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Introduction to PCM Telemetering Systems Third
Edition Horan Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Horan, Stephen John
ISBN(s): 9781138746930, 1138746932
Edition: Third edition
File Details: PDF, 49.90 MB
Year: 2017
Language: english
THIRD EDITION
Introduction to

PCM Telemetering
Systems
THIRD EDITION
Introduction to

PCM Telemetering
Systems
Stephen Horan

Boca Raton London New York

CRC Press is an imprint of the

Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
CRC Press
Taylor & Francis Group
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300
Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742

© 2017 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

CRC Press is an imprint of Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

No claim to original U.S. Government works

Printed on acid-free paper

Version Date: 20170605

International Standard Book Number-13: 978-1-138-19670-4 (Hardback)

This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded sources. Reasonable
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Contents

List of Figures xxi

List of Tables xxxiii

Preface xxxvii

Author xli

Chapter 1  INTRODUCTION 1
1.1 SYSTEM CONTEXT 1
1.1.1 Definition of Telemetry and Telecommand 4
1.1.2 Link Definitions 5
1.1.3 Pulse Code Modulation Definition 5
1.2 SYSTEM COMPONENTS 7
1.3 ORGANIZATION OF THE TEXT 11
1.4 REFERENCES 13

Section I SYSTEM ELEMENTS

Chapter 2  MEASUREMENT TECHNOLOGY 19

2.1 INTRODUCTION 19
2.2 OBJECTIVES 20
2.3 MEASUREMENT ENVIRONMENT 22
2.3.1 General Components 22
2.3.2 Measurement Definitions 25
2.3.2.1 Measurement 26
2.3.2.2 Input-Output Relationship 26

v
vi  Contents

2.3.2.3 Precision, Accuracy, and Reproducibility 29

2.3.2.4 Absolute Measurement and Differen-
tial Measurement 31
2.4 REPRESENTATIVE SENSOR TECHNOLOGY 31
2.4.1 Resistive Sensors 32
2.4.1.1 Pressure, Strain, or Force Measurements 33
2.4.1.2 Temperature Measurements 35
2.4.1.3 Light Measurements 38
2.4.1.4 Position Measurements 39
2.4.2 Capacitive Sensors 39
2.4.2.1 Capacitive Rain Gauge 39
2.4.2.2 Time Measurement 40
2.4.3 Physical Effect Sensors 41
2.4.3.1 Seebeck Effect 41
2.4.3.2 Piezoelectric Effect 47
2.4.4 Semiconductor Sensors 49
2.4.4.1 Photodetectors 50
2.4.4.2 Temperature Sensors 50
2.4.5 Digital Time Measurement 51
2.4.6 Hybrid Sensors 55
2.5 SMART SENSORS AND RFID SENSORS 58
2.6 REFERENCES 61
2.7 PROBLEMS 63

Chapter 3  MODELING AND CALIBRATION 67

3.1 BACKGROUND 67
3.2 OBJECTIVES 69
3.3 BASICS 69
3.3.1 Calibration 69
3.3.1.1 Capacitive Rain Gauge Calibration Ex-
ample 71
3.3.1.2 Calibration Range 73
 Contents  vii

3.3.1.3 Measurement Calibration Process 74

3.3.1.4 Calibration Curve Variables 75
3.3.1.5 Difference between Calibration and Us-
age 76
3.3.2 Data Modeling 76
3.3.2.1 Difference between Calibration and
Data Modeling 76
3.3.2.2 Modeling as Filtering 77
3.4 ERROR TYPES 77
3.4.1 Systematic Errors 77
3.4.2 Random Errors 78
3.4.3 Interference 79
3.4.4 Hysteresis Error 79
3.4.5 Dead Band Error 80
3.5 STATISTICAL CONCEPTS 80
3.5.1 Measurement Mathematical Model 81
3.5.2 Probability Concepts 81
3.5.2.1 Relative Frequency 82
3.5.2.2 Probability Density 82
3.5.2.3 Cumulative Distribution Function 84
3.5.2.4 Gaussian Probability Density Function
and Noise Model 85
3.5.2.5 Electronic Noise 88
3.5.2.6 Mean, Variance, and Standard Devia-
tion Estimates 89
3.5.3 Measurement Uncertainty 91
3.5.3.1 Uncertainty Definition 91
3.5.3.2 Confidence Intervals 93
3.5.3.3 Number of Measurements Required 94
3.5.3.4 Combined Uncertainty and Uncer-
tainty Budget 94
3.6 LEAST SQUARES FITTING 97
viii  Contents

3.6.1 Least Squares Definition 97

3.6.2 Linear Least Squares – Mean Square Error Basis 98
3.6.3 Linear Least Squares – Statistical Basis 99
3.6.4 Quality of the Fit 101
3.6.5 Correlation Coefficients 103
3.6.5.1 f Statistic 105
3.6.6 Nonlinear Fits 106
3.6.6.1 Parametric Models 106
3.6.6.2 Power Series Models 106
3.6.7 Cautions with Least Squares 108
3.6.7.1 Model Selection 108
3.6.7.2 Outlying Points 109
3.6.7.3 Over-fitting the Model 111
3.7 REFERENCES 111
3.8 PROBLEMS 113

Chapter 4  COMPUTING SYSTEM ELEMENTS 119

4.1 INTRODUCTION 119
4.2 OBJECTIVES 120
4.3 COMPUTER SYSTEMS 121
4.3.1 Real-Time Computing Definition 121
4.3.1.1 Interrupt Characteristics 122
4.3.1.2 Software Characteristics 124
4.3.2 Computer Input-Output Interfaces 125
4.3.2.1 Serial Interfaces 125
4.3.2.2 MIL-STD-1553 133
4.3.2.3 Networks 135
4.4 USER INTERFACE SYSTEMS 137
4.4.1 Processing State Diagram 138
4.4.2 Telemetry Database 139
4.4.2.1 Database Architecture 139
 Contents  ix

4.4.2.2 Data Timing 141

4.4.2.3 Database Storage 141
4.4.2.4 Telemetry Processing Levels and Unit
Conversion 142
4.4.2.5 Telemetry Packet Processing 144
4.4.3 Telemetry Displays 145
4.4.3.1 Telemetry Data Partitioning 148
4.4.3.2 Telemetry Status Indicators 150
4.4.3.3 Display Interaction with the Telemetry
Database 150
4.4.3.4 Balloon Experiment Telemetry Display
Example 151
4.4.4 Telecommand Interfaces 152
4.4.4.1 Command Dictionary 153
4.4.4.2 Command Data Input 154
4.4.4.3 Command Processing 156
4.4.4.4 Balloon Experiment Telecommand In-
terface Example 158
4.5 PAYLOAD COMPUTER SYSTEMS 160
4.5.1 Payload Command Processing State Diagram 163
4.5.2 Payload Command Processing 164
4.5.3 Payload Telemetry Processing 165
4.5.3.1 Payload Data Master Equipment List 166
4.5.4 Balloon Payload Computing System Example 167
4.6 SECURE COMMUNICATIONS 168
4.6.1 Operating Modes 171
4.6.2 Cloud Computing 172
4.6.3 Key Management 174
4.6.4 Communications Error Effects 174
4.6.5 Secure Hardware Systems 175
4.6.6 Secure Software Systems 176
4.7 REFERENCES 176
x  Contents

4.8 PROBLEMS 178

Chapter 5  SIGNAL PROCESSING 181

5.1 INTRODUCTION 181
5.2 OBJECTIVES 182
5.3 TRANSMITTING SAMPLED VERSUS CONTINUOUS
DATA 183
5.3.1 Continuous Analog Transmission 183
5.3.2 Multiplexed Analog Transmission 183
5.3.3 Pulse Code Modulation Transmission 185
5.4 SIGNAL TYPES 188
5.4.1 Pulse Code Modulation Signals 188
5.4.2 Digital Signals 188
5.4.2.1 Bi-level Signals 188
5.4.2.2 Discrete Signals 188
5.5 BANDLIMITING 189
5.5.1 Fourier Transforms 189
5.5.1.1 Transform Definition 190
5.5.1.2 Magnitude and Phase Spectra 190
5.5.2 Signal Bandwidth 192
5.5.2.1 Bandlimited Signals 192
5.5.2.2 Essential Bandwidth Definition 194
5.5.3 Signal Bandlimiting Architecture 199
5.6 SAMPLING 199
5.6.1 Sampling Theorem 201
5.6.2 Oversampling the Nyquist Rate 201
5.6.3 Aliasing 202
5.7 FILTER DESIGN 205
5.7.1 Reasons for Filtering 205
5.7.2 Filter Types and Parameters 205
5.7.3 Filter Transfer Functions 207
5.7.3.1 Ideal Filters 207
 Contents  xi

