SEKHET

THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD., TIPTREE, ESSEX.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. BORN TO BEAUTY 1

II. A FRIEND IN NEED 6

III. A RICH CASKET FOR A RARE JEWEL 12

IV. THE WAY OF A MAN WITH A MAID 18

V. THE WILES OF THE FOWLER 28

VI. A SOUL'S BATTLE 37

VII. ROSES AND RAPTURES 45

VIII. LUCINDA BELMONT 50

IX. HOW EGYPT WAS RUINED FOR EVARNE 53

X. THE SHRINE OF SEKHET 60

XI. A LOSING STRIFE 66

XII. SEKHET, CRUSHER OF HEARTS 73

XIII. OUT OF THE GILDED CAGE 88

XIV. HELPING HANDS 96

XV. THE PROBLEM OF EXISTENCE 104

XVI. EVARNE'S FIRST ENGAGEMENT 117

XVII. A STRANGE INTRODUCTION TO THE PROFESSION 124

XVIII. NEW TRIALS AND TROUBLES 131

XIX. NEW FRIENDS 138

XX. REHEARSALS 146

XXI. The CAREER OF "CALEDONIA'S BARD" 153

XXII. POVERTY MAKES ONE ACQUAINTED WITH STRANGE BEDFELLOWS 163

XXIII. A FRESH TURNING 168

XXIV. "STITCH, STITCH, STITCH!" 173

XXV. HARD LUCK 180

XXVI. EVARNE'S VOCATION 188

XXVII. IN ARTIST-LAND 199

XXVIII. GEOFFREY DANVERS 207

XXIX. SEKHET SMILES 218

XXX. A GREAT RESOLVE 226

XXXI. JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS' MEETINGS 234

XXXII. FRANK'S BRILLIANT IDEA 249

XXXIII. THE SHADOW OF COMING EVENTS 256

XXXIV. SEKHET WHETS HER TEETH 264

XXXV. THE STROKE OF SEKHET 278

XXXVI. A FRESH VOW 286

XXXVII. EVARNE FIGHTS FOR MORE THAN LIFE 297

XXXVIII. CONFIDENCES 318

XXXIX. EVIL, THAT GOOD MAY COME 326

XL. A FRESH COMPLICATION 338

XLI. HOW "LA BELLE DAME" LED JACK ASTRAY 347

XLII. THE COUP DE GRÂCE 357

SEKHET

DRAMATIS PERSONÆ

Sekhet: The Goddess of Ancient Egypt, who presided over Love and its Cruelty.

Her Tools and Her Victims.

Scenes.

The depth of the country, London, Italy, Paris, Egypt.

[pg 1]

SEKHET

CHAPTER I BORN TO BEAUTY

Evarne Stornway hurried across the fields towards Heatherington at a speed that deprived her gait of much of that graceful yet somewhat insolent sway that caused it to be alike the butt and the envy of the other youthful females of the neighbourhood. Not an hour since she had first heard beyond a doubt the gentle rustling of the wings of the Angel of Death within the sick-room of her father, and, goaded by cruel anxiety, she was—even against the invalid's will—seeking medical aid.

The rapid walk brought brightness to eyes and cheeks, thereby doing much to restore that subtle air of perfect health and happiness that usually added so much to the girl's beauty. But always was Evarne fair to behold; her dark eyes, so large and limpid, were expressive and intense; her lips, alluring in curves and colour, spoke to the "seeing eye" of both kindliness and individuality. Yet she could have dispensed with all the charm given by mental grace, and still riveted attention, for she possessed loveliness of that type, supreme above all others, that is independent of expression—the beauty of grace, symmetry of form, and faultless feature. And for this she had been taught to thank—not chance, not merely heredity, but the determination of her father.

Leopold Stornway had a passionate adoration for [pg 2] physical beauty, regarding it as almost the first of virtues. And more, he was proud of the vast importance he placed on bodily perfection, for was it not a reverence characteristic of classic Greece? There it was—in the records of the never-to-be-forgotten days of antiquity—that Leo found all his chief interests. Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome, and, above all, Greece—each in turn had been the lands of his adoption. Pericles and Cæsar, Cyrus and Rameses, Shalmanesur and Hiram, were the gods of his idolatry. He knew and cared more concerning the triumphant fortunes of Semiramis; the proceedings of Antigone or of Theseus; the adventures of Agamemnon or Achilles, of Hector or the pious Æneas at the Siege of Troy, than he did of the doings of those who sat in the seats of the mighty in his own century.

