diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:58:45 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-14 19:58:45 -0700 |
| commit | 6f4750dd60d35931f34cd8bb90f55c6fedff1920 (patch) | |
| tree | 7d59d77c4b8ffd71b8df324e454056d16b95f0cd /33040-h/33040-h.htm | |
Diffstat (limited to '33040-h/33040-h.htm')
| -rw-r--r-- | 33040-h/33040-h.htm | 12630 |
1 files changed, 12630 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/33040-h/33040-h.htm b/33040-h/33040-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..54bb1cc --- /dev/null +++ b/33040-h/33040-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12630 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Bye-Ways, by Robert Smythe Hichens</title> + <style type="text/css"> + +body { +margin-left:10%; +margin-right:10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3 { +clear:both; +text-align:center; +} + +h2 { +padding-top:3em; +} + +h3 { +padding-top:2em; +} + +p { +margin-bottom:.75em; +margin-top:.75em; +text-align:justify; +} + +hr { +clear:both; +margin:2em auto; +width:33%; +} + +table { +margin-left:auto; +margin-right:auto; +} + +ul { +list-style-type:none; +} + +img { +border:#000 1px solid; +} + +p#end { +font-size:115%; +padding:3em 0; +text-align:center; +} + +p.ralign { +margin-right:2em; +text-align:right; +} + +td.top { +vertical-align:top; +} + +td.pad-l { +padding-left:1em; +} + +div.figcenter { +margin:auto; +padding:1.5em 0; +text-align:center; +} + +div.tp { +padding:3em 0; +} + +div.letter { +font-size:85%; +padding:1.5em 0; +} + +div.tn { +background-color:#CFC; +border:solid #38610B 1px; +font-size:80%; +margin:4em; +padding:1em; +} + +span.pagenum { +color:gray; +font-size:small; +font-style:normal; +left:92%; +position:absolute; +text-align:right; +} + +.center { +text-align:center; +} + +.smcap { +font-variant:small-caps; +} + +.sm { +font-size:85%; +} + +.lg { +font-size:125%; +} + +h1#begin,p.pad-t { +padding-top:2em; +} + + hr.full { width: 100%; + margin-top: 3em; + margin-bottom: 0em; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + height: 4px; + border-width: 4px 0 0 0; /* remove all borders except the top one */ + border-style: solid; + border-color: #000000; + clear: both; } + pre {font-size: 85%;} +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1>The Project Gutenberg eBook, Bye-Ways, by Robert Smythe Hichens</h1> +<pre> +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 <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Bye-Ways</p> +<p>Author: Robert Smythe Hichens</p> +<p>Release Date: July 1, 2010 [eBook #33040]</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYE-WAYS***</p> +<p> </p> +<h3>E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, S. D.,<br /> + and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team<br /> + (http://www.pgdp.net)</h3> +<p> </p> +<hr class="full" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width: 368px;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="368" height="575" alt="" title="" /> +</div> + +<div class="tp"> +<h1>BYE-WAYS</h1> + +<p class="center"><span class="sm">BY</span><br /> +<span class="lg">ROBERT HICHENS</span></p> + +<p class="center sm">Author of “The Garden of Allah,”<br /> +“Bella Donna,” etc.</p> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p class="center pad-t">NEW YORK<br /> +DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY<br /> +1914 +</p> +</div> + +<p class="center sm"><i>Copyright, 1897</i>,<br /> +<span class="smcap">By Dodd, Mead and Company.</span></p> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table border="0" summary="Table of Contents"> +<tr><td></td><td></td> <td align="right" class="smcap sm">Page</td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="smcap">The Charmer of Snakes</td><td align="right"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="smcap">A Tribute of Souls</td><td></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="pad-l">Prelude</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_89">89</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" class="pad-l">I.</td> <td>The Stranger by the Burn</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_90">90</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" class="pad-l">II.</td> <td>The Soul of Dr Wedderburn</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" class="pad-l">III.</td> <td>The Soul of Kate Walters</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" class="pad-l">IV.</td> <td>The Soul of Hugh Fraser</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_142">142</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right" class="top pad-l">V.</td> <td>The Return of the Grey Traveller<br /> +<span class="sm">Written in conjunction with Lord Frederick Hamilton.</span></td> <td align="right" class="top"><a href="#Page_159">159</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="smcap">An Echo in Egypt</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_171">171</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="smcap">The Face of the Monk</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="smcap">The Man who Intervened</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_237">237</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="smcap">After To-morrow</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="smcap">A Silent Guardian</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="smcap">A Boudoir Boy</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="2" class="smcap">The Tee-to-tum</td> <td align="right"><a href="#Page_343">343</a></td></tr> +</table> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p> + +<h1 id="begin">BYE-WAYS</h1> + +<h2>THE CHARMER OF SNAKES</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> petulant whining of the jackals prevented +Renfrew from sleeping. At first he lay still on his +camp bed, staring at the orifice of the bell tent, +which was only partially covered by the canvas flap +let down by Mohammed, after he had bidden his +master good-night. Behind the tent the fettered +mules stamped on the rough, dry ground, and now +and then the heavy rustling of a wild boar could +be heard, as it shuffled through the scrub towards +the water that lay in the hollow beyond the camp. +The wayward songs of the Moorish attendants had +died into silence. They slept, huddled together +and shrouded in their djelabes. But their wailing +rapture of those old triumphant days when on +the heights above Granada, beneath the eternal +snows, their brethren walked as conquerors, had +been succeeded by the cries of the uneasy beasts +that throng the mountains between Tangier and +Tetuan. And Renfrew said to himself that the +jackals kept him from sleeping. He lay still and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> +wondered if Claire were awake in her tent close +by. If so, if her dark eyes were unclouded, what +journeys must her imagination be making! She +was so sensitive to sound of any kind. A cry +moved her sometimes with a swift violence that +alarmed those around her. The message of a +note of music shut one door on her soul, opened +another, and let her in to strange regions in which +she chose to be lonely.</p> + +<p>How amazing it was to think that Claire, with +all her serpentine beauty, all her celebrity, all the +legends that clung to her fame, all the wild caprices +of which two worlds had talked for years,—that +Claire was hidden away three feet off, beneath the +canvas shield that looked like a moderate-sized +mushroom from the Kasbar on the hill. How +amazing to think she was no longer Claire Duvigne, +but Claire Renfrew. Her cheated audiences sighed +in London in which a week ago she was acting. +And while they sighed, she slept in this wild +valley of Morocco, or lay awake and heard the +jackals whining among the dwarf palms. And she +was his. She belonged to him. He had the right +to hold her—this thin, pale wonder of night and of +fame—in his arms, and to kiss the lips from which +came at will the coo of a dove or the snarl of a +tigress. Although Renfrew could not sleep, he fell +into a dream. Indeed, ever since he had married +Claire, a week ago, his life had been a dream. +When the goddess suddenly bends down to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span> +worshipper, and says: “Don't pray to me any +more—sit on my throne by my side!”—the +worshipper exchanges one form of devotion for +another, so deep and so different that for a while +his ordinary faculties seem frozen, his life goes in +shadowy places. Renfrew was not a man of deep +imagination, but he had enough of the dangerous +and dear quality to make him full of interest in +Claire's bonfires of the mind. He sunned himself +in the sparks which flew from her, even as +the phlegmatic man in the pit bathes in the fury +of some queen of the stage. He adored partly +because he scarcely understood.</p> + +<p>And then, at this moment, he was in the throes +of a most unexpected honeymoon. Claire, after +refusing to have anything to do with him for two +years or more, had suddenly married him in such a +hurry that, though London gasped, Renfrew gasped +still more. She had sent for him one night, from +her dressing-room, between the third act and the +fourth of an angry drama of passion. He came +in and found her sitting in an arm-chair by a +table, on which lay a note containing his last proposal, +and a dagger with which she was about to +commit a stage murder that had carried her glory +to the four quarters of the universe. Her face +was covered with powder, and in her long white +dress she looked like a phantom. As she spoke +to him, she ran her thin fingers mechanically up +and down the blade of the dagger. When Renfrew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> +was in the room, and the door shut, she looked +up at him and said:—</p> + +<p>“Desmond, I'm going to frighten you more +than I shall frighten the audience out there.”</p> + +<p>And she pointed towards the hidden stage.</p> + +<p>“How?” he said, looking at her hand and at +the dagger.</p> + +<p>“I'm going to marry you.”</p> + +<p>Renfrew turned paler than she was.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” she cried. “You go white?”</p> + +<p>“No, no,” he murmured. “But—but I can't +believe it.”</p> + +<p>“I will marry you when you like, to-morrow, +whenever you can get a licence.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Claire!”</p> + +<p>Suddenly she got up.</p> + +<p>“Take me away from here,” she said. “From +this heat and noise. Take me to some place where +it is wild and desolate. I want to be in starlight, +with people who know nothing of me, and my +trumpery talent. O God, Desmond, you don't +know how a woman can get to hate being +famous! I should like to act to-night to a circle +of savages who had never heard of me and of my +glory.”</p> + +<p>“Curtain's up!” sang a shrill voice outside.</p> + +<p>Claire picked up the dagger.</p> + +<p>“Well?” she said. “Shall it be—?”</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes—yes!” Renfrew answered in a +choked voice.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span></p> +<p>She smiled and glided out, like a white snake, he +thought.</p> + +<p>And now—yes, those were really jackals whining, +and Claire slept, surrounded by a circle of +Moors under the stars of Morocco.</p> + +<p>Renfrew trembled at the astounding surprises of +life. Now the devil of the night—thought—had +filled his veins with fever. He got up softly, drew +on his clothes, unfastened the canvas flap, and +emerged, like a shadow, from the mouth of the +tent. The night was dewy and cool. All the +heaven was full of eyes. The line of tethered +mules looked like a black hedge in whose shelter +the group of tents was pitched. A low fire, held in +a cup of earth, was dying down in the distance, and +as Renfrew came out a lanky dog slunk off among +the bushes that clothed the low hills on every side.</p> + +<p>Renfrew stood quite still. He was bare-headed, +and the breeze caught at his thick brown hair, and +seemed to tug it like a rough child at play with a +kindly elder. His eyes were turned towards the +tiny peaked tent which shrouded Claire. A small +moon half way up the sky sent out a beam which +faintly illuminated this home of a wanderer, and +Renfrew thought the beam was like a silver finger +pointing at this wonderful creature whom glory had +so long attended. Such beings must walk in light. +Nature herself protests against their endeavours to +shroud themselves even for a moment in darkness. +He drew close to the tent, and listened for Claire's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +low breathing. But he could not hear it. Perhaps +she was awake then.</p> + +<p>“Claire!” he called, in a low voice.</p> + +<p>There was no answer. Renfrew hesitated and +glanced round the little camp. It was just then +that he noticed the absence of two figures which +had been standing like statues near his tent when he +went to bed. These were soldiers sent from the +nearest village to guard the camp from marauders +during the night. Clad in earth-coloured rags, +shrouded in loose robes that looked like musty +dressing-gowns, with fez on head, and musket in +hand, they had seemed devoutly intent on doing +their duty then. But now—where were they? +Renfrew strolled among the tents, expecting to +find them squatting near the fire smoking cigarettes, +or playing some Spanish game of cards. But +they had vanished. He returned, and posted himself +again by the door of Claire's rude bed-room, +saying to himself that he would be her guard. +Those Moorish vagabonds had deserted her. They +cared nothing for the safety of this jewel, whom +the whole civilised world cherished. But in his +heart glowed a passion of protection for her. And +then he gazed again at the impenetrable canvas +wall that divided him from her. Only two hours +ago he had held her in his arms and kissed her lips, +yet already he felt as if a river of years flowed +between them. He began to torture himself deliberately, +as lovers will, by the imagination of non-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>existent +evils. Suppose Claire possessed the power +of a fairy, and could evaporate at will into the +spaces of the air, leaving no trace behind. She +might then have departed, have faded into the +scented silence and darkness of this land so strange +and desolate. Renfrew supposed the departure an +actual fact. What a loneliness would fill his night +then; if that little tent stood empty, if that slim +sleeper were removed from the camp round which +the jackals sat on their tiny haunches, whining like +peevish spirits. He trembled beneath the weight +of this absurd supposition, revelling in the intolerable +with the folly of worship. Gradually he forced +himself on step by step along the fanciful path till +he had assured his imagination that Claire was +really gone, and that he was just such a travelling +Englishman as may come alone across the Straits, +take out a camp, and spend his days in stalking +wild boar, or shooting duck, his nights in the heavy +slumber of complete weariness. And, at length, +having gained a ghastly summit of imaginative +despair, he suddenly stretched forth his hand, unhooked +the canvas that shrouded Claire's tent door, +and peeped cautiously in, courting the delicious +revulsion of feeling which he would secure when +he saw her half defined form in the shadow of the +leaning roof that hid her from the stars.</p> + +<p>He bent forward with greedy anxiety. But the +pale and tragic face he looked for, did not greet his +eyes. The tent was empty.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span></p> +<p>Renfrew stood for a moment holding back the +canvas flap with one hand. This denial calmly +offered to his expectation bewildered him. He +was confused, and for a moment scarcely thought +at all. Then his mind broke away with the +violence of a dog unleashed, and ran a wild course +of surmises. He thought first of rousing the +camp and organising an immediate search. Then +he remembered the absence of the two soldiers +who ought to be guarding the tents and the +mules. Claire gone, those soldiers absent! He +linked the two facts together, and turned white +and sick. But he did not rouse the camp. Indeed, +he thanked God that all the men were sleeping. +He sprang softly back from the tent, turned +on his heel, and stole out of the camp so silently +that he scarcely seemed a living thing. The +ground towards the water was boggy and spongy, +and the scent of the thickly growing myrtles was +heavy in the air. Renfrew brushed through them +swiftly. He heard the harsh snuffling of a boar, +and the tread of its feet in the mud at the water-side. +And these sounds filled the night with a +sense of unknown dangers. Darkness, a wild +country, wild men, wild beasts, and his beautiful +Claire out somewhere alone, near him, perhaps, +yet hidden behind the impenetrable veil of darkness. +He saw her fainting, struggling, crying out +for him. He saw her silent and dead, and +frenzy seized him. She was not here by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> +water. And with a gesture of despair he turned +back. Low and rounded hills faced him on all +sides, covered with a dense undergrowth of palms +and close-growing shrubs that looked almost like +black velvet in the night. On one, the highest, +was perched the native village from which the +soldiers had come. Dogs were barking in it incessantly. +It seemed to Renfrew that Claire +might have been conveyed there by these ruffians; +and he began hastily to ascend in the direction of +the dogs' acute voices. He stumbled among the +palms at first; but, mounting higher, he came into +the eye of the moon, and was swallowed up in a +shrouded silver radiance. The camp faded away +below him, and he felt the breeze with greater +force. Yet its breath was warm. Could Claire +feel it? Did she see the moon? Now the dogs +were evidently close by. The village must be +behind that big clump of trees. Renfrew sprang +upward, passed through them, suddenly drew a +great breath and stood still.</p> + +<p>Beyond the trees there was a small clearing that +almost corresponded to our English notion of a village +green. On the near side of it was the clump +of trees in whose shadow Renfrew now stood. +On the far side of it was the Moorish village, a +minute collection of low huts like hovels, featureless +and filthy. The moon streamed over the clearing +and lit up faintly a cluster of seated figures that +formed a good-sized circle. The figures looked<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +broad and almost shapeless, for they were all +smothered in long, voluminous robes, and over all +the heads great hoods were drawn which hid the +faces of the wearers. They were absolutely +motionless, and differed little from the more distant +clumps of dwarf palms that grew everywhere +among the huts. Only they possessed the curiously +sullen aspect of things alive but entirely +motionless. It was not this living Stonehenge of +Morocco, however, which caused Renfrew to catch +his breath and rooted him in the shadow. In the +centre of the circle, lit up by the moon, there +stood something that might have been a phantom, +it was so thin, so tall, so white-faced, so strange +in its movements. It was a woman, and long +black hair flowed down to its waist,—night standing +back from that moon, vague and spectral, the +face. In this human night and moon, great +sombre eyes gleamed with a sort of fatigued +beauty. This spectre stretched out its long arms +in weird gesticulations and sometimes swayed its +body as if it moved to music. And from its lips +came a soft and liquid stream of golden words +that mingled with the acid barking of the dogs, +some of which crept furtively about on the outskirts +of the serene hooded circle of the listeners. +This murmuring spectre was Claire. She was +girt about with silently staring Moors. And she +was in the act of delivering one of her most +famous recitations, which she had last given at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> +a monster morning performance before Royalties +in London, on a sultry day of the season. As +this fact broke upon Renfrew's mind, he seemed +for a moment to be back in the hot dressing-room +in which Claire had said: “I will marry +you.” He seemed to hear her passionate +exclamation: “I should like to act to-night to +a circle of savages!” The hill men of this part +of Morocco may not be savages, but they are +fierce and wild and ruthless. And now they hung +upon the lips that had spoken to London, Paris, +Vienna, New York—but never before to such +an audience as this. The recitation was a description +of the performance of a snake-charmer, +his harangue to his reptiles and to the crowd +watching him, and his departure into the solitude +of the great desert, there to obtain, in communion +with its spirit, the power to work greater miracles, +and to charm not alone the serpents that dwell +among the rocks and in the forests, but also men, +women, little children,—the power to thrust a +human world into a kennel of plaited straw, to +take it out in sections at pleasure, and to make it +dance, pose, and posture, like a viper tamed into a +species of ballet-dancer. In this recitation the +peculiar and almost serpentine fascination of Claire +had full liberty. She represented the snake-charmer +as a being who through long and intimate association +with snakes had become like them, lithe, +fantastic, and unexpected, soft and deadly, by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span> +turns sleepy and violent, a coil of glistening +velvet and a length of cast-iron, tipped with a +poisoned fang and the music of a hiss. His +fanaticism, his greed for money, the passionate +prayer to Sidi Mahomet that flowed from his lips +while his terrible eyes searched an imaginary +crowd in search of the richest man or the most +excited woman in it, his bursts of dancing humour, +his deadly stillness, his playful familiarity with his +dangerous captives, his mesmeric anger when they +were sullen and recalcitrant, his relapse into the +savage churchwarden with the collecting box when +his “show” was at an end,—every side, every +subtlety of such a creature Claire could give with +the certainty of genius. As you watched her, you +beheld the snakes, you beheld their master. Even +at the end you almost saw the vast and trackless +desert open its haggard arms to receive its child, +who passed from the crowd to the silence in which +alone he could learn to fascinate the crowd. At +the great morning performance in London, a prince +who knew the East had said to Claire, “Miss +Duvigne, you must have lived with snake-charmers. +You must have studied them for months.”</p> + +<p>“I never saw one in my life,” she answered +truthfully.</p> + +<p>And now she gave her performance to those +who, in the dingy market squares of their white-walled +cities, had seen the snakes dance and had +heard the prayer to Sidi Mahomet. And they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span> +squatted in the moonbeams, immobile as goblins +carved in dusky oak. Yet they inspired Claire. +From his hiding place Renfrew could note this. +She had let her genius loose upon them, as she had +let her cloud of hair loose upon her shoulders. +The frosty touch of smart conventionality bewilders +and half paralyses the utterly unconventional. +Often Renfrew had heard Claire curse the +smiling and self-contented Londoners who thronged +the stalls of her theatre. She felt, with the swiftness +of genius, the retarding hand they laid upon +her winged talents. She had no inclination to +curse these hooded figures gathered round her in +the night, staring upon her with the fixed concentration +of children who behold, rather than hear, +a fairy tale, they paid her the fine compliment of +an undivided attention. It was a curious scene and +one that stirred in Renfrew a deep excitement. +He watched it with a double sense, of living keenly +and of dreaming deeply. Claire gave to him the +first sense, the moon and the motionless Moors the +second. But presently one of the hooded statues +stirred and swayed, and there mingled with the +voice of Claire a twisted melody, so thin and wandering +that it was like a thread binding a bundle of +gold. It pierced the night, and enclosed the words +of the reciter, one sound prisoned by another lighter +and less than itself. The dogs had ceased to bark +now, and only the voice that told of the snake-charmer's +journey into the desert, and this whisper<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>ing +Moorish tune, plucked by dark fingers from the +strings of a rough lute, moved in the night, till +Claire ceased. The lute continued for a few bars, +like the symphony that closes a song, and then it +too ceased abruptly on a note that brought no feeling +of finale to modern ears. For an instant +Claire stood motionless in the centre of the human +circle. Then her arms fell to her sides. She moved +swiftly towards the trees in whose shadow Renfrew +was watching. The Moors made a gap, and as she +passed out all the shapeless figures were suddenly +elongated and crowded together upon her footsteps. +As Claire came into the blackness of the trees, +Renfrew stretched out his hand and clasped her +arm. She stopped with no tremor, and faced him.</p> + +<p>“Claire!”</p> + +<p>“What, it is you, Desmond! I thought you +were asleep.”</p> + +<p>“When you were awake? You have given me +a fright. I came to your tent; I found it empty. +The soldiers were gone.”</p> + +<p>“They were guarding me up the hill. I could +not sleep. I wandered out. How hot your hand +is!”</p> + +<p>Renfrew released her. All the Moors had +gathered round them like enormous shadows.</p> + +<p>“My audience has come to the stage door!” +Claire said.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were gleaming with excitement.</p> + +<p>“They are a beautiful audience,” she added;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> +“and the orchestra, the soft music—that was +better than London fiddles.”</p> + +<p>“Come back to the camp, Claire.”</p> + +<p>“Very well.”</p> + +<p>He drew her arm through his, and led her out +into the moonlight and down the hill. Two +shadows detached themselves from the silent assembly +and followed them, barefooted, over the +dewy grass. They were the soldiers. Claire +looked back and saw them.</p> + +<p>“I shall give those men a handful of pesetas, +to-morrow,” she said.</p> + +<p>They reached the camp and sat down on two +folding chairs in the shadow of Claire's tent. The +soldiers stood near, gazing intently at them. Claire +sat in a curved attitude. She had drawn a dark +veil over her hair, and her enormous and tragic +eyes were turned sombrely on Renfrew. She looked +fatigued, as she often did after acting a long and +passionate part. To Renfrew she seemed more +wonderful than ever. He could scarcely believe +that he was her husband.</p> + +<p>“You have had your circle of savages,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“And you liked them?”</p> + +<p>“Do you think they liked me? I wonder if +there was a snake-charmer among them. When +I came to Sidi Mahomet I thought perhaps they +would kill me. That thought made me pray better +than I can in London.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span></p> +<p>“You could charm snakes more certainly than +any Arab,” Renfrew said.</p> + +<p>“I daresay. Perhaps I shall try at Tetuan. +Good-night, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>She vanished into the tent. It seemed that she +evaporated as Sarah Bernhardt evaporates in the +fourth act of “La Tosca.”</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>On the following day they rode across the mountain +to Tetuan. They started in the dawn. +Claire's eyes were heavy. She came languidly out +from the tent door to mount her horse, and when +she touched Renfrew he felt that her hand was cold +like an icicle. He looked at her anxiously.</p> + +<p>“Are you ill?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“No, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>He lifted her into the saddle.</p> + +<p>“You haven't slept,” he said.</p> + +<p>She looked down at him as she slowly gathered +up her reins.</p> + +<p>“Unfortunately, I have,” she replied.</p> + +<p>Before Renfrew had time to express surprise at +this unexpected rejoinder, she had struck her horse +with the whip, and trotted off over the grass in the +direction of the white Kasbar that gleamed on the +hill under the kiss of the rising sun. He leaped +into the saddle, and followed her. The path into<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> +which they came was narrow, winding through +wild fig-trees and olives, and constantly ascending. +Claire did not turn her head, and Renfrew could +not ride by her side. He watched her thin and +sinuous figure swaying slightly in obedience to the +motion of her horse, which scrambled over the +rough path with the activity of a wild cat. In +front of her their personal attendant, Mohammed, +rode on a huge grey mule, and sang to himself +incessantly in a deep and murmuring voice. Once +or twice Renfrew spoke to Claire, but she did not +seem to hear him. He resolved to ask about her +sleep when they gained some plateau on which +they could rest for a moment. At present it was +necessary to concentrate his attention on his horse +and on the dangers of the road.</p> + +<p>When the sun was high in the heavens, and they +were high on the mountain, above a gorge in which +the scrub grew densely, and great bushes starred +with yellow and white flowers hid the rocks and +made a home for birds, Mohammed called a halt. +Renfrew lifted Claire to the ground. The men +passed on towards Tetuan with their camp, and +Claire sank down on a gay rug beneath the shade +of a huge white umbrella, which was pitched on a +square of level ground and circled with luxuriant +vegetation. Renfrew lay at her feet and lit his +pipe, while Mohammed, the dragoman, and one of +the porters squatted at a little distance, and began +to play cards in a cloud of keef. Claire was fan<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>ning +herself slowly with an enormous Spanish fan +in which all gay colours met. She still looked +very tired. The shuffle of the descending mules +died away down the mountain, and a silence, +through which the butterflies flitted, fell round them.</p> + +<p>“Is this journey too much for you, Claire?” +Renfrew asked.</p> + +<p>“No. I can rehearse for six hours in London, +surely I can ride for six here.”</p> + +<p>“But you look tired.”</p> + +<p>“Because, as I told you, I slept too much last +night.”</p> + +<p>“What does that mean?”</p> + +<p>She stretched herself on the rug with the easy +grace of a woman who has trained her body to +carry to the eyes of others, as a message, all the +moods of passion and of peace. Then she leaned +her cheek on her hand.</p> + +<p>“In the darkness of the tent, Desmond, I slept +and did not know it. I believed that I lay awake. +I thought I still could hear the jackals, and the +stamping of the mules. But, really, I slept.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know that?”</p> + +<p>“Because of what I am going to tell you. The +wind blew about the canvas door, and when it +bulged outwards I could see on each side of it a +tiny section of the night outside, a bit of a bush, +blades of short grass moving, a ray of the moon, +the slinking shadow of one of the dogs from the +village.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Presently there came, I thought, a stronger +gust than usual. It tore the canvas flap from the +pegs, and the whole thing blew up, leaving the +entrance quite open. Then it blew down again. +It was only up for a minute. During that minute +I had seen that a very tall man was standing outside +the tent.”</p> + +<p>“One of the soldiers.”</p> + +<p>“If I had been awake it might have been.”</p> + +<p>“You mean that all this was a dream?”</p> + +<p>“I mean that I slept last night, and that I wish I +hadn't.”</p> + +<p>She turned her great eyes on Renfrew, holding +the red, green, and yellow fan so that it concealed +the lower part of her face. And he looked at her, +staring at him like some tragic stranger above the +rampart of an unknown city, and wondered whether +she was acting to him in the sun. On the forefinger +of the hand that held up the fan a huge black +pearl perched in a circle of gold. Renfrew had +often noticed it on the stage, when Claire lifted +the silver dagger to kill the man who loved her in +the play.</p> + +<p>“The door of your tent was securely closed +when I got up and came out this morning,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes.”</p> + +<p>She spoke with the utmost indifference. Then +she added more sharply:—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span></p> +<p>“Desmond, has it ever occurred to you that I +am serpentine?”</p> + +<p>He was startled and made no answer.</p> + +<p>“Well—has it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said truthfully.</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Every one thinks so. You are so thin. You +move so silently. Your body is so elastic and controlled. +You always look as if you could glide +into places where other women could never go, +and be at home in attitudes they could never +assume.”</p> + +<p>“But I'm an actress—my body is trained, you +know, to lie, to fall, as I choose.”</p> + +<p>“Other actresses don't give one the same impression.”</p> + +<p>“No,” she said thoughtfully. “My peculiar +physique has a great deal to do with it.”</p> + +<p>“Of course, and there's something more than +that, something mental.”</p> + +<p>Claire's heavy eyes grew more thoughtful. The +white lids fluttered lower over them till they looked +like the eyes of one half asleep. She lay in silence, +plunged in a reverie that was deep and dark. In +this reverie she forgot to move her fan, which +dropped from her hand and fell softly upon the +rug. Renfrew did not interrupt her. His worship +had learned to wait upon her moods. A huge +dragon-fly passed on its journey towards the far +blue range of the Atlas Mountains. It whirred in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span> +its haste, and its burnished body shone in the +sunshine between its gleaming wings. Claire +snatched at it with her hand, but missed it.</p> + +<p>“I should like to wear it as a jewel,” she said.</p> + +<p>Then she turned slowly again towards Renfrew, +and continued her nocturne as if it had never been +broken off.</p> + +<p>“The canvas flap fell down again over the +doorway, Desmond, and it seemed that just then +the breeze died away, expiring in that angry gust. +I could not see anything but the interior of the +tent, and only that very dimly. But this man +outside. I wanted to see him.”</p> + +<p>“Did you recognise that he was not one of the +soldiers, then?”</p> + +<p>“Perfectly. He was not dressed as they are. +They were entirely muffled up with hoods drawn +forward above their faces. And in their hands one +could see their guns. This man was bareheaded, +and looked half naked. And in his hands—”</p> + +<p>She stopped meditatively.</p> + +<p>“Was there anything in his hands?”</p> + +<p>“Well—yes, there was.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“I wanted to know what it was. But at first I +only lay quite still and wished the wind would +come again and blow the flap up so that I could +see out. But it had quite gone down. The canvas +did not even quiver.”</p> + +<p>“Was it near dawn?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> +<p>“I haven't an idea. Does the breeze sink +then?”</p> + +<p>“Very often.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! Perhaps it was then. Oh, but you'll +see in a minute what nonsense it is to think about +that. I lay still, as I said, for some time, waiting +for the breeze. And when it wouldn't come, I +made up my mind that I must arrive at a decision +either to turn my face on the pillow and go to +sleep, or else to get up, go to the tent door, and +look out.”</p> + +<p>“To see this man?”</p> + +<p>“Exactly.”</p> + +<p>“Which did you do?”</p> + +<p>“Turned my face on the pillow.”</p> + +<p>“And went off to sleep?”</p> + +<p>“No, grew most intensely awake—as I supposed. +The pillow was like fire against my cheek. +It burnt me. With the departure of the breeze +the night had become suddenly most intolerably hot. +I turned over on my back and lay like that. Then +I felt as if there was sand on the sheets.”</p> + +<p>“Sand! Impossible! We aren't in the +desert.”</p> + +<p>“No. But it seemed as if I lay in hot sand. I +shifted my position, but it made no difference. I +sat up. The tent door was still closed. I listened. +All those dogs had ceased to bark. There wasn't +a sound. Even the jackals had left off whining. +Then I slipped out of bed and threw that rose-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span>coloured +Moorish cloak over me. It rustled just +like a thing rustles in grass, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him with a sort of peculiar significance, +and as if she expected him to gather something +definite from the remark.</p> + +<p>“A thing in grass,” he repeated, wondering. +“What sort of thing?”</p> + +<p>But Claire avoided the question. She had taken +up the fan again, and was opening and shutting it +with a quiet and careful sort of precision, as she +went on in a low and even voice:—</p> + +<p>“I disliked this rustling, and held the cloak +tightly together with my hands. I felt as if the +man outside the tent had been waiting to hear that +very little noise.”</p> + +<p>“The rustling?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. And that when he heard it he smiled to +himself. I didn't intend he should hear it again +though, and as I glided towards the tent door, I +held the cloak very tight and away from my body. +And I don't think I can have made any noise. +You know how softly I can move when I choose?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“When I got to the door, I waited. I couldn't +hear the man; but I felt that he was still there, just +on the other side of the flap.”</p> + +<p>Renfrew leaned forward on the rug. He felt +deeply interested, perhaps only because Claire was +the narrator. She held him much as she could +hold an audience in a theatre, by her pose, her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> +hands, her pale, almost weary face, her heavy +sombre eyes, even more than by any words she +chanced to be uttering. She could make anything +seem vitally important if she chose, simply by her +manner. Renfrew's pipe had gone out; but he +did not know it, and still kept it between his lips.</p> + +<p>“I waited for some time by the flap,” Claire +continued calmly. “I was going to lift it presently, +I knew; but I could not do it at once. The man +and I were standing, I suppose, for full five minutes +only divided by that strip of canvas. I tried +not to breathe audibly, and I could not hear him +breathe. At last I resolved to see him, and considered +how I should do so. If I remained standing +and looked out, I should have to push the flap +quite away and my eyes would be nearly on a +level with his. He would certainly see me. I +didn't wish that. I didn't intend at all that +he should see me. Therefore I resolved to lie +down.”</p> + +<p>“On the ground?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, quite flat, and to raise the bottom of the +flap gently an inch or two. This would enable +me to see him without being seen, if I did it without +noise. I dropped down quite softly. Do +you remember my death in ‘Camille’?”</p> + +<p>Renfrew nodded.</p> + +<p>“Almost like that. But the rose-coloured stuff +rustled again. I wished I hadn't put it on. I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> +raised the flap very slightly and peeped out. Do +you know what I felt like just then, Desmond?”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Just like a snake in ambush. When my +cloak rustled, it was the grass against my body. I +lay in cover, and could see my enemy like a creature +in a forest, or a reptile in scrub.”</p> + +<p>She glanced round at the bushes and the densely +growing palms.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I lay there like a snake in the grass.”</p> + +<p>She stretched herself out on the rug as she +spoke, with her head towards Renfrew and her eyes +fastened on his.</p> + +<p>“I saw first the feet of the man close to my +eyes. His feet were almost black and bare. His +legs were bare. My glance travelled up him, and +I saw that his chest and his arms were bare too. +He was clothed in a sort of loose rough garment, +the colour of sacking, that fell into a kind of hood +behind; and he looked enormously powerful. +That struck me very much—his power.”</p> + +<p>“Did you see his face?”</p> + +<p>“Quite well. It was the face of a man watching +and listening with the closest attention. He was +smiling slightly, too, as if something that had just +happened had satisfied him. I knew he had heard +the rustle of my robe as I slipped to the ground.”</p> + +<p>“But why should that please him?”</p> + +<p>“It told him that I was there, that I was +attentive too.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> +<p>Renfrew's face slightly darkened.</p> + +<p>“As I looked, I saw what he was holding in his +hands.”</p> + +<p>“What was it—a dagger—a staff?”</p> + +<p>“A serpent.”</p> + +<p>Renfrew could not repress an exclamation.</p> + +<p>“Very large and striped. Its skin was like shot +silk in the moonlight. It writhed softly between +his hands, and turned its flat head from side to side. +It seemed to be trying to bend down towards +where I lay. Its tongue shot out like a length of +riband out of one of those wooden winders that +you buy in cheap shops. I should think its body +was quite five feet long, and its colour seemed to +change as it turned about. Sometimes it was +pink, then it looked dull green and almost black. +Once it wriggled down so near to the ground that +I could see two fangs in its open mouth like hooks, +and the roof of its mouth was flesh colour.”</p> + +<p>“How abominable!” said Renfrew, softly.</p> + +<p>“I didn't feel it so at all,” Claire said. “I +wanted it to come to me,—back into the grass +where such things are safe. But the man wouldn't +let it go. He thrust it into his breast. He +wanted to have his hands free.”</p> + +<p>“Good God, Claire—what for? Did he—?”</p> + +<p>She smiled at his sudden violence, which showed +his interest.</p> + +<p>“When the snake was safe, he drew out, still +smiling and listening, a little pipe that looked as if<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> +it were made of straw, very common and dirty. +He held it up to his black lips, and began to play +very softly and sleepily. Desmond, the tune he +played was charmed. It was a tune composed—for—for—”</p> + +<p>She broke off.</p> + +<p>“You know the Pied Piper had his tune,” she +said; “the rats had to follow it. Well, this tune +was for the serpents.”</p> + +<p>“To charm them you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Wisely—dangerously—almost irresistibly, +perhaps in time, Desmond, quite, quite irresistibly. +There is a music for all creatures, all reptiles, birds,—everything +that lives; this was for the snakes.”</p> + +<p>“Well, but, Claire, how did you know that?”</p> + +<p>She looked at him with a sort of dull amusement +and pity in her half-shut eyes.</p> + +<p>“Shall I tell you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“I knew it, because the tune charmed me, +Desmond.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, you are acting! I half suspected it from +the first,” Renfrew exclaimed almost roughly.</p> + +<p>He sat up as a man who has been lying under a +spell stirs when the spell is broken. Now he knew +that his pipe was out, and he felt for his match-box. +But Claire still kept her eyes fixed on him, +and laid her hand on his arm gently.</p> + +<p>“No, I am not acting,” she said. “The tune +charmed me. You see I am a woman; and there<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> +are many women who feel at moments that what +attracts some special creature, thing, of the so-called +world without a soul, attracts them too. +Some men can whistle a woman as they would a +dog, can't they?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and some men can charm a woman as +they could charm a serpent.”</p> + +<p>“I don't understand you, Claire.”</p> + +<p>“You don't choose to. The animal is in us all, +hidden deftly by Nature, the artful dodger of the +scheme of creation, Desmond; and we know it +when the right tune is played to summon it from +its slumber in the nest of the human body. Only +the right tune can waken it.”</p> + +<p>“The animal! But—”</p> + +<p>“Or the reptile, perhaps. What does it matter? +This was the right tune for me. I lay +there like a snake in the grass and it thrilled me! +And all the time the black man smiled and listened +for the rustling at his feet. You look black, +Desmond! How absurd of you to be angry!”</p> + +<p>And she closed her fingers over his hand till the +frown died out of his face.</p> + +<p>“The tune seemed to draw me to the man. I +understood just how he had captured the serpent +that lay hidden in his bosom. It had once lain +in ambush as I lay now, long ago perhaps, in the +desert among the rocks, on the sand, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, the sand!” he said, remembering suddenly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> +the strange feeling Claire had described as coming +upon her when she was trying to sleep.</p> + +<p>“Yes. And he had drawn it from the sand to +the oasis among the palms where he stood playing, +till he heard its rustling in the grass about his feet, +as it glided nearer to him, and nearer, and nearer, +till at last it reared up its body, and wound up him +and round him, and laid its flat head between his +great hands. Yes, that was how it came.”</p> + +<p>“You fancy.”</p> + +<p>“I know. But I would not go. I determined +that I would not, and I lay perfectly still. But all +the time I longed to go. I had an almost irresistible +passion for movement towards that tune. It +seemed to me a stream of music into which I yearned +to plunge, and drown and die. And it flowed up +there at the man's lips! The longing increased as +he piped the tune, over and over and over again, +almost under his breath. I was sick with it, and it +hurt me because I resisted it. And at last I knew +that resisting it would kill me. I must either go, or +not go, and die. There was no alternative. That +music simply claimed me. It had the right to. And +if I denied that right I should cease. I did deny it.”</p> + +<p>She shuddered in the sun, then added, almost +harshly:—</p> + +<p>“Like a fool.”</p> + +<p>“And then, Claire, then—?”</p> + +<p>“It seemed to me that I died in most horrible +pain. I lived once more when you said, outside<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +my tent, ‘Claire, time to get up.’ You see, I +slept too much last night.”</p> + +<p>And again she shuddered. A look of relief shot +into Renfrew's face.</p> + +<p>“All this came from your mad performance to +those Moors,” he said. “You impersonate so +vividly that even sleep cannot release your genius, +and bring it out from the world which you have +deliberately forced it to enter.”</p> + +<p>“But, Desmond, I impersonated the charmer of +the snake, not the snake itself.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, in a dream the mind always wanders a +little from the event that has caused the dream. +It is like a faulty mimic who strives to reproduce +with exactitude and slightly fails. Time to go, +Absalem?”</p> + +<p>The dragoman had come up.</p> + +<p>As they rode down the mountain a strange thing +occurred, strange at least in connection with +Claire's narrative of the night. Mohammed, who +was riding just in front of them, pulled up his mule +beside a thicket at the wayside, and, turning his +head, signed to them to be silent. Then, pursing +his lips, he whistled a shrill little tune. In a +moment an answer came from the thicket; Claire +glanced at Renfrew with a slight smile. Here was +a sort of side light of reality thrown upon her +dream and upon their conversation. Mohammed +whistled again. The echo followed. And then +suddenly a bird flew out, almost into his face, and,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> +startled, swerved and darted away across the gorge +into the dense woods beyond.</p> + +<p>“A charm of birds,” Claire murmured to Renfrew, +as they rode on. “The summoning tune—what +can resist it?”</p> + +<p>“Claire,” he said, almost reproachfully, “you +speak like a fatalist.”</p> + +<p>“And I believe I am one,” she answered. +“Destiny is not only a phantom but also a fact. +Mine is marked out for me and known—”</p> + +<p>“To whom? Not to yourself?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no!”</p> + +<p>“To whom then?”</p> + +<p>“To the hidden force that directs all things.”</p> + +<p>“I am your destiny.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Desmond—or Morocco. I feel to-day +as if I shall never see England again, or a civilised +audience such as I have known.”</p> + +<p>And then she seemed to fall into a waking +dream. Even Renfrew felt drowsy, the air was +so intensely hot and the motion of the horses so +monotonous. And Mohammed's deep voice was +never silent. It buzzed like a bourdon in the +glare of the noontide, till, far away on the hill-side, +they saw white Tetuan facing the plain, the river +moving stagnantly towards the sea, the great fields +of corn in which strange flowers grew, and the +giant range of shaggy mountains, swimming in a +mist of gold that looked like spangled tissue.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span></p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>The camp was pitched beyond the city in the +green plain that lies between Tetuan and the sea. +From the tents Renfrew and Claire saw the trains +of camels and donkeys passing slowly along the +high road towards the steep and stony hill that +leads up to the lower city gate, the white-washed +summer palaces of the wealthy Moors, nestling in +gardens, among green fields and groves of acacias, +olives and almond trees, the far-off line of blue +water on the one hand and the fairy-like and ivory +town upon the other. Clouds of brown dust flew +up in the air, and the hoarse cry of “Balak! Balak!” +made a perpetual and distant music. Far more +strange and barbarous was this city than Tangier. +All traces of Europe had faded away. Thousands +of years seemed now to stand like a wall between +the Continents, and the hordes of dark and fanatical +Moslems gazed upon the great actress and her +husband as we gaze at wild animals whose aspects +and whose habits are strange to us.</p> + +<p>“I know now what it is to feel like an unclean +dog,” Claire said, as they sat at dinner under the +stars that night, after their halting progress through +the filthy alleys of the white fairyland on the hill-side. +“It is a grand sensation. I suppose children +enjoy it, too. That must be why they like +making mud-pies.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span></p> +<p>“To-morrow is market-day, Absalem tells me,” +Renfrew said. “We will spend it in the town, and +you can feel unclean to your heart's content—you!”</p> + +<p>He looked at her and laughed low, with the +pride of a lover in a beautiful woman who is his +own.</p> + +<p>“They ought to fall down and worship you,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“Moors worship a woman! Desmond, you are +mad!”</p> + +<p>“No, they are—they are. See, Claire, the +moon is coming up already. Can it be shining on +Piccadilly too, and on the façade of the theatre?”</p> + +<p>“The theatre! I can't believe I shall ever see +it again.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense!”</p> + +<p>“Is it? This wild country seems to have +swallowed me up, and I don't feel as if it will ever +disgorge me again. Desmond, perhaps there are +some lands that certain people ought never to +visit. For those lands love them, and, once they +have seized their prey, they will never yield it up +again. Poor men must often feel that when they +are dying in foreign places. It is the land which +has taken them to itself as an octopus takes a drifting +boat in a lonely sea. Africa!”</p> + +<p>She had risen from her seat and moved out into +the vague plain. Renfrew followed her.</p> + +<p>“I wonder in which direction the desert lies<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +nearest,” she said. “All the strange people come +in from the desert, as the strange things of life come +in from the future, only one so seldom hears the +tinkling bells of those deadly silent caravans in +which they travel. If we could hear and see them +coming, what emotions we should have!”</p> + +<p>“There are premonitions, some men say,” Renfrew +answered.</p> + +<p>“The faint bells of the caravans ringing,—do +you ever hear them?”</p> + +<p>“No, Claire—never. And you?”</p> + +<p>“I half thought I did once.”</p> + +<p>“When was that?”</p> + +<p>“Last night. Hark! The men have finished +supper and are beginning to sing. That's a song +about dancing.”</p> + +<p>“To-morrow we are going to feast the soldiers, +and have an African fire.”</p> + +<p>“Splendid! I think I will leap through the +flames.”</p> + +<p>Renfrew put his arm round her.</p> + +<p>“No, no. They might singe your beauty. +And yet, you are a flame too. You have burnt +your name, yourself, like a brand upon my heart.”</p> + +<p>The dancing song rang up in the moonlight like +the wailing of dead masqueraders. All Moorish +songs are sad and thrilling, fateful and pregnant +with unrest and with forebodings.</p> + +<p>With the daylight the Jews came, in their long +and morose garments and black skull-caps, bearing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> +bales of embroideries, slippers, and uncut jewels. +When they saw the wonderful black pearl upon +Claire's finger their huge eyes flamed with an +avarice so fierce and open that Renfrew instinctively +moved between them and Claire, as if to guard her +from assault.</p> + +<p>But the wonderful pearl was not for them.</p> + +<p>The sun blazed furiously when they got upon +their horses to ride to the Soko. Each day the +season was growing hotter, and Absalem told them +that there were no English in Tetuan. Nor did they +set eyes on a European woman until that day when +Renfrew rode back, crouching along his horse, to +the villas of Tangier.</p> + +<p>Tetuan has more than one open mouth, and when +it swallows you the contemplation of a fairyland is +immediately exchanged for a desperate reality of +populous filth, stentorian uproar, uneven boulders, +beggars, bazaars like rabbit hutches, men and children +pitted with small-pox till they appear scarcely +human, lepers, Jews, pirates from the Riff Mountains, +fanatics from the Ape's Hill, water-carriers, +veiled, waddling women, dogs like sharp shadows, +and monkeys that appear and vanish in sinister +doorways with the rapidity and gestures of demons. +On a market-day the city is so full that it seems as +if the circling and irregular white walls must burst +and disgorge the clamouring and gesticulating inhabitants +into the tranquil plain below. Claire +surveyed this blanched hell with a still serenity, as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span> +she had often surveyed an applauding audience at +the close of her evening's task, ere she thanked +them with the curious gesture, that was almost a +salaam, in which humility and a remote pride +mingled. Noise generally gave her calm; and when +passion broke from her she taught the world to be +intensely silent. These alleys became like a dream +to her, and the tiny interiors of the bazaars were +little histories of visionary lives, some, but only a +few, mysteriously beautiful. One, in a very dark +place where, for some unknown cause, all voices +died away till the hot air was full of a whispering +stillness, brought slow tears to Claire's eyes. In +the Street of the Slippers she passed a cupboard of +wood raised high from the pavement, with low +roof, leaning walls, and, in front, a little bar like +that which fences an English baby in its chair before +the fire. In this cupboard squatted two tiny +Moorish infants, sole occupants of the cupboard, +with solemn faces, bending to ply their trade of +pricking patterns upon rose-coloured Morocco +leather. There was no beauty in the cupboard, +sweetness of light, or ease. And the faces of the +little boys were sad and elderly. But, placed carefully +between them, was an ugly three-legged stool, +on which stood two dwarf earthen jars containing +two sprigs of orange flower, and, as Claire looked, +one of the babes laid down his leather, lifted his +jar, sniffed, with a sort of gentle resignation, at his +flower, and then resumed his diligent labours, re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>freshed +perhaps, and strengthened. In the action +Claire seemed to catch sight of a little pallid soul +striving to exist feebly among the slippers.</p> + +<p>“Did you see?” she cried to Renfrew, when +the baby shoemakers were lost to sight.</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“I wish I were a Moorish woman, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>“Good Heaven! Why!”</p> + +<p>“So that I could kiss the infant who smelt +the orange flower in his own language. Little +artist!”</p> + +<p>Her sudden blaze of enthusiasm was checked +by the infernal Soko into which they now entered. +In this unpaved square, upon which the pitiless +sun beat, the earth seemed to have come alive, +to have formed itself into a thousand vague semblances +of human figures, and to be shrieking, +moving, twisting, gesticulating, as if striving to +impart a thousand abominable secrets till now +hidden from the world that walks upon its surface. +As snow-men resemble the snow, so did +these bargainers, these buyers, sellers, barterers, +pedlars, resemble the baked earth on which they +squatted. Shrouded in earth-coloured garments, +they shrieked, strove, rang their bells, kicked their +donkeys, elbowed their rivals, pommelled their +camels, recited the Koran, or testified with frenzy, +the terrific honesty of all their dealings. Here +and there tents made of mud-coloured rags cast +a grotesque shadow, in which broad women,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span> +hidden by veils like sacks, and dominated by straw +hats a yard wide, sat huddled together and pecked +at by wandering fowls. Jew boys, with long and +expressive faces, their black hair plastered upon their +foreheads in fringes that touched their eyes, strolled +through the mob in batches, some of them reading +in little books. Soudanese slave girls carried +bouquets of orange flowers. In a corner some +Hawadji were leaping monotonously to the thunder +of a Moorish drum made of baked earth and +of parchment. A sheep, escaped from the slaughterer, +tumbled with piteous bleatings into a group +of half breeds, Spanish Moors, who were playing +cards near a stall covered with raw meat and great +lumps of some substance that looked like lard. +On a huge heap of rotten oranges and decaying +fish, over which millions of flies swarmed, a +number of children in close white caps were +moving in some mysterious game in which two +prowling cats occasionally took an unintentional +part. Some Riff Arabs, fierce as tigers, tall and +half-naked, stalked feverishly towards a water-carrier +whose lean form, tottering with age, was +almost eclipsed beneath the monstrous bladder +he bore incessantly through the multitude. The +horses of Renfrew and of Claire could scarcely +plant their hoofs on anything that was not moving, +crying, panting, or cursing; and they pulled up, +and prepared to descend into this human ocean of +which all the waves roared in their deafened ears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> +As Claire leant to Renfrew, who stretched his +arms to help her, she said to him:—</p> + +<p>“Can you swim? If not, you will certainly +be drowned.”