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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/59165-0.zip b/59165-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index d590f24..0000000 --- a/59165-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/59165-h.zip b/59165-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 0c9e375..0000000 --- a/59165-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..813d53a --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #59165 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59165) diff --git a/old/59165-0.txt b/old/59165-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ea53173..0000000 --- a/old/59165-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8253 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook, Uncanny Stories, by May Sinclair, Illustrated -by Jean de Bosschère - - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - - -Title: Uncanny Stories - Where Their Fire is Not Quenched; The Token; The Flaw in the Crystal; The Nature of the Evidence; If the Dead Knew; The Victim; The Finding of the Absolute - - -Author: May Sinclair - - - -Release Date: March 31, 2019 [eBook #59165] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - - -***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCANNY STORIES*** - - -E-text prepared by Roger Frank and Sue Clark from page images digitized by -the Google Books Library Project (https://books.google.com) and generously -made available by HathiTrust Digital Library (https://www.hathitrust.org/) - - - -Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this - file which includes the original illustrations. - See 59165-h.htm or 59165-h.zip: - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59165/59165-h/59165-h.htm) - or - (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/59165/59165-h.zip) - - - Images of the original pages are available through - HathiTrust Digital Library. See - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4088979;view=1up;seq=27 - - - - - -UNCANNY STORIES - - -[Illustration: “A terrified bird flew out of the hedge ...”] - - -UNCANNY STORIES - -by - -May Sinclair - -Author of “Anne Severn and the Fieldings,” etc. - -Illustrations by Jean de Bosschère - - - - - - - -London: Hutchinson & Co. -Paternoster Row - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - CONTENTS - - Where their Fire is not Quenched - The Token - The Flaw in the Crystal - The Nature of the Evidence - If the Dead Knew - The Victim - The Finding of the Absolute - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS - - A terrified bird flew out of the hedge ... - Then, suddenly the room began to come apart ... - ... each held there by the other’s fear - ... moving slowly, like figures in some monstrous and appalling dance - “I’ve told you not to touch my things” - ... her face was turned to Donald ... - He stepped forward, opening his arms - And she wondered whether really she would find him well - “I saw the Powells at the station” - Milly opened a door on the left - “No place ever will be strange when It’s there” - ... he stood for a moment in the open doorway ... - ... stretching out her arms to keep him back - ... drew itself after him along the floor - ... her whole body listened ... - The apparition maintained itself with difficulty - Then all of a sudden she had burst out crying ... - Steven waited with his hand on the tap ... - It stood close against the window, looking in - ... the figure became clear and solid ... - “_Now_ he’s coming alive—” - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - UNCANNY STORIES - - - - - WHERE THEIR FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED - - -There was nobody in the orchard. Harriott Leigh went out, carefully, -through the iron gate into the field. She had made the latch slip into -its notch without a sound. - -The path slanted widely up the field from the orchard gate to the stile -under the elder tree. George Waring waited for her there. - -Years afterwards, when she thought of George Waring she smelt the sweet, -hot, wine-scent of the elder flowers. Years afterwards, when she smelt -elder flowers she saw George Waring, with his beautiful, gentle face, -like a poet’s or a musician’s, his black-blue eyes, and sleek, -olive-brown hair. He was a naval lieutenant. - -Yesterday he had asked her to marry him and she had consented. But her -father hadn’t, and she had come to tell him that and say good-bye before -he left her. His ship was to sail the next day. - -He was eager and excited. He couldn’t believe that anything could stop -their happiness, that anything he didn’t want to happen could happen. - -“Well?” he said. - -“He’s a perfect beast, George. He won’t let us. He says we’re too -young.” - -“I was twenty last August,” he said, aggrieved. - -[Illustration] - -“And I shall be seventeen in September.” - -“And this is June. We’re quite old, really. How long does he mean us to -wait?” - -“Three years.” - -“Three years before we can be engaged even— Why, we might be dead.” - -She put her arms round him to make him feel safe. They kissed; and the -sweet, hot, wine-scent of the elder flowers mixed with their kisses. -They stood, pressed close together, under the elder tree. - -Across the yellow fields of charlock they heard the village clock strike -seven. Up in the house a gong clanged. - -“Darling, I must go,” she said. - -“Oh stay—Stay _five_ minutes.” - -He pressed her close. It lasted five minutes, and five more. Then he was -running fast down the road to the station, while Harriott went along the -field-path, slowly, struggling with her tears. - -“He’ll be back in three months,” she said. “I can live through three -months.” - -But he never came back. There was something wrong with the engines of -his ship, the _Alexandra_. Three weeks later she went down in the -Mediterranean, and George with her. - -Harriott said she didn’t care how soon she died now. She was quite sure -it would be soon, because she couldn’t live without him. - -Five years passed. - -[Illustration] - -The two lines of beech trees stretched on and on, the whole length of -the Park, a broad green drive between. When you came to the middle they -branched off right and left in the form of a cross, and at the end of -the right arm there was a white stucco pavilion with pillars and a -three-cornered pediment like a Greek temple. At the end of the left arm, -the west entrance to the Park, double gates and a side door. - -Harriott, on her stone seat at the back of the pavilion, could see -Stephen Philpotts the very minute he came through the side door. - -He had asked her to wait for him there. It was the place he always chose -to read his poems aloud in. The poems were a pretext. She knew what he -was going to say. And she knew what she would answer. - -There were elder bushes in flower at the back of the pavilion, and -Harriott thought of George Waring. She told herself that George was -nearer to her now than he could ever have been, living. If she married -Stephen she would not be unfaithful, because she loved him with another -part of herself. It was not as though Stephen were taking George’s -place. She loved Stephen with her soul, in an unearthly way. - -But her body quivered like a stretched wire when the door opened and the -young man came towards her down the drive under the beech trees. - -She loved him; she loved his slenderness, his darkness and sallow -whiteness, his black eyes lighting up with the intellectual flame, the -way his black hair swept back from his forehead, the way he walked, -tiptoe, as if his feet were lifted with wings. - -He sat down beside her. She could see his hands tremble. She felt that -her moment was coming; it had come. - -“I wanted to see you alone because there’s something I must say to you. -I don’t quite know how to begin....” - -Her lips parted. She panted lightly. - -“You’ve heard me speak of Sybill Foster?” - -Her voice came stammering, “N-no, Stephen. Did you?” - -“Well, I didn’t mean to, till I knew it was all right. I only heard -yesterday.” - -“Heard what?” - -“Why, that she’ll have me. Oh, Harriott—do you know what it’s like to be -terribly happy?” - -She knew. She had known just now, the moment before he told her. She sat -there, stone-cold and stiff, listening to his raptures; listening to her -own voice saying she was glad. - -Ten years passed. - - * * * * * - -Harriott Leigh sat waiting in the drawing-room of a small house in Maida -Vale. She had lived there ever since her father’s death two years -before. - -She was restless. She kept on looking at the clock to see if it was -four, the hour that Oscar Wade had appointed. She was not sure that he -would come, after she had sent him away yesterday. - -She now asked herself, why, when she had sent him away yesterday, she -had let him come to-day. Her motives were not altogether clear. If she -really meant what she had said then, she oughtn’t to let him come to her -again. Never again. - -She had shown him plainly what she meant. She could see herself, sitting -very straight in her chair, uplifted by a passionate integrity, while he -stood before her, hanging his head, ashamed and beaten; she could feel -again the throb in her voice as she kept on saying that she couldn’t, -she couldn’t; he must see that she couldn’t; that no, nothing would make -her change her mind; she couldn’t forget he had a wife; that he must -think of Muriel. - -To which he had answered savagely: “I needn’t. That’s all over. We only -live together for the look of the thing.” - -And she, serenely, with great dignity: “And for the look of the thing, -Oscar, we must leave off seeing each other. Please go.” - -“Do you mean it?” - -“Yes. We must never see each other again.” - -And he had gone then, ashamed and beaten. - -She could see him, squaring his broad shoulders to meet the blow. And -she was sorry for him. She told herself she had been unnecessarily hard. -Why shouldn’t they see each other again, now he understood where they -must draw the line? Until yesterday the line had never been very clearly -drawn. To-day she meant to ask him to forget what he had said to her. -Once it was forgotten, they could go on being friends as if nothing had -happened. - -It was four o’clock. Half-past. Five. She had finished tea and given him -up when, between the half-hour and six o’clock, he came. - -[Illustration] - -He came as he had come a dozen times, with his measured, deliberate, -thoughtful tread, carrying himself well braced, with a sort of held-in -arrogance, his great shoulders heaving. He was a man of about forty, -broad and tall, lean-flanked and short-necked, his straight, handsome -features showing small and even in the big square face and in the flush -that swamped it. The close-clipped, reddish-brown moustache bristled -forwards from the pushed-out upper lip. His small, flat eyes shone, -reddish-brown, eager and animal. - -She liked to think of him when he was not there, but always at the first -sight of him she felt a slight shock. Physically, he was very far from -her admired ideal. So different from George Waring and Stephen -Philpotts. - -He sat down, facing her. - -There was an embarrassed silence, broken by Oscar Wade. - -“Well, Harriott, you said I could come.” He seemed to be throwing the -responsibility on her. - -“So I suppose you’ve forgiven me,” he said. - -“Oh, yes, Oscar, I’ve forgiven you.” - -He said she’d better show it by coming to dine with him somewhere that -evening. - -She could give no reason to herself for going. She simply went. - -He took her to a restaurant in Soho. Oscar Wade dined well, even -extravagantly, giving each dish its importance. She liked his -extravagance. He had none of the mean virtues. - -It was over. His flushed, embarrassed silence told her what he was -thinking. But when he had seen her home he left her at her garden gate. -He had thought better of it. - -She was not sure whether she were glad or sorry. She had had her moment -of righteous exaltation and she had enjoyed it. But there was no joy in -the weeks that followed it. She had given up Oscar Wade because she -didn’t want him very much; and now she wanted him furiously, perversely, -because she had given him up. Though he had no resemblance to her ideal, -she couldn’t live without him. - -She dined with him again and again, till she knew Schnebler’s Restaurant -by heart, the white panelled walls picked out with gold; the white -pillars, and the curling gold fronds of their capitals; the Turkey -carpets, blue and crimson, soft under her feet; the thick crimson velvet -cushions, that clung to her skirts; the glitter of silver and glass on -the innumerable white circles of the tables. And the faces of the -diners, red, white, pink, brown, grey and sallow, distorted and excited; -the curled mouths that twisted as they ate; the convoluted electric -bulbs pointing, pointing down at them, under the red, crinkled shades. -All shimmering in a thick air that the red light stained as wine stains -water. - -And Oscar’s face, flushed with his dinner. Always, when he leaned back -from the table and brooded in silence she knew what he was thinking. His -heavy eyelids would lift; she would find his eyes fixed on hers, -wondering, considering. - -She knew now what the end would be. She thought of George Waring, and -Stephen Philpotts, and of her life, cheated. She hadn’t chosen Oscar, -she hadn’t really wanted him; but now he had forced himself on her she -couldn’t afford to let him go. Since George died no man had loved her, -no other man ever would. And she was sorry for him when she thought of -him going from her, beaten and ashamed. - -She was certain, before he was, of the end. Only she didn’t know when -and where and how it would come. That was what Oscar knew. - -It came at the close of one of their evenings when they had dined in a -private sitting-room. He said he couldn’t stand the heat and noise of -the public restaurant. - -She went before him, up a steep, red-carpeted stair to a white door on -the second landing. - -From time to time they repeated the furtive, hidden adventure. Sometimes -she met him in the room above Schnebler’s. Sometimes, when her maid was -out, she received him at her house in Maida Vale. But that was -dangerous, not to be risked too often. - -Oscar declared himself unspeakably happy. Harriott was not quite sure. -This was love, the thing she had never had, that she had dreamed of, -hungered and thirsted for; but now she had it she was not satisfied. -Always she looked for something just beyond it, some mystic, heavenly -rapture, always beginning to come, that never came. There was something -about Oscar that repelled her. But because she had taken him for her -lover, she couldn’t bring herself to admit that it was a certain -coarseness. She looked another way and pretended it wasn’t there. To -justify herself, she fixed her mind on his good qualities, his -generosity, his strength, the way he had built up his engineering -business. She made him take her over his works and show her his great -dynamos. She made him lend her the books he read. But always, when she -tried to talk to him, he let her see that _that_ wasn’t what she was -there for. - -“My dear girl, we haven’t time,” he said. “It’s waste of our priceless -moments.” - -She persisted. “There’s something wrong about it all if we can’t talk to -each other.” - -He was irritated. “Women never seem to consider that a man can get all -the talk he wants from other men. What’s wrong is our meeting in this -unsatisfactory way. We ought to live together. It’s the only sane thing. -I would, only I don’t want to break up Muriel’s home and make her -miserable.” - -“I thought you said she wouldn’t care.” - -“My dear, she cares for her home and her position and the children. You -forget the children.” - -Yes. She had forgotten the children. She had forgotten Muriel. She had -left off thinking of Oscar as a man with a wife and children and a home. - -He had a plan. His mother-in-law was coming to stay with Muriel in -October and he would get away. He would go to Paris, and Harriott should -come to him there. He could say he went on business. No need to lie -about it; he _had_ business in Paris. - -He engaged rooms in an hotel in the rue de Rivoli. They spent two weeks -there. - -For three days Oscar was madly in love with Harriott and Harriott with -him. As she lay awake she would turn on the light and look at him as he -slept at her side. Sleep made him beautiful and innocent; it laid a -fine, smooth tissue over his coarseness; it made his mouth gentle; it -entirely hid his eyes. - -In six days reaction had set in. At the end of the tenth day, Harriott, -returning with Oscar from Montmartre, burst into a fit of crying. When -questioned, she answered wildly that the Hotel Saint Pierre was too -hideously ugly it was getting on her nerves. Mercifully Oscar explained -her state as fatigue following excitement. She tried hard to believe -that she was miserable because her love was purer and more spiritual -than Oscar’s; but all the time she knew perfectly well she had cried -from pure boredom. She was in love with Oscar, and Oscar bored her. -Oscar was in love with her, and she bored him. At close quarters, day in -and day out, each was revealed to the other as an incredible bore. - -At the end of the second week she began to doubt whether she had ever -been really in love with him. - - * * * * * - -Her passion returned for a little while after they got back to London. -Freed from the unnatural strain which Paris had put on them, they -persuaded themselves that their romantic temperaments were better fitted -to the old life of casual adventure. - -Then, gradually, the sense of danger began to wake in them. They lived -in perpetual fear, face to face with all the chances of discovery. They -tormented themselves and each other by imagining possibilities that they -would never have considered in their first fine moments. It was as -though they were beginning to ask themselves if it were, after all, -worth while running such awful risks, for all they got out of it. Oscar -still swore that if he had been free he would have married her. He -pointed out that his intentions at any rate were regular. But she asked -herself: Would I marry _him_? Marriage would be the Hotel Saint Pierre -all over again, without any possibility of escape. But, if she wouldn’t -marry him, was she in love with him? That was the test. Perhaps it was a -good thing he wasn’t free. Then she told herself that these doubts were -morbid, and that the question wouldn’t arise. - -One evening Oscar called to see her. He had come to tell her that Muriel -was ill. - -“Seriously ill?” - -“I’m afraid so. It’s pleurisy. May turn to pneumonia. We shall know one -way or another in the next few days.” - -A terrible fear seized upon Harriott. Muriel might die of her pleurisy; -and if Muriel died, she would have to marry Oscar. He was looking at her -queerly, as if he knew what she was thinking, and she could see that the -same thought had occurred to him and that he was frightened too. - -Muriel got well again; but their danger had enlightened them. Muriel’s -life was now inconceivably precious to them both; she stood between them -and that permanent union, which they dreaded and yet would not have the -courage to refuse. - -After enlightenment the rupture. - -It came from Oscar, one evening when he sat with her in her -drawing-room. - -“Harriott,” he said, “do you know I’m thinking seriously of settling -down?” - -“How do you mean, settling down?” - -“Patching it up with Muriel, poor girl.... Has it never occurred to you -that this little affair of ours can’t go on for ever?” - -“You don’t want it to go on?” - -“I don’t want to have any humbug about it. For God’s sake, let’s be -straight. If it’s done, it’s done. Let’s end it decently.” - -“I see. You want to get rid of me.” - -“That’s a beastly way of putting it.” - -“Is there any way that isn’t beastly? The whole thing’s beastly. I -should have thought you’d have stuck to it now you’ve made it what you -wanted. When I haven’t an ideal, I haven’t a single illusion, when -you’ve destroyed everything you didn’t want.” - -“What didn’t I want?” - -“The clean, beautiful part of it. The part _I_ wanted.” - -“My part at least was real. It was cleaner and more beautiful than all -that putrid stuff you wrapped it up in. You were a hypocrite, Harriott, -and I wasn’t. You’re a hypocrite now if you say you weren’t happy with -me.” - -“I was never really happy. Never for one moment. There was always -something I missed. Something you didn’t give me. Perhaps you couldn’t.” - -“No. I wasn’t spiritual enough,” he sneered. - -“You were not. And you made me what you were.” - -“Oh, I noticed that you were always very spiritual _after_ you’d got -what you wanted.” - -“What I wanted?” she cried. “Oh, my God—” - -“If you ever knew what you wanted.” - -“What—I—wanted,” she repeated, drawing out her bitterness. - -“Come,” he said, “why not be honest? Face facts. I was awfully gone on -you. You were awfully gone on me—once. We got tired of each other and -it’s over. But at least you might own we had a good time while it -lasted.” - -“A good time?” - -“Good enough for me.” - -“For you, because for you love only means one thing. Everything that’s -high and noble in it you dragged down to that, till there’s nothing left -for us but that. _That’s_ what you made of love.” - -Twenty years passed. - - * * * * * - -It was Oscar who died first, three years after the rupture. He did it -suddenly one evening, falling down in a fit of apoplexy. - -His death was an immense relief to Harriott. Perfect security had been -impossible as long as he was alive. But now there wasn’t a living soul -who knew her secret. - -Still, in the first moment of shock Harriott told herself that Oscar -dead would be nearer to her than ever. She forgot how little she had -wanted him to be near her, alive. And long before the twenty years had -passed she had contrived to persuade herself that he had never been near -to her at all. It was incredible that she had ever known such a person -as Oscar Wade. As for their affair, she couldn’t think of Harriott Leigh -as the sort of woman to whom such a thing could happen. Schnebler’s and -the Hotel Saint Pierre ceased to figure among prominent images of her -past. Her memories, if she had allowed herself to remember, would have -clashed disagreeably with the reputation for sanctity which she had now -acquired. - -For Harriott at fifty-two was the friend and helper of the Reverend -Clement Farmer, Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin’s, Maida Vale. She worked -as a deaconess in his parish, wearing the uniform of a deaconess, the -semi-religious gown, the cloak, the bonnet and veil, the cross and -rosary, the holy smile. She was also secretary to the Maida Vale and -Kilburn Home for Fallen Girls. - -Her moments of excitement came when Clement Farmer, the lean, austere -likeness of Stephen Philpotts, in his cassock and lace-bordered -surplice, issued from the vestry, when he mounted the pulpit, when he -stood before the altar rails and lifted up his arms in the Benediction; -her moments of ecstasy when she received the Sacrament from his hands. -And she had moments of calm happiness when his study door closed on -their communion. All these moments were saturated with a solemn -holiness. - -And they were insignificant compared with the moment of her dying. - -She lay dozing in her white bed under the black crucifix with the ivory -Christ. The basins and medicine bottles had been cleared from the table -by her pillow; it was spread for the last rites. The priest moved -quietly about the room, arranging the candles, the Prayer Book and the -Holy Sacrament. Then he drew a chair to her bedside and watched with -her, waiting for her to come up out of her doze. - -She woke suddenly. Her eyes were fixed upon him. She had a flash of -lucidity. She was dying, and her dying made her supremely important to -Clement Fanner. - -“Are you ready?” he asked. - -“Not yet. I think I’m afraid. Make me not afraid.” - -He rose and lit the two candles on the altar. He took down the crucifix -from the wall and stood it against the foot-rail of the bed. - -She sighed. That was not what she had wanted. - -“You will not be afraid now,” he said. - -“I’m not afraid of the hereafter. I suppose you get used to it. Only it -may be terrible just at first.” - -“Our first state will depend very much on what we are thinking of at our -last hour.” - -“There’ll be my—confession,” she said. - -“And after it you will receive the Sacrament. Then you will have your -mind fixed firmly upon God and your Redeemer.... Do you feel able to -make your confession now, Sister? Everything is ready.” - -Her mind went back over her past and found Oscar Wade there. She -wondered: Should she confess to him about Oscar Wade? One moment she -thought it was possible; the next she knew that she couldn’t. She could -not. It wasn’t necessary. For twenty years he had not been part of her -life. No. She wouldn’t confess about Oscar Wade. She had been guilty of -other sins. - -She made a careful selection. - -“I have cared too much for the beauty of this world.... I have failed in -charity to my poor girls. Because of my intense repugnance to their -sin.... I have thought, often, about—people I love, when I should have -been thinking about God.” - -After that she received the Sacrament. - -“Now,” he said, “there is nothing to be afraid of.” - -“I won’t be afraid if—if you would hold my hand.” - -He held it. And she lay still a long time, with her eyes shut. Then he -heard her murmuring something. He stooped close. - -“This—is—dying. I thought it would be horrible. And it’s bliss.... -Bliss.” - -The priest’s hand slackened, as if at the bidding of some wonder. She -gave a weak cry. - -“Oh—don’t let me go.” - -His grasp tightened. - -“Try,” he said, “to think about God. Keep on looking at the crucifix.” - -“If I look,” she whispered, “you won’t let go my hand?” - -“I will not let you go.” - -He held it till it was wrenched from him in the last agony. - - * * * * * - -She lingered for some hours in the room where these things had happened. - -Its aspect was familiar and yet unfamiliar, and slightly repugnant to -her. The altar, the crucifix, the lighted candles, suggested some -tremendous and awful experience the details of which she was not able to -recall. She seemed to remember that they had been connected in some way -with the sheeted body on the bed; but the nature of the connection was -not clear; and she did not associate the dead body with herself. When -the nurse came in and laid it out, she saw that it was the body of a -middle-aged woman. Her own living body was that of a young woman of -about thirty-two. - -Her mind had no past and no future, no sharp-edged, coherent memories, -and no idea of anything to be done next. - -Then, suddenly, the room began to come apart before her eyes, to split -into shafts of floor and furniture and ceiling that shifted and were -thrown by their commotion into different planes. They leaned slanting at -every possible angle; they crossed and overlaid each other with a -transparent mingling of dislocated perspectives, like reflections fallen -on an interior seen behind glass. - -The bed and the sheeted body slid away somewhere out of sight. She was -standing by the door that still remained in position. - -She opened it and found herself in the street, outside a building of -yellowish-grey brick and freestone, with a tall slated spire. Her mind -came together with a palpable click of recognition. This object was the -Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Maida Vale. She could hear the droning of -the organ. She opened the door and slipped in. - -[Illustration: Then, suddenly the room began to come apart ...] - -She had gone back into a definite space and time, and recovered a -certain limited section of coherent memory. She remembered the rows of -pitch-pine benches, with their Gothic peaks and mouldings; the -stone-coloured walls and pillars with their chocolate stencilling; the -hanging rings of lights along the aisles of the nave; the high altar -with its lighted candles, and the polished brass cross, twinkling. These -things were somehow permanent and real, adjusted to the image that now -took possession of her. - -She knew what she had come there for. The service was over. The choir -had gone from the chancel; the sacristan moved before the altar, putting -out the candles. She walked up the middle aisle to a seat that she knew -under the pulpit. She knelt down and covered her face with her hands. -Peeping sideways through her fingers, she could see the door of the -vestry on her left at the end of the north aisle. She watched it -steadily. - -Up in the organ loft the organist drew out the Recessional, slowly and -softly, to its end in the two solemn, vibrating chords. - -The vestry door opened and Clement Farmer came out, dressed in his black -cassock. He passed before her, close, close outside the bench where she -knelt. He paused at the opening. He was waiting for her. There was -something he had to say. - -She stood up and went towards him. He still waited. He didn’t move to -make way for her. She came close, closer than she had ever come to him, -so close that his features grew indistinct. She bent her head back, -peering, short-sightedly, and found herself looking into Oscar Wade’s -face. - -He stood still, horribly still, and close, barring her passage. - -She drew back; his heaving shoulders followed her. He leaned forward, -covering her with his eyes. She opened her mouth to scream and no sound -came. - -She was afraid to move lest he should move with her. The heaving of his -shoulders terrified her. - -One by one the lights in the side aisles were going out. The lights in -the middle aisle would go next. They had gone. If she didn’t get away -she would be shut up with him there, in the appalling darkness. - -She turned and moved towards the north aisle, groping, steadying herself -by the book ledge. - -When she looked back, Oscar Wade was not there. - -Then she remembered that Oscar Wade was dead. Therefore, what she had -seen was not Oscar; it was his ghost. He was dead; dead seventeen years -ago. She was safe from him for ever. - - * * * * * - -When she came out on to the steps of the church she saw that the road it -stood in had changed. It was not the road she remembered. The pavement -on this side was raised slightly and covered in. It ran under a -succession of arches. It was a long gallery walled with glittering shop -windows on one side; on the other a line of tall grey columns divided it -from the street. - -She was going along the arcades of the rue de Rivoli. Ahead of her she -could see the edge of an immense grey pillar jutting out. That was the -porch of the Hotel Saint Pierre. The revolving glass doors swung forward -to receive her; she crossed the grey, sultry vestibule under the -pillared arches. She knew it. She knew the porter’s shining, -wine-coloured mahogany pen on her left, and the shining wine-coloured -mahogany barrier of the clerk’s bureau on her right; she made straight -for the great grey carpeted staircase; she climbed the endless flights -that turned round and round the caged-in shaft of the well, past the -latticed doors of the lift, and came up on to a landing that she knew, -and into the long, ash-grey, foreign corridor lit by a dull window at -one end. - -It was there that the horror of the place came on her. She had no longer -any memory of St. Mary’s Church, so that she was unaware of her backward -course through time. All space and time were here. - -She remembered she had to go to the left, the left. But there was -something there; where the corridor turned by the window; at the end of -all the corridors. If she went the other way she would escape it. - -The corridor stopped there. A blank wall. She was driven back past the -stairhead to the left. - -At the corner, by the window, she turned down another long ash-grey -corridor on her right, and to the right again where the night-light -sputtered on the table-flap at the turn. - -This third corridor was dark and secret and depraved. She knew the -soiled walls and the warped door at the end. There was a sharp-pointed -streak of light at the top. She could see the number on it now, 107. - -Something had happened there. If she went in it would happen again. - -Oscar Wade was in the room waiting for her behind the closed door. She -felt him moving about in there. She leaned forward, her ear to the key -hole, and listened. She could hear the measured, deliberate, thoughtful -footsteps. They were coming from the bed to the door. - -She turned and ran; her knees gave way under her; she sank and ran on, -down the long grey corridors and the stairs, quick and blind, a hunted -beast seeking for cover, hearing his feet coming after her. - -The revolving doors caught her and pushed her out into the street. - - * * * * * - -The strange quality of her state was this, that it had no time. She -remembered dimly that there had once been a thing called time; but she -had forgotten altogether what it was like. She was aware of things -happening and about to happen; she fixed them by the place they -occupied, and measured their duration by the space she went through. - -So now she thought: If I could only go back and get to the place where -it hadn’t happened. - -To get back farther— - -She was walking now on a white road that went between broad grass -borders. To the right and left were the long raking lines of the hills, -curve after curve, shimmering in a thin mist. - -The road dropped to the green valley. It mounted the humped bridge over -the river. Beyond it she saw the twin gables of the grey house pricked -up over the high, grey garden wall. The tall iron gate stood in front of -it between the ball-topped stone pillars. - -And now she was in a large, low-ceilinged room with drawn blinds. She -was standing before the wide double bed. It was her father’s bed. The -dead body, stretched out in the middle under the drawn white sheet, was -her father’s body. - -The outline of the sheet sank from the peak of the upturned toes to the -shin bone, and from the high bridge of the nose to the chin. - -She lifted the sheet and folded it back across the breast of the dead -man. The face she saw then was Oscar Wade’s face, stilled and smoothed -in the innocence of sleep, the supreme innocence of death. She stared at -it, fascinated, in a cold, pitiless joy. - -Oscar was dead. - -She remembered how he used to lie like that beside her in the room in -the Hotel Saint Pierre, on his back with his hands folded on his waist, -his mouth half open, his big chest rising and falling. If he was dead, -it would never happen again. She would be safe. - -The dead face frightened her, and she was about to cover it up again -when she was aware of a light heaving, a rhythmical rise and fall. As -she drew the sheet up tighter, the hands under it began to struggle -convulsively, the broad ends of the fingers appeared above the edge, -clutching it to keep it down. The mouth opened; the eyes opened; the -whole face stared back at her in a look of agony and horror. - -Then the body drew itself forwards from the hips and sat up, its eyes -peering into her eyes; he and she remained for an instant motionless, -each held there by the other’s fear. - -[Illustration: ... each held there by the other’s fear] - -Suddenly she broke away, turned and ran, out of the room, out of the -house. - -She stood at the gate, looking up and down the road, not knowing by -which way she must go to escape Oscar. To the right, over the bridge and -up the hill and across the downs she would come to the arcades of the -rue de Rivoli and the dreadful grey corridors of the hotel. To the left -the road went through the village. - -If she could get further back she would be safe, out of Oscar’s reach. -Standing by her father’s death-bed she had been young, but not young -enough. She must get back to the place where she was younger still, to -the Park and the green drive under the beech trees and the white -pavilion at the cross. She knew how to find it. At the end of the -village the high road ran right and left, east and west, under the Park -walls; the south gate stood there at the top, looking down the narrow -street. - -She ran towards it through the village, past the long grey barns of -Goodyer’s farm, past the grocer’s shop, past the yellow front and blue -sign of the “Queen’s Head,” past the post office, with its one black -window blinking under its vine, past the church and the yew-trees in the -churchyard, to where the south gate made a delicate black pattern on the -green grass. - -These things appeared insubstantial, drawn back behind a sheet of air -that shimmered over them like thin glass. They opened out, floated past -and away from her; and instead of the high road and park walls she saw a -London street of dingy white facades, and instead of the south gate the -swinging glass doors of Schnebler’s Restaurant. - - * * * * * - -The glass doors swung open and she passed into the restaurant. The scene -beat on her with the hard impact of reality: the white and gold panels, -the white pillars and their curling gold capitals, the white circles of -the tables, glittering, the flushed faces of the diners, moving -mechanically. - -She was driven forward by some irresistible compulsion to a table in the -corner, where a man sat alone. The table napkin he was using hid his -mouth, and jaw, and chest; and she was not sure of the upper part of the -face above the straight, drawn edge. It dropped; and she saw Oscar -Wade’s face. She came to him, dragged, without power to resist; she sat -down beside him, and he leaned to her over the table; she could feel the -warmth of his red, congested face; the smell of wine floated towards her -on his thick whisper. - -“I knew you would come.” - -She ate and drank with him in silence, nibbling and sipping slowly, -staving off the abominable moment it would end in. - -At last they got up and faced each other. His long bulk stood before -her, above her; she could almost feel the vibration of its power. - -“Come,” he said. “Come.” - -And she went before him, slowly, slipping out through the maze of the -tables, hearing behind her Oscar’s measured, deliberate, thoughtful -tread. The steep, red-carpeted staircase rose up before her. - -She swerved from it, but he turned her back. - -“You know the way,” he said. - -At the top of the flight she found the white door of the room she knew. -She knew the long windows guarded by drawn muslin blinds; the gilt -looking-glass over the chimney-piece that reflected Oscar’s head and -shoulders grotesquely between two white porcelain babies with bulbous -limbs and garlanded loins, she knew the sprawling stain on the drab -carpet by the table, the shabby, infamous couch behind the screen. - -They moved about the room, turning and turning in it like beasts in a -cage, uneasy, inimical, avoiding each other. - -At last they stood still, he at the window, she at the door, the length -of the room between. - -“It’s no good your getting away like that,” he said. “There couldn’t be -any other end to it—to what we did.” - -“But that _was_ ended.” - -“Ended there, but not here.” - -“Ended for ever. We’ve done with it for ever.” - -“We haven’t. We’ve got to begin again. And go on. And go on.” - -“Oh, no. No. Anything but that.” - -“There isn’t anything else.” - -“We can’t. We can’t. Don’t you remember how it bored us?” - -“Remember? Do you suppose I’d touch you if I could help it?... That’s -what we’re here for. We must. We must.” - -“No. No. I shall get away—now.” - -She turned to the door to open it. - -“You can’t,” he said. “The door’s locked.” - -“Oscar—what did you do that for?” - -“We always did it. Don’t you remember?” - -She turned to the door again and shook it; she beat on it with her -hands. - -“It’s no use, Harriott. If you got out now you’d only have to come back -again. You might stave it off for an hour or so, but what’s that in an -immortality?” - -“Immortality?” - -“That’s what we’re in for.” - -“Time enough to talk about immortality when we’re dead.... Ah—” - -[Illustration: ... moving slowly, like figures in some monstrous and -appalling dance ...] - -They were being drawn towards each other across the room, moving slowly, -like figures in some monstrous and appalling dance, their heads thrown -back over their shoulders, their faces turned from the horrible -approach. Their arms rose slowly, heavy with intolerable reluctance; -they stretched them out towards each other, aching, as if they held up -an overpowering weight. Their feet dragged and were drawn. - -Suddenly her knees sank under her; she shut her eyes; all her being went -down before him in darkness and terror. - - * * * * * - -It was over. She had got away, she was going back, back, to the green -drive of the Park, between the beech trees, where Oscar had never been, -where he would never find her. When she passed through the south gate -her memory became suddenly young and clean. She forgot the rue de Rivoli -and the Hotel Saint Pierre; she forgot Schnebler’s Restaurant and the -room at the top of the stairs. She was back in her youth. She was -Harriott Leigh going to wait for Stephen Philpotts in the pavilion -opposite the west gate. She could feel herself, a slender figure moving -fast over the grass between the lines of the great beech trees. The -freshness of her youth was upon her. - -She came to the heart of the drive where it branched right and left in -the form of a cross. At the end of the right arm the white Greek temple, -with its pediment and pillars, gleamed against the wood. - -She was sitting on their seat at the back of the pavilion, watching the -side door that Stephen would come in by. - -The door was pushed open; he came towards her, light and young, skimming -between the beech trees with his eager, tiptoeing stride. She rose up to -meet him. She gave a cry. - -“Stephen!” - -It had been Stephen. She had seen him coming. But the man who stood -before her between the pillars of the pavilion was Oscar Wade. - -And now she was walking along the field-path that slanted from the -orchard door to the stile; further and further back, to where young -George Waring waited for her under the elder tree. The smell of the -elder flowers came to her over the field. She could feel on her lips and -in all her body the sweet, innocent excitement of her youth. - -“George, oh, George!” - -As she went along the field-path she had seen him. But the man who stood -waiting for her under the elder tree was Oscar Wade. - -“I told you it’s no use getting away, Harriott. Every path brings you -back to me. You’ll find me at every turn.” - -“But how did you get _here?_” - -“As I got into the pavilion. As I got into your father’s room, on to his -death-bed. Because I _was_ there. I am in all your memories.” - -“My memories are innocent. How could you take my father’s place, and -Stephen’s, and George Waring’s? You?” - -“Because I did take them.” - -“Never. My love for _them_ was innocent.” - -“Your love for me was part of it. You think the past affects the future. -Has it never struck you that the future may affect the past? In your -innocence there was the beginning of your sin. You _were_ what you _were -to be_.” - -“I shall get away,” she said. - -“And, this time, I shall go with you.” - -The stile, the elder tree, and the field floated away from her. She was -going under the beech trees down the Park drive towards the south gate -and the village, slinking close to the right-hand row of trees. She was -aware that Oscar Wade was going with her under the left-hand row, -keeping even with her, step by step, and tree by tree. And presently -there was grey pavement under her feet and a row of grey pillars on her -right hand. They were walking side by side down the rue de Rivoli -towards the hotel. - -They were sitting together now on the edge of the dingy white bed. Their -arms hung by their sides, heavy and limp, their heads drooped, averted. -Their passion weighed on them with the unbearable, unescapable boredom -of immortality. - -“Oscar—how long will it last?” - -“I can’t tell you. I don’t know whether _this_ is one moment of -eternity, or the eternity of one moment.” - -“It must end some time,” she said. “Life doesn’t go on for ever. We -shall die.” - -“Die? We _have_ died. Don’t you know what this is? Don’t you know where -you are? This is death. We’re dead, Harriott. We’re in hell.” - -“Yes. There can’t be anything worse than this.” - -“This isn’t the worst. We’re not quite dead yet, as long as we’ve life -in us to turn and run and get away from each other; as long as we can -escape into our memories. But when you’ve got back to the farthest -memory of all and there’s nothing beyond it—When there’s no memory but -this— - -“In the last hell we shall not run away any longer; we shall find no -more roads, no more passages, no more open doors. We shall have no need -to look for each other. - -“In the last death we shall be shut up in this room, behind that locked -door, together. We shall lie here together, for ever and ever, joined so -fast that even God can’t put us asunder. We shall be one flesh and one -spirit, one sin repeated for ever, and ever; spirit loathing flesh, -flesh loathing spirit; you and I loathing each other.” - -“Why? Why?” she cried. - -“Because that’s all that’s left us. That’s what you made of love.” - - * * * * * - -The darkness came down swamping, it blotted out the room. She was -walking along a garden path between high borders of phlox and larkspur -and lupin. They were taller than she was, their flowers swayed and -nodded above her head. She tugged at the tall stems and had no strength -to break them. She was a little thing. - -She said to herself then that she was safe. She had gone back so far -that she was a child again; she had the blank innocence of childhood. To -be a child, to go small under the heads of the lupins, to be blank and -innocent, without memory, was to be safe. - -The walk led her out through a yew hedge on to a bright green lawn. In -the middle of the lawn there was a shallow round pond in a ring of -rockery cushioned with small flowers, yellow and white and purple. -Gold-fish swam in the olive-brown water. She would be safe when she saw -the gold-fish swimming towards her. The old one with the white scales -would come up first, pushing up his nose, making bubbles in the water. - -At the bottom of the lawn there was a privet hedge cut by a broad path -that went through the orchard. She knew what she would find there; her -mother was in the orchard. She would lift her up in her arms to play -with the hard red balls of the apples that hung from the tree. She had -got back to the farthest memory of all; there was nothing beyond it. - -There would be an iron gate in the wall of the orchard. It would lead -into a field. - -Something was different here, something that frightened her. An ash-grey -door instead of an iron gate. - -She pushed it open and came into the last corridor of the Hotel Saint -Pierre. - - - - - THE TOKEN - - - I - - -I have only known one absolutely adorable woman, and that was my -brother’s wife, Cicely Dunbar. - -Sisters-in-law do not, I think, invariably adore each other, and I am -aware that my chief merit in Cicely’s eyes was that I am Donald’s -sister; but for me there was no question of extraneous quality—it was -all pure Cicely. - -And how Donald— But then, like all the Dunbars, Donald suffers from -being Scottish, so that, if he has a feeling, he makes it a point of -honour to pretend he hasn’t it. I daresay he let himself go a bit during -his courtship, when he was not, strictly speaking, himself; but after he -had once married her I think he would have died rather than have told -Cicely in so many words that he loved her. And Cicely wanted to be told. -You say she ought to have known without telling? You don’t know Donald. -You can’t conceive the perverse ingenuity he could put into hiding his -affection. He has that peculiar temper—I think it’s Scottish—that -delights in snubbing and faultfinding and defeating expectation. If he -knows you want him to do a thing, that alone is reason enough with -Donald for not doing it. And my sister, who was as transparent as white -crystal, was never able to conceal a want. So that Donald could, as we -said, “have” her at every turn. - -And, then, I don’t think my brother really knew how ill she was. He -didn’t want to know. Besides, he was so wrapt up in trying to finish his -“Development of Social Economics” (which, by the way, he hasn’t finished -yet) that he had no eyes to see what we all saw: that, the way her poor -little heart was going, Cicely couldn’t have very long to live. - -[Illustration] - -Of course he understood that this was why, in those last months, they -had to have separate rooms. And this in the first year of their marriage -when he was still violently in love with her. - -I keep those two facts firmly in my mind when I try to excuse Donald; -for it was the main cause of that unkindness and perversity which I find -it so hard to forgive. Even now, when I think how he used to discharge -it on the poor little thing, as if it had been her fault, I have to -remind myself that the lamb’s innocence made her a little trying. - -She couldn’t understand why Donald didn’t want to have her with him in -his library any more while he read or wrote. It seemed to her sheer -cruelty to shut her out now when she was ill, seeing that, before she -was ill, she had always had her chair by the fireplace, where she would -sit over her book or her embroidery for hours without speaking, hardly -daring to breathe lest she should interrupt him. Now was the time, she -thought, when she might expect a little indulgence. - -Do you suppose that Donald would give his feelings as an explanation? -Not he. They were _his feelings_, and he wouldn’t talk about them; and -he never explained anything you didn’t understand. - -That—her wanting to sit with him in the library—was what they had the -awful quarrel about, the day before she died: that and the paper-weight, -the precious paper-weight that he wouldn’t let anybody touch because -George Meredith had given it him. It was a brass block, surmounted by a -white alabaster Buddha painted and gilt. And it had an inscription: _To -Donald Dunbar, from George Meredith. In Affectionate Regard_. - -My brother was extremely attached to this paper-weight, partly, I’m -afraid, because it proclaimed his intimacy with the great man. For this -reason it was known in the family ironically as the Token. - -It stood on Donald’s writing-table at his elbow, so near the ink-pot -that the white Buddha had received a splash or two. And this evening -Cicely had come in to us in the library, and had annoyed Donald by -staying in it when he wanted her to go. She had taken up the Token, and -was cleaning it to give herself a pretext. - -She died after the quarrel they had then. - -It began by Donald shouting at her. - -“What are you doing with that paper-weight?” - -“Only getting the ink off.” - -I can see her now, the darling. She had wetted the corner of her -handkerchief with her little pink tongue and was rubbing the Buddha. Her -hands had begun to tremble when he shouted. - -“Put it down, can’t you? I’ve told you not to touch my things.” - -[Illustration: “I’ve told you not to touch my things.”] - -“_You_ inked him,” she said. She was giving one last rub as he rose, -threatening. - -“Put—it—down.” - -And, poor child, she did put it down. Indeed, she dropped it at his -feet. - -“Oh!” she cried out, and stooped quickly and picked it up. Her large -tear-glassed eyes glanced at him, frightened. - -“He isn’t broken.” - -“No thanks to you,” he growled. - -“You beast! You know I’d die rather than break anything you care about.” - -“It’ll be broken some day, if you _will_ come meddling.” - -I couldn’t bear it. I said, “You mustn’t yell at her like that. You know -she can’t stand it. You’ll make her ill again.” - -That sobered him for a moment. - -“I’m sorry,” he said; but he made it sound as if he wasn’t. - -“If you’re sorry,” she persisted, “you might let me stay with you. I’ll -be as quiet as a mouse.” - -“No; I don’t want you—I can’t work with you in the room.” - -“You can work with Helen.” - -“You’re not Helen.” - -“He only means he’s not in love with _me_, dear.” - -“He means I’m no use to him. I know I’m not. I can’t even sit on his -manuscripts and keep them down. He cares more for that damned -paper-weight than he does for me.” - -“Well—George Meredith gave it me.” - -“And nobody gave you me. I gave myself.” - -That worked up his devil again. He _had_ to torment her. - -“It can’t have cost you much,” he said. “And I may remind you that the -paper-weight has _some_ intrinsic value.” - -With that he left her. - -“What’s he gone out for?” she asked me. - -“Because he’s ashamed of himself, I suppose,” I said. “Oh, Cicely, why -_will_ you answer him? You know what he is.” - -“No!” she said passionately—“that’s what I don’t know. I never have -known.” - -“At least you know he’s in love with you.” - -“He has a queer way of showing it, then. He never does anything but -stamp and shout and find fault with me—all about an old paper-weight!” - -She was caressing it as she spoke, stroking the alabaster Buddha as if -it had been a live thing. - -“His poor Buddha. Do you think it’ll break if I stroke it? Better -not.... Honestly, Helen, I’d rather die than hurt anything he really -cared for. Yet look how he hurts me.” - -“Some men _must_ hurt the things they care for.” - -“I wouldn’t mind his hurting, if only I knew he cared. Helen—I’d give -anything to know.” - -“I think you might know.” - -“I don’t! I don’t!” - -“Well, you’ll know some day.” - -“Never! He won’t tell me.” - -“He’s Scotch, my dear. It would kill him to tell you.” - -“Then how’m I to know! If I died to-morrow I should die not knowing.” - -And that night, not knowing, she died. - -She died because she had never really known. - - - II - - -We never talked about her. It was not my brother’s way. Words hurt him, -to speak or to hear them. - -He had become more morose than ever, but less irritable, the source of -his irritation being gone. Though he plunged into work as another man -might have plunged into dissipation, to drown the thought of her, you -could see that he had no longer any interest in it; he no longer loved -it. He attacked it with a fury that had more hate in it than love. He -would spend the greater part of the day and the long evenings shut up in -his library, only going out for a short walk an hour before dinner. You -could see that soon all spontaneous impulses would be checked in him and -he would become the creature of habit and routine. - -[Illustration] - -I tried to rouse him, to shake him up out of his deadly groove; but it -was no use. The first effort—for he did make efforts—exhausted him, and -he sank back into it again. - -But he liked to have me with him; and all the time that I could spare -from my housekeeping and gardening I spent in the library. I think he -didn’t like to be left alone there in the place where they had the -quarrel that killed her; and I noticed that the cause of it, the Token, -had disappeared from his table. - -And all her things, everything that could remind him of her, had been -put away. It was the dead burying its dead. - -Only the chair she had loved remained in its place by the side of the -hearth—_her_ chair, if you could call it hers when she wasn’t allowed to -sit in it. It was always empty, for by tacit consent we both avoided it. - -We would sit there for hours at a time without speaking, while he worked -and I read or sewed. I never dared to ask him whether he sometimes had, -as I had, the sense of Cicely’s presence there, in that room which she -had so longed to enter, from which she had been so cruelly shut out. You -couldn’t tell what he felt or didn’t feel. My brother’s face was a -heavy, sombre mask; his back, bent over the writing-table, a wall behind -which he hid himself. - -You must know that twice in my life I have more than _felt_ these -presences; I have seen them. This may be because I am on both sides a -Highland Celt, and my mother had the same uncanny gift. I had never -spoken of these appearances to Donald because he would have put it all -down to what he calls my hysterical fancy. And I am sure that if he ever -felt or saw anything himself he would never own it. - -I ought to explain that each time the vision was premonitory of a death -(in Cicely’s case I had no such warning), and each time it only lasted -for a second; also that, though I am certain I was wide awake each time, -it is open to anybody to say I was asleep and dreamed it. The queer -thing was that I was neither frightened nor surprised. - -And so I was neither surprised nor frightened now, the first evening -that I saw her. - -It was in the early autumn twilight, about six o’clock. I was sitting in -my place in front of the fireplace; Donald was in his arm-chair on my -left, smoking a pipe, as usual, before the lamplight drove him out of -doors into the dark. - -I had had so strong a sense of Cicely’s being there in the room that I -felt nothing but a sudden sacred pang that was half joy when I looked up -and saw her sitting in her chair on my right. - -The phantasm was perfect and vivid, as if it had been flesh and blood. I -should have thought that it was Cicely herself if I hadn’t known that -she was dead. She wasn’t looking at me; her face was turned to Donald -with that longing, wondering look it used to have, searching his face -for the secret that he kept from her. - -[Illustration: ... her face was turned to Donald ...] - -I looked at Donald. His chin was sunk a little, the pipe drooping from -the corner of his mouth. He was heavy, absorbed in his smoking. It was -clear that he did not see what I saw. - -And whereas those other phantasms that I told you about disappeared at -once, _this_ lasted some little time, and always with its eyes fixed on -Donald. It even lasted while Donald stirred, while he stooped forward, -knocking the ashes out of his pipe against the hob, while he sighed, -stretched himself, turned, and left the room. Then, as the door shut -behind him, the whole figure went out suddenly—not flickering, but like -a light you switch off. - -I saw it again the next evening and the next, at the same time and in -the same place, and with the same look turned towards Donald. And again -I was sure that he did not see it. But I thought, from his uneasy -sighing and stretching, that he had some sense of something there. - -No; I was not frightened. I was glad. You see, I loved Cicely. I -remember thinking, “At last, at last, you poor darling, you’ve got in. -And you can stay as long as you like now. He can’t turn you away.” - -The first few times I saw her just as I have said. I would look up and -find the phantasm there, sitting in her chair. And it would disappear -suddenly when Donald left the room. Then I knew I was alone. - -But as I grew used to its presence, or perhaps as it grew used to mine -and found out that I was not afraid of it, that indeed I loved to have -it there, it came, I think, to trust me, so that I was made aware of all -its movements. I would see it coming across the room from the doorway, -making straight for its desired place, and settling in a little -curled-up posture of satisfaction, appeased, as if it had expected -opposition that it no longer found. Yet that it was not happy, I could -still see by its look at Donald. _That_ never changed. It was as -uncertain of him now as she had been in her lifetime. - -Up till now, the sixth or seventh time I had seen it, I had no clue to -the secret of its appearance; and its movements seemed to me mysterious -and without purpose. Only two things were clear: it was Donald that it -came for—the instant he went it disappeared; and I never once saw it -when I was alone. And always it chose this room and this hour before the -lights came, when he sat doing nothing. It was clear also that he never -saw it. - -But that it was there with him sometimes when I was not I knew; for, -more than once, things on Donald’s writing-table, books or papers, would -be moved out of their places, though never beyond reach; and he would -ask me whether I had touched them. - -“Either you lie,” he would say, “or I’m mistaken. I could have sworn I -put those notes on the left-hand side; and they aren’t there now.” - -And once—that was wonderful—I saw, yes, I _saw_ her come and push the -lost thing under his hand. And all he said was, “Well, I’m—I could have -sworn—” - -For whether it had gained a sense of security, or whether its purpose -was now finally fixed, it began to move regularly about the room, and -its movements had evidently a reason and an aim. - -It was looking for something. - -One evening we were all there in our places, Donald silent in his chair -and I in mine, and it seated in its attitude of wonder and of waiting, -when suddenly I saw Donald looking at me. - -“Helen,” he said, “what are you staring for like that?” - -I started. I had forgotten that the direction of my eyes would be bound, -sooner or later, to betray me. - -I heard myself stammer, “W—w—was I staring?” - -“Yes. I wish you wouldn’t.” - -I knew what he meant. He didn’t want me to keep on looking at that -chair; he didn’t want to know that I was thinking of her. I bent my head -closer over my sewing, so that I no longer had the phantasm in sight. - -It was then I was aware that it had risen and was crossing the -hearthrug. It stopped at Donald’s knees, and stood there, gazing at him -with a look so intent and fixed that I could not doubt that this had -some significance. I saw it put out its hand and touch him; and, though -Donald sighed and shifted his position, I could tell that he had neither -seen nor felt anything. - -It turned to me then—and this was the first time it had given any sign -that it was conscious of my presence—it turned on me a look of -supplication, such supplication as I had seen on my sister’s face in her -lifetime, when she could do nothing with him and implored me to -intercede. At the same time three words formed themselves in my brain -with a sudden, quick impulsion, as if I had heard them cried. - -“Speak to him—speak to him!” - -[Illustration] - -I knew now what it wanted. It was trying to make itself seen by him, to -make itself felt, and it was in anguish at finding that it could not. - -It knew then that I saw it, and the idea had come to it that it could -make use of me to get through to him. - -I think I must have guessed even then what it had come for. - -I said, “You asked me what I was staring at, and I lied. I was looking -at Cicely’s chair.” - -I saw him wince at the name. - -“Because,” I went on, “I don’t know how _you_ feel, but _I_ always feel -as if she were there.” - -He said nothing; but he got up, as though to shake off the oppression of -the memory I had evoked, and stood leaning on the chimney-piece with his -back to me. - -The phantasm retreated to its place, where it kept its eyes fixed on him -as before. - -I was determined to break down his defences, to make him say something -it might hear, give some sign that it would understand. - -“Donald, do you think it’s a good thing, a _kind_ thing, never to talk -about her?” - -“Kind? Kind to whom?” - -“To yourself, first of all.” - -“You can leave me out of it.” - -“To me, then.” - -“What’s it got to do with you?” His voice was as hard and cutting as he -could make it. - -“Everything,” I said. “You forget, I loved her.” - -He was silent. He did at least respect my love for her. - -“But that wasn’t what she wanted.” - -That hurt him. I could feel him stiffen under it. - -“You see, Donald,” I persisted, “_I_ like thinking about her.” - -It was cruel of me; but I _had_ to break him. - -“You can think as much as you like,” he said, “provided you stop -talking.” - -“All the same, it’s as bad for you,” I said, “as it is for me, not -talking.” - -“I don’t care if it is bad for me. I _can’t_ talk about her, Helen. I -don’t want to.” - -“How do you know,” I said, “it isn’t bad for _her_?” - -“For _her_?” - -I could see I had roused him. - -“Yes. If she really is there, all the time.” - -“How d’you mean, _there?_” - -“Here—in this room. I tell you I can’t get over that feeling that she’s -here.” - -“Oh, feel, feel,” he said; “but don’t talk to me about it!” - -And he left the room, flinging himself out in anger. And instantly her -flame went out. - -I thought, “How he must have hurt her!” It was the old thing over again: -I trying to break him down, to make him show her; he beating us both -off, punishing us both. You see, I knew now what she had come back for: -she had come back to find out whether he loved her. With a longing -unquenched by death, she had come back for certainty. And now, as -always, my clumsy interference had only made him more hard, more -obstinate. I thought, “If only he could see her! But as long as he beats -her off he never will.” - -Still, if I could once get him to believe that she was there— - -I made up my mind that the next time I saw the phantasm I would tell -him. - -The next evening and the next its chair was empty, and I judged that it -was keeping away, hurt by what it had heard the last time. - -But the third evening we were hardly seated before I saw it. - -It was sitting up, alert and observant, not staring at Donald as it -used, but looking round the room, as if searching for something that it -missed. - -“Donald,” I said, “if I told you that Cicely is in the room now, I -suppose you wouldn’t believe me?” - -“Is it likely?” - -“No. All the same, I see her as plainly as I see you.” - -The phantasm rose and moved to his side. - -“She’s standing close beside you.” - -And now it moved and went to the writing-table. I turned and followed -its movements. It slid its open hands over the table, touching -everything, unmistakably feeling for something it believed to be there. - -I went on. “She’s at the writing-table now. She’s looking for -something.” - -It stood back, baffled and distressed. Then suddenly it began opening -and shutting the drawers, without a sound, searching each one in turn. - -I said, “Oh, she’s trying the drawers now!” - -Donald stood up. He was not looking at the place where it was. He was -looking hard at me, in anxiety and a sort of fright. I supposed that was -why he remained unaware of the opening and shutting of the drawers. - -It continued its desperate searching. - -The bottom drawer stuck fast. I saw it pull and shake it, and stand back -again, baffled. - -“It’s locked,” I said. - -“What’s locked?” - -“That bottom drawer.” - -“Nonsense! It’s nothing of the kind.” - -“It is, I tell you. Give me the key. Oh, Donald, give it me!” - -He shrugged his shoulders; but all the same he felt in his pockets for -the key, which he gave me with a little teasing gesture, as if he -humoured a child. - -I unlocked the drawer, pulled it out to its full length, and there, -thrust away at the back, out of sight, I found the Token. - -I had not seen it since the day of Cicely’s death. - -“Who put it there?” I asked. - -“I did.” - -“Well, that’s what she was looking for,” I said. - -I held out the Token to him on the palm of my hand, as if it were the -proof that I had seen her. - -“Helen,” he said gravely, “I think you must be ill.” - -“You think so? I’m not so ill that I don’t know what you put it away -for,” I said. “It was because she thought you cared for it more than you -did for her.” - -“You can remind me of that? There must be something very badly wrong -with you, Helen,” he said. - -“Perhaps. Perhaps I only want to know what _she_ wanted.... You _did_ -care for her, Donald?” - -I couldn’t see the phantasm now, but I could feel it, close, close, -vibrating, palpitating, as I drove him. - -“Care?” he cried. “I was mad with caring for her! And she knew it.” - -“She didn’t. She wouldn’t be here now if she knew.” - -At that he turned from me to his station by the chimney-piece. I -followed him there. - -“What are you going to do about it?” I said. - -“Do about it?” - -“What are you going to do with this?” - -I thrust the Token close towards him. He drew back, staring at it with a -look of concentrated hate and loathing. - -“Do with it?” he said. “The damned thing killed her! This is what I’m -going to do with it—” - -He snatched it from my hand and hurled it with all his force against the -bars of the grate. The Buddha fell, broken to bits, among the ashes. - -[Illustration: He stepped forward, opening his arms.] - -Then I heard him give a short, groaning cry. He stepped forward, opening -his arms, and I saw the phantasm slide between them. For a second it -stood there, folded to his breast; then suddenly, before our eyes, it -collapsed in a shining heap, a flicker of light on the floor, at his -feet. - -Then that went out too. - - - III - - -I never saw it again. - -Neither did my brother. But I didn’t know this till some time -afterwards; for, somehow, we hadn’t cared to speak about it. And in the -end it was he who spoke first. - -We were sitting together in that room, one evening in November, when he -said, suddenly and irrelevantly: - -“Helen—do you never see her now?” - -“No,” I said—“Never!” - -“Do you think, then, she doesn’t come?” - -“Why should she?” I said. “She found what she came for. She knows what -she wanted to know.” - -“And that—was what?” - -“Why, that you loved her.” - -His eyes had a queer, submissive, wistful look. - -“You think that was why she came back?” he said. - - - - - THE FLAW IN THE CRYSTAL - - - I - - -It was Friday, the day he always came, if (so she safeguarded it) he was -to come at all. They had left it that way in the beginning, that it -should be open to him to come or not to come. They had not even settled -that it should be Fridays, but it always was, the week-end being the -only time when he could get away; the only time, he had explained to -Agatha Verrall, when getting away excited no remark. He had to, or he -would have broken down. Agatha called it getting away from “things;” but -she knew that there was only one thing, his wife Bella. - -To be wedded to a mass of furious and malignant nerves (which was all -that poor Bella was now) simply meant destruction to a man like Rodney -Lanyon. Rodney’s own nerves were not as strong as they had been, after -ten years of Bella’s. It had been understood for long enough (understood -even by Bella) that if he couldn’t have his week-ends he was done for; -he couldn’t possibly have stood the torment and the strain of her. - -Of course she didn’t know he spent the greater part of them with Agatha -Verrall. It was not to be desired that she should know. Her obtuseness -helped them. Even in her younger and saner days she had failed, -persistently, to realize any profound and poignant thing that touched -him; so by the mercy of heaven she had never realized Agatha Verrall. -She used to say she had never seen anything _in_ Agatha, which amounted, -as he once told her, to not seeing Agatha at all. Still less could she -have compassed any vision of the tie—the extraordinary, intangible, -immaterial tie that held them. - -Sometimes, at the last moment, his escape to Agatha would prove -impossible; so they had left it further that he was to send her no -forewarning; he was to come when and as he could. He could always get a -room in the village inn or at the farm near by, and in Agatha’s house he -would find his place ready for him, the place which had become his -refuge, his place of peace. - -There was no need to prepare her. She was never not prepared. It was as -if by her preparedness, by the absence of preliminaries, of adjustments -and arrangements, he was always there, lodged in the innermost chamber. -She had set herself apart; she had swept herself bare and scoured -herself clean for him. Clean she had to be; clean from the desire that -he should come; clean, above all, from the thought, the knowledge she -now had, that she could make him come. - -For if she had given herself up to _that_.... - -But she never had; never since the knowledge came to her; since she -discovered, wonderfully, by a divine accident, that at any moment she -could make him—that she had whatever it was, the power, the uncanny, -unaccountable Gift. - -She was beginning to see more and more how it worked; how inevitably, -how infallibly it worked. She was even a little afraid of it, of what it -might come to mean. It _did_ mean that without his knowledge, separated -as they were and had to be, she could always get at him. - -And supposing it came to mean that she could get at him to make him do -things? Why, the bare idea of it was horrible. - -Nothing could well have been more horrible to Agatha. It was the secret -and the essence of their remarkable relation that she had never tried to -get at him; whereas Bella _had_, calamitously; and still more -calamitously, because of the peculiar magic that there was (there must -have been) in her, Bella had succeeded. To have tried to get at him -would have been for Agatha the last treachery, the last indecency; while -for Rodney it would have been the destruction of her charm. She was the -way of escape for him from Bella; but she had always left her door, even -the innermost door, wide open; so that where shelter and protection -faced him there faced him also the way of departure, the way of escape -from _her_. - -And if her thought could get at him and fasten on him and shut him in -there.... - -It could, she knew; but it need not. She was really all right. Restraint -had been the essence and the secret of the charm she had, and it was -also the secret and the essence of her gift. Why, she had brought it to -so fine a point that she could shut out, and by shutting out destroy, -any feeling, any thought that did violence to any other. She could shut -them all out, if it came to that, and make the whole place empty. So -that, if this knowledge of her power did violence, she had only to close -her door on it. - -She closed it now on the bare thought of his coming; on the little -innocent hope she had that he would come. By an ultimate refinement and -subtlety of honour she refused to let even expectation cling to him. - -But though it was dreadful to “work” her gift that way, to make him do -things, there was another way in which she did work it, lawfully, -sacredly, incorruptibly—the way it first came to her. She had worked it -twenty times (without his knowledge, for how he would have scoffed at -her) to make him well. - -Before it had come to her, he had been, ever since she knew him, more or -less ill, more or less tormented by the nerves that were wedded so -indissolubly to Bella’s. He was always, it seemed to her terror, on the -verge. And she could say to herself: “Look at him _now!_” - -[Illustration] - -His abrupt, incredible recovery had been the first open manifestation of -the way it worked. Not that she had tried it on him first. Before she -dared do that once she had proved it on herself twenty times, till she -found it infallible. - -But to ensure continuous results it had to be a continuous process; and -in order to give herself up to it, to him (to his pitiful case), she had -lately, as her friends said, “cut herself completely off.” She had gone -down into Buckinghamshire and taken a small, solitary house at Sarratt -End in the valley of the Chess, three miles from the nearest station. -She had shut herself up in a world half a mile long; one straight hill -to the north, one to the south, two strips of flat pasture, the river -and the white farm-road between. A world closed east and west by the -turn the valley takes there between the hills, and barred by a gate at -each end of the farm-road. A land of pure curves, of delicate colours, -delicate shadows; all winter through a land of grey woods and sallow -fields, of ploughed hillsides pale with the white strain of the chalk. -In April (it was April now) a land shining with silver and green. And -the ways out of it led into lanes; it had neither sight nor hearing of -the high roads beyond. - -There were only two houses in that half-mile of valley, Agatha’s house -and Woodman’s Farm. - -Agatha’s house, white as a cutting in the chalk downs, looked -south-west, up the valley and across it, to where a slender beech-wood -went lightly up the hill and then stretched out in a straight line along -the top, with the bare fawn-coloured flank of the ploughed land below. -The farm-house looked east towards Agatha’s house across a field; a -red-brick house—dull, dark red with the grey bloom of weather on -it—flat-faced and flat-eyed, two windows on each side of the door and a -row of five above, all nine staring at the small white house across the -field. The narrow, flat farm-road linked the two. - -Except Rodney when his inn was full, nobody ever came to Woodman’s Farm; -and Agatha’s house, set down inside its east gate, shared its isolation, -its immunity. Two villages, unseen, unheard, served her, not a mile -away. It was impossible to be more sheltered, more protected and more -utterly cut off. And only fifteen miles, as the crow flies, between this -solitude and London, so that it was easy for Rodney Lanyon to come down. - -At two o’clock, the hour when he must come if he were coming, she began -to listen for the click of the latch at the garden gate. She had agreed -with herself that at the last moment expectancy could do no harm; it -couldn’t influence him; for either he had taken the twelve-thirty train -at Marylebone or he had not (Agatha was so far reasonable); so at the -last moment she permitted herself that dangerous and terrible joy. - -When the click came and his footsteps after it, she admitted further -(now when it could do no harm) that she had had foreknowledge of him; -she had been aware all the time that he would come. And she wondered, as -she always wondered at his coming, whether really she would find him -well, or whether this time it had incredibly miscarried. And her almost -unbearable joy became suspense, became vehement desire to see him and -gather from his face whether this time also it had worked. - -[Illustration: And she wondered whether really she would find him -well ...] - -“How are you? How have you been?” was her question when he stood before -her in her white room, holding her hand for an instant. - -“Tremendously fit,” he answered; “ever since I last saw you.” - -“Oh—seeing me—” It was as if she wanted him to know that seeing her made -no difference. - -She looked at him and received her certainty. She saw him clear-eyed and -young, younger than he was, his clean, bronzed face set, as it used to -be, in a firmness that obliterated the lines, the little agonized lines, -that had made her heart ache. - -“It always does me good,” he said, “to see you.” - -“And to see you—you know what it does to me.” - -He thought he knew as he caught back his breath and looked at her, -taking in again her fine whiteness, and her tenderness, her purity of -line, and the secret of her eyes, whose colour (if they had colour) he -was never sure about; taking in all of her, from her adorable feet to -her hair, vividly dark, that sprang from the white parting like—was it -like waves or wings? - -What had once touched and moved him unspeakably in Agatha’s face was the -capacity it had, latent in its tragic lines, for expressing terror. -Terror was what he most dreaded for her, what he had most tried to keep -her from, to keep out of her face. And latterly he had not found it; or -rather he had not found the unborn, lurking spirit of it there. It had -gone, that little tragic droop in Agatha’s face. The corners of her eyes -and of her beautiful mouth were lifted, as if by—he could find no other -word for the thing he meant but wings. She had a look which, if it were -not of joy, was of something more vivid and positive than peace. - -He put it down to their increased and undisturbed communion, made -possible by her retirement to Sarratt End. Yet as he looked at her he -sighed again. - -In response to his sigh she asked suddenly: “How’s Bella?” - -His face lighted wonderfully. “It’s extraordinary,” he said; “she’s -better. Miles better. In fact, if it wasn’t tempting Providence, I -should say she was well. She’s been, for the last week anyhow, a perfect -angel.” - -His amazed, uncomprehending look gave her the clue to what had happened. -It was another instance of the astounding and mysterious way it worked. -She must have got at Bella somehow in getting at him. She saw now no end -to the possibilities of the thing. There wasn’t anything so wonderful in -making him what, after all, he was; but if she, Bella, had been, even -for a week, a perfect angel, it had made her what she was not and never -had been. - -His next utterance came to her with no irrelevance. - -“You’ve been found out.” - -For a moment she wondered, had he guessed it then, her secret? He had -never known anything about it, and it was not likely that he should know -now. He was indeed very far from knowing when he could think that it was -seeing her that did it. - -There was, of course, the other secret, the fact that he did see her; -but she had never allowed that it _was_ a secret, or that it need be, -although they guarded it so carefully. Anybody, except Bella, who -wouldn’t understand it, was welcome to know that he came to see her. He -must mean that. - -“Found out?” she repeated. - -“If you haven’t been, you will be.” - -“You mean,” she said, “Sarratt End has been found out?” - -“If you put it that way. I saw the Powells at the station.” (She -breathed freely.) - -[Illustration: “I saw the Powells at the station.”] - -“They told me they’d taken rooms at some farm here.” - -“Which farm?” - -He didn’t remember. - -“Was it Woodman’s Farm?” she asked. And he said, “Yes, that was the name -they’d told him. Whereabouts was it?” - -“Don’t you know,” she said. “That’s the name of _your_ farm.” - -He had not known it, and was visibly annoyed at knowing it now. And -Agatha herself felt some dismay. If it had been any other place but -Woodman’s Farm—it stared at them; it watched them; it knew all their -goings out and their comings in; it knew Rodney; not that that had -mattered in the least, but the Powells, when they came, would know too. - -She tried to look as if that didn’t matter either, while they faced each -other in a silence, a curious, unfamiliar discomposure. - -She recovered first. “After all,” she said, “why shouldn’t they?” - -“Well—I thought you weren’t going to tell people.” - -Her face mounted a sudden flame, a signal of resentment. She had always -resented the imputation of secrecy in their relations. And now it was as -if he were dragging forward the thought that she perpetually put away -from her. - -“Tell about what?” she asked, coldly. - -“About Sarratt End. I thought we’d agreed to keep it for ourselves.” - -“I haven’t told everybody. But I did tell Milly Powell.” - -“My dear girl, that wasn’t very clever of you.” - -“I told her not to tell. She knows what I want to be alone for.” - -“Good God.” As he stared in dismay at what he judged to be her -unspeakable indiscretion, the thought rushed in on her straight from -him, the naked, terrible thought, that there _should_ be anything they -had to hide, they had to be alone for. She saw at the same time how -defenceless he was before it; he couldn’t keep it back; he couldn’t put -it away from him. It was always with him, a danger watching on his -threshold. - -“Then” (he made her face it with him) “we’re done for.” - -“No, no,” she cried; “how could you think that? It was another thing. -Something I’m trying to do.” - -“You told her,” he insisted. “What did you tell her?” - -“That I’m doing it. That I’m here for my health. She understands it that -way.” - -He smiled as if he were satisfied, knowing her so well. And still his -thought, his terrible, naked thought, was there. It was looking at her -straight out of his eyes. - -“Are you sure she understands?” he said. - -“Yes. Absolutely.” - -He hesitated, and then put it differently. - -“Are you sure she doesn’t understand? That she hasn’t an inkling?” - -He wasn’t sure whether Agatha understood, whether she realized the -danger. - -“About you and me,” he said. - -“Ah, my dear, I’ve kept _you_ secret. She doesn’t know we know each -other. And if she did—” - -She finished it with a wonderful look, a look of unblinking yet vaguely, -pitifully uncandid candour. - -She had always met him, and would always have to meet him, with the idea -that there was nothing in it; for, if she once admitted that there was -anything, then they _were_ done for. She couldn’t (how could she?) let -him keep on coming with that thought in him, acknowledged by them both. - -That was where she came in, and where her secret, her gift, would work -now more beneficently than ever. The beauty of it was that it would make -them safe, absolutely safe. She had only got to apply it to that thought -of his, and the thought would not exist. Since she could get at him, she -could do for him what he, poor dear, couldn’t perhaps always do for -himself; she could keep that dreadful possibility in him under; she -could, in fact, make their communion all that she wanted it to be. - -“I don’t like it,” he said miserably. “I don’t like it.” - -A little line of worry was coming in his face again. - -The door opened and a maid began to go in and out, laying the table for -their meal. He watched the door close on her and said, “Won’t that woman -wonder what I come for?” - -“She can see what you come for.” She smiled. - -“Why are you spoiling it with thinking things?” - -“It’s for you I think them. _I_ don’t mind. It doesn’t matter so much -for me. But I want you to be safe.” - -“Oh, _I’m_ safe, my dear,” she answered. - -“You were. And you would be still, if these Powells hadn’t found you -out.” - -He meditated. - -“What do you suppose _they’ve_ come for?” he asked. - -“They’ve come, I imagine, for his health.” - -“What? To a god-forsaken place like this?” - -“They know what it’s done for me. So they think, poor darlings, perhaps -it may do something—even yet—for him.” - -“What’s the matter with him?” - -“Something dreadful. And they say—incurable.” - -“It isn’t—?” He paused. - -“I can’t tell you what it is. It isn’t anything you’d think it was. It -isn’t anything bodily.” - -“I never knew it.” - -“You’re not supposed to know. And you wouldn’t, unless you _did_ know. -And please—you don’t; you don’t know anything.” - -He smiled. “No. You haven’t told me, have you?” - -“I only told you because you never tell things, and because—” - -“Because?” He waited, smiling. - -“Because I wanted you to see he doesn’t count.” - -“Well—but _she’s_ all right, I take it?” - -At first she failed to grasp his implication that if, owing to his -affliction, Harding Powell didn’t count, Milly, his young wife, did. Her -faculties of observation and of inference would, he took it, be -unimpaired. - -“She’ll wonder, won’t she?” he expounded. - -“About us? Not she. She’s too much wrapped up in him to notice anyone.” - -“And he?” - -“Oh, my dear—he’s too much wrapped up in _it_.” Another anxiety then -came to him. - -“I say, you know, he isn’t dangerous, is he?” She laughed. - -“Dangerous? Oh dear me, no! A lamb.” - - - II - - -She kept on saying to herself. Why shouldn’t they come? What difference -did it make? - -Up till now she had not admitted that anything could make a difference, -that anything could touch, could alter by a shade the safe, the -intangible, the unique relation between her and Rodney. It was proof -against anything that anybody could think. And the Powells were not -given to thinking things. Agatha’s own mind had been a crystal without a -flaw, in its clearness, its sincerity. - -It had to be, to ensure the blessed working of the gift; as again, it -was by the blessed working of the gift that she kept it so. She could -only think of that, the secret, the gift, the inexpressible thing, as -itself a flawless crystal, a charmed circle; or rather, as a sphere that -held all the charmed circles that you draw round things to keep them -safe, to keep them holy. - -She had drawn her circle round Rodney Lanyon and herself. Nobody could -break it. They were super-naturally safe. - -And yet the presence of the Powells had made a difference. She was -forced to own that, though she remained untouched, it had made a -difference in him. It was as if, in the agitation produced by them, he -had brushed aside some veil and had let her see something that up till -now her crystal vision had refused to see, something that was more than -a lurking possibility. She discovered in him a desire, an intention that -up till now he had concealed from her. It had left its hiding place; it -rose on terrifying wings and fluttered before her, troubling her. She -was reminded that, though there were no lurking possibilities in her, -with him it might be different. For him the tie between them might come -to mean something it had never meant and could not mean for her, -something she had refused not only to see but to foresee and provide -for. - -She was aware of a certain relief when Monday came and he had left her -without any further unveilings and revealings. She was even glad when, -about the middle of the week, the Powells came with a cart-load of -luggage and settled at the farm. She said to herself that they would -take her mind off him. They had a way of seizing on her and holding her -attention to the exclusion of all other objects. - -She could hardly not have been seized and held by a case so pitiful, so -desperate as theirs. How pitiful and desperate it had become she learned -almost at once from the face of her friend, the little pale-eyed wife, -whose small, flat, flower-like features were washed out and worn fine by -watchings and listenings on the border, on the threshold. - -Yes, he was worse. He had had to give up his business (Harding Powell -was a gentle stock-broker). It wasn’t any longer, Milly Powell -intimated, a question of borders and of thresholds. They had passed all -that. He had gone clean over; he was in the dreadful interior; and she, -the resolute and vigilant little woman, had no longer any power to get -him out. She was at the end of her tether. - -Agatha knew what he had been for years? Well—he was worse than that; far -worse than he had been, ever. Not so bad, though, that he hadn’t -intervals in which he knew how bad he was, and was willing to do -everything, to try anything. They were going to try Sarratt End. It was -her idea. She knew how marvellously it had answered with dear Agatha -(not that Agatha ever was, or could be, where _he_ was, poor darling). -And besides, Agatha herself was an attraction. It had occurred to Milly -Powell that it might do Harding good to be near Agatha. There was -something about her; Milly didn’t know what it was, but she felt it, -_he_ felt it—an influence, or something, that made for mental peace. It -was, Mrs. Powell said, as if she had some secret. - -She hoped Agatha wouldn’t mind. It couldn’t possibly hurt her. _He_ -couldn’t. The darling couldn’t hurt a fly; he could only hurt himself. -And if he got really bad, why then, of course, they would have to leave -Sarratt End. He would have, she said sadly, to go away somewhere. But -not yet—oh, not yet; he wasn’t bad enough for that. She would keep him -with her up to the last possible moment—the last possible moment. Agatha -could understand, couldn’t she? - -Agatha did indeed. - -Milly Powell smiled her desperate white smile, and went on; always with -her air of appeal to Agatha. That was why she wanted to be near her. It -was awful not to be near somebody who understood, who would understand -him. For Agatha would understand—wouldn’t she?—that to a certain extent -he must be given in to? _That_—apart from Agatha—was why they had chosen -Sarratt End. It was the sort of place—wasn’t it?—where you would go if -you didn’t want people to get at you; where (Milly’s very voice became -furtive as she explained it) you could hide. His idea—his last—seemed to -be that something _was_ trying to get at him. - -No, not people. Something worse, something terrible. It was always after -him. The most piteous thing about him—piteous but adorable—was that he -came to her—to _her_, imploring her to hide him. - -And so she had hidden him here. - -Agatha took in her friend’s high courage as she looked at the eyes where -fright barely fluttered under the poised suspense. She approved of the -plan. It appealed to her by its sheer audacity. She murmured that if -there were anything that she could do, Milly had only to come to her. - -Oh, well, Milly _had_ come. What she wanted Agatha to do—if she saw him -and he should say anything about it—was simply to take the line that he -was safe. - -Agatha said that was the line she did take. She wasn’t going to let -herself think, and Milly mustn’t think—not for a moment—that he wasn’t, -that there was anything to be afraid of. - -“Anything to be afraid of _here_. That’s my point,” said Milly. - -“Mine is that here or anywhere—wherever _he_ is—there mustn’t be any -fear. How can he get better if we keep him wrapped in it? You’re _not_ -afraid. You’re not afraid.” - -Persistent, invincible affirmation was part of her method, her secret. - -Milly replied a little wearily (she knew nothing about the method). - -“I haven’t time to be afraid,” she said. “And as long as you’re not—” - -“It’s you who matter,” Agatha cried. “You’re so near him. Don’t you -realize what it means to be so near?” - -Milly smiled sadly, tenderly. (As if she didn’t know!) - -“My dear, that’s all that keeps me going. I’ve got to make him feel that -he’s protected.” - -“He _is_ protected,” said Agatha. - -Already she was drawing her charmed circle round him. - -“As long as I hold out. If I give in he’s done for.” - -“You mustn’t think it. You mustn’t say it!” - -“But—I know it. Oh, my dear! I’m all he’s got.” - -At that she looked for a moment as if she might break down. She said the -terrible part of it was that they were left so much alone. People were -beginning to shrink from him, to be afraid of him. - -“You know,” said Agatha, “I’m not. You must bring him to see me.” - -The little woman had risen, as she said, “to go to him.” She stood -there, visibly hesitating. She couldn’t bring him. He wouldn’t come. -Would Agatha go with her and see him? - -Agatha went. - -As they approached the farm, she saw to her amazement that the door was -shut and the blinds, the ugly, ochreish yellow blinds, were down in all -the nine windows of the front, the windows of the Powells’ rooms. The -house was like a house of the dead. - -“Do you get the sun on this side?” she said; and as she said it she -realized the stupidity of her question; for the nine windows looked to -the east, and the sun, wheeling down the west, had been in their faces -as they came. - -Milly answered mechanically, “No, we don’t get any sun.” She added with -an irrelevance that was only apparent, “I’ve had to take all four rooms -to keep other people out.” - -“They never come,” said Agatha. - -“No,” said Milly, “but if they did—” - -The front door was locked. Milly had the key. When they had entered -Agatha saw her turn it in the lock again, slowly and without a sound. - -All the doors were shut in the passage, and it was dark there. Milly -opened a door on the left at the foot of the steep stairs. - -“He will be in here,” she said. - -[Illustration: Milly opened the door on the left ...] - -The large room was lit with a thick ochreish light through the squares -of its drawn blinds. It ran the whole width of the house and had a third -window looking west where the yellow light prevailed. A horrible light -it was. It cast thin, turbid, brown shadows on the walls. - -Harding Powell was sitting between the drawn blinds, alone in the black -hollow of the chimney place. He crouched in his chair, and his bowed -back was towards them as they stood there on the threshold. - -“Harding,” said Milly, “Agatha has come to see you.” - -He turned in his chair and rose as they entered. - -His chin was sunk on his chest, and the first thing Agatha noticed was -the difficult, slow, forward-thrusting movement with which he lifted it. -His eyes seemed to come up last of all from the depths to meet her. With -a peculiar foreign courtesy he bowed his head again over her hand as he -held it. - -He apologized for the darkness in which they found him. Harding Powell’s -manners had always been perfect, and it struck Agatha as strange and -pathetic that his malady should have left untouched the incomparable -quality he had. - -Milly went to the windows and drew the blinds up. The light revealed him -in his exquisite perfection, his small fragile finish. He was fifty or -thereabouts, but slight as a boy, and nervous, and dark as Englishmen -are dark; jaw and chin shaven; his mouth hidden by the straight droop of -his moustache. From the eyes downwards the outlines of his face and -features were of an extreme regularity and a fineness undestroyed by the -work of the strained nerves on the sallow, delicate texture. But his -eyes, dark like an animal’s, were the eyes of a terrified thing, a thing -hunted and on the watch, a thing that listened continually for the soft -feet of the hunter. Above these eyes his brows were twisted, were -tortured with his terror. - -He turned to his wife. - -“Did you lock the door, dear?” he said. - -“I did. But you know, Harding, we needn’t—here.” - -He shivered slightly and began to walk up and down before the -hearthplace. When he had his back to Milly, Milly followed him with her -eyes of anguish; when he turned and faced her, she met him with her -white smile. - -Presently he spoke again. He wondered whether they would object to his -drawing the blinds down. He was afraid he would have to. Otherwise, he -said, _he would be seen_. - -Milly laid her hand on the arm that he stretched towards the window. - -“Darling,” she said, “you’ve forgotten. You can’t possibly be seen—here. -It’s just the one place—isn’t it, Agatha?