5.7.3.2 Butterworth Filters 209

5.7.3.3 Chebyshev Filters 210
5.7.3.4 Bessel Filters 211
5.7.4 Analog Filter Design Method 214
5.7.4.1 Low Pass Building Block 215
5.7.4.2 Filter Type Determination 218
5.7.4.3 Filter Order Determination 218
5.7.4.4 Resistor and Capacitor Selection 218
5.7.4.5 Sample LPF Design 219
5.7.4.6 Conversion to High-Pass Design 220
5.7.4.7 Conversion to Band-Pass Design 221
5.8 SOFTWARE FILTER DESIGN 223
5.8.1 Digital Filter Equivalents 223
5.8.2 Data Processing Filtering 224
5.8.2.1 Moving Average Filter 224
5.8.2.2 Moving Least Squares Filter 225
5.9 QUANTIZATION 227
5.9.1 Quantization Process 227
5.9.2 Commutation 229
5.9.3 Quantization Noise and Resolution 230
5.9.4 Quantization Signal-to-Noise Ratio 230
5.9.5 Total Transmitted Data 232
5.10 SAMPLING HARDWARE 233
5.10.1 Process Timing 233
5.10.2 Sample-and-Hold Amplifiers 234
5.10.3 Analog-to-Digital Converters 236
5.10.3.1 Successive Approximation Converters 236
5.10.3.2 Flash Converters 237
5.10.3.3 Dual Conversion Flash Converters 239
5.10.3.4 Sigma-Delta Analog-to-Digital Conver-
sion 240
xii  Contents

5.11 REFERENCES 241

5.12 PROBLEMS 243

Section II DATA TRANSPORT, TIMING, AND SYN-

CHRONIZATION

Chapter 6  TELEMETRY FRAMES AND PACKETS 253

6.1 INTRODUCTION 253
6.2 OBJECTIVES 254
6.3 BACKGROUND 255
6.3.1 Context 255
6.3.2 Data Link Layer Packaging 256
6.3.3 Commutation 256
6.4 TELEMETRY FRAMES 257
6.4.1 Inter-Range Instrumentation Group Frame Defi-
nitions 257
6.4.1.1 Minor Frame 258
6.4.1.2 Major Frame 259
6.4.1.3 Commutated Data 261
6.4.1.4 Supercommutated Data 261
6.4.1.5 Subframes and Subcommutated Data 261
6.4.1.6 Supersubcommutated Data 263
6.4.2 Frame Examples 263
6.4.3 Inter-Range Instrumentation Group Class I and
Class II Telemetry 266
6.4.3.1 Standard Parameters 266
6.4.3.2 Format Changes 267
6.4.3.3 Asynchronous Embedded Format 268
6.4.3.4 Tagged Data 269
6.5 SYNCHRONIZATION CODES 270
6.6 TELEMETRY FRAME DESIGN 272
6.6.1 General Factors 272
6.6.2 Management and Accounting Information 274
 Contents  xiii

6.6.3 Data Packaging 274

6.7 PACKET TELEMETRY 276
6.7.1 Packet Assumptions 276
6.7.2 Protocol Data Unit Format 278
6.7.3 Packet Modes 279
6.7.3.1 Commutated Mode 280
6.7.3.2 Entropy Mode 280
6.7.3.3 Virtual Channel Mode 282
6.7.3.4 Table Driven Format 283
6.8 MIL-STD-1553 PACKETS 284
6.8.1 Inter-Range Instrumentation Group 106 Modifi-
cations 285
6.9 CCSDS PACKETS 287
6.10 DATA NETWORKING PACKETS 292
6.10.1 Background 292
6.10.2 Packet Formats 293
6.10.3 Data Servers 294
6.10.4 Data Throughput Issues 295
6.10.5 Inter-Range Instrumentation Group 106 Packet En-
capsulation 296
6.10.6 Telemetry Data Streaming 298
6.11 COMMAND PROCESSOR INTERFACE 300
6.12 DATA WAVEFORM FORMATTING FOR TRANSMISSION 300
6.12.1 General Structure 301
6.12.2 Data Randomizers 301
6.12.3 Data Format Specification 302
6.12.4 Data Format Generation 304
6.12.5 Inter-Range Instrumentation Group Differen-
tial Encoding 305
6.12.6 Usage Characteristics 306
6.13 REFERENCES 309
6.14 PROBLEMS 313
xiv  Contents

Chapter 7  DATA SYNCHRONIZATION 317

7.1 INTRODUCTION 317
7.2 OBJECTIVES 318
7.3 SYNCHRONIZATION PROCESS 319
7.4 CARRIER SYNCHRONIZATION 320
7.5 BIT SYNCHRONIZATION 320
7.5.1 General Functions 321
7.5.2 Data Clock Extraction 323
7.5.2.1 Open-Loop Clock Extractors 323
7.5.2.2 Closed-Loop Clock Extractors 324
7.5.3 Data Formats 325
7.5.4 Derandomizer 326
7.6 PROTOCOL DATA UNIT SYNCHRONIZATION 327
7.6.1 Telemetry Frame Synchronization 327
7.6.1.1 Search State 327
7.6.1.2 Check State 330
7.6.1.3 Lock State 330
7.6.2 Packet Synchronization 331
7.6.3 Network Synchronization 334
7.6.4 Statistical Measures 334
7.6.4.1 False Lock Probability 334
7.6.4.2 Missed Synchronization Probability 336
7.7 CHANNEL ERROR DETECTION 337
7.7.1 Probability of Error 338
7.7.2 Post-Processing Error Correction 339
7.7.3 Error Detection and Correcting Codes 340
7.7.3.1 Error Detection Codes 340
7.7.3.2 Block Error Correction Codes 341
7.7.3.3 Convolutional Codes 345
7.7.3.4 Concatenated Codes 346
7.7.4 Channel Improvement 346
 Contents  xv

7.7.5 Coding Gain 347

7.8 DATA SEQUENCING 349
7.9 REFERENCES 352
7.10 PROBLEMS 353

Chapter 8  TIME AND POSITION DETERMINATION 357

8.1 INTRODUCTION 357
8.2 OBJECTIVES 359
8.3 DEFINITION OF TIME 359
8.3.1 Absolute Time 360
8.3.1.1 International Atomic Time 361
8.3.1.2 Sidereal Time 361
8.3.1.3 Terrestrial Time 361
8.3.1.4 Coordinated Universal Time 361
8.3.1.5 Julian Date 362
8.3.2 Elapsed Time 363
8.4 TIME CODE FORMATS 364
8.4.1 International Organization for Standardization 364
8.4.2 Inter-Range Instrumentation Group 366
8.4.2.1 Inter-Range Instrumentation Group
Time Frame Formats 366
8.4.2.2 Inter-Range Instrumentation Group
Pulse Code Modulation Timing Word
Format 372
8.4.2.3 Inter-Range Instrumentation Group
MIL-STD-1553 Time Formats 375
8.4.3 National Institute of Standards and Technology 375
8.4.4 Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems 380
8.5 GLOBAL POSITIONING SYSTEM TIME AND POSITION 382
8.5.1 Global Positioning System Definition 383
8.5.2 Time and Position Determination 385
8.5.3 National Marine Electronics Association Navi-
gation Sentences 389
xvi  Contents