</p> + +<p>“You must not be. Cling to my arm.”</p> + +<p>They sank together to their necks in the sea. +In whatever direction they looked, they saw a +mass of heads, an infinite expanse of shouting +mouths. But suddenly the pressure became extraordinary, +the uproar ear-splitting. And with the +voices there mingled a piercing music like a continuous +screech. People began to run, to trample +in one direction. The drum of the leaping +Hawadji was drowned by a louder drumming that +came from the centre of the square. Children +squeaked with excitement. The Riffians forgot +to drink, and slid forward with the cushioned feet +of animals in a jungle. A tempest arose, and in it +a whirlpool formed. It seemed that Renfrew and +Claire must be torn in pieces.</p> + +<p>“What on earth is happening?” Renfrew exclaimed +to Absalem, with the English anger our +countrymen always display when trodden by a +foreign element.</p> + +<p>Absalem smiled with airy dignity, and moved +forward, beckoning them to follow.</p> + +<p>“Miracle man, all want see him,” he remarked. +“Great miracle man.”</p> + +<p>With consummate adroitness he drew them +with him to the edge of the whirlpool. As they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span> +reached it, Renfrew felt that Claire's hand suddenly +tightened upon his arm until his flesh +puckered between her fingers as the flesh of a +rabbit puckers in a trap. He glanced at her in +astonishment. Her eyes were fixed on something, +or some one, beyond them, even beyond Absalem, +who was forcing people out of their way with his +powerful arms and back. Renfrew followed her +eyes, and saw the centre of the whirlpool.</p> + +<p>This mass of humanity had now assumed the +form of a rough circus, the ring of which was +kept clear. And in this ring a strange figure had +just appeared with upraised arms, and a manner +of wild, even of frantic, authority. This was a +gigantic man, almost black, half-naked, with long +arms, furious eyes, and legs which, though muscular, +tapered at the ankles like the legs of a finely +bred race-horse. His head was shaved in front; +but at the back the black hair grew in a long and +waving lock, and his features, magnificently cut, +might have been those of a grand European of +some headstrong and high-couraged race. Upon +this man Claire's eyes were fixed, with an expression +so strange and knowing that Renfrew +turned on her with a sharp exclamation.</p> + +<p>“Claire! Claire!”</p> + +<p>She slowly withdrew her eyes.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>A question stammered on his lips; but as she +smiled at him, he felt the mad absurdity of it, and +was silent.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Well, Desmond, what is it?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” he answered.</p> + +<p>Absalem now claimed their attention. He was +determined that they should be in the front of the +crowd, and ruthlessly pushed away the Moors who +had obtained the best places, pointing at Claire and +Renfrew, and wildly vociferating their mighty rank +and enormous wealth. The staring mob gave +way; and in a moment Claire and the miracle man +stood face to face. His frenzied eyes had no sooner +seen her than he too fell upon the surrounding +natives, thrusting them violently to one side, and +cursing them for daring to draw near to the great +English gentleman and lady. In the whole mighty +mob these two were the only Europeans, and they +attracted as universal an attention as two Aztecs +would in a Bank Holiday gathering at the Crystal +Palace. Renfrew could now see that the screeching +music came from one side of the ring, where a +couple of men, clothed in filthy rags, were sitting +on the ground, one playing a long pipe of straw, +the other beating an enormous drum. Immediately +behind them a very old man, evidently a +maniac, swayed his body violently backwards and +forwards, and at regular intervals uttered a loud +and chuckling cry that might have been the ejaculation +of a tipsy school-boy, and came strangely from +withered lips hanging loose with weakness and +with age. This dancing Methuselah caught Renfrew's +attention; and, for the moment, he forgot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> +to look at the miracle man. A general outcry +from the multitude made him turn his head. He +saw then that the miracle man held in his huge +hands a sort of kennel of straw, the mouth of which +was closed with a movable flap. Lifting this aloft, +he sprang wildly round the ring, vociferating some +words at the top of his voice; then, suddenly +casting it down, he flung himself upon the ground, +which he beat with his forehead, while he shrieked +out a prayer to his patron saint for protection in +the great miracle which he was about to perform.</p> + +<p>“What is he doing?” Renfrew asked of Absalem.</p> + +<p>“Don't you know?” Claire said.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were gleaming with excitement as they +stared at the salaaming figure that grovelled at their +feet.</p> + +<p>“No. How should I?”</p> + +<p>“He is praying to Sidi Mahomet,” she said.</p> + +<p>And then she looked at Renfrew. He understood. +At that moment, despite the excessive heat +engendered by the blazing sun and the pressure of +the crowd, he turned very cold, as if his body was +plunged in glacier water. He thought of the tall +figure that had stood before Claire's tent door in +the moonbeams, the lips that had coaxed from the +pipe the tune that charmed all serpents,—that right +tune that they must follow, which drew them from +the desert sands to the grass of the oasis, till they +wound up the body of this gaunt and tremendous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> +savage, and hid themselves in his hairy bosom. +This miracle man, then, was a snake-charmer, and +Claire had divined it at once. How? Renfrew +put the question quickly.</p> + +<p>“How did I know? He is the man who played +outside my tent in the night, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>“The very man! Impossible.”</p> + +<p>“The very man.”</p> + +<p>“Then you were not asleep, not dreaming?”</p> + +<p>“How can one tell? Hush!”</p> + +<p>She spoke in the low voice of one whose attention +is becoming concentrated, and who cannot +endure the interruption. The charmer had now +finished his petition to his god, and, standing up, +thrust into his mouth a handful of some green herb, +which he chewed and swallowed. Then his whole +manner abruptly changed. The frenzy died out +of his eyes. A calm suffused his tall and muscular +body till it became strangely statuesque. His lips +slowly smiled, and he raised his hands towards the +glaring sky with a sublime gesture of gratitude.</p> + +<p>“What an actor!” Renfrew heard Claire +murmur softly.</p> + +<p>He, too, had become intensely engrossed by this +man in whom he, from this moment, began to see +Claire: the exquisite woman whom the civilised +world worshipped in the mighty savage who came +from the remote depths of Morocco; the white being +who played with the minds of the capitals of +Europe, in the black being who played with the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> +reptiles of the desert and of the jungle. For Claire, +guided by the spirit that ever goes before genius +bearing the torch, had instinctively divined what +she had never known. In London it seemed that +she had entered into the very soul of this man who +now stood before her. She had caught the wild +graces of his bearing. She had reproduced his smile, +so full of secrets and of power. She had moved as +he did. She had been motionless as now he was +motionless. In the sun she stood at this moment +and beheld the reality of which she had been the +magnificent reflection. And Renfrew felt his heart +oppressed, as if clouds were closing round him.</p> + +<p>Now the snake-charmer looked slowly all round +the great circle of watching faces until his eyes +rested on Claire. He had taken the straw kennel +into his hands, and he softly lifted the flap, and +turned it flat upon the top of the kennel, leaving +the mouth open. Then he thrust one hand into +this mouth, and withdrew it, holding a writhing +snake whose striped satin skin changed colour in +the sunshine, turning from pink to green, from +green to black.</p> + +<p>“It is the snake I saw,” Claire whispered to +Renfrew.</p> + +<p>He did not reply. He seemed fascinated by the +savage and the serpent. Holding the snake at +arm's length, the charmer walked softly round +the circle, collecting money from the crowd. He +stopped in front of Claire. The snake thrust out<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> +its flat head towards her. She did not shrink from +it; and the charmer cried aloud some words that +seemed like praise of her beauty and of her composure. +She gave him a piece of gold. Renfrew +gave him nothing.</p> + +<p>Then, standing once more in the centre of the +circle, he burst into a frantic incantation, while the +musicians redoubled their efforts, and the old maniac +in the corner gave forth his chuckling cry with +greater force, and swayed his trembling body more +vehemently to and fro. The snake, suddenly +brought from the darkness of the kennel to the +light of day, was torpid and weary. It drooped +between the charmer's hands. He shook it, called +on it, caught up a stick and struck it. Then, +forcing its mouth wide open, he barred its pink +throat with the stick, on which he made it fix its +two fangs, which were like two sharp hooks. +Holding the end of the stick, he came again to +Claire, to whom his whole performance was now +exclusively devoted; and, approaching the hanging +reptile close to her eyes, he jumped it up and down +to the sound of the drum and pipe.</p> + +<p>“You see,” Claire said to Renfrew, “the roof of +its mouth is flesh-colour.”</p> + +<p>He did not answer. Why did all this mean so +much to him? Why did the clouds grow darker? +The music and the cries of the old maniac perturbed +him and bewildered his brain. And he +wanted to be calm, and to watch Claire and this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> +savage with a cool and undivided attention. By +this time the snake was growing irritated. It +agitated its long body furiously; and when the +charmer unhooked its fangs from the stick, it +turned its head towards him and made a sudden +dart at his face. He opened his mouth wide, thrust +the snake into it, and let the creature fasten on +his tongue, from which blood began to flow. Still +bleeding, and with the snake fixed on his tongue, +he danced and sprang into the air. His eyes grew +wild. Foam ran from his mouth, and his whole +appearance became demoniacal. Yet his eyes still +fastened themselves upon Claire. In his most +frantic moments his attention was never entirely +distracted from the spot where she was standing. +He tore the snake from his tongue and buried its +fangs in the flesh of his left wrist. Cries broke +from the crowd. The sight of the blood had excited +them, for these people love blood as the toper +loves wine. They urged the charmer on to fresh +exertions with furious screams of encouragement. +The maniac bent his body like a dervish in the last +exercises of his religion, and the ragged musicians +forced a more extreme uproar from their instruments. +The charmer caught the snake by the tail, +and strove to pull it backwards off his wrist. But +the reptile's fangs were firmly fastened. It held +on with a terrible tenacity, and a struggle ensued +between it and its master. When at length it gave +way, it was streaked with blood, and now at last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> +thoroughly aroused. The charmer scraped his +tongue with a straw; then, casting himself again +upon the earth, he prayed once more with fury to +Sidi Mahomet. Claire watched him always, with +that pale and exquisite attention which one genius +gives to the performance of another. Her face was +white and still. Her body never moved. But her +eyes blazed with life, and with the fires of a violent +soul completely awake. Having finished his prayer, +which ended in a cry so poignant that it might have +burst from the lips of that world on which the +flood came, the charmer remained upon the ground +in a sitting posture, laid the snake in his lap, and drew +from the inside of his ragged robe a Moorish lute +made of a bladder, bamboo, and two strings, and +coloured a pale yellowish-green. He plucked the +strings gently, and played the fragment of a wild +tune. Then, suddenly catching up the snake, and +thrusting his tongue far out of his mouth, he poised +the snake upon it, rose to his feet and stood at his +full height in front of Claire, fixing his eyes upon +her with a glance that seemed to claim from her +both wonder and worship. The snake reared itself +up higher and higher upon the quivering tongue; +and the charmer, extending his long arms, whirled +slowly round as if poised upon a movable platform, +while a terrific clamour broke from the Moors, who +seemed to be roused by this feat to the highest pitch +of excitement. Still turning and turning, the +charmer drew from his bosom a second snake that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> +was black and larger than the first, and coiled it +round his sinewy neck like a gigantic necklace, the +darting head in front, resting, a sort of monstrous +pendant, upon his uncovered chest. To Renfrew +he looked like some hateful grotesque in a nightmare, +inhuman, endowed with attributes of a devil. +The serpents were part of him, growths of his +body, visible signs of some terrible disease in which +he gloried and of which he made a show. The +creature was intolerable. His exhibition had suddenly +become to Renfrew unfit for the eyes of any +woman; and, without a word, he took hold of +Claire and pulled her almost violently away from +the circle on which the fascinated mob was beginning +to encroach. She resisted him.</p> + +<p>“Desmond!” she exclaimed, “what are you +doing?”</p> + +<p>“Claire—come. I insist upon it!”</p> + +<p>Already the Moors had thronged the place which +they had left vacant. She turned a white face on +him. There was in her eyes the hideous expression +of a sleep-walker suddenly awakened, and she +trembled in every limb. She swung round from +Renfrew, and, above the intercepting Moors, high +in the air, she saw the snake, which seemed climbing +to heaven. While she looked, a huge hand +closed upon it and took it out of sight. The +charmer, observing the departure of his distinguished +patrons, had abruptly stopped his performance. +Claire made no further resistance. Without a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> +word, she permitted Renfrew to lead her to the +horses and help her into the saddle. They rode +down the hill to the camp without exchanging a +word.</p> + +<p>When Claire had dismounted, she stood for a +moment twisting her whip in her hands. Then +she said:—</p> + +<p>“Desmond, I must ask you never to startle me +again as you did to-day, by sudden action. You +can't understand how such an interruption hurts +a nature like mine. I would rather you had +struck me. That would only have wounded my +body.”</p> + +<p>She turned and went into her tent, leaving Renfrew +in an agony of penitence and self-reproach. +All the rest of the afternoon she was very cold and +silent, rather dreamy than sullen, but obviously +disinclined for conversation, and still more obviously +unwilling to endure even the slightest demonstration +of affection on the part of Renfrew. +When the sheep which were to be slaughtered for +the soldiers' feast were driven bleating into the +camp, she retired into her tent, and remained +there, resting, until the sun was low in the heavens, +and the porters and mule-drivers went gaily out to +search for the materials of the African fire with +which the night was to be celebrated. They +returned, singing the Moorish conquest of Granada, +with their strong arms full of canes, dry and brittle +branches of trees, logs that looked like whole<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> +trunks, and huge shrubs, green and sweet-smelling. +Hearing their song, Claire came out of her tent. +The sky was red, and, in the southwest, turrets of +vapour rose and streamed out, assuming mysterious +and thin shapes in the gathering dimness. A great +flock of birds, flying very high, and forming a +definite and beautiful pattern, passed slowly on the +wing towards the kingdom of the storks, that lies +near the sand banks of Ceuta. They moved in +silence, and faded away in the twilight stealthily, +like things full of quiet intention and governed by +some furtive, but inexorable, desire. Renfrew, who +was wandering rather miserably near the camp, +watching descending pilgrims from the city melt +into the vast bosom of the plain, saw Claire's white +figure in the tent door, half hidden in a soft rosy +mist which stole from the lips of evening as scent +steals from the lips of a flower. He felt afraid to +go to her. He possessed her; and yet it seemed to +him now that he scarcely knew her. He was only +an ordinary man. She was a strange woman; not +merely because of her womanhood, as all women +are to all men, but strange in that which lay +beyond and beneath her womanhood, in her genius, +and in the dull or ardent moods that stood round +it, one, and yet not one, with it. In the tent door +she leaned like a spirit born of the evening, a child +of fading things, dying lights, fainting colours, +retreating sounds,—a spirit waiting for the coming +of the stars, and the rising of the moon, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span> +the mysteries of the night, and the subtle odours +that the winds of Northern Africa bring with them +over the mountains and down the lonely valleys, +when the sun descends. And as a spirit may listen +to the songs of men, with the melancholy of a thing +apart, she listened to the songs of the Moors, until +at length they seemed to be in her own heart that +evening, as if they were songs of her own country. +And these dark men with wild eyes who sang +them, while they flung upon the grass their burdens +from the thickets, and from the hedgeless and wide +fields, were no longer alien to her. She stood in +the tent door, and, without any conscious effort of +the imagination, became their fancied mate,—a +woman sprung from the same soil, or come in—like +the strange people—from the deserts of their +country. Only she was not as one of their women, +mindless, patient, and concealed; but as their women +should be, strong, hot-blooded, brave, serene, and +looked upon by a world without reproach.</p> + +<p>Absalem came up to her to tell her some details +of the night's festivity. Before he spoke she said +to him:—</p> + +<p>“Where does the desert lie?”</p> + +<p>He told her.</p> + +<p>“Does the miracle man come from there?”</p> + +<p>Absalem answered that no one knew. He had +been much in Wasan, the sacred city of Morocco; +but none knew his birthplace, his tribe, his name. +Often he disappeared, no man could tell whither.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> +But, doubtless, he made vast journeys. Some said +that he had exhibited his snakes on the banks of +the Nile, that he had gone with the pilgrim trains +to Mecca, that he knew Khartoum as he knew +Marakesh, and that he never ceased from wandering.</p> + +<p>“What is his age?” Claire asked.</p> + +<p>Absalem answered that he must be old, but +that Time had no power over him.</p> + +<p>“He miracle man; he live long as he wish.”</p> + +<p>Last she asked when he would leave Tetuan.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps this night. Perhaps to-morrow night, +perhaps never. Perhaps he go already.”</p> + +<p>“Already!”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Claire moved out from the tent, and +joined Renfrew, who was still watching her, and +weaving lover's fancies about her white figure.</p> + +<p>“Have you been here long, Desmond?” she +asked.</p> + +<p>“Very long, dearest. Are you rested?”</p> + +<p>“Quite. From here you can see all the people +travelling away from the city towards the sea?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Have you been watching them?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, indeed; for half the afternoon.”</p> + +<p>She turned her great eyes on him searchingly, +and seemed as if she checked a question which +was almost on her lips.</p> + +<p>“They must have been a strange multitude,” +she said at length. “I wonder where they are +all going?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span></p> +<p>“Some to the villages in the plain, some to the +coast. I saw the Riffs who were in the Soko pass +by. I suppose they were returning to the caverns +from which they plunder becalmed vessels, Spanish +and Portuguese.”</p> + +<p>“The Riffs—yes?”</p> + +<p>Her intonation suggested that she was waiting +for some further information. Renfrew's curiosity +was aroused.</p> + +<p>“Why do you look at me like that?” he asked. +“What do you want to know?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing, Desmond. How dark it is getting! +There is Mohammed ringing the bell. And look, +those must be the soldiers. They are just marching +in from the city.”</p> + +<p>With the coming of night a wind arose, blowing +towards the sea from the mountains; and with +it came up a troop of clouds which blotted out +stars and moon, and plunged the plain into a gulf +of darkness. Tetuan does not gleam with lamps +at night like a European city, and all the distant +villas of the Moors were closely shuttered. So +the wind, warm and scented and strong, swept +over a black land, deserted and vacant. Only in +the camp was there movement, music, and an +illumination that strove up in the night, as if it +would climb to the clouds. Scarcely had Claire +and Renfrew finished dinner, when Absalem and +Mohammed ceremoniously appeared to conduct +them out to the bare space before the tents on<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> +which the African fire had been carefully built. +Absalem carried a lamp which swung in the wind, +and, behind, there appeared from the kitchen tent +some of the porters, bearing burning brands, the +flames of which were at right angles to the wood +from which they sprung. The guard of soldiers, +one dozen in all, armed with immense guns and +wrapped in hooded cloaks, were already crouched +in a silent mass before the lifeless and portentous +erection which came out of the darkness, as +Absalem swung forward the lamp, like the skeleton +of a monster. They turned their shadowy faces +on Claire, and stared with eyes intent and unself-conscious +as those of an animal. The porters +flung their brands on to the mountain of twigs, and +instantaneously a huge sheet of livid gold sprang up +against the black background of the night, as if it +had been shaken out on the wind by invisible +hands. This sheet expanded, swayed, fluttered in +ragged edges, and cast forth a cloud of sparks +which were carried away into the air and vanished +in the sky. The shrubs caught fire and crackled +furiously, and finally the foundation of gigantic +logs began to glow steadily, and to fill the wind +with a scorching heat. The camp was gradually +defined, at first vaguely and in sections,—the peak +of a tent, the head of a mule, a startled pariah +dog, a Moor set in the eye of the flames; then +clearly, as the buildings one may see in a furnace, +complete and glowing. The faces of the soldiers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> +were barred with flickering orange, and red lights +played in their huge and staring eyeballs. The +horses and mules could be counted. Before the +kitchen tent the sacrifice of sheep was visible, +stewing in enormous pans upon red embers in a +trench of earth. And the grave cook, who was +distinguished by a white turban, shone like a pantomime +magician at the mouth of an enchanted +cave. Warmth, light, life poured upon the night, +and the voices of men began to mingle with the +continuous voice of this superb fire. The Moors, +soldiers, servants, porters, kindled into furious +gaiety with the swiftness of the canes and olive +boughs. They sprang up from the ground, pulled +the shrouding hoods from their faces, tossed away +their djelabes, and began, with shouts and ejaculations, +to dance up and down before the golden +sheet, spreading their hands to it with the glee of +children. A sudden joy beamed in the dusky and +solemn faces, twinkled in the sombre eyes. One +man flung away his fez, another dashed his turban +to the ground. Round, shaven heads, bare arms, +brown legs, half concealed by fluttering linen +knickerbockers, lithe bodies emerged with eager +haste into the light. Shadows became abruptly +men, formless humps athletes. Mutes sent out +great voices to startle the sweeping bats. Mourners +turned into maniacs. It was a fantasia that +exploded into life like a rocket, shedding a stream +of vivid human fire. Mohammed drew away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> +from the flames, taking a dozen swift footsteps to +the rear. Then, with a shout, he dashed forward, +bounded into the golden sheet, and disappeared as +a clown disappears through a paper hoop. Only +the paper closed up behind him. He leaped +through light to darkness, pursued by a thousand +eager sparks. One soldier followed him, then +another, and another. The porters, linking hands, +leaped in twos and threes. Even the cook, old, +and serious with a weight of savoury knowledge, +tottered to the edge of the fire, which was now +becoming a furnace, and took it as an Irish horse +takes a stone wall, striking the topmost branches +with his bare feet amid a chorus of yells.</p> + +<p>Claire watched the darting figures with a silent +gravity. She did not seem to be stirred by the fantasia +of the firelight, or to catch any gaiety or life +from the boisterous activity of those about her. +The flames lit up the whiteness of her face, and +showed Renfrew that she was looking gloomy and +even despairing.</p> + +<p>“Is anything the matter, Claire?” he asked +anxiously.</p> + +<p>“No. How could there be?”</p> + +<p>The wind, which was increasing in violence, +blew her thin dress forward, and she shivered. +Absalem noticed it.</p> + +<p>“Wear djelabe, lady,” he said.</p> + +<p>And in a moment he had taken his off, and was +carefully wrapping Claire in it. She seemed glad of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> +it, thanked him, and, with a quick gesture that hurt +Renfrew, pulled the big brown hood up over her +head, so that her face was entirely concealed from +view. She now looked exactly like a Moor, and +might have been mistaken for one of the soldiers +before the fire was lit and all impeding garments +were thrown aside.</p> + +<p>Renfrew, uneasy, and wondering what conduct on +his part would best suit her mysterious mood, after +one or two remarks to which she barely replied, +drew away a little, and gave his attention to the +antics of the soldiers. Some of them were already +resuming their djelabes, in preparation for the feast, +which they sniffed even through the odour of burning +wood and leaves. The cook, after his emotional +and acrobatic outburst, had returned to his pans, +which he was stirring tenderly with a stick. When +Renfrew again looked towards Claire, he found it +impossible to tell which cloak shrouded her from +his sight. Four or five hooded figures stood near +the fire. She must be one of them. He approached +the group, but found, to his surprise, that +all the members of it were soldiers. Claire had +moved away. Renfrew stood for a few minutes +with the men, till they were summoned to their +feast, which, strangely enough, was to take place +away from the fire in the dense darkness behind +the tents. Then he was left alone by the huge +mass of flame, which roared hoarsely in the wind. +Where could Claire be? On any ordinary occa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span>sion +Renfrew would certainly have sought for her, +but to-night something held him back. He knew +very well that she wished to be alone, that something +was closely occupying her mind. Whether +she was still brooding over the event of the afternoon, +when he had forcibly led her away in the +very crisis of the snake-charmer's performance, he +could not tell. To an ordinary woman such a +matter would have been a trifle; but Renfrew +understood that Claire felt it more deeply. Her +mind appeared to be mysteriously moved and +awakened by this savage from the depths of +Morocco. Various circumstances combined to +render him more interesting to her than he could +possibly be to any ordinary traveller. Renfrew +recognised that fully and quietly. The genius of +Claire had enabled her to realise in London all +the wildly picturesque idiosyncrasies of a man +whom she had never seen or heard of. Suddenly +fate had led her to him, and she had beheld her +own performance, the original of her imitation. +As Renfrew stood by the fire, he began to feel the +folly of his proceeding of the afternoon, and to +imagine more clearly than before the condition into +which it had thrown Claire. It is a sin to disturb +the contemplations of genius. It is sacrilege. +And then Renfrew had been moved to his act by a +preposterous access of jealousy. He acknowledged +this to himself. He had been jealous of Claire's +interest in this man's performance, jealous perhaps<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> +even of her dream among the hills in the midnight +camp, where the man stood before her sleeping eyes, +and played with his visionary serpent. How mad +can a lover be? He resolved to go to Claire, and +ask her pardon. This resolve thrilled him. To +carry it out, he would have to draw very near to +Claire, to unpack his heart to her. After all, she +had given herself to him. But he had appreciated +the wonder of his rôle as possessor so keenly, that +he had waited upon her moods with an almost +trembling awe. Now, in asking pardon, he would +show that in his passion he could be strong. +Women want to see the man in the lover, as well +as the devotee. Renfrew, in acknowledging his +jealousy of a black savage, meant to clasp Claire +with the arms of a whirlwind.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile she was hidden from him. The +wind blew strongly. The sparks leaped away in +clouds toward the sea. From the dense darkness +behind him came a sound of music. The soldiers +were feasting. The porters were striking the lute, +and singing songs of the dance and of love and of +victory. It was a night of comradeship and of rejoicing. +Yet he stood alone; and the turmoil of +his heart was unheeded. He tried to explore the +blackness of the night which stood round the golden +fire with his eyes. Claire must be in that blackness +close to him. Doubtless she saw him, a red and +yellow creature, painted into fictitious brilliance by +the illumination which was shed upon him. She<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> +saw him and kept from him. Renfrew resolved to +be patient. When her mood of reserve died she +would come to him, in her dress of a Moor, and +he would kiss the white face beneath the hood, +and put his arms round the thin figure that was +lost in the djelabe of brawny Absalem, and tell her +the true story of his heart, never fully told to her +yet. He squatted down before the fire, lit his pipe, +shrugged his shoulders against the tempest from +the mountains, and waited, listening to the weird +music that swept by him like a hidden bird on the +wind.</p> + +<p>And Claire—where was she? When Absalem +wrapped her in the huge djelabe it seemed to Claire +that he had divined her secret longing to be in hiding. +She disappeared into the mighty hood of the garment +as into a cave. Its shadow concealed her +from the watching eyes of Renfrew. There was +warmth in it and a beautiful darkness. She desired +both. She saw Renfrew turn to watch the leaping +soldiers, and stole away out of the illuminated circle +formed by the glow from the fire, into the night +beyond. She did not go far, only into the nearest +shadow. And there she sat down on the short dry +grass, and forgot Renfrew, the roaring flames, the +wind that felt incessantly at her robe, the shouting +guard, the radiant and dancing attendants. She forgot +them all as completely as if they had never been +in her life; for the strangeness of certain incidents +preoccupied her, to the exclusion of everything else.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +In the double existence of a really great actress +there are many moments in which the truths of the +imagination seem more important than the truths +of physical phenomena of things seen by the eye, +of sounds received and appreciated by the ear. In +these moments, genius usurps the throne of reason, +and the mind beholds fancies as sunlit gods, facts +as timid and scarcely defined shadows. So it was +with Claire now. Even the snake-charmer, as he +gave his performance in the Soko, was a shadow in +comparison with that man who summoned her to +the tent door in the solitary encampment. And +behind and beyond both these figures of truth and +dreaming stood a third, created for herself by Claire +in London, that figure into whom she had poured +her soul as into a mould, when she charmed imaginary +serpents, and prayed to the god in whom, +for a moment, she believed with the passion of +the perfect mime. This trio Claire placed in line, +and reviewed: charmer of her imagination, of her +dream, of the Soko.</p> + +<p>They were the same, and yet not the same. +For the first was dominated, even was created by +her. The second stood above her, like some +magician, and summoned her as one possessing a +right. The third—what of him? He was a wild +creature of blood and foam, crafty, a player like +herself, a maker of money, a savage in sacking, and +almost nothing to her now. Out of the desert he +came. Into the desert he was, perhaps, even now,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> +returning, with his snakes sleeping in his bosom, +and the money of the Tetuan Moors jingling in +his pouch.</p> + +<p>Yes, she saw him, travelling like a shadow in +the night, one of those grotesques which leap on +bedroom walls when a lamp flares in the wind that +sighs through an open casement. He was going; +but the man of the dream remained. The dream +man had come up out of the world that is vaguer +to us than the desert when we wake, and clearer +to us than the desert when we sleep. Claire saw +him still, and, while the wonderful mountebank of +the Soko passed, he stood in the tent door like a +statue of ebony, a rooted reality. And the snake +was in his bosom; and the pipe was at his lips; +and the power was in his heart. And as he played, +Claire thought beneath the djelabe of Absalem, +there came to him, with the faltering steps of a +thing irresistibly charmed, that third man whose soul +she had seen in London, like approaching like, +with the manner of a slave and the glance of the +conquered. And her soul was still within that +charmed figure. She could not rescue it now from +the place where she had put it. And the statue at +the tent door played the irresistible melody until +his wild and cringing double stole to his very feet, +and nearer and nearer, till they melted together, +and where two men had been, there was only one. +He smiled with a subtle triumph, laid down his +pipe, stretched out his arms and vanished. But<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> +within him now was the soul of Claire, borne +wherever he should go, his captive, his possession +for all eternity.</p> + +<p>Behind her, in the cloudy darkness, Claire heard +a movement, and the gliding of soft feet on grass. +She did not turn her head, supposing that one of +the soldiers was keeping his guard. The movement +ceased. But the little noise had broken the +thread on which her fancies were strung. They +were scattered like beads. She found herself feeling +quite ordinary, and listening with an urging +attention for a renewal of the trifling noise behind +her. In the distance she could see Renfrew, now +crouching before the fire, which poured colour and +a piercing vitality upon him. She heard also, and +for the first time, the sound of the porters' music, +which had been audible in the night all through her +reverie, though she was entirely unaware of the +fact. She realised that the soldiers were devouring +the stew of mutton, and that she was in a gay camp, +full of human beings in a state of unusual satisfaction. +One of these human beings must be close +to her. She turned her head. But she was sitting +in the darkness beyond the illumination of the fire, +and beyond her the night was like a black wall. +Whatever had moved there was invisible to her. +She had not heard the gliding step go away, and +she felt that she was not alone. This feeling +began to render her uneasy. She got up, with the +intention of returning to the firelight and to Ren<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>frew. +Indeed she had taken a step or two in his +direction, when she was checked by an unreasonable +desire to see who had come so close to her, +who had broken her reverie. Acting upon the +sudden impulse, she turned swiftly and came on +into the darkness. Almost instantly she stood +before the dim outline of a man, and paused. Here +in the night it was very lonely, even though the +illuminated camp was so near. Claire hesitated to +approach this man who seemed to be on watch and +who was perfectly motionless. She waited a moment, +wishing that he would come to her in order +that she might see what he was like, whether he +carried a gun and was a soldier. But it was soon +evident that he did not mean to move. Then +Claire went up so close to him that his coarse +garment rubbed against her djelabe and his eyes +stared right down into hers. And she saw that it +was the snake-charmer from the Soko, who was +looking into her face with the very smile of the +man in her dream. Round his bare throat one +of his snakes was twined, and he held its neck +between the fingers of his left hand. The wind +tossed his short and ragged cloak wildly to and fro, +and whirled the long lock of hair at the back of his +shaven head about, and made it dance like a living +thing. When Claire came up to him, he never +said a word, or moved at all. It seemed to her +that his face was that of some dark and triumphant +being, waiting immovably for something that was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> +certain to come to him, and to come so close that +he need not even stretch out his hand to take it as +his possession. What was the thing he waited for? +She looked at his black face and at the snake which +moved slowly, trying to thrust its way downward +into the warmth of his bosom, out of the reach of +the wind and of the night. And, when the man's +fingers unclosed to release it, and it slid away and +softly disappeared beneath his garment, Claire +shuddered under the influence of a sensation that +was surely mad. For she felt that she envied the +snake, and that the charmer was waiting there in +the darkness for her. As the snake vanished, +Claire recoiled towards the fire. The charmer +did not attempt to follow her, and his huge and +watchful figure quickly faded from Claire's eyes till +his blackness had become one with the blackness +of the night.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Renfrew, as he crouched before the fire, felt a +light touch on his shoulder. He looked up, saw +Claire's white face peering down on him, and +sprang to his feet.</p> + +<p>“I thought you were never coming, that you had +deserted me altogether, and left me lonely in the +midst of the fantasia,” he cried, seizing her hands.</p> + +<p>“I am cold,” she said; “horribly cold. Let +me sit beside you, close to the fire.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> +<p>She sat down on the ground, almost touching +the roaring flames.</p> + +<p>“Where have you been?”</p> + +<p>“Sitting in the dark. The soldiers are feasting?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and the camp fellows are all singing and +playing. Don't you hear them? We are quite +alone. That's all I want, all I care for. Claire, +when you go away like this, and leave me, even +for a few minutes, Morocco is the most desolate +place in all the world, and I'm the most desolate +vagabond in it.”</p> + +<p>He put his arm round her. The terrific glow +from the fire played over her face, danced in the +deep folds of her djelabe, shone in her eyes, showered +a cloud of gold and red about her hair. For +she had let her hood fall down on her shoulders. +She attained to that fine and almost demoniacal +picturesqueness which glorifies even the most +commonplace smith when you see him in his forge +by night. Her cheeks were suffused with scarlet, +as if she had suddenly painted them to go on +the stage. Yet she shivered again as Renfrew +spoke.</p> + +<p>“You should not have left the fire,” he said. +“And yet the wind is warm.”</p> + +<p>“It can't be. But it's not the wind, it's the +darkness that has chilled me.”</p> + +<p>“Or is it the loneliness?” he asked, tenderly. +“For you have been alone as well as I, and nothing +on earth makes one so cold as solitude.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span></p> +<p>“I scarcely ever feel alone, Desmond,” she said.</p> + +<p>And, as she spoke, she cast a glance behind her +into the darkness from which she had just come. +Renfrew noticed it.</p> + +<p>“You have been alone?” he asked hastily. +Then he checked himself with an ashamed laugh.</p> + +<p>“What a fool I am,” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>He clasped her more closely.</p> + +<p>“A fool, because I'm so desperately in love with +you, Claire,” he said, rushing on his confession +with the swiftness of alarmed bravery. “Look +here, I want to tell you something. You must +put everything I do, everything I am, down to the +account of my love,—shyness, anger, abruptness, +violence,—everything, Claire. My love's responsible. +It does play the devil with an ordinary man +when he's given his very soul to—to a woman +like you, to a great woman. It keeps him back +when he ought to go on, and sends him on when +he ought to stay quiet, and makes him jealous of +stones and—and savages.”</p> + +<p>“Savages, Desmond?”</p> + +<p>Renfrew's face was scarlet. He put up his hand +before it and muttered:—</p> + +<p>“This fire's scorching. Yes, Claire, of savages. +Didn't you find that out this afternoon, +when we were in Tetuan? But of course you +couldn't. You couldn't know you'd married +such an infernal lunatic.”</p> + +<p>He broke off. She was watching him with a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +close attention, and her body had ceased to tremble +under his arm.</p> + +<p>“Go on, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>“You want me to tell you the sort of man +you've married?”</p> + +<p>“I want you to tell me what you mean.”</p> + +<p>“Then I will. Claire, this afternoon I took +you away from that snake-charming chap because—well, +because you watched him as if he fascinated +you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!”</p> + +<p>“Of course I knew why. His performance +was clever, and he was picturesque in his way, +although, to be sure, it was all put on, as far as +that goes.”</p> + +<p>“Like my stage performances, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>“Claire,” he said hotly. “How can you?”</p> + +<p>“That man acts far better than I do—if he +acts at all.”</p> + +<p>“Was that why he interested you so much?”</p> + +<p>“In what other way could he interest me?”</p> + +<p>Renfrew kicked at one of the blazing logs and +sent up a shower of red-hot flakes.</p> + +<p>“Well, there was your dream, Claire.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, there was that.”</p> + +<p>“It was curious, coming just before we saw the +fellow. And you say the two men were alike.”</p> + +<p>“I did not say alike. I said the same.”</p> + +<p>“How could that be?”</p> + +<p>“How can a thousand things be? Yet we<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> +cannot deny them when they are, any more than +we can deny that we feel an earthly immortality +within us and yet crumble into dust. In sleep I +saw that man. I saw his snake. I heard him +play.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Claire, I know. It's damned strange.”</p> + +<p>Renfrew's forehead was wrinkled in a meditative +frown.</p> + +<p>“But, after all, what's a dream?” he exclaimed. +“A vagary of a sleeping brain. And in your +dream you wouldn't go to that beggar, Claire.”</p> + +<p>“No. I wouldn't go, and so I died.”</p> + +<p>“It all means nothing—nothing at all.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him gravely.</p> + +<p>“I wonder whether there are things in life that +we are compelled to do, Desmond,” she said. “I +sometimes think there must be. How otherwise +can a thousand strange events be accounted for, +especially things that women do?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know,” he muttered, staring at her +anxiously in the firelight.</p> + +<p>“Every one acknowledges the irresistible power +of physical force over physical weakness. Some +day, perhaps, when the world has grown a little +older, we shall all understand that the power of +mental force is precisely similar, and can as little +be resisted. What's that?”</p> + +<p>Renfrew felt that she was suddenly alert. Her +thin form grew hard and quivering, like the body +of a greyhound about to be let loose on a hare.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> +He heard nothing except a sound of music from +the darkness, and the gentle rustle of the wind.</p> + +<p>“I hear nothing,” he said. “What was it—a +cry?”</p> + +<p>“No, no!”</p> + +<p>“What then?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Desmond—hush!”</p> + +<p>He was obedient, and strained his ears, wondering +what Claire had heard. The fire was at last +beginning to die down, for the flames had devoured +the masses of dry twigs, and had now nothing to +feed upon except the heavy logs. So the darkness +drew a little closer round the camp, as if the night +expanded noiselessly. One of the porters, or, +perhaps, one of the soldiers, was playing a queer +little air upon a pipe over and over again. It was +plaintive and very soft. But the tone of the instrument +was strangely penetrating, and the wind +carried it along over the plain, as if anxious to bear +it to the sea, that the cave men might hear it, and +the sailors bearing up for the Spanish coast. Was +Claire listening to this odd little tune? Renfrew +wondered. There seemed no other sound. She +was moving uneasily now, as if an intense restlessness +had taken hold of her. And she turned her +head away from him and gazed into the night.</p> + +<p>Presently she put her hand on Renfrew's arm, +which was still round her waist, and tried to remove +it. But he would not yield to her desire. +He only held her closer, and again—he could<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> +not tell why—the smouldering jealousy began to +flare up in his heart.</p> + +<p>“No, Claire,” he said, in answer to her movement, +“you are mine. You have given yourself +to me. I alone have the right to keep you, to +hold you close—close to my heart.”</p> + +<p>“Can you keep me always, Desmond?” she +said, suddenly turning on him with a sort of fierce +excitement.</p> + +<p>She looked into his eyes as if she would search +the very depths of his soul for strength, for power.</p> + +<p>“You have the right. Yes; but that is nothing—nothing.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing, Claire?”</p> + +<p>“You must have the strength, Desmond. That +is everything.”</p> + +<p>There was a look almost of despair in her face. +She threw herself against him as if moved by a +sudden yearning for protection, and put her arms +round his shoulders.</p> + +<p>The hidden Moor was still playing the same +monotonous little tune, an African aria, as wild +as a bird that flies over the desert, or a cloud that +is driven across the sky above a dangerous sea. It +was imaginative, and, as all tunes seem to have a +shape, this melody was misshapen and yet delicious, +like a twisted tangled creature that has the +smile of a sweet woman, or the eyes of an alluring +child. In its plaintiveness there was the atmosphere +of solitary places. And there was a sound<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> +of love in it, too, but of a love so uncivilised as to +be almost monstrous. Some earth man of a dead +age might have sung it to his mate in a land where +the sun looked down on things primeval. It might +have caught the heart of maidens very long ago, +before they learned to think of passion as the twin +of law, and to regard a kiss as the seal set upon +the tape of matrimony. The queer sorrow of it +could hardly have moved any eyes to tears. Yet +few women could have heard it without a sense of +desolation. It ran through the darkness as cold +water runs in the black shadow of a forest, a +trickle of sound as thin and persistent as the cry +of a wild creature in the night.</p> + +<p>Renfrew thrilled under the touch of Claire's hand.</p> + +<p>“You can give me the strength every woman +seeks in the man she yields herself up to,” he +said.</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“By loving me.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes. But the strength must not come, +however subtly, from the woman. No—no.”</p> + +<p>Again she leaned away from him, with her face +turned towards the darkness. Tremors ran through +her, and her hands dropped almost feebly from +Renfrew's shoulders, as the hands of an invalid fall +away, and down, after an embrace.</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” she reiterated, and her voice was +almost a wail. “It must be there, in the man, +part of him, whether he is with the woman in the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> +night, or alone—far off—in the jungle, or in +the—the desert. He must have the strange +strength that comes from solitude. Where can the +men of our country find that now?”</p> + +<p>“They find strength in the clash of wills, +Claire, and in the battles of love.”</p> + +<p>“Most of them never find it at all,” she said, +with a sort of sullen resignation. “And most of +the women do not want it, or ask for it, or know +what it is. The danger is when some accident +or some fate teaches them what it is. Then—then—”</p> + +<p>She stopped, and glanced at Renfrew suspiciously, +as if she had so nearly betrayed a secret +that he might, nay, must have guessed it.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean? Then they seek it +away from—?”</p> + +<p>“Where they know they will find it,” she said, +almost defiantly.</p> + +<p>Renfrew's face grew cold and rigid.</p> + +<p>“What are you saying to me, Claire?”</p> + +<p>“What is true of some women, Desmond.”</p> + +<p>He was silent. Pain and fear invaded his +heart; and, by degrees, the little tune played by +the Moor seemed to approach him, very quietly, +and to become one with this slow agony. Music, +among its many and terrible powers, numbers one +that is scarcely possessed as forcibly by any other +art. It can glide into a man and direct his +emotions as irresistibly as science can direct the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> +flow of a stream. It can penetrate as a thing +seen cannot penetrate. For that which is invisible +is that which is invincible. And this tune +of the Moor, while it added to Renfrew's distress, +touched his distress with confusion and bewilderment. +At first he did not realise that the music +had anything to do with his state of mind, or with +the growing turmoil of his heart and brain; but +he felt that something was becoming intolerable to +him, and pushing him on in a dangerous path. +He thought it was the statement of Claire; and, +for the first time in his life, he was stirred by an +anger against her that was horrible to him. He +released her from his arm.</p> + +<p>“How dare you say that to me?” he asked. +“Do you understand what your words imply, that—Good +God!—that women are like animals, +creatures without souls, running to the feet of the +master who has the whip with the longest, the +most stinging lash? Why, such a creed as yours +would keep men savages, and kill all gentleness out +of the world. Curse that chap! That hideous +music of his—”</p> + +<p>He had suddenly become aware that the Moor's +melody added something to his torment. At his +last exclamation, the sullen look in Claire's pale +face gave way to an expression of fear and of +startling solicitude.</p> + +<p>“Desmond, you are putting a wrong interpretation +on what I said,” she began hastily.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> +<p>But he was excited, and could not endure any +interruption.</p> + +<p>“And you imply a degrading immorality as a +prevailing characteristic of women too,” he went +on, “that they should leave their homes, deny +their obligations, because they find elsewhere—away, +out in some dark place with a blackguard—a +powerful will to curb them and keep them +down, like—why, like these wretched women all +round us here in this country,—the women we +saw in Tetuan only to-day, veiled, hidden, loaded +with burdens, worse off than animals, because +their masters doubt them, and would not dream of +trusting them. Claire, there's something barbarous +about you.”</p> + +<p>He spoke the words with the intonation of one +who thinks he is uttering an insult. But she +smiled.</p> + +<p>“It's the something barbarous about me that +has placed me where I am,” she said, with a cold +pride. “It is that which civilisation worships in +me, that which has set me above the other women +of my time. It is even that which has made you +love me, Desmond, whether you know it or not.”</p> + +<p>He looked at her like a man half dazed.</p> + +<p>“I frighten the dove-cotes. I can make men +tremble by my outbursts of passion, and women +faint because I am sad; and even the stony-hearted +sob when I die. And I can make you love me, +Desmond. Yes, perhaps I am more barbarous<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> +than other women. But do you think I am sorry +for it? No.”</p> + +<p>“Some day you may be, Claire.”</p> + +<p>He spoke more gently. The wonder and worship +he had for this woman stirred in him again. +While she had been speaking, she had instinctively +risen to her feet, and she stood in the dull red +glow of the waning fire, looking down at him as if +he were a creature in a lower world than the one +in which she could walk at will.</p> + +<p>“I shall never choose to be sorry,” she said, +“whatever my fate may be. To be sorry is to +be feeble, and to be feeble is to be unfit to live, +and unfit to die. Never, never think of me as +being sorry for anything I have done, or may do. +Never deceive yourself about me.”</p> + +<p>A great log, eaten through by a flame at its +heart, broke gently asunder on the summit of the +heaped wood. One half of it, red-hot, and alive +with multitudes of flickering fires, gold, primrose, +steel-blue, and deep purple, dropped and fell at +Claire's feet. She glanced down at it, and at +Renfrew.</p> + +<p>“My deeds may burn me up,” she said, “as +those coloured fires burn up that wood, until it is +no longer wood but fire itself. They shall never +drench me with wretched, contemptible tears.”</p> + +<p>He got up; and, when he was on his feet, he +seemed to hear the incessant music more clearly, +blending with the words of Claire. The notes<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> +were like hot sparks falling on him. He winced +under them, and looked round almost wildly. +Then, without speaking, he hurried away in the +darkness to the place where the soldiers were feasting, +and the men of the camp were holding their +fantasia. Claire divined why he went. She +started a step forward as if to try and stop him; +but his movement had been so abrupt that she was +too late. She had to let him go. Her hands fell +at her sides, and she waited by the dying fire in the +attitude of one who listens intently. The soft +melody of that hidden and persistent musician +wailed in her ears, on and on. It came again and +again, never ceasing, never altering in time. And +its influence upon Claire was terrible as the influence +of the dream music in the valley beneath +the Kasbar. She longed to go to it. She seemed +to belong to it,—to be its possession, and to have +erred when she separated herself from it. In the +darkness it was awaiting her, and it sent out its +crying voice in the night as a message, as a summons +soft, clear, and quietly determined. She +clenched her hands as she stood by the fire. She +strove to root her feet in the ground. If there had +been anything to cling to just then, she would +have stretched forth her arms and clung to it, resisting +what she loved from fear of the future. But +there was nothing. And she thought of the children +and of the Pied Piper. But they were legendary +beings of a fable long ago. And she thought<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> +of Renfrew and of his love. But that seemed +nothing. That could not keep her. He was a +pale phantom, and her career was a handful of dust, +and her name was as the name graven upon a +tomb, and her life was but as a gift to be offered to +an unknown destiny,—while that melody called +to her. Had any one seen her then in the glow of +the firelight, she would have seemed to him terrible. +For suddenly she let the djelabe of Absalem slip +from her shoulders to the ground. And, in the +fiercely flickering light, that makes all things and +people assume unearthly aspects, her thin figure in +its white robe looked like the white body of a +serpent, erect and trembling, under the influence of +the charmer. But the melody grew softer and +softer, more faint, more dreamy in the darkness. +Presently it ceased. As it did so, Claire drew +a deep breath, lifted her head like one released +from a thraldom, and turned her face towards the +camp.</p> + +<p>Almost directly she saw Renfrew returning +towards her. He looked puzzled.</p> + +<p>“It wasn't any of the men playing,” he said +to her.</p> + +<p>“No?”</p> + +<p>Claire bent, caught up the djelabe and drew it +over her.</p> + +<p>“I went to them, and found them listening to +some story Absalem was telling. They were all +gathered close round him, huddled up together in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span> +the dark. And the piping came from quite another +direction—not from the soldiers either. It +must have been some vagabond out of Tetuan. I +was just going to make a search for him, when the +noise stopped. He must have heard me coming.”</p> + +<p>He still looked disturbed and angry, and this +break in their conversation was final. It seemed +impossible to take up the thread of it again. They +stood together watching the fire fade away till it +was a faint glow almost level with the ground. +Then at last Renfrew spoke, in a voice that was +almost timid.</p> + +<p>“Claire,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she answered out of the dull twilight +that would soon be darkness.</p> + +<p>“If I have said anything to-night to hurt you, +don't think of it, don't remember it. I don't +know—I don't seem to have been like myself +to-night. I believe that cursed music irritated me, +so ugly, and so monotonous; it got right on my +nerves, I think.”</p> + +<p>“Did it?”</p> + +<p>“Without my knowing it.”</p> + +<p>He felt for one of her hands and clasped it.</p> + +<p>“Yes, dear. We both said more than we meant. +Didn't we?”