—where you can’t be.” Her eyes -signalled to Agatha to support her. (Not but what she had perfect -confidence in the plan.) - -It was, Agatha assented. “And Agatha knows,” said Milly. - -He shivered again. He had turned to Agatha. - -“Forgive me if I suggest that you cannot really know. Heaven forbid that -you _should_ know.” - -Milly, intent on her “plan,” persisted. - -“But, dearest, you said yourself it was. The one place.” - -“I said that? When did I say it?” - -“Yesterday.” - -“Yesterday? I daresay. But I didn’t sleep last night. It wouldn’t let -me.” - -“Very few people do sleep,” said Agatha, “for the first time in a -strange place.” - -“The place isn’t strange. That’s what I complain of. That’s what keeps -me awake. No place ever will be strange when It’s there. And it was -there last night.” - -[Illustration: “No place ever will be strange when It’s there.”] - -“Darling—” Milly murmured. - -“You know what I mean,” he said. “The Thing that keeps me awake. Of -course if I’d slept last night I’d have known it wasn’t there. But when -I didn’t sleep—” - -He left it to them to draw the only possible conclusion. - -They dropped the subject. They turned to other things and talked a -little while, sitting with him in his room with the drawn blinds. From -time to time when they appealed to him he gave an urbane assent, a -murmur, a suave motion of his hand. When the light went they lit a lamp. -Agatha stayed and dined with them, that being the best thing she could -do. - -At nine o’clock she rose and said good-night to Harding Powell. He -smiled a drawn smile. - -“Ah—if I could sleep—,” he said. - -“That’s the worst of it—his not sleeping,” said Milly at the gate. - -“He will sleep. He will sleep,” said Agatha. - -Milly sighed. She knew he wouldn’t. - -The plan, she said, was no good after all. It wouldn’t work. - - - III - - -How could it? There was nothing behind it. All Milly’s plans had been -like that; they fell to dust; they _were_ dust. There had been always -that pitiful, desperate stirring of the dust to hide the terror; the -futile throwing of the dust in the poor thing’s eyes. As if he couldn’t -see through it. As if, with the supernatural ludicity, the invincible -cunning of the insane, he didn’t see through anything and provide for -it. It was really only his indestructible urbanity, persisting through -the wreck of him, that bore, tolerantly, temperately, with Milly and her -plans. Without it he might be dangerous. With it, as long as it lasted, -little Milly, plan as she would, was safe. - -But they couldn’t count on its lasting. Agatha had realized that from -the moment when she had seen him draw down the blind again after his -wife had drawn it up. That was the maddest thing he had done yet. She -had shuddered at it as at an act of violence. It outraged, cruelly, his -exquisite quality. It was so unlike him. - -She was not sure that Milly hadn’t even made things worse by her latest -plan, the flight to Sarratt End. It emphasized the fact that they were -flying, that they had to fly. It had brought her to the house with the -drawn blinds in the closed, barred valley, to the end of the world, to -the end of her tether. And when she realized that it _was_ the end, when -he realized it.... - -Agatha couldn’t leave him there. She couldn’t (when she had the secret) -leave him to poor Milly and her plans. That had been in her mind when -she had insisted on it that he would sleep. - -She knew what Milly meant by her sigh and the look she gave her. If -Milly could have been impolite she would have told her that it was all -very well to say so, but how were they going to make him? And she, too, -felt that something more was required of her than that irritating -affirmation. She had got to make him. His case, his piteous case, cried -out for an extension of the gift. - -She hadn’t any doubt as to its working. There were things she didn’t -know about it yet, but she was sure of that. She had proved it by a -hundred experimental intermissions, abstentions, and recoveries. In -order to be sure you had only to let go and see how you got on without -it. She had tried in that way, with scepticism and precaution, on -herself. - -But not in the beginning. She could not say that she had tried it in the -beginning at all, even on herself. It had simply come to her, as she put -it, by a divine accident. Heaven knew she had needed it. She had been, -like Rodney Lanyon, on the verge, where he, poor dear, had brought her; -so impossible had it been then to bear her knowledge and, what was -worse, her divination of the things he bore from Bella. It was her -divination, her compassion, that had wrecked her as she stood aside, cut -off from him, he on the verge and she near it, looking on, powerless to -help while Bella tore at him. Talk of the verge, the wonder was they -hadn’t gone clean over it, both of them. - -[Illustration] - -She couldn’t say then from what region, what tract of unexplored, -incredible mystery her help had come. It came one day, one night when -she was at her worst. She remembered how, with some resurgent, ultimate -instinct of surrender, she had sunk on the floor of her room, flung out -her arms across the bed in the supreme gesture of supplication, and thus -gone, eyes shut and with no motion of thought or sense in her, clean -into the blackness where, as if it had been waiting for her, the thing -had found her. - -It had found her. Agatha was precise on that point. She had not found -it. She had not even stumbled on it, blundered up against it in the -blackness. The way it worked, the wonder of her instantaneous -well-being, had been the first, the very first hint she had that it was -there. - -She had never quite recaptured her primal, virgin sense of it; but to -set against that, she had entered more and more into possession. She had -found out the secret of its working and had controlled it, reduced it to -an almost intelligible method. You could think of it as a current of -transcendent power, hitherto mysteriously inhibited. You made the -connection, having cut off all other currents that interfered, and then -you simply turned it on. In other words, if you could put it into words -at all, you shut your eyes and ears, you closed up the sense of touch, -you made everything dark around you and withdrew into your innermost -self; you burrowed deep into the darkness there till you got beyond it; -you tapped the Power, as it were, underground at any point you pleased -and turned it on in any direction. - -She could turn it on to Harding Powell without any loss to Rodney -Lanyon; for it was immeasurable, inexhaustible. - -She looked back at the farm-house with its veiled windows. Formless and -immense, the shadow of Harding Powell swayed uneasily on one of the -yellow blinds. Across the field her own house showed pure and dim -against the darkening slope behind it, showed washed and watered white -in the liquid, lucid twilight. Her house was open always and on every -side; it flung out its casement arms to the night and to the day. And -now all the lamps were lit, every doorway was a golden shaft, every -window a golden square; the whiteness of its walls quivered and the -blurred edges flowed into the dark of the garden. It was the fragile -shell of a sacred and a burning light. - -She did not go in all at once. She crossed the river and went up the -hill through the beech-wood. She walked there every evening in the -darkness, calling her thoughts home to sleep. The Easter moon, -golden-white and holy, looked down at her, shrined under the long, sharp -arch of the beech-trees; it was like going up and up towards a dim -sanctuary where the holiest sat enshrined. A sense of consecration was -upon her. It came, solemn and pure and still, out of the tumult of her -tenderness and pity; but it was too awful for pity and for tenderness; -it aspired like a flame and lost itself in light; it grew like a wave -till it was vaster than any tenderness or any pity. It was as if her -heart rose on the swell of it and was carried away into a rhythm so -tremendous that her own pulses of compassion were no longer felt, or -felt only as the hushed and delicate vibration of the wave. She -recognized her state. It was the blessed state desired as the condition -of the working of the gift. - -She turned when the last arch of the beech-trees broke and opened to the -sky at the top of the hill, where the moon hung in immensity, free of -her hill, free of the shrine that held her. She went down with slow soft -footsteps as if she carried herself, her whole fragile being, as a -vessel, a crystal vessel for the holy thing, and was careful lest a -touch of the earth should jar and break her. - - - IV - - -She went still more gently and with half-shut eyes through her -illuminated house. She turned the lights out in her room and undressed -herself in the darkness. She laid herself on the bed with straight lax -limbs, with arms held apart a little from her body, with eyelids shut -lightly on her eyes; all fleshly contacts were diminished. - -It was now as if her being drank at every pore the swimming darkness; as -if the rhythm of her heart and of her breath had ceased in the pulse of -its invasion. She sank in it and was covered with wave upon wave of -darkness. She sank and was upheld; she dissolved and was gathered -together again, a flawless crystal. She was herself the heart of the -charmed circle, poised in the ultimate unspeakable stillness, beyond -death, beyond birth, beyond the movement, the vehemence, the agitations -of the world. She drew Harding Powell into it and held him there. - -To draw him to any purpose she had first to loosen and destroy the -fleshly, sinister image of him that, for the moment of evocation, hung -like a picture on the darkness. In a moment the fleshly image receded, -it sank back into the darkness. His name, Harding Powell, was now the -only earthly sign of him that she suffered to appear. In the third -moment his name was blotted out. And then it was as if she drew him by -intangible, supersensible threads; she touched, with no sense of peril, -his innermost essence; the walls of flesh were down between them; she -had got at him. - -And having got at him she held him, a bloodless spirit, a bodiless -essence, in the fount of healing. She said to herself, “He will sleep -now. He will sleep. He will sleep.” And as she slid into her own sleep -she held and drew him with her. - -He would sleep; he would be all right as long as _she_ slept. Her sleep, -she had discovered, did more than carry on the amazing act of communion -and redemption. It clinched it. It was the seal on the bond. - -Early the next morning she went over to the Farm. The blinds were up; -the doors and windows were flung open. Milly met her at the garden gate. -She stopped her and walked a little way with her across the field. “It’s -worked,” she said. “It’s worked after all, like magic.” For a moment -Agatha wondered whether Milly had guessed anything; whether she divined -the Secret and had brought him there for that, and had refused to -acknowledge it before she knew. - -“What has?” she asked. - -“The plan. The place. He slept last night. Ten hours straight on end. I -know, for I stayed awake and watched him. And this morning—oh, my dear, -if you could see him! He’s all right. He’s all right.” - -“And you think,” said Agatha, “it’s the place?” - -Milly knew nothing, guessed, divined nothing. - -“Why, what else can it be?” she said. - -“What does _he_ think?” - -“He doesn’t think. He can’t account for it. He says himself it’s -miraculous.” - -“Perhaps,” said Agatha, “it is.” - -They were silent a moment over the wonder of it. - -“I can’t get over it,” said Milly presently. “It’s so odd that it should -make all that difference. I could understand it if it had worked that -way at first. But it didn’t. Think of him yesterday. And yet—if it isn’t -the place, what is it? What is it?” - -Agatha did not answer. She wasn’t going to tell Milly what it was. If -she did, Milly wouldn’t believe her, and Milly’s unbelief might work -against it. It might prove, for all she knew, an inimical, disastrous -power. - -“Come and see for yourself.” Milly spoke as if it had been Agatha who -doubted. - -They turned again towards the house. Powell had come out and was in the -garden, leaning on the gate. They could see how right he was by the mere -fact of his being there, presenting himself like that to the vivid -light. - -He opened the gate for them, raising his hat and smiling as they came. -His face witnessed to the wonder worked on him. The colour showed clean, -purged of his taint. His eyes were candid and pure under brows smoothed -by sleep. - -As they went in he stood for a moment in the open doorway and looked at -the view, admiring the river and the green valley and the bare upland -fields under the wood. He had always had (it was part of his rare -quality) a prodigious capacity for admiration. - -“My God,” he said, “how beautiful the world is!” - -He looked at Milly. “And all that isn’t a patch on my wife.” - -He looked at her with tenderness and admiration, and the look was the -flower, the perfection of his sanity. - -Milly drew in her breath with a little sound like a sob. Her joy was so -great that it was almost unbearable. - -Then he looked at Agatha and admired the green gown she wore. “You don’t -know,” he said, “how exquisitely right you are.” - -She smiled. She knew how exquisitely right _he_ was. - - - V - - -Night after night, she continued and without an effort. It was as easy -as drawing your breath; it was indeed the breath you drew. She found -that she had no longer to devote hours to Harding Powell, any more than -she gave hours to Rodney; she could do his business in moments, in -points of inappreciable time. It was as if from night to night the times -swung together and made one enduring timeless time. For the process -belonged to a region that was not of times or time. - -She wasn’t afraid, then, of not giving enough time to it, but she _was_ -afraid of omitting it altogether. She knew that every intermission would -be followed by a relapse, and Harding’s state did not admit of any -relapses. - -Of course, if time _had_ counted, if the thing was measurable, she would -have been afraid of losing hold of Rodney Lanyon. She held him now by a -single slender thread, and the thread was Bella. She “worked” it -regularly now through Bella. He was bound to be all right as long as -Bella was; for his possibilities of suffering were thus cut off at their -source. Besides, it was the only way to preserve the purity of her -intention, the flawlessness of the crystal. - -That was the blessedness of her attitude to Harding Powell. It was -passionless, impersonal. She wanted nothing of Harding Powell except to -help him, and to help Milly, dear little Milly. And never before had she -been given so complete, so overwhelming a sense of having helped. It was -nothing—unless it was a safeguard against vanity—that they didn’t know -it, that they persisted in thinking it was Milly’s plan that worked. Not -that that altogether accounted for it to Harding Powell. He said so at -last to Agatha. - -They were returning, he and she, by the edge of the wood at the top of -the steep field after a long walk. He had asked her to go with him—it -was her country—for a good stretch, further than Milly’s little feet -could carry her. They stood a moment up there and looked around them. -April was coming on, but the ploughed land at their feet was still bare; -the earth waited. On that side of the valley she was delicately -unfruitful, spent with rearing the fine, thin beauty of the woods. But, -down below, the valley ran over with young grass and poured it to the -river in wave after wave, till the last surge of green rounded over the -water’s edge. Rain had fallen in the night, and the river had risen; it -rested there, poised. It was wonderful how a thing so brimming, so -shining, so alive could be so still; still as marsh water, flat to the -flat land. - -[Illustration: ... he stood for a moment in the open doorway ...] - -At that moment, in a flash that came like a shifting of her eyes, the -world she looked at suffered a change. - -And yet it did not change. All the appearances of things, their colours, -the movement and the stillness remained as if constant in their rhythm -and their scale; but they were heightened, intensified; they were -carried to a pitch that would have been vehement, vibrant, but that the -stillness as well as the movement was intense. She was not dazzled by it -or confused in any way. Her senses were exalted, adjusted to the pitch. - -She would have said now that the earth at her feet had become -insubstantial, but that she knew, in a flash, that what she saw was the -very substance of the visible world; live and subtle as flame; solid as -crystal and as clean. It was the same world, flat field for flat field -and hill for hill; but radiant, vibrant, and, as it were, infinitely -transparent. - -Agatha in her moment saw that the whole world brimmed and shone and was -alive with the joy that was its life, joy that flowed flood-high and yet -was still. In every leaf, in every blade of grass, this life was -manifest as a strange, a divine translucence. She was about to point it -out to the man at her side when she remembered that he had eyes for the -beauty of the earth, but no sense of its secret and supernatural light. -Harding Powell denied, he always had denied, the supernatural. And when -she turned to him her vision had passed from her. - -They must have another tramp some day, he said. He wanted to see more of -this wonderful place. And then he spoke of his recovery. - -“It’s all very well,” he said, “but I can’t account for it. Milly says -it’s the place.” - -“It _is_ a wonderful place,” said Agatha. - -“Not so wonderful as all that. You saw how I was the day after we came. -Well—it can’t be the place altogether.” - -“I rather hope it isn’t,” Agatha said. - -“Do you? What do you think it is, then?” - -“I think it’s something in you.” - -“Of course, of course. But what started it? That’s what I want to know. -Something’s happened. Something queer and spontaneous and unaccountable. -It’s—it’s uncanny. For, you know, I oughtn’t to feel like this. I got -bad news this morning.” - -“Bad news?” - -“Yes. My sister’s little girl is very ill. They think it’s meningitis. -They’re in awful trouble. And I—I’m feeling like this.” - -“Don’t let it distress you.” - -“It doesn’t distress me. It only puzzles me. That’s the odd thing. Of -course, I’m sorry, and I’m anxious and all that; but I _feel_ so well.” - -“You _are_ well. Don’t be morbid.” - -“I haven’t told my wife yet. About the child, I mean. I simply daren’t. -It’ll frighten her. She won’t know how I’ll take it, and she’ll think -it’ll make me go all queer again.” - -He paused and turned to her. - -“I say, if she _did_ know how I’m taking it, she’d think _that_ awfully -queer, wouldn’t she?” He paused. - -“The worst of it is,” he said, “I’ve got to tell her.” - -“Will you leave it to me?” Agatha said. “I think I can make it all -right.” - -“How?” he queried. - -“Never mind how. I can.” - -“Well,” he assented, “there’s hardly anything you can’t do.” - -That was how she came to tell Milly. - -She made up her mind to tell her that evening as they sat alone in -Agatha’s house. “Harding,” Milly said, “was happy over there with his -books; just as he used to be, only more so.” So much more so that she -was a little disturbed about it. She was afraid it wouldn’t last. And -again she said it was the place, the wonderful place. - -“If you want it to last,” Agatha said, “don’t go on thinking it’s the -place.” - -“Why shouldn’t it be? I feel that he’s safe here. He’s out of it. Things -can’t reach him.” - -“Bad news reached him to-day.” - -“Aggy—what?” Milly whispered in her fright. - -“His sister is very anxious about her little girl.” - -“What’s wrong?” - -Agatha repeated what she had heard from Harding Powell. - -“Oh—” Milly was dumb for an instant while she thought of her -sister-in-law. Then she cried aloud: - -“If the child dies, it’ll make him ill again?” - -“No, Milly, it won’t.” - -“It will, I tell you. It’s always been that sort of thing that does it.” - -“And supposing there was something that keeps it off?” - -“What is there? What is there?” - -“I believe there’s something. Would you mind awfully if it wasn’t the -place?” - -“What do you mean, Agatha?” (There was a faint resentment in Milly’s -agonized tone.) - -It was then that Agatha told her. She made it out for her as far as she -had made it out at all, with the diffidence that a decent attitude -required. - -Milly raised doubts which subsided in a kind of awe when Agatha faced -her with the evidence of dates. - -“You remember, Milly, the night when he slept?” - -“I do remember. He said himself it was miraculous.” She meditated. - -“And so you think it’s that?” she said presently. - -“I do indeed. If I dared leave off (I daren’t) you’d see for yourself.” - -“What do you think you’ve got hold of?” - -“I don’t know yet.” - -There was a long, deep silence which Milly broke. - -“What do you _do_?” she said. - -“I don’t do anything. It isn’t me.” - -“I see,” said Milly. “I’ve prayed. You didn’t think I hadn’t?” - -“It’s not that—not anything _you_ mean by it. And yet it is; only it’s -more, much more. I can’t explain it. I only know it isn’t me.” - -She was beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable about having told her. - -“And, Milly, you mustn’t tell him. Promise me you won’t tell him.” - -“No, I won’t tell him.” - -“Because, you see, he’d think it was all rot.” - -“He would,” said Milly. “It’s the sort of thing he does think rot.” - -“And that might prevent its working.” - -Milly smiled faintly. “I haven’t the ghost of an idea what ‘it’ is. But -whatever it is, can you go on doing it?” - -“Yes, I think so. You see, it depends rather—” - -“It depends on what?” - -“Oh, on a lot of things—on your sincerity; on your—your purity. It -depends so much on _that_ that it frightens you, lest, perhaps, you -mightn’t, after all be so very pure.” Milly smiled again a little -differently. “Darling, if that’s all, I’m not frightened. -Only—supposing—supposing you gave out? You might, you know.” - -“_I_ might. But It couldn’t. You mustn’t think it’s me, Milly. Because -if anything happened to me, if I did give out, don’t you see how it -would let him down? It’s as bad as thinking it’s the place.” - -“Does it matter what it is—or who it is,” said Milly passionately; “as -long as—” Her tears came and stopped her. - -Agatha divined the source of Milly’s passion. - -“Then you don’t mind, Milly? You’ll let me go on?” Milly rose; she -turned abruptly, holding her head high, so that she might not spill her -tears. - -Agatha went with her over the grey field towards the farm. They paused -at the gate. Milly spoke. - -“Are you sure?” she said. - -“Certain.” - -“And you won’t let go?” Her eyes shone towards her friend’s in the -twilight. “You _will_ go on?” - -“_You_ must go on.” - -“Ah—how?” - -“Believing that he’ll be all right.” - -“Oh, Aggy, he was devoted to Winny. And if the child dies—” - - - VI - - -The child died three days later. Milly came over to Agatha with the -news. - -She said it had been an awful shock, of course. She’d been dreading -something like that for him. But he’d taken it wonderfully. If he came -out of it all right, she _would_ believe in what she called Agatha’s -“thing.” - -He did come out of it all right. His behaviour was the crowning proof, -if Milly wanted more proof, of his sanity. He went up to London and made -still the arrangements for his sister. When he returned he forestalled -Milly’s specious consolations with the truth. It was better, he told -her, that the dear little girl should have died, for there was distinct -brain trouble anyway. He took it as a sane man takes a terrible -alternative. - -Weeks passed. He had grown accustomed to his own sanity and no longer -marvelled at it. - -And still, without intermission, Agatha went on. She had been so far -affected by Milly’s fright (that was the worst of Milly’s knowing) that -she held on to Harding Powell with a slightly exaggerated intensity. She -even began to give more and more time to him, she who had made out that -time in this process did not matter. She was afraid of letting go, -because the consequences (Milly was perpetually reminding her of the -consequences) of letting go would be awful. - -For Milly kept her at it. Milly urged her on. Milly, in Milly’s own -words, sustained her. She praised her; she praised the Secret, praised -the Power. She said you could see how it worked. It was tremendous; it -was inexhaustible. Milly, familiarized with its working, had become a -fanatical believer in the Power. But she had her own theory. She knew, -of course, that they were all, she and Agatha and poor Harding, -dependent on the Power, that it was the Power that did it, and not -Agatha. But Agatha was _their_ one link with it, and if the link gave -way where were they? Agatha felt that Milly watched her and waylaid her; -that she was suspicious of failures and of intermissions; that she -wondered; that she peered and pried. Milly would, if she could, have -stuck her fingers into what she called the machinery of the thing. Its -vagueness baffled and even annoyed her, for her mind was limited; it -loved and was at home with limits; it desired above all things precise -ideas, names, phrases, anything that constricted and defined. - -[Illustration] - -But still, with it all, she believed; and the great thing was that Milly -_should_ believe. She might have worked havoc if, with her temperament, -she had doubted. - -What did suffer was the fine poise with which she, Agatha, had held -Rodney Lanyon and Harding Powell each by his own thread. Milly had -compelled her to spin a stronger thread for Harding and, as it were, to -multiply her threads, so as to hold him at all points. And because of -this, because of giving more and more time to him, she could not always -loose him from her and let him go. And she was afraid lest the pull he -had on her might weaken Rodney’s thread. - -Up till now, the Powells’ third week at Sarratt End, she had had the -assurance that his thread still held. She heard from him that Bella was -all right, which meant that he too was all right, for there had never -been anything wrong with him _but_ Bella. And she had a further glimpse -of the way the gift worked its wonders. - -Three Fridays had passed, and he had not come. - -Well—she had meant that; she had tried (on that last Friday of his), -with a crystal sincerity, to hold him back so that he should not come. -And up till now, with an ease that simply amazed her, she had kept -herself at the highest pitch of her sincere and beautiful intention. - -Not that it was the intention that had failed her now. It had succeeded -so beautifully, so perfectly, that he had no need to come at all. She -had given Bella back to him. She had given him back to Bella. Only, she -faced the full perfection of her work. She had brought it to so fine a -point that she would never see him again; she had gone to the root of -it; she had taken from him the desire to see her. And now it was as if -subtly, insidiously, her relation to him had become inverted. Whereas -hitherto it had been she who had been necessary to him, it seemed now -that he was far more, beyond all comparison, more necessary to her. -After all, Rodney had had Bella; and she had nobody but Rodney. He was -the one solitary thing she cared for. And hitherto it had not mattered -so immensely, for all her caring, whether he came to her or not. Seeing -him had been, perhaps, a small mortal joy; but it had not been the -tremendous and essential thing. She had been contented, satisfied beyond -all mortal contentments and satisfactions, with the intangible, -immaterial tie. Now she longed, with an unendurable longing, for his -visible, bodily presence. She had not realized her joy as long as it was -with her; she had refused to acknowledge it because of its mortal -quality, and it had raised no cry that troubled her abiding spiritual -calm. But now that she had put it from her, it thrust itself on her, it -cried, it clung piteously to her and would not let her go. She looked -back to the last year, her year of Fridays, and saw it following her, -following and entreating. She looked forward and she saw Friday after -Friday coming upon her, a procession of pitiless days, trampling it -down, her small, piteous mortal joy, and her mortality rose in her and -revolted. She had been disturbed by what she had called the “lurking -possibilities” in Rodney; they were nothing to the lurking possibilities -in her. - -There were moments when her desire to see Rodney sickened her with its -importunity. Each time she beat it back, in an instant, to its burrow -below the threshold, and it hid there, it ran underground. There were -ways below the threshold by which desire could get at him. Therefore, -one night—Tuesday of the fourth week—she cut him off. She refused to -hold him even by a thread. It was Bella and Bella only that she held -now. - -On Friday of that week she heard from him. Bella was still all right. -But _he_ wasn’t. Anything but. He didn’t know what was the matter with -him. He supposed it was the same old thing again. He couldn’t think how -poor Bella stood him, but she did. It must be awfully bad for her. It -was beastly—wasn’t it?—that he should have got like that, just when -Bella was so well. - -She might have known it. She had, in fact, known. Having once held him, -and having healed him, she had no right—as long as the Power consented -to work through her—she had no right to let him go. - -She began again from the beginning, from the first process of -purification and surrender. But what followed was different now. She had -not only to recapture the crystal serenity, the holiness of that state -by which she had held Rodney Lanyon and had healed him; she had to -recover the poise by which she had held him and Harding Powell together. -She was bound equally not to let Harding go. - -It was now almost a struggle to concentrate on both Rodney and Harding, -a struggle in which Harding persisted and prevailed. Yes, there was no -blinking it, he prevailed. - -She had been prepared for it, but not as for a thing that could really -happen. It was contrary to all that she knew of the beneficent working -of the Power. She thought she knew all its ways, its silences, its -reassurances, its inexplicable reservations and evasions. She couldn’t -be prepared for this—that it, the high and holy, the unspeakably pure -thing should allow Harding to prevail, should connive (that was what it -looked like) at his taking the gift into his own hands and turning it to -his own advantage against Rodney Lanyon. - -Not that she thought it really had connived. That was unthinkable, and -Agatha did not think these things; she felt them. Hitherto she had had -no misgivings as to the possible behaviour of the Power. And now she was -afraid, not of It, and not, certainly not, of poor Harding (how could -she be afraid of him?); she was afraid mysteriously, without knowing why -or how. - -It was her fear that made her write to Rodney Lanyon. She wrote in the -beginning of the fifth week (she was counting the weeks now). She only -wanted to know, she said, that he was better, that he was well. She -begged him to write and tell her that he was well. - -He did not write. - -And every night of that week, in those “states” of hers, Powell -predominated. He was becoming almost a visible presence impressed upon -the blackness of the “state.” All she could do then was to evoke the -visible image of Rodney Lanyon and place it there over Harding’s image, -obliterating him. Now, properly speaking, the state, the perfection of -it, did not admit of visible presences, and that Harding could so -impress himself showed more than anything the extent to which he had -prevailed. - -He prevailed to such good purpose that he was now, Milly said, well -enough to go back to business. They were to leave Sarratt End in about -ten days, when they would have been there seven weeks. - -She had come over on the Sunday to let Agatha know that; and also, she -said, to make a confession. - -Milly’s face, as she said it, was all candour. It had filled out; it had -bloomed in her happiness; it was shadowless, featureless almost, like a -flower. - -She had done what she said she wouldn’t do; she had told Harding. - -“Oh, Milly, what on earth did you do that for?” Agatha’s voice was -strange. - -“I thought it better,” Milly said, revealing the fine complacence of her -character. - -“Why better?” - -“Because secrecy is bad. And he was beginning to wonder. He wanted to go -back to business; and he wouldn’t, because he thought it was the place -that did it.” - -“I see,” said Agatha. “And what does he think it is now?” - -“He thinks it’s _you_, dear.” - -“But I told you—I told you—that was what you were not to think.” - -“My dear, it’s an immense concession that he should think it’s you.” - -“A concession to what?” - -“Well, I suppose, to the supernatural.” - -“Milly, you shouldn’t have told him. You don’t know what harm you might -have done. I’m not sure even now that you haven’t done it.” - -“Oh, have I?” said Milly triumphantly. “You’ve only got to look at him.” - -“When did you tell him, then?” - -“I told him—let me see—it was a week ago last Friday.” Agatha was -silent. She wondered. It had been after Friday a week ago that he had -prevailed so terribly. - -“Agatha,” said Milly solemnly, “when we go away you won’t lose sight of -him? You won’t let go of him?” - -“You needn’t be afraid. I doubt now if he will let go of me.” - -“How do you mean—_now_?” Milly flushed slightly as a flower might flush. - -“Now that you’ve told him, now that he thinks it’s me. - -“Perhaps,” said Milly, “that was why I told him. I don’t want him to let -go.” - - - VII - - -It was the sixth week, and still Rodney did not write; and Agatha was -more and more afraid. - -By this time she had definitely connected her fear with Harding Powell’s -dominion and persistence. She was certain now that what she could only -call his importunity had proved somehow disastrous to Rodney Lanyon. And -with it all, unacknowledged, beaten back, her desire to see Rodney ran -to and fro in the burrows underground. - -He did not write, but on the Friday of that week, the sixth week, he -came. - -She saw him coming up the garden path, and she shrank back into her room -but the light searched her and found her, and he saw her there. He never -knocked; he came straight and swiftly to her through the open doors. He -shut the door of the room behind him and held her by her arms with both -his hands. - -“Rodney,” she said, “did you mean to come, or did I make you?” - -“I meant to come. You couldn’t make me.” - -“Couldn’t I? Oh, _say_ I couldn’t.” - -“You could,” he said, “but you didn’t. And what does it matter so long -as I’m here?” - -“Let me look at you.” - -She held him at arm’s length and turned him to the light. It showed his -face white, worn as it used to be, all the little lines of worry back -again, and two new ones that drew down the corners of his mouth. - -“You’ve been ill,” she said. “You _are_ ill.” - -“No. I’m all right. What’s the matter with _you?_” - -“With me? Nothing. Do I look as if anything was wrong?” - -“You look as if you’d been frightened.” - -He paused, considering it. - -“This place isn’t good for you. You oughtn’t to be here like this, all -by yourself.” - -“Oh! Rodney, it’s the dearest place. I love every inch of it. Besides, -I’m not altogether by myself.” - -He did not seem to hear her; and what he said next arose evidently out -of his own thoughts. - -“I say, are those Powells still here?” - -“They’ve been here all the time.” - -“Do you see much of them?” - -“I see them every day. Sometimes nearly all day.” - -“That accounts for it.” - -Again he paused. - -“It’s my fault, Agatha. I shouldn’t have left you to them. I knew.” - -“What did you know?” - -“Well—the state he was in, and the effect it would have on you—that it -would have on anybody.” - -“It’s all right. He’s going. Besides, he isn’t in a state any more. He’s -cured.” - -“Cured? What’s cured him?” - -She evaded him. - -“He’s been well ever since he came; absolutely well after the first -day.” - -“Still, you’ve been frightened; you’ve been worrying; you’ve had some -shock or other, or some strain. What is it?” - -“Nothing. Only—just the last week—I’ve been a little frightened about -you—when you wouldn’t write to me. Why didn’t you?” - -“Because I couldn’t.” - -“Then you _were_ ill?” - -“I’m all right. I know what’s the matter with me.” - -“It’s Bella?” - -He laughed harshly. - -“No, it isn’t this time. I haven’t that excuse.” - -“Excuse for what?” - -“For coming. Bella’s all right. Bella’s a perfect angel. God knows -what’s happened to her. I don’t. I haven’t had anything to do with it.” - -“You had. You had everything. You were an angel too.” - -“I haven’t been much of an angel lately, I can tell you.” - -“She’ll understand. She does understand.” - -They had sat down on the couch in the corner so that they faced each -other. Agatha faced him, but fear was in her eyes. - -“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “whether she understands or not. I don’t -want to talk about her.” - -Agatha said nothing, but there was a movement in her face, a white wave -of trouble, and the fear fluttered in her eyes. He saw it there. - -“You needn’t bother about Bella. She’s all right. You see, it’s not as -if she cared.” - -“Cared?” - -“About _me_ much.” - -“But she does, she does care!” - -“I suppose she did once, or she couldn’t have married me. But she -doesn’t now. You see—you may as well know it, Agatha—there’s another -man.” - -“Oh, Rodney, no.” - -“Yes. It’s been perfectly all right, you know; but there he is, and -there he’s been for years. She told me. I’m awfully sorry for her.” - -He paused. - -“What beats me is her being so angelic now, when she doesn’t care.” - -“Rodney, she does. It’s all over, like an illness. It’s you she cares -for _now_.” - -“Think so?” - -“I’m sure of it.” - -“I’m not.” - -“You will be. You’ll see it. You’ll see it soon.” - -He glanced at her under his bent brows. - -“I don’t know,” he said, “that I want to see it. _That_ isn’t what’s the -matter with me. You don’t understand the situation. It isn’t all over. -She’s only being good about it. She doesn’t care a rap about me. She -_can’t_. And what’s more, I don’t want her to.” - -[Illustration] - -“You—don’t—want her to?” - -He burst out. “My God, I want nothing in this world but _you_. And I -can’t have you. That’s what’s the matter with me.” - -“No, no, it isn’t,” she cried. “You don’t know.” - -“I do know. It’s hurting me. And”—he looked at her and his voice -shook—“it’s hurting you. I won’t have you hurt.” - -He started forward suddenly as if he would have taken her in his arms. -She put up her hands to keep him off. - -“No, no!” she cried. “I’m all right. I’m all right. It isn’t that. You -mustn’t think it.” - -“I know it. That’s why I came.” - -He came near again. He seized her struggling hands. - -“Agatha, why can’t we? Why shouldn’t we?” - -“No, no,” she moaned. “We can’t. We mustn’t. Not _that_ way. I don’t -want it, Rodney, that way.” - -“It shall be any way you like. Only don’t beat me off.” - -“I’m not—beating—you—off.” - -She stood up. Her face changed suddenly. - -“Rodney—I forgot. They’re coming.” - -“Who are they?” - -“The Powells. They’re coming to lunch.” - -“Can’t you put them off?” - -“I can, but it wouldn’t be very wise, dear. They might think—” - -“Confound them—they _would_ think.” - -He was pulling himself visibly together. - -“I’m afraid, Aggy, I ought—” - -“I know—you must. You must go soon.” - -He looked at his watch. - -“I must go _now_, dear. I daren’t stay. It’s dangerous.” - -“I know,” she whispered. - -“But when is the brute going?” - -“Poor darling, he’s going next week—next Thursday.” - -“Well then, I’ll—I’ll—” - -“Please, you must go.” - -“I’m going.” - -She held out her hand. - -“I daren’t touch you,” he whispered. “I’m going now. But I’ll come again -next Friday, and I’ll stay.” - -As she saw his drawn face, there was not any strength in her to say -“No.” - - - VIII - - -He had gone. She gathered herself together and went across the field to -meet the Powells as if nothing had happened. - -Milly and her husband were standing at the gate of the Farm. They were -watching; yes, they were watching Rodney Lanyon as he crossed the river -by the Farm bridge. The bridge carried the field path that slanted up -the hill to the farther and western end of the wood. Their attitude -showed that they were interested in his brief appearance on the scene, -and that they wondered what he had been doing there. And as she -approached them she was aware of something cold, ominous and inimical, -that came from them, and set towards her and passed by. Her sense of it -only lasted for a second, and was gone so completely that she could -hardly realize that she had ever felt it. - -For they were charming to her. Harding, indeed, was more perfect in his -beautiful quality than ever. There was something about him that she had -not been prepared for, something strange and pathetic, humble almost and -appealing. She saw it in his eyes, his large, dark, wild animal eyes, -chiefly. But it was a look that claimed as much as it deprecated; that -assumed between them some unspoken communion and understanding. With all -its pathos it was a look that frightened her. Neither he nor his wife -said a word about Rodney Lanyon. She was not even sure, now, that they -had recognized him. - -They stayed with her all that afternoon; for their time, they said, was -getting short; and when, about six o’clock, Milly got up to go she took -Agatha aside and said that, if Agatha didn’t mind, she would leave -Harding with her for a little while. She knew he wanted to talk to her. - -Agatha proposed that they should walk up the hill through the wood. They -went in a curious silence and constraint; and it was not until they had -got into the wood and were shut up in it together that he spoke. - -“I think my wife told you I had something to say to you?” - -“Yes, Harding,” she said. “What is it?” - -“Well, it’s this—first of all, I want to thank you. I know what you’re -doing for me.” - -“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to know. I thought Milly wasn’t going to -tell you.” - -“She didn’t tell me.” - -Agatha said nothing. She was bound to accept his statement. Of course, -he must have known that Milly had broken her word, and he was trying to -shield her. - -“I mean,” he went on, “that whether she told me or not, it’s no matter; -I knew.” - -“You—knew?” - -“I knew that something was happening, and I knew it wasn’t the place. -Places never make any difference. I only go to ’em because Milly thinks -they do. Besides, if it came to that, this place—from my peculiar point -of view, mind you—was simply beastly. I couldn’t have stood another -night of it.” - -“Well.” - -“Well, the thing went; and I got all right. And the queer part of it is, -I felt as if you were in it somehow, as if you’d done something. I half -hoped you might say something, but you never did.” - -“One oughtn’t to speak about these things, Harding. And I told you I -didn’t want you to know.” - -“I didn’t know what you did. I don’t know now, though Milly tried to -tell me. But I felt you. I felt you all the time.” - -“It was not I you felt. I implore you not to think it was.” - -“What can I think?” - -“Think as I do; think—think—” She stopped herself. She was aware of the -futility of her charge to this man who denied, who always had denied, -the supernatural. “It isn’t a question of thinking,” she said at last. - -“Of believing, then? Are you going to tell me to believe?” - -“No; it isn’t believing either. It’s knowing. Either you know it or you -don’t know, though you may come to know. But whatever you think, you -mustn’t think it’s me.” - -“I rather like to. Why shouldn’t I?” - -She turned on him her grave white face, and he noticed a curious -expression there as of incipient terror. - -“Because you might do some great harm either to yourself or—” - -His delicate, sceptical eyebrows questioned her. - -“Or me.” - -“You?” he murmured gently, pitifully almost. - -“Yes, me. Or even—well, one doesn’t quite know where the harm might end. -If I could only make you take another view. I tried to make you—to work -it that way—so that you might find the secret and do it for yourself.” - -“I can’t do anything for myself. But, Agatha, I’ll take any view you -like of it, so long as you’ll keep on at me.” - -“Of course I’ll keep on.” - -At that he stopped suddenly in his path, and faced her. - -“I say, you know, it isn’t hurting you, is it?” - -She felt herself wince. “Hurting me? How could it hurt me?” - -“Milly said it couldn’t.” - -Agatha sighed. She said to herself, “Milly—if only Milly hadn’t -interfered.” - -“Don’t you think it’s cold here in the wood?” she said. - -“Cold?” - -“Yes. Let’s go back.” - -As they went Milly met them at the Farm bridge. She wanted Agatha to -come and stay for supper; she pressed, she pleaded, and Agatha, who had -never yet withstood Milly’s pleading, stayed. - -It was from that evening that she really dated it, the thing that came -upon her. She was aware that in staying she disobeyed an instinct that -told her to go home. Otherwise she could not say that she had any sort -of premonition. Supper was laid in the long room with the yellow blinds, -where she had first found Harding Powell. The blinds were drawn -to-night, and the lamp on the table burnt low; the oil was giving out. -The light in the room was still daylight and came level from the sunset, -leaking through the yellow blinds. It struck Agatha that it was the same -light, the same ochreish light that they had found in the room six weeks -ago. But that was nothing. - -What it was she did not know. The horrible light went when the flame of -the lamp burnt clearer. Harding was talking to her cheerfully and Milly -was smiling at them both, when half through the meal Agatha got up and -declared that she must go. She was ill; she was tired; they must forgive -her, but she must go. - -The Powells rose and stood by her, close to her, in their distress. -Milly brought wine and put it to her lips; but she turned her head away -and whispered: “Please let me go. Let me get away.” - -Harding wanted to walk back with her, but she refused with a vehemence -that deterred him. - -“How very odd of her,” said Milly, as they stood at the gate and watched -her go. She was walking fast, almost running, with a furtive step, as if -something pursued her. - -Powell did not speak. He turned from his wife and went slowly back into -the house. - - - IX - - -She knew now what had happened to her. She was afraid of Harding Powell; -and it was her fear that had cried to her to go, to get away from him. - -The awful thing was that she knew she could not get away from him. She -had only to close her eyes and she would find the visible image of him -hanging before her on the wall of darkness. And to-night, when she tried -to cover it with Rodney’s it was no longer obliterated. Rodney’s image -had worn thin and Harding’s showed through. She was more afraid of it -than she had been of Harding; and more than anything, she was afraid of -being afraid. Harding was the object of a boundless and indestructible -compassion, and her fear of him was hateful to her and unholy. She knew -that it would be terrible to let it follow her into that darkness where -she would presently go down with him alone. “It would be all right,” she -said to herself, “if only I didn’t keep on seeing him.” - -But he, his visible image, and her fear of it, persisted even while the -interior darkness, the divine, beneficent darkness rose round her, wave -on wave, and flooded her; even while she held him there and healed him; -even while it still seemed to her that her love pierced through her fear -and gathered to her, spirit to spirit, flame to pine flame, the -nameless, innermost essence of Rodney and of Bella. She had known in the -beginning that it was by love that she held them; but now, though she -loved Rodney and had almost lost her pity for Harding in her fear of -him, it was Harding rather than Rodney that she held. - -In the morning she woke with a sense, which was almost a memory, of -Harding having been in the room with her all night. She was tired, as if -she had had some long and unrestrained communion with him. - -She put away at once the fatigue that pressed on her (the gift still -“worked” in a flash for the effacing of bodily sensation). She told -herself that, after all, her fear had done no harm. Seldom in her -experience of the Power had she had so tremendous a sense of having got -through to it, of having “worked” it, of having held Harding under it -and healed him. For, when all was said and done, whether she had been -afraid of him or not, she had held him, she had never once let go. The -proof was that he still went sane, visibly, indubitably cured. - -All the same, she felt that she could not go through another day like -yesterday. She could not see him. She wrote a letter to Milly. Since it -concerned Milly so profoundly, it was well that Milly should be made to -understand. She hoped that Milly would forgive her if they didn’t see -her for the next day or two. If she was to go on (she underlined it) she -must be left absolutely alone. It seemed unkind when they were going so -soon, but—Milly knew—it was impossible to exaggerate the importance of -what she had to do. - -Milly wrote back that, of course, she understood. It should be as Agatha -wished. Only (so Milly “sustained” her) Agatha must not allow herself to -doubt the Power. How could she, when she saw what it had done for -Harding? If _she_ doubted, what could she expect of Harding? But, of -course, she must take care of her own dear self. If she failed—if she -gave way—what on earth would the poor darling do, now that he had become -dependent on her? - -She wrote as if it was Agatha’s fault that he had become dependent; as -if Agatha had nothing, had nobody in the world to think of but Harding; -as if nobody, as if nothing in the world beside Harding mattered. And -Agatha found herself resenting Milly’s view. As if to her anything in -the world mattered beside Rodney Lanyon. - -For three days she did not see the Powells. - - - X - - -The three nights passed as before, but with an increasing struggle and -fear. - -She knew, she knew what was happening. It was as if the walls of -personality were wearing thin, and through them she felt him trying to -get at her. - -She put the thought from her. It was absurd. It was insane. Such things -could not be. It was not in any region of such happenings that she held -him, but in the place of peace, the charmed circle, the flawless crystal -sphere. - -Still the thought persisted; and still, in spite of it, she held him, -she would not let him go. By her honour and by her love for Milly she -was bound to hold him, even though she knew how terribly, how implacably -he prevailed. - -She was aware now that the persistence of his image on the blackness was -only a sign to her of his being there in his substance; in his supreme -innermost essence. It had obviously no relation to his bodily -appearance, since she had not seen him for three days. It tended more -and more to vanish, to give place to the shapeless, nameless, -all-pervading presence. And her fear of him became pervading, nameless -and shapeless too. - -Somehow it was always behind her now, it followed her from room to room -of her house; it drove her out of doors. It seemed to her that she went -before it with quick, uncertain feet and a fluttering heart, aimless and -tormented as a leaf driven by a vague light wind. Sometimes it sent her -up the field towards the wood; sometimes it would compel her to go a -little way towards the Farm; and then it was as if it took her by the -shoulders and turned her back again towards her house. - -[Illustration] - -On the fourth day (which was Tuesday of the Powells’ last week) she -determined to fight this fear. She could not defy it to the extent of -going on to the Farm where she might see Harding, but certainly she -would not suffer it to turn her from her hill-top. It was there that she -had always gone as the night fell, calling home her thoughts to sleep; -and it was there, seven weeks ago, that the moon, the golden-white and -holy moon, had led her to the consecration of her gift. She had returned -softly, seven weeks ago, carrying carefully her gift, as a fragile, -flawless crystal. Since then how recklessly she had held it! To what -jars and risks she had exposed the exquisite and sacred thing! - -She waited for her hour between sunset and twilight. It was perfect, -following a perfect day. Above the wood the sky had a violet lucidity, -purer than the day; below it, the pale brown earth wore a violet haze, -and over that a web of green, woven of the sparse, thin blades of the -young wheat. There were two ways up the hill; one over her own bridge -across the river, that led her to the steep, straight path through the -wood; one over the Farm bridge by the slanting path up the field. She -chose the wood. - -She paused on the bridge, and looked down the valley. She saw the -farm-house standing in the stillness that was its own secret and the -hour’s. A strange, pale lamplight, lit too soon, showed in the windows -of the room she knew. The Powells would be sitting there at their -supper. - -She went on and came to the gate of the wood. It swung open on its -hinges, a sign to her that some time or other Harding Powell had passed -there. She paused and looked about her. Presently she saw Harding Powell -coming down the wood-path. - -He stopped. He had not yet seen her. He was looking up to the arch of -the beech-trees, where the green light still came through. She could see -by his attitude of quiet contemplation the sane and happy creature that -he was. He was sane, she knew. And yet, no; she could not really see him -as sane. It was her sanity, not his own, that he walked in. Or else what -she saw was the empty shell of him. _He_ was in her. Hitherto it had -been in the darkness that she had felt him most, and her fear of him had -been chiefly fear of the invisible Harding, and of what he might do -there in the darkness. Now her fear, which had become almost hatred, was -transferred to his person. In the flesh, as in the spirit, he was -pursuing her. - -He had seen her now. He was making straight for her. And she turned and -ran round the eastern bend of the hill (a yard or so to the left of her) -and hid from him. From where she crouched at the edge of the wood she -saw him descend the lower slope to the river; by standing up and -advancing a little she could see him follow the river path on the nearer -side and cross by the Farm bridge. - -She was sure of all that. She was sure that it did not take her more -than twelve or fifteen minutes (for she had gone that way a hundred -times) to get back to the gate, to walk up the little wood, to cut -through it by a track in the undergrowth, and turn round the further and -western end of it. Thence she could either take the long path that -slanted across the field to the Farm bridge or keep to the upper ground -along a trail in the grass skirting the wood, and so reach home by the -short, straight path and her own bridge. - -She decided on the short, straight path as leading her farther from the -farm-house, where there could be no doubt that Harding Powell was now. -At the point she had reached, the jutting corner of the wood hid from -her the downward slope of the hill, and the flat land at its foot. - -As she turned the corner of the wood, she was brought suddenly in sight -of the valley. A hot wave swept over her brain, so strong that she -staggered as it passed. It was followed by a strange sensation of -physical sickness, that passed also. It was then as if what went through -her had charged her nerves of sight to a pitch of insane and horrible -sensibility. The green of the grass, and of the young corn, the very -colour of life, was violent and frightful. Not only was it abominable in -itself, it was a thing to be shuddered at, because of some still more -abominable significance it had. - -Agatha had known once, standing where she stood now, an exaltation of -sense that was ecstasy; when every leaf and every blade of grass shone -with a divine translucence; when every nerve in her thrilled, and her -whole being rang with the joy which is immanent in the life of things. - -What she experienced now (if she could have given any account of it) was -exaltation at the other end of the scale. It was horror and fear -unspeakable. Horror and fear immanent in the life of things. She saw the -world in a loathsome transparency; she saw it with the eye of a soul in -which no sense of the divine had ever been, of a soul that denied the -supernatural. It had been Harding Powell’s soul, and it had become hers. - -Furiously, implacably, he was getting at her. - -Out of the wood and the hedges that bordered it there came sounds that -were horrible, because she knew them to be inaudible to any ear less -charged with insanity; small sounds of movement, of strange shiverings, -swarmings, crepitations; sounds of incessant, infinitely subtle urging, -of agony and recoil. Sounds they were of the invisible things unborn, -driven towards birth; sounds of the worm unborn, of things that creep -and writhe towards dissolution. She knew what she heard and saw. She -heard the stirring of the corruption that Life was; the young blades of -corn were frightful to her, for in them was the push, the passion of the -evil which was Life; the trees, as they stretched out their arms and -threatened her, were frightful with the terror which was Life. Down -there, in that gross green hot-bed, the earth teemed with the -abomination; and the river, livid, white, a monstrous thing, crawled, -dragging with it the very slime. - -All this she perceived in a flash, when she had turned the corner. It -sank into stillness and grew dim; she was aware of it only as the scene, -the region in which one thing, her terror, moved and hunted her. Among -sounds of the rustling of leaves, and the soft crush of grass, and the -whining of little wings in fright, she heard it go; it went on the other -side of the hedge, a little way behind her as she skirted the wood. She -stood still to let it pass her, and she felt that it passed, and that it -stopped and waited. A terrified bird flew out of the hedge, no further -than a fledgling’s flight in front of her. And in that place it flew -from she saw Harding Powell. - -He was crouching under the hedge as she had crouched when she had hidden -from him. His face was horrible, but not more horrible than the Terror -that had gone behind her; and she heard herself crying out to him: -“Harding! Harding!” appealing to him against the implacable, unseen -Pursuer. - -He had risen (she saw him rise), but as she called his name he became -insubstantial, and she saw a Thing, a nameless, unnameable, shapeless -Thing, proceeding from him. A brown, blurred Thing, transparent as dusk -is, that drifted on the air. It was torn and tormented, a fragment -parted and flung off from some immense and as yet invisible cloud of -horror. It drifted from her; it dissolved like smoke on the hillside; -and the Thing that had born and begotten it pursued her. - -She bowed under it, and turned from the edge of the wood, the horrible -place it had been born in; she ran before it, headlong down the field, -trampling the young corn under her feet. As she ran she heard a voice in -the valley, a voice of amazement and entreaty, calling to her in a sort -of song. - -“What—are—you—running for—Aggy—Aggy?” - -It was Milly’s voice that called. - -Then as she came, still headlong, to the river, she heard Harding’s -voice saying something, she did not know what. She couldn’t stop to -listen to him, or to consider how he came to be there in the valley, -when a minute ago she had seen him by the edge of the wood, up on the -very top of the hill. - -He was on the bridge—the Farm bridge—now. He held out his hand to steady -her as she came on over the swinging plank. - -She knew that he had led her to the other side, and that he was standing -there, still saying something, and that she answered. - -“Have you no pity on me? Can’t you let me go?” And then she broke from -him and ran. - - - XI - - -She was awake all that night. Harding Powell and the horror begotten of -him had no pity; he would not let her go. Her gift, her secret, was -powerless now against the pursuer. - -She had a light burning in her room till morning, for she was afraid of -sleep. Those unlit roads down which, if she slept, the Thing would -surely hunt her, were ten times more terrible than the white-washed, -familiar room where it merely watched and waited. - -In the morning she found a letter on her breakfast-table, which she said -Mrs. Powell had left late last evening, after Agatha had gone to bed. -Milly wrote: “Dearest Agatha,— Of course I understand. But are we -_never_ going to see you again? What was the matter with you last night? -You terrified poor Harding.— Yours ever, M. P.” - -Without knowing why, Agatha tore the letter into bits and burned them in -the flame of a candle. She watched them burn. - -“Of course,” she said to herself, “that isn’t sane of me.” - -And when she had gone round her house and shut all the doors and locked -them, and drawn down the blinds in every closed window, and found -herself cowering over her fireless hearth, shuddering with fear, she -knew that, whether she were mad or not, there was madness in her. She -knew that her face in the glass (she had the courage to look at it) was -the face of an insane terror let loose. - -That she did know it, that there were moments—flashes—in which she could -contemplate her state and recognize it for what it was, showed that -there was still a trace of sanity in her. It was not her own madness -that possessed her. It was, or rather, it had been, Harding Powell’s; -she had taken it from him. That was what it meant—to take away madness. - -There could be no doubt as to what had happened, nor as to the way of -its happening. The danger of it, utterly unforeseen, was part of the -very operation of the gift. In the process of getting at Harding to heal -him she had had to destroy, not only the barriers of flesh and blood, -but those innermost walls of personality that divide and protect, -mercifully, one spirit from another. With the first thinning of the -walls Harding’s insanity had leaked through to her, with the first -breach it had broken in. It had been transferred to her complete with -all its details, with its very gestures, in all the phases that it ran -through; Harding’s premonitory fears and tremblings; Harding’s exalted -sensibility; Harding’s abominable vision of the world, that vision from -which the resplendent divinity had perished; Harding’s flight before the -pursuing Terror. She was sitting now as Harding had sat when she found -him crouching over the hearth in that horrible room with the drawn -blinds. It seemed to her that to have a madness of your own would not be -so very horrible. It would be, after all, your own. It could not -possibly be one-half so horrible as this, to have somebody else’s -madness put into you. - -The one thing by which she knew herself was the desire that no longer -ran underground, but emerged and appeared before her, lit by her lucid -flashes, naked and unshamed. - -She still knew her own. And there was something in her still that was -greater than the thing that inhabited her, the pursuer, the pursued, who -had rushed into her as his refuge, his sanctuary; and that was her fear -of him and of what he might do there. If her doors stood open to him, -they stood open to Bella and to Rodney Lanyon too. What else had she -been trying for, if it were not to break down in all three of them the -barriers of flesh and blood, and to transmit the Power? In the -unthinkable sacrament to which she called them they had all three -partaken. And since the holy thing could suffer her to be thus -permeated, saturated with Harding Powell, was it to be supposed that she -could keep him to herself, that she would not pass him on to Rodney -Lanyon? - -It was not, after all, incredible. If he could get at her, of course he -could get, through her, at Rodney. - -That was the Terror of terrors, and it was her own. That it could -subsist together with that alien horror, that it remained supreme beside -it, proved that there was still some tract in her where the invader had -not yet penetrated. In her love for Rodney and her fear for him she -entrenched herself against the destroyer. There at least she knew -herself impregnable. - -It was in such a luminous flash that she saw the thing still in her own -hands, and resolved that it should cease. - -She would have to break her word to Milly. She would have to let Harding -go, to loosen deliberately his hold on her and cut him off. It could be -done. She had held him through her gift, and it would be still possible, -through the gift, to let him go. Of course she knew it would be hard. - -It _was_ hard. It was terrible; for he clung. She had not counted on his -clinging. It was as if, in their undivided substance, he had had -knowledge of her purpose and had prepared himself to fight it. He hung -on desperately; he refused to yield an inch of the ground he had taken -from her. He was no longer a passive thing in that world where she had -brought him. And he had certain advantages. He had possessed her for -three nights and for three days. She had made herself porous to him; and -her sleep had always been his opportunity. - -It took her three nights and three days to cast him out. In the first -night she struggled with him. She lay with all her senses hushed, and -brought the divine darkness round her, but in the darkness she was aware -that she struggled. She could build up the walls between them, but she -knew that as fast as she built them he tore at them and pulled them -down. - -She bore herself humbly towards the Power that permitted him. She -conceived of it as holiness—estranged and offended; she pleaded with it. -She could no longer trust her knowledge of its working, but she tried to -come to terms with it. She offered herself as a propitiation, as a -substitute for Rodney Lanyon, if there was no other way by which he -might be saved. - -Apparently, that was not the way it worked. Harding seemed to gain. But, -as he kept her awake all night, he had no chance to establish himself, -as he would otherwise have done, in her sleep. The odds between her and -her adversary were even. - -The second night _she_ gained. She felt that she had built up her walls -again; that she had cut Harding off. With spiritual pain, with the -tearing of the bonds of compassion, with a supreme agony of rupture, he -parted from her. - -Possibly the Power was neutral; for in the dawn after the second night -she slept. That sleep left her uncertain of the event. There was no -telling into what unguarded depths it might have carried her. She knew -that she had been free of her adversary before she slept, but the -chances were that he had got at her in her sleep. Since the Power held -the balance even between her and the invader, it would no doubt permit -him to enter by any loophole that he could seize. - -On the third night, as it were in the last watch, she surrendered, but -not to Harding Powell. - -She could not say how it came to her; she was lying in her bed with her -eyes shut and her arms held apart from her body, diminishing all -contacts, stripping for her long slide into the cleansing darkness, when -she found herself recalling some forgotten, yet inalienable knowledge -that she had. Something said to her: “Do you not remember? There is no -striving and no crying in the world which you would enter. There is no -more appeasing where peace _is_. You cannot make your own terms with the -high and holy Power. It is not enough to give yourself for Rodney -Lanyon, for he is more to you than you are yourself. Besides, any -substitution of self for self would be useless, for there is no more -self there. That is why the Power cannot work that way. But if it should -require you, here on this side the threshold, to give him up, to give up -your desire of him, what then? Would you loose your hold on him and let -him go?” - -“Would you?” the voice insisted. - -She heard herself answer from the pure threshold of the darkness: “I -would.” - -Sleep came on her there; a divine sleep from beyond the threshold; -sacred, inviolate sleep. - -It was the seal upon the bond. - - - XII - - -She woke on Friday morning to a vivid and indestructible certainty of -escape. - -But there had been a condition attached to her deliverance; and it was -borne in on her that instead of waiting for the Power to force its terms -on her, she would do well to be beforehand with it. Friday was Rodney’s -day, and this time she knew that he would come. His coming, of course, -was nothing, but he had told her plainly that he would not go. She must, -therefore, wire to him not to come. - -In order to do this she had to get up early and walk about a mile to the -nearest village. She took the shortest way, which was by the Farm -bridge, and up the slanting path to the far end of the wood. She knew -vaguely that once, as she turned the corner of the wood, there had been -horrors, and that the divine beauty of green pastures and still waters -had appeared to her as a valley of the shadow of evil, but she had no -more memory of what she had seen than of a foul dream, three nights -dead. She went at first uplifted in the joy of her deliverance, drawing -into her the light and fragrance of the young morning. Then she -remembered Harding Powell. She had noticed as she passed the Farm-house -that the blinds were drawn again in all the windows. That was because -Harding and Milly were gone. She thought of Harding, of Milly, with an -immense tenderness and compassion, but also with lucidity, with sanity. -They had gone—yesterday—and she had not seen them. That could not be -helped. She had done all that was possible. She could not have seen them -as long as the least taint of Harding’s malady remained with her. And -how could she have faced Milly after having broken her word to her? - -Not that she regretted even that, the breaking of her word, so sane was -she. She could conceive that, if it had not been for Rodney Lanyon, she -might have had the courage to have gone on. She might have considered -that she was bound to save Harding, even at the price of her own sanity, -since there _was_ her word to Milly. But it might be questioned whether -by holding on to him she would have kept it, whether she really could -have saved him that way. She was no more than a vehicle, a crystal -vessel for the inscrutable and secret Power, and in destroying her -utterly, Harding would have destroyed himself. You could not transmit -the Power through a broken crystal—why, not even through one that had a -flaw. - -[Illustration] - -There had been a flaw somewhere; so much was certain. And as she -searched now for the flaw, with her luminous sanity, she found it in her -fear. She knew, she had always known, the danger of taking fear, and the -thought of fear with her into that world where to think was to will, and -to will was to create. But for the rest, she had tried to make herself -clear as crystal. And what could she do more than give up Rodney? - -As she set her face towards the village, she was sustained by a sacred -ardour, a sacrificial exaltation. But as she turned homewards across the -solitary fields, she realized the sadness, the desolation of the thing -she had accomplished. He would not come. Her message would reach him two -hours before the starting of the train he always came by. - -Across the village she saw her white house shining, and the windows of -his room (her study, which was always his room when he came); its -lattices were flung open as if it welcomed him. - -Something had happened there. - -Her maid was standing by the garden gate, looking for her. As she -approached, the girl came over the field to meet her. She had an air of -warning her, of preparing her for something. - -It was Mrs. Powell, the maid said. She had come again. She was in there, -waiting for Miss Agatha. She wouldn’t go away; she had gone straight in. -She was in an awful state. The maid thought it was something to do with -Mr. Powell. - -They had not gone, then. - -“If I were you, miss,” the maid was saying, “I wouldn’t see her.” - -“Of course I shall see her.” - -She went at once into the room where Rodney might have been, where Milly -was. Milly rose from the corner where she sat averted. - -“Agatha,” she said, “I had to come.” - -Agatha kissed the white, suppliant face that Milly lifted. “I thought,” -she said, “you’d gone—yesterday.” - -“We couldn’t go. He—he’s ill again.” - -“Ill?” - -“Yes. Didn’t you see the blinds down as you passed?” - -“I thought it was because you’d gone.” - -“It’s because that _thing’s_ come back again.” - -“When did it come, Milly?” - -“It’s been coming for three days.” - -Agatha drew in her breath with a pang. It was just three days since she -began to let him go. - -Milly went on. “And now he won’t come out of the house. He says he’s -being hunted. He’s afraid of being seen, being found. He’s in there—in -that room. He made me lock him in.” - -They stared at each other and at the horror that their faces took and -gave back each to each. - -“Oh, Aggy—” Milly cried it out in her anguish. - -“You _will_ help him?” - -“I can’t.” Agatha heard her voice go dry in her throat. - -“You _can’t_?” - -Agatha shook her head. - -“You mean you haven’t, then?” - -“I haven’t. I couldn’t.” - -“But you told me—you told me you were giving yourself up to it. You said -that was why you couldn’t see us.” - -“It _was_ why. Do sit down, Milly.” - -They sat down, still staring at each other. Agatha faced the window, so -that the light ravaged her. - -Milly went on. “That was why I left you alone. I thought you were going -on. You said you wouldn’t let him go; you promised me you’d keep on—” - -“I did keep on, till—” - -But Milly had only paused to hold down a sob. Her voice broke out again, -clear, harsh, accusing. - -“What were you doing all that time?” - -“Of course,” said Agatha, “you’re bound to think I let you down.” - -“What am I to think?” - -“Milly—I asked you not to think it was me.” - -“Of course I knew it was the Power, not you. But you had hold of it. You -did something. Something that other people can’t do. You did it for one -night, and that night he was well. You kept on for six weeks, and he was -well all that time. You leave off for three days—I know when you left -off—and he’s ill again. And then you tell me it isn’t you. It _is_ you; -and if it’s you, you can’t give him up. You can’t stand by, Aggy, and -refuse to help him. You know what it was. How can you bear to let him -suffer? How can you?” - -“I can, because I must.” - -“And why must you?” - -Milly raised her head more in defiance than in supplication. - -“Because—I told you—I might give out. Well—I _have_ given out.” - -“You told me the Power can’t give out—that you’ve only got to hold on to -it—that it’s no effort. I’m only asking you, Aggy, to hold on.” - -“You don’t know what you’re asking.” - -“I’m asking you only to do what you have done, to give five minutes in -the day to him. You said it was enough. Only five minutes. It isn’t much -to ask.” - -Agatha sighed. - -“What difference could it make to you—five minutes?” - -“You don’t understand,” said Agatha. - -“I do. I don’t ask you to see him, or to bother with him; only to go on -as you were doing.” - -“You don’t understand. It isn’t possible to explain it. I can’t go on.” - -“I see. You’re tired, Aggy. Well—not now, not to-day. But later, when -you’re rested, won’t you?” - -“Oh, Milly, dear Milly, if I could—” - -“You can. You will. I know you will—” - -“No. You must understand it. Never again. Never again.” - -“Never?” - -“Never.” - -There was a long silence. At last Milly’s voice crept through, strained -and thin, feebly argumentative, the voice of a thing defeated and yet -unconvinced. - -“I don’t understand you, Agatha. You say it isn’t you; you say you’re -only a connecting link; that you do nothing; that the Power that does it -is inexhaustible; that there’s nothing it can’t do, nothing it won’t do -for us, and yet you go and cut yourself off from it—deliberately, from -the thing you believe to be divine.” - -“I haven’t cut myself off from it.” - -“You’ve cut Harding off,” said Milly. “If you refuse to hold him.” - -“That wouldn’t cut him off—from It. But, Milly, holding him was bad; it -wasn’t safe.” - -“It saved him.” - -“All the same, Milly, it wasn’t safe. The thing itself isn’t.” - -“The Power? The divine thing?” - -“Yes. It’s divine and it’s—it’s terrible. It does terrible things to -us.” - -“How could it? If it’s divine, wouldn’t it be compassionate? Do you -suppose it’s less compassionate than—_you_ are? Why, Agatha, when it’s -goodness and purity itself—?” - -“Goodness and purity are terrible. We don’t understand it. It’s got its -own laws. What you call prayer’s all right—it would be safe, I mean—I -suppose it might get answered anyway, however we fell short. But -_this_—this is different. It’s the highest, Milly; and if you rush in -and make for the highest, can’t you see, oh, can’t you _see_ how it -might break you? Can’t you see what it requires of _you_? Absolute -purity. I told you, Milly. You have to be crystal to it—crystal without -a flaw.” - -“And—if there were a flaw?” - -“The whole thing, don’t you see, would break down; it would be no good. -In fact, it would be awfully dangerous.” - -“To whom?” - -“To you—to them, the people you’re helping. You make a connection; you -smash down all the walls so that you—you get through to each other; and -supposing there was something wrong with _you_, and it doesn’t work any -longer (the Power, I mean), don’t you see you might do harm where you -were trying to help?” - -“But—Agatha—there was nothing wrong with you.” - -“How do I know? Can anybody be sure there’s nothing wrong with them?” - -“You think,” said Milly, “there was a flaw somewhere?” - -“There must have been—somewhere—” - -“What was it? Can’t you find out? Can’t you think? Think.” - -“Sometimes—I’ve thought it may have been my fear.” - -“Fear?” - -“Yes, it’s the worst thing. Don’t you remember, I told you not to be -afraid?” - -“But, Agatha, you were _not_ afraid.” - -“I was—afterwards. I got frightened.” - -“_You_? And you told _me_ not to be afraid,” said Milly. - -“I had to tell you.” - -“And I wasn’t afraid—afterwards. I believed in you. He believed in you.” - -“You shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t. That was just it.” - -“That was it? I suppose you’ll say next it was I who frightened you?” - -As they faced each other there, Agatha, with the terrible, the almost -supernatural lucidity she had, saw what was making Milly say that. Milly -had been frightened; she felt that she had probably communicated her -fright; she knew that was dangerous, and she knew that if it had done -harm to Harding, she, and not Agatha, would be responsible. And because -she couldn’t face her responsibility, she was trying to fasten upon -Agatha some other fault than fear. - -“No, Milly, I don’t say you frightened me; it was my own fear.” - -“What was there for _you_ to be afraid of?” - -Agatha was silent. That was what she must never tell her, not even to -make her understand. She did not know what Milly was trying to think of -her; Milly might think what she liked; but she should never know what -her terror had been and her danger. - -Agatha’s silence helped Milly. - -“Nothing,” she said, “will make me believe it was your fear that did it. -That would never have made you give Harding up. Besides, you were not -afraid at first, though you may have been afterwards.” - -“Afterwards?” - -It was her own word, but it had as yet no significance for her. - -“After—whatever it was you gave him up for. You gave him up for -something.” - -“I did not. I never gave him up until I was afraid.” - -“You gave It up. You wouldn’t have done that if there had not been -something. Something that stood between.” - -“If,” said Agatha, “you could only tell me what it was.” - -“I can’t tell you. I don’t know what came to you. I only know that if -I’d had a gift like that, I would not have given it up for anything. I -wouldn’t have let anything come between. I’d have kept myself—” - -“I did keep myself—for it. I couldn’t keep myself entirely for Harding; -there were other things, other people. I couldn’t give them up for -Harding or for anybody.” - -“Are you quite sure you kept yourself what you were, Aggy?” - -“What _was_ I?” - -“My dear—you were absolutely pure. You said _that_ was the condition.” - -“Yes. And, don’t you see, who _is_ absolutely? If you thought I was, you -didn’t know me.” - -As she spoke she heard the sharp click of the latch as the garden gate -fell to; she had her back to the window so that she saw nothing, but she -heard footsteps that she knew, resolute and energetic footsteps that -hurried to their end. She felt the red blood surge into her face, and -saw that Milly’s face was white with another passion, and that Milly’s -eyes were fixed on the figure of the man who came up the garden path. -And without looking at her Milly answered: - -“I don’t know now; but I think I see, my dear—” In Milly’s pause the -door-bell rang violently. Milly rose and let her have it. “What the flaw -in the crystal was.” - - - XIII - - -Rodney entered the room, and it was then that Milly looked at her. -Milly’s face was no longer the face of passion, but of sadness and -reproach, almost of recovered incredulity. It questioned rather than -accused her. It said unmistakably, “You gave him up for _that_?” - -Agatha’s voice recalled her. “Milly, I think you know Mr. Lanyon.” - -Rodney, in acknowledging Milly’s presence, did not look at her. He saw -nothing there but Agatha’s face, which showed him at last the expression -that to his eyes had always been latent in it, the look of the tragic, -hidden soul of terror that he had divined in her. He saw her at last as -he had known he should some day see her. Terror was no longer there, but -it had possessed her; it had passed through her and destroyed that other -look she had from her lifted mouth and hair, the look of a thing borne -on wings. Now, with her wings beaten, with her white face and haggard -eyes, he saw her as a flying thing tracked down and trampled under the -feet of the pursuer. He saw it in one flash as he stood there holding -Milly’s hand. - -Milly’s face had no significance for him. He didn’t see it. When at last -he looked at her his eyes questioned her; they demanded an account from -her of what he saw. - -For Agatha, Milly’s face, prepared as it was for leave-taking, remained -charged with meaning; it refused to divest itself of reproach and of the -incredulity that challenged her. Agatha rose to it. - -“You’re not going, Milly, just because he’s come? You needn’t.” - -Milly _was_ going. - -He rose to it also. - -If Mrs. Powell _would_ go like that—in that distressing way—she must at -least let him walk back with her. Agatha wouldn’t mind. He hadn’t seen -Mrs. Powell for ages. - -He had risen to such a height that Milly was bewildered by him. She let -him walk back with her to the Farm and a little way beyond it. Agatha -said good-bye to Milly at the garden gate and watched them go. Then she -went up into her own room. - -He was gone so long that she thought he was never coming back again. She -didn’t want him to come back just yet, but she knew she was not afraid -to see him. It didn’t occur to her to wonder why, in spite of her -message, he had come, nor why he had come by an earlier train than -usual; she supposed he must have started before her message could have -reached him. All that, his coming or his not coming, mattered so little -now. - -For now the whole marvellous thing was clear to her. She knew the secret -of the gift. She saw luminously, almost transparently, the way it -worked. Milly had shown her. Milly knew; Milly had seen; she had put her -finger on the flaw. - -It was not fear; Milly had been right there too. Until the moment when -Harding Powell had begun to get at her Agatha had never known what fear -felt like. It was the strain of mortality in her love for Rodney; the -hidden thing, unforeseen and unacknowledged, working its work in the -darkness. It had been there all the time, undermining her secret, sacred -places. It had made the first breach through which the fear that was not -_her_ fear had entered. She could tell the very moment when it happened. - -She had blamed poor little Milly; but it was the flaw, the flaw that had -given their deadly point to Milly’s interference and Harding’s -importunity. But for the flaw they could not have penetrated her -profound serenity. Her gift might have been trusted to dispose of them. - -For before that moment the gift had worked indubitably; it had never -missed once. She looked back on its wonders; on the healing of herself; -the first healing of Rodney and Harding Powell; the healing of Bella. It -had worked with a peculiar rhythm of its own, and always in a strict, a -measurable proportion to the purity of her intention. To Harding’s case -she had brought nothing but innocent love and clean compassion; to -Bella’s nothing but a selfless and beneficent desire to help. And -because in Bella’s case at least she had been flawless, of the three, -Bella’s was the only cure that had lasted. It had most marvellously -endured. And because of the flaw in her she had left Harding worse than -she had found him. No wonder that poor Milly had reproached her. - -It mattered nothing that Milly’s reproaches went too far, that in -Milly’s eyes she stood suspected of material sin (anything short of the -tangible had never been enough for Milly); it mattered nothing that -(though Milly mightn’t believe it) she had sinned only in her thought; -for Agatha, who knew, that was enough; more than enough; it counted -more. - -For thought went wider and deeper than any deed; it was of the very -order of the Powers intangible wherewith she had worked. Why, thoughts -unborn and shapeless, that run under the threshold and hide there, -counted more in that world where It, the Unuttered, the Hidden and the -Secret, reigned. - -She knew now that her surrender of last night had been the ultimate -deliverance. She was not afraid any more to meet Rodney; for she had -been made pure from desire; she was safeguarded for ever. - -He had been gone about an hour when she heard him at the gate again and -in the room below. - -She went down to him. He came forward to meet her as she entered; he -closed the door behind them; but her eyes held them apart. - -“Did you not get my wire?” she said. - -“Yes. I got it.” - -“Then why—?” - -“Why did I come? Because I knew what was happening. I wasn’t going to -leave you here for Powell to terrify you out of your life.” - -“Surely—you thought they’d gone?” - -“I knew they hadn’t or you wouldn’t have wired.” - -“But I would. I’d have wired in any case.” - -“To put me off?” - -“To—put—you—off.” - -“Why?” - -He questioned without divination or forewarning. The veil of flesh was -as yet over his eyes, so that he could not see. - -“Because I didn’t mean that you should come, that you should ever come -again, Rodney.” - -He smiled. - -“So you went back on me, did you?” - -“If you call it going back.” - -She longed for him to see. - -“That was only because you were frightened,” he said. He turned from her -and paced the room uneasily, as if he saw. Presently he drew up by the -hearth and stood there for a moment, puzzling it out; and she thought he -had seen. - -He hadn’t. He faced her with a smile again. - -“But it was no good, dear, was it? As if I wouldn’t know what it meant. -You wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been ill. You lost your nerve. -No wonder, with those Powells preying on you, body and soul, for weeks.” - -“No, Rodney, no. I didn’t _want_ you to come back. And I think—now—it -would be better if you didn’t stay.” - -It seemed to her now that perhaps he had seen and was fighting what he -saw. - -“I’m not going to stay,” he said, “I am going—in another hour—to take -Powell away somewhere.” - -He took it up where she had made him leave it. “Then, Agatha, I shall -come back again. I shall come back—let me see—on Sunday.” - -She swept that aside. - -“Where are you going to take him?” - -“To a man I know who’ll look after him.” - -“Oh, Rodney, it’ll break Milly’s heart.” - -She had come, in her agitation, to where he stood. She sat on the couch -by the corner of the hearth, and he looked down at her there. - -“No,” he said, “it won’t. It’ll give him a chance to get all right. I’ve -convinced her it’s the only thing to do. He can’t be left here for you -to look after.” - -“Did she tell you?” - -“She wouldn’t have told me a thing if I hadn’t made her. I dragged it -out of her, bit by bit.” - -“Rodney, that was cruel of you.” - -“Was it? I don’t care. I’d have done it if she’d bled.” - -“What did she tell you?” - -“Pretty nearly everything, I imagine. Quite enough for me to see what, -between them, they’ve been doing to you.” - -“Did she tell you _how he got well_?” - -He did not answer all at once. It was as if he drew back before the -question, alien and disturbed, shirking the discerned, yet -unintelligible issue. - -“Did she tell you, Rodney?” Agatha repeated. - -“Well, yes. She _told_ me.” - -He seemed to be making, reluctantly, some admission. He sat down beside -her, and his movement had the air of ending the discussion. But he did -not look at her. - -“What do you make of it?” she said. - -This time he winced visibly. - -“I don’t make anything. If it happened—if it happened like _that_, -Agatha—” - -“It did happen.” - -“Well, I admit it was uncommonly queer.” - -He left it there and reverted to his theme. - -“But it’s no wonder—if you sat down to that for six weeks—it’s no wonder -you got scared. It’s inconceivable to me how that woman could have let -you in for him. She knew what he was.” - -“She didn’t know what I was doing till it was done.” - -“She’d no business to let you go on with it when she did know.” - -“Ah, but she knew—then—it was all right.” - -“All right?” - -“Absolutely right. Rodney—” She called to him as if she would compel him -to see it as it was. “I did no more for him than I did for you and -Bella.” - -He started. “Bella?” he repeated. - -He stared at her. He had seen something. - -“You wondered how she got all right, didn’t you?” - -He said nothing. - -“That was how.” - -And still he did not speak. He sat there, leaning forward, staring now -at his own clasped hands. He looked as if he bowed himself before the -irrefutable. - -“And there was you, too, before that.” - -“I know,” he said then; “I can understand _that_. But —why Bella?” - -“Because Bella was the only way.” - -She had not followed his thoughts, nor he hers. - -“The only way?” he said. - -“To work it. To keep the thing pure. I had to be certain of my motive, -and I knew that if I could give Bella back to you that would prove—to -me, I mean—that it was pure.” - -“But Bella,” he said softly—“Bella. Powell I can understand—and me.” - -It was clear that he could get over all the rest. But he could not get -over Bella. Bella’s case convinced him. Bella’s case could not be -explained away—or set aside. Before Bella’s case he was baffled, utterly -defeated. He faced it with a certain awe. - -“You were right, after all, about Bella,” he said at last. “And so was -I. She didn’t care for me, as I told you. But she does care now.” - -She knew it. - -“That was what I was trying for,” she said. “That was what I meant.” - -“You meant it?” - -“It was the only way. That’s why I didn’t want you to come back.” - -He sat silent, taking that in. - -“Don’t you see now how it works? You have to be pure crystal. That’s why -I didn’t want you to come back.” - -Obscurely, through the veil of flesh, he saw. - -“And I am never to come back?” he said. - -“You will not need to come.” - -“You mean you won’t want me?” - -“No. I shall not want you. Because, when I did want you, it broke down.” - -He smiled. - -“I see. When you want me, it breaks down.” - -He rallied for a moment. He made his one last pitiful stand against the -supernatural thing that was conquering him. - -He had risen to go. - -“And when _I_ want to come, when I long for you, what then?” - -“_Your_ longing will make no difference.” - -She smiled also, as if she foresaw how it would work, and that soon, -very soon, he would cease to long for her. - -His hand was on the door. He smiled back at her. - -“I don’t want to shake your faith in it,” he said. - -“You can’t shake my faith in It.” - -“Still—it breaks down. It breaks down,” he cried. - -“Never. You don’t understand,” she said. “It was the flaw in the -crystal.” - -Soon, very soon he would know it. Already he had shown submission. - -She had no doubt of the working of the Power. Bella remained as a sign -that it had once been, and that, given the flawless crystal, it should -be again. - - - - - THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE - - -[Illustration] - -This is the story Marston told me. He didn’t want to tell it. I had to -tear it from him bit by bit. I’ve pieced the bits together in their time -order, and explained things here and there, but