1 files changed, 2473 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/23419-0.txt b/23419-0.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7749df1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/23419-0.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,2473 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Return Of The Soul, by Robert S. Hichens
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Return Of The Soul
+       1896
+
+Author: Robert S. Hichens
+
+Release Date: November 8, 2007 [EBook #23419]
+Last Updated: December 17, 2016
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF THE SOUL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE RETURN OF THE SOUL
+
+By Robert S. Hichens
+
+1896
+
+    “I have been here before, But when, or how, I cannot tell!”
+
+    Rossetti.
+
+
+
+
+I.
+
+_Tuesday Night, November 3rd_.
+
+Theories! What is the good of theories? They are the scourges that lash
+our minds in modern days, lash them into confusion, perplexity, despair.
+I have never been troubled by them before. Why should I be troubled by
+them now? And the absurdity of Professor Black’s is surely obvious. A
+child would laugh at it. Yes, a child! I have never been a diary writer.
+I have never been able to understand the amusement of sitting down
+late at night and scrawling minutely in some hidden book every paltry
+incident of one’s paltry days. People say it is so interesting to read
+the entries years afterwards. To read, as a man, the _menu_ that I ate
+through as a boy, the love-story that I was actor in, the tragedy that I
+brought about, the debt that I have never paid--how could it profit me?
+To keep a diary has always seemed to me merely an addition to the ills
+of life. Yet now I have a hidden book, like the rest of the world, and I
+am scrawling in it to-day. Yes, but for a reason.
+
+I want to make things clear to myself, and I find, as others, that
+my mind works more easily with the assistance of the pen. The actual
+tracing of words on paper dispels the clouds that cluster round my
+thoughts. I shall recall events to set my mind at ease, to prove to
+myself how absurd a man who could believe in Professor Black would
+be. “Little Dry-as-dust” I used to call him ‘Dry’? He is full of wild
+romance, rubbish that a school-girl would be ashamed to believe in. Yet
+he is abnormally clever; his record proves that. Still, clever men are
+the first to be led astray, they say. It is the searcher who follows the
+wandering light. What he says can’t be true. When I have filled these
+pages, and read what I have written dispassionately, as one of the
+outside public might read, I shall have done, once for all, with the
+ridiculous fancies that are beginning to make my life a burden. To put
+my thoughts in order will make a music. The evil spirit within me will
+sleep, will die. I shall be cured. It must be so--it shall be so.
+
+To go back to the beginning. Ah! what a long time ago that seems! As a
+child I was cruel. Most boys are cruel, I think. My school companions
+were a merciless set--merciless to one another, to their masters when
+they had a chance, to animals, to birds. The desire to torture was
+in nearly all of them. They loved to bully, and if they bullied only
+mildly, it was from fear, not from love. They did not wish their
+boomerang to return and slay them. If a boy were deformed, they twitted
+him. If a master were kind, or gentle, or shy, they made his life as
+intolerable as they could. If an animal or a bird came into their power,
+they had no pity. I was like the rest; indeed, I think that I was worse.
+Cruelty is horrible. I have enough imagination to do more than know
+that--to feel it.
+
+Some say that it is lack of imagination which makes men and women
+brutes. May it not be power of imagination? The interest of torturing is
+lessened, is almost lost, if we can not be the tortured as well as the
+torturer.
+
+As a child I was cruel by nature, by instinct. I was a handsome,
+well-bred, gentlemanlike, gentle-looking little brute. My parents adored
+me, and I was good to them. They were so kind to me that I was almost
+fond of them. Why not? It seemed to me as politic to be fond of them as
+of anyone else. I did what I pleased, but I did not always let them
+know it; so I pleased them. The wise child will take care to foster
+the ignorance of its parents. My people were pretty well off, and I was
+their only child; but my chief chances of future pleasure in life were
+centred in my grandmother, my mother’s mother. She was immensely
+rich, and she lived here. This room in which I am writing now was her
+favourite sitting-room. On that hearth, before a log fire, such as is
+burning at this moment, used to sit that wonderful cat of hers--that
+horrible cat! Why did I ever play my childish cards to win this house,
+this place? Sometimes, lately--very lately only--I have wondered, like a
+fool perhaps. Yet would Professor Black say so? I remember, as a boy of
+sixteen, paying my last visit here to my grandmother. It bored me very
+much to come. But she was said to be near death, and death leaves great
+houses vacant for others to fill. So when my mother said that I had
+better come, and my father added that he thought my grandmother was
+fonder of me than of my other relations, I gave up all my boyish plans
+for the holidays with apparent willingness. Though almost a child, I was
+not short-sighted. I knew every boy had a future as well as a present. I
+gave up my plans, and came here with a smile; but in my heart I hated my
+grandmother for having power, and so bending me to relinquish pleasure
+for boredom. I hated her, and I came to her and kissed her, and saw her
+beautiful white Persian cat sitting before the fire in this room, and
+thought of the fellow who was my bosom friend, and with whom I longed
+to be, shooting, or fishing, or riding. And I looked at the cat again.
+I remember it began to purr when I went near to it. It sat quite still,
+with its blue eyes fixed upon the fire, but when I approached it I
+heard it purr complacently. I longed to kick it. The limitations of its
+ridiculous life satisfied it completely. It seemed to reproduce in an
+absurd, diminished way my grandmother in her white lace cap, with her
+white face and hands. She sat in her chair all day and looked at the
+fire. The cat sat on the hearthrug and did the same. The cat seemed to
+me the animal personification of the human being who kept me chained
+from all the sports and pleasures I had promised myself for the
+holidays. When I went near to the cat, and heard it calmly purring at
+me, I longed to do it an injury. It seemed to me as if it understood
+what my grandmother did not, and was complacently triumphing at my
+voluntary imprisonment with age, and laughing to itself at the pains
+men--and boys--will undergo for the sake of money. Brute! I did not love
+my grandmother, and she had money. I hated the cat utterly. It hadn’t a
+_sou!_
+
+This beautiful house is not old. My grandfather built it himself. He had
+no love for the life of towns, I believe, but was passionately in touch
+with nature, and, when a young man, he set out on a strange tour through
+England. His object was to find a perfect view, and in front of that
+view he intended to build himself a habitation. For nearly a year, so I
+have been told, he wandered through Scotland and England, and at last
+he came to this place in Cumberland, to this village, to this very spot.
+Here his wanderings ceased. Standing on the terrace--then uncultivated
+forest--that runs in front of these windows, he found at last what he
+desired. He bought the forest. He bought the windings of the river,
+the fields upon its banks, and on the extreme edge of the steep gorge
+through which it runs he built the lovely dwelling that to-day is mine.
+
+This place is no ordinary place. It is characteristic in the highest
+degree. The house is wonderfully situated, with the ground falling
+abruptly in front of it, the river forming almost a horseshoe round it.
+The woods are lovely. The garden, curiously, almost wildly, laid out, is
+like no other garden I ever saw. And the house, though not old, is full
+of little surprises, curiously shaped rooms, remarkable staircases,
+quaint recesses. The place is a place to remember. The house is a house
+to fix itself in the memory. Nothing that had once lived here could ever
+come back and forget that it had been here. Not even an animal--not even
+an animal.
+
+I wish I had never gone to that dinnerparty and met the Professor. There
+was a horror coming upon me then. He has hastened its steps. He has put
+my fears into shape, my vague wondering into words. Why cannot men leave
+life alone? Why will they catch it by the throat and wring its secrets
+from it? To respect reserve is one of the first instincts of the
+gentleman; and life is full of reserve.
+
+It is getting very late. I thought I heard a step in the house just
+now. I wonder--I wonder if _she_ is asleep. I wish I knew. Day after
+day passed by. My grandmother seemed to be failing, but almost
+imperceptibly. She evidently loved to have me near to her. Like most old
+dying people, in her mind she frantically clutched at life, that could
+give to her nothing more; and I believe she grew to regard me as the
+personification of all that was leaving her. My vitality warmed her. She
+extended her hands to my flaming hearthfire. She seemed trying to live
+in my life, and at length became afraid to let me out of her sight.
+One day she said to me, in her quavering, ugly voice--old voices are so
+ugly, like hideous echoes:
+
+“Ronald, I could never die while you were in the room. So long as you
+are with me, where I can touch you, I shall live.”
+
+And she put out her white, corrugated hand, and fondled my warm boy’s
+hand.
+
+How I longed to push her hand away, and get out into the sunlight and
+the air, and hear young voices, the voices of the morning, not of the
+twilight, and be away from wrinkled Death, that seemed sitting on the
+doorstep of that house huddled up like a beggar, waiting for the door to
+be opened!
+
+I was bored till I grew malignant. I confess it. And, feeling malignant,
+I began to long more and more passionately to vent myself on someone or
+something. I looked at the cat, which, as usual, was sitting before the
+fire.
+
+Animals have intuitions as keen as those of a woman, keener than those
+of a man. They inherit an instinct of fear of those who hate them from a
+long line of ancestors who have suffered at the hands of cruel men.
+They can tell by a look, by a motion, by the tone of a voice, whether
+to expect from anyone kindness or malignity. The cat had purred
+complacently on the first day of my arrival, and had hunched up her
+white, furry back towards my hand, and had smiled with her calm,
+light-blue eyes. Now, when I approached her, she seemed to gather
+herself together and to make herself small. She shrank from me. There
+was--as I fancied--a dawning comprehension, a dawning terror in her blue
+eyes. She always sat very close to my grandmother now, as if she sought
+protection, and she watched me as if she were watching for an intention
+which she apprehended to grow in my mind.
+
+And the intention came.
+
+For, as the days went on, and my grandmother still lived, I began to
+grow desperate. My holiday time was over now, but my parents wrote
+telling me to stay where I was, and not to think of returning to school.
+My grandmother had caused a letter to be sent to them in which she said
+that she could not part from me, and added that my parents would never
+have cause to regret interrupting my education for a time. “He will be
+paid in full for every moment he loses,” she wrote, referring to me.
+
+It seemed a strange taste in her to care so much for a boy, but she had
+never loved women, and I was handsome, and she liked handsome faces. The
+brutality in my nature was not written upon my features. I had smiling,
+frank brown eyes, a lithe young figure, a gay boy’s voice. My movements
+were quick, and I have always been told that my gestures were never
+awkward, my demeanour was never unfinished, as is the case so often with
+lads at school. Outwardly I was attractive; and the old woman, who had
+married two husbands merely for their looks, delighted in feeling that
+she had the power to retain me by her side at an age when most boys
+avoid old people as if they were the pestilence.
+
+And then I pretended to love her, and obeyed all her insufferably
+tiresome behests. But I longed to wreak vengeance upon her all the same.
+My dearest friend, the fellow with whom I was to have spent my holidays,
+was leaving at the end of this term which I was missing. He wrote to
+me furious letters, urging me to come back, and reproaching me for my
+selfishness and lack of affection.
+
+Each time I received one I looked at the cat, and the cat shrank nearer
+to my grandmother’s chair.
+
+It never purred now, and nothing would induce it to leave the room where
+she sat. One day the servant said to me:
+
+“I believe the poor dumb thing knows my mistress can’t last very much
+longer, sir. The way that cat looks up at her goes to my heart. Ah! them
+beasts understand things as well as we do, I believe.”