</p> + +<p>Claire did not assent; but she let her hand +lie in his. That satisfied him then, although afterwards +he remembered her silence. Soon the fire +was dead; and they said good-night in the wind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> +which seemed colder because there was no more +light.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Renfrew went to his tent, undressed, and got +into bed. The wind roared against the canvas. +But the pegs had been driven stoutly into the +ground by the porters, and held the cords fast. +He felt very tired and depressed, and thought he +would not fall asleep quickly. But he soon began +to be drowsy, and to have a sense of dropping into +the very arms of the tempest, lulled by its noise. +He slept for a time. Presently, however, and +while it was still quite dark, he woke up. He +heard the wind as before, but was troubled by an +idea that some other sound was mingling with it, +some murmur so indistinct that he could not decide +what it was, although he was aware of it. +He sat up and strained his ears, and wished the +wind would lull, if only for a moment, or that this +other sound—which had surely been the cause of +his waking—would increase, and stand out distinctly +in the night. And, at last, by dint of listening +with all his force, Renfrew seemed to himself +to compel the sound to greater clearness. Then +he knew that somewhere, far off perhaps in the +wind, the player on the pipe reiterated his soft and +stealthy music. It was swept on the tempest like +a drowning thing caught in a whirlpool. It was so +faint as to be almost inaudible. But in all its +weakness it retained most completely its character,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span> +and made the same impression upon Renfrew as +when it was near and distinct. It irritated and it +repelled him. And, with an angry exclamation, he +flung himself down and buried his head in the +pillow, stopping his ears with his hands.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>With daylight the camp was in a turmoil. +Claire was gone. Her bed had not been slept in. +She had not undressed. She had not even taken +off Absalem's djelabe. At least it could not be +found. Renfrew, frantic, almost mad with anxiety, +explored the plain, rode at a gallop to the gate of +the city, called upon the Governor of Tetuan +to help him in his search, and summoned the +Consul to his aid in his despair. Every effort was +made to find the missing woman; but no success +crowned the quest, either at that time, or afterwards, +when weeks became months, and months grew into +years. A great actress was lost to the world. +His world was lost to Renfrew. He rode back at +last one day to the villas of Tangier, bent down +upon his horse, broken, alone. In his despair he +cursed himself. He accused himself of cruelty to +Claire that night beside the African fire, when he +had been roused to a momentary anger against her. +He even told himself that he had driven her away +from him. But other men, who had known Claire +and the strangeness of her caprices, said to each +other that she had got tired of Renfrew and given +him the slip, wandering away disguised in the djelabe<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> +of a Moor, and that some fine day she would turn +up again, and re-appear upon the stage that had seen +her glory.</p> + +<p>Later on, when Renfrew at last, after long searching, +came hopelessly back to England, so changed +that his friends scarcely recognised him, he was +sometimes seized with strange and terrible thoughts +as he sat brooding over the wreck of his love. He +seemed to see, as in a pale vision of flame and +darkness, a little dusky Moorish boy bending to +smell at a withered sprig of orange flower, and to +remember that once—how long ago it seemed—Claire +had wished to kiss that boy as a Moorish +woman might have kissed him. And then he saw +a veiled figure, that he seemed to know even in +its deceitful robe, bend down to the boy. And the +vision faded. At another time he would hear the +little tune that had persecuted him in the night. +And then he recalled the music of Claire's dream, +and the melody that charmed the snakes; and he +shuddered. For the miracle man had never been +seen in Tetuan since the day when Claire had +watched him in the Soko. Nor could Renfrew +ever find out whither he had wandered.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Very long afterwards, however,—although this +fact was never known to Renfrew,—two Russian +travellers in the Great Sahara desert witnessed one +evening, as they sat in their tent door, the performance +of a savage charmer of snakes who carried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> +upon his body three serpents,—one striped, one +black, one white. And the younger of them +noticed, and remarked to the other, that the charmer +wore half-way up the little finger of his left hand a +thin gold circle in which there was set a magnificent +black pearl.</p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87"><br />[87]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88"><br /><br />[88]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89"><br /><br /><br />[89]</a></span></p> + +<h2>A TRIBUTE OF SOULS</h2> + +<h3>PRELUDE</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> matter of Carlounie, the village of Perthshire +in Scotland, is become notorious in the +world. The name of its late owner, his remarkable +transformation, his fortunate career, his +married life, the brooding darkness that fell +latterly upon his mind, the flaming deed that he +consummated, its appalling outcome, and the finding +of him by Mr Mackenzie, the minister of the +parish of Carlounie, sunk in a pool of the burn that +runs through a “den” close to his house—all +these things are fresh in the minds of many men. +It has been supposed that he had discovered a +common intrigue between his wife, Kate, formerly +an hospital nurse, and his tenant, Hugh Fraser of +Piccadilly, London. It has been universally thought +that this discovery led to the last action of his life. +The following pages, found among his papers, seem +to put a very different complexion on the affair, +although they suggest a mediæval legend rather than +a history of modern days. It may be added that careful +enquiries have been made among the inhabitants +of Carlounie, and that no man, woman, or child has +been discovered who ever saw, or heard of, the grey +traveller mentioned in Alistair Ralston's narrative.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></p> + +<h3>I<br /> +THE STRANGER BY THE BURN</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">Can</span> a fever change a man's whole nature, giving +him powers that he never had before? Can he +go into it impotent, starved, naked, emerge from it +potent, satisfied, clothed with possibilities that are +wonders, that are miracles to him? It must be +so; it is so. And yet—I must go back to that +sad autumn day when I walked beside the burn. +Can I write down my moods, my feelings of that +day and of the following days? And if I can, +does that power of pinning the butterfly of my soul +down upon the board—does that power, too, bud, +blossom from a soil mysteriously fertilised by illness? +Formerly, I could as easily have flown in +the air to the summit of cloud-capped Schiehallion +as have set on paper even the smallest fragment of +my mind. Now—well, let me see, let me still +further know my new, my marvellous self.</p> + +<p>Yes, that first day! It was Autumn, but only +early Autumn. The leaves were changing colour +upon the birch trees, upon the rowans. At dawn, +mists stood round to shield the toilet of the rising +sun. At evening, they thronged together like a +pale troop of shadowy mutes to assist at his departure +to the under world. It was a misty season, +through which the bracken upon the hillsides of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> +my Carlounie glowed furtively in tints of brown +and of orange; and my mind, my whole being, +seemed to move in mists. I was just twenty-two, +an orphan, master of my estate of Carlounie, a +Scotch laird, and my own governor. And some +idiots envied me then, as many begin to envy me +now. I even remember one ghastly old man who +clapped me on the shoulder, and, with the addition +of an unnecessary oath, swore that I was “a lucky +youngster.” I, with my thin, chétif body, my +burning, weakly, starved, and yet ambitious soul—lucky! +I remember that I broke into a harsh +laugh, and longed to kill the babbling beast.</p> + +<p>And it was the next day, in the afternoon, +that I took that book—my Bible—and went +forth alone to the long den in which the burn +hides and cries its presence. Yes, I took Goethe's +“Faust,” and my own complaining spirit, and went +out into the mist with my misty, clouded mind. +My cousin Gavin wanted me to go out shooting. +He laughed and rallied me upon my ill-luck on the +previous day, when I had gone out and been the +joke of my own keepers because I had missed +every bird; and I turned and railed at him, and +told him to leave me to myself. And, as I went, I +heard him muttering, “That wretched little fellow! +To think that he should be owner of Carlounie!” +Now, he sings another tune.</p> + +<p>With “Faust” in my hand, and hatred in my +heart, I went out into the delicately chilly air,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> +down the winding ways of the garden, through +the creaking iron gateway. I emerged on to the +wilder land, irregular, grass-covered ground, strewn +with grey granite boulders, among which coarse, +wiry ferns grew sturdily. The blackfaced sheep +whisked their broad tails at me as I passed, then +stooped their ever-greedy mouths to their damp +and eternal meal again. I heard the thin and +distant cry of a hawk, poised somewhere up in the +mist. The hills, clothed in the death-like glory of +the bracken, loomed around me, like some phantom, +tricked-out procession passing through desolate +places. And then I heard the voice of the +burn—that voice which is even now for ever in +my ears. To me that day it was the voice of one +alive; and it is the voice of one alive to me now. +I descended the sloping hill with my lounging, +weak-kneed gait, at which the creatures who called +me master had so often looked contemptuously +askance. (I was often tired at that time.) I +descended, I say, until I reached the edge of the +tree-fringed den, and the burn was noisy in my +ears. I could see it now, leaping here and there +out of its hiding-place—ivory foam among the +dripping larches, and the birches with their silver +stems; ivory foam among the deep brown and +flaming orange of the bracken, and in that foam a +voice calling—calling me to come down into its +hiding-place, presided over by the mists—to come +down into its hiding-place, away from men: away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> +from the living creatures whom I hated because I +envied them, because they were stronger than I, +because they could do what I could not do, say +what I could not say. Gavin, Dr Wedderburn, +my tenants, the smallest farm boy, the grooms, the +little leaping peasants—I hated, I hated them all. +And then I obeyed the voice of the ivory foam, and +I went down into the hiding-place of the burn.</p> + +<p>It ran through strange and secret places where +the soft mists hung in wet wreaths. I seemed to +be in another world when I was in its lair. On +the sharply rising banks stood the sentinel trees +like shadows, some of them with tortured and tormented +shapes. As I turned and looked straight +up the hill of the burn's descending course, the +mountain from which it came closed in the prospect +inexorably. A soft gloom hemmed us in—me +and the burn which talked to me. We two +were out of the world which I hated and longed to +have at my feet. Yes, we were in another world, +full of murmuring and of restful unrest; and now +that I was right down at the water-side, the ivory +face of my friend, the ivory lips that spoke to me, +the ivory heart that beat against my heart—so +sick and so weary—were varied and were changed. +As thoughts streak a mind, the clear amber of +the pools among the rocks streaked the continuous +foam that marked the incessant leaps taken by +the water towards the valley. The silence of +those pools was brilliant, like the pauses for con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span>templation +in a great career of action; and their +silence spoke to me, mingling mysteriously with +the voice of the foam. The course of the burn +is broken up, and attended by rocks that have +been modelled by the action of the running water +into a hundred shapes. Some are dressed in +mosses, yellow and green, like velvet to the touch, +and all covered with drops of moisture; some are +gaunt and naked and deplorable, with sharp edges +and dry faces. The burn avoids some with a +cunning and almost coquettish grace, dashes +brutally against others, as if impelled by an internal +violence of emotion. Others, again, it caresses +quite gently, and would be glad to linger by, if +Nature would allow the dalliance. And this army +of rocks helps to give to the burn its charm of infinite +variety, and to fill its voice with a whole gamut +of expression; for the differing shape of each +boulder, against which it rushes in its long career, +gives it a different note. It flickers across the +small and round stone with the purling cry of a +child. From the stone curved inwards, and with +a hollow bosom it gains a crooning, liquid melody. +The pointed and narrow colony of rocks which +break it into an intricate network of small water +threads, toss it, chattering frivolously, towards the +dark pool under the birches, where the trout play +like sinister shadows and the insects dance in the +sombre pomp of Autumn; and when it gains a +great slab that serves it for a spring-board, from<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> +which it takes a mighty leap, its voice is loud and +defiant, and shrieks with a banshee of triumph—in +which, too, there is surely an undercurrent of +wailing woe. Oh, the burn has many voices +among the rocks, under the ferns and the birch +trees, in the brooding darkness of the mists and +shadows, between the steep walls of the green +banks that hem it in! Many voices which can +sing, when they choose, one song, again and again +and—monotonously—again!</p> + +<p>So—now on this sad Autumn day—I was +with the burn in its hiding-place, cool, damp, fretful. +Carlounie sank from my sight. My garden, +the wilder land beyond, the moors on which yesterday +my incompetence as a shot had roused the contempt +of my cousin and of my hirelings—all were +lost to view. I was away from all men in this +narrow, tree-shrouded cleft of a world. I sat down +on a rock, and, stretching out my legs, rested my +heels on another rock. Beneath my legs the clear +brown water glided swiftly. I sat and listened to +its murmur. And, just then, it did not occur to +me that water can utter words like men. The +murmur was suggestive but definitely inarticulate. +I had come down here to be away and to think. +The murmur of my mind spoke to the murmur +of the burn; and, as ever, in those days, it +lamented and cursed and bitterly complained.</p> + +<p>Why, why was I pursued by a malady of incompetence +that clung to both mind and body? (So<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> +ran my thoughts.) Why was I bruised and beaten +by Providence? Why had I been given a soul +that could not express itself in the frame of a +coward, a weakling, a thin, nervous, dwarfish, almost +a deformed, creature? If my soul had corresponded +exactly to my body, then all might have +been well enough. I should have been more complete, +although less, in some way, than I now was. +For such a soul would have accepted cowardice, +weakness, inferiority to others as suitable to it, as a +right fate. Such a soul would never have known +the meaning of the word rebellion, would never +have been able to understand its own cancer of +disease, to diagnose the symptoms of its villainous +and creeping malady. It would never have aspired +like a flame, and longed in vain to burn clearly and +grandly or to flicker out for ever. Rather would +such a soul have guttered on like some cheap and +ill-smelling candle, shedding shadows rather than +any light, ignorant of its own obscurity, regardless +of the possibilities that teem like waking children +in the wondrous womb of life, oblivious of the contempt +of the souls around it, heedless of ambition, +of the trumpet call of success, of the lust to be +something, to do something, of the magic, of the +stinging magic of achievement. With such a soul +in my hateful, pinched, meagre, pallid body—I +thought, sitting thus by the burn—I might have +been content, an utterly low, and perhaps an +utterly satisfied product of the fiend creation.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span></p> +<p>But my soul was not of this kind, and so I was +the most bitterly miserable of men. God—or the +Devil—had made me ill-shaped, physically despicable, +with the malign sort of countenance that +so often accompanies and illustrates a bad poor +body. My limbs, without being actually twisted, +were shrunken and incompetent—they would not +obey my desires as do the limbs of other men. +My legs would not grip a horse. When I rode I +was a laughing-stock. My arms had no swiftness, +no agility, no delicate and subtle certainty. When +I tried to box, to fence, I was one whirling, jigging +incapacity. I had feeble sight, and objects presented +themselves to my vision so strangely that I +could not shoot straight. I, Alistair Ralston the +young Laird of Carlounie! When I walked my +limbs moved heavily and awkwardly. I had no +grace, no lightness, no ordinary, quite usual competence +of bodily power. And this was bitter, yet as +nothing to the Marah that lay beyond. For my +body was in a way complete. It was a wretch. +But when you came to the mind you had the real +tragedy. In many decrepit flesh temples there +dwells a commanding spirit, as a great God might +dwell—of mysterious choice—in a ruinous and +decaying lodge in a wilderness. And such a spirit +rules, disposes, presides, develops, has its own full +and superb existence, triumphing not merely over, +but actually through the contemptible body in +which it resides, so that men even are led to wor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>ship +the very ugliness and poverty of this body, to +adore it for its power to retain such a mighty spirit +within it. Such a spirit was not mine. Had it +been, I might have been happy by the burn that +Autumn day. Had it been, I might never—But I +am anticipating, and I must not anticipate. I must +sit with the brown water rushing beneath the arch +of my limbs, and recall the horror of my musing.</p> + +<p>In a manner, then, my soul matched my body. +It was feeble and incompetent too. My brain was +dull and clouded. My intellect was sluggish and +inert. But—and this was the terror for me!—within +the rank nest of my soul—my spirit—lay +coiled two vipers that never ceased from biting me +with their poisoned fangs—Self-consciousness +and Ambition. I knew myself, and I longed to +be other than I was. I watched my own incompetence +as one who watches from a tower. I +divined how others regarded me—precisely. The +blatant and comfortable egoism of a dwarf mind in +a dwarf body was never for one moment mine. I +was that terrible anomaly, an utterly incomplete and +incompetent thing that adored, with a curious wildness +of passion, completeness, competence. Nor +had I a soul that could ever be satisfied with a one-sided +perfection. My desires were Gargantuan. +When I was with my cousin Gavin, a fine all-round +sportsman, I longed with fury to be a good shot, +to throw a fly as he did, to have a perfect seat on +a horse. I felt that I would give up years of life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> +to beat him once in any of his pursuits. When I +was with Dr Wedderburn, my desires, equally intense, +were utterly different. He represented in +my neighbourhood Intellect—with a capital I. +A man of about fifty, minister of the parish of +Carlounie, he was astonishingly adroit as a controversialist, +astonishingly eloquent as a divine. His +voice was full of music. His eyes were full of +light and of the most superb self-confidence. He +rested upon his intellect as a man may rest upon a +rock. The power of his personality was calm and +immense. I felt it vehemently. I shook and +trembled under it. I hated and loathed the man +for it, because I wanted and could never possess +it. So, too, I hated my cousin Gavin for his possessions, +his long and sure-sighted eyes, great and +strong arms, broad chest, lithe legs, bright agility. +My body could do nothing. My soul could do +nothing—except one great thing. It could fully +observe and comprehend its own impotence. It +could fully and desperately envy and pine to be +what it could never be. Could never be, do I +say? Wait! Remember that is only what I +thought then as I sat upon the rock, and, with +haggard young eyes, watched the clear brown +water slipping furtively past between my knees.</p> + +<p>My disease seemed to culminate that day, I +remember. I was a sick invalid alone in the mist. +Something—it might have been vitriol—was eating +into me, eating, eating its way to my very heart,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> +to the core of me. Oh, to be stunted and desire +to be straight and tall, to be dwarf and wish to be +giant, to be stupid and long to be a genius, to be +ugly and yearn to be in face as one of the shining +gods, to have no power over men, and to pine to +fascinate, hold, dominate a world of men—this +indeed is to be in hell! I was in hell that Autumn +day. I clenched my thin, weak hands +together. I clenched my teeth from which the +pale lips were drawn back in a grin; and I realised +all the spectral crowd of my shortcomings. +They stood before me like demons of the Brocken—yes, +yes, of the Brocken!—and I cursed God +with the sound of the burn ringing and chattering +in my ears. And I devoted Gavin, Doctor Wedderburn, +every man highly placed, every lowest +peasant, who could do even one of all the things +I could not do, to damnation. The paroxysm that +took hold of me was like a fit, a convulsion. I +came out of it white and feeble. And, suddenly, +the voice of the burn seemed to come from a long +way off. I put out my hand, and took up from +the rock on which I had laid it, “Faust.” And, +scarcely knowing what I did, I began mechanically +to read—to the dim rapture of the burn—</p> + +<p>“<i>Scene III.—The Study. Faust (entering, with +the poodle).</i>” I began to read, do I say, mechanically? +Yes, it is true, but soon, very soon, the +spell of Goethe was laid upon me. I was in the +lofty-arched, narrow Gothic chamber, with that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> +living symbol of the weariness, broken ambition, +learned despair of all the ages. I was engrossed. +I heard the poodle snarling by the stove. I heard +the spirits whispering in the corridor. Vapour +rose—or was it indeed the mist from the mountains +among the birch trees?—and out of the +vapour came Mephistopheles in the garb of a +travelling scholar. And then—and then the +great bargain was struck. I heard—yes, I did, +I actually, and most distinctly, heard a voice—Faust's—say, +“<i>Let us the sensual deeps explore.... +Plunge we in Time's tumultuous dance, In the +rush and roll of circumstance.</i>” A pause; then the +Student's grave and astonished tones came to me: +<i>Eritis sicut Deus, scientes bonum et malum.</i> The +cloak was spread, and on the burning air Faust +was wafted to his new life—nay, not to his new +life merely, but to life itself. He vanished with +his guide in a coloured, flower-like mist. I +dropped my hand holding the book down upon the +cold rock by which the cold water splashed. It +felt burning hot to my touch. My head fell upon +my breast, and I had my dreams—dreams of the +life of Faust and of its glories, gained by this bargain +that he made. And then—yes, then it was!—the +voice of the burn, as from leagues away in +the bosom of this very mist, began to sing like a +fairy voice, or a voice in dreams, and in visions of +the night, “<i>If it was so then, it might be so now.</i>” +At first I scarcely heeded it, for I was enwrapt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span> +But the song grew louder, more insistent. It was +travelling to me from a far country. I heard it +coming: “<i>If it was so then, it might be so now</i>”—“<i>If +it was so then, it might be so now.</i>” How near +it was at last, how loud in my ears! And yet +always there was something vague, visionary about +it, something of the mist, I think. At length I +heard it with the attention that is of earth. I came +to myself, out of the narrow Gothic chamber in +which the genius of Goethe had prisoned me, and +I stared into the mist, which was gathering thicker +as the night began to fall. It seemed flower-like, +and full of strange and mysterious colour. I +trembled. I got up. Still I heard the voice of +the burn singing that monotonous legend, on, and +on, and on. Slowly I turned. I climbed the +bank of the den. The sheep scattered lethargically +at my approach. I passed through the creaking +iron gate into the garden. Carlounie was +before me. There was something altered, something +triumphant about its aspect. The voice of +the burn faded in a long diminuendo. Yet, even +as I gained the door of my house, and, before +entering it, paused in an attentive attitude, I heard +the water chanting faintly from the den—“<i>If it +was so then, it might be so now.</i>” ... As I came +into the hall, in which Gavin and Dr Wedderburn +stood together talking earnestly, I remember +that I shivered. Yet my cheeks were glowing.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> +<p>From that moment not a day passed without +my visiting the burn. It summoned me. Always +it sang those words persistently. The sound of the +water can be very faintly heard from the windows +of Carlounie. Each day, at dawn, I pushed open +the lattice of my bedroom and hearkened to hear +if the song had changed. Each night, at moon-rise, +or in the darkness through which the soft and +small rain fell quietly, I leaned over the sill and +listened. Sometimes the wind was loud among +the mountains. Sometimes the silence was intense +and awful. But in storm or in stillness the burn +sang on, ever and ever the same words. At +moments I fancied that the voice was as the voice +of a man demented, repeating with mirthless frenzy +through all his years one hollow sentence. At +moments I deemed it the cry of a fair woman, +a siren, a Lorelei among my rocks in my valley. +Then again I said, “It is a spirit voice, a voice from +the inner chamber of my own heart.” And—why +I know not—at that last fantasy I shuddered. +Even in the midnight from my window ledge I +leaned while the world slept and I heard the +mystic message of the burn. My visits to its bed +were not unobserved. One morning my cousin +Gavin said to me roughly, “Why the devil are you +always stealing off to that ditch”—so he called +the den that was the home of my voice—“when +you ought to be practising to conquer your infernal +deficiencies? Why, the children of your own<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span> +keepers laugh at you. Try to shoot straight, man, +and be a real man instead of dreaming and idling.” +I stared at him and answered, “You don't understand +everything.” Once Dr Wedderburn, who +had been my tutor, said to me more kindly, +“Alistair, action is better for you than thought. +Leave the burn alone. You go there to brood. Try +to work, for work is the best man-maker after all.”</p> + +<p>And to him I said, “Yes, I know!” and flew +with a strong wing in the face of his advice. For +the voice of the burn was more to me than the +voice of Gavin, or of Wedderburn; and the mind +of the burn meant more to me than the mind of +any man. And so the Autumn died slowly, with +a lingering decadence, and shrouded perpetually in +mist. I often felt ill, even then. My body was +dressed in weakness. Perhaps already the fever +was upon me. I wish I could know. Was it +crawling in my veins? Was it nestling about my +heart and in my brain? Could it be that?...</p> + +<p>Certainly during this period life seemed alien to +me, and I moved as one apart in a remote world, +full of the music of the burn, and full, too, of +vague clouds. That is so. Looking back, I know +it. Still, I cannot be sure what is the truth. In +the late Autumn I paid my last visit to the burn +before my illness seized me. The cold of early +Winter was in the air and a great stillness. It +was afternoon when I left the house walking slowly +with my awkward gait. My face, I know, was white<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> +and drawn, and I felt that my lips were twitching. +I did not carry my volume of Goethe in my hand; +but, in its place, held an old book on transcendental +magic. The voice of the burn—yes, that +alone—had led me to study this book. So now +I took it down to the burn. Why? Had I the +foolish fancy of introducing my live thing of the +den to this strange writing on the black art? Who +knows? Perhaps the fever in my veins put the +book into my hand. I shivered in the damp cold +as I descended the steep ground that lay about the +water, which that day seemed to roar in my ears +the sentence I had heard so many days and nights. +And this time, as I hearkened, my heart and my +brain echoed the last words—“<i>It might be so +now.</i>” Gaining the edge of the burn, then in +heavy spate, I watched for a while the passage of +the foam from rock to rock. I peered into the +pools, clouded with flood water from the hills, and +with whirling or sinking dead leaves. And all +my meagre body seemed pulsing with those everlasting +words: “Why not now?” I murmured +to myself, with a sort of silent sneer, too, at my +own absurdity. I remember I glanced furtively +around as I spoke. Grey emptiness, grey loneliness, +dripping bare trees through whose branches +the mist curled silently, cold rocks, the cold flood +of the swollen burn—such was the blank prospect +that met my eyes.</p> + +<p>There was no man near me. There was no<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> +one to look at me. I was remote, hidden in a +secret place, and the early twilight was already +beginning to fall. No one could see me. I +opened my old and ragged book, or, rather, let it +fall open at a certain page. Upon it I looked for +the hundredth time, and read that he who would +evoke the Devil must choose a solitary and condemned +spot. The burn was solitary. The burn +was condemned surely by the despair and by the +endless incapacities of the wretched being who +owned it. I had taken off my shoes and placed +them upon a rock. My feet were bare. My +head was covered. I now furtively proceeded to +gather together a small heap of sticks and leaves, +and to these I set fire, after several attempts. As +the flames at last crept up, the mist gathered more +closely round me and my fire, as if striving to warm +itself at the blaze. The voice of the burn mingled +with the uneasy crackle of the twigs, and a murmur +of its words seemed to emanate also from the +flames, two elements uniting to imitate the utterance +of man to my brain, already surely tormented +with fever. And now, with my eyes upon my +book, I proceeded to trace with the sharp point of +a stick in some sandy soil between two rocks a +rough Goetic Circle of Black evocations and pacts. +From time to time I paused in my work and +glanced uneasily about me, but I saw only the +mists and the waters.</p> + +<p>At length my task was finished, and the time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> +had arrived for the supreme effort of my insane and +childish folly. Standing at Amasarac in the Circle, +I said aloud the formula of Evocation of the Grand +Grimoire, ending with the words “Jehosua, Evam, +Zariat, natmik, Come, come, come.”</p> + +<p>My voice died away in the twilight, and I stood +among the grey rocks waiting, mad creature that I +surely was! But only the rippling voice of the +burn answered my adjuration. Then I repeated the +words in a louder tone, adding menaces and imprecations +to my formula. And all the time the fire +I had kindled sprang up into the mist; and the +twilight of the heavy Autumn fell slowly round me. +Again I paused, and again my madness received +no satisfaction, no response. But it seemed to me +that I heard the browsing sheep on the summit of the +right bank of the gully scatter as if at the approach +of some one. Yet there was no stir of footsteps. +It must have been my fancy, or the animals were +merely changing their feeding ground in a troop, as +they sometimes will, for no assignable cause. And +now I made one last effort, urged by the voice of +the burn, which sang so loudly the words which had +mingled with my dream of Faust. I cried aloud the +supreme appellation, making an effort that brought +out the sweat on my forehead, and set the pulses +leaping in my thin and shivering body. “<i>Chavajoth! +chavajoth! chavajoth! I command thee by the +Key of Solomon and the great name Semhamphoras.</i>”</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p> +<p>A little way up the course of the burn the dead +wood cracked and shuffled under the pressure of +descending feet. Again I heard a scattering of the +sheep upon the hillside. My hair stirred on my +head under my cap, and the noise of the falling +water was intolerably loud to me. I wanted to +hear plainly, to hear what was coming down to me +in the mist. The brush-wood sang nearer. In +the heavy and damp air there was the small, sharp +report of a branch snapped from a tree. I heard +it drop among the ferns close to me. And then +in the mist and in the twilight I saw a slim figure +standing motionless. It was vague, but less vague +than a shadow. It seemed to be a man, or a youth, +clad in a grey suit that could scarcely be differentiated +from the mist. The flames of my fire, bent +by a light breeze that had sprung up, stretched +themselves towards it, as if to salute it. And now +I could not hear any movement of the sheep; evidently +they had gone to a distance. At first, +seized with a strange feeling of extreme, almost +unutterable fear, I neither moved nor spoke. Then, +making a strong effort to regain control of my +ordinary faculties, I cried out in the twilight—</p> + +<p>“What is that? What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Only a stranger who has missed his way on the +mountain, and wants to go on to Wester Denoon.”</p> + +<p>The voice that came to me from the figure beyond +the fire sounded, I remember, quite young, +like the voice of a boy. It was clear and level,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> +and perhaps a little formal. So that was all. A +tourist—that was all!</p> + +<p>“Can you direct me on the way?” the voice said.</p> + +<p>I gave the required direction slowly, for I was +still confused, nervous, exhausted with my insane +practices in the den. But the youth—as I supposed +he was—did not move away at once.</p> + +<p>“What are you doing by this fire?” he said. +“I heard your voice calling by the torrent among +the trees when I was a very long way off.”</p> + +<p>Strangely, I did not resent the question. Still +more strangely, I was impelled to give him the true +answer to it.</p> + +<p>“Raising the Devil!” he said. “And did he +come to you?”</p> + +<p>“No; of course not. You must think me +mad.”</p> + +<p>“And why do you call him?”</p> + +<p>Suddenly a desire to confide in this stranger, +whose face I could not see now, whose shadowy +form I should, in all probability, never see again, +came upon me. My usual nervousness deserted +me. I let loose my heart in a turbulent crowd of +words. I explained my impotence of body and of +mind to this grey traveller in the twilight. I dwelt +upon my misery. I repeated the cry of the burn +and related my insane dream of imitating Faust, of +making my poor pact with Lucifer, with the +Sphinx of mediæval terrors. When I ceased, the +boy's voice answered:—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span></p> +<p>“They say that in these modern days Satan has +grown exigent. It is not enough to dedicate to +him your own soul; but you must also pay a +tribute of souls to the Cæsar of hell.”</p> + +<p>“A tribute of souls?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. You must bring, they say, the mystic +number, three souls to Satan.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly I laughed.</p> + +<p>“I could never do that,” I said. “I have no +power to seduce man or woman. I cannot win +souls to heaven or to hell.”</p> + +<p>“But if you received new powers, such as you +desire, would you use them to win souls, three +souls, to Lucifer?”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” I said with passionate earnestness. “I +swear to you that I would.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly the boy's voice laughed.</p> + +<p>“<i>Quomodo cecidisti</i>, Lucifer!” he said. “When +thou canst not contrive to capture souls for thyself! +But,” he added, as if addressing himself +once more to me, after this strange ejaculation, +“your words have, perhaps, sealed the bond. +Who knows? Words that come from the very +heart are often deeds. For, as we can never go +back from things that we have done, it may be +that, sometimes, we can never go back from things +that we have said.”</p> + +<p>On the words he moved, and passed so swiftly +by me into the twilight down the glen that I never +saw his face. I turned instinctively to look after<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> +him; and, this was strange, it seemed that the +wind at that very moment must have turned with +me, blowing from, instead of towards, the mountain. +This certainly was so; for the tongues of +flame from my fire bent backward on a sudden and +leaned after the grey traveller, whose steps died +swiftly away among the rocks, and on the shuffling +dead wood and leaves of the birches and the oaks.</p> + +<p>And then there came a singing in my ears, a +beating of many drums in my brain. I drooped +and sank down by the fire in the mist. My fever +came upon me like a giant, and presently Gavin +and Doctor Wedderburn, searching in the night, +found me in a delirium, and bore me back to +Carlounie.</p> + +<h3>II<br /> +THE SOUL OF DR WEDDERBURN</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">To</span> emerge from a great illness is sometimes dreadful, +sometimes divine. To one man the return +from the gates of death is a progress of despair. +He feels that he cannot face the wild contrasts of +the surprising world again, that his courage has +been broken upon the wheel, that energy is desolation, +and sleep true beauty. To another this +return is a marvellous and superb experience. It +is like the vivid re-awakening of youth in one who +is old, a rapture of the past committing an act of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> +brigandage upon the weariness of the present, a +glorious substitution of Eden for the outer courts +where is weeping and gnashing of teeth. It will +be supposed that I found myself in the first category, +a terror-stricken and rebellious mortal when +the fever gave me up to the world again. For the +world had always been cruel to me, because I was +afraid of it, and was a puny thing in it. Yet this +was not so. My convalescence was like a beautiful +dream of rest underneath which riot stirred. +A simile will explain best exactly what I mean. +Let me liken the calm of my convalescence to +the calm of earth on the edge of Spring. What a +riot of form, of scent, of colour, of movement, is +preparing beneath that enigmatic, and apparently +profound, repose. In the simile you have my +exact state. And I alone felt that, within this +womb of inaction, the child, action, lay hid, developing +silently, but inexorably, day by day. This +knowledge was my strange secret. It came upon +me one night when I lay awake in the faint twilight, +shed by a carefully shaded lamp over my +bed. Rain drummed gently against the windows. +There was no other sound. By the fire, in a +great armchair, the trained nurse, Kate Walters, +was sitting with a book—“Jane Eyre” it was—upon +her knees. I had been sleeping and now +awoke thirsty. I put out my hand to get at a +tumbler of lemonade that stood on a table by my +pillow. And suddenly a thought, a curious thought,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> +was with me. My hand had grasped the tumbler +and lifted it from the table; but, instead of bringing +my hand to my mouth I kept my arm rigidly +extended, the tumbler poised on my palm as upon +the palm of a juggler.</p> + +<p>“How long my arm is!” that was my thought, +“and how strong!” Formerly it had been short, +weak, awkward. Now, surely, after my illness, +my arms would naturally be nerveless, useless +things. The odd fact was that now, for the first +time in my life, I felt joy in a physical act. An +absurd and puny act, you will say, I daresay. +What of that? With it came a sudden stirring +of triumph. I lay there on my back and kept my +arm extended for full five minutes by the watch +that ticked by my bed-head. And with each +second that passed joy blossomed more fully +within my heart. I drank the lemonade as one +who drinks a glad toast. Yet I was puzzled. +“Is this—can this be a remnant of delirium?” +I asked myself. And beneath the clothes drawn +up to my chin I fingered my arm above the elbow. +It was the limb of a big, strong man. Surprise, +supreme astonishment forced an exclamation from +my lips. Kate got up softly and came towards +me; but I feigned to be asleep, and she returned +to the fire. Yet, peering under my lowered eyelids, +I noticed an expression of amazement upon +her young and pretty face. I knew afterwards +that it was the sound of my voice—my new voice<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>—that +drew it there. After that night my convalescence +was more than a joy to me, it was a +rapture, touched by, and mingled with something +that was almost awe. Is not the earth awe-struck +when she considers that Spring and Summer nestle +silently in her bosom? With each day the secret +which I kept grew more mysterious, more profound. +Soon I knew it could be a secret no +longer. The fever—it must be that!—had +wrought magic within my body, driving out weakness, +impotence, lassitude, developing my physical +powers to an extent that was nothing less than +astounding. Lying there in my bed, I felt the +dwarf expand into the giant. Think of it! Did +ever living man know such an experience before? +A bodily spring came about within me. And I +was already twenty-two years old before the fever +took me. My limbs grew large and strong; the +muscles of my chest and back were tensely strung +and knit as firmly as the muscles of an athlete. +I lay still, it is true, and felt much of the peculiar +vagueness that follows fever; but I was conscious +of a supine, latent energy never known before. I +was conscious that when I rose, and went out +into the world again, it would be as a man, capable +of holding his own against other strong, straight +men. That was a wonder. But it was succeeded +by a greater marvel yet.</p> + +<p>One afternoon, while I was still in bed, Doctor +Wedderburn came to see me and to sit with me.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> +He had been away on a holiday, and, consequently, +had not visited me before, except once when I had +been delirious. The doctor was a short, spare +man, with a sharply cut brick-red face, lively and +daring dark eyes, and straight hair already on the +road to grey. His self-possession bordered on self-satisfaction; +and, despite his good heart and the +real and anxious sanctity of his life, he could seldom +entirely banish from his manner the contempt he +felt for those less intellectual, less swift-minded +than himself. Often had I experienced the stinging +lash of his sarcasm. Often had I withered +beneath one of his keen glances that dismissed me +from an argument as a profound sage might kick +an urchin from the study into the street. Often +had I hated him with a sick hatred and ground my +teeth because my mind was so clouded and so +helpless, while his was so lucent and so adroit. So +now, when I heard his tap on the door, his deep +voice asking to come in, a rage of self-contempt +seized me, as in the days before my illness. The +doctor entered with an elaborate softness, and +walked, flat-footed, to my bed, pursing his large +lips gently as men do when filled with cautious +thoughts. I could see he desired to moderate his +habitual voice and manner; but, arrived close to +me, he suddenly cried aloud, with a singularly full-throated +amazement.</p> + +<p>“Boy—boy, what's come to you?” he called. +Then, abruptly putting his finger to his lips,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> +he sank down in a chair, his bright eyes fixed +upon me.</p> + +<p>“It's a miracle,” he said slowly.</p> + +<p>“What is?” I asked with an invalid's pettishness.</p> + +<p>“The voice, too—the voice!”</p> + +<p>I grew angry easily, as men do when they are +sick.</p> + +<p>“Why do you say that? Of course I've been +bad—of course I'm changed.”</p> + +<p>“Changed! Look at yourself—and praise +God, Alistair.”</p> + +<p>He had caught up a hand-mirror that lay on the +dressing-table and now put it into my hand. For +the first time since the fever I saw my face. It +was as it had been and yet it was utterly different, +for now it was beautiful. The pinched features +seemed to have been smoothed out. The mouth +had become firm and masterful. The haggard eyes +were alight as if torches burned behind them. My +expression, too, was powerful, collected, alert. I +scarcely recognised myself. But I pretended to see +no change.</p> + +<p>“Well—what is it?” I asked, dropping the glass.</p> + +<p>The doctor was confused by my calm.</p> + +<p>“Your look of health startled me,” he answered, +sitting down by the bed and examining me keenly.</p> + +<p>All at once I was seized by a strange desire to +get up an argument with this man, by whom I had +so often been crushed in conversation. I leaned<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> +on my elbow in the bed, and fixing my eyes on +him, I said:—</p> + +<p>“And why should I praise God?”</p> + +<p>The doctor seemed in amazement at my tone.</p> + +<p>“Because you are a Christian and have been +brought back from death,” he replied, but with +none of his usual half-sarcastic self-confidence.</p> + +<p>“You think God did that?”</p> + +<p>“Alistair, do you dare to blaspheme the Almighty?”</p> + +<p>I felt at that moment like a cat playing with a +mouse. My lips, I know, curved in a smile of +mockery, and yet I will swear—yes, even to my +own heart—that all I said that day I said in pure +mischief, with no evil intent. It seemed that I, +Alistair Ralston, the dolt, the ignoramus, longed +to try mental conclusions with this brilliant and +opinionated divine. He bade me praise God. In +reply I praised—the Devil, and I forced him to +hear me. Absolutely I broke into a flood of words, +and he sat silent. I compared the good and evil +in the scheme of the world, balancing them in +the scales, the one against the other. I took up +the stock weapon of atheism, the deadly nature, the +deadly outcome of free will. I used it with skill. +The names of Strauss, Comte, Schopenhauer, +Renan, a dozen others, sprang from my lips. The +dreary doctrine of the illimitable triumph of sin, of +the appalling mistake of the permission granted it +to step into the scheme of creation, in order that its<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> +presence might create a <i>raison d'être</i> for the power +of personal action one way or the other in mankind—such +matters as these I treated with a vehement +eloquence and command of words that laid a spell +upon the doctor. Going very far, I dared to exclaim +that since God had allowed his own scheme to get +out of gear, the only hope of man lay in the direction +of the opposing force, in frank and ardent Satanism.</p> + +<p>When at length I ceased from speaking, I +expected Dr Wedderburn to rise up in his wrath +and to annihilate me, but he sat still in his chair +with a queer, and, as I thought, puzzled expression +upon his face. At last he said, as if to himself:</p> + +<p>“The miracle of Balaam; verily, the miracle +of Balaam.”</p> + +<p>The ass had indeed spoken as never ass spoke +before. I waited a moment, then I said:—</p> + +<p>“Well, why don't you rebuke me, or why don't +you try to controvert me?”</p> + +<p>Again he looked upon me, very uneasily I +thought, and with something that was almost fear +in his keen eyes.</p> + +<p>“Ah!” he said, “I have praised the Lord many +a morning and evening for his gift of words to me. +It seems others bestow that gift too. Alistair”—and +here his voice became deeply solemn—“where +have you been visiting when you lay there, +mad to all seeming? In what dark place have +you been to gather destruction for men? With +whom have you been talking?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> +<p>Suddenly, I know not why, I thought of the +grey stranger, and, with a laugh, I cried:—</p> + +<p>“The grey traveller taught me all I have said +to you.”</p> + +<p>“The grey traveller! Who may he be?”</p> + +<p>But I lay back upon the pillows and refused to +answer, and very soon the doctor went, still bending +uneasy, nervous eyes upon me.</p> + +<p>In those eyes I read the change that had stolen +over my intellect, as in the hand-mirror I had read +the change that had stolen over my face. This +strange fever had caused both soul and body to +blossom. I trembled with an exquisite joy. Had +Fate relented to me at last? Was it possible that +I was to know the joys of the heroes? I longed +for, yet feared my full recovery. In it alone should +I discover how sincere was my transformation. +Doctor Wedderburn did not come to me again. +The days passed, my convalescence strengthened, +watched over by the pretty nurse, Kate Walters, a +fresh, pure, pious, innocent, beautiful soul, tender, +temperate, and pitiful for all sorrow and evil. At +length I was well. At length I knew, to some +extent, my new, my marvellous self. For I had, +indeed, been folded up in my fever like a vesture, +and, like a vesture, changed. I had grown taller, +expanded, put forth mighty muscles as a tree puts +forth leaves. My cheeks and my eyes glowed with +the radiance of strong health. I went out with my +cousin Gavin, whose estate marched with mine,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> +and I shot so well that he was filled with admiration, +and forthwith conceived a sort of foolish worship +for me—having a sportsman's soul but no +real mind. For the first time in my life I felt absolutely +at home on a horse, an unwonted skill came +to my hands, and I actually schooled Gavin's +horses over some fences he had had set up in a +grass park at the Mains of Cossens. The keepers +who had once secretly jeered at me were now at +my very feet. Their children looked upon me as +a young god. I rejoiced in my strength as a giant. +But I asked myself then, as I ask myself now—what +does it mean? The days of miracles are +over. Yet, is this not a miracle? And in a miracle +is there not a gleam of terror, as there is a +gleam of stormy yellow in the fated opal? But +here I leave my condition of body alone, and pass +on to the episode of Doctor Wedderburn, partially +related in the newspapers of the day and marvelled +at, I believe, by all who ever knew, or even set +eyes upon him.</p> + +<p>The doctor, as I have said, did not come again +to see me, but I felt an over-mastering desire to +set forth and visit him. This was surprising, as +hitherto I had rather avoided and hated him. Now +something drew me to the Manse. At first I resisted +my inclination, but a chance word led me +to yield to it impulsively. Since my illness I had +not once attended church. Moved by a violent +distaste for the religious service, that was novel in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> +me, I had frankly avowed my intention of keeping +away. But, as I did not go to the kirk, I missed +seeing Dr Wedderburn; and I wanted to see him. +One day, leaning by chance against a stone dyke +in the Glen of Ogilvy, smoking a pipe and enjoying +the soft air of Spring as it blew over the rolling +moorland, I heard two ploughmen exchange a +fragment of gossip that made excitement start up +quick within me.</p> + +<p>One said:—</p> + +<p>“The doctor's failin'. Man, he was fairly +haverin' last Sabbath, on and on, wi'out logic or +argeyment or sense.”</p> + +<p>The other answered:—</p> + +<p>“Ay; he's greatly changed. He's no the man +he was. It fairly beats me; I canna mak' it out. +Ye've heard that—” And here he lowered his +voice and I could not catch his words.</p> + +<p>I turned away from the wall, and walking +swiftly, set out for the Manse with a busy mind. +The afternoon was already late, and when I gained +a view of the Manse, a cold grey house standing a +little apart in a grove of weary-looking sycamores, +one or two lights smiled on me from the small +windows that stared upon the narrow and muddy +road. The minister's study was on the right of +the hall door; and, as I pulled the bell, I observed +the shadow of his head to dance upon the drawn +white blind, a thought fantastically, or with a palsied +motion, I fancied. The yellow-headed maidser<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>vant +admitted me with a shrunken grin, that suggested +wild humour stifled by achieved respect, and +I was soon in the minister's study. Then I saw +that Doctor Wedderburn was moving up and down +the room, and that his head was going this way and +that, as he communed in a loud voice with himself. +My entrance checked him as soon as he observed +me, which was not instantly, as, at first, his back +was set towards me and the mood-swept maid. +When he turned about, his discomposure was evident. +His gaze was troubled, and his manner, as +he shook hands with me, had in it something of the +tremulous, and was backward in geniality. We sat +down on either side of the fire, the tea service and +the hot cakes, loved of the doctor, between us. At +first we talked warily of such things as my recovery, +the weather, the condition of affairs in the +parish and so forth. I noticed that though the +doctor's eyes often rested with an almost glaring +expression of scrutiny or of surprise upon me, he +made no remark on the change of my appearance. +Nor did I on the change of his, which was startling, +and suggested I know not what of sorrow and +of the attempt to kill it with evil weapons. The +healthy brick-red of his complexion was now become +scarlet and full of heat; his mouth worked +loosely while he talked; the flesh of his cheeks +was puffed and wrinkled; his eyes had the clouded +and yet fierce aspect of the drunkard. But, +absurdly enough, what most struck me in him was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> +his abstinence from an accustomed act. He drank +his tea, but he ate no hot cakes. This was a +departure from an established, if trifling custom of +many years' standing, and worked on my imaginative +conception of what the doctor now was more +than would, at the first blush, appear likely, or even +possible. Instead of, as of old, feeling myself on +the worm level in his presence, I was filled with a +sense of pity, as I looked upon him and wondered +what subtle process of mental or physical development +or retrogression had wrought this dreary +change. Presently, while I wondered, he put his +cup down with an awkward and errant hand that +set it swaying and clattering in the tray, and said +abruptly:—</p> + +<p>“And what have you come for, Alistair, eh? +what have you come for? To go on with what +you've begun? Well, well, lad, I'm ready for +you; I'm ready now.”</p> + +<p>His voice was full of timorous irritation, his +manner of pitiable distress.</p> + +<p>“I've thought it out, I've thought it all out,” he +continued; “and I can combat you, I can combat +you, Alistair, wherever you've got your fever-mind +from and your fever-tongue.”</p> + +<p>I knew what he meant, and suddenly I knew, +too, why I had wanted so eagerly to come to the +Manse. My instinct of pity and of sympathy died +softly away. My new instinct of cruel rapture in +the ruthless exercise of my—shall I call them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span> +fever-powers then?—woke, dawned to sunrise. +And Doctor Wedderburn and I fell forthwith into +an animated theological discussion. He was desperately +nervous, desperately ill at ease. His +argumentative struggles were those of a drowning +man positively convinced—note this,—that he +would drown, that no human or divine aid could +save him. There was, too, a strong hint of personal +anger in his manner, which was strictly undignified. +He fought a losing battle with bludgeons, and had +an obvious contempt for the bludgeons while in +the act of using them in defence or in attack. +And at last, with a sort of sharp cry, he threw +up his hands, and exclaimed in a voice I hardly +knew as his:—</p> + +<p>“God forgive you, Alistair, for what you're +doing! God forgive you—murderer, murderer!”</p> + +<p>This dolorous exclamation ran through me like +cold water and chilled all the warmth of my intellectual +excitement.</p> + +<p>“Murderer!” I repeated inexpressively.</p> + +<p>Doctor Wedderburn sat in his chair trembling, +and looking upon me with despairing and menacing +eyes, the eyes of a man who curses but cannot +fight his enemy.</p> + +<p>“Of a soul, of a soul,” he said. “The poisoned +dagger?—doubt, the poisoned dagger—you've +plunged it into me, boy.”</p> + +<p>Then raising his voice harshly, he exclaimed:</p> + +<p>“Curse you, curse you!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span></p> +<p>I was thunderstruck. I declare it here, for it is +true. I had defamed—and deliberately—the +doctor's dearest idols. I had driven my lance into +his convictions. I had blasphemed what he worshipped, +and had denied all he affirmed. But +that I had made so terrific an impression upon +his mind, his soul—this astounded me. Yet what +else could his passionate denunciation mean? Had +I, a boy, unused to controversy, unskilled in dialectics, +overthrown with my hasty words the faith +of this strong and fervent man? The thought +thrilled one side of my dual nature with triumph, +pierced the other with grim horror. My emotions +were divided and complex. As I sat silent, my +face dogged yet ashamed, the doctor got up from +his chair trembling like one with the palsy.</p> + +<p>“Away from me—away,” he cried in a hoarse +voice, and pointing at the door. “I'll have no +more talk with the Devil, no more—no more!”</p> + +<p>I had not a word. I got up and went, bending +a steady, fascinated look upon this old mentor of +mine, who now proclaimed himself my victim. +Arrived in the garden I found a thin moon riding +above the sycamores, and soft airs of Spring playing +round the doctor's habitation. Strangely, I +had no mind to begone from it immediately. I +crossed the garden bit and paced up and down +the country lane that skirted it, keeping an eye +upon the lighted window of the study. So I went +back and forth for full an hour, I suppose. Then<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +I heard a sound in the Spring night. The doctor's +hall door banged, and, peering through the privet +hedge that protected his meagre domain, I perceived +him come out into the air bareheaded. He +took his way to the small path that ran by the +hedge parallel to the lane, coming close to the place +by which I crouched, spying upon his privacy. +And there he paced, bemoaning aloud the ill fate +that had come upon him. I heard all the awful +complaining of this soul in distress, besieged by +doubts, deserted by the faith and hope of a lifetime. +It was villainous to be his audience. Yet, I could +not go. Sometimes the poor man prayed with a +desolate voice, calling upon God for a sign, imploring +against temptation. Sometimes—and this was +terrible—he blasphemed, he imprecated. And +then again he prayed—to the Devil, as do the +Satanists. I heard him weeping in his garden in +the night, alone under the sycamores. It was a +new agony of the garden and it wrung my heart. +Yet I watched it till the spectral moon waned, and +the trees were black as sins against the faded sky.