost kissed him.... Her eyes....
He entered his familiar room, looked with disgust at his dinner-jacket
and trousers lying upon the bed (he hated dressing for dinner), and
then wandered up and down, dragging a book from the book-case
and pushing it impatiently back again, stumbling over his evening
slippers, pulling his coat off and allowing it to fall, unregarded, on to
the floor.
Katherine!... Katherine?... What was ‘up’ with Katherine?
He had, in any case, been greatly upset by the events of the day.
The crisis for which he had so long been waiting had at length
arrived, and, behold, it had been no crisis at all. Superficially it had
been nothing ... in its reality it had shaken, finally, destructively, the
foundations of everything upon which his life had been built. He
remembered, very clearly, the family’s comments upon the case of a
young man known to them all, who, engaged to a girl in Polchester,
had confessed, just before the marriage, that he had had a mistress
for several years in London, who was however now happily married
to a gentleman of means and had no further claim on him. The
engagement had been broken off, with the approval of all the best
families in Glebeshire. Henry remembered that his mother had said
that it was not only the immorality of the young man but also his
continued secrecy concerning the affair that was so abominable,
that, of course, “young men must be young men, but you couldn’t
expect a nice girl”—and so on.
He remembered all this very clearly, and he had decided at the time
that if he ever had a mistress he would take very good care that no
one knew about her. That had been a year ago ... and now! He was
bewildered, almost breathless with a kind of dismayed terror as to
what the world might possibly be coming to. His mother! of whom at
least one thing had surely been unalterable—that she, herself, would
never change. And now she had taken this thing without horror,
without anger, almost with complacency.
She had known of it for months!
It was as though he had cherished a pet with the happy conviction
that it was a kitten and had suddenly discovered it to be a cub. And
out of this confusion of a wrecked and devastated world there
emerged the conviction “that there was something more behind all
this”, that “his mother had some plan.” He did not see at all what her
plan could possibly be, but she appeared before him now as a
sinister and menacing figure, someone who had been close to him
for so many years, but whose true immensity he had never even
remotely perceived.
He, Henry, had, from other points of view, risen out of the affair with
considerable good fortune. He had not, as far as he could perceive,
earned Katherine’s undying hatred; he had not even made a fool of
himself, as might naturally be expected. It was plain enough now
that Philip was to be with them for ever and ever, and that therefore
Henry must make the best of him. Now indeed that it had come to
this, Henry was not at all sure that he might not like Philip very
much indeed. That night at the ‘Empire’ had been the beginning of
life for Henry, and the indifference of his mother to Philip’s past and
the knowledge that Katherine had long been aware of it made him
not a little ashamed of his indignation and tempers. Nevertheless
Philip had that effect upon him, and would have it many times again
no doubt. For a clear and steady moment Henry, looking at himself
in his looking-glass, wondered whether he were not truly the most
terrible of asses.
However, all this was of the past. It was with a sense of advancing
to meet a new world that he went down to dinner.
In the drawing-room he found his mother alone. She was wearing an
evening dress of black silk, and Henry, whose suspicion of the world
made him observant, noticed that she was wearing a brooch of old
silver set with pearls. This was a family brooch, and Henry knew that
his mother wore it only ‘on occasions’; his mother’s idea of what
made an ‘occasion’ was not always that of the outside world. He
wondered what the occasion might be to-night.
He had, for long, been unconsciously in the habit of dividing his
mother into two persons, the figure of domination and power who
kept the household in awe and was mysterious in her dignity and
aloof reserve, and the figure of maternal homeliness who spoke to
one about underclothes, was subject to human agitations and
pleasures; of the first he was afraid, and would be afraid until he
died. The second he loved. His mother to-night was the first of
these. She looked, in his eyes, amazingly young. Her fair grey hair,
her broad shoulders, her straight back, these things showed Henry’s
mother to be younger than ever Henry would be. The pearl brooch
gleamed against the black silk that covered her strong bosom; her
head was carried high; her eyes feared no man nor woman alive.
Therefore Henry, as was his manner on such an occasion, did his
best to slip quietly into a chair and hide his diminished personality in
a book. This, however, was not permitted him.
“Henry,” his mother said softly, “why did you not tell me earlier the
things that you had heard about Philip?”