The happiest time of his life had been his three years at Oxford. Almost immediately on leaving college he married—simply because she was beautiful as any Greek statue—a young woman considerably beneath him in station, and possessed of an unconquerably violent temper. He knew right well, even during the period of his deepest infatuation, that he had found no mate for his soul. He was sadly conscious that that part of his mind—of his spirit—that he cared for most deeply, never would—never could—unveil itself to the scrutiny of his chosen life-long companion.

To feed his intellectual affections, he relied on the continuance of his college friendship with the brilliant and vivacious Morris Kenyon. But herein he was doomed to disappointment. After a brief spell of vain struggling for literary recognition in London, Leo settled down, contentedly enough, to obscurity in the depth of the country. There he spent peaceful days occupied in highly intellectual yet miserably paid writings. Each year he became more of a recluse—more out of touch with the times. Morris Kenyon likewise altered. Plunged into the vortex of town [pg 3] life, seeing and doing everything, going everywhere, courted and flattered and popular, not only on account of his great wealth but for his more personal attractions—every year he drifted farther from being the Morris of yore. The change in both men was but gradual, and through varying stages of disillusion and disappointment, their ardent friendship was long in dying. But the time came when all ended—even correspondence ceased.

Leo's marriage was more successful. His wife made strenuous efforts to rise to his heights, while his admiration of her stately loveliness never waned. Their first child was a boy, who died in infancy, but ere long little Evarne came as consoler. Leo had wished for a daughter, and had always spoken of the expected baby by the Greek name he had already chosen for her—Evarne.

He had strong theories on pre-natal influence, and put them into practice. He read and discussed with his wife poetry and the noblest prose works. Everywhere she turned her eyes in her home she beheld representations of female beauty—magnificent or placid. On the wall of her bed-chamber was a barbaric, richly-hued painting of a Babylonian slave-market. It showed a group of women decking themselves before entering the Market Square, which could be seen through an opening of the tent. They were of many nationalities, but each in her own way represented physically perfect womanhood.

Near to this hung a contrasting picture—a delicate symphony in blue and gold and snowy white. It was the Catholic's Madonna, with placid lips and large uplifted eyes that told of thoughts beyond this world—chaste, calm and pure.

In the corner of the room by the window stood a large cast of a famous antique nude statue of Venus. So perfect was it—the glorious muscles of the body dimpling so gently, so graciously—that even Leo's unimaginative wife could find and feel something of what is soothing and peace-giving [pg 4] in such beauty. Sometimes of an early morning a narrow beam of light would creep into the darkened room between the drawn curtains and illuminate just this statue. Then the young wife, lying wakeful, would fix her eyes on the form of the Goddess of Beauty, drinking in its divine influence, remembering her husband's assurance that its contemplation would go far towards making the little daughter that was to come likewise strong and beautiful.

And Leo's words proved not untrue—a more lovely baby never saw the light. But Evarne's birth cost the mother her life, and after five years of happy marriage, Leo was once again lonely.

Since the child's upbringing was thus left to her father, with his fads and fancies, it was naturally of a unique nature. Mrs. Jarman—the worthy matron whom he engaged to act as nurse to his child, and cook-housekeeper to himself—was wont to declare, both to her gentleman in person and to the village in general, that she was sure Providence had seen fit to appoint a special angel to guard that blessed motherless mite; otherwise no mortal woman could possibly have succeeded in rearing it.

Mr. Stornway would interfere in what Mrs. Jarman held to be no concern of any man—not even of a father. First of all he had been divided in opinion as to whether the infant should be wrapped in swaddling-clothes in true classical style, or should remain in equally classical nudity. The baby had arrived in the summer-time, so the latter idea prevailed, and to Mrs. Jarman's dismay the little one passed the first few months of its existence clad in very little more than its own silky skin. All the experienced dame's traditional ideas of long robes, binders, shortening-clothes, teething-rings, etc., were swept aside as modern. Thus they were unworthy of a Greek reincarnation, named after the fairest of the Nereides, and destined to show an altogether degenerate world what beauty had been in the glorious days of old. With the approaching chill of winter [pg 5] even Mr. Stornway agreed to the little form being warmly clad, but his aversion to modern fashions never could be uprooted.

