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Data Structures Using C
This page is intentionally left blank.
Data Structures Using C
Second Edition

A. K. Sharma
Professor and Dean
YMCA University of Science and Technology

Delhi • Chennai
Copyright © 2013 Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd.
Licensees of Pearson Education in South Asia

No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the publisher’s
prior written consent.

This eBook may or may not include all assets that were part of the print version. The publisher
reserves the right to remove any material in this eBook at any time.

ISBN 9788131792544
eISBN 9789332514225

Head Office: A-8(A), Sector 62, Knowledge Boulevard, 7th Floor, NOIDA 201 309, India
Registered Office: 11 Local Shopping Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India
 To
my parents,
wife Suman and daughter Sagun
This page is intentionally left blank.
 Contents
Preface to the Second Edition xiii
Preface xiv
About the Author xv

Chapter 1: Overview of C 1
1.1 The History 1
1.2 Characters Used in C 2
1.3 Data Types 2
1.3.1 Integer Data Type (int) 2
1.3.2 Character Data Type (char) 3
1.3.3 The Floating Point (f loat) Data Type 3
1.4 C Tokens 4
1.4.1 Identifiers 4
1.4.2 Keywords 5
1.4.3 Variables 5
1.4.4 Constants 7
1.5 Structure of a C Program 8
1.5.1 Our First Program 8
1.6 printf() and scanf() Functions 8
1.6.1 How to Display Data Using printf() Function 9
1.6.2 How to Read Data from Keyboard Using scanf() 10
1.7 Comments 10
1.8 Escape Sequence (Backslash Character Constants) 11
1.9 Operators and Expressions 13
1.9.1 Arithmetic Operators 13
1.9.2 Relational and Logical Operators 14
1.9.3 Conditional Operator 16
1.9.4 Order of Evaluation of Expressions 17
1.9.5 Some Special Operators 18
1.9.6 Assignment Operator 18
1.9.7 Bitwise Shift Operators 19
1.10 Flow of Control 20
1.10.1 The Compound Statement 21
1.10.2 Selective Execution (Conditional Statements) 21
1.10.3 Repetitive Execution (Iterative Statements) 25
1.10.4 The exit() Function 27
1.10.5 Nested Loops 28
1.10.6 The Goto Statement (Unconditional Branching) 28
viii Data Structures Using C

1.11 Input–Output Functions (I/O) 30

1.11.1 Buffered I/O 31
1.11.2 Single Character Functions 32
1.11.3 String-based Functions 33
1.12 Arrays 34
1.13 Structures 34
1.13.1 Defining a Structure in C 35
1.13.2 Referencing Structure Elements 36
1.13.3 Arrays of Structures 36
1.13.4 Initializing Structures 37
1.13.5 Assignment of Complete Structures 37
1.13.6 Nested Structures 38
1.14 User-defined Data Types 39
1.14.1 Enumerated Data Types 40
1.15 Unions 42
1.16 Functions 43
1.16.1 Function Prototypes 44
1.16.2 Calling a Function 45
1.16.3 Parameter Passing in Functions 47
1.16.4 Returning Values from Functions 52
1.16.5 Passing Structures to Functions 52
1.17 Recursion 56
1.17.1 Types of Recursion 60
1.17.2 Tower of Hanoi 65

Chapter 2: Data Structures and Algorithms: An Introduction 72

2.1 Overview 72
2.2 Concept of Data Structures 73
2.2.1 Choice of Right Data Structures 74
2.2.2 Types of Data Structures 76
2.2.3 Basic Terminology Related with Data Structures 77
2.3 Design of a Suitable Algorithm 78
2.3.1 How to Develop an Algorithm? 78
2.3.2 Stepwise Refinement 80
2.3.3 Using Control Structures 81
2.4 Algorithm Analysis 85
2.4.1 Big-Oh Notation 86

Chapter 3: Arrays: Searching and Sorting 93

3.1 Introduction 93
3.2 One-dimensional Arrays 94
3.2.1 Traversal 95
3.2.2 Selection 96
3.2.3 Searching 98
Contents ix

3.2.4 Insertion and Deletion 105

3.2.5 Sorting 109
3.3 Multi-dimensional Arrays 130
3.4 Representation of Arrays in Physical Memory 134
3.4.1 Physical Address Computation of Elements of One-dimensional Arrays 135
3.4.2 Physical Address Computation of Elements of Two-dimensional Arrays 136
3.5 Applications of Arrays 138
3.5.1 Polynomial Representation and Operations 138
3.5.2 Sparse Matrix Representation 141

Chapter 4: Stacks and Queues 151

4.1 Stacks 151
4.1.1 Stack Operations 152
4.2 Applications of Stacks 156
4.2.1 Arithmetic Expressions 156
4.3 Queues 170
4.3.1 Queue Operations 171
4.3.2 Circular Queue 176
4.3.3 Priority Queue 181
4.3.4 The Deque 185

Chapter 5: Pointers 197

5.1 Introduction 197
5.1.1 The ‘&’ Operator 197
5.1.2 The ‘*’ Operator 198
5.2 Pointer Variables 198
5.2.1 Dangling Pointers 202
5.3 Pointers and Arrays 203
5.4 Array of Pointers 208
5.5 Pointers and Structures 208
5.6 Dynamic Allocation 210
5.6.1 Self Referential Structures 215

Chapter 6: Linked Lists 227

6.1 Introduction 227
6.2 Linked Lists 227
6.3 Operations on Linked Lists 231
6.3.1 Creation of a Linked List 231
6.3.2 Travelling a Linked List 236
6.3.3 Searching a Linked List 241
6.3.4 Insertion in a Linked List 243
6.3.5 Deleting a Node from a Linked List 250
x Data Structures Using C

6.4 Variations of Linked Lists 253

6.4.1 Circular Linked Lists 254
6.4.2 Doubly Linked List 258
6.5 The Concept of Dummy Nodes 264
6.6 Linked Stacks 266
6.7 Linked Queues 270
6.8 Comparison of Sequential and Linked Storage 274
6.9 Solved Problems 274

Chapter 7: Trees 282

7.1 Introduction 282
7.2 Basic Terminology 284
7.3 Binary Trees 285
7.3.1 Properties of Binary Trees 286
7.4 Representation of a Binary Tree 287
7.4.1 Linear Representation of a Binary Tree 287
7.4.2 Linked Representation of a Binary Tree 289
7.4.3 Traversal of Binary Trees 291
7.5 Types of Binary Trees 298
7.5.1 Expression Tree 298
7.5.2 Binary Search Tree 303
7.5.3 Heap Trees 319
7.5.4 Threaded Binary Trees 340
7.6 Weighted Binary Trees and Huffman Algorithm 352
7.6.1 Huffman Algorithm 354
7.6.2 Huffman Codes 356
7.7 Dynamic Dictionary Coding 360

Chapter 8: Graphs 365

8.1 Introduction 365
8.2 Graph Terminology 366
8.3 Representation of Graphs 368
8.3.1 Array-based Representation of Graphs 368
8.3.2 Linked Representation of a Graph 371
8.3.3 Set Representation of Graphs 373
8.4 Operations of Graphs 373
8.4.1 Insertion Operation 374
8.4.2 Deletion Operation 379
8.4.3 Traversal of a Graph 384
8.4.4 Spanning Trees 396
8.4.5 Shortest Path Problem 401
8.5 Applications of Graphs 408
Contents xi

Chapter 9: Files 412

9.1 Data and Information 412
9.1.1 Data 412
9.1.2 Information 412
9.2 File Concepts 413
9.3 File Organization 415
9.4 Files in C 416
9.5 Files and Streams 416
9.6 Working with Files Using I/O Stream 418
9.6.1 Opening of a File 418
9.6.2 Unformatted File I/O Operations 419
9.6.3 Formatted File I/O Operations 425
9.6.4 Reading or Writing Blocks of Data in Files 426
9.7 Sequential File Organization 430
9.7.1 Creating a Sequential File 430
9.7.2 Reading and Searching a Sequential File 431
9.7.3 Appending a Sequential File 431
9.7.4 Updating a Sequential File 437
9.8 Direct File Organization 442
9.9 Indexed Sequential Organization 445
9.9.1 Searching a Record 445
9.9.2 Addition/Deletion of a Record 446
9.9.3 Storage Devices for Indexed Sequential Files 447
9.9.4 Multilevel Indexed Files 448
9.10 Choice of File Organization 448
9.11 Graded Problems 451

Chapter 10: Advanced Data Structures 459

10.1 AVL Trees 459
10.1.1 Searching an AVL Tree 461
10.1.2 Inserting a Node in an AVL Tree 462
10.2 Sets 468
10.2.1 Representation of Sets 469
10.2.2 Operations on Sets 470
10.2.3 Applications of Sets 476
10.3 Skip Lists 478
10.4 B-Trees 480
10.4.1 Searching a Key in a B-Tree 482
10.4.2 Inserting a Key in a B-Tree 483
10.4.3 Deleting a Key from a B-Tree 484
10.4.4 Advantages of B-Trees 487
xii Data Structures Using C

10.5 Searching by Hashing 489

10.5.1 Types of Hashing Functions 490
10.5.2 Requirements for Hashing Algorithms 491
10.5.3 Overflow Management (Collision Handling) 491

Appendix A ASCII Codes (Character Sets) 494

Appendix B Table of Format Specifiers 495
Appendix C Escape Sequences 496
Appendix D Trace of Huffman Algorithm 497

Index 501
 Preface to the
Second Edition
I have been encouraged by the excellent response given by the readers to the first edition of the book to
work on the second edition. As per the feedback received from the teachers of the subject and the input
provided by the team at Pearson Education, the following topics in various chapters of the book have
been added:
1. Sparse matrices
2. Recursion
3. Hashing
4. Weighted binary trees
a. Huffman algorithm
5. Spanning trees, minimum cost spanning trees
a. Kruskal algorithm
b. Prims algorithm
6. Shortest path problems
a. Warshall’s algorithm
b. Floyd’s algorithm
c. Dijkstra’s algorithm
7. Indexed file organization
While revising the book, the text has been thoroughly edited and the errors found thereof have been
corrected. More examples on important topics have been included.
I hope the readers will like this revised edition of the book and, as before, will provide their much
needed feedback and comments for further improvement.

Acknowledgements
I am thankful to Khushboo Jain and Anuradha Pillai for helping me in preparing the solution manual
of the book.