+
+I think the cat understood quite well. It did watch my grandmother in
+a very strange way, gazing up into her face, as if to mark the changing
+contours, the increasing lines, the down-droop of the features, that
+bespoke the gradual soft approach of death. It listened to the sound of
+her voice; and as, each day, the voice grew more vague, more weak and
+toneless, an anxiety that made me exult dawned and deepened in its blue
+eyes. Or so I thought.
+
+I had a great deal of morbid imagination at that age, and loved to weave
+a web of fancies, mostly horrible, around almost everything that entered
+into my life. It pleased me to believe that the cat understood each new
+intention that came into my mind, read me silently from its place
+near the fire, tracked my thoughts, and was terror-stricken as they
+concentrated themselves round a definite resolve, which hardened and
+toughened day by day.
+
+It pleased me to believe, do I say? I did really believe, and do believe
+now, that the cat understood all, and grew haggard with fear as my
+grandmother failed visibly. For it knew what the end would mean for it.
+
+That first day of my arrival, when I saw my grandmother in her white
+cap, with her white face and hands, and the big white cat sitting
+near to her, I had thought there was a similarity between them. That
+similarity struck me more forcibly, grew upon me, as my time in the
+house grew longer, until the latter seemed almost a reproduction of
+the former, and after each letter from my friend my hate for the two
+increased. But my hate for my grandmother was impotent, and would always
+be so. I could never repay her for the _ennui_, the furious, forced
+inactivity which made my life a burden, and spurred my bad passions
+while they lulled me in a terrible, enforced repose. I could repay her
+favourite, the thing she had always cherished, her feline confidant,
+who lived in safety under the shadow of her protection. I could wreak my
+fury on that when the protection was withdrawn, as it must be at last.
+It seemed to my brutal, imaginative, unfinished boy’s mind that the
+murder of her pet must hurt and wound my grandmother even after she was
+dead. I would make her suffer then, when she was impotent to wreak a
+vengeance upon me. I would kill the cat.
+
+The creature knew my resolve the day I made it, and had even, I should
+say, anticipated it.
+
+As I sat day after day beside my grandmother’s armchair in the dim room,
+with the blinds drawn to shut out the summer sunlight, and talked to her
+in a subdued and reverent voice, agreeing with all the old banalities
+she uttered, all the preposterous opinions she propounded, all the
+commands she laid upon me, I gazed beyond her at the cat, and the
+creature was haggard with apprehension.
+
+It knew, as I knew, that its day was coming. Sometimes I bent down and
+took it up on my lap to please my grandmother, and praised its beauty
+and its gentleness to her And all the time I felt its warm, furry body
+trembling with horror between my hands. This pleased me, and I pretended
+that I was never happy unless it was on my knees. I kept it there for
+hours, stroking it so tenderly, smoothing its thick white coat, which
+was always in the most perfect order, talking to it, caressing it.
+
+And sometimes I took its head between my two hands, turned its face to
+mine, and stared into its large blue eyes. Then I could read all its
+agony, all its torture of apprehension: and in spite of my friend’s
+letters, and the dulness of my days, I was almost happy.
+
+The summer was deepening, the glow of the roses flushed the garden ways,
+the skies were clear above Scawfell, when the end at last drew near.
+My grandmother’s face was now scarcely recognizable. The eyes were sunk
+deep in her head. All expression seemed to fade gradually away. Her
+cheeks were no longer fine ivory white; a dull, sickening, yellow pallor
+overspread them. She seldom looked at me now, but rested entombed in her
+great armchair, her shrunken limbs seeming to tend downwards, as if she
+were inclined to slide to the floor and die there. Her lips were thin
+and dry, and moved perpetually in a silent chattering, as if her mind
+were talking and her voice were already dead. The tide of life was
+retreating from her body. I could almost see it visibly ebb away. The
+failing waves made no sound upon the shore. Death is uncanny, like all
+silent things.
+
+Her maid wished her to stay entirely in bed, but she would get up,
+muttering that she was well; and the doctor said it was useless to
+hinder her. She had no specific disease. Only the years were taking
+their last toll of her. So she was placed in her chair each day by the
+fire, and sat there till evening, muttering with those dry lips. The
+stiff folds of her silken skirts formed an angle, and there the cat
+crouched hour after hour, a silent, white, waiting thing.
+
+And the waves ebbed and ebbed away, and I waited too.
+
+One afternoon, as I sat by my grandmother, the servant entered with
+a letter for me just arrived by the post. I took it up. It was from
+Willoughby, my school-friend. He said the term was over, that he had
+left school, and his father had decided to send him out to America to
+start in business in New York, instead of entering him at Oxford as he
+had hoped. He bade me good-bye, and said he supposed we should not meet
+again for years; “but,” he added, “no doubt you won’t care a straw, so
+long as you get the confounded money you’re after. You’ve taught me one
+of the lessons of life, young Ronald--never to believe in friendship.”
+
+As I read the letter I set my teeth. All that was good in my nature
+centred round Willoughby. He was a really fine fellow. I honestly and
+truly loved him. His news gave me a bitter shock, and turned my heart to
+iron and to fire. Perhaps I should never see him again; even if I did,
+time would have changed him, seared him--my friend, in his wonderful
+youth, with the morning in his eyes, would be no more. I hated myself in
+that moment for having stayed; I hated still more her who had kept me.
+For the moment I was carried out of myself. I crushed the letter up in
+my burning hand. I turned fiercely round upon that yellow, enigmatic,
+dying figure in the great chair. All the fury, locked within my heart
+for so long, rose to the surface, and drove self-interest away. I turned
+upon my grandmother with blazing eyes and trembling limbs. I opened my
+mouth to utter a torrent of reproachful words, when--what was it?--what
+slight change had stolen into the wrinkled, yellow face? I bent over
+her. The eyes gazed at me, but so horribly! She sat so low in her chair;
+she looked so fearful, so very strange. I put my fingers on her eyelids;
+I drew them down over the eyeballs: they did not open again. I felt her
+withered hands: they were ice. Then I knew, and I felt myself smiling. I
+leaned over the dead woman. There, on the far side of her, crouched the
+cat. Its white fur was all bristling; its blue eyes were dilated; on its
+jaws there were flecks of foam.
+
+I leaned over the dead woman and took it in my arms.
+
+*****
+
+That was nearly twenty years ago, and yet to-night the memory of that
+moment, and what followed it, bring a fear to my heart which I must
+combat. I have read of men who lived for long spaces of time haunted
+by demons created by their imagination, and I have laughed at them and
+pitied them. Surely I am not going to join in their folly, in their
+madness, led to the gates of terror by my own fancies, half-confirmed,
+apparently, by the chance utterances of a conceited Professor--a man of
+fads, although a man of science.
+
+That was twenty years ago. After to-night let me forget it. After
+to-night, do I say? Hark! the birds are twittering in the dew outside.
+The pale, early sun-shafts strike over the moors. And I am tired.
+To-morrow night I will finish this wrestle with my own folly; I will
+give the _coup de grâce_ to my imagination.. But no more now. My brain
+is not calm, and I will not write in excitement.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+_Wednesday Night, November 4th_.
+
+Margot has gone to bed at last, and I am alone. This has been a horrible
+day--horrible; but I will not dwell upon it.
+
+After the death of my grandmother, I went back to school again. But
+Willoughby was gone, and he could not forgive me. He wrote to me once or
+twice from New York, and then I ceased to hear from him. He died out of
+my life. His affection for me had evidently declined from the day when
+he took it into his head that I was only a money-grubber, like the
+rest of the world, and that the Jew instinct had developed in me at an
+abnormally early age. I let him go. What did it matter? But I was always
+glad that I had been cruel on the day my grandmother died. I never
+repented of what I did--never. If I had, I might be happier now.
+
+I went back to school. I studied, played, got into mischief and out of
+it again, like other boys; but in my life there seemed to be an eternal
+coldness, that I alone, perhaps, was conscious of. My deed of cruelty,
+of brutal revenge on the thing that had never done me injury, had
+seared my soul. I was not sorry, but t could not forget; and sometimes
+I thought--how ridiculous it looks written down!--that there was a power
+hidden somewhere which could not forget either, and that a penalty might
+have to be paid. Because a creature is dumb, must its soul die when it
+dies? Is not the soul, perhaps--as _he_ said--a wanderer through many
+bodies?
+
+But if I did not kill a soul, as I killed a body, the day my grandmother
+died, where is that soul now? That is what I want to arrive at, that is
+what I must arrive at, if I am to be happy.
+
+I went back to school, and I passed to Oxford. I tasted the strange,
+unique life of a university, narrow, yet pulsating, where the youth,
+that is so green and springing, tries to arm itself for the battle with
+the weapons forged by the dead and sharpened by the more elderly among
+the living. I did well there, and I passed on into the world. And then
+at last I began to understand the value of my inheritance; for all that
+had been my grandmother’s was now mine. My people wished me to marry,
+but I had no desire to fetter myself. So I took the sponge in my strong,
+young hands, and tried to squeeze it dry. And I did not know that I was
+sad--I did not know it until, at the age of thirty-three, just seventeen
+years after my grandmother died, I understood the sort of thing
+happiness is. Of course, it was love that brought to me understanding.
+I need not explain that. I had often played on love; now love began to
+play on me. I trembled at the harmonies his hands evoked.
+
+I met a young girl, very young, just on the verge of life and of
+womanhood. She was seventeen when I first saw her, and she was valsing
+at a big ball in London--her first ball. She passed me in the crowd
+of dancers, and I noticed her. As she was a _debutante_ her dress was
+naturally snow-white. There was no touch of colour about it--not a
+flower, not a jewel. Her hair was the palest yellow I had almost ever
+seen--the colour of an early primrose. Naturally fluffy, it nearly
+concealed the white riband that ran through it, and clustered in
+tendrils and tiny natural curls upon her neck. Her skin was whiter than
+ivory--a clear, luminous white. Her eyes were very large and china-blue
+in colour.
+
+This young girl dancing passed and repassed me, and my glance rested
+on her idly, even cynically. For she seemed so happy, and at that time
+happiness won my languid wonder, if ingenuously exhibited. To be happy
+seemed almost to be mindless. But by degrees I found myself watching
+this girl, and more closely. Another dance began. She joined it with
+another partner. But she seemed just as pleased with him as with her
+former one. She would not let him pause to rest; she kept him dancing
+all the time, her youth and freshness spoken in that gentle compelling.
+I grew interested in her, even acutely so. She seemed to me like the
+spirit of youth dancing over the body of Time. I resolved to know her. I
+felt weary; I thought she might revive me. The dance drew to an end,
+and I approached my hostess, pointed the girl out, and asked for an
+introduction. Her name was Margot Magendie, I found, and she was an
+heiress as well as a beauty.
+
+I did not care. It was her humanity that drew me, nothing else.
+
+But; strange to say, when the moment for the introduction arrived, and I
+stood face to face with Miss Magendie, I felt an extraordinary shrinking
+from her. I have never been able to understand it, but my blood ran
+cold, and my pulses almost ceased to beat. I would have avoided her; an
+instinct within me seemed suddenly to cry out against her. But it was
+too late: the introduction was effected; her hand rested on my arm.