8.6 REFERENCES 392

8.7 PROBLEMS 395

Chapter 9  TELECOMMAND TRANSMISSION SYSTEMS 397

9.1 INTRODUCTION 397
9.2 OBJECTIVES 399
9.3 COMMAND COMPOSITION 399
9.4 COMMAND TRANSMISSION STRATEGIES 404
9.4.1 Repeat-and-Execute Command Protocol 406
9.4.2 Verify-and-Execute Command Protocol 407
9.4.3 Open-Loop Command Protocol 407
9.4.4 Command Packaging Examples 408
9.5 OPERATIONAL CONSIDERATIONS 410
9.5.1 Command Synchronization 410
9.5.2 Command Verification 412
9.5.3 Subsystem Command Rates 414
9.5.4 Pre-event Commanding 414
9.5.5 Command Counters 415
9.5.6 Command Files 417
9.5.7 Command Error Rates 417
9.5.7.1 Command Reception Error Probability 417
9.5.7.2 Parity Error Detection Strategies 419
9.5.7.3 Repeat Command Strategies 420
9.5.8 Command Security 422
9.6 PACKET COMMAND SYSTEMS 423
9.7 REFERENCES 425
9.8 PROBLEMS 425

Section III DATA TRANSMISSION TECHNIQUES

Chapter 10  MODULATION TECHNIQUES 433

10.1 INTRODUCTION 433
 Contents  xvii

10.2 OBJECTIVES 435

10.3 ANALOG MODULATION 435
10.3.1 Phase and Frequency Definition 436
10.3.2 Frequency Modulation 437
10.3.3 Phase Modulation 441
10.3.4 Signal-to-Noise Performance 444
10.3.5 Relative Performance of FM and PM 446
10.4 DIGITAL MODULATION 448
10.4.1 Phase Shift Keying 449
10.4.1.1 Binary Phase Shift Keying and Quadra-
ture Phase Shift Keying 449
10.4.1.2 Offset Quadrature Phase Shift Keying
or Staggered Quadrature Phase Shift
Keying 453
10.4.2 Frequency Shift Keying 455
10.4.3 Pulse-Shaped Modulation Techniques 457
10.4.3.1 Minimum Shift Keying and Gaussian
Minimum Shift Keying 457
10.4.3.2 Shaped Offset Quadrature Phase Shift
Keying 459
10.4.4 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation 460
10.4.5 Subcarrier Modulation 463
10.4.6 Bit Error Rate Performance 465
10.5 BANDWIDTH ESTIMATES 469
10.5.1 Analog Bandwidth 469
10.5.2 Digital Bandwidth 470
10.5.2.1 Phase Shift Keying 471
10.5.2.2 Frequency Shift Keying 472
10.5.2.3 Minimum Shift Keying, Gaussian Min-
imum Shift Keying, and Shaped Offset
Quadrature Phase Shift Keying 474
10.5.2.4 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation 474
10.5.3 Spectrum Control Issues 474
xviii  Contents

10.6 SYSTEM PLANNING 477

10.6.1 Telemetry Frequency Allocations 478
10.6.1.1 Telemetry Stations and Services 479
10.6.1.2 Band Sharing 482
10.6.1.3 Matched Bands 483
10.6.2 Emission Standards 483
10.6.2.1 Necessary Bandwidth 483
10.6.2.2 Spectral Masks 484
10.6.3 Intermodulation Effects 486
10.6.4 Unequal Data Rates 487
10.6.5 Spectral Regrowth 488
10.7 DIGITAL OVER ANALOG TRANSMISSION 490
10.8 REFERENCES 491
10.9 PROBLEMS 494

Chapter 11  MICROWAVE TRANSMISSION 497

11.1 INTRODUCTION 497
11.2 OBJECTIVES 499
11.3 BACKGROUND 500
11.3.1 Microwave Bands 500
11.3.2 Structure of the Atmosphere 501
11.3.3 Radio Propagation Modes 503
11.3.4 Band Characteristics 505
11.4 RADIO FREQUENCY DEVICES 505
11.4.1 Transmitters and Receivers 506
11.4.2 Radio Frequency Components 509
11.4.2.1 Radio Frequency Cabling 509
11.4.2.2 Active and Passive Devices 509
11.4.3 Antennas 513
11.4.3.1 Antenna Types 514
11.4.3.2 Antenna Radiation Pattern 514
 Contents  xix