A. K. Sharma
 Preface
As a student, programmer, and teacher of computer engineering, I find ‘Data Structures’ a core course of
computer engineering and particularly central to programming process.
In fact in our day-to-day life, we are confronted with situations such as where I would keep a bunch
of keys, a pen, coins, two thousand rupees, a chalk, and five hundred thousand rupees.
I would keep the bunch of keys and coins in the left and right pockets of my pants, respectively. The
pen gets clipped to the front pocket of the shirt whereas two thousand rupees would go into my ticket
pocket. I would definitely put the five hundred thousand rupees into a safe, i.e., under the lock and key.
While teaching, I will keep the chalk in hand. The decision of choosing the places for these items is based
on two factors: ease of accessibility and security.
Similarly, given a problem situation, a mature programmer chooses the most appropriate data
structures to organize and store data associated with the problem. The reason being that the intel-
ligent choice of data structures will decide the fate of the software in terms of effectiveness, speed
and efficiency—the three most important much-needed features for the success of a commercial
venture.
I have taught ‘Data Structures’ for more than a decade and, therefore, the demand to write a book on
this subject was there for quite some time by my students and teacher colleagues.
The hallmark of this book is that it would not only help students to understand the concepts govern-
ing the data structures but also to develop a talent in them to use the art of discrimination to choose the
right data structures for a given problem situation. In order to provide a hands-on experience to budding
software engineers, implementations of the operations defined on data structures using ‘C’ have been
provided. The book has a balance between the fundamentals and advanced features, supported by solved
examples.
This book would not have been possible without the well wishes and contribution of many people
in terms of suggestions and useful remarks provided by them during its production. I record my
thanks to Dr Ashutosh Dixit, Anuradha Pillai, Sandya Dixit, Dr Komal Bhatia, Rosy Bhatia, Harsh, and
Indu Grover.
I am indebted to my teachers and research guides, Professor J. P. Gupta, Professor Padam Kumar,
Professor Moinuddin, and Professor D. P. Agarwal, for their encouragement. I am also thankful to
my friends, Professor Asok De, Professor Qasim Rafiq, Professor N.S. Gill, Rajiv Kapur and Professor
Rajender Sahu, for their continuous support and useful comments.
I am also thankful to various teams at Pearson who made this beautiful book happen.
Finally, I would like to extend special thanks to my parents, wife Suman and daughter Sagun for
saying ‘yes’ for this project when both wanted to say ‘no’. I know that I have stolen some of the quality
time which I ought to have spent with them.
Some errors might have unwittingly crept in. I shall be grateful if they are brought to my notice.
I would also be happy to acknowledge suggestions for further improvement of this book.

A. K. Sharma
 About the Author
A. K. Sharma is currently Chairman, Department of Computer Engineering, and
Dean of Faculty, Engineering and Technology at YMCA University of Science and
Technology, Faridabad. He is also a member of the Board of Studies committee of
Maharshi Dayanand University, Rohtak. He has guided ten Ph.D. theses and has
published about 215 research papers in national and international journals of re-
pute. He heads a group of researchers actively working on the design of different
types of ‘Crawlers.
This page is intentionally left blank.
 Overview of C
1
Chapter

• 1.1 The History

• 1.2 Characters Used in C
• 1.3 Data Types
• 1.4 C Tokens
CHapTER OuTlInE

• 1.5 Structure of a C Program

• 1.6 printf() and scanf() Functions
• 1.7 Comments
• 1.8 Escape Sequence (Backslash Character Constants)
• 1.9 Operators and Expressions
• 1.10 Flow of Control
• 1.11 Input–Output Functions (I/O)
• 1.12 Arrays
• 1.13 Structures
• 1.14 User-defined Data Types
• 1.15 Unions
• 1.16 Functions
• 1.17 Recursion

1.1 THE HISTORY

In 1971 Dennis Ritchi, a system programmer from Bell laboratories, developed a very powerful
language called C for writing UNIX, a large and complex operating system. Even the compiler of 'C'
was written in C. In fact, it is a high level language that not only supports the necessary data types
and data structures needed by a normal programmer but it can also access the computer hardware
through specially designed declarations and functions and, therefore, it is often called as a “middle-
level” language.
It is popular because of the following characteristics:
n Small size

n Wide use of functions and function calls

n Loose typing

n Bitwise low level programming support

n Structured language

n Wide use of pointers to access data structures and physical memory of the system

Besides the above characteristics, the C programs are small and efficient. A ‘C’ program can be
compiled on variety of computers.
2 Data Structures Using C

1.2 CHaRaCTERS uSED In C

The set of characters allowed in C consists of alphabets, digits, and special characters as listed below:
(i) Letters: Both upper case and lower case letters of English:
A, B, C, .... X, Y, and Z
a, b, c, .... x, y, and z
(ii) Decimal digits:
0, 1, 2, .... 7, 8, 9
(iii) Special characters:
! * 1 \ “ <<
#(5 ! {
%) ; “ /
^_ [ :, ?
&_ ]’ . blank

1.3 DaTa TYpES

Every program specifies a set of operations to be done on some data in a particular sequence. However,
the data can be of many types such as a numbers, characters, floating points, etc. C supports the following
simple data types: Integer data type, character data type, floating point data type.

1.3.1 Integer Data Type (int)

An integer is an integral whole number without a decimal point. These numbers are used for counting.
Examples of integers are:
923
47
5
15924
−56
2245
C allows four types of representation of integers, i.e., integer, long integer, short integer, and unsigned
integer.
n Integer: An integer is referred to as int. It is stored in one word of the memory.

n Long integer: A long integer is referred to as long int or simple long. It is stored in 32 bits and

does not depend upon the word size of the memory.

n Short integer: A short integer is referred to as short int or simple short. It is stored in 16 bits and

does not depend upon the size of the memory.

n Unsigned integers: C supports two types of unsigned integers: the unsigned int and the unsigned short.

The unsigned int is stored in one word of the memory whereas the unsigned short is stored in
16 bits and does not depend upon the word size of the memory.
Examples of invalid integers are:
(i) 9, 24, 173 illegal-comma used
(ii) 5.29 illegal-decimal point used
(iii) 79 248 blank used
Overview of C 3

1.3.2 Character Data Type (char)

It is a non-numeric data type consisting of single alphanumeric character enclosed between a pair of
apostrophes, i.e., single quotation marks.
Examples of valid character type are:
‘A’
‘N’
‘*’
‘7’
It may be noted that the character ‘7’ is different from the numeric value 7. In fact, former is of type
char and later of type int. Each character has a numeric code, i.e., the ASCII code. For instance, the
ASCII code for the character ‘A’ is 65 and that of ‘*’ is 42. A table of ASCII codes is given in Appendix A.
A character data type is referred to as char. It is stored in one byte of memory. However, the
representation varies from computer to computer. For instance, some computers support signed as well
as unsigned characters. The signed characters can store integer values from 2128 to 1127 whereas the
unsigned characters store ASCII codes from 0 to 255.

1.3.3 The Floating point (float) Data Type

A floating point number is a real number which can be represented in two forms: decimal and exponent
forms. Floating point numbers are generally used for measuring quantities.
(1) Decimal form: The floating point number in this form has a decimal point. Even if it is an
integral value, it must include the decimal point.
Examples of valid “decimal form” numbers are:
973.24
849.
73.0
282349.24
9.0004
(2) Exponent form: The exponent form of floating point number consists of the following parts:
<integer>. <fraction> e <exponent>
Examples of valid floating point numbers are:
3.45 e 7
0.249 e 26
It may be noted that exponent form is a scientific notation wherein the number is broken into two
parts: mantissa and exponent. The mantissa is a floating point number of decimal form. The exponent
part starts with a letter ‘e’ followed by an integer (signed or unsigned).
For example, the number 324.5 can be written as 3.245 times 102. In exponential form, the number
is represented as 3.245 e2. In fact, the base 10 has been replaced by the character e (or E).
The utility of exponential form is that very small numbers can be easily represented by this notation
of floating points.
For example, the number 0.00001297 can be written as 0.1297 e24 or as 12.97 e26 or as 129.7 e27.
C allows the following two data types for floating prints:
n float: These types of numbers are stored in 32 bits of memory.

n double: The numbers of double data type are stored in 64 bits of memory.
4 Data Structures Using C

A summary of C basic data types is given the Table 1.1. From this table, it may be observed that charac-
ter and integer type data can also be declared as unsigned. Such data types are called unsigned data types.
In this representation, the data is always a positive number with range starting from 0 to a maximum
value. Thus, a number twice as big as a signed number can be represented through unsigned data types.

n Table 1.1 Basic data types in C

C data type Size lower bound upper bound Represents
Char 1 – – Character
Unsigned Char 1 0 255 Character
Short (int) 2 232768 132767 Whole number
Unsigned Short int 2 0 65535 Whole number
Long int 4 2,147,438,648 2,141,438,647 Whole number
Float 4 −3.4 3 10 ±38 13.4 3 10 ±38 Real number
Double 8 −1.7 3 10 ±308
11.7 3 10 ±308
Real number

1.4 C TOKEnS
A token is a group of characters that logically belong together. In fact, a programmer can write a program
by using tokens. C supports the following types of tokens:
n Identifiers

n Keywords

n Constants

n Variables

1.4.1 Identifiers
Symbolic names can be used in C for various data items. For example, if a programmer desires to store a
value 27, then he can choose any symbolic name (say, ROLL) and use it as given below:
ROLL = 27;
Where ROLL is a memory location and the symbol ‘5’ is an assignment operator.
The significance of the above statement is that ‘ROLL’ is a symbolic name for a memory location
where the value 27 is being stored. A symbolic name is generally known as an identifier.
The identifier is a sequence of characters taken from C character set. The number of characters in
an identifier is not fixed though most of the C compilers allow 31 characters. The rules for the formation
of an identifier are:
n An identifier can consist of alphabets, digits and and/or underscores.

n It must not start with a digit.

n C is case sensitive, i.e., upper case and lower case letters are considered different from each other.

n An identifier can start with an underscore character. Some special C names begin with the

underscore.
n Special characters such as blank space, comma, semicolon, colon, period, slash, etc. are not allowed.

n The name of an identifier should be so chosen that its usage and meaning becomes clear. For

example, total, salary, roll no, etc. are self explanatory identifiers.
Overview of C 5

Examples of acceptable identifiers are:

TOTAL
Sum
Net_sal
P123
a_b_c
total
_sysreg

Examples of unacceptable identifiers are:

Bas ic (blank not allowed)
H, rent (special character `, ‘ included)
It may be noted here that TOTAL and total are two different identifier names.