Thus, though Evarne, as she now hastened to summon the doctor to her father's dying bed, was nigh seventeen, she had never owned a pair of corsets, or worn a dress more tight-fitting than could be managed by shaping the material into the waist by gauging or smocking. Indoors, she invariably cast aside her shoes and stockings. She could carry burdens on her head, could run, jump, and swim with the ease and lightness of a young Amazon. She slept soundly on a bed hard as wood, and had never been indulged to the extent of a pillow in her life. Of her own accord she would never have chosen such a harsh régime. But at sixteen she knew but this one mode of existence, and habit rendered it congenial enough.

[pg 6]

CHAPTER II A FRIEND IN NEED

Dr. Crossways was at home, and at once set out with the girl for "The Retreat." He was a surly old man, and, moreover, he had a particularly annoying habit—of which no amount of gentle correction could break him—of pronouncing Evarne's name without the final "e," thus compressing it into two syllables instead of three, as it is in the musical tongue of ancient Greece, whence the name was taken. As a rule, the doctor was morose and silent, but on this occasion he had at least one piece of gossip to enlarge upon.

On the previous day he had indulged himself in a holiday on the strength of an invitation from the noble lord who had rented the shooting on a big estate some twenty miles distant. Evidently it had been a proud and happy occasion for the little doctor, and it was with ill-concealed gratification that he rattled off the list of those who had likewise been at this illustrious shooting-party. In it was one name very familiar to Evarne—Morris Kenyon. She had never seen her father's early friend, but Leo often dwelt lovingly upon his college life, and Morris Kenyon had been, apparently, the central figure of those never-to-be-forgotten days.

Dr. Crossways took his departure from "The Retreat" in a state of high dudgeon. Accustomed as he was to being called in to cope with every trivial ailment of the local gentry, his professional pride was outraged by Mr. Stornway's presuming to approach so very near to Death's [pg 7] portals without his steps having been carefully guided down the path thereto by the controlling hand of a disciple of Æsculapius. It was absolutely insulting—it really bordered on Christian Science!

After parting from the irate doctor, Evarne returned to her father's room. He raised his weary eyelids as she entered, and looked at her with a troubled, almost remorseful, expression. He had realised vaguely for some time past that he was soon to seek the society of his dearly beloved heroes of antiquity; but not until this solemn medical visitation had he seriously considered the practical earthly results of his soul winging its flight to the fields of Asphodel.

When once he should be fairly off upon this interesting journey, his young daughter would be left quite alone in this world of sin and woe. What was to become of her? He was singularly devoid of relations. A few distant cousins and a poverty-stricken and decrepit uncle comprised his entire stock in that line of goods, while he knew nothing of his wife's common family beyond the fact that she had a number of half-brothers and sisters somewhere in Australia. He had but little money to leave his daughter, and the girl had no training in any means of earning a livelihood. He sighed despondently, as too late he recognised this neglected duty.

Evarne sat down by his side, and tenderly stroked his hand. Ere long out came her little bit of interesting news—Mr. Morris Kenyon was within twenty miles of Heatherington.

At the mention of this familiar name a sudden light flashed into poor Leo's worried eyes. Surely for "auld lang syne" this once dear friend would look after his young daughter until she was able to support herself? Morris was married to a charming wife—unfortunately now a confirmed invalid. Leo had met the young lady at the time of her wedding, and been favourably impressed. [pg 8] Surely she would feel for the desolate situation of the young orphan. Filled with this idea, he bade Evarne write, telling of her father's condition, and begging that Morris would spare time to come over to visit him.

The letter was duly posted that night; the answer arrived by return, the day after, Morris himself appeared upon the scene. Leo wished to see his friend alone, so on his arrival he was ushered by Mrs. Jarman direct to the sick-room.

With engaging readiness Morris undertook to watch over the welfare of the dying man's daughter when the time came, and lightly brushed aside the broken thanks. But Leo's gratitude was insistent and touching to witness. He dwelt much upon the otherwise lonely situation of the girl.

"It is such a weight off my mind," he murmured again and again. "I never before realised how I have neglected my duty to the child." And he sighed a deep breath of relief.

"Now, you must see her," he went on, as with a trembling hand he rang a bell that stood by his side. In almost immediate answer to the summons Evarne appeared in the doorway.

Leo had made no mention of his daughter's striking personal beauty. Dutiful, unselfish, intelligent—these, and other eminently desirable mental and moral attributes had he ascribed to her as recommendations in Morris's eyes; but upon the subject of that physical quality that counts for so much more than all the virtues under the sun, the unworldly Leo had been silent. Kenyon had somehow expected to see a stolid, robust, and, to him, altogether uninteresting country damsel, and he with difficulty hid his surprise on beholding the fair vision that answered the summons.