</p> + +<p>About this time, as I have said, his parishioners +began to mark the outward change of Dr Wedderburn +that signified the inward change in him. The +talking ploughmen had their fellows. All who sat +under the doctor were conscious of a difference, at +first vague, in his eloquent discourses, of a diminuendo +in the full fervour of his delivery and manner. +Gossip flowed about him, and presently there were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +whisperings of change in his bodily habits. He +had been seen by night wandering about his garden +in very unholy condition, he who had so often +rebuked excess. Children, passing his gate in the +dark of evening, had endured with terror his tipsy +shoutings. A maidservant left him, and spread +doleful reports of his conduct through the village. +By degrees, rumours of our minister's shortcomings +stole, like snakes, into the local papers, carefully +shrouded by the wrappings that protect scandal-mongers +against libel actions. The congregation +beneath the doctor's pulpit dwindled. Women +looked at him askance. Men were surly to him, +or—and that was less kind—jocular. I, alone, +followed with fascination the paling to dusk of a +bright and useful career. I, alone, partially understood +the hell this poor creature carried within him. +For I often heard his dreary night-thoughts, and +assisted, unperceived of him, at the vigils that he +kept. The lamp within his study burned till dawn +while he wrestled, but in vain, with the disease of +his soul, the malady of his tortured heart.</p> + +<p>One night in Summer time, towards midnight, I +bent my steps furtively to the Manse. It was very +dark and the weather was dumb and agitating. +No leaf danced, no grass quivered. Breathless, +dead, seemed the woods and fields, the ocean of +moorland, the assemblage of the mountains. I +heard no step upon the lonely road but my own, +and life seemed to have left the world until I came<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> +upon the Manse. Then I saw the light in the doctor's +window, and, drawing near, observed that the +blind was up and the lattice thrust open among +the climbing dog-roses. Craftily I stole up the +narrow garden path, and, keeping to the side of +the window, looked into the room.</p> + +<p>Doctor Wedderburn lounged within at the table +facing me. A pen was in his shaking hand. A +shuffle of manuscript paper was before him, and a +Bible, in which he thrust his fingers as if to keep +texts already looked out. Beyond the Bible was a +bottle, three-quarters full of whiskey, and a glass. +His muttering lips and dull yet shining eyes betokened +his condition. I saw before me a drunkard +writing a sermon. The vision was sufficiently +bizarre. A tragedy of infinite pathos mingled with +a comedy of hideous yet undeniable humour in the +live picture. I neither wept nor did I laugh. I +only watched, shrouded by the inarticulate night. +The doctor took a pull at the bottle, then swept +the leaves of the Bible....</p> + +<p>“Let me die the death of the righteous,” he +murmured thickly. “That's it—that's—that's—” +He wrote on the paper before him with a +wandering pen, then pushed the sheet from him. +It fell on the floor by the window.</p> + +<p>“And let my last end be like his—Ah—ah!”</p> + +<p>He drank again, and again wrote with fury. +How old and how wicked he looked, yet how sad! +He crouched down over the table and the pen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> +broke in his hand. A dull exclamation burst from +him. Taking up the bottle, he poured by accident +some of the whiskey over the open Bible.</p> + +<p>“A baptism! A baptism!” he ejaculated, bursting +into laughter. “Now—now—let's see—let's +see.”</p> + +<p>Again he violently turned the sodden leaves and +shook his head. He could not read the words, +and that angered him. He drank again and again +till the bottle was empty, then staggered out of the +room. I heard his frantic footsteps echoing in the +uncarpeted passage. Quickly I leaned in at the +window and caught up the sheet of paper that had +fallen to the floor. I held it up to the light. +Only one sentence writhed up and down over it, +repeated a dozen times; “There is no God!” +While I read I heard the doctor returning, and I +shrank back into the night. He came stumbling +in, another whiskey bottle full in his hand. Falling +down in the chair he applied his lips to it and +drank—on and on. He was killing himself +there and then. I knew it. I wanted to leap +into the room, to stop him, yet I only watched +him. Why?—I want to know why—</p> + +<p>At last he fell forward across the Bible with a +choking noise. His limbs struggled. His arms +shot out wildly, the table broke under him—there +was a crash of glass. The lamp was extinguished. +Darkness crowded the little room—and silence.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> +<p>The papers recorded the shocking death of a +minister. They did not record this.</p> + +<p>As I stole home that night, alone in my knowledge +of the doctor's appalling end, I heard going +before me light and tripping footsteps, those, apparently, +of some youth, not above three yards or so +from me. What wanderer thus preceded me, I +asked myself, with a certain tingling of the nerves, +shaken, perhaps, by what I had just seen? I +paused. The steps also paused. The person was +stopping too. I resumed my way. Again I heard +the tripping footfalls. Their sound greatly disquieted +me, yet I hurried, intending to catch up +the wayfarer. Still the steps hastened along the +highway, and always just before me. I ran, yet +did not come up with any person. I called +“Stop! Stop!” There was no reply. Again I +waited. This man—or boy—(the steps seemed +young) waited also. I started forward once more. +So did he. Then a fury of fear ran over me, urging +me at all hazards to see in whose train I travelled. +We were now close to Carlounie. We +entered the policies. Yes, this person turned from +the public road through my gates into the drive, +and the footfalls reached the very house. I +stopped. I dared not approach quite close to the +door. With trembling fingers I fumbled in my +pocket, drew out my match-box, and, in the airless +night, struck a match. The tiny flame burned +steadily. I stretched my hand out, approaching it, +as I supposed, to the face of the stranger.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span></p> +<p>But I saw nothing. Only, on a sudden, I +heard some one hasten from me across the sweep +of gravel in the direction of the burn. And then, +after an interval, I heard the rush of startled sheep +through the night.</p> + +<p>Just so had they scattered on the day I spoke +with the grey traveller by the waterside.</p> + +<h3>III<br /> +THE SOUL OF KATE WALTERS</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> is more than two years since I wrote down +any incident of my life. Two years ago I seemed +to myself a stranger. To-day an intimacy has +sprung up between myself and that observant, detached +something within me—that little extra +spirit which looks on at me, and yet is, somehow, +me. I am at home with my own power. I am +accustomed to my strength of personality. From +my fever I rose like some giant. Long ago my +world recognised the obedience it owed me. Long +ago, by many signs, in many ways, it taught me +the paramount quality of the emanation from my +soul that is called my influence. Yet sometimes, +even now, I seem to stare at myself aghast, to +turn cold when I am alone with myself. I am +seized with terrible fancies. I think of the voice +of the burn. I think of that childish Autumn<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> +ceremony upon its bank among the mists and the +flying leaves. I think of the grey youth who +spoke with me in the twilight, and my soul is +full of questions. I muse upon the Wandering +Jew, upon Faust, upon Van Der Decken, upon +the monstrous figures that are legends, yet sometimes +realities to men. And then—and this is +ghastly—I say to myself, can it be that I, too, +shall become a legend? Can it be that my name +will be whispered by the pale lips of good men +long after I am dead? For, is there not a whirl +of white faces attending my progress as the whirl +of dead leaves attends the Autumn? Do I not +hear a faint symphony of despairing cries like a +dreadful music about my life? Is not my power +upon men malign? Boys with their hopes shattered, +men with their faiths broken, women with +their love turned to gall—do they not crowd +about my chariot wheels? Or is it my vain fancy +that they do? Here and there from the sea of +these beings one rises like a drowned creature +whom the ocean will not hide, stark, stiff, corpse-like. +Doctor Wedderburn was the first. Kate +Walters is the second—Kate Walters.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>When my convalescence was well advanced she +left Carlounie and went back to Edinburgh. Some +months afterwards I heard casually that she was +working in an hospital there. But a year and a +half went by before I saw this girl again. Her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> +fresh, pure, ministering face had nearly faded from +my memory. Yet, she had attended intimately +upon my marvellous transformation from my death +of weakness to the life of strength. She had lifted +me in her girl's arms when I was nothing. Yes, +I had been in her arms then. How strange, how +close are the commonest relations between the +invalid and his nurse! When I chanced to meet +Kate again I had no thought of this. I had forgotten. +I came to Edinburgh on some business +connected with a mine discovered on my estate, +which seemed likely to make a great fortune for +me, and is already on the way to accomplishing +this first duty of a mine. My business done, I +stayed on at my hotel in Princes Street amusing +myself, for I had a multitude of friends in Edinburgh. +One of these friends was a medical student +attached to the hospital there, and he chanced to +invite me to go with him through the wards one +day. In one of the wards I encountered Kate +Walters, fresh, clear, calm as in the old Carlounie +days of my illness. She did not know me till I +recalled myself to her recollection; then she +looked into my face with the frankest astonishment. +My superb physique amazed her, although +she had attended upon its beginnings. I asked +after her life in the interval since our last meeting; +and she told me, with a delightful blush, that her +period of nursing was nearly concluded, as she +was engaged to be married to one Hugh Fraser, a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +handsome, rich, and—strange thing this!—most +steadfast youth, who lived in England in the south, +and who loved her tenderly. I congratulated her, +and was on the point of moving away down the +ward with my friend when my eyes were caught +again by Kate's blushing cheeks and eyes alight +with the fiery shames and joys of love. How +beautiful is the human face when the torches of +the heart are kindled thus. How beautiful! I +paused, and, before I went, invited Kate to tea one +afternoon at my hotel. She accepted the invitation. +Why not? In our meeting the old chain of sympathy +between patient and nurse seemed forged +anew. We felt that we were indeed friends. As +we left the ward, my student chum chaffed me—I +let his words go by heedlessly. I was not in +love with Kate, but I was half in love with her +love for Hugh Fraser. It had such pretty features. +She came to tea and told me all about him; and +when she talked of him she was so fascinating that +I was loath to let her go. It was a sweet evening, +and, as Kate had not to be back at the hospital +early, I suggested that we should go for a stroll +on Carlton Hill, and talk a little more about Hugh +Fraser. The bribe tempted her. I saw that. +And she agreed after a moment's hesitation.</p> + +<p>There is certainly an influence that lives only +out of doors and can never enter a house, or +exercise itself within four walls. There is a +wandering spirit in the air of evening, a soul<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> +that walks with gathering shadows, speaks in the +distant hum of a city, and gazes through its twinkling +lights. <i>There is a grey traveller who journeys in +the twilight.</i> (What am I saying? To-day, as I +write, I am full of fancies.) I felt that, so soon as +Kate and I were away from the hotel, out under +the sky and amid the mysteries of Edinburgh, we +were changed. In a flash our intimacy advanced, +the sympathy already existing between us deepened. +Leaving the streets, we mounted the flight of steps +that leads to the hill, and joined the few couples +who were walking, almost like gods on some +Olympus, above the world. They were all obviously +lovers. I pointed this fact out to Kate, saying, +“Hugh Fraser should be here, not I.”</p> + +<p>She smiled, but scarcely, I thought, with much +regret. For the moment it seemed that a confidant +satisfied her; and this pleased me. I drew +her arm within mine.</p> + +<p>“We must not alarm the lovers,” I said. “We +must appear to be as they are, or we shall carry a +fiery sword into their Eden.”</p> + +<p>“You seem to understand us very well,” she +answered with a smile. And she left her arm in +mine.</p> + +<p>The mention of “us” chilled me. It seemed +to set me outside a magic circle within which she, +Hugh Fraser, these people sauntering near us, like +amorous ghosts in the dimness, moved. I pressed +her arm ever so gently.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span></p> +<p>“Tell me how lovers feel at such a time as +this,” I whispered, looking into her eyes.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>From Carlton Hill at night one sees a heaving +ocean of yellow lights, gleaming like phosphorescence +on ebon waves. Towards Arthur's Seat, +towards the Castle, they rise; by Holyrood, by the +old town, they fall. That night I could fancy that +this sea of light spoke to me, murmured in my ear, +urging me to prosecute my will, ruthlessly stirring +a strange and, perhaps, evanescent romance in my +heart. I know that when I parted from Kate that +night I bent and kissed her. I know that she +looked up at me startled, even terrified, yet found +no voice to rebuke me. I know that I did not +leave Edinburgh, as I had originally intended, upon +the morrow. And I know this best of all—that +I had no ill-intent in staying. I was caught in a +net of impulse despite my own desire. I was held +fast. There are—I believe it unalterably now—influences +in life that are the very Tsars of the +empires of men's souls. They must be obeyed. +Possibly—is it so I wonder?—they only mount +upon their thrones when they are urgently invoked +by men who, as it were, say, “Come and rule over +us!” But once that invocation has been made, +once it has been responded to, there is never again +free will for him who has rashly called upon the +power he does not understand, and bowed before +the tyrant whose face he has not seen. I tremble<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> +now, as I write; I tremble as does the bond slave. +Yet I neither speak with, nor hear, nor have sight +of, my master. Unless, indeed—but I will not +give way to any madness of the brain. No, no; I +do not hear, I do not see, although I am conscious +of, my Tsar, whose unemancipated serf I am.</p> + +<p>I need not tell all the story of my soul's impression +that was stamped upon the soul of Kate +Walters. Perhaps it is old. Certainly it is sad. +I stamped deceit upon the nature which had not +known it, knowledge of evil where only purity had +been, satiety upon temperance. And, worst of all, +I expelled from this girl's heart love for a good +man who loved her, and planted, in its stead, passion +for a—must I say a bad, or may I not cry, a +driven man? And all this time Hugh Fraser +knew nothing of his sorrow, growing up swiftly +to meet him like a giant. Even now, while I +write these words, he knows nothing of it. As I +had carelessly taken possession of the mind, the +very nature of Dr Wedderburn, so now I took +possession of the very nature of Kate Walters. +My immense strength, my abounding physical +glory drew her—who had known me a puny +invalid—irresistibly. I won the doctor by my +mind; this girl, in the main, I think, by my body. +And when at length I tired of her slightly, the +woman, the gentle woman, sprang up a tigress. I +had said one night that, since I was obliged to go to +London, we must part for a while. I had added<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> +that it was well Hugh Fraser lived in complete +ignorance of his betrayal.</p> + +<p>“Why?” Kate suddenly cried out.</p> + +<p>“Because—because it is best so. He and you—some +day.”</p> + +<p>I paused. She understood my meaning. Instantly +the tigress had sprung upon me. The +scene that followed was eloquent. I learned what +lives and moves in the very depths of a nature, +stirred by the inexhaustible greed of passion, +twisted by passion's fulfilment, the ardent touched +by the inert. But upon that hurricane has followed +an immense and very strange calm. Kate +is almost cold to me, though very sweet. She has +acquiesced in my departure for town. She has +come to one mind with me on the subject of +Hugh Fraser. More, she has even written a letter +to him asking him to come to her, pressing forward +their marriage, and I am to be the bearer +of it to him. This is only a woman's whim. She +insists that I must see once the man who is to be +her husband.</p> + +<p>So, after all, the tragedy of Dr Wedderburn is +not to be repeated. I—I shall not hear, stealing +along the steep and windy streets of Edinburgh, any—any +strange footsteps.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>What is the awful fate that pursues me? A +year ago I left Edinburgh carrying with me the +letter which I understood to contain the request<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> +of Kate Walters to her lover, Hugh Fraser, to +hasten on their marriage. As the train roared +southwards, I congratulated myself on my clever +management of a woman. I had, it is true, +stepped in between Kate and the calm happiness +she had been anticipating when I first met her in +the hospital ward. But now I had withdrawn. +And, I told myself, in time. All would be well. +This girl would marry the boy who loved her. She +would deceive him. He would never know that the +girl he married was not the girl he originally loved. +He would never perceive that a human being had +intervened between her and purity, truth, honour. +In this letter—I touched it with my fingers, congratulating +myself—Hugh Fraser would read the +summons to the future he desired, the future with +Kate Walters. His soul would rush to meet hers, +and surely, after a little while, hers would cease to +hold back. She would really once more be as she +had been. I forgot that no human soul can ever +retreat from knowledge to ignorance.</p> + +<p>Hugh Fraser's rooms in London were in Piccadilly. +Directly I arrived in town I wrote him +a note, saying that I was from Edinburgh with +a message from Kate Walters for him. I explained +that she had nursed me through a severe +illness, and hoped I might have the pleasure of +making his acquaintance. In reply, I received a +most friendly note, begging me to call at an hour +on the evening of the following day.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span></p> +<p>That evening I drove in a hansom from the +Grand Hotel to Piccadilly, taking Kate's note with +me. I was conscious of a certain excitement, and +also of a certain moral exultation. Ridiculously +enough, I felt as if I were about to perform a sort +of fine, almost paternal act, blessing these children +with genuine, as opposed to stage, emotion. Yes; +I glowed with a consciousness of personal merit. +How incredible human beings are! Arrived at +Hugh Fraser's rooms, I was at once shown in. +How vividly I remember that first interview of +ours, the exact condition of the room, Hugh's +attitude of lively anticipation, the precise way in +which he held his cigarette, the grim, short bark +of the fox-terrier that sprang up from a sofa when +I came in. Hugh was almost twenty-four years +old, rather tall, slim, with intense, large, dark eyes—full +of shining cheerfulness just then—very +short, curling black hair, and fine, straight features. +His expression was boyish; so were his movements. +As soon as he saw me, he sprang forward +and gave me an enthusiastic welcome—for the +sake of Kate, I knew. He led me to the fire +and made me sit down. I at once handed him +my credentials, Kate's letter. His face flushed +with pleasure, and his fingers twitched with the +desire to tear it open, but he refrained politely, +and began to talk—about her, I confess. I +understood in three minutes how deeply he was +in love with her. I told him all about her that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> +might please him, and hinted at the contents of the +letter.</p> + +<p>“What!” he exclaimed joyously. “She wants +to hasten on our marriage at last. And she's kept +me off—but you know what girls are! She +couldn't leave the hospital immediately. She +swore it. There were a thousand reasons for +delay. But now—by Jove!”</p> + +<p>His eyes were suddenly radiant, and he clutched +hold of my hand like a schoolboy.</p> + +<p>“You are a good chap to bring me such a letter,” +he cried.</p> + +<p>“Read it,” I said, again filled with moral self-satisfaction, +vain, paltry egoist that I was.</p> + +<p>“No, no—presently.”</p> + +<p>But I insisted; and at length he complied, enchanted +to yield to my importunity. He opened +the letter, and, as he broke the seal, his face was +like morning. Never shall I forget the change +that grew in it as he read. When he had finished +his face was like starless night. He looked old, +haggard, black, shrunken. I watched him with a +sensation that something had gone wrong with my +sight. Surely radiance was fully before me and +my tricked vision saw it as despair. Raising his +blank, bleak eyes from the letter, Hugh stared +towards me and opened his lips. But no sound +came from them. He frowned, as if in fury at his +own dumbness. Then at last, with a sharp shake of +his head sideways, he said in a low and dry voice:</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span></p> +<p>“You know what is in this letter, you say?”</p> + +<p>“I—I thought so,” I answered, growing cold +and filled with anxiety.</p> + +<p>“Well, read it, will you?”</p> + +<p>I took the paper from his hand and read:—</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Hugh,</span>—Make the man who brings you this +letter marry me. If you don't, I will kill myself; for I +am ruined. <span class="smcap" style="float:right;">Kate.</span>”</p> +</div> + +<p>I looked up at Hugh Fraser over the letter which +my hand still mechanically held near my eyes. I +wonder how long the silence through which we +stared lasted.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A month later I was married to Kate Walters!</p> + +<h3>IV<br /> +THE SOUL OF HUGH FRASER</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> may seem strange that my influence upon the +soul of Hugh Fraser should follow upon such a +situation as I have just described; but everything +connected with my life, since the day when I met +the grey boy by the burn, has been utterly strange, +utterly abnormal. My treachery, one would have +thought, must have led Fraser to hate me. I had +wrecked his happiness. I had done him the +deepest injury one man can do to another, and at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> +first he hated me. When he had wrung from me +a promise to marry Kate, he left me, and I did not +see him again until after the wedding. But then, +it seemed, he could not keep away from her. For +he forgave us the wrong we had done him; and, +after a while, wrote a friendly letter in which he +suggested that we should all forget the past.</p> + +<p>“Why should I not see you sometimes?” he +concluded. “I only wish you both good, there is +no longer any evil in my heart.”</p> + +<p>Poor boy! It was to be, I suppose. The Tsar +of the empire of my soul set forth his edict, and +one winter day carriage wheels ground harshly +upon the gravel sweep, and Hugh Fraser was my +guest at Carlounie. I welcomed him upon the +very spot where those light footsteps paused that +black night of Doctor Wedderburn's dreary end. +And the faint sound of the burn mingled with our +voices in greeting and reply.</p> + +<p>The boy was changed. He had aged, grown +grave, heavier in movement, fiercer in observation, +less ready in speech. But his manner was friendly +even to me, and it was plain to see that Kate still +had his heart. They met quietly enough, but a +flush ran from his cheek to hers as they touched +hands. Their voices quivered when they spoke +a commonplace of pleasure at the encounter. So +the wheels of Fate began slowly to turn on this +winter's day.</p> + +<p>I must tell you that my fortunes had greatly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +changed before Hugh Fraser came to Carlounie. +I was grown rich. My investments, my speculations +had prospered almost miraculously. The +mine I have spoken of was proving a gold mine to +me. All worldly things went well with me—all +worldly things, yes.</p> + +<p>Now, I believe that all mighty circumstances +are born tiny, like children, at some given moment. +As a rule, they usually seem so insignificant, so +puny at the birth, that we take no heed of the fact +that they have come into being, and that, in process +of time, they will grow to might, perhaps to +horrible majesty. Only, when we trace events +backwards do we know the exact moment when +their first faint wail broke upon our mental hearing. +Generally this is so. But I affirm that I felt, at +the very time of its first coming, the presence of the +shadow, the tiny shadow of the events which I am +about to describe. I even said to myself, “This +is a birthday.”</p> + +<p>Among many improvements on my estate I had +built a new Manse, in which, of course, our new +minister lived. The old habitation of Doctor +Wedderburn stood empty and deserted among its +sycamores. One winter's day Hugh Fraser, Kate, +and I, in our walk, passed along the lane by the +now ragged privet hedge through which I had so +often observed the doctor's agonies. It was a +black and white day of frost, which crawled along +the dark trees and outlined twig and branch. The<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> +air was misty, and distant objects assumed a mysterious +importance. Slight sounds, too, suggested +infinite activities to the mind. As we neared the +Manse, Hugh Fraser said to me:—</p> + +<p>“Who lives in that old house?”</p> + +<p>“Nobody,” I replied.</p> + +<p>Hugh glanced at me very doubtfully.</p> + +<p>“Nobody,” I reiterated.</p> + +<p>“Really,” he rejoined. “But the garden?”</p> + +<p>“Is deserted.”</p> + +<p>“Hardly,” he exclaimed, pointing with his hand. +“Look!”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Kate, as if in agreement.</p> + +<p>And she grew duskily pale.</p> + +<p>I looked over the privet hedge, seeing only the +rank and frost-bitten grass, the wild bushes and +narrow mossy paths. Then I stared at my two +companions in silence. Their eyes appeared to +follow the onward movement of some object invisible +to me.</p> + +<p>“The old man makes himself at home,” Hugh +said. “He has gone into the summer-house +now.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Kate said again.</p> + +<p>There was fear in her eyes.</p> + +<p>I felt suddenly that the air was very chill.</p> + +<p>“That house is unoccupied,” I repeated shortly.</p> + +<p>We all walked on in silence. But, through our +silence, it certainly seemed to me that there came +a sound of some one lamenting in the garden.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> +<p>A day or two later Fraser said to me:—</p> + +<p>“Why is that old house shut up?”</p> + +<p>“Who would occupy it?” I said. “Of course, +if I could get a tenant—”</p> + +<p>“I'll take it,” he rejoined quickly. “You can +let me some shooting with it, can't you?”</p> + +<p>“But,” I began; and then I stopped. I had +an instinct to keep the old Manse empty, but I +fought it, merely because it struck me as unreasonable. +How seldom are our instincts unreasonable! +God—how seldom!</p> + +<p>“I've been looking out for a shooting-box,” +Hugh said. “That house would suit me +admirably.”</p> + +<p>“All right,” I answered. “I shall be very glad +to have you for a tenant.”</p> + +<p>So it was arranged. When Kate heard of the +arrangement, I observed her to go very pale; but +she made no objection. Hugh Fraser rented the +house, furnished it, engaged servants, a gardener, +enlarged the stables, and took up his abode there. +Doctor Wedderburn's old study was now his den. +When I looked in at the window through which I +had seen the doctor die, I saw Fraser smoking, or +playing with his setters. I don't know why, but +the sight turned me sick.</p> + +<p>My relations with Kate, of which I have said +nothing, were rather cold and distant. My passion, +such as it was, had died before marriage. Hers +seemed to languish afterwards. I believe that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> +had really loved me, but that the shame of being +with me, after I had wedded her actually against +my will, struck this sentiment to the dust. When +one feeling that has been very strong dies, its place +is generally filled by another. Sometimes I fancied +that this was so with Kate, that the bitterness of +shattered self-respect gradually transformed her +nature, that a cruel frost bound the tendernesses, +the warm vagaries of what had been a sweet +woman's heart. But, to tell the truth, I did not +trouble much about the matter. My affairs were +prospering so greatly, my health was so abounding, +I had so much beside the mere egotism of brilliant +physical strength to occupy me, that I was heedless, +reckless—at first. Yet, I had moments of +a dull alarm connected with the dweller at the +Manse.</p> + +<p>If Hugh Fraser changed as he read that fateful +letter in London, he changed far more after he +came to live at the Manse. And it seemed to me +that there were times when—how shall I put it?—when +he bore a curious, and, to me, almost intolerable +likeness to—some one who was dead. A +certain old man's manner came upon him at +moments. His body, in sitting or standing, assumed, +to my eyes, elderly and damnable attitudes. +Once, when I glanced in at the study window +before entering the Manse, I perceived him lounging +over a table facing me, a pen in his hand and +paper before him, and the spectacle threw all my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> +senses into a violent and most distressing disorder. +Instead of going into the house, as I had intended, +I struck sharply upon the glass at the window. +Fraser looked up quickly.</p> + +<p>“What—what are you writing?” I cried out.</p> + +<p>He got up, came to the window, and opened it.</p> + +<p>“Eh? What's the row, man?” he said. “Why +don't you come in?”</p> + +<p>I repeated my question, with an anxiety I strove +to mask.</p> + +<p>“Writing? Only a letter to town,” he said, +looking at me in wonder.</p> + +<p>“Not a sermon?” I blurted forth.</p> + +<p>“A sermon? Good heavens, no. Why should +I write a sermon?”</p> + +<p>“Oh,” I replied, forcing an uneasy laugh. +“You—you live in a Manse. Doctor Wedderburn +used to write his sermons in that room.”</p> + +<p>That evening I remember that I said to Kate:</p> + +<p>“Don't you think Fraser is getting to look very +old at times?”</p> + +<p>“I haven't observed it,” she replied coldly.</p> + +<p>Another curious thing. Very soon after he +took up his abode in the Manse, Fraser, who had +been a godly youth, became markedly averse to +religion. He informed us, with some excitement, +that he had changed his views, and seemed much +inclined to carry on an atheistical propaganda +among the devout people of the neighbourhood. +He declared that much evil had been wrought by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> +faith in Carlounie, and appeared to deem it as his +special duty to preach some sort of a crusade +against the accepted Christianity of the parish. I +began to combat his views, and once sought the +reason of his ardour and self-election to the post +of teacher. His answer struck me exceedingly. +He said:—</p> + +<p>“Why should I be the one to clear away these +senseless beliefs in phantasms, you say? Why, +because I suppose they were woven by my predecessor +in the Manse. Didn't the minister live and +die there? Do you know, Ralston, sometimes, as +I sit in that study at night, I have a feeling that +instead of turning to what is called repentance +when he died, the minister turned the other way, +recanted in his last hour the faith he had professed +all through his life, and expired before he could +give words to his new mind and heart. And then +I feel as if his influence was left behind him in +that room, and fell upon me and imposed on me +this mission.”</p> + +<p>And as he spoke, he suddenly plucked at his +face with an old, habitual action of Doctor Wedderburn's +when excited. I scarcely restrained a +cry, and with difficulty forced myself to go out +slowly from his presence. Nevertheless, I felt +strongly impelled to fight against the atheism of +this boy, I who had formerly sown the seeds of +destruction in the soul of Doctor Wedderburn. +But it was as if my own act of the past rose and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> +conquered me in the present. I declare solemnly +it was so. Some emanation from the poor dead +creature's soul clung round that cursed place of his +doom, and, seizing upon the soul of Fraser, spread +tyranny from its throne. And whom did it take +first as its victim, think you? Kate, my wife.</p> + +<p>Let our individual beliefs be what they may, one +thing we must all—when we think—acknowledge, +that the pulse which beats eternally in the +heart of life is reparation.</p> + +<p>Kate, as I have said, was originally finely pure +and finely dowered with the blessings of faith in a +divine Providence, trust in the eventual redemption +of the world, hope that sin, sorrow, and sighing +would, indeed, flee away, and all mankind find +eternal and unutterable peace. In my worst moments +I had never tried to destroy this beauty of +her soul; and, in her fall, now repaired, she had +never abandoned her religion. It was, I know, a +haunting memory of the last moments of the doctor +that held me back from ever attacking the faith +of another. For myself, I did not think much of +my future beyond death. Life filled my horizon +then.</p> + +<p>But now, after a short absence in England, during +which I left Kate at Carlounie, I returned to +find her infected with Fraser's pestilent notions. +She declined to go to the kirk, declaring that it was +better to act up to her real convictions than to set +what is called a good example to her dependants.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> +She and Fraser gloried openly in their new-found +damnation. I say damnation, for this was actually +how the matter struck me when I began carefully +to consider it. Men often see only what irreligion +really is and means when they find it existing in a +woman. I was appalled at this deadly fire flaring +up in the heart of Kate, and I set myself, at first +feebly, at length determinedly, to quench it and +stamp it out.</p> + +<p>But I fought against my own former self. I +fought against the influence of the spectre that +surely haunted the Manse, and that spectre rose +originally from the very bosom of the burn at my +summons. Am I mad to think so? No, no. Oh, +the eternal horror that may spring from one wild +and lawless action, from the recital of one diabolic +litany! This was surely the strangest, subtlest +reparation that ever beat in the inexorable heart of +Life. Hugh Fraser was enveloped by the influence, +still retained mysteriously in his abode, of the soul +that was gone to its account. Through him it +seized upon Kate, and thus the mystic number was +made up, three souls were bound and linked together. +(I hear as I write the voice of the grey +traveller by the burn in the twilight.) And in the +first soul I had planted the seed of death, and so in +the second and in the third. Now, thrusting as it +were backward through Kate and Hugh Fraser, I +fought with a dead man, long ago, perhaps, wrapped +in pain unknown. But, as the influence of Doctor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> +Wedderburn had formerly—before the fever—dominated +my influence, so now it dominated my +influence from the tomb. Indeed, this man whom +I had destroyed had a drear revenge upon me. +There had been an interregnum when the doctor +wavered from Christianity to atheism. But that +had ceased to be. He died undoubting, a blatant +unbeliever. Hence, surely, his deadly power now. +He returned, as it were, to slay me. The spectre +at the Manse defied me.</p> + +<p>Slowly I grew to feel, to know, all this. It did +not come upon me in a moment; for sometimes +my worldly affairs still occupied me. My glory of +health and of strength still delighted me. I was as +Faust—I was as Faust in his monstrous and damnable +youth. But there came a time when the +spectre at the Manse touched me with the hand of +Hugh Fraser. And then I rose up to battle with +it, trembling at the thought of the grey boy's +words at the thought of the Cæsar of hell whose +tribute was three human souls.</p> + +<p>Kate and I were taking tea one evening with +Fraser. We sat around the hearth, by which was +placed the table with the tea-service and the hot +cakes. Fraser began, as was his habit now, to discuss +religious subjects and to rail against the professors +of faith. Kate listened to him eagerly—a +filthy fire, so I thought, gleaming in her great eyes. +I was silent, watching. And presently it seemed +to me that Fraser's gestures in talking grew like the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span> +dead gestures of the doctor. He threw his hands +abroad with the fingers divided in a manner of +Wedderburn's. He struck his knees sharply, and +simultaneously, with both his palms to emphasise +his remarks, a frequent habit of the dead man's. So +vehement was the similarity that I began presently to +feel that the doctor himself declaimed in the firelight, +and I was seized with a desire to combat effectively +his wicked, but forcible arguments. I broke in, +then, upon Fraser's tirade and cried the cause of +religion. He turned upon me, dealt with my pleas, +scattered my contentions—growing, I fancied, very +old and with the rumbling voice of age,—thrust at +me with the lances of sarcasm, sore belaboured me +into silence and mute fury. And all the time Kate +sat by, and I seemed to see her soul, with fluttering +outstretched wings, sinking down to hell, as a hawk +drops out of sight into a dark cleft of the mountains. +And then, in the last resort, Fraser struck his hand +down on mine to clinch his defeat of me. And I, +looking upon that poor Kate, cried out:—</p> + +<p>“God forgive you, Fraser, for what you're doing—murderer! +murderer!”</p> + +<p>Scarcely had my cry died away than I knew I +had borrowed the very words of Wedderburn to +me. A cold, like ice, came upon me. This reversal +of the past in the present was too ironic. +I heard the doctor chuckling drearily in Hades. I +suddenly sprang up like one pursued, and got away +into the night, leaving Kate and Fraser together<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> +by the fire. But the spectre of the Manse surely +pursued me. I heard its soft but heavy footsteps +coming in my wake. I heard its old laughter in +the dark behind me; and I sickened and faltered, +and was in fear beyond all human fear of an +enemy. The next day I told Fraser he must leave +the Manse; I would build him a shooting-lodge +on any part of my estate that he preferred.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, “no; I have grown to love the +old place; I never feel alone there.”</p> + +<p>I looked in his eyes, searching after his meaning.</p> + +<p>“I would rather pull down the Manse,” I said.</p> + +<p>In reply, he touched with his forefinger the +lease I had signed with him, which lay on his +writing-table.</p> + +<p>“You cannot, my friend,” he said.</p> + +<p>I cannot do anything that I would. I am driven +on a dark road by the creature with the whip that +is surely after every man who once yields to his +worst desires.</p> + +<p>Just after this I received a visit from Mr. Mackenzie, +the new minister, a young and fervent, but +not very knowledgeable man, whose zeal was red-hot, +but incompetent, and who would have died for +the faith he could never properly expound, like +many young ministers of our church. The little +man was in a twisting turmoil of distress, and was +moved, so he said, to deal very plainly with me. I +bade him deal on. It seemed that his flock was +becoming infected with atheism, which spread like<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> +the plague, from the old Manse. The young children +lisped it to each other in the lanes; lovers +talked it between their kisses; youths chattered +perdition at the idle corner by the church wall. +Even the old began to look askance at the Bible +that had been their only book of age, and to shiver +wantonly at the inevitable approach of death. +The young minister cried denunciation upon +Fraser, like a vague-minded, but angry Jonah before +a provincial Nineveh.</p> + +<p>“Turn him out, Mr. Ralston, drive him forth,” +he ejaculated. “What is his rent to you? What +is his money in comparison with the immortal +souls of men? Away with him, away with him.”</p> + +<p>I mentioned the small matter of the lease. +The young minister, with a quivering scarlet face, +replied stammering:—</p> + +<p>“A lease! But—but—your own wife—she +is—is—”</p> + +<p>“I do not discuss her,” I said sternly.</p> + +<p>“Well; they are deserting the services. You +see that yourself. They will not come to hear me +preach. They will not listen to me.”</p> + +<p>The man was tasting bitterness. He was +almost crying. I was terribly sorry for him. Yet, +all I could do was to think of the spectre at the +Manse and answer:—</p> + +<p>“I can do nothing.”</p> + +<p>His words were true. Carlounie's soul was +being devoured as by a plague. A colony of un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>believers +was springing up in the midst of the +beautiful woods and the mountains. Soon the evil +fame of the place began to spread abroad, and +men, in distant parts of Scotland, to speak of +mad Carlounie. The matter weighed intolerably +upon me, and at last became a fixed idea. I could +think of nothing else but this devil's home in the +hills, this haunted and harassed centre of doom +and darkness which was my possession and in +which I lived. I fell into silence. I ceased to +stir abroad beyond my own land. It seemed to +me that Carlounie should keep strict quarantine, +should be isolated, and that each person who went +over its borders carried a strange infection and was +guilty of murder. I forbade Kate to drive beyond +my estates.</p> + +<p>“I never wish to,” she said.</p> + +<p>And I knew that where Fraser was she was +happy. He had her soul fast by this; or, it would +be truer to say, the spectre of the Manse had both +him and her. And he aged apace and bore on his +countenance the stamp of evil. And I brooded +and brooded upon the whole matter. But, from +whatever point I started, I came back to the Manse +and to the spectre dwelling in it with Hugh Fraser. +I had given death to Doctor Wedderburn, in return +for the life so miraculously given to me, and +now his spirit, retained in its ancient abiding-place, +spread death about it in its turn. This was, and +is, my conviction. The influence of the departed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> +clings to roof, to walls, to floors, leans on the accustomed +window-seat, trembles by the bed-head, +sits by the hearthstone, stands invisible in the passage +way. <i>To kill it one must destroy its home.</i> It +was my duty to kill it, therefore it was my duty to +destroy the Manse. This thought at length took +complete possession of me, and, following it, I +strove in every imaginable way to oust Fraser from +the house among the sycamores. But he would +not go. He loved the place, he said. He stood +by his lease and I was powerless.</p> + +<p>Oh, God, I have, surely I have, my excuse for +what I have done! I meant to be a saviour, not a +destroyer! I would have restored Fraser and my +poor Kate to their freedom of heart. That was +what I meant. Ay, but the grey traveller fought +against me. Shut up here by night in my house, +on the verge of—that which I cannot, dare not +speak of, I declare that I am guiltless. Let him +bear the burden, him alone! In these last moments, +before my deed is known, I write the truth +that men may exonerate me. This is the truth.</p> + +<p>Overwhelmed with this idea that Carlounie +must be rescued, that Hugh Fraser and Kate must +be rescued from this damnation that was preying +upon them, I determined, secretly, on the destruction +of the Manse, in which the spectre of the +doctor stayed to work such evil. But, to do this, +I must first make sure that Hugh Fraser was at +a distance, and that his small household—he only<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> +kept two servants, hired from the village—were +away from the haunted dwelling. I, therefore, +suggested to Fraser that he should come and spend +a week with me, and give his maids a holiday. +After a little demur, and drawn, I see now, by his +hidden passion for Kate, he accepted my invitation. +He dismissed the maids to their homes for +a week, and moved over to us. When the minister +knew of it, he, no doubt, fully included me +in his prayers for the damnation of those who +worked evil among his flock. Will he ever read +these pages, I wonder? Kate was now an avowed +atheist, and she and Fraser were continually together, +glorying in their complete freedom from +old prejudices, and their new outlook upon life. +They had, I heard them say, broken through the +ties that bound poor, terrified Christians; and, +when they said this, they smiled, the one upon the +other. I did not then know why. Meanwhile, I +was preparing for my deed of redemption, as I +called it, and meant it to be. I was resolved to go +out by night to the empty Manse, and secretly to +set it in flames. It stood alone. The country +people slept sound at night. I calculated that if I +chose midnight for my act none would see the +flames, and, ere the peasants woke at dawn, the +Manse and the spectre within it would be destroyed +for ever. Such was my belief—such the +spirit in which I prepared myself for this strange +work.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span></p> + +<h3>V<br /> +THE RETURN OF THE GREY TRAVELLER</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">I write</span> these last words after the dead of night, +towards the coming of the dawn. Ere the light is +grey in the sky I shall be away to the burn to meet +him, the grey traveller. He is there waiting for me. +He has come back. I go to meet him, and I shall +never return. Carlounie will know my face no +more. All is done as he ordained. My words +have been as deeds, have marched on inevitably to +actual deeds. Long ago he said that sometimes, +even as we can never go back from things that we +have done, we can never go back from things that +we have said. So, indeed, it is.</p> + +<p>According to my fixed intention, I determined +on a night for the destruction of the Manse. The +house was old and would burn like tinder. I +should break into it through the window of the +study, which was never shuttered. I should set +fire to the interior at several points, and escape in +the darkness of the night. By dawn the accursed +place would be a ruin, and then—then I looked +for a new era. Fool! Fool! I looked to see +the burden of the vile influence of the spectre lifted +from the soul of Fraser, and so from the soul of +Kate, which was infected by him. I looked to +see my people sane and satisfied as of old, Carlounie<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span> +no more a plague-spot in the land, that poor and +zealous man, the minister, calm and at rest with +his little faithful flock once more. All this I +looked for confidently. And so, when the black +and starless night of my deed came, I was happy and +serene. That night Kate pleaded a headache, and +went to bed very early, before nine. She begged +me not to come to her room to bid her good-night, +as she wanted perfect quiet and sleep. All +unsuspecting, I agreed to her request. Soon after +she had gone, Fraser, who had seemed heavy with +unusual fatigue all through the evening, also went +off to bed, and I was left alone. But it was not +yet time for me to start on my errand of the darkness. +The burning Manse would surely attract +attention before midnight. People might be out +and about in the village. A belated peasant might +be on his way home by the lane that skirted the +privet hedge. I must wait till all were sleeping. +The time seemed very long. Once I fancied I +heard a movement in the house—again I dreamed +that soft and hurried footsteps upon the gravel outside +broke on the silence. But I said to myself that +I was nervous, highly strung because of my strange +project, that my imagination tricked me. At last +the hour came. Without going upstairs I drew on +my thickest overcoat, took my hat and a heavy +stick, opened the hall door, and passed out into +the night. It was still and very cold, and the voice +of the burn came loudly to my ears. Treading<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span> +quietly, I made my way into the road, and set +forth along it in the direction of the Manse. The +ground was hard, and scarcely had I gone a few +yards before I thought that some one was furtively +following me. I stopped rather uneasily, and listened, +but heard nothing. I went on, and again +seemed aware of distant footsteps treading gently +behind me. The sound made me suppose that +some one of my household must be after me, moved +by curiosity as to the reason of my present pilgrimage; +but I was not minded to be watched, so I +turned sharply, yet very softly, around and faced +the way I had come. I encountered no one, nor +did I any longer catch the patter of feet. So, +reckoning that my nerves must be playing with me, +I pursued my way. But the whole of the distance +between my dwelling and the Manse I seemed +vaguely to hear a noise of one treading behind me. +And, although I said to myself that there was +nobody out beside myself, I was filled with the stir +of a shifting uneasiness. I entered the lonely and +narrow lane that led beside the Manse, and presently +arrived in front of the house; when, what +was my astonishment to perceive a light gleaming +in the study window. My hand was on the gate +when it went out, and all the front of the house +was black and eyeless. For so brief a moment +had I seen the light that I was moved to think that +it, too, existed, like the sound of steps, only in my +excited brain. Nevertheless, I did not go up at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> +once to the house, but paced the lane for a full half-hour, +always—so it seemed to me—tracked by +some one. But, since I kept turning about, and the +footfalls were always at my back, I grew certain +that they were nothing more nor less than a fantasy +on my part. It must have been well after +twelve when I summoned courage to enter the +garden and to approach the Manse. The steps, I +thought, followed me to the gate and then paused, +as if a sentinel was posted there to keep watch. +Arrived at the stone step which preceded the hall +door, I, too, paused in my turn and listened. Did +the spectre that inhabited this abode know of my +coming, of my purpose? Was it crouching within, +like some frantic shadow, fearful of its impending +fate? Or was it, perhaps, preparing to attack, to +repel me? Strangely, I had now no fear of it, or +of anything. I was calm. I felt that my deed +was one of rescue, even though, by performing it, +I wrought destruction. I moved to the study +window, and was about to smash in the glass with +my heavy stick when a mad idea came to me to +try the hall door. I put my hand upon it and +found it not locked. This opening of the door +sent a shiver through me, and a ghastly sense of +the occupation of this deserted abode. I was filled +again with an acute consciousness of the indwelling +spectre, whom, in truth, I came to murder. But, I +reasoned, this door has been left unbarred by the +carelessness of Fraser's servants, that is all.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span></p> +<p>I stood on the lintel, struck a match and set it +to a candle end which I drew from my coat pocket. +The flame burned up, showing the narrow passage, +the umbrella stand, the doors on either side. +I entered the study softly, looking swiftly on all +sides of me as I did so. Did I expect a vision of +Doctor Wedderburn lounging at the table, his +fingers thrust into a Bible? I scarcely know; +but I saw nothing except the grimly standing furniture, +the lamp on the table, the vacant chairs, the +books in their shelves. I listened. There was no +rustle of the spectre that I came to kill. Did it +watch me? Did it see me there? I set fire to +the room, passed quickly to the chamber on the +other side of the passage, from thence to the +kitchen and the dining-parlour, leaving a track of +dwarf flames behind me. The means of destruction +I had prepared and carried with me. They +availed. When I once more reached the garden, the +ground floor of the Manse was in a blaze. But now +came the incredible event which I must chronicle +before I go down to the burn for the last time.</p> + +<p>Having gained the garden, I waited there in the +darkness to watch my work progress. I saw the +light within the Manse, at first a twinkle, grow +to a glare. I heard the faint crackle of the +burning rooms increase to a soft and continuous +roar. And, as I watched and listened, a mighty +sense of relief ran through me. Thus did I burn +up my past! thus did I sacrifice grandly and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> +gladly the ill spirit my wild desires had evoked! +Thus—thus! All the base of the Manse was +red-hot, when, on a sudden, I heard a great shout +that seemed to come from the sky. Light sprang +in an upper window. There followed a sound like +the smash of glass, and I saw two arms shoot out, +the top part of a figure and a face framed in the +glare. I deemed it the vision of the poor spectre +that I destroyed. I looked upon it and fancied +I could detect the tortured lineaments of the +doctor, his accustomed gestures distorted by fear +and fury. But then I seemed to see behind him +another figure, struggling, and to hear the failing +scream of a woman. But the flames from below +leaped to the roof. The floors fell in with an +uproar. The figure, or figures, disappeared.</p> + +<p>Trembling I turned to go, my mind shuddering +at the thought of the apparition I had seen. I +got into the lane and hastened towards home. +Soon the burning Manse was out of sight, and I +was swallowed up in the intense darkness.</p> + +<p>Now, as I went along, a terrible and very peculiar +sensation came upon me. I heard no footsteps; +all was silence. Yet I seemed to be aware +that I was closely companioned, that at my very +side something—I knew not what—walked, +keeping pace with me. And so close did I believe +this thing to be, that at moments I even felt it +pressing against me like a slim figure in the night. +Once, when it thus nestled to me, as if in affection,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +I could not refrain from crying out aloud. I +stretched forth my arms to grasp this surely amorous +horror of the darkness, but found nothing, and +pursued my road in a sweat of apprehension. And +still, the thing was certainly with me, and seemed, +I thought, to praise me as I walked, as the good +man is praised on his journey. My great horror +was that this creature that I could not see, could +not hear, could not feel, and yet was so sharply +conscious of, was <i>well disposed towards me</i>. My +heart craved its hatred—but it loved me I knew. +My soul demanded its curses. I almost heard it +bless me as I moved. My knees knocked together, +my limbs were turned to wax, as it was borne in +upon me that I had surely done this terror that +walked in darkness a service of some kind. To be +pursued in fury by one of the dreadful beings +that dwell in the borderland beyond our sight is +sad and dreary; but to be followed thus by one +as by a dog, to be fawned upon and caressed—this +is appalling. I longed to shriek aloud. I +broke into a run, and, like one demented, gained +the gate of Carlounie; but always the thing was +with me—full of joy and laudation. At the house +door I paused, facing round. I was moved to +address this thing I could not see.</p> + +<p>“Who is it that walks with me?” I cried, and +my voice was high and strained.</p> + +<p>A voice I knew, young, clear, level, a little +formal, answered out of the darkness:—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span></p> +<p>“It is I.”</p> + +<p>It was the voice of the grey traveller whom I +had seen long ago by the burnside. I leaned back +against the door and my shoulders shook against it.</p> + +<p>“What do you want of me?”</p> + +<p>“I come to thank you.”</p> + +<p>“What, then, have I done?”</p> + +<p>“You have brought the tribute money.”</p> + +<p>I did not understand, and I answered:—</p> + +<p>“No. One soul I may have destroyed, but two +I have saved to-night. For I have slain the spectre +that preyed upon them and I have set them free +from bondage.”</p> + +<p>The voice answered:—</p> + +<p>“<i>Go into the house and see.</i>”</p> + +<p>Then again I was filled with apprehension. I +turned to go in at my door, and, as I did so, I +heard footsteps treading in the direction of the +burn, and a fading voice which cried, like an +echo:—</p> + +<p>“And then come to me.”</p> + +<p>And, as the voice died, I heard the rush of +sheep in the night.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Filled with nameless fear and a cold apprehension, +I entered the house, and, led by some +cruel instinct, made my way to Kate's room. +The lamp she always had at night burned dimly +on the dressing-table and cast a grave radiance +upon an empty bed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span></p> +<p>What could this mean?</p> + +<p>I stole to the room of Fraser, bearing the lamp +with me. His chamber was also untenanted; +but, on the quilt of the bed, lay a piece of paper +written over. I took it up and read—with the +sound of the burn in my ears:—</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p>“You stole her from me. I take back my own. To-night +we stay at the old Manse. To-morrow we shall +be far away. +<span class="smcap" style="float:right;">Hugh Fraser.</span>”</p> +</div> + +<p>The paper dropped from my hand upon the +quilt. A woman's scream rang in my ears above +the roar of flames. I understood.