1.4.2 Keywords
A keyword is a reserved word of C. This cannot be used n Table 1.2 Standard keywords in C
as an identifier by the user in his program. The set of C
auto double int struct
keywords is given in Table 1.2.
break else long switch
1.4.3 Variables case enum register typedef
A variable is the most fundamental aspect of any com- char extern return union
puter language. It is a location in the computer memory const float short unsigned
which can store data and is given a symbolic name for continue for signed void
easy reference. The variables can be used to hold differ-
default goto sizeof volatile
ent values at different times during a program run. To
do if static while
understand this concept, let us have a look at the follow-
ing set of statements:
Total 5 500.25; ...(i)
Net 5 Total 2 100.00; ...(ii)
In statement (i), value 500.25 has been stored in a memory location called Total. The variable Total
is being used in statement (ii) for the calculation of another variable Net. The point worth noting is that
‘the variable Total is used in statement (ii) by its name not by its value’.
Before a variable is used in a program, it has to be defined. This activity enables the compiler to
make available the appropriate amount of space and location in the memory. The definition of a variable
consists of its type followed by the name of the variable. For example, a variable called Total of type float
can be declared as shown below:
float Total;

Similarly, the variable net of type int can also be defined as shown below:
int Net;
Examples of valid variable declarations are:
(i) int count;
(ii) int i, j, k;
(iii) char ch, first;
6 Data Structures Using C

(iv) float Total, Net;

(v) long int sal;
(vi) double salary.
val
Let us now look at a variable declaration
from a different perspective. Whenever a variable
(say, int val) is declared, a memory location called int val;
val is made available by the compiler as shown in
Figure 1.1.
Thus, val is the name associated by the com-
piler to a location in the memory of the computer. Fig. 1.1 Memory allocated to variable val
Let us assume that, at the time of execution, the
physical address of this memory location (called
val) is 4715 as shown in Figure 1.2.
Now, a point worth noting is that this memory loca-
tion is viewed by the programmer as a variable called val
and by the computer system as an address 4715. The pro- 4715 val
grammer can store a value in this location with the help of
an assignment operator, i.e., ‘5’. For example, if the pro-
grammer desires to store a value 100 into the variable val,
he can do so by the following statement:
val 5 100;
Once the above statement is executed, the memory Fig. 1.2 The physical address of val
location called val gets the value 100 as shown in Figure 1.3.
C allows the initialization of variables even at the time
of declaration as shown below:
int val 5 100;

From Figure 1.3, we can see that besides its type a variable has three entities associated with it, i.e.,
the name of variable (val), its physical address (4715), and its contents (100). The content of a variable
is also called its rvalue whereas the physical address of the variable is called its lvalue. Thus, lvalue
and rvalue of variable val are 4715 and 100, respectively. The lvalue is of more importance because it
is an expression that should appear on the left hand side of assignment operator because it refers to the
variable or object.

Memory

4715 100 val

Physical address
(lvalue) Name of the
variable
Contents (rvalue)

Fig. 1.3 The contents of a variable (rvalue)

Overview of C 7

1.4.4 Constants
A constant is a memory location which can store data in such a manner that its value during execu-
tion of a program does not change. Any attempt to change the value of a constant will result in an
error message. A constant in C can be of any of the basic data types, i.e., integer constant, float-
ing point constant, and character constant. const qualifier is used to declare a constant as shown
below:
const <type> <name> 5 <val>;
where
const: is a reserved word of C
<type>: is any of the basic data types
<name>: is the identifier name
<val>: is the value to be assigned to the constant.

(1) Integer constant: It is a constant which can be assigned integer values only. For example, if we
desire to have a constant called rate of type integer containing a fixed value 50, then the follow-
ing declaration can be used:
const int rate 5 50;
The above declaration means that rate is a constant of type integer having a fixed value 50. Consider
the following declaration:
const int rate;
rate 5 50;
The above initialization of constant rate is illegal. This is because of the reason that a constant can-
not be initialized for a value at a place other than where it is declared. It may be further noted that if a
program does not change or mutates\a constant or constant object then the program is called as const
correct.
(2) Floating point constant: It is a constant which can be assigned values of real or floating point
type. For example, if it is desired to have a constant called Pi containing value 3.1415, then the
following declaration can be used.
const float Pi = 3.1415;

The above declaration means that Pi is a constant of type float having a fixed value 3.1415. It may be
noted here that by default a floating point constant is of type double.
(3) Character constant: A character constant can contain a single character of information. Thus,
data such as ‘Y’ or ‘N’ is known as a character constant. Let us assume that it is desired to have a
constant called Akshar containing the character ‘Q’; following declaration can be used to obtain
such a constant.
const char Akshar = ‘Q’;
The above declaration means that Akshar is a constant of type char having a fixed value ‘Q’.
A sequence of characters enclosed within quotes is known as a string literal. For example, the
character sequence “computer” is a string literal. When a string literal is assigned to an identifier
declared as a constant, then it is known as a string constant. In fact, a string is an array of
characters. Arrays are discussed later in the chapter.
8 Data Structures Using C

1.5 STRuCTuRE OF a C pROGRaM

A simple program in C can be written as a module. More complex programs can be broken into sub-
modules. In C, all modules or subprograms are referred to as functions.
The structure of a typical C program is given below:
main ()
{
....;
....;
....;
}

Note:
(i) C is a case sensitive language, i.e., it distinguishes between upper case and lower case characters.
Thus, main() is different from Main(). In fact, most of the characters used in C are lowercase.
Hence, it is safest to type everything in lower case except when a programmer needs to capitalize
some text.
(ii) Every C program has a function called main followed by parentheses. It is from here that
program execution begins. A function is basically a subprogram and is complete in itself.
(iii) The task to be performed by a function is enclosed in curly braces called its body, i.e., {}.
These braces are equivalent to begin and end keywords used in some other languages like
Pascal. The body of function contains a set of statements and each statement must end with
a semicolon.

1.5.1 Our First program

Let us break the myth that C is a difficult language to start with. Without going into the details, the
beginner can quickly start writing the program such as given below:
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
puts (“This is my first program”);
}

The above program displays the following text on the screen:

This is my first program.