the facts are the facts -he gave me. There’s nothing that I didn’t get out of him somehow. - -Out of _him_—you’ll admit my source is unimpeachable. Edward Marston, -the great K.C., and the author of an admirable work on “The Logic of -Evidence.” You should have read the chapters on “What Evidence Is and -What It Is Not.” You may say he lied; but if you knew Marston you’d know -he wouldn’t lie, for the simple reason that he’s incapable of inventing -anything. So that, if you ask me whether I believe this tale, all I can -say is, I believe the things happened, because he said they happened and -because they happened to him. As for what they _were_—well, I don’t -pretend to explain it, neither would he. - -You know he was married twice. He adored his first wife, Rosamund, and -Rosamund adored him. I suppose they were completely happy. She was -fifteen years younger than he, and beautiful. I wish I could make you -see how beautiful. Her eyes and mouth had the same sort of bow, full and -wide-sweeping, and they stared out of her face with the same grave, -contemplative innocence. Her mouth was finished off at each corner with -the loveliest little moulding, rounded like the pistil of a flower. She -wore her hair in a solid gold fringe over her forehead, like a child’s, -and a big coil at the back. When it was let down it hung in a heavy -cable to her waist. Marston used to tease her about it. She had a trick -of tossing back the rope in the night when it was hot under her, and it -would fall smack across his face and hurt him. - -There was a pathos about her that I can’t describe—a curious, pure, -sweet beauty, like a child’s; perfect, and perfectly immature; so -immature that you couldn’t conceive its lasting—like that—any more than -childhood lasts. Marston used to say it made him nervous. He was afraid -of waking up in the morning and finding that it had changed in the -night. And her beauty was so much a part of herself that you couldn’t -think of her without it. Somehow you felt that if it went she must go -too. - -Well, she went first. - -For a year afterwards Marston existed dangerously, always on the edge of -a break-down. If he didn’t go over altogether it was because his work -saved him. He had no consoling theories. He was one of those bigoted -materialists of the nineteenth century type who believe that -consciousness is a purely physiological function, and that when your -body’s dead, _you’re_ dead. He saw no reason to suppose the contrary. -“When you consider,” he used to say, “the nature of the evidence!” - -It’s as well to bear this in mind, so as to realize that he hadn’t any -bias or anticipation. Rosamund survived for him only in his memory. And -in his memory he was still in love with her. At the same time he used to -discuss quite cynically the chances of his marrying again. - -It seems that in their honeymoon they had gone into that. Rosamund said -she hated to think of his being lonely and miserable, supposing she died -before he did. She would like him to marry again. If, she stipulated, he -married the right woman. - -He had put it to her: “And if I marry the wrong one?” And she had said, -That would be different. She couldn’t bear that. - -He remembered all this afterwards; but there was nothing in it to make -him suppose, at the time, that she would take action. - -We talked it over, he and I, one night. - -“I suppose,” he said, “I shall have to marry again. It’s a physical -necessity. But it won’t be anything more. I shan’t marry the sort of -woman who’ll expect anything more. I won’t put another woman in -Rosamund’s place. There’ll be no unfaithfulness about it.” - -And there wasn’t. Soon after that first year he married Pauline Silver. - -She was a daughter of old Justice Parker, who was a friend of Marston’s -people. He hadn’t seen the girl till she came home from India after her -divorce. - -Yes, there’d been a divorce. Silver had behaved very decently. He’d let -her bring it against _him_, to save her. But there were some queer -stories going about. They didn’t get round to Marston, because he was so -mixed up with her people; and if they had he wouldn’t have believed -them. He’d made up his mind he’d marry Pauline the first minute he’d -seen her. She was handsome; the hard, black, white and vermilion kind, -with a little aristocratic nose and a lascivious mouth. - -It was, as he had meant it to be, nothing but physical infatuation on -both sides. No question of Pauline’s taking Rosamund’s place. - -Marston had a big case on at the time. - -They were in such a hurry that they couldn’t wait till it was over; and -as it kept him in London they agreed to put off their honeymoon till the -autumn, and he took her straight to his own house in Curzon Street. - -This, he admitted afterwards, was the part he hated. The Curzon Street -house was associated with Rosamund; especially their bedroom—Rosamund’s -bedroom—and his library. The library was the room Rosamund liked best, -because it was his room. She had her place in the corner by the hearth, -and they were always alone there together in the evenings when his work -was done, and when it wasn’t done she would still sit with him, keeping -quiet in her corner with a book. - -Luckily for Marston, at the first sight of the library Pauline took a -dislike to it. - -I can hear her. “Br-rr-rh! There’s something beastly about this room, -Edward. I can’t think how you can sit in it.” - -And Edward, a little caustic: - -“_You_ needn’t, if you don’t like it.” - -“I certainly shan’t.” - -She stood there—I can see her—on the hearthrug by Rosamund’s chair, -looking uncommonly handsome and lascivious. He was going to take her in -his arms and kiss her vermilion mouth, when, he said, something stopped -him. Stopped him clean, as if it had risen up and stepped between them. -He supposed it was the memory of Rosamund, vivid in the place that had -been hers. - -You see it was just that place, of silent, intimate communion, that -Pauline would never take. And the rich, coarse, contented creature -didn’t even want to take it. He saw that he would be left alone there, -all right, with his memory. - -But the bedroom was another matter. That, Pauline had made it understood -from the beginning, she would have to have. Indeed, there was no other -he could well have offered her. The drawing-room covered the whole of -the first floor. The bedrooms above were cramped, and this one had been -formed by throwing the two front rooms into one. It looked south, and -the bathroom opened out of it at the back. Marston’s small northern room -had a door on the narrow landing at right angles to his wife’s door. He -could hardly expect her to sleep there, still less in any of the tight -boxes on the top floor. He said he wished he had sold the Curzon Street -house. - -But Pauline was enchanted with the wide, three-windowed piece that was -to be hers. It had been exquisitely furnished for poor little Rosamund; -all seventeenth century walnut wood, Bokhara rugs, thick silk curtains, -deep blue with purple linings, and a big, rich bed covered with a purple -counterpane embroidered in blue. - -One thing Marston insisted on: that _he_ should sleep on Rosamund’s side -of the bed, and Pauline in his own old place. He didn’t want to see -Pauline’s body where Rosamund’s had been. Of course he had to lie about -it and pretend he had always slept on the side next the window. - -I can see Pauline going about in that room, looking at everything; -looking at herself, her black, white and vermilion, in the glass that -had held Rosamund’s pure rose and gold; opening the wardrobe where -Rosamund’s dresses used to hang, sniffing up the delicate, flower scent -of Rosamund, not caring, covering it with her own thick trail. And -Marston (who cared abominably)—I can see him getting more miserable and -at the same time more excited as the wedding evening went on. He took -her to the play to fill up the time, or perhaps to get her out of -Rosamund’s rooms; God knows. I can see them sitting in the stalls, bored -and restless, starting up and going out before the thing was half over, -and coming back to that house in Curzon Street before eleven o’clock. - -[Illustration] - -It wasn’t much past eleven when he went to her room. - -I told you her door was at right angles to his, and the landing was -narrow, so that anybody standing by Pauline’s door must have been seen -the minute he opened his. He hadn’t even to cross the landing to get to -her. - -Well, Marston swears that there was nothing there when he opened his own -door; but when he came to Pauline’s he saw Rosamund standing up before -it; and, he said, “_She wouldn’t let me in._” - -Her arms were stretched out, barring the passage. Oh yes, he saw her -face, Rosamund’s face; I gathered that it was utterly sweet, and utterly -inexorable. He couldn’t pass her. - -So he turned into his own room, backing, he says, so that he could keep -looking at her. And when he stood on the threshold of his own door she -wasn’t there. - -No, he wasn’t frightened. He couldn’t tell me what he felt; but he left -his door open all night because he couldn’t bear to shut it on her. And -he made no other attempt to go in to Pauline; he was so convinced that -the phantasm of Rosamund would come again and stop him. - -I don’t know what sort of excuse he made to Pauline the next morning. He -said she was very stiff and sulky all day; and no wonder. He was still -infatuated with her, and I don’t think that the phantasm of Rosamund had -put him off Pauline in the least. In fact, he persuaded himself that the -thing was nothing but a hallucination, due, no doubt, to his excitement. - -Anyhow, he didn’t expect to see it at the door again the next night. - -Yes. It was there. Only, this time, he said, it drew aside to let him -pass. It smiled at him, as if it were saying, “Go in, if you must; -you’ll see what’ll happen.” - -He had no sense that it had followed him into the room; he felt certain -that, this time, it would let him be. - -It was when he approached Pauline’s bed, which had been Rosamund’s bed, -that she appeared again, standing between it and him, and stretching out -her arms to keep him back. - -[Illustration: ... stretching out her arms to keep him back.] - -All that Pauline could see was her bridegroom backing and backing, then -standing there, fixed, and the look on his face. That in itself was -enough to frighten her. - -She said, “What’s the matter with you, Edward?” - -He didn’t move. - -“What are you standing there for? Why don’t you come to bed?” - -Then Marston seems to have lost his head and blurted it out: - -“I can’t. I can’t.” - -“Can’t what?” said Pauline from the bed. - -“Can’t sleep with you. She won’t let me.” - -“She?” - -“Rosamund. My wife. She’s there.” - -“What on earth are you talking about?” - -“She’s there, I tell you. She won’t let me. She’s pushing me back.” - -He says Pauline must have thought he was drunk or something. Remember, -she _saw_ nothing but Edward, his face, and his mysterious attitude. He -must have looked very drunk. - -She sat up in bed, with her hard, black eyes blazing away at him, and -told him to leave the room that minute. Which he did. - -The next day she had it out with him. I gathered that he kept on talking -about the “state” he was in. - -“You came to my room, Edward, in a _disgraceful_ state.” - -I suppose Marston said he was sorry; but he couldn’t help it; he wasn’t -drunk. He stuck to it that Rosamund was there. He had seen her. And -Pauline said, if he wasn’t drunk then he must be mad, and he said -meekly, “Perhaps I _am_ mad.” - -That set her off, and she broke out in a fury. He was no more mad than -she was; but he didn’t care for her; he was making ridiculous excuses; -shamming, to put her off. There was some other woman. - -Marston asked her what on earth she supposed he’d married her for. Then -she burst out crying and said she didn’t know. - -Then he seems to have made it up with Pauline. He managed to make her -believe he wasn’t lying, that he really had seen something, and between -them they arrived at a rational explanation of the appearance. He had -been overworking. Rosamund’s phantasm was nothing but a hallucination of -his exhausted brain. - -This theory carried him on till bed-time. Then, he says, he began to -wonder what would happen, what Rosamund’s phantasm would do next. Each -morning his passion for Pauline had come back again, increased by -frustration, and it worked itself up crescendo, towards night. Supposing -he _had_ seen Rosamund. He might see her again. He had become suddenly -subject to hallucinations. But as long as you _knew_ you were -hallucinated you were all right. - -So what they agreed to do that night was by way of precaution, in case -the thing came again. It might even be sufficient in itself to prevent -his seeing anything. - -Instead of going in to Pauline he was to get into the room before she -did, and she was to come to him there. That, they said, would break the -spell. To make him feel even safer he meant to be in bed before Pauline -came. - -Well, he got into the room all right. - -It was when he tried to get into bed that—he saw her (I mean Rosamund). - -She was lying there, in his place next the window, her own place, lying -in her immature child-like beauty and sleeping, the firm full bow of her -mouth softened by sleep. She was perfect in every detail, the lashes of -her shut eyelids golden on her white cheeks, the solid gold of her -square fringe shining, and the great braided golden rope of her hair -flung back on the pillow. - -He knelt down by the bed and pressed his forehead into the bedclothes, -close to her side. He declared he could feel her breathe. - -He stayed there for the twenty minutes Pauline took to undress and come -to him. He says the minutes stretched out like hours. Pauline found him -still kneeling with his face pressed into the bedclothes. When he got up -he staggered. - -She asked him what he was doing and why he wasn’t in bed. And he said, -“It’s no use. I can’t. I can’t.” - -But somehow he couldn’t tell her that Rosamund was there. Rosamund was -too sacred; he couldn’t talk about her. He only said: - -“You’d better sleep in my room to-night.” - -He was staring down at the place in the bed where he still saw Rosamund. -Pauline couldn’t have seen anything but the bedclothes, the sheet -smoothed above an invisible breast, and the hollow in the pillow. She -said she’d do nothing of the sort. She wasn’t going to be frightened out -of her own room. He could do as he liked. - -He couldn’t leave them there; he couldn’t leave Pauline with Rosamund, -and he couldn’t leave Rosamund with Pauline. So he sat up in a chair -with his back turned to the bed. No. He didn’t make any attempt to go -back. He says he knew she was still lying there, guarding his place, -which was her place. The odd thing is that he wasn’t in the least -disturbed or frightened or surprised. He took the whole thing as a -matter of course. And presently he dozed off into a sleep. - -A scream woke him and the sound of a violent body leaping out of the bed -and thudding on to its feet. He switched on the light and saw the -bedclothes flung back and Pauline standing on the floor with her mouth -open. - -He went to her and held her. She was cold to the touch and shaking with -terror, and her jaws dropped as if she was palsied. - -She said, “Edward, there’s something in the bed.” - -He glanced again at the bed. It was empty. - -“There isn’t,” he said. “Look.” - -He stripped the bed to the foot-rail, so that she could see. - -“There _was_ something.” - -“Do you see it?” - -[Illustration] - -“No, I felt it.” - -She told him. First something had come swinging, smack across her face. -A thick, heavy rope of woman’s hair. It had waked her. Then she had put -out her hands and felt the body. A woman’s body, soft and horrible; her -fingers had sunk in the shallow breasts. Then she had screamed and -jumped. - -And she couldn’t stay in the room. The room, she said, was “beastly.” - -She slept in Marston’s room, in his small single bed, and he sat up with -her all night, on a chair. - -She believed now that he had really seen something, and she remembered -that the library was beastly, too. Haunted by something. She supposed -that was what she had felt. Very well. Two rooms in the house were -haunted; their bedroom and the library. They would just have to avoid -those two rooms. She had made up her mind, you see, that it was nothing -but a case of an ordinary haunted house; the sort of thing you’re always -hearing about and never believe in till it happens to yourself. Marston -didn’t like to point out to her that the house hadn’t been haunted till -she came into it. - -The following night, the fourth night, she was to sleep in the spare -room on the top floor, next to the servants, and Marston in his own -room. - -But Marston didn’t sleep. He kept on wondering whether he would or would -not go up to Pauline’s room. That made him horribly restless, and -instead of undressing and going to bed, he sat up on a chair with a -book. He wasn’t nervous; but he had a queer feeling that something was -going to happen, and that he must be ready for it, and that he’d better -be dressed. - -It must have been soon after midnight when he heard the door-knob -turning very slowly and softly. The door opened behind him and Pauline -came in, moving without a sound, and stood before him. It gave him a -shock; for he had been thinking of Rosamund, and when he heard the -door-knob turn it was the phantasm of Rosamund that he expected to see -coming in. He says, for the first minute, it was this appearance of -Pauline that struck him as the uncanny and unnatural thing. - -She had nothing, absolutely nothing on but a transparent white chiffony -sort of dressing-gown. She was trying to undo it. He could see her hands -shaking as her fingers fumbled with the fastenings. He got up suddenly, -and they just stood there before each other, saying nothing, staring at -each other. He was fascinated by her, by the sheer glamour of her body, -gleaming white through the thin stuff, and by the movement of her -fingers. I think I’ve said she was a beautiful woman, and her beauty at -that moment was overpowering. - -And still he stared at her without saying anything. It sounds as if -their silence lasted quite a long time, but in reality it couldn’t have -been more than some fraction of a second. - -Then she began. “Oh, Edward, for God’s sake say something. Oughtn’t I to -have come?” - -And she went on without waiting for an answer. “Are you thinking of -_her_? Because, if—if you are, I’m not going to let her drive you away -from me.... I’m not going to.... She’ll keep on coming as long as we -don’t— Can’t you see that this is the way to stop it...? When you take -me in your arms.” - -She slipped off the loose sleeves of the chiffon thing and it fell to -her feet. Marston says he heard a queer sound, something between a groan -and a grunt, and was amazed to find that it came from himself. - -He hadn’t touched her yet—mind you, it went quicker than it takes to -tell, it was still an affair of the fraction of a second—they were -holding out their arms to each other, when the door opened again without -a sound, and, without visible passage, the phantasm was there. It came -incredibly fast, and thin at first, like a shaft of light sliding -between them. It didn’t do anything; there was no beating of hands, -only, as it took on its full form, its perfect likeness of flesh and -blood, it made its presence felt like a push, a force, driving them -asunder. - -Pauline hadn’t seen it yet. She thought it was Marston who was beating -her back. She cried out: “Oh, don’t, don’t push me away!” She stooped -below the phantasm’s guard and clung to his knees, writhing and crying. -For a moment it was a struggle between her moving flesh and that still, -supernatural being. - -And in that moment Marston realized that he hated Pauline. She was -fighting Rosamund with her gross flesh and blood, taking a mean -advantage of her embodied state to beat down the heavenly, discarnate -thing. - -He called to her to let go. - -“It’s not I,” he shouted. “Can’t you _see_ her?” - -Then, suddenly, she saw, and let go, and dropped, crouching on the floor -and trying to cover herself. This time she had given no cry. - -The phantasm gave way; it moved slowly towards the door, and as it went -it looked back over its shoulder at Marston, it trailed a hand, -signalling to him to come. - -He went out after it, hardly aware of Pauline’s naked body that still -writhed there, clutching at his feet as they passed, and drew itself -after him, like a worm, like a beast, along the floor. - -[Illustration: ... drew itself after him along the floor.] - -She must have got up at once and followed them out on to the landing; -for, as he went down the stairs behind the phantasm, he could see -Pauline’s face, distorted with lust and terror, peering at them above -the stairhead. She saw them descend the last flight, and cross the hall -at the bottom and go into the library. The door shut behind them. - -Something happened in there. Marston never told me precisely what it -was, and I didn’t ask him. Anyhow, that finished it. - -The next day Pauline ran away to her own people. She couldn’t stay in -Marston’s house because it was haunted by Rosamund, and he wouldn’t -leave it for the same reason. - -And she never came back; for she was not only afraid of Rosamund, she -was afraid of Marston. And if she _had_ come it wouldn’t have been any -good. Marston was convinced that, as often as he attempted to get to -Pauline, something would stop him. Pauline certainly felt that, if -Rosamund were pushed to it, she might show herself in some still more -sinister and terrifying form. She knew when she was beaten. - -And there was more in it than that. I believe he tried to explain it to -her; said he had married her on the assumption that Rosamund was dead, -but that now he knew she was alive; she was, as he put it, “there.” He -tried to make her see that if he had Rosamund he couldn’t have _her_. -Rosamund’s presence in the world annulled their contract. - -You see I’m convinced that something _did_ happen that night in the -library. I say, he never told me precisely what it was, but he once let -something out. We were discussing one of Pauline’s love-affairs (after -the separation she gave him endless grounds for divorce). - -“Poor Pauline,” he said, “she thinks she’s so passionate.” - -“Well,” I said, “wasn’t she?” - -Then he burst out. “No. She doesn’t know what passion is. None of you -know. You haven’t the faintest conception. You’d have to get rid of your -bodies first. _I_ didn’t know until—” - -He stopped himself. I think he was going to say, “until Rosamund came -back and showed me.” For he leaned forward and whispered: “It isn’t a -localized affair at all.... If you only knew—” - -So I don’t think it was just faithfulness to a revived memory. I take it -there had been, behind that shut door, some experience, some terrible -and exquisite contact. More penetrating than sight or touch. More—more -extensive: passion at all points of being. - -Perhaps the supreme moment of it, the ecstasy, only came when her -phantasm had disappeared. - -He couldn’t go back to Pauline after _that_. - - - - - IF THE DEAD KNEW - - - I - - -The voluntary swelled, it rose, it rushed to its climax. The organist -tossed back his head with a noble gesture, exalted; he rocked on his -bench; his feet shuffled faster and faster, pedalling passionately. - -The young girl who stood beside him drew in a deep, rushing breath; her -heart swelled; her whole body listened, with hurried senses desiring the -climax, the climax, the crash of sound. Her nerves shook as the organist -rocked towards her; when he tossed back his head her chin lifted; she -loved his playing hands, his rocking body, his superb, excited gesture. - -Three times a week Wilfrid Hollyer went down to Lower Wyck, to give -Effie Carroll a music lesson; three times a week Effie Carroll came up -to Wyck on the Hill to listen to Hollyer’s organ practice. - -The climax had come. The voluntary fell from its height and died in a -long cadence, thinned out, a trickling, trembling diminuendo. It was all -over. - -The young girl released her breath in a long, trembling sigh. - -[Illustration: ... her whole body listened ...] - -The organist rose and put out the organ lights. He took Effie by the arm -and led her down the short aisles of the little country church and out -on to the flagged path of the churchyard between the tombstones. - -“Wilfrid,” she said, “you’re too good for Wyck. You ought to be playing -in Gloucester Cathedral.” - -“I’m not good enough. Perhaps—if I’d been trained—” - -“Why weren’t you?” - -“My mother couldn’t afford it. Besides, I couldn’t leave her. She hasn’t -anybody but me.” - -“I know. You’re awfully fond of her, aren’t you?” - -“Yes,” he said shortly. - -They had passed down the turn of the street into the Market Square. -There was a plot of grass laid down in the north-east corner. Two tall -elms stood up on the grass, and behind the elms a small, ivy-covered -house with mullioned windows, looking south. - -“That’s our house,” Hollyer said. “Won’t you come in and see her?” - -They found her sitting by herself in the little cramped, green -drawing-room. She was the most beautiful old lady; small, upright and -perfect; slender, like a girl, in her grey silk blouse. She had a -miniature oval face, pretty and white: a sharp chin, and a wide forehead -under a pile of pure white hair. And sorrowful blue eyes, white-lidded, -in two rings of mauve and bistre. - -She couldn’t be so very old, Effie thought. Not more than sixty. - -Mrs. Hollyer rose, holding out a fragile hand. - -Presently she said: “I wanted to see you; after all you’ve done for -him.” - -“I? I haven’t done anything.” - -“You’ve listened to his playing. He can’t get anybody to do that for him -in Wyck.” - -“They hear enough of me on Sundays.” - -“Then they haven’t heard him. He plays much better on week-days, when he -plays to me,” said Effie. - -“So I can imagine,” Mrs. Hollyer said. - -“She thinks I’m better than I am,” said Hollyer. - -“Go on thinking it. That’s the way to make him better.” She was smiling -at Effie as if she liked her. - -All through tea-time and after they talked about Wilfrid’s playing and -Wilfrid and Wyck, and the people of Wyck, and how they knew nothing and -cared nothing about Wilfrid’s playing. - -Twilight came, twilight of October. He was going to walk back with Effie -down the hill to Lower Wyck. - -As the house door closed behind them he said: “Now you know why I’m -nothing but an organist at Wyck.” - -“Wilfrid, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen yet—your mother. No -wonder you can’t leave her.” - -“It isn’t that altogether. I mean we’re tied here because we can’t -afford to leave; and because I’ve got this organ job. I should never -have had it anywhere else.” He paused. “And you know, I couldn’t live on -it—without mother. She’s got the house.” - -Effie said nothing. - -“So here I am. Thirty-five and still dependent on my mother.” - -“Oh, Wilfrid, what will you do when—when—” - -“When my mother dies? That’s the awful thing. I shall have enough then. -There’ll be the house and her income. I hate to think of it. I don’t -think of it—” - -“You see,” he went on, “when I was a kid I was so seedy they didn’t -think I’d live. So I was brought up to do nothing. Nothing but my -playing. They gave me this job just to keep me quiet. And now I’m strong -enough, but there’s nothing else I can do.” - -He hung his head, frowning gloomily. - -“You know why I’m telling you all this?” - -“No. But I’m glad you’ve told me.” - -“It’s because—because—if I had a decent income, Effie, I’d ask you to -marry me. As it is, I can only hope that you won’t ever care for me as I -care for you.” - -[Illustration] - -“But I _do_ care for you. You know I do.” - -“Would you have married me, Effie? Do you care as much as that?” - -“You know I would. I will the minute you ask me.” - -“I shall never ask you.” - -“Why not? I can wait.” - -“My dear, for what?” He paused again. “I can’t marry in my mother’s -lifetime.” - -“Oh, Wilfrid—I didn’t mean that. Your dear, beautiful mother. You know I -didn’t.” - -“Of course, darling, I know. But there it is.” - -He left her at the gate of the cottage where she lived with her father. - -As he went back up the hill he meditated on his position. He was right -to make it clear to her, now that she had begun to care for him. He -would have told her long ago if he had known that she cared. Yesterday -he didn’t know it. But to-day there had been something, in her manner, -in her voice, in the way she looked at him in the church after his -playing, that had told him. - -Poor little Effie. She would have nothing either, unless her father—and -Effie’s father was a robust man, not quite fifty. - -Well—he mustn’t think of it. And he mustn’t let his mother think. He -wondered whether he was too late, whether she had seen anything. He -tried to slink past the drawing-room and up the stairs. But his mother -had heard him come in. She called to him. He went to her, shame-faced, -as if he had committed a sin. - -Her large, gentle eyes looked at him, wondering. He could see them -wondering. - -“Wilfrid,” she said suddenly, “do you care for that little girl?” - -“What’s the good of my caring? I can’t marry her. I’ve just told her -so.” - -“It’s too late. She’s in love with you. You should have told her -before.” - -“How could I if she didn’t care? You can’t be fatuous.” - -“No—poor boy. Poor Effie.” - -“Mother—why couldn’t I have been brought up to a profession?” - -“You know why—you weren’t strong enough. It was as much as I could do to -keep you alive.” - -“I’m strong enough now.” - -“Only because I took such care of you. Only because you hadn’t to go out -and earn your own living. You’d have been dead before you were twenty if -I hadn’t kept you with me.” - -“It would have been better if you’d let me die.” - -“Don’t say that, Wilfrid. What should I have done without you? What -should I do without you now?” - -“You mean if I married?” - -“No, my dear. I’d be glad if you could marry. I don’t want to keep you -tied to me for ever. If you can get better work and better pay by going -anywhere else, I shan’t mind your leaving me.” - -“I shouldn’t get anything. I’m not good enough. I shall never be worth -more than fifty pounds a year anywhere. We can’t live on that.” - -“If you could live on half my income, I’d give it you, but you -couldn’t.” - -“No. We’ll just have to wait.” - -“I hope for your sake, my dear, it won’t be too long.” - -“What do you mean, mother?” - -“What did _you_ mean?” - -“Why, I meant we’d have to wait till I heard of something.” - -“You _might_ have meant something else.” She smiled. - -“Oh, mother—_don’t_.” - -“Why not?” she said cheerfully. - -“You know—you know I couldn’t bear it.” - -“You’ll have to bear it some day—I’m an old woman.” - -“Well, I shall be an old man—by then.” - -He tossed it back to her, laughing, as he left her to wash his hands and -brush his hair. He laughed, to shake off her pathos and to hide his own. - -When he talked about waiting, he hadn’t meant what she thought he meant. -He was simply trying to dismiss a too serious situation with a -reassuring levity. Waiting to hear of something? Was it likely he would -ever hear of anything? Could he have made a more frivolous suggestion? - -It was she who had faced it. She had made him see how hopeless their -case was, his and Effie’s. He saw it now, as he saw his own face in the -glass, between two hair-brushes, a little drawn, even now, a little -sallow and haggard. Not a young face. - -He would be an old man—an old man before he could dream of marrying. His -mother, after all, was only sixty, and she came of a long-lived family. -Her apparent fragility was an illusion; she had never had a day’s -illness as long as he could remember. Nerves like whipcord, young -arteries, and every organ sound. She would live ten—fifteen—twenty years -longer, live to be eighty. He was thirty-five now, and Effie was -twenty-five. Before they could marry, they would be fifty-five and -forty-five; old, old; too old to feel, to care passionately. He had no -right to ask Effie to wait twenty years for him. - -He must give up thinking about her. - -His mother was still in her chair by the drawing-room fire, waiting for -him. She turned as he came to her, and held up her face to be kissed, -like a child, he thought, or like a young wife waiting for her husband. -She put her hands on his hair and stroked it. And he remembered the time -when he used to say to her: “I shall never marry. You’re all the wife I -want, Mother.” - -And now it was as if he had been calculating on her death. - -But he hadn’t. He hadn’t. You couldn’t calculate on anything so far-off, -so unlikely. He had done the only possible, the only decent thing. He -had given Effie up. - - - II - - -The doctor had gone. Hollyer went back into his mother’s room. She lay -there, dozing, in the big white bed, propped high on the pillows. -Through her mouth, piteously open, he could hear her short quick breath, -struggling and gasping. - -[Illustration] - -The illness had lasted nine days. Even now Hollyer hadn’t got used to -it. He still looked at the figure in the bed with the same stare of -shocked incredulity. It was still incredible that his mother’s influenza -should have turned to pleurisy, that she should lie like that, utterly -abandoned, the neat pile of her hair undone, and her face, with its open -mouth, loose and infirm between the two white loops that hung askew, -rumpled by the pillow. He knew in a vague way how it had happened. First -his own attack of influenza, then his mother’s. His had been pretty bad, -but hers had been slight, so slight that it had not been recognized, and -through it she had still nursed him. Then she had gone out too soon, in -the raw January weather. And now the doctor came morning and evening; -she had a trained nurse for the night, and Hollyer looked after her all -day. - -He had got used to the nurse. Her expensive presence proved to him that -he had nothing to reproach himself with; he had done, as they said, -everything that could be done. - -He knew that the nurse and the doctor disagreed about the case. Nurse -Eden declared that his mother would get over it. Dr. Ransome was -convinced she wouldn’t; she hadn’t strength in her for another rally. -Hollyer himself agreed with Nurse Eden. He couldn’t believe that his -mother would die. The thought of her death was unbearable, therefore he -denied it, he put it from him. When he left her for the night he would -come creeping back at midnight and dawn, to make sure that she was still -there. - -The little room was half filled by the big white bed. It seemed to him -there was nothing in it but the white bed and his mother and Nurse Eden -in her white uniform. She had looked in on her way downstairs to tea. -Everything was cold and white. On the window-panes the frost made a -white pattern of moss and feathers. From his seat between the bed and -the fire he could see Nurse Eden and her small, pure face brooding above -the pillows as she shifted them with tender, competent hands. - -“She’ll be better in the morning,” she said. “She always gets better in -the night.” - -She did. Always she gained ground in the night under Nurse Eden and -always she lost it in the daytime, getting worse and worse towards -evening. - -The afternoon wore on. At four o’clock old Martha, the servant, tapped -at the door. Miss Carroll, she said, was downstairs and wanted to see -him. Martha took his place at the bedside. - -Every day Effie came to inquire, and every day she went away sad, as if -it had been her own mother who was dying. This time she stayed, for the -old doctor had stopped her in the Square and told her to get Hollyer out -of his mother’s room, if possible. “Talk to him. Take him off it. Make -him buck up.” - -She sat in his mother’s chair behind the round tea-table and poured out -his tea for him, and talked to him about his music and a book she had -been reading. When he looked at her, at her sweet face, soft and clear -with youth, at her hands moving with pretty gestures, his heart -trembled. That was how it would be if Effie was his wife. They would sit -there every day and she would pour out his tea for him. He would hear -her feet ruftning up and down the stairs. - -When she got up to go she said, “Whatever you do, Wilfrid, don’t keep on -thinking about it.” - -“I can’t help thinking.” - -She put her hand on his sleeve and stroked it. At her touch he broke -down. - -“Oh, Effie—I cannot bear it. If she dies, I shall never forgive myself.” - -“Nonsense. Don’t talk about her dying. Don’t think about it.” - -She turned to him on the doorstep. “Just think how strong she is. I -can’t see her ill, somehow. I see her there, all the time, sitting -upright in her chair, looking beautiful.” - -That was how _he_ had once seen her, sitting there between the fire and -the round tea-table, for years and years, as long as his own life -lasted. - -But now he saw Effie. Upstairs, in his mother’s room, as he watched, he -saw Effie. Effie—the sweet face, and the sweet hands moving. He heard -Effie’s voice in the rooms, Effie’s feet on the stairs. That was how it -would be if Effie was his wife. - -That was how it would be if his mother died. - -He would have an income of his own, and a house of his own; he would be -his own master in his house. - -If his mother died, Effie and he would sleep together. Perhaps in that -bed, on those pillows. - -He shut his eyes and covered his face with his hands, pressing in on his -eyelids as if that way he could keep out the sight of Effie. - - - III - - -That evening the doctor came again. He left a little before nine -o’clock, the hour when Nurse Eden would begin her night watch. He -refused to hold out any hope. She was sinking fast. - -As Hollyer turned from the front-door he met Nurse Eden coming -downstairs. She signed to him to follow her into the drawing-room, -moving before him without a sound. She shut the door. - -[Illustration] - -He was afraid of Nurse Eden; there was something—he didn’t know what it -was, but—there was something unbearable in her small, pure face; in the -thrust of her chin tilted by the stiff cap-strings; in her brave, -slender mouth, straightening itself against the droop of its compassion; -and in the stillness of her dense, grey eyes. Her eyes made him feel -uneasy, somehow, and unsafe. He was going to sit up with her to-night; -but he would rather have shared his night-watch with old Martha. - -“Well?” she said. - -“He says this is the end.” - -“It may be,” said Nurse Eden. “But it needn’t.” - -“You’ve seen her.” - -“Yes.” - -“_Well—?_” - -“She hasn’t gone yet, Mr. Hollyer—” - -“She’s on the edge. She’s in that state when a breath would tip her one -way or the other.” - -“A breath?” - -“Yes, Mr. Hollyer. Or a thought.” - -“A thought?” - -“A thought. If I had Mrs. Hollyer to myself, I believe I could bring her -round even now.” - -“Oh, Nurse—” - -“I _have_ brought her round. Night after night I’ve brought her.” - -“What do you do?” - -“I don’t know what I do. But it works. Haven’t you noticed she gets -better in the night when I’ve had her; and that she slips back in the -day?” - -“Yes, I have.” - -“You see, Mr. Hollyer, Dr. Ransome’s made up his mind. And when the -doctor makes up his mind that the patient’s going to die, ten to one the -patient does die. It lowers their resistance. It isn’t every one that -would feel it; but your mother would.” - -“If,” she went on, “I had her day _and_ night, I might save her.” - -“You really think that?” - -“I think there’s a chance.” - -He didn’t know whether he believed her or not. Dr. Ransome shrugged his -shoulders and said Nurse Eden could try it if she liked. She had a -wonderful way with her; but he wouldn’t advise Hollyer to count on it. -Nothing but a miracle, he said, could save his mother. - -Hollyer didn’t count on Nurse Eden’s way. But he thought—something -stronger than himself compelled him to think—that his mother would not -die. - -And each hour showed her slowly coming back. Under his eyes the miracle -was being accomplished. At midnight her breathing and temperature and -pulse were normal; and by noon of the next day even Ransome was -convinced. He wouldn’t swear to the miracle, but whatever Nurse Eden had -or had not done, he believed Mrs. Hollyer would recover. - -Hollyer not only believed it, but he was certain, as Nurse Eden was -certain. She came to him, radiant with certainty, and told him that his -mind could be at rest now. - -But his mind was not at rest. It had only rested while he doubted, as if -doubt absolved him from knowledge of some secret that he could not face. -With the first moment of certainty he was aware of it. It was given to -him in physical sensations, a weight and pain about his heart that did -not lie. In a flash he saw himself back in his old life of dependence -and frustration. There would be no Effie sitting with him in the house, -no Effie running up and down the stairs. He would not sleep with Effie -in the big, white bed. They would grow old, wanting each other. - -He tried to jerk his mouth into a smile, but it had stiffened. It -opened, gasping, as his muffled heart-beats choked him. - -He went upstairs to his mother’s room. She was sitting up in bed, -clear-eyed, almost alert, and she turned her face to him as he entered. - -“I don’t know how it is,” she said. “I thought I was going, but there’s -something that won’t let me go. It keeps on pulling me back and back.” -(Nurse Eden looked at him.) “Is it you, Wilfrid?” - -He knelt down and buried his face in the bedclothes by her side. His -sobs shook the mattress. The nurse took him by the arm; he got up and -stared at her as if dazed and drunk with grief. She led him from the -room. - -“You’re upsetting her,” she said. “Don’t come back till you’ve pulled -yourself together.” - -When he went back his mother was sleeping calmly. Hollyer and the nurse -withdrew from the bedside to the window and talked there in low voices. - -“Did you hear what she said. Nurse?” - -“Yes. We can get her through, between us, if we make up our minds she’s -to live. Think of what she was yesterday.” - -“But do you think we ought to? I don’t want her brought back to suffer.” - -“She isn’t going to suffer. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t be as -well as ever. If you want her to live.” - -“Want her? Of course I want her to live.” - -“I know you do. But you must get rid of your fear.” - -“My fear?” - -“Your fear of her dying.” - -“Do you think my fear could—could make her?” - -“I know it could. Make up your mind with me that she’s going to get -well.” - -“Supposing she wants to go? Supposing she’s fighting against us all the -time?” - -“She isn’t fighting. She hasn’t any fight in her— Now, while she’s -sleeping, is the time. You’ve only got to say to yourself ‘She shall -live. She’s going to live.’ There—you sit in that chair, make yourself -quite comfortable, shut your eyes, and keep on saying it. Don’t think of -anything else.” - -He sat down. He said it over and over again: “She shall live. She’s -going to live. She shall live—” He tried to think of nothing else; but -all the time he was aware of the dragging of his heart. He shut his -eyes, but he couldn’t get rid of the vision of Effie. Effie sitting in -his mother’s place. Effie sleeping beside him in the big bed. - -“She _shall_ live. She’s going to live.” The words meant nothing. Only -the dragging weight at his heart had meaning. And it didn’t lie. - -He thought: If that’s how I feel about it, I’d better keep my mind off -her. - -Then he was aware that he was tired, dead beat, too tired to think. And -presently, sitting upright in the chair, he fell asleep. - -He was waked by Nurse Eden’s voice calling to him from the bed: “Mr. -Hollyer! She’s going!” - -His mother lay in the nurse’s arms, her head had fallen forward on her -chest, her mouth was open; and through it there came a groaning, grating -cry. Once, twice, three times; and she was gone. - -After the funeral Hollyer went up into his mother’s room. Nurse Eden was -there, removing the signs of death. She had covered the bed with a white -counterpane. She had opened the door and window wide, and a flood of -dean cold air streamed through the room. - -“Nurse,” he said, “come here a minute.” - -She followed him into his bed-sitting room on the other side of the -landing. Hollyer shut the door. - -“You remember that night when my mother got better?” - -“Indeed I do.” - -“Do you still think you brought her back?” - -“I do think it.” - -“Do you really believe that a thought—_a thought_ could do that?” - -“Yes.” - -“But it doesn’t always work. It breaks down.” - -“Sometimes. That night she died I felt it wasn’t working. I was up -against a wall. I couldn’t get through. But remember, before that, she -was going when I brought her back.” - -“Could a thought—another thought—kill?” - -“It depends. Perhaps, if it was a very strong thought. A wish.” - -Her queer eyes looked through him and beyond him, not seeing him, seeing -some reality that was not he. He had gone to her for her truth and she -had given it him. A wish, even a hidden wish, could kill. In the dark, -secret places of the mind your thoughts ran loose beyond your knowing; -they burrowed under the walls that shut off one self from another; they -got through. It was as if his secret self had broken loose, and got -through to his mother, and had killed her secretly, in the dark. His -wish was a part of himself, but stronger than himself. The force behind -it was indestructible, for it was a form of his desire for Effie; so -that while he lived he could not kill it. - -It had been there all the time, cunningly disguised. It was there in his -fear of Nurse Eden; it was there in that obstinate belief of his that -his mother would live. His beliefs were always the expression of his -fears. He had been afraid that his mother would not die. That was his -fear. He saw it all clearly in the moment while Nurse Eden’s voice went -on. - -“But it wasn’t _that_, Mr. Hollyer,” she was saying. “We were all -wishing her to live— No. I think she was too far gone. She had got -beyond us.” - -It was too late for Nurse Eden to go back on it. He knew. He was -certain. - - - IV - - -He knew, and if he were to keep on thinking about it—but he was afraid -to think. You could go mad, thinking. The moment of his certainty -remained in his memory; he knew where to find it if he chose to look -that way. But he refused to look. Such things were better forgotten. - -He told himself there was nothing in it. Nothing but Nurse Eden’s -hysteria and vanity. She wanted you to believe she was wonderful, that -she could do things. She didn’t really believe it herself. In her own -last moment of honesty she had confessed as much. He was a fool to have -been taken in by her. - -Meanwhile, three months after his mother’s death, he had married Effie -Carroll. Her father, who had held out against the engagement, -surrendered suddenly on the day of the wedding, and made his daughter an -allowance of fifty pounds a year. He said he didn’t want to profit by -her folly, and the fifty pounds were no more than the cost of her keep. - -It was horrible to think they should owe their happiness to his mother’s -death; but as things had turned out they didn’t owe it; they could have -married even if she had lived. And as he had now no motive for wishing -her dead, he almost forgot that he had ever wished it. - -Not that Hollyer reproached himself; his tendency, when he thought it -all over, was to reproach his mother. He had found out something about -himself. Before he married he had gone to Dr. Ransome to be overhauled, -and Ransome had told him there was nothing much the matter with him; -never was. And if the old pessimist said there wasn’t much the matter, -you might depend upon it there wasn’t anything at all. Except, Ransome -said, molly-coddling; and that wasn’t Hollyer’s fault. - -“Whose was it, then?” Hollyer had asked. “My mother’s?” - -“No. Your dear mother, Hollyer, had no faults. But she made mistakes, as -we all do.” - -“You mean, if I’d been allowed to live like other people I’d have been -all right?” - -“Well—you weren’t a very robust infant; and later on there _was_ a -slight risk. Personally, I’d have taken it. You must take some risks. -But your mother was afraid. You were all she had. And I daresay she -wasn’t sorry to keep you with her.” - -“I see.” - -He saw it clearly. He had been sacrificed to his mother’s selfishness. -Nothing but that had doomed him to his humiliating dependence, his -poverty, his intolerable celibacy. He found himself brooding over it, -going back and back to it, with a certain gratification, as if it -justified him. His mind was appeased by this righteous resentment. When -the remembrance of his mother’s beauty and sweetness rushed at him and -accused him he turned from it to his brooding. - -He had begun to talk, to say things about his mother. Put into spoken -words his grievance seemed more real; it acquired validity. - -He had felt so safe. His mother couldn’t hear him. She would never know -what he thought about her; he would have died rather than let her know. -And he had only talked to Effie. Talking to his wife was no worse than -thinking to himself. After all he had gone through, he felt he was -entitled to that relief. - -It was June, a hot, close evening before lamplight; they were sitting -together in the drawing-room, Effie in his mother’s chair and he at his -piano in the recess on the other side of the fireplace. And there was -something that Effie said when he had stopped playing and had turned to -her, smiling. - -“Wilfrid—are you happy?” - -“Of course I’m happy.” - -“No, but—really?” - -“Really. Absolutely. You make me happy.” - -“Do I? I’m so glad. You see, when I married you I was afraid I couldn’t. -It was so hard to come after your mother.” - -He winced. - -“How do you mean? You don’t come ‘after’ her.” - -“I mean, after all she was to you. After all she did. Your life with her -was so perfect.” - -“If it’s any consolation to you, Effie, it wasn’t.” - -“Wasn’t?” - -“No. Anything but.” - -“Oh, Wilfrid!” - -He seemed to her to be uttering blasphemy. - -“It’s better you should know it. My dear mother didn’t understand me in -the least. My whole up-bringing was a ghastly blunder. If I’d been let -live a decent fife, like any other boy, like any other man, I might have -been good for something. But she wouldn’t let me. She pretended there -was something the matter with me when there wasn’t, so that she could -keep me dependent on her.” - -“Wilfrid _dear_, it may have been a blunder and it may have been -ghastly—” - -“It was.” - -“But it was only her love for you.” - -“A very selfish sort of love, Effie.” - -“Oh _don’t_,” she cried. “Don’t. She’s _dead_, Wilfrid.” - -“I’m not likely to forget it.” - -“You talk as if you’d forgotten— If the dead knew—” - -If the dead knew— - -“If they knew,” she said, “how we spoke about them, how we thought—” - -If the dead knew— - -If his mother had heard him; if she knew what he had been thinking; if -she knew that he had wished her dead and that his wish had killed her— - -If the dead knew— - -“Happily for us and them, they don’t know,” he said. - -And he began playing again. He was aware that Effie had risen and was -now seated at the writing-table. As he played he had his back to the -writing-table and the door. - -The book on the piano ledge before him was Mendelssohn’s _Lieder ohne -Worte_. open as Effie had left it at Number Nine. He remembered that was -the one his mother had loved so much. His fingers fell of their own -accord into the prelude, into the melody, pressing out its thick, sweet, -deliberate sadness. It wounded him, each note a separate stab, yet he -went on, half-voluptuously enjoying the self-inflicted pain, trying to -work it up and up into a supreme poignancy of sorrow, of regret. - -As he stopped on the closing chord he heard somewhere behind him a -thick, sobbing sigh. - -“Effie—” - -He looked round. But Effie was not there. He could hear her footsteps in -the room overhead. She had gone, then, before he had stopped playing, -shutting the door without a sound. It must have been his imagination. - -He played a few bars, then paused, listening. The sighing had begun -again; it was close behind him. - -He swung round sharply. There was nobody there. But the door, which had -been shut a minute ago, stood wide open. A cold wind blew in, cutting -through the hot, stagnant air. He got up and shut the door. The cold -wind wrapped him in a belt, a swirl; he stood still in it for a moment, -stiff with fear. When he crossed the room to the piano it was as if he -moved breast high in deep, cold water. - -Somewhere in the secret place of his mind a word struggled to form -itself, to be born. - -“Mother.” - -It came to him with a sense of appalling, supernatural horror. Horror -that was there with him in the room like a presence. - -“Mother.” - -The word had lost its meaning. It stood for nothing but that horror. - -He tried to play again, but his fingers, slippery with sweat, dropped -from the keyboard. - -Something compelled him to turn round and look towards his mother’s -chair. - -Then he saw her. - -She stood between him and the chair, straight and thin, dressed in the -clothes she had died in, the yellowish flannel nightgown and bed jacket. - -[Illustration: The apparition maintained itself with difficulty.] - -The apparition maintained itself with difficulty. Already its hair had -grown indistinct, a cap of white mist. Its face was an insubstantial -framework for its mouth and eyes, and for the tears that fell in two -shining tracks between. It was less a form than a visible emotion, an -anguish. - -Hollyer stood up and stared at it. Through the glasses of its tears it -gazed back at him with an intense, a terrible reproach and sorrow. - -Then, slowly and stiffly, it began to recede from him, drawn back and -back, without any movement of its feet, in an unearthly stillness, -keeping up, to the last minute, its look of indestructible reproach. - -And now it was a formless mass that drifted to the window and hung there -a second, and passed, shrinking like a breath on the pane. - -Hollyer, rigid, pouring out sweat, still stared at the place where it -had stood. His heart-beats came together in a running tremor: it was as -if all the blood in his body was gathered into his distended heart, -dragging it down to meet his heaving belly. - -Then he turned and went headlong towards the door, stumbling and -lurching. He threw out his hands to clutch at a support and found -himself in Effie’s arms. - -“Wilfrid—darling—what is it?” - -“Nothing. I’m giddy. I—I think I’m going to be sick.” - -He broke from her and dragged himself upstairs and shut himself into his -study. That night his old single bed was brought back and made up there. -He was afraid to sleep in the room that had been his mother’s. - - - V - - -He had run through all the physical sensations of his terror. What he -felt now was the sharp, abominable torture of the mind. - -If the dead knew— - -The dead _did_ know. She had come back to tell him that she knew. She -knew that he thought of her with unkindness. She had been there when he -talked about her to Effie. She knew the thought he had hidden even from -himself. She knew that she had died because, secretly, he had wished her -dead. - -That was the meaning of her look and of her tears. - -No fleshly eyes could have expressed such an intensity of suffering, of -unfathomable grief. He thought: the pain of a discarnate spirit might be -infinitely sharper than any earthly pain. It might be inexhaustible. Who -was to say that it was not? - -Yet could it—could even an immortal suffering—be sharper than the -anguish he felt now? If only he had known what he was doing to her— If -he had known. If he had known— - -But, he thought, we know nothing, and we care less. We say we believe in -immortality, but we do not believe in it. We treat the dead as if they -_were_ dead, as if they were not there. If he had really believed that -she was there, he would have died rather than say the things he had said -to Effie. Nobody, he told himself, could have accused him of unkindness -to his mother while she lived. He had really loved her up to the moment, -the moment of supreme temptation, when he wanted Effie. He had not -willed her to die. He had been barely conscious of his wish. How, then, -could he be held accountable? How could he have destroyed the thing -whose essence was the hidden, unknown darkness? Yet, if men are -accountable at all, he was accountable. There had been a moment when he -was conscious of it. He could have destroyed it then. He should have -faced it; he should have dragged it out into the light and fought it. - -Instead, he had let it sink back into its darkness, to work there -unseen. - -And if he had really loved his mother, he would have wished, not willed -her to live. He would have wanted her as he wanted her now. - -For, now that it was too late, he did want her. His whole mind had -changed. He no longer thought of her with resentment. He thought, with a -passionate adoration and regret, of her beauty, her goodness, and her -love for him. What if she _had_ kept him with her? It had been, as Effie -had said, because she loved him. How did he know that if she had let him -go he would have been good for anything? What on earth could he have -been but the third-rate organist he was? - -He remembered the happiness he had had with her before _he_ had loved -Effie; her looks, her words, the thousand Clings she used to do to -please him. The Mendelssohn she had given him. A certain sweet cake she -made for him on his birthdays. And the touch of her hands, her kisses. - -He thought of these things with an agony of longing. If only he could -have her back; if only she would come to him again, that he might show -her— - -He asked himself: How much did Effie know? She must wonder why he had -taken that sudden dislike to the drawing-room; why he insisted on -sleeping in his study. She had never said anything. - -A week had passed—they were sitting in the dining-room after supper, -when she spoke. - -“Wilfrid, why do you always want to sit here?” - -“Because I hate the other room.” - -“You didn’t use to. It’s only since that day you were ill, the last time -you were playing. Why do you hate it?” - -“Well, if you want to know—you remember the beastly things I said about -mother?” - -[Illustration] - -“You didn’t mean them.” - -“I did mean them— But it wasn’t that. It was something you said.” - -“I?” - -“Yes. You said ‘If the dead knew—’” - -“Well—?” - -“Well—they do know—I’m certain my mother knew. Certain, as I’m certain -I’m sitting here, that she heard.” - -“Oh, Wilfrid, what makes you think that?” - -“I can’t tell you what makes me think it— But—she was there.” - -“You only think it because you’re feeling sorry. You must get over it. -Go back into the room and play.” - -He shook his head and still sat there thinking. Effie did not speak -again; she saw that she must let him think. - -Presently he got up and went into the drawing-room, shutting the doors -behind him. - -The Mendelssohn was still on the piano ledge, open at Number Nine. He -began to play it. But at the first bars of the melody he stopped, -overwhelmed by an agony of regret. He slid down on his knees, with his -arms on the edge of the piano and his head bowed on his arms. - -His soul cried out in him with no sound. - -“Mother—Mother—if only I had you back. If only you would come to me. -Come—Come—” - -And suddenly he felt her come. From far-off, from her place among the -blessed, she came rushing, as if on wings. He heard nothing; he saw -nothing; but with every nerve he felt the vibration of her approach, of -her presence. She was close to him now, closer than hearing or sight or -touch could bring her; her self to his self; her inmost essence was -there. - -The phantasm of a week ago was a faint, insignificant thing beside this -supreme manifestation. No likeness of flesh and blood could give him -such an assurance of reality, of contact. - -For, more certain than any word of flesh and blood, her meaning flashed -through him and thrilled. - -She knew. She knew she had him again; she knew she would never lose him. -He was her son. As she had once given him flesh of her flesh, so now, -self to innermost self, she gave him her blessedness, her peace. - - - - - THE VICTIM - - -Steven Acroyd, Mr. Greathead’s chauffeur, was sulking in the garage. - -Everybody was afraid of him. Everybody hated him except Mr. Greathead, -his master, and Dorsy, his sweetheart. - -And even Dorsy now, after yesterday! - -Night had come. On one side the yard gates stood open to the black -tunnel of the drive. On the other the high moor rose above the wall, -immense, darker than the darkness. Steven’s lantern in the open doorway -of the garage and Dorsy’s lamp in the kitchen window threw a blond -twilight into the yard between. From where he sat, slantways on the step -of the car, he could see, through the lighted window, the table with the -lamp and Dorsy’s sewing huddled up in a white heap as she left it just -now, when she had jumped up and gone away. Because she was afraid of -him. - -She had gone straight to Mr. Greathead in his study, and Steven, -sulking, had flung himself out into the yard. - -He stared into the window, thinking, thinking. Everybody hated him. He -could tell by the damned spiteful way they looked at him in the bar of -the “King’s Arms”; kind of sideways and slink-eyed, turning their dirty -tails and shuffling out of his way. - -He had said to Dorsy he’d like to know what he’d done. He’d just dropped -in for his glass as usual; he’d looked round and said “Good-evening,” -civil, and the dirty tykes took no more notice of him than if he’d been -a toad. Mrs. Oldishaw, Dorsy’s aunt, _she_ hated him, boiled-ham-face, -swelling with spite, shoving his glass at the end of her arm, without -speaking, as if he’d been a bloody cockroach. - -[Illustration] - -All because of the thrashing he’d given young Ned Oldishaw. If she -didn’t want the cub’s neck broken she’d better keep him out of mischief. -Young Ned knew what he’d get if he came meddling with _his_ sweetheart. - -It had happened yesterday afternoon, Sunday, when he had gone down with -Dorsy to the “King’s Arms” to see her aunt. They were sitting out on the -wooden bench against the inn wall when young Ned began it. He could see -him now with his arm round Dorsy’s neck and his mouth gaping. - -And Dorsy laughing like a silly fool and the old woman snorting and -shaking. - -He could hear him. “She’s my cousin if she _is_ your sweetheart. You -can’t stop me kissing her.” _Couldn’t_ he! - -Why, what did they think? When he’d given up his good job at the -Darlington Motor Works to come to Eastthwaite and black Mr. Greathead’s -boots, chop wood, carry coal and water for him, and drive his shabby -secondhand car. Not that he cared what he did so long as he could live -in the same house with Dorsy Oldishaw. It wasn’t likely he’d sit like a -bloody Moses, looking on, while Ned— - -To be sure, he had half killed him. He could feel Ned’s neck swelling -and rising up under the pressure of his hands, his fingers. He had -struck him first, flinging him back against the inn wall, then he had -pinned him—till the men ran up and dragged him off. - -And now they were all against him. Dorsy was against him. She had said -she was afraid of him. - -“Steven,” she had said, “tha med ’a killed him.” - -“Well—p’r’aps next time he’ll knaw better than to coom meddlin’ with -_my_ lass.” - -“I’m not thy lass, ef tha canna keep thy hands off folks. I should be -feared for my life of thee. Ned wum’t doing naw ’arm.” - -“Ef he doos it again, ef he cooms between thee and me, Dorsy, I shall do -’im in.” - -“Naw, tha maunna talk that road.” - -“It’s Gawd’s truth. Anybody that cooms between thee and me, loove, I -shall do ’im in. Ef ’twas thy aunt, I should wring ’er neck, same as I -wroong Ned’s.” - -“And ef it was me, Steven?” - -“Ef it wur thee, ef tha left me— Aw, doan’t tha assk me, Dorsy.” - -“There—that’s ’ow tha scares me.” - -“But tha’ ’astna left me—’tes thy wedding daithes tha’rt making.” - -“Aye, ’tes my wedding claithes.” - -She had started fingering the white stuff, looking at it with her head -on one side, smiling prettily. Then all of a sudden she had flung it -down in a heap and burst out crying. When he tried to comfort her she -pushed him off and ran out of the room, to Mr. Greathead. - -It must have been half an hour ago and she had not come back yet. - -He got up and went through the yard gates into the dark drive. Turning -there, he came to the house front and the lighted window of the study. -Hidden behind a clump of yew he looked in. - -Mr. Greathead had risen from his chair. He was a little old man, shrunk -and pinched, with a bowed narrow back and slender neck under his grey -hanks of hair. - -Dorsy stood before him, facing Steven. The lamplight fell full on her. -Her sweet flower-face was flushed. She had been crying. - -Mr. Greathead spoke. - -“Well, that’s my advice,” he said. “Think it over, Dorsy, before you do -anything.” - -That night Dorsy packed her boxes, and the next day at noon, when Steven -came in for his dinner, she had left the Lodge. She had gone back to her -father’s house in Garthdale. - -She wrote to Steven saying that she had thought it over and found she -daren’t marry him. She was afraid of him. She would be too unhappy. - -[Illustration: Then all of a sudden she had burst out crying ...] - - - II - - -That was the old man, the old man. He had made her give him up. But for -that, Dorsy would never have left him. She would never have thought of -it herself. And she would never have got away if he had been there to -stop her. It wasn’t Ned. Ned was going to marry Nancy Peacock down at -Morfe. Ned hadn’t done any harm. - -It was Mr. Greathead who had come between them. He hated Mr. Greathead. - -His hate became a nausea of physical loathing that never ceased. Indoors -he served Mr. Greathead as footman and valet, waiting on him at meals, -bringing the hot water for his bath, helping him to dress and undress. -So that he could never get away from him. When he came to call him in -the morning, Steven’s stomach heaved at the sight of the shrunken body -under the bedclothes, the flushed, pinched face with its peaked, -finicking nose upturned, the thin silver tuft of hair pricked up above -the pillow’s edge. Steven shivered with hate at the sound of the -rattling, old-man’s cough, and the “shoob-shoob” of the feet shuffling -along the flagged passages. - -He had once had a feeling of tenderness for Mr. Greathead as the tie -that bound him to Dorsy. He even brushed his coat and hat tenderly, as -if he loved them. Once Mr. Greathead’s small, close smile—the greyish -bud of the lower lip pushed out, the upper lip lifted at the corners—and -his kind, thin “Thank you, my lad,” had made Steven smile back, glad to -serve Dorsy’s master. And Mr. Greathead would smile again and say, “It -does me good to see your bright face, Steven.” Now Steven’s face writhed -in a tight contortion to meet Mr. Greathead’s kindliness, while his -throat ran dry and his heart shook with hate. - -At meal-times from his place by the sideboard he would look on at Mr. -Greathead eating, in a long contemplative disgust. He could have -snatched the plate away from under the slow, fumbling hands that hovered -and hesitated. He would catch words coming into his mind: “He ought to -be dead. He ought to be dead.” To think that this thing that ought to be -dead, this old, shrivelled skin-bag of creaking bones should come -between him and Dorsy, should have power to drive Dorsy from him. - -[Illustration] - -One day when he was brushing Mr. Greathead’s soft felt hat a paroxysm of -hatred gripped him. He hated Mr. Greathead’s hat. He took a stick and -struck at it again and again; he threw it on the flags and stamped on -it, clenching his teeth and drawing in his breath with a sharp hiss. He -picked up the hat, looking round furtively, for fear lest Mr. Greathead -or Dorsy’s successor, Mrs. Blenkiron, should have seen him. He pinched -and pulled it back into shape and brushed it carefully and hung it on -the stand. He was ashamed, not of his violence, but of its futility. - -Nobody but a damned fool, he said to himself, would have done that. He -must have been mad. - -It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what he was going to do. He had known -ever since the day when Dorsy left him. - -“I shan’t be myself again till I’ve done him in,” he thought. - -He was only waiting till he had planned it out; till he was sure of -every detail; till he was fit and cool. There must be no hesitation, no -uncertainty at the last minute, above all, no blind, headlong violence. -Nobody but a fool would kill in mad rage, and forget things, and be -caught and swing for it. Yet that was what they all did. There was -always something they hadn’t thought of that gave them away. - -Steven had thought of everything, even the date, even the weather. - -Mr. Greathead was in the habit of going up to London to attend the -debates of a learned Society he belonged to that held its meetings in -May and November. He always travelled up by the five o’clock train, so -that he might go to bed and rest as soon as he arrived. He always stayed -for a week and gave his housekeeper a week’s holiday. Steven chose a -dark, threatening day in November, when Mr. Greathead was going up to -his meeting and Mrs. Blenkiron had left Eastthwaite for Morfe by the -early morning bus. So that there was nobody in the house but Mr. -Greathead and Steven. - -Eastthwaite Lodge stands alone, grey, hidden between the shoulder of the -moor and the ash-trees of its drive. It is approached by a bridle-path -across the moor, a turning off the road that runs from Eastthwaite in -Rathdale to Shawe in Westleydale, about a mile from the village and a -mile from Hardraw Pass. No tradesmen visited it. Mr. Greathead’s letters -and his newspaper were shot into a post-box that hung on the ash-tree at -the turn. - -The hot water laid on in the house was not hot enough for Mr. -Greathead’s bath, so that every morning, while Mr. Greathead shaved, -Steven came to him with a can of boiling water. - -Mr. Greathead, dressed in a mauve and grey striped sleeping-suit, stood -shaving himself before the looking-glass that hung on the wall beside -the great white bath. Steven waited with his hand on the cold tap, -watching the bright curved rod of water falling with a thud and a -splash. - -In the white, stagnant light from the muffed window-pane the knife-blade -flame of a small oil-stove flickered queerly. The oil sputtered and -stank. - -Suddenly the wind hissed in the water-pipes and cut off the glittering -rod. To Steven it seemed the suspension of all movement. He would have -to wait there till the water flowed again before he could begin. He -tried not to look at Mr. Greathead and the lean wattles of his lifted -throat. He fixed his eyes on the long crack in the soiled green -distemper of the wall. His nerves were on edge with waiting for the -water to flow again. The fumes of the oil-stove worked on them like a -rank intoxicant. The soiled green wall gave him a sensation of physical -sickness. - -He picked up a towel and hung it over the back of a chair. Thus he -caught sight of his own face in the glass above Mr. Greathead’s; it was -livid against the soiled green wall. Steven stepped aside to avoid it. - -“Don’t you feel well, Steven?” - -“No, sir.” Steven picked up a small sponge and looked at it. - -Mr. Greathead had laid down his razor and was wiping the lather from his -chin. At that instant, with a gurgling, spluttering haste, the water -leaped from the tap. - -It was then that Steven made his sudden, quiet rush. He first gagged Mr. -Greathead with the sponge, then pushed him back and back against the -wall and pinned him there with both hands round his neck, as he had -pinned Ned Oldishaw. He pressed in on Mr. Greathead’s throat, strangling -him. - -Mr. Greathead’s hands flapped in the air, trying feebly to beat Steven -off; then his arms, pushed back by the heave and thrust of Steven’s -shoulders, dropped. Then Mr. Greathead’s body sank, sliding along the -wall, and fell to the floor, Steven still keeping his hold, mounting it, -gripping it with his knees. His fingers tightened, pressing back the -blood. Mr. Greathead’s face swelled up; it changed horribly. There was a -groaning and rattling sound in his throat. Steven pressed in till it had -ceased. - -Then he stripped himself to the waist. He stripped Mr. Greathead of his -sleeping-suit and hung his naked body face downwards in the bath. He -took the razor and cut the great arteries and veins in the neck. He -pulled up the plug of the waste-pipe, and left the body to drain in the -running water. - -He left it all day and all night. - -He had noticed that murderers swung just for want of attention to little -things like that; messing up themselves and the whole place with blood; -always forgetting something essential. He had no time to think of -horrors. From the moment he had murdered Mr. Greathead his own neck was -in danger; he was simply using all his brain and nerve to save his neck. -He worked with the stem, cool hardness of a man going through with an -unpleasant, necessary job. He had thought of everything. - -He had even thought of the dairy. - -[Illustration: Steven waited with his hand on the tap ...] - -It was built on to the back of the house under the shelter of the high -moor. You entered it through the scullery, which cut it off from the -yard. The window-panes had been removed and replaced by sheets of -perforated zinc. A large corrugated glass sky-light lit it from the -roof. Impossible either to see in or to approach it from the outside. It -was fitted up with a long, black slate shelf, placed, for the -convenience of butter-makers, at the height of an ordinary work-bench. -Steven had his tools, a razor, a carving-knife, a chopper and a -meat-saw, laid there ready, beside a great pile of cotton waste. - -Early the next day he took Mr. Greathead’s body out of the bath, wrapped -a thick towel round the neck and head, carried it down to the dairy and -stretched it out on the slab. And there he cut it up into seventeen -pieces. - -These he wrapped in several layers of newspaper, covering the face and -the hands first, because, at the last moment, they frightened him. He -sewed them up in two sacks and hid them in the cellar. - -He burnt the towel and the cotton waste in the kitchen fire; he cleaned -his tools thoroughly and put them back in their places; and he washed -down the marble slab. There wasn’t a spot on the floor except for one -flagstone where the pink rinsing of the slab had splashed over. He -scrubbed it for half an hour, still seeing the rusty edges of the splash -long after he had scoured it out. - -He then washed and dressed himself with care. - -As it was war-time Steven could only work by day, for a light in the -dairy roof would have attracted the attention of the police. He had -murdered Mr. Greathead on a Tuesday; it was now three o’clock on -Thursday afternoon. Exactly at ten minutes past four he had brought out -the car, shut in close with its black hood and side curtains. He had -packed Mr. Greathead’s suit-case and placed it in the car with his -umbrella, railway rug, and travelling cap. Also, in a bundle, the -clothes that his victim would have gone to London in. - -He stowed the body in the two sacks beside him on the front. - -By Hardraw Pass, half-way between Eastthwaite and Shawe, there are three -round pits, known as the Churns, hollowed out of the grey rock and said -to be bottomless. Steven had thrown stones, big as a man’s chest, down -the largest pit, to see whether they would be caught on any ledge or -boulder. They had dropped clean, without a sound. - -It poured with rain, the rain that Steven had reckoned on. The Pass was -dark under the clouds and deserted. Steven turned his car so that the -headlights glared on the pit’s mouth. Then he ripped open the sacks and -threw down, one by one, the seventeen pieces of Mr. Greathead’s body, -and the sacks after them, and the clothes. - -It was not enough to dispose of Mr. Greathead’s dead body; he had to -behave as though Mr. Greathead were alive. Mr. Greathead had disappeared -and he had to account for his disappearance. He drove on to Shawe -station to the five o’clock train, taking care to arrive close on its -starting. A troop-train was due to depart a minute earlier. Steven, who -had reckoned on the darkness and the rain, reckoned also on the hurry -and confusion on the platform. - -As he had foreseen, there were no porters in the station entry; nobody -to notice whether Mr. Greathead was or was not in the car. He carried -his things through on to the platform and gave the suit-case to an old -man to label. He dashed into the booking-office and took Mr. Greathead’s -ticket, and then rushed along the platform as if he were following his -master. He heard himself shouting to the guard, “Have you seen Mr. -Greathead?” And the guard’s answer, “Naw!” And his own inspired -statement, “He must have taken his seat in the front, then.” He ran to -the front of the train, shouldering his way among the troops. The drawn -blinds of the carriages favoured him. - -Steven thrust the umbrella, the rug, and the travelling cap into an -empty compartment, and slammed the door to. He tried to shout something -through the open window; but his tongue was harsh and dry against the -roof of his mouth, and no sound came. He stood, blocking the window, -till the guard whistled. When the train moved he ran alongside with his -hand on the window ledge, as though he were taking the last instructions -of his master. A porter pulled him back. - -“Quick work, that,” said Steven. - -Before he left the station he wired to Mr. Greathead’s London hotel, -announcing the time of his arrival. - -He felt nothing, nothing but the intense relief of a man who has saved -himself by his own wits from a most horrible death. There were even -moments, in the week that followed, when, so powerful was the illusion -of his innocence, he could have believed that he had really seen Mr. -Greathead off by the five o’clock train. Moments when he literally stood -still in amazement before his own incredible impunity. Other moments -when a sort of vanity uplifted him. He had committed a murder that for -sheer audacity and cool brain work surpassed all murders celebrated in -the history of crime. Unfortunately the very perfection of his -achievement doomed it to oblivion. He had left not a trace. - -Not a trace. - -Only when he woke in the night a doubt sickened him. There was the -rusted ring of that splash on the dairy floor. He wondered, had he -really washed it out clean. And he would get up and light a candle and -go down to the dairy to make sure. He knew the exact place; bending over -it with the candle, he could imagine that he still saw a faint outline. - -Daylight reassured him. _He_ knew the exact place, but nobody else knew. -There was nothing to distinguish it from the natural stains in the -flagstone. Nobody would guess. But he was glad when Mrs. Blenkiron came -back again. - -On the day that Mr. Greathead was to have come home by the four o’clock -train Steven drove into Shawe and bought a chicken for the master’s -dinner. He met the four o’clock train and expressed surprise that Mr. -Greathead had not come by it. He said he would be sure to come by the -seven. He ordered dinner for eight; Mrs. Blenkiron roasted the chicken, -and Steven met the seven o’clock train. This time he showed uneasiness. - -The next day he met all the trains and wired to Mr. Greathead’s hotel -for information. When the manager wired back that Mr. Greathead had not -arrived, he wrote to his relatives and gave notice to the police. - -Three weeks passed. The police and Mr. Greathead’s relatives accepted -Steven’s statements, backed as they were by the evidence of the booking -office clerk, the telegraph clerk, the guard, the porter who had -labelled Mr. Greathead’s luggage and the hotel manager who had received -his telegram. Mr. Greathead’s portrait was published in the illustrated -papers with requests for any information which might lead to his -discovery. Nothing happened, and presently he and his disappearance were -forgotten. The nephew who came down to Eastthwaite to look into his -affairs was satisfied. His balance at his bank was low owing to the -non-payment of various dividends, but the accounts and the contents of -Mr. Greathead’s cash-box and bureau were in order and Steven had put -down every penny he had spent. The nephew paid Mrs. Blenkiron’s wages -and dismissed her and arranged with the chauffeur to stay on and take -care of the house. And as Steven saw that this was the best way to -escape suspicion, he stayed on. - -Only in Westleydale and Rathdale excitement lingered. People wondered -and speculated. Mr. Greathead had been robbed and murdered in the train -(Steven said he had had money on him). He had lost his memory and -wandered goodness knew where. He had thrown himself out of the railway -carriage. Steven said Mr. Greathead wouldn’t do _that_, but he shouldn’t -be surprised if he had lost his memory. He knew a man who forgot who he -was and where he lived. Didn’t know his own wife and children. -Shell-shock. And lately Mr. Greathead’s memory hadn’t been what it was. -Soon as he got it back he’d turn up again. Steven wouldn’t be surprised -to see him walking in any day. - -But on the whole people noticed that he didn’t care to talk much about -Mr. Greathead. They thought this showed very proper feeling. They were -sorry for Steven. He had lost his master and he had lost Dorsy Oldishaw. -And if he _did_ half kill Ned Oldishaw, well, young Ned had no business -to go meddling with his sweetheart. Even Mrs. Oldishaw was sorry for -him. And when Steven came into the bar of the King’s Arms everybody said -“Good-evening, Steve,” and made room for him by the fire. - - - III - - -Steven came and went now as if nothing had happened. He made a point of -keeping the house as it would be kept if Mr. Greathead were alive. Mrs. -Blenkiron, coming in once a fortnight to wash and clean, found the fire -lit in Mr. Greathead’s study and his slippers standing on end in the -fender. Upstairs his bed was made, the clothes folded back, ready. This -ritual guarded Steven not only from the suspicions of outsiders, but -from his own knowledge. By behaving as though he believed that Mr. -Greathead was still living he almost made himself believe it. By -refusing to let his mind dwell on the murder he came to forget it. His -imagination saved him, playing the play that kept him sane, till the -murder became vague to him and fantastic like a thing done in a dream. -He had waked up and this was the reality; this round of caretaking, this -look the house had of waiting for Mr. Greathead to come back to it. He -had left off getting up in the night to examine the place on the dairy -floor. He was no longer amazed at his impunity. - -[Illustration] - -Then suddenly, when he really had forgotten, it ended. It was on a -Saturday in January, about five o’clock. Steven had heard that Dorsy -Oldishaw was back again, living at the “King’s Arms” with her aunt. He -had a mad, uncontrollable longing to see her again. - -But it was not Dorsy that he saw. - -His way from the Lodge kitchen into the drive was through the yard gates -and along the flagged path under the study window. When he turned on to -the flags he saw it shuffling along before him. The lamplight from the -window lit it up. He could see distinctly the little old man in the -long, shabby black overcoat, with the grey woollen muffler round his -neck hunched up above his collar, lifting the thin grey hair that stuck -out under the slouch of the black hat. - -In the first moment that he saw it Steven had no fear. He simply felt -that the murder had not happened, that he really _had_ dreamed it, and -that this was Mr. Greathead come back, alive among the living. The -phantasm was now standing at the door of the house, its hand on the -door-knob as if about to enter. - -But when Steven came up to the door it was not there. - -He stood, fixed, staring at the space which had emptied itself so -horribly. His heart heaved and staggered, snatching at his breath. And -suddenly the memory of the murder rushed at him. He saw himself in the -bathroom, shut in with his victim by the soiled green walls. He smelt -the reek of the oil-stove; he heard the water running from the tap. He -felt his feet springing forward, and his fingers pressing, tighter and -tighter, on Mr. Greathead’s throat. He saw Mr. Greathead’s hands -flapping helplessly, his terrified eyes, his face swelling and -discoloured, changing horribly, and his body sinking to the floor. - -He saw himself in the dairy, afterwards; he could hear the thudding, -grinding, scraping noises of his tools. He saw himself on Hardraw Pass -and the headlights glaring on the pit’s mouth. And the fear and the -horror he had not felt then came on him now. - -He turned back; he bolted the yard gates and all the doors of the house, -and shut himself up in the lighted kitchen. He took up his magazine. -_The Autocar_, and forced himself to read it. Presently his terror left -him. He said to himself it was nothing. Nothing but his fancy. He didn’t -suppose he’d ever see anything again. - -Three days passed. On the third evening, Steven had lit the study lamp -and was bolting the window when he saw it again. - -It stood on the path outside, close against the window, looking in. He -saw its face distinctly, the greyish, stuck-out bud of the under-lip, -and the droop of the pinched nose. The small eyes peered at him, -glittering. The whole figure had a glassy look between the darkness -behind it and the pane. One moment it stood outside, looking in; and the -next it was mixed up with the shimmering picture of the lighted room -that hung there on the blackness of the trees. Mr. Greathead then showed -as if reflected, standing with Steven in the room. - -[Illustration: It stood close against the window, looking in.] - -And now he was outside again, looking at him, looking at him through the -pane. - -Steven’s stomach sank and dragged, making him feel sick. He pulled down -the blind between him and Mr. Greathead, clamped the shutters to and -drew the curtains over them. He locked and double-bolted the front door, -all the doors, to keep Mr. Greathead out. But, once that night, as he -lay in bed, he heard the “shoob-shoob” of feet shuffling along the -flagged passages, up the stairs, and across the landing outside his -door. The door handle rattled; but nothing came. He lay awake till -morning, the sweat running off his skin, his heart plunging and -quivering with terror. - -When he got up he saw a white, scared face in the looking-glass. A face -with a half-open mouth, ready to blab, to blurt out his secret; the face -of an idiot. He was afraid to take that face into Eastthwaite or into -Shawe. So he shut himself up in the house, half starved on his small -stock of bread, bacon and groceries. - -Two weeks passed; and then it came again in broad daylight. - -It was Mrs. Blenkiron’s morning. He had lit the fire in the study at -noon and set up Mr. Greathead’s slippers in the fender. When he rose -from his stooping and turned round he saw Mr. Greathead’s phantasm -standing on the hearthrug dose in front of him. It was looking at him -and smiling in a sort of mockery, as if amused at what Steven had been -doing. It was solid and completely lifelike at first. Then, as Steven in -his terror backed and backed away from it (he was afraid to turn and -feel it there behind him), its feet became insubstantial. As if -undermined, the whole structure sank and fell together on the floor, -where it made a pool of some whitish glistening substance that mixed -with the pattern of the carpet and sank through. - -That was the most horrible thing it had done yet, and Steven’s nerve -broke under it. He went to Mrs. Blenkiron, whom he found scrubbing out -the dairy. - -She sighed as she wrung out the floor-doth. - -“Eh, these owd yeller stawnes, scroob as you will they’ll nawer look -dean.” - -“Naw,” he said. “Scroob and scroob, you’ll nawer get them clean.” - -She looked up at him. - -“Eh, lad, what ails ’ee? Ye’ve got a faace like a wroong dishdout -hanging ower t’ sink.” - -“I’ve got the colic.” - -“Aye, an’ naw woonder wi’ the damp, and they misties, an’ your awn bad -cooking. Let me roon down t’ ‘King’s Arms’ and get you a drop of -whisky.” - -“Naw, I’ll gaw down mysen.” - -He knew now he was afraid to be left alone in the house. Down at the -“King’s Arms” Dorsy and Mrs. Oldishaw were sorry for him. By this time -he was really ill with fright. Dorsy and Mrs. Oldishaw said it was a -chill. They made him lie down on the settle by the kitchen fire and put -a rug over him, and gave him stiff hot grog to drink. He slept. And when -he woke he found Dorsy sitting beside him with her sewing. - -He sat up and her hand was on his shoulder. - -“Lay still, lad.” - -“I maun get oop and gaw.” - -“Nay, there’s naw call for ’ee to gaw. Lay still and I’ll make thee a -coop o’ tea.” - -He lay still. - -Mrs. Oldishaw had made up a bed for him in her son’s room, and they kept -him there that night and till four o’clock the next day. - -When he got up to go Dorsy put on her coat and hat. - -“Is tha gawing out, Dorsy?” - -“Aye. I canna let thee gaw and set there by thysen. I’m cooming oop to -set with ’ee till night time.” - -She came up and they sat side by side in the Lodge kitchen by the fire -as they used to sit when they were together there, holding each other’s -hands and not talking. - -“Dorsy,” he said at last, “what astha coom for? Astha coom to tall me -tha’ll nawer speak to me again?” - -“Nay. Tha knaws what I’ve coom for.” - -“To saay tha’ll marry me?” - -“Aye.” - -“I maunna marry thee, Dorsy. ’twouldn’ be right.” - -“Right? What dostha mean? ’twouldn’t be right for me to coom and set wi’ -thee this road ef I doan’t marry thee.” - -“Nay. I darena’. Tha said tha was afraid of me, Dorsy. I doan’t want ’ee -to be afraid. Tha said tha’d be unhappy. I doan’t want ’ee to be -unhappy.” - -“That was lasst year. I’m not afraid of ’ee, now, Steve.” - -“Tha doan’t knaw me, lass.” - -“Aye, I knaw thee. I knaw tha’s sick and starved for want of me. Tha -canna live wi’out thy awn lass to take care of ’ee.” - -She rose. - -“I maun gaw now. But I’ll be oop to-morrow and the next day.” - -And to-morrow and the next day and the next, at dusk, the hour that -Steven most dreaded, Dorsy came. She sat with him till long after the -night had fallen. - -Steven would have felt safe so long as she was with him, but for his -fear that Mr. Greathead would appear to him while she was there and that -she would see him. If Dorsy knew he was being haunted she might guess -why. Or Mr. Greathead might take some horrible blood-dripping and -dismembered shape that would show her how he had been murdered. It would -be like him, dead, to come between them as he had come when he was -living. - -They were sitting at the round table by the fireside. The lamp was lit -and Dorsy was bending over her sewing. Suddenly she looked up, her head -on one side, listening. Far away inside the house, on the flagged -passage from the front door, he could hear the “shoob-shoob” of the -footsteps. He could almost believe that Dorsy shivered. And somehow, for -some reason, this time he was not afraid. - -“Steven,” she said, “didsta ’ear anything?” - -“Naw. Nobbut t’ wind oonder t’ roogs.” - -She looked at him; a long wondering look. Apparently it satisfied her, -for she answered: “Aye. Mebbe ’tes nobbut wind,” and went on with her -sewing. - -He drew his chair nearer to her to protect her if it came. He could -almost touch her where she sat. - -The latch lifted. The door opened, and, his entrance and his passage -unseen, Mr. Greathead stood before them. - -The table hid the lower half of his form; but above it he was steady and -solid in his terrible semblance of flesh and blood. - -Steven looked at Dorsy. She was staring at the phantasm with an -innocent, wondering stare that had no fear in it at all. Then she looked -at Steven. An uneasy, frightened, searching look, as though to make sure -whether he had seen it. - -That was her fear—that _he_ should see it, that _he_ should be -frightened, that _he_ should be haunted. - -He moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder. He thought, perhaps, -she might shrink from him because she knew that it _was_ he who was -haunted. But no, she put up her hand and held his, gazing up into his -face and smiling. - -Then, to his amazement, the phantasm smiled back at them; not with -mockery, but with a strange and terrible sweetness. Its face lit up for -one instant with a sudden, beautiful, shining light; then it was gone. - -“Did tha see ’im, Steve?” - -“Aye.” - -“Astha seen annything afore?” - -“Aye, three times I’ve seen ’im.” - -“Is it that ’as scared thee?” - -“’Oo tawled ’ee I was scared?” - -“I knawed. Because nowt can ’appen to thee but I maun knaw it.” - -“What dostha think, Dorsy?” - -“I think tha needna be scared, Steve. ’E’s a kind ghawst. Whatever ’e is -’e doan’t mean thee no ’arm. T’ owd gentleman nawer did when he was -alive.” - -“Didn’ ’e? Didn’ ’e? ’E served me the woorst turn ’e could when ’e -coomed between thee and me.” - -“Whatever makes ’ee think that, lad?” - -“I doan’ think it. I _know_.” - -“Nay, loove, tha dostna.” - -“’E did. ’E did, I tell thee.” - -“Doan’ tha say that,” she cried. “Doan’ tha say it, Stevey.” - -“Why shouldn’t I?” - -“Tha’ll set folk talking that road.” - -“What do they knaw to talk about?” - -“Ef they was to remember what tha said.” - -“And what did I say?” - -“Why, that ef annybody was to coom between thee and me, tha’d do them -in.” - -“I wasna thinking of _’tin_. Gawd knaws I wasna.” - -“_They_ doan’t,” she said. - -“_Tha_ knaws? Tha knaws I didna mean ’im?” - -“Aye, _I_ knaw, Steve.” - -“An’, Dorsy, tha ’m’t afraid of me? Tha ’m’t afraid of me anny more?” - -“Nay, lad. I loove thee too mooch. I shall nawer be afraid of ’ee again. -Would I coom to thee this road ef I was afraid?” - -“Tha’ll be afraid now.” - -“And what should I be afraid of?” - -“Why—’m.” - -“_’Im?