Evarne's manner was touched with timidity, but she was not at all shy. She now stood silent and motionless for a [pg 9] moment, surveying her father's friend with a grave and interested gaze. Then, without waiting for any introduction, she advanced towards him with outstretched hand and a little smile of welcome upon her lips. Kenyon rose, and as he clasped her hand and looked with the eye of a connoisseur more closely into those charming features, he was half-ashamed at the consciousness of a distinct sense of satisfaction in the prospect of playing guardian angel to such a singularly lovely creature.

He left "The Retreat" that evening feeling thoroughly recompensed for the loss of his half-day's shooting, and that just occasionally the fulfilling of the duties demanded by friendship might bring their own reward.

Leo Stornway lingered for more weeks than either he or the doctor had anticipated, but one morning, just at the beginning of the New Year, he was found lying calm, pallid, pulseless. His race was run. Silently and in loneliness the end had come to a silent lonely life.

His desire had been to dispose of his earthly frame in as classical a manner as possible. The notion he would have really revelled in would have been a funeral pyre on the common, with the villagers solemnly running races and engaging in wrestling bouts in honour of his Manes, in true Greek style. This being obviously out of the question, he had set his heart upon the nearest thing possible—ordinary cremation. This urgent desire was found solemnly written on the back of a used envelope.

Hereupon arose trouble for Evarne. The local undertaker, who respectfully yet promptly put in an appearance, was aghast at her intention of arranging for the burning of her father's body. He had no sympathy whatsoever with innovations in his staid and respectable business.

"It's the last thing you will ever be able to do for your dear, dead parent, Miss Evarne," said the dour-looking man. "Give him a solid coffin—it needn't even be oak, we have good lines in elm and ash—but do give him a [pg 10] decent coffin, and have him put under the earth like he ought to be!"

Mrs. Jarman was of opinion that such a departure from conventionality would be absolutely indecent. She also waxed eloquent in another direction.

"I allus thought you loved your poor dead Pa. I could 'ave sworn you wouldn't 'ave 'urt a 'air of his 'ead!" she repeated again and again, as if Evarne's resolve now disposed of that supposition once and for all.

Dr. Crossways was so sure that had he only been consulted in reasonable time neither cremation nor burial would now be under discussion at all, that he declined to offer the least suggestion of any sort. As to the vicar and the curate, they called together on a visit of combined sympathy and expostulation. Both seemed convinced that a case of cremation must prove a serious inconvenience to the Almighty on the Judgment Day—even if it did not place Him in an absolute dilemma.

Into this general confusion and misery, Morris Kenyon—summoned by Mrs. Jarman—descended with all the eclat of the God in the Machine. He arrived at the very moment when the two rival dressmakers of Heatherington, having appeared simultaneously armed with yard measures and black patterns, were quarrelling in stage whispers in the porch.

This weighty matter settled, he proceeded to take all the arrangements into his capable hands. Finally, he sat down to a quiet conversation with the grateful Evarne, the more beautiful for the pallor and distress, concerning her future.

He learnt that her great ambition was to become an artist. She possessed decided talent, combined with an ardent appreciation of the beautiful, but she was absolutely without training, and had evidently no idea of the long years of steady labour—to say nothing of the "filthy lucre"—that must be offered at the shrine of Art by would-be [pg 11] disciples. Looking at Morris, her big eyes filled with a wistful anxiety, she inquired if the little money her father had left could, by the strictest economy, be made to last out until she was able to thus keep herself. If not—and she had evidently come to this conference with her ideas fully formed—could she not learn shorthand and typewriting? Even then she hoped that, by rising early and working at her painting after office hours and on Sundays, she might ultimately earn her living by Art.

Kenyon smiled inwardly at the life she thus proposed for herself. If he knew aught of the world, the sons of Adam would see to it soon enough that this particular daughter of Eve did not spend her days simply and solely divided between banging the keys of a typewriter and daubing sticky colours on a canvas. It was merely his luck that he happened to be first in the field.

To Evarne he appeared kindliness itself. Certainly she could and she should study Art; and this brought him round to a suggestion that he hoped would give her pleasure. He possessed a delightful villa in balmy Naples, where Mrs. Kenyon was now staying to escape the rigours of the English winter. Evarne must come out and stop awhile with his wife. On the journey through Italy, she should behold all its Art treasures. That alone, he assured her, would form a splendid foundation for her later artistic training.