1.6 printf() anD scanf() FunCTIOnS

C uses printf() and scanf() functions to write and read from I/O devices, respectively. These
functions have been declared in the header file called stdio.h.
Let us use printf() function to rewrite our first program. The modified program is given
below:
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
comment when brought out, and it had been held in level-headed quarters
that the shares which had been run up to 4 had reached that figure without
there having been produced any guarantee that they were worth half that.
But, as is the inscrutable way of the Stock Exchange, they had, for no
particular reason, been turned into a gambling counter, and there was no
venture which enjoyed a freer or more fluctuating market. Things, however,
had steadied down when it was known that Philip Home had bought this
option of 30,000 shares, and just at this moment, as has been stated, there
was considerable interest felt in the question of whether he would exercise
it or not. If he did not, it meant a loss to him of about £7,000; whereas if he
did, it might be regarded as certain that the shares, since gambling in them
was just now, like bridge, a favourite method of losing money, would enjoy
a very substantial rise, and, as usual, it was highly likely that Philip would
reap a profit worth reaping, should he choose to sell during this.
So much, of course, all the world could see, but Philip saw a little
further. He took into consideration the excitable state of the South African
market, the uncertainty with regard to the Japanese war which would
certainly make French speculators nervous, and French speculators, as he
knew, had been very busy over the goldfields of Metiekull. Then came in
the question of the report which he had been reading; on the whole it was
good, and his sober opinion was that the shares were worth buying at the
price. Yet he proposed not to take up his option, but to lose at once £7,000.
But he would also let it be freely known that he had received a detailed
report from his agent on the spot.
He decided, therefore—so the market would say—to abandon his option
after the receipt of this report. What was the inference? That the report was
unfavourable. Then all the other factors he had been considering added their
weight to the scale; there was a nervous market, there was likely to be
stringency of money, there was the vast hovering thundercloud of war in the
East. If he knew anything about the ways of the City, it was an absolute
certainty that there would be a slump in Metiekull. He would let it slump;
he would even, by selling, assist it to slump; a hundred little bears—Philip
detested the small operator—would sell, and when they had committed
themselves pretty deeply, he would buy not only the original 30,000 shares
of his option, but somewhere near twice that number; for there was no
question as to the value of the property, and he would be picking up his
shares at something like rubbish price.
 The chain of reasoning was complete, he took his elbows off the table,
and turned to light a cigarette. Then suddenly his heart sank, he felt sick and
empty, for the concentration of thought was relaxed, and from a thousand
spouting weir-gates the thought from which he had obtained an hour’s
respite flooded his whole soul. Forgetfulness of that? It was as if he had just
slept in his chair for an hour, and awoke again in full consciousness of the
horror of life. It was no slow awakening, it was a stab that made a deep and
dreadful wound out of which flowed the black blood of his hatred and
resentment, not against those two alone, but against the world. To this
hatred he gave himself up with a hideous sort of luxury in the overpowering
intensity of it. He suffered himself, by no fault of his; well, others should
suffer, too, and if by his manipulation of the market, which was according
to the principles which governed it perfectly legitimate, others were ruined,
it was not his fault but theirs for competing with him.
Then a thought blacker than these, because it was more direct, more
personally full of revenge, entered his mind. Surely not so long ago
someone had consulted him as to an investment. Yes, it was Evelyn—
Evelyn, in a sudden burst of prudence—who had decided not to buy a
motor-car, but to put away a big cheque that had just been paid him. Philip
had refused to give him advice professionally, since he was not a broker, but
had told him that he had himself bought a large option in Metiekull. He
remembered the interview perfectly, and knew that he had recommended
Evelyn not to dabble, since he did not know the game, but to put his money
into something safe. What he had eventually done with it Philip did not
know. But for a week afterwards his studio had been littered with financial
papers, and he talked the most absurd nonsense about giving up the artistic
career and taking offices in the City, since he felt sure that his real chance of
brilliant achievement lay there.
Now, bitter suffering like that which Philip was now undergoing cannot
but have a very distinct effect on the sufferer. And in such a nature as his,
the particular kind of suffering he had to bear could scarcely have had any
effect but that of the worst. His circle of friends, those to whom he showed
all that was best in him, was but small, and numbered four only. By two of
these he had been betrayed, and that impulse which at the first moment of
his knowledge did just flicker within him, the impulse of generosity, of
taking the big and sky-high line of which for the moment he had been
capable when he dismissed the motor three days ago near Evelyn’s studio,
had been crushed, if not out of life, at any rate into impotence and
unconsciousness by the ingrained hardness of his nature shown to the world
at large. That hardness covered him now and indurated him; he could feel
neither pity nor softening for any, least of all for one who had so bitterly
injured him. His power of hurting, it is true, might be small compared to the
hurt that had been done him, but such as it was, he would use it. He was
hurt himself, but he would not scream, he would just strike back where and
when he could.
London meantime was busy with its thousand tongues in discussing
what had happened, and, as was to be expected, it took a very decided line
over it all. This sort of thing was really impossible, and not to be tolerated.
Why, even the bridesmaids had received their presents, and everybody’s
plans, for everybody had settled to go to the wedding, were absolutely
upset. Besides, the whole thing was an insult hurled at the sacred image of
Society, a bomb-shell which had exploded in the very middle of the temple.
And though Gladys Ellington had only one, not a thousand tongues, she
used that one to the aforesaid effect so continuously that it really seemed
impossible that flesh and blood could stand the wear and strain. She was
using it now to Lady Taverner, to whom she always told things in
confidence when she wanted them repeated. Lady Taverner, it may be
remarked, was the pink and butter-coloured lady, to emphasize whose
charms Evelyn had studied purple clematis.
“Of course, dear Alice,” she was saying, “I can say these things to you,
because I know you won’t repeat them, and, of course, we all want it talked
about as little as possible. But Madge has really behaved too abominably;
it’s all very well to say you must follow the dictates of your own heart, but
if your heart tells you to commit really an indecency, as this is, I should say
it was better not to follow it. But Madge is so odd: it is only a few weeks
ago that she told me how devoted she was to Philip—esteem, affection, and
all that. Well, what sort of esteem and affection has she shown? My dear,
three days before the wedding.”
Lady Taverner sighed.
“Of course, I won’t talk about it,” she said, “but I shall never speak to
Madge again. And my portrait was being done by Mr. Dundas, which makes
it very awkward. Of course, I want it finished, but how can I go to sit to
him again?”
 This was a new light which Gladys had not yet considered.
“Of course, he has ruined himself,” she said cheerfully. “Nobody will go
to be painted by him now. And consider his relation to Philip! Why, he was
his best friend. I haven’t dared to see Madge’s mother yet, but I understand
she is mad with rage, and I’m sure I don’t wonder. And they were married, I
hear, on Saturday, and have left London. How can people be such fools!”
This last remark was a genuine cri du cœur, for Gladys was absolutely
unable to perceive how any interior impulse could possibly prove too strong
for discretion, for savoir faire—she was fond of scraps of French—for any
rending of or throwing out of window those social pads and cushions which
alone ensure a passage through life that will be free from succession of
bumps and jars. That was why she was almost universally considered so
charming: she always said the pleasant thing, and did the agreeable one (for
everybody had to assist the pads and cushions), unless she was quite safe
from detection. Then, it is true, the sheathed claws occasionally popped out,
when it was quite dark, but before the return of light they were always
sheathed again, and the velvet touch was in evidence.
“Imagine the marriage!” she went on. “A sexton and a sextoness were
probably the witnesses, and they probably came—the happy pair, I mean—
in a hansom and went away in a four-wheeler. Such nonsense to wreck your
life like that. And a wreck is a crime; it is a danger to other shipping unless
it is blown up.”
Now what Gladys said so directly, all London was thinking, if not with
the same precision, at any rate with the same general trend. There had been
a violation of its social codes, flagrant and open, and for the time, at any
rate, it was disposed to visit the offence with the full severity of its
displeasure. As Gladys had remarked: “How could they be such fools!” and
the children of this world, being wiser in their generation than the children
of light, are the first to punish folly. And it is very foolish to openly break
the rules which Society has laid down if you wish to continue to occupy
your usual arm-chair in that charming club. For the rules are so few, and so
very easy to remember, and Evelyn and Madge had quite distinctly broken
one of the most elementary of them. And Society, however accommodating
in many lines, never forgives, at once anyhow, any such open violation of
its laws as this. But just at present neither of the sinners cared nearly so
much for all these laws as they cared for a single moment of this blue,
fresh-winded day.
They had been married, as Gladys had said, on a Saturday, and had left
England that same afternoon to spend a fortnight on the coast of Normandy,
and there at this moment they were, on the very coast itself, with the blue,
crisp ripples of the English Channel hissing gently on the sand. Evelyn had
spent most of the morning constructing a huge sand-castle of Gothic design,
but the rising tide half an hour ago had driven him from the last of its
fortifications, and he was now sitting on the sand with Madge by his side.
All this week he had been in the most irresponsible, irrepressible spirits,
which any thought of the unhappiness that had been caused seemed
powerless to dull; any suggestion of it passed in a moment like breath off a
mirror. With the huge egotism of his nature he had determined quite
satisfactorily to himself that what had happened was inevitable. He knew
how ardent was his own love for Madge, he knew it was returned, he knew
too, for she had told him how different was this from the quiet, sober
affection she felt for Philip. Her marriage with him could not have taken
place: she felt that herself, whereas nothing in the world was strong enough
to pull them apart. And with the great good sense that so often characterises
egotism, Evelyn, though he was very sorry for Philip, could not either be
ashamed of himself, or on the other hand be sorry for Philip long. He faded
from his mind almost the moment he thought of him. He could not bring his
mind to bear on Philip when Madge was with him.
He had been wading during the building and the subsequent occupation
of the Gothic sand-castle, and his feet were still bare, and his flannel
trousers rolled up to his knees. Also a dead bee had been washed ashore in
the foam of the ripples, and search must be made for a suitable coffin, since
burial with all possible honour must be given to a honey-maker from those