11.4.3.3 Antenna Gain 517

11.4.3.4 Target Tracking 520
11.4.4 Software Defined Radio 521
11.5 FREE SPACE PROPAGATION 523
11.5.1 Friis Transmission Relationship 524
11.5.2 Space Loss 526
11.5.3 Noise Temperature 526
11.5.3.1 Two-port model 528
11.5.3.2 Effective Temperature Computation 529
11.5.3.3 Antenna Temperature Computation 530
11.5.3.4 System Temperature Computation 531
11.5.4 Signal Margin 535
11.5.5 Link Analysis 536
11.6 ATMOSPHERIC, SUN, AND GROUND PROPAGATION
EFFECTS 543
11.6.1 Gaseous Attenuation 543
11.6.2 Refraction 544
11.6.3 Diffraction 546
11.6.4 General Terrain Fade Margin 549
11.6.5 Scintillation 550
11.6.6 Sun Intrusions 552
11.7 RAIN EFFECTS MODELING 553
11.7.1 Rain Effects 553
11.7.2 International Telecommunications Union Model 556
11.7.2.1 Satellite Link Path Attenuation 557
11.7.2.2 Terrestrial Link Path Attenuation 561
11.7.3 Antenna Wetting 562
11.8 MOBILE PROPAGATION 563
11.8.1 Channel Geometry 563
11.8.2 Two-ray Model 564
11.8.3 Multiple-ray Model 567
Other documents randomly have
different content
pupil. In the brief lucid intervals when he came to the surface, he
was conscious of a vague discomfort which neither beef nor bed
availed to soothe. Her accident and the delay were giving time for
his feelings to mature. Gardiner, who was interested in his own
mental processes, would soon have found himself out; Denis, a
stranger to self-consciousness, was blind as any well-brought-up
young lady of the fifties.
Dorothea came back at last unexpectedly. After leaving his lunch to
get cold, and then bolting it in five minutes, Denis had rushed back
to his desk to finish a calculation. He was writing the last figures
when a car turned in at the gates, and he lifted his head with a
frown, which changed suddenly into a smile of pleasure. Well he
knew that gay little tune on the horn, the sound of that fresh young
voice in the porch! Down went his pen, and out he hurried to greet
her, with an eagerness which surprised himself.
"Here's your bad penny again, you see!" she cried, coming in with
the scent of the wind on her suit and the rose of it in her cheeks.
"Aren't you sick to see me? Old Turner said this morning I might use
my hand, so I came straight off. But what have you been doing to
yourself? You look half starved—doesn't he, Birdie? Have you had
any lunch? If you haven't it's very wrong of you, and I shall just
stand over you till it's gone—do you hear?"
Denis, laughing, lingered to shake hands with Miss Byrd, who always
satisfied the proprieties by escorting her young friend, before
following his impetuous pupil into the parlor. Dorothea was scornfully
inspecting the remains of the meal.
"H'm! One sausage—I know it can't be more, for Rogers never gives
you more than seven, at the outside, to the pound—it's not half
enough for you. This room's hatefully uncomfortable, too," she
added, frowning round with eyes which saw it all anew. Dorothea
was blind to beauty, but wide awake to comfort, especially
somebody else's comfort. "I should like to talk to that Simpson
woman. I'd soon make her sit up! I think she neglects you
shamefully. You're looking quite pale—isn't he, Birdie?—and I know
it's all her fault. I've no use at all for a woman who can't keep her
own people comfy!"
It was a novel experience for Denis to be scolded for neglecting
himself. "I assure you Miss Simpson's guiltless," he said, smiling.
"I've had a bit of a rush lately, that's all. I've not been able to get
out these last few days."
"Well, you're coming out with me this afternoon, or I'll know the
reason why. I can't have you looking like this," retorted Dorothea,
nodding her decision; and then, with a sudden beguiling change,
clasping both hands over his arm: "You're going to let me do
straights on my own to-day, aren't you? You almost promised you
would, last time!"
Denis looked down on her hands, as though he found them a very
pleasing adornment to his sleeve. "We'll see," he said, and from that
he would not budge, for all her coaxing. He was inordinately
cautious in his tuition. They left Miss Byrd tucked up by the fire with
a book, and Denis went down to the hangars, while Dorothea got
into her flying kit. He was never tired of dinning into his pupil's ears
the duty of prudence, and certainly he set the example himself.
When Dorothea appeared at the sheds, in her tan leather coat and
leggings and safety helmet, she found her instructor tuning up the
machine, and had to wait as patiently as she might till he had done.
The morning until ten o'clock had been white and chill with one of
those luminous, snowy September fogs, which clear off into noons of
sapphire. The sky was astoundingly blue, the meadow insolently
green, the sheds all hard-edged, vivid, with keen black shadows. In
the full blaze of sunshine stood the monoplane, tall in front where
the long brown blades of the propeller cleared the ground, sloping
down towards the fin-like tail planes, and spreading its pale wings in
curves not unlike those of the gulls which sailed by, calling and
fishing over the marshes.
Dorothea climbed into her seat, Denis took his place beside her, the
men behind let go, and off they went, skimming fast and faster over
the grass, gaining speed and power for soaring. The elevator tilted,
and they parted from the earth, the moment imperceptible; only the
country, which had lain ahead, spread out suddenly below them like
a carpet. There were the green marshes, ruled out like a chess-
board with glistening waterways, and bordered with the dark blue
sea: the farm, and the sheds, and the outbuildings, all like toys
made of cardboard and glittering tin.
After circling over the aerodrome to get his height, Denis turned his
back on the coast and flew inland. As they passed, the great farm
horses plunged and fidgeted, the laborers stood still in the fields,
peering up from under their hands, the cottagers ran out into the
road to watch them overhead. Some said: "Well, I wouldn't be up in
one of them things for a thousand pounds!" and others: "Silly fools!
serve 'em right if they break their necks!" The Englishman, in fact,
received the novelty as he receives any strange thing or person, in
the spirit summed once and for all by Punch. Not that Denis had any
right to grumble. Except with regard to his work, he was just as
conservative, just as ready to heave his half-brick as any Bill among
them.
They flew to Canterbury, and turned, banking in a steep curve, to
shoot back over the way they had come. They were five thousand
feet up, and the wind was ferocious; it seemed to press the breath
back down their throats, to wrench at the flesh on their faces. Much
Dorothea cared! On that homeward flight she was allowed, for the
first time, to guide the aeroplane herself. Denis kept his hands ready
to resume control, in case of a slip, but he was not needed; she held
the pillar till the time came to switch off the engine and glide in a
long, long slant towards the landing ground. B-rr, the motor purred
again, as the monoplane cocked up her tail, like a bird, to "flatten
out" before alighting. The landing wheels took off the shock, and
they ran smoothly over the grass till the momentum was exhausted.
Denis stayed at the hangars to see the machine housed. When he
came back to the house he found his pupil waiting for him on the
steps of the porch. She had taken off her helmet and her leather
coat, and wore the same rough tweeds in which she had wandered
about the woods of the Semois. Her skirt was short enough to show
a pair of neat brown ankles, as well as the brown shoes below them,
and her hair hung down her back in a yard and a quarter of pigtail.
She said she couldn't coil it under the helmet. Her eyes were
sparkling, and her cheeks were pink, and she propped herself
against the white pillar, first on one foot, then on the other, with the
long-legged, supple awkwardness of a schoolgirl. Strange how the
years had fallen away, how little mark had been left by her marriage,
even by motherhood!
"I did it all right, didn't I?" she demanded, naïvely eager. "I didn't
make any bad breaks?"
"Not a break!" Denis assured her.
"Really? Truly? Will you let me do a figure of eight next time? I know
I could!"
"We'll see when next time comes."
Dorothea looked exceedingly naughty, like Geraldine caught stealing
the cream—the simile was Denis's own. "It's coming again to-
morrow!" she announced daringly.
Denis shook his head, smiling at her. "No, it's not."
"Ah, do let me! I've wasted so much time with the weather, and then
this hateful hand, and I do so want to learn—I can't wait till
Saturday!"
"I'm sorry to disappoint such ardor, but I'm afraid you must."
"Why? You know it may change any day now into the equinoctial
gales. I think you might leave your old seaplane for once. I've never
asked you before. Do!"
Denis, standing below her on the path, continued to smile
provokingly and to shake his head. It amused him to see her stamp
her foot, which she did punctually, with a thunderous frown.
"I think you're most unkind. It's not your duty, it's your pleasure
you're thinking of. You like those miserable calculations, and that's
why you won't come. I hate the seaplane!"
"There might be some point in your strictures," said Denis, teasing
her, "if I happened to be workin' at the seaplane to-morrow."
"What are you going to do, then, if not that?"
"I'm dinin' Wandesforde in town."
"O-oh," said Dorothea, undecided between storm and sunshine.
"Then I hate Mr. Wandesforde!" she concluded viciously.
"You hate so many things, don't you?"
Again she was almost ready to sulk like an offended baby; but no—
out shone the sun, and the clouds fled away. "Well, I do," she
owned, laughing back at him, "of course I do! So would anybody
who wasn't a perfect frog. It's only cold-blooded people like you and
Lettice who are tolerant. Besides, I love heaps of things to make up.
I hate the seaplane and I hate Mr. Wandesforde, but I love the
monoplane and I love you—"
It would have been nothing, nothing, if she had not pointed her
words by stopping dead and turning scarlet. Denis, puzzled, gazed at
her with his honest eyes; and then, like the falling of a curtain, saw
what her confusion meant, both to her and to himself. He stepped
forward impulsively, putting out his hands. Dorothea pressed back
against the pillar, glancing desperately from side to side; then,
striking them away, she turned and darted in at the open door, like a
rabbit into its burrow.
 CHAPTER XIII
ONE NAIL DRIVES OUT ANOTHER

I looked and saw your heart

In the shadow of your eyes,
As the seeker sees the gold
In the shadow of the stream.
Three Shadows.