+
+I was actually trembling. She did not appear to notice it. The band
+played a valse, and the inexplicable horror that had seized me lost
+itself in the gay music. It never returned until lately.
+
+I seldom enjoyed a valse more. Our steps suited so perfectly, and her
+obvious childish pleasure communicated itself to me. The spirit of youth
+in her knocked on my rather jaded heart, and I opened to it. That was
+beautiful and strange. I talked with her, and I felt myself younger,
+ingenuous rather than cynical, inclined even to a radiant, though
+foolish, optimism. She was very natural, very imperfect in worldly
+education, full of fragmentary but decisive views on life, quite
+unabashed in giving them forth, quite inconsiderate in summoning my
+adherence to them.
+
+And then, presently, as we sat in a dim corridor under a rosy hanging
+lamp, in saying something she looked, with her great blue eyes, right
+into my face. Some very faint recollection awoke and stirred in my mind.
+
+“Surely,” I said hesitatingly--“surely I have seen you before? It seems
+to me that I remember your eyes.”
+
+As I spoke I was thinking hard, chasing the vagrant recollection that
+eluded me.
+
+She smiled.
+
+“You don’t remember my face?”
+
+“No, not at all.”
+
+“Nor I yours. If we had seen each other, surely we should recollect it.”
+
+Then she blushed, suddenly realizing that her words implied, perhaps,
+more than she had meant. I did not pay the obvious compliment. Those
+blue eyes and something in their expression moved me strangely; but I
+could not tell why. When I said good-bye to her that night, I asked to
+be allowed to call.
+
+She assented.
+
+That was the beginning of a very beautiful courtship, which gave a
+colour to life, a music to existence, a meaning to every slightest
+sensation.
+
+And was it love that laid to sleep recollection, that sang a lullaby to
+awakening horror, and strewed poppies over it till it sighed itself into
+slumber? Was it love that drowned my mind in deep and charmed waters,
+binding the strange powers that every mind possesses in flowery garlands
+stronger than any fetters of iron? Was it love that, calling up dreams,
+alienated my thoughts from their search after reality?
+
+I hardly know. I only know that I grew to love Margot, and only looked
+for love in her blue eyes, not for any deed of the past that might be
+mirrored there.
+
+And I made her love me.
+
+She gave her child’s heart to my keeping with a perfect confidence
+that only a perfect affection could engender. She did love me then. No
+circumstances of to-day can break that fact under their hammers. She
+did love me, and it is the knowledge that she did which gives so much of
+fear to me now.
+
+For great changes in the human mind are terrible. As we realize them we
+realize the limitless possibilities of sinister deeds that lie hidden in
+every human being. A little child that loves a doll can become an old,
+crafty, secret murderer. How horrible!
+
+And perhaps it is still more horrible to think that, while the human
+envelope remains totally unchanged, every word of the letter within may
+become altered, and a message of peace fade into a sentence of death.
+
+Margot’s face is the same face now as it was when I married
+her--scarcely older, certainly not less beautiful. Only the expression
+of the eyes has changed.
+
+For we were married. After a year of love-making, which never tired
+either of us, we elected to bind ourselves, to fuse the two into one.
+
+We went abroad for the honeymoon, and, instead of shortening it to the
+fashionable fortnight, we travelled for nearly six months, and were
+happy all the time.
+
+Boredom never set in. Margot had a beautiful mind as well as a beautiful
+face. She softened me through my affection. The current of my life began
+to set in a different direction. I turned the pages of a book of pity
+and of death more beautiful than that of Pierre Loti. I could hear at
+last the great cry for sympathy, which is the music of this strange
+suffering world, and, listening to it, in my heart there rang an echo.
+The cruelty in my nature seemed to shrivel up. I was more gentle than I
+had been, more gentle than I had thought I could ever be.
+
+At last, in the late spring, we started for home. We stayed for a week
+in London, and then we travelled north. Margot had never seen her
+future home, had never even been in Cumberland before. She was full
+of excitement and happiness, a veritable child in the ready and ardent
+expression of her feelings. The station is several miles from the house,
+and is on the edge of the sea. When the train pulled up at the wayside
+platform the day drew towards sunset, and the flat levels of the beach
+shone with a rich, liquid, amber light. In the distance the sea was
+tossing and tumbling, whipped into foam by a fresh wind. The Isle of Man
+lay far away, dark, mysterious, under a stack of bellying white clouds,
+just beginning to be tinged with the faintest rose.
+
+Margot found the scene beautiful, the wind life-giving, the flat
+sand-banks, the shining levels, even the dry, spiky grass that fluttered
+in the breeze, fascinating and refreshing.
+
+“I feel near the heart of Nature in a place like this,” she said,
+looking up at a seagull that hovered over the little platform, crying to
+the wind on which it hung.
+
+The train stole off along the edge of the sands, till we could see only
+the white streamer of its smoke trailing towards the sun. We turned away
+from the sea, got into the carriage that was waiting for us, and set
+our faces inland. The ocean was blotted out by the low grass and
+heather-covered banks that divided the fields. Presently we plunged into
+woods. The road descended sharply. A village, an abruptly winding river
+sprang into sight.
+
+We were on my land. We passed the inn, the Rainwood Arms, named after
+my grandfather’s family. The people whom we met stared curiously and
+saluted in rustic fashion.
+
+Margot was full of excitement and pleasure, and talked incessantly,
+holding my hand tightly in hers and asking a thousand questions. Passing
+through the village, we mounted a hill towards a thick grove of trees.
+
+“The house stands among them,” I said, pointing.
+
+She sprang up eagerly in the carriage to find it, but it was hidden.
+
+We dashed through the gate into the momentary darkness of the drive,
+emerged between great green lawns, and drew up before the big doorway of
+the hall. I looked into her eyes, and said “Welcome!”
+
+She only smiled in answer.
+
+I would not let her enter the house immediately, but made her come with
+me to the terrace above the river, to see the view over the Cumbrian
+mountains and the moors of Eskdale.
+
+The sky was very clear and pale, but over Styhead the clouds were
+boiling up. The Screes that guard ebon Wastwater looked grim and sad.
+
+Margot stood beside me on the terrace, but her chatter had been
+succeeded by silence. And I, too, was silent for the moment, absorbed in
+contemplation. But presently I turned to her, wishing to see how she was
+impressed by her new domain.
+
+She was not looking towards the river and the hills, but at the terrace
+walk itself, the band of emerald turf that bordered it, the stone pots
+full of flowers, the winding way that led into the shrubbery.
+
+She was looking at these intently, and with a strangely puzzled, almost
+startled expression.
+
+“Hush! Don’t speak to me for a moment,” she said, as I opened my lips.
+“Don’t; I want to---- How odd this is!”
+
+And she gazed up at the windows of the house, at the creepers that
+climbed its walls, at the sloping roof and the irregular chimney-stacks.
+
+Her lips were slightly parted, and her eyes were full of an inward
+expression that told me she was struggling with forgetfulness and
+desired recollection.
+
+I was silent, wondering.
+
+At last she said: “Ronald, I have never been in the North of England
+before, never set foot in Cumberland; yet I seem to know this terrace
+walk, those very flower-pots, the garden, the look of that roof, those
+chimneys, even the slanting way in which that great creeper climbs. Is
+it not--is it not very strange?”
+
+She gazed up at me, and in her blue eyes there was an expression almost
+of fear.
+
+I smiled down on her. “It must be your fancy,” I said.
+
+“It does not seem so,” she replied. “I feel as if I had been here
+before, and often, or for a long time.” She paused; then she said: “Do
+let me go into the house. There ought to be a room there--a room--I seem
+almost to see it. Come! Let us go in.”
+
+She took my hand and drew me towards the hall door. The servants were
+carrying in the luggage, and there was a certain amount of confusion and
+noise, but she did not seem to notice it. She was intent on something; I
+could not tell what.
+
+“Do show me the house, Ronald--the drawing-room, and--and--there is
+another room I wish to see.”
+
+“You shall see them all, dear,” I said. “You are excited. It is natural
+enough. This is the drawing-room.”
+
+She glanced round it hastily.
+
+“And now the others!” she exclaimed.
+
+I took her to the dining-room, the library, and the various apartments
+on the ground-floor.
+
+She scarcely looked at them. When we had finished exploring, “Are these
+all?” she asked, with a wavering accent of disappointment.
+
+“All,” I answered.
+
+“Then--show me the rooms upstairs.”
+
+We ascended the shallow oak steps, and passed first into the apartment
+in which my grandmother had died.
+
+It had been done up since then, refurnished, and almost completely
+altered. Only the wide fireplace, with its brass dogs and its heavy
+oaken mantelpiece, had been left untouched.
+
+Margot glanced hastily round. Then she walked up to the fireplace, and
+drew a long breath.
+
+“There ought to be a fire here,” she said.
+
+“But it is summer,” I answered, wondering.
+
+“And a chair there,” she went on, in a curious low voice, indicating--I
+think now, or is it my imagination?--the very spot where my grandmother
+was wont to sit. “Yes--I seem to remember, and yet not to remember.”
+
+She looked at me, and her white brows were knit.
+
+Suddenly she said: “Ronald, I don’t think I like this room. There is
+something--I don’t know--I don’t think I could sit here; and I seem to
+remember--something about it, as I did about the terrace. What can it
+mean?”
+
+“It means that you are tired and overexcited, darling. Your nerves are
+too highly strung, and nerves play us strange tricks. Come to your own
+room and take off your things, and when you have had some tea, you will
+be all right again.”
+
+Yes, I was fool enough to believe that tea was the panacea for an
+undreamed-of, a then unimaginable, evil.
+
+I thought Margot was simply an overtired and imaginative child that
+evening. If I could believe so now!
+
+We went up into her boudoir and had tea, and she grew more like
+herself; but several times that night I observed her looking puzzled and
+thoughtful, and a certain expression of anxiety shone in her blue eyes
+that was new to them then.
+
+But I thought nothing of it, and I was-happy. Two or three days
+passed, and Mar-got did not again refer to her curious sensation of
+pre-knowledge of the house and garden. I fancied there was a slight
+alteration in her manner; that was all. She seemed a little restless.
+Her vivacity flagged now and then. She was more willing to be alone than
+she had been. But we were old married folk now, and could not be always
+in each other’s sight. I had a great many people connected with the
+estate to see, and had to gather up the tangled threads of many affairs.
+
+The honeymoon was over. Of course we could not always be together.
+
+Still, I should have wished Margot to desire it, and I could not hide
+from myself that now and then she scarcely concealed a slight impatience
+to be left in solitude. This troubled me, but only a little, for she was
+generally as fond as ever. That evening, however, an incident occurred
+which rendered me decidedly uneasy, and made me wonder if my wife were
+not inclined to that curse of highly-strung women--hysteria!
+
+I had been riding over the moors to visit a tenant-farmer who lived at
+some distance, and did not return until twilight. Dismounting, I let
+myself into the house, traversed the hall, and ascended the stairs. As I
+wore spurs, and the steps were of polished oak and uncarpeted, I walked
+noisily enough to warn anyone of my approach. I was passing the door
+of the room that had been my grandmother’s sitting-room, when I noticed
+that it stood open. The house was rather dark, and the interior was dim
+enough, but I could see a figure in a white dress moving about inside.