on the honey-moon. A pink bivalve shell was eventually discovered, which
he considered worthy of containing the honoured corpse. Its grave was dug
above high-water mark, a mound of sand in pyramid form raised over it,
and the sides of this decorated with concentric circles of pebbles. A small
passage constructed of shell, and flat stones led to the tomb-chamber itself,
and the door of this was hermetically sealed. In front a small stone altar was
raised, and offerings of sea-weed laid on it.
“And so,” said Evelyn, in conclusion of the short panegyric which, in
capacity of preacher as well as architect, undertaker, and mason, he
pronounced when the rites were over, “we commit to rest this follower of
the fragrant life, who made his living among the flowers, and extracted
honey and nothing less sweet than that from the summer of his days. My
brethren, may we constantly follow this example of the perfect life. Amen.
Say ‘Amen,’ Madge.”
Madge laughed.
“I don’t think I ever saw anyone so ridiculous,” she said; “and it appears
you can go on being ridiculous all the time.”
“All the time I am happy,” said he.
“And you’re happy now?” she asked.
“Absolutely. I want nothing more. All this week I could have said to
every moment: ‘Stay, thou art fair.’ And, oh! how fair you are, Madge.
Smile, please—no, not the sad smile with all the sorrows of the world
behind it.”
Madge ceased smiling altogether.
“Oh, Evelyn, I am so happy, too!” she said. “But I can’t forget all the
scaffolding, as it were, in which our house of love was built, which now lies
scattered about in bits.”
Evelyn sat up quickly, demolishing the altar he had made with such care.
“Ah! don’t think of that,” he said. “We agreed that what has happened
had to happen. Now pity and sorrow when you can’t help in any way seems
to me a wasted thing.”
“But if you can’t help pitying and being sorry?” she asked.
Evelyn gave a little click of impatience.
“You must go on trying till you do help it,” he said. “Of course, if one
dwells on the matter, one is sorry for Philip; I am awfully sorry for Philip
when I think of him. I hate the idea of anybody being wounded and hurt as
he must have been, and since he was my friend, it is the more distressing.
Only it is an effort for me to think of him at all. I can only think of one
person, and of one thing—you and my love for you.”
This time Madge’s smile was more satisfactory, and with his bright eager
eyes he looked at her as the eagle to the sun.
“Ah, you are absolutely adorable!” he cried.
 The wind, such as there was of it, had veered round at the time of high
tide, and blew no longer off the sea, but breathed gently from the land. A
mile away on the right were the tall, dun-coloured houses of Paris-plage,
perched at the edge of the sea, and the sands there were dotted with the
costumes of the bathers, like polychromatic ants who crawled about the
beach. The sea itself was full of shifting greens and blues, and far out a fleet
of boats like grey-winged gulls hovered, fishing. Even the shrill ecstasies of
the bathers of Paris-plage, whose bathing appeared to be of a partial
description, but who made up for that by dancing in the ripples, and
splashing each other with inimitable French gaiety, were inaudible here;
nothing stirred but the light, noiseless wind, warm with its passage over the
sand-dunes, and faintly aromatic with the pungent scent of the fir-woods
over which its pleasant path had lain. All things paused in this hour of the
glory of the fulfilled noontide, that seemed equally remote from both past
and future, so splendid and so real was the one present moment. If there had
been hurricane in the morning, it was forgotten now; if there was to be a
tempest to-night, it would be time to think about tempests when the winds
began to blow, and it was mere futility to waste a moment of what was so
perfect in contemplation, whether retrospective or anticipatory, of what had
been or yet might be. There was just the hushed murmur of blue, breaking
ripples, their sh-sh as they were poured out on to the golden sand, white
gulls hung in the air, white boats drifted over the sea. And by Madge’s side
sat her lover, the man whom her whole nature hailed as its complement, its
completion. Whatever he did, whatever he said, she felt that she had herself
dreamed that in remote days. Various and unexpected as were his moods,
they were all fiery; the sand-castle as it first stood triumphant against the
incoming tide had been to him a monument of more than national import,
its gradual fall a tragedy that beggared Euripides. The bee, too—if he had
been burying her he could not have shown a tenderer interest. But she was
not so sure that she agreed with the sermon that had been preached over the
grave. And in spite of the completeness of the noonday, she could not help
going back to it.
“Evelyn,” she said, “were you really serious when you said that the
honey-gatherer, who looked only for what was sweet, was the example of
our lives? Something like that you said, anyhow.”
But he continued just looking at her, as he looked when he said: “You
are adorable,” with eyes gleaming and mouth a little open. He did not even
seem to hear that she had asked him a question. But she repeated it.
“I don’t know,” he said. “How am I to know whether I am serious or
not? I suppose one says a hundred stupid things that are based on something
one believes. I am only serious about one thing in the world.”
She did not affect not to know his meaning.
“I know—we love each other,” she said. “But we have breakfast and
lunch just the same.”
He looked doubtful.
“Do we?” he asked. “But they don’t matter!”
Suddenly to Madge the hush of the noonday and the arrest of “before
and after” ceased. It was as if she had been asleep and was suddenly
awakened from a dream by a hand that shook her. The dream was still there,
but also, dimly, there was the wall-paper, a brass knob at the end of the bed,
a counterpane.
“Ah! with all my heart I wish they didn’t matter. I wish nothing
mattered, I ask for nothing better than to sit here with you, to go on living
as we have lived this last week. But the time must come when we shall have
to consider what we shall do next. Are we going back to London, or what?”
“It is August,” said he. “London in August——”
“What then? Shall we stop here?”
Then Evelyn was puerile.
“Of course, if you are tired of this,” he began.
But she let the puerilities go no further.
“Oh, don’t be a baby,” she said. “Ah, such a dear baby, I grant you! But,
Evelyn, it is life we are living.”
Evelyn stroked his chin with a hugely pompous air.
“‘Life is real,’” he said, “‘life is earnest.’ Now, Madge, Poet Longfellow
said that, therefore he must be right.”
“And so Painter Dundas agrees with him?” she said.
“Oh, certainly! Life is undoubtedly real and earnest, but what then? Am I
never to talk nonsense any more? Shall we unbury the bee? Dear me, the
unburial of the bee. How unspeakable pathetic and terrible! But what I have
buried I have buried. So I shall draw your profile in the sand with one
finger and all my heart.”
 But she still remained serious.
“Tell me when you have finished,” she said.
Evelyn was already absorbed.
“With a helmet on,” he remarked, “because she has to meet and defeat
the realities of life, and the corners of her mouth turned down because life is
earnest, and just winking with the other eye; the one you see, in fact,
because she wants to signal to her friend, which is me, that it’s all a huge
joke really, only she mustn’t talk in church.”
There was a compelling fascination for her in the nimble finger that
traced a big outline so deftly in the sand, and since she was upside down to
it, where she sat, it followed that she got up, and went round to see what
manner of a caricature this was. Hopelessly funny she found it, and
hopelessly like, so much so that she danced a war-dance all over the outline,
and sat down again on the middle of her own face.
“Now attend!” she said to her husband.
“After you have ruined the picture of my life,” said he. “It was more like
you than anything. You are being consumed with moral responsibility for
me. I object to that, you know; you can be consumed by your own moral
responsibility, or you can consume it, like you consume your own smoke,
but mine is mine.”
“Evelyn, am I your wife?” she asked.
“I have reason to believe so. I was told so in church.”
“Very well—your conscience is kept in the kitchen; when I go to order
dinner I look at it—I order more if we are likely to run short. So give me
the cheque, please, there is a bill for conscience owing, and we must have a
fresh supply.”
“I don’t understand one word,” said Evelyn, rubbing the sand off his legs
preparatory to turning his trousers down again. “Not one word. Does it
matter?”
Madge’s face grew quite grave again; smiles had spurted as with
explosions from eyes and mouth when she saw his sand-sketch of her, but
these had ceased.
“Yes, it does matter,” she said, “for unless you propose that we should
remain at Le Touquet quite indefinitely, it will be necessary some day to
become definite. I suggest that we should become definite now.
Everything,” and she dug impatiently in the sand with scooping fingers
—“everything has been left at a tag-end. We can’t forever leave things
frayed like that——”
Evelyn interrupted her.
“Oh, I know so well!” he exclaimed; “the metal thing comes off the end
of a lace, and you have to push it through the holes; a little piece only
comes through, and what does not come through gets thicker and won’t
follow. Then one has to take it out and begin again.”
Madge leaned forward.
“Yes, it is exactly that,” she said. “That has happened to us. When that
happens, what do you do?”
“I take off the boot in question,” said Evelyn gravely, “and ring the bell.
When answered, I tell them to take away the boot and put in another lace.
That is done: then I put the boot on. But I don’t wrestle with laces which
have not tags. You are wrestling, you know.”
For the second time this morning a feeling as if she was dealing with a
child seized Madge. The child was a very highly-developed man, too. This
was a handicap to her; a heavier handicap was that she loved him. Even
now, as he sat most undignifiedly wiping the sand from his feet, preparatory
to getting his socks on again, she felt this immensely.
“The sand will be rubbed through the skin, and cause mortification,” he
remarked to himself.
Madge turned on him with some indignation.
“Ah, can’t you see,” she cried, “that I am serious? And you talk about
the sand between your toes! You are rather trying.”
Evelyn paused in his toilet.
“Dearest, I am sorry,” he said. “I thought we were still playing the fool!
But we are not—you, at any rate, are not. What is it then?”
This completeness of surrender was in itself disarming, and her tone was
gentle.
“It is just this,” she said—“that you and I are lost in a golden dream. But
the dream can’t go on forever. What are we to do? Shall we go back to
London? Will you go on painting just as usual? People, perhaps, will be
rather horrid to us, you know.”
Everything now, even to him, had become serious.
 “Do you mind that?” he asked.
“No, of course not, if you don’t,” she said. “But I have been wondering,
dear, whether if by your marriage with me you have hurt your career.”
“You mean that pink Jewesses who want to be fashionable won’t come
to ask me to paint their portraits any more?” he said.
“No, not that, of course. What does that matter?”
Evelyn finished putting his shoes and socks on.
“Then, really, I don’t understand what you do mean,” he said, “by my
career, if you don’t refer to the class of person who thinks it a sort of cachet
to be painted by me—though Heaven knows why she can think that. What
are we talking about? How otherwise can my career, which is only my
sense of form and colour, be touched?”
Madge’s eyes dreamed over the sea for a little at this.
“No, I was wrong,” she said. “Taken like that, it can’t matter. But we
must (though I was wrong there, I am right here)—we must settle what we
are going to do. We must go back some time; you must begin working
again.”
Evelyn finished tying the last lace.
“Romney painted Lady Hamilton forty-three times,” he said. “I could
paint forty Madges of the last hour. You never look the same for two
minutes together, and I could paint all of you. Let’s have an exhibition next
spring called ‘Some Aspects of the Honourable Mrs. Dundas. Artist—her
husband.’”
“They would all come,” said Madge.