There is a legend which says that September is the month of the

fading leaf. Townsmen may fancy so, looking at their own starved
avenues, which begin to shrivel and strip themselves as early as
July; but in the country the massive woods (except that an elm here
and there hangs out a single crocus-yellow spray) keep the somber
green of late summer to the very end of the month. Then, as the
days pass, first the lime "strips to the cold and standeth naked
above her yellow attire." The horse-chestnuts on some night of frost
let drop all their fans in a rustling heap. The woodland paths are
crisp with fawn-colored oak leaves. Last of all, in mid-November, the
elms loosen to the wind and the rain those faint clouds of green and
greenish-gold which have rounded the shape of their limbs, till all
the wet meadows are strewn with them; and it is winter.
At Rochehaut it was September still, late September. Gardiner, at
leisure after the summer rush, had been to his bank at Bouillon, and,
instead of returning by the vicinal, had chosen to walk back over the
hills through Botassart. This route brought him past the crucifix. He
had not been there since the grand explosion, and it cost him an
effort to go back; but he refused to be sentimental, or allow a
beautiful thing to be spoiled for him by fancies. There he lay then on
the grass, smoking and dreaming.
It seemed long, long since that summer night; so long that he could
look back now, on it and on Dorothea, as part of the past. Heavens!
how she had hurt him! There was that time as a boy, when he
tumbled waist-deep into a vat of scalding liquid at some chemical
works; he could compare his feelings only to that violent assault of
pain. Yes, she had hurt him abominably; the pain of his crushed
hand had been by contrast a relief and a distraction. But the wound
was on the surface; and, though he scarcely knew it himself, already
it was beginning to heal. There was no poison in it. His passion for
Dorothea had been effectually cauterized; he thought of her now
without either resentment or desire. He was profoundly sorry; sorrier
for Dorothea O'Connor than even for Mrs. Trent. This pity, oddly
enough, confirmed him in impenitence. "I did her a good turn when
I cleared that fellow out of her road," he said to himself with
inverted satisfaction. "If he'd lived long enough for her to find him
out, there'd have been la de Dios es Cristo!"
Three days of pale still sunshine had closed in threatening gloom.
The grassy hill of the crucifix was burnt putty-color; the hill of forests
opposite was olive-somber; the valley fumed with tawny vapors,
breathing down from the gloom of the sky, and up from the dark
current of the river. All was still, grave, overcast, till the sun found
his sunset crevice in the clouds and split them, overflowing in long
lines of liquid gold between iron-heavy bars. Splendid transparent
fan-rays of light and dark alternate streamed up the sky; they
rimmed vague forms of mist with burning wire, they filled the empty
blue with bronze and golden vapors; the whole vault of heaven was
on fire, the wet brown hills flamed back responsive glory.
Gardiner, susceptible to every earth influence, found his senses
flooded with that golden exhilaration. Vague mists of thought took
shape in its light; he knew now that that name on the lintel of the
farm was not a mere coincidence. When he first saw the Bellevue,
"Why, I've been here before," he had said to himself, with a thrill of
startled recognition. And now, "I belong here," he added, half aloud,
with a touch of solemnity, as though the spoken word must be
irrevocable. Old ties were dear; but he knew in his heart, his body
knew, that the wild Semois down there in the valley was more to
him than the Darenth of his boyhood. This was his home.
Bringing his dazzled eyes to earth, he saw that a figure had
detached itself from the orchards of the Bellevue, and was slowly
mounting the hill. One person only would climb like that, with so
many divagations to avoid steep places, and so many halts to admire
the view—or could it be to get her breath? It was Lettice.
Since his accident, now five weeks ago, Gardiner had seen a good
deal of Miss Smith. His hand had been unexpectedly troublesome;
indeed he was only now beginning to use it. Meantime he had made
use of Lettice as his amanuensis, repaying her services by refusing
to allow her to settle her bill. "No, I am not going to take that
money," he said, energetically nodding towards the pile of notes she
had deposited on his table. "I'll pitch it into the fire if you leave it
there. Also I shall wire to town for a regular secretary. Pick it up and
take it away." Lettice did not like it in the very least; but very slowly
and very stubbornly she did pick the money up and return it to her
purse. Nor was her temper soothed when Gardiner looked at her
direct, with a glint in his eye, and added, "I know you wind Denis
round your little finger, but I am not Denis. Two can play at being
obstinate, savez-vous?" Still, she continued to act as his secretary;
until by the end of the month she knew his methods and his
business almost as well as he did himself.
It was after this episode that she began to play with him, admitting
him to rank as an intimate; and that he began to discover what it
was that Denis loved in those velvet touches. But he was more
uncertain than Denis—he was not to be run by formula; he would
turn unexpectedly, and parry, and strike back. Once or twice, too,
especially at first, when he was acting the urbane and cheerful host,
he found her eyes fixed upon him. They were instantly withdrawn;
but he knew she knew he was suffering, and oddly enough he did
not resent it. Oddly, be it understood, because Gardiner was by no
means fond of sympathy. His instinct when hard hit was to cover up
the wound and keep it hidden from the world, and especially from
his friends. Yet it seemed he did not mind Lettice. And now, though
he saw she was making for the crucifix, to disturb his regal solitude,
he did not stir.
She had not seen him. She plodded on without looking up, and
presently was hidden in a fold of the hill. When she emerged again,
it was within ten yards of the crucifix and that lazy, smiling figure.
She stopped short; one could almost hear her spirit say "Oh!"
though her lips were silent. Her first impulse obviously was to beat a
retreat (Gardiner chuckled, he had known it would be!), but she
thought better of it, and came on. After surveying the heap of
stones, she chose the one comfortable place, settled herself, and got
out the inevitable green tablecloth. Lettice made great play with that
tablecloth.
Since she would not speak, Gardiner did.
"I didn't know you'd found your way up here."
"Why, you told me about it yourself."
"Do you like it better than your wood pile in the forest?"
Lettice paused in the act of threading her needle to look round on
the brown and gold of hills and woods and sky. "Yes," said she; and
if she had raved for an hour she could have expressed no more.
Comfortable silence fell between them. Lettice stitched, and Gardiner
smoked, and in the west the sunset flared in citron, amber, saffron,
bronze, and a thousand shades of glory. In the east a scroll of cloud