Henry blushed so intensely that there was a thin white line just
below the roots of his hair.
“I didn’t want to make Katie unhappy,” he muttered.
“I should have thought your duty to your parents came before your
duty to Katherine,” his mother replied.
“It wasn’t you who was going to marry Philip,” he answered, not
looking at his mother.
“Nevertheless it’s possible that older heads—yes, older heads—”
“Oh! well! it’s all right,” he burst out, “I’m sick of the thing, and you
and father don’t seem to mind anything about it—”
“I haven’t told your father,” she interrupted.
“Haven’t told Father?” Henry repeated.
“No. Father doesn’t think of such things. If everything goes well, as I
am sure that everything will, Father will want to know nothing
further. I have every confidence in Philip.”
“Why!” Henry burst out, “I always thought you hated Philip, Mother.
I simply don’t understand.”
“There are quite a number of things you don’t understand, Henry
dear,” his mother answered. “Yes, quite a number. Philip was
perhaps not at home with us at first—but I’m sure that in time he
will become quite one of the family—almost as though he had been
born a Trenchard. I have great hopes.... Your tie is as usual, Henry,
dear, above your collar. Let me put it down for you.”
Henry waited whilst his mother’s cool, solid fingers rubbed against
his neck and sent a little shiver down his spine as though they would
remind him that he was a Trenchard too and had better not try to
forget it. But the great, overwhelming impression that now
dominated him was of his mother’s happiness. He knew very well
when his mother was happy. There was a note in her voice as sure
and melodious as the rhythm of a stream that runs, somewhere
hidden, between the rocks. He had known, on many days, that deep
joy of his mother’s—often it had been for no reason that he could
discover.
To-night she was triumphant; her triumph sang through every note
of her voice.

The others come in. George Trenchard entered, rubbing his hands
and laughing. He seemed, every week, redder in the face and
stouter all over; in physical reality he added but little to his girth. It
was the stoutness of moral self-satisfaction and cheerful
complaisance. His doctrine of pleasant aloofness from contact with
other human beings had acted so admirably; he would like to have
recommended it to everyone had not such recommendation been
too great a trouble.
He was never, after this evening, to be aloof again, but he did not
know that.
“Well, well,” he cried. “Punctual for once, Henry. Very nice, indeed.
Dear me, Mother, why this gaudiness? People coming to dinner?”
She looked down at her brooch.
“No, dear.... No one. I just thought I’d put it on. I haven’t worn it for
quite a time. Not for a year at least.”
“Very pretty, very pretty,” he cried. “Dear me, what a day I’ve had!
So busy, scarcely able to breathe!”
“What have you been doing, Father?” asked Henry.
“One thing and another. One thing and another,” said George airily.
“Day simply flown.”
He stood there in front of the fire, his legs spread, his huge chest
flung out, his face flaming like the sun.
“Yes, it’s been a very pleasant day,” said Mrs. Trenchard, “very
pleasant.”
“Where’s Katie?” asked her father. “She’s generally down before
anyone.”
Henry, who, in the contemplation of his mother, had forgotten, for
the moment, his sister’s strange behaviour, said:
“Oh! she’ll be late, I expect. I saw her go out about seven. Had to
see Penhaligan about something important, she told me. Went out
into all that storm.”
As he spoke eight o’clock struck.
Mrs. Trenchard looked up.
“Went out to see Penhaligan?” she asked.
“Yes, Mother. She didn’t tell me why.”
Aunt Betty came in. Her little body, her cheerful smile, her air as of
one who was ready to be pleased with anything, might lead a
careless observer into the error of supposing that she was a quite
ordinary old maid with a fancy for knitting, the Church of England,
and hot water with her meals. He would be wrong in his judgment;
her sharp little eyes, the corners of her mouth betrayed a sense of
humour that, although it had never been encouraged by the family,
provided much wise penetration and knowledge. Any casual
acquaintance in half an hour’s talk would have discovered in Aunt
Betty wisdom and judgment to which her own family would, until the
day of its decent and honourable death, be entirely blind.
Just now she had lost her spectacles.