There was no more discussion on this present occasion about the future.
Evelyn being again properly clothed, they went back by a short cut across
the sand-dunes to the clearing in the forest behind, which was known as Le
Touquet. For a space of their way, after they had got out of the pitiless sun
on the sand, their path led through the primeval pine forest, where the air
was redolent and aromatic, and the footfall went softly over the carpet of
brown needles. Then other growths began, the white poplar of France shook
tremulous leaves in fear of the wind that might be coming, young oak-trees
stood sturdy and defiant where poplars trembled, and away from the pines
the bare earth showed a carpet of excellent green. Then, as they approached
the hotel, neat white boards with black arrows displayed signs in all
directions, and a rustic bridge over a pond, by which stretched a green
sward of lawn on which it was ‘defended to circulate,’ led to the gravel
sweep in front of the hotel.
A broad verandah in the admirable French style sheltered those who
lunched there from the sun; small tables were dotted about it, and from the
glare of the gravel sweep it was refreshment to be shielded from the heat.
Their table was ready spread for them, and the obsequious smile of the
head-waiter hailed them.
But for the first time Madge was not content. Evelyn still sat opposite
her; all was as it had been during the last week. Yet when he said: “Oh, how
delicious, I am so hungry!” she felt she was hungry, too, but not in the way
he meant. She was hungry, as women always are and must be, for the sense
of largeness in the man, and she asked herself, but quenched the question
before it had flamed, if she had given herself to just a boy. Yet how she
loved him! She loved even his airy irresponsibility, though at times, as this
morning, she had found it rather trying. She had lived so much in a world
that schemed and planned, and was for ever wondering what the effect of
doing this or avoiding that would be, that his utter want of calculation, of
considering the interpretation that might be placed on his acts, was as
refreshing as the breath of cool night air on one who leaves the crowded
ball-room. And for very shame she could not go on just now pressing him to
make decisions; she would return to that again to-morrow, for to-day
seemed so made for him and his huge delight in all that was sunny and
honey-gathering. To-morrow, also, she would have to mention another
question that demanded consideration, namely, that of money. They were
living here, with their big sitting-room and the motor-car they had hired—
and, as a matter-of-fact, did not use—on a scale that she knew must be
beyond their means; and since she was perfectly certain that Evelyn had
never given a thought to this question of expense, any more than the price
of the wine which he chose to drink concerned him, it was clearly time to
remind him that things had to be paid for. He had loaded her, too, with
presents; she felt that if she had expressed a desire for the moon, he would
have ordered the longest ladder that the world had ever seen in order,
anyhow, to make preliminary investigations with regard to the possibility of
securing it. He apparently had not the slightest notion of the value of
money, no ideas of his were connected with it, and though this argued a
certain defective apparatus in this money-seeking world, as if a man went
out to walk in a place full of revolver-armed burglars with no more
equipment than a penny cane, she could not help liking his insouciance.
Once she taxed him with his imprudence, and he had told her, with great
indignation, how he had read nothing but financial papers for a whole week
earlier in the summer, and at the end, instead of spending a couple of
thousand pounds in various delightful ways, he had invested it in some
South African company in which—well, a man who was very acute in such
matters was much interested. And yet she called him imprudent!
After lunch they strolled across to the lawn where circulation was
forbidden.
“We won’t be breaking any rules,” said he, “unless the word applies to
the currents of the blood, because we will sit under a tree and probably
sleep. I can think of nothing which so little resembles circulation as that.”
Letters and papers had arrived during lunch, and Evelyn gave a great
laugh of amusement as he opened one from Lady Taverner, asking if he
would be in London during October, and could resume—this was
diplomatic—the sittings that had been interrupted.
“Even that branch of my career hasn’t suffered,” he observed.
There was nothing more of epistolary interest, and he opened the paper.
There, too, the world seemed to be standing still. There had been a skirmish
between Russian and Japanese outposts at a place called something like
Pingpong, fiscalitis seemed to be spreading a little, but otherwise news was
meagre.
“Is there nothing?” asked Madge, when he had read out these headings.
“No, not a birth or death even. Oh, by-the-way, you called me imprudent
the other day! Now we’ll find the money-market, and see what my two
thousand pounds is worth. Great Scott, what names they deal in—
Metiekull, that’s it.”
There was a long silence. Then Evelyn laughed, a sudden little, bitter
laugh, which was new to Madge’s ears.
“Yes, I bought them at 4,” he said. “They are now 2. That was a grand
piece of information Philip gave me.”
He got up.
“Oh, Evelyn, how horrible!” she cried. “Where are you going?”
 “Just to telegraph to them to sell out,” he said. “I can’t afford to lose any
more. I’ll be back in a minute. And when I come back, dear, please don’t
allude to this again. It is unpleasant; and that is an excellent reason for
ceasing to think about it. In fact, it is the best reason.”
 FOURTEENTH
T was perhaps lucky as regards the future of Madge and her husband
that this debacle had taken place so near to the end of the season.
Many people, indeed, had waited in London only for the marriage,
for the season was already over, and for the last three days there had been
nothing but this to detain them. Genuine sympathy was at first felt for
Philip, but it very soon was known that he was at his office again every day
and all day, worked just as hard if not harder than usual, and was supposed,
by way of signalising his own disappointment, to have made some great
coup over a South African company, thereby inflicting a quantity of very
smart disappointments on the gentlemen of the Stock Exchange. He had
dealt these blows out with an impartial hand; first there had been some
staggering smacks which had sent the bulls flying like ninepins, while the
bears stood round and grinned, and profited by the experience of their
fraternal enemies. Then Philip, it seemed, had seen them grinning, and had
done the same for them.
In other words, things had come off in exactly the way he had
anticipated. The knowledge that he had bought a very large option had
induced many operators less substantial than he to buy also, and the sudden
news that he had received a detailed report from the spot, and had
subsequently not exercised his option, landed many of these buyers in
awkward places. Then, as was natural, the bears saw their opportunity, sold
largely, on the strength of the inference that Philip’s report was highly
unfavourable, bringing prices down with a run. Then, with the same
suddenness with which he had decided not to take up his option, he bought
at this very much lower price a vastly increased number of shares, and
within a week of the original slump Metiekull was considerably higher than
it had ever been. The £7,000 he had forfeited over not taking up his option
was but a bagatelle to his subsequent gains, and the market generally at this
conclusion remarked, among other things not worth repeating, that there
was a good deal to be said in favour of long spoons; while that not
inconsiderable part of more westerly London which is always burning its
fingers in this City fire of the Stock Exchange, said with a somewhat
cynical smile that since Philip could still hit so hard, he had not, perhaps,
been so hard hit himself. Perhaps, in fact, Madge had not made such a very
terrible mistake, after all, for Mr. Dundas was undeniably the most
fascinating person, whereas Philip, so it appeared, did not let the most
dreadful affair of the heart interfere in the slightest with the stuffing of the
money-box.
But in this they utterly mistook him, for this steady, concentrated
application to work was, perhaps, the only thing in the world which could
have prevented him breaking down or losing his mental balance altogether.
Even as it was, it partook only, as far as he could see, of the nature of a
temporary alleviation, for in the very nature of things he could not go on
working like this indefinitely. And what would happen to him when he
relaxed he could not imagine, he only knew that the hours when he was not
at the office were like some nightmare repeated and again repeated. Nor did
they lose, at present, the slightest edge of the intensity of their horror. This
week was as bad as last week; last week was no better than the week before,
all through this hot August when he remained in town, not leaving it even
for his usual week end on the river, but seeing its pavements grow hotter
and dustier and emptier as more and more of its toiling crowds escaped for
a week or two to the sands or the moors.
The worst time of all was the early morning, for though he usually went
to sleep from sheer weariness when he went to bed, he began to wake early,
while still Jermyn Street was dusky and dewy, and as yet the sparrows in
the plane trees opposite his window had not begun to tune up for the day.
Morning by morning he would watch “the casement slowly grow a
glimmering square,” or if it was, as often, absolutely unbearable to lie in
bed, he would get up and go into his sitting-room, where the wan light but
brought back to him the dreadful hours he had passed there the evening
before. The glass from which he had drunk stood on the little table by the
sofa, and by it lay the unread evening paper. The beloved Reynolds prints,
Mrs. Carnac, Lady Halliday, Lady Stanhope, Lady Crosbie, all first
impressions, smiled meaninglessly on the wall, for all the things he had
loved and studied had lost their beauty, and were blackened like dahlias in
the first autumn frosts. Sometimes a piece of music stood on the piano,
from which he had played a bar or two the night before, but had then
stopped, for it, too, conveyed nothing to him; it was but a jangle of
senseless chords. Sometimes in these dreadful morning hours he would
doze a little on the sofa, but not often; and once he had poured out into the
glass a stiff dose of whisky, feeling that even an alcohol-purchased oblivion
would be better than more of this wakefulness. But he had the sense left not
to take to that; if he did that to-day he would do it to-morrow, and if he
admitted the legitimacy of such relief, he knew he would find less and less
reason every day for not letting himself sink in that slough. Besides, he had
to keep himself clear-headed and alert for the work of the day.
Two passions, to analyse a little further, except when he was at work,
entirely possessed him, one his passion for Madge, of which not one jot, in
spite of what had happened, was abated. It was not, nor ever had been, of
the feverish or demonstrative sort, it did not flicker or flare, it burned
steadily with a flame that was as essential a part of his life as breathing or
the heart-beat. And the other, existing strangely and coincidently with it,
was the passion of hate—hatred for her, hatred for Evelyn, a red flame
which shed its light on all else, so that in the glare of it he hated the whole
world. Two people only stood outside of it—his mother and Tom Merivale;
for these he did not feel hate, but he no longer felt love; he was incapable of
feeling that any longer except for Madge. But he did not object to them, he
thought of them without resentment, but that was all.
Then, as his nerves began to suffer under this daily torture, the hours of
enforced idleness became full of alarm. What he feared he did not know, he
only knew that he was apprehensive of some further blow that might be
dealt him from a quarter as unexpected as that from which this had come.
Everything had been so utterly serene when this bolt from the blue struck
him, he could not have conjectured it; and now he could not conjecture
what he expected next.
But all this London did not know: it only knew that this very keen man
of business was as acute as ever, to judge by the Metiekull episode, and
began to reason that since he was so callous to what had happened, Madge
had really not behaved so outrageously as had been supposed. She had
found—this was the more human and kindly view induced by the cessation
of the late London hours, and the substitution of a great deal of open air for
the stifling ballroom of town—she had found that she really was in love
with Mr. Dundas, and that Philip on closer acquaintance was what he had
proved himself to be, business man first, lover afterwards. And really Mr.
Dundas’s pictures this year had been stupefyingly clever. They made one
just gasp. Surely it would be silly to get somebody else to “do” one instead
of him, just because Madge had found out her mistake in time, and he had
assisted at the correction of it. He was certain to have heaps of orders in any
case, so it would be just as well to be painted by him as soon as possible. Of
course that implied that one accepted his marriage in a sort of way, but,
after all, why not? Besides—here the world’s tongue just tended to
approach the cheek—it would be a kindness to old Lady Ellington to
smooth things over as much as possible, and that dear little thing, Gladys,
whom everybody liked so much, would be so pleased to find that Madge
was not hardly thought of. Yes, quite so, and has the dressing-gong sounded
already? And Tom killed a stag, and they had a good day among the grouse,
and Jack killed a salmon, so there will be fish for dinner. What a blessing!