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The tribute money has been paid. +I go down to the burn. The grey traveller is +waiting there for me.</p> + +<p style="margin-left:65%;"> +<span class="smcap">Robert Hichens.</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">Frederic Hamilton.</span></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"><br />[169]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170"><br /><br />[170]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171"><br /><br /><br />[171]</a></span></p> + +<h2>AN ECHO IN EGYPT</h2> + +<p><span class="smcap">That</span> lustrous land of weary music and wild dancing, +of reverend tombs and pert Arabs, that Egypt +of plagues and tourists, to whose sandy bosom +Society flocks, affects her visitors in many different +ways. Bellairs went to her under the fixed impression +that he was a cynic, and found that he +was a romanticist. Very acute in mind, he had +long flattered himself on being unimpressionable; +and he was much inclined to think that to be insensitive +was to be strong with the best kind of +strength. He loved to lay stress on all that was +devil-may-care in his character, and to put aside all +that was prone to cling, or weep, or wonder, or +pray, and he fancied that if he cultivated one side +of his mind assiduously he could eliminate the other +sides. In England, in London, the process had +seemed to be successful. But Egypt gave to him +illusions with both hands, and, against his will, he +had to accept them. Protests were unavailing, and +soon he ceased to protest, and told himself the +horrid fact that he was a sentimentalist, perhaps +even a poet. Good heavens! a Bellairs—a poet! +His soldier ancestors seemed forming a square and +fixing bayonets to resist the charging notion. And +yet—and yet—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span></p> +<p>Instead of playing pool after dinner at night, +Bellairs found himself wandering, like Haroun Al +Raschid, through the narrow ways of Cairo, mixing +with the natives, studying their loves, and drinking +their coffee. There were moments, retrograde moments, +when he even wished to wear their dress, +to drape his long-limbed British form in a flowing +blue robe, and wrap his dark head in a bulging +white turban. He resisted this devil of an idea; +but the fact that it had ever come to him troubled +him. And, partly to regain his manhood, his hard +scepticism, his contempt of outside, delicate influences, +he went up the Nile—and succumbed +utterly to fantasy and to old romance. “I am no +longer Jack Bellairs,” he told himself one day, as +the steamer on which he travelled neared Luxor +on its way down the river from the First Cataract—“I +am somebody else; some one who is touched +by a sunset, and responsive to a gleam of rose on +the Libyan Mountains, some one who dreams at +night when the pipes wail under the palm-trees, +some one who feels that the great river has life, and +that the desert owns a wistful soul, and has a sweet +armour with silence. Good-bye, Jack Bellairs! +Go home to England—I stay here.”</p> + +<p>And that evening he left the steamer, and took +a room for a month at the Luxor Hotel. And +that evening he cast the skin of his former +self, and emerged, with fluttering wings, from the +chrysalis of his identity. He was a bachelor, aged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span> +twenty-eight, and he was travelling alone; so there +was no critical eye to mark the change in him, no +chattering tongue to express surprise at his pleasant +abandonment to the follies which make up the lives +of sensitive artists and refined sensualists who can +differentiate between the promenade of the “Empire,” +and the garden of love. As he stepped out +into the Arab-haunted village that night, after +dinner, Bellairs breathed a sigh of relief. For a +month he would let himself go. Where to? He +bent his steps towards the river, the Nile that is the +pulsing blood in the veins of Egypt. Moored in +the shadow of its brown banks lay a string of +bright-eyed dahabeeyahs. From more than one of +them came music. Bellairs, his cigarette his only +companion, strolled slowly along listening idly in a +pleasant dream. A woman's voice sang, asking +“Ninon” what was her scheme of life. A man +beat out his soul at the feet of “Medje.” And, +upon the deck of the last dahabeeyah, a woman +played a fantastic mazurka. Bellairs was fond of +music, and her performance was so clever, so full +of nuances, understanding, wild passion, that he +stood still to remark it more closely.</p> + +<p>“She has known many things, good and evil,” +he thought, as his mind noted the intellect that +spoke in the changes of time, the regret and the +gaiety that the touch demonstrated so surely and +easily, as the mood of the composition changed. +The music ceased.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> +<p>“Betty,” a woman's voice said, in English, but +with a slight French accent, “I want to see the stars. +This awning hides them. Come for a little walk.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I want to see the stars too, and the +awning does hide them,” a girl's voice answered. +“Do let us take a little walk.”</p> + +<p>Bellairs smiled, as he said to himself, “The +first voice is the voice of the musician, and the +second voice seems to be its echo.” He was still +standing on the bank when the two women stepped +upon the gangway to the shore and climbed to the +narrow path.</p> + +<p>As they passed him by they glanced at him +rather curiously. One was a woman of about +thirty, dark, with a pale, strong-featured face. +The other was a fair, aristocratic-looking girl, not +more than seventeen.</p> + +<p>“She is the echo,” Bellairs thought. “Rather +a sweet one.” Then, at a distance, he followed +them, and presently found them sitting together +in the garden of the Hotel. He sat down not far +off. A man, whom he knew slightly, spoke to +them, and afterwards crossed to him.</p> + +<p>“That lady plays very cleverly,” Bellairs said.</p> + +<p>“Mademoiselle Leroux, you mean—yes. You +know her?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all. I only heard her from the river +bank.”</p> + +<p>“She is travelling with Lord Braydon. She is +a great friend of Lady Betty Lambe, his daughter.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> +<p>“That pretty girl?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Shall I introduce you?”</p> + +<p>“I should be delighted.”</p> + +<p>A moment later Bellairs was sitting with the +two ladies and talking of Egypt. It seemed to +him that they were the first nurses to dandle his +new baby-nature, this nature which Egypt had +given to him, and which only to-night he had +definitely accepted. Perhaps this fact quickly +cemented their acquaintance. At any rate, a distinct +friendship began to walk in their conversation, +and Bellairs found himself listening to Mdlle. +Leroux, and looking at Lady Betty, with a great +deal of interest and of admiration. Presently the +former said:—</p> + +<p>“I knew you would be introduced to us +to-night.”</p> + +<p>Bellairs was surprised.</p> + +<p>“When?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“When we passed you just now on the bank +of the Nile.”</p> + +<p>“I knew we should too,” said Lady Betty.</p> + +<p>“You must be very intuitive,” said Bellairs.</p> + +<p>“Women generally are,” remarked Mdlle. +Leroux.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Do your intuitions tell you whether our +acquaintance will be long and agreeable?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps—but I never prophesy.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Because I am always right.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span></p> +<p>“Is that a valid reason for abstention?”</p> + +<p>“I think so. For in this world those who look +forward generally see darkness.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot achieve a proper pessimism in Upper +Egypt,” Bellairs replied.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>A week later, Bellairs felt quite certain that +there had never been a period in his life when he +had not known and talked with Mdlle. Leroux and +Lady Betty Lambe. Lord and Lady Braydon +asked him to lunch on the dahabeeyah almost every +day, and he often strolled down to tea without +invitation. Then, in the afternoon, there were +donkey expeditions to Karnak, or across the river +to the tombs of the kings, to the desert villa of +Monsieur Naville, to ancient Thebes, to the two +Colossi. Lord Braydon was consumptive and +was spending the winter and spring in Egypt. +Lady Braydon seldom left his side, and so it happened +that Bellairs and his two acquaintances of +the garden were often alone together. Bellairs +became deeply interested in them, and for a rather +peculiar reason. He was fascinated by the extraordinary +sympathy that existed between the two +women—if Lady Betty could be called a woman +yet. Mdlle. Leroux had obtained so strong an +influence over the girl that she seemed to have +grafted not only her mind, but her heart, her apparatus +of emotions and of affections, on to Lady +Betty's. What the former silently thought, the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> +latter silently thought too, and when the silence +died in expression, they frequently spoke almost +the same sentence simultaneously. Sometimes +Mdlle. Leroux would express some feeling with +vehemence to Bellairs when Lady Betty was out +of hearing, and an hour or two afterwards, with +only a slightly fainter vehemence, Lady Betty +would express the same feeling. Indeed, these two +women seemed to have only one heart, one soul, +between them, the heart and soul that had originally +been the sole property of the elder one.</p> + +<p>“You are very generous,” said Bellairs one day +to Mdlle. Leroux.</p> + +<p>“Why?” she asked in surprise.</p> + +<p>“You give away things that most of us have +only the power to keep.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Some day, perhaps, I will tell you.”</p> + +<p>Clarice Leroux was tremendously impulsive, +and she had taken an immediate and strong liking +to Bellairs. In this Lady Betty, as usual, coincided. +But when Clarice's liking passed through +self-revelations, confidences, towards a stronger +feeling, it was rather strange to find Lady Betty +still treading in her footsteps, still ever succeeding +her in her attitudes of mind and of heart. Yet the +inevitable double flirtation, apparently expected +and desired by the two women, was strangely +gilded by novelty; and, at first, Bellairs played as +happily with these two dual natures as a child plays<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> +with two doll representatives of Tweedledum and +Tweedledee. For, at first, he possessed the child's +power of detachment, and felt that he could at any +moment discard dolls for soldiers, or a Noah's +Ark, and still keep happiness in his lap. But most +things have an inherent tendency to become complicated +if they are let alone and allowed to develop +free from definite guidance, and presently Bellairs +became conscious of advancing complications. +His intellectual appreciation of a new situation +began to degenerate into a more emotional condition, +which disturbed and irritated him. It +seemed that he was peering through the bars of the +gate that guards the garden of passion. Which +of the two women did he see in the garden?</p> + +<p>He told himself that, having regard to the circumstances +of the case, he ought to see both of +them. Unfortunately, a vision of that kind never +has been, and never will be, seen by a man. The +temple in which the idol sits always makes a difference +in the nature of our worship of the idol. +Bellairs was forced to recognise this fact. And +the temple in which sat the idol of Lady Betty's +nature attracted him more than the temple in which +sat the idol of Mdlle. Leroux's nature. He came +to this conclusion one afternoon at Karnak. They +three were hidden away in a stone nook of this +great stone forest, enshrined from the gaze of tourists +by mighty rugged pillars, walled in by huge +blocks of antique masonry that threw cold shadows<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> +whence the lizards stole to seek the sun. The blue +sky was broken to their gaze by a narrow section +of what had been, doubtless, once a wide-spread +roof. A silence of endless ages hung around them +in this haven fashioned by dead men and living +Time.</p> + +<p>Mdlle. Leroux had been boiling a kettle; and +they sipped tea, and, at first, did not talk. But +tea unlooses the bonds of speech. After their +second cups they felt communicative.</p> + +<p>“One week gone out of my four,” Bellairs +said, “and each will seem shorter-lived than its +forerunner.”</p> + +<p>“You go in three weeks from now?” said +Mdlle. Leroux, with an uneven intonation that betokened +a sudden awakening to the finality of things.</p> + +<p>“Yes; at the end of January.”</p> + +<p>“And we are here until nearly the end of March.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Lady Betty; “it will seem a very +long time. February will be eternal.”</p> + +<p>“It is the shortest month in the year,” Bellairs +remarked.</p> + +<p>Mdlle. Leroux looked at him sarcastically.</p> + +<p>“You English are so prosaic,” she exclaimed. +“Any Frenchman would have understood.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“That we were paying you a compliment.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I did understand it, and preferred not +to show my comprehension; there is such a thing +as modesty!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span></p> +<p>“There is—such a thing as false modesty!”</p> + +<p>“Exactly,” remarked Lady Betty.</p> + +<p>“I will accept your compliment gladly,” said +Bellairs, looking at Lady Betty.</p> + +<p>“Mine?” asked Clarice Leroux.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” Bellairs replied.</p> + +<p>The consciousness that he cared very much +more for such a pretty meaning in Lady Betty +than in Clarice Leroux led him then, for the first +time, to that Garden Gate. He looked at Lady +Betty again with a new feeling. She returned his +gaze quietly. Then he turned his eyes to those of +Clarice. Hers were fixed upon him with a curious +violence. He had a momentary sensation, +literally for the first time, that these two women +after all, had not one soul, one heart, between +them. They did not feel quite simultaneously. +Lady Betty was always a step behind Clarice. +Yes, that was the difference between them. However +quickly the echo follows the voice that summons +it, yet it must always follow. Would Lady +Betty never cease to follow? Bellairs found himself +wondering eagerly, for that afternoon a strange +certainty came to him. He knew, in a flash, that +Clarice, if she did not already love him, was on +the verge of loving him. He knew now that he +loved Lady Betty. But she didn't love him yet, +was not even quite close to loving him. Had she +been in Egypt alone, divorced from Clarice, Bellairs +believed that he would not have attracted her.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> +He attracted her through Clarice, because he +attracted Clarice. Could he make her love him in +the same way? It would be a curious, subtle +experiment to try to win one woman's heart by +winning another's: Bellairs silently decided to +make it. All the rest of that afternoon he talked +to Clarice, showing to her the new self that Egypt +had given him, the poetry which had ousted the +prose inherited from a long line of ancestors, the +sentiment of which he was no longer ashamed now +he felt it to be a weapon with which he might win +two hearts, the heart that contained another heart, +as one conjurer's box contains a hundred others.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>“I knew it when I first saw you,” Clarice said. +“Directly I looked at you that evening on the +bank I knew it.”</p> + +<p>“How strange,” Bellairs answered.</p> + +<p>“And you—did you know it when you heard +me playing?”</p> + +<p>“That mazurka! Remember I am a man.”</p> + +<p>They were sitting in the garden. It was night. +Very few people were out, for a great Austrian +pianist was playing in the public drawing-room, +and the little world of Luxor sat at his feet relentlessly. +They two could hear, mingling with a +Polonaise of Chopin, the throbbing of tom-toms in +the dusty village, the faint and suggestive cry +of the pipes, which fill the soul at the same time +with desire, and regret for past desire killed by<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> +gratification. Bellairs had been making love to +Clarice, and she had told him that she loved him. +And he had kissed her and his kiss had been +returned.</p> + +<p>“Will this kiss, too, have its echo?” he +thought; and his eyes travelled towards the lighted +windows of the drawing-room behind which Lady +Betty sat. He turned again to Clarice.</p> + +<p>“Do you believe in echoes?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Echoes!”</p> + +<p>“That each thing we do in life, each word, each +cry, each act, calls into being, perhaps very soon, +perhaps very late, a repetition?”</p> + +<p>“From the same person?”</p> + +<p>“Or from some other person.”</p> + +<p>“What a curious idea. You think we cannot +ever do anything without finding an imitator! I +don't like to imagine it. I don't fancy that there +can ever, in the history of the world, be an exact +repetition of our feeling, our doing, to-night.”</p> + +<p>“Yet, there may be. Who knows?”</p> + +<p>“I do. Instinct tells me there never can. +There has never been, never will be, any woman +with a heart just like mine, given to a man just in +the same way as mine is given to you. Why +should you think such a hateful thing?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know. It was only an idea that occurred +to me.”</p> + +<p>And again he glanced towards the lighted +windows.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span></p> +<p>“The world is very full of echoes,” he went on; +“our troubles are repeated.”</p> + +<p>“But not our joys, our deepest joys. No, no, +never!”</p> + +<p>“There have always been lovers, and they all +act in much the same way!”</p> + +<p>“Hateful! Ah! why can't we invent some +new mode of expression for ourselves—you and +I?”</p> + +<p>“Because we are human beings, and one network +of tangled limitations.”</p> + +<p>“You make me cry with anger,” she said.</p> + +<p>And when he looked, he saw that there were +tears shining in her eyes.</p> + +<p>At that moment a ghastly sensation of compunction +swept over him. What had he done? +A deep wrong, the deepest wrong man can do. +He had made an experiment, as a scientist may +make an experiment. He had vivisected a soul, +but the soul was yet ignorant of the fact. When +it knew, would it die? But then he told himself +he had to do it. For he loved passionately, and +was certain that he could only gain the heart he +had not yet completely won by gaining this heart +that he had completely won. He had made an +experiment. If it failed! But it could not fail. +All that Clarice said, all that she thought, all that +she desired, Betty said, thought, desired. After +the necessary interval the echo must follow the +voice. And he smiled to himself.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span></p> +<p>“Why do you smile like that?” Clarice asked.</p> + +<p>“Because—because I thought I heard an +echo,” he replied. And then they kissed again. +He, with his eyes shut, forced his imagination to tell +him that the lips he pressed were the lips of Betty. +She thought only of the lips of love, that burn up +all the recollections of the lonely years, all the +phantoms which dwell in the deserts through which +women pass to joy—or to despair.</p> + +<p>The Austrian pianist was exhausted. Even his +long hair could no longer sustain his failing energies. +He expired magnificently, the seventh +rhapsody of Liszt serving as his bier. Lady Betty +came out into the garden.</p> + +<p>“How unmusical you two are,” she said; “his +playing was exquisite.”</p> + +<p>“We heard finer music here,” Clarice answered, +as she got up to go back to the dahabeeyah—“did +we not?”</p> + +<p>She turned to Bellairs. He was looking at Lady +Betty and did not hear. Clarice's cheek flushed +angrily.</p> + +<p>“Come, Betty,” she exclaimed. “Good-night, +Mr Bellairs.”</p> + +<p>“Good-night, Mr Bellairs,” echoed Lady +Betty.</p> + +<p>The two women moved away, and vanished +down the narrow and dusty avenue that leads to +the bank of the Nile. Bellairs stood looking after +them. He was wondering why he loved Betty<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> +and did not love Clarice. It seemed feeble to +love an echo. Yet, the intonation of an echo is +sometimes exquisite in its trilling vagueness, its +far-off, thrilling beauty. And Bellairs fancied that +if he once wakened Betty to passion he would +free her, in a moment, from her curious bondage, +would give to her the soul that Clarice must +surely have crushed down and expelled, replacing +it with a replica of her own soul. And then he +asked himself, being analytically inclined that night, +what he adored in Betty. Was it merely her fresh +young beauty? It could not be her nature; for +that, at present, was merely Clarice's, and he did +not love the nature of Clarice. Yet he felt it was +something more than her beauty. When he had made +her love him he would know; for, when he had +made her love him, he would force her to be herself.</p> + +<p>He watched the bats circling among the shadowy +palms. How gentle the air was. How sweet the +stars looked. Bellairs thought of England that +was so far away. It seemed impossible that he +could ever be in London again, ever again assume +a Piccadilly nature, and laugh at the folly of having +a romance. Yes, it seemed impossible. +Nevertheless, in a fortnight he must go. But he +would take Betty's promise with him. He was +resolved on that. And then he left the silent +garden to the bats, and was soon between the +mosquito curtains, dreaming.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span></p> +<p>Three days afterwards Clarice was prostrated +with a nervous headache. She could not bear to +have any one in her cabin, and Lady Betty sat on +the deck of the <i>Queen Hatasoo</i> quite inconsolable. +Bellairs, arriving to pay his usual afternoon call, +found her there. Lord Braydon was out, sailing +in a flat-bottomed boat far up the river with Lady +Braydon, so Lady Betty was quite desolate. She +told Bellairs so mournfully.</p> + +<p>“And Clarice won't let me come near her,” she +exclaimed. “A step on the floor, the creak of the +cabin door as I come in, tortures her. She is +all nerves. I hope I shan't have her headache +presently.”</p> + +<p>“Is it likely?”</p> + +<p>“I often do. She seems to pass it on to me. +I never had a headache until I knew her. But, +indeed, I never seemed to live, I never seemed to +know anything, be anything, until she came into +my life.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I had known you before you knew her,” +Bellairs said.</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know—perhaps to see if you were +really so very different from what you are now.”</p> + +<p>“I was—utterly.”</p> + +<p>“What were you like?”</p> + +<p>“I can't remember—but I was utterly different.”</p> + +<p>As she ceased speaking, Bellairs glanced over +the rail to the river bank. Two blue-robed donkey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span> +boys stood there trying to attract his attention, +and pointing significantly to their gaily-bedizened +donkeys.</p> + +<p>“Shall we go for a ride?” he said to Lady +Betty. “Just along the river bank? Then we +shall see Lord Braydon as he sails back. Mdlle. +Leroux won't miss you. Shall we go?”</p> + +<p>Betty hesitated. But she could do the invalid +no good by staying. So she assented. Bellairs +helped her to the bank and placed her in the smart +red saddle. He motioned the boys to keep well in +the rear, and they started at a quick, tripping walk. +As they went, a white face appeared at a cabin window, +staring after them, the face of Clarice, who had +with difficulty lifted her throbbing head from the pillow. +She watched the donkeys diminishing till they +were black shadows moving along against the sky, +then she began to cry weakly, but only because she +was too ill to be with them. Her gift of prophecy +failed her at this critical juncture of her life, and she +had no sense of a coming disaster, as she lay back +on her berth, and gave herself up once more to pain.</p> + +<p>That evening Lord Braydon asked Bellairs to +dine on the dahabeeyah, and he accepted the invitation. +Clarice was still in durance, having entirely +failed to pass her headache on to Lady Betty. +After dinner Lord Braydon went into the saloon to +write a letter to England, and Lady Betty and +Bellairs had the deck to themselves. He was +resolved to put his fate to the touch; for, during<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> +the donkey ride, he had discovered the change in +Betty which he had so eagerly desired, the change +from warm friendship to a different feeling. The +girl had not acknowledged it. Bellairs had not +asked her to do so; but he meant to. Only the +thought of his treachery to the woman lying in the +cabin below held him back, just for a moment, and +prompted him to talk lightly of indifferent things. +But that treachery had been a necessary manœuvre +in his campaign of happiness. He strove to dismiss +it from his mind as he leant forward in his +chair, and led Lady Betty to the subject that lay so +near to his heart.</p> + +<p>“You love me?” she said presently.</p> + +<p>“Yes—deeply. You are angry?”</p> + +<p>“How can I be? No, no—and yet—”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“And yet, when you told me, I felt sad.”</p> + +<p>Bellairs looked keenly vexed, and she hastened +to add:—</p> + +<p>“Not because I am—indifferent. No, no. I +can't explain why the feeling came. It was gone +in a moment. And now—”</p> + +<p>“Now you are happy?”</p> + +<p>He caught her hand and she left it in his.</p> + +<p>“Yes, very happy.”</p> + +<p>Bellairs bent over her and kissed her—as he +lifted himself up a white hand appeared on the rail +of the companion that led from the lower to the +upper deck of the <i>Hatasoo</i>. Clarice wearily dragged<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> +herself up. She was wrapped in a shawl and looked +very ill. Betty ran to help her.</p> + +<p>“I thought I must get a little air,” she said +feebly. “How d'you do, Mr Bellairs?”</p> + +<p>She sank down in a chair.</p> + +<p>Bellairs felt like a man between two fires.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Two days later Lord Braydon gave his consent +to his daughter's engagement with Bellairs, and +Lady Betty ran to tell Clarice. She had not previously +said a word to her friend of what had passed +between her and Bellairs. He had begged her to +keep silence until he had spoken to Lord Braydon, +and she had promised and had kept her promise. +But now she rushed into the saloon where Clarice +was playing Chopin, and, throwing her arms round +her friend, told her the great news. The body of +Clarice became rigid in her arms.</p> + +<p>“And the king has consented,” Betty cried.</p> + +<p>The king was her father.</p> + +<p>“Clarice, Clarice, isn't it wonderful?”</p> + +<p>“Wonderful! I thought so when you told me. +But already I begin to doubt if it is.”</p> + +<p>“To doubt, Clarice?”</p> + +<p>“To doubt whether anything a man does is +wonderful.”</p> + +<p>That was all Clarice said. Then she kissed +Betty, and went on playing Chopin feverishly, +while Betty told, to the accompaniment of the +music, all that was in her heart.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span></p> +<p>“And,” she said at last, “I love him, Clarice; +I love him intensely. I shall always love him.”</p> + +<p>Clarice played a final chord and got up.</p> + +<p>Bellairs lunched on the dahabeeyah that day and +Clarice met him as usual. Her manner gave no +sign of any mental disturbance. Perhaps it was +curiously calm. He wondered a little, but was too +happy to wonder much. Joy made him cruel, for +nothing is so cruel as joy. Only he was glad that +Clarice had so much pride, for he thought now that +in her pride lay his safety. He no longer feared +that she would condescend to a scene, and he even +thought that perhaps she did not feel so deeply as +he had supposed.</p> + +<p>“After all,” he said to himself exultantly, +“there's no harm done. I need not have been so +conscience-stricken. What is a pretty speech and +a kiss to a woman who has lived, travelled over the +world, read widely, thought many things? Now, +if I had treated Betty in such a way I should be a +blackguard. She could not have understood. She +could only have suffered. I will never hurt her—Betty!”</p> + +<p>His nature was so full of her that it could no +longer hold any thought of Clarice. And for a +little while, as Bellairs dived into Betty's heart, he +was astonished at the passion he found there, and +congratulated himself on having released her from +bondage. Now, at least, he was teaching her to +be herself. He was killing the echo and creating<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> +a voice, a beautiful, clear, radiant voice that would +sing to him, to him alone.</p> + +<p>“Betty has a great deal in her,” he said to +Clarice once.</p> + +<p>“Yes—a great deal. Who put it there, do you +think?”</p> + +<p>“Who? Why, nobody. Surely you would +not say that all you yourself have of—of strength, +originality, courage, was put into you by some +other man or woman.”</p> + +<p>“No. I would not say that. But then—I am +not Betty.”</p> + +<p>Bellairs felt irritated.</p> + +<p>“Please don't run Betty down,” he exclaimed +hastily.</p> + +<p>“I! I run down Betty! I don't think you +understand what I feel about Betty. She is the one +perfect being I know. I worship her.”</p> + +<p>“I am sure you do,” he said, mollified. “And +you have done much for her, perhaps too much.”</p> + +<p>“I cannot tell that—yet,” Clarice answered. +“Some day I may know whether I have done very +much, or very little.”</p> + +<p>“Some day—when?”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps very soon.”</p> + +<p>Bellairs wondered what she meant, and wondered, +too, why he had a sudden sense of uneasiness.</p> + +<p>It was a day or two after this conversation that +a light cloud seemed to float across his lover's +happiness with Betty. He could not tell the exact<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> +moment when it came, nor from what quarter it +journeyed. But he felt the obscuring of the sun +and the lessening of the lovely warmth of intimacy. +He was chilled and alarmed, and at night, when he +was alone with Betty in the stern of the <i>Hatasoo</i> +bidding her good-bye, he could not refrain from +saying:—</p> + +<p>“Betty, is anything the matter?”</p> + +<p>“The matter, Jack?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Are you quite happy to-day? Quite as +happy as you were yesterday?”</p> + +<p>“I suppose so—I believe so.”</p> + +<p>But she did not speak with a perfect conviction, +and Bellairs was more gravely troubled.</p> + +<p>“I am certain something is wrong,” he persisted. +“I have done something that has offended +you, or said something stupid. What is it? Do +tell me.”</p> + +<p>“I can't. There is nothing to tell. Really, +there is not.”</p> + +<p>“You would tell me if there was?”</p> + +<p>“Of course.”</p> + +<p>“And you love me as much as ever?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes.”</p> + +<p>He looked into her eyes, asking them mutely to +tell him the truth. And he thought their expression +was strangely cold. The light had surely +faded out of them. He kissed her silently and +went forward. Clarice was standing there looking +at the rising moon.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span></p> +<p>“Good-night,” he said, holding out his hand.</p> + +<p>“How grave you look,” she answered, not +seeing the hand.</p> + +<p>“The moonlight makes people look unnatural.”</p> + +<p>“It does not reach the deck yet.”</p> + +<p>“Good-night,” he said again, and he went down +the stairs.</p> + +<p>She looked after him with a smile. When he +had gone, she turned her head and called.</p> + +<p>“Betty!”</p> + +<p>“Yes!”</p> + +<p>“Come here and sit with me. Let us watch +the moon. Don't talk. I want to think—and +to make you think—as I do.”</p> + +<p>The cloud which Bellairs had fancied he noticed +did not dissolve in the night. It was not drawn up +mysteriously into the sun to fade in gold. On the +contrary, next day he could no longer pretend to +himself that his anxiety as a lover rendered him +foolishly self-conscious, dangerously observant of +the merest trifles. There really was a change in +Betty, and a change which grew. He became +seriously alarmed. Could it be possible that the +ardent passion which she had displayed in the first +moments of their engagement was already subsiding +as cynics say passion subsides after marriage? +Such a supposition seemed ridiculous. The ardour +which has never fulfilled itself is not liable to cool. +And Betty was a young girl who had not known +love before. If she tired of it after so short an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> +experience of its delights, she could be nothing +less than a wholly unnatural and distorted being. +And she was strangely natural. Bellairs rode out +alone with her along the built-up brown roads into +the desert, and tried to interest her, but she was +abstracted and seemed deep in thought. Often she +didn't hear what he was saying, and when she did +hear and replied, her answers were short and careless, +and rather dismissed than encouraged the +subject to which they were applied. Bellairs, at +last, gave up attempting to talk, and from time to +time stole a cautious glance at her pretty face. He +noticed that it wore a puzzled expression, as if she +were turning over something in her mind and could +not come to a conclusion about it. She did not +look exactly sad, but merely grave and distrait. +At length he exclaimed, determined to rouse her +into some sort of comradeship:—</p> + +<p>“You never caught that headache, did you?”</p> + +<p>“Clarice's, you mean? No.”</p> + +<p>“Is it coming on now?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. I feel perfectly well. What made +you think it was?”</p> + +<p>“You won't talk to me, and you look so preternaturally +serious. I am sure I have unwittingly +offended you?”</p> + +<p>“No, you haven't. You are just as you always +are, better to me than I deserve.”</p> + +<p>“You deserve the best man in the world.”</p> + +<p>“I already have the best woman.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> +<p>“Mdlle. Leroux?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; Clarice.”</p> + +<p>“You admire her very much.”</p> + +<p>“Of course. I would give anything to be like +her.”</p> + +<p>Bellairs hesitated a moment. Then he said with +a slight, uneasy laugh:—</p> + +<p>“But you are wonderfully like her.”</p> + +<p>Betty looked surprised.</p> + +<p>“I don't see how,” she answered.</p> + +<p>“No, because we never see ourselves. But +when I first knew you both, I was immensely +struck by the curious resemblance between you, +in mind, in the things you said, in the things you +did, the people you liked.”</p> + +<p>“We both liked you.”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“It would have been strange if we had both +loved you!” Betty said, musingly.</p> + +<p>Bellairs laughed again, and gave his horse a cut +with the whip. “I only wanted one to do that,” +he said, not quite truthfully. “And, thank God, +I have got my desire.”</p> + +<p>Betty did not answer.</p> + +<p>“Haven't I?” he persisted.</p> + +<p>“You know whether you have or not,” she +answered. “How beautiful the sunset is going to +be to-night. Look at the light over Karnak.”</p> + +<p>She pointed towards the temple with her whip. +Bellairs felt a crawling despair that numbed him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> +What did it all mean? Was he torturing himself +foolishly, or was this instinct which gnawed at his +heart a thing to be reckoned with? When he left +Betty at the dahabeeyah, he walked slowly, in the +gathering shadows, along the path which skirts +the dingy temple of Luxor. This change in Betty +was simply inexplicable. In no way could he +account for it. She had not the definite, angry +coldness of a girl who had made a dreadful mistake +and hated the man who had led her to make it. +No; she seemed rather in a state of mental transition. +She was setting foot on some bridge, which, +Bellairs felt, led away from the shore on which she +had been standing with him. Was her first transport +of love and joy a pretence? He could not +believe so. He knew it was genuine. That was +the puzzle which he could not put together. And +then he tried to comfort himself by thinking deliberately +of the many moods that make the feminine +mind so full of April weather, of how they come +and pass and are dead. All men had suffered from +them, especially all lovers. He could not expect to +be exempt—only, till now, Betty had seemed so +utterly free from moods, so steadily frank, eager, +charming, responsive. Bellairs finally argued himself +into a condition of despair, during which he +came to a resolve of despair. He silently decided +to seek a quiet interview with Clarice, and ask her +what was the matter with Betty. After all, there +was no reason why he should not take this step.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span> +Clarice had evidently not cared deeply for him. +Otherwise, she would not have accepted his desertion +with such truly agreeable fortitude. Theirs +had been a passing flirtation—nothing more. +And, indeed, their intimacy gave him the right to +consult her, while her close knowledge of Betty +must render her an infallible judge of any reasons +which there might be to render the latter's conduct +intelligible.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Bellairs did not have to wait long before he put +his resolve into practice. That evening Betty, +who had become more and more abstracted and +silent, got up soon after dinner, and said she was +tired, and was going to bed. Bellairs tried to get +a moment with her alone, but she frustrated the +attempt by holding out her hand to him in public +and markedly bidding him good-night before Lord +and Lady Braydon. When she had disappeared, +Bellairs sought Clarice, who was downstairs in the +saloon writing letters. Clarice looked up from the +blotting-pad as he entered.</p> + +<p>“I want to talk to you,” he exclaimed abruptly.</p> + +<p>“I am writing letters.”</p> + +<p>“Do give me a few minutes.”</p> + +<p>“Very well,” she said, pushing her paper away +and laying down her pen. “What is it?”</p> + +<p>“That's what I want to ask you. What has +come over Betty? Is she ill?”</p> + +<p>“Betty! Has anything come over her?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span></p> +<p>Bellairs tapped his fingers impatiently on the +table.</p> + +<p>“Don't tell me you haven't noticed the change,” +he said. “Forgive me for saying that I couldn't +believe it if you did.”</p> + +<p>“In that case I won't trouble myself to say +it.”</p> + +<p>“Ah—you have! Then what's the matter? +Tell me.”</p> + +<p>“Hush, don't speak so loud or the sailors will +hear you, and Abdul understands English. I did +not say I knew the reason of this change.”</p> + +<p>“You must. You are Betty's other self, or +rather she is—was—yours.”</p> + +<p>“Was! Do you mean that she is not now?”</p> + +<p>“Remember, she loves me.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, and that makes a difference?”</p> + +<p>“Surely!”</p> + +<p>“You have observed it?”</p> + +<p>Bellairs hesitated. He scarcely knew whether +to reply in the affirmative or the negative. He +resolved upon a compromise.</p> + +<p>“There has hardly been time yet,” he said; +“naturally, I expect that Betty will place me before +every one else.”</p> + +<p>Mdlle. Leroux's eyes flashed under the hanging +lamp.</p> + +<p>“What we expect is not always what we get,” +she said significantly.</p> + +<p>Bellairs flushed. He understood that she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> +alluding to his treatment of her, but he preferred +to ignore it, and went on:—</p> + +<p>“Is Betty ill to-night?”</p> + +<p>“Not at all.”</p> + +<p>“Then what on earth is the matter? I ask +you for a plain answer. I think I deserve so +much.”</p> + +<p>“Men are always so deserving,” she said with +bitterness.</p> + +<p>“And women are always so exacting,” he retorted. +“But please answer my question.”</p> + +<p>“I will first ask you another. If you reply +frankly to me, I will reply frankly to you.”</p> + +<p>She leaned her elbows on the table, supporting +her face on the palms of her upturned hands, and +looked into his eyes.</p> + +<p>“Ask me,” said Bellairs eagerly; “I'll do +anything if you'll only explain Betty to me.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you try to make me love you? Why +did you make love to me?”</p> + +<p>Bellairs pushed back his chair and there was an +awkward silence. Clarice's question was very unexpected +and very difficult to answer.</p> + +<p>“Well?” she said, still with her eyes on his.</p> + +<p>“Is it any good our discussing this?” he replied +at length. “It meant nothing to you. It is over.”</p> + +<p>“How do you know it meant nothing to me?”</p> + +<p>“You have shown that by your conduct. You +care nothing. I am indifferent to you.”</p> + +<p>“No, not indifferent, not at all.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span></p> +<p>“What? You can't mean—no, it is absurd!”</p> + +<p>“What is absurd?”</p> + +<p>“You can't—you don't mean that you really +have any feeling for me?”</p> + +<p>“I do mean it!”</p> + +<p>Bellairs felt very uncomfortable. He scarcely +knew what to do or say. He fidgeted on his chair +almost like a boy caught in a dishonest act.</p> + +<p>“We had really better not talk about it,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Very well.” Clarice reached out her hand for +her pen and drew the blotting-pad towards her.</p> + +<p>“But Betty?” said Bellairs uneasily.</p> + +<p>“You have not answered my question. I shall +not answer yours.” She dipped her pen in the ink +and prepared to go on with her letter. Bellairs +grew desperate.</p> + +<p>“Look here,” he said; “you must tell me the +reason of this change in Betty. Now I know you +don't care for me, you don't really love me.”</p> + +<p>“No, I don't love you,” she said quickly.</p> + +<p>“Well, then, since you say that, I will answer +your question. I tried to win your heart because +I wanted to win Betty's!”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“That Betty is practically you—or was, your +echo, in word, deed, thought. Her mind, her heart, +followed yours in everything. I loved her, and I +knew that if I made you like me very much she +must follow you in that feeling as in others. Since +you don't love me, I can dare to tell you this.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span></p> +<p>Clarice sat silent.</p> + +<p>“Are you angry?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Go on,” she said.</p> + +<p>“That's all.” Again a silence.</p> + +<p>“It was your fault in a way,” Bellairs said +awkwardly. “You made Betty your other self. +Why did you not let her alone?”</p> + +<p>“Can a strong nature help impressing itself on +others?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don't know. I'm no psychologist. But—you +must let Betty alone now,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Suppose I can't. Suppose this sympathy between +us has got beyond my control?”</p> + +<p>“I shall release Betty from this bondage to you,” +Bellairs said, “my love will—”</p> + +<p>“You! Your love!” Clarice said. And she +burst into a laugh.</p> + +<p>Bellairs suddenly leaned forward across the table.</p> + +<p>“I believe you hate me,” he exclaimed.</p> + +<p>She, on her part, leaned forward till her face was +near his.</p> + +<p>“You're right,” she whispered; “I do hate +you. Now you know what's the matter with +Betty.”</p> + +<p>For a moment Bellairs did not understand.</p> + +<p>“Now—I know—” he repeated. “I don't—Ah!” +Comprehension flashed upon him.</p> + +<p>“You devil,” he said—“you she-devil! Curse—curse +you!” Clarice laughed again. Bellairs +sprang up.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span></p> +<p>“No, no, I won't believe it,” he cried. “I can't. +The thing's impossible.”</p> + +<p>“Is it? The pendulum of my heart has swung +back from love to hate. Betty's is following.”</p> + +<p>“No, no!”</p> + +<p>“Wait, and you will see. Already she seems to +care less for you. You yourself have remarked it.”</p> + +<p>“I have not,” he said with violence.</p> + +<p>“To-morrow she will care less, and so less—less—till +she too—hates you.”</p> + +<p>“Never!”</p> + +<p>“Only wait—and you will know. And now, +good-night. I must really write my letter. It is +to my mother, and must go by to-morrow's mail.”</p> + +<p>She resumed her writing quietly. Bellairs watched +her for a moment. Then he strode out of the +room, across the gangway, up the bank.</p> + +<p>How dark the night was.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>The explanation of Clarice struck Bellairs with +a benumbing force. In vain he argued to himself +that it was not the true one, that no heart could +follow another as she said Betty's followed hers, +that no nature could merely for ever echo another's. +Some furtive despair lurking in his soul whispered +that she had spoken the truth. An appalling sense +of utter impotence seized him, as it seizes a man +who fights with a shadow. But he resolved to fight. +His whole life's happiness hung on the issue.</p> + +<p>On the following day he forced himself to be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +cheerful, gay, talkative. He went early to the +dahabeeyah, and proposed to Lord Braydon a +picnic to Thebes. Lord Braydon assented. A +hamper was packed. The boat was ordered. The +little party assembled on the deck of the <i>Hatasoo</i> +for the start; Lady Braydon, in a wide hat and +sweeping grey veil, Clarice with her big white +parasol lined with pale green, Lord Braydon in his +helmet, his eyes protected by enormous spectacles. +But where was Betty? Abdul, the dragoman, +went to tell her that they were going. She came, +without her hat, or gloves, holding a palm leaf fan +in her hand.</p> + +<p>“I am not coming,” she said.</p> + +<p>Clarice glanced at Bellairs. He pressed his +lips together and felt that he was turning white +underneath the tan the Egyptian sun rays had +painted on his cheeks. Lady Braydon protested.</p> + +<p>“What's the matter, Betty?” she said. “The +donkeys are ordered and waiting for us on the +opposite bank. Why aren't you coming?”</p> + +<p>“I have got a headache. I'm afraid of the +sun to-day.” All persuasion was useless. They +had to set out without her. Bellairs was bitterly +angry, bitterly afraid. He could scarcely make the +necessary effort to be polite and talkative, but Lord +and Lady Braydon readily excused his gloom, understanding +his disappointment, and Clarice no +longer desired his conversation. That night he +did not see Betty. She was confined to her cabin<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> +and would see no one but Clarice. On the following +day Bellairs went very early to the dahabeeyah +and asked for her. Abdul took his message, +and, after an interval, returned to him with the +following note:—</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Mr Bellairs</span>,—I am very sorry I cannot +see you this morning, but I am still very unwell. I +think the mental agony I have been and am undergoing +accounts for my condition. I must tell you the truth. +I cannot marry you. I mistook my feeling for you. I +honestly thought it love. I find it is only friendship. +Can you ever forgive me the pain I am causing you? I +cannot forgive myself. But I should do you a much +greater wrong by marrying you than by giving you up. +I have told my father and mother. See them if you like. +We sail to-morrow morning for Assouan.</p> + +<p class="ralign">“<span class="smcap">Betty.</span>”</p> +</div> + +<p>Bellairs, crumpling this note in his hand, would +have burst forth into a passion of useless rage and +despair, but Abdul's lustrous eyes were fixed upon +him. Abdul's dignified form calmly waited his +pleasure.</p> + +<p>“Where is Lord Braydon?” said Bellairs, “I +must see him.”</p> + +<p>“His lordship is on the second deck, sir.”</p> + +<p>“Take me to him.”</p> + +<p>The interview that followed only increased the +despair of Bellairs. Lord Braydon was most sympathetic, +most courteously sorry, but he said that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> +his daughter's decision was absolutely irrevocable, +and he could not attempt to coerce her in such an +important matter.</p> + +<p>“At any rate, I must see her before you sail,” +said Bellairs at last. “I think she owes me at +least that one last debt.”</p> + +<p>“I think so too,” said Lord Braydon. “Come +at six. I will undertake that you shall see her.”</p> + +<p>How Bellairs spent the intervening hours he +could never remember. He did not go back to +the hotel; he must have wandered all day along +the river bank. Yet he felt neither the heat, nor +any fatigue, nor any hunger. At six o'clock he +reached the dahabeeyah. Lady Betty was sitting +alone on the deck. She looked very pale and grave.</p> + +<p>“My father and mother and Clarice have gone +up to the hotel,” she said. “That Austrian is +playing again this evening.”</p> + +<p>“Is he?” Bellairs answered. He sat down +beside her and tried to take her hand. But she +would not let him.</p> + +<p>“No,” she said. “No, it's no use. I have +made a ghastly mistake, but I will not make another. +Oh, forgive me, do forgive me!”</p> + +<p>“How can I? If you will not try to love me +my life is ruined.”</p> + +<p>“Don't say that. It's no use to try to love. +You know that. We must just let ourselves alone. +Love comes, or hate, just as God wills it. We +can only accept our fate.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span></p> +<p>“As God wills,” Bellairs said passionately; “why +do you say that, when you know it is not true?”</p> + +<p>“Not true—Mr Bellairs!”</p> + +<p>“Yes. If you echoed the will of God how +could I blame you? We must all do that—at +least, when we are good. And those of us who +are wicked I suppose echo the Devil. But you—what +do you echo?”</p> + +<p>“I—I echo no one. I don't understand you.”</p> + +<p>“But you shall, before it is too late. Betty, +be yourself. Emancipate your soul. You are the +echo of that woman, of Clarice. Don't you see +it? Don't you know it? You are her echo—and +she hates me!”</p> + +<p>Betty drew back from him—she was evidently +alarmed.</p> + +<p>“Are you mad?” she said. “Why do you +say such things to me? Clarice and I love each +other, it is true, but our real natures are totally +different. She does not hate you, nor do I. She +has never said one word against you to me. She +has always told me how much she liked you. What +are you saying?”</p> + +<p>“The truth!”</p> + +<p>“I—her echo! Why, then—then if that +were the case she must have loved you, or thought +she loved you. Do you dare to tell me that?”</p> + +<p>“I do not say that,” Bellairs answered hopelessly.</p> + +<p>“Of course not. The idea is so absurd.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> +Clarice—oh! how can you talk like this? And +if I am only an echo, as you call it, how can you +say you care for me, care for another woman's +shadow? You do not love me.”</p> + +<p>“I do—with all my heart.”</p> + +<p>“And yet you say I am nothing, that I have +not even a heart of my own, that I love or hate at +the will of another.”</p> + +<p>“Forgive me, forgive me! I don't know what +I say. I only know I love you.”</p> + +<p>Her face softened.</p> + +<p>“And you deserve to be loved,” she said; “but +I—it is so horrible—I cannot!”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Bellairs caught her in his arms.</p> + +<p>“You shall,” he exclaimed, “you shall. I will +make you.” But she pushed him back with a +strange strength, and her face hardened till he +scarcely recognised it.</p> + +<p>“Don't do that—don't touch me—or you'll +make me hate you,” she said vehemently.</p> + +<p>Bellairs let her go. At that moment there was +a step on the deck. Clarice appeared. She did +not seem to notice that anything was wrong. She +smiled.</p> + +<p>“Isn't it sad, Mr Bellairs,” she said, “we sail +to-morrow. I love Luxor. I can't bear to leave it.”</p> + +<p>Bellairs suddenly turned and hurried away. He +could no longer trust himself. There was blood +before his eyes.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span></p> +<p>It was dawn. The Nile was smooth as a river +of oil. Light mists rolled upwards gently, discovering +the rosy flanks of the Libyan mountains to +the sun. The sky began to glimmer with a dancing +golden heat. On the brown bank where the +boats lie in the shadow a man stood alone. His +hands were tightly clenched. His lips worked +silently. His eyes were fixed in a stare. And +away in the distance up river, a tiny trail of smoke +floated towards Luxor. It came from a steam tug +that drew a following dahabeeyah.</p> + +<p>The <i>Queen Hatasoo</i> was on her voyage to +Assouan.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210"><br />[210]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211"><br /><br />[211]</a></span></p> + +<h2>THE FACE OF THE MONK</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">No</span>, it will not hurt him to see you,” the doctor +said to me; “and I have no doubt he will recognise +you. He is the quietest patient I have ever had +under my care—gentle, kind, agreeable, perfect +in conduct, and yet quite mad. You know him +well?”</p> + +<p>“He was my dearest friend,” I said. “Before +I went out to America three years ago we were +inseparable. Doctor, I cannot believe that he is +mad, he—Hubert Blair—one of the cleverest +young writers in London, so brilliant, so acute! +Wild, if you like, a libertine perhaps, a strange +mixture of the intellectual and the sensual—but +mad! I can't believe it!”</p> + +<p>“Not when I tell you that he was brought to me +suffering from acute religious mania?”</p> + +<p>“Religious! Hubert Blair!”</p> + +<p>“Yes. He tried to destroy himself, declaring +that he was unfit to live, that he was a curse to +some person unknown. He protested that each +deed of his affected this unknown person, that his +sins were counted as the sins of another, and that +this other had haunted him—would haunt him +for ever.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span></p> +<p>The doctor's words troubled me.</p> + +<p>“Take me to him,” I said at last. “Leave us +together.”</p> + +<p>It was a strange, sad moment when I entered the +room in which Hubert was sitting. I was painfully +agitated. He knew me, and greeted me warmly. +I sat down opposite to him.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There was a long silence. Hubert looked away +into the fire. He saw, I think, traced in scarlet +flames, the scenes he was going to describe to me; +and I, gazing at him, wondered of what nature +the change in my friend might be. That he had +changed since we were together three years ago +was evident, yet he did not look mad. His dark, +clean-shaven young face was still passionate. The +brown eyes were still lit with a certain devouring +eagerness. The mouth had not lost its mingled +sweetness and sensuality. But Hubert was curiously +transformed. There was a dignity, almost +an elevation, in his manner. His former gaiety had +vanished. I knew, without words, that my friend +was another man—very far away from me now. +Yet once we had lived together as chums, and had +no secrets the one from the other.</p> + +<p>At last Hubert looked up and spoke.</p> + +<p>“I see you are wondering about me,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“I have altered, of course—completely +altered.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> +<p>“Yes,” I said, awkwardly enough. “Why is +that?”</p> + +<p>I longed to probe this madness of his that I +might convince myself of it, otherwise Hubert's +situation must for ever appal me.</p> + +<p>He answered quietly, “I will tell you—nobody +else knows—and even you may—”</p> + +<p>He hesitated, then he said:—</p> + +<p>“No, you will believe it.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, if you tell me it is true.”</p> + +<p>“It is absolutely true.</p> + +<p>“Bernard, you know what I was when you left +England for America—gay, frivolous in my +pleasures, although earnest when I was working. +You know how I lived to sound the depths of +sensation, how I loved to stretch all my mental and +physical capacities to the snapping-point, how I +shrank from no sin that could add one jot or tittle +to my knowledge of the mind of any man or +woman who interested me. My life seemed a full +life then. I moved in the midst of a thousand +intrigues. I strung beads of all emotions upon my +rosary, and told them until at times my health +gave way. You remember my recurring periods +of extraordinary and horrible mental depression—when +life was a demon to me, and all my success in +literature less than nothing; when I fancied myself +hated, and could believe I heard phantom voices +abusing me. Then those fits passed away, and +once more I lived as ardently as ever, the most<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> +persistent worker, and the most persistent excitement-seeker +in London.</p> + +<p>“Well, after you went away I continued my +career. As you know, my success increased. +Through many sins I had succeeded in diving very +deep into human hearts of men and women. Often +I led people deliberately away from innocence in +order that I might observe the gradual transformation +of their natures. Often I spurred them on to +follies that I might see the effect our deeds have +upon our faces—the seal our actions set upon +our souls. I was utterly unscrupulous, and yet I +thought myself good-hearted. You remember that +my servants always loved me, that I attracted people. +I can say this to you. For some time my +usual course was not stayed. Then—I recollect +it was in the middle of the London season—one +of my horrible fits of unreasonable melancholy +swept over me. It stunned my soul like a heavy +blow. It numbed me. I could not go about. I +could not bear to see anybody. I could only shut +myself up and try to reason myself back into my +usual gaiety and excitement. My writing was put +aside. My piano was locked. I tried to read, but +even that solace was denied to me. My attention was +utterly self-centred, riveted upon my own condition.</p> + +<p>“Why, I said to myself, am I the victim of this +despair, this despair without a cause? What is +this oppression which weighs me down without +reason? It attacks me abruptly, as if it were sent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> +to me by some power, shot at me like an arrow by +an enemy hidden in the dark. I am well—I am +gay. Life is beautiful and wonderful to me. All +that I do interests me. My soul is full of vitality. +I know that I have troops of friends, that I am +loved and thought of by many people. And then +suddenly the arrow strikes me. My soul is +wounded and sickens to death. Night falls over +me, night so sinister that I shudder when its twilight +comes. All my senses faint within me. Life +is at once a hag, weary, degraded, with tears on +her cheeks and despair in her hollow eyes. I feel +that I am deserted, that my friends despise me, that +the world hates me, that I am less than all other +men—less in powers, less in attraction—that I +am the most crawling, the most grovelling of all +the human species, and that there is no one who +does not know it. Yet the doctors say I am not +physically ill, and I know that I am not mad. +Whence does this awful misery, this unmeaning, +causeless horror of life and of myself come? Why +am I thus afflicted?