+I recognised Margot, and wondered what she was doing, but her movements
+were so singular that, instead of speaking to her, I stood in the
+doorway and watched her.
+
+She was walking, with a very peculiar, stealthy step, around the room,
+not as if she were looking for anything, but merely as if she were
+restless or ill at ease. But what struck me forcibly was this, that
+there was something curiously animal in her movements, seen thus in a
+dim half-light that only partially revealed her to me. I had never
+seen a woman walk in that strangely wild yet soft way before. There was
+something uncanny about it, that rendered me extremely discomforted; yet
+I was quite fascinated, and rooted to the ground.
+
+I cannot tell how long I stood there. I was so completely absorbed in
+the passion of the gazer that the passage of time did not concern me
+in the least. I was as one assisting at a strange spectacle. This white
+thing moving in the dark did not suggest my wife to me, although it
+was she. I might have been watching an animal, vague, yet purposeful of
+mind, tracing out some hidden thing, following out some instinct quite
+foreign to humanity. I remember that presently I involuntarily clasped
+my hands together, and felt that they were very cold. Perspiration broke
+out on my face. I was painfully, unnaturally moved, and a violent desire
+to be away from this white moving thing came over me. Walking as softly
+as I could, I went to my dressing-room, shut the door, and sat down on a
+chair. I never remember to have felt thoroughly unnerved before, but now
+I found myself actually shaken, palsied. I could understand how deadly
+a thing fear is. I lit a candle hastily, and as I did so a knock came to
+the door.
+
+Margot’s voice said, “May I come in?” I felt unable to reply, so I got
+up and admitted her.
+
+She entered smiling, and looking such a child, so innocent, so tender,
+that I almost laughed aloud. That I, a man, should have been frightened
+by a child in a white dress, just because the twilight cast a phantom
+atmosphere around her! I held her in my arms, and I gazed into her blue
+eyes.
+
+She looked down, but still smiled.
+
+“Where have you been, and what have you been doing?” I asked gaily.
+
+She answered that she had been in the drawing-room since tea-time.
+
+“You came here straight from the drawing-room?” I said.
+
+She replied, “Yes.”
+
+Then, with an indifferent air which hid real anxiety, I said:
+
+“By the way, Margot, have you been into that room again--the room you
+fancied you recollected?”
+
+“No, never,” she answered, withdrawing herself from my arms. “I
+don’t wish to go there. Make haste, Ronald, and dress. It is nearly
+dinner-time, and I am ready.” And she turned and left me.
+
+She had told me a lie. All my feelings of uneasiness and discomfort
+returned tenfold.
+
+That evening was the most wretched one, the only wretched one, I had
+ever spent with her.
+
+*****
+
+I am tired of writing. I will continue my task to-morrow. It takes me
+longer than I anticipated. Yet even to tell everything to myself brings
+me some comfort. Man must express himself; and despair must find a
+voice.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+_Thursday Night, December 5th_.
+
+That lie awoke in me suspicion of the child I had married. I began to
+doubt her, yet never ceased to love her. She had all my heart, and must
+have it till the end. But the calm of love was to be succeeded by love’s
+tumult and agony. A strangeness was creeping over Margot. It was as if
+she took a thin veil in her hands, and drew it over and all around her,
+till the outlines I had known were slightly blurred. Her disposition,
+which had been so clear cut, so sharply, beautifully defined, standing
+out in its innocent glory for all men to see, seemed to withdraw itself,
+as if a dawning necessity for secrecy had arisen. A thin crust of
+reserve began to subtly overspread her every act and expression. She
+thought now before she spoke; she thought before she looked. It seemed
+to me that she was becoming a slightly different person.
+
+The change I mean to imply is very difficult to describe. It was not
+abrupt enough to startle, but I could feel it, slight though it was.
+Have you seen the first flat film of waveless water, sent by the
+incoming tides of the sea, crawling silently up over the wrinkled brown
+sand, and filling the tiny ruts, till diminutive hills and valleys are
+all one smooth surface? So it was with Margot. A tide flowed over her
+character, a waveless tide of reserve. The hills and valleys which I
+loved disappeared from my ken. Behind the old sweet smile, the old frank
+expression, my wife was shrinking down to hide herself, as one escaping
+from pursuit hides behind a barrier. When one human being knows another
+very intimately, and all the barricades that divide soul from soul have
+been broken down, it is difficult to set them up again without noise and
+dust, and the sound of thrust-in bolts, and the tap of the hammer that
+drives in the nails. It is difficult, but not impossible. Barricades
+can be raised noiselessly, soundless bolts--that keep out the soul--be
+pushed home. The black gauze veil that blots out the scene drops, and
+when it is raised--if ever--the scene is changed.
+
+The real Margot was receding from me. I felt it with an impotence of
+despair that was benumbing. Yet I could not speak of it, for at first I
+could hardly tell if she knew of what was taking place. Indeed, at this
+moment, in thinking it over, I do not believe that for some time she had
+any definite cognisance of the fact that she was growing to love me
+less passionately than of old. In acts she was not changed. That was the
+strange part of the matter. Her kisses were warm, but I believed them
+premeditated. She clasped my hand in hers, but now there was more
+mechanism than magic in that act of tenderness. Impulse failed within
+her; and she had been all impulse? Did she know it? At that time I
+wondered. Believing that she did not know she was changing, I was at the
+greatest pains to guard my conduct, lest I should implant the suspicion
+that might hasten what I feared. I remained, desperately, the same as
+ever, and so, of course, was not the same, for a deed done defiantly
+bears little resemblance to a deed done naturally. I was always
+considering what I should say, how I should act, even how I should
+look. To live now was sedulous instead of easy. Effort took the place
+of simplicity. My wife and I were gazing furtively at each other through
+the eye-holes of masks. I knew it. Did she?
+
+At that time I never ceased to wonder. Of one thing I was certain,
+however--that Margot began to devise excuses for being left alone. When
+we first came home she could hardly endure me out of her sight. Now she
+grew to appreciate solitude. This was a terrible danger signal, and I
+could not fail to so regard it.
+
+Yet something within me held me back from speaking out. I made no
+comment on the change that deepened day by day, but I watched my wife
+furtively, with a concentration of attention that sometimes left me
+physically exhausted. I felt, too, at length, that I was growing morbid,
+that suspicion coloured my mind and caused me, perhaps, to put a wrong
+interpretation on many of her actions, to exaggerate and misconstrue
+the most simple things she did. I began to believe her every look
+premeditated. Even if she kissed me, I thought she did it with a
+purpose; if she smiled up at me as of old, I fancied the smile to be
+only a concealment of its opposite. By degrees we became shy of each
+other. We were like uncongenial intimates, forced to occupy the same
+house, forced into a fearful knowledge of each other’s personal habits,
+while we knew nothing of the thoughts that make up the true lives of
+individuals.
+
+And then another incident occurred, a pendant to the incident of
+Margot’s strange denied visit to the room she affected to fear. It was
+one night, one deep dark night of the autumn--a season to affect even a
+cheerful mind and incline it towards melancholy. Margot and I were now
+often silent when we were together. That evening, towards nine, a dull
+steady rain set in. I remember I heard it on the window-panes as we sat
+in the drawing-room after dinner, and remarked on it, saying to her that
+if it continued for two or three days she might chance to see the floods
+out, and that fishermen would descend upon us by the score.
+
+I did not obtain much response from her. The dreariness of the weather
+seemed to affect her spirits. She took up a book presently, and appeared
+to read; but, once in glancing up suddenly from my newspaper, I thought
+I caught her gaze fixed fearfully upon me. It seemed to me that she was
+looking furtively at me with an absolute terror. I was so much affected
+that I made some excuse for leaving the room, went down to my den, lit
+a cigar, and walked uneasily up and down, listening to the rain on the
+window. At ten Margot came in to tell me she was going to bed. I wished
+her good-night tenderly, but as I held her slim body a moment in my arms
+I felt that she began to tremble. I let her go, and she slipped from
+the room with the soft, cushioned step that was habitual with her. And,
+strangely enough, my thoughts recurred to the day, long ago, when I
+first held the great white cat on my knees, and felt its body shrink
+from my touch with a nameless horror. The uneasy movement of the woman
+recalled to me so strongly and so strangely the uneasy movement of the
+animal.
+
+I lit a second cigar. It was near midnight when it was smoked out, and I
+turned down the lamp and went softly up to bed. I undressed in the room
+adjoining my wife’s, and then stole into hers. She was sleeping in the
+wide white bed rather uneasily, and as I leaned over her, shading the
+candle flame with my outspread hand, she muttered some broken words that
+I could not catch. I had never heard her talk in her dreams before. I
+lay down gently at her side and extinguished the candle.
+
+But sleep did not come to me. The dull, dead silence weighed upon
+instead of soothing me. My mind was terribly alive, in a ferment;
+and the contrast between my own excitement and the hushed peace of my
+environment was painful, was almost unbearable. I wished that a wind
+from the mountains were beating against the window-panes, and the
+rain lashing the house in fury. The black calm around was horrible,
+unnatural. The drizzling rain was now so small that I could not even
+hear its patter when I strained my ears. Margot had ceased to mutter,
+and lay perfectly still. How I longed to be able to read the soul hidden
+in her sleeping body, to unravel the mystery of the mind which I had
+once understood so perfectly! It is so horrible that we can never open
+the human envelope, take out the letter, and seize with our eyes upon
+its every word. Margot slept with all her secrets safeguarded, although
+she was unconscious, no longer watchful, on the alert. She was so
+silent, even her quiet breathing not reaching my ear, that I felt
+impelled to stretch out my hand beneath the coverlet and touch hers ever
+so softly. I did so.
+
+Her hand was instantly and silently withdrawn. She was awake, then.
+
+“Margot,” I said, “did I disturb you?”
+
+There was no answer.
+
+The movement, followed by the silence, affected me very disagreeably.
+
+I lit the candle and looked at her. She was lying on the extreme edge
+of the bed, with her blue eyes closed. Her lips were slightly parted. I
+could hear her steady breathing. Yet was she really sleeping?
+
+I bent lower over her, and as I did so a slight, involuntary movement,
+akin to what we call a shudder, ran through her body. I recoiled from
+the bed. An impotent anger seized me. Could it be that my presence was
+becoming so hateful to my wife that even in sleep her body trembled when
+I drew near it? Or was this slumber feigned? I could not tell, but I
+felt it impossible at that moment to remain in the room. I returned to
+my own, dressed, and descended the stairs to the door opening on to the
+terrace. I felt a longing to be out in the air. The atmosphere of the
+house was stifling.