“My spectacles,” she said. “Hum-hum—Very odd. I had them just
before tea. I was working over in that corner—I never moved from
there except once when—when—Oh! there they are! No, they are
not. And I played ‘Patience’ there, too, in the same corner. Very
odd.”
“Perhaps, dear,” said Mrs. Trenchard, “you left them in your
bedroom.”
“No, Harriet, I looked there. Hum-hum-hum. Very odd it is, because
—”
Millie came in and then Aunt Aggie.
“Is Father coming down to-night?” said George.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Trenchard. “He said that he felt better. Thought it
would be nice to come down. Yes, that it would be rather nice....
Aggie, dear, that’s your sewing, isn’t it? You left it here this morning.
Rocket put it between the pages of my novel to mark the place. I
knew it was yours—”
“Yes, it’s mine,” said Aunt Aggie, shortly.
Meanwhile Henry, looking at the door, waited for Katherine. A
strange premonition was growing in him that all was not well.
Katherine and Philip, they had not appeared—Katherine and Philip....
As he thought of it, it occurred to him that he had not heard Philip
moving as he dressed. Philip’s room was next to Henry’s, and the
division was thin; you could always hear coughs, steps, the pouring
of water, the opening and shutting of drawers.
There had been no sounds to-night. Henry’s heart began to beat
very fast. He listened to the wind that, now that the storm had
swung away, was creeping around the house, trying the doors and
windows, rattling something here, tugging at something there, all
the pipes gurgled and spluttered with the waters of the storm.
“Ah! there they are!” cried Aunt Betty.
Henry started, thinking that she must herald the entry of Katherine
and Philip; but no, it was only the gold-rimmed spectacles lying
miraculously beneath the sofa.
“Now, how,” cried Aunt Betty, “did they get there? Very odd, because
I remember distinctly that I never moved from my corner.”
“Well,” said George Trenchard, who, now that his back was warmed
by the fire, wanted his front warmed too, “how much longer are we
to wait for dinner? Katie and Philip. Playing about upstairs, I
suppose.”
Quarter-past eight struck, and Rocket, opening the door, announced
that dinner was ready.
“Suppose you just go up and see what Katie’s doing, Millie dear,”
said Mrs. Trenchard.
Millie left them and ran quickly upstairs. She pushed back Katie’s
door, then, stepping inside, the darkness and silence and a strange
murmurous chill caught her, as though someone had leapt, out of
the dusk, at her throat. She knew then instantly what had occurred.
She only said once, very softly, “Katie!” then gently closed the door
behind her, as though she did not want anyone else to see the room.
She stayed there; there, beside the door, for quite a long time. The
room was very dark, but the looking-glass glimmered like a white,
flickering shadow blown by the wet wind that came in through the
open window. Something flapped monotonously.
Millie, standing quite motionless by the door, thought to herself
“Katherine and Philip! They’ve done it!... at last, they’ve done it!” At
first, because she was very young and still believed in freedom and
adventure as the things best worth having in life, she felt nothing
but a glad, triumphant excitement; an excitement springing not only
from her pleasure in any brave movement, but also from her
reassurance in her beloved sister, her knowledge that after all
Katherine did believe in Love beyond every other power, was ready
to venture all for it. Her own impulse was to run after them, as fast
as she could, and declare her fidelity to them.
At last she moved away from the door to the dressing-table and lit a
candle. Its soft white flame for a moment blinded her. She had an
instant of hesitation; perhaps after all she had flown too rapidly to
her desired conclusions, the two of them were waiting now in the
drawing-room for her.... Then she saw Katherine’s note propped
against the looking-glass.
She took it up, saw that it was addressed to her mother, and
realised, for the first time, what this would mean to them all. She
saw then—THE OLD ONES—Grandfather, Mother, Father, Aunt Sarah,
Aunt Aggie, Aunt Betty. She was sorry for them, but she knew, as
she stood there, that she did not care, really, whether they were
hurt or no. She felt her own freedom descend upon her, there in
Katie’s room, like a golden, flaming cloud. This was the moment for
which, all her life, she had been waiting. The Old Ones had tried to
keep them and tie them down, but the day of the Old Ones was
past, their power was broken. It was the New Generation that
mattered—Katherine and Philip, Millie and Henry, and all their kind;
it was their world and their dominion—
She suddenly, alone there, with the note in her hand, danced a little
dance, the candle-flame flickering in the breeze and Katherine’s
white, neat bed so cold and tidy.