</p> + +<p>“Of course I could find no answer to all these +old questions, which I had asked many times before. +But this time, Bernard, my depression was +more lasting, more overwhelming than usual. I +grew terribly afraid of it. I thought I might be +driven to suicide. One day a crisis seemed to +come. I dared no longer remain alone, so I put +on my hat and coat, took my stick, and hurried<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> +out, without any definite intention. I walked +along Piccadilly, avoiding the glances of those +whom I met. I fancied they could all read the +agony, the degradation of my soul. I turned into +Bond Street, and suddenly I felt a strong inclination +to stop before a certain door. I obeyed the +impulse, and my eyes fell on a brass plate, upon +which was engraved these words:—</p> + +<p class="center"> +<span class="smcap">Vane.</span><br /> +Clairvoyant.<br /> +11 till 4 daily.</p> + +<p>“I remember I read them several times over, +and even repeated them in a whisper to myself. +Why? I don't know. Then I turned away, and +was about to resume my walk. But I could not. +Again I stopped and read the legend on the brass +plate. On the right-hand side of the door was an +electric bell. I put my finger on it and pressed +the button inwards. The door opened, and I +walked, like a man in a dream, I think, up a flight +of narrow stairs. At the top of them was a second +door, at which a maidservant was standing.</p> + +<p>“‘You want to see Mr Vane, sir?’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes. Can I?’</p> + +<p>“‘If you will come in, sir, I will see.’</p> + +<p>“She showed me into a commonplace, barely-furnished +little room, and, after a short period of +waiting, summoned me to another, in which stood +a tall, dark youth, dressed in a gown rather like a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> +college gown. He bowed to me, and I silently +returned the salutation. The servant left us. Then +he said:—</p> + +<p>“‘You wish me to exert my powers for you?’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes.’</p> + +<p>“‘Will you sit here?’</p> + +<p>“He motioned me to a seat beside a small round +table, sat down opposite to me, and took my hand. +After examining it through a glass, and telling my +character fairly correctly by the lines in it, he laid +the glass down and regarded me narrowly.</p> + +<p>“‘You suffer terribly from depression,’ he said.</p> + +<p>“‘That is true.’</p> + +<p>“He continued to gaze upon me more and more +fixedly. At length he said:—</p> + +<p>“‘Do you know that everybody has a companion?’</p> + +<p>“‘How—a companion?’</p> + +<p>“‘Somebody incessantly with them, somebody +they cannot see.’</p> + +<p>“‘You believe in the theory of guardian angels?’</p> + +<p>“‘I do not say these companions are always +guardian angels. I see your companion now, as I +look at you. His face is by your shoulder.’</p> + +<p>“I started, and glanced hastily round; but, of +course, could see nothing.</p> + +<p>“‘Shall I describe him?’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes,’ I said.</p> + +<p>“'His face is dark, like yours; shaven, like +yours. He has brown eyes, just as brown as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> +yours are. His mouth and his chin are firm and +small, as firm and small as yours.'</p> + +<p>“‘He must be very like me.’</p> + +<p>“‘He is. But there is a difference between +you.’</p> + +<p>“‘What is it?’</p> + +<p>“‘His hair is cut more closely than yours, and +part of it is shaved off.’</p> + +<p>“‘He is a priest, then?’</p> + +<p>“‘He wears a cowl. He is a monk.’</p> + +<p>“‘A monk! But why does he come to me?’</p> + +<p>“‘I should say that he cannot help it, that he is +your spirit in some former state. Yes’—and he +stared at me till his eyes almost mesmerised me—‘you +must have been a monk once.’</p> + +<p>“‘I—a monk! Impossible! Even if I have +lived on earth before, it could never have been as a +monk.’</p> + +<p>“‘How do you know that?’</p> + +<p>“‘Because I am utterly without superstitions, +utterly free from any lingering desire for an ascetic +life. That existence of silence, of ignorance, of +perpetual prayer, can never have been mine.’</p> + +<p>“‘You cannot tell,’ was all his answer.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>“When I left Bond Street that afternoon I was +full of disbelief. However, I had paid my half-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>guinea +and escaped from my own core of misery +for a quarter of an hour. That was something. +I didn't regret my visit to this man Vane, whom +I regarded as an agreeable charlatan. For a +moment he had interested me. For a moment he +had helped me to forget my useless wretchedness. +I ought to have been grateful to him. And, as +always, my soul regained its composure at last. +One morning I awoke and said to myself that I +was happy. Why? I did not know. But I got +up. I was able to write once more. I was able +to play. I felt that I had friends who loved me +and a career before me. I could again look people +in the face without fear. I could even feel a certain +delightful conceit of mind and body. Bernard, +I was myself. So I thought, so I knew. And +yet, as days went by, I caught myself often thinking +of this invisible, tonsured, and cowled companion +of mine, whom Vane had seen, whom I +did not see. Was he indeed with me? And, if +so, had he thoughts, had he the holy thoughts of +a spirit that has renounced the world and all +fleshly things? Did he still keep that cloistered +nature which is at home with silence, which aspires, +and prays, and lives for possible eternity, +instead of for certain time? Did he still hold +desolate vigils? Did he still scourge himself along +the thorny paths of faith? And, if he did, how +must he regard me?</p> + +<p>“I remember one night especially how this last<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> +thought was with me in a dreary house, where I +sinned, and where I dissected a heart.</p> + +<p>“And I trembled as if an eye was upon me. +And I went home.</p> + +<p>“You will say that my imagination is keen, and +that I gave way to it. But wait and hear the +end.</p> + +<p>“This definite act of mine—this, my first conscious +renunciation—did not tend, as you might +suppose, to the peace of my mind. On the contrary, +I found myself angry, perturbed, as I analysed +the cause of my warfare with self. I have +naturally a supreme hatred of all control. Liberty +is my fetish. And now I had offered a sacrifice +to a prisoning unselfishness, to a false god that +binds and gags its devotees. I was angry, and I +violently resumed my former course. But now I +began to be ceaselessly companioned by uneasiness, +by a furtive cowardice that was desolating. I felt +that I was watched, and by some one who suffered +when I sinned, who shrank and shuddered when I +followed where my desires led.</p> + +<p>“It was the monk.</p> + +<p>“Soon I gave to him a most definite personality. +I endowed him with a mind and with moods. I +imagined not only a heart for him, but a voice, +deep with a certain ecclesiastical beauty, austere, +with a note more apt for denunciation than for +praise. His face was my own face, but with an +expression not mine, elevated, almost fanatical, yet<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> +nobly beautiful; praying eyes—and mine were +only observant; praying lips—and mine were but +sensitively sensual. And he was haggard with +abstinence, while I—was I not often haggard with +indulgence? Yes, his face was mine, and not +mine. It seemed the face of a great saint who +might have been a great sinner. Bernard, that is +the most attractive face in all the world. Accustoming +myself thus to a thought-companion, I at +length—for we men are so inevitably materialistic—embodied +him, gave to him hands, feet, a figure, +all—as before, mine, yet not mine, a sort of +saintly replica of my sinfulness. For do not hands, +feet, figure cry our deeds as the watchman cries the +hour in the night?</p> + +<p>“So, I had the man. There he stood in my +vision as you are now.</p> + +<p>“Yes, he was there; but only when I sinned.</p> + +<p>“When I worked and yielded myself up to the +clear assertion of my intellect, when I fought to +give out the thoughts that lingered like reluctant +fish far down in the deep pools of my mind, when +I wrestled for beauty of diction and for nameless +graces of expression, when I was the author, I +could not see him.</p> + +<p>“But when I was the man, and lived the fables +that I was afterwards to write, then he was with +me. And his face was as the face of one who is +wasted with grey grief.</p> + +<p>“He came to me when I sinned, as if by my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> +sins I did him grave injury. And, allowing my +imagination to range wildly, as you will say, I grew +gradually to feel as if each sin did indeed strike a +grievous blow upon his holy nature.</p> + +<p>“This troubled me at last. I found myself continually +brooding over the strange idea. I was +aware that if my friends could know I entertained +it, they would think me mad. And yet I often +fancied that thought moved me in the direction of +a sanity more perfect, more desirable than my +sanity of self-indulgence. Sometimes even I said +to myself that I would reorganise my life, that I +would be different from what I had been. And +then, again, I laughed at my folly of the imagination, +and cursed that clairvoyant of Bond Street, +who made a living by trading upon the latent +imbecility of human nature. Yet, the desire of +change, of soul-transformation, came and lingered, +and the vision of the monk's worn young face +was often with me. And whenever, in my waking +dreams, I looked upon it, I felt that a time might +come when I could pray and weep for the wild +catalogue of my many sins.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>“Bernard, at last the day came when I left +England. I had long wished to travel. I had +grown tired of the hum of literary cliques, and the +jargon of that deadly parasite called ‘modernity.’ +Praise fainted, and lay like a corpse before my +mind. I was sick of gaiety. It seemed to me<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> +that London was stifling my powers, narrowing +my outlook, barring out real life from me with its +moods and its fashions, and its idols of the hour, +and its heroes of a day, who are the traitors of the +day's night.</p> + +<p>“So I went away.</p> + +<p>“And now I come to the part of my story that +you may find it hard to believe. Yet it is true.</p> + +<p>“One day, in my wanderings, I came to a +monastery. I remember the day well. It was an +afternoon of early winter, and I was <i>en route</i> to a +warm climate. But to gain my climate, and +snatch a vivid contrast such as I love, I toiled over +a gaunt and dreary pass, presided over by heavy, +beetling-browed mountains. I rode upon a mule, +attended only by my manservant and by a taciturn +guide who led a baggage-mule. Slowly we wound, +by thin paths, among the desolate crags, which +sprang to sight in crowds at each turn of the way, +pressing upon us, like dead faces of Nature, the +corpses of things we call inanimate, but which had +surely once lived. For the earth is alive, and gives +life. But these mountains were now utterly dead. +These grey, petrified countenances of the hills subdued +my soul. The pattering shuffle of the mules +woke an occasional echo, and even an echo I hated. +For the environing silence was immense, and I +wished to steep myself in it. As we still ascended, +in the waste winter afternoon, towards the hour of +twilight, snow—the first snow of the season<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>—began +to fall. I watched the white vision of the +flakes against the grey vision of the crags, and I +thought that this path, which I had chosen as my +road to Summer, was like the path by which holy +men slowly gain Paradise, treading difficult ways +through life that they may attain at last those +eternal roses which bloom beyond the granite and +the snows. Up and up I rode, into the clouds and +the night, into the veil of the world, into the icy +winds of the heights. An eagle screamed above +my head, poised like a black shadow in the opaque +gloom. That flying life was the only life in this +waste.</p> + +<p>“And then my mule, edging ever to the precipice +as a man to his fate, sidled round a promontory +of rock and set its feet in snow. For we had +passed the snow-line. And upon the snow lay +thin spears of yellow light. They streamed from +the lattices of the monastery which crowns the very +summit of the pass.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>“At this monastery I was to spend the night. +The good monks entertain all travellers, and in +summer-time their hospitalities are lavishly exercised. +But in winter, wanderers are few, and +these holy men are left almost undisturbed in their +meditative solitudes. My mule paused upon a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> +rocky plateau before the door of the narrow grey +building. The guide struck upon the heavy wood. +After a while we were admitted by a robed figure, +who greeted us kindly and made us welcome. +Within, the place was bare and poor enough, but +scrupulously clean. I was led through long, broad, +and bitterly cold corridors to a big chamber in +which I was to pass the night. Here were ranged +in a row four large beds with white curtains. I +occupied one bed, my servant another. The rest +were untenanted. The walls were lined with +light wood. The wooden floor was uncarpeted. +I threw open the narrow window. Dimly I could +see a mountain of rocks, on which snow lay in +patches, towering up into the clouds in front of +me. And to the left there was a glimmer of water. +On the morrow, by that water, I should ride down +into the land of flowers to which I was bound. +Till then I would allow my imagination to luxuriate +in the bleak romance of this wild home of +prayer. The pathos of the night, shivering in the +snow, and of this brotherhood of aspiring souls, +detached from the excitement of the world for +ever, seeking restlessly their final salvation day by +day, night by night, in clouds of mountain vapour +and sanctified incense, entered into my soul. And +I thought of that imagined companion of mine. +If he were with me now, surely he would feel that +he had led me to his home at length. Surely he +would secretly long to remain here.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p> +<p>“I smiled, as I said to myself—‘Monk, to-morrow, +if, indeed, you are fated to be my eternal +attendant, you must come with me from this cold +station of the cross down into the sunshine, where +the blood of men is hot, where passions sing +among the vineyards, where the battle is not of +souls but of flowers. To-morrow you must come +with me. But to-night be at peace!’</p> + +<p>“And I smiled to myself again as I fancied that +my visionary companion was glad.</p> + +<p>“Then I went down into the refectory.</p> + +<p>“That night, before I retired to my room of +the four beds, I asked if I might go into the chapel +of the monastery. My request was granted. I +shall never forget the curious sensation which +overtook me as my guide led me down some steps +past a dim, little, old, painted window set in the +wall, to the chapel. That there should be a +church here, that the deep tones of an organ +should ever sound among these rocks and clouds, +that the Host should be elevated and the censer +swung, and litanies and masses be chanted amid +these everlasting snows, all this was wonderful and +quickening to me. When we reached the chapel, +I begged my kind guide to leave me for a while. +I longed to meditate alone. He left me, and instinctively +I sank down upon my knees.</p> + +<p>“I could just hear the keening of the wind outside. +A dim light glimmered near the altar, and +in one of the oaken stalls I saw a bent form pray<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>ing. +I knelt a long time. I did not pray. At +first I scarcely thought definitely. Only, I received +into my heart the strange, indelible impression of +this wonderful place; and, as I knelt, my eyes +were ever upon that dark praying figure near to +me. By degrees I imagined that a wave of sympathy +flowed from it to me, that in this monk's +devotions my name was not forgotten.</p> + +<p>“‘What absurd tricks our imaginations can play +us!’ you will say.</p> + +<p>“I grew to believe that he prayed for me, there, +under the dim light from the tall tapers.</p> + +<p>“What blessing did he ask on me? I could +not tell; but I longed that his prayer might be +granted.</p> + +<p>“And then, Bernard, at last he rose. He lifted +his face from his hands and stood up. Something +in his figure seemed so strangely familiar to me, so +strangely that, on a sudden, I longed, I craved to +see his face.</p> + +<p>“He seemed about to retreat through a side +door near to the altar; then he paused, appeared to +hesitate, then came down the chapel towards me. +As he drew near to me—I scarcely knew why—but +I hid my face deep in my hands, with a dreadful +sense of overwhelming guilt which dyed my +cheeks with blood. I shrank—I cowered. I +trembled and was afraid. Then I felt a gentle +touch on my shoulder. I looked up into the face +of the monk.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span></p> +<p>“Bernard, it was the face of my invisible companion—it +was my own face.</p> + +<p>“The monk looked down into my eyes searchingly. +He recoiled.</p> + +<p>“‘<i>Mon démon!</i>’ he whispered in French. +‘<i>Mon démon!</i>’</p> + +<p>“For a moment he stood still, like one appalled. +Then he turned and abruptly quitted the chapel.</p> + +<p>“I started up to follow him, but something held +me back. I let him go, and I listened to hear if +his tread sounded upon the chapel floor as a human +footstep, if his robe rustled as he went.</p> + +<p>“Yes. Then he was, indeed, a living man, and +it was a human voice which had reached my ears, +not a voice of imagination. He was a living man, +this double of my body, this antagonist of my soul, +this being who called me demon, who fled from +me, who, doubtless, hated me. He was a living +man.</p> + +<p>“I could not sleep that night. This encounter +troubled me. I felt that it had a meaning for me +which I must discover, that it was not chance +which had led me to take this cold road to the +sunshine. Something had bound me with an invisible +thread, and led me up here into the clouds, +where already I—or the likeness of me—dwelt, +perhaps had been dwelling for many years. I had +looked upon my living wraith, and my living wraith +had called me demon.</p> + +<p>“How could I sleep?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span></p> +<p>“Very early I got up. The dawn was bitterly +cold, but the snow had ceased, though a coating +of ice covered the little lake. How delicate was +the dawn here! The gathering, growing light fell +upon the rocks, upon the snow, upon the ice of +the lake, upon the slate walls of the monastery. +And upon each it lay with a pretty purity, a thin +refinement, an austerity such as I had never seen +before. So, even Nature, it seemed, was purged +by the continual prayers of these holy men. She, +too, like men, has her lusts, and her hot passions, +and her wrath of warfare. She, too, like men, can +be edified and tended into grace. Nature among +these heights was a virgin, not a wanton, a fit companion +for those who are dedicated to virginity.</p> + +<p>“I dressed by the window, and went out to see +the entrance of the morning. There was nobody +about. I had to find my own way. But when I +had gained the refectory, I saw a monk standing +by the door.</p> + +<p>“It was my wraith waiting for me.</p> + +<p>“Silently he went before me to the great door +of the building. He opened it, and we stepped +out upon the rocky plateau on which the snow +lay thickly. He closed the door behind us, and +motioned me to attend him among the rocks till +we were out of sight of the monastery. Then he +stopped, and we faced one another, still without a +word, the grey light of the wintry dawn clothing +us so wearily, so plaintively.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span></p> +<p>“We gazed at each other, dark face to dark +face, brown eyes to brown eyes. The monk's +pale hands, my hands, were clenched. The +monk's strong lips, my lips, were set. The two +souls looked upon each other, there, in the dawn.</p> + +<p>“And then at last he spoke in French, and with +the beautiful voice I knew.</p> + +<p>“‘Whence have you come?’ he said.</p> + +<p>“‘From England, father.’</p> + +<p>“‘From England? Then you live! you live. +You are a man, as I am! And I have believed +you to be a spirit, some strange spirit of myself, +lost to my control, interrupting my prayers with +your cries, interrupting my sleep with your desires. +You are a man like myself?’</p> + +<p>“He stretched out his hand and touched mine.</p> + +<p>“‘Yes; it is indeed so,’ he murmured.</p> + +<p>“‘And you,’ I said in my turn, ‘are no spirit. +Yet, I, too, believed you to be a wraith of myself, +interrupting my sins with your sorrow, interrupting +my desires with your prayers. I have seen you. +I have imagined you. And now I find you live. +What does it mean? For we are as one and yet +not as one.’</p> + +<p>“‘We are as two halves of a strangely-mingled +whole,’ he answered. ‘Do you know what you +have done to me?’</p> + +<p>“‘No, father.’</p> + +<p>“‘Listen,’ he said. ‘When a boy I dedicated +myself to God. Early, early I dedicated myself,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> +so that I might never know sin. For I had heard +that the charm of sin is so great and so terrible +that, once it is known, once it is felt, it can never +be forgotten. And so it can make the holiest life +hideous with its memories. It can intrude into +the very sanctuary like a ghost, and murmur its +music with the midnight mass. Even at the elevation +of the Host will it be present, and stir the +heart of the officiator to longing so keen that it +is like the Agony of the Garden, the Agony of +Christ. There are monks here who weep because +they dare not sin, who rage secretly like beasts—because +they will not sin.’</p> + +<p>“He paused. The grey light grew over the +mountains.</p> + +<p>“‘Knowing this, I resolved that I would never +know sin, lest I, too, should suffer so horribly. I +threw myself at once into the arms of God. Yet +I have suffered—how I have suffered!’</p> + +<p>“His face was contorted, and his lips worked. +I stood as if under a spell, my eyes upon his face. +I had only the desire to hear him. He went on, +speaking now in a voice roughened by emotion:</p> + +<p>“‘For I became like these monks. You’—and +he pointed at me with outstretched fingers—'you, +my wraith, made in my very likeness, were +surely born when I was born, to torment me. +For, while I have prayed, I have been conscious +of your neglect of prayer as if it were my own. +When I have believed, I have been conscious of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span> +your unbelief as if it were my own. Whatever I +have feebly tried to do for God, has been marred +and defaced by all that you have left undone. I have +wrestled with you; I have tried to hold you back; I +have tried to lead you with me where I want to go, +where I must go. All these years I have tried, all +these years I have striven. But it has seemed as if +God did not choose it. When you have been sinning, +I have been agonising. I have lain upon the +floor of my cell in the night, and I have torn at +my evil heart. For—sometimes—I have longed—how +I have longed!—to sin your sin.'</p> + +<p>“He crossed himself. Sudden tears sprang into +his eyes.</p> + +<p>“‘I have called you my demon,’ he cried. ‘But +you are my cross. Oh, brother, will you not be +my crown?’</p> + +<p>“His eyes, shadowed with tears, gazed down +into mine. Bernard, in that moment, I understood +all—my depression, my unreasoning despair, the +fancied hatred of others, even my few good impulses, +all came from him, from this living holy +wraith of my evil self.</p> + +<p>“‘Will you not be my crown?’ he said.</p> + +<p>“Bernard, there, in the snow, I fell at his feet. +I confessed to him. I received his absolution.</p> + +<p>“And, as the light of the dawn grew strong +upon the mountains, he, my other self, my wraith, +blessed me.”</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> +<p>There was a long silence between us. Then +I said:—</p> + +<p>“And now?”</p> + +<p>“And now you know why I have changed. +That day, as I went down into the land of the +sunshine, I made a vow.”</p> + +<p>“A vow?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; to be his crown, not his cross. I soon +returned to England. At first I was happy, and +then one day my old evil nature came upon me +like a giant. I fell again into sin, and, even as I +sinned, I saw his face looking into mine, Bernard, +pale, pale to the lips, and with eyes—such sad +eyes of reproach! Then I thought I was not fit +to live, and I tried to kill myself. They saved me, +and brought me here.”</p> + +<p>“Yes; and now, Hubert?”</p> + +<p>“Now,” he said, “I am so happy. God surely +placed me here where I cannot sin. The days +pass and the nights, and they are stainless. And +he—he comes by night and blesses me. I live +for him now, and see always the grey walls of his +monastery, his face which shall, at last, be completely +mine.”</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>“Good-bye,” the doctor said to me as I got into +the carriage to drive back to the station. “Yes, +he is perfectly happy, happier in his mania, I +believe, than you or I in our sanity.”</p> + +<p>I drove away from that huge home of madness,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> +set in the midst of lovely gardens in a smiling +landscape, and I pondered those last words of the +doctor's:—</p> + +<p>“You and I—in our sanity.”</p> + +<p>And, thinking of the peace that lay on Hubert's +face, I compared the so-called mad of the world +with the so-called sane—and wondered.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236"><br />[236]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237"><br /><br />[237]</a></span></p> + +<h2>THE MAN WHO INTERVENED</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> atmosphere of the room in which Sergius +Blake was sitting seemed to him strange and +cold. As he looked round it, he could imagine +that a light mist invaded it stealthily, like miasma +rising from some sinister marsh. There was surely +a cloud about the electric light that gleamed in +the ceiling, a cloud sweeping in feathery, white +flakes across the faces of the pictures upon the +wall. Even the familiar furniture seemed to loom +out faintly, with a gaunt and grotesque aspect, +from shadows less real, yet more fearful, than any +living form could be.</p> + +<p>Sergius stared round him slowly, pressing his +strong lips together. When he concentrated his +gaze upon any one thing—a table, a sofa, a chair—the +cloud faded, and the object stood out clearly +before his eyes. Yet always the rest of the room +seemed to lie in mist and in shadows. He knew +that this dim atmosphere did not really exist, that +it was projected by his mind. Yet it troubled +him, and added a dull horror to his thoughts, which +moved again and again, in persistent promenade, +round one idea.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span></p> +<p>The hour was seven o'clock of an autumn +night. Darkness lay over London, and rain made +a furtive music on roofs and pavements. Sergius +Blake listened to the drops upon the panes of his +windows. They seemed to beckon him forth, to +tell him that it was time to exchange thought for +action. He had come to a definite and tremendous +resolution. He must now carry it out.</p> + +<p>He got up slowly from his chair, and with the +movement the mist seemed to gather itself together +in the room and to disappear. It passed away, +evaporating among the pictures and ornaments, +the prayer-rugs and divans. A clearness and an +insight came to Sergius. He stood still by the +piano, on which he rested one hand lightly, and +listened. The rain-drops pattered close by. Beyond +them rose the dull music of the evening +traffic of New Bond Street, in which thoroughfare +he lived. As he stood thus at attention, his young +and handsome face seemed carved in stone. His +lips were set in a hard and straight line. His +dark-grey eyes stared, like eyes in a photograph. +The muscles of his long-fingered hands were tense +and knotted. He was in evening dress, and had +been engaged to dine in Curzon Street; but he +had written a hasty note to say he was ill and +could not come. Another appointment claimed +him. He had made it for himself.</p> + +<p>Presently, lifting his hand from the piano, he +took up a small leather case from a table that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> +stood near, opened it, and drew out a revolver. +He examined it carefully. Two chambers were +loaded. They would be enough. He put on his +long overcoat, and slipped the revolver into his +left breast pocket. His heart could beat against +it there.</p> + +<p>Each time his heart pulsed, Sergius seemed to +hear the silence of another heart.</p> + +<p>And now, though his mind was quite clear, and +the mists and shadows had slunk away, his familiar +room looked very peculiar to him. The very chair +in which he generally sat wore the aspect of a +stranger. Was the wall paper really blue? Sergius +went close up to it and examined it narrowly, +and then he drew back and laughed softly, like a +child. In the sound of his laugh irresponsibility +chimed. “What is the cab fare to Phillimore +Place, Kensington?” he thought, searching in his +waistcoat pocket. “Half a crown?” He put +the coin carefully in the ticket pocket of his overcoat, +buttoned the coat up slowly, took his hat and +stick, and drew on a pair of lavender gloves. Just +then a new thought seemed to strike him and he +glanced down at his hands.</p> + +<p>“Lavender gloves for such a deed!” he murmured. +For a moment he paused irresolute, even +partially unbuttoned them. But then he smiled +and shook his head. In some way the gloves +would not be wholly inappropriate. Sergius cast +one final glance round the room.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p> +<p>“When I stand here again,” he said aloud, “I +shall be a criminal—a criminal!”</p> + +<p>He repeated the last word, as if trying thoroughly +to realise its meaning.</p> + +<p>Then he opened the door swiftly and went out +on to the staircase.</p> + +<p>Just as he was putting a hasty foot upon the first +stair, a man out in the street touched his electric +bell. Its thin tingling cry made Sergius start and +hesitate. In the semi-twilight he waited, his hands +deep in his pockets, his silk hat tilted slightly over +his eyes. The porter tramped along the passage +below. The hall door opened, and a deep and +strong voice asked, rather anxiously and breathlessly:—</p> + +<p>“Is Mr. Blake at home?”</p> + +<p>“I rather think he's gone out, sir.”</p> + +<p>“No—surely—how long ago?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know, sir. He may be in. I'll see.”</p> + +<p>“Do—do—quickly. If he's in, say I must +see him—Mr Endover. But you know my +name.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> + +<p>The porter, mounting the stone staircase, suddenly +came upon Sergius standing there like a +stone figure.</p> + +<p>“Lord, sir!” he ejaculated. “You give me a +start!” His voice was loud from astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Hush!” Sergius whispered. “Go down at +once and say that I've gone out!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p> +<p>The man turned to obey, but Anthony Endover +was half-way up the stairs.</p> + +<p>“It's all right,” he exclaimed, as he met the +porter.</p> + +<p>He had passed him in an instant and arrived at +the place where Sergius was standing.</p> + +<p>“Sergius,” he cried, and there was a great music +of relief in his voice. “Hulloa! Now you're +not going out.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I am, Anthony.”</p> + +<p>“But I want to talk to you tremendously. +Where are you going?”</p> + +<p>“To dine with the Venables in Curzon Street.”</p> + +<p>“I met young Venables just now, and he said +you'd written that you were ill and couldn't come. +He asked me to fill your place.”</p> + +<p>Sergius muttered a “Damn!” under his breath.</p> + +<p>“Well, come in for a minute,” he said, attempting +no excuse.</p> + +<p>He turned round slowly and re-entered his flat, +followed by Endover.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>For some years Endover had been Sergius Blake's +close friend. They had left Eton at the same +time; had been at Oxford together. Their intimacy, +born in the playing fields, grew out of its +cricket and football stage as their minds developed,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> +and the world of thought opened like a holy of +holies—beyond the world of action. They both +passed behind the veil, but Anthony went farther +than Sergius. Yet this slight separation did not +lead to alienation, but merely caused the admiration +of Sergius for his friend to be mingled with respect. +He looked up to Anthony. Recognising that his +friend's mind was more thoughtful than his own, +while his passions were far stronger than Anthony's, +he grew to lean upon Anthony, to claim his advice +sometimes, to follow it often. Anthony was his +mentor, and thought he knew instinctively all the +workings of Sergius' mind and all the possibilities +of his nature. The mother of Sergius was a Russian +and a great heiress. Soon after he left Oxford, +she died. His father had been killed by an +accident when he was a child. So he was rich, +free, young, in London, with no one to look after +him, until Anthony Endover, who had meanwhile +taken orders, was attached as fourth—or fifth—curate +to a smart West End church, and came +to live in lodgings in George Street, Hanover +Square.</p> + +<p>Then, as Sergius laughingly said, he had a father +confessor on the premises. Yet to-night he had +bidden his porter to tell a lie in order to keep his +father confessor out. The lie had been vain. +Sergius led the way morosely into his drawing-room, +and turned on the light. Anthony walked up +to the fire, and stretched his tall athletic figure in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> +its long ebon coat. His firm throat rose out of a +jam-pot collar, but his thin, strongly-marked face +rather suggested an intellectual Hercules than a +Mayfair parson, and neither his voice nor his +manner was tinged with what so many people +consider the true clericalism.</p> + +<p>For all that he was a splendid curate, as his +rector very well knew.</p> + +<p>Now he stood by the fire for a minute in silence, +while Sergius moved uneasily about the room. +Presently Anthony turned round.</p> + +<p>“It's beastly wet,” he said in a melodious ringing +voice. “The black dog is on me to-night, +Sergius.”</p> + +<p>“Oh!”</p> + +<p>“You don't want to go out, really,” Anthony +continued, looking narrowly at his friend's curiously +rigid face.</p> + +<p>“Yes, I do.”</p> + +<p>“Not to Curzon Street. They've filled up +your place. I told Venables to ask Hugh Graham. +I knew he was disengaged to-night. Besides—you're +seedy.”</p> + +<p>Sergius frowned.</p> + +<p>“I'm all right again now,” he said coldly, “and +I particularly wished to go. You needn't have +been so deuced anxious to make the number right.”</p> + +<p>“Well, it's done now. And I can't say I'm +sorry, because I want to have a talk with you. I +say, Serge, take off those lavender gloves, pull off<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> +your coat, let's send out for some dinner, and have +a comfortable evening together in here. I've had +a hard day's work, and I want a rest.”</p> + +<p>“I must go out presently.”</p> + +<p>“After dinner then.”</p> + +<p>“Before ten o'clock.”</p> + +<p>“Say eleven.”</p> + +<p>“No—that's too late.”</p> + +<p>A violent, though fleeting expression of anxiety +crossed Endover's face. Then, with a smile, he +said:—</p> + +<p>“All right. Shall I ring the bell and order +some dinner to be sent in from Galton's?”</p> + +<p>“If you like. I'm not hungry.”</p> + +<p>“I am.”</p> + +<p>Anthony summoned the servant and gave the +order. Then he turned again to Sergius.</p> + +<p>“Here, I'll help you off with your coat,” he said.</p> + +<p>But Sergius moved away.</p> + +<p>“No thanks, I'll do it. There are some cigarettes +on the mantelpiece.”</p> + +<p>Anthony went to get one. As he was taking it, +he looked into the mirror over the fireplace, and +saw Sergius—while removing his overcoat—transfer +something from it to the left breast +pocket of his evening coat.</p> + +<p>He wanted still to feel his heart beat against +that tiny weapon, still to hear—with each pulse +of his own heart—the silence, not yet alive, but +so soon to be alive, of that other heart.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span></p> +<p>And, as Anthony glanced into the mirror, he +said to himself, “I was right!”</p> + +<p>He withdrew his eyes from the glass and lit his +cigarette. Sergius joined him.</p> + +<p>“I'm in the blues to-night,” Anthony said, puffing +at his cigarette.</p> + +<p>“Are you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes—been down in the East End. The +misery there is ghastly.”</p> + +<p>“It's just as bad in the West End, only different +in kind. You're smoking your cigarette all +down one side.”</p> + +<p>Anthony took it out of his mouth and threw it +into the grate. He lit two or three matches, but +held them so badly that they went out before he +could ignite another cigarette. At last, inwardly +cursing his nerves that made his hasty actions belie +the determined calm of his face, he dropped the +cigarette.</p> + +<p>“I don't think I'll smoke before dinner,” he +said. “Ah, here it is. And wine—champagne—that's +good for you!”</p> + +<p>“I shan't drink it. I hate to drink alone.”</p> + +<p>“You shan't drink alone then.”</p> + +<p>“What d'you mean?”</p> + +<p>“I'll drink with you.”</p> + +<p>“But you're a teetotaller.”</p> + +<p>“I don't care to-night.”</p> + +<p>Anthony spoke briefly and firmly. Sergius was +amazed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span></p> +<p>“What!” he said. “You're going to break +your vow? You a parson!”</p> + +<p>“Sometimes salvation lies in the breaking of a +vow,” Anthony answered as they sat down. +“Have you never registered a silent vow?”</p> + +<p>Sergius looked at him hard in the eyes.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” he said; and in his voice there was the +hint of a thrilling note. “But I shan't—I +shouldn't break it.”</p> + +<p>“I've known a soul saved alive by the breaking +of a vow,” Anthony answered. “Give me some +champagne.”</p> + +<p>Sergius—wondering, as much as the condition of +his mind, possessed by one idea, would allow—filled +his friend's glass. Anthony began to eat, with a well-assumed +hunger. Sergius scarcely touched food, +but drank a good deal of wine. The hands of the +big oaken-cased clock that stood in a far corner of +the room crawled slowly upon their round, recurring +tour. Anthony's eyes were often upon them, then +moved with a swift directness that was akin to +passion to the face of Sergius, which was always +strangely rigid, like the painted face of a mask.</p> + +<p>“I sat by a woman to-day,” he said presently, +“sat by her in an attic that looked on to a narrow +street full of rain, and watched her die.”</p> + +<p>“This morning?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“And now she's been out of the world seven or +eight hours. Lucky woman!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> +<p>“Ah, Sergius, but the mischief, the horror of it +was that she wasn't ready to go, not a bit ready.”</p> + +<p>Sergius suddenly smiled, a straight, glaring smile, +over the sparkling champagne that he was lifting +to his lips.</p> + +<p>“Yes; it's devilish bad for a woman or a—man +to be shot into another world before they're +prepared,” he said. “It must be—devilish bad.”</p> + +<p>“And how can we know that any one is +thoroughly prepared?”</p> + +<p>Sergius' smile developed into a short laugh.</p> + +<p>“It's easier to be certain who isn't than who +is,” he said.</p> + +<p>The eyes of Anthony fled to the clock face +mechanically and returned.</p> + +<p>“Death terrified me to-day, Sergius,” he said; +“and it struck me that the most awful power that +God has given to man is the power of setting death—like +a dog—at another man.”</p> + +<p>Sergius swallowed all the wine in his glass at +a gulp. He was no longer smiling. His hand +went up to his left side.</p> + +<p>“It may be awful,” he rejoined; “but it's +grand. By Heaven! it's magnificent.”</p> + +<p>He got up, as if excited, and moved about the +room, while Anthony went on pretending to eat. +After a minute or two Sergius sat down again.</p> + +<p>“Power of any kind is a grand thing,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Only power for good.”</p> + +<p>“You're bound to say that; you're a parson.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span></p> +<p>“I only say what I really feel; you know that, +Serge.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, you don't understand.”</p> + +<p>Anthony looked at him with a sudden, strong +significance.</p> + +<p>“Part of a parson's profession—the most important +part—is to understand men who aren't +parsons.”</p> + +<p>“You think you understand men?”</p> + +<p>“Some men.”</p> + +<p>“Me, for instance?”</p> + +<p>The question came abruptly, defiantly. Anthony +seemed glad to answer it.</p> + +<p>“Well, yes, Sergius; I think I do thoroughly +understand you. My great friendship alone might +well make me do that.”</p> + +<p>The face of Sergius grew a little softer in expression, +but he did not assent.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it might blind you,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I don't think so.”</p> + +<p>“Well, then, now, if you understand me—tell +me—”</p> + +<p>Sergius broke off suddenly.</p> + +<p>“This champagne is awfully good,” he said, filling +his glass again.</p> + +<p>“What were you going to say?” Anthony +asked.</p> + +<p>“I don't know—nothing.”</p> + +<p>Anthony tried to conceal his disappointment. +Sergius had seemed to be on the verge of over-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>leaping +the barrier which lay between them. Once +that barrier was overleapt, or broken down, Anthony +felt that the mission he had imposed upon himself +would stand a chance of being accomplished, that +his gnawing anxiety would be laid to rest. But +once more Sergius diffused around him a strange +and cold atmosphere of violent and knowing reserve. +He went away from the table and sat down +close to the fire. From there he threw over his +shoulder the remark:—</p> + +<p>“No man or woman ever understands another—really.”</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Anthony did not reply for a moment and Sergius +continued:—</p> + +<p>“You, for instance, could never guess what I +should do in certain circumstances.”</p> + +<p>“Such as—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, in a thousand things.”</p> + +<p>“I should have a shrewd idea.”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>Anthony didn't contradict him, but got up from +the dinner-table and joined him by the fire, glass +in hand.</p> + +<p>“I might not let you know how much I guessed, +how much I knew.”</p> + +<p>Sergius laughed.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p> +<p>“Oh, ignorance always surrounds itself with +mystery,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Knowledge need not go naked.”</p> + +<p>Again the eyes of the two friends met in the +firelight, and over the face of Sergius there ran a +new expression. There was an awakening of wonder +in it, but no uneasiness. Anxiety was far away +from him that night. When passion has gripped a +man, passion strong enough, resolute enough, to +over-ride all the prejudices of civilisation, all the +promptings of the coward within us, whose voice, +whining, we name prudence, the semi-comprehension, +the criticism of another man cannot move him. +Sergius wondered for an instant whether Anthony +suspected against what his heart was beating. That +was all.</p> + +<p>While he wondered, the clock chimed the half +hour after nine. He heard it.</p> + +<p>“I shall have to go very soon,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You can't. Just listen to the rain.”</p> + +<p>“Rain! What's that got to do with it?”</p> + +<p>Sergius spoke with a sudden unutterable contempt.</p> + +<p>“Ring for another bottle of champagne,” Anthony +replied. “This one is empty.”</p> + +<p>“Well—for a parson and a teetotaller, I must +say!”</p> + +<p>Sergius rang the bell. A second bottle was +opened. The servant went out of the room. +As he closed the door, the wind sighed harshly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> +against the window panes, driving the rain before +it.</p> + +<p>“Rough at sea to-night,” Anthony said.</p> + +<p>The remark was an obvious one; but, as spoken, +it sounded oddly furtive, and full of hidden meaning. +Sergius evidently found it so, for he said:</p> + +<p>“Why, whom d'you know that's going to sea +to-night?”</p> + +<p>Anthony was startled by the quick question, and +replied almost nervously:—</p> + +<p>“Nobody in particular—why should I?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know why, but I think you do.”</p> + +<p>“People one knows cross the channel every night +almost.”</p> + +<p>“Of course,” Sergius said indifferently.</p> + +<p>He glanced towards the clock and again mechanically +his hand went up, for a second, to his left +breast. Anthony leaned forward in his chair +quickly, and broke into speech. He had seen the +stare at the clock-face, the gesture.</p> + +<p>“It's strange,” he said, “how people go out of +our lives, how friends go, and enemies!”</p> + +<p>“Enemies!”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I sometimes wonder which exit is the +sadder. When a friend goes—with him goes, perhaps +for ever, the chance of saying ‘I am your +friend.’ When an enemy goes—”</p> + +<p>“Well, what then?”</p> + +<p>“With him goes, perhaps for ever, too, the chance +of saying, ‘I am not your enemy.’”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span></p> +<p>“Pshaw! Parson's talk, Anthony.”</p> + +<p>“No, Sergius, other men forgive besides parsons; +and other men, and parsons too, pass by +their chances of forgiving.”</p> + +<p>“You're a whole Englishman, I'm only half +an Englishman. There's something untamed in +my blood, and I say—damn forgiveness!”</p> + +<p>“And yet you've forgiven.”</p> + +<p>“Whom?”</p> + +<p>“Olga Mayne.”</p> + +<p>The face of Sergius did not change at the sound +of this name, unless, perhaps, to a more fixed +calm, a more still and pale coldness.</p> + +<p>“Olga is punished,” he said. “She is ruined.”</p> + +<p>“Her ruin may be repaired.”</p> + +<p>Sergius smiled quietly.</p> + +<p>“You think so?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Tell me, Sergius”—Anthony spoke +with a strong earnestness, a strong excitement that +he strove to conceal and hold in check—“you +loved her?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I loved her—certainly.”</p> + +<p>“You will always love her?”</p> + +<p>“Since I'm not changeable, I daresay I shall.”</p> + +<p>Anthony's thin, eager face brightened. A glow +of warmth burned in his eyes and on his cheeks.</p> + +<p>“Then you would wish her ruin repaired.”</p> + +<p>“Should I?”</p> + +<p>“If you love her, you must.”</p> + +<p>“How could it be repaired?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span></p> +<p>“By her marriage with—Vernon.”</p> + +<p>Anthony's strong voice quivered before he pronounced +the last word, and his eyes were alight +with fervent anxiety. He was looking at Sergius +like a man on the watch for a tremendous outbreak +of emotion. The champagne he had drunk—a +new experience for him since he had taken orders—put +a sort of wild finishing touch to the intensity +of the feelings, under the impulse of which +he had forced himself upon Sergius to-night. He +supposed that his inward excitement must be more +than matched by the so different inward excitement +of his friend. But he—who thought he +understood!—had no true conception of the region +of cold, frosty fury in which Sergius was +living, like a being apart from all other men, +ostracised by the immensity and peculiarity of +his own power of emotion. Therefore he was +astonished when Sergius, with undiminished quietude, +replied:</p> + +<p>“Oh, with Vernon, that charming man of +fashion, whose very soul, they say, always wears +lavender gloves? You think that would be a +good thing?”</p> + +<p>“Good! I don't say that. I say—as the +world is now—the only thing. He is the author +of her fall. He should be her husband.”</p> + +<p>“And I?”</p> + +<p>Anthony stretched out his hand to grasp his +friend's hand, but Sergius suddenly took up his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> +champagne glass, and avoided the demonstration of +sympathy.</p> + +<p>“You can be nothing to her now, Serge,” +Anthony said, and his voice quivered with sympathy.</p> + +<p>“You think so? I might be.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, not her husband, not her lover, not her +friend.”</p> + +<p>“What then?”</p> + +<p>Sergius avoided answering.</p> + +<p>“You would have her settle down with Vernon +in Phillimore Place?” he said. “Play the wife to +his noble husband? Well, I know there's been +some idea of that, as I told you yesterday.”</p> + +<p>The clock chimed ten. Although Sergius seemed +so calm, so self-possessed, Anthony observed that +now he paid no heed to the little, devilish note of +time. This new subject of conversation had been +Anthony's weapon. Desperately he had used it, +and not, it seemed, altogether in vain.</p> + +<p>“Yes; as you told me yesterday.”</p> + +<p>“And it seems good to you?”</p> + +<p>“It seems to me the only thing possible now.”</p> + +<p>“There are generally more possibilities than one +in any given event, I fancy.”</p> + +<p>Again Anthony was surprised at the words of Sergius, +who seemed to grow calmer as he grew more +excited, who seemed, to-night, strangely powerful, +not simply in temper, but even in intellect.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> +<p>“For a woman there is sometimes only one +possibility if she is to be saved from ignominy, +Serge.”</p> + +<p>“So you think that Olga Mayne must become +the wife of Vernon, who is a—”</p> + +<p>“Coward. Yes.”</p> + +<p>At the word coward, Sergius seemed startled +out of his hard calm. He looked swiftly and +searchingly at Anthony.</p> + +<p>“Why do you say coward?” he asked sharply. +“I was not going to use that word.”</p> + +<p>Anthony was obviously disconcerted.</p> + +<p>“It came to me,” he said hurriedly.</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Any man that brings a girl to the dust is a +coward.”</p> + +<p>“Ah—that's not what you meant,” Sergius +said.</p> + +<p>Anthony stole a glance at the clock. The hand +crawled slowly over the quarter of an hour past +ten.</p> + +<p>“No, it was not,” he said slowly.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Sergius got up from his chair and stood by the +fire. He was obviously becoming engrossed by +the conversation. Anthony could at least notice +this with thankfulness.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span></p> +<p>“Anthony, I see you've got a fresh knowledge of +Vernon since I was with you yesterday,” Sergius +continued; “some new knowledge of his nature.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps I have.”</p> + +<p>“How did you get it?”</p> + +<p>“Does that matter?”</p> + +<p>“You have heard of something about him?”</p> + +<p>“No.”</p> + +<p>“You have seen him, then; I say, you have +seen him?”</p> + +<p>Anthony hesitated. He pushed the champagne +bottle over towards Sergius. It had been placed on +a little table near the fireplace.</p> + +<p>“No; I don't want to drink. Why on earth +don't you answer me, Anthony?”</p> + +<p>“I have always felt that Vernon was a coward. +His conduct to you shows it. He was—or seemed—your +friend. He saw you deeply in love with +this—with Olga. He chose to ruin her after he +knew of your love. Who but a coward could act +in such a way?”</p> + +<p>An expression of dark impatience came into the +eyes of Sergius.</p> + +<p>“You are confusing treachery and cowardice, +and you are doing it untruthfully. You have seen +Vernon.”</p> + +<p>Anthony thought for a moment, and then said:</p> + +<p>“Yes, I have.”</p> + +<p>“By chance, of course. Why did you speak +to him?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></p> +<p>“I thought I would.”</p> + +<p>Sergius was obviously disturbed and surprised. +The deeply emotional, yet rigid calm in which he +had been enveloped all the evening was broken at +last. A slight excitement, a distinct surface irritation, +woke in him. Anthony felt an odd sense of +relief as he observed it. For the constraint of +Sergius had begun to weigh upon him like a heavy +burden and to move him to an indefinable dread.</p> + +<p>“I wonder you didn't cut him,” Sergius said. +“You're my friend. And he's—he's—”</p> + +<p>“He's done you a deadly injury. I know that. +I am your friend, Serge; I would do anything +for you.”</p> + +<p>“Yet you speak to that—devil.”</p> + +<p>“I spoke to him because I'm your friend.”</p> + +<p>Sergius sat down again, with a heavy look, the +look of a man who has been thrashed, and means +to return every blow with curious interest.</p> + +<p>“You parsons are a riddle to me,” he said in a +low and dull voice. “You and your charity and +your loving-kindness, and your turning the cheek +to the smiter and all the rest of it. And as to +your way of showing friendship—”</p> + +<p>His voice died away in something that was +almost a growl, and he stared at the carpet. Between +it and his eyes once more the mist seemed +rising stealthily. It began to curl upwards softly +about him. As he watched it, he heard Anthony +say:—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span></p> +<p>“Sergius, you don't understand how well I +understand you.”</p> + +<p>The big hand of the clock had left the half-hour +after ten behind him. Anthony breathed more +freely. At last he could be more explicit, more +unreserved. He thought of a train rushing through +the night, devouring the spaces of land that lie +between London and the sea that speaks, moaning, +to the South of England. He saw a ship glide out +from the dreary docks. Her lights gleamed. He +heard the bell struck and the harsh cry of the +sailors, and then the dim sigh of a coward who +had escaped what he had merited. Then he heard +Sergius laugh.</p> + +<p>“That again, Anthony!”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I didn't meet Vernon by chance at +all.”</p> + +<p>“What? You wrote to him, you fixed a +meeting?”</p> + +<p>“I went to Phillimore Place, to his house.”</p> + +<p>Sergius said nothing. Strange furrows ploughed +themselves in his young face, which was growing +dusky white. He remained in the attitude of one +devoted entirely to listening.</p> + +<p>“You hear, Sergius?”</p> + +<p>“Go on—when?”</p> + +<p>“To-day. I decided to go after I met you +yesterday night—and after I had seen that woman +die—unprepared.”</p> + +<p>“What could she have to do with it?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span></p> +<p>“Much. Everything almost.”</p> + +<p>Anthony got up now, almost sprang up from +his chair. His face was glowing and working +with emotion. There was a choking sensation in +his throat.</p> + +<p>“You don't know what it is,” he said hoarsely, +“to a man with—with strong religious belief to +see a human being's soul go out to blackness, to +punishment—perhaps to punishment that will +never end. It's abominable. It's unbearable. +That woman will haunt me. Her despair will +be with me always. I could not add to that +horror.”</p> + +<p>His eyes once more sought the clock. Seeing +the hour, he turned, with a kind of liberating relief, +to Sergius.</p> + +<p>“I couldn't add to it,” he exclaimed, almost +fiercely, “so I went to Vernon.”</p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Sergius—to warn him.”</p> + +<p>There was a dead silence. Even the rain was +hushed against the window. Then Sergius said, +in a voice that was cold as the sound of falling +water in winter:—</p> + +<p>“I don't understand.”</p> + +<p>“Because you won't understand how I have +learnt to know you, Sergius, to understand you, +to read your soul.”</p> + +<p>“Mine too?”</p> + +<p>“Yes; I've felt this awful blow that's come<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> +upon you—the loss of Olga, her ruin—as if I +myself were you. We haven't said much about +it till yesterday. Then, from the way you spoke, +from the way you looked, from what you said, +even what you wouldn't say, I guessed all that +was in your heart.”</p> + +<p>“You guessed all that?”</p> + +<p>Sergius was looking directly at Anthony and +leaning against the mantelpiece, along which he +stretched one arm. His fingers closed and unclosed, +with a mechanical and rhythmical movement, +round a china figure. The motion looked +as if it were made in obedience to some fiercely +monotonous music.</p> + +<p>“Yes, more—I knew it.”</p> + +<p>Sergius nodded.</p> + +<p>“I see,” he said.</p> + +<p>Anthony touched his arm, almost with an awe-struck +gesture.</p> + +<p>“I knew then that you—that you intended to +kill Vernon. And—God forgive me!—at first I +was almost glad.”</p> + +<p>“Well—go on!”</p> + +<p>Anthony shivered. The voice of Sergius was +so strangely calm and level.</p> + +<p>“I—I—” he stammered. “Serge, why do you +look at me like that?”</p> + +<p>Sergius looked away without a word.</p> + +<p>“For I, too, hated Vernon, more for what he +had done to you even than for what he had done<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> +to Olga. But, Sergius, after you had gone, in the +night, and in the dawn too, I kept on thinking of +it over and over. I couldn't get away from it—that +you were going to commit such an awful +crime. I never slept. When at last it was morning, +I went down to my district; there are criminals +there, you know.”</p> + +<p>“I know.”</p> + +<p>“I looked at them with new eyes, and in their +eyes I saw you, always you; and then I said to +myself could I bear that you should become a +criminal?”</p> + +<p>“You said that?”</p> + +<p>The fingers of Sergius closed over the china +figure, and did not unclose.</p> + +<p>“Yes. I almost resolved then to go to Vernon +at once and to tell him what I suspected—what +I really knew.”</p> + +<p>The clock struck eleven. Anthony heard it; +Sergius did not hear it.</p> + +<p>“Then I went to sit with that wretched woman. +Already I had resolved, as I believed, on the +course to take. I had no thought for Vernon +yet, only for you. It seemed to me that I did not +care in the least to save him from death. I only +cared to save you—my friend—from murder. +But when the woman died I felt differently. My +resolve was strengthened, my desire was just +doubled. I had to save not only you, but also him. +He was not ready to die.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span></p> +<p>Anthony trembled with a passion of emotion. +Sergius remained always perfectly calm, the china +figure prisoned in his hand.