reared dazzling sunny heights of snow against dazzling blue.
Lettice's needle slackened; it came to a standstill.
"Penny for your thoughts," said Gardiner.
"I haven't any."
"I thought you were composing a poem."
Insults of insults! Lettice looked volumes of reproach. "I was not,"
said she.
"But you do write poetry."
"Who told you so?"
"Who do you suppose? Denis has told me quite a lot about you.
Hasn't he told you a lot about me?"
"Yes; but it wasn't all of it true."
Gardiner burst out laughing. "Well, that is good! How do you know?"
"Oh, it's, it's—it's obvious," said Lettice, with an exasperated wave of
the hand to help out her meaning. She began to sew very fast.
Gardiner contemplated her with a broad smile; but presently it
faded, and he turned over and lay plucking at the grass.
"Did Miss O'Connor leave her address with you?"
Lettice shook her head.
"She went off in such a hurry!"
Gardiner opened his mouth to speak, and checked himself for a
garrulous fool. He did not know why he had mentioned Dorothea at
all. A moment later the impulse came again, and he found himself,
to his surprise, telling Lettice the very thing he had decided not to
mention. "Rather a queer thing about that young lady," he remarked
lightly. "I found out—to be exact, she hurled the fact in my teeth—
that she wasn't a Miss, and that O'Connor wasn't her name. She was
a widow—a Mrs. Trent."
"Mrs. Trent? What, the, the—"
"Oh, you know about her, do you? Yes, the Mrs. Trent of Easedale.
She's firmly persuaded that I killed her husband. I believe she came
over here simply and solely in order to worm some sort of
confession out of me."
He stopped, amazed at himself. Then he looked at Lettice. If deep
unaffected interest can pull confidences out of a man, here was his
excuse. Why, she was all eyes and ears!
"So that was it!" she said. "That was who she was!"
"You don't mean to tell me you knew about this before?"
"No, no, not her name. But I knew she didn't much like you."
"The dickens you did! Did she say so?"
"No, I, I—I sort of gathered it."
"I begin to think what Denis said about you was true," Gardiner
remarked after a pause.
"What did Denis say about me?"
"That you could see through a flight of stairs and a deal door."
"I don't know what you mean."
"You wouldn't, it's out of Dickens," said Gardiner, with a laugh which
hid considerable perturbation. So she had guessed that, had she,
before he knew it himself? What was there she did not guess? He
began to feel helplessly transparent. Yet again he was surprised to
find he did not hate her for intruding. Lettice could pick her way
among sensibilities like a cat among china, and she neither
misunderstood nor misjudged. There were episodes in his life which
he would have been ashamed to show to Denis. He could have
shown them every one to Lettice, unmarried girl though she was,
and with no experience of the rough and tumble of life. Somehow
one never thought of Lettice as a girl. He looked up at her. She had
dropped her work and sat motionless, her eyes fixed on the sunset.
In nature as in human nature, Lettice looked to the limit of sight,
and beyond, to the city of God. It was that distant view which gave
her the perspective for things near. While Gardiner was making these
reflections, she turned her head suddenly and surprised him with a
question:
"Does Denis know about Mrs. Trent?"
"I should say not. I haven't told him."
"I think you'd better."
It was so unlike Lettice to offer advice that he stared in surprise.
"Why?"
"He ought to know."
"I don't want to go into that business again," said Gardiner. "He did
hate it all so desperately—no, I don't want to rake it up again. Nor
do I see any necessity. What does it matter?"
"Would you mind if I told him?"
"Why the dickens are you so keen?"
She hesitated. She found it chronically hard to put her thoughts into
speech, and in this case there were reservations to be made.
Gardiner took the words out of her mouth.
"You don't mean you think she'd go for him too?"
Lettice nodded. "She meant to get a confession out of one or the
other of you."
"Oh, my Lord!" said Gardiner, and caught himself up. "But if there's
nothing to confess?"
A flash went over Lettice's face. Was it conceivable that she had
guessed even that last thing? No, it wasn't, Gardiner decided hastily,
that was beyond her, she couldn't possibly know. For an instant he
thought of telling her himself, but caution, habit, above all self-
derision held him back. He blurt out that damaging truth to a chance
acquaintance? He wasn't such a fool!—All this passed through his
mind in the instant between his question and her reply.
"Well, she didn't give you much of a time while she was trying to
find out, did she?"
"No; but—oh, she couldn't try that game on again, it would be too
beastly low down, with a man like Denis! Besides, he isn't taking
any, he simply hates women.... Look here, tell me exactly what you
know, do you mind? What makes you so certain she meant to go for
him?"
Lettice drew a long breath. Her explanation, when it came, ran clear
and straight. Indeed, her thought was always lucid; it was the words
that failed.
"It was that last day before she went. She began by telling me about
herself and how unhappy she had been; and then she let out that
there was some man she hated; and then she began asking
questions about you and Denis, coupling you together, do you see?
—but so that you couldn't help guessing it was you she'd been
talking about. One thing she asked was whether Denis would tell a
lie to save a friend. And then Denis himself came up, and they talked
flying; and she said she should go to Bredon some day and see the
aeroplanes."
"You think she really meant business?"
"Yes, I do."
"Pleasant," said Gardiner, tugging at his mustache, with a sort of
hard restraint. "If she exploits Denis as she did me, he'll enjoy
himself. Yes, I shall be very much obliged if you'll write to him. He'll
take it better from you than from me."
"I wish I'd known before," said Lettice, folding up her work.
"Oh, it's all right so far, she hasn't turned up at Bredon yet. I heard
from Denis this morning."
"Yes, but don't you see if she did go she'd be sure to tell him not to
tell you?"
He did see, and felt sick. It cost him an effort to lie still. But he
pulled himself together; that last secret, at least, she should not
read. What to say, then? He would not confess, but equally he would
not lie to her. He found something which was neither lie, confession,
nor equivocation, but a piece of plain fact.
"If she ever does get hold of the truth about Trent, she'll be
uncommonly sorry she tried to find out."
Then he discovered that Lettice was neither looking at nor thinking
of him.
"I hope she won't get it out of Denis," she said. "I hope you'll be in
time to prevent that."
The words were mild; the spirit, not so. Gardiner was shamed out of
his self-absorption. He saw Lettice's love for her cousin, roused in his
defense; and he saw, too, with her, Denis tricked into betraying his
friend. Why, he would never forgive himself!
"My Lord, yes!" he said with unexpected gravity. "That would be a
worse business than anything she's done or could do to me."
 CHAPTER XIV
A TWO-EDGED SWORD