_ I should be a deal more afraid to think of ’ee setting with ’im -oop ’ere, by thysen. Wuntha coom down and sleep at aunt’s?” - -“That I wunna. But I shall set ’ee on t’ road passt t’ moor.” - -He went with her down the bridle-path and across the moor and along the -main road that led through Eastthwaite. They parted at the turn where -the lights of the village came in sight. - -The moon had risen as Steven went back across the moor. The ash-tree at -the bridle-path stood out clear, its hooked, bending branches black -against the grey moor-grass. The shadows in the ruts laid stripes along -the bridle-path, black on grey. The house was black-grey in the darkness -of the drive. Only the lighted study window made a golden square in its -long wall. - -Before he could go up to bed he would have to put out the study lamp. He -was nervous; but he no longer felt the sickening and sweating terror of -the first hauntings. Either he was getting used to it, or—something had -happened to him. - -He had closed the shutters and put out the lamp. His candle made a ring -of light round the table in the middle of the room. He was about to take -it up and go when he heard a thin voice calling his same: “Steven.” He -raised his head to listen. The thin thread of sound seemed to come from -outside, a long way off, at the end of the bridle-path. - -“Steven, Steven—” - -This time he could have sworn the sound came from inside his head, like -the hiss of air in his ears. - -“Steven—” - -He knew the voice now. It was behind him in the room. He turned, and saw -the phantasm of Mr. Greathead sitting, as he used to sit, in the -arm-chair by the fire. The form was dim in the dusk of the room outside -the ring of candlelight. Steven’s first movement was to snatch up the -candlestick and hold it between him and the phantasm, hoping that the -light would cause it to disappear. Instead of disappearing the figure -became clear and solid, indistinguishable from a figure of flesh and -blood dressed in black broadcloth and white linen. Its eyes had the -shining transparency of blue crystal; they were fixed on Steven with a -look of quiet, benevolent attention. Its small, narrow mouth was lifted -at the corners, smiling. - -[Illustration: ... the figure became clear and solid ...] - -It spoke. - -“You needn’t be afraid,” it said. - -The voice was natural now, quiet, measured, slightly quavering. Instead -of frightening Steven it soothed and steadied him. - -He put the candle on the table behind him and stood up before the -phantasm, fascinated. - -“_Why_ are you afraid?” it asked. - -Steven couldn’t answer. He could only stare, held there by the shining, -hypnotizing eyes. - -“You are afraid,” it said, “because you think I’m what you call a ghost, -a supernatural thing. You think I’m dead and that you killed me. You -think you took a horrible revenge for a wrong you thought I did you. You -think I’ve come back to frighten you, to revenge myself in my turn. - -“And every one of those thoughts of yours, Steven, is wrong. I’m real, -and my appearance is as natural and real as anything in this room—_more_ -natural and more real if you did but know. You didn’t kill me, as you -see; for here I am, as alive, more alive than you are. Your revenge -consisted in removing me from a state which had become unbearable to a -state more delightful than you can imagine. I don’t mind telling you, -Steven, that I was in serious financial difficulties (which, by the way, -is a good thing for you, as it provides a plausible motive for my -disappearance). So that, as far as revenge goes, the thing was a -complete frost. You were my benefactor. Your methods were somewhat -violent, and I admit you gave me some disagreeable moments before my -actual deliverance; but as I was already developing rheumatoid arthritis -there can be no doubt that in your hands my death was more merciful than -if it had been left to Nature. As for the subsequent arrangements, I -congratulate you, Steven, on your coolness and resource. I always said -you were equal to any emergency, and that your brains would pull you -safe through any scrape. You committed an appalling and dangerous crime, -a crime of all things the most difficult to conceal, and you contrived -so that it was not discovered and never will be discovered. And no doubt -the details of this crime seemed to you horrible and revolting to the -last degree; and the more horrible and the more revolting they were, the -more you piqued yourself on your nerve in carrying the thing through -without a hitch. - -“I don’t want to put you entirely out of conceit with your performance. -It was very creditable for a beginner, very creditable indeed. But let -me tell you, this idea of things being horrible and revolting is all -illusion. The terms are purely relative to your limited perceptions. - -“I’m speaking now to your intelligence—I don’t mean that practical -ingenuity which enabled you to dispose of me so neatly. When I say -intelligence I mean intelligence. All you did, then, was to redistribute -matter. To our incorruptible sense matter never takes any of those -offensive forms in which it so often appears to you. Nature has evolved -all this horror and repulsion just to prevent people from making too -many little experiments like yours. You mustn’t imagine that these -things have any eternal importance. Don’t flatter yourself you’ve -electrified the universe. For minds no longer attached to flesh and -blood, that horrible butchery you were so proud of, Steven, is simply -silly. No more terrifying than the spiffing of red ink or the -rearrangement of a jig-saw puzzle. I saw the whole business, and I can -assure you I felt nothing but intense amusement. Your face, Steven, was -so absurdly serious. You’ve no idea what you looked like with that -chopper. I’d have appeared to you then and told you so, only I knew I -should frighten you into fits. - -“And there’s another grand mistake, my lad—your thinking that I’m -haunting you out of revenge, that I’m trying to frighten you.... My dear -Steven, if I’d wanted to frighten you I’d have appeared in a very -different shape. I needn’t remind you what shape I _might_ have appeared -in.... What do you suppose I’ve come for?” - -“I don’t know,” said Steven in a husky whisper. “Tell me. - -“I’ve come to forgive you. And to save you from the horror you _would_ -have felt sooner or later. And to stop your going on with your crime.” - -“You needn’t,” Steven said. “I’m not going on with it. I shall do no -more murders.” - -“There you are again. Can’t you understand that I’m not talking about -your silly butcher’s work? I’m talking about your _real_ crime. Your -real crime was hating me. - -“And your very hate was a blunder, Steven. You hated me for something I -hadn’t done.” - -“Aye, what did you do? Tell me that.” - -“You thought I came between you and your sweetheart. That night when -Dorsy spoke to me, you thought I told her to throw you over, didn’t -you?” - -“Aye. And what did you tell her?” - -“I told her to stick to you. It was you, Steven, who drove her away. You -frightened the child. She said she was afraid for her life of you. Not -because you half killed that poor boy, but because of the look on your -face before you did it. The look of hate, Steven. - -“I told her not to be afraid of you. I told her that if she threw you -over you might go altogether to the devil; that she might even be -responsible for some crime. I told her that if she married you and was -faithful—_if she loved you_—I’d answer for it you’d never go wrong. - -“She was too frightened to listen to me. Then I told her to think over -what I’d said before she did anything. You heard me say that.” - -“Aye. That’s what I heard you say. I didn’ knaw. I didn’ knaw. I thought -you’d set her agen me.” - -“If you don’t believe me, you can ask her, Steven.” - -“That’s what she said t’ other night. That you nawer coom between her -and me. Nawer.” - -“Never,” the phantasm said. “And you don’t hate me now.” - -“Naw. Naw. I should nawer ’a hated ’ee. I should nawer ’a laid a finger -on thee, ef I’d knawn.” - -“It’s not your laying fingers on me, it’s your hatred that matters. If -that’s done with, the whole thing’s done with.” - -“Is it? Is it? Ef it was knawn, I should have to hang for it. Maunna I -gie mysen oop? Tell me, maun I gie mysen oop?” - -“You want me to decide that for you?” - -“Aye. Doan’t gaw,” he said. “Doan’t gaw.” - -It seemed to him that Mr. Greathead’s phantasm was getting a little -thin, as if it couldn’t last more than an instant. He had never so -longed for it to go, as he longed now for it to stay and help him. - -“Well, Steven, any flesh-and-blood man would tell you to go and get -hanged to-morrow; that it was no more than your plain duty. And I -daresay there are some mean, vindictive spirits even in my world who -would say the same, not because _they_ think death important but because -they know _you_ do, and want to get even with you that way. - -“It isn’t _my_ way. I consider this little affair is strictly between -ourselves. There isn’t a jury of flesh-and-blood men who would -understand it. They all think death so important.” - -“What do you want me to do, then? Tell me and I’ll do it! Tell me!” - -He cried it out loud; for Mr. Greathead’s phantasm was getting thinner -and thinner; it dwindled and fluttered, like a light going down. Its -voice came from somewhere away outside, from the other end of the -bridle-path. - -“Go on living,” it said. “Marry Dorsy.” - -“I darena’. She doan’ knaw I killed ’ee.” - -“Oh, yes”—the eyes flickered up, gentle and ironic—“she does. She knew -all the time.” - -And with that the phantasm went out. - - - - - THE FINDING OF THE ABSOLUTE - - - I - - -Mr. Spalding had gone out into the garden to find peace, and had not -found it. He sat there, with hunched shoulders and bowed head, dejected -in the spring sunshine. - -Jerry, the black cat, invited him to play; he stood on his hind legs and -danced, and bowed sideways, and waved his forelegs in the air like -wings. At any other time his behaviour would have enchanted Mr. -Spalding, but now he couldn’t even look at him; he was too miserable. - -He had gone to bed miserable; he had passed a night of misery, and he -had waked up more miserable than ever. He had been like that for three -days and three nights straight on end, and no wonder. It wasn’t only -that his young wife Elizabeth had run away with Paul Jeffreson, the -Imagist poet. Besides the frailty of Elizabeth, he had discovered a -fatal flaw in his own system of metaphysics. His belief in Elizabeth was -gone. So was his belief in the Absolute. - -The two things had come at once, to crush him. And he had to own -bitterly that they were not altogether unrelated. “If,” Mr. Spalding -said to himself, “I had served my wife as faithfully as I have served my -God, she would not now have deserted me for Paul Jeffreson.” He meant -that if he had not been wrapped up in his system of metaphysics, -Elizabeth might still have been wrapped up in him. He had nobody but -himself to thank for her behaviour. - -If she had run away with anybody else, since run she must, he might have -forgiven her; he might have forgiven himself; but there could be nothing -but misery in store for Elizabeth. Paul Jeffreson had genius, Mr. -Spalding didn’t deny it; immortal genius; but he had no morals; he -drank; he drugged; in Mr. Spalding’s decent phrase, he did everything he -shouldn’t do. - -You would have thought this overwhelming disaster would have completely -outweighed the other trouble. But no; Mr. Spalding had a balanced mind; -he mourned with equal sorrow the loss of his wife and the loss of his -Absolute. A flaw in a metaphysical system may seem to you a small thing; -but you must bear in mind that, ever since he could think at all, Mr. -Spalding had been devoured by a hunger and thirst after metaphysical -truth. He had flung over the God he had been taught to believe in -because, besides being an outrage to Mr. Spalding’s moral sense, he -wasn’t metaphysical enough. The poor man was always worrying about -metaphysics; he wandered from system to system, seeking truth, seeking -reality, seeking some supreme intellectual satisfaction that never came. -He thought he had found it in his theory of Absolute Pantheism. But -really, Spalding’s Pantheism, anybody’s Pantheism for that matter, -couldn’t, when you brought it down to bed-rock thinking, hold water for -a minute. And the more Absolute he made it, the leakier it was. - -For, consider, on Mr. Spalding’s theory, there isn’t any reality except -the Absolute. Things are only real because they exist in It; because It -is Them. Mr. Spalding conceived that his consciousness and Elizabeth’s -consciousness and Paul Jeffreson’s consciousness existed somehow in the -Absolute unchanged. For, if that inside existence changed them you would -have to say that the ground of their present appearance lay somewhere -outside the Absolute, which to Mr. Spalding was rank blasphemy. And if -Elizabeth and Paul Jeffreson existed in the Absolute unchanged, then -their adultery existed there unchanged. And an adultery within the -Absolute outraged his moral sense as much as anything he had been told -about God in his youth. The odd thing was that until Elizabeth had run -away and committed it he had never thought of that. The metaphysics of -Pantheism had interested him much more than its ethics. And now he could -think of nothing else. - -And it wasn’t only Elizabeth and her iniquity; there were all the -intolerable people he had ever known. There was his Uncle Sims, a mean -sneak if ever there was one; and his Aunt Emily, a silly fool; and his -cousin, Tom Rumbold, an obscene idiot. And his uncle’s mean -sneak-ishness, and his aunt’s silly folly, and his cousin’s obscene -idiocy would have to exist in the Absolute, too; and unchanged, mind -you. - -And the things you see and hear—A blue sky, now, would it be blue in the -Sight of God, or just something inconceivable? And noises, music? For -example, I am listening to Grand Opera, and you to the jazz band in your -restaurant; but the God of Pantheism is listening to both, to all the -noises in the universe at once. As if He had sat down on the piano. This -idea shocked Mr. Spalding even more than the thought of Elizabeth’s -misconduct. - -Time went on. Paul Jeffreson drank himself to death. Elizabeth, worn out -with grief, died of pneumonia following influenza; and Mr. Spalding -still went about worrying over his inadjustable metaphysics. - -And at last he, too, found himself dying. - -And then he began to worry about other things. Things that had, as he -put it, “happened” in his youth, before he knew Elizabeth, and one thing -that had happened after she left him. He thought of them as just -happening; happening _to_ him rather than _through_ him, against his -will. In calm, philosophic moments he couldn’t conceive how they had -ever happened at all, how, for example, he could have endured Connie -Larkins. The episodes had been brief, because in each case boredom and -disgust had supervened to put asunder what Mr. Spalding owned should -never have been joined. Brief, insignificant as they were, Mr. Spalding, -in his dying state, was worried when he looked back on them. Supposing -they were more significant than they had seemed? Supposing they had an -eternal significance and entailed tremendous consequences in the -after-life? Supposing you were not just wiped out, that there really -_was_ an after-life? Supposing that in that other world there was a -hell? - -Mr. Spalding could imagine no worse hell than the eternal repetition of -such incidents; eternal repetition of boredom and disgust. Fancy going -on with Connie Larkins for ever and ever, never being able to get away -from her, doomed to repeat—And, if there _was_ an Absolute, if there was -reality, truth, never knowing it; being cut off from it for ever— - -“He that is filthy let him be filthy still.” - -That was hell, the continuance of the filthy state. - -He wondered whether goodness was not, after all, _the_ important thing; -he wondered whether there really was a next world; with an extreme -uneasiness he wondered what would happen to him in it. - -He died wondering. - - - II - - -His first thought was: Well, here I am again. I’ve not been wiped out. -His next, that he hadn’t died at all. He had gone to sleep and was now -dreaming. He was not in the least agitated, nor even surprised. - -He found himself alone in an immense grey space, in which there was no -distinguishable object but himself. He was aware of his body as -occupying a portion of this space. For he had a body; a curious, -tenuous, whitish body. The odd thing was that this empty space had a -sort of solidity under him. He was lying on it, stretched out on it, -adrift. It supported him with the buoyancy of deep water. And yet his -body was part of it, netted in. - -He was now aware of two figures approaching. They came and stood, like -figures treading water, one on each side of him, and he saw that they -were Elizabeth and Paul Jeffreson. - -Then he concluded that he was really dead; dead like Elizabeth and -Jeffreson, and (since they were there) that he was in hell. - -Elizabeth was speaking, and her voice sounded sweet and very kind. All -the same he knew he was in hell. - -“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s queer at first, but you’ll get used to -it. You don’t mind our coming to meet you?” - -Mr. Spalding said he’d no business to mind, no right to reproach her, -since they were all in the same boat. They had, all three, deserved -their punishment. - -“Punishment?” (Jeffreson spoke). “Why, where does he think he is?” - -“I’m in hell, aren’t I? If—” - -“If _we’re_ here. Is that it?” - -“Well, Jeffreson, I don’t want to rake up old unpleasantness, but -after—after what happened, you’ll forgive my saying so, but what else -_can_ I think?” - -He heard Jeffreson laugh; a perfectly natural laugh. - -“Will _you_ tell him, Elizabeth, or shall I?” - -“You’d better. He always respected your intelligence.” - -“Well, old chap, if you really want to know where you are, you’re in -heaven.” - -“You don’t mean to say so?” - -“Fact. I daresay you’re wondering what we’re doing here?” - -“Well, Elizabeth—perhaps. But, frankly, Jeffreson, - -“Yes. How about me?” - -“With your record I should have thought you’d even less business here -than I have.” - -“Wouldn’t you? I lived on unpaid bills. I drank. I drugged. There was -nothing I didn’t do. What do you suppose I got in on? You’ll never -guess.” - -“No. No. I give it up.” - -“My love of beauty. You wouldn’t think it, but it seems that actually -counts here, in the eternal world.” - -“And Elizabeth, what did she get in on?” - -“Her love of me.” - -“Then all I can say is,” said Mr. Spalding, “Heaven must be a most -immoral place.” - -“Oh, no. Your parochial morality doesn’t hold good here, that’s all. Why -should it? It’s entirely relative. Relative to a social system with -limits in time and space. Relative to a certain biological configuration -that ceased with our terrestrial organisms. Not absolute. Not eternal. - -“But beauty—Beauty _is_ eternal, is absolute. And I—I loved beauty more -than credit, more than drink or drugs or women, more even than -Elizabeth. - -“And love is eternal. And Elizabeth loved me more than you, more than -respectability, more than peace and comfort, and a happy life.” - -“That’s all very well, Jeffreson; and Elizabeth may be all right. Mary -Magdalene, you know. _Quia mulium amavit_, and so forth. But if a -blackguard like you can slip into heaven as easily as all that, where -_are_ our ethics?” - -“Your ethics, my dear Spalding, are where they’ve always been, where you -came from, not here. And if I _was_ what they call a bad man, that’s to -say a bad terrestrial organism, I was a thundering good poet. You say I -slipped in easily; do you suppose it’s easy to be a poet? My dear -fellow, it requires an inflexibility, a purity, a discipline of mind—of -_mind_, remember—that you haven’t any conception of. And surely _you_ -should be the last person in the world to regard mind as an inferior -secondary affair. Anyhow, the consequence is that I’ve not only got into -heaven, I’ve got into one of the best heavens, a heaven reserved -exclusively for the very finest spirits.” - -“Then,” said Mr. Spalding, “if we’re in heaven, who’s in hell?” - -“Couldn’t say for certain. But we shouldn’t put it that way. We should -say: Who’s gone back to earth?” - -“Well—am I likely to meet Uncle Sims, or Aunt Emily, or Tom Rumbold -here? You remember them, Elizabeth?” - -“Oh, yes, I remember. They’d be almost certain to be sent back. They -couldn’t stand eternal things. There’s nothing eternal about meanness -and stupidity and nastiness.” - -“What’ll happen to them, do you suppose?” - -“What should you say, Paul?” - -“I should say they’d suffer damnably till they’d got some bigness and -intelligence and decency knocked into them.” - -“It’ll be a sell for Aunt Emily. She was brought up to believe that -stupidity was no drawback to getting into heaven.” - -“Lots of people,” said Jeffreson, “will be sold. Like my father, the -Dean of Eastminster; he was cocksure he’d get in; but they won’t let -him. And why, do you suppose? Because the poor old boy couldn’t see that -my poems were beautiful. - -“But even that wouldn’t have dished him, if he’d had a passion for -anybody; or if he’d cared two straws about metaphysical truth. Your -truth, Spalding.” - -“Bless me, all our preconceived ideas seem to have been wrong.” - -“Yes. Even I wasn’t prepared for that. By the way, that’s what you got -in on, your passion for truth. It’s like my passion for beauty.” - -“But—aren’t you distressed about your father, Jeffreson?” - -“Oh, no. He’ll get into some heaven or other some day. He’ll find out -that he cares for somebody, perhaps. Then he’ll be all right— But don’t -you want to look about a bit?” - -“I don’t see very much to look at. It strikes me as a bit bare, your -heaven.” - -“Oh, that’s because you’re only at the landing-state.” - -“The landing _what_?” - -“State. What we used to call landing place. Times and spaces here, you -know, are states. States of mind.” - -Mr. Spalding sat up, excited. “But—but that’s what I always said they -were. I and Kant.” - -“Well, you’d better talk to him about it.” - -“Talk to _him_? Shall I see Kant?” - -“Look at him, Elizabeth. _Now_ he’s coming alive— Of course you’ll see -him when you get into your own place—state, I mean. You’d better get up -and come along with me and Elizabeth. We’ll show you round.” - -[Illustration: “_Now_ he’s coming alive—”] - -He rose, they steadied him, and he made his way between them through the -grey immensity, over a half-seen yet perfectly solid tract of something -that he thought of, absurdly, as condensed space. As yet there were no -objects in sight but the figures of Elizabeth and Jeffreson; the -half-seen, yet tangible floor he went on seemed to create itself out of -nothing, under his feet, as the desire to walk arose in him. And as yet -he had felt no interest or curiosity; but as he went on he was aware of -a desire to see things that became more and more urgent. He would see. -He must see. He felt that before him and around him there were endless -things to be seen. His mind strained forwards towards vision. - -And then, suddenly, he saw. - -He saw a landscape more beautiful than anything he could have imagined. -It was, Jeffreson informed him, very like the umbrella pine country -between Florence and Siena. As they came out of it on a great, curving -road they had their faces towards the celestial west. To the south the -land fell away in great red cliffs to a shining, blue sea. Like, -Jeffreson said, the Riviera, the Estérel. West and north the landscape -rolled in green hill after green hill, pine-tufted, to a sweeping -rampart of deep blue; such a rampart, such blue as Mr. Spalding had seen -from the heights above Sidmouth, looking towards Dartmoor. Only this -country had a grace, a harmony of line and colour that gave it an -absolute beauty; and over it there lay a serene, unearthly radiance. - -Before them, on a hill, was an exquisite little white, golden and -rose-red town. - -“You may or may not believe me,” said Jeffreson, “but the beauty of all -this is that I made it. I mean Elizabeth and I made it between us.” - -“You made it?” - -“Made it.” - -“How?” - -“By thinking of it. By wanting it. By imagining it.” - -“But—out of what?” - -“I don’t know and I don’t much care. Our scientists here will tell you -we made it out of the ultimate constituents of matter. Matter, unformed, -only exists for us in its ultimate constituents. Something like -electrons of electrons of electrons. Here we are all suspended in a web, -immersed, if you like, in a sea, an air of this matter. It is utterly -plastic to our imagination and our will. Imperceptible in its unformed -state, it becomes visible and tangible as our minds get to work on it, -and we can make out of it anything we want, including our own bodies. -Only, so far as our imaginations are still under the dominion of our -memories, so far will the things they create resemble the things we knew -on earth. Thus you will notice that while Elizabeth and I are much more -beautiful than we were on earth” (he _had_ noticed it), “because we -desired to be more beautiful, we are still recognizable as Paul and -Elizabeth because our imaginations are controlled by our memories. You -are as you always were, only younger than when we knew you, because your -imagination had nothing but memory to go on. Everything you create here -will probably be a replica of something on earth you remember.” - -“But if I want something new, something beautiful that I haven’t seen -before, can’t I have it?” - -“Of course you can have it. Only, just at first, until your own -imagination develops, you’ll have to come to me or Turner or Michael -Angelo to make it for you.” - -“And will these things that you and Turner and Michael Angelo make for -me be permanent?” - -“Absolutely, unless we unmade them. And I don’t think we should do that -against your will. Anyhow, though we can destroy our own works we can’t -destroy each other’s, that is to say, reduce them to their ultimate -constituents. What’s more, we shouldn’t dream of trying.” - -“Why not?” - -“Because old motives don’t work here. Envy, greed, theft, robbery, -murder, or any sort of destruction, are unknown. They can’t happen. -Nothing alters matter here but mind, and I can’t will your body to come -to pieces so long as you want it to keep together. You can’t destroy it -yourself as you can other things you make, because your need of it is -greater than your need of other things. - -“We can’t thieve or rob for the same reason. Things that belong to us -belong to our state of mind and can’t be torn away from it, so that we -couldn’t remove anything from another person’s state into our own. And -if we could we shouldn’t want to, because each of us can always have -everything he wants. If I like your house or your landscape better than -my own, I can make one for myself just like it. But we don’t do this, -because we’re proud of our individualities here, and would rather have -things different than the same— By the way, as you haven’t got a house -yet, let alone a landscape, you’d better share ours.” - -“That’s very good of you,” Mr. Spalding said. He was thinking of Oxford. -Oxford. Quiet rooms in Balliol. He seemed to hesitate. - -“If you’re still sitting on that old grievance of yours, I tell you, -once for all, Spalding, I’m not going to express any regret. I’m _not_ -sorry, I’m glad I took Elizabeth away from you. I made her more happy -than unhappy even on earth. And please notice it’s I who got her into -heaven, not you. If she’d stayed with you and hated you, as she would -have done, she couldn’t have got in.” - -“I wasn’t thinking of that,” said Mr. Spalding. “I was only wondering -where I could put my landscape.” - -“How do you mean—‘put’ it?” - -“Place it—so as not to interfere with other people’s landscapes.” - -“But how on earth could you interfere? You ‘place’ it, as you call it, -in your own space and in your own time.” His own space, his own time—Mr. -Spalding got more and more excited. - -“But—how?” - -“Oh, I can’t tell you how. It simply happens.” - -“But I want to understand it. I—I _must_ understand.” - -“You shouldn’t put him off like that, Paul,” Elizabeth said. “He always -did want to understand things.” - -“But when I don’t understand them myself—” - -“You’d better take him to Kant, or Hegel.” - -“I should prefer Kant,” said Mr. Spalding. - -“Well, Kant then. You’ll have to get into his state first.” - -“How do I do that?” - -“It’s very simple. You just think him up and ask him if you can come -in.” - -Elizabeth explained. “Like ringing somebody up, you know, and asking if -you can come and call.” - -“Supposing he won’t let me.” - -“Trust him to say so. Of course, we mayn’t get through. He may have -_thought off_.” - -“You can think off, can you?” - -“Yes, that’s how you protect yourself. Otherwise life here would be -unbearable. Just keep quiet for a second, will you?” - -There was an intense silence. Presently Jeffreson said: “Now you’re -through.” - -And Mr. Spalding found himself in a white-washed room, scantily -furnished with three rows of bookshelves, a writing-table, a table set -with mysterious instruments, and two chairs. A shaded lamp on the -writing-table gave light. Mr. Spalding had left the umbrella pine -country blazing with sunlight, but it seemed that Kant’s time was -somewhere about ten o’clock at night. The large window was bared to a -dark-blue sky of stars. - -A little, middle-aged man sat at the writing-table. He wore -eighteenth-century clothes and a tie wig. The face that looked up at Mr. -Spalding was lean and dried, the mouth tight, the eyes shining distantly -with a deep, indrawn intelligence. Mr. Spalding understood that he was -in the presence of Immanuel Kant. - -“You thought me up?” - -“Forgive me. I am James Spalding, a student of philosophy. I was told -that you might, perhaps, be willing to explain to me the—the very -extraordinary conditions in which I find myself.” - -“May I ask, Mr. Spalding, if you have paid any particular attention to -_my_ philosophy?” - -“I am one of your most devoted disciples, sir. I refuse to believe that -philosophy has made any considerable advance since the Critique of Pure -Reason.” - -“T-t-t. My successor, Hegel, made a very considerable advance. If you -have neglected Hegel—” - -“Pardon me, I have not. I was once Hegel’s devoted disciple. An -entrancing fantasy, the Triple Dialectic. But I came to see that yours, -sir, was the safer and the saner system, and that the recurrent tendency -of philosophy must be back to Kant.” - -“Better say Forward with him. If you are indeed my disciple, I do not -think that conditions here should have struck you as extraordinary.” - -“They struck me as an extraordinary confirmation of your theory of space -and time, sir.” - -“They are that. They are that. But they go far beyond anything I ever -dreamed of. It was not in my scheme that the Will—to which, if you -remember, I gave a purely ethical and pragmatical rôle—that the Will and -the imagination of individuals, of you and me, Mr. Spalding, should -create their own space and time, and their own objects in space and -time. I did not anticipate this multiplicity of spaces and times. In my -time there was only one space and one time for everybody. - -“Still, it is a very remarkable confirmation, and you may imagine, Mr. -Spalding, that I was gratified when I first came here to find everybody -talking and thinking correctly about time and space. You will have -noticed that here we say state, meaning state of consciousness, where we -used to say place. In the same way we talk about states of time, meaning -time as a state of consciousness. My present state, you will observe, is -exactly ten minutes past ten by my clock, which is my consciousness. My -consciousness registers time automatically. My own time, mind you, not -other people’s.” - -“But isn’t that frightfully inconvenient? If your time isn’t everybody -else’s time, how on earth—I mean how in heaven—do you keep your -appointments? How do you co-ordinate?” - -“We keep appointments, we co-ordinate, exactly as we used to do, by a -purely arbitrary system. We measure time by space, by events, movements -in space-time. Only, whereas under earthly conditions there was -apparently one earth and one sun, one day and one night for everybody, -here everybody has his own earth, his own sun and his own day and night. -So we are obliged to take an ideal earth and sun, an ideal day and -night. Their revolutions are measured exactly as we measured them on -earth, by the movements of hands on a dial marking minutes and hours. -Only our public clocks have five hands marking the revolutions of weeks, -months and years. That is our public standardized time, and all -appointments are kept, all scientific calculations made by it. The only -difference between heaven and earth is that here public space-time is -regarded as it really is—an unreal, a purely arbitrary and artificial -convention. We know, not as a result of philosophic or mathematical -reasoning, but as part of our ordinary conscious experience, that there -is no absolute space and no absolute time. I would say no _real_ space -and no real time, but that in heaven a state of consciousness carries -its own reality with it as such; and the time state or the space state -is as real as any other. - -“Of course, without an arbitrary public space-time, a public clock, -states of consciousness from individual to individual could never be -co-ordinated. For example, you have come straight from Mr. Jeffreson’s -twelve-noon to my ten o’clock p.m. But the public clock, which you will -see out there in the street—we are in Königsberg; I have no visual -imagination and must rely entirely on memory for my scenery—the public -dock, I say, marks time at a quarter to eight; and if I were asking Mr. -Jeffreson to spend the evening with me, the hour would be fixed for us -by public time at eight. But he would find himself in my time at ten. - -“Now I want to point out to you, Mr. Spalding, that this way of -regarding space and time is not so revolutionary as it may appear. I -said, if you remember, that under terrestrial conditions there was -apparently one earth and one sun, one day and night for everybody. But -really, even then, everybody carried about with him his own private -space and time, and his own private world in space and time. It was -only, even then, by an arbitrary system of mathematical conventions, -mostly geometrical, that all these private times and spaces were -co-ordinated, so as to constitute one universe. Public clock time, based -on the revolutions of bodies in a mathematically determined public -space, was as conventional and relative an affair on earth as it is in -heaven. - -“Our private consciousnesses registered their own times automatically -then as now, by the passage of internal events. If events passed -quickly, our private time outran clock time; if they dragged, it was -behindhand. - -“Thus in dream experience there are many more events to the second than -in waking experience; and consciousness registers by the tick-tick of -events, so that in a dream we may live through crowded hours and days in -the fraction of time that coincides with the knock on the door that -waked us. It is absurd to say that in this case we do not live in two -different time-systems.” - -“Yes, and—” Mr. Spalding cried out excitedly— - -“Einstein has proved that motion in public space-time is a purely -relative and arbitrary thing, and that the velocity, or time value, of a -ray of light moving under different conditions is a constant; when on -any theory of absolute time and absolute motion it should be a variant.” - -“That,” said Kant, “is no more than I should have expected.” - -“You said, sir, that the only distinction between earthly and heavenly -conditions is that this artificial character of standardized space-time -is recognized in heaven and not on earth. I should have said that the -most striking differences were, firstly, that in heaven our experience -is created for us by our imagination and our will, whereas on earth it -was, in your own word, sir, ‘given.’ Secondly that in heaven our states -are not closed as they were on earth, but that anybody can enter anybody -else’s. It seems to me that these differences are so great as to surpass -anything in our experience on earth.” - -“They are not so great,” said Kant, “as all that. In dreaming you -already had an experience of a world created by each person for himself -in a space and time of his own; a world in which you transcended the -conditions of ordinary space and time. In telepathy and clairvoyance you -had experience of entering other people’s states.” - -“But,” Mr. Spalding said, “on earth my consciousness was dependent on a -world apparently outside it, arising presumably in God’s consciousness, -my body being the ostensible medium. Here, on the contrary, I have my -world inside me, created by my consciousness, and my body is not so much -a medium as an accessory after the fact.” - -“And what inference do you draw, Mr. Spalding?” - -“Why, that on earth I was nearer God, more dependent on him than in -heaven. I seem to have become my own God.” - -“Doesn’t it strike you that in becoming more god-like you are actually -nearer God? That in this power of your imagination to conceive, this -freedom of your will to create your universe, God is cutting a clearer -path for himself than through that constrained and obstructed -consciousness you had on earth?” - -“That’s it. When I think of that appalling life of earth, the pain, sir, -the horrible pain, the wickedness, the imbecility, the endless -struggling through blood and filth, and being beaten, I can’t help -wondering how such things can exist in the Absolute, and why the -Absolute shouldn’t have put us—or as you would say, _thought_ us into -this heavenly state from the beginning.” - -“Do you suppose that any finite intelligence—any finite will could have -been trusted, untrained, with the power we have here? Only wills -disciplined by struggling against earth’s evil, only intelligences -braced by wrestling with earth’s problems are fitted to create -universes. You may remember my enthusiasm for the moral law, my -Categorical Imperative? It is not diminished. The moral law still holds -and always will hold on earth. But I see now it is not an end in itself, -only the means to which this power, this freedom is the end. - -“That is how and why pain and evil exist in the Absolute. It is obvious -that they cannot exist in it as such, being purely relative to states of -terrestrial organisms. That is why the comparatively free wills of -terrestrial organisms are permitted to create pain and evil. - -“When you talk of such things existing in the Absolute, unchanged and -unabridged, you are talking nonsense. You are thinking of pain and evil -in terms of one dimension of time and three dimensions of space, by -which they are indefinitely multiplied.” - -“How do you mean—one dimension of time?” - -“I mean time taken as linear extension, the pure succession of past, -present and future. You think of pain and evil as indefinitely -distributed in space and indefinitely repeated in time, whereas in the -idea, which is their form of eternity, at their worst they are not many, -but one.” - -“That doesn’t make them less unbearable,” - -“I am not talking about that I am talking about their significance for -eternity, or in the Absolute, since you said that was what distressed -you. - -“You will see this for yourself if you will come with me into the state -of three dimensional time.” - -“What’s that?” said Mr. Spalding, deeply intrigued. “That,” said the -philosopher, “is time which is not linear succession, time which has -turned on itself twice to take up the past and future into its present. -For as the point is repeated to form the line of space, so the instant -is repeated to form the linear time of past, present, future. And as the -one-dimensional line turns at right angles to itself to form the -two-dimensional plane, so linear or one-dimensional time turns on itself -to form two-dimensional or plane time, the past-present, or -present-future. And as the plane turns on itself to form the cube, so -past-present and present-future double back to meet each other and form -cubic time, or past-present-future all together. - -“This is the three dimensional state of consciousness we shall have to -think ourselves into.” - -“Do you mean to say that if we get into it we shall have solved the -riddle of the universe?” - -[Illustration] - -“Hardly. The universe is a tremendous jig-saw puzzle. If God wanted to -keep us amused to all eternity, he couldn’t have hit on anything better. -We shall not be able to stay very long, or to take in _all_ -past-present-future at once. But you will see enough to realize what -cubic time is. You will begin with one small cubic section, which will -gradually enlarge until you have taken in as much cubic time as you can -hold together in one duration. - -“Look out through that window. You see that cart coming down the street. -It will have to pass Herr Schmidt’s house opposite and the ‘Prussian -Soldier,’ and that grocer’s shop and the clock before it gets to the -church. - -“Now you’ll see what’ll happen.” - - - III - - -What Mr. Spalding saw was the sudden stoppage of the cart, which now -appeared as standing simultaneously at each station, Herr Schmidt’s -house, the inn, the grocery, the clock, the church and the side street -up which it had not yet turned. - -In this vision solid objects became transparent, so that he saw the side -street through the intervening houses. In the same way, distributed in -space as on a Mercator’s projection, he saw all the subsequent stations -of the cart, up to its arrival in a farmyard between a stable and a -haystack. In the same duration of time, which was his present, he saw -the townspeople moving in their houses, eating, smoking and going to -bed, and the peasants in their farms and cottages, and the household of -the Graf in his castle. These figures retained all their positions while -the amazing experience lasted. - -The scene widened. It became all Königsberg, and Königsberg became all -Prussia, and Prussia all Europe. Mr. Spalding seemed to have eyes at the -sides and back of his head. He saw time rising up round him as an -immense cubic space. He was aware of the French Revolution, the -Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian war, the establishment of the -French Republic, the Boer war, the death of Queen Victoria, the -accession and death of King Edward VII., the accession of King George -V., the Great War, the Russian and German Revolutions, the rise of the -Irish Republic, the Indian Republic, the British Revolution, the British -Republic, the conquest of Japan by America, and the federation of the -United States of Europe and America, all going on at once. - -The scene stretched and stretched, and still Mr. Spalding kept before -him every item as it had first appeared. He was now aware of the vast -periods of geologic time. On the past side he saw the mammoth and the -caveman; on the future he saw the Atlantic flooding the North Sea and -submerging the flats of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, -Essex, and Kent. He saw the giant tree-ferns; he saw the great saurians -trampling the marshlands and sea-beaches of the past. A flight of -fearful pterodactyls darkened the air. And he saw the ice creep down and -down from the poles to the vast temperate zone of Europe, America and -Australasia; he saw men and animals driven before it to the belt of the -equator. - -And now he sank down deeper; he was swept into the stream that flowed, -thudding and throbbing, through all live things; he felt it beat in and -around him, jet after jet from the beating heart of God; he felt the -rising of the sap in trees, the delight of animals at mating-time. He -knew the joy that made Jerry, the black cat, dance on his hind legs and -bow sideways and wave his forelegs like wings. The stars whirled past -him with a noise like violin strings, and through it he heard the voice -of Paul Jeffreson, singing a song. He was aware of an immense, -all-pervading rapture pierced with stabs of pain. At the same time he -was drawn back on the ebb of life into a curious peace. - -His stretch widened. He was present at the beginning and the end. He saw -the earth flung off, an incandescent ball, from the wheeling sun. He saw -it hang like a dead white moon in a sky strewn with the corpses of spent -worlds. But to his surprise he saw no darkness. He learned that light is -older than the suns; that they are born of it, not it of them. The whole -universe stood up on end round him, doubling all its future back upon -all its past. - -He saw the vast planes of time intersecting each other, like the planes -of a sphere, wheeling, turning in and out of each other. He saw other -space and time systems rising up, toppling, enclosing and enclosed. And -as a tiny inset in the immense scene, his own life from birth to the -present moment, together with the events of his heavenly life to come. -In this vision Elizabeth’s adultery, which had once appeared so -monstrous, so overpowering an event, was revealed as slender and -insignificant. - -And now the universe dissolved into the ultimate constituents of matter, -electrons of electrons of electrons, an unseen web, intensely vibrating, -stretched through all space and all time. He saw it sucked back into the -space of space, the time of time, into the thought of God. - -Mr. Spalding was drawn in with it. He passed from God’s immanent to his -transcendent life, into the Absolute. For one moment he thought that -this was death; the next his whole being swelled and went on swelling in -an unspeakable, an unthinkable bliss. - -Joined with him, vibrating with him in one tremendous rapture, were the -spirits of Elizabeth and Paul Jeffreson. He had now no memory of their -adultery or of his own. - -When he came out of his ecstasy he was aware that God was spinning his -thought again, stretching the web of matter through space and time. - -He was going to make another jig-saw puzzle of a universe. - - - PRINTED AT - THE CHAPEL RIVER PRESS, - KINGSTON, SURREY. - - - -***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCANNY STORIES*** - - -******* This file should be named 59165-0.txt or 59165-0.zip ******* - - -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: -http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/9/1/6/59165 - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. 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margin-top: 4em; } - .c004 { margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } - .c005 { margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } - .c006 { width:40% } - .c007 { width:100% } - .c008 { border: none; border-bottom: thin solid; margin-top: 0.8em; - margin-bottom: 0.8em; margin-left: 35%; margin-right: 35%; width: 30%; } - .c009 { margin-top: 2em; } - .imgleft { clear:left; float:left; margin:4% 4% 4% 0; } - @media handheld {.imgleft { float:left; } } - .imgright { clear:right; float:right; margin:4% 0% 4% 4%; } - @media handheld {.imgright { float:right; } } - - h1.pg { font-weight: bold; - font-size: 190%; - clear: both; } - h2.pg { font-weight: bold; - font-size: 135%; - clear: both; } - h3,h4 { text-align: center; - clear: both; } - 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; } - </style> -</head> -<body> -<h1 class="pg">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Uncanny Stories, by May Sinclair, Illustrated -by Jean de Bosschère</h1> -<p>This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States -and most other parts of the world 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>. If you are not -located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this ebook.</p> -<p>Title: Uncanny Stories</p> -<p> Where Their Fire is Not Quenched; The Token; The Flaw in the Crystal; The Nature of the Evidence; If the Dead Knew; The Victim; The Finding of the Absolute</p> -<p>Author: May Sinclair</p> -<p>Release Date: March 31, 2019 [eBook #59165]</p> -<p>Language: English</p> -<p>Character set encoding: UTF-8</p> -<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCANNY STORIES***</p> -<h4>E-text prepared by Roger Frank and Sue Clark<br /> - from page images digitized by<br /> - the Google Books Library Project<br /> - (<a href="https://books.google.com">https://books.google.com</a>)<br /> - and generously made available by<br /> - HathiTrust Digital Library<br /> - (<a href="https://www.hathitrust.org/">https://www.hathitrust.org/</a>)</h4> -<p> </p> -<table border="0" style="background-color: #ccccff;margin: 0 auto;" cellpadding="10"> - <tr> - <td valign="top"> - Note: - </td> - <td> - Images of the original pages are available through - Internet Archive. See - <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4088979;view=1up;seq=27"> - https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.b4088979;view=1up;seq=27</a> - </td> - </tr> -</table> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<p> </p> - -<div> - <h1 class='c000'>UNCANNY STORIES</h1> -</div> - -<div id='ifpc' class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/ifpc.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>“A terrified bird flew out of the hedge ...”</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='large'>UNCANNY STORIES</span></div> - <div class='c001'>By May Sinclair</div> - <div class='c001'>Author of “Anne Severn and the Fieldings,” etc.</div> - <div class='c001'>Illustrations by Jean de Bosschère</div> - <div class='c001'>LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO.</div> - <div>PATERNOSTER ROW</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='c002'>CONTENTS</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c001'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><a href='#wheret'>Where their Fire is not Quenched</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#thetok'>The Token</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#thefla'>The Flaw in the Crystal</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#thenat'>The Nature of the Evidence</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#ifthed'>If the Dead Knew</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#thevic'>The Victim</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#thefin'>The Finding of the Absolute</a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='c002'>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><a href='#ifpc'>A terrified bird flew out of the hedge ...</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i025'>Then, suddenly the room began to come apart ...</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i031'>... each held there by the other’s fear</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i035'>... moving slowly, like figures in some monstrous and appalling dance</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i044'>“I’ve told you not to touch my things”</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i049'>... her face was turned to Donald ...</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i057'>He stepped forward, opening his arms</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i067'>And she wondered whether really she would find him well</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i069'>“I saw the Powells at the station”</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i078'>Milly opened a door on the left</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i080'>“No place ever will be strange when It’s there”</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i090'>... he stood for a moment in the open doorway ...</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i152'>... stretching out her arms to keep him back</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i158'>... drew itself after him along the floor</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i164'>... her whole body listened ...</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i184'>The apparition maintained itself with difficulty</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i194'>Then all of a sudden she had burst out crying ...</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i200'>Steven waited with his hand on the tap ...</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i210'>It stood close against the window, looking in</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i216'>... the figure became clear and solid ...</a></div> - <div class='line'><a href='#i232'>“<i>Now</i> he’s coming alive—”</a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c001' /> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> - <div class='nf-center'> - <div><span class='xlarge'>UNCANNY STORIES</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div> - <h2 id='wheret' class='c003'>WHERE THEIR FIRE IS NOT QUENCHED</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>There was nobody in the orchard. Harriott Leigh went out, carefully, -through the iron gate into the field. She had made the latch slip into -its notch without a sound.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The path slanted widely up the field from the orchard gate to the stile -under the elder tree. George Waring waited for her there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Years afterwards, when she thought of George Waring she smelt the sweet, -hot, wine-scent of the elder flowers. Years afterwards, when she smelt -elder flowers she saw George Waring, with his beautiful, gentle face, -like a poet’s or a musician’s, his black-blue eyes, and sleek, -olive-brown hair. He was a naval lieutenant.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yesterday he had asked her to marry him and she had consented. But her -father hadn’t, and she had come to tell him that and say good-bye -before he left her. His ship was to sail the next day.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was eager and excited. He couldn’t believe that anything could stop -their happiness, that anything he didn’t want to happen could happen.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well?” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He’s a perfect beast, George. He won’t let us. He says we’re -too young.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I was twenty last August,” he said, aggrieved.</p> - -<div class='imgleft c006'> -<img src='images/i010.jpg' alt='' class='c007' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“And I shall be seventeen in September.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And this is June. We’re quite old, really. How long does he mean us to wait?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Three years.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Three years before we can be engaged even— Why, we might be dead.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She put her arms round him to make him feel safe. They kissed; and the sweet, -hot, wine-scent of the elder flowers mixed with their kisses. They stood, -pressed close together, under the elder tree.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Across the yellow fields of charlock they heard the village clock strike -seven. Up in the house a gong clanged.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Darling, I must go,” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh stay—Stay <i>five</i> minutes.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He pressed her close. It lasted five minutes, and five more. Then he was -running fast down the road to the station, while Harriott went along the -field-path, slowly, struggling with her tears.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He’ll be back in three months,” she said. “I can live through three months.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>But he never came back. There was something wrong with the engines of his -ship, the <i>Alexandra</i>. Three weeks later she went down in the Mediterranean, and -George with her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Harriott said she didn’t care how soon she died now. She was quite sure it -would be soon, because she couldn’t live without him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Five years passed.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i011.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>The two lines of beech trees stretched on and on, the whole length of the -Park, a broad green drive between. When you came to the middle they branched -off right and left in the form of a cross, and at the end of the right arm -there was a white stucco pavilion with pillars and a three-cornered pediment -like a Greek temple. At the end of the left arm, the west entrance to the -Park, double gates and a side door.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Harriott, on her stone seat at the back of the pavilion, could see -Stephen Philpotts the very minute he came through the side door.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had asked her to wait for him there. It was the place he always chose -to read his poems aloud in. The poems were a pretext. She knew what he -was going to say. And she knew what she would answer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There were elder bushes in flower at the back of the pavilion, and -Harriott thought of George Waring. She told herself that George was -nearer to her now than he could ever have been, living. If she married -Stephen she would not be unfaithful, because she loved him with another -part of herself. It was not as though Stephen were taking George’s -place. She loved Stephen with her soul, in an unearthly way.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But her body quivered like a stretched wire when the door opened and the -young man came towards her down the drive under the beech trees.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She loved him; she loved his slenderness, his darkness and sallow -whiteness, his black eyes lighting up with the intellectual flame, the -way his black hair swept back from his forehead, the way he walked, -tiptoe, as if his feet were lifted with wings.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He sat down beside her. She could see his hands tremble. She felt that -her moment was coming; it had come.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I wanted to see you alone because there’s something I must say to -you. I don’t quite know how to begin....”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her lips parted. She panted lightly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’ve heard me speak of Sybill Foster?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her voice came stammering, “N-no, Stephen. Did you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, I didn’t mean to, till I knew it was all right. I only heard -yesterday.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Heard what?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, that she’ll have me. Oh, Harriott—do you know what it’s -like to be terribly happy?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She knew. She had known just now, the moment before he told her. She sat -there, stone-cold and stiff, listening to his raptures; listening to -her own voice saying she was glad.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Ten years passed.</p> - -<hr class='c008' /> - -<p class='c005'>Harriott Leigh sat waiting in the drawing-room of a small house in Maida -Vale. She had lived there ever since her father’s death two years -before.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was restless. She kept on looking at the clock to see if it was -four, the hour that Oscar Wade had appointed. She was not sure that he -would come, after she had sent him away yesterday.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She now asked herself, why, when she had sent him away yesterday, she -had let him come to-day. Her motives were not altogether clear. If she -really meant what she had said then, she oughtn’t to let him come to -her again. Never again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had shown him plainly what she meant. She could see herself, sitting -very straight in her chair, uplifted by a passionate integrity, while he -stood before her, hanging his head, ashamed and beaten; she could feel -again the throb in her voice as she kept on saying that she couldn’t, -she couldn’t; he must see that she couldn’t; that no, nothing would -make her change her mind; she couldn’t forget he had a wife; that he -must think of Muriel.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To which he had answered savagely: “I needn’t. That’s all over. We only -live together for the look of the thing.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And she, serenely, with great dignity: “And for the look of the thing, -Oscar, we must leave off seeing each other. Please go.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you mean it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. We must never see each other again.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And he had gone then, ashamed and beaten.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She could see him, squaring his broad shoulders to meet the blow. And -she was sorry for him. She told herself she had been unnecessarily hard. -Why shouldn’t they see each other again, now he understood where they -must draw the line? Until yesterday the line had never been very clearly -drawn. To-day she meant to ask him to forget what he had said to her. -Once it was forgotten, they could go on being friends as if nothing had -happened.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was four o’clock. Half-past. Five. She had finished tea and given -him up when, between the half-hour and six o’clock, he came.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id003'> -<img src='images/i014.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>He came as he had come a dozen times, with his measured, deliberate, -thoughtful tread, carrying himself well braced, with a sort of held-in -arrogance, his great shoulders heaving. He was a man of about forty, -broad and tall, lean-flanked and short-necked, his straight, handsome -features showing small and even in the big square face and in the flush -that swamped it. The close-clipped, reddish-brown moustache bristled -forwards from the pushed-out upper lip. His small, flat eyes shone, -reddish-brown, eager and animal.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She liked to think of him when he was not there, but always at the first -sight of him she felt a slight shock. Physically, he was very far from -her admired ideal. So different from George Waring and Stephen -Philpotts.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He sat down, facing her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There was an embarrassed silence, broken by Oscar Wade.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, Harriott, you said I could come.” He seemed to be throwing -the responsibility on her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“So I suppose you’ve forgiven me,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, yes, Oscar, I’ve forgiven you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He said she’d better show it by coming to dine with him somewhere that -evening.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She could give no reason to herself for going. She simply went.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He took her to a restaurant in Soho. Oscar Wade dined well, even -extravagantly, giving each dish its importance. She liked his -extravagance. He had none of the mean virtues.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was over. His flushed, embarrassed silence told her what he was -thinking. But when he had seen her home he left her at her garden gate. -He had thought better of it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was not sure whether she were glad or sorry. She had had her moment -of righteous exaltation and she had enjoyed it. But there was no joy in -the weeks that followed it. She had given up Oscar Wade because she -didn’t want him very much; and now she wanted him furiously, -perversely, because she had given him up. Though he had no resemblance -to her ideal, she couldn’t live without him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She dined with him again and again, till she knew Schnebler’s Restaurant -by heart, the white panelled walls picked out with gold; the -white pillars, and the curling gold fronds of their capitals; the Turkey -carpets, blue and crimson, soft under her feet; the thick crimson velvet -cushions, that clung to her skirts; the glitter of silver and glass on -the innumerable white circles of the tables. And the faces of the -diners, red, white, pink, brown, grey and sallow, distorted and excited; -the curled mouths that twisted as they ate; the convoluted electric -bulbs pointing, pointing down at them, under the red, crinkled shades. -All shimmering in a thick air that the red light stained as wine stains -water.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And Oscar’s face, flushed with his dinner. Always, when he leaned back -from the table and brooded in silence she knew what he was thinking. His -heavy eyelids would lift; she would find his eyes fixed on hers, -wondering, considering.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She knew now what the end would be. She thought of George Waring, and -Stephen Philpotts, and of her life, cheated. She hadn’t chosen Oscar, -she hadn’t really wanted him; but now he had forced himself on her she -couldn’t afford to let him go. Since George died no man had loved her, -no other man ever would. And she was sorry for him when she thought of -him going from her, beaten and ashamed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was certain, before he was, of the end. Only she didn’t know when -and where and how it would come. That was what Oscar knew.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It came at the close of one of their evenings when they had dined in a -private sitting-room. He said he couldn’t stand the heat and noise of -the public restaurant.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She went before him, up a steep, red-carpeted stair to a white door on -the second landing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>From time to time they repeated the furtive, hidden adventure. Sometimes -she met him in the room above Schnebler’s. Sometimes, when her maid -was out, she received him at her house in Maida Vale. But that was -dangerous, not to be risked too often.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Oscar declared himself unspeakably happy. Harriott was not quite sure. -This was love, the thing she had never had, that she had dreamed of, -hungered and thirsted for; but now she had it she was not satisfied. -Always she looked for something just beyond it, some mystic, heavenly -rapture, always beginning to come, that never came. There was something -about Oscar that repelled her. But because she had taken him for her -lover, she couldn’t bring herself to admit that it was a certain -coarseness. She looked another way and pretended it wasn’t there. To -justify herself, she fixed her mind on his good qualities, his -generosity, his strength, the way he had built up his engineering -business. She made him take her over his works and show her his great -dynamos. She made him lend her the books he read. But always, when she -tried to talk to him, he let her see that <i>that</i> wasn’t what she -was there for.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear girl, we haven’t time,” he said. “It’s waste of our -priceless moments.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She persisted. “There’s something wrong about it all if we can’t -talk to each other.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was irritated. “Women never seem to consider that a man can get all -the talk he wants from other men. What’s wrong is our meeting in this -unsatisfactory way. We ought to live together. It’s the only sane -thing. I would, only I don’t want to break up Muriel’s home and make -her miserable.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I thought you said she wouldn’t care.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear, she cares for her home and her position and the children. -You forget the children.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yes. She had forgotten the children. She had forgotten Muriel. She had -left off thinking of Oscar as a man with a wife and children and a home.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had a plan. His mother-in-law was coming to stay with Muriel in -October and he would get away. He would go to Paris, and Harriott should -come to him there. He could say he went on business. No need to lie -about it; he <i>had</i> business in Paris.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He engaged rooms in an hotel in the rue de Rivoli. They spent two -weeks there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For three days Oscar was madly in love with Harriott and Harriott with -him. As she lay awake she would turn on the light and look at him as he -slept at her side. Sleep made him beautiful and innocent; it laid a -fine, smooth tissue over his coarseness; it made his mouth gentle; it -entirely hid his eyes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In six days reaction had set in. At the end of the tenth day, Harriott, -returning with Oscar from Montmartre, burst into a fit of crying. When -questioned, she answered wildly that the Hotel Saint Pierre was too -hideously ugly it was getting on her nerves. Mercifully Oscar explained -her state as fatigue following excitement. She tried hard to believe -that she was miserable because her love was purer and more spiritual -than Oscar’s; but all the time she knew perfectly well she had cried -from pure boredom. She was in love with Oscar, and Oscar bored her. -Oscar was in love with her, and she bored him. At close quarters, day in -and day out, each was revealed to the other as an incredible bore.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At the end of the second week she began to doubt whether she had ever -been really in love with him.</p> - -<hr class='c008' /> - -<p class='c005'>Her passion returned for a little while after they got back to London. -Freed from the unnatural strain which Paris had put on them, they -persuaded themselves that their romantic temperaments were better fitted -to the old life of casual adventure.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then, gradually, the sense of danger began to wake in them. They lived -in perpetual fear, face to face with all the chances of discovery. They -tormented themselves and each other by imagining possibilities that they -would never have considered in their first fine moments. It was as -though they were beginning to ask themselves if it were, after all, -worth while running such awful risks, for all they got out of it. Oscar -still swore that if he had been free he would have married her. He -pointed out that his intentions at any rate were regular. But she asked -herself: Would I marry <i>him</i>? Marriage would be the Hotel Saint -Pierre all over again, without any possibility of escape. But, if she -wouldn’t marry him, was she in love with him? That was the test. -Perhaps it was a good thing he wasn’t free. Then she told herself that -these doubts were morbid, and that the question wouldn’t arise.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One evening Oscar called to see her. He had come to tell her that Muriel -was ill.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Seriously ill?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m afraid so. It’s pleurisy. May turn to pneumonia. We -shall know one way or another in the next few days.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>A terrible fear seized upon Harriott. Muriel might die of her pleurisy; -and if Muriel died, she would have to marry Oscar. He was looking at her -queerly, as if he knew what she was thinking, and she could see that the -same thought had occurred to him and that he was frightened too.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Muriel got well again; but their danger had enlightened them. -Muriel’s life was now inconceivably precious to them both; she stood -between them and that permanent union, which they dreaded and yet would -not have the courage to refuse.</p> - -<p class='c005'>After enlightenment the rupture.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It came from Oscar, one evening when he sat with her in her -drawing-room.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Harriott,” he said, “do you know I’m thinking seriously of -settling down?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How do you mean, settling down?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Patching it up with Muriel, poor girl.... Has it never occurred to -you that this little affair of ours can’t go on for ever?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You don’t want it to go on?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t want to have any humbug about it. For God’s sake, let’s -be straight. If it’s done, it’s done. Let’s end it decently.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I see. You want to get rid of me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s a beastly way of putting it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Is there any way that isn’t beastly? The whole thing’s beastly. I -should have thought you’d have stuck to it now you’ve made it what -you wanted. When I haven’t an ideal, I haven’t a single illusion, -when you’ve destroyed everything you didn’t want.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What didn’t I want?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The clean, beautiful part of it. The part <i>I</i> wanted.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My part at least was real. It was cleaner and more beautiful -than all that putrid stuff you wrapped it up in. You were a hypocrite, -Harriott, and I wasn’t. You’re a hypocrite now if you say you -weren’t happy with me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I was never really happy. Never for one moment. There was always -something I missed. Something you didn’t give me. Perhaps you -couldn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. I wasn’t spiritual enough,” he sneered.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You were not. And you made me what you were.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, I noticed that you were always very spiritual <i>after</i> you’d -got what you wanted.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What I wanted?” she cried. “Oh, my God—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If you ever knew what you wanted.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What—I—wanted,” she repeated, drawing out her bitterness.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Come,” he said, “why not be honest? Face facts. -I was awfully gone on you. You were awfully gone on me—once. We got -tired of each other and it’s over. But at least you might own we had a -good time while it lasted.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“A good time?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Good enough for me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“For you, because for you love only means one thing. Everything -that’s high and noble in it you dragged down to that, till there’s -nothing left for us but that. <i>That’s</i> what you made of love.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Twenty years passed.</p> - -<hr class='c008' /> - -<p class='c005'>It was Oscar who died first, three years after the rupture. He did it -suddenly one evening, falling down in a fit of apoplexy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His death was an immense relief to Harriott. Perfect security had been -impossible as long as he was alive. But now there wasn’t a living soul -who knew her secret.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Still, in the first moment of shock Harriott told herself that Oscar -dead would be nearer to her than ever. She forgot how little she had -wanted him to be near her, alive. And long before the twenty years had -passed she had contrived to persuade herself that he had never been near -to her at all. It was incredible that she had ever known such a person -as Oscar Wade. As for their affair, she couldn’t think of Harriott -Leigh as the sort of woman to whom such a thing could happen. -Schnebler’s and the Hotel Saint Pierre ceased to figure among -prominent images of her past. Her memories, if she had allowed herself -to remember, would have clashed disagreeably with the reputation for -sanctity which she had now acquired.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For Harriott at fifty-two was the friend and helper of the Reverend -Clement Farmer, Vicar of St. Mary the Virgin’s, Maida Vale. She worked -as a deaconess in his parish, wearing the uniform of a deaconess, the -semi-religious gown, the cloak, the bonnet and veil, the cross and -rosary, the holy smile. She was also secretary to the Maida Vale and -Kilburn Home for Fallen Girls.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her moments of excitement came when Clement Farmer, the lean, austere -likeness of Stephen Philpotts, in his cassock and lace-bordered -surplice, issued from the vestry, when he mounted the pulpit, when he -stood before the altar rails and lifted up his arms in the Benediction; -her moments of ecstasy when she received the Sacrament from his hands. -And she had moments of calm happiness when his study door closed on -their communion. All these moments were saturated with a solemn -holiness.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And they were insignificant compared with the moment of her dying.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She lay dozing in her white bed under the black crucifix with the ivory -Christ. The basins and medicine bottles had been cleared from the table -by her pillow; it was spread for the last rites. The priest moved -quietly about the room, arranging the candles, the Prayer Book and the -Holy Sacrament. Then he drew a chair to her bedside and watched with -her, waiting for her to come up out of her doze.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She woke suddenly. Her eyes were fixed upon him. She had a flash of -lucidity. She was dying, and her dying made her supremely important to -Clement Fanner.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Are you ready?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Not yet. I think I’m afraid. Make me not afraid.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He rose and lit the two candles on the altar. He took down the crucifix -from the wall and stood it against the foot-rail of the bed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She sighed. That was not what she had wanted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You will not be afraid now,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m not afraid of the hereafter. I suppose you get used to it. Only -it may be terrible just at first.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Our first state will depend very much on what we are thinking -of at our last hour.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There’ll be my—confession,” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And after it you will receive the Sacrament. Then you will have your -mind fixed firmly upon God and your Redeemer.... Do you feel able to -make your confession now, Sister? Everything is ready.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her mind went back over her past and found Oscar Wade there. She -wondered: Should she confess to him about Oscar Wade? One moment she -thought it was possible; the next she knew that she couldn’t. She -could not. It wasn’t necessary. For twenty years he had not been part -of her life. No. She wouldn’t confess about Oscar Wade. She had been -guilty of other sins.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She made a careful selection.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I have cared too much for the beauty of this world.... I have -failed in charity to my poor girls. Because of my intense repugnance to -their sin.... I have thought, often, about—people I love, when I -should have been thinking about God.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>After that she received the Sacrament.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now,” he said, “there is nothing to be afraid of.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I won’t be afraid if—if you would hold my hand.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He held it. And she lay still a long time, with her eyes shut. Then he heard her -murmuring something. He stooped close.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“This—is—dying. I thought it would be horrible. And it’s bliss.... Bliss.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The priest’s hand slackened, as if at the bidding of some wonder. She -gave a weak cry.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh—don’t let me go.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>His grasp tightened.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Try,” he said, “to think about God. Keep on looking at the crucifix.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If I look,” she whispered, “you won’t let go my hand?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I will not let you go.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He held it till it was wrenched from him in the last agony.</p> - -<hr class='c008' /> - -<p class='c005'>She lingered for some hours in the room where these things had happened.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Its aspect was familiar and yet unfamiliar, and slightly repugnant to -her. The altar, the crucifix, the lighted candles, suggested some -tremendous and awful experience the details of which she was not able to -recall. She seemed to remember that they had been connected in some way -with the sheeted body on the bed; but the nature of the connection was -not clear; and she did not associate the dead body with herself. When -the nurse came in and laid it out, she saw that it was the body of a -middle-aged woman. Her own living body was that of a young woman of -about thirty-two.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her mind had no past and no future, no sharp-edged, coherent memories, -and no idea of anything to be done next.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then, suddenly, the room began to come apart before her eyes, to split -into shafts of floor and furniture and ceiling that shifted and were -thrown by their commotion into different planes. They leaned slanting at -every possible angle; they crossed and overlaid each other with a -transparent mingling of dislocated perspectives, like reflections fallen -on an interior seen behind glass.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The bed and the sheeted body slid away somewhere out of sight. She was -standing by the door that still remained in position.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She opened it and found herself in the street, outside a building of -yellowish-grey brick and freestone, with a tall slated spire. Her mind -came together with a palpable click of recognition. This object was the -Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Maida Vale. She could hear the droning of -the organ. She opened the door and slipped in.</p> - -<div id='i025' class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i025.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>Then, suddenly the room began to come apart ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>She had gone back into a definite space and time, and recovered a -certain limited section of coherent memory. She remembered the rows of -pitch-pine benches, with their Gothic peaks and mouldings; the -stone-coloured walls and pillars with their chocolate stencilling; the -hanging rings of lights along the aisles of the nave; the high altar -with its lighted candles, and the polished brass cross, twinkling. These -things were somehow permanent and real, adjusted to the image that now -took possession of her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She knew what she had come there for. The service was over. The choir -had gone from the chancel; the sacristan moved before the altar, putting -out the candles. She walked up the middle aisle to a seat that she knew -under the pulpit. She knelt down and covered her face with her hands. -Peeping sideways through her fingers, she could see the door of the -vestry on her left at the end of the north aisle. She watched it -steadily.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Up in the organ loft the organist drew out the Recessional, slowly and -softly, to its end in the two solemn, vibrating chords.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The vestry door opened and Clement Farmer came out, dressed in his black -cassock. He passed before her, close, close outside the bench where she -knelt. He paused at the opening. He was waiting for her. There was -something he had to say.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She stood up and went towards him. He still waited. He didn’t move to -make way for her. She came close, closer than she had ever come to him, -so close that his features grew indistinct. She bent her head back, -peering, short-sightedly, and found herself looking into Oscar Wade’s -face.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He stood still, horribly still, and close, barring her passage.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She drew back; his heaving shoulders followed her. He leaned forward, -covering her with his eyes. She opened her mouth to scream and no sound -came.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was afraid to move lest he should move with her. The heaving of his -shoulders terrified her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One by one the lights in the side aisles were going out. The lights in -the middle aisle would go next. They had gone. If she didn’t get away -she would be shut up with him there, in the appalling darkness.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She turned and moved towards the north aisle, groping, steadying herself -by the book ledge.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When she looked back, Oscar Wade was not there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then she remembered that Oscar Wade was dead. Therefore, what she had -seen was not Oscar; it was his ghost. He was dead; dead seventeen years -ago. She was safe from him for ever.</p> - -<hr class='c008' /> - -<p class='c005'>When she came out on to the steps of the church she saw that the road it -stood in had changed. It was not the road she remembered. The pavement -on this side was raised slightly and covered in. It ran under a -succession of arches. It was a long gallery walled with glittering shop -windows on one side; on the other a line of tall grey columns divided it -from the street.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was going along the arcades of the rue de Rivoli. Ahead of her she -could see the edge of an immense grey pillar jutting out. That was the -porch of the Hotel Saint Pierre. The revolving glass doors swung forward -to receive her; she crossed the grey, sultry vestibule under the -pillared arches. She knew it. She knew the porter’s shining, -wine-coloured mahogany pen on her left, and the shining wine-coloured -mahogany barrier of the clerk’s bureau on her right; she made straight -for the great grey carpeted staircase; she climbed the endless flights -that turned round and round the caged-in shaft of the well, past the -latticed doors of the lift, and came up on to a landing that she knew, -and into the long, ash-grey, foreign corridor lit by a dull window at -one end.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was there that the horror of the place came on her. She had no longer -any memory of St. Mary’s Church, so that she was unaware of her -backward course through time. All space and time were here.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She remembered she had to go to the left, the left. But there was -something there; where the corridor turned by the window; at the end of -all the corridors. If she went the other way she would escape it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The corridor stopped there. A blank wall. She was driven back past the -stairhead to the left.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At the corner, by the window, she turned down another long ash-grey -corridor on her right, and to the right again where the night-light -sputtered on the table-flap at the turn.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This third corridor was dark and secret and depraved. She knew the -soiled walls and the warped door at the end. There was a sharp-pointed -streak of light at the top. She could see the number on it now, 107.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Something had happened there. If she went in it would happen again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Oscar Wade was in the room waiting for her behind the closed door. She -felt him moving about in there. She leaned forward, her ear to the key -hole, and listened. She could hear the measured, deliberate, -thoughtful footsteps. They were coming from the bed to the door.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She turned and ran; her knees gave way under her; she sank and ran on, -down the long grey corridors and the stairs, quick and blind, a hunted -beast seeking for cover, hearing his feet coming after her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The revolving doors caught her and pushed her out into the street.</p> - -<hr class='c008' /> - -<p class='c005'>The strange quality of her state was this, that it had no time. She -remembered dimly that there had once been a thing called time; but she -had forgotten altogether what it was like. She was aware of things -happening and about to happen; she fixed them by the place they -occupied, and measured their duration by the space she went through.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So now she thought: If I could only go back and get to the place where -it hadn’t happened.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To get back farther—</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was walking now on a white road that went between broad grass -borders. To the right and left were the long raking lines of the hills, -curve after curve, shimmering in a thin mist.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The road dropped to the green valley. It mounted the humped bridge over -the river. Beyond it she saw the twin gables of the grey house pricked -up over the high, grey garden wall. The tall iron gate stood in front of -it between the ball-topped stone pillars.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And now she was in a large, low-ceilinged room with drawn blinds. She -was standing before the wide double bed. It was her father’s bed. The -dead body, stretched out in the middle under the drawn white sheet, was -her father’s body.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The outline of the sheet sank from the peak of the upturned toes to the -shin bone, and from the high bridge of the nose to the chin.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She lifted the sheet and folded it back across the breast of the dead -man. The face she saw then was Oscar Wade’s face, stilled and smoothed -in the innocence of sleep, the supreme innocence of death. She stared at -it, fascinated, in a cold, pitiless joy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Oscar was dead.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She remembered how he used to lie like that beside her in the room in -the Hotel Saint Pierre, on his back with his hands folded on his waist, -his mouth half open, his big chest rising and falling. If he was dead, -it would never happen again. She would be safe.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The dead face frightened her, and she was about to cover it up again -when she was aware of a light heaving, a rhythmical rise and fall. As -she drew the sheet up tighter, the hands under it began to struggle -convulsively, the broad ends of the fingers appeared above the edge, -clutching it to keep it down. The mouth opened; the eyes opened; the -whole face stared back at her in a look of agony and horror.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then the body drew itself forwards from the hips and sat up, its eyes -peering into her eyes; he and she remained for an instant motionless, -each held there by the other’s fear.</p> - -<div id='i031' class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i031.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>... each held there by the other’s fear</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>Suddenly she broke away, turned and ran, out of the room, out of the -house.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She stood at the gate, looking up and down the road, not knowing by -which way she must go to escape Oscar. To the right, over the bridge and -up the hill and across the downs she would come to the arcades of the -rue de Rivoli and the dreadful grey corridors of the hotel. To the left -the road went through the village.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If she could get further back she would be safe, out of Oscar’s reach. -Standing by her father’s death-bed she had been young, but not young -enough. She must get back to the place where she was younger still, to -the Park and the green drive under the beech trees and the white -pavilion at the cross. She knew how to find it. At the end of the -village the high road ran right and left, east and west, under the Park -walls; the south gate stood there at the top, looking down the narrow -street.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She ran towards it through the village, past the long grey barns of -Goodyer’s farm, past the grocer’s shop, past the yellow front and -blue sign of the “Queen’s Head,” past the post office, with -its one black window blinking under its vine, past the church and -the yew-trees in the churchyard, to where the south gate made a delicate -black pattern on the green grass.</p> - -<p class='c005'>These things appeared insubstantial, drawn back behind a sheet of air -that shimmered over them like thin glass. They opened out, floated past -and away from her; and instead of the high road and park walls she saw a -London street of dingy white facades, and instead of the south gate the -swinging glass doors of Schnebler’s Restaurant.</p> - -<hr class='c008' /> - -<p class='c005'>The glass doors swung open and she passed into the restaurant. The scene -beat on her with the hard impact of reality: the white and gold panels, -the white pillars and their curling gold capitals, the white circles of -the tables, glittering, the flushed faces of the diners, moving -mechanically.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was driven forward by some irresistible compulsion to a table in the -corner, where a man sat alone. The table napkin he was using hid his -mouth, and jaw, and chest; and she was not sure of the upper part of the -face above the straight, drawn edge. It dropped; and she saw Oscar -Wade’s face. She came to him, dragged, without power to resist; she -sat down beside him, and he leaned to her over the table; she could feel -the warmth of his red, congested face; the smell of wine floated -towards her on his thick whisper.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I knew you would come.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She ate and drank with him in silence, nibbling and sipping slowly, -staving off the abominable moment it would end in.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At last they got up and faced each other. His long bulk stood before -her, above her; she could almost feel the vibration of its power.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Come,” he said. “Come.