</p> + +<p>“So—so I went to him, Sergius.”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“I saw him. Almost as I entered he received +your letter, saying that you forgave him, that you +would call to-night after eight o'clock to tell him +so, and to urge on his marriage with Olga. When +he had read the letter—I interpreted it to him; +and then I found out that he was a coward. His +terror was abject—despicable; he implored my +help; he started at every sound.”</p> + +<p>“To-night he'll sleep quietly, Anthony.”</p> + +<p>“To-night he has gone. Before morning he +will be on the sea.”</p> + +<p>The sound of the wind came to them again, +and Sergius understood why Anthony had said: +“Rough at sea to-night.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Sergius moved; he unclosed his fingers: +the ruins of the china figure fell from them +in a dust of blue and white upon the mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>“No—it's too late, Sergius. He went at +eleven.”</p> + +<p>Sergius stood quite still.</p> + +<p>“You came here to-night to keep me here till +he had gone?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“That's why you—”</p> + +<p>He stopped.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span></p> +<p>“That's why I came. That's why I broke my +pledge. I thought wine—any weapon to keep +you from this crime. And, Sergius, think. Vernon +dead could never have restored Olga to the place +she has lost. That, too, must have driven me to +the right course, though I scarcely thought of it +till now.”</p> + +<p>Sergius said, as if in reply: “So you have understood +me!”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Sergius. Friendship is something. Let +us thank God, not even that he is safe, but that +you—you are safe—and that Olga—”</p> + +<p>“Hush! Has she gone with him?”</p> + +<p>“She will meet him. He has sworn to marry +her.”</p> + +<p>The hand of Sergius moved to his left breast. +Anthony's glowing eyes were fixed upon him.</p> + +<p>“Ah, yes, Sergius,” Anthony cried. “Put that +cursed, cursed thing down, put it away. Now +it can never wreck your life and my peace.”</p> + +<p>Sergius drew out the revolver slowly and carefully. +Again the mist rose around him. But it +was no longer white; it was scarlet.</p> + +<p>There was a report. Anthony fell, without a +word, a cry.</p> + +<p>Then Sergius bent down, and listened to the +silence of his friend's heart—the long silence of +the man who intervened.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265"><br />[265]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266"><br /><br />[266]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267"><br /><br /><br />[267]</a></span></p> + +<h2>AFTER TO-MORROW</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">In</span> his gilded cage, above the window-boxes that +were full of white daisies, the canary chirped with +a desultory vivacity. That was the only near +sound that broke the silence in the drawing-room +of No. 100 Mill Street, Knightsbridge, in which +a man and a woman stood facing one another. +Away, beyond his twittering voice, sang in the +London streets the muffled voice of the season. +The time was late afternoon, and rays of mellow +light slanted into the pretty room, and touched its +crowd of inanimate occupants with a radiance in +which the motes danced merrily. The china faces +of two goblins on the mantelpiece glowed with a +grotesque meaning, and their yellow smiles seemed +to call aloud on mirth; but the faces of the man +and woman were pale, and their lips trembled, and +did not smile.</p> + +<p>She was tall, dark, and passionate-looking, perhaps +twenty-eight or thirty. He was a few years +older, a man so steadfast in expression that silly +people, who spring at exaggeration as saints spring +at heaven, called him stern, and even said he looked +forbidding—at balls.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span></p> +<p>At last the song of the canary was broken upon +by a voice. Sir Hugh Maine spoke, very quietly. +“Why not?” he said.</p> + +<p>“I don't think I can tell you,” Mrs. Glinn +answered, with an obvious effort.</p> + +<p>“You prefer to refuse me without giving a +reason?”</p> + +<p>“I have a right to,” she said.</p> + +<p>“I don't question it. You cannot expect me to +say more than that.”</p> + +<p>He took up his hat, which lay on a chair, and +smoothed it mechanically with his coat-sleeve.</p> + +<p>The action seemed to pierce her like a knife, +for she started, and half-extended her hand. +“Don't!” she exclaimed. “At least, wait one +moment. So you belong to the second class of +men.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Men are divided into two classes—those who +refuse to be refused, and those who accept. But +don't be too—too swift in your acceptance. After +all, a refusal is not exactly a bank-note.”</p> + +<p>She tried to smile.</p> + +<p>“But I am exactly a beggar,” he answered, still +keeping the hat in his hand. “And if you have +nothing to give me, I may as well go.”</p> + +<p>“And spend the rest of your life in sweeping the +old crossing?”</p> + +<p>“And spend the rest of my life as I can,” he +said. “That need not concern you.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span></p> +<p>“A woman must be all to a man, or nothing?”</p> + +<p>“You must be all to me, or nothing.”</p> + +<p>She sat down in an arm-chair in that part of +the room that was in shadow. She always sat +instinctively in shadow when she wanted to think.</p> + +<p>“Well?” Sir Hugh said. “What are you +thinking?”</p> + +<p>She glanced up at him. “That you don't look +much like a beggar,” she said.</p> + +<p>“It is possible to feel tattered in a frock-coat +and patent-leather boots,” he answered. “Good-bye. +I am going back to my crossing.” And he +moved towards the door.</p> + +<p>“No, stop!” she exclaimed. “Before you go, +tell me one thing.”</p> + +<p>“What is it?”</p> + +<p>“Will you ever ask me to marry you again?”</p> + +<p>He looked hard into her eyes. “I shall always +want to, but I shall never do it,” he said slowly.</p> + +<p>“I am glad you have told me that. We women +depend so much on a repetition of the offence, +when we blame a man for saying he loves us, and +ask him not to do it again. If you really mean +only to propose once, I must reconsider my +position.”</p> + +<p>She was laughing, but the tears stood in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>“Why do you want to make this moment a +farcical one?” he asked rather bitterly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Hugh!” she answered, “don't you see?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> +Because it is really—really so tragic. I only try +to do for this moment what we all try to do for +life.”</p> + +<p>“Then you love me?” he said, moving a step +forward.</p> + +<p>“I never denied that,” she replied. “I might +as well deny that I am a woman.”</p> + +<p>He held out his arms. “Eve—then I shall +never go back to the crossing.”</p> + +<p>But she drew back. “Go—go there till to-morrow! +To-morrow afternoon I will see you; +and if you love me after that—”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>She turned away and pressed the bell. “Good-bye,” +she said. Her voice sounded strange to him.</p> + +<p>He came nearer, and touched her hand; but she +drew it away.</p> + +<p>“You may kiss me,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Eve!”</p> + +<p>“After to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>The footman came in answer to the bell. Mrs +Glinn did not turn round. “I only rang for you +to open the door for Sir Hugh,” she said. “Good-bye +then, Sir Hugh. Come at five.”</p> + +<p>“I will,” he answered, wondering.</p> + +<p>When he had gone, Mrs Glinn sat down in a +chair and took up a French novel. It was by +Gyp. She tried to read it, with tears running over +her cheeks. But at last she laid it down.</p> + +<p>“After to-morrow,” she murmured. “Ah,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> +why—why does a woman ever love twice?” +And then she sobbed.</p> + +<p>But the canary sang, and the motes danced merrily +in the sunbeams. And on the table where she +had put it down lay “<i>Le Mariage de Chiffon</i>.”</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>That evening, when Sir Hugh Maine came back +to his rooms in Jermyn Street after dining out, he +found a large man sprawling in one of his saddle-back +chairs, puffing vigorously at a pipe that +looked worn with long and faithful service. The +man took the pipe out of his mouth and sprang +up.</p> + +<p>“Hullo, Maine!” he cried. “D'you recognise +the tobacco and me?”</p> + +<p>Hugh grasped his hand warmly. “Rather,” he +said. “Neither is changed. At least—h'm—I +think you both seem a bit stronger even than usual. +Who would have thought of seeing you, Manning? +I did not know you were in Europe.”</p> + +<p>“I came from Asia. I thought I should like to +hear Melba before the end of the season. And it +was getting sultry out there. So here I am.”</p> + +<p>“And were those your only reasons?”</p> + +<p>“Give me a brandy-and-soda,” said the other.</p> + +<p>Maine did as he was bid, lit a cigar, and sat down,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> +stretching out his long legs. The other man took +a pull at his glass, and spoke again.</p> + +<p>“I am very fond of music,” he said; “and +Melba sings very well.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!”</p> + +<p>“Look here, Maine,” Manning broke out suddenly, +“you are right—I had another reason. +Kipling says that those who have heard the East +a-calling never heed any other voice. He's wrong +though. The West has been calling me, or, at +least, a voice in the West, and I have resisted it +for a deuce of a time. But at last it became +imperative.”</p> + +<p>“A woman's voice, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“Tell me what is its <i>timbre</i>, if you care to.”</p> + +<p>“I will. You're an old friend, and I can talk to +you. But you tell me one thing first: Is a man +really a fool to marry a woman with a past?”</p> + +<p>“You are going to?”</p> + +<p>“I have tried not to. I have been trying not to +for three years. Listen! When I was travelling +in Japan I met her. She was with an American +called Glinn.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“You knew him?”</p> + +<p>“No! It's all right. I was surprised, because +at the moment I was thinking of that very name.”</p> + +<p>“Oh! Well, she passed as Mrs Glinn; but, +somehow, it got out that she was something else.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> +The usual story, you know. People fought shy of +her; but I don't think she cared much. Glinn was +devoted to her, and she loved him, and was as true +to him as any wife could have been. Then the +tragedy came.”</p> + +<p>“What was it?”</p> + +<p>“Glinn died suddenly in Tokio, of typhoid. +She nursed him to the end. And when the end +came her situation was awful, so lonely and deserted. +There wasn't a woman in the hotel who +would be her friend; so I tried to come to the +rescue, arranged her affairs, saw about the funeral, +and did what I could. She was well off; Glinn +left her nearly all his money. He would have +married her, only he had a wife alive somewhere.”</p> + +<p>“And you fell in love with her, of course?”</p> + +<p>“That was the sort of thing. If you knew her +you would not wonder at it. She was not a bad +woman. Glinn had been the only one. She loved +him too much; that was all. She came to Europe, +and lived in Paris for a time, keeping the name of +Mrs Glinn. I used to see her sometimes, but I +never said anything. You see, there was her past. +In fact, I have been fighting against her for three +years. I went to India to get cured; but it was +no good. And now, here I am.”</p> + +<p>“And she is in Paris?”</p> + +<p>“No, in London at present; but I didn't know +her address till to-day. I think she had her doubts +of me, and meant to give me the slip.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span></p> +<p>“How did you find it out?”</p> + +<p>“Quite by chance. I was walking in Mill +Street, Knightsbridge, and saw her pass in a +victoria.”</p> + +<p>Maine got up suddenly, and went over to the +spirit-stand. “In Mill Street?” he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes. The carriage stopped at No. 100. She +went in. A footman came out and carried in her +rug. <i>Ergo</i>, she lives there.”</p> + +<p>“How hot it is!” said Maine in a hard voice. +He threw up one of the windows and leaned out. +He felt as if he were choking. A little way down +the street a half-tipsy guardsman was reeling along, +singing his own private version of “Tommy +Atkins.” He narrowly avoided a lamp-post by an +abrupt lurch which took him into the gutter. Maine +heard some one laugh. It was himself.</p> + +<p>“Well, old chap,” said Manning, who had come +up behind him, “what would you advise me to do? +I'm in a fix. I'm in love with Eve—that's her +name; I can't live without her happily, and yet I +hate to marry a woman with a—well, you know +how it is.”</p> + +<p>Maine drew himself back into the room and faced +round. “Does she love you?” he asked; and +there was a curious change in his manner towards +his friend.</p> + +<p>“I don't know that she does,” Manning said, +rather uncomfortably. “But that would come right. +She would marry me, naturally.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Why?”</p> + +<p>“Well, I mean the position. Lady Herbert +Manning could go where Mrs Glinn could not, +and all that sort of thing.”</p> + +<p>“The only question is whether you can bring +yourself to ask her?”</p> + +<p>“My dear chap, you don't put it too pleasantly.”</p> + +<p>“It's the fact, though.”</p> + +<p>Lord Herbert hesitated. Then he said dubiously, +“I suppose so.”</p> + +<p>Maine lit another cigar and sat down again. His +face was very white. “You're rather conventional, +Manning,” he said presently.</p> + +<p>“Conventional! Why?”</p> + +<p>“You think her—this Mrs Glinn—a good +woman. Isn't that enough for you?”</p> + +<p>“But, besides Eve and myself, there is a third +person in the situation.”</p> + +<p>“How on earth did you find out that?” exclaimed +Maine.</p> + +<p>The other looked surprised. “How did I find +out? I don't understand you.”</p> + +<p>Maine recollected himself. He had made the +common mistake of fancying another might know +a thing because he knew it.</p> + +<p>“Who is this third person?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Society.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! I said you were conventional.”</p> + +<p>“Every sensible man and woman is.”</p> + +<p>“I don't know that I agree. But the third per<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span>son +does certainly complicate the situation. What +are you going to do then?”</p> + +<p>Lord Herbert put down his pipe. It was not +smoked out. “That's what I want to know,” +he answered.</p> + +<p>“Of course, there's the one way—of being +unconventional. Then, there's the way of being +conventional but unhappy. Is there any alternative?”</p> + +<p>Lord Herbert hesitated obviously, but at length +he said: “There is, of course; but Mrs Glinn is a +curious sort of woman. I don't quite know—”</p> + +<p>He paused, looking at his friend. Maine's face +was drawn and fierce.</p> + +<p>“What's the row?” Lord Herbert asked.</p> + +<p>“Nothing; only I shouldn't advise you to try +the alternative. That's all.”</p> + +<p>“Maine, what do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Just this,” replied the other. “That I know +Mrs Glinn, that I agree with you about her +character—”</p> + +<p>“You know her? That's odd!”</p> + +<p>“I have known her for a year.”</p> + +<p>They looked each other in the eyes while a +minute passed. Then Lord Herbert said slowly, +“I understand.”</p> + +<p>“What?”</p> + +<p>“That I have come to the wrong man for +advice.”</p> + +<p>There was a silence, broken only by the ticking<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span> +of a clock and the uneasy movements of Maine's +fox-terrier, which was lying before the empty grate +and dreaming of departed fires.</p> + +<p>At last Maine said: “To-day I asked Mrs Glinn +to marry me.”</p> + +<p>The other started perceptibly. “Knowing what +I have told you?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Not knowing it.”</p> + +<p>“What—what did she say?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing. I am to see her to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>Lord Herbert glanced at him furtively. “I +suppose you will not go—now?” he said.</p> + +<p>“Yes, Manning, I shall,” Maine answered.</p> + +<p>“Well,” the other man continued, looking at +his watch and yawning, “I must be going. It's +late. Glad to have seen you, Maine. I am to +be found at 80 St James's Place. Thanks; yes I +will have my coat on. My pipe—oh! here it is. +Good-night.”</p> + +<p>The door closed, and Maine was left alone.</p> + +<p>“Will she tell me to-morrow, or will she be +silent?” he said to himself. “That depends on +one thing: Has love of truth the largest half of +her heart, or love of me?”</p> + +<p>He sighed—at the conventionality of the world, +perhaps.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>“I am not at home to any one except Sir Hugh +Maine,” Mrs Glinn said to the footman. “You +understand?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, ma'am.”</p> + +<p>He went out softly and closed the door.</p> + +<p>The English summer had gone back upon its +steps that afternoon, and remembered the duty it +owed to its old-time reputation. The canary, a +puffed-out ball of ragged-looking feathers in its +cage, seemed listening with a depressed attention +to the beat of the cold rain against the window. +The daisies, in their boxes, dripped and nodded in +the wind. There was a darkness in the pretty +room, and the smile of the china goblins was no +longer yellow. Like many people who are not +made of china, they depended upon adventitious +circumstances for much of their outward show. +When they were not gilded there was a good deal +of the pill apparent in their nature.</p> + +<p>Mrs Glinn was trying not to be restless. She +was very pale, and her dark eyes gleamed with an +almost tragic fire; but she sat down firmly on the +white sofa, and read Gyp, as Carmen may have +read her doom in the cards. One by one the +pages were turned. One by one the epigrams +were made the property of another mind. But +through all the lightness and humour of the story<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> +there crept like a little snake a sentence that Gyp +had not written:—</p> + +<p>“Can I tell him?”</p> + +<p>And no answer ever came to that question. +When the door-bell at last rang, Mrs Glinn +laid down her novel carefully, and mechanically +stood up. A change of attitude was necessary to +her.</p> + +<p>Sir Hugh came in, and was followed by tea. +They sat down by the tiny table, and discussed +French literature. Flaubert and Daudet go as +well with tea as Fielding and Smollett go with +supper.</p> + +<p>But, when the cups were put down, Maine +drove the French authors in a pack out of the +conversation.</p> + +<p>“I did not come here to say what I can say to +every woman I meet who understands French,” +he remarked.</p> + +<p>And then Mrs Glinn was fully face to face with +her particular guardian devil.</p> + +<p>“No?” she said.</p> + +<p>She did not try to postpone the moment she +dreaded. For she had a strong man to deal with, +and, being a strong woman at heart, she generally +held out her hand to the inevitable.</p> + +<p>“You have been thinking?” Maine went on.</p> + +<p>“Yes. What a sad occupation that is sometimes—like +knitting, or listening to church-bells at +night!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Eve, let us be serious.”</p> + +<p>“God knows I am,” she answered. “But +modern gravity is dressed in flippancy. No feeling +must go quite naked.”</p> + +<p>“Don't talk like that,” he said. “As there is +a nudity in art that may be beautiful, so there is a +nudity in expression, in words, that may be beautiful. +Eve, I have come to hear you tell me something. +You know that.” He glanced into her +face with an anxiety that she did not fully understand. +Then he said: “Tell it me.”</p> + +<p>“There is—is so much to tell,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes, yes.”</p> + +<p>“He does not understand,” she thought.</p> + +<p>He thought, “She does not understand.”</p> + +<p>“And I am not good at telling stories.”</p> + +<p>“Then tell me the truth.”</p> + +<p>She tried to smile, but she was trembling. “Of +course. Why should I not?” She hesitated, and +then added, with a forced attempt at petulance, +“But there is nothing so awkward as giving people +more than they expect. Is there?”</p> + +<p>He understood her question, despite its apparent +inconsequence, and his heart quickened its beating: +“Give me everything.”</p> + +<p>“I suppose I should be doing that if I gave you +myself,” she said nervously.</p> + +<p>“You know best,” he answered; and for a +moment she was puzzled by not catching the +affirmative for which she had angled.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Do you want me very, very much?” she +asked.</p> + +<p>“So much that, as I told you yesterday, I could +not ask for you twice. Don't you understand?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. I could not marry a man who had +bothered me to be his wife. One might as well +be scolded into virtue. You want me, then, +Hugh, and I want you. But—”</p> + +<p>Again she stopped, with sentences fluttering, as +it seemed, on the very edges of her lips. Her +heart was at such fearful odds with her conscience, +that she felt as if he must hear the clashing of the +swords. And he did hear it. He would fain have +cheered on both the combatants. Which did he +wish should be the conqueror? He hardly knew.</p> + +<p>“Yes?” he said.</p> + +<p>“It is always so difficult to finish a sentence that +begins with ‘but,’” she began; and for the first +time her voice sounded tremulous. “When two +people want each other very much, there is always +something that ought to keep them apart—at +least, I think so. God must love solitude; it is +His gift to so many.” There were tears in her +eyes.</p> + +<p>“Why should we keep apart, Eve?”</p> + +<p>“Because we should be too happy together, I +suppose.”</p> + +<p>He leaned suddenly forward and took both her +hands in his. “How cold you are!” he said, +startled.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p> + +<p>The words seemed to brace her like a sea-breeze.</p> + +<p>“Hugh,” she said, “I wish to tell you something. +There is a ‘but’ in the sentence of my +life.”</p> + +<p>He drew her closer to him, with a strange impulse +to be nearer the soul that was about to prove +itself as noble as he desired. But that very act +prevented the fulfilment of his wish. The touch +of his hands, the eagerness of his eyes, gave the +victory to her heart. She shut the lips that were +speaking, and he kissed them. Kisses act as an +opiate on a woman's conscience. Only when Eve +felt his lips on hers did she know her own weakness. +Sir Hugh having kissed her, waited for the +telling of the secret. At that moment he might as +well have sat down and waited for the millennium.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” he said at last.</p> + +<p>“Nothing,” she answered, “nothing.” She +spoke the word with a hard intonation.</p> + +<p>Hugh held her close in his arms, with a sort of +strange idea that to do so would crush his disappointment. +She was proving her love by her +silence. Why, then, did he wish that she should +speak? At last she said, in a low voice:—</p> + +<p>“There is one thing you ought to know. If I +marry you, I marry you a beggar. I shall lose my +fortune. I am not obliged to lose it, but I mean +to give it up. Don't ask me why.”</p> + +<p>He had no need to. He waited, but she was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span> +silent. So that was all. He kissed her again, +loosened his arms from about her and stood up.</p> + +<p>“I have enough for both,” he said.</p> + +<p>He did not look at her, and she could not look +at him.</p> + +<p>“Are you going?” she said.</p> + +<p>“Yes; but I will call this evening.”</p> + +<p>He was at the door, and had half-opened it +when he turned back, moved by a passionate +impulse.</p> + +<p>“Eve!” he cried, and his eyes seemed asking +her for something.</p> + +<p>“Yes?” she said, looking away.</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Then he said “Good-bye!” +The door closed upon him.</p> + +<p>Mrs Glinn stood for a moment where he had left +her. In her mind she was counting the seconds +that must elapse before he could reach the street. +If she could be untrue to herself till then, she could +be untrue to herself for ever. Would he walk +down the stairs slowly or fast? She wanted to be +a false woman so much, so very much, that she +clenched her hands together. The action seemed +as if it might help her to keep on doing wrong. +But suddenly she unclasped her hands, darted across +the room to the door, and opened it. She listened, +and heard Hugh's footsteps in the hall. He picked +up his umbrella, and unfolded it to be ready for +the rain. The <i>frou-frou</i> of the silk seemed to stir +her to action.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Hugh!” she cried in a broken voice.</p> + +<p>He turned in the hall, and looked up.</p> + +<p>“Come back,” she said.</p> + +<p>He came up the stairs three steps at a time.</p> + +<p>“Hugh,” she said, leaning heavily on the balustrade, +and looking away, “I have a secret to tell +you. I have tried to be wicked to-day, but somehow +I can't. Listen to the truth.”</p> + +<p>“I need not,” he answered. “I know it +already.”</p> + +<p>Then she looked at him, and drew in her breath: +“You know it?”</p> + +<p>“Yes.”</p> + +<p>“How you must love me!”</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>There was a ring at the hall door. The footman +opened it, held a short parley with some one who +was invisible, shut the door, and came upstairs +with a card.</p> + +<p>Mrs Glinn took it, and read, “Lord Herbert +Manning.”</p> + +<p>He had decided to be unconventional too late.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286"><br />[286]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287"><br /><br />[287]</a></span></p> + +<h2>A SILENT GUARDIAN</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> door of the long, dreary room, with its +mahogany chairs, its littered table, its motley crew +of pale, silent people, opened noiselessly. A +dreary, lean footman appeared in the aperture, +bowing towards a corner where, in a recess near a +forlorn, lofty window, sat a tall, athletic-looking +man of about forty-five years of age, with a strong +yet refined face, clean shaven, and short, crisp, +dark hair. The tall man rose immediately, laying +down an old number of <i>Punch</i>, and made his +way out, watched rather wolfishly by the other +occupants of the room. The door closed upon +him, and there was a slight rustle and a hiss of +whispering.</p> + +<p>Two well-dressed women leaned to one another, +the feathers in their hats almost mingling as they +murmured: “Not much the matter with him, I +should fancy.”</p> + +<p>“He looks as strong as a horse; but modern +men are always imagining themselves ill. He has +lived too much, probably.”</p> + +<p>They laughed in a suppressed ripple.</p> + +<p>At the end of the room near the door, under the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> +big picture of a grave man in a frock-coat, holding +a double eye-glass tentatively in his right hand as +if to emphasise an argument—a young girl bent +towards her father, who said to her in a low voice:</p> + +<p>“That man who has just left the room is Brune, +the great sculptor.”</p> + +<p>“Is he ill?” the girl asked.</p> + +<p>“It seems so, since he is here.”</p> + +<p>Then a silence fell again, broken only by the +rustle of turned pages and the occasional uneasy +shifting of feet.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Meanwhile, in a small room across the hall, by +a window through which the autumn sun streamed +with a tepid brightness, Reginald Brune lay on a +narrow sofa. His coat and waistcoat were thrown +open; his chest was bared. Gerard Fane, the +great discoverer of hidden diseases, raised himself +from a bent posture, and spoke some words in a +clear, even voice.</p> + +<p>Brune lifted himself half up on his elbow, and +began mechanically to button the collar of his +shirt. His long fingers did not tremble, though his +face was very pale.</p> + +<p>He fastened the collar, arranged his loose tie, +and then sat up slowly.</p> + +<p>A boy, clanking two shining milk-cans, passed +along the pavement, whistling a music-hall song. +The shrill melody died down the street, and Brune +listened to it until there was a silence. Then he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> +looked up at the man opposite to him, and said, +as one dully protesting, without feeling, without +excitement:—</p> + +<p>“But, doctor, I was only married three weeks +ago.”</p> + +<p>Gerard Fane gave a short upward jerk of the +head, and said nothing. His face was calmly +grave. His glittering brown eyes were fastened +on his patient. His hands were loosely folded +together.</p> + +<p>Brune repeated, in a sightly raised voice:—</p> + +<p>“I was married three weeks ago. It cannot be +true.”</p> + +<p>“I am here to tell the truth,” the other replied.</p> + +<p>“But it is so—so ironic. To allow me to start +a new life—a beautiful life—just as the night is +coming. Why, it is diabolical; it is not just; the +cruelty of it is fiendish.”</p> + +<p>A spot of gleaming red stained each of the +speaker's thin cheeks. He clenched his hands +together, riveting his gaze on the doctor, as he +went on:—</p> + +<p>“Can't you see what I mean? I had no idea—I +had not the faintest suspicion of what you say. +And I have had a very hard struggle. I have been +poor and quite friendless. I have had to fight, and +I have lost much of the good in my nature by +fighting, as we often do. But at last I have won the +battle, and I have won more. I have won good<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span>ness +to give me back some of my illusions. I had +begun to trust life again. I had—”</p> + +<p>He stopped abruptly. Then he said:—</p> + +<p>“Doctor, are you married?”</p> + +<p>“No,” the other answered; and there was a +note of pity in his voice.</p> + +<p>“Then you can't understand what your verdict +means to me. Is it irrevocable?”</p> + +<p>Gerard Fane hesitated.</p> + +<p>“I wish I could hope not; but—”</p> + +<p>“But—?”</p> + +<p>“It is.”</p> + +<p>Brune stood up. His face was quite calm now +and his voice, when he spoke again, was firm and +vibrating.</p> + +<p>“I have some work that I should wish to finish. +How long can you give me?”</p> + +<p>“Three months.”</p> + +<p>“One will do if my strength keeps up at all. +Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>There was a thin chink of coins grating one +against the other. The specialist said:—</p> + +<p>“I will call on you to-morrow, between four and +five. I have more directions to give you. To-day +my time is so much taken up. Good-bye.”</p> + +<p>The door closed.</p> + +<p>In the waiting-room, a moment later, Brune was +gathering up his coat and hat.</p> + +<p>The two ladies eyed him curiously as he took +them and passed out.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span></p> +<p>“He does look a little pale, after all,” whispered +one of them. A moment later he was in the +street.</p> + +<p>From the window of his consulting-room, Gerard +Fane watched the tall figure striding down the +pavement.</p> + +<p>“I am sorry that man is going to die,” he said +to himself.</p> + +<p>And then he turned gravely to greet a new +patient.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>Gerard Fane's victoria drew up at the iron gate +of No. 5 Ilbury Road, Kensington, at a quarter +past four the following afternoon. A narrow strip +of garden divided the sculptor's big red house from +the road. Ornamental ironwork on a brick foundation +closed it in. The great studio, with its huge +windows and its fluted pillars, was built out at +one end. The failing sunlight glittered on its +glass, and the dingy sparrows perched upon the +roof to catch the parting radiance as the twilight +fell. The doctor glanced round him and thought, +“How hard this man must have worked! In +London this is a little palace.”</p> + +<p>“Will you come into the studio, sir, please?” +said the footman in answer to his summons. “Mr +Brune is there at present.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span></p> +<p>“Surely he cannot be working,” thought the +doctor, as he followed the man down a glass-covered +paved passage, and through a high doorway +across which a heavy curtain fell. “If so, he must +possess resolution almost more than mortal.”</p> + +<p>He passed beyond the curtain, and looked round +him curiously.</p> + +<p>The studio was only dimly lit now, for daylight +was fast fading. On a great open hearth, with +dogs, a log-fire was burning; and beside it, on an +old-fashioned oaken settle, sat a woman in a loose +cream-coloured tea-gown. She was half turning +round to speak to Reginald Brune, who stood a +little to her left, clad in a long blouse, fastened +round his waist with a band. He had evidently +recently finished working, for his hands still bore +evident traces of labour, and in front of him, on a +raised platform, stood a statue that was not far +from completion. The doctor's eyes were attracted +from the woman by the log-fire, from his patient, +by the lifeless, white, nude figure that seemed to +press forward out of the gathering gloom. The +sculptor and his wife had not heard him announced, +apparently, for they continued conversing in low +tones, and he paused in the doorway, strangely +fascinated—he could scarcely tell why—by the +marble creation of a dying man.</p> + +<p>The statue, which was life size, represented the +figure of a beautiful, grave youth, standing with +one foot advanced, as if on the point of stepping<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> +forward. His muscular arms hung loosely; his +head was slightly turned aside as in the attitude +of one who listens for a repetition of some vague +sound heard at a distance. His whole pose suggested +an alert, yet restrained, watchfulness. The +triumph of the sculptor lay in the extraordinary +suggestion of life he had conveyed into the marble. +His creature lived as many mollusc men never live. +Its muscles seemed tense, its body quivering with +eagerness to accomplish—what? To attack, to +repel, to protect, to perform some deed demanding +manfulness, energy, free, fearless strength.</p> + +<p>“That marble thing could slay if necessary,” +thought Gerard Fane, with a thrill of the nerves +all through him that startled him, and recalled him +to himself.</p> + +<p>He stepped forward to the hearth quietly, and +Brune turned and took him by the hand.</p> + +<p>“I did not hear you,” the sculptor said. “The +man must have opened the door very gently. +Sydney, this is Dr Gerard Fane, who is kindly +looking after me.”</p> + +<p>The woman by the fire had risen, and stood in +the firelight and the twilight, which seemed to join +hands just where she was. She greeted the specialist +in a girl's young voice, and he glanced at her with +the furtive thought, “Does she know yet?”</p> + +<p>She looked twenty-two, not more.</p> + +<p>Her eyes were dark grey, and her hair was +bronze. Her figure was thin almost to emaciation;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> +but health glowed in her smooth cheeks, and spoke +in her swift movements and easy gestures. Her +expression was responsive and devouringly eager. +Life ran in her veins with turbulence, never with +calm. Her mouth was pathetic and sensitive, but +there was an odd suggestion of almost boyish +humour in her smile.</p> + +<p>Before she smiled, Fane thought, “She knows.”</p> + +<p>Afterwards, “She cannot know.”</p> + +<p>“Have you a few moments to spare?” Brune +asked him. “Will you have tea with us?”</p> + +<p>Fane looked at Mrs Brune and assented. He +felt a strange interest in this man and this woman. +The tragedy of their situation appealed to him, +although he lived in a measure by foretelling +tragedies. Mrs Brune touched an electric bell let +into the oak-panelled wall, and her husband drew +a big chair forward to the hearth.</p> + +<p>As he was about to sit down in it, Gerard Fane's +eyes were again irresistibly drawn towards the +statue; and a curious fancy, born, doubtless, of the +twilight that invents spectres and of the firelight +that evokes imaginations, came to him, and made +him for a moment hold his breath.</p> + +<p>It seemed to him that the white face menaced +him, that the white body had a soul, and that the +soul cried out against him.</p> + +<p>His hand trembled on the back of the chair. +Then he laughed to himself at the absurd fancy, +and sat down.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span></p> +<p>“Your husband has been working?” he said to +Mrs Brune.</p> + +<p>“Yes, all the day. I could not tempt him out +for even five minutes. But then, he has had a +holiday, as he says, although it was only a fortnight. +That was not very long for—for a honeymoon.”</p> + +<p>As she said the last sentence she blushed a little, +and shot a swift, half-tender, half-reproachful glance +at her husband. But he did not meet it; he only +looked into the fire, while his brows slightly +contracted.</p> + +<p>“I think Art owns more than half his soul,” the +girl said, with the flash of a smile. “He only +gives to me the fortnights and to Art the years.”</p> + +<p>There was a vague jealousy in her voice; but +then the footman brought in tea, and she poured it +out, talking gaily.</p> + +<p>From her conversation, Fane gathered that she +had no idea of her husband's condition. With a +curious and fascinating naturalness she spoke of +her marriage, of her intentions for the long future.</p> + +<p>“If Reginald is really seedy, Dr Fane,” she +said, “get him well quickly, that he may complete +his commissions. Because, you know, he has +promised, when they are finished, to take me to +Italy, and to Greece, to the country of Phidias, +whose mantle has fallen upon my husband.”</p> + +<p>“Do not force Dr Fane into untruth,” said +Brune, with an attempt at a smile.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p> +<p>“And is that statue a commission?” Fane +asked, indicating the marble figure, that seemed to +watch them and to listen.</p> + +<p>“No; that is an imaginative work on which I +have long been engaged. I call it, ‘A Silent +Guardian.’”</p> + +<p>“It is very beautiful,” the doctor said. “What +is your idea exactly? What is the figure guarding?”</p> + +<p>Brune and his wife glanced at one another—he +gravely, she with a confident smile.</p> + +<p>Then he said, “I leave that to the imagination.”</p> + +<p>Dr Fane looked again at the statue, and said +slowly, “You have wrought it so finely that in +this light my nerves tell me it is alive.”</p> + +<p>Mrs Brune looked triumphant.</p> + +<p>“All the world would feel so if they could see +it,” she said; “but it is not to be exhibited. That +is our fancy—his and mine. And now I will +leave you together for a few minutes. Heal him +of his ills, Dr Fane, won't you?”</p> + +<p>She vanished through the door at the end of +the studio. The two men stood together by the +hearth.</p> + +<p>“She does not know?” Fane asked.</p> + +<p>The other leaned his head upon his hand, which +was pressed against the oak mantelpiece.</p> + +<p>“I am too cowardly to tell her,” he said in +a choked voice. “You must.”</p> + +<p>“And when?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span></p> +<p>“To-day.”</p> + +<p>There was a silence. Then, in his gravest professional +manner, Fane gave some directions, and +wrote others down, while the sculptor looked into +the dancing fire. When Fane had finished:—</p> + +<p>“Shall I tell her now?” he asked gently.</p> + +<p>Brune nodded without speaking. His face +looked drawn and contorted as he moved towards +the door. His emotion almost strangled him, and +the effort to remain calm put a strain upon him +that was terrible.</p> + +<p>Gerard Fane was left alone for a moment—alone +with the statue whose personality, it seemed +to him, pervaded the great studio. In its attitude +there was a meaning, in its ghost-like face and +blind eyes a resolution of intention, that took possession +of his soul. He told himself that it was +lifeless, inanimate, pulseless, bloodless marble; that +it contained no heart to beat with love or hate, no +soul to burn with impulse or with agony; that its +feet could never walk, its hands never seize or +slay, its lips never utter sounds of joy or menace. +Then he looked at it again, and he shuddered.</p> + +<p>“I am over-working,” he said to himself; “my +nerves are beginning to play me tricks. I must be +careful.”</p> + +<p>And he forcibly turned his thoughts from the +marble that could never feel to the man and +woman so tragically circumstanced, and to his +relation towards them.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span></p> +<p>A doctor is so swiftly plunged into intimacy +with strangers. To the sculptor it was as if Fane +held the keys of the gates of life and death for +him; as if, during that quarter of an hour in the +consulting-room, the doctor had decided, almost of +his own volition, that death should cut short a life +of work and of love. And even to Fane himself it +seemed as if his fiat had precipitated, even brought +about, a tragedy that appealed to his imagination +with peculiar force. His position towards this +curiously interesting girl was strange. He had +seen her for a quarter of an hour only, and now +it was his mission to cause her the most weary +pain that she might, perhaps, ever know. The +opening of the studio door startled him, and his +heart, that usually beat so calmly, throbbed almost +with violence as Mrs Brune came up to him.</p> + +<p>“What is it?” she asked, facing him, and looking +him full in the eyes with a violence of interrogation +that was positively startling. “What is it +you have to tell me? Reginald says you have +ordered him to keep quiet—that you wish me to +help you in—in something. Is he ill? May he +not finish his commissions?”</p> + +<p>“He is ill,” said Gerard Fane, with a straightforward +frankness that surprised himself.</p> + +<p>She kept her eyes on his face.</p> + +<p>“Very ill?”</p> + +<p>“Sit down,” the doctor said, taking her hands +and gently putting her into a chair.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span></p> +<p>With the rapidity of intellect peculiar to women, +she heard in those two words the whole truth. Her +head drooped forward. She put out her hands as +if to implore Fane's silence.</p> + +<p>“Don't speak,” she murmured. “Don't say +it; I know.”</p> + +<p>He looked away. His eyes rested on the statue +that made a silent third in their sad conference. +How its attitude suggested that of a stealthy +listener, bending to hear the more distinctly! Its +expressionless eyes met his, and was there not a +light in them? He knew there was not, yet he +caught himself saying mentally:—</p> + +<p>“What does he think of this?” and wondering +about the workings of a soul that did not, could +not, exist.</p> + +<p>Presently the girl moved slightly, and said:—</p> + +<p>“He only knew this for certain yesterday?”</p> + +<p>“Only yesterday.”</p> + +<p>“Ah! but he must have suspected it long ago,”—she +pointed towards the statue—“when he +began that.”</p> + +<p>“I don't understand,” Fane said. “What can +that marble have to do with his health or illness?”</p> + +<p>“When we first began to love each other,” she +said, “he began to work on that. It was to be +his marriage gift to me, my guardian angel. He +told me he would put all his soul into it, and that +sometimes he fancied, if he died before me, his +soul would really enter into that statue and watch<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> +over and guard me. ‘A Silent Guardian’ he has +always called it. He must have known.”</p> + +<p>“I do not think so,” Fane said. “It was impossible +he should.”</p> + +<p>The girl stood up. The tears were running +over her face now. She turned towards the statue.</p> + +<p>“And he will be cold—cold like that!” she +cried in a heart-breaking voice. “His eyes will +be blind and his hands nerveless, and his voice +silent.”</p> + +<p>She suddenly swayed and fainted into Fane's +arms. He held her a moment; and when he laid +her down, a reluctance to let the slim form, lifeless +though it was, slip out of his grasp, came upon +him. He remembered the previous day, the +doomed man going down the street—his thought +as he looked from the window of his consulting-room, +“I am sorry that man is going to die.”</p> + +<p>Now, as he leant over the white girl, he whispered, +forming the very words with his lips, “I am +not sorry.”</p> + +<p>And the statue seemed to bend and to listen.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Six weeks passed away. Winter was deepening. +Through the gloom and fog that shrouded London, +Christmas approached, wrapped in seasonable +snow. The dying man had finished his work, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> +a strange peace stole over him. Now, when he +suffered, when his body shivered and tried to +shrink away, as if it felt the cold hands of death +laid upon it, he looked at the completed statue, and +found he could still feel joy. There had always +been in his highly-strung, sensitive nature an element, +so fantastic that he had ever striven to +conceal it, of romance; and in his mind, affected +by constant pain, by many sleepless nights, grew +the curious idea that his life, as it ebbed away from +him, entered into his creation. As he became +feeble, he imagined that the man he had formed +towered above him in more God-like strength, that +light flowed into the sightless eyes, that the marble +muscles were tense with vigour, that a soul was +born in the thing which had been soulless. The +theory, held by so many, of re-incarnation upon +earth, took root in his mind, and he came to believe +that, at the moment of death, he would pass +into his work and live again, unconscious, it might +be, of his former existence. He loved the statue +as one might love a breathing man; but he seldom +spoke of his fancies, even to Sydney.</p> + +<p>Only, he sometimes said to her, pointing to his +work:—</p> + +<p>“You will never be alone, unprotected, while +he is there.”</p> + +<p>And she tried to smile through the tears she +could not always keep back.</p> + +<p>Gerard Fane was often with them. He sunk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> +the specialist in the friend, and not a day passed +without a visit from him to the great studio, in +which the sculptor and his wife almost lived.</p> + +<p>He was unwearied in his attendance upon the +sick man, unwavering in his attempts to soothe his +sufferings. But, in reality, and almost against his +will, the doctor numbered each breath his patient +drew, noted with a furious eagerness each sign of +failing vitality, bent his ear to catch every softest +note in the prolonged <i>diminuendo</i> of this human +symphony.</p> + +<p>When Fane saw Mrs Brune leaning over her +husband, touching the damp brow with her cool, +soft fingers, or the dry, parched lips with her soft, +rosy lips, he turned away in a sick fury, and said +to himself:—</p> + +<p>“He is dying, he is dying. It will soon be +over.”</p> + +<p>For with a desperate love had entered into him +a desperate jealousy, and even while he ministered +to Brune he hated him.</p> + +<p>And the statue, with blind eyes, observed the +drama enacted by those three people, the two men +and the woman, till the curtain fell and one of the +actors made his final exit.</p> + +<p>Fane's nerves still played him tricks sometimes. +He could not look at the statue without a shudder; +and while Brune imaginatively read into the marble +face love and protection, the doctor saw there +menace and hatred. He came to feel almost<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> +jealous of the statue, because Sydney loved it and +fell in with her husband's fancy that his life was +fast ebbing into and vitalising the marble limbs, +that his soul would watch her from the eyes that +were now without expression and thought.</p> + +<p>When Fane entered the studio, he always involuntarily +cast a glance at the white figure—at first, +a glance of shuddering distaste, then, as he acknowledged +to himself his love for Sydney, a glance of +defiance, of challenge.</p> + +<p>One evening, after a day of many appointments +and much mental stress and strain, he drove up +to Ilbury Road, was admitted, and shown as usual +into the studio. He found it empty. Only the +statue greeted him silently in the soft lamplight, +that scarcely accomplished more than the defining +of the gloom.</p> + +<p>“My master is upstairs, sir,” said the footman. +“I will tell him you are here.”</p> + +<p>In a moment Sydney entered, with a lagging +step and pale cheeks. Without thinking of the +usual polite form of greeting, she said to Fane, +“He is much worse to-day. There is a change in +him, a horrible change. Dr Fane, just now when +I was talking to him it seemed to me that he was +a long way off. I caught hold of his hands to reassure +myself. I held them. I heard him speaking, +but it was as if his words came from a distance. +What does it mean? He is not—he is not—”</p> + +<p>She looked the word he could not speak.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p> +<p>Fane made her sit down.</p> + +<p>“I will go to him immediately,” he said. “I +may be able to do something.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, go—do go!” she exclaimed with feverish +excitement.</p> + +<p>Then suddenly she sprang up, and seizing his +hands with hers, she said in a piercing voice: “You +are a great doctor. Surely—surely you can keep +this one life for me a little longer.”</p> + +<p>As they stood, Fane was facing the statue, which +was at her back, and while she spoke his eyes were +drawn from the woman he loved to the marble +thing he senselessly hated. It struck him that a +ghastly change had stolen over it. A sudden flicker +of absolute life surely infused it, quickened it even +while she spoke, stole through the limbs one by +one, welled up to the eyes as light pierces from a +depth, flowed through all the marble. A pulse +beat in the dead, cold heart. A mind rippled into +the rigid, watching face. There was no absolute +movement, and yet there was the sense of stir. +Fane, absorbed in horror, seemed to watch an act +of creation, to see life poured from some invisible +and unknown source into the bodily chamber that +had been void and dark.</p> + +<p>Motionless he saw the statue dead; motionless +he saw the statue live.</p> + +<p>He drew his hands from Sydney's. He was too +powerfully impressed to speak, but she looked up +into his face, turned, and followed his eyes.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p> +<p>She, too, observed the change, for her lips parted, +and a wild amazement shone in her eyes. Then she +touched Fane's arm, and whispered, rather in awe +than in horror, “Go—go to him. See if anything +has happened. I will stay and watch here.”</p> + +<p>With a hushed tread Fane left the studio, passed +through the hall, ascended the stairs to the sculptor's +room. Outside the door he hesitated for a moment. +He was trembling. He heard a clock ticking within. +It sounded very loud, like a hammer beating in +his ears. He pushed the door open at length, and +entered. Brune's tall figure was sitting in an armchair, +bowed over a table on which lay an open +Art magazine.</p> + +<p>His head lay hidden on his arms, which were +crossed.</p> + +<p>Fane raised the face and turned it up towards +him.</p> + +<p>It was the face of a dead man.</p> + +<p>He looked at it, and smiled.</p> + +<p>Then he stole down again to the studio, where +Sydney was still standing.</p> + +<p>“Yes?” she said interrogatively, as he entered.</p> + +<p>“He is dead,” Fane answered.</p> + +<p>She only bowed her head, as if in assent. She +stood a moment, then she turned her tearless eyes +to him, and said:—</p> + +<p>“Why could not you save him?”</p> + +<p>“Because I am human,” Fane answered.</p> + +<p>“And we did not say good-bye,” she said.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span></p> +<p>Fane was strung up. Conflicting feelings found +a wild playground in his soul. His nerves were in a +state of abnormal excitement, and something seemed +to let go in him—the something that holds us back, +normally, from mad follies. He suddenly caught +Sydney's hand, and in a choked voice said:—</p> + +<p>“He is dead. Think a little of the living.”</p> + +<p>She looked at him, wondering.</p> + +<p>“Think of the living that love you. He neither +hates nor loves any more. Sydney! Sydney!”</p> + +<p>As she understood his meaning she wrung her +hand out of his, and said, as one trying to clear the +road for reason:—</p> + +<p>“You love me, and he bought you to keep him +alive. Why, then—”</p> + +<p>A sick, white change came over her face.</p> + +<p>“Sydney! Sydney!” he said.</p> + +<p>“Why, then he bought death from you. Ah!”</p> + +<p>She put her hand on the bell, and kept it there +till the servant hurried in.</p> + +<p>“Show Dr Fane out,” she said. “He will not +come here again.”</p> + +<p>And Fane, seeing the uselessness of protest, +ready to strike himself for his folly, went without +a word. Only, as he went, he cast one look at +the statue. Was there not the flicker of a smile +in its marble eyes?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span></p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>People said Dr Gerard Fane was over-working, +that he was not himself. His manner to patients +was sometimes very strange, brusque, impatient, +intolerant. A brutality stole over him, and impressed +the world that went to him for healing very +unfavourably. The ills of humanity rendered him +now sarcastic instead of pitiful, a fatal attitude of +mind for a physician to adopt; and he was even +known to pronounce on sufferers sentence of death +with a callous indifference that was inhuman as +well as impolitic. As the weeks went by, his +reception-room became less crowded than of old. +There were even moments in his day when he had +leisure to sit down and think, to give a rein to his +mood of impotent misery and despair. Sydney had +never consented to receive him again. Woman-like—for +she could be extravagantly yet calmly unreasonable—she +had clung to the idea that Fane +had hastened, if not actually brought about, her +husband's death by his treatment. She made no +accusation. She simply closed her doors upon him. +She had a horror of him, which never left her.</p> + +<p>Again and again Fane called. She was always +denied to him. Then he met her in the street. +She cut him. He spoke to her. She passed on +without a reply. At last a dull fury took possession +of him. Her treatment of him was flagrantly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> +unjust. He had wished the sculptor to die, but he +had allowed nature to accomplish her designs unaided, +even to some extent hampered and hindered +by his medical skill and care. He loved Sydney +with the violence of a man whose emotions had +been sedulously repressed through youth, vanquished +but not killed by ambition, and the need to work +for the realisation of that ambition. The tumults +of early manhood, never given fair play, now raged +in his breast, from which they should have been +long since expelled, and played havoc with every +creed of sense, and every built-up theory of wisdom +and experience. Fane became by degrees a monomaniac.</p> + +<p>He brooded incessantly over his developed but +starved passion, over the thought that Sydney +chose to believe him a murderer. At first, when +he was trying day after day to see her, he clung +to his love for her; but when he found her obdurate, +set upon wronging him in her thought, +his passion, verging towards despair, changed, and +was coloured with hatred. By degrees he came +to dwell more upon the injury done to him by her +suspicion than upon his love of her, and then +it was that a certain wildness crept into his manner, +and alarmed or puzzled those who consulted +him.</p> + +<p>That his career was going to the dogs Fane +understood, but he did not care. The vision of +Sydney was always before him. He was for ever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> +plotting and planning to be with her alone—against +her will or not, it was nothing to him. +And when he was alone with her, what then?</p> + +<p>He would know how to act.</p> + +<p>It was just in the dawn of the spring season +over London that further inaction became insupportable +to him. One evening, after a day of listless +inactivity spent in waiting for the patients who +no longer came in crowds to his door, he put on +his hat and walked from Mayfair to Kensington, +vaguely, yet with intention. He looked calm, even +absent; but he was a desperate man. All fear of +what the world thinks or says, all consideration of +outward circumstances and their relation to worldly +happiness, had died within him. He was entirely +abstracted and self-centred.</p> + +<p>He reached the broad thoroughfare of Ilbury +Road, with its line of artistic red houses, detached +and standing in their gardens. The darkness was +falling as he turned into it and began to walk up +and down opposite the house with the big studio in +which he was once a welcome visitor. There was +a light in one of the bedroom windows and in the +hall, and presently, as Fane watched, a brougham +drove up to the door. It waited a few moments +before the house, then some one entered the carriage. +The door was banged; the horse moved +on. Through the windows Fane saw a woman's +face, pale, against the pane. It was the face of +Sydney. For a moment he thought he would call<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span> +to the coachman to stop. Then he restrained +himself, and again walked up and down, waiting. +She must return presently. He would speak to +her as she was getting out of the carriage. He +would force her to receive him.</p> + +<p>Towards nine o'clock his plans were altered by +an event which took place. The house door +opened, and the footman came out with a handful +of letters for the post. The pillar-box was very +near, and the man carelessly left the hall door on +the jar while he walked down the road. Fane +caught a glimpse of the hall that he knew so well. +A step, and he could be in the house. He hesitated. +He looked down the road. The man had +his back turned, and was putting the letters into +the box. Fane slipped into the garden, up the +steps, through the door. The hall was empty. +At his right was the passage leading to the studio. +He stole down it, and tried the door. It opened. +In the darkness the heavy curtain blew against his +face. In another instant he closed the door softly +at his back, and stood alone in the wide space and +the blackness. Here there was not a glimmer of +light. Thick curtains fell over the windows. +No fire burned upon the hearth. There was no +sound except when a carriage occasionally rolled +down the road, and even then the wheels sounded +distant.</p> + +<p>The silence and darkness had their effect upon +Fane. He had done a desperate thing; but, until<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span> +he found himself alone in the vacant studio, he had +not fully realised the madness of his conduct, and +how it would appear to the world. After the first +moments of solitude had passed he came to himself +a little, and half opened the door with the +intention of stealing out; but he heard steps in +the hall, and shrank back again like a guilty creature. +He must wait, at least, until the household +retired to rest.