He looked at her, as a lover can;

She looked at him, as one who awakes.
The Statue and the Bust.

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof
are the ways of death.—Proverbs.
In his salad days, a long time ago, Denis had fallen in love with the
daughter of a respectable suburban fishmonger, after tumbling out
of the sky on the roof of her house. The young lady's parents were
rich but honest; the young lady herself—well, she had an extremely
pretty face, which occupied Denis to the exclusion of a blue and
yellow sports coat and a large string of pearls. His love dream lasted
six weeks; then he fell out of his aeroplane again and broke his
handsome nose, or was supposed to have done so, and Miss Tyrrell
broke the engagement. "I c-couldn't bear you with a broken nose!"
she wept. Whatever Denis broke, it was not his heart. When he
looked back on the episode, it was with devout and wondering
thankfulness; but he preferred not to look back on it at all.
This was his sole experience of the tender passion. In his single-
minded and laborious life there had been no room for more; even
Nina Tyrrell had been sandwiched between two flying accidents.
Denis was at bottom a simple soul. He had three main interests—his
religion, his aeroplanes, his friends; and they were all bound up
together by a child-like faith. He believed in others because his own
heart was pure. It was this bloom of innocence which Gardiner loved
in his friend, and which both he and Lettice were tender to protect;
and it was this which made his feeling for Dorothea at once so
beautiful, and so vulnerable.
He took the revelation very simply, very seriously, with reverence
and awe; among other primitive virtues, Denis had a fine stock of
awe. Love was to him a sacrament, a gift direct from heaven; he
carried it in his heart like a jewel almost too precious for human
hands to touch, and gave humble thanks to God. A good old-
fashioned churchman, Denis had been accustomed to "say his
prayers" night and morning, walking in a decent English soul-silence
the rest of the day; but this new gratitude transcended all rules and
overflowed in ceaseless praise. Nobody, he was certain, had ever felt
like this before. He was happy—happier than it had ever entered his
head to imagine, in sunshine which turned all the gray of life to gold.
All that day he could settle to nothing, but mooned about the house,
getting in the way of Miss Simpson, who had planned to turn out his
room. Next day, in town, he looked at Wandesforde the married man
with new curiosity. He did not in the least want to unbosom himself;
but he would have liked to extract confidences from somebody who
had been through it all before. Wandesforde, however, was not given
to making confidences, and if ever he had been driven into speech
his partner was the last man he would have chosen to receive his
outpourings. He put down Denis's unusual silence to his liver, and
genially advised him to take more exercise—that venerable joke,
which always seems so good to the maker and so poor to the
recipient!
That night Denis lay awake, building castles in the air. Dorothea had
told him all her sad little story as far as her marriage, one squally
day when they were sheltering in the hangar; he set up in his heart
a shrine of protective love and reverence and worshiped her there,
his little lady of the sorrows—Dorothea, with a heart full of black
hate! Yet Denis was not blind. He saw one side of her clearly
enough, and was ready to own with tender indulgence that she had
plenty of endearing imperfections, of small gray faults; but of the
other side, the dark half of the moon, she had shown him nothing,
and how was he to divine it? With him, indeed, she was what he
believed her: true to her true self, since but for her starved girlhood
Dorothea would never have learned to hate. He scarcely dared hope
she loved him yet, though he had a shy confidence that he would
win her in the end; but he meant to ask her at once, that very day
when she came for her lesson. He was up and out at six o'clock,
among pearly mists, and saw the sun rise in rose and gold over
meadows spread with the thin silver of the frost. Then he came in to
breakfast, took up his letters, and met his first check. There was a
note from Miss Byrd to say they could not come.
She wrote for Dorothea, whose hand was troubling her again;
perhaps she had strained it yesterday; at any rate, she thought best
not to use it at present. But would Mr. Merion-Smith come to tea
with them to-morrow after church instead? She hoped this would be
convenient and that they might have the pleasure of his company,
and she was his very sincerely, Mary Anne Byrd. Denis's face, which
had darkened, cleared again; after all, it was not such a bad thing.
Better say what he had to say in a drawing-room than shout it
through the hum of a propeller.
He went to afternoon church, and listened to the Evangelical vicar's
sermon on Christian evidences, which he seemed to rest mainly on
the fact that there have been martyrs for the faith (a proposition
over which Denis knit his brows, though he could not imagine that
the congregation then present was liable to have its faith upset by
faulty logic); and when the choir of little girls recited the General
Thanksgiving, he recited it with them, in great seriousness and
devotion. Coming out into the sunny white road, with the ink-blue
sea on one hand, the grayish cliff grass on the other, he walked
down to Dorothea's bungalow—the one bungalow of Bredon, which
he already knew sufficiently well, having lived there for several years
himself. The car was at the door; he paused to look over it before he
rang the bell.
Miss Byrd received him in the drawing-room, and for the first half-
hour entertained him alone; a tall, slim woman with a complexion of
wrinkled ivory, gentle and dignified and intelligent. As a teacher she
had been subject to storms of nervous anger, for which she was not
too proud to apologize, even to a pupil; it was an incident of this
sort which had stamped her indelibly in Dorothea's affections.
Always a little shy of Denis, to-day she seemed in a state of nervous
tremor; her hands were shaking as she arranged and rearranged the
cozy, and wondered for the tenth time what could be keeping Dot.
Denis, who had one manner for the mighty and another for the
humble and meek, set himself to soothe her alarms. He was just
succeeding when the door unclosed and the truant swept in.
"Am I very frightfully late?" she inquired unconcernedly. "So sorry;
having only one hand makes you awkward, you know. Do you mind
doing this for me, Birdie?"
She stood bending her graceful head while Miss Byrd settled the
rose point of her collar. She was wearing a velvet dress, very rich,
very sumptuous, cut open at the throat and bordered with sable fur.
Round her neck went a gold chain, rough links nearly an inch across,
hanging to her knees and looking barbarously heavy. She sank into a
chair, and there was the gleam of a golden shoe, a Cinderella slipper
with jeweled straps crossing on the arch of a silken instep. What a
transformation! But the greater change was in her manner.
"Have you been to church?" she asked. "How pious of you! I
haven't; but then I'm not pious, you know. I went for a joy-ride
instead. My hand? Oh yes, thanks, I managed all right. I generally
do manage to do what I want to," she added, spreading out a
slender hand with the diamonds upon it which Lettice had admired
long ago. She looked up at Denis through her lashes. "No, I didn't
want to come yesterday; not particularly; wasn't that sad? But I did
want you to come here this afternoon—"
"That's all right, since here I am," Denis interrupted, laughing at her.
He put her off for an instant, but only for an instant; she recovered
herself, and swept on:
"And I'll tell you why: because I wanted a real heart-to-heart talk,
without any aeroplanes or things to interrupt. I've a bone to pick
with you."
"A bone to pick, have you?"
"A big, big bone. Another lump of sugar, please, Birdie—yes, that
little fella will do; I shan't let you make tea if you don't give me
enough sugar. Why didn't you ever tell us that exciting story about
Mr. Gardiner?"
She leaned back among her cushions, stirring her cup, watching
Denis with those dark eyes full of overt insolence and covert
eagerness. But Denis was not noticing subtleties of expression; this
time she had got home.
"What excitin' story about Mr. Gardiner?"
It was her turn to laugh. "Oh, you know! About that man he killed,
or didn't kill, up in the Lakes somewhere. I really think it was your
duty to have told—anybody mightn't have cared to stop at his hotel
after a thing like that!"
"Who told you anything about it?"
"Louisa, of course. Louisa's always my newsmonger. She had it from
the maid of the man's wife—Mrs. Tyne, wasn't her name? No, Trent.
I knew it was some river or other. Maids tell each other everything.
It only came out yesterday, else I'd have been at you about it
before. Louisa swears Mr. Gardiner really did it, and you screened
him. Did he? and did you? Do tell! It isn't every day one comes
across a thrilling tale like this!"
"There was an inquest," said Denis stiffly. "You can read all about it
in the papers, if you choose. It was brought in accidental death."
"Well, I know that, or Mr. Gardiner would have gone to prison,
wouldn't he? But what Louisa says is that the whole truth didn't
come out at the inquest. He knocked the man down, or something,
instead of his tumbling of himself. I can quite believe he would
knock a man down, if he lost his temper. Did he really do it, and
make you hush it up? I do so want to know!"
"My dear," said Miss Byrd gently, "don't you see you're worrying Mr.
Merion-Smith!"
"Am I?" said Dorothea. She shot a cool, leisurely, searching glance at
Denis's troubled face. "Well, I'm sure I don't see what there is to
worry anybody in what I've been saying—unless, of course, it's
true!"
Denis had to say something. He felt for and found his voice, hoping
it sounded more natural to her than it did to himself. "It was—rather
a bad business," he got out. "I—don't much care for talkin' about it.
I don't think Miss O'Connor quite realizes what it meant for us—we
saw it, you know; and Mrs. Trent too—" He stuck fast. Was that the
best he could do for his friend? The old excuse rose to his lips. "But I
can assure you it was an accident!"
"Oh, well, of course I'm sorry if I said what I oughtn't. I only meant
it for a joke!" said Dorothea conventionally.
Denis turned away to the window. What evil fiend had prompted her
to dig up that story? It was none the sweeter for its long burial. On
Dorothea's lips it made him feel sick. He had a passing pain and
wonder at her tone, so discordant, so unlike herself. But that was
due to shyness, he told himself, the struggles of a wild thing to
escape capture, and putting the thought by he went on steadily to
his purpose. It was not easy to turn Denis when his mind was made
up. He spoke the sentence he had prepared before entering the
house.
"Have you seen your back tire?"
"My tire? No! Is it down?"
Out she ran—as he had guessed she would; but it was at any cost to
get away from him, not for the car's sake—and that he did not
guess. He followed her. Dorothea, pretending to examine her tires,
looked up and knew herself caught.
"Why, they're all right," she said, rising from the last of the wheels.
"Did you think I had a puncture?"
"No, and I never said I did. I wanted to speak to you," said Denis
coolly.
She faced him across the car, as cool as he. "Better not."
"I want to ask you something. I want to know if you will do me the
very great honor of becoming my wife."
How quietly he said it, looking at her with his steady eyes! Dorothea
shook her head. "Never."
"Ah, but I'm not askin' for an answer at once."
"Never. Never. Never," she repeated with rising emphasis. "I never
will—and you wouldn't ask it if you knew!"
"You're not engaged already?"
"Oh, no!" she cried, with a laugh that set his teeth on edge. She
turned towards the door. Denis instinctively put out a hand to detain
her. She flashed round, quick and dangerous as a cat.
"Don't touch me, don't stop me—you'll be sorry for it if you do!"
Denis was in far too great pain and confusion to obey, or even to
take in what she said. "You weren't like this yesterday!" he said,
pleading.
"I always was. Always. I had my reasons for pretending to tolerate
you for a time, but I always felt the same."
"You said you loved me!"
"It wasn't true, it wasn't true. I hate you."
"But why? What have I done?"
"Told lies, and screened a murderer."
"What?"
"It's your own fault, you would have it," said Dorothea, trembling
with passion. "I told you not to stop me, and you would. Saying it
was an accident—that old story! I was sure enough before, I know
for certain now."
Denis's hand went up to his head. "What are you talking about?"
"About Major Trent, whom Mr. Gardiner killed. He did kill him. He
knocked him down with a chisel, and he died. Didn't he? Didn't he?
You know you can't deny it!"
He could not, nor could he meet her eyes, so he missed their
expression. Certain things are so cruelly hard that they must be
carried through at a rush, or not at all. Dorothea's vengeance had
turned into a two-edged sword in her hands, and she hewed with it
recklessly because it was cutting her to the bone.
"Why, it's not a year yet since he died, and do you think I'd let
myself love a man who—who almost helped to kill him?" she cried
with anguish. "Oh, I hate, hate, hate you, and I always will. Oh, Guy,
Guy, do they think I'd forget so soon, and be friends with your
murderers? I'd kill myself sooner!"
Sobbing vehemently, she fled into the house.
When Denis got home, he found a belated letter from Lettice, which
should have been delivered that morning, but had been carried on
by mistake to the next farm. It had come, said Miss Simpson, just
after he started; the boy must actually have passed him in the drive.
 CHAPTER XV
WANTED

We took no tearful leaving,

'Twas time and time to go;
Behind lay dock and Dartmoor,
Ahead lay Callao!
The Broken Men.