One of these mornings which saw Philip in the gloaming of dawn

hearing the sparrows beginning their chirruping in the plane-trees, saw Tom
Merivale also, not only hearing but listening to the twitter of half-awakened
birds in his garden. He had slept in the hammock slung in the pergola, and
after the coolness of the clear night following on the intense heat of the day
before, the dew had been heavy. His blanket was shimmering with the seed-
pearls of the moisture, his hair also was wet with it, and on the brick of the
pergola path it lay like the condensation of the breath of the spirit of
woodland itself. The cleanness and purity of this hour of dawn was a thing
that every morning more astounded him. Whether a clear and dove-
coloured sky brooded as now overhead, or whether morning came wrapped
in rain-clouds, it always brought to one who slept with the sky for a roof a
sense of renewal and freshness which it was impossible to get used to.
Everything was rested and cleaned, ready to begin again on the hundred
joyful businesses of day.
Just as a stone falling through the air moves with a speed that is
accelerated each moment by double the acceleration of the last, so Merivale
felt that every day his communion with and absorption in Nature made
progress out of all proportion to what he had achieved before. It was so few
months ago that he had himself wondered at the mysterious and silent
telepathy that ran through all Nature, the telepathy that warns birds and
beasts of coming storm, that makes the bats wake and begin their eerie
flittings even at the hour when sunset is brightest, knowing that the
darkness is imminent, that connects man, too, as he had proved, if man only
will be quiet and simple instead of fretful and complicated, with birds and
beasts, so that they know he is their brother and will come to his silent call
to them. But of late that had become such a commonplace to him that he
only wondered how it could ever have been otherwise than obvious. He
remembered, too, how so few weeks ago he had for the first time heard the
sound of the glass flute in the woods above Philip’s house at Pangbourne,
but now not a day passed, often not an hour, in which that unending melody,
the eternal and joyful hymn of Nature and of life, was not audible to him.
Whether what he heard was really a phenomenon external to himself or
only the internal expression, so to speak, of those thoughts which filled his
entire consciousness, both waking and sleeping, he did not care to ask
himself, for it did not in the least seem to him to matter. Wherever that
melody came from, whether it was born in his own brain and telegraphed
from there to his ears, or whether it was really some actual setting of the joy
of life to song, external to him, and heard just as a railway whistle or the
bleat of a sheep is heard and conveyed from his ears to his brain, he did not
even wish to know, for wherever coined, it was of royal minting, the secret
and the voice of Life itself was there.
The woods of Pangbourne—Philip. He had heard from Mrs. Home of the
catastrophe, and in answer to a further letter of his he had learned that
Philip remained in London slaving all day at the office, seeing no one but
his clerks, silent, alone, giving no sign even to her. This letter had come
only last night, and ended with an imploring cry that if Tom thought he
could help him in any way, his mother besought him to do what he could.
Philip had been down to see her once only, immediately after his
engagement was broken off, and he had been utterly unlike himself—hard,
terrible, unforgiving. Could Merivale not do something? Philip had never
had but four friends in the world, two of these had turned enemies (Mrs.
Home had crossed out in a thin, neat line the last two words and substituted
“ceased to be friends”), and there were left only himself and she. And she
had tried, and could do nothing.
Tom Merivale thought over all this as the twitter of birds grew more
coherent in the bushes, passing from the sound like the tuning-up of an
orchestra into actual song. The resemblance, indeed, was curiously
complete, for after the tuning-up had ceased, while it was still very faintly
light, there was a period of silence before song began, just such a silence as
ensued when the strings of a band had found the four perfect fifths, and
there was the hush and pause over singers and audience alike until the
conductor took his place. Day was the conductor here, and to-day it would
be the sun who would conduct his great symphony in person at dawn, the
approach of which to Philip but meant the hard outlining of the square of
window, but to Tom all the joy of another day, a string of round and perfect
pearls of hours. The East was already in the secret, for high above the spot
where dawn would break rosy fleeces of clouds had caught the light, while
nearer to the horizon the nameless green of dawn, that lies between the
yellow of the immediate horizon itself and the blue of the zenith, was
beginning to melt into blue. Then, how well he knew it, the skeins of mist
along the stream below would dissolve, the tintless, hueless, darknesses of
clear shadow that lay beneath the trees would grow green from the sun
striking through the leaves. These things were enough to fill this hour with
ecstasy, and every hour to him brought its own. There would be the meal
prepared by himself, the work in the garden, claiming fellowship and
friendship every moment with the green things of the earth, the mid-day
bathe, when he was one with the imperishable water, the long communing
with eyes half-shut on the sunny heather, where even the stealthy adder was
no longer a thing of aversion, and then for the sake “of his sister, the body,”
as the old Saint said, a walk that might cover twenty miles before he
returned at dusk. Oh, how unutterably good, and how unutterably better
each day!
A wind came with the dawn itself, that scattered more dew on to him
from the rose-sprays overhead, and he slid out of the hammock to go into
the house to make his breakfast, stretching himself once or twice before he
went in to feel his muscles, the rigging of the ship of the body, all twang
sound and taut. Nor did it seem to him in any way unworthy that even this
physical fitness of his should give him such joy: it would, indeed, have been
a disgrace if it had been otherwise. For all the sensations and functions of
life were on one plane, and whether the sweat poured from him as he dug
the garden, or his teeth crushed a nuthusk, or the great thigh-muscles
strained as he mounted a hill, or his ear was ravished with the fluting of a
bush-bowered thrush, it was all one; each was a function of life, and the
sum of them was just joy.
But Philip; this morning he could not get Philip out of his head, for
detached from the world of men and women as he was, he could not help
pitying the blind, meaningless suffering of his old friend. For all suffering
to him was meaningless, he did not in himself believe that any good could
come out of it considered merely as suffering: much more good, that is to
say, would have come out of joy; this was withheld by suffering, a thing
almost criminal to his view. But he could realise, and did, that all that Philip
loved best had gone from him; it was as if in his own case the sun and the
moon had been plucked from the sky, or water had ceased to flow, as if
something vital in the scheme of things was dead.
It seemed to him, then, with his mind full of Philip, very natural that
there should be a letter from him when the post came in that morning. It ran
thus:
Dear Tom,—I had rather an unpleasant experience yesterday, for
suddenly in the middle of the morning I fainted dead off. It seemed sensible
to see a doctor, who of course said the usual thing—overwork, overworry,
go and rest completely for a time. He was a sensible man, I’ve known him
for years, and so I have decided to do as he tells me.
Now you are such an old friend that I trust you to say “No” quite frankly
if you don’t want me. I therefore ask you if I may come down and stay with
you a bit. I thought of going home, but I should be alone there, as my
mother is away just now, or on the point of going, and I don’t want to bring
her back, and I really think I should go crazy if I was alone. You seem to
have found the secret of happiness, and perhaps it might do me good to
watch you. All this is absolutely subject to your saying “No” quite frankly.
Just send it or the affirmative by telegram, will you, and I will arrive or not
arrive this evening. But I warn you I am not a cheerful companion.—Yours,
Philip Home.
For any sake don’t say a word or give a look of pity or sympathy. I shall
bring a servant—may I?—who will look after me. I don’t want to give you
trouble, and I intend to take none myself. Mind, I trust you to telegraph
“No” quite simply if you don’t want me.
There was only one reply possible to this, and, indeed, Merivale had no
inclination to give any other. Of course Philip was welcome; he would very
likely have proposed this himself had not this letter come so opportunely,
and the telegram in reply was genuinely cordial. Poor old Philip, who used
to be so happy in the way in which probably a locomotive engine is happy,
groomed and cared for, and only required to do exactly that which it loves
doing, namely, being strong and efficient, and exercising its strength and
speed. Yet though Tom’s welcome of him was so genuine, he shrank
inwardly, though he did not confess this even to himself, from what lay
before him, for he hated misery and unhappiness—hated the sight or
proximity of it, he even thought that it was bad for anybody to see it, but if
on this point his attitude was inconsistent with the warmth of his telegram,
the inconsistency was wholly human and amiable.
On the other hand, though he was by no means of a proselytising nature,
there was here, almost forced upon him, a fine test case. He believed
himself very strongly in the infectious character of human emotions; fear
seemed to him more catching than the smallpox, and worry ran through a
household even as does an epidemic of influenza. And if this which he so
profoundly believed was true, that truth must hold also about the opposite
of all these bad things; they, too, must be infectious also, unless one chose
to draw the unthinkable conclusion that evil was contagious, whereas good
was not communicable by the same processes. That could not be, the
spiritual microbes must, as far as theory or deduction could be trusted to
supply an almost certain analogy, correspond to the microbes of the
material world; there must in fact be in the spiritual world, if these microbes
of suffering and misery were there, much vaster armies of microbes that
produced in man all the things that made life worth living; battalions of
happiness-germs must be there, of germs that were forever spreading and
swarming in their ceaseless activity of building-up and regenerating man, of
battling with the other legions whose work was to destroy and depress and
kill. And if there was anything in his belief—a belief on which he would
gladly have staked his life—that joy, health, life were ever gaining ground
and triumphing over their lethal foes, then it followed that the germs of all
things that were good were more potent than those that were evil if their
armies were mobilised.
How mysterious and how profoundly true this transference of emotion
was, or, in terms of the present analogy, these invasions of spiritual
microbes! For what caused panic to spread through a crowd? Not danger
itself, but fear, fear which ran like an electric current through the ranks of
its quivering victims. Serenity, therefore, must be equally contagious, and if
one could isolate one of those fear-ridden folk for a moment in a ring of
men who were not afraid, it could not be doubted that their fearlessness
would triumph. No reassuring word or gesture need be spoken or made, the
very fact of the atmosphere of calm must inevitably quiet the panic-
stricken. Worry, too, would stifle if isolated in serenity, just as serenity
would vanish if the hosts of its enemy hemmed it in. And here, to take the
case in point, was Philip, possessed and infected by the poisonous microbes
of unhappiness, which blackened his soul and darkened the sun for him.
What was the remedy? Not, as he had been trying to do, to drug himself
into unconsciousness over work, while they continued their ravages
unchecked and unchallenged, but to steep himself as in some antiseptic bath
in an atmosphere that was charged with their bitterest foes. It was
happiness, the atmosphere of happiness, that alone could combat his
disease. And of the eventual result of that treatment Merivale did not
entertain the slightest doubt; there would, of course, be war between
happiness and the misery of his friend, but he felt within himself that it was
impossible that Philip’s misery could be so strong as the armies on his own
side. Think of the allies, too, that surrounded him: his light-armed
skirmishers, the birds and bees, with their staccato artillery of joy forever
playing on the object of their detestation; the huge guns of the great beech
forest forever pouring their sonorous discharge on to the enemy; the flying
cavalry of the river, the heather-fragrant wind which encompassed and
outflanked him in each direction.
Thus though, as has been said, his first impulse was one of shrinking
from this proximity to what was unhappy and suffering, how splendid a
demonstration of all that on which he so largely based his theory of life was
here offered him. He did not seek after a sign, no demonstration could
deepen his belief, yet he rejoiced that a sign was offered him, even as one
who utterly believes in the omnipotence of God may yet look on the shining
of the starry-kirtled night, and glow at the reminder he is given of what he
believes. Well he knows the glory of God, but it does his heart good to
behold it.
The work of the house took him, as a rule, but an hour or so to get
through every morning; but to-day there were further preparations to be
made for his friend’s arrival; linen had to be brought out for his bed, water
to be fetched for his jug, and his room to be dusted and made ready. But
these menial occupations seemed to Merivale to be in no way mean;
nothing that was necessary for the ordinary simple needs of life could
possibly be derogatory for the wisest or busiest or wealthiest of mankind to
perform for himself, though to pass a lifetime in performing them for others
was a mean matter both for employer and employed. But such things were
not to him even tedious, any more than breathing or washing were tedious,
and to find them tedious but meant that one was out of tune with the great
symphony of life. Everyone, so ran his theory, ought ideally to be so simple
in his needs that he could minister to his own necessities, without any sense
that his time was wasted; one washed one’s hands, and brushed the hair. For
this was part of the true simplification of life—to need but little, and
provide that little oneself. Yet inasmuch as most of the world did not yet
take his view (and Philip was one of them), he was accustomed to hire help,
and intended to do so now, for a friend’s visit.
He moved quickly and deftly enough about his work; pausing to think
for a moment as to the making of the bed, for all this summer he had
scarcely once slept in one, while in winter a mattress and a rug comprised
his own needs. Then the work of dusting brought him to the dressing-table,
and for a moment he looked at himself in the glass with a sort of pang of
delight, though in his delight there was neither self-consciousness nor
vanity that this was he. For he was now several years past thirty, a time of
life when on every face there begin to appear the marks of years; but from
the glass there looked back into his eyes the face of a youth just standing on
the threshold of manhood. The strength of manhood was there, but it was a
strength in which the electric vigour of boyhood still quivered like a steel
spring; not a sign of slack or wrinkled skin appeared there, and his hair,
with its close-cropped curls, was thick and shining with health. But looking
at this image of perfect and vigorous youth, he thought, after the first
inevitable delight in the knowledge that this was he, not at all of himself,
only of the fact that to any who lived his life this must be the certain and
logical consequence. For the body was but the visible sign of the spirit: it
was the soul of man that made his body, as a snail its shell; it was worry and
discontent assuredly that drew lines and wrinkles on the face and brought
fatigue and sloth to the muscles, not the passage of the years; it was just as
surely serenity and the passionate acceptation and absorption of the joy of
life that made a man young, and would keep him so body and soul alike.
But never before had he so fully realised this change that had come to
him, and when, after his work in the house was over, he walked into
Brockenhurst to engage a servant for the cooking which Philip’s visit would
involve, he found himself wondering with a more than usually vivid
curiosity to what further knowledge and illumination his undeviating quest
should lead him. For he felt he was getting nearer every day, and very
quickly nearer to the full realisation of his creed, namely, that all life was
indivisibly one, and that the purport of all life was joy. And when his
knowledge of this was made perfect, how would the revelation come, and
what would be the effect? Would life eternal lived here and now be his, or
would that light be too great for him to bear, so that this tabernacle of flesh
and blood, hereditarily weakened by centuries of sin and shame, could not
stand it? Was it life or seeming death that awaited him? He scarcely cared.

The tree that had been struck by lightning at the end of the garden he had
felled soon after, and part of his daily work now was to cut up the branches
into faggots and sticks of firewood for the winter. That dreadful stroke from
the skies which had dealt death to this beautiful tree in the prime of its
strength and luxuriance of its summer had often seemed to Merivale to
involve a difficult question, for it was intimately bound up with all those
things on which he had deliberately turned his back. Death did exist in the
world, and though, as he had once said to Evelyn, out of death invariably
came life, yet the fact of death was there, just as beyond all possibility of
denial, pain and disease and sorrow were in the world also. These, however,
were largely of man’s making, yet here, in the case of this poor stricken
tree, it was Nature herself who deliberately attacked and slew part of
herself. One animal, it is true, preyed on another, and by its death sustained
its own life: that was far easier to understand. But there was something
senseless and brutal in the fact of this weapon of the storm, a thing as
inanimate as a rifle-bullet, striking at life. It was wanton destruction.
Nothing came of it (and here he smiled, though not believing he had
guessed the riddle), except firewood for him.
The morning was intensely hot, and as he worked hatless under the blaze
of the sun, the wholesome sweat of toil poured from him. How good that
was; how good, too, to feel the strong resistance of the wood against the
blade of his axe, to feel the sinews of his arms alternately tighten and
slacken themselves in the swiping strokes, to stand straight up a moment to
rest his back, and wipe the moisture from his face and draw in two or three
long, satisfying breaths of summer air. It was as if the song of the birds, too,
entered into his very lungs, and the hum of the bees, and the murmur of the
forest, which was beginning to be hushed a little at the hour when even the
cicala sleeps. One thing alone would not be hushed, and that the liquid
voice of the river, in which he would soon be plunged. No length of drought
in this wonderful year seemed to diminish the wealth of its outpouring; it
was as high between its fern-fringed banks now as it had been in April. But
first there was the carrying of the aromatic, fresh-cut logs to the house to be
done, and he almost regretted how near completion was the stack that filled
the wood-shed, for there was something about the hardness of this
particular toil that was intimately delightful. It required the exercise of
strength and vigour, the full use of supple and well-hardened muscles; it
was very typical of the splendid struggle for life in which the struggle itself,
the fact of work, was a thing ecstatic. He had cut more than usual this
morning, and it was with a boyish sense of playing some game against a
rigid and inflexible opponent that he determined not to make two journeys
of it, but carry all he had cut in one. And underneath this staggering burden
which he loved he toiled to the wood-shed.