She was not hard, she was not cruel—her own time would come
when she would cry for sympathy and would not find it, and must
set her teeth because her day was past ... now was her day—She
seized it fiercely.
Very quietly she went downstairs....
She opened the drawing-room door: as she entered all their eyes
met her and she knew at once, as she saw Henry’s, that he was
expecting her announcement.
She looked across at her mother.
“Katherine’s room’s empty,” she said. “There’s no one there at all.”
She hesitated a moment, then added: “There was this note for you,
Mother, on her dressing-table.”
She went across the room and gave it to her mother. Her mother
took it; no one spoke.
Mrs. Trenchard read it; for a dreadful moment she thought that she
was going to give way before them all, was going to cry out, to
scream, to rush wildly into the road to stop the fugitives, or slap
Aunt Aggie’s face. For a dreadful moment the battle of her whole life
to obtain the mastery of herself was almost defeated—then, blindly,
obeying some impulse with which she could not reason, of which
she was scarcely conscious, some strong call from a far country, she
won a triumphant victory.
“It’s from Katherine!” she said. “The child’s mad. She’s gone up to
London.”
“London!” George Trenchard cried.
“London!” cried Aunt Aggie.
“Yes. With Philip. They have caught the eight train. They are to be
married to-morrow. ‘Because I would not let Philip go,’ she says. But
she’s mad—”
For an instant she gripped the mantelpiece behind her. She could
hear them, only from a distance, as though their voices were
muffled by the roar of sea or wind, their exclamations.
Her husband was, of course, useless. She despised him. He cried:
“They must be stopped! They must be stopped. This is impossible!
That fellow Mark—one might have guessed! They must be stopped.
At once! At once!”
“They can’t be.” She heard her voice far away with the others. “They
can’t be stopped. The train left at eight o’clock, nearly half an hour
ago. There’s nothing to be done.”
“But, of course,” cried George, “there’s something to be done. They
must be stopped at once. I’ll go up by the next train.”
“There’s no train until six to-morrow morning—and what good would
you do? They’re engaged. You gave your permission. Katherine’s of
age. It is her own affair.”
They all cried out together. Their voices sounded to Mrs. Trenchard
like the screams of children.
Through the confusion there came the sound of an opening door.
They all turned, and saw that it was old Mr. Trenchard, assisted by
Rocket.
“Why don’t you come in to dinner?” he said, in his clear, thin voice.
“I went straight into the dining-room because I was late, and here
you all are, and it’s nearly half-past eight.”
The same thought instantly struck them all. Grandfather must know
nothing about it; a very slight shock, they were all aware, would kill
Grandfather, and there could not possibly be any shock to him like
this amazing revolt of Katherine’s. Therefore he must know nothing.
Like bathers asserting themselves after the first quiver of an icy
plunge, they fought their way to the surface.
Until Grandfather was safely once more alone in his room the
situation must be suspended. After all, there was nothing to be
done! He, because he was feeling well that evening, was intent upon
his dinner.
“What! Waiting for Katherine?” he said.
“Katherine isn’t coming down to dinner, Father,” Mrs. Trenchard said.
“What, my dear?”
“Katherine isn’t coming down to dinner.”
“Not ill, I hope.”
“No—a little tired.”
George Trenchard was the only one who did not support his part.
When the old man had passed through the door, George caught his
wife’s arm.
“But, I say,” he whispered, “something—”
She turned for an instant, looking at him with scorn.
“Nothing!” she said. “It’s too late.”
They went in to dinner.
It was fortunate that Grandfather was hungry; he did not, it seems,
notice Philip’s absence.
“Very nice to see you down, Father,” Mrs. Trenchard said pleasantly.
“Very nice for us all.”
“Thank ye, my dear. Very agreeable—very agreeable. Quite myself
this evening. That rheumatism passed away, so I said to Rocket,
‘Well, ’pon my word, Rocket, I think I’ll come down to-night’ Livelier
for us all to be together. Hope Katie isn’t ill, though?”
“No—no—nothing at all.”
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