</p> + +<p>And, waiting, the old, haunting thoughts came +back to assail him once more. He began to +brood over Sydney's cruel treatment of him, over +her vile suspicions. Here, in the atmosphere +which he knew so well—for a faint, strange perfume +always lingered about the studio, and gave +to it the subtle sense of life which certain perfumes +can impart—his emotions were gradually +quickened to fury. He recalled the days of his +intimacy with the sculptor, of his unrestrained converse +with Sydney. He recalled his care for the invalid, +persevered in, despite his passion, to the end. +And then his thought fastened upon the statue, +which, strange to say, he had almost forgotten.</p> + +<p>The statue!</p> + +<p>It must be there, with him, in the darkness, +staring with those white eyes in which he had seen +a soul flicker.</p> + +<p>As the recollection of it came to him, he trembled, +leaning against the wall.</p> + +<p>He was in one of those states of acute mental<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> +tension in which the mind becomes so easily the +prey of the wildest fantasies, and slowly, laboriously, +he began to frame a connection between +the lifeless marble creature and his own dreary +trouble.</p> + +<p>Because of one moment of folly Sydney treated +him as a pariah, as a criminal. Her gentle nature +had been transformed suddenly.</p> + +<p>By what subtle influence?</p> + +<p>Fane remembered the day of his first visit to +Ilbury Road, and his curious imagination that the +statue recognised and hated him.</p> + +<p>Had that hatred prompted action? Was there +a devil lurking in the white, cold marble to work +his ruin? When Sydney sent him out of her +presence for ever, the watching face had seemed +to smile.</p> + +<p>Fane set his teeth in the darkness. He was no +longer sane. He was possessed. The tragedy of +thought within him invited him to the execution of +another tragedy. He stretched out his hand with +the rehearsing action of one meditating a blow.</p> + +<p>His hand fell upon an oak table that stood +against the wall, and hit on something smooth and +cold. It was a long Oriental dagger that the dead +sculptor had brought from the East. Fane's fingers +closed on it mechanically. The frigid steel +thrilled his hot palm, and a pulse in his forehead +started beating till there was a dull, senseless music +in his ears that irritated him.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span></p> + +<p>He wanted to listen for the return of Sydney's +carriage.</p> + +<p>His soul was ablaze with defiance. He was alone +in the darkness with his enemy; the cold, deadly, +blind, pulseless thing that yet was alive; the silent +thing that had yet whispered malign accusations +of him to the woman he loved; the nerveless thing +that poisoned a beautiful mind against him, that +stole the music from his harp of life and let loose +the winds upon his summer.</p> + +<p>His fingers closed more tightly, more feverishly +upon the slippery steel.</p> + +<p>Sydney actually thought, or strove to think, him +a criminal. What if he should earn the title? A +sound as of the sea beating was in his ears, and +flashes of strange light seem to leap to his vision. +What would a man worth the name do to his +enemy?</p> + +<p>And he and his enemy were shut up alone together.</p> + +<p>He drew himself up straight and steadied himself +against the wall, peering through the blackness +in the direction of the statue.</p> + +<p>And, as he did so, there seemed to steal into the +atmosphere the breath of another living presence. +He could fancy he heard the pulse of another heart +beating near to his. The sensation increased upon +him powerfully until suspicion grew into conviction.</p> + +<p>His intention had subtly communicated itself to +the thing he could not see.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span></p> + +<p>He knew it was on guard.</p> + +<p>There was no actual sound, no movement, but +the atmosphere became charged by degrees with a +deadly, numbing cold, like the breath of frost in +the air. A chill ran through Fane's blood. A +sluggish terror began to steal over him, folding him +for the moment in a strange inertia of mind and of +body. A creeping paralysis crawled upon his +senses, like the paralysis of nightmare that envelops +the dreamer. He opened his lips to speak, +but they chattered soundlessly. Mechanically his +hand clutched the thin, sharp steel of the dagger.</p> + +<p>His enemy—then Sydney.</p> + +<p>He would not be a coward. He struggled +against the horror that was upon him.</p> + +<p>And still the cold increased, and the personality +of Fane's invisible companion seemed to develop in +power. There was a sort of silent violence in +the hidden room, as if a noiseless combat were +taking place. Waves of darkness were stirred into +motion; and Fane, as a man is drawn by the +retreating tides of the sea out and away, was +drawn from the wall where he had been crouching.</p> + +<p>He stole along the floor, the dagger held in his +right hand, his heart barely beating, his lips white—nearer, +nearer to his enemy.</p> + +<p>He counted each step, until he was enfolded in +the inmost circle of that deadly frost emanating +from the blackness before him.</p> + +<p>Then, with a hoarse cry, he lifted his arm and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> +sprang forward and upward, dashing the dagger +down as one plunging it through a human heart.</p> + +<p>The cry died suddenly into silence.</p> + +<p>There was the sound of a heavy fall.</p> + +<p>It reached the ears of the servants below stairs.</p> + +<p>The footman took a light, and, with a scared +face, went hesitatingly to the studio door, paused +outside and listened while the female servants huddled +in the passage.</p> + +<p>The heavy silence succeeding the strange sound +appalled them, but at length the man thrust the +door open and peered in.</p> + +<p>The light from the candle flickered merrily +upon Fane's bowed figure, huddled face downwards +upon the floor.</p> + +<p>His neck was broken.</p> + +<p>The statue, that was the dead sculptor's last +earthly achievement, stood as if watching over +him. But it was no longer perfect and complete.</p> + +<p>Some splinters of marble had been struck from +the left breast, and among them, on the smooth +parquet, lay a bent Oriental dagger.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317"><br />[317]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318"><br /><br />[318]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"><br /><br /><br />[319]</a></span></p> + +<h2>A BOUDOIR BOY</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>“<span class="smcap">It</span> is so impossible to be young,” Claude Melville +said very wearily, and with his little air of played-out +indifference. He was smoking a cigarette, as +always, and wore a dark red smoking-suit that, he +thought, went excellently with his black eyes and +swarthy complexion.</p> + +<p>His father had been a blue-eyed Saxon giant, +his mother a pretty Kentish woman, with an apple-blossom +complexion and sunny hair; yet he +managed to look exquisitely Turkish, and thought +himself a clever boy for so doing. But then he +always thought himself clever. He had cultivated +this conception of himself until it had become a +confirmed habit of mind. On his head was a fez +with a tassel, and he was sitting upon the hearthrug +with his long legs crossed meditatively. His +room was dimly lit, and had an aspect of divans, +Attar of roses scented the air. A fire was burning, +although it was a spring evening and not cold. +London roared faintly in the distance, like a lion +at a far-away evening party.</p> + +<p>“It is so impossible to be young,” Claude repeated, +without emphasis. “I was middle-aged at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> +ten. Now I am twenty-two, and have done everything +I ought not to have done, I feel that life +has become altogether improbable. Even if I live +until I am seventy—the correct age for entering +into one's dotage, I believe—I cannot expect to +have a second childhood. I have never had a first.”</p> + +<p>He sighed. It seemed so hard to be deprived of +one's legal dotage.</p> + +<p>His friend, Jimmy Haddon, looked at him and +laughed. Jimmy was puffing at a pipe. His pipe +was the only one Claude ever allowed to be +smoked among his divans and his roses.</p> + +<p>After thoroughly completing his laugh, Jimmy +remarked:—</p> + +<p>“Would you like to take a lesson in the art of +being young?”</p> + +<p>“Immensely.”</p> + +<p>“I know somebody who could give you one.”</p> + +<p>“Really, Jimmy! What strange people you +always know; curates, and women who have never +written improper novels, and all sorts of beings +who seem merely mythical to the rest of us!”</p> + +<p>“This is not a curate.”</p> + +<p>“Then it must be a woman who has never +written an improper novel.”</p> + +<p>“It is.”</p> + +<p>“And you mean to tell me seriously that there +is such a person? To see her would be to take +what <i>Punch</i> calls a pre-historic peep. She must +be ingeniously old.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span></p> +<p>“She is sixty-four, and she is my aunt.”</p> + +<p>“How beautiful of her. I am an only child, so +I can never be an uncle. It is one of my lasting +regrets, although I daresay that profession is terribly +overcrowded like the others. But why is she sixty-four? +It seems a risky thing for a woman to be?”</p> + +<p>“She takes the risk without thinking at all +about it.”</p> + +<p>“She must be very daring.”</p> + +<p>“No; she's only completely natural.”</p> + +<p>“Natural. What is that?”</p> + +<p>Jimmy laughed again. He was fond of Claude, +but he and Claude met so often chiefly because +they were extremes. Jimmy was a handsome +athlete, who had been called to the bar, and persistently +played cricket or football whenever the +courts were sitting. He was cursed with a large +private income, which he spent royally, and blessed +with a good heart. Once he had appeared for the +defence in a divorce case, which—lasting longer +than he had anticipated, owing to the obvious +guilt of all parties concerned in it, and the consequent +difficulty of getting an innocent jury to +agree about a verdict—had cost him a cricket +match. Since then he had looked upon the law +in the legendary way, as an ass, and spent most +of his time in exercising his muscles. In the +intervals of leisure which he allowed himself from +sports and pastimes, he saw a good deal of Claude, +who amused him, and whom he never bored. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> +called him a boudoir boy, but had a real liking for +him, nevertheless, and sometimes longed to wake +him up, and separate him from the absurd <i>chiffons</i> +with which he occupied his time. Now he laughed +at him openly, and Claude did not mind in the +least. They were really friends, however preposterous +such a friendship might seem.</p> + +<p>“What is that? Well—my aunt. When you +see her you will understand thoroughly.”</p> + +<p>“Does she live in Park Lane or in Clapham?”</p> + +<p>“She lives in the country, in Northamptonshire, +is very well off, and has a place of her own.”</p> + +<p>“And a husband?”</p> + +<p>“No. She is a prosperous spinster, dines the +local cricket team once a year, keeps the church +going, knows all the poor people, and all the rich +in the neighbourhood, and has only one fad.”</p> + +<p>“What is that?”</p> + +<p>“She always wears her hair powdered. Come +down and stay with her, and she will teach you to +be young.”</p> + +<p>“Well—but I am afraid she will work me very +hard.”</p> + +<p>“Not she. You would like a new experience.”</p> + +<p>Claude yawned, and blinked his long dark eyes +in a carefully Eastern manner.</p> + +<p>“I am afraid there is no such thing left for me,” +he said with an elaborate dreariness. “Still, if +your aunt will invite me, I will come. Of course +you will accompany me, I must have a chaperon.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span></p> +<p>“Of course.”</p> + +<p>“Ah!” Claude said, as a footman came softly +into the room, “here is our absinthe. Now, Jimmy, +please do forget your horrible football, and I will +teach you to be decadent.”</p> + +<p>“As my aunt will teach you to be young—you +old boy.”</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>“Mr Haddon has left, sir,” said the footman, +standing by Claude's bedside in the detached manner +of the well-bred domestic. “Here is a note +for you, sir; I was to give it you the first thing.”</p> + +<p>And he handed it on a salver.</p> + +<p>Claude stretched out his thin white arm and took +it, without manifesting any of the surprise that he +felt. When the footman had gone, he poured out +a cup of tea from the silver teapot that stood on a +small table at his elbow, sipped it, and quietly +opened the square envelope. The Northamptonshire +sun was pouring in with a countrified ardour +through the bedroom window. Outside the birds +twittered in Miss Haddon's cherished garden. For +Claude had come down at that contented spinster's +invitation to spend a week with her, bringing +Jimmy as chaperon, and this was the very first +morning of his visit. Now he learnt that his +chaperon had already “left,” possibly to be a +“half-back,” or something equally ridiculous, at a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> +local football match in a neighbouring village. +Claude spread the note out and read it, while the +birds chirped to the very manifest spring.</p> + +<div class="letter"> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Boy</span>,—Good-bye, and good luck to you. I +know you are never angry, so it is scarcely worth while +to tell you not to be. I am off. Back in a week. You +will learn your lesson better alone with Aunt Kitty. +There is no absinthe in her cellar, but she knows good +champagne from bad. You will be all right. Study +hard.—Yours ever,</p> + +<p class="ralign"><span class="smcap">Jim</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Claude drank two cups of tea instead of his +usual one, and read the note four times. Then +he lay back, wrapping his dressing-gown—a fine +specimen of Cairene embroidery—closely round +him, shut his eyes, and seemed to go to sleep. All +he said to himself was:—</p> + +<p>“Jimmy writes a very dull letter.”</p> + +<p>At half-past nine, Miss Haddon's house reverberated +in a hollow manner with the barbarous +music of a gong, the dressing-gong. Claude heard +it very unsympathetically, and felt rather inclined +merely to take off his dressing-gown, as an act of +mute defiance, and go deliberately to sleep, instead +of getting up and putting things on. But he remembered +his manners wearily, and slid out of bed +and into a carefully-warmed bath that was prepared +in the neighbouring dressing-room. Having completed +an intricate toilette, and tied a marvellously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span> +subtle tie, shot with rigorously subdued, but voluptuous +colours, he sauntered downstairs in time to +be thoroughly immersed in the full clamour of the +second—or breakfast—gong, which he encountered +in the hall.</p> + +<p>“Why will people wake the dead merely because +they are going to eat a boiled egg and a bit of +toast?” he asked himself as he entered the breakfast-room.</p> + +<p>Miss Haddon was standing by the window, reading +letters in the proper English manner. The +sun lay on her grey hair, which she wore dressed +high, and void of cap.</p> + +<p>“You are very punctual,” she said with a smile. +“I was going to send up to know whether you +would prefer to breakfast in your room. My +nephew told me you might like to. I shall be +glad to have your company. Jimmy has run away +and left us together, I find.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Jimmy has run away,” Claude answered, +beginning slowly to feel the full force of Jimmy's +perfidy. He looked at Miss Haddon's cheerful, +rosy face, and bright brown eyes, and wondered +whether she had been in the plot.</p> + +<p>“I hope you will not be bored,” Miss Haddon +went on, as they sat down together, the intonation +of her melodious elderly voice seeming to dismiss +the supposition, even while she suggested it. “But, +indeed, I think it is almost impossible to be bored +in the country.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span></p> +<p>Claude, who was always either in London or +Paris, looked frankly astonished. In handing him +his cup of tea, Miss Haddon noticed it.</p> + +<p>“You don't agree with me?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“I cannot disagree, at least,” he said; “because, +to tell the truth, I am always in towns.”</p> + +<p>“Probably you are happy there then,” she rejoined, +with a briskness that was agreeable, because +it was not a hideous assumption, like the geniality +that often prevails, fitfully, at Christmas time.</p> + +<p>But Claude could not permit his hostess to +remain comfortable in this utterly erroneous +belief.</p> + +<p>“Oh, please—” he said, with gentle rebuke, +“I am not happy anywhere.”</p> + +<p>Miss Haddon glanced at him with a gay and +whimsical, but decidedly acute, scrutiny.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you are too young to be happy,” she +said; “you have not suffered enough.”</p> + +<p>“I have never been young,” he answered, eating +his devilled kidney with a silent pathos of perseverance—“never.”</p> + +<p>“And I shall never be old, or, at any rate, feel +old. It can't be done. I'm sixty-four, and look +it, but I can't cease to revel in details, take an interest +in people, and regard life as my half-opened +oyster. It is a pity one can't go on living till one +is two or three hundred or so. There is so much +to see and know. Our existence in the world is +like a day at the Stores. We have to go away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span> +before we have been into a quarter of the different +departments.”</p> + +<p>“I don't find life at all like that. I have seen +all the departments till I am sick of them. But +perhaps you never come to London?”</p> + +<p>“Every year for three months to see my +friends. I stay at an hotel. It is a most delightful +time.”</p> + +<p>Her tone was warm with pleasant memories. +Claude felt himself more and more surprised.</p> + +<p>“You enjoy the country, and London?” he +said.</p> + +<p>“I enjoy everything,” said Miss Haddon. “And +surely most people do.”</p> + +<p>“None of the people I know seem to enjoy +anything very much. They try everything, of +course. That is one's duty.”</p> + +<p>“Then the latest literature really reflects life, I +imagine,” Miss Haddon said. “If what you say +is true, everything includes the sins as well as the +virtues. I have often wondered whether the books +that I have thought utterly and absurdly false +could possibly be the outcome of facts.”</p> + +<p>“Such as what books?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I'll name no names. The authors may +be your personal friends. But it is so then? In +their search after happiness the people of to-day, +the moderns, give the warm shoulder to vice as +well as to virtue?”</p> + +<p>“They ignore nothing.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span></p> + +<p>“Not even duty?”</p> + +<p>“Our duty is to ourselves, and can never be +ignored.”</p> + +<p>Miss Haddon tapped a boiled egg very sharply +on its head with a spoon. She wondered if the +action were a performance of duty to herself or to +the egg.</p> + +<p>“That, I understand,” she remarked briskly, +“is the doctrine of what is called in London the +young decadent; and in the country—forgive me—sometimes +the young devil of the day.”</p> + +<p>“I am decadent, Miss Haddon,” Claude said +with a gentle pride that was not wholly ungraceful.</p> + +<p>The elderly lady swept him with a bright look +of fresh and healthy interest.</p> + +<p>“How exciting,” she exclaimed, after a moment's +decisive pause, but with a completely +natural air. “You are the first I have seen. For +Jimmy isn't one, is he?”</p> + +<p>“Jimmy! No. He plays football, and eats +cold roast beef and cheese for lunch.”</p> + +<p>“Do tell me—how does one do it?”</p> + +<p>She seemed intensely interested, and was merrily +munching an apple grown in one of her own +orchards.</p> + +<p>Claude raised his dark eyebrows.</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon?”</p> + +<p>“How does one become a decadent? I have +heard so much about you all, about your clever<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>ness, +and your clothes, and the things you write, +and draw, and smoke, and think, and—and +eat—”</p> + +<p>She seemed suddenly struck by a bright idea.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Mr Melville!” she exclaimed, leaning +forward behind the great silver urn, and darting at +him a glance of imploring earnestness, “will you +do me a favour? We are left to ourselves for a +whole week. Teach me, teach me to be a +decadent.”</p> + +<p>“But I thought you were going to teach me to +be yo—” Claude began, and stopped just in time. +“I mean—er—”</p> + +<p>He paused, and they gazed at each other. +There was meditation in the boy's eyes. He was +wondering seriously whether it would be possible +for an elderly spinster lady, of countrified morals +and rural procedure, to be decadent. She was +rather stout, too, and appeared painfully healthy.</p> + +<p>“Will you?” Miss Haddon breathed across the +urn and the teapot.</p> + +<p>“Well, we might try,” Claude answered doubtfully.</p> + +<p>He was remarking to himself:—</p> + +<p>“Poor, dear Jimmy! He certainly doesn't +understand his aunt!”</p> + +<p>She was murmuring in her mind: “I have +always heard they have no sense of humour!”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span></p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>“Mr Melville, Mr Melville,” cried Miss +Haddon's voice towards evening on the following +day, “the absinthe has arrived!”</p> + +<p>Claude came out languidly into the hall.</p> + +<p>“Has it?” he said dreamily.</p> + +<p>“Yes, and Paul Verlaine's poetry, and the blue +books—I mean the yellow books, and” (rummaging +in a just-opened parcel) “yes, here are two +novels by Catulle Mendez, and a box of those +rose-tipped cigarettes. Now, what ought I to do? +Shall we have some absinthe instead of our tea, or +what?”</p> + +<p>Claude looked at her with a momentary suspicion, +but her grey hair crowned an eager face +decorated with an honest expression. The suspicion +was lulled to rest.</p> + +<p>“We had better have our tea,” he answered +slowly. “I like my absinthe about an hour or so +before dinner.”</p> + +<p>“Very well. Tea, James, and muffins.”</p> + +<p>The butler retired with fat dignity, but wondering +not a little at the unusual vagaries of his mistress. +Miss Haddon and Claude, laden with +books, repaired to the drawing-room and sat down +by the fire. Claude placed himself, cross-legged, +upon a cushion on the floor. The box of rose-tipped +cigarettes was in his hand. Miss Haddon<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span> +regarded him expectantly from her sofa. Her +expression seemed continually exclaiming, “What's +to be done now?”</p> + +<p>The boy felt that this was not right, and endeavoured +gently to correct it.</p> + +<p>“Please try to be a little—a—”</p> + +<p>“Yes?”</p> + +<p>“A little more restrained,” he said. “What +we feel about life is that it should never be crude. +All extremes are crude.”</p> + +<p>“What—even extremes of wickedness?”</p> + +<p>He hesitated.</p> + +<p>“Well, certainly extremes of goodness, or +happiness, or anything of that kind. When one +comes to think of it seriously, happiness is really +absurd, is it not? Just consider how preposterous +what is called a happy face always looks, covered +with those dreadful, wrinkled things named smiles, +all the teeth showing, and so on. I know you +agree with me. Happiness drives all thought out +of a face, and distorts the features in a most painful +manner. When I go out walking on a Bank +Holiday, a thing I seldom do, I always think a +cheerful expression the most degrading of all expressions. +A contented clerk disfigures a whole +street—really.”</p> + +<p>Miss Haddon's appearance had gradually grown +very sombre during this speech, and she did not +brighten up on the approach of tea and muffins +on a wicker table whimsical with little shelves.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span></p> +<p>“Perhaps you are right,” she said. “I daresay +happiness is unreasonable. Ought I to sit on the +floor too?”</p> + +<p>Claude deprecated such an act on the part of his +hostess. Sitting on the floor was one of his pet +originalities, and he hated rivalry. Besides, Miss +Haddon was distinctly too stout for that sort of +thing.</p> + +<p>“I do it because I feel so Turkish,” he explained. +“Otherwise, it would be an assumption, +and not naïve. People make a great mistake in +fancying the decadent is unnatural. If anything, +he is too natural. He follows his whim. The +world only calls us natural when we do everything +we dislike. If Rossetti had played football every +Saturday, his poetry would have been much more +read in England than it has been. Yes, please, I +will have another muffin.”</p> + +<p>“But I think I feel Turkish too,” Miss Haddon +said calmly. “Yes, I am sure I do. I ought not +to resist it; ought I? Otherwise I shall be flying +in the face of your beautiful theories.” And she +squatted down on the floor at his elbow.</p> + +<p>Claude had a wonderful purple moment of acute +irritation, during which he felt strangely natural. +Miss Haddon did not appear to notice it. She +went on bombarding him with questions in a cheery +manner until he began to be rather ill, but her face +never lost its expression of grave sadness, a strange, +inexplicable melancholy that was not in the least<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> +Bank Holiday. The contrast between her expression +and her voice worried Claude, as an intelligent +pantaloon might worry a clown. He felt that +something was wrong. Either face or voice required +alteration. And then questions are like +death—extremely irksome. Besides, he found it +difficult to answer many of them, difficult to define +precisely the position of the decadent, his intentions +and his aims. It was no use to tell Miss +Haddon that he didn't possess either the one or +the other. Always with the same definitely sad +face, the same definitely cheerful voice, she declined +to believe him. He fidgeted on his cushion, +and his Turkish placidity threatened to be seriously +disturbed.</p> + +<p>The appearance of the absinthe created a diversion. +Claude arranged a glass of it, much diluted +with water, for the benefit of his hostess, and she +began to sip it with an air of determined reverence.</p> + +<p>“It tastes like the smell of a drag hunt,” she +said after a while.</p> + +<p>Claude's gently-lifted eyebrows proclaimed misapprehension.</p> + +<p>“When they drag a trail over a course and +satisfy the hounds with a dead rabbit at the end of +it,” she explained.</p> + +<p>“My dear lady,” he protested plaintively. +“Really, you do not grasp the inner meaning of +what you are drinking. Presently the most perfect +sensation will steal over you, a curious happy de<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>tachment +from everything, as if you were floating +in some exquisite element. You will not care +what happens, or what—”</p> + +<p>“But must I drink it all before I feel detached?” +she asked. “It's really so very nasty, quite disgusting +to the taste. Surely you think so.”</p> + +<p>“I drink it for its after-effect.”</p> + +<p>“Is it like a good act that costs us pain at the +moment, and gives us the pleasure of self-satisfaction +ultimately?”</p> + +<p>“I don't know,” the boy exclaimed abruptly. +To compare absinthe to a good act seemed to him +quite intolerable.</p> + +<p>He let his rose-tipped cigarette go out, and was +glad when the dressing gong sounded in the hall.</p> + +<p>Miss Haddon sprang up from the floor briskly.</p> + +<p>“I rather admire you for drinking this stuff,” she +said. “I am sure you do it to mortify the flesh. +A Lenten penance out of Lent is most invigorating +to the mind.”</p> + +<p>As Claude went up to dress, he felt as if he never +wished to touch absinthe again. The glitter of its +personality was dulled for him now that it was +looked upon as merely a nasty sort of medicine to +be indulged in as a mortification of the flesh, like +wearing a hair shirt, or rejecting meat on Fridays. +He found Miss Haddon painfully prosaic. It +seemed almost silly to be a decadent in her company. +To feel Turkish alone was graceful and +quaint, almost intellectual, but to have an old lady<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> +feeling Turkish, too, and squatting on the floor to +emphasise the sensation, was tragic, seemed to bring +imbecility very near. Claude dressed with unusual +agitation, and made a distinct failure of his tie.</p> + +<p>All through dinner Miss Haddon talked optimistically +about her prospects as a successful decadent, +much as if she were discussing her future on the +Stock Exchange, or as the editor of a paper. She +calculated that at her present rate of progress she +ought to be almost on a level with her guest by the +end of the week, and spoke hopefully of ceasing to +take any interest in the ordinary facts of life, of +learning a proper contempt for all healthy-minded +humanity, and of appreciating at its proper value +what seems to ordinary people, weak-kneed affection +in literature, in art, and, above all, in movement +and in appearance. Her bright eyes flashed +upon Claude beneath her crown of powdered hair, +as she talked, and the big room rang with her +jovial voice.</p> + +<p>The boy began to feel exceedingly confused. +Yet he had never been less bored. Miss Haddon +might be stout and sixty-four. Nevertheless, her +net personality was far less wearisome than that of +many a town-bred sylph. Unconsciously Claude +ate with a hearty appetite, indulged immoderately +in excellent roast beef, and even swallowed a +beautifully-cooked Spanish onion without thinking +of the committal of a crime. During dessert +Miss Haddon gave him a racy description of a rural<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span> +cricket match and of the supper and speeches which +followed it, and he found himself laughing heartily +and wishing he had been there. He pulled himself +up short with a sudden sensation of horror, +and his hostess rose to go into the drawing-room.</p> + +<p>“Shall we play Halma or Ek Bahr?” she asked; +“or would they be out of order? I wish particularly +to conform to all your tenets.”</p> + +<p>“Dear lady, please, we have no tenets,” he protested. +“Do remember that, or you will never +become what you wish. But I do not care for +any games.”</p> + +<p>“Then shall we sit down and each read a volume +of the ‘Yellow Book’?”</p> + +<p>She hastened towards a table to find copies of +that work, but something in her brisk and anxious +movement caused Claude to exclaim hurriedly:</p> + +<p>“Please—please teach me Halma.”</p> + +<p>That night he went up to bed flushed with +triumph.</p> + +<p>Miss Haddon had allowed him to win a couple +of games. Never before had he felt so absolutely +certain of the unusual acuteness of his intellect.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>Three days later, Miss Haddon and Claude +Melville were feeding chickens—under protest.</p> + +<p>“I mean to give it up, of course,” the former<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> +said. “It's a degrading pursuit; it's almost as +bad as the ‘things that Jimmy does,’ the things +that give him such a marvellous complexion and +keep his figure so magnificent.”</p> + +<p>She threw a handful of grain to the frenzied +denizens of the enlarged meat-safe before them, +and added in a tone of pensive reflectiveness:</p> + +<p>“Why is it, I wonder, that these actions which, +as you have taught me, are unworthy of thinking +people, tend to make the body so beautiful, the +eyes so bright and clear, the cheeks rose-tinted, the +limbs straight and supple?”</p> + +<p>All the time that she was speaking her glance +crept musingly over Claude's tall, but weak-looking +and rather flaccid form, seeming to pause on +his thin undeveloped arms, his lanky legs, and his +slightly yellow face. That face began to flush. +She sighed.</p> + +<p>“There must be something radically wrong in +the scheme of the universe,” she continued. “But, +of course, one ought to live for the mind and for +subtle sensations, even though they do make one +look an object.”</p> + +<p>Her eyes were on the chickens now, who were +fighting like feathered furies, pouncing, clucking, +running for safety, grain in beak, or, with a fiery +anxiety, chasing the favoured brethren who had +secured a morsel and were hoping to be permitted +to swallow it. Claude glanced at her furtively +out of the corner of his eye, and endeavoured,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> +for the first time in his life, to stand erect and +broaden his rather narrow chest.</p> + +<p>Silently he resolved to give instructions to his +tailor not to spare the padding in his future coats. +He was glad, too, that knee-breeches, for which +he had occasionally sighed, had not come into +fashion again. After all, modern dress had its +little advantages. Miss Haddon was still scattering +grain, rather in the attitude of Millet's +“<i>Sower</i>,” and still talking reflectively.</p> + +<p>“We must try to convert Jimmy,” she said. +“I have a good deal of influence over him, Mr +Melville. We must try to make him more like you, +more thoughtful, more inactive, more frankly sensual, +more fond of sofas, in the future than he has been +in the past. Do you know, I am ashamed to say it, +but I don't believe I have ever seen Jimmy lying +on a sofa. Poor Jimmy! Look at that hen! She +is choking. Hens gulp their food so! And then, +he's inclined to be persistently unselfish. That +must be stopped too. I have learnt from you that +to be decadent one must be acutely and untiringly +selfish. The blessings of selfishness! What a +volume might be written upon them! Mr Melville, +all chickens must be decadent, for all chickens are +entirely selfish. It is strange to think that the +average fowl is more advanced in ethics—is it +ethics I mean?—than the average man or woman, +is it not? And we ate a decadent at dinner last +night. I feel almost like a cannibal.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span></p> +<p>She threw away the last grain, and was silent. +But suddenly Claude spoke.</p> + +<p>“Miss Haddon,” he said, and his voice had +never sounded so boyish to her before, “you have +been laughing at me for nearly a week.” He +paused, then he went on, rather unevenly, in the +up-and-down tones induced by stifled excitement, +“and I have never found it out until this moment. +I suppose you think me a great fool. I daresay +I have been one. But please don't—I mean, +please let us give up acting our farce.”</p> + +<p>“But have we reached the third act?” she +said.</p> + +<p>They were walking through the garden, among +the crocuses and violets now.</p> + +<p>“I am sure I don't know,” he answered, trying +to seem easy. “Perhaps it is a farce in one act.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps it is not a farce at all, my dear boy,” +she said very gently and with a sudden old-world +gravity that was not without its grace.</p> + +<p>They reached the house. She put her basket +down on the oak table in the wide hall, and faced +him in the eager way that was natural to her, and +that was so youthful.</p> + +<p>“Mr Melville—Claude,” she said, as she held +out her hand, clad in a very countrified brown glove, +with a fan-like gauntlet, “of all Jimmy's friends +I think I shall like you the best. People who have +acted together ought to be good comrades.”</p> + +<p>He took the hand. That seemed necessary.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span></p> + +<p>“But I haven't been acting,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, you have,” she answered, “and I +have only been on the stage for a week; while +you—well, I suppose you have been on it for at +least two or three years. I am taking my farewell +of it this morning, and you—?”</p> + +<p>The boy's face was deeply flushed, but he did +not look, or feel, actually angry.</p> + +<p>“I don't know about myself yet,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Think it all over,” the old lady exclaimed. +“And now let us have lunch. I am hungry.”</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>Jimmy arrived that evening.</p> + +<p>“How old are you, Claude?” he exclaimed, +clapping his friend on the back.</p> + +<p>“I am not sure,” Claude replied. “But I +almost begin to wish that I were sixty-four.”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342"><br />[342]</a></span></p> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343"><br /><br />[343]</a></span></p> + +<h2>THE TEE-TO-TUM</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p><span class="smcap">Jack Burnham</span> was quite determined not to +marry Mrs Lorton, and if there was one thing in +the world upon which she had rigidly set her heart +it was upon refusing him. There were several +things about her which he deliberately disliked. In +the first place, she was a widow, and he always had +an uneasy suspicion that widows, like dynamite, +were mysteriously dangerous. Then her Christian +name was Harriet, and she never took afternoon +tea. The former of these two facts indicated, +according to his ideas, that her parents were people +of bad taste, the latter that she possessed notions +that were against nature. Also, she was well informed, +and knew it. This condition of the mind, +he considered, should be the blessed birthright of +the male sex, and he looked upon her as an usurper. +She didn't wear mourning, which implied that she +was forgetful—of dead husbands. Then—well, +that was about all he had against her, and it was +quite enough.</p> + +<p>As for her, the whole nature of her protested +eloquently against the way he waxed his moustache, +against the colour of his brown hair, and of his<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span> +brown boots, against his lounging gait, and his +opinion of Mr Gladstone. He had a certain arrogance +about him, when with her, which arose in +truth from his fear of her intellectual prowess. +This led her to dub him intolerably conceited. She +desired to humble him, and considered that she +could best do so by refusing his offer of marriage. +But she must first persuade him to propose. That +was the difficulty.</p> + +<p>They were constantly meeting in London. You +always constantly meet your enemies in London. +And, when they met, they always devoted a great +deal of time to the advancement of the tacit and +polite quarrel between them. They argued with +one another in Hyde Park on fine mornings, and +were really disgusted with one another at dinner +parties and “At Homes.” He thought her fast—at +balls; and she had once considered him blatant—at +a Marlborough House garden party. This +last fact, indeed, put the coping stone to the feud +between them, for Mrs Lorton expressed her +opinion to a friend, and Burnham, of course, got to +know of it. To be thought blatant at Marlborough +House was really intolerable. One might as well +be pronounced to have had a heathen air at Lambeth +Palace.</p> + +<p>Distinctly, Jack Burnham and Harriet Lorton +were acutely antagonistic.</p> + +<p>Yet, there must surely have been some strange, +unknown link of sympathy between them, for they<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> +both caught the influenza on the same day—it +was a Sunday morning—and both permitted it to +develop into double pneumonia.</p> + +<p>After all, spar as we may, are we not all brothers +and sisters?</p> + +<p>The double pneumonia ought to have drawn +them together; but, as he lived in Piccadilly and she +in Queen's Gate, and each was thoroughly self-centred—nothing +produces egoism so certainly as +influenza—neither knew of the illness of the other.</p> + +<p>Providence denied to both that subtle joy, and +they got to the mutton chop and chipped potato +stage of convalescence in childlike ignorance of +each other's misfortune.</p> + +<p>There must certainly have been a curious community +of mind between them, for both their doctors +ordered them to Margate, and they both took +rooms at Westgate. Now a similar taste in seaside +places is undoubtedly an excellent foundation for +eternal friendship. Let the world crumble in atoms, +two people who both like Westgate will still find +something to talk about amid the confusion occasioned +by the dissolution of kingdoms.</p> + +<p>Jack Burnham arrived at the St Mildred's Hotel +on a Thursday, with his man.</p> + +<p>Harriet Lorton came on the following Friday, +with her maid.</p> + +<p>Neither had any notion of the other's proceedings +until they met back to back, as you shall presently +hear.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span></p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>In ordinary circumstances of health and vigour, +Burnham and Mrs Lorton possessed dispositions +of quite singular vivacity, looked upon life as a +fairly good, if rather practical joke, and were fully +disposed to consider happiness their <i>métier</i>. Being +modern, they sometimes concealed their original +gaiety, as if it were original sin, and pretended to +a cruel cynicism; yet at heart, it must be confessed, +they were as lively as poor children playing +in the street. But when they went to Westgate, +influenza had had its fill of them, and the infinite +pathos of the world, and of all that is therein, +appealed to them with a seizing vitality. Burnham, +on the Thursday, was moved to tears at Birchington +Station by the sight of a mother and eleven +children missing the last train to Margate. Harriet +Lorton, on the following Friday, had hysterics at +Victoria, when she perceived a young lady drop a +cage containing a grey parrot, and smash the bird's +china bath upon the platform. The fact that the +parrot had been actually taking its bath at the +moment, and was left by the misfortune in much +confusion and no water, struck her so poignantly +as nearly to break her heart. She wept in a first-class +carriage all the way down, and arrived at +Westgate, towards ten o'clock, in a state of complete +collapse.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mr Burnham was in bed drinking a cup of +soup at this time. He heard the luggage being +carried up, but did not suspect whose it was. +Nevertheless, the ravages of disease led him to +consider the slight noise and bustle a personal +insult, and he lay awake most of the night brooding +upon the wrongs of which he, erroneously, believed +himself to be the victim.</p> + +<p>It was on the next morning that the two invalids +met back to back in a shelter with glass partitions +upon the lawn.</p> + +<p>Mrs Lorton, smothered in wraps, had taken up +her position on the bench that faces Westgate +without noticing a bowed and ulstered figure, shod +in brown boots, sitting in a haggard posture on the +reciprocal bench that faces the sea. Nobody was +about, for it was not the season, and Mrs Lorton +began slowly to weep on account of the loneliness. +It struck her disordered fancy as so personal. +Creation was sending her to Coventry. At her +back the tears ran over Burnham's handsome countenance. +He was staring at the sea, and thinking +of all the people who had been drowned in water +since the days of the Deluge. He wondered how +many there were, and cried copiously, considering +himself absolutely alone and free to give vent to his +feelings, which struck him as splendidly human.</p> + +<p>When two people weep together one of them +usually weeps louder than the other, and, on this +occasion, Burnham made the most noise. He<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> +became, in fact, so uproariously solicitous about +the drowned men and women whom he had never +known that Mrs Lorton gradually was made aware +of the presence of another mourner who was not +a mute. She turned round and beheld a back convulsed +with emotion. Its grief went straight to +her heart, and, casting her own sorrow and her +sense of etiquette to the wind—which blew +bracingly from the north-east—she tapped upon +the glass screen that bisected the shelter.</p> + +<p>Burnham took no notice. He was too deeply +involved in grief. So Mrs Lorton knocked again, +with all the vigour that incipient convalescence +gave to her. This time Burnham was startled, and +turned a hollow face upon her. They stared at +each other through the intervening glass for a +moment in wild surprise, the tears congealing upon +their cheeks.</p> + +<p>Beyond Burnham Mrs Lorton saw the whirling +white foam of the sea. Beyond Mrs Lorton +Burnham saw the neat villas of Westgate. It +struck them both as a tremendous moment, and +they trembled.</p> + +<p>Remember that they were very weak.</p> + +<p>At last he, conceiving naturally that she had +recognised and desired to summon him, walked +slowly round to her side of the shelter, and held +out to her a wavering hand.</p> + +<p>“Good heavens!” he ejaculated. “The last +person I—”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span></p> +<p>“You!” said Mrs Lorton. “How astonishing! +What on earth—”</p> + +<p>He seized the opening she gave him with all the +ardour of the whole-souled influenza patient.</p> + +<p>“I have been ill,” he said with a deep pathos, +“very, very ill. My symptoms were most extraordinary.”</p> + +<p>He sank down heavily at her side, and continued, +“I doubt if any one has endured such agony +before. It began on a Sunday with—”</p> + +<p>“So did mine,” Mrs Lorton interrupted with +some show of determination. “You cannot conceive +what it was like. I had pains in every limb, +every limb positively. The doctor—”</p> + +<p>“Of course I went straight to bed,” he remarked +with firmness. “I knew at once what +was wrong. But mine was no ordinary case. +Talk of thumbscrews! Why—”</p> + +<p>“For nights I tossed in agony,” she went on +with a poignant self-pity, so much engrossed that +she never noticed the brown boots which on other +occasions had so deeply offended her. “Morphia +and eucalyptus were no—”</p> + +<p>“He said it was pneumonia, double pneumonia,” +Burnham concluded emphatically. “How +I came through it I shall never know.” His +smile at this point was wan, and seemed to +deprecate existence. “I suppose there is still +some work for me to do. At the same time, +I—”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span></p> +<p>“Mine was also double!” Mrs Lorton said with +distinct tartness, condemning privately his arrogance, +and noticing the boots with a strange feeling +of sudden and unutterable despair.</p> + +<p>“It is all so much worse for a woman,” she +added vaguely, with some idea of out-doing him, +such as she had felt once or twice at dinner parties, +when her epigrams had been smarter than his.</p> + +<p>“The strong possess a greater capacity for suffering +than the weak,” Burnham retorted. “Medical +science tells us that—”</p> + +<p>“Please spare me the revelations of the dissecting-room,” +she cried bitterly; “I am in no condition +to bear them.”</p> + +<p>She glanced at him with pathetic eyes, and +added, “I ought to have gone to Margate.”</p> + +<p>“I ought to have gone there too,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Really, you make the conversation sound like +one of Maeterlinck's plays,” she rejoined. “Do be +more original.”</p> + +<p>The reproach cut him to the heart. He never +knew why, but he felt so much injured that he +with great difficulty restrained his tears.</p> + +<p>“Women can be very brutal,” he said moodily, +biting his lips, and wondering how many authors +it was necessary to read in order never to be at a +disadvantage with a clever woman.</p> + +<p>Mrs Lorton was conscious that she had hurt +him, and instead of being her nice, natural self and +glorying in the fact, she experienced a sense of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span> +profound pity that gave her quite a tightened +feeling about the left side. However, she only +said, “Men can be very selfish”—a generality +that many people consider as convincing as a +bomb—and got up to go.</p> + +<p>“I am staying at the St Mildred's,” she remarked. +“It is the dull season, so I am the only +person there at present.”</p> + +<p>“I beg your pardon,” Burnham said, also getting +upon his feet, “I am there too. My number is 12 +and I have a private sitting-room. I do not feel +up to the coffee-room yet.”</p> + +<p>Mrs Lorton turned as pale as ashes with vexation. +She had no private sitting-room, and had +ordered dinner in the coffee-room for that very +evening.</p> + +<p>She felt herself at a disadvantage as they walked +in a gloomy silence towards the beach.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>Three days had passed away, and Jack Burnham +had found that he was, in his own phrase, “up to +the coffee-room” after all. In consequence, Mrs +Lorton and he dined there every evening at separate +tables. A sense of rivalry—and there is no +rivalry more keen than that between contesting +invalids—prevented both of them from eating as +much as they would have liked. When the widow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span> +refused a course, Burnham shook his head at it +wearily, and they rose from their meals in a state +of passionate hunger, which they solaced with captain's +biscuits in the seclusion of their bedrooms. +Since they had Westgate almost to themselves, +and the weather was becoming bright and warm, +they were much out of doors; but their profound +depression still continued, and they were as morbid +human beings as Max Nordau could have desired +to meet with when he was seeking for specimens +of degeneration.</p> + +<p>Their continual greedy anxiety to narrate the +details of their physical and mental sensations drove +them to seek one another's company, and soon it +became an understood thing that they should sit +together on the lawn or in the winter garden during +the morning, and stroll feebly in the direction +of Margate during the breezy afternoon.</p> + +<p>These times were times of battle, of a struggle +for supremacy in symptoms that led to much heart +searching and to infinite exaggeration. Mrs Lorton, +being a woman, generally got the best of it, +and Burnham entered the hotel at tea-time with +set teeth, and an appalling sense of injustice and of +failure in his breast. One night at dinner, determined +to conquer or to die, he refused everything +but soup; and noted, with a grim satisfaction, that +Mrs Lorton could hardly contain her chagrin at +having inadvertently devoured a cutlet and a spoonful +of jelly. Indeed, her temper was so much<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> +upset by this occurrence that she went straight to +bed on leaving the coffee-room, and sent down a +message the next morning to say that she was far +too ill to venture out.</p> + +<p>Burnham, therefore, sat in the shelter alone, +cursing the craft of woman. In the intervals between +the cursings he was conscious of a certain +loneliness that seemed to be in the atmosphere. +It hovered with the seagulls above the sprightly +waves, swept over the lawn hand in hand with the +wind, basked in the sunshine, and companioned +him closely upon the esplanade as he walked home +to lunch. He was puzzled by it.</p> + +<p>At lunch-time Mrs Lorton was still confined to +bed, so her maid announced. Burnham promptly +began to wonder whether she was going to die. +He strolled towards Margate wondering, and found +himself presently in the sunset, gazing with tears +in his eyes at the silhouette of Margate Pier, and, +mentally, placing a reverent tribute of flowers from +Covent Garden upon her early grave in Brompton +Cemetery.</p> + +<p>He also found himself, later, dropping a tear at +the thought of his own death, for of course with +his weak health he could not hope to outlive anybody +for very long. Mrs Lorton's absence at +dinner struck him as more pathetic than all the +misery of the travailing universe, until he remembered +that at last he could gratify his appetite, and +even accept two <i>entrées</i> at the hands of the waiter.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span></p> + +<p>Life, if it is full of sorrows, is also full of consolations.</p> + +<p>He ate steadily for a couple of hours, pitying +himself all the time.</p> + +<p>Next day Mrs Lorton re-appeared in a very bad +temper. Her seclusion, although it had enabled +her to score several points off her rival, had been +in other respects wearisome and vexatious. She +barely nodded to Burnham, and went out towards +the shelter alone. He followed furtively, longing, +as usual, for condolence, and presently saw her +seat herself facing the sea. The strained relations +between them seemed to forbid his placing himself +at her side. The back-to-back posture would be +more illustrative of the exact position of affairs, +and Burnham's nicety and accuracy of mind induced +him accordingly to face Westgate. Their +positions of the first day were thus reversed. She +looked at the sea; he stared at the villas. Strange +turmoil of life, in which we never know which +way we shall be facing next! It struck Burnham +suddenly, and so forcibly, <i>à propos</i> of his and Mrs +Lorton's reversal, that the ready tears sprang to +his eyes. How would it all end? Man spins about +like a tee-to-tum, bowing to all points of the compass. +The time comes when the tee-to-tum runs +down—and what then? Burnham was certainly +run down. That must be his excuse for what he +did. He glanced behind him through the glass +screen, and saw by the motion of Mrs Lorton's back<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> +that she was sobbing. In truth, the sight of the +dancing waves had set her thinking of all the poor +people who have been drowned in water since the +beginning of things. Poor dead folk! She was +trembling with emotion, and still wept mechanically +when she found Mr Burnham on her side of +the shelter proposing to her with all his might and +main. He was asking her to comfort him, to be +a true woman and shield him with her strength, +to support his tottering footsteps along the rugged +ways of life, to dry his tears and stay the agonies +of his shaken soul.</p> + +<p>“Your health will help my weakness,” he said. +“Your vigour will teach me to be strong.”</p> + +<p>It was a strange proposal, and she began to +defend herself from his imputations, stating her +maladies, marshalling her symptoms of decay in an +imposing procession.</p> + +<p>But it was no good. He had taken her unawares +and got the start of her. She felt it, and +his determined weakness obtained a power over +her which she could never afterwards explain.</p> + +<p>His influenza triumphed, for she forgot her resolution.</p> + +<p>A wave of morbid pity for him swept over +the woman in her. If he was disorganised now, +what would be his condition if she refused +him?</p> + +<p>“Have I the right,” she asked herself, “to devote +a fellow-creature to everlasting misery?”</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span></p> + +<p>Her influenza told her plainly that she had not.</p> + +<hr style="width: 45%;" /> + +<p>People say that the marriage will really come off.</p> + +<p>Jack Burnham announced it everywhere before +Mrs Lorton got thoroughly well, and Mrs Lorton +told everybody while Jack Burnham was still what +his friends called “awfully dicky.”</p> + +<p>One can but hope that their married life will be +passed on the same side of the shelter. If he +persists in facing the sea, and she in staring at the +villas—well, they will live most of Ibsen's plays!</p> + +<p>But at least they will be modern.</p> + +<p>And so the tee-to-tum, thought of pathetically +by Burnham on a memorable occasion, spins round, +and the sea and the villas are the two aspects of +life.</p> + +<p id="end"> </p> + +<div class="tn"> + +<p>Transcriber's note:</p> + +<p>Inconsistent hyphenation has been retained.</p> + +<p>Duplicate title headings at +the beginning of the book and before each story have been removed.</p> + +<p>The following corrections were made to the text:</p> +<ul> +<li><a href="#Page_267">p. 267</a>: missing period added (danced merrily.)</li> +<li><a href="#Page_325">p. 325</a>: single close quote to double close quote (“I hope you will not be bored,”)</li> +<li><a href="#Page_328">p. 328</a>: healthly to healthy (fresh and healthy interest)</li> +<li><a href="#Page_331">p. 331</a>: be to he (“A little more restrained,” he said.)</li> +<li><a href="#Page_349">p. 349</a>: paragraph break removed after comma (and continued, +“I doubt if any one)</li> +</ul> +</div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BYE-WAYS***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 33040-h.txt or 33040-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/3/0/4/33040">http://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/0/4/33040</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + + + +<pre> +*** 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 +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/license">http://www.gutenberg.org/license)</a>. + + +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 are 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.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +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. 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://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +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://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf + +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://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/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. + +Each eBook is in a subdirectory of the same number as the eBook's +eBook number, often in several formats including plain vanilla ASCII, +compressed (zipped), HTML and others. + +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks replace the old file and take over +the old filename and etext number. The replaced older file is renamed. +VERSIONS based on separate sources are treated as new eBooks receiving +new filenames and etext numbers. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org">http://www.gutenberg.org</a> + +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. + +EBooks posted prior to November 2003, with eBook numbers BELOW #10000, +are filed in directories based on their release date. If you want to +download any of these eBooks directly, rather than using the regular +search system you may utilize the following addresses and just +download by the etext year. + +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext06/</a> + + (Or /etext 05, 04, 03, 02, 01, 00, 99, + 98, 97, 96, 95, 94, 93, 92, 92, 91 or 90) + +EBooks posted since November 2003, with etext numbers OVER #10000, are +filed in a different way. The year of a release date is no longer part +of the directory path. The path is based on the etext number (which is +identical to the filename). The path to the file is made up of single +digits corresponding to all but the last digit in the filename. For +example an eBook of filename 10234 would be found at: + +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/0/2/3/10234 + +or filename 24689 would be found at: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/4/6/8/24689 + +An alternative method of locating eBooks: +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL">http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/GUTINDEX.ALL</a> + +*** END: FULL LICENSE *** +</pre> +</body> +</html> |