Merivale had just come up from his bathe in the evening when Philip
arrived, and he met him halfway up the garden. That extraordinary change
which he had himself seen in the glass that morning struck his friend, too.
“It was awfully good of you to let me come, Tom,” he said. “And what
has been happening to you? If I had not known you ten years ago, I should
scarcely have recognised you now.”
Tom laughed.
“And in ten days you won’t recognise yourself,” he said. “You look
pulled down, and no wonder, if you’ve been working in London all August.
Anyhow, this isn’t the least like London, and you are going to do no work.
You are going to sit in the garden, and go for immense slow walks, and
listen to my practically incessant and wholly fatuous conversation.”
But it was difficult for him to conceal the shock that Philip’s appearance
gave him. He looked so horribly tired and so old. The suffering of this last
month had made him haggard and heavy-eyed, and what was worse, the
hatred that had been his soul’s guest had made his face hard and bitter, and
yet for all the hardness it was strangely enfeebled: it had lost the look of
strength and life that had always been so characteristic of it. The vital
principle had been withdrawn from it; all that it expressed was lethal,
negative.
 Philip’s weary eyes looked round on the garden and the low, thatched
house where dinner was already being laid in the verandah.
“So this is the Hermitage,” he said. “Dear God, you have found peace.”
Then he broke off suddenly, and began again in a different voice, a voice
that was like his face, bitter and hard and old.
“Yes, I’ve been overworking,” he said, “and as I told you, yesterday I
suddenly collapsed. I think my work has got on my brain too much; I didn’t
sleep well. London was dreadfully hot and stuffy, too. But I’ve made a pot
of money this month. Those fools on the Stock Exchange say that August is
a slack month. Of course it is if you are slack. But certainly from a business
point of view I’ve had an all-round time. I brought some of them back, too,
from their deer-forests and fishings in double-quick time. And they were
mostly too late even then. Good joke, too, my going off suddenly like this,
and leaving them grilling in London.”
Merivale could not quite let this pass; besides, he must answer somehow.
He laughed.
“I don’t altogether agree with your idea of humour,” he said. “Was it
really—from a humorous point of view—worth while?”
Philip’s face did not relax.
“It was from a business point of view,” he said.
Then his gardener’s eye was suddenly arrested by a perle des jardins that
was ramping beyond all bounds.
“I used to know about roses,” he said, “and I’ll cut that back for you to-
morrow. You are not getting half the roses out of it.”
“I know, but it’s enjoying itself so enormously,” said Merivale.
Philip considered this as an abstract question on to which he had not
previously turned his mind.
“And you think that ought to be taken into consideration when one deals
with the destinies even of rose-trees?” he asked with a terrible air of being
in earnest.
Merivale smiled.
“Decidedly London has not been good for you,” he said. “I think your
words were ‘the destinies even of rose-trees.’ Now what destiny matters
more than that? Not mine, I am sure, and I doubt if yours. Besides, the
destinies of your rose-trees used to be of extraordinary importance, not only
to them, but to you.”
Philip was silent a moment. Then for the first time, at the sense of peace
that was here so predominant a note, or at the sight of Tom himself, in all
the vigour and freshness of a youth that measured by years was already
past, some faint gleam, or if not a gleam, the sense that light was possible to
him, broke through the dismal darkness of his soul. For one short moment
he laid his hand on his friend’s arm.
“Make allowance for me, Tom,” he said.
In spite of his long aloofness from the fretful race of men and the ways
of them, Merivale had not forgotten—indeed it is as impossible for one who
has ever known it to forget it as it is to forget how to swim—that divine gift
of tact. Indeed, it is probable that his long sojournings alone had, if
anything, made more sensitive those surfaces which come into contact with
others and which others insensibly feel (for this is tact) to be smooth and
warm and wise. And it was a fine touch that he did not respond, however
remotely, to Philip’s appeal, for Philip had told him that pity and sympathy
were exactly what he could not stand. Consequently he let this cry be the
voice of one in the desert; it wanted silence, not audible answer. He, like the
trees in the garden and the stream, must be dumb to it.
This silence was the key to several days that followed: there was, in fact,
no intimate conversation of any sort between the two friends. Philip would
sit for hours in the garden, stung sometimes into spasmodic activity, during
which he would send off a dozen telegrams to his office on monetary
affairs, but for the most part with an unread paper on his knees, or a book
that tumbled unheeded on to the grass. But soon during this frosty and
strictured time, Merivale thought he saw, as birds know the hour of sunrise
before the faintest dawn illuminates the sky, that there were signs that this
frost was less binding than it had been. Philip would take a pruning-knife
sometimes, and with his deft and practised hand reduce a rose to reasonable
dimensions. Sometimes half-way through the operation he would let the
knife fall from his fingers, as if his labours, like everything else, were not
worth while; but often afterwards he would resume his labours, and enable
the tree to do justice to itself. By degrees, too, these outbursts of City
activity grew rarer and more spasmodic, becoming, as it were, but the
echoes of a habit rather than demonstrations of the habit itself. He did not
join Merivale in his long tramps over the forest, but he began to wait for his
return, and if he knew from what point of the compass he was likely to
return, he sometimes set out to meet him. Once Merivale was very late: his
tramp had taken him further than usual, and night, falling cloudy and
moonless, had surprised him in a wood where even one who knew the
forest as well as he might miss his way. On this occasion he found Philip
pacing up and down the garden in some agitation.
“Ah, there you are,” he cried in a tone of obvious relief when his white-
flannelled figure appeared against the deep dusk of the bushes that lined the
stream. “I was getting anxious, and I did not know what to do. I should
have come out to look for you, but I did not know where you might be
coming from.”
And that little touch of anxiety was perhaps the first sign that he had
shown since he had abandoned himself to bitterness that his heart was not
dead: never before had the faintest spark of the sense of human
comradeship or its solicitudes appeared.
Then Merivale knew that the fortnight that Philip had already spent here
had not been utterly wasted, and before going to bed that night he wrote one
line of hope to Mrs. Home.
 FIFTEENTH
COUPLE of days after this the weather suddenly broke, and for the
unclouded and azure skies they had a day of low, weeping heavens,
with an air of dead and stifling dampness. Never for a moment
through the hours of daylight did the sullen downpour relax; the trees stood
with listless, drooping branches, from which under the drenching rain a few
early autumn leaves kept falling, though the time of the fall of the leaf was
not yet. In the garden beds the plants had given up all attempts to look gay
or to stand up, and bent drearily enough beneath the rain that scattered their
petals and dragged their foliage in the muddy earth. The birds, too, were
silent; only the hiss of the rain was heard, and towards afternoon the voice
of the river grew a little louder. Merivale, however, was undeterred and
quite undepressed by these almost amphibious conditions, and, as usual,
went off after breakfast for one of those long rambles of his in the forest,
leaving Philip alone. There was no hint of unfriendliness taken in this;
indeed, Philip had exacted a promise from his host on the evening of arrival
that his normal course of life should be undisturbed.
That first little token that he had given two days before that his heart was
not dead had more than once repeated itself since then, and he was perhaps
faintly conscious of some change in himself. He was not, so far as he knew,
less unhappy, but that frightful hardness was beginning to break down, the
surface of its ice was damped with thawed water, his hatred of all the world,
his deep resentment at the scheme of things—if any scheme underlay the
wantonness of what had happened—was less pronounced. It might, indeed,
be only that he was utterly broken, that his spirit of rebellion could no
longer raise its banner of revolt, yet he did not feel as if he had surrendered,
he did not in the least fold his hands and wait mutely for whatever the
Powers that be might choose to do with him. He was conscious, indeed, of
the opposite, of a certain sense of dawning willpower; and though his life,
so to speak, lay shattered round him, he knew that subconsciously somehow
he was beginning to regard the pieces with some slight curiosity that was
new to him, wondering if this bit would fit on to that. In a way he had
plunged into business again with that feverish rush which had taken him
through August with some such idea; his immediate salvation, at any rate,
he had believed to lie in concentrated occupation; yet there had been
nothing constructive about that; it was a palliative measure, to relieve pain,
rather than a course that would go to the root of the disease. Also, such as it
was, it had failed, his health had given way: he could for the present take no
more of that opiate.
In another respect also it had failed, for to-day by the mid-day post there
had come for him communications of the greatest importance from the City,
information which was valuable, provided only he acted on it without delay.
There was no difficulty about it, the question had no complications; he
himself had only to send off instructions which ten minutes’ thought could
easily frame. Yet he sat with paper and pens in front of him, doing nothing,
for he had asked himself a very simple question instead. “Is it all worth
while?” was what he said to himself. And apparently it was not.
Now, if this had happened a month ago, it would have been equivalent to
a surrender; it would have been a confession that he was beaten. But now
the whole nature of his doubt was changed. Work, it is true, had done
something for him; it had got him through a month in which he was
incapable of anything else, it had got him, in fact, to the point which was
indicated two days ago by his little anxiety about Merivale. And had he
known it, that was much the most important things that had happened to
him for weeks. Something within him had instinctively claimed kinship
again with mankind.
How hollow and objectless to-day seemed the results of the last month!
“Home’s August,” as it was already ruefully known on the Stock Exchange,
had plentifully enriched Home, but though the gold had poured in like a
fountain, yet, mixed with it, indissolubly knitted into the success, had come
a leanness. What did it all amount to? And lean above all was his paltry
triumph over Evelyn, who, as he had since ascertained, had sold out
Metiekull when things were at their very worst, only to realise that if he had
left it alone, he would have made a handsome profit. But what then? What
good did that pin-prick of a vengeance do? What gratification had it brought
to Philip’s most revengeful and hating mood? The wedding-tour had been
cut short: Evelyn and Madge had come back to London, but that to-day
gave him not the smallest feeling of satisfaction in that, however feebly, he
had hit back at them. It was all so useless: the futility and childishness of
his revenge made him feel sick. If he had a similar chance to-day, he would
not have stirred a finger.
But all this emptiness, and the intolerable depression that still enveloped
him, was, somehow, of different character to what it had been before. It was
all bad and hopeless enough, but his eyes, so to speak, had begun to veer
round; they were no longer drearily fixed on the storms and wreckage of the
past, but were beginning, however, ineffectually as yet, to peer into the
mists of the future. It was exactly this which was indicative of the change
that had come, and the indication was as significant as the slow shifting of a
weather-cock that tells that the blackening east wind is over, and a kindlier
air is breathing, one that perhaps in due time shall call up from the roots
below the earth the sap that shall again burst out in mist and spray of young
green leaf, and put into the heart of the birds that mating-time has come
again. And that first hint of change, though lisped about while yet the
darkness before dawn was most black, is better than all the gold that had
poured in through the hours of the night.
Not all day nor when night fell did the rain cease, but the air was very
warm, and the two dined out as usual in the verandah. The candles burned
steadily in the windless air, casting squares of uncertain light on to the thick
curtain of the night which was hung round them. Merivale, it appeared, had
passed a day of high festival even for him; the rain of which the thirsty
earth was drinking so deeply suited him no less.
“Ah, there is no mood of Nature,” he cried, “which I do not love. This
hot, soaking rain falling windlessly, which other people find so depressing,
is so wonderful. The earth lies beneath it, drinking like a child at its
mother’s breast. The trees stand with drooping leaves, relaxing themselves,
making no effort, just drinking, recuperating. The moths and winged things
creep close into crevices in their bark—I saw a dozen such to-day—or cling
to the underside of the leaves, where they are dry and cool. Everything is
sleeping to-day, and to watch the earth sleep is like watching a child sleep:
however lovely and winsome it is when it is awake, yet its sleep is even
more beautiful. There is not a wrinkle on its face: it is as young as love, and
with closed eyes and mouth half-open it rests.”
Philip was looking at him with a sort of dumb envy, which at length
found voice.
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