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And she went before him, slowly, slipping out through the maze of the -tables, hearing behind her Oscar’s measured, deliberate, thoughtful -tread. The steep, red-carpeted staircase rose up before her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She swerved from it, but he turned her back.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You know the way,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At the top of the flight she found the white door of the room she knew. -She knew the long windows guarded by drawn muslin blinds; the gilt -looking-glass over the chimney-piece that reflected Oscar’s head and -shoulders grotesquely between two white porcelain babies with bulbous -limbs and garlanded loins, she knew the sprawling stain on the drab -carpet by the table, the shabby, infamous couch behind the screen.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They moved about the room, turning and turning in it like beasts in a -cage, uneasy, inimical, avoiding each other.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At last they stood still, he at the window, she at the door, the length -of the room between.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s no good your getting away like that,” he said. “There -couldn’t be any other end to it—to what we did.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But that <i>was</i> ended.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ended there, but not here.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ended for ever. We’ve done with it for ever.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We haven’t. We’ve got to begin again. And go on. And go on.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, no. No. Anything but that.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There isn’t anything else.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We can’t. We can’t. Don’t you remember how it bored us?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Remember? Do you suppose I’d touch you if I could help it?... That’s -what we’re here for. We must. We must.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. No. I shall get away—now.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She turned to the door to open it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You can’t,” he said. “The door’s locked.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oscar—what did you do that for?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We always did it. Don’t you remember?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She turned to the door again and shook it; she beat on it with her -hands.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s no use, Harriott. If you got out now you’d only have to come -back again. You might stave it off for an hour or so, but what’s that -in an immortality?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Immortality?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s what we’re in for.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Time enough to talk about immortality when we’re dead.... Ah—”</p> - -<div id='i035' class='figcenter id005'> -<img src='images/i035.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>... moving slowly, like figures in some monstrous and appalling dance ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>They were being drawn towards each other across the room, moving slowly, -like figures in some monstrous and appalling dance, their heads thrown -back over their shoulders, their faces turned from the horrible -approach. Their arms rose slowly, heavy with intolerable reluctance; -they stretched them out towards each other, aching, as if they held up -an overpowering weight. Their feet dragged and were drawn.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Suddenly her knees sank under her; she shut her eyes; all her being -went down before him in darkness and terror.</p> - -<hr class='c008' /> - -<p class='c005'>It was over. She had got away, she was going back, back, to the green -drive of the Park, between the beech trees, where Oscar had never been, -where he would never find her. When she passed through the south gate -her memory became suddenly young and clean. She forgot the rue de Rivoli -and the Hotel Saint Pierre; she forgot Schnebler’s Restaurant and the -room at the top of the stairs. She was back in her youth. She was -Harriott Leigh going to wait for Stephen Philpotts in the pavilion -opposite the west gate. She could feel herself, a slender figure moving -fast over the grass between the lines of the great beech trees. The -freshness of her youth was upon her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She came to the heart of the drive where it branched right and left in -the form of a cross. At the end of the right arm the white Greek temple, -with its pediment and pillars, gleamed against the wood.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was sitting on their seat at the back of the pavilion, watching the -side door that Stephen would come in by.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The door was pushed open; he came towards her, light and young, skimming -between the beech trees with his eager, tiptoeing stride. She rose up to -meet him. She gave a cry.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Stephen!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It had been Stephen. She had seen him coming. But the man who stood -before her between the pillars of the pavilion was Oscar Wade.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And now she was walking along the field-path that slanted from the -orchard door to the stile; further and further back, to where young -George Waring waited for her under the elder tree. The smell of the -elder flowers came to her over the field. She could feel on her lips and -in all her body the sweet, innocent excitement of her youth.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“George, oh, George!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>As she went along the field-path she had seen him. But the man who stood -waiting for her under the elder tree was Oscar Wade.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I told you it’s no use getting away, Harriott. Every path brings -you back to me. You’ll find me at every turn.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But how did you get <i>here?</i>”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“As I got into the pavilion. As I got into your father’s room, on to -his death-bed. Because I <i>was</i> there. I am in all your memories.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My memories are innocent. How could you take my father’s place, and -Stephen’s, and George Waring’s? You?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because I did take them.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Never. My love for <i>them</i> was innocent.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Your love for me was part of it. You think the past affects the -future. Has it never struck you that the future may affect the past? In -your innocence there was the beginning of your sin. You <i>were</i> what -you <i>were to be</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I shall get away,” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And, this time, I shall go with you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The stile, the elder tree, and the field floated away from her. She was -going under the beech trees down the Park drive towards the south gate -and the village, slinking close to the right-hand row of trees. She was -aware that Oscar Wade was going with her under the left-hand row, -keeping even with her, step by step, and tree by tree. And presently -there was grey pavement under her feet and a row of grey pillars on her -right hand. They were walking side by side down the rue de Rivoli -towards the hotel.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They were sitting together now on the edge of the dingy white bed. Their -arms hung by their sides, heavy and limp, their heads drooped, averted. -Their passion weighed on them with the unbearable, unescapable boredom -of immortality.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oscar—how long will it last?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t tell you. I don’t know whether <i>this</i> is one moment -of eternity, or the eternity of one moment.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It must end some time,” she said. “Life doesn’t go on for -ever. We shall die.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Die? We <i>have</i> died. Don’t you know what this is? Don’t you -know where you are? This is death. We’re dead, Harriott. We’re in -hell.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. There can’t be anything worse than this.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“This isn’t the worst. We’re not quite dead yet, as long as -we’ve life in us to turn and run and get away from each other; as long -as we can escape into our memories. But when you’ve got back to the -farthest memory of all and there’s nothing beyond it—When there’s no -memory but this—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“In the last hell we shall not run away any longer; we shall find no -more roads, no more passages, no more open doors. We shall have no need -to look for each other.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“In the last death we shall be shut up in this room, behind -that locked door, together. We shall lie here together, for ever and -ever, joined so fast that even God can’t put us asunder. We shall be -one flesh and one spirit, one sin repeated for ever, and ever; spirit -loathing flesh, flesh loathing spirit; you and I loathing each other.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why? Why?” she cried.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because that’s all that’s left us. That’s what you made of love.”</p> - -<hr class='c008' /> - -<p class='c005'>The darkness came down swamping, it blotted out the room. She was -walking along a garden path between high borders of phlox and larkspur -and lupin. They were taller than she was, their flowers swayed and -nodded above her head. She tugged at the tall stems and had no strength -to break them. She was a little thing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She said to herself then that she was safe. She had gone back so far -that she was a child again; she had the blank innocence of childhood. To -be a child, to go small under the heads of the lupins, to be blank and -innocent, without memory, was to be safe.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The walk led her out through a yew hedge on to a bright green lawn. In -the middle of the lawn there was a shallow round pond in a ring of -rockery cushioned with small flowers, yellow and white and purple. -Gold-fish swam in the olive-brown water. She would be safe when she saw -the gold-fish swimming towards her. The old one with the white scales -would come up first, pushing up his nose, making bubbles in the water.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At the bottom of the lawn there was a privet hedge cut by a broad path -that went through the orchard. She knew what she would find there; her -mother was in the orchard. She would lift her up in her arms to play -with the hard red balls of the apples that hung from the tree. She had -got back to the farthest memory of all; there was nothing beyond it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There would be an iron gate in the wall of the orchard. It would lead -into a field.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Something was different here, something that frightened her. An ash-grey -door instead of an iron gate.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She pushed it open and came into the last corridor of the Hotel Saint -Pierre.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='thetok' class='c003'>THE TOKEN</h2> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>I</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>I have only known one absolutely adorable woman, and that was my brother’s -wife, Cicely Dunbar.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Sisters-in-law do not, I think, invariably adore each -other, and I am aware that my chief merit in Cicely’s eyes was that I am -Donald’s sister; but for me there was no question of extraneous -quality—it was all pure Cicely.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And how Donald— But then, like all the Dunbars, -Donald suffers from being Scottish, so that, if he has a feeling, he -makes it a point of honour to pretend he hasn’t it. I daresay he let -himself go a bit during his courtship, when he was not, strictly -speaking, himself; but after he had once married her I think he would -have died rather than have told Cicely in so many words that he loved -her. And Cicely wanted to be told. You say she ought to have known -without telling? You don’t know Donald. You can’t conceive the -perverse ingenuity he could put into hiding his affection. He has that -peculiar temper—I think it’s Scottish—that delights in snubbing -and faultfinding and defeating expectation. If he knows you want him to -do a thing, that alone is reason enough with Donald for not doing it. -And my sister, who was as transparent as white crystal, was never able -to conceal a want. So that Donald could, as we said, “have” her -at every turn.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And, then, I don’t think my brother really knew how ill she was. He -didn’t want to know. Besides, he was so wrapt up in trying to finish -his “Development of Social Economics” (which, by the way, he hasn’t -finished yet) that he had no eyes to see what we all saw: that, the way -her poor little heart was going, Cicely couldn’t have very long to live.</p> - -<div class='imgleft c006'> -<img src='images/i042.jpg' alt='' class='c007' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>Of course he understood that this was why, in those last months, they -had to have separate rooms. And this in the first year of their marriage -when he was still violently in love with her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I keep those two facts firmly in my mind when I try to excuse Donald; -for it was the main cause of that unkindness and perversity which I find -it so hard to forgive. Even now, when I think how he used to discharge -it on the poor little thing, as if it had been her fault, I have to -remind myself that the lamb’s innocence made her a little trying.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She couldn’t understand why Donald didn’t want to have her with him -in his library any more while he read or wrote. It seemed to her sheer -cruelty to shut her out now when she was ill, seeing that, before she -was ill, she had always had her chair by the fireplace, where she would -sit over her book or her embroidery for hours without speaking, hardly -daring to breathe lest she should interrupt him. Now was the time, she -thought, when she might expect a little indulgence.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Do you suppose that Donald would give his feelings as an explanation? -Not he. They were <i>his feelings</i>, and he wouldn’t talk about them; -and he never explained anything you didn’t understand.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That—her wanting to sit with him in the library—was what they had -the awful quarrel about, the day before she died: that and the -paper-weight, the precious paper-weight that he wouldn’t let anybody -touch because George Meredith had given it him. It was a brass block, -surmounted by a white alabaster Buddha painted and gilt. And it had an -inscription: <i>To Donald Dunbar, from George Meredith. In Affectionate -Regard</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>My brother was extremely attached to this paper-weight, partly, I’m -afraid, because it proclaimed his intimacy with the great man. For this -reason it was known in the family ironically as the Token.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It stood on Donald’s writing-table at his elbow, so near the ink-pot -that the white Buddha had received a splash or two. And this evening -Cicely had come in to us in the library, and had annoyed Donald by -staying in it when he wanted her to go. She had taken up the Token, and -was cleaning it to give herself a pretext.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She died after the quarrel they had then.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It began by Donald shouting at her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What are you doing with that paper-weight?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Only getting the ink off.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I can see her now, the darling. She had wetted the corner of her -handkerchief with her little pink tongue and was rubbing the Buddha. Her -hands had begun to tremble when he shouted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Put it down, can’t you? I’ve told you not to touch my things.”</p> - -<div id='i044' class='figcenter id006'> -<img src='images/i044.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>“I’ve told you not to touch my things.”</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>You</i> inked him,” she said. She was giving one last rub as he -rose, threatening.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Put—it—down.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And, poor child, she did put it down. Indeed, she dropped it at his -feet.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh!” she cried out, and stooped quickly and picked it up. Her -large tear-glassed eyes glanced at him, frightened.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He isn’t broken.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No thanks to you,” he growled.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You beast! You know I’d die rather than break anything you care -about.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’ll be broken some day, if you <i>will</i> come meddling.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I couldn’t bear it. I said, “You mustn’t yell at her like -that. You know she can’t stand it. You’ll make her ill again.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>That sobered him for a moment.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m sorry,” he said; but he made it sound as if he wasn’t.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If you’re sorry,” she persisted, “you might let me stay with -you. I’ll be as quiet as a mouse.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No; I don’t want you—I can’t work with you in the room.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You can work with Helen.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’re not Helen.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He only means he’s not in love with <i>me</i>, dear.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He means I’m no use to him. I know I’m not. I can’t even sit on -his manuscripts and keep them down. He cares more for that damned -paper-weight than he does for me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well—George Meredith gave it me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And nobody gave you me. I gave myself.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>That worked up his devil again. He <i>had</i> to torment her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It can’t have cost you much,” he said. “And I may remind you that -the paper-weight has <i>some</i> intrinsic value.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>With that he left her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What’s he gone out for?” she asked me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because he’s ashamed of himself, I suppose,” I said. “Oh, -Cicely, why <i>will</i> you answer him? You know what he is.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No!” she said passionately—“that’s what I don’t know. I -never have known.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“At least you know he’s in love with you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He has a queer way of showing it, then. He never does anything -but stamp and shout and find fault with me—all about an old -paper-weight!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was caressing it as she spoke, stroking the alabaster Buddha as if -it had been a live thing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“His poor Buddha. Do you think it’ll break if I stroke it? Better -not.... Honestly, Helen, I’d rather die than hurt anything he -really cared for. Yet look how he hurts me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Some men <i>must</i> hurt the things they care for.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I wouldn’t mind his hurting, if only I knew he cared. Helen—I’d -give anything to know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think you might know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t! I don’t!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, you’ll know some day.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Never! He won’t tell me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He’s Scotch, my dear. It would kill him to tell you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then how’m I to know! If I died to-morrow I should die not knowing.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And that night, not knowing, she died.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She died because she had never really known.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>II</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>We never talked about her. It was not my brother’s way. Words hurt -him, to speak or to hear them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had become more morose than ever, but less irritable, the source of -his irritation being gone. Though he plunged -into work as another man might have plunged into dissipation, to drown -the thought of her, you could see that he had no longer any interest in -it; he no longer loved it. He attacked it with a fury that had more hate -in it than love. He would spend the greater part of the day and the long -evenings shut up in his library, only going out for a short walk an hour -before dinner. You could see that soon all spontaneous impulses would be -checked in him and he would become the creature of habit and routine.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id002'> -<img src='images/i046.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>I tried to rouse him, to shake him up out of his deadly groove; but it -was no use. The first effort—for he did make efforts—exhausted him, -and he sank back into it again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But he liked to have me with him; and all the time that I could spare -from my housekeeping and gardening I spent in the library. I think he -didn’t like to be left alone there in the place where they had the -quarrel that killed her; and I noticed that the cause of it, the Token, -had disappeared from his table.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And all her things, everything that could remind him of her, had been -put away. It was the dead burying its dead.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Only the chair she had loved remained in its place by the side of the -hearth—<i>her</i> chair, if you could call it hers when she wasn’t -allowed to sit in it. It was always empty, for by tacit consent we both -avoided it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>We would sit there for hours at a time without speaking, while he worked -and I read or sewed. I never dared to ask him whether he sometimes had, -as I had, the sense of Cicely’s presence there, in that room which she -had so longed to enter, from which she had been so cruelly shut out. You -couldn’t tell what he felt or didn’t feel. My brother’s face was a -heavy, sombre mask; his back, bent over the writing-table, a wall behind -which he hid himself.</p> - -<p class='c005'>You must know that twice in my life I have more than <i>felt</i> these -presences; I have seen them. This may be because I am on both sides a -Highland Celt, and my mother had the same uncanny gift. I had never -spoken of these appearances to Donald because he would have put it all -down to what he calls my hysterical fancy. And I am sure that if he ever -felt or saw anything himself he would never own it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I ought to explain that each time the vision was premonitory of a death -(in Cicely’s case I had no such warning), and each time it only lasted -for a second; also that, though I am certain I was wide awake each time, -it is open to anybody to say I was asleep and dreamed it. The queer -thing was that I was neither frightened nor surprised.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And so I was neither surprised nor frightened now, the first evening -that I saw her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was in the early autumn twilight, about six o’clock. I was sitting -in my place in front of the fireplace; Donald was in his arm-chair on -my left, smoking a pipe, as usual, before the lamplight drove him out of -doors into the dark.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I had had so strong a sense of Cicely’s being there in the room that I -felt nothing but a sudden sacred pang that was half joy when I looked up -and saw her sitting in her chair on my right.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The phantasm was perfect and vivid, as if it had been flesh and blood. I -should have thought that it was Cicely herself if I hadn’t known that she was -dead. She wasn’t looking at me; her face was turned to Donald with that -longing, wondering look it used to have, searching his face for the secret -that he kept from her.</p> - -<div id='i049' class='figcenter id004'> -<img src='images/i049.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>... her face was turned to Donald ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>I looked at Donald. His chin was sunk a little, the pipe drooping from -the corner of his mouth. He was heavy, absorbed in his smoking. It was -clear that he did not see what I saw.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And whereas those other phantasms that I told you about disappeared at -once, <i>this</i> lasted some little time, and always with its eyes fixed -on Donald. It even lasted while Donald stirred, while he stooped -forward, knocking the ashes out of his pipe against the hob, while he -sighed, stretched himself, turned, and left the room. Then, as the door -shut behind him, the whole figure went out suddenly—not flickering, but -like a light you switch off.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I saw it again the next evening and the next, at the same -time and in the same place, and with the same look turned towards -Donald. And again I was sure that he did not see it. But I thought, from -his uneasy sighing and stretching, that he had some sense of something -there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>No; I was not frightened. I was glad. You see, I loved Cicely. I -remember thinking, “At last, at last, you poor darling, you’ve -got in. And you can stay as long as you like now. He can’t turn you -away.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The first few times I saw her just as I have said. I would look up and -find the phantasm there, sitting in her chair. And it would disappear -suddenly when Donald left the room. Then I knew I was alone.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But as I grew used to its presence, or perhaps as it grew used to mine -and found out that I was not afraid of it, that indeed I loved to have -it there, it came, I think, to trust me, so that I was made aware of all -its movements. I would see it coming across the room from the doorway, -making straight for its desired place, and settling in a little -curled-up posture of satisfaction, appeased, as if it had expected -opposition that it no longer found. Yet that it was not happy, I could -still see by its look at Donald. <i>That</i> never changed. It was as -uncertain of him now as she had been in her lifetime.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Up till now, the sixth or seventh time I had seen it, I had no clue to -the secret of its appearance; and its movements seemed to me mysterious -and without purpose. Only two things were clear: it was Donald that it -came for—the instant he went it disappeared; and I never once saw it -when I was alone. And always it chose this room and this hour before the -lights came, when he sat doing nothing. It was clear also that he never -saw it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But that it was there with him sometimes when I was not I knew; for, -more than once, things on Donald’s writing-table, books or papers, -would be moved out of their places, though never beyond reach; and he -would ask me whether I had touched them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Either you lie,” he would say, “or I’m mistaken. I could have -sworn I put those notes on the left-hand side; and they aren’t there -now.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And once—that was wonderful—I saw, yes, I <i>saw</i> her come and -push the lost thing under his hand. And all he said was, “Well, -I’m—I could have sworn—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>For whether it had gained a sense of security, or whether its purpose -was now finally fixed, it began to move regularly about the room, and -its movements had evidently a reason and an aim.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was looking for something.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One evening we were all there in our places, Donald silent in his chair -and I in mine, and it seated in its attitude of wonder and of waiting, -when suddenly I saw Donald looking at me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Helen,” he said, “what are you staring for like that?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I started. I had forgotten that the direction of my eyes would be bound, -sooner or later, to betray me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I heard myself stammer, “W—w—was I staring?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. I wish you wouldn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I knew what he meant. He didn’t want me to keep on looking at that -chair; he didn’t want to know that I was thinking of her. I bent my -head closer over my sewing, so that I no longer had the phantasm in -sight.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was then I was aware that it had risen and was crossing the -hearthrug. It stopped at Donald’s knees, and stood there, gazing at -him with a look so intent and fixed that I could not doubt that this had -some significance. I saw it put out its hand and touch him; and, though -Donald sighed and shifted his position, I could tell that he had neither -seen nor felt anything.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It turned to me then—and this was the first time it had given any sign -that it was conscious of my presence—it turned on me a look of -supplication, such supplication as I had seen on my sister’s face in -her lifetime, when she could do nothing with him and implored me to -intercede. At the same time three words formed themselves in my brain -with a sudden, quick impulsion, as if I had heard them cried.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Speak to him—speak to him!”</p> - -<div class='imgright c006'> -<img src='images/i052.jpg' alt='' class='c007' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>I knew now what it wanted. It was trying to make itself seen by him, to -make itself felt, and it was in anguish at finding that it could not.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It knew then that I saw it, and the idea had come to it that it could -make use of me to get through to him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I think I must have guessed even then what it had come for.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said, “You asked me what I was staring at, and I lied. I was looking -at Cicely’s chair.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I saw him wince at the name.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because,” I went on, “I don’t know how <i>you</i> feel, but <i>I</i> -always feel as if she were there.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He said nothing; but he got up, as though to shake off the oppression of -the memory I had evoked, and stood leaning on the chimney-piece with his -back to me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The phantasm retreated to its place, where it kept its eyes fixed on him -as before.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I was determined to break down his defences, to make him say something -it might hear, give some sign that it would understand.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Donald, do you think it’s a good thing, a <i>kind</i> thing, never to -talk about her?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Kind? Kind to whom?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To yourself, first of all.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You can leave me out of it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To me, then.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What’s it got to do with you?” His voice was as hard and cutting -as he could make it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Everything,” I said. “You forget, I loved her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was silent. He did at least respect my love for her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But that wasn’t what she wanted.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>That hurt him. I could feel him stiffen under it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You see, Donald,” I persisted, “<i>I</i> like thinking about -her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was cruel of me; but I <i>had</i> to break him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You can think as much as you like,” he said, “provided you -stop talking.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“All the same, it’s as bad for you,” I said, “as it is for me, -not talking.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t care if it is bad for me. I <i>can’t</i> talk about her, -Helen. I don’t want to.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How do you know,” I said, “it isn’t bad for <i>her</i>?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“For <i>her</i>?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I could see I had roused him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. If she really is there, all the time.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How d’you mean, <i>there?</i>”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Here—in this room. I tell you I can’t get over that feeling that -she’s here.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, feel, feel,” he said; “but don’t talk to me about it!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And he left the room, flinging himself out in anger. And instantly her -flame went out.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I thought, “How he must have hurt her!” It was the old thing over -again: I trying to break him down, to make him show her; he beating us -both off, punishing us both. You see, I knew now what she had come back -for: she had come back to find out whether he loved her. With a longing -unquenched by death, she had come back for certainty. And now, as -always, my clumsy interference had only made him more hard, more -obstinate. I thought, “If only he could see her! But as long as he -beats her off he never will.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Still, if I could once get him to believe that she was there—</p> - -<p class='c005'>I made up my mind that the next time I saw the phantasm I would tell -him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The next evening and the next its chair was empty, and I judged that it -was keeping away, hurt by what it had heard the last time.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But the third evening we were hardly seated before I saw it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was sitting up, alert and observant, not staring at Donald as it -used, but looking round the room, as if searching for something that it -missed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Donald,” I said, “if I told you that Cicely is in the room now, I suppose -you wouldn’t believe me?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Is it likely?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. All the same, I see her as plainly as I see you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The phantasm rose and moved to his side.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She’s standing close beside you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And now it moved and went to the writing-table. I turned and followed -its movements. It slid its open hands over the table, touching -everything, unmistakably feeling for something it believed to be there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I went on. “She’s at the writing-table now. She’s looking for -something.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It stood back, baffled and distressed. Then suddenly it began opening -and shutting the drawers, without a sound, searching each one in turn.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I said, “Oh, she’s trying the drawers now!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Donald stood up. He was not looking at the place where it was. He was -looking hard at me, in anxiety and a sort of fright. I supposed that was -why he remained unaware of the opening and shutting of the drawers.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It continued its desperate searching.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The bottom drawer stuck fast. I saw it pull and shake it, and stand back -again, baffled.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s locked,” I said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What’s locked?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That bottom drawer.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nonsense! It’s nothing of the kind.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It is, I tell you. Give me the key. Oh, Donald, give it me!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He shrugged his shoulders; but all the same he felt in his pockets for -the key, which he gave me with a little teasing gesture, as if he -humoured a child.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I unlocked the drawer, pulled it out to its full length, and there, -thrust away at the back, out of sight, I found the Token.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I had not seen it since the day of Cicely’s death.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Who put it there?” I asked.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I did.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, that’s what she was looking for,” I said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I held out the Token to him on the palm of my hand, as if it were the -proof that I had seen her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Helen,” he said gravely, “I think you must be ill.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You think so? I’m not so ill that I don’t know what you put it -away for,” I said. “It was because she thought you cared for it more -than you did for her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You can remind me of that? There must be something very badly wrong -with you, Helen,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Perhaps. Perhaps I only want to know what <i>she</i> wanted.... You -<i>did</i> care for her, Donald?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I couldn’t see the phantasm now, but I could feel it, close, close, -vibrating, palpitating, as I drove him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Care?” he cried. “I was mad with caring for her! And she knew it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She didn’t. She wouldn’t be here now if she knew.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>At that he turned from me to his station by the chimney-piece. I -followed him there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What are you going to do about it?” I said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do about it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What are you going to do with this?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I thrust the Token close towards him. He drew back, staring at it with a -look of concentrated hate and loathing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do with it?” he said. “The damned thing killed her! This is what -I’m going to do with it—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He snatched it from my hand and hurled it with all his force against the -bars of the grate. The Buddha fell, broken to bits, among the ashes.</p> - -<div id='i057' class='figcenter id007'> -<img src='images/i057.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>He stepped forward, opening his arms.</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>Then I heard him give a short, groaning cry. He stepped forward, opening -his arms, and I saw the phantasm slide between them. For a second it -stood there, folded to his breast; then suddenly, before our eyes, it -collapsed in a shining heap, a flicker of light on the floor, at his -feet.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then that went out too.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>III</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>I never saw it again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Neither did my brother. But I didn’t know this till some time -afterwards; for, somehow, we hadn’t cared to speak about it. And in -the end it was he who spoke first.</p> - -<p class='c005'>We were sitting together in that room, one evening in November, when he -said, suddenly and irrelevantly:</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Helen—do you never see her now?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No,” I said—“Never!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you think, then, she doesn’t come?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why should she?” I said. “She found what she came for. She -knows what she wanted to know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And that—was what?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, that you loved her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>His eyes had a queer, submissive, wistful look.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You think that was why she came back?” he said.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='thefla' class='c003'>THE FLAW IN THE CRYSTAL</h2> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>I</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>It was Friday, the day he always came, if (so she safeguarded it) he was to -come at all. They had left it that way in the beginning, that it should -be open to him to come or not to come. They had not even settled that it -should be Fridays, but it always was, the week-end being the only time -when he could get away; the only time, he had explained to Agatha -Verrall, when getting away excited no remark. He had to, or he would -have broken down. Agatha called it getting away from “things;” -but she knew that there was only one thing, his wife Bella.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To be wedded to a mass of furious and malignant nerves (which was all -that poor Bella was now) simply meant destruction to a man like Rodney -Lanyon. Rodney’s own nerves were not as strong as they had been, after -ten years of Bella’s. It had been understood for long enough -(understood even by Bella) that if he couldn’t have his week-ends he -was done for; he couldn’t possibly have stood the torment and the -strain of her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Of course she didn’t know he spent the greater part of them with -Agatha Verrall. It was not to be desired that she should know. Her -obtuseness helped them. Even in her younger and saner days she had -failed, persistently, to realize any profound and poignant thing that -touched him; so by the mercy of heaven she had never realized Agatha -Verrall. She used to say she had never seen anything <i>in</i> Agatha, -which amounted, as he once told her, to not seeing Agatha at all. Still -less could she have compassed any vision of the tie—the extraordinary, -intangible, immaterial tie that held them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Sometimes, at the last moment, his escape to Agatha would prove -impossible; so they had left it further that he was to send her no -forewarning; he was to come when and as he could. He could always get a -room in the village inn or at the farm near by, and in Agatha’s house -he would find his place ready for him, the place which had become his -refuge, his place of peace.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There was no need to prepare her. She was never not prepared. It was -as if by her preparedness, by the absence of preliminaries, of -adjustments and arrangements, he was always there, lodged in the -innermost chamber. She had set herself apart; she had swept herself bare -and scoured herself clean for him. Clean she had to be; clean from the -desire that he should come; clean, above all, from the thought, the -knowledge she now had, that she could make him come.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For if she had given herself up to <i>that</i>....</p> - -<p class='c005'>But she never had; never since the knowledge came to her; since she -discovered, wonderfully, by a divine accident, that at any moment she -could make him—that she had whatever it was, the power, the uncanny, -unaccountable Gift.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was beginning to see more and more how it worked; how inevitably, -how infallibly it worked. She was even a little afraid of it, of what it -might come to mean. It <i>did</i> mean that without his knowledge, -separated as they were and had to be, she could always get at him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And supposing it came to mean that she could get at him to make him do -things? Why, the bare idea of it was horrible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Nothing could well have been more horrible to Agatha. -It was the secret and the essence of their remarkable relation that -she had never tried to get at him; whereas Bella <i>had</i>, -calamitously; and still more calamitously, because of the peculiar magic -that there was (there must have been) in her, Bella had succeeded. To -have tried to get at him would have been for Agatha the last treachery, -the last indecency; while for Rodney it would have been the destruction -of her charm. She was the way of escape for him from Bella; but she had -always left her door, even the innermost door, wide open; so that where -shelter and protection faced him there faced him also the way of -departure, the way of escape from <i>her</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And if her thought could get at him and fasten on him and shut him in -there....</p> - -<p class='c005'>It could, she knew; but it need not. She was really all right. Restraint -had been the essence and the secret of the charm she had, and it was -also the secret and the essence of her gift. Why, she had brought it to -so fine a point that she could shut out, and by shutting out destroy, -any feeling, any thought that did violence to any other. She could shut -them all out, if it came to that, and make the whole place empty. So -that, if this knowledge of her power did violence, she had only to close -her door on it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She closed it now on the bare thought of his coming; on the little -innocent hope she had that he would come. By an ultimate refinement and -subtlety of honour she refused to let even expectation cling to him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But though it was dreadful to “work” her gift that way, to make him -do things, there was another way in which she did work it, lawfully, -sacredly, incorruptibly—the way it first came to her. She had worked -it twenty times (without his knowledge, for how he would have scoffed at -her) to make him well.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Before it had come to her, he had been, ever since she knew him, more -or less ill, more or less tormented by the nerves that were wedded so -indissolubly to Bella’s. He was always, it seemed to her terror, on -the verge. And she could say to herself: “Look at him <i>now!</i>”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id008'> -<img src='images/i064.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>His abrupt, incredible recovery had been the first open -manifestation of the way it worked. Not that she had tried it on him -first. Before she dared do that once she had proved it on herself twenty -times, till she found it infallible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But to ensure continuous results it had to be a continuous process; and -in order to give herself up to it, to him (to his pitiful case), she had -lately, as her friends said, “cut herself completely off.” She had -gone down into -Buckinghamshire and taken a small, solitary house at Sarratt End in the -valley of the Chess, three miles from the nearest station. She had shut -herself up in a world half a mile long; one straight hill to the north, -one to the south, two strips of flat pasture, the river and the white -farm-road between. A world closed east and west by the turn the valley -takes there between the hills, and barred by a gate at each end of the -farm-road. A land of pure curves, of delicate colours, delicate shadows; -all winter through a land of grey woods and sallow fields, of ploughed -hillsides pale with the white strain of the chalk. In April (it was -April now) a land shining with silver and green. And the ways out of it -led into lanes; it had neither sight nor hearing of the high roads -beyond.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There were only two houses in that half-mile of valley, Agatha’s house -and Woodman’s Farm.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha’s house, white as a cutting in the chalk downs, looked -south-west, up the valley and across it, to where a slender beech-wood -went lightly up the hill and then stretched out in a straight line along -the top, with the bare fawn-coloured flank of the ploughed land below. -The farm-house looked east towards Agatha’s house across a field; a -red-brick house—dull, dark red with the grey bloom of weather on -it—flat-faced and flat-eyed, two windows on each side of the door and -a row of five above, all nine staring at the small white house across -the field. The narrow, flat farm-road linked the two.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Except Rodney when his inn was full, nobody ever came to Woodman’s Farm; -and Agatha’s house, set down inside its east gate, shared its -isolation, its immunity. Two villages, unseen, unheard, served her, not -a mile away. It was impossible to be more sheltered, more protected and -more utterly cut off. And only fifteen miles, as the crow flies, between -this solitude and London, so that it was easy for Rodney Lanyon to come -down.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At two o’clock, the hour when he must come if he were coming, she -began to listen for the click of the latch at the garden gate. She had -agreed with herself that at the last moment expectancy could do no harm; -it couldn’t influence him; for either he had taken the twelve-thirty -train at Marylebone or he had not (Agatha was so far reasonable); -so at the last moment she permitted herself that dangerous and -terrible joy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When the click came and his footsteps after it, she admitted further -(now when it could do no harm) that she had had foreknowledge of him; -she had been aware all the time that he would come. And she wondered, -as she always wondered at his coming, whether really she would find -him well, or whether this time it had incredibly miscarried. And her -almost unbearable joy became suspense, became vehement desire to see -him and gather from his face whether this time also it had worked.</p> - -<div id='i067' class='figcenter id009'> -<img src='images/i067.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>And she wondered whether really she would find him well ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“How are you? How have you been?” was her question when he stood -before her in her white room, holding her hand for an instant.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Tremendously fit,” he answered; “ever since I last saw you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh—seeing me—” It was as if she wanted him to know that -seeing her made no difference.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She looked at him and received her certainty. She saw him clear-eyed and -young, younger than he was, his clean, bronzed face set, as it used to -be, in a firmness that obliterated the lines, the little agonized lines, -that had made her heart ache.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It always does me good,” he said, “to see you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And to see you—you know what it does to me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He thought he knew as he caught back his breath and looked at her, -taking in again her fine whiteness, and her tenderness, her purity of -line, and the secret of her eyes, whose colour (if they had colour) he -was never sure about; taking in all of her, from her adorable feet to -her hair, vividly dark, that sprang from the white parting like—was it -like waves or wings?</p> - -<p class='c005'>What had once touched and moved him unspeakably in Agatha’s face was -the capacity it had, latent in its tragic lines, for expressing terror. -Terror was what he most dreaded for her, what he had most tried to keep -her from, to keep out of her face. And latterly he had not found it; or -rather he had not found the unborn, lurking spirit of it there. It had -gone, that little tragic droop in Agatha’s face. The corners of her eyes -and of her beautiful mouth were lifted, as if by—he could find no -other word for the thing he meant but wings. She had a look which, if it -were not of joy, was of something more vivid and positive than peace.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He put it down to their increased and undisturbed communion, made -possible by her retirement to Sarratt End. Yet as he looked at her he -sighed again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In response to his sigh she asked suddenly: “How’s Bella?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>His face lighted wonderfully. “It’s extraordinary,” he said; -“she’s better. Miles better. In fact, if it wasn’t tempting -Providence, I should say she was well. She’s been, for the last week -anyhow, a perfect angel.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>His amazed, uncomprehending look gave her the clue to what had happened. -It was another instance of the astounding and mysterious way it worked. -She must have got at Bella somehow in getting at him. She saw now no end -to the possibilities of the thing. There wasn’t anything so wonderful -in making him what, after all, he was; but if she, Bella, had been, -even for a week, a perfect angel, it had made her what she was not and -never had been.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His next utterance came to her with no irrelevance.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’ve been found out.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>For a moment she wondered, had he -guessed it then, her secret? He had never known anything about it, and -it was not likely that he should know now. He was indeed very far from -knowing when he could think that it was seeing her that did it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There was, of course, the other secret, the fact that he did see her; -but she had never allowed that it <i>was</i> a secret, or that it need -be, although they guarded it so carefully. Anybody, except Bella, who -wouldn’t understand it, was welcome to know that he came to see her. -He must mean that.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Found out?” she repeated.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If you haven’t been, you will be.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You mean,” she said, “Sarratt End has been found out?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If you put it that way. I saw the Powells at the station.” (She -breathed freely.)</p> - -<div id='i069' class='figcenter id010'> -<img src='images/i069.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>“I saw the Powells at the station.”</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“They told me they’d taken rooms at some farm here.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Which farm?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He didn’t remember.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Was it Woodman’s Farm?” she asked. And he said, “Yes, that was -the name they’d told him. Whereabouts was it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Don’t you know,” she said. “That’s the name of <i>your</i> farm.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had not known it, and was visibly annoyed at knowing it now. And -Agatha herself felt some dismay. If it had been any other place but -Woodman’s Farm—it stared at them; it watched them; it knew all their -goings out and their comings in; it knew Rodney; not that that had -mattered in the least, but the Powells, when they came, would know too.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She tried to look as if that didn’t matter either, while they faced -each other in a silence, a curious, unfamiliar discomposure.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She recovered first. “After all,” she said, “why shouldn’t -they?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well—I thought you weren’t going to tell people.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her face mounted a sudden flame, a signal of resentment. She had always -resented the imputation of secrecy in their relations. And now it was as -if he were dragging forward the thought that she perpetually put away -from her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Tell about what?” she asked, coldly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“About Sarratt End. I thought we’d agreed to keep it for ourselves.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I haven’t told everybody. But I did tell Milly Powell.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear girl, that wasn’t very clever of you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I told her not to tell. She knows what I want to be alone for.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Good God.” As he stared in dismay at what he judged to be her -unspeakable indiscretion, the thought rushed in on her straight from -him, the naked, terrible thought, that there <i>should</i> be anything -they had to hide, they had to be alone for. She saw at the same time how -defenceless he was before it; he couldn’t keep it back; he couldn’t -put it away from him. It was always with him, a danger watching on his -threshold.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then” (he made her face it with him) “we’re done for.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, no,” she cried; “how could you think that? It was another -thing. Something I’m trying to do.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You told her,” he insisted. “What did you tell her?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That I’m doing it. That I’m here for my health. She understands -it that way.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He smiled as if he were satisfied, knowing her so well. And still his -thought, his terrible, naked thought, was there. It was looking at her -straight out of his eyes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Are you sure she understands?” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. Absolutely.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He hesitated, and then put it differently.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Are you sure she doesn’t understand? That she hasn’t an inkling?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He wasn’t sure whether Agatha understood, whether she realized the -danger.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“About you and me,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ah, my dear, I’ve kept <i>you</i> secret. She doesn’t know we know -each other. And if she did—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She finished it with a wonderful look, a look of unblinking yet vaguely, -pitifully uncandid candour.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had always met him, and would always have to meet him, with the idea -that there was nothing in it; for, if she once admitted that there was -anything, then they <i>were</i> done for. She couldn’t (how could she?) -let him keep on coming with that thought in him, acknowledged by them -both.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was where she came in, and where her secret, her gift, would work -now more beneficently than ever. The beauty of it was that it would make -them safe, absolutely safe. She had only got to apply it to that thought -of his, and the thought would not exist. Since she could get at him, she -could do for him what he, poor dear, couldn’t perhaps always do for -himself; she could keep that dreadful possibility in him under; -she could, in fact, make their communion all that she wanted it to be.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t like it,” he said miserably. “I don’t like it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>A little line of worry was coming in his face again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The door opened and a maid began to go in and out, laying the table for -their meal. He watched the door close on her and said, “Won’t -that woman wonder what I come for?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She can see what you come for.” She smiled.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why are you spoiling it with thinking things?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s for you I think them. <i>I</i> don’t mind. It doesn’t matter so -much for me. But I want you to be safe.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, <i>I’m</i> safe, my dear,” she answered.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You were. And you would be still, if these Powells hadn’t found you -out.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He meditated.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What do you suppose <i>they’ve</i> come for?” he asked.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They’ve come, I imagine, for his health.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What? To a god-forsaken place like this?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They know what it’s done for me. So they think, poor darlings, -perhaps it may do something—even yet—for him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What’s the matter with him?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Something dreadful. And they say—incurable.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It isn’t—?” He paused.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t tell you what it is. It isn’t anything you’d think it -was. It isn’t anything bodily.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I never knew it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’re not supposed to know. And you wouldn’t, unless you -<i>did</i> know. And please—you don’t; you don’t know anything.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He smiled. “No. You haven’t told me, have you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I only told you because you never tell things, and because—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because?” He waited, smiling.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because I wanted you to see he doesn’t count.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well—but <i>she’s</i> all right, I take it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>At first she failed to grasp his implication that if, owing to his -affliction, Harding Powell didn’t count, Milly, his young wife, did. -Her faculties of observation and of inference would, he took it, be -unimpaired.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She’ll wonder, won’t she?” he expounded.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“About us? Not she. She’s too much wrapped up in him to notice anyone.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And he?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, my dear—he’s too much wrapped up in <i>it</i>.” Another anxiety -then came to him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I say, you know, he isn’t dangerous, is he?” She laughed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Dangerous? Oh dear me, no! A lamb.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>II</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>She kept on saying to herself. Why shouldn’t they come? What -difference did it make?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Up till now she had not admitted that anything could make a difference, -that anything could touch, could alter by a shade the safe, the -intangible, the unique relation between her and Rodney. It was proof -against anything that anybody could think. And the Powells were not -given to thinking things. Agatha’s own mind had been a crystal without -a flaw, in its clearness, its sincerity.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It had to be, to ensure the blessed working of the gift; as again, it -was by the blessed working of the gift that she kept it so. She could -only think of that, the secret, the gift, the inexpressible thing, as -itself a flawless crystal, a charmed circle; or rather, as a sphere that -held all the charmed circles that you draw round things to keep them -safe, to keep them holy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had drawn her circle round Rodney Lanyon and herself. Nobody could -break it. They were super-naturally safe.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And yet the presence of the Powells had made a difference. She was -forced to own that, though she remained untouched, it had made a -difference in him. It was as if, in the agitation produced by them, he -had brushed aside some veil and had let her see something that up till -now her crystal vision had refused to see, something that was more than -a lurking possibility. She discovered in him a desire, an intention that -up till now he had concealed from her. It had left its hiding place; it -rose on terrifying wings and fluttered before her, troubling her. She -was reminded that, though there were no lurking possibilities in her, -with him it might be different. For him the tie between them might come -to mean something it had never meant and could not mean for her, -something she had refused not only to see but to foresee and provide -for.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was aware of a certain relief when Monday came and he had left her -without any further unveilings and revealings. She was even glad when, -about the middle of the week, the Powells came with a cart-load of -luggage and settled at the farm. She said to herself that they would -take her mind off him. They had a way of seizing on her and holding her -attention to the exclusion of all other objects.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She could hardly not have been seized and held by a case so pitiful, so -desperate as theirs. How pitiful and desperate it had become she learned -almost at once from the face of her friend, the little pale-eyed wife, -whose small, flat, flower-like features were washed out and worn fine by -watchings and listenings on the border, on the threshold.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yes, he was worse. He had had to give up his business (Harding Powell -was a gentle stock-broker). It wasn’t any longer, Milly Powell -intimated, a question of borders and of thresholds. They had passed all -that. He had gone clean over; he was in the dreadful interior; and -she, the resolute and vigilant little woman, had no longer any power to -get him out. She was at the end of her tether.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha knew what he had been for years? Well—he was worse than that; -far worse than he had been, ever. Not so bad, though, that he hadn’t -intervals in which he knew how bad he was, and was willing to do -everything, to try anything. They were going to try Sarratt End. It was -her idea. She knew how marvellously it had answered with dear Agatha -(not that Agatha ever was, or could be, where <i>he</i> was, poor -darling). And besides, Agatha herself was an attraction. It had occurred -to Milly Powell that it might do Harding good to be near Agatha. There -was something about her; Milly didn’t know what it was, but she felt -it, <i>he</i> felt it—an influence, or something, that made for mental -peace. It was, Mrs. Powell said, as if she had some secret.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She hoped Agatha wouldn’t mind. It couldn’t possibly hurt her. -<i>He</i> couldn’t. The darling couldn’t hurt a fly; he could only -hurt himself. And if he got really bad, why then, of course, they would -have to leave Sarratt End. He would have, she said sadly, to go away -somewhere. But not yet—oh, not yet; he wasn’t bad enough for that. -She would keep him with her up to the last possible moment—the last -possible moment. Agatha could understand, couldn’t she?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha did indeed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly Powell smiled her desperate white smile, and went on; always with -her air of appeal to Agatha. That was why she wanted to be near her. It -was awful not to be near somebody who understood, who would understand -him. For Agatha would understand—wouldn’t she?—that to a certain -extent he must be given in to? <i>That</i>—apart from Agatha—was why -they had chosen Sarratt End. It was the sort of place—wasn’t -it?—where you would go if you didn’t want people to get at you; -where (Milly’s very voice became furtive as she explained it) you -could hide. His idea—his last—seemed to be that something <i>was</i> -trying to get at him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>No, not people. Something worse, something terrible. It was always after -him. The most piteous thing about him—piteous but adorable—was that -he came to her—to <i>her</i>, imploring her to hide him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And so she had hidden him here.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha took in her friend’s high courage as she looked at the eyes -where fright barely fluttered under the poised suspense. She approved of -the plan. It appealed to her by its sheer audacity. She murmured that if -there were anything that she could do, Milly had only to come to her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Oh, well, Milly <i>had</i> come. What she wanted Agatha to do—if she -saw him and he should say anything about it—was simply to take the -line that he was safe.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha said that was the line she did take. She wasn’t going to let -herself think, and Milly mustn’t think—not for a moment—that he -wasn’t, that there was anything to be afraid of.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Anything to be afraid of <i>here</i>. That’s my point,” said -Milly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Mine is that here or anywhere—wherever <i>he</i> is—there -mustn’t be any fear. How can he get better if we keep him wrapped in -it? You’re <i>not</i> afraid. You’re not afraid.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Persistent, invincible affirmation was part of her method, her secret.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly replied a little wearily (she knew nothing about the method).</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I haven’t time to be afraid,” she said. “And as long as you’re -not—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s you who matter,” Agatha cried. “You’re so near him. -Don’t you realize what it means to be so near?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly smiled sadly, tenderly. (As if she didn’t know!)</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear, that’s all that keeps me going. I’ve got to make him -feel that he’s protected.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He <i>is</i> protected,” said Agatha.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Already she was drawing her charmed circle round him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“As long as I hold out. If I give in he’s done for.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You mustn’t think it. You mustn’t say it!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But—I know it. Oh, my dear! I’m all he’s got.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>At that she looked for a moment as if she might break down. She said the -terrible part of it was that they were left so much alone. People were -beginning to shrink from him, to be afraid of him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You know,” said Agatha, “I’m not. You must bring him to see -me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The little woman had risen, as she said, “to go to him.” She stood -there, visibly hesitating. She couldn’t bring him. He wouldn’t come. -Would Agatha go with her and see him?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha went.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As they approached the farm, she saw to her amazement that the door was -shut and the blinds, the ugly, ochreish yellow blinds, were down in all -the nine windows of the front, the windows of the Powells’ rooms. The -house was like a house of the dead.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you get the sun on this side?” she said; and as she said it she -realized the stupidity of her question; for the nine windows looked to -the east, and the sun, wheeling down the west, had been in their faces -as they came.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly answered mechanically, “No, we don’t get any sun.” -She added with an irrelevance that was only apparent, “I’ve had -to take all four rooms to keep other people out.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They never come,” said Agatha.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No,” said Milly, “but if they did—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The front door was locked. Milly had the key. When they had entered -Agatha saw her turn it in the lock again, slowly and without a sound.</p> - -<p class='c005'>All the doors were shut in the passage, and it was dark there. Milly -opened a door on the left at the foot of the steep stairs.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He will be in here,” she said.</p> - -<div id='i078' class='figcenter id011'> -<img src='images/i078.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>Milly opened the door on the left ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>The large room -was lit with a thick ochreish light through the squares of its drawn -blinds. It ran the whole width of the house and had a third window -looking west where the yellow light prevailed. A horrible light it was. -It cast thin, turbid, brown shadows on the walls.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Harding Powell was sitting between the drawn blinds, alone in the black -hollow of the chimney place. He crouched in his chair, and his bowed -back was towards them as they stood there on the threshold.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Harding,” said Milly, “Agatha has come to see you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He turned in his chair and rose as they entered.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His chin was sunk on his chest, and the first thing Agatha noticed was -the difficult, slow, forward-thrusting movement with which he lifted it. -His eyes seemed to come up last of all from the depths to meet her. With -a peculiar foreign courtesy he bowed his head again over her hand as he -held it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He apologized for the darkness in which they found him. Harding -Powell’s manners had always been perfect, and it struck Agatha as -strange and pathetic that his malady should have left untouched the -incomparable quality he had.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly went to the windows and drew the blinds up. The light revealed him -in his exquisite perfection, his small fragile finish. He was fifty or -thereabouts, but slight as a boy, and nervous, and dark as Englishmen -are dark; jaw and chin shaven; his mouth hidden by the straight droop -of his moustache. From the eyes downwards the outlines of his face and -features were of an extreme regularity and a fineness undestroyed by the -work of the strained nerves on the sallow, delicate texture. But his -eyes, dark like an animal’s, were the eyes of a terrified thing, a -thing hunted and on the watch, a thing that listened continually for the -soft feet of the hunter. Above these eyes his brows were twisted, were -tortured with his terror.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He turned to his wife.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Did you lock the door, dear?” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I did. But you know, Harding, we needn’t—here.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He shivered slightly and began to walk up and down before the -hearthplace. When he had his back to Milly, Milly followed him with her -eyes of anguish; when he turned and faced her, she met him with her -white smile.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Presently he spoke again. He wondered whether they would object to his -drawing the blinds down. He was afraid he would have to. Otherwise, he -said, <i>he would be seen</i>.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly laid her hand on the arm that he stretched towards the window.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Darling,” she said, “you’ve forgotten. You can’t possibly -be seen—here. It’s just the one place—isn’t it, Agatha?—where -you can’t be.” Her eyes signalled to Agatha to support her. (Not but -what she had perfect confidence in the plan.)</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was, Agatha assented. “And Agatha knows,” said Milly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He shivered again. He had turned to Agatha.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Forgive me if I suggest that you cannot really know. Heaven forbid -that you <i>should</i> know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly, intent on her “plan,” persisted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, dearest, you said yourself it was. The one place.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I said that? When did I say it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yesterday.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yesterday? I daresay. But I didn’t sleep last night. It wouldn’t -let me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Very few people do sleep,” said Agatha, “for the first time in a -strange place.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The place isn’t strange. That’s what I complain of. -That’s what keeps me awake. No place ever will be strange when It’s -there. And it was there last night.”</p> - -<div id='i080' class='figcenter id012'> -<img src='images/i080.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>“No place ever will be strange when It’s there.”</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“Darling—” Milly murmured.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You know what I mean,” he said. “The Thing that keeps me -awake. Of course if I’d slept last night I’d have known it wasn’t -there. But when I didn’t sleep—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He left it to them to draw the only possible conclusion.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They dropped the subject. They turned to other things and talked a -little while, sitting with him in his room with the drawn blinds. From -time to time when they appealed to him he gave an urbane assent, a -murmur, a suave motion of his hand. When the light went they lit a lamp. -Agatha stayed and dined with them, that being the best thing she could -do.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At nine o’clock she rose and said good-night to Harding Powell. He -smiled a drawn smile.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ah—if I could sleep—,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s the worst of it—his not sleeping,” said Milly at the -gate.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He will sleep. He will sleep,” said Agatha.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly sighed. She knew he wouldn’t.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The plan, she said, was no good after all. It wouldn’t work.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>III</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>How could it? There was nothing behind it. All Milly’s plans had been -like that; they fell to dust; they <i>were</i> dust. There had been -always that pitiful, desperate stirring of the dust to hide the terror; -the futile throwing of the dust in the poor thing’s eyes. As if he -couldn’t see through it. As if, with the supernatural ludicity, the -invincible cunning of the insane, he didn’t see through anything and -provide for it. It was really only his indestructible urbanity, -persisting through the wreck of him, that bore, tolerantly, temperately, -with Milly and her plans. Without it he might be dangerous. With it, as -long as it lasted, little Milly, plan as she would, was safe.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But they couldn’t count on its lasting. Agatha had realized that from -the moment when she had seen him draw down the blind again after his -wife had drawn it up. That was the maddest thing he had done yet. She -had shuddered at it as at an act of violence. It outraged, cruelly, his -exquisite quality. It was so unlike him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was not sure that Milly hadn’t even made things worse by her -latest plan, the flight to Sarratt End. It emphasized the fact that they -were flying, that they had to fly. It had brought her to the house with -the drawn blinds in the closed, barred valley, to the end of the world, -to the end of her tether. And when she realized that it <i>was</i> the -end, when he realized it....</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha couldn’t leave him there. She couldn’t (when she had the -secret) leave him to poor Milly and her plans. That had been in her mind -when she had insisted on it that he would sleep.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She knew what Milly meant by her sigh and the look she gave her. If -Milly could have been impolite she would have told her that it was all -very well to say so, but how were they going to make him? And she, too, -felt that something more was required of her than that irritating -affirmation. She had got to make him. His case, his piteous case, cried -out for an extension of the gift.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She hadn’t any doubt as to its working. There were things she didn’t -know about it yet, but she was sure of that. She had proved it by a -hundred experimental intermissions, abstentions, and recoveries. In -order to be sure you had only to let go and see how you got on without -it. She had tried in that way, with scepticism and precaution, on -herself.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But not in the beginning. She could not say that she had tried it in the -beginning at all, even on herself. It had simply come to her, as she put -it, by a divine accident. Heaven knew she had needed it. She had been, -like Rodney Lanyon, on the verge, where he, poor dear, had brought her; -so impossible had it been then to bear her knowledge and, what was -worse, her divination of the things he bore from Bella. It was -her divination, her compassion, that had wrecked her as she stood aside, -cut off from him, he on the verge and she near it, looking on, powerless -to help while Bella tore at him. Talk of the verge, the wonder was they -hadn’t gone clean over it, both of them.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id013'> -<img src='images/i084.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>She couldn’t say then from what region, what tract of unexplored, -incredible mystery her help had come. It came one day, one night when -she was at her worst. She remembered how, with some resurgent, ultimate -instinct of surrender, she had sunk on the floor of her room, flung out -her arms across the bed in the supreme gesture of supplication, and thus -gone, eyes shut and with no motion of thought or sense in her, clean -into the blackness where, as if it had been waiting for her, the thing -had found her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It had found her. Agatha was precise on that point. She had not found -it. She had not even stumbled on it, blundered up against it in the -blackness. The way it worked, the wonder of her instantaneous -well-being, had been the first, the very first hint she had that it was -there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had never quite recaptured her primal, virgin sense of it; but to -set against that, she had entered more and more into possession. She had -found out the secret of its working and had controlled it, reduced it to -an almost intelligible method. You could think of it as a current of -transcendent power, hitherto mysteriously inhibited. You made the -connection, having cut off all other currents that interfered, and then -you simply turned it on. In other words, if you could put it into words -at all, you shut your eyes and ears, you closed up the sense of touch, -you made everything dark around you and withdrew into your innermost -self; you burrowed deep into the darkness there till you got beyond it; -you tapped the Power, as it were, underground at any point you pleased -and turned it on in any direction.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She could turn it on to Harding Powell without any loss to Rodney -Lanyon; for it was immeasurable, inexhaustible.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She looked back at the farm-house with its veiled windows. Formless and -immense, the shadow of Harding Powell swayed uneasily on one of the -yellow blinds. Across the field her own house showed pure and dim -against the darkening slope behind it, showed washed and watered white -in the liquid, lucid twilight. Her house was open always and on every -side; it flung out its casement arms to the night and to the day. And -now all the lamps were lit, every doorway was a golden shaft, every -window a golden square; the whiteness of its walls quivered and the -blurred edges flowed into the dark of the garden. It was the fragile -shell of a sacred and a burning light.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She did not go in all at once. She crossed the river and went up the -hill through the beech-wood. She walked there every evening in the -darkness, calling her thoughts home to sleep. The Easter moon, -golden-white and holy, looked down at her, shrined under the long, sharp -arch of the beech-trees; it was like going up and up towards a dim -sanctuary where the holiest sat enshrined. A sense of consecration was -upon her. It came, solemn and pure and still, out of the tumult of her -tenderness and pity; but it was too awful for pity and for tenderness; -it aspired like a flame and lost itself in light; it grew like a wave -till it was vaster than any tenderness or any pity. It was as if her -heart rose on the swell of it and was carried away into a rhythm so -tremendous that her own pulses of compassion were no longer felt, or -felt only as the hushed and delicate vibration of the wave. She -recognized her state. It was the blessed state desired as the condition -of the working of the gift.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She turned when the last arch of the beech-trees broke and opened to the -sky at the top of the hill, where the moon hung in immensity, free of -her hill, free of the shrine that held her. She went down with slow soft -footsteps as if she carried herself, her whole fragile being, as a -vessel, a crystal vessel for the holy thing, and was careful lest a -touch of the earth should jar and break her.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>IV</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>She went still more gently and with -half-shut eyes through her illuminated house. She turned the lights out -in her room and undressed herself in the darkness. She laid herself on -the bed with straight lax limbs, with arms held apart a little from her -body, with eyelids shut lightly on her eyes; all fleshly contacts were -diminished.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was now as if her being drank at every pore the swimming darkness; as -if the rhythm of her heart and of her breath had ceased in the pulse of -its invasion. She sank in it and was covered with wave upon wave of -darkness. She sank and was upheld; she dissolved and was gathered -together again, a flawless crystal. She was herself the heart of the -charmed circle, poised in the ultimate unspeakable stillness, beyond -death, beyond birth, beyond the movement, the vehemence, the agitations -of the world. She drew Harding Powell into it and held him there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>To draw him to any purpose she had first to loosen and destroy the -fleshly, sinister image of him that, for the moment of evocation, hung -like a picture on the darkness. In a moment the fleshly image receded, -it sank back into the darkness. His name, Harding Powell, was now the -only earthly sign of him that she suffered to appear. In the third -moment his name was blotted out. And then it was as if she drew him by -intangible, supersensible threads; she touched, with no sense of peril, -his innermost essence; the walls of flesh were down between them; she -had got at him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And having got at him she held him, a bloodless spirit, a bodiless -essence, in the fount of healing. She said to herself, “He will sleep -now. He will sleep. He will sleep.” And as she slid into her own sleep -she held and drew him with her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He would sleep; he would be all right as long as <i>she</i> slept. Her -sleep, she had discovered, did more than carry on the amazing act of -communion and redemption. It clinched it. It was the seal on the bond.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Early the next morning she went over to the Farm. The blinds were up; -the doors and windows were flung open. Milly met her at the garden gate. -She stopped her and walked a little way with her across the field. -“It’s worked,” she said. “It’s worked after all, like -magic.” For a moment Agatha wondered whether Milly had guessed -anything; whether she divined the Secret and had brought him there for -that, and had refused to acknowledge it before she knew.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What has?” she asked.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The plan. The place. He slept last night. Ten hours straight on end. -I know, for I stayed awake and watched him. And this morning—oh, my -dear, if you could see him! He’s all right. He’s all right.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And you think,” said Agatha, “it’s the place?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly knew nothing, guessed, divined nothing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, what else can it be?” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What does <i>he</i> think?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He doesn’t think. He can’t account for it. He says himself it’s -miraculous.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Perhaps,” said Agatha, “it is.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>They were silent a moment over the wonder of it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t get over it,” said Milly presently. “It’s so odd that -it should make all that difference. I could understand it if it had -worked that way at first. But it didn’t. Think of him yesterday. And -yet—if it isn’t the place, what is it? What is it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha did not answer. She wasn’t going to tell Milly what it was. If -she did, Milly wouldn’t believe her, and Milly’s unbelief might work -against it. It might prove, for all she knew, an inimical, disastrous -power.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Come and see for yourself.” Milly spoke as if it had been Agatha -who doubted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They turned again towards the house. Powell had come out and was in the -garden, leaning on the gate. They could see how right he was by the mere -fact of his being there, presenting himself like that to the vivid -light.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He opened the gate for them, raising his hat and smiling as they came. -His face witnessed to the wonder worked on him. The colour showed clean, -purged of his taint. His eyes were candid and pure under brows smoothed -by sleep.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As they went in he stood for a moment in the open doorway and looked at -the view, admiring the river and the green valley and the bare upland -fields under the wood. He had always had (it was part of his rare -quality) a prodigious capacity for admiration.