+
+Was it coming to this, then? Did I, a man, shrink with a fantastic
+cowardice from a woman I loved? The latent cruelty began to stir within
+me, the tyrant spirit which a strong love sometimes evokes. I had been
+Margot’s slave almost. My affection had brought me to her feet, had
+kept me there. So long as she loved me I was content to be her captive,
+knowing she was mine. But a change in her attitude toward me might rouse
+the master. In my nature there was a certain brutality, a savagery,
+which I had never wholly slain, although Margot had softened me
+wonderfully by her softness, had brought me to gentleness by her
+tenderness. The boy of years ago had developed toward better things, but
+he was not dead in me. I felt that as I walked up and down the terrace
+through the night in a wild meditation. If my love could not hold
+Margot, my strength should.
+
+I drew in a long breath of the wet night air, and I opened my shoulders
+as if shaking off an oppression. My passion for Margot had not yet drawn
+me down to weakness; it had raised me up to strength. The faint fear
+of her, which I had felt almost without knowing it more than once, died
+within me. The desire of the conqueror elevated me. There was something
+for me to win. My paralysis passed away, and I turned toward the house.
+
+And now a strange thing happened. I walked into the dark hall, closed
+the outer door, shutting out the dull murmur of the night, and felt in
+my pocket for my matchbox. It was not there. I must inadvertently have
+laid it down in my dressing-room and left it. I searched about in the
+darkness on the hall table, but could find no light. There was nothing
+for it, then, but to feel my way upstairs as best I could.
+
+I started, keeping my hand against the wall to guide me. I gained the
+top of the stairs, and began to traverse the landing, still with my hand
+upon the wall. To reach my dressing-room I had to pass the apartment
+which had been my grandmother’s sitting-room.
+
+When I reached it, instead of sliding along a closed door, as I had
+anticipated, my hand dropped into vacancy.
+
+The door was wide open. It had been shut, like all the other doors
+in the house, when I had descended the stairs--shut and locked, as it
+always was at night-time. Why was it open now?
+
+I paused in the darkness. And then an impulse seized me to walk forward
+into the room. I advanced a step; but, as I did so, a horrible low cry
+broke upon my ears out of the darkness. It came from immediately in
+front of me, and sounded like an expression of the most abject fear.
+
+My feet rooted themselves to the ground.
+
+“Who’s there?” I asked.
+
+There came no answer.
+
+I listened for a moment, but did not hear the minutest sound. The desire
+for light was overpowering. I generally did my writing in this room,
+and knew the exact whereabouts of everything in it. I knew that on the
+writing-table there was a silver box containing wax matches. It lay on
+the left of my desk. I moved another step forward.
+
+There was the sound of a slight rustle, as if someone shrank back as I
+advanced.
+
+I laid my hand quickly on the box, opened it, and struck a light. The
+room was vaguely illuminated. I saw something white at the far end,
+against the wall. I put the match to a candle.
+
+The white thing was Margot. She was in her dressing-gown, and was
+crouched up in an angle of the wall as far away from where I stood
+as possible. Her blue eyes were wide open, and fixed upon me with an
+expression of such intense and hideous fear in them that I almost cried
+out.
+
+“Margot, what is the matter?” I said. “Are you ill?”
+
+She made no reply. Her face terrified me.
+
+“What is it, Margot?” I cried in a loud, almost harsh voice, determined
+to rouse her from this horrible, unnatural silence. “What are you doing
+here?”
+
+I moved towards her. I stretched out my hands and seized her. As I did
+so, a sort of sob burst from her. Her hands were cold and trembling.
+
+“What is it? What has frightened you?” I reiterated.
+
+At last she spoke in a low voice.
+
+“You--you looked so strange, so--so cruel as you came in,” she said.
+
+“Strange! Cruel! But you could not see me. It was dark,” I answered.
+
+“Dark!” she said.
+
+“Yes, until I lit the candle. And you cried out when I was only in the
+doorway. You could not see me there.”
+
+“Why not? What has that got to do with it?” she murmured, still
+trembling violently.
+
+“You can see me in the dark?”
+
+“Of course,” she said. “I don’t understand what you mean. Of course I
+can see you when you are there before my eyes.”
+
+“But----” I began; and then her obvious and complete surprise at my
+questions stopped them. I still held her hands in mine, and their
+extreme coldness roused me to the remembrance that she was unclothed.
+
+“You will be ill if you stay here,” I said. “Come back to your room.”
+
+She said nothing, and I led her back, waited while she got into bed, and
+then, placing the candle on the dressing-table, sat down in a chair by
+her side.
+
+The strong determination to take prompt action, to come to an
+explanation, to end these dreary mysteries of mind and conduct, was
+still upon me.
+
+I did not think of the strange hour; I did not care that the night was
+gliding on towards dawn. I was self-absorbed. I was beyond ordinary
+considerations.
+
+Yet I did not speak immediately. I was trying to be quite calm, trying
+to think of the best line for me to take. So much might depend upon our
+mere words now. At length I said, laying my hand upon hers, which was
+outside the coverlet:
+
+“Margot, what were you doing in that room at such a strange hour? Why
+were you there?”
+
+She hesitated obviously. Then she answered, not looking at me:
+
+“I missed you. I thought you might be there--writing.”
+
+“But you were in the dark.”
+
+“I thought you would have a light.”
+
+I knew by her manner that she was not telling me the truth, but I went
+on quietly:
+
+“If you expected me, why did you cry out when I came to the door?”
+
+She tried to draw her hand away, but I held it fast, closing, my fingers
+upon it with even brutal strength.
+
+“Why did you cry out?”
+
+“You--you looked so strange, so cruel.”
+
+“So cruel!”
+
+“Yes. You frightened me--you frightened me horribly.”
+
+She began suddenly to sob, like one completely overstrained. I lifted
+her up in the bed, put my arms round her, and made her lean against me.
+I was strangely moved.
+
+“I frightened you! How can that be?” I said, trying to control a passion
+of mingled love and anger that filled my breast. “You know that I love
+you. You must know that. In all our short married life have I ever been
+even momentarily unkind to you? Let us be frank with one another. Our
+lives have changed lately. One of us has altered. You cannot say that it
+is I.”
+
+She only continued to sob bitterly in my arms. I held her closer.
+
+“Let us be frank with one another,” I went on. “For God’s sake let us
+have no barriers between us. Margot, look into my eyes and tell me--are
+you growing tired of me?”
+
+She turned her head away, but I spoke more sternly:
+
+“You shall be truthful. I will have no more subterfuge. Look me in the
+face. You did love me once?”
+
+“Yes, yes,” she whispered in a choked voice.
+
+“What have I done, then, to alienate you? Have I ever hurt you, ever
+shown a lack of sympathy, ever neglected you?”
+
+“Never--never.”
+
+“Yet you have changed to me since--since----” I paused a moment, trying
+to recall when I had first noticed her altered demeanour.
+
+She interrupted me.
+
+“It has all come upon me in this house,” she sobbed. “Oh! what is it?
+What does it all mean? If I could understand a little--only a little--it
+would not be so bad. But this nightmare, this thing that seems such a
+madness of the intellect----”
+
+Her voice broke and ceased. Her tears burst forth afresh. Such mingled
+fear, passion, and a sort of strange latent irritation, I had never seen
+before.
+
+“It is a madness indeed,” I said, and a sense almost of outrage made my
+voice hard and cold. “I have not deserved such treatment at your hands.”
+
+“I will not yield to it,” she said, with a sort of desperation, suddenly
+throwing her arms around me. “I will not--I will not!”
+
+I was strangely puzzled. I was torn with conflicting feelings. Love and
+anger grappled at my heart. But I only held her, and did not speak until
+she grew obviously calmer. The paroxysm seemed passing away. Then I
+said:
+
+“I cannot understand.”
+
+“Nor I,” she answered, with a directness that had been foreign to her
+of late, but that was part and parcel of her real, beautiful nature. “I
+cannot understand. I only know there is a change in me, or in you to
+me, and that I cannot help it, or that I have not been able to help it.
+Sometimes I feel--do not be angry, I will try to tell you--a physical
+fear of you, of your touch, of your clasp, a fear such as an animal
+might feel towards the master who had beaten it. I tremble then at
+your approach. When you are near me I feel cold, oh! so cold and--and
+anxious; perhaps I ought to say apprehensive. Oh, I am hurting you!”
+
+I suppose I must have winced at her words, and she is quick to observe.
+
+“Go on,” I said; “do not spare me. Tell me everything. It is madness
+indeed; but we may kill it, when we both know it.”
+
+“Oh, if we could!” she cried, with a poignancy which was heart-breaking
+to hear. “If we could!”
+
+“Do you doubt our ability?” I said, trying to be patient and calm. “You
+are unreasoning, like all women. Be sensible for a moment. You do me a
+wrong in cherishing these feelings. I have the capacity for cruelty in
+me. I may have been--I have been--cruel in the past, but never to you.
+You have no right to treat me as you have done lately. If you examine
+your feelings, and compare them with facts, you will see their
+absurdity.”
+
+“But,” she interposed, with a woman’s fatal quickness, “that will not do
+away with their reality.”
+
+“It must. Look into their faces until they fade like ghosts, seen only
+between light and darkness. They are founded upon nothing; they are bred
+without father or mother; they are hysterical; they are wicked. Think a
+little of me. You are not going to be conquered by a chimera, to allow a
+phantom created by your imagination to ruin the happiness that has been
+so beautiful. You will not do that! You dare not!”
+
+She only answered:
+
+“If I can help it.”
+
+A passionate anger seized me, a fury at my impotence against this child.
+I pushed her almost roughly from my arms.
+
+“And I have married this woman!” I cried bitterly. I got up.
+
+Margot had ceased crying now, and her face was very white and calm; it
+looked rigid in the faint candle-light that shone across the bed.
+
+“Do not be angry,” she said. “We are controlled by something inside of
+us; there are powers in us that we cannot fight against.”
+
+“There is nothing we cannot fight against,” I said passionately. “The
+doctrine of predestination is the devil’s own doctrine. It is the
+doctrine set up by the sinner to excuse his sin; it is the coward’s
+doctrine. Understand me, Margot, I love you, but I am not a weak fool.
+There must be an end of this folly. Perhaps you are playing with me,
+acting like a girl, testing me. Let us have no more of it.”
+
+She said:
+
+“I only do what I must.”
+
+Her tone turned me cold. Her set face frightened me, and angered me, for
+there was a curious obstinacy in it. I left the room abruptly, and did
+not return. That night I had no sleep.
+
+I am not a coward, but I find that I am inclined to fear that which
+fears me. I dread an animal that always avoids me silently more than an
+animal that actually attacks me. The thing that runs from me makes me
+shiver, the thing that creeps away when I come near wakes my uneasiness.
+At this time there rose up in me a strange feeling towards Margot.
+The white, fair child I had married was at moments--only at
+moments--horrible to me. I felt disposed to shun her. Something within
+cried out against her. Long ago, at the instant of our introduction, an
+unreasoning sensation that could only be called dread had laid hold
+upon me. That dread returned from the night of our explanation, returned
+deepened and added to. It prompted me to a suggestion which I had no
+sooner made than I regretted it. On the morning following I told
+Margot that in future we had better occupy separate rooms. She assented
+quietly, but I thought a furtive expression of relief stole for a moment
+into her face.
+
+I was deeply angered with her and with myself; yet, now that I knew
+beyond question my wife’s physical terror of me, I was-half afraid of
+her. I felt as if I could not bring myself to lie long hours by her side
+in the darkness, by the side of a woman who was shrinking from me, who
+was watching me when I could not see her. The idea made my very flesh
+creep.
