E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE TRAGIC BRIDE

FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG

London: Martin Secker1920

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WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

NOVELS

  THE YOUNG PHYSICIAN
  THE CRESCENT MOON
  THE IRON AGE
  THE DARK TOWER
  DEEP SEA
  UNDERGROWTH (with E. BRETT YOUNG)

POETRY

FIVE DEGREES SOUTH POEMS, 1916-1918

BELLES LETTRES ROBERT BRIDGES: A CRITICAL STUDY MARCHING ON TANGA

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TO

THE COUNTESS OF

PEMBROKE AND MONTGOMERY

PROLOGUE

I never met Gabrielle Hewish. I suppose I should really call her by thatname, for her marriage took the colour out of it as surely as if she hadentered a nunnery, and adopted the frigid and sisterly label of somefemale saint. Nobody had ever heard of her husband before she marriedhim, and nobody ever heard of Gabrielle afterwards, except those who wereacquainted with the story of Arthur Payne, as I was, and, perhaps, acoroner's jury in Devonshire, a county where juries are more than usuallyslow of apprehension. In these days you will not even find the name ofHewish in Debrett, for Gabrielle was the baronet's only child, and whenSir Jocelyn died, in the early days of his daughter's married life, thefamily, which for the last half century had been putting out no more thana few feeble and not astonishingly brilliant leaves on its one livingbranch, withered altogether, as well it might in the thin Irish soilwhere it had stubbornly held its own since the days of Queen Elizabeth.After all, baronetcies are cheap enough in Ireland, and one more or lesscould make very little difference to the amenities of County Galway,where Roscarna, for all I know, may have been absorbed and parcelled outby the Congested Districts Board ten years ago. Even in clubs and placeswhere they gossip, I doubt if the Hewishes of Roscarna are remembered,for modern memories are short, and in Gabrielle's day the illustratedSunday newspapers had not contrived to specialise in the smiles ofwell-connected young Irishwomen.

Of course the Payne episode—I'm not sure it should not rather be calledthe Payne miracle—had always lain stored somewhere in my literary attic;its theme was too exciting for a man who deals in such lumber to haveforgotten; but that admirable woman, Mrs. Payne, had whetted my curiosityto such an extent that I weakly promised her secrecy before she told itto me. "I can't resist telling you," she said, "because it wouldn't befair of me to deprive you: it's far too much in your line." She evenflattered me: "You'd do it awfully well too, you know; but I have a sortof sentimental regard for her—not admiration, or anything of that kind,but an indefinite feeling that noblesse oblige. In her ownextraordinary way she did us a good turn, and however carefully youwrapped it up she might recognise her portrait and feel embarrassed.It's she that I'm thinking of, not Arthur. Arthur was too young at thetime to realize what was happening, and if he saw your picture of twowomen desperately fighting over the soul or body of a boy of seventeenwho resembled himself I doubt if he'd tumble to the portrait. He's adear transparently honest person like his father. Still, I don't want tohurt her, and so, if you want the story, you must gloat over it inprivate, and cherish it as an unwritten masterpiece. Probably if y

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