The hamlet of Woodlands is near Wrotham, in the county of Kent. To

reach it you must take the old Chatham and Dover at Victoria and
get out at Otford, a sweet-scented village sitting at ease in the wide
vale of the Darenth. Leaving that behind, you will turn eastwards by
the Pilgrims' Way, which winds along the lower spurs of the Downs,
above Kemsing, Ightham, St. Clere, on its way to Canterbury. That
too you leave in half-a-mile, and strike into the hills on your left, up
a perpendicular lane where the contour lines on the ordnance map
jostle each other, four, five, six, seven hundred feet in the width of
as many yards, the woods climbing with you, arching your road in a
green tunnel. They thin, they dispart, and you are on the summit of
the Downs; great rolling fluted hills covered with thymy turf, knots of
gorse, noble trees standing singly with a scattering of bracken in
their shade, innumerable rabbits tossing up their little white scuts as
they bolt into their burrows. Very steep and graceful in their lines,
these Kentish hills; very beautiful the green floor of the valley
outspread below, the wooded height of River Hill, the hare-bell blue
of distant chains, rising half transparent against the sky..
On you go, turning your back on all this, over the ridge, into the
heart of the Downs. Your lane twists, dropping into nameless green
dells, rising over nameless green knolls, between woods that slope a
dozen ways at once, and hedgerows which "the primroses run down
to, carrying gold"—even in October. Next you pass a farm, with its
warm-scented yellow ricks, its black barns, mossy-thatched, its
garden full of milk-white phlox, magenta chrysanthemums, black and
yellow sun-flowers, tan and purple snapdragons. You wheel round a
corner, you descend another break-neck lane all grass and flints, and
here in a green nest among the hills, which rise steep all round, here
you will find your journey's end—the hamlet of Woodlands. Half-a-
dozen old cottages, a minute school-house, a minute church, and
the vicarage.
Gardiner's birthplace was a square white house with a red roof,
green jalousies, and bay windows on either side of a pillared porch.
In front, a square of lawn was guarded from the road by a laurel
hedge, and bisected by a gravel walk leading to the door. Picture the
place in October. Those white walls are hidden, partly by Gloire de
Dijon roses, still thick with yellow buds and creamy blossoms, for it
is warm in this nest among the hills; and partly by creepers,
cardinal, carmine, red-rose, fringing out in trails of daffodil green.
The borders are full of flowers, roses and chrysanthemums blooming
together, yellow and brown nasturtiums among their thin round
emerald leaves, Michaelmas daisies, a bank of lilac against the
laurels. The woods are full-leaved still and autumn-glorious; there is
russet of oaks, orange of hawthorns, lemon-yellow of maples, and
here and there, like black-cowled monks at a pageant, the scattered
yews which always haunt the line of the Pilgrims' Way. Woods,
woods, and woods all round, rising like a golden cup, save only to
the north. Here a valley opens, and the unfenced, unmetalled road
winds away, between hills of thin grayish-green turf, white-scarred
with chalk and dotted with sheep, towards Maplescombe,
Farningham, and civilization, represented by the unpleasant town of
Dartford.
Two young men were pacing the vicarage lawn. One was slight,
short, dark, un-English: Harry Gardiner. The other was tall, broad-
shouldered, serious, ultra-correct: his brother Tom, of the Royal
Engineers. Tom, though three years the younger, was in the case of
the elder brother of the parable, who really had his grievance. He
had always been an exemplary son, steady, dutiful, even clever; yet
Mr. Gardiner freely proclaimed his preference for the vagabond and
runaway. Moreover, though he had worked hard all his life, Tom
made barely enough by his profession to keep himself. Harry, the
rolling stone, had but to open his hand for the gifts of Fortune to
tumble into it, and was able to make his father a comfortable
allowance. He was lucky; Tom was not. Tom felt sometimes a little
sore; but he acknowledged ruefully that it was nobody's fault, and
couldn't be helped. There was a child-like vigor and directness about
Mr. Gardiner's feelings which made them wholly insuppressible, and
though he was often egregiously unfair, neither of his sons dreamed
of resenting it.
"Well, I'm glad you wired for me, false alarm or no. I'd ten times
rather you sometimes brought me over when it's not necessary than
think you mightn't do it when it was. A wonderful old boy, he really
is—but I wish he wouldn't play the divvle with his constitution quite
so freely!"
This was Harry, light, quick, decisive. Tom's voice was slower and
deeper.
"He let out to-day that the attack came on after he'd been rolling the
lawn all the morning."
"No, did he? What a cunning old sinner it is! I must say it's a comfort
to me to know that you're so close at hand at Chatham, Tom. By the
way, when do you expect to get your step?"
"Not for a couple of years yet," said Tom, with a sigh. "Promotion in
the Sappers is so beastly slow!"
Gardiner shot a keen glance at him.
"And you won't marry till you do get it?"
"Can't afford to, unless I'm sent to India," Tom ruefully
acknowledged.
"Borrow off me, and settle things up at once."
"Many thanks, but I should never be able to pay you back."
"Don't, then. I'm laying up treasure on earth, which the Prayer Book
says I mustn't. There's a couple of hundred lying idle at my bank
which you're entirely welcome to, and which would just tide you over
the next two years. You ought to be a family man, Thomas, you
were cut out for it. Besides, Miss Woodward will get sick of waiting."
Tom continued to shake his obstinate head. "It's very good of you,
but I'd rather not do that," he said with some constraint. "You'll want
to marry yourself some day."
Gardiner looked at him again, with a faint, faint light of amusement.
He could never bring himself to take Tom quite seriously. How
annoying that was, to Tom! and how little Gardiner meant to annoy!
"When I find myself in danger of matrimony, maybe I'll start saving,"
he said lightly. "I suppose it's no use pressing you? No? Well, of
course I'd take it myself, if I were in your shoes, but then I haven't
your fine sturdy independence, Thomas—also I'm older than you
are, and a little less positive about the lines of right and wrong.
There are times when you remind me of Denis Merion-Smith, do you
know? By the by, I must run down and see him before I go back.
Yes, and if I pass through town I can also see—"
His voice trailed off into a meditative whistle, and a spark lighted in
his eye.
"Who?" asked Tom with curiosity.
"A young lady friend of mine, who's invited me to call on her. There's
a plum for you, Thomas; make the most of it. Hullo, here's daddy."
Mr. Gardiner appeared in the porch, a small wiry figure with a spud
in his hand and a Scotch plaid trailing from one shoulder. The top of
his head was bald as ivory, but he carefully trained across it certain
gray locks which, when he went out without a hat (as he did more
often than not), ruffled up on end like a crest. He was making
towards the flower-bed when his son came and took the tool away.
"No, daddy, that I really can't allow," he declared, folding the plaid
round the little figure. It was rather like trying to wrap up a flea, for
Mr. Gardiner made a dive in the middle to uproot a daisy. "You must
remember you're an invalid. You sit on the seat and superintend.
Vamos, hombre—that's better. Now, what do you want done?"
"The whole place is in a disgraceful state," said the invalid
rebelliously. "Disgraceful. It wants digging over from end to end.
Look at the lawn! That's a dandelion, I declare!"
He made another dart, again frustrated by his laughing son. "Here,
you come and sit on him, Tom, while I mow the lawn!" Tom rather
reluctantly sat down and kept his father anchored by the arm, while
Gardiner plied the spud with more energy than skill, earning nothing
but abuse from the ungrateful invalid.
"You young folk think you can do everything!" he said irately. "I
know you! You'll be getting up into my pulpit next. I'll preach next
Sunday, no matter what you say, on the dangers of conceit. Nice
incapable pair of sons I have!"
The sun shone, the doves purred in the lime-trees, and Mr. Gardiner
scolded his sons with all his energetic soul because they wouldn't let
him dig over the asparagus beds. He had prolonged his life to this
his sixty-ninth year on cod-liver oil, and was now recovering from an
attack of hemorrhage. He had had three in the past four years, but
he could never be persuaded to take any precautions. He kept his
sons in perpetual anxiety, tempered, at least for Gardiner, by faith in
his luck. He had deserved to die a dozen times, but he never had;
and Gardiner found it hard to believe he ever would.
You cannot know a man thoroughly till you have seen him in his
home. He may be more truly himself away from it; but his relations
with his family always contribute something to the sum of his
character. Woodlands was Harry Gardiner's home; those woods had
been the background and the vicarage the foreground of his
childhood. The income of the living was one hundred and seventy
pounds, and Mrs. Gardiner had besides sixty pounds a year of her
own. After deducting life assurance, expense of collection and rates
(which the unhappy parson whose stipend comes from tithe pays on
the whole of his income, as well as on the ratable value of his
house), there was left about one hundred and forty pounds to live
on. That, for four persons, is poverty: not want, but wholesome,
bracing poverty. Many a time had Gardiner blessed his early training
to endure hardness. He blessed also the memory of his big, breezy,
soft-hearted, hot-tempered, quick-witted mother. Two pictures rose
in his mind whenever Gardiner thought of her. In one she was
chopping suet with La Hermana San Sulpicio propped on the kitchen
scales before her nose; in the other she was boxing the ears of a
choir-boy who sang flat. She was half Spanish, and had been
brought up as a Roman Catholic; but she 'verted so completely that
she was able to remain a High Churchwoman, and to enjoy hearing
Mass from time to time. She died during Harry's first voyage, of
measles, caught in Sunday school.
Gardiner lounged on the seat, his labors ended, with an affectionate
arm thrown round his father's shoulders. Presently the postman
came in sight, and Tom went to take the letters, which were
delivered at Woodlands only once a day. There was a moneylender's
circular for the vicar, a love letter for himself and a whole sheaf for
Harry, sent on from Rochehaut, which he had left at a moment's
notice, in answer to Tom's telegram. Tom, absorbed in his charming
May, Mr. Gardiner, inveighing against the slackness of the
Government, failed to notice, either of them, the startling change in
Harry's face as he examined his share of the post.
"Daddy, I'm sorry to say I've got to go."
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