+
+Yet I hated myself for this shrinking of the body, and sometimes
+hated her for rousing it. A hideous struggle was going on within me--a
+struggle between love and impotent anger and despair, between the lover
+and the master. For I am one of the old-fashioned men who think that a
+husband ought to be master of his wife as well as of his house.
+
+How could I be master of a woman I secretly feared? My knowledge of
+myself spurred me through acute irritation almost to the verge of
+madness.
+
+All calm was gone. I was alternately gentle to my wife and almost
+ferocious towards her, ready to fall at her feet and worship her or to
+seize her and treat her with physical violence. I only restrained myself
+by an effort.
+
+My variations of manner did not seem to affect her. Indeed, it sometimes
+struck me that she feared me more when I was kind to her than when I was
+harsh.
+
+And I knew, by a thousand furtive indications, that her horror of me was
+deepening day by day. I believe she could hardly bring herself to be in
+a room alone with me, especially after nightfall.
+
+One evening, when we were dining, the butler, after placing dessert upon
+the table, moved to leave us. She turned white, and, as he reached the
+door, half rose, and called him back in a sharp voice.
+
+“Symonds!” she said.
+
+“Yes, ma’am?”
+
+“You are going?”
+
+The fellow looked surprised.
+
+“Can I get you anything, ma’am?”
+
+She glanced at me with an indescribable uneasiness. Then she leaned back
+in her chair with an effort, and pressed her lips together.
+
+“No,” she said.
+
+As the man went out and shut the door, she looked at me again from
+under her eyelids; and finally her eyes travelled from me to a small,
+thin-bladed knife, used for cutting oranges, that lay near her plate,
+and fixed themselves on it. She put out her hand stealthily, drew it
+towards her, and kept her hand over it on the table. I took an orange
+from a dish in front of me.
+
+“Margot,” I said, “will you pass me that fruit-knife?”
+
+She obviously hesitated.
+
+“Give me that knife,” I repeated roughly, stretching out my hand.
+
+She lifted her hand, left the knife upon the table, and at the same
+time, springing up, glided softly out of the room and closed the door
+behind her.
+
+That evening I spent alone in the smoking-room, and, for the first time,
+she did not come to bid me good-night.
+
+I sat smoking my cigar in a tumult of furious despair and love. The
+situation was becoming intolerable. It could not be en-dured. I longed
+for a crisis, even for a violent one. I could have cried aloud that
+night for a veritable tragedy. There were moments when I would almost
+have killed the child who mysteriously eluded and defied me. I could
+have wreaked a cruel vengeance upon the body for the sin of the mind. I
+was terribly, mortally distressed.
+
+After a long and painful self-communion, I resolved to make another wild
+effort to set things right before it was too late; and when the clock
+chimed the half-hour after ten I went upstairs softly to her bedroom and
+turned the handle of the door, meaning to enter, to catch Margot in my
+arms, tell her how deep my love for her was, how she injured me by her
+base fears, and how she was driving me back from the gentleness she had
+given me to the cruelty, to the brutality, of my first nature.
+
+The door resisted me: it was locked. I paused a moment, and then tapped
+gently. I heard a sudden rustle within, as if someone hurried across the
+floor away from the door, and then Margot’s voice cried sharply:
+
+“Who’s that? Who is there?” “Margot, it is I. I wish to speak to you--to
+say good-night.”
+
+“Good-night,” she said. “But let me in for a moment.” There was a
+silence--it seemed to me a long one; then she answered:
+
+“Not now, dear; I--I am so tired.” “Open the door for a moment.” “I
+am very tired. Good-night.” The cold, level tone of her voice--for the
+anxiety had left it after that first sudden cry--roused me to a sudden
+fury of action. I seized the handle of the door and pressed with all my
+strength. Physically I am a very powerful man--my anger and despair
+gave me a giant’s might. I burst the lock, and sprang into the room. My
+impulse was to seize Margot in my arms and crush her to death, it might
+be, in an embrace she could not struggle against. The blood coursed like
+molten fire through my veins. The lust of love, the lust of murder even,
+perhaps, was upon me. I sprang impetuously into the room.
+
+No candles were alight in it. The blinds were up, and the chill
+moonbeams filtered through the small lattice panes. By the farthest
+window, in the yellowish radiance, was huddled a white thing.
+
+A sudden cold took hold upon me. All the warmth in me froze up.
+
+I stopped where I was and held my breath.
+
+That white thing, seen thus uncertainly, had no semblance to humanity.
+It was animal wholly. I could have believed for the moment that a white
+cat crouched from me there by the curtain, waiting to spring.
+
+What a strange illusion that was! I tried to laugh at it afterwards, but
+at the moment horror stole through me--horror, and almost awe.
+
+All desire of violence left me. Heat was dead; I felt cold as stone. I
+could not even speak a word.
+
+Suddenly the white thing moved. The curtain was drawn sharply; the
+moonlight was blotted out; the room was plunged in darkness--a darkness
+in which that thing could see!
+
+I turned and stole out of the room. I could have fled, driven by the
+nameless fear that was upon me.
+
+Only when the morning dawned did the man in me awake, and I cursed
+myself for my cowardice.
+
+*****
+
+The following evening we were asked to dine out with some neighbours,
+who lived a few miles off in a wonderful old Norman castle near the
+sea. During the day neither of us had made the slightest allusion to
+the incidents of the previous night. We both felt it a relief to go
+into society, I think. The friends to whom we went--Lord and Lady
+Melchester--had a large party staying with them, and we were, I believe,
+the only outsiders who lived in the neighbourhood. One of their guests
+was Professor Black, whose name I have already mentioned--a little,
+dry, thin, acrid man, with thick black hair, innocent of the comb, and
+pursed, straight lips. I had met him two or three times in London,
+and as he had only just arrived at the castle, and scarcely knew his
+fellow-visitors there, he brought his wine over to me when the ladies
+left the dining-room, and entered into conversation. At the moment I
+was glad, but before we followed the women I would have given a year--I
+might say years--of my life not to have spoken to him, not to have heard
+him speak that night.
+
+How did we drift into that fatal conversation? I hardly remember. We
+talked first of the neighbourhood, then swayed away to books, then to
+people. Yes, that was how it came about. The Professor was speaking of
+a man whom we both knew in town, a curiously effeminate man, whose every
+thought and feeling seemed that of a woman. I said I disliked him,
+and condemned him for his woman’s demeanour, his woman’s mind; but the
+Professor thereupon joined issue with me.
+
+“Pity the fellow, if you like,” he uttered, in his rather strident
+voice; “but as to condemning him, I would as soon condemn a tadpole for
+not being a full-grown frog. His soul is beyond his power to manage, or
+even to coerce, you may depend upon it.”
+
+Having sipped his port, he drew a little nearer to me, and slightly
+dropped his voice.
+
+“There would be less censure of individuals in this world,” he said,
+“if people were only a little more thoughtful. These souls are like
+letters, and sometimes they are sealed up in the wrong envelope. For
+instance, a man’s soul may be put into a woman’s body, or _vice versâ_.
+It has been so in D------‘s case. A mistake has been made.”
+
+“By Providence?” I interrupted, with, perhaps, just a _soupçon_ of
+sarcasm in my voice.
+
+The Professor smiled.
+
+“Suppose we imitate Thomas Hardy, and say by the President of the
+Immortals, who makes sport with more humans than Tess,” he answered.
+“Mistakes may be deliberate, just as their reverse may be accidental.
+Even a mighty power may condescend sometimes to a very practical joke.
+To a thinker the world is full of apple-pie beds, and cold wet
+sponges fall on us from at least half the doors we push open. The
+soul-juggleries of the before-mentioned President are very curious, but
+people will not realize that soul transference from body to body is
+as much a plain fact as the daily rising of the sun on one half of the
+world and its nightly setting on the other.”
+
+“Do you mean that souls pass on into the world again on the death of
+the particular body in which they have been for the moment confined?” I
+asked.
+
+“Precisely: I have no doubt of it. Sometimes a woman’s soul goes into
+a man’s body; then the man acts woman, and people cry against him for
+effeminacy. The soul colours the body with actions, the body does not
+colour the soul, or not in the same degree.”
+
+“But we are not irresponsible. We can command ourselves.”
+
+The Professor smiled dryly.
+
+“You think so?” he said. “I sometimes doubt it.”
+
+“And I doubt your theory of soul transference.”
+
+“That shows me--pardon the apparent impertinence--that you have never
+really examined the soul question with any close attention. Do you
+suppose that D------ really likes being so noticeably different from
+other men? Depend upon it,’ he has noticed in himself what we have
+noticed in him. Depend upon it, he has tried to be ordinary, and found
+it impossible. His soul manages him as a strong nature manages a
+weak one, and his soul is a female, not a male. For souls have sexes,
+otherwise what would be the sense of talking about wedded souls? I have
+no doubt whatever of the truth of reincarnation on earth. Souls go on
+and on following out their object of development.”
+
+“You believe that every soul is reincarnated?”
+
+“A certain number of times.”
+
+“That even in the animal world the soul of one animal passes into the
+body of another?”
+
+“Wait a minute. Now we are coming to something that tends to prove
+my theory true. Animals have souls, as you imply. Who can know them
+intimately and doubt it for an instant? Souls as immortal--or as
+mortal--as ours. And their souls, too, pass on.”
+
+“Into other animals?”
+
+“Possibly. And eventually, in the process of development, into human
+beings.”
+
+I laughed, perhaps a little rudely. “My dear Professor, I thought that
+old notion was quite exploded in these modern scientific days.”
+
+“I found my beliefs upon my own minute observations,” he said rather
+frigidly. “I notice certain animals masquerading--to some extent--as
+human beings, and I draw my own conclusions. If they happen to fit in
+at all with the conclusions of Pythagoras--or anyone else, for that
+matter--well and good. If not, I am not much concerned. Surely
+you notice the animal--and not merely the animal, but definite
+animals--reproduced in man. There are men whose whole demeanour suggests
+the monkey. I have met women who in manner, appearance, and even
+character, were intensely like cats.”
+
+I uttered a slight exclamation, which did not interrupt him.
+
+“Now, I have made a minute study of cats. Of all animals they interest
+me the most. They have less apparent intensity, less uttered passion,
+than dogs, but in my opinion more character. Their subtlety is
+extraordinary, their sensitiveness wonderful. Will you understand me
+when I say that all dogs are men, all cats women? That remark expresses
+the difference between them.”
+
+He paused a moment.
+
+“Go on--go on,” I said, leaning forward, with my eyes fixed upon his
+keen, puckered face.
+
+He seemed pleased with my suddenly-aroused interest..
+
+“Cats are as subtle and as difficult to understand as the most complex
+woman, and almost as full of intuitions. If they have been well treated,
+there is often a certain gracious, condescending suavity in their
+demeanour at first, even towards a total stranger; but if that stranger
+is ill disposed toward them, they seem instinctively to read his soul,
+and they are in arms directly. Yet they dissemble their fears in a cold
+indifference and reserve. They do not take action: they merely abstain
+from action. They withdraw the soul that has peeped out, as they can
+withdraw their claws into the pads upon their feet. They do not show
+fight as a dog might, they do not become aggressive, nor do they whine
+and put their tails between their legs. They are simply on guard,
+watchful, mistrustful. Is not all this woman?”