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My God,” he said, “how beautiful the world is!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He looked at Milly. “And all that isn’t a patch on my wife.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He looked at her with tenderness and admiration, and the look was the -flower, the perfection of his sanity.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly drew in her breath with a little sound like a sob. Her joy was so -great that it was almost unbearable.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then he looked at Agatha and admired the green gown she wore. “You -don’t know,” he said, “how exquisitely right you are.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She smiled. She knew how exquisitely right <i>he</i> was.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>V</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>Night after night, she continued and -without an effort. It was as easy as drawing your breath; it was indeed -the breath you drew. She found that she had no longer to devote hours to -Harding Powell, any more than she gave hours to Rodney; she could do -his business in moments, in points of inappreciable time. It was as if -from night to night the times swung together and made one enduring -timeless time. For the process belonged to a region that was not of -times or time.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She wasn’t afraid, then, of not giving enough time to it, but she -<i>was</i> afraid of omitting it altogether. She knew that every -intermission would be followed by a relapse, and Harding’s state did -not admit of any relapses.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Of course, if time <i>had</i> counted, if the thing was measurable, she -would have been afraid of losing hold of Rodney Lanyon. She held him now -by a single slender thread, and the thread was Bella. She “worked” -it regularly now through Bella. He was bound to be all right as long as -Bella was; for his possibilities of suffering were thus cut off at their -source. Besides, it was the only way to preserve the purity of her -intention, the flawlessness of the crystal.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was the blessedness of her attitude to Harding Powell. It was -passionless, impersonal. She wanted nothing of Harding Powell except to -help him, and to help Milly, dear little Milly. And never before had she -been given so complete, so overwhelming a sense of having helped. It was -nothing—unless it was a safeguard against vanity—that they didn’t -know it, that they persisted in thinking it was Milly’s plan that -worked. Not that that altogether accounted for it to Harding Powell. He -said so at last to Agatha.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They were returning, he and she, by the edge of the wood at the top of -the steep field after a long walk. He had asked her to go with him—it -was her country—for a good stretch, further than Milly’s little feet -could carry her. They stood a moment up there and looked around them. -April was coming on, but the ploughed land at their feet was still bare; -the earth waited. On that side of the -valley she was delicately unfruitful, spent with rearing the fine, thin -beauty of the woods. But, down below, the valley ran over with young -grass and poured it to the river in wave after wave, till the last surge -of green rounded over the water’s edge. Rain had fallen in the night, -and the river had risen; it rested there, poised. It was wonderful how a -thing so brimming, so shining, so alive could be so still; still as -marsh water, flat to the flat land.</p> - -<div id='i090' class='figcenter id014'> -<img src='images/i090.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>... he stood for a moment in the open doorway ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>At that moment, in a flash that came like a shifting of her eyes, the -world she looked at suffered a change.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And yet it did not change. All the appearances of things, their colours, -the movement and the stillness remained as if constant in their rhythm -and their scale; but they were heightened, intensified; they were -carried to a pitch that would have been vehement, vibrant, but that the -stillness as well as the movement was intense. She was not dazzled by it -or confused in any way. Her senses were exalted, adjusted to the pitch.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She would have said now that the earth at her feet had become -insubstantial, but that she knew, in a flash, that what she saw was the -very substance of the visible world; live and subtle as flame; solid as -crystal and as clean. It was the same world, flat field for flat field -and hill for hill; but radiant, vibrant, and, as it were, infinitely -transparent.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha in her moment saw that the whole world brimmed and shone and was -alive with the joy that was its life, joy that flowed flood-high and yet -was still. In every leaf, in every blade of grass, this life was -manifest as a strange, a divine translucence. She was about to point it -out to the man at her side when she remembered that he had eyes for the -beauty of the earth, but no sense of its secret and supernatural light. -Harding Powell denied, he always had denied, the supernatural. And when -she turned to him her vision had passed from her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They must have another tramp some day, he said. He wanted to see more of -this wonderful place. And then he spoke of his recovery.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s all very well,” he said, “but I can’t account for it. -Milly says it’s the place.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It <i>is</i> a wonderful place,” said Agatha.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Not so wonderful as all that. You saw how I was the day after we -came. Well—it can’t be the place altogether.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I rather hope it isn’t,” Agatha said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you? What do you think it is, then?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think it’s something in you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course, of course. But what started it? That’s what I want to -know. Something’s happened. Something queer and spontaneous and -unaccountable. It’s—it’s uncanny. For, you know, I oughtn’t to -feel like this. I got bad news this morning.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Bad news?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. My sister’s little girl is very ill. They think it’s -meningitis. They’re in awful trouble. And I—I’m feeling like -this.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Don’t let it distress you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It doesn’t distress me. It only puzzles me. That’s the odd thing. -Of course, I’m sorry, and I’m anxious and all that; but I <i>feel</i> -so well.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You <i>are</i> well. Don’t be morbid.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I haven’t told my wife yet. About the child, I mean. I simply -daren’t. It’ll frighten her. She won’t know how I’ll take it, -and she’ll think it’ll make me go all queer again.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He paused and turned to her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I say, if she <i>did</i> know how I’m taking it, she’d think -<i>that</i> awfully queer, wouldn’t she?” He paused.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The worst of it is,” he said, “I’ve got to tell her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Will you leave it to me?” Agatha said. “I think I can make it -all right.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How?” he queried.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Never mind how. I can.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” he assented, “there’s hardly anything you can’t do.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was how she came to tell Milly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She made up her mind to tell her that evening as they sat alone in -Agatha’s house. “Harding,” Milly said, “was happy over there -with his books; just as he used to be, only more so.” So much more -so that she was a little disturbed about it. She was afraid it -wouldn’t last. And again she said it was the place, the wonderful -place.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If you want it to last,” Agatha said, “don’t go on thinking it’s -the place.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why shouldn’t it be? I feel that he’s safe here. He’s out of -it. Things can’t reach him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Bad news reached him to-day.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aggy—what?” Milly whispered in her fright.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“His sister is very anxious about her little girl.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What’s wrong?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha repeated what she had heard from Harding Powell.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh—” Milly was dumb for an instant while she thought of her -sister-in-law. Then she cried aloud:</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If the child dies, it’ll make him ill again?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, Milly, it won’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It will, I tell you. It’s always been that sort of thing that does -it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And supposing there was something that keeps it off?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What is there? What is there?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I believe there’s something. Would you mind awfully if it wasn’t -the place?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What do you mean, Agatha?” (There was a faint resentment in -Milly’s agonized tone.)</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was then that Agatha told her. She made it out for her as far as she -had made it out at all, with the diffidence that a decent attitude -required.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly raised doubts which subsided in a kind of awe when Agatha faced -her with the evidence of dates.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You remember, Milly, the night when he slept?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I do remember. He said himself it was miraculous.” She meditated.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And so you think it’s that?” she said presently.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I do indeed. If I dared leave off (I daren’t) you’d see for -yourself.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What do you think you’ve got hold of?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t know yet.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>There was a long, deep silence which Milly broke.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What do you <i>do</i>?” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t do anything. It isn’t me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I see,” said Milly. “I’ve prayed. You didn’t think -I hadn’t?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s not that—not anything <i>you</i> mean by it. And yet it is; -only it’s more, much more. I can’t explain it. I only know it -isn’t me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable about having told her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And, Milly, you mustn’t tell him. Promise me you won’t tell him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, I won’t tell him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because, you see, he’d think it was all rot.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He would,” said Milly. “It’s the sort of thing he does think -rot.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And that might prevent its working.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly smiled faintly. “I haven’t the ghost of an idea what ‘it’ is. -But whatever it is, can you go on doing it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, I think so. You see, it depends rather—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It depends on what?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, on a lot of things—on your sincerity; on your—your purity. -It depends so much on <i>that</i> that it frightens you, lest, perhaps, -you mightn’t, after all be so very pure.” Milly smiled again a -little differently. “Darling, if that’s all, I’m not frightened. -Only—supposing—supposing you gave out? You might, you know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>I</i> might. But It couldn’t. You mustn’t think it’s me, Milly. -Because if anything happened to me, if I did give out, don’t you see -how it would let him down? It’s as bad as thinking it’s the place.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Does it matter what it is—or who it is,” said Milly passionately; -“as long as—” Her tears came and stopped her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha divined the source of Milly’s passion.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then you don’t mind, Milly? You’ll let me go on?” Milly rose; -she turned abruptly, holding her head high, so that she might not spill -her tears.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha went with her over the grey field towards the farm. They paused -at the gate. Milly spoke.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Are you sure?” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Certain.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And you won’t let go?” Her eyes shone towards her friend’s in -the twilight. “You <i>will</i> go on?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>You</i> must go on.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ah—how?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Believing that he’ll be all right.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Aggy, he was devoted to Winny. And if the child dies—”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>VI</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>The child died three days later. Milly came over to Agatha with -the news.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She said it had been an awful shock, of course. She’d been dreading -something like that for him. But he’d taken it wonderfully. If he came -out of it all right, she <i>would</i> believe in what she called -Agatha’s “thing.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He did come out of it all right. His behaviour was the crowning proof, -if Milly wanted more proof, of his sanity. He went up to London and made -still the arrangements for his sister. When he returned he forestalled -Milly’s specious consolations with the truth. It was better, he told -her, that the dear little girl should have died, for there was distinct -brain trouble anyway. He took it as a sane man takes a terrible -alternative.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Weeks passed. He had grown accustomed to his own sanity and no longer -marvelled at it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And still, without intermission, Agatha went on. She had been so far -affected by Milly’s fright (that was the worst of Milly’s knowing) -that she held on to Harding Powell with a slightly exaggerated -intensity. She even began to give more and more time to him, she who had -made out that time in this process did not matter. She was afraid of -letting go, because the consequences (Milly was perpetually reminding -her of the consequences) of letting go would be awful.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For Milly kept her at it. Milly urged her on. Milly, in Milly’s own -words, sustained her. She praised her; she praised the Secret, praised -the Power. She said you could see how it worked. It was tremendous; it -was inexhaustible. Milly, familiarized with its working, had become a -fanatical believer in the Power. But she had her own theory. She -knew, of course, that they were all, she and Agatha and poor Harding, -dependent on the Power, that it was the Power that did it, and not -Agatha. But Agatha was <i>their</i> one link with it, and if the -link gave way where were they? Agatha felt that Milly watched her and -waylaid her; that she was suspicious of failures and of intermissions; -that she wondered; that she peered and pried. Milly would, if she -could, have stuck her fingers into what she called the machinery of the -thing. Its vagueness baffled and even annoyed her, for her mind was -limited; it loved and was at home with limits; it desired above all -things precise ideas, names, phrases, anything that constricted and -defined.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id015'> -<img src='images/i098.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>But still, with it all, she believed; and the great thing was that -Milly <i>should</i> believe. She might have worked havoc if, with her -temperament, she had doubted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>What did suffer was the fine poise with which she, Agatha, had held -Rodney Lanyon and Harding Powell each by his own thread. Milly had -compelled her to spin a stronger thread for Harding and, as it were, to -multiply her threads, so as to hold him at all points. And because of -this, because of giving more and more time to him, she could not always -loose him from her and let him go. And she was afraid lest the pull he -had on her might weaken Rodney’s thread.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Up till now, the Powells’ third week at Sarratt End, she had had the -assurance that his thread still held. She heard from him that Bella was -all right, which meant that he too was all right, for there had never -been anything wrong with him <i>but</i> Bella. And she had a further -glimpse of the way the gift worked its wonders.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Three Fridays had passed, and he had not come.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well—she had meant that; she had tried (on that last Friday of his), -with a crystal sincerity, to hold him back so that he should not come. -And up till now, with an ease that simply amazed her, she had kept -herself at the highest pitch of her sincere and beautiful intention.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Not that it was the intention that had failed her now. It had succeeded -so beautifully, so perfectly, that he had no need to come at all. She -had given Bella back to him. She had given him back to Bella. Only, she -faced the full perfection of her work. She had brought it to so fine a -point that she would never see him again; she had gone to the root of -it; she had taken from him the desire to see her. And now it was as if -subtly, insidiously, her relation to him had become inverted. Whereas -hitherto it had been she who had been necessary to him, it seemed now -that he was far more, beyond all comparison, more necessary to her. -After all, Rodney had had Bella; and she had nobody but Rodney. He was -the one solitary thing she cared for. And hitherto it had not mattered -so immensely, for all her caring, whether he came to her or not. Seeing -him had been, perhaps, a small mortal joy; but it had not been the -tremendous and essential thing. She had been contented, satisfied beyond -all mortal contentments and satisfactions, with the intangible, -immaterial tie. Now she longed, with an unendurable longing, for his -visible, bodily presence. She had not realized her joy as long as it was -with her; she had refused to acknowledge it because of its mortal -quality, and it had raised no cry that troubled her abiding spiritual -calm. But now that she had put it from her, it thrust itself on her, it -cried, it clung piteously to her and would not let her go. She looked -back to the last year, her year of Fridays, and saw it following her, -following and entreating. She looked forward and she saw Friday after -Friday coming upon her, a procession of pitiless days, trampling it -down, her small, piteous mortal joy, and her mortality rose in her and -revolted. She had been disturbed by what she had called the “lurking -possibilities” in Rodney; they were nothing to the lurking -possibilities in her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There were moments when her desire to see Rodney sickened her with its -importunity. Each time she beat it back, in an instant, to its burrow -below the threshold, and it hid there, it ran underground. There were -ways below the threshold by which desire could get at him. Therefore, -one night—Tuesday of the fourth week—she cut him off. She refused to -hold him even by a thread. It was Bella and Bella only that she held -now.</p> - -<p class='c005'>On Friday of that week she heard from him. Bella was still all right. -But <i>he</i> wasn’t. Anything but. He didn’t know what was the -matter with him. He supposed it was the same old thing again. He -couldn’t think how poor Bella stood him, but she did. It must be -awfully bad for her. It was beastly—wasn’t it?—that he should have -got like that, just when Bella was so well.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She might have known it. She had, in fact, known. Having once held him, -and having healed him, she had no right—as long as the Power consented -to work through her—she had no right to let him go.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She began again from the beginning, from the first process of -purification and surrender. But what followed was different now. She had -not only to recapture the crystal serenity, the holiness of that state -by which she had held Rodney Lanyon and had healed him; she had to -recover the poise by which she had held him and Harding Powell together. -She was bound equally not to let Harding go.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was now almost a struggle to concentrate on both Rodney and Harding, -a struggle in which Harding persisted and prevailed. Yes, there was no -blinking it, he prevailed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had been prepared for it, but not as for a thing that could really -happen. It was contrary to all that she knew of the beneficent working -of the Power. She thought she knew all its ways, its silences, its -reassurances, its inexplicable reservations and evasions. She couldn’t -be prepared for this—that it, the high and holy, the unspeakably pure -thing should allow Harding to prevail, should connive (that was what it -looked like) at his taking the gift into his own hands and turning it to -his own advantage against Rodney Lanyon.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Not that she thought it really had connived. That was unthinkable, and -Agatha did not think these things; she felt them. Hitherto she had had -no misgivings as to the possible behaviour of the Power. And now she was -afraid, not of It, and not, certainly not, of poor Harding (how could -she be afraid of him?); she was afraid mysteriously, without knowing why -or how.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was her fear that made her write to Rodney Lanyon. She wrote in the -beginning of the fifth week (she was counting the weeks now). She only -wanted to know, she said, that he was better, that he was well. She -begged him to write and tell her that he was well.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He did not write.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And every night of that week, in those “states” of hers, -Powell predominated. He was becoming almost a visible presence impressed -upon the blackness of the “state.” All she could do then was to -evoke the visible image of Rodney Lanyon and place it there over -Harding’s image, obliterating him. Now, properly speaking, the state, -the perfection of it, did not admit of visible presences, and that -Harding could so impress himself showed more than anything the extent to -which he had prevailed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He prevailed to such good purpose that he was now, Milly said, well -enough to go back to business. They were to leave Sarratt End in about -ten days, when they would have been there seven weeks.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had come over on the Sunday to let Agatha know that; and also, she -said, to make a confession.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly’s face, as she said it, was all candour. It had filled out; it -had bloomed in her happiness; it was shadowless, featureless almost, -like a flower.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had done what she said she wouldn’t do; she had told Harding.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Milly, what on earth did you do that for?” Agatha’s voice -was strange.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I thought it better,” Milly said, revealing the fine complacence of -her character.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why better?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because secrecy is bad. And he was beginning to wonder. He wanted to -go back to business; and he wouldn’t, because he thought it was the -place that did it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I see,” said Agatha. “And what does he think it is now?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He thinks it’s <i>you</i>, dear.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But I told you—I told you—that was what you were not to think.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear, it’s an immense concession that he should think it’s -you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“A concession to what?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, I suppose, to the supernatural.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Milly, you shouldn’t have told him. You don’t know what harm you -might have done. I’m not sure even now that you haven’t done it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, have I?” said Milly triumphantly. “You’ve only got to -look at him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“When did you tell him, then?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I told him—let me see—it was a week ago last Friday.” Agatha -was silent. She wondered. It had been after Friday a week ago that he -had prevailed so terribly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Agatha,” said Milly solemnly, “when we go away you won’t lose -sight of him? You won’t let go of him?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You needn’t be afraid. I doubt now if he will let go of me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How do you mean—<i>now</i>?” Milly flushed slightly as a -flower might flush.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now that you’ve told him, now that he thinks it’s me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Perhaps,” said Milly, “that was why I told him. I don’t -want him to let go.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>VII</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>It was the -sixth week, and still Rodney did not write; and Agatha was more and -more afraid.</p> - -<p class='c005'>By this time she had definitely connected her fear with Harding -Powell’s dominion and persistence. She was certain now that what she -could only call his importunity had proved somehow disastrous to Rodney -Lanyon. And with it all, unacknowledged, beaten back, her desire to see -Rodney ran to and fro in the burrows underground.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He did not write, but on the Friday of that week, the sixth week, he -came.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She saw him coming up the garden path, and she shrank back into her room -but the light searched her and found her, and he saw her there. He -never knocked; he came straight and swiftly to her through the open -doors. He shut the door of the room behind him and held her by her arms -with both his hands.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Rodney,” she said, “did you mean to come, or did I make you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I meant to come. You couldn’t make me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Couldn’t I? Oh, <i>say</i> I couldn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You could,” he said, “but you didn’t. And what does it matter -so long as I’m here?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Let me look at you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She held him at arm’s length and turned him to the light. It showed -his face white, worn as it used to be, all the little lines of worry -back again, and two new ones that drew down the corners of his mouth.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’ve been ill,” she said. “You <i>are</i> ill.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. I’m all right. What’s the matter with <i>you?</i>”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“With me? Nothing. Do I look as if anything was wrong?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You look as if you’d been frightened.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He paused, considering it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“This place isn’t good for you. You oughtn’t to be here like this, -all by yourself.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh! Rodney, it’s the dearest place. I love every inch of it. -Besides, I’m not altogether by myself.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He did not seem to hear her; and what he said next arose evidently out -of his own thoughts.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I say, are those Powells still here?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They’ve been here all the time.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you see much of them?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I see them every day. Sometimes nearly all day.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That accounts for it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Again he paused.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s my fault, Agatha. I shouldn’t have left you to them. I -knew.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What did you know?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well—the state he was in, and the effect it would have on -you—that it would have on anybody.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s all right. He’s going. Besides, he isn’t in a state any -more. He’s cured.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Cured? What’s cured him?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She evaded him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He’s been well ever since he came; absolutely well after the first -day.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Still, you’ve been frightened; you’ve been worrying; you’ve -had some shock or other, or some strain. What is it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nothing. Only—just the last week—I’ve been a little frightened -about you—when you wouldn’t write to me. Why didn’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because I couldn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then you <i>were</i> ill?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m all right. I know what’s the matter with me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s Bella?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He laughed harshly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, it isn’t this time. I haven’t that excuse.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Excuse for what?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“For coming. Bella’s all right. Bella’s a perfect angel. God knows -what’s happened to her. I don’t. I haven’t had anything to do with -it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You had. You had everything. You were an angel too.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I haven’t been much of an angel lately, I can tell you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She’ll understand. She does understand.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>They had sat down on the couch in the corner so that they faced each -other. Agatha faced him, but fear was in her eyes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It doesn’t matter,” he said, “whether she understands or -not. I don’t want to talk about her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha said nothing, but there was a movement in her face, a white wave -of trouble, and the fear fluttered in her eyes. He saw it there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You needn’t bother about Bella. She’s all right. You see, it’s -not as if she cared.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Cared?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“About <i>me</i> much.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But she does, she does care!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I suppose she did once, or she couldn’t have married me. But she -doesn’t now. You see—you may as well know it, Agatha—there’s -another man.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Rodney, no.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. It’s been perfectly all right, you know; but there he is, and -there he’s been for years. She told me. I’m awfully sorry for -her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He paused.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What beats me is her being so angelic now, when she doesn’t care.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Rodney, she does. It’s all over, like an illness. It’s you -she cares for <i>now</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Think so?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m sure of it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m not.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You will be. You’ll see it. You’ll see it soon.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He glanced at her under his bent brows.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t know,” he said, “that I want to see it. <i>That</i> isn’t what’s -the matter with me. You don’t understand the situation. It isn’t all -over. She’s only being good about it. She doesn’t care a rap about -me. She <i>can’t</i>. And what’s more, I don’t want her to.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id016'> -<img src='images/i107.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“You—don’t—want her to?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He burst out. “My God, I want nothing in this world but <i>you</i>. And I can’t have you. That’s what’s the matter with me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, no, it isn’t,” she cried. “You don’t know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I do know. It’s hurting me. And”—he looked at her and his -voice shook—“it’s hurting you. I won’t have you hurt.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He started forward suddenly as if he would have taken her in his arms. -She put up her hands to keep him off.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, no!” she cried. “I’m all right. I’m all right. It -isn’t that. You mustn’t think it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I know it. That’s why I came.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He came near again. He seized her struggling hands.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Agatha, why can’t we? Why shouldn’t we?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, no,” she moaned. “We can’t. We mustn’t. Not <i>that</i> way. -I don’t want it, Rodney, that way.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It shall be any way you like. Only don’t beat me off.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m not—beating—you—off.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She stood up. Her face changed suddenly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Rodney—I forgot. They’re coming.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Who are they?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The Powells. They’re coming to lunch.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Can’t you put them off?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can, but it wouldn’t be very wise, dear. They might think—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Confound them—they <i>would</i> think.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was pulling himself visibly together.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m afraid, Aggy, I ought—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I know—you must. You must go soon.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He looked at his watch.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I must go <i>now</i>, dear. I daren’t stay. It’s dangerous.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I know,” she whispered.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But when is the brute going?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Poor darling, he’s going next week—next Thursday.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well then, I’ll—I’ll—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Please, you must go.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m going.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She held out her hand.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I daren’t touch you,” he whispered. “I’m going now. But -I’ll come again next Friday, and I’ll stay.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>As she saw his drawn face, there was not any strength in her to say -“No.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>VIII</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>He had gone. She -gathered herself together and went across the field to meet the Powells -as if nothing had happened.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly and her husband were standing at the gate of the Farm. They were -watching; yes, they were watching Rodney Lanyon as he crossed the river -by the Farm bridge. The bridge carried the field path that slanted up -the hill to the farther and western end of the wood. Their attitude -showed that they were interested in his brief appearance on the scene, -and that they wondered what he had been doing there. And as she -approached them she was aware of something cold, ominous and inimical, -that came from them, and set towards her and passed by. Her sense of it -only lasted for a second, and was gone so completely that she could -hardly realize that she had ever felt it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For they were charming to her. Harding, indeed, was more perfect in his -beautiful quality than ever. There was something about him that she had -not been prepared for, something strange and pathetic, humble almost and -appealing. She saw it in his eyes, his large, dark, wild animal eyes, -chiefly. But it was a look that claimed as much as it deprecated; that -assumed between them some unspoken communion and understanding. With all -its pathos it was a look that frightened her. Neither he nor his wife -said a word about Rodney Lanyon. She was not even sure, now, that they -had recognized him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They stayed with her all that afternoon; for their time, they said, was -getting short; and when, about six o’clock, Milly got up to go she took -Agatha aside and said that, if Agatha didn’t mind, she would leave -Harding with her for a little while. She knew he wanted to talk to her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha proposed that they should walk up the hill through the wood. They -went in a curious silence and constraint; and it was not until they had -got into the wood and were shut up in it together that he spoke.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think my wife told you I had something to say to you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, Harding,” she said. “What is it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, it’s this—first of all, I want to thank you. I know what -you’re doing for me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to know. I thought Milly wasn’t -going to tell you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She didn’t tell me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha said nothing. She was bound to accept his statement. Of course, -he must have known that Milly had broken her word, and he was trying to -shield her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I mean,” he went on, “that whether she told me or not, it’s -no matter; I knew.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You—knew?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I knew that something was happening, and I knew it wasn’t the -place. Places never make any difference. I only go to ’em because -Milly thinks they do. Besides, if it came to that, this place—from my -peculiar point of view, mind you—was simply beastly. I couldn’t have -stood another night of it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, the thing went; and I got all right. And the queer -part of it is, I felt as if you were in it somehow, as if you’d done -something. I half hoped you might say something, but you never did.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“One oughtn’t to speak about these things, Harding. And I -told you I didn’t want you to know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I didn’t know what you did. I don’t know now, though -Milly tried to tell me. But I felt you. I felt you all the time.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It was not I you felt. I implore you not to think it was.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What can I think?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Think as I do; think—think—” She stopped herself. She was -aware of the futility of her charge to this man who denied, who always -had denied, the supernatural. “It isn’t a question of thinking,” -she said at last.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of believing, then? Are you going to tell me to believe?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No; it isn’t believing either. It’s knowing. Either you know it -or you don’t know, though you may come to know. But whatever you -think, you mustn’t think it’s me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I rather like to. Why shouldn’t I?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She turned on him her grave white face, and -he noticed a curious expression there as of incipient terror.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because you might do some great harm either to yourself or—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>His delicate, sceptical eyebrows questioned her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Or me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You?” he murmured gently, pitifully almost.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, me. Or even—well, one doesn’t quite know where the harm -might end. If I could only make you take another view. I tried to make -you—to work it that way—so that you might find the secret and do it -for yourself.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t do anything for myself. But, Agatha, I’ll take any view you -like of it, so long as you’ll keep on at me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course I’ll keep on.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>At that he stopped suddenly in his path, and faced her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I say, you know, it isn’t hurting you, is it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She felt herself wince. “Hurting me? How could it hurt me?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Milly said it couldn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha sighed. She said to herself, “Milly—if only Milly -hadn’t interfered.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Don’t you think it’s cold here in the wood?” she -said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Cold?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. Let’s go back.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>As they went Milly met them at the Farm bridge. She wanted Agatha to -come and stay for supper; she pressed, she pleaded, and Agatha, who had -never yet withstood Milly’s pleading, stayed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was from that evening that she really dated it, the thing that came -upon her. She was aware that in staying she disobeyed an instinct that -told her to go home. Otherwise she could not say that she had any sort -of premonition. Supper was laid in the long room with the yellow blinds, -where she had first found Harding Powell. The blinds were drawn -to-night, and the lamp on the table burnt low; the oil was giving out. -The light in the room was still daylight and came level from the -sunset, leaking through the yellow blinds. It struck Agatha that it was -the same light, the same ochreish light that they had found in the room -six weeks ago. But that was nothing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>What it was she did not know. The horrible light went when the flame of -the lamp burnt clearer. Harding was talking to her cheerfully and Milly -was smiling at them both, when half through the meal Agatha got up and -declared that she must go. She was ill; she was tired; they must -forgive her, but she must go.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The Powells rose and stood by her, close to her, in their distress. -Milly brought wine and put it to her lips; but she turned her head away -and whispered: “Please let me go. Let me get away.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Harding wanted to walk back with her, but she refused with a vehemence -that deterred him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How very odd of her,” said Milly, as they stood at the gate and -watched her go. She was walking fast, almost running, with a furtive -step, as if something pursued her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Powell did not speak. He turned from his wife and went slowly back into -the house.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>IX</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>She knew now what had -happened to her. She was afraid of Harding Powell; and it was her fear -that had cried to her to go, to get away from him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The awful thing was that she knew she could not get away from him. She -had only to close her eyes and she would find the visible image of him -hanging before her on the wall of darkness. And to-night, when she tried -to cover it with Rodney’s it was no longer obliterated. Rodney’s -image had worn thin and Harding’s showed through. She was more afraid -of it than she had been of Harding; and more than anything, she was -afraid of being afraid. Harding was the object of a boundless and -indestructible compassion, and her fear of him was hateful to her and -unholy. She knew that it would be terrible to let it follow her into -that darkness where she would presently go down with him alone. “It -would be all right,” she said to herself, “if only I didn’t keep on -seeing him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>But he, his visible image, and her fear of it, persisted even while the -interior darkness, the divine, beneficent darkness rose round her, wave -on wave, and flooded her; even while she held him there and healed him; -even while it still seemed to her that her love pierced through her fear -and gathered to her, spirit to spirit, flame to pine flame, the -nameless, innermost essence of Rodney and of Bella. She had known in the -beginning that it was by love that she held them; but now, though she -loved Rodney and had almost lost her pity for Harding in her fear of -him, it was Harding rather than Rodney that she held.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the morning she woke with a sense, which was almost a memory, of -Harding having been in the room with her all night. She was tired, as if -she had had some long and unrestrained communion with him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She put away at once the fatigue that pressed on her (the gift still -“worked” in a flash for the effacing of bodily sensation). She told -herself that, after all, her fear had done no harm. Seldom in her -experience of the Power had she had so tremendous a sense of having got -through to it, of having “worked” it, of having held Harding -under it and healed him. For, when all was said and done, whether she -had been afraid of him or not, she had held him, she had never once let -go. The proof was that he still went sane, visibly, indubitably cured.</p> - -<p class='c005'>All the same, she felt that she could not go through another day like -yesterday. She could not see him. She wrote a letter to Milly. Since it -concerned Milly so profoundly, it was well that Milly should be made to -understand. She hoped that Milly would forgive her if they didn’t see -her for the next day or two. If she was to go on (she underlined it) she -must be left absolutely alone. It seemed unkind when they were going so -soon, but—Milly knew—it was impossible to exaggerate the importance -of what she had to do.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly wrote back that, of course, she understood. It should be as Agatha -wished. Only (so Milly “sustained” her) Agatha must not allow -herself to doubt the Power. How could she, when she saw what it had done -for Harding? If <i>she</i> doubted, what could she expect of Harding? -But, of course, she must take care of her own dear self. If she -failed—if she gave way—what on earth would the poor darling do, now -that he had become dependent on her?</p> - -<p class='c005'>She wrote as if it was Agatha’s fault that he had become dependent; as -if Agatha had nothing, had nobody in the world to think of but Harding; -as if nobody, as if nothing in the world beside Harding mattered. And -Agatha found herself resenting Milly’s view. As if to her anything in -the world mattered beside Rodney Lanyon.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For three days she did not see the Powells.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>X</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>The three nights passed as before, but with -an increasing struggle and fear.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She knew, she knew what was happening. It was as if the walls of -personality were wearing thin, and through them she felt him trying to -get at her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She put the thought from her. It was absurd. It was insane. Such things -could not be. It was not in any region of such happenings that she held -him, but in the place of peace, the charmed circle, the flawless crystal -sphere.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Still the thought persisted; and still, in spite of it, she held him, -she would not let him go. By her honour and by her love for Milly she -was bound to hold him, even though she knew how terribly, how implacably -he prevailed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was aware now that the persistence of his image on the blackness was -only a sign to her of his being there in his substance; in his supreme -innermost essence. It had obviously no relation to his bodily -appearance, since she had not seen him for three days. It tended more -and more to vanish, to give place to the shapeless, nameless, -all-pervading presence. And her fear of him became pervading, nameless -and shapeless too.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Somehow it was always behind her now, it followed her from room to room -of her house; it drove her out of doors. It seemed to her that she went -before it with quick, uncertain feet and a fluttering heart, aimless and -tormented as a leaf driven by a vague light wind. Sometimes it sent her -up the field towards the wood; sometimes it would compel her to go a -little way towards the Farm; and then it was as if it took her by the -shoulders and turned her back again towards her house.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id017'> -<img src='images/i116.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>On the fourth day (which was Tuesday of the Powells’ last week) she -determined to fight this fear. She could not defy it to the extent of -going on to the Farm where she might see Harding, but certainly she -would not suffer it to turn her from her hill-top. It -was there that she had always gone as the night fell, calling home her -thoughts to sleep; and it was there, seven weeks ago, that the moon, the -golden-white and holy moon, had led her to the consecration of her gift. -She had returned softly, seven weeks ago, carrying carefully her gift, -as a fragile, flawless crystal. Since then how recklessly she had held -it! To what jars and risks she had exposed the exquisite and sacred -thing!</p> - -<p class='c005'>She waited for her hour between sunset and twilight. It was perfect, -following a perfect day. Above the wood the sky had a violet lucidity, -purer than the day; below it, the pale brown earth wore a violet haze, -and over that a web of green, woven of the sparse, thin blades of the -young wheat. There were two ways up the hill; one over her own bridge -across the river, that led her to the steep, straight path through the -wood; one over the Farm bridge by the slanting path up the field. She -chose the wood.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She paused on the bridge, and looked down the valley. She saw the -farm-house standing in the stillness that was its own secret and the -hour’s. A strange, pale lamplight, lit too soon, showed in the windows -of the room she knew. The Powells would be sitting there at their -supper.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She went on and came to the gate of the wood. It swung open on its -hinges, a sign to her that some time or other Harding Powell had passed -there. She paused and looked about her. Presently she saw Harding Powell -coming down the wood-path.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He stopped. He had not yet seen her. He was looking up to the arch of -the beech-trees, where the green light still came through. She could see -by his attitude of quiet contemplation the sane and happy creature that -he was. He was sane, she knew. And yet, no; she could not really -see him as sane. It was her sanity, not his own, that he walked in. Or -else what she saw was the empty shell of him. <i>He</i> was in her. -Hitherto it had been in the darkness that she had felt him most, and her -fear of him had been chiefly fear of the invisible Harding, and of what -he might do there in the darkness. Now her fear, which had become almost -hatred, was transferred to his person. In the flesh, as in the spirit, -he was pursuing her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had seen her now. He was making straight for her. And she turned and -ran round the eastern bend of the hill (a yard or so to the left of her) -and hid from him. From where she crouched at the edge of the wood she -saw him descend the lower slope to the river; by standing up and -advancing a little she could see him follow the river path on the nearer -side and cross by the Farm bridge.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was sure of all that. She was sure that it did not take her more -than twelve or fifteen minutes (for she had gone that way a hundred -times) to get back to the gate, to walk up the little wood, to cut -through it by a track in the undergrowth, and turn round the further and -western end of it. Thence she could either take the long path that -slanted across the field to the Farm bridge or keep to the upper ground -along a trail in the grass skirting the wood, and so reach home by the -short, straight path and her own bridge.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She decided on the short, straight path as leading her farther from the -farm-house, where there could be no doubt that Harding -Powell was now. At the point she had reached, the jutting corner of the -wood hid from her the downward slope of the hill, and the flat land at -its foot.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As she turned the corner of the wood, she was brought suddenly in sight -of the valley. A hot wave swept over her brain, so strong that she -staggered as it passed. It was followed by a strange sensation of -physical sickness, that passed also. It was then as if what went through -her had charged her nerves of sight to a pitch of insane and horrible -sensibility. The green of the grass, and of the young corn, the very -colour of life, was violent and frightful. Not only was it abominable in -itself, it was a thing to be shuddered at, because of some still more -abominable significance it had.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha had known once, standing where she stood now, an exaltation of -sense that was ecstasy; when every leaf and every blade of grass shone -with a divine translucence; when every nerve in her thrilled, and her -whole being rang with the joy which is immanent in the life of things.</p> - -<p class='c005'>What she experienced now (if she could have given any account of it) was -exaltation at the other end of the scale. It was horror and fear -unspeakable. Horror and fear immanent in the life of things. She saw the -world in a loathsome transparency; she saw it with the eye of a soul in -which no sense of the divine had ever been, of a soul that denied the -supernatural. It had been Harding Powell’s soul, and it had become -hers.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Furiously, implacably, he was getting at her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Out of the wood and the hedges that bordered it there came sounds that -were horrible, because she knew them to be inaudible to any ear less -charged with insanity; small sounds of movement, of strange shiverings, -swarmings, crepitations; sounds of incessant, infinitely subtle urging, -of agony and recoil. Sounds they were of the invisible things unborn, -driven towards birth; sounds of the worm unborn, of things that creep -and writhe towards dissolution. She knew what she heard and saw. She -heard the stirring of the corruption that Life was; the young blades of -corn were frightful to her, for in them was the push, the passion of the -evil which was Life; the trees, as they stretched out their arms and -threatened her, were frightful with the terror which was Life. Down -there, in that gross green hot-bed, the earth teemed with the -abomination; and the river, livid, white, a monstrous thing, crawled, -dragging with it the very slime.</p> - -<p class='c005'>All this she perceived in a flash, when she had turned the corner. It -sank into stillness and grew dim; she was aware of it only as the scene, the -region in which one thing, her terror, moved and hunted her. Among -sounds of the rustling of leaves, and the soft crush of grass, and the -whining of little wings in fright, she heard it go; it went on the -other side of the hedge, a little way behind her as she skirted the -wood. She stood still to let it pass her, and she felt that it passed, -and that it stopped and waited. A terrified bird flew out of the hedge, -no further than a fledgling’s flight in front of her. And in that -place it flew from she saw Harding Powell.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was crouching under the hedge as she had crouched when she had hidden -from him. His face was horrible, but not more horrible than the Terror -that had gone behind her; and she heard herself crying out to him: -“Harding! Harding!” appealing to him against the implacable, unseen -Pursuer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had risen (she saw him rise), but as she called his name he became -insubstantial, and she saw a Thing, a nameless, unnameable, shapeless -Thing, proceeding from him. A brown, blurred Thing, transparent as dusk -is, that drifted on the air. It was torn and tormented, a fragment parted -and flung off from some immense and as yet invisible cloud of horror. It -drifted from her; it dissolved like smoke on the hillside; and the Thing -that had born and begotten it pursued her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She bowed under it, and turned from the edge of the wood, the horrible -place it had been born in; she ran before it, headlong down the field, -trampling the young corn under her feet. As she ran she heard a voice in -the valley, a voice of amazement and entreaty, calling to her in a sort -of song.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What—are—you—running for—Aggy—Aggy?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was Milly’s voice that called.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then as she came, still headlong, to the river, she heard Harding’s -voice saying something, she did not know what. She couldn’t stop to -listen to him, or to consider how he came to be there in the valley, -when a minute ago she had seen him by the edge of the wood, up on the -very top of the hill.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was on the bridge—the Farm bridge—now. He held out his hand to -steady her as she came on over the swinging plank.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She knew that he had led her to the other side, and that he was standing -there, still saying something, and that she answered.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Have you no pity on me? Can’t you let me go?” And then she -broke from him and ran.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>XI</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>She was awake all that night. Harding -Powell and the horror begotten of him had no pity; he would not let her -go. Her gift, her secret, was powerless now against the pursuer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had a light burning in her room till morning, for she was afraid of -sleep. Those unlit roads down which, if she slept, the Thing would -surely hunt her, were ten times more terrible than the white-washed, -familiar room where it merely watched and waited.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the morning she found a letter on her breakfast-table, which she said -Mrs. Powell had left late last evening, after Agatha had gone to bed. -Milly wrote: “Dearest Agatha,— Of course I understand. But are we -<i>never</i> going to see you again? What was the matter with you last -night? You terrified poor Harding.— Yours ever, M. P.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Without knowing why, Agatha tore the letter into bits and burned them in -the flame of a candle. She watched them burn.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course,” she said to herself, “that isn’t sane of me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And when she had gone round her house and shut all the doors and locked -them, and drawn down the blinds in every closed window, and found herself -cowering over her fireless hearth, shuddering with fear, she knew that, -whether she were mad or not, there was madness in her. She knew that her -face in the glass (she had the courage to look at it) was the face of an -insane terror let loose.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That she did know it, that there were moments—flashes—in which she -could contemplate her state and recognize it for what it was, showed -that there was still a trace of sanity in her. It was not her own -madness that possessed her. It was, or rather, it had been, Harding -Powell’s; she had taken it from him. That was what it meant—to take -away madness.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There could be no doubt as to what had happened, nor as to the way of -its happening. The danger of it, utterly unforeseen, was part of the -very operation of the gift. In the process of getting at Harding to heal -him she had had to destroy, not only the barriers of flesh and blood, -but those innermost walls of personality that divide and protect, -mercifully, one spirit from another. With the first thinning of the -walls Harding’s insanity had leaked through to her, with the first -breach it had broken in. It had been transferred to her complete with -all its details, with its very gestures, in all the phases that it ran -through; Harding’s premonitory fears and tremblings; Harding’s -exalted sensibility; Harding’s abominable vision of the world, that -vision from which the resplendent divinity had perished; Harding’s -flight before the pursuing Terror. She was sitting now as Harding had -sat when she found him crouching over the hearth in that horrible room -with the drawn blinds. It seemed to her that to have a madness of your -own would not be so very horrible. It would be, after all, your own. It -could not possibly be one-half so horrible as this, to have somebody -else’s madness put into you.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The one thing by which she knew herself was the desire that no longer -ran underground, but emerged and appeared before her, lit by her lucid -flashes, naked and unshamed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She still knew her own. And there was something in her still that was -greater than the thing that inhabited her, the pursuer, the pursued, who -had rushed into her as his refuge, his sanctuary; and that was her fear -of him and of what he might do there. If her doors stood open to him, -they stood open to Bella and to Rodney Lanyon too. What else had she -been trying for, if it were not to break down in all three of them the -barriers of flesh and blood, and to transmit the Power? In the -unthinkable sacrament to which she called them they had all three -partaken. And since the holy thing could suffer her to be thus -permeated, saturated with Harding Powell, was it to be supposed that she -could keep him to herself, that she would not pass him on to Rodney -Lanyon?</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was not, after all, incredible. If he could get at her, of course he -could get, through her, at Rodney.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was the Terror of terrors, and it was her own. That it could -subsist together with that alien horror, that it remained supreme beside -it, proved that there was still some tract in her where the invader had -not yet penetrated. In her love for Rodney and her fear for him she -entrenched herself against the destroyer. There at least she knew -herself impregnable.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was in such a luminous flash that she saw the thing still in her own -hands, and resolved that it should cease.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She would have to break her word to Milly. She would have to let Harding -go, to loosen deliberately his hold on her and cut him off. It could be -done. She had held him through her gift, and it would be still possible, -through the gift, to let him go. Of course she knew it would be hard.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It <i>was</i> hard. It was terrible; for he clung. She had not counted -on his clinging. It was as if, in their undivided substance, he had had -knowledge of her purpose and had prepared himself to fight it. He hung -on desperately; he refused to yield an inch of the ground he had taken -from her. He was no longer a passive thing in that world where she had -brought him. And he had certain advantages. He had possessed her for -three nights and for three days. She had made herself porous to him; and -her sleep had always been his opportunity.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It took her three nights and three days to cast him out. In the first -night she struggled with him. She lay with all her senses hushed, and -brought the divine darkness round her, but in the darkness she was aware -that she struggled. She could build up the walls between them, but she -knew that as fast as she built them he tore at them and pulled them -down.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She bore herself humbly towards the Power that permitted him. She -conceived of it as holiness—estranged and offended; she pleaded with -it. She could no longer trust her knowledge of its working, but she -tried to come to terms with it. She offered herself as a propitiation, -as a substitute for Rodney Lanyon, if there was no other way by which he -might be saved.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Apparently, that was not the way it worked. Harding seemed to gain. But, -as he kept her awake all night, he had no chance to establish himself, as -he would otherwise have done, in her sleep. The odds between her and her -adversary were even.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The second night <i>she</i> gained. She felt that she had built up her -walls again; that she had cut Harding off. With spiritual pain, with the -tearing of the bonds of compassion, with a supreme agony of rupture, he -parted from her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Possibly the Power was neutral; for in the dawn after the second night -she slept. That sleep left her uncertain of the event. There was no -telling into what unguarded depths it might have carried her. She knew -that she had been free of her adversary before she slept, but the -chances were that he had got at her in her sleep. Since the Power held -the balance even between her and the invader, it would no doubt permit -him to enter by any loophole that he could seize.</p> - -<p class='c005'>On the third night, as it were in the last watch, she surrendered, but -not to Harding Powell.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She could not say how it came to her; she was lying in her bed with her -eyes shut and her arms held apart from her body, diminishing all -contacts, stripping for her long slide into the cleansing darkness, when -she found herself recalling some forgotten, yet inalienable knowledge -that she had. Something said to her: “Do you not remember? There is -no striving and no crying in the world which you would enter. There is -no more appeasing where peace <i>is</i>. You cannot make your own terms -with the high and holy Power. It is not enough to give yourself for -Rodney Lanyon, for he is more to you than you are yourself. Besides, any -substitution of self for self would be useless, for there is no more -self there. That is why the Power cannot work that way. But if it should -require you, here on this side the threshold, to give him up, to give up -your desire of him, what then? Would you loose your hold on him and let -him go?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Would you?” the voice insisted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She heard herself answer from the pure threshold of the darkness: “I -would.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Sleep came on her there; a divine sleep from beyond the threshold; -sacred, inviolate sleep.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was the seal upon the bond.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>XII</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>She woke on Friday morning to a vivid and indestructible certainty of -escape.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But there had been a condition attached to her deliverance; and it was -borne in on her that instead of waiting for the Power to force its terms -on her, she would do well to be beforehand with it. Friday was -Rodney’s day, and this time she knew that he would come. His coming, -of course, was nothing, but he had told her plainly that he would not -go. She must, therefore, wire to him not to come.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In order to do this she had to get up early and walk about a mile to the -nearest village. She took the shortest way, which was by the Farm -bridge, and up the slanting path to the far end of the wood. She knew -vaguely that once, as she turned the corner of the wood, there had been -horrors, and that the divine beauty of green pastures and still waters -had appeared to her as a valley of the shadow of evil, but she had no -more memory of what she had seen than of a foul dream, three nights -dead. She went at first uplifted in the joy of her deliverance, drawing -into her the light and fragrance of the young morning. Then she -remembered Harding Powell. She had noticed as she passed the Farm-house -that the blinds were drawn again in all the windows. That was because -Harding and Milly were gone. She thought of Harding, of Milly, with an -immense tenderness and compassion, but also with lucidity, with sanity. -They had gone—yesterday—and she had not seen them. That could not be -helped. She had done all that was possible. She could not have seen them -as long as the least taint of Harding’s malady remained with her. And -how could she have faced Milly after having broken her word to her?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Not that she regretted even that, the breaking of her word, so sane was -she. She could conceive that, if it had -not been for Rodney Lanyon, she might have had the courage to have gone -on. She might have considered that she was bound to save Harding, even -at the price of her own sanity, since there <i>was</i> her word to Milly. -But it might be questioned whether by holding on to him she would have -kept it, whether she really could have saved him that way. She was no -more than a vehicle, a crystal vessel for the inscrutable and secret -Power, and in destroying her utterly, Harding would have destroyed -himself. You could not transmit the Power through a broken crystal—why, -not even through one that had a flaw.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id018'> -<img src='images/i127.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>There had been a flaw somewhere; so much was certain. And as she -searched now for the flaw, with her luminous sanity, she found it in her -fear. She knew, she had always known, the danger of taking fear, and the -thought of fear with her into that world where to think was to will, and -to will was to create. But for the rest, she had tried to make herself -clear as crystal. And what could she do more than give up Rodney?</p> - -<p class='c005'>As she set her face towards the village, she was sustained by a sacred -ardour, a sacrificial exaltation. But as she turned homewards across the -solitary fields, she realized the sadness, the desolation of the thing -she had accomplished. He would not come. Her message would reach him two -hours before the starting of the train he always came by.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Across the village she saw her white house shining, and the windows of -his room (her study, which was always his room when he came); its -lattices were flung open as if it welcomed him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Something had happened there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her maid was standing by the garden gate, looking for her. As she -approached, the girl came over the field to meet her. She had an air of -warning her, of preparing her for something.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was Mrs. Powell, the maid said. She had come again. She was in there, -waiting for Miss Agatha. She wouldn’t go away; she had gone straight -in. She was in an awful state. The maid thought it was something to do -with Mr. Powell.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They had not gone, then.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If I were you, miss,” the maid was saying, “I wouldn’t see -her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course I shall see her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She went at once into the room where Rodney might have been, where Milly -was. Milly rose from the corner where she sat averted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Agatha,” she said, “I had to come.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha kissed the white, suppliant face that Milly lifted. “I -thought,” she said, “you’d gone—yesterday.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We couldn’t go. He—he’s ill again.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ill?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. Didn’t you see the blinds down as you passed?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I thought it was because you’d gone.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s because that <i>thing’s</i> come back again.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“When did it come, Milly?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s been coming for three days.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha drew in her breath with a pang. It was just three days since she -began to let him go.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly went on. “And now he won’t come out of the house. He says -he’s being hunted. He’s afraid of being seen, being found. He’s in -there—in that room. He made me lock him in.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>They stared at each other and at the horror that their faces took and -gave back each to each.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Aggy—” Milly cried it out in her anguish.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You <i>will</i> help him?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t.” Agatha heard her voice go dry in her throat.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You <i>can’t</i>?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha shook her head.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You mean you haven’t, then?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I haven’t. I couldn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But you told me—you told me you were giving yourself up to it. You -said that was why you couldn’t see us.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It <i>was</i> why. Do sit down, Milly.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>They sat down, still staring at each other. Agatha faced the window, so -that the light ravaged her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly went on. “That was why I left you alone. I thought you were -going on. You said you wouldn’t let him go; you promised me you’d -keep on—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I did keep on, till—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>But Milly had only paused to hold down a sob. Her voice broke out again, -clear, harsh, accusing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What were you doing all that time?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course,” said Agatha, “you’re bound to think I let you -down.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What am I to think?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Milly—I asked you not to think it was me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course I knew it was the Power, not you. But you had hold of it. -You did something. Something that other people can’t do. You did it -for one night, and that night he was well. You kept on for six weeks, -and he was well all that time. You leave off for three days—I know -when you left off—and he’s ill again. And then you tell me it -isn’t you. It <i>is</i> you; and if it’s you, you can’t give him -up. You can’t stand by, Aggy, and refuse to help him. You know what it -was. How can you bear to let him suffer? How can you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can, because I must.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And why must you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly raised her head more in defiance than in supplication.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because—I told you—I might give out. Well—I <i>have</i> given -out.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You told me the Power can’t give out—that you’ve only got to -hold on to it—that it’s no effort. I’m only asking you, Aggy, to -hold on.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You don’t know what you’re asking.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m asking you only to do what you have done, to give five minutes -in the day to him. You said it was enough. Only five minutes. It isn’t -much to ask.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha sighed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What difference could it make to you—five minutes?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You don’t understand,” said Agatha.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I do. I don’t ask you to see him, or to bother with him; only to go -on as you were doing.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You don’t understand. It isn’t possible to explain it. I can’t -go on.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I see. You’re tired, Aggy. Well—not now, not to-day. But later, -when you’re rested, won’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Milly, dear Milly, if I could—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You can. You will. I know you will—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. You must understand it. Never again. Never again.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Never?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Never.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>There was a long silence. At last Milly’s voice crept through, -strained and thin, feebly argumentative, the voice of a thing defeated -and yet unconvinced.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t understand you, Agatha. You say it isn’t you; you say -you’re only a connecting link; that you do nothing; that the Power -that does it is inexhaustible; that there’s nothing it can’t do, -nothing it won’t do for us, and yet you go and cut yourself off from -it—deliberately, from the thing you believe to be divine.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I haven’t cut myself off from it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’ve cut Harding off,” said Milly. “If you refuse to hold -him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That wouldn’t cut him off—from It. But, Milly, holding him was bad; it -wasn’t safe.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It saved him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“All the same, Milly, it wasn’t safe. The thing itself isn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The Power? The divine thing?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. It’s divine and it’s—it’s terrible. It does terrible -things to us.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How could it? If it’s divine, wouldn’t it be compassionate? Do -you suppose it’s less compassionate than—<i>you</i> are? Why, Agatha, -when it’s goodness and purity itself—?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Goodness and purity are terrible. We don’t understand it. It’s -got its own laws. What you call prayer’s all right—it would be safe, -I mean—I suppose it might get answered anyway, however we fell short. -But <i>this</i>—this is different. It’s the highest, Milly; and if -you rush in and make for the highest, can’t you see, oh, can’t you -<i>see</i> how it might break you? Can’t you see what it requires of -<i>you</i>? Absolute purity. I told you, Milly. You have to be crystal to -it—crystal without a flaw.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And—if there were a flaw?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The whole thing, don’t you see, would break down; it would be no -good. In fact, it would be awfully dangerous.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To whom?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To you—to them, the people you’re helping. You make a connection; -you smash down all the walls so that you—you get through to each -other; and supposing there was something wrong with <i>you</i>, and it -doesn’t work any longer (the Power, I mean), don’t you see you might -do harm where you were trying to help?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But—Agatha—there was nothing wrong with you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How do I know? Can anybody be sure there’s nothing wrong with -them?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You think,” said Milly, “there was a flaw somewhere?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There must have been—somewhere—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What was it? Can’t you find out? Can’t you think? Think.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Sometimes—I’ve thought it may have been my fear.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Fear?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, it’s the worst thing. Don’t you remember, I told you not to be -afraid?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But, Agatha, you were <i>not</i> afraid.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I was—afterwards. I got frightened.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>You</i>? And you told <i>me</i> not to be afraid,” said Milly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I had to tell you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And I wasn’t afraid—afterwards. I believed in you. He believed in -you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t. That was just it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That was it? I suppose you’ll say next it was I who frightened -you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>As they faced each other there, Agatha, with the terrible, the almost -supernatural lucidity she had, saw what was making Milly say that. Milly -had been frightened; she felt that she had probably communicated her -fright; she knew that was dangerous, and she knew that if it had done -harm to Harding, she, and not Agatha, would be responsible. And because -she couldn’t face her responsibility, she was trying to fasten upon -Agatha some other fault than fear.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, Milly, I don’t say you frightened me; it was my own fear.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What was there for <i>you</i> to be afraid of?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha was silent. That was what she must never tell her, not even to -make her understand. She did not know what Milly was trying to think of -her; Milly might think what she liked; but she should never know what -her terror had been and her danger.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha’s silence helped Milly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nothing,” she said, “will make me believe it was your fear that -did it. That would never have made you give Harding up. Besides, you -were not afraid at first, though you may have been afterwards.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Afterwards?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was her own word, but it had as yet no significance for her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“After—whatever it was you gave him up for. You gave him up for -something.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I did not. I never gave him up until I was afraid.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You gave It up. You wouldn’t have done that if there had not been -something. Something that stood between.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If,” said Agatha, “you could only tell me what it was.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t tell you. I don’t know what came to you. I only know that if -I’d had a gift like that, I would not have given it up for anything. I -wouldn’t have let anything come between. I’d have kept myself—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I did keep myself—for it. I couldn’t keep myself entirely for -Harding; there were other things, other people. I couldn’t give them -up for Harding or for anybody.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Are you quite sure you kept yourself what you were, Aggy?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What <i>was</i> I?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear—you were absolutely pure. You said <i>that</i> was the -condition.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. And, don’t you see, who <i>is</i> absolutely? If you thought I -was, you didn’t know me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>As she spoke she heard the sharp click of the latch as the garden gate -fell to; she had her back to the window so that she saw nothing, but she -heard footsteps that she knew, resolute and energetic footsteps that -hurried to their end. She felt the red blood surge into her face, and -saw that Milly’s face was white with another passion, and that -Milly’s eyes were fixed on the figure of the man who came up the -garden path. And without looking at her Milly answered:</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t know now; but I think I see, my dear—” In Milly’s pause -the door-bell rang violently. Milly rose and let her have it. “What -the flaw in the crystal was.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>XIII</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>Rodney entered the room, and it was then -that Milly looked at her. Milly’s face was no longer the face of -passion, but of sadness and reproach, almost of recovered incredulity. -It questioned rather than accused her. It said unmistakably, “You gave -him up for <i>that</i>?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Agatha’s voice recalled her. “Milly, I think you know Mr. Lanyon.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Rodney, in acknowledging Milly’s presence, did not look at her. He saw -nothing there but Agatha’s face, which showed him at last the -expression that to his eyes had always been latent in it, the look of -the tragic, hidden soul of terror that he had divined in her. He saw her -at last as he had known he should some day see her. Terror was no longer -there, but it had possessed her; it had passed through her and destroyed -that other look she had from her lifted mouth and hair, the look of a -thing borne on wings. Now, with her wings beaten, with her white face -and haggard eyes, he saw her as a flying thing tracked down and -trampled under the feet of the pursuer. He saw it in one flash as he -stood there holding Milly’s hand.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly’s face had no significance for him. He didn’t see it. When at -last he looked at her his eyes questioned her; they demanded an account -from her of what he saw.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For Agatha, Milly’s face, prepared as it was for leave-taking, -remained charged with meaning; it refused to divest itself of reproach -and of the incredulity that challenged her. Agatha rose to it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’re not going, Milly, just because he’s come? You -needn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Milly <i>was</i> going.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He rose to it also.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If Mrs. Powell <i>would</i> go like that—in that distressing way—she -must at least let him walk back with her. Agatha wouldn’t mind. He -hadn’t seen Mrs. Powell for ages.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had risen to such a height that Milly was bewildered by him. She let -him walk back with her to the Farm and a little way beyond it. Agatha -said good-bye to Milly at the garden gate and watched them go. Then she -went up into her own room.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was gone so long that she thought he was never coming back again. She -didn’t want him to come back just yet, but she knew she was not afraid -to see him. It didn’t occur to her to wonder why, in spite of her -message, he had come, nor why he had come by an earlier train than -usual; she supposed he must have started before her message could have -reached him. All that, his coming or his not coming, mattered so little -now.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For now the whole marvellous thing was clear to her. She knew the secret -of the gift. She saw luminously, almost transparently, the way it -worked. Milly had shown her. Milly knew; Milly had seen; she had put her -finger on the flaw.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was not fear; Milly had been right there too. Until the moment when -Harding Powell had begun to get at her Agatha had never known what fear -felt like. It was the strain of mortality in her love for Rodney; the -hidden thing, unforeseen and unacknowledged, working its work in the -darkness. It had been there all the time, undermining her secret, sacred -places. It had made the first breach through which the fear that was not -<i>her</i> fear had entered. She could tell the very moment when it -happened.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had blamed poor little Milly; but it was the flaw, the flaw that had -given their deadly point to Milly’s interference and Harding’s -importunity. But for the flaw they could not have penetrated her -profound serenity. Her gift might have been trusted to dispose of them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For before that moment the gift had worked indubitably; it had never -missed once. She looked back on its wonders; on the healing of herself; -the first healing of Rodney and Harding Powell; the healing of Bella. It -had worked with a peculiar rhythm of its own, and always in a strict, a -measurable proportion to the purity of her intention. To Harding’s -case she had brought nothing but innocent love and clean compassion; to -Bella’s nothing but a selfless and beneficent desire to help. And -because in Bella’s case at least she had been flawless, of the three, -Bella’s was the only cure that had lasted. It had most marvellously -endured. And because of the flaw in her she had left Harding worse than -she had found him. No wonder that poor Milly had reproached her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It mattered nothing that Milly’s reproaches went too far, that in -Milly’s eyes she stood suspected of material sin (anything short of -the tangible had never been enough for Milly); it mattered nothing that -(though Milly mightn’t believe it) she had sinned only in her thought; -for Agatha, who knew, that was enough; more than enough; it -counted more.