+
+“Possibly,” I answered, with a painful effort to assume indifference.
+
+“A woman intuitively knows who is her friend and who is her enemy--so
+long, at least, as her heart is not engaged; then she runs wild, I
+allow. A woman---- But I need not pursue the parallel. Besides, perhaps
+it is scarcely to the point, for my object is not to bolster up an
+absurd contention that all women have the souls of cats. No; but I have
+met women so strangely like cats that their souls have, as I said before
+souls do, coloured their bodies in actions. They have had the very look
+of cats in their faces. They have moved like them. Their demeanour has
+been patently and strongly feline. Now, I see nothing ridiculous in the
+assumption that such women’s bodies may contain souls--in process of
+development, of course--that formerly were merely cat souls, but that
+are now gaining humanity gradually, are working their way upwards in
+the scale. After all, we are not so much above the animals, and in our
+lapses we often become merely animals. The soul retrogrades for the
+moment.”
+
+He paused again and looked at me. I was biting my lips, and my glass of
+wine was untouched. He took my agitation as a compliment, I suppose, for
+he smiled and said:
+
+“Are you in process of conversion?”
+
+I half shook my head. Then I said, with an effort: “It is a curious and
+interesting idea, of course. But there is much to explain. Now, I should
+like to ask you this: Do you--do you believe that a soul, if it passes
+on as you think, carries its memory with it, its memory of former loves
+and--and hates? Say that a cat’s soul goes to a woman’s body, and
+that the cat has been--has been--well, tortured--possibly killed, by
+someone--say some man, long ago, would the woman, meeting that man,
+remember and shrink from him?”
+
+“That is a very interesting and curious problem, and one which I do not
+pretend to have solved. I can, therefore, only suggest what might be,
+what seems to me reasonable.
+
+“I do not believe that the woman would remember positively, but I think
+she might have an intuition about the man. Our intuitions are, perhaps,
+sometimes only the fragmentary recollections of our souls, of what
+formerly happened to them when in other bodies. Why, otherwise, should
+we sometimes conceive an ardent dislike of some stranger--charming to
+all appearance--of whom we know no evil, whom we have never heard of nor
+met before? Intuitions, so called, are often only tattered memories.
+And these intuitions might, I should fancy, be strengthened, given
+body, robustness, by associations--of place, for example. Cats become
+intensely attached to localities, to certain spots, a particular house
+or garden, a particular fireside, apart from the people who may be
+there. Possibly, if the man and the woman of whom you speak could
+be brought together in the very place where the torture arid death
+occurred, the dislike of the woman might deepen into positive hatred.
+It would, however, be always unreasoning hatred, I think, and even quite
+unaccountable to herself. Still----”
+
+But here Lord Melchester rose from the table. The conversations broke
+into fragments. I felt that I was pale to the lips.
+
+We passed into the drawing-room. The ladies were grouped together at one
+end, near the piano. Margot was among them. She was, as usual, dressed
+in white, and round the bottom of her gown there was an edging of
+snow-white fur. As we came in, she moved away from the piano to a
+sofa at some distance, and sank down upon it. Professor Black, who had
+entered the room at my side, seized my arm gently.
+
+“Now, that lady,” he whispered in my ear--“I don’t know who she may
+be, but she is intensely cat-like. I observed it before dinner. Did you
+notice the way she moved just then--the soft, yielding, easy manner in
+which she sat down, falling at once, quite naturally, into a charming
+pose? And her china-blue eyes are----”
+
+“She is my wife, Professor,” I interrupted harshly.
+
+He looked decidedly taken aback.
+
+“I beg your pardon; I had no idea. I did not enter the drawing-room
+to-night till after you arrived. I believed that lady was one of
+my fellow-guests in the house. Let me congratulate you. She is very
+beautiful.”
+
+And then he mingled rather hastily in the group near the piano.
+
+The man is mad, I know--mad as a hatter on one point, like so many
+clever men. He sees the animal in every person he meets just because his
+preposterous theory inclines him to do so. Having given in his adherence
+to it, he sees facts not as they are, but as he wishes them to be; but
+he shall not carry me with him. The theory is his, not mine. It does not
+hold water for a moment. I can laugh at it now, but that night I confess
+it did seize me for the time being. I could scarcely talk; I found
+myself watching Margot with a terrible intentness, and I found myself
+agreeing with the Professor to an extent that made me marvel at my own
+previous blindness.
+
+There was something strangely feline about the girl I had married--the
+soft, white girl who was becoming terrible to me, dear though she still
+was and must always be. Her movements had the subtle, instinctive and
+certain grace of a cat’s. Her cushioned step, which had often struck me
+before, was like the step of a cat. And those china-blue eyes! A sudden
+cold seemed to pass over me as I understood why I had recognised
+them when I first met Margot. They were the eyes of the animal I
+had tortured, the animal I had killed. Yes, but that proved nothing,
+absolutely nothing. Many people had the eyes of animals--the soft eyes
+of dogs, the furtive, cruel eyes of tigers. I had known such people. I
+had even once had an affair with a girl who was always called the shot
+partridge, because her eyes were supposed to be like those of a dying
+bird. I tried to laugh to myself as I remembered this. But I felt cold,
+and my senses seemed benumbed as by a great horror. I sat like a stone,
+with my eyes fixed upon Margot, trying painfully to read into her all
+that the words of Professor Black had suggested to me--trying, but
+with the wish not to succeed. I was roused by Lady Melchester, who came
+toward me asking me to do something, I forget now what. I forced myself
+to be cheerful, to join in the conversation, to seem at my ease; but I
+felt like one oppressed with nightmare, and I could scarcely withdraw
+my eyes from the sofa where my wife was sitting. She was talking now
+to Professor Black, who had just been introduced to her; and I felt a
+sudden fury in my heart as I thought that he was perhaps dryly, coldly,
+studying her, little knowing what issues--far-reaching, it might be,
+in their consequences--hung upon the truth or falsehood of his strange
+theory. They were talking earnestly, and presently it occurred to me
+that he might be imbuing Margot with his pernicious doctrines, that he
+might be giving her a knowledge of her own soul which now she lacked.
+The idea was insupportable. I broke off abruptly the conversation in
+which I was taking part, and hurried over to them with an impulse which
+must have astonished anyone who took note of me. I sat down on a chair,
+drew it forward almost violently, and thrust myself in between them.
+
+“What are you two talking about?” I said, roughly, with a suspicious
+glance at Margot.
+
+The Professor looked at me in surprise.
+
+“I was instructing your wife in some of the mysteries of
+salmon-fishing,” he said. “She tells me you have a salmon-river running
+through your grounds.”
+
+I laughed uneasily.
+
+“So you are a fisherman as well as a romantic theorist!” I said, rather
+rudely. “How I wish I were as versatile! Come, Margot, we must be going
+now. The carriage ought to be here.”
+
+She rose quietly and bade the Professor good-night; but as she glanced
+up at me, in rising, I fancied I caught a new expression in her eyes.
+A ray of determination, of set purpose, mingled with the gloomy fire of
+their despair.
+
+As soon as we were in the carriage I spoke, with a strained effort at
+ease and the haphazard tone which should mask furtive cross-examination.
+
+“Professor Black is an interesting man,” I said.
+
+“Do you think so?” she answered from her dark corner.
+
+“Surely. His intellect is really alive. Yet, with all his scientific
+knowledge and his power of eliciting facts and elucidating them, he is
+but a feather headed man.” I paused, but she made no answer. “Do you not
+think so?”
+
+“How can I tell?” she replied. “We only talked about fishing. He managed
+to make that topic a pleasant one.”
+
+Her tone was frank. I felt relieved.
+
+“He is exceedingly clever,” I said, heartily, and we relapsed into
+silence.
+
+When we reached home, and Margot had removed her cloak, she came up to
+me and laid her hand on my arm.
+
+So unaccustomed was her touch now that I was startled. She was looking
+at me with a curious, steady smile--an unwavering smile that chilled
+instead of warming me.
+
+“Ronald,” she said, “there has been a breach between us. I have been the
+cause of it. I should like to--to heal it. Do you still love me as you
+did?”
+
+I did not answer immediately; I could not. Her voice, schooled as it
+was, seemed somehow at issue with the words she uttered. There was a
+desperate, hard note in it that accorded with that enigmatic smile of
+the mouth.
+
+It roused a cold suspicion within me that I was close to a masked
+battery. I shrank physically from the touch of her hand.
+
+She waited with her eyes upon me. Our faces were lit tremblingly by the
+flames of the two candles we held.
+
+At last I found a voice.
+
+“Can you doubt it?” I asked.
+
+She drew a step nearer.
+
+“Then let us resume our old relations,” she said.
+
+“Our old relations?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+I shuddered as if a phantom stole by me. I was seized with horror.
+
+“To-night? It is not possible!”
+
+“Why?” she said, still with that steady smile of the mouth.
+
+“Because--because I don’t know--I---- To-morrow it shall be as of old,
+Margot--to-morrow. I promise you.”
+
+“Very well. Kiss me, dear.”
+
+I forced myself to touch her lips with mine.
+
+Which mouth was the colder?
+
+Then, with that soft, stealthy step of hers, she vanished towards her
+room. I heard the door close gently.
+
+I listened. The key was not turned in the lock.
+
+This sudden abandonment by Margot of the fantastic precautions I had
+almost become accustomed to filled me with a nameless dread.
+
+That night I fastened my door for the first time.
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+_Friday Night, November 6th_.
+
+I fastened my door, and when I went to bed lay awake for hours
+listening. A horror was upon me then which has not left me since for a
+moment, which may never leave me. I shivered with cold that night, the
+cold born of sheer physical terror. I knew that I was shut up in the
+house with a soul bent on unreasoning vengeance, the soul of the animal
+which I had killed prisoned in the body of the woman I had married. I
+was sick with fear then. I am sick with fear now.
+
+To-night I am so tired. My eyes are heavy and my head aches. No wonder.
+I have not slept for three nights. I have not dared to sleep.
+
+This strange revolution in my wife’s conduct, this passionless
+change--for I felt instinctively that warm humanity had nothing to do
+with the transformation--took place three nights ago. These three last
+days Mar-got has been playing a part. With what object?
+
+When I sat down to this gray record of two souls--at once dreary and
+fantastic as it would seem, perhaps, to many--I desired to reassure
+myself, to write myself into sweet reason, into peace.
+
+I have tried to accomplish the impossible. I feel that the wildest
+theory may be the truest, after all--that on the borderland of what
+seems madness, actuality paces.
+
+Every remembrance of my mind confirms the truth first suggested to me by
+Professor Black.
+
+I know Margot’s object now.
+
+The soul of the creature that I tortured, that I killed, has passed into
+the body of the woman whom I love; and that soul, which once slept in
+its new cage, is awake now, watching, plotting perhaps. Unconsciously to
+itself, it recognises me. It stares out upon me with eyes in which
+the dull terror deepens to hate; but it does not understand why it
+fears--why, in its fear, it hates. Intuition has taken the place of
+memory. The Change of environment has killed recollection, and has left
+instinct in its place.