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For thought went wider and deeper than any deed; it was of the very -order of the Powers intangible wherewith she had worked. Why, thoughts -unborn and shapeless, that run under the threshold and hide there, -counted more in that world where It, the Unuttered, the Hidden and the -Secret, reigned.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She knew now that her surrender of last night had been the ultimate -deliverance. She was not afraid any more to meet Rodney; for she had -been made pure from desire; she was safeguarded for ever.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had been gone about an hour when she heard him at the gate again and -in the room below.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She went down to him. He came forward to meet her as she entered; he -closed the door behind them; but her eyes held them apart.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Did you not get my wire?” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. I got it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then why—?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why did I come? Because I knew what was happening. I wasn’t going -to leave you here for Powell to terrify you out of your life.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Surely—you thought they’d gone?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I knew they hadn’t or you wouldn’t have wired.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But I would. I’d have wired in any case.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To put me off?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To—put—you—off.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He questioned without divination or forewarning. The veil of flesh was -as yet over his eyes, so that he could not see.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because I didn’t mean that you should come, that you should ever -come again, Rodney.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He smiled.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“So you went back on me, did you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If you call it going back.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She longed for him to see.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That was only because you were frightened,” he said. He turned from -her and paced the room uneasily, as if he saw. Presently he drew up by -the hearth and stood there for a moment, puzzling it out; and she -thought he had seen.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He hadn’t. He faced her with a smile again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But it was no good, dear, was it? As if I wouldn’t know what it -meant. You wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t been ill. You lost -your nerve. No wonder, with those Powells preying on you, body and soul, -for weeks.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, Rodney, no. I didn’t <i>want</i> you to come back. -And I think—now—it would be better if you didn’t stay.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It seemed to her now that perhaps he had seen and was fighting what he -saw.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m not going to stay,” he said, “I am going—in another -hour—to take Powell away somewhere.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He took it up where she had made him leave it. “Then, Agatha, I -shall come back again. I shall come back—let me see—on Sunday.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She swept that aside.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Where are you going to take him?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To a man I know who’ll look after him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Rodney, it’ll break Milly’s heart.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had come, in her agitation, to where he stood. She sat on the couch -by the corner of the hearth, and he looked down at her there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No,” he said, “it won’t. It’ll give him a chance to get all -right. I’ve convinced her it’s the only thing to do. He can’t be -left here for you to look after.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Did she tell you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She wouldn’t have told me a thing if I hadn’t made her. I dragged -it out of her, bit by bit.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Rodney, that was cruel of you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Was it? I don’t care. I’d have done it if she’d bled.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What did she tell you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Pretty nearly everything, I imagine. Quite enough for me to see what, -between them, they’ve been doing to you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Did she tell you <i>how he got well</i>?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He did not answer all at once. It was as if he drew back before the -question, alien and disturbed, shirking the discerned, yet -unintelligible issue.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Did she tell you, Rodney?” Agatha repeated.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, yes. She <i>told</i> me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He seemed to be making, reluctantly, some admission. He sat down beside -her, and his movement had the air of ending the discussion. But he did -not look at her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What do you make of it?” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This time he winced visibly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t make anything. If it happened—if it happened like -<i>that</i>, Agatha—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It did happen.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, I admit it was uncommonly queer.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He left it there and reverted to his theme.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But it’s no wonder—if you sat down to that for six weeks—it’s -no wonder you got scared. It’s inconceivable to me how that woman -could have let you in for him. She knew what he was.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She didn’t know what I was doing till it was done.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She’d no business to let you go on with it when she did know.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ah, but she knew—then—it was all right.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“All right?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Absolutely right. Rodney—” She called to him as if she would compel -him to see it as it was. “I did no more for him than I did for you -and Bella.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He started. “Bella?” he repeated.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He stared at her. He had seen something.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You wondered how she got all right, didn’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He said nothing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That was how.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And still he did not speak. He sat there, leaning forward, staring now -at his own clasped hands. He looked as if he bowed himself before the -irrefutable.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And there was you, too, before that.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I know,” he said then; “I can understand <i>that</i>. But —why -Bella?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because Bella was the only way.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had not followed his thoughts, nor he hers.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The only way?” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To work it. To keep the thing pure. I had to be certain of my motive, -and I knew that if I could give Bella back to you that would prove—to -me, I mean—that it was pure.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But Bella,” he said softly—“Bella. Powell I can -understand—and me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was clear that he could get over all the rest. But he could not get -over Bella. Bella’s case convinced him. Bella’s case could not be -explained away—or set aside. Before Bella’s case he was baffled, -utterly defeated. He faced it with a certain awe.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You were right, after all, about Bella,” he said at last. “And -so was I. She didn’t care for me, as I told you. But she does care -now.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She knew it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That was what I was trying for,” she said. “That was what I -meant.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You meant it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It was the only way. That’s why I didn’t want you to come -back.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He sat silent, taking that in.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Don’t you see now how it works? You have to be pure crystal. -That’s why I didn’t want you to come back.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Obscurely, through the veil of flesh, he saw.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And I am never to come back?” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You will not need to come.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You mean you won’t want me?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. I shall not want you. Because, when I did want you, it broke -down.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He smiled.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I see. When you want me, it breaks down.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He rallied for a moment. He made his one last pitiful stand against the -supernatural thing that was conquering him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had risen to go.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And when <i>I</i> want to come, when I long for you, what then?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>Your</i> longing will make no difference.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She smiled also, as if she foresaw how it would work, and that soon, -very soon, he would cease to long for her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His hand was on the door. He smiled back at her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t want to shake your faith in it,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You can’t shake my faith in It.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Still—it breaks down. It breaks down,” he cried.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Never. You don’t understand,” she said. “It was the flaw in the -crystal.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Soon, very soon he would know it. Already he had shown submission.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had no doubt of the working of the Power. Bella remained as a sign -that it had once been, and that, given the flawless crystal, it should -be again.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='thenat' class='c003'>THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE</h2> -</div> - -<div class='c009'></div> -<div class='imgright c006'> -<img src='images/i145.jpg' alt='' class='c007' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>This is the story Marston -told me. He didn’t want to tell it. I had to tear it from him bit by -bit. I’ve pieced the bits together in their time order, and explained -things here and there, but the facts are the facts he gave me. There’s -nothing that I didn’t get out of him somehow.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Out of <i>him</i>—you’ll admit my -source is unimpeachable. Edward Marston, the great K.C., and the author -of an admirable work on “The Logic of Evidence.” You should have -read the chapters on “What Evidence Is and What It Is Not.” You -may say he lied; but if you knew Marston you’d know he wouldn’t lie, -for the -simple reason that he’s incapable of inventing anything. So that, if -you ask me whether I believe this tale, all I can say is, I believe the -things happened, because he said they happened and because they happened -to him. As for what they <i>were</i>—well, I don’t pretend to -explain it, neither would he.</p> - -<p class='c005'>You know he was married twice. He adored his first wife, Rosamund, and -Rosamund adored him. I suppose they were completely happy. She was -fifteen years younger than he, and beautiful. I wish I could make you -see how beautiful. Her eyes and mouth had the same sort of bow, full and -wide-sweeping, and they stared out of her face with the same grave, -contemplative innocence. Her mouth was finished off at each corner with -the loveliest little moulding, rounded like the pistil of a flower. She -wore her hair in a solid gold fringe over her forehead, like a -child’s, and a big coil at the back. When it was let down it hung in a -heavy cable to her waist. Marston used to tease her about it. She had a -trick of tossing back the rope in the night when it was hot under her, -and it would fall smack across his face and hurt him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>There was a pathos about her that I can’t describe—a curious, pure, -sweet beauty, like a child’s; perfect, and perfectly immature; so -immature that you couldn’t conceive its lasting—like that—any more -than childhood lasts. Marston used to say it made him nervous. He was -afraid of waking up in the morning and finding that it had changed in -the night. And her beauty was so much a part of herself that you -couldn’t think of her without it. Somehow you felt that if it went she -must go too.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well, she went first.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For a year afterwards Marston existed dangerously, always on the edge of -a break-down. If he didn’t go over altogether it was because his work -saved him. He had no consoling theories. He was one of those bigoted -materialists of the nineteenth century type who believe that -consciousness is a purely physiological function, and that when your -body’s dead, <i>you’re</i> dead. He saw no reason to suppose the -contrary. “When you consider,” he used to say, “the nature of -the evidence!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It’s as well to bear this in mind, so as to realize that he hadn’t -any bias or anticipation. Rosamund survived for him only in his memory. -And in his memory he was still in love with her. At the same time he -used to discuss quite cynically the chances of his marrying again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It seems that in their honeymoon they had gone into that. Rosamund said -she hated to think of his being lonely and miserable, supposing she died -before he did. She would like him to marry again. If, she stipulated, he -married the right woman.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had put it to her: “And if I marry the wrong one?” And she -had said, That would be different. She couldn’t bear that.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He remembered all this afterwards; but there was nothing in it to make -him suppose, at the time, that she would take action.</p> - -<p class='c005'>We talked it over, he and I, one night.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I suppose,” he said, “I shall have to marry again. It’s a -physical necessity. But it won’t be anything more. I shan’t marry the -sort of woman who’ll expect anything more. I won’t put another woman -in Rosamund’s place. There’ll be no unfaithfulness about it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And there wasn’t. Soon after that first year he married Pauline -Silver.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was a daughter of old Justice Parker, who was a friend of -Marston’s people. He hadn’t seen the girl till she came home from -India after her divorce.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yes, there’d been a divorce. Silver had behaved very decently. He’d -let her bring it against <i>him</i>, to save her. But there were some -queer stories going about. They didn’t get round to Marston, because -he was so mixed up with her people; and if they had he wouldn’t have -believed them. He’d made up his mind he’d marry Pauline the first -minute he’d seen her. She was handsome; the hard, black, white and -vermilion kind, with a little aristocratic nose and a lascivious mouth.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was, as he had meant it to be, nothing but physical infatuation on -both sides. No question of Pauline’s taking Rosamund’s place.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Marston had a big case on at the time.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They were in such a hurry that they couldn’t wait till it was over; -and as it kept him in London they agreed to put off their honeymoon till -the autumn, and he took her straight to his own house in Curzon Street.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This, he admitted afterwards, was the part he hated. The Curzon Street -house was associated with Rosamund; especially their -bedroom—Rosamund’s bedroom—and his library. The library was the -room Rosamund liked best, because it was his room. She had her place in -the corner by the hearth, and they were always alone there together in -the evenings when his work was done, and when it wasn’t done she would -still sit with him, keeping quiet in her corner with a book.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Luckily for Marston, at the first sight of the library Pauline took a -dislike to it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I can hear her. “Br-rr-rh! There’s something beastly about this -room, Edward. I can’t think how you can sit in it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And Edward, a little caustic:</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>You</i> needn’t, if you don’t like it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I certainly shan’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She stood there—I can see her—on the hearthrug by Rosamund’s -chair, looking uncommonly handsome and lascivious. He was going to take -her in his arms and kiss her vermilion mouth, when, he said, something -stopped him. Stopped him clean, as if it had risen up and stepped -between them. He supposed it was the memory of Rosamund, vivid in the -place that had been hers.</p> - -<p class='c005'>You see it was just that place, of silent, intimate communion, that -Pauline would never take. And the rich, coarse, contented creature -didn’t even want to take it. He saw that he would be left alone there, -all right, with his memory.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But the bedroom was another matter. That, Pauline had made it understood -from the beginning, she would have to have. Indeed, there was no other -he could well have offered her. The drawing-room covered the whole of -the first floor. The bedrooms above were cramped, and this one had been -formed by throwing the two front rooms into one. It looked south, and -the bathroom opened out of it at the back. Marston’s small northern -room had a door on the narrow landing at right angles to his wife’s -door. He could hardly expect her to sleep there, still less in any of -the tight boxes on the top floor. He said he wished he had sold the -Curzon Street house.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But Pauline was enchanted with the wide, three-windowed piece that was -to be hers. It had been exquisitely furnished for poor little Rosamund; -all seventeenth century walnut wood, Bokhara rugs, thick silk curtains, -deep blue with purple linings, and a big, rich bed covered with a purple -counterpane embroidered in blue.</p> - -<p class='c005'>One thing Marston insisted on: that <i>he</i> should sleep on -Rosamund’s side of the bed, and Pauline in his own old place. He -didn’t want to see Pauline’s body where Rosamund’s had been. Of -course he had to lie about it and pretend he had always slept on the -side next the window.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I can see Pauline going about in that room, looking at everything; -looking at herself, her black, white and vermilion, in the glass that -had held Rosamund’s pure rose and gold; opening the wardrobe where -Rosamund’s dresses used to hang, sniffing up the delicate, flower -scent of Rosamund, not caring, covering it with her own thick -trail. And Marston -(who cared abominably)—I can see him getting more miserable and at -the same time more excited as the wedding evening went on. He took her -to the play to fill up the time, or perhaps to get her out of Rosamund’s -rooms; God knows. I can see them sitting in the stalls, bored and -restless, starting up and going out before the thing was half over, and -coming back to that house in Curzon Street before eleven o’clock.</p> - -<div class='imgleft c006'> -<img src='images/i150.jpg' alt='' class='c007' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>It wasn’t much past eleven when he went to her room.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I told you her door was at right angles to his, and the landing was -narrow, so that anybody standing by Pauline’s door must have been seen -the minute he opened his. He hadn’t even to cross the landing to get -to her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well, Marston swears that there was nothing there when he opened his own -door; but when he came to Pauline’s he saw Rosamund standing up before -it; and, he said, “<i>She wouldn’t let me in.</i>”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her arms were stretched out, barring the passage. Oh yes, he saw her -face, Rosamund’s face; I gathered that it was utterly sweet, and -utterly inexorable. He couldn’t pass her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So he turned into his own room, backing, he says, so that he could keep -looking at her. And when he stood on the threshold of his own door she -wasn’t there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>No, he wasn’t frightened. He couldn’t tell me what he felt; but he -left his door open all night because he couldn’t bear to shut it on -her. And he made no other attempt to go in to Pauline; he was so -convinced that the phantasm of Rosamund would come again and stop him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>I don’t know what sort of excuse he made to Pauline the next morning. -He said she was very stiff and sulky all day; and no wonder. He was -still infatuated with her, and I don’t think that the phantasm of -Rosamund had put him off Pauline in the least. In fact, he persuaded -himself that the thing was nothing but a hallucination, due, no doubt, -to his excitement.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Anyhow, he didn’t expect to see it at the door again the next night.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yes. It was there. Only, this time, he said, it drew aside to let him -pass. It smiled at him, as if it were saying, “Go in, if you must; -you’ll see what’ll happen.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had no sense that it had followed him into the room; he felt certain -that, this time, it would let him be.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was when he approached Pauline’s bed, which had been Rosamund’s -bed, that she appeared again, standing between it and him, and -stretching out her arms to keep him back.</p> - -<div id='i152' class='figcenter id019'> -<img src='images/i152.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>... stretching out her arms to keep him back.</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>All that Pauline could see was her bridegroom backing and backing, then -standing there, fixed, and the look on his face. That in itself was -enough to frighten her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She said, “What’s the matter with you, Edward?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He didn’t move.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What are you standing there for? Why don’t you come to bed?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then Marston seems to have lost his head and blurted it out:</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t. I can’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Can’t what?” said Pauline from the bed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Can’t sleep with you. She won’t let me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Rosamund. My wife. She’s there.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What on earth are you talking about?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She’s there, I tell you. She won’t let me. She’s pushing me -back.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He says Pauline must have thought he was drunk or something. Remember, -she <i>saw</i> nothing but Edward, his face, and his mysterious attitude. -He must have looked very drunk.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She sat up in bed, with her hard, black eyes blazing away at him, and -told him to leave the room that minute. Which he did.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The next day she had it out with him. I gathered that he kept on talking -about the “state” he was in.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You came to my room, Edward, in a <i>disgraceful</i> state.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>I suppose Marston said he was sorry; but he couldn’t help it; he -wasn’t drunk. He stuck to it that Rosamund was there. He had seen her. -And Pauline said, if he wasn’t drunk then he must be mad, and he said -meekly, “Perhaps I <i>am</i> mad.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>That set her off, and she broke out in a fury. He was no more mad than -she was; but he didn’t care for her; he -was making ridiculous excuses; shamming, to put her off. There was -some other woman.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Marston asked her what on earth she supposed he’d married her for. -Then she burst out crying and said she didn’t know.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then he seems to have made it up with Pauline. He managed to make her -believe he wasn’t lying, that he really had seen something, and -between them they arrived at a rational explanation of the appearance. -He had been overworking. Rosamund’s phantasm was nothing but a -hallucination of his exhausted brain.</p> - -<p class='c005'>This theory carried him on till bed-time. Then, he says, he began to -wonder what would happen, what Rosamund’s phantasm would do next. Each -morning his passion for Pauline had come back again, increased by -frustration, and it worked itself up crescendo, towards night. Supposing -he <i>had</i> seen Rosamund. He might see her again. He had become -suddenly subject to hallucinations. But as long as you <i>knew</i> you -were hallucinated you were all right.</p> - -<p class='c005'>So what they agreed to do that night was by way of precaution, in case -the thing came again. It might even be sufficient in itself to prevent -his seeing anything.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Instead of going in to Pauline he was to get into the room before she -did, and she was to come to him there. That, they said, would break the -spell. To make him feel even safer he meant to be in bed before Pauline -came.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well, he got into the room all right.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was when he tried to get into bed that—he saw her (I mean -Rosamund).</p> - -<p class='c005'>She was lying there, in his place next the window, her own place, lying -in her immature child-like beauty and sleeping, the firm full bow of her -mouth softened by sleep. She was perfect in every detail, the lashes of -her shut eyelids golden on her white cheeks, the solid gold of her -square fringe shining, and the great braided golden rope of her hair -flung back on the pillow.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He knelt down by the bed and pressed his forehead into the bedclothes, -close to her side. He declared he could feel her breathe.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He stayed there for the twenty minutes Pauline took to undress and come -to him. He says the minutes stretched out like hours. Pauline found him -still kneeling with his face pressed into the bedclothes. When he got up -he staggered.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She asked him what he was doing and why he wasn’t in bed. And he said, -“It’s no use. I can’t. I can’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>But somehow he couldn’t tell her that Rosamund was there. Rosamund was -too sacred; he couldn’t talk about her. He only said:</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’d better sleep in my room to-night.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was staring down at the place in the bed where he still saw Rosamund. -Pauline couldn’t have seen anything but the bedclothes, the sheet -smoothed above an invisible breast, and the hollow in the pillow. She -said she’d do nothing of the sort. She wasn’t going to be frightened -out of her own room. He could do as he liked.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He couldn’t leave them there; he couldn’t leave Pauline with -Rosamund, and he couldn’t leave Rosamund with Pauline. So he sat up in -a chair with his back turned to the bed. No. He didn’t make any attempt -to go back. He says he knew she was still lying there, guarding his -place, which was her place. The odd thing is that he wasn’t in the -least disturbed or frightened or surprised. He took the whole thing as a -matter of course. And presently he dozed off into a sleep.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A scream woke him and the sound of a violent body leaping out of the bed -and thudding on to its feet. He switched on the light and saw the -bedclothes flung back and Pauline standing on the floor with her mouth -open.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He went to her and held her. She was cold to the touch and shaking with -terror, and her jaws dropped as if she was palsied.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She said, “Edward, there’s something in the bed.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He glanced again at the bed. It was empty.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There isn’t,” he said. “Look.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He stripped the bed to the foot-rail, so that she could see.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There <i>was</i> something.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you see it?”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id020'> -<img src='images/i155.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“No, I felt it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She told him. First something had -come swinging, smack across her face. A thick, heavy rope of woman’s -hair. It had waked her. Then she had put out her hands and felt the -body. A woman’s body, soft and horrible; her fingers had sunk in the -shallow breasts. Then she had screamed and jumped.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And she couldn’t stay in the room. The room, she said, was “beastly.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She slept in Marston’s room, in his small single bed, and he sat up -with her all night, on a chair.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She believed now that he had really seen something, and she remembered that -the library was beastly, too. Haunted by something. She supposed that was what -she had felt. Very well. Two rooms in the house were haunted; their bedroom -and the library. They would just have to avoid those two rooms. She had made -up her mind, you see, that it was nothing but a case of an ordinary haunted -house; the sort of thing you’re always hearing about and never believe in till -it happens to yourself. Marston didn’t like to point out to her that the house -hadn’t been haunted till she came into it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The following night, the fourth night, she was to sleep in the spare room -on the top floor, next to the servants, and Marston in his own room.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But Marston didn’t sleep. He kept on wondering whether he would or would -not go up to Pauline’s room. That made him horribly restless, and instead of -undressing and going to bed, he sat up on a chair with a book. He wasn’t -nervous; but he had a queer feeling that something was going to happen, and -that he must be ready for it, and that he’d better be dressed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It must have been soon after midnight when he heard the door-knob turning -very slowly and softly. The door opened behind him and Pauline came in, moving -without a sound, and stood before him. It gave him a shock; for he had been -thinking of Rosamund, and when he heard the door-knob turn it was the phantasm -of Rosamund that he expected to see coming in. He says, for the first minute, -it was this appearance of Pauline that struck him as the uncanny and unnatural -thing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had nothing, absolutely nothing on but a transparent white chiffony -sort of dressing-gown. She was trying to undo it. He could see her hands -shaking as her fingers fumbled with the fastenings. He got up suddenly, and -they just stood there before each other, saying nothing, staring at each -other. He was fascinated by her, by the sheer glamour of her body, gleaming -white through the thin stuff, and by the movement of her fingers. I think I’ve -said she was a beautiful woman, and her beauty at that moment was -overpowering.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And still he stared at her without saying anything. It sounds as if their -silence lasted quite a long time, but in reality it couldn’t have been more -than some fraction of a second.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then she began. “Oh, Edward, for God’s sake say something. Oughtn’t I to -have come?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And she went on without waiting for an answer. “Are you thinking of -<i>her</i>? Because, if—if you are, I’m not going to let her drive you away -from me.... I’m not going to.... She’ll keep on coming as long as we don’t— -Can’t you see that this is the way to stop it...? When you take me in your -arms.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She slipped off the loose sleeves of the chiffon thing and it fell to her -feet. Marston says he heard a queer sound, something between a groan and a -grunt, and was amazed to find that it came from himself.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He hadn’t touched her yet—mind you, it went quicker than it takes to tell, -it was still an affair of the fraction of a second—they were holding out their -arms to each other, when the door opened again without a sound, and, without -visible passage, the phantasm was there. It came incredibly fast, and thin at -first, like a shaft of light sliding between them. It didn’t do anything; -there was no beating of hands, only, as it took on its full form, its perfect -likeness of flesh and blood, it made its presence felt like a push, a force, -driving them asunder.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Pauline hadn’t seen it yet. She thought it was Marston who was beating her -back. She cried out: “Oh, don’t, don’t push me away!” She stooped below the -phantasm’s guard and clung to his knees, writhing and crying. For a moment it -was a struggle between her moving flesh and that still, supernatural -being.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And in that moment Marston realized that he hated Pauline. She was -fighting Rosamund with her gross flesh and blood, taking a mean -advantage of her embodied state to beat down the heavenly, discarnate -thing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He called to her to let go.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s not I,” he shouted. “Can’t you <i>see</i> her?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then, suddenly, she saw, and let go, and dropped, crouching on the floor -and trying to cover herself. This time she had given no cry.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The phantasm gave way; it moved slowly towards the door, and as it went -it looked back over its shoulder at Marston, it trailed a hand, -signalling to him to come.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He went out after it, hardly aware of Pauline’s naked body that still -writhed there, clutching at his feet as they passed, and drew itself -after him, like a worm, like a beast, along the floor.</p> - -<div id='i158' class='figcenter id021'> -<img src='images/i158.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>... drew itself after him along the floor.</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>She must have got up at once and followed them out on to the landing; -for, as he went down the stairs behind the phantasm, he could see -Pauline’s face, distorted with lust and terror, peering at them above -the stairhead. She saw them descend the last flight, and cross the hall -at the bottom and go into the library. The door shut behind them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Something happened in there. Marston never told me precisely what it -was, and I didn’t ask him. Anyhow, that finished it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The next day Pauline ran away to her own people. She couldn’t stay in -Marston’s house because it was haunted by Rosamund, and he wouldn’t -leave it for the same reason.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And she never came back; for she was not only afraid of Rosamund, she was -afraid of Marston. And if she <i>had</i> come it wouldn’t have been any good. -Marston was convinced that, as often as he attempted to get to Pauline, -something would stop him. Pauline certainly felt that, if Rosamund were pushed -to it, she might show herself in some still more sinister and terrifying form. -She knew when she was beaten.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And there was more in it than that. I believe he tried to explain it to -her; said he had married her on the assumption that Rosamund was dead, -but that now he knew she was alive; she was, as he put it, “there.” -He tried to make her see that if he had Rosamund he couldn’t -have <i>her</i>. Rosamund’s presence in the world annulled their -contract.</p> - -<p class='c005'>You see I’m convinced that something <i>did</i> happen that night in the -library. I say, he never told me precisely what it was, but he once let -something out. We were discussing one of Pauline’s love-affairs (after -the separation she gave him endless grounds for divorce).</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Poor Pauline,” he said, “she thinks she’s so passionate.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well,” I said, “wasn’t she?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then he burst out. “No. She doesn’t know what passion is. None of -you know. You haven’t the faintest conception. You’d have to get rid -of your bodies first. <i>I</i> didn’t know until—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He stopped himself. I think he was going to say, “until Rosamund -came back and showed me.” For he leaned forward and whispered: -“It isn’t a localized affair at all.... If you only knew—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>So I don’t think it was just faithfulness to a revived memory. I take -it there had been, behind that shut door, some experience, some terrible -and exquisite contact. More penetrating than sight or touch. More—more -extensive: passion at all points of being.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Perhaps the supreme moment of it, the ecstasy, only came when her -phantasm had disappeared.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He couldn’t go back to Pauline after <i>that</i>.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='ifthed' class='c003'>IF THE DEAD KNEW</h2> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>I</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>The voluntary swelled, it rose, it rushed to its climax. -The organist tossed back his head with a noble gesture, exalted; he -rocked on his bench; his feet shuffled faster and faster, pedalling -passionately.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The young girl who stood beside him drew in a deep, rushing breath; her -heart swelled; her whole body listened, with hurried senses desiring the -climax, the climax, the crash of sound. Her nerves shook as the organist -rocked towards her; when he tossed back his head her chin lifted; she -loved his playing hands, his rocking body, his superb, excited gesture.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Three times a week Wilfrid Hollyer went down to Lower Wyck, to give -Effie Carroll a music lesson; three times a week Effie Carroll came up -to Wyck on the Hill to listen to Hollyer’s organ practice.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The climax had come. The voluntary fell from its height and died in a -long cadence, thinned out, a trickling, trembling diminuendo. It was all -over.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The young girl released her breath in a long, trembling sigh.</p> - -<div id='i164' class='figcenter id022'> -<img src='images/i164.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>... her whole body listened ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>The organist rose and put -out the organ lights. He took Effie by the arm and led her down the -short aisles of the little country church and out on to the flagged path -of the churchyard between the tombstones.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wilfrid,” she said, “you’re too good for Wyck. You ought to be -playing in Gloucester Cathedral.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m not good enough. Perhaps—if I’d been trained—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why weren’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My mother couldn’t afford it. Besides, I couldn’t leave her. She -hasn’t anybody but me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I know. You’re awfully fond of her, aren’t you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes,” he said shortly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They had passed down the turn of the street into the Market Square. -There was a plot of grass laid down in the north-east corner. Two tall -elms stood up on the grass, and behind the elms a small, ivy-covered -house with mullioned windows, looking south.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s our house,” Hollyer said. “Won’t you come in and see -her?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>They found her sitting by herself in the little cramped, green -drawing-room. She was the most beautiful old lady; small, upright -and perfect; slender, like a girl, in her grey silk blouse. She had a -miniature oval face, pretty and white: a sharp chin, and a wide forehead -under a pile of pure white hair. And sorrowful blue eyes, white-lidded, -in two rings of mauve and bistre.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She couldn’t be so very old, Effie thought. Not more than sixty.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mrs. Hollyer rose, holding out a fragile hand.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Presently she said: “I wanted to see you; after all you’ve done -for him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I? I haven’t done anything.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’ve listened to his playing. He can’t get anybody to -do that for him in Wyck.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They hear enough of me on Sundays.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then they haven’t heard him. He plays much better on -week-days, when he plays to me,” said Effie.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“So I can imagine,” Mrs. Hollyer said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She thinks I’m better than I am,” said Hollyer.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Go on thinking it. That’s the way to make him better.” She was -smiling at Effie as if she liked her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>All through tea-time and after they talked about Wilfrid’s playing and -Wilfrid and Wyck, and the people of Wyck, and how they knew nothing and -cared nothing about Wilfrid’s playing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Twilight came, twilight of October. He was going to walk back with Effie -down the hill to Lower Wyck.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As the house door closed behind them he said: “Now you know why -I’m nothing but an organist at Wyck.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wilfrid, she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen yet—your -mother. No wonder you can’t leave her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It isn’t that altogether. I mean we’re tied here because we can’t -afford to leave; and because I’ve got this organ job. I should never -have had it anywhere else.” He paused. “And you know, I couldn’t -live on it—without mother. She’s got the house.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Effie said nothing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“So here I am. Thirty-five and still dependent on my mother.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Wilfrid, what will you do when—when—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“When my mother dies? That’s the awful thing. I shall have enough -then. There’ll be the house and her income. I hate to think of it. I -don’t think of it—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You see,” he went on, “when I was a kid I was so seedy they -didn’t think I’d live. So I was brought up to do nothing. Nothing -but my playing. They gave me this job just to keep me quiet. And now -I’m strong enough, but there’s nothing else I can do.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He hung his head, frowning gloomily.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You know why I’m telling you all this?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. But I’m glad you’ve told me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s because—because—if I had a decent income, -Effie, I’d ask you to marry me. As it is, I can only hope that you -won’t ever care for me as I care for you.”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id023'> -<img src='images/i166.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“But I <i>do</i> care for you. You know I do.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Would you have married me, Effie? Do you care as much as that?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You know I would. I will the minute you ask me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I shall never ask you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why not? I can wait.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My dear, for what?” He paused again. “I can’t marry in my -mother’s lifetime.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Wilfrid—I didn’t mean that. Your dear, beautiful mother. You -know I didn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course, darling, I know. But there it is.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He left her at the gate of the cottage where she lived with her father.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As he went back up the hill he meditated on his position. He was right -to make it clear to her, now that she had begun to care for him. He -would have told her long ago if he had known that she cared. Yesterday -he didn’t know it. But to-day there had been something, in her manner, -in her voice, in the way she looked at him in the church after his -playing, that had told him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Poor little Effie. She would have nothing either, unless her -father—and Effie’s father was a robust man, not quite fifty.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Well—he mustn’t think of it. And he mustn’t let his mother think. -He wondered whether he was too late, whether she had seen anything. He -tried to slink past the drawing-room and up the stairs. But his mother -had heard him come in. She called to him. He went to her, shame-faced, -as if he had committed a sin.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her large, gentle eyes looked at him, wondering. He could see them -wondering.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wilfrid,” she said suddenly, “do you care for that little -girl?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What’s the good of my caring? I can’t marry her. I’ve just told -her so.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s too late. She’s in love with you. You should have told her -before.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How could I if she didn’t care? You can’t be fatuous.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No—poor boy. Poor Effie.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Mother—why couldn’t I have been brought up to a profession?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You know why—you weren’t strong enough. It was as much as I could -do to keep you alive.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m strong enough now.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Only because I took such care of you. Only because you -hadn’t to go out and earn your own living. You’d have been dead -before you were twenty if I hadn’t kept you with me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It would have been better if you’d let me die.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Don’t say that, Wilfrid. What should I have done without you? What -should I do without you now?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You mean if I married?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, my dear. I’d be glad if you could marry. I don’t -want to keep you tied to me for ever. If you can get better work and -better pay by going anywhere else, I shan’t mind your leaving me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I shouldn’t get anything. I’m not good enough. I shall never be -worth more than fifty pounds a year anywhere. We can’t live on that.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If you could live on half my income, I’d give it you, but you -couldn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. We’ll just have to wait.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I hope for your sake, my dear, it won’t be too long.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What do you mean, mother?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What did <i>you</i> mean?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, I meant we’d have to wait till I heard of something.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You <i>might</i> have meant something else.” She smiled.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, mother—<i>don’t</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why not?” she said cheerfully.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You know—you know I couldn’t bear it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’ll have to bear it some day—I’m an old woman.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, I shall be an old man—by then.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He tossed it back to her, laughing, as he left her to wash his hands and -brush his hair. He laughed, to shake off her pathos and to hide his own.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When he talked about waiting, he hadn’t meant what she thought he -meant. He was simply trying to dismiss a too serious situation with a -reassuring levity. Waiting to hear of something? Was it likely he would -ever hear of anything? Could he have made a more frivolous suggestion?</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was she who had faced it. She had made him see how hopeless their -case was, his and Effie’s. He saw it now, as he saw his own face in -the glass, between two hair-brushes, a little drawn, even now, a little -sallow and haggard. Not a young face.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He would be an old man—an old man before he could dream of marrying. -His mother, after all, was only sixty, and she came of a long-lived -family. Her apparent fragility was an illusion; she had never had a -day’s illness as long as he could remember. Nerves like whipcord, -young arteries, and every organ sound. She would live -ten—fifteen—twenty years longer, live to be eighty. He was -thirty-five now, and Effie was twenty-five. Before they could marry, -they would be fifty-five and forty-five; old, old; too old to feel, to -care passionately. He had no right to ask Effie to wait twenty years for -him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He must give up thinking about her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His mother was still in her chair by the drawing-room fire, waiting for -him. She turned as he came to her, and held up her face to be kissed, -like a child, he thought, or like a young wife waiting for her husband. -She put her hands on his hair and stroked it. And he remembered the time -when he used to say to her: “I shall never marry. You’re all -the wife I want, Mother.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And now it was as if he had been calculating on her death.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But he hadn’t. He hadn’t. You couldn’t calculate on anything so -far-off, so unlikely. He had done the only possible, the only decent -thing. He had given Effie up.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>II</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>The doctor -had gone. Hollyer went back into his mother’s room. She lay there, -dozing, in the big white bed, propped high on the pillows. Through her -mouth, piteously open, he could hear her short quick breath, struggling -and gasping.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id022'> -<img src='images/i170.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>The illness had lasted nine days. Even now Hollyer hadn’t got used to -it. He still looked at the figure in the bed with the same stare of -shocked incredulity. It was still incredible that his mother’s -influenza should have turned to pleurisy, that she should lie like that, -utterly abandoned, the neat pile of her hair undone, and her face, with -its open mouth, loose and infirm between the two white loops that hung -askew, rumpled by the pillow. He knew in a vague way how it had -happened. First his own attack of influenza, then his mother’s. His -had been pretty bad, but hers had been slight, so slight that it had not -been recognized, and through it she had still nursed him. Then she had -gone out too soon, in the raw January weather. And now the doctor came -morning and evening; she had a trained nurse for the night, and Hollyer -looked after her all day.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had got used to the nurse. Her expensive presence proved to him that -he had nothing to reproach himself with; he had done, as they said, -everything that could be done.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He knew that the nurse and the doctor disagreed about the case. Nurse -Eden declared that his mother would get over it. Dr. Ransome was -convinced she wouldn’t; she hadn’t strength in her for another rally. -Hollyer himself agreed with Nurse Eden. He couldn’t believe that his -mother would die. The thought of her death was unbearable, therefore he -denied it, he put it from him. When he left her for the night he would -come creeping back at midnight and dawn, to make sure that she was still -there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The little room was half filled by the big white bed. It seemed to him -there was nothing in it but the white bed and his mother and Nurse Eden -in her white uniform. She had looked in on her way downstairs to tea. -Everything was cold and white. On the window-panes the frost made a -white pattern of moss and feathers. From his seat between the bed and -the fire he could see Nurse Eden and her small, pure face brooding above -the pillows as she shifted them with tender, competent hands.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She’ll be better in the morning,” she said. “She always -gets better in the night.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She did. Always she gained ground in the night under Nurse Eden and -always she lost it in the daytime, getting worse and worse towards -evening.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The afternoon wore on. At four o’clock old Martha, the servant, tapped -at the door. Miss Carroll, she said, was downstairs and wanted to see -him. Martha took his place at the bedside.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Every day Effie came to inquire, and every day she went away sad, as if -it had been her own mother who was dying. This time she stayed, for the -old doctor had stopped her in the Square and told her to get Hollyer out -of his mother’s room, if possible. “Talk to him. Take him off it. Make -him buck up.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She sat in his mother’s chair behind the round tea-table and poured -out his tea for him, and talked to him about his music and a book she -had been reading. When he looked at her, at her sweet face, soft and -clear with youth, at her hands moving with pretty gestures, his heart -trembled. That was how it would be if Effie was his wife. They would sit -there every day and she would pour out his tea for him. He would hear -her feet ruftning up and down the stairs.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When she got up to go she said, “Whatever you do, Wilfrid, don’t -keep on thinking about it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t help thinking.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She put her hand on his sleeve and stroked it. At her touch he broke -down.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Effie—I cannot bear it. If she dies, I shall never forgive -myself.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nonsense. Don’t talk about her dying. Don’t think about it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She turned to him on the doorstep. “Just think how strong she is. I -can’t see her ill, somehow. I see her there, all the time, sitting -upright in her chair, looking beautiful.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was how <i>he</i> -had once seen her, sitting there between the fire and the round -tea-table, for years and years, as long as his own life lasted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But now he saw Effie. Upstairs, in his mother’s room, as he watched, he -saw Effie. Effie—the sweet face, and the sweet hands moving. He heard -Effie’s voice in the rooms, Effie’s feet on the stairs. That was how -it would be if Effie was his wife.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was how it would be if his mother died.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He would have an income of his own, and a house of his own; he would be -his own master in his house.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If his mother died, Effie and he would sleep together. Perhaps in that -bed, on those pillows.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He shut his eyes and covered his face with his hands, pressing in on his -eyelids as if that way he could keep out the sight of Effie.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>III</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>That evening the doctor came again. He left a little before nine -o’clock, the hour when Nurse Eden would begin her night watch. He -refused to hold out any hope. She was sinking fast.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As Hollyer turned from the front-door he met Nurse Eden coming -downstairs. She signed to him to follow her into the drawing-room, -moving before him without a sound. She shut the door.</p> - -<div class='imgleft c006'> -<img src='images/i174.jpg' alt='' class='c007' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>He was afraid of Nurse Eden; there was something—he didn’t know -what it was, but—there was something unbearable in her small, pure -face; in the thrust of her chin tilted by the stiff cap-strings; in her -brave, slender mouth, straightening itself against the droop of its -compassion; and in -the stillness of her dense, grey eyes. Her eyes made him feel uneasy, -somehow, and unsafe. He was going to sit up with her to-night; but he -would rather have shared his night-watch with old Martha.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well?” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He says this is the end.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It may be,” said Nurse Eden. “But it needn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’ve seen her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>Well—?</i>”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She hasn’t gone yet, Mr. Hollyer—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She’s on the edge. She’s in that state when a breath would tip her -one way or the other.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“A breath?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, Mr. Hollyer. Or a thought.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“A thought?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“A thought. If I had Mrs. Hollyer to myself, I believe -I could bring her round even now.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Nurse—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I <i>have</i> brought -her round. Night after night I’ve brought her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What do you do?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t know what I do. But it works. Haven’t you noticed she -gets better in the night when I’ve had her; and that she slips back in -the day?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, I have.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You see, Mr. Hollyer, Dr. Ransome’s made up his mind. And when the -doctor makes up his mind that the patient’s going to die, ten to one the -patient does die. It lowers their resistance. It isn’t every one that -would feel it; but your mother would.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If,” she went on, “I had her day <i>and</i> night, I might -save her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You really think that?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think there’s a chance.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He didn’t know whether he believed her or not. Dr. Ransome shrugged -his shoulders and said Nurse Eden could try it if she liked. She had a -wonderful way with her; but he wouldn’t advise Hollyer to count on it. -Nothing but a miracle, he said, could save his mother.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Hollyer didn’t count on Nurse Eden’s way. But he thought—something -stronger than himself compelled him to think—that his mother would not -die.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And each hour showed her slowly coming back. Under his eyes the miracle -was being accomplished. At midnight her breathing and temperature and -pulse were normal; and by noon of the next day even Ransome was -convinced. He wouldn’t swear to the miracle, but whatever Nurse Eden -had or had not done, he believed Mrs. Hollyer would recover.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Hollyer not only believed it, but he was certain, as Nurse Eden was -certain. She came to him, radiant with certainty, and told him that his -mind could be at rest now.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But his mind was not at rest. It had only rested while he doubted, as if -doubt absolved him from knowledge of some secret that he could not face. -With the first moment of certainty he was aware of it. It was given to -him in physical sensations, a weight and pain about his heart that did -not lie. In a flash he saw himself back in his old life of dependence -and frustration. There would be no Effie sitting with him in the house, -no Effie running up and down the stairs. He would not sleep with Effie -in the big, white bed. They would grow old, wanting each other.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He tried to jerk his mouth into a smile, but it had stiffened. It -opened, gasping, as his muffled heart-beats choked him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He went upstairs to his mother’s room. She was sitting up in bed, -clear-eyed, almost alert, and she turned her face to him as he entered.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t know how it is,” she said. “I thought I -was going, but there’s something that won’t let me go. It keeps on -pulling me back and back.” (Nurse Eden looked at him.) “Is it you, -Wilfrid?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He knelt down and buried his face in the bedclothes by her side. His -sobs shook the mattress. The nurse took him by the arm; he got up and -stared at her as if dazed and drunk with grief. She led him from the -room.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’re upsetting her,” she said. “Don’t come back till -you’ve pulled yourself together.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>When he went back his mother was sleeping calmly. Hollyer and the nurse -withdrew from the bedside to the window and talked there in low voices.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Did you hear what she said. Nurse?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. We can get her through, between us, if we make up our minds -she’s to live. Think of what she was yesterday.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But do you think we ought to? I don’t want her brought back to -suffer.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She isn’t going to suffer. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t -be as well as ever. If you want her to live.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Want her? Of course I want her to live.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I know you do. But you must get rid of your fear.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My fear?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Your fear of her dying.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you think my fear could—could make her?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I know it could. Make up your mind with me that she’s going to get -well.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Supposing she wants to go? Supposing she’s fighting against us all -the time?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She isn’t fighting. She hasn’t any fight in her— -Now, while she’s sleeping, is the time. You’ve only got to say to -yourself ‘She shall live. She’s going to live.’ There—you sit in -that chair, make yourself quite comfortable, shut your eyes, and keep on -saying it. Don’t think of anything else.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He sat down. He said it over and over again: “She shall live. -She’s going to live. She shall live—” He tried to think of nothing -else; but all the time he was aware of the dragging of his heart. He -shut his eyes, but he couldn’t get rid of the vision of Effie. Effie -sitting in his mother’s place. Effie sleeping beside him in the big -bed.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She <i>shall</i> live. She’s going to live.” The words meant -nothing. Only the dragging weight at his heart had meaning. And it -didn’t lie.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He thought: If that’s how I feel about it, I’d better keep my mind -off her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then he was aware that he was tired, dead beat, too tired to think. And -presently, sitting upright in the chair, he fell asleep.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was waked by Nurse Eden’s voice calling to him from the bed: -“Mr. Hollyer! She’s going!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>His mother lay in the nurse’s arms, her head had fallen forward on her -chest, her mouth was open; and through it there came a groaning, -grating cry. Once, twice, three times; and she was gone.</p> - -<p class='c005'>After the funeral Hollyer went up into his mother’s room. Nurse Eden -was there, removing the signs of death. She had covered the bed with a -white counterpane. She had opened the door and window wide, and -a flood of dean cold air streamed through the room.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nurse,” he said, “come here a minute.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She followed him into his bed-sitting room on the other side of the -landing. Hollyer shut the door.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You remember that night when my mother got better?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Indeed I do.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you still think you brought her back?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I do think it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you really believe that a thought—<i>a thought</i> could do that?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But it doesn’t always work. It breaks down.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Sometimes. That night she died I felt it wasn’t working. I was up -against a wall. I couldn’t get through. But remember, before that, she -was going when I brought her back.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Could a thought—another thought—kill?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It depends. Perhaps, if it was a very strong thought. A wish.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Her queer eyes looked through him and beyond him, not seeing him, seeing -some reality that was not he. He had gone to her for her truth and she -had given it him. A wish, even a hidden wish, could kill. In the dark, -secret places of the mind your thoughts ran loose beyond your knowing; -they burrowed under the walls that shut off one self from another; they -got through. It was as if his secret self had broken loose, and got -through to his mother, and had killed her secretly, in the dark. His -wish was a part of himself, but stronger than himself. The force behind -it was indestructible, for it was a form of his desire for Effie; so -that while he lived he could not kill it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It had been there all the time, cunningly disguised. It was there in his -fear of Nurse Eden; it was there in that obstinate belief of his that -his mother would live. His beliefs were always the expression of his -fears. He had been afraid that his mother would not die. That was his -fear. He saw it all clearly in the moment while Nurse Eden’s voice -went on.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But it wasn’t <i>that</i>, Mr. Hollyer,” she was saying. “We were -all wishing her to live— No. I think she was too far gone. She had got -beyond us.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was too late for Nurse Eden to go back on it. He knew. He was -certain.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>IV</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>He knew, and if he were to -keep on thinking about it—but he was afraid to think. You could go -mad, thinking. The moment of his certainty remained in his memory; he -knew where to find it if he chose to look that way. But he refused to -look. Such things were better forgotten.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He told himself there was nothing in it. Nothing but Nurse Eden’s -hysteria and vanity. She wanted you to believe she was wonderful, that -she could do things. She didn’t really believe it herself. In her own -last moment of honesty she had confessed as much. He was a fool to have -been taken in by her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Meanwhile, three months after his mother’s death, he had married Effie -Carroll. Her father, who had held out against the engagement, -surrendered suddenly on the day of the wedding, and made his daughter an -allowance of fifty pounds a year. He said he didn’t want to profit by -her folly, and the fifty pounds were no more than the cost of her keep.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was horrible to think they should owe their happiness to his -mother’s death; but as things had turned out they didn’t owe it; -they could have married even if she had lived. And as -he had now no motive for wishing her dead, he almost forgot that he had -ever wished it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Not that Hollyer reproached himself; his tendency, when he thought it -all over, was to reproach his mother. He had found out something about -himself. Before he married he had gone to Dr. Ransome to be overhauled, -and Ransome had told him there was nothing much the matter with him; -never was. And if the old pessimist said there wasn’t much the matter, -you might depend upon it there wasn’t anything at all. Except, Ransome -said, molly-coddling; and that wasn’t Hollyer’s fault.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Whose was it, then?” Hollyer had asked. “My -mother’s?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. Your dear mother, Hollyer, had no faults. But she made mistakes, -as we all do.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You mean, if I’d been allowed to live like other people I’d have -been all right?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well—you weren’t a very robust infant; and later on there <i>was</i> -a slight risk. Personally, I’d have taken it. You must take some -risks. But your mother was afraid. You were all she had. And I daresay -she wasn’t sorry to keep you with her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I see.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He saw it clearly. He had been sacrificed to his mother’s selfishness. -Nothing but that had doomed him to his humiliating dependence, his -poverty, his intolerable celibacy. He found himself brooding over it, -going back and back to it, with a certain gratification, as if it -justified him. His mind was appeased by this righteous resentment. When -the remembrance of his mother’s beauty and sweetness rushed at him and -accused him he turned from it to his brooding.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had begun to talk, to say things about his mother. Put into spoken -words his grievance seemed more real; it acquired validity.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had felt so safe. His mother couldn’t hear him. She would never know -what he thought about her; he would have died rather than let her know. -And he had only talked to Effie. Talking to his wife was no worse than -thinking to himself. After all he had gone through, he felt he was -entitled to that relief.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was June, a hot, close evening before lamplight; they were sitting -together in the drawing-room, Effie in his mother’s chair and he at -his piano in the recess on the other side of the fireplace. And there -was something that Effie said when he had stopped playing and had turned -to her, smiling.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wilfrid—are you happy?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course I’m happy.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, but—really?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Really. Absolutely. You make me happy.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do I? I’m so glad. You see, when I married you I was afraid I -couldn’t. It was so hard to come after your mother.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He winced.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How do you mean? You don’t come ‘after’ her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I mean, after all she was to you. After all she did. Your life with -her was so perfect.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If it’s any consolation to you, Effie, it wasn’t.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wasn’t?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. Anything but.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Wilfrid!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He seemed to her to be uttering blasphemy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s better you should know it. My dear mother didn’t understand -me in the least. My whole up-bringing was a ghastly blunder. If I’d -been let live a decent fife, like any other boy, like any other man, I -might have been good for something. But she wouldn’t let me. She -pretended there was something the matter with me when there wasn’t, so -that she could keep me dependent on her.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wilfrid <i>dear</i>, it may have been a blunder and it may have been -ghastly—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It was.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But it was only her love for you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“A very selfish sort of love, Effie.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh <i>don’t</i>,” she cried. “Don’t. She’s <i>dead</i>, -Wilfrid.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m not likely to forget it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You talk as if you’d forgotten— If the dead knew—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>If the dead knew—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If they knew,” she said, “how we spoke about them, how we -thought—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>If the dead knew—</p> - -<p class='c005'>If his mother had heard him; if she knew what he had been thinking; if -she knew that he had wished her dead and that his wish had killed her—</p> - -<p class='c005'>If the dead knew—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Happily for us and them, they don’t know,” he said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And he began playing again. He was aware that Effie had risen and was -now seated at the writing-table. As he played he had his back to the -writing-table and the door.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The book on the piano ledge before him was Mendelssohn’s <i>Lieder -ohne Worte</i>. open as Effie had left it at Number Nine. He remembered -that was the one his mother had loved so much. His fingers fell of their -own accord into the prelude, into the melody, pressing out its thick, -sweet, deliberate sadness. It wounded him, each note a separate stab, -yet he went on, half-voluptuously enjoying the self-inflicted pain, -trying to work it up and up into a supreme poignancy of sorrow, of -regret.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As he stopped on the closing chord he heard somewhere behind him a -thick, sobbing sigh.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Effie—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He looked round. But Effie was not there. He could hear her footsteps in -the room overhead. She had gone, then, before he had stopped playing, -shutting the door without a sound. It must have been his imagination.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He played a few bars, then paused, listening. The sighing had begun -again; it was close behind him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He swung round sharply. There was nobody there. But the door, which had -been shut a minute ago, stood wide open. A cold wind blew in, cutting -through the hot, stagnant air. He got up and shut the door. The cold -wind wrapped him in a belt, a swirl; he stood still in it for a moment, -stiff with fear. When he crossed the room to the piano it was as if he -moved breast high in deep, cold water.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Somewhere in the secret place of his mind a word struggled to form -itself, to be born.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Mother.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It came to him with a sense of appalling, supernatural horror. Horror -that was there with him in the room like a presence.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Mother.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>The word had lost its meaning. It stood for nothing but that horror.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He tried to play again, but his fingers, slippery with sweat, dropped -from the keyboard.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Something compelled him to turn round and look towards his mother’s -chair.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then he saw her.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She stood between him and the chair, straight and thin, dressed in the -clothes she had died in, the yellowish flannel nightgown and bed jacket.</p> - -<div id='i184' class='figcenter id024'> -<img src='images/i184.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>The apparition maintained itself with difficulty.</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>The apparition maintained itself with difficulty. Already its hair had -grown indistinct, a cap of white mist. Its face was an insubstantial -framework for its mouth and eyes, and for the tears that fell in two -shining tracks between. It was less a form than a visible emotion, an -anguish.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Hollyer stood up and stared at it. Through the glasses of its tears it -gazed back at him with an intense, a terrible reproach and sorrow.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then, slowly and stiffly, it began to recede from him, drawn back and -back, without any movement of its feet, in an unearthly stillness, -keeping up, to the last minute, its look of indestructible reproach.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And now it was a formless mass that drifted to the window and hung there -a second, and passed, shrinking like a breath on the pane.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Hollyer, rigid, pouring out sweat, still stared at the place where it -had stood. His heart-beats came together in a running tremor: it was as -if all the blood in his body was gathered into his distended heart, -dragging it down to meet his heaving belly.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then he turned and went headlong towards the door, stumbling and -lurching. He threw out his hands to clutch at a support and found -himself in Effie’s arms.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wilfrid—darling—what is it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nothing. I’m giddy. I—I think I’m going to be sick.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He broke from her and dragged himself upstairs and shut himself into his -study. That night his old single bed was brought back and made up there. -He was afraid to sleep in the room that had been his mother’s.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>V</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>He had run through all the physical -sensations of his terror. What he felt now was the sharp, abominable -torture of the mind.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If the dead knew—</p> - -<p class='c005'>The dead <i>did</i> know. She had come back to tell him that she knew. -She knew that he thought of her with unkindness. She had been there when -he talked about her to Effie. She knew the thought he had hidden even -from himself. She knew that she had died because, secretly, he had -wished her dead.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was the meaning of her look and of her tears.</p> - -<p class='c005'>No fleshly eyes could have expressed such an intensity of suffering, of -unfathomable grief. He thought: the pain of a discarnate spirit might be -infinitely sharper than any earthly pain. It might be inexhaustible. Who -was to say that it was not?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Yet could it—could even an immortal suffering—be sharper than the -anguish he felt now? If only he had known what he was doing to her— If -he had known. If he had known—</p> - -<p class='c005'>But, he thought, we know nothing, and we care less. We say we believe in -immortality, but we do not believe in it. We treat the dead as if they -<i>were</i> dead, as if they were not there. If he had really believed -that she was there, he would have died rather than say the things he had -said to Effie. Nobody, he told himself, could have accused him of -unkindness to his mother while she lived. He had really loved her up to -the moment, the moment of supreme temptation, when he wanted Effie. He -had not willed her to die. He had been barely conscious of his wish. -How, then, could he be held accountable? How could he have destroyed the -thing whose essence was the hidden, unknown darkness? Yet, if men are -accountable at all, he was accountable. There had been a moment when he -was conscious of it. He could have destroyed it then. He should have -faced it; he should have dragged it out into the light and fought it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Instead, he had let it sink back into its darkness, to work there -unseen.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And if he had really loved his mother, he would have wished, not willed -her to live. He would have wanted her as he wanted her now.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For, now that it was too late, he did want her. His whole mind had -changed. He no longer thought of her with resentment. He thought, with a -passionate adoration and regret, of her beauty, her goodness, and her -love for him. What if she <i>had</i> kept him with her? It had been, as -Effie had said, because she loved him. How did he know that if she had -let him go he would have been good for anything? What on earth could he -have been but the third-rate organist he was?</p> - -<p class='c005'>He remembered the happiness he had had with her before <i>he</i> had -loved Effie; her looks, her words, the thousand Clings she used to do -to please him. The Mendelssohn she had given him. A certain sweet cake -she made for him on his birthdays. And the touch of her hands, her -kisses.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He thought of these things with an agony of longing. If only he could -have her back; if only she would come to him again, that he might show -her—</p> - -<p class='c005'>He asked himself: How much did Effie know? She must wonder why he had -taken that sudden dislike to the drawing-room; why he insisted on -sleeping in his study. She had never said anything.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A week had passed—they were sitting in the dining-room after supper, -when she spoke.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wilfrid, why do you always want to sit here?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because I hate the other room.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You didn’t use to. It’s only since that day you were ill, the -last time you were playing. Why do you hate it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, if you want to know—you remember the beastly things I said about -mother?”</p> - -<div class='imgright c006'> -<img src='images/i187.jpg' alt='' class='c007' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“You didn’t mean them.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I did mean them— But it wasn’t that. It was something you said.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. You said ‘If the dead knew—’”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well—?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well—they do know—I’m certain my mother knew. Certain, as I’m certain -I’m sitting here, that she heard.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, Wilfrid, what makes you think that?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I can’t tell you what makes me think it— But—she was there.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You only think it because you’re feeling sorry. You must get over -it. Go back into the room and play.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He shook his head and still sat there thinking. Effie did not speak -again; she saw that she must let him think.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Presently he got up and went into the drawing-room, shutting the doors -behind him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The Mendelssohn was still on the piano ledge, open at Number Nine. He -began to play it. But at the first bars of the melody he stopped, -overwhelmed by an agony of regret. He slid down on his knees, with his -arms on the edge of the piano and his head bowed on his arms.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His soul cried out in him with no sound.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Mother—Mother—if only I had you back. If only you would come to -me. Come—Come—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And suddenly he felt her come. From far-off, from her place among the -blessed, she came rushing, as if on wings. He heard nothing; he saw -nothing; but with every nerve he felt the vibration of her approach, of -her presence. She was close to him now, closer than hearing or sight or -touch could bring her; her self to his self; her inmost essence was -there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The phantasm of a week ago was a faint, insignificant thing beside this -supreme manifestation. No likeness of flesh and blood could give him -such an assurance of reality, of contact.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For, more certain than any word of flesh and blood, her meaning flashed -through him and thrilled.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She knew. She knew she had him again; she knew she would never lose -him. He was her son. As she had once given him flesh of her flesh, so -now, self to innermost self, she gave him her blessedness, her peace.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='thevic' class='c003'>THE VICTIM</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>Steven Acroyd, Mr. Greathead’s chauffeur, was sulking in the garage.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Everybody was afraid of him. Everybody hated him except Mr. Greathead, -his master, and Dorsy, his sweetheart.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And even Dorsy now, after yesterday!</p> - -<p class='c005'>Night had come. On one side the yard gates stood open to the black -tunnel of the drive. On the other the high moor rose above the wall, -immense, darker than the darkness. Steven’s lantern in the open -doorway of the garage and Dorsy’s lamp in the kitchen window threw a -blond twilight into the yard between. From where he sat, slantways on -the step of the car, he could see, through the lighted window, the table -with the lamp and Dorsy’s sewing huddled up in a white heap as she -left it just now, when she had jumped up and gone away. Because she was -afraid of him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had gone straight to Mr. Greathead in his study, and Steven, -sulking, had flung himself out into the yard.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He stared into the window, thinking, thinking. Everybody hated him. He -could tell by the damned spiteful way they looked at him in the bar of -the “King’s Arms”; kind of sideways and slink-eyed, turning their -dirty tails and shuffling out of his way.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had said to Dorsy he’d like to know what he’d done. He’d just -dropped in for his glass as usual; he’d looked round and said -“Good-evening,” civil, and the dirty tykes took no more notice of -him than if he’d been a toad. Mrs. Oldishaw, Dorsy’s aunt, <i>she</i> -hated him, -boiled-ham-face, swelling with spite, shoving his glass at the end of -her arm, without speaking, as if he’d been a bloody cockroach.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id025'> -<img src='images/i192.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>All because of the thrashing he’d given young Ned Oldishaw. If she -didn’t want the cub’s neck broken she’d better keep him out of -mischief. Young Ned knew what he’d get if he came meddling with -<i>his</i> sweetheart.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It had happened yesterday afternoon, Sunday, when he had gone down with -Dorsy to the “King’s Arms” to see her aunt. They were sitting -out on the wooden bench against the inn wall when young Ned began it. He -could see him now with his arm round Dorsy’s neck and his mouth -gaping.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And Dorsy laughing like a silly fool and the old woman snorting and -shaking.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He could hear him. “She’s my cousin if she <i>is</i> your -sweetheart. You can’t stop me kissing her.” <i>Couldn’t</i> he!</p> - -<p class='c005'>Why, what did they think? When he’d given up his good job at the -Darlington Motor Works to come to Eastthwaite and black Mr. -Greathead’s boots, chop wood, carry coal and water for him, and drive -his shabby secondhand car. Not that he cared what he did so long as he -could live in the same house with Dorsy Oldishaw. It wasn’t likely -he’d sit like a bloody Moses, looking on, while Ned—</p> - -<p class='c005'>To be sure, he had half killed him. He could feel Ned’s neck swelling -and rising up under the pressure of his hands, his fingers. He had -struck him first, flinging him back against the inn wall, then he had -pinned him—till the men ran up and dragged him off.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And now they were all against him. Dorsy was against him. She had said -she was afraid of him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Steven,” she had said, “tha med ’a killed him.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well—p’r’aps next time he’ll knaw better than to coom -meddlin’ with <i>my</i> lass.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m not thy lass, ef tha canna keep thy hands off folks. I should -be feared for my life of thee. Ned wum’t doing naw ’arm.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ef he doos it again, ef he cooms between thee and me, Dorsy, I shall -do ’im in.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Naw, tha maunna talk that road.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s Gawd’s truth. Anybody that cooms between thee and me, loove, -I shall do ’im in. Ef ’twas thy aunt, I should wring ’er neck, same -as I wroong Ned’s.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And ef it was me, Steven?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ef it wur thee, ef tha left me— Aw, doan’t tha assk me, Dorsy.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There—that’s ’ow tha scares me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But tha’ ’astna left me—’tes thy wedding daithes tha’rt -making.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye, ’tes my wedding claithes.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She had started fingering the white stuff, looking at it with her head -on one side, smiling prettily. Then all of a sudden she had flung it -down in a heap and burst out crying. When he tried to comfort her she -pushed him off and ran out of the room, to Mr. Greathead.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It must have been half an hour ago and she had not come back yet.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He got up and went through the yard gates into the dark drive. Turning -there, he came to the house front and the lighted window of the study. -Hidden behind a clump of yew he looked in.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Greathead had risen from his chair. He was a little old man, shrunk -and pinched, with a bowed narrow back and slender neck under his grey -hanks of hair.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Dorsy stood before him, facing Steven. The lamplight fell full on her. -Her sweet flower-face was flushed. She had been crying.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Greathead spoke.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, that’s my advice,” he said. “Think it over, Dorsy, before -you do anything.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>That night Dorsy packed her boxes, and the next day at noon, when Steven -came in for his dinner, she had left the Lodge. She had gone back to her -father’s house in Garthdale.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She wrote to Steven saying that she had thought it over and found she -daren’t marry him. She was afraid of him. She would be too -unhappy.</p> - -<div id='i194' class='figcenter id022'> -<img src='images/i194.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>Then all of a sudden she had burst out crying ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>II</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>That was the old man, the old man. He had made her give him up. But for -that, Dorsy would never have left him. She would never have thought of -it herself. And she would never have got away if he had been there to -stop her. It wasn’t Ned. Ned was going to marry Nancy Peacock down at -Morfe. Ned hadn’t done any harm.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was Mr. Greathead who had come between them. He hated Mr. Greathead.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His hate became a nausea of physical loathing that never ceased. Indoors -he served Mr. Greathead as footman and valet, waiting on him at meals, -bringing the hot water for his bath, helping him to dress and undress. -So that he could never get away from him. When he came to call him in -the morning, Steven’s stomach heaved at the sight of the shrunken body -under the bedclothes, the flushed, pinched face with its peaked, -finicking nose upturned, the thin silver tuft of hair pricked up above -the pillow’s edge. Steven shivered with hate at the sound of the -rattling, old-man’s cough, and the “shoob-shoob” of the feet -shuffling along the flagged passages.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had once had a feeling of tenderness for Mr. Greathead as the tie -that bound him to Dorsy. He even brushed his coat and hat tenderly, as -if he loved them. Once Mr. Greathead’s small, close smile—the -greyish bud of the lower lip pushed out, the upper lip lifted at the -corners—and his kind, thin “Thank you, my lad,” had made Steven -smile back, glad to serve Dorsy’s master. And Mr. Greathead would -smile again and say, “It does me good to see your bright face, -Steven.” Now Steven’s face writhed in a tight contortion to meet Mr. -Greathead’s kindliness, while his throat ran dry and his heart shook -with hate.</p> - -<p class='c005'>At meal-times from his place by the sideboard he would look on at Mr. -Greathead eating, in a long contemplative disgust. He could have -snatched the plate away from under the slow, fumbling hands that hovered -and hesitated. He would catch words coming into his mind: “He -ought to be dead. He ought to be dead.” To think that this thing that -ought to be dead, this old, shrivelled skin-bag -of creaking bones should come between him and Dorsy, should have power -to drive Dorsy from him.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id026'> -<img src='images/i197.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>One day when he was brushing Mr. Greathead’s soft felt hat a paroxysm -of hatred gripped him. He hated Mr. Greathead’s hat. He took a stick -and struck at it again and again; he threw it on the flags and stamped -on it, clenching his teeth and drawing in his breath with a sharp hiss. -He picked up the hat, looking round furtively, for fear lest Mr. -Greathead or Dorsy’s successor, Mrs. Blenkiron, should have seen him. -He pinched and pulled it back into shape and brushed it carefully and -hung it on the stand. He was ashamed, not of his violence, but of its -futility.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Nobody but a damned fool, he said to himself, would have done that. He -must have been mad.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It wasn’t as if he didn’t know what he was going to do. He had known -ever since the day when Dorsy left him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I shan’t be myself again till I’ve done him in,” he thought.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was only waiting till he had planned it out; till he was sure of -every detail; till he was fit and cool. There must be no hesitation, no -uncertainty at the last minute, above all, no blind, headlong violence. -Nobody but a fool would kill in mad rage, and forget things, and be -caught and swing for it. Yet that was what they all did. There was -always something they hadn’t thought of that gave them away.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Steven had thought of everything, even the date, even the weather.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Greathead was in the habit of going up to London to attend the -debates of a learned Society he belonged to that held its meetings in -May and November. He always travelled up by the five o’clock train, so -that he might go to bed and rest as soon as he arrived. He always stayed -for a week and gave his housekeeper a week’s holiday. Steven chose a -dark, threatening day in November, when Mr. Greathead was going up to -his meeting and Mrs. Blenkiron had left Eastthwaite for Morfe by the -early morning bus. So that there was nobody in the house but Mr. -Greathead and Steven.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Eastthwaite Lodge stands alone, grey, hidden between the shoulder of the -moor and the ash-trees of its drive. It is approached by a bridle-path -across the moor, a turning off the road that runs from Eastthwaite in -Rathdale to Shawe in Westleydale, about a mile from the village and a -mile from Hardraw Pass. No tradesmen visited it. Mr. Greathead’s -letters and his newspaper were shot into a post-box that hung on the -ash-tree at the turn.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The hot water laid on in the house was not hot enough for Mr. -Greathead’s bath, so that every morning, while Mr. Greathead shaved, -Steven came to him with a can of boiling water.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Greathead, dressed in a mauve and grey striped sleeping-suit, stood -shaving himself before the looking-glass that hung on the wall beside -the great white bath. Steven waited with his hand on the cold tap, -watching the bright curved rod of water falling with a thud and a -splash.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the white, stagnant light from the muffed window-pane the knife-blade -flame of a small oil-stove flickered queerly. The oil sputtered and -stank.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Suddenly the wind hissed in the water-pipes and cut off the glittering -rod. To Steven it seemed the suspension of all movement. He would have -to wait there till the water flowed again before he could begin. He -tried not to look at Mr. Greathead and the lean wattles of his lifted -throat. He fixed his eyes on the long crack in the soiled green -distemper of the wall. His nerves were on edge with waiting for the -water to flow again. The fumes of the oil-stove worked on them like a -rank intoxicant. The soiled green wall gave him a sensation of physical -sickness.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He picked up a towel and hung it over the back of a chair. Thus he -caught sight of his own face in the glass above Mr. Greathead’s; it -was livid against the soiled green wall. Steven stepped aside to avoid -it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Don’t you feel well, Steven?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No, sir.” Steven picked up a small sponge and looked at it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Greathead had laid down his razor and was wiping the lather from his -chin. At that instant, with a gurgling, spluttering haste, the water -leaped from the tap.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was then that Steven made his sudden, quiet rush. He first gagged Mr. -Greathead with the sponge, then pushed him back and back against the -wall and pinned him there with both hands round his neck, as he had -pinned Ned Oldishaw. He pressed in on Mr. Greathead’s throat, -strangling him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Greathead’s hands flapped in the air, trying feebly to beat Steven -off; then his arms, pushed back by the heave and thrust of -Steven’s shoulders, dropped. Then Mr. Greathead’s body sank, sliding -along the wall, and fell to the floor, Steven still keeping his hold, -mounting it, gripping it with his knees. His fingers tightened, pressing -back the blood. Mr. Greathead’s face swelled up; it changed -horribly. There was a groaning and rattling sound in his throat. Steven -pressed in till it had ceased.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then he stripped himself to the waist. He stripped Mr. Greathead of his -sleeping-suit and hung his naked body face downwards in the bath. He -took the razor and cut the great arteries and veins in the neck. He -pulled up the plug of the waste-pipe, and left the body to drain in the -running water.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He left it all day and all night.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had noticed that murderers swung just for want of attention to little -things like that; messing up themselves and the whole place with blood; -always forgetting something essential. He had no time to think of -horrors. From the moment he had murdered Mr. Greathead his own neck was -in danger; he was simply using all his brain and nerve to save his neck. -He worked with the stem, cool hardness of a man going through with an -unpleasant, necessary job. He had thought of everything.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had even thought of the dairy.</p> - -<div id='i200' class='figcenter id019'> -<img src='images/i200.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>Steven waited with his hand on the tap ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>It was built on to the back of the house under the shelter of the high -moor. You entered it through the scullery, which cut it off from the -yard. The window-panes had been removed and replaced by sheets -of perforated zinc. A large corrugated glass sky-light lit it from the -roof. Impossible either to see in or to approach it from the outside. It -was fitted up with a long, black slate shelf, placed, for the -convenience of butter-makers, at the height of an ordinary work-bench. -Steven had his tools, a razor, a carving-knife, a chopper and a -meat-saw, laid there ready, beside a great pile of cotton waste.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Early the next day he took Mr. Greathead’s body out of the bath, -wrapped a thick towel round the neck and head, carried it down to the -dairy and stretched it out on the slab. And there he cut it up into -seventeen pieces.</p> - -<p class='c005'>These he wrapped in several layers of newspaper, covering the face and -the hands first, because, at the last moment, they frightened him. He -sewed them up in two sacks and hid them in the cellar.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He burnt the towel and the cotton waste in the kitchen fire; he cleaned -his tools thoroughly and put them back in their places; and he washed -down the marble slab. There wasn’t a spot on the floor except for one -flagstone where the pink rinsing of the slab had splashed over. He -scrubbed it for half an hour, still seeing the rusty edges of the splash -long after he had scoured it out.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He then washed and dressed himself with care.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As it was war-time Steven could only work by day, for a light in the -dairy roof would have attracted the attention of the police. He had -murdered Mr. Greathead on a Tuesday; it was now three o’clock on -Thursday afternoon. Exactly at ten minutes past four he had brought out -the car, shut in close with its black hood and side curtains. He had -packed Mr. Greathead’s suit-case and placed it in the car with his -umbrella, railway rug, and travelling cap. Also, in a bundle, the -clothes that his victim would have gone to London in.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He stowed the body in the two sacks beside him on the front.</p> - -<p class='c005'>By Hardraw Pass, half-way between Eastthwaite and Shawe, there are three -round pits, known as the Churns, hollowed out of the grey rock and said -to be bottomless. Steven had thrown stones, big as a man’s chest, down -the largest pit, to see whether they would be caught on any ledge or -boulder. They had dropped clean, without a sound.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It poured with rain, the rain that Steven had reckoned on. The Pass was -dark under the clouds and deserted. Steven turned his car so that the -headlights glared on the pit’s mouth. Then he ripped open the sacks -and threw down, one by one, the seventeen pieces of Mr. Greathead’s -body, and the sacks after them, and the clothes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was not enough to dispose of Mr. Greathead’s dead body; he had to -behave as though Mr. Greathead were alive. Mr. Greathead had disappeared -and he had to account for his disappearance. He drove on to Shawe -station to the five o’clock train, taking care to arrive close on its -starting. A troop-train was due to depart a minute earlier. Steven, who -had reckoned on the darkness and the rain, reckoned also on the hurry -and confusion on the platform.</p> - -<p class='c005'>As he had foreseen, there were no porters in the station entry; nobody -to notice whether Mr. Greathead was or was not in the car. He carried -his things through on to the platform and gave the suit-case to an old -man to label. He dashed into the booking-office and took Mr. -Greathead’s ticket, and then rushed along the platform as if he were -following his master. He heard himself shouting to the guard, -“Have you seen Mr. Greathead?” And the guard’s answer, “Naw!” -And his own inspired statement, “He must have taken his seat in -the front, then.” He ran to the front of the train, shouldering his -way among the troops. The drawn blinds of the carriages favoured him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Steven thrust the umbrella, the rug, and the travelling cap into an -empty compartment, and slammed the door to. He tried to shout something -through the open window; but his tongue was harsh and dry against the -roof of his mouth, and no sound came. He stood, blocking the window, -till the guard whistled. When the train moved he ran alongside with his -hand on the window ledge, as though he were taking the last instructions -of his master. A porter pulled him back.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Quick work, that,” said Steven.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Before he left the station he wired to Mr. Greathead’s London hotel, -announcing the time of his arrival.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He felt nothing, nothing but the intense relief of a man who has saved -himself by his own wits from a most horrible death. There were even -moments, in the week that followed, when, so powerful was the illusion -of his innocence, he could have believed that he had really seen Mr. -Greathead off by the five o’clock train. Moments when he literally -stood still in amazement before his own incredible impunity. Other -moments when a sort of vanity uplifted him. He had committed a murder -that for sheer audacity and cool brain work surpassed all murders -celebrated in the history of crime. Unfortunately the very perfection of -his achievement doomed it to oblivion. He had left not a trace.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Not a trace.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Only when he woke in the night a doubt sickened him. There was the -rusted ring of that splash on the dairy floor. He wondered, had he -really washed it out clean. And he would get up and light a candle and -go down to the dairy to make sure. He knew the exact place; bending -over it with the candle, he could imagine that he still saw a faint -outline.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Daylight reassured him. <i>He</i> knew the exact place, but nobody else -knew. There was nothing to distinguish it from the natural stains in the -flagstone. Nobody would guess. But he was glad when Mrs. Blenkiron came -back again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>On the day that Mr. Greathead was to have come home by the four -o’clock train Steven drove into Shawe and bought a chicken for the -master’s dinner. He met the four o’clock train and expressed -surprise that Mr. Greathead had not come by it. He said he would be sure -to come by the seven. He ordered dinner for eight; Mrs. Blenkiron -roasted the chicken, and Steven met the seven o’clock train. This time -he showed uneasiness.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The next day he met all the trains and wired to Mr. Greathead’s hotel -for information. When the manager wired back that Mr. Greathead had not -arrived, he wrote to his relatives and gave notice to the police.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Three weeks passed. The police and Mr. Greathead’s relatives accepted -Steven’s statements, backed as they were by the evidence of the -booking office clerk, the telegraph clerk, the guard, the porter who had -labelled Mr. Greathead’s luggage and the hotel manager who had -received his telegram. Mr. Greathead’s portrait was published in the -illustrated papers with requests for any information which might lead to -his discovery. Nothing happened, and presently he and his disappearance -were forgotten. The nephew who came down to Eastthwaite to look into his -affairs was satisfied. His balance at his bank was low owing to the -non-payment of various dividends, but the accounts and the contents of -Mr. Greathead’s cash-box and bureau were in order and Steven had put -down every penny he had spent. The nephew paid Mrs. Blenkiron’s wages -and dismissed her and arranged with the chauffeur to stay on and take -care of the house. And as Steven saw that this was the best way to -escape suspicion, he stayed on.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Only in Westleydale and Rathdale excitement lingered. People wondered -and speculated. Mr. Greathead had been robbed and murdered in the train -(Steven said he had had money on him). He had lost his memory and -wandered goodness knew where. He had thrown himself out of the railway -carriage. Steven said Mr. Greathead wouldn’t do <i>that</i>, but he -shouldn’t be surprised if he had lost his memory. He knew a man who -forgot who he was and where he lived. Didn’t know his own wife and -children. Shell-shock. And lately Mr. Greathead’s memory hadn’t been -what it was. Soon as he got it back he’d turn up again. Steven -wouldn’t be surprised to see him walking in any day.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But on the whole people noticed that he didn’t care to talk much about -Mr. Greathead. They thought this showed very proper feeling. They were -sorry for Steven. He had lost his master and he had lost Dorsy Oldishaw. -And if he <i>did</i> half kill Ned Oldishaw, well, young Ned had no -business to go meddling with his sweetheart. Even Mrs. Oldishaw was -sorry for him. And when Steven came into the bar of the King’s Arms -everybody said “Good-evening, Steve,” and made room for him by -the fire.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>III</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>Steven came and went now as if nothing had happened. He made a point of -keeping the house as it would be kept if Mr. Greathead were alive. Mrs. -Blenkiron, coming in once a fortnight to wash and clean, found the fire -lit in Mr. Greathead’s study and his slippers standing on end in the -fender. Upstairs his bed was made, the clothes folded back, ready. This -ritual guarded Steven not only from the suspicions of outsiders, but -from his own knowledge. By behaving as though he believed that Mr. -Greathead was still living he almost made himself believe it. By -refusing to let his mind dwell on the murder he came to forget it. His -imagination saved him, playing the play that kept him sane, till the -murder became vague to him and fantastic like a thing done in a dream. -He had waked up and this was the reality; this round of caretaking, this -look the house had of waiting for Mr. Greathead to -come back to it. He had left off getting up in the night to examine the -place on the dairy floor. He was no longer amazed at his impunity.</p> - -<div class='figcenter id027'> -<img src='images/i207.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>Then suddenly, when he really had forgotten, it ended. It was on a -Saturday in January, about five o’clock. Steven had heard that Dorsy -Oldishaw was back again, living at the “King’s Arms” with her -aunt. He had a mad, uncontrollable longing to see her again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But it was not Dorsy that he saw.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His way from the Lodge kitchen into the drive was through the yard gates -and along the flagged path under the study window. When he turned on to -the flags he saw it shuffling along before him. The lamplight from the -window lit it up. He could see distinctly the little old man in the -long, shabby black overcoat, with the grey woollen muffler round his -neck hunched up above his collar, lifting the thin grey hair that stuck -out under the slouch of the black hat.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In the first moment that he saw it Steven had no fear. He simply felt -that the murder had not happened, that he really <i>had</i> dreamed it, -and that this was Mr. Greathead come back, alive among the living. The -phantasm was now standing at the door of the house, its hand on the -door-knob as if about to enter.</p> - -<p class='c005'>But when Steven came up to the door it was not there.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He stood, fixed, staring at the space which had emptied itself so -horribly. His heart heaved and staggered, snatching at his breath. And -suddenly the memory of the murder rushed at him. He saw himself in the -bathroom, shut in with his victim by the soiled green walls. He smelt -the reek of the oil-stove; he heard the water running from the tap. He -felt his feet springing forward, and his fingers pressing, tighter and -tighter, on Mr. Greathead’s throat. He saw Mr. Greathead’s hands -flapping helplessly, his terrified eyes, his face swelling and -discoloured, changing horribly, and his body sinking to the floor.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He saw himself in the dairy, afterwards; he could hear the thudding, -grinding, scraping noises of his tools. He saw himself on Hardraw Pass -and the headlights glaring on the pit’s mouth. And the fear and the -horror he had not felt then came on him now.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He turned back; he bolted the yard gates and all the doors of the house, -and shut himself up in the lighted kitchen. He took up his magazine. -<i>The Autocar</i>, and forced himself to read it. Presently his terror -left him. He said to himself it was nothing. Nothing but his fancy. He -didn’t suppose he’d ever see anything again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Three days passed. On the third evening, Steven had lit the study lamp -and was bolting the window when he saw it again.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It stood on the path outside, close against the window, looking in. He -saw its face distinctly, the greyish, stuck-out bud of the under-lip, -and the droop of the pinched nose. The small eyes peered at him, -glittering. The whole figure had a glassy look between the darkness -behind it and the pane. One moment it stood outside, looking in; and the -next it was mixed up with the shimmering picture of the lighted room -that hung there on the blackness of the trees. Mr. Greathead then showed -as if reflected, standing with Steven in the room.</p> - -<div id='i210' class='figcenter id010'> -<img src='images/i210.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>It stood close against the window, looking in.</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>And now he was outside again, looking at him, looking at him through the -pane.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Steven’s stomach sank and dragged, making him feel sick. He pulled -down the blind between him and Mr. Greathead, clamped the shutters to -and drew the curtains over them. He locked and double-bolted the front -door, all the doors, to keep Mr. Greathead out. But, once that night, as -he lay in bed, he heard the “shoob-shoob” of feet shuffling along -the flagged passages, up the stairs, and across the landing outside his -door. The door handle rattled; but nothing came. He lay awake till -morning, the sweat running off his skin, his heart plunging and -quivering with terror.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When he got up he saw a white, scared face in the looking-glass. A face -with a half-open mouth, ready to blab, to blurt out his secret; the face -of an idiot. He was afraid to take that face into Eastthwaite or into -Shawe. So he shut himself up in the house, half starved on his small -stock of bread, bacon and groceries.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Two weeks passed; and then it came again in broad daylight.</p> - -<p class='c005'>It was Mrs. Blenkiron’s morning. He had lit the fire in the study at -noon and set up Mr. Greathead’s slippers in the fender. When he rose -from his stooping and turned round he saw Mr. Greathead’s phantasm -standing on the hearthrug dose in front of him. It was looking at him -and smiling in a sort of mockery, as if amused at what Steven had been -doing. It was solid and completely lifelike at first. Then, as Steven in -his terror backed and backed away from it (he was afraid to turn and -feel it there behind him), its feet became insubstantial. As if -undermined, the whole structure sank and fell together on the floor, -where it made a pool of some whitish glistening substance that mixed -with the pattern of the carpet and sank through.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was the most horrible thing it had done yet, and Steven’s nerve -broke under it. He went to Mrs. Blenkiron, whom he found scrubbing out -the dairy.</p> - -<p class='c005'>She sighed as she wrung out the floor-doth.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Eh, these owd yeller stawnes, scroob as you will they’ll nawer look -dean.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Naw,” he said. “Scroob and scroob, you’ll nawer get them -clean.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She looked up at him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Eh, lad, what ails ’ee? Ye’ve got a faace like a wroong dishdout -hanging ower t’ sink.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’ve got the colic.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye, an’ naw woonder wi’ the damp, and they misties, an’ your -awn bad cooking. Let me roon down t’ ‘King’s Arms’ and get you a drop -of whisky.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Naw, I’ll gaw down mysen.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He knew now he was afraid to be left alone in the house. Down at the -“King’s Arms” Dorsy and Mrs. Oldishaw were -sorry for him. By this time he was really ill with fright. -Dorsy and Mrs. Oldishaw said it was a chill. They made him lie down on -the settle by the kitchen fire and put a rug over him, and gave him -stiff hot grog to drink. He slept. And when he woke he found Dorsy -sitting beside him with her sewing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He sat up and her hand was on his shoulder.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Lay still, lad.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I maun get oop and gaw.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nay, there’s naw call for ’ee to gaw. Lay still and I’ll make thee -a coop o’ tea.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He lay still.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mrs. Oldishaw had made up a bed for him in her son’s room, and they -kept him there that night and till four o’clock the next day.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When he got up to go Dorsy put on her coat and hat.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Is tha gawing out, Dorsy?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye. I canna let thee gaw and set there by thysen. I’m cooming oop to -set with ’ee till night time.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She came up and they sat side by side in the Lodge kitchen by the fire -as they used to sit when they were together there, holding each -other’s hands and not talking.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Dorsy,” he said at last, “what astha coom for? Astha coom to -tall me tha’ll nawer speak to me again?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nay. Tha knaws what I’ve coom for.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“To saay tha’ll marry me?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I maunna marry thee, Dorsy. ’twouldn’ be right.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Right? What dostha mean? ’twouldn’t be right for me to coom and set -wi’ thee this road ef I doan’t marry thee.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nay. I darena’. Tha said tha was afraid of me, Dorsy. I doan’t -want ’ee to be afraid. Tha said tha’d be unhappy. I doan’t want ’ee -to be unhappy.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That was lasst year. I’m not afraid of ’ee, now, Steve.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Tha doan’t knaw me, lass.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye, I knaw thee. I knaw tha’s sick and starved for want of me. Tha -canna live wi’out thy awn lass to take care of ’ee.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She rose.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I maun gaw now. But I’ll be oop to-morrow and the next day.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And to-morrow and the next day and the next, at dusk, the hour that -Steven most dreaded, Dorsy came. She sat with him till long after the -night had fallen.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Steven would have felt safe so long as she was with him, but for his -fear that Mr. Greathead would appear to him while she was there and that -she would see him. If Dorsy knew he was being haunted she might guess -why. Or Mr. Greathead might take some horrible blood-dripping and -dismembered shape that would show her how he had been murdered. It would -be like him, dead, to come between them as he had come when he was -living.</p> - -<p class='c005'>They were sitting at the round table by the fireside. The lamp was lit -and Dorsy was bending over her sewing. Suddenly she looked up, her head -on one side, listening. Far away inside the house, on the flagged -passage from the front door, he could hear the “shoob-shoob” of -the footsteps. He could almost believe that Dorsy shivered. And -somehow, for some reason, this time he was not afraid.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Steven,” she said, “didsta ’ear anything?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Naw. Nobbut t’ wind oonder t’ roogs.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>She looked at him; a long wondering look. Apparently it satisfied her, -for she answered: “Aye. Mebbe ’tes nobbut wind,” and went on with -her sewing.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He drew his chair nearer to her to protect her if it came. He could -almost touch her where she sat.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The latch lifted. The door opened, and, his entrance and his passage -unseen, Mr. Greathead stood before them.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The table hid the lower half of his form; but above it he was steady and -solid in his terrible semblance of flesh and blood.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Steven looked at Dorsy. She was staring at the phantasm with an -innocent, wondering stare that had no fear in it at all. Then she looked -at Steven. An uneasy, frightened, searching look, as though to make sure -whether he had seen it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was her fear—that <i>he</i> should see it, that <i>he</i> should be -frightened, that <i>he</i> should be haunted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He moved closer and put his hand on her shoulder. He thought, perhaps, -she might shrink from him because she knew that it <i>was</i> he who was -haunted. But no, she put up her hand and held his, gazing up into his -face and smiling.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then, to his amazement, the phantasm smiled back at them; not with -mockery, but with a strange and terrible sweetness. Its face lit up for -one instant with a sudden, beautiful, shining light; then it was gone.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Did tha see ’im, Steve?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Astha seen annything afore?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye, three times I’ve seen ’im.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Is it that ’as scared thee?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“’Oo tawled ’ee I was scared?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I knawed. Because nowt can ’appen to thee but I maun knaw it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What dostha think, Dorsy?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I think tha needna be scared, Steve. ’E’s a kind ghawst. Whatever -’e is ’e doan’t mean thee no ’arm. T’ owd gentleman nawer did when he -was alive.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Didn’ ’e? Didn’ ’e? ’E served me the woorst turn ’e could -when ’e coomed between thee and me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Whatever makes ’ee think that, lad?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I doan’ think it. I <i>know</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nay, loove, tha dostna.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“’E did. ’E did, I tell thee.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Doan’ tha say that,” she cried. “Doan’ tha say it, Stevey.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why shouldn’t I?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Tha’ll set folk talking that road.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What do they knaw to talk about?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Ef they was to remember what tha said.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And what did I say?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, that ef annybody was to coom between thee and me, tha’d -do them in.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I wasna thinking of <i>’tin</i>. Gawd knaws I wasna.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>They</i> doan’t,” she said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>Tha</i> knaws? Tha knaws I didna mean ’im?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye, <i>I</i> knaw, Steve.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“An’, Dorsy, tha ’m’t afraid of me? Tha ’m’t afraid of me anny -more?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Nay, lad. I loove thee too mooch. I shall nawer be afraid of ’ee -again. Would I coom to thee this road ef I was afraid?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Tha’ll be afraid now.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And what should I be afraid of?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why—’m.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>’Im?</i> I should be a deal more afraid to think of ’ee setting -with ’im oop ’ere, by thysen. Wuntha coom down and sleep at aunt’s?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That I wunna. But I shall set ’ee on t’ road passt t’ moor.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He went with her down the bridle-path and across the moor and along the -main road that led through Eastthwaite. They parted at the turn where -the lights of the village came in sight.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The moon had risen as Steven went back across the moor. The ash-tree at -the bridle-path stood out clear, its hooked, bending branches black -against the grey moor-grass. The shadows in the ruts laid stripes along -the bridle-path, black on grey. The house was black-grey in the darkness -of the drive. Only the lighted study window made a golden square in its -long wall.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Before he could go up to bed he would have to put out the study lamp. He -was nervous; but he no longer felt the sickening and sweating terror of -the first hauntings. Either he was getting used to it, or—something -had happened to him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had closed the shutters and put out the lamp. His candle made a ring -of light round the table in the middle of the room. He was about to take -it up and go when he heard a thin voice calling his same: “Steven.” -He raised his head to listen. The thin thread of sound seemed to come -from outside, a long way off, at the end of the bridle-path.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Steven, Steven—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>This time he could have sworn the sound came from inside his head, like -the hiss of air in his ears.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Steven—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He knew the voice now. It was behind him in the room. He turned, and saw -the phantasm of Mr. Greathead sitting, as he used to sit, in the -arm-chair by the fire. The form was dim in the dusk of the room outside -the ring of candlelight. Steven’s first movement was to snatch up the -candlestick and hold it between him and the phantasm, hoping that the -light would cause it to disappear. Instead of disappearing the figure -became clear and solid, indistinguishable from a figure of flesh and -blood dressed in black broadcloth and white linen. Its eyes had the -shining transparency of blue crystal; they were fixed on Steven with a -look of quiet, benevolent attention. Its small, narrow mouth was lifted -at the corners, smiling.</p> - -<div id='i216' class='figcenter id012'> -<img src='images/i216.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>... the figure became clear and solid ...</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>It spoke.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You needn’t be afraid,” it said.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The voice was natural now, quiet, measured, slightly quavering. Instead -of frightening Steven it soothed and steadied him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He put the candle on the table behind him and stood up before the -phantasm, fascinated.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“<i>Why</i> are you afraid?” it asked.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Steven couldn’t answer. He could only stare, held there by the -shining, hypnotizing eyes.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You are afraid,” it said, “because you think I’m what you call -a ghost, a supernatural thing. You think I’m dead and that you killed -me. You think you took a horrible revenge for a wrong you thought I did -you. You think I’ve come back to frighten you, to revenge myself in my -turn.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And every one of those thoughts of yours, Steven, is wrong. I’m -real, and my appearance is as natural and real as anything in this -room—<i>more</i> natural and more real if you did but know. You -didn’t kill me, as you see; for here I am, as alive, more alive than -you are. Your revenge consisted in removing me from a state which had -become unbearable to a state more delightful than you can imagine. I -don’t mind telling you, Steven, that I was in serious financial -difficulties (which, by the way, is a good thing for you, as it provides -a plausible motive for my disappearance). So that, as far as revenge -goes, the thing was a complete frost. You were my benefactor. Your -methods were somewhat violent, and I admit you gave me some disagreeable -moments before my actual deliverance; but as I was already developing -rheumatoid arthritis there can be no doubt that in your hands my death -was more merciful than if it had been left to Nature. As for the -subsequent arrangements, I congratulate you, Steven, on your coolness -and resource. I always said you were equal to any emergency, and that -your brains would pull you safe through any scrape. You committed an -appalling and dangerous crime, a crime of all things the most difficult -to conceal, and you contrived so that it was not discovered and never -will be discovered. And no doubt the details of this crime seemed to you -horrible and revolting to the last degree; and the more horrible and -the more revolting they were, the more you piqued yourself on your nerve -in carrying the thing through without a hitch.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t want to put you entirely out of conceit with your -performance. It was very creditable for a beginner, very creditable -indeed. But let me tell you, this idea of things being horrible and -revolting is all illusion. The terms are purely relative to your limited -perceptions.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m speaking now to your intelligence—I don’t mean that -practical ingenuity which enabled you to dispose of me so neatly. When I -say intelligence I mean intelligence. All you did, then, was to -redistribute matter. To our incorruptible sense matter never takes any -of those offensive forms in which it so often appears to you. Nature has -evolved all this horror and repulsion just to prevent people from making -too many little experiments like yours. You mustn’t imagine that these -things have any eternal importance. Don’t flatter yourself you’ve -electrified the universe. For minds no longer attached to flesh and -blood, that horrible butchery you were so proud of, Steven, is simply -silly. No more terrifying than the spiffing of red ink or the -rearrangement of a jig-saw puzzle. I saw the whole business, and I can -assure you I felt nothing but intense amusement. Your face, Steven, was -so absurdly serious. You’ve no idea what you looked like with that -chopper. I’d have appeared to you then and told you so, only I knew I -should frighten you into fits.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And there’s another grand mistake, my lad—your thinking that -I’m haunting you out of revenge, that I’m trying to frighten -you.... My dear Steven, if I’d wanted to frighten you I’d have appeared in -a very different shape. I needn’t remind you what shape I <i>might</i> -have appeared in.... What do you suppose I’ve come for?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t know,” said Steven in a husky whisper. “Tell me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’ve come to forgive you. And to save you from the horror you -<i>would</i> have felt sooner or later. And to stop your going on with -your crime.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You needn’t,” Steven said. “I’m not going on with it. I shall -do no more murders.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“There you are again. Can’t you understand that I’m not talking -about your silly butcher’s work? I’m talking about your <i>real</i> -crime. Your real crime was hating me.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And your very hate was a blunder, Steven. You hated me for something -I hadn’t done.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye, what did you do? Tell me that.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You thought I came between you and your sweetheart. That night when -Dorsy spoke to me, you thought I told her to throw you over, didn’t -you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye. And what did you tell her?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I told her to stick to you. It was you, Steven, who drove her away. -You frightened the child. She said she was afraid for her life of you. -Not because you half killed that poor boy, but because of the look on -your face before you did it. The look of hate, Steven.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I told her not to be afraid of you. I told her that if she threw you -over you might go altogether to the devil; that she might even be -responsible for some crime. I told her that if she married you and was -faithful—<i>if she loved you</i>—I’d answer for it you’d never go -wrong.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“She was too frightened to listen to me. Then I told her to think -over what I’d said before she did anything. You heard me say that.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye. That’s what I heard you say. I didn’ knaw. I didn’ knaw. I -thought you’d set her agen me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If you don’t believe me, you can ask her, Steven.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s what she said t’ other night. That you nawer coom between -her and me. Nawer.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Never,” the phantasm said. “And you don’t hate me now.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Naw. Naw. I should nawer ’a hated ’ee. I should nawer ’a laid a -finger on thee, ef I’d knawn.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s not your laying fingers on me, it’s your hatred that matters. -If that’s done with, the whole thing’s done with.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Is it? Is it? Ef it was knawn, I should have to hang for it. Maunna -I gie mysen oop? Tell me, maun I gie mysen oop?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You want me to decide that for you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Aye. Doan’t gaw,” he said. “Doan’t gaw.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>It seemed to him that Mr. Greathead’s phantasm was getting a little -thin, as if it couldn’t last more than an instant. He had never so -longed for it to go, as he longed now for it to stay and help him.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, Steven, any flesh-and-blood man would tell you to go and get -hanged to-morrow; that it was no more than your plain duty. And I -daresay there are some mean, vindictive spirits even in my world who -would say the same, not because <i>they</i> think death important but -because they know <i>you</i> do, and want to get even with you that way.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It isn’t <i>my</i> way. I consider this little affair is strictly -between ourselves. There isn’t a jury of flesh-and-blood men who would -understand it. They all think death so important.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What do you want me to do, then? Tell me and I’ll do it! Tell me!”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He cried it out loud; for Mr. Greathead’s phantasm was getting thinner -and thinner; it dwindled and fluttered, like a light going down. Its -voice came from somewhere away outside, from the other end of the -bridle-path.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Go on living,” it said. “Marry Dorsy.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I darena’. She doan’ knaw I killed ’ee.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, yes”—the eyes flickered up, gentle and ironic—“she does. -She knew all the time.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And with that the phantasm went out.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 id='thefin' class='c003'>THE FINDING OF THE ABSOLUTE</h2> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>I</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>Mr. Spalding had gone out into the garden to find peace, and had not found -it. He sat there, with hunched shoulders and bowed head, dejected in the -spring sunshine.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Jerry, the black cat, invited him to play; he stood on his hind legs and -danced, and bowed sideways, and waved his forelegs in the air like -wings. At any other time his behaviour would have enchanted Mr. -Spalding, but now he couldn’t even look at him; he was too miserable.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He had gone to bed miserable; he had passed a night of misery, and he -had waked up more miserable than ever. He had been like that for three -days and three nights straight on end, and no wonder. It wasn’t only -that his young wife Elizabeth had run away with Paul Jeffreson, the -Imagist poet. Besides the frailty of Elizabeth, he had discovered a -fatal flaw in his own system of metaphysics. His belief in Elizabeth was -gone. So was his belief in the Absolute.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The two things had come at once, to crush him. And he had to own -bitterly that they were not altogether unrelated. “If,” Mr. Spalding -said to himself, “I had served my wife as faithfully as I have served -my God, she would not now have deserted me for Paul Jeffreson.” He -meant that if he had not been wrapped up in his system of metaphysics, -Elizabeth might still have been wrapped up in him. He had nobody but -himself to thank for her behaviour.</p> - -<p class='c005'>If she had run away with anybody else, since run she must, he might have -forgiven her; he might have forgiven himself; but there could be nothing -but misery in store for Elizabeth. Paul Jeffreson had genius, Mr. -Spalding didn’t deny it; immortal genius; but he had no morals; he -drank; he drugged; in Mr. Spalding’s decent phrase, he did -everything he shouldn’t do.</p> - -<p class='c005'>You would have thought this overwhelming disaster would have completely -outweighed the other trouble. But no; Mr. Spalding had a balanced mind; -he mourned with equal sorrow the loss of his wife and the loss of his -Absolute. A flaw in a metaphysical system may seem to you a small thing; -but you must bear in mind that, ever since he could think at all, Mr. -Spalding had been devoured by a hunger and thirst after metaphysical -truth. He had flung over the God he had been taught to believe in -because, besides being an outrage to Mr. Spalding’s moral sense, he -wasn’t metaphysical enough. The poor man was always worrying about -metaphysics; he wandered from system to system, seeking truth, seeking -reality, seeking some supreme intellectual satisfaction that never came. -He thought he had found it in his theory of Absolute Pantheism. But -really, Spalding’s Pantheism, anybody’s Pantheism for that matter, -couldn’t, when you brought it down to bed-rock thinking, hold water -for a minute. And the more Absolute he made it, the leakier it was.</p> - -<p class='c005'>For, consider, on Mr. Spalding’s theory, there isn’t any reality -except the Absolute. Things are only real because they exist in It; -because It is Them. Mr. Spalding conceived that his consciousness and -Elizabeth’s consciousness and Paul Jeffreson’s consciousness existed -somehow in the Absolute unchanged. For, if that inside existence changed -them you would have to say that the ground of their present appearance -lay somewhere outside the Absolute, which to Mr. Spalding was rank -blasphemy. And if Elizabeth and Paul Jeffreson existed in the Absolute -unchanged, then their adultery existed there unchanged. And an adultery -within the Absolute outraged his moral sense as much as anything he had -been told about God in his youth. The odd thing was that until Elizabeth -had run away and committed it he had never thought of that. The -metaphysics of Pantheism had interested him much more than its ethics. -And now he could think of nothing else.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And it wasn’t only Elizabeth and her iniquity; there were all the -intolerable people he had ever known. There was his Uncle Sims, a mean -sneak if ever there was one; and his Aunt Emily, a silly fool; and his -cousin, Tom Rumbold, an obscene idiot. And his uncle’s mean -sneak-ishness, and his aunt’s silly folly, and his cousin’s obscene -idiocy would have to exist in the Absolute, too; and unchanged, mind -you.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And the things you see and hear—A blue sky, now, would it be blue in -the Sight of God, or just something inconceivable? And noises, music? -For example, I am listening to Grand Opera, and you to the jazz band in -your restaurant; but the God of Pantheism is listening to both, to all -the noises in the universe at once. As if He had sat down on the piano. -This idea shocked Mr. Spalding even more than the thought of Elizabeth’s -misconduct.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Time went on. Paul Jeffreson drank himself to death. Elizabeth, worn out -with grief, died of pneumonia following influenza; and Mr. Spalding -still went about worrying over his inadjustable metaphysics.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And at last he, too, found himself dying.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And then he began to worry about other things. Things that had, as he -put it, “happened” in his youth, before he knew Elizabeth, and -one thing that had happened after she left him. He thought of them as -just happening; happening <i>to</i> him rather than <i>through</i> him, -against his will. In calm, philosophic moments he couldn’t conceive -how they had ever happened at all, how, for example, he could have -endured Connie Larkins. The episodes had been brief, because in each -case boredom and disgust had supervened to put asunder what Mr. Spalding -owned should never have been joined. Brief, insignificant as they were, -Mr. Spalding, in his dying state, was worried when he looked back on -them. Supposing they were more significant than they had seemed? -Supposing they had an eternal significance and entailed tremendous -consequences in the after-life? Supposing you were not just wiped out, -that there really <i>was</i> an after-life? Supposing that in that other -world there was a hell?</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Spalding could imagine no worse hell than the eternal repetition of -such incidents; eternal repetition of boredom and disgust. Fancy going -on with Connie Larkins for ever and ever, never being able to get away -from her, doomed to repeat—And, if there <i>was</i> an Absolute, if -there was reality, truth, never knowing it; being cut off from it for -ever—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“He that is filthy let him be filthy still.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>That was hell, the continuance of the filthy state.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He wondered whether goodness was not, after all, <i>the</i> important -thing; he wondered whether there really was a next world; with an -extreme uneasiness he wondered what would happen to him in it.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He died wondering.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>II</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>His first thought -was: Well, here I am again. I’ve not been wiped out. His next, that he -hadn’t died at all. He had gone to sleep and was now dreaming. He was -not in the least agitated, nor even surprised.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He found himself alone in an immense grey space, in which there was no -distinguishable object but himself. He was aware of his body as -occupying a portion of this space. For he had a body; a curious, -tenuous, whitish body. The odd thing was that this empty space had a -sort of solidity under him. He was lying on it, stretched out on it, -adrift. It supported him with the buoyancy of deep water. And yet his -body was part of it, netted in.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was now aware of two figures approaching. They came and stood, like -figures treading water, one on each side of him, and he saw that they -were Elizabeth and Paul Jeffreson.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Then he concluded that he was really dead; dead like Elizabeth and -Jeffreson, and (since they were there) that he was in hell.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Elizabeth was speaking, and her voice sounded sweet and very kind. All -the same he knew he was in hell.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s all right,” she said. “It’s queer at first, but you’ll -get used to it. You don’t mind our coming to meet you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Spalding said he’d no business to mind, no right to reproach her, -since they were all in the same boat. They had, all three, deserved -their punishment.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Punishment?” (Jeffreson spoke). “Why, where does he think he -is?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I’m in hell, aren’t I? If—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If <i>we’re</i> here. Is that it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, Jeffreson, I don’t want to rake up old unpleasantness, but -after—after what happened, you’ll forgive my saying so, but what -else <i>can</i> I think?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>He heard Jeffreson laugh; a perfectly natural laugh.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Will <i>you</i> tell him, Elizabeth, or shall I?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’d better. He always respected your intelligence.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, old chap, if you really want to know where you are, you’re in -heaven.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You don’t mean to say so?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Fact. I daresay you’re wondering what we’re doing here?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, Elizabeth—perhaps. But, frankly, Jeffreson,</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. How about me?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“With your record I should have thought you’d even less business -here than I have.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Wouldn’t you? I lived on unpaid bills. I drank. I drugged. There -was nothing I didn’t do. What do you suppose I got in on? You’ll never -guess.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“No. No. I give it up.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“My love of beauty. You wouldn’t think it, but it seems that -actually counts here, in the eternal world.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And Elizabeth, what did she get in on?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Her love of me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then all I can say is,” said Mr. Spalding, “Heaven must be a -most immoral place.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, no. Your parochial morality doesn’t hold good here, that’s all. -Why should it? It’s entirely relative. Relative to a social system with -limits in time and space. Relative to a certain biological configuration -that ceased with our terrestrial organisms. Not absolute. Not eternal.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But beauty—Beauty <i>is</i> eternal, is absolute. And I—I loved -beauty more than credit, more than drink or drugs or women, more even -than Elizabeth.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And love is eternal. And Elizabeth loved me more than you, more than -respectability, more than peace and comfort, and a happy life.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s all very well, Jeffreson; and Elizabeth may be all right. -Mary Magdalene, you know. <i>Quia mulium amavit</i>, and so forth. But if -a blackguard like you can slip into heaven as easily as all that, where -<i>are</i> our ethics?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Your ethics, my dear Spalding, are -where they’ve always been, where you came from, not here. And if I -<i>was</i> what they call a bad man, that’s to say a bad terrestrial -organism, I was a thundering good poet. You say I slipped in easily; do -you suppose it’s easy to be a poet? My dear fellow, it requires an -inflexibility, a purity, a discipline of mind—of <i>mind</i>, -remember—that you haven’t any conception of. And surely <i>you</i> -should be the last person in the world to regard mind as an inferior -secondary affair. Anyhow, the consequence is that I’ve not only got -into heaven, I’ve got into one of the best heavens, a heaven reserved -exclusively for the very finest spirits.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Then,” said Mr. Spalding, “if we’re in heaven, who’s in -hell?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Couldn’t say for certain. But we shouldn’t put it that way. We -should say: Who’s gone back to earth?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well—am I likely to meet Uncle Sims, or Aunt Emily, or Tom Rumbold -here? You remember them, Elizabeth?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, yes, I remember. They’d be almost certain to be sent back. -They couldn’t stand eternal things. There’s nothing eternal about -meanness and stupidity and nastiness.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What’ll happen to them, do you suppose?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What should you say, Paul?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I should say they’d suffer damnably till they’d got some bigness -and intelligence and decency knocked into them.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’ll be a sell for Aunt Emily. She was brought up to believe that -stupidity was no drawback to getting into heaven.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Lots of people,” said Jeffreson, “will be sold. Like my -father, the Dean of Eastminster; he was cocksure he’d get in; but -they won’t let him. And why, do you suppose? Because the poor old boy -couldn’t see that my poems were beautiful.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But even that wouldn’t have dished him, if he’d had a passion -for anybody; or if he’d cared two straws about metaphysical truth. -Your truth, Spalding.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Bless me, all our preconceived ideas seem to have been wrong.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes. Even I wasn’t prepared for that. By the way, that’s what -you got in on, your passion for truth. It’s like my passion for -beauty.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But—aren’t you distressed about your father, Jeffreson?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, no. He’ll get into some heaven or other some day. He’ll find -out that he cares for somebody, perhaps. Then he’ll be all right— But -don’t you want to look about a bit?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t see very much to look at. It strikes me as a bit bare, -your heaven.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, that’s because you’re only at the landing-state.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“The landing <i>what</i>?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“State. What we used to call landing place. Times and spaces here, you -know, are states. States of mind.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Spalding sat up, excited. “But—but that’s what I always -said they were. I and Kant.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, you’d better talk to him about it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Talk to <i>him</i>? Shall I see Kant?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Look at him, Elizabeth. <i>Now</i> he’s coming alive— Of course -you’ll see him when you get into your own place—state, I mean. -You’d better get up and come along with me and Elizabeth. We’ll show -you round.”</p> - -<div id='i232' class='figcenter id028'> -<img src='images/i232.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p>“<i>Now</i> he’s coming alive—”</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>He rose, they steadied him, and he made his way between them through the -grey immensity, over a half-seen yet perfectly solid tract of something -that he thought of, absurdly, as condensed space. As yet there were no -objects in sight but the figures of Elizabeth and Jeffreson; the -half-seen, yet tangible floor he went on seemed to create itself out of -nothing, under his feet, as the desire to walk arose in him. And as yet -he had felt no interest or curiosity; but as he went on he was aware of -a desire to see things that became more and more urgent. He would see. -He must see. He felt that before him and around him there were endless -things to be seen. His mind strained forwards towards vision.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And then, suddenly, he saw.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He saw a landscape more beautiful than anything he could have imagined. -It was, Jeffreson informed him, very like the umbrella pine country -between Florence and Siena. As they came out of it on a great, curving -road they had their faces towards the celestial west. To the south the -land fell away in great red cliffs to a shining, blue sea. Like, -Jeffreson said, the Riviera, the Estérel. West and north the landscape -rolled in green hill after green hill, pine-tufted, to a sweeping -rampart of deep blue; such a rampart, such blue as Mr. Spalding had seen -from the heights above Sidmouth, looking towards Dartmoor. Only this -country had a grace, a harmony of line and colour that gave it an -absolute beauty; and over it there lay a serene, unearthly radiance.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Before them, on a hill, was an exquisite little white, golden and -rose-red town.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You may or may not believe me,” said Jeffreson, “but the beauty -of all this is that I made it. I mean Elizabeth and I made it between -us.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You made it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Made it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“By thinking of it. By wanting it. By imagining it.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But—out of what?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I don’t know and I don’t much care. Our scientists here will tell -you we made it out of the ultimate constituents of matter. Matter, -unformed, only exists for us in its ultimate constituents. Something -like electrons of electrons of electrons. Here we are all suspended in a -web, immersed, if you like, in a sea, an air of this matter. It is -utterly plastic to our imagination and our will. Imperceptible in its -unformed state, it becomes visible and tangible as our minds get to work -on it, and we can make out of it anything we want, including our own -bodies. Only, so far as our imaginations are still under the dominion of -our memories, so far will the things they create resemble the things we -knew on earth. Thus you will notice that while Elizabeth and I are much -more beautiful than we were on earth” (he <i>had</i> noticed it), -“because we desired to be more beautiful, we are still -recognizable as Paul and Elizabeth because our imaginations are -controlled by our memories. You are as you always were, only younger -than when we knew you, because your imagination had nothing but memory -to go on. Everything you create here will probably be a replica of -something on earth you remember.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But if I want something new, something beautiful that I haven’t -seen before, can’t I have it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course you can have it. Only, just at first, until your own -imagination develops, you’ll have to come to me or Turner or Michael -Angelo to make it for you.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And will these things that you and Turner and Michael Angelo make for -me be permanent?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Absolutely, unless we unmade them. And I don’t think we should do -that against your will. Anyhow, though we can destroy our own works we -can’t destroy each other’s, that is to say, reduce them to their -ultimate constituents. What’s more, we shouldn’t dream of trying.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why not?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Because old motives don’t work here. Envy, greed, theft, robbery, -murder, or any sort of destruction, are unknown. They can’t happen. -Nothing alters matter here but mind, and I can’t will your body to -come to pieces so long as you want it to keep together. You can’t -destroy it yourself as you can other things you make, because your need -of it is greater than your need of other things.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We can’t thieve or rob for the same reason. Things that belong to -us belong to our state of mind and can’t be torn away from it, so that -we couldn’t remove anything from another person’s state into our -own. And if we could we shouldn’t want to, because each of us can always -have everything he wants. If I like your house or your landscape better -than my own, I can make one for myself just like it. But we don’t do -this, because we’re proud of our individualities here, and would rather -have things different than the same— By the way, as you haven’t got a -house yet, let alone a landscape, you’d better share ours.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s very good of you,” Mr. Spalding said. He was thinking of -Oxford. Oxford. Quiet rooms in Balliol. He seemed to hesitate.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“If you’re still sitting on that old grievance of yours, I tell you, -once for all, Spalding, I’m not going to express any regret. I’m -<i>not</i> sorry, I’m glad I took Elizabeth away from you. I made her -more happy than unhappy even on earth. And please notice it’s I who -got her into heaven, not you. If she’d stayed with you and hated you, -as she would have done, she couldn’t have got in.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I wasn’t thinking of that,” said Mr. Spalding. “I was only -wondering where I could put my landscape.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How do you mean—‘put’ it?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Place it—so as not to interfere with other people’s -landscapes.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But how on earth could you interfere? You ‘place’ it, as you call -it, in your own space and in your own time.” His own space, his own -time—Mr. Spalding got more and more excited.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But—how?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Oh, I can’t tell you how. It simply happens.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But I want to understand it. I—I <i>must</i> understand.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You shouldn’t put him off like that, Paul,” Elizabeth said. “He -always did want to understand things.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But when I don’t understand them myself—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You’d better take him to Kant, or Hegel.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I should prefer Kant,” said Mr. Spalding.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Well, Kant then. You’ll have to get into his state first.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How do I do that?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“It’s very simple. You just think him up and ask him if you can come -in.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>Elizabeth explained. “Like ringing somebody up, you know, and -asking if you can come and call.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Supposing he won’t let me.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Trust him to say so. Of course, we mayn’t get through. He may have -<i>thought off</i>.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You can think off, can you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, that’s how you protect yourself. Otherwise life here would be -unbearable. Just keep quiet for a second, will you?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>There was an intense silence. Presently Jeffreson said: “Now -you’re through.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>And Mr. Spalding found himself in a white-washed room, scantily -furnished with three rows of bookshelves, a writing-table, a table set -with mysterious instruments, and two chairs. A shaded lamp on the -writing-table gave light. Mr. Spalding had left the umbrella pine -country blazing with sunlight, but it seemed that Kant’s time was -somewhere about ten o’clock at night. The large window was bared to a -dark-blue sky of stars.</p> - -<p class='c005'>A little, middle-aged man sat at the writing-table. He wore -eighteenth-century clothes and a tie wig. The face that looked up at Mr. -Spalding was lean and dried, the mouth tight, the eyes shining distantly -with a deep, indrawn intelligence. Mr. Spalding understood that he was -in the presence of Immanuel Kant.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You thought me up?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Forgive me. I am James Spalding, a student of philosophy. I was told -that you might, perhaps, be willing to explain to me the—the very -extraordinary conditions in which I find myself.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“May I ask, Mr. Spalding, if you have paid any particular attention -to <i>my</i> philosophy?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I am one of your most devoted disciples, sir. I refuse to believe -that philosophy has made any considerable advance since the Critique of -Pure Reason.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“T-t-t. My successor, Hegel, made a very considerable advance. If you -have neglected Hegel—”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Pardon me, I have not. I was once Hegel’s devoted disciple. An -entrancing fantasy, the Triple Dialectic. But I came to see that yours, -sir, was the safer and the saner system, and that the recurrent tendency -of philosophy must be back to Kant.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Better say Forward with him. If you are indeed my disciple, I do not -think that conditions here should have struck you as extraordinary.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They struck me as an extraordinary confirmation of your theory of -space and time, sir.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They are that. They are that. But they go far beyond anything I ever -dreamed of. It was not in my scheme that the Will—to which, if you -remember, I gave a purely ethical and pragmatical rôle—that the Will -and the imagination of individuals, of you and me, Mr. Spalding, should -create their own space and time, and their own objects in space and -time. I did not anticipate this multiplicity of spaces and times. In my -time there was only one space and one time for everybody.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Still, it is a very remarkable confirmation, and you may imagine, Mr. -Spalding, that I was gratified when I first came here to find everybody -talking and thinking correctly about time and space. You will have -noticed that here we say state, meaning state of consciousness, where we -used to say place. In the same way we talk about states of time, meaning -time as a state of consciousness. My present state, you will observe, is -exactly ten minutes past ten by my clock, which is my consciousness. My -consciousness registers time automatically. My own time, mind you, not -other people’s.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But isn’t that frightfully inconvenient? If your time isn’t -everybody else’s time, how on earth—I mean how in heaven—do you -keep your appointments? How do you co-ordinate?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“We keep appointments, we co-ordinate, exactly as we used to do, by a -purely arbitrary system. We measure time by space, by events, movements -in space-time. Only, whereas under earthly conditions there was -apparently one earth and one sun, one day and one night for everybody, -here everybody has his own earth, his own sun and his own day and -night. So we are obliged to take an ideal earth and sun, an ideal day -and night. Their revolutions are measured exactly as we measured them on -earth, by the movements of hands on a dial marking minutes and hours. -Only our public clocks have five hands marking the revolutions of weeks, -months and years. That is our public standardized time, and all -appointments are kept, all scientific calculations made by it. The only -difference between heaven and earth is that here public space-time is -regarded as it really is—an unreal, a purely arbitrary and artificial -convention. We know, not as a result of philosophic or mathematical -reasoning, but as part of our ordinary conscious experience, that there -is no absolute space and no absolute time. I would say no <i>real</i> -space and no real time, but that in heaven a state of consciousness -carries its own reality with it as such; and the time state or the -space state is as real as any other.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Of course, without an arbitrary public space-time, a public clock, -states of consciousness from individual to individual could never be -co-ordinated. For example, you have come straight from Mr. Jeffreson’s -twelve-noon to my ten o’clock p.m. But the public clock, which you -will see out there in the street—we are in Königsberg; I have no -visual imagination and must rely entirely on memory for my scenery—the -public dock, I say, marks time at a quarter to eight; and if I were -asking Mr. Jeffreson to spend the evening with me, the hour would be -fixed for us by public time at eight. But he would find himself in my -time at ten.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now I want to point out to you, Mr. Spalding, that this way of -regarding space and time is not so revolutionary as it may appear. I -said, if you remember, that under terrestrial conditions there was -apparently one earth and one sun, one day and night for everybody. But -really, even then, everybody carried about with him his own private -space and time, and his own private world in space and time. It was -only, even then, by an arbitrary system of mathematical conventions, -mostly geometrical, that all these private times and spaces were -co-ordinated, so as to constitute one universe. Public clock time, based -on the revolutions of bodies in a mathematically determined public -space, was as conventional and relative an affair on earth as it is in -heaven.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Our private consciousnesses registered their own times automatically -then as now, by the passage of internal events. If events passed -quickly, our private time outran clock time; if they dragged, it was -behindhand.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Thus in dream experience there are many more events to the second -than in waking experience; and consciousness registers by the tick-tick -of events, so that in a dream we may live through crowded hours and -days in the fraction of time that coincides with the knock on the door -that waked us. It is absurd to say that in this case we do not live in -two different time-systems.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Yes, and—” Mr. Spalding cried out excitedly—</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Einstein has proved that motion in public space-time is a purely -relative and arbitrary thing, and that the velocity, or time value, of a -ray of light moving under different conditions is a constant; when on -any theory of absolute time and absolute motion it should be a -variant.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That,” said Kant, “is no more than I should have expected.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You said, sir, that the only distinction between earthly and -heavenly conditions is that this artificial character of standardized -space-time is recognized in heaven and not on earth. I should have said -that the most striking differences were, firstly, that in heaven our -experience is created for us by our imagination and our will, whereas on -earth it was, in your own word, sir, ‘given.’ Secondly that in heaven -our states are not closed as they were on earth, but that anybody can -enter anybody else’s. It seems to me that these differences are so -great as to surpass anything in our experience on earth.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“They are not so great,” said Kant, “as all that. In dreaming -you already had an experience of a world created by each person for -himself in a space and time of his own; a world in which you -transcended the conditions of ordinary space and time. In telepathy and -clairvoyance you had experience of entering other people’s states.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“But,” Mr. Spalding said, “on earth my consciousness was dependent -on a world apparently outside it, arising presumably in God’s -consciousness, my body being the ostensible medium. Here, on the -contrary, I have my world inside me, created by my consciousness, and my -body is not so much a medium as an accessory after the fact.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“And what inference do you draw, Mr. Spalding?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Why, that on earth I was nearer God, more dependent on him than in -heaven. I seem to have become my own God.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Doesn’t it strike you that in becoming more god-like you are -actually nearer God? That in this power of your imagination to conceive, -this freedom of your will to create your universe, God is cutting a -clearer path for himself than through that constrained and obstructed -consciousness you had on earth?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That’s it. When I think of that appalling life of earth, the pain, -sir, the horrible pain, the wickedness, the imbecility, the endless -struggling through blood and filth, and being beaten, I can’t help -wondering how such things can exist in the Absolute, and why the -Absolute shouldn’t have put us—or as you would say, <i>thought</i> us -into this heavenly state from the beginning.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you suppose that any finite intelligence—any finite will could -have been trusted, untrained, with the power we have here? Only wills -disciplined by struggling against earth’s evil, only intelligences -braced by wrestling with earth’s problems are fitted to create -universes. You may remember my enthusiasm for the moral law, my -Categorical Imperative? It is not diminished. The moral law still holds -and always will hold on earth. But I see now it is not an end in itself, -only the means to which this power, this freedom is the end.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That is how and why pain and evil exist in the Absolute. It is -obvious that they cannot exist in it as such, being purely relative to -states of terrestrial organisms. That is why the comparatively free -wills of terrestrial organisms are permitted to create pain and evil.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“When you talk of such things existing in the Absolute, unchanged and -unabridged, you are talking nonsense. You are thinking of pain and evil -in terms of one dimension of time and three dimensions of space, by -which they are indefinitely multiplied.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“How do you mean—one dimension of time?”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I mean time taken as linear extension, the pure succession of past, -present and future. You think of pain and evil as indefinitely -distributed in space and indefinitely repeated in time, whereas in the -idea, which is their form of eternity, at their worst they are not many, -but one.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“That doesn’t make them less unbearable,”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“I am not talking about that I am talking about their significance for -eternity, or in the Absolute, since you said that was what distressed -you.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“You will see this for yourself if you will come with me into the -state of three dimensional time.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“What’s that?” said Mr. Spalding, deeply intrigued. “That,” -said the philosopher, “is time which is not linear succession, time -which has turned on itself twice to take up the past and future into its -present. For as the point is repeated to form the line of space, so the -instant is repeated to form the linear time of past, present, future. -And as the one-dimensional line turns at right angles to itself to form -the two-dimensional plane, so linear or one-dimensional time turns on -itself to form two-dimensional or plane time, the past-present, or -present-future. And as the plane turns on itself to form the cube, so -past-present and present-future double back to meet each other and form -cubic time, or past-present-future all together.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“This is the three dimensional state of consciousness we shall have to -think ourselves into.”</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Do you mean to say that if we get into it we shall have solved the -riddle of the universe?”</p> - -<div class='figcenter id010'> -<img src='images/i244.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -</div> - -<p class='c005'>“Hardly. The universe is a tremendous jig-saw puzzle. If God wanted to -keep us amused to all eternity, he couldn’t have hit on anything -better. We shall not be able to stay -very long, or to take in <i>all</i> past-present-future at once. But -you will see enough to realize what cubic time is. You will begin with -one small cubic section, which will gradually enlarge until you have -taken in as much cubic time as you can hold together in one duration.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Look out through that window. You see that cart coming down the -street. It will have to pass Herr Schmidt’s house opposite and the -‘Prussian Soldier,’ and that grocer’s shop and the clock before it -gets to the church.</p> - -<p class='c005'>“Now you’ll see what’ll happen.”</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>III</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c004'>What Mr. Spalding saw was the sudden stoppage of the cart, which now -appeared as standing simultaneously at each station, Herr Schmidt’s -house, the inn, the grocery, the clock, the church and the side street -up which it had not yet turned.</p> - -<p class='c005'>In this vision solid objects became transparent, so that he saw the side -street through the intervening houses. In the same way, distributed in -space as on a Mercator’s projection, he saw all the subsequent -stations of the cart, up to its arrival in a farmyard between a stable -and a haystack. In the same duration of time, which was his present, he -saw the townspeople moving in their houses, eating, smoking and going to -bed, and the peasants in their farms and cottages, and the household of -the Graf in his castle. These figures retained all their positions while -the amazing experience lasted.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The scene widened. It became all Königsberg, and Königsberg became all -Prussia, and Prussia all Europe. Mr. Spalding seemed to have eyes at the -sides and back of his head. He saw time rising up round him as an -immense cubic space. He was aware of the French Revolution, the -Napoleonic wars, the Franco-Prussian war, the establishment of the -French Republic, the Boer war, the death of Queen Victoria, the -accession and death of King Edward VII., the accession of King George -V., the Great War, the Russian and German Revolutions, the rise of the -Irish Republic, the Indian Republic, the British Revolution, the British -Republic, the conquest of Japan by America, and the federation of the -United States of Europe and America, all going on at once.</p> - -<p class='c005'>The scene stretched and stretched, and still Mr. Spalding kept before -him every item as it had first appeared. He was now aware of the vast -periods of geologic time. On the past side he saw the mammoth and the -caveman; on the future he saw the Atlantic flooding the North Sea and -submerging the flats of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, Suffolk, -Essex, and Kent. He saw the giant tree-ferns; he saw the great saurians -trampling the marshlands and sea-beaches of the past. A flight of -fearful pterodactyls darkened the air. And he saw the ice creep down and -down from the poles to the vast temperate zone of Europe, America and -Australasia; he saw men and animals driven before it to the belt of the -equator.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And now he sank down deeper; he was swept into the stream that flowed, -thudding and throbbing, through all live things; he felt it beat in and -around him, jet after jet from the beating heart of God; he felt the -rising of the sap in trees, the delight of animals at mating-time. He -knew the joy that made Jerry, the black cat, dance on his hind legs and -bow sideways and wave his forelegs like wings. The stars whirled past -him with a noise like violin strings, and through it he heard the voice -of Paul Jeffreson, singing a song. He was aware of an immense, -all-pervading rapture pierced with stabs of pain. At the same time he -was drawn back on the ebb of life into a curious peace.</p> - -<p class='c005'>His stretch widened. He was present at the beginning and the end. He saw -the earth flung off, an incandescent ball, from the wheeling sun. He -saw it hang like a dead white moon in a sky strewn with the corpses of -spent worlds. But to his surprise he saw no darkness. He learned that -light is older than the suns; that they are born of it, not it of them. -The whole universe stood up on end round him, doubling all its future -back upon all its past.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He saw the vast planes of time intersecting each other, like the planes -of a sphere, wheeling, turning in and out of each other. He saw other -space and time systems rising up, toppling, enclosing and enclosed. And -as a tiny inset in the immense scene, his own life from birth to the -present moment, together with the events of his heavenly life to come. -In this vision Elizabeth’s adultery, which had once appeared so -monstrous, so overpowering an event, was revealed as slender and -insignificant.</p> - -<p class='c005'>And now the universe dissolved into the ultimate constituents of matter, -electrons of electrons of electrons, an unseen web, intensely vibrating, -stretched through all space and all time. He saw it sucked back into the -space of space, the time of time, into the thought of God.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Mr. Spalding was drawn in with it. He passed from God’s immanent to -his transcendent life, into the Absolute. For one moment he thought that -this was death; the next his whole being swelled and went on swelling in -an unspeakable, an unthinkable bliss.</p> - -<p class='c005'>Joined with him, vibrating with him in one tremendous rapture, were the -spirits of Elizabeth and Paul Jeffreson. He had now no memory of their -adultery or of his own.</p> - -<p class='c005'>When he came out of his ecstasy he was aware that God was spinning his -thought again, stretching the web of matter through space and time.</p> - -<p class='c005'>He was going to make another jig-saw puzzle of a universe.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c1'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='small'>PRINTED AT</span></div> - <div><span class='small'>THE CHAPEL RIVER PRESS,</span></div> - <div><span class='small'>KINGSTON, SURREY.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p> </p> -<p> </p> -<hr class="full" /> -<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNCANNY STORIES***</p> -<p>******* This file should be named 59165-h.htm or 59165-h.zip *******</p> -<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br /> -<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/9/1/6/59165">http://www.gutenberg.org/5/9/1/6/59165</a></p> -<p> -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed.</p> - -<p>Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law 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. 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