+
+Why did I ever sit down to write? The recalling of facts has set the
+seal upon my despair.
+
+Instinct only woke in Margot when I brought her to the place the soul
+had known in the years when it looked out upon the world from the body
+of an animal.
+
+That first day on the terrace instinct stirred in its sleep, opened its
+eyes, gazed forth upon me wonderingly, inquiringly.
+
+Margot’s faint remembrance of the terrace walk, of the flower-pots, of
+the grass borders where the cat had often stretched itself in the sun,
+her eagerness to see the chamber of death, her stealthy visits to that
+chamber, her growing uneasiness, deepening to acute apprehension,
+and finally to a deadly malignity--all lead me irresistibly to one
+conclusion.
+
+The animal’s soul within her no longer merely shrinks away in fear of
+me. It has grown sinister. It lies in ambush, full of a cold, a stealthy
+intention.
+
+That curious, abrupt change in Margot’s demeanour from avoidance to
+invitation marked the subtle, inward development of feeling, the silent
+passage from sensation only towards action.
+
+Formerly she feared me. Now I must fear her.
+
+The soul, Crouching in its cage, shows its teeth. It is compassing my
+destruction.
+
+The woman’s body twitches with desire to avenge the death of the
+animal’s.
+
+I feel that it is only waiting the moment to spring; and the inherent
+love of life breeds in me a physical fear of it as of a subtle enemy.
+For even if the soul is brave, the body dreads to die, and seems at
+moments to possess a second soul, purely physical, that cries out
+childishly against pain, against death.
+
+Then, too, there is a cowardice of the imagination that can shake the
+strongest heart, and this resurrection from the dead, from the murdered,
+appals my imagination. That what I thought I had long since slain should
+have companioned me so closely when I knew it not!
+
+I am sick with fear, physical and mental.
+
+Two days ago, when I unlocked my bedroom door in the morning, and saw
+the autumn sunlight streaming in through the leaded panes of the hall
+windows, and heard the river dancing merrily down the gully among the
+trees that will soon be quite bare and naked, I said to myself: “You
+have been mad. Your mind has been filled with horrible dreams, that have
+transformed you into a coward and your wife into a demon. Put them away
+from you.”
+
+I looked across the gully. A clear, cold,-thin light shone upon the
+distant mountains. The cloud stacks lay piled above the Scawfell
+range. The sky was a sheet of faded turquoise. I opened the window for
+a moment. The air was dry and keen. How sweet it was to feel it on my
+face!
+
+I went down to the breakfast-room. Mar-got was moving about it softly,
+awaiting me. In her white hands were letters. They dropped upon the
+table as she stole up to greet me. Her lips were set tightly together,
+but she lifted them to kiss me.
+
+How close I came to my enemy as our mouths touched! Her lips were colder
+than the wind.
+
+Now that I was with her, my momentary sensation of acute relief deserted
+me. The horror that oppressed me returned.
+
+I could not eat--I could only make a pretence of doing so; and my hand
+trembled so excessively that I could scarcely raise my cup from the
+table.
+
+She noticed this, and gently asked me if I was ill.
+
+I shook my head.
+
+When breakfast was over, she said in a low, level voice:
+
+“Ronald, have you thought over what I said last night?”
+
+“Last night?” I answered, with an effort.
+
+“Yes, about the coldness between us. I think I have been unwell,
+unhappy, out of sorts. You know that--that women are more subject to
+moods than men, moods they cannot always account for even to themselves.
+I have hurt you lately, I know. I am sorry. I want you to forgive
+me, to--to”--she paused a moment, and I heard her draw in her breath
+sharply--“to take me back into your heart again.”
+
+Every word, as she said it, sounded to me like a sinister threat, and
+the last sentence made my blood literally go cold in my veins.
+
+I met her eyes. She did not withdraw hers; they looked into mine. They
+were the blue eyes of the cat which I had held upon my knees years ago.
+I had gazed into them as a boy, and watched the horror and the fear dawn
+in them with a malignant triumph.
+
+“I have nothing to forgive,” I said in a broken, husky voice.
+
+“You have much,” she answered firmly. “But do not--pray do not bear
+malice.”
+
+“There is no malice in my heart--now,” I said; and the words seemed like
+a cowardly plea for mercy to the victim of the past.
+
+She lifted one of her soft white hands to my breast.
+
+“Then it shall all be as it was before? And to-night you will come back
+to me?”
+
+I hesitated, looking down. But how could I refuse? What excuse could I
+make for denying the request? Then I repeated mechanically:
+
+“To-night I will come back to you.”
+
+A terrible, slight smile travelled over her face. She turned and left
+me.
+
+I sat down immediately. I felt too unnerved to remain standing. I was
+giving way utterly to an imaginative horror that seemed to threaten my
+reason. In vain I tried to pull myself together. My body was in a cold
+sweat. All mastery of my nerves seemed gone.
+
+I do not know how long I remained there, but I was aroused by the
+entrance of the butler. He glanced towards me in some obvious surprise,
+and this astonishment of a servant acted upon me almost like a scourge.
+I sprang up hastily.
+
+“Tell the groom to saddle the mare,” I said. “I am going for a ride
+immediately.”
+
+Air, action, were what I needed to drive this stupor away. I must get
+away from this house of tears. I must be alone. I must wrestle with
+myself, regain my courage, kill the coward in me.
+
+I threw myself upon the mare, and rode out at a gallop towards the moors
+of Eskdale along the lonely country roads.
+
+All day I rode, and all day I thought of that dark house, of that
+white creature awaiting my return, peering from the windows, perhaps,
+listening for my horse’s hoofs on the gravel, keeping still the long
+vigil of vengeance.
+
+My imagination sickened, fainted, as my wearied horse stumbled along
+the shadowy roads. My terror was too great now to be physical. It was a
+terror purely of the spirit, and indescribable.
+
+To sleep with that white thing that waited me! To lie in the dark by it!
+To know that it was there, close to me!
+
+If it killed me, what matter? It was to live and to be near it, with it,
+that appalled me.
+
+The lights of the house gleamed out through the trees. I heard the sound
+of the river.
+
+I got off my horse and walked furtively into the hall, looking round me.
+
+Margot glided up to me immediately, and took my whip and hat from me
+with her soft, velvety white hands. I shivered at her touch.
+
+At dinner her blue eyes watched me.
+
+I could not eat, but I drank more wine than usual.
+
+When I turned to go down to the smoking-room, she said: “Don’t be very
+long, Ronald.”
+
+I muttered I scarcely know what words in reply. It was close on midnight
+before I went to bed. When I entered her room, shielding the light of
+the candle with my hand, she was still awake.
+
+Nestling against the pillows, she stretched herself curiously and smiled
+up at me.
+
+“I thought you were never coming, dear,” she said.
+
+I knew that I was very pale, but she did not remark it. I got into bed,
+but left the candle still burning.
+
+Presently she said:
+
+“Why don’t you put the candle out?”
+
+I looked at her furtively. Her face seemed to me carved in stone, it was
+so rigid, so expressionless. She lay away from me at the extreme edge of
+the bed, sideways, with her hands toward me.
+
+“Why don’t you?” she repeated, with her blue eyes on me.
+
+“I don’t feel sleepy,” I answered slowly.
+
+“You never will while there is a light in the room,” she said.
+
+“You wish me to put it out?”
+
+“Yes. How odd you are to-night, Ronald! Is anything the matter?”
+
+“No,” I answered; and I blew the light out.
+
+How ghastly the darkness was!
+
+I believed she meant to smother me in my sleep. I knew it. I determined
+to keep awake.
+
+It was horrible to think that, as we lay there, she could see me all the
+time as if it were daylight.
+
+The night wore on. She was quite silent and motionless. I lay listening.
+
+It must have been towards morning when I closed my eyes, not because I
+was sleepy, but because I was so tired of gazing at blackness.
+
+Soon after I had done this there was a stealthy movement in the bed.
+
+“Margot, are you awake?” I instantly cried out sharply.
+
+The movement immediately ceased. There was no reply.
+
+When the light of dawn stole in at the window she seemed to be sleeping.
+
+*****
+
+Last night I did not close my eyes once. She did not move.
+
+She means to tire me out, and she has the strength to do it. To-night I
+feel so intensely heavy. Soon I must sleep, and then----
+
+Shall I seek any longer to defend myself? Everything seems so
+inevitable, so beyond my power, like the working of an inexorable
+justice bent on visiting the sin of the father upon the child. For was
+not the cruel boy the father of the man?
+
+And yet, is this tragedy inevitable? It cannot be. I will be a man. I
+will rise up and combat it. I will take Margot away from this house
+that her soul remembers, in which its body so long ago was tortured and
+slain, and she will--she must forget.
+
+Instinct will sleep once more. It shall be so. I will have it so. I will
+strew poppies over her soul. I will take her far away from here, far
+away, to places where she will be once more as she has been.
+
+To-morrow we will go. To-morrow----
+
+*****
+
+Ah, that cry! Was it my own? I am suffocating! What was that? The horror
+of it! The pen has fallen from my hand. I must have slept; and I have
+dreamed. In my dream she stole upon me, that white thing! Her velvety
+hands were on my throat. The soul stared out from her eyes, the soul of
+the cat! Even her body, her woman’s body, seemed to change at the moment
+of vengeance. She slowly strangled me, and as the breath died from me,
+and my failing eyes gazed at her, she was no longer woman at all, but
+something lithe and white and soft. Fur enveloped my throat. Those hands
+were claws. That breath on my face was the breath of an animal. The body
+had come back to companion the soul in its vengeance, the body of----
+
+Ah, it was too horrible!
+
+Can vengeance for the dead bring with it resurrection of the dead?
+
+Hark! There is a voice calling to me from upstairs.
+
+“Ronald, are you never coming? I am tired of waiting for you. Ronald!”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Come to me!”
+
+“And I must go.”
+
+*****
+
+Just at the glimmer of dawn the first pale shaft of the sun struck
+across a bed upon which lay the huddled and distorted corpse of a man.
+His head was sunk down in the pillows. His eyes, that could not see,
+stared towards the rising light. And from the open window of the chamber
+of death a woman in a white wrapper leaned out, watching eagerly with
+wide blue eyes the birds as they darted to and fro, rested on the
+climbing creepers, or circled above the gorge through which the river
+ran. Her set lips smiled. She looked like one calm, easy, and at peace.
+Presently an unwary sparrow perched on the trellis beneath the window
+just within her reach. Her white hand darted down softly, closed on the
+bird. She vanished from the window.
+
+Can the dead hear? Did he catch the sound of her faint, continuous
+purring as she crouched with her prey upon the floor?
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg’s The Return Of The Soul, by Robert S. Hichens
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN OF THE SOUL ***
+
+***** This file should be named 23419-0.txt or 23419-0.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/4/1/23419/
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation”
+ or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
+Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+“Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.”
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+“Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right
+of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’ WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm’s
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws.
+
+The Foundation’s principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation’s web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.